Exodus Refresh | Aaron & James Podcast

For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since today that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of.

Did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst of a fire, as you have heard, and still live?

Or has any God ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes.

To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God, there is no other besides him.

Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you, and on earth he lets you see his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire, and because he loved your fathers, and chose their offspring after them, and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is to this day.

Know therefore today and lay it to your heart that the Lord is God in heaven and above and on earth beneath, there is no other.

Therefore you shall keep his statutes and commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.

Hi, my name is James Rathman.

And this is Aaron Neff.

And this is the Aaron and James Podcast.

We're back.

It's good to be back.

Man, it feels really good after a long summer vacation.

Hey, what'd you get up to this summer?

I had a baby.

Whoa, congratulations.

That's amazing.

Thank you.

It's a proud moment.

Yeah, for sure.

Having a baby is a proud moment in any parent's life.

It should be.

It should be.

It should be.

Wow.

So that's a busy summer.

Yeah, I've been all around doing all kinds of things, getting some summer stuff pretty good.

We got a couple of ads that I want to read to explain what uh the kind folks have given in order to sponsor this program.

Keep us going here back for another season.

Another season.

Of the Aaron and James Podcast.

Whether you like it or not.

That's right.

So this episode of the podcast is brought to you by the Habakkuk RCD Women's Study.

This will uh continue taking place as the women of RCD have been working through the book of Habakkuk.

And uh in order to participate in that, uh go ahead and show up here at the church on Wednesday, September 10th from 6:30 to 9.

I know those have been enjoyable studies and edifying studies for the women of our church.

And if you are a woman in our church, mark your calendar September 10th.

It's coming up here pretty quick.

Also, the kind folks over at the Theology and AI Department of Redemption Church Denver have chipped in some of their generous resources in order to sponsor our podcast and bring us a night of discussion on theology and AI.

That will take place on September 26th at 7 p.m.

So does this mean that all the podcasts from here on out will just be notes given to us by AI?

What a wonderful question to ask.

And I think that if you look through, I was trying to answer like an AI, just really affirmatively.

Um yes, but that is what this means.

Great.

And uh it brings this is a wonderful topic that I think we'll get to explore uh as it is prescient and raises a lot of questions about what does it mean to be a thinking thing in the world if we are making other thinking things?

What does that mean about your own humanity?

Has it just disintegrated?

And have we made gods which you will now need to submit to in order to submit and participate in the totalizing technocratic powers that be?

This and many other questions we'll get to explore uh at Ryan Kunish's house, and they'll probably be delicious food and drink, snacks.

Sounds great.

I think it'll be great.

Some market calendars, also a great thing to invite friends to, uh, because that that's an interesting topic.

Yeah.

You know, you got a non-Christian friend, and it's like, hey, my church is doing an AI thing.

You want to come talk about that?

And they're like, I've heard I didn't know about that.

I mean, everybody's seen Arnold Schwarzenegger play The Rise of the Machines.

Yes.

I just forgot the title of the movie.

Terminator?

There we go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so we might have to deal with that.

We want to at least have gotten together once.

Yeah, they we need to start planning on the front end where the safe zones are.

Exactly.

And I think Ryan Kunish's house would actually be a pretty good place to start.

Perfect.

Uh so for this first episode back, we are giving a preview of the story of Exodus.

You generously read uh uh uh I think a one of the coolest recaps in scripture, looking back at Exodus, is when Moses in Deuteronomy uh just calls the Israelites to remember this story and just frames it in that incredible way of have you ever heard of any other nation whose God reached out with a strong hand and outstretched arm and brought them out from another nation to be his people?

Yeah.

And you look around at each other and it's like, I don't know, anybody else?

Any any story like that?

I mean, with the right music, it could easily be um a battle cry at Helm's Deep rallying the troops.

It's in it's incredible.

And the story of Exodus is incredible, and we'll be returning to it this fall um in our sermons on Sunday mornings, and I'm really looking forward to getting back into Exodus, but I thought it would be helpful to give a recap of where we've been so far in Exodus because it's been a year since we've been in Exodus.

Yeah, that's right.

So that's a long time to leave off preaching through a book and then to get back in to that book.

I mean, I I only had two kids the last time.

Yeah, that's true.

You had like yeah, you had fifty percent fewer kids.

I think that's how math works.

33% at least.

Yeah.

You you have 50% more kids now than you did then, isn't that true?

Um maybe.

I don't know.

There's technically no way of knowing.

AI might be able to tell us.

Yeah.

Although I do I do have a uh I've been wanting to also talk about this since I saw this commercial again recently.

Do you remember um do you remember when we had to call collect?

Yeah, like 1-800 call ATT.

Yeah.

So do you remember the Bob Had a Baby, it's a boy?

Yeah, I remember that.

I you know, I missed that opportunity this past time to call my parents collect.

Exactly.

And so you have a collect, an ATT collect call from At a Baby, It's a Boy.

Yeah.

Wrong number.

Who's that?

Oh, Bob, he had a baby.

It's a boy.

Yeah.

Oh man.

Uh and Carrot Top was in those commercials.

He was uh Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Back in the good old days.

And so speaking of the good old days, Exodus was preached way back in the good old days of the summer, the spring and summer of 2024.

Started out in the spring, and then I just kept plugging away into the summer, and we had the summer of plagues.

Yeah.

Uh so that was a long time ago.

So before we jump in, a week from Sunday, let's get a recap in our heads on what happens in the story of Exodus.

Okay.

So we had pre- I had preached up through uh Exodus chapter 10.

Exodus 10 · chapter mention

And that is the end of the ninth plague.

So the end of the end of the ninth plague is darkness.

Uh, and so we haven't gone through the final plague, which is the Passover and the killing of the Egyptian firstborn.

Yeah.

And that leads to the uh final uh finally conquering uh Pharaoh, and he sends them out, changes his mind shortly thereafter.

Um, but we haven't gotten to the Passover yet.

We haven't gotten to that story, so we're right up on the threshold of that.

Threshold is a Passover pun.

We're right in the eaves of that.

Um and uh so let's refresh our memory where what happens in in the Exodus uh up until up through chapter 10.

And the first thing that we get is in chapter one uh this direct connection to the Genesis story.

And we're reminded of uh the of uh Jacob, Israel, and his family that are sent into Egypt.

They're they're given permission by God to go down into Egypt as a family because there's a famine all over the world, and Egypt is the place that has the food, and they're able to settle there because of Joseph.

And Joseph establishes the settling of the family, and they go down there, and 70 they are seventy people when they go down into Egypt.

And the beginning of Exodus informs us that these seventy people that have the promise of the Lord, when they go down into Egypt, they begin to multiply greatly, and they are fruitful, increase greatly, multiplied, grew exceedingly, so that the land is filled with them.

Yeah.

Is that supposed to remind us of um the mandate God gave to Noah?

It's reminding me of it right now.

Take it away, Aaron.

Oh no, I I mean I'm just here to ask questions.

Yeah, how so?

Well, I mean, after they got off the ark, um, and all the nations of the world are destroyed, God tells Noah to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Yeah, that's right.

It's the same sort of thing.

And then what but and what does that uh r remind you of right before, you know, before the Noah story?

How everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes?

Well, yeah, that's true.

That was bad part right before that, but maybe like uh five chapters and what were Adam and Eve told to do.

Yeah, they're told to be fruitful and multiply.

Yeah.

And then what's the promise that's given to Abraham?

A seed.

Yeah, and that and that seed would grow up into Bless all the nations of the earth.

Yeah, yeah.

So there's this fruitfulness, this multiplication of the people in the land.

That's always been the plan of God and always been the promise of God.

And so you can sort of think of this opening of Exodus uh that's been tracing that promise right on the heels of tracing that promise through Genesis.

And it Exodus opens and it's like, great, they've multiplied.

Yeah.

They've multiplied so that they've filled the land.

And then you've got to then somebody leans over and says, What land did they?

You've got to be talking about the land of promise, right?

And it's like, oh no.

It's the land of Egypt.

They've multiplied, we see these aspects of the Lord's faithfulness that's taking place.

Uh, they've increased in size and glory, like a nation, but it's not their land.

It's not the land of promise, they're in the wrong place.

Uh so right there you can feel like, oh, I you should be able to tell right away, like, oh, I kind of get the drama of what we should expect to see, because they're not in the right place.

How are we gonna get these people out of Egypt into the promised land?

It's kind of interesting as well that Goshen was also the best part of Egypt.

Yeah.

And in some sense, it's like a little mini promised land within Egypt itself.

Yeah, it is.

And it's a a blessed time that they have under a Pharaoh who knows the Lord, who we saw in Genesis, goes and mourns um the death of Israel.

Um, and that's because he recognized the promise that was given to him, recognizing the promise, that's being a convert.

Yeah.

Um, so he's uh it there's a uh a sense in which the um uh the blessing brought into Egypt that God brought into Egypt through Joseph really flowed to the whole land of Egypt.

But then they forget.

And uh the a new Pharaoh comes along right in chapter one still, who uh forgot about Joseph, forgot about the preservation that had been brought to the kingdom by the Israelites, forgot about uh the prosperity that they're now enjoying because of them, and he looks and he sees the multiplication of the of the Israelites, and uh because of his forgetfulness of God he uh sets his mind to destroy them and oppress them.

What's interesting, I was just was thinking about this, we we read that um section from Deuteronomy at the start of the podcast, but they've they've kind of come into this little mini promised land.

Right.

They're growing and flouring flourishing.

There's another passage in Deuteronomy, I think, that warns the Israelites that before they get into the actual promised land, they need to remember so that when they're there and everything is going well, that they don't forget and grow fat and forget about God.

Yeah.

It's almost like um, you know, Moses is is is warning them of what's already happened right here in Egypt.

Yeah, that's really true.

Because we'll see as it goes on that the Israelites have the same type of forgetfulness as the Egyptians.

Yeah.

Uh within Israel.

So uh there's the forgetfulness of the Pharaoh that turns into the oppression of the Israelites.

So they're given hard labor and they have taskmasters set over them.

There's this strange thing about that where when Joseph had negotiated with the Pharaoh, the Israelites coming into the land, it was on the heels of it, it was sort of happened alongside Joseph negotiating the enslavement of all of Egypt.

Not just the Israelites.

Yeah.

All of Egypt becomes slaves to Pharaoh.

Yeah.

Because they needed the grain.

Because they needed the grain.

And so at this moment of I don't think Joseph did anything wrong here, but the implications of it were it do end up being negative.

Yeah.

And he negotiates he, in a sense, because of the great need of the whole world for food and the uh government of Egypt being the only place that has access to that resource because of Joseph's insight.

Um, he centralizes 100% of the authority, basically, of the world, into the Pharaoh.

And then the way that the Egyptians and anybody else in that land relates to Pharaoh is as a a total king who everybody is a slave.

Yeah.

But then he makes a disphara himself makes a distinction among his own people such that he treats the Hebrew people uh brutally and with a terrible oppression.

So he sets Egyptians as taskmasters over the Hebrew people.

He has a right to do that for everyone, a right that Joseph, in fact, negotiated.

Um I don't know what you do with that, but that's the way it went down.

Now you know.

Now you know.

And uh strangely, amidst that oppression, uh, where they're afflicted to build uh Pharaoh's cities um and ruthlessly made to work, uh they continue to increase and they continue to be blessed by the Lord amidst all that attempted oppression.

And so Hebrew Hebrew Pharaoh then uh sets out to uh, in a sense, decapitate the Hebrew people by cutting off the uh newborn boys.

So he wants to kill all of the Hebrew boys that are born.

And I read that as decapitation because he's cutting off the future heads of the people so that he would be the only head, and he's preserving for himself the the women who would would be the body of his people, that he would be the head over the Hebrew people.

And so his God would be the head over the Hebrew people, and that's what he's doing.

And uh but there's uh uh there's some uh heroism from some heroines at that moment because the Hebrew midwives do not submit to Pharaoh, they do not receive him as their head, they receive the Lord as their head, and they um uh deceive Pharaoh and protect the lives of the Hebrew boys.

Um which is a crazy thing to think about.

It's unreal courage.

Yeah.

Unreal courage.

Yeah.

Well, and and it's weird that even just Pharaoh's just like, well, why didn't you why didn't you kill these babies?

Yeah.

Like I told you to.

Why didn't you obey me?

And he doesn't seem to really do much to them, or at least we're not told.

Yeah, we're not told.

But we are told that God gave them families.

Yeah, so they had some sort of future.

