Summary: Stephen’s Message turns to Moses

Stephen’s Message, Pt. 2 – Moses, the Man God Called

Acts 7:17 – 7:37

Jeff Hughes – May 11, 2003

Calvary Chapel Aggieland

I. Introduction

a. Last week, we talked about faith, and we saw last week what a vital thing faith is to us as Christians. Faith is the basis of our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is through faith in Him that we are saved.

b. Stephen’s faith had led him in front of the Sanhedrin, and last week, we saw Stephen give an excellent defense to the charges of blasphemy that he was accused of. Stephen’s message was much more than a legal plea or a rebuttal of the charges brought against him.

c. No, the main thrust of Stephen’s message was one of Salvation, and last week we saw God moving in the lives of two men, Abraham and Joseph. Abraham and Joseph were men of faith. Men of faith in God.

d. Both of them believed God at His Word, both Abraham and Joseph. Both men saw the promises of God come to pass, and both men were blessed of God in their lives.

e. Though they didn’t always see how God would accomplish His promises, they both believed God anyway. That’s the substance of faith.

f. Today, we are going to look at another faithful man, Moses. Moses was called by God, and was certainly used by God. The story of Moses speaks of deliverance, but it also gives us an object lesson in God’s redemption and forgiveness, despite our fallen nature.

g. We will look at Stephen’s narrative of the life of Moses in depth this morning, as we continue our study through the book of Acts. But, first, let’s have a word of prayer, and ask the Lord to come and bless the study of His Word this morning.

II. PRAYER

III. Illustration

a. In the eleventh century, King Henry III of Bavaria grew tired of court life and the pressures of being a monarch. He felt a call of God on his life, and so, he made application to Prior Richard at a local monastery, asking to be accepted as a monk and spend the rest of his life in the monastery.

b. "Your Majesty," said Prior Richard, "do you understand that the pledge here is one of obedience? That will be hard because you have been a king."

c. "I understand," said Henry. "The rest of my life I will be obedient to you, as Christ leads you."

d. When King Henry died, a statement was written: "The king learned to rule by being obedient."

e. When we tire of our roles and responsibilities, it helps to remember God has planted us in a certain place and told us to be a good accountant or teacher or mother or father. Christ expects us to be faithful where he puts us, and when he returns, we will rule together with him.

f. The key is that we have to be obedient and listening for that call of God on our lives.

g. Our study this morning is found in Acts chapter 7, and we are going to look at verses 17 through 37, 21 verses in all, and we still will not finish up with Stephen’s Message to the Sanhedrin, we will finish that next week.

h. There’s a place for you to take notes in your bulletin if you would like, and if you need a Bible, just raise your hand. Acts is right past John in the New Testament, and just before Romans.

i. Follow along with me as we read.

IV. Study

a. Intro

i. 17 "But when the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt 18 till another king arose who did not know Joseph. 19 This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies, so that they might not live. 20 At this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months. 21 But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. 22 And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds. 23 Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. 24 And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. 25 For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. 26 And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ’Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ 27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ’Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.

ii. 30 And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. 31 When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, 32 saying, ’I am the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look. 33 ’Then the Lord said to him, "Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. 34 I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt." ’ 35 This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ’Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years. 37 "This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ’The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’

iii. We pick up today, where we left off last week. Last week, we finished up looking at Joseph, and how God sovereignly moved the children of Israel to Egypt to escape the famine in the land of Canaan.

iv. Today, we see the Israelites in bondage to a foreign king, and cruelly abused. But, God had made a promise to Abraham, and God doesn’t forget His promises.

v. We see in this passage the deliverance that God had promised to Abraham concerning his descendants. God uses a man named Moses. God delivered Moses at his birth, and God used Moses to deliver the whole of the nation of Israel.

vi. What we see in Moses’ life was three different stages, or periods if you will. The first forty, we see Moses becoming a powerful and influential man in Egypt. In the second forty, we see Moses humbled by God, a shepherd in Midian. In the last forty, we see the man God used to free his people.

vii. In our study this morning, we will look at six points - the Promise, the Pleasure, the Presumption, the Preparation, the Power, and last, we will look at the Prophet.

viii. Our first point has to do with what God had told Abraham concerning his descendants – the promise. We see this in verses 17 through 19.

b. The Promise (Acts 7:17-19)

i. 17 "But when the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt 18 till another king arose who did not know Joseph. 19 This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies, so that they might not live.

ii. Stephen continues his history lesson to the Sanhedrin here in verse 17. This is the third point in Stephen’s speech, and it is the longest one. Last week, we looked at points one and two, when we talked about Abraham and Joseph.

iii. This part of Stephen’s message deals with Moses exclusively, and throughout this part of Stephen’s message, he gives much honor and praise to Moses, refuting the charges of blasphemy against Moses that were leveled against him.

iv. The phrase “the time of the promise” is talking about the promise that God made to Abraham and that was that Abraham’s descendants would possess the land of Canaan. We saw this last week, in verse 5 of chapter 7.

v. This was some time after the sons of Jacob had moved to Egypt with their families. We see here in verse 17 that God multiplied the people in Egypt.

vi. This was God’s will for man, to multiply and be blessed. When God created the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, He told them 28 "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

vii. God’s chosen people had done just that in the land of Egypt. They had been blessed and were multiplying in the land. Exodus chapter 1, verse 7 tells us this about this time - 7 But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them.

viii. But, the ruler of the land of Egypt was not inclined to bless the children of Israel. No, this man feared God’s people. Verse 8 here tells us that he did not know Joseph.

ix. Now, what this could mean is that the new king could have been ignorant about Joseph and the good deeds he did for the land of Egypt, or, more likely, that the king chose to forget about Joseph in the face of this growing multitude of people.

x. Unreasonable fear will drive people to do wicked, wicked things. This man, the king of Egypt was no different. He didn’t have a relationship with the living God that brought him peace and contentment, that much was obvious, we see the results of his fear in verse 19.

xi. The king dealt wickedly with the people of Israel. The word used there in the original language is Katasophizomai; we get our word sophisticated from it. What it means is that the king dealt shrewdly with the Israelites, he defrauded them. He had all the power and he aimed to keep it that way.

xii. He oppressed the Israelites, he enslaved them. They were servants to the Egyptian monarchy. Many Bible scholars believe that it was the labor of the Israelites that helped to build some of the great pyramids and other landmarks that we still see in Egypt today. Exodus chapter 1 tells us that the Israelites built the cities of Ramses and Pithom under bondage.

xiii. But, the most marked example of the king’s wickedness comes in the next statement though. He made them expose their babies, to kill them. What it means is that the Israelite families were compelled to simply abandon their babies. We see the story in Exodus chapter 1, starting in verse 15.

xiv. 15 Then Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, gave this order to the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah: 16 "When you help the Hebrew women give birth, kill all the boys as soon as they are born. Allow only the baby girls to live." 17 But because the midwives feared God, they refused to obey the king and allowed the boys to live, too. 18 Then the king called for the midwives. "Why have you done this?" he demanded. "Why have you allowed the boys to live?" 19 "Sir," they told him, "the Hebrew women are very strong. They have their babies so quickly that we cannot get there in time! They are not slow in giving birth like Egyptian women." 20 So God blessed the midwives, and the Israelites continued to multiply, growing more and more powerful. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. 22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Throw all the newborn Israelite boys into the Nile River. But you may spare the baby girls."

xv. Total wickedness throughout the Bible has been marked by the murder of infants. Many times, the Israelites were warned and punished for worshipping Molech, and for passing their sons and daughters through the fire.

xvi. What many of you don’t know is what the worship of Molech consisted of. Molech was a great statue, made of iron and holding a trough, and they built a fire at the feet of the statue, to get the trough red hot. Then in the course of the ceremony, the live illegitimate children from their illicit relationships were thrown into the trough, and burned alive.

xvii. This seemed like a good thing to some people - illegitimate children were disposed of, and all of it was done in the name of religion. The ancient Romans did similar thing with unwanted children that the king of Egypt commanded, they threw them out to die.

xviii. Now, as a father and as a human being, I am totally outraged that people would even think to do these kinds of things. But, it didn’t surprise God. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that - The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked.

xix. What’s even more shameful is that practices like this still go on today. We see people abandoning their babies, and throwing them in the trash. But, even more than that, millions of babies have been murdered while still in their mother’s womb, in the name of a choice. This is wickedness, and God will surely judge that nation, just as He did with Egypt.

xx. But, about this time, one baby boy was born that would be God’s deliverer for the Israelites. His name was Moses. We are introduced to him in verses 20 through 22.

c. The Pleasure (Acts 7:20-22)

i. 20 At this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months. 21 But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. 22 And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds.

ii. It was during this crucial time for the nation of Israel that Moses was born. God always calls someone, he raises up a deliverer for his people. One of mine and Stacie’s favorite scriptures is Esther, chapter 4, verse 14. It was this verse that inspired us to name our daughter Esther. The last part of that verse reads Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

iii. Moses was born into Egypt for that specific time and purpose. God knew all that Moses would do for Him from his birth. God was well pleased with Moses.

iv. Moses enjoyed the first three months of his life in the safety and protection of his parent’s house, but even Moses could not escape the dangers in the land of Egypt at the time, and was put out into the Nile River in a basket.

v. But, as we will see God had plans for Moses. Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses in the river, and took him to raise as her own son.

vi. As an adopted grandson of the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, he would have access to training and education in everything that the nation of Egypt could provide at the time.

vii. So, Moses was raised in the house of the king of Egypt, and as verse 22 tells us, he became a respect and power. All of his natural leadership abilities tied together with a formal education made Moses a perfect man to lead the Israelites in the eyes of man. Any observer would have presumed that Moses would lead the Israelites, the problem was, that Moses presumed this, too. We see this in verses 23 through 28.

d. The Presumption (Acts 7:23-28)

i. 23 Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. 24 And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. 25 For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. 26 And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ’Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ 27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ’Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’

ii. What we see here is that Moses is a mature man, a man of power and learning. He didn’t forget his people though. He had compassion on them.

iii. Moses felt called by God to help his people. So, he goes to help. He sees an Egyptian abusing an Israelite. Moses then takes matters into his own hands and kills the Egyptian, to defend the Israelite. The Old Testament tells us that Moses hid the body in the sand, so that he would not be found out.

iv. You see, the problem was that even though Moses felt called by God to help his people, he tried to help them out of his own power, out of his own resources.

v. Moses presumed that now was the time of salvation for the Israelites, and that he was the deliverer. He had the education, he had the abilities, and he was a talented individual.

vi. But, Moses forgot one little thing – GOD. If God had called Moses to deliver the Israelites, then it would be God’s power at work to deliver the Israelites, not Moses’ power.

vii. Moses had it half right. He indeed was the man that God chose to deliver the nation of Israel. But, this wasn’t the time. This wasn’t God’s timing, and God wasn’t about to bless Moses going of half-cocked.

viii. Moses was about to find this out. The next day, he tried to break up to Israelites fighting. Moses thought he would step in and break it up. In his mind, not only was he the deliverer of Israel, he was their peacemaker as well.

ix. As the scripture says, they didn’t understand that Moses was the man God chose to deliver the nation, because it wasn’t God’s time to deliver the nation. Moses would eventually do it, by the power of God, but not today.

x. The Israelite that Moses confronts accuses him of setting himself up as a ruler and a judge. He didn’t see that Moses was appointed by God to be both for the nation of Israel, but it wasn’t God timing. He goes on ask Moses if he would kill him, as Moses had killed the Egyptian. This was a not-so-veiled threat towards Moses to leave this man alone.

xi. This statement sends fear into the heart of Moses. He is afraid that his crime will be found out, and that he would be called into account for his evil deed.

xii. I want to stop right here for a minute and talk about something. Most of the commentators I read concerning Moses’ first run-in with the Israelites, put the blame, so to speak on the Israelites.

xiii. Many of them say that the Israelites had to suffer for another 40 years because they rejected Moses here. I just don’t think that is the whole case, though. I personally believe that both Israel and Moses weren’t ready to lead the people out of bondage at this point. Moses wasn’t ready, and the people of Israel weren’t ready. So, I believe that the quote-unquote “blame” is on both.

xiv. If Moses had been ready, then he would not have had to kill the Egyptian, because In God’s Word He tells us Vengeance is mine.

xv. Moses on the other hand, took matters into his own hands, and God won’t use Moses working in the power of his own flesh, like I said before.

xvi. So, Moses runs off. He hides out like a criminal, but God was using this time to prepare Moses in ways Moses couldn’t understand. God had to tear Moses back down in order to build him back up. We see this in the next two verses.

e. The Preparation (Acts 7:29-30)

i. 29 Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons. 30 And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai.

