Exodus 4:1-17

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. That's where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word, we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, we go from Genesis to Leviticus. We're at Exodus chapter four, the first 17 verses this morning. Why don't we have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll jump into God's word. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you that you woke us up this morning. That you've given us new life. That you have filled our days with goodness. You've given us food. You've given us clothing. You've given us all we need. Father, we pray that you please help us now. That as we read your word, you would bless us and care for us and teach us in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, let me grab my glasses here and we'll go to Exodus chapter four. And let's jump into the first 17 verses.
Then Moses answered and said, But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice. Suppose they say the Lord has not appeared to you. So the Lord said to him, What is in your hand? He said, a rod. And he said, cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground and it became a serpent and Moses fled from it. And the Lord said to Moses, reach out your hand and take it by the tail and reached out his hand and caught it. And it became a rod in his hand. that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has appeared to you.
Furthermore, the Lord said to him, Now put your hand in your bosom, And he put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. And he said, Put your hand in your bosom again. So he put his hand in his bosom again and drew it out of his bosom, and behold, it was restored like his other flesh.
Then it will be if they do not believe you or heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign. 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. Pour it out on the dry land. The water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land.
Then Moses said to the Lord, Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow to speech and slow to tongue. So the Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth? Or what makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say. But he said, O Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else you may send. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.
And he said, it is not, is it not Aaron, the Levite, your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. 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. 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 and you shall take this rod in your hand with which you shall do the signs.
Well, we'll go ahead and stop there. We need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words, right? So what's this about? Well, this really is a continuation of chapter three. Remember, chapter breaks are medieval inventions. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not.
This is one of those examples where and if you're doing a bible reading plan maybe it's nice that you don't finish a whole scene but really this story should just keep on continuing on and so here Moses has interacted with God in the burning bush and Now, Moses says, OK, so you've told me your name. You've told me you're Jehovah. You've told me that you're the Tetragrammaton, the Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh. Some people might say Yahweh of the, you know, that our ancestors called upon by name. But what if they still don't believe me? What if they say God hasn't appeared to you?
And for the fourth time here, God says that he's going to tell them that they'll believe, this is in verse 5, they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has appeared to you. This is the fourth time that phrase is used in these two chapters. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
This is who he is, this is who the Lord is, and he's gonna prove it. He's gonna give them sensible signs here. So he tells them, he says, what's in your hand, bud? He's got a rod, he says, throw it down. I love this. Moses does it, and then he runs like a little girl. I'd probably do the same thing, I don't know what type of serpent it was, maybe it was a cobra or something, I'd wanna get out of there too. But he throws it on the ground, turns into a snake, he gets out of there. That's a real snake, right? He's really afraid of it. It's not some imagination, right?
God says, take it by the tail. Takes it by the tail, turns back into his rod. And if that wasn't enough, he says, all right, now take your hand, stick it in your bosom, right? Put it put it inside your shirt, right? Right by your chest. Pulls it out and it's leprous. It's got like sores and it's white. This isn't good.
God says, put it back in your bosom again. Puts it back in his bosom, takes it out and it's restored again. How in the world does that happen? Well, a guy can do whatever God wants to do. A guy can do whatever is according to his holy will. And so. That's what he does. It turns up in there and then he tells him this one, he doesn't. And so then he doesn't actually show him. He just tells him, right. He says that he's going to be able to take water from the river. pour it out on the ground, and it's gonna turn into blood.
Moses doesn't actually see this, but now God is pushing him to move away from just sight and by faith. God's gonna do even greater miracles than this. And we're gonna see that in the plagues of Egypt. This doesn't convince, Moses knows, okay, you're real, right, you're God.
But he's still got a problem. Verses 10 and following are Moses' problem. He doesn't doubt that God is who he says he is. But his problem is who he knows he is. He says, look, I can't talk eloquently. I'm not quick to speak. Can't you find someone else? I don't know if this is somewhat disingenuous of Moses. Is he afraid to go back to Egypt? The place where he knows that he has a reputation as a murderer? The one who was chased out of Egypt? Is he afraid to go face Pharaoh?
Or is he truly just humble? I can't speak well. Do we take him at face value? I think that's probably the case. I wonder how much is in the background, but we know that Moses is one of the most humble men who's ever lived. He says, I can't speak well, Lord. I can't do it. Can't you find someone else? God is. So the Lord So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. God's mad at Moses for this. But thank God he is merciful. He doesn't strike down Moses dead right then and there for this.
But he says, you know what, your brother Aaron's coming. He'll be your mouthpiece. He'll be the one who will talk for you. God is being gracious here. He's going to set up almost this two-tier system. It's going to be Aaron, who's the lesser, Moses, who's the greater, and Aaron will be the spokesman, and Moses will be the authority behind. It's a pretty normal royal-type setup, or a delegation-type setup.
And that's actually what it says. In verse 16 where it said, and he himself shall be as a mouth for you and you shall be to him as God. The word God, I actually would not translate God there. L can mean God, but it can also mean a ruler. You'll be as a ruler or a greater than him.
And you shall take this rod in your hand with you with which you shall do the signs. What is this about? This is God's commissioning of Moses to go. and him giving him signs and now even a spokesman to go do that work. What's the best verse to summarize this? Well, I think the end of verse 15 and 16, I will teach you what you shall do. So he shall be your spokesman as the people and he himself shall be as a mouth for you and you shall be to him as God and you shall take this rod in your hand with you, which you shall do the signs Um...
It's really kind of two different parts here, right? But I think that kind of gets at it other than maybe, so he casts on the ground and it became assert, but, and Moses fled from it. I just liked that part. I have a double underlined cause I think it's funny. Um, what would you underline? Right?
I think there's really two different parts in this, in this percocet, two different parts in this story. Um, you know, the signs and then his objection to not thinking he's good enough. I can't speak well enough. I know I've been there, Moses. I understand. Not in the same way. I'm glad I wasn't called to that type of ministry. This is Moses and God still going back and forth about his commission.
Well, what are we called to do in response to this? Well, let me just say a few things. One, when we come to the scriptures, right, we want to learn about who God is. And here we learn that God is the God who is sovereign over creation. He could take a rod and turn it to a snake. He could take somebody's hand and turn it leprous.
This is truly the God. the forefathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob he's never forgotten about his people that remembers his promises he keeps his covenant and he redeems his people he loves his people but even here we also find that people sometimes don't always like to go along with God's plans maybe you've been in that position before maybe you've thought I don't know how to tell someone the gospel I'm worried about talking to my friend about Jesus Christ. You know what? Don't worry about it. It's not your job to craft the perfect speech. It's not your job to worry about what you'll say. Just go. He'll teach you. His Holy Spirit will be with you.
It's amazing how many people are saved Because it's just small conversations. I remember listening to a guy who was, just a while ago, and he was preaching and he was talking about this guy in their church. And he always wore a suit and you'd go on the subway, this is out in Los Angeles, and he had a stutter. I'm going to mess up his name. I'm going to call him Arnold. And he'd go to the subway and he'd have invitations to the church. And he'd just come up to people all the time. My name is Arnold.
You come to my church. You come to my church. And he'd just hand them a gospel tract and have the church's address on it. And people would come. People would come to know Jesus Christ. because of that stuttering, humble, faithful servant who would give out gospel tracts. I'm sure he was worried about what people would think of his speech, but the Lord wasn't worried about it.
The Lord can use you. Take comfort in him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. Father, we pray that we would follow after you and love you. Lord, we thank you that you use imperfect people for the perfect plan of your redemption. Please let us trust in you in Jesus name. Amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and the peace of Jesus Christ. And I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.