Dr. Ed Young - Remember

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Moses wrote more of the Bible than any other single individual. Moses. The second person that wrote the most, you'll never guess, would be Ezra. You never guessed him. Third would be Luke. Fourth would be Paul. So you can look at the Bible and the amount that you have there, Moses is way, way ahead of anyone else who wrote holy Scripture inspired by God. How important he is and how God orchestrated his life for a purpose. God worked in Moses in marvelous ways, and by the way, you could pick out anybody here just pluck you out of the congregation, stand anybody up here, and after a period of time, we'd begin to see what God had planned and purposed for that life because he has a plan and a purpose for every single life.

We need to understand that. But we see Moses. Moses purpose in the world was just overwhelming. Here he was a throw away baby in the Nile. Pharaoh's daughter comes and brings him up as her own son. And he is brought up as royalty. Think about it. The best food the, best education, the best clothes, all the prestige that you have being a part of Pharaoh's family. Think about it, brought up as royalty 40 years of his life. Then all of a sudden we see a temper flare up and he kills an Egyptian who's abusing an Israelite. Moses had a temper and we see because of that he went to Midian and he stayed in Midian for 40 years out in the middle of nowhere, where there was rocks, and sheep, and animals, and he was a nobody for 40 years.

First 40 years, he was a somebody. Second 40 years, he was a nobody. But those two periods of his life, 80 years, prepared him for his purpose God had for him, which was to bring his peculiar people out of slavery, and to build a new nation that was Holy unto God, who could communicate the purpose and the holiness of God to the rest of the world. So, we see even when he was a nobody he was discovering how to live in wildernesses, how to live in a barren place, how to live where there was desolation. See how God used him when he was royalty. God used him when he was nobody to prepared him to be God's somebody as he brought the Israelites out of captivity. Brought them out of captivity into a new nation.

So, we see these watersheds in his life. He's out there in Midian and one day he sees a bush. It's burning. By the way that's not the first bush he'd ever seen on fire. You'd see bushfires out there in the wilderness area. A bush was burning so what? But Moses with his astute observation discovered the bush burned, and burned, and burned, and it didn't burn up. It wasn't consumed. It was wasn't consumed. He said, "Oh, this is some kind of special bush. Some kind of holy bush".

One commentator says we look at that burning bush that did not burn up. Boy, that was some special bush. He said No. When God's in a bush, any old bush will do. That's the important thing. When God's in your life or my life, nobody special, just any old life will do when God is in that life. So, this bush was burning and Moses bowed down and received a commission of God to go back and use his ability to communicate with royalty. Not everybody can do that. He was brought up in the palace. So, he communicates with Pharaoh and those ten plagues and we see his temper flaring up again between the ninth and tenth plague. God told him Pharaoh is not going to listen. And Pharaoh didn't listen. And Moses got mad about it.

God told him Pharaoh wasn't gonna listen. His temper flares up again. And we see this temper flare up all the way through Moses as he led them over through the sea, led them into the wilderness area, and he led them all the way to the foot of Mount Sinai, into this barren area called the wilderness, a place of nothingness. And then he goes up on that mountain 40 days and God writes his moral law for his people down on those tablets. And he comes down and what does he find? He finds those previously known as slaves, now they were still slaves and they start acting like a slave because they began to worship as they saw the Egyptians worshiping.

And the Bible tells us that Aaron had gold and silver brought in and he formed a golden calf, and they were bowing down and worshiping a golden calf. And Moses comes down and says, "What is this? What are you doing"? And Aaron says, "Well, you know, I just took some gold and silver and threw it into the fire and boom automatic calf. Supernatural". Moses laughed at that. He was so angry at the idolatry of God's people that he in anger threw down the tablets of which God had written the ten basic moral laws. Temper. Moses's temper. And we see this all the way through. And now suddenly he's at the foot of Mount Sinai in our Scripture. And all this time, remember the cloud had told them exactly where they were to live, how they were to move, and now the cloud begins to move.

So they see it's time now to go into the Promised Land. But look what we have with God's peculiar people. That's all of you by the way. Look what he has here in chapter 11 of Numbers. "Now when the people complained, it displeased the Lord, for the Lord heard it, and his anger was aroused". And then jump down, if you would, to verse number 4. "Now the mixed multitude," that was a rebel. Anytime God's doin' somethin', you're gonna have the rebel. Do you notice that if God's not doing anything and there won't be those rebel. There won't be those rebellious people.

God's doin' somethin', here's a rebel. The mixed multitude, people just following along with God's people, they know the language of the kingdom, but they don't live according to the principles of the kingdom. We got a lot of that do we not? And the rebel were among them yielded to intense craving. What is intense craving? They were addicted. Look what they were addicted to. We can identify with this. "So the children of Israel also wept aloud and said, 'Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish, which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. But now our whole being is being dried up. There is nothing all to eat except manna before our eyes.'"

