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message regarding a man who I
think we all know and love so well. Has anybody here ever heard
of Moses? Anybody here never heard of Moses? All right. Well, in Exodus chapter four,
we're going to go forward and we've already spoken of two objections
of Moses. And these objections, I think,
are very profound because I think that we all have been there in
some form of our Christian life with objections and questions
that we may have. But as we move forward, we see
how at this point Moses's rod had been turned into a serpent,
his hand is leprous, and he departs from Jethro and basically the
Lord is giving him signs. So we're going to pick up here
in Exodus chapter 4 and we are going to read verses 9 through
17. All right, as we open up, just
keep in mind these words mean that there is no doubt that this
is happening. And it shall come to pass, if they will not believe
also these two signs, neither hearken unto thy voice, thou
shalt take of the water of the river and pour it upon the dry
land. And the water which thou takest
out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land. And
Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither
heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant, but
I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto
him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf,
or the seeing, or the blind? hath not I the Lord? Now therefore
go, and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt
say.' And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand
of him whom thou wilt send. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite
thy brother? I know that he can speak well,
and also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee, and when he seeth
thee, he will be glad in his heart. And thou shalt speak unto
him, and put words in his mouth, and I will be with thy mouth,
and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do. and
he shall be thy spokesman unto the people, and he shall be even
he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to
him instead of God. And thou shalt take this rod
in thy hand wherewith thou shalt do signs. Anybody catch that? The word mouth is used quite
a bit in this little passage and it just shows how important
our mouth is and what we need to use it for. Well, We saw all
other objections of Moses. Remember the first one, the objections
of Moses back in chapter three, he says, who am I? Who am I to go out there? And
already Moses is trying to tell the Lord something. There's got
to be somebody better than me that can do this. Who am I? What am I? I love the humility.
But he says, how can I do this? And then he asks, how are they
ever going to believe me? How am I going to tell them that
I was out in the wilderness? I spoke to a burning bush. The
burning bush told me to deliver Israel. How am I going to explain
this to them? And then he comes back, the third objection, how
are they going to believe? He says, who am I? How are they
going to believe who you are, Lord? And how are they going
to believe me? So he pretty much covered the
whole correspondence right there between, are they going to believe
you, Lord? Are they going to believe me?
Well, it's our jobs as Christians to make sure that those that
we witness to when we use our mouth believe us and that we
have the truth. So here we see in verse nine,
he says, Moses writes, and it shall come to pass if they will
not believe also these two signs, the Lord says to Moses, I'm sorry,
these two, neither hearken unto thy voice that thou shalt take
of the water of the river. Now the Lord is really stepping
this up. Last time we were going through this and I had the honor
of preaching here, we spoke about the serpent and we spoke about
what happened physically to Moses. Here, God had answered Moses
already with great and awesome His name, and He empowers Moses
with three signs. The last time we were here, we
spoke about how the rod was cast down, and it becomes a serpent,
and Moses takes hold of it, and it's turned back into the rod. This sign of God will be given
to Moses, to make the people know that God's Word is sure.
His power is real. This is truly the God of their
fathers who always keeps His covenants. And then what we see
here is Moses, then he places his hand in his bosom, and all
of a sudden, here's a medical aspect of the Word of God. Many
times the Lord used medical, physical deformities and weaknesses
to prove to people who He is. We see that all throughout the
New Testament when Jesus Christ, how many people did He heal?
It says in the end of John, there's so many people that He healed
and so many miracles, we're only getting a compendium of it in
Scripture. And if actually this book was written with every miracle
that the Lord did, the earth couldn't even hold it. It'd be
too big. That's how perfect He is. And so I say this morning,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. We should
believe in the Lord. But here, the Lord does not just
say to Moses, I am going to give you signs and wonders, and then
he backpedals and never gives him any real physical proof of
it. He actually shows him. He takes his rod, and that rod
was a very, very close item to Moses' heart. It went everywhere
with him. It was like his safety blanket.
