Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Pastor Ed Taylor challenges us to get in the Word here in this new year.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Why do you read your divos in the morning? Why? Because you want to get the Word of God in you. You want it to shape you and form you. Why are you reading a chapter of Proverbs every day? So that you might hear the wisdom of God. Why would you flip through the Psalms? Because you want to deposit the worship of God inside of you.

Why would you go to the Gospels? If that's all you're reading for the next years, you would go to follow Jesus so that you learn how to walk with Him and you learn the ways of Jesus. If that's all you did for a year, at the end of the year, you will be a different woman and a different man. Your heart will be melted before Him. You match that with obedience. What we need to learn is how to walk into things tactfully and obediently.

Guest (Male): Greetings in Christ. This is Abounding Grace, where we open and study the Word with Pastor Ed Taylor. We're traveling through Exodus, one verse at a time, in a study of God's deliverance. God has a message for Pharaoh: "Let my people go." Well, as you may know, Pharaoh refused and God would make Himself known by sending a series of plagues to get his attention and show His power over the false Egyptian gods. It's foolish to fight against God as you can't win that battle. Here is Pastor Ed in Exodus Chapter 7.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Open your Bibles to Exodus Chapter 7, a new chapter I've entitled "God Makes Himself Known." You want God to reveal Himself to you, and the way that God reveals Himself to you is through His Word. You remember when we were studying the book of Hebrews, it said that God at previous times had spoken through the prophets, but in these last days, He's spoken to us through His Son.

We go back in time to this true story of Moses and Aaron and the children of Israel and this man known as Pharaoh. Pharaoh is a title, the title of a leader of Egypt, a leader of the known world. Pharaoh has met his match with this man named Moses, but his match wasn't Moses. His match was the God of Moses, the power of God represented through these two reluctant but obedient men.

Moses and his obedience, even his reluctant obedience, is being used by God to communicate God's great power and sovereignty to another human being. And yet, he's being rejected, which certainly you've experienced in your own life when you're talking to people about the things of God, when you're sharing your testimony, when you come down from the mountaintop, if you will, having this amazing experience, only to be met with resistance.

This is a picture very much of how you and I face a culture that hates God, a culture that's turned their back on God. Their hearts are hardened, and the more and more we step into their lives, the more and more we want to share, it seems the harder they get. But I found this scripture, jotted down in Luke Chapter 12 and verse 11. Jesus is teaching His disciples and He says, "When they bring you to the synagogues and the magistrates and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say." In that very hour.

This is challenging for some of you who like to plan ahead and be ready. There are some things God's going to wait to give you until the very hour, in the moment. And here we are in the hours of Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh. Now pick up in verse 1. Notice, "So the Lord said to Moses, 'See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. And you shall speak all that I command you. And Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh that he must send the children of Israel out of his land. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt.

But Pharaoh will not heed you, so that I may lay my hand on Egypt and bring my armies and my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.'" If you haven't marked that already, you're reading ahead. Since we go through the Bible, you can read ahead. If you read ahead, mark verse 5, "The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord," which tells us a little bit before we jump into the text. This encounter was more than for Pharaoh and those in his court. It was for the whole nation. It was for the world to see the power of God.

And I think even in our own lives, we have to think, we have to really understand something: that there is an immediate work of God that's happening right now with you and someone else or a situation. But what God is doing has far greater implications. Your life, my life, has so much more meaning than the immediate. And so here, the Egyptians are going to know.

By the time this is over, God says, "They're going to know when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them." Then Moses and Aaron did so. Just as the Lord commanded them, so they did. Moses was 80 years old and Aaron 83 years old when they spoke to Pharaoh.

Pharaoh's about to find out how futile it is to fight against God. He's about to find out. It's going to be a hard, long road for him to find this out, but he will find out. He will see very clearly just how weak he is. Understand this: this is a man that everyone's afraid of, a man that has all the consolidated power that a man could have in the world, all of the wealth, all of the possessions, everything that anyone would ever ascribe to and more.

He's about to find out just what an empty life he lives apart from God. Here is a man literally in charge of the known world, but he's not really in charge at all. And whether you're Pharaoh or you're a mom at home or a dad out at work or a mom at work and a dad at home, it doesn't matter, kid at school, you're going to learn this lesson soon enough. You can learn it the easy way or the hard way, but you're going to learn this.

You are nothing apart from the Lord. You're nothing. You have no resources, no power, no ability, and even what you may have that is measured in the world's standards was given to you by God, was entrusted to you by God. Even the hard work you might lean on, "No, Pastor, you don't understand. I'm a self-made woman. I'm a self-made man. You don't know how many nights I stayed up late studying and cramming for that test and how many degrees I've earned and all that I've done."

