Exodus 3:7; “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, I know their sufferings and I have come down to delver them out of the hand of the Egyptians to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land...”
God knows. God moves. God delivers through a man.
The book of Exodus is the history of the children of Israel coming out of the captivity and slavery of Egypt and their process into the promised land.
In Exodus we find the beginnings of Moses, a man prepared by God for this very purpose. We learn Moses is raised as the son of Pharaohs daughter. From Acts 7 we read Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was mighty in his words and deeds. The Jewish Historian Josephus identifies Moses as an educator, a legislator, poet, and above all a great general and prophet.
In this place of prominence Acts 7 goes on to tell us when Moses was 40 it came into his heart to visit his brothers. We know the rest of the story; Moses kills the Egyptian in an effort to help His people, his people reject him and Moses flees to the land of Midian.
It is in the land of Midian, for another 40 years, Moses is spiritually prepared to be the deliverer of his people. Can you image having to enter into a phase of life where you are completely reshaped by the hand of God? Yet this is the very process we all enter, when we come through the New Birth. We are predestined to be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Every ounce of pride we find in our human accomplishments must come to an end so that any and all boasting we do is found in God and to His glory.
If we look at the stripping away of all natural significance we find now a man who lives in a tent content to dwell, keeping the flock of his father in law. Moses is so completely altered by this experience that when God appears to him in chapter 3 of Exodus he does not see himself as the great general he once was. He can only see his inabilities. All the things he can’t do. All the reasons he can’t with enough contention in the conversation it stirs Gods anger (chapter 4).
The bigger picture here is the heart of God to deliver this nation. Exodus 3:7; “I have surely seen ....and have heard their cry ...I know their sufferings and I have come down to delver them.....
Sometimes we are so hindered by our own inadequacies and perceptions of ourselves that we are stuck in this place of inactivity. While we look at circumstances and see impossibilities. God only sees capability. He knows what He has created and the potential inside His vessels. Moses asks, Who am I? Gideon said, I am the weakest. God says, But I will be with you!
God hears a cry. God sees the suffering. God’s heart is moved. God looks for a man, a woman, a willing vessel. Who will go for Him? Who can I send, was the question Isaiah heard.
Jesus sums it up when he says in Matthew 10:38, the one who will not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Again from Luke 14:17 The one who will not take up his cross and follow me, cannot be my disciple.
God’s response to all of our inadequacies is this simple phrase, I will be with you. Can we simply believe this? Can we step into the great unknown to move with Him and be His vessel of hope to a desperate cry?