God Calls Moses
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Key Verse: “Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharoah, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.” Selected Scripture: |
WE BEGIN OUR LESSON with a look at the preparation of the one who would be used by God as the deliverer of his people. We can see the hand of the Lord in the life of Moses from the time of his birth. The nation of Israel was in bondage to the Egyptians, and had grown in numbers, and had prospered as a people. Joseph and the entire generation of Israelites brought into Egypt to escape the famine had died.—Exod. 1:6
While these things had taken place, a Pharaoh came to reign that did not know Joseph as the head of the children of Israel. Fearing them, he sent out a decree that all of the male Hebrews born were to be killed. Moses’ mother hid him, but when she could no longer do so she placed him in a basket by the river. Having been found by a maid of Pharaoh’s daughter, he would be subsequently raised in the royal household. By this arrangement, Moses was raised under the protection of the Egyptian government, and became “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words, and in deeds.”—Acts 7:22
After growing into manhood, Moses would then identify himself with Israel, but there was no such loyalty among his brethren. They would soon come to resent him. It serves to remind us how Christ “came unto his own, and his own received him not.” (John 1:11) Upon seeing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, Moses killed him. Fearing Pharaoh who desired to slay him, Moses fled to the land of Midian.
He was now content to dwell in this Gentile land rejecting his own people, and taking a bride. It looked as though all of his years of education and training had gone to waste. He would dwell as a humble shepherd for forty years, learning a lesson of meekness and full submission to the Divine will. It was a severe lesson to learn, but one that would help to prepare Moses for his future work. In the meantime, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord because of their bondage. It was now time for God to call Moses to be the instrument used in the deliverance of his people.
One day, while he was tending his flock in the land, he would have an experience that would forever change his life. “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.” (Exod. 3:2) Most men would have fled at this sight but Moses climbed up to see this remarkable thing, using his knowledge of the terrain; which was a great advantage to him later as leader of Israel through the wilderness. He would be told, “Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”—vss. 5,6
God reminded him of his special covenant with Abraham, that he had seen the affliction of his people, and that the time for their deliverance had come. The Lord had called Moses, and although he humbly doubted his worthiness, he would be assured that, “I will be with thee.”—vs. 12