WHEN, at the age of forty, Moses left Pharaoh’s house, he was full of earnest desire to see his people set free from their terrible bondage; and, in the prime of manhood’s strength and vigor, he felt that God would deliver them by his hand. But the time had not then come. Moses must learn that the power is of God, and that he can do nothing in his own strength. And God takes His own time and way to teach him. The adopted son of the king’s house becomes a shepherd, and for forty years lives a life of seclusion in the desert land of Midian. Thus exiled from the busy haunts of men, and with ample opportunity to commune with God, he learns in God’s school.
When at last God speaks to him from the burning bush, telling him that he is going to send him to deliver Israel, timid and shrinking, he fears to go. “Who am I,” he said, “that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
What a change has come about! Now Moses distrusts himself; he is not, as forty years before, ready to go forward in his own strength. But God graciously assured Moses that He would be with him. This should have been enough for Moses. Yes, and it should be enough for any child of God, no matter what the circumstances, to know that God will be with him. What then could he fear? “If God be for us, who can be against us?”
Not only did God tell Moses that He would certainly be with him, but He also told him how he might know that He had sent him. It was in this way; that when he had brought the people out of Egypt, they should serve God upon Mount Horeb, where He then talked with him.
Moses was to tell the children of Israel that it was the same God, who had been with their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who had sent him to them. And he was to gather the elders of Israel together, and tell them that the God of their fathers had appeared to him, and He was going to bring them up out of the affliction of Egypt, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. And God told Moses that these elders would heed what he told them; and they and Moses were to go to the king of Egypt, and tell him that the Lord God of the Hebrews had met them, and then they were to ask him to allow them to go a three days journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord their God.
This the king would not be willing to do, God told Moses; but He said He would stretch out His hand and show His mighty power, and after that he would let them go.
In this venerable manner, Moses was called to undertake the great work that was before him; and thus assured of God’s presence and help, he should have gone forward without a question. The difficulties of the undertaking were great, but God was greater.
ML 08/17/1902