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Chapter 2 - The Voice In The Fire

According to the word of God, 70 people of the seed of Abraham, in the time of Joseph, the governor of Egypt, went to live in Egypt for over 200 years. God’s promise of multiplication of the seed of Abraham began to be seen in Egypt. The children of Israel grew greatly in number (Genesis 47.27). A new Egyptian Pharaoh arose who saw the children of Israel as a threat. ‘Look, the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them …’ (Exodus 1.9-10).

Egypt enacted new laws and set taskmasters over the children of Israel, to afflict, maltreat and force them into hard and bitter bondage. It was to break the spirit of the children of Israel, bring them under reproach, rob them of their freedom, ruin their health, shorten their lives and decrease their number. The bondage also affected the relationship between the children of Israel and their Hebrew God and introduced them to the worship of Egyptian idols and gods. Therefore, the culture and worldview of the children of Israel were altered, but the children of Israel continued to multiply, even under that oppression, because of their covenant with God through Abraham.

God told Abraham that he would be a father of many nations and that his seed would be strangers in a land and be afflicted for four hundred years. ‘And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.’ (Genesis 17.4, Genesis 15.13-14) When the time of their freedom came and a deliverer was to be born, Pharaoh issued another law, that all new-born sons of the children of Israel should be sacrificed to the Nile god. It was in that period that Moses was born.

I believe the devil, through Pharaoh, was trying to stop the deliverer of the children of Israel. It happened again under King Herod, who ruled over the Jews, when Jesus was born. King Herod killed all the male children aged two years and under in Bethlehem and all its districts in order to eliminate the Messiah (Matthew 2.16). But he was unsuccessful.

Moses was therefore born of Israelite slaves in Egypt but was adopted by the ‘daughter of Pharaoh’ (Exodus 2.25) and lived as a prince in Egypt. Stephen, in Acts 7.22, says, ‘And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds.’ Moses looked to all people as an Egyptian but in his heart, like all the children of Abraham, burned flickers of the light of a covenant with El Shaddai, the God of Abraham. Moses tried to set free an Israelite by killing an Egyptian when the two were engaged in a fight. When the matter became known to Pharaoh, Moses fled from Egypt in fear of his life and settled in Midian as an ordinary shepherd.

After forty years of silent work as a shepherd in Midian, Moses had become a family man, with a wife named Zipporah, the daughter of his master Jethro, and two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. He had settled down to the life of a shepherd. Tending a flock was now his proper profession. At the age of 80, he might have forgotten about his people in bondage and established himself comfortably with his new occupation and his new family. But one day, as Moses tended the flock of his father-in-law, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God (also called Mount Sinai). He was doing his normal and daily work.

‘And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush so he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.’

Exodus 3.2

The Hebrew word for ‘Lord’ is Jehovah. It is one of the names of the revelation of God, meaning Self-Existing One. Angels are spiritual beings who serve in the government of Jehovah on many and varied levels and duties. I do not believe the angel of the Lord refers to pre-incarnated Jesus. The Hebrew word for angel is malak and it means one dispatched as a deputy; a messenger and ambassador. The angel of the Lord is special to Him. He is not only a messenger but an ambassador and a herald of Jehovah. So, many times the angel would speak like Jehovah and open the door for Jehovah to interact with mankind. In this book the Lord and Jehovah will be used interchangeably.

Moses had seen countless numbers of bush fires but the one in question fascinated him. With all his education and experiences in Egypt and in the desert, Moses had never seen such a phenomenon before. The fire was burning but the bush was not consumed. The fire therefore was self-existing and seemed not to depend on the bush or any external source for energy. Impossible! Where did it get its energy from? Moses said, ‘I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.’

‘So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ and he said, ‘Here I am.’’

Exodus 3.4

Moses did not just pass by or ignore the strange sight. When Moses turned to investigate the matter, God then had his attention, so He called his personal name, Moses, Moses. God called him who was seeking, whose attention was turned towards seeking the truth. Many of us, right from our childhood through school, through the media and our culture, have been programmed out of the knowledge and faith in God. We approach the Bible with a secular cultural mind-set and sometimes with a theological or religious bias. Are we really prepared for the truth? Can we handle the truth?

