EXODUS 9-162012 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Exodus 9-16

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2012. Continuing on in the book of Exodus, looking at chapters 9 through 16 this evening, which of course are the chapters that we've read this week in going through the Bible in three years.

The book of Exodus, the word Exodus means exit or departure because, as we'll see this week, it's about the children of Israel leaving the nation of Egypt, leaving the bondage that they were in, and now heading out into the wilderness. And so it's called exit or departure. It was written by Moses during the time of their wandering, roughly 1526 to 1446.

or 1406, somewhere in that time frame, Moses recorded these things for us. And also in addition to recording the Exodus, it records the covenant that God made with the Hebrew nation, as we will see this coming week and a little bit tonight, as the children of Israel go out of Egypt and then they meet with God at Mount Sinai and God establishes his covenant with them. And we'll see that

developed yet further this coming week in our reading. Well, on our timeline, we have covered a lot of ground as we've looked at the book of Genesis. It's the majority of the timeline of the books of Moses. Now we're looking at Exodus, and we're kind of looking at the back end of Exodus. Right there, you see the big wilderness bar that goes down? We're in that time frame right there. As the

and are going to spend 40 years in the wilderness. And so that's the time period we're looking at when we are reading through the book of Exodus. Now, for those who haven't been around, we do have a little handout on the back table called the Books of Moses, and it has this timeline in there. So if you want a little bit of a closer look, you can pick that up off the back table and get a better look at the timeline. So we're coming historically as far

chronologically rather, you know, towards the end of the books of Moses. We're covering some territory in Exodus. We'll cover a little bit more in Numbers. And then Leviticus and Deuteronomy kind of fit in there. They don't further on the chronology of the books of Moses. So that's the timeline. We're just about to the end. And again, we're covering that time as Israel leaves Egypt and heads into the wilderness.

Quick look at the geography again of the book of Exodus. We're dealing with the nation of Egypt there towards the left where the children of Israel are. You might remember they went there originally because of Joseph and Joseph rose and became second in command of the nation of Egypt. And so he brought all of his family, his father, his 11 brothers all into the land of Egypt and they've been there for 400 years.

And now God is going to lead them out. They were in the land of Goshen for that time. And now God's going to deliver them from Egypt and the bondage that they're in there.

We also have the Sinai wilderness, which we'll be talking about this evening in our portion. We have the area known as Midian, which is where Moses spent 40 years out in the wilderness being a shepherd before God called him back to talk to Pharaoh and lead the people out. We have, of course, the land of Canaan there, right on the coast of the Mediterranean, which is the land that God had promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Abraham.

and to Jacob, and that's where he's ultimately going to lead the children of Israel into. It's the promised land, the land of Canaan that God had promised to them. The Sinai here that I'm showing you, this is the traditional location of Sinai and Mount Sinai. There are some alternate perspectives that we'll talk about as we get to that portion later on this evening. Well, this evening as we start in chapter 9, we're jumping right into the middle of the 10 plagues that God is bringing upon Egypt.

He's bringing these plagues upon Egypt because Pharaoh will not let the people go. Moses went to Pharaoh in Exodus chapter 5 and requested that the children of Israel be allowed to leave into the wilderness a three days journey to worship the Lord. And then they would come back after that time of feast and worshiping the Lord.

But Pharaoh said no, and God told him ahead of time that Pharaoh was going to say no. And so God said, well, I'm going to have to show some signs and wonders to convince Pharaoh to let you go. And so these plagues that we see are the signs and wonders that God is performing

To the nation of Egypt, specifically to the Pharaoh, so that he knows that God is the Lord. And so that he will let the nation of Israel go. And each time as these plagues come, he is hardening his heart and refusing to let the people go.

And so last week we saw the first four plagues where the water was turned to blood there. The Nile River was turned to blood in chapter 7. And then in chapter 8 we saw the frogs, the plague where there was just frogs all over the place and everywhere. Then there was the lice that came up out of the dust that were everywhere. And then the flies or the swarms of insects that came and were completely covering everything within the land of Egypt.

And there in the fourth plague, we see a difference happening. The first three plagues affected all the land of Egypt. But from the fourth plague on, it only affects the land of Egypt and the land of Goshen where the children of Israel are.

is safe or preserved from these plagues. And so the children of Israel are protected from the last six plagues or seven plagues, and they only affect Egypt. So the flies is really just upon the region of Egypt, but not Goshen. The children of Israel are protected from that plague. God makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel to show that he is God. This is not just some, you know, crazy weather patterns or some just weather

weird things from nature. This is the hand of God working, and he proves that by making a distinction between Israel and Egypt. Now, God's purpose throughout all of this was that they might know that I am the Lord.

In Exodus chapter 7 verse 5, God tells Moses, the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them. And this is very important to understand. Sometimes it's

portrayed by some that, you know, God is angry, that he is just, he loves to bring, you know, punishment and judgment upon people. And, you know, you kind of had this visual of, you know, God kind of giggling a little bit as he throws down these plagues upon the nation of Egypt. God is not just, you know, having a good time and making people suffer. He is...

seeking to reveal himself to the land of Egypt. And they are resistant to it. And so he's doing these signs and wonders that they would know. He's in their face saying, open your eyes, pay attention. I really am God. You need to turn away from your false gods and worship me. And so God is dealing with the false gods of Egypt.

