Having already read verses 21
through 29 of Exodus chapter 10, I only ask that you put a marker
there or hold your finger there so I can point out some things
to you tonight as we go through the message. It was not a lot
of verses, and we should be able to retain in our memory most
of what's said. We're coming now to the ninth
plague. The ninth plague of God on Egypt,
the plague of darkness. I pointed out to you over the
past several weeks that the severity of these plagues increased as
their persistence in unbelief continued. So these plagues continued
to increase along with their rebellion. And I've tried to point out to
you this, no man having heard the Word of God is left in a
vacuum. He might appear like he's in
a vacuum. He might scratch his head and
say, well, I'm going to go home and give that some thought. Or
like they told Paul at Mars Hill, we'll hear you again at a more
convenient season. He might think he's still in
limbo, he's still in some kind of a vacuum, but he's not. He's
not. No man having heard the Word
of God is left in a vacuum. God's omnipotence demands obedience. God is God. And if there's no
other reason to hear Him, that's reason enough. He's God. God's omnipotence demands obedience,
and His justice demands that all who will not hear All who
will not obey receive a just recompense of reward for their
crimes. And I'm telling you, and I can
reinforce this throughout the scriptures, it's a bold and dangerous
act to assault the character and integrity of God with unbelief. It's a bold act. If there's nothing
else to demonstrate and manifest the rebellion of a man, it's
that. He'll bow up before God in unbelief. Listen to the Scriptures. Who
art thou? Ain't that what Paul's asking?
Asking these foolish, simple questions. Who art thou that
replies against God? God is your Maker. You're just
clay on the wheel. He showed Jeremiah. He said,
come on out here to the potter's house. Let me show you what this
thing is. You're the clay. I'm the potter. Who art thou that replies against
God? Listen to this. He that believeth
not shall be damned. Does that sound like a vacuum
to me? It don't to me either. And damned they were, a little
at a time, until at last they were buried in the sea of God's
wrath. And he talks to us about this in Hebrews chapter 3. And
he makes this application to this generation. Paul does. He said today. How many times?
I pointed that out to you, Walter. How many times in that chapter
does he say today and capitalize T and D in that word? Today. Harden not your hearts
like they did. Don't do it. Don't do it. You might look at the great hailstorm. I went through the Scriptures
looking at that Like in the book of Revelation, where it actually
gives us some measurements to go by. I'm not sure they're to
be read that way, but his point being that these things were
just big enough to break trees. 115 pound hail balls. And you
can read in Psalm 105. That's a psalm that pretty much
runs you through the history of Israel and Egypt. And he talks
about all their trees being broken on the coast. All of these palm
trees and nut trees and all these big trees were broken. The only
thing that could have broken them was hail balls. They had
this great hailstorm, this tree-breaking hailstorm. And they had lightning
such as rain on the ground, balls of fire running up on the ground.
All of the prophets used those things when they began to describe
God's judgments of this world. And you might look at this plague
of the boils and blames and then say, well, darkness don't seem
that severe compared to those things. Huh? Darkness? How is that more severe than
boils and blames and hailstorms and fire on the ground and locusts
and all these things? Well, this is no ordinary darkness. That's right. It's not an ordinary
darkness. And that's where men are so deceived
today. They don't understand it. This
was a darkness, he said, that could even be felt. Felt. A felt darkness. This was a darkness
of a reprobate heart. That's what this was. This was
a darkness in them. Now, I'm going to show you a
little bit later on. There was light in Egypt. But there wasn't
any light in the Egyptians. There was no light in them. This
was a darkness that blotted out all the light around them. And
this is that same darkness into which Satan and his conspirators
have been cast. And it's described in the scriptures
as a binding chain. That's how he describes it. You
think about that. You take, oh, that demoniac. They tried to bind him in chains,
and they couldn't bind him. That demon-possessed man, they
called him Legion. They couldn't bind him with chains. God bound them with chains of
darkness. In 2 Peter 2, verse 4, it says,
God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to
hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness. Ain't that what he said? Chains
of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. In Jude, verse 6, he
speaks again of the angels which kept not their first estate,
but left their own habitation. And he said this of them, he
hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the
judgment of his great day. And then he goes on to speak
of the false prophets who've been carried away by Satan and
his wiles. And speaks of both them and their
hearers. And he has a long description
of them there in the book of Jude. But he gets down there
to the last verse of his description. And he said, they're raging waves
of the sea foaming out their shame. They're shooting stars. Wandering stars, he calls them
there in Jude. Shooting stars whose light is
extinguished in its fall. That's why it's shooting. It's
falling. It's extinguished in its fall.
