We began to look this morning
here in Exodus 3. The Lord was ready to call Moses
to preach. And it was so necessary that
he made himself known to it before he sends him to preach. And we
looked at that this morning, the Lord there in the bush, God
revealing himself in Christ to Moses. And then after he does
that, after he's finished with that, he begins here now in verse
10 to send Moses out to preach. And he says here in Exodus 3.10,
Come now, therefore, and I will send thee to Pharaoh, that thou
mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of
Egypt. And Moses said unto God, Who am I that I should go unto
Pharaoh? and that I should bring forth
the children of Israel out of Egypt. And the Lord said to him,
he said, Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be a
token to you that I have sent you. When you have brought forth
the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses said unto God, Behold,
when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto
them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they
said unto me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And
God said unto Moses, I am that I am. Thus shalt thou say unto
the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you." Now,
I want to stop there because I want to deal with two things
here first of all, then I want to go on. I want to see here
something about the Lord calling Moses to preach. Now, he called
Moses to do great miracles. We know that. And Moses would
have been delighted if that's all he was going to do, do great
miracles. If he just held out his rod and
all the mighty things happened, Moses would have been more or
less content with that. But what Moses' apprehension
was about here, that the Lord was going to send him to preach.
The greatest miracles that God did by this man was through his
preaching, not by the rod. Now, I say that because there
was people who heard what Moses was saying, and they come to
believe him. That's the greatest miracle of
all. That's a greater mystery than parting the Red Sea or sending
plagues upon the Egyptians. Grace is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh
and believed on in the world. That's a mystery of grace. So
it was that. It was this preaching that Moses
had a tendency to draw back from. He wasn't like Isaiah. Isaiah,
when the Lord had saved him, he said, Who shall we send? And who will go for us? And Isaiah
said, I'm here, send me. I'm ready to go. It wasn't that
way with this man here. The first opposition that he
faces when the Lord tells him, Come, Moses, and I will send
you to Pharaoh. I'll send you to my people, and
you're going to deliver them. He says that there in verse 10.
I will send thee. And the first opposition that
Moses had in this, boy, he felt so unworthy. He felt so insignificant. He felt like a dog, didn't he? He said there in verse 11, Who
am I? Who in the world am I? Well,
who was this man? Stephen tells us who this man
was. Listen to this in Acts chapter
7 verse 21, 22. And when he, Moses, was cast
out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up and nourished him for
her own, and Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,
and was mighty in word and in deed." But here he says, Who
am I? Who am I? Why did he now feel
his unworthiness? Why did he now feel his insignificance? I'll tell you why. Now God is
calling him to do a work. And now God had revealed a portion
of His glory in this burning bush, and Moses stood in awe. He feared. He had reverence for
this God, and in the light of all of this, he saw himself to
be nothing. He saw himself to be unworthy
and unprofitable and useless. Who am I? Who am I? I cannot
go. Look who I am. Moses tried to
do this once before. Remember that? Forty years before
this? He went and what he tried to do was deliver the children
of Israel by his own wisdom. He knew that he was a well-spoken
man. He was a mighty man. And he went
and said, I can deliver this people. Surely they'll know what
I'm doing here. But they didn't believe him.
And he couldn't do it. The work of heaven cannot be
done by human wisdom and the might of the flesh. Moses learned
this right here at this burning bush. He said, Who am I? I tried
this before and I couldn't do it. I'm not able. Who am I? Brothers and sisters, a man that
God calls to preach He needs to be beat off of his high opinions
of himself and from trusting in his personal abilities. But
when God drives him off from these things, He can almost drive
him into despair. And He can leave him here saying
with Moses, Who am I? What in the world am I? You going
to send me? Who am I? Look here in verse 12. Here's
God's answer to Moses' opposition. This is a wonderful, wonderful
answer to Moses' opposition. Moses puts up all these oppositions,
and God gives him a simple answer for every one of them. Here's His answer to Moses' opposition
in verse 12. And the Lord said, Certainly
I will be with thee. That's a good answer, ain't it?
Who am I? It doesn't matter who you are.
It doesn't matter how unworthy or insignificant you feel. It's
not about you. It's not about your ability or
your wisdom or your mind. I will be with you. That should have answered Moses'
opposition very well, shouldn't it? Who am I? Who am I? I tell you, all of us need moral
support. When the Lord sent out His disciples,
He always sent them out two. He never sent out anybody but
Himself. He sent them out Peter and John, James and Matthew. We all need moral support, don't
we? If two lay down together, they'll
keep one another warm. If two walk together and one
falls, the other can pick him up. Woe be to him that's alone,
though. You don't have anybody to keep
him warm or to pick him up. We need moral support. Well,
how much more support do you think we could have? And how
much more encouragement do you think we could have than when
he says here, I will be with thee. I will be with thee. You're not going alone, Moses.
I'll be with you. I'll be with you. Boy, this encouraged
the Apostle Paul when he had to stand alone and all human
support had forsaken him. Here is what he said in the letter
to Timothy. At my first answer no man stood
with me, but everybody pursued me, notwithstanding the Lord
stood with me and strengthened me. By me the gospel was made
fully known. I tell you, you can stand by
yourself if He is with you. Paul learned this by experience.
The Lord appeared to Paul in a vision and He said to Paul,
Paul, be not afraid, but speak, and hold not your peace, for
I am with thee, and no man shall sit on thee to hurt thee, for
I have much people in this He called young Jeremiah, and young
Jeremiah, just a kid, he said, I'm afraid to go. I'm afraid
to look at their faces. I'm scared of people. And the
Lord said this unto him, They shall fight against you, but
they shall not prevail, for I am with thee to deliver you from
them. Well, that's a good answer for
us fearing and our unworthiness. And we're not able, and we're
not sufficient. We're not significant. I am with
thee. I am with thee. And this promises
to every one of us, is it not? It's not just to preachers. Let
your conversation be without covetousness. Don't worry when
you lose things in this life. Don't go around coveting things
other people have. Let your conversation be without
covetousness, for the Lord has said, I'll never leave you nor
forsake you, so we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper."
Ain't anybody here this evening who feels worthy to do anything
for His glory, is there? We all feel unworthy. We all
feel so useless. And that's the way we're supposed
to feel about ourselves. But don't let our feeling of
unworthiness and insignificance stop us from doing God's will
and trying great things for His glory when He promises, I'll
be with you. I'll be with you. Yes, you're
unworthy, but I'll be with you. What does that matter? What does
that matter? That was the first opposition.
Lord, who am I? Who am I? You'll find this opposition
in quite a few men in the Scripture. And you'll find this opposition
with a lot of preachers in our day. Lord, who am I? Who in the
world am I? I tell you, when he got a sight
of the glory of God in that bush, that brought him to himself.
Who am I after seeing you? Who am I after seeing you? In
verse 13, it's the second opposition that Moses throws up, and it's
this. He began to see something of
God's glory in this bush, and he was at a loss on how to describe
Him. How can I describe You? I don't
even know Your name. I can't even identify You by
name. What if they ask me, What's His
name? I don't even know that. I was
asked one time, a fellow called me and wanted to know if I'd
come preach in his conference. He assigned me a text. He assigned
me a subject. The glory of Christ in His exaltation. My heart sank in me when he asked
me to come and try to preach on the glory of Christ in His
exaltation? How in the world do you get a
hold of that subject? I've been embarrassed ever since
then that I even tried to speak. If I had this to do over, I'd
say, you get somebody else. You ain't putting a burden like
that on me. The glory of Christ. Here's what the old prophet said,
it's too high for me. I can't attain unto it. David
says such knowledge is too wonderful for me. He's too wonderful. He's
too high. We can't attain unto Him. Moses
said, I saw something of your glory in this bush. And you want
me, a poor sinner, to stand before other sinners and to tell them
something about you? I don't even know your name. Your
glory is so great. Don't send me. Don't send me. The task is too overwhelming. Or when you and I think sometimes
of just witnessing of Him. When I think of sometimes standing
before other people to preach of the triune God, I'll say the
same thing as Moses said here. What shall I say? What am I going
to say? Do you ever feel that way? I'll tell you what, I've been
speaking to men and women and children. And I've run out of
words. There I stand with my mouth cleaving
to its roof without anything to say. I've talked myself into
a corner. I've got into things, God is
this and Christ is that, and there I stand. I've got over
my head. Do you ever feel that way? You
and me talking about this everlasting God? What are we going to say? That was Moses' whole problem. Here is the Lord's answer to
him in verse 14. What is your name? What am I
going to say? What am I going to tell him?
In verse 14, the Lord said, I am that I am. Thus shall you say
unto the children of Israel, I am has sent me unto you. Thus shall you simply say. He didn't say, go explain me. He didn't even say, go articulate
and expound and enlarge on my name. He just said, go say it. Go say what? Go say what I've
told you to say. Just say, I am. That's it. Just say what God
says about Himself. That's what He's telling us. Just say to people what God says
about everything. Quit trying to explain everything.
Just say it. Just say it. How do you explain,
I am? I am that I am. Right now I am. Go back to the foundation of
the world. I am. Go back in eternity. I am. Can
you explain eternity? I am. Don't try to explain who
I am. Just proclaim who I am. I am. Say unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. Don't try to explain how it reigns.
You'll get yourself twisted up. You'll confuse everybody. Just
say it. What's going on in the world
today? Look at all the big mess. What's happening? I'll tell you
what's happening. God reigns. Can you explain that? No, thank
God, I don't have to. I'd confuse myself and you. But
I know this much. Say unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. It ain't that people don't understand
it. The trouble is they don't believe
it. Ain't that so? I had a preacher one time tell
me, he said, I just don't understand election. No, that ain't your
problem. You just don't believe it. You just don't believe it.
It's Claire's availing. What's my name? I am. Well, just say it. Just say it. Who is the God of the Bible?
What's He done? What's He doing? Where is He?
What's He doing there? What's He going to do in the
end? Just go to the Bible and see what God says about these
questions. And just say it. Just say, boy,
ain't that a relief? Ain't that a relief? One young preacher said, oh my,
he said, I can't pastor. I can't counsel people. God don't
call us to counsel people. He calls us to say what He's
already said. What a burden! What a burden
taken off of us! Oh, Lord God, I can't explain
You. I'm not calling you to explain.
I'm just calling you to go tell people what I've already said
about myself. That's all. You can do that, can't you, Clarence?
That's all we do. Oh, what a burden. Lord, I don't
know. I don't know what to say. I'll
just go say what I've said about myself. Look in chapter 4 and verse 1.
Moses has some more opposition. I don't know of another place
in the Scripture where a man fought his call to preach like
this man did. He just goes on and on and on.
Two chapters of it, mainly. Look here in verse 1 of chapter
4. And Moses answered and said,
But behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice. For they will say, The Lord hath
not appeared unto him. What's he saying here? I won't have any success. I'm
not able to convince people. They won't believe my preaching.
They'll not hearken to me. They won't believe that you've
appeared to me. You know what I think Moses is
saying here, especially from what the Lord did in verses 2
and following? Moses is saying this, you're
going to have to change me. You're going to have to do something
different for me. Something that I don't have,
you're going to have to give me. You're going to have to make
me a different person. That's what he said. I can't
go just like I am. They ain't going to believe me. Preachers have to be careful
when they listen to other preachers, because you know what they'll
begin to do? Imitate them. I want to be like that preacher.
I love the way he says things. I want to say them just like
him. Oh, he has a way about himself.
I want to be just like him. And we'll wind up imitating some
other preacher. God's answer to Moses was this,
I'm going to do great things by you, Moses, but I'm going
to use you just like you are. That's what scares us today. Oh, if I had a better education,
if I had a bigger library, if I had a more eloquent tongue,
if I had this, or I wasn't like that, God could use me. And you know what he says? No.
I ain't going to change a thing about you. I'm going to use you
just like you are. That's what he's going to tell
Moses right here. Look in verse 2. Look here in verse 2. Here's his answer
to Moses' opposition. And the Lord said unto him, What
is that in your hand? And he said, A rod. That's my
walking stick. That's my shepherd's stick. I've
carried this for years. It's almost part of me. It's
almost a second nature for me to carry this. You know what
this is, Lord. I've always carried this thing.
I don't feel comfortable without it. I've killed a lot of snakes
with it. I've thrown it at a lot of wolves. It's my walking stick. It's my rod. You know what the
Lord says? Moses, I'm going to use that
old rod. I'm going to use that old rod
that's so common to you. And look what he tells us in
verse 3, And the Lord said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast
it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from
before it. Boy, ain't that amazing? What
in the world happened to my old rod? I've never seen it do that
before. That's my rod. I whittled that
thing out myself. I walked a lot of miles with
that. That's a part of me. What in the world is God doing
with it now? What a miracle He's wrought with
that old rod! That's what the Lord is convincing
Moses. You don't have to be somebody
else. You don't have to have anything special about you, Moses.
You don't have to imitate anybody else. I'm going to use you just
like I found you. And he goes on for something
else in verse 4. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Put forth your hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth
his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hands. Nothing spectacular about this
rod, but it was just the Lord using it. Look what he went on
to say in verse 5. That they may believe that the
Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
hath appeared unto thee. And the Lord said further unto
him, Put now your hand into your bosom. And he put his hand into
his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous
as snow. And he said, Put your hand into
your bosom again. And he put his hand into his
bosom again, and plucked it out of his bosom, and behold, it
turned again as the other. And it shall come to pass, if
they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first
sign, they will believe the voice of the last sign." You know what he's saying? He's
just simply saying, Moses, I'm going to use you. I'm going to
use these things that's common to you, just part of you. Nothing else. Nothing else. What's
in your hand? A rod. I'm going to use that
and I'm going to use your hand. You know, it was a people that
needed to be convinced that God had sent Moses. You know who
needed to be convinced of it? Moses himself. Moses himself. I'm not implying that preachers
don't need to study. They do. I'm not implying they
don't need to be careful. I'm not implying they don't need
many things about them that needs to be changed in their own personal
attitude and many other things. But nobody must change who they
are essentially. Don't never lose your identity. Be who you are warts and all. That's the wonderful thing about
the Lord saving us by His grace. We don't have to be anything
but what we are. We serve Him in the capacity
and in the grace and power that He gives us. I don't want to be around a bunch
of people that's pretending to be something they're not. And
I don't want to be somebody and pretend to be somebody or something
I'm not. Do you? Be who you are. And that's when the Lord is apt
to use a man just like He is. One of the most difficult things
in preaching is to be yourself. Don't be a carbon copy of anyone
else. Be yourself. God took a bunch
of fishermen. and turned the world upside down
with him. Did he not? He took five loaves
and two fishes from a little small kid and he fed five thousand. Did he not? He used a small amount
of flour and a cup of oil that a poor widow had to feed three
people until a great famine was ended. He used a shepherd boy's
slang to kill a giant. We may have too much for God
to use us, but we'll never have too little for God to use us. Little is much if God is in it,
and when God uses us as we are, He gets the glory for it, because
we know what we are. We have this treasure, Paul said,
this treasure of the gospel, an earthen vessel That the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of us. He gets the glory
for it. And my wife went to a church
way up north to visit. We knew the pastor and some of
the congregation. We stayed with this lady. And
she got her Bible out. She was going to teach us at
her house. She got her Bible out. And she
just went on and on and on and on and on. Finally, I got her
Bible and looked at it. Everything in there that she
was saying was from her preacher's notes. Everything she said she had wrote
down in her Bible. And I imagine she did everybody
else just like she did us. She had nothing to say herself.
It was what her pastor would say. And it done me no good. It done me absolutely no good.
What's in your heart? What experience have you had
with the Lord? Be yourself. I'm going to use
you, Moses. I'm going to use you. Ah, they won't believe me then.
They ain't going to believe me. Ain't that what he said? They
ain't going to believe me then. You've got to do something special.
You've got to give me all these different gifts. You've got to
change me. They ain't going to believe me. No, if you send me
just like I am, I ain't going to do no good. Ain't that what
he said? But look over here in chapter
4 and look in verse 31. When Moses and Aaron went and
did these signs, look in verse 31, and the people believed!
They did believe Him! I tell you, sometimes good men
judge people wrongly. Do you know that? Ain't nobody
listen to me. Ain't nobody around here care
about hearing me. Well, how do I know that? Ain't nobody believe
in anything I say. Ain't nobody want to worship.
How do I know that? Am I looking at myself? Am I
saying, well, surely, surely, I ain't affecting anything. But
it's what God does through us, isn't it? Yeah, there's people
believing. There's people hearing. There's
people worshiping. There is. Well, I've tried before. They
didn't believe me. They won't believe this time.
Matthew Henry said, Don't let people's past experience in their
unfaithfulness discourage us from speaking to them again.
Don't let people's past unfaithfulness discourage us from speaking to
them again. They may not have heard before.
They may have been unfaithful before, but speak to them again. One more, and we'll close in
verse 10 of chapter 4. Here's another opposition. Look what he says in 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,
but I am slow at and slow of tongue. I just stammered and
stuttered. Lord, I can't go. Don't send
me to preach. I wonder how much eloquence a
man has to have to preach the gospel. You ever think of that? How much eloquence do we need
to preach a simple gospel? What does eloquence have to do
with telling men, you're perishing? Get to Christ. Christ died for
the ungodly. That does not need eloquence.
That just needs to be spoken in truth and sincerity. He is
able to save to the uttermost them that come to God by Him.
