THROUGH THE BIBLE - Exodus 1..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Well, good evening, good evening, everyone, and welcome to church. What a great privilege is to have you worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ once again with us.

If you have your Bibles, and I know that you do, would you please open them up to the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 11. Exodus chapter 11, we continue with the corporate reading of scripture, as we always do every week, every Sunday, by God's grace. We read together a chapter and we give a brief Christological overview, a brief explanation of the chapter before our brother brings the sermon and the word to us. This evening, we're going to continue with that, reading Exodus chapter 11. I'm going to be reading from the English Standard Version of the Bible.

And this is the all-sufficient, perfect, ever-enduring, never-changing Word of the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, Yet one plague more, and I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward, he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. They speak now in the hearing of the people that they ask every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor for silver and gold jewelry.

And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people. So Moses said, Thus says the Lord, About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the hen mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been nor ever will be again. But not a dog shall growl against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

And all these your servants shall come down to me, and bow down to me, saying, Get out, you and all the people who follow you. And after that I will go out.' And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. Then the Lord said to Moses, Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt. Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land."

Amen, brothers and sisters. This is the Word of the Lord. Here, beloved brothers and sisters, we have the announcement. of the last of the judgments, the last of the strokes, the last of the plagues that the Lord was going to bring upon the people of Egypt. because they were keeping the people of Israel, the people of God, in bondage and in slavery.

This is the last of the announcements, the proclamation of the warning that Moses is going to bring before the people of Egypt, that the Lord is going to bring a last judgment upon these people, as He had promised. And if you want it, and if you see the prophetic role that Moses had, and if you see even Moses as a preacher, this would be a sermon that Moses is going to preach, that he's going to announce, that he's going to bring this warning against the people of Egypt of the things that the Lord is going to do with this prophetic calling that he has, that the Lord has called Moses to bring the people out of the land of Egypt. And in the mouth of Moses and Aaron, the message of the Lord abides. So this may be the last of the sermons that Moses is going to preach before the people of Israel is taken out of the land of Egypt. And if we were going to summarize the last of the sermons or the last of the warnings that Moses is going to give with a single verse of the Bible that will tell us everything that contains this announcement here in verse 11, I will point you to Proverbs chapter 20.

Go please with me to Proverbs chapter 20. Or Proverbs chapter 19 better. Proverbs 19 verse 21, and this verse is going to summarize not only the things that we are seeing and hearing here in chapter 11, but actually all the things that are going to take place. Proverbs chapter 19 verse 21, and the Bible says that many are the plants in the mind of a man. but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand."

Brothers and sisters, that many are the thoughts, or many are the imaginations, or many are the things that a man keeps in his heart and in his mind. But that which will stand is the purpose of the Lord. The purpose of the Lord is that which stands always in the end. It does not matter. what men in his imagination, or men in his mind and in his heart plan and put together.

It is always the purpose of the Lord, the one that is going to come to happen. Brothers and sisters, we have in chapter 11 the announcement of the last of the judgments that God was going to bring upon the people of Egypt. This is going to be the 10th plague and this is the death of the firstborn. He says that he is going to come down and he's going to go through the land of Egypt at around midnight and that the firstborn of the Egyptians is going to die and also the firstborn of the cattle. This is going to be the last one, but think about this, brothers and sisters.

God had the power to bring to consummation the purpose that He had with the first, with the second, with the third, or with the fourth plague. He could have brought that purpose at any point. However, it pleased God that it was 10 plagues that were going to come upon the people of Egypt, and that was going to be the consummation of the fullness, of the righteous and perfect judgment of God upon the people of Egypt. That was the purpose of the Lord. The Lord had the power to shape the heart of Pharaoh with one or two or three of the plagues or the judgments.

However, it was the purpose of the Lord that every time that Aaron and Moses will come to him, that the heart of Pharaoh will be hardened and that he will not listen to what they were saying. It was the purpose of the Lord that it was yet one more plague is needed as He starts in this chapter, and that after that He may let the people go. It is always the purpose of the Lord, the one that stands above the imaginations and the plans and the thoughts that men have in their hearts. God is the ruler of everything and is in control of everything to the point that the purpose of the Lord was that the people of Egypt, or better, that the people of Israel will find favor in the eyes of the Egyptians. Think about it.

