Let's just read a little bit to pick
up where we left off last week in
the study of Moses in our Desert Survival
Series.
This is number six in our sermons in
this series.
Moses, the man of God, as we see
how Moses survives in the desert as we
learn some lessons from him.
Let's start reading in Exodus chapter two with
about verse sixteen.
Remember when Moses ended up down in the
area of Midian.
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters,
and they came and drew water and filled
the troughs to water their father's flock.
And the shepherds came and drove them away,
but Moses stood up and helped them and
watered their flock.
And when they came to rule their father,
he said, How is it that you are
come so soon today?
And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out
of the hand of the shepherds, and also
drew water enough for us and watered the
flock.
And he said unto his daughters, And where
is he?
Why is it that ye have left the
man?
Call him that he may eat bread.
And Moses was content to dwell with the
man, and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.
And she bare him a son, and he
called his name Gershom.
For he said, I have been a stranger
in a strange land.
And it came to pass in the process
of time that the king of Egypt died,
and the children of Israel sighed by reason
of the bondage.
And they cried, and their cry came up
unto God by reason of the bondage.
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered
his covenant with Abraham, and with Isaac, and
with Jacob.
And God looked upon the children of Israel,
and God had respect unto them.
And in chapter 3, Now Moses kept the
flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the
priest of Midian.
And he led the flock to the back
side of the desert, and came to the
mountain of God, even to Horeb.
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto
him in a flame of fire, out of
the midst of a bush.
And he looked, and behold, the bush burned
with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
And Moses said, I will now turn aside
and see this great sight, why the bush
is not burned.
And when the Lord saw that he turned
aside to see, God called unto him out
of the midst of the bush, and said,
Moses, Moses.
And he said, Here am I.
And he said, Draw not nigh, neither put
off thy shoes from off thy feet, for
the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
Moreover, he said, I am the God of
thy father, the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
And Moses hid his face, for he was
afraid to look upon God.
Let's bow for prayer.
Now Father, we just bow our hearts before
you.
And we want you to be the teacher.
We pray that the Spirit of God would
open up our hearts from the word of
God to teach us things about God.
And Lord, teach us things that we need
to know to survive in the desert.
As we meet various trials and come across
certain situations that are very testing to our
lives and our souls, we pray that we
would glean from your word principles to guide
us through the desert of life.
Thank you now for this time.
I yield myself afresh to the Holy Spirit.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
By way of introduction, I was hoping today
to get up into chapter 3, but I
don't know if we'll get that far.
We'll just see.
Because I got a hold of some things
that I want to share with you before
we get into the burning bush.
And by way of review, let's back up.
In chapter 21, you notice that it said,
Moses was content to dwell with the man.
In the Hebrew, that word content means to
be slack.
It's talking about a mental weakness.
It means to commence.
And I just wonder if Moses maybe had
just sort of given up on his hopes
and his dreams of being the deliverer of
Israel.
Remember last week, I shared with you how
he knew in his heart that he was
to be the deliverer.
He had it right, he was, but the
timing was just off a little bit, about
40 years.
But did he give up?
Because it said that he was content to
dwell there.
Did he give up?
I don't know.
You look at verse 22, it says he
had a son.
And he named that son Gershon.
Do you know what that means?
He's saying, I'm a stranger.
Gershon means a stranger.
I'm a stranger in a strange land.
He was a stranger in Egypt.
He was a stranger down in Midian.
He said, I'm just a stranger.
So, the confession of faith.
I don't know if he gave up completely.
You know, if you, all of your life,
if you had a dream and a vision,
and all of a sudden, you make your
move for your dream and your vision, and
then it all blows to pieces.
You think it's all over.
Sort of like the Challenger when it blew
up.
Maybe a lot of people thought it's all
over, you know.
But many times, God will take all the
pieces in our lives from the disaster and
put them back together and make a whole
new puzzle.
Make a whole new life.
Make a whole new thing out of it.
And here's why I think Moses never did
completely give up on that vision and that
dream.
Why?
Because he had another son named Eliezer.
You know what he named him?
With Gershom, he says, I am a stranger.
But with Eliezer, he said, and this is
beautiful, but God will help me.
Eliezer meant, but God will help me.
So, he never did give up.
Year after year after year, he was out
there chasing those dumb sheep around in those
hills and those rocky mountains of the desert.
I don't believe he ever gave up.
I believe he kept his eye on God.
And I just wonder, as he did that
day by day, week by week, month by
month, and then year by year, if he
didn't keep his eye on that mountain.
And I just wonder if that old mountain
out there didn't rumble and quake and maybe
have some fire and thunder on it.
Like the old movie, what was it, Exodus?
You know, we can't get our biblical insight
from movies.
But I just wondered if God didn't just
have his presence on that mountain.
And he always wondered, what would it be
like to go over there?
Well, he's going to get over there and
we're going to find out.
But his confession was that he was a
stranger.
And you know, his ancestors had made that
same confession.
Abraham had made that confession.
In Hebrews 11.9, it says, By faith
Abraham sojourned in the land of promise as
in a strange country, dwelling in the tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him
of the same promise.
Abraham said, I'm a stranger.
And then in verse 13, it says, These
all died in faith.
Listening over these great giants of faith, it
says, These all died in faith, not having
received the promises, but having seen them afar
off, were persuaded of them and embraced them
and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims
on the earth.
Verse 14, But they that say such things
declare plainly that they seek a country.
There's a principle here for us, I just
thought of it off the cup.
We as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ
will give a confession to the world of
whether or not we're part of the world
or we say by our lifestyle and our
actions and our words that we're really not
a part.
I just can't feel at home in this
world anymore.
You know, the old song.
And then they look at us and they
say, You're strange.
You don't do all the things I do.
You don't go all the places I go.
You don't say all the things I say.
What is it that makes you so different?
There's one thing about us though that should
make a point.
And that is our life.
If Christ is living in our life, it
should bring conviction.
Even though they say you're different.
Maybe they even say you're weird.
Whatever they want to say.
And I've had a lot of things said
about me.
And if you're going to live close with
God, they're going to say things about you.
The devil's always got a sharp tongue somewhere.
But there should be conviction in their heart
that they know that you're right.
Moses had that testimony.
There's another thing in 1 Peter 2.11.
Listen to this about strangers and pilgrims.
A warning from Peter.
Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and
pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against
the soul.
A lot of the Christian's problem is not
from the unbeliever or not from persecution.
It's just from his own...
It's just the fact that he's a traitor
against his own God fooling around with sin
in the world.
And we bring upon ourselves a lot of
trouble.
Just like the old fellow in the Confederate
War.
Thought he was going to get by.
He put on the Yankee trousers and the
Confederate top.
And they shot at him from both sides.
And that's about what happens when we as
Christian's try to fool around in the world
and sin.
God's going to yank on one end and
the devil's going to yank on the other.
And you're going to get tore to pieces.
It's a lot better to take sides.
And you better make sure you get on
the right side.
So Moses said, I'm not at home in
Egypt.
And I'm not at home in the desert.
You know why?
We're not at home, we just don't feel
at home.
It's because God made Moses for the promised
land.
And he wouldn't feel at home until he
was in the promised land.
And the type of that is, we are
made for heaven.
When we receive Christ, we have an inborn
homing device.
And that's the Holy Spirit.
He's going to draw us home to the
Father's bosom.
And we're not going to be at home
in this world.
And Moses had that homing pigeon in his
heart.
He wasn't at home in Egypt.
He wasn't at home in the desert where
he went through his trials and his training.
He was made for the promised land.
And that's the way we are.
Well, if you're content with this life and
can love this world and the things of
this world, which are the lust of the
flesh, the pride of life, the lust of
the eye, then you're probably not saved.
