We know Moses as a great man of faith, the lawgiver, and the deliverer of Israel from bondage, but he did not become this overnight. The Lord developed his life through a process. God enrolled Moses, like all of His children, into the school of faith.
Moses’ learning stages were broken into groups of forties. Forty in the Bible symbolizes a period of testing, trial, or teaching: There were forty days of rain in Noah’s flood (Gen. 7:4). Jonah preached, “… forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). Egyptians embalmed Jacob for forty days (Genesis 50:3). Ezekiel laid on his right side for forty days picturing the judgement of Israel (Ezekiel 4:6). Elijah was forty days without food or water on his trip to Mount Horeb (I Kings 19:8). Samson challenged Israel forty days. Saul, David, and Solomon each reigned for forty years. Jesus was tempted for forty days in the wilderness (Matt. 4). Christ appeared for forty days to his disciples after His resurrection. (Acts 1:3). Titus destroyed Jerusalem forty years after Jesus was crucified fulfilling Christ’s prophecy (Luke 23:28). The Apostle Paul received “forty stripes save one,” five times (II Cor. 11:24).
As Moses led Israel, God would be developing Israel as well with forties. Twice, Israel waited for Moses forty days at the bottom of Sinai. God led Israel for forty years to teach them: “…the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live. (Deuteronomy 8:2-3)
The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 that Israel’s testing and development in the wilderness was written as “our example,” and for “our admonition” (I Cor. 10:11). So, when we read about “Moses becoming Moses” or “Israel becoming Israel” what we really are seeing is a reflection of our own journey. Their school of faith reflects our own. The book of Exodus records their journey. It has forty chapters.
“For forty years Moses learned he was a somebody, forty years he learned that he was a nobody, and the last forty years of Moses life. he learned what God could do with a nobody.”
Forty years in the Palace, forty years Shepherding, and forty years leading Israel, Moses would become Moses one forty at a time.
MOSES BECOMING A MIGHTY MAN
Moses Was Mighty in Purpose:
And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. (Acts 7:23). By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God… (Heb. 11:24-27)
In the development of anyone’s life there is a conscious preparation and an unconscious preparation. God chose who Moses’ parents were, his environment in the castle, and his own genetic make-up. This was Moses’ unconscious preparation by God. When Moses applied himself to the opportunities God gave him that was Moses’ conscious preparation.
Moses was mighty in purpose because he recognized his calling to God’s people. He, “chose to suffer affliction with the people of God.” Moses knew the reason why he got up and worked so hard every day. He applied himself and became a mighty man because he had a mighty purpose.
Moses’ Mighty Power:
And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. (Acts 7:22)
We are told by the historian Josephus that “mighty in word” Moses, was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” at “The Temple of the Sun,” the “Oxford” of the ancient world. Josephus says also that, “Mighty in deed,” Moses led the Egyptian army on a successful military campaign against the Ethiopians.
God would use “mighty in words,” the “Ivey League’” educated Moses to pen the first five books of the Bible and to say, “let my people go!” God would use the “mighty in deed” Moses’ military prowess to lead God’s people to the promise land.
MOSES BECOMING A MERCIFUL MAN
Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Madian, where he begat two sons. (Acts 7:29)
Merciful Moses developed through loss and failure. Mighty Moses murdered an Egyptian and literally ran into his forty year “wilderness experience.” The forty-year-old “mighty man,” would turn into the eighty-year-old “merciful man.”
Forty years Moses had to flee from the law, while being rejected by his brethren. He became a “stranger” in a strange land, with a strange wife (Num. 12), and he also had a strange occupation. The former prince now had an “abominable” career, “for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.” (Gen. 46:34)
At forty years old the “mighty man” was confident in his fleshly ability but in the wilderness his talents must have felt like they went to waste. When eighty-year-old Moses saw the burning bush he must have believed that he was at the end of his life, because Moses wrote in Psalm 90:10 “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
Ever wonder why Moses could be merciful to grumbling and complaining Israelites? He could be merciful because he too had murmured and received mercy. Moses found mercy in the wilderness and Moses gave mercy in the wilderness.
MOSES BECOMING A MEEK MAN
And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, (Acts 7:30-31)
Moses drew near to God at the burning bush. A personal relationship with the God of his fathers was born. Initially Moses hid his face from God (Ex. 3), but his relationship to the Lord grew into “a face-to-face friendship.”
And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. (Exodus 33:11)
Moses is arguably the greatest leader in the Bible, besides the Lord Jesus. Yet, he was the “meekest man on the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3). Bible “meekness” is not “weakness.” Instead, meekness is my power submitted to God’s control. Moses yielded his might learned in the palace and his mercy found in the wilderness into God’s hands. Moses was God’s friend because he was God’s partner. Moses became meek.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. (John 15:13-15)