There used to be a cliché of a scene in many spy movies, science-fiction films, and thrillers. The scene would feature some mysterious person (or sometimes, even the protagonist) removing their dark glasses or doffing their hat and saying something like: “I know this is going to sound strange, but your country needs you. Should you do this, you’ll do your country a great service.” The scene played well to patriotic audiences. If such a situation would happen to us and we really believed the person or people who approached us, I think such an idea would play well for us in real life, as well.
We would all like to something meaningful, something that would make the world or our country a better place. We would all like to be remembered for some great accomplishment. And for those of us who are believers, we’d like to accomplish something great within God’s purposes.
I apologize to those of you who have heard me preach on Moses’ call before (even those of you who watched me play Moses in costume with the lame Jimmy Stewart imitation). I know that some of this message may be repetitious, but I assure you that God has given me something fresh and, combined with last week’s emphasis on the call of Moses from God’s perspective, I think it is significant to where many of us find ourselves these days.
Last week, we considered the fact that Exodus 2 shows us a people (Israel) and a person (Moses) who were neither open to nor mature enough to accomplish God’s purpose of liberation from slavery and inauguration of a new nation dedicated to God’s purposes. We examined the verses which indicated that God heard, God saw, and God knew experientially (personally and at a cost) the suffering of Israel. We continued into the burning bush experience where God reiterated to Moses the reality that He heard, saw, and understood from a personal perspective the oppressive situation in which Israel found herself in Egypt. For me, the emphasis on God’s suffering because of and involvement in human affairs was a profound reminder that I don’t suffer indignities by myself and I don’t hurt by myself and I don’t feel a sense of lost time and purpose by myself. God hears, sees, and experiences everything that I experience.
We also saw that while God personally vowed to get involved, God chose an individual—Moses—to be a divine partner in deliverance. This week, I want to focus on Moses’ response to this incredible gift from God. Moses’ call, like our own callings (whether as professional ministers or disciples with secular responsibilities) should challenge us to a closer partnership and relationship with the living God.
[Read text from Exodus 3:1-12 KJV.]
You may remember from last week that I suggested that, since the miracle of the burning bush was that it burned without being consumed (v. 2), the image was something of a metaphor for God’s Presence in our lives. God indwells us with a fire that can transform (harden, cook, sterilize, or purify/refine) that does not consume anything worthwhile (though it does consume the dross of sin when we confess it).
It seems to me that when Moses (v. 3) says that he must turn aside and see this great sight, he is a lot like you and me. We want to see a great sight—the sight that will make our lives worthwhile, meaningful, and inspiring. We want to see something that will astonish us and either assure or convince us of the reality of God’s Power. Some believers find themselves wanting to see speaking and interpreting tongues; others want to dream dreams and see supernatural visions; others want to be able to grant dramatic and visible healing through their prayers and laying on of hands; and still others want to see overt miracles that everyone else would have claimed as impossible. In all of these manifestations of God’s Power, the believers are looking for something that guarantees in their personal experience to one of their five senses that God is visibly at work in their lives.
We have some evidence of this in the text itself. The Hebrew verb translated as “see” in verse 3 is different from the verb for “seeing” used elsewhere in the chapter. The verb used here has the idea of seeing in perspective so that one understands. It is the root verb underlying the noun for prophetic visions. And here, Moses says that he wants to see this great sight and understand it. He believes that if he can figure out the mystery in this phenomenon, it will change his life.
But Moses had to discover that the POWER was not in the phenomenon; the POWER was in the PRESENCE of God within the phenomenon. Moses couldn’t cause the bush to burn without being consumed and Moses couldn’t add to the miracle with his devotion. Rather, Moses had to learn how to respond to God’s Presence. And that’s what we have to learn, as well.
Now, once God had Moses’ attention, God called to Moses out of the midst of the phenomenon. God called to Moses and verse 4 tells us that the Israelite responded, “Here am I.” Now, that is the standard translation of this and it makes good sense, but it misses some of the richness of the Hebrew. The Hebrew phrase is literally, “Behold, me!” I like to translate it, “Check me out!” Moses says, if we paraphrase, “I’m completely open to you, Lord. I have nothing to hide.”
Frankly, I believe that this is where all great sights—all great revivals, miracles, and spiritual insights—begin. It is only when we become totally vulnerable to God, totally open with nothing to hide through confession of sin and our personal claim on Jesus’ cleansing power that God allows Himself to operate fully in our lives. That’s the underpinning for “Here am I.”
I also think it’s significant that God tells Moses to remove his sandals and stand barefooted on the ground of holiness (v. 5). I may be crazy, possibly overspiritualizing, but I can’t help but observe that sandals are man-made protection. If you don’t believe it, think about running barefoot through a gravel pathway or across a yard with goathead stickers. But when we’re standing on the ground God has prepared, when we’re approaching God’s perfect presence, we don’t need to hedge ourselves with man-made protection. We may feel vulnerable when we take off the sandals of human reasoning, human wealth, human influence, human society, and human emotion, but we are never safer than when we do so in God’s Presence. And sometimes, we have to take off those figurative sandals in order to experience the fullness of God’s Presence.
