Lessons in Exodus

Exodus has blown me away as I’ve been slowly reading through and studying it during my devotions each morning.  This book has reminded me once again how God works through the Spirit, making each day new, teaching in different ways, revealing things that hid from me before, especially His sovereignty.

One of the first things I noticed this time was how much Samuel’s willingness to answer a call resembles Moses’. Moses responds to God’s call with, “Here I am” (3:7, NASB) just as Samuel does when God calls out to him (I Sam. 3:4). Although Samuel’s call comes in the darkness of night and Moses’ call is in the desert and involved a burning bush, both calls come to men who did not know God at the time of the call (I Sam. 3:7, Ex. 3:4-6) and both willingly answered the call. This reminder that God calls and equips for His purposes those who are curious about Him and willing to serve is timely. The work is His; the timing is His; the call is His. He is a sovereign God.

I noticed there are also no excuses if one believes for not serving God as He calls. Moses argues that he is not able to speak for the Lord, saying he has always been “slow of speech and slow of tongue” and lacking eloquence (Ex. 4:11). God’s reply to him hits hard: “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (v. 12). So many struggle with whether or not God is sovereign, and if He issovereign, whether or not He is good. I type this as I sit listening to an amazing man tune my piano. He is blind, as God made him, and he uses the ability God gave him in amazing ways, creating harmony and beauty of something that was inharmonious, out of tune. We are so limited in our finite understanding that often we attribute evil to God, who is not capable of evil while failing to credit Him for good, which only He is always. I don’t understand His ways, but I do believe; as the father of the boy with a demon said to Jesus when confronted with his iffy faith said, “I do believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). We live in a fallen, broken world that encourages our unbelief. God doesn’t leave us in comfortable places or work around the things we prefer to do; instead the One who created us challenges us to accomplish His will and provides the means to do so, even in our brokenness. I don’t claim to understand, but I hear the beauty.

Another thing that stood out to me regarding God’s sovereignty is the way He speaks of Pharoah’s heart, saying from the first time Pharoah is mentioned that He will harden his heart (Ex. 4:21). Over and over again through this section of Exodus, Moses writes of God hardening Pharoah’s heart. Eventually, Pharoah’s heart joins in the hardness, and God’s hardening work is not necessary. In my limited capacity to understand God’s ways, it would seem easier for God to just encourage Pharoah’s heart to let the people go from the beginning, but God has other plans. He plunders the nation for gold and goods and then destroys a mighty army.  He demonstrates who He is in mighty ways that cannot be misunderstood and does so in a powerful nation with a voice to speak of His acts, enlarging His reputation (establishing His lordship for the first time – Ex. 6:3), and therefore, the safety of this fledgling nation He is bringing out of captivity. Who would mess with a nation whose God could do those things? I like to think I would not, yet I live in a world that many claim to serve a sovereign God and then argue about His sovereignty, not liking what He chooses to do, just as the children of Israel do repeatedly. You really cannot have it both ways. 

I also noticed a pattern of disobedience with Moses and Aaron that I had not previously seen. With the first plague of blood in Egypt, God says to Moses to tell Aaron to “stretch out your hand over the waters” (7:19) but instead he lifts up the staff and strikes the water (v. 20), foreshadowing Moses’ later actions in anger at Meribah after the rebellious, grumbling people he is charged with leading complain about not having water once again, grating on his last nerve. In reality, Moses has become like the people, grumbling and complaining before God about them, just as they grumble and complain about him to God. Instead of speaking to the rock before the people so that they could see God’s work in bringing forth much-needed water (Num. 20:8), Moses takes the rod from before the LORD and lifts up his hand and strikes the rock two times with it (v. 11). While the LORD gives the water, Moses’ faithlessness and failure to treat God “as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel” (v. 12) costs him not only the opportunity to lead the people into the Promised Land, but also his brother’s opportunity and ultimate demise. 

God had told Moses when he argued about not being able to speak that Aaron would “be as a mouth for [Moses] and [Moses] would be as God to him” (Ex. 4:14-16). Just as Aaron’s sin affects Moses when he leads the people in creating a false god, Moses’ sin affects Aaron, and subsequently, he has to strip Aaron of his priestly garments on Mount Hor and place them on his son Eleazer. Then Moses has to watch his brother die on the mountain before going back down to continue leading the people until God was finished with the work He had for him, knowing he has lost the chance to enter the promised land. This is such a timely reminder that when I sin, it doesn’t just affect me; my sin affects those around me, sometimes in very significant ways. 

These are just a few of the things God has uncovered for me as I have read through Exodus again, and I am nowhere near finished. God faithfully reveals who He is through His word, and when I dig in, I never leave without being satisfied (yet I am always thirsty for more, which is a paradox of unparalleled proportions, and I love it!).