At the beginning of the Old Testament book of Exodus, the children of Israel have survived the drought caused famine. They’ve been in Egypt for over 400 years. Joseph has died and all his generation; the children of Israel were fruitful and have experienced tremendous population growth so much so that the new Egyptian king, who didn’t know or respect the legacy of Joseph was concerned.
Rather than take the risk that the children of Israel would join with Egypt’s enemies and fight against them, they put the Israelites to work and treated them as slaves to build cities for Pharaoh. But the more they afflicted the children of Israel, the more they multiplied.
The king of Egypt then came up with a plan to deal with this population explosion. He commanded the Hebrew midwives…the obstetricians of that day, to do “birth control”. When they were delivering a baby, if it was a boy they were to kill it; if it was a girl, they were to let it live. But the midwives feared God and told Pharaoh that “These Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; they give birth fast…the baby pops out before we even get a chance to deliver it.”
So God blesses the midwives so that they are even getting pregnant and the children of Israel continue to increase in size and strength.
At the end of chapter one, we find the king of Egypt issuing a command to his people to “Take every newborn Hebrew boy and throw him into the Nile, but let all the girls live.”
Chapter two begins with a man and his wife from the tribe of Levi having a son during the time of Pharaoh’s edict. They defied the king’s command and the mother hid her son for three months until she could hide him no longer. At this time she took a basket made of reeds and covered it with tar to make it watertight; she placed her son in the basket and placed the basket in the river. She had her daughter watch from a distance to see what would happen to the baby.
The king’s daughter came down to the river to bathe and noticed the basket in the tall grass and opened it to find the baby boy and a Hebrew at that. She felt sorry for the baby and then the baby’s sister asked the princess “Shall I go and call a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby for you.” To make a long story short, the princess paid the baby’s mother to take care of him until he was weaned and then adopted the baby as her own son, calling him Moses, because she “pulled him out of the water.”
Moses was raised as an Egyptian prince and when he became a grown man he noticed how his people were being forced to do hard labor. One day he saw an Egypt kill a Hebrew, one of his own people and when no one was looking he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand.
But someone saw the murder and when the king heard about it he tried to have Moses killed but Moses fled to live in the land of Midian. Forty years later Moses was married and had children of his own and he was keeping the flock of his father in law, Jethro, the priest of Midian.
The king of Egypt had died by this time but the children of Israel were still groaning under their slavery and crying out to God for help. At the end of chapter two we learn that God heard their cry and remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
In chapter three Moses is in the desert, keeping the flock of his father in law and he arrives at what the people called “the mountain of God.”
The Bible says, “The angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.”
God introduces Himself to Moses and assures him that He has seen the affliction of the children of Israel in Egypt and heard their cry because of the taskmasters. God tells Moses that He has come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and bring them up to a land, a good land and a large land flowing with milk and honey.
Finally, God tells Moses, “I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.”
Now it is here that we find an amazing response from Moses; he begins to offer God excuses. These excuses are:
Inadequacy (or self-belittlement): "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?" (3:11 NRSV)
Ignorance: "If I come to the people of Israel ... and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" (3:13 RSV)
Incredibility: "But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, 'The LORD did not appear to you"' (4:1 RSV)
Inarticulateness: "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent ... but I am slow of speech and of tongue" (4:10 RSV)
Insubordination: "Oh, my Lord, send, I pray, some other person" (4:13 RSV)
Some has written, “Excuses are tools of the incompetent; they build monuments of nothingness and bridges leading to nowhere. Those who specialize in excuses are seldom successful in anything.”
“Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.” ~Don Wilder and Bill Rechin
“No one ever excused his way to success.” ~Dave Del Dotto
“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” - George Washington Carver
“People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being…” – J. Michael Straczynski
* If it wasn’t for the excuse, many Christians would be fulfilling God’s plans and purposes for their live
* If it wasn’t for the excuse, there would be a greater measure of conversions to Christ
* If it wasn’t for the excuse, there would be more ministry that reaches out to those in need
* If it wasn’t for the excuse, there would be more money to underwrite the needs of the church.
