Palm Sunday - Nine Signs

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Today we are going to do four people that are meeting Yah. Okay, and we're going to do that through the signs that Yah shows Egypt. Normally we refer to these as the Ten Plagues. These are not, there are some technically that are plagues, but really what God calls them are signs. It's kind of a funny thing that in Exodus we call them the Ten Commandments. God calls them the Ten Words. And in Exodus we call them the Ten Plagues. God calls them the signs and signs. And so it's kind of interesting. So today we're going to be going through the signs. Man, all my signs, but it really helps. That's okay. So we're right. It's okay. You know, we wasted four hours. I would just keep going. I'm not sure about what the electricity is doing. Let's just keep going. Okay. So today more people are going to meet Him through these signs. And these signs, we're going to go through the first nine this morning.

We're not going to read every single one, but they are. The signs are the riddance of blood. There are frogs that come and infest. There are gnats. There are flies. The signs that the livestock all die. Six sign is that there are boils. Seven sign hail. Eight sign locusts. Nine sign darkness. A darkness to be felt. We're going to come back to that. Instead of just focusing on every single one, God's just going to be a lot of things going on. I need you here though. I need you right here. I know there's stuff at me here. There's going to be a lot of stuff going on. Instead of just reading through all mine, because it is Exodus 7, 8, 9, and 10, that we're going to be moving through this morning, what we're going to do instead of just reading all of them in particular, we're going to focus on what happens as we move from sign one to sign nine. There are many major things that happen,

but you can only see those things if you look at the progression through those signs. Only if we're looking at the progression through those signs. As we do, here's a couple of things that we're going to see. The science TVs. A couple of things that we're going to see. We're going to see that mercy can feel like judgment. As we read through the signs, as we see them progress, we're going to see that mercy can feel like judgment. We're also going to see that resistance can seem like negotiation. Resistance can seem like negotiation. Last time we were going to see, knowing God feels like dreadful joy. So we got mercy can feel like judgment. Resistance can seem like negotiation, and knowing God feels like dreadful joy. As we do that, as we go through all this, what I hope this helps us do is it helps all of us this morning meet God where He is and to help others do the same thing about meeting God where He is.

Alright, so we're going to read out the first nine signs. When we do that, it is helpful to see these signs in different movements. There's the first three, the second three, and the third three. If you look at the text, there is some kind of rhythm to it, but not all of the same. They're all of the same, all of the exact same formula. They are written different, they are shaped different. So the first movement is the first three. It's the Nile turning to blood, frogs, and gnats. This is X and seven, and the first part of X is eight. Each time that happens with each one, Pharaoh is the one who is being kind of met with these things. Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh, and they say, listen, if you don't let my people go, okay, that's the text phrase, if you don't let my people go, then something bad is going to happen. This first thing is going to happen. So Pharaoh is kind of, he understands what's going to happen.

And as these things happen, Pharaoh is mostly unmoved. He's mostly unmoved. I don't know how much trouble we have with the TVs, but if it's not working, it's not working, we just kill it. Alright, each time Pharaoh is mostly unmoved. Let's just, this one, we could go with what I was trying to redo, anything. Alright, so what was your Sunday morning like? Hell, lost, hurt. Okay, okay. As Pharaoh is watching these signs happen, the first two signs, the court magicians are duplicating the signs. So when Moses, technically it's Aaron, when Aaron turns the melt of blood, okay, when that happens, the magicians come and do the exact same thing to Pharaoh. Okay, the fourth Pharaoh. In the second sign, whenever the frogs come, and infest the sign, the magicians, the court magicians are able to do something similar. By the third sign though, the magicians cannot duplicate it.

When the flies, excuse me, when the gnats come, the magicians can't duplicate it. And so Pharaoh's heart is being hardened, but even in the midst of that, in the first three signs, Pharaoh is starting to show signs of breaking, Exodus 8-8. And by the way, I don't have the verses up here, but we're going to be kind of bouncing a couple of different places between Exodus 7, 8, 9, and 10. So if you want to follow along, you can. I can give you Scouts honor that I'm reading the verse out of the ESV, but if you want to check me, that's Kippet. If you ever read along, that's good. Exodus 8-8, it says, Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, Lead with the Lord and take away the frogs from me and my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice for the Lord. Okay, sacrifice to the Lord. We're going to get back to that in just a minute, but I want you to notice these signs, the now turning blood, frogs and gnats, these signs are not super destructive.

