Exodus 4v10-17: God Calling and Equipping His Reluctant Messenger
Mike’s asked me if I could speak on the advent prayer person for today. The diary says "While Godly leadership is essential to secure positive change in our society, real leadership gifts are often in short supply and we should pray that leaders after God’s own heart will emerge."
Well today, we’re looking at Moses and in particular God’s call to him to lead the people out of Egypt.
So please turn with me to Exodus 4v10.
I’ve become more and more of a growing fan of the book of Exodus as we’ve been studying it each Tuesday at Cornhill. Some of the teaching we’ve had has been really good and rather than encouraging you more in preaching and teaching, it can often leave you feeling pretty intimidated as you compare yourself to some of the teachers that we’ve got there!! And so I was chatting with some of the other students and saying how sorry I felt for all of you, as you had to put up with me speaking to you this morning and not one of the teachers we’ve got there – one of the other students encouragingly suggested that maybe it would be better to see if one of them had done a talk on this passage before and then I could play a tape and mime along!!! Then as I looked at this passage I don’t think you could have chosen a more apt passage, to rebuke that way of thinking as we’ll find out shortly.
The reason that Exodus is such a great book is because it provides with an amazing revelation of God and how He chooses to work, in His timing and with His people. We see God increasingly revealing himself to mankind and telling his people how they should live in obedience to God. Much of the book focuses on Moses and how he is to the mediator between God’s chosen people the Israelites and God himself. So the title I’ve given this mornings talk is "God Calling and Equipping His Reluctant Messenger"
Moses is said to be "unlike any other character in the whole of the Old Testament" because of his intimacy with God and yet as we can see in the passage, despite God’s clear call to Moses, he shows great reluctance to answer that call.
Moses’ life can be divided into three 40 year sections – His 40 years in Egypt, being trained and educated in all the ways and wisdom of the Egyptians – His 40 years as a alien shepherd in a foreign land - and finally his 40 years leading the Israelites through the wilderness. This passage is between the second and third stages and sees his change from being a shepherd to a leader confronting the most powerful man in the ancient world.
In Chapter 3 we can see God taking the initiative and revealing himself to Moses in the form of the burning bush, the bush that doesn’t burn up - Moses then receives a clear call from God. 3v10 "Now, go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." He then follows with his 4 reasons as to why he believes God has chosen the wrong man. We can see the 3 grounds for which Moses claims that he is not the right man for the job – and the questions that he asks.
ACCETATE (2a)
- 3v11 "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
- Moses’ feeling of Inadequacy, as he realises he will be the leader of a great people and go before the great Pharaoh.
- 3v13 "What shall I say your name is?"
- Moses’ questioning of his knowledge of God – questioning his Theology.
- 4v1 "What if they don’t believe me or listen to me?"
- Moses’ fear that it may all go and he’ll be left with egg on his face – his lack of security in his credibility.
We then move on to the fourth reason, which is the start of the passage that we’ll study today, v10 READ. And we see Moses’ lack of faith in his ability
MOSES’ REASONS/EXCUSES
So what are we to make of these reasons why Moses believes God’s chosen the wrong man. Now, depending on the view you wish to take, they are either reasons or just excuses.
Some commentators would go for view that Moses is showing true humility – Num 12v3 tells us that Moses was "A very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth". Bizarrely it was most probably Moses who wrote these words about himself, although that in no way means they’re untrue.
Moses’ basic assumption is that God should only pick people with special natural abilities.
Moses was brought up in the courts of Egypt and knew the standards that were expected there, and the diplomacy skills needed to stand before a world leader.
And yet he’d lived as a Shepherd for the last 40 years, a very different job from standing up before an incredibly well educated and powerful man – indeed the most powerful man in the world.
He’d not spoken the Egyptian language for many years.
He’d also just seen the holiness of the God, revealed through burning bush – I’d imagine he’d have realised more about who he was before God.
As well as the fact that he’d never been well spoken in the past and didn’t feel any different since God had been speaking to him.
Others would be a bit harder and go for the view that Moses is simply bottling it – he’d been educated and lived in Pharaoh’s courts and so knew how the courts worked. Stephen tells us in Acts 7 v22 "Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action".
Maybe Moses was remembering the disaster when he stepped in to break up the fight 40 years before (2v14) and the rejection from his people and didn’t want to be embarrassed again. It’s just another excuse in the long line that Moses has been giving.
Well my view, is that it doesn’t really matter whether his fears are justified from a human level or not. Moses is being disobedient to what God has called him to do, whether he is being over humble or coming up with genuine excuses. Moses is viewing his call in the light of his own circumstances. God is patient and uses Moses’ questions to reveal more of Himself to Moses, but Moses’ error is in refusing to trust God’s answers. He’s looking at himself rather than God. God has called him to do something and he simply doesn’t want to do it because of what he sees of himself. v13 "O Lord, please send someone else to do it." In the words perhaps of a more modern day translation: "No way Lord"
WHAT IS GOD TEACHING US ABOUT GOD?
Now as we’ve been studying through Exodus over the last few months, we have seen again and again and again, that in the words of Jim Packer, "The Bible is God teaching God to us". And as we learn what the unchanging God is telling us about himself, we can then apply it to our own lives. So my main points this morning are focusing on what we learn of God from this passage. V11 "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?"