There's it's it's sort of strange because you would expect this punishment, but it's like the deception kind of worked.

Yeah.

Because they tell him, these Hebrew women, man, they're too strong.

By the time we get there, they're already born, and it's uh and it's too late.

Yeah.

Do you have any thoughts on this uh idea of deception?

And you know, obviously most of the time when we grow up, we're told not to deceive, not to lie.

Good advice.

I hope you are.

Teach that to your children.

But it's but it's right here, and it's here as a good thing.

Yeah, it's it's um uh it's like murder in wartime.

It's like killing, killing in wartime.

Yeah.

It's not murder.

So is deception in wartime.

Is uh it's right in in the it's the right thing to do uh for the preservation of innocent life.

And it's also a pattern that we see throughout the scriptures, it's sort of an odd pattern that I don't exactly know what to do with, yeah, but it's plainly there because Rebecca uh uh offers a deception for uh she deceives Isaac for the preservation of the kind of the covenant.

Rahab deceives the men that are coming for the Israelite spies.

Yeah, Judah's daughter, daughter-in-law.

Judah's daughter-in-law, exactly.

Uh Tamar uh deceives Judah for the preservation of the covenant line.

Um it is a uh there is there is something to the story of the um the woman deceiving the serpent for the sake of the line.

Yeah.

And I think it's a way of uh flipping on it's in the redemption story, God is flipping on its head the Sat the Satan story of the fall.

Because he Satan deceives the woman in order to lead to the fall of man.

And then in the re in the redemptive scheme, the woman deceives the serpent.

Sure.

One leads to life, one leads to death.

Yeah.

It's like an eye for an eye.

Yeah, it is.

There's some Lexaliones going on.

Yeah.

So uh Amidst the murder of the innocents is born though one who will deliver the people from Egypt.

Um and this is where in chapter two, and really through chapters two through three, we see Moses we see Moses' story and how it's really its own exodus.

It's like Moses' story is its own mini exodus story.

And its own mini flood story.

And its own mini flood story, yeah.

So let's start out with the flood story and the birth of Moses.

Uh Moses is Levite, which is important, born of a Levite woman.

Why is that important?

Because it's a priestly line.

So Moses is Moses is uh we should be thinking priest stuff.

So he can be a mediator.

Exactly, because the priests are the mediators between God and the people.

And that's exactly what he will be.

He'll be a mediator between God and the people.

And he's born, he's a fine child, and he's hidden for three months, and then reaches a point where he could be hidden no longer, and so they uh make him a basket, but that's not exactly what it says, right?

I believe it says ark.

He that's that's right.

It's ark, it's an ark.

So he is placed in a tiny little ark, and he's hidden in the water.

And when he's hidden in the water, he is uh discovered by none other than Pharaoh's daughter.

Unreal.

And she sees him and takes pity on him, names him Moses because uh she said that she drew him out of the water.

Moses.

It's a tough name.

People go back and forth.

Is this a Hebrew name?

Is this an Egyptian name?

Tup Moses.

Tup Moses.

Yeah.

Uh Ramses, Ramses.

Yeah.

It's Hebrew, uh this is very Egyptian sounding.

Um so it's an ambiguous name, but he has an ambiguous identity.

Yeah.

Because he's both Hebrew in one sense and Egyptian in his upbringing.

Um, which would be a great guy to go in and walk right up to Pharaoh to bring out the Hebrews.

That'd be a good recipe for that.

A good mediator is the type of guy who can stand between two people and put his hands on both of them.

That's a good if you're looking for a mediator.

That's right.

That's the type of thing you're looking for.

So if you got you gotta mediate between like a really tall guy and a really short guy, you gotta find a medium guy.

Like me.

Exactly.

I'm pretty medium.

Exactly.

You want to be right in the that's a good mediator.

So um Moses is Moses is rescued, and he's raised up in the palace.

Uh, but his his sister sees it happen, and uh his sister is able to uh work it out so that Moses' own mother becomes his wet nurse.

So she's nursing uh her own son.

Yeah.

That I thought was so cool.

It's just the best.

It's like God rewarded her for her faithfulness.

Yes, she like talk about casting your bread upon the waters and you'll receive it back again.

Like to preserve the life of your child, to open your hand.

Um, so much feminine courage in the beginning of the Exodus story, which makes sense because it's a birth story.

It's the story about the birth of a nation.

And so we would expect to see that.

Yeah.

And that's that's exactly what we see in the beginning of the Exodus story.

So uh Moses, we could one way we could say it is Moses is rescued through the waters is uh the beginning of Moses' story.

Yeah.

And then after being rescued through the waters, the next story that we get is uh his flight to the wilderness.

Uh in also in chapter two, um Moses witnesses a uh Egyptian beating a Hebrew, and he uh uh rushes in uh and strikes the Egyptian, kills him, and hides the Egyptian in the sand.

Um and we could kind of think of it as like a it's like an Exodus false start.

It's like taking the Exodus too soon.

It's like taking the Exodus into your own hands before it it's been given to you.

Sure.

So Moses like tries to accomplish a uh tries to accomplish justice for his people under their oppression before it had been given to him by the Lord to do so.

And it doesn't work out.

It false starts.

Yeah.

Because the Hebrew people won't receive it.

Yeah.

Uh, because it's actually the Hebrews who he sees two Hebrews fighting later, and he says, Guys, we should be friends, you know, we're Hebrews.

And they say, Are you gonna kill me?

Like you killed that Egyptian, and then he's like, Ah, what I've done is known.

And so uh as a criminal, he flees into the wilderness.

Sure.

Um, this also seems to be the part where I think you start to see more similarities between Moses and Israel, yep, itself, where like an Egyptian is slain and Moses is driven away into kind of exile, in a sense, in a way that what will happen with the Passover is the baby boys in Egypt will be struck down and they'll be driven out by Pharaoh on the way out.

Um and then what's also interesting is the floodwaters covering up the the Egyptians, it's kind of like almost like burying them in the sand underneath underneath the water.

That's good.

That's good.

It uh it also reminds I mean, can you think of anybody else who was born at the time of the children being murdered by the king?

Hmm.

I mean, maybe Jesus.

Jesus, yeah, it's about time.

We're 28 minutes in.

We thought I should have spoken about Jesus before.

Um, yeah, so it's a Jesus, Moses takes up the story of the Exodus into himself, Jesus takes it all.

