Answers in Genesis--Fall 2016--Lesson 8: Plagues and Passover

It's good to be back together on the Lord's Day. I am still sick, so don't come up and shake my hand. I've been sick for a week. a lot of you guys already knew that and you're praying for me.

I do appreciate your prayers and texts. but very excited about the lesson this morning. Seems like. Every week I Turn and, look at the next section of material and And my initial thought a lot of times is, man, I've, I know all about this stuff.

I've said this before, what's gonna be the, what's the Lord gonna teach us this week and every week there's something special and new that comes out of the text, out of the material. but let's go ahead and pray and we'll jump into things. Lord, we thank you so much for your word that is living and, we thank you, Lord, that your word guides us in the path of righteousness. for your name's sake, and we just ask that you would help us as we, that your Holy Spirit would, open up our eyes to understand.

And, and believe it, help us, help our, children as they're also in their classes, to, just be impacted by the truths that we see here in Exodus in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Right. Part of what we're gonna be doing this morning is asking the question, why, why does scripture refer to Jesus as a lamb?

It's actually the second half of our lesson, for our adult equipping school. As you guys remember, every week we remind you that we're going through basically just biblical history, we call the seven seas of history and, last week we talked about God's call of Moses. Today's lesson. We're gonna be talking about the 10 plagues and the Passover.

And And so the basic idea every week is we want to do a little bit of review, we want to study God's word, and then we wanna apply God's word. We're gonna see again this morning, that we need to trust God's word as authoritative because it comes from God Himself. Without error, there are sections in the scripture that we're going to study today, that people, have tried to deny and try to use his argument against inerrancy. We'll be talking about that, this morning.

we'll also be today our, our approach to hermeneutics will be challenged. Many people that look at the text that we're gonna look at this morning do not believe that it should be taken literally. They do not believe it's historical. They just believe it's story.

and of course we try to apply grammar. Also, we want to be very careful as we approach the text this morning to do ex of Jesus, not Iosis. There's certain things we're gonna look at this morning that'd be very tempting to To insert our ideas into the text and we are gonna make some speculations, but we have to be careful, to, to make a clear distinction between when we're just making speculations of what, what might be going on, that's not directly said as opposed to what we know is directly said in the text.

we've talked in the past about biblical geology and history.

We're definitely gonna see God's sovereignty in history this morning. last week, does anybody remember, what did we learn about Moses? Last Sunday. Say it again.

He was the weakest man. Meekest man on earth. OK. that comes a little bit later, but that's definitely in the same context.

Where were we at in Moses's life, at least last week? Yeah, so basically we, we're seeing God's sovereignty and allowing Moses just to survive, right? the edict to have all these children, male children killed, and so Moses survives that and, and so we see God's sovereign hand and actually putting him into the hands of Pharaoh's daughter and his own mother being able to nurse him, then he kills an Egyptian, runs off into the desert. And, eventually comes into contact with the burning bush and God calls, calls him to, to be a leader of the people of Israel.

And so we see God's sovereignty all over the place last week. Today, we're going to, we're not gonna look at all 10 plagues. We're gonna look at one. Actually, two plagues in particular.

And so why don't you guys open up to Exos chapter 7. First of all, Exodus chapter 7. And as we look at the plagues, I want to encourage you to To keep this, historical grid in mind. It seems like as we've studied Genesis nexus together, that we keep seeing this, these two concepts mirrored.

One is God's holiness and judgment, and then God's mercy or rescue. we saw that in the creation when Adam and Eve, they sinned and, and God had said you shall surely die and something did die, an animal died in their place and they got God's mercy. We see severity come on Cain but also mercy. We see, severity in The Tower of Babel, Tower Tower of Babel, but also God, shows mercy.

We see Sodom and Gomorrah, that God brings down his judgment, but then he also delivers. And before that we see, of course, the flood is probably the biggest example is we see God flooding the earth in judgment. But then, showing mercy to 8. And here in, in Exodus with the, with the 10 plagues, we're definitely gonna see the same pattern reiterated.

So let's start in Exos chapter 7. Hope you guys are able to listen to my sick voice this morning. I thought about having the NIV dramatized version play for you guys, which you guys would probably really enjoy. Anybody ever listened to the NIB dramatized?

it's, it's killer. Go to a Gateway Bible or Bible Gateway and just look for NIV. And dramatized version and it's just so nice to listen to just all the, they, they do a pretty good job with the drama, acting out the different parts and the, the voice of the main reader is just a really nice voice to listen to and as opposed to this morning. So let's go ahead and let's start in verse 8.

I'm gonna give some running commentary as we read through the text and then we're gonna go through, go back and try to do some interpretation applications. So starting at verse 8. Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, when Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, show a miracle for yourselves, Then you shall say to Aaron, take your rod and cast it before Pharaoh and let it become a serpent. So God seems to know right out the gate that when they approach Pharaoh, he is going to ask for a sign.

so God already, obviously God because he's omnipotent, omniscient would know this. this seems to be, this could be something that would have been expected if two people show up saying, hey, we're here to speak for God, let my people go. Pharaoh to try to determine whether these were prophets indeed. He would ask for, OK, well, show me some miraculous sign to demonstrate that you're speaking for God.

Verse 10, so Moses and Aaron went into Pharaoh and they did so just as the Lord had commanded, and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a, a stick turn into a snake. Hasbody seen that happen? No, never, never seen it.

And so right away, this is a strange thing. If you can try to just for a second pretend like you haven't heard this story since you were in Sunday school or you haven't read this a million times. this would be a strange occurrence, and sometimes we can get the miss the misunderstanding that in biblical times there's just miracles that happen all the time. but what we actually have is when we're reading through scriptures, we have compressed history, compressed centuries to where there's probably years and years and years going by that are, that just seem very normal just like we're living our lives today and then God shows up on the scene or is doing something very special in particular to his people and then you have something happen that would just be just as freaky as if it were to happen today.

If Pastor Milton walked in today and, and he, before he began to preach, he said, Mike, I'd like you to take your keys out and throw them out on the floor, and I throw my keys out on the floor and it became a bunch of rats that start scurrying around the And then he says, I am a prophet of the Lord. I'm giving you new fresh revelation, We might say, OK, something's crazy going on here. Let's at least listen to what he has to say. that's the equivalent of what seems to be going on here.

By the way, how old is, Moses at this time? Yeah, he's 80 years old. We get that in the previous context out here. And Aaron is older or younger?

Anybody know? Yeah, he's 3 years older, so he's 83. So older brother is coming alongside with the younger brother. Let's look at verse 11, but Pharaoh Also called wise men and the sorcerers, so the magicians of Egypt.

so the magicians of Egypt, they also did like manner with their enchantments. We're going to come back to that, but I want to just point out We don't know how long, what, what the time period is. We don't know what Pharaoh's reaction was to seeing a a rod turned to a snake. but he does call in his own guys.

that are called wise men and sorcerers that seem to have a reputation for doing unusual things and the text says the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments, various translations of enchantments, but basically these guys come in. And the text just says in like manner. not with underneath the power of God, but with their enchantments. So let's keep that in mind.

It, Moses could have said that these magicians came in and And played their own trickery and. And falsified a magic trick. I think, Moses would have been sophisticated enough to say something like that, but he says that what they accomplished, they did it in like manner but through a different means, enchantments. verse 12.

for every man threw down his rod and they became serpents. Again, if we're just following the straightforward grammar, it seems like they had rods, they threw them down and they became serpents. The text could say they pretended to have rods and threw them down. And they became serpents, but the text doesn't quite say that.

But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. Verse 13, Pharaoh's heart grew hard. And he did not heed them as the Lord had said. So the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hard.

He refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning when he goes out to the water and you shall stand by the river's bank to meet him, the rod which was turned to a serpent, you shall take in your hand. So God's telling them, OK, so when Pharaoh goes out to the water, and it could be that Pharaoh was just going out to the water on this one occasion, as we apply a little bit of our understanding of history, it would not have been uncommon for Pharaoh to go down to the Nile because he's worshiping the God of the Nile.

In the morning.

That, that's a work, a speculation, but that would, could be a reasonable speculation. Verse 16. And you shall say to him, the Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to you, saying, Let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness, but indeed until now, you would not hear. Thus says the Lord, by this you shall know that I am the Lord or I am Yahweh.

Behold, I will strike the waters which are in the river with the rod that is in my hand, and they shall be turned to blood. And the fish that are in the river shall die and the river shall stink, and the Egyptians will loathe to drink the water of the river. The Lord spoke to Moses, say to Aaron, take your rod, stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their streams, over the rivers, over their ponds, over all the pools of water that they may become blood. And there shall be blood throughout the land of Egypt both in buckets of wood and pitchers of stone.

And Moses did so, and Aaron did so just as the Lord commanded. So he lifted up the rod, struck the waters. That were in the river In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. And the fish that were in the river died.

The river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river. And so there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. Now, if this is the first time that you read this story, this should be a pretty, another shocking statement. Raise your hand if you've ever seen water turn to blood.

I've never seen that. And so if you came to my house and I was washing dishes and you said, I have a word of the Lord for you and to demonstrate I'm speaking from the power of the Lord, I'm gonna turn all your dishwasher, dishwashing water to blood and you put your hand in it and it turned to blood. I would freak out. I might run out of the house or maybe I would say, OK, what do you have to say?

but this is a, this is an odd, odd occurrence. Notice that we're talking about rivers, ponds, pools of water. water that's in buckets as well as, water that would be in stone. Verse 22, then the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments.

