Pharaohs. Moses. Drawn out. Wants that should have been won'ted. And more..

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We had a blast in prison last night! God showed up and showed out and made His Presence known! So powerfully so, in fact, that I don't think that one person there could have missed Him. All of the inmates were engaged and in-tuned! Ready! Willing! Listening! Wanting to hear and to see! I love that group of girls! I love their participation! They come in anticipating (anxiously anticipating!) the Word and wanting to worship Him!


We talked about Moses. And God gave me insight to that precious well-known story that I'd not thought of before. My friend that lives 800 miles away bathed us in prayer and God heard her! She asked for God to bath me in His anointing. And He answered! For I felt it not me at all! Only Him! And my body and mouth only the vessel with which He used to show Himself in!


We talked about Moses being "drawn out" of the water. His very name meaning that very thing: "drawn out"... or more precisely, "a drawer out" (for it would be what he was created for, and what he'd be drown out and called to do). We talked about the Pharaoh that wanted to kill Moses and to kill all those little baby boys being birthed in that generation. And I asked those 70 plus inmates to consider and to ask themselves who their "Pharaoh" was that wanted them dead? Their "Pharaoh" that tried to take their life? Their "Pharaoh" that had planned to, and that had hoped to? And I asked too, Who it was that "drew them out" of the waters that was purposed to drown them in it?


The "Pharaoh" of mine that I talked about was one more good-looking dude! A mighty-fine "baby's got his blue jeans on" specimen of a man that once walked into my world!!! He might not of had been evil himself, but Satan surely intended to use him as such in my life. Woo, thinking back on it now, sadly it almost worked! 


Who was your "Pharaoh"? Yours might have been a man like mine? Or perhaps yours was a substance? A drug? A drink? An addiction? An obsession? Pharaohs come in all forms! The list is endless and is as individualized to each specific individual! But the goal is always the same, and that is to destroy you and take your life (especially the "abundant Life" promised by our Savior Jesus) away. His purpose is wholly "to steal, kill, and destroy" us.


And yet, God "drew us out"! God alone saved us when we were unable to save ourselves! He drew us up out of the waters that wanted to drown. He drew us out and put us in a safe place... even if for the time being that that "safe place" is in prison! Dare we forget that Moses also was drawn out and put in enemy's camp to be raised and  kept for safe keeping. (Woo! All of the inmates loudly and animatedly agreed!)


I didn't say this last night for fear of some of the inmates condemning themselves with guilt, but I've often wondered, I've often thought about it. Pharaoh had ordered all of the baby Hebrew boys being born to be killed..... Do we not have a form in our own today's "Pharaoh" still ordering that? This time it's not done through throwing babies into the River Nile to drown, this day and age, this time, it's done through abortion! In this age, this "Pharaoh" isn't favored toward only one gender. His desire is to devour both baby boys and baby girls.


We began reading in Exodus 2, starting at verse 11-12. "One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where His own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand." 


"Glancing this way and that...."  When you're "glancing this way and that" hoping that no one is going to see you...... It's a  good time to change your mind! "He killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand." I told them that I tell my children all the time, like Adam and Eve, if you're hiding behind the bush, there's your sign!


I asked them, "Who in here "glanced this way and that" before doing the very thing that you did that got yourself in here?"


They all nodded their heads and raised their hands!


I asked them, "Who in here "hid" the evidence after you'd done it?"


Again, all hands raised.


And then I asked them, "Who in here had a warning inside them not to do what you were readying yourself to do before you had done it? The thing that you did that got you here in prison, who in here had a warning inside them not to do it, before you did?"


Again, everyone of them, they all raised their hands!


So I then asked them, "Then, WHY in the world did you do it?"


They were stunned by the question, but it was an interesting question to ponder with them upon. Bottom line is simply because they wanted to! That's why, even after the warning, that we do what we do. God is faithful to warn us, oh, that we'd heed to His warning! I told them that in the future that we need to won't it instead! Won't it, instead of wanting it, would have saved a lot of heart-ache and time and trouble! We're going to have to learn to decided next time such opportunities arise that "No! I may want it, but I'm gonna have to won't that this time to save myself from imprisonment!" and dissipate our dangerous want-ing's desires that has hopes to devour us. 


The text continues (verses 13-14), "The next day he [Moses] went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?" The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known."


Oh! at the horror of that feeling! We've all had it! That feeling of fear in thinking, "What I did must have become known."!!! 


Growing up the Scripture that my mom quoted that I hated most was Numbers 32:23b which says, "..you may BE SURE that your sin WILL FIND you out" (all emphasis of Scriptures mine).


You may be SURE....! You may be SURE....! You may be sure....!!! You can KNOW FOR A FACT.... that your sin will find out you!!!!! Your sin is gonna TELL ON you! 


Oh, I cannot tell you how much I hated that verse. I didn't want my sin to be found out! I didn't want my sin to tell on me! I didn't want what I had done to "become known"! 


Satan is good at tempting us, and then after we've fallen for his bait, to accuse us of the very thing he tempted us to do! He might tempt us to steal, and then say to our shame and our horror, "You thief!" Or tempt us to sleep with someone we're not married to, and then hauntingly call us, "You adulterer!" Or tempt us to abort our unwanted pregnancy and then say so mockingly, "You murderer!" He tempts us by deceit... and then shames us horridly after we've done what he's tempted us to.


Satan is called "the accuser"! He himself LOVES to tell on you! But then again, if our sin wasn't found out, if our sin didn't tell on us, if we didn't get caught...... then, some of us would never in this world turn from it. Being caught is a blessing! It's God's grace itself trying to stop you and me and turn us around from continuing to do it! Satan may condemn, but God's Spirit convicts! His purpose is to correct and to discipline and to help and to heal you in order to save your life, and to save you from your corruption and sin!


And so. Moses is afraid. And Moses fleas! Picking up at verse 15-22, "When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?" They answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock." "And where is he?" he asked his daughters. "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat." Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become an alien in a foreign land." 


"I have become an alien in a foreign land." Who, I asked those incarcerated girls, who in here doesn't feel like they have become an alien in a foreign land?


You can imagine the responses! The feeling! The nods. The amens! The shaking of their heads! Again, the raising of their hands.


Ever felt that way? That you're "an alien in a foreign land"? If you're a child of God's you are! We're longing for Home! This world is not it! We're aliens in a land not our own! Aliens that don't fit. Aliens that know things aren't right, that knows that things aren't as they should be. Aliens that long for the Kingdom that we're adopted and have been born into live in! Aliens anticipating our Heavenly Home!


And yet, as that "alien" in that "foreign land" God hadn't forgotten about Moses! He hadn't forgotten what He'd created him for! He hadn't forgotten his purpose! He hadn't forgotten what He had planned for him. And all the while that Moses was wandering in that desert land going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth taking care of those sheep that was his father-in-law's that he was assigned to.... all the while, God was preparing him! Equipping him! Readying him! For God was soon (after what was called "a long time"!), He was soon about to call Moses to get him about doing His Father's business......  




That wasn't the bulk of the lesson, nor really the point of it. Only the intro. But, this post is getting rather lengthy, perhaps we should save the rest and continue on another day?
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