This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to week three of our look together, our study together through the book
of Exodus. Doing a chapter a day, that means we're going to look at chapters 11
to 15 this week. As we come to chapter 11, we're right on the cusp, we're right
on the edge of God doing something miraculous in the people of Israel, setting
them free from the land of Egypt where they had been captive for more than 400
years, but we're also right on the edge of something horrific happening to the
Egyptians because Pharaoh would not listen.

His entire country suffers a great, great, great loss. Listen to what's going to
happen. God's just sort of setting us up for what's going to happen in the next
chapter here in chapter 11.

Let me read first of all, verse one, "Now the Lord said to Moses, 'I will bring
one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, He will let you go from
here, and when He does, He will drive you out completely. " Down in verse four,
"So Moses said, 'This is what the Lord says, 'After midnight I will go
throughout 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, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. '" And then down in verses
nine and 10, "The Lord said to Moses, 'Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you, so
that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt. Moses and Aaron performed all these
wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and He would not
let the Israelites go out of His country.

" This last plague is about to happen, the death of the firstborn, and it's a
good place for us to stop and to review first what's happening in what God's
plan is as He unfolds it in the people of Israel and also in Egypt, but also
what's happening in our heart, what's happening in our lives as we've been
studying through this book of Exodus. First as we look at what's happening in
the people, the people of Egypt and the people of Israel, this last plague is
about to happen. And these plagues, as we've looked through, you've seen they've
been all about the gods of Egypt, whether it was the sun god and so everything
became dark, or the frog god and so frogs were multiplied everywhere, or here
the god of the firstborn.

That was one of their gods, one of their greatest gods, and God's going to judge
this god as well. Remember we've said as we've walked through this study that
God will judge that which is binding you, and He will judge this god. Now many
people look at this and they think, "How could this happen?

That's a horrible thing. " And it happened because Pharaoh continued to harden
his heart. As we read through, sometimes we read Pharaoh hardened his heart,
sometimes we read God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and we dealt with that a few
days ago talking about the fact that although God knew what Pharaoh's choice
would be, He brought circumstances into Pharaoh's life that caused that choice
to become more and more and more calamitous for the entire nation of Egypt.

Here it's important for us to realize why it is that Pharaoh hardened his heart
and why it is that God knew Pharaoh would harden his heart when these
circumstances came against him. Pharaoh hardened his heart because he had the
wrong gods. The wrong god, if you're serving the wrong thing, if you're living
for the wrong thing, the wrong god makes you stubborn to the point of your own
destruction.

And sometimes the destruction of all those who are around you. We think when we
read what happens here in Egypt that this happened a long time ago, but
sometimes we forget that the same thing happens today. There are some who make
alcohol their god.

They live for that next drink. That's what they're living for. Your whole life
revolves around what you can drink, around that addiction in your life.

And if you refuse to let go of that wrong god, that wrong god will make you
stubborn to the point of your own destruction. It's destroying you physically,
it's destroying your job, but you just keep drinking. And it also makes you
stubborn to the destruction many times of those who are around you, your own
family, the people that you love the most.

We see this maybe not in national ways today, but we certainly see it in
personal ways. The wrong god certainly causes you to harden your heart against
God's direction, the true God's direction in your life. And as we've seen
throughout this study, the wrong god is not a true god.

It's just something I put in the place of God. It's something that I worship
instead of God because I think it makes me better, because I think it makes me
stronger, because I think it helps me escape, because it's become the addiction
of my life. And it really is all about the stubbornness that begins to overwhelm
me then.

This is a deep, deep lesson in the danger of having the wrong god in your life.
Now as we're walking through this book, the book of Exodus, we're also walking
through how God can set you free, how God can set you free. And we've seen many
principles.

The events are coming so fast, it's easy to miss the principles that we've
looked at. There are so many of them. So today as we begin this look at chapters
11 to 15, and there's going to be some incredible events that we're going to see
these next few days, these next few chapters.

This is a good day for us to go back and review, what does it mean to be set
free? What does God do in our lives? Let's remind ourselves of those principles
we've already looked at, four principles.

