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EXODUS
Lesson 9 – Chapters 10 and 11
We’re nearing the end of the strokes, or plagues, against Egypt that Abba has ordained in order that Pharaoh will agree to release the Hebrews from their bondage. So far, nothing’s worked. Pharaoh’s heart has become progressively intransigent in proportion to the escalating severity of the calamities the Lord has visited upon Egypt. Some of this hardening of Pharaoh’s heart has been Yehoveh; some has been Pharaoh’s iron will.
Even more, it has become apparent to the Egyptian people, as well as the government, that the Hebrews are being somehow miraculously spared from all but the first 2 of this series of disasters.
READ CHAPTER 10 all
You know, we might look at all these plagues against Egypt, the bloody water, the hail, skin lesions, and now locusts, and see them as ancient-sounding or something we’d only find in backward nations, and maybe even downright quaint. That is, if the Lord was doing this in our day, in America or Europe, the plagues would be a lot zippier……they’d have a more modern and technological source and appeal: nuclear bombs, bio-weapons, our electrical grid failing, computer chips being neutralized, aliens attacking from outer space, etc. But, if we think about it every one of these strokes we are reading about in Exodus would be just as devastating today anywhere in the world as it was 3000 years ago in Egypt.
Imagine if our drinking water became polluted on a near universal scale; could we use filtration to solve it? Probably, but at great expense and only the wealthiest nations would initially have it available: hundreds of millions would die from little more than tainted water.
Look at what a simple storm (Hurricane Katrina) did to New Orleans and the surrounding area, and how it bludgeoned our economy and came near to toppling our current president. Nothing particularly high-tech about a Hurricane, is there? Just a big wind and a lot of rain.
Recall the Mt. St. Helens disaster a few years ago: the devastation it caused, the loss of life, the cost to Washington’s economy and thousands and thousands of acres of woodlands destroyed for decades to come. All this from a million-year-old volcano that does little more than spew smoke and molten rock.
How about the Tsunami of but a couple of years ago: the estimated 500,000 lives it took, the countless billions of dollars in damage it caused…….and all this from an earthquake and a resultant wave of seawater; you can’t get much more low-tech than that. When we look ahead at the end-times scenarios of the Bible, and we are told of these cataclysmic events that will eclipse all of human history, we typically want to convert the visions of God’s prophets describing these events into high-tech and science-gone-made experiments; so, we hear of Christian scholars and writers thinking this MUST be about a nuclear exchange or a horrible chemical weapon unleashed. We think in terms of Star Wars type weapons. In fact, nothing man has invented or is likely to invent has ever approached the power of a single Thunderstorm, or a medium-sized meteor entering our atmosphere and striking our planet.
As a result, when people look back at these horrible upheavals of nature over the last few years, we tend to completely dismiss the hand of God, and say…..hey, this is just nature doing its thing, don’t make it one of these wacko religious judgment pronouncements. Perhaps we can say that it was just nature doing its thing in Egypt, and perhaps it will be nature doing its thing at the end of days; but make no mistake, it will be at God’s command, and it will be unstoppable, and it will NOT likely be because men made it happen as the modern global- warming crowd thinks. As we should be learning by now, we need to discover God’s pattern in how He deals with man; and when we see how He’s done it up to now, it certainly has not been by means of technology advancements; the coming cataclysms are not likely to be ordained by men.
Let me take a momentary detour, to connect some dots for those of you who have interest in prophecy, particularly end-times prophecies. Very few Bible scholars, except for the most liberal who view the Bible as nothing more than an example of ancient Hebrew literature and fanciful tales, would say that the 9 plagues upon Egypt were symbolic or allegorical or metaphorical; that is, they weren’t real, the words mean something else entirely. Mainstream scholars take the Exodus plagues, generally, as literal, even if a few of them regard these miracles as nothing more than natural occurrences with no more or less frequency or intensity than is normally seen……that ONLY the wording of the Bible embellishes and exaggerates.
So, it is fascinating to me that these same scholars who take the Exodus account of the plagues as literal, more often than not regard the Revelation accounts of the seal and bowl judgments as symbolic and NOT literal. Most of the judgments of Revelation use the same natural elements, only greatly amplified and much wider spread, than the Exodus account of the plagues do. Hail, insects, darkness, boils, oceans and rivers turn blood red and the sea life dies; these all occur in Exodus just as they do in Revelation…..and then of course there are Revelation judgments that are not in the Exodus plagues, but still they exist and occur naturally: earthquakes, stars exploding, and meteors coming through our atmosphere.
