1. Unanswered Prayer
A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men on it were able to swim to a small, desert-like island. The two survivors, not knowing what else to do, agreed that they had no other recourse but to pray to God. However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful, they agreed to divide the territory between them and stay on opposite sides of the island.
The first thing they prayed for was food. The next morning, the first man saw a fruit-bearing tree on his side of the land, and he was able to eat its fruit. The other man's parcel of land remained barren.
After a week, the first man was lonely and he decided to pray for a wife. The next day, another ship was wrecked, and the only survivor was a woman who swam to his side of the land. On the other side of the island, there was nothing.
Soon the first man prayed for a house, clothes, more food. The next day, like magic, all of these were given to him. However, the second man still had nothing.
Finally, the first man prayed for a ship, so that he and his wife could leave the island. In the morning, he found a ship docked at his side of the island. The first man boarded the ship with his wife and decided to leave the second man on the island. He considered the other man unworthy to receive God's blessing, since none of his prayers had been answered.
As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from heaven booming, "Why are you leaving your companion on the island?"
"My blessings are mine alone, since I was the one who prayed for them," the first man answered. "His prayers were all unanswered and so he does not deserve anything."
"You are mistaken!" the voice rebuked him. "He had only one prayer, which I answered. If not for that, you would not have received any of my blessings."
"Tell me," the first man asked the voice, "what did he pray for that I should owe him anything?"
"He prayed that all your prayers be answered."
2. Sometimes God gives us what we ask for and sometimes he gives us what we need
3. I Want to Know You Better! Psalm 13 (Mark)
4. Getting Our Attention: Times of Despair (1-4)
a. Mule and 2 X 4 -- warning, don't ask for more of God too lightly
b. Getting to know God requires letting go/death of the flesh.
I. Moses' Story with Israel is Our Story of Salvation
A. Israel in Egypt via Joseph
B. The Beginnings of Moses' Deliverance of the People
1. Moses' Arrogance
2. Moses' Humiliation
3. Moses' Encounter with God at the burning Bush -- Exodus 3.13
C. Moses Vs. Pharaoh
1. Courageous Confrontation
2. Increased distress -- 5.1-9; 15-21
D. God's Name Is Declared and Honored -- 5.22-6.9 (MARK and note the 4 cups)
Henry Blackaby said, "You never find God asking persons to dream up what they want to do for Him...Without doubt, the most important factor in each (Biblical) situation was not what the individual wanted to do for God. The most important factor was what God was about to do." (Experiencing God, page 66)
He adds, "God reveals His purposes (His tasks) so you will know what He plans to do... When God came to Noah He did not ask, 'What do you want to do for me?' He came to reveal what He was about to do. It was far more important to know what God was about to do. It really did not matter what Noah had planned to do for God. God was about to destroy the world. He wanted to work through Noah to accomplish His purposes of saving a remnant of people and animals to repopulate the earth." (page 99)
1. El Shaddai -- God Almighty/Provider
There was a single mother who had heard a Biblical financial teacher say, "Quit looking at your job as the source of your income. Look at your job as only one avenue, one channel the Source, El Shaddai, uses to bring finances into your life. Begin to teach your children to look to their heavenly Father as their Source, not the parents."
Her little daughter, one day told her that she wanted a bike, like all the other children. Her mother, at first was about to reply, "Honey, momma does not have extra money," because this was her typical response. However, she remembered what the teacher said in the seminar, so she told her daughter, "Let's ask the Lord for a bike". They prayed together and thanked God for hearing their prayer.
A few days later, the little girl received a check in the mail, payable to her personally. On the way to town to cash the check, they noticed a man placing a bicycle out by the side of the road. The mother stopped the car and asked the man what he was going to do with that bike. The man replied that his daughter had quickly outgrown the use of it and he was going to sell it. The little girl asked the man how much he wanted and he replied, "For you, $25.00." which was exactly the amount of the CHECK the received in the mail!"
