Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: As the children are being dismissed for their Junior Church program, I would invite your attention this morning to the Book of Exodus, Chapter 7 and verse 8. Looking at verses 8 through 13 this morning as we're continuing our movement through the Book of Exodus. The title of our message this morning is "The Need to Test." Not so much the need for a test, although we need that from time to time, but the need for us to test.

God in the Book of Exodus, the first major section of the book, is redeeming a nation. God has explained in Exodus 1 why redemption is necessary: slavery of His chosen nation Israel. He has raised up in Chapters 2 through 4 the instrument through which He will work. The instrument goes out on his first assignment and confronts Pharaoh, the leader of the known world at that time, and says, "Let God's people go." Pharaoh says, "No, I don't know the Lord."

Moses probably thought things were going to be a little bit smoother in terms of sailing at this point, but he becomes very discouraged. So, beginning in Chapter 6, verse 1, all the way through Chapter 7, verse 7, which we completed last week, God reassures and encourages Moses. It's amazing what God has done with Moses to prepare him for this moment by way of training, preparation, and even encouragement when things from the human perspective didn't seem to be working out.

The forbearance of God and the long-suffering of God, and how you as a Christian are in the same process. He's preparing you for something, He wants to use you for something, and He wants to encourage you in the midst of difficulty. So now Moses goes out for round two. Exodus Chapter 7, verses 8 through 13, which we're going to look at today, deals with a power encounter between Moses and Pharaoh—not Moses through his own power, but Moses through the power of God working through him.

Here's an outline that we can follow as we take a look at these verses. First of all, verses 8 through 10, God's miracle. We have some instructions in verses 8 and 9 and then some obedience on the part of Moses in verse 10. Notice, if you will, Exodus 7 and take a look at verses 8 and 9. It says, "The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 'When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, "Work a miracle," then you shall say to Pharaoh, "Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent."'"

This is interesting because God did this through Moses earlier. This harks back to Exodus 4, verses 1 through 4. Exodus 4, verse 2 says, "And the Lord said to him, 'What is in your hand?' and he said, 'A staff.' Then He said to him, 'Throw it on the ground.' So he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it. But then the Lord said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail.' So he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand." Down in Exodus 4, about three chapters earlier, you might remember these words: "You shall take in your hand the staff with which you shall perform the signs."

So, it is interesting that before Moses did anything for God of this caliber, he was trained well in advance. He was trained to do this in Chapter 4, and now the power encounter is about to begin here in Chapter 7. It's not just this miracle he was trained in; it's his whole life. By the time you get to age 80 to age 120 in Moses's life, he is going to lead the children of Israel for a period of 40 years in the desert. That's a long 40-year chunk of time.

How would you like to spend age 80 to age 120 of your life, assuming we live that long, doing that? What's very interesting to me is God already prepared Moses to do that in the middle section of his life, age 40 to age 80. Where was he? Well, he was in the desert. What was he doing? Well, he was tending the sheep—in this case, not human beings, but animals. How long did he do that for? He did it for 40 years.

God trained Moses for the same period of time, in the same arena where Moses would have his most prolific and productive years. His training occurred between age 40 and age 80. That's where he got what I call his B.D. degree: Backside of the Desert degree, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro. It was when he was out doing this work as a simple shepherd that he received the manifestation of God at the burning bush there near Midian.

I find it interesting that God did this for Moses, trained him in the same arena, doing the same kinds of things but on a much smaller scale, for the same duration of time. A lot of us are in a hurry to get to phase three of our lives where God wants to use us, and He does. But we're not willing to walk with God in the middle phase where Moses had to learn the basics, learn how to do what God was ultimately leading him to do.

Most of us, if we're honest, would rather start at the top. The truth of the matter is, the way God works, it doesn't work that way. God typically will put us in an arena where He will require of us, as we walk with Him, faithfulness with whatever He's put in front of us. "Yeah, but Lord, I want big things." And God says, "You're not ready for big things until you learn how to be faithful in the little things."

This is a pattern that you'll see not just in the life of Moses; you'll see it in every significant character that God uses in the Bible. Joseph was tending the sheep long before he became second in command over the Egyptian Empire. David was tending the sheep long before he became the second king of the United Kingdom. Moses, the same thing. Before you become the lawgiver, the deliverer, the author of the first five books of Hebrew Bible called Torah or Pentateuch, I want you to be faithful in something small.

Then we say to the Lord, "Well, when is the smallness going to end?" And God says, "That's none of your business. It'll end when I say it's going to end because I'm in control of this training process." Jesus, in Luke Chapter 16, verse 10, says, "He who is faithful in a very little thing is also faithful in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much."

When selecting elders for a church, we learn this in 1 Timothy 3, verses 4 and 5: "He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity." Then there's this great parenthetical statement that Paul makes: "But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?" There's nothing here about starting at the top. It's about allowing God to promote us when God deems it appropriate to do so as we demonstrate our faithfulness to God in the little things.

Most of us are focused on the big things, but God is focused on the little things because He knows if we can be faithful in the little things, we can be trusted with the big things. It's a very different way of thinking. So, Moses is going to do this miracle before Pharaoh, and God has already prepared Moses in advance to do so. Now Moses goes out and he does the smartest thing a person can ever do, which is to obey—do what God says.

Notice, if you will, verse 10. It says, "So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and thus they did just as the Lord commanded." Smart guys. When Jesus performed His first miracle at the wedding ceremony in Cana of Galilee and the wine ran out, His own mother said something very interesting in John Chapter 2, verse 5. She didn't know how this issue was going to get fixed, but she made this statement in John 2, verse 5: "His mother said to the servants, the wine stewards, etc., 'Whatever He says to you, do it.'"

I don't know what's going to happen, I don't know how it's going to happen, I don't know if it's going to happen, I just know that He knows what He's doing and you need to submit to His authority. There are all kinds of things going on in your life that you can't navigate through. You don't understand them. I've got the same issues going on in my life. But I know this much: at the end of the day, God wants me to obey Him.

When we talk about obedience to God, it's a big category. How do you obey God? There are a lot of things here in the Bible that God wants us to do. As you pray to the Lord and ask the Lord about this, He will start to surface things in your mind that you're not obeying Him concerning, that He wants you to do. It's just a matter of walking with the Lord.

I may not have an exhaustive knowledge of the Scripture, but there are things in my life that are left undone. God says, "I want you to obey me over here; I want you to obey me over there." We like to kick the can down the road and make excuses, but the truth of the matter is this blessing in John Chapter 2 wouldn't have occurred if they didn't follow the exhortation of His own mother: "Whatever He says to you, do it."

Do you remember Saul, who obeyed God sort of, kind of, and how he was confronted by Nathan the prophet? 1 Samuel 15, verse 22 says, "Samuel said, 'Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?'" Saul thought he could cover up his disobedience by getting religious and doing the sacrifices. Samuel makes this tremendous statement in 1 Samuel 15, verse 22: "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams." Don't cover up your disobedience through religious activity and religious behavior. What I want you to do is I want you to obey me in something small, because that's where the blessing comes from.

Jesus said this in the upper room to the disciples: "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them." He didn't say you're blessed by knowing about it. He says you're blessed by doing. What He did there is He got down on His hands and His knees and He began to wash the feet of the disciples. He said, "I have set for you an example that what I have done for you, you might do one for another. Now that you know these things, this life of service, this life of sacrifice, your blessing is going to come not from knowledge, but it's going to come from doing."

There's a big difference between knowledge and wisdom, and the Bible says you ought to get both. Knowledge is the acquisition of information. Wisdom, the Greek word "sophia," is the application of knowledge. One of the dangers of being in a Bible church is people think that the high point of spirituality is to come to a church and learn new things about the Bible and learn new things about God. Praise the Lord, because you can't live out what you don't know. But knowledge was never intended to be a last step; it was intended to be a first step because eventually knowledge needs to be transformed into what the Greeks called "sophia" or what the Hebrews called "hokhmah," which is knowledge applied.

Jesus in the upper room says the blessing is going to come through hokhmah. You say, "Well, do you have a good book on this that you would recommend?" You bet. It's called the Book of Proverbs. That's what the whole book is about. It's about hokhmah, divine wisdom. It will take divine knowledge and apply it to every single circumstance you could ever think of in your life: money, debt, who to partner with, family relations, how to deal with authority figures, on and on and on.

That's why at this point, anyway, Moses and Aaron are so impressive because, at least here, they're doing what God commanded. And guess what? God came through. End of verse 10: "And Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent." Exactly what God said would happen in verse 9 has now been fulfilled. This is an example of a short-term prophecy, which your Bible is loaded with. It's loaded with prophecies of future things yet to come, and it's loaded with prophecies of a very short duration that happen in real time. All of them come to pass accurately, all of them come to pass literally, and therefore it gives me a great deal of confidence that the prophecies yet to come are going to come to pass in the exact same way.

God is outside of time and knows the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end. To God, tomorrow is already today because He's not bound by time the way we are. For tomorrow to come, I've got to wait for tomorrow. God doesn't have to wait. He's higher than time. It's like going to the Rose Parade and you sit there in Pasadena, California—and I've done this, I need my head examined, but I actually would go and watch—and you sit there on Colorado Boulevard and you see the floats coming by one at a time. Then one day we got smart and watched it on TV and stayed home. On TV, they give you the aerial shot where you can see the first float and the last float. You don't have to wait.

That way is a lot more comfortable. But if you can understand the aerial shot, you can understand God's viewpoint. If you can understand what you're seeing camped out there on Colorado Boulevard, you see man's perspective. Everything that God says is going to happen because God is not bound by time the way we are bound by time. That's why your Bible is filled with short-term prophecies and long-term prophecies. Jesus talked about this all the time. In the upper room, John 13, verse 19, just before His death, He says, "From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He." I have told you before it happens so that when it happens, you may believe.

Hey folks, listen up, as He's huddled there with His disciples in the upper room. I'm going to start making some short-term predictions. Many of them are going to happen this week, right down to who's going to kill me, how many pieces of silver they're going to betray me for, how I'm going to die, where I'm going to die. And you're going to watch it all happen in real time this week. When it happens—it's not if, but when—you're going to say of Jesus, "He's the great I AM," because only God could reveal the end from the beginning. These guys went out and, boy, they were ready to die for Jesus because of that truth.

James the son of Alphaeus went to Jerusalem and he was clubbed to death. Simon the Zealot went to Jerusalem where he was martyred. James the son of Zebedee was executed. Thaddaeus went to Mesopotamia where he was beaten to death. Peter went to Babylon, some speculate ultimately to Rome, where he was crucified upside down. Matthew went to Tehran—did you know that?—and he was beheaded. John was stubborn; he wouldn't die, stubborn old man. They tried to kill him; they boiled him in oil, but he wouldn't die. So they just threw him out on the desert island of Patmos.