Objective

In this study, we’ll see how God remembered His covenant promises and powerfully redeemed His people from slavery, showing us a beautiful picture of our own salvation through Christ.

Key Verse

Exodus 12:13: The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

Introduction

When we closed the book of Genesis, Jacob’s family was living safely in Egypt under Joseph’s protection. The future looked bright for God’s chosen people. But when we open the book of Exodus, everything has changed dramatically. Four hundred long years have passed, and the Children of Israel are no longer guests in Egypt—they are slaves.

Exodus 1:6-8: Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died. But the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.

How could God’s people end up in such a desperate situation? Had God forgotten His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? The answer reveals one of the most important truths about our God: He never forgets His people, and His timing is always perfect. What looked like a disaster was actually part of God’s great plan to show His power and fulfill His covenant promises.

The book of Exodus divides naturally into two major parts. In chapters 1-18, we see God’s mighty work of redemption as He delivers His people from Egypt. In chapters 19-40, we witness God’s revelation at Mount Sinai as He gives His law and establishes the tabernacle. In this lesson, we will focus on the first part—God’s great redemption.

As we study these exciting chapters together, I want you to see four main movements in this drama of deliverance:

• Why Israel desperately needed to be delivered
• How God raised up Moses as their leader
• How God delivered Israel from Egypt
• How God preserved Israel in the wilderness

Through all of this, you’ll discover that the story of Israel’s redemption from Egypt is a powerful picture of how Christ redeems us from sin and death.

Why Israel Needed to be Delivered

The Children of Israel had grown from a family of seventy people into a great nation of perhaps two million souls. This should have been a cause for celebration, but instead it became a source of fear for the Egyptians. The new pharaoh looked at these foreigners living in his land and saw them as a threat to his power and security.

Exodus 1:9-11: “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.

Notice how quickly things changed. The Egyptians had completely forgotten how Joseph saved their nation from seven years of famine. They had forgotten the blessings that came to Egypt through God’s people. All they could see now was their own fear and prejudice. This teaches us an important lesson about human nature—people quickly forget God’s blessings and turn against those whom God has blessed.

The oppression of Israel became increasingly severe. What began as forced labor soon turned into something much worse. The Egyptians made their lives bitter with harsh slavery, forcing them to work with brick and mortar and to labor in the fields. But even this was not enough to satisfy Pharaoh’s hatred.

Exodus 1:15-16: The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.”

Can you imagine the horror of this command? Pharaoh was attempting genocide—the complete destruction of God’s chosen people. Every Hebrew boy was to be murdered at birth. When the brave midwives refused to obey this evil command, Pharaoh made his order even more public and terrible.

Exodus 1:22: Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

The situation was absolutely desperate. God’s people faced extinction. They had no power to save themselves, no army to fight for them, no political influence to protect them. They were utterly helpless. (Notebook Moment: Think about times in your life when you felt completely helpless. How does it encourage you to know that God specializes in helping those who cannot help themselves?)

This hopeless condition of Israel in Egypt gives us a perfect picture of our spiritual condition before Christ saves us. Just as Israel was in bondage to a cruel master, we are in bondage to sin and Satan. Just as they could not free themselves, we cannot save ourselves from sin’s power.

Ephesians 2:1-3: As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

Just as Israel needed a redeemer to deliver them from Pharaoh’s oppression, we need a Redeemer to deliver us from sin’s slavery. And just as God heard Israel’s cry and prepared to act, God heard our cry and sent Jesus Christ to be our perfect Redeemer.

How God Raised Up a Leader

When you look at impossible situations in your life, you might sometimes wonder if God has forgotten you. The Children of Israel certainly could have felt that way. Four hundred years is a very long time! But God never forgets His people, and He never breaks His promises. All through Israel’s dark years of slavery, God was working behind the scenes to prepare the perfect deliverer.

Throughout Israel’s history, we see this pattern repeated again and again. When God’s people faced their greatest challenges, God raised up leaders to guide them: Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samson, David, Nehemiah, and many others. Each of these leaders points us forward to the ultimate Leader whom God would send—Jesus Christ.

