COME AS A CHILD LESSON 108 FINISHING GENESIS AND LOOKING TOWARD EXODUS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

So we know that Joseph dwelt in Egypt throughout the remainder of his lifetime.  He lived happily in the land with all of his relatives surrounding him.  He lived to be 110 years old, and he saw his grandchildren and his great grandchildren grow up.   

Four generations had now come and gone since the great famine and the people of God were still living in Egypt.  They multiplied and filled the land but they lived in different ways from the natives of the land.  They were godly people, keeping the covenant of God with Abraham. 

For the most part, under the leadership of Joseph, the Sons of Israel and their ancestors remained true to the teachings of Abraham that had been passed down to them from their father.  They were prosperous shepherds.  There were many of them and they were blessed. 

The time came when Joseph knew he was going to die.  He turned to his brothers and his children and grandchildren and said “I am dying; but God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.”  

So, through Joseph, the promises of God to Abraham were passed on.  Nothing was forgotten or forsaken.  The children of Jacob knew their heritage and did not forget it.  They knew and understood all the promises that God had made to Abraham.  Each generation was taught by their own father.

Joseph was well known among them for his great gift of prophecy.  His people had all lived to see his dreams from God fulfilled with their very own eyes.  They now respected all that Joseph told them about the future.  They understood his words were from God.

 

Because of this “knowing” of Joseph, the Sons of Jacob were never completely at home in Egypt.  They were always thinking that the day would come when God would find a way to lead them back to the land where Abraham and Sarah had lived and worshipped.  They did not forget or forsake the ways of Abraham. This loyal line of thinking began with them in Egypt during the days when times were good for the people, way before any thought of slavery happened to the ancestors of Abraham in the land of Egypt.  Things went well for them for a very long time and they prospered under Joseph’s leadership.  

Joseph clearly had this vision of return to the homeland and he never let them forget it.  He made his people take an oath before him that when the day came, and they returned, that they would carry his bones with them. 

So after a long, full, blessed life Joseph died.  They embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.  His bones were not buried, but kept in a box that could be moved whenever the people moved.

With Joseph’s death the book of Genesis ends. 

What an amazing journey we have had walking together through this book with the eyes of a child!  Together we have explored the very old, old roots of Christianity.  

Let’s stop here for a moment and think of all the things that this awesome first book of the bible called   Genesis has taught us:

We have learned that God exists and he existed first, before anything else ever existed.  We know that he created the world and all that is in it and he formed man from the dust of the earth and drew woman from his ribs.  We have seen that God is the original source of all life.  We know that originally God walked and talked with man in paradise and intended that we always be in such communion with him forever.

We discovered that Satan also exists, and through Him sin entered the garden.  He was in the garden and he tempted the man and the woman to disobey God.  We discovered how sin came into the world and how mankind fell to a state that kept them from communion with God.  We learned that the wages of sin is death.   

 We learned  that the only way God could exist with sinful men after the fall was through a “covering” or a holy sacrifice that would blot out sins from God's eyes and provide a covering for men making them acceptable to stand before a Holy God.  This was first accomplished in the Garden of Eden with the sacrifice of an innocent animal and the blood and covering of animals has been used by men since that time as a way of sacrifice to draw closer to God.  At that time offering a sacrifice was symbolic of repentence. This symbolic, yet unperfect act, would prevail until the perfect, once for all, sacrifice of a Messiah happened.  Adam and Eve and every generation after them looked for such a Messiah.  God had given them that hope even as they left the garden in shame. 

We learned of the generations of Adam and all the stories of both good and evil sons who lived up until a time when evil prevailed on the earth in the days of Noah.  That was when God sent a flood to destroy so much evil and give those few left who were good and righteous a new life on a renewed earth.  A covenant from God was given to Noah after the flood in the promise of the rainbow.  

 After Noah, we watched generations of mankind progress up through the days of Abraham.  Abraham offered God sacrifices and worshipped God and turned from the evil idols worshiped by his family.   Abraham was willing to leave all he knew and step out into the unknown in pure obedience to follow God.  God loved Abraham and gave Abraham a covenant promise that his ancestors would fill the earth as many as the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky.   God promised to give Abraham and his children the land where God had led him through faith.  

We saw the generations after Abraham come forth.  We saw how each patriarch contributed to the formation of the Great Family of God.  We watched as God led them out of Canaan and into Egypt through an odd occurrence of events.  We saw how the life of Joseph was a foretaste and a perfect shadow of The Messiah to come.  

We have left the Children of God in the land of Egypt now, after Joseph’s death with the promise that they will one day return to the land that was long ago promised to Abraham by God. 

After Genesis we come to Exodus, both as the title of a book and as a way of surviving life as a child of God. 

This is a perfect time to go back and review any of the lessons you missed.  They are all available anytime you need to read them in the archives found within the indexes of this blog.  I am also condensing them together into a book format and I will have more details about that later in my freelance writing blogsite called Wordcastle Publications.  If you are interested in obtaining the condensed book called A CHILD'S WIDE-EYED WALK THROUGH GENESIS, please send your contact information to wordcastlepublications@gmail.com.  If I receive an e-mail note from you, I will let you know when the publication is available and provide ordering information at that time.  

I'm excited to be opening my own freelance content writing company where I will be sharing more and more of these stories as well as other Christian writing samples to the public.  I will keep you posted; but in the meantime I'm also excited to be starting the next part of this COME AS A CHILD blog study on Exodus within this blog beginning on next Thursday!  The Exodus posts will come out on Thursdays, in a similar fashion to how the Genesis posts were revealed, once a week.  

Let us continue this journey together and take the Exodus through the wide open eyes of a child.  

Let's step out bravely to see what God will teach us along the way.  I'm sure if we studied for a million years, He would always have something else to teach us.  That is what happens when your God is eternal and forever!   

Dear readers, be kind and have courage; for all things are possible when we put our trust in God.