Remember When God Wanted to Kill Moses?

Sermon Transcript – Let’s look at the life of Moses for a moment. Moses was handpicked by God for a specific purpose. From the time he was born, he was protected by God. You know the story, the Pharaoh came and said that a deliverer was coming and so the world did what the world does when they know a deliverer was coming, they started killing babies. That was the world’s response to Moses and that was the world’s response to the first coming of Jesus. By the way that’s why we have such a problem with abortion today. The world knows the deliverer is coming back and their only thought is we’ve got to kill the babies, but he’s not coming as a baby this time. Is he? He’s coming as a conquering King.

Moses was protected. He was kept alive when the other children were killed. He was not only kept alive, but through a series of events that God had planned, he ended up being raised in the Pharaoh’s own home by the Pharaoh’s daughter. He received the best education that money could buy in those days. He was protected and he was given a position of authority. And then when he was 40years old, he made a horrible mistake. He committed a horrible sin, he rose up and he killed somebody out anger.

He got angry and let that anger manifest itself and he killed somebody. Then he even tried to hide the body, but he was found out and he was punished for it. Do you remember what his punishment was for murder? He was exiled, he was cast out. He was sent out into the wilderness to live for killing somebody, but even this time in the wilderness wasn’t the worst because while he was there he found a new family. He got married and becoming prosperous as a goat herder.

So even this time in the wilderness wasn’t the worst for him and then after 40 years old, he’s 80years old by this time, God calls him again. God came and gave him a new command, go back and talk to the pharaoh. To tell the Pharaoh to “Let my people go”.

So fast forward a bit: he hasn’t fulfilled his purpose yet, he hasn’t stood before the Pharaoh yet and we come to Exodus chapter 4. We’ve see all these things happening, God has protected him, God has his disciplined him, God has moulded him and God has trained him for 80years for the purpose of delivering his people out of Egypt, to be a saviour, and to be that picture of the coming saviour. For 80years he’s been investing in him, 80years he’s been pouring into him and in Exodus 4: 24 says “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him.”

God met Moses with the intention of killing Moses before he ever stood before the pharaoh. Is that shocking to anybody? Is this startling to anybody that God’s desire, God’s intention at that point toward this person that he had invested all this into was to kill him?
Do you know what his great crime was?
Do you know what he was being judged for?
Do you know why God was going to kill him now?

What was this great offense before God? What was this thing that’s obviously worse than murder because for murder he was just exiled and it wasn’t the worst of exiles? He didn’t circumcise his son. He gets somewhat of a pass for murder, but when he didn’t circumcise his infant son God desires to kill him.
Why didn’t he circumcise his son? We don’t know. It appears that in the following verses, his wife wasn’t too excited about the idea although she is ultimately the one that circumcises the son. Seem like she was kind of angry about it, but she did it with the knowledge that this was saving her husband’s life by circumcising the son. And this did save Moses’s life. This did change the mind of God so He didn’t kill Moses. But why was circumcision more important than murder?

And if circumcision is that important are we still judged by that today? No, this was a command that was given to Israel. This was an Old Testament command that went away when the New Testament came. Also, it was a command for the Jewish people, but never applied to Gentiles. Circumcision was a way to distinguish between God’s people and the rest of the world.
So why was he so upset with Moses? Let’s look at three things we can glean from this passage.

First, we have to understand, what is sin?
Was it a sin when he committed murder? Yes
Was it a sin when he refused to circumcise his son? Yes

They’re both violated commands of God. They were both an affront to God because sin is always an affront to Him. Sin is rebellion, simply sin is disobedience before God.

So why was God going to judge circumcision greater than he had judged murder? Circumcision or the lack of circumcision was an ongoing sin. The murder was a one-time sin. He was done, he was repentant and he even tried to hide the body to pretend like it didn’t happen because he was remorseful for it and he was repentant of it.

But the circumcision; He disobeyed God and every single day that he did not circumcise his son he was choosing to live in a state of disobedience. This is important for us as Christians, because as Christians we are all going to sin. And when we sin, we have an advocate with the father. The same advocate, that saved us in the first place will stand before the Father and when we repent of our sin he will tell the Father that sin has been paid for.