There's another handout for those who weren't here. This yellow handout on the back table talks about the gods that the Egyptians would worship. There was a multitude of gods that they would worship. And the 10 plagues that we see really correspond with the gods that they were worshiping, where God is saying, look, that's a false god. I reign on high. I'm the true and living God. And those things that you're worshiping are not gods.

And so God is calling out to the Egyptians and saying, hey, I am the Lord. This is the purpose of these plagues in addition to bringing them to the point that they will let the nation of Israel go. And so that brings us now to Exodus chapter 9 where we continue on looking at the different plagues. The key verse of chapter 9 is verse 35.

It says, so the heart of Pharaoh was hard. Neither would he let the children of Israel go as the Lord had spoken by Moses. And so as these plagues are being poured out upon the nation of Egypt, we continue to see the heart of Pharaoh be hard, that he is resistant. He's being stubborn. He will not let Israel go.

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Pharaoh, as we see the children of Israel in a few chapters, really challenging the Lord, complaining against the Lord, fighting against the Lord. I would suggest to you that these are very accurate representations of our own selves.

That we are quick to say, oh man, I can't believe they would do that. But if we'll just take a moment to think about and compare it to ourselves, we'll recognize, hey, I've been like Pharaoh many times in my life where God has been in my face and said, hey, this is what I want. And I've said, no, not going to happen. I don't think so.

And so we need to be careful that we don't be so quick to judge because, well, they're really demonstrating the tendency, the capacity of our own hearts. And it's a good challenge for us. Is your heart hard or is it soft? Even as we've been discussing on Sunday mornings with the parable of the sower, that

that necessity for us to be soft, to be obedient to the Lord, even when we don't like what he has to say, or we don't agree, or we don't think it's the best option. We need to be obedient to God. But Pharaoh refuses. His heart is hard. And so now God brings the fifth plague upon the land of Egypt, and that is a pestilence or a disease of the livestock there in verses one through seven.

It's a very severe disease because it indicates in the text that they all died in one day. And so if you could imagine throughout all the land of Egypt, we don't know exactly how much livestock they had, but it was probably an abundant amount of livestock. And overnight, they're dead. Overnight, this disease rips through the territory, rips through the land, and all of the livestock are dead.

Well, Pharaoh still is resistant. He still refuses to let the people go. And so then we have the sixth plague, which is the boils there in verses 8 through 12. These boils that break out upon the Egyptians, the Hebrew for these words is a little bit graphic. It's basically a sore that bursts.

So if you could picture sores all over your body, and then they burst, that is what these boils were. And so it was these open sores, open wounds that would be all over the Egyptians as this plague is going on.

It says even there in Exodus chapter 9 verse 11 that the magicians could no longer stand before Moses because of the boils. And so we saw previously last week the magicians were kind of competing with Moses. You know, hey, you want to turn water to blood? We can do that. You want to turn your rod to snakes? We could do that. But then they weren't able to make lice come up out of the dust.

And now they're not even able to appear. They are ashamed. They're proven that they have no real power because they also are included in this plague where these boils break out all over their body. Well, then we have still Pharaoh resisting, refusing. And so now the seventh plague comes and it's the plague of hail there in verses 13 through 35. So now...

the vegetation, the remainder of the livestock are impacted by the hail that is poured out. This immense, this crazy hail that comes down and destroys their crops and much of their, the things that they were counting on. Now, Pastor Chuck points out something interesting that

The timing of this plague is probably around the time of February, so probably around the time that we are now in the year, because of the crop that it mentions, how it talks about the barley and the flax were in the process of ripening, that places this around the time of February that this plague hit. Now, we know the final plague, the 10th plague, which we'll get to in a couple of chapters, happens...

towards the end of March, early April, because it corresponds with the Passover. And so there's, it kind of gives you a little bit of a sense of the timeframe here, that it's not, you know, day upon day upon day, but these are a little bit spread out so that the seventh plague of hail happens about a month and a half to two months before the 10th plague, where the firstborn is killed. And so you can kind of see this is happening over a process of time.

as Pharaoh continues to resist and refuse to let the children of Israel go. Well, as we look at Exodus chapter 9, I think we need to just bring up and touch upon briefly the subject of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. We talked a little bit about it last week, but it is an important subject because God declares ahead of time,

To Moses, before Moses ever goes to Pharaoh, he declares ahead of time that he will harden Pharaoh's heart.

And so there comes some conflicts sometimes within us and within our understanding because, well, we begin to feel like, well, if God hardened Pharaoh's heart, then does that mean Pharaoh had no choice? And how could that be fair if God forced him to refuse and then brought plagues upon him to punish him as a result? But the reality is, although God declares ahead of time that he will harden Pharaoh's heart,

It doesn't actually happen until chapter 9. In chapter 7, we see in verse 13, it says Pharaoh's heart grew hard. In verse 7 here of chapter 9, it says the heart of Pharaoh became hard. But then in verse 12, it says the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh. And so Pharaoh has already hardened his own heart several times. He's already refused and said no, no, no, no, no.

And then now God is hardening Pharaoh's heart. And so the picture is quite clear. It's not that Pharaoh really wanted to have a soft heart and to, you know, be kind to Israel and let them go out and worship the Lord. He wanted to have his own way. And so what God is doing in hardening Pharaoh's heart is he's confirming the decision that Pharaoh has made.

And so there's issues that you can wrestle with if you want to on the sovereignty of God. And you can join with the Apostle Paul in that in Romans chapter 9. He brings up this subject and wrestles with it a little bit. But the picture that we see here is that Pharaoh says no, he doesn't want to let them go. He refuses several times. And so God strengthens him or confirms him in that decision. And so hardens his heart after Pharaoh has already hardened it.

