This is for all of us a momentous
event in our lives, in the life and history of this congregation.
We've been looking forward to it for many, many years. For
this assembly, this is very much a time of new beginning. God's
put you in a new place. And I'm honored that your pastor
asked me to be with you these few days. The Lord, I believe,
has given me a message for you, a very special message. I've
been working on this ever since I got here yesterday. And he's
graciously provided you with this comfortable, magnificent
house of worship. With it, you've assumed, I suspect,
good debt. And simply paying for the building,
maintaining the property, and supplying the needs of your pastor
and his family will involve a heavy burden. I'm fully aware of that.
And you have an even greater burden. I hope God will enable me tonight
to impress upon you something of the weight and the blessedness
of that burden. is called by the old prophets
the burden of the word of the Lord. God Almighty has trusted
to you, to this band of believers here in Ewing, New Jersey, he's
trusted to you the treasure of his grace. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels. worthless, insignificant, meaningless,
useless, dirty, broken clay pots. That's what an earthen vessel
is. God has been pleased to put this
treasure in your hands, not to hold as a treasure for yourself,
but a treasure to disperse freely wherever possible. by the power
of his spirit, by the operation of his grace. He's chosen you
to be instruments by which he will be pleased to speak to this
generation in this part of the world for the glory of God. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels for the glory of God, for the glory of God. The only
reason, I remind you again as I have many times over the years
and I've been with you from the beginning, the only reason for
the existence of this body of believers as a local church,
the only reason is for the preaching of the gospel. The preaching
of the gospel to this generation for the glory of God, for the
gathering in of his elect, for the edifying of his saints. May
God grant that this congregation may ever be a sounding board
for the gospel. You may often ask, and rightly
so, why would the God of glory choose to give us this privilege? And yet the privilege he's given
you will be, if you faithfully give yourselves to it, a constantly
increasing burden. If you faithfully give yourselves
to it, it will be a constantly increasing burden. The financial
responsibilities, the labor demanded, the care of your hearts as well
as the care of this property will only increase as the Lord
uses you for his glory. So tonight, I want you to open
your Bibles again to the Gospel of Exodus chapter 18. Our text
I'll take for verse 24, but really the whole chapter will be our
text. And I want to talk to you about the blessing of the burden. Oh, the blessing of this burden. May God, the Holy Spirit, great grace, sustain you and
me with the burden of this work, and make us ever to know the
blessing of the burden. Here in Exodus 18, 24, God the
Holy Ghost records for us by Moses' own pen one of the most
lamentable regrettable, sad pictures in the life and ministry of this
man Moses. So Moses hearkened to the voice
of his father-in-law and did all that he said. God's servant
Moses listened to the counsel of Jethro, his father-in-law.
And he eased himself of the great heavy burden God had put upon
his shoulders. And when he eased himself of
the burden, he eased himself of the blessing. Every privilege has a price. Every privilege has a price.
Every opportunity has with it a responsibility. Every blessing
entails a burden. I see a good many of you folks,
young folks, and I hear tell some of you fixing to get married.
The choice of a companion, oh my, what a great blessing. What a great blessing when God
gives a man a good woman to be his helpmate. When God gives
a woman a good man to be her husband, her head. But that involves
a lot of responsibility. It involves the devotion of your
life to somebody else. It involves giving up lots of
things that you might otherwise enjoy for somebody else just
because they need them and just because you love them. A home. If you have one, it takes some
work. It involves a burden. It involves constant care. God
gives you children. What a blessing the children
are. But the children are a burden, ask any mother or father. Young
or old, the children are a burden. No matter how good the children
turn out, they're a burden, a constant burden, a burden you never get
over. You take a job, it involves a
burden. No matter how much the salary
is, it involves a burden. A local church, a ministry, oh,
what a blessing. What a burden. The greatest privilege
and the highest honor any man or woman can ever enjoy in this
world is the privilege and the honor of being allowed of God, enabled
of God to do something for Him. privilege, what an honor, but
it's a burden. Be sure you understand what I'm
saying. God Almighty doesn't need you. God doesn't need me. God redeemed us without our aid. He saved us without our assistance. He made us righteous without
us doing anything. We are His creation. He chose
us, we didn't choose Him. He called us, we didn't call
Him. He came to us, we didn't come to Him. He found us, we
didn't find Him. Salvation is God's work. God
doesn't need man. He doesn't need you and He doesn't
need me for anything. He doesn't need us to give him
anything. He doesn't need us to do anything for him. He's
God Almighty. God's solitary independence. I ought to convince everybody
of that. The Holy Lord God Almighty, however,
does use men and women to accomplish His work in this world. What
a condescension of His grace. What a wonder of His mercy. It
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Normally, if I read this book
correctly, and I'm dead sure I do, God Almighty uses one man
in one place for a particular congregation. Two pastors are
kind of like two husbands. It just doesn't work. It just
doesn't work. And each congregation must have
an angel of God to minister to that congregation, to lead that
congregation. Before God sent Brother Clay
here as your pastor, when you first asked me to help you, my
insistence was, I'm going to be sending fellows up and they'll
be preaching to you and if I didn't recommend them, I wouldn't send
them. But until God gives you a pastor, I'll be your pastor.
