We are going to begin now.
Let's turn to Exodus, chapter 1.
If Genesis we could say is the book
of beginnings, we could title Exodus as a
nation is born, the birth of the Israeli
nation.
As a nation, the beginnings we saw in
Genesis and now we find them becoming a
full-fledged nation.
And in the first 15 chapters, we read
of their slavery in Egypt and their deliverance
or we could call it redemption from Egypt.
And the rest of the chapter deals with
their time in the wilderness and God's giving
them his plan for building the tabernacle.
So let's look at this.
In the beginning, we read of how Pharaoh
was disturbed.
The Israelites, even though they were slaves, they
were becoming more numerous and more powerful numerically.
And he was afraid that these men would
finally stop working for him and overthrow his
government.
So he decided on a scheme to kill
all the male children.
Now that was a scheme of the devil.
Now what did we see in our last
studies?
Not just that God protects us from the
devil's schemes, but God does something better.
He uses the devil's plan to fulfill his
purpose.
And that shows his almightiness in a much
greater way.
I mean, God could show his almightiness to
us by protecting us from the devil.
That itself would be great.
But he shows it in a greater way
by turning the tables on Satan, using the
very thing that Satan does to destroy him.
And the greatest example of this is Calvary,
where Satan got everybody geared up and engineered
opposition to Jesus, got him crucified, and that
was the very thing that resulted in the
overthrow of Satan, because Satan was defeated on
that cross.
We can say Satan contributed to his overthrow.
Now this is not just for Jesus.
It's for you and me.
It's not just for Joseph.
It's not just for the people in the
Bible.
That the things which the devil seeks to
do for you, if you live with a
clear conscience and in humility before God, he'll
turn it back on the devil, and the
very thing that evil people and the devil
and all his agents seek to do to
you will ultimately fulfill God's purpose for your
life.
This is the message of the Bible.
How do we see it here?
Because Pharaoh passed an order that all the
male babies must be killed, that was the
reason why Moses' mother put Moses in a
little ark and put it in the river,
and that's how Pharaoh's daughter saw Moses, picked
him up, and Moses could grow up in
Pharaoh's palace, which is the place where God
wanted him to be.
That could never have happened if the male
babies were not being killed.
If the male babies were not being killed,
Moses would have grown up just to be
another slave.
You see how God's purposes are fulfilled through
what the devil does.
And the thing we see here is a
great lesson for us.
We see it in church history too.
That when God wants to do something for
his people, he always begins with a man.
He had to find a man before he
could deliver the Israelites.
And the training of that man took 80
years.
And it wasn't academic training alone.
Moses was trained in the best academies of
Egypt.
But that did not qualify him to serve
God.
Acts chapter 7, Stephen says that Moses was
mighty in words and in deeds.
That means he was a powerful, eloquent speaker
when he was 40 years old.
He was a great military leader.
He was a very rich person.
He had been trained with the best education
that Egypt could give.
And Egypt was the world's superpower in those
days.
And at the end of it all, he's
not fit.
In fact, Stephen says, Moses thought that the
Israelites would recognize that God had raised up
a prince in Egypt's palace to deliver them.
But it says they did not recognize him.
He was not ready.
All his earthly training, all his earthly abilities
could not prepare him for the task God
had for him.
Today, people go to Bible schools and study
the scriptures and they're qualified.
They think they've got a singing voice.
They've got abilities with instruments.
It's all good.
And, oh, they've got money.
They say we can use money for God's
work.
So many things.
So many resources, abilities.
Learn a lesson from Moses.
With the best that he had.
Egypt was the world's superpower in those days.
Something like the United States today.
Pharaoh was the most powerful man in the
world.
And Moses was growing up in that palace
with the best training, with engineering ability to
build pyramids.
With all of that, he was not fit.
Powerful speaker?
No use.
Forty years of the best that the world
could give did not prepare him for God's
service.
God took him for another forty years into
the wilderness to a completely opposite life to
what he had, looking after sheep, living with
his father-in-law for forty years.
I mean, living with your father-in-law
for one year itself can be pretty difficult
for a man.
I mean, women in our country live with
their father-in-laws all their life very
often.
But man, living with his wife's father and
getting a job from his wife's father.
Can you imagine anything more humiliating than that?
Not just for one or two years, but
forty years.
That's how God broke Moses.
That's how God broke Jacob.
You remember?
He had to live with his father-in
-law for twenty years.
And God uses fathers-in-law, I tell
you that, to break people.
And mothers-in-law also, I presume.
I don't know how Moses' mother-in-law
was.
But God uses mothers-in-law, fathers-in
-law to teach Moses what all the world's
abilities cannot teach him.
All the universities in Egypt cannot teach what
he learns there.
Looking after sheep, working for his father-in
-law, all the humiliation of living in the
same tent.
And at the end of forty years, he's
so broken that he says, Lord, I can't
speak.
Please send somebody else.
And God says, Now you're ready.
What is the message we learn from Jacob
and from Moses?
When you think you're ready, you're not.
When you think you're capable, you're strong, you've
got knowledge, you've got ability, you can do
this, you can sing, you can play, you
can speak.
God says, I have to wait.
I have to wait till you're broken.
With Jacob, it took twenty years.
With Moses, it took forty years.
With Peter, it took three years.
With Paul, at least three years.
It need not take long.
That depends on you.
How long does it take to go through
school from first standard to tenth standard?
How many years?
Ten years?
I'll tell you people who've taken fifteen years.
Twenty years.
I know some people who study in some
of the medical colleges in Bangalore who spent
fifteen years to finish a four-year course.
So, the course may be only so much,
but how long you take depends on you.
It's the same in the Christian life.
God had a training program for Moses.
Now, I'll give you my personal conviction.
It says here, there's a verse in Exodus
in chapter twelve and verse forty which says
that the time that the sons of Israel
lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty
years.
Now, when God spoke to Abraham in Genesis
chapter fifteen and told him that your descendants
are going to be slaves in another land,
He told him in Genesis fifteen and verse
thirteen that they will be there for four
hundred years.
And actually we read they were there for
four hundred and thirty years.
Did God make a mistake?
God is very exact.
In the fullness of time God sent his
son.
It was exact.
You read Daniel chapter nine, the very year
is predicted when Jesus will be crucified.
So, God doesn't make a mistake.
When God spoke to Abraham, His plan was
Israelites should be in Egypt for four hundred
years.
Why did it take four hundred and thirty
years?
Let me give you another example.
When God brought the Israelites out of Egypt,
His plan for them was that they should
be two years in the wilderness.
How many years did they spend in the
wilderness?
Forty years.
God may want to break you in two
years.
How many years may it take?
Forty years.
In other words, God may want to use
you in two years.
He may not be able to use you
for forty years.
That depends on you.
So, God's plan for the Israelites was four
hundred years.
But it took four hundred and thirty years.
How many years extra?
Thirty years.
Why?
I believe the reason is, God's man was
not ready.
And from that, I deduce that when Moses
left the palace of Egypt at forty, God
had wanted him to spend ten years in
the wilderness with his father-in-law broken
by then and come out at the age
of fifty to be a leader.
But Moses did not learn his lessons in
ten years.
His father-in-law had to trouble him
some more for him to learn some lessons.
Thirty more years.
Now this is a warning for us.
God may have a plan for your life.
It will never begin to be fulfilled till
you are broken.
And what he has planned to do in
ten years may take forty years.
Learn a lesson from that and take a
warning.
It's good, Lamentations 3 says, it's good for
a man to bear the yoke in his
youth.
When we are young, if we can learn
this, by the time we are thirty, we
are ready.
Yeah, God takes us through many lessons to
break us.
Humble yourself under those circumstances.
Don't fight against those circumstances and delay God's
plan.
Any amount of Bible knowledge, any amount of
musical ability, any amount of money, cannot serve
God.
Brokenness.
Jacob becomes an Israel when he is broken.
Moses becomes a servant of God and a
prophet when he is broken.
Now let's turn to Exodus 2.
We read there of a time when Moses
goes out to deliver the Israelites from the
Egyptians and he meets an Egyptian beating a
Hebrew, Exodus 2.11 and he beats him
and kills him.
Can you imagine what a powerful man he
was?
That with his hands he could kill a
man.
Now if he had continued killing the Egyptians
at that rate, one by one, how many
years do you think he would have taken
to kill all the millions of Egyptians?
He would have died before all the Egyptians
were killed if he had killed them one
by one.
That's the result of human ability.
But when God had broken him at the
age of eighty and he lifts up his
rod over the Red Sea, in a moment,
the entire Egyptian army is buried under the
Red Sea forever.
That is the difference between human power and
God's power.
That is the difference between a man serving
with his human ability and a broken man
serving with the power of God.
Let me encourage you, my brothers and sisters,
the message in the scriptures right from the
beginning is if you want to build Jerusalem,
if you want to build a church, you've
got to be broken.
You've got to be a broken man.
You've got to be humbled by God through
circumstances, through people.
And if you don't rebel in those circumstances,
God can do a quick work in you.
Yeah, God can do a quick work in
you.
I've seen a lot of people, very zealous
young people who know all the doctrines and
who think that they can serve God and
they go out in their strength.
Twenty, thirty years later they are frustrated, discouraged,
critical, blame this person, that person.
They've accomplished nothing.
I feel sad.
I tell you, my life is exciting.
I'm sixty-one years old today.
I've been born again for over forty-one
years.
And I believe the best lies ahead of
me.
I'm so excited to live for God.
It's the best possible thing in the world.
I don't have a complaint against anyone in
the world.
Nobody's ever done any harm to me.
People have tried to do harm.
Many, many people.
But all that they did only worked for
my good.
Like it says in Romans 8, 28.
So I have no complaints.
But God's had to break me, even in
the last few years, through circumstances and events
that other people try to do to harm
me.
I humble myself under God and He breaks
me, continues to break me throughout my life.
And the more we are broken, the more
God can make us a blessing to others.
You see in the book of Exodus, when
the rock is smitten, the waters flow.
If the rock is not smitten, the waters
will not flow.
When the alabaster vial, the woman brought and
broke it at Jesus' feet, the perfume filled
the house.
When it's not broken, it doesn't fill the
house.
When Jesus took the loaves and blessed it,
nothing happened.
When He broke it, five thousand were fed.
What is the message in all these things?
Brokenness, brokenness, brokenness, brokenness.
When the atom is split, what tremendous power
is released.