Last week, we examined God’s speech and how God explained His motivation to intervene and His plan. His plan, in verse 8 was to become personally involved and verse 10 states that Moses would become God’s personal envoy. When God says, “I will send thee unto Pharaoh,” it uses a verb that is regularly used for official ambassadors in the ancient world.
So, with God’s intention clarified, we see Moses’ initial response (v. 11). “Who am I?” Now, here’s the problem. It’s an identity crisis for Moses. Moses might even have been thinking about his miserable failure of killing the Egyptian when he asked that question. But regardless of what Moses thought about himself and about his past, he was looking at the wrong person. And whenever we answer God’s challenges with a focus on who we are, what we’ve done in the past, and what we consider ourselves to be capable of doing in the future, we’re looking at the wrong person.
And God makes that clear in verse 12. First, God promises to be with him and second, God reminds him that He chose him. We might think that we’re not good enough, that we’re not capable enough, that we’re not spiritual enough to be able to do God’s great work, but verse 12 reminds us today as well as reproved Moses at the time that it isn’t about our intelligence, our devotion, or our capability. It is about whether God is with us and whether God has sent us.
Moses’ second response (v. 13) is based on his previous experience of trying to liberate individual Israelites without God’s help. He protests that no one will believe him and wants to know what he is to do if people demand specifics. When he says that he doesn’t know God’s name, he is saying much more than we would be saying.
In Moses’ world, knowing the name of a god or even being able to invoke the name of a political leader, meant that one could wield power or demand concessions and favors in that worthy’s name. Remember when Jacob wanted to get God’s name when he wrestled with Him? Jacob wanted to have power over God and God didn’t take the bait.
But in verse 14 of our text, God takes an unprecedented risk. He gives His personal name to Moses by explaining who HE is. I agree with Frank M. Cross when he sees the root tense of the verb translated as “I AM WHO I AM” as being either the causal tense “I cause to be what I cause to be” or imperfect tense “I continue to be what I continue to be” and “I will be what I will be.” Since the verb can be translated either way, I choose to accept all of them—God as Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer.
Why is this so important? This verb that God speaks in the first person “I” is the name that is so holy that Jews don’t pronounce it to this day. In that name, Yahweh, we have the translation: “He causes to be, He continues to be, and He will be.” I like to translate this as God you know personally. And the great thing is that God has given modern believers a name we don’t have to be afraid to speak—Jesus, “He Delivers!”
When God took the unprecedented step of identifying Himself to Moses, He took the risk that Moses would call upon Him for specific matters. And over the course of his life, Moses did call upon God for miraculous signs, for miraculous provision, for miraculous guidance, and for miraculous forgiveness. And when Jesus told us that we can pray in His name, it was a similar step and God expects us to pray under His guidance for the provision of His Presence and Power.
In verses 13-22, God gives Moses an emphatic assurance of victory. God lays out the future for him, but as we move to Exodus 4:1, Moses still doesn’t get it. It’s still all about Moses. [Read Exodus 4:1-17 KJV] Moses says that they won’t believe him or even pay any attention to him. The Hebrews would even deny the experience Moses was having at that moment. Sound familiar? It’s the same basic excuse we modern believers use to keep from witnessing.
In verse 2, God does something about Moses’ problem. God gives him a sign. God asks Moses about the familiar symbol of his profession—the rod. A rod is not only used for protection and for sorting the sheep, but it is a symbol of authority. So God orders Moses to throw the symbol of his personal identity and profession on the ground. And what happens? (v. 3) It became a snake (and apparently a venomous snake because Moses ran away from it).
You know, when I was younger, I used to wonder about this. God could have caused that rod to transform at any point. That rod was always a potential snake. And today, I wonder how many things we consider important to our identity that might be just like that rod, able to transform and bite us at any point? I know that’s just an overworked imagination, but I’ll tell you this. After reading this passage, if God told me to throw down something, I’m more apt to throw down something. I don’t want my profession, my preferences, my hobbies, or anything to come to life and bite me.
Now, what I just said isn’t in the text, but what I’m going to share next is in the text. God calls Moses back and tells him to pick up the serpent by the tail. I’m reminded of purchasing a live viper to eat in a restaurant in China. My cousin (by marriage) and I selected the feistiest viper in the terrarium to be our supper and, to our horror, the server calmly reached his bare hand into the terrarium, grabbed the viper behind the head and started stuffing him into a plastic bag. The viper was having none of this and by the time the server was trying to stuff the tail into the bag, the head was coming out and ready to strike. Xiang-Rong and I both expected the fellow to be bitten and die, but somehow, he caught the head again and this time, tied the snake in a loose knot before putting the reptile back in the bag. He handed it to a runner to take to the chef and we had a wonderful meal, but it brought home to me the point that you don’t play around with the snake’s tail when the business end is free. You don’t, that is, unless God tells you to do something so that He is the only one who can protect you. And that’s what Moses did. He picked the serpent up by the tail and it became a rod in his hand.
