Clough Manhood Series Lesson 15
Moses: Leadership
and Decision Making – Exodus 2-18
We continue our study on manhood and we’re going to look at Moses. This will be the last of our character sketches for a while because after studying Moses we are going to study the Christian man under law. And we’ll be discussing the issue of law and how it works in the man’s life, and we’ll get into a little bit of civil law but mostly into Mosaic Law and its categories, a very lost thing in our own society.
To review a bit where we’ve come, we’ll throw out the framework again, and see if we can use this as a vehicle to remind ourselves of some of the principles we’ve talked about so far. The first event of our framework is creation and under creation we found that it was man’s duty to subdue the earth, under God’s law and mandate. And subduing the earth starts with man’s own body because man, Adam, is made from the Adamah, or the ground. And so it would be from the ground that he begins, from his own body, working outward to the various divine institutions. The picture of the biblically successful man is the patriarch, the grand patriarch of the family, the man who can look out and see the influence of his ministry in his own home, his own children and his own job, and has a deep sense of satisfaction that nothing can take from him because he knows that he did as well as he could, given the situation. And that man has a self-image that is fantastic. It all comes about because he has fulfilled the picture that the Bible presents, why he was created.
The second event we studied was the fall. We found the fall, as far as man, men are concerned, teaches us where men get hurt the easiest; where the curse hits them the hardest. And it’s on the job! And that’s why when the curse is applied it’s applied to man as he begins to subdue the earth, out there in the garden with the weeds and the thorns and the thistles.
Then we studied the flood and the covenant and we studied Noah, how Noah had the phenomenal opportunity to build on a completely new human race from his own family; that Noah, for 120 years set forward a testimony that was totally unsuccessful of reaching anyone in his generation for Jesus Christ, other than those of his own home. And so building a strong home he was able to build a strong new world. All of us are descendants from the family of that godly man; all of us descend from either Ham, Shem or Japheth.
Then we studied the call of Abraham, we saw once again Abraham is pictured as a family man. He is not pictured as an irresponsible lone male, but he is one who has responsibilities of a home. We saw that the covenant was given in male terms: circumcision, to deliberately underscore forever and ever in history the spiritual priority of the man to the woman. The ERA may be able to do many things but I don’t think they can do too much about the fact that circumcision was the sign of the covenant. And so we found Abraham as the one who had the character of toughness and he had the character of tenderness because of sovereignty and grace respectfully.
We found, therefore, out of all this so far, at least that the man ought not to feel like he’s in a bad position; men ought to feel like they’re in the best position possible. God has put us in the driver’s seat; if the world’s bad it’s up to us to change it. God, therefore, puts men in his enviable position. We are held responsible but we, therefore, also have at least some room to move and make changes; it’s up to us. The man has that position in the plan of God. As long as God’s grace continues in history, there will always be some room for men to make improvements.
Now let’s go to Moses. Moses is our last, as I said, of our character studies for a while, turning to Exodus 2 we come to a man who was raised in a heathen environment. Last week we studied Joseph, the man who created the world’s greatest bureaucracy as a judgment. Joseph was to be a type of Christ. As a type of Christ he carried out the simultaneous duties of judgment and salvation. Joseph saved the Hebrews and he judged the Egyptians. He judged them because he put them under bondage; he took away their private property; Joseph administered socialism as a judgment against man. Socialism always is a judgment against man; wherever you find socialism you find arrogance, people who hate capitalism and the free market are basically people who are incompetent, people who do not want to pay the price for irresponsibility.
One of the greatest books ever written on this was a book written called The Anti Capitalist Mentality by Ludwig von Mises, the famous Austrian economist. And in his book The Anti Capitalist Mentality von Mises argued, he asked the question and answered it, why is it that the strongest anti capitalist mentality comes from the university intellectuals? Why is that true? And then, as a professor who had worked for many, many years on the college campus, Professor von Mises answered his own question. It’s very simple; the men who are many of these intellectual leaders, not all, but many who are intellectual leaders in the university campus could not feed themselves off of the campus, in a free market, because they’re not producing any usable product. No one would buy their product; they’d starve to death. And so they need a controlled economy, with them at the helm of it, notice always, with them at the helm to control it so they can compel other people to feed their faces.
And this is why we have an anti capitalist mentality; it’s not because of concerns for the poor. This is always the excuse that is given, like I showed this morning. Take, for example, the lunch and breakfast program here in Lubbock; we’re going to have free breakfast for the supposedly poor students, but everyone neglects to point out the fact that in most cases, not all, true there are some cases that are genuine, but in most cases it’s a simple fact that if you went into the home you’d find (a) a TV, most notably a color one; (b) you would find many cartons of cigarettes, each week consumed by the parents of these supposedly poor children who have no money for breakfast in the morning, you would find plenty of booze, if they want their booze fine but I would suggest that a few eggs and bacon come before booze in order of priority of nutrition. So the point is that it is the priorities that people have, and no one ever asked the question, wait a minute, before we start talking about this program and that program, let’s point out who’s responsible and stop, as Christians, getting brow beaten by the guilt pushers.
