(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him, and that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them, that ye may know how that I am the Lord. And we talked about this last week, this issue of God hardening Pharaoh's heart, and he's something that has come up multiple times in the book of Exodus here, and it's very important to understand this because a lot of people have just completely lost this doctrine today in 2019. They can't understand the concept that God would ever harden someone's heart, that God would ever darken their understanding or blind their eyes, but yet we see that that happens throughout scripture. But the important thing to remember is that God does not just do this to someone, he does God does not just do this to someone against their will, or just at random, or he just picks someone to do this to, but we see that people go down a certain path that leads to them to this point. And if you read Romans chapter 1, it outlines that downward spiral in great detail, how when they know God, they glorify him not as God, they're not thankful, they become vain in their imaginations, and then what? Their foolish heart is darkened, and it talks about God gave them up, God gave them over. And Pharaoh is a perfect example of someone whose heart is hardened by God. The Bible talks about in John chapter 12, they could not believe because God had hardened their heart and blinded their eyes. And that's why people need to get saved before it's too late. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation, because eventually if you just keep saying no to God, then eventually God's going to walk away. And that's what we see all throughout the Bible. Now that's not necessarily the hallmark greeting card version of it, you know, hey, there's hope until they breathe their last breath. Not necessarily because there are some people where God gives them over. And God hardened their heart. They cross a line with God, and they're doomed. And Pharaoh was definitely in that category. And so we see God now is just using Pharaoh as his punching bag. He's just hardening Pharaoh's heart so that he can do more plagues and punish Egypt more just to show his glory, and so that this will be told in the ears of thy son, he says in verse 2, and of thy son's son. God's going to continue to be glorified for this thousands of years later, even into 2019. We're still talking about it, and it's still an example for today. And by the way, this is a foreshadowing of what's going to happen in the end times in the book of Revelation. Still coming in the future are plagues worse than the plagues of Egypt, and it won't just be limited to Egypt, but they'll actually be poured out upon this entire world. So it says in verse number 3, and Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? Let my people go that they may serve me. Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? Behold, tomorrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast, and they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth. And they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field. And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of the Egyptians, which neither thy fathers, nor thy father's fathers, have seen since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh. Now this plague of the locusts might not seem like that big of a deal as these plagues are ramping up in intensity. But you have to understand that this is their livelihood. This is their food. That which grows in the field is what they live off of. And these locusts come through and just eat every green thing. They destroy the entire food supply. People are going to be starving. People are going to lose all their wealth, all their food. They're not going to have anything left. And you can see how serious this is because look at how Pharaoh's servants react in verse 7. Pharaoh's servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? I mean even Pharaoh's own guys are saying to him, Look, our whole country is destroyed. Let them go. Get these people out of here. Why does he not let them go? Because God hardened his heart. He wants to do all 10 plagues. Now today we have insecticides and pesticides that would just take care of this locust problem. The only problem is then we have to ingest all those pesticides. We have to eat all that poison in our food. But even recently in history there were plagues of locusts that came through even in the United States and wiped out crops and just destroyed people's livelihoods. I mean throughout history this has been a serious thing. Nowadays when there's a plague of the locusts they just ramp up the chemicals and then people die for a different reason. But anyway, the locusts coming through, this is a very scary thing for them. It's very serious that they would come through and just eat every green thing, eat all the food and nothing's going to be left. It says in verse 8, And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh, and he said unto them, Go serve the Lord your God, but who are they that shall go? Which people are we talking about here? Are we talking about the whole family? Is this just going to be the men? Who exactly is going? And Moses said in verse 9, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds where we go, for we must hold a feast unto the Lord. And he said unto them, Let the Lord be so with you as I will let you go and your little ones. Look to it for evils before you, not so. Go now ye that are men and serve the Lord. For that ye did desire. He's like, that's all you got. When you asked, you said it was just the men that were going. Of course, Moses never