And I'll take up something else next week and I'll announce on Sunday what it's going to be

because I've made it my mind yet.

But it's strange what verses bring you encouragement.

Sometimes they are utterly unexpected and seem to have on the surface a point that isn't encouraging.

And yet as I dwelt on this verse, which may not strike you the same way it struck me,

it wound up having a very profound effect on lifting me up this morning. I'm reading through Exodus and the ten plagues are happening and

God is hardening Pharaoh's heart so that he does not let the people go.

And the last plague is the Passover where if you're a believer you put the blood on the door

and the angel of death passes over and if you're not you lose your firstborn son and the summary statement after he describes the

Passover in verse 15 of Exodus 13 is when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go

the Lord killed all the first born in the land of Egypt.

The Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. It was just so blunt.

So I thought, my eldest is Karsten.

And if I'd have been an Egyptian living out on the outskirts of town, he'd be dead. I'd be dead because I was a first born son.

And so in some houses, the son died, who was the oldest, the father died, the grandfather died.

God killed them, it says.

It just killed them.

They didn't even know what was happening.

Now, as I reflected on that, I thought,

how does that sit with people today?

Preach a sermon on that text.

The Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.

...