Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
Exodus 3:7-10
These verses take us a step further in our understanding of the vision given to Moses in the bush. God reveals Himself to men as One Who wills to go into action, and in so doing here He summoned Moses into action too (10). There is something of vital importance here. The revelation of God communicated to us must necessarily enlist us in the service of the kingdom. Isaiah's vision of the glory of the Lord ended with the command 'Go'. Saul of Tarsus said, 'What wilt Thou have me to do?'. The disciples were commissioned after the Resurrection, 'Go ye into all the world'. God does not reveal Himself to us for our idle curiosity or intellectual stimulation; He means it as a summons to an awesome co-operation with Him in His holy and sovereign purposes among men. Unless we see this to be so, we miss the whole point of His revealing Himself to us in His Word and by His Spirit. God means business, and it may be that one reason why He sometimes remains silent in face of our distresses is that, in spite of our cries to Him for help, we do not ourselves mean business. This, in fact, was the challenge Moses had to face, as we shall see in the next verses. Even in the context of His desire to help his people, he was not, when it came to the point, over anxious to put himself in God's hands. It is one thing to want God to make bare His holy arm, but quite another when He decides to do so using you as an instrument! 'I will send thee ... that thou mayest bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt.' We so much prefer to be spectators than participants.