And he says, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. That's no ordinary darkness. Now, there's four things mentioned
in our text in Exodus chapter 10 that tell us about this darkness. First of all, it tells us that
it was brought upon them by the judgment of God because of their
persistent rebellion and unbelief. God sent this. God told Moses,
stretch forth thy hands now. Well, Moses could have stretched
his hands all day. It wouldn't have had no effect
on him. But God said, stretch forth your hand, didn't He? And
God's judgment came on that plague. God hardened Pharaoh's heart,
and He commanded the plague to come upon him and all his kingdom,
in verses 20 and 21. It's called in Exodus 10, verse
22, a thick darkness. I looked that word up. I was
just curious about that. It talks about the mist of darkness
in the New Testament, don't it? You remember that old sorcerer
that was following Paul around? And he was trying to keep that
jailer from listening to Paul, that deputy, from listening to
Paul and Barnabas preach. And he kept following him around.
Elemaus or something like that was his name. And he was following
him around. And finally, Paul turned around and cursed him
with a darkness, a mist of darkness fell on him. He had to be led
around by the hand. The mist of darkness. And he
refers to that a couple of times in the New Testament. But I looked
that word thick up in the Strong's Concordance in the dictionary
part of it. And he said that word thick means
total concealment of light. That's what that means. It's dark out there right now,
but you can see the tree out there. I can see my car. I can
find my way out there. Not in this darkness. You couldn't
find your way anywhere. This was a thick darkness. No
light at all. But there was light there. I read it to you in verse 23
a while ago. There's light in Israel. Light in their dwellings. They couldn't see it. Sun was out. Moon was out. Stars was out. Days continued. It doesn't say anything in here
about the sun stopping in its place. It wasn't a continued
night. It didn't say anything in here
about an eclipse. A lot of the old writers talked
about an eclipse that God brought about. Timed that eclipse. There is no eclipse that lasts
for three days. This darkness wasn't outside
of them. This darkness was inside of them. It was inside of them. It was a darkness in their very
being. Paul said, If our gospel be hid,
it's hid to the lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded
the minds of them. That's what's going on down here
in Egypt. There's a blinding of the minds
and hearts. It's a blindness that God sent
them on. The darkness of God's judgment
upon this unbelieving world is a darkness in them. Turn with
me over to Matthew chapter 6. This is an account over here
in Matthew chapter 6 of our Lord as He describes those false prophets
that He preached to and the generation that He preached to. He called
them in one place, blind leaders of the blind. Isn't that what
He called them? The blind, they couldn't see anything. But they'd
take you by the hand and lead you. And say, I see, I see. The Lord said, if you're blind then
you can see. Because you say you see, therefore
you're blind. The blind leaders of the blind.
Here in Matthew chapter 6, the Lord has a discourse here about
this inward darkness of man. In verse 22, he says, the light
of the body is the eye. That's the only window in the
house. You can hold your hand up all
day long, but you can't see out that hand. You see right here. That's the only window in the
house. What comes through this window
is what fills up the house. That's where all the understanding
comes from, all the perception comes from. I see colors, and
I see distance. and dimension. I can see all
those things and perceive all those things by these eyes. The
sun comes up, shines through the window, the whole house is
full of light. Now watch this, verse 23. But
if thine eye be evil. Now he's talking about that eye
of the mind and heart, the eye of perception. If thine heart,
if thine eye be evil. Thy whole body shall be full
of darkness. Darkness. I don't care how much
you see. I don't care how much you read. I don't care how much you profess
to know. If that eye be evil, everything
that comes in here is darkness. Darkness. Now, he said, if thine eye be
evil, and I be evil, the whole body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness? Huh? If there's no light at all,
then how great is that darkness? It didn't matter how much light
was in Egypt, all they knew was darkness. Darkness. And if all
that I hear and see and understand is evil, if all that's in me
and around me And in those around me is just darkness, and how
great is that darkness. This darkness is the plague of
God upon this unbelieving world. Darkness, darkness, darkness.