I only bring this up to kind of close the loop on this concept that I’m teaching you; that God’s patterns and principles repeat all through history, and will continue until the end of time. We see these same God-patterns in Revelation, just as they were originally established in Torah, even with the same characteristics of how judgments are meted out. I know many of you are interested in end-times prophecy, so be aware that when you read of these incredibly destructive end-times phenomena in Revelation, that they are of the exact same substance and design that we read in the Exodus account. You CAN take them literally, and SHOULD take them literally, because these things have happened before, literally; it is God’s way to deal in a very consistent fashion with mankind at large, and with the world, and with His own people.
Chapter 10 begins with yet another instruction by God to Moses to go to Pharaoh. He reminds Moses that He has worked within Pharaoh to keep his heart hardened for a divine purpose: that all these miracles, signs, will occur and they will be seen and remembered among the Hebrews from generation to generation. And, that He has used Egypt for Israel’s sake. Sometimes we have a hard time with this concept; that God would favor one above the other, even allowing one to be destroyed, or ransomed, to save the other. In this case, it’s that the Egyptians would pay a high price for God’s purposes……and that God would keep a man’s, Pharaoh’s, heart hardened, to achieve His purposes. I have heard, often, from Believer and un- believer alike, that this is just not fair of God to do such things. Well, I suppose if we actually believe that we can sit in judgment of God, and then we can debate about His fairness. I don’t feel I need to defend God’s decisions. His Laws and Commands are what they are, and they are perfect, and all we need to know is what they are……not necessarily why they are. Have you been brought up to believe that all of God’s decisions are for your best benefit? Well, they’re not. God’s decisions are intended to achieve His purposes, to the best benefit of His Kingdom, not our personal, individual, earthly well-being. Our happiness, comfort, success, are all entirely secondary to God’s divine purpose of bringing in His Kingdom.
In vs. 4, Moses announces to Pharaoh that if he does not free God’s people TODAY, that tomorrow Egypt will be hit with a plague of Locusts. And, not only will the ground be so thick with them that the ground will seem to disappear, but what was left of the crops in the fields from the destructive hailstorm would be eaten up by these voracious insects. Even more, these insects will find their way into people’s homes.
We can wonder as to whether Pharaoh believed Moses or not; but his sorcerers, advisors, and the Egyptian people in general believed! They begged Pharaoh to let Israel go, so they could live in peace. In fact, they said in vs. 7, ‘Pharaoh, don’t you understand that Egypt is already devastated, the battle with Yahweh is lost, and we can’t take any more’. Apparently, Aaron and Moses left Pharaoh’s presence for a short time for Pharaoh to consider matters, but then returned for his answer. The tide is turning. Pharaoh is getting more serious about letting Israel go, as he says, ‘OK, go serve your God. But, who among you would go?’…..implying of course, the more important question, who would stay. For this, however, there was no compromise as Moses answers “our young ones, our old ones, our girls and our boys, and all of their livestock”. In other words, not just ALL the people, but ALL of their possessions as well.
The matter is now crystal clear to Pharaoh. His paranoia that Israel would leave permanently has been confirmed. Why would every last Hebrew, and every last one of their livestock, need to go for a 3 day pilgrimage? No, Pharaoh thinks, they plan on leaving forever. So, in Vs 10 and 11 Pharaoh says, no way Jose! I will allow ONLY the males among you to go…..but the women and children and livestock must be left behind. That was his final answer, as Moses and Aaron were being thrown out of the palace.
Of course, that wasn’t good enough for God, so He tells Moses to “stretch out his hand”…..that is, Moses was to order……the locusts to come. The 8th plague is set into motion, as an east wind begins to blow, and on the flow of that wind, in come the locusts. A horde of locusts as has never been seen before, and they devour everything in their path. Here again, we see that God uses, as in all the previous plagues, nature itself to strike the Egyptians.
Pharaoh took one look at this and called for Moses and Aaron. He brings them in and does as he had done earlier: confesses that he has sinned against God. But, this time, in yet another step, Pharaoh even asks for forgiveness. But, this was not true repentance, anymore than his belief that Yahweh exists, is trust and love. It was just the use of whatever means necessary, even if it meant groveling, to remove this deadly plague. Death. The locusts would drive Egypt into death… through starvation. Pharaoh finally was sensing what this was all leading up to, and so begged for mercy. Yet, the minute Yahweh reversed the wind and sent the locusts back eastward, and into the Great Sea the Pharaoh hardened and refused to free Israel. This time, God is credited with doing the hardening of Pharaoh’s irredeemable heart.