When God calls Moses to go to Pharaoh for the deliverance of the children of Israel, Moses responds with a plethora of excuses. But Moses is having discourse with a long-suffering God…a patient God who counters Moses' excuses at every point.
Let’s look at each of Moses’ excuses and God’s response.
Inadequacy.
Exo 3:11 And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
If we were to group all of Moses’ excuses together we would find that the common denominator in those various responses is that in all of them he is thinking in terms of his resources, not God's resources.
In this first excuse Moses has an “I problem.” He asks God, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
“I problems” have kept many a Christian from doing the will of God from the start. Wasn’t it an “I problem” that got Lucifer kicked out of heaven?
To correct Moses and to reply to the first excuse, God says,
Exo 3:12 Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
Many Christians make the same mistake that Moses did here in verse 12…we ask ourselves (and God) the question, “Who am I?” like God is resting the entire mission on us.
God wants us to change the questions from "Who am I?" to "Whose am I?" This is the perspective that Paul had in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
It is not I, but Christ. This is why God calls those who are not wise and not strong and seem to have a multitude of issues to accomplish His purposes. This is what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:27-28:
God purposely chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise, and he chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful.
He chose what the world looks down on and despises and thinks is nothing, in order to destroy what the world thinks is important.
So God counters Moses’ excuse of inadequacy with the words, “I will be with you.”
Ignorance.
Exo 3:13 And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
Moses is thinking ahead: “What if I go to the children of Israel and tell them that God sent me to them…what if one of them says, ‘Oh yeah, what is his name?’ What do I do then?”
Perhaps Moses' concern is that since Israel has been in Egypt for such a long time (400 years)…it’s been awhile since Jacob and Joseph have died…the name of God has faded from the memory of the Hebrews.
It’s just like today, you tell the children at VBS that you are going to say the “Grace” and pray over the food and some of them ask, “What’s grace?”
Moses could be concerned that the children of Israel do not remember the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but more likely his concern is that he will be asked by his people to disclose the name of the God who sent him as a kind of a litmus test to validate his calling and mission.
Moses asks God, “What shall I tell them is your name?” And God responds by disclosing His own name, Yahweh, or as it is often called, the Tetragrammaton.
The Tetragrammaton is a term applied to the four Hebrew letters that make up the name of God as revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. God said to Moses, "And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM; and He said, Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you."
YHWH makes up the base of the verb "to be" from which God designated His own name as "I AM." In English the letters are basically equivalent to YHWH. It is from these four letters that the name of God is derived and has been rendered as Yahweh and Jehovah.
The true pronunciation of God's name has been lost through lack of use, because the Jews, who were first given the name of God, would not pronounce it out of their awe and respect for God.
Exo 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
Relating to this idiom in Exodus 3:14, one Bible commentator has suggested that “I AM THAT I AM” is a “kind of indefiniteness … expressed which leaves open a large number of possibilities ('I am whatever I mean to be')." In other words, you can’t confine God to a box.
One song writer says of God:
Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God
“I AM THAT I AM” can convey not only the largeness of God but also the actuality or the “in your face-ness” of God. He is “indescribable,” “uncontainable” and “untameable” but He is also “actual” as Exodus 33:19 tells us with His words, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy" (RSV).
God’s words found in Ezekiel 12:25, "But I the LORD will speak the word which I will speak" (RSV), means that the Lord cannot be hushed or muted.
In this sense, then, "I AM WHO I AM" means "I am there (with you, wherever you are), I really am." Something of this nuance is suggested by the Septuagint's translation of the phrase as "I am the one who is."
Fast forwarding to the New Testament we find an amazing declaration of Jesus as the Great “I AM” of the Old Testaments in His statements:
* John 6:51:"I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever;"
* John 8:23: And He said to them, "You are from beneath; I AM from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
* John 8:12: Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I AM the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."
* John 8:24 "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am (He), you will die in your sins."
* John 8:58 Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."
* John 10:9: "I AM the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture."
* John 10:11: "I AM the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
* John 10:36: "do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?
