Exodus 3:7-12
Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
He said, “Certainly I will be with you. This will be the token to you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
I must share the problems that Moses had with faith in God. I can really relate to his questions as well as his quirky behavior. If you remember, forty years before this
meeting with God, Moses, without asking God, decided to start freeing his people from the Egyptians by himself. Now that God has come to him and asked him to do that very thing, he has lost all confidence. Did you notice that God doesn’t rebuke him for this?
This is the point at which God is actually able to start using us; the point at which we lose all confidence in ourselves. God is ready to answer Moses on this topic and explains that He will be with Moses. Not only that, God gives Moses a “token,” but this token is a very strange one to a person who wants to figure everything out in advance.
The token that God gives is a prophesy about the future. He tells Moses that you will know that it is right because you will end up right here on this mountain worshiping me with the children of Israel. Now, that isn’t a sign for those who lack faith. This was a sign that required faith. You have to believe in God and do what He says before you can see the thing come true. This is how it really is with God. God gives us promises about the future that we must believe and take action on.
These kinds of signs give us hope because they are based on a good future. God knows what we need to help us get through difficult tasks. What we really need is a bright future and enough hope to give us encouragement as we take the painful path to get there.