And, according to the now well-established pattern, Vs 21 brings the 9th stroke…… the 3rd plague of the 3rd set of plagues….. and therefore it is unannounced to Pharaoh or the Egyptian people. And this stroke is the most terrible of them all, up to this point. Darkness. Darkness that is a foreshadowing of final death, of spiritual death, of evil, which is near. A Darkness that is not only seen, but is so thick that it is literally felt; a darkness that is far more than merely the absence of light…….a darkness which lasted 3 days throughout Egypt, but which did NOT happen in Goshen, as we read in vs23.
Please pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you: what God did here, He also had done at Creation: He separated, He made a distinction, and He divided the darkness from the light. Over the ones who held His people in servitude was darkness; over His Own people who served Him was Light. We need to not overlook 4 little words in vs. 21: “they will feel darkness”. The Egyptians felt the darkness, the Israelites felt the light. How does one FEEL darkness or light? Ah, remember in our first lesson of Torah, when we studied Creation, and we found that when God created light in Gen.1: 3, that it was different than the type of light s used to create visual light waves, which occurred in Gen 1:14. The word used for the “light” that would remain over Israel in Goshen, in Exodus 10 vs. 23, is the same exact word that God used in Genesis 1:3. In Hebrew the word is “owr”, and in a nutshell it means “enlightenment”. That is, good, as opposed to evil. The truth, as opposed to a lie. When you switch on a lamp, you get visual light, the type of light talked about in Gen 1:14. When you hear from God, you get spiritual light…. Enlightenment, the type of light talked about in Gen 1:3. See the difference?
Well, we talked about the light over the Hebrews, so what kind of “darkness” was over Egyptians? Again, the same exact Hebrew word used in Genesis to describe the opposite of “owr”, enlightenment. That word is “chosek”. And, it means darkness not like “nighttime”, but a very negative darkness. A kind that blots out good. A kind that leads men into wrong. Evil. The exact same wordplay at the beginning of Genesis when God creates a distinction between God’s enlightenment, and spiritual depravity, light vs. dark, is used right here in Exodus to describe the condition of Egypt, darkness, as opposed to the condition of Israel, enlightenment.
Yet, the account also makes it clear that VISUAL light and darkness was also involved. So, let us not make a metaphor out of Vs 23 where it says a man could not see his brother, nor could he arise from his spot, or as the CJB says, People couldn’t see each other. What kind of circumstance could cause such dense visual darkness? I mean, just being without sunlight, or even moonlight, would not have created such a darkness as is being described here. The Egyptians, as all other cultures, knew how to deal with nighttime; they had oil lamps, and fire pits, and torches… all manner of way of going about their business after dark. The idea that no one could “move from his spot”, that is, they couldn’t even see to move around, does not reflect a typical nighttime experience. No, this was not three 24-hour periods of nighttime.
There are natural conditions that happen from time to time, which brings a type of darkness in which the darkness actually seems to absorb the light. Being from California, I have encountered two of these conditions: fog, and a dust storm. I have been on Highway 101 outside Santa Barbara when the fog was so dense, that one’s high beams wouldn’t penetrate any more than 5 or 6 feet in front of the car……and I mean that in the most literal possible sense. I’ve also been in sand storms in the desert, where the sun was blotted out at midday.
But, in Egypt, there came occasionally a brutal type of dust storm called a Chamsin. Every few years, a combination of conditions collided that caused the air itself to become charged with static electricity, which literally lifts and suspends super fine particles of dust in the air; alongside the coarser particles of sand that the fierce winds normally carry. If anyone here has spent any time in super dry climates, you know that static electricity is a normal everyday phenomenon that one must deal with; clothing sticks to other clothing, you get shocked just grabbing the handle of a car door, pull a wool sweater over your head in a darkened room, and you’ll get a light show from the static discharge that occurs. These Chamsin dust storms turn day into night. And, especially in ancient times, when doors didn’t seal, and windows were just open holes in the wall, dust came indoors quite easily. Indoors, you can escape the winds and the sandblast effect of the storm; but you can’t escape the thick dust clouds caused by the electrically charged air. Indoors became dark as well. Even oil lamps didn’t help. Mobility ended.
