None Like Moses
Sermon
When God Says, 'Let Me Alone'
First Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost (Last Third)
You have heard, I am sure, the old arguments centering on program versus personality. In certain deliberative bodies I have heard it argued that the body should be program-centered rather than personality-centered. It is really a foolish contention. For all significant programs are motivated and moved by strong personalities. No personality, no program.
This applies especially to the realm of the visible Kingdom, the Kingdom of God in the earth. For the Kingdom of God has to do with intangibles, with invisible reality. We present a God who elects not to reveal the totality of His being. So significant is the matter of personality that God's highest and best revelation of Himself in history was not simply programmatic. It was a program involving a personality.
God sent Jesus, the second part of Himself, to woo and to win an alien humanity. And the Bible is a book that chronicles His dealings with the world through the use of stalwart figures, men and women who marched with mystery, and who echoed the edicts of eternity.
Such a personage was the man of the text whose epithet reads, "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." The setting is pre-Promised Land. Moses is now dead. Prior to his death, God summoned him from the plains of Moab up to Mount Nebo, and from that lofty vantage point, God had him view the Land of Promise, that expanse promised long ago to the father of the faithful, old man Abraham.
Moses was not permitted to enter in. In his imperfection at a place called Meribah, Moses had sinned against God. God had commanded him to speak to a rock in order to bring forth water. But instead, out of hostility toward the multitude, he did not speak to the rock; he smote the rock twice. Water came out abundantly, but God declared, "Moses, because you believed me not, you shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them." He could not go in, but God did let him view the land from Dan to Beersheba. God then rocked him to sleep in the arms of death. God allowed no funeral service. He Himself buried Moses in a valley there in Moab.
He buried him so well and so privately that God alone knows the burial site. And the record tells us that Moses died in fullness of strength. He was 120 years old, but his eye was not dim, nor was his natural force abated. Thirty days of mourning took place in the camp, and then Joshua assumed the mantle of leadership, but with this glowing epithet regarding Moses, "There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face."
There was none like Moses. He, without question, was a prophet, a navi in the Hebrew. He was God's direct link with a rather motley host. Unique in every respect, his heartbeat was synchronized with that of the Eternal. There were so many aspects of his life that deserved that imprimatur which reads "unique," so many that one is forced to be selective. For example, the circumstances regarding his birth in a mud hut, a mud hut along the banks of the Nile, are indeed unique. Or his providential rearing by Pharaoh's daughter, in Pharaoh's house, with his mother Jochabed serving as his nurse. Or his calling on the backside of Horeb to a mission moral and ethical. Or his persevering spirit in spite of resistance and outright rebellion.
I suppose that all of these feed into that marvelous description, "None like Moses." Moses knew quite well that he was not made for the flatlands of futility. In his heart and in his mind God had planted the idea of wonderland. He was always in pursuit of the beckoning high place. He saw magnetism in the mountains and pulling power in the peaks. He was possessed, in a word, by the larger vision.
With freedom's fire burning in his heart, he forsook the privileges of the palace and went out to deliver his people. Rejected initially by his own, he was forced to flee to Midian, where he received forty years of basic training. And when his mind and heart were properly prepared, the Lord captured his attention with a burning bush that refused to burn up.
God dealt with his doubts, strengthened his confidence, doubled his determination, and then said, "Go." And Moses walked into Egypt, went directly to Pharaoh's palace, and said, "Let my people go."
"Moses, by what authority do you make such a declaration?"
"God told me to tell you."
"God?"
"Yes, God!"
"And He said, 'Go'?"
"Yes, that is what He said."
"Go where? Out of Egypt land? To what place?"
"To wherever He wants us to be."
"And where is that?"
"Well, He told our fathers that He would give us a Promised Land."
"No, you can't go. I won't let you wreck the Egyptian economy. As a matter of fact the work load will be increased."
And that is precisely what happened. The labor got harder, the groanings got louder, but God was moving. Plague after plague visited Egypt land, and finally, on the night of the anniversary of 430 years of captivity, God told Moses, "Have each household kill a Paschal lamb. Dip hyssop in the blood and sprinkle it on the lentil of the doorposts. Stay indoors tonight. I am going to move in a mighty way. My death angel will ride through Egypt. He will kill the firstborn in every house where the blood is not seen. But wherever he sees the blood, he will pass on by." Death marched that night; there was death in every Egyptian household. When the tragic episode was ended, Moses said to Israel, "Let us go; it is moving time."
