"Tasting Hell...Desiring Heaven" Exodus 10:21-29

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Preaching Ministry of the Agapic Baptist Church in George South Africa.

[SPEAKER_00]: Morning church!

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a joy to be with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can tell it's the holidays whenever the church is half visitors and then half the church is gone and we're about the same amount of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're visiting this morning, a special welcome to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that you are able to worship the Lord together with us through song and prayer, through the preaching of the Word and through the breaking of the bread and of the cup.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you would, turn with me to Exodus chapter 10.

Exodus 10 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: So for our visitors, we've been preaching through the book of Exodus, narrative by narrative, seen by seeing plague through by plague.

[SPEAKER_00]: And right now, we are on the ninth plague.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I know you're jumping in, but please try to stay with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: After eight plagues, Egypt is ruined.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Egyptians are beginning to realize that the God of the Hebrews, Yahweh, is in fact the God of their land.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was a surprise to them because we began with the question, who is Yahweh?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who is He that we should fear him that we should obey him?

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to let the Hebrews go.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has been answering that question repeatedly to the point that now they know.

[SPEAKER_00]: They know something about the God of the Hebrews about Yahweh.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're coming to the realization that He is the God in this land of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: But instead of obeying this God, Pharaoh and his servants attempt to pacify God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've seen a lot of that in our lifetimes, I think.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead of fearing the one true God and just obeying His word as the final word, human beings are tempted to try and pacify Him, make deals with Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Say, I don't want to follow you entirely.

[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of want to make my own path.

[SPEAKER_00]: How can we strike a bargain?

[SPEAKER_00]: And we've been seeing that repeated over and over again.

[SPEAKER_00]: As Pharaoh says, I've messed up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm wrong.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's make a deal, but it's not been working.

[SPEAKER_00]: Moses tells us that Pharaoh kept exulting himself against God's people.

[SPEAKER_00]: He refused to humble himself before the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pharaoh did not fear God as he should, and therefore his expressions of repentance

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like the sailors out in the sea, that when they're caught in the storm, they all start crying out, Lord save us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I repent, I'll never go back to my wicked way of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you just saved me from this storm, I will reform.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'll become a true follower of God, but as soon as the storm is over, they go right back to their wicked way of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pharaoh is the ultimate of this example.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in response to this hardness of heart, God is going to give Egypt a taste of hell, a taste of hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the ninth plague, the Egyptians will live through three days of pitch black darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: A darkness that's seat into the mind, body, and soul, our passage says, a darkness to be felt.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what God says.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Y'all always says about what He's gonna send on Egypt, a darkness to be felt.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's my hope this morning to show you how this taste of hell and others like it are designed by God to give people a desire for heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: So my goal, I'll say it again, is to show you from the Scriptures how a taste of hell is designed by God to give people a desire for heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's read the passage together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Exodus 10, I'll begin reading in verse 21 through 29.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days.

[SPEAKER_00]: They did not see one another.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but all the people of Israel had light where they lived.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, go, serve the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your little ones also may go with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Only let your flocks and your herds remain behind.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Moses said, he must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our life stock also must go with us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not a hoof shall be left behind for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we do not know with what we must serve the Lord

[SPEAKER_00]: But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then Pharaoh said to him, Get away from me.

[SPEAKER_00]: To care, never to see my face again.

[SPEAKER_00]: For on the day you see my face, you shall die.

[SPEAKER_00]: Moses said, as you say, I will not see your face again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have no confidence, Lord, in the wisdom of man.

[SPEAKER_00]: or in my own ability to persuade, get Lord, I have every confidence in the wisdom and power of your word and of the effectiveness of the call and conviction of the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I asked Lord that in each one's heart, including mine, that you would convict as necessary, that you would encourage as you know how, that you would lift up the one that is downtrodden,

[SPEAKER_00]: and Lord that you would call the one that is astray.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Lord that your word would have the effect for which you've purposeed this morning in Jesus' name, amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: So a taste of hell is what the Egyptians are experiencing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Egypt thought of itself as the land of the sun.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's part of who they were.