There's also a couple of different words for the hardening of the heart that play into this as well. Because when it talks about Pharaoh hardening his own heart, it's the word kabod. It means to be heavy or to make weighty. He's hardening his heart. When it talks about the Lord hardening Pharaoh's heart, it's a different word. It means to strengthen, to repair, or to fortify.

And so basically God is strengthening Pharaoh in his decision, in his decision to harden his heart and refuse to let the people go. Now as we look at the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, it's important for us to consider not just to understand what happened then, but also to understand that your choices have real consequences. Your choices have real meaning.

And even if you don't realize it at the time, your choices have meaning. They carry weight. And so when you and I choose to harden our heart, even if we don't fully understand the picture, when God has spoken to us and we choose, no, I'm not going to do that, or I'm going to do it a different way,

It has real meaning when we make that choice. And there's some real consequences that go along with that, even if we don't fully understand that at the time. How many times have you, just think about just your normal, regular life, how many times have you wanted to take back a decision after you learned what it really meant?

You ever make a decision and then it's not till after the decision is made, you're a couple steps into it and you realize, oh, that's what I agreed to. I didn't realize that's what I was agreeing to.

In the same way, the decisions that we make, the decisions we make every day, a hundred times a day, whether or not to believe God at his word, whether or not to walk in his ways, whether or not to obey him, whether or not to spend time with him, those decisions have real meaning and consequences. And so if you decide not to spend time with God today, you might not understand what that really means and what the consequences of that will be.

And when you get into the consequences, you're like, oh, if I would have known, well, then I would have spent time with the Lord. I would have continued on in that relationship with Him. We just kind of go through and make decisions real flippantly without fully understanding that they have real meaning. And so it's really important that as we make decisions, that we make good decisions, that we base our lives upon the Word of God, that these are not just meaningless things, that they don't have any impact, right?

realize and understand that the decision for the rest of eternity is based upon the things that we choose now in this life. God gives you the opportunity of this life to prepare yourself for eternity. And what you do right here, right now, in the short time that we have, affects the rest of eternity.

Whether that means, well, you spend eternity in judgment or eternity in heaven. Whether that means you have much reward in heaven or little reward in heaven. What you do right now, the choices that you make today will affect you for the rest of eternity. And Pharaoh is making these choices. He doesn't understand that.

the conclusion that's going to happen because of the choices that he's making. But that doesn't mean that the choices don't have meaning and consequences. And so he's saying no, even though it will bring his ultimate destruction. He's saying no. Our choices have meaning. It's the case for us as well. I remember one time when I was young,

I had a friend and he had a little brother and we were all at the house and we were, you know, horsing around, having a good time. And we had this long hallway. And so me and my friend, we were running as fast as we could down the hallway and then sliding on our socks, you know, down the carpet and trying to see how far we could get. We're just, you know, kids having a good time. And our parents came around the corner and saw us doing that. They said, hey, that's not a good idea. You should not be doing that.

And then the parents kept going around the corner and we're like, okay, they're gone. Coast is clear. All right, let's go. And so, well, we're continuing to do it. And his little brother walks in the way as we're sliding down the hallway. And I forget if it was him or me, I'm not even sure. But we kick his feet out from under him. He hits the ground, has the wind knocked out of him.

He can't breathe. He's starting to turn blue. The parents are freaking out because now we're screaming. And I mean, the kid was okay at the end, but it really, you know, brought some fear upon me. And it's basically like what we're looking at with the Pharaoh. Our hearts were hard. Parents said, no, you shouldn't do that. We said, what's the harm? We can do what we want. We didn't understand the whole picture.

We didn't think about someone could get hurt. That wasn't in the, we didn't have any idea that that could happen. In the same way, when God says things to us, we can't just dismiss it and say, I got it under control, God. I got it figured out. It's okay. I've got it. Listen, you're going to hurt somebody. You don't realize it, but that decision has real meaning and consequences for you and for others.

And that's why it's so important to spend time in the Word, to know the Word, and to seek God on those decisions that we have to make. And let Him lead us and guide us. Each time we hear God and ignore, it causes our heart to become hard. And you may not want this, but as you say no to those little things that God is speaking, ultimately it will harden your heart to where you say no to God completely. You can't play around with saying no to God, with ignoring His Word.

You can't play around with that. And so our choices have real meaning and real consequences. Well, now we head into Exodus chapter 10, the key verse is verse 24. It says, then Pharaoh called Moses, or called to Moses and said, go serve the Lord. Only let your flocks and your herds be kept back. Let your little ones also go with you. We've already seen this. We saw this last week where Pharaoh now tries to negotiate.

Okay, okay, I'll let you go, but here's the conditions. And in order for Moses to agree to the deal that Pharaoh is offering, he has to disobey God.

And so Moses wisely says, no, this is what God said. This is what we're going to do. Pharaoh says, hey, how about you go ahead and go, but just keep your flocks and your herds back. Just don't take your animals with you and then you can go out. Sounds like almost a pretty good deal. Okay, all right. Well, I guess that's the best we can get. But when God has spoken, we must stick to it.

Well, we see Pharaoh continuing to resist the plan of God, the will of God, the command of God. And so God brings now the eighth plague, which is locusts. Now, much of the crops, much of their food has already been destroyed by the hail and the other things that have taken place. Now the locusts come in verses 1 through 20, and the locusts are a grasshopper type of insect that

Except for they travel in swarms, like huge swarms, so that many times the sky even is darkened because of this great swarm of locusts. Well, this plague of God is even greater than just the normal swarms of locusts. And so the locusts will come and consume everything, all the vegetation. They...

