Exodus 4 (God Empowers & Instructs Moses / Moses Makes Excuses / Zipporah & The Foreskin Incident)

Moore's Corner Church

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March 31, 2021

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00:05: Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for yet another opportunity for fellowship and time in your word.
00:13: And may we be mindful of what you say. May we be teachable, and I just ask that you would give us understanding so that we would make proper application.
00:23: I ask all these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right, Exodus chapter four.
00:32: Then Moses answered and said, But suppose they will not believe me, or listen to my voice.
00:42: Suppose they say, the Lord has not appeared to you. What is that in your hand?
00:49: A rod. Cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent.
00:58: And Moses fled from it. And the Lord said to Moses, Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.
01:06: So Moses reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand.
01:16: Thus they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the
01:21: God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has appeared to you. Now, put your hand in your bosom.
01:30: And Moses put his hand in his bosom. When he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snot.
01:40: Put your hand in your bosom again. So he put his hand in his bosom again, and drew it out of his bosom.
01:47: And behold, it was restored like his other flesh. Then it will be, if they do not believe you nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign.
02:03: And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land.
02:15: The water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land.
02:24: Oh, my Lord, I am not before nor since you have spoken to your servants, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.
02:45: Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind?
02:54: Have not I, the Lord? Now, therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.
03:07: Oh, my Lord, please, send by the hand of whomever else you may send.
03:17: So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. It's not error and belief,
03:23: I think, brother. I know he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you.
03:32: When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do.
03:46: So he shall be your spokesman to the people. And he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God.
03:58: And you shall take this rod in your hand with which you shall do the signs.
04:17: So Moses went and returned to Jethro, his father -in -law, and said to him, please let me go.
04:26: And return to my brethren who are in Egypt and see whether they are still alive.
04:34: Go in peace. Now the Lord said to Moses in Midian, Go, return to Egypt, for all the men who sought your life are dead.
04:48: Then Moses took his wife and his sons and set them on a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt.
04:57: And Moses took the rod of God in his hand, and the Lord said to Moses, When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which
05:09: I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
05:16: Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn.
05:26: So I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me.
05:32: But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn.
05:40: And it came to pass on the way at the encampment that the Lord met him and sought to kill him.
05:47: Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses' feet.
05:56: Surely you are a husband of blood to me. So he let him go.
06:03: You're a husband of blood? Because of the circumcision. And the
06:08: Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him on the mountain of God and kissed him.
06:19: So Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him and all the signs which he had commanded him.
06:27: Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel.
06:33: And Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses. Then he did the signs in the sight of the people.
06:41: So the people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that he had looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.
07:00: All right, so when we ended chapter three, we ended with Moses at the burning bush.
07:07: And of course, he's still there. So God is commissioning
07:12: Moses to go and demand a Pharaoh. We know the phrase, let my people go.
07:19: And in verse 22, we read, then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the
07:24: Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. So I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me.
07:34: But if you refuse to let him go, indeed, I will kill your son, your firstborn.
07:41: Firstborn. So this is a serious business. This is a showdown that the likes of the world has never seen before.
07:52: But before we get to that, we're gonna see that Moses is going to protest this commissioning.
07:58: He's gonna have all sorts of reasons and excuses of why God should send somebody else.
08:05: Now, the thing to remember, or the first thing that we see in this chapter is an excuse that he gives or a possible objection.
08:15: It's kind of obvious. I don't know that we can fault Moses. Look at verse one. He says, but suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice.
08:25: Suppose they say, the Lord has not appeared to you. Now, do you think that's a valid concern that he has?
08:36: I think so. I think it's very reasonable. I mean, what's Moses gonna tell the people? You know,
08:41: I was out in the wilderness talking to this bush that was on fire and God was in the bush talking to me.
08:49: Like, yeah, what kind of bush is this Moses? But obviously he's worried about this.
08:58: I think that's legitimate. So that might not go over so well. So Moses has this concern.
09:04: And you remember in the last chapter, he asked, well, if I go, who am
09:10: I supposed to say is sending me? You know, what's your name? And in the last chapter, he says, when
09:17: I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me and they say to me, what is his name?
09:26: What shall I say to them? And you remember from last week, we covered the name of God. I am
09:32: Jehovah and Yahweh and all of that. So Moses has
09:38: God's first name or is his name. I don't know if God has his last name. You know, scratch that part.
09:45: But that doesn't exactly prove that God appeared to him. Just because he has this name doesn't prove that God appeared.
09:53: And don't miss this because this is one of the most important things for a Christian to understand.
10:00: God gave Moses the ability to work miracles to authenticate what
10:06: Moses was saying to the people. So this is the whole purpose of miracles, not to put on a show, not even just to heal or help people, which that's obviously part of it as well.
10:22: But in the Bible, whether it's the Old Testament or in the New Testament, miracles were done in order to confirm the words or the message of the miracle worker.
10:34: So anyone can say anything, right? And you don't necessarily believe what they have to say. But if somebody comes and tells you,
10:41: God spoke to me, he said this, and they can raise the dead or part the Red Sea or do something like that, obviously that's someone you would listen to.
10:50: We're not gonna start handling snakes, are we? We are not going to do that. Some people, of course, you know, still do.
11:00: And if you ever, well, I've only seen it on TV. You've probably seen this as well, but a lot of them, their hands are crippled and deformed, and many have died.
11:11: So no, we're not gonna do that. And if you do, we're kicking you out.
11:17: If you bring in any poisonous snakes, that isn't gonna fly. But let's face it.
11:24: Anybody can make any claim they want. God spoke to me. God told me this. God told me to tell you that you need to do this.
11:32: So does God want his people, does he want us to be naive and just believe whatever anybody says?
11:40: God forbid. Which is why God gives men the power to work miracles in order to prove that these men,
11:49: Moses here, is the spokesman of God. So this happened with Moses and Joshua.
11:56: It happened with the prophets. You think of Elijah and Elisha. What's God doing? He's confirming the law and the prophets, the
12:03: Old Testament scriptures. In the New Testament, he gives the power. Well, Jesus has it. And then the apostles, what's he doing?
12:09: He's confirming the New Testament scriptures. So it's always to confirm the word.
12:15: That's the primary purpose of miracles. All right, verse two.
12:21: So the Lord said to Moses, what is that in your hand? And he said, a rod.
12:28: And the Lord said, cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground and it became a serpent and Moses fled from it.
12:36: How many of you are afraid of snakes? Would you grab the snake by the tail?
12:43: No. If God told you to, would you? Say, okay, I do it in that case.
12:49: I guess Moses wasn't too afraid of snakes, although he did flee. But a little later on, you'll remember that Moses is gonna work this miracle again before Pharaoh and his magicians to do what?
13:01: To prove that the God of Israel was the true God, the only true God and not the gods of the
13:06: Egyptians. So Moses is given three signs and there's no
13:13: Greek or Hebrew word. Well, Greek word for miracle, I know we're in the Old Testament, but it's always signs, powers, and wonders.
13:22: Okay, so he's given a sign, these three signs to perform, that the rod turns into the serpent, the water that turns into blood, and then the leprous hand.
13:34: And at the end of the chapter, Moses will perform these miracles in front of the people so that the people believe, all right?
13:45: Interestingly enough, this is a common thing for the apostles and prophets to do to protest when
13:53: God calls them. So we're gonna see Moses doing this. Do you remember any other prophets or apostles who protested, gave reasons why they couldn't do what
14:03: God called them to do? Russ. Isaiah. Isaiah, okay. Any?
14:10: I'm a man of unclean lips. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I suppose, oh, he was a judge.
14:16: Gideon had a little trouble at the start, didn't he? Yeah, he went to lay out the fleece, right? Yeah, yeah. Jonah. Jonah.
14:23: Jonah. Jonah's the chief example. Oh, God. Yeah, I think
14:30: Jeremiah. Jeremiah said, what? I'm too young, I can't do this. Yeah, that's right, he did start young.
14:37: Moses starts out his first objection back in the last chapter. Well, who am
14:42: I? Okay, that's fair, I guess, he's humble. Then he says, who should
14:48: I say sent me? That's when God gives him his name. And now, what if they don't believe me?
14:55: Then he gives him the signs. Now he comes out, up until this point, maybe we can understand where Moses is coming from, but now
15:02: I believe Moses is just giving an excuse. Look at what he says in verse 10. Then Moses said to the
15:10: Lord, oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.
15:25: So the Lord said to him, who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind?
15:34: Have not I, the Lord? Now, therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.
15:44: But he said, oh, my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else you may send.
15:52: Basically, he's saying, send anybody but me. Russ. I have a thought on this.
15:59: Okay. Moses started out
16:05: Hebrew. Mm -hmm. So he must have learned how to speak
16:11: Hebrew. Yep. But then he had to learn
16:17: Egyptian. Okay. You take little children who do that, and sometimes they start a little slow because their mind is thinking how to say something in a different language.
