Today we are going to look at the first part of the life of Moses. The story really begins before Moses is born, and so we are going to look substantially also at the lives of Moses’ parents. In Exodus Chapter 1, we learn that the descendants of Joseph and his brothers became exceedingly numerous as generation after generation came and went. Eventually a new Pharaoh became concerned about how many they had become and feared that they could side with their enemies, overthrow him, or cause other terrible problems for Egypt. So he made them become slaves and forced them to do difficult, dangerous, and oppressive work, hoping that this work would kill off many of them. But what happened is that the Israelites continued to multiply.
Pharaoh then asked the Hebrew midwives to kill the babies after they were born if they were boys. They did not want to do this, and made up a lie that the Hebrew mothers gave birth before they could arrive. Then Pharaoh told his people to throw every Hebrew boy who was born into the Nile.
Into this terrible environment Moses was born. His parents hid him for three months, but then, unable to hide him any longer, they put him in a basket coated to make it waterproof and put him in it on the banks of the Nile. In a remarkable act of God’s divine plan, the Pharaoh’s own daughter found him and made him become her son. Unknown to her, she hired Moses’ own mother to nurse him while he was still young.
In the list of people who lived by faith in Hebrews 11 we see Moses’ parents. Here is what it says:
By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. – Hebrews 11:23
Now, I find this a fascinating thing to say, on three accounts. First, it says that hiding Moses for those three months was something they did by faith. My question for you is this: what was the alternative? The only alternative I can see is that they did not use deception but simply allowed the Egyptians to take baby Moses and kill him. Today, in our sheltered society, it may be easy to say that you would have done the same thing, but would you really? By holding on to this baby, the parents severely risked their own lives. If they were caught, they almost certainly would have been killed. If you recall, they also had a daughter, Miriam. By holding onto Moses they also put Miriam severely at risk. Would you do this, or would you give up the baby to keep the rest of your family safe?
On top of this, this plan of hiding Moses was crazy! How long did they think they could keep this up? Forever? This plan would certainly lead to the death of the family. The longer they succeeded before they were caught, most likely, the more angry the Egyptians would be, and the more they would want to make an example out of them. Hebrews 11:23 doesn’t say they did this out of craziness, though; it says they did it by faith. There are times that faith in God calls us to do things that are crazy or impossible or foolish. Now examples as extreme as this are rare given where we live today, but choices on a smaller scale occur all the time. By faith we choose to forgo certain pleasures, even if “everyone else is doing it,” when we know it is not a godly thing to do. By faith you may choose to take a lower salary as a family so that you can make your family a higher priority. By faith you may have to quit your job, not knowing what will come next, if your employer is asking you to become involved in grey or even illegal activities. If you think about it, all Christian giving is done by faith because you are choosing to lose the benefits of some of your hard-earned money.
Now, the Book of Exodus does not really spell this out, but it clearly implied that once Moses became older, Pharaoh’s daughter took him to live with her. Moses, then had pretty unique life as an Israelite in Egypt. While his people continued to suffer tremendous hardship as slaves, Moses had comforts and advantages that even the vast majority of other Egyptians could not even imagine. Yet Moses still knew who he was.
The second thing I find fascinating about this verse is the reason given for why Moses’ parents did what they did: they saw he was no ordinary child. Reading just the Exodus account, we are not really given any hint of what they saw. I doubt it was any physical sign, but rather that God had impressed on their hearts that He was going to do something amazing with this child. What this reminds me of is all that is recorded about the events surrounding Jesus’ birth. There were prophecies, dreams, angelic visitations – Mary and Joseph knew that Jesus was no ordinary child. We don’t know exactly how Moses’ parents knew that their child was similarly destined, but somehow, they knew. And this goes beyond the scope of what we will talk about today, but Moses in many ways was a “shadow of things to come,” a precursor of Christ. In Moses God used the literary technique of foreshadowing in real life, in real history.