[SPEAKER_00]: For the people of the sun,

[SPEAKER_00]: And predictably, their most powerful creator God was the sun God they called, I'm on rough, I'm on rough.

[SPEAKER_00]: In their mythology, this God had no competitor in the heavens, and therefore the sun was supreme and could not be stopped by anything natural or supernatural.

[SPEAKER_00]: In addition to this, I found this interesting this week.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pharaoh is said to be the sun of I'm on rough.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if any man on earth should be able to influence the sun, it should be Pharaoh.

[SPEAKER_00]: But God.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Yahweh says to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we know from past sermons and other passages and exodus that God is bringing down judgment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yahweh is bringing down judgment on the false gods of Egypt.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says as much.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord is putting on display His power as the God in this land.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by implication, as the whole world watches on, as Egypt, the jewel of the ancient world was being destroyed by Yahweh.

[SPEAKER_00]: The world is looking on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the implication for the world is that Yahweh

[SPEAKER_00]: owns the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: The earth is the Lord's is how God puts it.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is also showing that he is able to de-create the world if he so chooses.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember in Genesis 1 verse 2 says the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep.

Genesis 1:2

[SPEAKER_00]: Darkness is a key concept from the very beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second verse in the Bible, we see the word darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Genesis 1, verse 2, there was no such thing as light upon the earth.

Genesis 1:2

[SPEAKER_00]: The earth was in a state of emptiness we're told.

[SPEAKER_00]: And bear in this, and light for humanity would have been impossible.

[SPEAKER_00]: And God, if he so desires can return the earth to that condition,

[SPEAKER_00]: But in Genesis 1, verse 2, and 3, God then says, let there be light.

Genesis 1:2

[SPEAKER_00]: So God can create a world of darkness and then say, let there be light.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the God.

[SPEAKER_00]: who has all the power over light is what he's showing the Egyptians.

[SPEAKER_00]: He then in Genesis separates the light in the darkness, calling one day in the other night.

[SPEAKER_00]: He sets the sun and the moon in their places were told.

[SPEAKER_00]: He sets them there, it's like he hangs them as ornaments in his universe.

[SPEAKER_00]: The home he's creating for humanity.

[SPEAKER_00]: He sets the sun, the moon, and then the stars, which is beyond our comprehension, to even imagine.

[SPEAKER_00]: We try, but he also sets the stars in their place for his glory and the good of mankind.

[SPEAKER_00]: And from this moment on, from Genesis chapter 1, the theme of darkness versus light is developed in the scriptures and in the thinking of humanity.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: and disorientation.

[SPEAKER_00]: As a time when noises become louder kids, you know what I'm talking about?

[SPEAKER_00]: In the dark, noises of a sudden become crisp and loud.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember once sleeping in a tent, and it was the fall in the US and the woods, and behind me I could hear crunch crunch.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm just in a tent, and it's not zipped close,

[SPEAKER_00]: And there they have bears in the woods.

[SPEAKER_00]: Black bears, and I hear crunch, crunch, crunch, come here.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a bear.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know there's a bear.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it comes around, crunch, crunch, crunch, around my tent.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's pitch black.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't see anything except for a little bit of light from the moon, shining through the flap.

[SPEAKER_00]: Crunch, crunch, crunch, around to the front of the tent.

[SPEAKER_00]: Next thing I know, the flap opens.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what is coming into my tent?

[SPEAKER_00]: a skunk.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a time, nighttime is a time when noises become crisper and louder and scarier.

[SPEAKER_00]: Gotta find my place now.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a time when being alone, all of a sudden feel scarier.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you could walk down your neighborhood, if you live in a safe neighborhood, and you should feel pretty safe during the daytime.

[SPEAKER_00]: Go on that same walk at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of a sudden, it doesn't feel safe anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a time of cold.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a time of eyes looking at you in the dark.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a time when predators stalk things at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've never met a child that didn't have a natural fear of the dark.

[SPEAKER_00]: and most adults still struggle to shake that feeling if you've been by yourself in the dark in the woods or in the felt recently.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to shake that feeling of an additional level of fear at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even I've noticed that as you get older,

[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as the sun starts going down, you start to get a feeling, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: If I should get older, I really should be safely in my place, wherever that is.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should be home.

