“Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt.” Exodus 3:10
“High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. They learn how to make decisions, but not what decisions to make.” Henry Kissinger[1]
Moses was an expert on why he wasn’t cut out for the job. He thought he was in a job interview and was negotiating for a better deal, but haggling with the Holy always fails. His self-doubt was only matched by his hubris. Get a load of his excuse for not immediately jumping at the chance to be a hero.
But Moses protested, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” Exodus 3:13 NLT.
Moses’ fear formed his reasoning, so he protested with this logic: Listen, God, these are a difficult people. The elders of Israel aren’t going to remember much about you and what you promised a long time ago. They are not going to believe me. It has been 400 years, and ancient history isn’t taught in the schools anymore. You might want to update your message and make it a bit more believable. Most of these people don’t know about the founders of an ancient religion.” [2]
God is wild, woolly, jealous, yet patient. Moses has his head in the mouth of a lion, he just doesn’t know it yet. God takes a deep breath, the same life he breathed into man in the first place, and explains himself.
“I AM WHO I AM” or “I Will Be What I Will Be.” Just tell them “I AM” sent you to them. Yahweh,” if you like. [3] God adds, “This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations. “Now go and call together all the elders of Israel.”
God even writes the message for Moses. He gives him the script, but as always, God insists that a human deliver the message since it is intended for humans. This might provide a clue as to the reason behind the God/Man Jesus. If there is something harder than going, it is to go with elders. Generally, elders are old, set in their ways, ask many questions, and know history, especially the history of Moses.
Who is watching us?
I have always thought it silly to think that a person in heaven can see or know what is happening on earth. It wouldn’t be heaven if my grandmother could watch what I am doing. Frankly, I would be embarrassed for her to see me daily because she would be pursing her lips at my stupidity. At the same time, however, the idea that no one is watching me is even more frightening, a true horror. I can’t bear to think we are alone on this spinning ball—no one cares, no hope for more, no justice to look forward to, no one to hug at the end of the road. I’m not Nietzsche’s Superman, I don’t have that much “will to power” to live as though God is dead. I can’t do it! I have no desire to bathe in his blood.
God says what we all want to hear: “I have been watching closely, and I see how the Egyptians are treating you.” The updated version might say, “I’ve noted how the Nazi’s treated you, I’ve seen the piles of bodies, I’ve heard the screams and smelled the smoke from the ovens. Just knowing that God has been watching for 400 years and then thinking of the Jewish diaspora of 2400 years before the second birth of Israel leads any self-respecting Jew to protest, “Hey, wait a minute, God, you mean you have been watching all this and have done nothing?” Many a Jew has not forgiven God, and there are many secularist and atheistic Jews for this very reason. But those hardened hearts in many cases are present to avoid disappointment and to protect from pain. In the end, I think those hearts will soften. [4]
God tells his people that he will keep his promises, and that they will leave Egypt and go to the land that flows with milk and honey. Along with this message, he gives Moses a strategy with tactics and a bit of deception. He even tells Moses all this will work in the end—you will succeed, I’m your failsafe. The elders will believe you, so much so that you, along with them, will go to Pharaoh and ask for a Jewish holiday—a three-day weekend at The Jackal’s Resort and Spa in the desert. Jews wanting to vacation in the desert is a stretch, and Pharaoh will not believe it, but in the end, he will let you go. I will take care of that, but for you, Moses, the operative word is GO!
Spoils with Interest “Don’t leave empty-handed.” NLT 3:21
To make things a bit more tasty, take everything except prisoners. I made the Egyptians a clever people, and they have plenty of accumulated stuff, so take it.
“Every Israelite woman will ask for articles of silver and gold and fine clothing from her Egyptian neighbors and from the foreign women in their houses. You will dress your sons and daughters with these, stripping the Egyptians of their wealth.” Exodus 3:22 NLT.