* John 11:25: Jesus said to her, "I AM the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
* John 14:6: Jesus said to him, "I AM the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
* John 15:1: "I AM the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
Jesus says in John 5:46-47 "If you believed Moses you would believe Me; for he wrote about me. But if you don’t believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"
Moses asks God, “What shall I tell them is your name?” And God responds by disclosing His own name, Yahweh, “I AM THAT I AM.”
Exo 3:15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
So God counters Moses’ excuse of ignorance with the words, “I AM WHO I AM.”
Incredibility.
Exo 4:1 Then Moses answered the LORD, "But suppose the Israelites do not believe me and will not listen to what I say. What shall I do if they say that you did not appear to me?"
Still haunted by the possibility of personal rejection, Moses suggests that his credibility will be attacked by his own people.
In 1993, the time when I began to seriously think about what God was calling me to do, I went through a brief time of “soul-searching.” I was concerned about what people were going to think when I told them that God was calling me to plant a church.
I had no significant church leadership experience. I had no seminary training, though I had about a year of Bible college. My background and work experience had always been technical. I didn’t have a bunch of preacher friends that I ran around with (By the way I still don’t). I was concerned that people would doubt my calling because I wasn’t cut from the same cloth as others in the ministry.
Some of you have had the call of God placed upon you—not necessarily to the ministry of shepherding but nonetheless to some kind of ministry. Perhaps you are wondering if this calling you feel is “credible.”
You doubt yourself and you think that people will be saying that this “idea” or “vision” you have of doing something great for God is a product of your own imagination but certainly not inspiration from God.
Three signs from God are granted to Moses as empirical evidence of his divine calling:
a rod is changed into a snake, then hack into a rod;
a healthy hand becomes leprous, then is restored;
a cup full of water from the Nile poured on the ground becomes blood (4:2-9).
We don’t have the time to comment on each of these signs that God used to convince Moses of his divine calling but let me just comment on the first: a rod.
In Exodus 4:2, God asks Moses, “What is that in your hand?” Moses answers, “A rod, a shepherd’s staff, a common walking stick.”
If you have ever gone hiking you may have picked up a branch from fallen from a tree and honed it into a walking stick—this is all Moses had, albeit, he may have sanded it and smoothed it, perhaps even polished it.
But it was still a stick. What Moses had in his hands was a dead tree branch. It didn’t have any special power. It was mere wood and with the proper amount of force it could be broken and so Paul tells us in 1st Corinthians 1:28 that “God chose what the world considers ordinary and what it despises-what it considers to be nothing-in order to bring to nothing what the world considers to be something.” A song says, “Little becomes much when you place it in the Master’s hand.”
We are like that stick; no power in and of ourselves. We have no credibility on our own.
We can go to our friends and loved ones and open our mouth telling them what God says and they might say to us, “What God? Who says that God exists? If He does exist, what makes you so important that you can come to me with His words?”
And God says to Moses, “What’s that in your hand?” A common stick. And so He says to us:
* What’s that in your hand? A school term paper? You can write a little? God wants to take that writing ability and make you an author of a book that honors Him.
* What’s that in your hand? A child's toy? God wants to take your love for children and transform it into a ministry that reaches out to kids and their parents with the Gospel.
* What’s that in your hand? A microphone? God wants to anoint your voice so that you might encourage many to think about Him and sing songs of praise to Him.
* What’s that in your hand? A hammer or screwdriver. God wants to take that ability and use it like He did those who created the articles for the Tabernacle and built His Temple.
* What’s that in your hand? A smartphone. Perhaps God is calling you to use social media as an evangelistic tool; tweeting spiritual words to be used by the Holy Spirit to draw people to Christ.
God takes an ordinary shepherd’s rod and transforms its purpose. If you continue reading past this account in the Bible you will learn that after God spoke to Moses about his staff, it was never again referred to as Moses’ staff but always called the Rod of God.
The Rod of God was used to part the Red Sea, to turn the Nile River into blood, to perform miracles in front of Pharaoh and to make water come out of a rock. “It was just a simple stick. There was nothing magical about it, but once Moses surrendered it to God, it became the Rod of God.”
The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:5, “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God…”
So God counters Moses’ excuse of incredibility with the words, “What’s that in your hand?”