You know what the word "manna" means? What is it? Manna, what is it? Here's manna, that was the food that God gave to his people to eat. Water was provided. Food was now provided. And they had it up to here with manna. The next verse it tells us they had fried manna. They had boiled manner. They had filleted manna. They had mixed manna up as desserts. They prepared manna with a thousand and one recipes. And they said, "We are sick and tired of manna. We want meat. Meat". They complain. God got angry and look what happened to Moses.

Read in verse number 10, "Then Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families even at the foot of the tent". They were outside the tabernacle weeping. "And the anger of the Lord was greatly aroused, and Moses was also displeased," Moses was depressed. That's the word. And Moses said to the Lord... now Moses was not only depressed, he's angry at God. "Why have you afflicted your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight that you have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people"? He said was I the mother of all these people?

"Did I beget them that you should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom as a guardian carries a nursing child to the land which you swore to their fathers? Where am I,' Moses asked God, 'to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep all over me saying give us meat that we may eat. I'm not able to bear all these people alone,' said Moses, 'Because the burden is too heavy for me and if you treat me like this please kill me here and now... if I have found favor in your sight. And do not let me see my own wretchedness.'"

Here is Moses, this great guy, who's fighting with a temper and now with depression. He gets mad. Now he's depressed. He's depressed and now he gets mad. He's mad at God. He's depressed because the people are still rebellious and they're not following the principles. They don't realize this is the way, the path to freedom. And now we see God's answer to Moses. It is just as usual right on target to all of this.

Look what he says. "So the Lord said to Moses, 'Gather to me 70 men of the elders of Israel whom you know to be elders of the people and offers his over them, and bring them to the tabernacle of meeting that they may stand there with you.' Then God says, 'I will come down and talk with you there and I will take of the Spirit that is upon you,'" Moses, "'I'll put that same Spirit upon them and you shall bear the burden of the people with you, and you may not bear it yourself alone.'"

What's he saying? He said, "Moses, look at all these people. You have got all of these people here who have the talent to go and help you. You're complaining to me about oh, this job is too big. I've got 2,000,000 people to look after here. I just can't do it. Man, pick out 70 elders here and they'll", and God says, "The Spirit I've given to you, I will implant in those elders". You got a problem? Anybody got any problem? Oh, Lord I can't handle this, this is too much. God has probably put around you and me those who can come along your side and my side and help us. And we just sit there whining and complaining about the problem we have, when he's given us all we need to do the task that he has for you. And the task that he had for me. Just like he did for Mo. Exactly like he did.

And then we see the rest of it here. It gets even clearer here for it. "He says, And you shall say to the people, 'Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow you shall eat meat.'" God says I'm going to give the people meat. Huh. "That you may have wept in the hearing of the Lord saying, 'Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt.' Therefore, the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat. You shall eat not one day, not two days, not five days, not ten days, not 20 days, but for a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils, and behold and become loathsome to you because you have despised the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying, 'Why did we ever come out of Egypt?'"

Some guy, "Boy, I sure do wish for the good old days". Be careful what you wish for, ladies and gentlemen. Look back on the good ol' days, they may not be as good as you remember them to be. I was a boy, in our yard we had what I call the big tree. When I was little I'd go out and say, "Mom, I'm gonna go and climb the big tree". I went home a few years ago. Went to my old house there to look and I wanted to see the big tree. It's about this high. I said, "Surely that's not the big tree. I remember those lambs, those branches, they're still there".

You see, they looked back and said, "Boy, we were slaves in Egypt. We had fish, and we had melons, and we add onions, we add garlic, we had all the vegetables. And now we don't have any meat to eat". Listen, they had the leftovers from the masters. They were slaves. But they remember it in a different way. They wanted to go back into slavery because they couldn't handle freedom. They couldn't handle the manna that God had provided for them, which was a supernatural gift. We want meat. Look at verse 21, "And Moses said, 'The people who I am among are 600,000 men on foot. Yet you said I will give meat that they should eat for a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slaughtered for them to provide enough for them, of all the fish in the sea be gathered for them to provide meat for them?'"

See, Moses is doubting God can provide meat for the children. Now, here God had been providing with manna and water for 2,000,000 people. Now they want meat and Moses says, "Well, God, I don't see how in the world you can provide meat for them". But look what God did. Look at verse 23. "The Lord said to Moses, 'Has the Lord's arm been shortened? Now you shall see what I say to you will happen.'"

Verse 31, "Now a wind went out from the Lord and it brought quail from the sea and left them floundering near the camp about a day's journey on this side, about a day's journey on the other side, all around the camp and about two cubits above the surface of the ground. And the people stayed up all that day, all night, all the next day, and gathered the quail, and each one gathered at least six homers. And they spread them out for themselves around the camp. And while the meat was still between their teeth before it was chewed the wrath of God was aroused against the people and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague".

God can't provide, his arms too short to provide meat for the people and then all the quail came. You know what a cubit is? A cubit was measured using the tip of your long finger to your elbow about 18 inches. That's a cubit. They had three feet of quail all around, miles and miles around the camp. And everyone gathered at least ten homers of quail. A homer was 59 gallons. Each person has at least 59 gallons of quail. You think they got enough meat to eat? Oh, how beautiful it is. But here is Moses there. Moses trying to build a holy, worshipping, special people out of people who had 400 years of slavery. We have all these rules and regulations, commandments to bring them out of there. And now the cloud moves from the foot of Sinai. They'd been there for a year.

