Moses

The Least & The Greatest

Another day chock-full of all manner of things to dig into, it’s hard to choose where to focus.

I think I want to take a minute and contrast our man Gideon with the previous judge, Deborah. Now, we don’t know either of these people of antiquity overly well, but what I find interesting is how far their stories diverge.

Gideon is not the leader we would expect, being a small man from a small tribe, and Deborah was an unlikely leader just because she was a woman. But God called both of them to lead.

Deborah did not want to go fight, but Barak pleaded with her to join him and so she did, and Israel was successful. Whereas Gideon needed all kinds of proof. Burn this up. And make this wet. And keep this dry. And show me a bizarrely specific interpretation of a WEIRD dream. Gideon needed so much hand-holding by God. But some of us need more prodding than other. This is no shade on Gideon, but then…

Deborah helps Barak to lead a successful campaign and co-writes a victory song with him that both starts AND ends with the Lord. Yahweh. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Gideon leads multiple successful campaigns, accepts fame, donations, takes a multitude of wives, makes a golden Ephod that the people of Israel WORSHIP, and which also becomes a trap for him. One of his sons ends up killing all the others… there were 70.

As a teen (I only accepted Christ at the age of 15, so I never did Sunday School) I heard about Gideon and Samson, but I never heard about Deborah. Gideon had many battles and accomplished great feats. Samson did the same… or did they? The fact is that these were two broken people used by God to accomplish HIS purposes. They actually contributed very little to their own success, but they were more than willing to bask in it.

Yet Deborah goes largely overlooked. Almost like an afterthought… did you know there was a FEMALE judge? Oooh! How unorthodox and wacky! Yet her quiet confidence and upward-facing attitude are what we claim to value most in both our leaders and ourselves.

I guess what I’m driving at is that we ought to remember that the people in the Bible were not special people that God chose. They BECAME special people because God chose them. So let’s not hoist up the ones God used to most brightly reveal His glory (if I am honest, I have very little interest in being like Gideon, or Samson… or Pharaoh). Instead let’s look for those, like Deborah, or Ruth, or Boaz, or Moses who tried to stay humble and honour the Lord with upright actions and a dedication to obedience.

Judges 7:1-9:21 | 092/365

Submission to the Lord’s Judgement

God decides it is time to visit His judgement on the Midianites. The tribes of Israel each prepare 1000 fighting men. 12,000 in total. This is far less than the total fighting personnel available. And they easily defeat the Midianites. All 5 kings fall in the battle. A sobering reminder of what could have been in the promised land if the Israelites had trusted God as prompted by Caleb and Joshua.

But it gets interesting when the soldiers return with the women and children as prisoners, or servants, or whatever the law allowed. Moses and Eleazar were furious and told the soldiers to kill the boys and any non-virgin women. But why?

The women part is pretty simple: these were the women who tried to draw their hearts away from God. And He had already pronounced His judgement on them. They could not be spared. They played a crucial part in the idolatry of Israel.

But why the boys? Because the judgement was carried out on the Midianites. And in that culture the boys passed down the lineage. So as long as these boys lived, so too did the Midianites. They had to die for God’s judgement to be completed. On an apologetic note, it is worth mentioning that these boys could well have been very young. Under the age of accountability. If so, I think it is reasonable that God visited an earthly judgement upon them, but then received them to Himself. They might well be in Heaven and we might expect to be able to talk with them when we get there.

When event like this come up in the Bible we like to get outraged, furrow our brows and click our tongues and say (to ourselves or others)… God should have done [your idea here].

Remember that God has an eternal perspective and knows everything. In fact, He knows MORE than everything, He knows everything that would have been, had circumstances been different. He can account for any counterfactual you can imagine. The takeaway is this:

You can’t out-justice God. You can’t out-mercy God. You can’t out-love God. If you and He disagree, you are the one who is wrong.

Mar 10 | Num 30-31 | 068/365

Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is

So far in Leviticus and through the back half of Exodus we have gotten a great deal of instruction from God through Moses. We got case law, regulations, best practices, and punishments for crime. Some of it is thick and worth contextualizing and explaining, like why Molech — of all the Mesopotamian “gods” — was singled out, or why ‘dishonouring’ your mother or father requires a death punishment, or even why an animal and it’s mother cannot be killed as an offering on the same day.