And he had that rod wherever he went to hold him up. Does
anybody remember at this point, and this is what I really believe
is one many of endless, incredible teachings of this text here in
the book of Exodus, how old was Moses now? About? Yes. 80 years old. He was 80. At 80 years old, Moses
was just getting started in his ministry in a great way. 80 years old. At this point,
at 80 years old, Moses had seen an awful lot. He was out in the
wilderness with Jethro. And I can stand here and I can
tell you from my heart, I really pray if I'm still around at 80
years old, I hope I'm just getting started like Moses did. Because
he starts at 80. How many more years did Moses
live from 80? Anybody remember? Right? 120 years old, he died. 40 more
years. Look what he accomplishes in
his life. This is why I have a problem
with religious leaders retiring. Moses did not turn in his paperwork
for severance and for his money from his ministry. He was just
getting started at 80 years old, and look what he does. The first
part is he has this conference with God, personally talking
to the Lord, which is incredible. And the first that starts out,
he has five objections to the Lord, and what's going to happen
from here, he's going to go meet his brother Aaron, they're going
to have this little tete-a-tete out near the wilderness, and
they're going to start talking about what's going to happen
to the people of Israel. And the Lord is going to speak
through them. Eighty years old. Moses is 80 years old and he's
going to go in and he's going to face Pharaoh face-to-face,
a man that had the power to grind him into powder, a man that had
power to kill him, and he would go in and face him. But it didn't
come out, it did not start without a little bit of fear, maybe a
lot of fear. We see that Moses, the medical
side of this, Moses places his hand, he goes, the Lord says,
I'm going to give you another sign. You place your hand inside of
your cloak and in one second pull it out. He pulls it out
and it's just dripping with leprosy. There's not too many more horrible
illnesses that you can have than leprosy. Basically what leprosy
does, and there's all these big medical terms for it, it basically
rots your skin off and it basically has your body parts falling off
eventually. And you die a horrible death.
And he says, place your hand, that's the second sign, into
your cloak. He pulls it out. It's white with
leprosy. Then he puts it back in and the
Lord heals it immediately. His hand is whole again. And
what that does, as we learned the last time, that it shows
us the true loathsome nature of sin and how only God can cleanse
it. Both of these first two signs
were personal regarding Moses. His rod, his staff, and his hand
showed that Moses would be the leader of this deliverance, and
the Lord made it very clear. These were messages of restoration,
and they were a defense for Israel. And it moves to show us what's
so important about this that we don't want to miss. When we
speak and we were reading about the mouth of Moses, Moses' job
was not to save Israelites, and to bring them, and to have the
power himself to save them. His job was to speak to them,
and whatever happened from there was of the Lord. His job was
to use his mouth, and to do exactly what the Lord said, and give
that statement of salvation the rest of his life, and whatever
happened to the Israelites, the Lord would deal with that. And
what's important about that is that we find out that a great
number of Israelites would totally not listen to him. And for the
next several years, one of the greatest horrific tragedies to
Moses that probably hit him more than anything else was watching
his people defy God, worship false idols, mock and blaspheme
the Lord and then complain unmercifully to Moses on how they wish they
were back at the flesh pots and the cucumbers, the leeks, and
the onions and all back in Egypt. This is what he had to deal with.
But the Lord was giving him a training ground here. We see that already
we've seen two signs, and there's another plague that he was going
to show him. And this is like here, the Lord is having, it's
almost like Moses is like a movie star, and he's at a private showing
of the new movie coming out, which he's starring in. Nobody
else gets to see it. It's very exclusive. So the Lord
pulls him by himself, and he gives him these little displays
of what's about to come. The first time with Moses, when
he takes the rod, he's by himself with the Lord. The second time,
he's by himself when he puts his hand in. And then the third
time, look what happens here. I think this is incredible. It's
almost like a big showing of a movie, like I said. except
it's just for the actors, the actresses, the directors, and
the producers. And Moses is like all of these
in one. And he gets this private consult
with the Lord. If they will not believe these
two signs of deliverance we see here in verses 9 and 10, this
next one will get their attention because their unbelief will be
rendered inexcusable. The Lord thundered out his miracle
so that Moses would not just hear God's teaching but feel
it through the rod, the leper's hand. Now's the third one. The
Lord's now going to mess with their water. He's going to go
after their water supply, and that's going to be tough. Let
us not make light here of the enormous mercy and love that
God bestows by giving his people chance after chance to be opened
up to his divine protection. He's even doing this to the Egyptians.
He's giving them chance after chance. You know, he didn't just
bring one plague to the Egyptians and wipe them out. There were
10 plagues. Each one of these were manipulatives.
They were learning tools to show them, you don't mess with me.
