Lesson 9 - Exodus 10 & 11

[Music] well we're nearing the end of the the strokes or the plagues against Egypt that Yehovah has ordained an order that Pharaoh will agree to release the Hebrews from their bondage now last week and and this week's lessons run a little bit long only so we can maintain some continuity so far nothing has worked Pharaoh's heart has become progressively intransigent to proportion to this escalating series of calamities that the Lord has visited upon Egypt now some of this hardening at Pharaoh's heart has been Yehovah some has been Pharaohs iron will now even more it's become apparent to the Egyptian people as well as to the government that the Hebrews are being somehow miraculously spared from all except for the first two of these series of disasters so open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 10 we're gonna read it all if you have a complete Jewish Bible its page 70 Exodus chapter 10 I need you to follow along with me Exodus chapter 10 I don't I said to Moshe go to Pharaoh for I have made him and his servants hard-hearted so that I can demonstrate these signs of mine among them so that you can tell your son and grandson about what I did to Egypt and about my signs that I demonstrated among them and so that you will all know that I'm out of 9 Moshe and Aharon went into Pharaoh and said to him here is what out oh my god of the Hebrews says how much longer will you refuse to submit to me let my people go so that they can worship me otherwise if you refuse to let my people go tomorrow I'll bring locusts into your territory one won't be able to see the ground so complete you will the locusts cover it they will eat every everything in any you have this escape the Hale including every tree you have growing in the field they will fill your houses those of your servants and of all the Egyptians it'll be nothing like your fathers or their fathers have ever seen since the day they were born until today and then he turned his back and he left Pharaoh's servants said to him how much longer must this fellow be a snare for us let the people go and worship at a neither God don't you understand yet that Egypt is being destroyed so Moses and Aaron were brought to Pharaoh again and he said to them go worship at and I hear God but who exactly is going and Moses answered we will go with our young and our old our sons and our daughters and we will go with our flocks and herds for we must celebrate a feast Adonai and Pharaoh said to them I don't I certainly will be with you if I ever let you go with your children it's clear that you are up to no good nothing doing just the men among you may go and worship by tonight that's what you want isn't it and they were driven out of Pharaohs presence I don't know I said to Moshe reach out your hand over the land of Egypt so that the locusts will invade the land and eat every plant that the hail is left Moses reached out with his staff over the land of Egypt and that and I caused the east wind to blow on the land all day and all night and in the morning the east wind brought the locusts the locusts went up all over the land of Egypt settled throughout Egypt's territory it was an invasion more severe than there had ever been before or ever will be again they completely covered the ground so that the ground looked black they ate every plant growing from the ground and all the fruit of the trees left by the hail not one green thing remained not a tree not a plant in the field and all the land of Egypt Pharaoh hurried to summon Moshe and Aharon and said I have sinned against Adonai your God and against you now therefore please forgive my sin just this once intercede without an eye your God so that he will at least take away from me this deadly plague he went out from fair interceded without an i I don't I reversed the wind made it below very strongly from the West it took up the locusts and drove them into the sea of tzuf not one locust remained on Egyptian soil but Otto and I made Pharaoh hard-hearted and he didn't let that people of Israel go I don't I said to Moshe reach out your hand towards the sky and there will be darkness over the land of Egypt darkness so thick it can be felt Moses reached out his hand towards the sky and there was a thick darkness in the entire land of Egypt for three days people couldn't see each other no one went anywhere for three days but all the people of Israel had light in their homes Pharaoh summoned Moses and said go worship out and I only leave your flocks and herds behind your children may go with you and Moses answered you must also see to it that we have sacrifices and burnt offerings so that we can sacrifice to out and I our God our livestock will also go with us not a hoof will be left behind because we must choose some of them to worship Adonai our God and we don't know which ones we will need to worship at a night till we get there but I don't I made Pharaoh hard-hearted and he wouldn't let them go Pharaoh said to him get away from me and you had better not see my face again because the day you see my face you will die Moses answered well spoken I will see your face no more well we might look at these plagues against Egypt you know the bloody water the hail skin lesions now locusts and see them as too primitive sounding something we'd only find in backward nations and maybe even think about them as downright quaint all right that is if the Lord was doing this say in our day in Europe America the plagues would be a lot zippier you know I mean they'd they'd have more modern and technological sources and they'd appeal that they would kind of play well in a local movie theater you know I mean with nuclear bombs and bio weapons and electrical grid failure and computer chips being