About 4,000 years ago, God called a man named Abram (meaning father) to leave his homeland because He was giving him a land to possess. This man was Moses' great-great-great-great grandfather. As Abram was childless, he wondered who would inherit this land of promise. He then received a vision from God that promised him that his descendants would be as many as the stars.
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This land is the modern-day Israel, and was referred to in ancient times as Canaan's land because it was originally given to Noah's grandson, Canaan.
When the time came for Abram's wife to become pregnant, he was already 99 years old. God renamed him Abraham (father of many).
Sixth generations after Abraham, Moses was born. By this time, his descendants had migrated to Egypt and numbered more than 2 million. They were very productive. One of Abraham's grandsons, Jacob who was later renamed Israel, had as many as 12 sons. Israel is Moses' great-great grandfather.
As the population of Israel grew, the Egyptians became afraid of them and made them slaves. The Pharaoh of Egypt also passed a law that all boys born to the children of Israel were to be murdered by throwing them into the river. An Egyptian princess rescued Moses and he was raised as a prince, with royal education and knowledge of military organization and tactics.
When Moses was 80 years old, God appeared to him in a burning bush and instructed him to go ask the Pharaoh to let the children of Israel leave Egypt and go to the wilderness to worship Him. Here's when the spectacular miracles of the 10 plagues on Egypt and the parting of the sea happened. (More on this in Why does the church pray all night?)
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| Events happened at every stop on the Exodus route that leave a valuable lesson for us today. |
Moses then led the children of Israel to the land that God promised He would give them. On the way there, he wrote the first 5 books of the bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, which contained many laws ranging from civil, criminal to religious. For example, Exodus 21 and 22 contain the earliest recorded law of torts (civil wrongs).
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| The children of Israel survived the oven weather because God miraculously provided a pillar of cloud above them by day. They survived the freezing nights because He provided a pillar of fire above them by night. The Lord went ahead of them. He guided them during the day with a pillar of cloud, and he provided light at night with a pillar of fire. This allowed them to travel by day or by night. And the Lord did not remove the pillar of cloud or pillar of fire from its place in front of the people. (LASBNLT - Bible Text) Exodus 13:21-22 |
Even though the biblical story of Exodus where Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to Canaan's land (modern day Israel) took place more than 3000 years ago, it holds lessons for us today. The bible says those things happened to instruct we who live in these end-times.(1 Corinthians 10:11)
Their story warns us that when God is taking you out of a terrible place of slavery into a wonderful unknown, getting caught in any one the following sins can lead to an untimely death!
1. Idol worship - this can be money or personal ambition
2. Sexual immorality
3. Testing God
4. Complaining
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