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GOD IS KEEPING HIS PROMISES BY PRESERVING HIS PEOPLEExodus 8:20—9:12INTRODUCTION My family that I grew up in began to regularly attend church when I was about 11 years old. I generally enjoyed going to church, mostly because of the people who were there. I don’t remember paying much attention to anything that was said. I slept through most of the sermons I heard and giggled through my first communion when I was 13. When I left home for college, I didn’t see any reason to keep going to church. I spent most Saturday nights at parties and getting up for church on Sunday just didn’t fit with the program. Yet, when I became a Christian at the end of my junior year of college, the first thing I did was start going to church again. I would have to say that after my conversion, while I knew the church was important and that I needed to be involved in a church as a Christian, yet I didn’t really understand the centrality of the church in God’s plan. I don’t think I’m alone in my not viewing the church as that important in God’s economy. Most evangelical Christians have a very low view of the church because they think of the work of Jesus as being exclusively personal and individual. While it is true that Christ saves individuals, the entire focus of the NT is that Christ came to save his church which is made up of all humans from throughout history who have trusted in his saving work through the promises of God. It took many years for God’s view of the church to capture my mind and my imagination. There is no question that from God’s point of view, the church is the most important institution on the face of planet earth. The family is not the most important institution, nor is government. Jesus Christ, the most important person in history came into the world for the sake of the church. He told his disciples that he was going to build his church and that the gates of hell would not overcome it. The apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says that God placed all things under the feet of Jesus for the sake of the church. He says later in that same letter that Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Jesus died to save the church. In Ephesians 2 Paul says that the church is the place where God dwells on earth. However, Ephesians 3:10-11 has captured my heart and my imagination most of all. These verses have been for me the driving vision for what I believe we are to be as the church of Jesus. This is what Paul says, “His (God’s) intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God’s purpose in creating the church by the work of Jesus Christ was to show off how smart he is. God reveals the glory of his infinite wisdom in creating the church, through the death, resurrection, ascension and intercession of Jesus. This has been his eternal plan. Everything that God has done in the world has been done to this end, to create the assembly of God’s people made up of humans from every nation who are gathered together out of their mutual love and devotion to Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glory. In our passage this morning, we are going to see God’s love for his people put on display. We are going to see how God shows off his glory by how he creates and cares for his church. In 8:22, God mentions the people of Israel and how he is going to deal with them as opposed to how he is going to deal with Egypt. Notice again, he says he is going to deal differently with Israel in order that Pharaoh might know that Yahweh is in the land. He is not just some local deity but the Lord of the whole earth, including Egypt and he is showing this by treating Israel, his people, different from Egypt. Just as Ephesians 3:10-11 says, God loves his people in order to show his glory to the rulers. MAIN POINT God reveals his glory through the church by…I. Not treating her as she deserves (8:20-22 & 9:1-4) Israel has not been mentioned since Exodus 6:9. If you’ll remember, the people of Israel were initially very excited when Moses and Aaron showed up and told them that the Lord had seen their misery and that he had sent them to deliver them from their slavery. However, the first time that Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and commanded that he let Israel go free, Pharaoh had increased the suffering of the Hebrews by requiring them to make bricks, the main way he was using their slaver labor, without being given straw. In other words, they had to keep making the same number of bricks but they were not given straw but had to go get it themselves. The slave drivers were beating up the Hebrew foremen because they were not meeting their quotas of bricks. The Jewish people were furious with Moses and Aaron and blamed them for their worsened conditions. When God sent a message of hope to them through Moses in chapter six we are told in verse nine that they did not listen to Moses because of their discouragement and because of their cruel bondage. The phrase that is translated “discouragement” in the NIV is literally “impatience of spirit.” It is a phrase that is used later to describe Israel’s complaining about how God is taking care of them in the desert. In short, they are mad at God and believe that he is not taking care of them like he ought and so they refuse to listen to what he says. The impatience of Israel with God in 6:9 is only the most recent expression of the sinfulness of the people of Israel as recorded in the book of Genesis. In Genesis 12:1-3 God called Abraham out of his pagan life in the land of Ur and told him that he would make him into a great nation. He told him that he would bless his descendants and that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him. God’s promise to save Israel and make them a great nation is repeated dozens of times to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and to his twelve sons. However, when you ask the question, “Why is it that God chose this family to make into a great nation and to call his people?”