Why I Do Not Obey The Lord

Illus: One lady gave her excuse for why she does not attend church. She said, "I don't go to church, and this is my reason:

• If I go some of the time, it makes me want to go all the time.

• And since I can't go all the time, it makes me feel guilty when I miss some of the time.

• So I don't go any of the time, and this keeps me from feeling guilty when i miss going some of the time."

Now, that's a real excuse, isn't it? (Moore, James W. Yes, Lord I Have Sinned, But I Have Some Excellent Excuses. Nashville: Abington Press, 1991)

You have to admire some people because if they are going to do something, they are going to do a good job. And we have people who have gotten so good at excuse making, they have built their lives around making excuses.

But when people build their lives around excuses, they are doing a very dangerous thing.

• Benjamin Franklin said this about excuses; "He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."

• Washington Carver said, “Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."

But not only have some of the great men and women said enlightening things about excuses, so has the Word of God.

Look at Luke 14:15-20. We read, “And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”

These excuses are as ridiculous as the ones we hear today. These verses described a man who made a great supper, only to find that:

• One guest could not come because he was recently married

• One guest could not come because he had to prove five yoke of oxen

• One guest could not come because he had just purchased a piece of ground

Throughout the ages, people have given all kinds of excuses as to why they can not follow the Lord Jesus.

Even the great man Moses, gave God all kinds of excuses why he could not do what God asked him to do.

God desired to use Moses to deliver the Children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt. But Moses was like many of us in this congregation, HE WAS FULL OF EXCUSES!

This was a BIG ASSIGNMENT, and Moses began to give God some BIG EXCUSES for why he could not do it.

Notice, the first excuse he used was -

I. HE WAS UNWORTHY

Exo. 03:11, “And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

Let’s look at the first excuse Moses used.

A. THE EXCUSE

Moses asks, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh..."

Now we mortals can certainly relate to what Moses said. God is not asking him to go to a normal man, but to the Pharaoh of Egypt. He was the most powerful man on the face of the earth.

This is why Moses said, “Who am I that I should GO TO PHARAOH.

WHY DID MOSES FEEL THIS WAY?

• Moses came from a nation of slaves, and might have considered himself unworthy for that reason.

• Moses recognized that Pharaoh could give the word and he was history.

But one thing for sure, he felt God was making a mistake to call him to do such a job. But God does not make mistakes, God never calls us to do something we cannot do.

Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

Illus: Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” (Leadership, Vol. 12, no. 2.)

When we give God these excuses, we are telling Him we know more than He knows, and that he has made a big mistake to ask us to do such a thing.

That is exactly what Moses was telling God!