The Man Moses: Life Lessons with Moses

By Tony Jordan

. “The Man Moses” is a perceptive and illuminating discussion on Moses’s life. Written for twenty-first-century Christians who wish to consider ethical and practical problems alongside devotional truths. Engaging with Moses as he confronts the challenges draws the reader to seek God’s solutions to everyday problems.
The Bible-based chapters are bite-sized, suitable for daily devotions and thought-provoking life lessons, from Moses discovering his roots, to his epiphany near the turquoise mine, and finally to his vision of the Promised Land from Mount Nebo.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Mar 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664117440

Tony Jordan

Tony and his wife, Beth, enjoyed ministering for over forty years in a Pentecostal Church on the outskirts of Nottingham, England. They met while studying at the Assemblies of God Bible College in Kenley, England. Tony was previously an engineering draughtsman, and Beth was a nurse. They have one daughter and son-in-law with triplet grandsons. For many years, the majority of their congregation had come to know Jesus through the witness of the church. These were mainly people living and working in the locality. It was from some of the weekly Bible studies shared with the congregation that these thoughts have been taken.

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Table of Contents

Setting The Scene

1. When the Sky Fell In

Exodus 1

2. Enslaved

Exodus 1

3. Emancipated

Exodus 1

4. Tomorrow is Another Day

Exodus 1

5. Medals for Midwives

Exodus 1

6. Ego Depletion

Exodus 2

7. Moses Matures

Exodus 2

8. Moses Motivated

Exodus 2

9. Virtuous Violence?

Exodus 2

10. Rejection and Regret

Exodus 2

11. The Wrong End of the Stick

Acts 7:18-45

12. Meeting The Master

Exodus 3

13. The Name

Exodus 3

14. It Is Not Who We Are

Exodus 3

15. The Preacher’s Nightmare

Exodus 4

16. Excuses

Exodus 4

17. Hardened Hearts

Exodus 5

18. The Preacher’s Purpose

Exodus 5

19. No Quick Fix

Exodus 5

20. The Name Again

Exodus 6

21. Bible Believing

22. The Seven Promises

Exodus 6

23. Inattentional Deafness

Exodus 6

24. The Miracle Maker

Exodus 7 & 8

25. All or Nothing

Exodus 8

26. Say One for Me Mate

Exodus 8:8,28 9:28 & 10:17

27. Even Harder Hearted

Exodus 9

28. The Passover

Exodus 12

29. The Numbers

Exodus 12

30. God Keeps Vigil

Exodus 12

31. Gratefulness

Exodus 13

32. Avoiding the Way of Horus

Exodus 13

33. God Must Go First

Exodus 13

34. Enjoy The Victory

Exodus 14 & 15

35. Disappointed Expectation

Exodus 15

36. What’s It? The Original Fast Food

Exodus 16

37. Prevailing Prayer

Exodus 17

38. The Power of Testimony

Exodus 18

39. A Destination, Not A Detour

Exodus 19

40. Law and Love

Exodus 20

41. The Greatest Command

Exodus 20

42. Sculptured Images

Exodus 20

43. Slandering God

Exodus 20:7 Matthew 5.33-37

44. Taking a Break

Exodus 16:23 & 20:8-11

45. Respect

Exodus 20:12 Ephesians 6:2 Matthew 15:6

46. Murder Most Foul

Exodus 20:13

47. Family Failure

Exodus 20:14 Matthew 5:27, 28

48. Theft

Exodus 20:15 Eph.4:28 Luke 18:18-30 & 19:8

49. Ruining Reputations

Exodus 20:16 Deuteronomy 19:15

50. Desires Denied

Exodus 20:17 Luke 12:15 Ephesians 5:5

51. But I say to you – Jesus

Exodus 21-24

52. Seeing God

Exodus 24

53. God’s Meeting Place

Exodus 25-31 Hebrews 9

54. The Golden Calf

Exodus 32

55. The Incredible Contract

Exodus 34:10-12

56. Generosity

Exodus 35 & 2Corinthians 8

57. Foreign Flames

Leviticus 10

58. Symptoms of Sin

Leviticus 13

59. Jubilee Jubilation

Leviticus 25, Isaiah 61, Luke 4:19

60. Freedom

Leviticus 26

61. Missing The Melons?

Numbers 11

62. Moses The Meek

Numbers 12

63. A Family Feud

Numbers 12

64. Racism or Elitism?

65. Yes, We Can

Numbers 13

66. Undue Influence

Numbers 13

67. Consistently Compassionate

Numbers 14

68. People of Influence

Numbers 16

69. Self-Control

Numbers 20

70. The Serpent

Numbers 21

71. Who Could Be Against Us?

Numbers 23

72. The God Who is Near

Deuteronomy 4

73. The Jealous God

Deuteronomy 4

74. The Question

Deuteronomy 4

75. The Decay of Faith

Deuteronomy 5

76. The Shema

Deuteronomy 6:4-6 & 11:13-21