Six hundred thousand men, plus the women and the children, formed a procession, stretching from the Great Sea to the River Nile, with Moses and Aaron at the head of the column. Pharaoh pursued, but at the Red Sea God worked a wonder. They passed over on dry ground and the Egyptian army drowned in the sea. The Israelites were free at last; they sang and they shouted. Miriam and the women danced for joy. Their servitude was ended, Pharaoh was defeated; they had something to shout about. There was "None like Moses." In emancipation "None like Moses."
Secondly, there was "None like Moses"Êin patience. As soon as the shouting faded into silence and they faced the struggles and ordeals of the journey, they shuddered and shrank from duty. It didn't take but three days for skepticism and criticism to take hold of that crowd. The water ran out, and they blamed Moses. At Marah they found water but it was bitter. God sweetened it and they continued to complain. On the fifteenth day of the month, food ran out; there was a groundswell of protest. The whole congregation murmured and complained. They said in unison, "Would God that we had died in the Land of Egypt when we sat by flesh pots, where we had bread every day."
It takes special patience to deal with ignorance and backwardness. Their backwardness changed a forty-day march into a forty-year journey. They had free feet but slave spirits. They wanted success without sacrifice and progress without pain. They preferred secure servitude to perilous liberty.
Within that throng there was a large group of quitters. Call them sprinters -- people who wax warm for a season but who cannot handle the long haul. God's program is not a sprint. It's a distance race. And "the race is not given to the swift, but to him that endureth to the end."
There was another element in that crowd, an element that was bogged down in negativity. Their chief delight was troublemaking. They never had any sound suggestions to offer. It is estimated that that host needed 94,666 bushels of food per day. They had to be led and fed. The sick had to be treated; the elderly had to be consoled; the young had to be counseled. It was an awesome task for Moses.
But these chronic complainers never offered a single word of helpful advice. You have to be careful about your dealings with such souls. People of this ilk have the capacity to ruin anybody who is somewhat weak. You have to be careful to whom you listen. "Try the spirits"; that is what the Book admonishes us to do. And for heaven's sake beware of chronic complainers. They murmured against Moses. But patient spirit that he was, he simply pressed on. There was "None like Moses" in patience.
There was at least one other attribute that made for Mosaic uniqueness, and every leader in the redemptive process had better have it. That, my friend, is a spirit of perseverance. Moses knew that it was God's program, and that he was simply an instrument used of God. When you know this, you can easily dismiss illegitimate complaints. When you know this, murmurs may irritate but they cannot defeat. When you know this, stumbling blocks become stepping stones. Moses and God were so close that whenever they swung at Moses, they in reality swung at God. Said Moses to the congregation, "Your murmurings are not against me and Aaron, but against God. You are His people; it was His exodus; this is His wilderness; Sinai is His mountain; we are bound for His Promised Land, and you might as well understand that I am His Servant."
Moses persevered, knowing that God must win. I tell you there was "None like Moses." Moses knew that although you work for the Great I Am, you will be bumped and buffeted; you will be battered and bruised. He will show you that there can be no sunlight in the absence of shadows, and no success without some setbacks. He will also make it plain that there can be no heaven without experiencing some hell. It is contrast that makes for completeness. Creativity is always at the edge of a castdown spirit, when that spirit is attuned to the Holy One. It is when I lean on the Lord that I experience the lifting of my burden. When I abide in the cleft of the rock, He becomes my refuge. I thank God that I know what Moses knew, and it enables me to persevere. There are some things that I know, I mean that I sure enough know. In my heart of hearts I know. I know that I am His child, I know that it is His Church. I know that it is His struggle. I know that it is His warfare. I know that it is His city, His nation, His world. I know that it is His Kingdom.
And there is something else that I know. I know that the battle is not mine, but the Lord's. And if you are rightly connected, you cannot fail. Your burdens become bearable, your load gets lighter, your joy gets greater, your blessings get better. Your life becomes sweeter, your vision gets higher, your heart gets larger. And you keep on stepping to the matchless music of eternity. You forget those things that are behind and press forward in pursuit of the prize. For you know that the Lord who brought you out is able to carry you through.
Well, they bade Moses farewell in the plains of Moab. They mourned his departure for thirty days. God was his undertaker there in the heights of Pisgah. Angels served as his pallbearers. But because of his uniqueness in emancipation, in patience, and in perseverance, they had to declare in memoriam, "There arose not a prophet since in Israel, like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." Isn't that a marvelous epithet? Isn't that a great tribute to a soul who loved God more than he loved himself? "None like Moses" whom God knew face to face.
This applies especially to the realm of the visible Kingdom, the Kingdom of God in the earth. For the Kingdom of God has to do with intangibles, with invisible reality. We present a God who elects not to reveal the totality of His being. So significant is the matter of personality that God's highest and best revelation of Himself in history was not simply programmatic. It was a program involving a personality.
God sent Jesus, the second part of Himself, to woo and to win an alien humanity. And the Bible is a book that chronicles His dealings with the world through the use of stalwart figures, men and women who marched with mystery, and who echoed the edicts of eternity.
Such a personage was the man of the text whose epithet reads, "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." The setting is pre-Promised Land. Moses is now dead. Prior to his death, God summoned him from the plains of Moab up to Mount Nebo, and from that lofty vantage point, God had him view the Land of Promise, that expanse promised long ago to the father of the faithful, old man Abraham.
Moses was not permitted to enter in. In his imperfection at a place called Meribah, Moses had sinned against God. God had commanded him to speak to a rock in order to bring forth water. But instead, out of hostility toward the multitude, he did not speak to the rock; he smote the rock twice. Water came out abundantly, but God declared, "Moses, because you believed me not, you shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them." He could not go in, but God did let him view the land from Dan to Beersheba. God then rocked him to sleep in the arms of death. God allowed no funeral service. He Himself buried Moses in a valley there in Moab.
He buried him so well and so privately that God alone knows the burial site. And the record tells us that Moses died in fullness of strength. He was 120 years old, but his eye was not dim, nor was his natural force abated. Thirty days of mourning took place in the camp, and then Joshua assumed the mantle of leadership, but with this glowing epithet regarding Moses, "There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face."
There was none like Moses. He, without question, was a prophet, a navi in the Hebrew. He was God's direct link with a rather motley host. Unique in every respect, his heartbeat was synchronized with that of the Eternal. There were so many aspects of his life that deserved that imprimatur which reads "unique," so many that one is forced to be selective. For example, the circumstances regarding his birth in a mud hut, a mud hut along the banks of the Nile, are indeed unique. Or his providential rearing by Pharaoh's daughter, in Pharaoh's house, with his mother Jochabed serving as his nurse. Or his calling on the backside of Horeb to a mission moral and ethical. Or his persevering spirit in spite of resistance and outright rebellion.
I suppose that all of these feed into that marvelous description, "None like Moses." Moses knew quite well that he was not made for the flatlands of futility. In his heart and in his mind God had planted the idea of wonderland. He was always in pursuit of the beckoning high place. He saw magnetism in the mountains and pulling power in the peaks. He was possessed, in a word, by the larger vision.
With freedom's fire burning in his heart, he forsook the privileges of the palace and went out to deliver his people. Rejected initially by his own, he was forced to flee to Midian, where he received forty years of basic training. And when his mind and heart were properly prepared, the Lord captured his attention with a burning bush that refused to burn up.
God dealt with his doubts, strengthened his confidence, doubled his determination, and then said, "Go." And Moses walked into Egypt, went directly to Pharaoh's palace, and said, "Let my people go."
"Moses, by what authority do you make such a declaration?"
"God told me to tell you."
"God?"
"Yes, God!"
"And He said, 'Go'?"
"Yes, that is what He said."
"Go where? Out of Egypt land? To what place?"
"To wherever He wants us to be."
"And where is that?"
"Well, He told our fathers that He would give us a Promised Land."
"No, you can't go. I won't let you wreck the Egyptian economy. As a matter of fact the work load will be increased."
And that is precisely what happened. The labor got harder, the groanings got louder, but God was moving. Plague after plague visited Egypt land, and finally, on the night of the anniversary of 430 years of captivity, God told Moses, "Have each household kill a Paschal lamb. Dip hyssop in the blood and sprinkle it on the lentil of the doorposts. Stay indoors tonight. I am going to move in a mighty way. My death angel will ride through Egypt. He will kill the firstborn in every house where the blood is not seen. But wherever he sees the blood, he will pass on by." Death marched that night; there was death in every Egyptian household. When the tragic episode was ended, Moses said to Israel, "Let us go; it is moving time."
