Sunday School is for All Ages!

Israel was instructed to eat the Passover meal as if they would run out the door at any second—coat tied, shoes fastened, walking stick in hand. God knows that when the tenth plague occurs and the firstborn sons of Egypt die, Israel will be hurried out of Egypt.

It did not matter that God had clearly foretold what would happen through Moses and Aaron (Exodus 11:1-8). It did not matter that the power of Yahweh opposed to the false gods of Egypt had been mightily displayed in nine previous plagues spanning approximately 2.5 months. Somehow the Egyptians are surprised when they awaken to death in every household (Exodus 12:30).

It did not matter in the days of Noah that God had pronounced judgment over all the sins of the world. It did not matter that He commissioned Noah, a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5), to spend a minimum of 50 years building an ark. Somehow the people were still surprised when the water rose, and they were not shut inside with Noah and his family.

Jesus has clearly announced that He is coming again and will return in an hour when we least expect Him (Matthew 24:36-44). He has commissioned prophets and apostles to make it plain. He has called preachers and teachers to open the Word, which is His revelation to us. And yet, on that day, people will still be caught by surprise—even some who assumed they were all good to go (Matthew 7:15-23).

Given the suddenness of their impending deliverance, we now understand why Israel was instructed to be ready. Likewise, as we live as exiles awaiting our permanent home, we are to live ready for the Lord’s return.

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

Sunday School is for All Ages!

From the lamb sacrificed for the Passover meal, blood was to be brushed onto the lintel and doorposts of every Hebrew home in Egypt. Why such a messy, bloody sign?

The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt (Exodus 12:13).

God’s people were identified by a distinguishing mark of blood. Was this a sign of their righteousness? Nope. Israel was just as guilty as Egypt of sinning against the Most High God. After 430 years of enslavement (Exodus 12:40-41), there was more of Egypt in Israel than godliness. The reality is, there was nothing among the behavior or the practices of Israel at this point in time that separated them from the Egyptians—except the distinguishing mark of blood painted on their doorways.

The reason Israel was spared from the tenth plague was not because they were righteous or even because they were Israel. The Israelites were spared only because the blood of an innocent lamb was interposed between them and the judgment (wrath) of God. That is the only reason they were spared.

We are no different. We all deserve judgment (Romans 3:23). Some of us are covered by the blood of a Lamb slain before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8 KJV; 1 Peter 1:18-20) and it passes over us. Jesus said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved…” (John 10:9, emphasis mine).

We are only delivered into newness of life through the blood of an innocent other. On the day of judgment yet to come, our only hope will be a gifted righteousness—the imputed righteousness of Jesus credited to us (Romans 4).

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

Sunday School is for All Ages!

In addition to the roasted lamb and bitter herbs, the Passover meal was to include unleavened bread, or bread without yeast. For 14 days, all yeast had to be completely purged from every Hebrew home.

On the first day you must remove yeast from your houses. Whoever eats what is leavened from the first day through the seventh day must be cut off from Israel…

Yeast must not be found in your houses for seven days. If anyone eats something leavened, that person, whether a resident alien or native of the land, must be cut off from the community of Israel. Do no eat anything leavened; eat unleavened bread in all your homes (Exodus 12:15, 19-20).

Why such a strong injunction against breads containing yeast? In the Scriptures, yeast serves as a metaphor for sin (Matthew 16:6-12; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 5:9). Specific to the story of the Exodus, yeast represents the sinfulness of Egypt that the Israelites are to leave behind. Like yeast, the sinfulness of Egypt could spread & stay with them long after their deliverance. When they leave in haste carrying bread that wouldn’t have had time to rise if leavened, it is to be symbolic of leaving behind the yeast of Egypt.

Idolatry? Leave it behind.

Oppression of others for personal gain? Leave it behind.

Grasping for power even to the point of denying & defying God? Leave it behind.

Today, those of us delivered from the bondage of sin & made free in Christ Jesus likewise are called to leave the yeast of our old life behind (Romans 6; Galatians 5).

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

Sunday School is for All Ages!

The Passover meal described in Exodus 12 came with a very detailed menu rich with meaning. In addition to a roasted lamb or goat (unblemished, about a year old, see Exodus 12:3-6), and unleavened bread, Israel was commanded to eat bitter herbs. Why would God desire that His people taste bitterness as part of a permanent memorial of deliverance?

In Exodus 1:13-14, we read a description of the enslavement of Jacob’s descendants by the Egyptians:

They worked the Israelites ruthlessly and made their lives bitter with difficult labor in brick and mortar and in all kinds of fieldwork. They ruthlessly imposed all this work on them.

Bitter herbs are meant to perpetually remind Israel of the bitterness of her former bondage. Annually, as they intentionally take bitterness upon their tongues, God’s people are to remember what it was like to be trapped in bitter enslavement.

Why? Because it doesn’t take us long to get out of a bitter season and begin to look back on it with rose colored glasses (which Israel will almost immediately do!). We need constant reminders to not turn back, but to remain in gratitude for our own deliverance from the bitter enslavement of sin.

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

Sunday School is for All Ages!

On the cusp of the tenth and final plague on Egypt, Pharaoh still will not relent.

