I trust that all of you pastors are
ready to preach tomorrow.
Abraham kept going because he saw the city
of God.
Remember that the end of the journey is
heaven.
The reason for the ministry is heaven.
The reason for the sacrifice is heaven.
Nehemiah kept going because he saw the greatness
of God.
Joshua kept going because he saw and claimed
the promises of God.
And now I want us to deal with
Moses, Exodus chapter 3.
And the thing that helped Moses in all
of those years that were so difficult was
the glory of God.
Moses, more than anything else, is connected with
the glory of God.
Now if Moses were interviewed on 20-20
or 60 Minutes or Good Morning America or
Larry King Live, they'd have a bit of
a problem with him.
I can just imagine some interviewer saying, well
now Moses, you've had a very, very successful
career.
Well, I don't know about that.
I started off getting my picture on every
post office bulletin board in Egypt.
I had murdered a man, although I think
that was in self-defense.
I won't go into it now.
But he killed a man.
And more than once during my years as
a leader, I wanted to quit.
In fact, once I wanted to die.
I said, Lord, if this is the way
it's going to be, take me now.
Now you've never said that, but Moses did.
Well, I understand, Moses, that you had a
very outstanding career.
You were in the university in Egypt, and
you were learned in all of the wisdom
of Egypt.
And I appreciated all of that, but they
never taught me what I needed.
Never told me how to open up a
sea.
Never told me how to feed two million
people out in the wilderness.
Never told me how to fight battles with
the enemy.
I learned things like how to make papyrus,
and how to design a pyramid, and how
to embalm people.
Well, okay, if you had such a rough
time, yeah, I had a rough time.
They criticized me right and left.
They didn't like the way I led them.
They didn't like the way I fed them.
They didn't like my wife.
Yeah, they criticized me.
I had a rough time.
What kept you going?
Your education?
No.
Your brother?
Well, let's not talk about him.
I'll tell you what kept me going, says
Moses.
I always looked for the glory of God.
Now, there are four occasions in our ministry
when we must see the glory of God.
I want to list those four occasions for
you, and then we're going to look at
four events in the life of Moses that
illustrate the occasions.
You need to see the glory of God
when the task seems too big for you.
That's when you have to see the glory
of God.
We need to see the glory of God
when the enemy is too strong for us,
when the task seems too big for us,
when the enemy seems too strong for us,
when the people are too much for us.
We've got to see the glory of God.
And finally, when the reward seems too small
for us, we've got to see the glory
of God.
Oh, I suppose we could ponder now for
a few minutes on what is the glory
of God.
I think you know what it is.
The glory of God is the manifestation of
the sum total of all that He is.
It's interesting to trace the glory of God
in the Scriptures.
The glory of God moved into the tabernacle,
Exodus chapter 40, and then you get the
first Samuel, the people sinned, and they wrote
Ichabod.
Remember that?
Ichabod, the glory has departed.
Then Solomon built a temple, and dedicated the
temple, and the glory of God moved into
the temple.
And then they sinned.
And not only does the glory depart, but
the temple departs.
When you read the first 12 chapters of
Ezekiel, he describes the glory moving out of
the temple.
First it came out of the Holy of
Holies, and it moved up over the threshold,
and it moved over this way, and then
off it went to the Mount of Olives.
The glory departed.
Then the next time the glory came to
earth was at Bethlehem.
Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, goodwill toward man.
The word became flesh and tabernacled among us,
and we beheld His glory.
I like the way Gene Peterson paraphrases that.
It's accurate.
It's an accurate rendition.
And the word became human and moved into
our neighborhood.
Some Christmas, I'm going to preach a sermon
from that text, and I'm going to call
it, There Goes the Neighborhood.
And we took that glory and nailed it
to a cross.
The Lord of glory nailed to a cross.
But hallelujah, He came forth from the tomb
in glory.
And now the glory of God is dwelling
individually in His people.
What know you not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Spirit, which you
have of God?
And God is dwelling among His people.
He's building a temple for the habitation of
His glory.
And we're a part of that.
And God still reveals His glory.
We don't see manifestations of the Shekinah glory,
as did Moses.
But God still is glorified.
There have been times, and there ought to
be more of them, when we are just
amazed.
I stand amazed at what God has done.
All you can say is glory!
Glory.
The psalmist says everything in his temple says
glory.
The earth shall be filled with the glory
of the Lord, as the waters cover the
sea.