The problem with an ongoing sin in our life is there is no repentance and every day that we continue to live in that state of sin. We continue to thumb our noses to God. We continue to shake our fist to God and because we stand in direct rebellion by choice every single day. This is why addictions are so destructive. Addictions are so destructive to people because every time they make the choice to put the needle in or take the pill or put the cigarette in their mouth they make a choice. Every time they do those things they’re shaking their fist at God saying I know what’s better for me than you.

That’s why those things that are addictive should be avoided before they consume and take over our life by the way which is what all sin does in our life. We look at addicts as though they don’t really have control. They had control at one point and they can have control again with the power of Jesus Christ, but addiction is no different than in the other sin that you choose to let live in your life. Whatever that sin is; Whether it’s pride, Whether it’s greed or Whether it’s deceit.

Whatever that sin is that you allow living in your life, that unrepentant sin will destroy you and take you over just as quick as any addiction will. It will destroy you. It will rot you from the inside out. This is why God was so upset. He had given His command to Moses to give to the people and Moses wasn’t even doing what he was supposed to be doing, but he’s telling other people to do it.
He was a little bit of a hypocrite, wasn’t he? By the way Christians are hypocrites too. A pastor and I were out on visitation and we stop at this man’s house. I was a 13-year-old kid and when we get to the door this giant of a man comes to the door and the pastor invites him to church. The man says, “I’m not going to church, the church is full of hypocrites.” That pastor put his head down and says “yes, you’re right, but there’s always room for one more. Why don’t you join us on Sunday?” I thought oh we’re going to die.

Of course, we’re hypocrites, the world is full of hypocrites and Christians are hypocrites. Shocking, isn’t it? But hopefully if you’re living that Christian life you’re striving not to be a hypocrite, that you’re not saying things that you’re not actually doing in your life, that’s the difference. When we’re hypocritical, when we do things it should bother us, it should eat away at us because we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us.

Moses was living in that constant state of rebellion without repentance. Without repentance, there is no forgiveness. Without forgiveness, there’s that constant barrier between us and God. So, here’s God’s man, the one that is going to go represent him in the world, and he has built a wall between him and God and he’s going to go and tell Pharaoh what the Pharaoh needs do. You see the problem. Do you see why God wanted to kill him or why he sought to kill him?

Have you ever heard of the Chinese water torture? I don’t know if it’s accurate or not, but the stereotypical way the water was administered was to take the water and just drip it or drizzle it on the prisoner’s forehead. So, you’re leaning back and they just drip, drip, drip and they secure your head so you can’t move it. And that constant dripping of water drives people insane, drives to the point where they just they’ll do anything or say anything to make it stop and all of this is from a drop of water over and over.

If we were to take that same water and dump it over somebody’s head which was popular a couple years ago in the Ice Bucket Challenge, it was shocking, but it was over and life went on. But you take that same water and a little bit a little bit a little bit and it destroys the mind.

Sin is the same way. When we sin, we need to get that sin out of our life quickly. We need to separate ourselves from that sin quickly because that ongoing sin, that we allow to stay, will eat us away. It destroys us every single time.
Something else we can learn from this. If we look in Acts 10:34 it says, “of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons”. You know what else we can draw from this? God doesn’t play favourites. God judges us not based upon what we’ve done in the past. But what we’re doing right now. So, if you think because I did all this good so I’m entitled to this little sin. You’re lying to yourself.

Sin is sin. God does not play favourites. If He was going to play favourites, if He was going to overlook a sin this is probably the time, right? For 80 years He has been pouring into Moses. He has talked to Moses. He has given Moses the rod. He has exposed things to him. He has used him and has developed him for 80 years and now he is about to do one of the most amazing things with him. He’s going to deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt. He’s going to free them, but Moses allowed sin in this life and God couldn’t play favourites he had to be judged.

This brings us to our 3rd and final point. God never ignore sin. We don’t have one example in the Bible where God overlooked sin. Sin is always dealt with. When Jesus Christ went to the cross he dealt with sin. John 7: 4 says “for there is no man that doeth anything in secret and he himself seek it to be known openly if thou do these things show that I self to the world”. You see not only does He not overlook sin, he sees every sin. Many people choose to sin when they’re alone. You know why? Because there are no witnesses, or so we think. God is always there.

