Pop’s Lessons– Part Forty Three

2/14/1982— Exodus 3

One of the most dramatic confrontations in all of Scripture took place when God called Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, out of bondage. Despite the urgency of the situation, you will recall that Moses offered excuses to God. He protested that he was not the man for the job.  He exclaimed ‘who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’   He wanted no part of what seemed to be an impossible situation. But God met all of Moses’ arguments and at last the servant accepted his commission accompanied by his brother Aaron.   He sought an audience with Pharaoh but Pharaoh was not a man of reason.  He was hard to convince of anything.  He laughed at them. He refused to take them seriously. But what no person given to arrogance and pride can ever understand is that the messengers of God are seldom deterred by human beings.  Moses said ‘just as it is written, thus saith the Lord God of Israel— Let my people go!’  Throughout eleven chapters of Exodus, Moses consecrated with the power of God slowly turned the self-satisfied sneer on Pharaoh’s face to a forlorn frown.  So after 400 years of bondage, the man who had said to God ‘who am I that I should lead God’s people out of captivity in a foreign land’, does so and on that night a nation was borne.  And it would still be 40 years before the Israelites would reach the promised land.

America has drifted away from God, as did Pharaoh. Today in America, when so much has been given to so many in the way of individual liberty, the only nation that has fully cherished inalienable rights, will our leaders be as foolish as Pharaoh? It is surely a question we need to ponder at this time. And yet with all our shortcomings, we are still by far the greatest nation on earth. It is a matter of whether or not we are on God’s side. I believe we are but we cannot relax our efforts for freedom. America is a land flowing with milk and honey. It is your land, it is my land, it is God’s land. Yes one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. Let’s keep it that way.