Moses realised that the fire was not only strange but alive. The fire had a voice. It can talk in a language he could understand. And it knew his name. God began to warn Moses.

‘Do not draw near this place, take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.’

Exodus 3.5

Oh my God! The fire was not just living but holy as well. For a long time, over two hundred years since the children of Israel lived in Egypt, God had not manifested Himself to anyone, but in the time of Moses He manifested Himself to Moses as a flame of fire and began to draw the parameters of their relationship. For the first time we have an idea how God manifests Himself. Fire!

1 Do not draw near this place.

2 Take the sandals off your feet.

3 The place where you stand is holy ground.

There are always parameters when it comes to a communion with someone superior, more so with the supreme God. Let us take a cursory look at these parameters.

Do Not Draw Near This Place

‘Do not draw near this place…’ was a command and a warning. Moses saw the flame of fire and was stopped getting closer for his own good. He would have come under God’s immediate judgement and possibly might have been burnt alive. It gave Moses the chance to have an appreciation of who he was, where he was and whom he was communicating with. The restriction drew a boundary and set up limits between God and Moses. No one is righteous before God, and no one is holy like the Lord (Romans 3.10, 1 Samuel 2.2). Therefore, Moses was deemed unholy before God, and needed to be sanctified first.

Moses told the children of Israel later, ‘For the Lord our God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.’ (Deuteronomy 4.24). Apostle Paul also describes God as ‘He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light which no man has seen or can see …’ ‘For our God is a consuming fire.’ (1 Timothy 6.15-16, Hebrews 12.29). God is a consuming fire, a Jealous God and dwells in unapproachable Light. He will consume anyone before Him who is unholy.

Take The Sandals Off Your Feet

The obvious physical reason why it was necessary for Moses to take off his sandals was that there was dust on them, so Moses would have trampled upon the place with dust and made it dirty. Spiritually, it meant his walk or life was unclean. To keep the sandals on would have meant spiritually defiling the place. Taking the sandals off symbolically removed the uncleanness and the unholiness. In another episode, the Commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, ‘Take the sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.’ (Joshua 5.15). Therefore, the main reason for removing the sandals was because the place he was standing was holy and was not to be defiled.

Secondly, a sandal is a sign of authority and taking it off indicates the surrender of one’s authority. In the story of Ruth in the Bible, the close relative of Boaz removed his sandals because he decided not to redeem the estate of Naomi which fell to him (Ruth 4.8). Therefore, his honour or authority was taken from him and given to Boaz, who was next in line to redeem the family estate. Moses took off his honour and authority before God when he took off his sandals. It was a sign of humility and surrender before God.

Thirdly, it was the sign of honour and respect to God and to the place where God had manifested His presence. It was and is the practice in the Middle East, including Egypt, to take off the sandals when one went to temples and holy places. Before the true and holy God Moses was not expected to keep his sandals on.

The Place where You Stand Is Holy

Every place God reveals Himself becomes holy. The patriarchs would build altars to mark such places and to consecrate them. At the time God called Moses, he had not been sanctified or consecrated. In other words, he was unholy. However, the fact that the tree was not consumed meant that God’s holiness had overshadowed the tree and the place. To see the fire of God is one thing but to enter into it is quite another thing altogether; they are not the same. Moses would later be invited to enter the fire of God, but at that first encounter he was not invited because he was deemed unholy. This suggests a process of transformation or sanctification.

If we want to know God, before we can ‘party’ with Him, perhaps the first thing we should know and understand is, ‘God is holy’. God is the source of all holiness. Holiness is God’s nature. It is the very essence of His being; His invisible, proper, and essential nature, that which makes Him who He is. If His holiness is breached, God will no longer be God. Modern Christianity has reduced God only to a ‘good natured benevolent person’ upstairs whose purpose is to attend to and supply her needs and wants. We have come to approach God as if He is just anybody, sometimes with such disrespect. No! The God of the Bible is a holy God. And there is none holy like Him.