So much for theology.
Now let's look at the practical side of
it.
Exodus chapter 3.
We need to see the glory of God
when the task is too big for us.
If you are in ministry, the longer you
stay in ministry, the more God challenges you
to difficult things.
My favorite Old Testament prophet is Jeremiah.
I have a small reproduction of Rembrandt or
somebody did Jeremiah contemplating the ruins of Jerusalem.
Now Jeremiah was a weeping prophet, and when
you read the book, he had his ups
and his downs.
There are times when he says, Lord, you
don't know how to run the world.
I want to advise you a little bit
on how you ought to run the world.
There are times he's ready to quit.
He was griping one day to the Lord,
and by the way, be like Jeremiah.
Tell God exactly how you feel.
And you get up in the morning, you've
got a headache, you've got a full day,
you've had a lot of pressure, and it's
awfully difficult to be honest and say, thank
you, Lord, for this day.
If you want to have your soul revived,
just be honest with God.
Say, Lord, I got a headache, and I'm
going to go meet with a bunch of
headaches.
Be honest with God.
Jeremiah was honest with God, and God said
to him, Jeremiah, you've been running with the
footman.
It's been tiring you out.
What's going to happen when I pitch you
up against the horses?
It's going to get harder, Jeremiah.
See, as we run with the other joggers
on the race of life, that builds us
up, but we can't stay there, because we're
not competing with them, we're competing with ourselves.
So God says, okay, I've got to give
you a little harder challenge.
And so he brings along the horses.
Now I've got to run with the horses.
He says, if while you've been in the
land of peace, you've had problems, what's going
to happen when I send you down to
the jungle of the Jordan?
You see, if God doesn't give me additional
challenges, I'll never grow.
If God doesn't make me dissatisfied with what
I've preached and what I've written, and the
way I've managed the work, so that I
do better, I'll never grow.
You know, I meet these people who say,
well, I've had 20 years experience.
I'm sorry.
They've had one year's experience 20 times.
And they're not growing.
And the only way children can grow is
to be challenged.
I had an uncle, bless his heart, who
when he was in third grade, deliberately failed
third grade, because he didn't want to go
into fourth grade, because in fourth grade, he
had to write with ink.
And he didn't want to write with ink.
Now there's a difference between writing with ink
and writing with pencil.
You can erase a mistake.
With ink, you've got to think while you're
doing it.
And my uncle didn't want to write with
ink.
So he failed.
Stayed in third grade.
You can't stay in third grade the rest
of your life.
I mean, there comes a time you have
to write with ink.
Comes a time when you have to graduate,
as I had to do, almost under pressure
from a typewriter to a computer.
All I know about my computer is how
to turn it on and how to turn
it off.
Some of you people are experts.
Our number two son works for AT&T
or a branch of AT&T or whoever
bought up this branch.
And Lucent, he works for Lucent.
And he designs the chips that design the
chips.
And I used to ask him, well, Bob,
what are you doing?
And he'd say, stop.
He has people from China who call up
to solve their computer problems.
And they get an interpreter.
Now, I can't even, whoever heard of bilingual
computer?
I mean, I can't do that kind of
stuff.
He can't.
But I remember when the boy next door
said to me, why are you writing these
books on a typewriter once you get a
computer?
I'm too old to get a computer.
Well, he said, it'll save you a lot
of time and money.
So I'll tell you what, if you get
a computer in three hours, I can show
you all you need to know to get
started.
So we did.
And I bought myself a Nerf brick, so
that when I got mad at my computer,
I could throw it.
But I had to graduate from running with
the footman to running with the horses.
Now, pretty soon I'll have to graduate into
something else, I'm sure.
Some folks don't want this.
This is why, not always, but often, this
is why we who are in ministry, instead
of staying and growing, we go.
And we look for a place just like
the last place so that we can be
comfortable.
And I'll tell you, friends, we get comfortable
in ministry, we lose our cutting edge.
All of us have faced the task that's
too big for us, because God arranges it
that way.
David went through the palace one day, and
he heard one of the children crying, and
he peeked in, and here was a four
-year-old boy being weaned.
And he was crying because he was being
weaned.
Mother doesn't love me anymore.
He sat down and wrote a psalm about
it.
He said, Lord, I've calmed my soul like
a weaned child.
We all have to be weaned away from
things.
If you don't get weaned away from Mother,
you've always got to be where Mother is.
