Alright, brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Exodus chapter 4. Exodus chapter 4. We're going to be looking at God's anger and love. God's anger and love. And this
is God's anger and love towards His chosen people. Now let's
look at Exodus 4 and verse 13. You know here the Lord has been
calling Moses to send him forth to serve the Lord. All he has
to do is to go forth and proclaim the name of the Lord. That's
all. To exalt the name of the Lord
before the people. And God promised to do everything. That's all He's called to do.
And look at Exodus 4.13. It says, And He said, O my Lord,
send, I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send. Moses said, I don't want to go,
Lord. Send somebody else. Don't send
me. Verse 14 says, And the anger
of the Lord was kindled against Moses. Now as we see here, God's
anger is sometimes kindled against His chosen, redeemed, child. He said, O my Lord, send, I pray
Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send. And the anger
of the Lord was kindled against Moses. Now the anger of the Lord
against His chosen child is not the same as God's fury and wrath
toward sinners outside of Christ. God's anger toward His chosen
child is not the same as God's fury and God's wrath toward those
that are outside of Christ. The Scriptures tell us that God
judges the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every
day. He said, a high look and a proud
heart and the plowing of the wicked is sin. I could understand
a high look. and a proud heart. But even the
plowing of the wicked is sin. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. And that's all we are as we are
born into this world is flesh. And they that are in the flesh
cannot please God. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. The wrath of God abideth on him.
Now, it's not the same. God's anger is not the same toward
His chosen child. Because the fierce wrath of God,
that fierce fury of God's avenging justice, was borne by Christ,
our substitute, when He hung on the cross in our room instead. When Christ hung on the cross
in the place of all His people, made sin for His people, made
a curse for His people, that curse, those stripes and that
fierce wrath that was poured out on Him is what His people
deserve. That's what you and I deserve.
He was wounded, Scripture says, for our transgressions. He was
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him and with His stripes We are healed. Do you know what
that means? With His stripes we are healed.
Go with me over to Isaiah 51, verse 22. Isaiah 51, verse 22. Look at what the Lord said. Because
He satisfied His justice by pouring out His wrath on His Son, forsaking
the Lord Jesus Christ in place of His people. Through His blood
He satisfied His justice and justified all His people. He
upheld His law and justified His people. And therefore, let
me see here, Isaiah 51 verse 22, Thus saith thy Lord, thee
Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of His people. That's
what He was doing on the cross. He was pleading the cause of
His people. And He says, Behold, I have taken
out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of
the cup of my fury, and thou shalt no more drink it again.
Before God, in Christ, every child that he's regenerated and
called to Christ has this promise from God. God says, there is
no more record of sin, past, present or future, toward anybody
for whom Christ died. Christ put our sins away as far
as the east is from the west. God will not impute sin to any
of His people because we have no sin to impute to us in Christ.
Christ purged our sin. He will not impute what is not
real. He won't impute sin to us because
we have no sin to impute. He will only impute righteousness
to us because that's all we are. We are the righteousness of God
in Christ. The righteousness of God in Christ.
Now this is true. And yet for that child He's given
a new heart and He's given faith to believe on Him. We have an
old man of sin that's with us. And that old man of sin rears
his head and interferes with that new man so that we can't
do the things that the new man would do. And when we disobey
God, it displeases our Heavenly Father. When Moses expressed
his inability and his insufficiency and his personal inability and all that, that
was commendable. But any time rather than that
we're unwilling to do what God has put in our hands to do to
serve Him. God put it in Moses' hands to
be a servant by serving His people. That's what He did. We're not
talking about trying to keep the law of Moses. We're not talking about trying
to come to God by our works and get more and more holy and all
that. We're talking about believing
on Christ and loving our brethren. And there's a lot of different
ways that we love our brethren, but God will make it abundantly
clear to us that He's put something in our lap, dropped it in our
lap in a way He'd have us to serve Him by serving our brethren. And when we disobey, when we're
hesitant to do it, when we're unwilling to do it, that's a
as blatant a disobedience to God as if we carved out an idol
statue and fell down before it and worshipped it. That's as
blatant sin as covetousness and adultery and any other flagrant
sin. What we see here, Moses just
saying, Lord, send somebody else, whomever you will. And then God's
anger is kindled against his child. We read of God's anger
being kindled against Aaron and Miriam because they spoke against
Moses because he married an Ethiopian woman. And that kindled God's
anger because they spoke against one of God's own. We read that
God's anger was kindled against David. and against Solomon for
their sins. And when you read in the Scriptures
where it says that the anger of the Lord was kindled, when
you go through the Old Testament and read that, almost all of
the times you find it, it has to do with the people falling
into idolatry. And that's what was going on
with Moses right here. No, he wasn't carving a statue. We don't
have to carve a statue to worship an idol. The idol worship is
looking to ourselves for some sufficiency and when we don't
see it, we don't trust God to do what God says. That's worshiping
us. That's putting us above God.
That's saying we know better than God. That's idolatry. Covetousness
is idolatry because covetousness is a man desiring to have for
himself so he can set his nest on high so he can be his own
savior and his own provider. God's our Savior. God's our provider. Christ is our Savior. Christ
is our provider, not we ourselves. See what I'm saying? But God,
when He's angry with His child, that's not inconsistent with
His everlasting, unchangeable love toward His people in our
Lord Jesus Christ. Not at all. When He's displeased
with His people, that's not at all inconsistent with His everlasting,
unchangeable love toward His children. Anger is not opposite
of love, at least not with God. Anger is not opposite of love.
And it's not always opposite of love when it comes to you
and me either. There are times when anger can
be expressed from one of your nearest and dearest loved ones
who loves you more than anybody else in this world. Take you
fathers, for example. When your child displeases you,
when they disobey you, you're going to chasten that child and
correct that child and you may be displeased with that child
highly. That does not change your love
for that child one bit. In fact, the reason you're chastening
that child and correcting them is because you do love them.
You see? Now, in a judicial sense, before
the judgment seat of God, we shall never be charged with or
punished for our sin. Christ bore that for His people.
The law was taken out of the way, nailed to His cross. We're
not talking about the law. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. We're talking
about believing God. Look into Christ. and doing what
He's put in our hand to do for Him and the fervor of His gospel
and the good of His people. We're just talking about simple
everyday stuff that we could do for Him when He's made it
clear. But as a grieved father, brethren,
though He won't charge us with sin, as a grieved father, full
of love, full of compassion for His child, He takes out His rod
and corrects His erring sons and His erring daughters. because
he is a faithful father. He is a faithful father. He won't
allow his child to live in rebellion to it. His child is not going
to be allowed to back talk him at all. And what he will do first is
what we saw Thursday night. He will reprove us in our conscience
by his word, by his gospel and his spirit. And if we go on and
persist in disobedience, he will chasten us in providence. But
go over to Hebrews 12. That is not at all inconsistent
with love. That is love. That is love. Look at Hebrews 12. Now look
at what the writer is saying here. He is declaring all through
the Hebrew letter. He is declaring Christ is the
end of the law. Look to Christ's own name. He
just finished that roll call of faith where He declared Abraham
who didn't even have the law Look to Christ. He looked to
that city whose foundations and building is the building of God.
He looked to God. He looked to Christ. And he says
to us here, wherefore, verse 1, seeing we also have all these
great cloud of witnesses around us, let us lay aside every weight
and the sin which doth so easily beset us. What was the sin that
was besetting Moses? I don't see him committing adultery. I don't see him murdering anybody. I don't see him doing any of
the things that we commonly associate with besetting sin. But the besetting
sin His own display in Moses. You know what it is? Unbelief.
He just didn't believe God. He just didn't believe God. He
says, set aside unbelief and look, and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us. You can't change it. You can't
change the course. God set it before us. run the
race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of faith." Look to Him. That's what we're talking about
here. That's why God was angry with Moses. He wasn't looking
to Christ. He just was not looking to Christ.
Look, look to Him, and He's going to use the same argument I'm
going to use in just a moment. He says, look to Him, who for
the joy that was set before Him, what did He do when He was running
the race for us? He endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne
of God. Consider Him that endured such a contradiction of sinners
against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind.
When that old man, that sinner that's in you, the old man of
flesh, when he is such a contradiction against your new man, the only
way you're not going to faint is to look to Christ for mercy
and full provision. When you're walking through a
world full of sinners that are totally contradictory to you,
the only way you're going to persevere is to look to Christ.
That's what He's saying. Believe on Him. For consider
Him. When we get to feeling sorry
for ourselves, consider Him that endured such contradiction of
sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your
minds. You've not resisted unto blood striving against sin. When
have any of us strove so hard against sin that we sweat great
drops of blood? When have we ever shed our blood
to serve Christ? That's what He did for us. He
said, look to Him and lest you be faint. And look at this now,
and you've forgotten the exhortation, which speaketh unto you as unto
children. My son, despise not thou the
chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou are rebuked of Him.
