Okay, well, I want to give the reminder again, for those who are listening online, that the camera was forgotten. So we don't have video, but we have audio and the slideshow. So before I get started, we did prayer time the first hour, but I wanted to just in case anything was thought of and those who came for second hour, is there anything that we can pray for? Or praise? Prayer requests or praises? All right. Well, I will go ahead and open with a word of prayer, and then we will jump right into our study of Exodus. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word. We thank you for giving us your word. We pray that you would bless the reading and exposition of your word. as we finish up the Plague Narrative. We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Sorry, Mark. We are in the Book of Exodus. We are, I believe by my count, at lesson number 18. Today, we are actually going to be finishing the portion dealing with the plagues. We're going to be dealing with the 10th plague and covering the plague of death. Now, it gets a little bit tricky at this point in the book of Exodus from a study standpoint because we deal with the 10th plague, but with it comes the Passover narrative. So what I'm going to do is we're going to cover the Passover in a summary fashion. And then I think the next time we meet, we will go through it a little bit more carefully and looking at all that God has there. But we'll just look at the portion that is included within our text dealing with the 10th plague, because of course, the 10th plague leads into the institution of Passover in the nation of Israel. And so before I get started, I went through these points of introduction last week, but I didn't have a slide show up. So I wanted to go through them again. One, it never hurts to review. And two, now you can see what it looks like up on the screen. And hopefully, you guys over here can see it with my big fat head not in the way. But the first thing that we looked at last week, just to keep in mind with the book of Exodus is the Torah is contractual. And what that means is it gives witness to the expected conduct of God. And so this is really based on the covenant that God has made with Israel. And so when we call the first five books of scripture contractual, you see that language within it. Of course, you're going to see it on a much more emphasized basis with books like Deuteronomy, you're gonna see elements in Genesis with the actual Abrahamic covenant, and those sort of things. But the book itself is written, all of them were written by Moses, and it provides a context for the conduct of God, and who their God is that they worship. And so that's something that's important to keep in mind that's pointed out by Charles Clough, who developed the biblical framework. Secondly, he says that the Torah is a measuring stick to measure the performance of Israel and God. So one of the things that we see with these narratives in the Torah is it's a measuring stick to see the Lord's faithfulness, the Lord's goodness, the Lord's power, the Lord's might, the Lord's blessing, the Lord's judgment. But it also is a measuring stick to see the performance of Israel. We get to see the high points of Israel and we see an awful lot of low points of Israel. But it's a measuring stick to measure the performance of Israel and God. Now going back to the Abrahamic promise itself, two things to keep in mind is particularly it concerns a people and it concerns a land. Now the people That narrative is developed in the Torah with, of course, the covenant made to Abraham, transfer to Isaac, transfer to Jacob, and then the development of the sons of Israel. And then it gets to the point where they're now on the land. Now, we're studying the book of Exodus, which is a major piece to this puzzle. As I've said before, we see that they go into Egypt as a family. And they leave as a nation. And we see that God caused them to prosper in the land of Egypt. And they are made into a nation, although you could make the argument that they're not quite a nation until they have a constitution. And that constitution is the law that's given at Sinai. But they have the people. The people are there in the Exodus event. And so we've been spending the last several weeks dealing with the plagues. And we know that God has a particular purpose with the plagues. Each and every one of them, we've seen the relationship that they have with different Egyptian deities, which I think is a part of God's plan and purpose. But I think ultimately what God is doing is he's showing Israel, Pharaoh, Egypt, and the world, and Israel, who he is, because we're going to see as they get into the land that rumor has spread. And those in Jericho understand who Yahweh is, and it causes them to fear the Lord. Now, some are in terror, but not enough to give up their false gods. But we know Rahab, the harlot, does. She fears the Lord and believes on him. But then the second part to that is the Abrahamic promise concerns the land. And so what we see with the development through the Torah is you see the development of the people, but now we're going to get into the entrance into the land and what is going to be needed for the land. And that's where the Mosaic law plays a crucial part to that. In fact, the book of Deuteronomy I've mentioned before is structured very identical to a covenant. a contract that was made in the ancient world, where there's usually a preamble of some sort, then there's the expectation of the parties of the covenant, and then there is the consequences should the covenant be breached. And so we see that with the Book of Deuteronomy, where God restates the law to a new generation that's going to be entering the land. And he basically