Prayer Challenges
Current Challenge from Doug Knox.
September 2024
Man Builders, Part 5
Exodus 4:18-31
Men who Know Their Purpose
What makes a confident man? I am convinced that genuine confidence grows when we plant our expectations for ourselves in biblical teaching. Substitutes pander to us from every angle, but Scripture is the only truly fertile ground for manhood.
The key point in Moses’s call story was God’s insistence that he align his purpose with the LORD’s design. “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters…. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:7, 10). Moses did not have to cast about for a purpose for his life. God called him to a task. I want to cover a short section in Exodus 4 that follows Moses’s experience after his dialogue with the LORD. The account reviews five events that occurred after Moses accepted his call to serve.
The First Event: Moses Maintains his Connection with Family
God’s call for Moses to demand Israel’s release from Egyptian slavery requires a complete change of direction for Moses. For forty years he has been under his father-in-law’s employ. Now, he must go back to Egypt to embark on an entirely new mission.
Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.” And the LORD said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.
--Exodus 4:18-20
Moses carries out his responsibilities with dignity. As a result, his father-in-law gives him his blessing. In the same context, he also receives assurance from the LORD that he will not have to suffer interference from the earlier incident with the abusive Egyptian taskmaster.
The Second Event: Resolve
When I conducted my seminary studies, one of the prevailing assumptions among the students, including myself, was that God’s work would be rewarding. Before anything else, we all expected to be happy in the work that God would choose for us. Two realizations could have saved many from disappointment. One, God chooses us for his glory rather than our personal satisfaction. And two, his work involves taking the truth to a world that hates him and anyone who has anything to do with him. While our call proves to be ultimately rewarding, it drives us to confrontation, difficulty, and hardship. God made this clear to Moses:
And the LORD said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, "Let my son go that he may serve me." If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.'"
--Exodus 4:21-23
God’s command for Moses to perform all the sign miracles that he had shown him is never intended to persuade the pharaoh. Rather, God says that he will harden his heart so that he can present his ultimatum, the pharaoh’s firstborn son for God’s firstborn son. The Egyptians regarded their pharaohs to be gods, which makes the LORD’s confrontation with him Creator against counterfeit. God’s intent from the beginning is to break this man who sets himself up to be a divine persecutor of God’s people.
The Third Event: A Lesson in Personal Integrity
Following our call from the Lord is a costly matter. Throughout the Bible, personal integrity is a necessary condition for service. In Moses’s case, the bar was particularly high.
At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!" So he let him alone. It was then that she said, "A bridegroom of blood," because of the circumcision.
--Exodus 4:24-26
These three verses present a dark scene—a stalking God with the intent to kill, a hurried circumcision at a way station, and an enraged wife and mother. The context suggests that the “him” whom the LORD met along the way is Moses’s older son, who was not yet circumcised into the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17:9-14). If Moses is to go toe-to-toe with the pharaoh, he must act in integrity. “We should note that in the verse immediately preceding this incident (4:23), God said he would slay the firstborn son of Pharaoh when he disobeyed. Here we see the Lord doing the same thing to the firstborn son of moses when he disobeyed.”[1] To be sure, God does not threaten every one of his servants with death if they do not obey. Since Moses is involved in a life-or-death summons to the pharaoh, he must follow the same standards that he would preach.
The Fourth Event: Comradery Restored
Contrary to the popular Hollywood image, tough men acting in solo positions are foreign to God’s plan. We need each other, both for encouragement and accountability. Even Moses functioned with his brother.
The LORD said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do.
--Exodus 4:27-28
Notice that Aaron learned all the words and signs that Moses was to speak and perform. Ultimately, because of a real or imagined speech impediment on Moses’s part, God made Aaron his mouthpiece when they confronted the Pharaoh.
The Fifth Event: Confidence in the Vision,
When I use the term vision, I mean it as an idea or ideal that inspires hope—a cause. The vision in Exodus rests on the dream for freedom that God had implanted in his people already.
Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. Aaron spoke all the words that the LORD had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.
--Exodus 4:29-31
The background for this scene appears during God’s call to Moses. In the third of Moses’s five attempts to refuse the call, he asks, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice…” (Exodus 4:1). In truth, God leaves the possibility of rejection open (Exodus 4:2-9). We face the same contingency. Obeying God’s call does not guarantee “success.” Our confidence will fail if we rely on results. We must rest on the truth itself.
Following Great Examples
We know, of course, that none of us has a mission on par with Moses, and we want to be careful to avoid reducing his call story into an object lesson. But we know that God has a purpose for every man. Granted, our callings will be far smaller than Moses’s call, but they will be no less important to the whole purpose of God in history.
Doug Knox
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[1] John H. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 249.