Sunday, October 31, 2010

Special Speaker

We are blessed to have Bobby Lloyd speak this morning. Due to this we do not have a Sunday Morning Message for today but since we are going through the book of Exodus, here is a link to Spurgeon's messages. There are some excellent messages on the Exodus at www.spurgeon.org
God bless you this day!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Who Is Like the LORD?!


Exodus 15.1-11
Who among the gods is like You, O LORD? Who is like You?- majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?

The LORD wants us to celebrate Him and His working in our lives.Moses sets a wonderful example of giving praise to the LORD after a great victory. We need to do this in our lives when God answers prayer, when He delivers us, when receive a blessing, when He works supernaturally, we should give Him praise and worship Him and thank Him. We need to appreciate our Father in Heaven.

In verse 11 there are a number of phrases which Moses uses to describe the LORD.
The LORD is:

1. Majestic in Holiness.
God's holiness is great. He is 100% pure. He cannot lie. In Him there is no change like the shifting shadows. He is light. In Him there is no darkness at all.

There is wisdom and nobility in God's sacredness/holiness/being set apart.
The call goes out from His Word I Peter 1.13-16 Therefore prepare your minds for action; be self controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desire you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He Who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written, "Be holy, because I am holy."

Holy living alleviates many things:
There are certain diseases tied to excessive habits- food, tobacco, alcohol.

Unforgiveness, bitterness, envy, jealousy, greed can set off chemicals in the body whose overuse can be destructive. All these things can bring emotional distress which can result in an Adrenaline Overload. The symptoms of AO are sleeplessness, chronic fatigue, unexplained pain in the upper back, depression, nausea, weight gain, constipation or diarrhea.

There is a good tension in the Christian Life- We are to be separate from the world- different- yet we are to be witnesses in the middle of the world sharing the love of Christ.

Who is like You, O LORD?
2. Awesome in Glory
In our praise of God, in our singing here is to be a reverential fear of Him. As we honor Him we should realize what He did to Pharaoh's army.

It is not to be a cowering type of fear. Our fear of God ought to result in loving worship of Him... Father and children.

Hebrews 12.14-24 Mount Sinai - Mount Calvary- Mount Zion
Fear and revere the LORD for His renown, fame
Similar to the fear of fire.

Who is like You, O LORD?
3. Working Wonders
God produces things that make us marvel, sometimes hard to understand

Exodus 16- Manna
John 6.4,31 Passover/Feeding of 5,000 Bread of Heaven-Life to the world
Job 23.12 I have

I believe the LORD works many wonders which in our busyness we miss it.
Slow down and see- Be still and know.

Think of the things the LORD accomplished in your life. He has done wonders. When I first felt the call of God I was in a remedial reading group, I spoke with a lisp and was in speech therapy and I was petrified of being up in front of people. If I read out loud I stumbled. That I am doing what I do is a wonder. I am sure my teachers in those early years would not have picked me! On top of that when the LORD called me I didn't even like to read. Then when I got to Bible College something happened deep inside my heart. I got this thirst for books and reading and my attention span increased. When I think of the work of God in my life, it is marvelous.

Then there is the marvelous story of our church here...

Think of the wonders God has produced- this earth is wonder filled. The picture at the top of this morning's message was taken just an hour ago.


Who is like You O LORD?- No One!




Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Leading Of God

Exodus 13.17-22

When Israel come out of Egypt it was in great need of Divine Leadership. For 430 years the developing nation of Israel was in Egypt (12.30). It was a nation with a nation. Suddenly they were free. They had organization along family lines from Jacob's 12 sons but that was about it. Moses was the human instrument through which God spoke. 600,000men- probably over 4 million people or more were out of Egypt's borders and needing to get across the Sinai. They were on their way to the land God promised on oath to give them.

There are truths here in this passage about the way God leads His people. We are in great need today of what Israel was in need of over 3,400 years ago- God's Leading in Our Lives.

1. God's Ways Are Not Our Ways v.17
Isaiah 55.8-9 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, "declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

He knows everything! Everything! What happened, is happening and will happen. He knows our hearts. He knows the road through the Philistine country. He knew Israel.

Without Him we can do nothing (John 15.5)
No less chart the course of our lives.
We do not know what a day may bring forth.

