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series: Studies in the Life of Moses next message: God sends Moses to tell Pharaoh let Israelites go previous message: God calls Moses to deliver Israelites, Part 2 formats: pdf

This week we pick up in Chapter 4 of Exodus with God trying to train Moses to be God's man. It is nice to find that the great Lawgiver Moses, that giant of the faith, is about like the rest of us when he starts out. Apart from Yahweh, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, he can do absolutely nothing. Apart from Yahweh, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament, he wants to do absolutely nothing. He doesn't want to do God's will. He doesn't want to be on the line and acting in faith. He would just as soon spend the rest of his life in retirement out on the backside of the desert. He probably had a nine-hole golf course out there.

When we pick him up, the Lord has dealt with all of his objections. He has had five objections, and the Lord has dealt with all five. The last one, I believe, cost him the High Priesthood because God finally became angry. But God didn't disqualify him. God was committed and relentless in His dealing with Moses. Moses is going to be what God wants him to be, and he is going to do what God wants him to do. This is the beautiful thing about this passage.

So now God is sending him back into Egypt at 80 years of age after he has been gone for 40 years. We are starting now in verse 18.

Exodus 4:18:

Then Moses departed and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, [That is the High Priest of Midian with whom he has been staying for 40 years and whose daughter he has married] and said to him, "Please, let me go, that I may return to my brethren who are in Egypt, and see if they are still alive." And Jethro said to Moses, "Go in peace." Now the LORD said to Moses in Midian, "Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead." So Moses took his wife and his sons [Two of them] and mounted them on a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the staff of God in his hand.

Now Moses departs, but he still doesn't want to go. He is afraid to tell his father-in-law what God has asked him to do, so he lies a little. He wants to "go back to Egypt and see if any of his brothers are still alive." He knows from the prior passage that Aaron is alive. God has promised that Aaron will be his mouthpiece, his speaker, but he is scared and doesn't want to lose face, so he does a little finagling here and Jethro, his father-in-law and the patriarch of the clan, gives him permission to leave. So he goes.

The Lord moves in then and deals with the real problem of why he doesn't want to go back. Even though Moses is dragging his feet, the Lord is a very gracious God. He says, "Moses, go back to Egypt for all the men who were seeking your life are dead." And so it says in verse 20: "Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey [one donkey. He probably walked], and returned to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the staff of God in his hand."

I love that. Moses is going back to Egypt as God's devastator of the most powerful kingdom in that part of the globe at that time. He has been gone 40 years. The people who want his life are dead. They have even taken his poster down off the post office wall. He is a nothing. His peer group is 80 years old, a little senile and are thinking, "Whatever happened to old what's his name?" So "old what's his name," a nothing, a forgotten person goes back to destroy Egypt and takes with him "What's that in your hand?" Old "what's his name" goes back with old "what's that in your hand," and the two of them are going to devastate Egypt.

I think that is choice! That says that God can take anybody, anytime with anything, any place and accomplish anything He wants. He doesn't need our backing, our resources, the backing of the church, a good solid foundation of giving, seminary training or theology courses. These are all nice and very helpful, but, when God calls you to a ministry, "God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus," and you will be totally adequate for any ministry He calls you to. You have absolutely no excuse for not going. For example, if God is calling anyone in this class to go over to the Sunday School room and teach, I suggest you listen. You are going to end up over there anyway because Moses is going to end up in Egypt anyway. Why not go with your nose unbloodied. When I became a Christian, my first teaching assignment was 5th grade boys, and they sacred the livin' daylights out of me, but I obeyed and went. I began teaching them and began to fall in love with those little kids. Pretty soon they had wrapped themselves around my heart, and I wanted to go teach them. I loved those little kids, and they responded to love. That is where I got my first taste for teaching, and it tasted very good!

So, God doesn't need theology. He doesn't need Greek or Hebrew. He doesn't need any of those things. If indeed He is calling you, all He needs is for you to walk out and go to work. God will meet your needs. I don't care if you are old "what's his name" and all you've got is "What's that in your hand," He'll take care of it.

