Face to Face

Face to Face

The hidden calling 1 Samuel 3:1 fg.

Moses “went out to his brethren and looked.” Exodus 2:11. Had he never looked before? He must have known that he was of their people.

In all these long years when he passed as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and shared in all the pleasures of Egypt, had he forgotten the people of God and their burdens? Or did he remember and push the thoughts away?

The decision that he had now come to, that he would cast in his lot with them, could not have been the work of a moment, but was probably the result of deep heart-searching before the God whom he knew had spared his life when so many innocent babes had been swept away.

Moses looked, and his heart was stirred! We gather from the words of Stephen in Acts 7:25, that Moses already knew that he was to be the deliverer of Israel; and so, when he went out to visit his brethren and saw one of them suffering wrong, he defended him, smiting the Egyptian.

Ah, Moses, Moses, this is the way of Egypt, but not of God! This reminds us of Peter drawing his sword to defend the Son of God, who needed only to speak and have legions of angels to come and protect Him.

It describes, too, many who are fighting for God today, drawing their swords and smiting all that they conceive to be wrong, forgetting that the Master said, “All they that live by the sword shall perish by the sword,” and again, “If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight.”

That His servants do fight shows their forgetfulness of the way of the cross and the Spirit of Christ.

Israel would never have been delivered if deliverance depended upon Moses smiting the Egyptians one by one. God had a far better way than this.

How small and narrow our vision is! If we would but give ourselves up to God, and seek first to know Him and His will, He would then accomplish great things by us.

God meant to save Israel by the hand of Moses, but not in Moses’ way. It would take time and patient training in Godly fear to make this fiery man into a sharpened arrow in the hand of the Lord.

No vision from the LORD. Lam. 2:9.

God had to teach Moses first by failure. He supposed that his brethren would have understood that God was giving them deliverance by him!

Probably they would have understood if the means had been of God; but this was not God’s way, so how could God bear witness to it!

We are amazed when the souls we want to help do not accept us. We know that God has called us and told us that He will give deliverance to souls by our hands. With hearts full of our secret dealings with Him, and of all that He has said to us, we go out and suppose that others will understand that God is working through us, when as yet it is not God at all!

It is God, in so far as that He permits our efforts to be made, but only that we may fail and know ourselves.

The record in Exodus tells us that after Moses had “looked this way and that way . . . he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” This was not “worthy of God.” He does not do His work like this, nor ask His children to do anything unbefitting their high and heavenly calling. When He did bring out Israel from Egypt, it was by a stretched-forth arm and glorious power, so that the Egyptians themselves bowed down and said, “Get you out.! Let us not dare to put God’s name to anything that needs a “looking this way and that” before or after it is done. Let us beware of any money-getting in His name, or even pretending that soul-getting was the aim, if it doesn’t bear the scrutiny of His terrible, crystal-clear light.

Surely Moses must have been conscious that all was not right! When he retired to rest that night, did it not occur to him that Israel would never be delivered in such a way?

So, too, does it not dawn upon us that, despite all our “defending and avenging,” souls are yet in bondage to sin and the world, and that our puny efforts to free them are like an attempt to empty the ocean with a spoon? Some know it and are almost crushed by the thought. They say, “Are we then to do nothing when we see the burdens of the oppressed?” In God’s name, Yes; but let us first get in line with God, to work with Him, and not apart from Him. God and Moses can bring Israel out of Egypt, but Moses alone—never!

“But your iniquities have separated you from your God . . .” Isaiah 59:2.

“He went out the second day, and behold, two men of the Hebrews were fighting with each other. He said to him who did the wrong, ‘Why do you strike your fellow?’ He said, ‘Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you plan to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian?’ Moses was afraid,” Exodus 2:13-14.

An arrow that struck home, thrown by the hand of God! It is hard to be told the truth so sharply, and by those you seek to help. Unpleasant though it may be, if we are open to these home-thrusts from others, who see us as we cannot see ourselves, we will be able to submit our lives to Him who can adjust them so that they give no occasion of reproach. No soul that shuts itself up within itself, and carefully avoids every outlook but its own, will ever “look from the top” with God over a wide horizon.

So this was how the thing looked to the very men he longed to help! If Moses had been able to justify his action to himself, it was a rough awakening. The man he rebuked for smiting his brother could not distinguish between his own action and that of Moses! In one case, true, it was a common quarrel; in the other it was the noble ideal of delivering the oppressed. The ignorant Hebrew surely could not distinguish things that differ!

No, no, child of God; that action of yours may be prompted by a noble ideal, but to others looking on, it is an aroma of the world, and it tastes of the flesh. We ought not let our good be evil spoken of, and we are bidden to avoid the appearance of evil, and to take thought for things honourable in the sight of all men.

“Who made you judge over us?” met the ears of Moses as he sought to make peace between his brethren. What utter failure! Let us thank God for our failures and our rude awakenings.

Far, far better to have them now than to live in self-delusion and awaken too late to find at the judgment seat that we must “suffer loss” because we could not bear the truth.

The arrow hit the mark. Moses feared, and Moses fled—fled to the land of Midian, a pilgrim and a refugee. He had made his choice, and by his own free will determined to take the path of the cross—to suffer affliction, loss, and reproach. Now in two brief days, and apparently by his own folly, his court life had faded into the past, and he found himself a wanderer and alone, a stranger in a strange land.

“Seek My face . . . .” Psalm 27:8.

This period in the history of Moses has its counterpart in our own experience; but, alas, many of us spend years in learning our powerlessness in the work of God, although we know that we are not acceptable to the souls we want to help, and “Who put you over us?” not unfrequently meets our ears. Let us not blame the people, as we are so often disposed to do, but rather let us seek the light of God to know the cause of failure in ourselves, that He may make us vessels to honour, fit for His use.

God had made ready for Moses in the land of Midian. His steps were ordered by the LORD, and he was guided to a place where his bread would be given to him, and his water would not run out. Severed from the magnificent surroundings of the palace of Pharaoh and the pleasures of the highly civilized capital of Egypt, Moses was given the joys of a quiet home and taught to be content with simple food and a pastoral life in a strange land.

We have learnt that Moses spent 40 years in retirement in Midian. 40 years is a long period of life now, and God does not take as much time to prepare His instruments these days.

As Moses led the sheep year after year, did he ever think that God had forgotten that transaction with Himself when he looked beyond to the reward, and chose the pathway of the cross? Or did he have many sore conflicts over the thought that he had frustrated the grace of God, and been put aside as a broken vessel?

We are given no trace of Moses’ thoughts during these years, but it is probable that God waited until every hope Moses had of being sent back to become the deliverer of his oppressed brethren had faded away.

“Your face, LORD, will I seek!” Psalm 27:8.

God waited for Moses until, in the silence of the desert, his whole being was stilled and all “creaturely activity,” hurry and impulse had died away.

Oh, how restive we are in ourselves! How we dislike being still, especially when God’s children around us seem to have caught the fever of the world! But God has yet His hidden ones, the quiet in the land.

Maybe, child of God, you have found your desert training in some workroom or kitchen, at some lonely post on the mission field, or in some worldly home in your own country. You have been agonizing, struggling, wondering when God will set you free. You once thought He meant to do great things by you, but you have been so hedged in that all hope has died away, all plans and schemes are gone. At last, you are content to “feed the flock,” and to be faithful to Him in that which is least. “Alas! Here am I, occupied with nothing but the things of earth, and God’s world seems to be needing me. Am I never to be among those privileged to undo the bands of the yoke and let the oppressed go free?” Oh, child of God, your Father never forgets, and His clocks are never behind time. Wait! “But I have waited many years!” Lie down in His will and be at rest; don’t you know that His will is more than His work.

Jesus has said, “Whosoever shall do the will of My Father, . . . he is My brother, and sister, and mother”? The waiting time is necessary. The aim and the end of all His work in us is to teach us to “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”