Good morning to you and welcome to the service. May I say, now that I have an opportunity to do that, I know that some of you have been praying for Ron and Joyce Tanel during this week of his surgery for a brain tumor. On Tuesday it was discovered that the tumor was far more widespread in the brain tissue than they had originally thought and that it is a very aggressive kind of cancer. They did remove some of the tumor and they will undergo radiation therapy with him for the next several weeks.
So we encourage you to keep on praying for Ron Tanel. In our study of the word we come today to Exodus chapter 2 and I'm going to read, I'd like you to open your Bible and follow along as we read the account of the birth and the years of Moses leading up to his 80th year. In one chapter, believe it or not, we have 80 years of a man's life. Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi and the woman conceived and bore a son.
When she saw that he was beautiful she hid him for three months but when she could hide him no longer she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. And his sister stood at a distance to find out what would happen to him. Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile with her maidens walking alongside the Nile.
She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid and she brought it to her. When she opened it she saw the child. And behold the boy was crying. She had pity on him and said, this is one of the Hebrews children. Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women? She may nurse the child for you. And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go ahead. So the girl went and called the child's mother.
Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me and I shall give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him. And the child grew and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses and said, because I drew him out of the water. The name Moses means one drawn out. It is a Hebrew name and this interpretation of his name may in fact come from Moses himself as he writes these words.
However, the name was very similar to an Egyptian name, Mos in that day, which meant a son. And so it could be that there is a play on words in the name Moses. In fact, a number of the Pharaohs had names like Ahmos, meaning the son of Ah, who was one of their gods, or Tutmos, again the son of that god. And so it is possible that Moses actually had another name there at the front.
Originally, he might have been named the son of some god, perhaps the son of the Nile, since he was drawn out of the Nile. But later he shortened it, not wanting to have any association with the pagan gods and simply called himself Moses, one who was drawn out in the Hebrew, or a son, as it would be an Egyptian. And it came about in those days when Moses had grown up that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.
So he looked this way and that. And when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hit him in the sand. He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other. And he said to the offender, Why are you striking your companion? But he said, Who made you a prince or judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you kill the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and said, Surely the matter has become known.
When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock. And when they came to rule their father, he said, Why have you come back so soon today?
So they said, An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds. Moses undoubtedly looked like an Egyptian. And what is more, he even drew the water for us and watered the flock. And he said to his daughters, Where is he then? Why is it that you have left the man behind and invited him to have something to eat? And Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses.
Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land. Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died, and the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage. And they cried out, and they cried for help because the bondage rose up before God. And so God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.
Let's bow together. I think you know this chorus. Sing hallelujah to the Lord. Sing hallelujah to the Lord. Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah to the Lord. Father God, we recognize today that you are the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You are the God who is active in this chapter. As we study today how you do your work, may it be an instruction and encouragement to our hearts.
Open our eyes and our hearts to the work of your Spirit. In Jesus' name, amen. God does His work in His own time and His own way. Rarely are those the same as ours. At times, God seems abrupt, too quick, like a flash of unwelcome lightning. At other times, His actions seem to keep pace with the wearing away of a mountain. We conclude in our minds how we think God should work, and usually, of course, we pray in that direction. And then we find ourselves puzzled as we see another course taken.
Or worse, we see nothing perceptible happen at all. And then we make ourselves the judges of God. The creatures imagine that they can evaluate the Almighty, and we have all done that. We say something like this, God should do His work this way and on this schedule. When we say that, usually God has a surprise in store for us. The ways of God are mysterious to us. He Himself says through Isaiah, His prophet, My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are My ways your ways.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. My friends, those words bear pondering. God unceasingly works in the events of the world and in the affairs of our lives. We may or we may not have spiritual perception that would allow us to observe His actions. At times, even the most spiritual of God's people will not have a clue as to what God is doing.
But I warn all of us not to make ourselves a judge of God, to think that we know better than He knows. We must understand that we are creatures. If we have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are redeemed creatures and we are precious to God. And because we belong to Him by that special relationship, we are constantly in His care. Either we can understand the acts of God or we can't understand the acts of God.
Perhaps it would help all of us live more contentedly and obediently if we look at our text today with the purpose in mind to understand more of how God works. Let's do that. Notice with me in the first place that God works with the ordinary, sanctifying it as His chosen means. God works with the ordinary. We tend to think of God using the spectacular, you know, the earthquake or the mountain that burns with fire. We think of God using the unusual, angels or those who are greatly gifted people.
