Excuses | Exodus 3–4 | Pastor Keith

Open your Bibles to the book of Exodus as we continue through

Exodus chapter 3, verse 11. Moses had seen the burning Bush.

Exodus 3:11

He's gone to check it out. God calls him.

Moses answers, says here I am. God tells him what I want you to

do because of what God had seen, what he'd heard, what he knew

concerning the sorrows of his people in Egypt, who for 400

years now had been slaves. God had told Abraham this was

going to occur. But also, God told Abraham that

he'd raised this nation, Egypt, for the purpose of building 70

people into two to three and a half million people now to

become a nation. And the time was now right for

both the people and also Canaan land was being prepared for 400

years to be the promised land where Moses would eventually

aim. He wouldn't get there himself,

sadly, until later on the Mount of Transfiguration.

He would lead the people to the edge of it.

And so we pick it up in this discussion.

It's just Moses and a burning Bush and God speaking to him.

And Moses said to God, because the Lord said in verse 10, Come

now, therefore I will send you no one else there but sheep to

Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel.

Notice the children of Israel, whose people they are God's

people out of Egypt. That's the plan.

We're going to see Moses now. He's going to argue with God.

He's going to give up five situations of why?

Ah, no, Billy Sunday, a great preacher.

He is a famous baseball player in America.

I remember reading about him and his salvation and then he's he's

great ministry. But sadly the ministry that fell

short in his own family's life had this saying.

He said an excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.

An excuse. I can't do this.

I'm just not, you're too busy or whatever is the skin of a reason

stuffed with a lie. So that's going to sit behind

these five things that Moses is going to argue with God about

why he should be the one to do what God has asked him to do.

So Moses said, Lord said, I certainly I will be with you and

this shall be assigned to you that I've sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve

God on this mountain. You're going to bring them to

this very place, Mount Horeb, Mount Sinai, same location.

Because Moses says verse 11, basically I can't do this.

I can't, I can't do this. How often does something come up

in your life? And people pray and, and we know

what the Bible says about the matter, about our marriage,

about our relationship with our dad, with our mum, with a, with

a, with a boss or a situation or an enemy or something.

And we know what the Bible says. And then we argue with the Lord

and we say I can't do this now God would never ask you to do

something that you can't do. We wouldn't ask our children to

do something. Go out there and you get one of

your grand grandchildren. He's say 3-4, five years ago.

There's here's the key. Jump in the car, go down the

shop, buy the milk, come back with we will.

We never do that. And God never asked you to do

something me to do something, any of his children to do

something that you are not able to do with him.

And that's where Moses, 40 years in the desert now is going to

argue with God and go, well, I can't, I can't.

There's no way I can't can't do this because the Bible says what

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me in my

weakness. He is made strong.

And this is this is not a popular gospel today.

The real gospel is not popular today because we're too busy

administering band aids and soft talk and Oh yeah, I understand

that's you. You don't have to do this to

situations when this is what the Bible says.

What are you going to do? You either a buy it, believe it.

Well, you don't. So that's the first one.

And secondly, why would God choose a failure?

God doesn't choose failures in the sense that yes, all the

people that he's chosen, Abraham, he lied about his wife

twice, you know, risk her life twice.

Then we read through David, we read through Peter.

Coming to later, Thomas wouldn't believe God only has failures

because in this world there is none righteous, No, not one.

We are all who fall short of the glory of God.

So it's not like, oh, I'm a failure.

We should actually say, yeah, you are, and yet so am I, but

that God chooses you because it's what God does, not what you

do. And so Moses argues.

So he said, I will certainly be with you.

God says I'll be with you. Isn't that what Jesus has said

to us? I'll never leave you nor forsake

you. Yeah, though I walk through the

valley of the shadow of death. What Christ our Lord is with us.

So he said I will certainly be with you and this shall be a

sign to you that I've sent you when you brought the people out

of Egypt. You shall serve God on this

mountain. You see, he was busy looking at

himself and that's always the problem when we when we eyeball

ourselves. One thing that we learn about in

in our walk with God and I'm not going to get anywhere near

through this passage. I can understand now is we're

always thinking, we're always looking about ourselves.

Oh, poor me. This is me.

I'm me, Me, me, me. It's all about me.

He's talking about me. They're talking about me.

It's about me. What is in it for me?

How come this church doesn't do this for me?

It's not about you. It's about the Lord.

It's about the Lord. This is the Kingdom of God.

