Moses 2 THE CHOICE OF MOSES
Exodus 2:5-25
B. The Savior (2:5-25)
2. His Development Spiritually (2:7-9)
3. His Development Socially (2:10)
4. His Decision (2:11-14)
5. His Development Specially (2:15-25)
In three different places God tells us that Moses, forty years old, at the peak of his power and prestige, perhaps even next in line for Egypt’s throne, gave it all away. Acts 7 says it “came into his heart to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel” (7:21, RSV). Exodus calls them “his own people” (Ex. 2:11).
He had COMPASSION when he saw an Egyptian beating a Jew. At that moment he made a COMMITMENT. Exodus tells us he looked “this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand” (Ex. 2:12).
This appears to be a rash, impetuous, spur of the moment decision. But the New Testament shows it was not. It came from the settled conviction of his soul that the Hebrews were his brothers (Ex. 2:11; Acts 7:23) and that God would use him and his powerful position and abilities to deliver them from slavery (Acts 7:25). In this commitment, Hebrews says he “refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time” (Heb. 11:24-25). In other words, if his rescue attempt failed, which it did here, he was ready to give up the palace and suffer and die with his people.
Why? Because he had CONFIDENCE in God. Hebrews says he did all this because of his faith (Heb. 11:24), the same faith his Jewish mother and father had (Heb. 11:23). It says, “By faith. . . He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ of greater value than the treasurer of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward” (Heb. 11:26). Old Testament saints did not know much about heaven, but they knew the life of faith in God and faithfulness to God would be rewarded beyond the grave.
Sadly, Moses also had COWARDICE. The day after he killed the Egyptian he saw two Hebrews fighting and tried to stop them. They, revealing their proud, stubborn nature, said, who put you in charge of us? They then told him they saw him kill the Egyptian. There was no “Thank you!” There was no gratitude. It was a preview of things to come in the desert. Knowing he had acted on his own, knowing the Jews rejected him, he was “afraid” (Ex. 2:14). When he learned Pharaoh knew, he ran to Midian, the desert region south of Canaan, where he spent the next forty years. Hebrews 11:24 says he “left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger.” That refers to the Exodus, forty years later. This time he ran like a scared rabbit.
This whole story is all about choices. One thing that sets us apart from the animals, as being created in God’s image, is the power to choose. We are not to be rudderless boats, blown this way and that way by the winds of life. We can lift our sails, hold our rudders and go where we choose most of the time. Most of us choose to go OUR OWN WAY. We choose PLEASURES and TREASURES, the very things Moses gave up. He chose to go GOD’S WAY. It cost him a lot, but in the end, his life had counted for something. He helped over a million people find a home and went to heaven when he died. He made the right choice. Let’s look then at his development by God and his decision for God.
I. THE DEVELOPMENT BY GOD
(Ex. 2:7-25: Acts 7:21-22)
1. The Spiritual Developing (Ex. 2:7-10). God took that little Hebrew boy, born to people of faith, and fitted him to be the Savior of Israel. First came the spiritual preparation by his mother and father. I don’t know how long Moses was with them, some say three years, but however long, it was long enough. He saw the Jews as his people. He knew God was about to deliver them. He had character enough not to be pulled down by Egypt’s sins, Egypt’s treasures, and Egypt’s pleasures. And he got that from Amram and Jocebed.
Herschel Hobbs says when God wants a great man or woman he begins with their parents. He says, “Take this child and rear him for me.” His parents were slaves but in their hearts they were free because they were slaves only to God. At the end of his life Moses charged the Israelites to teach their children about God (Dt. 31:13). Why? Because that’s what his parents did. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, Sunday School teachers, can’t you hear the children say,
I’m not too young to sin
I’m not too young to die
I’m not too little to begin
To look to God on high.