Or we think of God using the miraculous. In fact, miracles wouldn't be miracles if they were common events. The fact is that the Almighty God normally chooses to employ the common to accomplish His will. For example, here in our text, He uses a nameless man and woman, later identified in chapter 6, who married and then had a baby. He employs a simple wicker basket made of reeds from the river.
He uses an older sister who does the work of an older sister here, watching over the little baby brother. We saw that yesterday at the lake, our church picnic, and how neat it was to watch one particular family where an older sister was taking the little brother by the hand all around the beach, showing him the do's and the do nots. We see a sister simply doing what a sister does in this text, looking out for her little brother.
And then later in the study of Exodus, we're going to see God using a bush and water, frogs, lice, flies, boils, hail, locusts. Those are rather common, ordinary things, aren't they? And as you go through the Old Testament, you see God using a donkey, a whale, drought, yes, drought. You see God using a cloud, and then you think of Jesus, born in a common manger laid there. You see Jesus using spittle and dust. How much more common can you get than that? Or fish, loaves, yes, even a cross.
It is the delight of God to frequently choose what sophisticated, scientific, and arrogant mankind calls nothing, insignificant, foolish, to do his greatest work. We see this illustrated by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1. I invite you to turn there with me as he shows us in two respects how God has used the word the simple to confound the wise. First Corinthians and the first chapter. First with respect to the message of the gospel, Paul wants us to see that God has chosen simplicity.
Verse 18, the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. What is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, talking about the pagan, the lost man, and the cleverness of the clever. I will set aside, God said that. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom. For we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Gentiles foolishness.
Paul says with regard to the message of the gospel, it is God's delight to choose what mankind calls foolishness to do his powerful work of saving people from sin and hell. Confession is provided by the sacrificial, shameful cross death of the Messiah who acted as a substitute for sinners. That's the message of the gospel. To the Jews who were looking for a Messiah with signs of his regal splendor and his power to deliver them from Rome, the crucified Messiah was absolute foolishness.
And to the Greeks who looked for wisdom, for rationale, for logic, when they heard the message of one man who would bear the sin of the world and do that by a sacrificial, shameful death of the cross, that message was not even worth contemplating. It was laughable. It was a joke. So what the world calls nothing, what the world says is really insignificant. God employs to be the only means by which he will save anyone. It is the message of the cross of Jesus Christ.
Not only is the message of the cross simple, but the messengers of the cross of the gospel are simple. He goes on to remind the Corinthians of themselves, consider your calling, verse 26, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong and the base things of the world and the despised.
God has chosen the things that are not, that is, are zeros, that he might nullify the things that are or that think they are, that no man should boast before God. God purposely chooses what the world counts as nobodies to be his own. Not that there aren't some noble and some wise of the world who are called, because there are some, but today I would suppose we reflect something of the Corinthian church. Most of us are not in that class.
The world looks at many messengers of the gospel and it says you can't be serious. This individual expects to be used of God. This is God's chosen vessel. Come on. But indeed, that is exactly what God chooses, the ordinary, the common, and he sanctifies it for his own use. Why does God do that? Because such ordinary and common vessels tend to have no confidence in their flesh and therefore they are more usable to God. Furthermore, in what they do, God will get the glory, not they themselves.
God makes it clear that that's why he has chosen the messengers that he has. My friend, never think of yourself as too ordinary. Don't count yourself as incapable. Don't look at your gifts and say, how can God use these? For frankly, the more ordinary you are and the lesser you may be gifted, the greater God is pleased to use you to glorify himself.
In my own brief experience in this world, I have seen people who have been greatly gifted from a human standpoint and who were believers, who had promise as the servants of God, as messengers of the gospel, but who never made it because they had great confidence in the flesh. Their pride kept God from using them. Some of them I've even lost track of, totally washed out. Why?
Because they failed to realize this basic principle that God chooses the ordinary and the common because they tend to be more humble than those who are the spectacular and the great. God, in doing his work, chooses the ordinary and the common, doing with it what pleases him. That is his chosen means. I am talking to some couples here today. I am talking to some men and some women. It may be that you are wondering whether God could ever use you in Christian work. By that I mean as a vocation.