If you don't get weaned away from Mother,
you never develop your teaching.
God has to wean us away from the
crutches that we lean on so that we'll
grow.
Now, this age and stage in life, that's
not a welcome thought, but it's true.
And I force myself to read something new
and be with something new and go someplace
new, just so I won't become a crotchety
old man.
Now, Moses, according to Exodus 3, was tending
the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law.
Imagine that.
One of the stellar graduates of the university,
learned in all of the wisdom of Egypt.
He's taking care of sheep, the dumbest animal
God ever made.
Imagine that.
God, allowing all those years of study and
learning, and now for 40 years, he's taking
care of a flock of sheep.
God has odd ways of preparing people, because
for the next 40 years, he was going
to take care of a lot of sheep.
And the angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a flame of fire from the
midst of a bush.
Now, the commentators have fun.
What does this stand for, you know?
The bush is Israel, and God is showing
that Israel cannot be consumed, possibly.
If you just turn the page over to
Exodus chapter 24, verse 16 and 17, Now
the glory of the Lord rested on Mount
Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days,
and on the seventh day he called to
Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
The sight of the glory of the Lord
was like a consuming fire.
Hebrews picks this up.
Our God is a consuming fire.
When you find the task is too great
for you, see the glory of God in
the bush.
Now, God didn't send an angel to Moses.
God didn't open up the heavens.
God just simply put a little bush on
fire.
I think that little bush stands for Moses.
And God is saying, Moses, you're about as
weak as this bush, about as useful as
this bush.
But I'll tell you what I'm going to
do.
I'm going to ignite you.
I'm going to share my glory with you.
And when I share my glory with you,
you and I together are going to get
this job done.
Sometimes the Bible compares us to trees.
He shall be like a tree planted by
the rivers of water.
But here God says we're a bunch of
bushes, just ordinary.
All flesh is as grass.
We're just a little bush.
And it would grow and live and die
except for one thing.
The fire of God came upon it and
did not consume it, but used it to
reveal his glory.
So the first lesson I have to learn
is when the task is too great for
me, I've got to see the glory of
God in the bush.
Now, what does that mean?
God was saying to Moses, Moses, I can
use you.
Moses argued with God, who am I that
I should go to Pharaoh?
Well, that's not the point.
You're just a humble bush, but I'll ignite
you.
Well, okay, I know who I am now.
Who are you?
What name do I use when I put
it on my calling card?
Well, just tell them that the I Am
has sent you.
But what if they don't believe?
Don't worry about that.
I'll take care of that.
Well, I can't speak.
Didn't I make your tongue?
I thought Moses did pretty well in speaking.
Whenever I read Deuteronomy, it's a masterpiece.
And finally, God has to say, Moses, look,
you want to depend on yourself?
You're looking in the mirror.
Don't look at the mirror, look at the
bush.
And look at the glory in the bush.
I am the one who is sufficient, and
if I call you, I will enable you.
Now, keep a marker back there, and go
over to 2 Corinthians.
2 Corinthians is the pastor's book.
Anybody who's in Christian ministry, pastor's wife, missionary,
whatever you may be, minister of the word,
2 Corinthians is your book.
Paul opens his heart in 2 Corinthians and
shares his suffering in God's adequacy.
You start reading 2 Corinthians, you get to
chapter 2 and verse 16, and Paul asks
one of his important questions.
And who is sufficient for these things?
He says, we are to the unsaved the
fragrance of death unto death.
We are unto the saved the fragrance of
life unto life.
I mean, this ministry, folks, that we are
in, is a matter of life and death.
Now, we enjoy many things, we have fun,
God wants us to.
I believe there will be laughter in heaven,
a holy laughter.
He who sits in heaven shall laugh.
But this is serious business.
Who is sufficient for a ministry of the
word, that if it is done the wrong
way, could cause a person not to believe
in Jesus?
Who is sufficient for this matter of life
or death?
Well, we certainly aren't sufficient, but he gives
the answer down in chapter 3, verse 5.
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to
think of anything as being from ourselves, but
our sufficiency is from God, who also made
us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant.
So God was saying through Paul, just as
Moses looked at the bush and said, boy,
I'm like that bush.
Then Moses had to look and see the
fire on the bush and say, alright, the
glory of God.
Who is sufficient for these things?
Well, according to chapter 3, verse 5 and
verse 6, God makes us sufficient for our
spiritual ministry.