Uh the he's the truest Israelite.

Yeah.

Um, so we see God working uh his story of redemption at all all of these levels.

Um, in the people he's doing it for, through the people he's doing it for.

Uh uh Jesus is the one that unlocks it all.

And this I think this one is really cool just because not I mean, partly because we see the fulfillment in Jesus, but also it's foreshadowed in Abraham as well.

Yes.

And so like it runs the whole way through the Bible in terms of one of those themes that we should be looking for when when we're reading.

Yeah, because what Abraham's given the promise, and then bam, famine, go down to Egypt.

Yeah.

And what does the pharaoh try and do when he's in Egypt?

Tries to take his wife.

Tries to take his wife, tries to cut off the head, take the body.

And prevent the seed line.

Prevent the seed from going forward.

The serpent is always trying to take the seed.

Yeah.

And then they and then Egypt uh uh uh has plagues placed on them by God.

Um and Pharaoh says, Abraham, get out of here.

Yeah.

And they leave rich.

They leave rich from their time in uh Egypt.

They plunder the Egyptians.

And then God even tells Abraham that this is gonna happen to his kids again.

Yep.

Which is weird.

Yeah.

In Genesis 15, he describes the Exodus story.

He says, You're gonna be here for 400 years, then I will deliver them.

Yeah.

And you can tell because I've done it through you.

Yeah.

I you you can like, I'm gonna make this one easy for you to believe.

Uh, because you know it like you know your own life story.

Yeah.

And Moses will be put in a position where he could say the same thing.

You know, Moses, you know your life story about how you were rescued through the waters and then came into the wilderness, and then in the wilderness I spoke to you out of the fire.

I'm going to send you back into Egypt, rescue the people through the waters, and bring them through the wilderness, and bring the you back actually to this very same spot, and I will speak to them out of the fire.

Yeah.

It's really cool.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

It's really cool.

Well, and then even just knowing when Moses says one day God will raise up a prophet like me, um, like he's he's telling them and us, he's like, I've already given you this example so that when this person comes, you'll know, you'll be able to see him.

Yep.

And what is uh Jesus is uh born like Moses, about to be, he's the king is seeking to murder the babies, yeah, the Hebrew boys.

He's rescued, they go down to Egypt, they come back up out of Egypt.

They Jesus is baptized, comes through the waters to begin his ministry.

He remembers, uh, he calls back to his baptism at the transfiguration, where who's he talking to at the transfiguration?

Moses.

Moses, what are they discussing?

My exodus is what they're discussing.

Because one thing they'd have in common is they'll each have an exodus.

Yeah.

And uh the way that I like to imagine that conversation is um uh Moses is like, Exodus, yeah, I had an exodus.

Um, we were saved by uh being preserved through the wrath of God.

Uh the wrath of God when during my Exodus, we were brought through the waters, uh the wrath of God, just like the flood.

And then it fell on the Egyptians.

And because it fell on the Egyptians, by the wrath of God we were saved.

Um in your Exodus, are God's people going to be saved by the wrath of God?

And Jesus says, Yep.

And then Moses says, Cool, who's the who's the wrath of God going to fall on in order for the um people of God to be saved for your exodus?

And Jesus would say, Me.

Yeah.

Me.

And then he goes, and uh um through his exodus, the crucifixion, the wrath of God falls on him.

He tells us to make a people by bringing them through the waters of baptism, and then he speaks to his church through the fire of Pentecost.

Cool.

I know.

It's so cool.

It is so cool.

Yeah.

I I mean, hopefully it's encouraging for people to read their Old Testament and be like, these aren't just random things that were set down or random stories.

No, these are these are it because it can be like, what does this have to do with like me being saved on by Jesus' death on the cross?

Yeah.

It's like it's the that's that same story.

Yeah.

This is about that.

Yeah, it's very cool.

One of the um more unhinged podcasts or things that I listen to sometimes.

Uh-huh.

Um, they were talking about this the Mountain Transfiguration meeting where Jesus is talking to Moses and Elijah.

Um, but what if?

Because time is, you know, whatever to God.

Yeah, time is a flat circle.

Going and out of time, yeah.

Yeah.

When Moses is on the mountain in Mount Sinai getting the law, and Jesus is on the mountain of the Mount Transfiguration in some dimension, that's the exact same moment.

Oh, that's sick.

That'd be cool.

Yeah, that would be cool.

It's not biblical, but no, no, but it's a fun idea.

It's a fun idea.

Yeah, I don't know what you guys do for fun.

What you guys think about for fun.

So Moses is driven into the wilderness as a criminal, and he gets into the wilderness, and once again he becomes this protector.

Uh he's by a well.

Uh, so at the water, when you're at a well.

We think Garden of Eden.

Yeah.

And what do you meet at the well?

A woman.

Exactly.

Um, and what do you do with that woman?

You marry her.

Exactly.

So that's what happens to Moses.

He goes to the well, there's um uh the seven daughters of uh the high priest of the land are um being attacked by some wicked shepherds, and Moses drives them away and protects them, which makes sense because we know he's that type of guy.

Yeah.

Because he already tried to do it with the Hebrew people on two occasions to bring peace and protection for those people, and he marries them, and then we get this great break in at the end of chapter two, uh, which says, During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help.

Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

God saw the people of Israel, and God knew.

Yeah.

So he remembers his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He says, Those men who I promised would be my children, and their offspring would be mine, their offspring are crying out to me.

They're mine, and he will go and rescue them through the waters, meet them in a well in a sense, and make them his bride.

Um and then uh Moses has this great life in Midian and uh great father-in-law, Jethro, who's this sort of you know, Melchizedekian character, comes out of nowhere uh and offers counsel that is like the word of God for Moses.

Um, but he he doesn't do that yet.

We'll see that later.

Um, but while Moses is enjoying his life, uh he spots a bush that is burning.

Perhaps not so strange.

Seen few things burn before, but it's not consumed.

It's like it's a fire that sustains itself, that requires no earthly fuel.

Yeah.

All consuming fire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, and out of the bush, God calls Moses Moses, and Moses said, Here I am.

A dangerous thing to say if you're a prophet.

Uh Isaiah made the same mistake.

Yes, and there's a uh um that means there's a wild adventure about to start.

Um seems like that's a prophet thing.

Samuel says that too, right?

Yeah, when uh after going to Eli, what Eli, what do you need?

It's the middle of the night.

Yeah.

I don't I didn't say anything.

Samuel's kind of like Napoleon dynamite.

I was like, gosh.

Gosh, Eli.

Never gives me a break.

Yeah, here I am.

Here I am.

Your servants listening.

And uh he's told that the place is holy by the presence of the Lord, and God says to him, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then he explains that he's seen the affliction of God explains that he's seen the affliction of his people, and uh tells him that he will bring the Hebrew people out from under the Egyptians, and he will bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey.

He will drive out the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

And uh He says, I'm going to send you down.

You're going to speak to Pharaoh, and you are going to tell him to let the children of Israel go out of Egypt.

Uh and he assures him that I will be with you.

And Moses says, Okay, what if they ask me your name?

And God says, And you'll tell them, I am.

I am has sent you, uh, which is the first time that we hear Yahweh, the name of the Lord.

Uh, this covenantal name that uh God refers to himself as to Moses.

And from there, uh God goes on and he says, say this to the people of Israel the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

I think one of the wonderful things about that is we get this transcendent Yahweh name of God, and we get this uh plainly stated covenantal name of God, where God takes the name of his people upon himself.

He says, Call me the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

Uh he he takes it upon himself.

You want to, you like you wonder what it means for God, the God of all creation, to say, I will be your God, you will be my people.

Like, how much will you be my people and I will be your God?

So much so that you can call me uh you can call me the God of you, that that's that's my name.

Uh, which is um just this sign of the unthinkable, unsearchable depth of love that God has towards his people and the faithfulness that he will demonstrate.

Um it's like when an when somebody in a marriage, when a husband places his name upon his wife and the wife takes the name of her husband, um, it is this sign of total fidelity and faithfulness.

And I think that we see that from the Lord in this.

Um Moses is still a little um, you know, I don't know about this.

Yeah, yeah, still a little nervous.

And he says, uh, and I think he still likes, I think he likes it in many.

It's been 40 years.

Yeah.

Like he's settled, had a whole family, has got a good thing going.

I I think he likes it.

He likes it the way things are.

Which is uh interesting because um after the 40 years in the wilderness of Israel, they're kind of comfortable.

They like it the way things are, and they don't want to go into the land with the giants.

No, yeah, exactly.

God's always doing that.

We should expect that in our lives.

That God is uh He loves to make things new, which means there's a sense in which you have to uh hate your life, or you'll lose it.

Perfect, yeah.

But if you um um or yeah, hate your life, then you'll get it.

Um love your life, then you lose it.

Yeah.

So Moses had to hate Midian.

And God says, okay, how about this?

How about I give you a couple of signs?

Take that staff, throw it on the ground, turns into a snake, take it up again, turns back into a staff.

What do you think is going on with the snake and the staff?

I mean, well, I don't know about those specifically, uh other than um, you know, in in chapter three at the end of chapter three, he's saying that I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt.

And then in chapter four, he says, Um, what is in your hand, take it and throw it on the ground.

It's like God is making Moses an extension of God's hand and and the way that he is gonna drive the Israelites out of Egypt.

And there's two things that he does with hands here so take this out of your hand, take it up.

Into your hand again.

Yeah.

And stick your hand into your cloak, pull it out, it's leprous.

Put it back in, pull it out, it's healed.

So he's like, he takes Moses' hand through like a death and resurrection.

So that it's prepared for him.

Yeah.

And uh the staff is uh, you know, it's an extension of power, it's a sign of rule.

Sure.

And a um and the serpent, you know, I mean it's still the Bible.

So snakes.

Yeah.

Control over the serpent.

Control over the serpent.

Yeah, you'll take the serpent up into your hand and it will become your power.

Yeah.

You'll rule over it.

Even though right now it's serpents are rule serpents ruling over you.

Um you'll rule over it.

Also, Pharaoh, there's a there's kind of an Egyptian thing going on where Pharaoh is uh is the serpent.

Sure.

He's a he's the serpent.

Sure.

I've heard different things around what Moses' staff actually became.

Did it become a a serpent, like we think of in terms of snake or cobra?

I've also heard um I don't know what the word is like tannin or something, but it's like a dragon monster.

Yeah.

And I've heard gila monster, or I've heard crocodile is something that it potentially becomes two.

Those are all the same thing, symbolically.

Okay.

They're they're um uh twisty, indecipherable, um uh in the dust uh uh uh lethal forces.

Okay.

And that's what Satan is.

Yeah.

He's uh uh twisty, you can't tell where he is.

He's got a forked tongue because when he says things, he's meaning two different things.

Yeah.

And in the dust he's cursed.

And in the dust he's cursed.

Yeah.

So those are those are all the same the same thing.

Uh Chaos Dragons.

Cool.

Yeah.

Um and then Moses turns to his speech and he says, I can't talk, I'm not eloquent.

Um it could mean some sort of speech defect or something.

But he he um says, like, you want me to go and talk to Pharaoh?

Um I can't talk.

And the Lord says, Um, who made man's mouth again?

It's almost like a Job type of response.

Yeah.

Um I'm the one who makes man's mouth, I'm the one who makes man deaf or seeing or blind.

Is not I the Lord?

And then Moses asks for someone else, and the Lord in his generosity gives him Aaron, um his brother.

And Aaron will go with him and meet him there.

Uh and Aaron will be like the mouthpiece of Moses.

So what God is to Moses, Moses will be to Aaron.

Sure.

Uh and then in chapter four, Moses goes back to Egypt.

There's a strange event um on the way back, in which the Lord is like, I'm gonna kill you.

And then Zipporah circumcises and circumcises Moses' son, holds up uh the blood in the foreskin.

The foreskin, yeah.

And um touches it to his legs, touches it to Moses' legs and stays the wrath of God.

See up, and I've heard two things here.

I've heard one that it was m it was Moses that he was coming to kill.

And then I've also heard that Moses was out and God was coming to kill his son, and then she touches it to the son's legs, and when she says you're a bridge bridegroom of blood to me, I think the emphasis is more on like the sun redeeming her in the same way that um the child of Ruth and Boaz redeemed Naomi.

Hmm.

That seems right to me.

The sun is the redeemer by the blood of the sun.

Um, I think that's a good read.

Yeah.

I tend to like that better than the read of some people read You're a Bridegroom of Blood to me as a curse.