tells them the Blessings that will come their way, should they obey, and the curses that come their way, should they disobey. And that is essentially the standard that will determine how their experience in the land is going to be like. Whether they obey or disobey will determine whether they are blessed or cursed by the Lord in the land. Now, it's important to keep in mind that those things aren't for salvation. In fact, I think many of these themes resemble New Testament themes related to salvation, where God made an unconditional covenant with Israel, but the way that he interacts with them is the law. Now, we're going to find later in our book, in the study of the book of Galatians, that the law was a tutor in ways to lead them to Christ. But we, as Christians, we are saved unconditionally by God's grace. And we are not under law like Israel was, but we are under grace. And we are expected of the Lord to follow him. And there are consequences to not following him. And mind you, I don't think the consequences are as severe as the consequences of Israel. But there are some pretty severe consequences, such as the sin unto death is something that a believer can experience if they go an extended period of time where they are rejecting the Lord's discipline and the Lord may at some point take them home. So there's some parallels that we see. So the Book of Exodus is a gate to both of these things coming to fruition. We see in the Torah, the development of the people, the development and the leading into the land, And the book of Exodus is the gate that we see both of these things coming to fruition. It's a turning point, I think, in the extended narrative of the Torah. Additionally, the Jewish mind is deeply concerned with history because it is derived by a fundamental belief of God revealing himself to them. Now this is important, especially in the context of who is communicating this, Charles Clough, as the creator of the biblical framework, which at some point I really would like to go through. In fact, I'm going to be teaching a condensed version of the framework at Fort Collins Bible College that's been in the works, and how I am going to navigate 200 lessons into a 30-week semester is going to be a challenge. But nonetheless, I find the biblical framework as, in my estimation, the best study out there. In fact, I would maybe make the argument that it's better than, let me be careful, better than Schaeffer's systematic theology. I love Schaeffer's systematic theology. In fact, as far as systematic theologies go, Schaeffer's is the best. But the reason I think it's better is because if you have any familiarity with the framework, the framework is a systematic theology, but it's also a Bible survey and an apologetic all in one. And he's mastered, I think, the going through in a survey fashion, developing systematic theologies as you go, meanwhile providing apologetic resources for the Christian to defend the faith. And so this point here is crucial because the Jewish mind understood that God revealed himself in history. And I mentioned it last week, and I'll say it again, and you've probably heard it said that history is his story. God is the one that is determining history. And so when we read the Torah, we're seeing God reveal himself as history unfolds in history. Develops and what we start to see is that there's a big deal made about the nation of Israel And I would make the argument as Arnold Fruchtenmant makes the argument is history centers on the Jews In fact eternity is still going to be centered on the Jews Because the messianic kingdom is going to be in Israel. It is a Jewish kingdom and The Messiah is a Jew, and that thousand-year reign of Christ is going to transition into eternity, and it's going to be God-governing creation, as he, I think, originally intended to in the garden. But we see a great deal made about the Jews. Of equal concern to the Jewish mind, at least should be, as intended by God, and intended by the Torah, is the insistence of separation from the culture. For example, we see this with Isaac's wife. Abraham gets Isaac's wife from his own people. And the reason he does that is because it was important for them to be holy, to be set apart from the pagan world. Or the pagan world, excuse me. We see the same thing with Jacob's wife, where Isaac gets Jacob's wife or sends Jacob to get his wife from within his relatives and staying within the family. And then I used the example last week with Judah's sin. Now, Judah's sin, if you're familiar with the narrative, the way it happens is basically Tamar, his daughter-in-law, who had married his eldest son. The son died without having any children. The next son, didn't want to perform his duties as a kinsman redeemer. And so he dies. And so the promise that Judah makes is the youngest son, who's too young to be married, he says when he's of age, then you can have him as your husband and he will fulfill his brother's duties. And what happens in the narrative is that basically Judah doesn't fulfill his word. And so Tamar, in, mind you, a very deceptive fashion, calls him out on me. Now, that's as far as we need to go, as far as details go, in a mixed audience. But the principle that we see there is the woman that Judah was thinking he was with was a Canaanite prostitute. And so that tells you a little bit about Judah's mindset and how he didn't quite care for the insistence of separation that his fathers did. And we're going to start to see that theme develop in the nation of Israel, where we see that they just didn't care about being a holy people. Now, you could make the argument from a human perspective that part of that is in Egypt. And I think that's partly true. They were in Egypt for