said anything like that. But he's claiming, well, you originally said it was just the men. You think I'm going to let you bring your kids with you? No way. Get out of here. And he cast them out of his sight. They were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. Basically, Pharaoh says, drag these, get these guys out of here. They're just shoved out the door. They're gone. Now it's interesting. There are a couple of different statements like this from Pharaoh where he tries to limit what they do here. Who's going to go? How far are you going to go? In fact, let's back up to chapter 8 and go to verse 28. Chapter 8, verse 28. We see something similar. It says in verse 28 of chapter 8 and Pharaoh said, I will let you go that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness, only you shall not go very far away. Intreat for me. Because remember, they said we're going three days' journey into the wilderness. And Pharaoh's trying to say, well, don't go that far. That's too far. Don't go very far away. And so there's a spiritual significance here. Pharaoh here represents the devil. And leaving Egypt represents coming out from among them and being separate, you know, living a godly Christian separated life where you're actually serving God in the wilderness, right? Because it's let my people go that they may serve me in the wilderness. And so we are called as Christians to go outside the camp, to go into the wilderness, not physically but spiritually, to come out from among them and be separate, serve God, be a peculiar people. And the devil doesn't want us to do that. So what the devil wants us to do is not to go too far. He wants to keep us kind of one foot in the world, one foot in the Christian life. See, once you're saved, the devil can't make you unsaved. Because once you're saved, you're always saved. I mean, Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. It says in Philippians chapter 1, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So when you got saved, I mean, there's nothing that can change that. That battle is already lost to the devil. So now his next goal would be to stop you from getting baptized, stop you from getting in church, stop you from reading your Bible, stop you from praying, stop you from going soul-willing, stop you from cleaning up your life. So the devil's message is, don't go too far. At the end of verse 28, you shall not go very far away. And isn't that what the worldly people will try to tell you today, okay, great, be a Christian, but just don't go too far. Don't be extremist. Don't be fanatical. Don't just get all in, you know, okay, be a Christian, but how about Sunday morning? What do you need Sunday night for? What do you need Wednesday night for? You know, what, soul-willing? You know, you're crazy, you're overboard. It's okay to be a Christian so long as you don't go too far. I mean, isn't that really what American culture is telling us right now? They're not against you being a Christian. They're fine with you being a Christian. They're fine with you believing the Bible. Just don't go too far. Don't become fundamentalist, extremist, don't, you know, that's the constant message is don't take it too far. And then the other message, if we jump over to Chapter 10 is, okay, you that are men serve the Lord. So if the devil can't stop you from serving the Lord, then he'll try to get your family from not serving the Lord or the kids from not serving the Lord. You know, he would love it if the parents are serving God, but if they don't pass that on to their children. And so the message is, oh, you know, you're brainwashing your children or you can't make them go to church. Don't make them read the Bible. They have to decide for themselves and stuff like that. But of course, when it comes to going to school, they don't want them to decide for themselves. The policeman will come by and get them for truancy if they're not doing any kind of schooling, right? Why don't they just let them decide for themselves? I mean, should we let them decide for themselves if they're going to brush their teeth? Should we let them decide for themselves what they want to eat for breakfast? Ice cream, cake, whatever. I mean, do they decide what they're going to eat, what they're going to wear, where they're going to go? Hey, if they want to play in the street, I'm just going to let them decide for themselves, right? Wrong. And my house, we will serve the Lord. And so Moses said, we will go with our young and with our old. We're bringing everybody. Hey, I'm not just going to serve the Lord. My wife's going to serve the Lord and my kids are going to serve the Lord. The whole family's going to serve the Lord. We're not going to leave the little ones behind. Want everybody to serve the Lord. And you know, this is one of the reasons why we have the children in the service at Faith Forward Baptist Church, which is not what most churches do. The vast majority of churches will take the kids out of the service, put them in a separate service or a junior church or a Sunday school or something like that. But we think it's very important that even little children get hard preaching and they actually learn to worship the Lord in real big boy church. We want our young and our old to worship together. If you stop and think about it, you've got the other kind of church, right? So this is big boy church, right? So you come to church, we sing hymns, we read a chapter of the Bible, there's preaching out of the Bible, we read and it's expounded and so forth. Well, there are a lot of churches out there today that are more like a fun center kind of church. Smoke and purple lights and a lot