They say that a locust can consume its own body weight each day. Can you imagine that? Being able to eat 200 pounds of food a day? I mean, that's quite, I mean, that's for me, right? But for a locust, you know, it can eat its own body weight in food every day. And there's millions of these locusts. They just wipe out entire fields and crops in hours, just super quickly. And so this locust plague would have really,

and hurt the nation of Egypt. To give you a sense of what that was like, George has a thousand grasshoppers he's going to release right now. No, I'm just kidding. He's not going to.

I talked about last week, you guys ever watch the show Fear Factor? I don't think it's on anymore, but a long time ago, right? And they put people in these boxes with all these animals or creatures and insects all over them, right? I could not handle that show. I didn't even really like to watch it. That's what this would have been like. Just consumed, covered by these insects, the frogs, all these different things, the lice, the

terrible, terrible plagues that were not just a little bit of an inconvenience, but would have severely affected their lives as they refused to obey God. But they still refuse. Pharaoh still hardens his heart and refuses to let them go. And so now we come to the ninth plague, the plague of darkness. There in verses 21 through 29, we have this plague. And God describes it in verse 21 as a darkness that may be felt.

I don't know if you've ever been in darkness that can be felt. I don't know if we've experienced it as, you know, to the extent of what this plague was brought upon. But I remember when I was young and my parents took us up north to what's called the Moaning Cavern. I think it's here in Northern California. And they take you down this walk, just the regular walk. There's some really radical things you can do in the caves where they take you down real deep. But the normal one is you go down about 165 feet below ground.

And so they're giving you this tour. There's walkways. There's rails. You know, it's somewhat safe. But then they get you down to this cavern. And this cavern is just huge. They say actually that the Statue of Liberty can stand up in this cave that's there, you know, underground. It's massive. And so they get you down there. They're showing you. They're telling you all the story. Now they say, don't move. And whatever you do, don't move. Stand right where you are. And then they turn off the lights.

And it was a long time ago, and I have a bad memory, but I remember standing there in just pitch black darkness. There's no, you can't see nothing. It is freaky. It's darkness that could be felt. It's like the darkness is pushing in upon you. That's what was happening to the land of Egypt. Now, what's interesting about this is this also is one of the plagues where

The land of Goshen had light. I don't know how God pulled that off. He's pretty amazing. But the land of Goshen, right in the midst of Egypt, the children of Israel, they had light. But the whole rest of the nation, all the land of Egypt, was in complete darkness. And still they resist. Of course, Pharaoh tries to negotiate. He says, oh, please pray for me and I repent and those kinds of things.

but ultimately he resists. Those are just words that he shares. And so now we come to Exodus chapter 11, where God warns of the last plague. Exodus chapter 11, verse 1. 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 God says, nine plagues have passed.

He still hardened his heart, but I've got one last plague left. And after this plague, Pharaoh is going to give in. He's going to drive you out altogether as a result of this plague.

And what is the plague? Well, he says in verse 5, 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. God is explaining here the scope and the magnitude of this plague. The Pharaoh, he was the highest of the land. In fact, they worshipped him as God. The handmaiden who was...

Behind the hand mill was where they would grind the grain and stuff. That was considered like the lowest position. So what God is saying from the highest position in Egypt to the very lowest position in Egypt and everything in between, the firstborn will die as a result of this plague, as well as all of the animals. So whatever animals survived...

The pestilence, the hail, whatever animals were left, the firstborn of those animals would, or whichever of them were firstborn, they would die.

Now this is something that God had declared he would do ahead of time. If you want to look back to Exodus chapter 4, you can. Verse 22, it says, Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. So I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed, I will kill your son, your firstborn. So when God sends Moses to Pharaoh the first time,

This is the announcement that Moses makes. Moses says, here's what God says, Israel, the children of Israel, they are my firstborn. Firstborn, of course, means the first one who is born. But oftentimes we see in scripture that the firstborn is not the first one who is born. Firstborn is actually more of a position than talking about the chronology of who is born first.

And so what he's saying is, Israel is my firstborn, even though Israel, also known as Jacob, was the younger brother. Esau was the older. Even though God had chosen Abraham and Isaac and then Jacob or Israel, it wasn't the first person or people that God had chosen. It started with Abraham. Even though that was the case, Israel, the nation, has the position as God's firstborn, that they hold that position first.

as firstborn for the Lord. And so God says to Pharaoh, Israel, the children of Israel, the nation is my firstborn. You let them go or I'll take away your firstborn. So this is the fulfillment of what God said in advance that he was going to do. He knew the hardness of Pharaoh's heart. He knew what it was going to take even before it all began because of course God knows everything.

And so God now announces here in chapter 11, this is now what it's come to. The firstborn from the highest position to the lowest position and all the animals will die in this final plague. And we see it take place now in Exodus chapter 12. In verse 41, it says, "...and it came to pass at the end of the 430 years, on the very same day, it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt."

So here in Exodus chapter 12 now, we have a couple important things happening. First of all, in verses 1 through 28, we have the institution of the Passover as well as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And God goes through and explains in advance. And so this is where Passover began, right there in Egypt, as part of God's deliverance of the nation out of Egypt. Right?

