Moses - 2
(Exodus
2:11-15)
We saw in our previous study that except for Jesus, Himself, there is no person in the
Scripture more important than Moses...
·
He is one of the few people in the Bible whose life-story
is given from birth to death...
·
He was the one through whom God communicated the law to
the nation Israel...
·
He was prophet, priest, and king all wrapped up in a
single person...
·
His life previews the life of Christ from the unusual
events surrounding His birth, to his leading the Israelites from the bondage of
Egypt as Jesus has led us from the bondage of sin, to his unusual departure
from this world, to his appearance with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration…
The
importance of Moses in God’s redemptive plan for humanity cannot be over-emphasized. While Abraham is often described as the
father of faith, in Moses we see an beautiful picture of a life lived in faith.
In the last session we explored the events surrounding the birth of
Moses. In this study, we are going to
focus on the events in the early days of Moses’ life. Moses grew up in the court of the Egyptian
Pharaoh. However, he never forgot his
own people.
We are going
to pick up the story of Moses in Exodus 2:11-15. From this event in life of Moses want share
with you two basic truths.
I.
Every
person, no matter who he or she is, eventually fails to measure up to God’s
ideal.
1.
There is an old story about a young Jewish girl who
brought her fiancé home to meet her devoutly Jewish parents…the girl had shared
with the parents that their relationship was very serious and they were
contemplating marriage...before the girl and her fiancé arrived, the mother
instructed the father to take the young man aside at some point during the
evening and find out as much about him as he could... so at an appropriate time
the father invited his daughter's fiance to sit down a talk with him
privately...he father began the conversation by asking, "So, what
are you plans?" The young
man who was also a very devout Jew said, "I am a Torah
scholar." "A Torah
scholar," the father replied.
"Very Admirable, but what you will you do to provide a nice
house for my daughter to live in, as she's accustomed to?" And the young man said, "I will
study, and God will provide for us." Then the father asked, "And how
will you buy for her a beautiful engagement ring, such as she deserves?" Again the young man replied, "I
will concentrate on my studies, and God will provide for us." Then the father said, "And
children? How will you support
children?" And, as before,
the young man said, "Don't worry, sir, God will provide." For some time the conversation proceeded like
that. Each time the father raised a
concern, the very devout young man would insist that God would provide...later
that evening, when the young couple had left, the mother asked the father how
the conversation went the father said, "Well, he has no job and no
plans, but the good news is he thinks I'm God!"...
2.
And while you don’t need me to tell you this, none of us
is God! The life of Moses is certainly
and reminder of that great truth. Here
was man who made many right choices early in life...a man who chose to be
faithful to God rather than sell-out to the temptations of Egyptian power and
pleasure and possessions...
3.
Hebrews 11: 24 tells us
that Moses "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter"...to
understand the significance of that statement need to understand that according
to Josephus, the Jewish historian, the Pharaoh in power at the time had no
other children except for the daughter...and the daughter had not children of
her own except for Moses, her adopted son whom she had plucked out of the Nile
River...so according, at least according to Josephus, by refusing to be called "the
son of Pharaoh's daughter" Moses may well have been refusing the
throne of Egypt itself...[Pink, p.19]
4.
And in the early days of his life, Moses no doubt did
many other good things. He seemed to
have a great compassion for the underdog.
He intervened, albeit clumsily, we he saw an Egyptian abusing a
Hebrew. Later in this chapter we read
about him standing up for the daughters of the priest of Midian, one of whom
later became his wife, when some ruffian shepherds were trying to keep them
from watering their father’s flock.
5.
So Moses was a good man who did many good things. However, he was also a man who did a terrible
thing...he took the life of another person...he broke one of the basic
principles upon which God has established this world -- the principle that human
life is sacred...some people have tried to justify what Moses did by saying he
was defending another person or that the Egyptian slave master deserved to die
because he was mistreating the Hebrews...but while Moses' motives may have been
good, his actions were obviously wrong...and the account in Exodus makes it
clear Moses knew that killing the man was wrong...for example--
--he looked
around to make sure that no-one was watching before killing the man...
--he hid the
man's body in the sand...
--he fled
when he discovered that his secret was out...
Obviously,
Moses was well aware that he had made a terrible mistake...he momentarily
abandoned his faith, confidence in God, took matters into his own hands, and
made a terrible mess of things...
1. What's the lesson in that for us?...well among other
things we should learn from that if someone of the calibre of Moses --the man
who led the Israelites from Egypt, the man through whom the 10 commandments
were given, the man whose life previews for us the life of Christ-- if someone
like that could have a lapse in his faith, it certainly can to happen to us as
well...
2. And if that is true, and I
believe it is, it has tremendous implications for our lives...we must ever be
on guard against spiritual arrogance and smugness...we must be diligent...
careful...conscientious in our walk with the Lord...we must not over-estimate
our spiritual strength nor underestimate our spiritual adversary...
3. And if you look carefully at
NT will find statement after statement to that effect...for example--
--James 4:7-8a - "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from
you. Draw near to God and He will draw
near to you..."
--I Peter 5:8-9a - "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like
a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
But resist him, firm in your faith..."
4. We must be diligent, for like
Moses, we can easily falter in our faith...
II. When we fail
to measure up to God’s ideal, God does not abandon us
1. Think that's really the main
lesson from this experience in Moses' life...an interesting thing is said about
Moses in Hebrews 11:27...verse says "...he left Egypt, not fearing
the wrath of the king..."...on surface that statement seems to be
in direct contradiction to the story in Exodus 2 about why Moses
left...obviously, he left Egypt to keep the Pharaoh from killing him...but
point is, didn't live remainder of his life in fear of Pharaoh...Moses went on
with life, allowing God to work out His purpose in him...
2. The KJV says that Moses "forsook
Egypt"...that's a good translation...because idea is that Moses
didn't just physically leave, he turned his back on Egypt and all that it
represented... he renounced it permanently...
3. When this event occurred in Moses'
life he had two choices... could spend life looking over shoulder in fear of
the Pharaoh or spend life looking forward to what God had promised him... chose
to do the latter...he chose to look to God or as the writer of Hebrews puts it "...as
seeing Him who is unseen."
4. And if read the remainder of
Exodus 2 will see that God kept on working in Moses' life...he settled in land
of Midian...met the daughters of Reuel, the priest of Midian, at a well...ended
up marrying Zipporah, one of the daughters, and she gave birth to a son...and
Moses spent 40 years in Midian being prepared by God for the monumental task
that was ahead...
1. What want you see in all that
is that even though Moses had a temporary lapse of faith, God did not give up
on him...kept working in him and through him...and what was true for Moses is
true for us as well...may think because of some mistake in your past that you
can no longer be useful to God... nothing can be further from the truth...as
matter of fact God seems to delight in reclaiming those who have stumbled and
fallen--
--He took a
man like Simon Peter who utterly failed Jesus on the eve of His crucifixion, a
man who denied even knowing Jesus and then who went out a wept bitterly over
his lack of faith, and made that man the spokesman for the church just 50 days
later on the day of Pentecost...
--He took a
man like Saul, a man who ranted and raved against the church and whose mention
in life was to persecute Christians, and made him the greatest theologian and
missionary in church history...
--He took a
man like David, a man who committed adultery and then in an attempt to hide his
sin became an accomplice to murder, and made him the greatest king in Israel's
history and the author of psalms which have blessed the people of God for
generations...
2. And if God could do that in
their lives, He can do it in our lives as well...when our faith falters, it is
good to remember that God does not stop working with us and in us....
CONCLUSION
1. One of the great events in the
history of college football took place on New Year's Day in 1929… Georgia Tech
was playing UCLA in the Rose Bowl...Roy Riggles recovered a fumble for
UCLA...but somehow, he got turned around and began running 65 yards toward the
wrong goal line...just before he crossed the goal that would have given Georgia
Tech a safety, one of his own teammates tackled him from behind...he forever
came to be known as “Wrong Way Riggles”…
2. But what is not widely
reported is that event happened in the first half of the game...when the teams
went to the locker room for half-time, everyone was wondering what Coach Price
of UCLA was going to say to Riggles...when Riggles got into the locker room, he
was so embarrassed, he sat in a corner with a blanket over his head....to
everyone's surprise, Coach Price didn't even mention Riggles' mistake...
3. When time came for teams to go
back on field, the coach said, "The same 11 players who started the
first-half will start the second-half."...all the players began to
go back on the field except for Roy Riggles...he just sat, paralyzed in the
corner...the coach walked over to him and said, "Roy, didn't you
hear me? I want you back in the
game."...and Riggles said, "Coach, I've embarrassed my
school, you, and myself. I just can't go
back out there."...and Coach Price said, "Roy, the game
is just half over. Get back out
there!"...and realizing he was being given a second chance,
Riggles went back on the field and according to those who witnessed it, played
the best game they had ever seen football player play...
4. That's good picture of how God
has chosen to relate to us...even though we may make mistakes...even though may
stumble and fall ...doesn't abandon us...stays with us...encourages us...and keeps
doing His work through us...