These signs are a noi. They had a day-long denial to get fresh water, okay, but they did. They did that. In all of these signs, the intensity from 1 to 9 goes way up. By the time we're at 9, the intensity is pretty high. We're going to see it, but right here in the verse 3, we're at the annoyance level. And in fact, if you're looking at it, this is why we say that God's mercy can feel like judgment, because in all these signs, God could have begun by wiping out Egypt. He could have begun with that. He shows immense restraint throughout Exodus, throughout 7, 8, 9, and 10, because when he's giving them these signs, he's saying, Hey, you need to do what I'm asking you to do, Pharaoh, or this is going to happen. Most of the time, except for a handful of signs, Pharaoh is giving specific warning. And one of those signs, Exodus 9, 15, God says this, he says, For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and you were people with pestilence,

and you would have been cut off from the earth. He says that in the seventh sign. By the seventh sign, God says, Look, we're going the long way around. We could have shortcut this thing pretty fast, and I could have just made you an asterisk. I didn't. There are times when God is mercifully directing your life, and it's going to feel like judgment. It's going to feel like condemnation. It's going to feel like frustration. Maybe the Lord is going to bring a friend into your life, and that friend is going to correct you hard on something that you really needed correction on. Maybe you've been ignoring a really big problem at work, and the Lord orchestrates all these events where you have to face it. You have to have the difficult conversation. You have to say the thing that you all want to say. You have to say it the way that you want to say it. Maybe the Lord sends an injury to you, slows you down.

Maybe the Lord in which he was something so that you can have a change of perspective. Maybe you get caught in a sin, and you suffer, and you lose friends, and you lose trust, and maybe you lose your job. Maybe you lose your marriage, and you get caught. And in those moments, I've talked to many people of moments, I've been in those moments myself. In those moments, it is sometimes very easy to say or think that God must really hate me, right? I feel like I am going through the plagues personally. God must have done something wrong. Like, he started thinking back to me the last couple of months of your life. What did I do? Did I play with the Ouija board? Did I, you know, like, what happened? Why is God so mad at me? What's the stage I need to confess? How do I make this right? But let me just help you. Let me help you understand. And I've been told this in different seasons of my life too.

Friends, all that you're experiencing, all that pain is mercy. It's not judgment. It feels like judgment. It's mercy. It's mercy. When we are experiencing something like that, our prayer is God, thank you for my life. Show me what to do next. God, thank you for what's in front of me. I can only see what is not in front of me. I'm having children say what's in front of me. And so in that prayer, you say, God, thank you for what's in front of me. Show me what to do next. God is bringing things to bear on your life, things either that you don't want to deal with, things that you think could be kind of stowed away. But the Lord is bringing those things to bear on your life, not just so that you suffer, but so that you can become like Him, so that you can grow. Grow it's by a three to four. It says, we rejoice in our sufferings. It gives us a reason. We know that suffering produces endurance.

We know that endurance produces character. We don't care if it produces hope. And hope does not put shame because God's love and pour into our hearts, who the Holy Spirit, who has been given us. God brings suffering to your door to shape you. And that is a mercy. It's going to feel like judgment, but it's mercy. I had a friend who's not connected to his church at all. So I had a friend who was, he got caught in a late night conversation by his father-in-law. He got caught by his father in a late night conversation with a woman who was not his wife. And this guy was a pastor. And so at that point, his wife separated from him, took the kids with her, said, you got to go get an apartment. We're not getting back together for at least a year. We got a lot of stuff to come and work through and figure out. And so I helped him. On his side, she had somebody on her side, her counselor.

