Procedimiento de análisis LDB Línea de Balance

mayest know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth. And I will put a division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.

God not only can create insects, but He can control their behavior so that a land can be off-limits to them. Thus was the case with the area in which the Israelites lived. It was off-limits to these flying insects. Significantly, as God demonstrated His great power by means of these plagues, He made certain that there can be no mistake that all of them were totally under His control and could not be a result of an abnormal quirk in nature. Many of the plagues, while Egypt was devastated by them, did not touch Goshen, the land of the Hebrews.

Additionally, God frequently gave the precise day when the plague would hit Egypt and when the plague would be removed. For example, we read in Exodus 8:9 that Moses asked Pharaoh, at the time the plague of frogs was corrupting Egypt:

. . . When shall I entreat for thee, and for thy servants, and for thy people, to destroy the frogs from thee and thy houses, that they may remain in the river only?

Pharaoh’s answer was “To morrow” (verse 10). Accordingly, Moses entreated the Lord that this might be the case. Then Exodus 8:13-14 records:

And the LORD did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields. And they gathered them together upon heaps: and the land stank.

In the fifth plague, God brought a serious pestilence on the cattle and other animals of the Egyptians. We read in Exodus 9:3, 6a:

Behold, the hand of the LORD is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain. And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died . . . .

Again, we read that nothing died of the people of Israel. Exodus 9:4, 6b says:

And the LORD shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that is the children’s of Israel. Of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.

God is showing His mighty power over disease, even as He has total authority over all life.

Again, God is showing His mighty power over disease, even as He has total authority over all life (Deuteronomy 32:39).

The sixth plague demonstrated God’s power over diseases, which afflict mankind as well as animals.

We read in Exodus 9:8-9:

And the LORD said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.

In the seventh plague, God showed His mighty power over the elements of nature that produce storms.

We read in Exodus 9:18:

Behold, to morrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof even until now.

Once again, God demonstrated His complete control of this mighty storm as we read in Exodus 9:23-25:

And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven: and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous, such

as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.

The eighth plague was that of locusts that devoured every green plant that had not been destroyed by the hail (Exodus 10:1-20).

The ninth plague was a time of thick darkness. We read in Exodus 10:22- 23:

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: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

That thick darkness, like the other plagues, was a warning of future judgment upon the whole world. Christ is the Light of the world (John 8:12). Darkness is the absence of light. This is the awful condition that will prevail over all the earth at the end of the world when every person will see Christ as Judge over all the earth (Revelation 6:12-17). Christ’s appearance will signify that the Gospel of grace has come to an end. There is no longer any grace or mercy or possibility of salvation. How dreadful! The 3 days of total darkness signify that this is God’s purpose (see Chapter 8 of this study, “The Numbers in the Bible”). It will happen.

Yet, there is light in the land of Israel. That is, the true believers are eternally secure in Christ who is the Light.

By means of these plagues, God is showing in stark reality that He will carry out all of the terrible consequences

of sin and that He has the power to do so.

What God is showing us in these ten plagues (and we will examine the tenth plague in just a moment) is the reality of Judgment Day. The people of Israel represent the fact that those who are truly saved will not experience His divine Judgment. Those who are rebelling against God’s Law (every unsaved person), will experience the awful wrath of God. By means of these plagues, God is showing in stark reality that He will carry out all of the terrible consequences of sin and that He has the power to do so (Psalm 78:43-53). Each of us should tremble as we read the Biblical account of these plagues.

As He protected Israel through the time of the plagues, God is demonstrating that those who have become genuine believers are always under God’s care. Moreover, as the people of Israel were delivered from the bondage of Pharaoh and Egypt, so God delivers all those who become saved from sin’s bondage.

The Death of the Firstborn

Egypt is frequently used in the Bible as a portrait or type identifying with those who are in bondage to sin. It is frequently used as a representation of the world that is ruled over by Satan. The world is chiefly occupied by those who are in bondage to sin. Those who are unsaved, that is, those who are in bondage to sin, have no ability to be freed from this enslavement. The same situation existed with Israel in Egypt. They were in bondage to a cruel king with no possibility of deliverance. The king of Egypt (Pharaoh) typified Satan who rules over the souls of the unsaved.1 _{It is from Satan’s kingdom that those who have become saved}

are set free. God speaks of this in Exodus 20:2:

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Every true believer spiritually has been rescued from Egypt where they spiritually were in bondage to sin and to Satan. To be set free from sin requires that a ransom be paid. That ransom is the death of the Firstborn, Jesus Christ. Christ is called the firstborn in Colossians 1:18 because He rose from the dead after paying for the sins of those He chose to save before the foundation of the world. Colossians 1:18 declares:

And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

1 _{Incidentally, in the year 1877 B.C., when Joseph, as second ruler in Egypt,} commanded Jacob and his family to leave the land of Canaan and come to live in Egypt, the Pharaoh who ruled at the time of the famine was not a figure of Satan. He, in that instance, was a picture of God who rules the whole world. True, in the Bible, it is unusual to find the concept that Pharaoh would represent God. However, in this account of Joseph, and in at least one or two other passages, heathen kings were representative of God. This was true, for example, of King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther in the Bible (see Chapter 7 of this present writing). The family of Jacob did not come into the land of Egypt as slaves but as shepherds to shepherd the cattle of the Egyptians. They were like the believers of today who are commanded to come out of the local churches to serve Christ (who was typified by Joseph) by being shepherds to the world (typified by the Egyptians). The chief trauma for Jacob was that he was commanded to leave the promised land, the land of Canaan.

Christ, as the firstborn, who endured the wrath of God in the place of those who become true believers, who are also called

firstborn (Exodus 13:13; Romans 8:29), was typified by all the firstborn of Egypt who were killed by God.

Christ, as the firstborn, who endured the wrath of God in the place of those who become true believers, who are also called firstborn (Exodus 13:13; Romans 8:29), was typified by all the firstborn of Egypt who were killed by God in the night just before the nation of Israel was freed from Egyptian bondage (Exodus 12:29-31). This is referred to by the citation of Isaiah 43:3:

For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: