God called Moses and told him He was going to “send” him to Pharaoh with the message of deliverance to His people. Though Moses protested this, because of a sense of his own inadequacy, God assured him, “I will certainly be with you” (Ex. 3:10, 12).

In a similar way, Gideon was called by God to defeat the Midianites, but he protested with, “How can I save Israel?” He felt himself to be the “weakest” and the “least” of his nation, yet God encouraged with, “Surely I will be with you.”

These histories were written for “our admonition” (1 Cor. 10:11). We are now in a different time from Moses and Gideon, the period of the Church age. But we also find ourselves simultaneously in a period called “this present evil age” and the period of “this present darkness” (Gal. 1:4; Eph. 6:12 esv).

In today’s text we see the risen Lord, before His ascension back to heaven, give His followers a divine commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” A daunting task! Sometimes it is hard to speak to our own family or our neighbors who know us and love us, let alone strangers. And beyond this, evil principalities of the “present darkness” are arrayed against us. We feel our weakness too, our inadequacies, our smallness, our inability to speak or act. However, the Lord mentioned none of these things—and surely He was aware of them. He was ascending as “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36), and all authority in heaven and earth had been given to Him; He would lead the way. He has assured us of His divine presence with the words, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”