We're His servants and so instead of looking at ourselves

where we are when we get saved, we are to take our eyes off

ourselves and put our eyes. I love it through the Psalms.

I remember when I was first to believe it, how many times in

the Psalms it says He is the lifter up of our heads.

We were to always keep our eyes. Our eyes are on the Lord.

Jesus is walking on the water, the disciple scene, I think he's

a ghost. And Peter says if you, if you're

the, if you, if you're, if you're Jesus, call me out.

Come on, Peters gets out. Amazing.

He's the only one that does that and walks for a while on the

water and until he takes his eyes off the Lord.

And you know the story. Jesus has to grave him and save

him. Instead of looking by faith to

the Lord, you and I have to look by faith to the Lord in your

situation. Then Moses said to God, indeed,

when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God

of your Father's has sent me to you.

And they say to me, well, what's his name?

Which God are you talking about? Moses?

And Moses is doing what we do. We worry about 85% of the stuff

that's never going to happen to us.

Well, what if she says, what if he says, what if they, you know,

think I'm an idiot? What?

What if this happens? If I do this, it's never going

to happen. 85% of what we worry about is never, ever, ever and

does not happen. Or what if they say this?

You're not even there yet. Moses, what shall I say?

And God says to Moses, this is who I am.

Tell him I am who I am. It's called the Tetragrammaton

YHWH, just the consonants without the vowels.

The vowels were added in later where we get Jehovah or Yahweh.

But really no one knows how to pronounce this.

It's I am I am and I remember writing to a guy in Israel who

was a surfer and I somehow began to write to this guy was a

surfer has a surf going in Israel and whenever he would

write back, he would talk about God, but he would put put G-D.

He would never and a devout Jew never says because they say no

one can say the name of God. I we don't know how to say it.

You know, no one knows how to say Yahweh really we is that the

way you say it? No one knows Jehovah Jehovah.

We've added the the vows to it to make it say Jehovah, but no

one knows. But so here's here's what it

says and I put it in the the daily devotion today.

I am, I am and what are all the Iams in in the gospel of John,

there are 7 Iams. I'm the bread of life.

I'm the lion of the world. I am the Good Shepherd on the

door. What about Jehovah, Jehovah

Jireh, my provider, Jehovah Shalom.

I'm your peace God saying to Moses, I am whatever needs you

need I am. I am.

And it means literally to be and to become.

So whatever God needs you. And there are times when I need

him to be my comforter. There are times when he he, he

will be my protector. There are times he's always

going to be my father. There are times he's going to be

my peace. There are times he will provide.

There are times he'll be my strength.

And so that's what God says the most.

Tell him I am. They'll know because this term

was known by the patriarchs. The God of your Father's has

sent me, They'll know. And they say to me, What is his

name? What shall I say?

Jehovah I am, I am Yahweh. God said to Moses, I am who I

am. And he said, Thus you shall say

to the children of Israel, I am a sent me to you.

Second complaint, I don't, I don't know enough God to be able

to go. What do they say?

Which God has sent you? Because Egypt was full of gods.

There are false gods everywhere. Egypt had tonnes of them.

Moses is saying behind this, I don't know enough.

I don't know who you are Lord. Verse 13 verse 15 God says I am

everything. Tell them I am I am whatever

they need. Tell them he has sent me.

I remember when I was praying about begun going into the

ministry and I had this massive fear and my massive fear

seriously I pray I can't go to the ministry.

And I always feared being a young pastor preaching and

preaching and some elderly and this is 1 nightmare elderly

general to come with half glasses.

Been reading the Bible for 5000 years, knows the Greek and the

Hebrew, and they would wander out to me after I preached a

message and they go tell me something.

Can you explain to me in Ezekiel 38 or 47 the meaning of the

Greek, the Hebrew and the Greek, what that actually mean?

Is God saying this and what is he really saying about that?

Don't know. And I remember one night how

long I were living in Dunsborough and I drove up with

Daryl. We went to a conference, All

right, Remember the Lord calling, calling me to go into

the ministry. No audible voice.

But this is this massive desire. The Bible says in Timothy that

God places this desire in your heart because you wouldn't do it

for anything or any other reason.

And so I remember going forward and praying at the end of the

service. And as I knelt down, I remember

no audible voice, but the impression of God speaking to

me, going What you need to know. When you need to know, I'll tell

you. You see, it wasn't about me.

