God Prepares for Deliverance

November 3, 2013 Background Scripture: Exodus 1 – 4 Lesson Passage: Exodus 3:7 – 17 It may serve us well to examine the unifying topic of this lesson before we look at the text: God Prepares for Deliverance. For clarity sake, let me state: God is always prepared. There is never a time when God is not ready to act. We often misconstrue the time of our preparation as a delay to act on God’s part. God is always prepared. The time factor that occurs between prayers and miracles can be attributed to God preparing people, places, or situations that He chooses to use. We only need to note that mankind was created after everything else was created to see that God does not require people to do anything. The preparation for this deliverance has indeed involved people and situations. Unbeknown to Moses, God had concluded eighty years of preparing him for the task of leadership. Likewise, God had made it known earlier that the iniquity of the Amorites had not run its course. And finally, apparently the Hebrew slaves had not been previously conditioned to cry out to God in sincerity and faith. Certainly it would not take God four hundred years to respond had their ancestors been as fed up as the current group who were facing genocide at the decree of Pharaoh. So God says: I have seen the affliction of My people and I have heard them cry out to me because of their taskmasters. God went on to tell Moses that He knew the sorrows of His people. God was and still is a heart-examining God. So now, people and circumstances are properly prepared for God to deliver the Hebrews out of Egyptian bondage. This could be accomplished in a moment or an instance but that would probably not cause some people to express glory to God. The Egyptians worshiped many gods and a total deliverance of the Hebrews would require that God bring judgment upon each one of the Egyptian gods. Moses needed to know that God had already prepared him for the task of being the leader and Law-giver. Again, I will add that Moses’ preparation took eighty years. The first forty years was spent learning the ropes inside Pharaoh’s home. The second forty years was spent learning how to responsibly tend to someone else’s (his father-in-law, Jethro) flock in the wilderness. At eighty years old, Moses was now prepared for the task whether he knew it or not. Of course, eighty years old does not seem like the optimum time to start a ministry. Moses acted like many of us today. Moses did not jump at the opportunity to get this assignment. Rather, he tried to get out of it. He did not put his last forty years together with his first forty years to see the big picture. Instead, Moses asked the question: Who am I to deliver them? Obviously everybody doesn’t immediately cry out: “Here I am. Send me.” If Moses is going to take on the task of delivering people, he would need a little more assurance that this was indeed God speaking with him and not his mind playing tricks on him. Leading the people of God is not a trivial task but a weighty responsibility. Moses’ time had come and it was important for him to know that God was prepared for deliverance. Robert C. Hudson October 26, 2013