—you will find no reason in them. Instead, what the history of Genesis tells us is that the people of Israel are as wicked as every other human you encounter. I want to just review for you some of the evidences of Israel’s sin from Genesis. Right after Abraham built an altar and worshipped God he went to Egypt, which God didn’t tell him to do, and lied to the Egyptians about his relationship to his wife, Sarai. He told them she was his sister. He lied because he was afraid that the Egyptians might kill him in order to get his beautiful wife. As a result, the king of Egypt at that time took Sarai into his harem and had sex with her. Abraham grew rich as a result of Pharaoh’s infatuation with his wife. The only reason he wasn’t completely assimilated into Egyptian culture is God sent a disease to the Egyptians and informed Pharaoh that Sarai was a married woman. The pagan king of Egypt rebuked the “godly” Abraham, gave him back his wife, and drove him out of Egypt. In spite of the shame that he brought to his wife in Egypt, Abraham did the same thing when he was with the Philistines later on. God promised to give Abraham and Sarai children, but when they were still childless after 15 years, Sarai told Abraham to have sex with her maidservant so she could have a child through her. Rather than wait for God, Abraham and Sarai took matters into their own hands. So Hagar, the Egyptian maidservant of Sarai, became a surrogate mother and bore Ishmael, the firstborn son of Abraham. This brought no end of problems into the home of Abraham and Sarai and was the beginning of the Arab/Israeli and the Moslem/Christian conflicts that we are witnessing today. Then we have Isaac who followed the example of his father and lied that his wife was his sister. He and his wife, Rebecca, played favorites with their sons and helped to set them against one another. Jacob, the second born twin of Isaac and Rebecca, whom God renamed Israel and who is the father of the 12 tribes of Israel was a liar and a conman of the first order. Then what can we say about his sons, for whom the tribes of Israel are named, who butchered all the men in Shechem while they were helpless due to having been circumcised and enslaved the women and children. Ten of the brothers beat and then sold into slavery their younger brother Joseph and then lied to their dad for 23 years about what happened. The list of wicked actions and attitudes that characterized the family that became the nation of Israel and that suffers in slavery in Egypt goes on. The point is that God does not call Israel, “my people” because of who they are. All they have done is sin. They are the people of God because God has graciously, contrary to what they deserve made them his people. God is not going to afflict them with the plague of flies, not because of their goodness and not because they have already suffered so much. He is going to preserve them because he has made them his people. He has pledged to love them because of who he is, not because of who they are. There is a very common human assumption that God does good to good people and bad to bad people. If you don’t pay attention to the details of the Bible you will read statements like those in 8:22 and simply assume that the reason God protects Israel and the reason he punishes Egypt is because Israel are the good guys and Pharaoh and the Egyptians are the bad guys. The fact of the matter is that both are bad guys and while Pharaoh is only getting what he deserves, Israel is being treated well by God because God has determined to love them as his people. It is the same for us. If you are a member of Christ’s church and therefore loved by God and promised eternal life it is not because you are better, smarter, more spiritual than those who do not belong to Christ’s church. You are a member of the people of God by grace, not by anything you ever did. God cares for us, his church, because he chooses to love us, not because we are lovable people. We are sinners, saved purely and simply by God’s grace to the praise of his glory, not to the praise of our goodness. God reveals his glory through the church by…
II. Giving a ransom for her (8:23) In every English translation v. 23 says, “I will make a distinction between my people and your people.” However, you will also note that in every translation there is a footnote for the word “distinction.” The footnotes say, the Hebrew word standing behind the English is literally, “redemption, deliverance or ransom.” There is no textual reason to translate the word “distinction” rather than “redemption.” It is a decision made because the context seems to favor the word. What could it possibly mean if v. 23 reads; “I appoint a redemption, a ransom, between my people and your people. This sign will happen tomorrow.” The word only occurs 4 times in the OT. Psalm 111:9 says, “He (Yahweh) provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever, holy and awesome is his name.” I will not dispute that the main point of vv. 22-23 is that God is going to make a distinction between how he treats Egypt and how he treats Israel. However, I think that Moses, by using this unusual word, is seeking to answer a basic question that everyone who has read Genesis and Exodus to this point will have. How is it right for Yahweh to treat Israel different from Egypt? I don’t mean by that question what most people mean when they think about how it is right for God to choose to save some sinners rather than other sinners. Most people, when they are confronted with God’s choosing some and not others think it is unjust to those not chosen. This way of thinking reveals a typical human view of human value. God is obligated to give everyone an equal chance because all humans are equally valuable. However, the view of the Scriptures is far different. The Scriptures repeatedly ask, how is it just for God to welcome any sinners into his presence? How can God, who is holy and just, have fellowship with those who have despised him and flagrantly disobeyed his laws without being accused of being a corrupt judge? That is the question I believe that Moses is seeking to answer by using this word. It is right for God to protect Israel and call them his people because he has appointed a redemption for them. It is right for God to destroy Egypt because they are guilty sinners and he has not appointed a redemption for them. They have done nothing to obligate