Okay.

And they want to have a negative reading of Zipporah in this.

Um, there's kind of a tendency of having the strange things that women do in scripture read negatively.

Um, I think that's why it's like, don't be like Rebecca, look what Rebecca did Isaac.

Yeah.

And it's like, oh, you mean preserve the covenant line?

Yeah, be careful.

Hope you don't do anything like that.

Don't be like Rahab.

Yeah, maybe in her early work.

Yeah.

Her first job.

Her first job.

But later on, it was like, yeah, pretty should probably kind of be like her.

Yeah.

Speaking of um speaking of Boaz's mother.

Boaz's mother, yeah, that's right.

Well, I I I think the other thing that it does too is I think it then provides a a foreshadowing for the Passover.

Um, whereas the sun is the one that's spared for those that have the blood um you know sprinkled on the doorposts.

And doorposts are legs.

Doorposts are legs.

Yes.

Because they're birth.

You're born through the legs, and the door is a birth canal for the people of uh for the Hebrews that has the blood on it.

Because it's new birth.

Right.

That's the interpretation.

You're right.

I wish I talked to you and knew that before I preached it.

I don't even remember what I preached.

I don't listen to that sermon.

Listen to this.

Yeah, I don't know either.

That's that's so sensible to me.

I've this one has always bothered me just growing up reading it and not really, I just thought it was always so weird.

Yes.

Um I've spent a lot of time in Reddit feeds and yeah, where you do buy it for study.

Yeah, that's right.

That's worth it.

Where you go to search the word.

Yeah, you can find things on this and like whether you know dimples in your chin mean you're niphilum.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

Do you think?

I don't know.

All right, it's for another podcast.

So uh then Moses that's part of Moses' return to Egypt.

That being a picture of the uh uh Passover story uh makes total sense.

We we should expect to see that in Moses' story, because that's what he's going to do.

Yeah.

That's what God's going to do through him for the people.

Um and goes there, uh meets with the elders of Israel, and they say, Cool, great.

This sounds great.

Go do your thing.

Moses goes and meets with Pharaoh in chapter 5, and now the the battle begins.

And things get worse before they get better.

He goes to Pharaoh and speaks to him.

This time it's a declaration of what the Lord has said, um, but there's not a demonstration of signs of power.

It's almost like beseeching a king.

You know, it's almost like the it's almost uh a time where he goes, I think the next times that we see Moses go, there's something like equals.

Uh uh two kings representing their people.

This time is all is is more like a uh uh uh just beseeching beseeching the one king.

One uh one person going to ask the king.

And tells him that uh uh thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.

And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord?

That I should obey his voice and let Israel go.

I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.

I think that there's a sense of I think though not knowing the Lord, we know from Romans 1, is impossible.

Everybody does.

Yeah.

Because there's a just look around.

Uh his eternal power and divine nature have been made clear in what has been made.

Yeah.

So when Pharaoh says he doesn't know the Lord, it's because in sin he is suppressing the truth.

Yeah, and there's no way he wouldn't have known from his own history lessons about what happened in Egypt with the famine and Joseph and the Israelites.

Oh, it makes it's the origin story of Egypt.

It's what makes Egypt the global power that it is and had been for centuries.

Yeah.

Uh it would be like not knowing about the Boston Tea Party or something.

That's right, yeah.

So uh Pharaoh uh takes this as an opportunity to demonstrate harsher, to take more revenge uh and demonstrate his envy of the people, of the Hebrew people, um by trying to destroy them.

And he does this by increasing their labor, and he requires them to make the same amount of bricks uh and he won't get the straw for them anymore.

Yeah.

Same bricks, no straw to make them with.

And their punishment, uh, his punishment on them increases, and he says they're idle and lazy uh when they complain up the chain.

And the Israelites themselves say it's worse that Moses came.

Um they say that Moses has made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh, which is another thing that's to be expected when there's a persistent problem, and then someone comes along and reveals the problem that's already been there, they are often mistaken for the problem.

Yeah.

They're not the problem, they're they're the light.

Yeah.

And Moses experiences that, and he is rejected by the very people that he's come to save.

Classic.

Which kind of reminds me of another story of somebody who is rejected by the ones he came to save.

Yeah.

Who thought he was the problem for revealing accurately said.

Yeah.

And then in chapter six, once Moses has been rejected by the people, uh, we get this covenant renewal with Moses from God, where God comes to Moses and He promises deliverance.

It's a moment where you might expect to see God say, Yeah, yeah, this is crazy.

These people should not be saved.

Because even the one who I brought to save them, they are rejecting.

They don't want to be saved.

And there's a sense in which they don't.

You know, there's they uh they don't want resurrection.

Yeah.

Because you don't get resurrection without death.

Yeah.

And you can see that because after they're taken out, they always complain.

Complain about wanting to go back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um so chapter six, uh God speaks to Moses, and he says, You shall see what I will do to Pharaoh.

For with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.

So he's going to work Pharaoh to where Pharaoh is the one who says, Get out of here.

Yeah.

One one of the things that uh maybe we we should touch on before we keep moving on was just around the covenant renewal.

Yeah.

How they basically um, you know, Moses told them these promises, but it says they did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

Yeah.

Um, and I just thought it was interesting that to me, this was one of the only times I've seen the covenant renewal take place, and then people not try to affirm it and agree to it, and God still says he's gonna do it anyways.

You know, it's like in uh uh because at Sinai, after the reading of the law, Moses is like, so what are you gonna do with the law?

And they say, We're gonna obey it.

Yeah.

We'll obey whatever we'll obey you says.

That's a covenant ceremony, and they affirm it.

Right.

Yeah, but this is like I think this moment is like there are two things that it brings to my mind.

One is in Genesis 15, there's the uh covenant made with Abraham, and Abraham is declared righteous by faith, and the covenant ceremony of the Lord passing through the broken animals twice.

Then in Genesis 16 is the is Abraham and Hagar, Sarah and Hagar and Abraham and uh the birth of Ishmael, and that's like a covenant breaking that happens with uh Abraham and Sarah.

Sure.

And then right after that is Genesis 17, which is the covenant of circumcision.

It has that same sort of like, uh, here's the covenant made, here's a rejection of it, the Lord re-establishes it from his own grace.