But while that all would be genuinely interesting, the thing that most stood out to me from today’s reading was right near the end. Leviticus 22:31 (NLT) says, “You must faithfully keep all my commands by putting them into practice, for I am the LORD.” I love the way the NLT puts this as opposed to other translations, because it underscores something most of us still need to hear today.

It’s not enough to profess that we believe something. If we don’t put it into practice, our actions will betray our words. My kids don’t doubt that I love them, because I put that love into practice. The same is true for my wife. I continue to be gainfully employed because I practice a good work ethic. There a a myriad of examples, you can probably rattle off a few without thinking too deeply about it yourself.

But it is likely because you are confessing or stating something that is true in your heart — in the core, the centre of who you are. That’s why Paul says in Romans 10 that you need to BOTH confess with your mouth AND believe in your heart. You confess “Jesus is Lord” with the conviction of a heart that believes He was raised from the dead.

Word are easy. Actions are hard. Let’s practice what we preach.

Feb 23 | Lev 20-22 | 054/365

Making It Right

There is much todo about sin throughout the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). And much of it is sin against God. The things we do that are an affront to Him and His law. But God isn’t simply worried about how we treat Him, but also how we treat each other.

In Leviticus 6 God gives Moses specific instruction regarding the mistreatment of each other. The Lord specifically cites cheating, security deposits, stealing, fraud, lost property, and lying under oath. Then He hits Moses with that catchall of “or any other such sin”. God was deeply concerned that we deal fairly with each other.

But what’s interesting is not that God says these things are sins, but rather what He says we are expected to do about it. The pattern so far has been sin:offering, sin:offering, sin:offering. So naturally that’s what we expect to see here, but it is not. Because there is a crucial difference. We are not committing a sin against God that ONLY requires an offering, we are committing a sin against a fellow image-bearer of God, a member of our community of faith. We cannot simply give an offering to God and dust our hands of the situation.

God says explicitly that we have to make it right first. Give back what you stole, took, found, or obtained. AND THEN add 20% on top. It is not enough that we seek to get right with God while there is still a matter outstanding with our sisters and brothers. We are called to go over and above to make it right, and only THEN do we go to God for the final forgiveness.

This is an act of contrition, repentance, and reconciliation. How can we stand before God and claim to be sorry while the person we wronged is left hurting? It isn’t possible. We need to make it right before we can make it right.

Leviticus 4-6 | 048/365

Digging Deeper

Leviticus often gets a bad rap for being “boring”. Disagree. Leviticus is drastically underrated. Numbers, however, I am fully ready to admit can seem like a slog at times. Today’s passage is a prime example of just that. Upon first reading this can be a dry, repetitive list seemingly without any purpose. But I think there are several things we can pull out of today’s chunk. This is sort of a potpourri, but next year I’ll go deeper on one of them. haha

1) The Tabernacle and its furnishings have been set aside for the Lord, but now they are anointed for that purpose. Much like the Levites themselves are anointed before the people for service to the Lord, so too are the instruments of that service. Why would this ceremony be necessary?

2) When God speaks to Moses, He speaks from the Place of Atonement, the Mercy Seat atop the Ark. This underscores not God’s holiness, justice, or provision… but His mercy. Why is that what He chooses to highlight?

3) All 12 tribes come on consecutive days to bring the exact same offering. And each is counted out in meticulous detail. Why is it important that all members of the community of faith are contributing to the work of the faith with the same devotion and giving?

4) The tribes of Judah, Issachar, Zubulun, Reuben, and Simeon are the first to bring their offerings. These presentations do not follow birth order… so what (if anything) is the significance to this order? Perhaps worth noting that the first 5 tribes are all the direct descendants of Jacob’s first wife, Leah. What does this signal about marriage?

5) Of all the tribes, Judah is first to offer. What do we know about the future of the tribe of Judah that might make this noteworthy?

We could still look at the animals, ages, genders, weights, materials, contents, etc. What I’m saying is: don’t settle for a surface reading. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training to equip us for every good work.

Numbers 7 | 046/365

Black Sabbath

Exodus 35:2 (NET) says, “In six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there must be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of complete rest to the Lord. Anyone who does work on it will be put to death.”

Woah, coming in strong there!

Why?

Well, God is continually exhorting the Israelites not to make treaties and negotiate with other nations. Typically such treaties were sealed with marriages where a daughter from one side would marry a son on the other. This made a family bond. And families will be influenced by their members in both directions. This is just how it works.