77. The Final Destination

Deuteronomy 6

78. Insignificance

Deuteronomy 7

79. Getting it Wrong

Deuteronomy 7

80. Bribing God

Deuteronomy 10

81. Giving

Deuteronomy 15

82. Consecration

Deuteronomy 15

83. Don’t Turn Around

Deuteronomy 17

84. The Ideal

Deuteronomy 18

85. The Incomparable

Deuteronomy 18

86. Remember

Deuteronomy 24

87. The Promise Keeper

Deuteronomy 26

88. The Agreement

Deuteronomy 26

89. Willing but Weak

Deuteronomy 27

90. The Meaning of The Miracles

Deuteronomy 29

91. God’s Secrets

Deuteronomy 29

92. Passing The Baton

Deuteronomy 31

93. Moses’ Song

Deuteronomy 32

94. Moses’ Last Will and Testament

Deuteronomy 33

95. God’s Embrace

Deuteronomy 33

96. Known Unto God

Deuteronomy 34

97. Jesus and Moses

98. The Future Vision

Deuteronomy 34

St Anselm, the 12th-century archbishop of Canterbury, challenged us in his book of Devotions: -

Come now, thou poor child of man, turn awhile from thy business, hide thyself for a little time from restless thoughts, cast away thy troublesome cares, put aside thy wearisome distractions. Give thyself a little leisure to converse with God and take thy rest awhile in Him. Enter the secret chamber of thy heart: leave everything without but God and what may help thee to seek after Him, and when thou hast shut the door, then do thou seek Him. Say now, O my whole heart, say now to God, I seek Thy face; Thy face, Lord, do I seek.

Setting The Scene

Israel in Egypt. The Bible records that the Israelites had been in Egypt for several generations, finally being reduced to slavery. There is considerable internal evidence for this to be so. The law of Moses, written after their freedom, did not allow them to return escaped slaves (Deuteronomy 23:15, 16). They had sympathy with those in bondage; they knew the dread of forced labour. Hammurabi’s Babylonian Code, besides being written on a four-ton stela, is in total contrast to the Israelite Laws.¹ That code forced people to return slaves on the threat of death. Time after time, Deuteronomy says, Remember that you were slaves. Israel had been a whole nation in bonded labour.

Several people travelling from Egypt with Moses had names of Egyptian origin, such as Phineas, Hophni, Hur, and Pashur. The word used for the linen worn by the priests is also of Egyptian origin, and some of the terms for the priestly garments.²

The Pentateuch uses the phrase, A mighty hand and an outstretched arm the only other known use of the wording is in Egypt at the time of Rameses II; Joshua Berman also points out the similarity of the Poem of Kadesh to the construction of the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15.

When did it happen? For some, the 480 years before Solomon’s era (1Kings 6:1) are the actual years. The pedestal of a statue kept in Berlin has been used to support this view,³ which would take the Exodus to about 1445 BC. Kenneth A. Kitchen and James K. Hoffmeier, and other Egyptologists believe it happened later, during the reign of Rameses II, about 1260 BC and that the four hundred and eighty years is an amalgamation of the years of the judges, who at times, were ruling simultaneously. Edwin Thiele has shown the reliability of the Biblical dates of the Hebrew kings in his book, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings. So, we cannot ignore the verse; it depends on how the four hundred and eighty years are interpreted, were they actual years, or were they a composite number of years? The mention of iron in the Pentateuch suggests a twelfth-century date for the Exodus rather than a bronze age date.⁴ Unfortunately, Moses does not enlighten us by mentioning the Pharaohs by name.

Was the sea Red or Reed? The Septuagint translated into Greek from the Hebrew original says the Red Sea; most English translations copy that. The Hebrew uses yam suph, generally accepted as the Reed Sea. Red or Reed, they crossed it.⁵

God speaks to us through Israel’s experience; Paul said, These things happened to them as a warning to us. All this was written in the Scriptures to teach us who live in these last days (1Corinthians 10:11 CEV). We must be ready to listen, observe, and take note so that we can apply the truths to our lives.

Historical facts are interesting, but they are not life-changing like devotional truths. Exodus is the story of God delivering, directing, and correcting his people. So we too can enjoy the blessings they had on the way and avoid the pitfalls which entrapped them.

Chronicles of wasted Years. In Deuteronomy 1:2, there is a comment that seems out of place. It says that it was an eleven-day journey from Sinai to the southern part of the promised land. Therefore, the Israelites could have reached the Promised Land from Egypt in forty days, but it took them forty years.

Hebrews states, when contrasting the Promised Land to our possible spiritual life, Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it. (Hebrews 4:1 NRSV). Failed hustereo could be translated left behind. There is a place of resting in God this side of heaven; we must not miss it.

It is helpful to read the relevant Bible chapter

before reading the comments.

1

When the Sky Fell In

Exodus 1

I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved.

Psalm 30:6 (NRSV).

Jacob had never had it so good after he and his family had arrived in Egypt at Joseph’s request. Generations later, there was a total change of fortune for his descendants. This slavery was an evil imposed on a people group, plus genocide in slow motion. Genocide, this word we hear so often now, was coined by Rafael Lemkin, a Polish Jew. During the First World War, he hid in the forests to avoid the fighting between Russia and Germany (his brother, who was with him, died of starvation). Moses too was born during an evil era.

Things sometimes change when we are content with our present lives. Companies for which we happily worked close. Some spouses have a change of character and even leave us. Children who are so pliable and docile when young can mature into aliens from another planet. Wars and famines displace millions, whole continents can be devastated by unseen viruses, causing the death of millions, leaving untold numbers grieving and in poverty. The sky fell in for European Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, and many others when Hitler came to power. Never could anyone imagine the evil that was to come. Likewise, more than three thousand years earlier, the Hebrews were forced into slavery by Egypt, the land where once they freely roamed.

Joseph may have arrived while the Hyksos⁶ were in control of Egypt, which they ruled for a hundred years or more.⁷ Or he may have come even before then, as many Canaanites had emigrated to Egypt before that time. Several of the place names of northern Egypt were of Semitic origin. The scripture, Pharaoh who did not know Joseph (v.8), could refer to when the Egyptians had again taken control of their land. One of the two cities where the Israelites worked as enslaved people was built near the previous capital Avaris, from where the Hyksos kings had reigned. When once again the Egyptians had taken control of their land, the city was named after this latest pharaoh, Ramesses. The other city, was called Pithom (House of Atum).⁸

The date of the Exodus has been debated for centuries. The period held by most historians who believe its historicity, is during the reign of Ramesses II.⁹

The Pentateuch often refers to iron. Although ancient peoples used iron from meteorites, the smelting of iron was new and rare before this time. (It must be noted though, that iron is not mentioned in the book of Exodus).

Before Ramesses II, Egypt controlled the Levant (modern Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan). If Moses and the people had arrived earlier, they would have ended again under the control of the Egyptian empire.

Pharaoh exaggerated his problem, saying that there were more Israelites than Egyptians. His concern was that they would escape, not that they would regain control (Exodus 1:10).¹⁰ They were confined to a small area of Egypt and were forced into hard work; the sun-dried bricks they had to make were large and heavy.¹¹ Workers would dig a pit in the clay, pour in water, and add the straw trampling it all together. When sufficiently mixed and firm, the mud would be placed into the moulds.¹² Mudbrick buildings were usually coated with cement in Europe. In Britain, mud and straw houses had large overhanging roofs to help protect them from the rain. Egyptian mud buildings also had a coating over them.

God sent Moses to tell Israel there was something better for them. Far too often, we have tried to scare people into the Christian faith instead of telling them about the help of God and the hope of heaven. The hymn writer could say: -

There’s a land that is fairer than day, And by faith, we can see it afar.

The song was often parodied, where the idiom, pie in the sky, comes from in the song, The Preacher and the Slave. The Gospel has often been mocked. When Moses went to Pharaoh, his preaching of hope to the Israelites also met disdain.

2

Enslaved

Exodus 1

"I, the LORD your God, brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves. I broke the power that held you down and I let you walk with your head held high."

Leviticus 26:13 (GNB).

Sojourner Truth, an enslaved person and later an abolitionist, gave a famous speech in 1851 at an Ohio Women’s Rights Convention. She said, I have borne thirteen children and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?¹³ None but Jesus heard me, she said. Sojourner was eloquent, and she had a point. The lack of rights for women in America paled into insignificance compared to the slavery that men, women, and children shipped from Africa were enduring in America.

God said to Moses concerning the enslaved people, I have heard their cry (Exodus 2:23, 3:7&9). He did not say that the Israelites had been praying. Rather, they were wailing and shrieking.¹⁴ Their lives were bitter because of the daily grind of evil cruelty.

Occasionally I would have a break from the office to chat with a local craftsman. One day as I went into his yard, I heard him groaning aloud and yelling in his workshop. Rather than go and see him immediately, I returned half an hour later. His bank had foreclosed on him, forcing him into bankruptcy; he was beside himself. God does hear the words we utter but even more so, the cry of the heart. Refugees spending years in camps, barren women, and many others share in the grief groans of Israel. God listens and hears; he will respond.

Perhaps the Israelites’ groaning was prayerless, but Paul speaks of a prayerful groan, anticipating a complete deliverance from the slavery of sin. In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express (Romans 8:26 GNB). Here, the word for help, ‘sunantilambanō’, speaks of the action of a person coming to another’s aid. The person helping does not take the entire load but shares with the other person in their endeavour.¹⁵ The Christian’s groan is a cry of the heart supported by the Holy Spirit for complete deliverance. It may be better to have a groan without prayer than prayer without a groan.

The effect of modern slavery is the same as ancient slavery; people become cowed, fearful, and subservient. Only a small number are prepared to flee their captors. The Stockholm Syndrome¹⁶ is an extreme condition but real. The Hebrews were prepared to betray Moses to their slave masters even after he rescued one of them. God knew there would be a problem with timidity.

The Silent Slavery.

• Paul found he needed deliverance from the bondage of a sinful nature, even after believing he said, I’m pathetic, I’m doomed, help, rescue me! Then he said, Praise God, Jesus Christ our Lord is coming to my aid (Romans 7:24, 25). There was no crack of a whip, a bark of a command, a rod to the back, or a threat, just a silent, powerful force within him persuading him to go in the wrong direction. As the Lord’s Prayer notes, our need for deliverance from sin is an everyday one, but a greater than Moses is here to help.

• With slavery, there is not only a loss of freedom but also a loss of purpose. We are at the beck and call of another. Paul explained, For creation was condemned to lose its purpose (Romans 8:20 GNB). On April 11th, 1970, Apollo 13 blasted off to land on the moon. An oxygen tank failed, so the moon landing had to be aborted. Their sole aim became surviving to return to earth. Similarly, through sin, our original purpose has been aborted.

• Deliverance meant dignity, God told them, You left with your head held high. There is a fine line between dignity and pride. Dignity deserves respect, but pride is to be despised. A young single mother gave her life to Christ. Her two girls were both beautiful but of dissimilar fathers. Afterwards, she said to me, I can now walk with my head up. It was an internal thing. The community where we live did not look down on her, but she felt despised.

We need to overcome powerful forces. The theologian Karl Barth refused to swear allegiance to Hitler and criticised the many German Christians who did.¹⁷ Intimidation and conditioning are not limited to enslaved people; we can all be cowered by powerful institutions and governments into accepting things as they are.

We, like the Israelites, can become victims of our life problems, becoming enslaved by our situation, a bad habit, or constantly negative emotion, even weakness for a sin, from which we need deliverance. It could be that we have become friends with our kidnapper, readily giving in to our weaknesses so that we do not seek to escape, even when we could.

The Jewish people listening to Jesus denied that they were enslaved or ever had been; Jesus pointed out to them, I am telling you the truth: everyone who sins is a slave of sin (John 8:34 GNB). Constant sinning is slavery to sin. Martin Luther said, The will of unregenerate man is not free but enslaved and willing to be so.

There is a way out, Paul states, that we are tempted in the same way that everyone else is tempted. But God can be trusted not to let you be tempted too much, and he will show you how to escape from your temptations (1Corinthians 10:13 CEV).¹⁸ Like metals, we have an elastic limit; God keeps us within that limit so that after the time of stress, we can return to normality, walking with our heads held high, overcoming our weaknesses and fears.

3

Emancipated

Exodus 1

Jesus said to them, I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.

Luke 10:18 (NRSV).

Egypt’s policy was: - let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land. … crush their spirits with hard labour (Exodus 1:10 GNB).

Let us show them who is boss,¹⁹ Pharaoh said. Throughout life, there will always be people or organisations attempting to control our lives. To whoever we willingly or unwillingly submit, they will have a controlling stake in our everyday living. Some have a right and a duty to guide us; parents, teachers, and spouses do, others do not have that right, especially those that would benefit from things we do.