He always sees and He always knows and He always deals with sin. Remember the story of the woman at the well. He dealt with her sin. He addressed her sin head on. Every time we see Jesus having interactions he first dealt with sin and then he offered something better. Whether it was that water so we would never thirst anymore or the bread of life he always offered better.

God never ignores sin. If God could ignore sin he would have ignored Adam and Eve eating that one little fruit. It’s a piece of fruit that can be ignored, right? It’s disobedience. It’s a sin of disobedience just like every single sin. I think we’ve gotten ourselves into a culture in Christianity today where we think that that God is going to judge other people’s sin more than he judges our sin. When God looks down He sees sin. He sees sin and it doesn’t matter who sin it is. It’s going to be judged, and most likely He judges His own children more harshly then He judges those that don’t even claim Him.

Jeremiah 23:24 says “can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him say it the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth say it the Lord”. God sees the sin and He deals with sin. That’s why Jesus Christ came to earth.
If you ask the world about Jesus they’re quick to point out that he was a great teacher. They’re quick to point out that he was a great healer. There’re quick to point out how he fed the 5000. How he cared for those that were less fortunate. But you know Jesus did not come here for any of those things. Those things were all part of his ministry because they pointed to the one true reason that he came. He said it himself that he came to seek and to save that which was lost. Not to feed the hungry, not to heal the sick, to seek and to save.

Feeding the hungry and healing the sick were just a means to an end. He came to tell the world what the prophets had told the world. What the judges had told the world. What Moses had told the world that they were all sinners and sin will be judged. Paul said, “the wages of sin is death” in the book of Romans.
The wages of sin is death. Which sin?
 Murder
 Not being circumcised
 Lying
 State of disobedience

Which sin is the sin of death? All sin, any sin. Because of that God left Heaven to die on the cross. Healing is a great thing and I’m sure the people that Jesus Christ healed he transform their life on this earth, but hopefully their life was also transformed for eternity. Because that is what He came for.
Feeding hungry people is an amazing thing it’s a great thing. We had the opportunity to do some of that when we went on our mission trip to Nicaragua. Feeding hungry kids is a great thing, but if all we’re doing is feeding kids we’ve missed the point. A full belly is good for today, but what about a thousand years from now. What about a millennium from now. Where those kids going to be?

It doesn’t matter how full their belly is if they’re burning in hell because we didn’t tell them. God never ignore sin, He always deals with sin. The Bible tells us that we are all sinners. None of us are righteous and since we’re all sinners we all have sin that we must deal with. When Jesus Christ came and he died on the cross, that was God dealing with sin not ignoring sin, but dealing with sin.
When Jesus Christ died on that cross he defeated sin for us. So now we can have sin removed from our life. Jesus died to give us the power that we need to defeat sin and he proved it by walking out of the grave after 3 days.
He defeated sin on the cross. He defeated death by walking out of the grave. He’s a Living God not a dead God and He lives’ today and it’s still his primary purpose to forgive sin today.

If you’ve never accepted Jesus Christ as your saviour he is ready today to save you from your sin, to guarantee your place in heaven. If are saved, but you’ve allowed sin to creep back in your deal with. Don’t be embarrassed about that. Be embarrassed before God, but don’t be embarrassed before us because we’re in the same boat. We’ve all allowed sin back into our lives after we got saved.

Sometimes it takes a good kick to the head for us to wake up and realize that we’re living in a state of sin, but every Christian has allowed some sin back in their life. And it’s important if we want to keep those lines of communication open with God, if we want to continue to have him filling us with the spirit and controlling our moves and our minds in leading us and guiding us, if we want that constant connection with him here on this earth it’s important that we continually work to purge that sin out of our lives. No matter how minor it seems to be, no matter how little it seems to be to us.

Maybe you think, but I didn’t kill anybody. Moses did and he was forgiven, but the real affront was living in a state of sin, living in a state of disobedience. “Well my cigarette smoking doesn’t hurt anybody, but me.” That’s enough of a reason to repent.

So Christian maybe you have a temporary sin. Maybe it’s an on-going sin in your life. Whatever it is Jesus Christ has already defeated that sin and is ready to forgive you. It’s up to you to apply, make that conscious choice to apply that power to defeat that sin.