So we're back in the book of Exodus. Chapter 8. We're going to look through three plagues today. Frogs and lice and flies. Oh my. And we'll see what we have behind the text. These are signs. These are signs that God's performing, that we might know who he is and all of his power. So let me pray for the word, and then we'll look at what is actually in the course of the whole 10 of the plagues. We're coming to plague number two here. So let me pray for our preaching. Our Father and our God, we pause before we begin to read your word to once again ask your blessing upon it. Lord, your word alone, it's powerful, it's mighty, it's powerful on its own, but Lord, we're weak. So we pray that you'd enable us to hear your word, to understand your word. Lord, that our hearts could receive the implanted word. Lord, that we will be changed for the better because we did spend time with you and in your word together. We thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen. So I'm gonna read the whole text that has to do with the second plague here. So that's chapter eight of Exodus, verses one to 15. And my plan is to do the same for the other two plagues, just read the whole thing and we'll unpack it a little bit. So it says, and the Lord spoke to Moses. Go to Pharaoh and say to him, thus says the Lord, let my people go that they may serve me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all your territory with frogs. So the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into your house, into your bedroom, on your bed, into the house of your servants, on your people, into your ovens, and into your kneading bowls. And the frogs shall come up on you, on your people, and on all your servants. ' Then the Lord spoke to Moses, Say to Aaron, stretch out your hand with your rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt. So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, Entreat the Lord that he may take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let you go that you may sacrifice to the Lord. And Moses said to Pharaoh, except the honor of saying, when I shall intercede for you, for your servants and for your people, to destroy the frogs from you and your houses, that they may remain in the river only." So he said, tomorrow. And he said, let it be according to your word, that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. And the frog shall depart from you, from your houses, from your servants, and from your people. They shall remain in the river only. And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh. And Moses cried out to the Lord concerning the frogs which he had brought against Pharaoh. So the Lord did according to the word of Moses, and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courtyards, and out of the fields. They gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not heed them as the Lord had said. Well, there is, and you might not see it in a casual reading. I get help because I read a lot of commentaries, but there is a pattern to these plagues. And the pattern goes like this. God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh early in the morning. In the first plague, the water turns to blood. He goes down to the water when Pharaoh goes down early in the morning. The next plague in the cycle, He's told, Moses is told, to go into Pharaoh, which has the idea of going into his throne room, into his court, wherever he does business, and seek Pharaoh there, and tell him what's going to happen if he doesn't let my people go, and then a plague follows. The third is Pharaoh's not talked to at all. He's not warned. Just a sign is performed, another plague. And that happens three times. You'll see that as we move through. So there is definitely a pattern to this. Early in the morning, into the court, and then just a sign without any warning, three times. So there's three sets of three leading up to the grand sign, the grand plague, the taking of the firstborn, the Passover. So everything's kind of building here to that momentous event. Why? Frogs. I asked myself in my study, why frogs, Lord? Well, the commentaries say, and we've been talking about how Yahweh, the true and living God, the one and only God, is really coming up against Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt. And the Egyptians had a frog-like God, Hecate. I read in a dictionary, Hecate is the ancient Egyptian frog-headed goddess of fertility, childbirth, and resurrection, symbolizing new life and renewal, depicted as a frog or a woman with a frog's head. Pregnant women in Egypt wore frog amulets for protection, because they wanted that frog god, Hecate, to protect their baby in the womb and allow them to give birth to a healthy child. So they saw power in the god Hecate. And if you look it up on the internet, it's a pretty hideous looking creature. You can find old statues that they found, engravings, you know, hygrigraphics I guess they call them. But pretty hideous looking when artists try to do a depiction of this woman with a frog head. But that's what they worship. So God's obviously making a statement here. If you remember, we talked about the God, the Egyptian God, false god, false deity, happy. who was the god, not of the Nile, but the god of the flooding event. Once a year when the Nile would flood and would bring nutrients and silt to the fields. And they would rejoice that this had occurred. And accompanying that event would have been the croaking of the frogs. Because all the frogs would have been activated and probably some of them sent out into the fields. And you would know it was that time of year and their false deities that they placed their faith in had come through for them once again and brought life and fertility. And so they would worship these gods. So God really curses them with a superabundance of frogs, is what's going on here. Yahweh, the