Powerpoint Pictures: Lifeguard; Fire Engine; Rescue Helicopter; The AA Van; Gok Wan

How would you rescue someone who was…? [Drowning; Trapped in a building on fire; Stuck up a mountain; Car broken down; Wearing terrible clothes; A Slave]

The Israelites were slaves in Egypt, and they were very unhappy.  They needed to be rescued.  So they cried out to God, “Save us, Rescue us”.

God heard the prayers of the people.  He knew what was happening to them.  He felt sorry for them and sent a rescuer.

A baby!

That’s a surprising answer to the people’s prayer.

You would have thought God would have sent someone big and strong like Superman to fly in and beat up all the enemies and set the people free.

Why on earth would he send a baby?

Well the baby was only the beginning.

As you know babies don’t stay as babies forever, and this baby whose name was Moses didn’t stay a baby forever either.  He grew up and ended up leaving Egypt and working in the desert as a shepherd (but how that happened is another story!)

Now one day as he was looking after his sheep and goats, Moses saw a bush on fire.  But there was something strange about this bush.  It was not burning up (when you burn wood on a fire it turns to ash).

So Moses went to have a closer look.  As he did, there was another surprise, the bush started to speak.  Imagine you were walking along one day and a bush started to talk to you?  But it wasn’t the bush speaking.  It was God who was speaking.

God said that he had seen what was happening to his people the Israelites and was going to rescue them.  God then said to Moses, “So now, go.  I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”  (Exodus 3:10).

Moses was worried, but God said He would be with Him.  You see it wasn’t really going to be Moses who would rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, it would be God.

God was going to answer the prayers of His people by sending Moses to lead His people out of Egypt.  Next time we’ll find out how He did…