Story of Moses (part 4) - 40 years

From bibleforchildren.org (12. Forty Years)

Based on Exodus 15 to 34

Review

We have been learning about Moses in the past 3 lessons. God called Moses to lead the Israelites
out of Egypt because God wanted to free them from slavery. Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites
go so God sent many plagues on the Egyptians until Pharaoh finally agreed to let them go. But
Pharaoh changed his mind and sent his army after the Israelites. God parted the Red Sea so that
the Israelites could escape from the Egyptians and He drowned the Egyptians when they followed
the Israelites into the sea.

The Israelites saw the mighty miracles that God performed to save them from the Egyptians. But
we will find out today that they soon forgot that God was their saviour.

Story

Read the story "40 years".

Questions

Remind the children of the following instructions before asking the questions :

- they must raise their hand and wait for the teacher to point to them before answering
- if they shout out the answer before being chosen, they will not be allowed to answer
- the teacher will try to give everyone a chance to answer before choosing the same person again.

1. When the Israelites found water in the desert, could they drink it? Why?
- they could not drink the water because it was bitter.

2. What special food did God provide for the Israelites every day? What did it taste like?
- God provided manna. It tasted like bread with honey.

3. God told the people to collect only enough manna for what they needed for the day. But some
people disobeyed. What happened to the manna which was kept overnight?
- the manna turned bad and was full of worms.

4. When Moses went up to Mount Sinai to meet with God, what did God give him
- God gave him the 10 commandments written on two tablets of stone.
5. What was the first commandment that God gave?
- do not worship any other gods. Worship God only.
6. What terrible thing did the people do when Moses was up on the mountain?
- They made a golden calf and worshipped it.

7. When Moses sent 12 spies to find out about the land God promised them, only 2 believed that
they were able to conquer the land with God's help. What were their names?
- Joshua and Caleb

8. Did the people believe Joshua and Caleb or did they believe the other 10 spies?
- they believed the other 10 spies who said that they could not conquer the land.

9. What was the punishment for not believing that God was able to help them conquer the land?
- God said that those who were 20 years and older could not enter the promised land. They would
wander in the desert for 40 years. Only Joshua and Caleb were excluded.

Meaning and application

God had performed many miracles to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. In the desert He
continued to show that He was taking care of them by providing water for them to drink and manna
for them to eat. But the people angered God when they worshipped the golden calf and when they
did not believe that He would help them to conquer the land that He promised to give to them.
Thus they were not allowed to enjoy the good land that God had promised. Only their children
were able to conquer the land later.
What does this story teach us? It teaches us that we have a Big God who is able to do impossible
things. He loves us and wants to bless us but we need to obey God and trust Him.
Sometimes we are like the Israelites, we forget that God has blessed us with many things and we
complain about what we do not have. Sometimes we think that our problems are so big that we
think God is not able to help us. Sometimes, we love other things or other people more than we
love God. All these make God sad because He knows that only when we love and obey Him can
we experience the best that He has for us.