That means you pay attention to me. And you do things the
way I say do. And if you don't want to, that's
all right. I've got plenty to do. But you can't have two pastors. You can't have two voices of
authority in one house. God's servants must be looked
upon as the angels of God to the churches to which God gives
them. And when God allows a man or a woman or men and women collectively
as a body of believers to do something for him, he places
a heavy, heavy burden upon them. Let me ask you to hold your Bibles
open tonight to Exodus 18. And I want to call your attention
to several things here that I pray God will inscribe upon your heart
and mine. Let me begin by making this statement
first. Moses was a man of remarkable
faith and remarkable faithfulness. Whatever the word of God identifies
for us some failure in his imminent servants. And I find it remarkable,
he often does. He often does. But they're not
just like Brother Angus Fisher back there. He finds out something
about Brother Don Fortner. He just, I just feel like I have
to tell you. No, that's called gossip. That's
called gossip. When God identifies the failures
of his servants, he doesn't do that to suggest somehow they're
not truly faithful men, truly faithful women. He does it that
we may learn by the example. This man, Moses, was a man of
remarkable faith and faithfulness. Exodus 18 begins with Moses'
father-in-law, Jethro, bringing his wife, Zipporah, and her two
sons, Gershom and Eleazar, back to him. It had been a long, long
time since Moses had seen Zipporah and their two sons. It had been
at least a year since Moses had seen his family. Look at verse
1. When Jethro the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law,
heard of all that God had done for Moses and for all Israel,
his people, and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt,
then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after
he had sent her back. He sent her back to stay with
her daddy. Their parting wasn't exactly
pleasant. If you want to turn back to Exodus
4, hold your hands here in chapter 18. You'll remember in Exodus
4, God met Moses at an inn and almost killed him. The scripture
tells us plainly the Lord was about to kill him. He was about
to kill him because Moses had not circumcised his children,
his boys, as God commanded him to do so. And when Moses finally
submitted to the will of God, Zipporah was required to perform
the ordinance of God. And she didn't like it a little
bit. And she and Moses, as we say kindly, had words. Look at
verse 24, Exodus 4. It came to pass, by the way,
in the end that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then
Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son
and she threw it at Moses' feet. I can just picture it. She threw it at his feet and
said, surely a bloody husband art thou to me. So the Lord let
Moses go. Then she said, a bloody husband
thou art because of the circumcision. Now learn from this. Child of
God obedience to the word of God and the will of God is a
matter of immense importance. When you know what God would
have you to do, do it and make no excuse not to. In all areas
of life, obedience is a matter of immense importance. You young
folks are getting ready to be married, and you who will in
a few years. Don't act like a foolish, impotent
child. Marry someone who will worship
God with you. If you marry somebody who won't,
you marry trouble. Nothing else. Nothing else. Zipporah
took the boys and went home to daddy because Moses sent her
back. He sent her back. William Carey,
you all know the name, went to India as a missionary. And he
had been a pastor in a small area, small, poor congregation. And his wife was content, all
right, to do that. But when Carey committed himself
to go to India, He didn't discuss it with his wife, and she didn't
like it. And she refused to go. You know what Mr. Carey did?