Don't forget, now Moses is writing Exodus 4. He shows you the proof
of these Scriptures being divinely inspired because only an inspired
man would record, was in total unbelief and said,
Lord, send somebody else. And Moses, the way he saw it
was, the anger of the Lord was kindled. It was kindled toward
me. That's how it seems when you're
being chastened of your father. It seems like he's angry with
you. He's not judicially punishing
you. He loves you and he's displeased. But why is he doing it? Verse
6, For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth. Every one of them. If you endure
chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son
is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement,
that's what we ought to fear. If we are without correction,
whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards and not sons.
Furthermore, we've had our fathers of our flesh which corrected
us, we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in
subjection unto the Father of spirits and live? For they verily
for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for
our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness." Not
a partaker of our holiness. See, we're beset and we turn
out of the way. And we quit running that race
looking only to Christ when we start trying to establish our
own holiness and try to make ourselves holy and presentable
to God. And you know what God does when
we do that? He chastens us to turn us back to look only to
Christ so that we'll be partakers of His holiness. You see that? Look now. Now, no chastening
for the present seems to be joyous, it is grievous to bear. Nevertheless,
afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them
which are exercised thereby. What was some of that peaceable
fruit that was exercised by Moses after all this? He wrote this
book. He wrote this book and told us
so we could learn from it what he was taught by God. But then
look at this too now. Go back to our text. I want you
to consider how right God is to be displeased when we will
not believe on Christ. When we disobey God and won't
believe on Him and serve Him in whatever capacity He has given
us, think about how right God is to be displeased with us.
The Lord was giving Moses a high privilege. He was given him a
high privilege to serve the Lord by serving His people in Egypt. What a privilege! God doesn't
call everybody to serve Him. This world is running around
talking about serving God and telling everybody to serve God.
The things they're talking about doing to serve God is not even
serving God. We're talking about believing God and declaring the
name of His darling Son. and shutting sinners up entirely
to Christ. That's what Moses was sent to
do. When the Father gave His Son
that high honor, when He gave Christ that high honor, Christ
delighted in that privilege. He came forth and said, Lord,
I delight to do Thy law. He came down from Heaven's glory
and took the form of a servant in the likeness of sinful flesh. surrounded by sinners everywhere
he looked. Whatever service God has called
us to do, God has not called us to go dwell and abide amongst
a colony of lepers. That would be hard, wouldn't
it? If God called you and said, now go dwell amongst this company
of contagious lepers who also are horrible murderers who do
nothing but just breathe out blasphemy against God all the
time. That's what Christ came and did
for us. That's how He served for His people when He took the
form of a servant. And so, you see, He has a right
to be displeased with us when He calls us to serve in a far
lesser capacity. That's what the Hebrew writer
said when he said, Who of us have fainted striving against
sin? We haven't been called to serve anyway like Christ was.
So He has a great right to be displeased with us when we prefer
not to serve Him. Forty years before this, Moses
was zealous to serve God. But he was zealous to do it at
a time and in a way that suited Moses. That was on Moses' terms. Moses had in his mind this grand
deliverance that he was going to make, knowing he was supposed
to be the one God was going to use. He had in his mind that
when he came to the children of Israel, he supposed that they
would know that he was their deliverer. And they'd recognize
him as such. They'd know who he is. That's
what he envisioned. And he would lead them out and
he would be victorious and they would all be praising him and
all be saying what a great leader Moses was. Now it's 40 years
later. And God's calling him to serve
Him, but Moses doesn't want to do it because it's not going
to be easy. Nobody in Israel knows who he
is. And it's not going to be convenient. We're going to see
a little bit later. He's got a house full of rebels. It's going to cause him some
trouble. This thing is not going to be
convenient for him. And nothing about it is going to be without
sacrifice. Well, you know, we'd serve God.
He gives us some little something to do for one of His people.
And we'd do it. We would gladly do it if we could do it on our
terms in our time. But you know, serving God, truly
serving God is not doing something on our terms and in our time.
