Sunday, October 30, 2011

Moving On

Moving On

Exodus 14: 5 – 18

Introduction

Do you wonder why we worship on Sundays? In the Old Testament, we read God’s commandment to remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. This commandment is based on the story of creation. God spent six days creating the universe, then rested on the seventh day. In our Western calendar, that points to Saturday as the seventh day and the day we should keep holy. There are some churches which continue to honor the seventh day by holding their worship services on Saturday.

Jewish people mark time differently than we do in the Western world. We think of a day beginning at midnight. They think of a day beginning at sunset. Therefore, the Sabbath Day begins on Friday night at sunset and ends on Saturday at sunset. So, Jewish synagogues hold Sabbath worship on Friday nights, after dark.

This raises the question of why we have worship services on Sundays. The best answer I have ever found is that Sunday is the day of the resurrection. When Jesus died on the cross as sacrifice for our sins and rose again as our hope of eternal life, it changed the world and changed the way we worship.

We worship on Sundays, because the resurrection is the single most important event in our history. We worship on Sundays to remember the resurrection. AND, we celebrate Easter as our most important holy day. The resurrection is the most important event for us, because this is how God has saved us. The resurrection changed the world. It changed our lives. It changed the way we worship and relate to God. It changed everything.

Jewish people continue to worship on Friday nights, because they do not acknowledge the resurrection. For the Jews, the single most important event in their history is the Exodus. The Hebrew people were slaves in Egypt. They cried out to God for help. God answered their prayers and sent Moses to be their redeemer. God saved his people from slavery and established them as a nation in their own land.

However, the Exodus did not happen exactly the way the Hebrew people expected it to happen. In their minds, God was supposed to do two things for them. (Their expectations sound a whole lot like our expectations.) They expected God to save them and give them an easy life of luxury and continual blessings. They expected all their sufferings to be behind them…But that is not exactly how things worked out.

Exodus 14: 5 – 18.

5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, "What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!"

6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him.

7 He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them.

8 The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly.

9 The Egyptians-- all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen and troops-- pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon.

10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD.

11 They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?

12 Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"

13 Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.

14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."

15 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.

16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.

17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen.

18 The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen."

(NIV)


Since this is not the first time for us to hear this story, we knew how it was going to end. We knew that God led his people to the Red Sea. We knew that God completed his salvation by miraculously parting the waters. The Hebrews walked across the sea on dry ground. Pharaoh and the Egyptian army were drowned in the sea.

We knew this was going to happen. The Hebrews didn’t know the end of the story. They had to live it out one moment at a time.

It seems there were two ways out of Egypt. The short way and the long way…The smart way and God’s way. God did not lead the Hebrews on the short or the smart way out of Egypt. In fact, that is one of the reasons why Pharaoh chased after them. He thought they were confused and it would be easy to recapture them.

For the Hebrews, this was an unexpected twist in the story. They thought God had saved them to live a comfortable and happy life. But, that’s not what they experienced. They expected to be free from slavery and free from suffering. In reality, they were trapped.

A Third Way

Do you know what it feels like to be trapped? To be trapped means that you only have two choices…and you don’t like either choice.

Exodus 14: 11, “(The people) said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?’”

The Hebrews thought death was certain. If they turned around, Pharaoh would either kill them or return them to slavery. If they pressed forward, they would drown in the Red Sea. These were the only choices.

The Hebrews were making a very common human mistake. We all tend to look at our circumstances through a human perspective instead of God’s perspectives.

Humanly speaking, there were only two choices—death by Pharaoh or death by the Red Sea.

From God’s perspective, there was a third way. God told Moses to hold out his staff over the water. God sent a strong east wind that blew all night long and parted the waters. The people walked across the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians were drowned when the waters closed over them.

When God’s people faced a hopeless situation, God did the unexpected. When God’s people had only two options, God created a third way. The Hebrew people didn’t expect this third option, because the third option was IMPOSSIBLE. And, God did the impossible.

We don’t need to be so critical about the way the Hebrew people thought about their circumstances. They were only able to think through the possibilities. They didn’t expect the impossible. Yet, that is the way God works. He doesn’t always give us what we expect. He gives us what is best for us.

The Nature of Salvation

God did the impossible when his people had nothing. They didn’t have an army to fight against Pharaoh. They didn’t have a boat or a bridge to cross the Sea. All they had was the power and presence of the God who had led them to the Sea.