He left her in England and went to India. In time, she came. But he took the boy and said,
stay here if you want to. I'm going to do what God's called
me to do. And that's exactly what Moses did. He sent Zipporah
back home to daddy because she would have been a hindrance to
him in the work God had committed to him. Moses went on to Egypt. He went on to Egypt to do what
the Lord God called him to do. And now, a full year later, Jethro
hears all about it. And he brought Zipporah and the
boys back to Moses. On the day that Jethro and Zipporah
and Moses' two sons came to meet him, Moses gave them a faithful
report of all that the Lord had done. He gave it to his family,
to his father-in-law, to his wife and his boys, and told them
God's work. Look at verse 8 of the chapter
18. Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done unto
Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake. Can't you
imagine how the conversation must have gone? He said, you've
heard, you just think you've heard what God said. Let me tell
you what God did. And he told him of all the travail
that had come upon them by the way and how the Lord delivered
them. He said, Jethro, God sent his
angel. through Egypt one night. And
he told me to tell the elders of Israel, to tell every man
in Israel, take a lamb and kill that lamb and put the blood on
the doorpost of the little. He said, tonight, judgment's
coming. And the firstborn in every house in Egypt is going
to die. And I'm going to tell you something.
The firstborn in every house in Egypt died. The firstborn
in every house in Egypt died. That included the Israelites.
The firstborn everywhere died, either in a representative or
personally. He said, Jethro, God showed me
how salvation comes by substitute. That's done. He said, the Lord
then brought us out of Egypt and across the Red Sea. But before
we left, the Lord calls the Egyptians to be so happy to see us leave.
They gave us all their gold and silver. to supply us with everything
we needed along the way. And when we left, we left out
of there with a high hand, marching out like an army in dress parade. We marched out banded together
and we came to the Red Sea and everybody began to be afraid
because Pharaoh changed his mind. And he started chasing us. And
he's right at our backs. And there's high rocks and hills
around us. And the Red Sea in front of us.
And the people began to murmur. And the Lord told me to tell
the people, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And
I stepped over and laid my rod on the Red Sea. And that thing
parted. He said, God sent a wind like
you've never seen or heard tell of. And it caused that sea to
stand up with two huge walls. Surrounding us and the children
of Israel all were baptized to me in the name of God and we
went into the sea committing ourselves to God and came out
on the other side on the glorious side of the Red Sea and when
we do turn around and look and here comes Pharaoh and his armies
and God calls that whole seawall on both sides to come down on
them and drown them. And first thing we knew they
washed up on shore. Who ever heard tell us such a
thing? Men, maybe. Horses, maybe. But swords and
armor and shields, every day, washed up on the shore. And we
went around and gathered up the weapons with which God would
have us do battle for the next 40 years. He said, Jethro, God
has graciously delivered us. We've seen his hand again and
again and again. And then we sang a song of redemption
like you'd hear folks sing and you just can't believe it. He
said, we got so excited, Miriam took up the song. She got tambourines
out and said to the ladies, let's dance and sing praises to God,
and repeated the chorus over and over again. And then we came
to a place called Mara. And everybody was thirsty. And
there wasn't anything to drink, and we spotted some water over
there. Started to get some water, and it was salty, and we couldn't
drink it. And the Lord said, uh, see that tree under? Put
it in the water. And they put the tree in the
water, and the waters were sweet. He said, uh, Christ, my Redeemer,
makes every bitter thing sweet. He does all things well. And
then we got into the land a little further and folks were hungry.
We got nothing to eat, Moses. What are we going to do now?
Why didn't we just die and eat? We told you this was going to
be. And the Lord rained manna from heaven. He said, God calls
murder to fall from heaven. And folks gathered up everything
they wanted. And then they got thirsty again and began to grumble
again. And the Lord said, smite the
rock. You stand on that rock and smite
the rock. And here I stood upon a rock. And strange thing about that
rock, that rock had been following us. I'd never seen a rock walk
before. I'd never seen a rock move before.
That rock had been following us all this time. And God told
me to stand on that rock and take my life and smite that rock. That's how redemption comes.
By Christ being smitten by the justice of God. And water came
gushing out of that rock like rivers gushing out. talking about
God giving his spirit, the spirit of his grace to chosen redeemed
sinners. And this is what God's done for
us. And then the Amalekites came
against us. And the Lord told me, said, Moses,
this is a battle I've sworn myself to. I'll defeat them. I'll defeat
them. Those Amalekites represent my
flesh, my old nature. That gives me more trouble than
all the Egyptians could ever give me. That evil heart of unbelief
that's in me. And God said, I'll take care
of it. You know what? He did. He did. And I fully expect him to. And
when Jethro heard Moses' report, of God's wondrous works, he was
just beside himself. He was ecstatic. He just, oh
my, he was ecstatic. Look at verse 9. And Jethro rejoiced
for all the goodness which the Lord had done to Israel, whom
he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Jethro
said, blessed be the Lord, blessed be Jehovah, who hath delivered
you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh,
and hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.
Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods. Moses should have
paid attention to what he said. He didn't say, now I know Jehovah,
he alone is God. He said, I know he's the best
God of all of them. He's greater than all gods, for in the thing
wherein they dealt proudly, he was above them. And Jethro, Moses'
father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God. And Aaron
came and all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law
before God. Jethro rejoiced in God's goodness.
He extolled the Lord God as not the only God, but the greatest
of all gods, and even made sacrifices to him. Here's another remarkable
thing about Moses. Look at verse 13. The arrival
of his family didn't deter him from the worship and service
of God. I remember hearing Rob Barnard
years ago preaching this time. It's been years ago. It's been
a long, long time ago. And he's preaching somewhere. It was on
Sunday morning and some kind of something going on, I thought
it was. But somebody made a mistake of saying that folks aren't in
church because family came. He said, nobody got any family
saved anymore? Folks stay home because family
came? What's wrong with people? What's wrong with people? Moses
hadn't seen his wife. or his boys in a year. In a year. The next morning he went about
doing his business. Look at verse 13. And it came
to pass on the morrow that Moses sat to judge the people. And
the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.
The day after they got there he went out to do what God had
called him to do. What God had given him the singular
privilege and responsibility of doing. His family had arrived
just the evening before. The next morning, Moses was back
at work. John Gill made this observation.
Though his father-in-law was come to visit him, yet he did
not neglect the care of God's people and the business that
lay upon his hands for their good. Now hear me, young and
old alike, are you listening? If you want to do your family
good, If you want to do your family good, don't allow your
family to keep you from the worship of God and the service of our
Redeemer. And do nothing that would keep
your family from the worship and service of God. I don't care
what it is. I don't care what excuse you
make. Nothing. All right, here's the second
thing. This man Moses, was a man of great faith and faithfulness,
and being such, he was a man highly honored of God. Moses
had honored God, and God honored Moses. You don't need to turn
there, but God made a promise in 1 Samuel chapter 2 and verse
30. He said, them that honor me,
I will honor. That's what God said. And he
proved himself to his word all these years in every generation. God made this man Moses, the
judge and pastor, the leader and teacher of a congregation
of at least four million people. There were 600,000 footmen. That
doesn't include women or children or old folks. At least four million
Jews were under Moses' pastoral care. Oh, my soul, how God imposed
honor upon Moses to be his spokesman to his people. Paul said unto
me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace
given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable
riches of Christ. Oh, Donny Bell, what an honor
God's given you. What an honor God's given me.
I wouldn't trade places with any human being in the world
anywhere in history. Nowhere. What an honor. What
an honor. It was a demanding work. But
it was a work involving great honor. Look at verses 15 and
16, chapter 18. Moses said unto his father-in-law,
because the people come unto me to inquire of God. That's
what you got out here. When they have a matter, they
come unto me. And I judge between one and the
other. And I do make them. to know the statutes of God and
His laws. Well, preacher, we believe in
a priesthood of believers. Yes, we do. A priesthood of believers
who have a pastor to teach them the Word of God. Now, you folks
sitting here in this congregation, you've heard this from me before.
You folks who are strangers to this grumpy old man, you need
to hear it. You need to hear it. You can't
understand this book on your own. It ain't gonna happen. It ain't gonna happen. When we
get together and discuss things, that means you'll take from me
what you want. You'll take from me what you
want. You must have a man to teach you God's Word. That's
this man's responsibility. Now that's a burden. That's a
burden. But oh, what an honor. Folks, come listen to me preach.
Here I am. I'm here, Art, to tell you what
this whole thing means. God's given me a message for
you to tell you what the whole event's all about. It was a work
for which God equipped Moses. You see, God's preachers, God's
servants are men just like everybody else. We put our breeches on
just like you other fellows do, one leg at a time. But our sufficiency
is of God. Our sufficiencies of God. I dare
to stand here and open to you the word of God and say this
is what God says and speak it with authority because God has
taught me and God's given me his word. Our sufficiencies of
God. But when Jethro saw what Moses
had done, what he was doing. Jethro, being the brilliant older
man that he was, a pagan, an infidel, a heathen, an idolater,
but he was a rich priest in Midian. He said to Moses in verses 18
through 23, thou wilt surely wear away. Both thou and this
people that is with thee, you can't keep up, Moses, for this
thing is too heavy for thee. Thou art not able to perform
it thyself alone. Hearken now to my voice. I will
give thee counsel." He said, Moses, this is what you need
to do. You need to appoint you some judges to help you. He said,
God will be with you. Wonder who he thought had been
with him all this time. He's gotta be with you. You can trust
him, he'll be with you. So shall it be easier for thyself. Now let me tell you a little
secret. Are you listening to me, Will? Listen careful now.