true and living, the one and only God, is confronting Pharaoh and their false gods. And the Bible goes into pretty great detail of how superabundant these frogs turned out to be. I was reading a transcript of a sermon preached by Kevin deYoung. And I want to read you a little section, because I thought he did a good job modernizing maybe what this looked like a little bit. And so in his sermon he says, do you see how graphically it's described here? They're in beds. Their beds were not raised, but they were like floor mats. They're in ovens and in their bowls. This is like saying there are frogs in your pockets when you wake up. They're there when you flip up, open your laptop in the morning. They're in your KitchenAid mixer when you go to make bread. They're in your candles. They're in your piano. They're in your bathtub. They're in your toothbrush holder. They're in your tissue box. And there, when you slip your feet into your slippers, there's frogs there as well. Frogs, he says, are everywhere. This was a curse. This was a curse. future generations, just to get an idea of how the Israelites saw this in the Psalms. In Psalm 78, 45 says that God sent frogs which destroyed them. Destroyed them. It was really an upheaval of their everyday life. You couldn't walk across the floor without stepping on a frog. And I live in a country, so I know what that feels like. There's nothing grosser in the world to this guy when I step out of my back deck and it's already dark and I have to go out there for something and I step on a big old fat toad. I'm just like, whoa. You know, they're everywhere. These things are everywhere. Psalm 105.30 says, their land abounded with frogs, even in the chambers of their kings. So notice that in this event, in all these events, God is making Himself known to this pagan king, and really to this pagan nation. Do you remember back earlier in chapter 5, Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord? He uses the word Yahweh. Who is this Yahweh, right? That I should obey His voice and let Israel go. I do not know the Lord. I do not know Yahweh. But here, in chapter 8, verse 8, it says, Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron, and what does he say to them? Entreat Yahweh. Pray to this God. He's recognizing, I don't think this is a statement of faith by Pharaoh by any means, but he's at least realizing and recognizing that there's this Yahweh God, maybe a God among all the gods, that perhaps did bring these frogs into our land, and I'm asking you to entreat your God, Yahweh." So some progress of Yahweh making himself known to Pharaoh and the people of Egypt is happening here. You'll see as we move through these three plagues today that Pharaoh is kind of going to negotiate with Moses, and Moses by the Spirit of God and in wisdom, kind of enters into that negotiation with Pharaoh. But you'll see that Pharaoh is going to try to get Moses to compromise. And the beauty of the figure we have of Moses as one faithful to the Lord, is he refuses to compromise. And we'll see that more as we look at the other plagues. So all Pharaoh's sorcerers can do is make the problem worse. They can't make the frogs go away. They can make some more hop out of the pond, I guess. I don't know what that looked like or how that was done. But that's all they can do is add to the problem. So God, through Moses, his mediator, allows Pharaoh to pick the day that this will happen, when the frogs will die in heaps. Imagine what that smelled like. You ever smell a dead reptile? Can you imagine there being thousands and thousands of dead reptiles going around with, I don't know, little pans and whatnot, trying to clean them all up, piling them up? I don't know what they did with them. Horrible. And the Bible says the land stunk with them. Horrible. Douglas Stewart says about God, through Moses, allowing Pharaoh to choose the day. Douglas Stewart says, this is brilliant on God's part. If the king could say when the frogs would go away, he would personally know that the timing was not due to the simple consequences of natural processes, or a fiat of the gods of the Egyptians, but by the sovereignty of the God of Israel." Theologically, Mr. Stewart says, Theologically, therefore, this plague was the point by which Pharaoh should have been able to admit that there was a true, powerful God behind the demands voiced by Moses. His refusal to believe even then is a paradigm for all people who, though confronted with the reasonableness of biblical truth, nevertheless refuse to believe by reason of factors other than the believability of the evidence. They choose to harden their hearts. But the Bible is an incredibly reasonable document, right? 66 books all put together. One grand central message in the entirety of the 66 books that are written over the centuries. It's a very reasonable... There's nothing that you're going to read in the Bible and you go, well, that's just unreasonable. It's a very reasonable book. I mean, when I came to the Lord and I started reading the Bible, I just thought, well, this is pretty practical. A lot of good practical wisdom in the Bible. But people resented it anyway. And remember this, beloved. No matter what somebody tells you to the contrary, they know there's a God. I've talked to atheists, and they want to sit there and tell you, I'm an atheist, and make some ridiculous reason for why they are. But you almost want to say, you know, I know what you're saying, but you know. Down deep, you know there's a God. You just don't want to bow your knee to Him. So when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he did what? He hardened his heart. Pharaoh didn't have what the Bible alludes to, which is contrition. That we are rent, torn of heart over our sin before a holy God, and we repent in dust and ashes. It's attrition, which is just, he's sorry for the