[SPEAKER_00]: I should be on my way home, where I should be home.

[SPEAKER_00]: I understand it has to do with eyesight and not being able to see as well at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like, as you get older, like, I should be at home.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm 36 years old and I'm already feeling that way.

[SPEAKER_00]: These late rugby matches, I'm just like, I'm gonna go watch it in my own bed and be at home in my place.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've never seen a Bible study dispersed as quickly as it did when we had unexpected load shedding.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry to bring up that word.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying, think back momentarily.

[SPEAKER_00]: No matter when load shedding hit a Bible study, unexpectedly, and the light shows up in the wintertime.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter how many cell phone lights we turned on, how many candles we lit, it didn't matter.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just seemed like everyone had an innate sense that they should be packing up and getting back to their place, back home, they should be safely at home and in bed.

[SPEAKER_00]: ancient culture since the same danger in darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by the time of the Exodus, darkness had become a symbol for the greatest danger and evil, death itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: As human humanity progressed somewhere along the line, darkness became a symbol for death itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: We think about the sun going down,

[SPEAKER_00]: The candle being put out, the fire dying, the parallels between darkness and death are strong and obvious.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the Egyptians understood this in their own mythology about their underworld or where people go when they die.

[SPEAKER_00]: A contemporary of the time of Exodus, he most likely lived around this time before the time of the Exodus.

[SPEAKER_00]: contemporary was Joe and we have the book of Job and our Bibles.

[SPEAKER_00]: Job had more to say about darkness than any other biblical writer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Job compared darkness to trouble, misery, loss, and ultimately death and the grave.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Job did not believe that the darkness of death,

[SPEAKER_00]: was the end of a human's existence.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reason I'm bringing this up is because I want to show you that in this ancient time of the biblical time, they already had the idea that the darkness of death was not the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not just when you cease to exist.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I'm bringing this up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And neither did the Egyptians believe this.

[SPEAKER_00]: spoke about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: One example is Job 19, the clearest one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Job 19, verse 25.

Job 19:25

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me read it for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is Job.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, for I know that my redeemer lives and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: And after my skin has been thus destroyed, death, yet in my flesh I shall see God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another, my heart faints within me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had hoped for life after death.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joe believed in a physical resurrection from the dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: He believed in life after the darkness of death, even back then, here before the Exodus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many today believe that when you die, you simply slip into an unconscious darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's think about this for a second.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that what modern people believe that when you die, that is it, and you go into unconscious darkness?

[SPEAKER_00]: You just cease to think, you cease to live.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you think of the final darkness that way,

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's more like just going to sleep at night in the never waking up, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't actually sound that scary to me.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I sat and thought about this, this week that actually sounds kind of nice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Especially if you've had a difficult week or month or 10 years, going to sleep and never waking up and that just being it might actually sound really appealing to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I sympathize with someone who might think that that would be an answer to the prayers to go to sleep and just stop existing, stop feeling because of the pain of this life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure you don't get to keep doing all the fun things in life, but isn't a peaceful sleep better than the constant pain of this life?

[SPEAKER_00]: Wouldn't it be better to just drift off into a never ending rest?

[SPEAKER_00]: This thinking has led many modern countries to even go as far as to make it legal for 17 year olds to end their own lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: You go through the right process and so the questions the right way, get the right permission from parents, teenagers can end their own lives medically and legally.

[SPEAKER_00]: It comes from this type of thinking that when you close your eyes the last time you enter into a blissful, restful, sleep that you never have to wake up from, you do no longer have to suffer in this life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine, it is the final darkness as the ultimate peace and rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Darkness is twisted into this idea of it being the comforter.

[SPEAKER_00]: Darkness is now the comforter of the frail, the unwanted, and the suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: But God's word does not permit us to imagine a human soul existing in a state of unconscious restfulness.

[SPEAKER_00]: The scriptures don't permit that.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Scriptures reveal that when a person dies, yes, their body goes into the ground, that's what dies, your body, but the soul continues on in a state of conscious existence.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus who came down from heaven and testified to us what he witnessed there told this story as a warning.

