“For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn.” (Romans 11:29 NLT)
“At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in the sight of God. For three months he was nurtured in his father’s house. When he was set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And when he saw one of them being mistreated, Moses went to his defense and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian who was oppressing him. He assumed his brothers would understand that God was using him to deliver them, but they did not. The next day he came upon two Israelites who were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’ But the man who was abusing his neighbor pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ At this remark, Moses fled to the land of Midian, where he lived as a foreigner and had two sons. After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight. As he approached to look more closely, the voice of the Lord came to him: ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of My people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’ This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’i is the one whom God sent to be their ruler and redeemer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for forty years in the wilderness. This is the same Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’ He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. And he received living words to pass on to us.” (Acts 7:20-38 BSB)
“Moses had finished speaking these words to all Israel, he said to them, “I am now a hundred and twenty years old; I am no longer able to come and go, and the LORD has said to me, ‘You shall not cross the Jordan. On that same day the LORD said to Moses, “Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites as their own possession. And there on the mountain that you climb, you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak, and his vitality had not diminished.” (Deuteronomy 31:1; 32:48-50; 34:7 BSB)
“But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31 BSB)
As I was pondering the life of Moses, it hit me how his entire life was an example of Romans 8:28:
“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” (NLT)
And living proof of Genesis 50:20:
” You thought evil against me: but God turned it into good, that he might exalt me, as at present you see, and might save many people.” (DRB)
From the time he was born, Satan targeted Moses. He tried to kill him as a baby so that he would never have the opportunity to fulfill the assignment the Lord had for his life. When Satan failed to kill Moses, he tried to destroy his life and ministry by influencing him to carry out his assignment by his own strength and method by murdering the Egyptian that was abusing a Hebrew slave. When that didn’t work he did everything in his power to steal Moses’ assignment by working through Pharoah to keep the Israelites in bondage. Knowing the end of the story, I know that Satan failed, and the Lord prevailed.
Moses was 80 when the Lord clarified his assignment, and commissioned him to deliver the Nation of Israel from bondage. It is obvious that the Lord renewed his strength as he spent the next 40 years leading them to the edge of the Promised Land. Look again at Deuteronomy 34:7:
“Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak, and his vitality had not diminished.” (BSB)
If that is not renewed youth, I don’t know what is!
Moses accepted his assignment, received the Lord’s equipping to fulfill that assignment, and activated that equipping as he acted on the assignment he was given. He left his “retirement”, to walk in “refirement”, as he led the captives into freedom. When he died at the age of 120 it was because he had completed the assignment that he was given. If he had not gotten angry, and acted on his anger by striking the rock, he would have been allowed to enter into the Promised Land. Based on the description of his youth – full health, he probably would have lived at least as long as Abraham (my personal opinion).
Like Moses, I accept…
…Eric’s Life Lesson # 152: “I am replacing Retirement with Refirement!” Part 2: Moses