FAITH MAKES RIGHT CHOICES. Hebrews 11:27 Moses made a deliberate choice to trust God under pressure. He endured the consequences of that choice day after day because he saw the invisible God in his spirit, in whom he had placed his faith. Forsaking Egypt's attractions led him to identify with the people of God, and as a result, he fled to Midian. Even when his own people threatened to expose his action against an Egyptian taskmaster, he had to leave Egypt for forty years, yet he retained his identity with the people of God.
Communion with God is a privilege every Christian can enjoy when they are willing to listen to God's voice through His word. Our Great High Priest has opened the way for us to approach God, fellowship with Him, and serve Him by doing His will. Moses had to learn from God the principles of redemption and develop the faith to act on them.
Moses learned that dealing with injustice in God’s way doesn’t require killing enemies. He feared that his actions would be known, and the time to physically forsake Egypt hadn’t come yet. It had to be according to God’s timetable, not his. It would have been premature for him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, since they were still serving the Egyptian gods. There had to be a cry for mercy to God for salvation from slavery before they would listen to Moses. The Israelites didn’t have faith in God as Moses did.
The faith of Moses to forsake Egypt and endure the difficulties and hardships of the wilderness, and the hard hearts of the Israelites, is the first of the next five examples of faith from Egypt to Canaan. The one thing all of these examples have in common is that those involved had faith in God. This period of Israel’s history, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is a type of the life of Christ in our souls. God’s timing is always right, and faith will wait for that time, even in difficult times.
When faith reigns supreme in our hearts, it opens the way for God to work in and through us to do His will and to live satisfying, meaningful lives. The first steps of faith in a Christian’s life are to
“come out from among them, and be separate.” We must reject and part ways with the practice of sin. “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Faith enables this when we are guided by God through His word and taught by the Holy Spirit. When we “see Him who is invisible” with our spiritual eyes, faith, in the light of God’s word, is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Evidence of faith is seen when we endure and act differently from those around us who do not know the Lord.
The second forty years of Moses' life took place in the wilderness of Midian, where he became Jethro's shepherd. He married Zipporah there and became the father of two sons. It is often in places of obscurity that we have times of quiet reflection, when character is developed. That happened to Moses in those forty years, learning what was right and unlearning what was wrong. True, he was a believer in the Lord, but other parts of his personality had to be brought to maturity before he could be trusted to lead the people of God.
Forty years of inactivity and obscurity likely seem like a waste of time. Faith learns how to face and forsake sin and its consequences, as well as how to overcome obstacles we cannot avoid. Faith also learns how to watch and wait; to crucify ourselves to the world; to yield to God’s will and strength instead of our own; and how to be a stranger and pilgrim while living in this world, in ways similar to those who have gone before us.
John the Baptist was trained in the wilderness; Saul of Tarsus spent three years there. Of special importance is that our Lord Jesus Christ spent thirty years in obscurity before three years of active public service. When Moses returned to Egypt, he was a different man. He had the rod of God in his hands instead of a sword to kill Egyptian taskmasters by his own strength.
Leadership is the highest responsibility when the lives and destinies of others are at stake. Along with the need for faithfulness as an integral trait of a leader, there is also the need to learn to use power responsibly. One can learn meekness from the daily tending of sheep that are not easy to lead. As character develops, so does respect as one begins to think logically and reasonably.
By nature, Moses was impatient and prone to anger. Those years of discipline brought those weaknesses and failures under control until he became the “meekest man in all the earth.” However, Moses failed to enter the promised land because of disobedience to God when he lost his temper. God does His greatest work through frail people and allows us to fail so we do not come to think we are independent of Him. Moses' Egyptian education and practical training in the wilderness, under divine direction, enabled him to become the greatest leader the Hebrews ever had, leading the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
Waiting times teach us to confront our own inability, inadequacies, and weaknesses. Doing the work of God requires God working through us, not merely natural skill and incentive. We become conscious of who God is and what He can do through a “vessel” that is ready to be filled for service. We need to know who we are, in whose name and power we live and move, and that it is God who works through us. Moses is the first person we read of in the Bible through whom God performed miracles. God is still the same and can use prepared people to do His will, through whom He can guide His people, further His kingdom, and perform miracles.