Life - God’s University (Exodus 2)
Billy Milton - September 4, 2005
Over the next few months we are going to be pre-occupied with a man called Moses. His story starts a few generations or so after the time of Joseph. You’ll remember that Joseph had ascended to the number 2 position in Egypt and as a result of his influence he had arranged for his father Jacob and 11 brothers to move to Egypt to escape the famine in Canaan. As a result of that move, the descendents of Jacob, or the children of Israel as they became known, grew and multiplied greatly (1:6). We are told that a king came to the throne who had no knowledge of Joseph and his exploits but could only see that the Hebrews were beginning to pose a threat to his rule, just through sheer volume of numbers. So he came up with a cruel plan to change that situation.
He decided that every male child born to the Hebrew mothers should be thrown into the Nile and drowned. Girls could live, boys must die. Despots are not a modern invention. However, when Moses’ mum gave birth, this was sometime around 1525BC, she quite naturally set about disobeying this order from the king, at least for a short time. She saw that Moses was a fine child (what mother doesn’t think that their child is a fine child?) so she hid him until he was 3 months old and then it was obviously going to be too difficult to continue hiding him so she came up with another plan – one that smacks a bit of desperation… or perhaps of faith.
She made a lovely little waterproof basket and placed the basket with the baby in it into a clump of bulrushes in the river Nile (just as Pharaoh had ordered?) and then asked her daughter to hang around and see what happened to Moses. Of course the story is well known and it came to pass that the daughter of Pharaoh was bathing in that area (was this a coincidence or did Moses’ mum know something?), she saw the baby and could not resist picking him up and taking him home to the palace where she no doubt was able to twist her daddy around her little finger and was allowed to keep the baby. It wasn’t that unusual for foreigners to be accepted into the Egyptian court. Not only that, Moses big sister, Miriam, runs over and offers to find a nurse for the baby and his own birth mum ends up becoming his nurse. It’s a perfect story and has been told and re-told to generation after generation. Even, as we have already seen, been made into a number of movies. What I find quite remarkable is how once again God places one of his own right at the heart of Egypt’s power base. Q Who was the last one? Yes, Joseph!
So, far from being just any old Hebrew baby, Moses becomes a member of the king’s family and possibly, in the right circumstances, heir to the throne of Egypt. The words of Zechariah are so true here, “’Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord.” (4:6) How long before we learn this truth?
Anyway, at 40 years of age Moses apparently had it all. He would almost certainly have been put through a rigorous training scheme to equip him to lead, fabulous riches at his disposal, the glory of the Royal Court was his. He was set for life, or so it would seem. But one thing got in the way of his carefully planned career path. God laid on his heart a deep concern for his own birth people and their suffering, and all the glitter of worldly advancement lost its attraction. Many people since have discovered a similar emptiness in gold from Egypt.
At any rate, he sees a Hebrew being beaten unjustly by an Egyptian and, after checking that no-one is looking, he intervenes and in so doing kills the Egyptian, digs a shallow grave and stuffs the body into it. Job done, or so he thought. But in one moment of misguided zeal he ruins his life! Do you know folks… that’s all it takes to wreck a life. One moment of madness. One lapse in self-control and its gone. You can build a reputation over many, many years and ruin it in a second. That long, happy marriage – gone in an instant. That carefully nurtured reputation for integrity – gone in a heartbeat. Your Christian testimony – ruined by one careless moment. That’s what happened to Moses because he had made one of the biggest mistakes that a human being can make. Did you spot his mistake?
Look at v12. Picture his looking ‘this way and that’. Where was the one way he didn’t look? Yip – upwards. He made that careless assumption that if no-one could see him then he was okay. Wrong! So very wrong! But, how like Moses are we? Do we ever take the upward look? Or do we make the Moses mistake of limiting our guilty looks to ‘this way and that’? David got it right when his adultery with Bathsheba was exposed. His immediate reaction was an upward look and confession, “Oh God, against you and you only have I sinned.”
I don’t know whether he left a toe sticking up through the sand when he buried the Egyptian or what, but the very next day our super-hero again seeks to intervene in a fight, this time between 2 Israelites, and one of them asks Moses if he’s going to kill him just like he killed the Egyptian? What a shock to Moses. He was convinced that he’d gotten off scot-free but now his sin had risen up and was slapping him right in the face. I remember as a young boy my friend and I stealing 10 cigarettes off of his dad and sneaking up to a disused railway shed to smoke them. Nobody saw us. We sucked some polo mints and went home quite chuffed with ourselves until the next day at school a wee boy came to me and said, “I saw you last night smoking in the railway shed. I’m going to tell your mum.” Boy, was I in trouble! “Be sure your sins will find you out.” One day, no matter how clever or deceitful we are, we will stand before God and give an account of our lives to him… and there’ll be no hiding on that day. Isn’t it better to deal with your sin now instead of having it brought up then?
At any rate, Moses was faced with an awful dilemma. He knew that his crime was now common knowledge and his life was in danger and so he flees from the comfort and prestige of the palace to the harshness and anonymity of the desert. If this was God’s idea of training a man for leadership then it seemed to have taken a wrong turn. What possible benefit can hiding in a desert be to a Prince of Egypt? Moses had it all but it seems that he had no real direction in life. He was just drifting, and God took him into a desert place in order to get his attention and teach him some lessons. Isn’t interesting how often God chastens those he loves? Joseph, Moses, Abraham, David, Paul – all of them had desert experiences to prepare them for service for God. And what they learned in God’s University far exceeded what they learnt in the universities of this world.
There’s a principle here which is so fundamental to spiritual growth, and yet so feared and avoided by the average Christian, that I almost hesitate to say it. You’re not going to like it and indeed some of you may very well walk away from this church when I say it. But, here it is – God cannot use you until you have been through his desert university! In other words, its only once we have been through a time of suffering and refining that God can use us. God will not use you because you are a successful business person. Or because you have a PHD. Or because you are good looking or well dressed. God will only use you when you are able to say, “Lord God, Thy will be done in my life.”
Moses only reached that place of submission after all the distractions and temptations of the palace were behind him and God finally got his attention with a burning bush in the desert. Let me say something out of love and concern for you – don’t fight God’s testing. Don’t get angry when he is refining your personality. Remember Moses and submit with grateful thanksgiving to the one who knows your beginning and your end. The one who knows the plans he has made for you.
In the desert Moses found a wife and fathered some children but the biggest discovery he made was that God was going to use him to change the world… if only he’d submit to Him. But that’s next week’s story!