To give electricity to a whole city.
Small atom, so small that you can hardly
see it.
The message in nature, the message in the
Bible is power is released through brokenness.
If you've got that message and it's gripped
your life, God gripped me with that message.
36 years ago, when I was seeking God
for the baptism in the Holy Spirit and
power.
Before I left my job, I was seeking
God for power and the Lord showed me
that the way of brokenness was the way
of power.
And I've never lost my sight of that.
I want to encourage you young people to
learn that lesson when you're young.
We read here that when God finally called
Moses and He says, I'm reluctant to go.
Just one thing I want to say here.
God made a promise here through Moses to
the people.
He said to them in Exodus 3.17,
I will bring you, He told all those
elders and the leaders of Israel.
I will bring you out of Egypt into
the land of the Canaanites.
There were two promises there.
I'll bring you out of Egypt.
I'll bring you into Canaan.
Only one was fulfilled.
The other was not fulfilled.
This is to prove to you that God's
promises are not fulfilled always.
Here is a clear proof.
All those elders who heard the promise of
God, I will bring you out of Egypt.
I'll bring you into Canaan.
None of them entered Canaan.
Only half was fulfilled because they did not
respond in faith.
That's what I want to say to you.
God's promises are not fulfilled until you respond
in faith.
It's like a switch.
You know what happens in a switch?
One wire, you know electricity, you need two
wires.
And at the switch, the electrician puts those
two wires next to each other.
They don't touch.
That's why the lights are not burning.
The moment you put the switch, they touch.
The lights come on, the fans come on.
God's promise and your faith, it may be
that close, it doesn't touch.
And no lights, no fan, nothing works.
The moment it touches, everything, power.
Can you imagine a small switch and the
whole building becoming full of power?
Such a small gap.
There isn't a switch between those two wires.
It makes all the difference.
God's promise, you can hear about it, you
can understand it, but when your faith reaches
out and says, yes, it will be fulfilled
in my life, that's when it's fulfilled.
And only Joshua and Caleb believed that it
would be fulfilled and only Joshua and Caleb
experienced it.
Exodus chapter 4, we read about God calling
Moses and in order to encourage him and
to teach him, he gave him three signs.
The first sign was, when Moses said, they
won't believe me, verse 1, what will I
say?
The first sign he said, the Lord said,
what is in your hand?
The Lord always begins with what is in
our hand.
You don't have to go looking for something
you don't have.
What do you have?
That's enough.
Elisha asked the widow, what do you have
in your house?
A pot of oil?
That's enough.
With that pot of oil, all your problems
can be solved.
The Lord asked Moses, what's in your hand?
A shepherd's staff.
Okay.
That's enough.
If God is with that shepherd's staff, all
types of things can happen.
And what is the first sign?
Throw your shepherd's staff on the ground.
It became a serpent.
Verse 3, and Moses fled from it and
the Lord said, don't be scared.
Stretch out your hand and take it by
the tail.
And he caught it and became a staff
in his hand.
What is the message there?
Overcoming Satan.
That's the first thing we need to learn.
We need to learn that we don't have
to be afraid of Satan.
We don't have to be afraid of that
serpent.
We have to learn that Satan is so
close to us, right in our hand.
You think Satan is far from us?
It was right in Moses' hand.
Cast it down and you see there's a
devil there.
There's selfishness, very close to us, right in
our flesh.
Satan has got his citadels and his forts.
But we don't have to be afraid of
him.
We don't have to run away from this
serpent.
In Jesus' name, we can take that and
the very thing we are afraid of becomes
a rod of authority in our hand to
split the Red Sea and to lead God's
people on.
One of the first things God's servants need
is authority.
Not knowledge.
Authority.
I would rather have a man who has
spiritual authority even if he has less Bible
knowledge than a man with a lot of
Bible knowledge but no spiritual authority.
The trouble today is a lot of preachers
have a lot of Bible knowledge.
Some don't even have that.
But some have knowledge but they have no
authority.
First thing God said to Moses, you need
authority in your life.
You need authority over the enemy.
You must not be afraid of Satan.
Satan shouldn't put a fear in your heart.
Secondly, the Lord said, now, verse 6, with
the same hand, now put your hand inside
your bosom.
Put it inside your shirt.
And when he took it out, it was
full of leprosy.
That's the second thing you need to learn.
The corruption that is inside your own heart,
inside your flesh.
You think it's not there.
Put your hand inside and see.
Ask God to give you light on what's
inside yourself.
And you'll see a lot of it.
It's like leprosy.
Corrupt.
That's the second thing you need to see.
That in your flesh, like Paul said, dwells
no good thing.
Romans 7, 18.
Nothing good dwells in my flesh.
You cannot serve God until you learn that.
Because if you don't learn that, you will
go around condemning people as if they have
got a worse flesh than yours.
I thank God that God has shown me
one thing.
Well, He's shown me this first thing, that
Satan, I don't have to be afraid of
him, that I've got authority over Satan.
He's also shown me the second thing, that
my flesh is as corrupt as the flesh
of anybody in the world.
Nobody can commit a sin which I'm incapable
of.
If I've not done it, maybe it's God's
mercy or circumstances or something like that, but
I'm not worse than that fellow.
