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God’s Covenant With Moses
Before there was a promise to a nation there was a promise to a man
I recently had the opportunity to speak for our church’s noonday Lenten service, something we do every Wednesday during Lent. The series followed covenants of various sorts throughout the Bible. I drew Moses, and honestly I thought, “Wow! I have 12 minutes to talk about one of the greatest covenants ever made.”
I went to Scripture and stopped on the early verses of Exodus 3, especially verses 1–5 and 11–12.
Moses was taking care of the flock for his father-in-law Jethro, Midian’s priest. He led his flock out to the edge of the desert, and he came to God’s mountain called Horeb. The Lord’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire in the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was in flames, but it didn’t burn up. Then Moses said to himself, Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn’t burning up.
When the Lord saw that he was coming to look, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”
Moses said, “I’m here….”
But Moses said to God, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
God said, “I’ll be with you. And this will show you that I’m the one who sent you. After you bring the people out of Egypt, you will come back here and worship God on this mountain.”
Obviously, there is a lot more to the story. I’m sure you know that a little later Moses and company spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness, but you may not know that “40 years” figures into other parts of the story. According to Acts 7, Moses was 40 years old when he decided to reconnect with his people and wound up killing an Egyptian overseer. That led him to flee Egypt, after which he spent another 40 years essentially tending sheep.
You could say that was his personal 40 years in the wilderness, learning to lead and take care of critters without a lot of sense.
Do the math. That means he lived about 80 years — two-thirds of his life! — without having a personal conversation with God. There was no reason he would have expected one that day.