And Pharaoh's heart grew hard and he did not heed them as the Lord had said. And Pharaoh turned and went into his house. Neither was his heart moved by this, so all the Egyptians dug all around the river for water to drink because they could not drink the water of the river. 7 days passed after the Lord had struck the river.

Anything strike you guys odd about this part of the narrative? Yeah, isn't it odd that the magicians, let's, let's look again at how it says in verse 22, the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments. So the magicians, they don't reverse the blood back to water. They do something in like manner, which begs the question, where did they even find this water to do so?

Because the previous statement sounds fairly all inclusive, doesn't it? Rivers, ponds, you've even got, buckets and things like that and to where the people of Israel are having to dig in the sand just to try to find something to drink. So this went on long enough to where people were, getting very thirsty. so I guess before we move on, what do you guys think of that?

How For I guess the first question would be What do we make of these magicians? Turning water into blood. And how could that happen when it seems like it's pretty all-inclusive what Moses and Aaron had done? Yep.

Yeah, it could be maybe there was one particular river and ponds, maybe the statement that seems to be all inclusive isn't as all inclusive as, as we would read. maybe that has to affect our interpretation. So if you go back to, where does he give the first statement? Verse 19, take your rod, stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt.

Over their streams, over their rivers, over their ponds, over their pools of water. I don't know, that sounds pretty all-inclusive to me. That would be my leaning to take that as like every possible source of water is being turned to blood. best stance Yeah Yeah So what are we to make of the magicians doing likewise then?

That's part of the problem, yep. How are they doing likewise? Yeah, that's well stated. How, how are they doing likewise if it's already been accomplished by Moses and Aaron?

Are they I don't know because the text, you have to remember the text is just given a straightforward read, right? so if it was quoting, if it was just quoting the magicians and they said, look, we are doing the same thing, then you might say, oh, they're just taking credit for it, but it's the narrator that tells us, which would be Moses himself. verse 22, then the Egyptians of Egypt did so with their enchantments, did so. With their enchantments.

somebody had a comment. What's your name again? Elliott, OK, yeah Yeah, that's a possibility. Maybe they dug into the sand like everybody else was doing.

They were looking for water, so they dug into the sand, they pulled water. That's one possibility. The other possibility and and again this is just speculation but there is precedent for this, is Hebrew literature as we've seen, doesn't always run chronological. A lot of times Hebrew literature will run with a certain structure without the implication that everything I'm telling you happened moment after moment.

And so it could be that Moses and Aaron did their miracle by the power of God and it went on for several days and everybody's trying to get water and then God relented, turned everything back to water, and then the sorcerers did their little display of it, took a couple of buckets, turned it to blood, and said, hey, we can do this too, and then Pharaoh's heart grows hard and then the, but the way it's being told is all together. the reason I bring that up is we have to be careful in Hebrew, Hebrew literature of expecting everything to run in a very Greek Roman type of way.

a Greco-Roman accounting of history, like, in the book of Acts, it seems like Luke is really giving us a blow by blow description of what happened in Paul's journeys, but you don't always get everything blow by blow in Hebrew literature. Sometimes it gets mixed together and they're more concerned with the structure, than what, whether it happened moment by moment.

Does that make sense? so all that to say that this to me is not, the original readers would not have read this and said, oh, there's a contradiction in the text. They would have read it and said, makes sense to me. There's good Jewish readers.

All right. So let's, let's ask some other questions of this, of this particular text. 11 of the things that just obviously stands out to us is, is the power of God. If we're going to read this text as literal narrative, as literal history, What God Are we talking about here that has the power to take an inanimate object and turn it into a living object and then turn it back into an inanimate object.

What God are we talking about here that can take water? And then turn it into blood. Yeah, this is an all-powerful God. And so, that, that would be one of the, the first things I would, I would mention.

The, and this has made over the years, this has made some Christians uncomfortable. In fact, it was not an uncommon practice at all in the early church for some of the early church fathers to spiritualize some of these stories, because they were embarrassed by them. they felt like if in order to have an impact on their Greco-Roman neighbors, the only that their Greco-Roman neighbors would reject them. As this is nonsense, how can we believe that God is even interested in doing these kinds of things with the world and with these fleshy type of objects, And so many times these stories would get spiritualized by some of the early church fathers.

In more modern times, when I say modern times, I'm talking about 1800s to the present, there's a theological term for this that we've introduced to you in the past. Anybody know what that German term is? Bless you. Yes, Gshika.

So, so the modern way to deal with a text like this is to say that this was never meant to be taken literally. This is Gshika. This is story for spiritual purposes. and so we're embarrassed by the idea that a stick could be turned to a snake, that water could be turned to blood, and so we turn it into geshikta.

To me, the part of my response to that is, is if we're gonna be embarrassed by God turning sticks into snakes, then why in the world would we believe in a flood? Why would we believe that God could speak the world into existence? Why in the world would you believe in the resurrection of somebody from the dead? I've, I've raise your hand if you've actually seen somebody raised from the dead.

I haven't. That's part of the nature of faith, and it's part of the nature of what we're seeing throughout the biblical text is that God who is powerful, does some pretty crazy, amazing things that shock everybody. But the other thing that to me is somewhat befuddling here is how Pharaoh can look at these miracles, and yet he does not listen to what Moses and Aaron are saying. I would have to think that, that Pharaoh, this is just speculation that Pharaoh had probably never seen water turn to blood.

Particularly all of the water in his land turned to blood. And yet when he saw such a miracle. not only did it not change his mind, but he grew even harder, in his disposition. so, but let's, let's ask, one other apologetic question before we move on to the second, plague.

how did the wise men and sorcerers duplicate the miracles given to Aaron? And Moses by God. If we believe the biblical text, the narrative of the text, as Christians, we, we don't really have a problem with God giving them the ability to perform these miracles, right? This is what God consistently did whenever he brought new fresh revelation on the scene.

It was very typical for God to also grant those prophets the ability to do miraculous signs to verify that they were indeed messengers of God, right? So when Elijah shows up on the scene, he's doing some pretty amazing miracles. Moses shows up on the scene. When Jesus shows up, all of a sudden he's healing people, he's doing things.

People are saying, never have we ever heard a man speak like this and never have we seen such works like this. And so Jesus set himself apart as the Son of God and as the spokesman for God, with the miracles that he performed. So how is it that we have these sorcerers or magicians or wise men. Performing such deeds.

What do you guys think? Yeah, Cynthia. OK. Yeah, so maybe like the prince of Egypt, Moses and Aaron are, are doing true miracles and they're like, maybe they know something about chemistry or they've learned, certain things and they've been able to, to fool people.

Like Gary? Good. Yeah, so Gary's bringing up the fact that God is actually using all of this to harden Pharaoh's heart so that he might magnify his own glory. he's going to actually show more signs and so that actually kinda what Gary's going after there is my leaning of what's going on here, even though it's a little bit of an uncomfortable answer, let's give a couple of different ideas that have been suggested by different people.

some would say they didn't duplicate these miracles, because neither did Moses and Aaron perform these miracles because miracles are impossible. OK, so that would be one answer is you just, you don't believe in the supernatural, you're a naturalist and so you just deny all this. It's just nonsense because miracles don't happen. another possibility is this is Gshika, not literal history, so we're not, we're not meant to be taking any of this literally.

It's just story. For a spiritual purpose. Another response could be that the sorcerers use sleight of hand, not magic, like the prince of Egypt. And some people suggest that.

And I think that is possible. The thing that I have trouble with is the text. Moses had the ability to say something like they use sleight of hand. Hebrew writers are not.

there's, they're not, there are terms in Hebrew like trickery that could have been accessed by Moses to say that they, that they just use trickery in order to accomplish these feats, but the text says in like manner they turned their rods into snakes and so from a straightforward reading that would make me think that There was something duplicated here, but as we find out later, they weren't able to duplicate all of the, the signs, but at least the early ones with the snakes and with the water and blood.

And so, what I want to suggest is a couple of things. Some of it gets to what Gary was pointing out. First of all, is the Bible indicates that one of Satan's tactics is his efforts to deceive humankind.

in his efforts to deceive humankind is to employ counterfeit miracles. So when you consider, for instance, actually, I think I have the scripture verse here for you. Yeah, there it is. Revelation 14 would just be one place.

and I saw three unclean spirits like frogs. It's interesting that they mentioned frogs in this, apocalyptic literature situation, coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, out of the mouth of the false prophet, for they are spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. And so Here we see spirits of demons. Performing signs.

That results in, or at least has the purpose of gathering kings, to this great battle against the Lord. so there, there does seem to be, Within scripture, the devil can seek to duplicate signs of, of the Lord, and we're actually warned against that. even in the, in that judgment scene where, you have the sheep and the goats and people say, didn't we do many wonders in your name? And Jesus says, depart from me, I never knew you.