Now it’s always the socialist aim to make all the Christian citizens feel guilty. Like when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, suddenly because so and so lives in the city of Dallas they become guilty. Well if Oswald flipped his lid what’s that to do with the rest of the people that live in Dallas? What do the people in Dallas have to do with Lee Harvey Oswald? But no, the guilt pushers, make every one feel sorry. See, they take advantage of the Christian conscience; they manipulate and it’s time for Christians who know the Word to stand up and say listen, that’s garbage, I don’t buy it; I refuse to be held responsible. The guy’s an idiot, I have nothing to do with it; sorry, find some other sucker to finance your program. At the same time, of course, the Christian out of love for man in Christ will try to do things to solve the problem. But he will do things different than Joseph did them.
Joseph was under a mandate of God to punish the Egyptians and lock them down into a position where there was no such thing as private property. And Joseph did his job very well because when the book of Exodus opens and Moses’ career opens “there comes there comes another Pharaoh who knew not Joseph.” That’s a signal that a new dynasty has come about. The records of the previous administration had been destroyed in some way and so now Moses faces a situation in his day that’s very, very grave. Moses is going to be the counterpart to Joseph. Joseph is at one end of the tunnel; Moses is at the other end. Joseph has a ministry of judgment/salvation; Moses has a ministry of judgment/salvation. Joseph does his in the system; Moses does his outside of the system. Joseph has a high position in the Egyptian state; he starts in a foreign land and winds up a well educated highly responsible official. As we suggested in Dr. Courville’s redoing of chronology, probably secular history knows Joseph as Menuhotep. But whatever the real Joseph was in history and it’s an Egyptian name, we don’t know, but if that was then it at least shows how outstanding a man he was.
Now Moses, if again we follow that adjusted chronology and not the classic
chronology of history, we discover that Moses too was remembered for many years
in Egypt because the men who lived in the new kingdom, Moses lived during the
Middle Kingdom, we believe, following the reconstructed chronologies, and this
end of the Middle Kingdom spelled the Exodus.
It was a gap here of some 400 years and then the new dynasty began. And the new dynasty, or the new kingdom began
down these days with men of the stature of Amenhotep
I and so on, but they very soon adopted a suffix to their name, and that suffix
is a historical monument to Moses. They
remembered Moses and they named the Pharaoh’s after him. And so in history Tutmoses. Where did the term come from? Secular historians who hold to the standard
chronology always argue that the word “moses” is made up,
it’s read back into the document. But if
that be true, then how do we explain the residual “moses” on the end of the Pharaoh’s name.
So we have evidence that Moses indeed lived and left his mark for many, many centuries on history. Moses, of course, was the great Law-giver. In history even secular historians, even where the Supreme Court has not been successful yet in excluding the Scriptures from the classroom, even in those areas Moses is still remembered and in those areas Moses is known as the Law-giver. That’s his name; that’s his character.
Let’s look at a little bit of Moses’ character and watch how this man developed. We don’t know when he became a believer, but we can trace the development of Moses character, and the development of Moses character ought to act as a model for every man because Moses faced the same kind of frustrations that every man faces. He had to deal with the frustrations, as we all do, sometimes well, sometimes very poorly. Moses had his share of discipline; we have our share of discipline. So we could all identify, those Christian men here tonight, we can all identify very easily with Moses. Let’s watch some chapters in his life; we’re going to try like we did last Sunday with Joseph, cover it in one night; obviously a very rapid covering but still one that hopefully will give us some modeling principles.
In Exodus 2:11-14 we see how Moses thought by his actions. “And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown that he went out unto his brethren,” he knew he was a Hebrew, he knew he wasn’t an Egyptian. He identified with his people. “…he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens.” We even are told in the New Testament what he was thinking. Turn to Acts 7:25; when Moses first went out to his brethren he was a believer; a very weak a believer, a believer that was not yet sanctified enough to do the job that God wanted this man to do. Moses was called to a very, very lofty position. I think of all the biblical characters, if there was one man that I would be tempted to say got a raw deal it would be Moses, because God had such fantastically high standards for Moses and he was almost ruthless in disciplining Moses for violating those high standards.
In Acts 7:25, Stephen speaks about what Moses thought when he went out to visit his brethren. “For he kept supposing,” imperfect tense, “he kept supposing his brethren would understand how that God by His hand would deliver them; but they did not understand.” See, Moses thought at this time that he was called to lead his people into deliverance. The call to deliverance was not new at the burning bush; the call to deliverance apparently had come to Moses years and years and years before the burning bush incident. Moses was one of those young men who rose with a sense of destiny. Moses was not, by the way, don’t visualize Moses as some little shepherd that kind of got promoted along the way. Moses, according to extra biblical tradition was raised in Pharaoh’s court; we know from Scripture he was at least adopted as a small child, but in extra biblical tradition Moses not only was raised in Pharaoh’s court but he studied in the war college of the Egyptians. Moses became the equivalent of a General in the Egyptian army and it was Moses who subdued much of the area of the upper Nile for Pharaoh. Moses served his master well. Moses knew the bureaucracy, he was a soldier, he was an administrator. He was, in other words, being groomed for the throne of Egypt. He was a prince in Pharaoh’s house. Moses had nobility in back of him.