Psalmist says, ‘Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy.’ (Psalms 99.9). Not only is God holy but He alone is holy as Scriptures reveal. ‘No one is holy like the Lord, for there is none besides You, nor is there any rock like our God.’ (1 Samuel 2.2). The victorious saints sung in Revelations 15, ‘Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy …’ (Revelations 15.4).

Speaking through prophet Isaiah, God said, ‘And there is no other God besides Me, a just and a Saviour; there is none besides me.’ (Isaiah 45.21b). In Isaiah 46.9-10 God says, ‘Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like Me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done.’ (Isaiah 46.9-10). God’s holiness, therefore, separates Him from man, angels, anyone or anything in the universe whether living or not.

The common Hebrew words used for holy are ‘qados’, meaning separated or set apart and ‘qodesh’, meaning separateness or apartness. When used of God, it refers to God’s absolute separateness, uniqueness, and distinctness over and above everyone and everything in all things. He cannot be touched or be influenced by sin, evil, death, space, or time. He cannot be mixed with anything. God is therefore absolute pure and perfection in word and deed. No one therefore can be in God’s dimension and know Him and describe Him unless he reveals Himself.

As a flame of fire, God has infinite ability to judge, cleanse, purify, expose, empower, consume or destroy as the physical copy of spiritual fire and light. Moses later warned the children of Israel that the Lord God is a consuming fire, a jealous God (Deuteronomy 4.24). The Fire of God is jealous. It will consume everything that is unholy before it, including man but it will not consume anything declared holy. He is the sole object of our love and worship and will judge and consume any idolatry, sin, or rebellion.

When Moses obeyed God and removed his sandals, God continued to speak to him and put him in line with the promises and the covenants He made to Abraham and his seed.

‘Moreover He said, ‘I am the God of your father – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon Him.’

Exodus 3.6

God did not say, ‘I was,’ but ‘I am’ the God of your father. Even though Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were dead, hundreds of years ago, they were still alive, and God was still their God. It meant Abraham, Isaac and Jacob found the city they were waiting for, the heavenly city (Hebrews 11.10). Jesus Christ referred to this passage and said that “God is not the God of the dead but of the living.” (Matthew 22.32). God also did not say ‘your fathers’ but ‘your father,’ referring directly to Abraham. So Moses was going to inherit or walk in the promises of Abraham, even though Moses was the seventh generation after Abraham.

It might have been a startling revelation to Moses. The very God whom my forefathers believed and worshipped is a living God? God had fulfilled His heavenly promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in such a way that even though they were physically dead, they were still alive. It meant the covenants and the promises made to them were also alive. God had not forgotten His covenants and His promises made to them over hundreds of years ago. Therefore, God is a living God, a faithful God and will fulfil His promises to the children of Israel, the seed of Abraham. The words of God might have warmed Moses’ heart and strengthened him. But it might also have brought the fear of God into his heart. He was face to face with the living God and therefore was afraid to look upon Him.

‘And the Lord said: ‘I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.’’

Exodus 3.7-8

Adam heard the Voice of God in the garden in Eden; Jacob saw God and heard His voice on top of a ladder in a dream; but Moses heard the Voice of God in the wilderness. God Himself came down to the earth and appeared in a flame of fire to deliver His people.

God told Abram that his children would be strangers in a land and be afflicted four hundred years (Genesis 15.13). Abram received the promise when he was 75 years old. 25 years later he gave birth to Isaac. 5 years latter Isaac was weaned and scoffed off by Ishmael, so Ishmael and Hagar were sent away. Isaac was 60 when he begot Jacob (Gen 25.26) and Jacob was 130 when he went to Egypt (Genesis 47.9). It means that for 190 years (60+130) the children of Israel were not living in Egypt. However, the affliction of Isaac started 5 years after Isaac was born. This brings down the number to 185 years. So, the children of Israel might have lived 215 years (400–185) in Egypt.

The Bible also says, ‘Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years – on that very same day – it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.’ (Exodus 12.40-41). If we include Abraham’s life in Israel until Isaac was weaned (25+5), they lived as strangers in a foreign land for 430 years.

