(I want to listen to this sermon)

Reading Ex.3:10-4:17

There are many positions of influence and prestige in the world today. Some of our successful celebrities are very happy to accept the honour of becoming a special representative or ambassador for high profile organisations such as UNICEF (UN Children's Fund), Dr Barnado's, or the NSPCC.

If giving of one's time and reputation to serving such organisations appears many to be worthwhile then you think that a call to serve not a human organisation but the Living God Himself would be seen as an even greater honour. However this is not always the case.

Moses was called to serve the LORD God – we looked at his call last week – but he wasn't exactly thrilled to receive this call and responded to it with a sequence of excuses.

It is those excuses that we will consider this evening. We may find that the reservations Moses had about responding to God's call characterise us as well.

Firstly we need to be clear: there was nothing at all uncertain about the call Moses received. He understood just what the LORD was calling him to do. Listen again to that call:

Ex.3:10 "Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt."

Moses brings forward five different excuses one after the other. Let's turn to them and also to how the LORD responded to each excuse.

Moses first excuse is all about identity and personal worth issues.

Ex.3:11 "But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?"

Over the years quite a change has taken place in Moses' life. There had been a time when he really fancied himself and when he would have been very happy to see himself as God's answer to the problems of the world but not now. He had lived for 40 years in the obscurity of a Midianite wilderness and the quiet life was the life for him now.

So he pleads the fact that he is a nobody. Doesn't the task in hand require the services of a more high profile character, of a more well-known person? Surely God should be looking elsewhere for the ideal candidate to deliver His people?

It is interesting to note that the LORD in His reply doesn't address the question of Moses' identity head-on. In our own world we're more than likely to begin tackling the matter by putting it down to psychological weaknesses in Moses make-up. He is short on self-esteem therefore we need to bolster that and to try to make him see that he really is of value in himself.

But the LORD's way is different from all that. Moses' self-esteem is irrelevant. The success of the mission will never depend upon the psychological strength of the human leader himself. No matter how strong that man might be he would never by his own efforts be apt for the task. But that really is not a problem at all! Why? Because the LORD Himself promises to be with Moses:

Ex.3:12 "But I will be with you…"

How slow we are to appreciate all of this. We like to focus upon the man and his qualities and abilities but the work to which God was calling Moses was spiritual work:

Ps.127:1 "Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain."

Moses had to learn what really mattered.

Jesus was later to teach His disciples this very same lesson:

Jn.15:5 "apart from me you can do nothing."

Paul was to turn it around and express it this way:

Phil.4:13 "I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

Many centuries before Paul David stated the same truth in poetic form in the Psalms:

Ps.18:29 "For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall."

Moses second excuse is that he doesn't know what to say:

Ex.3:13 "Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?"

We can all be tempted to hide behind this excuse I think. None of us knows all there is to know and we can all imagine complicated scenarios when we will quickly be out of our depth because of our lack of knowledge, because of a certain degree of ignorance.

On the one hand it is good not to be cock-sure of ourselves. But the LORD is well able to help us!

Moses objected that were the people to question to question him in a certain way he wouldn't be able to answer them. So what does the LORD do? He tells Moses what he is to say!

In fact He tells a whole lot more than that as His answer to Moses' second excuse runs from v.14 through until the end of the chapter. In fact the LORD probably told Moses a whole lot more than Moses actually wanted to hear at this particular point in time!

Let's quickly highlight what the LORD did tell him:

·       Firstly Moses specific question is addressed as the LORD identifies Himself as the God their ancestors had served. The LORD then proceeds to grant him a fuller and more complete revelation of who He is, this is a fuller picture than any that had been granted up to that time!

·       It is this God who is sending Moses to His people.

·       And this God knows the conditions in which His people are living.

·       More than that this God has determined to do something about their sufferings. He has determined not merely to deliver His people from their afflictions but He has also determined to bring them into a new land, a rich and prosperous land that "flows with milk and honey".

·       And yes, this God knows that this promised land is currently occupied by various peoples – He knows what lies ahead and knows what He is doing.

·       He tells Moses that the people will listen to him.

·       He tells him something that Moses was not too enthralled to hear. He tells Moses that Pharaoh won't heed him.

·       But this refusal is no problem to the LORD either. The LORD knows and won't be caught out by Pharaoh's hostility rather Pharaoh's stubborn refusal provides the LORD with the perfect stage upon which to demonstrate His mighty wonders.

·       Pharaoh will eventually allow the people to leave and when they do leave it will be with a favourable departure – enriched by gifts from the Egyptians.

As Moses' pleads ignorance it seems as though the LORD delights to grant him a measure of understanding.