It's doing it on God's terms. That's what Christ did. Christ
came and He walked before the Father under the law and He pleased
God constantly in everything He did. He said, my meat is to
do the will of Him that sent me. He said, I must be about
my Father's business. And He did not stop until He
said, it is finished. Everything He did from the moment
He came into this world until He cried out, it's finished and
gave up the ghost, was for His Father. Everything. We don't
mind serving God if it doesn't cost us. If it doesn't cost us
time, money, prestige, whatever. If it doesn't cost us, we don't
mind doing it. But, if it doesn't cost us something, we hadn't
served Him. We hadn't believed Him and we
hadn't served Him if it didn't cost us something. You think about it. How did Christ
serve the Father? It cost Him being separated from
God the Father in divine judgment. It cost him. It cost him his
precious blood. It cost him. It cost him being
despised and rejected of men. It cost him being a nobody to
people. It cost him being rejected at
every turn. And at last, forsaken of God
his Father in judgment. We'd serve God if it's convenient
for us. I'm preaching to myself. I'm
telling this to myself, because these are my troubles right here.
I'd serve God if it's convenient. It don't take much to make it
inconvenient, you know? But we hadn't served God if it's
convenient. If our religion is just a religion
of convenience, when it's convenient for me, it's nothing. What was convenient about Christ
coming down from heaven's glory and walking amongst God-haters
and going to a bloody cross and laying down His life? What was
convenient for Him about that? Go to Isaiah 50, yet look here
how He served us. Listen to His Spirit and His
thought. Now you know He's God, but when
He came to serve us, He had to do it on God's terms. And God's
terms was He had to be the head of His people, representing His
people as a man walking before God, depending entirely upon
God to the death of the cross. He did it on God's terms. Look
at Isaiah 50 verse 5. The Lord God hath opened mine
ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I didn't
say, Lord, send who you will, just don't send me. I never turned
back. I gave my back to the smiters.
I gave it to them. I gave my cheeks to them that
plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame
and spitting. How on earth could you be willing
to die, for the Lord God will help me.
Therefore shall I not be confounded? Therefore have I set my face
like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is
near that justifieth me. Who will contend with me? Let
us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him
come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help
me. Who is he that shall condemn
me? Lo, they all shall wax old as a garment, and the moth shall
eat them up. Do you know that because Christ did that for His
people, you that He's called right now, He says, you can make
the same exact claim? That's exactly what He said in
Romans 8. Who is He that condemneth? It's God to justify. Who's going
to lay anything to the charge of God's like? It's Christ that
laid down His life for us and risen for us and makes intercession
for us. Who's going to charge anybody? That's our confidence,
brethren. I can go forth knowing. Nobody
is going to be able to charge me with anything. God is going
to defend me. God is going to provide for me
because His Son laid down His life for me. That is our confidence. Christ gave Moses the high honor
and the privilege of being His servant to minister to the Lord's
people just like He does to us. Just like He does to us. From
the littlest thing He gives us, He said, given my saint a cup
of cold water. filling up that water glass right
there, to the most big monumental thing we could think of. And
in all our pretty painted excuses, we're saying, Oh Lord, sinned
I pray Thee by the hand of him whom Thou wilt sin. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Moses. Now look here, look how long
it took for this to happen. Look how long it took for this
to happen. We are talking about the anger and love of God toward
His child. Look how long it took for the
anger of the Lord to be kindled. Christ, the angel of the Lord,
revealed Himself to Moses and He said, I have heard My people
and I have come down to deliver My people. And Moses, I have
chosen you to be My choice servant to go tell them the good news.
Man! Anybody that heard that is going
to take off and say, let me tell you what I know. What my Redeemer
is going to do? Let me tell you. Moses said,
Who am I? Who am I? And Christ said, I'll
be with you. Don't worry about who you are
Moses, I'll be with you. And he even went so far as to say,
I'll give you a token. You're going to be such a success
by my grace, you're going to come again with my people and
serve me right here in this very mountain we're standing in. They
were standing at Mount Sinai when he was talking to them. The Lord had just told Moses
his name. While he told him what he was
going to do, he told him his name. When he got finished, Moses said,
when they ask your name, what shall I say? You know what we
do when something like that happens. Immediately, I tell you what
I do. Boy, are you not listening to me? Ask Will. Boy, are you not listening to
me? And so Christ told him His name
again. Christ told him His name again. See how patient and long-suffering? And the great I Am told him everything
He would do, and He told him that His people would hearken
to Moses' Word. Got finished, Moses said, they
will not believe me. Boy, are you not listening to
me? He didn't say that. The Lord showed Moses three signs.
And He said, this is how I will make them willing to hearken
to Your Word. Right here. This is how they're
going to be made willing to hearken to Your Word. Moses said, Lord,
I'm not eloquent, I'm slow of speech. That's how He answered.
