Miracles in the Wilderness Series - Lesson 2 - God's Deliverance Begins

Many generations have passed. God’s promise to Abram has now happened.

God took Abram from “Exalted Father” and gave him a name befitting His promise, Abraham, “Father of a Multitude”. Abraham’s wife Sarai, now Sarah, meaning Princess, bore a son at age ninety by a miracle of God. This son of promise, God named Isaac.

Isaac and his wife Rebekah, after twenty years of barrenness, bore twin sons, Esau and Jacob. The younger, Jacob, as prophesied, received the birthright and blessing.

Almighty God blessed Jacob with twelve sons and chose Judah, the fourth son of Jacob’s wife Leah, to carry on His promise to Abraham. However, it was Joseph, the first-born son of Jacob’s most beloved wife, Rachel, whom God appointed to save many people alive.

Hated by his brothers and sold into Egyptian slavery, Joseph miraculously rose to power in Egypt. As second only to Pharaoh and with three years into a seven-year famine, Joseph sent for his father. Elderly Jacob, renamed Israel by God, took his entire family, seventy people in all, to Egypt.

Years after Joseph’s death, a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph, enslaved Israel.

Nevertheless, God protected Abraham’s descendants during the four-hundred years of slavery. The House of Israel now numbered about six hundred thousand men on foot. With women and children, the number doubled.

The moment for God to fulfill His prophecy to judge Egypt and deliver His people had come.

God chose Moses, a rescued Israelite infant raised as a son of Pharaoh, who fled Egypt forty years earlier after murdering an Egyptian. Now a shepherd in the land of Midian, Moses met Yahweh, the I AM WHO I AM, more commonly known as Jehovah, in a burning bush not consumed by the flames. God Almighty, Who created men’s mouths, sent a reluctant Moses with staff in hand, to Pharaoh to demand Israel’s release. However, because of the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart, God needed to use ten plagues to judge Egypt and deliver Israel.

Silently commencing, the tenth and final plague flooded Egypt with weeping and wailing as the destroying angel slew the firstborn of the Egyptians. But by God’s order, Abraham’s descendants applied lamb’s blood to their doorposts and lintels. Seeing the blood of the lamb, the angel passed over their homes.

With mornings light, a grieved Pharaoh orders Israel to leave Egypt, to serve their Lord and bless him also.

Thus begins Israel’s amazing wilderness journey.