Exodus 4

Moses was deeply concerned that the Lord had made a mistake. As he considered his own gifts and abilities he was sure that he was not the right man for the job of confronting Pharaoh and delivering the people of Israel out of their bondage.

He was honest enough before the Lord to express his specific concern. His objection had to do with the unbelief of the people. He said, “They will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’”

God uses what we have and adds His power and purpose to the task before us. He asks Moses, “What is that in your hand?” What do you have in your hand? The Lord uses His people in the fulfillment of His eternal purpose. Every member within the body of Christ is there for a reason. No one is safely ignored. See Ephesians 4:16.

God is able to use that staff of Moses to do great things. That is not because Moses is inherently a worker of miracles. It is because God can take the ordinary and use it to produce the extraordinary.

The staff will become a serpent, and then a staff again, “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” If that is not enough, Moses' hand will become leprous, and then it will be clean again. God is the Lord of life and death. If those two signs are not enough for the people of Israel, God will use Moses to pour water from the Nile on the dry ground, and the Lord will turn that water into blood. God is answering their cry for help. He will bring judgment upon the land of Egypt, and He will rescue them.

Moses continues to insist upon his own inadequacy. He is not eloquent. But what about God? Isn't God adequate? God the Creator of every human being can use people for His purposes as He sees fit. He is the Lord. He says to Moses, “I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

Amazingly, Moses still objects. He says, “Please send someone else.” He is strongly resisting God, and the Lord is very angry with him. Yet God does not turn away from Moses. He accommodates the weakness of the man he has chosen. Another man, Aaron, will make up for what Moses lacks. Moses will be like God, and Aaron will be his prophet, his mouth.

Moses will take his leave now from the land of Midian and his father-in-law. He is sent off in peace by Jethro, and receives the Lord's assurance that the people who were seeking his life in Egypt are now dead.

Moses goes with his wife and his two sons. He has his small family, riding on a donkey, and his staff, which in now called “the staff of God.” He is going to present himself to the hundreds of thousands of Hebrews in Egypt as God's man for this moment. He will demonstrate the signs of divine approval before them. And he will go before one of the most powerful leaders in the world and demand, in the name of God, that this man and nation let the Lord's people go, that they might worship their great God, I-AM. He goes with the Lord's instruction to show the miracles of God to Pharaoh, but with God's certainty that Pharaoh will not let the people go.

God tells Moses what to say to Pharaoh: “Thus says the Lord.” The message will come through the voice of a man, but it is the Word of God. “Israel is my firstborn son.” God is the Father of His people. Who will dare to challenge Him by abusing His Son? “Let my son go that he may serve me.” Israel, the son of God, has a job to do. He must serve his Father. “If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.” This is the sober warning that God will speak to Pharaoh.

But Moses and His family must first arrive in Egypt alive. Along the way, the Lord met Moses, and we are told that He “sought to put him to death.” Deliverance came through Zipporah. She knew what the issue was. Someone was uncircumcised. God had given this ordinance centuries before to Abraham, and the Lord was ready to kill Moses for neglecting to mark his son according to that command. Zipporah cuts off her son's foreskin and touches Moses' feet with the blood of this foreskin. He is marked with blood, and he will live.

Meanwhile, the Lord directs Aaron to the mountain of God, where he meets Moses according to God's command. Aaron hears the Word of God through Moses and sees the signs that authenticate the message. Then Aaron and Moses meet with all the elders of Israel. They hear the Word, they all see the signs, they believe, and they worship the Lord.

Moses, the man through whom God gave the Law to Israel, could not win life with God through law. He resisted the call of God upon His life, making the Lord very angry. The pathway of life for Moses went through the blood of the cut off skin. That ceremony was an old law, but it was also a sign of grace. Through the blood of our Redeemer, Jesus, who was cut off for our sake, we have found deliverance and life. The road to heaven goes through the cross.

Getting out of Egypt through God's use of Moses was part of the Lord's plan. That plan would eventually lead to Jesus, the Messiah, to His death and resurrection, to your salvation, and to your service and calling in the kingdom of God. What do you have in your hand? God can use it now.