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Trusting God | Hebrews 11:27 · Bayside Davis Podcast

0:05
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the B-Side Davis Podcast.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: You are now listening to our current teaching series in the book of Hebrews.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: As we picked up from last week, Moses has been 40 years in the desert, a place called Midian.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: And for 40 years in the desert, he was shepherding his father-in-law's flock of sheep and goats, day after day after day.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: And one day, while Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, God shows up.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: An unexpected day, a routine day, a day probably of vocational complacency, his father-in-law's flock and what he did every day, God comes to Moses, and we pick up the story in verse 1.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: Whew! Wouldn't that be amazing?
1:26
SPEAKER_00: From within a bush, Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen a bush on fire that's not burning?
1:41
SPEAKER_00: Moses like, neither have I.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, the bush does not burn up.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, Moses.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Moses.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: And Moses said, just as we should, here I am.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Do not come any closer, God said, Take off your sandals, for the place that you are standing is holy ground.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God, as would we.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said, I've indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: I've heard them crying out because we'll try that again.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I'm concerned about their suffering.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: This is God.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: God cares about our suffering.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: So I've come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of the land into a good and spacious land.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: A land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, Flashlightes, and Termites.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Never mind.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I've seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: So now go.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm sending you, Moses, to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?
3:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm unworthy.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm not ready to do such a thing.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: And God said, I will be with you.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Moses said to God, Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And then they asked me, What is his name?
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Then what shall I tell them?
3:56
SPEAKER_00: God said to Moses, I am who I am.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: This is what you are to say to them, I am, has sent me to you.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: God said to Moses, Say to the Israelites, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing moment in the life of Moses.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: For 40 years, he's just shepherding flocks, hanging out with sheep and goats every day.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not your dream vocation, maybe some of yours, but maybe not most dream vocation.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: And one day, in the ordinary, God shows up.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember, 40 years before this, Moses thought he was ready to lead his people out of the injustice of Egypt.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: But he did it on his own in his timing and his way, and he had to leave Egypt and go to the desert, fleeing the wrath of the king, the Pharaoh.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: So here's Moses with this deep burden to free his people from the oppression of Egypt, to be a rescuer and a redeemer, and yet at this point in his life, 40 years later, post what we talked about last week, he's no longer self-assured.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: He no longer feels capable.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: He's been humbled by life.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: How many of us have been humbled by life?
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And it is often in these moments of genuine humility and profound awareness of our own inadequacy that God steps in.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: That God becomes the strength in our weakness, that God shows up and does things through us that we at a point in life think, I am not worthy to be used by God.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: This is precisely when God can use us most powerfully.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: When the work is no longer about our abilities or our worthiness or our confidence that we're the right person for the task, this is the place that Moses was on this day.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Humbled by life, a sense of inadequacy and unworthiness, not recognizing that it is truly God who makes these great things happen.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: But at a point where he was, that God could truly be the star and make these things happen.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: So now, after 80 years of preparation, Moses begins to step into his calling.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Waiting 80 years?
6:53
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I've been studying AI engineering for 80 years.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: I've been studying animal science for 80 years, and now at 80, you start your vocation.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Now here Moses is, he begins his true vocation.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is an amazing story because this is the start of the great Exodus journey in verse 27 that we read about in the book of Hebrews.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: But I want to elaborate on it a little more from the actual story in Exodus chapter 3.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Would you skip down a few verses with me, verse 19 and 20?
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Exodus chapter 3, verses 19 and 20.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to look at that in a moment.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: When we look at that verse in Hebrews, many people think that Hebrews 11, 27 is not referring to Moses' first exodus, but his second exodus.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Some of us read Hebrews 11, 27 and think, well, this is when Moses fled in his first exodus out of Egypt to the land of Midian.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: But remember, the context of Hebrews chapter 11 is faith.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: When Moses fled out of Midian, he didn't flee out of faith, he fled out of fear.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And in the second Exodus, when he goes back to Egypt and he begins to speak to the king, the Pharaoh of the land, let my people go.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: And the people eventually, after the ten plagues and all that stuff that we're going to get into this morning, I hope we have enough time.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: If not, we're going to make the time.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: He does not leave Egypt the second time out of fear.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: And let's assume that in 1127 of the book of Hebrews, he's not talking about the first Exodus, but the second Exodus.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: That would bring us parallel to Exodus 3, 19 and 20.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: So let's pick up there.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, God says, unless the mighty hand compels him.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: So I'll stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I perform among them.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: After that, he will let you go.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: You're like, what's this story?
