In Exodus 6:13-26, we see a departure from the conversation that God was having with Moses. He virtually took the time to authenticate the family of Levi all the way to Phinehas before He resumed His conversation with Moses again. The issue He had to deal with was again with Moses' complaint concerning his speech inability. This is now the third time Moses had raised this objection already. The first was at Mount Horeb recorded in Exodus 4:10. He told God saying “O Lord, I have never been eloquent.… I am slow of speech and tongue.” God then assured him that it was He who had made his speech apparatus and promised to teach him what and how he had to say it.
Then in Exodus 6:12, Moses, brought it up again. He said to God, “Behold, the sons of Israel have not listened to me; how then will Pharaoh listen to me, for I am unskilled in speech?” And now again, in Exodus 6:28, he said, “Behold, I am unskilled in speech; how then will Pharaoh listen to me?” God actually need not deal with his same old complaint so many times. He had already promised to be with Him. He had assured him that it would not be about his ability but the LORD’s sovereignty. Besides, God would send Aaron his older brother, one rhetorically gifted, to be with him. He would be Moses’ mouthpiece and would be his go-between with Pharaoh.
We must also bear in mind that God was not asking for a volunteer. He was commanding Moses to go. His exact words were, “I am the Lord. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I tell you.” God’s authority is inherent in His sovereignty and He has every right to order Moses or anyone of us to go at any time. We need to have this perspective when God tells us to go or tells us what to do. They are not His propositions to be debated but orders to be obeyed. We mustn’t give God the whys and wherefores. The question is not about our ability but His. We can rest assured that God’s authority will always accompany us in any assigned task.
But what Moses did is so typical of what many of us would do when we are afraid to answer the challenge of God’s call. Like Moses, how many times have we tediously dragged up some same old excuses in our reluctance to share the Gospel, or give to the work of God or to serve in a ministry in the church? Yet the truth about God’s call is this: when He assigns us to a task, He Himself accompanies and empowers us to accomplish it. His gifts always accompany His calling. So, we see how amazingly accommodative God had been with Moses and also with us so many times. Let us not try the patience of God. We must see God’s calling as an invitation to do and not a proposition to be debated. Let us obey God with the attitude of the patriotic British soldier who died in 1854 in the Crimea war. The Light Brigade’s “never-fear-death” attitude was commended by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem, the Charge of the Light Brigade. The second stanza reads:
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
Let us emulate such brave attitude when it comes to obeying God. He deserves such a commitment from us.
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