If you can live in sin and enjoy
it and say, well, I'll get by with
it.
God will forgive me, you're not saved.
It doesn't work that way.
The Bible's pretty strong on some things like
that.
I was just reading over this week in
1 John 2, 15 through 17.
Listen to this.
This is God's idea.
This isn't mine.
Listen.
Love not the world, neither the things that
are in the world.
If any man loved the world, the love
of the Father is not in him.
He's saying, listen, if you're mine, you're to
be separated from this world.
For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not
of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust
thereof, but he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever.
You know, Jesus said the same thing.
Many, many would say to me that day,
Lord, Lord, didn't we do this in your
name and do that in your name?
We healed in your name.
We did these miracles.
We did all this.
He said, depart from you.
I never knew you.
And you get down and you look there
and he talks about those that did his
will.
Well, Moses was a man that wanted to
do the will of God.
But he made a mistake.
And this is why we like Moses so
much.
This is why we love David so much.
Because we can identify with these men.
We see their lives laid out like an
open book.
And we say, I can identify with that.
Boy, I've made the same mistake.
The only problem with making mistakes is we
don't learn from them fast enough.
You know, too old too soon.
Too smart too late.
You know?
Now, I want to do our lesson today
on two questions.
I want to just go through this passage
today on two lessons.
And I don't know if I'll go fast
or slow or what.
But listen, I've got to thinking.
There's a lot in here.
And I ask these two questions.
Why did God keep Moses in the desert
40 years?
And what did God want to teach him
during those 40 years?
Sometimes I believe there's a lot of things
in between the lines.
Why did God keep him 40 years?
Remember last week I talked about overcomers?
We'll either be an overcomer today or we'll
be overcome.
We were going through some interesting things this
week.
I believe sometimes we go through maybe a
special time of attack from the enemy.
And we were going through these things.
And especially yesterday, they just seemed to pile
up.
And God just seemed to remind us, say,
listen, what are you supposed to do when
all these things are piling up?
And it became very obvious that some of
these things were just intentional attacks from the
enemy.
Well, when we realized that, we immediately got
to victory.
And we started just praising the Lord.
We just started praising the Lord that we
were on the victory side.
We were more than overcomers through Him that
loved us and gave Himself for us.
And right then, the whole atmosphere changed.
And then things began to happen to counteract
some of those other things.
And we believe that we're going to see
some more things happening.
Well, we'll either be an overcomer in the
deserts of life, or we'll be overcome.
And this is why we're doing this series.
You remember John said, For whatsoever is born
of God overcometh the world.
And what did he say?
And this is the victory that overcometh the
world, even our faith.
Even our faith.
Alright, why 40 years?
You ever thought about it?
Somebody said, we were talking about this Wednesday
night.
And somebody else said, Boy, I hope God
doesn't take 40 years to teach me my
lessons.
40 years in the desert.
That's a long time, isn't it?
That's a lifetime, just about.
40 years.
Well, here's why.
I believe God kept Moses in the desert
40 years.
See, he lived 40 years in the palace,
40 years in the desert, then he spent
another 40 years in that desert, leading the
children of Israel out of bondage to the
promised land.
But why did God take 40 years to
train him?
Number one, God had a timetable, and Moses
simply jumped the gun.
I remember in high school, I used to
do a little running and track.
When you get down in your starting block,
some of you may identify with this, and
you get ready, you're tense.
Those other guys over there sweating just like
you, next to you, man, you're getting ready
to go.
He raises the gun on your mark.
Get set.
And then, there you go.
You know?
And you jump the gun.
Or he'll shoot the gun and you'll jump
just before.
And then you come back and you go
through the whole routine again.
You know what would happen if you do
that too many times?
Out of the lineup, fella.
You know?
If you do that too many times, you
get jerked out of the lineup.
And I believe if we jump the gun
too many times with God, we may get
set aside on an assignment that he had
for us.
As Christians.
