Oh, Crossing Nation, I love you and I hope you've had a great
week. But I also know there's some of
you who you've had a week that you were not planning on having.
And I want you to know that as a church, we are in your corner as
you navigate the highs and lows of life.
To those of you who are joining us for the first time or the
first time in a long time, we are so thankful that you are
here. And to those of you gathered at
our physical locations, watching online or gathering on the
inside, I'm glad that we get to hang out today.
I got to tell you this, the sermon today, I think you're
going to survive it. It's not going to be that bad.
But I've got to tell you, I am so excited about next week's
sermon. I almost want to preach it
tonight. And if if you're like me and you
have people that you care about that don't have a relationship
with Jesus, next week I'm going to be preaching a message on the
10th plague and you're going. A plague sermon does not sound
like the sermon I want to invite a friend to.
What if I told you that that sermon is not just about what
happened in Egypt and the 10th plague, but it is about Jesus on
the cross and it is about the communion that you take every
single week. And if you know a friend that
struggles with shame, if you know a friend that struggles
with guilt, if you know a friend that struggles with the past,
you could not find a better weekend to bring a friend.
And so if you're the kind of people that want to make this
region the hardest place on planet Earth to get the hell
from, next weekend will be the perfect weekend for you to bring
that friend. You will not be disappointed.
That being said, we are in a sermon series called Decisions
in the Desert. And every single one of us, at
some point in time, we are going to find ourselves in a desert.
And the decisions that you make in the desert, they end up
defining us. They determine our destiny and
during this series we are looking at one of the most
famous stories in all of the Bible and one of the most
referenced stories in all of Scripture.
We're looking at the life of Moses and the journeying of the
people of God out of the hands of the Egyptians in slavery in
Egypt, through their journey in the desert all the way to the
promised land, which is a modern day Israel.
This sermon is relevant to what's happening there and in
this series. Not only is it going to help you
understand the Old Testament better, it's also going to help
you see the New Testament and Jesus in a brand new way.
It's going to change the way you see Jesus, the way you love
Jesus, and the way you follow Jesus.
Quick recap, the first two weeks we've been focusing on Moses as
the leader. He's the one that God has chosen
to lead the people out of captivity.
And in week 1, Jerry talked about our identity, that you and
I need to see ourselves as children of God.
And that is what we are. And when we view ourselves as
children of God, it changes how we view God because God is now
seen as our Father. But it also changes how we view
other people because they are children of God too.
We also learned, and I hope you guys wrote this down, that
proximity to God is more important than productivity for
God. If you focus on proximity,
getting close to Jesus, the productivity, the things you do
on behalf of Jesus will take care of itself.
Last week we learned about the dangers of trying to do things
on our own power and on our own strength, that our confidence
should not come in our ability. Our confidence should come in
God's ability as he works through us.
And pride is the most destructive of sins.
God can't use anybody with pride.
So what God does is he tears us down to the foundation before he
begins to build us anew in Him. All of this is found in the book
of Exodus, the second book in your Bible.
Now this name, Exodus is actually taken out of the Greek
version of the Old Testament, which people call the
Septuagint. The name Exodus simply means a
going out, a departure. This is found.
This word actually shows up in Exodus chapter 19, verse one.
So they're reading through this book and in Exodus chapter 19
verse one, they're like Exodus. You know what we should call
this book Exodus? Here's where it is.
On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left
the word there, they exodus Egypt.
On that very day, they came to the desert of Mount Sinai.
They left Egypt, they departed Egypt.
Now, I know that sometimes, and I'm not saying I mean you guys
do, but you know a friend who is scrolling on X or Facebook or
TikTok, and something about that algorithm likes to promote
theological morons who like to help you deconstruct your faith.
And they'll say something stupid like, well, Exodus is not in the
Jewish Bible. Well, they don't call it Exodus
in the Jewish Bible. They're correct.
