Exodus 3:11-22

Review

Last week we saw Moses encounter the living God in the flame of a bush. After addressing His awareness of Israel’s suffering, God calls Moses to go to Egypt and be His mouthpiece in delivering Israel from the chains of Egypt.

Tonight, God will tell more about who He is to Moses. He emphasizes even more His presence in the midst of Israel’s suffering. Finally, God tells Moses of how this will end.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

11 But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.”

13 Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?”

14 God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM., This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

16 “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. 17 And I have promised you that I will bring you up from the misery of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey. 18 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.

19 “However, I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go, even under force from a strong hand. 20 But when I stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my miracles that I will perform in it, after that, he will let you go. 21 And I will give these people such favor with the Egyptians that when you go, you will not go empty-handed. 22 Each woman will ask her neighbor and any woman staying in her house for silver and gold jewelry, and clothing, and you will put them on your sons and daughters. So you will plunder the Egyptians.”

Verses 11-12 Confidence in the Lord

The last thing God said to Moses last week was …therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. And here we see the first time Moses pushes back on God’s plan. There will be many more times in the coming weeks where we will see Moses push back, each time getting more irrational. This time, though, is not so irrational.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

11 But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

This is not a terrible question! Who is Moses that God should use him to deliver Israel from Egypt? Aren’t there so many more equipped and capable men and women who could do such a thing? Consider Moses:

Murderer

Rebel

Coward

Old (80’s)

Why choose Moses? The answer is simple: because He did. God is not worried about how we view ourselves when it comes to Him calling us. There are many times where we don’t realize we do have the ability to do what God is calling us to, but we simply don’t have the courage. We don’t have the confidence, not in ourselves, but in the working of the Holy Spirit. We, overall, lack the confidence in the Lord to work through even us.

Moses resonated with this sentiment. He saw himself and said, “There is no way I could do this.” The truth is that Moses is right. There is no way he could do this. There is no way Moses could march back to Egypt and convince the Pharaoh to let go his free slave labor in a way that glorified the Lord more than it glorified man. At least, there is no way Moses could do this alone.

Our culture takes this message I am saying and twists it to point to the power within each individual, not an otherworldly power, but a human power. “The power was in you all along!” But this is not true. There is no power in of ourselves that can cause us to suddenly be powerful and equipped. But God flips this script. God sees this old, murderer, rebel, coward and says “You are the one to do this because I can work through you.” He doesn’t actually say that exactly, but look what He does say.

Rather than saying “Don’t worry Moses, you can do this!” what does God say?

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

12 He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.”

God points Moses to have confidence in Him, not himself, and then moves on to give Moses assurance in His plan.

We should look at our lives and callings similarly. Confidence in God and Him being with us, not in ourselves. Confidence in God’s plan and it being perfect, not our own plan.

God’s plan is that all of Israel will come back to the Mountain of God and worship the Lord there.

Verses 13-15 The Name of God

After prodding Moses to have confidence in the Lord and His plan, Moses asks a practical question:

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

“If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?”

The reason Moses asks this question could be Him trying to know God’s name Himself in wonder of Him; it could be Him trying to cop out in a sense and change the subject; it could be a genuine question! Either way, we get to see God’s name in the next verse and it is perplexing:

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

“I AM WHO I AM., This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”

Why would God call Himself this? I AM WHO I AM, could also mean I WAS WHO I WAS and I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE. The Hebrew words for I AM are actually only 4 consonants: YHWH. No one actually knows how to pronounce YHWH, but we usually say Yahweh, which we translate LORD usually. The reason we translate YHWH to I AM is that it is connected to the word that means “to be.”

What I am trying to get to is that God is saying that He simply is. This points to His centrality! Consider what Paul says of God in Colossians:

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 1

15 He is the image of the invisible God,

the firstborn over all creation.

16 For everything was created by him,

in heaven and on earth,

the visible and the invisible,

whether thrones or dominions

or rulers or authorities—

all things have been created through him and for him.

17 He is before all things,

and by him all things hold together.

God is self-existent, meaning He depends on nothing and no one to exist. God is self-sufficient, meaning He depends on nothing and no one to persist. He is and He always will be. This is also God telling Moses that He will see who God is, as will Israel, when they see Him act. His attributes speak of who He is.

And so, Moses should tell the Israelites the “I AM” sent him.