His country lies in waste. The crops are completely wiped out. The livestock are decimated. Everywhere there has been suffering and destruction. Pharaoh still will not relent.

One last time, Moses warns Pharaoh of what is to come. After the tenth plague, the people of Egypt will not merely allow Israel to leave; they will expel them from the land—forcefully push them out. The officials of Egypt will bow before Moses and a new nation will be delivered.

The apostle Paul writes of a day yet to come when the truer and better Moses, Jesus Christ, will receive the honor due His name:

…God highly exalted Him
and gave Him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth—
and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father

(Philippians 2:10-11).

A day is yet ahead when the redeemed of the Lord will be expelled from this land; caught up and delivered from the presence of sin to forever be with our Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:14-18).

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

Sunday School is for All Ages!

On the cusp of the tenth and final plague on Egypt, Pharaoh still will not relent.

His country lies in waste. The crops are completely wiped out. The livestock are decimated. Everywhere there has been suffering and destruction. Pharaoh still will not relent.

One last time, Moses warns Pharaoh of what is to come. After the tenth plague, the people of Egypt will not merely allow Israel to leave; they will expel them from the land—forcefully push them out. The officials of Egypt will bow before Moses and a new nation will be delivered.

The apostle Paul writes of a day yet to come when the truer and better Moses, Jesus Christ, will receive the honor due His name:

…God highly exalted Him
and gave Him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth—
and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father

(Philippians 2:10-11).

A day is yet ahead when the redeemed of the Lord will be expelled from this land; caught up and delivered from the presence of sin to forever be with our Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:14-18).

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

Sunday School is for All Ages!

Exodus 10:21-29 recounts the ninth plague, the plague of darkness. Frankly, after water turned to blood, heaps of dead frogs, festering boils, dead livestock, hail strong enough to kill even people, and apocalyptic clouds of locusts to strip all the hail did not, simple darkness sounds a little anticlimactic.

Until we recall that the chief god of the Egyptian pantheon was Ra, the sun god. And the Egyptian Pharaoh was considered the embodiment of Ra, thus achieving divine status. Egyptian legend believed that each night after the sun had set, Ra wrestled with the serpent of darkness all night long. The Egyptians knew Ra had defeated the serpent when the sun rose again the next morning.

But the sun didn’t rise on this morning, or for two more mornings that followed. All of Egypt—except for Goshen where the Hebrews lived—was plunged into a three day darkness so weighty and oppressive that it could be felt. When the sun does not dawn for three days, what is Egypt to conclude about the power of Ra and of the Pharaoh said to be his embodiment?

But God made a distinction between Israel and her enslavers. We read in verse 23, “Yet all the Israelites had light where they lived.”

The people of God today still live adjacent to a darkness that can be felt, yet still have light right where we live. Centuries later, the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth:

But if our gospel is veiled [darkened], it is veiled to those who are perishing. In this case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:3-6).

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

[Thanks to God of Deliverance: A Study of Exodus 1-18 by Jen Wilkin for the back story of the nightly battle between Ra and the serpent of darkness.]

Sunday School is for All Ages!

In Exodus 7:14 - 10:29, nine plagues serve as nine birth pangs foretelling the deliverance and birth of a new nation. With the tenth plague, the Israelites are forcefully pushed from Egypt—also known as Mizraim or the narrow place—toward a broad and spacious land flowing with milk and honey.

But why a total of ten plagues? God could have freed His people by a single action. Yet, He chose a series of plagues, each more severe and personal.

Each plague presented the Egyptian Pharoah with an option to repent and relent. Each plague also served as a systematic toppling of the idols of Egypt. The entire Egyptian pantheon, from Osiris, god of the Nile, all the way to Ra, the sun god, was proven impotent and altogether worthless by each successive plague.

God is still in the idol toppling business today and will do whatever it takes to make His name and glory known among the nations. And each time He does, it is an act of limitless mercy—an opportunity to relent, repent, and return to the Lord.

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

NOTE: This background artwork is the creation and property of Poetic Scripture Co. Learn more about this creative ministry and follow them through their Linktree or on Instagram @poeticscriptureco

Sunday School is for All Ages!

In the very moment Moses felt defeated by failure, God repeated His promises, refocused on Himself as the One who would deliver Israel, and then recounted Moses and Aaron’s family lineage. Why such an oddly placed family tree in this story of deliverance?

Moses & Aaron were descendants of Levi, son of Jacob (Israel). In recounting the generations of the line of promise, God reminds Moses that he and Aaron were born for this purpose. God had indeed called the right man for the job, and what felt like temporary failure would not thwart the ultimate plans of God.

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.

Sunday School is for All Ages!

Moses cries out to God in angry despair &, in His mercy, God does not rebuke. Instead, God strengthens Moses with Gospel promises (Romans 16:25). God promises liberation or freedom from enslavement (Exodus 6:6), redemption (Exodus 6:6), adoption (Exodus 6:7), & an inheritance (Exodus 6:8).

The believer who is in Christ can likewise fight discouragement with Gospel promises as one who is set free, redeemed, adopted, & kept for an imperishable inheritance.

Sunday School for all ages begins weekly at 9:45 AM. All are warmly welcome.