God doesn't call you to do something that he's not going to

enable you think about when you get married.

You don't know how to be a husband, how to be a wife.

You haven't got a clue. You haven't been to school.

That's how I'm going to be a husband.

And then when you have a child, you don't know how to be a

father, A mother. Oh, well, we got this.

Yeah. Which end goes around.

Which end? It goes in, you know, You put

them in the car, you don't know, bring them home.

And now what? There's no doctors and nurses

around. We.

What do we do now? That was just me.

Helen was doing everything. I was just worried about what to

do. I had no idea.

It's not about what you know, it's knowing who God is.

So we read on. I am a sin you.

Moreover, God said to Moses, thus you shall shall say to the

children of Israel, the Lord God of your father's, the God of

Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my name forever. You see, God's the same

yesterday, today, and forever. He doesn't change.

I am, I am, Jesus said he is that I am.

I am in the New Testament. This is my memorial to do all

generations go and gather the elders of Israel together.

Say to them, the Lord God of your Father's, the God of

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob appeared to me saying, I've

surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt.

And I've said, I'll bring you out of the affliction of Egypt

to the land of the Canaanites, the Hidites, and all the others

there to a land flowing of milk and honey.

Then they will heed your voice. And you shall come, you and the

elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt.

You shall say to him, the Lord God of the Hebrews has met with

us. And now please let us go three

days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the

Lord our God. Notice now what he says to

Moses. But this is what's going to

happen, Moses. But I'm sure that the king of

Egypt won't. He won't let you go.

Oh, he's kind of, we want, we want it to pan out.

Remember he said to young Jeremiah called God's called

young Jeremiah to be a prophet. He's just maybe 15-17 years of

age. There's Jeremiah.

I want you to go and stand in front of the people as they come

to the temple. And when they come, I want you

to say you're thieving, you're idolaters.

When you say all this stuff, they won't accept a word that

you say. They'll hate you and don't be

scared of their faces. He literally said that to

Jeremiah and I always think of Jeremiah.

That's one ministry I would never ever want.

Jeremiah was told to go to a people who were going to just

tell him drop dead Jeremiah, we don't want you no matter what.

He was never going to have Oh, it's Jeremiah that was just

going to tell him. Get lost.

We don't want to hear from you. And here the Lord tells Moses he

ain't going to let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand.

So I'll stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my

wonders, which I'll do in its myths.

And after that he'll let you go. But this is what's going to

happen. You see, God knows what's going

to happen. He, he's not going to be, oh,

what? You went there and you said I am

sent you. And he, he said what?

He said he's not letting you go. Oh well, doesn't he know I got

the promised land all prepared to be 400 years and God knows he

knows. And this what makes my heart so

confident and peace in this day in which we live right now with

all the crazies that are running the governments world powers.

You are Putin. We got, you know, Starmer, we

got people all over the world just doing funky things to this

nation with GG Ping's going to do that.

And and we kind of go, oh, well, what's going to happen?

Not a problem, not a problem. God raises them up.

God pulls them down. God's doing his plan.

And how fitting in that plan is this.

He's taking us out. Not to worry and I'll give this

people favour on the side of the Egyptians.

And it shall be when you go, thou shall not go empty handed.

He even foretells that when you leave, you're going to leave

loaded. You can't even right at this

moment. They're slaves and things are

about to get worse before they get better slaves.

When you leave, you're going to leave with, with wealth.

But every woman shall ask of a neighbour, namely of who dwells

near a house, articles of silver, articles of gold and

clothing. You shall put them on your sons

and on your daughters. So she shall plunder the

Egyptians. How is that going to happen,

man? Chapter 4 And Moses and said,

Oh, hang on, but wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Suppose they won't believe me or listen to my voice.

Suppose again, he's worrying about something that hasn't

happened. Suppose they say the Lord has

not appeared to you. So the Lord said to him, what's

that in your hand? I'm afraid.

And here's his next reason. I'm I'm scared.

What's the opposite of faith Fear.

I'm I'm afraid of doing this. What if what if they don't

believe me? The elders there and everyone

else and. You see, the Bible says in the

book of Proverbs what the fear of man is.

What a snare. You know, we're more worried

about what someone will think about our Christianity, whether

we go and tell them we are concerned about whether they're

going to go to heaven or hell. We're more concerned about us

being rejected and oh, we don't want to upset the applecart.

