Category: Exodus

More than Good Directions (Exodus 13:17–22)

God doesn’t defeat the enemies of His people and redeem them, only to wave goodbye from the steps of His embassy in the defeated nation, giving them good directions to make it the rest of the way home on their own. The God who comes down to His people goes with them.

Modern evangelicals are not allergic to all doctrine. There’re some doctrines they’re fond of. One of them is guidance. Unfortunately, we’re severely misguided concerning guidance. Culpably, we are misguided because we don’t like where Biblical guidance goes.

Where does God lead His people? He leads them to a mountain, and then to the promised land. He leads them to a mountain where they receive His law, that they might know how they are to live in that land unto Him. God leads His people into holiness and He leads them home. Holiness is the path home, for home is a place of holiness.

A young man struggling with pornography asks what God’s will is for his life. What he want’s to know is where to go to school, what career to pursue, and who to marry. He want’s to know how to live in a sweet spot so that he can live Disney ever after. Many evangelicals have tried to baptize prosperity theology and make it clean. Such a pursuit of God’s will is nothing but idolatry. What is God’s will for the young man? Stop looking at pornography. Be holy.

We want to be Christian Jedi Knights, in touch with the Spirit, traversing a mine field of danger with supernatural knowledge. We think we’re guided by the Spirit when we miss a traffic accident. True enough. But you were also guided by the sovereign God when you had a traffic accident. God’s guidance isn’t something passive, but active. He is guiding. He faithfully guides His redeemed people into holiness until they come all the way home.

God guides His people into Egypt where they’re oppressed. He guides Moses back, and heavier loads are laid on them. He delivers them and lead them south away from the promised land. He leads them by the Sea where there is no retreat. He leads them in the wilderness. And He leads them home. God’s guidance comes with cloud and fire. It is omnisciently wise and gloriously peculiar. It is an unfailing, active, consistent guidance. It comes not at a distance, nor quietly. It is near and clear.

If your notion of divine guidance causes you more anxiety than peace, you’re doing it wrong. As is often the case, many sing their theology better than they confess it:

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
—John Newton

Exodus Moving Company (Exodus 13:1–16)

The front of the U-Haul is highly organized. It’s the back that’s in such a state of pandemonium you’re terrified to upon the door to unload. One might think we’ve come to the back of the U-Haul as the Israelites prepare to move, but God is packing, and the last items are a perfect fit. The tail isn’t loose and dangerous, nor are odds and ends haphazardly smashed in. These aren’t random leftovers. Note God’s fine packing skills, His organizational genius.

First, Exodus 11:1–13:16 concern the last wonder and their exodus. Where has the emphasis been? Not on how Israel was saved by judgment, but how she was saved from judgment. The emphasis isn’t on the judgment that falls on Egypt so much as the feasts of commemoration centering on how Yahweh saved them from the same judgment. So the end of this section emphasizes again what has been emphasized. The ending fits the same pattern of organization at the front of the U-Haul.

Second, another repeated pattern is that Yahweh speaks (v. 1) and then Moses speaks (v. 3). When Moses speaks he speaks what Yahweh spoke. See, packing skills displayed undiminished all the way through.

Third, both Unleavened Bread and the lambing, kidding, and calving of their livestock are spring events. They mark fruitfulness. Lambs are being born, wheat is being harvested (13:4). The God who slew the firstborn of Egypt, both man and beast, is the God who made Israel fruitful in Egypt and redeemed them. Further both the consecration of the firstborn and the feast are to be perpetuated from father to son, and God gives a sample liturgy tying both to the exodus (13:8–10, 14–15). Also, the further instructions are concerning how these things are to be observed in the land (13:5, 11).

Finally, these rites remind us these events are not just to be read historically, but theologically. By ending this section with the consecration of the firstborn and the redemption of Sons, great clarity is given as to the meaning of God’s redemption of Israel as His firstborn (Exodus 4:22–23). God provides a substitute for His people that He does not for Egypt. He purchases his son back unto Himself out of judgment by the shedding of a representative’s blood.

Jesus is the firstborn of many brothers. Jesus, the firstborn, represents the family. But for Him there was no substitute. He didn’t need one. We did. He is the substitute. Jesus is as the firstborn of Egypt that we might be as the adopted firstborn of Israel.