In the Jewish Bible, they actually call that exact same
text, the exact same scriptures, a different word.
They call it shamat and that is a Hebrew word for the and it
means names. And the Jewish people decided to
take the very same text and they named it shamat which is found
in Exodus chapter one verse 14. And the word Exodus simply or
the word, the word shamat means names.
So why they are reading the book of Exodus, They go, these are
the names shamat of the sons of Israel who went into Egypt with
Jacob, each of his family, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,
Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan NAFTA, Lee Gadnasher.
So if somebody ever comes up to you with a little Exodus quiz,
whether you see something says someone stupid, you just send
them this link to this sermon, OK?
And you'll be surprised. I'm going to start giving you
more and more of those because when I scroll through, I see
people saying stupid stuff. I'm like, I don't have all day
to just dismantle all the stupid that's out on social media.
By God's grace, I'll take it down 1 brick at a time.
OK, now let's catch up on the real story.
Moses and Aaron have been commissioned by God.
God tells them you are supposed to go to Pharaoh and say let my
people go. I want my people to be taken out
of slavery and I want them to come and worship me in the
promised land and so they go to Pharaoh.
God told us that you're supposed to let us go.
And you know what they were thinking?
Probably the same thing you're thinking.
If God says it, it's going to be pretty stinking easy.
Pharaoh, let us go. Guess what Pharaoh says.
Huge surprise. Pharaoh goes no.
Imagine you're Moses and Aaron. You heard God, right?
He said we. Yeah, He just said no.
Pharaoh not only says no, he turns to all the Israelites and
he says, because you guys are trying to leave, I'm going to
make you keep having to make, since you're in slavery, the
same amount of bricks that you've always had to make.
Except this time we're not going to deliver the straw to you.
You're going to have to go out and gather the straw and make
the same amount of bricks. This frustrated the Israelites.
And so the Israelites go, hey Pharaoh, cut us some slack.
We can't do this. We can't keep making the same
number of bricks everyday and have to go out and gather the
straw in order to do so. And Pharaoh said, keep making
the same number of bricks that I told you and you have to go get
and they're going. Hold on a second, Moses, Aaron,
you showed up. You said you were going to
deliver us. You didn't deliver us.
You said Pharaoh's going to let us go.
He didn't let us go and he made our job harder.
We went to Pharaoh to say, hey, you've made our job harder and
you got to stop making our job harder.
And he said no to that. Exodus chapter 5, verse 22.
Moses turned to the Lord and said, why Lord, have you brought
trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me?
How many of you have prayed a similar prayer?
Glad you came to church. Verse 20, two or three.
Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has
brought trouble on this people and you have not rescued your
people at all. Anybody here ever frustrated
with the timing of God? Glad you came to church.
Let's keep going. Next chapter.
Then the Lord said to Moses, Ready?
This is going to help you explain everything that happens
in the next 9 plagues. Now you will see what I will do
to Pharaoh. Because of my mighty hand, he
will let them go. Because of my mighty hand, He
will drive them out of his country.
Pharaoh is not going to let you go.
He's going to kick you out. Let's keep going.
God said to Moses, I am the Lord.
I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob as God Almighty, but by
my name, the Lord. I did not make myself fully
known to them. Keep going.
I also established my covenant, my agreement, my relationship
with them, to give them the land of Canaan, modern day Israel,
where they resided as foreigners.
Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites.
Israelites were in slavery, and if you were in slavery, you'd be
doing a lot of groaning. How many of you you've been in a
situation that stinks if you didn't raise your hand?
We don't understand you. OK, I'll ask it again.
You've been in a situation that stinks and you've wondered, does
God hear me complaining about my stinky situation?
Glad you came to church, God says.
I have heard the groaning of the Israelites whom the Egyptians
are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.
I made an agreement with your great great grandpa.
I made an agreement with your great grandpa.
I made an agreement with your grandpa about my relationship to
this family. And I've heard the groanings.