If you think that you are better than
another human being on this earth, I want
to tell you in Jesus' name, you are
unfit to be a servant of God.
To be a servant of God, you've got
to recognize that you are no better than
the worst human being on the earth.
Put your hand inside and see.
That's the second lesson.
The third lesson was, He said in verse
9, Take some of the water from the
Nile and pour it out on the dry
ground and it'll become like blood.
Now, water is the most essential thing for
life.
It's not like food.
You can live without food, you can't live
without water.
And blood is a picture of death.
So, I see this as a symbol.
God was trying to...
For me, the lesson is that all the
things of this earth, you know, the River
Nile was the thing that the Egyptians worshipped.
That was their God, the River Nile.
He said, Even all this, you must pour
it out to death.
A picture of being crucified to the world
and the world being crucified to me that
I have no more attraction.
This is not like water to me now.
It's like blood.
If it were water, I would drink it.
Do you drink blood?
When the water is turned into blood, can
you drink it?
You would rather be thirsty than drink that.
Filthy blood.
And that's the way I need to see
everything in this world.
If you want to be a servant of
God, you got to look at all the
attractive things in this world and not only
the attractive things, even the things that you
think are necessary and say, Lord, I'm crucified
to it.
Nothing in this world can attract me anymore.
These are three essential qualifications for a servant
of God.
That's what we see there in Exodus 4.
And then, he sends him out and Moses,
before he goes to meet Pharaoh, he has
to learn one more lesson.
In verse 24 to 26 of chapter 4,
as Moses, and Moses has now agreed to
go to Pharaoh, he is equipped and he
goes.
The man whom God has trained for 80
years.
There's only one man on the face of
the earth who is important to God's purpose
at this time.
We are not like that today.
Today, God has many servants.
But at that time, he had only one
man.
All his purposes depend on one man.
And it says in Exodus 4.24 that
the Lord tried to kill him.
Now, if we read there that Satan tried
to kill him, we can understand that.
I can understand Satan trying to kill Moses.
But the Lord trying to kill him?
Why?
Because there was disobedience in his own house.
He had not circumcised his son.
Because his wife was not a Jew.
His wife was the daughter of Jethro who
was not a Jew.
And she said, No, they had an argument
when the son was born.
We are not going to circumcise.
You keep all your Jewish customs to yourself.
And Moses humbly obeyed.
And he was living in his father-in
-law's house.
And his wife was the boss.
And he said, Okay, I won't circumcise.
And God said, You can't go and lead
Israel out of Egypt if you can't lead
your own home.
The Bible says, If a man cannot run
his own home.
1 Timothy 3.
How can he run God's house?
Be the head in your own home first.
I have seen people who go out to
serve God who are scared of their wives.
How can such a man serve God?
That's what God had to teach Moses.
Be the head in your home.
Get your son circumcised.
If you can't bring up your children, at
least when they are in your home in
a godly way.
How can you serve God?
That's the lesson we learn here.
It was such a serious thing that God
said, Moses, even though you are the most
important man for me on earth, if you
don't obey me, I'll kill you.
And his wife understood it.
And so as soon as she saw that
her husband is dying delirious with fever, she
knew what the reason was.
She took a sharp stone and cut off
her son's foreskin and in anger said, You
are a bridegroom of blood to me.
And I think Moses did one wise thing.
He sent his wife home and carried on
with his ministry.
He didn't want any hindrance there.
And you see there how God is so
strict with His servants.
Other people, He'll allow them to do many
things.
But if you are to be one of
God's choice servants, He's going to require obedience
in the smallest thing.
He's going to look into areas of your
life that other people He doesn't bother about.
If you borrow ten rupees from somebody and
didn't return it, if you are to be
a choice servant of God, God will keep
on troubling you till you go and return
it.
You borrowed a book from someone that you
just completely forgot about to return.
You kept it in your house and it's
lying there.
You see it.
God says, Go and give it back.
He doesn't do that for everybody because all
of them are not God's choice servants.
Most of them are just compromisers and living
for themselves.
God leaves them alone.
But if you are a choice servant of
God, He will not allow you to write
one false statement in a report.
He will not allow you to be unfaithful
with one rupee of money.
Not even one rupee.
Other believers can do what they like.
They can be unfaithful with millions, but not
you.
Do you want to be a choice servant
of God?
Do you want God to watch over you
with such a jealous care?
That's the price you have to pay.
This is the man who finally stands before
Pharaoh.
You know, when you got a clear conscience
before God, when you have stood before God,
what is a world's most powerful man, Pharaoh?
A bit of sand, dust.
For a man who has lived before God's
face, Pharaoh is nothing.
This is how a servant of God must
be.
This is the type of servant of God
we need in India.
People who live before God's face, like Elijah
told Ahab, I live before God's face.
I'm not worried about anyone.
I don't fear man.
I don't go buttering cabinet ministers, MLAs, MPs,
like we see lot of preachers doing today.
That's the only way to survive, brother, in
India, because we don't know God.
That's right.
When you don't know God, that is the
only way to survive.
I fully agree with you.
But that's not the way Moses survived.
That's not the way Elijah survived.
They lived before God.
And when they lived before God, they had
God backing them, and they couldn't care less.
Leave alone MPs and MLAs and cabinet ministers.
They could not care less for Pharaoh, the
most powerful man, the greatest superpower in the
world at that time.