I'm talking to your daddy and everybody else in here, but you
listen. Easy street is always wrong way boulevard. Always. Nothing worthwhile comes
without cost. Nothing worthwhile comes without
sacrifice. It'll be easier for you, Jethro said. They shall
hear about the burden with thee. You'll get some help. Thou shalt
be able then to endure. Now here's the third thing. We read in our text in verse
24, Moses then made a horrible mistake. He followed the counsel
of carnal reason. Oh, God, teach me this. Doing the work of God, serving
the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ, anything spiritual cannot in
any way cannot in any way be judged or determined or guided
by the counsel of the flesh. When it comes to spiritual things,
carnal reason is always nuts. The world looks at us and says,
you fellows are nuts. No, you are. You don't understand
what you're talking about. You don't know what you're talking about.
Jethro's counsel, I had no question. arose from loving concern for
Moses' health. It was in a fleshly sense wise
and prudent counsel. Just stands for reason. Just
makes good sense. But Moses did wrong in obeying
it. And that'll become obvious as
you read the scriptures and the account God the Holy Spirit gives
here. Jethro was an unbeliever. He was a base idolater. He had
no spiritual discernment. The servant of God must never
allow himself to be guided by natural principles. When the
Lord sent Paul out preaching the gospel, he said in Galatians
15, immediately, I conferred not with flesh and blood. If
you do, Marvin, you won't do what he says. It won't happen. It won't happen. Just suppose,
just suppose Brother Abraham, the Lord said, Abraham, In three
days, I want you to take your son Isaac, your only son whom
you did love, and get to a mountain that I show you, and there you're
going to sacrifice him to me. Now you've got three days to
think about it. What do you reckon would have
happened if he had gone home and said, Sarah, honey, after supper now
we need to have a talk. The Lord has commanded me to
do something now. What do you think? Abraham, you've lost your
mind. If he had taken counsel with
Sarah, He would never have gone to the Mount of Sacrifice and
he would never have known Jesus Christ in his character as Jehovah-Jireh. The flesh cannot be consulted
with regard to the things of God. That man who's engaged in
the service of God must take his orders only from the master
Mary said to the folks at the marriage feast in Cana, whatsoever
he sayeth to you, do it. Child of God, that's good counsel. That's good counsel. Don't do
otherwise. Obey his word, his will, seeking
his glory, and all is well. Here's the fourth thing. when Moses hearkened to his father-in-law,
that which was once his highest honor and his greatest privilege
became a great burden intolerable to him once he began to think
of himself. And if you think about yourself, I know God's been using you to
preach some places. Think about yourself and that
dear lady and your daughters and your grandchildren. If you
give it consideration, you won't do what God sends you to do.
It won't happen. It won't happen. You may find
a place to satisfy yourself and make yourself feel good. It won't
happen. It won't happen. A son or a daughter
in a young family, is nothing but a delight to a loving mother.
The cries of that child don't annoy her. Maybe everybody else,
but not her. The dirty diapers, they're not
repulsive to her. That's her baby. The aching breasts
don't make her resentful. But you let that mother begin
to think of herself and her pain and her cost. her aggravation,
things she's had to give up, things that child's interfering
with. And that child may be in grave danger in the arms of his
own mama. So it was with Moses. When he
began to consider himself rather than the will of God and the
glory of God and the people of God, he began to look upon his
service as a great burden, and he resented it. Turn over to
the book of Numbers. Hold your hands here in Exodus. Turn over
to Numbers chapter 11. Now remember, Moses is the one
who's writing us about this event. Numbers chapter 11, verse 11.
And Moses said unto the Lord, Wherefore hast thou afflicted
thy servant? And wherefore have I not found
favor in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this
people upon me? Have I conceived all this people?
Have I begotten them that thou shouldst say to me, carry them
in thy bosom as a nursing father, beareth the sucking child under
a lamb, which thou swearest unto their fathers? Whence should
I have flesh to give unto all this people? For they weep unto
me, saying, give us flesh that we may. I'm not able to bear
all this people alone, because it's too heavy for me. And if
thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand. Lord, I'm tired of this myth.