And there were many, many, many moments in that guy's life when he said, man, this just doesn't feel fair. And we have a pretty good relationship. And so I had a lot of freedom to just say things like, bro, you want fair? You will fair. You wanted to not get caught on the phone so that you could eventually cheat on your wife and lose your hearing. That's what you want.

You getting caught was a mercy. A mercy. Sometimes, you know, I've been teenagers. I have been teenagers for many years now. And getting caught always stinks. Like, it's just, it stinks like for you to be the one who catches them and I'm sure it stinks with them to get caught. It just happens. But the shirt is always there. Man, that's a mercy. It's a mercy that you got caught. It's a mercy because it's so much worse if you don't. And you might think like, no, no, no, I could have, this could have been just so easy. This could, I could have, I could have floated this. I could have pushed this through. Nobody would have known. It would have been fine. I've been out of the other side. No, no, no, you would not. It would not have gone as smoothly as you thought. Your history of your life in particular is any indication that like, how do you think something is going to go is how it actually goes.

I think you understand what I need when I say you're painting the picture prettier than it is. It's not going to happen that way. You getting caught is a mercy. Okay. Let's move into the next three signs. We're going to see something else. So the second movement is these middle three signs, signs four, five, and six, which are flies that are plague on the livestock, actually a plague, and then boils on the skin. So this is the middle of XS8 into XS9. And we can see a couple of things first. We can see that the signs are getting more severe. So XS824 tells us that the flies when they came, that they ruined the land. Okay. We hear that all the livestock died in 9-6. In 9-11, we see that the boils brought like debilitating sores. Now, we don't live in a new variant society right now, but if we did, we would understand all of our grain being gone is bad. All of our livestock dying is bad because that's where your food comes from.

Okay. This is not, so it's getting worse. And now people's health is starting to get affected. People came in and it says the magicians could not even stand before Pharaoh because of the boils. It's not really, do you remember had kind of an open sore and how painful that was? Everybody in Egypt had painful sores all over their body, all over their body, not just in the not sensitive areas. These are painful. These are shameful. These hurt a lot. These are bad things. They're getting, the signs are getting more severe. And then we see Pharaoh beginning to negotiate a little bit more because when the fourth sign hits, in XS825 and then in 28, it says, then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, go sacrifice with the Lord your God within the light. So he's saying, go, but you're going to sacrifice in Egypt. You're not going to sacrifice outside of Egypt. Pharaoh said, I will let you go sacrifice with the Lord your God

in the wilderness. Only you must not go very far away. Please. You can't go that far. You can go a little bit far. But that was not the deal. Moses and Aaron were saying, we need to go all the way out of the wilderness. We need to let my people go. We need to go all the way out here. We need to make sacrifices. So just understand, Pharaoh was not faced with, hey, Moses and Aaron and all the Israelites were all leading permanently. That was not the request that was given to Pharaoh. The request that was given to Pharaoh was, let us go out, let us go out, let us go out, let us go out. We need to go out and let all the people and all of our herds and all of our kids and we're going to go out and we're going to make sacrifices. And then we're going to come back. That was the request. You read Exodus 7, that is the request. And that's what Pharaoh doesn't want to do.

So he begins to negotiate. And this is, this is our kind of, this is our kind of negotiation, right? Can seem like negotiation. Pharaoh does it again with the seventh sign in Exodus 9, 27, 28. It says, then Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them, this time I have sinned, the Lord is in the right and I and my people are in the wrong. Okay. So Pharaoh is saying that of his own militia. Pharaoh is ready. Pharaoh is starting to repent. He started to figure out that just stuff is going sideways and he started, he started to negotiate. He says next, he says, click the Lord for there has been enough of God's thunder and hail. I will let you go. You shall stay no longer. Okay. But as soon as the hail is gone, hard heart. The eighth sign, Pharaoh says go, but only take the men. The ninth sign, he says, go, believe behind your flocks and hers. This whole time, fourth sign, seventh sign, eighth sign,

