Exodus 5 -7 “It’s All Your Fault!” God! How often do we echo those words of Moses to God when, after being obedient, there is still no change in the circumstances? How often do we also echo what Moses says: “if the Israelites did not listen to me, then how will Pharaoh listen to me since I am of uncircumcised lips.” Isaiah said much the same: “My lips are contaminated by sin.” Without God’s intervention, we are in this condition and why we need the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit which comes to us with a burning coal or the burning bush or the flaming tongues of fire as in Acts.
God uses fire as a remedy for the purification of our sin just like controlled burns cleanse the land of that which is combustible. Without each, our sins remain and the combustible trash of the forest is fodder for a raging fire.
Moses had to return figuratively to the burning bush for cleansing when impetuously he whined: “It is all your fault, God! Why did you send me? You have not rescued them!” Thankfully God did not strike him dead on the spot like He did Ananias and Sapphira! Instead, God was gracious and patient and He is the same to you and me! Moses needed more instruction so God graciously said: “now you will see…”
We may not understand but one lesson we can apply is from Habakkuk: I will stand still and see what the Lord will do.
As a child who often spoke first and thought later, the taste of soap became a regularity. Had it really done its job, this mouth would have been antiseptically clean. However until that antiseptic, called the Holy Spirit, did His work this mouth continued and will continue to exude that which dishonors and defames because “It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.” [Matt 15]