him to provide a ransom for them and neither has Israel. He, in the freedom of his grace has chosen to provide a redemption for his people, Israel and not for Egypt. He treats Egypt fairly, with justice. He gives them what they deserve. However, he treats Israel graciously by providing a redemption for them. What is that redemption he appoints? It is the covenant he made with Abraham and which he sealed with the death of the calf in Genesis 15. It is a blood sealed covenant. All of the animal sacrifices in the OT, which were commanded by God as Israel’s redemption, pointed ahead to the final sacrifice of redemption, which was performed by Jesus. Everyone who belongs to the church does so, not on the basis of their own goodness but on the basis of the goodness of Jesus. He obeyed God’s law for us and he suffered the death we are due so that now God places all those who trust in Christ into his church. We are part of the body of Christ through our faith in Christ because he is our redemption. This is the reason that God does good to his people. He does good to us for the sake of Jesus. God loves us, sends his Holy Spirit to us, and will receive us into heaven because of what Jesus has done for us, not because of anything that we have done. He is our ransom. God reveals his glory through the church by…
III. Making her distinct from the world (8:25-28) God sends swarms of flies upon Egypt, filling Pharaoh’s house and the home of every Egyptian but not the homes of any Israelite. Pharaoh immediately calls for Moses and Aaron. This time he appears to give permission with no conditions. He doesn’t say get rid of the flies and then I’ll let you go. He says go offer your sacrifices. However, he adds, cunningly, do it in Egypt. He, like all humans, is trying to get away with doing as little as he can while getting what he wants, freedom from flies and Israel still as slaves. Now notice how Moses responds to this. He tells Pharaoh it would not be right for Israel to offer sacrifices in Egypt because the Hebrew way of worship is an abomination to the Egyptians and if they were to sacrifice in view of the Egyptians, they would be filled with hatred and rage and kill them. We are not told why the worship of the Hebrews would be so offensive to the Egyptians but we can surmise that the basic reason is that they would be worshipping a God other than their gods and doing so in ways that contradict and condemn the way in which the Egyptians worship their gods. The Scriptures are full of examples of how offensive the people of God are to the cultures in which they live. The religious riot that took place in Ephesus (Acts 19) after Paul had been preaching the gospel there for two years shows us how much animosity the church creates. If you’ll remember, when Paul preached the gospel in Ephesus so many people became Christians that Luke could record that the entire region of Asia Minor heard the gospel. The conversion of people was so profound that people who practiced astrology and witchcraft burned all their books as a sign of their repentance. The cost of the books that were burned was about ½ million dollars in today’s money. The silver smiths, who made their living by making idols of the Greek goddess Artemis, gathered together and were complaining to one another that they could hardly make a living any longer because so many people had given up idol worship due to the preaching of Paul. They formed a mob under the leadership of Demetrius and started a riot in the town by claiming that Paul had brought dishonor on Artemis, the goddess of the Ephesians. The mob spent two hours chanting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians” and they beat up several Christians when they couldn’t find Paul. The church in Ephesus sent Paul away so that he wouldn’t be killed. This is the kind of thing that Moses says will happen if they worship the Lord while in Egypt. The Hebrews by their worship will condemn the worship of the Egyptians and so they will get mad and seek to harm them. There are many ways that the church is like the cultures we live among. We eat the same kinds of food. We live in the same kinds of homes. We use the same kinds of transportation and enjoy many of the same kinds of entertainment. We wear the same kinds of clothes. You can’t go into Woodmans and tell by looking who are members of Christ’s church and who are not. However, we do not worship the same gods that our culture worships. We worship the one true and living God. Our first allegiance is to Jesus Christ and his people, not our job, our houses, our nation, our families or our athletic team. There are ways of living and speaking that we will not practice. There are ways of living that we engage in that are exactly the opposite of how our culture lives. God makes us distinct from the world around us and because of this, the world hates us. He makes us distinct to show off his holiness and love. All you have to do to experience this hatred is to not join in the complaining about your boss but rather speak of her respectfully. Work wholeheartedly at your job as though you were serving Christ and not men and you will be hated by your coworkers. Let it be known that you believe that the only God and Savior is Jesus Christ and that all other religions are worshipping false gods who do not exist and you will be despised. Tell your friend that making out with her boyfriend is sexual immorality and if she doesn’t repent of it she will go to hell and you will be shunned. Don’t curse along with your buddies and you will be accused of being a self-righteous prude. Give away your money rather than gambling at HoChunk and you will be scoffed at and looked down upon. Spend time with the student in your school that is despised as a nerd by everyone else for the sake of Christ and you will be called a nerd. Tell your non-Christian parents that you are going to take their grandchildren and move to Indonesia to tell Moslems about Jesus and you will discover the disapproval of the world. To be a part of Christ’s church means that you are living a different kind of life. You love what those around you do not love and you hate much of what they love. God shows off his holiness in and through making us into a holy people. Jesus said “If the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” Paul says it this way in Titus 2: “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people of his very own, eager to do what is good.” When we live like the church, as a distinct and godly people, we will be a light beacon to those whom God is calling out of the world to join his church and we will be an irritant to those who love the world. But in our distinctiveness we will display the glory of God. God reveals his glory through the church by…