ninth sign, Pharaoh is negotiating and it is ironic because Pharaoh has the leverage. You can only negotiate a deal if you have leverage. You can't, but if you say, well, I'll only do this if you do this for me, but you're not in any position to bargain in his hard heart, in Pharaoh's hard heart. This is in one says, this is simple persistence. He just doesn't want to lose, right? This is a Pharaoh. This is a king who doesn't like losing it. So he doesn't want to lose, but instead of looking at this in terms of pride, which I'm sure it is there. So I'm not sure in Zof Pharaoh, instead of just looking at it in terms of pride, let's go logistics. Let's consider this from Pharaoh's perspective. Okay. Pharaoh does it. So he, he is afraid that Israel is going to just keep going, that they're not going to come back. So he is afraid of that, but that's not the request,

just to be clear. Logistically, what's he afraid of? Well, he doesn't want to cripple his country. Okay. The country over which he is king is heavily dependent upon slave labor, which, which that's all these are the slave labor. So he doesn't want to cripple his country. He doesn't want to slave and force a league, and he doesn't want to open his nation to an easy invasion. Right? In his mind, it makes sense to keep everybody there. And when we look at it his way, when we look at it in that perspective, I think it's easier to see ourselves in that position. Because if it's just a king being prideful, that's kind of just an eye roll for us. But if it's somebody who's saying, no, no, no, it would actually be pretty frustrating for me to have to deal with all these logistics, to have to rework my entire life, to have to change or my former case, to have to move, to have to quit my job,

to have to, to have to all these things, right? We start laying all those logistics down, and pretty soon when the Lord is asking us to do something, maybe sometimes something even very small, our response is to hold back from the Lord. The Lord's saying, hey, I want you to, I want you to leave this. I want you to stop doing this and start doing this. I want you to begin repent, we begin to repent of this thing and start doing something else. If it doesn't mean be perfect, but it means start confessing it, start repenting of it. Start kind of walking in that. When God calls you to do that, what do you negotiate with? What's your bargaining chip? What do you say to yourself? You say it's a small thing, like nobody's really going to ever find out? Maybe you say, like, hey, God, you can have all that, but this part is mine. It's my sexuality. It's my money. It's my life, my career, my friends.

It's what I want to do. I can just do this thing over here. And look, man, listen, as Americans in the 21st century, we are way more front of this than we think. And when we don't do this, or when we, when we're trying to negotiate with this, we hold things back to the Lord, but then we start saying, it's OK, well, maybe I'll confess it, but only in private to you. Or maybe I'll repent of this, but I'm only going to tell one person. I'm not going to seek forgiveness of the person that I've grown. I'm just going to tell all of this one person. And God, I'll make it up for you. I'll make it up to you. I'll go to church. I'll give you money. I'll be nicer. I won't cuss as much. Whatever you're kind of throwing down on the negotiation table to where you think, like, you think you and God are just at the table and you've got some things to offer. Listen, you're a lot like favorite.

Hey, can you got leverage? We absolutely have zero leverage. None. God is not impressed by what we can or cannot do. God is not freaking out by our failure. God is calling us specifically to do the things that he has asked us to do, not perfectly, not enough saying that we've got to be perfect. I'm saying that the Lord God in heaven, through His Holy Spirit, is saying things to you, convicting you, telling you things, and you are saying either, I don't want to do it or I'll do it later.

And all of our negotiation on this is ironic and futile. In effect, you are holding death in your hands and you're saying, it's not that bad. I could deal with this. My encouragement to you is to pray, God, I completely turn this over to you. I'll do whatever you need me to do. I'll tell whoever you want me to tell. I'll confess it. I'll do whatever you want. And let me tell you, friends, that is the essence of what it is to be a Christian. It's not just enough pretty on a Sunday. It's not coming to church. It's not reading your Bible. It's not praying. It is coming to the Lord, I guess, in this brain in one strict sense, but it is just coming. It is a heart posture, coming before the Lord and saying to the Lord, Lord, I will do what you want me to do in the manner that you are calling me to do it. I will not negotiate on this. I will just do, I will just surrender.

