God Is Greater | Exodus 3:16-4:17

Giraffes & Whales

An adult male giraffe is 18 feet tall and weighs up to 4,200 pounds. Would you say that a giraffe is big or small? Your default answer is probably to think that’s huge, right? That’s because we evaluate those numbers relative to our own height and weight. That’s almost 3x as tall as Matt Groen! However, if you put a giraffe next to a 98-foot long blue whale, 18 feet seems small.

Size is relative. The earth is big compared to a basketball and small compared to the sun. The sun is big compared to the earth and small compared to Canus Majoris, a star whose volume is 3 billion times that of the sun.

What about your problems in life? Would you say your problems are big or small? That depends. Compared to what or whom? In the fight of faith, you are always facing two options.  You will either evaluate your problems and circumstances in reference to yourself—your abilities, your strength, your wisdom, your resources. Or you will evaluate your problems in light of who God is and what God says.

God appeared to Moses in a flame of fire from a burning bush speaking precious promises: “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12). “I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt” (3:17). “I will stretch out my hand” (3:20). “I will give this people favor” (3:21).

However, Moses responded to these promises with a series of five questions and objections, culminating in flatout refusal: “Send someone else” (Exodus 4:13). The promises of God would fall flat on Moses until he saw God as stronger than Pharaoh and Egypt and bigger than his own weaknesses and limitations.

What are the specific circumstances that overwhelm you and provoke unbelief? It might be your singleness, or your chronic marriage conflict. It might be your career setbacks and vocational frustrations. It could be a loss—from a change of plans to the loss of dreams to the death of a loved one. … or infertility or family dysfunction or the cultural chaos around us.

Whatever the issues are for you, do your fears and worries ever feel more real and more powerful than the promises of God? Do the promises of God ever land flat on you? Scott Hubbard at DesiringGod writes, “When the promises of God seem powerless to quiet our fears, soothe our grief, lift our worries, or motivate our obedience, we need to do more than simply hear his promises again. We need to behold the God who gives them.” The promises of God will not function in you so long as you see your problems as bigger than God. No amount of reading or reciting the promises of God will make up for a small view of God. The power of a promise is not in the size of the claim but in the ability of the one making the promise.  An empty promise is big talk from someone who can’t follow through.

In order for God’s promises to function in your life, you must know what God promises as well as who God is. The purpose of Exodus 3:16–4:17 is to cause you to behold God as great and glorious so that his promises will function powerfully to quiet your fears, soothe your grief, lift your worry, and motivate your obedience. Everything God reveals about himself at the burning bush—all he says and does—is meant to engender faith in the God who is GREATER.  God is greater than powerful enemies, God is greater than impossible obstacles, and God is even greater than sinful unbelief.

God Is Greater Than Powerful Enemies

There is a reason that the Hebrews remained enslaved in Egypt for over 400 years.  Egypt was the world superpower—the mightiest nation on earth—and they ruled the Hebrews with an iron fist.

Remember Exodus 1? “So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves and made their lives bitter with hard service …. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves” (Exodus 1:13–14). One does not simply walk out of Egypt. And yet that is what God commanded Moses to do.  Go, gather the elders of Israel, and go directly to the king of Egypt and say, “Please, let us go. The God of our fathers has met with us and we have to go into the wilderness to worship him.”

God could have sent Moses to Pharaoh with an oracle of judgment against Egypt for all the violent and unjust human rights violations committed against Israel. Instead, what did God make the central issue? Worship. Worship is the whole point of Exodus. God does not merely bring his people out of slavery. He brings them into a covenant relationship with himself. The Exodus from Egypt will be over by chapter 15, but the rest of the book (through chapter 40) is concerned with the worship of God.

By confronting Pharaoh with the request to leave and worship God, God made it personal. The conflict was not between Israel and Egypt but between God and Pharaoh. Whatever other concerns weighed on Pharaoh—economic, national, cultural—the real issue was glory. If Pharaoh denied this request, he would be setting himself up against God.

