“In the Midst of Tragedy, There is God” - Exodus 12

In the spring of 1863, 2 years before the Civil War ended, mothers went out to lay flowers on the graves of their Confederate dead. There were Union soldiers buried there also. These mothers realized that the mothers of the North could not come to the graves of their sons, and so in love that rose above the hatred of the war they put flowers on the graves of the Union soldiers as well. This practice spread all over the South and then into the North, and that's how Memorial Day began. 

While Memorial Day is not in the Bible, obviously, the concept is. We are told in several places to remember things, especially the things that God has done. There is a time for forgetting some things, usually what we have done, as well. Isaiah 43:18 says to forget the former things and that’s one of my favorite verses in all the Bible because it goes on to say that God is about to do a new thing. And we will want to remember that thing.

It’s good to remember what God has done in the past because it builds our faith that God will protect and provide for us in the future. We have faith that He will because we remember how He has done it in the past. We don’t have to understand Him. He doesn’t always explain how He did it or how He is going to do it. But He is faithful and so we can have faith in Him.

We can have faith in Him even when life is painful. In fact, if you can’t have faith in God in the hard times but you say you have faith in the good times, I say that’s no faith at all. Faith is born in adversity and proven in the fire. The three Hebrew boys said, “We know God can and we know He will but even if He doesn’t, still we will praise Him.” And do you know what happened? They were thrown right into the fire!

God didn’t save them from the fire. God didn’t hear their promise and take their word for it. He allowed them to get thrown into the hottest fire imaginable. And while God didn’t save them from the fire, read in Daniel chapter three, starting in verse 22: The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 23 and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. 24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.” 25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

Haha! King Neb, you moron! That’s not a son of the gods. That is THE Son of THE God and His name is Jesus, who was, who is and is to come! In the midst of Shadrach’s worst tragedy, there was God. There was God, not just looking. Not just watching from Heaven wondering how things were going to turn out. There was God in the midst of it and in control of it just like He is in your life and how He was in the life of Moses and the Israelites in their captivity in Egypt some thousands of years ago.

It's good to remember so let’s turn to Exodus chapter 12 and there we will see the last plague that God sends on Pharoah and Egypt. Evidently God is 0-for-9 so far, right? Nine other plagues were sent but Pharoah’s heart is hard and nothing is working. Evidently, God is up in Heaven scratching His head thinking, “I just knew the frogs would work! I mean, I sent them everywhere!”

No, no. That’s not what happened at all. It’s not that God had plan A, B and C and all those other plans and plagues didn’t work so God has to break out the big guns. No, that’s not it. This was God’s one and only plan all along. He knew Pharoah’s heart and He also knew the gods that Egypt served and God is jealous anytime somebody gives to somebody else what rightfully belongs to Him. God is the Creator and Sustainer of all creation and He wants the credit for it.

So, when the Egyptians are bowing down to some frog head idol made out of wood, God said, “I see your frog and will raise you a billion more! I AM the one, true God. Allow me to prove it.” God just went down the line of Egypt’s biggest, little g gods and said, “Ok. You think the Nile River is a god? I’ll turn it to blood. You think gnats and flies are holy? I’ll infest you with them. Rah is your sun god? I’ll turn the day black as coal.”

But there is one more plague. One more plague that will cause even Pharoah himself to believe and not only allow them to leave Egypt but Pharoah will demand that they leave and take everything valuable with them. As we continue our sermon series on seeing who God is, let’s read Exodus, starting in chapter 11. We will read a little bit there and a little bit from chapter 12.

Chapter 11, verses 1-8 says, “Now the Lord had 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. 2 Tell the people that men and women alike are to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold.” 3 (The Lord made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and Moses himself was highly regarded in Egypt by Pharaoh’s officials and by the people.) 4 So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. 5 Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. 6 There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. 7 But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any person or animal.’ Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. 8 All these officials of yours will come to me, bowing down before me and saying, ‘Go, you and all the people who follow you!’ After that I will leave.” Then Moses, hot with anger, left Pharaoh.

I love that ending. Moses is hot with anger. Oh, yeah, Moses. You’re ten foot tall and bullet proof when you have God on your side, right? That’s great! What happened to, “I can’t speak well. I stutter. Get somebody else, God”? Yeah, he’s not stuttering now, is he?

Let’s continue reading chapter 12, starting in verse 29. At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead. 31During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD as you have requested. 32Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me." 33The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. "For otherwise," they said, "we will all die!" 34So the people took their dough before the yeast was added and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. 35The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.

Okay, let’s be honest here. How many of you read this and think, “Wow. That seems pretty harsh.”? I admit it. When I read this about how God killed innocent babies and animals, it’s hard to think about. Some of those first-born may have been adults but some of them may have just been babies. That’s hard to understand. Why would God do that?

In preparing this message, I was making notes about this passage and trying to just write what God was telling me to write down and when I wrote that question, I had to stop for a while. “Why would God do that?” That’s a good question, I thought. Uh oh. Now I have to find the answer. It’s not an answer that can be found by Googling but God lead me to Romans 6:23. There it simply says that the wages of sin is death.

We probably don’t think about the seriousness of sin like we should. What God is saying through Paul in Romans 6:23 is that what we deserve for our sins is death; death in Hell forever, separated from God and all our friends and anybody else…for all eternity. It is what we deserve and what God requires.

This last plague was not just another round of bad things that God dreamed up. It was a continuation of His attack on the false gods of Egypt and, like I said, God is jealous. The Egyptians actually believed that whoever was Pharoah was a god. He was the son of gods and his son was the son of a god. Jehovah said, “I AM WHO I AM and I AM the God and nobody will doubt that after this day.”

It doesn’t seem fair to us because we don’t appreciate the seriousness of sin like we should. We have never witnessed God taking a life in such dramatic fashion as He did here, not in our lives. And so, while we know that sin is bad and we know we shouldn’t do it, we also make excuses for it. We think there are some sins that, you know, just aren’t all that bad. We don’t go around killing and raping and robbing banks so we aren’t that bad. Yea, sure, we cuss a little. We drink too much. We eat too much. We have bitterness inside of us that comes out in anger sometimes but everybody does that, right? We all sin every day, don’t we?

STOP IT! When you think like that (and we all do it) you are making yourself and your desire and your sin a little g god and Big G God is not going to put up with it. I will say it again that the very worst thing that can happen to us as Christians is sin. Cancer is awful but it’s not as bad as sin. Catching the virus can be horrible but it’s not as bad as sin in our lives. Losing a family member is traumatic but it’s not as bad as sin.

Oh, I hear ya! Todd, how can you say that? Sin is not nearly as bad as when I lost my Aunt Bessie. Well, I’m not downplaying the loss of Aunt Bessie, not at all. That can be a horrible pain. But God said, “The wages of sin is death.” He didn’t say the wages of loss is death. He didn’t say the wages of cancer is death. He didn’t say the wages of covid is death. But sin ALWAYS requires death. Those other things may kill you and they may not. But sin always requires death.

Not only does sin require death but sin puts a barrier between us and God. Isaiah 59:2 says, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Having God’s face hidden from you ought to scare you to death. Not being in His good graces and under His absolute protection better scare you to repentance and if it doesn’t then something is wrong with your relationship with Him.

After his sin with Bathsheba, King David wrote in Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, O God,
    according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
    blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
    and cleanse me from my sin.

 He goes on…

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart

Does your sin break your heart? It should. It breaks the heart of God. In 1986, evangelist Vance Havner said, “People used to blush when they were ashamed. Now they are ashamed if they blush. Modesty has disappeared and a brazen generation with no fear of God before its eyes mocks at sin. We are so fond of being called tolerant and broad-minded that we wink at sin when we ought to weep.”

But here we are – a nation unashamed, a state filled with pride in a county plagued with the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated, in a church that takes sin lightly and individuals who don’t understand God and sometimes pray for revival. Here we are, sinners that deserve Hell for eternity. What are we going to do?

Oh my! Aren’t you glad it’s not up to you? Aren’t you glad you don’t have to pay the price or try to be good enough or sell enough magazines or do anything else to get forgiveness, freedom and redemption? Aren’t you glad your eternity is not based on who you are or what you do or anything else about you?

Aren’t you glad that God is not just watching from afar, wondering what is going to happen next? Aren’t you glad that God, in the midst of all our tragedy and sin, is here? And He is here in a real way. He is here just like He was for Shadrach and the boys all those years ago. He is here with His Holy Spirit in this place and in our hearts and, as believers, we have His wisdom and His guidance to get us through the day, even when the day is tragic.

He is here in the person of Jesus who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless, perfect life and chose to die in our place. The wages of sin is death. That is God’s law. That is His plan and His idea. God is just and cannot overlook sin, no matter how small, no matter how rare. Your sin and my sin is an abomination to God. He hates sin. And when we choose to sin, we are in a scary place; a place where God is watching as we choose to put another nail into the hands of His precious Son Jesus on the cross every time we sin.

That is deserving of death and Hell and we choose that every time we sin. But in the midst of that tragedy, God is there to provide the perfect sacrifice. David said, “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it…” And that’s right. God doesn’t need your sacrifice. The perfect sacrifice has already been made.

When we think of tragedy, we rightfully think of death, disease, poverty, or loss of any kind but when we come to know God better, we start to see things more through His eyes. We will never understand Him fully but knowing Him better makes us understand Him more and when we do, we see that the ultimate cause of all that tragedy is the ultimate tragedy itself, and that is sin. Sin is the worst tragedy that we can endure.

John Wesley said, “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth.”

The only thing in this world that we have to fear is sin. It is the ultimate tragedy. But even in that tragedy, God is there. Thank you, LORD!

Some of you need to ask for forgiveness of your sins today. You need to repent and give up that lifestyle. I know it’s hard. It’s shameful. It’s tiring sometimes to have to go back to God and ask for forgiveness of something you have done a billion times before. Maybe you need to pray a prayer like this.

Father, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I know I have hurt you and it pains me so please forgive me and restore my relationship with you. Please help me not to ever do that again. Please take that desire away from me, whatever it takes. I want nothing more than to be restored and forgiven and back in your special care.

Maybe today you have never prayed a prayer like that and have never received real forgiveness from God. That is a tragic life being lived right there. Maybe you aren’t sure of your relationship with Him. Today is the day to make sure. I’m not asking if you are a member here or if you were ever baptized or how often you sin or how bad you are or how good you are compared to somebody else.

I’m asking you if you have ever asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, admitting that you are a sinner and unable to earn forgiveness, much less Heaven. Surrender your life, your dreams, your will and your ways to Him today. Ask for forgiveness and He will give it. There is no other way to heaven but through Jesus. Ask Him today as the music plays.