Please Send Someone Else (Part 3)

It does not matter how long it takes, God keeps His promises. Back in Genesis 15, before Isaac was born, God told Abraham his descendants will be strangers in a country not theirs and that they will be enslaved for 400 years. He promised to punish the nation they serve as slaves and bring them out of slavery with great possessions. About 650 years later, God commissions Moses in Exodus 3, to begin the fulfilment of His promise. If God said it, it’s going to happen. God’s word is trustworthy. It’s reliable and unbreakable.

After Moses’ third excuse, God gave him, not just one sign, but three. First the rod became a snake, which turned back into a rod after God’s instruction. Next, God made Moses’ healthy hand leprous and then restored it to health after He asked him to put it back into his cloak. By this God showed His power to instantly destroy and instantly heal. Everything is within His power. He can do anything in an instant. The first two signs were demonstrated there and then. The third, was a promise, which He performed later. “But if they do not believe the two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.” (Exodus 4:9, NIV).

By giving Moses a third sign, which was to happen later, God was saying to Moses, my plan is more advanced, and covers any eventualities you can think of and more. God was saying, “I know how all this will turn out. Don’t worry Moses, I’ve got this!" In the same way, God is saying to us, “don’t worry…I’ve got you. Your future is in my hands.” God has a plan that includes turning our misfortunes, mistakes, and mishaps into a blessing. Whatever we’ve messed up, when we give them to Him, He will turn them around for our good. (Romans 8:28).
 
“I am slow of speech and tongue”   
After all that, here comes the fourth excuse – “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 4:10, NIV). Like me, I know by now, you are also getting fed up with Moses’ excuses. How can God do all that He has already done, and Moses still has the audacity to come up with yet another excuse? Well, Moses is actually better than most of us.  Throughout redemptive history, this pattern of behaviour is very common with humans in their interaction with God. The Children of Israel started complaining right after rejoicing that Pharoah’s army were drowned in the sea. They did not stop even after God led them into the promised land. At least Moses eventually did what God asked - Many people don’t. Can you think of something God has asked you to do and all you’ve managed is excuses, to the point He is no longer asking you?

Arguing that we should not be overly critical of Moses, Calvin says, “It is, indeed, lawful to fear in perplexities, provided that our anxiety overcomes not the desire to obey; but whatever God enjoins it is never right to refuse on any pretext.” Therefore, let’s examine ourselves, and make sure we never refuse to obey what God commands under any pretext. Let us be like the three Hebrew children, who decided to honour God and refused Nebuchadnezzar’s command at the risk of their lives. (Daniel 3:16-18). The example of Abraham should spur us to resolve to obey God at the expense of the most cherished gift we received from Him. (Hebrews 11:17-20).

To ask a stammerer to deliver a very important message that needs to be clear, concise and to the point seem like the kind of thing only God would do. He is the God that uses unqualified people because He qualifies them. God’s response to Moses’ fourth excuse was telling. “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? It is not I, the LORD? Now go, I will help you speak and will teach you what to say” (Exodus 4:12, NIV). Whatever our human limitations are, like He promised Moses, God is saying, “I will help you”. I will help you…pray; I will help you…trust me, I will help you…obey. Are you weak or weary? Are your limitations holding you back from doing what God commands? May you hear His gentle witness in your spirit saying, “I will help you!”  

“Please send someone else”
But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord, please send someone else.” (Exodus 4:13, NIV). Notice that God did not get angry with Moses after making the first four excuses. However, when Moses said send someone else, God was angry with him. But as quickly as His anger arose, did we see His mercy, kindness, and grace flow out towards Moses.

No man has the right to say to their creator “send someone else”. When it comes to His instruction, the right response is always, “Here I am, I send me”. Moses made God angry. “Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, 'What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you.'" (Exodus 4:14, NIV).

Here we see two things at play: Moses’ reluctance, perhaps fuelled with the magnitude of the task, and God’s anger tempered with kindness, working out a way to encourage Moses to say yes to His will. It is often our failure to see how magnificent our God is, that further magnifies our challenges. In the words of the song by Don Moen, we make God “too small” in our eyes, when we allow situations to overwhelm us. May God be magnified in our eyes, may He alone be highly exalted, so that all else pales in significance compared to His Glorious Power that is at work in us.

As we come to the end of this piece, I think it is fitting to finish with the words of John Calvin rather than mine. “God had pardoned His servant’s slowness and unwillingness to the work; but beholding that he obstinately refused, He spares him no longer. Hence we are warned cautiously to beware, lest if God bear with us for a time, we give way to self-indulgence, as if we were permitted to abuse His patience with impunity. Still, it is a mark of His fatherly kindness, that in His anger He contents Himself with reproof.”