Then after God gets Moses started back toward Egypt, He tells him what all is going to be entailed. I rather think Moses wouldn't have started had he known.

Exodus 4:21:

And the LORD said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD, "Israel is My son, My first-born. So I said to you, 'Let My son go, that he may serve Me'; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your first-born."'"

Two things He tells Moses. Go back to Egypt and do all these wonders, and they aren't going to work. Secondly, tell Pharaoh to his face that God has said, "These people are special to Me. They are my first-born. You won't let them go. You have killed their male children, so I am going to kill your first-born."

Mind you, this is to be spoken in Egypt to someone who is god. He is not just king. He is viewed as a direct descendent of god. He is known as deity. He is worshipped as deity. He is a child directly born of the sun, their highest god, Ra. He is called the perfect god on their monuments. He is called the great god on their monuments, not a son of the great god, THE great god. They don't worship Pharaoh as a representation of god. They worship Pharaoh as being deity, god. So Moses is told to go back into Egypt, perform all these wonders, and, "I've got news for you, Moses, not one of them is going to work." Then when nothing works, you are to tell Pharaoh, "My God said, 'I'm going to kill your first-born.'"

Now I submit to you that this is not exactly the kind of a task I would like to be given. Furthermore God waits for him with his wife, kids and donkey after he's on his way before he tells him about it. So, old chicken little goes. That yellow stripe down his back may be flashing, flashing, flashing, but he goes. You notice that? He goes!

So he starts back and God says, "Hey, I'm going to fix it so you have another price on your head. I'm going to have you insult the god of Egypt right in his own palace. Oh, I'll give you lots of wonders to perform, but all they will do is harden his heart and make him nastier and tougher. Then I want you to tell him I intend to kill his first-born." About this time Moses must be thinking, "What's my attorney's address in Egypt?" This looks a lot like a death trap from where he is sitting. Nevertheless, chicken little goes and that is all God wants. He may go reluctantly; his knees may knock, but he goes.

What I like about God is He doesn't lay the whole trip on you at one fell swoop. He gets you moving along, then down the road He gives you another little piece of the action. God understands the weakness of our humanity. Remember He became incarnate, and He really understands our humanity. We have absolutely no excuse today. Jesus Christ became a man. Sure he was always God, but He became a real man, and He never used His deity to alleviate a problem in his humanity. Now He may well have performed many of His credentials in the power of His deity, but, as far as living out His human life on earth, He never ever used His own deity to alleviate the problems that He had down here. Among those problems was fear. The Garden of Gethsemane is a picture of that. Fear of separation from the Father just gripped Him, but He hung in there, stuck to it and walked out triumphant. So He does understand fear. God never goes except He goes first class, and He will never use you until he proves you. God will do it. Don't go out and try to do it yourself. God will make you the person He wants you to be for the job He wants you to do. Let me warn you, though, when God begins to use you, God begins to clean you up and to deal with the areas of your life that you have failed to deal with. That is exactly what He does in this strange little passage from verses 24 to 26.

Exodus 4:24:

Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met him and sought to put him to death [Now this is Moses that God is going to kill]. Then Zipporah [That's his wife] took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and threw it at Moses' feet, and she said, "You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me. So He [God] let him [Moses] alone. At that time she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood" --because of the circumcision

In Chapter 17 of Genesis, God made a covenant with Abraham, the Abrahamic Covenant.

Genesis 17:7-8:

"And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. "And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God."

Abraham's part of the Covenant was to be:

Genesis 17:10-14:

"This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant."