It don't matter what they hear. It don't matter how much they
hear. Darkness. And then secondly, it says in
Exodus chapter 10, verse 23, they saw not one another. This plague of inner darkness
is a plague which prevents men from seeing one another in God's
light. They can't see one another for
what they are. That rich young ruler came to
the Lord, and he knew Him by the miracles that he performed.
He knew Him. He wasn't a greedy man. He had
nowhere to lay his head. He lived as God provided for
him every day. He went about doing good. He
saw a man hungry, he fed him. He saw a man naked, he clothed
him. He went about doing good. He preached from the Word of
God. He was a notable man, attracted
great multitudes in Israel. And that man saw him, ran up
to him and said, good master. And he stopped him right there,
didn't he? He said, why callest thou me good? How do we see that? How do we
see that? When you look around at your
friends and relatives, what do you see? Do you see some good? Huh? Do you see some better than
others? Is that what you see when you
look around? You see some good and some bad? Do you see some like that? Do
you see some that you believe have a better standing before
God than others? I'm telling you this, they saw
not one another. They couldn't see one another.
They're none good. Ain't that what the Bible said?
Then why, when we look around, do we call them good? That's
what the Lord asked him. Why callest thou me good? There's
none good but God. None good. Nobody can see this race as it
is apart from the light of the Word of God. Everything else
is just vain speculation. Those Egyptians sat there in
the dark and speculated, but they couldn't see anything. You
might hear one over in the darkness praying. You might hear that. I have. You might hear one at
a distance saying some good things. You might hear another singing
some hymns and talking about meeting mama in heaven and all
them type of stuff. But the opinions that you take
is exactly that. They're just opinions. That's
all they are. And they're like noses. Everybody has one. They're
just opinions. It's speculating in the darkness. There's no need. When you sit
down to talk to one of your friends and they do this and shut the
Bible. And they said, well, now wait
a minute. You know, here's what I think. You're in the darkness. We're both in darkness. Let's
see what God said. He's light. They saw not one another. What
a curse. What a curse. Cannot see one another in the
darkness. The Bible said if they speak
not according to this Word, it's because what? No light in them. Ain't that what it says? Ain't
no light in them. That man stands up and he starts
telling you about man and the good potential in you and your
free will and all this kind of stuff. You need to make Jesus
your Lord and he starts talking about all this foolishness. Ain't
no light in him. I'll light it. If he don't speak
according to this Word, there's no light in him. His voice has no value. His words
are of no value unless he speaks according to this Book. How could you possibly say that
a loved one went out into eternity to meet God in judgment and wrath? How could you say such a thing? Because we see them in the light
of God's Word, and we see them in the light of the Gospel, they
would not receive. That's how. That's how. And thirdly, it tells us also
over here in Exodus 10, verse 23, it said, neither rose any
man from his place till God was pleased to shine His light again
on him after three days. He rose not from his place. He
stayed right where he was. when God turned out the light.
He stayed right there. Let me tell you something. When
our father Adam sinned in the garden, God turned the light
out in man. He turned it out. He has a conscience. I don't mean that there's no
witness of God in him. And he's got creation all around
him that bears witness of his eternal Godhead. But he turned
out the spiritual light in him. He has no spiritual understanding
whatsoever. None. And it's not because there's
no light in the world. The world has always had the
gospel light. Did you know that? Even when
Adam fell in the garden, the very first thing God did was
give him gospel light. He killed that lamb and clothed
them too and sent them out. And they told their sons and
their sons told their sons. And there has been a gospel preached
ever since. The gospel of the sacrificial
lamb of God. Adam preached it to his family
and Abel heard it. He saw the light. And so on. Seth had it. Enoch had it. Noah
had it. You read the book of Jude, you
will find out what Enoch preached. He was a preacher. And he preached
and talked about false prophets. That's just a few generations
from Adam. Read the book of Jude. He preached about those ungodly
men and their ungodly words and their ungodly ways. Abraham saw
the light. Noah saw the light. And then
the Word of God is a great light that's in the world. Natural
man won't have it. He won't have it. And then preaching
is a great light. But Isaiah said, who hath believed
our report? Christ is the light of the world.
