Beginning of the End: The Time for Freedom Comes!

 “In the process of time ... the king of Egypt died. Then the children  of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God. ... And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them.” The time for deliverance had come.

God would accomplish His plan in a way to pour contempt on human pride. The deliverer was to go forward as a humble shepherd, with only a rod in his hand, but God would make that rod the symbol of His power.

Leading his flocks one day near Horeb, “the mountain of God,” Moses saw a bush in flames, but not burning up. When he came closer, a voice from out of the flame called him by name. With trembling lips he answered, “‘Here I am.’” He was warned not to approach irreverently: “‘Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. ... I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.”

As Moses waited in awe before God, the words continued: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey. ... Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Amazed and terrified, Moses stepped back, saying, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

Moses thought of the blindness, ignorance, and unbelief of his people. Many knew almost nothing about God. “Indeed,” he said, when I ... say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” The answer was, “I AM WHO I AM. ... ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

God commanded Moses to first assemble the elders of Israel, who had been mourning for a long time because of their slavery, and to declare to them a message from Him. Then he was to go before the king and say, “The Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us; and now, please, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.”

Moses was warned ahead of time that Pharaoh would resist the appeal, yet the courage of God’s servant must not fail. The Lord would show His power. “I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in its midst; and after that he will let you go.”

The Lord declared, “It shall be, when you go, that you shall not go empty-handed. But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, namely, of her who dwells near her house, articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing.” The Egyptians had become rich by the labor unfairly required from the Israelites, and it was right for the Israelites to claim the  reward of their years of work. God would help them as they approached the Egyptians for payment, and the requests of the slaves would be granted.

What proof could Moses give his people that God had indeed sent him? “But suppose,” he said, “they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’” He was told to throw his rod on the ground, and as he did so, “it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.” He was commanded to grab it, and in his hand it became a rod. He was told to put his hand onto his chest. He obeyed, and “when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow.” Being told to put it again onto his chest, he found when he pulled it out that it had become like the other. By these signs his own people, as well as Pharaoh, would be convinced that One mightier than the king of Egypt was certainly among them.