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October 10, 2010 |
| Doing it God's Way | ||
Sometimes we want to achieve a goal so badly and the path to achieving that goal seems so clear that we head off to do it without consulting God. But then we often find an uphill battle as everything goes wrong. From our perspective everything looked to be in place. But our perspective is so limited compared to God's perspective. You may be the right person to do the job, but only God knows the right time and the right way to get it done.
In this lesson we will see Moses had the same problem. Instead of achieving his goal, he achieved running away for his life. But when God was ready Moses met with success.
As we look at Moses' life in this lesson we will also learn some other things about God.
In Genesis 15, God told Abraham in advance that his offspring would spend 400 years in Egypt.
13 Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
As that period of time was coming to a close we find an Israelite has come into significant authority. Adopted into the Egyptian Royal Family, Moses was taught all their knowledge and given all the benefits of their society. But he was raised as an Israelite by his father and mother, offspring of Levi, and knew who his people were and how they were treated.
11 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. 12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
Moses likely believed that he could help his people and that they would see him as a leader and flock to him. But it didn't go that way.
13 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?"
14 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."
15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian […]
His plans to help his people were completely destroyed. The time was wrong and the plan has wrong. Moses would spend 40 years in Midian before the time was right and he began doing it God's way.
The number 40 is important in the Bible. It means purification. The flood of Genesis lasted 40 days and 40 nights and the earth was purified. The Israelites would spend 40 years in the desert being purified from the false teachings they had learned in Egypt. Jesus began his ministry by fasting in the desert for 40 days. And here we see Moses being purified for the mission God had for him.
23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.
Of course God never forgets. "The word ‘remembered' in a passage such as this suggests that God is about to act in fulfillment of a promise he has made."1 That promise was the one we studied above – that they will come out of Egypt with great possessions.
Moses had been the right man but now, at age 80, he was ready to be used by God and God was ready to move.
1 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. 2 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. 3 So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight - why the bush does not burn up."
The angel did not appear as an angelic man standing in a fiery bush as some might think. Instead the angel appeared as the fire. Otherwise we expect Moses would be more interested in why there is an angelic man standing in front of him than a bush that does not burn up.
This scene is also often depicted as a night time event, as it is here2, but there is nothing in the scripture that says either way.
Fire has a way of getting our attention. People flock to a fire to watch in stunned silence. So it was entirely natural for Moses to investigate. If the angel had appeared as a man, Moses might have felt threatened or been concerned that the flock was in danger.
4 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."
The Bible does not tell us what Moses was thinking at this time or the look on his face, but he must have been a little concerned about what was going on. First the bush burns but is not consumed, then the bush knows his name and calls to him.
5 "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." 6 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.
Now God identifies himself and instructs Moses to remove his sandals. "Joshua, Moses successor, will be told to do the same in Joshua 5:13-15"3. "All [Moses] can do is hide his face, for he is aware enough of who God is that he is afraid to look at him (compare Genesis 32:30)"4
7 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.
We'll skip verses 8 through 10 where God explains what has lead him to call Moses – the cries of his people. And where God explains what is going to happen and that he has called Moses to do this work. Moses also gets his first assignment – to ask Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.
11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
This question embodies a lot of the concerns Moses has. When he says "Who am I, that …" he is not only referring to himself. He is really saying "who is any person that he should tell the most powerful man in Egypt to let his slaves, the Israelites, go." He also likely means that he has a history in Egypt and there might still be some people there who would like to look him up and settle a score. He also likely sees this as an impossible task for anyone.
12 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."
Moses has already seen some signs from God. Now God promises him another sign. But this sign is not a sign to strengthen or encourage him before the work that Moses will do. For Moses it is more of a prophecy that the Israelites will come out of Egypt and worship God on this very mountain. For everyone after that time it is a sign showing the power and omniscience of God.
13 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?"
Where Moses had asked "Who am I" he now asks "Who are you". Moses' question reveals a lot about the spiritual situation of the Israelites. Although God has not forgotten that they are his people, after 400 years in Egypt the Israelites may have forgotten who their God is. This will turn out to be the source of many problems later as the Israelites travel to the promised land.
14 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's response is beyond our full understanding. In saying "I am who I am", which is sometimes translated as "I am that I am", God is speaking of his eternal nature. He has always been and he has always been the same. Where Isaac would have said that he was "Isaac, son of Abraham" God says only "I am who I am."
15 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.
In a previous lesson we covered the misplaced dedication of the Masoretes and their substitution of the name of God with the title "The LORD". Here we see it again. After reading this verse, tell me the name of God. tick … tick … tick … You can't because it isn't there. The Masoretes removed it and replaced it with "The LORD". The personal name of God in Hebrew is היהו which transliterates to YHWH or YHVH5. The written form of Hebrew, and the Aramaic language that sprang from it, had no vowels until after the time of Jesus. So the correct pronunciation of the tetragrammaton is uncertain. Most people prefer Yahweh, and Hebrew language scholars say that is most likely correct or at least close, but some prefer Jehovah.
Even today this misplaced dedication exists and results in some people using G-d when writing instead of God, as though the title of God is too sacred to be written on paper.
For the rest of this lesson I have put the name of God back into the text using Yahweh as if the Masoretes had not changed it.
16 "Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, 'The LORDYahweh, the God of your fathers - the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. 17 And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites - a land flowing with milk and honey.'
18 "The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, 'The LORDYahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices tothe LORDYahweh our God.' 19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. 20 So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go.
Here are two important reasons to go with God's plan. He knows the future and he has the power. God knew that the elders of Israel would accept Moses' message and that Pharaoh would not let the Israelites go easily. But he had the power to get it done.
21 "And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. 22 Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians."
We saw here how Moses' attempt to help his people turned into a disaster and how God's plan met with success. As humans our natural reaction is to try to solve our own problems. We must reject that instinct and learn to exercise faith and patience, faith that he is working and the patience to let him work in his own time.
1 NIV Standard Lesson Commentary, Fall 2010, Unit 1, September 5, section II.C
2 http://worshipconcord.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/o-antiphon-adonai/
3 NIV Standard Lesson Commentary, Fall 2010, Unit 1, September 5, section II.B
4 NIV Standard Lesson Commentary, Fall 2010, Unit 1, September 5, section II.C