YEA Lesson Library

The Lesson

You’ve waited for freedom all through your middle and late teen years. Sometimes you may have groaned within yourself wondering when that day would ever come. Then one day it’s graduation day. When you walk across the stage, take your high school diploma in your left hand and shake the Principal’s right hand, you feel like saying Let Freedom Ring! Leaving the nest is usually a step toward adulthood where you become part of a new social system. You may have opportunities for new social roles and responsibilities. A new life awaits you.

At last, freedom rang for the Israelites. A traditional view says the Exodus occurred 1446 B.C. The years of oppressive slavery was an experience none of us would like to repeat. The Israelites groaned and cried out in their slavery. Their cries went up to God and He heard their groaning. Why? Because He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God remembered that because of Abraham’s obedience, He promised to make of his descendants great nations. Being held in slavery where their lives were bitter with hard labor did nothing to portray that the Israelites were great nations.

Moses was an Israelite reared by an Egyptian princess right in Pharaoh’s house. God had a job for him to do. That job was to free His people. It was time for His people to keep a feast unto Him.

While Moses was tending the flock of his father- in-law. an angel appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses noticed that even though the bush was burning, it didn’t burn up. Then God called out to Moses, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I am the God of our father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” This was awesome! It was so awesome that Moses hid his face. God went on to tell Moses that He had seen the misery of the Israelites and heard their crying. He was concerned about the suffering of His people. He told Moses that He had come down to give them their freedom and He would be using Moses to bring His people out of Egyptian slavery.

Moses was overwhelmed with such a task and didn’t want to be the one to go to Pharaoh. God promised to make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward Moses. But Moses still did not want the job. To build Moses’ confidence, God told him to throw his staff on the ground. He obeyed and it became a snake. God had Moses put his hand inside his coat and it became white as snow and leprous. Then God had him put his hand back in his coat and the hand was restored.

But even these miracles didn’t convince Moses that he was the man to do this job. He made another excuse: “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” God must have been a little exasperated by this time and He asked Moses, “Who do you think gave you your mouth in the first place?” But Moses insisted that he couldn’t speak to Pharaoh. God’s anger burned against Moses and He decided to let Aaron, Moses’ brother do the speaking with Pharaoh.

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh many times telling him to let God’s people go free so they could keep a festival unto God. The first time they went to Pharaoh, things got worse for the Israelites. The slave drivers made them gather their own straw to make bricks, as they were required to meet the same quotas. God sent plague after plague upon the Egyptians, but Pharaoh continued to harden his heart and say no. The water turned to blood. Frogs were in their beds, in their food, and everywhere they looked. The gnats came in maddening swarms. Then came the flies swarming everywhere and biting them when they lit on them. The Egyptians’ livestock got sick and men, women and children had boils all over their bodies. But God was unrelenting. He sent plagues of hail, locusts and darkness. Pharaoh still wasn’t going to give in. Keeping the Israelites was a matter of simple economics to him. He had an unpaid work force, so why should he let them go? Over a million people leaving would put a big dent in production. Pharaoh overlooked the fact that God is more powerful than any king.

God told Moses that He was going to bring one more plague on the Egyptians and then Pharaoh would relent and let His people go. God gave instructions that this was the first month of the year. On the tenth day of this month, each man was to take a one year-old male lamb without defect for his family, take care of it until the 14th day of the month, and kill it at twilight. They were to put some of its blood on the sides and tops of the doorframes of their houses. Then they were to roast the lamb and eat it, fully dressed with their shoes on, and their staffs in their hands.

On that same night, God told Moses that He would pass through Egypt and kill every firstborn – both man and animal. When Moses was but a tiny infant, Pharaoh put out a decree that every first born baby boy was to be killed at birth? God has a way of making consequences fit the crime. At midnight God killed all the firstborn males and wails went up mightily. Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron to his palace and told them to take the Israelites and get out. After 430 years to the very day, the Israelites were free to go worship God with a Feast. A new life awaited them with new social roles and responsibilities. This was the first recorded Passover. Let Freedom Ring!