Moses—THE SHEPHERD WHOM GOD USED TO SAVE HIS PEOPLE
Presented by
Blake Brown
As Tyler ended his sermon on Joseph, we learned that Joseph’s father Jacob, along with his eleven sons, their wives, and all of their children had moved from Canaan to Egypt. For many years Jacob had thought that his beloved son Joseph was dead. But Joseph was far from dead. In fact, God had been working through him to bring about the salvation of the people of Israel during a time of terrible famine in their land. When Tyler said that “the story did not end there,” he was absolutely correct. As the book of Genesis comes to end, we see how God had used one unlikely person—a 17-year-old old teenage boy—to get His people to Egypt. Now God was going to use another unlikely (and unsuspecting!) person to take His people out of Egypt. Here is what happened.
As the book of Exodus begins, we learn in verse eight of
chapter 1 that “there
arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” The new pharaoh saw how
numerous the Hebrews were becoming in Egypt, and he began to fear that they
would take over his country. So, the pharaoh decided to turn them into slaves. And,
as Exodus 1:22 explains, to prevent the Hebrew nation from growing even larger,
pharaoh issued a command to the midwives who helped Hebrew women give birth:
“Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you
shall save alive.” Pharaoh was willing to allow the Hebrew baby girls to live. But he wanted the Hebrew
baby boys killed so they could not
grow into men and challenge his authority.
One
Hebrew woman who had a baby boy during this time was a lady by the name of
Jochebed. Exodus 2 tells us that in order to save her son, she built a small,
waterproof basket in which to place him. She then hid the basket among the
reeds along the Nile River. One day, pharaoh’s daughter came to the River and
stumbled across the basket. She decided to take the baby back to live with her
in the palace, and named him “Moses,” meaning “he who was drawn out of the
water.” Fortunately, Moses’ sister, Miriam, had been watching over him to keep
him safe. When she saw what was happening, she volunteered to find a Hebrew
woman to take care of the baby for the princess. That woman, of course, was
Jochebed, Moses’ real mother. As Moses grew, he was taught the ways of the
Hebrews. But, as the Bible tells us in Acts 7:22, Moses also “was learned in
all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds.”
At
the age of forty, Moses witnessed an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew
slave, and when he went to the defense of the Hebrew, he ended up killing the
Egyptian. Exodus 2:15 tells us that because of this incident, “pharaoh sought
to kill Moses.” Moses left Egypt and went to live in the land of Midian, where
he met a shepherd by the name of Jethro. Moses married Jethro’s daughter, Zipporah,
and helped Jethro tend
his sheep. Then, after forty more years had passed, God spoke to Moses at Mount
Horeb through a bush that burned but was not consumed. The Lord said, “I will send you to pharaoh that you may
bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10). The time had come for God to
save the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. And He was going to use an humble
shepherd to do it.
When
Moses and his brother Aaron arrived in pharaoh’s court with the message, “Thus
says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go,’” pharaoh’s response was, “Who is the Lord, that
I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go” (Exodus
5:1-2). Because of pharaoh’s stubborn refusal to obey God, Egypt suffered ten
terrible plagues, which are discussed in Exodus 8-12.
· The Nile River turned to blood.
· Frogs invaded the Egyptian landscape.
· Lice afflicted humans and animals alike.
· Flies infested the land.
· Disease killed the Egyptians’ cattle, horses, donkeys, camels, oxen, sheep, and other animals.
· Boils infected humans and animals throughout the country.
· Hail fell from the sky and crushed the Egyptians’ crops.
· Grasshoppers arrived by the millions and devoured what was left of Egypt’s harvest.
· Darkness fell over the land for three full days.
· And finally, God slew the firstborn child in every house of Egypt.
But
while the Egyptians suffered, the people of Israel were protected by God from
being affected by any of the plagues. Finally, as Exodus 12:31-32 tells us,
pharaoh called Moses and Aaron to his palace and told them, “Rise, go out from
among my people, both you and the children of Israel. Go serve the Lord as you
have said. Take your flocks and your herds, and be gone!”
After
more than two hundred years of living in slavery, the Israelites were now free!
But Moses’ work had just begun. He now was in charge of an estimated two
million people who had known only one thing for all of their lives: slavery. It was Moses’ job to lead them
out of Egypt, guide them across hundreds and hundreds of miles of open desert,
and eventually take them to the brink of the land that God had promised—through
their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give them.
First, Exodus 14 tells us that
the Israelites crossed the Red Sea in one
night as they sought to escape pharaoh’s army. If the people had gone
across in a narrow path, double file, the line would have been 800 miles long and would have required 35 days and nights to get across. So,
God had to open a space in the Red Sea 3
miles wide so that the people could walk 5,000 abreast in order to cross over in a single night.
Second, every time the
Israelites camped at the end of the day, a campground two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island—a total of 750 square
miles—was required. That would comprise an area 25 miles wide and 130 miles long. Think of how much space was
needed just for nightly camping.
Third,
all of those people had to be fed—which would have required a lot of
food. According to the Quarter-Master General of the United States Army, to
feed that many people, Moses would have needed 1,500 tons of food each day. Just transporting that much food would
have required 2 freight trains, each a
mile long.
Fourth,
the people would have needed firewood to use in cooking their food—and
remember: they were in a desert!
This would have required an estimated 4,000
tons of wood—and a few more freight
trains, each a mile long—just for a single day. And they were 40 years in transit!
Fifth,
they would have to have water, too. If the people had only enough to drink and
wash a few clothes, it would have taken 11,000,000
gallons each day, and a freight train with tank cars stretching out more
than 1,800 miles just to bring enough water for one day! A desert has no lakes
or streams. So how were the Israelites supposed to get their water?
Do
you think Moses stopped to figure out all of these things before he left Egypt?
Of course he didn’t!
Moses trusted God, and knew that God was going to take care of all these things
for him. Yet as the days, weeks, months, and years began to pass,
Moses found himself having to deal with people who constantly were ungrateful
for everything that God had done for them. He rescued them from centuries of
slavery in Egypt, provided them with safe passage through the Red Sea, gave
them manna to eat each morning and quail to eat each evening, and even
prevented their clothes from wearing out on their long journey. Yet they
continually bickered, complained, griped, grumbled, and whined. Worse still, on
several occasions the Israelites so openly and stubbornly disobeyed God that He
slew them by the thousands to teach them the lesson that they desperately
needed to learn: God says what He means,
and means what He says!
Moses and Aaron both died before entering the Promised Land, as did all of the people who were over twenty years of age when they had left Egypt, except for the houses of Joshua and Caleb. Eventually, however, Joshua led the people of Israel into Canaan, at which time they finally were able to inhabit the land that God had promised to give to Abraham and his descendants.
But who could ever have guessed the God would accomplish
such amazing things at the hands of a simple shepherd? Perhaps now we can
better understand what Paul meant when he said in 1 Corinthians 1:27 that “God
has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God
has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are
mighty.” Pharaoh was mighty, and considered himself to be wise. Yet he and his
world-class army were defeated by an humble shepherd who was willing to yield
to the Creator of the Universe and obey His will. Surely there is an important
lesson in all of this for us, too. That lesson is this: “I know that you, Lord, can do
all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). Enough
said.