The Hebrew males who rejected Moses were all immature and inexperienced. But in the priest of Midian we see a mature, experienced, male life that received the vessel which had been raised up by God. In this chapter all the females are positive, but the males are of two categories, ones with the rejecting life and the positive one with the receiving life. The rejecting ones were inexperienced, whereas the accepting one was experienced and mature. Therefore, God could use this mature male life to perfect the vessel He had raised up. No doubt Moses was perfected under the hand of his father-in-law. I certainly desire to be a mature one who can receive others and then perfect them.
In the church life today, we need both the various kinds of female life and the mature male life for the Lord’s economy. If something is to be raised up by God, we must have many females like Moses’ mother and sister, the female slaves, Pharaoh’s daughter, and the seven daughters of the priest of Midian. We must also have the experienced male life to do the final perfecting work. There is a particular need for the mature male life.
In these days many of us have been encouraged by the messages on Ephesians that we all can be perfected to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. In order to be such gifts to the Body, we must not remain those who are unprocessed, immature, and inexperienced, ones who are not able to receive God’s chosen vessels. We need to be raised up through the female life and perfected through the mature male life.
During his sojourn in the Gentile world, Moses gained a wife, Zipporah, a daughter of the priest of Midian. She bore him a son, and Moses called “his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land” (v. 22).
Moses stayed in Midian for forty years (Acts 7:30). During these years, God worked on him to perfect him. When some of the young people hear this, they may be disappointed, thinking that they are not able to wait such a long time to be perfected. If we would be perfected over a long period of time, we must have the proper heart, the proper attitude, and the proper standing. Where is your heart and what is your standing? Our heart must be for the Lord, and our standing must be with the Lord’s people. If we have such a heart and such a standing, we shall be willing to accept the Lord’s training, no matter how long it lasts.
At the end of this chapter, we see that among the children of Israel there was an urgent need for a savior: “The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage” (v. 23). Therefore, God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to bring their descendants into the good land. God was obligated to fulfill His promise. Verse 25 concludes the chapter: “And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them” (Heb.). This indicates that God knew their situation and understood their problems.
The last few verses of Exodus 2 reveal that all that transpired in this chapter was for the preparation of the savior to bring God’s people out of bondage. The situation is the same today. If we have both the female life and the proper male life, God will be able to raise up something and to perfect what He has raised up in order to rescue His people and to gain them for the fulfillment of His purpose. In this way He will be able to turn the age.