an extended period of time. Before long, they would have been heavily influenced by Egyptian false gods and these sort of things that would have been introduced to them and shown them another alternative. And then they enter the land of Canaan where it's almost like a buffet style of false religion and false idolatry and false gods where you can choose whatever gods that you wanted to worship. In fact, I read an interesting article that made a lot of sense to me, but I need to verify it with primary source evidence. But it was talking about one of the reasons Israel, when they were entering the land, fell into Baal worship was that they understood, back in those times, gods were gods over certain areas or territories. So they got this idea, well, we're coming into a foreign land, and the god of this land is Baal. And so if we don't worship him, we may not get good crops. We may not have good harvest. We may not have this. We may not have that. What's the issue with that? God said, if you obey me, you will have rain in its season. bountiful harvest. You will have many children. You will flourish. I will protect you from your enemies. I will do all of these things. But they started to, kind of combining our lesson from Galatians, accommodate. They started to compromise and make these compromises in the land that they were going to. And so these are all themes that we're starting to see developed and God is trying to show, I think, in the Exodus narrative, particularly the plague narrative, that his people are holy, and they are to live holy, and he's going to treat them as holy. And if they act unholy, he's going to treat them as unholy, as common, and they will be punished for their sin. And so Today's lesson is in three parts. We're going to deal with, first of all, in Chapter 11, verses 1 through 10, the plague is announced. We're going to deal with some preliminary things. And then what you'll notice is Chapter 12, 1 through 28, deals with essentially the preliminary portions of the Passover. And then it jumps into the last two verses of Chapter 12, the plague coming about, the plague of death, the 10th plague of Egypt. And so since this lesson, we're kind of focusing on the 10th plague, we're going to wrap up the plagues. What I want to do is the next time we meet, I want to deal with the Passover exclusively. I want to look at just the Passover and what God has to say. And we'll look closer at chapter 12, 1 through 28, and then the additional passages that come after where God gives instructions to Aaron and Moses about how to conduct the Passover. Also, I keep remembering it and then forgetting it, but before I forget, next Sunday, Paul Miles is going to be here. The reason I say next time we study is because next week we won't be in Exodus or Galatians. We will be studying what Paul has prepared for us, which I haven't heard yet. He's done a couple different lessons at different churches. So it might be one of those, or maybe it's a new one. So the first thing that we see, the first part to the passage that we're going to cover today is the plague is announced. And so I wanna actually read this portion in its entirety, just because it's probably the only portion that we'll read in its entirety. But in Exodus chapter 11, starting in verse one, it says, and the Lord said to Moses, I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. Afterward, he will let you go from him. When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out of here altogether. Speak now in the hearing of the people and let every man ask from his neighbor and every woman from her neighbor articles of silver and articles of gold. And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people. Then Moses said, thus says the Lord about midnight, I will go out into the midst of Egypt and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant, who is behind the handmaid, and all the firstborn of the animals. Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again. But against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. And all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, get out, and all the people who follow you. After that, I will go out. Then he went out from Pharaoh in great anger. But the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh will not heed you, so that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. So Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh. And the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go out of his land. So a few observations to make. Number one, it's revealed to us by God that there is one more plague. God tells Moses, I will give one more, I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. And then he says, afterward, this plague will cause Pharaoh to let them go. Now, I've mentioned in this extended plague narrative that there's been a kind of sub-narratives. One of those is the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. I shared a chart from, or not a chart, well, I guess I didn't have the slides last week. I'm going to review that this week. But one of the sub-narratives that we see in this whole plague narrative is the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. Now, there's times where Pharaoh hardens his own heart, And then there's times where God hardens his heart. And there is significance to that that we'll look at in a moment. But what we see is at this point in time, God says that this plague will cause Pharaoh to let them go. However, it's not going to be the last time that Pharaoh's heart is hardened. In fact, if you are familiar with the narrative, it continues on that once they leave, Pharaoh's heart is hardened again, and he pursues them. And he pursues them to the point