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A study of the events of the Exodus should help us do just that.

1. Fighting and Killing are NOT God’s ways:  Forty years before the Exodus, Moses understood that God wanted him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but Moses thought it would be by destroying the enemy.  After all, Moses’ position in Pharaoh’s court was as Minister of Defense.  Moses was a warrior.  It seemed reasonable (to Moses) that Moses would use those skills to deliver the Israelites from their slave-masters, the Egyptians.  Moses saw an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite and Moses killed the Egyptian.

But God had a different plan, a plan that did not require the Israelites to go to war against their enemies.  God’s plan did not include the Israelites killing their enemies.  God would do the fighting for Israel.  So God said, in essence, to Moses, “You are not yet ready to lead my people out of captivity.  Into the wilderness, you go, Moses.  You need an attitude adjustment.  You need to understand who I am, you need to understand My ways.”  Fighting and killing are not God’s way.

Fighting and killing are NEVER God’s way.  But they are almost always Man’s way.  When God chooses not to forsake “man” when “man” falls back into his old fighting ways, God is often falsely accused of endorsing war!

Although they failed repeatedly, the Israelites would have to learn, eventually, to trust God for their safety – BEFORE they would be allowed to enter into the Promised Land.

2. Learn to Trust God.  That is the whole purpose of life:  Forty years later, when God finally called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses argued with God about his capability of speaking the Egyptian language.  Moses had been in Midian, a long distance from Egypt, and felt that his inability to speak fluent Egyptian would be a hindrance to him.  But God said, “I will tell you what to say – I will put the correct words in your mouth. ”  But Moses, instead of trusting God at His word, kept arguing about his deficiency, until God finally told him that his brother, Aaron, would do the speaking for him.  Apparently Aaron still lived in Egypt and was fluent in the language.

So, instead of trusting in God to do what He had promised to do – put the correct words in Moses’ mouth – Moses was given Aaron as his mouthpiece.  But later on, Aaron became a great liability to Moses when Aaron made the golden calf for the Israelites, and when Aaron and Miriam wanted to be equal with Moses, and mutinied against Moses.

If Moses had just learned to trust God, He would not have had these troubles.

3. Satan can do miraculous signs and wonders.  Don’t be fooled:  Pharaoh’s “wise men,” who were sorcerers, were able to duplicate the first three plagues called forth by Moses, under God’s directions.  Through this we learn that Satan can do signs and wonders, both then and now.  In our present age, with miraculous “healings” and apparitions, we must “test the spirits” by studying God’s word, to see if the signs and wonders are of God or are of Satan.

We must learn to know God so well, and study His Word so diligently, that we know His voice, and know His ways.  Otherwise, “even the very elect” will be deceived.

4. It may get worse before it gets better.  Trust God!  It is certain that while Moses was negotiating with Pharaoh for the release of the Israelites, the Israelites were praying for God to soften Pharaoh’s heart and let them go.  But God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.  The plight of the Israelites became a lot worse before it got better.

We must learn to trust God’s plans, to trust that God knows what He is doing, and that in the end, He knows what is best for us.  We must learn trust, patience, and perseverance.

5. Obey God.  Follow His Process in order to receive His Promise:  God said that the Egyptians would lose their first-born sons in the last plague.  God gave the Israelites a promise – that He would save their first-born sons, IF the Israelites followed God’s specific process – they were to put blood from a lamb on the doorpost of their homes.

Putting blood on the doorpost may have seemed quite useless in protecting their first-born sons, but the Israelites had to learn to trust God completely for the lives of their children, even though the “process” may have seemed strange.

God gives a “promise” – but He also gives the “process.”  In order to have the “promise” fulfilled by God, we must follow HIS “process” and NOT our own.

6. Human “Self-Defense vs. God’s Protection.  You can’t have it both ways.  When the Israelites left Egypt, they left with NO weapons.  They were given gold, silver and yard goods by the Egyptians, but NO weapons.  It was God’s ideal plan to have it that way.  God did not want the Israelites to wage war against their enemies.  When they were at the entrance to the Red Sea, frightened and complaining about the advancing Egyptians, Moses told them to quit complaining, and to “Keep silent, and watch God fight for you.”

But the Israelites had so little trust in God that even when they had successfully crossed the Red Sea and the approaching Egyptians were drowned because they had no faith in God to keep the waters from tumbling down, the Israelites apparently picked up the Egyptians’ weapons that washed up on shore.

The Israelites trusted God so little – even after the triumph of walking through the Red Sea on dry land – that they decided they would defend themselves, instead of depending on God.  They chose “self-defense” instead of the defense and protection provided by God.  They chose to trust themselves – they trusted in “man” – instead of trusting in God.