neutralized and aliens attacking from outer space or something but if we think about it every one of these strokes were reading about in Exodus would be just as devastating today anywhere in the world as it was 3,500 years ago in Egypt imagine if our drinking water became polluted on a near universal scale could we use enough cell filtration to solve it probably but a great expense and only the wealthiest nations would initially have it available hundreds of millions would die from a little more than tainted water look at what a simple storm Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans and to the surrounding area a few years ago how it bludgeoned America's economy and came near to toppling the sitting president nothing particularly high-tech about a hurricane is it Floridians I mean just isn't just a big wind a lot of rain a lot of water recall the Mount st. Helens disaster a few years ago the devastation at the loss of life the cost to Washington state's economy and thousands and thousands of acres of woodlands destroyed for decades to come all this from a million year old volcano that does little more than spewed smoke heat and molten rock how about that recent Japanese tsunami just a few years ago the estimated 20,000 lives that it took the countless billions of dollars in damage it caused enormous radiation leakage from a series of nuclear power plants that were affected all this from an earthquake and a resultant wave of seawater man you can't get much more low-tech than that when we look ahead at the end time scenarios of the Bible and we are told of these cataclysmic events that will eclipse all of human history we typically want to convert the visions of God's prophets describing these events into high-tech science gone mad experiments so we hear of Christian scholars and writers thinking this must be about a nuclear exchange maybe a horrible chemical or biological weapon unleashed we think in terms of star wars types of weapons in fact nothing man has invented or is likely Indian to invent it has ever approached the power of a single thunderstorm or a medium-sized asteroid entering our atmosphere and striking our planet and as a result when people look back at these horrible upheavals of nature over the last few years we tend to completely dismiss the hand of God and we say hey this is just nature doing what nature does don't make it one of those wacko religious judgment pronouncements well perhaps the ancients said there was just nature doing its thing in Egypt perhaps people in the future will say it's nature doing its thing at the end of days but make no mistake when it does happen it will happen at God's command it'll be unstoppable it will not likely be because men made it happen as with the modern man-made global warming crowd contingency so sir now as we should be learning by now we need to discover God's pattern and how he deals with humanity and with nature and when we see how he's done it up to now it certainly has not been by me of technological advancements the coming cataclysms are not likely to be ordained or solved by human beings now let me take a momentary detour to connect some dots for those of you who have interest in prophecy particularly in times prophecy very few Bible scholars except for the most liberal who view the Bible is nothing more than an example of ancient Hebrew literature a bunch of fanciful tales none of them would say that these nine plagues upon Egypt were symbolic or allegorical or metaphorical that is they weren't real and the words means something else entirely when we read them while main scripts mainstream scholars take the exodus plagues in general as literal even if a few of them regard these miracles is nothing more than natural occurrences with no more or less frequency or intensity than is normally seen it's only the wording of the Bible that embellishes and exaggerated sand makes them highly dramatic so it's fascinating to me that these same scholars who take the exodus account of the plagues as literal more often than not regard the revelation accounts of the seal and bold judgments as symbolic and not literal most of the judgments of Revelation uses the same natural elements only greatly amplified and has a much wider spread than the Exodus accounts of the plagues do hail insects darkness boils oceans and rivers turning blood-red and see life die these all occur in Exodus and they also occur in Revelation and then of course there are the revelation judgments that are not in the exodus plagues but still they exist and occur naturally earthquakes stars exploding meteors penetrating through our atmosphere now I only bring this up to kind of close the loop of this concept that I'm hoping to teach to you that God's patterns and his principles repeat all throughout history they will continue to repeat until the end of time we see these same God patterns in Revelation just as they were originally established in the Torah even with the same characteristics of how judgments are meted out now I know many of you are interested in in times prophecy so be aware that when you read of these incredibly self a rather incredibly destructive in times phenomena in Revelation that they are of the same substance and design as what we're reading in the exodus account you can take them literally you should take them literally because these things have happened before literally it is God's Way to deal in a very consistent fashion with mankind at large and with the world and with his own people well chapter 10 begins with yet another instruction by God to Moses to go to Pharaoh and he reminds Moses he has worked within Pharaoh's soul to keep his heart his heart hardened for a divine purpose the purpose is that all of these miracles