9:32
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I've been sick for like six weeks.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: I got this bad viral infection, and I went to my doctor, and he's did all these tests.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: I usually would never say any of these things back in the day when I was a young pastor, but now I'm like, pray for me, please, you know?
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And I have this like weird equilibrium, dizziness thing going on.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm like sitting up and down, that's why.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna die, I'm not gonna pass out, and if I do, you guys can help me.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: So he says, I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: This was Pharaoh, the most powerful ruler in the world at this time.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And Pharaoh was stubbornly resistant to God.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you go through this entire storyline, you read that he resisted the man of God, Moses, he resisted the word of God, God's word through Moses, he resisted the plan of God, the redemption of God's people out of Egypt, and he resisted the works of God, the miracles that God did to free his people from oppression.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: He was stubbornly resistant to God.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: You might say, perhaps, after all of that, why did Pharaoh not let the people go?
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, particularly, I've been fascinated recently by Egyptian history and archaeology.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: I've been watching all these documentaries and reading about these great discoveries in Egypt.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's quite fascinating, but you know, Egypt was one of the most powerful kingdoms in world history.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: And they built things, incredible things, incredible buildings, like the pyramids that even today people can't quite figure out how in the ancient times they did that.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: And if you study Egyptian history, they built, they they literally built cities like that would that would host all kinds of royal tombs inside of mountains and underneath mountains.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: It's like incredible what they did.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Hebrew people were directly a part of doing all of this, building.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: And Pharaoh didn't want to let the people go because there was prime economic reasons.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: They were powerful and they were building and they were rich and wealthy.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: And can you imagine?
12:03
SPEAKER_00: Is this my is this me doing this?
12:09
SPEAKER_00: This is not good.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Can I have another pack, Mike?
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Will another pack work?
12:14
SPEAKER_00: Or actually just give me a give me a regular mic.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: You guys do not want to hear that this whole time, right?
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Are we good?
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Alright, is that better, everyone?
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Everyone thank Mike.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine going to the most powerful ruler in the world at this time?
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Just just you.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't know you, doesn't know anything about you, and you say, I want you to let two million people leave this land who are helping you become the economic powerhouse of the world.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: That was Moses' job.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: And of course, Pharaoh was thinking in practical, economic, nation-building terms, but ultimately the real problem with Pharaoh was his heart was hardened to God.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: In fact, about eighteen times in this story, using three different Hebrew terms, eighteen times the Bible talks about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: And this is often a question I get, a theological question, because people like you know know that I love theology and exegesis and all the nuances of the Bible, and they say, well, which was it, Wesley?
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Did Pharaoh harden his own heart, or to did God harden Pharaoh's heart?
