So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Lord, why have You brought trouble on this people? Why is it You have sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done evil to this people; neither have You delivered Your people at all.” (Exodus 5:22-23)

Wrong Views Of God

The folly of human wisdom does not determine the will and work of the Lord. What God thinks and the purpose of His will is so far above the imagination of anything the greatest minds among men can understand. At the age of eighty years, Moses was called by the Lord to return to Egypt and lead them out of bondage. The Lord brings the brother of Moses, Aaron, to accompany him to Pharoah, demanding the Hebrews to be released. Moses and Aaron demanded that the king of Egypt let the people go. Pharaoh scoffs at the request with contempt. Angered by the action of Moses and Aaron, Pharaoh made the labor of the Hebrews more difficult. The Egyptians supplied the Hebrews with straw to make bricks, but now they must find their own straw without diminishing the required quotas. Moses and Aaron had made the plight of the Hebrews much harder.

Moses was the Hebrew prince of Egypt. Forty years earlier, he had killed a man for beating a fellow Hebrew. Moses thought the Lord had sent him to deliver his people by his hand, but the people did not understand. Fear for his life, Moses fled to Midian, where he remained forty years. Many years later, he returned to free the people, but his actions created more hardship for them, and they resented him. The officers of the children of Israel pleaded with Pharoah to change his command, but there was no relief. As they left the audience with Pharaoh, the Hebrew leaders blamed Moses and Aaron for making the people abhorrent in the land. They told Moses he had put a sword in the hands of the Egyptians to kill the people of Israel. Moses was devastated.

Reacting to the anger of the Hebrew leaders, Moses comes to the Lord, blaming Him for the trouble brought on by Pharaoh. He thought his mission was a ‘one-and-done,’ and Pharoah would immediately let the people go; Moses would be a great hero, and he would lead the people out with great power. It did not happen. He had argued with the Lord at the burning bush, but God insisted on sending him. Why had he sent him? The plan to give his fellow Hebrews had backfired, and now the people were in worse condition than before, and God was to be blamed. Moses blames God for not delivering His people as He said he would.

The problem facing Moses was he had a wrong view of God. He had a preconceived idea about how things would work, and for some reason, the Lord did not follow his plan. From the perspective of Moses, the Lord did not know what He was doing. It would take ten plagues to convince Moses and the people of the power of the Lord God. The challenge of faith would continue to plague the Hebrews even after the crossing of the Red Sea, the victories over the enemies, the fierceness of Mount Sinai, and all the miracles in the wilderness. True to form, the human mind has always failed to understand that God knows exactly what He is doing, and His will is not determined by the will of men.

David thought it would be a good idea to build the Lord a temple. He was wrong. Elijah thought there were no more faithful people in the land but his righteous self. He was wrong. Peter rebuked Jesus for talking about dying. He was wrong. Time and time again, the kernel of human wisdom is pitted against the vast universe of the might and power of God. His will is done without the efforts of what men think. The challenge has always been not to blame God but to accept the word of the Lord by faith and walk in obedience with a heart of submission. Did Noah understand what the flood meant? Abraham did not waver when God told him to sacrifice Isaac. The view we have of God will determine the reason we obey Him.