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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Moses said...

"Then Moses said, 'What if they will not believe me or listen to what I have to say? For they may say, the Lord has not appeared to you.'"--Exodus 4:1  This is excuse number 2 for Moses as to why he doesn't think he is the one that should go before Pharaoh to free Israel.  The first of course was who am I? First, he does not think he is qualified and now he fears rejection.  What I am noticing about the 4 different excuses Moses offers in Exodus 3:11, Exodus 4:1, Exodus 4:3, and Exodus 4:13 is that they all start with Moses said with the exception of 4:13 which says "he said" but still refers to Moses.

Moses said.  This is excuse #2 for Moses.  As I said, he fears rejection.

Moses said.  Now put yourself in Moses' position, what if this was you being written about? What if the passage read "(Your name) said..."?

Moses said.  I am sure we would all like to read this passage and ask 'Come on Moses, just listen to God!'.  Well again I ask, what if someone else was reading this and it was you they were talking about and everyone else was saying 'Come on (Your name), just listen to God!'

Moses said.  The point I am trying to make is that we look at the attitude of the Israelites, and as my friend and brother in Christ Brett Petrillo put it in a sermon once, we tend to think "Those ridiculous Israelites" because they turned from God despite everything God did for them.  In this case, we may think "that ridiculous Moses." But we fail to realize that we as Christians more often than not make the very same excuses Moses offers here in Exodus 3-4.  What if future generations read about where we failed and said "Those ridiculous Christians," see the point?

Moses said.  Moses fears rejection.  For most Christians, myself included, though I am getting better, this is the biggest hurdle to get over when it comes to personal evangelism, rejection.  What we have to remember is that when people reject the gospel message, it is not you they are rejecting, it's God and His Son Jesus Christ through whom we are saved they are rejecting.

Moses said.  This excuse is the second of four excuses. We may think "that ridiculous Moses" but we have to stop and realize that at some point in our Christian walk, we too have made the same excuse and we must make an effort to eliminate that and every other excuse.  We need to stop saying "What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say?" Our job is to do what Moses was being asked to do, bring people "out of Egypt" (sin) and into a relationship with Christ so we can all one day see our eternal Promised Land.

Moses said. Over the next two mornings, we will look at each of the other two excuses Moses offers. In the meantime, look at these "Moses said" passages again and do a little role play, rather than Moses said, read it as "(Your name) said" and ask yourself how would you get past that excuse in today's day and time. God gave Moses what He needed to do the job.  And with God's Word, we have everything we need to do the job of bringing people "out of Egypt."

DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! PRAY ABOUT IT! LOVE Y'ALL! GOD BLESS!  

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