So when we read these incidents, understand something; you’re looking at a boy raised in nobility, raised in the upper-upper class, raised with the best education available in that day. And by the way, the liberals always love to say that Moses could not have written Genesis, he could not have written the Law, following their usual axiom that anybody in God’s kingdom could have written the book except the one the Bible says wrote the book. But Moses wrote this book out of his Egyptian background and the proof is that if you statistically organize the Old Testament vocabulary, guess where all the high incidences of Egyptian words occur? In the first five books. Now isn’t that strange? It’s not strange at all if the man who wrote them was trained as an Egyptian; he expressed himself in Egyptian words and that’s why we have so many hapax legomenon, these are words that occur once that are Egyptian lone words and they are shot through the Torah; that’s a signal that what the Bible is saying is true.
Well, Moses had his call to deliver but he didn’t know how
to do it. So here we have a man who, on
the one hand, has all the upper class training that the kingdom of man can give
him. He is trained in the culture of his
time, the science of his time, the mathematics of his time. The Egyptians apparently by this time, if
we’re to believe at least some of the hints we’re now getting in history, the
Egyptians believed that the world was round and had already created a map of
spherical projection, centering on Egypt.
The Egyptians had already measured the circumference of the earth at
25,000 miles; just remember that the next time someone tells you that people
believed in a flat earth in the ancient world.
I don’t know what kind of geometry students they are but I have a very
great difficulty conceiving how you measure the circumference of a sphere to
believe the earth is flat. But the
Egyptians evidently did make crude estimates of pi which they would have had to
have done to measure the circumference of the earth, and the circumference
itself.
Moses
knew all of this. So when you read in
the section of him going out to his brethren, he goes out with the best that
the kingdom of man can give him. He’s
gotten an equivalent of a doctorate in education; he’s got the equivalent of a
generalship in the military. This is the
man, the caliber of man that God picks
but now watch what happens to his career.
Back to Exodus 2.
In
Exodus 2:11 he goes out and he sees, “and he looked on their burdens; and he
spies an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.” Notice twice in verse 11 the author of Exodus
is saying to us look, it’s his brethren, it’s his brethren; he knows and he
identifies with his brethren. [12] “And
he looked this way and he looked that way, and when he saw that there was no
man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.” Moses was an expert in hand to hand
combat. At this time the martial arts
were well known in history; karate did not begin with the Chinese. There’s
evidence to trace early karate all the way back into the ancient world. The Orientals picked it up and developed it
but we have frescoes of men who had slings and they used their slings, we have
men who had spears and we have men who have swords, and we have men with
nothing in their hand. Now what were
they? They were men trained in hand to
hand combat and Moses knew it.
But
there’s something about verse 12 besides his aggressiveness that is also his
weakness, and that weakness has to be overcome in Moses soul before Moses can
ever do anything for God. Notice that
before he acts he looks this way and he looks that way. What’s that a sign of? It’s a sign of a man who isn’t sure he’s
right. It’s a sign of a man who doesn’t
have any confidence, who knows how to do it, he knows how to slug this guy and
kill him, no problem, probably one blow broke his neck, very simple, he knows
how to do it but he doesn’t know what the plan is. He has no big framework to pull it together
with; a lot of technique, a lot of practice, that’s the other thing, but he has
no confidence.
Now
where does a man get his confidence from.
He doesn’t get his confidence from physical strength; that’s proved
right here. He has physical strength but
he doesn’t have confidence to go with it.
In fact, many people develop their physical strength precisely because
they don’t have confidence; they’ve learned early that they can’t get their way
in life and so they’ve developed a big pair of muscles to walk around and push
everyone around. This gives them a
pseudo confidence, but deep down they don’t have confidence. They don’t know what’s right and therefore
they have no confidence. Moses was that king of person.
Exodus
2:13, “And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews
strove together; and he said to him that did the wrong, Why are you smiting
your fellow? [14] And he said, Who made
you a prince and a judge over us? Do you
intend to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian?
And Moses feared, and said, Surely this is known. [15] Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sough to slay Moses.
But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian; and he sat down by a well.” And so Moses’ early experience, having the
best of Pharaoh’s court, the best was not able to give him moral confidence.
Now a
lot of men are in Moses’ position. We
have Christians in our land who occupy very high offices, who have all of the
intellectual gifts, who have much experience to their credit, but they simply
don’t have moral courage. And a leader
has to have moral courage, he has to have what people who interpret as
arrogance, because he has to be sure he’s right. It doesn’t mean he excludes advice or
correction but it means that he has to be basically sure, dogmatically, that
the course he sets for himself and those who depend upon him as their leader,
he must be sure they are right because if he doesn’t his conscience doesn’t
give him a green light, and it will show up sooner or later, something will
flip him out because he doesn’t have this basic rock confidence. And Moses lacked this.
I’ve
shown you these slides before but I want to show you again where Moses learned
his confidence, God’s training ground, God’s boot camp. We won’t go into them in too much detail but
just to give you a quick flavor of the training ground for Moses. First the area, the Sinai Peninsula; no
civilization then, no civilization now.
