Part 3 (1/2)

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 partners.h.i.+p 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!