The importance of the firstborn has been lost in many ways in our culture, and of course we want to love each of our children the same. But in the ancient world, the firstborn son represented the future of the family. He was given rights and privileges that were not given to the others, including the right to inherit a double portion from his father. But this was not to show favoritism. He was to be consecrated, set apart, to demonstrate that the whole family was set apart to God. We are all yours, God. It is the same principle that is illustrated later in Exodus when the people are told, “The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.” When we give a tithe or an offering to the Lord, we are saying, “Everything I have belongs to You, God. This tithe or offering represents your bountiful giving to me.”

When Israel, God’s “firstborn,” was about to leave Egypt, He gave them a commandment to set apart the firstborn son. “Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.” They did this by sacrificing a lamb to God. This ritual of redemption was a reminder for every father and mother in Israel that their son did not belong to them but to God. It is the same for all of our children, and one of the reasons why we encourage child dedication at Antioch. We don’t have to sacrifice a lamb or even a turtledove. We simply ask the father and mother to hand their child into the arms of one of the elders, and by doing so they acknowledge their complete dependence on God’s grace for that child’s salvation. The elder prays for the child and for the parents, acknowledging that same dependence on God the Father. When the child is handed back into the parents’ arms, they receive him with a renewed desire to be good stewards of this precious gift that belongs to God, to do all they can, by God’s grace, to love and nurture and bring up their child in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. 

The people of God leaving Egypt were being given a new catechism and instructions on how to teach their children. They were being taught how to speak to their sons and daughters about God and faith. The firstborn son may say when he is old enough to understand it, So you dedicated me to God when I was born? Yes, we did. And you had to kill a lamb in my place? Yes, we did! A lamb had to die so that I could live in a holy way for God? Yes, son. You belong to God. You were born for a reason. You were redeemed for a purpose. God wanted you to be here now to ask me these questions so you could see that your life matters. You are not your own. You were bought with a price. You were not created by God to go your own way. You were not created by God to live for your own pleasure. You were created by God and redeemed by a lamb so that you may come to know the greatest pleasure, the greatest treasure in all the world: to know and love the Father, the one who loves us and redeems us and with a strong hand brought us out of Egypt.

How does all of this relate to us? You and I are redeemed by the One who “like a lamb (was) led to the slaughter…and opened not his mouth.” You and I were redeemed by the “firstborn of all creation.” God offered up His firstborn for us! 

I read this week that the greatest amount ever paid for anything at auction was $450.3 million dollars. That amount in 2017 purchased a painting by Leonardo da Vinci called “Salvator Mundi,” or “Savior of the World.” That is a lot of money. What if the owner of that painting gave everything he owned to be able to buy that painting and proudly display it in his home? And what if he now invites everyone he knows, everyone he meets, to come and see it?  That would be generous of him, to share that painting with others. But what if the person who owns that painting has not come to a saving knowledge of Christ, the subject of the painting, the one who laid down His life to save all who come to Him by faith? That would be a sad irony, indeed. 

None of us own that painting. We don’t have a DaVinci original painting of Christ. We have much, much more to invite people into our homes and into our lives to see. 

We have Jesus.

The feast instituted by God in the Old Testament and the Lord’s Supper instituted by Christ in the New Testament are purposeful remembrances that point to God’s mighty acts of deliverance. Moses said to Israel, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place.” He repeats that twice more, “For with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt.” They did not leave. They were brought out. 

Jesus said the same to His disciples as He gave them the Lord’s Supper for the first time. “Do this in remembrance of Me.” In other words, We did not find a way to salvation. We did not find God. We were not even looking for Him. God found us. God delivered us. With a strong hand, God brought us out to bring us in!