of these churches, you'll go on Sunday morning and you'll get like an hour of music and then maybe like a 15 minute little sermonette from the pastor who's got like holes in his jeans. He's wearing like a graphic tee and he just kind of gets up there and kind of talks to you about being a Jesus follower for like 15 minutes or something. It's very shallow and it's all about the music. It's all about having fun. It's all about the coffee shop in the lobby and there's very little substance. It's a positive only message, et cetera. Well, stop and think about this. You see a lot of young people that grow up in an independent fundamental Baptist church and then when they become an adult, that's what they go to. And you wonder, how does this happen? But then when you stop and look at an independent fundamental Baptist church, typically what they'll do, they'll separate the kids and put them in a separate service. What is that service like? It's basically exactly what you get in the liberal church. Think about it. Because like in an independent fundamental Baptist church, you've got an emphasis on Bible preaching. You got a lot of Bible reading. You're singing hymns. It's a man preaching behind the pulpit. Okay. But what's happening over in the junior church? There's a lot of cookies and Kool-Aid, flannel graph, and then the music is not the same. You know, it's somewhere in outer space, God has prepared a place for those who, right? It's all this kind of wild music. It's all fun and games, animal crackers, Kool-Aid, often it's a woman preacher in the junior church. They'll have a woman teaching the class. And then you wonder why they grow up and it was their Joyce Meyer. Why? That's what you taught them when you sent them to junior church where they had a female preacher and they had cookies and candy and a big wild time and games and a little 15 minute lesson. You know, those kind of lessons on Noah's Ark where the whole world doesn't die. Folks, the story of Noah's Ark is about God wiping out the population of the whole planet and saving eight people. But how many times have you gone to junior church and heard a story of Noah's Ark where the whole world doesn't even get killed? It's just all about the animals coming on the ark two by two. Now, you wonder why? Because train up a child in the way he should go and when he's old, he'll not depart from it. And you end up reverting back to the stuff from when you were a kid. Okay. You know, when I was a little kid, two, three, four, five, six years, we were in independent fundamental Baptist churches listening to hard preaching and here I am today. When I was a teenager, we went to all these liberal churches, but then I ended up reverting back to those roots of being fundamental, okay? And I've talked to a whole bunch of other people too who started out in church at a young age and even when they got away from the Lord for a long time, they reverted back to that. Just like Moses. I mean, Moses himself was raised by his mother just for those first few years of his life. Then he was thrown into the Egypt school system. He was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but what happened when he was 40 years old? He reverted back to the faith of his parents and he worshiped the Lord and he became their deliverer from bondage and here he is saying, let my people go. Why is he standing up to Pharaoh and doing that? Because of the seeds that were planted by his parents when he was just a little child and Jacob and Amram raised him for those first few years of his life. So it's very important that our children are exposed to real church and we don't need to give them some other Bible version like, oh, they can't handle the King James. They're too little to understand it. Let's give them a new King James. Let's give them an NIV. No, just start them out on the King James from the beginning because everybody knows that little babies and toddlers and children are programmed to learn language, right? That's when they can learn languages. Well, good. Let's teach them the language of the King James Bible from the cradle. They can know all the these and the those and understand the Bible like the back of their hand and not get all into one of these dumbed down new living translation Bibles or something like that and so we're going to go with our young and with our old, you know, and that's why it's great to take your kids out soul winning as well. Get them out there and just expose them to the concept of soul winning. Well, I think they're young. I don't think they're understanding anything. Even babies and toddlers in the service right now are understanding something. They're getting more out of it than you think. They're like a little sponge just absorbing that this is what church is like, okay? And this is the kind of church that we want them to go to when they grow up, amen? We want them to go to a real church where they're getting real doctrine, where they're doing real work for the Lord. We don't want them to go to some watered down fun center, so don't put some other service on across the parking lot that's a watered down fun center service. And then it's like, okay, now all of a sudden, now that you're 12, let's put you in big church and then you know what? Big church is going to seem boring to them because they're used to all the circus of junior church or let's say they spend up till five or six. Then when they turn seven, all of a sudden you throw them into big boy church and it's not a circus. Where are the clowns? Where are the monkeys and peacocks and everything? It's like, well, no, this is, you know, and then they're bored. It's better just to start