He gives up, we see here, three signs. John Calvin writes, it
was then a wonderful exercise of long-suffering still to persevere
in arresting their dullness. What a word. Look at that word
that John Calvin uses. And he speaks, he's speaking
of himself also. He knew he wasn't perfect. But
he says the Lord is persevering and he's trying to, he's waking
up their dullness. Isn't that how we can be as Christians?
We can just be dullness of thought and dullness of understanding.
And it really comes at the expense of basically not opening our
Bibles. And I maintain here, if you want to sharpen, we can
become very dull when we're not in Scripture, but how does the
Lord say in the book of Proverbs, how iron sharpeneth iron, and
that is through the reading of the Word of God. See how important
the Word of God is here? Here, God himself is speaking
audibly and training Moses, and he's listening to the very Word
of God. James 5.11 we read, Behold, we count them happy, which endure. Ye have heard of the patience
of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is
very pitiful and of tender mercy. And that is the Lord that we
serve. He's very merciful towards us, and He's very patient. And
He's patient enough to give all of these tools to Moses to be
able to go to these people and to show them. He didn't have
to do that. Moses comes back and he says,
but I am slow of speech and of slow tongue. He's still trying
to get out of it. See, our Lord has pity for his
people. The Lord would have been just to only give Israel one
sign, maybe just that of the rod. If they would not hear Moses,
the Lord could have left them right where they were and just
left them annihilated. But we see, as we read in the
response of reading this morning in Psalm 145, verses 8 and 9,
Our Lord, the Lord is gracious and full of compassion. He's
slow to anger and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all, and
His tender mercies are good over all His works. So, we see a third
sign. The Lord is merciful to give
another teaching lesson. God empowers Moses with a third
sign. He gives him a sample. He allows
Moses to go down to the Nile River and to take a water sample
and to pour it out. And when he pours it out, it
becomes red. It becomes his blood. This could be very devastating.
Consider the Conowingo Dam or the Loch Raven Reservoir. What
would you do if you woke up and it was total blood contaminated
and no water? No one could use any of the water
from the Susquehanna or any of these big water, these waterways. We see and we observe how in
this verse Moses narrates what shall happen if Israel does not
hearken. And what happens is I call the Nile River. If you
think about it and you think of the first plague when the
Nile River actually really is turned to blood and it's coming
very soon in the latter chapters, you want to know one of the reasons
I believe that the Lord started with the Nile River? This is
my opinion. It was basically the Egyptian abortion clinic.
That's where the babies, brand new, little, beautiful babies
were thrown one after the other. The male babies were thrown into
the Nile River and they were destroyed. And that was an edict
from Pharaoh that the very, because he said that the women are so
fertile, there's so many babies coming, we got to start doing
a little bit of crowd control. Have you ever seen the bumper
sticker, six billion miracles are enough? Well, that's basically
what Pharaoh was saying for the Hebrew nation. And he said, well,
we're going to slow them down because we're going to take the
males and we're just going to start murdering them. And the midwives
were told at the end of Exodus 1, you take those babies and
throw them into the river. What a horrible thing to do to
a baby. You don't mess with God's creation. We do not mess with
God's creation. You don't touch a little hair,
not one hair on a baby's head. You don't hurt them. And I believe
that basically that is where he started, because that was
their abortion clinic. The river was Egypt's lifeblood until it
became blood. The sign for Israel to see would
render their disbelief unforgivable. The Lord is saying, they will
see my power, and when they see it, if they reject it, it will
be required of them. And that has never changed, all
down through the ages, that if we reject Jesus Christ, it will
be required of us. And Moses said unto them in verse
10, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since
that I have spoken unto thy servant, but I am slow of speech and of
a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who
hath made man's mouth? Well, Moses is still in the grip
of ambivalence over this. We see that the consequences
of Israel rejecting Moses would be devastating, and Moses just
doesn't see that quite yet. But you know something, going
back to this river of blood? I read two commentaries, and
I thought they're very brilliant. Matthew Henry and John Calvin
both said these are manifestations of the lake of fire, of hell.
The color of that river was condemnation, and it's a manifestation of the
wrath of God and of hell. Hell is real. Moses is here the
first mediator, and the Lord is preparing him. Pharaoh is
the enemy. Then we see later in Scripture,
Christ is our second mediator, and Satan is the enemy. You know,
many times reading about Moses, he has been called a type of
a Christ. He is a messenger. He is a mediator. But He's not
the Christ. He was an usher. Just like John
the Baptist had the job of being the herald of the coming of the
Messiah, Moses was a herald of the coming Messiah. And he was
supposed to be preparing the way, just as John the Baptist,
by leading these people out of Egypt, as the Lord said that
He would. The Lord said, if they reject
my word, this is what I'm going to do to them. Moses is the first
mediator. Here's an example of rejecting
God's Word. The sign of the water turning
into blood is to show Israel the wages of sin and the rejection
of God's Word. 1 Samuel 15, 23, we read, For
rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity
and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
These were the words given to Saul. These were the words that
were given to those that rejected him. King Saul was told to destroy
Amalek, all of them and their wealth, but he did not listen.
He spared their cattle, he spared their goods, and the Lord's response
was, he hath rejected me, I will reject him. That's the worst
thing you want to do on this earth, in this life, is to reject
Jesus Christ. There is nothing worse you can
do than that, is to reject him. There are many examples of rejecting
God's Son. We see the Pharisees, which are
an extension of the Jews and the Israelites, rejected and
rebuked Christ many times. In Matthew 15 they ask, Why do
thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For
they wash not their hands when they eat bread. Jesus replied,
Why do you pretend to keep the commandments, but you do not
honor your mother and father? And this happened over and over
and over and over again, even to the point where they said,
You are performing these wonderful miracles. They didn't call them
wonderful. I'm calling them wonderful. You are performing these miracles
by the power of Satan. And that's when Christ came back
and said, you have just denied me and you have just blasphemed
the Holy Spirit, which is an unforgivable sin. Jesus proceeded
on in his teachings, not that which goeth into the mouth defileth
the man, but that which cometh out of the mouth that defileth
the man. See how important in these words the mouth is. We
have to watch our mouths. Disciples replied that the Pharisees
were offended. What is Jesus' response to these
rejecters of him? Matthew chapter 15, verses 13
and 14, and Christ said, it says, but he answered and said, every
plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted
up. Let them alone. They be blind leaders of the
blind. This is one of my favorite sayings of Christ. And if the
blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. I think
that's very important to remember about many so-called religious
establishments today. If they're not preaching the
truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you're following people
that are leading into a very big ditch that's not going upward. It's a big ditch called hell.
And that's very, very sad. As we move forward, we see this
fourth rejection of Moses. Right now, the third sign has
been given. There will be a sample of water drawn out of the river.
It will be turned into blood. This is what's going to happen
if they don't listen. And the conversation continues
on. And boy, would I love to be a
fly on that wall to see this conversation. Boy, I can't imagine
what it must have looked like. But this fourth rejection, you
know, just like we can be very easily, Moses is still worried. He's still questioning the Lord.
Moses is now concerned about what he will say, not just about
what he will say, but how he will say it. How he will say
the words to convince the Israelites. It's not by eloquence or manner
of speech. A preacher of the gospel caters to the congregation's
linguistic sensitivities. It brings a lost soul to Christ.
Remember that. Only by the power of the Holy
Spirit may the heart of the king be changed and a lost soul have
new life breathed into it for salvation. It's not about the
eloquence of the speaker. It's about what words that he's
actually saying. Is he speaking the truth? The gift of oratory
is not a prerequisite for effective ministry. Paul wrote to the Corinthians
in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 1 through 4, he wrote, and I, brethren,
when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or
of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and power." And you have to remember that Paul
the Apostle had to take his eloquence and his brilliance and put it
on the shelf. Because that all came from the
training of Gamaliel from the Pharisees. And when he became
a Christian and he went to teach and preach, he was personally
trained by Christ himself, which made him an apostle, And he said,
I had to leave all that on the shelf. My eloquence came from
the word of Jesus Christ, not from my presence. not from who
I am. What do you see today? How many
of you can sit there, you can say that you've seen on television,
these orders there that you get on, you turn on a station with
some kind of religious wrangling and there's guitars, there's
lights, it looks like a rock show, some great big entertainment
center, and the guy gets up and he's got beautiful white teeth,
big thick black hair, six foot one, he's got a beautiful Versace
suit, it's all about presence, it's all about showmanship and
eloquence. but nothing comes out of His
mouth that makes any sense to cure us of our guilt and to show
us where we are to go with our sin. If there's no sin being
talked about, there's no hell being talked about, and no guilt,
and what we need to do as Christians to follow Jesus Christ, it's
eloquent, but it's not truth. As we're learning in the Wednesday
night prayer meeting, the next one coming up Wednesday night
is a big one. We're going to be answering the question, the
pilot asked the question, three words. What is truth? Do you
want to know what truth is or do you enjoy being lied to? I
don't know why people love to be lied to, but they do. They
love to be lied to. Being told that you're going
to be okay and that there's no impending danger of God's wrath
is being lied to. And the Lord is preparing Moses
to preach and to teach this. Paul says, these are not my words
but Christ's words demonstrated by the Holy Spirit. Moses felt
that he was not a man of words. He thought he was heavy in mouth.
