Moses: Part 1

Key: Blue=Bible, Red= Author notes

Hebrews 11:24-26 (NIV)

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

Hello World,

I am going through this battle right now. I go through this battle every day, and I have not been winning. You see, the battle is already won. When you go to Christ, you automatically win. But these last couple of days, I wasn’t going to Christ. I tried fighting the battle on my own. I used my own tools, my own strategies, my own self to get through my issues. And although I saw God, I turned my back on him. I did not want him to help me.

 I pray that Moses can serve as an example that I can follow and use to repent. He had all the riches he desired but chose to be mistreated. He chose to be with his people and chose to work with God. Lord I pray, I too can choose to work with you and obey your commands.

God has a weird way of answering prayers…and the prayer I wrote above was and is still being answered. If you know me, I am an argumentative Christian. This stems from my childhood growing up as the oldest of 4 boys, to my New Yorker nature of speaking, and to my competitive spirit to meet challenges and fight. But God, nor Jesus, never argued. God will tell you like it is and if you don’t listen, God doesn’t fight to make you listen. He simply lets you do what you think is best, and lets you handle the consequences however they come. God allowed me to see this face to face with a random stranger I was speaking too earlier this week. God showed me this in some of my friends that I spoke to back home. And God showed me this during a conversation I had with my mother.

When I think about Moses, I think about how he fought for the Israelites when no one was watching. I think of how he saw the strife in the Israelites and wanted to do something about it, rather than ignore it. I saw that he was an outlier, he wasn’t accepted by the Egyptians and he wasn’t accepted by his own people. The Bible even calls him an Egyptian, when he is really and Israelite.

But God saw something in him that nobody else saw. He saw the savior of the Israelites, the one who would be entrusted with God’s power to take his people out of Egypt. He saw someone who can be an example of the one to come. He saw exactly what Hebrews 11:24-26 talks about.

The reason why I wrote that God has a weird way of answering prayers is because it is true. I wrote the Red above about 1-2 weeks before I started writing everything else. Today, when I started working on this topic, I was confused by what Hebrews 11:24-26. I did not see a Moses who had the heart that Hebrews 11 is preaching. I saw a Moses who wanted to save his brother, who killed an Egyptian and hid the body (thinking nobody was watching), who feared that he’d get killed if anyone found out, who ran away because the Pharaoh tried to kill him. At first glance, that is what the Bible says…but then why does Hebrews 11 say that he “chose to be mistreated” that he “regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ.”

Exodus 2:11-15

One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”

The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”

When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.

Even now I can’t explain this. But I am understanding that the story I painted in my head may not fit the story written down. So, a list of things popped up as I read and reread this passage…

1. Adult Moses watching his own people being worked as slaves.
2. Moses (likely first time) murdering somebody
3. Hiding a body in sand.
4. Is the Hebrew that knew of the kill, the same as the Hebrew who was being beaten?
5. The Bible says the next day. He went from being a Pharaoh’s son to leaving his homeland in 24 hours.
6. Did Moses flee Pharaoh once he heard of the murder? Or did Moses flee Pharaoh before the news even spread to the Pharaoh.
7. His sitting down by the well is reminiscent of Jesus with the Samaritan women at the well.
8. Most importantly, where was God?

God was there. Although Moses looked “this way and that” and saw no one, God was watching. Many years later, God called out to Moses. This God introduced himself.

Exodus 3:4-6

When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all had their own experience with God. But never did God call them by their name as he did to Moses. God did not give Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob the power to do miracles. I do not know why this important, but I do believe it is key to understanding Hebrews 11 deeper.

The decision to strike down the Egyptian is essentially was Hebrews 11:24-26 is all about. That decision spurred the concurrent events that allowed Moses to meet God face to face. Perhaps Moses was able to see something more than Egypt, more than the slaves of his people. Perhaps (because of how he grown up), he was the only person who could have seen the reward of God. I assume he was possibly the youngest Hebrew male, as all the other ones had to be thrown in the river during his infant years. Perhaps all these had to happen, so Moses can take his people out of Israel.

Exodus 4:24-26

At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. So the Lord let him alone. (At that time, she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.)

My last point. God was going to kill Moses. He was going to kill him because he did not follow the rites of circumcision, established by his father Abraham. But Zipporah, a Midianite, circumcised his son which stopped God for killing Moses and ending his story there.

God needed somebody who can do his will. By faith, Moses became that person. Thanks to his wife, Moses was able to stay that person. If God sees that you are unfit to do his will, he will simply use somebody else. I am now seeing this in my life. I want God to use me for his will. But I know I need to make sure I am right with God, just like I mentioned in the above prayer.

Lord I thank you for this Bible Study. I learned that I do not know much about how you think and why you do things. I learned that I simply cannot rely on my own knowledge to explain the reasons of your actions. I must rely on your word and your Spirit. You tried to kill Moses, and later you did not allow him to enter the Holy Land. People without the Spirit can see you as Bad, as Evil, as Mean, as whatever…but Lord I see you as good. And I pray my life and my actions can reflect that.

With Love,

Ayodeji Alaketu