30. Courage! Moses, Pharaoh and the Faithful God Part 15

[00:00:00] Good day, Dave hear? Welcome to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids. Before we start I want to do a shout out to Teddy and Andy. They tell me they've been listening to the podcast every

[00:00:13] single night. I'm so glad you're listening guys, keep trusting our Faithful God and thanks for letting me know how are you finding it. Let me ask you all a question. Do you think that

[00:00:26] you have lots of courage? Are you really brave? Do you have lots of guts? People have different ideas about what courage is. Some people think of it as not even noticing the

[00:00:38] things that might be scary. They might say, sure I can climb this cliff without a rope. Now I haven't done any rock climbing before but how hard can it be? No I didn't see all the snakes

[00:00:52] that live in the cracks but they're not going to bother me. I'm too tough for them. Those people? They're not brave. They're just dumb. They're fools. They haven't thought about what the danger could be. A better way of thinking about courage is that you can see the danger,

[00:01:12] but you have a really good reason not to be stopped by it. Last year, three of my children jumped out of a plane. That's pretty scary, but they had courage to do it because they were

[00:01:25] strapped to someone who'd done it heaps of times before and he was wearing a parachute so they knew they were safe. The Bible talks about courage and bravery all the time. It shows how

[00:01:38] God's people can be brave because they know that God will look after them. When they trust him, they'll be courageous. I wonder if God's people will be courageous in today's story. Get ready for our next episode of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

[00:02:24] At the end of our last episode, God had saved his people out of Egypt. He'd kept so many of his promises. Pharaoh had finally given in and let the Israelites go. The Israelites got to

[00:02:38] plunder silver and gold and clothes from the Egyptians, like they were an army who just want a huge battle. They hadn't. God had, but he let them have all the good things that came from it,

[00:02:52] and then they marched out of Egypt like a victorious army. There's just one problem. They're not a very brave army. They don't have very much courage. It can be easy to look courageous when someone else has done all the fighting for you, but God knows they don't actually

[00:03:13] have enough courage to join in the fighting yet because they don't trust him enough yet. They still don't know how much he can help them. There's a road that goes from Egypt to Canaan,

[00:03:27] the land God had promised to give to his people. It runs along the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, and it's the quickest road to Canaan, so you'd think, of course they're going to go that way.

[00:03:38] If they do go that way though, they'll have to go through some Philistines cities, and if you know anything about the Philistines, you know their bad news. The Israelites would have to fight.

[00:03:51] God would give them the victory, but they don't trust him enough yet. So in Exodus chapter 13 verse 17, we're told this. God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country. That road is the shortest way, but God said, they might think they'll have to fight,

[00:04:10] then they might change their minds and go back to Egypt. What? Go back to Egypt. The place where our slaves and where their babies were killed, why would they do that? Because they're scared.

[00:04:26] And they're scared because they don't trust God enough yet. In spite of everything they've seen him do, in spite of all the wonderful things he's done for them, they still don't trust him. Verse 18 says, So God led them through the desert towards the Red Sea.

[00:04:44] As they leave, they're carrying something. And it's something that you might think is a little bit gross. They're carrying the bones of a man. I know right, but they're doing it for a really good

[00:05:03] reason. They're the bones of a man named Joseph. Do you know about him? He'd been the first Israelite to come and live in Egypt, but because he wanted to, but because his brothers sold him

[00:05:16] as a slave to get rid of him. As bad as that was, Joseph kept trusting God. He wasn't like the Israelites were talking about now. Even though he hadn't seen all the amazing things that they had,

[00:05:30] he still trusted God. He trusted that God would keep his promises. One of those promises was to give the Israelites the land of Cayman. And so, when he knew he was dying in Egypt,

[00:05:43] he made the Israelites promise to take his bones back to Cayman. He knew God would take them there. He trusted that God would take them there. And he was right to trust God. Verse 19 says,

[00:05:58] Moses carried the bones of Joseph with him. Before Joseph died, he'd made the sons of Israel promised to do this. He had said, when God saves you, remember to carry my bones with you out of Egypt.

[00:06:12] He didn't say, if God saves you, but when God saves you, and now God has saved them just like he promised. The Israelites could learn a lot from him about how to trust God.

[00:06:27] As the Israelites march out of Egypt, the reason they know where to go is because God is showing them. He's leading them. Not in some weird, invisible way where people have to guess what he wants

[00:06:40] them to do. No, he gives them something to follow. A huge pillar or column of cloud reaching up to the sky. God is in the cloud, moving it where he wants them to go. They just have to follow.

[00:06:56] It's better than a GPS. But what about it? Not. They won't be able to see the cloud. No worries. God's got it sorted. At night, he turns the cloud into a huge pillar of fire.

[00:07:11] A little bit like the fire that Moses saw in the bush right back at the beginning of Exodus. It burns really brightly so that they can see. That way, they can travel by day or night.

[00:07:25] The best thing about the pillar is that it shows the Israelites really clearly that God is with them. He hasn't abandoned them. He hasn't stayed behind in Egypt. They can see exactly where he is, which means they should be really brave. They should think, oh, that's

[00:07:44] same God who looked after us in Egypt. He's right here and he'll look after us wherever we go. I wonder if they will be brave. Now, even though they've left Egypt, God's not finished with the Egyptians. They still don't know him properly. They still think that

[00:08:05] they could be stronger than him. How could that be? What makes Egypt strong? Well, the Egyptians think that they've got really strong gods, but God's showing how much greater he is than them. They have lots of food because of the Nile River, but God attacked the river and

[00:08:24] all their farms. What about all their riches they're gold in their silver? Nope, God let the Israelites take all that. So what could they still have them make something they're really strong? I know. They're army. Egypt had conquered lots of people because they had a really strong army.

