April 28
Judg 8:18-9:21 | PS 99:1-9 | Prov 14:9-10 | Luke 23:44-24:12
There were ten plagues that God dealt the Egyptians before the Israelites were freed from their bondage. The ninth plague was darkness which we read about in Exodus 10:21-22, "Then the Lord said to Moses, “Lift your hand toward heaven, and the land of Egypt will be covered with a darkness so thick you can feel it.” So Moses lifted his hand to the sky, and a deep darkness covered the entire land of Egypt for three days." Realize that so much in the Old Testament was both immediately relevant and also served as a foreshadowing of a later fulfillment, as we read in Luke 22:44-45 as Jesus hung on the cross paying for the sins of mankind, "By this time it was about noon, and darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. The light from the sun was gone...". This Egyptian plague immediately preceded the tenth and final plague, the death of the firstborn, when God supernaturally preserved the lives of the Israelites through the blood of the Passover Lamb being painted on the doorposts of their houses. We read in Luke 23:45-46, "... And suddenly, the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn down the middle. Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands! And with those words he breathed his last.” By the tearing of the veil, which formerly only allowed passage of the High Priest, and that only once a year direct access to the Mercy Seat, we have all been granted direct access through the blood of Jesus, and having been covered by His blood the sting of death has passed over us. Interestingly there is to be one more time of utter darkness, prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 24:29, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will give no light; the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken"., which we see will be fulfilled just prior to Jesus' second coming, as we read in Revelation 16:10, " Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. His subjects ground their teeth in anguish,". Coincidence? I don't think so.
God is real! The Bible is real and can be trusted. On earth, we have those who choose not to believe. Though some will lead relatively moral lives, the depths of depravity that godless individuals are capable of can be astounding, as we read of Abimilech, who for the thirst of power unimaginably slaughtered all of his half-brothers except one, as we read in Judges 9:5, "He went to his father’s home at Ophrah, and there, on one stone, they killed all seventy of his half brothers, the sons of Gideon. But the youngest brother, Jotham, escaped and hid." Interestingly, those who do choose to follow God can lose their way and mistakenly cause others to do the same, as we read of Gideon who mightily through God conquered the Midianites, yet we read in Judges 8:27, "Gideon made a sacred ephod from the gold and put it in Ophrah, his hometown. But soon all the Israelites prostituted themselves by worshiping it, and it became a trap for Gideon and his family."
This is why it is imperative that we stay fixed on the Word of God, day after day, year after year. When we choose which books or sections that we deem worthy of our time and attention, we make ourselves our own little gods, somehow, we believe we know better than God by eliminating those sections we, in our puffed-up mindset deem boring or irrelevant. For those who have not yet entered into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, they need to realize the depravity of their own sin and their only hope through the blood of Jesus Christ. For those of us who are in a relationship with Jesus, the road is long, and the pitfalls are many. Many start strong only to finish weak. Others simply get trapped along the way taking one wrong turn after another. May we stay in His Word, stay on course, so that one day, we can say as Paul did in 2 Timothy 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful."
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: