Tonight, we turn in the Scriptures to the second book of the Bible, the book of Exodus. As our morning study, we've moved to this evening, and tonight we come to Exodus 4, the first 17 verses. A wonderful section here of looking at all the work that God goes into to train and raise up a servant. And I thought, what a wonderful section for pastors who are in training. you see how much work the lord has to do in their lives to send them out and tonight you're going to realize it's a lot of work and the lord has to do a lot of work in our lives and all of us in the way that he uses us in his service and that we need to be reminded of the kind of attitude and spirit and confidence as we looked at with true faith tonight in his calling upon our lives to be bold in the callings that he has given us and tonight this encourages us a great deal of his power and strength that he's with us let's give our attention tonight to exodus chapter 4 beginning at verse 1 then moses answered but behold they will not believe me or listen to my voice for they will say the lord did not appear to you the lord said to him what is that in your hand he set a staff and he said throw it on the ground so he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent and moses ran from but the lord said to moses put out your hand and catch it by the tail so he put out his hand and caught it and it became a staff in his hand that they may believe that the lord the god of their fathers the god of abraham the god of isaac the god of jacob has appeared to you. Again, the Lord said to him, put your hand inside your cloak. And he put his hand inside his cloak. And when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, put your hand back inside your cloak. So he put his hand back inside his cloak. And when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. If they will not believe you, God said, or listen to the first sign that they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs are listened to your voice you shall take some water from the nile and pour it on the dry ground and the water that you shall take from the nile will become blood on the dry ground but moses said to the lord oh my lord i'm not eloquent either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant but i am slow of speech and of tongue then the lord said to him who has made man's mouth who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind is it not i the lord now therefore go and i will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak but he said oh my lord please send someone else then the anger of the lord was kindled against moses and he said is there not aaron your brother the levite i know that he can speak well behold he is coming out to meet you and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth and i will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do he shall speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be as god to him and take in your hand this staff with which you shall do the signs may the lord bless the hearing of his word i was thinking about that particular petition and when we pray and are taught to pray by our lord where he taught us to pray not our will but your will be done on earth as it is in heaven the heidelberg catechism gives a wonderful response to that an answer to that when it taught us about that and it says what we are asking the lord when we make that prayer when we ask him that our wills would be bent and conformed to his will what we're asking is help us and all people to reject our own wills and obey your will without any back talk boys and girls do you know what back talk is oh of course my kids know well what back talk is your will alone is good help us and all to carry out the work we are called to do as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven what a request huh help me to do this that you've called me to do as willingly and faithfully as the angels you know what the angels do when the lord commands them it is immediate that's the image of the wheels in ezekiel when the lord moves they roll i have a real problem with backtalk and i need you lord to help my mouth i need you to help my will so that i would do exactly as you want me to do tonight we're looking at moses's struggle to be obedient to god's calling that he had given him as we see the whole prophetic office develop here And I think you may find this strangely comforting, how much Moses is just like us. Moses really is a real human being, a normal human being, a great sinful human being. But it's an encouraging passage because we see that whatever the Lord has us to do, whatever his will is for us in this life, we are to do it cheerfully. We are to do it with a whole heart, believing that he's with us. and he's going to give us he's going to give us everything that we need to do that will to accomplish that will as we learn more and more to trust him as we see his power present when he tells us to do something he equips us with the gifts and the necessity of whatever we need to do it and accomplish it god came down and drew out moses out of the nile that's what his name means to draw out i came to him in this burning bush as we have been uh considering since chapter three now for some time and god revealed amazing things in this burning bush moses was confronted with many things but that this god who is a consuming fire this god loves sinners this god has a people whom he has set apart to himself he cares about them he's going after them he's going to go get them out of the world out of the conflict out of the struggle and he says to Moses listen Moses I've seen their oppression I know what they're going through I hear their cries I know their pains and I've come down to get them I've come down to get them out of here i'm going to bring them to the land of milk and honey and and and the amazing thing about the whole section was is initially we looked at last time how exciting god's coming down to do this but that god uses instruments god uses weak means to accomplish that moses guess what i'm sending you to do it though i'm coming down and you're going to see that power as i work through you so he takes this very broken jar of clay and he uses this jar to do an act that the old testament has not seen so great so far the amazing truth god was going to use and that god uses weak foolish crooked states as we considered last time come now therefore i'm going to use and i'm going to send you to pharaoh the most powerful world ruler of the day that you may bring my people up out of the land of egypt now now what this section is tonight is a continuation of where we left off last time where moses is raising a series of objections with god at the burning bush this is really remarkable remember moses is on holy ground his feet are off he's bowed he realizes something about god and now he begins to level after he heard this kind of calling on his life he begins to level a series of objections two of those we considered last time the first two were who am i and who are you? Moses confronted with his inadequacy. Moses confronted with his sheer inability to accomplish this in the face of a holy God. He is now confronted with his own sin, his own weakness, his own frailty like he had never looked at it before and here he is face down realizing who he is now. How could God ever use somebody like me? and we looked at that with some detail and then he raised the question of who are you and and the lord responded you you tell them they're not going to believe you tell them i am has sent you and we looked at this god is that is one pastor said what he calls himself and he calls himself that which he is who is god god is who he is and that's all there is to it moses you go. I was a sense of that. I am who I am. But what was so remarkable last time was God's absolute word of assurance of the success of the mission. I mean, he told the future. He assured them of how this was going to go, Moses, of how this was going to go. I mean, everyone look at verse 18 of chapter 3. This is so crucial for tonight. Listen to this. And they will listen to your voice. They will. This is not up for debate. This is how it's going to go. They will listen to your voice. You and the elders of Israel shall go to the king and say to them, the Lord your God of the Hebrews has met with us and please let us go three days' journey. They will listen. And I'm going to stretch out my hand and I'm going to strike Egypt with all these wonders and they will let you go. This is how it's going to go. The whole future is mapped out for you. I love what the Lord said in verse 7. I've seen the oppression. I've heard their cries. I know their sorrows. Moses, I want you to go tell them that. I want you to go tell them I care for them. i want you to go tell them i've come for them and i've sent you i see i hear i know the real concern the only concern moses had was just to go and simply communicate what god said to communicate exactly what god said that was the the the mission of the prophet the prophet was to speak only what the lord had told him to speak the lord had just laid it out for him here's what you do here's where you go here's who you talk to here's what you say and it'll all be a success i i promise you moses it'll all be a success but in all of this now as we look at verse 18 they will listen to your voice don't you think that would be enough god says here's the future here's how it's going to be here's the outcome you know he's done this for you of course here's the future here's the outcome i'm going to take you home there'll be a great victory there's going to be a great feast it's done it's you can be assured of that don't you think that would be enough to remove all fear and fret and worry that brings us tonight to chapter four then moses answered but behold they will not believe or listen to my voice for they will say the lord did not appear to you now now you really need to kind of juxtapose you need to set all this side by side and think about it moses says lord they will not verse 18 god says they will they will hear your voice no they won't now what point do you think that's defiant the whole scene of chapter three is a training session last time and and we looked at this that moses was really being trained to be a servant but i've said this repeatedly in the course of this study so far that you'll never be an effective witness you'll never be an effective servant of the lord until you believe it you'll never really be a servant until you really believe these things and have a confidence in his word and that shows itself in worship you have to trust him you can't tell somebody else to come to jesus and get out there and witness until you've believed it i mean that's just how it goes right you know that you can't tell anyone to come in here until you've sat here and loved it you won't be a faithful witness to christ with your heart until it's in your heart what's the issue right now with moses faith faith in god's word himself god just said this will happen that's a promise in my book right when god says something will happen. He just made a promise. You've just given me, the Lord, an absolutely impossible task. So here's on one hand, you have the promise from the Lord and an absolute impossibility, humanly speaking, right in front of you. What do you do with that? How in the world will they ever believe me? How in the world will I ever convince them when I go there? And if they say, well, the Lord has not appeared to you, what do you expect me to say? What do you expect me to say to that? It's kind of fun beating up on Moses, isn't it? I could beat up on him really good tonight. But you know, we're a lot like him. You ever wonder how often we do this to the Lord? God said all sorts of things in His Word so clearly to us. I want you to think about this with me just for a moment. God said so many things clearly to us in His Word. We immediately begin to think, how does that work? That really won't work. Let me give you some. God said something that I have always found remarkable, inspired something in 1 Corinthians, and I still don't think I understand the full implications of it. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. God loves to use a really foolish, weak means to save, and He's told us that's why I put together a church, That's why I put together this. That's why I send someone to do this. It's all over the Scriptures. Don't you think if we really believe that, church would be packed? Don't you think if we really believe that, pastors would give themselves all the more to preach it? Don't you think if we really believe that, we would take every chance we possibly could to just sit under the message because that's the way God chose to save those who believe? Don't you think if we really believe that, we would be there and we'd say, I'm never letting my kid miss that. We have a whole host of excuses. If God said, you shall be my witnesses to the ends of the earth, and as He's about to show us, I have absolute control of the human heart. I turn it, I hold it, everything about that human heart is mine. Don't you think we would have more confidence to be witnesses? Do you think if we really believe that God was in control of everything and that He's enthroned and seated over all and we look at a world that's spinning out of control, it might incite us instead of fear to pray. One of the elders said to me the other day, they said, you know, why don't you just pray against ISIS from the pulpit? I said, I should. You know He can take them down. Yep. Do I believe that? Here's Moses. Lord, they're going to say that you didn't appear to me. I mean, you want me to go, and they have no validation of that? You want me to go and tell them you appeared in a little desert shrub out on the backside of some mountain? They're not going to believe that, Lord. How many times do we look at a situation and say, well, what if this and what if that? And the fundamental issue is not about what might happen. The fundamental issue is whether I believe the word of promise. They will not believe. God said, they would. Who's not believing here? That's the issue. Moses. How do you think God should respond to Moses? This is a pretty blatant rejection of his call to believe and trust in the Lord. I mean, this is a pretty blatant rejection. I don't know how else to look at it. They will? They won't. If I had a kid do that to me, I don't know if I'd take well to that, you know? I do have kids do that to me, by the way. Angels don't do that. This thrice holy God who's a consuming fire. So what does God do? Notice your God. This is why I love the Old Testament. You study the character of God. Notice your God here. So what does he do? Verse 2, the Lord said to him, what's that in your hand? He said, a staff. He said, throw it on the ground. So he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent and Moses ran from it. But the Lord said to Moses, put out your hand and catch it by the tail. So he put out his hand and caught it and it became a staff in his hand that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has appeared to you. We read these and think, they're not that really amazing of signs. I mean, they are, but they aren't. I mean, God could have picked up Sinai and threw it out in the ocean, you know. God could have done something really, really, really remarkable. But we find that the Egyptians could do some of these things. And that's where I think we have to understand exactly what God was doing here for Moses. None of what God does in terms of the plagues and in any of this stuff is abstract, meaning it has a specific intention in Exodus. And if we don't get that, we miss the glory of Exodus. The snake was the symbol of Egyptian power. The snake was the source of Egyptian wisdom and healing. They would put it, and healing, and you'll think here of the leprosy. You think of, they would put it, as we looked at last time, the Uraeus on the crown. All the gods of Egypt, if we look at it, many of the gods of Egypt are portrayed as snakes and in fact the scriptures validate this ezekiel 29 son of man set your face against pharaoh king of egypt and prophesy against him and against all egypt speak and say thus says the lord god behold i am against you oh pharaoh king of egypt oh great snake serpent who lies in the midst of the rivers who has said my river the nile is my own i've made it for myself i will put hooks in your jaws then all the inhabitants of egypt shall know that i am the lord because i've been a staff of reed to the house of israel you'll notice in verse 20 that this staff that god has for moses here is called the rod of god we just sang out about that rod by the way the lord said to my lord sit at my right hand till i make your enemies your footstool the lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Oh, I see Christ. The rod is His powerful shepherding rule. You're going with my rod, Moses. You're going in my power, Moses. I hold kings. I hold kingdoms. And you're going to take that sign of my power with you and you're going to rule in the midst of that land. What a sign. And you're going to cast it down. It's going to become a snake and you're going to take hold of it. And he adds another. Leprosy. Dreaded by everyone at that time. You didn't want to get leprosy. Your limbs fall off. Put it in. Pull it out. It's white. Get back in. I control health. i'm the god who controls the body we'll look at all this this is coming on the plagues and then he goes and he says take a