Face to Face

With him will I speak mouth to mouth. Numbers 12:8.

What a change in Moses! How ready he was to go forty years before! But now he shrinks back.

“I? Who am I, that I should go?” All the self-sufficiency gone.

Is this the man who was mighty in word and deed?

A similar colloquy between God and His servant are often repeated in many hearts today.

For one thing, the task was a stupendous one! What would it mean? What would God do with him? Moses had looked upon the burdens of his oppressed brethren, and he knew the tyranny of Pharaoh and what it meant to have him as an enemy.

To be sent to deliver Israel! The sketch that God had drawn out as to His plan of operations looked simply impossible. Bring them up out of Egypt into a good land now occupied by enemies! —and he, one man, with no resources, no influence, no means, no co-worker! Impossible!

But God can do impossible things! It matters not how great the scheme if God draws it out; it matters not how insurmountable the difficulties appear, if God undertakes the responsibility.

Moses does not venture to question the scheme, but he does question his fitness to take part in it, so he shrinks back with objection after objection.

“I go to Pharaoh?” “But I will be with you,” says the LORD.

An ambassador from the King of kings has his Master’s authority at his back.

Moses would not be sent in his own personal capacity, nor even as the man who once was a royal prince of Egypt. God had allowed sufficient time to elapse for all that to be put out of his mind. He wanted none of earth’s influence or wisdom to carry out his task.

There must be no fear of this intruding now. Moses must go in the authority and power of God alone.

“Abraham fell on his face: and God talked with him.” Genesis 17:3.

But “when I come to the children of Israel and shall say, . . . God . . . has sent me to you; and they shall say to me, What is His name? what shall I say?” Exodus 3:13. The patient LORD has a lot of trouble with this timid man; but He tenderly meets his fears and answers every difficulty.

He was to tell the oppressed Israelites just what God had told him—the God of their fathers had appeared to him and sent him to them. He was told exactly what to do; was promised a hearing; and was forewarned that the steps he was bidden to take would not be successful at first—but that God would work for His people.

Eventually they would be allowed to come away; not empty, either, like slaves stealing away, but they would come out of Egypt in the sight of all the people, hastened by them, and loaded with their gifts!

Whatever God undertakes He carries out royally in the face of all men. Israel would have been only too glad to get away from their taskmasters in any condition; but when God leads forth His people it shall be in triumph, by a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm.

If we, His children, when we get into tangled corners, even by our own folly and sometimes wrongdoing, would only turn to God as a King and a Father, and cast ourselves upon Him, He would work for us, and lead us out of our troubles safely.

The LORD has dealt with two of Moses’ difficulties, but Moses is not yet satisfied. He cannot reconcile himself to the prospect of such an undertaking; he has rather unpleasant memories of a certain day when one of these very Hebrews, to whom God wants to send him, turned round upon him saying, “Who made you a ruler over us?”

The adversary keeps these memories for sensitive souls, and he knows how to bring them up in critical moments.

The arrow had pierced deep into the mind of the fiery and sensitive man, whose attempt to avenge and defend his oppressed brethren had cost him so much.

The greater the cost and the sacrifice in going forth to the aid of others, the deeper the wound when that aid is rejected. Only a keenly sensitive nature can understand the suffering that Moses must have experienced when his hopes were dashed to the ground.

To be sent back to the people who had rejected him! Is he perhaps afraid the taunt will be repeated, and the terror will come back, so that he must flee again?

How the devil haunts God’s children with memories like these!

Paul, at the very end of his life, could not forget that he had once persecuted the Church of God. “Who is he that condemns? It is Christ Jesus that died, yes rather, that was raised from the dead.” Romans 8:33-34. “It is Christ Jesus that died,” is the answer to all the past for Paul, and for all who shelter under the blood of the slain Lamb.

“Looking to Jesus the author . . . of our faith . . .” Hebrews 12:2. Moses speaks again: “But behold, they will not believe me; . . . they will say, The LORD has not appeared.” Exodus 4:1.

Moses had once supposed they would understand that God would deliver them by his hand; and the error then made him fear to risk disappointment now. Suppositions are not enough; we must have certainties . . . and Moses will find it very different when God really sends him.

The Lord answers this fear by showing him His power and proving to him that He will bear him witness in the eyes of those to whom he is sent.

He bids Moses cast the rod held in his hand upon the ground, and it becomes a serpent. He bids him lay hold of the serpent by the tail, and it becomes a rod. A strange experiment!

Moses would have to meet the magicians in Egypt, and he must first have proved God’s power, so that in calm fearlessness he can face them, all their trickery and conquer them.

Again, we meet with the need of “faith” as the one thing to link nothingness with Omnipotence!

“If you have faith . . . nothing shall be impossible to you,” and again, “Have faith in God. Whoever may tell this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and doesn’t doubt in his heart, . . . he shall have whatever he says.” Mark 11:22-23.

Moses must not be left with one shadow of doubt in his heart, so that the things that he says at God’s command shall be done.

God will take the same trouble today to train His children to have absolute unwavering faith in the weapon put into our hands: the sword of the Spirit—the Word of God, which is mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.

“And Moses said to the LORD, O LORD, I am not an eloquent man of words, neither before now, nor since You have spoken to your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” Exodus 4:10.

First, Who am I? I have no position, no influence, no authority! Second, “They will not believe me.” They did not do so once, and I do not care to try again. And, thirdly, I am slow of speech and tongue.

Perhaps Moses said to himself; Forty years in the wilderness have taken away my flow of language. Once I was mighty in words, but not now; I have become a man of few words.

If Moses only knew it, that was his best preparation. Eloquence is more often a hindrance than an advantage when promoting Gods work!

When God speaks, He speaks little, but what He says is done. With Him speaking is doing, and one word will accomplish His purpose. When God wants a man to be His mouthpiece, He sometimes chooses one who is not eloquent and has no language of his own, so that God may speak through him. Paul clearly understood this when he wrote, “Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of null effect.”

It is made to null effect by the flowery language in which it is too often clothed. God forgive us for painting the cross in roses!

It needs its intense reality to fulfil its work, even as in all its awful power it shook Jerusalem that eventful day when the horror of a great darkness was over the land.

“The LORD looked upon him, and said Go, . . . .” Judges 6:14.

The LORD’s answer to Moses was decisive. “So, the LORD said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? . . . Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.’” Exodus 4:11-12.

The God who made his mouth could open his mouth and teach him what to say. All of Moses’ questions are answered.

But his heart still fails him; he cannot face the work. The LORD has been so gracious in listening to his fears that he does not dare refuse— so, with almost a gasp of terror, he says, “O my LORD, send, I pray You, by the hand of him whom You would send,” Exodus 4:13, as much as to say, “You must have Your way, LORD, and if I must go, well—but I’d rather not!”—a most ungracious, unwilling assent.

God cannot use us to carry out His will if we are a sluggish and unwilling instrument.

Without hesitation, we must begin and cooperate with Him, in faith. Faith and trust are the channel through which God’s power works.

That you fear because you feel little and insignificant is of no consequence, as long as your heart is willing.

Moses did not refuse to go; he agreed to yield to the divine will, but his faith could not reach to the point where God could use his mouth and give him power of utterance, as God had promised him.

It is written that “the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses.” He was grieved, because He had intended to redeem Israel through Moses alone, but the latter’s shrinking and ungracious assent to the service that he was called to made it necessary that He should use another vessel with him.

If Moses had not faith that God would give him the words needed, then God could not make him His mouthpiece, which was His original intention.

Aaron was to accompany him and be His mouthpiece, Exodus 4:14-16.

The Almighty God stands powerless before our unbelief, and His grace is limited by our faithlessness.

It was not an erratic or a petulant change, this determination to give Aaron as a spokesman to Moses. The action was governed by the law that surrender and faith are the only conditions in which God can work in human vessels.

“Holiness, without which no man shall see the LORD.” Hebrews 12:14.

Aaron was given to Moses to be his spokesman, or, as the LORD Himself expressed it, “instead of a mouth.”