to where, of course, they come to the dramatic climax of, I think, the whole story with the Red Sea crossing, and God hardens Pharaoh's heart in order to pursue the Israelites and then causes the parted seas to come together on the Egyptian army and defeats them. Now, we're going to get to that, of course, in future lessons. But again, we have to keep in mind the broad narrative of the chosen people of God being led to the promised land. So the Red Sea narrative, not to mention everything that God has been doing in the plague narrative, is God showing the people of Israel, I will fight for you. You don't have to do anything, but trust me. And so the Red Sea Crossing is the perfect example of what God is wanting to do in Israel in just calling them to trust him. He's going to lead the way. He's going to open the door. He's going to provide safe passage for them. And meanwhile, he's capable of defeating their enemies. by himself if he must. And so this is an important lesson that even still Israel struggles to come to terms with. Number three, this plague will cause Pharaoh to be angry. If you look at verse one, Again, it says, and the Lord said to Moses, I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. Afterward, he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out of here altogether. So this is telling us that Pharaoh is not going to just let them go. He's going to say, get out of here. He's going to drive them out. He's going to be totally rid of the Jews until perhaps that idea sparks in his brain where maybe he can be totally rid of the Jews in another way. Number four, Moses is to speak to Israel. So God reveals that there's one more plague and then he tells Moses what he is to communicate to the children of Israel. Verse two says, speak now in the hearing of the people and let every man ask from his neighbor and every woman from her neighbor articles of silver and articles of gold. So number five, we see every man and woman is to ask their neighbor for silver and gold. And if you would flip back to Genesis 15, where we see now this Genesis 15 for context is when the Abrahamic covenant is confirmed or where it is cut, if you will. And this is where God has Abraham gather animals and divides them in two, separates them. And then God, through representation of a burning torch, moves through the animals while Abraham is asleep, signifying that this covenant is only dependent on God and not by Abraham. And upon waking up, God gives additional details to Abraham in verse 13, says, Then he said to Abraham, Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve, I will judge. Afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. And so this is exactly what he's talking about in Genesis when we come to Exodus. And it's going to be developed later in Exodus as well. When they actually leave, it gives the language, Moses says, that they plundered the Egyptians. And basically, the reason that you might be thinking, well, if the Jews who were essentially behind, their god was behind these plagues, why would they give them gold and silver? And I think that's exactly why, because their god is behind these plagues. And so they're willing to part with these things to, whether it's to appease their god, to appease them, to be in good favor to them, whatever it may be, that they agree to give these things to them. Furthermore, I think the ultimate reason why they agree is because God gives him favor. So verse 3 says, and the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people. So we get a little narrative detail at this point, where Moses is telling about himself, but he says that he was made great by God in the land of Egypt, And he says two particular groups. There's pharaoh's servants, and then the people are mentioned. Now, the pharaoh's servants one is curious because, of course, they're pharaoh's servants. They would have had more reason to be antagonistic of the Jews, and particularly Moses, than others. But I think that's partly what's going on is they're fully convinced of what's happening. Because we looked at last week where Pharaoh's servants, in fact, let's jump back to chapter 10. And let's see. Verse 7 says, then Pharaoh's servants said to him, how long shall this man be a snare to us? let the men go that they may serve the lord their god do you not yet know that egypt is destroyed now this is in response to the warning of the plague of locusts which was the eighth plague yeah the eighth plague And so by the eighth plague, Pharaoh's servants were already turned against Pharaoh, where they were saying, just let them go. We're done suffering because of your pride. You know, they didn't say that, but essentially this is what they're communicating, is that they don't see things the way that Pharaoh sees them. And they are in favor of letting them go. And so now we're told in chapter 11, verse three, that not only do the Servants of Pharaoh, but now that all the people are of the same mind where they are Seeing things I think in a light different from their ruler their Pharaoh And partly because God has caused this to be Part number two to this passage is in verses four through eight Moses delivers the plan to the people first of all we see in verse four Moses is now speaking what God had revealed to to him. Now, another quick word of explanation. I found this passage somewhat difficult because my thought is that Moses is doing some narrative stylizing here, and this is going to make sense later. There's something that kind of shook me up a little bit, which I'm still not certain about. But I wonder if it's just a part of Moses' style in presenting the narrative. But we see in verse four, then Moses said, so first of all, we see in verses one