I suspect this is what occurred as far as the visual element of light is concerned. Otherwise, it would be out of character with the 8 previous plagues that all involved natural elements of nature. Of course, this Chamsin was of supernatural origin, and was several times more ferocious than as happens by itself in nature. So fierce was it that it frightened Pharaoh and the Egyptian people out of their wits. But, the real fright undoubtedly came in the “feeling” of the “chosek”, the spiritual darkness, evil that covered them like a blanket. The type that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end when you can’t see anything evil or dangerous, but you can sense it. This was a time of real horror for Egypt. But, in the same land, the Israelites were celebrating with joy!
This 9th plague of Exodus is just like the irony of being a Believer in this present world; darkness, “chosek”, and enlightenment “owr”, exist side-by-side. We, who are covered with God’s light, live in the same space and breathe the same air as the majority of the world who are under a blanket of darkness. At the same time that we can have our hearts broken and weep for those who are in servitude to the prince of the darkness, we can and should celebrate that God’s enlightenment is upon us and everyone who trusts Him. BTW: notice that ONLY Israel received light. It’s no different today. We non-Israelites by birth, through Jesus, have been JOINED to Israel’s covenants. That, which benefits Israel, now benefits us.
So, Pharaoh sends out an urgent call for Moses; and still this foolish, rebellious king tries to bargain with God (we’ve never tried to bargain with God, right?). After the previous stroke, he had agreed to let only the Israelite males go to worship Yahweh. Now he says, if Moses will get God to call off the darkness, all Israel can go, man and woman, girl and boy, young and old…….however, their livestock must be left behind.
Moses declines the offer, and says that everything must go. Why? Because, it says in Vs26, Yahweh has called Israel to serve Him and sacrifice to Him……..but they don’t know exactly what this is to involve. In other words, maybe God will want ALL their livestock, maybe he won’t want any. Maybe he’ll want Sheep, maybe cattle. They haven’t been told. So, the only thing they can do is to take all their people and all their possessions into the desert, set them before God, and see what it is He might demand of them. Did you catch that? Here is another permanent God-principle that just bursts out of nowhere. We are to submit all that we have and all that we are…..ourselves, our families, every possession…..before God, because we cannot possibly know at any given moment what it is He will demand of us. We must go forward in faith and trust, holding nothing back. Nothing. It is all His, and His to give or take as so pleases Him. Yet, what is our typical response? Ok God, you can have everything but this…..or this……or this. You can have me; just don’t take my job, my health, my wife, and my kids. Those things that the Israelites would have left behind at Pharaoh’s orders would have remained in servitude, so Moses HAD to refuse. Everything we leave behind, but still possess; everything that we do not take with us to present to God, when we approach the Cross, stays in Egypt…..stays in bondage and servitude, and is therefore not available to serve God. God has made it clear that EVERYTHING we are and possess is to be put before Him, when we turn our life over to Him.
Neither Moses nor Pharaoh would budge; Moses won’t leave without the livestock, and Pharaoh won’t let Israel go with it. Pharaoh orders Moses to leave his presence, and never come back. Because if he ever approaches Pharaoh again, Moses will be put to death. Pharaoh has, by his own words, sealed his and his people’s fate. There will be no more opportunities to avoid judgment. God does not strive with man forever. It ends, and we don’t know ahead of time exactly when that day or hour is. But, when it does end, when God decides to turn us over to our innate wickedness, all hope of redemption vanishes, forever. Scarey, scarey thought……and terribly, terribly true.
READ CHAPTER 11 all
Judgment. What we will see in Chapters 11 and 12 is judgment. What is judgment? It’s the time at which we receive what is due us, according to God’s system of justice. In the Bible, judgment almost always results in a negative consequence. We all, saved and unsaved, are going to be judged. If we’re saved, however, if we trust God by way of His son Yeshua, we will NOT be condemned, we will not be the subjects of God’s wrath. If we are not saved, we WILL be condemned. Pharaoh, and Egypt, had been given 9 chances of accepting God’s will, and obeying Him. This 10th blow upon Egypt brings with it NO choices…this is not yet another warning, another chance for Pharaoh and Egypt to repent…..the time for warnings and choices has passed. Egypt’s fate is now in etched in concrete. This so-called 10th plague equates to what happens when we die, and then stand before God. Some will live forever in darkness (remember the Hebrew word for spiritual darkness, “Chosek”?) others will live forever in light…the Hebrew word for this light, this enlightenment, is “owr”. From this condition, whether it is light or darkness, there will be NO change, no opportunity for change, for all eternity.
