Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20090503.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Exodus: God's Forming The Nation Israel For His Abrahamic Covenant
Part I: God's Deliverance Of Israel From Egypt, Exodus 1:1-15:21
D. God's Call To Trust Him For Influencing Others
(Exodus 3:10-22)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    In today's world, it is easy to feel defeated over our human inability to influence other people to do or to think what is right:

    (1) On Tuesday, two Christian young adults ruffled by a college professor's warnings on "catastrophic global warming" spoke with me.

    I answered their concerns by referring them to Genesis 8:22 KJV where God promised after the Flood: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." I explained that since God was the One who made this promise, He will cause the world to have a moderate enough climate through history so man might raise crops for food, implying conditions suitable for human survival as well!

    Besides, though alarms now sound over global warming, in the 1970s, they sounded over global cooling! (a) The May 21, 1975 New York Times held "'a major cooling of the planet' was 'widely considered inevitable'" as it was "'well established' that the Northern Hemisphere's climate 'has been getting cooler since about 1950'". (George F. Will, "Dark Green Doomsayers," 2/15/09, The Washington Post). (b) The March 1, 1975 Science News referred to "'a full-blown 10,000-year ice age'" idea and (c) the December 10, 1976 Science magazine mentioned "'extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation'"! (Ibid.) (d) The April 28, 1975 Newsweek cover story, "The Cooling World," claimed that since "'ominous signs' signaled 'the Earth's climate seems to be cooling down,' meteorologists were 'almost unanimous' that 'the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century'". (Ibid.) (e) International Wildlife in 1974 went so far as to warn that "'a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery'". (Ibid.)

    Then remarkably, amid all of today's warnings about global warming, "according to the U. N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare." (Ibid.)

    Thus, much misinformation is widely held in our world, and it can tempt us to ask how we can influence other people for the truth!

    (2) Last week, five families associated with our Church faced serious issues due to their incapacity to influence others in some way!

    We may thus ask, "How am I to influence others for the right when it is often so overwhelming difficult to do so?!"

    Need: "How can I influence others to believe God's truth against humanly insurmountable odds to the contrary?!"