He lighteth every man who cometh into the world. That's what every
man has that witness in him. And his church is the pillar
and ground of the truth. He said, ye are the light of
the world. Ain't that what he said to his disciples? And the
Spirit of God is all light. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. He's not going to have
it. The darkness of man is a darkness within, and it prevents him from
ever rising from his place. He stays right where he was when
God turned out the light. You see what he's saying here?
He can change his habits. He can change his appearance.
He can change his speech and change his doctrine, but he cannot
rise from his place. His place is the place of condemnation,
and his place is the place of guilt and shame. His place is
a place of wrath and judgment, and his place is a place of darkness. And that's where he sits unless
God sends him light. Like old Bartimaeus, he'll stay
a blind beggar on his blanket until the Lord of glory Himself
sends him the words to give him light. He'll sit right there. And it's the very darkness in
the nature of man that prevents him from coming to the light.
Our Lord said, this is condemnation. Light has come into the world,
and men love darkness rather than light. All right? Fourthly, this darkness was a
darkness which could even be felt. As the plagues of God came
upon the Egyptians, they realized that the wrath of God had fallen
upon them. How'd I know that? Because they
went down and told that to Pharaoh. Exodus 10, verse 7, it said,
Pharaoh's servant said unto him, How long shall this man be a
snare unto us? Get rid of it! Tell him and his
people and his God to leave. Send them out that they may serve
the Lord their God. Knowest thou not that Egypt is
destroyed? You think they didn't know the
hand of God? My soul! Look at where they sat! in boils
and blames and the food eaten up and everything gone and the
hail balls broke all the trees. Egypt was in ruin. Total ruin. Romans chapter 1 verse 20 tells
us that man is without excuse. He's had light and didn't want
it. He had God's witness and wouldn't hear it. They had conscience declaring
His eternal power in Godhead, but they didn't want to retain
God in their knowledge, so God turned them over to a thick darkness. He turned them over to themselves. What an awful picture laid out
before us here in Egypt, covered from head to toe with boils and
blames and sitting in total darkness with all hope of life devoured
by God's There's nothing left for them but a certain fear for
looking for a judgment and fiery indignation which is going to
devour all God's adversaries. And what a picture of this world
in this gospel age. In Revelation 16, the spiritual
antitypes is now declared. The waters have turned to blood,
the bulls have appeared again on men, and God's fiery lightning
has scorched the earth. And then the fifth angel stands
and pours out his vial of God's wrath, and it fell upon the seat
of the beast. On the seat of the beast. Ain't
that what Pharaoh is? A symbol of? He's the beast.
That's Satan himself and his kingdom. And God pours out this
vial of wrath on the seat of the beast. And his kingdom was
full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain. Let me tell you something. You
cannot see the wrath of God upon this world and stand in the pulpit
every week and talk about man's free will and man's goodness
and man's potential. You can't do it. It's a lie. A man says, I know that. I know
man. No, you don't. You wouldn't talk
like you talk if you knew. Man stands up and begins to talk
about good folks. He's a good man. No, he ain't.
No, he ain't. The man who sees the wrath of
God on this world knows who sent it and knows why. And he alone
will point you to the God of all grace who alone can take
away the darkness and take away the pledge. Now, brethren, we
could go on for days talking about this darkness. The Scripture
is full of it. It's like he established it here.
He pictured it in creation on the first day. Huh? God said, let there be light,
and the light shined out of the darkness. You can go over to
2 Corinthians 4. I preached on it last Sunday.
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, he shined
in our hearts. But here's what I want you to
see down here in Exodus 10, 23. But, he said, boy, I love that
word. You find that word, and it's
almost always good news after. But, you see, all the children
of Israel had light in their dwellings. I looked up that word dwellings,
and it gave two definitions that ought to give us some instruction.
