For prospective or new members of God’s Church, the story of Moses leading Israel out of Egypt is one of the most telling and inspiring in the Bible.

Why? Because it provides an unforgettable picture—an exact type of our coming out of this world. See if you can identify with the elements of the story!

And for those baptized: First, take some time to remember your baptism. But we will see in the story a strong lesson we need to remember every day of our converted lives.

The Trap

God orchestrated the trap from beginning to end.

It started off looking so good. The Israelites had left with everything! For a full day they had despoiled their former captors: gold, silver, jewels, clothes. Nothing could have given them a more exultant feeling of liberty. It was unlike anything they had experienced their whole captive lives.

And they marched, en masse, like one huge family of almost 3 million, out of the grim land that had oppressed them for generations. It was a great day—one that would be memorialized from that time forward. They were on the move to freedom!

These lifelong slaves had little knowledge of the God who was leading them. But He had saved them from the plagues, spared their firstborn. And now He was miraculously leading them from Egypt by a pillar of a cloud. At night the pillar became fire, lighting the path they were to follow. Everyone knew God was with them.

For a couple of days they joyfully hiked east, carrying everything they owned—all their new wealth. They were eager to set foot in a new land. A land of their own. A promised land.

Then, strangely, the cloud steered them south. As they traveled, great mountains grew nearer on the west side. And on the east side, they could make out a vast sea. The farther they walked, the closer these two formations grew. Up ahead, it looked like they actually converged. Where would they go now? It appeared that they were stuck—hemmed in by an impenetrable geological wedge. The whole entourage stopped.

This is precisely where God had told Moses that He would lead the Israelites: “before Pihahiroth [“mouth of the gorges”], between Migdol [“tower”] and the sea, over against Baalzephon [“cold, the destroyer, Baal of winter”]: before it shall ye encamp by the sea” (Exodus 14:2). With mountains to the south and west, and the great Red Sea to the east, it appeared the only way to move now was back the way they came. The people must have been somewhat perplexed.

Suddenly there were stirrings in the camp of Israel. The rumor raced through the people that behind them, from the north, Pharaoh and his armies were bearing down, intent on slaughtering them! Although they had been told they could leave, their former masters had had a cruel change of heart. It was clear that there was nowhere to escape. They were completely trapped!

Yet this, too, perfectly fit in with God’s plan. In fact, at the same time He had given Moses the directions on where they would go, God had revealed what would follow: “For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in. And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that he shall follow after them…” (verses 3-4). What was God doing? Why would God Himself send Pharaoh against His helpless, fledgling nation?

“…And I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord” (v. 4). What’s that? Was God actually motivating these events to reveal Himself to the Egyptians? That’s the explanation Moses received!

The warrior Egyptians could now be seen on the plain behind the camp, accompanied by blaring trumpets and the rumble of horse’s hoofs. Terror seized the Israelites. Their first instinct was to call to the God in the cloud for deliverance, but when they saw no faltering in the fierceness of the army’s advance, they quickly turned their attention to Moses in panic. “You brought us here to kill us!” “Slavery is better than death!” they cried. “Oh, why did we ever leave our homes in Egypt?”

Crossroads of Life

The slave’s life in Egypt—that is typical of life in Satan’s world. Before God delivers us through conversion, we are Satan’s unhappy captives, the servants of sin (Rom. 6:16). The Israelites were unconverted people. It was through the exodus that God began to reveal Himself to them.

The journey out of Egypt is a type of our fleeing from the bondage of sin. Often, as with the Israelites, there is an initial rush of excitement as we first embrace new truth, seeing an escape from the hardship and confusion of this world! We leave our former life with “a high hand.”

We could make a comparison between this experience and eating the little book of Revelation 10: It is sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly. Our excitement is soon offset by a realization that our troubles are just beginning.

Pharaoh is a type of Satan—whose heart is hard, who never willingly lets go of anyone in his service! Soon he races after us, intent on convincing us that we’re not at all cut out for a life of such freedom—that things were much better in Egypt where, yes, perhaps we suffered some, but at least we were “safe”—we knew what to expect. As we flee that life, Satan seeks to discourage, thwart, throw obstacles.

Mr. Armstrong described his experience this way: “The opening of my eyes to the truth brought me to the crossroads of my life. To accept it meant to throw in my lot with a class of humble and unpretentious people I had always looked upon as inferior. It meant being cut off from the high and the mighty and the wealthy of this world, to which I had aspired. It meant the final crushing of vanity. It meant a total change of life!…

“I was broken in spirit. The self in me didn’t want to die.… But now I knew that way was wrong!I knew its ultimate penalty was death. But I didn’t want to die now!

“It truly was a battle for life—a life and death struggle” (Autobiography, Vol. 1, pages 311-312).

You can sense this struggle in the Israelites as they stood there, watching Pharaoh bear down on them (this fearsome attack can come from former friends or family), at first trying to look to God but then simply crying out, “What have we done?” As we look at our former sinful selves with our new understanding of the truth, we know we couldn’t go back to that way of life. And yet, where else is there to go? We feel trapped.

As with the Israelites, that is precisely God’s intent. The choice becomes very stark. Mr. Armstrong called it “the crossroads of my life.” We come to the point—hedged in by Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon, with Pharaoh approaching from the north—where we realize our total inability to rescue ourselves from the situation. Thus we either surrender to Pharaoh in a desperate hope that he’ll spare us and allow us to return to bondage in Egypt—or we take the only other option.

We look to God to provide a way of escape. That means crossing the Red Sea—baptism.

But the lessons of the exodus don’t end with baptism. For the already converted Christian, the situation has tremendous meaning of a different sort, an essential lesson in day-to-day living.

Delivered From Captivity

With the approaching army in plain view and the people in a panic, the situation was quickly getting out of control. But then God put these words into Moses’ mouth, which he shouted out: “Fear ye not! Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you today! For the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever! The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace” (Exodus 14:13-14).

By this time the Egyptians were so close their shrill shouting could be heard. Suddenly, the pillar cloud moved abruptly from in front of the Israelites. It shifted to a place behind their throng and then descended onto the ground before the advancing army, enshrouding them in darkness! “And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night” (verse 20). The Israelites could hear the sounds of the soldiers’ confusion from behind the cloud. And yet that same cloud was a fiery beacon for them, illuminating the sea stretched out before them.

Moses walked up to the edge of the sea. Staff in hand, he stretched his hand over the waters, and a great wind came from across the sea, blowing straight into the face of the Israelites. The wind was so mighty, it moved mountains of water, pushing a canal right through the sea, strong enough even to dry the muddy sea floor!

Momentarily stunned, the Israelites, all 3 million of them, using the guiding light of the fire behind them, began to walk through the canal, the waters forming a massive wall on either side, and the wind miraculously not affecting them. Through the night they marched, making their way across the eight long miles of the breadth of the sea. As the front of the line started climbing up the eastern sea bank, the morning sun was peeking over the horizon.

Suddenly the pillar cloud lifted, and the Egyptians, quickly catching their bearings, angrily surged forward into the sea channel after the Israelites.

“And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians” (verses 24-25). At this point, God’s prophecy came true—the Egyptians realized that the God who led the Israelites was the one true God!

But the realization was brief. Suddenly, the wind stopped. For a moment the air was filled with an ominous silence. The soldiers looked up. Their eyes grew wide with horror. The walls of water began to fall from the top—quickly building up avalanche ferocity! Screams of Egyptian soldiers rang out for a short second before being completely drowned out by the thunderous torrents of water exploding together.

The seas raged and foamed for a moment, and finally settled. The wicked master had been buried alive in a watery grave. The Israelites had been utterly, miraculously delivered from captivity!

Baptism

“Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:1-2).

The events at the Red Sea occurred on the night which begins the last holy day of what we celebrate as the Days of Unleavened Bread. This is after we have traveled the distance from Egypt, after we have demonstrated a total willingness to put sin out, after we have worked and worked to clean our lives completely. Suddenly God hides the devil for a moment, and casts a bright light on the path leading to life on the other side of the waters. The same truth that lights the way for us is nothing but a cloud and darkness to those who would try to stop us.

Then we take the plunge. Mr. Armstrong wrote, “The living waters of God are a wall to us, on our right hand and on our left, guiding us in the true path, making the path, protecting us in it. But when Pharaoh and his army attempted to follow after Israel in this divinely created path, these same waters completely covered them, as the Holy Spirit removes and covers our sins, and the Israelites saw them no more! What a wonderful picture!” (Pagan Holidays—or God’s Holy Days—Which? , page 23).

What a mind God has, who orchestrated all of that as a perfect type for us in God’s Church today, some 3,500 years later! Yes, God revealed Himself to the Egyptians, who will rise in the second resurrection much more humble, knowing that God is the Lord. And yes, God showed His power to bring the Israelites to know Him. But the real reason for all those events is so that we may heed the lessons! “Now all these things happened unto them for our ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

This story teaches the newly begotten Christian that we must brace for trials as we come out of Egypt. “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you” (1 Peter 4:12). But if we follow the pillar cloud in faith, if we walk the path carved for us by the Holy Spirit, we know that at the end of it we will end up on the other side with our sins completely wiped out! Is it that real to us? How inspiring is the Israelites’ story!

But again, let us not think the lessons of the exodus end there.

A Way of Escape

We face trials throughout our converted life—temptations to return to our life in Egypt. Those trials are integral to our ongoing conversion process. “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Think about the word trial for a moment. When someone is on trial, he is being evaluated, measured. By trying us, day after day God can evaluate us to see what we’re capable of withstanding, how we react under stress, where we can improve, how He can help us, where He can use us, what position we may fill in His Kingdom. That is the essence—the purpose!—for our physical lives. That is the reason God made us flesh—rather than spirit, as He did the angels.

In these trials, God promises never to set us up to fail! He wants more than anything for us to succeed—but we must pass all trials. God guarantees each of us that our trials will never be impossible to face and to conquer. Here is that ironclad promise: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation [trying, proving] also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (verse 13). What a promise!

Now, here is where the Israelites’ story takes on so much more meaning.

Inspiring as the miracles of the biblical exodus are—encouraging as God’s promise of deliverance is—there is also a note of condemnation for the converted Christian. Why? Because God guarantees a way of escape out of every temptation. That means when we have succumbed to temptation in our lives, when we have fallen down in a trial, we have failed to take God’s way of escape!

He provides that way for us as surely as He did for Israel! That’s not to say it’s easy—no! Christ, our example, had to resist unto blood, striving against sin! (Hebrews 12:3-4). But God guarantees the escape in every case. And Christ showed that it is possible, by yielding to God, to take that escape route in every case.

Every day of our lives, God offers us the choice between sin and the way of escape, just as He did Israel.

“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

As we face trials and temptations, remember the Israelites’ miraculous escape from Egypt. Choose the way of escape that leads to life! Allow God to demonstrate His miraculous ability to deliver us! And we will end up on the other side—with the temptation drowned behind us—moving forward to our place at the foot of the mountain of God.