Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: What has God got to do to get your attention in such a way that you believe that you can trust Him, that His promises are for real, and when you get out there and open your mouth and do what He tells you to do, He’s going to back you up? He’s changed your life. He’s changed your eternity.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Thank you for allowing us to share this time with you. You may be stuck in traffic or stuck in life. Either way, today’s message is going to help you get on the right track as you learn how much God loves you right where you are. Richard’s unique style checks all the boxes with a lot of hope, insight, truth, and, of course, humor. Today’s talk with Richard will get our conversation started, but we want to keep it going with you, so let’s stay in touch through our website, richardellistalks.com. But right now, let’s go ahead and get right into today’s talk. Here is Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today’s message is Tongue Tied. I want you to turn to Exodus, the first book of the Bible if you have the Old and the New Testament is Genesis, then the second one is Exodus. All these books of the Bible are broken up into chapters and verses. Everyone knows that, but I talked to somebody this week who didn’t know that. If you find the word Exodus at the top left-hand corner of your page or in the middle, then find the number four and a colon and the verse, and that’s where we’re going to be. Exodus chapter 4. For the sake of time, I may blow through chapter 3 and then we’ll pick up in verse 4.

I heard a statistic about men, that 90-something percent of all Christian men never lead anybody to saving faith in Christ. They never see anybody saved, never sit down with anybody and share their faith in a way that they see someone go from darkness to light, from death to life, from the power of Satan to the power of God. It’s not just a man thing, it’s a woman thing. One of the great reasons this happens is that we are afraid. We’re afraid, but it’s not for them so much as it is for us.

We get in these situations and we get all tongue-tied and all turned upside down. The number one concern that I experience, and I think most people do in these situations talking about their faith, about Jesus, about what’s going on in their life—and it’s not that nothing’s going on in your life—it’s just you think or we think that if I articulate this concern, if I say something that might help somebody else, that the second I open my mouth, if I get into it, this person is going to reject not what I’m saying, but me.

I’m going to ask them to believe something that I say I believe and they’re going to reject it, but what we do is we think they’re rejecting me. We say, "I can't do that. I can't speak." It’s all about what I can't do instead of saying, "God, what can You do through me?" Just to recap this in Exodus chapter 3, Moses is on a mountain in the wilderness and he sees a burning bush. An angel, which some believe is Jesus, is in this bush speaking to him. It’s the voice of God speaking to Moses.

God says to Moses in chapter 3, and Moses looks at this bush and realizes it’s God. God says, "Take your shoes off your feet. You're standing on holy ground." Then in verse 7, the Lord said to Moses, "I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from the land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites."

He goes on and speaks to Moses and says, "Moses, here's the deal. I have seen everybody in Egypt, all my people in Egypt. They're under oppression. They're in slavery and bondage. I've seen what's going on. They've been praying and crying out to me and I'm coming to do something about it. I've picked you to do something about it. I'm going to send you as a messenger. I've called you out to go and deliver this message and tell Pharaoh to let my people go, and you're it." He promises all through chapter 3. He says, "This is what I'm going to do. You're going to go speak to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh's going to do this, and you're going to say this." God unfolds this whole deal.

Verse 13 of chapter 3 says, "Then Moses said to God, 'Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, "The God of your fathers has sent me to you," and they say to me, "What is his name?" what shall I say to them?'" God said to Moses, "'I AM WHO I AM,' or 'I AM THAT I AM,' and he said, 'Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you."' Moreover God said to Moses, 'Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: "The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations."'"

He tells Moses, "I'm sending you. Here's what's going to happen. Here's what you do. Here's what you say. It's going to be fine. I'll be with you. Trust me." If you read the Bible at all—and I keep encouraging this—if you read the Bible, you’re going to discover that this book is filled with promises. It’s filled with God saying, "I will do this. You do this, I will do this." In some places He doesn’t have conditions. He says, "This is who I am. I'm a provider, I'm a sustainer, I'm a supplier, I'm protection." He says, "This is just who I am. My very nature is to do and be these things. I will take care of you."

