Retired pastor of over 35 years at Rexdale Alliance Church, Sunder Krishnan's message reflects on God's glory then and as it is revealed in Jesus today, both Lion glory and Lamb glory.

Guest Speaker and Worship Leader Darin Martin teaches on the pillar of cloud and fire that guides the Israelites through the desert in Exodus 13:17-22.

This week we come to the final plague God brings to display his power and release His people from Pharaoh’s grip. Bible commentator D. A. Carson writes, “The importance of this event cannot be overestimated. It signalled not only the release of the Israelites from slavery, but the dawning of a new covenant with their Redeemer.” It’s the Passover.
The tenth and final plague is the greatest and worst of all the plagues where God warns Pharaoh that he will send the judgement of death upon the first born male of every household, upon both man and beast. But upon the households of the Israelites, who God commanded be marked with the blood of a sacrificed lamb, God’s sentence of death would pass over: “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you (12:13). Only those households marked by the blood would be spared of God’s “judgement on all the gods of Egypt” (12:12).
From that moment forward, God instituted the Passover meal to commemorate his salvation and mark the beginning of a new year. It was this commemorative meal of Passover that Jesus used at the Last Supper to point to him being God’s Passover Lamb for our sin.

Up until this point in Exodus (ch.1-6), God has been preparing his people for their deliverance by revealing, calling, and giving Moses and the Israelites the assurance of his Word to save them, to do what he said he will do — even if it feels delayed — as we heard last week.
Now, chapter 7 marks a transition in the story to the 10 plagues. The plagues will be the means by which God will now reveal himself, to not only Pharaoh but all Egypt, but also the Israelites, too. The plagues will be how God displays his power, manifests his glory, and executes his just judgement to bring his people to a place of being free to worship Him, as each plague will strike at the heart of Egypt’s false gods.
The plagues are a heavy read. We can respond to them in one of two ways — with a soft heart or a hard heart, to seeing them as acts of love and mercy to pry people away from false gods, or, like Pharaoh, respond to God with a hard heart, viewing God’s judgement in an opposite way, as un-loving or un-just. About God’s revelation, Charles Spurgeon wrote, “ The same sun hardens clay and melts wax.” How is your heart toward God? Like ‘clay’ or like ‘wax’ in response to God and His Word?

Last week in the story of Exodus, we transitioned from God’s preparation to the plagues, in moving from Exodus ch. 6 to 7-8:19, as we looked at the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart versus our need to keep a soft and repentant heart toward God.
As we continue this week to look again at the plagues — these acts of mercy sent to soften and pry people’s hearts away from worshipping false gods — we now cover plagues #4-9. The key verse in our text for this week is ch. 9:16 where God says regarding Pharaoh: “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” God was not only using the plagues to pry people’s hearts away from worshipping idols but in Pharaoh’s resistance to also show God’s power to the glory of His name.
In a sentence, what we see in this week’s text is that God has no rivals, and uses His power to demonstrate the greatness of His name over all. How are we to respond? To savour His unmatched greatness, to follow God unconditionally (unlike Pharaoh), and to unashamedly embrace God’s call to make the name of Jesus known..

How do you respond when faithfully following God’s Word makes life harder instead of easier? This week, we turn to Exodus 5 where Moses and Aaron faithfully follow God’s Word in going to tell Pharaoh to let God’s people go. Pharaoh rejects God’s voice (v.2). In hearing their request, Pharaoh not only rejects their message but answers back by making the Israelites’ labour ‘harder’(v.9). Seeing the trouble Moses’ obedience to God’s call and God’s Word has brought to their situation, it says, the Israelite overseers found Moses and Aaron and cursed and criticized them. Instead of things getting easier, obeying God’s Word — for both Moses and the people — at first, it made life harder.
We sometimes see this same pattern in our own lives when we commit ourselves to living faithful to God’s Word and call in Christ. In the New Testament, Jesus actually promises us that, “In this world you will have trouble” (Jn. 16:33). How will you respond to trouble? At the end of ch. 5, how does Moses respond? That is what we look at this week.

Over the last three weeks in our Encountering God through Exodus series we have learned that not only does God see us but wants us to see Him and know Him. Knowing who God is is foundational for doing life with God. Once God makes Himself known to Moses He calls him to participate in God’s mission to save God’s people so they can be His people again. In this way Exodus foreshadows the entire story of Scripture where God rescues people from sin by sending a Saviour, Jesus, so they can be His people again.

What an incredible privilege that Moses would be called by God to participate in this unfolding story of redemption. Although God’s call is clear, Moses is slow to answer and when he does he finds that he has compromised the call. This week’s text is a challenging reminder of the holiness of God. God’s holiness requires faithfulness, is developed in our lives as a process which takes time as we learn to follow God’s call on our lives.

In the opening chapters of the story of Exodus, we have so far seen that God is a God who sees, that God sees us and remembers us — even if things look to the contrary. Last week, we saw that when God draws us, he first reveals himself, as God did for Moses at the burning bush. This week, we see that God also calls us, and that God’s calling upon our lives is not dependent upon who we are but who God is, as He calls each of us to serve Him as His witness in the world.
Only how does Moses respond to God’s call? When God calls him to go back to Egypt to bring the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob up out of Egypt, how does Moses reply? With the same type of response we often give God when we consider His call upon our lives to go and reach the lost. Our text says Moses answers God back with 5 questions that question God. This week we examine each question, both as a window into our own doubts and fears, but also to see how God answers and what God’s answers reveal about Him and His promises. Moses’ questions remind us that the true hero of this story is not Moses but God Himself. God’s call isn’t dependent upon us but Him.

Last week, we ended examining chapters 1-2 by seeing that ‘God Sees’ us and always remembers us — no matter how it may look. This week in chapter 3, we see through the call of Moses that God’s call upon our lives to be saved and then to serve Him graciously first begins with ‘God Revealing’ Himself. In this text, we see God introduce and reveal Himself to Moses in four ways, as the God who 1) is over Creation, 2) is Holy, 3) is Generational, and 4) Intimately Speaks. These are the ways God also wants you to know Him. God’s call upon our lives begins with first seeing who He is and never losing sight of Him.