And so these people were, were performing something that they thought was coming from the Lord but it wasn't. I wanna take it a little bit further though, and this is going back to where Gary said is God decreed the hardening of Pharaoh and use various means to accomplish this hardening. And so there's about, there's 4 different times where God says that he was gonna harden Pharaoh's heart. And then there's several times where it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

And so one of the places would be like Exos 4:21, and the Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. So there's a connection here between the signs that Moses was supposed to put on display and the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. Moses and Aaron put on display true signs. then God in his decree is, is involved in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart.

and it's, it appears to be, and I could be reading into this, that, that part of what could have been involved in the hardening of Pharaoh's heart is he pulls out his own guys and they perform something that is of like nature to the signs and then basically says, your God's not so powerful. I've got, I've got my own miracle workers. and that God in His decree was actually willing to allow that to happen as part of the hardening process. Acts 9, I wish I would have.

I was listening to this verse earlier today. But there's a repetition of that hardening process in chapter 9 of Exodus. I don't know if anybody wants to search it out for me. Now, it was excess 9.

If somebody has time to look, there's, there's another place in chapter 9. Where the Lord restates. His role In hardening Pharrell's heart. Where's it at?

Is it 12? But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not heed them just as the Lord spoke to Moses. That's one place, but there's another place where he's describing to Moses. How he's using the signs and how that's connected to the hardening.

if anybody finds it, we'll bring it back up later. Let me, let me point us to this passage. We see similar phenomena happening in the tribulation period. so in 2 Thessalonians, we have this.

Paul says, then the, the lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan. So this lawless one which most within our circles would identify as the anti-Christ. he comes with the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders.

When you see power and signs together, this is, these are terms that refer to miraculous events. Things that would be like, that's not natural, that's moving into the supernatural, but clearly this is supernatural stuff that's being assigned to the devil, right? Or to the, the working of Satan. So with all power, signs and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, now get the causal here because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

So they didn't want the truth. and so here comes the Anti-Christ with all lying deceptive powers. And the reason, verse 11, for this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie that they may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. That is a crazy, crazy verse, and I say that in all respect.

What we see here is God is the creator and we are not. That God is so in control of everything, that here we have the anti-Christ coming using satanic deception. To help delude people who did not want the truth. And underneath God's decree, God is not, if you follow the grammar here, he's not just allowing it, he's decreeing it.

He's basically saying, you didn't want the truth. Here's a lie you can believe. And, and so, the anti-Christ becomes a dog on the chain for the Lord to bring about the destruction at the end. And I think there may be something similar going on with Pharaoh, where God is, he's given these incredible signs to, that should convince anybody.

Pharaoh brings out his own magicians, which I think by the text are actual. Miraculous spiritual events that are performed in the power of Satan. That is used in God's sovereign decree to harden Pharaoh's heart, if that makes any sense at all. Now, if you guys don't, if you, if you don't understand the concept of decrees and 1st, 2nd causation, which you don't need to know that word for second causation, then you might be like, whoa, this is tripping me out.

But there does seem to be on the pages of scripture, this idea that God is sovereign over all things and yet human beings are 100% responsible. We call this divine compatibility. I think we see divine compatibility right here in this text of God hardening Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh also hardening his own heart and all the different means that are being used in this hardening process. So, to define this, and I could email this out to you guys later if you want, but here's how I define, define divine compatibility.

God, our Creator accomplishes all the decrees of His holy will. He accom everything he purposes to do will be accomplished. we are moral responsible creatures who act upon our own wills. Pharaoh is a moral responsible creature who act upon his, acted upon his own will.

The will of the creature does not negate the will of the creator. The will of the creature does not negate the will of the Creator. So is Pharaoh responsible for his actions? Yes.

Do his actions negate the will of and decrees of Almighty God? No. because God decrees certain things, does that make the creature not responsible for their actions? No, divine compatibility basically says that because God is Creator and we're as creatures, there's things that happen within his universe that we could not possibly understand because we're just merely creatures.

God can control all. Human beings are 100% responsible for their actions. God can rightly judge, but yet his causation is primary. We call it the in Westminster Confession of Faith, they call it, first causation.

Somebody had a hand or it's Dan, yeah. The I think might be the last two Oh, OK. Chapter 9. So it's at the end of chapter 9?

OK. OK, and when Pharaoh saw that the rain, the hail, and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet more and hardened his heart and he and his servants, and so the heart of Pharaoh was hard, neither would he let the children of Israel go as the Lord had spoken by Moses. Yeah, maybe. I'll have to go back and.

I'll keep going into the chapter 10. OK, and the Lord said to Moses, go into Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his servants, OK, that I may show these signs of mine before him. Yeah, that's it. And that you may tell the, in the hearing of your son, and your son's sons, the mighty things I have done in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.

Yeah, that's it. There, the Lord, you get the whole historical backdrop and the, and what God is actually doing in history here, that there's something much bigger going on that he's, he's moving history along. He's hardening Pharaoh's hearts that he may bring in more wonders and signs with the ultimate purpose that Israel would be telling these worship stories. Remember what our God did back there in Egypt?