The third thing in this passage, and the third thing that strikes me, is the statement, “They were not afraid of the king’s edict.” Isn’t this powerful? Isn’t this amazing? With eyes of faith, they knew that God would somehow protect their child. It was God’s problem how that would work out, not theirs. And how it worked out is one of those wonderful understated stories in the Bible where you can so clearly see God’s hand at work over the whole thing, and yet God is never mentioned by name. She even got paid by the Pharaoh’s own family to raise Moses!
But let’s move beyond talking about Moses’ parents at look at some events in Moses’ own life when he became an adult.
One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. – Ex. 2:11-12
Notice that, even as a grown-up, Moses does not live like the rest of his people. He has a wonderfully sheltered life! Yet he apparently identifies himself with his people. Perhaps here he is really thinking about the implications of this for the first time. He has watched his own people worked cruelly, worse than pack animals, working literally to death. And he sees an Egyptian master cruelly beating one particular Hebrew man, and he can’t stand it! It has to stop! He looks around, and thinking there will be no witnesses, actually kills the Egyptian. And then he works to bury him in the sand.
Of course, there is at least one witness, the Hebrew whose master has just been killed by Moses. We aren’t told what he thinks, what he does afterwards. It’s possible he may not be very happy about the situation – how is he going to explain it? If they find the body of the Egyptian, he will be the primary suspect. If they don’t, what is he going to do? Where will he go?
Before I come down too hard on Moses, I do want to point out that he has God’s heart. God too sees His people being beaten and oppressed, and God too is upset about it. Like Moses, God has a plan for dealing with it, but God’s plan, unlike Moses’ plan (if you can even call that a plan), is a good one.
It strikes me that this can be an area of trouble for us as well. We can see a situation that we know God desires to change, and we don’t see Him doing it, so we look around, and take matters into our own hands. And most of the time, when we do this, we fail.
The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?" The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known." – Ex. 2:13-14
I don’t know about you, but I sense that this man who spoke has a little bit of deeply-seated resentment against Moses. Actually, it reminds me of the way Joseph’s brothers thought of him. It’s almost the same question: “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” I can understand the resentment. Here they are, literally slaving away every day, and here comes Moses, in fine clothes, free, probably never having done a hard day’s work in his life. And, seemingly thinking he is Dr. Phil, he butts into these fellows’ “conversation” and try to dictates what they say and do.
And then it comes out they know about the Egyptian Moses killed the previous day. Either the slave from the day before told people what had happened, or someone else was a witness, but one way or another, the secret is out. And then what does it say about Moses? He was afraid. Contrast that with the lack of fear in his parents when he was an infant! And Moses’ fear is justified – it seems he has been working in his own strength, doing what he that was best, without a faith relationship with God.
When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. – Ex. 2:15
So quickly, Moses’ life has been turned upside down. He has lost everything. To avoid being killed, Moses flees into the desert and ends up in Midian. He meets a family at the well who treats him well, and Moses stays with them and eventually marries one of the father’s daughters, Zipporah. They have a son, and Moses names him Gershom, which sounds like “an alien there” and says, “I have become an alien in a foreign land.”
Moses eventually spends 40 years out in Midian. Forty years in the desert. Forty years is a long time! It is conjecture to make any statements about what was going in Moses’ life during this time. But given the name of his son, I think it is safe to say at least in the first few years, Moses did not at all feel like he became a Midianite. He was an alien in a foreign land. From Hebrews 11, we know that Moses’ parents knew that God had special plans for him, and I think it likely that Moses was told this when he was young. And yet, here he is, in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing. Did Moses previously dream of being a hero? I think 40 years is plenty long enough to kill that dream.
Most people, when they are young, have dreams about being able to accomplish certain things, especially in our western culture. How many actually achieve them? How many boys who dream of being professional basketball players actually make it? Very few. How many get to become astronauts? Very few. How many aspiring actors and actresses actually become movie stars? Very few. And who becomes a prima ballerina or an Olympic champion ice skater? Almost nobody. Some people’s dreams are more modest. In the past you always heard it said that young women wanted to marry “Mr. Right.” But their ideal “Mr. Right” was a dream, not a reality. Who does everyone actually marry? Broken vessels! We all have our failings and our faults, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have wonderful marriages and wonderful families. They can be wonderful, but they cannot be perfect, or even close.