We want to stay friends with them then, then, then waiting on

the Lord and praying for them and and just really trying to

win them to Christ. I'm scared.

What if they don't believe me? The fear of man is a snare.

So God says, well, what's that you got in your hand there?

Is it a rod now it's a shepherd has two what?

He has a staff, a long one helping to walk, and a rod.

Not a fishing rod. A rod is like a club.

The club is what for? It's for beating off wolves and

beasts that we're trying to attack the sheep.

Thy rod on thy staff. What do they do?

They comfort me. Rod on thy staff.

So it's a rod, he said. It's a rod, He said, throw it on

the ground. Oh, OK.

Throws the rod on the ground. Throws on the ground and and it

turns into a snake. Now living out in the Bush 40

years looking up sheep. He's seen a lot of snakes.

This is this is a real snake. It's turned into a a real snake.

And Moses took off from it, as would you and I.

I'm not going in. I hate snakes.

And over our back fence we have snakeville secret harbours

snakes everywhere. And so it turns into the snake.

Moses runs away from it. Then the Lord said to Moses,

reach out your hand and take it by the reach out my hand and

take it by the tail. You're kidding me.

Imagine seeing a big Jew guy and God says go and grab all of

that. I'm not grabbing that.

Moses does. He grabs it by the tail and as

he reached as notice and he reached out his hand and caught

it and it instantly went back to the rod.

Wow. That they may believe that the

Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of

Isaac, the God of Jacob has appeared to you.

It's back to the right. Furthermore, the Lord said to

him, now put your hand in your bosom inside your, your, your

garment. So he does the old Napoleon

thing, puts his hand in here. Later on.

Miriam's going to do that, isn't she?

When she challenges Moses, put your hand in your bosom, puts it

in, pulls it out. It's it's it's leprosy.

Oh, yeah, Yeah. Well, you freaked him out.

His hands all stinky, smelly. It's it's a piece of leprosy,

incurable. And he said, now put your hand

back in. Put his hand, his bosom again.

Drew it out. Now it's back.

Good as you, and then it will be if they do not believe you nor

heed the message of the first sign, that they believe the

messages of the latter sign. There shall be if they do not

believe in these two signs or listen to your voice.

Then you shall take water from the river, the Nile, pour it on

the dry land. The water which you take from

the river, it'll become blood. This was going to happen.

You see, Moses misses the message of God's name, God's

miracles and he and and he still then says to the Lord, verse 10,

Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent. Next, I can't speak not good.

Now some commentary say that he had a stutter.

Others said that he he was slow in speech.

And here's the freaky thing because you know how how many

times I've been meant so I can never pray publicly.

I'll never do this. Actually, you know when you do,

when that person does, their prayers are the best because

they're not the hour long prayer that tells us a story.

Their prayers from the heart. They get to the point I can't

speak. It's another excuse because in

Acts Chapter 7 verse 22, as Stephen is giving his one and

Acts 7:22

only sermon, Stephen says of Moses, he was mighty in words.

He'd been to the best school around.

This guy could speak and deeds. He was very well spoken back in

Egypt when he was the Prince of Egypt.

In the courts of Egypt, he had no problems.

When he went out and spoke to the guy who was the Egyptian who

was beaten down the the Hebrew, he said, hey, what are you

doing? No, no, no problems there.

Or when the two Hebrews were lying into one another saying

why do you two brothers, why are you fighting one another?

He say it's an excuse. It's an excuse, I can't speak,

I'm not good. It's just another excuse.

Now notice this slow of speech, slow of tongue.

So the Lord said to him, who made man's mouth?

It really gets like God's kind of like who?

Who made your mouth? You notice this because this is

one of the most difficult passages for me.

And he says God goes on and say, who makes the mute, the deaf,

the seeing or the blind? Have not I the Lord now,

therefore go and I'll be with your mouth and teach you what

you say when you read this. You go, oh, hang on a minute.

Someone's going to ask. Oh so so God when people have

problems, this is God's brought this.

Well, couple things. One, we live in a fallen world

and sin has entered this world and sin is just rampant, but God

is over this. And here's the thing.

What you and I often do is we fall for the for the three card

trick of going, oh Gee, God, that's a bit unfair about what

you're doing. And we're missing the whole,

we're missing the forest for the trees.

Because what's going to happen is God is going to create a new

heaven on earth. When everyone goes to be with

the Lord, there's not going to be any slurred speech.

Fanny Crosby will have eyes that she can see.

