Alright, let's turn back to Exodus
chapter 4. Exodus chapter 4. And let's read
this scripture. This is another case here where
Moses is being hesitant and the Lord asks him a question. We've
seen this, these questions the Lord asks the sinners. He never
asks for information. He's asking a question to teach
us something. Let's read it together. We're
just going to read two verses here. Verse 10, And Moses said
unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore,
nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant, not from the beginning,
not up to now. I am not eloquent. I am not a
man of words. I am not a man who can say things
how they ought to be said. He said, But I am slow of speech
and slow of tongue. Not only am I not eloquent, I
have a speech impediment. I'm slow of speech and slow of
tongue. Here's what the Lord said. Here's
the question. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's
mouth? Or who maketh the dumb or deaf
or the seeing or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Have not
I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will
be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say." Now, believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Trust Him. Trust Him to be your
righteousness with the Father. Trust Him to be your holiness
with the Father. Trust Him to be your wisdom throughout
this life. Trust Him to be your redemption
and freedom from sin and self and rebellion. Trust Christ. Believe on Christ. That's the message of the book.
That's the one message of the book. It's that simple. It's that single. Don't look
to the left, don't look to the right, don't look to you, don't
look to another. Look to Christ. Believe on Christ. Trust Christ. Now, when the Lord
calls a sinner to faith, to believe on Christ, from that day forward,
everything that He does with us in this life, In the great, great trials, in
the great, great happinesses, in the great times when there's
tears being shed, in the times when we're just laughing and
having a good time. Whether it's peaceful or it's
all trouble, whatever it is, with all the props, with all
this furniture on this stage that he set here in our lives
as we're going through this world, the one thing he's teaching his
child is believe on Christ. That's the message. That's the
lesson in everything. If we take away all the what
else and the if I would have and if he had and they should
have and all these secondary causes, we boil it right down.
Here's the lesson. If we hadn't got this out of
it, we've missed the whole lesson. The lesson he teaches his child
is believe on Christ. That's the lesson. What I want
you to see today is if we would believe the Lord, we must look
away from ourselves to the Lord. If we would believe the Lord,
we must look away from ourselves, our thoughts, our ways, our opinions,
our wisdom, our doings, our sinfulnesses, and our righteousnesses. We must
look away from ourselves to the Lord alone, if we would believe
the Lord. It's the only way we're going
to believe Him. It's the only way. I've titled this, Who Hath
Made Man's Mouth? Alright, here's the first thing
we see. If we look to ourselves, we will not believe the Word
of the Lord. It's that simple. If we look
to ourselves, we will not believe the Word of the Lord. Will not. There's one hindrance keeping
you from believing the Lord. It's you. That's it. There's
only one thing keeping me from believing the Lord. When I'm
in times of unbelief, it's me. If we look to ourselves, we will
not believe the Lord. Alright, verse 10. Moses said
unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore
nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant, but I am slow of
speech and of a slow tongue. The Lord's calling him to go
into Egypt to bring out his people, to be his messenger, his preacher,
his prophet. And Moses had exactly what you
have, child of God. He had exactly what we have.
He had the Word of the Lord. That's what he had. He was called. He'd been saved by the Lord.
He'd been regenerated, been quickened to life, been given faith to
believe the Lord. He had what we had. We have the Word of the
Lord. The promises the Lord made to
Moses, He makes to us that He's called to believe Him. Same promises
Moses had, we have. The promises He's made to us
as He tells us to go forth and bear witness of His name and
the cause of promoting His gospel in this life, we have the same
promises Moses had. We have these same truths. Christ said back in Exodus 3,
I'm just going to give you these things. Christ said to Moses,
He said, I've seen the affliction of my people. Christ has seen
our affliction. He's seen my affliction. He's
seen your affliction. He's seen the affliction of His
people. He has a people and He's seen
their affliction. And He said, and I've heard their
cry. And He said, and I know their
sorrows. And He said, so I've come down to deliver them out
of the hand of the enemy, those that have brought them into bondage. to bring them up out of that
land into a good land, a large land flowing with milk and honey.
That's what our gospel is. Christ has come down and He's
come to where we are to redeem His people and He's redeemed
His people. And now He hears the affliction of His people
and He sends forth the word of His gospel to teach His people,
to bring His people out of that bondage they're in into this
good land flowing with milk and honey, the land of His grace.