[SPEAKER_00]: to the proud and arrogant in this life.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the warning from Jesus, remember, who came from heaven and saw heavenly things and knew of all heavenly things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Luke 16, 19, Jesus says, tells this story.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was a rich man who was clothed and purple and fine linen, and who feasted some shoously every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus covered with sores, to who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table, more even even the dogs came and licked his sores.

[SPEAKER_00]: The poor man died, and was carried by the angels to Abram's side.

[SPEAKER_00]: Being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side, and he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and said Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am an anguish in this flame.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Abraham said, child, remember that in your lifetime, you received good things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Lazarus, in like manner, bad things.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now he is comforted here and you are in English.

[SPEAKER_00]: In besides all this, between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able and those and none may cross from there to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, then I beg you father to send him to my father's house for I have five brothers so that ye may warn them, unless they also come into this place of torment.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Abraham said, they have Moses in the prophets.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let them hear them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, no father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said to him,

[SPEAKER_00]: If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead until there.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Luke, Jesus warned men and women of a conscious existence after death.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then three times in the book of Matthew Jesus warns, what will happen to those who refuse to fear Yahweh, who refuse to bow the need to his son, those who are maybe religious, but who do not love and follow the Lord Jesus Christ according to His Word?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says that those men and women will be cast into outer darkness,

[SPEAKER_00]: My friends, this is not unconscious, restful, blissful, sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's not what Jesus describes after death.

[SPEAKER_00]: The outer darkness of hell is a darkness to be felt.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are the words of Jesus, which then brings us back to our passage in Exodus.

[SPEAKER_00]: For three days, the Egyptian's experience a taste of the darkness of hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was not nighttime.

[SPEAKER_00]: This was not the darkness of closing your eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is, in fact, the absence of light.

[SPEAKER_00]: In Exodus 10, verse 23, our English translations attempt to show Moses is meaning by describing it as pitch darkness or thick darkness or total darkness, most English translations use those words.

Exodus 10:23

[SPEAKER_00]: Moses, in fact, puts two Hebrew words right up against each other that both mean darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like he's saying, darkness, darkness, darkness, or darkness, or most meaningful to me, darkest darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the absence of light.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this absence of light was so complete that people did not dare move around, but stayed in the same place for three days.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a taste, but still, it is a taste of hell, especially for the people of the sun, the Egyptians.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is conscious existence separated from the blessing of light.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for the people of Egypt, this taste of hell was both judgment, but it's judgment mixed with mercy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I say it's mercy or a merciful,

[SPEAKER_00]: because it was only a small taste of hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was darkness, yes, but it only lasted three days.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was temporary.

[SPEAKER_00]: And on top of the temporary limited nature of this taste, it also had an effect for many Egyptians.

[SPEAKER_00]: It had the result of many Egyptians desiring to live in the eternal light of Yahweh.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're told that after the Tim Plagues are over, when Pharaoh drives out the Hebrews, that many Egyptians and other foreigners willingly go with the Hebrews following the cloud in the pillar of fire into the wilderness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Exodus 12 verse 37 tells us this.

Exodus 12:37

[SPEAKER_00]: And the people of Israel journeyed from Ramsey's to sucketh about 600,000 men on foot besides women and children.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Exodus, verse 38, a mixed multitude also went up with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: These Egyptians, who left with the Israelites, had a desire for heavenly things, a desire for Yahweh.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that taste of hell,

[SPEAKER_00]: Lead them to have a desire for heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: These Egyptians had gone through the hell of the plagues, and had laid in their beds for three days as the darkness pressed in on them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had experienced lost, suffered pain, and feared that the sun would never rise again.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when the sun came back up, as Moses had said, they left all behind and followed the cloud in the fire of Yahweh.

