We’ve been tracking Moses’ response to his call. First, in Exodus 2, he called himself, and that didn’t go so well. Then 40 years later, God calls him, and Moses wants no part of it:

• Who am I?
• Who are you?

Moses opens chapter 4 with another question:

• What if they don’t believe me?

Then Moses answered and said, “What if they will not believe me and will not listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘Yahweh has not appeared to you.’” And Yahweh said to him, “What is this in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.” Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. (Exodus 4.1 – 3, LSB)

God gives him three signs: the serpent, the leprous hand, and water from the Nile turning into blood. (See Exodus 4.1 – 9)

Moses then just makes a flat statement:

• I can’t talk.

Then Moses said to Yahweh, “Please, Lord, I have never been a man of words, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your slave; for I am one with a hard mouth and a hard tongue.” And Yahweh said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh? So now, go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth and will instruct you what you shall speak.” (Exodus 4.10 – 12, LSB)

With this, God is getting a bit put out: “Who made man’s mouth!?” It’s back to “I will be with you.” (Exodus 3.12)

But Moses wails:

But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” (Exodus 4.13, ESV)

Wow. These Bible characters aren’t our best role models, are they?

Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. (Jonah 1.1 – 3, ESV)

We continue with Moses’ response to God’s call from the burning bush. His first question was “Who am I?” And God’s answer was, essentially, “Who you are is irrelevant. I will be with you.” So Moses’ next question is a good one: “Who are you?”

Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am about to come to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ And they will say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses, “ I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13, 14, LSB)

“I AM has sent me to you.” I just saw a fascinating post from Heather Holleman, quoting someone else’s post. It begins this way:

My friend posted something on Facebook yesterday that amazed Ashley and me. It immediately reminded me of the verse, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord” (Psalm 150: 6). Enjoy the post below:

There was a moment when Moses had the nerve to ask God what his name is. God was gracious enough to answer, and the name he gave is recorded in the original Hebrew as YHWH.

Over time we’ve arbitrarily added an “a” and an “e” in there to get YaHWeH, presumably because we have a preference for vowels.

But scholars and rabbis have noted that the letters YHWH represent breathing sounds or aspirated consonants. When pronounced without intervening vowels, it actually sounds like breathing.

YH (inhale): WH (exhale).

So a baby’s first cry, his first breath, speaks the name of God.

A deep sigh calls His name – or a groan or gasp that is too heavy for mere words.

Even an atheist would speak His name, unaware that their very breath is giving constant acknowledgment to God.

Likewise, a person leaves this earth with their last breath, when God’s name is no longer filling their lungs... – Heather Holleman quoting Sandra Thurman Caporale from the Memorial Church of Christ in Houston, February 21, 2023.

Not everyone believes that this interpretation of YHWH is accurate, but I’ve never been able to get into “Yahweh,” which the LSB translation I’m reading this year uses. (The earliest attempts to pronounce YHWH came out “Jehovah.”)

According to this article by Bill Perkins, there’s an anonymous article floating around that Sandra drew from. (The Perkins article is a good one, with additional information and application.)

All that to say this “breath” interpretation of YHWH resonated with me. It reminds me of Jesus’ reference to the Spirit in John 3, using the word pneuma, translated wind.

The wind (pneuma) blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (also pneuma). (John 3.8, ESV)

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD! (Psalm 150.6, ESV)

It’s not enough for Moses though – we’ll see his next question/objection tomorrow.

We left Moses having just arrived in Midian after failing miserably to make any difference for his countrymen in Egypt. He tried and failed at age 40, and now he’s 80 (see Exodus 7.7). God appears to him in the famous burning bush event (more about the burning bush later):

So I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite…So now, come and I will send you to Pharaoh, and so you shall bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt. (Exodus 3.8, 10, LSB)

Two sides of the same coin. God says:

• I have come down to deliver them…
• I am sending you to deliver them

Moses’ call takes two full chapters because Moses does NOT respond with an immediate “Be it unto me according to your word,” like Mary did. (See Luke 1.38) Moses asks four questions, and we’ll look at the first one today.

1. Who am I?

But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God at this mountain.” (Exodus 3.11, 12, LSB)

God’s answer: who you are is irrelevant. “I will be with you.”

This ties back to the famous burning bush.

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. (Exodus 3.1, 2, ESV)

Why is the bush not burned up? Because the fire was independent of the bush! The LORD appeared in a blazing fire that he put in a bush, but it wasn’t using the bush for fuel. Duh. Why have I not thought of that before? As Ian Thomas said in his classic book The Saving Life of Christ, “Any old bush will do.” It’s not the bush.

Again, who Moses was was irrelevant. Who you are is irrelevant. Billy Graham? Bill Bright? Think of any “great” Christian leader. “Any old bush will do.” The Apostle Paul wrote:

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent… (1 Timothy 1.12, 13, ESV)

Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ… (Ephesians 3.7, 8, ESV)

Thursday, we wrote about Egypt’s culture of death. Today we see that Moses, God’s future deliverer, didn’t escape it. First, God has a sense of humor. Recall from Exodus 1 that all male Hebrew babies were to be thrown into the Nile.

