Moses' Faith, Part 2

Hebrews chapter 11, Hebrews chapter 11, look at the life of Moses. What a great study. If you were with us years ago, I think it was 2004 or five, we went through the whole life of Moses, talking about this man of destiny and went through the whole book of, not every chapter in Exodus, but went through the life of Moses and studied exactly what God did in his life. And as we look at Hebrews 11, we realized that the parents of Moses portrayed that which was incredible.

That is, they had unique and special faith. Hebrews 11, 23. They had a unique faith because they would have a son, they would hide the son. And then because of the fact that they honored God by faith, Jacobet was able to hold her son and help her son understand how God would visit his people so that he'd be used in a great and mighty way. But while everybody else was taking their child and throwing them in the Nile, Jacobet and Amram did not. They truly lived by faith. They believed in what God said and they behaved accordingly to all that God said.

And God used them in a magnificent way. So these parents had incredible faith. So because they portrayed the incredible, Moses would prefer the imperishable. And Moses, because he preferred the imperishable, he was able to perceive that which was invisible. Therefore he was able to perform that which was impossible. But before he could perform that which was impossible, he had to pass through that which was invaluable. And that's what I want to talk to you about this week and next week. Moses had to pass through that which was invaluable.

Now, it's in between verse number 27 and 28 of Hebrews 11. In verse 27, it says, by faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured of seeing him who is unseen. And by faith, he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood so that he who destroyed the firstborn would not touch them. In between verse 27 and 28, there's something that happened in the life of Moses. He had to pass through something that was absolutely invaluable to him. The same is true for you and me. Act seven, verse 29 tells us when it says this in verse number 29, at this remark, Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

That's all it says. And then it says, after 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning thorn bush. But those 40 years were the years that were absolutely invaluable to Moses. Those 40 years enabled him to perform the impossible because he passed through the invaluable. 40 years to live a purpose-driven life, not 40 days. Just thought I'd throw that in for you. Yeah, 40 years. What happened to Moses? Where did he go? What did he do? Well, the Bible tells us in the book of Exodus, these words.

It says, now Moses was pastoring the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, Exodus three, verse number one.

And he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. What we know from what the scripture tells us is that Moses, he would flee Egypt by faith. He would go to Midian, the backside of the wilderness, the backside of the desert. He would be there for 40 years. He'd have a wife, two sons, and he would be the shepherd of Jethro's sheep. That's all we know. Except for the fact that when he comes out of that 40 years, the angel of the Lord appears to him in a burning bush and speaks to him.

And all of a sudden, Moses is a completely different man than he was 40 years earlier. 40 years earlier, he was a independent man. He was a self-reliant man. He was a man who really believed that he could pull off the Exodus by killing an Egyptian or because he was against his own Hebrew people or by breaking up his brothers who were fighting and thinking that he would convince them that he was their deliverer, but he could not convince them of that. Because he couldn't do it on his own. But the well-educated man, the well-eloquent man, the man who had done many mighty deeds, all of a sudden had no respect from his people Israel.

So when you read about Moses in Exodus chapter three, he's a completely different man than he was 40 years before that. Why? Because God did something in his life. God would break the man and he broke the man in the desert. Today, I wanna take you to the desert. I'm not talking Palm Springs or Sedona. I'm not even talking the Sahara or the Serengeti. I'm talking about present day Saudi Arabia because that's where Midian is. I wanna take you to a hot, dry, desolate place. I wanna take you to the place that Moses went to help you understand where he was and what God did because what God did in the life of Moses was absolutely fabulous.

And Moses was there for a while. It wasn't 40 days or 40 weeks or 40 months. It was 40 years. That is a long time in anybody's book. But what happens in Moses' life after those 40 years is powerful because there are two chapters in the book of Exodus that deal with the first 80 years of the man's life.

And the rest of Exodus is all about the last 40 years. Why? Because Moses didn't do anything that was valuable in the first 80 years, but he did in the last 40 years because God used him.

And so what we wanna see is what happened in that desert? What took place in the life of Moses so that when he comes out of the backside of the desert, when he comes out and he faces the living God in a burning bush and God speaks to him, he realizes that he's not the man to lead Israel, that he's not an eloquent man. Before he was, but now he's not. Before he was a well-educated man. He's still educated, but he wasn't prepared to lead Israel. But now he is. And he realizes he's not. He makes all kinds of excuses as to why he can't do it before God convinces him that he is the man.