And so God explains that on the 10th of Abib, which Abib was now their first of months. We'll talk about that in a minute. On the 10th day of the month, though, they're to choose a lamb. And then on the 14th of that month, four days later, they're to sacrifice that lamb and eat the Passover meal. And then the 15th,

which is the next day after Passover, through the 21st was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were back-to-back, kind of almost continuous from the 14th through the 21st was this time of feasting and special things that God had instructed them. And so we have the Passover and Unleavened Bread there in verse 1 through 28.

And then we have the plague of the firstborn there in verses 29 and 30, where it actually happens that the firstborn of all the land of Egypt is killed. And then the children of Israel are then driven out of Egypt in verses 31 through 42. And then we have some further instruction on the Passover at the end of the chapter, verses 43 through 51.

So here's a look at the Jewish calendar. Now this is their spiritual calendar. This is what God says in the beginning here. He says, look, right now, the month that you're in right now, we're going to call that the first of your year. This is the first month. Their secular calendar is not the same. It goes on a different schedule. But the first month is Nisan, also known as Abib.

And that corresponds with our March and April, which is when the Passover is, which is also when Easter is. And you understand that those things are related together. And then you have the rest of the months. I'm not going to go through them all, but you can take a look at them. Now, the Jewish calendar was a lunar calendar. Our calendar today is based upon the sun and our rotation around the sun. The Jewish calendar was based upon the moon.

And so it was a little bit different, but it was pretty sophisticated. They had leap year solutions. By the way, happy leap day today. And we have those leap year solutions, but they had their own, you know, leap year solutions as well based upon the cycles of the moon.

And so Passover, it turns out, is related to the third full moon after the winter equinox. And so you wonder why Easter and Passover change all the time. It's because it's based upon other things, not just, you know, like your birthday happens on the same date every year. The lunar calendar was a little bit different. So there was different things that they would base the rituals and the feasts upon. And so we see them vary throughout the year as a result.

So that's a quick look at the Jewish calendar. Again, that's on the back of the Books of Moses handout. So if you want to have a better look at that, you can check that out later on. It's pretty interesting here when God gives him the instruction for the Passover. We see some, perhaps some pictures of Christ in that because, well, he tells them they have to take some blood and they have to put it upon the door.

Actually, the doorposts. And the way he says it is to take a hyssop branch. So it's like a little, you know, bush branch. They're to dip it in the lamb's blood that they sacrifice. And then they're to strike the top of the doorposts and then the two sides.

And so when you have, you know, something dipped in liquid, dipped in blood, and you strike, there's also not just going to be blood wherever it hits, but the path of travel as the blood comes off of the hyssop as you're swinging it. And so what we see pictured here is the cross in this Passover instruction that God gives to them.

as they strike the top, as they strike the two sides, giving a rough shape of the cross. And so there's some interesting foreshadows here or pictures that point to Christ. Also, if you notice the points where it's struck, so you have the two sides, the top,

And then you could imagine the blood would drop from the top and you have the different points where Christ bled. From the crown of thorns, from the nails in his hands, and then it would drip down to the bottom where his feet were nailed to the cross as well. And so there's some interesting pictures here to consider and see that God built into the Passover to foretell of and foreshadow the Christ who would come and the death that he would die. Well that...

is the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn. It's the final plague. It's the last straw where Pharaoh finally says, okay, get out of here. I don't want nothing to do with you. Get out and don't come back. And so now here at the end of chapter 12, we have Israel leaving the land of Egypt. They hold the Passover. They put the blood on the door. They're protected. The firstborn of all of Israel, they survive. But the firstborn of all Egypt,

are killed, and now Egypt drives out the children of Israel. Now it tells us in verse 37 of chapter 12, it says, the children of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Succoth, about 600,000 men on foot besides children. So we have about 600,000 men leaving the land of Egypt now. They've been in Egypt for 430 years.

And so here's a quick look at the population growth of Israel because sometimes this is something that comes up that people just have a hard time believing that so many people could come out of Egypt in such a short time. But in Genesis chapter 46 verse 27, when Israel moved his family to Egypt, it records for us there that it was 70 males who went into the land of Egypt. So we're not talking about wives and kids, but

and daughters, I mean, but just the males, they move into Egypt. It's 70 of them. Then here in Exodus chapter 12, verse 37, they leave Egypt, and it points out that there's 600,000 men who are there on foot. And it says, besides children. So again, we're not talking about kids. We're not talking about wives. We're just talking about the males.

So if you do the math, it is a little bit of complicated math. You can talk to Jessica Heasley after service if you want more details on the formula. She's the math teacher. But the growth rate would be about 6%.

0.0295 percent to go from 70 to 600,000 over a 430 year time span. Now to give you an idea, to give you a sense of what that compares to, here is 2011 growth rates according to the CIA fact book for 2011. So Zimbabwe is the highest, the fastest growing as of last year at 4.31 percent. And so it would be

faster, you know, they were growing faster than the highest that we're familiar with today. Now, if you want to consider like the U.S. or Canada, you know, we're much, much lower. We're at about like 0.6% growth rate as opposed to Zimbabwe at 4.31%. So they're growing much faster than the United States is. We're not giving birth as much as they are. Israel's growth then is, well, it's somewhat high.

But you know, that's not ridiculously high. In fact, we can see in Exodus chapter 1 verse 7, it is significant, it is substantial growth, and I would suggest it is supernatural because in Exodus 1 7 it says, but the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them.

I think that pretty much describes the growth of 70 to 600,000, right? There's something going on here. And so the nation of Egypt becomes fearful and begins to oppress Israel. But then Exodus chapter 1 verse 12 says, but the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.