16:36: Okay. So this might be why he is slow. That's the only thing I can think of.
16:42: That's a good theory. I don't actually believe that he was, but if he was, that would be a good reason.
16:50: It's reasonable. Yeah, I didn't think about that. That's good. So, well, the reason
16:58: I don't think that this is legitimate, or this is a valid excuse, is because Moses basically says, send anyone but me, and then what do we read next?
17:08: So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. And then in the video, you heard the flame like start to roar at that point.
17:19: Yeah, I bet it was. The Lord doesn't really like it when people say no to him.
17:26: It's just this thing. You don't mess with the... So the question is, did
17:33: Moses actually have a problem speaking? Was he eloquent?
17:39: He says he's not eloquent. Well, you know, this is kind of a subjective thing, a little bit. Moses says he's not.
17:47: Some people have speculated that he had a problem with stuttering and stammering.
17:53: I don't think that's the case. Other commentators said that he just wasn't as skilled as he thought he should be given the task at hand, which that may be true.
18:04: He may have felt that way. But he says, I'm slow of speech and slow of tongue.
18:11: Now, anytime we're reading from the Old Testament, if we can do a cross -reference to what the
18:18: New Testament says, you always wanna do that. And you can interpret the
18:23: Old Testament in light of what the New Testament tells us. So here's a verse from Acts 2 .22,
18:29: where Stephen is preaching and he's recounting the story of Israel. You know what Stephen says about this?
18:35: Acts 7 .22, it says, and Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the
18:41: Egyptians and was mighty in words and in deeds.
18:47: So while Moses says I'm not mighty or I can't speak well, Stephen says he can, and the
18:55: Holy Spirit, more importantly, the Holy Spirit, because Stephen's filled with the Spirit when he's preaching. So I'm going with Stephen and the
19:02: Holy Spirit, okay? But this is common, just like when God called
19:08: Jonah, right, to preach to the city of Nineveh, he hops on a boat and heads in the opposite direction.
19:15: King Saul, when he was chosen by God to be king, what did he do? Yeah, he went and hid amongst the baggage.
19:22: So in the Bible, this kind of thing really isn't uncommon. So now Moses is chosen by God and no,
19:31: I can't do it. Here's the reasons why. All right, look at verse 14.
19:38: So Moses says, I can't do it. God says, all right, fine. It's not
19:43: Aaron, the Levite, your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you.
19:51: When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do.
20:05: So he shall be your spokesman to the people, and he himself shall be as a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God.
20:17: It's been a long time. I know I saw it, but the 10 Commandments with Charlton Heston.
20:23: Is Aaron speaking for Moses in that movie? I mean, is that accurate? I don't think he is. He does a couple times, maybe.
20:29: Okay, but not really. Not all, no. Yeah. Yeah, if he was doing most of the speaking,
20:36: Charlton Heston would have played the role of Aaron, probably. He was doing most of the time. Jim, you have a question?
20:42: I think this is a moment in time where God was giving
20:47: Moses a test, and he gave him an out by saying, here comes your brother.
20:56: I'll let him speak for you. He was saying to Moses, I really want you, because I've chosen you.
21:03: Okay. I came in that burning bush, told you to take off your shoes. Had a snake.
21:09: You had a leprous hand. I think he gave Moses an opportunity to say, okay, yeah, you're right.
21:16: I'm wrong. I'll do it, but he still was very reluctant. Yeah, Moses is not getting out of it.
21:23: That's the bottom line. Yeah. But this phrase is interesting. And you shall be to him as God.
21:36: So that may sound strange, but consider what's happening here. This is a good opportunity for us to talk about what a prophet is and to define what a prophet does.
21:48: In Exodus 7, verse one, the Lord says to Moses, see,
21:54: I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron, your brother, shall be your prophet.
22:03: So now Moses is like God and Aaron is the prophet. The Hebrew word navi, translated prophet, means basically a spokesman, one who speaks.
22:18: And prophecy is either defined one of two ways. I'm sure most of you know what are they.
22:25: So if someone is prophesying, they are either doing one of two things. Telling the future or foretelling.
22:31: Okay, foretelling the future events or just foretelling, which we'd say is similar to preaching or the same as preaching.
22:41: So a prophet is basically a mouthpiece for God, right? A prophet is a preacher of God.