This is the area where the slides are taken, down in the southeast
corner; the line you see from the top to the bottom of the map is a road that
goes along the Gulf of Aqaba, it goes down, all the way down to the south tip
of Rosh Mohammad which is the peak of Sinai at the bottom of the picture. You’ll notice, the road that cuts into the
center; it’s not really a road, you have to take a guide who drives you all
over to get there but that’s the path that you get in to where Moses finally
went to Sinai. And again we’re not going
through it in detail, we just want to show you what this land looked like. Moses walked through this place for forty
years before he led the people out
here. So he had a forty year course in
sanctification. Imagine how it would be
like, after you’re used to the nice green Nile, plenty of water when you’re
hot, easy land to grow crops in, all the irrigation you need, lots of people
around, flat terrain.
But
this is the area where Moses wandered and the mountain there on the right is
Jebel Musa, one half of the complex, the dual complex of Mount Sinai. This is where the Law was given, just to the
right. This is one side of it, this is
Jebel Musa, and Mount Sinai proper is in behind this mountain. It’s not exceptionally high but nevertheless
it gives you an idea of the terrain.
This is the plain that’s right at the foot of Mount Sinai, where the
millions of people in the book of Exodus camped, and here’s where tradition
says that they build their altar while they thought Moses was dead up on
Sinai. There’s another picture of Mount
Sinai looking east. Here it is, I’m
climbing it, what it looks like in the early morning hours. Again notice just the sheer loneliness, the
sheer emptiness of it all. God had a
purpose in saving this piece of real estate with these characteristics, this
geography, because that geography is going to teach Moses something; all alone,
totally alone, he had plenty of time to think.
This is on the top of Sinai. This
is a back view and this is Mount Sinai
itself, this is the back side of the previous mountain I showed you. So when God chose to meet Moses, look at the
place God chose to meet him. That, God
says in the Scriptures, is My mountain.
So
there’s a little bit about the background we can fill in as we go to the story
of Moses, maybe you’ll have a little more empathy for the man. In Exodus 2:15 he goes across that area you
just saw on the slides, to a place called Midian, and
in verses 15-22 we see a repeat performance.
Verse 16, “Now the priest of Midian had seven
daughters; and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their
father’s flock. [17] And the shepherds
came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their
flock. [18] And when they came to Reuel, their father, he said, How is it that you are come
so soon today? [19] And they said, An
Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water
enough for us, and watered the flock.
[20] And he said unto his daughters, Where is he? Why is it that you have left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread. [21] And Moses was content to dwell with the
man; and he gave Moses Zipporah, his daughter. [22] And she bore him a son, and he called
his name Gershom; for he said, I have been a stranger
in a strange land.”
Notice
what Moses does here; do you see a sense of righteousness? Here’s a man who’s a believer and he has a
basic sense of what’s right, just like he had a basic sense of what was right
when he killed the Egyptian picking on the Hebrew and he did something about
it, he murdered the Egyptian. And now he
pulls a similar situation, these girls are being molested by the shepherds, so
he goes in and he beats them all up and he gets them out of the way. You see, Moses is not a passive man; he’s
already activated, he knows what’s right and what’s wrong, but he doesn’t have
a framework, he doesn’t have it together and so he lacks overall courage, but
he’s basically moving in the right direction, we see from these early incidents
in his life.
But
then he encounters, as he did earlier, a lack of specifics in his call, and so
when the priest offers him his daughter, Zipporah,
Moses doesn’t know quite what to do and apparently accepts here, and this is
the first bad decision he made. Strange as it may seem, Moses, one of the
greatest men of all the Scriptures, was perpetually plagued with a bad
marriage. He constantly had a very, very
poor marriage in fact. And it all began
by passively accepting a pagan girl who had no respect for the Word of God, he
apparently thought it was polite to accept her, he never really apparently
loved her and had no very great mature relationship with her, just kind of an
appendage. Let’s look at that
relationship a moment.
Turn to
Exodus 4:18, the time comes for him to go back to Egypt. [“And Moses went and returned to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said unto him, Let me go, I
pray thee, and return unto my brethren who are in Egypt, and see whether they
are yet alive. And Jethro
said to Moses, Go in peace.”] [19] “And
the LORD said unto Moses in Midian, Go and return to
Egypt…. [20] And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass,
and he returned to the land of Egypt; and Moses took the rod of God in his
hand. [21] And the LORD said to Moses,
When you go to return into Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before
Pharaoh, which I have put in your hand; but I will harden his heart, that he
shall not let the people go. [22] And
you shalt say to Pharaoh, Thus saith
the LORD, Israel is my son, even my first-begotten. [23] And I say unto you, Let my son go, that
he may serve me; and if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay your son.” Now
that was a threat he was to deliver to Egypt, “I will slay
your son.”
Now
immediately the text seems to launch out into what people wonder, what does
verse 24 got to do with verse 23? Very
simple; judgment must first begin in the believer’s home, and so therefore in
verse 24, “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him and
sought to kill him.” Here’s one of those
places where God has a high standard for Moses and Moses doesn’t fit it and God
really lowers the boom on him. And [25]
“Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the
foreskin of her son, and threw it at his feet, and said, Surely you’re a bloody
husband to me. [26] And so he let him go:
and then she said, A bloody husband you are, because of the
circumcision. [27] And the LORD said to
Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.
And he went, and he met him,” and he sent his wife back home to her
father. We know this from another text
we’ll see shortly.