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And I often say, both and we always we always study things and we focus on one aspect of the truth and we get really dogmatic about that, but we don't realize that in the Bible it's it's not always either or, it's often both and.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over and over and over and over.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: We read, Pharaoh hardened his own heart to God.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the terms used here of Pharaoh hardening his own heart to God is he's stiff-necked, meaning he's stubbornly resisting God.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: He's resisting, acknowledging God, worshiping God, listening to God.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And some believe that Pharaoh hardening his own heart was the basis for God hardening Pharaoh's heart.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: There was a persistent self-hardening of his own heart toward God, and then God seals that and gives him over to that.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: But write this down, sometimes it is God hardening Pharaoh's heart.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: You'll read that over and over in this Exodus story that God hardens Pharaoh's heart, and this is true.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: And this may be what Romans 1 describes as God giving somebody fully over to their persistent pursuit of a particular sin.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: That there is conviction and warning and conscience, and and and you just bypass all of that for years and years and years, and you resist God and you resist acknowledging him and worshiping him and trusting him and listening to him, and eventually God gives you over to that evil desire.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: And then others believe that God hardening Pharaoh's heart was a sovereign act of God on an evil king.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, whatever it is, one thing is true for all of us.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: But don't harden your heart to God.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Like some of you are here this morning, and this is an opportune moment in your life, and you've been pursuing your own life and your own ways and doing your own thing, and this is a moment that God wants to speak into your life.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Don't harden your heart to God.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we read over and over about this warning in Ezekiel chapter 3, verse 7.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: But the people of Israel not willing to listen to you because they are not willing to listen to me.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: For all the Israelites are hardened and obstinate.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Don't let that be you.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 3, verse 8, do not harden your hearts as you did in rebellion during the time of testing in the wilderness.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like the people who rebelled against God after being saved by him in the Exodus.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 3, verses 12 through 14, see to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: But encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: We have come to share in Christ.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: If indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end, do not harden your heart to God.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this morning that is the message that God has for you.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: You've been wandering, you've been obstinate, you've been stick-nef.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: God, God has been trying to work in your life and speak into your life and redeem your life and change your life, and you have persistently resisted God.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: Today is the day to turn to Jesus.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Do not harden your heart to God.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 19, but I know the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: The term mighty is strong.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Pharaoh was thought to be the strongest ruler in the world at his time.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: One writer said ancient Egyptian texts typically describe Pharaoh as the one who destroys enemies with his arm.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Another scholar said the image of an outstretched or mighty hand or an arm is common in Egyptian inscription to describe the power of Pharaoh.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: So Pharaoh's like, I've got the strongest arm, I'm the most powerful ruler.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: And God says, unless a mighty hand compels him.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Who is the strong hand here?
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Who is the mighty hand?
19:16
SPEAKER_00: This term describes God's power over Pharaoh.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: In Exodus chapter 3, verse 8, this term strong pictures the oppressive hand of the Egyptians enslaving the Israelites.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: And then in Exodus 3.19, it pictures the strong hand of God redeeming the Israelites.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 6.1.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord said to Moses, Now you will see that what I will do to Pharaoh, because of my mighty hand, he will let them go.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Because of my mighty hand, he will drive them out of this country.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Later on in Ezekiel, Ezekiel interpreting this, he says, Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, I'm against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and I will break his arms.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: He thinks he's stronger than God, more powerful than God, more sovereign than God, and God's like, I will break his arms.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I will break his strength.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: It's a human strength, and human strength can never withstand the strength of God.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And then Ezekiel goes on to say, both the strong arm and the one that is broken, I will make the sword fall from his hand.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: He will lose his power in the face of God.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Because God is the only Almighty one.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think we're strong.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think that we are more powerful than God Himself.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: And there are moments in life and moments in history where God shows up and He reminds us that there is only one God.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: That there is only one Almighty One.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: So God says, Pharaoh's not going to let you go unless a mighty, strong hand compels him.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: So God explains that.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Wonders.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Extraordinary acts of God.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Miracles.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Where God intervenes in human history.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: What is God saying here?
21:47
SPEAKER_00: What are these wonders, these extraordinary acts of God that are going to be on display in this story?
21:53
SPEAKER_00: What God is referring to is what we know in this Exodus story as the ten acts.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: The ten plagues.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: Some of you will read the ten plagues and you will be like, ah, I don't understand this.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Why?
22:09
SPEAKER_00: So on and so forth.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm going to explain the why at the end.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: But I would suggest, as I have learned, following Jesus and studying the Bible for many, many years, you and I have to allow God to be God and to trust Him to fulfill His perfect His purposes in perfect alignment with His character.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: And the ten plagues, we're going to look at nine today and one next weekend.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: The ten plagues display the purposes and character of God as such that aligns with who He is in His nature.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: Ten plagues.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: You're like Wesley.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: What are these plagues?
22:59
SPEAKER_00: These mighty, extraordinary acts of God, verse 20, Exodus chapter 3.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go through them really quick.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready?