little bit of water and dump it out and it'll become blood on dry dry ground now he would never use that particular sign but it did anticipate a much bigger sign the nile was one of the greatest gods of egypt guess what god was going to do through moses god his whole cabinet pharaoh and his royal cabinet would go out every morning and they would sing this song to the nile and we have this from archaeologists hail to thee oh nile the issues that issues from the earth and comes to keep egypt alive god's going to turn the whole thing to blood what an amazing thing what did he just do he just answered moses's fear they won't believe i'll show you i'm going to throw down signs on them that they've never they'll believe you don't have to worry about that i'll take care of that moses what an encouragement you ready to go now moses how does moses respond but moses said to the lord oh my lord i'm not eloquent either in the past or since you've spoken to your servant. But I'm slow of speech and of tongue. What in the world is that? I can't speak. Moses, I'll give you the words. I'll give you the words to say I'm going to be with you. My rod is going to be in your hand. I'm going to deliver. You're not alone. Lord, but I can't speak. I want you to notice here a wooden translation. I'm not eloquent, here it is, from yesterday or from three days ago, nor since you have spoken to your servant. In other words, since I came to this bush a few days back, you have not rectified a real problem in my life. You've not fixed something in my life. I'm not a good speaker, and since I've been standing in front of you, you still haven't fixed it. I'm not eloquent enough. I don't know what to say. What kind of eloquence was the Lord asking for? Verse 13, here's what you say. Let me spell it out for you, word for word. Say to this people, the Lord God, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you. That's what you go say, Moses. All you've got to do is give the report. All you've got to do is report. You're a reporter. You're a postman. You deliver the mail. You're all worried about results. I'm with you. It's a success. But I'm not eloquent. Have you caught the two ironies yet in this? The first is the Lord says they will believe and listen. Moses says no, they won't. Moses isn't believing or listening. Second irony. I'm not eloquent. I can't speak. Here's the irony. But he has a lot of eloquence to back-talk Yahweh. I mean, this is remarkable eloquence to back-talk God at the burning bush. it's reasoned it's slick he's totally avoiding the call he has single-handedly turned the conversation to complain against god we're learning something about moses we're learning something about us you know it's remarkable the greatest excuse we all use not to witness is i can't speak it's just as everyone says i can't speak i'm not eloquent you know leave it to the pastors what do you expect from the lord he's so long-suffering isn't he with us the lord responds in verse 11 who's made man's mouth who makes the mute the deaf the seeing or the blind have not i that's a remarkable verse i determine all these things you go and i will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say what god is saying to moses is this i have formed you i made you i designed you i knew you i formed you exactly the way i want you to be who makes the mute the deaf or the seeing or the blind so in other words listen to this whatever physical limitation you have whatever sickness whatever weakness whatever lack whatever excuse you want to put god ordained it for you all of your abilities inabilities and disabilities as one pastor said sovereignly appointed and if you consider it a weakness praise the lord because that's where he wants to show the excellence of his power as it rests upon you that's what paul said in the thorn in the flesh i pleaded with the lord to take this thing away from me and he wouldn't do it and i did it three times and then he said my grace is sufficient for my power is made perfect in weakness. I'm going to boast in it then if that's the case. Imagine if we thought like that in all of our circumstances. Everything that's given to us is an opportunity for the power of Christ to rest upon us. We love to blame circumstance, inability, afflictions upon everyone else. The Lord says, I'll be with your mouth. I'll even train it as you go. He's so wonderful, isn't He? So long-suffering with us. How encouraging is this? Moses, I've called you to my service. I'm going to go get my people. This is the most exciting thing. Ready? Lord, send someone else. What's truly amazing is that God gets anything accomplished with us. I mean, really, the greatest obstacle to going and getting Israel is this servant's hard heart. and now we're at the real issue now games are over it's all real clear all these excuses have been answered it's all real clear it's not about your concerns not about your success it all has come clean you just don't want to do it you just don't want to do it you don't want to get out there and do what i've called you to do you do not want to submit to the will of god you do not want to really do that prayer not my will but your will be done and you see it in the way that god moses is talking to god notice that moses won't use all capital letters in other words moses won't use the holy name as he's speaking to the lord notice they're small letters and let me just say at this point when you're getting giving faithless responses to the lord like this now you're ready to meet the anger of the lord did you catch that verse for the first time so the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses not the same word as consume that he later used to consume some outside the camp but it aroused his severe displeasure when there is direct defiant disobedience to the Lord you can arouse his displeasure Moses