The God of Israel was the God that was causing all of these difficult things upon the land. He was bringing all of these judgments upon the people and upon the cattle and upon the land. Yet, God, it was in His purpose that the people of Israel will find favor in the eyes of the Egyptians and that even the Egyptians will give them money and silver and gold. Because it is God the one that rules even above the intentions of people, that rules even above the desires of people. His purpose, He is the one that stands.

He does no matter what the plans of men are. It says that even the servants of Pharaoh will come and bow down to him and say, go, please go, that the men Moses had found favor in the eyes, not only of the people, but also of the servants of God or the servants of Pharaoh. Brothers and sisters, think about it. That can only happen by the powerful and miraculous intervention of the hand of God upon the mind and upon the hearts of people. Not only that, brothers and sisters, but it was also the purpose, the ultimate purpose of God, that between the people that abide in the land of Egypt, He was going to make a distinction, as our brother explained to us last week.

that God was going to choose for Himself a people. These are the covenant people of God. And that when this last judgment will come upon the people of Egypt, that the firstborn of the Israelites will not going to die. That this was the promise of the passing over of the firstborn of the Israelites, because it was the purpose of the Lord. that his people will be redeemed and will be kept and will be protected and will be taken out of the land of Egypt, protected and saved.

It was also the purpose of the Lord to harden the heart of Pharaoh, because when Moses came to him with this last sermon and this prophetic utterance of the things that were going to happen, he even says to everyone, you will let us go after these things take place, after your firstborn is dead, after he dies, you will let us go. Moses had already proved to all of the Egyptians and to Pharaoh and to the servants of Pharaoh that everything that he said when it was coming from the Lord was eventually taking place. Now he was saying to Pharaoh that his firstborn was going to die. Yet, he also says, you will not let us go. You will not listen.

You will not listen to this warning. This thing needs to take place for you to let us go, just as the Lord had said in Exodus 3 verse 20. that it was through mighty judgments and wonders and the execution to judgment upon the Egyptians that the Lord was going to take the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. That was the purpose of the Lord and men cannot go above the purpose of the Lord. Now, this is very important, brothers and sisters, because Israel is going to be a type and a shadow of the new covenant people of God.

And sometimes we take Israel and we just make it a 100% directly correlated reflection of the church. Because brothers and sisters, and it's not, because brothers and sisters, these people of Israel that are going to be taken out of the land of Egypt, many of them, most of them will die in the wilderness. Jude says, have you not read that the Lord having taken the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward He destroyed those who believed not? It was the purpose of the Lord, not the intentions of men, not the plans or the imaginations of the hearts of men. It was the purpose of the Lord that by His grace and by His power and by His judgments, He was going to take these people out of the land of Egypt from slavery.

But also it was the purpose of the Lord that only a remnant from these people will make it into the promised land. And no one was able to go against the purpose. of God, the Lord God of Israel. The glorious thing is that covenantal relationship that God had with the people of Israel. It is just a partial reflection of the glorious relationship that Christ has with the church.

Because this glorious new covenant that Christ has with the church, it is a better covenant than that covenant that took the people out of the land of Egypt. It is a better covenant in the sense that there will be no remembrance of the sins of the people who are inserted into thy covenant. And it is the purpose of the Lord that those who are in that new covenant, because of Christ, will make it efficiently and effectively into the promised land, which is not a physical land, but it is a spiritual land. Not even the purpose or the intentions of men, or the plans or the imaginations of men can go against the purpose that God has intended for His people. And that is the rest that those who are in Christ have.

Not only of a typological Passover that took place in Egypt, but actually of the consummation of the Passover who is Jesus Christ. not only of a shadow of something that happened with the people of Israel thousands of years ago, but Jesus Christ as the substance of those shadows and those times that took place. Those things took place as an example for us, but also they took place to reflect the person of Jesus Christ who is the substance of the faith and the substance of the certainty and the security that the people of God have by virtue of the grace that we have in Him so that we can have peace, brothers and sisters, and rest, that it is not according to our plans, that it is not according to our intentions, but it is according to the eternal purpose of God, that no one can change, or that no one can destroy, or that no one can go against, because He has determined that in Him we may have this eternal life, and that He may be, spiritually speaking, the sufficiency of the Passover, and that the judgment of God will pass over us entirely, and He will never remember our sins anymore. Amen?