And so God has in mind, as he's accomplishing these things, Israel sitting around the campfire as it were, telling all these God glorifying stories. Look how mighty our God is. And, and so that becomes part of the whole process. So what, what God is this that can spin all these plates?

And if you were, if I were to be the one who is doing this as a human being, you'd call me a mafia boss, right? Because a creature could not possibly accomplish these kinds of things and not be held culpable, but God is God. He's creator and he's in charge of all these things. Anyway, so, To me, just some just amazing stuff.

One final thing, was there any other, did somebody else have a hand up? Yeah, Barbara. It's true. That's a great point.

Yeah, Pharaoh's not just an individual human king, he's considered a god, right, in Egypt. So that's a great point. So God, the true God is hardening the heart of a false god and, and his officers too. It, it, it throws his servants in the mix as well.

Let me make one other point, before we move on here. It, it seems, to wrap up this whole discussion about the The false, the sorcerers and whatnot. We do have a reference in 2 Timothy 3:8 to Jannus and Jambres. Nowhere in this text are any names mentioned of the sorcerers, but in the New Testament, there is this mention of Janus and Jambrees which would come out of Jewish tradition that these were names of a, of a couple of the people that were involved in the sorcery and, and in Jewish tradition, these two of these sorcerers.

would have actually converted and joined Israel in their exodus but then later tried to lead Israel into idolatry and, and were destroyed at some point later. but, one of my, my theories, and you guys can tar and feather me if you want, But I think the scripture holds us out and we see it in history. Is that the devil, he obviously is a liar and he's, he, he, he's always looking out to see what God is doing. And then he tries to mimic and he tries to falsify, give some false, mirroring of what God is doing in history.

And so God's true servants come. And perform true miracles and he brings in his lying signs and wonders, which can't match up, but they, they could deceive some, right? And when you look at, if you've ever taken a, a world religions class, ever taken a world's religions class at a university? One of the things that they, it's interesting how they always pick on Christianity.

Christianity becomes the, the whipping boy throughout the whole class. And virtually every religion you look at, they'll try to draw comparisons to Christianity and say, see, Christianity is not the only one who has a savior that rose from the dead. Christianity is not the only religion that has a trinity. Christianity is not the only religion, and they'll make all these comparisons to try to basically convince you that Christianity is not unique.

But as you actually do the research, there may be some similarities, but there's always some offshoot that's completely different and it's just not surprising to me. That the devil tries to mimic truth with his heir. We've seen it from the very beginning. And so when you take your world religions class and you find some of these, what is it, Ashraths and some of the other religions that have their savior figures that allegedly rose from the dead with completely different impact because most of these religions don't really see rising from the dead as a good thing, they see it as a bad thing.

Don't be freaked out by that. The devil's been in the business of doing this for a long time. he's always trying to tear down the truth with a lie. And the, the other thing that we can walk away with here is, is God's true prophets always come.

in his true power. When God is raising up true spokesmen who are giving fresh revelation, He gives them the ability to do things that are undeniably miraculous. Jesus healed blind people that everybody knew they were blind. Jesus took someone who didn't have a hand and gave him a hand.

I, I don't know how many times when I was younger I had people heal me of ailments that I never knew I had. They just walk up, and tell me you've got one leg shorter than the other. Can I pray for you? Sure.

They prayed for me and they said, you're healed, and this leg that I had no idea was shorter than the other leg has now been healed. And they would, then begin to tell me thus says the Lord and give me some word from the Lord. Those aren't the kinds of things that God's in the business of doing. Even during the New Testament period, on the pages of scripture, we have this phenomenon called speaking in tongues, which is the King James language for speaking in languages, speaking in foreign languages, and people could miraculously, just like we see in Acts 2, people miraculously spoke in foreign languages.

And people who actually knew that language that they, they were there on the day of Pentecost said, how are these Jews speaking in our language, languages? That was a sign that could be tested and everybody was like, whoa, something special is going on here from the Holy Spirit. The concept of ecstatic speech that where people just mumble nonsense that has no known grammar or meaning, was very common in the New Testament period amongst all of the mystery religions. Even to this day, you will find tongue speakers, so to speak, in Hinduism, you'll find tongue speakers in Buddhism.

Every false religion you can imagine, you're going to find tongue speakers. But what you're not going to find is people who have never studied a human language suddenly stand up and start speaking in a foreign language that they had never studied previously. That's a sign that can be verified. That's a sign that was verified in Acts chapter 2.

