True & Beautiful Things About the Bible--Old Testamentಮಾದರಿ

Exodus: Pictures of a Promise

Exodus means “the way out” and we all need one from time to time.

Our story continues now in Egypt, 400 years after Joseph. This epic event of how God took Israel from slavery to freedom is so important that you’ve got to know it to understand the rest of the Bible.

Exodus records a whole list of awesome moments when God showed up.

Of course, each of the ten plagues that God spread across Egypt like the darkness at midday and the insects invading everyone’s space, fundamentally altered the physical laws of the universe. God proved the length He’d go to free a helpless people chained to evil itself.

A short while later, He did it again. The slaves stood defenseless between Pharoah’s armies and the deep Red Sea, but God parted it down the middle so His people could walk across on dry ground. When the army followed them, God shut the gap. No one expected that.

With the deadly Red Sea at their back, the slaves’ identity changed. They weren’t slaves anymore. God gave them the Ten Words (commandments) so they knew how to live differently. And for over 14,000 mornings, He fed them with manna, “angels’ food,” perfectly designed for their nutritional needs.

It’s true—something changed when those rag-tag refugees ran from Egypt. They were a new nation under God.

God told them to build a place, a tabernacle, where He could live with them, where they could have a daily, regular relationship with Him. Just as He promised, God moved in. His glory burst from the Holy of Holies, like a column of cloud by day and a tower of fire as a night light. He had promised them He would be with them, but no one expected Him to be a neighbor. Any time, day or night, they only needed to look to the center of the camp to see the pillar or the tower and be reassured. He was with them in that wilderness.

They’re all beautiful pictures of God’s promise to be their God. But one picture still hangs on our hearts today. On that final night of the plagues, the children of Israel were told to sacrifice a spotless lamb and paint its blood on their homes’ wood doorposts. If they did that, the angel of death passed over their house and no one died. Not so for those who ignored God’s instruction. Every year since, Jewish people, including Jesus, have celebrated that miraculous gift when death passed-over.

While eating His last Passover, Jesus reminded us of the great escape—and about His plan from the beginning, to give His life as a ransom (Matthew 20:28) The next morning, from nine until three, He hung on a rough wooden cross, remarkably the same time as the lambs were sacrificed in the Temple. His death fulfilled the Passover’s promise; God makes a way for us out of death into life.

Next: what God has always wanted.