But don't stop there.
Turn to chapter 9 of 2 Corinthians, verse
8, a verse many of you can quote.
Not only is God sufficient for our spiritual
ministry, but God is sufficient for our material
needs.
Verse 8, and God is able to make
all things abound toward you, that you always,
having all sufficiency in all things, may have
an abundance for every good work.
You know what that says?
If God calls us to do a work,
He'll supply what is needed.
I like the universals in that chapter.
All grace, all ways, all sufficiency, all things,
every good work.
Who is sufficient?
God.
God is sufficient for our material needs.
Some of you are going through building programs.
Some of you would like to go into
building programs.
You say, we're just a bunch of little
bushes down here.
But when God is ready to do something,
He ignites those bushes.
You just see the glory of God in
the bush.
God enjoys taking the weak things of this
world and confounding the mighty.
But it doesn't stop there.
I know I speak to some people who
have to deal with physical needs, either in
yourself or somebody at home.
So many of God's servants in history were
not well.
Charles Spurgeon sometimes had to preach with his
foot up on a pillow because of pain.
He would usually leave London somewhere in January
and go to the south of France to
regain his strength.
He was not a well man.
Campbell Morgan used to have headaches that were
so difficult.
He often had an osteopath.
I don't think they called him that back
in those days.
He looked like a chiropractor or a work
-to-work on his neck before he went
into the service to preach.
Many of God's servants, Wilbur Smith, the great
bibliophile, brilliant New Testament scholar, spent most of
his life operating with one eye.
He couldn't see out of the other eye.
If you have good health, hold on to
it.
Thank God for it.
I mean, they've got medicine now that's so
strong you've got to be in perfect health
to take it.
But there's some people who, in their bodies,
it's a demand.
And they say, God, I can't do it.
But look at chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians.
Here's our third sufficiency.
God is sufficient for my spiritual needs and
my material needs and my physical needs.
And he said to me, my grace is
sufficient for you, for my strength is made
perfect in weakness.
Sometimes God elects to heal.
Sometimes He doesn't.
But even if God doesn't give you healing,
He gives you grace.
And you can get the job done.
So, when the task is too great for
you, when the task is too great for
you, see the glory of God in the
bush.
Just remember, you're just a bush.
But when the glory of God ignites you,
you'll get something done.
Now, there's a second occasion when we have
to see the glory of God.
And for this we go to Exodus chapter
40.
Exodus chapter 40.
God gave to the Jewish people blessings He
never gave to Rome or Egypt or any
other nation.
Paul lists some of those blessings over in
Romans chapter 9.
Who are Israelites to whom pertain the adoption?
God never adopted the Romans, He gave the
Jews.
The glory!
The other nations had temples.
They had priests.
They had altars.
They had sacrifices.
They had religion.
But their temples were empty.
When Moses erected the tabernacle, and later on
when Solomon built the temple, that temple wasn't
empty.
Exodus chapter 40.
And the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting.
And the glory of the Lord filled the
tabernacle.
And Moses was not able to enter the
tabernacle of meeting because the cloud rested above
it.
And the glory of the Lord filled the
tabernacle.
Same thing happened to the temple.
Now, you must remember this.
Israel was surrounded by filth.
When you read about the religions of the
Canaanites and the other nations through which the
Jews passed to get to Canaan, you think
you're reading modern pornography.
They're filthy.
Wicked.
There were religions where they offered their children
to their idol.
They had consecrated prostitutes, both male and female.
Their religion was saturated with sex.
And it was into this environment that God
led His people.
And He gave them some rules.
He said, don't you study comparative religion.
Don't you sit down with those people and
say, now let's see, what have you got
that we need?
He said, tear down their altars.
Wreck their temples.
Don't go to their feasts.
Wipe them out.
Now, some of the people, the tenderhearted people,
say this is awful wicked of God to
want to destroy a whole society.
Just go back and read what that society
was like.
By the way, we're getting close to it
here in the world today.
Now, here's Moses having to keep a pure
people to help the mothers and daddies raise
the boys and girls so they won't wreck
their bodies.
A teenager asked his grandfather, Grandpa, what did
they wear in your day for safe sex?
Grandpa said, a wedding ring.
We don't have that today.
In fact, we have to rewrite the wedding
ceremonies.
We're living in a cesspool of iniquity.
Now, how can Moses help these people not
to get involved with this crowd out here?
Because everything within human nature wants to go
down.
You know what God did?
He said, Moses, when you get worried about
the enemy out there, just look at the
middle of the camp.
There is my glory.
God put the tabernacle right in the middle
of the camp, and over the tabernacle He
put that cloud of glory.
And so here's a Jewish boy who sees
an attractive Moabitess girl.
He's tempted to do something he shouldn't do,
then he turns around and looks and he
sees the glory of God.
And he says, I'm different.
I've got the glory.
That's what Paul meant when he said, whether
you eat or drink or whatever you do,
do it all to the glory of God.
And God said to Moses, and He told
the people, you are sanctified by this glory.
What makes us different from the people of
the world?
Are we more handsome, more beautiful?
Not necessarily.
Do we have more money than they have?
Probably not.
Are we smarter than they are?
We can't prove that.
What makes us different from the crowd out
there?
We have got the glory.
Now, you say, I can hardly wait to
get to heaven to be glorified.
Dear friend, you are glorified.
It just hasn't been revealed yet.
The Lord said, whom He justified, them He
also glorified.
I am glorified now.
It just hasn't been revealed yet.
That's why Hebrews 8 says, all of creation,
your garden and the backyard, all of creation
is just waiting for the manifestation of the
sons of God.
When Jesus shall return and the glory shall
be revealed.
And so, God says to you and me,
look, when the task is too great for
you, My glory can use a bush.
And when the enemy is too strong for
you, and they are moving in on your
fellowship, moving in on your family, it's the
glory.
The glory in the camp.
Remind your congregation that when you assemble, the
glory of God is there.
Remind your family that when you meet together
to pray, the glory of God is there.
Remind your children that when they go off
to school or work or wherever, they are
taking with them the glory.
So, when the enemy gets too strong for
us, we need to see the glory of
God in the camp.
Paul had an interesting thing to say about
this in 1 Corinthians 14.
He had some problems with the Corinthian church
because they were using their spiritual gifts as
toys to play with and weapons to fight
with instead of tools to build with.
That's a dangerous thing.
And he says in 1 Corinthians 14, he
said, now look, you evangelical exhibitionists there in
Corinth, you don't come to church to glorify
God, you come to show off.
We have some of that still today.
And he says, suppose that an unbeliever comes
in and you're fussing with each other, who's
going to speak next, and you're speaking in
languages that nobody can interpret for you, this
man will think you're mad.
Now look at the passage, 1 Corinthians 14
.23, Therefore, if the whole church comes together
in one place and all speak with tongues,
and there come in those who are uninformed
or unbelievers, will they not say that you
are out of your mind?
But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or
an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced
by all, he is convicted by all, and
thus the secrets of his heart are revealed.
And so falling down on his face, he
will worship God and report that God is
truly among you.
He'll see the glory.
That's the ultimate in worship, that there is
such a sensing of the presence of the
glory of God that even the unsaved fall
on their faces.
Charles Spurgeon reports in his autobiography that there
were times at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London
when in their prayer meetings, the glory of
God so moved in, nobody could talk.
There was just a sense, an awesome sense
of the glory of God.
That would help us.
So when you look at yourself and you
say, the task is too big for me,
see God's glory in the bush.
When you look around and see all of
the pollution, all the landmines out there, all
the dangers, just remember the glory of God
is in the camp.
We have the glory.
There is a third occasion when Moses saw
the glory.
And this you find in Exodus chapter 32.
Do people ever bother you?
John Cleese has a video up called, How
to Irritate People.
Most of the people who irritate me don't
need any help.
Moses' greatest problem, humanly speaking, was caused by
the people he was trying to help.
The more he did for them, the more
they criticized him.
When people are too much for you, you've
got to see the glory of God on
the mount.
Whenever the people broke his heart, off he
would go and talk to God.
Exodus chapter 32, 33, 34.
Moses is up on the mountain, getting his
instructions from God, and the people are getting
nervous.
And so the elders come to Aaron, and
they say, we haven't seen Moses for quite
a while.
I mean, it would be as though the
pastor of a Calvary chapel vanished for two
months, and nothing was heard.
So the Jewish people who had a difficult
time walking by faith anyway, came to Aaron
and said, we haven't seen Moses around for
a long time.
Well, he's up talking to God.
Well, we haven't seen him, we haven't heard
from him.
He's not giving us reports.
So they asked Aaron to make them something
they could see.
And so Aaron gathered together the gold and
made a golden calf.
It was one of the idols they saw
down in Egypt.
And he declared a holiday.
He was pleasing the people.
He was giving them what they want.
Now, that's a dangerous thing in ministry.
We have to make people want the right
thing.
If you give people what they want, you
may not give them what they need.
It's a very delicate thing to say, alright,
now we're going to arrange the service so
that we can have evangelistic outreach and win
people to Christ.
Well, what are you going to minimize?
What are you going to maximize?
How are you going to arrange it?
Numbers of denominations have gone right through their
hymn book and taken out the songs about
the cross.
The blood.
We sang this morning about the blood of
Jesus.
We're going to be singing about the blood
of Jesus for eternity.
Hallelujah!
For the blood of the lamb that was
slain.
When John was up in heaven, he had
this great worship service.
He was singing about the lamb who was
slain.
But there are churches that won't sing about
that.
Some because they don't believe in what they
call a butcher block theology.
Others because they say, well, the unsaved will
be offended.
If you're going to preach the cross, you're
going to offend somebody.
You're going to offend somebody.
So Aaron decided to have a popular religion
that would please everybody.
And you can do that.
And God knew about it.
And so in Exodus 32, verse 7, the
Lord said to Moses, Go, get down, for
your people whom you brought out of the
land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.
Now, consider the enormity of this sin.
Who were the people that sinned?
The folks that had the glory.
Where did they do it?
At Mount Sinai, where they saw the glory.
When did they do it?
After they'd been given the law.
You shall not make any graven image.
Why did they do it?
Because they couldn't live by faith.
They had to have something they could see.
God says to Moses, here's one of the
temptations you're going to face.
Verse 10 in Exodus 32, Now, therefore, let
me alone that my wrath may burn hot
against them, and I may consume them.
And Moses, I'm going to take you and
make a new nation out of you.
That's always the temptation every leader faces.
At some point, at some point, God will
test you.
Now, of course, He wasn't going to do
that to Moses, but He's testing him.
Moses, are you more concerned about yourself or
your people?
Moses, I'll make a great nation out of
you, and let's just wipe out this crowd
down there.
Would the new nation have been any different
from the old nation?
Probably not.
And Moses wouldn't do that.
Moses pleaded with the Lord.
It's not like Paul.
Paul says, I am willing to go to
hell for the Jewish people.
Romans 9, 10.
Paul was an amazing fellow.
He wrote to the Philippians, I'm willing to
stay out of heaven for your sake.
He says about the Jews, I'm willing to
go to hell for their sake.
What do you do with a man like
that?
And Moses interceded for them.
He said, these aren't my people, they're your
people.
If you destroy them, what are you going
to say to Abraham?
Abraham's there with you.
You're the God of Abraham.
Are you going to say, Abraham, I broke
the covenant?
What are you going to say to Isaac?
What are you going to say to Jacob?
I broke the covenant?
God said, that's the answer I wanted to
hear.
Moses went down, disciplined the people, and then
he went back up and prayed for them.
Prayed for them.
I like to contrast two people, Elijah and
Moses.
In both cases, they felt the people had
failed.
On Moses' case, they had failed.
Elijah thought he was the only one.
You have to watch out for the Elijah
complex.
I'm the only one left.
Who was the preacher who preached a fine
sermon and got in the car to go
home and waited for his wife to compliment
him and she didn't say anything so funny?
He said, you know, there aren't many great
expositors left anymore.
She said, well, there's one less than you
think.
So, Elijah goes up on the mountain.
Elijah goes up on the mountain complaining.
Don't ever go up on the mountain complaining.
I'm the only one left.
I'm the only one true to Your Word.
It's all going to die with me.
Moses went up on the mountain interceding.
Moses saw the glory on the mountain.
He said, oh, show me Your glory.
You see, folks, our people are going to
fail us just like we failed them.
Read about the people that worked with Paul.
Demas has forsaken me having loved this present
world.
At my last defense, nobody stood with me.
But the Lord stood with me.
And there are times when you feel like
you're the only one alone.
And Moses goes up on the mountain and
says, don't destroy them.
Love them.
Forgive them.
They are Your people.
When people are just too much for you,
see the glory of God up on the
mountain.
Because one day, God is going to be
glorified in His people.
We don't see it now.
But it's going to happen.
