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It Is Written

Sabbath School 3rd Quarter 2025: Exodus

Eric Flickinger

Jiřί Moskala

01 Oppression: The Background and the Birth of Moses

02 The Burning Bush

03 Rough Start

04 The Plagues

05 Passover

06 Through the Red Sea

07 The Bread and Water of Life

08 Covenant at Sinai

09 Living the Law

10 The Covenant and the Blueprint

11 Apostasy and Intercession

12 Please Show Me Your Glory

13 The Tabernacle

Welcome to Sabbath School brought to you by It Is Written.

We are studying the Exodus, an incredible period in earth's history, in the history of God's people, that gives us some lessons that we can learn for our day and beyond.

We're going to dive deeply into it today.

If you've ever wondered how we can better understand the plagues and get more out of them, we're gonna see today why God sent the plagues, their significance and what we can learn from them.

Father, we thank you for drawing us together today and we ask that you would bless us with a deeper understanding of you, your character, your will, and your reasons for doing the things that you do.

We ask your blessing on us today and we thank you in advance for granting that.

So we're glad that you are here, but we are also glad that we have the author of this quarter's Sabbath school lesson with us, Dr.

Mascala, thank you again for being with us.

We're excited to learn something that you have been excited about for a good long time.

I am very excited and I'm very happy to be with you to study this quarterly today.

We've kind of led up to Moses' encounter with Pharaoh and Pharaoh's not keen on letting the people go and makes life more difficult for them.

Before we dive into these plagues, I want to look at verse number 1 of chapter 7.

It says, so the Lord said to Moses, see, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron, your brother, shall be your prophet.

Now here we have God telling Moses that he's made Moses as God to Pharaoh.

Well I think it's a very beautiful imagery here that Aaron is playing prophet and Moses God.

So it is like a very good definition to understand who is the prophet because the prophet is a mouth of God.

So it's like Moses is speaking to Aaron so he is the full authority like divine authority because he's under the God's Commission and now speaking to Aaron and now Aaron will be his spokesperson to announce it.

So this tells us about the specific roles that God is the God who is in command.

And prophet, and We have so many instances in the Bible which speak about the prophets.

A prophet is a spokesperson for God and has authority coming from God.

So when Aaron is hearing the word from Moses, it's like hearing from God and he's delivering it.

And this is authoritative word also for the audience.

So this is a significant role that Moses is playing here and a significant role that Aaron is plaguing here.

He's playing here but it has to do with the plagues which we're diving into right now.

God typically doesn't do arbitrary things.

He has reasons for doing the things that he does.

And there are reasons behind these 10 plagues as well.

Help us to understand the reason that God sends these plagues.

Before I will speak about, you know, why he's sending the plagues, I think it's also very important to understand that God is not sending this plexus right away.

He is working patiently, I would say, with the stubborn pharaoh.

We already heard in chapter 5 that, you know, Moses and Aaron came and tell him, this is the word of God, let my people go.

But he refused and then the situation got worse and worse.

But now again, Moses and Aaron is with Pharaoh and the big miracle is performed.

You know, we read in chapter 7 from verse 8 that now not Moses but Aaron's stick was put on the ground, then it changed for the serpent.

But the authority is very clear because we read very clearly that even though these magicians could do it, it was the serpent of Aaron which swallowed other serpents.

And even though this miracle was done, you can read at the end of that miracle, verse 13, after the Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs, yet Pharaoh's heart became hard and he would not listen to them just as the Lord has said.

So now is for the second time when God really gave the chance to Pharaoh And of course there were many other encounters, we don't know exactly how, but the long history of oppression here.

And before the plague starts, God wants to persuade him, even with a sign, with a special sign that he is God, living God is in charge here.

And then even the plaques are going on, there are situations where Pharaoh has still possibility to let God's people go, to really obey the word of God.

Even at some point, his magician is telling him, this is the finger of God.

So if you go to the purpose of these plaques, I think that's very significant is in chapter 12.

And we can go to the chapter 12 verse 12 when it is stated in regard to the last plague you know that what will happen I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn, both man and animal, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt." And I think that this is a very significant statement here, that what God was doing, he was not fighting against Egypt.

He was not fighting against Egyptians, but he was fighting against Egyptian gods.

Because Egypt, Egyptians, and now even many Israelites were like slaves in their thinking, in their feelings, in their behavior, were slaves to these gods.

And there was a big pantheon of different gods.

So God had an intent to liberate them, to be free, that they will be not afraid of these forces and the interpretation and mythologies and all the stories which were associated with different gods in order to make them subjugated and slave.

And then of course what you worship or what you fear, you serve to it.

And this lesson actually is now speaking about the first 9 plaques.

And if you will go to some, you know, companion book to the study of this lesson and also teacher's edition, I'm giving some more insights into these different plaques, which are playing a very significant role there.

But simply stated, there are clusters like 3, 3, and 3 of these plaques, and then culmination is the last 1, which will be the study for the next lesson.

And these clusters are also not only specifically related to different events and so on.

But also, they are showing that behind every plaque is not 1, but very often many Egyptian gods.

But if you go and see the plaques, they are in intensity, they are more and more severe.

And of course the last 1 is the biggest stroke.

But again, God was always warning and didn't want to bring more and more.

He wanted the first 1 will bring the right results.

And if you go through it like the blood first statement or the plague was about turning water into blood, nobody would be hurt yet from the human perspective, from humans.

It will be turning to show that we are dependent on water, but the water, the Nile, is not the happy God who is giving the water and life.

So it was from the very beginning that not happy or Osiris, but it is God who is the giver of life, giver of water.

And every plague was against different gods, like the second 1 about frogs.

And this is like the very famous, you know, god of frog Hecate in Egyptian pantheon of gods.

And again, God is showing that he is really in control of it.

And Egyptians, you know, cannot do anything to take them out.

So, like, those 3 plaques are going for everyone.

But then after the third 1, the fourth, it's intensified And it now must be seen a big difference between the Israelites, between God's camp and the camp of the Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

And of course, if people will associate with these Egyptian gods, the judgment which comes upon the Egyptian gods will fall also upon them.

And this is probably also a very important lesson for us.

That before God is sending his judgment, he's always out of love, he's warning us, giving us his fatherly, motherly advice that this will come.

These are the consequences of wrong choices.

If we have the decision which is bad, of course, then the life will be reflected on that.

So all these plaques playing the role that Pharaoh should come to his senses and that he will surrender to God and open his heart and let God's people go and liberate them.

So God is teaching the lesson of redemption, salvation through all of this.

So he's giving Pharaoh opportunity after opportunity to make a good decision.

But we see over and over again it says, Pharaoh hardened his heart, Pharaoh hardened his heart.

We're gonna see shortly that it says, God hardened Pharaoh's heart, but we're gonna dive into that after our break and see what does that mean, because a lot of people have questions.

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Series

Sabbath School 3rd Quarter 2025: Exodus

04 The Plagues

Transcript

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