Paleo-Evangelism

God’s concern for sinner (7)

Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings…

He saw a people enslaved to a great tyrant.
More broadly, he sees the lost in a worse condition

God’s choice to save some (8)

and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

While he sees them in their terrible state, he has a plan to transform them.
So it is with the lost more broadly. God has chosen to save some of them. And he made that choice before the foundation of the world.

So right now, God looks into the world and sees people who are at this time his enemies, but in the fullness of time will become his sons.

He sees people right now in the world who are at this time, dead in their sins and transgressions, who will in the fullness of time, be raised up and seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

At this time their sins are like crimson, but at his appointed time, they will be white as snow.

God’s certainty of success (8)

Notice the certainty of his language. “I have come down to deliver them and bring them up to a good and broad land.” God is not making a proposal here. He is making a promise.

“…observe the definiteness and positiveness of Jehovah’s assertions. There were no “perhaps” or “peradventure’s.” It was no mere invitation or offer that was made to Israel. Instead, it was the unconditional, emphatic declaration of what the Lord would do—“I am come down to deliver.” So it is now. The Gospel goes forth on no uncertain errand. God’s Word shall not return unto Him void, but “it shall accomplish that which He pleases, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto He sends it” (Isa. 55:11).”

We don’t believe that God tries to do things and sometimes fails. We believe that all God determines to do will come to pass. Including saving those he means to save.

Or take Acts 13:48 — Paul and Barnabbas are preaching to a great crowd of gentiles. And vs. 48 says — “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

Which brings us to our fourth parallel between this passage and God’s larger evangelistic purposes.

God’s concern for the sinner
God’s choice to save some
God’s certainty of success
God commissions a shepherd

In this story, he literally commissions a shepherd. That’s what Moses is doing at the time. That’s what Moses has been doing for the last 40 years. His vocation is no accident. God sees his people as sheep without a shepherd. Sheep that have been stolen by Pharaoh. Sheep that will need to be tended to and herded out of Egypt, through the wilderness and into the promise land.

When we look at evangelism more broadly, we see that Jesus saw those sinners whom God has chosen to save as lost sheep. Harassed and confused. And in the great commission he sent his people out as shepherds into the world.

How would they know which sheep were his? They were to speak the gospel message with the assurance that Christ’s voice would come through their voice.

As Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:27-28)

A lost person is not saved simply because a saved person shared the gospel with them. Its a little more magical than that. A lost person is saved because Jesus speaks through those he sends. And his sheep hear his voice.

In his book Finally Alive, John Piper tells the story of a young lady who joined their church.

A young woman told the story as she was joining our church of how Christ saved her. She said that she knew a good bit about Christianity because of her parents but had thrown it all away as a teenager and was on her own. One day she and her friends were walking down the beach as several handsome guys approached. Her thought was to impress them and be thought attractive and cool. As the guys passed, one of them called out, “Praise Jesus!”

Now probably later that night those guys said to themselves, “That was a lame witness. Why didn’t we stop and talk?” Little did they know that this simple word, “Praise Jesus,” pierced her heart and sent her later to her knees and to the Savior. There are no wasted testimonies.

When that young handsome beach Chad, with his Vineyard and Vines trunks and completely undeserved six-pack said “Praise Jesus” this confused lost girl heard the voice of God.

The point is this. God does his delivering work through people. In this story, he is using Moses and in the larger redemption story, God uses people like you and me.

“God’s way then, is God’s way now. Human instrumentality is the means He most commonly employs in bringing sinners from bondage to liberty, from death to life.” (AW Pink)

This is what Paul is talking about in Romans when he says,

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:13-15)

But at this point in the story, the plot thickens. Which brings us to our 5th point.

1. God’s Chosen Spokesperson Sins

Look at verse 10-11

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

God has shown his concern for the lost.
He has stated his choice to save them.
He has made it clear that this mission will be successful.
He commissions Moses to go.
And Moses says no.

Exodus 3:7-4:17 have a very simple structure.

Commission: 3:7-10

Moses’ Objection: 3:11
God’s Answer: 3:12

Moses’ Objection: 3:13
God’s Answer: 3:14-22

Moses’ Objection: 4:1
God’s Answer: 4:2-9

Moses’ Objection: 4:10
God’s Answer: 4:11-12

Moses’ Objection: 4:13
God’s Answer: 4:14-17

We will get into some of the details of that conversation in a moment, but first let us establish some of Moses’ mindset.

Distant Deliverance — God had delivered him from Pharaoh. But that was a long time ago. Moses’ deliverance is far back in the rearview mirror. The reality of his own salvation is not front and center. If it were, he might have more faith to follow God into the fray. But that was a long time ago. And most of it happened in his childhood.

Domestication — He’s gotten old, and grown comfortable. He’s got a job that keeps him busy, a wife and two sons to greet him in the evenings. An awesome father in law.

Disappointments — You know a long time ago, he had tried to help his people. He struck down an Egyptian who was striking a Hebrew. That didn’t go so well.

Disability — I believe he really did have some kind of speech impairment. Josephus tells us that when he was still in Pharoah’s household, Moses was known as a military man, a successful warrior. I think Moses was most naturally a man of war and not a man of words.

Danger — And besides all of this, and perhaps most obviously, the whole thing looked like a suicide mission.

Now I don’t know about you, but there’s a lot there that I resonate with.

One commentator puts it this way:

Were it not that we were acquainted in some measure with our own desperately-wicked hearts, it would appear to us well-nigh unthinkable that Moses should continue objecting and caviling. But the remembrance of our own repeated and humiliating failures only serves to show how sadly true to life is the picture here presented before us. The Lord had favored His servant with the awe-inspiring sight of the burning bush, He had spoken of His tender solicitude for the afflicted Hebrews, He had promised to be with Moses, He had expressly declared that He would deliver Israel from Egypt and bring them into Canaan. And yet all of this is not sufficient to silence unbelief and subdue the rebellious will. Alas! what is man that the Almighty should be mindful of him! Nothing but Divine power working within us can ever bring the human heart to abandon all creature props and trust in God. (AW Pink)

Distant Deliverance: I was saved a long time ago in my childhood. It is easy to forget.
Domesticity: I have a happy home life. It is pretty sweet to hang out with your soul mate.
Disappointments: I have tried to share the gospel before and it didn’t go well.
Disability: I don’t have a speech disability, but I can feel socially awkward at times.
Danger: And add this the likelihood that when I share the gospel, I could very well be rejected, scoffed at, etc…

Now I want to stress this morning that this 5th point — when the sent spokesperson sins and tells God “no thank you” is a normal part of God’s redemptive working. It shouldn’t be. We should respond with faith. But we don’t. And this isn’t surprising to God.

One of the things we see in this passage is God working on both ends. He is with the people in their bondage. He sees them. He is working in their lives to prepare them for salvation. He is also working on the other end — dealing with the inevitable hesitancy, rebellion, and sin of those he is calling to speak for him.

God is dealing with sin on both sides of the story. The same God who will deliver the lost out of their sin will deliver those he sends from their unbelief.

If God were to wait until He found a human instrument that was worthy or fit to be used by Him, He would go on waiting until the end of time. God is sovereign in this, as in everything. The truth is that God uses whom He pleases. Not yet was Moses ready to respond to Jehovah’s Call. There were other difficulties which the fertile mind of unbelief was ready to suggest, but one by one Divine power and long-sufferance overcame them. Let us take this lesson throughly to heart, and seek that grace which will enable us to place God between us and our difficulties, instead of putting difficulties between God and us.

Let’s spend the remainder of our time observing how God deals with Moses’ unbelief. Firstly, it might be edifying to point out how God does not deal with it.
Remember the details of this particular scene. Remember in 3:6 that “Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”

When I was younger, I read a lot of books on revival and I suppose you could say, “powerful personal encounters with God.” And I think I came to assume that if I just had a very powerful encounter with God, that I would instantaneously become more inclined to obedience and specifically more bold in evangelism.

Well, our passage with Moses pushes against that way of thinking. He’s right there in God’s presence — about as close as you can get — he is standing on holy ground, his face is warmed by the fire of God. His ears are full of the audible voice of God. And yet he’s acting just like you and I would act — just like we do act.

We love the quick fix. And it is pretty easy to think that there’s some religious experience out there that’ll burn away all of our unbelief. But that’s not what we see in the Bible. Even the mighty Paul, the man who encountered Jesus on the road and Damascus and later caught up into the third heavens is still self-consciously struggling with boldness.

At the end of the book of Ephesians, Paul calls the people to pray for him, “that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Ephesians 6:19-20).

And my mind sometimes turns to old Elijah. Coming off the heels of a miraculous showdown in which God used him mightily, he almost immediately consumed with defeatism. “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” — 1 Kings 19:4

It is unlikely that some future power encounter with the Lord is going to permanently fix our unbelief. That’ll come later — when the Lord Jesus returns. But in this life, we’re stuck with a basic pattern:

God has people he wants to save.
He wants to use you and I to effect their salvation.
You and I will often resist this call.

Now we know that Moses eventually did obey. And we’ve seen what didn’t do the trick — mainly a power encounter with Yahweh. So what did work?

Well, I think the answer is simply sanctification. God patiently and progressively moves Moses’ eyes off himself and on to God. A lot of attention gets paid to pronouns these days. One article describes this cultural moment as “the pronoun war.”

Friends at the very foundation of this fallen world is an original pronoun war. And we see it in this story. Moses is focused on the wrong “I”

3:11 – “who am I”
3:12 – “I will be with you”

3:13 – “if I come to the people of Israel and they ask me what is your name…”
3:14 – “I am” 

4:1 – “they will not listen to me”
4:2-9 – “I will make them listen you”

4:10 – “I am not eloquent. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
4:11-12 – “I will be your mouth and teach you what to say.”

4:13 – “Oh Lord please send someone else.”
4:14-17 – “Go find your brother Aaron. I will be with your mouth and his mouth.”

What we’re observing here is just plain old progressive sanctification. A doctrine that is alway summarized by our decreasing and his increasing.

When Paul says in Galatians 2:20 — he is talking about this dynamic.
Likewise when he tells the Romans to not be conformed to the pattern of this world.. (Romans 12)

Think about it this way, While not every evangelistic encounter ends with salvation, they all start with sanctification. In order for the message to go forth, the messenger has to get over himself. He has to be freed from his unbelief and filled with faith in the Lord.

We’re living in an era of pronounced evangelistic disobedience. How do we change that? God must change us. And that change will not be quick and painless. That change takes place over the course of a conversation with God. Progressively, over time, God shifts our focus from “I” to “I Am."

And it is a conversation many try to avoid. And I guess a main application for this message is that we need to stop avoiding the conversation. We need to let God convince us. We need to let him work on our hearts.

Now I want to leave you with one piece of outstanding hope.

In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul teaches us that the glory of the New Covenant far exceeds the glory of the Old Covenant. That’s the real challenge of preaching these old testament passages. We need to demonstrate both the continuity of the covenants and also the differences. We have to keep on saying, “our situation is like theirs — only better.”

Now look at 4:10-17

This is the final series of objections and answers. What happens here seems to push Moses over the edge from disobedience to obedience. So let us pay careful attention to this section.

Beginning in vs. 10,

But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

And in vs. 13-14, But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses…

Firstly, let us understand that our dullness and disobedience in this area — Our constant leaning on our own understanding is frustrating to God. Yes, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ has placed in permanent relationship with God. Yes, he is our father. But don’t take that to mean he doesn’t get frustrated with us. He does.

But he is kind and patient. Somehow this final answer gets Moses over the hump.

Look at vs. 14-17,

“Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do. He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him. And take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs.”

Two points emerge.

Firstly, you do not have do this alone. God gave Moses his brother Aaron, and he has given us many bothers and sisters to help us out. Some in this local church. Some in the larger invisible church.

Bring your unbelieving friends into your home. Surround them with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Invite your unbelieving friends to church. Let them see the family of God at work. In his book Finally Alive, John Piper writes:

In your relationships, invite people to church even before they are Christians. Some of the sheer strangeness of what it means to be a Christian can be overcome by a growing familiarity with how we sing and talk and relate in church. And the preaching of the word of God has a unique power. Every kind of speech is unique in some way. Preaching is not the only or the main way that we communicate. But it is appointed by God for a special effectiveness. Or, nowadays, with the Internet, if they are hesitant to come to church, invite them to a website where they can watch or listen to your pastor or some other teacher.

And you have brothers and sisters, co-laborers in the gospel who are not in this church. They may not even be alive. But they have written books, recorded podcasts, etc… The point is that God has surrounded you with many Aarons. Many people whom God will use to compliment your own efforts.

There is a reason Jesus sent out his disciples in twos.

We need to encourage one another in this regard. Consider again what finally did it for Moses.

Was it a face to face encounter with God?
Was it assurance that his mission would be successful?
Was it the strange signs of the serpent and the leprous hand?

In the end it was this — you won’t have to do this alone.

If we’re going to change in this area, we’re going to have to change together. The old management consultant Peter Drucker is perhaps best known for one particular quote.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

We have seen

God’s concern for the sinner
God’s choice to save some
God’s certainty of success
God commissions a shepherd

Is in some way bottlenecked by our fifth point:

1. God’s Chosen Spokesperson Sins

Overcoming that seems to be a matter of developing a community-wide culture of gospel partnership. Where we lean on one another, challenge one another, and work together to bring God’s saving purposes to pass.