In the third chapter of Exodus, we read that the Lord spoke to Moses when he was on the backside of the desert herding a flock of sheep. He had been there ever since he fled for his life after killing a man in Egypt and burying him in the sand. He could not go back to Egypt, so he married a Midianite girl by whom he had children. Jethro, his father-in-law, was a priest of Midian. God began to talk to Moses, and what He had to say to him was very important. For two chapters, we see that God was very patient with him; but in Exodus 4:14 we read, Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses… We will soon see why God finally became so angry with Moses.
Why would God choose a man, begin to talk with him, and spend as much space in the Word trying to persuade him to do His will as is spent in Genesis on the account of creation itself? Two chapters cover creation, and two chapters cover the time God was trying to convince Moses to go down into Egypt. There was a reason why God became so angry with Moses, and I would not be surprised if some of us anger the Lord in the same way. Let us look at what happened, for this is a story we should remember all our lives.
Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush (this was really the Shekinah glory); and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. Exodus 3:1–2.
It was not a natural fire that Moses saw; it was a holy fire, the same as the tongues of fire that sat on the hundred and twenty in the upper room on the day of Pentecost. It did not burn up the bush; neither did it singe the hair of the hundred and twenty. It was a holy Shekinah fire, the presence of the Spirit of God Himself that was moving upon them. The Shekinah glory was the fire that appeared throughout the Old Testament. It appeared over the ark of the covenant between the cherubim, and it was also the fire in the pillar of fire that blazed at night over the camp of Israel.
So Moses said, “I must turn aside now, and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Exodus 3:3–6a. God said, “I am the God of your father,” Moses’ parents were Amram, a godly man, and Jochebed (Exodus 6:20).
And the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. And now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.”
God beautifully and tenderly said that He had not forgotten His people. Having heard their cry under their taskmasters, He came down to deliver them and to send Moses to Pharaoh to bring them out of Egypt. You would think Moses would have rejoiced over that. But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” Exodus 3:6–11.
Moses had really asked for it by the time God finally became angry with him. God had said what He would do, and yet Moses tried to impose his limitations on God, saying, “Who am I that I should do such a thing? I do not have the qualifications.” That is the very thing God hates. Our limitations do not limit God. We may not know much, or have much, or be able to do much, but when has that been a handicap to God?
God proceeded to show Moses many signs, so Moses would know that God would be with him. And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.” Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I shall say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” (Moses was still trying to find a way out.) And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” Exodus 3:12–14a. This comes from the basic Hebrew verb “to be.” God said, “I AM WHO I AM.” In other words, “I AM WHAT I WILL BE,” or to put it bluntly, “I AM the God who is manifesting himself fully and completely in the present tense.”
We read in the New Testament that the Lord Jesus Christ said, “… before Abraham was born, I AM.” John 8:58. He did not say, “I WAS”; He said, “I AM.” Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He is the Lord who always manifests Himself in the present tense. He is not a “sweet by-and-by” Jesus. Jesus was a great teacher, but He is the right-now Lord, right now for us.
“I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” And God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.” Exodus 3:14b–15.
God further explained what was going to happen. Then Moses answered and said, “What if they will not believe me, or listen to what I say? For they may say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’ ” And the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.”
Moses could have raised his hand to cause the miracles every time one of them came; then the people would have said that God used Moses. Instead, they said that God used a staff. God did this after Moses protested that he was nothing. He thought the people would not believe him, so God did it all through the little stick Moses had used to herd the sheep. That was belittling.
Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it (anyone would have run). But the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail”—so he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand—“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.”
And the Lord furthermore said to him, “Now put your hand into your bosom.” So he put his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then He said, “Put your hand into your bosom again.” So he put his hand into his bosom again; and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “And it shall come about that if they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign. But it shall be that if they will not believe even these two signs take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground” (Moses now had three signs with which to convince the people; and although he ran from the snake and experienced the leprosy, he still was not listening). Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since Thou hast spoken to Thy servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” (“God, You cannot do it with me!” Do you ever feel that way)?
And the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say.” Exodus 4:1–12. Even though a brother or sister may be blind or deaf, these truths are for them. God will use them. The promises for them to have a ministry are as real and valid as they are for anyone.
Moses argues that he was slow of speech; he probably stuttered and stammered. Moses was telling God that He had the wrong boy. Although the Lord was showing Moses all the things he was to do, he kept backing off, because for eighty long years he had built up the image of himself that he could never do anything.