them in. This is what church is folks just from the beginning all the way up in church growing up in church. And so we need to take our children with us. And a lot of people have this attitude sometimes that their children are hindering them from serving God. That makes no sense because the best thing that we can do to serve God is raise up godly children to be the next generation. Don't have a short sighted view of serving God. I mean, we need to raise up our children and take them with us. So don't listen to the devil when he says, don't go too far. Yeah, we're going all the way, okay? We're going all the way. God wants us cold or hot. Number two, don't listen to the devil when he says, oh, just, it's for the adults. You know, let the children be children. Let them make their own decision. No, we need to train them to go soul winning, read their Bibles, go to church. I mean, look, we command our children in our house to read the Bible. It's not optional. They wake up in the morning and they read the Bible. They sit down and we read the Bible to them, all right? This is part of growing up in a Christian home. Not just, well, let's just let them do it. That's a lie from the devil that says, oh, just, you know, you don't want to push it on them. You don't want to force them. You know, I'm glad my parents forced their beliefs on me. I'm glad my parents didn't say, hey, choose whatever religion you want and you don't have to go to church. Because you know what? I probably would have stayed home from church a lot of the time. These video games are calling and I must go back to Nintendo. I must go back where Super Mario and Contra are the, you know, look, folks, that's what we would have done because the Bible says foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. But the rod of correction will drive it far from him. I guarantee you that if my parents would have just left it up to me, there would have been times when the lake would have been calling, the river would have been calling, the video games would have been calling, TV would have been calling, friends down the street would have been calling, my bike would have been calling. Folks, you go to church and you bring your kids, it's not optional. Reading the Bible is something that's not optional. You know, you teach your kids, hey, this is what we do. This is who we are. Hey, we brush our teeth and we read our Bible. These are just things that we do every day, right? You make your bed, you read your Bible, you brush your teeth, you take a shower, you pray, you go to church, on Sunday morning you go to church. Not like, oh, are we going to church? Just we go. All right, this is how we need to teach our kids, but the devil would love it if Christianity stops in your family in this generation. Happened all the time in the Bible, didn't it? Where it says, oh, then a new generation rose up and they didn't know the Lord. Showing that it's possible to be a great Christian and yet not to pass that on to your children. Because we see all kinds of examples in the Bible of great Christians who did not pass the faith on to their children. So we need to make sure that's not us. We need to make sure, hey, we pass this on to our children. And you know, you say, well, you know, you don't want to be strict because you're going to push them away. Well, look, you don't want to be a jerk. You don't want to provoke your children under wrath. You don't want to be unloving or mean or anything like that. But look, you know, there are things where I felt like my parents were being strict or hard on me. But when you grow up, you look back and you're thankful for all that. I've never thought to myself, I've never, as a grown man, as an adult, I've never thought back and thought about anything, oh, my parents were too strict. My parents were, you know, I wish my parents would have just let me do whatever. That thought has never entered my mind. The thought of, oh, I wish my parents would have spanked me less has never entered my mind. I'm just thinking, man, I'm glad that they taught me. I'm glad they disciplined me. I'm glad that they had rules. I'm glad that they kept me from going off the cliff. All right. So we need to make sure that we bring our children with us. And then he goes on, let's just jump forward to the next thing, because he says, well, you know, don't bring your little ones. You that are men serve him. You know, stand up for Jesus is a great song, but they're taking this a lot out of context. Ye that are men now serve him. You know, the writer of the song, sorry to burst your bubble there, but it's still a great song. But anyway, those who know the song know what I'm talking about. It's quoting this chapter a little out of context there. All right. Verse 24, and Pharaoh called on to Moses and said, this is later on with another plague. Go ye, serve the Lord, only let your flocks and your herds be stayed. Let your little ones also go with you. So he says, okay, if I can't talk you into not going too far, I'll let you go all the way, but just leave the kids behind. Nope. We're going to take the kids. Okay. Well, if I can't talk you into leaving the kids behind, let me just talk you into letting your flocks and your herds be stayed, right? Just at least give me that, at least the stuff, you know, don't you, don't serve the Lord of your substance. He's saying, you know, even if we can get the whole family serving God, he wants you to be basically, he wants to have control of your possessions, your things, right? He wants you to basically, you know, uh, hoard things and, and covet things and possess things instead of being willing to let go of things in this