MOSES
FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS
Scripture: Exodus Chapter One
Intro.
A. A few weeks ago I talked to you about genealogies and Family Trees. I thought I would share with you today a few comments that came from a genealogy support group.
1. My family coat of arms ties in the back…is that normal?
2. My family tree is a few branches short! All help appreciated.
3. My ancestors must be in a witness protection program.
4. Shake your family tree and watch the nuts fall out.
5. How can one ancestor cause so much trouble?
6. I looked into my family tree and found out I was a sap.
7. A family reunion is an effective form of birth control.
8. A new cousin a day keeps boredom away.
9. After 30 days unclaimed ancestors will be adopted.
10. Genealogy: Tracing yourself back to better people.
11. Crazy is a relative term in my family.
12. Heredity: Everyone Believes in it until their children act like fools
13. I researched my family tree and apparently I don’t exist!
B. What would happen if let’s say, 50 years from now someone looked back on your life? What do you think they would find? If they researched old newspaper clippings and photographs? If they looked at letters you had written or books you had read? Or even if they looked at bank records and credit card receipts?
1. I think that one thing people would discover is that all of us are products of our time. I don’t mean that in a negative sense to say that we were conformed to this world and not transformed as God’s Word instructs us in Romans 12:2. What I mean is that the times in which we live cause us to act in a certain way.
a) [] Let me give you an example of what I mean. I have known several people who lived through The Great Depression. As a result of living through that very difficult period of time they developed certain patterns of behavior. People who lived through the depression are not people who feel the need to have a TV in every room of the house, with cable hooked up to each TV. They are not people who complain that a two-car garage is not enough to house all the vehicles they own. People who lived through the great depression are people who know what it really means to do without. They understand what it means to not have change jingling in their pockets; they are people who believe in saving. They are people who appreciate the value of a meal and they are not likely to throw out the leftovers.
b) We to are products of our time. Many of us today have little concept of a depression. We do not struggle with IF we will eat but normally it is with WHERE we will eat. We are not a society of conserving. Many times if something is broke rather than repair it we simply toss it out and buy a new one.
C. Moses Was A Man For The Time.
1. Moses was born into a time when God’s people were undergoing great persecution. They needed a deliverer and Moses became that person. Now I want you to know something as we begin this study into the life of Moses. We are not going to look at Moses through rose colored glasses. We have a real tendency to look at some of the people in the bible this way. We just see them as great men and women with whom we really cannot relate. Even though Moses was certainly a great man, what I want you to see over these next nine weeks is that Moses was just like you and I. He had many faults. The difference between Moses and us is the fact that he said “Yes” to God and God’s plan for his life. Now we will soon see that he didn’t always do that well either but when he did yield himself to God’s purpose for his life God used him in incredible ways.
1. Now here is a key thought I want you to keep in your mind over these weeks that we explore the life of Moses. How does God want to use you in this time in history? Now I know that right now there are many of you who are minimizing that statement in your minds. You are saying that I am being too dramatic, that God has no plans to use you the way he used Moses. My response to you is “WHY NOT?” God used Moses to deliverer his people out of bondage and spiritual oppression. Are you trying to tell me that we are living in a time that is absent of bondage and spiritual oppression? If so can I just ask you what planet you recently arrived from? Listen to the word of God from Ezekiel 22:30 "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.”
2. Please do not tell me that you are to young or to old for God to use you. I don’t care if you’re eight or eighty! The bible tells me that Moses was eighty years old when he responded to the call to become a deliverer for the children of Israel. Look at what we are told about Moses in Deut. 34:7 “Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.” Here he was now, 120 years old and yet still full of life! I believe that this was because he never retired from serving God. He never said, “Well I have done my part, now I will sit back and watch others.” NO WAY! Being used of God kept him full of life and vitality!
Trans. My purpose today is to lay the foundation for what we will see in the life of Moses. To understand the life of Moses we have to understand the time in which he was born. The word Exodus literally means, “departure, going out, or exit”. This was truly a transitional time and in a real sense Moses was a transitional man.
I. THE TRANSITIONAL MAN.
Moses was born into a very different world.
A. From Joseph To Moses.
1. To understand the Exodus and the life of Moses we need to remember what brought the children of Israel to Egypt it the first place.
