In our text we still find Moses trying to ease out of obeying God’s call to
go to Egypt. This time he tells God, ‘Lord, I’m not your man. I can’t speak
very well at all. I stutter and stammer and all the rest. Obviously, I’m not
the man for the job.’ God’s reply is something we need to consider
carefully. ‘Moses, I know all about your speech problems. After all, I made
you that way.’ Our God identifies Himself as the God who has made some mute,
others deaf and others blind. Consider what this means. The next time you
see a blind person crossing the street armed with only a white cane and you
wonder why that is, you can tell yourself, ‘God did that’. The next time you
see a child constrained to a wheelchair because he has cerebral palsy or
something else like that and you wonder why that is, you can tell yourself,
‘God did that’. And if you should ever find yourself seriously ill and
wonder why that is, you can tell yourself, ‘God did that’. My goal for this
series of sermons in Exodus is that you might come to know God well. Our
text will do just that, complete with some serious challenges.
There are many within the Church today who would react very strongly against
what I have just said. ‘Well, my God isn’t like that at all. He doesn’t
cause such evil things to happen to people. You’ve got it all wrong.’ I can
understand their revulsion. But we need to follow the path that the
Scriptures place before us, whether it agrees with what we think or not. I
think that our text is clear. God reveals Himself as the God who makes
people suffer evils such as blindness, deafness and being mute. It’s hard to
avoid what it says. But, for any who are doubtful, there are other places
that say the same sort of thing. ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that
people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is
none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and
create darkness, I make well-being and create evil, I am the Lord, who does
all these things.’ [Isaiah 45:5-7] And if that isn’t enough there’s this at
the end of Job: ‘And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the
evil that the Lord had brought upon him.’ [Job 42:11] There are other
Scriptures that say the same thing, but I think that this should be enough.
What I want you to see is that our God is not some nice God who only does
nice things to nice people as they live their nice lives. There is more to
our God – and to our lives – than sunshine and roses. He is the God who
sends heartache and pain, the God who makes the mute, the deaf and the
blind. And if you would know Him well, you’ll need to come to grips with
this part of who He is. It is a sad fact of our days that far too many
Christians do not know their God very well. They think that any god who does
these sorts of evil things must be cruel and heartless. But our God is
certainly not that! It’s just that there is more depth to Him than they are
aware of. ‘Yes, Moses, I know all about your inability, your weakness, your
lack of eloquence. I know because I made you that way.’
The question we need to ask now is obvious. Why? Why would God do such
things? I hope that it is clear that it is not because He is nasty and hates
us. Nothing in our text takes anything away from the amazing fact of God’s
love for us. But we do need to work to understand our God. Toward that end,
it is important that we establish a basic principle. Being good
Presbyterians we can quote the first answer of the Shorter Catechism, ‘Man’s
chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.’ But how well do we
understand that? The point being made is that we exist for God’s sake. We
live to make Him look good, to shine the spotlight on all the different
things that are so good about Him. There is a contrary assumption afloat
these days that is quite common and quite wrong. ‘God exists for my sake.’
Our God is a glorious God. There are things about Him that are just amazing.
Our calling is to be used by Him so that those amazing things might be seen
and known. That is our ‘chief end’, our purpose. One way that that happens
is being made mute or deaf or blind or some other terrible thing.
Jesus and the Twelve are in Jerusalem. They encounter a man who has been
blind from birth. And the question arises, ‘Why?’ Jesus tells them that this
man was born terribly disabled, ‘so that the works of God might be displayed
in him.’ [John 9] This man has suffered blindness so that some amazing
things about God might be seen and known. The man suffered so that our God
might receive the praise that He deserves. We exist for His sake.
Now, you know what happens next. Someone gets annoyed at all of this and
says, ‘Do I have this right? God uses us so that He looks good! We are to be
used, abused and then tossed. Is that what you’re saying? What kind of god
is that?’ And what do we say to this? Does God use us so that He looks good?
Does a carpenter use a hammer to pound nails? What is a hammer for if not to
pound nails? The real issue here is why were we created at all? We were
created for the express purpose of showing the glories of our God. So, yes,
God uses us. He uses us for the purpose for which He made us. But bear in
mind that just as happiness for a hammer is being used to pound nails,
happiness for us creatures is being used to show how amazing our God is.
Our objector is not done. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s about the ‘use’ part of what I
said. But what about the ‘abuse’ part? God abuses us by making us blind and
all the rest, and you’re telling me that that’s okay?!?’ There are two parts
to my answer to this. The first comes from the Apostle Paul who dealt with
the same objector. ‘But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what
is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the
potter no right over the clay…’ [Romans 9:20-21] In this day when everyone
is concerned about his rights we need to remember that when it comes to how
we relate to God we have no rights except the ones He gives us. He is God,
and we are not. We are merely creations of His. And He can do with us
anything He wants.
But then there is the second part to my answer. God, by no means, abuses us.
Every bit of suffering that we may experience is actually for our good. Go
through the Scriptures. Consider people like Abraham, Moses, Ruth, David,
Job, Mary, Paul. What do they all have in common? They are all great
examples of Godly saints – and they all have suffered at God’s hand. I am
convinced from Scripture and experience that it is only way by suffering
that we will ever get to know God well. We, by nature, are focused on
ourselves. That takes different forms but the basic idea is the same. We are
proud. We are the center of the universe. God, in His kind graciousness,
shows us reality. But we are a hard people to convince. So often what we
need is for God to shake us up, to uncover to our own eyes the lie about how
important we are to this universe. And the thing that best gets us to turn
our focus from ourselves to Him, where it belongs, is some kind of
suffering. He reveals to our hearts our weakness and sin, and so we turn to
Him and cry out. ‘I cannot handle this, no, not on my own. I am unable. Help
me, Lord.’ And then He does His amazing work once again. We get to see it
and so do others. And as a result the spotlight is where is ought to be – on
Him. But we also benefit. As a result of all of this, we get to know the
real Him a little bit better. Our eyes are lifted higher so that we get to
see something of His heart – a heart that is filled with love and grace and
tremendous power. And we get to understand our place in this world a little
better also. Now, is this being cruel? Is this abusing us? Not any more than
a surgeon cutting away cancer is cruel. There is no greater joy – and
nothing more deeply satisfying – than knowing God well. The suffering that
is required is more than worth it. So, for us, illness, handicap,
bereavement – these are gifts of God for our good. By these gifts of
suffering we get to know Him well.
So, some closing thoughts to bring out some of the implications of all of
this. Are you persuaded yet that the sufferings you face – both great and
small, little annoyances and major crises – are worth the pain since these
are God’s way of helping you get to know Him well? When life gets hard, do
you pray that you might grasp the lesson that He is teaching you so that you
might know Him better – or do you fall into complaining or becoming anxious
or some other sin? Then consider the unstated assumptions of your prayers.
Do you exist for God’s sake or does He exist for your sake. That is, are
your prayers basically a list of things that you want from Him, different
ways that He can be used by you to make your life nicer? Or is the heart of
your prayers an offering up of yourself to God – with the accompanying
requests for enabling grace – for Him to use as He sees fit so that the
world might see His amazing works?
Who is God, really? Is He the nice God who does nice things so that nice
people can live nice lives? Or is He more involved than that, the amazing
God who sends suffering – for His sake and for yours?