We have that promise. The Lord told Moses, certainly
I will be with thee. We have that promise. Everywhere
we go, every step we take, in sunshine and rain, in storms
and in tranquil times, we have this promise from the Lord. This
is what every believer has. He says, certainly I will be
with thee. That's what he would have. Certainly,
he said, not just maybe, certainly, I will be with thee. He told
Moses to preach, I am that I am. That's what he said to him to
preach. He said, you declare my name, this is my name and
my memorial, the one who makes good on all his promises. He
said, you tell them me, preach me, preach me, preach me. That's
what he was telling him, that I am, preach me. The Lord's told us, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. You want to glory somewhere,
you want to talk about somebody, you want to put somebody up on
a pedestal, put him up on a pedestal. Talk about him, glory in him,
talk about him. And he assured Moses and his
people, assured Moses his people would hear his voice. And he's
told us to go forth. He's told us what he's doing.
I'm coming to deliver him. He said, now you go forth and
certainly I'll be with you. And he said, you preach me. Don't
preach anything else. Preach me. That's what he said.
And he said, and I gave you this promise. My people's going to
hear my voice. They're going to hear. They're
going to hearken. He's told us His word won't return void. He's
told us His word will not go forth in vanity. It won't just
go forth and just not come back to Him. He's going to accomplish
what He sends it to accomplish. Those that preach the gospel
and His servants, you sit in a living room with a family and
you get an opportunity to tell them the gospel. This is what
the case is. We are a sweet saver unto God. Those that tell the truth about
God. We're a sweet saver unto God in them that believe and
in them that perish. Both of them. Because we're telling
the truth about God. But he says, but my people will
hear. They're going to hear by His power. Then we have that
promise, brethren. Do you understand what I'm saying?
We have these promises. These are the promises God has
made to His people. The Lord assured Moses that He
would give His people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so
that He would provide for His people in all temporal things
as well. They were going to have to go
out to the middle of the wilderness. There was no businesses there.
There was no commerce there. There was no way to make a living
there. It was just a dry, desert, waste, howling wilderness is
where God was going to take them to. And when they got out there,
God was going to command them to build His tabernacle with
gold sockets and silver and brass and ornate tapestry and all these
things. And you know where these people
were? They were slaves in Egypt. They didn't even own the little
old shack they lived in when they went home. They didn't even
own the food, the little bit of rice and beans that they had
to eat. They didn't even own any of that.
Everything belonged to the Egyptians. They
had nothing. But the Lord gave them favor
in the eyes of the Egyptians so that the women literally went
over to the neighbor's house and they said, we're about to
leave here and go out in the middle of the desert. And their
women said, well, here, take these gold earrings of mine. Take this gold necklace of mine.
Take this silver. Take this brass. You might need
some brass. Take all these things. And the
Lord had used the Egyptians to teach them how to use all those
things. Teach them how to make the gold things He would tell
them to make, and the silver things He'd tell them to make,
and the tapestries He'd tell them to make. The Lord used the
Egyptians to teach them all that stuff. I was talking with Todd
Nybert this week. And I was telling about that
property we were looking at. And I said, it's such a good deal.
I said, I just honestly, I said, I'm almost apprehensive about
it because I don't understand how somebody hadn't snatched
it up already. It's such a good deal. And Todd
said, well, the answer to that is simple. If He's got it marked
for y'all, that's the reason nobody snatched it up. And I
thought, well, I guess that's right. You see what I'm saying? He gave you favor. Then He promised
you that. Now, we have these promises,
brethren. And then the Lord showed Moses three signs, and we saw
how they pictured Christ and His gospel and the power He works
in and through the gospel to make His children believe. And
whether He does it to regenerate His children or He does it in
judgment against those who won't believe. We saw that pictured
in those signs. Now Moses had all these promises
from the Lord, just like we have. And no matter how things appear,
no matter how they look, rather than look to ourselves and look
to how things appear, always believe the promise of the Lord.
always believe the word of the Lord. Because if we look to ourselves,
we won't believe the Lord. We won't. Listen to Moses' objection. Verse 10, Moses said unto the
Lord, Oh my Lord, I'm not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since
thou hast spoken unto thy servant, but I'm slow of speech and of
a slow tongue. And we're not going to be tough
on Moses. Because we're like Moses, but we're going to learn
from Moses, and we're going to learn from what the Lord did
for Moses in this. After hearing all those sure
promises of the Lord, after hearing everything the Lord said He would
do, just like you and I have, we've heard it all. We've heard
it. We say we believe it. Well, who was Moses really looking
to? He was looking to himself. Moses said, I'm not eloquent
though. I know you've made all these promises, Lord, but I'm
not eloquent. You're sending me to Pharaoh.
