Psalm 105 - The Plagues and God's Holy Promise

Introduction

In our studies in the book of Exodus we have reached the series of ten plagues or disasters which struck Egypt because Pharaoh would not let the Israelites leave his country. You may remember that in the first chapter of this book we read about Pharaoh's concern that the Israelites had become too powerful; it does seem surprising, does it not, that he was so unwilling to let them go when he had the chance. However, as we have seen, Pharaoh wanted to be lord over the people of God and he thought that he could wear them into humble submission through oppression. What he had not reckoned with was the God of the Israelites.

The Bible is first and foremost the book which has as its chief character and great hero none other than God Himself. The book of Exodus is not about Moses, nor the Israelites, but it is about God, the Sovereign Lord who had revealed Himself to His people by the special name of YHWH. In chapter 3 we read how God had renewed His covenant with Israel through Moses. "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob," He told Moses. "I have come down to bring my people into a good and spacious land."

Psalm 105 reinforces the fact that at the centre of God's dealings with the Israelites was the covenant He had made with Abraham (v 8-11). As we shall learn this evening, God's holy promise to Abraham (v 42) is His holy promise to us all - if we have faith, if we follow Abraham's example and trust that God will keep His promise to bring us into a land of peace.

Similarly, Revelation 15 is typical of the whole series of visions given to John while he was on the island of Patmos - typical, we can say, of the whole of the New Testament - in that it proclaims God's righteous acts as the centre of the gospel, righteous acts that reveal God as the One who keeps His promises. Notice how the Temple, and particularly the "Tabernacle of the Testimony", where the stones of the covenant were kept, features in this chapter (15:3).

Do you see the principle at work here? As the saints in heaven were seen and heard to declare, all God's deeds are found to be great and marvellous in their eyes because they are just and true, revealing the Sovereignty of God over all nations and declaring His holiness (15:3,4). The end result of the covenant made with men and women is worship in humble and joyful recognition of the glory of God (v 4; compare Psalm 105:1-7). Everything God does is in order to bring Him glory, and this glory is given as men and women, powers and authorities, recognise that He has kept His promises.

What is this promise? Its essence is found in the covenant made with Abraham, renewed with each generation of Abraham's descendants, formalised in the Law, expounded through the kings and priests of Israel, preached by the prophets and fulfilled in the Messiah. God promised to make a people who would be at one with Himself, overcoming the barrier of sin, erected by man between Himself and men and women. But this promise demands a response of trust, for God does not force men and women into a relationship with Himself. No, faith alone will bring people into oneness with Him, faith that He, the LORD, is both able and willing to deal with the problem of sin, trusting Him to keep His holy promise.

It is important that we understand all this if we are to appreciate how a God of love could punish a nation such as Egypt with disasters which increased in intensity as each one followed the other, to the point of the death of the firstborn of each inhabitant of Egypt who had not expressed trust in God. It is important that we understand all this if we are to appreciate how a God of love could send His own dear Son to die on a cross at the hands of sinful men. It is important that we understand all this if we are to appreciate the biblical teaching on the final judgement. I propose to take each of these three themes in turn as we consider the way in which God kept His holy promise to the slaves, to sinners and to the saints.

God Keeps His Holy Promise to the Slaves

"I have seen the misery of my people ... and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey..." (Ex 3:7,8).

This is how God announced His intention to honour His promise to the Israelites. For the Hebrew, the promised land was the guarantee that God was their God and they were His people. However, if God was indeed their God, why did He not simply overrule Pharaoh's despotism and bring the people out of slavery? Why did He let Joseph encourage his father Jacob to settle in Egypt in the first place? It is because the sins of Egypt had reached the level where they must be judged and punished. God had been merciful, for as much as He is judge, He is also merciful. But the principle here is that God works out His judgement through His people. Egypt was to be judged because as a nation she had not recognised Israel as God's chosen people. Had the people of Egypt done so, they would not have oppressed the people. As the psalmist says, the Egyptians conspired against the servants of the Lord (105:25). Instead of repenting of their sins through the testimony of the people of Israel to their holy God, they had added sin to sin. Instead of responding to the word of God with penitence and faith, they had rebelled (105:28).

The Israelites were also put to the test. If they truly trusted in God, they would be obedient when He commanded them to do certain things. The only way they would be saved during the passover of the angel of death was through the blood of lambs.

Moses and Aaron were sent by God to prepare the Israelites for judgement and to perform His miraculous signs and wonders among the oppressors (105:26,27).

The testimony of the words and works of God through Moses proclaimed the glory of God. He had remembered His holy promise (105:42), and He delivered His people with rejoicing and shouts of joy (105:43). The people of God received their inheritance. Out of judgement came salvation for the people of God.