Inarticulateness.
Exo 4:10 But Moses said, "No, LORD, don't send me. I have never been a good speaker, and I haven't become one since you began to speak to me. I am a poor speaker, slow and hesitant."
We are our worst critics and pride oftentimes is the catalyst behind the excuses we use to release us from what God has called us to do.
Did Moses really have a problem as a speaker or was he more concerned about what people thought of his oratory skills?
Perhaps Stephen gives some insight in Acts 7:22 where we find him telling the crowd of a Moses who was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds" (RSV).
Notice again how God responds:
Exo 4:11 The LORD said to him, "Who gives man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or dumb? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? It is I, the LORD.
Exo 4:12 Now, go! I will help you to speak, and I will tell you what to say.
Moses is running out of excuses. For each excuse, God responds saying, “I am what and who you need.”
Insubordination.
Exo 4:13 But Moses answered, "No, Lord, please send someone else."
Exo 4:14 At this the LORD became angry with Moses and said, "What about your brother Aaron, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. In fact, he is now coming to meet you and will be glad to see you.
Exo 4:15 You can speak to him and tell him what to say. I will help both of you to speak, and I will tell you both what to do.
Exo 4:16 He will be your spokesman and speak to the people for you. Then you will be like God, telling him what to say.
Moses' attempt to avoid his duty reaches its climax in his fifth objection: "No Lord, please send some other person."
God reluctantly cooperates with Moses' request, suggesting the appointment of Aaron as Moses' surrogate. What credentials did Aaron have? God tells Moses, "He can speak well" (4:14).
There are times in the Scripture where we find God giving His servants just what they ask for but they or others later regret it.
In 2 Kings 20:1-21 King Hezekiah was told that he was going to die but he prayed and greatly wept that God would heal him and that is just what God did…God added 15 years to his life.
During this time Hezekiah messed up by responding to his second chance at life with pride; he also had a son. When he died, his son Manasseh became king at the age of 12. He was Judah’s most wicked king reigning 55 years. Manasseh would never have been born had God not healed Hezekiah.
When God calls Moses to deliver His people from Egyptian bondage Moses responds, “No Lord! Send someone else. I’m not a great speaker.”
God says “Ok your brother Aaron’s a great speaker.” How great? At least great enough to ask people for their gold and other supplies for the apostate act of building the golden calf (Exodus 32)!
So God counters Moses’ excuse of insubordination with the words, “I will tell both you and Aaron what to do.”
We are all tempted to make excuses when the moment of challenge comes our way.
If we were to lump all of Moses’ excuses together, the common denominator is that in all of them he is thinking in terms of his resources, not God's.
* He measured Pharaoh’s capability against his own. “I’m inadequate”
* He presumed that he had to know everything about God in order to follow * Him—“I don’t have the knowledge; I’m ignorant.”
* He rested on his own credibility before the people. “I don’t have the authority.”
* He depended on his own eloquence when communicating. “I cannot speak well.”
* He’d rather disobey God then go. “I’m not doing it; find someone else.”
What’s your excuse for not doing what God has called you to do?
Even our own Lord was tempted to excuse His way out of going to the Cross to pay for our sins. In Luke 22:42 Jesus says, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Frequently in the Bible, the cup stands for God’s judgment and wrath. For example, Isaiah 51:17: “Wake up, wake up, O Jerusalem! You have drunk the cup of the LORD’s fury. You have drunk the cup of terror, tipping out its last drops.” Many other Old Testament passages use the metaphor of the cup as a reference to God’s fierce judgment.
So when Jesus prays about avoiding the cup, He is alluding to these images from the Scriptures. By going to the Cross, He will drink the cup of God’s wrath, all the way to the bottom. He will bear divine judgment, that which rightly falls upon Israel and, indeed, upon all humanity. In this process, He will suffer horribly, both in the physical realm and especially in the spiritual realm as he enters the Hell of separation from his Father.
Jesus had a great reason to be excused from going to the Cross to die—He didn’t deserve to die; we were the guilty ones. Jesus had an excuse but He didn’t use it.