world. Okay. And there are some people in this world that have too tight of a grip on the things of this world. Okay. And the Bible says that we should honor the Lord with our substance and with the first fruits of all our increase. So whatever we increase, whatever our substance is, whatever we own, we're supposed to honor the Lord with the first fruits of that. Okay. We're supposed to pay our tithes and serve the Lord and honor the Lord with the first fruits of our substance. So the devil basically wants to say, okay, well, if I can't get to you and if I can't get to your wife and if I can't get to your kids, then I'll get to your pocket book and get you to where you're too greedy and hoarding of your substance where you will not give unto the Lord that which is due unto him. You won't honor the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all your increase as Proverbs chapter three tells us to do if we want to be blessed by God. So he wants to control your herds. He wants to control your stuff. He wants to control your money. And let me tell you something. The love of money is the root of all evil. And today in the United States of America, you know, people are really attached to their money and they're really just into things and having the fancy house and the fancy vehicle and the guest home and all the toys and all the RVs and all the different bells and whistles that they can get. But you know what? Those things are not what life is about. Don't make a God out of money. You can't serve God and mammon. And you know, a lot of people are afraid to stand up for the Lord or take steps to serve him because they're, they, they're just so afraid of losing their stuff. It's just all about their stuff. But you know what? God is commanding them to take their stuff out into the wilderness, right? Their flocks and their herds. That's their wealth. And he's saying, sacrifice it to me in the wilderness. You know, you got to sacrifice, no, not sacrifice all of it. He's not saying, Hey, kill the whole herd. No. But what he is saying is, you know, serve me of your substance, right? Sacrifice these beasts and, and basically Pharaoh says, well, what, you know, which exactly beasts are you going to bring? And they basically say, well, we don't know. This is what Moses tells Pharaoh. We don't know what it is that God wants us to bring yet. He hasn't told us exactly what the sacrifice is, so we're going to bring all of the cattle and look, look what he says. Let's read it together. It says in verse 25, and Moses said, thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice unto the Lord our God. Our cattle also shall go with us, verse 26, there shall not an hoof be left behind for thereof must we take to serve the Lord our God. Watch this. And we know not with what we must serve the Lord until we come thither. So they're saying, look, we don't know what God expects us to sacrifice. We don't know how many beasts, what kind of beasts, what kind of animals. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to bring everything into the wilderness and then God's going to tell us what to sacrifice and that's what we're going to do. And you know what this is showing us is that we need to be willing to give up everything. Not one hoof left behind. Now look, that doesn't mean necessarily that we're going to lose everything, but you know what? We have to be willing to lose everything. We don't know what God's going to, you know, we don't know is God going to take this away from us? Is God going to take that away from us? Is God going to require us to sacrifice this or donate this or give that? We don't know. So we need to just loosen our grip on the things of this world and say, you know what? I'm just going to bring it all out of the wilderness and whatever God wants, you know what? I'm going to give him what he wants. I'm going to be willing to give up everything. And here's the honest truth of it anyway. You're eventually going to lose everything anyway because you brought nothing into this world and it is certain that you can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be there with content. I mean, you will not come out of this world with anything. You say, oh, I just don't want to lose my house. You will lose your house. One way or the other, your house is going to be burned to the ground. This whole earth is going to be burned to the ground someday. And so you're eventually going to lose your house. You're eventually going to lose the car. You're eventually going to lose the Sidu. You're eventually going to lose the dirt bike. You're eventually going to lose the RB and the sports car and everything else. Eventually you're going to lose everything. You say, well, but I just want to hang on to my children. You know what? You're eventually going to lose your children. Sorry. You're eventually going to lose your spouse. You're eventually going to lose everything because you brought nothing into this world and it is certain that you can carry nothing out. Everyone's going to die. Everything's going to go away. The only thing that's going to last into eternity is that which you cannot see because the Bible says the things that are seen are temporal and the things that are not seen are eternal. So yeah, you say, well, I don't want to lose my children. Well, when your children to Christ and then their soul is going to go to heaven and then you'll have your children in heaven. But you know what? Don't be unwilling to sacrifice them. Let's say God wants them to go to the mission field or God wants them to go start a church in some other city or something or God wants them to go serve him in this way or that