The little grew up not remembering a mother who worked hard to buy a bike, but thankful for a mother who taught her about her Heavenly Father, who cared about an eight years old's need.
2. YHWH -- stated but not experienced
II. Moses -- Type of Yeshua (Jesus)
A. Both in Similar Situations
1. Moses in Egypt -- Yeshua (Jesus) in the World --
2. Captivity and Sin
B. Both Sent by God to Declare His Name
1. Moses' Declaration of YHWH to Pharaoh and Israel
2. Yeshua (Jesus) -- John 17 (following Pesach meal -- Prayers)
a. Reveal the Name of God -- 17.6
6 "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
b. Keep them in the Name -- 17.11-12
11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
c. Declare Name -- 17.26
26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."
3. Power of the Name
a. NOT in pronunciation
b. In the Nature/Character of God
We're going to play a little association game. I'm going to say a name, and you think about the first thing that comes into your mind. [Kevorkian, IBM, ACLU, Clinton, Earnhardt, Braves] Names are more than just a way of finding someone in the phone book. Eventually, a person or an organization's name comes to symbolize the kind of character that that person or organization possesses.
1) I will be who I will be/ am what I am
2) Beyond our comprehension
3) Outside our little boxes
C. Both were sent to redeem -- Can't be done in El Shaddai only in YHWH
III. Moses' Journey in the Desert is Repeated (Moses -- 40 years in Midian)
A. In Yeshua (Jesus) -- Mark 1.12-13
12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.
1. Immediately after His Baptism
2. Driven -- not fun but profitable
3. Deeper understanding of and faith in God -- Provider and LORD (Matthew 7.21)
B. In US
1. Moses' basket
a. "Ark" -- covered in pitch as Noah's ark
b. Noah -- 1 Peter 3.21-22
21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
1) Moses was saved as an infant from a wicked Pharaoh by an Egyptian woman; Yeshua (Jesus) was saved from a wicked Herod by Egypt
2) Moses was a new creation from the waters of the Nile; WE are new creatures in our baptism in Yeshua (Jesus)
2. Pain of Rejection
a. Moses was rejected by his people (killing the Egyptian; often in wilderness journey)
b. Yeshua (Jesus) was rejected by his brothers (John 7.1-9 After this Jesus went about in Galilee; he would not go about in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him. 2 Now the Jews' feast of Tabernacles was at hand.3 So his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples may see the works you are doing. 4 For no man works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world." 5 For even his brothers did not believe in him. 6 Jesus said to them, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil. 8 Go to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come." 9 So saying, he remained in Galilee.
c. US --
24 "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25 It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. Matthew 10.24-25
12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker;16 yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God. 1 Peter 4.12-16
3. Power of God
a. Staff to Snake to Staff = God's Rod/tool
b. Leprous hand (clean -- bosom/heart -- leprosy -- clean) -- God cleans our hearts and hands for his service
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me. Psalm 51.10
1. Can feel removed from God by sins
When Norman Vincent Peal was a boy, he found a big, black cigar, slipped into an alley, and lit up. It didn't taste good, but it made him feel very grown up...until he saw his father coming. Quickly he put the cigar behind his back and tried to be casual. Desperate to divert his father's attention, Norman pointed to a billboard advertising the circus. "Can I go, Dad? Please, let's go when it comes to town."
His father's reply taught Norman a lesson he never forgot. "Son, he answered quietly but firmly, "never make a petition while at the same time trying to hide a smoldering disobedience."
2. Can feel removed from God by design
a. Moses had waited for years for the event at Mt. Horeb (Exodus 3.10)
b. Removed shoes to remind him of what he was -- dust -- not a great prince or even a humble shepherd (Exodus 3.5)
c. Learned that YHWH is all that matters
1) Desert is teacher
2) Desert breaks us
3) Learn of God
4) Don't need to know how God works; only that he does
5) Trust him
6) Faith is not proven true by answered prayer but by unanswered prayer that does not make us waver or give up on God. - John Kapteyn
3. We are now in a position to reveal his name
