The Calling of an Ordinary Man
Notes
Transcript
Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed.
So Moses thought, “I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn’t the bush burning up?”
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!” “Here I am,” he answered.
“Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
Then he continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings,
and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
So 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.”
But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
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.”
Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?”
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.”
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last,
How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher?
And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.
After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.