and signs will inevitably occur and that they will be seen and remembered among the Hebrews from generation to generation and that he is used Egypt for Israel's sake now sometimes we have a hard time with this concept that God would favor one above the other doesn't sound very tolerant does it sounds rather discriminatory even allows one to be destroyed and or ransomed to save the other in this case it's the Egyptians who would pay a high price for God's purposes and that God would keep a human's heart Pharaohs hardened in order to achieve his purposes I have often heard from believers and unbelievers alike that it's just not fair of God to do these things well I suppose if we actually believe that we can sit in judgment of God and then maybe we can debate as fairness if that's the case I don't feel I need to defend God's decisions I don't have any right to question them his laws and commands are what they are and they're perfect all we need to know is what they are I don't have to know why they are have you been brought up on a congregation by any chance but brought up to believe that all of God's decisions are for your best benefit I'm sorry to tell you they're not God's decisions are intended to achieve his purposes to the best benefit of his kingdom not for the benefit of our personal individual earthly well-being our happiness our comfort our successes are all entirely secondary to God's far greater divine purpose of bringing in his kingdom well in verse 4 Moses announces to Pharaoh that if he does not free God's people today that tomorrow Egypt's going to be hit with a plague of locusts and not only will the ground be so thick with them that the soil will seem to disappear but also what's left of the crops in the fields were from the destructive hail storm is going to be eaten up by these voracious insects even more these insects are gonna find their way into people's homes now we can wonder as to whether Pharaoh believed Moses or not but his sorcerers his advisers and the Egyptian people oh yeah they believed they begged Pharaoh to let Israel go so that they could again live in peace in fact they say in verse 7 Pharaoh don't you understand that Egypt is already devastated the battle with this Yehovah is lost we can't take any more apparently Aaron and Moses left Pharaoh's presence for a short time so that Pharaoh could kind of consider matters then they returned for his answer well the tides turning Pharaoh is getting more serious about letting Israel go because he says okay go serve your God but who among you is gonna go applying of course the more important question of who's gonna stay now for this however there was no compromise Moses answered our young ones our old ones our boys our girls and all of their livestock in other words not just all the people but all their possessions are gonna go to the matter is now crystal clear to Pharaoh his paranoia that Israel would leave permanently has just been confirmed why would every last Hebrew along with every last head of their livestock need to go for a three-day pilgrimage no Pharaoh thinks they plan on leaving forever so in verses 10 and 11 Pharaoh says no way horses I will allow only the males among you to go the women the children the livestock have to be left behind that's his final answer and Moses and Aaron are again thrown out of the palace of course that wasn't good enough for God so he tells Moses to stretch out his hand that is Moses was to order the locusts to come now this eight plague is set into motion and an east wind begins to blow and on the flow of that wind will come the locusts a horde of locusts as has never seen before devoured everything in their path now here again we see God used nature itself as in all the previous plagues to strike the Egyptians Pharaoh took one look at this and he called from Moses and Aaron and he brings them in and does as he'd done earlier he confesses he sinned against God got that much right but this time yet another step Pharaoh even asked for forgiveness now if this wasn't true repentance any more than his belief - yo ho he exists his trust and love it was just the use of whatever means was necessary even if it meant groveling to remove this disastrous plague now if this didn't stop the locusts it would drive Egypt in to death through starvation Pharaoh finally was sensing what all this was leading up to so he started begging for mercy yet the minute you Hovey reversed the winds sending the locusts back back eastward and into the great sea Pharaohs heart again hardened he wouldn't free Israel well this time God is credited with doing the hardening of Pharaoh's irredeemable heart now according to the now well established pattern verse 21 brings us the ninth stroke or the third plague of the third set of plagues therefore what's the characteristic of that third of each one it goes unannounced it is not announced to Pharaoh it's not announced to the Egyptian people they're not expecting it and this stroke is the most terrible of them all up to this point darkness darkness that is a foreshadowing of the final death of spiritual of evil a darkness that is not only seen it's so thick it is literally felt a darkness that is far more than just the absence of light it is a darkness that lasted three days throughout Egypt but it didn't happen in Goshen as we read that in verse 23 now please pay close attention to what I'm about to tell you what God did here he also did a creation that is he separated he made a distinction that is he elected and he divided the darkness from the light over the ones who held him his people and servitude darkness over his own people who served him light now we ought to not overlook four little words in verse 21 they will feel darkness the Egyptians felt