IV. Preserving her to the end (8:28-32 & 9:5-12) About a year passed from the time that Moses and Aaron first spoke to Pharaoh in Exodus 5 until the Exodus of Israel from Egypt in chapter 12. That means that for this entire year the Israelites are suffering in their cruel slavery. While Moses and Pharaoh engage in this battle over Israel, the Israelites suffer. In addition, we are only specifically told that God spared Israel from suffering 5 of the ten plagues. We are told God spared them from the flies, the death of livestock in the field, the hail storm, the darkness and the death of the firstborn. No mention was made of Israel being excluded from all the water of the Nile turning to blood and the fish dying, the plague of frogs or the gnats. It does appear, if you’ll look at 9:11, that the boils only came upon Egyptians because it specifically says the boils were on the magicians and all the Egyptians and they were not upon Moses and Aaron. So presumably, the rest of the Israelites did not experience the boils either. The plague of locusts in chapter 10 seems to come upon all the land of Egypt, including Goshen. However, other than the grossness of all the bugs this plague wouldn’t affect them as they would have harvested all the grain for the year already and they were about to leave the country, so it wouldn’t matter to them if every shred of vegetation was stripped from the land. The point I’m trying to make here is this: Israel, while God spares them from the most severe plagues does experience some of the difficulties of the plagues along with Egypt. In addition, they are suffering under the daily reality of a cruel slavery. As we think of Israel being delivered from her slavery and taken through the desert into the Promised Land, we can see how God preserves his people, not from suffering, but in and through suffering. He keeps his people from experiencing the full brunt of his wrath against the sins of the world but he doesn’t keep his church from experiencing all the expressions of his displeasure with this world of sin. In addition, he promises us that we will experience the suffering of persecution. This mixture of God’s sparing us some suffering and of God’s preserving us in suffering is seen throughout the history of Israel. In addition, we see it in the life of Jesus. What’s fascinating is that Jesus is referred to as Israel in several places in the gospels. When Matthew records the flight of Joseph and Mary with the toddler Jesus into Egypt to escape murderous Herod and then their return several years later he says Jesus coming out of Egypt was a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 which says, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” In Hosea, this is clearly referring to the nation Israel and yet Matthew has no trouble saying that the calling of the nation Israel out of Egypt was a prophetic picture of Jesus, the Son of God being brought out of Egypt as a toddler. Like Israel, Jesus endured all the sufferings of this world, including death and yet God preserved him throughout his life and brought him safely into his presence through the resurrection from the dead. While Jesus endured all the miseries of this life, God did spare him from experiencing the miseries of sin as he never sinned and he protected him from his enemies until it was time to die. It is the same with us. Paul told the new churches he planted in present day southern Turkey, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” Peter told the churches scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia that while they were rejoicing in the salvation that was theirs in Christ, yet at the present time they “had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” Later in that same letter he told them, “However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed but praise God that you bear that name. For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And, if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” Christ is saving his church through the sufferings of this life, not from them. He protects us now from the ravages of sin and from the ravages of false teaching and from some of the afflictions of this life. However, we do experience the animosity and sometimes the violence of the non-believing world and most of the afflictions of God’s curse upon this world that are common to all men. He preserves our faith through these sufferings. He reminds us that though these sufferings are hard, yet they are nothing compared to the sufferings of hell that he is graciously delivering us from and the glories of heaven that will be ours. As we watch God justly punishing Pharaoh and graciously preserving Israel, even while she suffers, we should rejoice that God is doing the same for us. While we must experience many hardships to enter the kingdom of God, yet we are entering the kingdom of God. Our hope is not a happy life in Egypt, but to be the people of God gathered around the throne of God in the Promised Land. Let us hold fast to Christ and wait upon him for his salvation while we watch him perform miracles of grace, delivering us from sin and the miseries of sin. Rejoice that you belong to the people of God by grace even though being part of God’s people does not exempt you from suffering and exposes you to the hatred of the world. Do not forget that it is far better to endure suffering for this brief life and then live with God forever than to experience the pleasures of this world for such a short time but then live forever in the misery of hell. God reveals his glory through the church by…
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2004 John Swanson. |