Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.highlandparkbaptist.net/sermons/95349/a-renewed-commission-promise-and-continued-doubt-part-1/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Moses and Aaron now have gone to Pharaoh for the first time and did what God told them to do! in saying that you're to let God's people go. God has manifest Himself to us. He's appeared to us! and told us we are to go.

[0:30] and offer sacrifices to Him outside of Egypt. And so you're to let us go. Of course, he refused.

[0:40] And as a result, remember, the Pharaoh instructed that their labor and their work is to be hardened.

[0:53] And so instead of being provided with the straw that they need to make the brick, they are to gather the straw themselves and still have the same amount of brick made each day that they're required to make.

[1:08] And so that was a harsh time and harsh thing. Those Israelites that had been placed over as overseers of that task were then beaten because they were slacking up on the number of brick that were made possible.

[1:26] And they went and spoke to Pharaoh about that and blamed Pharaoh's people about that. And so as they came back out now, they saw Moses and Aaron as they had come from Pharaoh and confront them and blame Moses and Pharaoh for all of the harshness now that has been added to them.

[1:53] Besides, you know, recognize again here, Aaron or Moses had said to them, God's appeared to us and he's told us he's going to deliver us here.

[2:06] But now they're there. They're there. They're there. They're bondage has become worse. And so they blame Moses and Aaron. And in essence, they say, we've just turned you over to God.

[2:18] Amen. We've turned you over to God for him to punish you because of what's taking place in what you have done. And so that was a rejoicing time for Moses and Aaron, no doubt.

[2:34] Again, it's interesting that as they call upon God to judge Moses and Aaron, the very complaints that they have showed that they have no confidence in God, his power or his promise that he's made to them. So kind of ironic there that they do this.

[2:53] Now, look at verse 22 of chapter 5 again, and we'll finish chapter 5 and get into chapter 6. But in chapter 5 and verse 22, Moses returned unto the Lord and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people?

[3:15] Why is it that thou hast sent me? No, Lord, what's the purpose here in you sending me here? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people.

[3:27] Neither hast thou delivered thy people at all. Again now, picture here is, we saw this last week, that the people have failed to recognize the purpose of God in all of this.

[3:43] Their quick thinking is, we're going to be delivered tomorrow. All right. But that didn't happen. They don't recognize and consider and understand the purposes of God.

[3:57] And we, of course, looked at Matthew 16, at Peter confronting the Lord Jesus as well, said, be it far from you to suffer. And Jesus rebuked him.

[4:07] Remember, he said, get behind me, Satan, or my adversary. You're hindering me from being able to satisfy the will of God by what you do and what you're saying here.

[4:20] He said, you do not relish the things of God, but the things of men. You don't have any understanding, any spiritual discernment about the things of God.

[4:30] And so it's the same thing that we have here before us. Now, again, Moses asks God the question, why have you done such evil to this people?

[4:45] All right. Why have you done that? I think it interesting here. You know, what's your purpose in sending me here? Because it's not worked out the way you said it was going to.

[4:59] To me, you know, all this, of course, is a learning process for everybody. For Moses, for the people of Israel, for Pharaoh, and for the Egyptians.

[5:13] But you remember in chapter 33 on ahead, when Moses and Israel come to Mount Sinai, and Moses has a personal time with Jehovah, not on the mountain yet, but he goes to that tent of meeting.

[5:33] And the Bible says, Moses went in there in the presence of God and spoke to God face to face as a friend speaks to a friend.

[5:44] What a tremendous picture that is. Remember what he said there? What Moses said to God and all of that? In essence, he says, Lord, you've called me to this task.

[5:58] Just kind of similar to here. You've called me to this task. Here's Lyons' translation. You've called me to the task of delivering this bunch of backslidden people into the land that you've promised to them.

[6:15] And so he said, Lord, I've got to see you in your glory. In other words, I've got to see who you are so that I can understand how you operate.

[6:36] All right? A little bit of complaint there, but more so, it's the same thing we see here in Moses. An expression of his faith, but he's not questioning God per se.

[6:51] His faith is expressing a need to be able to understand. All right? And that's what we see in chapter 33. All right?