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Put on your seatbelts, grab your notes, write them down real fast.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Number one, plague number one, Exodus 7, 20 and 21.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: The water of the Nile turned to blood.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: God, in this extraordinary act, the water of the Nile either turned into blood or a blood-like coloring.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it has been known that there's this certain soil, this excess red earth soil and bright algae, that if the right things happen in the environment, that algae or soil seeped into the Nile can turn it into the color blood.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: The point is that the Nile at this point, in a supernatural act, maybe a natural way as well, was contaminated to the point that it became undrinkable and caused death, which we're going to see in a moment.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: But what's interesting is that each one of these plagues, each one of these plagues, was God saying, All the gods of Egypt, which were many, cannot withstand the power of the real God.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: There was the God of the Nile.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: There was the God of the bloodstream of the Nile in ancient Egypt.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: And all of these gods could not withstand what God was doing in these wonders.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Plague number two, Exodus 8, 3, and 6.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Frogs covered the land.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: This feels like I used to live in Maui, Hawaii.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Anyone lived in Hawaii before?
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Anyone from Hawaii?
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: One, two, three.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Aloha.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: In Hawaii, when you have a massive downpour rainstorm, like a tropical rainstorm, where I lived in Maui, I would ride my bike.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a car.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: I'd ride my bike to work.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: I'd ride my bike to the store.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: I'd ride my bike to the gym.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: After these tropical rainstorms, all the streets flooded, and after the flooding receded, everywhere you stepped was dead frogs.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Frogs were everywhere.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: And frogs in this story literally covered the land.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: The polluted waters of Nile were full of decomposing fish, and then there were frogs everywhere.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: The land in people's houses and people's bathtubs and people's beds and people's homes and people's workplaces and people's Teslas.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Everywhere you went, there were frogs.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Not fun.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And there was a frog-headed god as well in Egypt.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Plague number three.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 817.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: I hate gnats.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they have some purpose in the ecosystem.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: For you who study that, explain it to me, please.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: The gnats, see, everything's dying.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: The gnats would breed from all the stagnant pools of water left over from the flooding in the first plague.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: So there was gnats everywhere.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: People were just walking along the road eating gnats.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Not intentionally.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: And there was a false God, an earth god.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: The dust of the earth turned into gnats that God overpowered in this plague.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Then plague number four.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: The Exodus in Exodus 8, 21 through 24, you go from the waters turning to blood color to frogs and gnats and now flies throughout the land.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever been to Alaska in the summer, it's an interesting place.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it's light almost the whole day and night.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: And then I went there as a kid and I played basketball all summer in Alaska.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Every day I played, there were flies and mosquitoes everywhere.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: I had nobody guarding me.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: There was nobody playing basketball, but flies and mosquitoes guarded me every day.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: I might have gotten better because of that summer.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: In this story, there was flies all over the land, in people's homes.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: The windows were in Egypt were simply openings in the walls, swarms of flies permeating people's homes.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: And there was a fly goddess in Egypt.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: There was a God for everything in Egypt.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: All of these gods that they worshiped, they thought we're the most powerful ones.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Our gods will withstand anything.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: We are the dominant players in history.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: And nothing could withstand God.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Plague number six, Exodus 9, verse 9, there were boils on humans and animals.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Many scholars believe that the boils broke out on humans and beasts, that that was most likely passed on by the flies in the fourth plague.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Boils.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had boils on your skin?
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Ever?
28:40
SPEAKER_00: When I was in high school, me and my friends, we would go into that place called Applegate.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: It was just this forest with bridges and rivers.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: And we would go and we would jump off bridges all day long.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, one Saturday, we were going and jumping off bridges.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, that was fun back then in the day.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't do it today.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: You don't think really when you're young.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: We would 50-foot bridges, 60-foot bridges, whatever bridge, we would just jump off into the water.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: We didn't know it was down there.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: We were just having fun.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: I forgot my sunscreen.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: The problem is I'm white, white, like Scandinavian white.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And I don't do good with sun without sunscreen.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: So I spent the whole day in the sun jumping off bridges.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: I said, Does anybody have sunscreen?
