Solomon Aggrey - Following His Glory

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.