Well, Moses jumped the gun.
He had a timetable.
We've already looked at that.
Now, what we've got to do is see
if there's something else in there.
I think there is.
And it says, Moses needed a desert experience
so he could learn to wait.
Now, as we get into these experiences in
this series, Moses needed to learn to wait.
And there are two things involved with waiting.
You know what they are?
Patience and temper.
Now, I know none of us have any
problem with patience or temper, do we?
You know?
But Moses had a little problem with his
temper.
And we know that because he's already shown
it once and he's going to show it
again.
Matter of fact, the greatest sin he commits
is because of his temper.
He can't get into the promised land because
he gets angry.
Well, God needs to teach him that if
he's going to lead two to three million
people through a desert with no food and
no water by natural means, there's no K
-marts out in that desert.
When your sandals wear out, what do you
do?
Forty years, you can't just run down to
the local hardware store to pick up a
new wheel for your wagon.
Boy, God's going to have to teach him
how to do some things.
And this is what he's going to do
in forty years.
He's going to teach him how to do
it.
He's going to teach him by letting him
have a flock of dumb sheep.
And he's going to lead those sheep around
that desert for forty years.
And what all went on, I don't know.
I've just been trying to glean some things.
But patience and temper.
Get this verse in John 13, 7.
It's a good verse.
Jesus said it to Peter because Peter was
a little bit impatient.
Remember?
Impetuous Peter.
He said, What I do thou knowest not
now, but thou shalt know hereafter.
Isn't that good?
You know, Jesus, I'm going to wash your
feet, Peter.
No, you're not, Lord.
He says, What I'm doing now, you don't
know.
What I do thou knowest not now, but
you'll know it later on.
If we'll learn just to wait on God
and don't get all excited when our trials
come in and our problems and all that,
then we'll find out.
But when we get to jumping ahead like
Moses, we get into trouble.
Now, turn over to Psalms 37.
You should know this Psalm.
There are some Psalms that are very key
Psalms, I believe.
Psalms 34 is a good one.
Psalms 37 is, to me, an extremely good
one on patience.
You know?
It's whatever a doctor wants.
It's patience, isn't it?
Isn't that different?
But in Psalms 37, I want to share
some things with you.
You need this because Moses needed it and
Moses learned some of them.
David needed it, too.
This is why God gave these things to
David.
God filled his heart with these things.
As he waited to be the king, he
ran around out in the wilderness being chased
by Saul.
But listen.
Verse 1, fret not thyself because of evildoers,
neither be thou envious against the workers of
iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down
like the grass and wither as a green
herb.
Trust in the Lord and do good, so
shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily
thou shalt be fed.
Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he
shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Isn't that nice?
That's a beautiful song.
Verse 5, commit thy way unto the Lord,
trust also in him, and he shall bring
it to pass.
And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as
the light and thy judgment as the noonday.
Now notice verse 7.
Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for
him.
Do you know what happens when we get
impatient?
We are impatient against God.
We will jump out ahead in our emergencies,
the exigencies of life that come along that
throw up a barrier and say, hey, look
at this tragedy.
Look at this problem.
Well, we get rattled.
We get shook.
We get all, you know, frustrated and all
that.
We can't think right.
We come apart at the seams, you know.
And God is just saying, relax.
I'm still God.
Guess who's letting this come into your life?
It says, rest in the Lord and wait
patiently for him.
Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth
in his way because of the man who
bringeth wicked devices to pass.
And David was especially having trouble with a
man, King Saul, who had had the throne
already taken from him.
And now David is supposed to be the
king, but he's out in the bushes having
to hide in the caves and the rocks.
And God says, you just wait, David.
You just wait.
There's a time.
Now, look at verse 9.
No, go on to verse 8.
It says, cease from anger.
Waiting has to do with our temper.
And so God knows our boiling point.
And I believe God's going to let it
come.
He's going to maybe let us get, if
there's something that tries us, just up to
our breaking point.
