June 26

“And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown up, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens” (Exodus 2:11).

Moses was very much influenced by what he saw was happening to his people about him; they were oppressed and persecuted by Pharaoh, and brought into subjection to Egypt. Moses saw for himself a role in rescuing his people from their plight and set out to put things aright, and in his righteous indignation he took matters into his own hands.

That was his mistake. While God intended that Moses be used as His servant to deliver His people from bondage, and Moses, no doubt, felt that call, God did not intend that Moses should step out in his own strength and his own wisdom. While he may have been the man to deliver God’s people, he could not be useful or effective until he had firstly been trained and disciplined for that task by God Himself.

This is a useful lesson, and a warning, for those who feel a burden to minister to God’s people, and step out in their own authority, or in an authority that they are given by men. We may have an understanding of the need, and even a vision of what can be done; but, until moulded and shaped and fitted to its place in the divine scheme of things, the work of men can become an encumbrance.

It took God forty years in the wilderness to prepare Moses to be the man to lead God’s people out of bondage to Egypt. During that forty years there was disappointment, frustration and even despair; but what had to happen in that time was that Moses had to learn to empty himself, so that he could be filled and equipped by God. That was what took so long before God could release Moses into the work for which he had been chosen; the man had to be prepared for the work that God intended be carried out.

To step out because we feel the need and know what has to be done is presumptuous towards God. Do we not believe that His understanding of the times is far superior to our own? Jesus, after all, was thirty years in the preparation for His three years of doing God’s work and fulfilling God’s plan. During that time, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience as a result of the things He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).

The impatience of men has brought calamitous results to Christianity; trained and equipped by men, not God, zealous young men and women step out in their own strength to shepherd God’s flock. Eager to get their careers under way, they search for an ecclesiastical appointing, rather than wait on God for a Spiritual anointing. The fruit of this model of “ministry” can be seen in modern western Christianity; powerless, luke-warm and apostate.