As an eternal God, He knew that the oppression and the affliction of the children of Israel would be very great and severe in Egypt at the time when the sin of the Amorites was full. God promised he would deliver them at the end of 400 years. The time had come. God said, ‘So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.’ Jehovah came down Himself. His physical presence was on earth to deliver the children of Israel and fulfil His promise. There was no other way for the children of Israel to be free from Egypt.

Moses was seeing the flame of fire as God’s physical and/or manifest presence and not His attribute. God was the Deliverer and the Redeemer. ‘As for our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name, the Holy One of Israel.’ (Isaiah 47.4). God was about to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt and lead them to the promised land, a large land, flowing with milk and honey; from the place of slavery and bondage to a place of freedom, from a place of lack to a place of plenty, from one place to another. God will not deliver you into a vacuum. God already had a place prepared for them. You must be aware that God has a place prepared for you.

‘Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.’

Exodus 3.9

God had surely seen the oppression of His people in Egypt and His compassion was stirred (Exodus 3.7). What about Moses, the caring shepherd? Did he also see the suffering of the children of Israel after living forty years in Midian as a shepherd? “Behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me.” God was emphasizing the point, driving it home into the heart of Moses. Moses was supposed to see what God was seeing at that time, the current perception of God, not 40 years ago. God wanted Moses as a caring shepherd to see it again, from His perspective, to have His heart and His divine compassion. Moses freed an Israelite 40 years ago, but it was not God’s timing. He must now walk in God’s timing, according to the good pleasure of His will, which He purposed in Himself (Ephesians 1.5; 9).

‘Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel out of Egypt.’

Exodus 3.9-10

God was the Redeemer and the Deliverer, but He needed a representative, an ambassador on the earthly realm. ‘The earth God has given to the children of men.’ Moses was being appointed and sent to deliver the children of Israel from slavery and bring them out of Egypt through the influence and power of God. The Voice in the garden looking for Adam, His friend, had become the Voice in the wilderness looking to redeem His covenant people, Israel. Moses was being commissioned a prophet of God; the one carrying the Voice in the wilderness. He was being made a type of the New Testament apostle and a type of the Great Apostle, Jesus Christ, the Messiah and the Redeemer.

Throughout the 40 years as a servant and a shepherd, Moses did not know that God was preparing him. Anybody who is sent carries the power and the authority of him who sent him. God requires first a servant’s heart, and an obedient heart. ‘Jesus made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and came in the likeness of men …’ ‘Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.’

If one cannot be a servant then one cannot serve God. The Centurion answered Jesus, ‘For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’’ Without placing oneself under authority, one does not have authority to act and to serve.

Today’s church is full of leaders who have not first learnt to serve. Everything is geared towards their own ends; their exaltation and recognition. They have to be served. ‘For even the Son of God did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.’ It is only when we serve that we begin to understand the heart of God. No, God will not send you until you are ready. The iron will be in the fire until it is red hot. Then it is moulded to match the designer plan. Yes, the world will hear you, and acknowledge you when God first certifies you. ‘This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!’

There is so much competition among the Pastors today that we have lost the fact that we have the same mission and are serving the same God. Even churches and Pastors want and pray for other churches and Pastors to go down and to be in trouble so that they can be seen to be better than others. They forget that they are working against God. Envy, jealousy, and pride have filled many of us Pastors, Prophets, and Apostles. If God begins to lift up a Pastor or any man or woman of God, the first opposition and attack would come from fellow Pastors, fellow ministers of God and fellow Christians.

We have covered our envy, jealousy and pride so nicely and carefully that we deceive ourselves that we don’t have them. We have a nice veneer but the inside is rotten; whitewashed sepulchres. The disobedient, the rebellious and the stubborn cannot truthfully serve under others; they only work to serve themselves. Even when they are under senior ministers, they are still serving themselves. They are wolves in sheep clothing. These people pretend they are serving God, but they cannot serve under anybody, not even God; they serve themselves. They compete with God for the glory. They want the glory for themselves. The devil did the same thing and was thrown down from heaven.