I've heard what's going on, and I have not forgotten the
relationship and the promise that I made.
Keep going. Therefore Moses and Aaron.
Go back to the people that are frustrated about making the
extra bricks. Go back to the people that are
frustrated that they're still enslaved.
Go back to the people that are tired of being in this situation
and say I am the Lord, I'm God, and I will bring you out from
under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being
slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched
arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
I will take you as my own people and I will be your God.
Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you
out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.
Verse 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with an
uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
I will give it to you as a possession.
I am the Lord. Let's keep going.
Moses reported this to the Israelites, but the Israelites
did not listen to him. Been there because of their
discouragement and harsh labor. Let's keep going.
Then the Lord said to Moses, Go tell Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to
let the Israelites go out of this country.
Verse 12 But Moses said to the Lord, if the Israelites will not
listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me?
Since I speak with faltering lips, let me teach for a bit and
then I'll preach. Moses was not responsible for
the results. He was responsible for being
obedient. He was responsible for telling
the Israelites that God was going to let the people go.
He was responsible for telling Pharaoh let the people go.
And when God says it, you can trust it.
When God says it, it will come to pass.
It may not be on your timetable, but you can count, you can mark
it. It will happen.
There are some of you today that God has told you to do
something. He has revealed something to
you. He has convicted you of
something. He has given you a word and you
are presently not seeing any deliverance.
You're not seeing any change or you're not seeing the change
that you thought you would see. You're not seeing the harvest
from the seed that you planted. However, you are not responsible
for the fruit. You are not responsible for the
growth. You are responsible for your
obedience to what God has told you to do.
And out of this, God says, I'm going to show everybody,
everybody, look to everybody and say everybody, everybody.
I'm going to show everybody that I am God.
And how does God do it? How does he bring about these
mighty acts to reveal not just to Pharaoh, not just to the
Egyptians, not just to the Israelites, but to Aaron and
Moses that he is God? He does it through something we
call the plagues. Now the plagues, there's a
softer word for them, signs and wonders.
When Jesus shows up and reveals himself on earth, he does so
with signs and wonders. We call them the plagues in the
Old Testament because they're called the plagues.
But the plagues are also called by the Old Testament signs and
wonders. You might not believe me, but I
just want to quote God for a second.
Exodus Chapter 7. This is God talking.
But I will harden Pharaoh's heart.
And though I multiply my I told you, I told you I wasn't in
Egypt, He will not listen to you.
Then I will lay my hand on Egypt with mighty acts of judgement.
OK, That's where we get plagues. And I will bring out my
divisions and my people, the Israelites and the Egyptians
will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand
against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.
These plagues are miracles with a message.
These plagues were designed to teach and to punish.
It was to teach Israel. I am the Lord your God.
I can be trusted. I should be worshipped and I
should be followed. And it is an act of punishment
on the cruelty that the Egyptians have been inflicting
upon the Israelite people. It begins with a crazy story.
God tells Aaron to throw down his staff, his big stick down in
front of Pharaoh and it was going to turn into a snake.
Listen, This is why I am not in the Old Testament because the
God could tell me to throw my staff down and it could turn
into a snake. But when he says pick it back
up, I'd be like, got to go K, I'll beat Usain Bolton out of
that place. So no here, think about this.
Put yourself in Aaron in Moses shoes.
You throw it down, it turns into a big snake, like a cobra, OK.
And then Pharaoh's sorcerer's magicians, they throw their
sticks on the ground and they become snakes, too.
What? I thought you were supposed to
show off, and these guys can do what you can do.
Would you be a little frustrated by that?
But then Aaron's snake, obviously, it's kind of have a
little bit of a hensel in him because he eats all the other
snakes. Like these are Fruity pebbles.
We're eating them up now. Then they start a a series of 10
plagues. We're only going to talk about
nine. Now.
These plagues happened over a period of about six months from
October to March. We would call this winter.
How many here? You don't like winter?
