A preacher was invited to an area church to preach. When he began his sermon, there was enthusiasm. The more the congregation responded loud to his sermon, the longer he went on. Finally, he noticed that the host preacher had started responding to his sermon by saying "Amen, Pharaoh."
After a long-winded sermon and the host pastor's constant repetition of "Amen, Pharaoh," he finally ended. Back in the office, he was bold enough to ask the host, "Why did you say 'Amen Pharaoh' to my sermon?"
The preacher responded: "I was trying to tell you to 'Let my people go!'"
We will try to keep our lesson to a reasonable time
We will deal with Moses and some of his issues in serving God
“Moses spent his first forty years thinking he was somebody. He spend his second forty years learning he was a nobody. He spent his third forty years discovering what God can do with a nobody.” Dwight L. Moody
Acts 7.17-22
Moses was raised to deliver the nation – as was predicted in Genesis 15.13-14
13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
I. Moses Jumped the Gun
A. Moses Was Esteemed
1. He was Esteemed by God – 7.20
2. He was Esteemed by his Parents (Exodus 2.2)
3. He was Esteemed by Pharaoh’s Daughter
4. He was Esteemed by Pharaoh (Acts 7.22)
Mighty in Words and Deeds
Groomed to be a leader in Egypt
When King Louis XIV of France was dethroned, someone kidnapped his son. They tried to spoil him and dethrone him. The people who captured him exposed him to vulgar language, excessive alcohol and women—anything to feed his passions and to try to keep him from fulfilling his destiny. After 6 months he refused and refused and refused. Finally his captors said, “Why haven’t you succumbed to any of these passions? Why haven’t you indulged yourself in any of these things?” The king’s son replied “I cannot indulge in any of those things because I was born to be a king!”
5. He Esteemed Himself
B. Moses Expected a Following (7.23-25)
1. Apparently Understood his destiny – a type of king to deliver Hebrews from affliction (7.18 cf. Exodus 1.7-8)
2. Tried to right a wrong by doing wrong
Did not see God at work and did not wait on him – Psalm 27.14
Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the LORD!
[Do we ever deal with church issues in Moses’ manner?
No one is trying to fix it – so I will; no one is looking and I assassinate a person’s character with a whisper campaign
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. Galatians 5.14-15
What SHOULD we do?
3. Rejected and Fled to Midian
4. Good News – even when we make rash decisions God can still use us – in time; Moses needed more training – with the sheep
II. Moses Tried to Dodge God’s Bullet
“Send Me a Sign” – Flaming Arrow, etc.
A. An Enlightening Encounter – a Burning Bush
1. Pattern for the Hebrews’ Menorah in Tabernacle/Temple
2. God’s Lamp for Man’s Light
B. Elaborate Excuses
It was Benjamin Franklin who said: “He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
John Swigert, Jr. had an interesting excuse in 1970. Who is John Swigert, Jr.?
• John L. Swigert, Jr. was one of the three astronauts aboard the ill-fated Apollo 13 moon mission in 1970.
• Swigert was originally part of the backup crew for the mission, but was assigned to the mission just 3 days before launch, replacing astronaut Ken Mattingly, because Mattingly had been exposed to German Measles and he had not been immunized against it.
• Swigert’s last minute substitution interfered with filing his federal income-tax return.
• On the second day of Apollo 13, April 12, Swigert asked Mission Control to begin work to get him an extension on his filing, giving the excuse that he was a last minute substitution.
• The IRS didn't have to make a special ruling to grant Swigert a two-month extension because of his “I'm-on-my-way-to-the-moon excuse.”
• There was already a regulation that provided an automatic extension for anyone out of the country and being on the moon qualified as being out of the country.
1. Excuse #1 – Who Am I? – Exodus 3.10-11
a. Already tried and failed
b. “I am with you” – Exodus 3.13
2. Excuse #2 – I Don’t Know Enough – Exodus 3.13
a. Who knows it all? The more I study, the less I know
b. God’s Assurance – Exodus 3.14-22
1) YHWH
2) The People will listen
3) Pharaoh will even listen – eventually
3. Excuse #3 – They Won’t Listen – Exodus 4.1-9
1) Signs of Power
2) Staff to snake to staff/hand leprous and back
4. Excuse #4 – I Don’t Have the Gift – Exodus 4.10
a. “Mighty in his words and deeds” (Acts 7.22) = talent
b. Sheep?
c. God’s Presence – Exodus 4.11-12
d. God is not looking for ability, he is looking for availability
Availability, not Ability
Moses was old and shepherd of sheep on the backside of the desert. He failed at age 40 with his talent, rank and money to deliver his people. He tried to do it in his own strength. God moved into his life at age 80; not in the palace but in a pasture.
God does not need out talents, rank and money, He need us. When God gets us He gets everything else.
5. Excuse #5 – I Don’t Want to get Involved – Exodus 4.13
III. Moses Was “On Target” with God (Acts 7.35-36)
A. Solutions from an Angry God – Exodus 4.14-17
B. Success from a Acquiescent Moses
Harry Truman, whose presidency included such momentous decisions as the Marshall Plan and the first use of the atomic bomb, once said: “I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt.” Os Guinness, The Call (USA: W Publishing Group, 1998), 75.
Not long ago, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in 87 years. It was funny listening to all the stories the next day on Sports Talk radio stations, as they had people from all around the country, telling of how long they, and their parents and grandparents had waited for that day. It didn’t matter if you were 95, like one caller, or 12, like another. The Red Sox fans had waited so long for that victory. It was overwhelming to them. One news report showed a cemetery, that had Red Sox t-shirts placed over about 1/3 of the headstones – many who had died waiting for the Sox victory.
God waited nearly that long (80 years) to bring Moses into a leadership position to lead his people out of bondage to freedom in the Land of Promise.
Easy to criticize Moses
Aristotle wrote: “It’s easy to avoid criticism: all you have to do is say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
From a speech by Theodore Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Rabbi Zusya years ago said, "In the world to come I will not be asked (by God), ’Why were you not Moses?’ I will be asked, ’Why were you not Zusya?’" B. Larsen, Luke, p. 42.
