Articles
A Clash of Wills
Commission: “Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt” (Ex 3:10).
Response: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh ...? Suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you’ … ‘O my Lord, I am not eloquent …’ ‘O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send’” (Ex 3:11; 4:1, 10, 13).
Commission: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me” (Jonah 1:2).
Response: “But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:3).
Commission: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations” (Jer 1:5).
Response: “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth” (Jer 1:6).
Commission: “Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold he is praying” (Acts 9:11).
Response: “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name” (Ac 9:13-14).
In each of these cases God’s servant balked in the face of His directive. Fear, the magnitude of the work and perhaps hatred of those to be served (in Jonah’s case) appear to be contributing factors. At any rate, Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah and Ananias are not unlike us. They trembled at their role in implementing the plan of God.
Since we know the outcomes of each of these stories, we tend to be critical of the hesitation of these servants. We wonder how they could hesitate when God, Himself, is directly commissioning them to a particular work. Safe in the comfort of our home or church building we fancy ourselves to be much more responsive and eager to answer the call of God.
But life isn’t lived in an imaginary past; it is lived in the present with our own commands to follow and our own decisions to make. While not given some specific assignment as these men were, we have a host of expectations that challenge us to be responsive to God’s will, from honoring marital commitments to being honest, industrious employees; from being positive contributors to the local church to forgiving those who hurt us. We must worship lawfully; we must answer false teaching; we must discipline fellow saints who walk disorderly. The difficulty of doing these things may cause us to excuse ourselves from duty or protest against God’s will.
These ancient episodes also teach us that God’s will is always accomplished no matter the odds against success. Let us train ourselves not to second-guess God’s directives, for in so doing we set ourselves up as a judge of law rather than a doer of it (Jas 4:11).