Ephesians chapter 1, Paul tells us why God
has His plan of salvation.
Three times, for the praise of His glory.
For the praise of the glory of His
grace.
For the praise of His glory.
Why does God save people?
Not to solve their problems.
Why does God save people?
To make the world better?
We hope.
You know why He saved you?
For the praise of His glory.
And the preacher and the missionary and the
pastor's wife, when our hearts are broken, when
our children fail, when our people fail, let's
not go up on the mountain like Elijah
and gripe and complain.
No, no, let's go up like Moses and
say, show me your glory.
Oh God, if I just see your glory,
I can keep going.
Because I know one day, the earth is
going to be filled with the glory of
the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
So, when the task is too great for
you, see God's glory in the bush.
When the enemy is too strong for you,
see God's glory in the camp.
When the people are too much for you,
see God's glory on the mount.
Now there is a fourth occasion.
When the rewards seem too small for you,
you've got to see God's glory in the
faith of the Lord Jesus.
Do you ever stop to think how Moses
moved off the scene?
Let's suppose that Moses had a contract with
ABC Capital or somebody.
Suppose he had a contract and they say,
well, it's about time for Moses to move
off the scene.
Okay, we'll take care of it.
First, there's going to be a big ticker
tape parade in his honor, a great big
banquet in his honor, and we'll bring in
all the best we can bring in.
And then we'll arrange for God to do
some mighty miracles and then a chariot will
come down and pick Moses up.
That's not what happens.
You'd think that all that Moses had done
for God, his exodus would have been a
stellar event.
It wasn't.
One day God said, Moses, let's go up
here on the mountain.
Yes, Lord.
Moses left the camp after making that long
speech in Deuteronomy, went up in the mountain.
Now Moses said, I'm going to show you
the land.
You're not going to go in it yet,
but I'm going to show it to you.
Moses wanted to go into the Holy Land.
He begged that God would send him to
the Holy Land, let him go into the
Holy Land.
God said, no, no.
It would ruin the book of Hebrews.
So we'll just leave it.
Don't say anything more about it.
And so Moses lifted up his eyes and
he saw.
He saw the land that he loved so
much.
And then God put him to sleep.
Television crews weren't there.
No pallbearers.
God just put him to sleep and God
buried him.
What a way to go.
After all you have done for the people.
Some years ago, I had the rare privilege,
it's only happened once, I had the rare
privilege of sharing a meeting with Dr. W
.A. Criswell, whose ministry we all admire so
much.
And at this meeting he told a story
which perhaps you have heard or used.
It impressed me.
If you have heard it, bear with me.
At the New York Harbor, a great ship
came in and on that ship was Theodore
Roosevelt.
He had been to Africa on a safari.
Also on that ship was an elderly missionary
couple who had ended their work in Africa
and were coming home.
The press was there.
And the flashbulbs were flashing and the president
came down.
It was just a big thing and the
whole world welcomed him.
You know, a big parade.
And then down the gangplank came this elderly
couple with their old luggage and they went
to a modest hotel room to bed down
for the night before getting a train home.
And the man said, this is not fair.
We have invested our whole lives in Africa.
Not killing, but giving life.
We've sacrificed.
We've buried some children there.
And we come home and there is nobody
to meet us and we're in this cheap
hotel room.
It's not fair.
Now wives are wives.
They know what to say and how to
say it.
And all she said was, but my dear,
we aren't home yet.
We aren't home yet.
Centuries later, the Lord Jesus said, Peter, James,
John, come with me.
They went up on a mountain and our
Lord was transfigured before them.
And here was Moses.
He made it to the Holy Land.
Here was Elijah in glory.
And they discussed our Lord's exodus, says Luke,
that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.
His exodus.
Moses had accomplished an exodus.
He brought the Jewish people out of Egypt.
Ah, but Jesus was going to accomplish an
exodus for the whole world.
He's going to bring sinners out of slavery
into redemption.
And Moses made it to the glory.
He saw the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ.
Folks, we're not home yet.
We're not home yet.
You can't go to a board meeting and
say, look, I paid these bills myself.
You can't say that.
You can't go to a congregational meeting and
tell them the hours you were in the
hospital at night till the wee hours of
the morning.
You can't tell people this.
They don't believe you.
Or they'll think you're bragging.
And there are going to be days when
the devil is going to say, fine master
you've got.
Look at all the sacrifice you make.
Look at the extra burdens your wife and
children have to carry.
What reward is this?
And when the reward seems too small, just
get up on the Mount of Transfiguration and
see the face of Jesus Christ.
Moses eventually saw the glory.
You say, well that's all very interesting, but
what's it mean to me?
Well, would you just in closing turn to
2 Corinthians chapter 3.
2 Corinthians chapter 3, the theme is glory.
Thirteen times you find the word glory in
2 Corinthians chapter 3.
He contrasts the glory of the Old Covenant
with the glory of the New Covenant.
The Old Covenant glory faded away.
The New Covenant glory gets brighter and brighter.
In the Old Covenant, the Word was written
on stone.
In the New Covenant, the Word is written
on our hearts.
As I stand here ministering the Word of
God, if your heart is open to the
Holy Spirit, He's writing this Word on your
heart.
Chapter 3 verse 18, In the Old Covenant,
only Moses got up there to see the
glory.
Oh, the people could see the glory over
the tabernacle, but only Moses got up there.
And when he came down, his face was
shining.
He picked up some of the glory.
And then that glory began to fade away,
so he put a mask on, a veil
on, so that he wouldn't see the glory
fading away.
Then he'd go out to see God or
go out to the tent of meeting to
see God, take the mask off.
And when he came up, put it back
on.
3.18, But we all, oh, not just
the preacher, not just Moses, we all with
unveiled face, ah, we don't have to worry
about that, beholding as in a mirror, that's
the Word of God, the glory of the
Lord are being transfigured.
That's the Word.
Transfigured into the same image, from glory to
glory, just as by the Spirit of the
Lord.
You know, that verse says that when the
child of God looks into the Word of
God and sees the Son of God, he
or she is transformed by the Spirit of
God into the image of God for the
glory of God.
You can have your own private transfiguration every
day.
Just get to the Word and see the
glory of Jesus in the face of our
Lord Jesus.
The trouble is, we go around wearing masks.
When the task is too great for you,
see God's glory in the bush.
When the enemy is too strong for you,
see God's glory in the camp.
Oh, remind your people that they are an
assembly of glory.
When the people are too much for you
and they break your heart, just see God's
glory on the mountain.
Get that distant view.
Get that broad outlook.
And when the rewards seem too
small for you, just get your Bible, open
it up, look for Jesus, and remember you're
not home yet.
And when you're home, God will take care
of us.
When I was pastoring the Moody Church in
Chicago, I made it my business to investigate
into the life of D.L. Moody.
What a man.
If you want your soul encouraged, read A
Good Life of D.L. Moody.
He was a bush.
In fact, Richard Ellsworth Day called his biography
of D.L. Moody Bush Aglow.
He never got past sixth grade.
He murdered the King's English.
He'd say things like, God done it!
They claimed he could say Jerusalem in one
syllable.
How he did it.
But oh, what a man.
Ignited by God.
Well, he was in Birmingham, England having a
crusade, and the great R.W. Dale, congregational
preacher and theologian and author, was there to
help.
You couldn't find two more opposite men.
R.W. Dale was a trained man who
read the Scriptures and the original and wrote
profound books.
During the crusade, R.W. Dale came to
D.L. Moody.
He said, Mr. Moody, this work has to
be of God.
For I see no connection between you and
what's going on.
And D.L. Moody smiled and said, May
it ever be so!
I can't think of a greater compliment.
Same thing happened to my predecessor, Theodore F.,
who found it back to the Bible.
He and M.R. DeHaan, radio Bible class,
were very close friends.
In fact, Mr. F.
preached Dr. DeHaan's funeral.
Dr. DeHaan came to Lincoln and went through
the broadcast office and everything.
It was all over.
He looked at his friend Theodore F.
and said, F, if I were God, you're
the last one I would have chosen to
do all this.
Mr. F.
thought that was so funny.
Isn't it wonderful when God does things and
nobody can explain it?
That's how he gets the glory.
And so, oh, we are a bunch of
bushes.
We don't just bloom where we're planted.
We are ignited by the glory of God.
As long as we're bushes, he can get
the glory.
And so, Father, thank you that you've gained
to share your glory with us.
We can understand you're sharing the glory with
the angels, but you share it with us.
And so I pray in Jesus' name, may
we not rob you of glory, may we
not tarnish the glory, but rather may we
be the means of extending the glory for
Jesus' sake.
Amen.