That’s what Moses tells the people of God, that He was taking them out of Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. It is a good place. We know the story and all the troubles and trials and dangers and disobedience the people of Israel faced over the next 40 years. God knew it too but promised them they would get there. It reminded me of the time Jesus told His disciples as they stood on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, “Let us go across to the other side.” They piled in and started across and suddenly a great storm came up, as can happen on that sea, and the disciples were terrified. Especially when they looked around and saw Jesus fast asleep in the back of the boat! They woke him up and basically asked Him if He didn’t care that they were all getting ready to die. The Lord rebuked the storm, and it became perfectly calm immediately, and then He said to the disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” Jesus told His disciples, “Let’s go to the other side.” You can trust Me, Jesus spoke into their fears. And Jesus has promised all who believe in Him, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” We will get to the other side. 

God gave Moses other instructions about how the Passover Feast would be remembered and repeated year after year. I would argue that a powerfully important part of God’s instructions on the Passover is about discipleship, particularly of our children. He made it known that the language of our faith and the truth of God’s Word would be passed down from one generation to the next. So that a hundred years from that night, a father would say to his children, “It was your great, great, great, great grandfather who was brought out of Egypt by the mighty hand of God. If God had not kept His promises, you would not be here. Let me tell you about God and His salvation.” Fathers and mothers today, and all people of faith who follow the Lord and want to be conformed more and more to His character, are very intentional about the Word, to know it and to love it and to follow it and to share it. And to remove even the slightest hint of leaven, of false teaching, that the world has added to or taken away from the Word of God. 

We make disciples one day at a time. We grow as disciples one day at a time. By the grace of our great God.

According to a 2022 article in Time magazine, we have really wasted a lot of time over the past several weeks talking about an omnipotent and sovereign God who brought 10 plagues on Egypt to force Pharaoh’s hand and deliver God’s people from 430 years of slavery. Nope. Didn’t happen, and Olvia Waxman, the author of the article clears it all up very simply with three alternate theories. I will just bless your sanctified imaginations with her first one. The so-called plagues, she wrote, were a result of a volcanic eruption in Greece around that time.  Yep. The ash from the eruption landed in Egypt, turned the water of the Nile a reddish color, causing all the frogs to jump out and look for clean water. The dead bodies from the volcano collected insects which bred by the millions and swarmed the country. Oh, and the volcanic ash caused acid rain which caused boils on peoples’ skin. The grass was contaminated so the livestock died. Should I go on? Ok, one more. The desperation of the people during all this mayhem led them to sacrifice their own firstborns. How many agree that it takes a lot more faith to believe that version than the truth of God’s Word? 

Moses warned Pharaoh that God would kill all the firstborn of Egypt and the cry that would go up in the nation would be like none that had ever been or ever would be again. Moses even told Pharaoh when it would happen: “about midnight.” It is hard to understand a leader of a nation who had seen his nation destroyed by 9 plagues, each one worse than the one before, and each one happening exactly as predicted, sitting on his hands and yawning at the latest promise: you will all lose your firstborn. Your firstborn son, the prince of Egypt, will die, Pharaoh. Also, the most miserable criminal sitting in a dungeon, a pit, like Joseph once did, will lose his firstborn. Finally, even your livestock will lose their firstborn. That was the promise and Pharaoh’s hard heart, made even more resolute by our Sovereign God, was unmoved. 

I would guess that each of you have suffered loss. But there is no loss as painful and as tragic, I am told, as the loss of a child. Some of you can say, “I know how that feels.” I remember one of the first times I went to Haiti, around 1983 or so, and we visited a hospital in Port au Prince one evening. As we walked onto the grounds, we heard and saw a woman wailing, unconsolable, her screams of anguish piercing the night, her face racked with agony. The Haitian guide told us, “Her child has just died.” 

And as I read this passage, I imagine that scene being played out in every household in an entire nation. “There was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.” The estimate of historians is there were about one million households in Egypt. One million firstborn children died that night. We cannot even imagine it. But, it was not that way in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived.

