There is such a vast gulf between Almighty God, the creator of the universe and human beings. What a vast contrast there is between the mind that conceived, created and sustains everything and us mortals with our limited horizons, tied up in our little affairs.

Not only is there that vast difference; but also we know that mankind is alienated from God, the relationship broke down when man fell from grace, when he gave into temptation and lost his innocence. Yet the good news of the bible is that God in his grace and mercy cares for mankind. He wants to restore that relationship with him.

The book of Exodus is a record of God breaking into history to encounter mankind, in chapter 3 God breaks in. He tells Moses ‘I have come down to rescue my people from the Egyptians.’ When God does intervene in the world and encounter man, however, how the differences stand out. An all wise, all powerful, holy God; and man with all his hang-ups and fears and lack of faith.

Moses was so conscious of this. He feared trouble and disaster from this encounter with God. He would have done anything whatsoever to escape from God and the job that God had given him to do. ‘O Lord, please send someone else’ he pleads. Have you ever felt like that when were faced with a challenge from God?

Yet we see that God in his wisdom and grace is willing to make all the concessions that are needed to encounter frail men and women and meet their needs and give them the justice they need. Lets look then at the way God concedes to human frailty to meet and encounter us; to show his grace and bring his deliverance.

The first concession we see in chapter 4 is that God is willing to do signs to help his people in their faith. Moses knew that people are cynical. He knew it from painful experience. He had tried to help his people and been told to mind his own business; he had got no right to judge or lead them. But God has now told him to go and take them God’s message. He suspects that he’ll get no better response than he had years before.

So God enables Moses to do miraculous signs that will help the people to believe. Notice though that miraculous signs are a concession to people’s weak faith. God does miracles because he loves his people and wants to help them believe and trust him.

Some people don’t believe in miracles. They do not believe in things that are beyond their understanding. They don’t believe that God cares and intervenes in our world. They are the sorts of people who came to Jesus and demanded that he do a miraculous sign to prove who he was. Jesus knew that nothing would convince them and he refused their request. There are a lot of people who wouldn’t believe, even if they saw someone come back from the dead.

On the other hand some times people think that miracles are an achievement of our faith. Some people get almost obsessed with being able to produce miracles. It becomes a matter of pride that they or their church or group can produce miraculous signs, and sometimes they seriously stretch the truth in an endeavour to claim God has given them miracles. But God gives miraculous signs when in his wisdom he deems it right and appropriate. And they are a concession to people’s lack of faith. As we look at the Old Testament we find that generally speaking, God’s miraculous intervention are not that frequent. Before this encounter with Moses, the last recorded time when God had spoken was through dreams to Joseph.

The book of Exodus records a period in the history of God’s people when God intervened in a number of ways to accomplish a special purpose, through the initial signs we read of in chapter 4, through the plagues, through the Passover and crossing of the Red Sea and the pillars of fire and cloud and by feeding his people in the wilderness.

But for most of the history of Israel, there were no miracles. Rather God commanded the people to remember the miraculous events that happened in Egypt. Every year the people of Israel were commanded to keep the Passover, to remember God’s miraculous deliverance from slavery in Egypt. The Jewish people still today keep the Passover. God gave those signs to Moses, not just for his people in that age but also for God’s people of every age, to help our faith, that we might believe in the power and love and faithfulness of God.

The second concession that God made to Moses was to give him a helper. Moses didn’t feel that he was a very good speaker. He wasn’t eloquent. A lot of people feel how Moses did at the prospect of standing in front of an audience. It can be overwhelming and embarrassing as well. God knew and understood Moses. He provided his brother Aaron to be the spokesman for him. God would give the message to Moses; Aaron would speak the message to the Israelites and to Pharaoh.

God calls us as Christians to speak of our faith too. He doesn’t call us all to be preachers, but he calls us to act as witnesses to his love in Christ. The prospect of being a witness, particularly in a hostile environment can seem daunting. At the trial of Saddam Hussein this week, some of the witnesses have just been too afraid to give their evidence. It’s not always easy to speak the truth.

But just as God gave Moses a helper in his brother, God gives us a helper in our witness. Often God gives us a fellow Christian. Jesus sent his followers our in twos, and it seems a fairly normal pattern in the New Testament that Christians worked in pairs.

Yet even if we are on our own in a hostile environment, Jesus promises us a helper. Those first disciples were going at times to have to face severe hostility to their message. Jesus warned them that they would even have to face imprisonment and trial for their faith. But he promised this. He said that they were not to worry about what to say in such circumstances, but that the Holy Spirit would be their helper. He would show them what to say in the situation. God made our lips and has given us a vocabulary in his mercy and grace; he is our help through his Spirit..

God even confirmed his call to Moses by sending his brother Aaron to meet him and go with him on his journey. He doesn’t usually leave us on our own either. He is with us by his Spirit, he gives us others to encourage and support us. God makes concessions to us He has come to us in Jesus. In Jesus he has removed the hindrances to our relationship with him, praise God for his goodness and his grace.

But there has to come a point where we make a response to God. Moses had to come to a point where he said yes. He didn’t come to that point very easily. Even after God had answered his questions, after God had given him assurances and shown him miracles, Moses still says ‘Lord, please send someone else.’

It says in fact that it came to the point where the Lords anger burned against Moses. Sometimes people are very slow to respond to God. In fact sometimes people seem incapable of responding from noble and honourable motives; and in the end respond only from fear. Yet even fear can be an expression of God’s grace. As we often sing: ‘twas grace that taught my heart to fear’. God knows that we need to say yes to him, it’s for our own good and when we don’t respond to him out of better motives he will even accept us when we come out of fear, although he doesn’t want the relationship to be one that is dominated by fear. His grace also dispels fear as we realise the wonder of his love.

So Moses says yes to God, he is on his way to do what God has asked him to. But then another crisis arises. As Moses and his wife and son or son’s (the passage is unclear if there is more than one) make the journey toward Egypt, it says the Lord was about to kill Moses. It seems a rather obscure incident. The best way to understand it is with regard to circumcision. Now God had made a covenant with Abraham, God promised to be faithful to Abraham and his descendants, to give them the Promised Land, in response all Abraham’s male descendant were to be circumcised.

Covenants are very important. I believe this incident serves to remind us of that. Now as a Midianite Moses’ wife would also be a descendant of Abraham, the Midianites were descended from Abraham’s wife Keturah. God was showing Moses that the sacred covenant was important, and that he must keep the conditions of the covenant.
So Zipporah circumcised her son. By what she says to Moses it seems to have caused stress between them; but it had to be done.

Does this incident have anything to say to us? I believe it does. It simply remind us that we have to be rightly related to God. The right way for Moses was through the old covenant of circumcision. We have to relate to God through the new covenant. That means being sure that we relate to him on the basis of Jesus blood shed for us, and his body broken for us. The way we must relate to God is through Jesus, by his grace, accepting his forgiveness, by repentance and faith putting our trust in him.

It would also be wrong to leave this chapter without mentioning the way that God relates to his adversaries. In verse 22 we are told that God’s message to Pharaoh is ‘Israel is my first-born son; and I told you, ‘let my son go that he may worship me.’ But you refused to let him go, so I will kill your first-born son.’ God gives Pharaoh due warning, right from the start. He is warned of the consequences of continuing the brutality and atrocities towards the Israelites. God in the end is the judge of all. Often in history when men or nations continually refuse to listen to God, they face his judgement. But God does give them due warning.

Finally we see the response of God’s people to his signs and to his message. They believed. That is always the right response to God. Verse 31 continues: ‘and when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped.’ The Lord knows where we are this morning; he knows our hearts and our situations. He is concerned for us too, and so we respond in worship to him.
 

Amen.

Return to top of page