[SPEAKER_00]: Out of the land of rivers and abundance and into the wilderness,

[SPEAKER_00]: They follow Yahweh into the wilderness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you sitting here can relate to these Egyptians because you were saved later in life.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were saved after a period of rebellion in high-handed sinning, but God in His mercy, somewhere along your path stopped you in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: and gave you a taste of the darkness you were living in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Usually that's what happens to stop people in the tracks is they get a taste of the misery that they're creating for themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: God pulls back the curtain of all of the bright glittering pleasures of this world of the lusts and the wealth in the pride of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: God

[SPEAKER_00]: covering off that veneer off and shows the sin or the darkness of their own condition and the death that they're heading towards.

[SPEAKER_00]: In God's mercy, He grants the sinner a taste of the hell to come, the hell that they're showing for themselves and what they're going to reap.

[SPEAKER_00]: They get a taste of that and that taste of hell

[SPEAKER_00]: a newfound desire for truth and life that is real and that lasts, and that cannot fail.

[SPEAKER_00]: A taste of hell gave you a taste for heaven, and you packed up your bags, for suit your former way of life, and pursue Jesus out into the wilderness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your family members, if they're not saved, probably think it's you being a very serious Christian, or a devout Christian, or an extreme Christian, because you actually read the Word of God and care what it says.

[SPEAKER_00]: And attempt to the best of your ability to live at peace with God and others.

[SPEAKER_00]: You packed up your things and pursued Jesus out into the wilderness of being a serious Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: To be born again is when you are changed, you are made into something new with new tastes, new desires, with new life, that allows you to follow Jesus Christ with the Spirit he has given you.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the mercy and grace of God being shown to those who are living in darkness, but who couldn't even see the darkness that was around them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are the people of the sun, but when God turns out the lights and puts them in darkness for three days, He's actually showing them their true spiritual condition.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's who they are as a people.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are people who are slaves to the Prince of darkness, Satan.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're God, Amonara.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's one of the fallen angels that is enslaving them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Saying, come to me, I will give you light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Serve me, my light will never cease to shine on you.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a fallen angel attempting to lead humans

[SPEAKER_00]: into outer darkness with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: The outer darkness is reserved for Satan and the fallen angels who followed Satan instead of Yahweh.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all humanity that follows the lie of the devil will go with them into outer darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: But God, in His mercy to Egypt, turns out the lights.

[SPEAKER_00]: and gives them a darkness to be felt.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they might begin to see and realize that Yahweh is the only true God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that instead they are living in a land of darkness rather than light.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if that is you today and you can look back at your at your story of how you came

[SPEAKER_00]: Give thanks to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying you want to go back through it again or that you would ask for it again.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if it led to your eyes being opened to the light of Christ and the life that he offers, if that was its result, then praise him and give God the glory for the darkness he brought in your life as the unbeliever.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now I have to answer a different problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: One that's way more difficult to answer,

[SPEAKER_00]: Why does God permit Christians to go through times of deep, pitch black darkness?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why does God permit that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes in His wisdom and mercy, the Lord grants Christians a taste of hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why would a loving heavenly father who has all the power, all the knowledge and his love, why would he permit his children?

[SPEAKER_00]: Christians, the bride of Christ, why would he permit them us to taste hell in this life?

[SPEAKER_00]: Anxiety, fear, pain, loss.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have tasted these things, and it is a taste of hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: The sun may not have gone down.

[SPEAKER_00]: The sun might still be shining.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because in your soul, you feel like you're being crushed by the weight of darkness in this life.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're not alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: first of all, among the children of God, you're not alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're told that Abraham experienced the darkness of sorrow as he walked up the mountain, preparing to slaughter his firstborn son, his only son, Isaac.

[SPEAKER_00]: Isaac then lived for many years in the darkness of physical blindness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob, knew the hell of losing his teenage son, Joseph, that is a hell, all on its own.

[SPEAKER_00]: Job's darkness is too deep to recount today, but if you want to see why he spoke about darkness more than any other author, read the book of Job about his story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joseph was a sail by the darkness of repeated betrayal to be stabbed in the back by those who should love you most.

[SPEAKER_00]: Read the story of Joseph in that darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Moses spent 40 years trying to forget the darkness of failure and rejection.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm discouraged after one bad sermon and I'm going through a week of just discouragement.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like that flopped Moses for 40 years in the wilderness as a shepherd is trying to kick the discouragement.

[SPEAKER_00]: the darkness of failure, of his failures, as a young man, and the rejection of the people of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: David, in the Psalms, tells us repeatedly,

[SPEAKER_00]: of how he walked through the shadow of the valley of death.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't just face death once and then died.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, he faced death over and over.

[SPEAKER_00]: He got this close to dying over and over again.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he tells us and sings about it in the Psalms for our encouragement.

[SPEAKER_00]: All these experienced a taste of hell while they were already seeking God.

[SPEAKER_00]: to you permit us to taste, to drink so fully these tastes of hell in this life, even when we're trying to follow you.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you think that all suffering in this life is the judgment of God on the evil of your own heart, read the story of Job.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is just simply not true that all suffering of this life is God's punishment on something evil you did.

[SPEAKER_00]: God says to Satan, have you seen my servant, Job, there is no one who loves me and serves me like Job.

[SPEAKER_00]: The most righteous man on the earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Could his righteousness save him?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not the point.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in his faith he walked with God, and God said, there's no one like him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Satan says, he only loves you because you bless him with wealth and health and children happiness.

[SPEAKER_00]: God says, take it all away and we'll see.

[SPEAKER_00]: Job suffering was for the glory of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that God could be glorified in heaven and on earth, because of one man saying, I will not curse God and die.

[SPEAKER_00]: No matter if he slay me, still I will praise him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Still I will give thanks to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: But why?

[SPEAKER_00]: The purpose of the Lord in permitting suffering are varied.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are many different reasons in the wisdom of God, why he might permit suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: His reasons are always wise and are always just.

[SPEAKER_00]: And most of the time, the reason for our suffering is completely hidden from us.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can't put our finger on it's usually and say, that's why I'm suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: But one thing has been consistently true in my own life.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I get even the slightest taste of the darkness of hell in my own life, my soul looks up to heaven and I long for heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: When the Christian tastes hell in this life,

[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't it just stop us, stop us from doing this and just being so focused on all the temporal things that are good and are blessings from God.

[SPEAKER_00]: But our eyes get sucked down into their default condition of just being down here on this earth and everything around us and the busyness of life and small things.

[SPEAKER_00]: We get so focused in on them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when we taste hell in this life, what happens to the Christian?

[SPEAKER_00]: Her eyes, all the sudden, look up, and they desire the things of heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: They long for heaven with the new intensity, when wrestling with the twisted temptations of a heart, our temptations are twisted, even for Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: When wrestling with this, the Christian soul longs for their return of the Lord when this battle will finally be over.

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember one of my kids saying to me, I just wish I could be in heaven when I no longer was tempted by sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think every Christian adult has probably had that thought once or more.

[SPEAKER_00]: I wish we could be with the Lord when he will remove even the temptation to sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: When you feel the fire of pain in your body,

[SPEAKER_00]: The things of this earth-growth dim.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have seen some very macho, strong, able to handle themselves men.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get a little bit of food poisoning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Next thing you know, you are begging for God to show you mercy.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh dear God, please help me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please have mercy on my soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: Dear God, have mercy on me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because of a tummy ache, because of food poisoning and the pain of this body.

[SPEAKER_00]: We long when we feel the pain of this body, we long for the healing, the ultimate healing of heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: When relationships fail or disagreements become hostile or the family is being torn apart

[SPEAKER_00]: The Christian longs for the day when even the lion and the lamb will lie down together in peace.

[SPEAKER_00]: Tastes of hell cause us to feel the true brokenness all around us and in us which only God can heal.

[SPEAKER_00]: It turns our eyes up for the Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we'd experience a new zeal for victory, healing peace and rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: We feel it, we're like, Lord, we need these things.

[SPEAKER_00]: We long for these things, victory, healing peace, the Scripture's call at shallone, rest.

[SPEAKER_00]: From the painful toil in this life, we feel it deeply when we get a taste of hell.

[SPEAKER_00]: But these are all joys that come with a reign of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been calling it heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have a longing for heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: What is heaven?

