Go right to the callers - Eugene, listening in New Jersey. Hi Eugene!
Hi Hank how are ya?
I'm doing good.
Yeah, my question was that Moses told God when
he of course that he'd go to Pharaoh that he couldn't speak well, and he had--
he couldn't speak eloquent, and he didn't speak well, and certain thoughts of the effects of that.
Well now my question is: did he have a actually had a speech impediment,
or was that just an excuse?
Well, you know the Lord was angry with him. So I do
think in some sense it was an excuse. It was a failure to recognize that God
could work through him, and his unwillingness to allow God to do that
very thing. And therefore, the wrath of God burned against him, and the solution
was that a spokesperson was given to Moses - that spokesperson being Aaron.
But what is interesting - and I don't have the text in front of me - but if you read the
text you'll find that God opened both the mouth of Moses as well as the
mouth of Aaron. So God gave them both the ability to speak in a very powerful
way even beyond their own can; their own ability to articulate. And the reason we
know that is if you go to the book of Acts - and we should always put the
magnifying glass in the hands of the New Testament writers - you find in the book
of Acts that James, I believe it was, talks about how Moses was powerful not
only in action but powerful in speech as well. So whatever ability that Moses
thought he did not have was something that he most certainly did have, and was
accentuated by the power of God God once he gave himself over to the
will and purposes of God.
Okay. Alright, so now what are you saying he didn't have a
speech impediment - that was just an excuse?
Well I think he may certainly
have believed that he did not have the ability to be the leader of a people
that would transform the face of humanity. I mean obviously, the Israelites
were the people of God - true Israel - through whom ultimately would come a
messiah. And he thought that that task was far too big for him, and so his
opinion-- I mean I've worked with people like that -
that don't think that they have particular abilities that actually have
the abilities that they don't think that they have. And you know you see those
abilities in people but they never reach their potential because they don't
believe in their own abilities, and I certainly think that this was the case
with Moses, but the sin was if God Commissions you, he will always give you
the ability commensurate with the commission that he gives to you.
And I can tell you that from personal experience. Having done the Bible Answer
Man Broadcast for thirty years, when I started out I certainly did not think
that I had the ability to even do radio, and much less to write books, and yet
there were other people that God brought into my life that told me that this was
indeed my calling, and if I would step into the arena, God would give me all of
the abilities that were necessary, and so I saw through God using those people and
circumstances that what I thought about myself was really in essence a lack of
faith in God's call and commission in my life.