And so as we're trying to evaluate today, God's true spokesman, at Cornerstone, we're gonna first of all tell you that we know who God's true spokesmen are because it's been revealed to us in his finished complete word, is that we have the all sufficient written word now and as long as they're preaching from this book, And they're being faithful to the text and they have the right hermeneutic and so on and so forth, we'd say these are God's true spokesmen. You're not looking for Pastor Milton this morning to throw a, a rod on the ground and see it turn into a snake in order for us to listen to him because we have his written word.

But if all of a sudden Pastor Milton got up this morning and said, I'm gonna give you a fresh new revelation. Add this in your Bibles, put this in Revelation 25 or something, Then we should expect to see something on the level of water being turned into blood, staves being turned into snakes.

Human languages being spoken, me, Milton suddenly stands up and is starting to speak, Swahili, and he's never studied it before. And then somebody from, who knows that language stands up and says, how do my language? That's the type of stuff that would be happening if God is giving fresh, new divine revelation that would go beyond the scriptures. Any questions you guys have on that?

Yep. Say it again. Acts chapter 2. Yeah, Acts chapter 2 is the only place in the New Testament that gives us the actual content of the glossalia, the languages.

1 Corinthians 12 to 14 talks about the concept of glossalia, but never really tells us what the content is. Acts 2 Acts 2 tells us the content that they were speaking in human languages, the praises of God. And the people who knew those languages were, were amazed that these Jewish people and Peter has to stand up and say, hey, these guys aren't drunk. These guys have been filled with the Holy Spirit.

That's how they're doing this miraculous thing that you see this day. All right, let's, let's move on with our last 7 minutes and talk about, the Passover. By the way, I emailed you guys out a handout on the 10 plagues that compares the 10 plagues to 10 different Egyptian deities and it's a pretty cool exercise that you could do on your own or you could do it with your family. So I'll leave that up to you guys.

Let's open up to X's 12 now. And let's, let's talk about the Passover here. Exos 12 starting in verse 1. Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying, this month, I shall be Your beginning of months shall be the first month of the year to you.

This is Nissan or Habib, So this shall be the beginning of months to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. So the head of the household was supposed to take a lamb for that household. If the household's too small for a lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of persons according to each man's need.

you shall make the count of the lamb or for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male over the first year. You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats. just because goats are involved here, we don't press every single picture in every single context throughout the Bible.

So when you have the sheep and the goats judgment, that doesn't mean that goats are always bad in every single text of scripture. Does that make sense? That's sometimes a misunderstanding, with younger students of hermeneutics. We find a picture in one category or one part of scripture, and they want to press it throughout the whole Bible.

No, this is telling us that lambs and goats were acceptable. For the Passover. verse 6, now you shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. So at twilight, I don't know if you've ever gone on YouTube and watched a a slaying of an animal.

Anybody ever seen a, I, I didn't grow up on a farm. Nate, you've probably seen this all kinds of times, right? You guys slay, you guys slay pigs or do you guys have hogs? OK.

Or cattle, but did you guys have any hogs? OK. I have heard hogs yelling before they get killed. I don't know if you guys have ever been heard that.

Those things are allowed before they get slaughtered. But if you've never really grown up on a farm, the slaughter of an animal can be a traumatic experience. Did, how old were you, Nate, the first time you saw dad or mom slay a head of cattle? About 7?

And how did that impact you? And what method did they use on your, your guys' ranch? OK. OK, OK.

So in, so in this case, this was not, this would not be a rifle or just a hammer to the head. This is a slitting of the throat, of the animal, blood gushing out, the animal still retaining life for a while and kicking and, and screaming. So at twilight, this killing takes place of this animal. and then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the two, doorposts and on the lintels, so that'd be over the top of the, the entryway of the house where they eat it.

Then they shall eat the flesh on that night roasted in fire with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs, and they shall eat it. Do not eat it raw nor boil it at all with the water, but roast it on fire. Its head with its legs and its entrails. So the whole thing.

Those of you guys that like liver and onions, this is your chance for liver and onions and everything else that's in the animal. You shall let none of it remain until morning. What remains of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. Verse 10 is a, a wonderful Hebrew idiom.

It's one of my favorite Hebrew idioms. It's like, you shall allow none of it, but whatever's left over, you shall burn it. That's just, that's just a Hebrewism happens all the time. It's like, it's like where Paul, Paul's getting real Jewish when he says, I didn't baptize any of you except for this guy and this guy and that guy.

That's just something that you see all over Hebrew writing and it's something that I, I have fun. I just, I just like that part of Hebrew literature. Verse 11, and thus you shall eat it with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hands. So you shall eat of it in haste.

it is the Lord's Passover. So you can almost imagine, anybody, anybody served any time in the military? Anybody here military folks? OK.