Why? God explains in verse 5 that the entire exercise was so that Moses would be able to convince the Hebrews that he was the representative of the God of their fathers. But God also knew something that Moses and the first-time reader of Exodus wouldn’t know. Wonders by themselves only go so far. Many signs and apparent miracles can be reproduced by dark forces and frauds. Indeed, we see this sign duplicated by the Pharaoh’s magicians immediately after Moses does it.
This is important to understand. Even if we have an authentic encounter with God and we are absolutely certain of what God has shown us, we’d better realize that people will rationalize some other explanation or simply refuse to believe. If God gives us a sign, there can always be counterfeit signs and trickery. So, we need to be certain our trust is in God instead of signs.
But God does give additional signs. In verse 6, God tells Moses to put his hand in his bosom. When Moses pulls his hand back out, it is as leprous as snow. This is a significant symbol to a Jew. To be leprous is to be unclean. To have leprosy can even be a symbol of sin. At this point, Moses is clearly pointed out as unqualified to lead the Jews. He is unclean. But then, God has him repeat the process and he is declared clean.
It’s interesting that God states that if Israel doesn’t believe the first sign, they’ll believe the second one (v. 9). But check this out, I see where Moses uses the first sign, but I don’t see anywhere that Moses uses the second sign. I think this second sign was primarily a message to Moses. Moses, by himself, is unclean and unfit. Moses, under the command of God is cleansed and ready for service. In the same way, we need to realize that by ourselves, we are sinners and unfit to do God’s will. When we confess our sins, God allows Himself to transform us into worthy vessels of His glory.
Unfortunately, verse 10 indicates that Moses still hasn’t gotten the point. It’s still all about him. “I am not eloquent” says the KJV. That’s a good understanding, but I also want to note the literal phrase in the Hebrew, “I am not a man of words.” That’s the truth! He’s a man who struck with the rod first and asked questions later. He’s a man who fled for his life first and sought God’s presence later.
I also like the Hebrew wording that is usually translated “slow of speech” and “slow of tongue.” The Hebrew literally says, “even heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue I am.” Whenever the Hebrew puts the subject last, it is for purposes of emphasis. But the Hebrew text has the advantage of a pun that we can’t see in the English because the adjective for being “heavy” is from the same root as the noun for “glory.” Glory means to have weight (power, wealth, authority) and describes significance. When I was a teen, we used to say that something profound was “Heavy, dude!” They even made a joke about the use of “heavy” in that way in the movie, Back to the Future.
Of course, you’re wondering why I think this is significant. When Moses says that he is “heavy of mouth” and “heavy of tongue,” he is incredibly close to saying that he has glory on the mouth and glory on the tongue. You see, God makes the difference as God affirms in verse 11 (“Who made man’s mouth?”). Moses was still worried about Moses’ abilities when God who creates, God who sustains, and God who brings His Kingdom into its fullest fruition wanted to put glory in Moses’ mouth and on his tongue. In fact, God not only promises to put the right words in Moses’ mouth (v. 12), but when Moses just can’t believe that he ‘s the right man for the job, God gets angry and grants Moses his own personal assistant and PR person, Aaron.
The problem is this. Moses may be putting the words in Aaron’s mouth as God wanted to put them in Moses’ mouth (v. 16), but Aaron is exactly to Moses as Moses was to God—not completely with the program. Aaron casts the golden calf and Aaron joins Miriam’s revolt in the wilderness. He’s not reliable. Neither is Moses, evidently, but the good news for Israel and the good news for us today is that Moses is more reliable than most of us. He may have been slow getting with the program, but he eventually “got it.” He eventually becomes the leader God called him to be (in spite of his costly mistake at Massah).
And why should all of us pay attention to Moses’ response to God’s call? It is because each of us who believe in Jesus as our Savior are called to be God’s personal envoys to the world. Some of us can do this directly with preaching and teaching, but all can do it with sharing what God has done for us personally. Some of us can do this by being leaders and organizers, but all of us can do this by being good followers. Some of us can do this by providing acts of service and mercy, but all of us can partner with those who lead out in service and in the gift of mercy.
Finally, the most important lesson for me (and by extension, I trust to many of you) is that it isn’t about me, great sights (wonders) and great service depend upon our great God. Like the fellow in that movie cliché scene, I’m here to say, “You may not believe this, but if you respond obediently and willingly to God, you can do the kingdom a great service.” Better than any old spy movie, wouldn’t you say?