So I wanna take you to the desert. Some of you are there even as we speak. Some of you have already passed through the desert. Others of you, you will be in the desert. It's coming. The question is, what did you learn while you were there? What happened in your life to turn everything around? Now the desert, although it was a literal place for Moses, is not necessarily a literal place for you and me. But nevertheless, the desert is a real place. And that desert takes on different forms in different ways for different people.

For some of you, that desert will be a heartbreak over the death of a loved one. For others, it will be physical pain or physical enablement. Maybe you'd be bedridden, house-ridden, unable to move as you used to move. But that desert takes on a physical pain. For others, it could take on a financial pain, a financial strain where you lose everything and have nothing left. For some, it could be a difficult divorce where you lost everything or you're in the process of losing everything. For others, it could be the fact that you have children that live in rebellion against God and your authority.

And for years, they turn their back against God and run away from the truth. You see, the desert takes on many shapes and many forms in different people's lives. But the desert always has the same characteristics in everyone's life. And I wanna be able to point them out to you this morning. Help you understand that the desert is God's special design for your spiritual development. The desert is God's special design for your spiritual development. In other words, God is in the process of erasing your independence from Him to establishing your dependence upon Him.

That's what happens in the desert. He erases your independence from Him to establish your dependence upon Him. He wants you to be near Him. He wants you to hear Him. He wants you to fear Him. He wants you to know Him, love Him, and adore Him. He wants you to do that more than you wanna do it. But God will stop at nothing to bring you to that place where you will cry out to Him, fall on your face, and worship and serve the true living God with all that you have. For Moses, it was 40 years on the backside of the desert.

For you, it might be longer. Or shorter. Hopefully, it's shorter, right? It's not 40 years long. I mean, that's half our lives, basically, right? If you live to be 80, you know, some of us don't even make it to 80. So what is God doing and how is God doing it? Listen carefully. The Hebrew word for desert is midbar. The Hebrew word to speak is debar. So the word desert comes from the Hebrew word to speak. Very interesting that in order for you to hear God speak, you must go through the desert. For that's where God speaks the loudest.

That's where God speaks the clearest. That's where He has your undivided attention to listen to all that He has for you. And God will stop at nothing to drive you there. For He knows that brokenness burns out shallowness every time, He just does. So one man said it this way. He said, the desert wears many faces. It may be crowded with people, yet it is lonely. It may rain day and night without reprieve, yet it is barren. Flowers may bloom and trees may blossom all around you, yet it is desolate. That's the desert.

So let's explain the desert to you. Just take your paper and write the word desert down the left-hand side, okay? Now remember, desert is spelled with one S and not two. Because desert with two S's spells what? Ah, very important, why? Because once you pass through the desert, you feast on all the dessert that God has for you. So make sure you start with one S and not two. Very important. So what is the desert? Where is it for you and for me? The desert, number one, is a desolate place.

It is a desolate place. This is Midian, the backside of the desert, present-day Saudi Arabia. That's where Moses is, that's where he fled to. By faith, he fled there. So he went to a place that was a dry wasteland. That was dusty, that was dirty, that would cause all kinds of heartache. That's where he went. And as he pastured the flock of Jethro, his whole life would be looking for grass, for the sheep to feed, for water, for them to drink. As barren as it was, as empty as it was, as desolate as it was, Moses did not flee to Midian in an air-conditioned bus.

So he could get there, get out, take a few pictures, pick up a few rocks, look at the view, and get back in the bus and go back to his hotel.

It wasn't like that, not at all, not even close. Because even when he went there, he went there to stay. He didn't know how long he'd be there, but in God's sovereignty, it was 40 years. Thus he went. It's one of those places that when you get there, you say, wow, interesting place, I'm just glad I don't live here. But Moses did for 40 years. Quite different than Egypt. In Egypt, he was the guy, he was the man. He was the popular man. He had the Egyptian paparazzi following him wherever he went. As soon as he stepped out of the palace, it was all, there's Moses.

What does Moses have to say today? Because he is so eloquent with his words. What were the deeds that Moses accomplished last week? We're gonna hear about all the deeds that Moses did. And so whenever he stepped out of the palace, he was the most popular man in Egypt. He was next in line to be the Pharaoh. He was everybody's man. In the desert, he was nobody's man. Nobody's man. In Egypt, everybody listened to Moses. Listen to what Moses has to say. Did you hear what Moses said today? Did anybody catch what Moses said on the news last night?

