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| Moses felt totally inadequate for the God-given task that lay before him, even though he had witnessed the miracle of the burning bush and heard the voice of the God of the covenant (v6). He, who up till then had only led his father-in-law's sheep, was to be entrusted with the responsibility of leading Israel out of Egypt through the desert and bringing them to the borders of the "promised land." Like Paul, he must have cried out within himself: "And who is sufficient for these things?" (2 Cor. 2:16)
His sense of incompetence must have been similar to that of Gideon: "Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel ...I am the least in my father's house" (Judges 6:15); or that of Jeremiah: "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak" (1:6). Moses made some excuses: `I have no recognised authority' (Ex. 3:13); 'no-one will believe me' (Ex. 4:1); "I am not eloquent" (4:10); `I can't cope by myself' (4:13). "Who am I?" to perform the double assignment of confronting the mighty Pharaoh and then of assuming liability for the leadership of Israel from the land of bondage to the land of promise.
Moses needed encouragement and assurance (just as do all of the Lord's servants on occasion!), and the LORD who called and commissioned him provided the necessary stimulation by emphasising:
1. God's Purpose
2. God's Presence
3. God's Promise
God's purpose is to be found in Exodus 3:10: "I will send thee...that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt."
This deliverance had been promised more than 400 years earlier when God told Abraham that his seed should be afflicted in a strange land but that "afterward they shall come out with great substance" (Gen. 15:14), a prophecy which was very literally fulfilled when "they spoiled the Egyptians" (Ex. 12:36). The promise was reiterated to Jacob when he determined to go down to Egypt to see his long lost son, Joseph, whom, he had thought was dead. "Fear not ...I will there make of thee a great nation ...and I will also surely bring them up again" (Gen. 46:4). Even Joseph, on his deathbed, reminded his brethren: "God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land " (Gen. 50:24) - a real expression of faith in the inviolable Word of God, as Hebrews 11:22 tells us.
Now God's time had come. Had He not informed Abraham that the bondage in Egypt would last (in round numbers) 400 years? And do we not read in the account of the exodus that "the sojourning ...was four hundred and thirty years"? (Ex. 12:40) - a more exact number which, however, probably includes about thirty years of freedom before the "new king ...which knew not Joseph arose" (Ex. 1:8), the new dynasty imposing a slavery on God's people which they had not suffered under the previous Pharaoh. God had pre-determined the day of deliverance, and that day was nigh at hand: God would set His people free, and that by the hand of Moses.
The LORD could, of course, have released Israel without the use of any human instrument, even as He did in the time of Elisha, when He defeated the Syrian army independently of any human effort (2 Kings 7:6), but usually He made use of ordinary mortals, such as Gideon, Joshua, David and, in this case, Moses. In verse 8 of Exodus 3, God says: "I am come down to deliver" whereas, in verse 10, He tells Moses "I will send thee"; the LORD delegated the assignment to His servant - incapable as the latter felt himself to be.
From a purely human viewpoint we may well sympathise with Moses, and agree that his inner feelings of insufficiency were probably justified. Had he not, after all, miserably failed when he took matters into his own hands. (Ex. 2:12 & Acts 7:25). He had yet to learn that: "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty" (1 Cor. 1:27) and that "(God's) strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). This is a lesson we too must learn: of ourselves we can only say: "who am I?", but, as we fulfil our role in the context of God's eternal purpose, we may be assured that: " I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me" (Phil. 4:13).
Then, this declaration of God's purpose was followed by another encouragement, that of:
God's presence - "certainly I will be with thee" (3:12).
As we study the life of Moses, we see that indeed God was there when His servant needed Him. He was there in the pillar of cloud at the Red Sea; His glory appeared in the wilderness of Sin (Ex. 16:10); He manifested Himself when Korah rebelled (Num. 16:19). Then, after the incident of the golden calf, Moses must have been exceptionally discouraged, even to the point of wanting to abandon the commission; but God, just at that crucial time, we read in Exodus 33, "talked with Moses" and reaffirmed His pledge: "My presence shall go with thee" - to which Moses responded: "If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." God's Word cannot fail, and from the time God called Moses at the burning bush, until his burial at Beth-peor, he knew the presence of the Lord with him at all times, and could surely have anticipated the words of Psalm 23: "I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."