God Keeps His Holy Promise to the Sinners

During the Passover meal on the evening before He was to die, Jesus referred to the third cup of wine as the "cup of the new covenant" in His blood (Luke 22:20). You may remember our series of sermons in Jeremiah last year when we looked at the Old Testament teaching about this new covenant. Israel, the physical nation, was never intended in God's eyes to be the means by which He would judge the world. Out of Israel there was to be a spiritual people, called to be His, and their king was to be the Messiah. Through messianic prophecies and the exposition of the Law, this remnant of Israel were shown that God's covenant was with people who followed in the faith of Abraham. The psalm makes that clear in verses 8-10.

God promised and still promises to set free from the reign of sin into the reign of His righteousness all those who trust Him for their deliverance. The gospel writers and the authors of the epistles recognise Jesus as God's messenger; they write about His words and deeds as signs of God's promise being fulfilled. They record the acts of rebellion against God's holy messenger to the point of putting Him to death on a cross. They tell of the joy and rejoicing of those who find freedom through the blood of the Lamb of God and the new life they enjoy in His resurrection, and they expound the great theological truth that judgement has come on the world through Christ. They call the way in which God keeps His promise to the repentant sinner the 'gospel'.

Such is God's love that He sent His Son to die that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. But whoever does not believe, whoever does not trust in the God who keeps His promises, that person stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son (John 3:16,18).

God Keeps His Holy Promise to the Saints

And so we turn to the final theme this evening. The book of Revelation is the word from God to take the Church through the ages from the apostolic era until the return of Christ. In it we are given an insight into the outworking of God's principles in history, of which the main and most majestic is the truth of God's sovereignty over all things through Jesus Christ.

Consequently, as the final phase of history is brought into view, we see all the threads concerning God's dealings with man converging. Revelation 15 contains the formal prelude to the final judgement. Verse 1 concerns the assembling of the angelic officers, seven in number, who pour out, at the word of command, from their golden vials, those successive judgements which usher in the last great day. Next we have a description of the people of God. Indeed, in this chapter we see how God has kept His holy promise to the saints, the Church of Christ. See how the saints have obtained victory over those who oppress them (15:2). The Church in Christ has overcome the power of the world, its deceits and blasphemies, its errors and apostasies. See where they stand; they are by the sea of glass, the motionless, unruffled sea of God's wisdom, providence and grace. All is still, peaceful and at rest. Listen to their song; it is the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. It is the song of deliverance of the people of God, declaring God's righteousness and perfect justice. The Church celebrates in faith that God will keep His promise to her to present her on the last day as the Bride of the heavenly Groom, pure and spotless.

Again we see that God brings judgement on those who have not put their trust in His Son despite the witness of His people, the Church. Indeed, although they have heard the words preached and seen the works done in His Name by the Church, people still trust in themselves and their self-righteousness. They rebel against the word of the Lord and oppress the Church. Yet the faith of Christians results in songs of praise, in joy and rejoicing. Their inheritance is the kingdom of God. They know that in Christ God has and will keep His Holy promise.

Conclusion

To conclude, then, we can see that the plagues that befell Egypt were typical of God's dealings with mankind. He judges sin and in His righteousness condemns sin, but also in His righteousness He declares the means by which men and women may be set free from this condemnation. He does not contradict Himself in so doing because the nature of this righteousness which condemns sin and saves the repentant sinner has been revealed in Jesus Christ. God is holy love, and His holy love is the governing attribute of all His actions.

We see that judgement falls on those who do not trust in Him as the One who keeps His promises. These faithless people - referred to as fools in the wisdom literature of the Bible - show their rebellion by the way they oppress God's people: the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites, the Jews oppressed Jesus, the world oppresses the Church.

One day we must all appear before Christ's judgement seat. Paul refers to this fact as 'the terror of the Lord' (2 Cor 5:11). "Jesus the Lord, like His Father is holy and pure; we are neither. We live under His eye, He knows our secrets, and on judgement day the whole of our past life will be played back, as it were, before Him, and brought under review. If we know ourselves at all, we know we are not fit to face Him. What then are we to do? The New Testament answer is: call on the coming Judge to be you present Saviour....Run from Him now, and you will meet Him as Judge then - and without hope. Seek Him now, and you will find Him (for 'he that seeketh findeth'), and you will then discover that you are looking forward to that future meeting with joy, knowing that there is now 'no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus' (Romans 8:1)." (J.I. Packer, "Knowing God," page 163)

On which side of the throne will you be on that day? My prayer is that you will be found with the saints if you put your trust in the holy promise of God and live according to His will. Amen.