10
¶ And Moses said unto the LORD, O my
Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto
thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. 11 And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made
man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have
not I the LORD? 12 Now therefore go, and
I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. 13 And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by
the hand of him whom thou wilt send. 14
And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not
Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold,
he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his
heart. 15 And thou shalt speak unto him,
and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth,
and will teach you what ye shall do. 16
And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he
shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.
17 And thou shalt take this rod in thine
hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs.
In spite of the miraculous signs Moses
continues to make excuses for himself as to why he is not up to the task God
has assigned. God counters with the fact that He made Moses mouth and not only
that he made those who can’t speak, hear, or see. So, either way, whether you
can do something or not do something it is of God. God tells Moses to go do
what he has been told and God will provide the means and the ability. Notice
here what Christ’s disciples are told.
Luke
12:11 And when they bring you unto the
synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what
thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: 12
For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to
say.
The heathen prophet, Balaam told King
Balak;
Numbers
22:38 And Balaam said unto Balak, Lo, I
am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say any thing? the word that
God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak.
But, as inspiration given by God comes
typically in the form of wisdom and understanding (Job 32:8; 2Peter 3:15)
rather than word for word dictation, we can get rather disturbed when we find
that people don’t often repeat exactly what God tells them word for word.
Still, as it is said in Jeremiah;
Jeremiah
1:9 Then the LORD put forth his hand,
and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in
thy mouth.
This is the way the Bible comes down to
those who believe it, not as the manual to your automobile or computer, but as
God’s intention and design for you to speak, representing Him as His
mouthpiece. But, this will become more clear later.
This is a difficult verse, verse 11, for
most modern Christians. We have been taught that defects in our normal abilities
including speech and sight are the consequence of genetics or disease. These
are purely mechanistic causes. In other words, we were lucky or unlucky. Our
handicap or our challenge is a negative thing that we are either ashamed of,
perplexed by, or angry at or even all of the above. We are not taught to
consider a specific purpose for our individual lives given by God. There is a
norm and any deviation from the norm is considered an unhappy condition in
which we find ourselves. In a particular instance in the New Testament Jesus
was asked why a man was born blind.
John
9:2 And his disciples asked him, saying,
Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? 3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned,
nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
This particular man was made and made a
certain way so that he would be there when God wanted to perform what is a
miracle to us, revealing Himself in a special way. This is much like how God
prepared the Pharaoh of Moses’ confrontations to set the stage for His power to
be revealed. We are so vain and egotistical that we consider our lives to be
for ourselves and our things to be purely for our enjoyment. We find it hard to
imagine that God made us just so tall, just so heavy, just so handsome, just so
pretty, just so athletic, just so intelligent, and just so clever for a reason.
Most of humanity has no interest in finding out that reason or even questioning
God about it. They just either lament their bad luck or glory in themselves.
Moses still objects, kindling God’s anger
which will be the cause of a scene in a short while that is very perplexing to
Bible students, the scene at the inn. Moses is not trusting God in accepting
God’s power and control. He has to be shown. Moses is on a bit of a learning
curve here. Imagine how he himself will be in wonder at the things God will do.
We often ignore that in our understanding, that Moses, as well, was seeing
things for the first time, things he could not have imagined. God promises to
let Aaron, Moses’ brother, speak for Moses. Moses will tell him what to say as
God tells Moses what to say. Aaron will be the spokesman with the words
provided by Moses and God. Moses will do signs with the rod in his hand.
God’s foreknowledge allows Him to take
into account Moses’ free will so Aaron has been prepared to assist a Moses who
is not acting in complete faith. This weakness in his faith will be Moses’
undoing in the end when he is denied entry into the Promised Land. But, God
uses weak vessels of clay to accomplish great purposes as Moses has been
prepared to deal with the Pharaoh as almost a peer by his upbringing in the court.
All the characters have been prepared by God for what is to come.
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