2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
As we continue to examine covenant truths, we can now take another look at the extension of the Abrahamic covenant as it applied to Moses. We can see the continuity in the handing down of the covenant from one generation to the next, spreading both the privilege and the balancing responsibility of a covenant relationship with God through the Jewish population. We all know the story of how Moses was born to Jocabed and Amram, two Hebrew slaves in Egypt at the time when the pharaoh’s way of dealing with the increasing Jewish population was to put out an order that all Hebrew baby boys should be exterminated by throwing them in the Nile and allowing them to drown. The girls would be allowed to live [EX 1: 22]. Moses was born when the family already had two older siblings, Miriam and Aaron. God must have been disgusted with the pharaoh’s plan, because His hand was heavily in the familiar events that followed Moses’ birth. His will was not to be thwarted. Miriam couldn’t have known at her tender age that her protection of Moses after Jocabed cast the infant into the Nile in a water-proofed basket would lead to the eventual liberation of the Hebrews from the yoke of Egyptian slavery. Yet she carried out her role with aplomb. An awesome God put it in her mind to lead the pharaoh’s daughter in search of a wet-nurse to Jocabed, thus giving Jocabed a hand in her own son’s upbringing. How else would Moses have known and come to respect his own Hebrew roots [EX 2: 5-10]? Note how God was using Miriam in this story and His keeping of His covenant commitment of protection not only of Moses, but of the Jewish people. His will would be done.
The conscience that Moses felt regarding the cruelty he saw in the treatment of the Hebrew slaves had to have come from God through Jocabed. That is what made Moses willing to leave the lap of the luxury of the Egyptian palace where he had grown up and to go to the extreme of murdering an Egyptian man killing a Hebrew slave [EX 2: 11-12]. God’s plan was surely in motion, as Moses left Egypt for Midian. Moses’ life can be divided into three segments of 40 years each. The first segment ended with his departure for Midean at the age of 40. His time in Midian, the next 40 years, was a time of relative peace and an opportunity to establish a family with the daughter of a priest, Jethro, named Zipporah. They would have son, Gershon, whose name means “a resident alien there” [GN 2: 22]. We can see God’s hand all over Moses’ recognition of his civil status when he said to himself in (22), “I am a foreigner in this land, so I name him Gershon.” I can’t help but see the pattern here, as we consider ourselves today as “tent-dwellers” on earth as Christ prepares mansions for us in our permanent home in heaven [JN 14:2].
The third segment of Moses’ life is, of course, the most famous. He was 80 years old when God called him to lead His liberation of the Jewish people from slavery. We must go back to GN 15: 13 to see how consistently God was executing on His covenant promises. “The Lord said to him [Abram], ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land; they will be slaves there and will be treated cruelly there for four hundred years.” Just as we often feel inadequate to the task when God calls us to something new, so Moses felt. Moses was obedient though; and in his story, God is giving us one more example of what we should accept an assignment, even a God-sized one that we don’t fully understand and/or that seems come at an inconvenient time for us. Moses could have just as easily taking the human, easy way out, expressing his refusal to leave a comfortable family life and giving in to his belief that because he was a poor speaker, he couldn’t do the task with which God was commissioning him. That is the way of the flesh. But, Moses obeyed, giving us the lesson that if we accept God’s assignments for us, He will equip us to carry them out. I assure you that Moses had no idea when he finally agreed to lead the Hebrews from slavery that 1) he could do this job successfully, or 2) that it would have such far-reaching implications for God’s overall purpose of giving His children the Law or continuing the line out of which the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would come. That should make us take a second look at our willingness to obey God’s commands when they come to us with an eye toward forging ahead with them.
We must not forget the compassion that God shows while He keeps His covenant agreements. This is brought forward in EX 2: 23-25, “Years later the pharaoh of Egypt died, but the Israelites were still groaning under their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry went up to God, Who heard their groaning and remembered the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He saw the slavery of the Israelites and was concerned for them.” When we groan under the pain of spiritual or physical warfare, God hears our groans too. His is a consistent and loving Abba. RO 8: 26, “In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit Himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express.” When our Deity takes the time to care about us in this way, He surely deserves the same consideration and God-centered lives from us.
PRAYER: O Lord, how deep is Your love for us. You have watched over our lives and reached Your gentle hand into them when we face danger. It was against Your will that Your promise to the Hebrews of liberation should be prevented from consummation. That is why You saw to it that Miriam had the power to guide the care of her little brother the way she did. You saw to it that Moses was not only physically safe, but that he was raised with a conscience for his own real people, the Hebrews. While Moses had no idea of the huge, God-sized task You would have him do and never had reason to feel he could do it when You finally called him to it, You showed him and all of us that You equip us to carry out Your commands. The really pivotal issue for Moses and all of us is willingness to listen to what You say and to obey Your commands. We enter Your temple today and offer our profound gratitude for all that You are in our lives and the blessings which You keep giving us. Words cannot adequately express the adoration we feel for You. We feel privileged to spend the rest of eternity worshipping You. The sacrifice of Your Son on the cross, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the opportunity of eternal joy and fellowship with You unavailable from any other source but You. We confess our spiritual poverty without You and acknowledge our urgent desire to keep our covenant agreements with You. Our loyalty and diligence in doing so matters to You and to us. You deserve the honor and glory that is rightly Yours that come to us because of how You have equipped us. We offer You praise and thanks at Your altar, acknowledging our total dependence on You. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, we will look at the system that God establishes to carry out His promise in GN 12: 3 that, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” In liberating them from Egyptian slavery and giving the Jews the Law, our Abba was executing more of His covenant promises. No matter where we are or what we are doing, the Lord is right there with us. That means that He is there to guide, direct, help, encourage, protect, provide for, convict, exact judgment with fairness, and love us every minute of our lives. It makes facing whatever challenges come our way possible and is the reason He directed Paul to tell us in PHIL 4: 13, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” Bask in the warm glow of His love and know that Peter and I send you ours too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn