THE LORD’S ARM IS NOT SHORTENED
Num. 11:23
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: THE AGGIE AND THE SHEEP
1. An Aggie was really tired of being made fun of, so he decided to take off his Texas A & M shirt and start wearing an SHSU shirt.
2. He drove ½ way to Huntsville and saw a farmer and a flock of sheep and thought, “Man, a sheep would make an awesome pet!”
3. He got out and walked over to the farmer and said, “If I can guess how many sheep you have, can I take one home?”
4. The farmer, being a bit of a gambler himself, said, “Sure.” The Aggie looked at the flock and guessed, “157.”
5. The farmer was amazed – he was right! So the Aggie in an SHSU shirt, picked one out and got back into his car.
6. Before he left, farmer walked up to him and said. “If I can guess what school your from, can I have my dog back?”
VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/3853307 Video about how God provides, Abram & Isaac, Moses & serpents, Rich man & the beggar Lazarus, Christ as our atonement.
B. TEXT: Number 11:1-2, 4-6, 10-13,18-23
11 Now the people complained…in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. 2 When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. 4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said.… “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost….6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” 10 Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. 11 He asked the Lord, “13 Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’” 18 “Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. 19 You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the Lord…”’ 21 But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ 22 Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?” 23 The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”
C. THESIS
1. Even Moses was vulnerable to doubt. Here he is telling the Lord he doesn’t think God can pull off something!
2. We’re going to look at some of Moses’ insurmountable challenges, 6 proofs God’s reach isn’t shortened today, and confront situations in our lives that look impossible.
3. The title of this morning’s message is, “God’s Arm is not Shortened.”
I. MOSES’ IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION
A. A MIRACULOUS EXODUS
1. Moses had been through a lot. Even as a baby he’d been a “basket case.” He brought the Israelites out of Egypt. It was Israel’s first taste of freedom in over 400 years!
2. Moses led them across the Sinai Peninsula to the Eastern arm of the Red Sea. There they were stopped by the Sea.
3. Pharaoh and the Egyptian Army gave pursuit and Israel was pinned down between the mountains and the Sea.
4. But God sent a column of fire to keep the Egyptians from advancing all night. Moses prayed for God’s help.
5. God opened the Red Sea and had the Israelites pass through to the other side. Eventually the Egyptians also tried crossing it, but they were drowned when God allowed the waters to return to their place.
B. MOSES’ BIG TASK
1. Certainly that would be the end of Moses’ troubles, right? No, Moses’ challenges were just starting. Moses soon found he had an even bigger challenge than the Egyptians to face – one that wouldn’t go away, but had to be faced every day for 40 years (14,600 days he would face it!)
2. What seeming impossible situation? He was responsible for feeding the 3½ million Israelites and caring for all their other needs.
3. Something as simple as water is a big deal. The volume necessary to satisfy the thirst of the Israelites and their cattle is estimated at 20,000,000 gallons for ONE DAY! That would require a freight train with 628 tanker cars, 6-7 miles long, just to bring water! (or an Olympic pool almost a mile long). Where do you find that in a desert?
4. Just the firewood to use in cooking the food would take 4,000 tons of wood -- a few more freight trains, each a mile long, just for one day.
5. And then there’s food. Feeding 3½ million people requires a lot of food. According to the Quartermaster General of the Army, Moses would need 2,500 tons (5 million pounds) of food each day. This would require three freight trains each a mile long!
6. But then another problem: Each time they camped at the end of the day, a campground two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island was required, or a total of 750 square miles. Think of it! This much space just for nightly camping.
7. Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt? I think not! You see, Moses was just trusting God to take care of these things.
8. So when the Israelites said they wanted to have a daily diet of meat – out in the Sinai desert where there’s hardly vegetation enough for a goat to survive – Moses couldn’t get his head around it.
C. WAS THIS TOO BIG FOR GOD?
1. It was such a staggering and long term problem that even Moses, who’d seen God send 10 plagues in Egypt and opened the Red Sea – couldn’t see how this could happen.
2. Some situations bogle our minds, attempt to daunt our faith. God may have done many things for us in our past, but suddenly we’re faced with something so new and intimidating that our faith balks at the possibility God can pull this one off.
3. God challenged Moses’ unbelief in verse 23: “Has the Lord’s arm become short?” The NABRE says, “Is this beyond the Lord’s reach?” (NABRE).
4. OTHER TRANSLATIONS OF VERSE 23:
a. EXB, “Do you think I’m weak?”
b. GW, “Is there a limit to the Lord’s power?”
c. MSG, “So, do you think I can’t take care of you?”
d. NIRV, “Am I not strong enough?”
e. NLV, “Is there an end to the Lord’s power?”
f. VOICE, “Do you doubt Me? Do you question My power, that I can do what I’ve said?”
5. Praise God, we serve a God who hasn’t lost His power, whose power knows no limits, who is able to perform ANYTHING He promises, no matter how impossible it seems!
II. HOW WE KNOW GOD’S POWER WILL HELP US
There are mighty forces God has instituted to aid us. None of those forces has been retracted to this day! Here’s 6 of them
A. THE BLOOD HAS NEVER LOST ITS POWER!
1. 1 Peter 1:18-20; “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”
2. The blood of Christ is called ‘precious.’ Why? Because the blood of Jesus is the most valuable substance in the universe.
3. The Blood of Jesus alone can dissolve sin, like only Aqua Regia can dissolve gold.
4. “…though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Is. 1:18.
5. God’s Hand is not shortened because the Blood of Jesus has never lost its power!
B. THE HOLY SPIRIT HASN’T BEEN WITHDRAWN!
1. Some say the Age of Miracles is past; that the Holy Spirit won’t do the same things today that He did in Book of Acts. I’m here to challenge that!