"Cut off" in the Hebrew means to be cut off by early death either by God or man. It doesn't mean to be shoved out of the tribe. It means dead, D-E-A-D. God is very serious about circumcision. It is the mark of a set-apart person. Moses has been set apart for God. He is to be the leader of his people, the Lawgiver, the deliverer of the nation, and he has not been exercising proper headship. He has not been obeying the Law of God. He has been circumcised, but that is because of his parents Amram and Jochebed. However, he married a Midianite girl and while he apparently circumcised his older son Gershom, he did not circumcise his youngest son Eliezer. Now he is heading back to Egypt under the Abrahamic Covenant with a young son who has not been circumcised. God will not put up with that. You are not fit to handle the household of God until you can handle your own household. Incidentally, that is a requirement for an elder in the church. Elders are to be married and have children and be able to exercise headship of their families. It doesn't say that during their eldership they may not have the same ups and down as the rest of us, but at the time they become an elder, they must have demonstrated that they have a family in authority under their headship. The point is made that an elder is not fit to handle the household of God until he has demonstrated his ability to handle his own household. Moses had not handled the household of Moses. Apparently Zipporah, his wife, isn't too thrilled with circumcision and has talked him out of mutilating her offspring. Apparently Moses wasn't too strict about it either and isn't in the future, by the way. During the 40 years in the wilderness, the Jews kind of gave up on God and for 40 years out there they only circumcised a very few of their children and this while Moses was their leader. These are the children of God being led into the Promised Land as part of the Abrahamic covenant, but they refuse to get serious even about the mark of the covenant. They are so full of self-pity and concern that they are not going to make it that they say to heck with it. The first thing Joshua does when they cross the Jordan and get into the land is stop at Gilgal, which means rolling, where the reproach of Egypt is rolled away. There they circumcise all the males who were born in the wilderness and not circumcised while Moses was in charge.

So God strikes him down with some kind of a disabling illness, we don't know what, but he can't circumcise, so his wife, in order to save his life, cuts off the foreskin and throws it at his feet, "'You are a bridegroom of blood.' You win finally, but you haven't won me." And God leaves him alone just like that. He gets well. He also sends his wife and family back to Midian. They don't show up again until the 18th chapter when they are brought back by her father. Either God tells him or Moses feels in his own heart that they shouldn't be with him, that they might be a drag on him for the mission he has, so back they go to Midian, and he goes on alone. But God is relentless. When Moses arrives in Egypt he will have performed what God wants performed in the household of Moses, and he is now going to be used to perform what God wants performed in the household of God. He did it to Moses, my friends. He'll do it to us. We cannot escape our responsibilities.

Exodus 4:27:

Now the LORD said to Aaron, "Go to meet Moses in the wilderness." So he went and met him at the mountain of God, and he kissed him. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD with which He had sent him, and all the signs that He had commanded him to do. Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the sons of Israel; and Aaron spoke all the words which the LORD had spoken to Moses. He then performed the signs in the sight of the people. So the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD was concerned about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, then they bowed low and worshiped.

Finally something good begins to happen to Moses. He meets Aaron. God sends Aaron all the way out to Mr. Sinai to meet Moses, giving him further verification that God is in control. He will not be going back to Egypt alone. Also, here is the mouthpiece that Moses demanded. Moses gives Aaron all God's words and signs which Aaron relays to the elders and the people, and they are won over. They actually believe, it says here, and they bow and worship.

Even though Moses is kind of dragging his tail on the way back to Egypt, how do you think he is beginning to feel about now? Pretty good! He's back and here are the people and the elders who rejected him 40 years ago, and after Aaron tells them all the words and does the signs, they believe. It's a total role reversal. Moses is back 40 years. You can see a little bounce in his step, a little gleam in his eye, and what does he begin to feel down inside? Adequacy. "I was a general once. I can be a general again. I've got all the wisdom of Egypt. I can use it again. I know how to handle big volumes of people. I know all the logistics involved," and you can begin to see a little flicker of that old flame that has been sitting on the back burner for 40 years. He begins to feel that good old "son of Pharaoh's daughter, general of Egypt" feeling, and God doesn't like that. He has a very nice way of taking care of that type of problem which He proceeds to exhibit

Exodus 5:1:

And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, 'Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.'" But Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and besides, I will not let Israel go." Then they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword." But the king of Egypt said to them, "Moses and Aaron, why do you draw the people away from their work? Get back to your labors!"