The 600,000 households of the people of God were not touched. The angel of death passed over their houses because there was blood on their doorposts. Believer, it is the same for us. The people who trust in the blood of Jesus Christ will be spared and not only that, will be welcomed into the joy of fellowship with the Father and the Son for eternity. The people who do not trust in Jesus and care nothing for His perfect blood sacrifice for sin, and broad is that road and many there are who find it, will be weeping and gnashing teeth as they are cast into darkness and eternal torment.

Jesus, our Passover Lamb, died as “the firstborn among many brothers.” That is good news, indeed.

God ordained the Passover as an annual celebration for Israel after the first one in Egypt right before the people of God were delivered from bondage. This meal would become part of a Feast of Unleavened Bread.  Here are a few observations on this story in Exodus 12. First, notice that God says this is a memorial day. God commanded it in order to remind them forever of God’s great deliverance from slavery in Egypt. God set up a memorial stone, as it were, for their good and for God’s glory.

Second, it was a feast to the Lord. This was a time when the whole nation of Israel, all of God’s people, stopped what they were doing to gather and worship God. We don’t celebrate week-long feasts as Christians now, Sunday is supposed to be a weekly feast! It is a gathering of God’s people to go hard after God, to worship Him with all that we are and all that we have. When we come into this place on Sundays with every intention to give ourselves to God, to worship Him in spirit and truth, what happens? We are blessed. We taste and see that God is good. We see Him and hear His voice and grow in our faith. 

Third, it was to be a statute forever. They were to keep this reminder before them continuously so they did not grow proud or complacent, thinking they didn’t need God. He says it again: “You shall observe this day throughout your generations.” And Moses again tells the people they are to keep this feast as a way of reminding themselves and teaching their children of how great God is. “And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.”

There are only a handful of times the Old Testament when the Feast of Unleavened and the Passover are written about being observed after the Exodus. Maybe there were many times, but only 6 or so are mentioned. Remember during Josiah’s reign when the Book of the Law was found by Hilkiah and then it was read to Josiah? He tore his clothes saying, “Our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book.” He then began reforms in the nation, including restoring the Passover to Israel, saying, “For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges…” That was a 400-year lapse! Despite the meticulous instructions God had given His people about keeping this feast, they forgot to do it, failed to do it, and ultimately forgot the Lord and did what was right in their own eyes. 

If there are only 6 mentions of the Passover being observed in the Old Testament, the seventh mention is in the New Testament. Jesus kept the Passover with His disciples on the day before His crucifixion, and that was the last time He did. That was the last Passover meal and on that same evening Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper which became a permanent sacrament for the church. There is no religious significance for the Passover now because it was fulfilled finally and forever in Christ. The Passover looks back to the deliverance of Israel from slavery. The Lord’s Supper looks back to the death of Christ on the cross and our deliverance from sin, death, and the grave. And the Lord’s Supper looks forward to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb which we have been invited to by virtue of our salvation.

Our Passover? Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.” 

That is our daily celebration of deliverance.

When Ernest Shackleton and his crew on the ship Endurance set out on December 5, 1914, they were bound for Antarctica. On January 15 their ship got hopelessly stuck in an ice pack east of Antarctica in the Weddell Sea. From then on, their goal was simply to survive. The freezing temperatures and the near starvation were horrible, but when winter approached in late April, the crew of the ship grew more nervous. The sun disappeared in early May and was not seen again until late July. Shackleton’s biographer wrote, “In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the Ice Age— no warmth, no life, no movement. Only those who have experienced it can fully appreciate what it means to be without the sun day after day and week after week. Few men unaccustomed to it can fight off its effects altogether, and it has driven some men mad.” (adapted from Philip Ryken’s book, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory)

Darkness was the ninth plague God brought to Egypt. It was the last of the three sets of three and as has been His custom with plagues 3 and 6, God gave Pharaoh no warning for number nine.  He simply told Moses to stretch out his hand toward heaven and there would be darkness over the land of Egypt. Let me remind you of the creation of all things, how God spoke on the first day, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And it was good. And in or around 1450 B.C., God spoke again and with a word turned out the light in the land of Egypt. And as God said, this was “a darkness to be felt.” The boils brought physical pain and the hailstones and locusts brought death and destruction to animals, people, and the land. But darkness brought a different kind of pain, a suffering that was felt in hearts and souls. It must have been terrifying for the Egyptians who worshiped the sun and praised Ra the sun god every morning when they saw the sun and because of the sun were able to see everything else. But they were worshiping the wrong god, so God took it away for three days! One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes is this one: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” The Egyptians, most of them, were living in utter spiritual darkness all the time, and God made it plain to any who had eyes to see and understand that He alone is our light and our life. 