22:49: And in the very loose sense of the word, anyone who preaches
22:54: God's word could be considered a prophet. Of course, we don't talk like that because that's way too confusing and it gives people the wrong idea.
23:03: So we simply don't use that phrase. Because in a more narrow sense, this is usually what people think when they think of a prophet, that a prophet is an intermediary.
23:17: Someone that God is speaking directly to. So God, you think of it this way.
23:24: God speaks to the prophet. The prophet takes God's word and speaks to the people.
23:30: So he's the go -between. He's between God and the people. You contrast that with a priest.
23:37: A priest is also an intercessor or an intermediary. Only the word goes in the opposite direction for the priest.
23:46: So the people will have something to bring to God. They bring it to the priest and the priest brings it to God on behalf of the people.
23:54: So with the priest, it goes up. With the prophet, it's God's word going down. Marcus. They would often say, thus says the
24:02: Lord. So they obviously heard. They're repeating what
24:08: God said to them, but. Right. Yeah, when we say, when a preacher today says, thus saith the
24:14: Lord, he's getting it from the Bible, right? But in the Old Testament, when he said, thus saith the
24:20: Lord, he was getting it directly from God. So that's the obvious difference.
24:27: All right, any questions, anything so far? All right. So when we consider the role of a prophet, it makes sense that Aaron shall be the mouthpiece for Moses.
24:42: He's like his prophet. Therefore, Moses is like God. Also in that same sense to Pharaoh, Moses is like God.
24:54: So this is a very unusual arrangement. And if you think about it, Moses protest, well,
25:00: I can't do this, I'm not eloquent. And God has Aaron do it for him. In a sense that really raises
25:06: Moses stature. It's like Pharaoh, I'm not even gonna talk to you directly.
25:12: I have someone to do that for me. Like Moses is appearing more important. His office is magnified because of this arrangement.
25:22: Verse 17, the Lord tells him, and you shall take this rod in your hand with which you shall do the signs.
25:32: And then in verse 20, the rod that Moses carries with him is called what?
25:39: The rod of God, because it's the instrument that Moses works all his miracles.
25:47: I was thinking about this, how some churches, this is more common in Europe and the Middle East where churches and cathedrals will have relics, right?
25:57: They have splinters of the cross supposedly, right? And all these, I've never heard any church that claimed to have the rod of Moses.
26:05: I don't think that was a thing, so. We got one downstairs, right?
26:12: Right, Sue? Yeah, that's not it, trust me. No, it's wood.
26:17: I found it and I painted it, so. All right, so now God tells
26:23: Moses that those who wanted to kill him back in Egypt, they're dead, so it's safe to return back to Egypt.
26:31: So Moses goes to Jethro, his father -in -law, and he politely asks permission.
26:37: I don't think he has to do this, but this is a courtesy to his father -in -law to return to Egypt.
26:43: And of course, this would include Moses bringing his wife, Jethro's daughter.
26:50: And what does Jethro say to Moses? Go in peace. Look at verse 20.
26:56: Then Moses took his wife and his sons and set them on a donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt.
27:03: And Moses took the rod of God in his hand. And the Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do all these wonders or all those wonders before Pharaoh, which
27:15: I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
27:25: Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn.
27:33: So I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed,
27:40: I will kill your son, your first born. So who wants to take a stab at this?
27:51: What does it mean? Why is he calling Israel my firstborn? What does that mean? I need a hand high.
28:01: All right, Dennis. There are his chosen people, so he sees them higher than any other nation on the earth.
28:09: It's simply because he chose them. Good. And Jacob was named Israel. I mean, yeah, right.
28:16: And that was the first born child. Yisrael. Good. Yeah, so it doesn't mean born first.
28:23: It means, same as, yeah, same as Christ. Right, and I heard you on the radio yesterday talking about what,
28:31: Colossians is it? Yes. That Jesus is the first born over all creation.
28:37: Over all creation. What does that mean? That he's the first one created.
28:42: That's what the Jehovah's Witnesses say, right? That he was born first. No, first born is the one who holds the place of preeminence.
28:52: So that's what God is saying. You're exactly right. That they are my people. I have chosen them over all the families of the earth.
29:02: Or where he's first born from the dead. Also, I think. Christ is also the first born from the dead.
29:09: Lazarus, even he's the first born from the dead that lived eternally. Amen. Right, right.
29:14: And the word was used with David as well, first born. And he was the seventh born.
29:20: Right. So it doesn't have to do with, yeah. Right. First born king, he's gonna be the, yeah, chief king.