We cannot lean on our own understanding and expect good results.
If they had leaned on their own common sense with all those people they would have taken the road through the Philistine country, what we call today the Gaza Strip, and they would have encountered HUGE problems. So detours many times are the Hand of the LORD directing us in a path of less resistance for our own good and to carry out His plan.

The Holy Spirit kept Paul the apostle from preaching in the Province of Asia (Acts 16.6)
There are times faith makes no sense. I am sure for Paul it was so.
However faith missions would have never been launched unless someone was willing to trust in God rather than the opinions of man.

2. Sometimes God Leads Right Through The Desert v.18
Through! He brings us through the parched land. Sometimes it is His will and in wisdom He does this. Psalm 63.1 O God, You are my God, earnestly I seek You, my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. David, a man after God's own heart, wrote these words.

Times of heat, (I hate the heat. This fall weather is heaven to me) thirst, times which tax us physically- difficulties come, are encountered as we follow the LORD- He brings us through them.

AND UP TO HUGE OBSTACLES v.18b
The Red Sea- no bridge, no boats- the sea on one side- the Egyptian Army on the other. -14.9

3. Keep The Promises Made To God As You Go Through Tough Times. v.19
The last time we saw Joseph in Genesis 50.24-26 Moses is fulfilling that promise the children of Israel - his forefathers made. Levi was among them Moses' great grandfather had been part of this oath.

Psalm 15.4 Who may dwell in your sanctuary... he... who keeps his oath even when it hurts. Moses had a lot (understatement).
We are to offer the LORD the first and the best of our lives.
Consecrate the firstborn... later when they farmed the land it would also be the first fruits... even in difficult times like we are in - September home foreclosures topped 100,000 for the first time. Unemployment is up, the dollar is down. We are to faithful with what God blesses us with.

4. The LORD Leads Us Through The Day and Through The Night vs.20-22
He is always leading... sometimes we must employ Psalm 27.14
Sometimes in bright sunshine with a clear view
Sometimes where we can only see the next step. Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. Psalm 119.105

Proverbs 3.5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direst your paths.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

The Lamb of God

Exodus 12.1-11

The Passover has been celebrated approximately 3,456 years by the Jewish people. On the night before Jesus died He celebrated it with His disciples. As they reclined to eat He said, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22.15)

The Passover would become the LORD's Supper. The focus of the Passover was the lamb. This one in the upper room in Jerusalem had the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world seated there among them, Jesus Christ. He was there in symbol in that first Passover, which we just read about.

1. A Lamb For Each Family vs.1-4
God created the family. It is the foundation of social structure.
"As goes the family, so goes the nation." - Ronald Reagan
This feast was centered in the home- small intimate group- God reminding them again that the nation began as a family.

It was the father-husband who got the lamb for the family. I can remember specific things I did with my dad. Young boys who went along would have this in their memory. Every household was covered- every person. Acts 16.31

v.4 Share the lamb We are to share Christ with our neighbors, in our neighborhoods- no one should be without the Lamb.

This lamb was to be very special.
2. A Perfect Lamb v.5
It was to have no defects.
Leviticus 22.22 Do not offer to the LORD the blind, the injured, or the maimed or anything with warts or festering or running sores. Do not place any of these on the altar as an offering made to the LORD by fire.

God wants our best, God deserves our best. God gave us His best, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, going back to Abraham's word to Issac in Genesis 22.8 God Himself will provide the lamb/ God will provide Himself the lamb.

It is sad that so many want God to give them His best but they offer God the scraps of their lives. So many have little regard when it comes to giving of themselves but they want God to give to them.

3. The Blood of the Lamb. vs.6-7
v.13 Passover- when I see the blood.

It is Jesus Who said when He took the cup and gave thanks and offered it to His disciples in that Passover Feast the night before He died. "This is My Blood of the New Covenant which is poured out for many." Mark 14.24

Under the first Passover there was a lamb for each house. Under the New Covenant, "Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed. I Corinthians 5.7

The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. God so loved the world... John the Baptist, "The Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.

4. Bread Without Yeast and Bitter Herbs v.8
Sinless Perfect Lamb of God
Bitter for Christ in His Death- for us in life's trials

Jesus spoke of His return in this feast- Mark 14.25 I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.

John writes in I John 3.3 Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.
His return makes us want to be free from sin and causes us to seek to be pure and make necessary changes to do so.

