Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
This year in America and other parts of the world which ‘celebrate’ Halloween, October 31 falls on a Sunday!! What a dramatic contrast… that Sunday will be worship of God for some people, and Halloween for others! Sadly, it may be both for some people! This day “Halloween” has always fascinated and frustrated me. Horrific movies, crazy costumes for children, shocking front yard displays and even ‘haunted houses’…all for the purpose of frightening people to the point of near trauma! Today we come to an event in history which is the closest thing I can find in the Bible, to what Halloween has become, at least in some places.
Yesterday we finished watching a final confrontation between Pharaoh and Moses, toe to toe, face to face in the pale darkness of the palace. Darkness so dark it could be felt, had engulfed Egypt and even the palace, for three days. Finally Pharaoh had summoned Moses, his only hope for any light to return to Egypt. Still Pharaoh’s heart was hard and there was no compromise, so Pharaoh was throwing Moses out for the last time. Moses likely would never forget the words Pharaoh spoke: “Get out of my sight! Make sure you do not appear before me again! The next day you see my face you will die!” (Ex. 10:28) I imagine Moses stood his ground, staring at the Pharaoh, with contempt, but also with deep pain in his heart. Moses knew what the future would bring, God had warned him. Taking a deep breath Moses spoke: “Just as you say, I will never appear before you again!” I wonder if Moses turned to leave the Pharaoh’s throne room, then paused in his tracks, and then turned around to give the Pharaoh the most terrifying news he’d ever heard?
“This is what the LORD says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout the land of Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl who is at her hand mill… There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt, – worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. But among the Israelites, not a dog will bark… Then you will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. All these officials of yours will come to me bowing down before me and saying, ‘Go, you and all the people who follow you!’ After that, I will leave.’ (Ex. 11:4-8)
Look at them… the wisest, most powerful men in the world. Their eyes are wide with wonder, their mouths hanging open, their knees knocking in fear as they gasp for breath! They are speechless, their minds scrambling to imagine what Moses has just proclaimed. They’ve experienced the supreme power of Moses’ God spreading havoc across Egypt, but this proclamation is different. This will bring death to each of their families, and as they were helpless in preventing hail or locusts or the onslaught of suffocating darkness, so they will be helpless to prevent this onslaught of death which will strike terror in Egypt and around the world as the story is told! The record says: “Then Moses, hot with anger, left Pharaoh.” (Ex. 11:8)
While we have no record of the darkness lifting from Egypt, we know it lasted three long days and then God, in His mercy, dissipated the darkness. We don’t know if that happened in the daytime or at night, but either way the sky cleared. If it was night, the moon shone and the stars were again visible. If it was daytime, another blue sky and bright sunshine returned to Egypt. I can’t tell you what happened in the palace, but I can tell you what happened among the Hebrew slaves. Chapter 12 of Exodus is a landmark chapter. I don’t know exactly when God had given these instructions to Moses, but I can tell you that when Moses explained it to the Hebrew slaves, as recorded in Exodus 12:1-28 everything, and I mean everything changed for them!
May I ask, how important is the calendar in your life? Perhaps you are like my wife and me… we try to keep one master calendar, but then we both have our own calendars and one of our important daily functions is coordinating our calendars so we know what’s on the schedule for our family! When you add children and grandchildren, employment, social groups, church events and more to this, calendar coordination can become a very big deal, is that true in your family too?
So Exodus 12 begins: “The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, ‘This month is to be for you the first month of your year.” There it is, the official beginning of the God ordained Hebrew calendar. Today, in the worldwide “Gregorian” calendar, it is Wednesday 20 October, 2021. Using the calendar which began in Exodus 12, today is Wednesday 14 Cheshvan 5782. (I have found the web site www.chabod.org to be very helpful in understanding Jewish culture) The new year begins in the Gregorian calendar with the month of January. In the Jewish calendar the new year begins in the month of Nissan. So Exodus 12:2 is the first day of Nissan in the year 1. Today we know the Jewish month of Nissan as the month of the Christian and Jewish holidays of Easter and Passover.
Now pause here a moment, do you see the powerful significance of what is happening here my friends? For several weeks God had been sending Moses to confront the Pharaoh of Egypt, the most powerful man in the world. Those palace meetings have had two purposes: first, that Pharaoh would understand the Almighty God of the Hebrews, is the only true, living God, the creator of all. And secondly, that this God wanted Pharaoh to release the Hebrew slaves who are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with whom God had established a covenant promising both a people, who would be HIS people, and a land which would be their homeland! Pharaoh had consistently refused. God had hardened his heart. God has poured out great plagues on Egypt to prove His supreme power over all and to humiliate the man made gods of Egypt.
Beginning with the plague of flies, the land of Goshen where the Hebrew slaves lived had not been affected by the devastation these plagues had brought. The slaves have watched as their slave masters, the land of Egypt, and even the Pharaoh and his officials have been ravaged. Now beginning here in Exodus 12, God is drawing a line across the timeline of all history. A God given calendar for His people begins here, it is Nissan 1. It’s a new day for the Hebrew slaves and the world!
On that day 1 of Nissan, God gave Moses very specific instructions that would define the Hebrew people for the rest of time: “Tell the whole community of Israel that on the 10th day of this month [Nissan] each man is to take a lamb for his family… The animals you choose are to be one year old males without defect… Take care of them until the 14th day of the month when all the people of Israel must slaughter the lambs at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the door frames of the houses where they eat the lamb… On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every first born… I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 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. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.” (Exodus 12:3-13)
Remember there was no darkness in Goshen, while it was pitch dark all over Egypt. And there had been no locusts in Goshen, while locusts had devoured everything green across the Egyptian landscape. So it’s possible these first 10 days or so of Nissan were taking place in the region of Goshen, while Egypt was being ravaged by locusts and suffocating in darkness! So let’s pause right here and ponder this. The Hebrew slaves know exactly, to the day and hour, when the final plague of death will come over Egypt and God has promised they, the Hebrews, will be spared and more…they will be delivered from their slavery, IF they trust God and do as instructed! But for the Egyptians, they have no idea what is about to happen!
Look around your world today, my friends. Do you think God’s patience with our morally decaying world might soon run out? Are you ready for the moment when God decides it’s time for the end… and for every person to stand before Him in accountability for the lives we’ve lived? That’s an important reality to ponder, and tomorrow, we’ll consider what happened on this day that changed history so many years ago! For today, would you consider that God knows the exact day and hour when He declares it’s the end, and it’s time for accountability! Are you ready??
Today’s Scripture is Exodus 11:1-12:13.
Choose below to read or listen.
Exodus 11
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Exodus 12:1-13
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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