Exodus
4:10 ¶ 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. But without considering eternity much of life
makes no sense at all.
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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