And the Israelites seemed to be a special case. They did not even need any more outside influences. Moses was gone for 40 days and in that time they invented a new god to worship! Exceptional. So they have this Sabbath day, a weekly reminder of their covenant with God Almighty. And anyone who decides that they want to break covenant with God and the people of Israel is to be put to death. This — shocking as it might appear to us today — was for self-preservation. Israel had a difficult-enough time staying faithful to God with outside distractions and wandering minds, let alone if one of their own members was actively breaking the faith.

And while Sabbath adherence is not required under the New Covenant, it is still a good, valuable, and highly recommended practice. Work can become an idol. It can become our identity. That is a danger, and a real one, but simply having a day off will not protect our spiritual lives. Shopping, errands, kids sports and camps, birthday parties, and other commitments can eat up that day off to the point where we no longer “have time” for God. And our day of rest for the Lord become a day of service to ourselves.

Protect your time with God. As you press into the Lord, you will find clarity and direction in other areas of your life. And if you don’t, your heart will grow cold towards Him and ultimately you will turn away from Him and your path to the grave will be set. And in that way if we do not set aside time for the Lord, we will be put to death — ironically enough — by our own hand.

Exodus 35-36 | 043/365

Set Apart

The Israelites fall prey to their own impatience and the weak leadership of Aaron. The people couldn’t wait 40 days, they made a gold cow and worshipped it, Moses made them drink the cow, they got sick… suffice it to say it was a wild time.

Shortly after this series of events Moses would come before the Lord in the Tent of Meeting just outside the camp. There he would ask the Lord who was being sent with the Israelites on their journey. God says He will go with Moses. Moses rejects this proposal. Seriously. Just like Moses rejected the proposal to wipe out the Israelites entirely and become the new father of the nation of Israel himself. Moses was a leader who truly, genuinely cared about his people. Moses was a shepherd who fought for his sheep. Moses told God — basically — it is not enough that you go with me, you must go with us as a nation. If God will not lead the Israelites into the promised land, Moses would rather not go at all. God agrees to Moses proposal because he (Moses) has found favour with God.

A side note to pastors, elders, and other leaders… we should be interceding before God for our people with the fervour and resolve of Moses.

This leads to the sentence that most moved me this morning, as rendered in the NLT: “For Your presence among us sets Your people apart from all other people on the earth.”

This is still true today. Without the love and presence of the Lord in our lives, we look remarkably like everyone else. And more than that, we we claim to be children of the Lord, but there is no distinction between us and anyone else, that brings disrepute on the Lord. Here we are, claiming to be His special possession, but our lives bare no evidence of that?

Let’s press in to the Lord. Let’s seek his presence until we shine like Moses. Let us seek to be VISIBLY set apart from all the other people on the earth so that they can see the difference in us plainly and WANT to know the source of our joy.

Be blessed as you pursue the Lord today, brothers and sisters.

Feb 11 | Ex 32-34 | 042/365

Made For A Purpose

God has given Moses a long, heavily detailed description of the alter, ark, tabernacle, garments, incense, and other items (Did Moses have a notebook? iPhone? Palm Pilot?) that each require a significant amount of skill. And this is where the story gets interesting:

In Exodus 31 God tells Moses (not the other way around) that He has specially equipped a couple of guys for some of these specific tasks. Highly capable craftsmen. This would have been a skill they had possessed and developed all through their lives. But wait, it gets better! Exodus 31:6b says:

“Moreover, I have given special skill to all the gifted craftsmen so they can make all the things I have commanded you to make”

As a youth pastor I would often deal with students who were insecure and dealt with identity and confidence issues. “I’m not good enough” was such a common phrase that I wish I had been paid to hear it. But I became fond of telling these students — and I think it applies to all of us — that God has made you the way He needs you to be to accomplish His purposes. Let me say that again so you don’t let it go too quickly…

God has made you the way He needs you to be to accomplish His purposes.

Don’t measure yourself against a someone else who has an ability you wish you had. All that does is make you feel poorly about yourself. Rather, develop the gifts and skills that God HAS given you, so that when you get the call to use those skills you are ready to roll.

“[Because God has] given [you] special skill to [… do] all the things [He has] commanded you to [do].