And we don’t even have to wait for Moses to return to Egypt to find out because God gives him a plot summary in 3:19–20: “But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go.” When God told Moses, “I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt,” he was directly challenging Pharaoh and asserting his supremacy over Pharaoh. You see, the Pharaohs of Egypt were often called the “lord of the strong arm.” And listen to this: “One of the most recognizable scenes in the iconography of ancient Egypt is the image of the King ritualistically slaying the enemies of Egypt. It might very well be the longest-lasting image in Egyptian culture. These scenes can be found in every period of Egypt’s history. … A typical ‘smiting scene’ depicts the King wielding a mace with one hand while restraining one or more enemies with the other. The King is shown leaning over his victim(s), one heel raised [off] the ground, in the very last moment before striking the enemy in the head. The King is depicted much larger than his victims, stressing that he is the most important and powerful figure in the scene. The enemies are shown totally overpowered, often on one knee, waiting to be slain.” God claims that he is stronger than the lord of the strong arm and he will prove it by striking the one who strikes the nations.

However, God never promised Moses that this was going to be easy. He told him, “I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand” (3:19). One of the reasons you may struggle to trust the promises of God is because you’re waiting for God to push a button and make your life easy. That’s not how God works. God works through processes.  He writes stories that have villains and conflict and cliffhangers and climax. He leads his characters through adversity that builds faith and virtue. God writes the best stories—because he is always the main character, the glorious Deliverer. “So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go” (Exodus 3:20).

God spoke in this way in advance because he wants Moses and the Hebrews to know that he is greater than Pharaoh. And God wants you to know that he is still greater than the cosmic forces of evil in the spiritual realms and stronger than all those who rebel against him, suppress his truth, and break his commands. When people sin against you, they will seem big and powerful and invincible until you see them in comparison to God.

God Is Greater Than Impossible Obstacles

Not only did Moses face a powerful enemy; he also faced impossible obstacles. What would it take logistically to lead a couple million people—enslaved and impoverished people—away from their homes and through the desert? Think about the planning and preparation and supplies you have to pack for a simple weekend road trip or a family vacation! One does not simply walk out of Egypt and into the desert without food and clothes and provisions! The logistical challenges were massive … compared to Moses.

But God promised in advance to provide: “And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians” (3:21–22). When one nation conquers another in war, it is common for the victorious nation to plunder their defeated enemies. So this is a promise, not just of escape from Egypt, but of victory over Egypt. And notice who will do the plundering … and how: “Each woman shall ask of her neighbor … for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing” (3:22). This is, by the way, a direct fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham (Gen. 15:14): “But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.”

You know that weight you feel on your chest when you're facing financial hardship, or when a life-changing decision looms over you, or when you feel stuck and see no way out? Do you see God as bigger than your circumstances?

Besides the logistics of leading Israel, Moses had his own personal limitations. Look at the objection Moses raised in 4:10: “But Moses said to the Lord, ‘Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.’”

Various interpretations have been offered here: Perhaps Moses was simply making up an excuse Or maybe Moses wasn’t very fluent in the Hebrew language. Or Moses was afraid of public speaking and worried his voice would quiver. Or perhaps Moses had a real speech impediment. (The Greek version of the OT implies that Moses stammered or stuttered.) Whatever the issue was, Moses knew that this call from God required public speaking—addressing Pharaoh and speaking to the Hebrew people. And Moses was convinced his speech problem was a disqualifying liability.

But Moses was looking at his problem compared to himself, not compared to God. Earlier, when Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt,” God answered, “But I will be with you.” And when Moses objects that he can’t speak eloquently, notice how God reframes the problem again in light of who God is: “Then the LORD said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak’” (Exodus 4:11–12).

What do you consider to be your own personal liabilities and limiting factors? Are you learning, by God’s grace, to view those in light of who God is? God made you—your abilities and disabilities, your strengths and weaknesses. And God can use you—including all of your limitations and liabilities—to accomplish his purposes in such a way that he gets the glory.

Whatever your limitations—whether those outside of you or those within you—do you view them in light of who God is?

