The Lord said, "Say unto them, "I AM hath sent me.""
Some one has said that G.o.d gave him
A BLANK CHECK,
and all he had to do was to fill it out from that time on. When he wanted to bring water out of the rock, all he had to do was to fill out the check; when he wanted bread, all he had to do was to fill out the check and the bread came; he had a rich banker. G.o.d had taken him into partnership with Himself. G.o.d had made him His heir, and all he had to do was to look up to Him, and he got all he wanted.
And yet he seemed to draw back, and began to make another excuse, and said:
"They will not believe me."
He was afraid of the Israelites as well as of Pharaoh: he knew how hard it is to get even your friends to believe in you.
Now, if G.o.d has sent you and me with a message it is not for us to say whether others will believe it or not. _We_ cannot make men believe. If I have been sent by G.o.d to make men believe, He will give me power to make them believe. Jesus Christ didn"t have that power; it is the work of the Holy Ghost; we cannot persuade men and overcome skepticism and infidelity unless we are baptised with the Holy Ghost and with power.
G.o.d told Moses that they _would_ believe him, that he would succeed, and bring the children of Israel out of bondage. But Moses seemed to distrust even the G.o.d who had spoken to him.
Then the Lord said, "What is that in thy hand?"
He had a rod or staff, a sort of shepherd"s crook, which he had cut haphazard when he had wanted something that would serve him in the desert.
"It is only a rod."
"With that you shall deliver the children of Israel; with that rod you shall make Israel believe that I am with you."
When G.o.d Almighty linked Himself to that rod, it was worth more than all the armies the world had ever seen. Look and see how that rod did its work. It brought up the plagues of flies, and the thunder storm, and turned the water into blood. It was not Moses, however, nor Moses" rod that did the work, but it was the G.o.d of the rod, the G.o.d of Moses. As long as G.o.d was with him, he could not fail.
Sometimes it looks as if G.o.d"s servants fail. When Herod beheaded John the Baptist, it looked as if John"s mission was a failure. But was it? The voice that rang through the valley of the Jordan rings through the whole world to-day. You can hear its echo upon the mountains and the valleys yet, "I must decrease, but He must increase." He held up Jesus Christ and introduced Him to the world, and Herod had not power to behead him until his life work had been accomplished. Stephen never preached but one sermon that we know of, and that was before the Sanhedrim; but how that sermon has been preached again and again all over the world! Out of his death probably came Paul, the greatest preacher the world has seen since Christ left this earth. If a man is sent by Jehovah, there is no such thing as failure. Was Christ"s life a failure? See how His parables are going through the earth to-day. It looked as if the apostles had made a failure, but see how much has been accomplished.
If you read the book of Acts, you will see that every seeming failure in Acts was turned into a great victory. Moses wasn"t going to fail, although Pharaoh said with contempt, "Who is G.o.d that I should obey Him?" He found out who G.o.d was. He found out that there was a G.o.d.
But Moses made another excuse, and said, "I am slow of speech, slow of tongue." He said he was
NOT AN ORATOR.
My friends, we have too many orators. I am tired and sick of your "silver-tongued orators." I used to mourn because I couldn"t be an orator. I thought, Oh, if I could only have the gift of speech like some men! I have heard men with a smooth flow of language take the audience captive, but they came and they went, their voice was like the air, there wasn"t any _power_ back of it; they trusted in their eloquence and their fine speeches. That is what Paul was thinking of when he wrote to the Corinthians:--"My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man"s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of G.o.d."
Take a witness in court and let him try his oratorical powers in the witness-box, and see now quickly the judge will rule him out. It is the man who tells the plain, simple truth that has the most influence with the jury.
Suppose that Moses had prepared a speech for Pharaoh, and had got his hair all smoothly brushed, and had stood before the looking -gla.s.s or had gone to an elocutionist to be taught how to make an oratorical speech and how to make gestures. Suppose that he had b.u.t.toned his coat, put one hand in his chest, had struck an att.i.tude and begun:
"The G.o.d of our fathers, the G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has commanded me to come into the presence of the n.o.ble King of Egypt."
I think they would have taken his head right off! They had Egyptians who could be as eloquent as Moses. It was not eloquence they wanted.
When you see a man in the pulpit trying to show off his eloquence he is making a fool of himself and trying to make a fool of the people.
