THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST: GENESIS AND EXODUS (17)

EXODUS 3-6

Confrontation with Pharaoh

Key Passage: Exodus 3:6-1-13

CHAPTER	3-4	CHAPTER 5	CHAPTER 6
Moses’ call by God	Moses’ Excuses to God	Pharaoh’s Response to Moses	God’s Reassurance to Moses
God Confronts	Moses	Moses Confronts	Pharaoh

OVERVIEW After 40 years of reflection, Moses concludes he is permanently disqualified from God’s service. In a remarkable debate with the living God, Moses offers four excuses and begs the Lord to send someone else as His spokesman. Finally, when God provides Aaron as a mouthpiece, Moses confronts Pharaoh with God’s message. As predicted, Pharaoh not only denies God’s demand, but also increases the miseries of the Hebrews. Moses’ popularity with his people plummets, but God assures Moses that He will keep His promise of deliverance.

In God’s strategy for successful living, character is more important than intelligence.

OUR DAILY WALK The church has been likened to a football game in which thousands of spectators desperately in need of exercise are watching a handful of players desperately in need of rest. Are you a spectator or a player?

Before you pull out your list of reasons excusing you from active duty in your church, eavesdrop on an 80-year-old shepherd as he argues with a burning bush. With good reason Moses anticipated resistance and rejection from his own people – to say nothing of Pharaoh. Besides, he had a speech impediment and an inferiority complex. Surely God was showing poor judgment (so Moses thought) in His choice of a deliverer for His people.

Patiently, thoroughly, God gave His rebuttal: “I can use this bush, that rod in your hand, or even your stammering lips – whatever is available-to accomplish My plan and fulfill My promise. For all that you lack, and everything you are not, I AM.”

God probably isn’t recruiting you to lead a nation out of bondage. But He definitely wants to show what He can accomplish through you. In response to His promise that “I AM all you need,” will you answer, “I am available”?

INSIGHT Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick

Moses’ staff was subsequently used by God to turn water into blood, bring hail and lightning, summon locusts, divide the Red Sea bring water out of rocks, and signal victory in battle.