The story of Moses’ early life reads like an adventure novel, but every detail shows us God’s protecting hand. When Pharaoh commanded that all Hebrew boys be thrown into the Nile River, one brave mother refused to give up her baby.

Exodus 2:2-3: She became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.

What amazing faith this mother showed! She put her precious baby in a basket and trusted God to protect him. And God did protect Moses—in the most unexpected way possible. Pharaoh’s own daughter found the basket and decided to adopt this Hebrew child.

Exodus 2:5-6: Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

Can you see God’s perfect plan unfolding? The very man who would one day confront Pharaoh and demand Israel’s freedom grew up in Pharaoh’s own palace! Moses received the finest education Egypt could offer. He learned leadership, administration, and military strategy. But most importantly, God made sure that Moses knew who he really was—not an Egyptian prince, but a Hebrew slave.

Hebrews 11:24-26: By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

When Moses was forty years old, he made a crucial decision that would change everything. He chose to identify with God’s oppressed people rather than enjoy the privileges of Egyptian royalty. This choice led to forty years of exile in the wilderness, but those years were not wasted time—they were God’s preparation school for the greatest leader in Israel’s history.

Exodus 3:1-4: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”

After eighty years of preparation, Moses was finally ready for his life’s work. God revealed Himself in the burning bush and commissioned Moses to return to Egypt as Israel’s deliverer. When Moses protested that he was not qualified for such a task, God gave him the only qualification that really matters: “I will be with you.”

How God Delivered Israel from Egypt

Moses’ confrontation with Pharaoh teaches us important lessons about how God’s word works in this world. When Moses first appeared before Pharaoh with God’s message, the king’s response revealed the pride and rebellion that fills every human heart.

Exodus 5:1-2: Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.'” Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”

“Who is the Lord?” Pharaoh asked. This question revealed his fundamental problem—and ours. When people refuse to acknowledge God’s authority over their lives, they set themselves up for conflict with the Creator of the universe. Pharaoh was about to learn exactly who the Lord is!

God’s word never returns empty or powerless. When human hearts resist God’s truth, God has ways of demonstrating His authority that no one can ignore.

Isaiah 55:11: So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

God demonstrated His power through ten devastating plagues that struck Egypt. Each plague was carefully designed to show God’s superiority over the false gods that the Egyptians worshiped. The Nile River, which they considered sacred, turned to blood. The sun god they worshiped was darkened. The animals they considered holy were struck with disease and death.

✏️ Notebook Moment: Consider how God often uses circumstances in our lives to show us that the things we trust in besides Him are powerless to save us. What “false gods” might God be exposing in your own life?

The ten plagues were:

1. Blood (7:20) – showing God’s power over the Nile, Egypt’s source of life
2. Frogs (8:6) – demonstrating God’s control over fertility
3. Gnats (8:17) – revealing God’s authority over the smallest creatures
4. Flies (8:24) – showing God’s dominion over nature
5. Livestock disease (9:6) – proving God’s power over Egypt’s wealth
6. Boils (9:10) – demonstrating God’s authority over human health
7. Hail (9:23) – showing God’s control over the weather
8. Locusts (10:13) – revealing God’s power over agriculture
9. Darkness (10:22) – proving God’s authority over the sun god Ra
10. Death of the firstborn (12:29) – showing that God alone has power over life and death

The final plague was the most terrible of all, but it also provided the most beautiful picture of salvation that we find anywhere in the Old Testament. God announced that He would strike down every firstborn in Egypt, from Pharaoh’s palace to the poorest slave’s house. But He also provided a way of escape for anyone who would trust in His provision.

Exodus 12:21-23: Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.”

This is one of the most powerful pictures of salvation in all of Scripture. Just as the blood of the lamb protected the Israelites from God’s judgment, the blood of Jesus Christ protects us from eternal judgment. Just as death “passed over” those houses covered by blood, God’s wrath passes over us when we are covered by Christ’s blood.

John 1:29: The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

1 Corinthians 5:7: Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

After the death of the firstborn, Pharaoh finally released Israel from bondage. But his change of heart didn’t last long. When he realized what he had done, he pursued Israel with his entire army. This led to one of the most dramatic scenes in all of Scripture—the crossing of the Red Sea.