What’s
this mysterious incident all about? It’s
very simple, Moses is going to go back to Egypt and bring out a covenant people
and the sign of the covenant is circumcision and the point is that Moses has
failed to subdue his own family. And he
cannot subdue the nation unless he first subdues his family. Divine institution three precedes divine
institution four. And so God is saying
Moses, there’s one thing I want to forcibly remind you of before we bring My
son out of Egypt: rule your home! And
you may have a pagan wife, whether she’s pagan or not, you have allowed her to
set the spiritual tone of your home.
Apparently Zipporah didn’t like the covenant
circumcision, and Moses surely knew it, but Zipporah
didn’t like it and she gave her husband a hard time. And when the matter spiritually came up,
she’d resist him and Moses yielded before this latter day eve and got in the
same trouble that Adam got into because he didn’t subject his wife’s judgment
to the Scriptures.
He
accepted naively for the sake of peace and harmony in the home, whatever his
wife wanted she got. But you see, no
woman can basically be satisfied that way because whether Zipporah
knew it or not, what she wanted was the Word of God, and she would never be a
satisfied woman until she got it. But
Moses thought she might; Moses thought he was taking the wise path of peace and
harmony, whatever you want fine, we won’t raise the subject. Well, God raised the subject, as you can see
in verse 24, very quickly, didn’t He?
And you might say in verse 24 God raised the subject quite
forcibly. And you’ll also notice
something else about verse 24, when God raised the subject who did He raise the
subject with? Zipporah
or Moses? Moses! Why?
Because verse 24 is once again one of those chain of evidences that
we’ve got in the Scriptures, God holds the man responsible for the family not
the woman. So whether Zipporah is a believer, unbeliever, hottentot
or what, it doesn’t make any difference.
Moses has been given the responsibility to run that home according to
the Word of God, and God is going to make sure that he does it, starting now. That’s what that section is all about.
Now Zipporah doesn’t like it; she rebels in verse 26, but
that’s okay, let her rebel against it, let her rebel because now she’s no
longer rebelling against Moses, now she’s rebelling against the Lord Jesus
Christ. And here’s the man’s protection
against a rebellious woman. Some of the
feedback cards, what do I do with a rebellious woman? What are you ladies doing here, getting
feedback cards on this stuff? How do you
keep your woman in line, one guy asked.
So this is one way. Moses carries
out the Word of God and if she doesn’t like it, too bad. Now this doesn’t mean he has to be totally
and completely nasty about it. But it
does mean that he’d better see that the Word of God is carried out, whether she
likes it or not, period. She doesn’t,
and she continues, in fact, she defiles the covenant of God; throwing it down
is tantamount to repudiating the covenant of Abraham. What Zipporah is
really saying spiritually, I want nothing to do with this spiritual family of
yours; I hate believers, and I hate your God.
All right, whether you hate it or not my son is going to be circumcised,
period. And that’s how Moses
thought. And he has protection for this
now, because you see the man is protected as long as he obeys; it goes back to
the chain of command. As long as the man
stands under the Lord and he carries out the Lord’s Word, if his wife doesn’t
and she’s out of it, and he’s continuing to try, underneath the canon of
Scripture and underneath the authority of God, and the wife gets out of line,
the Lord will take care of her. In that
case you turn her over to the Lord’s hands and He has all sorts of interesting
ways of handling the problem.
Now in
this case Moses had to do something about it because he was on a trip to go in
there and in a very hazardous situation and he couldn’t have this constant
harassment, so he sent her home to daddy.
So let’s look at Exodus 18 and watch the reunions. This passage tells us that he told her to go
home and park for a while. Now always
remember this, lest someone shame you because you can’t be in Christian service
if you don’t have a perfect marriage.
Just remember, Moses is the answer to that question.
Exodus
18:1, “When Jethro, the priest of Midian,
Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, [and for Israel
his people, and that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt], [2] Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law,” notice the emphasis, “took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back,” there’s
the proof that we have that he told her to go home to daddy, [3] “And her two
sons …. [4] And the name of the other was Eliezer….”
And he gives us the background, [5] “And Jethro,
Moses’ father-in-law,” see its repeated three times, “came with his sons and
his wife unto Moses in the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of
God.” By this time Moses has led the
people out. [6] “And he said unto Moses,
I, thy father-in-law, Jethro, am come unto thee, and
thy wife, and her two sons with her. [7]
And Moss went out to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisance, and kissed him;
and they asked each other of their welfare, and they came into the tent. [8] And Moses told his father-in-law all
that the LORD done [unto Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, and
all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the LORD delivered
them…]”
Verse
9, “And Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which
the LORD had done to Israel….” Verse 10,
“And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who has
delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians….” Verse 11, “I know now that
the LORD is greater than all gods…. [12] “And Jethro,
Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God,” and so
on. Do you notice something
missing? There’s not one word that he
ever speaks to Zipporah; not one. The father brings her out and who does he
have fellowship with? Her father, not
her. Do you know why? Because apparently she’s still out of it. Her father, Moses’ father-in-law, came out
and he congratulated his son-in-law on his ministry and what he had done on the
Scriptures, on the works of God. And
there’s not one sign in here of Zipporah
sympathizing, showing any interest whatsoever in any of this. And so she’s sidetracked and we don’t bother
with Zipporah any longer; she’s a dead end person. So
there’s a sign of Moses’ in his early life and the kind of relationships he got
himself into. What kind of a man was
he? He was a man in his early days, a
man who had a sensitive conscience, but didn’t have a framework and the large
picture.
