Birth of a Nation - Student handbook

5 lessons on the Exodus from Egypt For high school students in years 7 and 8

Student handbook Written by Tim Clemens

Christian Education Publications PO Box A287 Sydney South NSW 1235 Australia Ph.: +61 2 8268 3333 Fax: +61 2 8268 3357 Email: sales@youthworks.net Website: www.cepstore.com.au Published May 2013 Copyright © Tim Clemens 2013 This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism and review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without the express permission of the Publisher.

Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV).

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan.

All rights reserved worldwide. New International Version’® and ‘NIV’® trademarks are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc. National Library of Australia ISBN 978–1–922000–84–2 Author—Tim Clemens Managing editor—Julie Firmstone Theological editor—Loren Becroft Design—Bethany Abbottsmith

Birth of a Nation C on ten ts Lesson 1

A saviour is born

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Lesson 2

The burning bush 11

Lesson 3

Let my people go

Lesson 4

The Passover 25

Lesson 5

Birth of a nation

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Let my people go When stubborn Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, God sent nine different plagues on the Egyptians in judgement.

Each plague demonstrated the superiority of Israel’s one true God over the Egyptian gods.

Read

one of the following passages on the first nine plagues: Blood in the River Nile

Exodus 7:14−24

Frogs Exodus 8:1−15 Gnats and flies Exodus 8:16−32 Death of livestock

Exodus 9:1−7

Boils and hail

Exodus 9:8−10, 13−35

Locusts Exodus 10:1−20 Darkness Exodus 10:21−29

Getting it done What is your least favourite subject at school?

What is it about this subject that you don’t like?

What convinces you to get the homework done? _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________

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1. Which plague did you read about?

Blood in the River Nile Gnats and flies Boils and hail Darkness

Frogs Death of livestock Locusts

2. Who was primarily responsible for bringing this plague on the Egyptians? a. b. c. d.

Moses God Pharaoh Aaron

3. Describe the effect of this plague on the land, people and animals in Egypt.

LAND: _____________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ PEOPLE: ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ANIMALS: __________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

4. What did Moses say the Israelites would do if Pharaoh allowed them to leave Egypt? a. b. c. d.

Pass through the Red Sea Enter the Promised Land Worship God Have a holiday

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1.

In this passage, how is the way that God treated the Israelites different to the way he treated the Egyptians?

____________________________________________ ____________________________________________________

____________________________________________________

2.

Why do you think he made this distinction?

__________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________

would have felt as they watched What do you think the Israelites Egyptians?

God bring these plagues upon the

3.

__________________ ___________________________ __________________________ ___________________________ __________________________ ___________________________ __________________________ ___________________________

4.

How do you feel about God’s judgement on the Egyptians?

__________________________________________

_________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ 20

The Bible makes it very clear that a day is coming when God will judge the whole world (Acts 17:31). In some ways, his judgement on the Egyptians was a small taste of that future judgement. Thankfully, this story also provides a clue as to how we might escape this coming wrath. Just like he did with the Israelites, God will lovingly spare his people from judgement.

5.

How does this passage help us to trust in God’s goodness even when things are hard?

____________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

6.

What do you think it looks like to live as one of God’s people in today’s

world?

_____________________________________________________ _ ______________________________________________________

______

_______

______________________________________________________

GET CREATIVE 1 In groups of two or three people, grab a sheet of paper and draw a picture of the plague you’ve just read about. Make sure you depict the plague and the responses of both the Israelites and Egyptians.

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GET CREATIVE 2 Imagine you are one of the Israelites. Write one or more Facebook status updates letting your friends know about the plagues you’ve covered in class this lesson. How might they respond to your post?

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From shadow to reality:

God’s gracious choice In the book of Exodus, God made a clear distinction between the Egyptians and his people, the Israelites. Amazingly, this is not because the Israelites were any better than the Egyptians (Joshua 24:14). Even Moses wasn’t perfect—remember that he had killed an Egyptian guard (Exodus 2:12). The difference between the Egyptians and the Israelites has everything to do with God’s faithfulness to his promises (Genesis 15:13–16). God had made a covenant with Abraham to bless those who blessed him (and his descendants) and to curse those who cursed Abraham (and his descendants) (Genesis 12:3). The Egyptians’ harsh treatment of the Israelites as slaves was a definite curse. Therefore, God spared Moses and the Israelites but allowed his just judgement to fall on Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

The same is true for us today.

God makes a clear distinction between those who believe and trust in Jesus and those who don’t (John 3:36). Those who trust in Jesus will receive eternal life; those who don’t will face God’s wrath.

But those who trust in Jesus aren’t any better, in themselves, than those who don’t. As Paul puts it, ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). The only difference is the grace of God. If it were up to us, we’d probably choose to have ‘the best of the best’ in our kingdom.

But God isn’t like us. When Paul looks at the church in Corinth, he says, ‘Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth’ (1 Corinthians 1:26). Why does God give his grace to these sorts of people? Paul says it’s so that no-one can boast before God and say that they were saved by their own power, intellect or birth right (1 Corinthians 1:29). Just as the Israelites weren’t saved by their own power, intellect or birth right but by God’s faithfulness to his promises, Christians are saved

by God’s faithfulness to his promise that those who trust in Jesus are freed from their slavery to sin and will be freed from God’s coming judgement (Romans 5:8–10).

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Help the Israelites escape from Egypt

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