through three, God was saying to Moses what he's to say. But now it's jumping to what Moses said. implying, you know, he's basically skipping what God had said to Moses and just sharing it to the people. So it says, Then Moses said, Thus says the Lord, About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt. So verse four, we see God will go out into the midst of Egypt. Now, the word to go out gives the impression of aggression. God is going to take an act against Egypt. He's going out into the midst of Egypt, and the idea is to harm them, not for good. The beginning of verse 5 says, and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. From the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant, who is behind the hand mill, and all the firstborn of the animals." So all firstborns in Egypt will die. And that is from Pharaoh's son to the hand mill servant. So in other words, from the top of the societal pecking order to the very bottom of the societal pecking order, each firstborn will die. Number five, firstborn of the animals is included in this. Verse five, now this is kind of a kick a man while he's down type of verse because through this plague narrative, their livestock has been completely decimated. And now there's going to be an additional hit against the Egyptian livestock where the firstborn of the animals are now going to die. Then we see in verse 6 that there will be, as a result of this, unparalleled grieving. It says, then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again. Now, we've heard this language used in regards to the locust. where God said that there's going to be a locust plague that has not been seen before, nor will there be one after it. And it's the same language, but this time it's describing the grieving of the Egyptians. And I think it's fair to say that this is unparalleled in Egypt's history. No matter what Egypt has faced in history, it has never been this bad. In fact, part of the issue with all of this is Egypt tried to bury this story. This was a black eye in the history of Egypt. And a lot of secular historians, the reason they doubt it is because they have hard time finding evidence. Now, the reason they have hard time finding evidence is not because it's not there, not because it didn't happen, but because they were trying to erase it. Now, Titus Kennedy does a great job providing some evidence of these type of Remarks made concerning in fact. There's a Egyptian poet that wrote a poetry about the plagues which verifies now of course critics will see that and say well He's just poetry in fact the Jews. They're just basing their narrative off of Egyptian poetry, it's like no And so unparalleled grieving in Egypt. Number seven, none of the children will be harmed. Verse seven, but against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move its tongue against man or beast that you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. Now, kind of a curious remark, a dog moving its tongue. Now this is, I think some of the commentators that I read basically were saying it's like a dog bark. A dog will not bark against the children of Israel. In other words, he's saying that there will be absolutely no harm in any way to the children of Israel. They will be totally protected from this. None of the children of Israel will be harmed. Number eight, the death will result in pharaoh's servants coming in bowing to Moses saying, get out. So we see this in verse eight. Now this is where it got tricky for me is I think this is a stylistic change where apparently now Moses is talking to Pharaoh. So it seems, I guess my best explanation is Moses is packaging the conversation God had with him, he had with the nation, he had with Pharaoh, all into these 10 verses in a stylistic fashion. So he starts with the conversation God is having with him, transitioning into having it with the people, and he's talking to them, and then it seems in verse eight, now he's talking to Pharaoh. So my best guess is that what's happening is Moses is just condensing the narrative into a concise portion explaining things. But it seems that in verse eight, he's now talking to Pharaoh. And he says, and all these your servants shall come down to me, that is Moses, and bow down to me, saying, get out, and all the people who follow you. After that, I will go out. Then he went out from Pharaoh in great anger. So the part that was initially stumbling me was, at what point did he go into Pharaoh? And I was kind of confused at that. But I think that what's taking place, again, is he's giving a summary fashion. And at some point, he's saying the same things God told to him. He said them to Israel. He said them to Pharaoh. And then he went out, apparently, very angry with Pharaoh. And rightfully so, because this isn't his first encounter with Pharaoh, right? This has been a series of events that he's been obstinate. And at this point, Moses is fed up with the obstinance. So then we come to part three of this portion, verses 9 and 10. God tells Moses, God tells Moses that Pharaoh once again will not heed him. So we see verse nine, but the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh will not heed you so that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. Verse nine. We also see the purposes that God signs are multiplied. Number three, the plague narrative is summarized, verse 10. And so this seems to be the end point to the plague narrative, or at least a transition. Because verse 10 provides a summary, I think, of all that has taken place. It's kind of a, if you think of a play, in the middle of a long play, you're going to have an intermission. So this is kind of a intermission to the plague narrative, where he says in verse 