Well,
let’s look at the call of God in his life, Exodus 3. When God came to him in the burning bush, on
one of those mountains you saw, one like it at least, here’s what happened;
watch. You know the story, how Moses saw
the burning bush in verse 2, he drew aside to go look at it, God speaks in the
fire in verse 4, the picture of the fire is simply this, that the bush is not
consumed but it is constantly burned.
What’s that a symbol of? When God shows up He always shows up in theophanies in the Old Testament in particular concrete
ways that itself is a message. And what
Go divine institutions going to do at the burning bush is reveal His name, and
the name is going to be “I AM.” That’s
the name from which we get Yahweh; that’s the word; the Tetragrammaton
on the Trinitarian triangle. Now this
verb is also the verb to be, and that’s why in the King James God’s name is I
AM.
Notice
what he says in Exodus 3:14, “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He
said, Thou shalt say utno
the children of Israel, I AM” sent you.
There’s a great deal of discussion in scholarly circles about the exact
meaning of that. I’m satisfied that Dr.
J. Barton Paine and others are right when they say that I AM carries the
implication, I AM with you to deliver you out of your affliction. That’s the implication of the I AM. I walk the earth, I go through the fire with
you, and so the burning bush is a picture of Israel’s suffering in Egypt and
out of the midst of the burning bush comes the voice, “I AM” with you. Now Moses knew that somehow he was to be the
deliverer of Egypt, but look at his frustration. Forty years, he gets mixed up with the wrong
woman, he has a conscience but every time he goes to exercise his conscience he
does it in an unwise way, gets himself in trouble with homicide with the Egyptians,
gets thrown out of the royal house, but yet he still has a sense of destiny and
now it comes together here at the burning bush.
God’s Word is given; God gives him, literally, His Word.
Let’s
look at how God gives him His Word, because God is sensitive to Moses; God
knows that Moses has needs and God is going to meet Moses’ needs. Notice in Exodus 3:6, “I am the God of thy
father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Now that assures Moses of the framework of
the Abrahamic Covenant; that draws Moses back to the bigger picture of
history. [7] “And the LORD said, I have
surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, [and have heard their
cry by reason of their taskmasters]; for I know their sorrows; [8] And I am
come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians,” and so he promises
Moses that He’s going to deliver. But
watch Moses’ reaction in verse 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?”
Now
we’ve just got through saying that Moses had this sense of destiny, earlier,
that he had to deliver, but when it came right down to it he did not have the
courage to do it. He had to have two
things in his heart; he had the sense of destiny that he ought to do it but
when it came down that the opportunity faced him right eyeball to eyeball he
just kind of chickened out of it; he didn’t have the moral courage to handle
it. And so he has to work this out with
God. So God says in verse 12, “I will be
with thee,” Moses, I’m not going to ask you to do something and then Me chicken
out on you; I AM, I AM there in your midst.
And so it goes on describing the dialogue that goes on there. Exodus 3:19, God gives him an indication,
“And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a mighty
hand.” He tells Moses exactly what’s
going to happen.
Exodus
4:1, Moses continues the dialogue, “But Moses said, But, behold,” they are not
going to believe me, “they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice; for
they will say, The LORD has not appeared to you. [2] And the LORD said unto him, What is that
in your hand? And said, A rod.” See how
God is counseling with Moses. Here is an
example of how God works to develop confidence in a man. He says what is it that’s in your hand,
Moses, let’s start with where you are; let’s start with the tools you’ve
got. What have you been using that rod
for? Well, I’ve been shepherding sheep
for my father-in-law, Jethro. Well, that’s good
because I’m going to have you use that rod to shepherd about two million sheep
but these sheep walk on two legs, and you’re going to be a new kind of shepherd,
but it’s not going to be absolutely different from what you’ve already done. So God starts Moses out with a known and then
very gently but firmly pushes him over into the area of the unknown, promising
him all the while that he’s going to do this; he’s not going to ask Moses to do
something for which He hasn’t provided in advance.
All
right, the dialogue goes on and finally in Exodus 4:10 you have the famous end
point of the conversation; “And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not
eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant; but I
am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.”
Moses had speech difficulties.
[11] “And the LORD said unto him,” and here’s that great promise, and
this goes back to the deformity question that we raised in Psalm 139, “Who made
man’s mouth? Or who makes the dumb,” congenital birth defects, “Or who made the
deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have
not I, the LORD? [12] Now therefore go,
and I will be with thy mouth, and I will teach you what you to say.” That’s God’s answer to the man who has no
confidence. God, if H has called a man
to do something is going to be with every area, including the defects of his
character; the very things that the man feels pressure on, because he doesn’t
feel he’s got it, he can’t compete with the other males because he’s got this
defect and all the other guys don’t have this defect, they’re miles ahead of
me. God says I will be right there with
your defects, now just do what I tell you to do, trust Me. Step out, use the rod in your hand and go.
And it
goes on, finally, Exodus 4:14, “And the anger of God was kindled against
Moses,” because this point shows you that Moses is still basically a timid man;
he’s physically strong but inwardly he still lacks courage, and this was always
Moses’ problem till the day he died. He
lacked this courage; this was his number one sanctification problem, and he
never fully licked it. That should encourage men, you’ve got a model here, a
model that shows you that a godly man can fail and fail and fail and fail and
fail repeatedly and God can still use him.
Let’s
look at some more situations in Moses’ life.
Turn to Numbers 11:10, situation at leadership. “Then Moses heard the people weep throughout
their families,” one of the panic situations out in this mess that I showed you
on the slides, you can imagine why they were weeping, I think we’d be weeping
if we had to walk around that place for forty years, “every man in the door of
his tent; and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly. Moses also was displeased. [11]
And Moses said unto the LORD, Why have you afflicted your servant?” Now look at this, now every man at least once
a week must feel this way. This is a
common experience of any man that’s trying to work hard. See how real the Scriptures are; the Holy
Spirit knows a guy’s soul. He communicates
what real things are like and let’s look at this prayer of our typical
man. “Why have you afflicted your
servant,” why are You picking on me?
“And why have I not found favor in Thy sight,” in other words, the real
question is why haven’t You graced me out, look at this, You graced everybody
else out, You don’t grace me out. Why
haven’t I had it, why do You “Lay the burden of all this people on me?” The play of the impossible calling, you’ve
asked me to do something I can’t do God, look at all the responsibility You put
on my shoulders. [12] “Have I conceived
this people?” You see, every man when
he gets this way he gets sarcastic, and Moses is getting sarcastic with
God. “Have I conceived these
people? Have I begotten them, that You should
say to me, Carry them in thy bosom, [as a nursing father bears the nursing
child, unto the land which You didst swear to give unto their fathers],” see,
he’s making fun of God. Watch how Moses
is praying here; you lose the spirit of the whole thing, you get this very
pious… see Moses folded his hands and said “Our Father, Who art in
heaven.” Baloney! He is mad at God here and he’s being
sarcastic with God, dropped all the pious front.
So
Moses followed it out this way and he just frankly felt this way and this is
the way he talked to God, and he’s being sarcastic. Do you want me to be a nursemaid to
them? That’s what he’s saying. You want me to carry them? Give them suck as I walk through the valleys
of this God-forsaken place? Is that what
you want me to do God? [Exodus 11:13]
“From where should I have flesh to give unto all this people?” Do you want them
to eat me, give them a little pimple here and an arm there? And so he comes down to verse 14, look at it,
that’s Moses chief complaint, and that’s where after the sarcasm this is where
he gets right down to it, and this basically is the complaint, and every man
has this complaint, and God knows that every man has this complaint. “I am not able to bear all this people alone;
it is too heavy for me, [15] And if you’re going to deal with this, take me out
now [kill me, I pray thee]….” This is a
picture of a man who still lacks the confidence
to meet the responsibility that God has given him.
And so
interestingly in Exodus 11:16-17, after the prayer, and by the way, and by the
way notice, it is funny, and it is amusing to watch the fact that Moses does
pray this way to God, but look at the great thing about the man. Yeah, there’s a few four-lettered words, that
kind of attitude that kind of spirit, that kind of sarcasm, but what is Moses
doing through it all? Isn’t he taking it
to the Lord. Now you just look, that’s
the big point. It’s not the fact that he
wasn’t nice, he didn’t say: “Our Father, Who aren’t in heaven,” and all the
rest of it. That’s not the point; the
point was he knew where the help was and he knew where the grace was and he
went there and he got it.
And in
verses 16-17 what happens? “And the LORD said unto Moses, Gather unto me
seventy men of the elders of Israel,” and what was Moses’ problem? He hadn’t properly organized the operation
here and what you’ve got in verses 16-18 is God simply giving him
organizational and managerial wisdom, and that was the solution to the problem
at that time. Now we could go on to
Numbers, some other passages where you want to see this, Numbers 14:11-20, we
don’t have time to go there but that’s one reference. Look what Moses faced there; they were coming
out to throw rocks at him, he needed physical protection; God gave it to
him.
Numbers
20:1-13, Moses finally blew it there.
Let’s turn there to watch how Moses was a frustrated individual. “Then came the children of Israel,” the same
place they had rebellion earlier, to Kadesh, “…and
Miriam died there, and was buried there.
[2] And there was no water for the congregation,” this was the problem
earlier, “and they gathered themselves against Moses and against Aaron. [3] And the people chode
with Moses, and they said, Would God that we had died….” Now that’s the new generation, the improved
version of the first one. [4] “Why have
you brought up the congregation of the LORD Into this wilderness, that we and
our cattle should there?” It’s always
Moses’ fault now. [6] “So Moses and
Aaron went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the tabernacle of
the congregation, and they fell upon their faces; [and the glory of the LORD
appeared unto them.]”
