MOSES HAS A BAD DAY. Exodus 2:11-25

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3 MOSES HAS A BAD DAY Exodus 2:11-25

4 LESSON: You need more than natural ability, good intentions, and genuine effort to follow Christ.

5 LESSON: You need the life and power of God in you in order to follow Christ.

6 QUESTION: If you only have natural ability, good intentions and genuine effort, where do you end up?

7 ISAISH 55:8-9 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways. This is the Lord s declaration. For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

8 MAIN POINTS: 1. Moses Natural Ability 2. Moses Good Intentions 3. Moses Genuine Effort

9 1. MOSES NATURAL ABILITY

10 EXODUS 2:11-13 Years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, Why are you attacking your neighbor?

11 ACTS 7:20-22 At that time Moses was born a beautiful child in God s eyes. His parents cared for him at home for three months. When they had to abandon him, Pharaoh s daughter adopted him and raised him as her own son. Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in both speech and action.

12 ACTS 7:23-25 One day when Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his relatives, the people of Israel. He saw an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite. So Moses came to the man s defense and avenged him, killing the Egyptian. Moses assumed his fellow Israelites would realize that God had sent him to rescue them, but they didn t.

13 MOSES THE PERFECT SAVIOR: a. Hebrew/Egyptian b. Educated by the Egyptians c. Mighty in words and deeds

14 FLOYD N. JONES, CHRONOLOGY OF THE OT Thus Moses grew up as a prince of Egypt. In fact, Flavius Josephus suggests that Moses commanded Egyptian troops and led them to victory against the forces of neighboring Ethiopia.

15 According to that account, the Ethiopians were raiding the Egyptians, and the Pharaoh ordered Moses to lead an army to stop the raiders once and for all. Moses then used a remarkable tactic to take the Ethiopians by surprise. The Ethiopians were expecting Moses to attack by marching along the river, rather than by land, because the land between the two armies was so thick with snakes that it was impassable.

16 For that very reason, Moses was determined to march over land. He ordered his artificers to construct cages and to carry ibis birds (a sacred bird in Egypt) with them. The ibis is a natural enemy of snakes, and so they scattered the snakes, and the army was safe. Thus the army crossed the land, surprised the enemy, and defeated them.

17 2. MOSES GOOD INTENTIONS

18 EXODUS 2:11-13 Years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, Why are you attacking your neighbor?

19 a. Beating b. Fighting c. Driving

20 3. MOSES GENUINE EFFORT

21 EXODUS 2:11-13 Years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, Why are you attacking your neighbor?

22 QUESTION: If you only have natural ability, good intentions and genuine effort, where do you end up?

23 EVENTUALLY BROKEN AND HOPELESS

24 MARK 8:32-33 As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. Get away from me, Satan! he said. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God s.

25 EXODUS 2:14-15 Who made you a leader and judge over us? the man replied. Are you planning to kill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses became afraid and thought: What I did is certainly known. When Pharaoh heard about this, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well.

26 EXODUS 2:16-18 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father s flock. Then some shepherds arrived and drove them away, but Moses came to their rescue and watered their flock. When they returned to their father Reuel he asked, Why have you come back so quickly today?

27 EXODUS 2:19-20 They answered, An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock. So where is he? he asked his daughters. Why then did you leave the man behind? Invite him to eat dinner.

28 EXODUS 2:21-22 Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. She gave birth to a son whom he named Gershom, for he said, I have been a foreigner in a foreign land.

29 AW TOZER The flaming desire to be rid of every unholy thing and to put on the likeness of Christ at any cost is not often found among us. We expect to enter the everlasting kingdom of our Father and to sit down around the table with sages, saints and martyrs; and through the grace of God, maybe we shall; yes maybe we shall. But for the most of us,

30 AW TOZER it could prove at first an embarrassing experience. Ours might be the silence of the untried soldier in the presence of the battle hardened heroes who have fought the fight and won the victory and who have scars to prove that they were present when the battle was joined. It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.

31 APPLICATION 1. Circle One: Cynical Sally Compromised Carl Humble Henry

32 APPLICATION 2. Remember This: Past failure is often the prerequisite to future fruitfulness, if you endure.

33 APPLICATION

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