She won't be blind anymore. No pain, no sorrow.

And what you and I need to look at is our trust in God, no

matter what difficulties we face.

That's where the rubber meets the road.

It was Job, remember who on day? What first day Satan comes on

attacks and God allowed it. He loses all his kids.

I think he had 10 kids gone and and he had prayed every day and

sacrificed every day for these kids.

And then the next minute the whole family's wiped out and Job

didn't go right. That's the end of me having a

relationship with you, Lord. What did Job say?

You see, this is where we either stay at a certain level without

Christianity. Oh, I know I believe in

salvation, but there are some things that when I get to

heaven, I'm going to have it out with him because I don't what he

did and how what we went through and how I suffered and I'm not,

I'm not, I'm going to talk to him.

No, you're not because Job said the Lord gives, the Lord takes

away and he rises above it. He says blessed be the name of

the Lord. You see, there's so many people

that live the Christianity in, in kind of levels that go so

far. But oh man, what I had to go

through as a kid, what what's happened in this and what's

happened in that and they get ticked off with God and I'm

gone. Who are you don't even say

anything about God in any way, shape or form.

But God says to Moses, Moses, I made the mouths you can speak,

you can speak. So the anger of the Lord was

kindled against Moses. Notice because in verse 13 he

says Lord, not me, get somebody else.

You somebody else. Now, this is not humility.

Yes, Moses will become the meekest man on the earth, but

right at this moment, he's proud.

He's full of himself. He said, I don't want to.

Basically he's saying, oh, someone else better than me.

Now what you're saying is I don't want to do this.

What he's doing is, is actually disobeying God.

I'm not going to do this. Get somebody else.

No, God's chosen you, Moses. I don't want to do this.

Someone else, maybe. You see, he's not being humble

right here. And This is why the Lord gets

angry. He's being totally disobedient

because what it's saying to God is like God, you can't do any of

this. And I don't want to do any of it

either. So the anger of the Lord was

kindled against Moses and he said it's not Aaron.

Believe what? Your brother.

I know that he can speak. Well, look, he's also coming out

to meet you. When he sees you, be glad in his

heart. Now you shall speak to him.

I'll tell you, and then you'll tell him.

Put the words in his mouth and I'll be with your mouth and with

his mouth and I'll teach you what you should do.

So he shall be your spokespers, spokesman to the people, and he

himself shall be as a mouth for you and you shall be to him as

God. You shall take this rod in your

hands with which you do the signs.

And here's the problem. Oh, hang on.

So Moses went and returned to Jethro, his father in law, and

said to him, please let me go, return to my brethren.

He doesn't tell him God sent me. He's just, I just want to go

back to Egypt, see if any of my relatives are alive.

And here's the problem. Aaron was going to be a problem

because later Aaron instead of helping Moses, he was going to

side with Miriam and also and challenge Moses.

And also when Moses is up on the hill mountain getting the 10

commandments, Aaron's going to go, oh, Moses.

I don't know what was going to happen.

Then people just came to me and next minute I out popped, I made

this, I don't know how it happened.

This, this calf and they worshipped and well, I had

nothing to do with it. Wasn't God's plan for Moses to

do this, but he did. Jethro says go on peace and

we'll stop there. Actually, yeah, I will, because

I'll go too long excuses my excuse when God calls you to do

something, I can't do this Lord. You can't say no, Lord.

He can't be your Lord. And you say no, He's no longer

your Lord. If you say no, Lord, it's no

longer because I can do all things through Christ that

strengthens me. I don't know enough.

God will give you what you need. During the time that the

persecution that the disciples were going to face, Jesus said

don't plan, don't prepare the Holy Spirit.

I'll give you the words. I'm afraid.

I'm afraid the fear of man is a snare.

The only person, the only one, if I could say person in that

term that we need to be fearful of is fearful of disobeying and

letting down our God. I can't speak, I'm not good.

That's just an excuse. We can do things when we want

to. And the last one, I just don't

want to do this. Get somebody else.

No, God doesn't want somebody else.

God has you breathing and living right at this moment in your

work situation, in your home situation, because he wants you

to do what he's called you to do you, nobody else.

An excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a life.

Father, help us now to learn, to learn that you are the great I

am that you will never ask us. Send us to do something that you

won't enable us and give us the power and the wonder to do.

Let this be in our hearts tonight we pray in Jesus name,

Amen and Amen just to know you.