You're going to love the plagues then.
OK, So the first plague is he turns the water or water of the
Nile into blood. This plague got the attention of
everybody all at once. This is like COVID, no toilet
paper. Like everybody's going, we got
to do something about this. Everywhere they turned, the
water has been turned into blood.
This affected the Israelites and it affected the Egyptians.
Crazy thing is, guess what the sorcerer's of Egypt were able to
do? They also were to take water and
able to turn it into blood. This is really interesting.
Plague 2 Frogs Seven days after the water of the Nile is turned
to blood, there is a plague of frogs that come up into their
palace, into their homes, into their beds, among their kitchen
instruments. Frogs are absolutely everywhere.
Check this out. The Egyptian sorcerers are also
able to make frogs, and you've got to be going.
How come these people can keep doing everything that's
happening? Interestingly enough, though,
the Egyptian magicians can make frogs, but they can't make them
go away. So Pharaoh has to come to Moses
and go, hey, can you stop with the frogs, please?
So the next day Moses asked God, and God said OK, and all the
frogs died. They died in their houses, in
their courtyards, in their beds, in their kitchens.
And so they went around and scooped them all up.
The Bible tells us this. They piled them in heaps, and
the land wreaked of all the dead frogs.
Plague 3 gnats. Our American word would be lice.
Ladies, if you know somebody who's had lice, you know this
ain't good. We could take a cue from the
Egyptians here. The Egyptians hated gnats.
They hated lice, and so they would shave their bodies so that
way the lice would not be attracted to them or determined.
But it did not help one bit. One God sent lice and gnats all
over the land, and the magicians tried to produce the gnats, but
they couldn't. Now here's an interesting little
side note. This is why I love the Bible.
If you're going through some plagues, do you want Pharaoh's
Sorcerer's making more of the bad thing?
I can imagine just being one of the sorcerer's.
Like just assumed you're the jacked up messed up person who
has access to secret arts. You showed up for work one day
and you threw your stuff on the ground and it turned into a
snake. It was your favorite staff.
And then Moses or Aaron's staff ate your stick.
And so you walked home without your cane.
Like, what in the world? I like that cane.
It's gone. It's now Aaron's and Aaron's
snake's, cane's mouth. OK, then you have the you have
the plague of blood. Don't you think you'd want to
make clean drinking water? But what did the sorcerer's do?
They made more bad water. Doo Doo Doo.
Like, what are you? What are you doing?
Oh, plague of frogs. You know what?
We could use more of more frogs. So they made more frogs.
All of a sudden you get to the gnats and the lice and they're
like, you know what? We can't do this anymore.
I don't know if they couldn't do it.
If they're like, listen, man, we got to get out of here.
This is getting out of hands. Now, here's what's crazy.
You need to know this. There are indeed dark arts.
There are indeed demonic powers at work in this world.
There are times when there are demonic powers at work in you
and around you, but I want you to know something.
They are not at any moment in time, something to be feared
because they in no way, shape or form have any power against
prayer, the presence of the Holy Spirit, or the name of Jesus
Christ. We can walk into the darkest of
places over equipped for whatever it is that we face.
Plague #4 at which plague would you start to go?
Something's going on. The Egyptians are slow learners.
So are the Israelites. Plague 4 flies.
There are probably all kinds of different insects, but one of
the insects that was most likely a part of it was the scarab
beetle. The reason why this is kind of
interesting is because the Egyptians worship the scarab
beetle as a sign of immortality and all of a sudden you are
covered in them. In many ways, the plagues that
God does on the Egyptians are an attack on the gods of the
Egyptians. The the Egyptians were
polytheists. They believed in all kinds of
gods. They had gods for absolutely
everything. And through the plagues, God
starts basically taking a sniper rifle to each of their gods and
going what about that? What about that?
You can draw a pretty strong connection to the different gods
of Egypt and the plagues that took place.