I’m not too young to know
The Savior’s love for me
In coming down to earth below
To die upon a tree
- Author Unknown
2. The Social Developing (Acts 7:22). God needed more than godliness. He needed a man who could lead and fashion and govern and give laws to a nation and write the Scriptures. Egypt was the best place in the earth to learn that. Egypt’s wisdom, with her pyramids and embalming, are marveled at today. The cream of Egypt was poured into the cup of this prince named Moses. The Bible says, “Moses was educated in ALL the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action” (Acts 7:22). This last phrase gives credence to Josephus the Jewish historian’s claim that Moses was the military hero of that day and next in line to the throne. All those years Israel was crying out to a God who didn’t seem to care, “Why are we slaves in Egypt?” God was answering, “Egypt is the anvil upon which I am fashioning my people.” Even Moses had to learn this in. . .
3. The Special Developing (Ex. 2:15-25). After Moses’ failure he lived 40 years in Midian as a sheep herder for his father-in-law Jethro, with his wife and two sons. In naming his son, Gershom (Alien), he sadly said, “I have become an alien in a foreign land” (2:22). He must have felt like an absolute failure and seen these as wasted years. His only hope now for the deliverance of his people was that God would raise someone else up to do it. But these were not wasted years. God was teaching him valuable lessons. One was. . .
1) Perseverance (2:16-22). His first day in Midian he sat down by a well. When he saw seven girls run away from the water by shepherds, he came to their rescue. Joseph Parker said some men would have said, I tried to help two men before and got insulted so I’ll never get involved again. Moses, however, was not cut from that mold. He helped those girls because it was the RIGHT thing to do, whether they thanked him or not. We must persevere in the right whether the world applauds or attacks. Another lesson was. . .
2) Power. Moses needed to learn that it would be God and not him who would deliver Israel. God did not need his military powers. In fact they would get in God’s way. When David met Goliath with a sling he knew there was no way he could win IN HIS OWN ABILITIES. And so he said, “The battle is the Lord’s.” Moses needed to learn that. He had to get weak enough and humble enough and confident in God enough for God to use. Jack Taylor said in Egypt Moses got his “B.S.” degree - Be something; but in Midian, he got his “B.N.” degree - Be nothing. A final lesson was. . .
3) Practicality (2:23-25). On my first trip to West Texas, my wife’s parents said, “Isn’t this beautiful?” I grunted, “Uh huh!” But in my mind I said, “Beautiful? All I see is dirt!” I believe that’s how Moses felt about Midian. It’s a long way from a palace to a sheep ranch in the desert. I’ll bet Moses was sick of sand, sick of scrub bushes and sick of bleating sheep. He probably felt God was a million miles away. Israel, who at this time was crying out to God in pain over whippings and dead babies (2:23-25), must have felt the same way. Neither could see God at work, but He was. God was going to bring His people to Sinai in Midian and build character and combat strength in the desert. And so he needed a leader who knew the desert like the back of his hand and knew about life in the desert. And that was exactly what Moses was learning. Friends, when we feel God has forgotten us and is doing nothing, He might be closer to us than ever before and doing more than we can imagine. He is preparing us for the work He has called us to do which might just be to stay where we are and become more and more like Jesus in our situation. God shouldn’t have to deliver us for us to love and serve Him. If we die in our desert, keeping sheep, we ought to die looking up.
II. THE DECISION FOR GOD (Ex. 2:11)
1. Prompted by Faith (Heb. 11:23). Moses’ actions came from his faith. Hebrews calls it faith in Christ. The Old Testament God Moses’ parents told him about, when He stepped out of heaven, was named Jesus. Moses only had a glimpse of His nature, we have the full picture, even the picture of how He died for us, yet how many of us would give up what Moses did.
It was also faith in a coming reward. Hebrews says he looked “ahead to his reward” (11:26). He knew almost nothing about heaven. Jesus has spoken to us about the Father’s home (Jn. 14) and we have learned of resurrection bodies and streets of gold, yet how many of us would give up what Moses did.
Finally, it was faith that cost. Negatively he gave up the treasures and the pleasures of sin (11:25) in Egypt. I agree with those who feel that Moses probably didn’t indulge in the horrible atrocities and immoralities of Egyptian sin. What he gave up was THE RIGHT TO RULE HIS OWN LIFE - the sin that damns more people that drunkenness or adulteries. The Rich Young Ruler was religious, respectable and moral but he loved his money too much to give it to Christ. He ruled his life, not Christ.