This is an easy ask. God has just ordered Jewish women go next door and grab the good stuff. They are to ask, and in one of the greatest miracles of all time, the Egyptian women give their most prized jewelry and clothing to the slave class. The Egyptian women were so distraught that they threw out their best like a Saturday morning garage sale. They had had enough of the frogs, locusts, blood in the water, and the loss of their sons. They were desperate—just GO—get out of our country.
This may be one of the many reasons poor Egyptians wrangle about the Jews. They live in that tiny strip of land just north, in the lap of luxury, power, and wealth. Egypt is left with crumbling pyramids and bad leaders not named Pharaoh. Now, before you and I start laughing out loud at Moses, let’s review the bidding.
The only thing Moses has done so far is protest. Protest one: “I’m not qualified.” Protest two, “They won’t remember you and probably won’t remember me after forty years.” The implication is that people are accustomed to slavery after 150 years and probably won’t want to leave. They live at an acceptable level of not having much, not enjoying life much, and not hoping for much. We prefer the devil we know, not the one we will meet in the desert wilderness. They hadn’t bothered to look down at their feet and notice they were already in the desert. It was just the Egyptian desert. Maybe God would need to make matters worse before they put their houses up for sale.
Moses has a convincing case. You might laugh, but it is at least as good as the excuses we use NOT TO GO. Let’s begin with I’m not qualified, people won’t believe me or do anything, so my efforts will be futile.
Our Burning Bush
Is God real enough to you to get you moving? Church attendance is down in some prosperous societies and up in the developing world, where the participle, developing, is usually about economics and GNP rather than morality. The church attendance is up in those countries precisely because the common people cannot acquire wealth. The political elites have stolen the wealth, so the people turn to God for help. Attendance in the “West” is down because wealth has provided a buffer zone, a cushion from poverty and inadequate health care. Where attendance is up, corrupt leaders fly to Geneva, London, or Paris to see a medical doctor. Where it is down, you are surrounded by disillusioned physicians and a system where they compete for your business.
Those who attend church listen to sermons, stories, homilies, conversations, or opinions weekly. Those who do not attend services can find whatever they want online. It will take more of an event, a burning bush in our life, to get our attention from the din of words coming at us every day. Let’s say you have a moment when God breaks through and has your attention. Like Moses, you thought you might get away with it. It, meaning a nominal Christian experience. It’s good enough to cover your bases and give you a place in the heavenlies, but not too much where you would need to put it all on the line. God says, “Go,” and you think it’s a negotiation. It’s not! Either you are in or you are out. Either you go or you don’t go. If you go, it will be exciting, wonderful, hard, dangerous, and will cost you everything. If you don’t go, it will be a life of what might have been. A life dominated by spiritual defeat, of missing the point, of deep regret. A life where you keep asking God for help and direction, and he stops talking to you because he has already given you the answers, but you have rejected him and them. So, you wander and drift, going to conferences, grabbing for the latest insight from your favorite guru.
In the end, Moses got up and moved. He was a tough case, but so are you. He was an expert on why he couldn’t go. God did not give up on him; in fact, God went far out of his way to get him moving. Here is what you should do! Stand up. Look down at your feet. Moses looked down and saw the sand of the Negev, one of the loneliest places on earth, and he took one step on that good earth toward Egypt. Then another, and another, and pretty soon he had momentum; he found himself going. That is what you do: stand up, start moving, it’s all out there for you.
Bill Hull
[1] Kissinger, Niall Ferguson. Volume 1, 1923-1968. Penguin Books, page 26.
[2] Ask a college student about the signers of the Declaration of Independence, to name the first President of the United States, or who we fought in the Revolutionary War, the Great War, the Second World War, and you will find their ignorance appalling. It has only been 250 years, so what could they think after another 150 years? I suppose their knowledge of the history of religion would be even worse.
[3] Yahweh is the transliteration of YHWH or “The Lord.” Sometimes Jehovah in some English translations. NLT footnote page 48/ Exodus 3:18.
[4] Romans 11:25-36
Book available from Amazon in paperback, kindle, digital