The people may all believe, but Pharaoh is unmoved. Moses goes to him and tells him, "The Lord, the God of Israel, says, 'Let my people go that they may celebrate a feast in the wilderness.'" This is a very normal request. Like the other rulers Pharaoh believes in local gods, and with local gods you went and worshipped them in the way they wanted to be worshipped. And if the God of the Hebrews ought to be worshipped, then the God of the Hebrews should be worshipped in the way He wanted to be worshipped, and since they and their God came from the other side of the Euphrates River (over there), naturally, in the culture of that day, the Jews would be expected to go back to where their God was to have the celebration. Gods don't like to travel. You have to go to them. So Moses' request to Pharaoh was very reasonable. But Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice. I don't know this Lord. Besides if I did, I wouldn't let you go." Now, indeed, he does know Yahweh. He has 2 to 3 million slaves in his nation who are worshipping Yahweh off and on, along with other gods. He knows Him by name. He knows who He is. What's the problem with his viewpoint on Yahweh? Who's god is Yahweh as far as Pharaoh is concerned? The god of the Jews. And what are the Jews in Pharaoh's eyes? Slaves! Pharaoh runs Egypt. Remember back in Joseph's time, 430 years before this, when there was 7 years of famine in Egypt? Joseph took not only the money of the people, their property and their cattle, but he even took their bodies in exchange for grain. Pharaoh owns everybody in Egypt. He is god. Only the priests were exempt from that ownership. So he's god in Egypt. He owns the people that are free, and he certainly owns the people that are slaves. He can kill all the male babies he wants, and that is it. Obviously in Pharaoh's eyes, "I am a bigger god than Yahweh," and he knows what Moses wants. Three days is a rather indefinite expression. It probably means unlimited. It is like the Hebrew expression for "previously." Yesterday and then to the third day back is how they express it in Hebrew. He knows what Moses wants. He wants the people out of Egypt. "No way is he going to get that. No two-bit god is going to tell me what to do." And that is the way he looks upon Yahweh right now, as a two-bit god. So he tells Moses, "Get back to your labors. You're not going to take the people out of here." They were the greatest energy source in all Egypt at the time. It would be like this country giving away oil. We run 75% of our country on fossil fuel, oil, coal and natural gas. Can you imagine someone walking into the U.S. and saying, "Hey, I'm going to take all the oil, coal and natural gas out of here." Well, how would you vote on that? Any president would veto that, "No way are you going to take that natural resource, that power source that we depend on." We are not back in the old days when you had wood fires, cooked on wood stoves, had little kerosene lanterns or candles made out of fat off the animals. We are no longer in the pioneer days. I like a thermostat myself.

Last night MaryLou and I were down at Aptos. It was lovely to turn out all the lights, sit before a lovely fire and kind of be out in the wilderness. So I turned up the gas jet and lit the fire. It came up through the fake logs, beautiful. Never had to put another log on the fire, the flames were always the right height. That's my idea of roughing it. Lovely condominium, gas jet for a fireplace. You can keep all the logs you want. Beautiful! There is no way you are going to get me to go back to the pioneer days.

But that is what Moses is saying, literally, "Hey, I want you to give up all your manpower." Egyptians were not used to working anymore. They were fat cats. They had been lousy shepherds their whole lives. There is no way and especially not for some two-bit god.

Exodus 5:5:

Again Pharaoh said, "Look, the people of the land [That's the common folk versus the ruling class] are now many, and you would have them cease from their labors!" So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters over the people and their foremen, saying, "You are no longer to give the people straw to make brick as previously; let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the quota of bricks which they were making previously, you shall impose on them; you are not to reduce any of it. Because they are lazy, therefore they cry out, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' "Let the labor be heavier on the men, and let them work at it that they may pay no attention to false words."

"I am going to show who is boss in Egypt, who is god in Egypt." So immediately Pharaoh assigns tougher burdens to the people of Yahweh, the Hebrews.

Straw makes bricks more plastic, a lot easier to mold and shape. There is a desperate need to make these bricks for the building projects going on there. The bricks need to be easy to mold and shape because of all the fancy designs in the architecture of their building projects.