To which I say, "Man, that's a lot of hard work, but who gave you the strength to stay up at night? Who gave you the mind to think? Who gave you—you may be on the spectrum of being a little bit smarter than the rest of us—where do you think that came from?" It came from the Lord your creator. He's been gracious and good to you. Pharaoh here, he has everything, but he has nothing at the same time. Just like Jesus would tell us later, who would gain everything but then lose their own soul? Who would give up their soul for the world? You know who? A lot of people. They have everything, but they really have nothing.

Saul of Tarsus reminds me of that young man by the name of Saul who was ready to take on the world and destroy the church. He was studious and smart. He was spiritually strong, even had this veneer of religiosity, if you want to use that word. His zeal took him out to take out Christianity himself.

God would even tell him as Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, He would even look at Saul and go, "Why are you kicking against the goads?" Pharaoh, thousands of years earlier, is kicking against the goads. The goads, those strong sticks that were used to prod the animal, and when the animal didn't want to go forward, he'd kick against it, kick against it. "I don't want to. I don't want to go your way." God says, "Why are you doing that? It's going to come to an end."

If it doesn't come to an end where you bow the knee to Jesus here, the Bible says there's coming a day where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. You'll either do it willingly or unwillingly. Let me put it down, let me be a little more clear, just a little more simple. Have you learned this lesson yet? Have you come to this conclusion: that it's foolish to fight against God? You won't win.

Even if you think you're winning, you're not. You're losing and you're self-deceived on top of that. You can't win and prevail against God. Sin is so deceptive and subtle, filled with lies. Let me give you one, jot it down: Ecclesiastes Chapter 8. This is very common. Ecclesiastes Chapter 8 and verse 11, listen. It says, "Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."

And really, if we translate that, paraphrase that: just because you haven't been caught yet, you think you can get away with it over and over and over again. And I just want to emphasize this word in the paraphrase, did you hear it? I said it very quickly, but let me just emphasize it one more time. Just because you haven't been caught yet. Yet. That day is coming. Even if not before us, everything is naked and open before the eyes of the Lord who knows all things and searches all things.

I guess it's not even fair to really say you haven't been caught yet because you've been caught right in the act. We get away with nothing. Secret—I think it was Spurgeon that said—secret sin down here is open scandal in heaven. There is no secret sin. Don't ever mistake, church, the long-suffering of God as the approval of sin. Never mistake the long-suffering of God as the approval of sinful behavior. Yes, God is patient and His patience, the Bible says, is for your salvation, for my deliverance, but no way an endorsement of your sin.

Notice in verse 2, Aaron and Moses are sent with a very direct command: "You shall speak all that I command you." Why? Well, Pharaoh couldn't relate to an unseen God. He was used to worshiping idols of stone and worshiping animals and the things of the earth. So God chooses to send Moses as a tangible messenger to Pharaoh.

He commissions him and his brother, notice. It says, "Aaron and your brother shall speak to Pharaoh. I'm sending you. Aaron's going to be a prophet, but you're both going to speak to him. I'm going to use both of you." Pharaoh through them would understand the one true living God through the impression that Moses and Aaron would make, through the representation. They would be the ones representing God, which reminds us today this is the mandate upon us. In a very real way, we represent the God who's unseen and the God who's resisted and rejected.

And through our lives, whether we like it or not, it's a heavy—in some cases it's kind of a heavy deal. Like, I don't—no, I'm not perfect. I stumble all the time. I don't want people looking at me like that. But they are. And so it's best just to embrace what God's doing in your life and say, "Okay, if you're going to look to me as an example, then here's my response. I want to be a good example. I don't want to shy away from what God's called me to do. I want to grow in grace. I want to learn from my mistakes. I don't want to run away. I don't want to be reluctant. I don't want to make excuses."

You want to look to me? Then I want to get as far as Paul did. He said, "Follow me, imitate me as what? I imitate Christ." And if you change your language a little bit, your life follows your language. As you begin to speak the truth and say, "Yes, God has made me an example, then I'll live up to what God has called me to do, whether you like it or not." You and I are representatives of God.

Hold your place here, we haven't turned much, but turn over to 2 Corinthians Chapter 5 and mark this passage in your scriptures so you're in your own Bible. 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, and when you get there, go to verse 20. Such a glorious enlistment. Instead of something to run away from, it's like, "No, Lord, I embrace it. I want to be an honest example. I want you to see my successes, I want you to see my failures, but in anything, I want you to see the God of my life."