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11. The Israelites trusted themselves – NOT God:  Before the Red Sea opened, the Israelites were whining and complaining that Moses brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness.  Being frightened and unable to trust God to deliver them, and because they wanted to take their defense into their own hands (SELF-defense) rather than trusting God for their safety, the Israelites obviously picked up the weapons washed to the shores of the Red Sea from the drowned Egyptian soldiers.  Why do we surmise that?   Because later we read that they had weapons to fight their enemies.  But when the Israelites left Egypt, all they had were gold, silver, and yard goods.  They had NO weapons.

12. How soon we forget God’s working in our life:  The Israelites were constantly murmuring and complaining.  God had brought them safely through the Red Sea, but soon after, when they had no water to drink, they complained again that Moses had brought them into the wilderness to die.  Even after they witnessed one miracle after another, they still refused to trust God.

God performs miracles in our lives, but how soon we forget.  We, too, tend to complain that, or at least behave as though, our problems are too large for the Lord.

13. The Forty Years in the wilderness represents the life of each person:  It was God’s plan to take the Israelites through the wilderness - which represents our life on earth - where they had no availability of water, food, air conditioning for cooling, no heat to keep them warm, no place to buy clothes or shoes.  They had to learn to trust God for EVERYTHING.  There was nothing they could do for themselves.

The same is true for us. We must trust God for EVERYTHING – our food, water, cooling, warmth, clothes and shoes.

14. We must look up to God each day for our direction:  Every day, the Israelites had to look up, to the cloud cover during the day or the pillar of fire by night, to see where the Lord wanted to take them.

We too, must look UP – to the Lord – every day, to see where the Lord wants to take us.

15. A vegan diet clears the mind so we can understand truth:  God gave the Israelites Manna – a vegan diet – a vast dietary change from their previous diet of flesh food - BEFORE He gave them the Ten Commandments.

In order to understand God’s Word completely, our brain and our body must be cleansed, by a major change in diet.  We must return to God’s ideal diet – fruits, grains and vegetables, in their original form – in order to understand Truth!

16. Pentecost rejected:  The Israelites refused to have God run their lives personally.  At Sinai, God wanted to speak to the Israelites directly – not just through Moses (a human being) and God wanted to put the Law in the heart of the Israelites.  This was to be the outpouring of God’s spirit (breath of holiness) at Pentecost, but the Israelites refused.  They were afraid of God.  They wanted a human intermediary – Moses – to speak to God, and then Moses was to speak to them, because, “If God speaks to us, we will die.”  The Israelites did not want God to put the law – the Ten Commandments - in their heart so they could actually keep them,  God had to write the Ten Commandments on stone, a situation in which the Israelites would never be able to keep them.  They did not want to deal with God directly, they wanted to deal with “man” just as Christians do today – in the churches – with “man” – pastors – telling them what to believe, rather than being led directly by God.

The same day and month that God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Sinai, was the day and month that Pentecost actually took place years later.

17. A Vegan diet brings Life and Health.  Eating Flesh Food leads to death!  The Israelites hated Manna – God’s ideal diet – a totally vegan diet.  God gave a vegan diet to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  God gave a vegan diet – manna – to the Israelites.  And the diet in heaven and the new earth with also be a vegan diet because nothing will die.

But the Israelites complained and begged for Flesh food just as Christians today want to eat flesh food rather than God’s ideal diet.  And they are paying the price with rampant disease and premature death.

18. God’s Wrath is - - giving us what we want and letting us reap the consequences.  So God finally gave them what they wanted - flesh food – Quail, until it came out their nose, the Bible tells us.   And thousands died.  THIS is God’s wrath (Romans 1:18, 24,26,2 – giving us what we want – even when He knows we will reap the consequences of our lust.  But THAT is the way we learn.

19. No ONE will enter heaven or the New Earth - - until he or she has conquered their lust for flesh food:  No one who ate the flesh food in the wilderness entered the Promised Land.  They all died in the desert.  This tells us that no one will enter heaven or the New Earth UNTIL they have conquered their lust for flesh food.  Not only must our character be like the character of Jesus, but also, the animals would not be safe.  Someone would want to eat them.

20. Don’t argue with God.  Just DO what He says:  When Moses was in the mount, the Israelites worshiped the Golden Calf, made for them by Aaron.  When God initially called Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egypt, Moses argued with God, saying that he could not longer speak Egyptian because he had been away from Egypt for 40 years.  Even though God promised that he would put the correct words in Moses’ mouth, Moses continued to complain that he could not do it alone.

Finally, God agreed to allow Aaron to speak for Moses.  But this was a terrible mistake on Moses’ part.  Aaron, though he became a high priest, caused significant trouble for Moses, not only with the Golden Calf incident – the beginnings of secret occultism in the Israelite community – but Aaron and their sister Miriam, began a mutiny against Moses.  This resulted in Miriam being cursed with leprosy.