Notice how Moses answers the objections of the people…

Exodus 14: 14, “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

This is a story of salvation. It is the single most important salvation event in the history of the Jews. Just as we have ordered our weekly worship and Christian calendar around the resurrection of Jesus, the Jews have ordered their worship and calendar around the Exodus. God stepped into their story and saved them.

God did not save the Hebrews because they deserved to be saved. God did not save them because they were better than any other people group. God saved them because of his Grace and the promises he had made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Moses’ words to the people tell us a couple of things about salvation.

First, salvation is a work of God. God is the only one who can save us. We don’t contribute anything to salvation. God does it on our behalf and extends it to us as a gift of his Grace. Our only role in salvation is to accept what God offers us. (If we have the opportunity to accept God’s Grace, then the opposite must also be true. We have the opportunity to reject God’s offer of salvation.)

Second, Moses’ words tell us that God doesn’t stop saving us. God planned salvation for his people, and God accomplished their salvation.

The Book of Exodus goes to great lengths to describe how God planned to save his people. In each of the ten plagues, God announced his intentions ahead of time. Even before the plagues, God told Moses that the first nine plagues would not bring about their salvation. It would take the death of the Egyptian firstborns to accomplish salvation.

After the death of the firstborns, Pharaoh expelled the Hebrew people. In many respects, this was the way God accomplished their salvation. Then, Pharaoh changed his mind and sent his best chariots, best horses and best soldiers to chase down God’s people and bring them back into slavery. Their salvation was now in jeopardy.

But, God never stops saving his people. God has a plan for salvation. God accomplishes salvation. And, God continues to keep his people safe.

When Pharaoh chased after the Hebrew people, he was trying to undo what God had done. This is the nature of evil. God saves his people from the clutches of evil. But evil does not give up easily. Evil continues to pursue those whom God has saved.

The same thing is true for us as Christians. Salvation is the work of God. God is the one who planned the way of salvation. God’s plan was to use the nation of Israel to bring about the birth of Jesus, the unique Son of God. Jesus lived as our example, died as our sacrifice and rose again as God’s promise that we would have eternal salvation. God accomplished our salvation through the cross and resurrection. We don’t have anything to contribute to this salvation. It offered to us as a gift of God’s Grace. All we can do is accept God’s Grace or reject God’s Grace.

When we accept God’s Grace, we have been set free from all kinds of slavery. We are no longer slaves to sin, death, evil, or even Satan himself. Yet, salvation is not the last time we have to deal with sin, death, evil and Satan. Sin, death, evil and Satan pursue us in the same way Pharaoh continued to pursue the Hebrew people. And like the Hebrew people, we feel trapped. We are not strong enough to fight. We are not good enough to resist. God saved us and will continue to save us when we are being pursued.

Compare Moses’ words to the words of Jesus…

Exodus 14: 14, “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

John 10: 27 – 30, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the father are one.”

God plans our salvation. God accomplishes our salvation. God continues to keep his people safe.

Who has the right to claim the Hebrew people as his possession? Pharaoh thinks he has a right to claim them as his slaves. But that is no longer the case. God has saved them and claimed them as his own people. No one can snatch them out of God’s hand.

Who has a right to claim you as his possession? Satan is pursuing you, because he remembers a time when you were his slave. But if you have accepted God’s offer of Grace, God has claimed you as his possession…And no one can snatch you from God’s hand.

The Nature of Faith

If we believe that salvation is an act of God and that we make no contribution to our own salvation, then there is a temptation for us to “do nothing.” Of course, the Book of Exodus does not tell us to “do nothing.”

Notice the contrast between Exodus 14: 14 and 14: 15…

Exodus 14: 14, “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Exodus 14: 15, “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.’”

This seems like a contradiction. On one hand, God tells his people to stand still. On the other hand, God tells his people to move on. And to make matters more complicated, these two verses appear back to back. Do we have to make a choice between standing still and moving on?

Perhaps the answer can be found in the context. In the context, God parted the Red Sea, and the people had to walk through. God did all the hard work by doing the impossible. All the people had to do was to walk across on dry ground.

God planned salvation, accomplished salvation and continues to save. Yet, there was a task for God’s people to do. They had to walk. They had to move on. They had to follow where God was leading them to go.

