FBC Morning Light – January 27, 2023

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good Friday morning to you. I hope you're looking forward to a good weekend, and I hope your weekend plans include attending the

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Lord's house on Sunday. We gather together to study his word and be looking in Philippians again.

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Dr. Foreman will be teaching the lesson this Sunday, and then in the morning service at 1030. This week we're doing a little something a little bit different.

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We're having a fifth Sunday fellowship meal after the morning service, and then one o 'clock in the afternoon we have our church's annual meeting.

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I'd certainly encourage you to come and be a part of the worship service and the Bible study time in the morning.

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Well, on this particular day, we want to consider the timing of the

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Lord. The timing of the Lord in the unfolding development or the fulfillment of his promises is sometimes just plain astonishing, isn't it?

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We're in Exodus 3 and 4 today, and it really comes out when we stop and think about it, because what's happening in Exodus 3 is occurring about 430 years after the

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Joseph story, when Jacob and all of his sons in his household moved from the land of Canaan to the land of Egypt.

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There were 70 -some people in all in Jacob's family at that time. Joseph planted them in the land of Goshen, and the people multiplied.

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Here we are more than four centuries later, and for more than the last hundred years, for more than a century now, these descendants of Jacob, the children of Israel, have been living in bondage.

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They've been slaves, they've been making bricks, they've been treated horribly. It's not like it's been the glamour days of when

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Joseph was in power in Egypt. These pharaohs rose up that didn't know

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Joseph and didn't care anything whatsoever about that history, and they just saw a bunch of slave labor, and they took advantage of it.

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The people have been in bondage for more than a century. In chapter 3, we have the calling of Moses at that burning bush, but he's an octogenarian.

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He's 80 years old, and it is this 80 -year -old man that God calls and tells him he's supposed to go back to Egypt, and he's going to lead his people out and give them deliverance.

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Isn't that odd? From a human standpoint, isn't that a little bit ironic?

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Wouldn't we expect there maybe to be a big rebellion? After all, the people of Israel are a large company by now.

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That's why the pharaoh was so afraid of them, because there were so many of them. Don't you think it would have been more effective if there were some people who could conspire together and go through the ranks and get people to band together and rise up in rebellion against their slave masters, and then take over arsenals and stuff like that?

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Not God's way. Not God's plan. The unfolding development and fulfillment of his promise to bring his people out.

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Remember, that was the promise that God made to Jacob 430 years ago. He said, go ahead, go down to Egypt, dwell there,

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I'm going to bring you back. I'll bring your people, your descendants, back to the land of Canaan. I will do it.

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He will, but not the way we would think. He uses an 80 -year -old man.

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His deliverance is going to come through a senior citizen, not through some great army.

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How amazing are the ways of our God. He calls this man

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Moses, who is not only an elderly man by our standards, he's also a pretty unwilling man, isn't he?

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He keeps coming up with excuse after excuse why he shouldn't be the one chosen to do this going back to Egypt.

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You get the sense that Moses is just pretty happy where he is. He's just kind of entered into a retirement phase, if you will, where, okay,

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I've done my thing. I've been doing the shepherding thing for the last 40 years. I'm perfectly content doing that.

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Let me just take care of sheep for the rest of my life. I'll be good. I don't want anything hard.

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I don't want anything rigorous. I don't want to be a leader. I just want to take care of sheep.

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God has other plans. Isn't it amazing whom God uses? Isn't it sometimes astounding how he prepares us?

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Isn't it incredible the processes God uses to bring about the fulfillment of his plan?

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From our perspective, how long it all takes. On a church sign for a couple weeks, we had the statement that with God, a thousand years is as a day, and a day is as a thousand years.

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It comes out in this kind of a story, doesn't it? 430 years. What's that to God, in God's perspective?

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It's just a blimp of time. It's the way

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God works. What an amazing, incredible God we serve. Our Father, today we do thank you and praise you for who you are, for your wisdom, for your skill, for whom you choose to use and how you go about calling and preparing those whom you choose.

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Father, we are amazed, we are astounded sometimes at your gracious work.

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We thank you that you work to bring about your plan. We don't always see the intricate details of how things unfold, but what we can know, even through a story like this, is that it's unfolding.

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You are accomplishing your purpose. May we rest in that, we pray in Jesus' name.

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All right, again, have a great weekend. I hope to see you on the Lord's Day, and I hope the Lord will bless you. Have a good day.