God invited Moses to go! “Because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:9–10).
“Go and assemble the elders of Israel and say to them: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me and said: I have paid close attention to you and to what has been done to you in Egypt” (Exodus 3:16). Again, go!
“They will listen to what you say. Then you, along with the elders of Israel, must go to the king of Egypt and say to him: The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go on a three-day trip into the wilderness so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God” (Exodus 3:18). God commanded Moses to go. Three times... go, go, go!
In response, Moses asked, “Who am I?” (Exodus 3:11), “What is Your name?” (Exodus 3:13), “What if?” (Exodus 4:1), and “Why me?” (Exodus 4:10).
Moses’s fifth complaint before God was different, and it garnered a different response. Read it closely... God commanded, “ ‘Now go!’ ... Moses said, ‘Please, Lord, send someone else.’ Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses” (Exodus 4:12–14).
Two things spurred God’s anger. First, it appears that Moses wasn’t asking God for an explanation. He was defiant. “No, God. I’m not going! Find someone else!” Secondly, notice that Moses spoke to the Lord (Adonai), not to the Lord (Jehovah). There’s nothing wrong with speaking to the Lord (Adonai), but God had just introduced Himself as the Lord (Jehovah), saying, “this is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation” (Exodus 3:15). God was angry because Moses irreverently and defiantly rejected Him.
Remember God’s response to the golden calf fiasco. God said, “leave me alone, so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them” (Exodus 32:10). In the New Testament, the hyper-religious leaders often rebelled against God and rejected Jesus. On a certain Sabbath Day, Jesus, “looking around at them with anger, he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts” (Mark 3:5). Sometimes God gets angry.
“The Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished” (Exodus 34:6–7). God is “slow to anger,” but He is also a just God. “He will not leave the guilty unpunished.” Moses’s rebellion and rejection tested God’s patience.
Your Heavenly Father loves you unconditionally! Though we may test His patience, we can be certain “that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).
Even as “the Lord’s anger burned against Moses,” God announced His gracious provisions saying, Aaron, the brother you haven’t seen in decades, “is on his way now to meet you. He will rejoice when he sees you” (Exodus 4:14). God provides!
Here’s some good advice. When God says “go,” let’s get up and go, knowing that He’ll provide the necessary resources and the assistance. We can trust Him! We’ll never go alone!
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