Moses became ambitious when he was about forty years old. According to Josephus, the historian, he was then a general for Egypt. When Moses went to the Israelites to be a self-appointed deliverer, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew; so he killed him and buried him in the sand. The next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting, and he asked them why they were fighting among themselves. One of them said, “What are you going to do, kill me and bury me in the sand too?” (Exodus 2). Moses was afraid because it was known. Pharaoh then tried to kill him, so he fled to the backside of the desert. In sparse land, hardly able to sustain anything, he was content to watch over a few sheep for his father-in-law.
Forty years had gone by, and there was Moses, a nobody who was eighty years old when God was trying to get through to him. He showed him a bush that would not burn up, a rod that could turn into a serpent, and a way to make his hand leprous and heal it. After showing him all these wonders He said, “I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say” (in other words, God offered to Moses speech that would come prophetically). But he said, “Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever Thou wilt.” (“Get yourself another boy. I do not want to be the one. Send the message by anyone else.” That is exactly what Moses meant). God had tried to convince Moses that it was all completely under control. God had chosen him, commissioned him, and promised to enable him. Yet Moses would not accept it. There was a deep innate reluctance to be an instrument in the hand of God. Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently. And moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you; when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. And you are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I, even I, will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will teach you what you are to do. Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and it shall come about that he shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be as God to him.” Exodus 4:12b–16.
It had to be that way, because even though Aaron was made the high priest, he was God’s second best. We read that in the wilderness, when the people wanted an idol to worship, he said, “Give me your earrings.” Later he made his speech to Moses, saying, “I cast it into the fire and it came out a calf” (Exodus 32). He connived with them in their idolatry. He was too weak to stand up for Moses who had been on the mountain for forty days. Moses must have been thoroughly shaken to find there was not enough to sustain Aaron and the people for forty days. After forty days he came down from the mountain, and the people were dancing around the golden calf, worshiping it and committing sinful acts, just after God delivered them out of Egypt and had been so good to them. People can forget quickly. God grant that we do not forget, that He build it deep within our hearts to be ready to do the will of the Lord.
Moses was ready to go from that time on. Until that time he tried God until He became very angry with him. God deals drastically when He has called us to be something and we are reluctant to get with it. It is not the heinous crimes and sins that will stop the Body, it is this reluctance to face what God has called us to be. It lies within our power to do what God has called us to do and to say what God tells us to say. That deep, unbelieving reluctance we have angers God more than anything else. We have a false image of ourselves that keeps coming up, and it is one of the biggest destroyers of our faith.
How do you really receive a commission or a directive? like Moses? Do you say, “I will do the best that I can, I cannot do anymore,” and make your excuses? Since when has a commission ever been given to a man according to his ability? When did God ever send a man out to do something, and say, “I have chosen you, O My servant, because I know that you are very wise, you have much money, you have great abilities, and there are many people flocking to you; with great leadership you will accomplish this”?
God never says that about anyone. God takes the weak things and confounds the mighty; He takes the foolish things (I Corinthians 1:27). He chose you, and for you to argue with God that you cannot do what He asks you to do is just as foolish as it was for Moses. God did not choose you for your ability; He chose you because He chose you, and that is as much reason as you can have to explain it. God gives you a commission and sends you out to do His will in the earth, and your inability to do it is not, and never will be, the issue. He said, “I will be with you, I will help you.” You cannot have an image of yourself in your own inability. You must have an image of yourself linked with His ability.
Fantasy can be directly related to faith, if it is not taken too far. People should be healed and delivered from fantasizing too much, for they should not live in a make-believe world. But the make-believe world, properly guided, can be a springboard into the world of reality.
For instance, suppose there has been a prophesy over you, or you had a dream, or you were sitting in the congregation when God gave a commission to the church. What are you going to do about it? Begin to imagine yourself as one of the prophets or prophetesses of the Lord. Fantasize a little about it. Picture yourself like Peter, walking down the street with your shadow falling on the sick and healing them. Picture yourself blessing handkerchiefs and garments and sending them out—picture the people being healed. Live it yourself. Let it be a springboard to your faith, until you accept yourself as a bond-servant of the Lord who can do anything He commissions you to do.
You can do anything He tells you to do. You can become anything He says you will be. This is the faith you must have. What image do you have of yourself? Is it an image according to the flesh with its limitations, or do you have an image of yourself with faith which envisions what will be? Remember, God looks at you with faith, and He is liable to shout at you (as He did to Gideon in Judges 6 and 7) when you are running from the enemy and say, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor! Wherefore art thou running from the enemy? Turn around and smite them, and they will flee from thee seven ways” (Deuteronomy 28:7). Get the picture in your mind that God is not limited, and neither are you limited in your relationship to Him.
The anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and perhaps you feel that the Lord is not too happy about the way you regard yourself—the way you draw back from being all that He wants you to be. Let one of your objectives be to break loose from your limitations. Stand and pray the prayers of faith. Believe God and walk in His faith with all your heart.