the darkness while the Israelites felt the light how does one feel darkness or light remember in our first lesson of Torah when we studied creation we found that when God created light in Genesis 1:3 that it was different than the type of lights used to create visual light waves that was created in Genesis 1:14 the word used for light the light that would remain over Israel in Goshen in Exodus 10 verse 23 is the same word that God used in Genesis 1:3 and Hebrew that word is or or in a nutshell it means in light and mint that is enlightenment is something good as opposed to something evil the truth as opposed to a lie when you switch on a lamp you get visual light that type of light is talked about in Genesis 1:14 when you hear from God you get spiritual light enlightenment the type of light talked about back in Genesis 1:3 there's a difference we talked about the light over the Hebrews so what kind of darkness then enveloped the Egyptians again the same Hebrew word is used in Genesis to describe the opposite of or enlightenment and that word is a sec aho SEC and OTO SEC means darkness not like nighttime but but rather a very negative kind of darkness a kind of darkness that blots out good a kind of darkness that leads men into wrong into evil the same wordplay that is at the beginning of Genesis when God creates a distinction between God's enlightenment versus spiritual depravity light versus dark is used right here in Exodus to describe the condition of Egypt darkness as opposed to the condition of Israel enlightenment yet the account also makes it clear that visual light and darkness were also involved so let us not make a metaphor out of verse 23 where it says a man could not see his brother nor could he arise from his spot or as a complete Jewish Bible says people couldn't see each other what kind of circumstances could cause such dense visual darkness just being without sunlight or even moonlight would not have created so darkness is being described here I mean the Egyptians as with all other cultures they anything Oh how to deal with nighttime they had oil lamps and fire pits and torches all manner we're going about their businesses after dark the idea that no one could move from their spot it was so dark that is they couldn't even see enough to move around does not reflect a typical nighttime experience no this was not three 24-hour periods of nighttime there are natural conditions that do happen from time to time which brings a type of darkness in which the darkness actually seems to absorb the light I'm from California originally and I've encountered two of these conditions fog and a dust storm I've been on highway 101 outside of Santa Barbara California when the fog was so dense that one's high beams wouldn't penetrate any more than five or six feet in front of the car and I mean that literally I've been in sandstorms in the Mojave Desert where the Sun was completely blotted out at midday but in Egypt there came occasionally a brutal type of a dust storm called a hum seen a humus in every few years a combination of conditions collided that caused the air itself to just become charged with static electricity it would literally lift and suspend super fine particles of dust in the air alongside the coarser particles of sand that fierce winds normally carry if anyone here has ever spent any time in super dry climates you know that static electricity as a normal everyday phenomenon that you have to deal with I mean clothing sticks to other clothing you get shocked grabbing the handle door handle of your car you pull a wool sweater over your head in a darkened room and you'll get a light show these calm seen dust storms turn day into night and especially in ancient times when doors didn't seal and windows were just open holes in a wall dust came in doors pretty easily in doors you can escape the winds and the sandblasting effect of the of the storm but you can't escape the thick dust clouds caused by the electrically charged air in doors became dark as well oil lamps would not have helped mobility ended I suspect this is what occurred as far as the visual element of light is concerned otherwise it'd be out of character with the eight previous plagues that all involve natural elements of nature of course this hum seen dust storm was of a supernatural origin and was several times more ferocious that happens in nature by itself so fierce wasn't that it fight frightened Pharaoh and the Egyptian people out of their wit's but the real fright undoubtedly came in this feeling is feeling this this AutoCheck the spiritual darkness this evil that hovered over them like I like a blanket the type you know that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up on end when you can't see anything dangerous but you just I don't know somehow you sense it this was a time of true horror for Egypt put in the same land just a few miles north the Israelites were celebrating with joy that's this ninth plague of the book of Exodus is just like the irony a believer experiences in this present world darkness auto Shack an Enlightenment or exist side-by-side we who are covered with God's light live in the same space the same time the same dimension we breathe the same air as the majority of the world but they are under a blanket of darkness and they're completely unaware of it at the same time that we can have our hearts broken we can weep for those in servitude to the prints of this darkness we can and we should celebrate that God's enlightenment is upon us and all of our brethren who trust him by the way notice that only Israel received the light it's no different today we non-israelites by birth through Yeshua have been joined to Israel's covenants that which benefits Israel now benefits us