Sermon Tone Analysis

The fist plague God sent against Pharaoh was turning the Nile and all of the water in Egypt into blood.

Eighty years prior to this the Pharaoh of Egypt filled the Nile with the blood of Hebrew boys in an attempt to make sure that they always served him.

And one of those boys became his grandson and now him and his brother are being used by God to remind the Egyptians of the blood that they filled the Nile with by turning it all to blood, throughout Egypt so that everyone would be reminded and confronted with their sin and the murder of innocent children made in God’s own image.

He then followed this plague with nine more: Frogs, gnats, swarms of flies, death of livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and finally, death of the firstborn male.

These plagues were direct attacks against Egyptian gods and against Pharaoh himself.

The Egyptians worship several gods who were responsible for different aspects of Egyptian life.

Hapi was the god of the nile, Ra was the god of the sun, and these gods were powerless against Yahweh.

God showed the Egyptians and all the other nations who heard about what He did to deliver His people that He alone was God and that all other gods were powerless against Him.

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and we see the result:

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We also see how the Egyptians felt:

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And we see that some of the Egyptians went with the Israelites.

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The final plague was the death of the firstborn male.

The first plague was a reminder of Egypt’s killing of the Hebrew male children, and the last plague was God’s killing of the Egyptian firstborn male children.

But there are some big differences.

God isn’t killing all of the male children, just the firstborn males, people and livestock, but unlike Pharaoh, God would allow you to redeem your firstborn males by sacrificing a one year old spotless goat or lamb.

Anyone who would trust God to accept the proper sacrifice could have the lives of the firstborn males spared.

But the Israelites were not automatically spared from this plague.

Even though this was a judgment against Egypt, the Egyptians were not the only people who deserved death, all people deserve death.

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So the Israelites were told they too must sacrifice a lamb and wipe the blood on their door posts and when the angel of death came to their house and saw the blood of the sacrifice the angel would passover that house and spare the firstborn males.

In this way God was showing His people that even though we all deserve death, God will accept a sacrifice in our place so that we may live, but the people will eventually learn that the blood of bulls and goats is not sufficient to completely atone for our sins, there must be a greater sacrifice.

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God spared the firstborn males of those who place their faith in Him for their salvation, by allowing them to be redeemed by a substitute, but He would not spare His only Son who willingly sacrificed Himself for the forgiveness of our sins.

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Jesus chose to sacrifice himself.

His life was not taken, it was given.

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Isaiah’s prophecy of the messiah said that he would willingly submit himself to death, bear their sin and intercede for them.

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And as a result, we are completely atoned for and can be brought near to God, without having to be so careful to not get too close to Him.

This is made possible by the blood of Jesus.

His sacrifice, His blood, cleanses us.

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His blood declares us righteous and will prevent us from facing God’s wrath against our sin because Jesus faced God’s wrath on our behalf.

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There is no shortage of passages in which we are told that it was by Jesus’ willing sacrifice of Himself that we are saved.

******God’s holiness,

Justice

Love

Free will

Jesus’ decision to die for us

God pours out his wrath on Jesus as if He were us

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