If you read this stuff enough, you’re going to see who He is, what He’s about, what He wants to do in your life and through your life, and you have the facts. They’re right here. Moses had the information. But look at what happens in chapter 4, verse 1. Moses spent 40 years in Egypt trained under Pharaoh. Now he’s been 40 years in the wilderness. God making him, breaking him, and preparing him to go back and be a deliverer. You’d think by now this guy would get it and know what to do.

But look at chapter 4, verse 1. "Then Moses answered and said to God, 'Suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice? What if I go do everything you're telling me to do and I tell them the I AM sent me? I use your name and everything, but what if?'" Now he gets all tongue-tied. "What if this? What if that?" God says, "Do this. I'm with you. Here's a promise, here's a plan. It's going to happen. Trust me." Then the devil says, "But what if? What if God doesn't come through? What if you get out there where He tells you to go and do what He tells you to do and God doesn't come through?"

Moses says, "What if they don't believe me or listen to my voice? Suppose they say—" now he’s even rehearsing what might happen—"Suppose they say, 'The Lord has not appeared to you.'" Have you ever had God tell you to do something and you tell somebody that God’s told you to do something and you’re going to go do it, and they say, "Well, how do you know that was God? How do you know you didn't just make that up?" I’ll tell you one not to use. Men or women, do not use this on another man or woman if you’re not married: "God told me you're the one."

If God told you somebody else is the one, you keep that to yourself until God tells them they’re the one. You want to run somebody off in about 13 seconds, you just tell them, "God told me you're the one for me." If God told them, He’s going to tell the other one and you’re both going to agree and you’re going to end up married, probably. Be careful throwing this stuff out, "God told me, God spoke to me." I’ve had God speak things in my heart, but I watch for some confirmation in a lot of areas. Moses had heard from God, heard a voice, saw a burning bush. It doesn’t get better than this.

So he says, "What if they say the Lord has not appeared to you?" So the Lord said to him, "What's that in your hand?" He said, "It's a rod." It was his staff that he protected and led sheep with. And He said, "Throw it on the ground, Moses." So he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent. Moses took off running from his own rod that had become a snake. He takes off running, then the Lord says to Moses, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail."

There’s only one person I know that does this and it’s a guy on that Crocodile Hunter show on cable. He’s always picking up some snake. It’s a snake when he looks at it and it’s a snake when he grabs it, but it never turns into anything else. The Lord says, "Reach out your hand, take it by the tail," and he reached out his hand, caught it, and it became a rod in his hand. Now that’ll get your attention. There’s nobody but God talking and Moses out there and this stuff going on.

He said that they may believe that the Lord God of the fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has appeared to you. So he says, "Use your rod. Throw it down, do this. That'll get their attention." Verse 6, "Furthermore the Lord said to him, 'Now put your hand in your bosom. Put your hand inside your clothing.'" And he put his hand in his bosom and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow. His hand had turned leprous, had leprosy.

He said, "Put your hand in your bosom again." So he put his hand in his clothes and drew it out and behold, he was restored like his other flesh. He was healed immediately. "Then it will be," God said, "if they do not believe you nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign. And if they don't believe either one of these or listen to your voice, then you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land. The water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land."

I’m giving you three things: a rod you throw down and it becomes a snake, put your hand in your clothes and it goes in clean, comes out with leprosy, goes in with leprosy, comes out clean. If they don’t believe you then, get water out of the Nile, pour it on the ground. When it hits the ground, it’ll turn to blood. If they don’t believe that, nothing else is going to get their attention. Verse 10, "Then Moses said to the Lord—"

I’m asking you questions as we go through this. What do you want? What has God got to do to get your attention in such a way that you believe that you can trust Him, that He’s going to take care of you, and that these promises are for real? When you get out there and open your mouth and do what He tells you to do, He’s going to back you up. He’s changed your life. He’s changed your eternity. We are so blessed.

Nowadays as a Christian, you don’t have to go buy some cow or take a sheep down somewhere or grain or birds to the temple and have all this sacrificial stuff. You can stop wherever you are, whenever you sin, and say, "God, I confess, I have sinned. I'm wrong, You are right. I claim the forgiveness that Jesus died, was buried and raised from the dead to provide me, and I'm telling you I want to be forgiven and clean." You can go from sin to pure as the wool on the snow just like that.

God takes care of you. He feeds you, provides a place to live, a job, gives you health, all these things, and we say, "But God, but what if? What am I going to say?" So God gives him even more confirmation. Here goes Moses again. "Then Moses said to the Lord, 'O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.'"

I can’t do it. This is Moses saying to God, after He’s told him the whole deal, "Here are these miraculous signs I'm going to give to you so they'll know it's me." He says, "O my Lord, I'm not eloquent, neither before nor since you have spoken to your servant. Before you talked to me and after you talked to me, it's pretty obvious, God, you can hear, I'm not eloquent. And I speak slow, and I just can't do this."

Let me ask you a question. What is your excuse? I know most of the people in this room, a lot of you, and the ones I know and know pretty well, you know what God has changed your life in a dramatic way. It’s not that you don’t have something to talk about. It’s not that you don’t have a story to tell. It’s not that God hasn’t promised you some things and delivered on them. It’s not that God isn’t taking care of you. It’s not that God hasn’t done miraculous things in you and through you. It’s just when it gets right down to it and He says, "Now, speak," you freeze up. You say, "O Lord, use somebody else. It's not me. I speak slow, I'm not eloquent."

I am so grateful that there’s a guy like Moses in the Bible. Even though he’s being belligerent and not doing what God tells him to do, at least he’s honest. There’s a lot more people who can identify with this guy than somebody just pops off and speaks at the drop of a hat. He says, "I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue."

Verse 11, so the Lord said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Moses, who made your mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Moses, how do you think anybody talks? Where'd you get your mouth? Where'd you get your ears? Where'd you get your eyes? Where'd you get anything? I gave you everything you are and that you've got, Moses. Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say."

The only thing keeping the lid on this church, any church, anybody is you when you get out there during the week. It’s not about Sunday. This is the huddle where we get regrouped, get revived, re-encouraged, whatever you get when you come, and you go out there. I’m telling you this afternoon, tomorrow, somewhere along the way, you will get to a boiling point. You’ll get in a situation in a conversation, your heart will start to race. The person across from you, every indicator is that they’re searching. They’re the one that needs to be delivered. They’re the one that’s in bondage. They’re the one that’s in pain and can’t get out and they don’t know what to do.

God says, "Now, go. I will be with your mouth, I'll be with your mind. I'm with you. Just take the lid off and let it rip." And you say, "Well, God, I just can't do it." You back down, you feel bad, you walk away, you know the person is still sucking air and in pain and you don’t know what to do about it. You think, "Why didn't I just say something?" I’m telling you guys, I’m encouraging you, whether it’s here, Liberia, wherever you find yourself, on a business trip, on a plane, anywhere. I don’t say do this randomly. You will know when it’s time to speak.

No matter how tongue-tied you have been or you are, you say, "God, enough is enough. I don't know how this is coming out." If you follow me around very long, you’ll find something. It doesn’t make everybody comfortable. A lot of things I do don’t make everybody comfortable, but if somebody sits down with me and they pray and receive the gift of eternal life—and some of you in this room have been in this situation with me—I explain to you, we talk about it, you pray and receive the gift of eternal life, ask Christ to come live in and through you.

One of the first things I will do is try to find somebody immediately and say, "You know what? I want you to tell them what happened to you." Some of you have never told anybody when you became a Christian and what happened and how your life changed. I’m going to tell you what, if you speak those words one time, there is something that unleashes. It’s like, "You know what? I said it. I can't say all of it, I can't elaborate very much. I'm not very eloquent, but I can get out this much. I found out today that Jesus died on the cross, was buried and raised from the dead to pay my way into heaven, and I asked Him to come live in my life and forgive me and change me, and that's what I did." Can you say that? If you can say that, you can do what God’s asking Moses to do here. Just speak. I’ll tell you what to say. You can say it here, you can say it anywhere on the planet.