‘God is Light and there is no darkness in Him at all … But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses us from all sin.’ You see, we take this metaphorically and see light as referring to goodness, excellence, purity, truth, knowledge, wisdom, and happiness, which is true. But the true fact is that God is literally Light, and so you must walk in this literal light of God. The question is do you walk in the invisible Light of God? What sort of light are you walking in? What lamp is under your feet? What light lightens your path? Many of us are not walking in the true Light of God even though we pretend we are? Sometimes half-light or half-truth is more dangerous and more deceptive than darkness.

The I AM

Moses had had a live encounter with the living God, and he was in the process of being sent to go back to Egypt to redeem the children of Israel from slavery and hard bondage. Moses had lived in Egypt before. He knew the might of Pharaoh and the power of the Egyptian army. Egypt was the most powerful nation at that time. God did not offer Moses any army or any special weapon to use, so he rightly questioned his own identity: ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’ In other words, ‘I am just an ordinary shepherd.’ ‘I am nobody before Pharaoh; the greatest king in the world, and His army.’ ‘You need a more powerful army and an army general, not me.’

God’s answer to Moses’ question was, ‘I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.’ (Exodus 3.12).

If Moses understood it right, God was saying that His presence was more powerful and more potent than Pharaoh and the Egyptian army. He might have been even more bewildered. Well! Moses said, ‘Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?’ The name of God is the epitome of who He is; what He carries, His authority and power. So Moses was asking, ‘Who are you? Which type of God are you? What power and authority do you have and carry?’ In other words, ‘In what power and authority are You sending me?’ Moses was asking, not only for the children of Israel but also for Himself.

‘I AM WHO I AM. And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’

Exodus 3.14

Who is I AM? The Hebrew word translated as I AM is ‘hayah’, which means ‘to exist’, ‘to be’, ‘to become’ or ‘to come to pass’. In other words, He is the life of everything. Everything exists because He Is. He is the being of everything without Him nothing is. He is timeless and the source of everything. I AM is thus a self-existing and self-sufficient God, He does not need man, animal, or anything in order to exist; rather, He is a life giver. That was the God of the burning bush. He did not need the bush to exist; completely self-existing and self-sufficient. He is the source, beginning and the end of everything. God signalled that ‘I AM’ was to be His proper and personal name.

The Hebrew word, Jehovah/Yahweh translated as ‘Lord,’ is derived from the same Hebrew word, ‘hayah’ meaning self-existing and self-sufficient God. According to Jewish tradition, the name Jehovah/Yahweh was too holy to be mentioned, so it was usually written without the vowels as YHWH (Tetragrammaton). The children of Israel instead would use the word Adonai as a substitute of Jehovah/Yahweh (Genesis 18.3).

Jehovah is a God of intimacy who seeks and encourages a closer intimacy with Him. Jehovah God breathed Himself into Adam and Adam became a living being. Adam therefore had God’s DNA or nature inside of him. Jehovah God was one with Adam before his fall. Jehovah God put Adam in the garden in Eden and endowed him with glory, honour, and dominion (Psalms 8.5-8). So there was a natural affinity and bonding between Jehovah God and Adam, to such an extent that Jehovah God used to visit Adam and Eve in the garden. In whatever way one sees it, relationship, love, friendship, intimacy, or sonship, there was a close bond between Jehovah God and man.

‘Moreover God said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel; The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generation.’’

Exodus 3.15

God later revealed to Moses saying, ‘I am Lord (Jehovah), I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by My name Lord (Jehovah)! I was not known to them. I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers.’ (Exodus 6.2-4).

When Adam and Eve sinned and lost their communion with God, it was Jehovah Elohim who sought them, killed innocent animals, and clothed them with the tunics (Genesis 3.21). Though Adam and Eve lost their intimacy with God, Jehovah did not abandon them. He chastised them for their sin, but He also sought to redeem them from the mess they had put themselves in. He is still Jehovah God to us; sorting out our mess. God has revealed the attributes of the name Jehovah in many ways, but the first distinct revelation of the name Jehovah was in connection with the redemption of Israel. Therefore I AM (Jehovah) is a powerful redemptive name of God.