29:35
SPEAKER_00: My friend said, I've got sunscreen, so I grabbed this bottle and it was a dark brown bottle, and I just didn't really read it, and I put it all over my body, and it was tanning oil with 5% sunscreen in it.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, I went home that night and I had boils all over my body.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine what they went through in Egypt.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Boils all over my body.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: There was gods in Egypt, the gods of disease and healing, the gods of medicine.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: None of these gods could take care of what was happening amongst the population in Egypt.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Plague number seven.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 9, 18 through 21.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: There was heavy hail with thunder and lightning.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this doesn't seem miraculous to me.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: It feels like where I grew up in Oregon.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Hail and then thunder and lightning.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: I saw this all the time, but I guess in Egypt this was a big deal.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: There was an unparalleled hailstorm that brought great devastation to Egypt's economy.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: The agriculture was the center of the economy, and this hailstorm took out the agriculture of the land.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: And there was gods of storms and goddesses of storms and gods of crops and goddesses of vegetation, and none of these gods could protect the Egyptians from these wonders or miraculous events.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Plague number eight, we're almost done.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: Plague number eight, Exodus 10, 4 through 6 and 13 through 15, locusts throughout the land.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: Locusts.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Devastating to Egypt.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Locusts are known, listen to this, to consume their own weight every day.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: One square mile of locusts could have over 100 million insects.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: These locusts invaded people's houses like the gnats and the flies.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: It was terrible.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: And all of their gods, the gods of these locusts, the gods of the vegetation, the gods of the storms, the gods of fertility, all of these gods could not withstand these miraculous events.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, number nine.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: There's ten, but we're gonna get into number 10 next week.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 10, 22 through 23, darkness for three days.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: The darkness could have been created by a dust or sandstorm or some supernatural act of God.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: The dust and sandstorms in Egypt, if you study Egypt, you know that it goes dark.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And they're really powerful.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: And there was God of the sun, and there was God of the solar system, and none of these gods could protect Egypt from what was happening.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: No, you might be like, I don't care about all that, but that's cool, but care about this.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: God was waking up the land of Egypt through miraculous, extraordinary acts.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: And yes, some of these may have been natural occurrences that built off of each other, but ultimately God was doing miraculous things through nature to wake up the people from their rebellion against God.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes in history, sometimes in our lives, God needs to shake things up to wake us up.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Darkness, gnats, flies, dead frogs, thunder, lightning, hail, boils, livestock.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Did I talk about the livestock?
34:02
SPEAKER_00: No, I skipped that.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: That's number five.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Plague number five, by the way.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: Exodus nine, three through six, livestock died.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people think that the livestock of Egypt died through possibly contract uh contracting anthrax from the dead frogs and flies.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: And there were, as you know, there were many, there were cow goddesses and sacred bulls and deities of the cattle and so on and so forth.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Pardon me, I skipped out.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why, but you know, my brain hasn't been doing well, so have mercy on me.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: You might say, well, I don't quite understand what God was trying to reveal in these wonders, these extraordinary acts, these plagues in Egypt.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: And you, you know, I don't blame you because I thought the same thing for a long time.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: I read through these verses and these stories, and we're gonna get to number 10 next week, by the way.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about the lamb that was slain and how that pictures Jesus, that's a foreshadowing of Jesus, and that's all I'm gonna say because I want you to come to church.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: But I thought, what is God doing here?
35:14
SPEAKER_00: What is God trying to reveal?