And what I do in success and failure, I go to the Lord who loves me. Notice, verse 20—this is 2 Corinthians Chapter 5—"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we beg you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God." Your life and my life leaves an impression, an indentation in people's lives. And what a privilege it is to represent the living God to a dying world.

And notice again back in Exodus, there was a specific message to deliver. It wasn't Moses' message, and it wasn't Aaron's message. It wasn't to be edited. It wasn't to be changed along the way. It was God's message to be delivered God's way. Moses wasn't to add to it or take away from it. There would be certain things he would have to say, certain things he would have to share even if he was uncomfortable with them.

Today we may say something along the same line: that the gospel message cannot be altered. The gospel, the good news, that's what the word gospel means. How many of you heard the word gospel? Say amen. How many of you know it means good news? It means good news that, if you're new to the Bible, when you hear the word gospel, it refers to the good news that your sins can be forgiven.

And it has a specific definition in that the gospel reflects the problem we have in separation from God by our sin. It reflects the penalty of sin: eternal damnation from God, if we live a life in rebellion against God and we die that way. It reflects, the gospel does, the gift of God is eternal life, that by faith your sins can be forgiven through the blood that was shed for you on the cross of Calvary.

And as we learned recently, in the resurrection, Jesus Christ coming to life three days later, He proved everything that He ever said. There's absolute bona fide, trustworthy, eyewitness proof that Jesus Christ is alive today. The gospel. We can't add to it. We can't make the gospel something else. We can't muddy the waters of the gospel. We can't pretend that the gospel is not as hard as it sounds, and we can't pretend that the gospel is softer than it is. We need to keep the Word of God and not mess around with it.

There is no power when you mess with the gospel. I mean, if Moses and Aaron had a little meeting before they got to Pharaoh, "I don't know about this. What do you think?" And they're brothers and they're like, "I don't know, I'm not feeling it right now, I'm not feeling it. How about if we change it a little bit?" And they took that changed message to Pharaoh, there is no power in man's word. There is no power.

We learn in Romans Chapter 1 that the gospel itself is the power of God unto salvation for those who believe, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. The power is in the Word. The power is God using His Word to transform. We can't be messing around with it. We can't add or subtract to it. We can't allow the culture to somehow define for us what the gospel is or what it isn't anymore.

We all need to be saved and forgiven of our sins, or we are toast—that's a paraphrase of the gospel there. But we are done. Our kids need to hear it, our grandparents need to hear it, our neighbors need to hear it. What we need to be careful of is in the delivery of it, but in the delivery of it, we need to be 100% faithful to the Word of God.

There is no room for you to mess with the Word of God or me. And even for someone in my position, the Bible says that because I have taken the Bible to hand and I've responded to the call to teach it, that I now face a stricter judgment, a heavier judgment. And that's concerning to me. I don't know what it means exactly, except that there's a greater responsibility.

And I know the mistakes I make, and I know the weakness of my humanity. But at times I recognize that in the weakness of humanity, it's almost the flip side of the coin where God's looking at Moses and he's all reluctant. It's almost like God saying, "That's what I can use. I don't need anybody that's all prideful and ready to take the world for me like you used to be, Moses. This reluctance, it's like clay I can mold and shape. So don't go so far to make excuses and don't refuse to obey me, but this humility or this place where you're not quite sure and you need to be dependent upon me," I can hear God say, "That's exactly where I'd like you. You come to me and depend upon me and I'll show myself strong on your behalf."

Why? "Because it's for My glory," God says. There's a nation that will see all that I'm going to do. And God's instruction to us, this is the answer you've been praying for. For some of you, this is the answer to your prayer. This is God's word to you: you must learn to give them His Word. You must learn how to proclaim His truth. I'm not advocating being weird, right? Because like, "Man, I don't want to be weird."

It's like, if anybody accuses you of being weird, it's not the Bible, it's you. You're weird. It's like you leave here all excited, "Okay, I'm going to go to work tomorrow and I'm going to stand up on my desk and I'm going to just yell to everybody, 'You bunch of sinners, I knew it! You're going to hell! My pastor said to declare the Word!'" And they escort you out in security, and then you come and, "I can't believe it, they're persecuting me." No, you're just weird. Don't do that.

Don't do that. You need to learn how to live in this world but not be of this world. Like some of you are at a job place right now and you go, "They don't want me to talk about the Bible. They don't want me to mention the name of God. They don't—" Okay, well follow the rules as far as you can until they tell you to sin. You can learn how to share the Bible with people without it being on your desk.

