Moses Tries It His Way: An Exposition Of Exodus 2:11-25

Moses Tries it His Way: An Exposition of Exodus 2:11-25

How many times do we feel that God has a special calling on our lives, and we get into a rush trying to fulfill it? When we became Christians, we received the Holy Spirit in our lives. God has a purpose for every one of us. He has distributed spiritual gifts to add to and build up His church. So we have a tendency to rush out and begin. I have seen many feel called to the ministry in a church service. In some of these cases, the newly called minister is sent to the pulpit the very next Sunday. This baptism by fire has not proven to be a very effective way to prepare a candidate for ministry. I realize that the Holy Spirit will give us the words to say, at least under some circumstances. But I have seen a lot of awful first sermons preached by the “Holy Spirit.” Does God have a better way? Let us see.

Moses was born under difficult circumstances. By all expectations, he would have been thrown into the Nile to drown according to Pharaoh’s edict. But Moses’ mother saw something in the infant and protected it as long as she could. When that was no longer possible, she put him into a little boat and floated him on the Nile. Her hunch about Moses was right. He would be special in the sight of God. But little did she or anyone else know what Yahweh had planned for him.

Moses was rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter, who being unable to nurse him, gave Moses back to his own mother to nurse in Pharaoh’s house. Moses would be raised in the royal family and get the best learning available anywhere in the world. But beside his outwars identity as a member of the Egyptian royal family, his mother must have instilled the fact that he really was a Hebrew. This would lay dormant for the first 40 years of his life.

40 years is a long time. Surely Moses by this time should have been fully ready. But not in the sight of God. A circumstance arose which gave Moses pause to reflect on who he really was. He saw an Egyptian taskmaster grievously afflicting a Hebrew slave. As a member of the royal family of Egypt, he would have known of the edict of his “father” which stated that the Hebrews were to be treated this way. Instead of nodding approvingly at the scene, the unexpected happened. Moses was reminded that he was truly a Hebrew. He slew the taskmaster and hid his body in the sand. He thought he had gotten away with it. This tells us that more development was needed in Moses’ calling. He might have thought that he could reform the system from within quietly. This was the first instance of Moses acting on his new identity. This was Moses’ way of dealing with the situation. And although we probably would not kill someone who was wronging another person, we would at least act circumspectly under the circumstances. No one wants to lose one’s reputation in the world over a justice issue. In Moses’ case, it would have been far more serious if what he had done had been found out.

And he was found out. The irony was that he was not found out by an Egyptian, but by a fellow Hebrew. He had seen what Moses had done. As it happened, this man had gotten into a quarrel with another Hebrew. Moses tried to break it up. And as it I often tragically the case in domestic violence situations, the one who tries to intervene is often the recipient of the wrath. The person who had started the fight asked if Moses planned to kill him like he had killed the Egyptian the previous day. Moses had been found out. He was betrayed by his own people. Stephen, who was on trial for his life brings this out. Instead of the expected praise for killing a hated taskmaster, he was tattled on. This kind of betrayal was a type of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas as well as the betrayal of Stephen who was a Greek-speaking Jew was betrayed by fellow Greek-speaking Jews. But betrayal would not be the last word. God was not done with Moses. But Moses would have to go through yet another 40 years of schooling. Just having a lot of book smarts does not qualify one to be a minister. God can use this, of course, but we must learn obedience. Moses then fled into the desert to a well on the backside of the desert. His future looked bleak by human standards.

When we look at Stephen, we see the end of his earthly ministry with his being stoned. But it was not the end of his ministry. It would speak beyond the grave in the same way the blood of Abel cried out from the ground. One of the witnesses was a man named Saul of Tarsus. He did not know it that day, but soon he would pick up the mantle of Stephen who had won his crown at martyrdom. God would save this Paul miraculously on the road to Damascus. Like Moses, he was a man of considerable education. One would think him ready to preach out of the box. Not only did he have learning in the Greek universities, he was also a well-trained Pharisee. He tried ministry his way. He persecuted the Christians. God did use his wrongheaded approach to his persecution scattering the Christians who proceeded to preach the Gospel everywhere. But God had better plans, and miraculously saved him. It was his burning bush experience. Yet, even after an brief initial experience in ministry, he too had to flee to the back side of the desert. He still had lessons to learn, among them obedience. His escape to Arabia was the beginning of years of training and not exile to the uttermost part of the earth. Like Moses, Paul would return and have a magnificent ministry despite many hardships and trials.