When God Chooses A Leader

WHEN GOD CHOOSES A LEADER

Great men, great leaders,great heroes aren’t born overnight.

I am big fan of Presidential history. Many of you who know me well can verify

this. I can tell you a lot about nearly every 20th century President that has

come down the pike.

My favorite President was Harry S Truman.

For the first half of his life, he was a virtual unknown. He was a failed

farmer. A failed businessman. Aside from service during World War II, he rarely

stepped out of his part of Missouri.

But years later, he would become the 33rd President of the United States during

some of the most interesting times of American history.

But don’t think those years as an unknown were wasted. His failures gave him

experience to understand and empathize with those who were less fortunate. He

knew what the small businessman and farmer wanted and needed from Washington

and he worked hard to that end once he occupied the Oval Office.

No, this is not going to be about Harry Truman.

But I use his life to make a point. There were a variety of experiences in

Truman’s life that ultimately prepared him for the task he was destined to

undertake.

When one looks through the Scripture, that becomes evidently clear in the lives

of great Biblical heroes.

The hero I choose to hold up as an example of this is Moses. I want us to look

at his life from the time he was born until the time he stood before Pharaoh

and said "Let my people go". And I want to point out several things about what

God did with Moses that He does with us as well.

FROM BIRTH, GOD PUT PEOPLE IN MOSES LIFE.

With God, there are no accidents. It was no accident that there were two

midwives, Shiphrah and Puah that said from the beginning that they would not

kill the Hebrew baby boys even though Pharaoh decreed it and was capable of

putting them to death. If they had not been there, Moses would have died even

before he had ever been named.

It was no accident that after Pharaoh decreed that all Hebrew baby boys be

thrown into the Nile river to drown and Jochebed, his mother, made an ark of

bulrushes for him to float in, that the daughter of Pharaoh would be bathing

nearby and find the baby and fall in love with him and take him to the palace

to raise.

It was no accident that after killing an Egyptian who was abusing an Israelite

and fleeing the country for fear of his life, that Moses would become

acquainted with a man named Jethro and marry one of his daughters. And it was

no accident that while Moses was tending to Jethro’s sheep that he would

encounter God speaking from the burning bush telling him that his appointed

task was to lead the Children of Israel out of slavery.

It was no accident.

You see, with God there are never any accidents.

Society today likes to say that certain events occur just by "coincidence".

I decided a long time ago that I don’t believe in "coincidence". God allows

things to happen and puts things in order because He has plans for our lives as

Christians. Sometimes those plans aren’t realized because of our own pride and

disobedience.

But there are no accidents.

It was not an accident that Ananias should be in the same general area as Saul

when the great persecutor of Christians encountered Jesus in a blinding light.

It was no accident that after Ananias healed him, Saul would enter a life of

Christian service and later become known as the Apostle Paul.

It was no accident.

It was no accident that the Ethiopian eunuch was riding in a chariot and was

literally overtaken by an itinerant evangelist named Philip who was in that

area simply because that’s where God told him to go. It was no accident that

Philip would share the Gospel with him and he would find a relationship with

Jesus Christ.

It was no accident.

It was no accident that a former baseball player turned evangelist named Billy

Sunday would be preaching at a crusade and in the back would wander a young

teenager named Mordecai Ham who would hear the Gospel message, get saved, and

eventually become a great evangelist himself.

It was no accident that a troubled teenager named Billy Graham would hear

Mordecai Ham preach and give his heart and life to Jesus and grow up to become

perhaps the most influential evangelist of modern history.

It was no accident.

It was no accident that many years ago, this church felt led to enter into a

building program. It was no accident that the right leaders were in place as