I will put my hands up and I will do what you ask me to do. That is your prayer. That's where this is to follow Jesus. Last place, last set, third movement. Hail, locusts, darkness. What do we see in this progression? Well, we've already seen Pharaoh negotiating more and he's kind of realizing slowly that he is losing. In Exodus 10, 7, it says, Then Pharaoh's servants said to him, How long shall this man be a sneer to us, Moses? How long shall this man be a sneer to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined? This is what Pharaoh's servants are saying to Pharaoh. Do you not yet understand that your nation is in the twine? Don't you know your life is ruined already? And in this movement, the seventh and eighth signs in particular, they destroyed the future of Egypt. Seventh sign, hail strikes down everything in the field.

Everything in the field. Eighth sign, the locusts come and they eat everything that the hail left behind. And the Bible says that there was not a green thing that remained. That's what Pharaoh says. The locusts came and took everything that was left. Everything that the hail had destroyed, everything that the gnats had to touch. They had to get the flies had ruined everything. Every livestock that was hanging around, everything. It was all gone. In the ninth sign, though, it's not just their future, it's their souls. In the ninth sign, it says, 10-21 says, Then the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be a darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt. Now I had to go into Hebrew on this. We're looking at a classic example of a Hithyl-Justin. I know. I was like, Hithyl-Justin? Just kidding. It's important to speak to Hebrew.

I'm really just showing off. I'm not trying to. Too hard. It is though, a darkness to be felt. Here's what that means. It carries a dense spiritual darkness, a tangible haunting that weighs them down. It says that they didn't leave their homes for three days. And it wasn't just because they couldn't see. When you and I live all ourselves, like we kind of feel our way through it, right? These are their homes. They're familiar with their layouts. They understand these things. They didn't get up for three days. A darkness to be felt. Do you know how scary that would be? To not get up from your home for three days because there was a tangible darkness that you felt, that you were afraid of, that you were haunted by something, that you had this, just that sense, like where your home alone, do you feel like somebody else is there or had that feeling? They had that feeling for three days and it never went away.

They could feel something or holding them down, weigh them down. A darkness to be felt. A tangible darkness. This is where we need to, this is kind of where the good news is, but we need to understand that knowing God can feel like dreadful joy. And sometimes there's not joy. And let me explain. Sometimes God is going to reveal Himself and people do not want it. Okay, God, I'm home. I'm here. I'm ready to unpack. Okay, let's start doing things. The Lord starts changing things in your life. And what's your response to that resistance? You start negotiating. Well, don't change that. You start trying to keep your life arranged like it's arranged. Could you like it that way? Right. That's happening. But God's coming. He's revealing Himself to somebody and they don't want it. And they run from God. You know people like this. You've been people like this. They run from God and their lives are filled with pain and tragedy and suffering,

often at their own hands. And they might even try to run harder. And God's hand is just heavy on them. God will not let them go and they are miserable. They are running from God. They don't want to give Him. And you might know somebody like that. You might know somebody like that today. And you might have even thought, I thought this. You might have even thought, like, how do I help them? What's the best thing to do for them? They, it's obvious. They are running the opposite direction. Right? They might, they're like Jonah. Okay, God tells them to go one way. They're going a different way. And they're just running great XP. I mean, they are trying to dive into as much junk as possible to ruin themselves as quick as possible so they got to walk on them. They are running. How do I help this person? You might be this person. You might be somebody like that. You might be asking somebody, what do I do?

I'm ready. I don't want to do what God's calling me to do. I know. I know He's calling me to do something. I don't want to do it. I'm actively, like, going the opposite direction, maybe in your head, like, you've negotiated that you're going to do it later in your life. Maybe that's what's going to happen. But that's not going to happen. Like, you think that's going to happen. And there's plenty of 80-year-olds who tell you that that's not going to happen. You might be trying to run. And you might be saying, what do I do? Let's go back to the signs. Let's go back to the purpose of the sign. Because the purpose of the sign actually is not that hard to see. It's several different places. Then in Exodus 7, verse 5, this is God talking to Moses and Aaron about what He's about to do. In 7, 5, He says, the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand

against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from Amun. This is before the first place starts. God wants all of Egypt to know that Yahweh is God. Yahweh is the Lord. Look at what Moses is saying whenever the frogs are leaving. This is Exodus chapter 8, verse 10. And Moses said to Pharaoh, be it as you say, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. Okay. All right. We've got the fourth sign here. Now letting the flies touch his people. This is what happens in Exodus 8, 22. But on that day, God says, I will set apart the land of Goshen. The land of Goshen was a kind of severed of Egypt and it was where all these realites lived. Okay. He says, but on that day, I will set apart the land of Goshen so that no swarms of flies will be there. Why? That you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth. The ultimate purpose for the signs is for people to meet and know God in heaven.