The cloud moves and now he has to move the people and they're complaining. Moses is depressed. What's back of all this? Why do we get depressed? Why do we have a temper? Well, I have a temper because my daddy had it, but no, no, no, that's not, it doesn't work. Well, I get depressed because there's depression in my family. No, no, no, no, no, that's not it. You know what the basic cause of your temper, and my temper, and your depression, and my depression? It comes from intimate betrayal. Intimate betrayal.

You see, Moses failed. That he had led these people here out into a soon coming Promised Land and now the people had turned against him. They were not satisfied with him. He had poured his life into them and now he had given them intimacy, but they had betrayed him by wanting to go back into Egypt, back into slavery. When he was pointing them to a new life of freedom and a Promised Land. Intimate betrayal. That's the reason divorce is so deadly. In divorce there is usually intimate betrayal.

And that leads the party to go from depression to a display of temper. Depression and temper come from intimate betrayal. You open your life and heart to a friend. You share intimacies in your life and that friend turns away from you. That friend exploits the intimacy you shared with them and uses you. We fly into temper and we fly into depression. Anybody have a problem with temper? Don't raise your hand. Anybody have any problem depression? I don't want to know about it. What's the answer? The answer for Moses, for you, and me, it comes to usually not always some type of intimate betrayal.

The answer is found in what Moses forgot. What he forgot, we too forget, but we too must remember. What did Moses forget? The promise of God. God said 60 times in the book of Numbers, "I will be with you". Sixty times, he forgot that. I'll be with you. By the way, that's all the way through the Bible. Great Commission, I'll be with you. Twenty-third Psalm, I'll be with you. All the way through the New Testament. I'll be with you. I'll be with you. I'll be with your family. I'll be with you. And Moses forgot that. That's the reason he vacillated between temper and depression. He forgot God said, "I'll be with you. I'll be with you".

Also, he forgot the plan of God. By the way is everybody here breathing? Is anybody not breathing? Would you lift your hand? Look, isn't that amazing all of us are breathing. Everybody here's alive in this room. Guess what? As long as you and I are breathing, God's got a plan for your life. God's got a purpose for your life. And that purpose is beautiful. You know, if I had a container of water here and I put my fist in that water. Bang, there'd be splash and everything else. But I'll take my fist out, psh. The water goes right back where it was.

Is that just your life and my life? Whoa, we gonna make a splash, bam, and we leave this earth. The waters right back. But if we realize God's plan, God's purpose is bigger than I, me, my, and mine, your agenda, and my agenda, all of a sudden God begins to use us in ways we can't even imagine. We're read three things that will count in eternity. See, Moses said, "Oh, Lord, take my life". It didn't work out like this. Just kill me right here. And now, whining, he forgot god has a plan. We can do the same thing. We forget God's plan for us we're still alive. And finally, Moses forgot the power of God.

"How in the world we gonna have enough meat to feed all these 2,000,000 people, Lord? We'd have to kill", And God says, "If my arms too short, not powerful enough to provide meat for just 2,000,000 people". Yeah. We forget the power of Almighty God. Ladies and gentlemen, God wants to bless us. He wants to fill us with his fullness. He wants us to understand clearly he has a plan. He has power and he wants everybody to know one thing: I'll be with you. You got a problem, I'll be with you. And so, therefore, I want to pronounce in this service a high priestly blessing on all of us that are here. In the 6th chapter of Numbers, you perhaps bounce through those verses.

God says to Moses, "You lay this blessing on Aaron and let Aaron lay this blessing upon all of the people". And that's exactly what I'm gonna do today. Would you close your eyes and hold your head back like? Everybody close your eyes. Hold your head back. Just hold your head back. Be still. Hold your head back. And here's the blessing you find all the way through the Bible really. The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Now look at me. Do you see what God imparted to all of us? His blessings. Yeah. His total complete blessing upon all of us. That's what he imparted. And he says, "I'll keep you". He's got us in his hand. He's going to cherish us, he's keeping us. He's looking after us. That's a part of that high priestly blessing that's been pronounced upon us. And then let his face shine afar and let him be gracious. We have grace. He forgives us. He gives a new beginning, a second chance, or start over. He just poured grace out upon all of us. And then finally, he's given us peace. Peace. I've got a question.

Does anybody need anything else? Can you name any other thing that you might need in this life on this earth? I don't think you can. That's not covered by the blessings of God upon us. My, my, my. His blessing that he puts upon us. He keeps us. He secures us. We're in the palm of his hand. Man, what more could you want than that from the Almighty? Then he shows grace. He forgives. He lifts us up. He gives a second chance. He lets us begin again and again. Man, the grace and then the result of that is peace. Peace. My, my, my. Anybody need anything else? No, that's all of it. That's all we need. And therefore, we begin to understand and claim again what we forget so many times as Moses forgot. The promise of God, I'll be with you.