We may say with tenderest reverence, "Jesus my Saviour is a living Saviour, I will trust myself to Him and follow Him, and one day I shall see Him face to face!"
[XL. Moses and the Children of Israel]
You often hear in the Bible about "The Children of Israel," and now I am going to tell you how it was they were called by that name.
Long before Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt to live near Joseph, God had met Jacob one night and had given him a new name. God loved Jacob very much, and He did not wish him to be called Jacob any more, because that name meant a Supplanter—one who had taken something away from another—and God forgave Jacob for his deceit, and called him henceforward, Israel.
So, when in after years, he went down to Egypt, he is often called Israel; and thus his twelve sons came to be called "The Children of Israel."
Well, the children of Israel settled down in Egypt, and Joseph was very kind to them, and they lived in the land of Goshen and were very happy.
But after a time another Pharaoh came to the throne, who did not remember Joseph, and all he had done for the Egyptians in that great famine; and this Pharaoh thought that these Jews or children of Israel should be made into slaves, and should build his great cities and pyramids; and he made their lives a terrible burden to them.
But God had not forgotten His great promise to Abraham that his children should live in the land of Canaan; and when the time that God had mentioned to Abraham drew near, He was preparing a great deliverance for them; to take them right out of Egypt back to their own land!
You will now hear how God brought this to pass. His ways are most wonderful!
The King of Egypt, called Pharaoh, was very surprised to find that in spite of all his unkindness, the children of Israel grew to be so many, that he feared they would fill up all the land of Egypt. So he sent out a cruel order that all the little baby boys should be killed as soon as they were born.