Oh man, the guy is just so eloquent. He's so amazing. This is the guy. But in Midian, in the desert, nobody's there. Nobody's listening. Nobody cares. So Moses shepherds sheep. Do you think the sheep care that Moses was an educated man? Doubt it. You think the sheep cared that Moses was an eloquent man? A man mighty in deeds? No, the sheep don't care about that. They just wanna be fed and led. That's it. Just make sure I have food, water. Make sure you touch me and pet me every once in a while. I'm good to go.

That's all they need. They didn't care if Moses was educated. They didn't care if Moses was eloquent with his words. They didn't care if Moses was mighty in his deeds. People in Egypt, they cared. But the sheep, they didn't care. Do you know I've been in ministry for over 40 years? And I can count on one hand how many times people ask me about my education. Because the sheep in the church just don't care. They don't care where I went to school. They don't care where I went to seminary. They don't care what my education's in.

They don't care. They wanna be fed and they wanna be led. That's it. That's it. Because the people in the church are not wowed by those kinds of things. They're sheep. They need to be fed and led. And so here was Moses with the sheep, Jethro's sheep for 40 years. He was married to Zipporah. He had two sons. But he lived in a very desolate place. Sometimes in the midst of our aloneness, in the midst of our isolation, in the midst of the fact that we find ourselves with no one responding to us, we begin to ask ourselves the questions, do I matter?

Does anybody care? Does anybody even pay attention? And yet, God does unique and special things in the realm of the desolate, obscure place. Because listen to the words of Jesus in John 16. He says these words, John 16, verse number 33. These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world, you have tribulation. But take courage, I have overcome the world. Now that's a great verse, but that's not the verse I wanted to read. I wanted to read the verse before that, verse 32.

Sorry about that. Behold, an hour is coming and has already come for you to be scattered each to his own home and to leave me alone, and yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. That's just so powerful. You're all gonna be scattered to your own home. I'm gonna be left alone, but I'm not alone because the Father is with me. It was Paul who said these words in 2 Timothy chapter four, verse 16. At my first defense, no one supported me.

All deserted me. May it not be counted against them, but the Lord stood with me and strengthened me. Set through me the proclamation might be fully accomplished and that all the Gentiles might hear and I was rescued out of the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever, amen. Paul was left alone, but he wasn't alone. Christ was left alone, but he wasn't alone. You might be left alone, but listen, if you know the Lord, you're never alone because your Lord is always with you.

But you see, God wants to get you to that place that Jesus is all you need, but Jesus is never all you need until Jesus is all you got. But you need to realize that Jesus is everything. Unfortunately for us, Jesus plus something is everything. But Jesus with nothing truly is all things. That's where Moses had to learn. Amidst all the publicity, all the prominence which he had in Egypt, everything at his disposal, in the comfy rooms of the palace, he did not have what he had in the dirty, dusty, desolate place in the desert.

A relationship with the living God that blossomed beyond anything you can ever imagine. The desert is a desolate place. The desert is an established place. In other words, God establishes your desert. He designed it specifically for you. That's why my desert is not yours and yours is not mine. Yes, they are desolate, but it is an established place specifically designed for you. There is an appointed time for everything under the sun. Ecclesiastes three, right? Verse number one.

Everything is by divine appointment. And God doesn't give us all the same circumstances and situations. He fashions them all specifically for you and me because he is, he knows us all by name. He knows us all individually and he fashions our desert for us on an individual basis. The desert is a place that's unknown to us, but known to God because God establishes it. Bible tells us in Hebrews 11, 27, that by faith, Moses left Egypt. By faith, he went to Midian. God led him there. God took him there because this was a place where God would fashion this man, develop this man, strengthen this man, help this man to understand he needs God.

He can't lead on his own. His education, his eloquence, his strength did not make him God's leader. God had to break him to make him his leader. It just took Moses four years to get there. One of the most difficult things to learn about the desert experience is that God actually places you there. God takes you through that which is invaluable. Most of us don't wanna go through those times because they're too difficult, they're too hard. If we would've known that they were going to come a week in advance, we'd do something different or try to.

So God doesn't tell us the time it's going to come, but it does come. Doesn't tell us how long we're gonna be there. He just tells us how long we're gonna be there. He establishes the place specifically designed for us. He knows us best. Psalm 119, verse number 75. In faithfulness thou hast afflicted me. God never afflicts you unfaithfully. He only afflicts you faithfully because God is at work doing great things. So God designs your specific desert. It is an established place. Yea, thou walk to the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

Why? For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Yes, he leads me into green pastures. Yes, he leads me besides quiet waters. But the leading of God also takes you through the valley of the shadow of death. But you need not fear, for God is with you. He knows what is best. So God establishes a specific place, a specific location, a specific time, a specific event, a specific circumstance, a specific heartache, specific pain to take you through so he can burn out all kinds of shallowness in your lives.

