[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Glad you can be here and just Lord will bless you as we look into his work.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be an Exodus chapter two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just recently began this series in Exodus.
[SPEAKER_00]: In our section this morning from verse 11 down through verse 22, we really spans a time period of 80 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's really in two parts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Parts, first part of Moses' life in Egypt, about 40 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next part, I should say, of his life in the desert.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's read together this first part for verse 11, down through verse 14.
[SPEAKER_00]: His sex at his chapter 2, beginning in verse 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked this way in that and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said to the man in the wrong, why do you strike your companion?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he answered, who made you a prince and a judge over us?
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Moses was afraid, and thought surely the thing is known.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father's become your word this morning, I pray, that you would help us as we would seek to live for you and learn from your scripture, learn from how you have worked in others, and we might learn from the life of Moses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Father pray it would be encouragement to us and it'd be admission to us and she would accomplish your purposes in each heart and life this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ask, can you use this name, you man?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, as we said, this first part of Moses' life, these four years in Egypt, God was preparing him for work that he would have for Moses,
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was a quote from the early Puritan I wanted to give you that and a sum's up Moses life in three parts.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says Moses first 40 years was an Egypt learning to be something.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the next 40 years was in the desert learning to be nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And his last 40 years improving God to be everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: form an outline for the message just morning, as the title is, God prepares a Savior or a deliverer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses was the man that God would use to deliver Israel out of their bondage in Egypt, but it would be 80 years before God was ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can say it's 80 years before
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was certainly also 80 years before Moses would be ready for God to use him in that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can see that Moses thought that he was ready after the first 40 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we learn, he's really the only the first part of his preparation to be God's
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want us to look at this first part first of all as Moses learns to be somebody and I mean by that somebody special we use that word sometimes in the way we say he's somebody first four years Moses is a prince in Egypt
[SPEAKER_00]: But Moses sums up that whole time period of 40 years with this little phrase in verse 11, when Moses had grown up and he really doesn't give us any information about all of that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's 40 years, it's a long time, but he just sweeps right over it and comes to the end of that 40 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we get to heaven, it will be nice to hear about some of that detail, some of the things that happened and how God had worked in Moses' life to prepare him and to bring him to the place where he's at the end of that 40 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Acts chapter 7, we have the testimony of Stephen, remember that account where he's speaking to the Jewish leaders and given account for himself and he's recounting the history of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was powerful in words and deeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses had truly become somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: That statement that he was educated and all the wisdom of Egypt is saying a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: From a human perspective, we could say that, you know, he was the man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a powerful man, a man,
[SPEAKER_00]: of a great privilege, great training.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says that he was powerful in words and deeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we would, could some sum up, or Moses is that in life and saying that he's a mighty man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's skilled in all the training, the preparation that a prince of Egypt would have received.
[SPEAKER_00]: But something happened in the life of Moses that his adopted mother, the Pharaoh's daughter, did not anticipate.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would have talked Moses in all the culture and life of an Egyptian.
[SPEAKER_00]: to be a prince, how to worship all the various gods of Egypt and to show them honor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we see that Moses rejected all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He rejected it to put his faith and trust in the one true God, the God of Israel,
[SPEAKER_00]: We, we see in verse 11 that says one day when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens and he saw an Egyptian beating Hebrew one of his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we don't know how God had worked in Moses's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was winged by his birth mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we don't know exactly what age that would have been some some guests to make you know three or four years old before he would have left her and gone and to be with Pharaoh's daughter and so no doubt Moses's mother would have impacted his life but that's a very young age and he could only take so much with him from what
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... she would have talked and so god is no doubt working his life to bring him to this decision to bring him to this identity verse eleven and he proves are sorry chapter eleven and he proves tells us that he had identified himself with the Israelites and uh... so he's aware of
[SPEAKER_00]: But more importantly, he identifies himself with the God of the Israelites and the promises that God had made to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to read a couple of verses from Hebrews 11 in that passage that chapter in Hebrews that recounts the faith of these that have gone before.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in verse 24 and following says, by faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin, and he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a turning point in Moses's life when he turned from the world in all that it offered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Egypt at that time would have been the center of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the sense he the power in the wealth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of that he turns away from all of that to faith in Yahweh.
