Who’s Our Leader?
There is no doubt that Moses is a Bible superhero. From the very beginning, his life was marked by divine purpose. His parents saw that he was a “fine child” and hid him from the executioners of Egypt who were ordered to kill every male Hebrew baby (Ex. 2:2). The daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, fell in love when she saw him as a helpless baby floating in the Nile and chose to raise him as her son (Ex. 2:5-10). And the people of Israel came to respect Him as their leader and as the mediator between themselves and God Almighty. Scripture affirms the uniqueness of Moses like this,
Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel. Deuteronomy 34:10-12 (NIV)
Israel’s respect for Moses was understandable. God had appointed him as their leader—the one who would be God’s agent to lead them out of Egypt and free them from centuries of bondage. Israel, however, had a dangerous weakness: they were forgetful. They were so forgetful that even though they saw God bring plagues on Egypt while keeping them safe, and though they saw God’s awesome power displayed through the parting of the Red Sea, they forgot that God was their leader and deliverer, not Moses.
Their forgetfulness was on full display when Moses tarried on Mount Sinai. While God spoke to Moses and gave him the law on stone tablets, the people quickly grew restless. They approached Aaron, Moses’s older brother, who was in charge in Moses’s absence, and demanded, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him” (Ex. 32:1, NIV).
Aaron complied with their demands and fashioned a calf of gold. He presented it to the people and said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt” (Ex. 32:4, NIV). How could they forget so quickly? Had they truly forgotten who they were following, who had rescued them, and who had freed them from slavery in Egypt?
A quick look back through the book of Exodus provides more than ten examples where Scripture says that it was God who brought Israel up out of Egypt. God’s commands, what we call “The Ten Commandments,” begin this way: “And God spoke all these words: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery’” (Ex. 20:1-2, NIV). Evidently, Israel forgot who their leader and deliverer was. They followed the man, Moses, and depended on him instead of fully relying on Almighty God, their deliverer, redeemer, provider, and protector.
Moses, though anointed and used by God, was not perfect and was never meant to replace God. Moses, despite being a mighty man of God, a prophet, and a faithful servant, was just a man—as human as the rest of us. Scripture consistently reinforces this truth, from Exodus through Deuteronomy, echoed again in the Psalms and affirmed in the New Testament: it was God who chose Israel and brought them out of Egypt.
This is an important lesson we should not quickly forget, as the Israelites did. God graciously uses leaders, teachers, pastors, and mentors in our lives, but they are never meant to take His place. When we place our faith and reliance on people instead of the Lord, we risk forgetting who truly saves, sustains, and leads us. God may work through human leaders, but His power has never depended on them. He is the same God who parts seas and provides in the wilderness, and keeps His promises from generation to generation. When our confidence rests fully in Him—faithful, mighty, and unchanging—we find a Deliverer who never fails and a Leader who will never lead us astray.