I'm not eloquent, I'm slow of speech. The Lord said, Moses,
I made your mouth. I made your mouth. I made your
slow speech. I'm going to be with your mouth. I'm going to
teach you what to say. I'm going to show you how magnificently
I can prevail over your stumbling, stammering tongue and how fully
sufficient my grace is. I'm going to show you that, Moses. And Moses said, Oh my Lord, send,
I pray Thee, by the hand of him whom Thou wilt send. And only
after all that do we read, and the anger of the Lord was kindled
against Moses. You know what that shows us?
The Lord is gracious, He is full of compassion, and He is slow
to anger, and He is of great mercy. He is that to His people. He is that to His people. And
what great mercy! What great love! What great compassion! Immediately when the anger of
the Lord was kindled, what did he do? He turned Moses away from
Moses to his elder brother. That's what he did. Immediately
when the Lord's anger began to be kindled, he took his child
and he gently turned him away from himself to Moses' elder
brother. And he said this in verse 14,
It says, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and
he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? That was Moses'
older brother. He said, I know that he can speak
well. And also, behold, he cometh forth
to meet thee, and when he seeth thee, he'll be glad in his heart. When we are pining away in our
unbelief, You know what the Lord's remedy is? To turn us from us
to Christ. You know what the greatest chastening
rod, the chastening rod of God is? To turn us to Christ. To remind us what Christ did
for us. Moses, you say you want me to
send somebody else whom I will? Is not Christ a high priest,
thy older brother? Is not Christ thy only wisdom? Is not Christ thy only righteousness? Has not Christ fully provided
for you since that day you were a little helpless baby in an
ark of bulrushes in a river until this very day right now? Has
not Christ provided fully for you the whole time? Moses, you say you cannot speak
well? I know that Christ can speak well. Moses, you say you're
not able, I know that He can. Moses, you say you can't provide
for yourself, I know that He can. Moses, you say you can't
serve me, I know He can, and I know He can make you willing. You won't go to Him in Egypt?
And you just think about that. That's what God was calling Moses
to do. He was calling Moses to go to Aaron and serve Aaron,
just like God calls us to go where He'd have us to go and
do what He'd have us do to serve Christ, our elder brother, our
Redeemer, our High Priest. And Moses wouldn't go. God said,
you won't go to Egypt? Behold, He cometh forth to meet
thee in Midian. You won't go to Him? He's coming
to you. You won't serve Him, behold,
He cometh forth to serve you. Make you willing, make you follow
Him, make you turn from you and follow Him. That's what Christ
does. And in this little service I've
called you to do for your elder brother, you're bitter in your
heart because it don't suit you. But when He seeth thee, He'll
be glad in His heart. When our Father turns us to Christ,
that is the stroke of His rod. When He turns you and He makes
you to see Him whom you have pierced, Him who willingly was
pierced for you, He who willingly served for you, He who willingly
paid all that you owed and made you the righteousness of God
in Him. When He turns you to behold that you pierced Him,
that He did that for you, and right now you're piercing Him
again by not believing on Him. That He'll provide for you just
like He did on that cross. When He turns us to Him from
the first hour to every hour, we mourn. And we begin to cry
out. And we look upon Him and say,
Lord, after what You suffered for me, how could I call this
anything except reasonable service? I'm sorry, Lord. See, the love
of Christ constrains us, not the law. You can beat somebody
with the law, whip somebody with the law, and try to motivate
them by the law, and you'll just either puff them up in their
flesh, make them think they've done something, or make them
mad. But look into what Christ did for us. In light of what
He did for us, it shines a light on our total unbelief and our
unreasonableness for not serving Him. That's what constrains a
believer. By what we know of Aaron the
man, I'm going to go a little long here, but stay with me.
What we know about Aaron the man himself, that was a sort
of a chastening to Moses too. Moses could have been the one
instrument in God's hand by which God delivered Israel. His choice
servant. He's the one He went to and chose.
But Moses forfeited that privilege. God basically said to him, I
won't read it, but He said, I'll use you too, you and Aaron, to
make one good man. That's basically what He told
him. He said, you be his brain, he'll be your mouth. He said,
you put words in his mouth, he'll be to you instead of a mouth.
And then Moses could have trusted God and been amazed at God's
all sufficient grace to provide for him, just like He promised,
so much better than his stammering tongue could have ever imagined.