God packed these last so that they’d figuratively be the first things unpacked when they got to the promised land. God isn’t tired, haphazardly throwing in a few last odd shaped items. As they leave, they leave with feasts and rites to be perpetuated so they’ll remember His redemption.

Exodus Moving Company: Family owned and operated. Father, Son, and Spirit expertly moving souls out of the bondage of Egypt, paying the full price for the move in an unmatched display of glory.

Missing the Feast for Choking on the Numbers (Exodus 12:29–51)

Why the additional Passover instructions trailing the report of the Exodus (12:43–51)? To understand one reason, dial these digits: 600000 (12:37). Add in estimates for women and children and we’ve got a nation of approximately 2 million leaving Egypt.

Attempts are made to shrink this number, even by conservative evangelicals who own up to all that’s proceeded. The best efforts demonstrate how the word for thousand here is translated a variety of ways including cattle, clans, divisions, families, and tribes. Indeed. Then they pontificate what we really have is six hundred divisions of fighting men; thus bringing the estimated total down to a manageable thirty five thousand. It’s funny to see a scholar deal so deftly with this text, but then so dumbly with Exodus 38:26 where we get the more exact figure of 603,550. Their prime retort being to quietly mumble “I dunno?” They have an even harder time with the census figures in Numbers 1, 2 and 26 where Moses shows his work and teases this out in greater detail.

Israel left big and they left big just as their big God had promised. God had promised Abraham descendants as the sand and stars (Genesis 13:16; 15:5). God told Jacob that it was in Egypt that He would make him a great nation (Genesis 46:3). Exodus begins by telling us “the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them (Exodus 1:7).” Pharaoh tries to stomp the vine of Yahweh to death, but he only plants more seeds. “But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel (Exodus 1:12). It’s laughable to see one own up to a river turning to blood, frogs covering the land, dust turning to gnats, flies filling houses, livestock dropping dead, boils tormenting flesh, hail devastating crops, locusts finishing off what was left, darkness terrifying for three days, and the firstborn being stricken dead, but then choke on the number 600,000. The point of the big number is to show us again God’s big faithfulness and big sovereignty by making Israel a big nation.

But how does this relate to the Passover? This big group leaving Israel wasn’t solely comprised of ethnic Israelites. “A mixed multitude also went up with them (Exodus 12:38).” The new Passover material concerns who may partake of the Passover. While no foreigner may (vv. 43, 45) a slave, stranger, or sojourner who wishes to, may, if he is circumcised identifying with the people of Israel. This isn’t racial bias, it’s religious bias. This is a feast for Israel (cf. Romans 2:29), the people of God, and thus, it is a feast for the nations.

Centuries later a centurion would express faith in Jesus. Jesus responded, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:10–12).” When foreigners were excluded from the Passover it wasn’t ethnic prejudice. When Israelites are barred from the feast of the kingdom, it’s not ethnic prejudice. A great host from every tribe, language, people, and nation is being redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. This isn’t biased prejudice, it is gracious election, and it is big because our God is big.

The Blood Can’t be Drained Away, but It Can Be Applied (Exodus 12:1–28)

The Passover is a sacrifice-feast. No one would contend that it’s not a feast. Besides the eating, it’s explicitly called a feast twice in Exodus 12:14. Thus, no one contends that the Passover isn’t a feast, but some do want to say that it’s not a sacrifice. While no one could argue that Passover isn’t a feast, no one should argue that it’s not a sacrifice. The feast looses it’s significance if it isn’t a sacrifice-feast. Blood isn’t just drained so as to prepare a meal to eat. It is smeared and applied. The blood is a sign. Further, the Passover is explicitly called a feast in Exodus 12:27.

You can be certain that those who toy with the shadow do so because they hate the One who casts it. Academics and theologians revise the historical Passover because they hate the Passover Lamb who fulfilled it. They might say they like Jesus, but they’ve revised Him too. Why do they exert such mental muscle to cook up a Passover that’s nothing more than a commemorative meal celebrating deliverance? Not because they hate the idea of Passover as sacrifice, but because they hate the idea of the cross as sacrifice.

In 1993 at a “Protestant” conference one speaker said, “I don’t think we need a theology of atonement at all; I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff.” Others say penal substitutionary atonement is “a form of cosmic child abuse.” Drain the blood, on the with the feast.

