What an Eloquent Speech

We live in a time where beauty and eloquence are highly desired. We enjoy an eloquent speaker like we enjoy a beautiful actress/actor. Eloquent speakers are persuasive and convincing even if they do not speak the truth. They do their job well. They are masters of rhetoric.

Moses was not one of these people.

God called Moses to speak to Pharaoh about letting the Isrealites go but God did not call Moses to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. We don't hear much of Moses' rhetoric persuading Pharaoh to let his people go. Pharaoh lets the Isrealites go because of God's power.

You could almost place Paul's message to the Corinthians in Exodus 4 as a message from Moses to the Isrealites. "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power."¹

But Moses never says that, instead, he is completely convinced that he must do all the work- that it must be his human wisdom, not God's power. You can hear it in his excuses, "'Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.'"²


Moses doesn't say, "Pardon your servant, Lord. I am incapable of speaking." Instead, he says he has "never been eloquent" and that he is "slow of speech and tongue." Moses is capable of speaking, he just needs to choose to do it- and God will take care of the rest.

God doesn't really care about Moses' lack of eloquence, he sends Moses anyway saying, "I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."

Moses still doesn't get the picture that he is not doing the hard work. God flat out tells Moses that he "will help you speak and teach you what to say" and Moses responds, "Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else."

Now if you look back at 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, Paul says, "When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling."
 
Moses was capable of speaking just like you and I are capable of doing his work. The question is, will we do it or will we make up excuses?

Often times, I worry about little things instead of just trusting in God when it comes to doing his will. In fact, I often make excuses just like Moses did, but excuses are not cool with God. After Moses asks the Lord to send someone else- after his final excuse, Exodus 4 says, "Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses."

Fear isn't the best motivation but I would rather NOT have the Lord's anger burn against me.

¹  1 Cor. 2:1-5
²  Ex. 4:10-14