He could have prevailed over that stammering tongue as if
Moses spoke like with the tongue of an angel and done it all by
his grace and showed Moses that his grace really is sufficient.
He could have seen all that by trusting God. But now Aaron is
going to do the talking for him. And yet God said, I will still
be the one making my word effectual. He said, I'll be with thy mouth
and with his mouth and I'll teach you what to do. God said, I'm
still going to do what I was going to do. And instead of having
only good memories of trusting the Lord fully, instead of being
able to look back at this time and say, oh, that was a joyous
time when God called me. Later on, when Aaron mocked him
for marrying that Ethiopian woman, Moses could remember, the only
reason Aaron is with me right now is because of my disobedience
to God. When he got time to that They
come down out of that mountain and Aaron's made a golden calf
and all the children of Israel are dancing around it. Moses
could look back and remember, the only reason Aaron's with
me is because I wouldn't believe God. And look here, he said, verse
17, Thou shalt take this rod in thy hand wherewith thou shalt
do signs. You know, when they went to get
water out of the rock, God said He was angry with Moses and Aaron
at that time. You know that? And Aaron was
the mouthpiece. Aaron was doing the speaking,
he said. So Aaron must have been the one
who said, Hear you now, you rebels! Must we fetch you water out of
the rock? And maybe that was just enough to instigate Moses
to take that very rod and smite that rock twice. And for that
reason, God didn't let either one of them go into Canaan. Here's
the point of that. I don't know if that's so, that
last particular point, but I do know this. I can know this by
God's Word. We would be utterly amazed at
how much God would do above and beyond what we ever imagined
if we trusted God and did what He put in our hand to do. When
He put it in our hand to do it, on His terms. We'd be amazed.
Weren't you amazed when He called you to Christ and made you willing
to trust Him? Weren't you amazed above and beyond what you ever
could have imagined? It will be so in our life too. And how much we give up by not
trusting Him. Jonah said, they that observe
lying vanities forsake their own mercy. And in Isaiah 48,
7, thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am
the Lord thy God, which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth
thee by the way that thou shouldest go, O that thou hadst hearkened
to my commandments. Then had thy peace been as a
river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea, Thy
seed also should have been as the sand and the offspring of
thy boughs, like the gravel thereof. His name should not have been
cut off nor destroyed from before me." Are you troubled? Are you suffering? Are things
just going rough for you? You know what I think we should
do? I think we should turn from looking to ourselves to get us
out of it and trust God. and do what He says even when
it don't look like it's possible. Just serve in whatever He's given
us to do. If it's playing the piano, learn to play the piano.
If it's vacuuming the floor, vacuum the floor. If I wanted
to lead out, I suppose everybody would follow me out of Egypt.
If I won't vacuum the floor for Him, I won't lead His people
out of Egypt for Him either. If I'm not faithful in the least,
I won't be faithful in anything greater. But He says, trust Me. Do what I give you to do. You'll
be amazed. You'll be amazed what I'll give
you. I believe if you trust God. I
do believe this. I don't practice it. I wish I
did. But I believe if we believed God, I believe we'd just be amazed. He said, I'll open up the heavens
and pour down a blessing on you. I don't know how and what and
what all that includes, but it's all possible with God. I know
that. And He can do it. He can do it. Let's stop trying
to serve Him in the way we want to serve Him. Serve Him how He
says serve Him. How will I know? Do you think
Moses is going to mistake this? Do you think before this is over
Moses is going to have any doubt whatsoever what God will have
him to do? We won't either. We won't either. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for this message. We pray that you'll turn us from
us. We pray that you'll turn us to the Lord. Make us look
to Christ only. Make us run this race, this course
that you've set, that's unchangeable and unmovable, that we're going
to run. Make us do it looking to Christ only. Make us not faint one way by
having mercy from Him, by His all-sufficient grace, by Your
power and Your ability, just like You redeemed us and saved
us and called us, Lord. quicken us and revive us and
look upon us to Christ. Make us partakers of His holiness.
Make us partakers of that which this world knows nothing about.
Make us partakers of that which is so separate and holy from
this world and our vain imagination that we can't even enter into
it. Make us partaker of His holiness.
Lord, we ask this for Your honor and Your glory. And we ask You,
Lord, forgive us for our unbelief. Everything comes down to this.
We don't believe you like we ought to believe you. After everything
you've done, we ought to never doubt. Lord, subdue our old man
and make us trust you. We pray this in Christ's name.
Amen.