Six hundred thousand men, plus the women and the children, formed a procession, stretching from the Great Sea to the River Nile, with Moses and Aaron at the head of the column. Pharaoh pursued, but at the Red Sea God worked a wonder. They passed over on dry ground and the Egyptian army drowned in the sea. The Israelites were free at last; they sang and they shouted. Miriam and the women danced for joy. Their servitude was ended, Pharaoh was defeated; they had something to shout about. There was "None like Moses." In emancipation "None like Moses."
Secondly, there was "None like Moses"Êin patience. As soon as the shouting faded into silence and they faced the struggles and ordeals of the journey, they shuddered and shrank from duty. It didn't take but three days for skepticism and criticism to take hold of that crowd. The water ran out, and they blamed Moses. At Marah they found water but it was bitter. God sweetened it and they continued to complain. On the fifteenth day of the month, food ran out; there was a groundswell of protest. The whole congregation murmured and complained. They said in unison, "Would God that we had died in the Land of Egypt when we sat by flesh pots, where we had bread every day."
It takes special patience to deal with ignorance and backwardness. Their backwardness changed a forty-day march into a forty-year journey. They had free feet but slave spirits. They wanted success without sacrifice and progress without pain. They preferred secure servitude to perilous liberty.
Within that throng there was a large group of quitters. Call them sprinters -- people who wax warm for a season but who cannot handle the long haul. God's program is not a sprint. It's a distance race. And "the race is not given to the swift, but to him that endureth to the end."
There was another element in that crowd, an element that was bogged down in negativity. Their chief delight was troublemaking. They never had any sound suggestions to offer. It is estimated that that host needed 94,666 bushels of food per day. They had to be led and fed. The sick had to be treated; the elderly had to be consoled; the young had to be counseled. It was an awesome task for Moses.
But these chronic complainers never offered a single word of helpful advice. You have to be careful about your dealings with such souls. People of this ilk have the capacity to ruin anybody who is somewhat weak. You have to be careful to whom you listen. "Try the spirits"; that is what the Book admonishes us to do. And for heaven's sake beware of chronic complainers. They murmured against Moses. But patient spirit that he was, he simply pressed on. There was "None like Moses" in patience.
There was at least one other attribute that made for Mosaic uniqueness, and every leader in the redemptive process had better have it. That, my friend, is a spirit of perseverance. Moses knew that it was God's program, and that he was simply an instrument used of God. When you know this, you can easily dismiss illegitimate complaints. When you know this, murmurs may irritate but they cannot defeat. When you know this, stumbling blocks become stepping stones. Moses and God were so close that whenever they swung at Moses, they in reality swung at God. Said Moses to the congregation, "Your murmurings are not against me and Aaron, but against God. You are His people; it was His exodus; this is His wilderness; Sinai is His mountain; we are bound for His Promised Land, and you might as well understand that I am His Servant."
Moses persevered, knowing that God must win. I tell you there was "None like Moses." Moses knew that although you work for the Great I Am, you will be bumped and buffeted; you will be battered and bruised. He will show you that there can be no sunlight in the absence of shadows, and no success without some setbacks. He will also make it plain that there can be no heaven without experiencing some hell. It is contrast that makes for completeness. Creativity is always at the edge of a castdown spirit, when that spirit is attuned to the Holy One. It is when I lean on the Lord that I experience the lifting of my burden. When I abide in the cleft of the rock, He becomes my refuge. I thank God that I know what Moses knew, and it enables me to persevere. There are some things that I know, I mean that I sure enough know. In my heart of hearts I know. I know that I am His child, I know that it is His Church. I know that it is His struggle. I know that it is His warfare. I know that it is His city, His nation, His world. I know that it is His Kingdom.
And there is something else that I know. I know that the battle is not mine, but the Lord's. And if you are rightly connected, you cannot fail. Your burdens become bearable, your load gets lighter, your joy gets greater, your blessings get better. Your life becomes sweeter, your vision gets higher, your heart gets larger. And you keep on stepping to the matchless music of eternity. You forget those things that are behind and press forward in pursuit of the prize. For you know that the Lord who brought you out is able to carry you through.
Well, they bade Moses farewell in the plains of Moab. They mourned his departure for thirty days. God was his undertaker there in the heights of Pisgah. Angels served as his pallbearers. But because of his uniqueness in emancipation, in patience, and in perseverance, they had to declare in memoriam, "There arose not a prophet since in Israel, like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." Isn't that a marvelous epithet? Isn't that a great tribute to a soul who loved God more than he loved himself? "None like Moses" whom God knew face to face.