He was unable to articulate his thoughts in fluent flowing speech
and he had forgotten who was directing the words. Can you
imagine the fear that Moses may have had afterwards when he just
started thinking, no, I was pretty emotional when I spoke to God,
but I kind of forgot something. He's the one that created my
mouth. He's the one that puts the breath of life inside of
me and gives me all these heartbeats every day. I think he has the
power to speak through me. Look at the so-called great orders
of today speaking eloquently with nothing of eternal value
to say they have big education, smooth silk words, Barack Obama
said, we need change. Hillary Clinton says, we must
go forward. Nancy Pelosi says, we must have
national health care reform. Al Gore, my favorite, we must
stop global warming. Well, I'll give him this. It's
coming. There is global warming coming. It's called a fervent
heat. How about Joe Allsting? He says, life is like a rainy
day. You are controlling your car and how you set your windshield
wipers is how you let God direct you. Elegant words of prosperity. You set the white windshield
wipers. Well, he forgets to say about the windshield wipers,
who's the one that brings the rain? God is pleased to choose His
messenger, and many have been slow to speech all throughout
Scripture, maybe not so eloquent until the Holy Spirit cleansed
and directed their mouths. Does anybody remember in the
Old Testament who had a real problem with their mouth and
the Lord had to do something about it? He had a real problem
with his mouth. I can relate to that. Isaiah. How was his speech prepared by
the Holy Spirit? In Isaiah chapter 6, and we read
verses 6 and 7. then flew one of the seraphims
unto me, having a live coal in his hands, which he had taken
with the tongs from off the altar, and he laid it upon my mouth,
and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity
is taken away, and thy sin is purged." And we see another situation
where the Lord was preparing a very humble, weak man to go
out and use his mouth to give the oracles of God and to give
the... Wonderful words of life. And
Ezekiel, his response was, Here am I, Lord. Use me. Take me and
use me. Well, John 14, 26. You ever worried about talking
about Christ? You worried about witnessing? To the point where
you just say to yourself, I'm not going to do it? Well, let
me tell you something. John 14, 26 we read, "...but
the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send
in my name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things
to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." The Lord
promises that He will give us the words to say if we trust
in Him. And He does. You know, we have a relationship
with Christ. The only way you're going to
have this power of having the Holy Spirit speaking through
you is to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I had a question
this morning. Do you carry that glorious power?
Do you have that? Are you sure and are you sure
in your heart that Jesus Christ is in your heart? Have you repented
of your sins and asked Him to come into your heart? If you
have, it's a manifestation that He has called you. Not that you
have decided to follow Jesus on some whim. That's, you know
that He has called you and He loves you. Remember how Ezekiel
ate the Word of God, and he ingested it. It tasted as sweet as honey,
and it would come out of him to the people of Israel as directed
by God. And we read in these verses,
Moses said unto the Lord in verse 10, O my Lord, I am not eloquent,
neither heretofore nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant.
But I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord
said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? Or who maketh the
dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the
Lord? Now therefore go, and I will
be with thy mouth, and teach thee, and thou shalt say. And
he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom
thou wilt send. And we see two more objections.
I cannot speak well, and Moses just flat out gets scared, and
he says, Please send somebody else. With all of this, and the
Lord showing him who's in charge, he says, please send someone
else. Jeremiah said, but I am a child. Lord, I can't do this
in Jeremiah 1. Peter and Andrew were fishermen.
Were they eloquent? Well, only when they were directed
by the Holy Spirit. Moses had been tending sheep
40 years. He was trained to be eloquent
and mighty in speech in Egypt, but for 40 years, he probably
forgot a few things. And he's asking the Lord here,
he's saying, Lord, let me off the hook. So what is God's response
here? He's now angered at Moses at
this fourth objection. Moses knew God created all things.