The first definition is this, and I was a little surprised
by this. It means assemblies. It means assemblies. There was
light in the assemblies of Israel. What a picture this Gospel is!
There were twelve tribes in Israel and twelve families represented,
and therefore twelve assemblies in Goshen. Their names and all
of their children's names are recorded in the Scripture because
these twelve tribes represent the whole assembly of God. And it tells us over in Revelation,
you can read over there, the same thing. He'll give you the
names of the twelve children of Israel. Their literal names. And then He'll say, Behold, I
look in a multitude which no man can number. Same people.
Same people. But in this assembly is represented
the whole house of Israel. The whole assembly of Israel.
And the New Testament name for the assembly is what? Church. Is there a? Church. A light in
the church. It wasn't any light anywhere
else. A total concealment outside the church. The elect of God
are revealed in the gospel age as their assemblies. God did
not leave His beloved Israel scattered all over Egypt, but
He gathered them together in Goshen, and there gave them light. Goshen is a figure of Christ
and a fit symbol of His church. God had one great assembly, and
that would be delivered through the sea and leave Egypt's bondage
all in one. But in Goshen, there was many
dwellings, and there was light in every one of them. That word's
plural, if you look at it. Plural. And it's also, and I
don't understand a great deal about it, but it's a feminine
name. So when you look, he's talking
about his church. Talking about his church. Darkness
had now covered the whole nation of Egypt, including Goshen. But
there was light in the assemblies of Israel. And then the second
definition for this word dwellings is house. House. There's light in the house. David
said, I bled when they said unto me, let's go into the house of
the Lord. Why? Because there's light in there.
There's light in there. There's no light out here. There's
no light out here. They're talking about pie in
the sky and a sweet vine. There's no light out there. They're
not talking about sin and talking about God and His glory and Christ. And all his accomplished work,
you can't find that out there. It was light in the houses of Israel. Now the individual person being
a house, you can consider it that way. Or you can look at
it in the light of these individual families having a house, representing
the whole family. Or you can look at the whole
entire tribe as a house. Or you can look at the whole
nation of Israel as a house. It doesn't matter how you look
at it. It all says the same thing, there's light. If there's no
light in here, there's no light in that house or wherever I live.
Huh? That's right. I'll let you make your own application
there. But it's true in every sense
of the words that I gave you. But I'd remind you of this, that
God's Israel, both natural and spiritual, are represented as
a family and are never left alone in the wilderness. My friend, it makes all the difference
in the world how this darkness is perceived. Darkness cannot
be perceived in darkness. I need to say that again. Darkness
cannot be perceived in darkness. You stand there in darkness.
I've been in caves before with no light. My flashlight went
out. You stand there in that cave. After a while, Out here
in the dark, you get kind of night eyes. You don't get no
night eyes in the cave. You stand there and hold your
hand up like this and just keep bringing it up and you don't
ever see it. Darkness, you cannot perceive
darkness and darkness. All you can do is guess and speculate. But looking out of the light
of God and seeing the darkness, we understand what it is and
what it means. It very simply means that Pharaoh's
power is now They stood in that house full of light and they
looked out there and all out there in Egypt was in darkness. They were walking around like
blind men. All that glorious army of Pharaoh
and the big potentate himself is standing up there groping
in the darkness. Sun's out. Sun's shining on them. What's wrong with them? Darkness. It means that his power has been
broken. He is a defeated foe. He cannot
any longer rule his kingdom in the pretense of being God. Why? Because God came down and revealed
Himself. And He revealed Pharaoh for who
he was, a pretender. He can no longer deceive men
with his magicians and sorcerers and cunning craftiness. God has
revealed him for what he is. An enemy of God's elect and the
ruler of the darkness of that place. Everything he ruled was
in darkness, wasn't it? That's his rule. God's not on
that chain around Pharaoh's neck in that little symbol, but Pharaoh
on God's chain around his neck. Read the book of Revelations.