2. What was the Holy Spirit given for (Acts 1:8)? What was God’s purpose? To give us POWER to WITNESS to the world. Have we finished that assignment yet? No!
3. Joel’s prophecy quoted by Peter in Acts 2 states that the Holy Spirit will continue to be poured out until Jesus comes back for His church – until that “great and glorious Day of the Lord” come (2:20).
4. Since the Holy Spirit is still here, His power is still available to us. All things are possible! The miraculous can happen at any moment WE reach out and claim it by faith.
C. JESUS CONQUERED ALL SPIRITUAL POWERS
1. Col. 2:15, “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
2. What looked like a defeat for the Son of God in the physical, became the utter defeat of the Prince of Darkness in the spiritual realm! You might say that in killing Jesus, the devil shot himself in the head. Then Jesus rose, but the devil couldn’t recover!
3. The Message Bible puts it, “He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.” Col. 2:15.
4. Jesus is Lord of Heaven, Lord of Earth, and of all under the earth! “Greater is He that is in Us than he in the world.”
D. JESUS CHRIST THE SAME; Yest., Today, & Forev.
1. Sometimes our problems look so big, or they've gone on for so long, we can't see God. But if God is involved, the circumstances don't matter. Circumstances don't change God's ability!
2. The good news is that God hasn’t changed! Heb. 13:8, "Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today & forever." His nature as our great Advocate and Paraclete hasn’t changed!
3. Psalm 77:14 says, “You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.” MIRACLES ARE NATURAL TO GOD!
4. Miracles are STILL NECESSARY TODAY because there’s still human need! God triumphs by the smallest of things!
5. ILLUSTRATION: "Miraculous Deliverance"
a. Khun Paot, a 19-year-old girl, escaped Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia after an arduous journey with 100 others through miles of jungle, canals, mountains, and rivers. At the end of their trail would be many communist soldiers.
b. In one dark valley, at night, it was so dark they couldn't see where or how to walk. Suddenly hundreds of fireflies swarmed into view. Their glow made enough light for the people to see the path. The refugees reached the next mountain by "firefly light."
c. After Paot reached a Thailand refugee camp, she was invited to a Christian meeting. "I know that old man," she explained, looking at a picture on the wall the Chapel. He’s the one who led us and showed us the way to freedom." She was pointing to a picture of Jesus.
6. God still intervenes, changing the natural course of events in answer to believing prayer. It’s still true that all things are possible through prayer!
7. Next reason why we know God’s hand is not short:
E. GOD’S WORD CAN’T RETURN VOID
1. “My word, which comes from my mouth, is like the rain and snow. It will not come back to me without results. It will accomplish whatever I want and achieve whatever I send it to do.” GW, Isa. 55:11.
2. The Bible may look like other books, but it’s not. The words of this Book are ALIVE! They’re words with spiritual power behind them. Jesus said, “The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life.
3. The Word of God is the most powerful thing in the universe; through it Jesus made the universe, Heb. 1:2-3. God's Word is an active force; creating, animating, sustaining, and propelling all things according to God's will.
4. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” Mt. 24:35. Because the Word is such a Cosmic Power, we can be sure ALL God’s promises to us will be answered when we claim them! They can’t return void!
5. The last reason God’s reach to us isn’t shortened is:
F. GOD IS FOR YOU!
1. It doesn’t matter how bad hell fights you, “If God be for you, who can be against you?” You’re one of God’s kids!
2. God’s love for you is unstoppable. Listen to the Message Bible on Romans 8:31-39:
3. “With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen?...The One who died for us…is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! ….I’m absolutely convinced that nothing…can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”
4. Because of this, we should be convinced that God will not withhold His help for us whenever we cry out to Him for help. God is faithful to them that are faithful to Him.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. In 2003, a well-known minister and his wife were in New York. They checked out of their hotel and went to the airport to catch a flight to Dallas.
2. Once at the airport, it was shut down due to a power grid failure across the eastern seaboard. The minister finally got another hotel room, but with no power, food, or hot water. Just candles, hot air, and the sweaty bed.
3. He looked out his window and saw a Marriott hotel a block away completely lit up, with music, laughter, food and drink flowing. All the rest of the city was dark.
4. He walked over, watched some satellite TV, and asked the assistant manager, "Why is the rest of the city dark and yet you’re lit up like a Christmas tree? How can this be?"
5. The manager said, "It's very simple. When we built this hotel, we built it with a large gas generator in the basement. WE’VE GOT POWER ON THE INSIDE THAT’S NOT DETERMINED BY CIRCUMSTANCES ON THE OUTSIDE. Even if there's nothing happening out there, there's plenty happening in here."
6. When you accepted Jesus Christ, He came into the inside. So what's happening on the outside shouldn't
determine whether or not you've got a lighthouse on the inside. What's happening outside shouldn't determine your joy.
7. God has given you a power in your soul through your relationship with Jesus Christ. We don't have to live our lives as derived from life's circumstances. [Tony Evans Bk. of Illus., # 113].
B. THE CALL
1. There’s prob. some here who may feel like God’s plan for your life has gotten messed up. Are you ready to accept his NEW PLAN for your life?
2. You have a Destiny! Claim it! You've been bought with a price; "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world!" You're a winner!
3. 4 Things to Take Charge Back:
a. Get right with God
b. Fast and pray
c. Spiritual warfare
d. Claim the Promises.
4. If you're a Christian, God is on your side and is fighting for you!
5. Let's get refilled with the Holy Spirit and then the world won’t impact us as much.
6. Prayer for salvation.