Three days of darkness. There is no mistaking the foreshadowing here, is there? This may have been the darkest three days in Egypt’s history, but the darkest three hours in the world’s history started on a Friday at noon, about 1480 years later, as Jesus hung on a bloody cross: Matthew wrote, “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.” And though the sun may have shone after that, there was three days of darkness as the Savior lay dead in a borrowed tomb. The disciples mourned and the world rejoiced that Jesus of Nazareth was dead and gone. They thought. Then the glorious Resurrected Savior, the light of the world, burst forth from death and grave and conquered hell for all who believe! Isaiah wrote, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”  For those of us who know Jesus, our joy is just beginning.

The darkness continues for all who do not believe.

I love the question God asked Pharaoh in Exodus that starts with “How long?” That phrase is also repeated by Pharaoh’s servants. “How long?” God asks Pharaoh, “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me.” There are many times the Psalm writers asked the Lord, “How long?” When will you deliver us, O Lord? But this time it is directed at a man. “How long, Pharaoh, will you stand there in your pride?” It reminded me of the time Elijah took on 450 prophets of Baal, all by himself (he thought) at Mt. Carmel. Except he wasn’t all by himself, was he? God was there, and there were still 7000 who had not bowed their knees to Baal. Elijah stood before a people who had gathered to watch this battle and who clearly represented the great indecisive middle. Like the people today who have a cross around their necks and a rabbit’s foot in their pocket and a daily horoscope tucked in their copy of the Koran and a statue of Buddha on their desks. Elijah cries to them, “How long?” “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” We know how that story ended and how God answered the question of “Who is worthy?” He settled the matter with fire.

“How long?” We have to be very careful asking someone else that question. But we can and should regularly ask it of ourselves. In what areas of your life could you ask yourself, “How long?” How long will I stay where I am and not move forward in healthy ways? In my walk with Jesus, my relationships with others, my practice of discipline in the Word and prayer and gathering with a local church, my work ethic, my giving, my practice of spiritual gifts, my encouragement of others, my being fully present wherever I am, my worship, my consideration of others as more important than myself. Hey, if you dare, give someone you really trust permission to ask you those same questions! 

I am not sure Pharaoh had given his servants permission, but they asked him anyway. “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” What boldness! There is dissent in Pharaoh’s house. These servants may not have lived another five minutes, but they spoke truth to power, didn’t they? They had just heard Moses and Aaron say that the locusts would come the next day and finish off the destruction of Egypt. 

Are you old enough to remember the song, “Sixteen Tons,” by Tennessee Ernie Ford? My dad had that record and would sing along with it, so I heard it too. Many times. As a middle son of three boys whose regular pastime was fighting each other, my favorite line to quote to them was this one: “One fist of iron, the other of steel; If the right one don’t get you then the left one will.” Ha! I dreamed about being that tough but it was always just that. A dream. 

But not for God. His right pinky brought the father of all hailstorms to Egypt in the seventh plague. And His left pinky finished it off in the eighth plague. The locusts ate everything green in the land that the hail had not already destroyed. It is a reminder that with a word God brought forth all the vegetation on the third day of creation, every plant and every tree. And with a word from God in the eighth plague, every source of food in Egypt was destroyed. Every plant and every tree–gone. Famine and starvation was sure to follow. The de-creation of Egypt was almost complete. 