way. We ought to be willing to make whatever the sacrifice is, to serve God and let God's will be done and not just try to hang on to everything all the time. Just take everything out in the wilderness and say, okay, God, what's the sacrifice? I'm ready to make it. Just be ready to make it. Now look, and again, I'm not saying to just sacrifice things for the sake of sacrificing. I'm saying when God calls upon you to make a sacrifice, you say, well, give me an example. You know, a couple of my preacher friends lately have made some sacrifices lately. You know, they stood up for the truth and they ended up losing their job because they stood up and preached hard and told it like it was. You know, Pastor Grayson Fritz in Knoxville, Tennessee, he stood up, he preached hard and he lost his job. Patrick Boyle put on that master conference down in Orlando, Florida, and guess what? It cost him his job. But you know what? That's the cost that you pay for serving the Lord. And you know what? That's a sacrifice that they were willing to make. They knew going in that there are going to be sacrifices to be made when you make a stand for God and you stand up for the truth, you know, you may lose something. And you know what? There are lots of people in our church and other churches that have made sacrifices. Maybe they've lost friends. Maybe they've had family members turn on them. Maybe they've lost a job or whatever because of their stand for Christ. But you know what? That is the cost that you pay for serving the Lord. And if you don't want to sacrifice anything, then you might as well just stay in Egypt then. Because the purpose of going out in the wilderness is to sacrifice unto the Lord, to serve the Lord. If you're not willing to serve him, you're not willing to sacrifice, you're not willing to pay anything, then you know what? You're still in Egypt. Now it doesn't mean you're not saved. You're saved if you believe in Christ. But you know what? I don't want to just be saved. I want to be saved and baptized. And I don't want to just be saved and baptized. I want to be saved, baptized, and a part of my local church. And I don't just want to be saved and baptized and part of a local church. I want to be soul winning. And I don't want to just be a saved, baptized, soul winning member of a local church. You know what? I want to be out there winning souls to Christ and doing great works. And you know what? That's what we all should be striving for, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Yeah, it's one thing to be saved and you're still in Egypt. Yeah, you got the blood on the doorpost on Passover and you're saved. You're in Goshen. You're in Egypt. But you know what? God wants you to cross the Red Sea and go into the Promised Land. And so that's what we see here spiritually represented. So let's just go over a few more things in this chapter. So again, the plague of the locust is threatened. And he says, sorry, you can't bring the kids in verse 11. They're driven out from Pharaoh's presence. Verse 12, the Lord said unto Moses, stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locust. They may come up upon the land of Egypt and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left. And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt. And the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. And when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and rested in all the coasts of Egypt. Very grievous were they. Before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such for they covered the face of the whole earth so that the land was darkened and they did eat every herb of the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. And there remained not any green thing in the trees nor in the herbs of the field throughout all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste. I told you, this is a serious plague for them. And he said, I've sinned against the Lord your God and against you. Now therefore forgive, I pray thee my sin, only this once. This is the last time. Of course, we know this is not the last time, but he's like, this is the last time. And treat the Lord your God that he may take away from me this death only. And he went out from Pharaoh and and treated the Lord and the Lord turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts and cast them into the red sea. There remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he would not let the children of Israel go. And the Lord said unto Moses, stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness, which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt. Three days. They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days. He's saying like, they wouldn't even leave the house. It's so dark, they don't want to go outside. It was a darkness that could be felt. It was a darkness where you close your eyes and open them and you can't even see the difference. It's just the same thing. You know, it's like when you go down into a cave and you're just closing your eyes, there's still a little bit of light. Who's ever been to that cave in Flagstaff, the lava tube? Very few people. Wow. You guys got to get up there. We got to do that on one of the Indian reservation trips, huh? Put that down as a recreation. So the lava tube, it's like you walk in like, it's like three quarters of a mile in and three quarters of a mile out this lava tunnel and it's like 40 degrees year round. Sign me up, right? You need a break from the heat. It's 40 degrees even now. And so you go three quarters of a mile in and three quarters of a mile out and it is total darkness. I mean, when you turn off your flashlight, you