Be blessed, walking in the confidence of a God who made you fearfully and wonderfully.

Exodus 29-31 | 041/365

They Had No Idea

After being rescued from the oppression of the Egyptians, the Israelites lack water, so they whine about it to Moses. Moses goes to God and He provides water. Some time later , the Israelites lack food, so they whine to Moses. Moses goes to God and He provides food. A flock of Quail descend of the encampment and died there. Meat! But God also sends what will become known as Manna. A food that more-or-less is dried dew. It was white and tasted like honey.

Actually, I think it may still be in the Ark of the Covenant (wherever that might be) and I very much would like to taste it. If anyone reading this ends up in possession of the Ark, reach out to me!

But what I find particularly interesting about this is the fact that the Israelites see this Manna in the morning, and have no clue what it is. They asked each other, “Hey, Al, any idea what this flakey white stuff is.” And Al replied, “I have no idea, Jim. I know that Moses told us the Lord would provide food for us, but that could not possibly be what this is. I was expecting bakery fresh bread!” Jim concurred, “Yes! And I was hoping for a delightful lentil soup!”

Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly like that, but the fact remains that the people had the blessing of God there before them, ripe for the picking, and couldn’t see it for what it was.

It’s not enough that we believe God will provide for us, we need to stop expecting God to do what WE want and starting asking Him to open our eyes to see what HE wants. God loves you, but the world doesn’t revolve around you. God has a greater, longer, more wholistic view and the way he meets our needs and answers our prayers gives us NOT the thing that we WANT, but rather the thing that we NEED. Pray that the Lord would open your eyes to see the blessings before you for what they are.

Exodus 16-19 | 037/365

Weak Leadership

Intro

Today I want to share a few quick, but important thoughts about the commissioning of Moses in the book of Exodus. Please turn to Exodus 3 in your Bibles. We will be reading selected portions from chapters 3 & 4.

Objection #1 | Exodus 3:9–12 NKJV

9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

12 So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

The first thing that jumps out at me in this section is that it’s recorded that God hears and God sees. God is not unaware of what is happening, He recognizes that action is needed, but God also isn’t going to poorly execute some half-baked plan just to get it done now! We can get rushy-rushy sometimes. And that can come back to burn us later. In fact, we’ll stick that in our pockets because it’ll matter in a little bit.

But before we get to that, this is where we see Moses’ first objection to being sent. He essentially says Pharaoh is too important for me to talk to. You should probably get another head of state to take care of this. I’m probably not your guy, says Moses.

So what was God’s response? The same as his response is today, I am with you. He doesn’t puff Moses up with some nonsense about finding the power inside you or whatever new-age nonsense the world likes to conjure up these days. God says that He is with Moses, and if he’ll trust God, he’ll return to this very mountain with all the Israelites to worship the Lord after they are freed from Egypt!

Objection #2 | Exodus 3:13–14 NKJV

13 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

Well, Moses responds, how will the Israelites know which God I am referring to? There are so many. This whole thing is just too confusing. Maybe we should call this off.

God’s reply is so direct and powerful that it still hits hard to this very day. He replies tell them that I AM WHO I AM has sent you. This phrase in the Hebrew is actually tenseless. It means not merely “I Am”, but also “I was” and “I will be”. God it not merely saying that He is the God who is, but the God who was, who is, and who ever will be. Long before these other gods were invented by man, and long after they die with their worshippers, the God who was from eternity past and will be forevermore continues to stand. The One, True, Only God. THAT is who sends you!

Objection #3 | Exodus 4:1–8 NKJV

1 Then Moses answered and said, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’ ”

2 So the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”

He said, “A rod.”

3 And He said, “Cast it on the ground.” So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail” (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand), 5 “that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

6 Furthermore the Lord said to him, “Now put your hand in your bosom.” And he put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow. 7 And He said, “Put your hand in your bosom again.” So he put his hand in his bosom again, and drew it out of his bosom, and behold, it was restored like his other flesh. 8 “Then it will be, if they do not believe you, nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign.

Moses now switches to the Israelites; You know, that sounds great and all… and I totally get it, but they’re not going to buy it. They’re a skeptical people, Lord. Maybe someone with a little more gravitas should tackle this project!