I don't like that term, but that is the term that seems to be invoked these days. You wonder if God has called you to ministry as a pastor. You wonder if God has called you to ministry in music or to ministry in Christian education or ministry in the mission field or teaching in a Christian college. You say, well, I am not sure I have it. Don't doubt what God can do in your life.
God is pleased to use many who are not spectacular, who are not extraordinary, sanctifying those as his chosen vessel. Telling God that there are some who are spectacular, unusually gifted. When their heart is humble, God uses them magnificently to bless all of us. But let's face it, not many of us fall into that category. We can be grateful that God has chosen often, frequently, normally indeed to use the common. That is how he works.
And then secondly, I want you to notice with me that he works sovereignly doing what we cannot do. God will not do for us what we can and should do for ourselves. There are some things that Jacobette did here, Moses' mother. She did what she could. But the point is, when we have done our part, then God will supernaturally do the rest so that his will is accomplished. Notice the aspects of our narrative which only God could do. His divine intervention and involvement was essential.
For example, the timing of Pharaoh's daughter in coming to the river when she did. Along with her response of compassion for what she recognized was a contraband baby, a baby that should have died. How do you explain that? Well, God is involved here. There may be a human side to this. Some have suggested that the Nile was a symbol of fertility to the Egyptians, and indeed it was because it was essential to their national agrarian economy.
The annual floods of the Nile would replenish the land and cause their crops right along the Nile to flourish. Therefore, they and their paganism felt that the Nile was the god of fertility. And it may be that we have here a woman who was childless and that she came down to the Nile River to bathe in it ceremonially, ritually. It's hard to imagine her coming down to get clean in the Nile. There were better places for a princess of Egypt to bathe to be clean.
She was probably coming down to this river to bathe in order somehow to become fertile that she might bear a child. And lo and behold, as she comes down to this river, the god of the river, as she sees it, has provided a baby for her in the reeds. Thus, her immediate response to accept this baby and her desire to raise it as her own son. That's why I suggested earlier perhaps his original name was something tied with Moses, meaning he was a son of the river, the son of the god of the Nile.
That is a possibility. But if that's the human side of it, we must not miss the supernatural side, and that is that god was involved in all of this, using even the paganism of this woman if that was the case, so that she preserved this young child alive. And then there's the acceptance on her part of the suggestion of the sister, Miriam, as we know her. And then the acceptance, too, of the arrangement with the actual mother of Moses, though the princess may not have known that.
Then there's the early preparation of Moses in a royal household, so that in every way he got the very best that Egypt could offer him. He was skilled and trained as a leader and an orator. Here is a man who had the very best that the world could offer at this time, as far as preparation, humanly speaking, for leadership. God was involved in all of that. God worked sovereignly, doing what we cannot do.
Can you imagine the Jewish people trying to bring about their own redeemer, their own deliverer? How would they have gone about that? How would they get him the training that might be necessary? How would they get him in a position to have access to Pharaoh, and so on? They did what they could do, and then God sovereignly took care of the rest. The sovereignty of God, by the way, refers to the supreme rule of God over everything.
God's sovereignty is His divine prerogative as the infinite, eternal, and personal deity who created and sustains the universe to do whatever pleases Him without any restraint. And yet God does not violate the moral freedom He has given to people and for which they are held responsible to Him. Sovereignty of God. There are those who see the sovereignty of God as so overwhelming, they just want to let go and let God do everything. They say we have no responsibility at all, and that is not true.
That is not the way the Bible declares our relationship to the sovereign God. We are expected to do what we can do, but we do so in union with one who is sovereign and who will work beyond our feeble efforts to accomplish ultimately His whole purpose.
So that is how God works, He works sovereignly, holding your hand in mine so that we do what we should do and can do, and then He picks it up at that point and carries it the rest of the way so that nothing that He has purposed will ever fall short of occurring. That is reassuring to me because there are times when I feel that I have come well short and I just have not been able to carry the ball far enough. How wonderful it is to know that God is there.
And then if I have done what is my best at that moment in my life, then God is going to go on and accomplish His full purpose. It is good to know that God's ultimate purpose does not depend upon the frailty of human beings, but His own sovereignty. But the other side of the coin is that He chooses to use human beings to work with us, and He gives us a responsibility to fulfill in that ultimate purpose.
