A Study of the Life of Moses
Sermon # 8
“Facing the Judgment of God”
Exodus 11 and 12
Dr. John R. Hamby
It seems appropriate that on the Sunday following perhaps that greatest tragedy in American History, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that we find our selves considering the subject of “Facing the Judgment of God.” We are tempted to ask ourselves, “How could God have allowed this to happen to America?” But perhaps a more appropriate question would be, “Why has God not judged America before now?”
On September 13, in an Interview with the Press the daughter of Billy Graham, Ann Graham Lotz, was asked by the Early Show’s Jane Clayson to offer some comfort to the families of the victims of the terrorist attack. During this interview Jane Clayson asked: “I’ve heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, if God is good, how could God let this happen? To that, you say?”
Anne Graham Lotz replied saying: “I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we’re sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it.” (From transcript of Early Morning Show - CBC interview)
Do we not see the same stiff-necked rebellion against God in America as exhibited by the Pharaoh of Egypt? God had sent Moses to Pharaoh with the demand, “Let my people go.” Pharaoh with great arrogance replied, “Who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice to let the children of Israel go.” Instead of obedience Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused. God now forced the issue and a series of nine plagues had devastated Egypt. It will take one more horrific plague, the death of the first born, to convince Pharaoh. God tells Moses that he will bring one more plague upon Pharaoh, Exodus 11:1, “And the LORD said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will surely drive you out of here altogether.” A special word is used in the Hebrew here for the last plague, “a stroke.” That means this plague is to be more disastrous than any of the former nine. Until this time the plagues had been to point out the answer to Pharaoh’s question, “Who is the LORD?” But this plague is a stroke of judgment and punishment.
In Exodus 12:12 we find a summary of what this judgment will be, “For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD.”
This morning I want you to see four things about the judgment of God.
1. NO ONE IS GOOD ENOUGH TO ESCAPE GOD’S JUDGEMENT
This tenth plague had no automatic exemption for the Hebrews. It was a great day of judgment upon all – it was the blood of the sacrifice that saved Israel. Death came in judgment to every home without the blood of the Passover lamb upon its doorposts. The first thing that we need to understand is that Israel was also guilty before God. Israel was only saved from suffering from the same plague as the Egyptians by means of the sacrifice that had been provided.
The children of Israel were not saved because they were good. The truth was that they too had worshipped the idol gods of Egypt and some continued to do so even after their deliverance. On his death-bed Joshua, Moses successor, pleaded with the children of Israel to put away the gods of Egypt (Joshua 24:2,15). In themselves the people of Israel deserved God’s judgment as must as the Egyptians.
In the book of Deuteronomy 7, verse 7 and 8 God told the children of Israel why they were chosen, “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; (8) but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” Israel escaped the judgment of the tenth plague entirely by grace.
Not only is there No One Good Enough To Escape God’s Judgement but
2. DELIVERANCE CAME THROUGH FAITH
But even though they were saved entirely by grace, it came through the channel of human response, through an act of faith. It was faith that made the difference. Hebrews 11:28 reveals, “By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them.”
After announcing the plague to Pharaoh Moses returned and stood before the people and gave them instructions about how to avoid God’s judgment on the unbelieving. Exodus 12:3-7, “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. (4) And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. (5) Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. (6) Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. (7) And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.”
We need to remember as we read those instructions that the Hebrews had never done anything like this before. They had never roasted a lamb in this specific way. They had never slain a lamb and used the blood in this way. What logical reason was there for doing this with the blood. “It seemed so utterly extraordinary for such a thing to be, as the deliverance of his people, because blood happened to be sprinkled on the outside of their doors. There was no precedent, no apparent reason to justify such a thing to ordinary common sense, no likelihood of obedience having any connection with deliverance.” [F.B. Meyer. The Life of Moses: The Servant of God. (Lynnwood, Washington : Emerald Books, 1996).p. 72]
God in his great wisdom designed a plan that required only one thing, obedience. God said, “That’s my plan . Now do it!”
It was made very clear that nothing but the blood of the Passover lamb would save the firstborn from death. No attempts to live a good life, no amount of good intentions would suffice, to preserve the life of the firstborn children from sudden death on this grim and fearful night, even among the Jewish families.
The sprinkling of the blood points dramatically to a subsitutionary shedding of blood. Just as the lamb was substituted for the firstborn, thus protecting him from death, so the Lamb of God would some day die in the place of all sinners.
The Messiah would come some fifteen centuries later and offer a full and complete satisfaction for the demand that “without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin” (Heb 9:22). On the cross of Calvary Jesus once for all time paid the penalty for the sins of all those who would receive his free gift of grace.
Those Israelite may have not felt like smearing lamb’s blood on the doorposts of their homes and I am sure they did not understand the Lord’s reasoning. But they just did it; they obeyed the instructions they had been given without under-standing all the “whys” and “wherefores.” A few hours later they were very glad they did. Obedience always pays dividends.