R.C. Sproul was once invited by a Quaker community to lecture on the relation of the Old and New Covenants. As he was unfolding the curse motif of the Scriptures and spoke of how Christ, as a substitutionary sacrifice bore the curse, someone in the back of the room yelled, “That’s primitive and obscene.” Stunned he asked, “What did you say?” With great hostility he repeated, “That’s primitive and obscene.” Sproul recollects, “At that point, I had recovered from my surprise, and I told the man I actually liked his choice of adjectives. It is primitive for a blood sacrifice to be made to satisfy the justice of a transcendent and holy God, but sin is a primitive thing that is basic to our human existence, so God chose to communicate His love, mercy, and redemption to us through this primitive work. And the cross is an obscenity, because all of the corporate sin of God’s people was laid on Christ. The cross was the ugliest, most obscene thing in the history of the world. So I thanked the man for his observation. But my point is that the man was extremely hostile to the whole idea of the atonement.”

Why do men hate it so? It isn’t because of refined and enlightened tastes. This isn’t like those who lash out against blood and gore in film and video games. The same chap who loves those games can hate the idea of the cross as sacrifice. Why do they hate it so? Because the Passover as sacrifice, pointing to the cross, undermines all human pride and gives all glory to Christ.

On Parenthetical Statements and Swallowing Big Pills (Exodus 11:1–10)

Words (parenthesis) more words.

Parenthetical statements explain and clarify. Exodus 11:1–10 has an opening parenthetical statement (vv. 1–3) and a closing one (vv. 9–10). These two parenthetical statements hug the declaration of the tenth wonder as tightly as, well, parenthesis.

Following the ninth plague of darkness, Pharaoh calls for Moses and commands Israel to leave, but without their livestock. No deal. Pharaoh erupts and tells Moses to be heedful not to see him again lest he die. Moses retorts they indeed won’t see one another. What follows explains why Moses could say this with confidence. The parenthetical statement in vv. 1-3 takes us back before Moses appeared in Pharaoh’s court.

The LORD said to Moses, “Yet one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. Speak now in the hearing of the people, that they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” And the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people.

End the first parenthesis. Resume closing salvo against  Pharaoh. Moses declares the last of the wonders before Pharaoh (Exodus 11:8–9). Moses knew the end game from the beginning (Exodus 4:21–23). He knew multiple wonders were God’s want-to, not His have-to, and that the death of the firstborn would be the finale. Now he’s learned that God wishes to round things out at ten. God’s judgment is no mindless rage, but poetic justice. The emphasis, the stress, the accent of God’s poetry weighs on this, His glory.

The closing parenthesis (11:9–10) are just that, half, or the closing of a parenthesis. The first half came in 7:3–4 just before the first sign was done.

But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.

Exodus 7:3–4 and 11:9–10 together form what Bible scholars call an inclusio. Think of them as a kind of verbal parenthesis, using similar language to mark off a large section. Note the similarity of the closing half to the opening.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not listen to you, that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.” Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

I have no fear of being as repetitive as the Bible. Medicine often is repetitive. We need radical healing in our souls. The total sovereignty of God is a big pill to swallow and we need to swallow the whole thing—daily. This is not a drug with a score down the middle so that you can cut it in half. The Bible isn’t perforated such that you can take a half-sovereign and pretend you’ve ingested the a whole. So again, and without trepidation, these multiple wonders are not a have-to because of Pharaoh’s hardness, Pharaoh is hard because multiple wonders are God’s want-to. In redemption God is totally sovereign. This sovereignty expresses both God’s justice and His grace without compromising either. By these mighty acts God makes distinction (Exodus 11:7). In the tenth wonder God will reveal how He can make this distinction. Both Israel and Egypt deserve this tenth wonder, but for His people, He provides a sacrifice. Distinction by sacrifice; this is the gospel of the sovereign Lord.

Darkness for Light and Light by Darkness (Exodus 10:21–29)

Why all this darkness? For light. This is a darkness that foreshadows. It foreshadows a greater darkness by which came the great light.

While there is darkness in Egypt light shines upon God’s people. God makes distinction. In covenant love He has chosen Israel. By this darkness, light is shed. By this darkness, the gospel is proclaimed.