Exodus 14:21-22: Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

Think about what this miracle meant to the Children of Israel. They were trapped between Pharaoh’s army and the sea with no way of escape. Then God opened a path through the waters themselves! This miracle pictures our passage from death to life through faith in Christ. Just as Israel passed through the sea to freedom, we pass from spiritual death to spiritual life when we trust in Jesus.

How God Preserved Israel in the Wilderness

Freedom from Egypt was just the beginning of Israel’s journey. Now they faced the challenge of learning to trust God in the wilderness. Unfortunately, the people who had just witnessed God’s incredible power in Egypt quickly began to complain and doubt God’s goodness when they faced new difficulties.

God preserved Israel from every danger they encountered:

Preserved from thirst at Marah (Exodus 15:22-27): When the people found bitter water that they couldn’t drink, God showed Moses how to make it sweet. This teaches us that God can turn the bitter experiences of life into blessings when we trust Him.

Preserved from hunger with manna (Exodus 16:1-36): When the people complained about lacking food, God provided bread from heaven every day for forty years. Jesus used this miracle to teach us that He is the true Bread of Life who satisfies our deepest spiritual hunger.

Preserved from thirst again at Massah and Meribah (Exodus 17:1-7): When the people quarreled with Moses and tested God’s patience, He graciously provided water from a rock. Paul tells us that this rock was a picture of Christ, from whom flows the living water of eternal life.

Preserved from defeat by the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-16): When enemies attacked Israel, God gave them victory as long as Moses held up his hands in prayer. When Moses’ arms grew tired, Aaron and Hur supported them until the battle was won. This teaches us the importance of persistent prayer and mutual support in our spiritual battles.

Through all these challenges, Moses proved himself to be a wise and humble leader. He learned to rely on God when he felt inadequate for his responsibilities. He interceded for the people when they sinned against God. And he learned to share leadership responsibilities with others instead of trying to do everything himself. (Notebook Moment: What leadership lessons from Moses’ example could you apply in your own sphere of influence, whether in your family, workplace, or church?)

Exodus 18:17-18: Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.”

Moses wisely accepted this counsel and appointed capable helpers to share the load of leadership. This teaches us that effective ministry requires teamwork and that even the greatest leaders need the support and assistance of others.

Conclusion

The story of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt reveals three profound truths that should transform how we think about God and ourselves.

First, we learn about God’s absolute faithfulness to remember and protect His people. Even when four hundred years passed and it seemed like God had forgotten His promises, He was working behind the scenes to prepare a perfect plan of deliverance. When we face difficult times and wonder if God cares about our struggles, we can remember how He delivered Israel and trust that He will be faithful to us as well.

Second, we discover that God’s people often forget what God has done for them and begin to complain when they face new challenges. The same people who sang songs of praise after crossing the Red Sea were grumbling about bitter water just three days later! This teaches us the importance of remembering God’s past faithfulness when we encounter present difficulties.

Third, and most importantly, we see how God was preparing the way for the Messiah through every detail of Israel’s redemption. The blood of the Passover lamb points to Christ’s sacrifice. The crossing of the Red Sea pictures our passage from death to life. The manna in the wilderness shows us that Jesus is the Bread of Life. The water from the rock reveals that Christ is the source of living water.

Every blessing that God gave to Israel in their physical deliverance points us to greater spiritual blessings that we have in Jesus Christ. Israel was delivered from slavery to an earthly pharaoh; we have been delivered from slavery to sin and Satan. Israel was led through the Red Sea to physical freedom; we have been brought through spiritual death to eternal life. Israel was preserved in the wilderness by God’s daily provision; we are sustained every day by God’s grace and mercy.

The God who heard Israel’s cry in Egypt hears your cry today. The God who provided a deliverer for His oppressed people has provided the perfect Deliverer for us in Jesus Christ. The God who preserved Israel through every wilderness trial will preserve you through every challenge you face. Take courage from this amazing story of redemption, and let it increase your faith in the God who never forgets His promises and never fails His people.

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