  1. When God told Moses He would send him to Pharaoh to lead Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 3:10), the task seemed humanly impossible:
    1. First, Israel had earlier rejected Moses' leadership (Ex. 2:11-14) and he had fled from Egypt's Pharaoh for his life (Ex. 2:15), so Moses had no political power or personal will to influence Pharaoh or Israel!
    2. Second, in light of history, for Moses to lead Hebrew slaves out of Hamitic Egypt from the Pharaoh of his era was humanly unthinkable:
      1. After they drove their Semitic Hyksos rulers away, Hamitic Egypt's New Kingdom (1570-1090 B. C.) began, and the formerly peaceful Egyptians became very militant to protect themselves, reaching their zenith in military might during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III. (Compton's Ency., Univ. of Chicago, 1973, vol. 7, p. 119-120)
      2. This ruler used the chariot the Hyksos had introduced to defeat many people groups and so acquire great wealth and slaves as the most militant, powerful Pharaoh in Egyptian history, Ibid., p. 120.
      3. Yet, his son, Amenhotep II, was unusually weak militarily, and Amenhotep II's son, Thutmose IV, in his "Dream Stela", implied he was not his father's eldest son. This fits the Biblical record where Pharaoh lost his chariots in the Red Sea, weakening him (Exodus 14:27-28), and his eldest son died in God's final plague at Israel's Passover (Exodus 12:29); Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 106-107.
      4. Thus, Moses had fled from Thutmose III and Amenhotep II ruled during Israel's Exodus that occurred in 1446 B. C., Ibid., p. 104.
      5. So, after the Egyptians had ejected the hated Semitic Hyksos rulers, for God to call Moses who fled from the most militant, powerful anti-Semitic, Hamite Pharaoh in history to influence his son to let Semitic slaves leave his control seemed unthinkable!
  2. Moses questioned his capacity to influence Pharaoh and Israel, but God told him to TRUST HIS POWER to SUCCEED, Ex. 3:11-4:17:
    1. God directed Moses to overcome his doubt about effectively influencing Pharaoh by trusting in God's power to do so, Ex. 3:11-12:
      1. Moses told God he lacked the capacity to influence Amenhotep II to let Israel follow him out of the land of Egypt, Exodus 3:11.
      2. However, God replied He Who was miraculously preserving the burning bush (Exodus 3:2-3) would miraculously make Moses succeed with Pharaoh, the proof being that Moses would serve the Lord on Mount Sinai after he had led Israel there, Exodus 3:12.
    2. God directed Moses to overcome his doubt about effectively influencing Israel by trusting in God's power to do so, Ex. 3:13-22:
      1. Moses noted Israel would want to know the Name of the God he would tell them had called him to lead them out of Egypt, Ex. 3:13.
      2. God said Moses was to say He was the self-existing God, Ex. 3:14:
        1. The verb, "I AM" is 'ehyeh, the 1st person imperfect form that is rendered "I will be" in Exodus 3:12, Biblia Heb., Kittel, p. 82.
        2. However, in the 3rd person imperfect form, this verb reads yiyeh, from which the Name Jahweh for "LORD" is derived, B. D. B., Hebrew and English Lexicon of the O. T. , p. 224, 218.
      3. Thus, God told Moses that He, the God Who would "be" with him as he went to Pharaoh Amenhotep II (Ex. 3:12a) would be known to Israel forever as the "I AM" or the "I WILL BE" (the imperfect tense), that He was the Sovereign, Immutable, Eternally Self-Existing God over all, be it Pharaoh Amenhotep II or Israel!
    3. God added that Moses would lead Israel from Egypt with miraculous cooperation from Pharaoh, Israel and the Egyptians, Ex. 3:15-22:
      1. Moses would tell Israel that the eternally, self-existing God, the "I AM", had called him to lead them out of Egypt, Exodus 3:15.
      2. As he told Israel's elders God had called him to lead Israel from Egypt, they would believe Moses and go with him to Pharaoh, Exodus 3:16-18. [Exodus 4:30-31 shows their trust of Moses was based on miracles performed by his brother, Aaron.]
      3. Then Moses would approach Pharaoh and tell him to let Israel go into the wilderness to worship God, a command God assured that Pharaoh would heed ONLY after many DAMAGING miraculous wonders God had performed in Egypt, Ex. 3:18-20.
      4. Then, regardless of the damaging signs God would perform on them, the Hamitic Egyptians would miraculously FAVOR Semitic Israel, and, as they left, give Israel the wealth the great Thutmose III had gained for Egypt in war, Ex. 3:21-22!
Application: If we must influence others against "insurmountable" odds, (1) may we trust in Christ to become a child of God, John 1:11-12. (2) Then, may we TRUST GOD'S power and (3) START to HEED Him, and (4) see HIM INTERVENE to make us succeed!

Lesson: God's superhuman calling for Moses to influence Pharaoh and for Israel to do God's will would be achieved by God's miraculous help!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

 God recently gave us an illustration of the astounding ways He wants to use us if we step out in faith and start to heed Him, and He did so in relation to the funeral of Shala Stickney's father, George King.

Learning that Barry and Shala were flying out to Onawa, Iowa for the funeral, I called the florist shop there to order an arrangement.

Following a nice, chatty conversation, the florist lady asked me what arrangement I wanted. I know little about the subject, and not knowing what she had to offer, I asked for something at modest price, that the card read, "Love, Nepaug Church," and that the arrangement they made be "appropriate" to comfort the people! The circumstances left me making these simple requests and leaving the results with God!

Last Sunday after the Stickneys had returned, Barry asked if I had picked out the specific floral arrangement, and I said "No," and explained the conversation with the florist lady! He then reported that our arrangement had been put in a vase with a picture of Christ on it, and that many of the 500 who attended the funeral had complimented it! They included folk from all over the county, so people throughout Monona County in Iowa learned about our ministry to Barry and Shala!

Well, I called the Onawa florist shop last Wednesday to thank them for making the arrangement. The man who answered said he had made it in a high form not normally used in funerals! The vase had been a special crystal, and the flowers had kept their beauty so much longer than the other displays, the arrangement was used as the pulpit display last Sunday in the Church Shala's father had attended!

Barry also reports Shala has left instructions with her family that once the flowers need changing, the vase be used elsewhere as a witness for Christ!

Later, thinking about all this, I was stunned! What had begun as a call to a florist in a town I had never visited, to a party I had never met to order an arrangement I was not able to select with the request that it be modestly priced and merely "appropriate" to comfort, God took and expanded in ways beyond our human power! It was a token of how the Lord wants to take our mere human efforts to obey His will and to "run" with it in His infinite power and for His glory!

So, in seemingly insurmountable situations, may we just STEP OUT to begin DOING God's will, and see the LORD cause us to EXCEL in His service as He did in Moses' life!