Compassionate Action

Compassionate Action

God Takes Notice

Exo 2:23 Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God.

This is a very good example of what is going on in America today. And now that I have your attention, the very first resource that the Christian or the Jew should seek out is God. That is almost never the case. We, like the ancient Jew, do our best to endure or to correct the problem ourselves. We do not have a count on the time that Israel was in bondage before they cried out as a nation but when Moses was born they had been slaves for a long time and Moses was eighty years old when he led them out of Egypt. I feel safe in believing they were slaves for better than one hundred years. God knew they would finally get around to calling on Him and He had Moses in the wilderness herding his father-in-law's sheep, training for his appointed mission.

Exo 2:24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Exo 2:25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.

Actually, God had never taken His eye off Israel and He knew before He ever created the world the exact moment that Israel would call out to Him for relief. I and others feel that it is important to apply some unnoted context here. Because of the known nature of God and the known exceptions of the rules about mankind it is certain that over possible hundreds of years of slavery that individual sons of Israel called out to God for mercy and it is certain that God responded to that persons case and granted mercy.

These two verses are speaking to the sons and daughters of Israel as a nation, as a group.

God Discloses Himself

Exo 3:1 Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Exo 3:2 The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.

When God performs a miracle there is no question that it is anyone but God at work. Moses was a Sheep Herder and there was no other human there at the time. Today there are many claiming to be miracle workers and as time passes they have been and they will be exposed by the local and national news medias. i.e. If a man places his hand on the forehead of a person, has prearranged catchers behind the subject and shouts, “In the name of Jesus...” and pushes the subject back into the waiting arms of the catchers, I defy anyone to show me in scripture where this is Biblical.

These false healers and public miracle “workers” are making a sham of Christianity and do great harm to believer and lost man alike. Johnny Erickson Tada was told many times that the reason she could not be healed was because her faith was not strong enough and struggled for years to get a grip on the truth of scripture and allow God to work His plan for her life. And when these men are repeatedly exposed in the media as being charlatans it makes witnessing to the the lost man ever more difficult. Moses knew when he had met the angel of the LORD and so will the Christian when he or she meets God. There are none like God anywhere.

Exo 3:3 So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up."

Like Moses, the day I was first touched by my LORD I wanted to see about this. The perfect will of God (2Peter 3:9) says that it s the will of God that none should perish but that all should be saved. (B. Taylor paraphrase.) If that is true then it follows that every man, woman and child is called of God and the problem is that unlike Moses, people ignore the call of God.

Exo 3:4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am."

Exo 3:5 Then He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

The very moment that we turn to God He begins to deal with us and to teach us His ways so that He can finish the work He began and that we submitted to.

Exo 3:6 He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

God is never slow to identify Himself, He wants us to know him. He want us to be intimately related to Him.

God Takes Action

Exo 3:7 The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings.

Exo 3:8 "So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

Although we might doubt and stray, God never does. He had not forgotten His promise to Abraham and He always intends to keep His promises.

Exo 3:9 "Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.

Exo 3:10 "Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."

Moses had already attempted to change the fate and lot of one of the Israelites, only to end up a hunted man hiding in the desert. And Moses, having been raised in Pharaoh's house, knew the mind set of the rulers of Egypt and knew this was an impossible task for a man and yet that was what he first concluded that God was asking. Moses still had next to no experience with the ways of God and God had not yet commissioned him to even write the Law yet. He was not sure that he should trust God, so moses, like Abraham, had faith and God used him because of his faith.

God Works Wonders

Exo 3:19 "But I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go, except under compulsion.

Exo 3:20 "So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My miracles which I shall do in the midst of it; and after that he will let you go.

God also knew that this was to be a task that Moses, without His aid could never pull off.