(I entered stage left, dressed as Joshua, the son of Nun, and carrying a Ram’s horn – or Shofar. There are several websites that will allow you to hear the sound of the Shofar, but I found that I was able to make a reasonable sound from the horn with very little effort. I used the musical notations from “The Ten Commandments” with Charleston Heston - as the people began their procession out of Egypt - as my model.
I entered from the side of the auditorium, down on the main floor in front of the stage, and blew the horn as if alerting the nation of Israel – first toward stage right, next toward the back of the stage and lastly toward the audience - allowing the last notes of each cadence to linger. Then I faced the audience and began my presentation)
That is the sound of the Shofar. It is the horn of a ram that God commanded to be used to call the people of God to worship and to war.
I’ve heard it many times.
It’s purpose was to call God’s people to specific responsibilities.
And I have listened to call of the Shofar
And I have listened to the call of God Himself.
(placing Shofar on a nearby surface to be used later)
My name is Joshua, the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim.
I was born in Egypt in a time of trouble
My father had died a slave in the chains of a wicked nation. (1)
(pause)
But then a man named Moses – along with his brother Aaron - came to our people. They said that God had sent them to free our people from their slavery and to stand before Pharaoh and demand: “Let MY people go!”
From the moment I saw him, I knew that this Moses followed God…
And I knew that this Moses was a man I wanted to follow.
At every opportunity, I got as close to him as possible.
Whenever he spoke to Pharaoh, I stood in the crowd.
Whenever he kneeled in prayer, I knelt as well.
I waited outside his tent in the morning,
I brought him food and water
I ran errands
And when he spoke to people by the campfires in the evening, I asked questions about this God he’d spoken with. This God that he had met on the side of mountain and who spoke to him from a bush that was on fire, but never burned up.
In time, I became one of Moses’ closest and most trusted associates.
In fact, I became like a son to him.
And he became like a father to me.
(pause)
Today – for you – is Father’s Day.. and I have come to share what I know on this topic.
Being a father is difficult… I should know I am one.
But all that I’ve learned of being a father I learned at the feet of Moses.
And the first thing I learned was that a Godly father desires to have a child that he can trust. We are driven by the passion to not only have our children grow up to be save and successful in life… but also that they would grow up to do us honor. To make us proud. To be able to be trusted with the future we’ve placed in their hands.
But trust is not an easy thing to give.
For trust must be earned.
When we were encamped at the base of Mt. Sinai, Moses ascended (I ascended the steps on the left side of the stage) to the top of that mountain to spend several days in God’s presence and receive the Law engraved on tablets of stone.
(Pointing to floor in front of the stage and coming back down the steps)
I pitched my tent at the base of the mountain and waited there for him to return.
Moses left the Israelites in the care of his brother Aaron. He trusted Aaron and believed that Israel was safe in his bro’s hands. But on the 40th day, as Moses came down from the Mountain, and stood near my tent we heard a terrible commotion in the camp.
And I said “There is the sound of war in the camp." Exodus 32:17
To which Moses replied: "It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear." Exodus 32:18
When we reached the camp, there the people were dancing and singing and worshipping… a golden calf! A graven image! They were already disobeying the direct command they had heard from the very voice of God not more than 40 days before.
It was a golden calf… made by the hands of Aaron himself.
When Moses asked what had happened, Aaron blamed the people.
He said they had demanded that he build them this calf and that he had simply taken the gold ornaments they gave him… threw them in the fire… and out came this calf!
I’d have laughed if it hadn’t been so sad.
Moses loved his brother… and he did forgive him this grave sin. But Aaron had betrayed his brother’s trust, and while Moses still trusted him, he never trusted Aaron to the same degree he had before.
Trust once lost is not easily regained.
From that day forward I determined that I would NEVER disappointment this man whom I loved so much. I would strive to be worthy of his trust and be the best “son” to Moses that I could possibly be.
For if I ever broke his trust, it would break my heart.
The 2nd thing I learned from Moses about fatherhood, was that a Godly father lifts his children up in prayer.
After we had crossed the Red Sea
(point to the opposite side of the auditorium from where I mounted the steps earlier)
and just before we reached the Mountain where Moses’ rec’d the Law from God
(pointing to the area of the steps where I had gone up on “the mountain”)
we encountered a tribe of people called the Amalekites.
As we passed through their land, these deceitful and cunning people attacked us from behind in hopes of carrying away some of our possessions.
Moses called upon me to put together a force of men to go fight them.
As I led our army out to battle, Moses went up on a small mountain nearby where he could watch the battle as it unfolded. And there he raised his arms to the heavens (raising my own arms).
Your Bible doesn’t tell you what Moses was doing that for.
But I knew what he was doing.
He was praying for me… and for the men I led into battle.
And as long as he kept his arms in the air I succeeded.
But whenever he dropped his arms I failed.
His prayer sustained me and gave me success
When Aaron and Hur saw that this was true, they sat Moses down on a rock and stood on either side holding Moses’ arms up for him.
And because of his prayers, and because of their faithfulness – the army that I led won the battle.
Ever since that day I’ve learned the value of a father praying for his children.
We become like priests to our family and our prayers have power.
Power to encourage, to strengthen and enable for success.