Do you want to be a servant of
God like this?
I tell you, don't look around at the
servants of God you see in our land.
Look into the scriptures.
That's the type of man God's looking for,
even today.
Men who don't care for man's approval, who
don't want man's money, who don't want backing
from political people or anybody.
They want the backing from God.
That's how Moses stood before Pharaoh.
And God backed up Moses completely.
Why doesn't God back up so many people
who claim to be servants of God today?
Why do I say God doesn't back them
up?
I've heard these preachers, when they get up
to preach, they bore me to death.
Can you say a man who is boring
is backed up by God?
Rubbish.
There is no anointing in their words.
There is no authority in their life.
Even young people, wishy-washy, sluggish, compromisers, because
they are seeking to please men.
Paul said, if I seek to please a
single man, I cannot be a servant of
Christ.
That's how Moses lived.
And I want to encourage all of you
to be like that.
Don't seek to please men.
Seek to please God.
Let men treat you as they like.
Let them treat you like dirt.
The apostles were treated like garbage.
Jesus was treated like garbage.
But they were men of God.
They lived before God's face.
They didn't want any backing from human beings.
They wanted God's backing.
And he stood before Pharaoh, and God backs
him with all those miracles.
There were, you know, the plagues of blood,
and frogs, and lice, and flies, and diseases
on the livestock, and boils, and hail, and
locusts, and darkness.
Nine plagues.
And then the last one.
The death of the firstborn.
And it says, some of those plagues, we
read in chapter 7 and verse 11, that
the magicians of Egypt could also do it.
They could do it up to a certain
point, as tricks.
You know how magicians do tricks.
But they did it to resist Moses.
And this is quoted in the New Testament,
in 2 Timothy 3 verse 8, as a
picture of counterfeit Christians opposing godly people.
You know, 2 Timothy 3 speaks about those
who have a form of godliness without its
power.
2 Timothy 3 verse 5.
And then it goes on three verses later,
to speak about Janus and Jambres opposing Moses.
Just like the Pharisees opposed Jesus.
Just like the Jews opposed Paul.
Janus and Jambres opposed Moses.
Like the false prophets opposed Elijah.
And the false prophets opposed Jeremiah.
And throughout church history, there have been the
professional preachers who stand against the prophets of
God, that God has raised up in generation
after generation in the different lands.
It's always been the same thing.
There's a man whom God has raised up
as a prophet, and there's the professional preacher
who's got all his certificates and his degrees
and his robes, opposing the man of God.
It's always been like that.
John the Baptist, opposed by the professional religious
establishment.
It's the same thing pictured there.
But it didn't make a difference, because ultimately
Moses triumphed.
He stood before God.
He didn't want to please that professional religious
establishment.
And if you're going to be a man
of God, you're not going to seek to
please the professional religious establishment, whatever their titles,
whatever their robes, if they don't know God.
The knowledge of God is the most important
thing.
I respect a man who knows God, and
in whose life I can see, by his
life and his words, here is a man
who knows God, who's got discernment of God's
ways, because he lives before God's face.
That's how Moses was.
That is what we learn in those early
chapters of Exodus.
That is what God wants to do.
And produce in our lives.
And in Exodus chapter 12 onwards, we read
about the deliverance of the Israelites.
They were told to put the blood upon
the door posts, and eat the Passover.
They were to use hyssop.
Hyssop was a very common plant, easily found.
And it's a picture of faith.
Faith is very easily found.
Use the hyssop, dip it into the blood,
put it on the door.
That's what we do with the blood of
Jesus Christ, the Lamb that was slain.
Pictured way back there in Exodus chapter 12.
A picture of Jesus Christ, who was crucified
nearly 1500 years later, on the same Passover
day.
On the day when Israel left Egypt, the
14th day of the first month, for the
Israeli calendar.
That is the day Jesus was crucified.
And God who looked into the future, and
saw the day that Jesus was crucified, that
was the day He chose to deliver Israel
out of Egypt.
That's why Israel's deliverance from Egypt has got
a big lesson for us.
How were they delivered?
Not by their good life.
Not by good works.
Ephesians 2 is very clear.
Not of good works.
Faith.
God didn't go checking inside each house, well,
however you live.
Let me examine your life for the last
30 years.
He only examined, do you have faith, that
the only way you can be delivered, is
by the bloodshed of an innocent lamb.
You dip the hyssop in the blood, put
it outside your door, and say, this is
what I trust in.
Not my good works, not my religious activities.
And the angel of death will never come
into your house.
That's the way of salvation.
So that no man can boast, saying, I
got saved, because I lived a pretty good
life.
No.
The man who lived a pretty good life,
and the man who lived a bad life,
have both got to be saved, through the
blood of the lamb.
And if somebody thought there, in Israel, one
of the Israelites thought, well, I lived a
pretty good life, I don't believe God will
judge me.
And he didn't put the blood outside the
door, do you know what would have happened?
Death would have come into his house.
And he would have discovered, that the best
life was not good enough.
The blood of the lamb alone could save
him.
And now I know, that people have misused
this truth, abused it, to live careless lives,
and say, oh, then it doesn't matter how
we live.
No, it does matter.
Because Ephesians 2, which says, not of works,
lest any man should boast.
