Fear, doubt and salvation

This week we have read Chapter 4 in the story. This is the beginning story of Moses and the start of his ministry. Moses was rescued by his mother and sister when Pharaoh wanted to kill all boys. He was adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter and was brought up in royalty. He lived a ravish lifestyle until he killed an Egyptian and fled the region. Moses tried to live a simple lifestyle when God found him and chose him for the Exodus. God ordained Moses for the next chapter of Israelites.

For those of us who were raised on Bible story, isn’t it funny how we remember this story differently? When I was brought up I don’t ever remember hearing about Moses’ brother-in-law Aaron. I was always taught that Moses did all the miracles and Moses was God’s voice. However, the Bible shows that Aaron did many of the miracles with the instruction of Moses. It puts a different perspective on this story doesn’t it?

When I grew up I remembered Moses as a true faith leader, a powerful man of God, a true leader. This was a guy that people write books about. Historians should be writing biography’s about this guy. He was chose to lead a group of misfits, or slaves, into the land of paradise, or as the Bible says “milk and honey.” From royalty, to common man, back to a position of power. This was General Patton’s hero, type of guy, I remembered. However, it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that he was just a common guy like you and me. There were doubts, fears, and not following God’s plan. Moses is literally the example I use to people when they say “I would undoubtly follow God if I had a sign.” Because he is proof that we wouldn’t.

Before we go any further let’s dive into this chapter of The Story and I want to talk about some key points that I thought were worth wild to look at. We know from the last chapter that Pharaoh in Joseph’s time was receptive to the opinions of people that could give advice. He feared death and the feared God, this lead Pharaoh to seek advice from others. He was given good advice and it allowed him to remain resilient from a 7 year famine. He honored the one that helped his country survive this famine and Joseph lived a good life.

As time when on a new king arose and he looked at the Israelites with fear. Exodus 1:9 says “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply , and it happen, in the event of way, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.” This is the first time that Israel was identified as a nation or a collective set of people. This new Pharaoh was raised in this area living with the Israelites in peace, but when he saw them in a collective whole then he was struck with fear. He saw a nation of people joined together by physical characteristics, sets of beliefs, and different sets of social norms than the Egyptians. He immediately disimmigrated against them and was stuck with fear. Fear of losing all of his comforts, fear that a nation would strip him of his royalty, and also fear of a nation of differences beliefs violating the Egyptians way of life. Do you see the difference between the two pharaohs? One feared God, and one feared a nation. When the Pharaoh took his eyes off God and looked toward worldly ideas he was struck with fear and the fears materialized in his mind. This fear brought ideas of rivalry, betrayal, and destruction. However, the other pharaoh realized that Joseph was representing the true and ultimate God. He listened to this advice and brought harmony throughout the lands. Is this the same in your lives today? What worldly fears do you have in your life? What is distracting you from listening to God? What ideas are in your head that you are listening to instead of God?

Are you worried about God using you and disrupting you in your comfortable lives? What about when lays out his plan and it causes you to give up everything to follow him…..Are you ready to do that? Where is your fear in your spiritual life? The bible is filled with verses that state fear God. In fact, they said this is the only fear that you should have in your life.

Proverbs 1:7- “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Does this remind you of anyone?

Proverbs 8:13- The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride arrogance and the evil way” Again does this remind you of anyone I just talked about?

You see when we turn our eyes away from God we lose wisdom, knowledge and open the door to evil. Granted it took Pharaoh 430 years to lose sight of God, but each generation slowly turned from God and it caused this chaos and suffering. Within your lives, if you take your eyes off God just momentarily then the door to evil will swing open. You start thinking for yourself and pride, arrogance become part of your character.

Continuing with the story, which brings to a very famous story of a burning bush. Moses was a Shepard tending to a flock. I want to pause and single out that he was a Shepard and Jesus was described as a shepherd. This is important because many of the faith leaders were called to be shepherds of the Israelites. 1 Peter 5:2-3- calls us to be shepherds.

1 Peter 5:2-3” Be shepherds of God’s flock that is among you, watching over them not out of compulsion, but because it is God’s will; not out of greed, but out of eagerness; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.”

The dictionary describes a shepherd as a person protects sheep from animals that would attack them, keeps them from wandering, and otherwise takes care of the flock. The word is also a verb that describes care of a group. God wants someone who is with the flock, or his people, and to care for them. Protecting them from the evils of the world and bring them back into God’s presence. God envisioned Moses as being such a person and he learned these skills because it was his day-to-day job. So while he was walking around he sees a burning bush and then the bush called out to him. Warning, if you see a burning bush out here in Kuwait you need to drink more water and seek medical aid. Anyways, Moses goes to this bush and the voice says that he is God. He tells Moses that he is in a holy place and Moses believes him. Moses is off to a good start on following God’s plan. When God told him that he was God, Moses bowed in reverence. God told him to take off his sandals and he complies. Then God begins to share the vision of bring the Israelites out of slavery and this is where Moses begins to faultier. This is where I use Moses as an example when people ask for a sign. This guy is talking to a bush. I mean talking to a bush is already weird, but when the bush talks back my mind is blown.

Digging deeper Moses rejected God 5 times before God convinced him to follow him. Moses tried to come up with every excuse to not be part of God’s plan. Even after this BURNING BUSH told him of his deity, performed miracles, healed Moses and prophesied to him, Moses still challenged God and told God to get someone else. After negotiating with God, which is already pretty courageous. I mean telling God to get someone else after he turned your hand into a leopards hand was pretty………stupid. But God still answers the requests of Moses. God still answered all the needy things that Moses whined about. Moses was more worried about all the worldly things even though God said He would be with you. Moses still worried about his image in this world, then be a prophet of God. He was too stricken with fear than to submit to God and become a great prophet….actually a savior to the Israelites.

Moses was so doubtful that he gave Aaron the rod and wanted Aaron to perform the miracles. But the story is so beautiful because God knew Moses better than he knew himself. God wanted to empower Moses and make him into a great faith leader, but Moses doubted himself. Moses compromised everything to where Aaron was performing the wonders and miracles. But God never gave up on Moses. You see Moses was part of this plan and God isn’t going to let a whining 80 year old man corrupt His plan.

Later, in the story we see that Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go after 10 plagues that the people experienced. The last one details the significance of the Passover. Where God will pass the wrath of Him onto people who are not ordained as His people. He will prevent the touch of death from the families who believe in Him and have the blood of the first born on their doorposts. This is significant because it is the explanation of why Jesus had to be sacrificed on the Passover and why he was the true sacrifice to all of us. But the Passover is for another sermon and I encourage you to read it in your Bibles.

So Pharaoh Lets the people go from Egypt and all the people leave Egypt. Before we get to the famous Red Sea story the people are walking in the presence of God already. God came down and during the day he was a cloudy and at night he was a pillar of fire. The Bible says that he never left the people and that he went before the people. The people of Israel witnessed the 10 plagues, saw this cloudy/pillar of fire leading them, and then they saw Pharaoh and his army chasing them. What did these people do after witnessing many different miracles do? Did they have leaps of faith? Did they rely on God’s power?

Exodus 14:11- Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt saying, “Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.” Wow….they had the nerve to say this with GOD STILL IN THEIR PRESENCE. They had the nerve to go to the guy who was speaking for God and tell them that they were better back in the misery. In fact they said that they prefer going back to Egypt then being in God’s presence. In the book the Story it says that the Israelites told Moses to “Leave us alone.” So they would rather be in the misery and willingly separate themselves from God’s presence. They would prefer lives in horrible living conditions and being a slave rather than live in a land of paradise. It just blows my mind that they are literally in the presence of God and boldy-wholeheartedly say we would be better without you.

After God saved them by parting the Red Sea, the people began grumbling about the bitter water. Again God provided, after that they grumbled about not eating……yet again God provided……Are you seeing a pattern here? There are some valuable lessons in these stories and if you think that we are any different than the Israelites then you’re wrong. When things are bad who do you cry out to? God right…..What about when things are going good? Do you give God praise? Do you give thanks? What about when things go wrong we blame or cry out to God for our suffering? Why are we so worried about our lives here on earth when we are only here for a blink of an eye in all eternally.

How do you keep your eyes on God so that you don’t open the door toward evil? CH Ellefson talked about reading your Bible last week. I’m going one step further. When was the last time that you pray to God? To some that may be easy to answer, but what about when you just say and listened for God. Later, were going to hear about a guy named Joshua and some of his wisdom. But I want to point out a verse Joshua 1:8 This Book of Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it.” This book of the Law talks about Jesus. If you translate this in today’s language then it will say that you shall not depart from the Bible and mediate on scripture day and night.

So where are your fears? Are you willingly ready to be a part of God’s perfect plan? He already said that he will go before you and that he will be with us. So what are you afraid of? God said that He is with us always, Jesus said that he went before us to reserve us a seat at God’s table, the Bible said that nothing will separate us from God, then what are we afraid of? Or are you comfortable in the chains of sin and death and slavery to the evil ways…..I promise you that the Land that God has created for us is far greater than what we see here. Romans 8:31 says “if God is for us, who can be against us?”

Join me in prayer