Moses Discovers His Role (Exodus 3:7-22)
God appeared to Moses to inform him that he had a great task to perform for his people even although he was eighty years old and had been living in obscurity for forty years. As we read this account, it will help us if we remind ourselves that the account is autobiographical. Moses is describing what happened to himself. Moreover, he wrote the account after he had seen the fulfilment of God’s predictions and promises, and it is legitimate for us to assume that he would write some words with wonder at the greatness of God and some words with shame as he recalls his earlier response to the revelation of God.
God and his people
The various stories in the Bible are recorded for our information and encouragement. We may not have the exact same circumstances as they did, but we do have the same God.
There are three details mentioned here that we should remember with regard to having a relationship with God. The first is that God has a strategy that he is following. In the case of the Israelites, he had told Abraham that his descendants would be in Egypt for four hundred years but that they then would experience a divine rescue from slavery. Their deliverance would coincide with God’s punishment on the wicked inhabitants of Canaan. So we can see that his strategy functioned at a range of levels and we can see that nothing could cause the Lord to change his intentions.
The second detail is the Lord’s sight. He stresses to Moses that he had ‘surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt’ and that he had ‘heard their cry because of their taskmasters’. God reminds Moses that he was aware of everything that was happening to each of his people and that he could list each distress that all of them had. This detail tells us about the constant interest the Lord has in his people, even during dark times that they go through.
The third detail to note with regard to God’s relationship is that he included incredible solace along with it for his people. With regard to the Israelites, his solace was ‘to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.’ Of course, that prospect seemed very unlikely because the Israelites were powerless and the Egyptians were very powerful. It was also unheard off before – such a thing had never happened to any group of people before. His solace would have to received by faith because it described something that was unique.
We today need to remind ourselves of those three details, even although we are far removed from the situation of Moses or the Israelites. Our God has a strategy that he will ensure will take place and which no creaturely power can prevent taking place. He sees everything about us, he knows all that is happening to us, he is aware of all that is planned against his people. We don’t know those things, but he does. And he has a solace ahead for us that no one can describe apart from God himself, the world of glory. We are reminded of Paul’s words, ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’
God and his purpose
We don’t know what Moses made of the initial information he received from the Lord. Maybe he was startled by the bigness of the divine predictions. But he was about to discover two personal details. The first was that the Lord was going to use Moses in the deliverance of the Israelites and the second was that that the deliverance was designed to result in worship of God, worship that would involve Moses taking a leading part.
With regard to the involvement of Moses, God was going to send him to the location that had caused him to flee from Egypt forty years previously. On that previous occasion, Moses had borne a very bad witness for God. The Lord had not told him to kill the taskmaster and the Lord had not told him to run away to Midian. What marked Moses then was a fear of man. Moses now discovered that the Lord wanted him to revisit that situation and give a more appropriate witness for God. When he did so, he would not leave Egypt by himself in fear, but with a vast multitude whom he had rescued.
The Lord assured Moses that he would complete the task assigned to him and as an incentive he informed Moses that the Israelites would yet come to the very location where he was now speaking to God. There would be a special gathering for worship there, which we now know was when God gave his law to his people. It all seemed impossible, yet God said it would surely happen. When that great occasion happened, it would reveal sin in Israel because sadly and strangely they worshipped the golden calf. But they would also learn that God delighted to show mercy because he forgave many of them.
With regard to ourselves, here we have another reminder that it is sinners that God often uses to further his plans of deliverance. Moreover, God often asks us to do the very thing that we dread. He can do this through his word and he can do it through causing our minds to think in certain ways. He can even lead us to make right the mistakes that we have made in the past. And in order to encourage us to do those actions, he gives to us the incentive of the great worship gathering at which he will display his mercy. That great gathering is the Day of Judgement when his mercy will be revealed as well as his punishments.
God and his preparation
We should not think that the Lord is like a negotiator trying to deal with unknown aspects of a case. Nothing that takes place during this conversion took him by surprise. The response of Moses about his inadequacy was not unexpected by the Lord. God knew that the task seemed difficult to Moses and therefore he had prepared various encouragements for him.
The response of Moses here is a reminder that we are both creatures and sinners. There does not seem to be anything inappropriate with his response to begin with, because he knew that the task was great. Yet we can see in Exodus 4 that he was guilty of more than ignorance or weakness. His persistence in coming up with questions and excuses revealed a deeper problem, which was that Moses did not want to go. This is not a rare response to God’s call. Jonah did not want to obey his call either.
Moses wanted to have details about the Lord to pass on to the Israelites. We should remember that so far the Israelites had not seen any actions on their behalf by God – all they had was stories from long ago about what he had done for their forefathers. The Lord knew what should be told about him by Moses. He should tell them that he is self-existent and eternal, the God who is faithful to his promises. Because he is self-existent, he can never go out of existence because he keeps everything else in existence. And because he is faithful, he can be depended on. And he stressed to Moses that his people should always remember those things.
God also told Moses who he should speak to first – to the elders among the Israelites. One reason for this would be that they could arrange for the information about God’s plan to be handed on to the various tribes scattered throughout Goshen. The people knew them, but most of the people would not know who Moses was. They would be listened to. At the same time, they were only to pass on what Moses told them to say about God and his plans.
The Lord also reminded Moses that he was fully aware of all that would happen when Moses actually reached Egypt. He knew that the elders would accept Moses’ message and he knew that Pharaoh would reject the message. Whatever comfort the support of the elders would have meant to Moses, it would have evaporated in the refusal of Pharaoh to listen if the Lord had not told him beforehand what would take place.
Yet Moses discovered that the opposition of the powerful Pharaoh would bring about clear evidences of the superior power of the God of heaven. However difficult Pharaoh would turn out to be, he would not be able to hinder the Lord from revealing his glory by rescuing his people with a mighty hand. The outcome would be that the Lord would win the battle against the gods of Egypt.
In addition, the Lord informed Moses that through divine providence the people of Egypt would give to the Israelites whatever they wanted when they were leaving for the promised land. Maybe this action was a kind of payment for the years of slavery that the Israelites had endured from the Egyptians. Whatever the reason, the people of God left with great riches.
As we try and apply this to ourselves, we should see that there is nothing inappropriate by telling our fears and sense of inadequacy to the Lord, as long as we are doing so before he explains his preparation for our subsequent service, and not after he has told is his promises. Our God is not unfair in his plans.
We are called to bear witness to what we know of God. Even as the God of Israel was very different from the gods of Egypt and impossible for them to understand, so we know truths about God that are very different from what people imagine God is like. We should tell them that he is a triune God and that the second person of the Trinity became a man in order to save us. It may be that as we tell who he is, he will also tell them who he is and they will be converted.
In addition, we should not be surprised at the strength of the opposition to God’s plans. After all, his plans for the Israelites were the exact opposite of what Pharaoh planned for them. At a basic level, there was a conflict of ideas and intentions. It is still the same today. There is nobody out there waiting for our input of what we have to say is the opposite of what they plan. If we compromise, then they will listen to what we have to say. If the gospel is replaced by our own wisdom, then we will be listened to. But if we insist on the facts of the gospel and the necessity of a life of holiness, then it is war.
But we are to remember that there is divine compensation. The Israelites discovered in as sense that the wealth of Egypt was actually theirs. In a sense, they had a foretastes of what Paul meant when he said to the churches that all things were theirs. God more than makes up to his people what they may lose for identifying with him in dark times and places.