Most of us, if we had a dream 40 years ago, have forgotten it. But I don’t think Moses forgot. This isn’t a 5-year-old’s dream we are talking about. Moses was a full grown adult (40 years old) when he killed that Egyptian. Perhaps he has tried to bury that dream, perhaps he views himself as a failure, but I don’t think he forgot. I think he still thought of himself, when his thoughts wandered back to his past, as an alien in a foreign land.
Why did God wait 40 years to begin the next step of Moses’ life? Only God knows, but we can be sure that there was a purpose in it. And we can be sure that God has purposes in the stages of our lives as well.
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then He said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. – Ex. 3:1-8
In Hebrew, this is “seeing, I have seen their affliction,” “hearing, I have heard their cries,” “knowing, I have known their sorrows.” You could also translate this as “I have surely seen”, “I have surely heard,” “I have surely known.”
Some of us have experienced some horrific things in our past. God has surely seen it. He has surely heard it. He surely knows. And he surely cares. We live in a broken world. God surely knows. He surely weeps. Wrongs will surely be made right. And the world to come will not be like this. This world is a necessary precursor for the world to come, a world where there will be no more sorrow, or suffering, or pain, or death.
And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." – Ex. 3:9-10
Forty years ago, Moses tried to do something about this oppression. He took matters into his own hands and became a murderer. We tend to forget this – Moses is a murderer. And now, hardly a young man, he is told by God that he is to change everything, not just for one man being beaten, but for his entire people.
But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain." – Ex. 3:11-12
I don’t really have a problem with Moses’ response – Moses has become humble. Or perhaps, more precisely, he has become humbled. They are not quite the same thing, as we will see.
Now, the first five words of God’s answer really says all that needs to be said. “I will be with you.” If God is for us, who can be against us? This is the Creator of the universe! Notice too how different this message is from what the world would say: “Moses, you can do it! I believe in you!” Or, “Moses, you can do it! You have the talent and the skills.” Or, “Moses, you can do it! Just assemble a good team.” Or, “Moses, you can do it! Just work hard enough at it!” Or, “Moses, you can do it! Just let go of everything and use the force.” I hope you understand that all these ideas are utter foolishness! God’s answer is “Moses, I will be with you.”
Now, I have always been somewhat bothered by verse 12. The “sign” God gives Moses won’t be visible until after he has already done the job! It’s kind of neat and all that it will be on this very same mountain that all the Israelites will worship God, but it’s not really a “sign” in the classical sense, because the sign should happen before the difficult task is done.
Why did God do this? I think God gave Moses an opportunity to show a greater faith. God had already given Moses a sign – the burning bush and the speaking from it. This should have been sufficient for someone with strong faith. But this was not Moses – not yet, anyway.
Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is His name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "
God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. – Ex. 3:13-15
God went on to tell Moses what to say to the elders of Israel. Then, God said the elders would listen and Moses was to go with them to Pharaoh to request a journey into the desert to make sacrifices to the Lord. Pharaoh would refuse, God said, so then God would “perform wonders,” and after this, Pharaoh would finally let them go, and even let them go with much of the Egyptians’ stuff.
God makes it clear that He really will be with Moses. God will do the “heavy lifting” – all Moses has to do is walk and talk.
Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The Lord did not appear to you'?" Then the Lord said to him, "What is that in your hand?" "A staff," he replied. The Lord said, "Throw it on the ground." Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Ex. 4:1-3
He ran from it. So would I. I don’t like snakes, not at all.
Then the Lord said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail." So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. "This," said the Lord, "is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you." – Ex. 4:4-5
Living in the desert 40 years, Moses certainly knew about snakes. And if you have watched enough nature shows, you, like Moses, would know that this is not the way to pick up a snake, not if you want to avoid being bitten. A snake held by the tail can easily swing around and bite you. The way to pick up a snake is to pin it to the ground with a stick and then pick it up at the back of the neck. But God makes Moses trust Him in having him pick up the snake by the tail. God is giving Moses a chance to stop trusting in himself and start trusting in God.
Then the Lord said, "Put your hand inside your cloak." So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was leprous, like snow. "Now put it back into your cloak," he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh. – Ex. 4:6-7
I don’t know about you, but I find this a fascinating choice of a sign. Why not thunder and lightning, or another burning bush? Why not just directly appear to the Israelite leaders as a burning bush? All we can say is that was not God’s plan. God’s plan was to use Moses, unqualified though he was. As Fred has said, God does not call the qualified, but he qualifies the called.
Now, this leprous hand sign, like the staff into snake sign, instilled great fear in Moses. To have leprosy was to have your entire life ruined. You became an outcast. You were isolated from everyone else. There was no cure. And God had done this to Moses!
After God does this to Moses, what does He tell him to do? To put this leprous hand back under his cloak, to put his hand on his chest! I am sure that this is the last thing Moses wanted to do. He probably would rather cut off his hand than let it touch more of his body and maybe spread the disease further. Like the snake, Moses had to defy his instincts and instead trust God.
There is so much more I could say about these signs. The first sign is relatively safe – an external object, a stick of wood, is a tool used by God for His purposes. Fine! But the second sign is Moses himself. This is discomforting. Are you a sign of God? Yes. God gives Moses an incurable disease, only to cure it again, to display His power. What if God gave you cancer or some other horrible disease so as to display His power through you? Does God do this today? Absolutely! It makes me uncomfortable to think of myself as a sign for God. But God can do this – we are His, to be used as He seeks to use us. Moses, too, now, was starting to realize that he was no longer his own person, but belonged to God. He was God’s sign.
Then the Lord said, "If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first miraculous sign, they may believe the second. But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground." – Ex. 4:8-9
There are some other dimensions to these signs. One is that they inspire a kind of holy fear. These are not pleasant signs. There aren’t any rainbows, or unicorns, or cute little bunnies! They are warnings. These warnings were for the Israelites! And He chose to warn them through symbols that were powerful in the Egyptian world view. Note that the Israelites, living so long in Egypt, had become greatly influenced by this world view. Many of them no doubt worshiped the Egyptian gods.
For Egyptians, snakes were symbols of fertility and of some of their most powerful gods. The sign of the staff into a snake and back into a staff was a warning that God was far more powerful than the so-called snake power of the Egyptians. Leprosy was a sign of divine judgment from their gods. Creating and healing leprosy instantly was a warning that God’s judgments were far more powerful than the powers of the Egyptian gods. And the Nile was itself deified as the source of life. Turning the water of the Nile into blood was a warning that God was far more powerful than the Nile gods of the Egyptians, and that, indeed, God held power over life and death.
Moses said to the Lord, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." The Lord said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." – Ex. 4:10-12
Moses has moved from “how to” type questions to “I can’t” type complaints. Where is Moses’ focus? It is on himself, on his own strength. This is the wrong place to focus. God’s answer is so compelling that I am frankly amazed that Moses would say anything after it. But he does…
But Moses said, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it." Then the Lord's anger burned against Moses and he said, "What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and his heart will be glad when he sees you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it." – Ex. 4:13-17
Notice that Aaron is already on his way! This means that God had planned that Moses would not go alone. But what a terrible thing to have the Lord’s anger burn against you! Why is God upset with Moses? Because he refuses to trust Him! After the miracles – the burning bush, hearing the Lord’s voice, the staff, the leprous hand, the words of encouragement, Moses still refuses to take his eyes off of his own weaknesses and put them on God. This should make us uncomfortable, because we can do this as well.
Listen again to God’s commission to Moses. I use that word, because that is what it is.
The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." – Ex. 3:7-10
Do you see how similar this is to the Great Commission? Let me reword it:
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of My people on earth. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers (the world, the flesh, and the devil), and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, Heaven, for eternity. And now the cry of My people has reached Me, and I have seen the way they have been oppressed. So now, go. I am sending you to bring my people out.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." – Matt. 28:19-20
Are we going to use Moses’ excuses, or are we going to trust that God will speak through us and give us the words to say? Are we going to focus on our inadequacies, or on God’s power? I am firmly convinced that our task, to reach out to our friends and neighbors, our family members, and even, sometimes, strangers, our commission is no less important than Moses’. Let us trust Him and go!
