221 - Moses, Royalty to Obscurity

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. So during the time of Jesus, if you asked any Jew who their big hero was, who would that be? Oh, it would be Moses without a doubt. And yet when Stephen talks about him today, he doesn't talk about his successes. No, he points out his failures. And we'll look at why today on More Than Ink. Hey, you found us. We've been trying to stay away from you, but here we are. I'm Jim.

I'm Dorothy. And this is More Than Ink. And we are reading through the book of Acts and we're right in the middle of a very important presentation being made by Stephen, one of the early heroes in the early church. We find out he was not only a guy who was helping serve tables for the widows who were in need, who needed food, but God says he was filled with his Spirit, was doing signs and wonders. I mean, this guy was really something. And so much so, and by the way, not an apostle.

Not an apostle. No, he was appointed actually as a servant of tables, an administrator. But he gathered so much attention of the religious leaders that they became jealous and kind of threatened by this guy's influence on the large masses of people. So they arrested him. They can only arrest if they have a good reason, if they have a law that's broken.

And so he had false accusers who came in and made some spurious accusations about him being against the law of Moses, against Moses, against the temple, against, against, against all the things that are very precious to the Jews in the first century. And they put him in jail. They didn't put him in jail. They just dragged him before the council.

That's right. They dragged him before the council. And so when the council saw him, they said, basically, defend yourself.

What do you have to say to this? And we're in the middle of his discussion to them, his presentation to them about his response, which curiously is not full of attempts to acquit himself or to defend himself. He's launched off on this gigantic tour of the history of Israel, starting with Abraham. So we are in the middle of that right now. In fact, when we left last time, we finished the book of Genesis. Right. And today, Stephen, by the power of the Holy Spirit, launches into the book of Exodus and put to highlight a spotlight on God's servant, Moses.

Now again, last time we said, here's the big challenge for all of us that are reading this. Why, why would Stephen launch off into a history of Israel, very accurate and very condensed, but why latch off on that when basically shouldn't he be defending himself against false accusations? But he doesn't. He starts to school us on the history of Israel, and that's where we are today, starting Moses. Well, and he is setting up examples throughout the history of Israel of God's promise and God's fulfill of the promise, the righteousness of Abraham by faith before the temple, before the religious structure, before even the nation, before there was a nation. Right. Abraham was reckoned Abraham was reckoned righteous on the basis of the fact that he simply believed God when God told him about events in the future, specifically that he would have a child and from that child would all the nations would be blessed. Yeah. I mean, he, he stepped out in faith following God like this.

This wasn't just. He lived what God told him, believing that that would be the place, even though he wasn't going to have an inheritance there. And God promised to him that, that his children 400 years later.

Way down the line. Generation after generation would be the ones who would come back and actually take possession of the promise that God made to Abraham. Yeah. Yeah. So where we left it in the story historically was Israel as well being captives of Egypt for, for centuries in fact. And, but the promise, there was a promise that eventually they would inhabit the land that Abraham had been standing on when we started this history. And so that's going to happen as Steven recounts what happened.

Yeah. And it's just, we're going to pick this story up with Steven's, Steven's speech in verse 17 of chapter seven in act, but he begins, but as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted Abraham. So he's talking about events that were happening in the book of Exodus, but I wouldn't just review the promise because it's important that we remember here what promise he has in view. So that's from Genesis 15, 13 to 16. And God said to Abram, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that's not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years. But I will also judge the nation whom they serve. And afterward, they will come out with many possessions.

And as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace and you shall be buried at a good old age. And in the fourth generation, they shall return here for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. So God gave the current residents of Canaan 400 years to get their act together or to repent. Right. Which they never did.

They never did. Yeah. But so that's the promise that Steven is referring to. Right.

Right. So history has stopped since the last time we read this, where they're sitting in Egypt and many of them wondered, are we ever going to make it back to the land that Abraham stood on that was promised? Well, Steven continues his history here. If you're following, we're in chapter seven of Acts and we're starting at verse 17.

Okay. But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. Now we spent a lot of time talking about Joseph.

Yeah, he was in the spotlight. We won't necessarily review that here, but Joseph was one of the very later sons of Jacob and rose to prominence in Egypt. Indeed, he became second only in power to Pharaoh and his own family didn't recognize him, but he became essentially a model of the savior for his family. So you can look back or you went back to last week's program or look back in Genesis yourself and read that story.

So, okay. So another king arose in Egypt who did not know Joseph and he dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive. And this time Moses was born and he was beautiful in God's sight and he was brought up for three months in his father's house. And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was mighty in his words and deeds.

Okay, let's stop there for a minute. So here, here we are at the birth of Moses, birth of Moses. But, but what had happened in those golden years when they were in Egypt, you remember Joseph was like in charge of everything.

So it's a great place to be. But over a period of time, the Pharaohs forgot how much they really owed in gratitude to Joseph who saved their lives. And so that's why he says, you know, another king who didn't know Joseph.

Well, it's been a couple centuries actually. So of course he doesn't, but the, the whole attitude in Egypt has changed. They were very pro-Joseph in the, in the Hebrews because of their role in saving the nation of Egypt. But now it got antagonistic and so he put them into slavery. And then this king, this king, if you read back in the account, is afraid that, that the, the prosperity of the Jews is going to be so much that they're going to overpopulate the Egyptians. So we gotta do something. And so he, his first strategy is to overwork them. But they still, you know, give them heavy burdens, but they still are there.

It doesn't seem to do it. So, so then they decide, I'll tell you what, we need to get rid of all the male babies. You know, you get rid of a whole generation of male babies, pretty sure, you know, that's going to decrease the populations. So you can read about this in the first couple of chapters of Exodus. Yeah, it's in chapter one, actually all this. Yeah. So, so that's what happens. And so but then, you know, in, in killing all the babies, they decide, what does he do? He talks to the, he talks to the, to the midwives first.

Yeah. And says, look, if the Hebrew, Hebrew woman, he has started having baby sons, get rid of those sons. So that's, that's the, that's the context in which Moses is born. It's interesting to me though that who Stephen is tracing is through all these generations, the ones that God picked out and made promises to, or the ones that God chose and elevated to prominence for reasons of his own. So we saw that him do that with Abraham. Then we saw him do it with Joseph. And then now we're going to see him do it with Moses, who by all historical accounts should have simply died being exposed.

Right. God had plans for Moses to be the guy who takes them out of Egypt and brings them into the land of promise. So we're tracing the line of the model of a savior. A savior once again.

Yeah. And so connections could be made to Jesus if you're, if you're bright here. So Moses is born. He's beautiful in God's sight. That's a wonderful phrase. He's beautiful in God's sight. God says, excellent.

This is the guy. And then, boy, he's put in a basket and he's pushed off, not directly into the Nile, but in the reeds on the side of the Nile. You know, he's kind of stuck there in his basket, his little floating bassinet. And he's found by Pharaoh's, Pharaoh's daughter. He adopts him.

And the longer story, which he doesn't cover here, is, you know, you need a, you need someone to nurse this new baby. And so Moses' sister, is it Miriam that does this? Yeah.

Yeah. Moses' sister kind of says, you need someone to wet nurse this baby? And she brings in his mother.

His mother. Go back and read it. It's a great story.

Because it's marvelous. But, but Stephen doesn't even linger on that. He goes right on to the fact that Moses was adopted into Pharaoh's household, raised in Pharaoh's household, mighty in words and deeds, and then jumps right into the story to adulthood, right? When he was 40 years old, this is verse 23, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.

Okay, wait a minute. That tells us that Moses had known all along that he was one of the children of Israel, even though he was adopted into Pharaoh's household and raised in royalty. But he seems to have known who he was all along. Yeah, I think he connected that he was being trained via the house of Egypt in order to be a leader for his people, the Hebrews.

So that's what it is. So when it says that he, you know, he visits his brothers, that means he left the throne room. He left, you know, the palaces. He went out and walked around and came out and walked with the little people. Okay, so verse 24, and seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. And on the following day, he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them saying, man, your brothers, why do you wrong each other? But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside saying, who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? And at this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian where he became the father of two sons.

Right. So he's, he's, he's left, he has left and by the way to this, this murder that he does of the Egyptian he thought was kind of a secret thing. He thought he covered up well. But when you go back and you read the passage, it turns out Pharaoh had found out and Pharaoh was looking to kill him.

I mean, this is someone in his household looking to kill him. So not only, not only is that the case, but Moses says, look, everyone, everyone here knows what I've done. How can I possibly be a leader to my people in Israel? I mean, this guy is speaking for the nation in that sense. And I've, I've kind of busted my connections with the house of Pharaoh.

So I'm just out of here. Well, and I don't think Moses really understood anything about actual leadership or actually connecting with the people, right? He just goes out there and tries to act as a vigilante justice. Well, yeah, he's.

Guys who are fighting are like, well, who do you think you are? It's ironic. Who do you, who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Well, God hasn't done it yet.

Yeah, yeah. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand. So he had some inkling that that was coming, but God hadn't called him yet. That's right. And he's going to spend 40 years rattling around in the backside of nowhere, tending sheep.

Right. Well, and I think, I think it was a kind of, I don't know, sort of a desperation at this stage. I think he thought he was going to be a leader of the Hebrews, of his people. He had some inkling that that was going to happen.

But now that he's burned all those bridges by how he did it so clumsily here, including this murder, which has now become quite public. I think he leaves, he leaves Egypt thinking, I think that whole calling is gone. I'm done. I mean, I don't have any more future here. I'm just going to go out to a place where they heard sheep and that's all I'm going to do. He actually, you know, if you read Exodus and you read about what happened in the ensuing years, Moses went out there, got married, settled into a family, had sons for 40 years. Yeah.

A whole life, a whole life out there. Now that's going to show up later in Stephen's speech, right? Yeah. It actually appears to Moses. Yeah.

But it is a clear indication of the fact that Moses thinks that his life has nothing to do with the Hebrews anymore. I mean anymore. That bridge is burned. We're gone.

That's behind us. Now I'm a shepherd and Midian. That's all I am. That's all I am. I was trained in the court of Pharaoh, but that doesn't mean anything. I'm here for the sheep. Yeah. And of course that fatalism is smitten in the face really shortly after that while he's out there just minding his own business, taking care of sheep, suddenly realizes his future does have something to do with the Hebrews.

He's not just him. You know, it's funny that this part of Moses's life is often skipped over when people are talking about Moses, right? That we know, they know, even people who don't read the Bible know about the baby put out and floating around in the river and gets rescued by Pharaoh's daughter.

And they know about Moses at the burning bush, but they don't always realize that it was an entire generation that he was out there trying to figure out what happened. He had cut all his ties. He had figured his future and his life had nothing to do with Israel anymore. He had resettled. He was gone.

He was out of there. So why is this part so prominent in Stephen's speech? Yeah, I understand how Joseph connects, but how does Moses connect, you know?

But there's a lot of parallels. I mean, let's go back to the baby era with Moses. Moses and Jesus both, they were trying to eradicate all the babies at the time of Jesus's birth and at Moses's birth. In order to avoid the birth of the promised one. Right, right.

The threat of someone in power. So they share that in common, so that points to them. As well, Moses is going to be the one who saves them again. Now, Joseph saved them from famine. Moses saves them from captivity to Egypt. And not only saves them from captivity to Egypt, but saves them from that to the fulfilled promise in the promised land. So he's a shepherd in a way. He's leading the way to the pasture where they're supposed to be, where God's promise is for them. Very much like Jesus as well.

I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. That's the words of a good shepherd. And so Moses is a good shepherd to Israel. Not only in taking them out of Egypt, but he was a good shepherd in Midian, presumably.

But he takes ... Well, he must have been, because that's why his father-in-law allowed him to marry into the family. Because Moses had demonstrated his worth taking care of the sheep. Yeah. So Jesus is a good shepherd. In fact, at the end of Hebrews, he's called the great shepherd. So is that the role of Moses? Absolutely.

Absolutely. So there's a lot of ties in terms of type and characteristics of Moses and Jesus in terms of their relationship with the nation of Israel. But the stature of Moses as being God's, the one who speaks the word of God to the people, has not yet been fully revealed. Not yet. That is still to come.

Yeah. So in a real sense, I mean the general sense, they rejected Jesus. And he was like Moses, but greater than Moses. And they denied Jesus. And at least they denied him the right of being ruler.

And that was being denied him here. But this one's going to be the judge of you. So I mean, there's so many parallels.

It's hard to count. Let's go a little bit more. What do you say before we finish? Because here we are, Moses is out there just taking care of sheep. Okay, we stopped at verse 29. You pick it up at verse 30.

Okay, verse 30. So now when 40 years had passed, 40 years, 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire, in a bush. And when Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. And as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord. I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.

And Moses trembled and didn't dare to look. And then the Lord said to him, take off the sandals from your feet for the place where you're standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people. This is God still speaking. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.

What? No, no, no. I've been here 40 years. I'm just fine being here. Yeah, right.

Talk about a huge change. And then this Moses whom they rejected. Okay, wait, before you go on to that, let's stop because I want to encourage our readers now, go back to Exodus 3 and read that account of Moses in this conversation with God at the bush that was in flame. And read how frequently God says, I'll send you, I'll answer your every question. Moses says, Who am I?

Who are you? But I can't, but I finally winds up with saying, but I just don't want to send somebody else. So I would encourage you readers to go back and read Exodus 3 and 4 and gain some insight into this conversation.

But Stephen just blasts right past it. Yeah. So what I just finished reading was God speaking to Moses. And by the way, I just want to point out God said to Moses in 34, I have come down to deliver them. Right.

I'm delivering them. But I'm going to send you to Egypt. So you know, it occurs to me now that they had elevated Moses to this huge, huge place. But here Stephen is highlighting Moses's failures.

Yeah. A man totally unqualified for this. That makes it evident that it's God who's doing the saving. So here's Stephen's commentary on this situation via the Holy Spirit. There's the Holy Spirit speaking in verse 35. So this Moses, this Moses whom they rejected saying, well, who made you a ruler and a judge? This man, God sent as both ruler and Redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man, this man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt, been at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for 40 years. You know, this man, this man, that is an echo of Peter's speeches, right? Back in chapters two, three and four.