as well so Pharaoh sends out an urgent call for Moses and still this foolish rebellious King tries to bargain with God we never tried that of course but after the previous stroke he agreed to let only the Israelite males go to worship you know Pharaoh says that if Moses will get God to call off this darkness and all of Israel can go man woman boy girl young old but their livestock has to stay behind Moses declines the offer says everything must go why because it says in first 26 jehovah has called israel to serve him and sacrifice to him but they don't know exactly what is to be involved in other words maybe God's gonna want all their livestock maybe just some of it maybe you won't want any at all they don't know maybe old one sheep maybe cattle maybe goats they haven't been told so the only thing they can do is take all their people all their possessions into the desert set them before God to see white he might demand of them gee I hope that's causing the wheels to turn a little bit here is another permanent God principle that just bursts out of nowhere we are to submit all that we have all that we are before God ourselves our families our possessions because we cannot possibly know at any given moment what he's going to demand of us we must go forward in faith and trust and hold nothing back nothing it's all his it's his to give or to take as pleases him but what's our typical response to that okay God you can have everything but this you can take that just don't take that thing over there you can have me just don't touch my job don't mess with my health or my wife or my children those things that the Israelites would have left behind it Pharaoh's orders would have remained in servitude so Moses had no choice but to refuse everything listen everything we leave behind yet still possess everything that we do not take with us to present to God when we approach the cross of salvation stays in Egypt it remains in bondage and servitude and is therefore not available it's not suitable to serve God God has made it clear that everything we are and that we possess must be laid before him when we turn our life over to him neither Moses nor Pharaoh would budge Moses won't leave without the livestock Pharaoh won't let Israel go with it Pharaoh orders Moses to leave his presence never come back because if he ever approaches Pharaoh again Moses is going to be put to death Pharaoh has by his own words sealed his and his people's fate there will be no more opportunities to avoid judgment God does not strive with man forever the mercy ends we don't know ahead of time exactly when or where that turning point is but when it does end when God decides to turn us over to our innate wickedness all hope of redemption vanishes forever scary scary thought and it's oh so terribly true let's move on to Exodus chapter 11 short chapter Exodus chapter 11 on page 71 if you have a complete Jewish Bible I don't I said to Moshe I'm going to bring still one more plague on Pharaoh in Egypt and after that he'll let you leave here when he does let you go he will throw you out completely now tell the people that every man is to ask his neighbor every woman her neighbor for gold and silver jewelry I don't I made the Egyptians favorably disposed towards the people moreover Moses was regarded by Pharaoh's servants and the people is a very great man in the land of Egypt and Moses said here is what out and I says about midnight I will go out into Egypt all the firstborn in the land of Egypt will die from the firstborn of Pharaoh sitting on his throne to the first part of the slave girl at the hand mill all the first part of the livestock there will be a horrendous wailing throughout all the land of Egypt there's never been another like it there will never be a another again but not even a dogs growl will be heard against any of the people of Israel neither against people nor against animals in this way you will realize that Otto and I distinguishes between Egyptians and Israel all your servants will come down to me prostrate themselves before me and say get out you and all the people who follow you and after that I will go out and he went out from Pharaoh and the heat of anger I don't know I said to Moshe a Pharaoh will not listen to you so that still more of my wonders will be shown in the land of Egypt Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh but odd and I had made Pharaoh hard-hearted and he did not let the people of Israel leave his land I always feel like I want to in that chapter with the words uh-oh well judgment arrives what we're gonna see in chapters 11 and 12 is judgment now what's judgment it's the time which we receive what is due to us according to God's system of justice in the Bible judgment almost always results in a negative consequence we all saved and unsaved are going to be judged if we're saved however if we trust God by way of a son Yeshua we won't be condemned and we will not be the subjects of God's wrath if we are not saved we will be condemned Pharaoh and Egypt had been given nine chances to accept God's will they would not obey Him this tenth blow upon Egypt brings with it no choices this isn't another warning it's not another chance for a pharaoh and for Egypt to repent the time for warnings and choices passed with the end of the ninth plague Egypt's fate is etched in cosmic concrete the so called tenth plague equates to what happens when we die can we stand before God some will live in darkness forever remember the spiritual word - rather the Hebrew word for spiritual darkness AutoCheck others will live forever in light the Hebrew word for this light this enlightenment is or from this condition there will be no change whether we're put into light or too dark miss there will be