10, so Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, in the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go out of his land. And then we see a major transition into Chapter 12 dealing with the Passover. So this is what signals to me, this is why it's been somewhat of a challenge preaching through the plagues, because you want to give each plague its due study. You know, some of them were so small we condensed two into one lesson. But when you're following historical narrative, it reads just like any story. There's going to be an inciting incident. There's going to be a development. There's going to be a peak or a climax. Then there's going to be a resolution and a solution in just about every narrative story. The problem is, I think that the plague narrative Truly, I would fit the Red Sea in this is all one big narrative, where we see the plagues as the inciting incident. And I think the climax would be the Red Sea crossing. And then there's resolution and solution after. And then it switches gears into the wilderness portion of the Book of Exodus. And so we're seeing this transition taking place. Moses has been developing the plagues. He's summarized now in chapter 11, verse 10. And now he's going to transition into chapter 12, dealing with the Passover because, and the reason I think he does this is because the Passover is the foremost Jewish celebration. And God is telling, first of all, it's foremost because it's first, first one that God has assigned to them and gives them details to observe, but it's also been very vividly displayed through the angel of death, or it's about to be vividly displayed with the angel of death coming through the land and taking the firstborn. Okay, so here's the passage, or the chart, I guess it's not a chart, but a slide dealing with Pharaoh's hardened heart. I went over these last week, but now you can see the verses. The first instance we see this is in Exodus 7, verse 14 and verse 22. Pharaoh's heart is being hardened. Who is doing it? This time, Pharaoh. The second time, chapter 8, verse 15, Pharaoh. Number 3, chapter 8, verse 19, Pharaoh. Number 4, chapter 8, verse 32, Pharaoh. Chapter 5, Number 5, chapter 9, verse 7, Pharaoh. Number 6, the first time we see God hardens Pharaoh's heart. Chapter 9, verse 12. In fact, let's turn back to this because this is the crucial turning point. Verse 12 says, But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had spoken to Moses. Keep reading, verse 13. Then the Lord said to Moses, rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him, thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews, let my people go that they may serve me. For at this time, I will send all my plagues to your very heart, and on your servants, and on your people, that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth." Now, there's a lot to unpack with this statement that God is giving. First of all, touching on that last statement, that you will know that there is none like me in all the earth. This is a reference back to, if you remember, one of the first encounters Moses had with Pharaoh. What did Pharaoh say? He says, who is Yahweh that I should Listen to him. Well, the plague narratives answers the question. I am. I am Yahweh. And Pharaoh is very much acquainted with Yahweh by the end of these narratives. And so the other thing that we see in verses 13 and 14 is God says, at this point, I will now send my plagues to your very heart. And so I think if we can just notice a trend here. Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Pharaoh. Pharaoh, now the Lord. And then the Lord provides details in verses 13 and 14 saying, at this point, now you are going to experience all of my plans. Now, I mentioned last week, and I mentioned in the first hour, you have to be very careful with hypotheticals. In fact, I don't even know if I want to get into it. Hypothetically speaking, you could say, if Pharaoh would have responded, before this chapter 9 verse 12 instant where the Lord hardens his heart? Would he have been permitted to continue ruling Egypt just fine and Israel goes on their merry way? Again, it's hypothetical. There's no way of knowing. But what we do know is that Pharaoh was being obstinate, being stubborn this entire time. He was hardening his own heart. And it isn't until after the fifth time that Pharaoh does this that God jumps in and says, OK, we're writing this out. You're going to experience my judgment. The seventh time, we see chapter 9, verses 34 through 35, Pharaoh is again hardening his own heart. Number eight, we see chapter 10, verses 1 and 2, also in verse 20, the Lord again hardens his heart. Number nine, chapter 10, verse 27, again, the Lord hardens his heart. Now, again, just looking at trends here, is it theologically correct to say that Pharaoh hardened his heart? Yes. Is it theologically correct to say the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart? Yes. But here's what we can't do. We can't take this instant of God hardening Pharaoh's heart and say that he does this in every instant. Every time an unbeliever is an unbeliever and doesn't want to become a believer, it's because God has hardened their heart so that they can't believe. It just goes against the narrative. First of all, it's not even considering this important segment of scripture in its context. Furthermore, it goes against scripture such as what Peter says, where God is patient, desiring that none shall perish. If that's true, He wouldn't be hardening every individual's heart in order to not believe on Him. That's just inconsistent with who our God is. Now what we do see, and I think Romans 1 bears this out in some degree, Man already has a hardened heart, and based on what man does with