Go ahead and take me to glory. If I feel fever in thy sight,
then let me not see my wretchedness. Moses was willing to relinquish
the work and the honor to which God had called him. Yes, his
responsibility was immense. But faith would have said, God's
grace is sufficient. Instead, Moses' heart failed
him. I told you in verse 14. You see, Moses forgot something. God never called him to bear
the burden. God never called him to provide
for the people. God never called him to carry
them. He was only the instrument. God was carrying the load, and
God was doing the work. Any place where God puts me is a place of honor. Any work
God puts in my hands is an honorable work. Moses relinquishing of
his burden had the appearance of humility. I know that with
his lips he was saying, I'm not sufficient. But what he was really
saying, God, I can't count on you. Is that accurate, Brother Todd?
That's what unbelief always is. We find an excuse for it. And
what we're really saying is, I can't do this. I'm not able
to do this. I'm not sufficient for this. God, you're not able
to do that. You can't do that. We must not
thrust ourselves into any work or pretend God sent us when he
hadn't. But to shrink from any work or responsibility God's
put on our hands is cowardice and unbelief. Is anything too
hard for the Lord? No work is too great, no burden
too heavy for God. Now I'll tell you what that means
for this congregation and for this preacher, for me and for
you. I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me. God, send me where you will to
face whatever and whoever I must face. In any circumstance you
ordain, everything will be all right. I'm yours. I'm yours. We have an old lady in our congregation.
She's in her nineties. She'd been at rest home for a
few weeks. Mabel Dix, Shelby talked to her. Oh, it's been
several weeks ago now. And she couldn't walk. She's
trying to take therapy, trying to learn to walk again. And,
uh, and after talking to her a little while, Shelby was expressing
sympathy. She said, she said, I'm in Christ and Christ is in
me. Everything's all right. Oh, what an attitude. That's
exactly what I'm talking about. Wherever God puts you, wherever
God sends you, obey Him. It is never an act of humility
or faith to depart from any divinely appointed post, any divinely
appointed work for any reason, never. Difficulties are nothing
to God. Look at the Red Sea. Needs are
nothing to God. Egypt gladly gave Israel all
their gold and all their silver. Proud men are nothing to God.
Remember Pharaoh? Our inabilities are nothing to
God. Paul said, when I'm weak, then
I'm strong. When I know I can't do anything, then I'm strong. Here's the fifth thing. And I'll
quit. When Moses complained of the
burden God laid upon him. The Lord quickly took it away. He said, all right, Moses, you
can read it later in Numbers 11. He said, is what you want? Choose you out 70 men that you
know. You pick them. You pick them. And you bring them before me.
I'll tell you what I'll do. I will take the spirit that's
on you. And I just disperse it here. I disperse it there. Moses said, that sounds
good to me. And he went away a withered man. He no longer had the people to
come to him with everything. He was no longer bothered with
the burden. He no longer was to sit and guide the people alone
as God's messenger. You see, God will never force
you to serve him. If I don't want to speak for
him, he doesn't need meat and raise up rocks to do that. If I don't want to wash his feet,
somebody else will. If I don't want to break a basketball
and annoy him, somebody else will. If I don't want to be bothered
by serving Christ, he won't force me. You see, he doesn't need
you and he doesn't need me. The burden he gives us is an
honor. And I promise you, the burden
will only increase. You're going to have heartache,
gut-wrenching pain. You pastors, you preachers, you'll
have folks who gripe to you and fuss at you and cuss you and
just folks you love and labor for and you have no understanding
why. No understanding why. And they're
God's people, lots of them. God's people. God's people sometimes
act like you. They really do. And you carry
a burden you can't explain to anybody, nobody, nobody, but
to give it up. And you in this place, everybody
in this town has asked you. You don't need me to tell you
that. You live right in the shadow of Princeton University where
folks are smart. What fool listens to folks like
you listen to? What fool is going to make sacrifices
to preach what you're preaching? You give yourself to the work.
Just give yourself to it. I don't know what God's doing.
I don't either. But if the Lord allowed me to
do something for Him. Oh my soul, if God let me do
something for Him. Just for Him. There's a lady
in the scriptures in Mark chapter 14. Our master mentions to us. She came and anointed Him for
His burial. And she took an alabaster box
that was worth a year's wages and wasted the whole thing. That's
how all of them looked at it. Judah started it and the rest
of them followed him. Why this waste? You could have
taken this and fed the poor for a long time. Why this waste?
And the master said, you all shut up and listen to me. She
has brought a good work on me. You know what she did? You know
what she did for him? She hath done what she could. She hath done what she could. Do what you can, honoring God,
and God will honor you to the end. Amen.