He's a king. He's got the best poets around
him. He's got the best singers around him. He's got the best
philosophers around him. He's got the wisest men there
can be around him in his courts. And I'm going to go there. I'm
going to have to be eloquent to get this man to hear me. And
not only that, Lord, but I got a speech impediment. I'm slow
of speech and slow of tongue. When I do have some decent thoughts
to say, they come out all stuttering and stammering. Do you see how Moses is looking
to himself? The chief cause, the chief cause. of not trusting God to have done
what He says He has done, to have saved in the manner He says
He has saved, and to trust Him to save in the manner He says
He will save, and to provide for us in the manner He says
He will provide for us. The main cause of not believing
Him is we start looking to us. Our experience, our experiences,
our wisdom, Our thoughts, our ways, our understandings, our
sight, what we see around us, we start looking to us. We got
to take everything to this book and lay it down at the feet of
Christ and look at His Word and be honest with ourselves and
say, this is what His Word really says. We may find out that nothing
we thought about ourselves and our righteousnesses and our good
works and our experiences that everybody wants to always, men
always want to talk about that stuff. I got a birthday coming
up next month. I'm not going to need that birthday
to tell me I'm alive. I know I'm alive. Why do you
want to, why? I don't have any time since we've
known each other. Have I gone back and told y'all
stories about when I, the day I was born? and what happened
in the hospital. I don't guess I've ever even
told y'all any of that. You know I'm alive though, don't
you? Why? But when men start wanting to
talk about their experiences and hang on to their experiences
and say they're going to hang on to them even when it don't
match this word, that's when there's a problem. That's when
they're manifesting, they're holding on to that. They're looking
to their experiences. That's when there's a real problem.
But bring everything here. When are we going to have sufficiency
to believe God and follow the Lord? When we see we don't have
any sufficiency in ourselves. We didn't have any sufficiency
in ourselves to do anything. We're so depraved and there's
no good in us, no good in our flesh. We couldn't give ourselves
spiritual life. We weren't sufficient to do that.
God did it. God did it. We had no sufficiency
to make ourselves believe and repent from our vanity. He had to give us faith and repentance.
He did that. We didn't have any sufficiency
to continue in faith. We don't have any sufficiency.
I don't have any sufficiency to preach. You don't have any
sufficiency to talk to anybody you come in contact with about
the gospel. We don't have any sufficiency
to provide for ourselves. We don't have any sufficiency
to provide for one another. We don't. He provides everything. When are we going to see that
all our sufficiency is in Christ? When we find out we don't have
any sufficiency in ourselves. Somebody will start talking to
me, and they're telling me what they're planning on doing and
how they'd like to do this and what have you. And I start thinking
about, well, I don't think I'd do it that way. I don't know
if this is going to be the right steps to take to do that. I don't
know. You know what I ought to be thinking
about? Who in the heck are you to be trying to tell anybody
how to do something? Have you really done all that
good a job so far yourself? And everything that I have so
far of the Lord and everything that has been good in my life
has been of His hand. And if He would have left me
to my wisdom, I would have went straight the other way and done
the opposite thing. That's so. So why, when am I
going to stop telling somebody and voicing my wisdom and get
offended when they don't obey my wisdom and what I tell them?
When am I going to stop doing that? When I realize I don't
have any wisdom of myself. My wisdom's the Lord. My wisdom's
the Lord. Well, I want you to look with
me now. This problem Moses was having
was pride. That's what it was. Unbelief's
pride. Pride and unbelief go right together.
That's the problem he was having. The whole time the Lord was giving
him these promises and telling him what he was going to do,
Moses was thinking about what Moses was going to do, how Moses
was going to play a part in this, how Moses was going to bring
this to pass. You ever have that happen? Somebody's telling you
something, and while they're telling you something, you're thinking your
own thoughts in your head. You're really not listening to
what they're saying. You're thinking about how you're going to do
it or how it's not going to work out like they're saying, and
you're just shooting it. They're saying things, and they're
just talking, and we're just sitting there, just bam, bam.
Bam, just shooting everything down as they're saying it, thinking,
it's not going to happen that way. Instead of just shutting
up and listening, listen. It's pride. When is a sinner
going to believe the Lord? When is he going to believe when
the Lord makes us see we got nothing good in us, but Christ
is all? That's when we'll believe. That's when we'll believe. We'll
cast all our care into the hand of the Lord when we see that
we cannot care for ourselves, but it's the Lord that's caring
for us the whole time. That's when we will. Ah, when
we're going to be strong enough to know we can do all things
through Christ that strengthens us. When we know that He's our
only strength, that we don't have any strength. We have no
strength. We're utterly incapable of taking
our next breath if He doesn't give it. That's right. One time I read a message that
Brother Henry preached and he talked about how folks will be
talking about their ability to play an instrument. I can play
the guitar, and I can do this, and I can do that. And he made
a statement. He said, you can't even play
the radio if God don't give you the ability to do that. That's right. And this is so
in things spiritual and temporal, brethren. You see, He's showing
us these things, temporal things. He's providing for us in temporal
ways. And the lesson in all of it is to teach us, believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on Him to enter into
God's presence. Believe on Him to present you
spotless, holy, without blame, perfect in His presence by what
He's done for you. That's what He's teaching us.
and all these things and so he's sending us through all these
little trials and these little courses and these little rivers
we come to and these crossings we come to and he's doing it
to show us now, now if I leave you to yourself, you're gonna
die. But now I'm showing you, you
can't save yourself. Trust me, that's what he's teaching
us. Alright, here's the second thing. So first we see, we can't,
if we look to ourselves though, we won't believe him. We won't
believe Him. Here's the second thing. The
Lord's made us like we are so that He gets all the glory rather
than us. He made us like we are so that
He gets the glory rather than us. Verse 11, And the Lord said
unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? Or who maketh the dumb,
or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord done
it? The Lord made Moses' mouth. He was not eloquent. He was slow
of speech. He was slow of tongue. For this
reason, the Lord made his mouth that way. Just like if a man's
dumb, he can't speak at all. If he's deaf, where he can't
hear. If he has sight or he's blind. The Lord made him so. The Lord made him that way. The
Lord could have given Moses eloquence, but he didn't. The Lord, you
think of all the Lord had given to Moses. You think about it. He delivered him, Moses was born,
come out of his mother's womb helpless, unable to do one thing
for himself, just like he was right here at this time when
he was about 80 years old, still helpless to do anything for himself.
And he came out of his mother's womb that way, and his mother
and his father took him down, and they made a little ark out
of bulrushes and put him in the river because Pharaoh was, he
knew there was coming a deliverer out of Egypt, and Pharaoh wanted
to kill all the male babies. And so his mom and daddy took
him down and put him in the river and pushed him out in the river
and let him go. You know what they did? They
turned him over to God. They said, Lord save him. And
you know what the Lord did? The Lord gave him salvation. The Lord sent a woman down and
she saw him and she brought him out of the river. And there was
old dirty Pharaoh's daughter, done got dirty and done got herself
all stained and everything, and she had to go down there to the
river to take a bath. God ordered her getting dirty
so she'd have to go down there and take a bath. And there was
Moses. And she picked Moses up, took
him home, and she said, I want to adopt this boy. And she took
him to her house. And God gave Moses the finest,
best education a man could get in Pharaoh's own house. He gave
him that. And then Moses was chomping at
the bit to be a preacher, and he thought he was going to deliver
everybody out. So he went up and started telling
everybody what he thought they ought to do between these two
fellas. And they turned around and said, Are you going to kill
us like you killed that man yesterday? And Moses realized, everybody
knows I killed a man. Moses killed a man. And Moses
took off out of there. And the Lord delivered him out.
And the Lord gave him a father-in-law with some sheep. And there's
Moses out in the back of the desert tending these sheep. He's
right where he is because God gave him everything He gave him,
put him right there where he was. This is Christ that's talking
to him. That's right. So He could have
given him a mouth. He could have given him a mouth
of the learned to speak this eloquent stuff and to go in there
and just bedazzle. Pharaoh with all his knowledge
and his wisdom, but he didn't. Why didn't he? He said in Zechariah
4, 6, this is the word of the Lord, not by might nor by power,
but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. You see, that's how
he's going to get to glory. Look over here at 2 Corinthians
chapter 12. Look over there with me, 2 Corinthians
chapter 12. Now Paul, Paul was a man that
had some wisdom. He had some eloquence. And the Lord took Paul up to
the third heavens and showed him things that he said, it's
not lawful for me to even say what I've seen. And when the
Lord gave him all of that wisdom, in the inner man, in what he
saw and what he heard. But now, when he did that, gave
him all that wisdom in the inner man to believe Christ, to see
Christ, you know what he also did? He gave something to him
in his outer man, in his flesh. He gave him a thorn. He gave
him a thorn. He brought him down. He gave
him an impediment of some kind in his flesh. Why did he do that?
Look at verse 7. And lest I should be exalted
above measure, through the abundance of the revelations. There was
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet
me, lest I should be exalted above measure. He said it twice.