Following this wonder, God again hardens Pharaoh’s heart. Why? For another darkness. A deeper darkness. Why? For greater light. God wanted to crest with the death of the firstborn (Exodus 4:21–23). This would be a darkness that not even His people were immune to. They were not immune, but they were provided a substitute. By this darkness, light is shed. By this darkness, the gospel is proclaimed.

On a dark night the disciples partook of the Passover. Jesus changed the liturgy to speak of His broken body and his spilled blood. During darkness, light is shed. During darkness, the gospel is proclaimed.

The next day the sky turned black as the substitute Lamb’s body was broken, as His blood was poured out to ransom His people. By that darkness, light is. By that darkness, the gospel is.

The ninth plague foreshadows. The light for the shadow casted came from the future, and that light came out of darkness. Three hours of darkness at the cross gave way to three days of darkness in the grave, but the Son rose on Resurrection morn as the Light to unfailing shine upon His people. Darkness for light and light by darkness.

So that You’d Have a Story to Tell (Exodus 10:1–20)

Many try to float about as if they’re contextless, story-less, detached from the narrative of their parents, ignorant of their ancestors, their national history, their ethnic identity, and the big story we all find ourselves in. No one ever told them their story. Few probably every read them a story. They had history teachers who hadn’t read a history book in so long that it would take a vigorous historian to unearth when. To such teachers, history wasn’t a passion, it was a job. The story of Washington wasn’t told well, so lesser stories crowded in to fill the gap, stories with sponges named Bob.

Thus a generation grows up with the gumption to declare, “We determine meaning. We write our own story. We determine our destiny.” So they float out there, rootless, pretending to be god, creating their own world. “The page is blank, and we write the tale.” We certainly write, but who gave you the paper? Who taught you to write? Who manufactured the pen? Who discovered ink? Are you writing your story with the Roman alphabet? The canvas you paint on is given to you, with thousands of years of grand patina. You’ve inherited far more than you’ll ever bequeath. The palate of colors you work with, they’re predetermined, and costly.

Not a one of us understands the breadth of beauty and pain necessary for us to have this grand canvas, these rare paints, these costly tools. Why are you painting in Oklahoma? Why are you painting in 2015? Why are you painting with automobiles, the internet, and air-conditioning? That pen that you hold in your hand may be cheap, but how many hours, how many years of effort over the pen and ink led to the tool you have in your hand? The man who holds a 99¢ Pilot G2 is a wealthy steward. To whom much is given much is required. Our best efforts at being grounded must sound as trite to an omniscient God as “In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” We know a small slice of the backstory, but how profoundly do we sense its significance. Nonetheless, there’s all the difference between a person who knows that an ancient flood, Pyramids, Solomon’s wisdom, Vesuvius, Constantine, WWI, and the attraction of a man and a woman led to their existence, than one who just thinks they’re a random accident of the cosmos, a product of “Boom!” We deny the Author to write our own story, recasting ourselves as demiurges.

We may try to float, but we’re grounded. We move, but only because we have roots. We didn’t just spring up out of nothing. Even Adam was rooted, made from earth, planned in the heart of an eternal God, and made in His image.

Why the exodus? Why all the show? So that we’d have a story to tell—a family story.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, that you may know that I am the LORD.”

Moses isn’t to go to Pharaoh because he’s astonishingly still hard and a bigger hammer is needed to crack his heart. God wants to use the bigger hammer, one that’ll make Mjölnir look like a Fisher Price toy. Multiple wonders are not a have-to because of Pharaoh’s hard heart. Pharaoh’s heart is hardened by God because multiple wonders are God’s want-to. Why is Pharaoh’s heart hard? Because God wants to show. But that is only half the reasoning. This is show and tell. God wants to show so that they’ll have something to tell. “Gather round kids, listen to what God did for us.”

This is part of your story. You’re rooted in this. This is your God. This is how He redeems—big. You’re not story-less. Your ancestry is rich. Envy no epic tale, no masterful film. Yours isn’t simply a good story, it is part of the glorious story—the tale of God’s glory. This isn’t a fish story, it’s a whale of a tale, and like Jonah’s, it’s true. You don’t have to write something epic, Jesus has. You don’t have to be the hero. It’s futile. You were a villain like every other fallen son of Adam. Jesus is the hero. You’re rescued. Tell the tale. Gather the children. Tell them how God destroyed a Pharaoh as part of your salvation.