And then the other thing that comes to mind is I think the scriptures are showing us the deadness of Israel in their hardness of heart and the the harsh slavery that they've been under, that they're like Ezekiel looking out over the valley of dry bones.

Yeah.

And it's just like this is dead.

It's dead here.

The people that he's coming to rescue are dead.

Um and uh uh the only hope then is that the Lord will bring a resurrection, that the Lord is faithful uh although they are faithless.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

And uh then it's the uh we saw the genealogy of Moses and Aaron, which is one of those where it's like you're reading the Bible and it's like cool story, cool story, cool story, cool story, list of names.

And the question is why here?

Um seems like if you wanted to give a character list, put it in the beginning in some sort of introduction or in an appendix, uh, so that we could consult later.

Uh one reason may be the ambiguity of the people of God in Egypt and of Moses himself, because they're sort of a people with two gods.

Uh they are, in one sense, deeply Egyptian at this point, and have forgotten their true heritage as the covenant people of God.

Yeah.

And Moses, in a sense, could be received because of the Egyptian authority of growing up in the palace, uh, and the Lord wants to make plain that he is uh when he comes to his people that he is coming in in the covenantal authority.

Yeah.

Uh from his true Hebrew lineage.

I think that could be something that's going on.

That makes sense.

And you kind of see that you kind of see that with Jesus then in the New Testament, where you got the line of Joseph and you've got the line of Mary, one's the legal line, one's the royal line, both establish his authority and his right to actually rule.

Right.

It'd kind of be that type of thing here.

Yeah, it is that type of thing.

It is that type of thing.

The Lord resolves them into his covenantal authority.

Um and now we're uh Moses has the covenant renewed with the Lord, and he's off to the races.

Uh sent back to Pharaoh.

And now it's plague time.

This is where we entered into the summer.

Yeah.

And we moved through all the plagues.

So uh the first uh back and forth with Pharaoh is the signs that Moses was given uh at his call at the burning bush.

And those were the but we're it's uh it's actually just the sign of the serpent that he's uh uh shows before Pharaoh.

Sure.

And it's a strange thing because he demonstrates his power by throwing down a staff at turning into a serpent.

And Pharaoh's like, cool, cool.

I've got my own magicians, and they do the same thing.

Yeah, they throw down their staffs and they turn into serpents as well.

Yeah.

Um, but uh Moses' staff swallows up Pharaoh's serpents.

So that's gotta be a good sign.

It's gotta be a good sign.

In my head, I think I prefer picturing like gila monsters fighting.

Yeah.

Than I do cobras.

Really?

Oh no.

Cobras are so cool.

I mean, they got that cool little like the hood thing going on.

Standing up and the moving all around and uh the hood, some of them spit.

Yeah, but gila monsters, I don't know, those things are they seemingly out on the ground.

Seem like street fighters.

Yeah, they do.

They're definitely brawlers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A friend of mine got framed for um stealing these shoes that he didn't actually steal.

They just hit him, they were thrown off a bridge and he caught him, and then he got sent to this place where he had to dig holes all the time.

And he explained to me that one of the worst parts about digging all those holes was the Gila monsters that were around him all the time.

It's one of the most dangerous parts of digging those holes.

Great.

That was not actually not an actual friend of mine.

I mean he's a brother, he's a brother now.

He is a brother now.

Yeah.

Um but uh that's the movie and book holes that I was describing.

But I thought it would work better if I told it in the first person as a friend.

I left.

Yeah.

So um uh they can they can make serpents into snakes or healamonsters.

Just crazy.

Any thoughts on that?

I mean I don't know.

I I think I think going through these stories again and and just trying to not well, not trying to wrap your mind around it, but just look at it for what it's so showing us and what it's saying, and believing that these things happen the way that said it happened.

Right.

Like we couldn't picture that happening today, but maybe that's just because we're already so deceived around the what the power the enemy has, yeah, and what he can do to manipulate, you know, creation.

Yes.

Um, just by the way that God has created him as a being.

But um I think that's to me when I read these now, it's just it's just kind of um trying to let it spark a little bit of awe and imagination and wonder.

Yeah.

Um in not only the story, but just the world that that we live in today.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure.

We live in the same world where this thing happened.

Yeah.

That's wild.

Very strange.

Yeah.

And then uh, but Pharaoh's heart is is hardened, and so he's not able to see the sign that he just witnessed, even though in it was the whole story, which is we're gonna swallow you up.

Yeah, and I'm gonna pick you up and restore you to an order under the Lord.

Yeah.

So one way to think about it is the staff is order, it's structure, it's vertical, and it holds its structure.

A serpent is squiggly and chaotic.

Right.

And he's bringing him into the structured rule of the Lord.

Right.

Um, and then we enter the first plague.

And the first plague is the uh Nile turning to blood.

Um it's something like a The Nile is the life of Egypt.

Because and it's the reason that you go south to Egypt when there's a famine in Canaan is because in Canaan you need rain in order for your crops to grow.

In Egypt, you need the Nile to irrigate your crops.

And so it's the source of all your life.

That's why they had the food.

And nobody else had the food in the same way.

Um during the famine.

It's the source of the greatness of Egypt.

It is the life of Egypt.

And Moses is saying, I will turn it into death.

Yeah.

Uh by turning it into blood.

Yeah.

The other cool images here, I think, are one is like God saying, I the all those kids that you killed and threw into the Nile.

Yes.

This is the blood of the martyrs that's come back on you.

Yes.

Um, so I think that's an one cool thing where God doesn't forget.

Yes.

And He He always is just.

Yep.

You thought this river washed away that sin.

Mm-hmm.

And that so that it could be forgotten forever.

I remember.

Yeah.

I remember them.

And the other image I've I've heard, I don't I mean, I don't know the credibility of this, but when you think about the plagues as being um God's judgment on the different gods of Egypt, it's kind of almost as if God killed the god of the Nile.

Yes.

And it's that God is now dead.

Yep.

And it's visible for all to see.

Yep.

There is a um, there's a lot of work that's been done on on showing the each of the plagues connecting to a particular god of Egypt.

Um as though the Lord the Lord is like walking through their pantheon and humiliating them all.

Mm-hmm.

Is one way to read the plagues.

Um another way to read the plagues is it's like a decreation.

Yeah.

There's uh decreation of the water, just like in the beginning, there's the waters, the first thing that happens.

There's a plague on the land and the livestock, the creatures of the land, because the second day you get the um, or the third day you get the land and you know thing.