Just to show us some things about ourself.
Mostly that we can't depend on ourself.
We can't trust ourself.
And then in verse 8, he says, cease
from anger and forsake wrath.
Fret not thyself in any ways to do
evil.
Verse 9, for evildoers shall be cut off,
but those that wait upon the Lord, they
shall inherit the earth.
But boy, if you're going to get ahead
of God, you're going to blow the whole
thing.
God's got some plans for your life.
Don't get ahead of Him.
There's other things in that passage too.
Verse 18, the Lord knoweth the days of
the upright.
You know, Moses said, boy, I'm running out
of time.
40 years times 365 days is a few
days.
But the Bible says, the Lord knoweth the
days of the upright, and their inheritance shall
be forever.
God knows how much time you've got.
He may be building you up for one
big thing to do in your life.
Or He may be building you up for
a series of events to use you to
witness for Christ in certain situations.
Verse 34, wait on the Lord.
Keep His way, and He shall exalt thee
to inherit the land.
Notice, he keeps on, you're going to get
the land.
You're going to get it, David.
Wait, verse 37, mark the perfect man, and
behold the upright, for the end of that
man is peace.
Now, I point out that verse to you
to just show you that we have to
be careful about everything in our life.
We can't take anything for granted.
Moses, remember, he presumed on the Lord, and
I'll share something about that with you in
a minute, and he made a mistake.
Now, let's go on.
Here's another principle before we get going, and
that's this, the weakest areas of Moses, the
weakest areas were the areas that God was
going to strengthen in the desert.
Your weak areas are going to be the
areas that will show the most stress.
If you've got a problem with patience, then
you're going to be getting some things custom
designed in that area.
So Moses' weakest areas were to be strengthened
in the desert.
He must not have liked sheep.
I doubt he liked sheep.
Though God gave him 40 years with sheep.
All right?
Now, here's another
thing.
Waiting is not passive inactivity.
I don't think Moses sat out there and
twiddled his thumb and carved little things on
sticks.
I believe he spent a lot of time
meditating on God and the Word and praying.
Waiting is not passive inactivity.
Waiting is praying activity.
It is praying activity.
The apostles were told to wait for the
Holy Spirit to come in Acts chapter 1.
So if God has a delay in your
life and a situation, then you pray and
you pray and you pray.
But don't get presumptuous, don't get rambunctious, don't
get ahead of God.
Just keep praying.
For 40 years Moses watched that mountain, I
believe.
He just waited on God for that time.
Now, the second thing is, what did God
want to teach Moses out in that desert?
What did He want to teach him while
he waited?
I'll just share with you three things that
I think.
And then next week we're going to get
into chapter 3 and into the bush.
But I think He wanted to teach him,
first of all, how insignificant he was.
How insignificant he was.
Think about it.
Moses got into trouble because he presumed.
I've got a little something on presuming here
I wrote down.
We don't presume or assume anything with God.
You see, Moses assumed that this was the
time to move.
He went out and he killed the Egyptians.
He says, these guys are going to follow
me now.
We're going to make our break.
God doesn't work through insurrection.
Moses thought that's the way he was going
to do it.
And Moses had to learn that God doesn't
achieve spiritual means by carnal means.
God does things in greater ways.
But we don't presume or assume anything with
God as Moses did, I believe.
Why?
Once we begin to just assume that God
is on our side or that God is
going to do this or that, we enter
into the realm of doubt.
Did you know that?
Presuming is the realm of doubt.
Romans 14 and verse 23 lays out this
principle.
It talks about doubt.
Doubt, whatever is not of faith, is sin.
And the thing before that is doubt.
If you can't do it, if you do
it with some doubt in your life, then
that's sin.
There's some problem there.
And there's some doubt.
Presuming will get us in trouble with people.
If you presume somebody's going to do something
or if you just assume somebody thinks something,
most of the time it will get us
into trouble with people.
