Redemption - Moses (Part II)

By Odon Bulamba (11 April 2003)

Moses said these people of Israel, are members of my family, I must set them free, I must fight for their safety, I must fight for their lives. Moses forgot everything around him, at that time he came from the war which he had won in Ethiopia, he was expecting a crown to be called a Prince of Egypt to later become Pharaoh’s successor, but Moses said “no, I’ll put my crown aside along with my success, my money and my victory; I will first save these people”.

Later Moses became a Shepard. Imagine Michael (a dentist) taking a stick and is with his sheep leading them along the road, people will wonder why he must be in his surgery, what is he doing with his sheep? The clothes he would wear would be different, imagine that. Moses left everything he had and took his coat and his stick and leads his sheep. The sheep baaa and he says left, when the sheep run away he has to chase them and bring them back. It’s through this that Moses accepted to humiliate himself, he forgot his victory over Ethiopia, he forgot that he was the first one in the kingdom of Egypt to the point that he lowered himself and became a Shepard.

God said that this is now the right time to visit him, “I want to go and see him, to use him to be the redeemer of my people”. God visited Moses. Moses saw something strange, he said I must first go and see what’s there and a voice spoke to him and said, “take off your shoes”. He didn’t say take off your coat or your hat, he first said take off your shoes because you are on holy ground. Was this ground holy? It was just somewhere ordinary, but on that day, exactly at that time, it was holy ground because God was there. God couldn’t be there if Moses was still in Egypt, or if he was still hanging onto his crown, or if Moses didn’t want to humiliate himself, but God said humiliate yourself more, take off your shoes. Maybe it was in winter and maybe there were thorns, but God wanted Moses to show obedience. Moses did not discuss, he took his sandals off and said, “here I am”, and what did God say? God spoke and said I’m going to send you to set my people free.

Since Moses was born this was the first time God ever spoke to Moses, God talked to him because he humiliated himself and if you really want to listen to God’s voice in your life then humiliate yourself, there are not two ways only one, humiliate yourself.

Secondly obey God and you will hear His voice. So God said o.k. I’m going to send you. What did Moses say? He said I only have a staff, he didn’t say I’ve got a crown, or I have the victory, he didn’t show God the honour he had before man, he said I’m absolutely nothing, the only thing I have is a staff. God said through this staff I will do something, throw it on the ground and what happened? It turned into a snake, and God said, “pick it up”, which is not easy. In our country when people see a snake everybody will scream, sometimes people climb trees. And even if the snake is dead ask my sister if she will touch it, no never, there is fear, many people fear.

When God says, “do this”, we are afraid, “no God I can’t I’m sorry, in my eyes this is dangerous, if I touch this I might lose my life” and they forget that God Himself is life, they forget that God is the protector. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego have shown us that God protected them, He was glorified. Do you believe that God protects you and if not who protects you?

So Moses picked up the snake and it became a staff again, Moses said I’m not quite to sure yet, so God told him a second thing; put your hand inside your coat and when he took it out it was covered in leprosy. Moses saw that God had acted. Moses said, “God I will go where you want, but I will ask You one thing, when these people ask me who You are what shall I say?” And for you, when you are sent by God, do you find the time to ask Him one question? Do you say I agree and I will go and speak on Your behalf, help me to know how to say things in front of these people? For instance, when Ange wakes up in the morning to go to work, does she find the time to pray to God and ask Him, “God where I go to work I know that I will talk to people, help me God so that they will know that You sent me, so what shall I say to these people about You God?”

Many Christians don’t even spend time to ask God “you sent me, so what shall I say”? Even when we exhort others, people don’t even take time to ask God what shall I tell your people, they think oh today I’ll talk about the Spirit, they open their Bibles but don’t understand, so they put the Bible aside and say it’s too difficult, I’m going to talk about something easy, Ezekiel, oh no I don’t want, oh one day Steve talked to us about Isaiah so I’m going to talk about Elijah, but then you say no there’s nothing, maybe tomorrow I’ll find time, so you carry on like that. Oh no, today’s Wednesday and I’m the exhorter, so I take my notes and check what I can do, o.k. our preacher talked to us last Sunday, I’ll talk about that, of course it’s not bad as you’ll share with others what your preacher shared with you last Sunday, but why don’t you ask God so that you will give something to His church, why don’t you go and meet Steve and talk with him and prepare something together seriously so that you can feed the people of God.

So a servant of God must be someone who asks God, “what shall I tell your people?” and then you’ll have God’s answer. What did God answer Moses? Go and tell them “I am who I am”, what a vague answer, I am who I am, who will accept this? Sometimes you might ask God what shall I tell your people? He’ll say go and talk about “alseekenno” and you’ll say what’s that? You first must go and look for the meaning of this word because maybe you only know the meaning of El Shaddai or Jehovah Jireh and you don’t know other words, you’ll say this is vague, but God will tell you go and tell them this! It’s up to you to know where to start and what you’re going to say, this is how we ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to fulfil what God wants, tell the Holy Spirit, “God gave me this so it’s up to You to teach your people”.

On top of all of that, God said to Moses don’t fear, I created your mouth so don’t ask yourself what am I going to say. Moses couldn’t accept it, he was just stuttering. Many servants of God today when they have a programme they get on the phone; “Sylvie, I’m not coming tonight I’m sick, or someone can take my place because I’ve got something on”, this might be true but it is not right if you haven’t taken the time to prepare, it means that you don’t take God seriously.

Finally, Moses went and set God’s people free. You and me today we are like Moses, we were called by God to set the people free, we must bring them the divine message and tell them to leave this kingdom and everything that belongs to Egypt. Do we play our roles or not? If we don’t what are we waiting for, we live on holy ground where we are. How many times have people exhorted us, how many times has God talked through us, what are we waiting for? Maybe you’ll say “God I’m not really good at preaching”, He’ll say what have you got, you’ve got eyes to read that’s enough, you have a mouth to speak that’s enough. There are different ways to preach, show God what you have and from there God will do something. Many people will first learn theology before bringing the gospel, maybe they want something that will help them and push them other than God, this will never work; if you are called Moses are you really Moses or not?

The Bible says go everywhere in the world and preach the gospel, set the captives free and bring them to me. Who doesn’t know this verse? Who was this message for? Many people say it was for Jesus’ disciples, aren’t you a disciple of Jesus? If you are a disciple of Jesus you must also do it, woe to you if you don’t. It’s better to be Judas Iscariot because he killed himself. He hung himself but he still preached the gospel, it’s through him that we have salvation. One day I was talking with Michelle; if Judas Iscariot didn’t exist where would our salvation be? Because to be free, someone had to betray Jesus. So what is our role in the church of God and in our families, do we represent Miriam, or Moses, or Aaron, Amram or Jochebed.

I can tell you today that you are also called redeemers, so go and redeem the souls that are lost, go and encourage others who are weak, it’s time to set people free. If you stay where you are, woe to you!

Let’s pray.