Exodus Week 2
God Delivers the Israelites
7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:7-10 NIV
Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened.
Exodus 7:15-16 NIV
Exodus 11-12- The Passover
Memory Verse: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 NIV
Main Takeaway: God saves His people so they can worship Him!
Introduction:
Captive. Enslaved. Hostage. Trapped. These are not words that naturally bring up pleasant feelings or thoughts. They are words that make us think of tragic occurrences and experiences. These words make me think of the painful slavery that once was prevalent in America. They also make me think of prisoners of war, the hostages recently held by Hamas, the slaves stuck in the sex trade across America and the rest of the world, and kidnapped victims. These are all unbearable and calamitous examples. While most of us will thankfully never experience these types of realities, some of us potentially already have or will one day. I pray for that not to happen of course.
While physical captivity or enslavement has not occurred for most of us, all of us have experienced feelings of being trapped or perceptions of being held captive. Perhaps some of us have felt trapped in an awful job, stuck in what you feel like is a failing marriage, held hostage by insufficient finances, or perhaps enslaved to a sin that you don’t feel like you can overcome. I believe all of us can relate or have experienced at least one of these examples at some point in our lives. In any of these situations, there is a sense of hopelessness, and that’s the heartbreaking part. We can get the feeling that there is no way out and no one to help us. A life without hope is perhaps the worst way to live.
That’s the feeling the Israelites have in the story we are going to look at today. The situation the Israelites find themselves in feels hopeless. They have been enslaved by the nation of Egypt for over 400 years. They need someone to save them. They can’t take anymore. So, they cry out to the only One that can save them. They cry out to the Lord, and guess what? He hears them and sets a plan in motion that will set them free. We are going to dig into this story of the Exodus today, and hopefully take away some insights that can help us when we are experiencing feelings of captivity and entrapment.
Background and context:
If you look at where we left off with Abraham last week, and then compare it to where we are this week, you can see that a lot has happened. The story jumped from God choosing Abraham to bring about the nation of Israel, to now the people of Israel being enslaved by the most powerful nation on Earth at the time, Egypt. It’s impossible for me to tell the complete story of what happened in a short amount of time. The timeline from Abraham to the Israelite enslavement is found from Genesis 12-Genesis 50 and Exodus 1. That’s a lot to read, but it is a very interesting one if you take the time to go through it. But that is where we are going to pick things up. The nation that God promised would come from Abraham is now very numerous, but they now have been under oppression by the powerful nation of Egypt for the last 400 years.
You might be wondering why they would remain in slavery for so long if they were God’s chosen people. Did God abandon them? No, He was right there with them the whole time working his plan. God used this time to get the Israelites to hunger and search for Him, which they did. They would cry out to the Lord, and He heard their call and would begin the process of setting them free.
God called a man by the name of Moses to lead His people out of bondage. Moses was born into slavery but was miraculously saved and taken to live with Pharoah to be raised by his daughter. When Moses became an adult, He saw the hardship that was placed on his people and acted rashly. He ended up killing a man that was beating an Israelite. So, Moses fled and started a life far from the bondage in Egypt. However, God had a plan to rescue His people and knew that Moses was the right man for the job to carry out His plan. God called to Moses from a burning bush and told him that it was time to go back to Egypt and free his people. God says to Moses in Exodus 3:7-10, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” God heard the cry of His people. They thought that He had abandoned them, but He was listening. God tells Moses it’s time to go and be a part of His plan to lead His people out of slavery. Moses was reluctant at first, but after some convincing obeyed God and went back to Egypt. There Moses would stand before Pharoah and demand that his people be set free.
On one occasion, Moses confronts Pharoah and says in Exodus 7:15-16, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened.” Notice that Moses didn’t say, “Let my people go so that they can go live it up in another country.” No, He said, “Let my people go, so that they may WORSHIP me.” The worship of God by the Israelites was hindered when in Egypt. God needed to get them out so they could worship Him acceptably and with all their hearts.
Pharoah would not listen of course. So, God sent ten plagues across Egypt that would demonstrate His power over the so-called gods of their nation. For the first nine plagues, Pharoah would beg Moses to ask God to take away the disasters with the promise that he would let the Israelites go, but once the plague was removed, Pharoah would change his mind.
However, the tenth plague would be the worst plague of all and the final straw for Pharoah. Exodus 11-12 describes this last disaster. God promised Pharoah that all the firstborn sons of Egypt would be struck dead in the night because he would not let His people go. Through Moses, God told Pharoah that He would go all throughout Egypt and destroy every firstborn son at midnight, but when he would look at the Israelites, he would see that not even the smallest hair on the head of anyone would be harmed. It would be then that Pharoah would finally see that the one true God is the God of the Israelites and that they were distinct from the people of Egypt. They were His special people.
On the evening of the last plague, God gave a command to the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb without defect and take its blood and paint it on the doorposts of their homes. In doing this, the angel of death that would come to Egypt would see the blood on their homes and “pass over” them, sparing their lives, and that’s exactly what happened. Each Israelite family sacrificed a lamb and painted its blood on their homes. The angel of death came to the nation of Egypt killing every firstborn son of the Egyptians but spared the Israelites from any harm because He saw the blood of the lamb on their door posts. This was Pharoah’s breaking point mostly because he lost his firstborn son in this plague and so he finally relented and let the Israelites go free! God delivered His people through death and set them free by the blood of a spotless lamb (this monumental event would be called the Passover and would be celebrated as a remembrance every year by the nation of Israel).
Application
The Passover is a beautiful parallel to the work Jesus did on the cross. When you read the Old Testament, you can see parallels and foreshadowing to Jesus almost everywhere. The Passover story is such a powerful connection. 1 Peter 1:18-19 makes this connection when he says, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” Jesus was our spotless lamb that shed His blood on the cross to set us free. However, Jesus’s mission was not to set us free from physical slavery this time, but to save us from being slaves to sin. Paul says it like this in Ephesians 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” Jesus, the spotless lamb, sacrificed Himself and shed His blood so we would not be under the weight and power of sin. We are free from it’s grip! Sin has the power to bind us in guilt and shame. But because of our spotless lamb, guilt and shame cannot bind us anymore because we are forgiven. This one sacrifice pays the price or redeems us, from all sin both past and future. What an amazing gift, and it’s free! Our only obligation is to make Jesus Christ the Lord of our life. Once we do that, then it’s done, and we are set free.
So, if we are set free from the grip of sin, shame, and guilt, does that mean we are free to go live it up and do whatever we want? Nope! Just like with the Israelites who were freed from slavery so that they could worship God, we are called to do the same thing. Our freedom from sin should allow us to live in a way that brings honor and glory to Him and should motivate us to live a worship filled life. Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” In other words, don’t use your freedom to become enslaved again under sin and the law, but use your freedom to glorify God and worship Him. If we live with the idea in mind that we can do whatever we want and sin anytime we want to because God will forgive us, then we are missing the mark. Our freedom was bought at a price. The precious blood of Jesus was the payment, and we should live grateful lives that bring honor and glory to God by avoiding sin the best we can.
Are we going to get all this right? Are we going to be able to live sinless lives? No, not even close, but if we are living worship filled lives, the blood of Jesus will still pay the price when we mess up. That’s part of the freedom we have in Jesus. He has set us free! Let’s make it our job to live a life that brings Him glory and live a life that demonstrates worship in all that we do.
Perhaps you are not there yet. Maybe you are feeling hopeless right now due to a feeling of entrapment. Maybe you’re stuck in an unwanted job, bad relationship, or financial difficulties. Or maybe a sin has you bound in chains where you can’t see a way out. If this is the case, let me just tell you, there is hope. That hope is Jesus! He can free you from any one of those situations. It may not be immediate. There may be a process involved, but He can set you free. Put your faith in Jesus today. Lay your struggle and burden at His feet and let Him loose the chains that have you enslaved! Jesus is the way to freedom. He is the only way to get there!
Questions and Exploration:
Discuss with your son or daughter a time when you felt trapped or captive. Could be a physical example or a time when you felt trapped in a difficult situation. Discuss how you felt during that time in your life and ask your child if they have ever felt the same.
We know that Jesus has paid the price for all of our past, present, and future sins. We receive this freedom because of God’s grace. How have you used this freedom? Does this give you a “I can do anything I want type of mindset” or a “I want to live for Him because of what He did for me” type of mindset?
Has there ever been a time in your life where you may have abused God’s grace? If so How did that affect your relationship with Him?
We are given freedom to live worship filled lives. What are some examples of ways we can worship God with our lives? What are some ways we can live worship filled lives starting now?
Abraham to Joseph timeline: Genesis 16-Genesis 37
Joseph’s trials, rise to power, and reconciliation with his family: Genesis 37-Genesis 50
Early life of Moses: Exodus 1-2
Moses’s call to free his people: Exodus 3-4
The Ten Plagues: Exodus 5-12
Freedom from sin: Isaiah 61:1, John 8:36, Romans 6:7, Galatians 5:13, 2 Corinthians 3:17, 1 Peter 2:16-17, Romans 6:14-18,
7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:7-10 NIV
Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the river. Confront him on the bank of the Nile, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened.
Exodus 7:15-16 NIV
Exodus 11-12- The Passover
Memory Verse: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 NIV
Main Takeaway: God saves His people so they can worship Him!
Introduction:
Captive. Enslaved. Hostage. Trapped. These are not words that naturally bring up pleasant feelings or thoughts. They are words that make us think of tragic occurrences and experiences. These words make me think of the painful slavery that once was prevalent in America. They also make me think of prisoners of war, the hostages recently held by Hamas, the slaves stuck in the sex trade across America and the rest of the world, and kidnapped victims. These are all unbearable and calamitous examples. While most of us will thankfully never experience these types of realities, some of us potentially already have or will one day. I pray for that not to happen of course.
While physical captivity or enslavement has not occurred for most of us, all of us have experienced feelings of being trapped or perceptions of being held captive. Perhaps some of us have felt trapped in an awful job, stuck in what you feel like is a failing marriage, held hostage by insufficient finances, or perhaps enslaved to a sin that you don’t feel like you can overcome. I believe all of us can relate or have experienced at least one of these examples at some point in our lives. In any of these situations, there is a sense of hopelessness, and that’s the heartbreaking part. We can get the feeling that there is no way out and no one to help us. A life without hope is perhaps the worst way to live.
That’s the feeling the Israelites have in the story we are going to look at today. The situation the Israelites find themselves in feels hopeless. They have been enslaved by the nation of Egypt for over 400 years. They need someone to save them. They can’t take anymore. So, they cry out to the only One that can save them. They cry out to the Lord, and guess what? He hears them and sets a plan in motion that will set them free. We are going to dig into this story of the Exodus today, and hopefully take away some insights that can help us when we are experiencing feelings of captivity and entrapment.
Background and context:
If you look at where we left off with Abraham last week, and then compare it to where we are this week, you can see that a lot has happened. The story jumped from God choosing Abraham to bring about the nation of Israel, to now the people of Israel being enslaved by the most powerful nation on Earth at the time, Egypt. It’s impossible for me to tell the complete story of what happened in a short amount of time. The timeline from Abraham to the Israelite enslavement is found from Genesis 12-Genesis 50 and Exodus 1. That’s a lot to read, but it is a very interesting one if you take the time to go through it. But that is where we are going to pick things up. The nation that God promised would come from Abraham is now very numerous, but they now have been under oppression by the powerful nation of Egypt for the last 400 years.
You might be wondering why they would remain in slavery for so long if they were God’s chosen people. Did God abandon them? No, He was right there with them the whole time working his plan. God used this time to get the Israelites to hunger and search for Him, which they did. They would cry out to the Lord, and He heard their call and would begin the process of setting them free.
God called a man by the name of Moses to lead His people out of bondage. Moses was born into slavery but was miraculously saved and taken to live with Pharoah to be raised by his daughter. When Moses became an adult, He saw the hardship that was placed on his people and acted rashly. He ended up killing a man that was beating an Israelite. So, Moses fled and started a life far from the bondage in Egypt. However, God had a plan to rescue His people and knew that Moses was the right man for the job to carry out His plan. God called to Moses from a burning bush and told him that it was time to go back to Egypt and free his people. God says to Moses in Exodus 3:7-10, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” God heard the cry of His people. They thought that He had abandoned them, but He was listening. God tells Moses it’s time to go and be a part of His plan to lead His people out of slavery. Moses was reluctant at first, but after some convincing obeyed God and went back to Egypt. There Moses would stand before Pharoah and demand that his people be set free.
On one occasion, Moses confronts Pharoah and says in Exodus 7:15-16, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness. But until now you have not listened.” Notice that Moses didn’t say, “Let my people go so that they can go live it up in another country.” No, He said, “Let my people go, so that they may WORSHIP me.” The worship of God by the Israelites was hindered when in Egypt. God needed to get them out so they could worship Him acceptably and with all their hearts.
Pharoah would not listen of course. So, God sent ten plagues across Egypt that would demonstrate His power over the so-called gods of their nation. For the first nine plagues, Pharoah would beg Moses to ask God to take away the disasters with the promise that he would let the Israelites go, but once the plague was removed, Pharoah would change his mind.
However, the tenth plague would be the worst plague of all and the final straw for Pharoah. Exodus 11-12 describes this last disaster. God promised Pharoah that all the firstborn sons of Egypt would be struck dead in the night because he would not let His people go. Through Moses, God told Pharoah that He would go all throughout Egypt and destroy every firstborn son at midnight, but when he would look at the Israelites, he would see that not even the smallest hair on the head of anyone would be harmed. It would be then that Pharoah would finally see that the one true God is the God of the Israelites and that they were distinct from the people of Egypt. They were His special people.
On the evening of the last plague, God gave a command to the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb without defect and take its blood and paint it on the doorposts of their homes. In doing this, the angel of death that would come to Egypt would see the blood on their homes and “pass over” them, sparing their lives, and that’s exactly what happened. Each Israelite family sacrificed a lamb and painted its blood on their homes. The angel of death came to the nation of Egypt killing every firstborn son of the Egyptians but spared the Israelites from any harm because He saw the blood of the lamb on their door posts. This was Pharoah’s breaking point mostly because he lost his firstborn son in this plague and so he finally relented and let the Israelites go free! God delivered His people through death and set them free by the blood of a spotless lamb (this monumental event would be called the Passover and would be celebrated as a remembrance every year by the nation of Israel).
Application
The Passover is a beautiful parallel to the work Jesus did on the cross. When you read the Old Testament, you can see parallels and foreshadowing to Jesus almost everywhere. The Passover story is such a powerful connection. 1 Peter 1:18-19 makes this connection when he says, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” Jesus was our spotless lamb that shed His blood on the cross to set us free. However, Jesus’s mission was not to set us free from physical slavery this time, but to save us from being slaves to sin. Paul says it like this in Ephesians 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” Jesus, the spotless lamb, sacrificed Himself and shed His blood so we would not be under the weight and power of sin. We are free from it’s grip! Sin has the power to bind us in guilt and shame. But because of our spotless lamb, guilt and shame cannot bind us anymore because we are forgiven. This one sacrifice pays the price or redeems us, from all sin both past and future. What an amazing gift, and it’s free! Our only obligation is to make Jesus Christ the Lord of our life. Once we do that, then it’s done, and we are set free.
So, if we are set free from the grip of sin, shame, and guilt, does that mean we are free to go live it up and do whatever we want? Nope! Just like with the Israelites who were freed from slavery so that they could worship God, we are called to do the same thing. Our freedom from sin should allow us to live in a way that brings honor and glory to Him and should motivate us to live a worship filled life. Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” In other words, don’t use your freedom to become enslaved again under sin and the law, but use your freedom to glorify God and worship Him. If we live with the idea in mind that we can do whatever we want and sin anytime we want to because God will forgive us, then we are missing the mark. Our freedom was bought at a price. The precious blood of Jesus was the payment, and we should live grateful lives that bring honor and glory to God by avoiding sin the best we can.
Are we going to get all this right? Are we going to be able to live sinless lives? No, not even close, but if we are living worship filled lives, the blood of Jesus will still pay the price when we mess up. That’s part of the freedom we have in Jesus. He has set us free! Let’s make it our job to live a life that brings Him glory and live a life that demonstrates worship in all that we do.
Perhaps you are not there yet. Maybe you are feeling hopeless right now due to a feeling of entrapment. Maybe you’re stuck in an unwanted job, bad relationship, or financial difficulties. Or maybe a sin has you bound in chains where you can’t see a way out. If this is the case, let me just tell you, there is hope. That hope is Jesus! He can free you from any one of those situations. It may not be immediate. There may be a process involved, but He can set you free. Put your faith in Jesus today. Lay your struggle and burden at His feet and let Him loose the chains that have you enslaved! Jesus is the way to freedom. He is the only way to get there!
Questions and Exploration:
Discuss with your son or daughter a time when you felt trapped or captive. Could be a physical example or a time when you felt trapped in a difficult situation. Discuss how you felt during that time in your life and ask your child if they have ever felt the same.
We know that Jesus has paid the price for all of our past, present, and future sins. We receive this freedom because of God’s grace. How have you used this freedom? Does this give you a “I can do anything I want type of mindset” or a “I want to live for Him because of what He did for me” type of mindset?
Has there ever been a time in your life where you may have abused God’s grace? If so How did that affect your relationship with Him?
We are given freedom to live worship filled lives. What are some examples of ways we can worship God with our lives? What are some ways we can live worship filled lives starting now?
Abraham to Joseph timeline: Genesis 16-Genesis 37
Joseph’s trials, rise to power, and reconciliation with his family: Genesis 37-Genesis 50
Early life of Moses: Exodus 1-2
Moses’s call to free his people: Exodus 3-4
The Ten Plagues: Exodus 5-12
Freedom from sin: Isaiah 61:1, John 8:36, Romans 6:7, Galatians 5:13, 2 Corinthians 3:17, 1 Peter 2:16-17, Romans 6:14-18,