But when we assume things with God and
just presume things with God, it will get
us into trouble all the time.
We don't have to assume anything.
We either know it or we don't.
And we know it by this book that
I'm holding up, the Word of God.
Now, in the desert, I believe God wanted
to show Moses, listen, you're not that significant.
I'm the one that's significant.
And I'm going to be the boss.
I'm going to call the shots.
And so God set him aside for 40
years.
Plus, he jumped the gun, too, and he
got into hot water and he had to
run.
Remember, he's afraid.
Whenever we get into fear, there's sin.
And, you know, we get into these things.
But he set them aside.
And God is saying, Moses, I am something.
Like 1 John 5, 11 through 13 says,
He that has the Son has life.
Do you know that there is no value
within you for eternity's sake except if Jesus
Christ is in you?
The Bible says, He that has the Son
inside your heart.
You have Jesus Christ.
He has life.
But if you don't have Jesus Christ, you
don't have anything of value.
The only thing you've got is a soul
that's been made in the image of God,
which was valuable enough for Jesus Christ to
die on the cross for you.
But you reject Him as your Savior.
And it comes the time for you to
depart this whole world and leave your body
behind.
You have sold out the only thing that
you had that was of value, your soul.
You sold it out for a few moments
of pleasure on this earth.
And then you go spend eternity in hell.
And the thing that was so valuable, your
soul, Jesus Christ gave His very blood to
save it.
And so the only thing that will ultimately
save your soul, will help you keep the
most valuable thing you have, is to have
Jesus Christ in your heart and your life.
This is why the Bible says, He that
has the Son has life.
And He that has not the Son has
not life.
Make very, very sure that you have Jesus
Christ in your life.
Don't assume that you'll go to heaven, because
you may not.
It's a serious matter to know.
And this is why the Bible says, These
things are written that you might know that
you have eternal life.
God says, I want you to know that
you have it.
If you can't stand up right now today
and say to me, to everybody here, I
know without a shadow of doubt that Jesus
Christ is my Savior, that I'm born again,
that my sins are covered by the blood
of Jesus, that if I was to die,
I'd go to heaven.
Then you may be on dangerous ground.
And that's pretty powerful stuff I'm saying.
But if there's any doubt, deal with it.
We don't assume that we're saved.
We are either saved or not.
Now, waiting is not a passive inactivity and
all that stuff.
But God had to teach him, You're insignificant,
Moses.
I'm essential.
You're insignificant without me.
And as Moses got more of God into
his life, he became more valuable for God's
service.
But, you know, Paul said, I can do
all things through Christ which strengthens me.
Through Christ.
He says, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live.
Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
It's the Christ that lives in me that's
so valuable.
That produces the things that are of eternal
value.
He says, I can live through Christ.
Without him, I don't.
Now, another thing.
By the way, God did a good job
on Moses because when we come over to
Exodus chapter 3, and God says, I want
you to go down.
In verse 11, he says, God tells Moses,
I want you to go down and I
want you to lead them out.
Moses says, who am I?
Forty years later, or forty years earlier, it
was, I can do it.
And now it's, who am I?
I can't do it.
He says, that's right, you can't do it.
He's going to have a little problem now
trying to get them going again.
Go from one extreme to the other.
Now, another thing Moses learned.
And that's this.
How proud he was.
Did you see the pride in Moses?
You won't see it after the forty years
in the desert.
After he's gone through his experiences in the
desert.
We don't know what all we went through.
But he learned that he was proud.
And he's not proud anymore.
When God's done with him, he's humble.
And God can use a humble man, but
he can't use a proud man very much.
Because a proud man wants to get the
glory.
A humble man will let God have all
the glory.
Here's how.
Listen to these things.
I'll go through them quickly.
Proverbs 16, 18 said, Pride goeth before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Moses had his fall.
The Bible says in Proverbs 11, 2, When
pride cometh, then cometh shame, but with the
lowly is wisdom.
