Then Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, "Please let me return to my brothers in Egypt to see if they are still alive." "Go in peace," Jethro replied. Sermons
Weeks, perhaps months, intervened between the revelation at the bush and Moses' actual departure from Midian. Time was given for allowing the first agitation of his spirit to subside, for enabling him to take the just measure of the task entrusted to him, for the final overcoming of his involuntary reluctance. An interval is presupposed in ver. 10 - "Neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant," and is implied again here. Events were not yet quite ready for his departure. The preparation of the man, and the preparation of events (ver. 19) were going on simultaneously. God would have his servant brought, not only to a clear apprehension of his message, but into a state of intelligent and entire sympathy with it, before actually starting him on his journey. The call would come at the proper time. I. PERMISSION RECEIVED (ver. 18). The request to Jethro was couched in simple but courteous terms, and was as courteously responded to. Moses said nothing of the revelations he had received. 1. He had no call to say anything. His message was to the elders of Israel, not to Jethro. 2. It would have been a breach of confidence to have divulged what passed between him and God without permission. 3. It was not advisable to say anything. He would have required to have entered into explanations, and might have encountered unbelief and opposition. If Jethro perceived, as possibly he did, that there was something underlying Moses' request which he did not care to state, he had the good sense to refrain from prying too curiously into what did not concern him. The parting was courteous and friendly, creditable alike to both. Observe: 1. There are times when it is prudent to keep one's own counsel. 2. It is the mark of a wise man that he can keep his own counsel. 3. It is well to be reserved about private religious experience (Galatians 1:16, 17). 4. It is one's duty on all occasions to study friendliness and courtesy. 5. It is nearly as high a mark of character not to be too curious in prying into the secrets of others, as it is to be cautious in keeping silence about those entrusted to us. II. THE WAY CLEARED (ver. 19). As suggested above, Moses had probably been instructed to wait a Divine intimation as to the time of his actual departure. In a work so important every step must be taken under direct Divine guidance. Cf. the movements of Mary and Joseph with the child Jesus (Matthew 2.). And the warning was not given till God was able to announce that all the men were dead who had formerly sought his life. This would be a comfort to Moses, and would remove at least one set of fears as to his personal safety. There may have been another reason for delaying to this point. Time had again brought matters to the condition of a tabula rasa. The conflict now to be begun was not to be demeaned by being mixed up with the spites and enmities of a buried past. Observe: 1. How God times events with a view to every class of conditions. 2. How God consults for the safety of his servants. 3. How God's purposes move with steady step to their accomplishment, while mortals, who thought to hinder them, drop into their graves, and are forgotten. III. THE JOURNEY ENTERED UPON (ver. 20). 1. Moses took with him his wife and two sons. The desire to have them with him was natural, but he afterwards saw reason for sending them back. The work he was engaged in was of a kind not compatible with family entanglements. There are times when a man's hands need to be absolutely free; when it is his duty not to enter into relationships which would encumber him; or, if these already exist, to make the temporary sacrifice of comfort and affection which the exigencies of his work demand (Matthew 8:21, 22; 2 Timothy 2:4). 2. He took with him the rod of God. This was indispensable. By it he was to work signs (ver. 17). The rod of the Christian worker is his Bible. Armed with that, he can speak with Divine authority, work miracles in the souls of men and confound the mightiest of his enemies. - J.O. Let me go, I pray thee. I. IT CONSISTS IN A TRUE RECOGNITION OF PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 1. Moses was animated by honesty. 2. Moses was related by marriage. 3. Moses was obliged by kindness. II. IT IS COMPATIBLE WITH SILENCE IN REFERENCE TO THE INNER EXPERIENCES OF OUR SPIRITUAL LIFE AND WORK. Moses only asked the consent of his father-in-law to visit his brethren in Egypt; he did not name the primary object of his journey. This was quite consistent, under the circumstances, with a true recognition of filial duty. 1. Silence is not necessarily cunning. 2. Silence may be discreet. 3. Silence may be self-protective.Many toils of Christian workers have been brought to nought by the lack of precautionary measures on the part of those who have been entrusted with them. III. IT SHOULD AWAKEN KINDLY AND JUDICIOUS PARENTAL CONSIDERATION AND RESPONSE. "And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace." 1. Sometimes the request should be granted. 2. Always goodwill should be expressed. "Go in peace." 3. Supremely should self be forgotten. () This case of Moses reminds us that our best lifework is that on which we enter under a feeling that it is absolutely essential that we should do it. Moses tried in every way to put away from him the office to which God called him. But still it came back upon him. He felt that he must go; and when that irrepressible must shaped itself in his soul, he went, and carried all before him. It is the irrepressible in a man that makes him great. So long as the work he undertakes is performed because he must do something, there is nothing remarkable either about him or about it; but when he enters upon it because it is something that he must do, then prepare yourself for something noble. Is it not just in this that the quality which we call genius peculiarly resides? If a man thinks that he would like to write in verse, or to paint something, or to make a speech, or what not, his work will never be heard of. But if there is in him a song which insists on singing itself out, or a painting which will not let him rest until he has put it on the canvas, or a truth, the utterance of which he cannot hold back, then he is sure to be at length a poet, an artist, or an orator. That was a wise old minister who, on being consulted by a youth who desired to become a preacher of the gospel, said to him, "Young man, don't become a minister if you can help it." It is the man who cannot help being a preacher who will be most effective always in the pulpit. The work which we can help doing is not for us. If Moses could have successfully excused himself, he would have been no fit man for the great crusade on which he entered. But it was because, in spite of all his reluctance, there was within him the overmastering sense that God had called him to be Israel's deliverer that he was at length so successful. Ah! have we not here the cause of so many failures in moral and religious enterprises? The men who have inaugurated them have done so for personal eclat or pecuniary profit, and not because of this inner compulsion. () ()
People Aaron, Isaac, Israelites, Jacob, Jethro, Moses, Pharaoh, ZipporahPlaces Egypt, Horeb, Midian, Nile RiverTopics Alive, Brethren, Brothers, Departed, Egypt, Father-in-law, Jethro, Kinsmen, Law, Peace, Please, Relations, Return, Returned, Turn, Turneth, Whether, Wish, YetOutline 1. Moses's rod is turned into a serpent.
6. His hand is leprous.
10. He loathes his calling.
13. Aaron is appointed to assist him.
18. Moses departs from Jethro.
21. God's message to Pharaoh.
24. Zipporah circumcises her son.
27. Aaron is sent to meet Moses.
29. The people believe them.
Dictionary of Bible Themes Exodus 4:17 8421 equipping, physical Exodus 4:15-17 4512 staff Library January 13. "Thou Shalt be to Him Instead of God" (Ex. Iv. 16).
"Thou shalt be to him instead of God" (Ex. iv. 16). Such was God's promise to Moses, and such the high character that Moses was to assume toward Aaron, his brother. May it not suggest a high and glorious place that each of us may occupy toward all whom we meet, instead of God? What a dignity and glory it would give our lives, could we uniformly realize this high calling! How it would lead us to act toward our fellow-men! God can always be depended upon. God is without variableness or shadow of turning. …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth May the Eleventh but -- --!
"And Moses answered and said, But----" --EXODUS iv. 1-9. We know that "but." God has heard it from our lips a thousand times. It is the response of unbelief to the divine call. It is the reply of fear to the divine command. It is the suggestion that the resources are inadequate. It is a hint that God may not have looked all round. He has overlooked something which our own eyes have seen. The human "buts" in the Scriptural stories make an appalling record. "Lord, I will follow Thee, but----" There …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year May the Twelfth Mouth and Matter
"Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth." --EXODUS iv. 10-17. And what a promise that is for anyone who is commissioned to proclaim the King's decrees. Here can teachers and preachers find their strength. God will be with their mouths. He will control their speech, and order their words like troops. He does not promise to make us eloquent, but to endow our words with the "demonstration of power." "And I will teach thee what thou shall say." The Lord will not only be with our mouths, …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year A Bundle of Myrrh is My Well-Beloved unto Me; He Shall Abide Between My Breasts.
When the Bride, or rather the lover (for she is not yet a bride), has found her Bridegroom, she is so transported with joy, that she is eager to be instantly united to Him. But the union of perpetual enjoyment is not yet arrived. He is mine, she says, I cannot doubt that He gives Himself to me this moment, since I feel it, but He is to me, as it were, a bundle of myrrh. He is not yet a Bridegroom whom I may embrace in the nuptial bed, but a bundle of crosses, pains and mortifications; a bloody husband …
Madame Guyon—Song of Songs of Solomon Preaching (I. ).
Earthen vessels, frail and slight, Yet the golden Lamp we bear; Master, break us, that the light So may fire the murky air; Skill and wisdom none we claim, Only seek to lift Thy Name. I have on purpose reserved the subject of Preaching for our closing pages. Preaching is, from many points of view, the goal and summing up of all other parts and works of the Ministry. What we have said already about the Clergyman's life and labour, in secret, in society, in the parish; what we have said about his …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren To the Saddest of the Sad
I often wonder what those preachers do who feel called to make up their message as they go on; for if they fail, their failure must be attributed in great measure to their want of ability to make up a moving tale. They have to spread their sails to the breeze of the age, and to pick up a gospel that comes floating down to them on the stream of time, altering every week in the year; and they must have an endless task to catch this new idea, or, as they put it, to keep abreast of the age. Unless, indeed, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 34: 1888 The Sweet Uses of Adversity
Now, I propose to address myself to the two classes of persons who are making use of this question. First, I shall speak to the tried saint; and then I shall speak to the seeking sinner, who has been seeking peace and pardon through Christ, but who has not as yet found it, but, on the contrary, has been buffeted by the law, and driven away from the mercy-seat in despair. I. First, then, to THE CHILD OF GOD. I have--I know I have--in this great assembly, some who have come to Job's position. They …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859 "For if Ye Live after the Flesh, Ye Shall Die; but if Ye through the Spirit do Mortify the Deeds of the Body, Ye Shall Live.
Rom. viii. s 13, 14.--"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." The life and being of many things consists in union,--separate them, and they remain not the same, or they lose their virtue. It is much more thus in Christianity, the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hath conjoined, so that if any man pretend to …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning The Hardening in the Sacred Scripture.
"He hath hardened their heart."-- John xii. 40. The Scripture teaches positively that the hardening and "darkening of their foolish heart" is a divine, intentional act. This is plainly evident from God's charge to Moses concerning the king of Egypt: "Thou shalt speak all that I command thee; and I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not harken unto you, and I will lay My hand upon Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit The Quotation in Matt. Ii. 6.
Several interpreters, Paulus especially, have asserted that the interpretation of Micah which is here given, was that of the Sanhedrim only, and not of the Evangelist, who merely recorded what happened and was said. But this assertion is at once refuted when we consider the object which Matthew has in view in his entire representation of the early life of Jesus. His object in recording the early life of Jesus is not like that of Luke, viz., to communicate historical information to his readers. …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament Flight into Egypt and Slaughter of the Bethlehem Children.
(Bethlehem and Road Thence to Egypt, b.c. 4.) ^A Matt. II. 13-18. ^a 13 Now when they were departed [The text favors the idea that the arrival and departure of the magi and the departure of Joseph for Egypt, all occurred in one night. If so, the people of Bethlehem knew nothing of these matters], behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise [this command calls for immediate departure] and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt [This land was ever the …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel Appendix xii. The Baptism of Proselytes
ONLY those who have made study of it can have any idea how large, and sometimes bewildering, is the literature on the subject of Jewish Proselytes and their Baptism. Our present remarks will be confined to the Baptism of Proselytes. 1. Generally, as regards proselytes (Gerim) we have to distinguish between the Ger ha-Shaar (proselyte of the gate) and Ger Toshabh (sojourner,' settled among Israel), and again the Ger hatstsedeq (proselyte of righteousness) and Ger habberith (proselyte of the covenant). …
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah A Canticle of Love
It is not only when He is about to send me some trial that Our Lord gives me warning and awakens my desire for it. For years I had cherished a longing which seemed impossible of realisation--to have a brother a Priest. I often used to think that if my little brothers had not gone to Heaven, I should have had the happiness of seeing them at the Altar. I greatly regretted being deprived of this joy. Yet God went beyond my dream; I only asked for one brother who would remember me each day at the Holy …
Therese Martin (of Lisieux)—The Story of a Soul Exodus
The book of Exodus--so named in the Greek version from the march of Israel out of Egypt--opens upon a scene of oppression very different from the prosperity and triumph in which Genesis had closed. Israel is being cruelly crushed by the new dynasty which has arisen in Egypt (i.) and the story of the book is the story of her redemption. Ultimately it is Israel's God that is her redeemer, but He operates largely by human means; and the first step is the preparation of a deliverer, Moses, whose parentage, …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Exodus 4:18 NIV
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