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.