Then God tells Moses specifically what he should say to the Israelites:

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

This is how God identified Himself to Moses at the burning bush. Something I believe God is trying to convey to Moses, and all of Israel, by doing this is His lack of need for a name. There are so many people on this planet that we need names. Otherwise, there will be no way to identify one another. But this is not so with God. Well, it is and it isn’t.

Sly and I were eating lunch at Jim Bob’s, God’s true chicken, and a man heard us talking about God. He felt compelled to lean over into our booth and say, “You know what I always found interesting about the bible? God says ‘You shall have no other gods but me,’ but I thought He was the only true God? And just like that, Sly and I denounced our faith and gave up on this whole christian thing. Surely there is no reasonable explanation for such a sturdy argument?

Perhaps there is only one God, and yet man creates false gods and worships demons as if they were gods.

There is truly one God, but we have created thousands of other gods and we worship thousands of other things. All those false gods need names to distinguish between them, but the One, True God needs no special name because, as oppose to all other gods we’ve created, God truly IS and God always WAS and God always WILL BE. All other gods never were and truly aren’t and never will be. They are lies. They are deceptive. They are evil. But the One, True God is Good and Sovereign and Almighty.

And so, this is why God simply calls Himself “I AM” or “The God of Abraham, etc.” He doesn’t need a special name because God truly and sincerely IS.

Verses 16-18 Instruction for Moses

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

16 “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. 17 And I have promised you that I will bring you up from the misery of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.

So, God tells Moses to go find all the elders of Israel and tell them:

I AM has paid close attention to Israel’s suffering

I AM has promised to deliver them from Egypt

I AM has promised to bring them to a prosperous land

When you are beginning a movement, you can’t just go to the masses and start screaming. This doesn’t work to cause real change. You must begin with prominent figures.

This is why in marketing, there is a major part of forming an ad that involves finding a spokesperson. Usually, the spokesperson needs to be a celebrity or an expert of sorts. Politicians boast in their support of different prominent figures in our society. For example, Harris is currently boasting in her support of Taylor Swift. This is how you get people to follow you, especially when they don’t know you. Israel doesn’t know much of Moses. In fact, what they do know is not good. So the leaders of Israel need to be bought into this plan first.

Then verse 18 God turns the plan to Moses

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

18 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.

Moses and Israel’s elders are to go straight to Pharaoh and ask him to let Israel go on a three-day trip into the wilderness to worship the Lord.

This surprised me when I first read it. Did God really start with just asking if His people could go into the wilderness and worship for three days? Is He being deceitful? Not at all. Rather, the Lord is anticipating the next verse.

Verses 19-22 A Promise of Plunder

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

19 “However, I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go, even under force from a strong hand.

God, in His omniscience, knows Pharaoh will say no, even after God presses His hand against Pharaoh. He knows that this will not end with a small three day trip. But that is where He is starting.

He continues

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 3

20 But when I stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my miracles that I will perform in it, after that, he will let you go. 21 And I will give these people such favor with the Egyptians that when you go, you will not go empty-handed. 22 Each woman will ask her neighbor and any woman staying in her house for silver and gold jewelry, and clothing, and you will put them on your sons and daughters. So you will plunder the Egyptians.”

Here is what will happen:

He will strike Egypt with many miracles

Pharaoh will let them go

The Egyptians will give Israel gold and silver

It will end up taking 10 plagues to convince Pharaoh that He must submit to God and do as He says, but even then he’ll change his mind. Nonetheless, it will happen.

What is the most fascinating part of this plan to me is that the Egyptian citizens will look on Israel with favor, willing, even, to give them silver and gold. God says that in this, they will left having plundered Egypt.

This is the reality for the enemy of God, the one who will not submit to Him. Ultimately, you will lose everything. God is not content with only parts. He is not content with only some worship. He deserves all praise and all glory, and He will have it, with gritted teeth or not.

God is the Great Plunderer, invading our lives, demolishing sin and death in us, and leaving us prosperous with His Spirit. This is the guarantee of the simple, yet costly, gospel. No salvation by the Gospel does not cost us anything, as we cannot earn it. But discipleship by Jesus will cost you everything. Are you prepared to give up anything for the Lord? Are you giving things up already?

God will plunder our lives. He will reshape us and change us completely, and this is right and gracious for Him to do. So put your faith in Jesus and let Him plunder you unto salvation.