God vs. the Gods of Egypt
Exodus 4-11
Tonight as we prepare our hearts for the Lord's table, I want to draw your attention to some thoughts from the Word of God that may seem, at the very beginning, a little far away, and yet by the time we're finished, I'll be sure you realize how really close they are.
One of the great emphasis of the Bible is that God is our Savior. Of course, we're all very much aware of this. Jesus Christ is our Savior. But in the Old Testament there is a tremendous emphasis on the fact that God is a saving God. God is one who delivers His people. Who sets them free from bondage. Who redeems them. Who saves them. Who finds them when they're lost.
In Exodus 15:2 it says, "The Lord is my strength and song. He is become my salvation." And tonight we have sung the songs that belong to the Lord, and now we talk about the salvation that belongs to Him as well. The Psalms repeatedly emphasize that God is a Savior. The Psalms tell us salvation belongeth to the Lord. Thou art the God of my salvation. The Lord is my light, and my salvation. From Him cometh my salvation. Oh, God of our salvation. God is my King of old. Working salvation. This then is the great theme of the Psalms.
If you were to look at the prophets, you would find the same recurring theme. Particularly I'm thinking of the 45th chapter of the great prophecy of Isaiah, where repeatedly does Isaiah extol God in the same manner. Pointing out God as a Savior. "Verily thou art a God who hideth thyself. Oh God of Israel, the Savior." Again, in the same chapter, "But Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation."
Again, it says, "And there is no God beside me. A just God and a Savior." And then, "In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified." The message of the Psalms is that God is a Savior. The message of the prophets is that God is a Savior. Hosea records these words. "There is no Savior like me." Joel, chapter 2, verse 9, says "Salvation is of the Lord."
Now what I want you to see is that the concept of God as a Savior. We think of it in terms of the Cross, don't we? And Jesus Christ our Savior. We think of the communion service as it focuses on the Cross, as the great and permanent definition of the Savior of the good of God. But that same concept existed in the mind and the heart of God and His people long before the Cross. For God has ever and always been the Savior of His people. And so a recurring theme of the Old Testament is that God is indeed the Savior.
Now we, thinking of God as a Savior, look to the Cross. When an Israelite in the Old Testament thought of God as a Savior, to what did he look? At what point in the history of God's redemptive plan could an Old Testament saint go and see the Savior-hood of God? See God as the redeemer. The deliverer. The Savior.
The answer to that is found in the 105th Psalm. And I'd like to call your attention to it for a moment if I might. The 105th Psalm. Here we find the attention of the Psalmist turn to God as a Savior. And in seeing God as a Savior, he focuses on one specific great monumental, historic act of God in the Old Testament, which ever and always to a Jew was the point that identified God as Savior. If you'll notice, moving down from verse 14, you begin to see that God recites the history of Israel, bit by bit. Focusing on one major event beginning in verse 23.
"Israel also came into Egypt, and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. And He increased His people greatly, and made them stronger than their enemies. He turned their heart to hate His people, to deal subtly with His servants. He sent Moses His servant, and Aaron whom He had chosen. They showed His signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham. He sent darkness, and made it dark, and they rebelled not against His word. He turned their waters into blood and slew their fish. Their land brought forth frogs in abundance in the chambers of their kings. He spoke and there came various sorts of flies and mosquitoes, or gnats, in all their borders. He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire on their land. He smote their vines, also, and their fig trees, and broke the trees of their borders. He spoke and the locust came, and caterpillars and that without number, and did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground. He smote also all the firstborn in their land. The chief of all their strength.
He brought them forth also with silver and gold, and there was not one feeble person among their tribes. Egypt was glad when they departed, for the fear of them fell upon them.
He spread a cloud for a covering, and fire to give light in the night. The people asked and He brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of Heaven. He opened the rock and the waters gushed out. They ran in the dry places like a river.
For he remembered His holy promise, and Abraham His servant, and He brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with gladness. And gave them the lands of the nations, and they inherited the labor of the peoples.