So the first thing Pharaoh does is challenge the God of the Hebrews. Don't forget Moses told him the, "God of the Hebrews said we've got to go, and He is a God of Judgment. If we don't go we'll get a pestilence or the sword. Our God means business." So? "I'll show the god of the Hebrews who is boss in Egypt." He means boss over them. "And, by the way, I own 'over there' from the Nile to the Euphrates. So He must start 'over there' at the other side of the Euphrates cause I own everything up to that point." And so Pharaoh deliberately begins persecuting the people of Israel to get at the God of the Israelites.

What did Paul of Tarsus learn the hard way on the road to Damascus? When he was persecuting Christians, who was he persecuting? He is on his way to Damascus, which was an open city and where a great number of the Christians fled after the persecution began, to get Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem in chains to put them in prison and then to death if possible. He is on his way there with letters from the High Priest to bring back these Jewish Christians. The High Priest had no authority over Gentile Christians, but Jewish Christians were still subject to him under Roman Law. This was a religious issue. The High Priest also had Civil Authority, not death penalty, but Civil Authority. So Paul has documents giving him the authority to bring back Christian Jews and put them in prison and then to maybe even put some to death. What does he find out on the road? When you persecute Christians, who do you persecute? Jesus Christ. "Lord, who am I persecuting" "Me!"

Class Comment: Is that where the term "straw boss" came from?

Bob's response: I don't know. It could be. A good point. I never thought of that. We have three different kinds of bosses here. The taskmasters were Egyptians. It is the word for a boss of a labor gang. Then the labor gang had a Jewish foreman. They were the ones the taskmasters were beating. They couldn't beat all the Israelites out there, so they would beat their substitute, the foremen. How do you get Jews to work? Put other Jews over them and then beat the other Jew. Boy, the word gets back in a hurry. They may not listen to an Egyptian, but when it is a Jew that is giving the people the word, they start working. So you have two different kinds of straw bosses. It is kind of interesting. I don't know.

Now let's see what happens.

Exodus 5:15:

Then the foremen of the sons of Israel [These are those Jewish straw bosses that are getting beaten] came and cried out to Pharaoh, saying, "Why do you deal this way with your servants? "There is no straw given to your servants, yet they keep saying to us, 'Make bricks!' And behold, your servants are being beaten; but it is the fault of your own people." But he said, "You are lazy, very lazy; therefore you say, 'Let us go and sacrifice to the LORD.' "So go now and work; for you shall be given no straw, yet you must deliver the quota of bricks. And the foremen of the sons of Israel saw that they were in trouble because they were told, "You must not reduce your daily amount of bricks."

What's going on now? Note the personal pronouns used here. What has happened to the belief of the Children of Israel? Whose servants are they? They just got through worshipping Yahweh. They just got through seeing the signs of Yahweh, and who are they worshipping now? First time the pressure is on, "your servants, your servants, your servants." They are back bowing down to Pharaoh.

An intriguing thing has happened though. God is a very interesting God, and He wants to reach not just the Jews but also the Egyptians. Remember back there He calls the Jews the "first-born" of Israel, the "first-born" of God. If the Jews are the "first-born" of God what are the Gentiles? The second-born. Yes, the Jews may be more equal than the Gentiles in the sense of the purpose of God, but God has the same purpose for the "second-born." He wants to reach them too. Now, if you were Yahweh and your Jews were stuck in Goshen, way up in the Delta area near the Mediterranean, and you wanted to reach all the Egyptians up and down the Nile, a very narrow strip of this country, what would be a beautiful way to evangelize it? If I were God and I wanted to get my evangelists out of the Delta and up the Nile to reach Egyptians, how could I do it? How would I get the issue between Pharaoh as god and Yahweh as God up there so all the Egyptians knew the issue and could make a choice between god and God before I started destroying Egypt?

Class comment: Make the Jews go look for straw.