That he might deepen you and strengthen you as he did Moses. Because Moses became Israel's greatest leader. Leader. He wasn't Israel's greatest leader because he was educated in the finest school system of his day. He wasn't Israel's greatest leader because he was able to perform mighty deeds. He was Israel's greatest leader because God made him Israel's greatest leader. God molded him into great leadership. And the only way God could do that was to take him from the palace to the desert on the backside of the desert to be the shepherd of Jethro's sheep for 40 years in complete obscurity because God had to speak to him in a way that Moses would listen.

The desert is a desolate place, an established place. It is a silent place. It is a silent place. You ever been to the desert? Next time when you're away to Arizona and you're going through the desert, just take one of those side roads and just drive off for two or three miles. Park your car, get out, and just sit in the sand. There's nothing. You hear nothing. When you go to the beach, you have the shore and you have the waves pounding on the shore constantly. You had this noise. You had the seagulls flying over your head always making some kind of noise.

You can have boats out in the ocean honking their horns or blowing their horns. I guess they honk their horns. They blow their horns. What do they do? You have noise, but in the desert, you have nothing like that. It's completely silent. And every once in a while, you can hear the wind blow. But for the most part, it's so silent, it's almost deafening. And that's where God wants you to be. He wants you to be in a place of silence. Why? Isaiah 30, verse number 15. In silence and trust shall be your strength, but you are unwilling.

So if you're unwilling, what will God do? He'll force you to a place of quietness. He'll force you to a place of silence. So you will learn to listen to what he has to say. God will do that. Because he wants you to hear very clearly all that he has to say. That's why the Bible says, be still and know that I am God.

You don't know God in the busyness of life. You know him in the still, quiet hours of life. See, we have a hard time with this, right? Listen, when I was growing up, back in the 60s and 70s, and people went jogging, they went jogging. There were no earphones that they had in those days. The Walkman was created in 1979, right? So when people went jogging, they literally went jogging with nothing to listen to. Now, I didn't do that because I belong to Joggers Anonymous, right? Every time I get the urge to jog, I call somebody up until the urge goes away.

It's a great place to be, see? But people go out and they jog all day. Well, then all of a sudden the Walkman came along and people started jogging with a Walkman, right? Put their cassette player in there, they listened to whatever music they wanted to listen to, and they went from the Walkman to the next thing you know, they've got the iPod that was created, right? You could listen to music and people had all these earphones hanging from them, and then all of a sudden they went to wireless earbuds, and next thing you know, people are just running all the time with all kinds of music to listen to because everybody hates the sound of silence.

We love to hear music. We love to hear podcasts. We love to be where there's noise. We love to hear talking. We love to be in the business of life, but you need to be still and know that God is God. That's why the Lord said to the disciples in Mark chapter six, verses 30 to 32, come apart with me for a while to a secluded place, because he knew that they would not come apart with him. They would eventually fall apart without him. You need to come apart for a while in secluded places to be able to hear and listen to what God has to say.

So incredibly important. That's why the Lord says, Habakkuk chapter two, verse number 20, the Lord is in the heavens. Let all the earth be silent. Listen and hear what God has to say. So important. In Lamentations chapter three, verse number 25, these words are spoken. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the person who seeks him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord. It's good to wait silently. It goes on to say these words, it is good for a man that he should bear the yoke in his youth, let him sit alone and be silent since he has laid it on him.

Just sit alone and be silent, but we can't. So what does God do? He puts you in a situation that you have to sit in silence, that you're all alone in a desolate place. Specifically established for you and you alone, that you might sit there in silence, listening to all that God says.

But listen, God's not gonna speak to you from a burning bush. He's gonna speak to you from a burning book. That's the Bible. Jeremiah 23, 29, is not my word like fire. So when you're in your place of silence, don't forget to take your Bible with you because God's gonna speak to you through the book that burns with his words, right? The desert is a desolate place. The desert is an established place. The desert is a silent place. The desert is an essential place. It is an essential place. It's essential simply because God has designed it.

There are three passages in Scripture in the New Testament that speak of how it is you go through a desert experience. One we'll get to in a few weeks or a few months. That's Hebrews 12, speaking of a father who disciplines his son. Another is James chapter one that speaks about going through various trials. The other is John chapter 15, speaking about a vine that's pruned and purged. Why? Because God is always doing something in the essential place. And what is he doing? He is simply purifying you, perfecting you that you might produce for him.