That they might observe His statutes and keep His laws. Praise ye, the Lord."
Now beloved, right there in that monumental historic passage, you have a recitation of God's deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egyptian slavery. Always, throughout the Old Testament, that is the focal point of God as a redeemer. Of God as a Savior. Of God as one who delivers His people.
When an Old Testament Jew wanted to speak of God as a Savior, he pointed directly to the redemption of his people from the land of Egypt where they knew bondage for 400 years. That was their ground of hope, if you will, in the saving, delivering power of God. That was the source of their confidence in God as their redeemer. A God who could redeem His people from Egypt, was a redeemer God, and could as well redeem His people from their sins.
Now, God wanted them to know that He was a Savior, and God wanted them to know that He was a redeemer. And God wanted them to be aware that He was a deliverer. And in wanting them to remember, God instituted a certain event that took place every year in the life of Israel. And that event had one major purpose - to make them remember His delivering them from Egypt. That great event is known as the Passover.
And every year, even til this very year, Jews all over the world remember the Passover. When God delivered Israel from bondage. Why? Because still it is their touchstone for the definition of God as a redeeming God. They remember the deliverance from Egypt, because it reminds them of the amazing power of God over a nation that really was the greatest power of its day.
God then is seen as a redeemer in the Old Testament as He delivers Israel from Egypt. He is seen as a Savior in the Passover events in Egypt. And this then became the institution which God wanted Israel to perform. Every year they would keep the Passover. And they would remember God's delivering power in Egypt.
Now with that in mind, turn with me to Exodus chapter 12. And lets go back to this great event, and let the Spirit of God teach us some great lessons from it tonight.
In chapter 12 of Exodus, you have basically the institution of the Passover. The Passover is a feast of commemoration, just as is the Lord's table. In the Lord's table we remember God's saving work at the Cross. In the Passover, the Jews remember God's saving work in Egypt.
And you'll notice in chapter 12 it begins, "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying this month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house. And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbors next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls, every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb." In other words, you have to have enough lamb to feed everybody.
"Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. Ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats. And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread." Unleavened bread being a sign of haste. You can't wait around til it rises, because they're to move real fast when they leave Egypt.
"And with bitter herbs they shall eat it," because their life in Egypt has been a bitter life, and this is a good reminder of that. "Eat not of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roast with fire," and I think that speaks of the unmitigated punishment borne by Jesus Christ, the ultimate lamb of God.
Again, a very important symbol assigned to their Passover pointing towards Christ. "And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, and that which remaineth of it until the morning, you shall burn with fire. And thus shall you eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand, and eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover."
And then he goes on to say, while you're doing that I'll pass through the land and I'll check out the houses and the houses that have the blood, I'll pass by, and the rest of the houses in Egypt I will slay the firstborn. As the Psalms said, the chief of the strength. The major member of every family.
Now God institutes this Passover, and they are to remember that God delivered them, and they are to keep the Passover.
Now let's go back and find out why the Passover was such a dramatic picture of God's saving power. Go back to chapter 6 of Exodus. Unless you really know what happened, you can't understand why it was such a powerful picture of God's saving power. Now keep in mind that Egypt is a very, very strong nation. Egypt is a powerful, educated, wise nation. Egypt has a tremendous hold on that part of the world. Knocking off the entire nation of Egypt is not a small task. The Israelites have been around for 400 years, and even though they've increased in number to the extent where they should have been able to do it, they've never had a leader that could enable them to do it.
But God is about to absolutely destroy the nation of Egypt. He will destroy that nation economically. He will destroy that nation politically. He will destroy that nation socially. He will destroy that nation in a marital and a family way. He will destroy that nation in terms of its reputation in the world, and He will utterly destroy that nation religiously. He, in a series of plagues that come on the nation Egypt literally obliterates the power of Egypt.
In a massive demonstration of divine power that cannot be withstood, not even by the multiple gods that supposedly kept care of this amazing nation of Egypt. And let's see how it all came to pass, that we might see how mighty our God is.
