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May 26, 2019
Steven Lee (North Campus) | Exodus 4:1-17
Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand—“that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” Again, the Lord said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”
But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.”Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do. He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him. And take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs.”—Exodus 4:1–17
Have you ever felt inadequate or ill-equipped for something God was calling you to do? I remember on my first Sunday “on the job” here at the North Campus, I closed out the service with a benediction, calling people forward for prayer. And not five seconds pass when I see out of the corner of my eye a dad sprinting toward me with his teenage daughter in tow, and by the time I look over she has been thrust into my arms and he’s yelling at me to pray for her because of demonic oppression. This was not what I was expecting. I was thinking maybe someone would welcome me back to Bethlehem. I was feeling a bit inadequate in that particular moment.
Where have you felt inadequate for something God was calling you to do?
But perhaps in the midst of God’s calling, his nudging, and the burdens you feel, you also are well acquainted with a feeling of inadequacy and weakness? Can God use me? Perhaps you feel disqualified. Maybe you think, “I have too much baggage from the past or in my family to be used by God.”
When God nudges, burdens, and calls us to fulfill his purposes, do we ignore him? Do we give excuses? Do we let our inadequacies and fears dictate how God can use us for his kingdom?
In our passage those are the very questions Moses is wrestling with in Exodus 4:1–17. If you’ll recall, Moses, the son of a Levite, was miraculously saved from a basket in the Nile River, raised in Pharaoh’s house, and later discovers he is an Israelite. He kills a man, and then in fear of his life, flees Egypt at 40 years of age. He thought he had entered the Midian protection program. He spends another 40 years as a shepherd in a foreign land, and here God calls to him from the burning bush at 80 years old.
In Exodus 3 Moses gave the first two excuses: (1) “Who am I?” (3:11) and (2) “Who are you?” (3:13). These first two objections are rather reasonable. But Moses gives three more objections, which is how we’ll walk through the text.
The main point of our passage is we can obey God’s call on our lives, because he sends his power and presence to accomplish his purposes. God has a mission and a purpose, and he’s accomplishing it by giving his power and presence to his people to go.
Now we turn to the latter three objections:
Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”
Moses third objection moves from reasonable to unbelief. Moses doubts whether the Israelites will believe or listen to him. God had just told Moses otherwise in 3:18.
“And they will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.’”
Not only will the elders of Israel believe, but they’ll make it their own. In response, God gives three signs to Moses.
Moses’ staff turns into a serpent such that Moses’ ran from it in fear. This sign reveals God’s power over the Egyptians and Pharaoh. Snakes—more specifically a cobra—represented the national god of Egypt and was the symbol for Pharaoh. It was on his crown or helmet, carved into statues, and depicted in murals and drawings. Pharaoh’s claim to divine power and sovereignty was symbolized by a snake. God’s sign to Moses is an attack on the “sovereign power” of Pharaoh.
This sign is specifically so that Israel would believe: “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you” (Exodus 4:5).
The second sign is Moses’ hand turned leprous and then healed again. This demonstrates God’s divine power over the physical body, over disease, and over death. This sign points forward to how God will afflict the Egyptians with diseases (e.g., boils) in the plagues. Leprosy would have been widespread and incurable in that time, requiring total seclusion outside the camp (Leviticus 13:45-46). Exodus 4:8 makes clear, “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign.”
Moses turns water from the Nile into blood. God tells him that if they won’t believe the first two signs or listen to his voice, then here’s a third sign that he’s sending. All three of these signs point to life and death. To be bitten by a snake is deadly, to have leprosy is to having a terminal illness, and now blood symbolizes God’s power of life and death. In Egypt, the Nile is the source of life for man, animals, and plants alike.
To turn the life-giving water of the Nile into blood is to declare that Yahweh alone has power over life. The documentary series Planet Earth has amazing video of the African desert wasteland suddenly—with the aid of time-lapse video—turn into a river that gives birth to an amazing oasis of life, with hundreds of animals gathered to drink, and birthing all sort of plant life. The symbol here is that God is going to turn that life into death.
These signs are a good reminder that God can use a reluctant messenger, exiled from his country, fleeing prosecution for murder that has been content to stay under the radar in the wilderness for 40 years. For weary people, doubting perhaps their effectiveness or abilities, let this be an encouragement for us all: God’s power overcomes unbelief.
The irony is that Moses says the people won’t believe, when in fact it’s him that doesn’t believe God. God just told him how it’s going to happen. Moses is the one with hardness of heart. Yet God’s signs reveal his power to overcome Moses’ unbelief and Israel’s unbelief.
Moses says the people won’t believe, and God gives him three signs that will overcome both Israel’s and Moses’ unbelief so that they will go to Pharaoh.
Moses has a fourth objection, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent … I am slow of speech and of tongue” (4:10). This is literally, “I am of heavy or dull mouth and tongue.”
Moses recognizes that this is a significant mission. It is not for the faint of heart. He will walk into the presence of the most powerful man in the most powerful kingdom to demand that he release a minority slave people to worship their unknown God. Moses isn’t a diplomat, Moses isn’t sent by a powerful neighboring country, Moses isn’t an ambassador, instead, Moses is a nobody. Moses rightly doubts whether he has the skill or ability for such a task.
There is a lot of speculation as to what Moses meant in saying he wasn’t eloquent or heavy speech.
Obedience Issue: Regardless of what Moses’ issue was, it boils down to an issue of obedience. Would Moses listen to God?
God responds with rhetorical questions for Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Exodus 4:11).
God tells Moses that he is the one who made all things. Even mute, deaf, seeing, or blind are from the Lord! “I’m sovereign and in control of all things. I made your mouth that way.” God reminds Moses, whatever his issue was, that it is inconsequential before Yahweh. God is declaring, “I got this! I can handle this! Don’t worry about it!” Moses’ mouth isn’t an obstacle before the power of God.
No matter where your gifts lie and where your disabilities rear their head, you can be used by God. Your limitations do not limit God’s ability to glorify himself in our lives. Our disabilities and limitations + God’s ability = limitless possibilities. God is revealing his sovereignty, first to Moses, then to Israel, and then to Pharaoh and Egypt.
When I read this story of Moses at 80-years-old being called and commissioned by God to go, I think of many of you here in our midst. I think of the Abundant Grace Sunday School class. God is not done with you. AARP tells you to enjoy these twilight years. To spend it because you now deserve it. But I hope you take Psalm 71:18 to heart: “So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.” There is a call upon your life. For some of our older, gray-haired folks, God has not forsaken you so you could proclaim his glory to another generation. That might be in our children’s ministry, and it might overseas among the unreached and unengaged. For some, it may well mean you put aside a future of watching The Price is Right, and Wheel of Fortune, while you wait to go home to Jesus in a convalescent home—and instead go to the nations. Multiple generations can look to you finish well in following Jesus and fulfilling his mission.
God gives Moses the command, “therefore go.” This is, in fact, the fourth time God has given Moses that command. In chapter 3, verse 10, 16 and 18, God has told Moses to go to Pharaoh and to go gather the elders. God follows this command with the promise of his presence. God says, “I will be with your mouth.” Despite whatever issue Moses may have had—imagined or real—God says that his empowering presence will go with him.
God is promising Moses his very presence with him as he goes to Pharaoh. In Exodus 3:11–12, Moses asks, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” and God responds “I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” Isn’t my presence enough for you?
Moses was focused on the wrong thing. He may very well have had a speech impediment or some other disability—and yet that does not limit God’s power nor negate his presence. In fact, God’s presence will overcome and render irrelevant Moses’ disability. If God can use Balaam’s talking donkey (Numbers 22) to accomplish his purposes, and a man like Moses—murderer in hiding—to deliver his people from slavery and enslavement, then God quite frankly can do whatever he wants. Get your eyes off yourself and get them on God’s power and presence. God’s purposes are not thwarted by your inability, inadequacy, or even unbelief.
Now we come to Moses’ fifth and final objection (rejection!), “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” This gets right to the heart of the matter. It’s striking in its honesty. Moses goes from protests and excuses that are quite reasonable, now to complete honesty. “I don’t want to go! Please send someone else!”
God has been patient with Moses, reassuring him with every objection that Moses has raised up to this point. God has promised his presence, his power, given him promises of a fruitful land, ensured that they would return to this mountain, and even foretells of how Pharaoh will free them. But Moses refuses to trust him and obey his call. “Send anyone but me” is essentially the message.
We now see in the passage God’s anger with Moses,
Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do. He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him.”—Exodus 4:14–16
Though God is angry with Moses, we see later when God passes over Moses with him hidden in a cleft in the rock that he is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6). God’s mercy, grace, and steadfast love are at the heart of his character, and God is slow to anger, but it still means there is a righteous indignation with God.
Yet God displays grace by accommodating Moses’ refusal. God gives Aaron, his brother, as a partner and helper to share the load and burden of leading Israel from Egypt. Furthermore, God will be with Moses and Aaron, and he will teach them both what to do. Yet make no mistake, Moses is the one God has chosen and called, and Aaron will be Moses’ spokesperson to Pharaoh and the people of Israel. While this accommodation is gracious, it reveals also that Moses will lose some of the luster of being sent by God. It is also judgment and discipline. Aaron would later use his smooth rhetoric to lead Israel astray into worship of the golden calf (Exodus 32:1–4); what a wonderful #2!
Nonetheless, God does not allow Moses’ unbelief or rejection of his call to interfere with his purpose to rescue his people from enslavement. God’s sovereign power over the life-giving water of the Nile, over the serpents of Pharaoh, over deadly disease, and over even Moses’ unbelief reveal that he is able to fulfill his purposes. God does what he wants. He does what he says. God manifests his power and presence to fulfill his purpose which cannot be thwarted. One might have thought that Moses’ final objection and refusal would have ended the conversation. God might have gotten fed up and picked someone else. But no. God had Moses in view and would call him for the work that he had intended.
Our section ends with verse 17, “And take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs.” The staff of Moses now symbolizes God’s presence and power that goes with Moses wherever he goes. What was once a tool of protection and shepherding now signifies that Moses has been sent on a mission by God to deliver Israel from the grasp of Pharaoh himself.
God tells Moses in no uncertain terms that he can use a stick of wood. No spells, no incantations, just an everyday stick of wood. How much more can he do with his chosen messenger Moses?
When David—himself a shepherd—writes in Psalm 23, “I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me,” this seems to allude all the way back even to this event: Moses’ staff represents God’s power, presence, and his purposes that will come to pass.
This sign also symbolizes the moment when Moses’ staff becomes God’s staff and symbolizes God’s divine power. God calls special attention to it (“What is that in your hand?” Exodus 4:2), calls it out again in 4:17 (“take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it”) and later in Exodus 4:20 it’s called “the staff of God.” The staff symbolizes divine authority, supremacy, and God’s presence. It is an enduring reminder of God’s power and presence with them, for Moses’ sake and so that Israel would believe.
If we look ahead to what Moses encounters, the staff feels woefully insufficient. You want me to take on the Pharaoh of Egypt with a stick? How about an army? And while the staff is a picture of God’s deliverance and rescue (e.g., parting of the Red Sea, turning the Nile into blood, standing on the hill in Exodus 17:9), the staff is also a reminder of Moses’ failure along the way (e.g., striking the rock in Numbers 20).
Conclusion
Moses and his staff point to the need for a better Deliverer: Jesus Christ. In Deuteronomy 18:18, God says to Moses that “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” Jesus Christ is that Prophet, like and yet unlike Moses, who came to deliver his people from enslavement, captivity to sin, and bondage to death. Contrast between Moses & Jesus.
But not only do we have a better Deliverer and better example in Jesus, we have God’s power and presence at work within us now in the person of Jesus. Jesus is God incarnate, all the fullness of God dwelling bodily, and he is with us. The power at work in Jesus to raise him from the dead is now at work in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. We have God’s presence through the Spirit, and Jesus says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” The indwelling power of God in us gives us confidence—even in the midst of weakness—to obey his call and fulfill the tasks he has called us to.
How ought we to respond to God’s call on our lives? Embrace his call on your life because he has given you Jesus. He overcomes our inadequacies, our weaknesses, our fears, and sends us out and commissions us with his power and presence to accomplish his glorious purposes in the world. We have his presence and power ever with us in the Holy Spirit.
Moses gets Israel out of Egypt to the mountain, and brings them to the cusp of the Promised Land, but doesn’t enter in himself. But Jesus Christ brings us all the way Home, all the way in, and we will dwell with him forever.
Main Point: We can obey God’s call on our lives, because he sends his power and presence to accomplish his purposes.
Outline
(Objections one and two are found in Exodus 3)
Opening Question
Discussion Questions
Application Questions
Prayer Focus
Take a moment to praise God for his power and presence that has been given to us through the person of Jesus Christ. Confess any sins of unbelief, faithlessness, or misplaced fear when considering Christ’s call on your life. Thank God for being slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and kindness, and for long suffering toward us when we falter or fail. Ask God for wholehearted faith in Jesus, greater delight in the gospel, and obedience to his commands and call on our lives to accomplish his purposes in the world.