He narrates creation, but he forgets God also creates the
mouth. And he says, I will speak through
thee. And I think we can't look at this enough and we can't be
reminded of this enough, how important our mouths are and
what comes out of our mouths really affects other people.
And it's very important that we're careful. I mean, James,
book of James, James says our mouth is like a rudder of a ship.
That's how powerful it can be. So what is God's response? We
see here it is God that creates the mouth. It's the one who gives
us our words to speak. Isaiah chapter 50, verse 4. The
Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned that I should
know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakeneth
morning by morning. He wakeneth my ear to hear as
the learned. The Lord hath given me the tongue
of the learned, here Isaiah says. Here God's anger is kindled against
his servant Moses. And I think what happens here
is a beautiful, another sign of God's merciful love. Now after
five objections, God is furious. His anger is kindled against
Moses. And normally that is something
in the Bible that we can see really bad things happen when
the Lord's anger is kindled. Look what happened to Achan and
his family when the Lord was furious with Achan and the ground
opened up. I mean, Achan was actually executed. Look at the Korahites who had
defied Moses and the ground literally opened up and swallowed them
up. But in this situation, does the Lord turn around and he destroy
Moses? No, He hangs right there with
them and He will you. He will stay with you no matter
how hard it gets. Illnesses, family in the hospital,
financial problems, problems maybe with children, problems
with jobs, problems with your own health, the Lord will guide
you all the way through it to the end. He promises that. He
doesn't turn on Moses here and turn and say, I'm tired of you
rejecting me. I'm tired of all of your whining
and complaining. I'm done. You're done. I'm done
with you. I will forget about you and I
will find somebody else. He says in verse 13, Moses says,
I pray, basically says it's a neglect of duty we read here that he
wants to stop. And here in verse 14, And the
anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is
not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well.
And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee, and when he seeth
thee, he will be glad in his heart, and now shall speak unto
him, and put words in his mouth, and I will be with thy mouth,
and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do. He
turns around and he gives him his brother. The Lord turns around
and he gives him a friend. And his brother was his friend.
He and Aaron were like this. And he said, you guys go out
and you just talk and you sit down and while you're calming
yourself down Moses, I will create an opportunity and I will basically
tell Aaron myself to get over here to sit down and talk with
you and he will comfort you. And not only will I comfort you
but your brother will and you will tell him the things that
he needs to speak and he will help you because he is an eloquent
speaker. And the funny thing about this
is, as you read on with the story, basically it's Moses that winds
up doing most of the talking. That's what happens from this
point forward. But there, God sends a comfort to Moses. Instead of punishing him, he
sends Aaron. And now you're going to be reading
through the next several chapters, five, six, seven, and on. There's
Aaron right there with him when he goes and he faces Darth Vader.
Pharaoh. He's got to walk all the way
down that long way. He's got to go back into Egypt
looking over his shoulder because they wanted to kill him at one
point. And he's got to go face Pharaoh and look at him face
to face and say, I want my people. I want them out of here. And
that's what I want. But now he's going to have Aaron
standing next to him. He's going to have his rod. He's
going to have his hand. He's going to have God. And now
Aaron. And look at all the blessings
that the Lord gives. Moses had kindled God's wrath. Remember
Job. Nobody in Scripture, always remember
this, nobody in Scripture ever had bad enough things happen
to them that ever floored God and called and had the Lord God
Almighty bow down and worship them with sympathy because they
had had it so rough. The Lord never could be upended
from anybody's personal situation because He was always there perfectly
strong enough to be there to help. Job is the one that I think
of the most. See here how the Lord is speaking
to Moses. God speaks fervently to Job and
gives him an answer of his providence also. In Job's life, we know
what happened. He lost his family, he lost his cattle, he lost his
house, he lost everything but his nagging wife that kept telling
him to curse God's name. His wife kept telling him, curse
his name, get it over with and he will destroy you and you will
finally be happy. And Job said, no. But when we
go on in Job chapter 38, we read these verses. The Lord comes
back and He says in chapter 38, verses 34 to 36, He asked the
question, Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that
abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send lightnings,
that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are? Who hath put
wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding
to the heart? And here the Lord is giving rhetorical
questions Who gave you your mouth? Who gave you your body? Who gave
you your family? Who has given you everything?
