Moses 3 HERE AM I BUT DON’T SEND ME
Ex. 3:1-4:17
C. The Salvation (3:1-15:21)
1. The Call (3:1-4:17)
Up until now God had dealt primarily with individuals, the descendants of Abraham. Now with a delivered Israel he was going to build, deal with and work through His nation, His people, or as we would say, His CHURCH. This then is the first call to FULLTIME SERVICE as a church’s leader or pastor, in the Bible.
The angel of the Lord, speaks verbally to Moses, out of a burning bush that caught Moses’ attention forty years after his flight. Moses was 80 years old and keeping his father-in-law Jethro’s sheep. The one time heir to Egypt’s throne didn’t even have his own sheep.
The “Be Nothing” degree was his but it seems to have worked too well. Moses, when called to deliver Egypt, said, “Get somebody else. I can’t do it.” The man who once dared take on all of Egypt single handedly had lost all faith in himself. And that meant he was ready to be used by God because he would not look not to himself but to God. We have three scenes before us.
I. GOD APPEARS TO MOSES (2:14-3:6)
1. The Stranger (2:14-22).
Moses, even after he ran to Midian, the region around Sinai, still had the heart of a soldier. Sitting by a well he rescued the seven daughters of a priest from some rough shepherds. The grateful father gave him one of his daughters, Zipporah, as his wife. Moses had a home and family, but he had the heart of a sad man. When God gave them a son he named him Gershom - ALIEN and said, “I have become an alien in a foreign land” (2:23).
Application: Moses still stood for what was good and right even by a well. But where did it get him? He was no doubt disappointed with God for not helping him, or with himself for thinking God wanted to use him to deliver Israel. Either way, he felt like a stranger in a strange land - a man without a country and, worse, a man without a purpose in life.
2. The Sorrow (2:23-25).
After the birth of Gershom, the Bible jumps forward forty years and says, “The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out and their cry. . .went up to God. God heard them groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them” (2:23-25). I love the phrase “heard their groaning.”
Those who turned from their idols, feeling ashamed to pray and not knowing what to say were heard. Those who had faithfully served God and wondered why He had not helped them and did not know what else to say were heard.
That’s why Paul, who knew this kind of wordless praying, said “. . .when we don’t know what to pray for, the Spirit prays for us in ways that cannot be put into words” (Rom. 8:26, CEV). It didn’t look like God cared or heard, but 300 miles away, the answer was on the way.
3. The Shepherd (3:1).
On the bleak land, “the far side of the desert” (3:1), near Mt. Sinai, where God would one day come and live with His people (Ex. 19-40), an eighty year old Moses is keeping his father-in-law’s sheep. He doesn’t even have his own sheep. If ever a man seems to be put on the shelf and be of no use to God or man, it is Moses. But we never know when God is about to show. On the far side of the desert we have. . .
4. The Sight (3:2-6)
Moses saw the strangest sight he had ever seen. A desert bush was ablaze. Why? Who set it? But stranger still, it didn’t burn up. Like a torch, loaded with fuel, it just kept on burning. Moses, like you and me, walked over to get a closer look. Then the “angel of the Lord” who had called down fire on Sodom (Gen. 19) and wrestled with Jacob (Gen. 31:13) cried, Moses! Moses! And Moses said, “Here I am” (3:4). The voice told him not to come any closer and to take his shoes off for he was on holy ground. Then God identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (3:5-6). And Moses hid his face and was afraid to look at God.
5. The Significance.
What does this signify to you and to me? What does a burning bush that stands on holy ground, that points to God and won’t be consumed symbolize?
1) God’s Person. How shall we picture God? Put away your pictures and your idols. The Bible uses “glory” and “light” and “life” and “fire.” Fire speaks of God’s purity, of God’s power, of God’s protection, of God’s provisions and of God’s punishment.
Fire is a wonderful friend, cooking food, keeping animals away, heating homes, guiding our way, etc., but it is a terrible enemy. And this bush that kept on burning pictures God’s permanence. He is the alpha and the omega, the same yesterday, today and forever, the unchanging God. But the symbol speaks also of...
2) God’s People.
We are insignificant. Had we been God, we would have set all Mt. Sinai ablaze. ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX would have all come to report it. But God set one little, desert scrub on fire. What are we Christians to the world? Nothing. What is the church to the world? Nothing. At best, a place to be married and buried, but not worth its time or effort or even opposition. We are tolerated. The world drives by our churches and says,
“They go to church on Sunday/They’ll be alright on Monday/It’s just a little habit they’ve acquired.”
We are, however, indispensable if the world is to have justice, compassion, democracy. Fire is necessary in the world even if it burns and hurts. The rights of individuals, the elevation of women, the abolition of slavery, the formation of colleges and universities, institutions of mercy and healing, all sprang out of Christian principles. The world may laugh and mock and tolerate and call our faith a “little habit” but without Christians and without churches, there would be no freedom, no equal rights, no democracy.
Finally, we are indestructible. We blaze for God and the world can’t put us out. The history of the Old Testament is the history of the world trying to exterminate the church. Egypt tried it and until this day is a second class nation. Babylon tried it, Assyria tried it, Rome tried to destroy the church, spiritual Israel, and failed! What is true of the church is true of Christians. Jesus says, “I give them eternal life and they will never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. . .” (Jn. 10:28).
We may run ahead of God and be put on the shelf like Moses for forty years, but we’ll never be disowned. God knows were we are and will come to us on the far side of our desert. We may sin against God like David and lose the “joy” of salvation (Ps. 51:12), but we will not lose salvation. The life of God, the first of the Holy Spirit, is in us and can never be extinguished.
II. GOD ASSIGNS MOSES (Ex. 3:7-10)
What a blessing it is to know that God will never leave us and even if we live on the far side of the desert, will come to us and live life with us. But God wants to do more than help us and bless us. He wants to use us, to work with and through us to help and bless others.
So God tells Moses He cares about Israel’s suffering, He has heard their prayers and is going to deliver them and settle them in Canaan, “a land flowing with milk and honey” (3:9). “Hot dog! Way to go, God! Alright!” felt Moses. But then came the shocker. God said, “I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt” (3:11).
Right then and there the argument started. Five times Moses, in essence, told God, “Here I am but send somebody else!” But before we look at the arguments, I want to say the church is filled with those, like Moses, who want the blessings of God but not the responsibilities.
We have few WORKERS but many SHIRKERS. We have many who warm a pew on Sunday, but few who warm it Sunday night or Wednesday and ask them to come out one Monday night a month and you might as well ask them for the moon. Their Christianity can be summed up, “Get somebody else to do the work.”
Illustration: One of our deacons prayed last week, “God help us to be CHANNELS and not SPONGES!” Too many are content to be sponges, taking in but not giving out. That’s why we see next. . .
III. GOD ANSWERS MOSES (Ex. 3:11-4:17)
1. The Inferiority Argument (3:11-12).
Moses marshalled five excuses to convince God to get someone else. The first was his feeling of total inferiority and inadequacy. The forty shepherd years had wiped away every ounce of Moses’ self confidence. He said, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (3:11) God’s answer was, Moses, it really doesn’t matter who you are, “I will be with you. . .I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt you will worship God on this mountain” (3:12).
I love that last line - WHEN (not if) YOU HAVE BROUGHT THEM OUT, YOU WILL WORSHIP ME! There never was a doubt in the mind of God. Israel’s deliverance, like the perseverance of the church until Jesus comes and our eternal salvation, was a DONE DEAL in the mind of God. God is not in the failure business. The big thing today is SELF CONFIDENCE. Ten thousand times better is GOD CONFIDENCE. Then we have. . .
2. The Identity Argument (3:12-22).
Moses used God’s promise to be with him against Him. He said when I go to Israel, who should I tell them you are? In other words, of all the many gods in the world, which one are you? God gave two answers:
1) The Preeminent God (3:14).
God said tell them “I am” has sent you (3:14). In other words, I do not have a name you can put in a list of the gods of this world. They are all the creations of men but I am the one, supreme, only God, the Creator.
Application: I do not like or use the translation “Jehovah” for “I am.” The RSV and NIV call it “Lord.” If God has a name, the only right one is Jesus. God next pictures Himself as. . .
2) The Personal God (3:15-22).
The Old Testament word for God is EL. He then tells Moses He is the God of Israel’s heritage (3:15), the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So when Moses wrote these stories down he put that “I am!” the Lord, was the one who befriended Abraham, saved Lot, talked with Adam and Eve.
He tells Moses he is the God who sees Israel’s hurt (16-17). He has “watched over” Israel like a parent and seen their pain.
And finally, He is the God of Israel’s hope (18-22). God guarantees Moses’ success. He tells him of Israel’s acceptance of him, of Pharaoh’s first refusal to let them worship in the desert, of the miracles (the plagues) that effect the deliverance, of how Egypt would give them treasures just to get rid of them, and of how God would give them Canaan’s land.
Application: Isn’t it wonderful to serve a God who sees every detail of our future and who guarantees success? God uses the evils that men use against him. The worst thing Egypt did was kill Israel’s baby boys. But God used that to bring Egypt down because that was why Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s palace and trained in Pharaoh’s schools. The song is dead right - “What a mighty God we serve!” How sad, then, that Moses still did not have faith and offered. . .
3. The Authority Argument (4:1-9). In stubborn unbelief or perhaps rebellion, Moses tells this God who just told him “The elders of Israel will listen to you” (3:18), “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you?” (4:1).
Moses called God a liar and it’s a wonder God didn’t strike him dead on the spot. Thank God He didn’t because if He did it today, few of us would be alive. What God did was be patient with Moses and give him three miraculous signs he could see himself and believe; show Israel so they could believe and show Egypt so they could believe.
1) The Rod - A Sign of Sin and Submission (4:2-5). God told Moses to throw his staff or rod on the ground. He did and it turned into a snake. And Moses, like you and I, ran from it. God then said for him to pick it up by the tail. Now I’ve never found a good reason to pick up a snake but if I ever have to I know one thing - you don’t pick it up by the tail. You pick it up by the end that does the biting. Moses obeyed and it became a rod.
The snake, tempting Eve (Gen. 3) and worshipped by Egypt, is a picture of SIN. Moses’ job and life and strength and service was in that shepherd’s rod, but there was a snake in it. There is sin in everything we do for God. We who love and serve God, as the years roll on, realize how much sin there is in our love and service. God uses this. We trust less and less in ourselves and more and more in God’s undeserved grace. Picking it up BY THE TAIL is a picture of SUBMISSION based on trust. Whatever God tells us do we are to do.
2) The Hand - A Symbol of Sin (4:6-7). Next God told Moses to put his hand in his cloak. He did and it came out leprous. He did it again and it came out healed. Here we see sin punished and sin pardoned.
3) The Blood - A Symbol of Sin (4:8-9). God told Moses if these two didn’t work, take a bucket of water from the Nile and pour it on the ground and it would turn to blood. This pictured not only one of the plagues (7:14-24) but the horrible death of the firstborn and also the horrible fate after death of those who stubbornly refuse to obey God and cling to their idols. The Nile was Egypt’s lifeline. One day life on this earth will end and God will be either our best friend or our worst enemy.
4. The Inability Argument (4:10-12).
Stubborn Moses still rebelled and pointed out that he wasn’t a good speaker. God, now showing some irritation, asked him who made man’s mouth, said it was Him and commanded, “Now go; I will help you speak” (4:12).
5. The Reality Argument (4:13-17).
At this Moses showed his true colors, the reality of his selfishness. He had all his questions answered. He had seen signs. He had heard the voice of God. He just didn’t want to do it. He said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it” (4:13).
The Bible says, “God’s anger burned. . .” (4:14), but it didn’t explode and God told him Aaron, his brother, would do the speaking for him. And Aaron did it but he was a thorn in Moses’ side. He made the golden calf. He tried to take Moses’ leadership. When God lets us have our way we learn it is the hard way.
Conclusion: We do not like to leave our comfort zones and pay the price to be used of God. We have all kinds of excuses, but the real reason is - we don’t want to do it. The unseen miracle in this passage is that, listening to Moses’ lies and seeing his unwillingness, God didn’t strike him dead on the spot. That’s why most of us are alive today but it’s also why we go through life dragging some Aaron that makes our life miserable. Let’s say yes to God when He calls.
