The Two ways God Used Moses For His Purpose

This post is the third series in our series of how God used people in biblical times for His purpose. We talked about the patriarchs and how God used Noah as well. 

In today’s blog, we will talk about Moses and how God called him and led him to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. 

The Backstory To Moses’s Life

Moses was born in the times the Israelites were oppressed and enslaved by the Egyptians. He was born to Levite parents, so Moses was from the tribe of Levi. These were in the times when all male babies were ordered to be killed by the Pharoah of Egypt. Please read Exodus Chapters 1 and 2 for the whole story. 

(Exodus 2:1-4 NIV) Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. 

When Moses was still a baby at three months, and his parents could not hide him anymore, they put him in a papyrus basket coated with tar and pitch, and they put him among the reeds along the banks of the Nile. Miriam stood at a distance to see what would happen to Moses. Pharaoh’s daughter, who was cleansing at the Nile, saw the basket and asked her attendants to bring the basket. When she opened the basket, she saw the baby crying, and she felt sorry for him. 

(Exodus 2:7-10 NIV) 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.” 

Moses grew up in the house of Pharaoh, but when he became a young man, he realized that he was not an Egyptian, but He was Hebrew. So Moses will go to where the Hebrews lived, and he saw their plight. One day he noticed that an Egyptian was beating a Hebrew, and Moses intervened and killed the Egyptian. The next day Moses saw two Hebrews fighting and asked them why they were fighting, and one of the Hebrews said, do you want to kill me too? Moses then knew that what he did had come out. Pharoah heard of what Moses had done and tried to kill him. Moses then fled to Midian. 

The Call Of Moses And His Assignment

Exodus Chapter 3 tells us about Moses and the call of God. Moses was tending to his father-in-law’s flock when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. 

(Exodus 3:7-10 NIV) 7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

God had seen the crying and suffering of the Israelites in Egypt, and He was concerned about their suffering. HE wanted to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians, but He needed a human being to take on that mission with Him, and this is where Moses comes in – God chose to use Moses for His purpose of delivering the Israelites from Egypt. 

Moses was reluctant to go back to Egypt because of what happened before he fled from Egypt, but God assured him that HE would be with him. Moses asked God what he was to say when people asked him who sent him, and they asked the name of the person who sent him – 

(Exodus 3:14-17 NIV) 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”

15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,

    the name you shall call me

    from generation to generation.

16 “Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. 17 And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’ 

God gave Moses this message and his assignment to go and take the people out of their misery in Egypt and into the land flowing with milk and honey. 

Moses was obedient to God, made the journey back to Egypt, gathered God’s people, and made their journey from Egypt to Canaan. It was not an easy task, but God was with Moses all the way through his assignment, and God also gave Moses Aaron and his sister Miriam to help him out with the work. 

With God’s help, Moses got the Israelites out of Egypt, and during their journey, God gave Moses the law/commandments that the Israelites were to heed so they know how to live an upright life. 

In short, God used Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egypt and also gave the Law/Commandments to Moses to give to the Israelites and to all who will believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,