ii. So, after being rejected by the Israelites, Moses flees to the land of Midian. When He gets there, He man named Reuel, and eventually he settled down there and married one of the man’s daughters, a woman named Zipporah.

iii. Over the course of years, Moses and Zipporah had two fine sons. During this time Moses had become a shepherd, first tending the flocks of his father-in-law, and later his own.

iv. During this time though, Moses probably got a lot of time to sit alone and think. He also learned the ins and outs of caring for a flock of sheep. This might seem like a big step down for a man with the best education, and had come from a life of luxury, but that’s where God wanted Moses.

v. A long period of time passed, and I bet Moses sat out there in the desert thinking that he blew it. He felt called by God to deliver the children of Israel, but he had wound up killing a man, and getting run off by the very people he felt that he was supposed to be ministering to.

vi. During this time, God was preparing Moses, and I think that just when Moses thought, “Well, I can’t be used by God anymore, I messed it all up!” It was at that point that God could work in Moses life.

vii. God doesn’t care about education, pedigree, money of power. God is concerned with the heart. When we quit trying to do ministry in our own power, and let God work, that’s when He gets to work.

viii. Moses could not have been prepared for what was about to happen to Him, but that was all part of God’s plan, too. God appeared to Moses in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness around Mount Sinai.

ix. How Moses knew that this was something supernatural was that the bush burned, but was not consumed, like a bush normally would, so this definitely caught Moses’ attention.

x. God needed Moses’ attention because He was about to tell him something wonderful. God was going to send Moses back to Egypt to deliver the children of Israel.

xi. Gone was the overzealous man who had killed the Egyptian. Replaced by a more temperate man who learned to wait upon the Lord. When God first came to him, Moses couldn’t believe it, how could God use him, now an old man, now a washed-up, has-been shepherd on the back side of Midian. That was God’s whole point. He was not going to accomplish the deliverance of the Israelites by Moses’ power. No, He was going to us His sovereign power accomplish this. And He tells Moses this in verses 31 – 34.

f. The Power (Acts 7:31-34)

i. 31 When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, 32 saying, ’I am the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look. 33 ’Then the Lord said to him, "Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. 34 I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.".

ii. So, Moses was amazed at the sight of a bush burning and not being consumed. This shows me right here what a simple man that Moses had become. If you think back to the story in Exodus, when Moses comes to Pharaoh, Moses’ staff turns into a snake in front of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh dismisses it as a parlor trick.

iii. Moses had that same kind of upbringing, the same education. But, now he was different. He had faith and a strong belief in God from sitting out here in the desert for forty years tending sheep. God used the bush to get Moses’ attention, and now he had it.

iv. God starts by telling Moses - ’I am the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ God re-affirms the covenant he had made with these men by naming them to Moses. First things first. God made a promise to the nation of Israel, and he planned to keep it.

v. Take note of Moses’ reaction here. Moses was afraid; he trembled and dared not speak. He was in the presence of God Almighty. But, in the account of Moses in Exodus, God reassures Moses. But Moses was still in the presence of God, and he removed his sandals, as he was standing on holy ground.

vi. This was another point that Stephen was making against his accusers. God revealed Himself to Moses in the location of His own choosing, and it wasn’t in a temple in Jerusalem, it was at Mount Sinai, which isn’t even in Israel.

vii. Moses had an encounter with the power of God. God tells Moses that He has seen the suffering and oppression that the Israelites were under in Egypt, and now was the time that God had chosen to deliver them.

viii. God tells Moses that He is going to use him to deliver the children of Israel. Moses was now a broken vessel that God could use to accomplish His purpose by His power.

ix. He tells Moses that He was going to send him to Egypt by His power, under His direction, and His leading. Moses signed on for that! Moses obeyed God, and followed His direction, and through the power of God, not Moses, the Israelites were saved from the Egyptians.

x. Stephen breaks from the Exodus account at this point, and makes some additional comments about the story of Moses at this point though, and we see this in verses 35 through 37.

g. The Prophet (Acts 7:35-37)

i. 35 This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ’Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years. 37 "This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ’The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’

ii. Stephen starts by calling Moses – this Moses whom they rejected. They had indeed rejected Moses the first time around. But, this was a new Moses that returned, a man humbled by and also empowered by God to do the work that God had called him to do. That work was to free the children of Israel out of the slavery they were under in Egypt.

