ACT 4: COVENANT - SCENE 3: MOSES
FROM DUST TO GLORY • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.
He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
In His time God faithfully keeps His promises, wait expectantly on Him.
And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
In Genesis, God made a promise to Abram that his descendants would grow and become a great nation, but they would face 400 years of oppression in a foreign land before God would deliver them.
Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.
But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.
And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household:
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,
Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,
Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.
All the descendants of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt.
They started with 70 people. Now they're up to about 2 million people in a few centuries time, they have just filled the land of Egypt with the increased population comes a decreased popularity.
Then Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.
But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
Where God guides he provides
God’s guidance comes with purpose and prosperity.
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”
Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses.
But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.
So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves
and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah,
“When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.”
But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live.
So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?”
The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong.
And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
There is purpose and prosperity in difficulty.
God’s guidance comes with perplexity.
When it looks like life is falling apart it is really falling into place.
God makes evil serve His purposes.
The Pharaoh that did not know Joseph was placed their by God to prepare the people of God to move towards the promise of God.
Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
God uses painful experiences to move us toward His purpose.
Pharaoh decree sets the stage for Moses’ deliverance.
In the last verse of Exodus 1 Pharaoh decrees all male babies should be thrown into the Nile.
Pharaoh decree sets the stage for Moses’ deliverance.
Moses means “I drew Him out.” God allowed Moses to be drawn out so he could draw out God’s people.
Moses decision sets the stage for God’s deliverer.
More on that in just a moment. Let’s finish the fourth truth of God’s guidance.
God’s guidance comes with His presence.
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
GOD’S PRESENCE WITH US IS A REALITY EVEN WHEN IT DOES NOT FEEL REAL.
Moses decision sets the stage for God’s deliverer.
One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.
He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
The life of Moses can be understood in 3 parts.
The first 40 years he was trying to become somebody. The second 40 years he lived like a nobody. The last 40 years God takes a nobody and makes him into a somebody.
How do you take a nobody and turn them into a somebody?
ENCOUNTER
Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
If God can take dirt and make it holy. He can surely take us who are made from dirt and make us holy and useful.
EXSISTENCE
God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
I AM NOT BUT I KNOW I AM.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
THESE TRUTHS HAD TO BE CONSTANTLY EXERCISED IN MOSES LIFE DUE TO HIS EXCUSES.
We see this beginning in chapter 4.
GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISE BY DEMONSTRATING HIS POWER.
We see this in 7-13. God sends plagues on Egypt not for deliverance only but to demonstrate what would later be etched in stone on Mt. Sinai.
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
Each plague represented a god that the Egyptians worshipped. God delivered His people from these god’s to worship Him.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the river and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.
GOD’S REVELATION OF HIMSELF EITHER LEADS TO A HEART OF STONE OR SALVATION.
In Pharaoh's case, Pharaoh initiated the whole process by hardening his own heart ten times during the first five plagues (Ex. 7:13,14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34, 35 and 13:15).
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness,
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
In verses 24, 26, 28 Paul says....
GOD GAVE THEM UP.
IF YOU CONTINUE TO SAY MY WILL BE DONE THE LORD WILL SAY TO YOU; YOUR WILL BE DONE.
WHEN GOD REVEALS HIMSELF DON’T SAY “MY WILL BE DONE BUT YOUR WILL BE DONE”.
GOD DELIVERS HIS PEOPLE THROUGH BLOOD AND WATER.
The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
GOD DELIVERS HIS PEOPLE THROUGH BLOOD AND WATER.
So God is promising through the prophet Ezekiel, six centuries before Jesus, that a time is coming when there will be a transformative new beginning, characterized by spectacular cleansing symbolized by water that washes away all impurities and idols, and by the powerful gift of the Spirit that transforms the hearts of people.
GOD DELIVERS HIS PEOPLE THROUGH BLOOD AND WATER SO THAT THEY MAY WORSHIP HIM.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.
Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.
“Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.
The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.
Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.
In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble.
At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.
The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’
You blew with your wind; the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.
“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them.
“You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
The peoples have heard; they tremble; pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.
Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.
Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone, till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased.
You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.
The Lord will reign forever and ever.”
For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea.
Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.
And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”