from that point forward no opportunity for change and it will be that way for us for all eternity the first three verses of chapter 11 were either spoken to Moses before or during the last audience that Moses had with the Pharaoh in other words we saw in chapter 10 after Pharaoh called from when God covered Egypt with OSHA spiritual gardening spiritual darkness and with visual darkness that then when Moses refused pharaoh's offer for all Israel to leave with the condition of their livestock behind Pharaoh leaving the livestock behind Pharaoh told Moses in a fit of rage he was never to come back again now we find out in Exodus 11 8 that during that same conversation Moses had raged right back at the Pharaoh we see that not only did Moses refuse pharaoh's offer but also Moses told him that that night about midnight all of Egypt's first porn would die that death included according to verse 5 even the livestock but the Israelites would not be affected they or their livestock now while I don't blame Cecil B DeMille for depicting that which killed the Egyptian firstborn as a green cloud of death the kind of floated menacingly around the streets of Egypt I mean what was it going to show it does kind of give us the wrong impression I've even heard Bible teachers say it was the angel of death that wandered throughout all of Egypt and killed the killed the Egyptian firstborn no it was not it was Jehovah himself who took all those lives how exactly that occurred we don't know except that it was by almighty God's very own hand that the life of those firstborns was distinguished first one says that you Hovick does not say the Lord does not say Adonai it does not say Milad I don't I angel of the Lord anything like that Jehovah says I will bring one more plague then in verse four he says here's what you ho face says about midnight I will go out hey kill all the firstborn of Egypt and after this terrible judgment God says now Pharaoh in fact he is going to drive you out of Egypt but before Israel leaves they're gonna strip Egypt they're there to ask for gold and silver from the Egyptian people there to get all they're gonna get all they ask for because verse 3 says the Hebrews found favor in the eyes of the Egyptians and that they saw that Moses was a very great man translation please take anything you want we can't fight Moses we can't find your God just leave us to the bulk of the Egyptian people Moses was just a powerful sorcerer more powerful than Egypt's magicians they had no more interest in testing him further now frankly this was no different from the Egyptian perspective than if a robber was holding a knife at their throat and it was a money or your life proposition interestingly to this very day that's exactly how the Egyptians still see it they see it as theft if you were in here your friends have any doubts about whether Israel was ever in Egypt that there was even an exodus which by the way has become a very popular theme and more liberal denominations just tell them to ask a modern-day Egyptian about it the anger over Israel taking all that gold and silver from Egypt has remained a bitter sore spot in the national heart of the Egyptian people right up to today 3,500 years later let us not overlook just what is at the bottom of this decision by God to crush Egypt with these supernatural devastations and then plundering their gold and silver God reminds us in verse 7 that this is all done in order that you may know that Yoho way makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel we keep hearing this over and over and the exodus story of the plagues don't we it is that God makes a distinction between Israel and Egypt when God keeps repeating something it's a sure bet we need to pay attention let us not ever think that this setting a part of Israel from the rest of the world is some minor or remote issue or it's changed parts become obsolete remember from a biblical standpoint Egypt which is real and tangible is also a type that is Egypt is representative of the world at large all void all those who are not joined to Israel Egypt is a representative of the world at large to this very day and to the end of our time God sees the world as Israel on one side everybody else on the other where does that leave us Gentile believers thankfully it leaves us with Israel as part of Israel this is one good reason to follow God's directive to bless Israel because when we bless Israel we're also on a way of blessing ourselves romans 9 10 and 11 covers this in great detail but it can be summed up by romans 11 17 where paul says in his olive tree analogy but if some of the branches were broken off and you Gentile believer you a wild olive were grafted in among them and you become an equal share err and the rich root of the olive tree see so Israel is symbolized in Scripture is the olive tree and in Romans 1124 for if you Gentiles were cut out of what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree Israel how much more will these natural branches those Israelites who were cut off because of their disbelief how much more they will be grafted back into their own olive tree in other words from God's spiritual perspective a Gentile believer is grafted into the covenants of Israel it is those covenants that from a spiritual aspect makes Israel Israel and it separates them from everybody else God did not make his covenants with Gentiles they were only made with Israel by trusting in Jesus as Lord and Messiah however we are grafted in to the covenants of Israel no I'm not saying he became a Jew when you got saved there are physical Jews and there are physical Gentiles but by God's rest reckoning neither a physical June or physical Gentile automatically belongs to true spiritual Israel or as