[SPEAKER_00]: What is heaven on earth?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the reign of Jesus Christ ultimately fully here on earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what brings heaven down to earth where God will be with man is when Jesus Christ reigns

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no such thing as a heaven without the headship of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to think about this because there are many people in our society who will talk about heaven and their excitement about going there one day and encouraging their children that don't worry, you're going to go to heaven when you die.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to fear death.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they never speak about Jesus Christ, the King.

[SPEAKER_00]: the one who brings heaven to us.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one that you must be living under his reign and his rule, he must be washed in his blood to be cleaned from your sins.

[SPEAKER_00]: He must be your Lord and your God.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you must be longing for his return if you would enter into heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is no heaven without the headship of Christ, without His reign, and therefore Christians are people who long for His appearing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that is one of the main reasons, one of the many reasons, while we are permitted as Christians to taste hell in this life, to get a taste of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We will never enter into hell as Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no such thing as purgatory.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ has paid it all once for all.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is paid for the Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: That for the redeemed of God, there is nothing left to pay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Christ has drank all the wrath of God in your place.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was in the deepest darkness for three days in the tomb.

[SPEAKER_00]: He suffered on the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: and he rose again on the third day.

[SPEAKER_00]: It has already been accomplished, been paid for.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has drank the wrath of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is no more wrath of God left for the redeemed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, all action of God towards his people is to glorify his name.

[SPEAKER_00]: To discipline you in love as his children, as every human father who loves his children, disciplines them, so the Lord disciplines those who are his, his glory, our discipline.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I would also argue from scripture to give us a greater thirst and desire for the reign of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: who is the one who will ultimately bring us lasting joy and peace.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Egyptians understood the requirement that Yahweh ran over them before they could be blessed by His light.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why so many for Suk Egypt and followed Moses, they were willing to risk it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: They left everything behind.

[SPEAKER_00]: in order to pursue the one true God who could keep them from ever having to return to the deepest darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is what's going to happen in Exodus.

[SPEAKER_00]: They are going to risk it all to follow y'all way into the desert because he was the God of light.

[SPEAKER_00]: In his light they came to believe would never go out.

[SPEAKER_00]: If God's hand is heavy upon you this morning, and you know that you are not a follower of Christ, if you know that you have not been forgiven of your sins, if you fear the hell of the outer darkness, if that is you this morning, I do not want to leave you in that condition.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would not have you leave this morning still fearing your ultimate state.

[SPEAKER_00]: God commands that you bow the need to Him as Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And who has come to represent Him?

[SPEAKER_00]: His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, call out to me and I will save you from your condition.

[SPEAKER_00]: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that His sacrifice on the cross is enough to wash away your every sin, believe that He is alive forevermore at the right hand of the Father, and that He is coming back to judge the living and the dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: Believe this in such a way that it changes your life, the way you live.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many people believe those facts, I just listed, but it doesn't change anything about their life, the way they live.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: James calls that a fake faith or a dead faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Genuine faith is a faith that produces a new way of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: A life where you are willing to forsake all and follow Jesus wherever he leads you.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if your condition this morning is that you are still under the darkness and the judgment of God, then call out in the name of Jesus to the Lord God to save you, to have mercy on your soul and then follow Him, obey Him and trust that He will lead you out of your darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: to suffer the darkest darkness in your place, so that all who follow Jesus through the wilderness of this life will never have to experience the second death, which is called the outer darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: In John 8 verse 12, Jesus says this, and this is what you must believe.

John 8:12

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness

[SPEAKER_00]: For the rebel, God has made a way of escape.

[SPEAKER_00]: That way of escape is Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: He is the way truth in the life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But for the redeemed, which is most of you sitting here this morning, I realize that most of you are seeking the Lord already.

[SPEAKER_00]: But many of you are facing darkness right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: For you, he has promised to sustain you with his very presence.

[SPEAKER_00]: when the darkness comes in this life.

