The Lutheran Hour

"The Stuttering Man of Destiny"

#92-51
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on August 17, 2025
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries

Text: Exodus 4:10-12

For the sons of Jacob, it was not a good time to be alive. Things had changed a great deal since the days when their father, Jacob, had emigrated from Canaan to Egypt at the warm invitation of the mighty pharaoh. Such was the standing of the great Joseph, trusted confidant and viceroy of the Egyptian monarch, that nothing was too good for his family. Arriving in Egypt on a train of wagons sent by the pharaoh to fetch Jacob, his sons, his grandsons, and his great-grandchildren from the famine-ridden land of Canaan, the elderly patriarch was ushered into the royal presence. In this scene of quiet grandeur, the old man blessed the pharaoh, answered one question about his age, then having again blessed the pharaoh again, he departed for Goshen, the name of which is even today synonymous with all that is rich, fertile, and golden. There the family of Jacob (or Israel, as he is often called), grew and prospered.

In time, as they will, things changed. “A pharaoh arose in Egypt who knew not Joseph.” The warm invitation to Jacob was forgotten, and the welcoming hand was replaced by the clenched fist. In the reign of the new king, a new political slogan became popular: “Behold the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come now, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.” Under the hard hand of tyranny, the people of Jacob were put to forced labor, building the Egyptian treasure cities of Pithom and Ramses.

Egyptian oppression, however, appeared to agree with the children of Israel. Bitter as their life was with hard bondage, they continued to prosper in manpower if not in money. Taking steps to curb their manpower, Pharaoh instructed all Hebrew midwives to do away with male children when they were born. When it became obvious that the midwives were ignoring Pharaoh’s demand, he called them in for an explanation. They informed him blandly that the Hebrew women, being hale and hearty, usually were delivered of their children before the midwives could arrive on the scene. Abandoning his attempts to solve the problem in this way, Pharaoh issued an order to all Egyptians regarding newborn infants of the Israelites, “Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river and every daughter ye shall save alive.”

The order did not prevent a man of the house of Levi from marrying a daughter of the same clan. When a son was born to this marriage, the resourceful mother hid him for three months. When further hiding was impossible, the mother artfully laid the stalwart little fellow in a basket made watertight with mud and pitch and placed it among the papyrus bushes on the banks of the Nile River. The baby’s older sister was stationed nearby as a lookout to see what would happen.

The unexpected happened. Pharaoh’s daughter, accompanied by her maidens, was walking along the banks of the river. Seeing the basket, she sent one of her maids-in-waiting to fetch it. Setting up a howl when the basket was opened, the baby captured her heart. The lookout immediately approached and suggested to Pharaoh’s daughter that she knew someone who might take care of the baby. Of course, this someone was their own mother, who put the baby in the basket in the first place.

The boy grew, and was finally brought to Pharaoh’s house to be raised as the son of Pharaoh’s own daughter. He became her son, and she called him Moses, as she said, “because I drew him out of the water.”

Raised and educated as an Egyptian, young Moses did not forget his Hebrew ancestry. Coming one day upon an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, whom Moses recognized as one of his brethren, the young man looked both ways to see whether anyone was watching and then killed the Egyptian, hiding his body in the sand.

The next day, coming upon two Hebrews engaged in fisticuffs, he asked of the one who was obviously the aggressor, “Why are you hitting your companion?” This man replied, “Who made you a prince and judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Recognizing that his action of the day before had become public knowledge, and hearing shortly afterwards that it had been reported to the pharaoh, who reacted angrily to the news, Moses fled.

Fleeing to Midian, he sat down by a well. The seven daughters of a priest of Midian coming to draw water had already filled the troughs to water their father’s flock when some shepherds drove them away. Moses took their part, and saw to it that their flock was watered. When their father was surprised by their quick return, they reported, “An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and also drew water enough for us to water the flock.” Disturbed that his daughters had not offered the unknown stranger the hospitality of their house, the priest sent for him. Moses was content to stay there. One of the daughters, Zipporah, became his wife and bore him a son, whom Moses call Gershon, for he said, “I have been a stranger in a strange land.”

At the death of the pharaoh in whose home Moses had grown up, another took his place, more tyrannical than his predecessor. At this point, we are told, God heard the groaning of His people and remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them. His watchful eye lighted upon Moses, who kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. There, on the edge of the desert, near Mount Horeb, it happened. The angel of the Lord appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; The bush burned with fire but was not consumed. Being a curious young man with an inquiring turn of mind, Moses had to have a look at this phenomenon. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, He called to him out of the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses.” Not unconcerned but yet unafraid, Moses replied, “Here am I.”

At this moment, the young Hebrew with the Egyptian upbringing became the man of destiny. God spoke to him, “Draw off the shoes from your feet for the place whereon you stand is holy ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses was afraid.

Fear is not always a sign of weakness. It takes its place among the manly virtues when it is fear of God, of what He is and what He can do. The Lord God told Moses what He was going to do: “I have seen the affliction of My people while in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I’ve come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptian 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. Now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to Me, and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.”

The man of destiny was not impressed. The streak of stubbornness which caused him to reject life as an Egyptian now made him extremely dubious of the divine destiny thrust upon him. Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” Almost as if surprised by the reluctance of the man picked for destiny, God replied, “I will be with you; And this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain.”

Moses was not easily convinced: “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘the God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His Name?’ what shall I say to them?” The great God of heaven and earth identified Himself, “I am Yahweh. I am that I am. Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” The great God identified Himself as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. He showed Moses that the people would listen and that eventually the Egyptians would send them forth with everything they would ask, including all the Egyptian gold and silver jewelry.

Still Moses held back. “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.'” Thereupon, God gave Moses the miraculous rod which turned into a serpent and back again into a rod, along with the miraculous sign of the leprous hand which became perfectly well when it was thrust into his bosom. If these signs were not good enough, Moses should take water from the Nile and sprinkle it upon the dry ground, and it would turn to blood.

The stubborn man of destiny offered one more serious objection: “I am not eloquent, either heretofore or since Thou hast spoken to Thy servant; I am slow of speech and of tongue.” With some exasperation, the Lord God replied, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

God does not always call the most gifted to serve Him. His heroes have flaws big enough to spoil the whole business. The Bible does not whitewash its characters in order to make them out to be gods. God’s men are not deified or idealized in the Scriptures.

Moses was a real man. Like the real man he was, he had one more suggestion: “O my Lord, send, I pray, some other person.” All his objections had been answered, but he still had the familiar one, offered all too commonly by people today when they are called to serve the living God: “I’d rather not!” When people refuse to obey the call of the Lord, it is not because they are unequal to the task, because they don’t know enough to carry it out, or haven’t the necessary talent to do the job. It is simply that they don’t want to. They refuse the role God offers because they would prefer to have someone else do it for them; they’d rather stand by and watch.

The Lord’s patience was at an end. Having overruled all Moses’ objections, now He overruled Moses himself. Willing or not, he was going to undertake this task: “Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and He said, ‘Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. And behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. He shall speak for you to the people. And he shall be a mouth for you and you shall be to him as God. And you shall take in your hands this rod with which to do signs.'”

Now, finally, the stuttering man of destiny fell silent. His all-too-human reluctance had had its say and his stubbornness its little day. No matter what, God was going to have His way. God has His way with men in spite of all their flaws and failures. God’s servants are vessels of clay, turned by His grace into instruments of glory. In human weakness rather than in human strength is the power of God made known. Knowing God’s grace and power, Saint Paul once said, “When I am weak, then am I strong.”

Only One did God send without flaw of any kind: the Lamb of God Himself, without blemish and without spot, a Prophet like unto Moses but greater than Moses, like us in all points except one: He was without sin. Born as a helpless baby, He grew into the Man who went to a cross for the sins of the whole world. Hungry and thirsty, lonely and tired, He offered Himself for all men everywhere. No flaw, no failure is too great to be forgiven because of His perfect sacrifice and atonement.