Now, the first 3 verses of chapter 11 were either spoken to Moses BEFORE or during the last audience Moses had with Pharaoh. In other words, we saw in Chapter 10, after Pharaoh called for Moses when God covered Egypt with “chosek”, spiritual darkness, and with visual darkness; then when Moses refused Pharaoh’s offer for all Israel to leave with the condition of leaving their livestock behind, Pharaoh told Moses in a fit of rage NEVER to come back again. Well, now we find out in Ex. 11:8 that during that same conversation, Moses had raged right back at Pharaoh. And, we see that not only did Moses refuse Pharaoh’s offer, but also Moses told him that THAT night, about midnight, all of Egypt’s firstborn would die. That included, according to vs.5, even the livestock. But, the Israelites would not be affected…..they or their livestock.
Now, while I don’t blame Cecil B. DeMille for depicting that which killed the Egyptian firstborn as a green cloud of death floating menacingly around all the streets of Egypt (I mean, he had to show something), it does kind of give us a wrong impression. I have even heard Bible Teachers say that it was the “angel of death” that wandered throughout all of Egypt, and killed the Egyptian firstborn. No, it was not. It was Yahweh HIMSELF who took all those lives. How, exactly, that occurred, we don’t know, except that it was by Almighty God’s very own hand that the life of the firstborns was extinguished. Vs 1 says that Yahweh, not the Lord, Adonai, or malach Adonai, or anything else…..YAHWEH says, “I will bring one more plague”. And then in vs. 4 says “Here is what YAHWEH says, about midnight I will go out…..” and kill all the firstborn of Egypt.
And, after this terrible judgment, God says NOW Pharaoh will release you. In fact, he is going to drive you out of Egypt. But, before Israel leaves, they are to strip Egypt. They are to ask for Gold and Silver from the Egyptian people. And, they’ll get all they ask for. Because vs. 3 says that the Hebrews “found favor” in the eyes of the Egyptians, and that they saw Moses was a very great man. Translation….. here, take anything you want, we can’t fight Moses or your God. Just leave us. To the bulk of the Egyptian people, Moses was just a powerful sorcerer….. more powerful than Egypt’s magicians. And, they had no more interest in testing him further. Frankly, this was no different from the Egyptians perspective than if a robber was holding a knife at their throat, and it was a money-or-your-life deal. And, interestingly, to this very day that’s how the Egyptians see it….. as theft. If you or any of your friends have doubts about whether Israel was ever in Egypt, or that there was even an Exodus (which, by the way, has become a very popular theme in the more liberal denominations), just tell them to ask a modern day Egyptian about it. The anger over Israel taking all that gold and silver from Egypt has remained a bitter sore spot in the heart of the Egyptian people right up to modern times….3400 years later. Let us not overlook just what is at the bottom of this decision by God to crush Egypt with these supernatural devastations and then the plundering of their Gold and Silver: for God reminds us, in vs.7, that this is ALL done “in order that you may know that Yahweh makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel”. We keep hearing this over and over in the Exodus story of the Plagues, don’t we? That God makes a distinction between Israel and Egypt. When God keeps repeating something, it’s a sure bet we need to pay attention. So, let us not EVER think that this setting apart of Israel from the rest of world is some minor or remote issue, or has changed or become obsolete. Remember, from a Biblical standpoint Egypt, which is real and tangible, also is a “type”. That is, Egypt is representative of the world at large…all those NOT joined to Israel. To this very day, and to the end of time, God sees the world as Israel, and everybody else. Where does that leave us, gentile believers? Thankfully, with Israel, as part of Israel. This is one good reason to follow God’s directive to bless Israel. For when we are blessing Israel, we are also blessing ourselves. Romans 9, 10, and 11 covers this in great detail, but it can be somewhat summed up by Romans 11:17 where Paul says in his Olive Tree analogy, “ But if some of the branches were broken off, and YOU (gentile believer) a wild olive were grafted in among them and have become equal sharers in the rich root of the olive tree…..” Israel is symbolized in Scripture as the Olive Tree. And, in Romans 11:24 “For if you (gentiles) were cut out of what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated Olive Tree (Israel), how much more will these natural branches (those Israelites that were cut off because of disbelief) be grafted back into their own Olive Tree”.