[SPEAKER_00]: He has given you His Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus says this about the Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Unless we think this isn't that great, Jesus says it is better that He leave and go to heaven and that we have the Spirit.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how highly Jesus exults the ministry of the Holy Spirit in us, in each and every one of us changing us from the inside out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says, that is the Spirit I'm sending to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're experiencing the darkness of life this morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then I'd like to leave you with a verse that has been powerful in my own life.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has used this powerfully in me to give me hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: Psalm 97, verse 10 through 12.

Psalms 97:10–12

[SPEAKER_00]: Psalm 97.

[SPEAKER_00]: To hate evils, another way of saying it is to hate the idea of going back to the darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hate the idea of going to live back in Egypt, hate that idea, hate it, run from that idea.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then, so that's the darkness of sin.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hate the idea of going back there, but now he's going to talk to those who are redeemed.

[SPEAKER_00]: He gives hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, He Yahweh preserves the lives of his saints.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's Christians.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's believers.

[SPEAKER_00]: He preserves the lives of his saints.

[SPEAKER_00]: He delivers them from the hand of the wicked, talking about going through dark places in this life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then verse 11, my favorite part, David says, light is shown for the righteous.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's now talking about light as if it's a seed that God plants in the ground in the soil for you, a farmer.

[SPEAKER_00]: God set plants light in the soil for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: He then says, light is shown for the righteous and joy for the upright and heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: for you, Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: As you pursue the Lord, even though the darkness of life comes at you, it may be settles over you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Believe the promise of God that He has sewn, light, and joy for you, and you will reap, light, and joy on the day of harvest.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know when that day will be.

[SPEAKER_00]: At us Christians, we have faith that in God's time,

[SPEAKER_00]: in my near future.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is light and joy prepared for me if I pursue the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: What joy that has given me, my friends?

[SPEAKER_00]: If you believe that and you wake up in the mornings on those dark mornings and you start saying this first to yourself, you quote it to yourself, you plead with God to help you believe it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It changes your day.

[SPEAKER_00]: a little bit by a little bit as you repeatedly call upon the Lord to give you faith and these types of promises it changes this life and the darkness does begin to fade.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are how this is the way God's word and the spirit believing it calling upon it in faith is how you can exit and leave days of great darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying it's going to happen quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: For some of you, it lasts for years and others, there's going to be some clouds in between you and the sun.

[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like for the rest of your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the more you call upon the name of the Lord, the more you believe and claim His promises, saying, Lord, help me believe, help my unbelief.

[SPEAKER_00]: The more the darkness will fade.

[SPEAKER_00]: to ultimately you reap light and joy at the end of your path.

[SPEAKER_00]: This almost ends this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: The conclusion of the matter.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hate going back to the darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Trust in your God who preserves you and delivers you.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is light and joy that you will harvest on the appointed day.

[SPEAKER_00]: He ends this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rejoice in the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: O you righteous and give thanks to his holy name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rejoice and give thanks on the good days, on the dark days, on the day of harvest and all those days.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rejoice and give thanks.

[SPEAKER_00]: to his holy name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is powerful.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is mighty to save Lord I pray that as we go out this week in attempt to speak to others about things mighty words that our hope and confidence would be in you

[SPEAKER_00]: We are jars of clay, easily cracked, easily broken, so fragile Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are all so fragile yet Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have every confidence and I know your people have confidence in your ability and in your words of ability.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so far, I pray for those who are currently in darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: who are living as slaves to the Prince of Darkness, that today would be the day of salvation.

[SPEAKER_00]: That they would bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that your name would be glorified and the church would grow.

[SPEAKER_00]: I pray for your people, Lord, many of them are suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many of them are carrying heavy weights, Lord, that weigh them down every single day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I pray that these weights and these clouds of discouragement would not break them down, but instead, Lord, that would turn their eyes up to heaven and that they would call out to you in faith and hope seeking to rejoice and to give thanks to your holy name.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, I pray that the Lord Jesus Christ would come back.

[SPEAKER_00]: We long for the reign of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we do not long for a specific human king or ruler or political party.

[SPEAKER_00]: We might think one's better than the other Lord, but what we long for is the reign of Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know that victory, healing, peace, and rest will not ultimately come until Christ returns.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we long for that day and we ask for it to come quickly in His name we pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.