[SPEAKER_00]: faith in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the turning point of salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the turning point from anything and everything of this world, even ourselves, to trust in the living God and his provision in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're saved,
[SPEAKER_00]: This morning is because you've come to a turning point in your own life, and the Lord has brought you to that point where you're convinced and convicted that you are a sinner without hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in and of yourself, and anything that you can do or be, and you've turned to Him in faith, believing what He has done in Christ and what Christ claims to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: and why he has done for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Acts 7, in Stephen's recounting of this Moses verse 23 in following says, but when he was approaching the age of 40, it entered his heart to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took justice for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, listen to verse 25, and he's supposed that his brothers understood that God was granting them salvation through him, but they did not understand, that's an amazing statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses had come to believe that God was going to use him to be Israel's Savior and deliver to deliver them out of the oppression of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Moses seems is ready to fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's evidently to lead the people and revolt against their oppressors.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see that Moses has good intentions.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's ready to give up everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's ready to give up his position in his wealth, in Egypt, and suffer with the people of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's really several problems, but the one big problem is that Moses is not Israel's Savior.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God wants to make sure that when he delivers them, everyone will know that it's by the hand of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: God will use Moses, yes, but Moses at this stage is not ready to be that deliver.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is going to demonstrate His mighty power over the Egyptians and their power.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to do it in such a way that everyone, everyone will know that God in God
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses thinks that he is ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's tried to do things in his own power, in his own way, in his anger against the injustice of this Hebrew man, he's been beaten, he rises up in kills, the Egyptian task master.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he goes out the next day, and he finds two Israelites fighting with each other or arguing and struggling.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Moses does what he's been trying to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's, he acts like a ruler.
[SPEAKER_00]: He acts like a judge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he determines that one is wrong, and he questions this man and the wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he admonishes them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says to the one in the wrong, you know, what are you doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you beating your fellow man?
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 14, this man answers, who made you a prince and a judge over us?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?
[SPEAKER_00]: As this man's words, hitting him, I mean, he's, he must have just been absolutely devastated, not only does his deed now, is out in the open, that he, that he'd killed this man and tried to hide it, now everybody knows, or will know.
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... to be their deliverer it is come to an end and also on top of that uh... from what he hears from this man the israelites do not accept him as their deliverer and so with that so with that one statement
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he's faced with this reality, this realization that it is not going to happen the way he thought it could happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Moses flees and runs and hides in the desert.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gets his far away from Egypt as he can.
[SPEAKER_00]: times in our life when we run ahead of God or when we try to do things in our own power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our salvation comes when we come to an end of ourselves and we realize we can't save ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't be good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't be moral enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't be righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we turn to Christ and faith believing in Him and Him alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as believers, we must continue in that reality that in and of ourselves, we can't do anything for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That every day, in every moment of the day, we must live in dependence upon Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this man that was in the wrong, he's really just trying to justify his own deeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: who made you a prince and a judge over us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, Moses was really a self-appointed prince in a ruler, a prince and a judge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so his plan had failed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it will be true in our lives as well, unless we are living in dependence upon the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes that means waiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes we must just wait and trust God when we don't know what God is doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know why God is waiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know why God is not answering our prayers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know why God is not acting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we must learn to trust Him and wait upon Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when we have good intentions, our flesh can get in the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can try to do God's work in our own power.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we must constantly be reminding ourselves that we are dependent upon the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as James 120 says, as it talks about the power of the flesh, says, for the anger of man does not produce
[SPEAKER_00]: And so our confidence in our trust must be in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: David also had to learn that and his Daniel read for us Psalm 25.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it reminds us of our dependence in David there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is some mixture of trusting God and saying to God, you know, I'm waiting a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 4 and 5 says, make me to know your ways of Lord, teach me your paths, lead me in your truth and teach me for you are the God of my salvation, for you I've weight all the day long."
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we see Moses fleeing out of Egypt and going into the desert,
[SPEAKER_00]: He must have been very dejected.
[SPEAKER_00]: He must have felt like God's plan for him was over.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God had Moses right where he wanted him to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the first 40 years of his life, he had learned to be somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the next 40 years of his preparation Moses would learn to be nobody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody, at least, in his own power.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when that time period of training is over, he would be ready to be the one that God would use to lead his people out of bondage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so almost to look and turn now, our thoughts to this second part that we see where Moses learns to be nobody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody in and of himself,
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses flees in chapter 2 verse 15 and when Pharaoh heard of it, in other words, he had heard that Moses had defended, had killed an Egyptian in defending a Hebrew.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sought to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Median and he sat down by well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the priest of Median had seven daughters and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their fathers flock.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when they came home to their father, Ruel, and said, he said, how is it that you
[SPEAKER_00]: and they said in Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said to the daughters, then, where is he?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why have you left the man, called him that he may eat bread?
[SPEAKER_00]: And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughters, Zapura, and she gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gersham,
[SPEAKER_00]: in a foreign land.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses goes across the desert, across the Sinai Peninsula all the way around the Gulf of Accaba into the Arabian Peninsula, that evidently on that western, or that eastern shore of the Gulf of Accaba, and the area where the Midianites were, at least some of them
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see that they were also descendants of Abraham through Abraham's second wife after the death of Sarah.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is wife Katura.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they were distant relatives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can see God's hand in leading him to this specific place.