effect, for the result of what he's dealing with because of his sin and his stubbornness to bow his knee to Yahweh. So as soon as the problem's gone, he's right back to life as normal. And have you ever met a Christian like that? They come to church because they've got some disease or something, and ask us to lay hands on them, pray over them, they get healed by maybe surgery or whatever, and then off they go. And I haven't seen them in years. I've experienced that many times in my life. The Bible warns about that, guys. Now I'm going to the New Testament book of Romans, in the Apostle Paul. And this is Romans chapter 2, beginning in verse 4, where he writes, Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourselves wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds. That passage, it undergirds and supports, and not in a mean way. I've never really talked to people when I'm witnessing to them in a mean way. But it's really important when you talk to somebody who's resisting the gospel, and usually I'll say something like, you do know we'll all stand before him one day. I'll stand before Him in Christ Jesus, cloaked in His righteousness. Positionally, I'm in Christ, and God's going to see me as righteous because I'm in Christ. You're going to stand naked before a holy God, and just know that. One day you're going to stand before Him. I like to take people to the judgment when they're resisting the gospel, to let them know. And then a lot of times they go, and I've even had people say, I know. I never forget, I had a guy, he was really tough in my business. He was just notoriously known. And he confronted me one day and I just said, you know, we're going to stand before God one day and give an answer for what we're doing in this room right now. And he looked at me and he goes, I know. It can really be a powerful thing just to let people know the reality of the judgment. Somebody, John Thornton is the somebody. John Thornton wrote, it is a dark sign that the heart is desperately hardened when men hate and shun those who faithfully warn and reprove them and affectionately labor to reclaim them. Remember that it is written, he who is often rebuked and hardens his neck will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." That's Proverbs 29.1. That's a good word. So let's move on to the third plague, the Plague of Lice. So this is the third plague, and we're going to read from 16 to 19. So the Lord said to Moses, say to Aaron, stretch out your rod and strike the dust of the land, so that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And they did so. And Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and struck the dust of the earth, and it became lice on man and beast. All the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt. Now the magicians so worked with their enchantments to bring forth lice, but they could not. So there were lice on man and beast. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. But Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had said. And you see that every time, just as the Lord had said. The NIV translates that a little different about what these things were that they were being plagued with. When you read the NIV, verse 16, it says, throughout the land of Egypt, the dust will become gnats. Gnats. So what are these things? My translations choose to translate it to lice. NIV says gnats. Some suggestions that have been made, ticks, maggots, fleas, midges, mosquitoes. John MacArthur is of the opinion, and I'll quote him, he says, the Hebrew term is preferably taken to designate tiny stinging gnats barely visible to the naked eye. So the idea, according to John MacArthur, is that The people were so infected with whatever these things were, probably biting, but they're infected with these things that MacArthur believes that this was God Almighty's attack against the Egyptian priesthood because of their meticulousness and being ceremonially clean, according to their pagan ways, to be washed and cleansed. And they would shave all the hair off all of their bodies. before they had to be completely clean like that to serve their pagan gods. And now they're completely infested with whatever these things are. And they are really defiled, even to their Egyptian gods. That might be what's going on here as we see Yahweh revealing himself as the almighty, all-powerful God. And they can't replicate it. They can't do it. They can't conjure up some somehow. And even now the sorcerers tell Pharaoh, This is the finger of God. I don't think this is a statement of faith. I don't, although you'll see some rabbinical writings that say they converted and followed the Israelites into the wilderness. That's not in the Bible, so who knows if that ever happened. But there's now witness to Pharaoh from Moses, through his spokesperson Aaron, and now his own sorcerers are saying to Pharaoh, this is the finger of God. This is the act of a deity. And we can't replicate it, which means what? This deity is greater than our deities. They didn't say that, but that's what's behind what they're saying. And yet, through the mediator of Moses and the magicians and the signs, he's not convinced. And he hardens his heart once again. And now the fourth plague. And you notice we just wrapped up the first cycle. We're going to begin the second cycle in the fourth plague. So we're going to find what? What's the first part of the cycle? They go to see Pharaoh early in the morning. So that's what we're going to see here. So Exodus 8, and I'm reading from 20 to 32. So it's a good chunk of scripture, but let's read the whole thing. The Lord said to Moses, Rise early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh as he comes out of the water. Then say to him, Thus says the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me, or else, if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you, and your servants, on your people, and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand. And in that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there. in order that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the land. I will make a difference between my people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall be." And the Lord did so. Thick swarms of flies came into the house of Pharaoh, into his servants' houses, and into all the land of Egypt. The land was corrupted because of the swarms of flies. Then Pharaoh called for Moses, Maron, and said, Go, sacrifice to your God in the land. And Moses said, it is not right to do so, for we would be sacrificing the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God. If we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, then will they not stone us? We will go three days journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as he will command us. And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness, only you shall not go very far away. Intercede for me. Then Moses said, Indeed, I am going out from you, and I will entreat the Lord that the swarm of flies may depart tomorrow from Pharaoh, from his servants and from his people. But let Pharaoh not deal deceitfully any more, and not letting the people go to sacrifice to the Lord. So Moses went out from Pharaoh and entreated the Lord. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses. He removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, from his servants, from his people. Not one remained. But Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go." So you see the pattern again, right? Rise up, go see Pharaoh early in the morning. He's down by the water. Go in to see Pharaoh in his courts. And then it's just a sign without any warning, no conversation with Pharaoh. So this is the first of the second cycle, right? And Douglas Stewart has an idea of why is God doing it in this secular fashion? Why is that? And he thinks he's speaking something to Pharaoh in this. And this is what Douglas Stewart says. He says, presumably, this was intended to have this effect on Pharaoh, to cause him, as the pattern begins to repeat itself, to think, in effect, oh no, not again. And I think that might be what's going on here. The Pharaoh goes, here we go again. He's meeting me in the morning. He's going to meet me in the throne room. And then another sign is going to happen. And this is going to repeat three cycles of three as we move through these. God says something significant here. God says through Moses, he's going to set apart Goshen. Remember, that's where the Israelites are living, in the land of Goshen. I'm going to set apart Goshen, so that the plague of these flies will be on you, but it will not be upon my people. Charles Spurgeon on that thought says this. He says, the difference between the Egyptians and Israel was exceedingly manifest. At first sight, it seemed to be very greatly to the advantage of Egypt. They had the whip in their hand, and poor Israel smarted under the lash. Egypt possessed the toil of the Israelites. The sons of Jacob made bricks. And the subjects of Pharaoh inhabited the houses which the sons of Jacob built. How soon, however, were the tables turned? God wrought plagues in Egypt, but Goshen was spared. And I think this speaks volumes. There's so many signs and shadows in the book of Exodus that we can look forward to our New Testament understanding of reality and scripture and God's workings with God's people and say that we also, in Christ Jesus, are shielded. And the Bible says that in more than one place, but I want to take you over to the book of Ephesians, where in chapter 6 of Ephesians it speaks of God's armor that the Christian has. That we are put on this armament, right? Which altogether is really just putting on Christ. But it says in Ephesians 6.16, above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one." I was looking, and I know I've mentioned this website to you before. I endorse it, but there's a couple of things every once in a while I'm like, well, I don't quite agree with that. But it's a pretty solid website. It's called gotquestions.org. And my wife's not red. She likes that website too. And they have a lot of good insight, a lot of good thoughts. But let me read you a little quote from there. They write, faith reminds us that though fulfillment of God's promise may not be readily visible to us, God is true to his word. When Satan attempts to plague us, with doubt or entice us with instant gratification, faith recognizes the deceptiveness of his tactics and quickly extinguishes the arrows. When Satan accuses us, Faith chooses to believe that Jesus has redeemed us and that there is no more condemnation, right? When Satan or one of his demons whispers into your spirit and tells you how unworthy you are, right? You can tell Satan or his little demonic messenger, you know what, you're right, I'm not worthy. I'm everything you're saying I am, but there's one that was worthy that died for me and rose for me. And I'm cloaked in His righteousness. Positionally, I'm in Christ. So Yahweh God sees me as righteous because I'm in Christ. And let those accusations of the evil one lead you to confession of truth, and where's that gonna lead you to? Praise. Oh, thank you for spurring me on to praise, demon. I praise the Lord that saved me in spite of myself. Jesus had said in John 17, 15, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. Like a delicate flower that closes itself when storm comes, and then reopens itself. So God protects us, and the instrumentality, according to the Bible, of that protection is our faith. But we know that no matter what's going on, and maybe plagues are landing all around us, right? The psalmist says, 10,000 fall to your left and 10,000 fall to your right. It shall not land on you, the psalmist said. And if we have anything going on in our life, we can say, you know what? The God is good. God is smiling upon me because of Jesus Christ. And if this little crazy, chaotic thing's going on, God's using it for the good. For His purposes. And His purposes are, ultimately, for my good. And people say, well, how do you believe that? You say, one, because the Bible teaches that. And two, because I have faith. I have faith in the true and living God. So, various flies, biting, flying insects. The word in the Hebrew doesn't say flies, it just simply says swarms. So that leads us to what exactly were they? Were they flies? What were these things? Whatever they were, they were not pleasant. I can tell you that. And T.S. Millington speculates like this. He says, there is no reason for supposing that the plague was limited to any one species. On the contrary, as the flies were everywhere upon the people and in their houses and on the ground and in the air and all the land of Egypt, it appears almost certain that there were different habits and therefore different species. There were flies that devoured, and flies that stung, and flies that corrupted, and flies that hovered and whirling in the air. And there were flies upon men and flaming their eyelids and blinding them, and flies on the cattle. There were beetles crawling on the ground, perhaps even bees and wasps and hornets pursuing the people fiercely. And when I read that, I thought, and this is just pales in comparison to whatever this plague looked like. But have you ever been out somewhere, and I used to go backpacking when I was young. Loved to do it. I remember we backpacked one time and came upon a lake. And we went out in the lake and out in the middle of the lake somebody had mounted a floating raft. So we got out to the floating raft. So here we are separated from the land on a floating raft in the middle of the lake. And one of those water horse flies things comes after me. And it was determined to eat the flesh off the dead center of my back, where I couldn't get to, you know? And I mean, if somebody had seen me, they would have thought I was losing my mind out there, flailing around with my arms, trying to get this one little fly off my back. Because he was pretty. You ever get bit by one of those things? And they actually take a chunk of you? And you look down, and you think, my god, I'm bleeding. That thing just took a chunk of my skin. Imagine that. as a plague. Hundreds of millions of these things, everywhere. And remember, the Egyptians in that climate, they didn't have windows. I mean, these things were getting in everywhere. You couldn't get away from them. I even imagine I would try to wrap myself up in some kind of a blanket to get away from them. But they're in the blanket. I mean, you just cannot escape these things. That's what's going on here. In Psalm 78, speaking of this plague, The psalmist says in verse 45, he sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them. So I'm just imagining Pharaoh, those of his court, the common people of Egypt, covered in bleeding sores from these flies, flying insects, whatever they might have been. Before we move out of this, though, I want to pause on what I brought up earlier, and I want to emphasize it, is Moses' uncompromising response to Pharaoh. I mean, he is talking to the greatest world leader of the most powerful nation of his time. And it says in verse 25, Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, go sacrifice to your God in the land. What Pharaoh was saying to Moses was, look, I'll give you guys a holiday, but it has to be here in Egypt. Go ahead and have your holiday, I'll let you worship your God, Yahweh, we'll recognize there's a Yahweh, and go ahead, I'll let you do that. Pretty accommodating, right, wouldn't we think? And Moses responds and says, it is not right to do so. Before you move past that, just park right there. It is not right to do so. Why? Because God prescribes how He will be worshipped. No, Yahweh said very clearly, and even repeatedly, that we are to make a three days journey out away from Egypt, into the wilderness, to serve our God. He's been very clear about it. He didn't say, unless Pharaoh says, do it right here, then that's okay, and Yahweh would be like, well, that's a good compromise. No. So Moses refuses to compromise. God prescribes how he's to be worshipped properly. And it's good for us to be reminded of that. I think my go-to text, although there's a lot of places you can go to in the New Testament to look for this, but to see sort of a concise putting together of what the church should look like, when you go to Acts chapter 2 and verse 42, the young fledgling church, it says, And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and in prayers. Those four things. The church is to design its worship around this model of apostolic teaching. It's the Bible. It's the preaching of the word of God. The apostolic teaching, koinonia, a word we probably all have heard many, many times, which we translate to fellowship. But it's deeper than just fellowship. It's us joining one another in the body of Christ to live life together. Bonhoeffer wrote a book a long time ago. He was the German theologian that was actually executed by the Nazis back in World War II. And he wrote a book about life in the church, and he entitled it Life Together. Because that kind of sums it up. We choose to be united. Actually, God chose and knit us together in Jesus Christ. But we live out our life together, koinonia. So, apostolic doctrine, koinonia, the breaking of bread, which is the Lord's table, we come together, we keep Christ central in our worship, and the prayers. It's really probably better rendered, the prayers. And that's what worship is to be conducted like. There's things that can be added. I don't think it's wrong. We do Advent candles. It's like, well, where's that in the Bible? It's like, oh, I guess you could find some candles in the Old Testament or something. It's not that. As long as these four things are the main crux of what we do in worship, then it's a biblical church. But if you go to a church, and whatever they're doing in that church and calling it worship doesn't include these things, that church is out of line with the Word of God and the way God has prescribed to be worshiped. So God prescribes to Moses how he's to be worshipped. Pharaoh asks him to compromise that, and Moses says, no, it would be right. It is not right to do so, Pharaoh. We won't do that. Interesting, and I just want to unpack this a little bit because it might be confusing. Because Moses, he kind of turns to not so much Pharaoh's conscience, I should say, but really to the logic. Because they're negotiating here. Did you notice how this is going on? Now Pharaoh's kind of negotiating. OK, make all this go away. I'll let you worship it. It's going to be here. And Moses says, no, it has to be a three-day journey into the wilderness. And so he's going to really try to confront Pharaoh at the point of logic. And so he says, you're asking me to sacrifice the abominations of the Egyptians in your land. And if they see us do the sacrifice of abominations to the Egyptians in your land, they're going to kill us, O Pharaoh. What is he talking about? Now I brought this up several weeks ago when we were preaching, but I want to go back to it in Genesis chapter 46. So we're going back in time to when Joseph and his family come to Egypt and they are to basically ask for the land of Goshen. And when they're to ask for the land of Goshen to reside in, it's because it's the hill country, and it's where the shepherds would go. It's where you could graze your animals. And they were sheep and farmers. And when you get to Genesis 46.34, it says this, to give you a little insight, it says, that you shall say your servants' occupation, its livestock from youth until now, both we and also our fathers, that you might dwell in the land of Goshen. And then it says this, for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians. So shepherds and the raising of sheep, it's an abomination for whatever reason to the Egyptians. So Moses is saying, if we come down here and we begin to sacrifice these sheep, which is what we're going to do in our worship to Yahweh, they're going to be so offended, they're going to kill us, O Pharaoh. So he's kind of reasoning from the point of logic. with Pharaoh, which tells me that it's great for us to come at people and really come at their conscience, but it's also okay to just say, hey, that doesn't make any logical sense, buddy. You ever think of this and just go to the realm of logic with people? And then he says to them, Pharaoh says, go then, but don't go far. Don't go far. And I personally think that speaks volumes of what the Bible says. And now, at the end of this, Pharaoh hardens his heart, and he won't let them go at all. But don't go far. I'll let you go, but don't go far. There's a lot of symbolism, and I'm just going to quickly go through it. We'll go through it again as we move through, especially when we get to the whole Passover experience. But just my closing page here, it's my last little bit I want to talk about. They're called to go into the wilderness, and they're going to eventually be delivered into the wilderness through the Passover blood. That's coming. We haven't got to that yet. But it's through the shedding of the blood, and then the putting of the blood on the linoleum doorposts. And in faith, they do what God said to do, and they're covered by the blood. And how does that not speak volumes of our salvation in Christ? And we'll deal with that more when we get there. They also enter into the wilderness by going through the Red Sea. And the New Testament says in the book of 1 Corinthians 10, I'm not going to read it to you, you can read it on your own, that there's a sense of baptism and they're going through the Red Sea as God delivers them through the Red Sea into the actual wilderness experience. They're going to be brought out to the mountain. Mount Sinai, the giving of the law. And God's going to meet with them there. And they'll receive the law. And remember the New Testament labors that were condemned by that law, because we don't keep that law. And the Bible says the ultimate journey of those in faith is to go to Mount Zion. And you'll find that in Hebrews chapter 12. if you want to read that today. A fantastic passage in Hebrews 12, where the writer of Hebrews labors the point that we haven't gone back to Mount Sinai, to the mountain of the giving of the law, where people were terrified at a holy God. Through Christ Jesus, we've been brought to a different mountain. We've been brought to Mount Zion. And the idea is that as they were eventually brought into the promised land, that the ultimate promised land is glory. And that's where God's taking us. So I hope as we move on in Exodus, and hopefully you got some out of it today, you'll see in types and shadows the entire work of God in redeeming a people to himself through Jesus Christ and through his cross. Let me end with that. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. Lord, so much sort of hidden away here in the Old Testament. And Lord, thank you for being our teacher today. Your word says your Holy Spirit is our teacher. And I pray you continue to teach us as we think on these things throughout the week. And we thank you for all things. In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, amen. Receive the blessing of the Lord. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Go in the peace of Christ Jesus to a world that desperately needs to hear the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.