That is what men need to hear. It does not need to be set forth
in eloquence. It needs to be set forth plainly. Moses put in too much faith in
his tongue, and not in one who made the tongue. That was his
problem. Bless his heart, he was a good
man. The scripture says he was faithful in all of his acts,
but it still tells some false that he had. I don't think anything's
going to happen unless you give me an eloquent tongue. But it's
not an eloquent tongue, brothers and sisters. It's the power of
God speaking through a man's lips. That's it. When I came
to you, I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
unto you the testimony of God. I was with you in weakness and
fear and much trembling. My speech and my preaching was
not with enticing words of man's wisdom. Paul said, I'm not an
eloquent speaker. I don't want to speak eloquently. I just want to preach the pure,
simple truth of the gospel. That's your faith. May not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. That's what
we need, ain't it? That's what we need. We need
the power of God in our poor, stammering, stuttering tongues. That's what he says here in verse
12. Look in verse 11 and verse 12. The Lord said unto him, Who
hath made man's mouth? Who maketh the dumb, or the deaf,
or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord? Now therefore
go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall
say." Do you remember the story that Spurgeon
told when he was walking down the street there in London on
a snowy day, and just happened into that little Westland chapel?
And the pastor couldn't be there that day. Remember when he said
that old Methodist got up to read the Scriptures and you could
hardly understand him? He said, I had to listen closely
just to understand the man as he struggled to read the Scriptures.
Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the world, for
I am God and there is none else. And Scourges said the poor man
didn't have anything else to say. But he said, he looked down
at me. And he said, young man, you look
miserable. And he said, that I was. That
I was. I was a miserable young man under
conviction for my sin. And I could find no relief. He
said, I'd been to those churches where those educated men had
preached to me and got no light from it. I continued on in the
misery of my conscience. But he said, that poor man, that
poor wrestling preacher, pointed me out and said, son, you're
miserable now, and you're going to be miserable when you die
if you don't look to the Son of God and live. And Spurgeon
said, that's exactly what I needed to hear. And I looked at that
very instant. I looked to Jesus Christ and
I lived. It's not eloquence we need, is
it? I don't want to sit under somebody that's so slick. You
can hear everything they were saying, and he'll go down so
smooth, you never know you ate it. Tie some knots, Spurgeon
said, in what you've got to say. Don't worry about stammering
and stuttering and forgetting and having to wait while you
collect your thoughts. Oh, pray that God will be with
our lips, that God will direct our words. Moses' whole problem was he was
looking to himself. He was looking to himself. Wasn't
I? Isn't that what all this is about?
Who am I? He's looking at himself. Nobody's
going to believe me. No, they may not believe you,
but they'll believe the God that you're preaching. Oh, I don't
have an eloquent tongue. It's all about Him. I can't speak. It's all about Him. It's about
His weaknesses, His infirmities, His unworthiness, His inabilities. Paul knew that about himself.
But he turned it to his advantage. He said, these things don't matter.
These things don't matter. Listen to what he said. I take
pleasure in my infirmities. I take pleasure in reproaches.
I take pleasure in necessities, persecutions, and distresses
for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then am I strong. I will glory in my infirmities,
that the power of Christ may rest upon me. My grace is sufficient
for you." Barbara wrote a book about that, didn't she? My grace
is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in
your weakness. Paul said, I like that. I've
learned a good lesson from that. Instead of letting my unworthiness,
my inabilities, my insignificance discourage me and drive me to
despair, I'm going to use carnal for my advantage. I'm going to
say, Lord, this is your will. I'm going to go do it. I'm going
to lay myself out for your glory, and I expect for you to be with
me and you to bless your word through me. And though I stammer
and stutter, I expect you to be with my lips and take your
word to the hearts of men. It's often nothing but unbelief
that hinders us from doing God's will. Unbelief in His power. Unbelief in His faithfulness.
Unbelief in His infallibility and willingness. Listen to what
Scott Richardson said. Faith brings God unto the scene. Faith brings God unto the scene. Therefore, it knows absolutely
nothing of difficulties. It lasts at impossibilities. In the judgment of faith, God
is the answer for every question. He is the salvation to every
difficulty. Unbelief says, how can such things
be? Unbelief is full of flaws. But
faith has one great answer to ten thousand hows. Faith has one Great answer to
10,000 howls. And that answer is this, with
God all things are possible. Boy, look what God done to this
man. Look what He did with this man. He is still talked about
today. And yet he had such difficulty.
Getting the man to go. Ain't that amazing? I reckon he's having some difficulty
with us. Lord bless His message.