[SPEAKER_00]: and to this household of Ruel, or Jeh Thro, is also called.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a priest of Median, and from what we learned here, and also later in chapter 18, he was also a believer in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Moses is in this new land.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's far removed now from
[SPEAKER_00]: Egypt, I mean, removed in every way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's removed by distance.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's removed by just absolute opposite of what he was before.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can think about the opulence of his life before, the wealth, the prestige, all of that,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a totally different life.
[SPEAKER_00]: His thoughts and plans no doubt of being Israel's deliverer is over.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they're far behind him now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we see something about Moses in this account that he is still a defender of the oppressed, as part of his character, to defend people who are defenseless.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he's resting by a well, he comes into this area, he's sitting down by a well, and seven women come to water their flock.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can imagine that these ladies, as they start drawing well and filling up the troughs for the sheep, he has Moses full attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's there, and he's watching them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these other shepherds come along,
[SPEAKER_00]: are going to drive away these women and their sheep if the water that they've drawn.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Moses rises up against these shepherds and drives them away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And note out he's using his training, his military training and skills to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he even serves these women by drawing water for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It reminds us of Jacob.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember Jacob when he tested to go and live with his uncle Rubin and not Rubin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yeah, and Labin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's bowed the well when he goes into that area.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other shepherds are there and they're waiting for everyone, all the shepherds still arrive so they can remove this huge stone off of the well, and then Rachel comes along.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he sees Rachel and Jacob just gets up there and he moves that stone by himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that was a supernatural enablement or if he just had a adrenaline because he'd seen Rachel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he realized as well, you know, I'm going to impress her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's kind of reminds you of Moses here, as he fights off the other shepherds.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he definitely is interested in helping these leads.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I like what happens or weights, he says in verse 20.
[SPEAKER_00]: 1920.
[SPEAKER_00]: These ladies get home earlier than normal because evidently this is a pattern where they have to wait until the other shepherds get through and they can finally water their sheep but they come home early and in jethro they're father ask, you know, why did you get home so quickly today?
[SPEAKER_00]: And there must be excited to tell them about the
[SPEAKER_00]: And notice verse 20, he says, well, for easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I have you left the man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I called him that he made bread.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when you live in a remote desert area and you've got seven daughters, you don't want to let a good man get away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's like, you know, why did you leave him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he'd go find that man and bring him home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 21 and 22 tells us that Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter, Sephora, and she gave birth to a son and he called his name, Gersham, where he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in these 40 years in Median, it's just a completely different life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses learns to be a husband and a father.
[SPEAKER_00]: He learns to be a hard worker, taking care of sheep, and it's a lowly, it's a lowly life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember the Egyptians despised shepherds, as Dr. Lowest Rung of their society.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses went from the heights of the heights to the lowest of
[SPEAKER_00]: He's forgotten the idea of being a deliverer of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's forgotten that life, and he's content to live there, and he's taken care of sheep.
[SPEAKER_00]: He reminds us a bit of David and his preparation in being a shepherd and how the Lord taught him during that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And ultimately, it reminds us of the great shepherd of the sheep, the Lord Jesus Christ, and how that he loves us, and how that he left his riches in heaven to come to earth, and to live and to die for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he names him, Gersham, which sounds like the word Sojourner.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Moses had been a Sojourner in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a Hebrew, but not really living with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd grown up in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he tries to help his people,
[SPEAKER_00]: He feels rejected by his own people, and he's certainly not welcomed back in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he's content to live in Median.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's living with a real awareness that this world is not his home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe that's what the writer of Hebrews is pointing out in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 26.
[SPEAKER_00]: when it says he considered the reproach of Christ or the Messiah, the promised one, the one that got promised to Abraham and before that he promised to Eve, for offspring, this Messiah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy for us to forget that we too are sojourners in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's easy for us to settle down in this world and just forget that we're just passing through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that as believers in Christ, our home, our real home is yet future.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that we are looking for a city whose designer and builder is God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us remember who we are in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of ourselves, of our own strength, we are nobody.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in Christ, we are somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our true identity in our purpose is found in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Corinthians 1, verse 27, 29, their Paul reminds us,
[SPEAKER_00]: And he reminds the people of Korat who, in that culture, looked up so much to the wisdom of man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that section, Paul is reminding them that what looks like foolishness and weakness in God is power and strength.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, verse 27, but God shows what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God shows what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God shows what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does God do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: in the presence of God, Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, thank you so much for your grace to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Lord, for your wisdom and your power and your timing and all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, help us to trust you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us as your children to wait upon you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every day as we wake up,
[SPEAKER_00]: that we must go in your power and your strength and depend upon the Spirit of God to lead us in guidance and help us and may throughout the day we turn to you and our thoughts and our minds and depend upon you.
[SPEAKER_00]: While there are pray for the person that might be here the day or the listening to the message that does not know you, has not yet turned to you, has not as Moses had that turning point in
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray for them, I pray that they might come under conviction of their need for you, that they would reject all thoughts of their own ability, their own strength, their own goodness, and they would turn from that and turn from the world to trust you in your provision in the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation.