Acts 7:35
This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush. This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.
This Moses is set within Stephen's review of Israel's history and God's dealings with the people, through which Christ was shown to have been foretold and to be then rejected. It belongs to his final testimony before the council, spoken under the direction of the Holy Spirit. His words met resistance, and the occasion, time, and place give them their weight. The meaning is that the same Moses whom Israel refused as ruler and judge God sent back to them as ruler and deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush, with that angel guiding and acting in his mission.
Angels made known to Moses and to Israel's rulers that the time of deliverance was near and that Moses was the man God would use. Moses expected to lead the Hebrews in warfare against Egypt. He guarded his affections for his adoptive mother and for Pharaoh so that he would remain free to do God's will. God sent him to be the deliverer of His people and to lead Israel out of Egypt only after he had been for forty years a faithful shepherd. Though he was the prospective ruler of Egypt, God could not take him from the king's court to do the work appointed him, for training amid the humble duties of the most lowly position in life was first required, and this discipline qualified him to lead God's people under Jesus Christ.
Israel's sin was refusing the angel's voice and failing to heed it. That failure was a rejection of Christ, for it was the voice of Christ Himself speaking through the patriarchs and prophets from the days of Adam to that time, including to Moses. In this same account Moses also foretold the prophet whom Israel was to hear. His earlier rejection by Israel before God sent him to deliver them thus points to Christ, who had been foretold and was then being rejected. Stephen used this Old Testament testimony about Moses, together with the prophets, as scriptural evidence and inspired proof that Jesus is the Messiah. That proof covers His mission, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension, for Moses and the prophets testified to the Messiah and prove His identity with the Messiah, showing that Christ is the key to understanding the Old Testament.