One great principle in all true service is the consciousness of being upheld in it by God. It was thus with the perfect servant, the Lord Jesus Christ. “Behold My servant, whom I uphold; Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth” (Isa. 42:11Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. (Isaiah 42:1)). The great feature in His service was that He never acted of Himself. “I can of Mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and My judgment is just; because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me” (John 5:3030I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. (John 5:30)). The moment a servant acts independently, he acts from himself and out of character.
Whenever we are living before men instead of before God, there will be restlessness and disquiet. There may be the desire to do many things that are written in the Word, but they will not be done in quiet and peaceful joy. We are never really preserved from hypocrisy unless we are living before God. It is the very best possible cure for the presumptuous conceit that is present by nature in all of us.
Let us look a little at Moses’ experience. The life of Moses is divided into three distinct periods of forty years each. Most of his first forty years were spent in Egypt as the “son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”
The next forty years were spent in the wilderness tending the flock of his father-in-law. There, at the mount of God, he had a vision of glory such as never could have been revealed to him in Egypt.
In the last forty years we have the account of the laborious and trying course he had to run, as the servant of God and his people Israel, in bearing the burden of that people.
Moses in Egypt
The first portion of his life was spent in Egypt. Stephen speaks of him as being “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds” (Acts 7:2222And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. (Acts 7:22)). But this wisdom of Egypt was insufficient to deliver Israel. Doubtless, Moses knew that God was about to use him as the “deliverer” of His people, but that which had been acquired in Egypt could not deliver the Lord’s people from Egypt.
“When he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel” (Acts 7:2323And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. (Acts 7:23)). Whatever ease and comfort Moses might have enjoyed in Pharaoh’s house, his heart yearned over his brethren. He went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens. “Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian” (Acts 7:2424And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: (Acts 7:24)). Moses was “mighty in ... deeds,” on behalf, too, of the people of God, but acting in the energy of the flesh, not as sent of God; he was thinking of how Moses was to deliver the people. As a result, “he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them,” but “they understood not” (Acts 7:2525For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not. (Acts 7:25)). Moses had to learn that God would be served only by the power and strength that come from Himself, not by the strength or wisdom of Egypt.
The Land of Midian
When Moses had spent forty years in the wilderness, doing as it were nothing, we find him answering God’s message, “Come now therefore, and I will send thee,” with the words, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Ex. 3). And it is ever thus. When a saint feels that he is sent of God on any mission, there is always the deepest prostration of spirit. The end of God’s training is to break down self-confidence, so that when at last the person goes forth in service, it is with the feeling, “Who am I?” One great characteristic of the flesh we acquire by being so long in “Egypt” is the reluctance to say, “Who am I?” But God must produce this frame of mind before He uses us. The most cultivated understanding, human wisdom and research will not stand up in the service of God.
Many a saint runs on for a while (just after his conversion, perhaps) in the eagerness and zeal of the flesh, doing right things, but not in the spirit of dependence on God; by and by his energy flags and he feels as though he were entirely useless, as though God could never again employ him in His service. Now this is a profitable lesson, though a deeply humbling one. The Lord often trains an individual thus for much usefulness in the church afterwards. Just so was it with Moses.
Alone With God
During the next forty years Moses is lost to Egypt and to Israel, but then he is alone with God. It is in solitude that God chiefly teaches His people. The blessed Lord sought for refreshment on this earth in being alone with God. And this is the place where the saint learns his own weakness and God’s strength. He enters into the depths of his own evil, but also into the depths of God’s grace. He learns to deny self, to subdue imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. He proves the necessity of the cross.
One preparation had been forty years passed in solitude in secret training with God in the wilderness, but there was another thing needful — the manifestation of God’s glory.
The Glory of God
“When forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush” (Acts 7:3030And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. (Acts 7:30)). “The bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed” (Ex. 3:22And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. (Exodus 3:2)). There had never been a thing like this seen in Egypt. But unless we have wisdom to understand why the bush was not consumed, we have not the real wisdom of God. It is impossible in Egypt to see the glory of the living God. What a marvelous thing that there should be a little weak bush, as it were, on this earth, with everything against it, and yet nothing able to prevail.
What must Moses’ thoughts have been respecting all the glory of Egypt when he turned aside to see this “great sight”? And what would ours be, beloved, with regard to the world, were the eye always and steadily fixed on the glory? When Moses was engaged in solitarily feeding the flock in the wilderness, there might have been some longings after the glory of Egypt, but these must have ceased when he had this manifestation made to him of the glory of God, “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
So it is with ourselves. When we think of the true glory of the church, we are able to look at the glory of “Egypt” and feel ourselves weaned from it, as well as weaned from the wisdom and power of “Egypt.” But if our souls are only looking at their own weakness, we shall very likely be tempted to long after “Egypt” and the things of “Egypt.” Very often there may be busy activity in service, but not the quiet sitting at the feet of Jesus, drinking in from His lips our knowledge of truth and grace.
Mark what follows: “Now come, I will send thee into Egypt. This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush” (Acts 7:34-3534I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt. 35This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush. (Acts 7:34‑35)). But God must bring Moses out of Egypt first; He could not make such a communication to him there. When we get into the world, it is the same thing; communion is interrupted.
“Moses said unto God, Who am I?” (Ex. 3). After he had worshipped God as an unshod worshipper, there was a shrinking from that which God had laid on him, though, forty years before, he had been most eager to enter upon the same sort of service. It is a most solemn thing to have to do with the people of God. The responsibility involved is that under which we must sink if left to ourselves.
Dealing With Shame
and Dishonor
Moses now knew that he that would serve Israel must have a great deal of shame and dishonor to encounter. Hence the need of the training through which he had been put. So it is with service in the church. If Paul is a “chosen vessel,” the Lord in making this known to Ananias says, “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake” (Acts 9:15-1615But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: 16For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. (Acts 9:15‑16)). And what was Paul’s after experience? “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches”; again, “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved” (2 Cor. 12:10,15).
Paul had the flesh crushed at the outset, crushed again after he had been taken up into the third heaven, crushed all the way through. He never went on, in service, in the energy of the flesh, but as one who knew that it must be endurance to the very end.
How often does a young Christian think, I will tell others of the Lord’s love, and they must believe me, or, I will tell Christians of the security of the church, of the coming of the Lord, of the heavenly calling of the saints, and the like, and they must receive it. But no! We need to learn that we cannot carry everything before us. Where there is the most ascertained mission from God, there is always the deepest humility. Paul, in speaking of his arduous service, says, “I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor. 15:10).
Fellowship With God
The preparation for active service is in secret with God, in learning ourselves in communion with Him. It is there that the battle is really fought. Power for active service is not acquired in active service, but in fellowship with God in secret. Whatever we do in service, we ought to do as worshippers. Our service would then be carried on in felt responsibility to God, and it would bring blessing to others and to our own souls.
There would be much more profitable, happy, useful service if we only saw more of God’s order. One delights to see activity in service, but then it should be connected with the being in secret with God and the seeing His purpose with regard to the church. Thus we should serve happily and holily, not as though God needed our service, but as desiring to glorify Him in our bodies which are His.
Adapted from Christian Truth