[7]
“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, [8] Take the rod, and gather the assembly
together,” and God tells him how to solve his problem. So there’s specific concrete instructions
given how to solve his frustration. So
verse 9, “Moses took the rod [from before the LORD, as He commanded him.] [10] “And Moses and Aaron gathered the
congregation,” and now he really flips; here he begins to chew out the
congregation and here he does not follow the instructions of verse 8. The instructions of verse 8 was a carefully
rehearsed miracle that would picture the Lord Jesus Christ dying for our sin
because what he was supposed to do was hit the rock once, Christ was crucified
once and out of this comes the water; it was to be a typological picture of
Jesus Christ. So Moses gets his stick,
he comes out there and he says, “now look, your rebels, must we fetch you water
out of this rock? [11] And Moses lifted
up his hand and with his rod he smote the rock twice, and the water came out
abundantly,” but for that Moses was denied permission to come into the
land. He broke a typological picture of
the saving work of Jesus Christ by a fit of anger. He lost his cool. Now frankly, I can identify very easily
with Moses in this situation, very easily.
But look at the harshness of God.
By the
way, also look at something else; next time someone comes to you with some
unbiblical technique and argues, but it produces results, verse 11 is your
classic reference. That was totally wrong but it produced results; didn’t the
water flow out abundantly? You bet. Did it flow out just as abundantly? You bet.
Was it God’s will to do it that way?
No! So you cannot argue, this is
a grace fallacy, you cannot argue because something is successful, therefore
it’s blessed of God. Now way; Scripture
is the standard, not pragmatism, the standard of truth, not experience.
So this
gives you a little bit of a profile of Moses.
Let’s look at the end chapter in his life, Deuteronomy 34:10, the
frustrations, the man who lacked courage, the man who complained that God had
loaded him with more responsibility than he could bear, but every time, by the
way, he did complain God did give him an answer; 1 Corinthians 10:13, that
we’ll never face a trial for which God has not made ample provision. Deuteronomy 34:10, here’s God’s evaluation of
this man. “There arose not a prophet
since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.” Here’s God’s answer; yeah, the guy wasn’t
perfect, yeah, he blew it, yeah he disobeyed the word of God, but he was a good
man, fantastic in the plan of God.
There’s
one concluding reference that ties all of Moses’ life together and we’re going
to conclude with this reference because this acts as kind of a model or vehicle
for Christian decision making.
Turn to
Hebrews 11:24-27. This summarizes Moses
from the standpoint of the Holy Spirit.
And this gives you the heart of every basic decision Christian men have
to make. “By faith,” and the faith
spoken of in Hebrews is a faith in the full orbed framework of God, that’s
verses 1-3. Verses 1-3 of this chapter
set up and define for you what the faith is; it’s faith in the sovereign plan
of God for history; it is not just some little naïve faith; it is to be a full
orbed faith, a mature faith. “By faith
Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,”
that’s a rejection of the tremendous… he could have justified it and said well, gosh, you know,
if I stayed here and stayed in the system, couldn’t I help our people? Sure, I’m in line for the throne and if I
just sit on the throne here God, surely I can work that way, I don’t need to be
some radical nut going out into the desert.
It wasn’t God’s way. So, he
“refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,” that’s royalty, he gave
up the claim of the royal family.
[25]
“He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the
pleasures of sin for a season. [26]
Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt;
for he had respect unto the recompense of reward. [27] By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing
the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible,” notice
the last part of verse 27, that’s Moses’ secret; that’s when he did succeed,
that’s why he succeeded; his mental attitude was occupied with Jesus
Christ. He pinned everything on the
sovereign plan of God. That’s what
enabled him to take as much pressure as he did, and I don’t think there’s ever
been a world leader since Moses that has done what Moses has done. You think of it, review in your mind the
centuries of history. Can you think of
another man who led two million people out into that kind of a wilderness,
built of two million people a nation that still stands today after four
thousand years? Can you think of a man
who gave the world its basic codex of law; a codex that was so lofty in its
standards that people have borrowed from it all the way down to modern day from
the Mosaic Code, unexcelled for its wisdom, and the man who established the
means for applying that Law to that new country.
You
talk about a man who was great in history, you’ve got one right here. But Hebrews gives you his heart; why he was
great wasn’t because he was that strong man who used karate on an Egyptian; it
wasn’t because he was the great hero who came in shining armor to rescue
damsels in distress at the well. It wasn’t
any of that; yes, he had those
capabilities. And it wasn’t the man who
had all the high education of the Egyptian court, the great General of the
Egyptian army? It was the man who for
forty years watched sheep grazing on those hills, and all the while he watched
them, like Joseph, same thing, in prison for two years, here’s Moses kind of in
a prison for forty, constantly [can’t understand word] doctrine over and over
and over and over and over and then his time came, and then he produced.
You
see, the time span that it takes to make a mature man in Scripture? That’s why, guys, you have to be patient; I
have to say this to myself, to be patient.
God cannot sanctify us overnight; God has to take many, many years to do
it and many hard experiences. There is
no magic. All the devotional books
you’ve read, going down to the Christian bookstore, the secret to this and the
secret to that and pouring water in your tub at seventy degrees and let your
mouth flap at both ends and all the rest of the cheap gimmicks that are offered
for instant sanctification, all that you don’t see, not the great men of
Scripture. It’s the unglamorous jail for
two years, the wilderness for forty, Jacob working under Laban
so that he freezes at night and almost dies of thirst in the daytime. That’s the crucible that made the great men
of Scripture.