This is the nature of faith. Once God has saved us, there is a task for us to do. We are not called to do nothing…to continue standing still…to stand as spectators of all the impossible things God has accomplished. We are to step out in faith.

Another way to describe this is to talk about salvation as both objective and subjective. To describe salvation as objective, we must describe it as an accomplished fact—something God has already done without any contribution from us. To describe salvation as subjective, we must describe it as something that happens inside of us—in our hearts, in our minds, in our bodies.

For the Hebrews, salvation was objective in that God had sent the plagues which led to their release from slavery and God had parted the waters of the Red Sea. However, salvation was subjective in that they still had to leave the nation of Egypt and to walk across the Sea on dry ground.

For Christians, salvation is objective in that God accomplished our salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. God acted on our behalf. However, salvation is subjective in that every person must receive this salvation through faith, AND we must live out our faith.

The life of faith always involves risk. It is stepping into unknown territory. If we knew ahead of time what was going to happen, we wouldn’t need faith. We would be walking by sight or living by our own wisdom.

Conclusion

One of the truths about faith is the fact that there is no such thing as an untried faith. If you have faith, God will allow you to be in situations where your faith will be tested. It will look like there are only two possibilities. It will feel like you are trapped. And the only way out is faith…to trust God completely to do what we cannot do…to move on by stepping into the unknown.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Remember and Respond

Remember and Respond

Exodus 13: 1 – 16.

Introduction

One of the first things I did before moving to Lufkin was to read the book, A Light in the East Texas Forest—the history of the first one hundred years of Lufkin’s First Baptist Church. By the way, we recently discovered a case full of the books. So, if you want your very own copy, call the church and negotiate a price.

The book tells the story of how the city of Lufkin grew up around the railroad. In July of 1883, nine men and women got together and formed the First Baptist Church on land donated by the railroad. They started with nine people, but only two years later in 1885, they had declined to only seven members.

I am a little disappointed that our history book doesn’t tell the story of “why” these nine men and women wanted to start a Baptist church in Lufkin. We are left to assume that they had been Baptists in other towns and saw the need for a Baptist witness in Lufkin. Of course that says a lot in itself. A Baptist church is a church committed to the Lordship of Jesus; the authority of Scripture; the importance of a personal faith; the priesthood of all believers; and the importance of worldwide evangelism and missions.

Two remarkable facts about our history are (1) the way LFBC has impacted the city of Lufkin through starting new churches and (2) the way LFBC has impacted the world by sending out ministers and missionaries.

For example, did you know that there are 15 churches in Lufkin who got their start as missions of LFBC? Three of those churches are still missions of LFBC—Cross Timbers Cowboy Church; New Beginnings Baptist Church; and La Casa del Alfarero. (At this very moment, there are 190 people worshipping at Cross Timbers; 100 worshipping at New Beginnings; and 100 worshipping at La Casa—That is at least 390 people who have been reached with the Gospel over the past 5 years but are not in our worship service this morning.)

Another example is the story of Rick Warren and the Saddleback Church in Southern California. Today, Saddleback is one of the largest churches in North America…and they got their start right here in this sanctuary. In 1979, Rick Warren graduated from seminary and started preaching in churches all over Texas. He shared his vision of planting a new kind of church in California. He preached here at LFBC, and we were the first church to support him in his ministry. We sent him $250 per month for five years (1980 to 1984). He even names our church and a church in California as the two churches that sponsored him financially in his first book, The Purpose Driven Church.[1] (I also heard him speak to the BGCT annual meeting in Amarillo in 2008. He told the convention that he is grateful for LFBC and the way we believed in him and supported him.)

There was even a time when the executive director of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention came from our church—Baker James Cauthen. When he died in 1985, Billy Graham said he was “one of the greatest missionary statesmen in all American church life.”[2]

Two more examples even closer to home…Lawanda Bright came from our church and served as a Foreign Mission Board missionary to Nigeria. Jerry Merriman grew up in our youth ministry and went on to become the director of collegiate ministry for the Mississippi Baptist Convention.

Of course, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with the Book of Exodus…

So far in the Book of Exodus, we have read about how God’s people were held as slaves in the nation of Egypt. They cried out to God to help them, and God answered their cries. God sent Moses to be a kind of human mediator between God and the people. Then, God sent ten plagues on the nation and people of Egypt. After the tenth plague, Pharaoh had all he could take and sent them out of Egypt.