So why is it that we can't worship the Lord if we know that He created?
What do you think here? Does anybody think here that
you came from some 10 billion years of primordial slime that
blew up out of nowhere in the heavens somewhere up in the sky?
Where is the help and where is the faith in that? You have to
have real blind faith to believe in evolution. Here we just read
words that proves that God says who he says he was. I don't read
anything about evolution here. I don't read anything about Charles
Darwin or anything in here. Everything is centered on God.
Moses knows it. Isaiah knows it. Jeremiah knew
it. Ezekiel knows it. God himself
knows it. And he gave us all the words
to learn it. But yet there are millions of people out there
that believe God is just some kind of fairy tale like the Easter
bunny. And he has no power whatsoever. Defanged, nothing at all to add,
and people actually live their lives in that utter lie and horror.
Well, we just read what the Lord said to Job, Whenever you look
up to the clouds, think of God. Moses is now at the point of
despair. He decides he desires to concede his ambassadorship.
Does God cast him down and rent him his angriest kindle? Of course
not. He says, and he asked him another question. Is not Aaron
the Levite thy brother? And out of nowhere, the Lord
responds to Moses and the sign, and he shows it to him. And just
as God speaks through Moses, he will now speak through Aaron.
He will give him the merciful words of Himself, and his older
brother will be with him. And I love, all throughout Scripture,
many times there have been these wonderful little friendships
that have encouraged those that were in utter terror. And you
will have that. You go to the Lord and you're
feeling alone. The Lord will give you. He will
give you someone to encourage you. Many times in Scripture,
God has sent aides to those who He chooses. Remember Jonathan
to David in 1 Samuel 18, verse 1. The soul of Jonathan was knit
with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. What
about when Elijah had been fed up and the Lord said, there are
7,000 that have not turned their knee to Baal, and eventually
Elijah stays, the Lord uses him, and he goes up to heaven in a
chariot of fire? 1 Kings 19.16 we read, And Elisha
the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet
in thy room. What about Saul when he's converted? There was a man named Ananias.
And Ananias said to the Lord, this guy's public enemy number
one. We don't need him looking inside
of our little circle of Christians. He's going to expose us to the
Pharisees and the Sanhedrin and they'll kill us all. Acts 9.10,
And there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. And
to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold,
I am here. Verse 11, And the Lord said unto
him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and
inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he prayeth." Paul,
now Saul becomes Paul, he prayeth. And the Lord changed his heart
and saved him. Remember how Saul said, Lord,
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Have you ever said that
in your life to the Lord? How do you expect the Lord to
ever help you and open up the heavens to you and help you if
you can't even say to Him, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
What do you want me to do, Lord? And you may have these five objections
before you get to that point. It's a work in progress because
we're all very slow learners when it comes to Christ. In fact,
many of us are very kickers and screamers. But we need to get
to the point where we are like Saul. Lord, Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do? And even the Lord might come
back to me and say, like he said to Paul, you know, Saul, thou
hast kicked against the pricks. In essence, he was calling him
as dumb as an ox, but I'm going to speak through you, and I'm
going to use you, and you will see things that you have never
imagined. And I love in John 1, verse 52,
when he tells Nathanael and Philip, You don't underestimate me, as
Nathanael had just said, as anything good come out of Nazareth. And
he says, I'm going to show you the angels ascending and descending
from heaven. That's power. And it's real. And I'm here to tell you that
it's true. Well, here we have Aaron, here we have Moses, and
we've always seen in Scripture, when two get together, it's always
better than one. Ecclesiastes 4.9 says, two are
better than one because they have a good reward for their
labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow,
but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath
not another to help him up. God will have two witnesses.
Deuteronomy 17.6, God uses two witnesses for the conviction
of slaying of idolaters. In chapter 17, verse 6 in Deuteronomy,
we read, at the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses
shall he that is worthy of death be put to death. Two witnesses
were sent by God in Revelations 11.3, and I will give power unto
my two witnesses. Two by two. And we see here as
we go forward in verse 16, "...and how He shall be thy spokesman
unto the people, and even He shall be to thee instead of a
mouth, and thou shalt be to Him instead of God. And thou shalt
take this rod in thy hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs." And God
bids Moses to take the rod of support. It will be his staff
of authority. It will be Moses' word and his
scepter. For it is God who takes the humble
shepherd's crook and ordains it with great power. And it shows
how Moses is nothing more, nothing less than a beautiful shepherd.