Pharaoh then asked the Hebrew midwives to kill the babies after they were born if they were boys. They did not want to do this, and made up a lie that the Hebrew mothers gave birth before they could arrive. Then Pharaoh told his people to throw every Hebrew boy who was born into the Nile.
Into this terrible environment Moses was born. His parents hid him for three months, but then, unable to hide him any longer, they put him in a basket coated to make it waterproof and put him in it on the banks of the Nile. In a remarkable act of God’s divine plan, the Pharaoh’s own daughter found him and made him become her son. Unknown to her, she hired Moses’ own mother to nurse him while he was still young.
In the list of people who lived by faith in Hebrews 11 we see Moses’ parents. Here is what it says:
By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. – Hebrews 11:23
Now, I find this a fascinating thing to say, on three accounts. First, it says that hiding Moses for those three months was something they did by faith. My question for you is this: what was the alternative? The only alternative I can see is that they did not use deception but simply allowed the Egyptians to take baby Moses and kill him. Today, in our sheltered society, it may be easy to say that you would have done the same thing, but would you really? By holding on to this baby, the parents severely risked their own lives. If they were caught, they almost certainly would have been killed. If you recall, they also had a daughter, Miriam. By holding onto Moses they also put Miriam severely at risk. Would you do this, or would you give up the baby to keep the rest of your family safe?
On top of this, this plan of hiding Moses was crazy! How long did they think they could keep this up? Forever? This plan would certainly lead to the death of the family. The longer they succeeded before they were caught, most likely, the more angry the Egyptians would be, and the more they would want to make an example out of them. Hebrews 11:23 doesn’t say they did this out of craziness, though; it says they did it by faith. There are times that faith in God calls us to do things that are crazy or impossible or foolish. Now examples as extreme as this are rare given where we live today, but choices on a smaller scale occur all the time. By faith we choose to forgo certain pleasures, even if “everyone else is doing it,” when we know it is not a godly thing to do. By faith you may choose to take a lower salary as a family so that you can make your family a higher priority. By faith you may have to quit your job, not knowing what will come next, if your employer is asking you to become involved in grey or even illegal activities. If you think about it, all Christian giving is done by faith because you are choosing to lose the benefits of some of your hard-earned money.
Now, the Book of Exodus does not really spell this out, but it clearly implied that once Moses became older, Pharaoh’s daughter took him to live with her. Moses, then had pretty unique life as an Israelite in Egypt. While his people continued to suffer tremendous hardship as slaves, Moses had comforts and advantages that even the vast majority of other Egyptians could not even imagine. Yet Moses still knew who he was.
The second thing I find fascinating about this verse is the reason given for why Moses’ parents did what they did: they saw he was no ordinary child. Reading just the Exodus account, we are not really given any hint of what they saw. I doubt it was any physical sign, but rather that God had impressed on their hearts that He was going to do something amazing with this child. What this reminds me of is all that is recorded about the events surrounding Jesus’ birth. There were prophecies, dreams, angelic visitations – Mary and Joseph knew that Jesus was no ordinary child. We don’t know exactly how Moses’ parents knew that their child was similarly destined, but somehow, they knew. And this goes beyond the scope of what we will talk about today, but Moses in many ways was a “shadow of things to come,” a precursor of Christ. In Moses God used the literary technique of foreshadowing in real life, in real history.
The third thing in this passage, and the third thing that strikes me, is the statement, “They were not afraid of the king’s edict.” Isn’t this powerful? Isn’t this amazing? With eyes of faith, they knew that God would somehow protect their child. It was God’s problem how that would work out, not theirs. And how it worked out is one of those wonderful understated stories in the Bible where you can so clearly see God’s hand at work over the whole thing, and yet God is never mentioned by name. She even got paid by the Pharaoh’s own family to raise Moses!
But let’s move beyond talking about Moses’ parents at look at some events in Moses’ own life when he became an adult.
One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. – Ex. 2:11-12
Notice that, even as a grown-up, Moses does not live like the rest of his people. He has a wonderfully sheltered life! Yet he apparently identifies himself with his people. Perhaps here he is really thinking about the implications of this for the first time. He has watched his own people worked cruelly, worse than pack animals, working literally to death. And he sees an Egyptian master cruelly beating one particular Hebrew man, and he can’t stand it! It has to stop! He looks around, and thinking there will be no witnesses, actually kills the Egyptian. And then he works to bury him in the sand.
Of course, there is at least one witness, the Hebrew whose master has just been killed by Moses. We aren’t told what he thinks, what he does afterwards. It’s possible he may not be very happy about the situation – how is he going to explain it? If they find the body of the Egyptian, he will be the primary suspect. If they don’t, what is he going to do? Where will he go?
Before I come down too hard on Moses, I do want to point out that he has God’s heart. God too sees His people being beaten and oppressed, and God too is upset about it. Like Moses, God has a plan for dealing with it, but God’s plan, unlike Moses’ plan (if you can even call that a plan), is a good one.
It strikes me that this can be an area of trouble for us as well. We can see a situation that we know God desires to change, and we don’t see Him doing it, so we look around, and take matters into our own hands. And most of the time, when we do this, we fail.
The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?" The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known." – Ex. 2:13-14
I don’t know about you, but I sense that this man who spoke has a little bit of deeply-seated resentment against Moses. Actually, it reminds me of the way Joseph’s brothers thought of him. It’s almost the same question: “Who made you ruler and judge over us?” I can understand the resentment. Here they are, literally slaving away every day, and here comes Moses, in fine clothes, free, probably never having done a hard day’s work in his life. And, seemingly thinking he is Dr. Phil, he butts into these fellows’ “conversation” and try to dictates what they say and do.
And then it comes out they know about the Egyptian Moses killed the previous day. Either the slave from the day before told people what had happened, or someone else was a witness, but one way or another, the secret is out. And then what does it say about Moses? He was afraid. Contrast that with the lack of fear in his parents when he was an infant! And Moses’ fear is justified – it seems he has been working in his own strength, doing what he that was best, without a faith relationship with God.
When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. – Ex. 2:15
So quickly, Moses’ life has been turned upside down. He has lost everything. To avoid being killed, Moses flees into the desert and ends up in Midian. He meets a family at the well who treats him well, and Moses stays with them and eventually marries one of the father’s daughters, Zipporah. They have a son, and Moses names him Gershom, which sounds like “an alien there” and says, “I have become an alien in a foreign land.”
Moses eventually spends 40 years out in Midian. Forty years in the desert. Forty years is a long time! It is conjecture to make any statements about what was going in Moses’ life during this time. But given the name of his son, I think it is safe to say at least in the first few years, Moses did not at all feel like he became a Midianite. He was an alien in a foreign land. From Hebrews 11, we know that Moses’ parents knew that God had special plans for him, and I think it likely that Moses was told this when he was young. And yet, here he is, in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing. Did Moses previously dream of being a hero? I think 40 years is plenty long enough to kill that dream.
Most people, when they are young, have dreams about being able to accomplish certain things, especially in our western culture. How many actually achieve them? How many boys who dream of being professional basketball players actually make it? Very few. How many get to become astronauts? Very few. How many aspiring actors and actresses actually become movie stars? Very few. And who becomes a prima ballerina or an Olympic champion ice skater? Almost nobody. Some people’s dreams are more modest. In the past you always heard it said that young women wanted to marry “Mr. Right.” But their ideal “Mr. Right” was a dream, not a reality. Who does everyone actually marry? Broken vessels! We all have our failings and our faults, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have wonderful marriages and wonderful families. They can be wonderful, but they cannot be perfect, or even close.
Most of us, if we had a dream 40 years ago, have forgotten it. But I don’t think Moses forgot. This isn’t a 5-year-old’s dream we are talking about. Moses was a full grown adult (40 years old) when he killed that Egyptian. Perhaps he has tried to bury that dream, perhaps he views himself as a failure, but I don’t think he forgot. I think he still thought of himself, when his thoughts wandered back to his past, as an alien in a foreign land.
Why did God wait 40 years to begin the next step of Moses’ life? Only God knows, but we can be sure that there was a purpose in it. And we can be sure that God has purposes in the stages of our lives as well.
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then He said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. – Ex. 3:1-8
In Hebrew, this is “seeing, I have seen their affliction,” “hearing, I have heard their cries,” “knowing, I have known their sorrows.” You could also translate this as “I have surely seen”, “I have surely heard,” “I have surely known.”
Some of us have experienced some horrific things in our past. God has surely seen it. He has surely heard it. He surely knows. And he surely cares. We live in a broken world. God surely knows. He surely weeps. Wrongs will surely be made right. And the world to come will not be like this. This world is a necessary precursor for the world to come, a world where there will be no more sorrow, or suffering, or pain, or death.
And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." – Ex. 3:9-10
Forty years ago, Moses tried to do something about this oppression. He took matters into his own hands and became a murderer. We tend to forget this – Moses is a murderer. And now, hardly a young man, he is told by God that he is to change everything, not just for one man being beaten, but for his entire people.
But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain." – Ex. 3:11-12
I don’t really have a problem with Moses’ response – Moses has become humble. Or perhaps, more precisely, he has become humbled. They are not quite the same thing, as we will see.
Now, the first five words of God’s answer really says all that needs to be said. “I will be with you.” If God is for us, who can be against us? This is the Creator of the universe! Notice too how different this message is from what the world would say: “Moses, you can do it! I believe in you!” Or, “Moses, you can do it! You have the talent and the skills.” Or, “Moses, you can do it! Just assemble a good team.” Or, “Moses, you can do it! Just work hard enough at it!” Or, “Moses, you can do it! Just let go of everything and use the force.” I hope you understand that all these ideas are utter foolishness! God’s answer is “Moses, I will be with you.”
Now, I have always been somewhat bothered by verse 12. The “sign” God gives Moses won’t be visible until after he has already done the job! It’s kind of neat and all that it will be on this very same mountain that all the Israelites will worship God, but it’s not really a “sign” in the classical sense, because the sign should happen before the difficult task is done.
Why did God do this? I think God gave Moses an opportunity to show a greater faith. God had already given Moses a sign – the burning bush and the speaking from it. This should have been sufficient for someone with strong faith. But this was not Moses – not yet, anyway.
Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is His name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "
God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. – Ex. 3:13-15
God went on to tell Moses what to say to the elders of Israel. Then, God said the elders would listen and Moses was to go with them to Pharaoh to request a journey into the desert to make sacrifices to the Lord. Pharaoh would refuse, God said, so then God would “perform wonders,” and after this, Pharaoh would finally let them go, and even let them go with much of the Egyptians’ stuff.
God makes it clear that He really will be with Moses. God will do the “heavy lifting” – all Moses has to do is walk and talk.
Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The Lord did not appear to you'?" Then the Lord said to him, "What is that in your hand?" "A staff," he replied. The Lord said, "Throw it on the ground." Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Ex. 4:1-3
He ran from it. So would I. I don’t like snakes, not at all.
Then the Lord said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail." So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. "This," said the Lord, "is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you." – Ex. 4:4-5
Living in the desert 40 years, Moses certainly knew about snakes. And if you have watched enough nature shows, you, like Moses, would know that this is not the way to pick up a snake, not if you want to avoid being bitten. A snake held by the tail can easily swing around and bite you. The way to pick up a snake is to pin it to the ground with a stick and then pick it up at the back of the neck. But God makes Moses trust Him in having him pick up the snake by the tail. God is giving Moses a chance to stop trusting in himself and start trusting in God.
Then the Lord said, "Put your hand inside your cloak." So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was leprous, like snow. "Now put it back into your cloak," he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh. – Ex. 4:6-7
I don’t know about you, but I find this a fascinating choice of a sign. Why not thunder and lightning, or another burning bush? Why not just directly appear to the Israelite leaders as a burning bush? All we can say is that was not God’s plan. God’s plan was to use Moses, unqualified though he was. As Fred has said, God does not call the qualified, but he qualifies the called.