But there was A POSITIVE COST. Saying “Thy will be done!” to God, he not only turned his back on treasures and pleasures he took up his cross. 1) He Was a Shepherd of Sheep. I’ve always taught that Moses was punished for running ahead of God and killing that Egyptian. God made him spend forty years in the desert. I’m not so sure. God may have wanted him there to get his “B.N.” degree and to learn the way of the desert.
2) He Was a Shepherd of Stiffnecked Saints. Far more difficult was his forty years leading Israel in the desert. They turned to sin time after time. They wanted to stone him. They whined all the time. Listen to one of Moses’ prayers in the Living Bible, “Moses said to the Lord, ‘Why pick on me, to give me the burden of a people like this. . . You have given me the burden. . . The load is far too heavy. If you are going to treat me like this, please kill me right now.’” (Nu. 11:11-15, TLB). His cross was to serve people who didn’t like him.
3) He Was a Stench to the Egyptians (Heb. 11:25,26; Gen. 46:34). Genesis tells us shepherds were despised by Egyptians (Gen. 46:34). Hebrews says Moses chose to be “mistreated along with the people of God” (11:25) and to suffer “disgrace for the sake of Christ” (11:26).
Application: Do you have faith enough to pay the price? You’d better if you say to God - THY WILL BE DONE! Moses may have thought God would give him easy sailing when he gave up so much for him. But God didn’t. He made him a stench to his own people, a shepherd to dirty sheep and a shepherd to people who never really liked him.
Let’s take the least of these costs and apply it to you and me - being a stench, being despised, being called “a Jew lover.” How many of us love Christ enough to be made fun of by our peers? A hundred years ago a pastor in England said on this text that few of the devil’s weapons are more powerful than ridicule. To be made fun of! To be laughed at! To be thought a fool - weak! This is a price few of us are willing to pay. Faith made Moses willing. He did it all for Christ and for the coming rewards of heaven.
2. Prompted by Sympathy (Ex. 2:11; Acts 7:23). Another reason was sympathy. Exodus said he went “to where his own people were and watched their hard labor” (2:11). Acts said he decided “to visit his fellow Israelites” (7:23). He wasn’t sightseeing, he was soul searching. Every time he saw a Jewish baby floating dead in the Nile, every time he saw a lash laid to the back of a Jewish teenager or old man, he had to feel, “But for the grace of God that would be me!” At age forty he decided to stop looking and do something.
Application: We are not to follow Christ just for what we get out of it. We are to do it to be a help to others. Love for the unlovely may be the missing ingredient in churches today. We love OUR OWN. We minister to our members. What about the stranger? the one who doesn’t look right, talk right, smell right, act right? Too many churches have a “Country Club” air about them.
Illustration: “Schindler’s List” should be required viewing in every church and school. Ordinary Germans agreed to kill Jews rather than be branded “a Jew lover.” But some helped the Jews. A German businessman, Schindler, used Jewish prisoners in his plants and made millions. But he saw what was happening - he saw Jews being shot, being herded into railroad cars, etc. He was not an evident Christian. He was immoral. But his soul went out to his oppressed fellow human beings. Like Moses, he acted! He hired more and more Jews to keep them working and alive. He had them make weapons that wouldn’t work. He lost money and used all his wealth to hire more and more Jews. He saved thousands of human beings. In the end, when the Jewish freedom fighter helped him escape Germany, he looked at a ring on his finger and wept, saying, “I could have sold that and saved ten lives.” Like Moses he turned his back on pleasures and treasures to help hurting fellow human beings.
Conclusion: Moses got heaven when he made the right choice. But I submit to you that even if there were no heaven and this life is all we have he still made a profitable choice - he helped others and that’s heaven on earth. As an old man of 120 he stood on top of Mount Nebo. To the west he saw the beautiful land of Canaan lying across the Jordan and stretching to the sea. To the east he saw the tents of his people, several million of them. Children were playing, older men were telling tales, older women were making quilts, young men and women were getting married. And now they were no longer slaves. Now they would have a land of their own. And Moses, as he prepared to die, no doubt brushed back the tears and said, “Thank you, God, for making my life count for something. Thank you for letting me help some folk. All the pleasures and treasures and sins of Egypt aren’t worth comparing to the laughter of one child that you used me to create.”