In the next verse, Ephesians 2, 10, says,
after you're saved, God has created good works
for you to do.
So we're not talking about good works before
salvation.
You can't save yourself by your good works.
But after you're saved, if you don't have
good works, I doubt whether your faith is
genuine at all.
That's what James says.
Okay, so that's a picture, one of the
clearest pictures of redemption.
Way back there, with the blood of the
lamb, and feeding on the unleavened bread, that
night, was a picture of feeding on Christ.
It's not enough to put the blood, we've
got to feed on the living Lord.
And they were to, it says, the Lord
told them, eat it in your traveling clothes.
They were to wear traveling clothes, ready to
travel.
And that is how we are to live
in this world.
Always ready to go, any moment, when Jesus
calls us in the rapture.
That's how we are to live every day
of our life.
Feeding on Christ, trusting in the blood, in
our traveling clothes.
This is not our home.
Egypt is not our home.
We've got a journey to go.
Any time the call may come, we've got
to go.
That's how we are to live.
And that's what we see there, in that
passage.
I just want to point out one thing
to you.
God's righteousness, in Exodus 12, verse 35 and
36, it says, the sons of Israel asked
the Egyptians to give them gold and silver
and clothing.
Why was that?
Does God ask His children to demand like
that?
With the Israelites, it was right.
It's not right for you and me to
go and ask people to give us gold,
silver and clothing.
But it was right for the Israelites because
those Egyptians had made these Israelites work for
430 years, at least 400 years nearly, a
number of years, and never paid them.
God said, I'll make sure you get your
pay before you leave Egypt.
And they got their full pay for 400
years before they left Egypt.
I tell you, God's righteousness is so wonderful.
In these little things, you see God's righteousness
in Scripture.
Read the Scripture carefully.
It's a book of tremendous encouragement in the
little, little things.
And finally they come to the Red Sea
and God hands His people in.
One test of faith after another.
Behind are the Egyptians, left side mountains, right
side mountains, underneath is hell, in front is
the Red Sea, which way to go?
There's only one way to look, up.
And God delivers them.
You know when God brings us into circumstances
where we are surrounded on all sides, there's
only one direction we can look.
And deliverance will come from there.
Like the psalmist says, I lift up my
eyes unto the hills, is my help going
to come from there?
No help from there.
The Lord who made heaven and earth, He's
the one who's going to help me.
Psalm 121.
And so, finally God brings them.
The Lord tells Moses in Exodus 14, you
don't have to fight in this battle, just
stand still.
Exodus 14, 13, and see the salvation of
the Lord, which He's going to accomplish for
you.
And He splits the Red Sea and they
go into the Red Sea and out a
picture of baptism.
1 Corinthians 10 says that is a picture
of baptism in water.
And they come out there and there's a
pillar of cloud that comes from heaven.
Upon them, another baptism, we read in 1
Corinthians 10.
A baptism in the cloud, a picture of
the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
So, what all did they experience there?
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, baptized
in water in the Red Sea, baptized in
the cloud that came from heaven.
Those three were the initial experiences with which
the Israelites came out.
And it's exactly like that in the Acts
of the Apostles.
When people were converted, they were redeemed by
the blood of the Lamb.
Immediately, they were baptized in water.
And the very same day, they were baptized
in the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit came down upon them from above.
Why did that pillar of cloud come?
Not just to give them an experience.
Some people have got baptism in the Holy
Spirit for an experience.
No.
The pillar of cloud came down from above.
It was a pillar of fire at night.
That's what John the Baptist said, He shall
baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire.
The purpose of that pillar was to lead
them to the promised land.
To a land of victory, where the giants
would be under our feet.
Why has God given us the baptism in
the Holy Spirit?
To lead us into the promised land of
victory, where the giants of lust that have
ruled this.
This is the land of Canaan, head to
foot.
Many giants have ruled here for many, many
years.
Anger, dirty thoughts, jealousy, bitterness, love of money.
These giants have ruled the land of Canaan
by the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
The pillar of cloud leads me into that
land and says, I'm gonna bring these giants
under your feet.
You're gonna possess this land.
This land belongs to God.
Canaan belongs to God.
It doesn't belong to those giants.
Many people haven't understood the purpose of the
baptism in the Holy Spirit because the God
of this world has blinded their eyes.
Not from the message of redemption through the
blood, not from the message of baptism in
water, but from the understanding the purpose of
the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
When they came out of the river, they
praised God.
And there's a verse in Psalm 106, verse
12, which says, When they saw the Egyptians
buried, then they praised the Lord.
That's how the man of sight praises.
A lot of people praise God after the
enemies have been buried.
That's what it says in Psalm 106.
They saw the Egyptians buried.
Oh, praise the Lord.
But the man of faith, he says, Thou
hast set a table before me, Psalm 23,
in the presence of my enemies.
My enemies are still there.
But in the presence of the Lord, I
sit and I eat and Thou anointest my
head with oil and my cup runs over
with praise even though my enemies are there
because I have faith that God will destroy
them.
That's the man of faith.
So you are either a man of sight
who are waiting for God to answer the
prayer and destroy the enemies and then you
say, Hallelujah, praise the Lord.
That's old covenant life.
Or you're a new covenant Christian who says,
well, Thou hast set a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil.
My cup runs over.
Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life and I'll dwell in
the house of the Lord forever.
A spirit of triumph even when the enemies
are there because we know that God will
take care of them.
Satan, for example, he's not dead.
He's been defeated.
But he's not dead.
He's alive.
We're not afraid of him.
And all his agents in the world who
try to harm us of any religion, we're
not afraid of them.
They cannot touch a hair on my head
without God's permission.
God may allow them to kill me.
That's okay.
He allowed them to kill Jesus.
He allowed them to kill Paul.
He allowed them to kill Peter.
He allowed them to kill James.
All the apostles except John were killed.
But not before God's time.
So we're not afraid.
Yeah.
Then we read of Israel in the wilderness.
Chapter 15 onwards.
We read of their coming to the waters
of Marah.
In verse 23.
15-23.
Bitter waters.
And they began to complain.
Everything was a test.
Test of faith.
The trial of your faith, Peter says.
Can you trust me, God says.
Can you trust me when you come to
the bitter waters that I've already got a
solution for it?
Or do you grumble and complain?
The man of sight grumbles and complains.
They already praised God in chapter 15, first
part for deliverance from the Red Sea.
But then they grumbled again.
Now the lives of many Christians is like
this.
Like in physics, they have a thing called
a sine wave.
Up and down and up and down.
Praising God, complaining.
Sunday morning, praising God.
Sunday afternoon, complaining.
Getting angry.
Monday morning, praising God.
Or sometimes, till Monday to Saturday, complaining.
Again, Sunday morning, praising God.
This is not God's will.
This is Exodus 15.
Praising in the beginning, grumbling at the end.
That's not God's will.
This is old covenant.
The Bible says rejoice in the Lord always.
In everything give thanks.
That's God's will for us in the new
covenant.
But for that we have to believe that
God has got a solution for every problem
we face.
As soon as they had a problem, they
went to Moses and said, what shall we
do?
Where shall we drink?
And he cried to the Lord.
And the Lord said, the solution to the
problem is right there in front of you.
Verse 25.
The Lord showed him a tree.
He cut down the tree, put it in
the waters.
The waters were healed.
I want to ask you a question.
Who planted that tree in the wilderness?
Who?
Was it a man or God?
God.
Why did he plant that tree in the
wilderness, say 30 years earlier?
Because he knew 30 years from today my
children will come here.
They will find the waters bitter.
I must start making a solution for their
problem now itself.
Do you know that the solution to some
of your problems God has already planned for
30 years earlier?
That's what you get from this book.
If you can see, it's there.
Have faith.
Have faith in God.
There's no problem that can suddenly crop up
that takes God by surprise and say, oh,
I didn't know that would happen.
He already knows.
Not only he already knows, he's already made
a solution for it.
He's planted a seed 30 years earlier so
that you'll have a solution to your problem.
You can look at every problem you face
in life.
I'm telling you that after 41 years.
I've not just been converted for one year.
I have never found a problem in my
life.
I've faced umpteen problems, thousands.
But I've never found one for which God
had not already planned beforehand.
He had planted a seed 30 years earlier
because he knew I, his unworthy child, would
come there one day and face a problem.
I would need a solution.
He's got people planned to solve it for
me.
Walk before God in humility and Satan will
never be able to overcome you.
And you read in Exodus chapter 17 that
they come to another place.
Again, there's no water to drink.
And again, they are grumbling.
And the Lord this time says, look at
that rock, Exodus 17, 6.
Go and stand there and smite that rock.
And he smites the rock and the waters
flow.
You know, when I was young and I
read that passage, I used to picture a
little rock and a little trickle of water
coming out and everybody drinking.
But as I understood how many people needed
water.
Do you know how many people there were
in that wilderness?
600,000 men between the ages of 20
and 60 alone.
How many women and children below the age
of 20, over the age of 60?
I think it must have been 2 million
people there.
2 million people.
How much water do 2 million people need
to drink?
Is it a little trickle?
No.
It has to be one river this way,
another river this way.
Can you imagine 2 million people standing in
a queue to get water?
The last man will die of thirst by
the time he gets to the front.
No.
It was rivers flowing in all directions.
So you didn't have to stand in a
queue.
It was flowing right by your leg.
You could just stoop and drink.
This is the rivers of living water that
the New Testament speaks about.
It comes when the rock is smitten.
When Jesus was smitten, that prepared the way
for Pentecost.
Calvary and then Pentecost.
And if rivers of living water are to
flow out from us, when the Spirit of
God baptizes us, that doesn't mean automatically rivers
are flowing from us.
You can be baptized in the Holy Spirit
the day you are converted, but then God
has to do a work of smiting.
Calvary, the cross, brokenness.
And when that is done, then the rivers
will begin to flow from you and 2
million people can be blessed.
It's no problem for God.
He can pick up an ordinary, unknown, good
for nothing, weak, stupid person like you, brother
or sister, and bless 2 million people, every
family on the earth through you.
It just depends on whether God can break
you.
That's all.
Okay, we go and see further.
Immediately after this, it says in verse 8,
then Amalek came.
Amalek throughout the Old Testament is a picture
of the flesh.
The spirit and the flesh.
You see the conflict there in Exodus 17.
As soon as the rivers begin to flow,
then, then, then Amalek came.
The flesh comes into conflict with the spirit
and wants to destroy God's people.
And that was overcome by a combination of
Moses lifting up his hands in prayer and
Joshua fighting the enemy in the valley.
This is the combination that overcomes the flesh.
Using the sword of the spirit against the
enemy and lifting up our hands in helplessness
before God.
And when we are tired, we need an
Aaron and a Hurr to hold us up.
It says in verse 12 of chapter 17,
Moses was tired.
You know, you can't make it alone, my
brother or sister.
You can't make it alone.
One of the things I've discovered in my
life is I cannot make it alone.
If I stand here today without having fallen
by the wayside 30 years ago, without having
compromised, it is because I have brothers and
sisters who have encouraged me through these years,
who have helped me, who have prayed for
me, who have exhorted me.
I've got Aaron's and Hurr's by the plenty
and I value them.
Learn to value.
They may not know as much as you.
Moses was a much greater man than Aaron
and Hurr.
Who was Hurr?
Hurr is even unheard of.
But learn, he needs to hold up your
hand.
I praise God for those who recognize that,
that you may be the greatest man of
God.
You need an unknown brother like Hurr to
hold up your hand if you are to
continue to the end.
From chapter 19 onwards on through chapter 34,
in between here and there, you see about
God's laws.
God gives His laws, the 10 commandments in
chapter 20.
All those 10 commandments are listed there from
verse 1 onwards right up to verse 17.
The one commandment with promise, honor your father
and mother, that it may go well with
you and that you may live long on
the earth.
The only commandment with promise, verse 12, for
children.
And at the end of these commandments, we
read, Moses says to the people, verse 20,
don't be afraid.
And the people say, yeah, we'll do everything
that God says.
See, they said that even before the commandments.
In chapter 19, verse 8, when the Lord
said His plan for them, they said to
Moses, yeah, we'll do everything the Lord says.
Chapter 19, verse 8.
God says, okay, here are the 10 commandments,
do them.
And they spent 1500 years disobeying those commandments.
Proving that you cannot keep the law.
And you see a beautiful example of that
in chapter 21.
Immediately after the law was given, is this
beautiful story of the Hebrew slave who was
allowed to go free because he had finished
his 6 years of slavery.
The law was in the 7th year, you
let him go free.
But in the 7th year, he comes to
his master and says, I don't want to
go free.
I love you, my master.
I'd like to be with you.
Verse 5, I love my master.
21.5, I'd like to serve you.
See, that comes immediately after giving the 10
commandments to teach one thing.
That the type of service that God wanted
was not this obedience to the law out
of a legalistic spirit.
Here is the 10 commandments, and then is
the story of the way we are to
serve our master.
I love my master.
That's why I want to keep the commandments.
That's what Jesus said.
If you love me, keep my commandments.
And right through these chapters, I'm not going
to go into all those details, you can
read.
God gave them little little details about, you
read in the book of Leviticus and others,
about cleanliness and so many laws.
And when he said to them, I just
want to show you one verse.
In Exodus chapter 15, and verse 26.
He says, if you will listen to the
voice of the Lord and everything he tells
you to do and give ear to his
commandments, I will put none of these diseases
on you, for I am the Lord your
healer.
Now many people think healing is the greatest
thing.
No.
I'll tell you something better than healing.
Health.
Don't you think health is better than healing?
To get healing, you got to be sick
first.
Is there anything better than that?
Health.
And the Lord was telling them, listen, if
you fellows obey my laws, a lot of
these sicknesses that the Egyptians get, you will
not get.
It's true.
The laws of hygiene he gave them, the
laws of, you know, if you are a
glutton and you get sick, you got yourself
to blame.
You don't follow God's laws.
God's laws preserve us in health.
You don't need to go to God for
healing so much.
If you obey God's laws, he'll keep you
in health.
You'll grow old as a healthy man.
Without getting sick, without tension, cast your burden
on the Lord.
And then we go on to different laws
like, let me give you one example, 23
verse 9.
Don't oppress a stranger, because you were strangers
in Egypt.
People have been kind to you.
Be kind to them.
Keep the Sabbath, chapter 31, verse 16 and
17.
See, this is the, you know, a lot
of argument among scientific people today, whether the
six days of creation were actually six days
or six million years.
Well, it's very clear in Exodus 31, 16
and 17, the Lord made the earth in
six days.
And the seventh day of the week is
a day of rest.
It's so clear.
One last thing I want to mention is
how they broke these laws when they made
the golden calf.
In Exodus 32 and 33, you read about
the golden calf they made to worship just
because Moses had gone up for 40 days.
You know who preserved Israel in the ways
of God?
Not 25 men.
One man.
One man preserved 2 million people in the
right way.
Throughout the ages, God has raised up very
often one man.
God looks for one man.
One man like John Wesley preserved England.
One man like Moses.
As soon as that man was gone, decay
set in.
God is looking for one uncompromising man.
He can do more through one man like
that than a thousand compromisers like Aaron.
And Moses comes in and sets matters straight
in that camp.
And he leads the people back to God.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the wonderful
example of Moses.
An example that we would like to follow.
Please help us to be broken like him,
humble like him.
For it says he was the meekest man
on the face of the earth.
So that we can have your authority and
manifest your glory in this land, in this
generation.
In Jesus' name, Amen.