God Is Greater Than Sinful Unbelief

So how did Moses respond to these promises and assurances from God? “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you’” (4:1). This is classic projection. When Moses says that the elders of Israel will not believe him, what he means is that he does not believe God. Moses directly contradicts what God told him in 3:18: “And they [the elders of Israel] will listen to your voice.” What felt bigger and more real to Moses than the promises of God was his past experience with the Hebrews. Last time he tried to help, they rejected him. Scars from past wounds tend to become the lens through which we see the future. But God’s purpose is to be trusted, and he does all that is necessary to overcome unbelief and secure the allegiance of his people.

In response to Moses’s concern that Israel would not believe, God graciously gave Moses three “signs.” God turned Moses’s staff into a snake … and back again. God covered Moses’s hand with a flaky skin disease … and back again. And God promised to turn water from the Nile into blood.

Each sign involved the transformation of something good into something deadly and (in the first two) back again. These signs demonstrate God’s power to deliver from destruction and death.

And the purpose of the signs is to engender faith. That was Moses’s concern in 4:1: “But behold, they will not believe me.” In v. 5, God told Moses that the purpose of the signs was “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” And then in v. 8, “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign.” All three signs were meant to confirm that God had appeared to Moses and intended to save his people. And through these displays of God’s power, God himself would produce in Moses and the people of Israel the faith that was lacking.

This is the most hopeful part of the narrative.  God’s power over powerful enemies is awesome. God’s provision in impossible circumstances is encouraging. But the fact that God is able to graciously overcome the sinful unbelief within our own hearts—that is glorious beyond words!

Why do we struggle to trust God? Why do his promises often land flat on us?  Not because our problems are so big and overwhelming, but because our own unbelief keeps us from seeing the greatness and glory of God.  And the grace offered in this text is the assurance that God can overcome even this obstacle.

Moses’s unbelief reinforces the fact that God did not choose Moses because of Moses but because of God. 4:14 says, “Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses.” This is how we know Moses was sinning—his objections came from unbelief.

But Moses’ sin simply magnifies God’s grace and patience. Long before we hear the formal declaration that the LORD is “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6), we witness God’s slowness to anger here. At the burning bush, Moses raised a total of five questions and objections, and God patiently dealt with each one. God’s grace is persistent, not taking no for an answer. Even Moses’ unbelief could not thwart God!

God, in his sovereign grace, always takes the initiative toward sinful people to overcome unbelief. Do you believe? That’s because God made himself known to you. Do you love God? That’s because he first loved you. Do you desire God? That’s because he chose you and set his affection on you.

And if you’re tempted to think, “I wish God would give me a sign,” consider a few things. First, there is no indication in Scripture that God normally provides personalized and private signs to each skeptical individual. Rather, God used signs to publicly validate the claims of his appointed messengers.

Second, signs do not remove the need for faith. God appeared to Moses in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush … and Moses did not immediately believe. God performed these signs for Moses, and Moses did not believe. Later, Israel would behold the plagues against Egypt, walk through the red sea, hear the voice of God thundering from the mountain, eat the manna from heaven, and drink water from the rock, and still disbelieve and disobey God.

Third, God has clearly revealed himself to the world, leaving people without excuse: As Paul told the Gentiles, “Yet he [God] did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). And Paul says in Romans 1 that God’s “eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:20).

And finally, God has provided his ultimate sign in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Peter said that Jesus was “a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst” (Acts 2:22). The Gospels are eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus, including those signs that Jesus performed. At the end of John’s Gospel, John states the purpose of those signs: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31).

The signs God gave to Moses follow the same pattern: something good was cursed—a serpent, disease, and death—before being reversed. Those signs point us to Jesus Christ, the sinless one who became sin for us, suffered the curse of death, and emerged triumphant over the grave. And it is through Jesus that God made a way for your sin and unbelief to be forgiven—swallowed up forever—so that you might enjoy God forever.

Conclusion

So, are your problems big or small? That depends. Do you know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Do you trust his promises? And do you see him as great and glorious, good and gracious? 

Do you look at God through the lens of your problems? Or do you look at your problems in light of who God is? The difference is enormous. It is the difference between fear, anxiety, and despair, or humble hope and joyful optimism. It is the difference between unbelieving disobedience and trusting obedience.

God has revealed himself to you in the pages of Scripture and in the person of Jesus so that you might know him as the one who is greater than all the evil around you or within you.