Psalm 105:23-38

Now, imagine yourself back in that time if you can, a couple of millennia ago. Imagine yourself a "super policeman" walking your beat. I am sure they had people like that they employed to keep peace within the community and policemen pretty much keep their finger on what is going on in the nation. They know who is doing what, who is having birthdays, who is having births or is sick. They know who the thieves are in the community, who the good guys are, and who the merchants are. Those who walk the beat were pretty much aware of the scuttlebutt going on within their territory, wherever that might have been.

What do you think the people in Egypt were talking about? Do you not think they were out on the street talking to people like the policemen about what was going on within the community? Talking about the destruction, wondering why these things were occurring? Do you suppose they were making offerings and sacrificing to their gods, maybe even cursing the gods for what was occurring?

The things that God did were not done in a corner. They were done purposefully. We saw a bit of that in the sermon yesterday ["The Night to be Much Observed"]. Beginning with Abraham in Geneses 15, God already had it planned out as a part of His purpose that Israel was going to go into captivity. The descendants of Abraham were going to go into captivity. They had not even been born yet, they had done nothing wrong yet, but they were going to go into captivity because God had lessons He wanted to get across to the children of Abraham, and to the Egyptians as well, because He was going to write a Book. We were going to learn from it and a couple of thousand years later, we would see object lessons. So that maybe we could put ourselves back in that time and think about the lessons of that time and update them into your time.

What kind of a lesson is being learned here? These people were in the process of learning and were being used of God so they would be written in a Book for you and me to learn from. So God used these people's lives for you and me to learn from.

God used those people and directed their lives in order that we can get a lesson. These things were not done in a corner. These people experienced them. They were talking about them at dinner; they were talking about them when they got up in the morning, and when they got to work. The policeman talked about it perhaps more than others because everyone on his beat was talking about it to him about what was happening to the land of Egypt.

I am sure he heard about the confrontations that were taking place between Moses and Aaron and the Pharaoh and his court, as well. It must have been common scuttlebutt, because those things would leak out to people who were part of the courtiers around the Pharaoh. They would talk to their relatives who would talk to their relatives and business associates. Though the man on the street may not have gotten the most up-to-date, or accurate, information, they did get the essence of what was done and said even in the courts of Egypt.

It is interesting what is said in verse 27, where it says, "They performed his signs among them." It can be translated; "The words of his signs." There was instruction in what was going on there. And that would include with it the demands that Moses and Aaron made, the warnings that God gave to Moses and Aaron to give to Pharaoh and his court as well, those things that proceeded each plague that came along.

Now think about Joe Egyptian again. It is possible—indeed I think it is highly probable—that he heard in advance the final prophecy, the killing of the firstborn, because it says here that "the dread of Israel was on them", because they knew and they knew that they knew that every time this Moses said something, it happened!

It was almost like they had a death sentence, and all they could do was wait around and see what occurred. Now, they were not given the instruction that Israel was, to put the blood … . . .