The purpose of the signs is so that Egypt, and not just Egypt, but everybody who hears from it, and not just Israel, but all their children, everybody is going to know that there is a God in heaven who is real. And who will do what he says he will do? Exodus 9, 14 through 16. I'll just read 14 right now. It says, for this time, I will set all my place on you and yourself, talking this is, God talking Pharaoh, in all your servants and your people. Why? So that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. This is the beginning of the seventh sign. He continues, and this is what we read before, but I want to read it with another verse after. This is Exodus 9, 15 through 16. It says, for by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with tessellates, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose, I have raised you up to show you my power, that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.

God has been merciful to Pharaoh, so that his name would be proclaimed in all the earth. Let me just give you one more, just in case you aren't convinced yet. This is in Exodus chapter 10, verse, first two verses. It says, I have hardened Pharaoh's heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs among them, and that you may tell them in the hearing of your son and your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians, and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord. Listen, I hope you're convinced. I hope you understand. The reason that God put these signs, the reason that all this is happening, the reason, actually, 17, 9, 10 are happening for that reason and that order, and then he's going to let it 12, which is where we're going to be next week, for the 10th sign, which is where we're going to be coding for Easter.

Boy, how are we? We're going to have Easter Sunday talking about the Passover. It's going to be great. You might be asking yourself, and I hope you are, you might be asking yourselves, why is God so interested in Egypt, knowing who he is? Why is God so interested in his name being proclaimed? It's kind of curious, is it? Why would we want that? That seems strange for somebody to want, right? Like, I'm going to do all these things to all these people so that they will know who I am, and when we say it like that, we are fronting. We are trying to build a good reputation for ourselves, and we're a scary reputation for ourselves, right? So we might say, like, you know, hey, if somebody punches you in the face, you punch them back harder so that you know, so that they know, and they can tell their friends never to mess with you. Like, whenever you show up to the new job, you find the biggest bully,

and you put him in his place so that everybody knows not to mess with you. You've heard that? Right? That's us securing our own reputation. That is not what God is doing. God's reputation is just fine. His reputation is secure. Why? Why do you let the people want to know? Why does he want other people to know who he is? Well, it's not too hard, but it is very hard. You've got to know. It's like one sentence that says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Harvest one-seven. You let that be your light verse. Okay? Grab your beer. Mineralize it. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And it means that you think you know something, but if you don't fear God, you have a powerful place to play. You might, you might know catalogs of information. You might be the smartest person that, that, among all your friends, that's great.

But if you don't fear the Lord, that doesn't lead you to a living thing. You don't, you don't know how to use that information. It's like being book smart without being street smart. You don't know how to apply what you know. You don't, you don't understand what you understand. You don't have a way to do that. And when you know God, then you can know knowledge. You can know wisdom. You can understand how it's all supposed to flow because when you do that, when you know God and worship God, order happens. It doesn't mean things are perfect, but it does mean that order happens. Another reason why God wants everybody to know Him is because to know God is the only cure for humanity. Psalm 4, September 8 says, You have put more joy in my heart than they have when they're grained and whined at them. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone. Oh Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Hmm. Or join. You ever have fitful night's sleep? You're tossed in turn. You know why you did that? Because you were concerned about something that you wanted to control. That's the reason that people can't sleep typically. Jim, do you know why the psalmist says if Psalm 4, 8 in peace, I'll keep a flight and stay for you alone. Oh Lord, make me dwell in safety. Because that psalmist knows God and that psalmist knows that even though that the thing that is bugging them, that they want to control, that sees they have a lot of influence over their life or didn't like that, the thing that they want to control that's going to make them lose sleep, they can understand and know and trust that the maker of the universe has it under control. That God is ordering all of these things that they can trust God for the next step and the next step and the next step and the next.