close your eyes, open them, there's nothing. You can't tell. It is dark. It is pitch black. I mean, it is, it just, you could experience total darkness. And the thing I like about it is that there's no tour guide. There's no cost. It's just like, it's totally unregulated. Amen. Arizona still has some places like that left and there's no fee. You just show up and you just spelunk into the earth by yourself. It's great. All right. You know what I mean? Like, you know, it's not like a handrail. It's not ADA and everything. You just, it's just at your own risk. You know what I mean? You just climb into this thing. So anyway, I've been there a bunch of times. I like it. This message was brought to you in part by the lava tube, which is free so it doesn't need any sponsorship. But anyway, the darkness that can be felt, right? Just total darkness. Nobody leaves the house and then it says this, but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. Isn't that cool? So in Goshen, they have light. The rest of Egypt is just in pitch darkness. So then this is where Pharaoh calls them in and says, hey, you know, leave the flocks and the herds behind. Nope. Not one hoof is going to be left behind. And you know what? This world that dwells in darkness, this world that mocks God and has a hardened heart and rejects the word of the Lord and they refuse to let God's people serve him in the wilderness, you can't compromise with these people. You know, he wants them to compromise. Oh, don't go too far. Oh, just, you know, leave the kids. And look, I love what he says, and this should actually be our motto, not one hoof left behind. Isn't that a great motto? Not one hoof left behind. I mean, he's saying, I'm not even going to leave one animal. I'm bringing every single thing. That's total surrender to the will of God. Not one hoof left. And you know what? That also represents zero compromise with the devil, zero compromise with the world. So you think that if you compromise a little bit, that'll placate the devil's crowd. Nope. They're implacable. They'll never be satisfied. You think, well, if I just compromise a little bit, I can kind of keep, you know, my queer relative happy. No, you won't. They're not going to be happy. Well, we can just kind of keep the government at bay and keep, look, just preach the word of God and let the chips fall where they may. You can't compromise because they always are going to try to take more from you. They keep moving the goalpost. Okay. So not one who's left behind is the motto. But Pharaoh's verse 27, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not let them go. And Pharaoh said unto him, get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more. For in that day thou see is my face, thou shalt die. And Moses said, thou spoken well, I will see thy face again no more. And then look at chapter 11 verse one, it says, and the Lord said unto Moses, yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go hence when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence all together. So of course the coup de grace is coming. The big one, the Passover, you know, where he brings in the death angel and slays every firstborn son in the entire land of Egypt. This is the final blow. So at this point, Pharaoh says to Moses, don't talk to me ever. I never want to see you again. I will see your face no more. And he says, great. You'll see my face no more. This is it. This is the last standoff, the final blow right here, okay? And you know what? Today in America, there's a lot of pressure to compromise, there's a lot of pressure not to go all the way, not to serve God, not to bring the whole family, not to raise our kids right, not to do things the way God tells us to do them. But you know what? This world is doomed. We're saved. Don't forget that we have light in our dwellings. They may be in darkness. We've got light in our dwellings. Don't compromise. Don't back down because we've already read the end of the book and we know who wins. So you need to just be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And you know what? When they end up going out of Egypt, you know what they end up doing? Taking a bunch of Egyptians with them. They take a bunch of people with them. There goes up a great mixed multitude with them of people that they bring out of Egypt. So you know what? While we're here, we're going to take people with us. We're going to get people saved. We're going to win them to Christ and we're also going to teach them to get baptized, to go to church and to observe all things that Christ commanded. And so we're going to take them with us and it's just like in the Bible story, amen? And so we need to stay strong and realize that we're on the winning side and don't feel like you have to compromise or back down. Just stand on the truth and you know, are you going to have to lose some things or give up some things? Well, I'm sure you will, but we need to just put the whole inventory out there of our cattle and just say, okay, God, you know, whatever it is, I'm willing to sacrifice it. Don't have that sacred cow that you're not willing to sacrifice. Every cow in your spiritual herd, you should be willing to slaughter that thing for the Lord if that's what he wants. Amen. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and for this great story. And we just pray that you would just help us to be like Moses and stand our ground. Not one hoof left behind, Lord. Help us to serve you with all our heart and mind and soul and strength and not to hold anything back and help us not to be intimidated by the pharaohs of this world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.