It said the Lord had a chain on him, didn't it? And reached
down and loosed him for a season. and then put chain back on him. When Christ came into this world
and died on the cross, he broke the power of Satan and exposed
him for what he is. Satan binds men in his representation
as God. And by his lies and deceits,
he hangs before them the cad of self-righteousness. And they
pull Satan's wagon, trying to get to something they're never
going to be able to have. Now, that's what they do. And
he binds them that way. By the life and death of Christ,
the light of God's righteousness and redemption shines, and His
true nature is revealed. He can never deceive Israel again. He said, next time I see you,
you're going to die. Moses said, you well said. You
ain't going to see me no more. Your seeing days is over. Why? Because God put him in the darkness. It's over. It's over for you,
Moses. And I'll show you. We go on in
chapter 11 and he gets over there and he begins to talk to Pharaoh.
This is still the same conversation. The conversation hadn't ended
yet. Pharaoh's throwing all these demands down about, you're going
to do this and you're going to do that. Moses looked at him
and he said, here's what's going to happen. All your servants
are going to come and bow down before me and beg me to leave. Then he said, I'll go out of
Egypt and I'll take it all with me. He said, Moses turned around
in a great anger and walked away from that potentate and left
him standing there smoking. Huh? That's right. They looked
out in that darkness and saw a defeated enemy. His kingdom
is taken from him. There's nothing left. It's in
total ruin. Total ruin. Even his servants
are begging him, tell him to leave. Get him out of here. Listen to this, Hebrews 2, verse
14. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that
had power over death, that is, the devil. Now listen to this.
And deliver them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage. Subject to bondage. Why? Because
of a falsely represented God. That's right. He wasn't represented as the
God of grace. He wasn't represented as the
God of love and mercy and justice and holiness. The God who accomplishes
salvation. I am the Lord, I change not,
therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. He misrepresented
God. And God exposed him for what
he is. As a pretender of God, the God
of this world commands and threatens and calls men to attempt to do
what they can never do, produce a righteousness and satisfy the
justice of God. But in Christ, God accomplishes
what He demands. And in so doing, He exposes the
old serpent for what he is. Paul tells the Colossians, having
spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly
triumphing over them in it. Now, he said, let no man therefore
judge you in meat or drink or in respect of a holy day or of
a new moon or of Sabbath days, Don't let them steal away your
inheritance of God in a pretense of humility, being voluntary
to show their free will and their good potential and all these
idiotic things, or in their ignorant worship, in their visual aids,
worshipping angels, intruding into those things which they
know nothing whatsoever about, being vainly puffed up without
any knowledge of the head which is Christ. Don't let them steal
your inheritance. You're the children of God. And
that man, Pharaoh, had stole their inheritance. He had them
and bonded. Colossians 2.20, wherefore, if
ye be dead with Christ from these basic principles of the world,
which is in darkness, why, as though living in the world, are
ye still subject to the things that they preach, like touch
not, taste not, handle not, which have no profit except to expose
man's fallen wisdom and will worship. and his pretense of
humility. It does nothing to satisfy God
concerning the sin and sins of our place. Nothing whatsoever. Christ is the light of deliverance.
And from that light we see Satan and his kingdom sitting exposed
and bound in chains of darkness. And now we're beginning to see
how our deliverance We start to see now when a man sees that,
when he looks out and begins to see this world in darkness.
Preacher, why do you preach so much on sin and darkness? Because
until you see the darkness, you can't see the deliverance. That's why. You got to see the hand of God
who sent the plague and who darkens this whole world. And you look
out there and you see it under the judgment of God. And here
you sit in light. You see the hand of God in your
deliverance. And you see a Pharaoh, he's a
defeated foe. He's a defeated foe. The God
of darkness can't compete with the God of light, can He? No
way. Now listen to this. Romans 8,
verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. That's what's going on down in
Egypt. Huh? That law of the Spirit of Christ. In our next study, we're going
to look at the Lamb. We're going to look at the Lamb.
And we're going to look at Him in light of this darkness. I
just couldn't get it all into one message. But it's the light
of that Lamb and the blood of that Lamb.