Now, this leprous hand sign, like the staff into snake sign, instilled great fear in Moses. To have leprosy was to have your entire life ruined. You became an outcast. You were isolated from everyone else. There was no cure. And God had done this to Moses!
After God does this to Moses, what does He tell him to do? To put this leprous hand back under his cloak, to put his hand on his chest! I am sure that this is the last thing Moses wanted to do. He probably would rather cut off his hand than let it touch more of his body and maybe spread the disease further. Like the snake, Moses had to defy his instincts and instead trust God.
There is so much more I could say about these signs. The first sign is relatively safe – an external object, a stick of wood, is a tool used by God for His purposes. Fine! But the second sign is Moses himself. This is discomforting. Are you a sign of God? Yes. God gives Moses an incurable disease, only to cure it again, to display His power. What if God gave you cancer or some other horrible disease so as to display His power through you? Does God do this today? Absolutely! It makes me uncomfortable to think of myself as a sign for God. But God can do this – we are His, to be used as He seeks to use us. Moses, too, now, was starting to realize that he was no longer his own person, but belonged to God. He was God’s sign.
Then the Lord said, "If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first miraculous sign, they may believe the second. But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground." – Ex. 4:8-9
There are some other dimensions to these signs. One is that they inspire a kind of holy fear. These are not pleasant signs. There aren’t any rainbows, or unicorns, or cute little bunnies! They are warnings. These warnings were for the Israelites! And He chose to warn them through symbols that were powerful in the Egyptian world view. Note that the Israelites, living so long in Egypt, had become greatly influenced by this world view. Many of them no doubt worshiped the Egyptian gods.
For Egyptians, snakes were symbols of fertility and of some of their most powerful gods. The sign of the staff into a snake and back into a staff was a warning that God was far more powerful than the so-called snake power of the Egyptians. Leprosy was a sign of divine judgment from their gods. Creating and healing leprosy instantly was a warning that God’s judgments were far more powerful than the powers of the Egyptian gods. And the Nile was itself deified as the source of life. Turning the water of the Nile into blood was a warning that God was far more powerful than the Nile gods of the Egyptians, and that, indeed, God held power over life and death.
Moses said to the Lord, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." The Lord said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." – Ex. 4:10-12
Moses has moved from “how to” type questions to “I can’t” type complaints. Where is Moses’ focus? It is on himself, on his own strength. This is the wrong place to focus. God’s answer is so compelling that I am frankly amazed that Moses would say anything after it. But he does…
But Moses said, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it." Then the Lord's anger burned against Moses and he said, "What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and his heart will be glad when he sees you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it." – Ex. 4:13-17
Notice that Aaron is already on his way! This means that God had planned that Moses would not go alone. But what a terrible thing to have the Lord’s anger burn against you! Why is God upset with Moses? Because he refuses to trust Him! After the miracles – the burning bush, hearing the Lord’s voice, the staff, the leprous hand, the words of encouragement, Moses still refuses to take his eyes off of his own weaknesses and put them on God. This should make us uncomfortable, because we can do this as well.
Listen again to God’s commission to Moses. I use that word, because that is what it is.
The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…And now the cry of the Israelites has reached Me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." – Ex. 3:7-10
Do you see how similar this is to the Great Commission? Let me reword it:
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of My people on earth. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers (the world, the flesh, and the devil), and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, Heaven, for eternity. And now the cry of My people has reached Me, and I have seen the way they have been oppressed. So now, go. I am sending you to bring my people out.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." – Matt. 28:19-20
Are we going to use Moses’ excuses, or are we going to trust that God will speak through us and give us the words to say? Are we going to focus on our inadequacies, or on God’s power? I am firmly convinced that our task, to reach out to our friends and neighbors, our family members, and even, sometimes, strangers, our commission is no less important than Moses’. Let us trust Him and go!
No comments:
Post a Comment