Jesus Christ is not an unreal stained-glass figure unrelated to the world where men sweat, work and suffer and die. Because He gave Himself freely and unselfishly in obedience to the will of His Father, who would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. The Son of God was raised from the dead and declared to be both Lord and Christ. He is our Brother who knows our needs. He walks shoulder to shoulder with each of us through the jungle of life and through the valley of death.

Moses was a great man: a colossus of history: administrator, lawgiver, military leader, and judicial genius. He was a stuttering man of destiny, however, a stubborn and reluctant servant of the living God. The Law came by Moses, grace and truth through Jesus Christ. No reluctant servant He! No stammerer or stutterer He! Have faith in Christ and follow Him. Make His destiny your own. In Him is life, and His life is the light of men. Remember how He said, “If you believed Moses, you would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?… Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.”

Amen.

Reflections for August 17, 2025
Title: The Stuttering Man of Destiny

Mark Eischer: To introduce today’s sermon, here is Lutheran Hour Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.

Michael Zeigler: Thank you, Mark. I’m visiting again with Dr. Ryan Tinetti, a professor of practical theology at Concordia Seminary. Welcome, Ryan.

Ryan Tinetti: Thanks, Mike. Good to be with you.

Michael Zeigler: As we mentioned, Ryan and I are going to be your “tour guides” and have been your tour guides this August as we’re listening to sermons from our archives. And, like good tour guides, we’ve already taken an advance tour; we’ve already listened to these. And we just listened to this sermon that comes from 1963, 60-plus years ago. The image that I got was in high school, listening to a black and white documentary. And if you could imagine the voiceover on that documentary, that’s what this voice sounds like, Dr. Hoffmann. What did you think hearing it?

Ryan Tinetti: I mean, it’s powerful. I’ve heard so many stories about Dr. Hoffmann. I think this might be the first time I’ve been able to listen to a sermon of his and just the gravitas as he is speaking forth of “the Word of God”—it still resonates to today.

Michael Zeigler: Yeah, and I’m sure our audio engineer’s going to clean it up a little bit, but it’s got that crackling, like it’s come right off a real record, right?

Ryan Tinetti: Yes, indeed.

Michael Zeigler: This sermon that you’re going to hear comes from a longer series of sermons that Dr. Hoffmann did in the summer of 1963, and each sermon focused on a different figure, [a] person from the Old Testament. This one’s going to focus on Moses. Ryan, you and I have talked about how to understand the Old Testament and how not to get lost in the forest, to lose sight of the forest for the trees. So if we could think of the Old Testament as this continuous story, there’s always a question. There’s always a problem that’s driving the story. What is the question? What is the problem that drives the Old Testament?

Ryan Tinetti: I think one way to think about it, we could use a question from the New Testament as John the Baptist is asked from his disciples: “Are you the One who is to come, or should we look for another?” And so, in the background of the Old Testament is this question, this waiting, because a promise is made right there after the fall into sin, Genesis 3. We hear of a forthcoming Descendant from Eve. One of her seed is going to be able to crush the serpent’s head, this Promised One who is to come. We’re looking to Him, looking for Him. I think of a children’s story that I would read to my kids, and perhaps some of our listeners are familiar with this, called Are You My Mother? And in the story, there’s a little bird, a little fledgling that gets knocked out of its nest and it’s lost sight of its mom. And it’s looking everywhere and it’s going to all these different creatures. And what’s fun about the story is, it’s going and it’s asking a cow, “Are you my mother?” “No, I’m not your mother.” And it’s going even to the big heavy machinery, to a Snort, “Are you my mother?” And none of them are its mother. And in a sense, this question throughout the Old Testament is, are you my Messiah? Are you the One who is to come, or shall we look for another? And with each of these different characters, we’re going to see things about them that are positive, that point us toward, fill out that picture of the Messiah, but they’re not the Messiah, not yet.

Michael Zeigler: So that’s the question that is asked of Moses and that we should ask of Moses, are you our Messiah or should we look for another? And so, with that, come and listen with us to this sermon from 60 years ago, Dr. Oswald Hoffmann, some great lines in here. He talks about fisticuffs and the manly virtues, but ultimately he is helping us toward this question: “Are You the One who is to come, or shall we look for another?”-until we arrive at Jesus. So, here’s Dr. Hoffmann.