Which begs the question for us today: How long will God have patience with a world that has reviled the cross and the empty tomb?

Remember Lenny LeBlanc’s song, “There is none like you”? Sing it with me: “There is none like
you…no one else can touch my heart like you do. I could search for all eternity long and find, there is
none like you.” We want to sing that song as people who know God, not as people like Pharaoh, who
see it but do not believe it.
The sixth plague followed the pattern of every third plague, with no warning, no announcement.
Pharaoh watched as Moses and Aaron did what God commanded, taking handfuls of soot or dust from
the kiln and throwing them into the air. The people of God knew what those kilns were all about. They
had been using them for years to bake bricks under forced labor. Now God takes some of that brick
dust and uses it to inflict pain on the people who had inflicted pain on Israel. The dust settled on every
person and every animal in Egypt and became boils. Listen, the mosquitoes and the flies were a pain,
but they were just a nuisance compared to these boils. God is turning up the heat and the pain.
This is the same affliction that Satan used to attack Job. Remember? God allowed Satan to test Job’s
faith and Satan first killed Job’s children and took his possessions. Job tore his robe and shaved his
head in mourning but he did not curse God. Instead, he worshiped him saying, “Naked I came from my
mother’s womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the
name of the Lord.” Then Satan tells God he needs to intensify his test, saying “Skin for skin…All that a
man has he will give for his life.” God allows Satan to strike Job with boils. From the top of his head to
the soles of his feet, Job was covered with them. It was so bad that his wife said, “Do you still hold fast
to your integrity? Curse God and die.” Job did not listen to her. He trusted God while in such pain that
he took a piece of broken pottery to scrape the pus from the boils as he sat in ashes. He looked so
horrible that his friends did not recognize him from a distance. They were so horrified at Job’s
suffering they could not speak for seven days.
That is the level of pain and punishment we see the 6 th plague. Every Egyptian, including Pharaoh and
his magicians, and every animal was covered from head to toe with painful boils. The magicians could
not even stand before Moses because of them. Their magic did nothing for them because Satan is
unable to protect those who stand with him. In the wilderness years later, Moses warns the people of
God about the curses of disobedience. One of them was this: “The Lord will strike you with the boils of
Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed.” That tells me that the boils
that the Egyptians received in the 6 th plague may have been with them until they died.
Once again, this is just a tiny glimpse of the horror that will come upon all the wicked of the earth, as
recorded in Revelation. “So, the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful
and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.”
I know this for a fact. Pharoah, covered with boils and miserable, did not sing, “no one else can touch
my heart like you do.” But that is indeed what was happening. In this case, the Lord touched his heart
and made it harder. He strengthened Pharaoh’s resolve to disobey God. What a picture of hell on earth
as God gave this man over to the wicked desires of his heart. There is a horrifying phrase in Romans 1
where three times Paul wrote of the wicked, “God gave them up.” God gave them up to the lusts of
their hearts. He gave them up to dishonorable passions. Finally, he gave them up to a debased mind to
do what ought not to be done. At that point the end is fixed and destruction is inevitable, chosen by
the man or woman who lives life on their own terms, pursuing their own desires apart from God.
Oh God, keep my heart turned toward you!

It is time for the fourth plague on Egypt, and we can only assume that the third plague of mosquitoes was removed. We are not certain! The way Moses records the plagues, the third, sixth and ninth are neither warned about nor removed. It is interesting to imagine that if these three plagues were not removed as were the others, then the people of Egypt were covered with mosquitoes and boils, and living in utter darkness when the final plague, the death of their firstborn, occurred.

