Moses' Spiritual Choice

According to the words of the writer of the book of Hebrews, in Chapter 11, when Moses chose “to be mistreated with the People of God”, by faith he knew that everything was going to work out all right. Obviously there was this sense of well being since God had spoken to his heart and he had surrendered to his God and submitted to God because he wanted to honor God and he wanted to help God's people. Surely then as God had worked in his heart God would work in the hearts of others. And all of the early training that he had received would be used by God as a means of delivering His people from their oppression down in Egypt. So there came into his heart the desire to go and see how his brethren faired. This is where we pick up the story then:

In Exodus 2:11 Moses heart was right. It was right with God and he wanted to make it right with his brethren the Jews. He wanted to identify himself with the people of God and it is always right to identify oneself with the people of God. But when he went down to Goshen he came with a right heart and he came with a right purpose, but he did a wrong thing. And there in hangs the tale. For it is possible that those of us who have made our choices to receive Jesus Christ as Savior; that we really do want to serve God in a right way - we want our families to serve God, we want our children to serve God, we want to make our business God honoring businesses and before you know it we turn around and suddenly though we want to do right we do wrong. Why?

What happened to Moses this “new” man of God? Because he had already made his choice according to Hebrews chapter 11. What made him do what he did in Exodus chapter 2? He came down and remember he's identified with the Court of the Princes. He was a man of authority. He is a man of dignity. You could almost say he is a man of royalty. Here he comes and there is a menial taskmaster of the Egyptians. And he sees this taskmaster mistreating a Hebrew and Moses blood boils. Looking this way and that way, to assure no one is looking on, he slays the Egyptians. Surely God has brought him for a moment such as this. But then, what to do with the body. He quickly decides to bury the body in the sand. The next day he saw two Hebrew men fighting and quarreling one another and he went to them and said, "Hey you two are brothers don't fight like this. There must be a sense of unanimity amongst us if God is going to be able to work in our midst" (this is my reading between the lines - I call it the "Hubbardian Paraphrase") And the one who was in the wrong said, "Who made you the ruler and the judge over us? Are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian yesterday?" How did they know? Unless the one who was being mistreated by the Egyptian - the Hebrew told them what Moses had done.

Moses' spiritual choice was followed by:

Moses' Surprising Challenge

Why did things work out the way they did? I am going to give you four problems that I see in this text, Exodus 2:11 and these can become four problems to any child of God though he has made his choice to serve Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ really does live in his heart - if we are not careful these four things that might be exhibited in our lives and in our temperament - if they are there then we can certainly express our faith in a wrong way. We can desire to do right but do it in a wrong way.

Let me begin with what I think is the most obvious.

First question - Was Moses' arrogant? You say wait a minute Pastor. "He is a man of God." That doesn't make any difference. In Acts 7 do you remember that very significant statement when Moses thought, so Stephen says, that God would by his hand, the hand of Moses deliver the Children of Israel? I submit that when Moses went down to Goshen that day Moses could have very well have had a Messianic complex. This is when I the individual becomes absolutely essential to what God is going to do in the life of a nation, a church or whatever. That everything hinges on me. And Moses was wrong. One of the things that Moses had to learn was that we must learn that everything hinges on God. And that we are but God's instruments. I submit to you that there is a problem here. A possible problem of pride. Anytime you and I refuse to listen to the voice of others, refuse to consider our ways, when we make everything in our experience gravitate around us - I suggest to you that spiritual arrogance may be taking place. I have known of some very arrogant Pastors. I have also known of some very arrogant church members. Moses problem - was he arrogant? Let me again read between the lines - Moses is the adopted son of the former Pharaoh's daughter. He would have been known throughout the land. He was 40 now. Here is a taskmaster who on the Egyptian socio-economic level would be way down - how dare that Egyptian taskmaster not listen to the voice of Moses. Do you see it? So the first question was - is he arrogant? If you and I are occupied with pride; if everything has to be done our way, if you and I think we are so essential that God cannot use anybody else - I tell you, we are going to do things in a wrong way.

The second question is - was he anxious?

Written subliminally in this entire passage is the sense of haste. The sense of impulsiveness, for example, look at Exodus 2:12. Why did he have to do that? Slaying an Egyptian was not honoring or glorifying to God. How could God be honored and glorified in the eyes of the Egyptians this way? I suggest to you that there is a probability that Moses was occupied with impatience. Was he anxious? Was he so anxious to exhibit the fact that he wanted to be identified with the people of God that he could not wait on God's timing - for God's timing is the best timing. It is obvious that this is not God's timing because of the results that came from it. Had it been God's timing the nation would have responded to him. The nation did not respond. Hence it is not God's timing. Moses was doing right serving God but in a wrong way. He slew the Egyptian. Was he arrogant? Was he anxious?