what has been revealed to them, they could get a further hardened heart. Man could reach a point in their hardness of heart where God gives them over to a hardened heart. In other words, says, enough, you're done. And I think that that is being pictured here with Pharaoh. Pharaoh has hardened his heart. He hardened it again. It continued to get more and more callous. The imagery is like a seared conscience, conscience, excuse me, where you take a hot iron and you just sear it on a piece of meat. And what does it do? It just hardens and it blocks out signals and reception. And so, Pharaoh has been hardening his heart, and finally God gave him up to a hardened heart. And I think that also happened, as described in Romans 1, where God hardens that particular audience, gives them up to a hardness of heart. And there's discussion on who exactly is being talked about there, but I think it's essentially the Gentiles, the pagans. They rejected God and worshiped creation rather than the creator, and so God gave them up to as it says, abominable practices, basically heaping up judgment upon themselves for the day of judgment. And so that's a brief excursion, maybe not so brief excursion, into how I think we should rightfully understand it. And the way I think we rightfully understand any difficult text is historically, contextually, and grammatically. And in the flow of the narrative, it seems clear to me that Pharaoh hardened his heart at least five times before God even got involved with hardening his heart. And so that's something that I think is important to pay attention to. Now, getting into the Passover, and maybe we're short on time, so we'll see how much we get into. Since we're summarizing this, I think it's okay, but if you look at chapter 12, verses two through 11, Well, first of all, let me read verse 12, verse 1 of chapter 12. It says, Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, verse 2, This month shall be your beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. So again, we'll go into details of basically this is what starts the Jewish calendar. It's what starts the Jewish observance of Passover. And he goes on to give further instructions down through verse 11. He explains basically that everyone in the congregation is to, on the 10th of the first month, take a lamb. And they are to take an unblemished lamb that is a year old. And they are to, at twilight on the 14th, so four days later, sacrifice the lamb. Then they are to consume the entire lamb. And he gives provisions for, you know, if you're a smaller family that's obviously not going to be able to eat an entire lamb, well, share with your neighbor and spread it out. But the idea is the whole lamb is to be consumed. And I think there's some significance to that, explore when we cover this in more detail. But God is painting this picture very vividly. In fact, it's curious as to whether there were sacrifices even being made. I would tend to think perhaps not, especially if any of their sacrifices that they would desire to honor the Lord with would be an abomination to the Egyptians, they wouldn't dare. And so for many of them, this could be the very first time that they've seen death on this level. And this is the argument I make as to why God does the sacrificial system. And mind you, sacrifices predate the law. But I think the reason sacrifice is so important in the Old Testament is because it gives that visual of I can't live unless something else dies. And this is, I think, on a daily basis seen in the ancient world, where if you're preparing your meal, what do you have to do? You kill your own animal. You divide it into portions. You prepare it, cook it, eat it. And you need that protein. You need that meat, that source of nutrition in your body. You can't live without it. And so that would have been a constant reminder that it's interesting for us to think of in our modern day, because where does our meat come from? The grocery store. It's so far removed from the field, unless you're an avid hunter. Then you get some experience of the biblical sacrifice. But there is something to be said about that, because God is, I think, painting this imagery in the mind and the heart of the Jews, in particular with the Mosaic sacrificial system. But I think even before the law, this very visual reminder that something is dying in my place. And so he's setting up this substitutionary imagery in the text. Then we see some explanation to things in verses 13 through 25. Skimming through that, we see he says in verse 13, now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. And then he says, this day shall be a memorial and keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. In other words, the institution of Passover is to remind the Jew of what God did. And I truly think that it's not just in this instant. I think it's including the plagues. In fact, you could also make the argument that it's including the whole narrative leading up to the Red Sea, perhaps even beyond. Because again, that's why I shared that point in our introduction that Exodus is the gate And it's not just the gate in the biblical narrative, it's the gate in the Jewish mind, where they're thinking through their own personal history, it started here. Many of them were introduced to God here. And so the Passover would have sparked that remembrance that God passed them over when they applied the blood to the wall. And of course, there's a hard to miss I think this would qualify as typology. We've talked in our Wednesday group of some of the difficulties with typology and determining whether something is a type or not. I think this is a legitimate type of Christ, the blood of Christ being shed for us. And he who has applied the blood of Christ is passed over. The wrath of God passes over them. And so this is to be a memorial for all generations to remind them of these things. And the reason Exodus is a gateway is because celebrating the Passover, they would reflect upon the rest of the story. They would have reflected upon the journey, the reception of the law, being led into the land, being preserved and protected in the land, being judged in the land, being kicked out of the land, being brought back to the land, building the temple, temple destroying, kicked out of the land, brought back to the land, building the temple. all in preparation for their Messiah. Then we see the summarization in verse 26, which says, and it shall be when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? That you shall say, it is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel and Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians and delivered our households, So the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Then the children of Israel went away and did so, just as the Lord had commanded, Moses and Aaron, so they did. Then we see the final plague enacted. Death comes upon Egypt, verse 29. And it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead." And so you could just see that somber tone strike the narrative, where As a reader, you're almost thinking, finally, this has been a long time coming. You could have avoided all of this. But it is a tone of finality in the sense that there's a major turning point, where there's been a breakthrough. Pharaoh has now recognized, and then getting into the rest of the chapter, it talks about their flight out of Egypt. And getting into the Passover narrative, which we're going to look at next time we meet, God gives instructions for them to be ready, that they are to eat their meal and be ready to go. Because he knows that, obviously, once the angel of death strikes, it's time to go. And they are to flee. And so this concludes the plague narrative. And this is that chart that I've kind of referred to time and time again, just walking through it. Interesting. We reach, by the time that seventh command is given to let my people go, there's no more commands given. And I think this is in tandem with that chart that I shared with Pharaoh's hardened heart where these plagues steadily got worse and worse. In fact, I messed up with my math last week, but they're in series of threes. If you notice the plagues, you've got the first and the second plague. Then there's no command given, but the third plague comes in unison, almost, or in consecutive to the second. And then there's the fourth and the fifth plague, Then there's no command given, and the sixth plague comes in with no command. Then there's the seventh and eighth. Then there's no command given with the ninth. There's also no command given for the tenth. And so there's this steady increase in increments of three that's just interesting. It's worth noting. But God has given the command to Pharaoh. He did not heed Moses' voice, as God said. And God brought upon him all of these plagues. blood frogs, gnats, flies, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and death of the firstborn. But we're also going to see the death of his army. Now, what's interesting is we're going to look at that pursuit and Pharaoh sent all of his chariots in his army that was all destroyed. Now, first of all, they've been economically destroyed. You can also say they've been societally destroyed throughout this, but particularly with the death, the death of the firstborn, that would have been such a major hit to the families and the family names because the firstborn is essentially the heir to the family estate. And so it would have destroyed them, but then he takes his army and they're destroyed. And it wouldn't be until centuries later that Egypt finally gets back to a position on the world stage. But God completely leveled them and brought them low, whereas they were the premier nation. up to that point, but you have to remember, how did they get to that point? How did they get to the premier nation? Now they were a formidable empire prior to what I'm thinking of, but when the famine, if the famine came and God didn't give Pharaoh a warning, what would have happened to them? Decimated. But God gave them a warning, the dream to Pharaoh, Joseph interpreted it, blessed Egypt, and they thrived during a Otherwise, basically, you could think of empires kind of on these scales of ups and downs. And during those seven years of famine, everyone's going down except Egypt. They're going up, up, up, up. In fact, they're probably doing better than they ever did, because all the surrounding peoples are coming to them and buying and trading and selling. They would have acquired great wealth during those seven years. And it would have just continued to prosper, not to mention the prosperity of the Jews dwelling in the land of Goshen during that time. They would have been a mighty empire, but it's all because of God, not because of Egypt. So basically, God took back everything that he had given them, which I think is a lesson that God gives and God takes away. So that being said, let's close with a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this text. We thank you for your mighty power that's at work in the world. You are the sovereign Lord of all. We thank you for texts like this that remind us of this truth. We thank you that you are our sovereign creator and we worship you. And even though, as the great hymn says, Lord, our hearts are prone to wander, we rejoice in your grace and your love for us that calls us back. We pray, Lord, as we depart that we would follow you and be your servants, in Jesus' name, amen.