Verse 28 of chapter 6, "And it came to pass on the day when the LORD spoke unto Moses in the land of Egypt, that the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, I am the Lord." And that's the bottom line, folks. There's no other gods. I am the Lord and I'm about to let it be known.
"Speak thou unto Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I say unto thee. And Moses said before the Lord, behold, I am of uncircumcised lips, and how shall Pharaoh hearken unto me? And the Lord said unto Moses, see, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet."
Don't you worry about your reputation. Don't you worry about where you're coming from as being a part of the Egyptian society. Don't you worry about anything. You just do what I tell you, and you say what I tell you, and I'll take care of everything other detail.
"Thou shalt speak all that I command thee, and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt."
In other words, you tell them to let the people go, but I'm going to harden his heart and by the way, Pharaoh also hardens his own heart, so he's in perfect agreement with it. I'm going to harden his heart, he'll harden his own heart, and in the midst of all of this, I will put on a display of signs and wonders that has never been seen heretofore. And that's exactly what God set about to do. He calls out the men that he wants to be his leader, and it's Moses. And Moses gets ready for his first encounter with Pharaoh.
Now, really what you have here is God against the gods of Egypt. This is God against the gods of Egypt. And God is about to put on an awesome display of saving power.
You know, we have a lot of archeological studies that have been done around Egypt, and I've had the privilege myself of nosing around in some of the archeological digs in the land of Egypt. Egypt was a splendorous nation at this time. There are fragments and artifacts that have been found that testify the incredible power and majesty and might and splendor of this amazing place.
The pyramids alone stand as a monument to human ingenuity. That still to this very day cannot be explained. There is still no - what would you say - solid, verified, agreed upon method that could possibly be known for how they ever were able to build the pyramids.
I can remember standing on a ledge looking at a statute that was so incredibly massive that it staggered your mind. It would stretch halfway across this auditorium I imagine. And these kinds of things were everyplace. All throughout the land of Egypt. Monuments to the great ingenuity artistically, and to the architectural ability of the people of that day. There are shrines all over the place. Everywhere you go.
They honor at shrines and temples, and it tells us that - and this is an important point - nothing in Egypt was secular. There was no such thing as the separation of the church and state. The religion dominated the nation. Nothing at all was secular. Every single thing they did in their entire society from one end to the other involved some kind of worship. Some kind of deities. Some kind of religious involvement. Everything. Everything in Egypt was religious.
And what that means is that everything in Egypt was linked to one of their many, many gods. So that when God Jehovah goes against Egypt, He takes on all the gods of Egypt. It was God against the gods of Egypt. Because the Egyptians were idolatress in every element of life. Their gods are uncountable. And I believe that the plagues and the deliverance of Israel is the greatest testimony in the Old Testament to the stupidity and the futility of idolatry.
If anybody ever had a sophisticated system of deities, Egypt did. And if anybody ever had a bunch of gods that were useless, Egypt did. The bankruptcy of their religion is never more manifest than it is in these chapters, as God begins to bring His power against them.
Now, the Lord speaks unto Moses in chapter 7, verse 8. Let's pick it up there. "And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, when Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying, show a miracle for you," in other words, verify that you're from God. Verify that I ought to do what you say by showing a miracle, "Then thou shalt say to Aaron, take thy rod, and cast it before Pharaoh, and it shall become a serpent."
"And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh." This is encounter number one. "And they did as the Lord had commanded." In other words, they said let the people go. Let Israel go. You've had them in captivity. You've abused that. Let them go. He asked for a miracle, and so they threw the rod down before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent.
"Then Pharaoh called the wise men and the sorcerers, and now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments." In other words, they threw their sticks down and their sticks turned into snakes, too.
"For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods. And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said."
Now the question always comes up about how these guys could do this. And some people say it was an illusion. But it's hard for one snake to eat an illusion. So that's not probably the best one.
Some say they were snake charmers, and they just got these snakes to look stiff. That hits you just like it hits me. Right? I mean, training a snake to look stiff is tough.
Others say that actually it was a s