According to Exodus 12:13 the blood on the door was to be a sign. “Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
The blood on the door was to be a sign. A sign of what? It was a sign the household had acted in faith. A sign that the lamb had been slain .
Anyone who by faith followed the instructions would be saved. It is my belief that there were even some Egyptians who had been convinced by the plagues that Jehovah was indeed God. Some of the Egyptians had heeded the previous warnings (9:18-21) and had their cattle spared. There were even a number of non-Israelites who left Egypt with Israel (12:38).
The people knelt and worshiped quietly. Obviously they would have been moved by reverential fear of the angel of death as they displayed child-like faith to carry out God’s commands. As God had said so it was done!
“Suddenly the stillness was interrupted by a scream of anguish as a mother rushed out into the night to tell that the Angel of Death had begun his work and was presently answered by the wail of a mother in agony for her firstborn; and this by another, and yet another. It was useless to summon priest or physician, magician …how could they help others who had not been able to ward off death from their own.” (Meyers. pp. 73-74). The death cry that was heard throughout Egypt was not only for the loss of a son but also bewailing the incapability of the many gods of Egypt to respond or protect them from such a tragedy.
Exodus 12:29-30 we find an amazingly brief, but powerful, account of tenth plague. “And it came to pass at midnight that the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. (30) So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.”
Scripture says that there was not a home in Egypt where someone had not died. Just try to imagine that. It is almost impossible to conceive.
Not only is there No One Good Enough To Escape God’s Judgement and Deliverance Came Through Faith but
3. SOMEBODY’S GOT TO DIE: THE DEATH OF A LAMB OR THE DEATH OF THE FIRST BORN
God taught that there must be death to atone for sin – the wages of sin is death – either the death of the offender or the death of the innocent substitute.
What does God ask you to do today in order to be saved? He asks you to believe in Him and to act upon that belief. He tells you that you are a sinner and that your sin condemns you.
We are told in Romans 3:23 “… all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and later in Romans 6:23 we are told the penalty, “…the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God reveals that he has provided the sacrifice, a substitute for you in the person of his son, Jesus Christ. According to Romans 5:6 through 8, “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (7) For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. (8) But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
In order to be saved we must accept that Christ died on the cross, for our sins. We must accept what Jesus has already done on the cross.
Not only is there No One Good Enough To Escape God’s Judgement and Deliverance Came Through Faith and Somebody’s Got To Die but finally
4. FOLLOWING GOD ALWAYS MAKES A DIFFERENCE (vv. 50-51)
“Thus all the children of Israel did; as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. (51) And it came to pass, on that very same day, that the LORD brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt according to their armies.”
When the Israelites stepped out of their homes that night to follow the Lord it was a matter of simple faith and obedience, they had no idea that they were making history. Nehemiah 9, verses 9 and 10 reveal, “You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, And heard their cry by the Red Sea. (10) You showed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, Against all his servants, And against all the people of his land. For You knew that they acted proudly against them. So You made a name for Yourself, (which remains until this day) as it is this day.”
It may be that you find yourself on the brink of stepping into new unknown territory for God, some place that you have never been before, if the story of the ancient Hebrews is any indicator you may be about to make history. I wonder if you ever consider that God may have something greater for you than what you are presently doing? Perhaps our greatest struggle is not understanding God’s will, but obeying God’s will. As we look back at our lives we see that we were not as puzzled and mystified about God’s will nearly as much as we have just been stubborn and resistant to it.
Pharaoh did not – would not obey God. As a result he and his people underwent the judgment of the Lord. The Hebrews, who heard the word through Moses, did obey, down to the last detail. As a result they were delivered and went on to make history, while Pharaoh became history.
What have we learned about facing the judgment of God 1. No One Good Enough To Escape God’s Judgement 2. Deliverance Came Through Faith, 3. Somebody’s Got To Die, and 4. Following God Always Makes A Difference.
Conclusion
The question for us today is when push comes to shove what are we going to do. It was reported on National Public Radio this morning that there was another telephone call from Flight 93 the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania. In this call a passenger spoke with a GTE operator, she told him about what had happened at the World Trade Center. In this conversation he that went on for about 20 minutes, he asked her if she would pray with him and they recited the 23rd Psalm together. The he said, “Lets go guys.”
Lets not forget where we need to turn today. Lets invite God back into our lives today. Lets invite God back into our national life. Lets ask God to forgive us.
Let me close by asking; “Where is your sin? How is it to be judged? It can only be in one of two places. It can be on you. In that case you must bear its judgment, and you are today in the same position as a firstborn Egyptian or a firstborn Israelite apart from the sacrifice that God has provided. Or – and this is the glorious possibility – it can be on Jesus Christ. In that case He has already borne its judgment. He has paid its penalty. His blood was shed. He has become your Passover. If your faith is in Christ, then the angel of death has already passed over you and there is nothing left but heaven.” [James Montgomery Boice. Ordinary Men Called by God: Abraham, Moses & David. (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1987.) p. 80]