Pharaoh didn’t wait until the light of day. He sent for Moses in the middle of the night and told him to get out and get out now. The story of salvation has reached its crescendo. The action is taking place at a fevered pitch. But… all of a sudden… in the middle of the action… the Book of Exodus slows down. It slows down to tell God’s people how important it is for them to remember what God is doing for them.

Exodus 13: 1 – 16.

1 The LORD said to Moses,

2 "Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal."

3 Then Moses said to the people, "Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the LORD brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast.

4 Today, in the month of Abib, you are leaving.

5 When the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites-- the land he swore to your forefathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey-- you are to observe this ceremony in this month:

6 For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the LORD.

7 Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders.

8 On that day tell your son, 'I do this because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.'

9 This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that the law of the LORD is to be on your lips. For the LORD brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand.

10 You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year.

11 "After the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as he promised on oath to you and your forefathers,

12 you are to give over to the LORD the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the LORD.

13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.

14 "In days to come, when your son asks you, 'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.'

16 And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the LORD brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand."

(NIV)


The Bible has a lot to say about remembering. In fact, you could even make a case that this is one of the reasons why the Bible was written. It was written so that we would remember and never forget what God has done.

In the same way, we need to remember all God has done in our church. We remember what God did in the people of Israel. We remember what God did through the first twelve disciples. We remember what God did in the early church. We remember what God has done in LFBC. However, it is not enough to remember.

Sure, one of the reasons the Bible was written was to help us remember. But, the purpose of remembering is not to dwell in the past. Dwelling in the past almost guarantees that we don’t have a future. It’s like saying God is through with us. He did all he could do with us in the past. All we can do now is waste our present and future by thinking about the past. The Bible has a lot to say about remembering, but the Bible also tells us to rejoice in hope and to live with joyful expectation of what God will do in the future.

Remember the Future

In Exodus 13, God tells the people to remember the past. But notice how God tells them to remember…

Exodus 13: 5, “When the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites…”

Exodus 13: 10, “You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year.”

Exodus 13: 11, “After the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites…”

God tells us to remember with an eye toward the future. We can’t see the future. But we can see the past…usually with 20/20 vision.

No one knows what the future holds. Most of us have a difficult time explaining or even understanding the present. But, that is not the case with the past.

We can remember the past and in remembering, we can see the ways God was at work. Sometimes God works in miraculous ways. But, most of the time, God has been working behind the scenes. When God is working behind the scenes, we can only see him when we look back at the ways he has protected us and prepared us for what we are doing right now.

Biblical Way of Remembering

In this section of Exodus, God gives his people three ways to remember their salvation. He told them to remember by observing the Passover; to remember by observing a seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread; and to remember by consecrating their firstborns.

All three of these remembrances come from the tenth plague. After nine plagues in which God used the created order to accomplish his purposes, God himself entered into the land of Egypt. In the tenth plague, God fulfilled his promise from Exodus 4: 22 – 23. Since Egypt held God’s firstborn son as a slave, God killed the firstborn sons of Egypt.

This plague did not affect the Hebrew people. They were told to sacrifice a lamb (one lamb for every household); roast the meat over fire; eat the entire lamb (served in a meal with unleavened bread); and to paint the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their homes.

The Passover meal was instituted as an annual meal to remember the night that God passed over the homes that had the blood of the lamb painted on their doorposts.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was instituted to remember that the Egyptians forced the Hebrews to leave the land of Egypt so quickly that they didn’t have time for the bread to rise.

The consecration of the firstborn was instituted to remember that the Hebrew firstborns lived when the Egyptian firstborns died.

Notice that all three of these remembrances can be described as “rituals.”

For some reason, we Baptists don’t really like ritual. We don’t like it, because we think ritual is the same thing as “dead ritual.” Of course, there is always a danger that ritual can become dead ritual. But they don’t have to be the same thing.

Dead ritual is what happens when we are simply “going through the motions.” Or, dead ritual is what happens when all we do is remember the past.

Remember and Interpret

Ritual can be a good thing when it accomplishes what God had in mind when he instituted the rituals. Ritual points us backward toward history. History, when properly understood, tells us something about God and the future God intends for us. When we understand God properly, he shapes the way we live our lives!

Ritual => History

History => Theology

Theology => A Different Kind of Life

It is not enough for us to remember. We must remember and interpret.