Now a man from the house of Levi went and took as his wife a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. When the child grew older, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, “Because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 2.1 – 10, ESV)

Moses’ mother is paid to raise her own child, probably for 2 – 3 years! Long enough to teach him about God and his heritage. Moses grows up in Pharaoh’s palace, and there, apparently, he picks up some of the culture of death:

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Exodus 2.11, 12, ESV)

Have you ever killed anyone? I haven’t. I’m not sure I would know how unless I had a gun in my hand. Moses didn’t have a weapon unless, perhaps, he carried a knife. But, boom!, there’s a problem. “Someone is beating ‘my people.’ What to do? I know…kill the dastardly dude.” Moses is a product of a culture of death, especially as it concerns being in Pharaoh’s family. I’m sure he observed many times that when Pharaoh has a problem with someone, he killed him. (Compare Genesis 40.20 – 23.)

In fact, the text says that’s Pharaoh’s go-to solution:

When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. (Exodus 2.15, ESV)

Off to a rocky start. Moses meant well, but there was one basic problem: after he killed the Egyptian, he challenged a Hebrew:

When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us…?” (Exodus 2.13, 14, ESV)

The problem was that Moses is the one who made himself “a prince and judge over us,” not God. So Moses flees to Midian, the desert, and takes up sheep-herding – the profession of his ancestors. God salvages the operation, of course. Good stuff to come…

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. (Hebrews 11.23 – 25, ESV)

We’ll get back to Exodus and Moses, but the NCAA Basketball Tournament has provided a story too good to pass up: in 2018, the 36th year of the 64-team format for the tournament, a 16-seed defeated a 1-seed when the University of Maryland-Baltimore defeated Virginia. It took only 5 years for lightning to strike again when Fairleigh-Dickinson University (FDU) defeated mighty Purdue yesterday.

It really was David versus Goliath: FDU has the smallest team in the tournament with their tallest guy “only” 6′ 6″. By contrast Purdue’s center, Zach Edey is 7′ 4″, and the Wall Street Journal had already written a feature about him and the Purdue team. Here’s a snippet:

[Purdue coach Matt] Painter’s strategy of building around large, surprisingly agile athletes has made the Boilermakers a mainstay in the top of the Big Ten in recent years. This season, a 7-foot 4 wrecking ball named Zach Edey has catapulted 26-5 Purdue to loftier heights—a Big Ten regular-season title, the top seed in the conference tournament that begins this week and the No. 1 ranking in the nation for seven weeks this winter. Come Selection Sunday, Purdue could possibly secure a one-seed for the NCAA tournament—which would be its first top seed since 1996. Should the Boilermakers’ winning ways continue, they could snap Purdue’s 41-year Final Four appearance drought. – Laine Higgins, Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2023

While Edey did score 21 points and snag 15 rebounds yesterday, he didn’t get off a shot in the last 12 minutes. Why? Because the FDU coach had a plan. He had told his team, “The more I watch Purdue, the more I think we can beat them.” Really?

The Fairleigh Dickinson Knights were easily the worst team in this year’s 68-team field… And they were the extraordinarily rare No. 16 seed to sneak into the NCAA tournament without winning their conference tournament first… But…

A bunch of tiny players with a first-year coach managed to knock off a team led by a 7-foot-4 giant that was a favorite to win the national championship. For the rest of the details, read the whole article by Ben Cohen and Andrew Beaton, Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023.

That article contains a lot of technical detail. What I saw in the few minutes of the game I was able to see was that FDU out-hustled Purdue. It’s not as simple as that, but certainly, that had to be a factor.

The point, of course, is that the unexpected does happen. Furman, a 13-seed, had already knocked off Virginia, a 4-seed, and 2-seed Arizona lost to 15-seed Princeton. Clemson, top seed in the NIT, lost their first game as well to a team they should have been able to beat handily.

As we move into Exodus, the Israelites were certainly underdogs to mighty Egypt…or were they?

Got any rivers you think are uncrossable?
Got any mountains you can’t tunnel through?
God specializes in things thought impossible
and he will do what no other power can do. (Lyrics by Oscar C. Eliason)

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us… (Ephesians 3.20, NKJV)

For all the hoopla and wild parties that some practice on March 17, the real story of St. Patrick is worth remembering. A friend and Navigator colleague who is from Northern Ireland summarizes it this way:

It’s important to remember that Patrick was a great missionary. He was an apostle to the Irish in the AD 400s and was used by God to convert the Celts of Ireland to Christianity, despite opposition from those who practiced the Druid religion.

There’s more to the story, including the fact that Patrick was taken from his home in Britain to Ireland and sold as a slave, escaping after six years. Then he returned, years later, to evangelize the people who enslaved him. A nice summary written by Chuck Colson in 2006 is worth the read.

Last year, my friend and Navigator colleague Bill Mowry wrote an extraordinary piece on how Patrick incorporated art and imagination to reach the Irish. This is also an excellent read.

I can’t add to what Chuck and Bill have said except to note that the Apostle Paul was St Patrick’s model:

Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 21.13, ESV)

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. (1 Corinthians 9.19 – 22, ESV)

We continue our journey through the Pentateuch, with Exodus chapter 1, which begins about 400 years after Genesis leaves off with the chosen people, Jacob and his sons settling in Egypt.