The third question - was he afraid?

Look at verse 12 - where it say that he looked this way and that way and again I conclude if there is anything that you do in the dark that cannot be done in the light you had better not do it. For this was to be done in privacy and in secret - he would slay the Egyptian and he did not want anybody else to look upon it - I suggest to you then that there is the possibility of his being afraid.

The fourth question - was he angry?

Is the bottom line such that what happened to Moses was that he simply lost his temper? He lost his cool. It can happen even to some Christians. One pastor said to me one time, "Oh I get angry and I blow off steam. I'm like a shotgun. Its just one blast and then its all over." Have you ever seen the damage a shotgun blast can cause? Moses became angry and the result of that one moment would dog him the rest of his life. His spiritual choice - his surprising challenge and now the word was out - Moses was a murderer. It was reported back to the court of the King and when Pharaoh heard this he sought to slay Moses. Poor Moses. What's he going to do? Have you ever had that one moment? That one decision? That one something that you did under the emotion or passion of a moment that forever colors the rest of your life? If only we could go back. If only Moses could go back and maybe re-live that 30 minute time. But you can't go back - can you? So the question we have to ask now is - What about the change? What about the change that would come to him? Did you ever stop to think that he went from Memphis to Midia - in the course of just a few days. Where is God in all of us? Is your heart hurting? Do you find yourself presently having to live with a series of bad choices? Do you wring your hands before God and say, "Oh God, how can you work in the midst of this?" Have those whom you love made some bad choices - some wrong decisions? After having come before God with some of these wrong choices and wrong decisions that we sometimes have made for which we have to suffer and remember that there was ridicule and rejection involved. Moses had to run away. The question - where is God in all of this? Or to put it another way - Can God ever take a person who had done something wrong and still use that person for His glory? The answer is ... YES! THAT IS GRACE! We are all sinners. We even sin after we become believers. We should not, but we do. What was God doing in the life of Moses? Let me give it to you in a nutshell:

God allowed Moses to enter God's school of discipline. Moses had been in the headlines and for 40 years he could have almost anything that he wanted - the next 40 years of his life he is going to be tucked away on the backside of the Midian desert in almost total obscurity. Why Midian? Why the desert? Moses doesn't know this but as we shall see Moses thinks that God is finished with him. Moses does not believe that there is any future for him with God. He had made his choice. (Hebrews 11:24) and the next 40 years of his life there is no voice from God. God is going to teach Moses how to lead and how to be a shepherd. God is going to have to teach Moses the ways of the desert and there is only one way you can learn the ways of the desert and that is by being IN the desert. There are some things that you have to learn by going through them. And God is going to take these experiences that Moses will now undergo and even though he may have thought he was rejected, God is marking time. And while God is preparing His servant to lead, God will also be working in the hearts and lives of God's people who when Moses comes again at 80 years of age they will be prompted to follow. They weren't ready to follow when he was 40. They WILL be when he is 80. God is at work in Moses life. So take heart my friends! You may have made a bad choice, you may have made a bad decision and after having confessed and received restoration from the Lord there are still consequences to come - trust God. For God is working in your life as he worked in the life of Moses. Spiritual choices do not keep us from surprising challenges. Though we love and believe in Jesus Christ, that does not prevent us from making wrong decisions or doing right things in wrong ways. But God's grace is greater then my wrong ways. And even though I must enter into the school of God's discipline, and even though there are those changes that come about God is still going to work and bring glory to himself. That is triumph in the midst of tragedy.

Moses choice changed the course of his life. I am asking you to make a choice for Jesus Christ today. You may have been thinking about it for quite some time. I am going to ask you to do something about it today. Weigh it up in the balance of your mind - on the one hand there is all your sinful past on the other hand there is Jesus Christ and there is the cross - whom will you follow - Christ or not? The choice is yours. Make that choice to honor God. There are choices that even some of us believers need to make. Choices to change our lifestyle. To change our sinning. To come back to Jesus Christ and to begin to live lives glorifying to God. Some of you have been sitting on the fence for so long. Make your choice a choice that will honor God and help Gods people.