Exodus 33:12-14 English Standard Version

Moses’ Intercession

12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Exodus was written by Moses. In this chapter he reveals an intimate conversation with God that says something about Moses. God answers Moses but what is at the core of Moses’ question??

It sounds like Moses trusts God because He has done what God commanded. Now Moses has all these people that are with him and Moses wants to know who he can trust.

I hear in Moses’ voice what I hear in myself. “I trust you Lord, I just don’t trust them.”

Why is it that knowing God knows me by name and that I have found His grace, that it is not enough to find trust in others? Moses shows signs of trust issues and I can see that because I suffer the same malady.

I am not the only person that questions those around me in a way that causes us to withhold  trust. I trouble myself with things that should not be any of my concern if I truly believe God is the Father of all mankind.

Moses begs to know God’s ways in order to receive more grace, as if what he already received wasn’t enough to give Moses rest from what troubles him.

John 1:16 English Standard Version (ESV) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

From His fullness we have received grace and will receive more grace and yet I feel that I am not full of grace myself. Perhaps that is because I have not completely died to self.

It now becomes about me, not Moses or God, just one more selfie, a picture of me in the moment. Have I changed? Sure, but not as much as I would like. I have not found that rest I want.

Matthew 13:27-30 English Standard Version

27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

Immediately after the parable of the sower we have the parable of the weeds. Some might consider this one is included with the parable of the sower but if we look to the intent of the gospel we will find this is connected to life after the gospel has taken root in the good soil.

How can we break down this parable in terms of application to our church life now that the gospel has been planted in our hearts? Parables have no relevance if we do not have a proper understanding.

The Greek for weeds here is zizanion which is a kind of darnel, resembling wheat except the grains are black. This weed, in the church, looks like every other stock of wheat until it produces seeds of its own. It is black and easily recognized by the servants as having no light in them.

What isn’t said here and is a cultural attribute of the wheat field is that they are not grown in rows. The shafts grow closely together with no distinctive separation. Servants cannot come in to remove the weeds without trampling all over the wheat.

Now let us ask how this bad seed gets planted with the wheat? Paradoxically we were all bad seeds before the gospel was planted in our hearts. 

The darnel seed came floating in the air to land in the field of wheat. We all know who the Prince of the Power of the Air is and what he wants to do.

Here is an opportunity to see a major truth. The presence of the weed does not change the wheat into a weed. Now if that stock, which looks like wheat, has not yet produced the telltale black grain, who is to say that God cannot change the bad seed into wheat?

God is the God of change in us. He has done so for us and only God can say if He will change them. 

Weedeating damages the wheat.