There is an intriguing setup:

And a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and it be in the event of war, that they also join themselves to those who hate us and fight against us and go up from the land.” (Exodus 1.8 – 10, LSB)

It’s an interesting mix here: they don’t like the Israelites, but they don’t want them to leave. Also, “more and mightier than we.” How can that be? Egypt was a nation and Jacob’s family was 70 people 400 years before! Were Egyptians practicing family planning while Israelites were having babies? It’s why Muslims, for example, are gradually taking over some of the European countries they’re in. The Muslims are having kids. Europeans aren’t.

Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; and he said, “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” (Exodus 1.15, 16, LSB)

There must have already been a culture of death in Egypt. That’s probably why there were more Israelites than Egyptians. And if the midwives wouldn’t kill them at birth, then the law was extended to kill them after birth:

And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born (to the Hebrews) you are to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive.” (Exodus 1.22, LSB)

It’s going that way in this country. Abortion up to the time of birth, and if it is born alive, let the baby die. Other countries, apparently, take it further.

Tomorrow we’ll see that Moses is born into such an environment, and he doesn’t escape the culture of death.

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2.15 – 17, ESV)

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (Proverbs 14.12, ESV)

My cousin Carol wrote a lovely response to Sunday’s blog on The Remnant. It’s too good not to share.

This is a needed reminder to continue being living witnesses to our lost world. When I was young and working with YWAM, my pastor encouraged me saying “God told us to tell them, not save them. That is not our role. He will save those who believe.” Those words freed me from the frustration of rejection, and spurred me to spread the Good News even more than ever. Our enemy delights seeing God’s children intimidated and fearful about witnessing to a lost world. – Carol Baumann, March 14, 2023

“God told us to tell them, not save them.” That will preach.

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. (1 Corinthians 1.21, ESV)

Sometimes I’m slow on the uptake. On Saturday, when June and I were treating our oldest son, Mark, to lunch on his birthday, Mark said, “Do you want to join me for lunch at the Pi Bar Tuesday?” It’s a restaurant I’d heard of but never been to. We agreed on a time, and it just occurred to me this morning that we’re going to lunch in honor of Pi Day, today, 3.14 (March 14).

March 14, written 3.14, captures the first two decimal digits of pi. Some people pause for a moment of silence at 1:59 pm in honor of the next three digits. Pi’s digits go on infinitely and I think the record for memorized pi digits is 70,000. That’s a lot of digits and completely unnecessary. Someone asked a rocket scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) how many digits they use in their calculations:

To start, let me answer your question directly. For JPL’s highest accuracy calculations, which are for interplanetary navigation, we use 3.141592653589793. – Marc Rayman, who first asked the question as a 6th grader!

He went on to explain that using an approximation to pi out to 15 decimal places means that if you wanted to calculate the circumference of the earth given its diameter of just over 7900 miles, your answer would be off by about the size of a molecule.

Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. (Isaiah 40.21 – 23, ESV, emphasis mine)

What happens when the best you can do is not enough?

The NCAA Basketball Tournament bracket was released yesterday afternoon, and Clemson didn’t make the cut despite being the #3 seed in the ACC tournament with a record of 23 – 10 (14 – 6 in the ACC). NC State is in the tournament as an 11-seed. NC State also had a record of 23 – 10, but they were the #6 seed in the ACC tournament. Clemson beat NC State three times this season with margins of 14 points (at home), 25 points (at NC State), and 26 points (neutral site).

Most pundits said Clemson was wrongfully snubbed. I heard part of an interview with the Chairman of the NCAA Selection Committee. I didn’t hear him discuss Clemson, but of the teams he did discuss, one time he said “metrics;” another time it was “body of work over the whole season;” another time it was “quality wins.” In other words, if you have enough selection parameters, you can do just about anything you want. The Clemson coach said it was a shame when metrics override common sense and head-to-head competition.

Back to the original question: what do you do when the best you can do is not good enough? Clemson was selected for the National Invitational Tournament, and they go in as a #1 seed. The NIT is clearly a second-rate tournament given that the NCAA Tournament has 68 teams in it.

The University of North Carolina (UNC), a basketball blueblood, who began the year ranked #1, had a disastrous start to their season, but they did better in the second half, finishing with a 20 – 13 record. They also were excluded from the NCAA Tournament, rightfully so, but they declined to play in the NIT. (It appears that UNC thinks it’s too good to play in the lowly NIT.)

I’m proud of Clemson for swallowing their disappointment and accepting the NIT’s invitation. Let’s see how they do – their first game is Wednesday.

It’s one thing to play hard when you want to win the national championship or even get into the tournament where that’s the prize. Do you continue to play hard for what appears to be a second-tier goal?

As believers, we don’t compete for a second-tier goal, but we do persevere through tough times. How?

I do have one compelling focus: I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future instead. I run straight for the divine invitation of reaching the heavenly goal and gaining the victory prize through the anointing of Jesus. (Philippians 3.13, 14, TPT)