Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, this seminal chapter (Ex. 12) concludes with a short legal appendix relating to who can eat the Passover and how it must be eaten. Notice that there are seven laws — an important number, and one that indicates that Moses has "covered the subject" by addressing it with the perfect number of rules. We'll see from these laws that Passover presupposes circumcision, and that Passover demands unity on four different axes.

Pharaoh has successfully completed a degree at the great school of the power of God. He has been taught that God is going to win. He refused to believe it, even after the punishing hail of the seventh plague, even after the soul-crushing darkness of the ninth plague. But now that he has seen his own son lying dead, he believes it. Pharaoh learned a lesson in the tenth plague. He learned that Yahweh God is the source of life and death, blessing and cursing. And though he has acted like a man in love with death and cursing throughout the 9 plagues, here, at the bitter end, he has the gumption to ask for blessing after all. Even Pharaoh wanted blessing. That was his motivation. Can he be blessed without repentance and submission? No. He could have been blessed by hiding under the lamb's blood in his own house. But to do that would have required him to admit that Yahweh was right and that his own son's life was forfeit. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't walk that path of blessing. Yet he still wants the blessing enough to ask for it. Brothers and sisters, don't let that be you.

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, this is one of the longest chapters in Exodus, and it is one of the most important too. We've already seen the basics of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Now we hear more. The point is to emphasize the key events of Passover, particularly killing and eating the lamb and teaching your children about why we kill and eat the lamb. The forfeited life of the firstborn and protection under the blood, reenacted and taught every year — these are the key points of Passover.

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, our sermon tonight is on a rather short text. We're going to look at Passover's less-famous cousin, the feast of unleavened bread. What is this feast? Well, it is a week-long period when Israel eats no leaven. Part of the origin of this feast is the haste with which we left Egypt. We were unable to take the time to let our bread rise, so we made it without yeast. But prior to that historical reality stands the command of God, who insisted from the beginning that we had to have a week-long leaven-free festival. The point of this festival is really quite simple: because you are the people God delivered from Egypt, don't bring Egypt with you!

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we saw last time the announcement that a plague was coming that would be so bad that it would crack even Pharaoh's stony heart. That plague was the death of the firstborn, and it was scheduled for the beginning of the first year of Israel's national existence. We are going to spend five Sundays (counting today) looking at the teaching on Passover that is to be found here in Exodus 12. Remember, the issue throughout the book has been the status of the firstborn son — Israel, God's firstborn, held in bondage by Pharaoh, and God's demand that Pharaoh let His firstborn son go. Rather than do so, Pharaoh had sought to kill Israel's sons; now God responds by slaying Pharaoh's firstborn son. The reversal is ironic, and fully deserved. Indeed, the death of the firstborn assumes a ritual importance commensurate with its actual importance in the course of this chapter. How does Israel find freedom from bondage? Only through the death of the firstborn. Egypt's firstborn died so that Israel's firstborn could live. That event, and its ritual commemoration, are the subject of this evening's sermon. We'll see that through the Passover event and ritual, God protected His people under the blood of the Lamb.

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the book of Proverbs informs us that by wisdom — the fear of the LORD — are riches, honor, and life. To have been a slave for Pharaoh for eighty-some years probably didn't feel like riches, honor, or life to Moses and his people. But here in this chapter, as the final plague is announced, we finally see riches transferred from the masters to the slaves. We see honor — massive status for God's people, and for God's man Moses. And we see life, as Israel's firstborn are spared in the face of slaughter among Egypt's firstborn. Through the fear of the Lord came riches, honor, and life! Yet who exactly feared God? The text is not very clear about that; ultimately, we must acknowledge that God granted riches, honor, and life to Israel not because of how much Israel or even Moses feared Him, but because of how much Jesus feared Him. For the sake of His firstborn, God spared His firstborn, granting them riches, honor, and life. That's the larger dynamic at play here; this morning we look only at the announcement to Pharaoh that the plague is coming. In this announcement, we will see both extraordinary appropriateness and effectiveness — and also that the announcement of the wrath to come completely fails to achieve the goal of delivering Israel from Egypt. The announcement of the tenth plague is extraordinarily appropriate and effective, yet founders on the hardness of Pharaoh's heart.

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, obviously the tenth plague is the worst. There is no doubt about that. But what about the ninth plague? Is it really worthy to stand as the penultimate plague, the one almost the worst but not quite? Of course it is, for reasons we will discuss in one moment. This plague, the second-worst of all the plagues, teaches us that Jesus is the light of the world, and that to stand against God is to be in darkness. Don't fight the light, or you will find yourself in the dark. That's the message of this penultimate plague.

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the seventh plague was climactic in many ways. But the eighth plague is surely a match for it: Locusts come up on the land and devour absolutely every last green thing. Whatever was not smashed by the hail is inhaled by the locusts. Pharaoh's courtiers are openly shaken, and even Pharaoh appears to genuinely consider meeting God's demands. Yet at the end of the plague, God hardens Pharaoh's heart. We'll talk about that. It seems that the text is saying that Pharaoh has gone so far in hardening his heart that he is now in the red zone, where he can't back down even if he wants to. God is punishing his sin with more sin. Why would God do such a thing? Well, this plague, like the previous one, begins with a speech in which God addresses that very question. As we saw last week, God sends His servants to evangelize people whose hearts He's hardened because His goals are broader than simply saving individuals or even delivering His people. He is also concerned to show Himself, His power, and His name. Know, then, that the locust plague reveals these very things. It teaches us the difficulty of true repentance, the power of God to fight those who stand against Him, and the danger of persistently hardening yourself against God's judgments.

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, if you have ever wondered about what is commonly known as "Calvinism" — in the popular understanding, the belief that God is ultimately in charge of everything, and that whether a particular human person is saved or lost comes down to God's choice to save that person, or not — how Calvinism can possibly be reconciled with your lived experience of human freedom, this text is the text for you. Just as the Apostle Paul is both the most famous and driven evangelist in history, and also the Bible's boldest teacher of God's sovereignty, so in the two verses before us this morning God not only dares to indicate that Pharaoh's heart is completely in God's power, but also deploys that truth as motivation for Moses to go and reiterate God's demands to Pharaoh. Yes, you heard that right. What this passage dares to assert is that God's sovereignty over the human heart should motivate us to evangelize our neighbors. God's sovereignty over the human heart should motivate us to evangelize our neighbors.

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Pharaoh saw the seventh plague, the plague of hail, and he got scared. He didn't get scared enough to permanently turn to Yahweh, of course. But he did get scared enough to temporarily turn. What he did — temporarily backing down, paying lip service to the majesty and correctness of God — is what I call temporary repentance. It was not the real thing, but it did bear some resemblance to it. What's fascinating about this temporary repentance is how common it is. We have all dealt with temporary repenters. We have all been temporary repenters. Moses shows us how to deal with temporary repentance in a wise, prudent, and godly fashion.