And this is where it all starts. This is a massive, massive learning
and an understanding of redemption. And it's shown through the gospel
of Jesus Christ where Moses is speaking to the people. He will
go, he will carry that rod beyond 80 years old, and he will take
Aaron with him. And what happens next? Let's
finish up by reading a little bit more. This is a great story.
Verse 17, And thou shalt take this rod in thy hand wherewith
thou shalt do signs. And Moses, verse 18, went and
returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said unto him, Let me go,
I pray thee, and return unto my brethren which are in Egypt,
and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go
in peace. And the Lord said unto Moses
and Midian, Go, return into Egypt, for all the men are dead which
sought thy life. Look at that. Look at all the
things the Lord does for a five-part complaining Moses with all of
his objections. What he does is he says, don't
worry, I'll give you signs. I'll let you have miracles. Throw
the rod down, it'll turn into a snake. Have you ever seen anybody
do that yet? Has someone ever come up to you and thrown like
a baseball bat down and it became a snake? I have never seen that. I'd like to see that. Well, he
did it. And he says, take your hand,
put it in your cloak. I'm going to show you the power of cleansing.
It's leprous and then it's healed. And then he shows him the water,
gives him Aaron. And then when it's all said and
done, you go into two more verses. I have taken the lives of everyone
that would hurt a hair on your head. I've already killed them.
And I've cleared the way so that you can go in and do your job.
Nobody's going to hurt you. And I can guarantee this, when
the Lord said nobody would hurt him, He could have went up and
punched Pharaoh in the face, and nothing would have happened
to him. Not that he would do that. But the Lord said, you
go in, I have cleared the way. Nobody's going to touch you.
And I can promise you this, I don't know what's going to happen in
all of our lives from this day forward, but when the Lord says
He'll be with you, you can count on that. You can count on it,
and the only way you're going to be encouraged and reminded
of it every day is to be in the Word of God and to remember He
is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. You wonder why you're getting
older? You wonder why you're getting sicker? You wonder why
it gets hard? Those are the effects of sin.
But the Lord says, it's a short time. I mean, this is all, all
of eternity. It goes around and around. You've
got 70, 80 years, tiny years on this earth. Trust in Jesus
Christ. When you leave this earth, you
will have perfect health, perfect fellowship, everything you can't
even begin to imagine on this earth. So why do we sit around
and we whine about having, oh, I don't want to go. I don't want
to go. I want to be here as long as possible. You know, people
are spending millions of dollars to try to be younger. Nothing
wrong with that. It's nothing wrong with a good
quality of living. I don't know about Botox and all kinds of
facial stuff and all. I don't know. I'm not going there.
But you know, one of these days. You're basically in the stage
of like a cocoon, like a butterfly. What is it? Egg, larva, pupa,
and all that, and adult, whatever. You're in those three stages.
It's the fourth one you want with God because that adult stage
is getting out of this and going up with Him and having anything
you can imagine. But the greatest thing that I
can't wait is I want to see Jesus Christ. I can't wait to see Him. Because the only thing He's going
to show me from this world is the holes in His hands and the
lacerations on His body that He shed His blood on the cross
for me. that I might be with him when
I never deserved it. And that is what this story is
all about. It's the opening of redemption,
and it's so much more. And we'll get into that, Lord
willing, next. Let's close with prayer. Our Heavenly Father,
we just thank Thee for the drama. the real, perfect, non-manipulative,
truthful drama of what happened here in this wonderful passage
where we saw a man at 80 years old being groomed for the ministry,
answering that call because Thou put it in his heart and spared
over 2 million people and brought them out of horrible enslavement
in Egypt and went on, and many of them A very, actually a small
amount of them, but many, went to the promised land. Moses never
saw the promised land. But Lord, we read here, when
his time was done on this earth at the age of 120 years old on
the mountain, he had a personal burial by thee and the angels.
And it's incredible to see how Thou treatest Thy people. We
thank Thee that we could be associated, that we know Thy Word, and we
thank Thee, Lord, that we can read. For God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. In the
name of Jesus Christ, we thank Thee. Amen.
"God's Response to Moses' Objections"
| Sermon ID | 812221350255235 |
| Duration | 47:30 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Exodus 4:9-17 |
| Language | English |
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