Our Excuse and God's answer (Exodus 4:1 - 17)

[Stephan Choe]

03. June 2012

Our Excuse and God's answer

Exodus 4:1 - 17
Key Verse 11-12: "The Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? Who made the dumb or deaf or seeing or blind? Have I not done, the Lord? Now go, I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say. "


God wants to use us for his meaningful work. For example, God wants use us to invite others to the eternal life. But from time to time we have no spirit to invite others to faith or to the church.

Today's text teaches us how we can be used by God. We want to learn how we can be used by Him, despite of our earlier failures.

Moses excuse

God told Moses: "Go and gather the elders of Israel and say to them: 'God of your fathers has appeared to me and said that he has accepted your request. He wants to lead you out of Egypt and lead into the promised land of Canaan. And the elders will listen to you. Then you should go with them to the king of Egypt and say to him: 'The Lord has appeared to us. So let us go into the desert, so we sacrifice to our God. But I know that Pharaoh will not let you move. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the miracles. Then he will let you go "(3:16-20).

Even though God told Moses his job and His help, Moses would not accept the divine call. What were his reasons?

First, "They will not believe me" (1)

40 years ago, Moses had bitter experience. He was rejected both by his own people as well as by the Egyptians. So he had to flee into the desert and had to waste 40 years. Because of this experience, he said to God: "Behold, they will not believe me and will say: The Lord has not appeared You" (1).
Because of his previous negative experience Moses refused the orders of God.

When we tell people the good news, many of them do not listen, because they regard the Gospel as gossip. And some mock us. Such negative experience discourage us to share the gospel with them. We should not be discouraged. Even Jesus Christ was mocked and even killed. But we want us to know why people reject the gospel. They refuse because they do not have a direct line to God. They can not believe that God exists. They can not believe also that there is a resurrection of the dead. They can believe in only the visible world. And they believe that death is the end of the life. And they can not understand why their disbelief is a sin. Therefore they can not understand us. And they mock us from their ignorance. We should not be discouraged, though many do not believe in the gospel and mock us. We shoud continue fearlessly to preach the gospel.

When Moses refused God's call, God asked him, "What have you got in your hand" Moses answered: "A rod" With this staff, he led the flocks of his father in law or used it for his walking.
And God said unto him. "Throw it on the ground" when Moses threw his staff on the ground, it became a snake and Moses fled before it. And God said to Moses: "Stretch out your hand and grasp it by the tail" When he did, it became a rod again.

With this sign God said to Moses: "Thou shalt trust me completely. I can also make your simple stick to my stick and reveal my power. "
Our God can use a simple thing that we have and do his miracle. God wants to use our staff or our 5 loaves and 2 fishes as his instrument and reveal His glory. We should not rely on ourselves but on God.
God can use our simple and wonderful thing to reveal his glory.
We should confess our inability on the one hand. This is the first step. But we should believe that God use our small gift and do his miracle. God will do through our little gift wonderful thing and reveal His glory.


Secondly, I can not speak well (10)

The second apology of Moses is: "I can not talk. I have no talent as an orator.” It is said that a wise talking means the half of the success.” Moses also knew the importance of talking. As a savior of the his people he had to speak to Pharaoh and the Israelites. But he said that unfortunately he had no talent of speech. His conviction has a good reason. 40 years ago he had tried to help his people. But his attempt failed miserablely and he was forced to flee into the desert. So Moses was convinced that he had not eloquence.

Moses’ low self-esteem was one reason why God would use him as his servant. If Moses had faith in God nun, he could be a good servant of God.

Many people believe that they can do much with their skills. But as long as they think that they might do something with their talents they can not be used well by God.
But we should not get stuck in our inability. We are to surrender to God and trust him. God can do through us something wonderful.

God asked Moses, "Who has made man's mouth?" (11). The answer, of course "God". God gave us mouths. We should recognize that God has given us some talents. We will discover talents which God has given us new.
And God said to Moses: "Go now, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say" (12).
Moreover, God reminded Moses that God had given him a brother named Aaron. Aaron can act as a spokesman for Moses and proclaim God's will.

God teaches us that we should recognize some talents that God has given us and use them for God's work. We have, for example, mouth, hands and feet. We should use our mouths, our hands or our feet and preach the God's word. Anyone who has no talent of speaking, he should use his fingers and spread the Good News via computer. God has given us talents. He will give us also other things which we need. We should do God’s wonderful work.


Third, "I do not want" (13)

Finally, Moses said to God: "I will not. Send, who you want to send." In the past Moses had have strong self-confidence and wanted to save the nation with its own power. Now he had no more self-confidence. He was so deep in despair. Because of his deep despair, he rejected God's call so abruptly.

God became very angry with Moses. He spoke to Moses, "Don’t you have a brother Aaron from the tribe of Levi? I know he can speak well "(14).

God wanted to save his people, although Moses did not want to be used by God. He spoke to Moses, so that he obeyed Him. God can do His will with us or without us. But we should not lose his blessing, to be used by him.

Kim Dae-jung was the Korean president between 1997-2003. In 1971 he had lost the presidential election against Chung-Hee Park narrowly. After that he had had a long time of persecution. He was a Catholic Christian and his wife, Hee-Ho Lee, a Protestant. For a time he doubted whether God really exists. But he met Jesus in 1973.
At that time he was in exile in Japan. But he was kidnapped by the Korean secret service and was on the ship of the Korean Intelligence. The Korean intelligence agents tied him with rope, his eyes with cloth, his mouth stuffed with cloth and bound heavy burdens on its two legs. The Korean intelligence would drown him in the sea without a trace. Kim Dae-Jung thought he would die soon. At that time Kim Daejung prayed to God every day. Before his death he suddenly saw Jesus standing before him. He clung to Jesus and asked him: "Lord, save me, so I can save the Korean nation from tyranny."
He prayed to God to be used for the Korean nation. And God heard his prayer.
At that moment he heard a noise "ping" and he could see suddenly. After a half-hour he saw a Japanese helicopter flying above him. The people from the helicopter asked him: "Are you Mr. Kim Dae-Jung" He nodded. The United States had learned of the murder plot of the Korean and asked Japanese intelligence to save him. The Korean intelligence officials did not kill him, but took him to Korea. He later became a president of Korea and won the Nobel Peace Prize. His wife is a devout evangelical Christian. Through his work Korean people could be free politically and ware blessed spiritually.

Our God calls his people today and save them from the power of the dark forces.
Through the story of Moses we learn that we should confess to God our inabilities. But we should accept God's call to save the people. We should trust in God. We should use our talents that we have already, in order to fulfill the divine mission.

_++ This is a automatic translation of the German sermon through Google translator ++