Les D. Crause

The Moses Mandate

And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which [are] in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good land and a large, to a land flowing with milk and honey... Exodus 3:7-8

Definition of an Apostolic Mandate

In this teaching we are going to look at the Moses Mandate. What is a mandate? We use this word a lot, and just to make sure I get it right I thought I would look it up in the dictionary and see exactly what a mandate is, and what it means. So I want to give you a few dictionary definitions of what a mandate is.

Firstly, a mandate is, "a command from a higher authority."

Secondly a mandate is, "power given to a nation or person to act in the name of another."

When you are given a mandate you are given power or authority to act on behalf of somebody else.

The Apostolic Mandate

God has given the apostle a mandate. And as God is raising up apostolic ministries now in these end times, and the new apostolic movement is about to start, we have looked at some of the signs of the apostolic calling. But I want us to now look at the mandate that God has given, and that God is giving, and will give to the coming apostles. To do that we are going to look at Moses as a type of the apostle, hence the title that I have given to this teaching. God gives the apostle a mandate. He gives forth a command to His apostles, and He gives to His apostles the power or the authority to act on His behalf and in His Name in this earth. That is what it is all about.

Types and Shadows

Now to understand how Moses is a picture of the apostle, we need to just look at a couple of basic principles. Firstly we need to understand the concept of types and shadows. The Bible tells us that the Old Testament events and what took place and what was said and taught in it, a lot of it was given to us as a picture of things that were to happen in the future. And so as you read in the New Testament of the fulfillment of the coming of Christ and of Calvary and of all the things that took place, you can go back into the Old Testament and you can find pictures, types and shadows.

Those of you who have been in the prophetic ministry will understand types and shadows. You understand dark speech. You understand symbols that are given in dreams and visions. Well, the Bible is set up in such a way that the Old Testament is filled with pictures that can be illustrated and used to illustrate clear principles in the New Testament. So the life of Moses and the history of the children of Israel can be used as a picture of what is to take place in these end times in the church.

Israel, a Picture of the Church

So as we look at Israel, we see that Israel is a picture of the church. Now a lot of people take this to an extreme and they say that the church is spiritual Israel, so they liken everything in Israel to the church, and so they say the church is still subject to the law. That is another big subject all on its own and I do not want to get into that, but I want you to see that there are elements of Israel that are a picture of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Israel was a called out people. They were a chosen nation. They were called out by God to be separated unto Himself. And God promised to them a special land. He gave to them the Promised Land of blessing that He had set apart for them. So, we as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ have been called out of the world and set apart. And the Lord has a special place of blessing, a Promised Land for us.

Again there is a lot of teaching given on that, and people have said the land is heaven, and one day we will make it to heaven. So their whole teaching of Egypt to Canaan of how God took the children of Israel out of Egypt and to the Canaan land, is actually a picture of how God took people out of the system of the world and sin and those who were lost, and brought them to Himself, and brought them to the place of blessing in the Promised Land. So Israel is a picture of the church.

Joseph a Picture of Blessing

We look at Joseph who was raised up by God, a rejected leader. Joseph was used by God to bring prosperity to Israel out of Egypt. The Promised Land was not Egypt. Egypt was the land of the enemy. We are going to look at it in a moment. But God raised up a deliverer in Joseph who succeeded in causing blessing to come out of Egypt.

Joseph can be a picture of many things, but I like to look at him here as being a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ who brought the early church to blessing; who, through His death and the work of Calvary, caused us to enter into blessing. Joseph brought the Israelite nation to Egypt so they could tap into the prosperity and the blessing of Egypt. It was a place of blessing. They were given a good part of the land.

But before long things began to change, and that land of blessing became a land of cursing; became a land of bondage; became a place of slavery. Well what am I talking about? I am talking about the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, who after Jesus had died and had risen and ascended to heaven and poured down the power of His Holy Spirit, they walked in blessing, and they conquered this world. Jesus said to His disciples, "In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world."

The early church overcame the world.

They turned it upside down. But you know what happened? After a while the world overcame them, and it went into what became known as the dark ages. They began to slip away and come under the influence of the world. They began to lose the principles that God had given them. They came into slavery and into bondage.

Egypt a Picture of the World

What is Egypt? Egypt is a picture of the world. It is a picture of the World System under Satan's control. It offers hope, and it offers prosperity, but it is a false hope. It leads to bondage. It leads to slavery. And the children of Israel ended up building empires for the god of Egypt, the God of this world, Satan, of whom Pharaoh is a type and a picture.

So Egypt is a picture of the world, and Pharaoh is a picture of the god of this world, Satan, and they were in slavery and in bondage. And Pharaoh was causing them to do what he wanted, to build things for his glory. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ went into slavery and into bondage, and became absorbed by the World System. That is the state that the church is in. And God sent a Moses to go and bring them out.

The Apostle: Moses

But in this message I do not want to go into a lot of detail. I am just skimming through, because we are going to look at the mandate itself, and exactly what mandate God gave to Moses; at exactly what command He gave to him, and exactly what power and authority He gave to him to carry out to do in His name.

Moses Apostle: A Picture of Success

So we look at Moses, a type and picture of the apostle. Moses came from Egypt. Moses was high up in Egypt. He was known there. He was the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He had it going in Egypt. He had Egypt at his fingertips. He had the ability to rule over Egypt. Moses was successful, and he is a picture of somebody who has the world at his fingertips; of somebody who is successful; of somebody who is capable of succeeding in the world, should he choose to do it.

Moses is a picture of the apostle. And the first thing I see about the apostle is that he is somebody who is capable of being an entrepreneur in this world. The apostle is somebody who is capable of being a leader, and somebody who is capable of succeeding.

I have heard people who say this kind of thing. "Well you know, I seem to have failed in everything that I've done. I've tried a career and that seems to have failed. I've tried this, I've tried that, I've tried the other thing. Everything in my life seems to go wrong. I think perhaps the Lord has called me."

God does not need the failures. He doesn't need the offscouring. He does not need what the Devil cannot even use! When God laid His hand on the greatest apostle of all who wrote most of the New Testament, you know who He picked? He picked the most successful anti-Christian there was. He picked the most powerful and successful man that was there. He was a man who had all the qualifications, who had everything going for him; a man who was in with the big names; a man who was capable of accomplishing much in this world; the man who was all set out to destroy Christianity. That is who God put His hand on and chose to pull out and make the great apostle to the Gentiles - Saul of Tarsus.

Apostle must have Commitment and Stickability

Now I am not saying that you have to be naturally gifted to be an apostle. I am just saying that do not think that God cannot use your ability; that He cannot take everything that you have and turn it around. God wants somebody who is committed. God wants somebody who is zealous. He wants somebody who has put their all into what they are doing. God wants somebody whom He can trust, that when He puts them on that path, they are going to get on that path, they are going to move towards the goal, and they are going to stick with it and follow through. If you are not that kind of person, forget about being an apostle, you are not going to make it.

God wants those with stickability, who are going to push through, who are going to hang in there, who are going to suffer, who are going to face all sorts of things. You just look at what Paul went through and you will understand that God cannot take any person and just put them into the office of apostle. There is an intense preparation.

We have looked at the preparation of the prophet in the Prophetic School. But I want to tell you that that is tame compared to the preparation that the apostle has to go through, because the apostle has to come to the place where he can face anything and everything and still follow through, still persevere and still stick with the call of God. God requires somebody with commitment to be His apostle.

Apostle has to Give it All Up

But God has to take away that natural ability before He can use it. So Moses had to come to a place of choice where he said, "I'm prepared to give this up for the sake of God's people; for the sake of the fact that I am an Israelite, that I am part of God's chosen people. I refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. I refuse to be part of this system."

And it cost him everything. He ended up as a dumb shepherd, I mean the lowest of the low. The lowest form of animal life was the shepherd. He was sitting in the backside of the desert looking after stupid sheep. What did God do to Saul of Tarsus? He had to knock him to the ground and blind him, bring him to the end of himself, and push him into obscurity for fourteen years, and then another three, before he rose up to become the apostle.

Apostles goes Into Obscurity

God is going to take you out of the way. He is going to take you into the backside of the desert into obscurity before He can bring you out. But Moses was chosen by God to bring deliverance. He was chosen by God to go back where he came from; to go right back there into Egypt where he came from; to go back to the very thing that he gave up.

Perhaps you have risen up in the world and been successful. Perhaps you have been wealthy. Perhaps you have had a successful business enterprise that you have gone into. Perhaps you are well educated. Maybe you have a lot of things that you could count on and rely on. But I want you to realize you are going to come to the place where, like Paul you are going to say, "The things that were gain to me I counted loss that I may but win Christ." You are going to have to give it up. And when you give it up and you let it go and you give it totally to Him, you are going to go into obscurity, but you are not going to stay in obscurity forever.

The time is going to come when God is going to pull you out and He is going to say, "Okay, now that it has gone, now that it's left you, now I'm sending you back there where you came from, but for a different purpose this time. I'm sending you back into Egypt, Moses, to go and bring My people out."

It is going to take another kind of choice, the same kind of commitment that you had to give it up. It is going to take another choice now to go back into it again to fulfill the call of God.

God Initiates the Apostolic Call

And so as Moses sat there in the backside of the desert looking after his father-in-law's sheep, just minding his own business, he had totally forgotten about the call. He had totally come to the place where he knew that he was not capable of being the great big leader in Egypt. And God appeared to him in the burning bush. I want you to realize that the call that comes to the apostle is initiated by God and not by the apostle.

Moses was not even thinking about Egypt. He was not thinking about Israel. He was not thinking about Pharaoh. He was probably thinking nothing! He was probably staring into space there while the sheep were just chewing away. Who knows what a shepherd does all day. His mind was somewhere else. He was standing there minding his own business and suddenly he sees this bush catch fire. That is how the call is going to come to you, not when you are striving after it; not when you are running after it; not every day bugging the Lord and saying, "Lord, am I going back to Egypt today? Lord, am I going to become the big apostle today? Lord, are you going to raise me up today and give me a big name?"

Apostolic is An Unexpected Call

It is not the kind of person God uses and calls to be His apostle. Usually the person that He calls is the person standing there minding his own business. The last thing on his mind is that he could be called to be an apostle, when God comes forth and says, "Hey, I'm sending you back."

"Who me?"

That is a good sign of the apostolic call when it comes to you suddenly, unexpectedly, and God calls upon you to do something that you feel absolutely and totally unqualified to do. It is a very good sign of the apostolic call. Moses was not this arrogant over-exalted, selfish individual who thought that he could conquer the world anymore. When God came to him he said, "I don't think I can do that, Lord. No, I don't really think I could do that. Are you sure? You want me to go? No Lord, not me. Why don't you use somebody else?"

That is the person God gave the mandate to. And if you want to receive the Moses mandate you are going to have to become that kind of person. You are going to have to come to that place before the call is going to come, and before God is going to give you the commandment to go forth, and before He is going to give you the power and the authority to step out and to act in His name.

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