needed to learn that he needed to learn that to lead people out too there are certain things you can't do God takes pleasure in obedience he hates rebellion and even in this look at what God does okay is not Aaron your brother I know he can speak I'm going to deal with this one more later he's coming out to meet you when he sees you he'll be glad in his heart you shall speak to him put the words in his mouth and i will be with your mouth and with his mouth i'll be with both your mouths and i'll teach you both what to do he shall speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be as god to him moses would become a bold prophet before pharaoh now i stopped tonight and i think you know who wrote this right would you ever want to record that about yourself moses is the author of that which tells you it's inspired all by the way because you'd never put that down about yourself you would put your down as a striking obedient person what do you think the lord's after from his servants um well they say that years ago when john calvin did not want to stay in geneva william farrell tried to stop calvin from going to strasburg and said that god would curse him if he refused to help the Protestant churches in Geneva. And Calvin says he was struck with terror and gave up his journey and went back to Geneva. That's not really the way you want it to go, by the way. The Lord wants sincere, obedient hearts. Think of the picture at the end of this. We'll come back to this next week. Moses takes his wife and his sons. Just picture this with me for a moment. He rides on a donkey with the rod of God in his hand. And he rides through the desert and he returns back to Egypt and God is going to plunder that whole nation through a little lowly shepherd on a donkey. And now you know where I'm going. A lowly desert shepherd on a donkey holding the rod of God in his hand. plundering the mightiest nation of the world and conquering the serpent. Sound like a story you know? Sure it is. I wonder what it was like for the disciples, and I'll close with this, when one day Jesus says to them, go into the village in front of you and immediately you will find a donkey tied, a colt. Untie and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the Lord needs them. I've always thought to myself, what? Oh, here's my donkey. The Lord needs him. Is he having control? And he sets on the donkey. And all of that was fulfilled to say, behold, your king is coming to you. Humble, mounted on a donkey. No backtalk. Behold, I've come. In the volume of the book, it's written of me to do your will, O God. The whole way on the donkey, he rides right up on into Jerusalem and he goes to the cross. And do you know what the cross was called? Golgotha. Because there was the place of the skull where the head of the devil was crushed. Serpent. And he did that because he loves you and he became the cursed one and he rose and he today took that rod of iron and now he rules all the nations with a rod of iron by the rod of his power. That's Psalm 110. And do you know what He's asked of you today? He's asked of you this. I've saved you. I marched in there for you. I delivered you. I pulled you out of Egypt. I plundered that nation. And I brought you out with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and I heal. I have power over the lepers. You see it all through the Gospel. I have power to deliver you from all of your sins. And what does He ask of us today in response to the great grace that we've received. You shall be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. This earth needs to hear that. And I've left you with the greatest sign. It's the sign of my resurrection. All authorities and principalities and powers right now, the Lord wants you to know, they're all under my feet, He says. I hold hearts. I've led captivity captive. I've given gifts to men. I hold human hearts. I can change them. Are you confident in my plan? Are you confident in my power? Are you confident in my ways? Are you confident that I have designed you and made you just for what I have intended for you? So that means your purpose then is not to live for yourself. We should be about the will of our Heavenly Father as Jesus was about the will of His Father. He's been so patient with us. He's created us, fashioned us, knows us, all your abilities, inabilities, and disabilities. Every circumstance, He knows, He holds. And He's called you to be His light so that men would see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. The Lord is your defender. What can man do to you? May we learn, and I close with this, may we learn to live out more and more. And this week, pray to Him and understand what it means, not my will, but Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Let's pray to Him. Heavenly Father, thank You for instructing us in Your good will for us. And we make all the excuses in the world and they're sinful. And we ask that You'd forgive us for being sinful and ultimately wanting to lead isolated lives for ourselves. Give us hearts of servants and let us be eager and willing to do Your will without any backtalk and to be confident that You're with us, that whatever You've called us to do or who to speak to, You've given us the words and You will give us the words. That we have everything we need by Your power and are so thankful that if Christ reigns, we reign. And we share in that rod rule so that the end is already yes and amen. The end is already determined. We are victors. And it's as good as if we were already there because Jesus is there. Be with us this week and let us be confident that we are witnesses of the true King of kings and Lord of lords who arose victorious and conquered sin, death, the devil, and the grave so that we today might live in the power of His resurrection. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.