Day 33: Exodus 10-12

Welcome to five -minute Bible your daily guide for your daily reading today's February the 2nd.

We'll be looking at Exodus 10 through 12 Now today's reading brings the war between the true

King and the counterfeit puppet King to its appointed in Exodus 10 through 12 records the final judgments against Egypt the collapse of Pharaoh's claimed

Divinity and the defining act of salvation in the Old Testament What began as resistance has become a reckoning and what began as warning has now become judgment

The Lord will no longer merely expose Egypt's gods he will dethrone them and defang them and he will redeem his people through blood obedience and power

Now Exodus 10 opens with the eighth and the ninth plague Which is the locust and the darkness the locust strip

Egypt bare whatever survival the hail is devoured the crops have now vanished the economy collapses and Egypt is

Undone piece by piece and then comes the darkness not ordinary nightfall, but a thick suffocating darkness that Lasts for three entire days people can't see one another they can't move

Egypt Believe the Sun God Ra ordered their life in their kingship in their society and yet Pharaoh himself

Was considered Ra's earthly embodiment and now Ra is silent the

Sun fails Egypt sits paralyzed in chaos while Israel remains in the light and Pharaoh's authority is unraveling but its pride remains intact.

He offers nothing but compromise partial obedience Negotiated surrender and God refuses all of it.

There will be no shared authority or Throne now in Exodus 11

God announces the final blow Which is the death of the firstborn son and this judgment strikes at the deepest layer of Egyptian mythology and belief

Pharaoh was not merely King. He believed to the he was divine in person an

Egyptian mythology taught that the gods entered into the body of Pharaoh when he and his wife were together and they

Impregnated his wife through him Making his firstborn son literally the son of the gods and in this sense the firstborn son of Pharaoh Was also the living embodiment of the continuance of their pagan religion

So God declares that by striking down the firstborn son He's not only killing

Pharaoh's firstborn child. He's killing their entire demonic religion

Now Exodus 12 slows the story down and shifts the focus from Pharaoh to Israel God gives them precise instructions for the

Passover in every household Must sacrifice a spotless lamb The blood must be applied to the doorpost of their houses

Judgment is coming to the entire land and at midnight the angel of death moves throughout

Egypt Every unprotected house loses its firstborn son from the palace to the prison

Egypt wakes up to the screams of mothers who have lost their children and Pharaoh and all of Egypt are shattered his

Godhood or the lack thereof was exposed. His son was dead. His throne was empty and Chaos had ensued but in Israel's home death had passed over Redemption doesn't come in this point through protest or escape.

It comes through substitution through through the blood of the lamb Which stands between sinners in their judgment?

Israel in the sense walks away free not because they are better But because they are covered in the blood of the lamb now as you work through today's episode

I want you to ask the following question What happens when false gods are finally confronted with the holiness of the one true

God and where do you and I? stand when judgment comes Exodus 10 through 12 leaves no middle ground here everyone belongs either to the kingdom of Pharaoh or to the kingdom of our

Lord and the central pattern in Exodus 10 through 12 is judgment through substitution

Egypt collapses because its power rests upon pride and violence and lies Pharaoh hardens his heart demanding that others are going to die to preserve his throne

But Israel is not spared because of moral superiority Every house is under judgment.

Every family deserves death. The difference is not character The difference is obedience of faith the blood on the doorpost is not just symbolic

Sentimentality it was a line between life and death and it confronts us directly We instinctively believe that judgment is for others for tyrants for villains for people worse than us but Exodus reveals that illusion judgment comes after everyone and Salvation is not about escaping judgment because we're worthy

Salvation is about escaping judgment because God has provided a substitute and in Exodus 10 through 12

It points Unmistakably to Jesus Christ. The Passover lamb is not

Decoration it is the substitutionary sacrifice pointing forward to Jesus Judgment passes not only over those whose blood is painted on the doorpost of their home

It prepares us for Christ the true lamb of God whose blood Covering our own hearts is going to be what separates us between the wrath of God and the heavenly reward the darkness over Egypt anticipates the darkness at the cross where judgment literally falls upon Not just the rebels but on his son and as Pharaoh preserves his throne by demanding the death of others

Christ Establishes his kingdom by giving his own life for his people

Pharaoh claims divine sonship and loses his firstborn son God sends his true son and gives him up willingly gaining him back from the dead

Pharaoh's reign ends in death and devastation But Christ's reign begins that with death but ends in resurrection life

The Exodus is not merely Israel story. It is the gospel pattern judgment born by a

Substitute so that the slaves can walk away free and this pattern reaches its final and fullest and most beautiful Expression in the life of Jesus Christ now as you read

Exodus 10 through 12 today I want you to linger on the night of the Passover. I want you to see how redemption is costly

Judgment is real and salvation is specific and tomorrow we're gonna follow

Israel out of Egypt and begin learning what life is going to look like on the other side of Redemption for this group of people when freedom is finally won

But their trust must still be learned and with that I want you to read your Bible carefully Devotionally and joyfully and may the

Lord use his word to sanctify you completely and we will continue our journey tomorrow