#8: “The Journey of the Jews As a Type of Our Relationship with God”
SCRIPTURE: Genesis 12 through Joshua
INTRO:
The history of the Jewish people begins with Abram, who we know more familiarly as
Abraham. He’s introduced to us in the 12th chapter of Genesis. He obeyed God’s call to move
his family from Haran (about 200 miles northeast from Aleppo in modern-day Syria) to
Canaan (modern-day Palestine). One year their crops failed, so he moved his household to
Egypt for a while.
From Egypt, he moved back to the southern part of Canaan, near Hebron. It was there
that Isaac was born. God renewed to Isaac the promise He had made to Abraham. Isaac
married and had two sons named Esau and Jacob. The promise was renewed to Jacob, who
was renamed Israel, and who had sons and grandsons who became the leaders of what we
now call “the twelve tribes of Israel.”
These “Israelites” eventually went to Egypt for the same reason Abraham did. While
they were there, they were enslaved by the Egyptians until Moses came along to lead them
out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and to the Jordan River. After crossing the Red Sea, they
wandered in the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula forty years before they arrived at the
Jordan. At this point, Moses died, and Joshua took over and led the Israelites into the
promised land, which was the Canaan that Abraham had settled in in the beginning.
This journey, which is recounted by Moses and Joshua in the first six books of the Old
Testament, is a “type” of our lives in relationship
with God through Christ.
First, note that