In other words, from God’s spiritual perspective, a gentile believer is grafted into the covenants of Israel. And, it is those covenants that, from a spiritual aspect, makes Israel, Israel, and separates them from everyone else. God did NOT give His covenants to gentiles. They went ONLY to Israel. By trusting in Jesus as Lord and Messiah, however, we are grafted into the covenants of Israel. No, I’m not saying you became a Jew when you became saved. There are physical Jews and physical gentiles. But, by God’s reckoning, neither a physical Jew NOR a physical gentile automatically belongs to True, Spiritual, Israel…. or, as Paul calls it, the Israel of God. Only those Jews and gentiles who believe and trust Jesus. Again, I caution you, I am NOT saying that a physical member of the tribe of Israel is now no longer an Israelite. I’m saying that there is an earthly, fleshly, physical perspective on the one hand; and there is a spiritual, heavenly perspective that God has on the other. Salvation, deliverance, concerns ONLY the spiritual, not the physical, perspective. God did not come to save our flesh; he came to save our eternal souls.
What we need to come away from this with for our study of Torah is that God made and DEMONSTRATED a distinction between Israel and everyone else…here, in Exodus, it’s between Israel and the Egyptians. This is such an important foundational principle…. Israel was set apart…set apart to be God’s special people. When we hear the commonly used church- word “sanctification”, it simply means to be “set apart” for God. And, this is NOT an OT distinction that has dissolved. It remains intact in the NT as well. Jesus did NOT end this distinction between Israel and the world…. my goodness, He, Himself, was a Jew, an Israelite, and made a point of letting people know that. He simply provided a NEW and lasting way for gentiles to partake of, to be grafted into Israel’s covenants, by means of His own blood. But, do not misunderstand; even the New Covenant was not a covenant between God and gentiles; it was a covenant with Israel. We won’t go any further with that for now, because that is all a very long lesson in itself. Let’s back up for a moment. It was DURING these 3 days of darkness (chosek) that had fallen upon Egypt that Moses pronounced to Pharaoh the coming death of the firstborn. Did you catch that? Yet, while all Egypt was cowering under the horror of the complete absence of light and the blanket of evil that lay over them, Israel was celebrating joyously for they were experiencing light. They knew the time of deliverance was near. In fact, during that time of darkness for Egypt Israel had, 4 days before Yahweh would go throughout Egypt killing all the firstborn already selected their Passover lambs, and this according to God’s instructions. This would become the establishment of, and the very first, Passover.
Now, let’s fast-forward about 1400 years to 30 AD. We’re in Jerusalem, and it’s Passover (in Hebrew, Pesach). Yeshua has completed His Passover meal in the company of His 12 disciples the evening before, and now is nailed, bleeding and suffocating, on the execution stake. But, before death takes him, the land suddenly becomes covered in thick, terrifying darkness. Yeshua, our Passover lamb, was selected and sacrificed when all was dark, literally and spiritually, for the world. Yet, in Heaven, great joyousness was taking place, for deliverance was at hand. There should have been great celebration in Jerusalem, among the Jews, as well. But, they were blinded to the truth, and could not see that Christ WAS their deliverance; He was their Passover lamb.
Let’s fast-forward again, now 2000 years from Christ’s passion, to today. Our world is becoming darker and darker. Spiritually, our entire planet is becoming so evil and rebellious and is under “chosek”……spiritual darkness. It is hard to not be despondent, and feel full of hopelessness and despair and confusion as we watch our world reeling out of control. But, as believers, those of us set apart, sanctified for God, what should our reaction be? The same as those Israelites in Egypt, as we’re reading about in Exodus; celebration. Though those who do not know God are in darkness, and about to experience eternal spiritual death, we who DO know God live in His light, and are about to experience deliverance into eternal light. The example for how we are to live during these last days, as each day reveals new and deeper levels of man’s wickedness and depravity, is right here in Exodus; we can and SHOULD actually take it from God’s perspective…. Final and complete deliverance. Yet, like the Israelites, our joy is bittersweet. Like those Israelites, we all have friends and relatives and neighbors that made the choice to join with the world and all of its darkness. The sad fact is that until Jesus reigns on Earth, light and darkness, death and life, will rule simultaneously.