The fourth plague, much like the third, is a plague of swarming bugs, here referred to as flies. These were not just a nuisance but brought a painful bite or sting. Almost all the Hebrew interpreters consider this to be a collection of nasty flies of various kinds. The Septuagint says they were blood sucking dog flies which have a painful sting. Some believe they were stable flies which, according to the Florida Dept. of Agriculture, “…will readily attack people, usually on the lower part of the legs, causing a searing pain with each probe of its bayonet-like proboscis.” Ouch. You know, it was the little things, in massive numbers, that got under Pharaoh’s skin. These swarms of flies were on every person in Egypt. Not in Goshen, though, as this was the first plague that God made a disc=nction between His people and Pharaoh’s. Their houses were filled with them, their bodies were covered with them, and everywhere they walked they were swarmed by them.  Pharaoh, covered with flies, manages to spit out to Moses that the people can go worship and make sacrifices to their God, but they have to stay in Egypt.

Not good enough. Moses tells Pharaoh they cannot possibly sacrifice to God in Egypt. “We must (worship) the Lord our God as He tells us.” This is the heart of our faith. We serve God according to the Word, not according to the world. The way of liberty and life and freedom cannot be bought or bartered for and can be found only in Jesus. We must worship Jesus as He tells us.

 Pharaoh then says they can go into the wilderness but adds, “you must not go very far away.” That’s like saying, “Hey, church, you can worship Jesus, but let’s not take this thing too far. I mean, what you guys are doing in your church building or in your own homes is ok. But that’s enough. Keep your so-called “Gospel” away from the rest of us. That’s all well and good for you, but do not bother others with it.” Sound familiar? It is the world we live in, the nation we live in, the city we live in! But we are no more constrained by the world in how we live out our faith as followers of God than Moses and Aaron were. Or Daniel was when he was told to not take his interest in prayer thing too far. Or Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were when they were told their faith in God had to bow to the king. We must worship Jesus as He tells us. And by God’s grace, we can do that without fear. It may not be without consequence. Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den, even though he was chosen by God. The three Hebrew boys were thrown into the fiery furnace. The disciples were martyred for their faith, almost to a man, though they were chosen by God, as we are. But we can trust God’s providence in the event of any punishment or penalty we receive for living out our faith as followers of Christ.

We worship as He tells us.

When Aaron struck the dust with his staff, the people of Egypt were covered with gnats. There are a couple of firsts in this, the third plague. This is the first one for which there is no warning. That happens for each set of three. There’s no warning given for the 3rd, 6th, or 9th plagues. This serves perhaps to draw attention to the last and deadliest plague. This is also the first plague that has to do with earth or land. The first two plagues, Nile and frogs, are related to water. The next 4 plagues have to do with land. The last 4 plagues have to do with the sky. As we talked about last week, the Egyptian ‘gods’ were related to either earth, or sky, or sea. This is also the first plague that the magicians cannot replicate. You have to believe Pharaoh was glad they could not use their magic to produce more bugs. 

Again, the Great I Am is striking a blow against a false god by showing that He is sovereign over all of life, right down to the very dust that we walk on. One belief popular in ancient Egypt was that Heqet, the frog queen (confronted in the second plague), had a husband named Khnum, who had the power to create new humans from the dust of the ground. He could shape them into people out of dust or clay but only Heqet, the goddess of fertility, could breathe life into them. 

When Aaron struck the ground, Moses wrote that “All the dust of the earth became gnats.” The last time that phrase was used, “the dust of the earth” was God’s promise to Abraham: “I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth.” In other words, Abraham would have more offspring than he could count. And Egypt was covered with more gnats than it could ever imagine. Most scholars believe these were not gnats, which are a nuisance, but they were mosquitoes, which are blood-sucking terrorists. Ligon Duncan tells the story of Alonzo Ramiriz working with a team of missionaries in the Amazon basin right off the river. When he got there, he saw the team going out to the river to bathe. Everyone went except for anyone who had cut himself shaving, because of the piranhas. The rest would risk the piranhas…because of the mosquitoes. Alonzo said that the sound of the mosquitoes around them around the clock was like a gigantic aircraft landing, and the sound of the swarms of mosquitoes would literally drive some people mad. The only relief from the mosquitoes was underwater, but the second they emerged, they were covered by them again. That gives you some taste of what happened in Egypt. They swarmed on every human being and every animal in the land. What was God doing in these plagues?