However, while this is happening, the Egyptian gods are
silent. They offer no help, no reprieve,
no rebuttal, no protection. He is showing them that the
thing that you are worshiping did not sustain you, the thing
that you are worshiping did not create you, and the thing that
you are worshiping cannot take care of you.
God is showing the Egyptians and the Israelites that there is
only one true God and He shouldn't be messed with, but He
should be obeyed and He should be followed in many ways.
As you come to faith in Christ, you will have the exact same
experience. You will have to dismantle your
own gods and start seeing them for what they really are.
Now your gods look different, but they're just as devastating
for you. It might be your worship of your
body, the worship of your money, the worship of your relational
status, the relation, the worship of your health, the
worship of your possessions, the worship of your position.
And you have a hard time following Jesus because your
true allegiance is to a false God.
And just so you know, false gods are no gods and no God will save
you. But something special happens
during this plague. God deals differently with the
people of Israel. You see, the people of Israel,
they lived in Egypt, but they have their own place in Egypt
and it was called the land of Goshen.
It was where all the slaves lived, their barracks.
It's where they eights raised. Their family was in the land of
Goshen. And in the land of Goshen there
were no flies. Where the people of God were,
there was no plague. If you were standing on the line
of Egypt and Goshen, you'd be covered in flies.
No flies. He was showing them that there
is something uncommon about these people who called on the
name of Jehovah. Here we find ourselves with a
little bit more in common with Pharaoh than we want to admit,
because here Pharaoh actually begins to try to compromise with
God and compromise with Moses. He goes, listen, don't go away
forever, but if you want to go away for a little while, that's
fine. Just don't go too far and, and
just take the men, don't take the families.
He starts to enter into a negotiation with God and that's
what we do, isn't it? We want an aspect of God, but we
don't want the whole thing. We want to be somewhat faithful,
but not completely faithful. We want to give him ground, but
we don't want to completely surrender.
We want to give him the room in our lives, but we don't want to
give him the whole house. And partial obedience is
disobedience. How many of you raise your hands
if you as a parent, you counted when you were dealing with your
kids? I'm going to count to three.
One, I'm super serious. Two, don't make me get there.
Two and one quarter. You know what that is?
We are manufacturing disobedience.
We are telling them you can obey.
Just don't obey until the last possible moment.
God is the best parent of all time and he doesn't count plague
5 the death of the livestock. He kills all the livestock in
Egypt, but none of the livestock in Goshen.
No cows, no sheep. I don't.
That's it, That's all I got. If you are an Egyptian and
you're just walking through all the dead animals, you got heaps
of frogs smelling up the place, Fluffy gone.
But over here kids are still playing with their dogs.
You'd be going. What is going on here?
Plague 6 boils, the boyles show up, these warts that are oozing
and hurt and they land on the livestock and on the people and
you might be going hold on a second.
Didn't God just kill all the livestock?
How are the Egyptians having livestock with boyles?
Great question. TikTok.
Here's a couple things. One, they could have stolen from
the Israelites because the Israelites were their slaves.
So like, hey, glad you guys got all your livestock.
We'll take some two. They could have gone to the
neighboring countries and bought them, which have been incredibly
expensive. Third, remember, these things
happened over a period of six months.
So these animals get absolutely pelted with boils.
The magicians get mentioned in the text again.
This time the magicians can't stand because they're so
afflicted with boils. So now the magicians are coming
in after like Wheeling themselves in on their little
Egyptian wheelchair. They're they're skiing, they're
skiing in Egypt and they can't even stand.
So they used to be mimicking everything that God did and now
they can't even stand in the presence of God's man.
Here's where God hardens Pharaoh's heart.
Throughout the 1st 5 plagues, Pharaoh could have turned at any
moment in time, but he didn't. And so at this point in time,
because he chose the cruel and God denying path, God hardened
Pharaoh's heart. This is a subtle reminder for
every single one of us. You have time to get your heart
right until you don't. So don't waste your time or your
choice. When my kids threaten to leave
the house, we move them out. I've told you guys this story
before, Maddox. One time is like, I'm leaving
this house. I don't want to be here anymore.