And so there was a work of God happening. It wasn't a normal natural growth period. They don't continue to grow at this rate, but they're in Egypt, as I've been calling it for the past couple of weeks, they're kind of an incubation period. And so they're growing into this nation and God is causing them to multiply exceedingly. And so at a 6% rate, they grow from 70 to about 600,000.

And that's not crazy growth rates that are beyond any kind of realistic expectation. Also keep in mind that they lived longer. In Exodus 6, verse 20...

Moses' father, Amram, says that he lived 137 years. Moses himself lived 120 years, and Aaron lived about the same amount of time. So they had a much longer lifespan than what most people figure. They figure about 50 years when they do the calculations, and that's why they think it's ridiculous. But it's very reasonable that they could grow from 70,000 to 600,000. Of course, with God's help, with their length of their duration of their lives,

and also the absence of birth control, it's very reasonable that they would grow that quickly. All right, Exodus chapter 13, verse 21. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night. So now they're heading out of Egypt. They're being driven out, really. God has set them free, and now he leads the way.

with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Here in verses 1 through 10, we have the feast of unleavened bread further described. We also have the law of the firstborn in verses 11 through 16. And then we have the God leading the people in the last part, verse 17 through 22.

Now, as God is talking further about the Feast of Unleavened Bread here in chapter 13, I think you can easily get the sense, you can understand, God really wants them to remember this event. Several times he tells them, this is to be a memorial for you. Several times he reminds them, you got to do this every year.

And there's some important and significant things that are bound up within the Passover, within the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We know that the Passover foreshadows Christ because Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, in verses 6 and 7, that Christ is our Passover and he was sacrificed for us.

And so there's more meaning to this than just, you know, putting the blood on the doorposts or just killing an animal to save the firstborn. Christ is our Passover, Paul says, and we are delivered in the same way that Israel was delivered from Egypt by Christ, our Passover lamb, except for we had a much greater enemy, a worse enemy, which was sin and death. And we are delivered from

from those enemies by Christ, our Passover lamb. And so there's some really important things that you can look at in the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread that foreshadow Christ. In fact, so much so, in Luke chapter 22, it says,

Jesus takes the Passover meal and he uses that to institute communion. And so what Israel celebrated as the Passover, you and I as believers today continue to celebrate in the form of communion. And Jesus says, do this in remembrance of me. And so what we do is we do this in remembrance of God.

And so he's changing the meaning of the celebration. Instead of remembering the deliverance from Egypt, Jesus now says, remember how I've delivered you from sin and death. And so again, these things, there's a lot that you can get into. We're not going to get into them tonight, but I would encourage you to spend some time considering the Passover feast and the unleavened bread and the significance there that it has for us.

We also have here the law of the firstborn. Now this is going to be very important later on as we head into the book of Leviticus. So take note of that. God says the firstborn, everything that is born first belongs to him because he preserved their firstborn. So now for the rest of their history, their firstborn belongs to him.

But he also points out that this is for a memorial. And so again, he's wanting them to remember this event. He's wanting them to remember what he accomplished for them. And so he set it up so that every year they'd have a reminder with the feast. And then every time one of their livestock gives birth to a firstborn, they would remember how God delivered them. And every time they have their first kid...

They would remember how God delivered them. God established these memorials so it would bring to mind that they would have to remember how God has delivered them. God wants us to remember the way that he's worked. And I was thinking about it this week that it's so interesting that we have very similar memorials because we have communion, which we partake of regularly, which Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me. And so we have the opportunity to remember what he did for us upon the cross.

But just as they had the reminder at new birth, right, then they would have to redeem the animal or sacrifice it to the Lord, redeem the child. Don't sacrifice the child to the Lord. You had to redeem the child, but you had to take action. It forced you to remember what God did. In the same way, when we have new birth, we have baptism, right?

When there's someone who is born again, there's that new birth, then we have baptism, which Jesus introduced us to or commanded us to do, so that we could remember once again how he has delivered us. You know, every year, usually once a year, sometimes a few times a year, we have baptisms for people who have not been baptized.

And I would encourage you, if you've not been baptized, you need to be baptized. And so keep your eye out for those opportunities or just ask and we'll make an opportunity, even if it is February or March, to get you baptized because it is important. It's part of the memorial. But I would also encourage you, you who have been baptized, when the opportunities come up, please attend.

And testify, be witnesses to those who are being baptized because it also is part of God's design that you would remember how God delivered you and what he brought you out of and the way that he has worked miraculously and tremendously in your life. And so we have the similar types of memorials in communion and baptism today to remember how God has delivered us. Well, there at the end of the chapter, it says that God led the people

He led them out of Egypt, but it also says specifically he did not lead them through the land of the Philistines because he didn't want them to face battle so soon after departing Egypt because then they would freak out and they would go back to Egypt and just continue on in slavery. And so he leads them out instead by a different way, which you can kind of see indicated there. We'll talk a little bit more about the way he led them in the next chapter.

But he leads them with a cloud, which would protect them from the desert sun. It would keep them cool during the heat of the day in the wilderness there. But then also at night it would be a fire, so it would be light for them, it says, in verse 21, as well as keep them warm. And so we see this amazing work of God. And I got to say, it must have been so amazing to have God leading in such a visible way. It had to have been incredible.