(Commentary resumes after sermon)

Mark Eischer: Once again, here’s Dr. Michael Zeigler with his guest, Professor Ryan Tinetti.

Michael Zeigler: Thank you, Mark. So, I’m back here with Pastor Tinetti. We just listened to this sermon again with you. And the question that I have for you, Ryan, is often the image of Moses that we get is the guy who divided the Red Sea, the guy who gave the Ten Commandments. But Dr. Hoffmann does a good job of showing he’s the stuttering, the stubborn man of destiny. So, Moses, is he a good example? Is he a bad example? What do we make of Moses?

Ryan Tinetti: The short answer is yes. He is both one that we can see as a comparison with our Lord but also as a contrast. We said in the intro that there’s this question in the background of the Old Testament, “Are you the One who is to come or should we look for another?” We’re waiting for God to fulfill that promise of a seed of Eve’s lineage, who is going to be His promised Redeemer.

And so, as Dr. Hoffmann brought out well in his sermon, there’s definitely elements of Moses’ story that you can’t help but see, okay, no, he’s clearly not the one who was to come, that there are these stark contrasts. He is this stuttering man, this stubborn man, this one who’s reluctantly going into the calling that God has on him. Whereas, we see our Lord Jesus, while He wrestles with what He is being called to, He willingly sets His face to Jerusalem, sets it like flint. He knows what is being asked of Him, and He goes to it willingly. Even Hebrews 12 says, “For the joy that was set before Him, Christ endured the cross, scorning its shame.”

Michael Zeigler: We can see Jesus in Moses by means of contrast, that Jesus is greater. We can also see ourselves in Moses, too. This is, I think, another value of reading the Old Testament, as we talked about last week, not writing off the Old Testament, [because] it helps us see Jesus more clearly. But I think it also—we see ourselves in Moses. We can see ourselves as the stubborn stutterers who [would] rather just, “God, can You pick somebody else?” How does the dealings of God with Moses, how does that teach us about His dealings with us now, as followers of Christ?

Ryan Tinetti: Yeah, so when we look at the story of Moses, we can’t help but recognize Moses was profoundly unqualified for this calling. How is he going to be the one to lead God’s people out of slavery? He recognized it and he calls it, he says, “Lord, please just send somebody else.”

Michael Zeigler: I’ve been with sheep for 40 years. I’m out of the game!

Ryan Tinetti: He’s something like 80 years old at this point. Really? Lord, this is not what I had envisioned for my retirement! He’s profoundly unqualified and yet, God is the one who qualifies him. God is the one who makes him sufficient and equipped for the task. He has qualified you and me. As He did for Moses, so He does for us. He’s given to us His Holy Spirit. He has given us this ability now through the power of the Spirit to speak forth His Word and that when we do, it’s not our wisdom or persuasiveness, but it is the Word that does the work. And so, seeing God in His interaction, Moses, the stuttering man of destiny, we can see how God continues to be longsuffering, yes, and gracious toward us, and qualifying us for the good works that He’s prepared in advance for us to walk into.

Michael Zeigler: Last week, we talked about how the Old Testament can feel distant, and I think as a new reader, I remember feeling that way. But the more I spend time in these accounts, the Old Testament feels very close and very familiar.

Ryan Tinetti: There’s a quote from an ancient Roman poet who said, “I am human, I am man, nothing that is human is alien to me.” And when we read the stories of a Moses or a Gideon, these Old Testament figures, we recognize that these are fellow flawed human beings. To recognize that is then to see the God who has redeemed flawed and failing human beings. We’re able to see, refracted through their failings, through their stories, their own foibles and sins, a Savior who is the same from age to age, Jesus Christ, who is the same, yesterday and today and forever. That’s the hope that we cling to. That’s the promise that we hold fast in.

Michael Zeigler: Amen.

Music Selections for this program:

“A Mighty Fortress” arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
“Crucifer” by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
“Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word” Martin Luther, arr. Peter Prochnow. Music courtesy of The Hymnal Project of the Michigan District, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
“Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.