Like, OK. And he starts running up the
stairs. I'm like, what are you doing?
He goes, I'm getting my clothes. I'm like, you don't have
clothes? He's like, what?
I go, those are all my clothes. You can't be a thief too.
So if you're leaving, you're leaving without any clothes on.
So he comes downstairs. I'm thinking I solved it.
I'm eating free pebbles. He comes down butt naked, walks
outside with a towel around and throws the towel inside and
shuts the door. I'm like, Oh my goodness, so
much like your mother-in-law. Like what do I do with this?
And but then he couple minutes later he opens the door.
He's like, I'm staying here one more night because I don't want
do I want my kids to leave? Of course I don't, but I'm not
going to let them barter and have me live in fear constantly
that they can move out at any moments notice and that somehow
I'm going to not be the father I'm supposed to be in those
moments. So you'll harden their heart.
If you want to go, go put them outside, shut the door.
And as soon as they say, I want to be in this family again, I
love you. OK.
Now this time because the magicians, they're going through
all their boil stuff. So they're having next plague
hail. Now almost no rainfalls in Egypt
because Egypt is is in the Mediterranean coast and it's
primarily desert. So hail would have been an
almost unknown to them. And they worshipped the sky
goddess and she could not stop the storm from coming.
The hail beat down what was in the crops and the, and, and
through the process of that, it made it incredibly hard for them
to take care of their families because the food had been
decimated Recently, just two weeks ago, I did a wedding out
in Colorado, an absolutely beautiful wedding for a couple
that used to be a part of our church.
And if you're watching from Denver, we love you.
We had a great time. And on the way out I was like,
you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take my family to
the top of Pikes Peak. And if you have not done Pikes
Peak, you start off in Colorado Springs at about 6000 feet above
sea level and then you drive over about 10 miles, 8000 feet
in the air. And my family doesn't do well
with heights or my driving. And so it was a real pucker
moment for everybody in our family.
And you, you start driving up and like, all of a sudden you're
up high enough at 11,000 feet where there's no more trees, no
more grass. And you just keep going and you
come to the edge and you can look over the edge and you go,
if we go off here, we're going straight to Jesus, like this is
an exit ramp straight to him. And so you, we get to the top.
My family's been, we're, you know, they're, they're soft.
And so they've got those little oxygen tanks that you like, sell
at the gas station trying to get all the way up and like, you
guys are a bunch of wimps. And so we get all the way to the
top, we go, we take pictures, we go to the little place inside,
we buy the stupid souvenirs and the stickers and all that stuff.
And as we're getting ready to leave Pikes Peak, and if we
don't know, I got to say this Pikes Peak is so dangerous that
they check the temperature at the halfway point down, going
down to make sure that your brakes aren't too hot so you
don't die. We're at the very top as bad as
it can possibly get. We're walking out of the gift
shop and on the way up, they said, hey, we might have some
bad weather today. So, you know, make sure you have
your tank full of gas all the way up and take your pictures on
the way down. Just drive to the top because
it, you know, it might get a little spotty up there.
OK, We drive all the way to the top.
Everything's fine. Walk out of the gift and we're
walking to our vehicle and it starts to hail.
I'm not talking like, Oh my goodness, I wonder if my car got
hit. I'm saying hail as we're running
to our car. I've just got on an uncommon
shirt next weekend and I've got on a pair of shorts my wife's
got on flip flops. My kids are just wearing
T-shirts and shorts because we're from the Midwest and a
little cold air doesn't bother us none and we're getting
absolutely hammered by hail. As I get to my vehicle to unlock
it, lightning strikes the ground about 15 feet from us.
We get in the car. As we are driving down, the hail
is exploding on the pavement and turning to ice.