Yeah.

Where there's land.

And uh the darkness of the heavens.

And the swarming creatures.

The swarming creatures in the sky.

Yeah.

So there's there's like a saying it's like God through the play through the plagues is saying, I'm going to decreate the whole uh world.

Yeah.

And then the frogs Which is in line with the ark motif that we've seen where no or Moses is placed in the ark.

Um he's saved from that way.

Um this is just kind of it's a flood event that's gonna happen and destroy the world and recreate it, and there's a new creation.

Yep.

On the other side of that.

Yeah.

New worlds come from water.

Um that's also why you meet wives at wells.

Because new worlds are starting.

Because new worlds come from water.

Yeah.

Frogs come next.

Um, I don't know what God that refers to.

I don't remember anymore.

I think I did when I preached it back then, but I don't remember.

Yeah.

And uh, but frogs are kind of monsters because they're water and land creatures.

They're like these strange things.

They are kind of monsters.

Yeah, because they're because it's like, where do you go?

Are you a water creature?

And it's like, well, I was for a little while.

And well, are you a land creature?

Well, I am now, but I haven't always been.

And they shapeshift too.

Yeah, they shape shift exactly.

So it's like these monsters come out and uh attack.

Um interesting.

Uh then gnats are the third plague, and then flies.

Uh I don't know exactly what to say about those.

Flies.

Yeah.

Other than there being this the swarming things.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't I don't know.

I think frogs, gnats, and flies probably go together.

Yeah, it seems too.

Um I think there's some parallels to some of the plagues in Revelation with those types of creatures.

Yes, there are.

But yeah, I don't know.

Um, and then the uh fifth plague is the death of the Egyptian livestock.

One of the things that we start to see taking place there is a distinction that's made because none of the Israelite livestock dies, but just the Egyptian livestock dies.

Throughout the plagues, the distinctions grow sharper and sharper between the Hebrew people and the Egyptian people.

And uh this is the first one where it's it's just the Egyptian livestock that's killed.

Uh the sixth plague, uh these these are kind of more like the land plagues, I think.

Okay.

Um the uh fifth plague, the livestock, it's land animal, uh, boils, it's on your skin, and I know it might sound strange, but like your body is the land.

It's kind of the same thing to happen.

It's like when made from the dust.

You're made from the dust, yeah, exactly.

And it's a it's uh it's in the word, like it's in the word Adam, it's in the word man, it's is the same word.

Adam is man, Adama is land.

Yeah.

So they're the same thing.

Yeah.

Um the seventh plague, uh 789, we the heavens start to break open.

So the hail comes down, destroys the crops, and uh the eighth plague, the locusts are like these they're they're like a um I mean if you think revelationally This one scares me.

Yeah, then there's so there's like a um heavenly powers, demonic type of element to the locusts.

They're devouring, yeah.

They do what thieves do, they steal and kill and destroy.

Right.

Yeah, that would it would be insane to look up and see a dark cloud of locusts coming your way.

Yeah.

That'd be pretty scary.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

So I let my son catch all the grasshoppers he wants to.

Exactly.

Yeah, one less.

That's right.

You know, you never for such you never know when you know the world will so that's what we talked about this past Sunday.

Um, be some big disaster.

So yeah, yeah, that's right.

Right?

So that's right.

One less grasshopper for it.

Yeah.

And then the ninth plague, which is where we ended our preaching last time, is the darkness.

So there's darkness over the whole land, but where the Israelites are, there's light.

I don't I don't wonder what that looked like.

Remember in the Dawn Treader?

You may remember in the Dawn Treader where there's that island that is darkness, and it they they like can't tell what they're sailing towards, but it in C.S.

Lewis gives that great description of like it's just darkness itself that they're sailing towards, and within it there's nightmares, like never-ending nightmares that you can't escape.

Yeah.

That's like the most scariest part, I think, of the one of the scariest parts of the Chronicles of Narnia.

Yeah to me.

It's pretty wild.

Well, yeah, and it not even just like nightmares when you're sleeping, but anything that pops into your head is manifest.

Yeah.

What?

In a kid's book.

I mean, you know, when you read the Bible, it's kind of like a big thing.

Yeah, exactly.

I don't know.

Yeah, like that that's like that's not scary than this.

This is real this is real life.

Yeah.

It threw kids into the river.

Um yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it the the darkness is is crazy.

Um I wonder if this is why the world became dark when Jesus died.

It's the same sort of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh yeah, it's just wrath.

Wrath.

You know, turning your back.

The light turns us back.

And uh so that that's the final thing.

There's also like uh um an Egyptian cosmological uh order that's being broken down because the sun is the highest in their pantheon, Ra.

And that that God that's the highest of their pantheon is utterly humiliated before the Egyptians.

And he the God that they worship is shown impotent before the God of the Hebrews, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in this ninth plague.

And so it's like the heavens, which is the heavens come crashing down.

Yeah.

Or the all of the order that was dependable comes crashing down.

And that will happen for the Egyptians.

Uh all the order that's dependable that it turns out the Lord had been upholding for them is coming crashing down as he removes the people that he had blessed from them.

Yeah.

So uh that's the terror of what the Lord is doing.

That's the strong hand and the outstretched arm.

Another way to think about it is the ten plagues is like prying one finger at a time, Pharaoh's grip from God's people.

Sure.

And then finally the tenth plague, they will be released.

Yeah.

Um, and that tenth plague is where we will pick up the story as Moses receives the instructions for the Passover, uh, after the threat he gives to Pharaoh of the final plague that's coming, which is the sons will be uh the sons of Egypt will be killed.

Um there's uh a justice in that that is uh poetic because it's uh it's precisely what Pharaoh did to the Hebrews.

And there's a justice in it that is of course prophetic because it is by the blood of the firstborn son that the people will be delivered.

And that of course shows us Jesus Christ, who is the uh firstborn of all creation.

By his blood, the people of God are set free.

Yeah.

So that's a recap of an incredible story.

Have you ever heard of any God of any people who drew them by a strong hand and an outstretched arm to himself?

I have not.

No, this is the one.

This is the one.

So a week from Sunday, we'll be back in the story of Exodus.

And I'm really excited.

Can't wait.

Sweet.

Well, thanks, Aaron.

Good.

Thank you.

Have a great day, everyone.

Goodbye.