Pharaoh wanted to dominate the Israelites.²⁰ There was no mercy or compassion in him. Afflict them, he ordered, Humiliate them (Exodus 1:13, 14).²¹ He treated them as nobodies, though they were somebodies. Worry, fear, addiction, rejection, depression, and a thousand things can enslave us, so we do not care whether we live or die.

God took Moses away from the environment of a defeated, fearful, and subdued people so that he could live unafraid and unaffected by his surroundings. The home of the pharaoh’s daughter cushioned him from the effect of constant subjection and humiliation. His natural parents had to fight daily the fear, exhaustion, and the poverty of slavery; he was not conditioned by it. Maybe we have been influenced by our surroundings. We need to take ourselves mentally and emotionally outside of our box and look at life from a different perspective.

The Hebrews had to manufacture bricks whether they wanted to or not. Years later, when Moses returned from Midian, they were still making bricks. Their spirit was crushed; they could not break free. Often people claim that they are free when they are in emotional chains. Giving up smoking is easy, said Mark Twain, I’ve done it hundreds of times.

What will control our life? Besides self-inflicted addictions, other factors affect us; age does; an eighty-year-old man in a shopping mall was caught attempting to go up the down escalator. He said, I used to run up it when I was young and wondered if I could still do it. Caleb as an old man, was prepared to defy old age saying, Give me this mountain (Joshua 14:12). Poverty can control us; Paul knew what it was like, I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need (Philippians 4:12 NRSV). Joni Erickson Tada never let quadriplegia keep her down; her books and testimony have been an inspiration to millions, along with untold numbers of people with disabilities, becoming politicians, scientists, athletes, and living life every day.

Life Beyond our Control. When Paul was on the ship to Rome, he was a prisoner, yet more in control of the situation than either the ship’s captain or the centurion escorting him. He had no say in the course they took or the decisions they made; even so, Paul could say that the Lord, whose he was, and whom he served, had the answer. Paul was in control.

It is one thing to defy our enemies; it is another to defeat them. When William the Conqueror defeated King Harold in 1066, some Saxons kept up their defiance. One was Hereward the Wake, who fought in East Anglia. Finally, he lost. Defiant but defeated.

Paul was fighting his weaknesses. In Romans 7:19, he said that he had the wish, but not the strength of will. Help! he says in verse 24, and then in 25, he admits that Jesus alone can do it,²² giving a cry of thanksgiving for the Lord Jesus. We are in control when we hand the control over to the Lord. Paul speaks of the two laws (laws, like the law of Gravity, not like the law of England). One is the law of sin and death which is our natural motivation, and the other is the law of the Spirit of life that redirects us since our salvation. This is an ongoing battle, not a once for all escape. It is a daily deliverance from the slavery of sinfulness that we need, hence our prayer, Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The battle is fought and won every moment of every day.

A young woman was being interviewed by the Presbyterian elders to see if she was fit to take communion. How do you know you are saved? they asked. Before I would run after sin, and now, I run from it, was the reply.

On the 17th of September in 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from her slave master with the help of Quakers and others. Reaching freedom, she said, When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.²³ Later she helped three hundred others to freedom. It was worth risking all; freedom is for all.

Frederick Douglass, when he escaped slavery, described his freedom like this: - ‘I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions.’ Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.²⁴ When a work friend walked out of church having just given his life to the Lord, he said, I heard the birds singing as if for the first time.

Jesus could say at the return of the seventy when sick people were healed and demons defeated, I saw Satan fall. Godet explained it like this: - While you were expelling the subordinates, I was beholding the Master fall. The would-be dominator is defeated.

4

Tomorrow is Another Day

Exodus 1

Moses was born, and he was beautiful before God

Acts 7:20 (NRSV).

There has often been concern that the interpretation of Moses’ name in Exodus 2:10 is a Hebrew one, not Egyptian because it was the Egyptian daughter of pharaoh named him Moses.²⁵ She said that it was because she had drawn him out of the water. It could be that the princess might have had a Hebrew mother, even though her father as Pharaoh would be Egyptian. (Male Pharaohs had many wives and concubines, Moses would have been one of many princes.) If so, she would have been conversant with the Hebrew language. There were many concubines, and not necessarily all of them of Egyptian nationality. Was the princess part of the conspiracy herself or one of her attendants? Whatever, God knew where there was a tender-hearted princess. Moses could have been several years old when finally given to the princess. Mothers have been known to breastfeed children to a considerable age.

Not all Hebrew slaves were meekly submitting to the Egyptians. One was the mother of Moses (Hebrews 11:23), with her daughter, and the midwives. All were women; apart from