Take the consecration of the firstborn as an example. In Exodus 13: 2, God said, “Consecrate to me every firstborn make. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal.”

Since babies can be born at any time of the year, this is not an annual event. This is something that happens whenever the first son, the first lamb, the first calf or the first donkey is born. This was a continual observance.

The firstborn lamb was to be offered to God as a sacrifice. The firstborn donkey was to be killed. However, God did not ask the Israelites to sacrifice their children. Instead, they could redeem their firstborn sons by substituting a lamb as a sacrifice.

The sacrifice is a ritual God instituted. The ritual points God’s people backward to their history. The firstborn sons of the Hebrew people were “saved” by the blood of the Passover lamb.

Their history reminds them that God is the God of salvation. God has been faithful to his people in the past. AND, God will always be faithful to his people in the future.

They are to order their lives around who God is and what God has done for them. In some ways, this is a lesson in stewardship. Since God is the one who saved the Hebrew people and established them as a nation, everything they have came as a gift from God. Therefore, the first of everything belongs to God. The firstborn sons belong to God. The firstborn lambs, calves and donkeys belong to God. The first fruits of the harvest belong to God. The first 10% of their income belongs to God.

Conclusion

In other ways, this points forward to the story of the Gospel. In the Old Testament, the firstborn son was redeemed or bought back by a sacrifice. In the New Testament, God’s firstborn son, Jesus, became the means of our redemption.

As Christians, you and I are not firstborn sons and daughters. We were not even sons and daughters of God until we BECAME sons and daughters of God through union with Christ. Jesus was the firstborn son and the sacrifice who brought us into relationship with God. We became sons and daughters of God through an act of Grace.

THIS is what we are supposed to remember. But, remembering is not enough. We must remember and respond.

Before we had faith in Jesus, we were slaves. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus redeemed us from slavery. Everything we are and everything we have came to us as a gift of God’s Grace. Therefore, we give God the first of everything we have. We give God the first and not the leftovers…The first of our finances, the first of our week, the first of our day…



[1] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), p. 37.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

God's Power and Purpose

God’s Power and Purpose

Exodus 9: 13 – 35

Introduction

For the past few weeks, I have been preaching the Book of Exodus on Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening. I think the Book of Exodus speaks to our individual Christian lives and to our corporate Christian life as a church.

For example, God had a plan for Moses. God wanted to use Moses to be the one to rescue God’s people out of Egyptian slavery. However, Moses thought he was a failure.

Moses had tried to liberate the Hebrew slaves through force. He could not bear to watch as an Egyptian slave master was beating Hebrew slave. So, Moses stepped in. He fought off the Egyptian and killed him. But, the Hebrews didn’t appreciate what Moses was willing to do for them. He eventually had to run away into the desert to escape Pharaoh…Because Pharaoh wanted to kill Moses.

Moses settled into a desert life. He married a girl named Zipporah and went to work for her father. Moses named their first born son, Gershom—which means stranger. Moses had accepted the fact that he was a failure and would have to live the rest of his life as a stranger in a strange land.

When you and I feel like we are failures, we have a tendency to do exactly what Moses did. We settle. We settle for being a failure. And, we accept the fact that we will never experience the very best of life. Instead, we think we will get what we deserve…not the best in life, but the second best. Other people and other churches might experience the best. We just need to get comfortable with second best.

Fortunately for us, Moses’ life did not end in the desert. Moses was willing to settle for second best. But, that wasn’t God’s plan for Moses. It’s not God’s plan for your life either. AND…Second best is not God’s plan for our church.

Most of us are very familiar with the rest of Moses’ story. We know that God sent him back to Egypt. Moses confronted Pharaoh and demanded that Pharaoh let God’s people go. Pharaoh didn’t let God’s people go…at least, not at first. God sent a series of ten plagues on Pharaoh and the people of Egypt.

The tenth and final plague convinced Pharaoh to let God’s people go. The tenth plague was the death of every firstborn in the nation of Egypt. After this plague, Pharaoh couldn’t get rid of the Hebrews fast enough. But, the first nine plagues weren’t like this.

During the first nine plagues, Pharaoh was a “flip flopper.” Several times, he told Moses to take God’s people and leave Egypt, only to change his mind. This makes me wonder why God sent ten plagues.

Was God toying with Pharaoh? Were the first nine plagues necessary to wear Pharaoh down, so that God could accomplish what he wanted in the tenth plague?