Now as we think about how God does His work, we need to see something more, and that is that He works unexpectedly in ways that we cannot anticipate. You've read this morning in the scripture reading earlier from Acts chapter 7 in which we see that Moses had an awareness of several facts. Number one, he knew that he was an Israelite, who told him that? Undoubtedly his mother did. We can only marvel at the influence of his mom and dad in those early years that they had him.
What an important lesson that is for us on a day like this, dads. Those early years are so important that we pour our lives into our kids. Did they have Moses three years, four years, some say up to twelve years? We don't know how long. But those were impressionable years, and they poured themselves into him so that he knew he was an Israelite. Number two, he knew he had an awareness of the fact that the Israelites were God's chosen people.
Number three, he knew that the Israelites were mistreated by the Egyptians. He was not ignorant of that fact. Number four, gets more interesting, he knew that God would deliver the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. He knew that before he was forty years of age. And finally, he knew that he was the one that God would use to deliver them. Now we're not talking about the burning bush experience. We're talking about before he ever committed the murder of the Egyptian.
We're saying before he was forty years of age, he knew all of those things. He had an awareness of them. And he expected that it was all going to work very naturally and normally. But then God worked unexpectedly in ways that Moses could not anticipate. Moses' expectation of what he thought would happen was crushed by unexpected circumstances that occurred. I speak of the slaughter of the Egyptian, the murder of this man at Moses' own hand.
Now it may be that Moses thought that this would be a signal to the Israelites that he was their Redeemer, that he was their Deliverer, that he was on their side and that they should now begin to be loyal to him because he would lead them out of bondage. That may have been in his thought. That was perhaps his expectations. But oh how twenty-four hours changed his plan.
His life suddenly became very complicated and he realized that this thing was far better known than he had originally thought and he went from prince to fugitive in a matter of hours or days at the most. Now the circumstances may have been especially difficult because of certain spiritual decisions that Moses had made before this time. We read in Hebrews 11 that by faith already before this Moses had decided to refuse the title the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
Now there are some who say that that meant he was going to be the next Pharaoh. It doesn't necessarily mean that. But it was a title with tremendous honor and prestige. He had already decided in his heart I'm going to reject that title. By faith also he chose to identify with the people of God and their suffering rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin that he could have as an Egyptian leader. That was already determined in his heart by faith.
He had already considered the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures that Egypt could offer. You have only to go to a museum of Egyptian history and to see some of the treasures that archaeologists have uncovered to see some of the things that Moses turned his back on. Already in his heart he said no to all of that. Why? Because he was looking to the reward.
He was looking beyond life to the promise of God to Abraham his forefather who said I have a city and is prepared for those who believe in me. God promised to Abraham he would be his exceeding great reward. Moses had believed God. He had decided to pass up what the world could offer him. Then through the murder of the Egyptian taskmaster all of his expectations, all of the importance of these spiritual decisions he had made in his heart seemed to fall flat.
You see he had seen things building up and he was going to present himself now as the deliverer of the Israelites and suddenly God just takes all of the flooring out from under him even after he had made the tremendous spiritual commitments he had. Have you ever experienced that in your life?
Where you have really done some serious business with God and you committed yourself to the Lord and you were ready then to take on that task that you felt God wanted you to do and bam all of a sudden the whole situation changes and you wonder where is God? What has happened? I mean after all the commitments I have made. So Moses left Egypt.
It is interesting that in Exodus it says he was afraid but the writer of Hebrews perhaps gives us a better commentary when he says it was by faith that he left Egypt not fearing the wrath of Pharaoh. It seems as though there was an initial response of fear but then there was a more settled decision on the part of Moses. Apparently he was able to weigh some of these conflicting emotions and signals in his own mind and he decided I need to leave Egypt.
Not because he was afraid of Pharaoh but in faith. It says in Hebrews 11 he left with a view to the invisible God who was greater than Pharaoh was. He left with his eye on God not understanding at all what God was doing because God works unexpectedly you see. But he trusted God, the invisible one. It is difficult to imagine the thoughts in his mind as he journeyed eastward toward Midian.
If you have ever experienced something like Moses did here you might be able to identify with some of his thinking processes. The fact is though that God was at work in this unexpected turn of events in a way which Moses could not have anticipated at that moment. You and I too may make our plans.
We may even like Moses make definite and serious spiritual commitments but we have to leave the out working of those things in the hands of God because there are sometimes he works in ways that we cannot expect or anticipate but he is working. We have to keep our eye on him and believe that. You can finally notice with me that God works faithfully always in the direction of his own purpose. There is no question here as to what God's purpose is.
It is that his people might inherit the land that he had promised to Abraham, Genesis 15. God said to Abraham that he would bring his descendants, Abraham's descendants back to that place at the right time. God said that the cup of iniquity of this people, the Amorites which include probably all the Canaanite tribes there, says their cup of iniquity is not yet full. I am not ready to cast them out of the land yet.
He says your people are going to go down to Egypt and serve there in bondage but I will bring them up said God to Abraham and they will possess this land again. I want you to know hundreds of years went by, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Now the Egyptians are down there in bondage but God is at work faithfully. He hasn't forgotten his people. God heard their groaning. He remembered his covenant. Please remember that God is a covenant keeping God.
When God establishes a covenant there is no question that he is going to fulfill that covenant entirely. By the way that's why I'm a pre-millennialist because I believe that God has not yet fulfilled his covenant with Abraham and that he is committed to do so and will do so as he brings the people of Israel finally and fully into the land these promised Abraham 4,000 years ago that he would give to them. He works faithfully always in the direction of his own purpose.
For long years God's promise seemed empty to his suffering people. There was no apparent movement in any direction except more trouble and more bondage and more heartache and more slavery. But appearances and circumstances must not cause us to doubt that God is faithful to his word. God was aware of what was going on and he was preparing to act. God does not lack in faithfulness but he does have his own time. God has his own way and he has his own purpose.
Our part is to trust the faithfulness of God even when we cannot see the work of God because God is faithfully working and it's always in the direction of his own purposes and he is doing that in your life today. You may feel like you're one of the Israelites down there in Egypt and you're in a tough spot and you have prayed, you have made spiritual commitments and during the months, perhaps even years that have transpired you have wondered where is God in all of this? God is hearing.
God is seeing, God is taking notice and when his time and his way have arrived he will fully accomplish his purpose. Your part in mine is to believe and to trust. You and I can trust the heart of God even when we cannot see the hand of God. That's how God works. Because sometimes we forget how God works, we make ourselves the judge of God and we conclude that God is unfair, that God is uncaring, that God is unfaithful. There are times we wonder if God is even there at all. He's there my friend.
He does care and he is faithful. He is just. Our need today is to believe that. Would you bow with me in prayer? Has the Spirit of God spoken to you about a wrong response in your heart toward your Heavenly Father? If so then my friend you need right now to recognize that sinful response of unbelief or doubt or anger or rebellion, whatever it is, acknowledge it to him as sin because that's what it is.
Would you now in the quietness of this moment thank him by faith that he is at work in your life at this very time? Remember you can trust his heart even if you can't see his hand. Will you thank him for the insights you may have gained from the passage this morning as to how he works? Will you ask him to take control of your mind, your will, your emotions? Will you submit them to his rule, his Lordship in your life? Will you make today a fresh beginning for your spiritual walk?
My friend, if you've never trusted the Lord in the first place as your Savior, will you do that today recognizing that the simplicity of the gospel message is Jesus Christ crucified, buried, raised again for you? He lives today. He wants to come into your heart as the living God, man. He wants to cleanse it to make you a complete person in himself. Will you receive him today?
I wonder just before we close in prayer if there is someone who by the uplifted hand would say either, yes, today I do trust in Jesus Christ as my Savior, or by the uplifted hand you would say, today I am making a fresh beginning in my Christian walk, and I am going to seek to apply what we have learned in the word today about how God works in my life, for I have been discouraged, or I have been unbelieving, or I have been angry, and I have given myself afresh to Jesus Christ today.
If you have made some spiritual commitment, would you lift your hand as a sign and a seal to that before God? God bless you. A number of hands. Yes, that is the right thing to do. God bless you. Thank you. Father, I pray for each of these. As that new beginning takes place, whether it be a new beginning as your child or a new beginning as a servant of the Lord, we pray that it will bring forth real fruit in the life that you will prove yourself as the faithful covenant-keeping God that you are.
In Jesus' name, amen.