29:25: My son David was first born, too. Well, he really was, though. Yeah, yeah.
29:31: Different. It's true. But this is why we need to take the Bible in context, right? Compare scripture with scripture.
29:37: I know we always say it. Keep saying it over and over again. But when you take a statement like that and just run with it, then you get into trouble.
29:46: All right. So far, going through the book of Genesis, and now into Exodus, we've talked a few times about God's sovereignty.
29:55: And now we come to this statement from the Lord. I will harden
30:02: Pharaoh's heart. In Romans 9, the apostle
30:09: Paul speaks of Moses and Pharaoh when he's trying to make a point about the sovereignty of God.
30:18: Paul speaks of this overall subject. And he makes reference to this.
30:25: And this is a bigger topic than we have time to really get into. I realize that. But in this question of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, yes, number one,
30:38: God is sovereign. We shouldn't be like some people are. They try to find any little excuse to kind of get around this.
30:47: So God is sovereign. Number two, though, man is responsible.
30:53: Man is a volitional creature. We all have the ability to make our own decisions.
31:00: We call it free will. I would say our will's not completely free because we're slaves to sin before we're saved.
31:08: But that's usually what we call it. So why do
31:13: I bring this up? Because what does it say? God is hardening Pharaoh's heart. So the people that hate the doctrine of God's sovereignty, they react to this and they say, that's not fair.
31:24: It's not fair for God to harden Pharaoh's heart. But what else, when we read the story, what are we gonna see?
31:31: Pharaoh is hardening his own heart as well. Number three, and then God takes over.
31:38: Never once do we see Pharaoh wanting to do the right thing, but God just steps in and forces him to do the wrong thing.
31:46: You never see that. All right, Marcus. I will be brief because the debate between free will and predestination has raged on.
31:55: And I think the best place now is right between the two, though they aren't reconciled.
32:01: Parallel truths, I call them, that don't ever intersect this side of heaven. But I have been thinking about it some.
32:08: And I think that what goes on is when we reject the
32:14: Lord's leading, we're using our free will to do that. And he'll let us do that again and again.
32:21: And then there comes a point where he says, guess what? You can't change your mind now.
32:27: This is the way it's gonna be. But it's because, I mean, God is omniscient.
32:33: He knows the end from the beginning. He knows it all. So, well,
32:39: I'm gonna get into election. Well, so two parallel lines.
32:48: Truths. Two parallel. Were you the one that came up with that? No, I doubt it. Okay, I didn't. I know,
32:54: I know he did it. I'm not that, no, this, I've heard it a long time before. I think it was
32:59: Spurgeon, one of those guys. He was a, I don't mean to drop names, but this was a, this was something.
33:07: So if God's sovereignty is here and man's responsibility is here, if you cut it right down the middle,
33:15: I'm a little more on this side, just for the, but you already know that. I used to be a little more on the other side. I'll convince you to get over on this side.
33:24: I'm coming your way. All right. All right, now, moving on, we come to this very strange section.
33:34: Yes. And you're reading the story and it's kind of flowing and then all of a sudden you get to this part.
33:40: Like, wait, what did I just read? God wants, first of all,
33:46: God wants to kill Moses? What's happening here? All right, look at verse 20. And it came to pass on the way at the encampment that the
33:54: Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah, Moses' wife, took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses' feet.
34:08: It says, surely you are a husband of blood to me. So he, that is God, let
34:14: Moses go. Then she said, you are a husband of blood.
34:19: Why does she say that? Because of the circumcision. So two things going on here.
34:27: First, God was about to kill Moses because he did not circumcise his son.
34:36: Now, if you remember, circumcision was the sign of the covenant that God gave to Abraham.
34:44: So to not have your son circumcised was a very serious thing to say the least.
34:54: And remember what we said last time, how the Old Testament really portrays God as unapproachable.
35:02: God is fearful, he's a consuming fire, he's unapproachable. Well, that's just kind of more of the same here.
35:09: So at times you see throughout the scripture, even though Moses is let go,
35:15: God doesn't kill him obviously, but we see this throughout the scripture where God will at times make an example out of someone.
35:25: So he doesn't want people having the idea that things are just kind of a free for all and kind of, you know, do whatever you feel like.
35:34: And God is, you know, God's so tolerant of everything, he's just gonna kind of let everything slide.
