MOSES QUESTIONS GOD — THE ENCOUNTER, THE HIGH STAKES, THE COMPROMISE

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

Michael sums up the entire Old Testament Book of Exodus, when he says,

 

“Moses was one real man who was chosen by God to lead a People.”

 

In our secular realm, we have all heard the term, “destiny’s child.” Well, this description of a predetermined path for a person’s life also has a highly significant Scriptural dimension as it plays out in the life of our central figure – Moses. From Moses’ birth and throughout the entirety of his life, God, hand picked this “one real man,” as Michael said it, as the deliverer of God’s People, the Israelites.

 

As stated, this is revealed in the Bible, beginning with Moses’ birth. Last week, we studied how the King of Egypt, deeply concerned about the growing numbers of the Hebrew People, issued an edict that all male Hebrew babies were immediately to be thrown into the Nile River. Moses was born into this treacherous time.

 

Why would God, with His perfect timing, select such a moment in history for His People’s male Hebrew deliverer to be born? All the odds were against Moses surviving his first months of life! Yes, but aren’t these the odds that God often chooses?

 

The odds were also against very-advanced-in -years, Abraham and Sarah conceiving a child, but Issac was born. Sitting in a pit into which his brothers had thrown him, Joseph’s odds of delivering the known world, including Egypt and, most importantly, HIS PEOPLE, the Israelites, from a famine that would have spelled their collective demise, appeared to be any oddsmaker’s nightmare. Yet it is exactly what happened.

 

So, when God very purposely chose a time of extreme peril for male Hebrew babies, like Moses, for him to be born, He was acting completely within the paradigm of our God, where divine power is required to overcome impossible odds.

 

As written in last week’s study, Moses’ mother, Jocabed, placed her son in the Nile alright, but in a watertight basket. Very soon, the Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe at the exact location where baby Moses lay in his basket, among the reeds of the Nile. How would one say the odds looked in this encounter? Most would think, not good at all! This daughter of the Pharaoh knew very well her Father’s mandate as to male Hebrew babies. Yet, God chose her with her heart, her tender and brave heart, to deliver to safety the future deliverer of His People. Bad odds, perfect result. As Michael says,

 

“Man is not meant to live alone , and man does not live alone. God is always here with us.”

 

Yes, God’s fingerprints are everywhere.

 

Now, God’s timing has put Moses in the palace of the Pharaoh himself. He would grow into a man there. He would be educated in all the ways of an Egyptian. Wouldn’t it be perfect for Moses, in his prime, to now deliver his People? Wouldn’t these make for the best odds of success?

 

But then, Moses, in whom God also put a tender heart for his own Hebrew People, intervened precipitously when an Egyptian was beating a fellow Hebrew, the end result being that Moses killed the Egyptian. The Pharaoh heard of this and tried to kill Moses. On the run for his life, Moses fled to Midian, a desert wilderness, where he would lead, not a People, but sheep  —.  for “a long period.” (Exodus 2:23) NIV

 

But then, “…the King of Egypt died.” (Exodus 2:23) NIV. Because the Israelites were still in terrible slavery in Egypt, God was ready to introduce Moses, now quite old, to the mission of deliverance toward which all of his life had been leading, even though he didn’t realize it:

 

“Now Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness 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. (The Torah says a thorn bush.)…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’…

‘I have come down to rescue them…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.”

(emphasis added)

Exodus 3:1-2,5-10) NIV

 

Moses reaction is not unexpected:

 

“But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

(Exodus 3:11) NIV

 

For decades, Moses’ had tended sheep – not even his own sheep. He was now old and a desert dweller. Egypt and the palace where he had grown up were, undoubtedly, distant memories.

 

Michael makes a beautiful and powerful point with regard to Moses’ reluctance and God’s plans:

 

“God needed to change the world by changing one person –  Moses.”

 

This encounter between God and Moses was one for the ages! The stakes were high, the preparation of Moses extensive, the plan of God crystal clear.

 

God then assured Moses that He would be with him and that as a sign that it was He who was sending him that,

 

“When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

(Exodus 3:12) NIV

 

Moses’ interest grew a bit with God’s response:

 

“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?”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 3:13) NIV

 

Here, the Torah states that God says:

 

“Ehyeh asher ehyeh’ (I will be what I will be), and He said, ‘So shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘Ehyeh (I will be) has sent you.”

 

The Bible NIV writes,

 

“I AM WHO I AM’ This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”

 

Exodus 3 14 is the citation for both of these verses.

 

God then gives Moses further instructions and His matchless insight:

 

“But I know that the King of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him.”

(Exodus 3:19) NIV

 

“Moses answered, ‘What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you?”

(Exodus 4:1) NIV

 

God then showed Moses magic tricks to use to convince the Israelites who doubt. But Moses just wouldn’t relent:

 

“Moses said to the LORD, ‘PARDON YOUR SERVANT, LORD. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you spoke to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 4:10) NIV

 

As Michael says,

 

“Moses was questioning his worthiness.”

 

God then reminds Moses,

 

“Who gave human beings their mouths…Is it not I, the LORD? Now go, I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’

But Moses said, Pardon your servant, Lord. PLEASE SEND SOMEONE ELSE.”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 4:11-13) NIV

 

As Michael points out so well:

 

“Moses never pictured himself to be this person.”

 

The thing is, God never pictured anything else.

 

Perhaps, the words of Moses’ fellow Hebrews, whose fight Moses tried to break up, decades earlier, were still ringing in his ears. The men wanted to fight and resented Moses’ peace-making efforts, saying, as stated in the Torah,

 

“Who made you a MAN, a PRINCE and a JUDGE over us!”

(emphasis added)

(Exodus 2:14)

 

How prophetically they had unintentionally spoken!

 

Now, decades later, Moses was asking himself the same question! Michael is so right when he says,

 

“Little things, a few words, can change a world!”

 

Now, again rebuffed by Moses, God, who had chosen Moses since he bobbed up and down in a basket that lapped in the ripples on the banks of the Nile, is entirely disgusted by him:

 

“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 he will be glad to see 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.

(Exodus 4: 14-16) NIV

 

Scripture tells us that, with Aaron by his side, Moses agreed to go. Was God satisfied? This addition of Aaron was Plan B for the LORD, and, knowing the future, He was not content. As we continue in Exodus, it will be very apparent what God, early on, saw as the consequences of Moses in Egypt and operating on God’s Plan B, a costly compromise.

 

POSTSCRIPT:

After all that had brought Moses to the point of being on his way to Egypt to deliver the Israelites from slavery, is it even remotely possible that God, Himself, would contemplate killing him! As difficult as this is to imagine, it is true. Michael and I will open next week’s study with this amazing story, straight out of the Book of Exodus, straight out of facts that will reveal a foundational part of our God, one so easily overlooked.