If I'm going to be set free, number one, someone must trust God. And in Moses'
case, it was his mother who trusted God and saved him from Pharaoh, saved him
from death. It might be you who trusts God, it might be somebody who's praying
for you, but in order to be set free of that addiction, in order to be set free
of that fear, in order to be set free of that past, whatever it is in your life,
some passion in your life, someone must trust God.

Someone is praying for you. That's where it begins. And if you're not sure if
anyone else is trusting God for you, then you do it.

You trust him. The second thing that you and I have learned from the book of
Exodus in order to be set free is I have to realize I cannot do this on my own
power. It's how Moses started.

He killed an Egyptian. He thought he could do it by himself. Somehow, he'd be
the great leader, and the people rejected him.

How are you going to do this? They could tell by looking at Moses, you cannot
come up against this entire Egyptian government on your own power. I cannot do
this on my own power.

The problem with me, the problem with most of us, is we think we can do some of
this on our own power, a little of this on our own power. And because of that,
somehow, we're not able to recognize that we deeply and truly need God's power.
Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit.

" To be poor in spirit is to realize I need God's power in my life. And that's
the third principle that we learned. First, someone must trust God.

Second, I can't do this on my own power. The third principle is I am in
desperate need of God's power. This is the principle that God taught Moses at
the burning bush.

And every one of us in our lives, we need a burning bush experience, a place in
our where we come to the end of ourselves and we realize I need God's power in
my life. Once that happens, sometimes we think it's over, I'm free, it's all
done, but the truth is it's just begun. Because after I realize that I'm in
desperate need of God's power, then God begins to work in my life.

And one of the first things he does is the fourth principle we've looked at. He
brings us face to face with our biggest obstacle. Someone must trust God.

I can't do this on my own power. I'm in desperate need of God's power. And then
I must face my biggest obstacle.

For Moses, that was Pharaoh. If you're going to be set free, it's not going to
be by ignoring your biggest obstacle, running away from your biggest obstacle,
pretending your biggest obstacle is not there. The only way to be set free is to
face your biggest obstacle.

It's the biggest obstacle because it's the thing that's been keeping you from
being set free. And every one of us, myself included, we want to be set free
without facing that thing. But you have to face it.

You face your biggest obstacle. And what a lesson we've seen in the life of
Moses as he battled with Pharaoh, as he fought his biggest obstacle. First faced
it and then he fought it.

We've seen the different barriers that you're going to have to face in that
biggest obstacle. The barrier of intensification, it gets worse before it gets
better. The barrier of doubt, I face my doubts about myself, my doubts about
others, and the fact that God's presence and promise and protection are with us
to help us with our doubts.

The barrier of confusion, it doesn't always work like I thought it was going to
work. So what's God doing? It certainly does not work as fast as I wanted it to
work.

And then the barrier of compromise, being constantly tempted to compromise so
that that biggest obstacle stays in our life somehow. I have to face my biggest
obstacle. Now this week, as we look through the rest of this week, we're going
to find that Moses and we together with him learn how God breaks through these
barriers in a way to bring us to a place of freedom.

And then we're going to begin to see how helps us to live in a place of freedom.
As we think about what it means to be set free in our lives, as we're in our
third week of this, let's take a moment to talk personally to God about what it
means for you, for me, to be set free. Jesus, I want to learn from the life of
Moses.

You've told us in the New Testament that these stories are here for our
encouragement, for our strengthening. So I don't want to just see this as a nice
story from the past. I want to learn from the life of Moses, from the people of
Israel.

How do I be set free from that, which is keeping me from faith, keeping me from
trust, keeping me from serving? How can I be set free? Show me, Jesus, show me
what's in my way.

Show me how to trust you. Show me I can't do this on my own power. Show me how
desperately I need your power.

Show me that even as I face my biggest obstacle, you will be there with me. I
ask this in your name, amen. Tomorrow, in Exodus chapter 12, we're going to see
what we can learn from the Passover.