[7:03] So, same thing kind of happens here. Not so much a complaint from Moses. Moses, just kind of the idea here, I've got to need to know how you're doing this and what you're doing.

[7:17] What is the process in all of this? All right? Now, recognize something afresh with me here. That's a good attitude to have, is it not?

[7:29] Though it comes across to us here as a means of complaint, it's really a question. Is faith exercising a question here? And God always jumps at that kind of question.

[7:42] Amen? And wants to satisfy with an answer. Now, though at this point he doesn't get one, turn with me to Romans chapter 5.

[7:52] And let's consider something for us here just a moment. So many times we're confronted with the same type situation. Lord, why? What are you doing?

[8:05] Why are you letting this happen to me as if we were something special? Why is this going on in my life and through me? The attitude that we must have in the midst of that type of situation comes to us in Romans chapter 5.

[8:26] Now, notice what he said. First couple of verses, he talks about being justified by faith with God. Justified by faith, we have then peace with God and have access by him, by faith, into the grace in which we stand.

[8:46] And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. All right? So we look forward, and you know, all of this that happens, we look forward to the reality that's going to take place in the future, and that is that we're going to share in the glory of God.

[9:00] But look at verse 2. No, verse 3. And not only that, not only do we look ahead to the future, but what about right now? Amen? What about right now?

[9:11] You ever felt that way? Yeah. We're going to go to heaven one of these days, either by death or by the Lord coming to translate the church to himself. So one of those two things is going to happen, and we rejoice in that.

[9:25] We look forward to that. But it hasn't happened today. Amen? It didn't happen today. And it may not happen tomorrow. It may, but it may not.

[9:37] And we're in a terrible situation in our country, in our world. So how do we deal with that? Paul says, not only do we look ahead to what God's provided for us in the future, but for right now, not only so, but we glory or we rejoice in tribulations.

[10:01] We rejoice in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation works or accomplishes patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us.

[10:23] Now, notice, we rejoice in tribulations. All right? That word tribulation in the Greek has this meaning, oppressing together, pressure, oppression, affliction, distress, straits.

[10:44] All right? The way it's written in the original makes these out as things that are naturally expected in the Christian's life. I've known people that were just flabbergasted at the idea that they have, all of a sudden, had to face difficulties in their life, never had to do that before.

[11:09] And they felt like, well, they're saved, and that's the reason why. But now, all of a sudden, what's happened? All right? Paul is saying here that that is a natural, it should be a natural expectation for the believer because all those situations accomplish something else for us.

[11:28] First of all, it accomplishes patience or steadfastness, constancy, endurance. The definition of that in the original is the characteristic of a man who is unswerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety even by the greatest trials and suffering.

[11:53] Hmm. Hmm. You know, we look, we look through some of these things and we get to the same conclusion as we do when we look at 1 Corinthians 12 and 13.

[12:06] We realize we can't come as far as we thought we have spiritually. Amen? In our growth. How many of you have been able to go through your life since you've been saved and not, and have been able to live without any change, unswerved through the greatest difficulties you've ever faced?

[12:31] Anybody here been able to do that? He, he, he, he. I'm like a raised man. Unswerved, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[12:42] I'm not going to raise my hand because my wife would glare at me. All right. But she knows the truth. The verb form of that word patience means to remain under.

[12:54] So it's the idea of remaining under trials in a God-honoring way so that we learn the lesson that those are sent to teach us.

[13:06] In other words, that God has purposed in it for us. We look for the lesson instead of attempting to get out from underneath it to be relieved from the pressure of it.

[13:17] Again, it's the idea here. You know, when we face those situations and circumstances, we recognize it comes through the hand of God. Not, not necessarily he created that situation, but he let it happen.

[13:31] in order for us to learn something from it. Learn something from him through that. So again, we ask God, God, what is it you want us to see and learn and experience through this?

[13:51] When we think about that, what do you suppose is the major thing that God wants us to learn through any circumstance like that?

[14:05] To trust him. Trust him. And all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

[14:17] I know Linda had that on the top tip of her tongue, but all right. Now, so patience, patience then accomplishes experience. That's literally tried integrity.

[14:29] A state of mind which has stood the test. The verb form of that is to put to the test for the purpose of approving and finding that purpose and tested to meet the specifications so that one can put his approval upon him.

[14:46] All right. You remember what, remember what Peter said when he's talking about the trial of our faith. you know, the trial of our faith being much more precious than a fine gold that perisheth.

[15:02] And remember what that specifically means here. It's not our faith per se that is found to honor and glory.

[15:13] It's the testing of that faith. Remember the example we had given about the company that was considering buying a piece of property to find out in order to mine that out and see if there's enough ore in there that would be profitable.

[15:32] So the first thing they do they send somebody out to get ore samples, soil samples and they take that to a sayer to find out if it is got enough ore in that to make it profitable.

[15:47] Okay. So he tests it, sends the test results, back to the company and they look at it and they determine whether or not to buy it.

[15:59] It's not the ore in the sample that is the most important thing. The most important thing is the testing and the result.

[16:10] It's the same thing with our lives. How does our faith become stronger? How does it become stronger trials and tribulations?

[16:25] And what happens in those trials and tribulations? We're tested. And what happens in the testing? You find that you're inadequate to meet them and so you rely on the Lord.

[16:38] Okay. And that's what is valuable. It's how we come out of the testing. How we come out of those trials, those lessons to be learned.

[16:51] Do we come out of it in a way that's honoring to the Lord and by our trusting him in it all, that's how he's honored.

[17:05] All right? That's the idea here. That's what all these things produce here. tribulations produce the patience and the experience and then also experience produces hope.

[17:24] All right? That's the experience of what God can do or rather what he does for the justified amid the tribulations of life.

[17:35] And it gives to us a new excitement, a new vigor if you will, in the hope that lies ahead for us. All right? So, we look at what God, we go through the experience and as we go through the experience, we look back and remember what God has been to us in past experiences and realize he's always the same.

[18:01] He always will be that to us even in this experience. hope. And that will give us the hope, the expectation, all right, that that he will take us through that in a way that will honor him.

[18:20] And then he says, hope maketh not ashamed. All right? It doesn't disappoint. All right? Confident expectation is the word hope here.

[18:34] We expect it and we're confident of that. The expectation is that we know God will do what he wants to do to take us through that in a way that honors him.

[18:45] All right? And hope makes not ashamed. It does not disappoint because of the love of God that is shed abroad in our hearts. That's the love of God for us.

[18:57] It's the agape love for God toward us. All right? That is shed abroad, literally poured out. One person said it has poured in and still floods our heart.

[19:13] Amen? I like that phrase. The love of God's been poured into our hearts and still floods our hearts. All right? And that's the basis of what happens through the tribulations.

[19:26] It's the love of God for us. So, that's how we are to respond to the situations like we see Moses going through.

[19:39] This is more than a one-shot deal for Moses, so it requires that steadfastness and that consistency of depending upon God, trusting him, hearing him, following him, and letting him do through us what he wants to do.

[19:59] Now, do you realize how exciting that is really in spite of how difficult it is? Whenever God, if he is, whenever God is pleased to let us catch a glimpse of what he's accomplished through all of that, what a joy that is to us.

[20:20] Amen? Yeah. Now, so, Moses questions God, needs to know some answers here, but it's interesting that Moses takes a while for Moses to get an answer to what his question was.

[20:42] All right, chapter 6 then, look at verse 1. without receiving any answer to the question, why, God, have you brought this evil upon them?

[21:02] Why have you sent me? God just simply says, the Lord said unto Moses, now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.

[21:22] Now, that complaint followed by, again, a renewal of the promise of the deliverance of Israel, this time by the strong hand of God, as we saw in chapter 3, verse 19.

[21:38] All right? And it's that strong arm that will cause Pharaoh to let Israel go and drive them out of his land. Now, why did Moses not receive any answer to his question?

[21:58] Moses is going to have, Moses has got to learn the reason why himself, through the experience that God's going to take him through.

[22:08] All right? Now, in chapter 7, we get God's response to it, but not until chapter 7. Moses is going to have to learn some things on his own.

[22:22] God doesn't always just give us the answer. He expects us to look for it. Amen? To learn what that is.

[22:33] That's what, I'm going to get on the hobby horse here for just a minute. one of the things that's disappointing is how easily so many of God's people want to be able to see the things of God.

[22:57] Instead of taking the time, amen, instead of taking the time to simply study it out and dig into it and learn.

[23:13] That to me is why a lot of the modern translations just make it too easy. Yeah. You don't have to dig into the original to see what some of those words really mean.

[23:27] Yeah, they're right. They briefly tell you. But it's not until you dig into the Word of God that you can get to the richness of what God has in store there.

[23:46] Yeah. Yeah. Now it's good to have good Sunday school teachers, good pastor, good preacher, but it doesn't match what you get yourself when you dig into it.

[24:05] Amen. Yeah. Yeah. How many times every once? Is anybody, what's that place in Arkansas where you can go mine for, what is it?

[24:16] Murfreesboro. Gold or diamonds or something? Diamonds. Yeah. Yeah. Murfreesboro. Has anybody ever been there to look for a diamond? No. A dirt field. Yeah.

[24:27] Yeah. Just dig dirt until you find something. Yeah. Why haven't you done that? Yeah. That's a good question. I'm glad this is on tape.

[24:38] I can hear this again. Why do you not, why have you not been there? Because I'm not going to waste my money. The guy that's done is making the money. But, but what if you dug in there and you found a good one?

[24:51] Because every once in a while somebody did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, hey, take your diamond detector.

[25:07] Learn how to divine with a stick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See what I'm saying? Without digging, you're not going to get anything. Every once in a while you see those stories of people that have done that and they come out with something really spectacular.

[25:26] Sometimes we have the same mindset about the Word of God. Yeah. Okay. Lord, speak to me through your Word. Gladly he does by his Spirit.

[25:40] But do you realize how much more we would glean from the Lord if we dig into it? Take the time. And that's the problem. It takes time to really get serious and dig into the Word of God.

[25:56] to see what he says. Not just to see what he says, but to see what he says to us personally. Amen? Yeah.

[26:07] I'm still confident of the fact that most of God's people, most professing Christians, go through life without really coming to the fullness of what God wants to do and wanted to do through them and in them.

[26:26] And the reason being is they haven't dug into the Word of God and listened to what he had to say. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Moses did not receive the answer.

[26:42] He's going to have to learn it himself as the leader of the people of Israel. Now, the words of Jesus can apply here. John chapter 13 verse 7.

[26:54] You remember the time when Jesus rose up from dinner, removed his outer garment and began to wash the disciples' feet?

[27:05] And they could not understand that. Just couldn't understand what he was doing. And Jesus made this statement. He said, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.

[27:22] All right? You'll know it later on. You'll understand it. You'll realize it. So, same idea here. Now, when you consider their attitude in what takes place after their deliverance from Egypt and their march through the desert toward Canaan, it shows that with the state of mind that they've got, it's going to take something drastic to bring them to the place of trusting God and believing Him and following Him that they haven't got yet.

[28:05] All right? What did they do when God, you know, when that day finally came, a couple of years we'll see that, when the time came when they left Egypt, yeah, I would almost bet as many people as they were, I would almost bet there were people that would complain even before they got started.

[28:38] Oh, man, this is going to be a long, hard walk. Yeah, it is. We've labored here for so long, harsh labor, and now we've got to walk through the desert to get to Canaan.

[28:52] Yeah. And then on the walk, after God miraculously proves Himself, oh, yeah, when they turn around and look, here comes Pharaoh's army.

[29:05] Oh, God, Moses, God has brought us out here to die. So what does God do? He opens the Red Sea, they march over on dry ground, kick up dust, get over to the other side and God buries Pharaoh's army.

[29:22] Now, Moses sings a song, a new song, a song of deliverance. We spoke of that in Sunday school, didn't we? Yeah.

[29:34] A song of deliverance. And so they're victoriously marching through Canaan. And it doesn't take them long to say, we're thirsty.

[29:50] We're hungry. Oh, that we are back in Egypt. We're just going to come out here to die. That's why God's brought us out here. So what's God do?

[30:01] Brings water out of a rock, provides manna from heaven, and they later on even complain about the manna. They remember all the stuff they ate while they were in Egypt, and they were ready to turn around and go back.

[30:17] Complaints, murmuring, complaints, murmuring, with that mindset, it's no wonder it took what it took to get them out of Egypt, to have some kind of a mindset to be ready to go.

[30:35] Now, verses 2 and 3, God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord, or I am Jehovah.

[30:48] Okay, now catch that, because the word Jehovah here is important. I am Jehovah. That's what he says unto Moses. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, or El Shaddai.

[31:09] Remember the song? El Shaddai, El Shaddai. Yeah. Yeah. I showed myself to Abraham, and unto Isaac, and Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, or El Shaddai.

[31:21] But by my name, Jehovah, was I not known to them. But, when he says, now thou shalt see what I will do to Pharaoh.

[31:33] Okay? Expresses the idea here that that first visit that Moses and Aaron had before Pharaoh was simply intended to bring something out here.

[31:46] And that was intended to bring out Pharaoh's attitude toward the purposes of Jehovah, and toward Jehovah himself. And that then shows the necessity of the great judgments that are going to come.

[32:02] Remember what Pharaoh said? Who is Jehovah? Who is he? You know, I've never heard of him.

[32:12] Never seen him. He's never said anything to me. Yeah. Revealing the fact that it's going to take a lot to get Pharaoh to turn him loose.

[32:26] All right? That is the purpose in the first visit. Aren't you glad that he said something about that here to Moses? Now you're going to see what I'll do to Pharaoh.

[32:43] But before those judgments commence, God says to them, I'm going to show myself. I'm going to manifest myself to you in a more glorious way than I manifested myself to the prophets.

[33:01] Now, El Shaddai. Anybody realize what the word El Shaddai means? El is the idea of strength. Shaddai is an interesting word in the original, in the Greek language itself.

[33:21] The word Shaddai there is a word that means breasted, as in the breast of a mother nursing her baby.

[33:34] It gives the idea here, the etymology of the word, it gives the idea here that God is, if you will, the breasted one, the one that nourishes and the one that satisfies.

[33:51] In other words, he's sufficient. He's the strong one, he's the sufficient one. You realize a baby, you know, that baby will cry at two o'clock in the morning, they're telling a thing dad can do, amen?

[34:06] It's got to be the mama. She's got to take that baby and nurse that baby, that's what it is, hungry, hungry. All right? So, mama begins to nurse that baby.

[34:20] Some of you ladies that have nursed your children realize that it doesn't take long before that baby to get so satisfied that it falls asleep before it gets done eating, amen?

[34:34] So you have to wake it up, come on, you're not done yet, you know, that kind of thing. So, it's the idea of not only getting the nourishment, from the mother's milk, but it's the idea of the pleasantness, if you will, that it brings to that child.

[34:53] All right? And, fellas, I'm sorry, but you realize with me, that's something that you and I could never experience. That, the relationship between the mother and the baby, that's created by that.

[35:11] God, God, though, we could see Him as the strong one, but the one that nourishes, gives us everything we need in our spiritual growth, and the one that truly satisfies, amen?

[35:34] He is the sufficient one. All right? And God says to Moses, I let them know, showed the prophets, that I am El Shaddai.

[35:48] But to you, you're going to see me as Jehovah. Now, remember what the word Jehovah, the characteristics of that name.

[36:02] It's the eternal God, always has been, always will be. but in the context of it all, the strength of that name lies in the fact that He is the God that manifests Himself to man.

[36:24] I'm going to make myself known to you more completely and more thoroughly than I did the prophets. now, it doesn't mean that the people of all the prophets before did not know the name Jehovah, but He did manifest Himself to them in that form.

[36:43] But He's going to here, all right, with Moses and Aaron, and boy, how He does it. Amen? Amen? Let's pray.

[36:54] Father, again, we're grateful for Your love and grace to us in the day today and for this wonderful opportunity to be back to study Your Word together. And now we thank You for Your blessings in Your Word, the things that You show us in Your Word that enables us to see more and more of who You are, how You operate, and that we can trust You completely with our life and our living.

[37:21]  And so, Father, thank You for showing us those things and the other things You've shown to us as well. Thank You for it in Jesus' name. Amen.