Paul Kossoff calls it the Israel of God only those Jews and Gentiles who believe in trust issue is the Messiah again I caution you I'm not saying that is a physical member of the tribe of Israel that you're now no longer an Israelite I'm saying that there is an earthly fleshly physical perspective on the one hand and there is a spiritual heavenly perspective that God has on the other hand salvation deliverance this concerns only the spiritual not the physical God did not come to save our fleshly lives I came to save our eternal souls what we need to come away from with our study of Torah is this God made and demonstrated a distinction between Israel and everybody else here in Exodus it's a distinction between Israel and the Egyptians this is such an important foundational principle Israel was set apart set apart to be God's special people when we hear the commonly used church order sanctification it simply means set apart for God that's all that word means this is not some Old Testament distinction that's been dissolved it remains intact in the New Testament Yeshua did not in this distinction between Israel in the world my goodness he himself was a Jew he was an Israelite and he made a point of letting people know that he simply provided a new and lasting way for Gentiles to partake of to be grafted into Israel's covenants by means of his own blood now please don't misunderstand even the new covenant was not a covenant between God and Gentiles it was a covenant between God in Israel now we're not gonna go any further with that for right now because that is a very long lesson all in itself but I do want to quote this passage that says it well this is the passage where the New Testament is first announced this is in Jeremiah 31 verses 30 through 32 says here the days are coming ziz that an i when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah it will not be like the Covenant I made with their fathers on the day I took them by their hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt because they for their part violated my covenant even though I from my part was a husband to them since a tonight for this is the covenant I will make with the house of is after those days is that and I I'll put my Torah within them and write it on their hearts I will be their God they will be my people who did God say the New Covenant is being made with and forth Israel it's right there specifically so that we can't get it confused with the house of Judah and with the house of Israel there's no mistaking it so let's back up for a moment it was during these three days of darkness Auto Shack that had fallen upon Egypt that Moses pronounced to Pharaoh what the coming death of the firstborn yet while all Egypt was cowering under the horror of the complete absence of light and this thick blanket of evil that lay over them Israel was celebrating joyously because they were experiencing light they knew their time of deliverance was near in fact during that time of darkness for Egypt Israel had four days before Jehovah would go about go throughout Egypt killing all the firstborn already selected their Passover lambs they did this according with God's instructions this would become the establishment of Passover let's fast forward now about 1,400 years to 38 II were in Jerusalem it's Passover and Hebrew pays off Yeshua has completed his special pre passover meal in the company of his twelve disciples the evening before now he's nailed bleeding and suffocating on this execution stake but before death overtakes him the and suddenly becomes covered in a thick terrifying darkness Yeshua our Passover lamb was selected and sacrificed when all was dark literally spiritually for the world but in heaven a kind of bittersweet joyousness was taking place because deliverance was at hand and another important milestone and the redemption of mankind was occurring there should have been a muted celebration in Jerusalem among the Jews but they were blinded to the truth they could not see that Christ was their deliverance Yeshua was their Passover lamb as fast forward again now 2,000 years from Christ's passion to today our world is becoming darker and darker and darker our entire planet is becoming so evil and rebellious we're under OSHA spiritual darkness it's hard not to be despondent it's hard not to feel a sense of hopelessness and despair and confusion so we just watch our world reeling out of control do you know what has believers those of us who are set apart and sanctified for God what should our reaction be should be the same as those Israelites in Egypt who were reading about an exodus celebration all those who do not know God are in darkness and they're about to experience spiritual death we who do know God live in as light and we are about to experience deliverance into eternal light the example of how we are to live during these last days as each new day reveals new and deeper levels of man's wickedness and depravity it's right here in Exodus we can and we should actually take it from God's perspective final complete deliverance is at hand yet like the Israelites our joys bittersweet like those Israelites we all have friends and relatives and neighbors that made the choice to join with the world to toil under its darkness the sad fact is that until Messiah Yeshua reigns on earth light and darkness death and life are gonna rule together simultaneously we're gonna stop here and pick up next week [Music] you

Channel: Torah Class

Views: 7,840

Rating: 4.915493 out of 5

Keywords: Moses, Israel, Torah, Exodus, Torah Class, Old Testament, Seed of Abraham, Commandments, Tom Bradford, Bible Study, Egypt

Id: 1VKEHkdxT5Q

Length: 59min 4sec (3544 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 29 2018