The Awakening of Moses

Terry Siverd
05/01/16 - Sun AM

THE AWAKENING OF MOSES

Sermon Outline By Terry Siverd

Cortland Church of Christ / May 01, 2016

One of the first discoveries we make when we begin reading the Bible, Is that we cannot put God is a box.

One only has to wade into Genesis to begin to realize that there is an unpredictable aspect of Jehovah God.

By this, we do not mean that God is untrustworthy or unreliable.  He is neither.

He is both trustworthy and reliable, yet we cannot always discern His plans.

In affirming God’s unpredictability we simply mean that the logic of HIS ways sometimes defy human logic.

God once declared through the prophet Isaiah (Isa.55:8-9) - -

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways.  For as the heavens are

higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Our recent studies from the life of Joseph and the life of Jonah have certainly borne this out.

How often we are “SURPRISED BY GOD”.

When we read the historical narratives that we call the sacred writings, we often encounter things happening

by God’s directive and by God’s providence that we did not anticipate:  totally unexpected turns and twists.

God uses a stubborn and bigoted prophet named Jonah to bring repentance

to the Ninevites and to remind us all that the gospel is indeed, for all.

God uses a young “dreamer” boy named Joseph, who was hated by his brothers and

perhaps spoiled by his father, to bring sustenance and salvation to all of the children of Israel. 

God has gone to great lengths to reveal Himself to us, yet God will always remain a great mystery to us.

In speaking of one of God’s great mysteries (Rom.11:25), the apostle Paul exclaims (Rom.11:33f) - -

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

…From Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

This morning I want to explore the early days of the life of Moses.

Please open your Bibles to the opening pages of the book of Exodus.

Read from Exodus 2:11-15

Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors;

And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.  So he looked this way and that,

and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

And he went out the next day, and behold two Hebrews were fighting with each other;

And he said to the offender, ‘why are you striking your companion?’  But he said,

 ‘Who made you a prince or a judge over us?  Are you intending to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian?’

Then Moses was afraid, and said, ‘Surely the matter has become known.’  When Pharaoh heard of this matter,

 he tried to kill Moses.  But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian.

The book of Exodus tells us very little about the first forty years of the life of Moses.

We know that his life began as a “basket case”.  

In order to combat the threat of a swelling population of Hebrews,

Pharaoh ordered that all Hebrew baby boys were to be killed at birth.

This event foreshadows the killing of the innocents by King Herod in the days of the birth of Jesus (Mt.2:16ff).

With faith in God, Moses’ parents defied Pharaoh’s edict by hiding Moses for three months after his birth (Heb.11:23).

Three-months later - - trusting God’s providence, Moses was set afloat in the Nile River in a basket.

And God’s providence did not disappoint - - he was retrieved by Pharaoh’s daughter,

yet allowed to be nursed by his own mother in her own home (Amram and Jochebed/Ex.6:20).

Ex.2:10 summarizes the early life of Moses saying,  And the child grew, and (his mother) brought him to

 Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him ‘Moses’, and said, ‘Because I drew him out of the water’.

There are two New Testament texts that help to illuminate these early years of Moses.

ACTS 7:20-23

And It was at this time that Moses was born; and he was lovely in the sight of God;

and he was nurtured three months in his father’s home.  And after he had been exposed,

Pharaoh’s daughter took him away, and nurtured him as her own son.

And Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds.

But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel.

Prior to his stoning, Stephen was permitted to speak a word of defense before the Jewish Sanhedrin (supreme court).

In his speech, Stephen surmises God’s involvement with the nation of Israel.

He tells of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob…and of Joseph.  And then he tells of Moses.  Acts 7:22 states - -

  Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds.

This single sentence tells us a great deal about Moses’ early years.

Moses has grown up in the palace of the mighty Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

We can correctly assume, that Moses, raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, lived a life befitting a royal prince.

“Thus Moses received the best education that the Egyptian court could provide.”

(F.F. Bruce in The Book Of Acts / New International Commentary On The New Testament, p.150). 

Acts 7:21 states that Pharaoh’s daughter “nurtured him as her own son”.

Scholars refer to The Temple Of The Sun as the Oxford University of the ancient world.

Moses was educated in reading, writing, mathematic, astronomy, medicine, theology, and all manner of learning.

Yet Acts 7:23 notes,

Now when he was approaching the age of forty, It entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel…

HEBREWS 11:24-27

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter;

choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin;

considering the reproach of Christ greater than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.

By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.

The question arises, what awakened Moses at the age of forty?

Had he continued to have occasional (or frequent) contact with his Mother and Father during these years?

Was it simply watching with the Hebrews slaves with empathy and sympathy that spoke to his heart?

Was a course in The Theology Of The Hebrews offered at The Temple Of The Sun?

Did he have access to records of the life of Joseph the Hebrew in the days of an earlier Egyptian Dynasty?

Did God speak to him in some form or fashion, as He had done with Abraham and Jacob?

Was he on the receiving end of some God-given dreams similar to those revealed to Joseph?

Acts 7:23b states, “it entered his mind to visit his brethren…”

Was this thought or this inspiration triggered by God?

We don’t know for certain and cannot say for sure.

All we are free to do it to rest on the Scriptures (a thus saith the Lord).

In this regard, this Hebrews 11 citation states emphatically that Moses acted BY FAITH.

To act by faith implies that Moses has been given some kind of directive by God.

Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Rom.10:17).

Heb.11:24f / By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.

(By faith) choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.

(By faith) considering the reproach of Christ greater riches that the treasures of Egypt. He was looking to the reward.

By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king;  for he endured as seeing Him who is unseen.

In order for Moses to have acted BY FAITH, someone or something from God had to be prompting him.

Some are inclined to read “it entered his mind” as a self-willed decision on the part of Moses.

But to read Acts 7:23 in this way clashes and conflicts with the declarations in Heb.11:24f - - that he acted by faith.

In turn, these commentators seem to conclude that the forty years pasturing sheep in Midian,

prior to the  burning bush, was God’s penalty and punishment for Moses’ acting on his on strength.

I have a hard time buying that argument.  As to why he spent these additional forty years in Midian only God knows.

It would be going too far to say that God directed Moses to kill the Egyptian.

But it would not be going too far to conclude that God directed Moses to visit his brethren and empathize with them.

In beating off the Egyptian taskmaster, Moses may not have intended to kill him.

Moses was undergoing an awakening that drove him to not only identify with his brethren

and come to their aid ... and to intentionally renounce and relinquish his high standing in Egypt.

There is a stark contrast between the way Joseph and Moses were used by God to do His bidding.

God put Joseph in good standing with the palace of Pharaoh to preserve and sustain Israel.

But God moved Moses to surrender his good standing in the palace of Pharaoh in order to free Israel from bondage.

This conforms to and confirms what we stated initially:  God is GOD and His higher ways are not always predictable.