Moses was slow of speech, but he had a message, and what G.o.d wanted was to have him deliver the message. But he insisted upon having an excuse. He didn"t want to go; instead of being eager to act as heaven"s messenger, to be G.o.d"s errand boy, he wanted to excuse himself. The Lord humored him and gave him an interpreter, gave him Aaron.
Now, if there is a stupid thing in the world, it is to talk through an interpreter. I tried it once in Paris. I got up into a little box of a pulpit with the interpreter--there was hardly room enough for one. I said a sentence while he leaned away over to one side, and then I leaned over while he repeated it in French. Can you conceive of a more stupid thing than Moses going before Pharaoh and speaking through Aaron!
But this slow-of-speech man became eloquent. Talk about Gladstone"s power to speak! Here is a man one hundred and twenty years old, and he waxed eloquent, as we see in Deuteronomy x.x.xii:1-4:
Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
My doctrine shall drop as the rain, My speech shall distil as the dew, As the small rain upon the tender herb, And as the showers upon the gra.s.s: Because I will publish the name of the Lord: Ascribe ye greatness unto our G.o.d.
He is the Rock, His work is perfect: For all His ways are judgment: A G.o.d of truth and without iniquity, Just and right is He.
He turned out to be one of the most eloquent men the world has ever seen. If G.o.d sends men and they deliver His message He will be with their mouth. If G.o.d has given you a message, go and give it to the people as G.o.d has given it to you. It is a stupid thing for a man to try to be eloquent. Make
YOUR MESSAGE, AND NOT YOURSELF,
the most prominent thing. Don"t be self-conscious Set your heart on what G.o.d has given you to do, and don"t be so foolish as to let your own difficulties or your own abilities stand in the way. It is said that people would go to hear Cicero and would come away and say, "Did you ever hear anything like it? wasn"t it sublime? wasn"t it grand?" But they would go and hear Demosthenes, and he would fire them so with the subject that they would want to go and fight at once. They forgot all about Demosthenes, but were stirred by his message; that was the difference between the two men.
Next Moses said: "O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send."
Did you ever stop to think what Moses would have lost if G.o.d had taken him at his word, and said:
"Very well, Moses; you may stay here in the desert, and I will send Aaron, or Joshua, or Caleb!"
Don"t seek to be excused if G.o.d calls you to some service. What would the twelve disciples have lost if they had declined the call of Jesus! I have always pitied those other disciples of whom we read that they went back, and walked no more with Jesus. Think what Orpah missed and what Ruth gained by cleaving to Naomi"s G.o.d! Her story has been
TOLD THESE THREE THOUSAND YEARS.
Father, mother, sisters, brothers, the grave of her husband--she turned her back on them all. Ruth, come back, and tell us if you regret your choice! No: her name shines one of the brightest among all the women that have ever lived. The Messiah was one of her descendants.
Moses, you come back and tell us if you were afterwards sorry that G.o.d had called you? I think that when he stood in glorified body on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus and Elijah, he did not regret it.
My dear friends, G.o.d is not confined to any one messenger. We are told that He can raise up children out of stones. Some one has said that there are three cla.s.ses of people, the "wills," the "won"ts,"
and the "can"ts"; the first accomplish everything, the second oppose everything, and the third fail in everything. If G.o.d calls you, consider it a great honor. Consider it a great privilege to have partnership with Him in anything. Do it cheerfully, gladly. Do it with all your heart, and He will bless you. Don"t let false modesty or insincerity, self-interest, or any personal consideration turn you aside from the path of duty and sacrifice. If we listen for G.o.d"s voice, we shall hear the call; and if He calls and sends us, there will be no such thing as failure, but success all along the line. Moses had glorious success because he went forward and did what G.o.d called him to do.
NAAMAN THE SYRIAN
I wish to call your attention to one who was a great man in his own country, and very honorable; one whom the king delighted to honor.
He stood high in position; he was captain of the host of the King of Syria; but he was a leper, and that threw a blight over his whole life. As Bishop Hall quaintly puts it, "The meanest slave in Syria would not have changed skins with him."
Now you cannot have a better type of a sinner than Naaman was. I don"t care who or what he is, or what position he holds--all men alike have sinned, and all have to bear the same burden of death.
"All have sinned, and come short of the glory of G.o.d." All men must stand in judgment before G.o.d. What a gloom that throws over our whole life!
"_But he was a leper_." There was
NO PHYSICIAN
who could help him in Syria. None of the eminent doctors in Damascus could do him any good. If he was to get rid of the leprosy, the power must come from on high. It must be some one unknown to Naaman, for he did not know G.o.d.