iii. Moses, under the power and direction of God had done many signs and wonders, the ten plagues, which finally convinced Pharaoh to let the people go.

iv. At the shores of the Red Sea though, Pharaoh had second thoughts. He thought he could bring the slaves back. He was wrong. His army was wiped out at the bottom of the sea, while the Israelites crossed over on dry land.

v. So, the people were ready to be delivered out of Egypt, but they weren’t ready to possess the promised land of Canaan. They didn’t believe God or Moses. They seemed to forget the power of God, and they assumed that they could not take the land in their own power. They were right, they couldn’t. But, they didn’t have faith in God’s power either.

vi. They had to wander in the wilderness for forty years as God had to break Israel, and humble them, just like He did with Moses, so that they could go in and possess the Promised Land.

vii. As the story goes, and Stephen’s listeners knew though, God would raise up a new generation of Israelites in the desert, a generation of faith, which would God and take the land that God provided, by His power.

viii. Up to the point where John the Baptist and Jesus came on the scene, Moses was the greatest prophet in the history of the nation of Israel. Moses told them that another would come though.

ix. The passage of scripture that Stephen is quoting here comes from Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 15. Jesus was that prophet.

x. Just like the Jews had rejected Moses the first time he came to the Israelites, they had rejected Jesus.

h. Conclusion Point

i. This brings me to my final point this morning. The parallels between the life of Moses and the life of Jesus are amazing. Moses was born to a humble man and his wife, and a king was out to kill him at his birth, just like Jesus.

ii. Moses was rejected by the nation of Israel the first time he came to them, and Jesus was too. Moses was a shepherd, Jesus called His followers His sheep; He was a shepherd, too.

iii. Moses delivered his people from the oppression and bondage of slavery in Egypt by the power of God. Jesus delivered His people from the bondage of sin and death because He was God.

iv. One more parallel I want us to look at in the life of Moses compares to the church, though.

v. For the first 40 years, Moses was born, and was educated. He felt called of God, and tried to deliver the children of Israel himself. Like this, from the beginning, man worshipped God in preparation of the Savior to come, but they got it all wrong. They tried to worship God on their own terms, and turned what should have been a relationship into cold dead religion.

vi. For the next 40 years, Moses was rejected by the Israelites, and he fled and hid out in Midian, tending sheep that were not his own at first and later adding his own. God met him there, and sent him to Egypt to free the people.

vii. Like this, Jesus came and proclaimed the gospel to the Israelites, and he was rejected. The apostles were rejected, and for the most part, during the church age, the sheep were not Jews, they were gentiles. But, God would send Jesus back to redeem the people of Israel.

viii. For the last 40 years, Moses comes and delivers the people and leads them to the Promised Land. When Jesus returns, the Jewish nation will see Him for who He is, and embrace Him as their Savior, and they will be taken up to heaven, which is the ultimate Promised Land.

ix. So, right now, we are sill awaiting Jesus’ return. If you are saved this morning, you can look forward to being taken into heaven, and spending eternity with Him. If you’re not, in a few minutes, we are going to pray, and you are going to get the opportunity to make that decision in your life.

x. But first, I‘d like to close with a short story.

i. Conclusion

i. The story is told about a marshal in Napoleon’s army—a man who was devotedly and enthusiastically attached to him—was mortally wounded in battle. As the last struggle drew near and he lay dying in his tent, he sent for his chief. Napoleon came. The poor man thought his emperor could do anything. Perhaps he even sought to put him in the place of God. So he earnestly pleaded with his leader to save his life. The emperor sadly shook his head and turned away. But as the dying man felt the cold, merciless hand of death drawing him irresistibly behind the curtain of the unseen world, he was still heard to shriek out, ‘Save me, Napoleon! Save me!’” In the hour of death, that soldier discovered than even the powerful Napoleon could not give him physical life.

ii. Stephen’s message to the Sanhedrin was this. Neither Abraham, nor Joseph, nor even Moses could save them. Only the prophet that Moses told them would come could. He, being the Son of God, would be the sacrifice for their sins. Only He could save them, and they were on the verge of rejecting him just like Moses was rejected. The question to you is, are you going to reject Jesus? Or are you going to embrace Him as your savior this morning. The choice is up to you.

j. Let’s Pray.

V. Closing Prayer

STAND FOR LAST SONG!!!!