Now, many times as we picture this, we try to visualize this, and then we look at the children of Israel, and we look at the problems that they're going to be, you know, bringing upon themselves, we begin to think, man, how could they be so dumb? How could they be so blind and faithless? But again, like I shared with Pharaoh, I want to encourage you to remember, they very accurately represent you. They very accurately represent me. This is, well...

Very often the condition of our hearts where we've seen God work, God's doing mighty things and we still do not believe and we still choose to complain and grumble. And so whenever you're tempted to judge or accuse Israel, take a moment to remember they very accurately represent you. So let God work in your heart in that way and trust Him and don't repeat their pattern.

Well, chapter 14, verse 22 says, So the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. So now they're out in the wilderness. God's leading them, but they come to a dead end.

And Pharaoh decides, now's my chance. Verses 1 through 14, he pursues Israel. He's like, I can't believe I let them go. Let's go get them back. And so he chases after them. He pursues them in verses 1 through 14. They're there cornered at the Red Sea. But of course, God opens up the Red Sea. They cross on dry ground. They're in verses 15 through 22. And then when the Egyptians try to do the same, they're overthrown in the sea. They're in verses 23 through 31.

Now, a lot of people try to dismiss this miracle and they say it was just like a little tiny bit of water that they crossed and so it's not a big deal, you know, that kind of thing. But the scripture is quite clear. It was a wall to them on either side and so there was a substantial amount of water. But if you want to try to dismiss that, then, as often has been said, well, then you have another miracle that you have to deal with because if it's a foot of water and

And God drowned the entire Egyptian army in a foot of water. Well, that's a miracle too. So if you try to explain it away, you have some problems either way. God is still at work here doing some miracles. Here's a picture of maybe what it kind of looked like. Of course, we don't know exactly, but this is maybe what it looked like as they crossed over. And here's a picture of what it would look like today.

I thought that was funny. Moses transports there on the bottom. Next four miles, there's waves crashing. So God did a miraculous work. He parted the Red Sea. And as the children of Israel are going across, it says the angel of God goes behind them

and separates them from the Egyptian army. And so once again here we have an appearance of the angel of the Lord who we've been talking about is an appearance of Jesus throughout the Old Testament. And there's the list of the different ones we've encountered so far as well as the ones to come. But we're right there in Exodus chapter 14 verses 19 and 20 where Jesus is now standing in between the armies of Egypt and the children of Israel to allow them to safely cross over.

Well, the question is often asked, where did they cross the Red Sea? Here's a picture of the map of the Egyptian empire. And you can see the Red Sea is right there all along the length of Egypt. But you'll notice at the end of the Red Sea, it splits up into two separate sections. They're actually called gulfs. And there's the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba. And the Gulf of Suez is the

And there's a variety of opinions about where exactly the Israelites crossed and which route they took. But here's the traditional route. So here you have Egypt, you have Goshen, you have the wilderness, you have Sinai, the Gulf of Suez, the Gulf of Aqaba, all part of the Red Sea there.

And so the traditional route is that they came down there. That's where they got cornered there at the Red Sea. Pharaoh came after them. They crossed through the Red Sea right there. And then they went on to Mount Sinai. That is traditionally for many years what people have believed is the route that the children of Israel took. In more recent years, I would say probably the last 30 or 40 years, there's been a variety of opinions about whether or not that's accurate. So here's an alternate route.

that they may have taken, where Sinai, Mount Sinai that's referred to, is not there in what we call the Sinai Peninsula, but it's on the other side. You see there across from the Gulf of Aqaba.

And so under this perspective, the children of Israel would go down along the edge, but not cross the Red Sea to the very bottom there. You see on the bottom right, they cross over the Gulf of Aqaba and then go up to Mount Sinai. And so there's some reason to believe that. There's some reason to believe that that is a more accurate location for Mount Sinai. I'm not gonna get into the details, but you can check those out later on. And then there's a third alternate route

There's more than three actually, but here's the third one I'll show you. The third most common one.

It's similar, so they kind of go the same direction, but then they cross the Red Sea there at the higher tip of the Gulf of Aqaba and go to that same location, which is possibly Mount Sinai. So there's a couple, you know, variety of opinions and differences of understanding of where Mount Sinai is. And there's a lot of, you know, investigation and discussion about that. The reason why it's difficult is a couple of things. First of all, the places that are mentioned as Israel camps along the way are

Many of those places have not actually been located, even though they might appear in your Bible maps. Sometimes they're with a question mark and things like that. It's because it's just guessing. They found some civilization there. They found some evidence there of something, but not necessarily that it's the name that has been applied to it historically. Another issue is the politics.

As you go into Saudi Arabia, as you go into Egypt, that's a real hot political climate, and they don't really allow you to just dig wherever you want to and do whatever you want, and they have some real motivation to not let you. So there's some difficulty in that, and archaeologists are not allowed to explore or dig in many places to really confirm the locations that we're looking at. And then you have sensational claims, and this is where the waters really get muddy. There's a guy by the name of Ron Wyatt.

He passed away a few years back, but he made all kinds of just sensational claims that he found the Ark of the Covenant. He found Noah's Ark. He found the real Mount Sinai and things like that. And so there's a, when you start looking into these things, you'll find, you know, people quoting him, his resources, his information, and there's very fraudulent stuff that's just

you know, all over the place. In fact, if you've ever gotten that email, have you ever seen that email where it says, look, they found the chariot wheels of the Red Sea? Don't believe that. That is not legitimate. That is stuff that, you know, is not real. It's fake. They make those claims. They show you pictures, but they will not let anybody verify their find. They won't let anybody verify that it's real, even though they claim that they have. It's really not. So,

That's what makes it difficult to find the exact location. We, of course, know that it happened. It did take place, but we don't know exactly where. And Lord willing, in the future, we'll get to find out. But until then, we just continue to know it happened somewhere, and that's really what matters.