35:17
SPEAKER_00: And then I really thought through this story and I saw eight things to consider about the plagues that relate to us.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Eight things to consider about the plagues that relate to us.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: And I know I'm going OT today, but we're just gonna go OT.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Number one, write this down warnings and resistance.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Each plague was preceded by a warning from Moses to Pharaoh, yet was met with stubborn resistance from Pharaoh and all of Egypt's leaders.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: God was warning.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: They could have listened.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: None of this could have come to pass or took place, but they resisted God's warnings.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Don't resist God's warnings in my life and in your life.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Number two, temporary relenting.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh's heart would soften enough for a moment to promise the release after a plague.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: He would be like, oh, okay, yeah, I'll let you go for three days, I'll let you go for a couple days, but immediately he hardened again his heart against God.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not spiritual, spiritually conducive to temporarily relent.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: God, I'm not, I'm gonna turn to you for an hour.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna turn to you for a moment because I want things to get better in my life, and once things get better, once the context of the ecosystem, the sphere of what's going on in my life gets better, then I'm gonna turn away from you once again.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: Don't use God like that.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Turn to God fully and wholeheartedly.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: This might be exactly what God is speaking to you today.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Turn to God fully and wholeheartedly.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Number three, eight things to consider: warnings and resistance, temporary relenting, judgment on Egyptian gods.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: Each plague targeted and exposed the powerlessness of specific Egyptian gods, declaring to Egypt that the God of the Hebrews is the one true God.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 12, verse 12 said, I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Number four, righteous judgment.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: The plagues were God's righteous judgments aimed at breaking Pharaoh's defiant resistance to God's will.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: But most of us think of the story as just Pharaoh.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: No, it was the entire culture that would not let God's people go.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: It was everybody.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: You remember, you read the story previously to this, all the people were a part of this oppressive enslavement of the Hebrew people.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to lose them.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: They were building all these grand buildings and all these graves for the pharaohs, and the economy was booming.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to lose these people.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: The entire nation was resisting God.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharaoh was at the head of that nation.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: And these were righteous judgments.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Number five, deliverance for God's people.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: These were divine acts, extraordinary miracles, using the ordinary realities of Egypt, the natural world of Egypt.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: These were divine acts to rescue and deliver God's people from oppression and slavery in Egypt.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: God knew what it would take to redeem his people, to save them, to deliver them from their oppression in Egypt.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: These were acts of deliverance.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: Number six, sovereign power.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: The plagues revealed God's unmatched sovereign power.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this, Exodus 9:14.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: Or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, which means they were all accomplices in resisting God, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: This was God's sovereign power at work.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: Number seven, grace and patience.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: Each of these plagues demonstrated God's grace and patience.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: He could have destroyed Egypt instantly, but he chose measured judgments instead.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Exodus 9, 15, for by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: But God is saying, I didn't do that.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you so grateful for God's grace and patience in your life?
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, I just think of all my years of rebellion against God.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: Listen, for you who didn't grow up in the church, I relate to you, I didn't grow up in the church.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: For you who lived wild lives and completely did everything possible not to follow the way of Jesus or God, I understand.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: All the while, with me and with you, God has been gracious and patient.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: He wants to save you, He wants to show you His redemption and His love.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: He wants to transform your life.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to be in a relationship with Him.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: And God was gracious and patient with the Egyptians as well.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: And then, number eight, finally, and everybody said, Finally, God's purpose through people.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: God's purpose through people.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: These plagues reveal God's purpose through people.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: The plagues show how God sovereignly raises up individuals, even hardened opponents like Pharaoh, to fulfill his plan and display his power and proclaim his name across the world.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 9 16 says, But I have raised you up for this very purpose that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, look at verse 20.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: After that, he will let them go.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: If God can do this to deliver the Old Testament people of God, listen close.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: If God could show up in moments of oppression, moments that sin has enslaved us, moments where we think we could never change, never be worthy of salvation, never be worthy of redemption.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: If God can do this to deliver the Old Testament people of God, because He's powerful enough to rescue, He's powerful enough to redeem, He's powerful enough to save any person in any context in human history, God can do this for you.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing to me reading through this story the measures that God goes through to rescue his people.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing to me to read the story of Jesus, the ultimate measure that God went through to rescue us, to forgive us, to redeem us, and to give us the opportunity to be in a relationship for all of eternity with Him.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: You might say, I'm in this circumstance, I'm in this situation, I've done these things.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: This story proves to me and you that there is nothing that is impossible for God to rescue you.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: You are like the people in Egypt oppressed, and God is the one with a strong hand that wants to save and rescue you.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: Turn your heart to Jesus today.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: Give your life to God, pursue him, worship him, acknowledge him.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: Do not harden your heart to God and watch what he does in your life.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.