This is my wife. Going down tight.
Check it out. What up?
It's bad enough I might grow up. There were 14,000 feet up, hard
to breathe, and then we came out of the gift shop and we're
pelted by hail. But we made it to the truck.
Oh my gosh. See.
It's sloping off. It's not good.
Yeah, we just have to make it back down.
Kids in the back are like it's party time. $2.00 Panic attack.
Take this oxygen. OK, so we go.
Check back. In 10 minutes from here, 10,000
feet, 10 minutes on the same drive, we are not more than a
mile from where we just were and my wife picks up the phone at
10,000 feet in elevation. OK.
Where are we at, boys? We're at miles.
We're at 10,000 feet. That's ridiculous.
It's totally different weather. Check this out.
Hey, the only way I can describe that is on top of the mountain.
We were in Egypt and at 10,000 feet we were in Goshen.
People were walking around with their shirts off taking
pictures. People were crying out to God
for help. Plague 8 Locusts.
Whatever was not destroyed by the hail gets consumed by the
locusts. He has robbed their present
savings, their future supply, and their present supply, or
their future supply and their present supply.
Plague 9 Darkness Darkness was especially significant because
the chief God was a God of the sun.
The Bible says it was so dark it could be felt, but there was no
darkness in Goshen. God kept showing the people of
Israel that He is the Lord Almighty, He can be trusted and
should be followed and obeyed. And the people in Egypt kept
saying sign and wonder and sign and wonder and God's Providence
and protection. What's happening in these
plagues is a reversal of the creation narrative.
You guys know Genesis chapter one, In Genesis chapter one it
begins to unfold and we have God making three dominions and then
he fills these dominions with inhabitants.
Day one we get domain number one, we get light and dark and
day four he populates it with the sun, the moon and the stars.
And day two we get a second dominion.
This one we get sky and water, and on day five he populates
this dominion with birds and fish.
On day three we get the third dominion, we get land, and on
day six God populates it with animals and humans.
And you have the whole world going from disorder to order.
And during the plagues you have the unraveling of all of this.
It is no longer good. It is no longer very good.
In fact, it is very bad. And the lines between the
dominions are dissolved. And you have frogs in the beds
and flies everywhere, and darkness is felt instead of you.
Not only can you not see, but you can feel the darkness.
There's no more boundaries between the domains.
We're no longer calling this good.
The waters and drinkable people are sick.
The cattle are dying, the crops are destroyed.
The plagues are a disruption of all of this order.
God is saying I am the one who brought all of this into
existence and I am the one who can take it all away.
I am Jehovah, I am your God, and if I can do this with the land,
imagine what I can do with you. I am Yahweh.
The plagues are a sign and wonder to everybody to worship
God. It reminds me of when I used to
work out in Oklahoma as a rancher.
I worked for a kids camp and my job was to teach horseback
riding to all the kids. And we had received a wild
Mustang from Nevada. And we were in the process of
breaking this horse. And the way you break a horse,
if you're going to do it the the sweet way, which is what we did,
just so you know, so I don't get any emails, is you enter into a
round pin, which is a round pin of about 20 to 30 feet wide.
It's a big round pin and you put the the the horse in there and
then you go in with what's called a lunging whip.
And you don't actually hit it. You just pop it real loud.
Freaks the horse out. You'd freak out if you were in a
pin with me and I started cracking a whip, right?
You'd be like, OK, what are we doing?
And that's exactly what the horse does.
Like, I guess we're running. I guess we're running.
And you just stand in the middle and you go and he's like, OK, we
got to go. We got to go.
And then what you do is you after you've ran it for a little
while, you kind of step over like this as it comes around the
circle. And the horse, when he sees you,
it immediately turns and it tries to get out of the gate.
It keeps its head over there and it starts running the other way.
And you do that for a little bit.