You can learn that. For some of you, you need the Bible off your desk so that that doesn't become a crutch so that the Word of God will come out of you. Now, if you can have your Bible on the desk, put it on the desk. I'm not advocating that you hide your faith. But for some of you, you're like, "Well, I need a new job because they won't let me bring the Bible. They let everybody else bring their dumb books and I can't bring my Bible."

All right, you said you wanted to work there. Follow the rules. What's your problem? Take God's Word, hide it in your heart, and give out the Word all day when you're talking to people. You don't have to quote scripture. You can just begin to share with them what Jesus taught you. It's an attractive thing. And then after work, when you have your Bible in your car, you can say, "Oh, wait, wait, wait, I want to share something with you. You know, I wanted you to see, because I could see how you responded to what I shared with you, and I just want you to know that that wasn't from me, it's right here in the Bible."

And then you just pull it out and you start to read to them. You say, "See, this is the power of God's Word." But you know what happens? You get all bent out of shape and you're going to get all upset, "I'm going to quit! I'm going to quit! They won't let me bring my Bible!" What are you talking about? The Bible is in you! It's already there! Just walk in the Spirit, let Him use you and give Him your Word.

That's probably an answer for someone because it's much easier, isn't it? Just to flip out and be upset and write letters to HR or whatever. And then while you're writing letters to HR, the person in the cubicle next to you needs your attention. They don't need you all upset because you're representing the Lord. Can you imagine Moses coming to Pharaoh and going, "You know, I don't like God. But let me give you His Word anyway. I told Him I didn't want to do this. See, Aaron? I told you I didn't want to do this."

Pharaoh's just going to laugh. Somehow, there was something—the presence, the anointing, perhaps even the Shekinah glory of God was on Moses and Aaron—that would capture the known ruler of the world to give them his attention. There was something in them. And as we look at the culture around us and we see it so dark, even in the darkest of culture, the darker things get, the less light it requires to make a difference.

And if you can just tap into that and get the Word of God in you. Why do you read your divos in the morning? Why? Because you want to get the Word of God in you. You want it to shape you and form you. Why are you reading a chapter of Proverbs every day? So that you might hear the wisdom of God. Why would you flip through the Psalms? Because you want to deposit the worship of God inside of you.

Why would you go to the Gospels? If that's all you're reading for the next years, you would go to follow Jesus so that you learn how to walk with Him and you learn the ways of Jesus. If that's all you did for a year, at the end of the year, you will be a different woman and a different man. Your heart will be melted before Him. You match that with obedience. What we need to learn is how to walk into things tactfully and obediently.

They need the Word of God. They don't need our opinions. You've heard that from the pulpit here many, many times. It's very important to me that you grasp this. Nobody cares about your opinions. Nobody. You shouldn't even care about your opinions. You're the only one that really cares so much about your opinions. You're the only one.

"No, no, you don't understand. I found seven other people on TikTok, they care too." They're all bots anyway, you know. And you know, quite frankly, most people don't care about the Word of God either. They don't really care about what God's Word is or what the Bible has to say. But here's the difference between God's Word and your opinion. Are you ready? Are you ready? Your opinions are your opinions. And God's Word is power. It's living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts to the heart of the matter in people's lives.

Guest (Male): So, rather than giving people our opinions, give them the Word of God. That's what they really need. This is Abounding Grace, and you're listening to a message from pastor and Bible teacher Ed Taylor. Simply go online to hear it again at aboundinggraceradio.com. Again, we're at aboundinggraceradio.com.

If you haven't already downloaded our free app, simply search for Ed Taylor in the App Store or Google Play. It's a great way to take in a steady dose of God's Word. As we begin a new year, we've picked out a timely resource from Chuck Smith called Faith. As the title of the book would suggest, this book is all about faith and the key to a successful Christian life.

Pastor Chuck explains how faith takes you by the hand and walks you from one level of maturity to another. Using examples from the Bible and illustrations he's gleaned from the ministry, Pastor Chuck lays out a strong case for faith. We'll send you a copy with our thanks for a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Just call us at 877-30-GRACE and ask for Faith.

And even if you're not in a position to be able to give to the ministry, we'd still like to hear from you. Pastor Ed loves to read listener emails and letters. It's easy to connect with us through our website at aboundinggraceradio.com when you click on contact and leave a prayer request or send Pastor Ed a question. That's aboundinggraceradio.com. Don't miss our next study in Exodus here on Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. May God richly bless you with His abounding grace.