Moses went through his fall, he went through
shame.
He was greatly shamed.
The Bible says in Luke 14, 11, For
whosoever exalted himself shall be abased, and he
that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
The Bible says in James 4, 6-7,
That God resented the proud, but giveth grace
unto the humble.
God needed forty years there to work on
Moses in the area of his pride too.
And he did a good job.
You know the reason you and I won't
do what God wants us to do is
pride?
The reason we're rebellious is we want to
do what we want to do.
And it's just pride.
It's like a little child, you know.
We all had one, or know one.
They know it.
They know what's best.
You know.
And they gotta go find out for themselves.
It's just an unending cycle.
But it's just pride.
I can do it, Mommy.
You know, I can tie my shoes.
Ten minutes later, Twelve knots.
I guess I can't.
Would you get those knots all straightened out?
That's the way we are.
We come to God with all our knots.
Well, well, God, I guess I can't do
it.
You know.
Numbers 12, 3.
Later on, I like this about Moses.
In Numbers 12, 3.
At one point, you see, Moses learned the
lesson.
Then his brother and his sisters, they were
going through the desert later on.
They had to learn this lesson.
That they were, they thought they were really
big stuff.
They said, how come God does everything through
you?
How come you're a big cheese?
And Moses was so humble.
Well, the Bible says that he was the
meekest man on earth.
But he was so humble.
It says, now the man of Moses was
very meek.
Very humble.
Above all the men which were upon the
face of the earth.
He wouldn't even answer them back.
You know who stood up for Moses?
God came down.
And he dealt with Aaron and Miriam.
He says, listen.
I'll take care of you two.
He says, listen.
Moses, I speak to him face to face.
Lay off.
Boy, they got burnt.
Moses learned a lesson there.
That he didn't need to be proud.
Just keep his eyes on the Lord.
And the Lord would take care of him.
He had a submitted spirit.
And then another third thing.
Moses learned to cry out to God.
Actually, 17.3 is a reference to that.
He learned to cry out to God.
Beforehand, he just, he had some plans.
And he got it all figured out.
You ever done that?
You got everything all figured out?
You got all your plans?
And what happens when your plans get all
frustrated?
And they don't work out?
What happens?
We get mad.
You know?
Or we get frustrated.
We'll go bang our head against the wall.
You know?
We don't do it anymore.
But we did when we was a little
kid.
You know?
Maybe you're the nature that your mom had
to lock you in the closet.
You're throwing your fit.
And you get in the closet.
And you kick and stamp and spit and
yell and holler.
You know?
Tear the closet to pieces.
Just because you didn't get your way.
That's the way we are.
And when we're adults, it's pretty bad.
We've got our broken marriages.
We've got our crippled children that get battered
by, I guess we'll call them people.
And all that because they have never had
their will broken.
And if our will does not become submissive
to God's will, then we live all our
life in rebellion.
Ultimately, rebelling against the very thing that will
save our souls, which is the death of
Christ.
Well, we're going to close up on these
things.
God has a reason for allowing all those
years for Moses.
And I believe he has a reason for
your trials in mine.
I'm just trying to learn to be relaxed,
to rest in the Lord.
You know?
To be an overcomer.
You know?
And not to be overcome.
There were a couple of things commendable about
Moses.
And that was this.
He was willing to leave Egypt.
Are you willing to leave Egypt?
And I'll take that in reference to salvation.
Are you willing to leave whatever behind to
find Christ?
The pearl of great price.
And it's talked about in the Bible.
Go sell all you have, whatever you do.
Make sure you get Jesus Christ.
Are you willing to leave Egypt?
Moses was.
And then are you willing to learn in
the deserts what God wants you to learn?
Now, here we come down today.
Am I willing to learn the lessons that
God wants me to learn today?
And this is why this series is designed
to be practical.
Because we don't know what a day's going
to hold.
And we'll either hold up or we'll fold
up.
All depending on who is the strength of
our luck today.
