Nelsonville Assembly

The final plague against Egypt was a dramatic and devastating judgement by God. The people of Israel are instructed to make public their faith in God through the costly sacrifice of a spotless lamb. Through this the Lord makes clear that He deserves the best - not the extras - in the worship of His people. And God also foreshadows the coming of True Salvation through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, which is the only means of deliverance from sin and the price of death.

As the plagues against Egypt continue, God is unveiling the plan that He had from the beginning. Through each mighty act He is demonstrating the absolutly powerlessness of idols, His own uniqueness as the One True God, and how all people are created to worship Him. Understanding this leads to a changed life and true repentance from sin is distinguished from mere remorse through the warnings of the example of Pharaoh.

In the famous "Ten Plagues" that God unleashes upon Egypt and their evil Pharaoh, the One True God demonstrates His great power over idols and false deities, but He also demonstrates His personal and particular care for His people in treating them with mercy and kindness even while power out judgement and punishment upon His enemies. This is a great foreshadow of the Gospel and a clear call to repent and trust in Jesus Christ to receive His merciful salvation by His grace today.

There is only One True God. In the Book of Exodus, the Egyptians looked to all sorts of deities, but the God of the Israelites begins to prove how utterly unique He is through mighty displays of power. Today, we must give care to understanding that our God will destroy all idols because He is the Greater One.

The Perfect God regularly uses imperfect people to be His representatives upon earth. This is certainly the case with the flawed Moses and Aaron in Exodus, and continues to be the case even today. Only Jesus is the Perfect Representative of God because He is God Himself. In this week, we consider the implications of that as we see God's prelude of power before the plagues against Egypt.

Genealogies, like the one at the end of Exodus 6, are often parts of Scripture that believers have trouble navigating. But as Christians, we know that all of Scripture is useful and purposeful, so in this message Pastor Isaiah pulls out an important truth that can be learned from the family lineage of Moses and Aaron and shows us how relevant that truth is to our lives today too.

In Week 8 of our series, our kids joined us for a special Family Sunday of worship. In the text of Scripture, God reminds Moses again of who He is and what He has said He will do, so we took the opportunity to remember all that we have seen in the story so far too and to remind ourselves of the key truth: God will do what He says He will do!

After celebrating a number of great graduates from various stages of education, we turned in the sermon to Exodus 5. From this text, we are given a vivid illustration of how Israel wavered from belief and trust in God when life became difficult and disappointments grew. The dangers of how disappointments can impact us are real and present in all people, in all ages - so Christians have much to consider and learn from this negative example of Israel in Exodus as we too navigate these times today.

The amazing encounter between God and Moses at the burning bush did not result in immediate obedience by Moses. As God reveals Himself and the grand plan that He has to redeem His people, Moses responds with objects of disbelief and disobedience. Today we are just like Moses with our objections and disobedience, and the response of God to Moses is something we too need to be aware of and have impact on our souls too.

In Exodus 3, Moses is drawn to an incrediable phenomenon in the wilderness of Midian - a bush that burned with fire that did not consume it. This incrediable sight was only the draw to a much greater encounter with the Living God, the Holy One, who spoke to Moses by name. The God revealing Himself in the Book of Exodus is the God Who Sees and Speaks to His people personally.