And when you don't have that, you can't lie down and sleep in safety. You can't put your head on your pillow and know that everything's going to be fine. You can't do it. You can make a way to trick yourself. You can cope. You can lie. But you can't do it for sure. The best thing, the absolute best thing, number one top thing for anybody who is hurting or running from God. If you're hurting and you're running from God, the best thing for you for that is healing and wholeness that can only be found in knowing God. Let me say it again. If anybody is hurting, the only path to healing and wholeness is knowing God. Peri. And I realize there are over a million tectops telling you different. I realize that. But let me just help you. The wisdom of walking in healing and wholeness is not found in some counseling institutes. It's the great. They didn't just unearth this magical truth five minutes ago and they're sharing on their Instagram.

And then you're reading you're like, oh, I just I've never seen that before. This is amazing. This is brand new. No, baby. It's not. It is. It is this. It is the cell. Whatever you are dealing with, whatever you are dealing with, the best thing, the path to healing and wholeness is for you to be in a right relationship with your Creator. The only way that happens is with Jesus. The only way that happens, the only way we know God is because we believe that Jesus is God's Son. The only way that we can be a Christian is if we understand that Jesus, we needed Jesus so that we can know God. What God is doing to the Egyptians right here, all the dramatic and traumatic, He is disabusing them of the notion that they can make it worshiping these other gods. He is helping them understand that He is the one. And there is no friends. That's a remedy. That is a remedy.

Whatever is alien you and I'm sure I'm going to get accused of being overly simplistic at this point. I don't care. Whatever is able. The best thing is for you to go. And I'm not telling you any problems going to go away tomorrow. But I am telling you, you want healing and wholeness, it's only fair to God. It's not a tip or a trick or a silver bullet or nothing else. It's in God to those who feel like they are losing ground spiritually. Maybe you're running from God, although I'm like a specific issue. Maybe you're running from God with the same thing. And like, Lord, just brought you here this morning. Welcome. You're the glider here. Can you show this brassy mouthless that you're here? But awesome. If you are hurting, if you are running, if you are hurting yourself and others, and you can't seem to stop. If everywhere you go, there's pain and suffering and you're the common denominator.

Like if that is happening to you, if all your relationships mysteriously just end poorly. I'm not saying it's all you, but I'm saying it's part of me. Like if you're either the least lucky person in the world or there's something wrong with how you're approaching relationships. Like the only path to having good friendships is healing your wholeness. The only path to having a great marriage, and marriage count is happening in two weeks. The only path to a good marriage is healing and wholeness in the Lord. Because there's more than coping out there. I know coping sometimes, you need to cope just to make it. I get that. I understand there is more than coping out there. There's healing. There's wholeness. There's more than just making it to the weekend. There's more than just you having young everything all the time. You don't want to think about what you're doing about it.

Here's my notation. Step into the dreadful joy of knowing God personally. Because it is dreadful. God's power. If I can't help but loosen up and put self in my health, it's off. It's gone a while. But it's completely true. As you think God can't, you just don't know where you're maybe worshiping. This is God as a happen, the maker of happen earth. Nobody tells them what to do. Nobody derails his plans. Nobody surprises. Nobody hides anything. You think you hide some songs you got back now? Okay, but he knows your innermost need. You know he's got it. You think y'all know who I'm got? You got any more prepared? You're just playing games. Stop. There's no being. It's not good. Step into the dreadful joy of viewing God first. The fear of the Lord is beginning to get you down. The reason the triples have just got us out. He's just. He doesn't like excellent. But it's joy because he invites you.

It's dreadful and it's true. It's both. I'll leave you with this. These signs that we talk about, they're only plagues of the Egyptians. Pick one. These signs are only plagues of the Egyptians. In your life, are you responding like those that sit there? God allows you to choose. Choose. Choose well. Make accounts. Let's pray.