Bob's response: Yeah! Make them go hunt for the straw they need. What does Pharaoh say, "Everywhere in Egypt [Verse 11]" And they went "everywhere in Egypt looking for straw. [Verse 12]" People would ask, "What are you doing way up here?" "Oh, we had a little hassle back there. Our God says we are to leave and your god says we have to stay." And so the issue between Yahweh and Pharaoh goes all the way up the Nile River. See how God works? Pharaoh thinks he is socking it to the Jews. No, he isn't. He is Chairman for the evangelization of Egypt. All the Egyptians now understand the issue. The Jews may be knuckling under but God is going to reach out to the "second-born" too. When those Jews walk out of Egypt, they are going to have a lot of friends with them. A "mixed multitude" leaves because a lot of Egyptians believe. Israel may be the "first-born" of God, but they are a "first-born" of God for the purpose of reaching the "second-born" of God.

So in verse 20 we get Moses down to size.

Exodus 5:20:

When they [The foremen, the Jewish foremen, who are getting beaten for not having enough straw to make enough bricks to keep up their quotas, and they have just been turned down by Pharaoh even though they cow-towed to him] left Pharaoh's presence, they met Moses and Aaron as they were waiting for them. And they [the foreman] said to them [Moses and Aaron], "May the LORD look upon you and judge you, for you have made us odious [literally the word is stink, a very harsh word. You have made us stink in Pharaoh's sight] in Pharaoh's sight and in the sight of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us." Then Moses returned to the LORD and said, "O Lord, why hast Thou brought harm to this people? Why didst Thou ever send me? "Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he has done harm to this people; and Thou hast not delivered Thy people at all."

What has happened to dear old Moses now?

Class comment: He is putting the blame on God.

Bob's response: Yeah! All of a sudden this son of Pharaoh's daughter with his old generalship and all his old skills that were going to help him out so much has gone right down the tube. The people that he is going to lead won't follow. In fact they are calling upon Yahweh to judge between them and him. All he has done is make them stink in the sight of Pharaoh. So good old Moses goes running straight back to God and puts the blame right on Him. Notice how he puts it. Moses returns to the Lord, not to pray or to seek His help, No, to get out from under the pile. He's lost face. He's humiliated. He's lost self-worth. He's rejected. "'Oh, Lord, why hast Thou brought harm to these people? Why did Thou ever send me' I told you not to send me. I gave you five different reasons not to send me. If only you would have listened to me." Good heavens God is dumb at times, isn't He. "Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, incidentally what you said to do, he has done harm to this people; and Thou hast not delivered Thy people at all, and You said You were with us." Moses is totally bombed out. This is exactly where God wants him, totally bombed out. Moses is blaming God, but God doesn't care about that. He has Moses wiped out. Now God is going to use him, but not until next week.

Do you notice the kind of God we have? He doesn't want our help. He doesn't want our resources. He doesn't want anything about us except US and our obedience. He doesn't mind our being afraid, scared to death, not trusting Him. He doesn't mind our blaming Him when things don't go according to our schedule. I'm sure when Moses went back there and the people believed and the elders believed, and the elders were probably some of the foremen too, he probably thought, "It'll just click like this. A couple little chops, and I'll walk right out of here." He is not going to go for about a year yet, my friends. God is going to devastate Egypt. He has to go through the seasons to do so. When God gets finished, Egypt is going to be flattened. God doesn't mind even when we complain and gripe and blame him and tell him, "I told you so." He is far bigger than I am. You tell me, "I told you so," and I want to give you one. But God doesn't. He wants to love you, accept you and use you. All He wants you to do is come. Go to Egypt. Be available.

Now watch what happens to old Moses before God gets through. Next week Chapter 6.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you so much for your grace and love to us. As humans with our own failings and foibles and self-centeredness and egocentric behavior, lack of self-worth and acceptance our need to be puffed up, have everyone's acceptance, to have a certain status. to feel secure, safe, useful and adequate, how wonderful it is to have a God that doesn't care about any of these things but takes us just as we are, feeling just as we are, mad at Him, God Himself and still relentlessly chase us and quietly shape us and use us to glorify your Son. Thank you so much in Jesus' Name.

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series: Studies in the Life of Moses next message: God sends Moses to tell Pharaoh let Israelites go previous message: God calls Moses to deliver Israelites, Part 2 formats: pdf