How should we deal with our ignorance? Well the answer from Moses' life is that it is totally inappropriate to imagine we're side-lined or unusable! Moses told the LORD and the LORD set about removing Moses ignorance!

We read in the NT how we are to proceed if we find ourselves in such a condition:

Ja.1:5 "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him."

If we are conscious that we are short on understanding then that calls for action not inaction! Jesus promised His apostles that when the Spirit of Truth would come part of His work would be to guide them into all truth. As a result of His ministry with the apostles we now are in possession of a completed Bible which we should prayerfully read and hear, trusting the LORD to teach us. Moses wasn't suddenly given a full and complete understanding of every spiritual truth imaginable but he certainly was given ample at this time to get going in the ministry to which God had called him.

If Moses' excuses have been in some ways justifiable up till now from here on in they take on an ever more negative appearance:

Ex.4:1 "Then Moses answered "But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice…"

The LORD had just told Moses that they would listen to him but Moses is far from being convinced! I reckon that doubt holds many of us back too from simply doing what the LORD tells us to do. We can get so worried about the results but Moses task was not to worry about the results but to get on with what he had been instructed to do.

But how gracious the LORD is with His weak servants! Moses here is granted the ability to perform not one, not two, but three miraculous signs.

1.       Moses' staff turns into a stick

2.       Moses' hand becomes leprous then clean again

3.       Water from the Nile turns to blood.

We should notice too how the LORD accommodates Himself to Moses' weakness and lack of faith. He knew the people would believe but He speaks in terms of possibilities rather than certainties:

Ex.4:8-9 "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.”"

The combination of these signs was designed by the LORD to convince the people that Moses was indeed sent to them as the representative of the LORD.

Having failed to convince the LORD by his excuses thus far Moses tries yet another excuse:

Ex.4:10 "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.”"

Well this could sound like a reasonable thing to say. After all if Moses is being called to the role of a public speaker then surely it is important that he be able to speak well? And Moses says now that he isn't a natural.

I don't know about you but I'm not convinced that Moses is being all that truthful here. I know his education had taken place many years before and that he had effectively lived out in the sticks for the last 40 years but he had been a fine student in his younger days. Stephen described him in glowing terms in Acts 7:

Acts 7:22 "And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds."

That doesn't strike me as a description of a poor hesitant speaker!

Once again the LORD's reply to Moses is gracious. Do you understand what Moses has done? Moses has effectively told the LORD that He has made a mistake in calling him because of his personal limitations!

The LORD's reply reminds Moses that He knows just what He is doing.

Ex.4:11 "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?"

I know what you're like Moses – I'm the one who made you!

But the issue is not really that of eloquence or fluency of speech at all! The world might value form over substance but that is not the LORD's priority!

Have we understood that?

Paul wrote about it when he wrote to the Christians in Corinth:

1Cor.2:1-4 "And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

Moses didn't need to be transformed into a super orator without the slightest hint of a speech impediment – no the vital element did not lay there. The important thing was that the LORD would be with Moses and tell him what to say!

How easy it is for us to focus on our abilities or upon our lack of ability when really what we should be concerned about is the presence of the LORD with us. If we have Him and His truth that is what counts. Indeed if we place our trust anywhere else we may well rob the LORD of His rightful honour and glory.

1Cor. 1:17 For Christ sent me "to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

The only commendable thing about this last desperate excuse of Moses is its brutal honesty. And yet the LORD is far from being impressed by it – indeed He is provoked to anger against Moses!

I wonder whether the excuses we put forward for not responding to the LORD's calls are no more than smokescreens to hide this real underlying lack of desire to serve Him. Repentance would be the order of the day if that were the case!

But Moses finds out that even with this excuse the LORD refuses to change His mind. Moses' reluctance is no defence at all.

Once more the LORD shows Himself gracious towards Moses and gives him his brother Aaron as a colleague in the work – but Moses will do what the LORD wants him to! How gracious too to persevere with such a reluctant servant – Moses renown lives on in history because God did not give up on him and let him continue drifting in Midianite obscurity!

If we were to look ahead in the story we would find that when both Moses and Aaron spoke and performed the signs given to them the people did believe them – as the LORD had said they would. What's more the people responded in praise and worship of their Almighty God.

How sad that Moses made up excuse after excuse for not serving the LORD who had called Him. How sad if we do not learn from these things which have been written down for our instruction.

Moses spent the first 40 years of his life thinking he was somebody special. He then spent the next 40 years realizing that he was a nobody.

He was about to enter upon the last 40 years of his life when he would discover just what the LORD God can do with a nobody.

May our experience not be completely dissimilar to that of Moses!

Amen.