2. Let’s just take a moment to recall the life of Joseph.
a) Joseph is sold into slavery.
b) He becomes Potiphar’s slave.
c) Then he becomes Pharaoh’s right hand man. Gen. 41:40 “You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you."
c) In the time of famine Joseph has his father Jacob and all his family
come to Egypt. Look at Gen. 47:5-6 “Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Your father and your brothers have come to you, and the land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land. Let them live in Goshen. And if you know of any among them with special ability, put them in charge of my own livestock."
Trans. Now here is an absolutely critical element in this whole story. God has been at work all along protecting and providing as we have seen. But God’s plan for Israel was not Egypt but Canaan.
B. God’s Plan For Israel Was Not Egypt But Canaan.
1. Look with me at Genesis 12:5-7 (read). This was God’s promise for His people, not Egypt.
2. Now notice this as well. There was a time and place for Egypt in the life of the Israelites. God used Egypt to provide for them during a very difficult period in their lives, but Egypt was NOT to be their permanent home.
3. Could I ask you a question? Are you lounging in Egypt when you should
be traveling to Canaan? [] Here is what I mean. Maybe there was a time in your life when you felt like God wanted you to start a business. Something that you enjoyed and you knew would provide you with not only a comfortable living but also the means to give generously to God’s work. But you ran into some hardships and some roadblocks. In the midst of that God provided you with an Egypt, a place where you could rest and recoup before moving on into God’s original plan. The problem though is that you became comfortable in Egypt, and you forgot about God’s original plan. Egypt was suppose to be your resting place not your permanent residence. [] Maybe it was a ministry you felt God was calling you to do it the church, but you got discouraged. You didn’t feel qualified; you didn’t receive the encouragement from others that you thought you should get. So God gave you an Egypt, a place to temporarily rest and replenish your faith and energy. But you got comfortable there and forgot about God’s call on your life. Let me take you back to Deut. 1:6-7 “The LORD our God said to us at Horeb, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates.”
It is time to break camp and move on into God’s plan and purpose for your life. God hasn’t called us to Egypt; He has called us to Canaan. Egypt is to often the place where WE want to be where Canaan is where GOD wants us to be.
Trans. But there was a change on the horizon.
B. A Change On The Horizon.
1. After the death of Joseph things began to change. The bible tells us in V.6 & 8 that after Joseph dies a new king came up who did not know of Joseph and the way he had helped save the nation of Egypt. All this king knew was that these foreigners were multiplying in his country and he feared that they might eventually turn against them. Remember the expression, “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” I think this expression was proven true in the life of the nation of Egypt. They forgot how God had used an Israelite named Joseph to save their nation from starvation and when they turned against these same people they set in motion their own demise as a nation. One of the things that is characteristically true of Israeli’s even today is the fact that they are a people make a concerted effort to remember their history. We are always reading through out the bible where God tells them not to forget the lessons He has taught them. And I think we all know what usually happened to them when they did.
2. I have said many times that we need to be very careful not to live in the past but we also need to be just as careful to remember the past and learn from it.
Trans. Even though change was taking place in the lives of these people, what remained was God’s enduring promise.
C. God’s Enduring Promise.
1. Look with me at Ex. 2:23 “During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.” Now as Paul Harvey would say, let’s look at the rest of the story. Look at V.24-25, “God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.
Was God oblivious? Did He not realize what was happening to them? Or did He just not care? Haven’t we all had these questions? Our lives sometimes seem like an affirmation of Murphy’s law. It’s not only what can go wrong will go wrong, it gets even worse. So we wonder, doesn’t God see what is happening to us? Doesn’t God care? Is He to busy elsewhere? Is He preoccupied?
2. I think I need to share something here with you that may not endear you to me right away but I believe that after it cuts us it will remove the spiritual disease that is threatening our spiritual lives. Here goes. I think there are many times when we feel the way I just mentioned, and we wonder why God does not elevate our suffering. You might say, “Pastor, I’m going to church. I even started going to Sunday School.” “Shouldn’t God take notice of this and reward my actions by removing this pain from my life?” “I even started paying my tithe and giving and offering.” “Doesn’t that count for something?” But you see all of our religious activity, which is good by the way. All this activity though has not brought us to the place where God wants us to be. What we are trying to do is win God’s approval rather than following His will.