If we look back to the first time Moses confronted Pharaoh, we see that God announced the death of the firstborns in the very beginning.

Exodus 4: 22 – 23, “Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, ‘Let my son go, so he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’”

If God knew what he was doing, why were the first nine plagues even necessary? In my understanding, the first nine plagues had a purpose. They were intended to show Pharaoh, the people of Egypt and the Hebrew people something about God. They served a theological purpose.

Read Exodus 9: 13 – 35.

13 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me,

14 or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.

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.

16 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.

17 You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go.

18 Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now.

19 Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every man and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die.'"

20 Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside.

21 But those who ignored the word of the LORD left their slaves and livestock in the field.

22 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that hail will fall all over Egypt-- on men and animals and on everything growing in the fields of Egypt."

23 When Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, the LORD sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt;

24 hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

25 Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields-- both men and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree.

26 The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were.

27 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. "This time I have sinned," he said to them. "The LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.

28 Pray to the LORD, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don't have to stay any longer."

29 Moses replied, "When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands in prayer to the LORD. The thunder will stop and there will be no more hail, so you may know that the earth is the LORD's.

30 But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the LORD God."

31 (The flax and barley were destroyed, since the barley had headed and the flax was in bloom.

32 The wheat and spelt, however, were not destroyed, because they ripen later.)

33 Then Moses left Pharaoh and went out of the city. He spread out his hands toward the LORD; the thunder and hail stopped, and the rain no longer poured down on the land.

34 When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts.

35 So Pharaoh's heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the LORD had said through Moses.

(NIV)


This is the story of the seventh plague. The Book of Exodus spends more time describing this plague than any of the first nine plagues. In some ways, this description has a lot in common with the descriptions of the earlier plagues. Moses came to Pharaoh early in the morning and announced exactly what Pharaoh could expect God to do if he refused to let God’s people go. In other ways, this description contains some new elements. For example, verses 16 gives us an understanding of God’s purpose for sending the plagues.

Exodus 9: 16, “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.”

I think this is supposed to remind us of the first time Moses spoke to Pharaoh. I think it certainly reminded Pharaoh.

Exodus 5: 2, “Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.’”

This is one of the theological purposes for the first nine plagues. Pharaoh did not know the LORD. So, God used the plagues to introduce himself to Pharaoh. God showed Pharaoh his power and therefore showed him the true nature of who God is.

Yahweh Is God

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at several names for God. God revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, or El Shaddai. But, God revealed himself to Moses as the LORD, or the Hebrew name Yahweh. Most English translations translate the Hebrew name Yahweh as LORD, in all capital letters.

Any time we encounter the word LORD (in all capital letters) in the Old Testament, we know it is a reference to the One, True God of Israel. It never refers to a human being or to any other god.

Yahweh is the only God we should worship, because Yahweh is the only God who has revealed himself to our spiritual ancestors. He revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses.

Yahweh is the only God we should worship, because Yahweh is the God who created. We see this in the first nine plagues.

There are several ways God could have dealt with Pharaoh. God could have sent an angel from Heaven—dressed in shining armor and wielding a sword—to destroy Pharaoh. God has done that and could have done that with Pharaoh. God could have used a foreign army to destroy Egypt and let God’s people go. God has done that. God could have used Moses to rally the Hebrew people to form their own army and force Pharaoh to let the go.

Instead, God used a weapon that only God could use. He turned creation against Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Only God created the universe. And, only God can use creation to accomplish his purposes.

Of course, there are some scholars who look at the plagues and explain them away as natural occurrences. Perhaps, the Nile didn’t really turn to blood. Perhaps, it was something like “red tide.” Red algae bloomed and emitted toxins into the water that killed all the fish and made it undrinkable. This “red tide” caused the frogs to leave the water and look for other homes. When the frogs died, their decaying bodies provided a perfect breeding ground for gnats and flies. These biting flies infected the livestock with a fatal disease and caused boils on the people.

I suppose this can be an attractive explanation. But it fails to take into consideration the fact that God was in control of BOTH the beginning of the plagues and the end of the plagues. In each plague, God announced ahead of time what he was going to do in creation; and God announced when the plagues would end. Therefore, God used his power over creation to prove who he really is—the one who created the universe is the only one who can use creation to accomplish his purposes.

Yahweh Is the ONLY God

Another thing the natural explanation does not take into consideration is the way the ten plagues were an attack on the false gods the Egyptians worshipped.

The Egyptians had one of the most stable economies in the ancient world, because of the dependability of the Nile River. The Nile flooded every year and brought fresh topsoil to the fertile Nile delta. Egyptian crops had rich soil and a dependable source of water. This led many Egyptians to worship the Nile River as the personification of the god Hapi. When God turned the river into blood, it was not an attack on the Egyptian people as much as it was an attack on one of their false gods.

We can make the same point about the infestation of frogs. One of the Egyptian goddesses was depicted as a human with the head of a frog. And God filled their houses with the stench of dead frogs.

The Egyptians prayed to several gods to protect their crops from insects. And God sent gnats and flies and locusts. Their false gods were powerless to protect them from the God of creation.

The Egyptians held an annual worship service at harvest time. They brought the crops in from the field and gave thanks to Isis and Min for the change in the seasons and the bountiful harvest. And, God destroyed their crops with a hailstorm and a swarm of locusts.

One of the most famous gods of Egypt goes by the name Re, or Ra. He was the sun god. Notice what happened in the eighth plague. The sun was darkened for three straight days. It was dark everywhere in Egypt…Except in Goshen, the place where the Hebrew slaves lived.

The plagues were not a contest between Moses and Pharaoh. They were not even a contest between God and Pharaoh. Instead, they were a contest between the One, True God and the many, false gods of Egypt.

In the end, the Egyptian gods could not stand up to the power of Yahweh, the God of creation and the One, True God.

This is one of those places where the Bible makes an exclusive claim about God. Our God is not one choice among many. Our God is not one expression of a universal reality. No. God does not reveal himself to different people in different ways. There is only one true God. He has revealed himself as Yahweh. He is the God who created the universe and uses creation to accomplish his purposes. He is the God who redeemed the Hebrew people from slavery, established them as the Nation of Israel, and used Israel to bring his only Son, Jesus, into the world.

The One, True God is the God of creation and the God of salvation.

Yahweh Is the ONLY God for ALL the Earth

I suppose there are a couple of ways we could interpret God’s power in the plagues. It’s possible to read the plagues and come to the conclusion that Egypt had its own gods, therefore God needed his people to leave the land of Egypt and go live in a region where Yahweh was Lord. But that view fails to take into account that Yahweh was exercising his power and authority in the land of Egypt.

The plagues prove that Yahweh is God, even in the land of Egypt. Therefore, God is not limited by geographical boundaries. Yahweh is the God of Egypt just as much as he is the God of Israel.

Notice that this is exactly what God tells Pharaoh in Exodus 9: 16, “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.”

God’s purpose is bigger than the Nation of Israel. God’s purpose includes the Nation of Egypt…But only because Egypt is a part of “all the earth.” God used the plagues to prove that Yahweh is the ONLY God in all the earth.

The plagues show us the power of God. But, we need to keep in mind…God didn’t show his power in secret. He did it in a way that all the world may know. Therefore, we are not supposed to think of God’s power as a secret to keep from others.

Just as the Hebrew people were to tell their children, we are supposed to tell our children. Just as the Nation of Israel was to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth, so we are to tell the world about the God of creation and the God of salvation.

We should not think of the plagues as a local phenomenon. Instead, we should recognize the plagues as a part of God’s worldwide purpose. In the plagues, God proved he is the ONLY God for all the earth. He used these plagues to establish the Nation of Israel, who would one day bring about the birth of Jesus—the Savior for people of all races.

Conclusion

If we were to go through each of the plagues individually, we would probably have a hard time trying to find application for our Twenty-First Century lives. After all, I have never lived through an infestation of frogs or a swarm of locusts.

However, when we look at all the plagues together, we can stand back and say “WOW! Look at what God can do.”

This is the first step of worship. We stand in awe of God’s power and God’s purpose. He has power over all creation. His purpose is to be known in all the earth—not just in Israel…not just in Lufkin, Texas. My salvation is only a part of what God is doing throughout all the earth.

And if my salvation is only a part of what God is doing in all the earth, then maybe God has a plan to use me. Maybe I am not such a failure after all.

If God’s plans are for all the earth, then God’s plans are bigger than our church. Our church is only part of what God is doing. Maybe our church is not a failure…God has a plan for us…A plan to reach the city of Lufkin, the state of Texas, the United States of America and all the earth.