And so you let it run the other way for a little while and then
you get over in front of it to try and stop it and turn it
around. And as you do it, eventually you
start going, OK, when the horse comes around this way, I'm going
to stop. And you give the horse just a
second release, a little bit of pressure, and the horse will
start looking at you. And then you apply a little bit
of pressure. And if the horse starts to turn
away from you, you jump back over this way and you keep it
going in the exact same direction.
But if the horse, instead of turning to the outside of the
circle, if the horse starts to look at you, you back up and you
just wait a second. Then you ask it to run again and
it starts to run around and you get in front of it and you ask
it to change direction. And the horse that comes running
around, it stops. It starts to think, OK, I'm
looking this way. And every time I look this way,
I got to run a whole lot. And I'm kind of a fat horse and
I'm kind of tired of running. I think I'm going to look at
this guy and if I no, I don't trust him.
Soon as it starts to go this way, you run all this way, not
hitting a horse, just making a lot of noise.
Horse starts running again. All of a sudden it comes
running. The moment it turns to you,
you're back way off. Good.
You do that about five or six times.
All of a sudden you walk up to the horse, no bridle, no saddle,
no lead, no nothing. And you touch it on, on its
head, Good boy, good boy. And then you turn around and you
walk away, and the horse follows you.
And you can open up the pen and you can walk through the field
and the horse follows you and you can walk into the barn and
take it right back to its pen without anything on it because
it has acknowledged that you are in charge.
And the moment it stops trying to run from you, and the moment
it starts following you, it's life experiences peace.
Because a wild horse will be forever chased by predators.
A wild horse will constantly live in fear.
But a horse that has been domesticated, trained, bridled,
comes under the sphere of leadership of its owner and it's
worries dissipate. God has been showing up in your
whole life in every single one of your circumstances.
Some of them He's caused, and some of them you have caused,
and some of them the enemy has caused.
But God has promised to redeem any and every situation and
repurpose any amount of pain to get you to look to Him.
And when you do, everything changes.
We're moving to a time, a decision.
There are some of you listening to me right now and you've never
started a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You've never come into that intimate personal relationship
that is not just life altering in this life, but in the life
that is to come. And I just got a simple plea to
you. Don't put it off any longer.
Don't wait. The time is right.
The time is right now. And if you're here today and you
have questions about what that is or what that looks like?
In just a few moments, when people around you stand and sing
and people begin to raise their hands and worship and other
people come to the steps and pray, I want to encourage you to
walk right over there next to that baptistry underneath that
screen, and talk to somebody about starting the relationship.
That makes all the difference. You're going to keep
experiencing pain in this life. You're going to keep
experiencing hardship. God is continually trying to
show you, follow me, be my child, live in harmony and in
peace with me, not just in this life, but in the one that
matters the most, the one that is to come.
Don't put it off to the rest of you, those of you who call
yourselves Christians. We must follow God and worship
God so that way we are to the people around us a land of
Goshen that they see us and they see the difference of the
Providence of God in our lives. Perfect example, some would say
that we are in a political nightmare and some would say
that people are losing their ever loving minds.
And wouldn't it be cool if they said how come Christians are
going through this differently? Why do you have so much peace?
Why do you have so much hope? Why do you have so much joy?
Oh, that's because I'm in the land of Goshen.
What's the land of Goshen? Oh, I'm a part of the land of
the people who believe that God is still on his throne, that
he's not going anywhere. If he has power over plagues,
you think he doesn't have power over politicians?
You think his reign is not righteous, that he won't get us
through whatever we're about ready to go through.
And this world is not my home. So you can't really mess me up
because my world has eternal foundations and it's sustained
by God. It has no light because God is
the light. Well, this is the perfect
opportunity for you and me to be Goshen in our communities.
Would you stand? God, I'm asking you to do a work
in our church, a soul stirring work, the kind of work that
could only be attributed to you, to your might, to your power.
You got to pray that we would worship you, honor you, follow
you in every area of our life. In your name I pray.
Amen.