It’s like (pause as if searching for a good analogy)… it’s like… the sound of the Shofar calling men to worship and to war (pick up the Shofar with both hands and lift it heavenward). The sound of our prayers in the courts of heaven calls the power of God down…for our families… and our place of worship… and our nation.
And we when we pray, Godly fathers understand the need to pray WITH other men… because sometimes we become weak and discouraged in prayer. We need other men around us to lift up our arms and give our prayers strength.
One more thing I learned from Moses about being a father, is that we should lead our children to God. We should lead in our faith. And we should deliberately. We should do it on purpose.
This is not like a conversation down at the river while fishing.
It’s not like a casual discussion as we walked along the path together.
Though both of those activities have value.
But a father should deliberately lead his children to God.
And Moses did this for me in many ways.
He took me with him when he went to the Tabernacle.
We sang together. We prayed together.
And we spent time studying from the Law he’d received from God on the Mt.
We went through it verse by verse, item by item, thought by thought. And we discussed what it told us about God, and what it told us about the kind of people we needed to be to please Him.
But even more importantly than that, Moses told me what it was like to be in God’s presence. He spoke of going up on the mountain and talking with God face to face, as with a friend. He told me what he’d seen, and heard and felt. He wanted me to understand what it was like to be in the presence of a living God. He wanted me know what it was like to have an experience like one I would probably never know for myself.
And because this God was real to Him, He became very real to me.
Then one day Moses brought me before Eleazar – the priest of God. And before all the people of Israel. There he laid his hand upon me and he said:
“This is Joshua. He is like a son to me.
Listen to him… for he will lead you into the promised land.”
Not many days later, Moses went to the top of Mt. Nebo where he was permitted to look upon the promised land. A land that he would never be allowed to enter because of the sin in his life.
And there on the mountain is where he died.
I never say him again.
Why?
Why would God take him like that.
Why couldn’t Moses stay alive just long enough to lead me and the people of Israel into the promised land?
Why?
(Pause)
As fathers we need to realize that we can only lead our children so far.
We can only give them so much advice, so much encouragement, so much support.
We can lead them to the edge of their new life… but we can’t go with them when they cross over into their future.
That’s one thing I learned that day.
But there is something more for us to learn.
Something deeper and far more powerful for us to understand.
For, you see, ever since the day that Moses went up on Mount Sinai and received the commandments of God – from that day forward Moses represented the Law of God in our eyes.
And the Law of God was a powerful gift to us.
The law taught us about the holiness of our God and of His righteousness.
And it taught us how we might live our lives to be pleasing to Him.
But as perfect and powerful as this Law of God was… it had one weakness.
It had no power to transform our lives and make us righteous.
It had no power to make us holy.
Even we who had heard the very voice of God from the Mountain as He proclaimed His law to us that day… even we could not completely keep the commands of God. That’s one of the reasons why we wandered in the wilderness for 40 years!
Had Moses – who represented the Law – been permitted to lead God’s people into the Promised Land it would have sent entirely the wrong message. It would have given people the impression that we could be righteous enough on our own to be pleasing to God. That we could – by our own holiness – enter into God’s presence.
But the Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the power of God.
None are righteous… not even one.
And by NOT permitting Moses to lead Israel across the Jordan God place a mental picture in our minds. For Moses was one of the most holy men that had ever lived.
He spoke with God face to face as a friend speaks to a friend.
I believe that there has never been a man who has ever lived that has ever been as righteous.
But God wanted us to understand that even this most righteous of men was not good enough to be good enough for God.
Because of even a small amount of sin in Moses’ life, he was not permitted to lead God’s people out of the desert of sin into the land of promise.
That privilege was left to me – Joshua.
Does any one know what my name means in Hebrew?
”Savior”
It is a strange quirk of my language that my name means the same as the name “Jesus”
“Savior.”
Just as Moses stood before the people and essentially said:
“This is Joshua… he is like my son… listen to Him”
So also, God declared from on high about Jesus
”This is my beloved Son… listen to Him”
We cannot get into the promised land by following Moses and the Law.
Jesus is the only one we can follow who will allow us to cross the vast expanse that lies between God and ourselves.
It is only by listening to Jesus that you can be pleasing to God.
It is only by following Him that you can enter into Heaven.
Toward the end of my life, as I stood before Israel I prayed for them.
And I said to them: “Choose”.
“Choose”
“Choose this day who you will serve… but as for me and my family we will serve the Lord.”
That is the challenge that God sets before you today as well.
Choose.
Choose whether you will listen to God’s only begotten Son.
Choose whether you will follow His will, or your own.
For a day is coming when you’ll no longer be able to make that choice.
A day is coming when the horn of God will sound one last time.
There will be loud command, the voice of an archangel, and the last trumpet of God
(lift shofar to lips and sound it’s call once more).
What will be your choice today?
Won’t you please come forward as we stand and sing our invitation song this morning.
(1) I felt the need to describe Joshua’s father (Nun) as having died before the Exodus so that I could focus completely on the Father/Son relationship of Moses and Joshua. Scripture tells us nothing of Joshua’s father’s life or death… and I realize he may very well have been alive for many year after the nation left Egypt.
