In the book, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Bible," it says 600,000 Israelites went across the Red Sea in their exodus from Egypt.

But according to Illinois preacher Morris Chestnut, the number of people had to be more like three million-plus!

"Years ago, a pastor and I sat down and tried to figure out about how many of the Jewish people were in the land of Egypt at the time," Chestnut explains in a sermon he gave last summer at a family Bible conference sponsored by my church, Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill. "We went back to the twelve sons of Jacob, and we figured three per family, and multiplied that out over the 430-year period of time they were in Egypt, and gave them a life span of what we thought was about the average for that time.

"What Moses was to lead across the Red Sea was the equivalent of Chicago and most of its suburbs going across Lake Michigan. I'd stutter too! Over three million males, we figured out. Can you imagine being in charge of that many people?

"And then they go out there and start whining about this that and the other, and they come to you and say, 'Do something about it.' That was where Moses was, that was the responsibility he had. And as you look at these things, every time God calls out somebody, He gives them a responsibility. A godly responsibility. A big one."

Chestnut's sermon, entitled, "When it's Your Turn to Face the Law," was about how the children of Israel made a verbal business agreement with God after He led them safely across the Red Sea and provided for them in the wilderness.

"Three months after they'd crossed the Red Sea, God calls Moses up on top of the mountain and He talks to him," explains Chestnut. "God says, 'Go down and tell the people this.' Have you ever made a deal with God? You might have thought you did, but you didn't, and let me tell you something, you don't want to. These people did."

Specifically, what God had Moses tell the offspring of Jacob (who's name was changed to Israel) was this: "Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation."

While God had already promised Abraham that Israel would be a "great nation," the law was offered as an addition to that promise, and Israel accepted the proposal in a business contract.

"When Moses was told by God to 'tell them that I AM hath sent me unto you; I'll do anything for you,' they saw that—they saw how they went through the Red Sea and the water was miraculously walled up--three million of them—and how the Egyptians were baptized; immersed permanently," says Chestnut. "God's saying, 'You saw what I can do,' and they said, 'Anything God asks, we'll do.'

"They gave a verbal commitment to a covenant which today we'd call a contract. They made an agreement with God. They answered back, 'Okay, fine,' and He says, 'We'll write it in stone.' He verbally quoted them those 10 rules and they said, 'Yep, we'll do 'er.' "

Of course, when Moses went up Mt. Sinai the first time to write down these same commandments, the Israelites were below crafting a golden calf idol, violating the second commandment, which says, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image."

Over time, Israel failed repeatedly to keep the business deal, so in Jeremiah 31, God reveals the time's coming when, "I will put my law in their inward parts and they shall be my people."

Israel was destined to be a peculiar treasure unto God since He wanted a representative nation on the earth, and the people had agreed to be that. Because they never followed through, though, God says, "I'm going to make a new covenant with you. I'm going to take that law I gave you back there, and I'm going to write it into your hearts."

Under the new covenant, as God confirms in Jeremiah 32:38-39, "They shall be my people, and I will be their God: And I will give them one heart, and one way."

"God says, 'All you got to do—I'm going to send a messenger (John the Baptist) and tell him what to say to you, and then you will receive your king,' but what did they do to the messenger? Cut off his head," says Chestnut. "He sent His Son and they gave Him the most terrible death known to man. They crucified him. You know what kills a person on the cross? They are in that position for so long that the heart starts giving out and the brain does not receive enough oxygen to tell the lungs to breathe, and they eventually suffocate."

God then sent as a messenger Stephen, who was filled with the Holy Ghost, but he was stoned to death by the Jews.

"Daniel told them if they didn't accept that, that 'last week' (of the Tribulation) is going to be a rough one—'You will accept that business deal, and you're going to fulfill your end of it,' " says Chestnut. "To me anybody going into that Tribulation (period) is under the law. It's going to be put in their hearts by the Spirit and He's going to cause them to walk in His statutes after they've gotten through that period and if they accept Christ as Messiah."