3. When did things change for the Israelites? Look again at V.23. Things began to change when they cried out to the Lord. In other words when they got serious enough with God that they got on their knees and prayed. Yes God wants us in church to worship him. Yes He wants us to obey him by giving our tithes and offerings. Yes he wants us serving Him in various ministries. But these things need to flow out a heart that is in love with Him. Not out of a life that is trying to curry favor or is trying to get out of trouble. Through out the bible we se where God calls His people to pray, and when they do mountains are moved! Today we are barely able to move a single pebble, why not? Because we will not pray. ** Listen people, heaven is not deaf. No, the earth is silent, and until that changes we can expect to continue to groan in slavery and bondage.
4. Listen again to God’s promise as it comes in Genesis 15:13-14 “Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.” I remind you again that God did not call us to Egypt but to Canaan.
5. But notice that in the midst of the persecution there was also God’s protection. Let’s go back again to V.11-12. (read) Pharaoh decided to end the prosperity of the Israelites by working them to death. (Boy there are sure a few things I could say about that right here but I will restrain myself). Notice that in V.13 it says that he worked them “ruthlessly”. That word literally means, “to crush to pieces”. What Pharaoh wanted as he worked these people was for them to become so discouraged that they would just give up. That they would get to the place where they would say, “You know, it’s just no use for us to continue to think that we will ever leave Egypt and go to that promise land our ancestors have been talking about.” “We might as well give up and realize that this is just our lot in life.”
a) Does that sound familiar to you? It sure does to me. How many times have we tried to do what we felt God wanted us to do and yet the end results are the opposite of what we expected? We had this dream, this vision of what God wanted to do through us and so we just knew that if we started moving in that direction and obeying God that everything was going to just fall into place and life would be great. [] I sure have! I obeyed God, after hiding from Him for eight years and not wanting to be a pastor I finally said yes. I went to Bible College I took my first church. Now that I am doing what God wanted all I needed to do was sit back and watch the church fill to capacity. But wait a minute, it didn’t happen. What’s wrong here, did I not hear God correctly? Did God forget how things were supposed to work for me?
b) Here is another very important principle we cannot overlook. Look at V.12 again. Focus on the word “dread” here. The word means, “a sickening feeling”. [] Now I want you to enter into the context of this scripture right now. We are talking about Egypt and Pharaoh here. The most powerful nation and the most powerful ruler in the world at this time in history. Then we have the Israelites, what are they? They are rag tag bunch of sheepherders and farmers. Yet when this great King and nation look at them they have this sickening feeling. Another meaning of the word “dread” is “horror”.
c) What is the spiritual application to us in all of this? Well here is the good news! This is how Satan feels about you! You are under pressure; it seems like everything you do is an uphill battle, yet you are confident that you are doing what God has asked of you. The good news is that you have got the prince of darkness scared to death! Because you have chosen to follow after God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strengthen, you have put a spirit of dread over the devil. You have given him that sickening feeling! Isn’t that great! Satan understands the potential in your life as a child of God and so he is forced to do all he can to defeat you. But what does the bible tell you Christian? 1 John 4:3 “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” Let me take you back to Genesis 15:14, it says, “They will come out with many possessions.” Not only is God going to deliver His children but also He is going to bless their lives with abundance in the process! **Take courage Child of God, this message is for you and for me today!
Trans. Let me close this message by giving you three of what I am going to call:
LIFE LESSONS
1. Hard times do not erase God’s promises.
2. Hard times do not escape God’s notice.
3. Hard times do not negate God’s concern for you.
4. Let me close by taking you back to that question I asked you as we began
this message. How does God want to use you in this day? Now don’t say, “Well I am no Moses.” You are right, you aren’t Moses. God needed one Moses for that time in history. God does not want nor need you to be someone else. He needs you to be the person He created you to be and for you and I to be willing to be placed in His hands for Him to use us as needed.
a) Are you lounging in Egypt when you ought to be traveling to Canaan? Did you get stuck back there at a place of disappointment or discouragement and decide not to move on? If so it is not too late to pack your bags and get moving. God is not finished with you, are you finished with God? Phil. 3:13-14 “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