Through the revelation of the name Jehovah, God began to unfold a personal relationship and communion with man, not only His works but His manifest presence. Mankind through God’s dealing with Moses and the children of Israel began to know who God was personally, His nature and His character. In that relationship Jehovah had to deal with three things:

1 His holiness in relation to man’s sinfulness (Leviticus 11.44-45; 19.1-2; 20.26; Habakkuk 1.12-13).

2 His response to sin (Genesis 6.5-7; Exodus 34.6-7; Deuteronomy 32.35-42; Psalms 11.4-6; 66.18).

3 His love for the righteous redemption of sinners (Genesis 3.2; 8.20-21; Leviticus 16.2-3; Isaiah 53.5-10).

Jehovah is the God who manifests His Presence; “My presence will go with you.” He is the God of signs and wonders, as He demonstrated to Moses and all Israel. Jehovah is the God of love, mercy, compassion, and grace. The manifest presence of God also manifests His attributes, who He is, and opens up the resources of heaven,

Apostle Paul ended Hebrews chapter 11 with these words, ‘And all these (men of faith) having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise. God having provided something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us.’ (Hebrews 11.39-40). Of all the mighty works the patriarchs and mighty men of old did, they did not receive the complete promise. The word ‘perfect’ means completeness and wholeness as we have seen. It shows that God planned that the mighty men of faith and the prophets of old should not complete their works but wait for us, in the end time, to join hands together with us to complete their works.

God will therefore release their mantles upon us and/or send them here on earth to encourage, strengthen, direct, guide and empower us to fulfil the complete plan of redemption and restoration. They have a share in it. They sacrificed so much for it. We have many examples of this in the Bible. One clear example is when Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus at the transfiguration and spoke to Him about His death on the cross. Why? Couldn’t God have strengthened Jesus Himself? It was God’s administrative style and His governmental process. It was God’s will and pleasure. The eleventh-hour saints shall receive as much as the first-hour saints. It is still His will and His pleasure. No one can do anything about it. It is not only Elijah who will come back again before the coming of the Lord, but Moses too will come back again in one way or the other.

Moses was given the greatest and the most difficult work in his time. He was to go and deliver the children of Israel from bondage, who by law were slaves, and by culture Egyptians under the most powerful nation or government in the world. He was also to lead them to serve a living God and His government with completely different law and different culture. Moses’ assignment would require a governmental power and authority greater than Egypt. Physically, there was no such government, and there was no such power and authority on the earth. Only the Kingdom of Heaven possessed such governmental power and authority to do the job. Jehovah is/was the King of Heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven. When He said, ‘My presence shall be with you,’ He was referring not to His omnipresence, but to His manifest presence. He was also implying that all the resources of His government, including the army in Heaven, will be available to Moses.

As we get closer and closer to the end of this age, things are going to be very, very difficult here on the earth. We need to remove our religious hypocrisy and the lame doctrinal beliefs and theological bias and reach out for the manifest presence of Jehovah and drop the counterfeit presence we have come so much to take pleasure in. Many believers say, ‘Oh the presence of God was/is here.’ Which type of presence are they referring to? And to what level of His presence are they referring to?

When the manifest presence of God is truly present, nothing would be impossible and there would be no power or government on earth that can match it in knowledge, wisdom, power, and authority. Things would happen not according to our earthly laws but according to heavenly laws. The resources of heaven will be deployed on earth and the works of the devil will have to take the back seat and be destroyed. Jesus Christ said, ‘But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.’ (Matthew 12.28). ‘For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.’ (1 Corinthians 4.20). Without the manifest presence of God, Moses’ assignment would have been impossible to complete.

If the manifest presence of Jehovah was enough to set the children of Israel free under those conditions, then it will be enough to protect us and set us free from the end time afflictions and persecutions, the gloom, the darkness, and the horror of the full-blown antichrist system.

Some of the believers will be appointed and equipped to deal with the situations and circumstances of the end time. Perhaps you are a candidate. We need to prepare our hearts and minds and allow the Holy Spirit to train and transform us for the work ahead of us. We need the manifest presence of God as never before.