Moses essentially telling God that He might be guessing wrong on this one. Now, it’s easy to point the finger at Moses and say he’s a big, dumb, stupid-head for this, but have you ever felt like God was calling you to do something, only to question if it could really be like He says. Do we ever push back on God saying, well, Lord, did you consider this thing or that thing? We’re not so different from Moses.

And again, how does God respond? A simple question: What do you have in your hand?

A rod. A simple shepherd’s staff. We always think we need something else before we can do what God is calling us into. If we were pressed to say what that thing was we probably couldn’t solidly define it, but we would know for sure that whatever it is, we don’t currently have it. I had a dear brother come to me not so long ago, concerned about a character trait of his, saying that this thing was a hindrance to his effectiveness for the Lord. BALDERDASH! Just because you’re too trusting, or too skeptical, or too emotional, or too emotionless, or whatever that does not mean that the Lord can’t work through you! Maybe He wants to change that trait, or maybe He has equipped you with that because there is a need you will be able to meet that someone else wont. Our God is not so weak that He can only work through perfect vessels! If that was true we would never get to participate in anything!

And that simple shepherd’s staff — by the way — would win over the Israelites, demonstrate God’s power to the Egyptian Royal Court, call down God’s wrath on the Egyptian nation, provide deliverance through the Red Sea for God’s people, bring water from a stone, and preside over military victories for the Israelites. The tool isn’t nearly as important as whose hands it is in!

Objection #4 | Exodus 4:10–12 NKJV

10 Then Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

11 So the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”

Moses’ next attempt is to say, well, Lord, it occurs to me in this moment that perhaps my eloquence is insufficient to the task at hand and my rhetorical skills are found lacking when compared to the present need. Seriously. Moses tries to tell God that he ain’t so good on words. The same man who Stephen describes like this in Acts 7:22, “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds”. This, by the way, was 40 YEARS before the events we are now reading about in Exodus 4. Moses must have really lost a step during that span.

But even so, what is God’s response? He says, “I made you and every other person that walks the face of the earth! I made you the way you are, so I know exactly how you work! Besides, even if you were Oscar Wilde, it would only be because I made you that way!”

God made you who you need to be to accomplish what He has called you to. The important part is submission to the commission.

Objection #5 | Exodus 4:13–17 NKJV

13 But he said, “O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send.”

14 So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and He said: “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. 15 Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do. 16 So he shall be your spokesman to the people. And he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God. 17 And you shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs.”

Finally Moses voices his actual objection. Lord… I just don’t want to. We see that Moses was not ruled and let by the Lord, but by fear. Not by the spirit, but by the flesh. But the question is why? He has seen, just in the last several minutes, miracles performed by God. Why the hesitation? Why decline the blessing of God, just because you don’t want the responsibility that comes with it?

Remember we put the the rushy-rushy tendency in our pockets earlier? Let’s bring it back out a we bring this plane in for a landing. When we feel like we can do something under our own power, we often do. We don’t consult God or ask for His help because we’ve got this one.

This is what Moses did. He stepped in to help a fellow Israelite 40 years ago and it lead to the death of an Egyptian man. This led to Moses fleeing Egypt for his life, despite being the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. It’s no wonder he felt gun-shy about going down that road again. But what was the difference? God was not with Him the first time. Moses was out there trying to ‘make it happen’ on his own. We need to be reliant on God and have our plans held loosely, so He can take them from us if that is His desire.

Conclusion

Make no mistake. You are called into places of leadership. Even if it is just within your family. That being the case, what can we learn from this conversation between Moses and God?

There are a great many ways we can feel inadequate. 1) I’m not qualified 2) I’m not authorized 3) People won’t accept me 4) I’m not perfect 5) I’m scared.

But what does God do in each case? Does He slap Moses in the back of the head and kick Him our the door? No, God equips Moses!

1) Not qualified? I’ll equip you! 2) No authorized? I’ve sent you! 3) People won’t accept you? I’ll open the doors! 4) Not perfect? I made you who you are! 5) Scared? I will bring people to support you.

So then, let’s cast our burden unto the Lord and step out into the roles He has called us to full of faith and confidence in the Lord who was, is, and ever will be to carry us through. If you bring your fears and insecurities to God He won’t yell at you, He won’t belittle you, He will equip you for the work ahead. Let God equip you rather than bearing your stuggles and burdens alone! Now I’ll open the floor. Let’s go around and see what hit each of us from today’s passage.

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