So are you willing to learn in the
desert what God wants you to learn?
And then this.
Are you willing to take an undivided stand
for Christ?
I will commend Moses.
He was not afraid to stand up and
identify with the Hebrews.
Even though they rejected him.
And that's where he's a type of Christ.
He was not afraid to stand up and
identify with Christ.
He knew where he belonged.
And he was willing to stand up.
And I'll really say Moses.
Moses shone forth.
From here on when we get into the
bush and on.
Now we're going to see a lot of
Moses.
Because he's had his desert training.
And what we're going to learn is the
desert training experience.
So that we will become more like Christ.
And Moses is a type of Christ.
We'll see Moses making less mistakes.
He's going to make a few.
We're going to see the children of Israel
now making a lot of mistakes.
And we'll learn from them.
But he did all of that.
He stood up for Christ and he moved
out.
You know, I got to thinking about this.
In relation to taking the stand.
We've got our volunteer fire department here.
And it's not if your name is on
the roll.
But it's where are you when there's a
fire.
I have to say that's almost good, isn't
it?
How many people, you know, well I go
to church.
Yeah, that's great.
I'm a member of a church.
I hear this all the time.
I'm a member of Sunslow Church.
That's great.
But where are you when there's a fire?
You know where the fire is?
The fire is Wednesday night.
That's the heating plant of every church.
Going back to the book of Acts.
When the first church met, the fire department,
the heating plant was the prayer meeting.
And it's even if you're on the roll
that don't count.
But you're going to be there to pray.
You're going to be there to fellowship, get
into the Word.
So it's not if your name's on the
roll.
But where are you when there's a fire?
Let's bow for a prayer.
Lord, I just pray that you'd take these
things now and you'd use them.
Just a couple of main thoughts, Lord, on
what did you try to teach Moses out
in that desert?
Lord, these things may not have been well
organized and all that.
Now as we move next week into chapter
3.
And Moses comes face to face with Jesus
Christ.
And he meets you, Lord, there out there
in that desert.
And he has an experience that is quite
an experience.
And he goes through some more trials that
are quite the trials.
And he goes through, really, the experience of
dying to self.
Which is what this whole series is about.
As we go through life, Lord, will you
help us to learn to die to self.
To die to sin.
And just to be alive and sensitive to
the Spirit's leading.
All our problems that relate from our self
come from the fact that we just want
to die to self.
We want our way.
We want our will.
We want our color.
We want our this and that.
It's me, me, me, me, me.
And our lives are miserable.
But we look at the precious Lord Jesus.
His life was such a fragrance of love
and beauty.
Because there was not one ounce of self
displayed.
From the moment he was born and came
down as incarnate God in the flesh.
To the moment when he was lifted off
this earth.
There was never an ounce of self.
And if we claim to be followers of
you, dear Lord.
And if we claim to be lovers of
Jesus Christ.
Then Lord, we'd better learn this principle of
dying to self.
Wrecking ourselves dead to self.
And to sin.
And alive.
And to the Spirit's leading.
Thank you, Father, for some things that you've
taught us today.
The things that we've gleaned.
The principles maybe we've gathered.
And Lord, I'm looking forward to the things
that you'll teach me.
Day by day from these passages.
And that we will all learn together.
We believe that life is not just a
bowl of cherries.
It's just not all roses.
But there's a lot of thorns on it.
But when we let Christ live through our
lives, Father.
When we let you live.
Then there's the radiance and the fragrance of
Christ.
And there's a beautiful aroma.
We want to learn to let Christ live.
And have self-crucified.
And then, Father, also if there's one that
needs Jesus Christ.
We've presented you, Lord, as the Savior.
But unless they receive you, it doesn't do
them any good.
Unless they invite you into their heart.
To be their Lord and their Savior doesn't
do them any good.
So we pray that they'd make that decision
if they need to.
Thank you now, Father, in Jesus' name.
Amen.