Reality and Gold

Intro

Re tell the story where we are

Read 21-28

God keeps his promises 29-32

It was the dead of night. Most people were in their homes, asleep. Families all over Egypt had gone down for the night. But then the visitor came, with a deadly purpose. He was a destroyer, the angel of death.

The visitor was on a mission from God. He swept across Egypt, calling on every house in Pharaoh’s kingdom. It was obvious that he was looking for something, because as he came to each house he paused to inspect the doorway. In the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, he found what he was looking for. There was a mark of blood on the top and sides of every door. When the visitor saw the blood, he passed over the house, holding back his deadly blow because a sacrifice had been made for sin. The family inside had heard that they could be saved by the blood of a lamb, and the sign on the door was a public testimony of their faith in God’s saving word.

The rest of the houses in Egypt were not marked with the sign of salvation. As the visitor traveled up and down the Nile, he came to entire towns and cities where not a single household had offered a lamb for their sins. The visitor did not pass by these houses but slipped inside to claim the life of the firstborn son. Thus a night that began in silence ended in suffering:1

1 Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 344–345.

But the distinction God made that night is the one that he always makes. It is the distinction between those who have faith in the blood of the sacrifice he provides and those who do not, and on that distinction rests the eternal destiny of every human being1

1 Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 346.

God keeps his promises

God always sees to it that he keeps his promises. Everything he has ever promised us will come true: By faith we will persevere to the end of life, enter glory, be raised from the dead, and enjoy the pleasures of God for all eternity. God is keeping his vigil. He is watching to make sure that it all happens just the way he said it would1

1 Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 348.

Egypt would suffer judgement

not go empty handed

that his people would know He was God

that Egyptians would also

Leave in a hurray

Irony

never see my face again

yet called him in the middle of the night

never let you go

forced them out

Worship the Lord (serve)

Pharoah only wanted them to serve him

How ironic that the man who refused to do what God told him to do is now pressing them to do just as God wanted them to

this time with no conditions

Pharoah, after all his hardness of heart, is the end, did just what God told him to do. Stop resisting God! He will accomplish his plan and purpose.

bless me also

His request is reminiscent of a scene from The Fiddler on the Roof, in which a young Russian Jew asks the town rabbi if there is a blessing for the tsar. It is a tough question because the tsar is their oppressor, and yet surely God has some kind of blessing for everyone. The rabbi thinks about it for a moment, and then he says, “May the Lord bless the tsar and keep him … far away from us!”1

1 Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 349.

John Currid writes, “What we can say with certainty is that there was no real repentance on the part of the king. He gave no recognition of any personal responsibility—he wanted the blessing without the liability, the shame, or the consequences. He simply desired the plagues to be gone. We know this to be the case, because once the immediate shock following the final plague had subsided, the Egyptian king pursued the Hebrews in order to destroy them.” God will not bless a man who will not repent of his sin.1

1 Philip Graham Ryken and R. Kent Hughes, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 349–350.

Gold! 33-36

people left with bread in their bowls

first fast food

fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham that they would leave slavery with great riches

Gen 15:13-14)

Egyptian Gold used for God’s glory

Origen

like secular thought/knowledge

use this and dedicate it to God

Augustine

use it but run through Scripture first

Be mindful of its misuse

Gold used to build the golden calf

To defend 35-42

route

though we don’t know exact route due to these locations not being found. the detail given shows they did happen

would have been easy to prove false

Location

Ramesis, and Succoth

size

600,000 men or 600 clans

600,000 total

Date

430 years to the date

It is real

the reality of how God brought this salvation to His people Israel is the same reality of how He brought salvation to us