Wrath and Redemption for Renown (Exodus 9:13–35)

If the Exodus is simply about redemption, then God is terribly inefficient. The point isn’t simply redemption, but renown. God could’ve taken Pharaoh out with one punch, but He reserves His strength for ten blows, so that He might more fully display his power.

For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth (Exodus 9:15–16).

In a boxing match if some no-name opponent is knocked out with one blow, the crowd might think it was owing more to the weakness of the loser than the strength of the winner. But if some unknown boxer waits patiently for the “greatest” to climb to the pinnacle of his career, and then, having challenged him, slowly defeats him, one punch each round, while never suffering a blow himself, then his supremacy is fully demonstrated.

God raised Pharaoh up for this purpose. This is why Pharaoh exists. You can’t soften the meaning.

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory (Romans 9:17–23).

God’s redemption is for renown. God’s wrath is for renown. God purposes to be glorified in all: vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath. But, the supreme way God intends for His glory to be communicated is in redemption. Wrath falls  “in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy.”

It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all; for then the effulgence would not answer the reality. For the same reason it is not proper that one should be manifested exceedingly, and another but very little. It is highly proper that the effulgent glory of God should answer his real excellency; that the splendour should be answerable to the real and essential glory, for the same reason that it is proper and excellent for God to glorify himself at all.

Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all. If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God’s holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from.

How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired, and the sense of it not so great, as we have elsewhere shown. We little consider how much the sense of good is heightened by the sense of evil, both moral and natural. And as it is necessary that there should be evil, because the display of the glory of God could not but be imperfect and incomplete without it, so evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature’s happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect; and the happiness of the creature would be imperfect upon another account also; for, as we have said, the sense of good is comparatively dull and flat, without the knowledge of evil. —Jonathan Edwards

Man Can’t Frankenstein Spiritual Life (Exodus 9:1–12)

Pharaoh’s wealth (livestock) and health were stripped from him. Job’s wealth and health were stripped from him. Only one of them worshipped. What made the difference? God. God hardened Pharaoh (Exodus 9:12). Implicitly, He softened, regenerated, and saved Job.

You can’t make a spiritual man by beating his flesh to death. God may, and often does, use means. He may strip a man of wealth and health in bringing him to life, but unless the Spirit works within, it matters not what happens without. If this was just a matter of getting the right physical leverage, then we could make the difference. But as Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all (John 6:63).”

We cannot beat spiritual sense into one worldly wise.

We cannot create faith in God by evidencing the hopelessness of idols.

We can’t bring a dead man alive by beating him.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one (1 Corinthians 2:12-15).

The determinative factor is unseen.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3:6–8).

Man can’t Frankenstein spiritual life. The Spirit must blow on a valley of dry bones and make them live. Unless God works within, it matters not what happens without.

Symphonic Cacophony (Exodus 8:16–32)

Organized chaos, symphonic cacophony, constructive destruction: that is what the wonders of judgment that befall Egypt are. Creation is unraveling for the purpose of new creation. Judgment is falling for salvation.

If you’re a buck private on the front line, things might seem chaotic, but for the general who can see the whole war, there’s order to the madness. When Joshua attacked Ai the second time he divided his forces, sending a division behind the city to ambush it. Once Joshua came against the city with the remaining troops, Israel fled as in the previous battle, pretending defeat. The men of Ai thought this was a good kind of chaos and pursued. The Israelite ambushers then set fire to Ai. Now the men of Ai were in chaos. Organized chaos. Israel’s pretend chaos was the plan. Ai’s genuine chaos was the plan.

We know the story. We know the strategy. We know that from the chaos of the cross new creation burst forth. Every millimeter of chaos is ordered. Not one particle of violence falls to the ground unintended. Something beyond laser-guided accuracy sends forth every bolt of lightning. Earthquakes rattles this earth with a precision that would make a brain surgeon envious. Our God is so big, He is Lord over the smallest details. The chaos stirs up a lot of dust, but not one mote floats through the air unguided.

Skyscraper implosions are amazing. Organized chaos, for the purpose of rebuilding. God implodes stars, and with atomic accuracy for purposes beyond us. But His greatest marvel is redemption. From the chaos of the judgment of the plagues come redemption and  new creation. From the chaos of the judgment of the cross come redemption and new creation.