Look at verse 12, "Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say." There are situations you’re going to get in you could no more plan or prepare for in a million years. If you will be still and know that He is God and listen, I’m telling you, you will have things come out of your mouth and be put in your mind you’ve never thought ever. I have this happen all the time. I couldn’t take credit for anything I thought or said because they came out of nowhere. Not nowhere, they came out of somewhere, they came out of heaven, they came out of God’s heart and mine.

There are things, if you’ll get out of the way and stop being anxious and stop being preoccupied and concerned about what they’re going to think about you and be more concerned about them and what God thinks about them and what they think about God, it’ll just come. It’ll just happen. It’ll just flow. God, when your mind is released and attentive and focused on Him, He’ll start saying, "Okay, say this. Say that." You say, "Why would I say that?" Just say it.

I have conversations with people, get into the gospel, use an illustration, and somebody will tell me two days later, they’ll say, "You know what? I couldn't believe you said that because when you said that, that was going on with my mom and dad or me, and that had happened to me when I was a kid. How did you know that?" I said, "I didn't know any of that." But God knows this stuff and He will reveal these things to you and use these things as you’re speaking. But it starts when you open your mouth and when you say, "Okay, God, use me. I trust You. You're going to tell me what to say. Use me."

Verse 13, but he said, and God keeps coming. Moses, here’s the promise. Here’s the miracles. Here’s everything you need. "Well, what if this?" Well, this. "Well, what if this?" Well, this. Let me tell you what, and I don’t know where this happens in your life or in anybody’s life, but there comes a point where if you mess with God too long, He’ll take another road. You say, "Well, what do you mean?" Moses kept pushing and kept pushing and kept pushing and saying, "What if? What if?" God, figure something else out.

Look what happens, verse 13, "But he said, 'O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send. God, here I am, send somebody else. I'm not your man. Don't send me.'" Verse 14, "So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and He said, 'Is 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.'"

I’m going to tell you what, you don’t need somebody else to speak through. God wants to speak to you and through you and bypass any and everybody else and go straight to the source or the person that needs to hear this. Where Moses messed up is now for the rest of his ministry, Moses had to have Aaron with him all the time because Moses said, "Well, I can't speak." So God said, "Okay, I'll speak to you, Moses. Now you're going to have to tell Aaron, relay it to Aaron, and Aaron's going to have to relay it to the people because Aaron's willing and you're not."

Verse 17, "And you shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs." If you go on and read verse 18 and following, it says, "So Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law." He tells his father-in-law, "I'm out of here. I've got to go back and deliver my people." Here’s the challenge for today and this week. It’s pretty simple, and I’ve given you some of the indicators already. When you get out there, you have a story to tell, you have a promise that He’ll be with your mouth, that He’ll tell you exactly what to say, exactly what to do.

When you get out there and your heart starts to race and the Holy Spirit says, "Now, go, do it, speak, say it," for God’s sake, for your sake, and especially for their sake, open your mouth and just say it. If all you can get out is one phrase, then shut up and go to the next thing. If you can get two phrases out, say them. Say what God tells you to say and be quiet and leave it at that, but be willing, be obedient, and spit it out. God will bless it, He’ll honor it, He’ll use it. It works.

You say, "Well, why are you so emphatic about this?" Because if it’s up to me or a handful of people to go out there doing all the saying, we’ll never take the planet. If everybody in this room obeyed God this week and got out there and when you had the opportunity, one day, every day, whenever it is, you just started lifting the lid off, opened your mouth and let God speak, there is no telling what would happen in this room one week from now.

You’d be amazed how many people are around you every day at work, at home, your family who are just praying and waiting for someone to say something, to share something, to say, "You know what? My life's been changed. Yours can be changed as well." I had a conversation on the phone this week and in this conversation, I asked a few questions. The person called up and said, "I want to be baptized." You know what? We don’t baptize anybody unless we know why we’re baptizing you. There’s no reason to get wet.

So I started asking some questions and I said, "Well, tell me how long you've been a Christian." And this person said, "All my life." You know what? That’s not possible. You’re born physically, the Bible says you have to be born again spiritually. That’s two separate events. You can’t be born physically and spiritually at the same time. It can’t be all your life. So I began to what? Open my mouth and ask some questions and explain to her that Jesus died on the cross, was buried, raised from the dead to give her eternal life. It was an event, it was a time and place, a transaction with God.