Let it be emphasised that it was God's personal presence that was guaranteed. He did not agree to send an angel, not even an archangel nor any mighty human helper; but He that revealed Himself as " I AM THAT I AM" and as "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob", He it was who affirmed" certainly I will be with thee." He delegated His purpose, but not His presence! And do not we, in our day, have a similar promise - that of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, via the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews declared: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (13:5)? As Isaac Watts wrote:
`Within Thy circling power I stand,
On every side I find Thy hand;
Awake, asleep, at home, abroad,
I am surrounded still with God'
For this was to be a continuous presence - "I will be with thee" (the Hebrew tense implying an ongoing nearness) As Ruth said to Naomi (Ruth 1:16): "Whither thou goest I will go", or as Elisha insisted to Elijah: "As the LORD liveth I will not leave thee" (2 Kings 2), so, on a higher plane, God Himself promises Moses that he should "abide under the shadow of the Almighty' (Ps. 91). Many years later, this selfsame promise was reiterated to Joshua: "As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee"..... "the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest" (Jos.1:5,9). Let us also remember the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ, given to His disciples not long before the first century Ascension Day, but surely applicable to 21st century believers: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt.28:20).
It was the late Dr. Marryn Lloyd-Jones who wrote "This is the fundamental thing, the most serious thing of all, that we are always in the presence of God." This is an awesome, yet comforting thought for, like Moses, we may sometimes be inclined to think: "Who am I?", but, like him, we may hear God's voice saying "Certainly, I will be with thee."
The third encouragement given to Moses was the promise of God: "this shall be a token (lit. the token/sign) unto thee" (3:12b). A token could often be a remembrance of something in the past: for example, the Feast of Unleavened Bread was to be a perpetual memorial of the deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt (Ex. 13: 3-10). Often, however, it meant a confirmatory sign, and this was the case with Moses. He would be misunderstood and rejected by his own people, he would live for forty years in exile, he would have to contend with the unsympathetic Pharaoh: yet God assured him in words something like these: "Moses, you shall accomplish the purpose to which I have called you; you shall know my presence at all times; and when your task is done I will give you a twofold sign of confirmation which will vindicate you in the eyes of all, that they may know that it is I who have sent you."
First of all the sign of salvation: "when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt." The fact of Israel's exodus from Egypt was indeed the substantiation of Moses' Divine calling, as the people themselves acknowledged (Ex. 14:31): "The people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses."
Then, secondly there was the sign of service: "Ye shall serve God upon this mountain" - that is, not only Moses, but all of Israel, for the pronoun "ye" is plural. And it was at Sinai (Horeb), the place where God conversed with Moses (Ex. 3), that, at the commencement of their trip towards the promised land, the people trembled at the presence of their God; they received His law; the instructions for building the tabernacle were given and implemented; in fact they became a nation in their own right, who should "fear the LORD." (Dent. 6:2).
As we consider Israel, let us be reminded that we, too, are "an holy nation" (1 Pet. 2:9) who serve the Lord, not at Sinai but at "Mount Sion...the city of the living God" (Heb. 12:22), and that soon faith will be translated into sight and, in the New Jerusalem where "the throne of God and of the Lamb" are, "His servants shall serve Him" (Rev. 22:3).
Like Moses, Christians may be misunderstood and scorned, but, also like him, they have "exceeding great and precious promises" (2 Pet. 1:4) whereby they are assured that the trial of their faith will end with the salvation of their souls (1 Pet. 1:9) and that they shall, in all eternity, render joyful service to their Divine Master.
At times, every believer must surely ask himself "who am I?" and then it is good to remember that each child of God is bound up in His eternal purpose; is assured of His eternal presence, and is the recipient of His promises which never can fail.
It is not "who am I?", but "I AM hath sent you."
David I. Johnson
Originally published in July - August 2004 issue of Protestant Truth. |
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