That's what he's doing. So as the father disciplines his son, so our heavenly father disciplines us so that we could bear and produce the fruit of righteousness. Consider all joy, James says, when you go through various trials, knowing that the perfecting of your faith, the proving of your faith produces joy. Why? God is going to perfect you. He's going to purify you. He's going to purge you. And the word for prove has an historical background that would deal with a metal worker. Because a metal worker would take a hunk of huge ore and throw it into the melting pot.

And as he would turn the heat up, all the impurities would rise to the top. He'd take this huge spatula and he'd wipe away all the dross and throw it away. He'd look over the melting pot to see if he could see with clarity his face. If he couldn't, he would turn the pot up even hotter. So more impurities would rise to the top. He then again would take the spatula again and remove the impurities, toss them aside, look into the melting pot to see if he could see his face. And if he couldn't see it clearly, he turns the heat up again until finally he'd be able to look into that melting pot and see his face reflected in there.

That's what God does. Just turns the fire a little bit. Why? Because you have all this dross needs to be burned away. He turns the fire up, he just wipes it away. Looks down to see if his image is reflected in his children. If not, just turns it up a little bit more. So all that dross rise to the top. Wipes it away. He looks down from heaven to see if his face is clearly seeing you. That's what God does. It's a purifying process. John uses the analogy of the vine, right? Every vine, right? Every branch he purges so that it bears forth more fruit.

You see, you're gonna bear fruit but he wants you to bear more fruit. So what's he gonna do? He just cuts away all the excess things that are there. He prunes you. And the pruning process is a difficult process. It's not easy, but he's gotta wipe away everything that keeps you from being all that you need to be so you can bear all the fruit that you can produce. That's what God wants to do. That's why it's an essential place. It's essential for perfection, it's essential for purification, it's essential for production.

Without the desert, those things don't happen. With the desert, it does. The desolate, established, silent, essential place. The desert, and my time is gone, is a rugged place. It's a rugged place. Midian was miserable, hot, dry. Your lips, very dry. Your skin, it burns. Your throat, always dry. Why? The heat. It's relentless. Hot during the day, cold at night. And that was Midian. In a physical way, but in a spiritual way, the same thing is true. Excuse me, it's that time which God is doing something, it's a very rugged, it's not a smooth place.

He leaves the palace. The comfort of the palace, with the plush pillows, the soft sheets, the people who come and bring you your Arabian coffee in the morning, okay? Who bring you all the things you need, you need to have, the luxuries of life, they're all gone. You gotta make your own coffee. You gotta make your own bed, and it's a bed on sand, and your pillows are rock. That's what you have. But if it wasn't rugged, it would not remove that which would keep you from being all that God wants you to be.

It's a very rugged place, because our Lord has to remove all resistance, all resistance, all rebellion against Him. So God will do that. Let me give you one more, and we'll pick it up next week.

The desert is a timeless place. You can't put a time on it. God knows how long it's going to be. God knows not only where it's gonna be, how long it's going to be. It's very timeless. For Moses, it was 40 years. For you, it might be 40 weeks. But for Moses, it was a long time. But the desert is a timeless place. God exists outside the realm of time, right? We exist in the realm of time. So we look at everything in terms of clocks and calendars.

Is it gonna be done next week? Am I gonna be through this next week? Is it next month? When is this gonna end? And with God, there is no timeframe, because God is at work in your life. And we'll do whatever he needs to do for as long as he needs to do it, to bring you to a place where all the dross is removed, that you might live for him. Having said that, remember the words of Moses? Moses wrote one psalm, Psalm 90. And I'm gonna leave you with what he said, as you leave today. Psalm 90, verse number 15.

Make us glad. You wanna be glad today? Make us glad according to the days you have afflicted us. Make us glad according to the days you have afflicted us. There was something about the days of affliction that made them glad. This is this, and the years that we have seen trouble. The years that we lived in the realm of trouble and affliction were our best years. They were the greatest of all years. Why? Because it's there we learn dependence. It's there we learn to lean upon God and trust him. It's there we learn to follow him.

And servant, the desert is God's special design for your spiritual development. Next week, we'll look at what God is doing to that desert.

Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for today. And the opportunity you give us to look at your word just for a brief moment.

And pray, Lord, that you will continue to instruct us and teach us that we might learn more about you. Help us to see what it is you're doing in our lives each and every day, that we might totally depend upon you for everything. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.