Exodus 3:12 – 15 “I will surely be with you,” God said, “and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, all of you will worship God on this mountain.” Then Moses asked God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ What should I tell them?”
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.’” God also told 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, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.”
Moses is still having doubts! OK, so there’s a burning bush with a voice coming out of it and the awe of holiness is all over the place. And yes, Moses believes that he is conversing with the God of his fathers. But now Moses has to go back to Egypt, to a group of people who haven’t seen him in forty years and who are only vaguely aware that the God of their fathers exists. Remember, there are no forms of worship for this God at this point. The only kinds of worship the Israelites have been witnessing have been the Egyptian worship practices, with lots of veneration of the dead and a whole panoply of gods.
Before Moses can do anything else, his first challenge is to convince the Israelites that God has really sent him. And that brings up the next problem: what do you call God? God settles the matter Himself by saying “I am that I am.” Prior to this, there was no recorded name for the Lord God Almighty. In Genesis 12:7 God appears to Abraham and speaks with him, but there is never any mention made of the name of God. Later in the same chapter, Abraham builds an altar and calls on the name of the Lord, but we are never told what that name is. Why is this name so important?
Many cultures believe that if you know someone’s secret name, you have control over them. But the Name that God gives Himself does not allow for manipulation or control. God Himself says that He Is. This means that God has always been, is always, and will also be always what He is and nothing else. God goes on to identify Himself as the Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
APPLICATION: How does this passage illustrate God’s mercy?
1. God assures Moses that He will SURELY be with Moses. This statement leaves no room for doubt. If we will only turn our hearts toward God, He will SURELY be with us just as He was with Moses. God does not do this because we deserve His mercy but because He loves us, sinful as we are.
2. God promises Moses that “When you have brought the people out of Egypt, all of you will worship God on this mountain.” God is not planning for anyone to be left behind; His mercy is going to extend to all of the Israelites as well as to Moses. When God chooses to act in mercy, he does a complete work!
3. God is giving Moses authority to speak on His behalf. In effect, the Lord God of the Universe is making Moses His ambassador. God in His mercy is fully aware of all of Moses’s shortcomings and weaknesses, but God also knows how greatly He will be able to use Moses.
4. Moses is only looking at a few weeks or months, but God is looking down the centuries. God is excited because He knows that signs and wonders are coming and that countless generations will bless Moses’s name, quote his words, and even name their children after him.
Many times, we feel a lot like Moses out there in the desert herding sheep. We might be older or living in a remote area. Many of us do not have great social status or public influence. But God sees us totally differently than we do ourselves. THE BIGGEST MISTAKE WE CAN MAKE IS TO LIMIT GOD BECAUSE OF OUR UNBELIEF. Always, always, always give God plenty of wiggle room! If you will allow God to use you, He will do wonderful things and make you a blessing to all those around you.
PRAYER: Father God, thank you for your mercy and your watch care! Thank you that you have far greater plans for us than we have for ourselves. Help us to allow you to use us as you want to and not to limit you. Thank you for loving us and for sending Jesus to die for our sins in the greatest act of mercy of all. Amen.
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