[00:08:48] But God's going to show that nothing, not even the Egyptian army, can beat him. So he sets a trap for the Egyptians. He leads the Israelites around in circles so that Pharaoh will think they're lost and don't know what they're doing. God says this in chapter 14 verse 3,

[00:09:09] the king will think the Israelites are lost trapped in the desert. Oh, make the king stubborn again so he will chase after them. But I will defeat the king in his army. This will

[00:09:20] bring honor to me. Then the people of Egypt will know that I am the Lord. Meanwhile, back in Egypt, Pharaoh gets the news at the Israelites of left Egypt and all of a sudden, he and his officials start scratching their heads. They say in verse 5,

[00:09:40] what have we done? We've let the people of Israel leave. We've lost our slaves! Now they had a really good reason to let these Israelites go. God made them and there was no way they could fight him, but they've forgotten that. So Pharaoh calls out the chariots.

[00:10:03] That's right. Pharaoh calls out the chariots. One of the strongest things about the Egyptians are their chariots. I'll describe them in case you haven't seen one. They have a platform to stand on with

[00:10:26] a short curved wall at the front of the platform. That sits on two wheels. Sticking out the front is a long pull and two horses are tied to it, one on each side. Horses can run really fast.

[00:10:42] On average at about 55 kilometers an hour or 30 miles per hour? But they have been known to go as fast as 89 kilometers an hour or 55 miles per hour. That's really fast and two horses have no

[00:10:58] problem at all at pulling a chariot. In the chariot on the platform two men are standing. One of them is a driver. His main job is to control the horses, but he can also shoot a bow and arrow or throw a

[00:11:13] spear. The other person in the chariot is the main soldier. He's an archa who shoots arrows really well. He can even shoot arrows when the horses are running at a full gallop. Can you imagine how terrifying

[00:11:28] it would be to have hundreds and hundreds of horses charging at you? Then having thousands of arrows shot at you, and then all the chariots are followed by thousands of foot soldiers with spears and

[00:11:40] swords. That would be terrifying. In verse 6 we're told, so that King prepared his war chariot and took his army with him. He took 600 of his best chariots. He also took all the other chariots

[00:11:55] of Egypt. Each chariot had an officer in it. The Lord made the King of Egypt stubborn, so he chased the Israelites who were leaving victoriously. The King of Egypt came with his horses, chariot drivers and army, and they chased the Israelites. They caught up with the Israelites

[00:12:13] while they were camped by the Red Sea. This was near Paiahiroth and Balsephon. Imagine being the first Israelite to look behind you and seeing a huge cloud of dust with thousands of horses, thousands of arches, thousands of soldiers with swords and spears and shields and arrows.

[00:12:35] And you tap the person next to you who makes a little noise so that other people turn, and soon all of Israel realize what's coming up behind them. But it's okay isn't it? They can be

[00:12:46] brave and courageous because gods with them. And if gods with them, what could go wrong? Do you think that's what the Israelites were thinking? And no. They were thinking something a little bit more like

[00:13:04] where all get a tie, help up to young Jedi. I'll blow it out by or something like that. It wasn't what you'd really call courageous or brave. And they all turn on Moses and say something shocking, something terrible. Do you remember how bad

[00:13:27] it was for the Israelites back in Egypt? They were beaten and whipped and sometimes even had their children murdered. They cried out for help. But now they get really angry at Moses for taking them out of Egypt. Almost like he's kidnapped them. In verse 11 they say to Moses,

[00:13:48] what have you done to us? Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in the desert? There were plenty of graves for us in Egypt. We told you in Egypt let us alone. Let us stay

[00:13:58] and serve the Egyptians. Now we'll die in the desert. Do you see their problem? They all think they're about to die. They're forgotten about God. They're forgotten that he's with them.

[00:14:14] So Moses says to them, don't be afraid. Stand still and see that the Lord will save you today. You will never see these Egyptians again after today. You will only need to remain calm. The Lord

[00:14:31] will fight for you. Do you know if you live for Jesus? Try to do things his way. Sometimes, not always but sometimes people won't like that. They might laugh at you. They might get angry at

[00:14:49] you. They might not want to be a friend. They'd prefer that you join them in sinning rather than doing what Jesus loves. It can be scary. You could become scared like the Israelites. You might even be

[00:15:06] tempted to give up on Jesus and live in the same way other people do. Just like the Israelites were tempted to go back to Egypt. But you know what? If Jesus is your king, God is with you,

[00:15:22] He's put His Holy Spirit inside you to help you and look after you always. In the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, when it's talking about how to live for Jesus, we're told this.

[00:15:34] It's in Hebrews chapter 13 verses 5 and 6. It says, God has said, I will never leave you. I will never abandon you. So we can feel sure and say, I will not be afraid because the Lord is

[00:15:52] my helper. People can't do anything to me. In other words, we can be brave. Be courageous and live for Jesus. Back on the edge of the sea, a great battle is about to start. The Israelites

[00:16:10] are standing, terrified by the edge of the sea. Pharaoh and his chariots and his army are charging towards them. God is getting ready to fight for His people. But that's a story.

[00:16:26] For next time. If you have any questions from this or any other episode, or if you want to say high and tell me how you listen to the podcast, send me a message at faithfulgod.net.

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[00:17:03] Also, I'd love to hear how your family is finding the show. What's helpful and even what isn't. It was great to hear from Kyle and Hannah recently who told me how their kids listen every night

[00:17:15] and are even quoting the show. So let me know. We have one last episode to go in Exodus and it's going to be a cracker. See you soon. Thanks so much for listening.

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