35:40: You don't get that picture in the New Testament either, but certainly you don't get it in the
35:46: Old Testament. And lest anyone think that this is an Old Testament thing, remember these two people called
35:54: Ananias and Sapphira? They were slain in the spirit, right? That's good,
36:01: I'm definitely gonna use that one. They were slain in the spirit.
36:07: No, he was probably slain. That's bad. That's fine.
36:14: So why does God do this kind of thing? Well, he's setting an example and Paul will tell the
36:24: Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 10, I think it is. He says, these things were written for our admonition.
36:31: So we learn something through all of this. We see God's holiness. We see his unapproachable nature.
36:43: And we need to know that, we need to be aware of this because mankind, let's face it, mankind is prone, especially these days to say, well, my
36:52: God is a God of love, so he kind of won't mind if I do whatever. Well, he is a
36:58: God of love and a God of mercy because if he wasn't, you'd be done by now.
37:04: I'd be done by now, Moses would be done, but he does show mercy on Moses.
37:10: Yes. I was gonna say, when I first read about that in Acts, it hit me, but what did it say about the church at that point in time?
37:23: Great fear. Came upon the kingdom. Yeah, I think the common reaction today would be, well,
37:33: I wouldn't want to be part of a church where there was great fear or reverence for God, fear and reverence.
37:43: Yeah, we need more of that, not less. Jim. I think a part of this is that God is true to his promises and there's a second part of that.
38:00: That he forgot. Oh, and he never goes back and he holds everyone to that standard.
38:11: There's no defense of much with God. Right, but he's very merciful at the same time.
38:17: So we see at the same time, God's justice and holiness, it's on display, but so is his mercy because through his mercies, remember, we're not consumed and Moses is not consumed.
38:30: Did you have something? Yeah, just, I've always looked at Job as such, in the same light where, kind of like God used him, and I'm glad that doesn't happen to all of us, but I mean,
38:44: God used him in a very profound way to teach something to all of us. Just terrifying, but amazing.
38:52: And so that's, when I think of Job, I go, wow, God used him for all of us.
38:58: Right, he went through it, so hopefully you and I won't have to. We can learn to go, but none of this stuff.
39:07: Yeah. God was bragging, God was bragging to the devil about all of them. So that's the first thing.
39:13: God is kind of sending a message here. The second thing we see is that Moses and his wife didn't exactly have a great marital situation, or so it seems.
39:26: Zipporah, you think, well, she might've been upset that she had to leave her father's house and now go to Egypt, and everything, with God's calling upon Moses and his life that she didn't really sign up for all of this.
39:41: She never could've expected all of this. And in chapter,
39:46: I think, 18, Moses is going to send her back to her father.
39:52: And some of this is speculation, I admit, but I think it's safe to say they had some problems, whatever the issues were.
40:04: One thing she definitely doesn't seem to care for is this act of circumcision. Especially since Moses, it was really on him to make sure that the child was circumcised.
40:16: Moses fails, and then she has to do it in order to save Moses' life.
40:21: So she's probably a little, well, she obviously is upset about this, yes.
40:29: And as we said before, the Bible, what does it do? It paints people warts and all.
40:35: All the men of God, or women of God, it paints them warts and all. Moses isn't the first man in the
40:41: Bible that we're gonna see has some marriage problems. He won't be the last, not the first, not the last.
40:47: King David comes to mind. You remember when he married Saul's daughter, and the ark was being brought to Jerusalem, and David danced before the
40:58: Lord? You remember what his wife said? Oh, how glorious was the king of Israel today, uncovering himself in front of all the young maidens.
41:10: She wasn't very happy. And she basically told David, you acted like a fool. You embarrassed yourself, and then
41:18: David says, yeah, you're just upset because God chose me and not your dad. And that was the end.
41:30: So Moses was flawed, David was flawed, Zipporah was flawed. Next in verse 27, we read about Moses' brother
41:40: Aaron. We're gonna read about his flaws. Remember this little thing called the golden calf?
41:45: Yeah. But I think the encouragement in all of this is that God can use flawed people.
41:53: Amen. He has no, well, he can use rocks. Yeah, Marcus says
41:59: God has to, because that's really all he has to work with, that's true. He can have angels do everything,
42:05: I suppose, but. All right, well, let's finish the chapter, Moses and Aaron reunite.
42:11: Moses tells Aaron about everything that has happened, verse 29, then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel, and Aaron spoke all the words which the
42:23: Lord had spoken to Moses. Then he did the signs in the sight of the people, so the people believed.
42:29: And when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.