He said, this is why I came to, lest I should be exalted above
measure. For this thing I sought the Lord
three times that it might depart from me, but the Lord said this
in verse 9, my grace is sufficient for thee. Now look at this statement,
for my strength The Lord's strength is made perfect, it's made known,
it's made manifest, it's shown to be all of His strength in
weakness, in our weakness, in our total inability. And He says,
therefore I'm on glory in my infirmities, that the power of
Christ may rest upon me. I'm going to take pleasure in
infirmities, that's our bodily problems, in reproaches when
people are gnashing on me. In necessities, things I don't
have? Why don't you have? Why aren't
you a millionaire? Why are you barely getting by,
barely able to pay your bills? Why are we here in the middle
of this nation and nobody notices who we are, where we are, anything?
We're unnoticed to anybody. Why? I want glory in these necessities. You know why? Keep reading. Look there, verse 10. in persecutions
and distresses for Christ's sake. Here's why. Because when I'm
weak, then I am strong. Do you see why? Because God's
our strength. Christ is our strength. And when
we don't have any strength, that's when Christ is our strength.
What if Moses had been eloquent in speech? What if you could
justify yourself? What if you could give yourself
spiritual life by your will? What if you could read one of
these how to be born again books and follow their ABCD and really
and truly give yourself spiritual life? What if you could sanctify
yourself, make yourself holy and spotless and perfect within?
What if you could provide everything for yourself in this life so
that you didn't even have to worry whether or not you were
going to have enough today? What if you could resurrect yourself
from the dead? What if there was just one, one
little bitty work that you could do to add to your salvation? Just one little thing. You know
what we'd do? We'd glory in ourselves and we
wouldn't need God, we wouldn't need Christ, we wouldn't need
His salvation. And we wouldn't bow to Him. We
got to be made to see that we don't have anything. We're sinners. We're depraved. In our flesh dwells no good thing.
But when we find that out and understand how ruined and how
helpless and how hopeless our situation is if left to ourselves,
that's when God makes you to see. But Christ is all. Christ is all your strength.
That's why I preach about sin. That's why I keep talking to
you about sin. I want you to see what you are. You're a puddle
of puke. Preachers go, that offends me.
I hope it offends you. I hope it makes you see what
you are. That's what we are, brethren. Dung. That's what we are. Anything
short of the glory of God is utter abomination to a holy God.
That's what we are. That's our thoughts, that's our
ways, that's our wisdom, that's everything we touch, that's everything
we do, that's everything we speak. But Christ is all wisdom, all
holiness, all righteousness, all perfection. Christ is all. If we have Him, it doesn't matter
what we are. We have all. We have all. The Lord didn't choose foolish,
weak, nothing sinners and send them forth to preach His gospel
by just looking out and saying, let me see if I can find somebody
that's nothing and nobody. Okay, I found one. I'll pick
him. I'll use him. No, the Lord made them nothing. The Lord made them nothing. He
makes them nothing by making them see what they are. He makes
them nothing by not giving them great things, not giving them
eloquence, not giving them the greatest education, not giving
them these things that the world is going to be impressed with.
He makes them nothing on purpose. And He does it for this reason,
that no flesh shall glory in His presence. Now you get this
now, in Acts 3, I showed you this the other night, but in
Acts 3, when He brings somebody down, when He brings somebody
down and He truly brings them down to see what they are, that's
when a man will go forth and he will speak the words of Christ
and quit thinking he's so wise he can speak his own words. That's
when he'll start looking into this book and taking him a passage
of scripture and say, let's see what God says right here. Because
what I say don't really matter, and what I think don't matter
at all. It's not going to help you. What God says will, though.
When a man's been made to see he's nothing, that's when he'll
change his whole approach to bearing witness of God. He'll
quit trying to craft words and quit trying to use his own words,
and he'll use God's words. He'll speak God's words. when
his pride's been busted and he's been brought to nothing. And
he did that, he said in 1 Corinthians 1, and he said that no flesh,
no man, nothing of us shall be able to glory in his presence,
in his presence, in his presence. Peter thought he had some glory
in, oh Lord, they might forsake you. I won't forsake you. Oh,
I'm going to stand by you. I'm going to be there with you
to the end." Even when they came out of the Garden of Gethsemane,
I'm persuaded he pulled that sword and cut off that soldier's
ear to prove it to the Lord. And he did what he shouldn't
have done. The Lord was teaching him, believe
me, Peter. I don't need you back brandishing
your weapons. Just believe me. That's what
he's teaching him. And so Peter forsook him just
like he said he would, denied him, And then the Lord came back
to him after he'd busted all his pride and brought him down.
He comes back to him then. Now he says, now, do you love
me, Peter? And Peter says, you know I do,
Lord. He says, now go forth and feed my sheep. So here's Peter
now. Christ is risen. He's poured out his Spirit. Here's
Peter. Now he's not glorying in himself anymore. He stands
up there in Acts 3 and he preaches and he says there, Let me get
over there. Acts 3.19. He stood up there and he preached
Christ to them. And look at this. Look how boldly
he preached Christ to them. Look at verse 14. He said, You
denied the Holy One and the just and desired a murderer to be
granted unto you. and killed the prince of life,
whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses.
And his name, through faith in his name, hath made this man
strong, whom you see and know. Yea, the faith which is by him,
by Christ, hath given this man this perfect soundness in the
presence of you all. And now I will that you did it
through ignorance. as did also your rulers. But
those things which God before has showed by the mouth of all
his prophets that Christ should suffer, he so fulfilled them
all." You see, he's just standing up preaching Christ. That's all
he's preaching. Now watch this, what he says.
Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted
out when the times of refreshing shall come. from the presence
of the Lord. When are you going to repent
and be converted and it be made known to you your sins are blotted
out? When the times of refreshing comes from the presence of the
Lord. Now you get that. The Lord takes
a man, He brings him down to nothing, He makes him a nobody
to Himself and to everybody else. And He sends him forth so that
now that man will stand up like Peter and all he'll do is declare
the glory of Christ Jesus, the great I Am. And He declares Him
before everybody. And as He does that, there's
no glorying in the flesh. And that's the kind of message
that Christ has... He's called that man. He's brought
him down. He's taught him his nothingness.
He's given him the words to speak. He sent him forth. He's given
him his audience. And he stands up and he says
what Christ has done. And when he does, Christ comes
forth in his presence through that word into the hearts of
his people. And that's the only kind of message,
the only kind of preaching that Christ has called and sent and
produced where Christ will make His presence known. And the reason
that that's the only kind of preaching He'll make His presence
known in is, is He's not going to make His presence known where
there's men glorying in their flesh. He makes His preachers
nobody so that that no man glories in our flesh
in His presence when He comes forth in His presence into His
people. That's why we have to be brought
down. Verse 12. Let's go back to our text and we'll finish
up. Exodus 4.12. Now therefore go and I'll be
with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say. Back in
chapter 3, Moses said, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?
And the Lord said, certainly I'll be with thee. Now here Moses
says, but I can't speak. And the Lord says, I'll be with
your mouth. He's just so gracious and just keeps on long suffering.
True eloquence. It's not man's wisdom. It's in
these two and three syllable words in the Scriptures right
here that declare Christ is all. Christ is righteousness. And
our flesh is grass. So first, look away from ourselves
to the Lord or we won't believe. Secondly, remember the Lord made
you weak so that Christ our prophet gets all the glory. That's why
he made us the way he did. Here's the third thing. We anger
the Lord by not submitting to him. Verse 13, and he said, Oh
my Lord, sin I pray thee by the hand of him whom thou wilt sin.
That sounded good, didn't it? Oh, oh my Lord. My Lord, sin I pray thee. Oh, I pray Thee, by the hand
of Him whom Thou wilt send. How many times do we do stuff
like this? Oh, Lord, I want Your will to
be done. I want Your will to be done. Lord, You open up this
door by Your will and You make it known to us and You show us
and You lead us. And the door's sitting there
wide open. The door's sitting there flung wide open. I mean,
it's open. You know what Moses' problem
was? It wasn't that he wanted the Lord's will to be done. The
Lord was making his will be done. He was sending whom he would
send. He was sending Moses. He said, I'm sending you, Moses.
What Moses wanted was to stay out there in that peaceful green
pasture with his father-in-law's sheep, where he could just sit
out there and sing and look at the sun and tend those sheep,
and it was pleasant. But now he's fixin' to have to
take up the cross. He's fixin' to have to go into
the lion's den. He's fixin' to have to go in
there and wear all hell's fixin' rage on him. And he's fixin'
to have to go in there and declare the name of God. And it ain't
gonna be pleasant. There's not gonna be anything
about it pleasant. And the fact of the matter is, Moses just
didn't wanna go. And that's usually what's wrong
with us too. Go to Isaiah 50. The Lord calls
us to bear his cross. He calls us to bear His cross.
I preached on this Thursday night. If you get a chance, go back
and listen to the message. But this is what the Lord said He
did. Lord Jesus Christ. This is Him speaking in Isaiah
50. And He said, this is what I did. He said, verse 5, the
Lord God hath opened mine ear. He said, the Lord God bore my
ear. He bore my ear and I was not rebellious, neither turned
away back. From eternity, he looked to that day that he was
going to come into this earth and go to that cross. He knew
it from the beginning, but he didn't turn away back. He came.
In verse 6, he said, I gave my back to the smiters, my cheeks
to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from
shame and spitting. He bore the cross. He bore the
sin of his people. He bore the justice of God in
the place of his people. He put away sin by sacrificing
himself. He put away sin by suffering
himself. He did so as the servant, as
the man, in place of his people, depending entirely upon his father
while he did it. That's what he's calling Moses
to do. That's what he's calling us to do. Follow him. Follow
him. Verse 7, For the Lord God will
help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have
I set my face like a flint. I know I shall not be ashamed.
Even when it didn't look like the Lord God would help him,
he still trusted the word of his father. That's what he's
calling us to do. Verse 8, He's near that justifieth
me. Who will contend with me? Let
us stand together. Who's mine adversary? Let him
come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help
me. Who's he that shall condemn me? Lo, they all shall act so
old as a garment. The moth shall eat them up. He
trusted the Father's word that the Father said to him, When
you're bearing the sin of my people and I've satisfied my
justice, I will justify you. I will justify you. I will raise
you from the dead before this world and declare that I'm satisfied
and He's justified and I've justified all my people in Him. And Lord
Jesus Christ trusted His Father enough to go to that cross and
be made the sin of His people and suffer wrath and separation
from God and all hell be thrust upon Him and suffer that in His
body on that tree because He trusted, I'm justified by my
Father and who's He that's going to be able to condemn me? And
when He gives us a heart of faith to rely entirely upon Christ
Jesus, we stand there and we say, He's near that justified
me. He's at the right hand of the
Father making intercession for me. Who's going to condemn me?
Who's going to separate me from the love of Christ? Who is He?
Let Him come forth. Let Him bring His weapons of
war. And that's what He's calling us to do. He's calling us to
go forth. So you see why the Lord was angry
with Moses? Do you see why He was angry with
Moses? He don't call us to do anything but what He's already
done. And He shows us by what He's done that He's faithful. He's God and He's faithful and
He shows us by what God the Father did with Him. And what He did
toward God the Father, that we can trust God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, our Lord Jesus Christ, to do
right by us, because He's faithful. So when we keep on making up
all our excuses, and our, oh Lord, I pray thou wilt send somebody
else, when in truth we just don't want to go, you see why He gets
angry? It angers the Lord. We're His
children. But doesn't it anger you when
you've taught your children over and over and over? We've got
to say it in our house. First time. When you hear the
word first time, that means you better get to it. Because that
first time is the last time. When you hear first time, that
means, well, the Lord calls us to do what He's called us to
do. And when we hear His Word speak,
it means first time. But he's long-suffering. Moses
said three or four rebuttals about this, over and over and
over. But finally, the fourth time, the Lord, His anger was
canceled. That happens to us, doesn't it,
mothers and fathers? We say, first time. And then, why? Why do we get offended? Well,
ours is full of sin, the reason we get offended, because we just
want somebody to do what we told them to do. But really and truly
what we're offended about is after everything I've done for
you, after everything that I have done, I break in my back for
you. I'm pouring out my life for you. You think I want to get up every
day before the sun comes up and go out in the cold and go to
this place and go to work and work my fingers to the bone all
day and come home when the sun's down after dark and walk into
a house With hell going on in the house and kids running around
talking about what I want, I want when you've been sitting on your
lazy butt all day long and ought to be out having a job. And I
tell you to do something and you won't do it after what I've
done for you. That's why the Lord's angry after
what the Lord had done for his people. And we're not going to
do what he says do and trust. that He's going to do right by
us and provide everything for us. All right, let's go down now.
I'm going to skip over some stuff here. Let's go to the last thing.
It ought to give us more reason to trust the Lord the first time
when we see that He even overrules our rebellion to accomplish His
eternal purpose. When we look into this word and
we see that even when one of his people rebelled, he still,
even that rebellion was a part of his bringing to pass what
he would have brought to pass to glorify his name. You see,
the Lord already knew he was going to send Aaron with Moses.
This wasn't something he just come up with second hand because
Moses wouldn't cooperate. He knew Moses was going to have
his little trouble and he knew what Moses was going to do. He
knows the end from the beginning. But part of that whole purpose
of his grace was he was going to send Aaron with him, because
he was going to glorify himself in who Aaron pictured. Now let's
read verse 14. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite
thy brother? 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. Right then, Aaron, here comes
Aaron. He's coming to meet him. That wasn't by accident. That
wasn't by accident. All this is taking place according
to the purpose of God. And so, he says, is not Aaron
the Levite thy brother? Who's that picture? Christ is
our kinsman redeemer. He's the elder brother of all
those God elected and gave to him. He's our high priest, just
like Aaron was made a high priest. the one who made atonement for
us, just like Aaron would be the one to go in and make atonement.
You see, he brought this one in to glorify his name. He said,
I know that he can speak well. Isaiah 50, Christ said, the Lord
God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I might know
how to speak a word in season to them that are weary. He knows
how to speak. And Aaron being able to speak
well, glorifies Christ, who he's the one who can speak well. He
cometh forth to meet thee, He's coming forth, I picture Aaron
just coming up over those hills out there, just all glad, singing,
happy. He's coming to see Moses. See
Christ's willingness to come to where we are and to help His
children, to deliver His children. He said, and when He seeeth thee,
He'll be glad in His heart. Christ saw His brethren from
eternity and He came and served for them and He was glad in His
heart. Moses wasn't glad. He was trying to make excuses.
Christ came and served gladly. So when we're called, let's go
serve gladly. Look at verse 15. And thou shalt
speak unto him, and put words in his mouth. Now that's what
the Lord promised Moses in the beginning. He said, I'm going
to put words in your mouth, Moses. Remember, Moses pictures the
law too. The law and the prophets put
words in Christ's mouth. He said, I'd like to do thy law.
Oh my God, He came forth to fulfill it, to do the will of it. Look
at verse 15. I'll be with thy mouth and with His mouth and
will teach you what you shall do. And He shall be thy spokesman
unto the people. And He shall be, even He shall
be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to Him instead
of God. That's what Christ was calling Moses to do the whole
time. He was saying, the Lord was saying, I'm calling you Moses
to be my spokesman unto the people. Now Aaron's going to be that
mouthpiece. And he says, and now Moses, I'm
going to make you a mediator between me and Aaron, like as
I'm the mediator between God and my people. You see, Christ
was standing there as the mediator between God the Father and Moses. And he said, I'm going to put
the words in your mouth, Moses. You're going to go speak them.
And Moses was too scared to do it. And he said, OK then. He said, I'm going to use you
as an illustration to teach you what I would have done for you
if you'd just listened to me. And he said, all right, Moses,
you're going to be the mediator now. I'm going to speak to you,
and you're going to speak it to Aaron. And Aaron's going to
be a mouth to you, and you're going to be as God to Aaron.
And he showed Moses, this is what I was going to do for you,
Moses. I'm God to you, and I'm going to give you the words to
speak, and you're going to go forth and speak them. And Moses
forfeited that because he wouldn't believe God. And so he said,
all right then, I'll give it to Aaron. I'll give it to Aaron. And so Aaron did it. Aaron did
it. So Moses was without excuse. And
we're without excuse in our rebellion, but you see how the Lord still
overrules it to bring glory to His name. He still brought Aaron
forth just like He intended from the beginning and used him to
show forth His glory in the whole thing. Now, that ought not make
us say, well, I'll just be rebellious then because God's going to overrule
it and bring good out of it and glorify His name. That ought
to make us say, no, I want to obey Him from the beginning,
from the outset. Aaron, it caused some trouble,
you know. mocked and bashed Moses badly when he married the Ethiopian
woman. And then it was Aaron who turned
around and had him making a golden calf while Moses was up getting
the word from the Lord. So you see, we get some pain
from not listening to the Lord. Even though the Lord overrules
it and brings glory to His name, it still causes us trouble. And
it did. Alright, now let's put ourselves
in Moses' shoes. In Moses' shoes. We've got this
promise directly from God that God will provide so there's absolutely
no excuse for not obeying the Lord. We give our reasons for
not going forth, for doing the various things which God's clearly
taught us in the scriptures that we're to do, things revealed,
things we can't plead ignorance on. We act humble and we say,
oh, I'm not sure if it's the Lord's will for me to do this.
That wasn't what Moses' problem was. Moses just didn't want to
do it. That's normally what our problem
is. So remember these points. If we look to ourselves, we won't
believe the Lord. Moses said, I'm not eloquent.
The power is not of us, brethren, it's of God. Secondly, the Lord
made our mouth. He gives to us and He withholds
from us so that He gets all the glory, so that the strength is
His. If He wanted us to have more,
He could give it. This way he brings more glory to his name. Thirdly, we anger the Lord and
we suffer much by not simply believing him and going forth
and we end up suffering in the long run like Moses did. Fourthly,
but the Lord even overrules our rebellion and brings glory to
his name. He's such a patient, gracious,
good, wise God. Why don't we feel just plumb
stupid for not just taking him at his word and believing him? Well, believe him, serve him. He always makes good on his word. Amen.