On the phone, this person and I prayed and she accepted the gift of eternal life. Now she’s going to be baptized. You know why? Because somebody opened their mouth. You say, "Well, you know what to say." Don’t use that, Moses tried that. It’s not about what I know how to say, it’s about who God is and what He wants to say, and reading His word, finding out what it says, and saying, "God, now use Your word that I've hid in my heart or that I'm studying to relay this truth and this message to someone else around me and see their life changed wherever I am, wherever I go," and not be so focused on being tongue-tied. God wants to speak to you and through you, but it starts when you open your mouth and when you say, "Okay, God, use me. I trust You. You're going to tell me what to say. Use me," the way You want to do it.

Guest (Male): Richard will be back in a moment to wrap up today’s talk. But first, I want to share a couple of thoughts with you. Let’s be honest, real life isn’t about living some highlight reel for others to see. Most people have deep hurts, questions, and struggles. We get it and want to help you in any way that we can. So let’s keep this conversation going. Give us a call at 855-6-RICHARD, or connect with us at our website, richardellistalks.com. You can even put in your prayer request right there on the prayer wall so others can pray for you as well. Call us at 855-6-RICHARD, or online at richardellistalks.com. And now let’s get back to Richard with a final word on today’s show.

Richard Ellis: Let’s pray. And our Father, I thank You so much for Your word, for real people like Moses, and real people that listen to this message today who are terrified, who are afraid that someone’s going to reject them or make fun of them, or they won’t be eloquent, they won’t know what to say or how to say it. Father, help us get out of the way and realize that we are just clay pots that hold the water, that it is not about us, that You are the water, and You live in and through us.

It’s You that these people need, Lord. It’s Your voice they need to hear, it’s Your words they need spoken, not ours anyway. I pray that this day, this night, this week, wherever we are in this country or beyond, Lord, that we would just be still, know that You’re God and let You take over our hearts, our minds, our lives in such a way that we are yielded to You, that You are the Lord, the boss of our life, and that given the opportunity, Lord, we’re going to tell somebody.

We’re going to share, we’re going to give a reason for the hope that’s within us when people ask and when You give us the opportunity, Lord. I thank You, God, that we have something to talk about. We have someone to talk about. That when our lives get so full and begin to overflow, that it’s uncontainable, that we cannot help but share, Lord, who You are and what You’ve done and how grateful we are.

For those, Lord, that that’s not the case, they want that kind of relationship, they want to have something to live for, to die for, to talk about. I pray today, Father, if they understand that Jesus died for them, was buried and raised from the dead, He lived a perfect life to do it, and He paid the ultimate price on the cross by shedding His blood so they could be free from sin, receive the forgiveness of sin, and have a new life, a new eternity.

I pray today that they just pray a simple prayer as this girl did this week. God, I know I'm a sinner, I need Your forgiveness. I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried and raised from the dead to purchase a place for me in heaven that He offers as a free gift. Right now, I receive that gift of eternal life, and I claim and receive the forgiveness of my sins. I ask You to come live in me and through me to change my forever and my here and now, my life between here and heaven. Thank You for loving me, thank You for forgiving me, and for coming to live in and through me. Use me, I pray, to bring honor and glory to Your name. And we pray it all in Jesus' name, who makes it possible. Amen.

Guest (Male): This has been Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. The message of the gospel is one we take very seriously in our mission to reach the planet, and you have a vital part of doing that along with us. If you’ve been encouraged by these talks with Richard, be sure to tell someone about the change they’ve made in your life. You can even share today’s talk with them through the website, richardellistalks.com. And we’d love to hear your story as well as to how these talks have made a difference to you too. Give us a call, 855-6-RICHARD. You can also reach us through our website, richardellistalks.com. And while you’re there, check out all the pages we put together for you, richardellistalks.com. Also, be sure to click on the contribute tab to send your very generous gift. If the program is making a difference to you, your gift will make a big difference to us. Until next time, thanks so much for listening to Richard Ellis Talks.