Moses: Part 2

Key: Blue=Bible, Red= Author notes

Hebrews 11:27 (NIV)

By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

Good Day World!

I recently finished my week tour where I had interviews in Omaha, NE and Las Vegas, NV. It has been wonderful traveling to other places in America and learning more about other cities. I’m about to embark on a month rotation in Sacramento, CA. My goals are to really engage with the medical students and residents on a spiritual level. If there is one thing I learned in Las Vegas…my God is bigger and better than all the lights, camera, and action that I saw. But do I know that? I have been really fighting to stay on top of my relationship with God for this last week. The constant traveling really made it hard to calm down and pray. And I have been seeing that effect even today as I prepared to write this. But God is watching and is always ready to lend a hand or an ear. Even in my shortcomings, God Is Here.

So, I just shared my shortcomings, but did you know Moses had a shortcoming as well? Picking up from Part 1, Moses meets up with Aaron (his brother) and heads to Pharaoh to ask if they can sacrifice to their God. But Pharaoh gets mad at this request and forces the Israelites to make bricks without straw to keep them even more busy. It becomes much harder for the Israelites to meet the quota without obtaining straw from Pharaoh. The Israel Overseers are then beaten since they were not meeting quota.

Exodus 5:14-19

And Pharaoh’s slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed, demanding, “Why haven’t you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before?” Then the Israelite overseers went and appealed to Pharaoh: “Why have you treated your servants this way? Your servants are given no straw, yet we are told, ‘Make bricks!’ Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people.” Pharaoh said, “Lazy, that’s what you are—lazy! That is why you keep saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the LORD.’ Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks.” The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told, “You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day.”

After this confrontation with Pharaoh, the overseers turned their attention towards Moses and Aaron.

Exodus 5:20-23

When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and they said, “May the LORD look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.” Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”

So, it looked like Moses hit a roadblock. The people of Israel are groaning and placing their anger on Moses and Aaron. What was Moses’ response? Did he start crying and giving up on the whole plan? Did he respond with anger towards the people that went at him? Did he try to fix the problem by himself? Did he run away from his shortcoming? No! Even in his shortcoming, God was there. And he immediately responded to Moses’ questioning.

Exodus 6:1-8

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.” God also said to Moses, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself fully known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.’” (If you are interested in the name of the LORD, click this study by The Bible Project.)

Moses then shared this with the people of Israel, but they did not listen. Eventually, Moses’ went on fulfilling 10 different plagues to get Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. The final plague will be spoken about the in the next blog. But I want to take some time to see Moses’ life and how we can reflect that.

There are times when we have our shortcomings and we want to fix it ourselves. We do not go to God first and sometimes we go to drugs, alcohol, or anything that can temporarily make us feel better. Moses had a good life before he was called by God to do his work. Moses was 80 years old when he went to speak to Pharaoh (Ex 7:7) At his late age, God used him for his purpose but it wasn’t a straight shot. If you keep reading you will learn that God creates these barriers to make it known that it was HE who took the Israelites out of Egypt.

This exodus is celebrated with the final plague (next blog) for future generations, to remind the Israelites of the power that God has for them. But we are also included in that future generation.

Whenever we are going through hardships, let us persevere in the one who is invisible. Even after this shortcoming, Moses still believed in the promises that God had for him and his people. He preached it to the Israelites, although no one listened or believed. He proceeded to tell Pharaoh multiple times to LET MY PEOPLE GO! And as we know, it finally happened.

Dear brothers and sisters let us remember that during our own hardships, we can call on the LORD our God. His name is “I AM WHO I AM.” (Ex 3:14) He is the one before us, with us, and after us. And he has the power to rescue us from our captors as well. Whether it is slavery, sickness, poverty, hatred, addiction, laziness, sinfulness, lust, or whatever. He had 10 plagues just to demonstrate a portion of his power. If he wanted to, he could have ended it with just one plague, but he did this so that we know who he is. This is recorded in our Bible for all of us to read. There is no excuse. God is God. And there is no other God but him.

Thank you for reading!

With love,

Ayodeji Alaketu