5. Nothing Leftover vs.9-11
This shows the sacredness of the Passover and the LORD's Supper and Christ and His work.We need to recapture that reverence and awe of Him today.

One more thing on this... When Jesus fed the 5,000 in John 6 He said Gather up the fragments. Let nothing be wasted. We waste so much food here in America. It is a sin- a big sin. There is coming a time if Jesus tarries when we won't be able to. Excess is never an excuse for waste. Asking God to bless the food we are going to eat and then throwing half of it out is wrong. I never saw that happen in the weeks I spent in China.

The main thing here is the Sacredness of the Lamb

Lamb of God
Jesus, Our Savior
God's Own Son
Heaven's Favor

He came to die
Upon a Cross
Gave Himself up
To save the lost

He shed His Blood
For Adam's race
On Golgotha
He took our place

Our sins are covered
By His blood
Jesus, Our LORD
Son of God






Sunday, October 3, 2010

Mercy In Judgement

Exodus 9.13-10.7

A closer look at these chapters in Exodus reveal a facet of God in His judgement which are seldom seen and highlighted or brought out. In judgement He often shows mercy. There is a difference between grace and mercy. Grace is getting what I don't deserve. Mercy is not getting what I do deserve.

After God had judged Jerusalem in 586 BC, following Jeremiah's pleading with the nation to repent and it rejecting that message he brought, Jeremiah lamented. He wrote down his lament and it is recorded in Lamentations. Tradition says Jeremiah was looking over the city, just under Golgotha, and wrote his lament as we are told the smoke was still rising from its ashes.

Lamentations 3.22-23 (19-26)
"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness."
God had continued to press the same point over and over again to Pharaoh- v.13 "Let My people go so that they may worship Me."
1.The LORD Always Warns Before He Judges. vs.13-15
He was telling Pharaoh that things were going to get worse. They were already bad. God knew Pharaoh would not listen and yet He warned him.
If the LORD has been warning you today, listen! And obey. Draw near to Him.
America has been, and continues to be, warned in various ways that God will judge it unless there is national repentance. In our Constitution's Preamble are the words that all men have been endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Yet in our education system the idea of a Creator has been rejected for decades now. In our laws there is more protection for animals than babies in the womb. The breaking of the Ten Commandments has been glorified in entertainment and life. God continues to warn. We pray that the nation will listen.
However understand that
2. The LORD Does Not Take Pleasure in the Death of the Wicked. Ezekiel 18.23
"Do I take pleasure in the death of the wicked?" declares the Sovereign LORD, "Rather am I not pleased when they turn from their wicked ways and live?"
He always offers man a way to escape His judgement.
v.19 God is giving shelter from the stormy blast to men who listen and their animals.
He cares: Noah and the Ark; Jonah and Ninevah Jonah 4.10
v.20 There were officials who feared the Word of the LORD
They hurried = to take flight, escape, flee, drive harshly, to disappear
The fear of the LORD shows up in what people do.
3.God Keeps His People When He Is Judging -v.26
God's people are kept by Him during Judgement, if not physically, then definitely spiritually. We need to be careful here. Hebrews 11.37 speaks of those who were stoned, sawed in two, put to death by the sword (and brought to heaven).
Some people we pray for to be healed are healed and sometimes sickness leads to death or a life long illness or condition. We need to remember the suffering persecuted church today In Cuba and Sudan and Nepal. People serving the LORD suffer. We give thanks for those the LORD delivers and leave the questions of those He does not with Him.
v.27-28 Some people, many people, who turn to God in times of difficulty, do not truly repent and follow the LORD. They are looking for relief from their sufferings.
There are seeds of the Word of God which fall on rocky places. Mark 4.5-6, 16-17
4. The LORD Still Answers That Prayer of Habakkuk Habakkuk 3.2b
in wrath remember mercy
The LORD did not totally destroy their food supply v.31-32
10.2 tell your children and your grandchildren pass on His mighty acts to the children
The LORD had told Pharaoh that He could have wiped Egypt off the earth by this point. In God's wrath He remembers mercy. We may need to pray this soon for our nation.
We are still in a time of grace and mercy. Let's share the love of Christ. Let's look to heaven. Let's pray for those who are not walking with the LORD today, let's pray now.