Gary, did you guys, when you guys sat down for a meal in the mess hall, especially like say during boot camp or something like that, did you guys eat nice leisurely pace or how did you guys eat those meals? Fast. And if you didn't eat fast enough, what happened? Right.

so we're talking military style eating. This wasn't, hey, let's have a nice leisurely meal with the family. It's slit the throat, burn the beast, eat everything. All the entrails as fast as you can.

So say it again, yeah, in uniform, yeah, staff in hand, you're ready to go, is the idea here, for I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and will strike all the firstborn of. the land of Egypt, both man and beast against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the house where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

It came to pass at midnight. That the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt for the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in his dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. So Pharaoh rose in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, and there was not a house where there was not one dead. This is just a horrific scene.

actually, the Prince of Egypt, the way it does this, I don't know if you guys have seen that film, but I, I like the way they portrayed this part of the scene. You do have a, a real sense of just the, the terror of the Lord and, the spookiness of what's going on here. Oh yeah, Shyin's version, the rap version of this is pretty amazing. if you guys have ever heard that.

But you have basically twilight, so depending on what time of year it was, anywhere between 5 and 8 o'clock at night and to kill and eat, midnight comes and, and the, the angel of the Lord is going throughout executing the first born. And for Israel, I, I don't imagine Israel bunkering in their homes, hearing the wailing rise up around them and everybody high fiving each other like, yeah, right. I imagine the fear of the Lord falling upon Israel as well. Why have we been spared?

Why has God passed over us? And, and as we know from a New Testament perspective, the only reason God has passed over us is because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, not because of our own righteousness. let me, you guys don't need to turn here because we're out of time, but just as we look at some of the New Testament passages, John the Baptist, when he points out Jesus, he says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This would have been immediately understood by by the Jews that were following him.

1 Corinthians 5:7 says, therefore purge out the old leaven. that you may be a new lump since you truly are, a leavened, for indeed Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. Much more than having been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him, Romans 5:9. Right juxtapose, you have wrath and mercy.

You have God passing over land, taking people out in His justice, and yet sparing others in His mercy. and it is only by faith in Christ alone that we receive such mercy. So this should fill us, with what the Puritans called, they would frequently refer to the idea of, the Both the terror and the hope of the Lord. They would talk about the two horns of the altar, the fear of the Lord and the hope that we have in the Lord, is that we understand of the judgment that we all deserve and God's power to execute judgment in His holiness, and yet the great mercy that he has shown us that if we would just simply believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we can be saved from the wrath to come.

And as we've seen, In, in up in the text up until this point, God's pattern is consistent. There is wrath to come. We saw wrath in the flood. We saw wrath in Sodom and Gomorrah.

We see wrath here on the night of the Passover. And yet God has made a provision for all who come into the ark, for those that would be taken out of the city. That for those that would put the blood upon their doorposts can be saved from that wrath to come. And that's ultimately what salvation is, right?

Salvation isn't merely believe in Jesus so our lives will get better. Believe in Jesus so that we'll find more peace, inner, inner peace and fulfillment. if I, if, if what you're looking for is just a, you just want to have a deep inner sense of peace, try Buddhism. that's the, that's the goal, right?

In Buddhism, you're looking for inner peace and a, a sense of where you stand in the universe. In Christ, there is such a thing as peace, but there is, an escape of wrath that is first and foremost, bringing into the family of God, and then a time of testing that we go through in this life as we look for the ultimate peace in heaven. Yeah, Brian has one thing that we'll pray. good.

That was pretty good. That's well practiced. Is that back from your narco days or? Something like that.

Cool. All right, I'll be up here for, if there's any questions you guys have, I don't know. Am I just deceived or is this just really killer material? I'm just really enjoying going through exos with you guys and yeah.

And just that every week, it just seems like there's stuff that's popping out of our curriculum that's just very exciting. Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we just thank you that, you are, first of all, you're our Creator and Almighty. You're the one who brings true wonders, true signs, true miracles, and while the devil may bring his deceptive signs to try to deceive, you have given us your word, you've given us the spirit, and you are the one that protects us and We just pray, Father, that you'd help us to constantly stay in your word, that you protect us from deception.

any one of us could be prone to being deceived, but we thank you that as we stay close to you, that you're the one that holds us in your hand. We pray, Father, that You would help us to walk humbly before you recognizing that we're not saved from the wrath to come because we're so much better than everybody else in our culture. Lord, we've just, been able to, to hear from your spirit. We've believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.

We pray that our many friends and family would also believe, in you. thank you, Lord, for just, our children being able to study the same material. We pray that you be with them and ask you just bless Pastor Milton as he preaches to us this morning from the Psalms as we worship you in Christ's name. Amen.

All right, I'll be up here for a few minutes if you wanna chat, and then we'll be back next week, lesson 9.