Alrighty, so lesson five is entitled freedom through blood and water. We're going to be covering Exodus chapter 12 verse 1 through 15 21 So a few chapters here not not necessarily huge chunk of the book But there's a lot happening here because of the typology of what's happening with this tent and this final plague which is the Passover This final strike is below remember that's what plague it plague a in Greek means to strike it's a blow against Egypt So we're gonna be seeing that then as they traveled in through these waters are the Red Sea lots of typology to talk about so Let's just jump in so we left off with the nine plagues last lesson We saw it is basically the war with Egypt, right? It's God versus Egypt and God has nine Egypt has zero It's like a shutout going on. There's no way Egypt can stand against the one true God Yahweh He is who he is the true God who exists from the beginning of time and will always exist Who brings all of creation into existence from nothing versus these pathetic false pagan gods who are nothing but creatures, right?
So it's been a pretty remarkable contest so far as you would expect Yahweh is winning Egyptians didn't expect that but as you saw little by little they're rendered more and more impotent and they're beginning to Yaddaf are beginning to know that God is the one true God So we saw all of that in the last lesson and now we're picking up here with chapter 12 And as a matter of fact here, of course, we had in chapter 11 if you flip back in your vitals to chapter 11 Just with one chapter here remember that there was this final warning God told Moses to warn Pharaoh There is one more plague yet to come and this is the worst of all the plagues the tenth and the final plague is the worst So we want to understand really quickly the rationale behind this template because a lot of people will say Oh, you know kind of not knowing the full picture not knowing the literary structure not knowing the theological Background and undertones going on here. They're gonna say this is ridiculous How could God kill all the firstborn sons of Egypt, right? What kind of God can do that? So let's look here Roman numeral one at the rationale behind this 10th plague so number one here I suppose you could say number 10.
Why 10 plagues? We said this before 10 is the number of completion perfection totality So this 10th plague brings about the definitive complete total judgment and victory upon the Egyptians, right? Egypt is defeated completely and totally they are run into the ground and it is all pharaoh's faults We talked about the mystery of his heart and heart in the last lesson So if there's this perfect accord with his free will and God's providence, but he is not a puppet He is a free agent a free moral agent who has been resisting God and fighting against him this entire time even when his own servants say Hey, my uncle uncle right we give up we give up and let them go So this is a complete and total victory over Egypt So that's the first little aspect here about the 10th plague this is the 10th and the final and the crescendo, right? It is the worst plague of all of them now Pharaoh has hardened his heart he's refused to repent these and these nine times he's passed nine times here with the previous nine plagues now Therefore this 10th plague is going to be leveled against him This is judgment against him and his house for a number of reasons one because he refused to deal rightly with God's firstborn son By letting Israel go a vaud God right so remember if you go back Let's just flip back in the Bible here to chapter 4 verse 22 And thus you shall say to Pharaoh Israel is my firstborn son and I say to you Let my son go that he may avad me if you refuse to let him go behold I will slay your firstborn son so the very beginning of all of this God said I'm warning you right and again Pharaoh's hard and heart in the beginning he said I do not yet I do not know who this God is he thinks he's superior to God because he isn't slave this God's people right?
