Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Open your Bibles to Exodus 10.

In just a moment, I will read verses 21-29.

This sermon is part of a preaching series through the book of Exodus called “Only One God.”

There is only one God — the Lord, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Sustainer of all life and breath, and the Redeemer of His people!

Only one God is powerful, and only one God is present.

Exodus began with Hebrew midwives who feared God, not the king of Egypt.

There is only one God, and He is to be feared and obeyed, and from the beginning of Exodus the Scriptures make clear that Pharoah was not that God!

These Hebrew midwives courageously disobeyed Pharoah’s order to kill male babies born of the Hebrews because they feared the LORD.

Exodus then introduced Moses’s parents, who the Scriptures later tell us had faith to hide baby Moses and preserve him alive because they did not fear the king’s edict.

Moses too, had faith when he grew up, for he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin (Heb 11.24-25).

Exodus tells us how Moses attempted to save his brothers from the Egyptians and even killed an Egyptian in the process, only to find out that God’s people would not be delivered in Moses’ timing by Moses’ strength, but by God alone and in God’s timing.

God calls Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt but Moses questions his ability to do what God has called Him to do.

Moses comes up with many excuses as to why God should not choose him.

Moses pleads with God to send someone else!

But God chose Moses, and God promised that God would be with him.

God is not concerned with Moses’ inadequacies or flaws.

God did not call Moses because of what Moses could offer God.

Rather, God would be present with Moses and God’s presence would be sufficient for every need and would guarantee God’s purposes would be accomplished.

God sends Moses with his brother Aaron to be His witnesses to Pharoah, speaking His word to Pharoah, that Israel should be released to offer His worship — God’s worship — to Him in the wilderness.

But Pharaoh rejects God’s witnesses, God’s word, and God’s worship and will not let the people of Israel go.

Pharoah hardens his heart, and refuses to obey because Pharoah does not know the Lord.

So God works and performs amazing signs and wonders in Egypt.

Whether they are “great acts of judgment” or “great acts of deliverance” depends on what side of faith a person is on.

Regardless, God displays His patience, and mighty power in Egypt and to Pharoah in the sight of Israel so that God’s power and God’s name might be proclaimed in all the earth!

(Ex 9:16-17).

Exodus is about God!

And so let us appeal to God for His help as we hear His Word proclaimed today.

Prayer

Father, by Your Holy Spirit give us eyes that we might see, ears that we might hear, and hearts that we might receive, believe and obey Your Word.

In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

I.

The Reading

A reading from Exodus 10:21-29, reading from the English Standard Version translation of the Bible.

This is God’s Word:

Say Amen

If you receive this word by faith as the word of God, not the word of men, will you say Amen? — Amen!

II.

The Exhortation

As Egypt is plunged into pitch darkness, God’s Word tells us it is no ordinary darkness.

This is “a darkness to be felt.”

This is the ninth plague.

The ninth sign.

The ninth strike against Egypt and its king who refuses time and time again, to let Israel go to worship the LORD.

These nine plagues begin in Chapter 7:14 and may be divided into three series.

Strike One: Water Turned to Blood

In the first series, the water of Egypt is turned to blood.

The fish in the Nile died, the Nile stank, and the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile.

The magicians of Egypt were able to do the same by their secret arts, so Pharoah did not even take this plague to heart.

Strike Two: Frogs

Then, days later, the Lord plagues the country with a swarm of frogs.

The frogs were everywhere, in the house, in the bedrooms, on the bed of servants and people, in the ovens and kneading bowls.

The magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts.

Pharaoh pleads that the frogs be taken away, but when they are Pharoah hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses.

Strike Three: Gnats

Then for the third plague, Aaron stretches out his staff and strikes the dust of the earth, so that all the dust of the earth becomes gnats in all the land of Egypt.

The magicians of Egypt recognized with this third plague, the gnats, that this was the work of God.

They could not mimic it by their secret arts.

So the magicians of Egypt said in Exodus 8:19 -

“This is the finger of God.” (Ex 8.19)

Then the second series of plagues begins.

Strike Four: Flies

These consist of a great swarm of flies so that all the land of Egypt was ruined by the flies.

Strike Five: Livestock Die

Then the fifth plague, where the Egyptian’s livestock die — but only the Egyptian’s, as the Lord makes a distinction between what belongs to Egypt and what belongs to Israel.

Strike Six: Boils

Lastly, the sixth plague, boils break out in sores on man and beast throughout all the land of Egypt.

The third series of plagues is the most severe.

Strike Seven: Hail

God rains down heavy hail with fire flashing from heaven, so that everything that was in the field in all the land of Egypt, both man and beast was struck down.

Every plant of the field was struck down and every tree broken.

But the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, saw no hail.

Strike Eight: Locusts

Then a dense swarm of locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country, covering the face of the whole land, eating the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left so that not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

Strike Nine: Darkness

The last of the nine plagues is this darkness.

“A darkness to be felt.”

There is a repetition and pattern to these plagues.

Some come with a warning, others do not.

Some come with instructions for Moses and Aaron, others do not.

Progressively, they get worse.

Progressively, Pharoah’s heart gets harder.

So that at the conclusion of this ninth plague, the plague of darkness, Pharoah’s heart is not only hardened yet again — so that he will not let Israel go, yet again — but Pharaoh sends Moses away never to see his face again.

At the conclusion of this plague, Pharaoh rejects finally and fully, his last witness to God’s light, the word of the Lord, and the witness of the Lord, as he says to Moses in verse 28 —

“Get away from me!”

— and sends Moses out from his presence.

By sending Moses out from his presence, Pharaoh is throwing God away.

Pharaoh is casting God out.

But no one can cast God out!

No one can flee from God’s presence!

David, who believed in God, prayed in Psalm 139 —

1 John 5:1 tells us that God is light!

And in Him is no darkness at all.

And so this plague of darkness, “a darkness to be felt,” represents Pharoah’s complete rejection of the presence and power of God.

But God remains present, and God remains powerful, and God’s presence and power will be known in all of Egypt and to Pharoah— even though Pharoah rejects Him.

And so there will be yet one more plague — one last plague after this darkness.

The tenth plague — from darkness to death.

A plague that will bring death to all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.

But before the final tenth plague, God gives Pharoah one last light in this darkness.

One last opportunity to repent, before final judgment.