God is the creator
God is reminding Moses that He is the one who creates all things and all people for His purposes. The God who created the whole universe, obviously knows us all perfectly. Its funny isn’t it how we have topsy turvy days and get things completely the other way round. If God is omniscient, all knowing, then He knows us better than we like to think we know ourselves. A couple of months ago I was chatting to a friend and we were saying how much we as mankind would live our lives differently if we remembered more often, that God is omniscient and omnipresent – He knows all about all things and is in all things. [The world was created by God and for God’s glory, so He is going to use all things as he wishes to fulfil His perfect plan]God designs and makes us as individuals, with our gifts, talents and quirks as he sees fit. To some he gives mouths that can speak amazing words with complete perfection, amazingly eloquent. To others He gives them the opposite. Every single person is made just as He desires, and He has a purpose for us, whether we feel we can see it or not. Moses no doubt knew this, but he needed to be reminded about his right place before the creator God. When we look at things from God’s way and not ours, our perspective improves.
God is the enabler
V12 "Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say" God hasn’t just left creation as he created it, he is a God who sustains and significantly for us, he is a God who uses us, by the enabling of his Holy Spirit. God isn’t going to leave Moses to be hung out to try. Indeed, Moses’ isn’t going to be any good as a leader unless He is empowered by God. We can see earlier in the book of Exodus the disastrous results of Moses doing things in his own strength when he killed the Egyptian in 2v12 and sadly we see that again in the tragic story when Moses was in the wilderness, that leads to Moses’ exclusion from the promised land in Numbers 20. Moses relies on his strength and not God’s, by striking the rock twice rather than speaking to it as God has commanded. Numbers 20v12 "But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them." It was obviously a gradual process for Moses to learn more and more to depend on God. God didn’t only tell he that he would HELP him to speak but also that He would teach. It wasn’t going to be just a wam bam one off thing, where suddenly Moses can speak amazingly, but Moses was going to have to learn who God is and be prepared to work at it.
Its interesting, that all through the four questions that Moses asks, there isn’t a hint of anger from God. It is only when Moses says "No way LORD" in v13 that we hear of God’s anger. John Piper says on this passage READ OUT QUOTE
"The answer to why Moses refuses to go under God's terms is simple: He didn't trust him! So finally (in verse 14) God got angry because there is hardly a greater insult you can pay to someone than to say, "I don't trust you. You can't be counted on." And isn't Moses' problem our problem too? - learning to believe that God will work for us in everyday life. How different, how wonderful the use of our mouths would be if we lived by faith in the God who made the mouth and not by sight - by looking at our own clumsy tongue."
In v17 Moses is told to take his staff with him. God commands him to take a visible sign with him. As Moses stood before Pharaoh his staff was used again and again in the enactment of the plagues and significantly it was used as they left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. The LORD was always with them and the staff in Moses’ hand reminded them of that. God also gave him someone else to help him. Although Moses would be unique among the Israelites in his intermediary role, God provided a right-hand man to help him in all that he was set to do.
God has the perfect plan
God created all people and uses those he chooses to for his purposes and for his perfect plan. V14 "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." This is where we also see that Moses had the need for a wig….As sometimes he was with Aaron and sometimes he wasn’t!!!!!
Anyway God had asked Moses to go, and knowing His strengths and his weakness’ he got Moses’ brother Aaron in on the act. It’s not a question of God turning to plan B, but more in his great planning was providing someone to go alongside Moses to work together in the way that God instructs.
And in the next few chapters, we see God’s sovereignty in the way that these two work together and also in the way that God fulfills His plan by changing the hearts of the Egyptians.
Moses received the call and rejected it as much as he could, but eventually he got out there and did what call had asked him to do and trusted in the promise that God would enable and empower him. And if we read on through Exodus we can see how much Moses changed. He learnt how to communicate and was recorded in history as being powerful speaker. We can also see how much his relationship with God grew, so much so, that later on in the book we read in 33v11 that "The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend."
Moses had to make steps of faith, but God had a perfect plan for him and chose to use him.
Now we’ve not had time this morning to focus on Moses as a foreshadow of Christ, but I just thought it would be helpful in closing to read a couple of verses from Heb 3v5, 6. Talking about Jesus being greater than Moses READ. Moses had faith in God and eventually trusted Him based on the revelation that he had had of Him – we’ve had the full and ultimate revelation of God through the person of Jesus Christ, so we can both know God and tell others about him.
We’ve already prayed this morning for Christians in the media – that they would continue to have the courage to stand up and open their mouths, trusting in God to provide the words. And for us to we need to be praying that God will give us the strength to trust in him more and that God would empower us to speak up for the truth.
Us – what has God called us to do, are we getting on and doing it? I was chatting to a friend this weekend and we were talking about what she feels called to do – and that’s setting up an orphanage in Uganda.
I was chatting to another friend who was telling me about the mulled wine and Mince pie evening that she’s putting on for everyone in her street.
Now we may not have been called in quite the same way, but the challenge for us is still the same as Moses, in that are we opening our mouths and speaking out for the name of God. And are we trusting in God to be the one who enables us to do. Or do we never move on from the point of giving all the excuses? In the same God called and equipped His messenger Moses, so he calls and equips His messengers today. God didn’t change who or what Moses was, but took Moses’ characteristics and molded them, so they could be used for His purposes. God wasn’t looking for any amazing talents that Moses had, he was simply looking for his obedience.
Andrew Lower
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