This Series is all about the Holy Bible, God and Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. This is Chapter 3 of #13. No Greater Joy Ministries has the CD's to this Animated Biblical Series: http://nogreaterjoy.org/shop/good-and-evil-the-animated-series-dvd Moses was the man chosen to bring redemption to His people. God specifically chose Moses to lead the Israelites from captivity in Egypt to salvation in the Promised Land. Moses’ role in the Old Testament is a type and shadow of the role Jesus plays in the New Testament. Pharaoh subjugated the Hebrew people and used them as slaves for his massive building projects. Because God blessed the Hebrew people with rapid numeric growth, the Egyptians began to fear the increasing number of Jews living in their land. So pharaoh ordered the death of all male children born to Hebrew women (Exodus 1:22). In Exodus 2, we see Moses’ mother attempting to save her child by placing him in a basket and putting it into the Nile. The basket was eventually found by pharaoh’s daughter, and she adopts him as her own and raises him in the palace of the pharaoh himself. As Moses grows into adulthood, he begins to empathize with the plight of his people, and upon witnessing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, Moses intervenes and kills the Egyptian. Realizing that his criminal act was made known, Moses flees to the land of Midian. The next major incident in Moses’ life is his encounter with God at the burning bush (Exodus 3), where God calls Moses to be the savior of His people. Moses and his brother Aaron, go to pharaoh in God’s name and demand that he let the people go to worship their God. Pharaoh stubbornly refuses, and ten plagues of God’s judgment fall upon the people and the land. The Ten Plagues of Egypt are described in Exodus 7-12. The plagues were ten disasters sent upon Egypt by God to convince Pharaoh to free the Israelite slaves from the bondage and oppression they had endured in Egypt for 400 years. God promised to show His wonders as confirmation of Moses’ authority (Exodus 3:20). This confirmation was to serve at least two purposes: to show the Israelites that the God of their fathers was alive and worthy of their worship and to show the Egyptians that their gods were nothing. The Israelites had been enslaved in Egypt for about 400 years and in that time had lost faith in the God of their fathers. When Moses approached Pharaoh, demanding that he let the people go, Pharaoh responded by saying, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go” (Exodus 5:2). Thus began the challenge to show whose God was more powerful. The first plague, turning the Nile to blood, was a judgment against Apis, the god of the Nile, Isis, goddess of the Nile, and Khnum, guardian of the Nile. The second plague, bringing frogs from the Nile, was a judgment against Heqet, the frog-headed goddess of birth. The third plague, gnats, was a judgment on Set, the god of the desert. The fourth plague, flies, was a judgment on Uatchit, the fly god. The fifth plague, the death of livestock, was a judgment on the goddess Hathor and the god Apis. The sixth plague, boils, was a judgment against several gods over health and disease (Sekhmet, Sunu, and Isis). The eighth plague, locusts, again focused on Nut, Osiris, and Set. There would be no harvest in Egypt that year. The ninth plague, darkness, was aimed at the sun god, Re, who was symbolized by Pharaoh himself. For three days, the land of Egypt was smothered with an unearthly darkness, but the homes of the Israelites had light. The tenth and last plague, the death of the firstborn males, was a judgment on Isis, the protector of children. In this plague, God was teaching the Israelites a deep spiritual lesson that pointed to Christ. God commanded each family to take an unblemished male lamb and kill it. The blood of the lamb was to be smeared on the top and sides of their doorways, and the lamb was to be roasted and eaten that night. Any family that did not follow God’s instructions would suffer in the last plague. God described how He would send the death angel through the land of Egypt, with orders to slay the firstborn male in every household, whether human or animal. The only protection was the blood of the lamb on the door. When the angel saw the blood, he would pass over that house and leave it untouched (Exodus 12:23). This is where the term Passover comes from. First Corinthians 5:7 teaches that Jesus became our Passover when He died to deliver us from the bondage of sin. While the Israelites found God’s protection in their homes, every other home in the land of Egypt experienced God’s wrath as their loved ones died. This grievous event caused Pharaoh to finally release the Israelites. By the time the Israelites left Egypt, they had a clear picture of God’s power, God’s protection, and God’s plan for them.

• published: 02 Sep 2016
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