John Currid at Reformed Theological Seminary wrote that God was “de-creating Egypt.” God demonstrated His power and brought such chaos that He who created water and gathered it into seas on the second day of creation and made the waters swarm with fish on the fifth day of creation turned the Nile into blood in the first plague. He who made vegetation grow on the third day of creation obliterated almost all the crops and the fields of Egypt in the 7th and 8th plagues. He who made two great lights in the heavens for the earth on the fourth day of creation turned those lights out with the 9th plague. He who made man in his own image and gave him dominion over the earth on the 6th day of creation afflicted the men and women of Egypt with boils in the 6th plague. And then He took their firstborn in the tenth plague. The de-creation of Egypt reveals who God is to the people and results in the release of their captives. Remember, God told Moses, “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.”

Maybe the magicians, even as lost as they could be, were the first to see the truth. They said, “This is the finger of God.” They may have added, And if this is God’s finger, we don’t want to see His fist. The magicians did not know God. But they had eyes to see His power. 

The Psalmist wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” On that day, so did the mosquitoes. 

The last time we saw Moses by the Nile was when he was drawn out of the water and handed to the Pharaoh’s daughter. Her actions changed his life as she saved the deliverer whom God had raised up. Now Moses is back at the Nile and what he will do, by God’s power, will change the Pharaoh’s life and family. God is about to show His sovereign control over every one of the Egyptian gods and over everything that is important to the people of Egypt. 

Moses carried his staff, the symbol of God’s presence, and he said what God had told him to say to Pharoah: “So far you have not obeyed. Thus says the Lord, ‘By this you shall know that I am the Lord.” He told Pharaoh he would strike the Nile with his staff and the river would turn to blood. The fish will die, the Nile will stink, and the people of Egypt will not want to drink it. Often in the Bible God tells his people or his enemies what He is going to do, what sign or wonder they can expect. The signs and wonders are given to confirm His Word, to demonstrate His sovereignty and might and His worthiness to be obeyed and to be believed. We see it in the 10 plagues here. We see it also in the seven signs Jesus performed in the Gospel of John. For example, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” and healed a man born blind. He fed the five thousand with 5 loaves and two fish and said, “I am the bread of life.” He said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and raised Lazarus from the dead.

 Aaron struck the Nile with the staff of God, and that river and every source of water in the land turned to blood, just as God had spoken. Even the water that was sitting in pots or buckets in people’s houses was turned to blood. They couldn’t drink it, wash with it, or bathe with it. The whole land stunk of dead fish and blood. God struck a blow against man’s worship of the creation rather than the Creator while also taking away easy access to something they took for granted they would always have. So-called self-sufficiency? Upended.

 The first plague points us to the tenth plague, when the blood of all the firstborn will be shed because of the disobedience of the Pharaoh and his people. We also see a horrific parallel in the third bowl of God’s wrath in the book of Revelations where the first plague in Egypt is magnified to universal proportions. “The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, “Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!” And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!” 

The blood of judgment in Egypt was poured out on a nation that had spilled the blood of God’s people for 400 years in their enslavement. And how did the Pharaoh respond? Not a word. He walked into his house, and Moses writes, “he did not even take this to heart.” What a contrast. Moses and Aaron obeyed God, confronted the Pharaoh because of their love for God and their desire to see their people set free to go and serve God. The Pharaoh saw the devastation brought to his people who then had to dig wells to survive for 7 days, and he showed no concern, no remorse, nothing at all. 

It is the dividing line in Scripture, isn’t it? We hear the truth of God’s word and we say yes and respond with obedience and walk in faithfulness no matter the cost. Or we hear the truth and ignore His Word and the warnings of more and worse judgment, and we go our own way and live the way that pleases us. But as RC Sproul said, “Sin is cosmic treason.” We can only go our own way until that Day. 

The Day every person without Christ will stand before God. They will have nothing to say then, as well.