God Saves (FirstLook -- October 2)

This week in FirstLook we will be talking about Baby Moses and how his part of God's Big Story is connected to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Do you know how and why God's people were enslaved in Egypt and why Moses was put in a basket on the river? Keep reading to find out the answer that your preschoolers will be learning about this weekend and don't forget to download this week's HomeFront Weekly which will give you a great baby floating activity!

To be sure, our God saved Abraham and blessed him with many descendants. God kept His covenant with Abraham. The book of Exodus opens by listing the sons of Jacob (Israel) who brought their families to Egypt to escape the famine in Canaan. It’s possible that in Egypt they were doubling their population about every 25 years. This is the same rate of growth we are currently experiencing worldwide.

This population explosion amongst the Israelites concerned the later pharaoh. His fear led him to devise a plan to enslave the people and destroy newborn Hebrew boys. Two Hebrew midwives outsmarted the pharaoh. They told him the Hebrew women were just too strong and were able to deliver the babies before they could arrive. When Pharaoh realized he had been deceived and his attempts had failed, he ordered his people to act as spies and cast any male babies of the Israelites into the Nile River.

In the midst of it all, a son was born into the tribe of Levi. Trusting in God, the child’s parents defied Pharaoh’s edict and hid their son for three months. Ironically, it was Pharaoh’s daughter who rescued the baby and named him Moses. God then used Moses’ sister to help the princess arrange for a nurse, the child’s own mother, to care for him. The child was able to grow up in the home of his parents during his early years, receiving the strong inculcating of Hebrew traditions. Moses’ foundation of faith was received at his parents’ knees. Jewish mothers would, from the time a baby was first cradled in their arms, begin to whisper in their ears, “Jehovah is God.”

God is a God of salvation. He delivered Moses and set a corrected course for him to deliver a nation. It is through this nation (specifically, the tribe of Judah) that salvation came to the world through Jesus Christ. Our God saves!