Here's again the Pharaohs of Genesis and Exodus focusing on Neferhotep I. There is the Pharaoh that we're talking about. There is a final handout, a purple handout on the back table if you didn't get that a few weeks back called Searching for Moses and it deals with some of the history, the details regarding that. I like to give you resources so that if you'd like to, if you want to dig in a little bit more, you can. So that's back there and digs into a little bit of Egypt's history. But Neferhotep I.

is a pharaoh. His mummy has never been found, which would make sense if he's at the bottom of the Red Sea. And he is the last king to reign before there's a new people that move into the land of Egypt that take over the land of Egypt without a battle.

And he's the last king to reign before that happens. And so how could someone else come in and take over Egypt? Well, if the army is dead at the bottom of the Red Sea, then that makes a lot of sense. So it very aptly fits the historical narrative there of Egypt, even though the chronology can be sometimes difficult to filter through. All right, we got to wrap this up. Exodus 15, verse 22.

So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and they went out into the wilderness of Shur and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. In the first part of 15 verses 1 through 19, we have the song of Moses as he rejoices and leads the people in worship of God for his victory. Then we have the song of Miriam in verses 20 and 21 as she leads the ladies in worship of God. And then we have the waters of Marah there in verses 22 through 27.

where they come to water. Finally, they're thirsty, but the water is bitter. They're not able to eat it. So God tells Moses, take the tree, throw it in the water. The bitter waters become sweet and we get to see, you know, God do a miraculous work and provide for them.

It's amazing. It took them three days after this great miracle of going through the Red Sea that they begin to complain against the Lord because they can't find water. And so my challenge to us all is, can we go three days without complaining? Because, you know, it didn't take them very long. And again, as we begin to accuse them and judge them for that, I would just remind you that they very accurately represent us. Well, finally, chapter 16 of Exodus, verse 35 says,

And the children of Israel ate manna 40 years until they came to an inhabited land. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. In verses 1 through 8, God promises to provide manna. He says, look, you're complaining about food now. I'll get your food. Don't worry about it. I'll take care of you. And so God provides quail in verses 9 through 13, as well as manna in verses 14 through 36.

was what they survived on for their time in the wilderness, which ended up being about 40 years, and

And so God provided them manna miraculously for 40 years while they were in the wilderness. Now, the Bible says that manna was like coriander seed, like white coriander seed. Here's a picture of a tablespoon of some coriander seed. Just to give you a point of reference, it's not exactly this, but it was like this. So it was some type of bread, some type of flour, some type of carbohydrate or something.

that had the nutrients they needed and they were able to gather together and they were to gather one omer for each person.

So how much is an omer? Well, there's some discussion about that. The exact amount is not known, but the common understanding is it's about 2.3 liters to 3.65 liters. Somewhere within there is thought to be an omer. So you have a two liter bottle and about a half of a two liter bottle would be kind of the rough guess of how much an omer was. So they could fill that up. That would be their food for the day.

And then the next day they would do it all over again. Well, I want to finish it up with a quick look at their time in the wilderness. And I think this will be important for the coming weeks as we continue on in the book of Exodus.

To get a good understanding of how much time they spent in the wilderness, Israel was given manna one month into their wilderness journey. So they had some food from Egypt that they brought, that ran out. Then God provided manna and then continued to provide it for the rest of the time in the wilderness. They get to Sinai at two months from their departure of Egypt. And we see that in Exodus 19.

They get the tabernacle set up one year after leaving Egypt. So they're at Mount Sinai. God's giving them the law. He's giving them the instructions. They're building the tabernacle, and they finally get it set up, and it's about a year after they've left. Then they hold their second Passover feast right after the tabernacle is set up. They celebrate the Passover. They've been out for one year from the land of Egypt.

Then one year and one month after they've departed, they take the first census of Israel. That's in Numbers 1. And then finally, at that same time, after they take the census, Israel leaves Sinai. So they spend a good year at Mount Sinai. Then they leave Sinai to head towards the Promised Land. But of course, they refuse to go in. So then they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. And that comes to Numbers 33, 38-39.

Aaron dies at the end of that wilderness wandering at 40 years after they've left Egypt.

Moses delivers his final address to the people, which is the book of Deuteronomy, 40 years after they left Egypt. And then, of course, Moses dies as well, a few months after Aaron, 40 years after they left Egypt. And they hold their first Passover in the land, Joshua chapter 5, verse 10, 41 years after they left Egypt. So there was a legitimate time in the wilderness, which was one year.

that they were at Mount Sinai and they were to go into the promised land, but it turned into 40 years because of their rebellion and refusal to obey God and do what he said in going into the promised land. And there's so much more I'd love to share, but we really got to cut it off. So let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, which is so rich, which has such abundant, Lord, insight for us practically. Lord, insight for our minds to consider things that we'd love to wrestle with and play with and understand. God, there's so much for us.

And so, God, I pray that you would just continue to pour out your spirit upon us to give us insight in your word, Lord, that we would not just allow it to be an intellectual exercise, which is great, but, Lord, that it also would change our hearts and we'd let it affect us and impact the way that we live. And so, Lord, continue to transform us and change us. In Jesus' name, amen.

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