So we talked about all about so God warned him You're not letting my firstborn son go to serve me then your firstborn son must also suffer Okay, number two Pharaoh was considered divine He was divine but his air was divine as well What that means therefore is that he is the last God against whom judgment must be rendered He is the one who has seen this told everything in place Pharaoh the great pharaoh was the kind of the epicenter of all of Egyptian life And all of Egyptian worship here so judgment must be rendered against him and his air and in reality This is actually the worst situation because in the first nine plagues We are bringing judgment against all the you know Het and raw and of apis and all of these other different gods they're animals right here Are these gods represented by these animals but Pharaoh is the it's the worst sin because he's just a man He should know better right Pharaoh is taking worship to himself by his people allowing his people to worship him and his firstborn son is his heir That is the epitome of sinfulness and pride and rebellion against God So he should have humbled himself But he didn't humble himself and so because his sin is the worst by taking worship to himself That means therefore that he has to face judgment and then next number three talking about his heir killing Egypt's firstborn son starting with Pharaoh's heir And then of course all the firstborn sons throughout all the land is going to shut down their pagan worship because priesthood was Observed by fathers and firstborn sons here So the firstborn sons are dead that means nobody can worship that begins with Pharaoh's son Right because Pharaoh's divine cult is shut down completely and that's going to reverberate all the way all throughout all the land of Egypt here So this is actually very important because if they would not let Israel go worship God therefore now God is going to shut down their worship They won't even be able to worship their pagan gods Okay, so for all of these reasons here it makes total sense that judgment must hit Pharaoh himself personally and all of Egypt Well, that point people will say well why all of Egypt? Why not just kill Pharaoh's firstborn son that seems fair, right? Okay, Pharaoh considers himself to be divine his heir is divine and they're gonna shut down the Egyptian pagan worship here I get that why all of Egypt that's so cruel of God Well, keep in mind God is just God is fair and God is also merciful now all of Egypt is punished Why because they'll all of Egypt the whole nation was guilty of infanticide flip back to Exodus chapter 122 the previous Pharaoh You know however many you know that gives a couple hundred years when exactly now how what points Egypt enslaved Israel But the previous Pharaoh when we open up the book of Exodus here remember he tries to kill all of the Hebrew boys Shipra and Pua these fantastic. I call them the patron saints of midwifery here.
They of course observe natural law They're not gonna kill in innocence And so they say well the boys and so what Pharaoh does in verse 22 is he commanded all of his people every son that is born of the Hebrews You shall cast into denial this is important all of Egypt is guilty It is a false narrative when the secular world out there like the history channels of the world out there say that God is evil And God is really the murderer here by killing all the firstborn sons the reality is Egypt is guilty But in God's mercy got only killed the firstborn son and did kill all of the sons of Egypt when he totally could have because Egypt didn't kill just the firstborn sons of Israel Egypt killed all the Israel's Hebrews boys, right? So there's justice and there's mercy But the rationale behind the firstborn son of cares is everything that we just discussed with the Egyptian cult the pagan idolatry That he's shutting down here. Okay. All right one last point here a letter D in your notes This is the first time in all of the plagues that Israel must cooperate with God So if you remember all nine plagues for the first three Israel suffers the plagues as well But then plagues for onward Israel is spared from those punishments And we talked about that in the previous lesson But now for the first time Israel must cooperate with God and that's important because now this is a Deciding point right to fork in the road.
It is a public renunciation of Egypt's gods If you go back to Exodus chapter 8 verse 26 Let me just flip here myself and actually this 826 if you remember after the fourth plague after Pharaoh's trying to compromise with God Moses says and Pharaoh says you know go sacrifice within the land Moses says we can't do that because if we sacrifice to Yahweh Our God offerings abominable to the Egyptians if we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes Will they not stone us we must go three days journey. That's all verses 26 27 So we talked about how they're going to be sacrificing these animals that the Egyptians worshiped and they can't do that within the land Otherwise, Egypt is gonna just rise up and stone and kill them They just knock it up with that kind of stuff like you just don't walk into India You know India and just starts you know slaughtering cows out of wandering the streets you'd get stoned you get killed So that's what's going on here now when they're sacrificing the sheep Egypt worship the sheep So when you sacrifice the sheep and you slay you slay it and you spread the blood all over the door post You're cutting ties with Egypt right you're not going back anymore You are publicly renouncing Egypt's gods and you are renouncing ties with Egypt by sacrificing So to speak within the land so you have to decide are you with God or without God if you're with God and you want your firstborn Son to live you better follow through with this if you kind of want to stay back with Egypt and you kind of Want to leave well then okay, you can make your choice So who are you gonna choose to serve as the theme the whole time here? Who you gonna? Avad are you going to avad God or are you going to avad Pharaoh in Egypt remember?
Avad is worship service Okay, who are you going to throw your law in with? Okay, so all of that is the rationale behind the 10th Plagant it makes perfect sense. So there's a reason behind everything God is not some random arbitrary vindictive wrathful God of the Old Testament and you know all that goes away with Jesus No, it all has a very logical theological and really narrative connection here that makes perfect sense So all of this is to definitively strike down Egypt's false pagan worship hitting Pharaoh himself in his in his household Okay, all right, so with that then we get into the actual text of chapter 12