Because he says, this Jesus, this Jesus, this Jesus, you rejected and crucified by God. Yeah. And what a great statement here compact in these three verses about the one that was rejected, verse 35, is the one that leads them out into freedom. Yeah. God sent them. God sent them. Right. And a deliverer.

Right, right. So this is really the hand of God, but through Moses, through Moses. Moses is a beautiful, beautiful type for Jesus himself as a good shepherd leader. And God's the one that affects the salvation, that affects the freedom and the liberation of those who are caught. Now, many times we talk about the salvation from sin. Well, salvation sin from a New Testament perspective is a salvation from an enslavement to sin. This is exactly the same thing that's leading out of Egypt. Egypt often is kind of a, it's a metaphor for sin that at first entices us and then puts us in bondage.

Yeah. And so who will get us out of that? Who will get us out of that bondage to sin? Jesus does. So direct connection to Moses right here.

It's not even, it's not even faint. Yeah, it's really there. Yeah. So, so here we are on the cusp of what Moses is going to do.

And I think we're going to stop it there today. But, but, you know, we asked the original question as we started this, why, why is Stephen going over this history that no one's disputing? None of this is inaccurate, but he is, he is spotlighting and the Holy Spirit through him is spotlighting. He's spotlighting certain people in order that they might have a foundation later to make a connection to when he segues into who Jesus is. Because you can say just like Joseph was a savior, just like Moses was a savior, just like Moses took them from one place to another place. Jesus takes them from one place to another place. Well, and he has, Stephen has pegged the, with in the case of Joseph and also in the case of Moses, that the people either didn't recognize or reject him.

Or rejected him. Right? So, oh, he's, the dots are getting closer together because very shortly now he's going to, he's going to really connect them all.

He's getting close and you know, and up to this point too, I might state the obvious. We don't have a temple in view in terms of the centrality of the life of the Jews. In Moses's life. In Moses's life like we didn't in Joseph, like we didn't in Abraham. So here we're talking about the big dudes of old Israel and these things are not central. And yet at the time of Jesus, they were probably, you could say overly central to the life of a Jew. It's interesting because it was through Moses that God gave Israel the tabernacle in the wilderness, the movable tent so God could dwell among them. Right.

And that's the emphasis. It's not give them a tabernacle so they can do the certain rites. It's because God says I want to tent with you as you tent across the desert.

I want to be with you. And so God's thing was always, always on the temple and then later with the permanent building, or the tabernacle and then the temple was the fact that this was God's way of saying my desire is to live among you. And by the time you get to the time of Jesus, they have missed that fact so much that when God comes in the flesh, they don't even recognize that this is God saying I've come to live among you and they don't see him. So this is the conflict during Jesus's time is the fact that God through the entire Old Testament, through Abraham and up right now through Moses, God's intent is to live among his people, fulfill his promises by being in their presence. And yet by the time of Jesus, they're hung up on the building.

They're hung up on the laws and they're hung up on all the wrong things. So you know, just it occurs to me, I want to read a couple of verses farther. Now I'm reading from the New American Standard. I just want to read verses 37 to 39 of Acts seven. This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, God shall raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brethren. This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai and who was with our fathers and he received living oracles to pass on to you. And our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, but repudiated him in their hearts and turned back to Egypt.

Yes. Now we probably will pick up on that next week. Yeah, we'll start there next time. But this is this tells you a lot about the hearts of the Israelites at the time, which is really similar to the hearts of the Jews during the time of Jesus. So here's where the speech of Stephen begins to take on a very pointedness in its direction, aiming at the hearts and the disobedience and unbelief of the religious leaders.

Yeah, yeah. And yet they substituted that heartfulness toward God with just embracing rules and regulations, thinking this was the important stuff from God doing what happened, what the temple is there for. They didn't see the temple so much as a place where God wanted to live amongst them. They saw it as a place that they could accomplish righteousness. Completely different thing.

Completely different. And that was and, you know, it was common for the early patriarchs. They understood his relationship with God. God called Abraham. And then that's how it's gone from there. Yeah, it wasn't until God had actually delivered them from Egypt and they had been in the wilderness for weeks before they got instructions about the tabernacle where God would dwell in their midst.

While you're out here in tents, I'll be with you. It's totally secondary to what God had done in delivering them. Right, right. So the message of the Bible all the way from the Garden of Eden to Revelation is the fact that we have a Creator God who wants to live in our midst, who wants to share life with us. But by the time of Jesus, they'd lost all that. And yet the patriarchs understood it.

They understood it. So that's why the Holy Spirit is speaking his way through the history of Israel to get back to the heart of Judaism. Well, I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we will continue looking at Moses next time here on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. I get so excited thinking about words the way down the hallway. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.