Word of Salvation – Vol. 30 No. 35 – Sep 1985

 

Holy Is The Lord

 

Sermon by Rev. W. Wiersma on Exodus 4:24-26

Reading: Hebrews 12:1-13

Songs: P.H. 319; 289; 451; 307; 310

 

Dear Congregation of the Lord,

We have to be careful when we talk about God being on our side.  We should be careful that we do not draw false conclusions from the promise that God is for us.  If, for instance, we would ask: Whose side was God on?  Was God on the side of Pharaoh and the Egyptians or on the side of Moses and the Israelites.

The answer would be obvious.  Everyone would say: on the side of Moses and Israel, of course.

But what about coming with that same question to what we find in our text.  Here we find that God attacks Moses, the Lord was about to kill him.  If now we ask, ‘Whose side is God on?’ the answer is not so obvious is it?

Whose side is God on?

Well, we would still have to say that God was on Moses' side.  But we must see that when God is on any man's side, this does not mean that such a man can do what he likes and still expect God to treat him with a pleasant smile.

God met Moses, who was on his way back to Egypt to lead Israel into freedom, God met His appointed servant with a big frown and the Lord gave Moses a tremendous hiding.  God just about killed Moses.  It seems that God struck Moses with some kind of illness which brought him into a critical condition.  Moses was so weak that he could not even circumcise his son, His wife Zipporah had to do it for him.

Although our text does not specifically tell us why Moses was treated so harshly by God, I think we can safely say that God halted Moses on his return to Egypt because Moses had failed to circumcise one of his sons.

Now it was important that Moses, who was to be the leader of God's covenant people, should clearly show that he appreciated and honoured the terms of the Covenant.  And if Moses was to be a prophet, a spokesman for God and a mediator of God's Word, then Moses would have to be an example of what it means to take God's Word seriously by obeying it.  And God's instructions to His covenant people were very clear.  We find them in Genesis 17:9 and following.

"God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come.  This is my covenant... the covenant you are to keep.  Every male among you shall be circumcised, ...it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you ...every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised."

It seems that Moses had neglected to circumcise his second son, Eliezer.  Reading as it were between the lines, it appears that Zipporah, his wife, was not at all in favour of circumcision.  It is quite possible that at the time of Gershom, the older boy's circumcision, Zipporah made such a fuss that Moses thought to himself that it was not worth all the trouble.  Maybe Zipporah was right in thinking that circumcision was a painful and barbaric tradition.

Anyhow Moses had not considered this matter important enough to put his foot down and follow the instructions of the Lord.

Such situations are not entirely strange or foreign to us, are they.  We too have times that we, to avoid a scene, or to prevent making waves, pay more attention to the sensitivities of our partner than to the word of God.  We give in to those who don't want us to be obedient to God.

At that moment we may not think of the situation in those terms.  We may not be conscious of it being a matter of obedience or disobedience to God.  Anyhow we don't want to think of it in those terms.  We prefer to see it in terms of understanding.  Perhaps a question of assimilation.

Wen in Rome do as the Romans do.  Moses, in Midian where you live with Midianites, do as the Midianites do.  Please those whom you live with.  Don't offend them.  All a matter of tact...!

But God taught Moses already the meaning of Jesus' word:

"He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

The desires and pleasure of God must always come before the desires and pleasure of our friends and even loved ones.

Our loved ones can be very selfish and very proud.  They are tempted to put us on the spot.  They sometimes ask us to prove our love for them by disobedience to God.  Yes, our loved ones are also sinners who find it hard to let God be first in their life or the life of anyone else.  We all want to be first, most important.

We are all inclined to be such possessive lovers.

We ourselves can be such selfish loved ones, who demand that our husband, our wife, our parents do what we want them to do, rather than encourage them to do the will of the Lord.  But if we encourage our partner or friend into disobedience what are we in fact doing to them?

What did Zipporah do to Moses?  She wanted him all for herself.  But when Moses gave in to her wishes, contrary to the express wish of God, God himself took such firm measures against Moses that Zipporah nearly lost her husband.  Moses, and Zipporah too, had to learn what we all must know.  God calls us to obedience.  The obedience of faith and love.

When God is on our side, when God saves us, He brings us into a life of harmony with Himself.

And that means that we must surrender our will to His will; our honour to His honour.  It is only by losing our life, by surrendering our will to God's will, our pleasure to God's pleasure, that we find life and also true pleasure.  When God is for us it means that He will draw us closer to Himself who is the Life.  But who is also the Holy One.  God on our side means He takes hold of us to make us holy, totally dedicated to Him, totally submissive to His command, totally free from sin, from disobedience.

God is God.

Life is His creatures adoring Him as God.

'God for us' means that God is giving us the privilege of being His people, of living in fellowship with Him.

And surely that calls for Holy living.

The fact that God is on Moses' side and is going to use Moses for great things does not mean that Moses can now do as he likes.

The fact that God was on Israel's side against Pharaoh and the Egyptians, does not mean that the Israelites can expect God's blessing no matter what they do.

The Lord calls His people out of bondage to worship Him.
We are saved to serve.

Faith and trust are expressed in obedience.

And where God's people don't serve Him wholeheartedly they can expect God to discipline them.  To bring them back onto the path of obedience.

The Bible is full of examples of God taking drastic measures make His people more obedient.

Take the case of Nadab and Abihu – the two older boys of Aaron, Moses' brother, and the first high priest of Israel.  When Nadab and Abihu, as priests, offered strange fire on the altar – in other words: when they departed from God's instructions regarding the sacrifices – God struck them both down dead.  And Aaron was not even allowed to stop his priestly duties to mourn for them.  Take the instance of Moses and Aaron, who had such a tremendous responsibility in leading the people out of Egypt through the desert to the Promised Land, but they were not allowed to enter it, because of one mistake, one outburst of frustration.

Or think of the thousands who died when they worshipped the golden calf and later when they ate un-bled birds and later again when they worshipped the Baal at Peor.

I could go on to mention Achan and his family who kept part of the loot of Jericho for themselves.  Not only they suffered for that but the whole people of Israel.  And what about the Levite who touched the ark.  Uzzah was simply concerned that the covenant box should not fall off the cart on which it was carried.  He died on the spot.  Just like the 70 who had looked into the ark when it came back from the Philistines.

Such treatment by the Lord was not limited to the Old Testament.  In the New we find God giving a severe warning to the church.  Two people sold some land.  Annanias and Sapphira decided to give some to the church.  They did not have to give it all.  But they pretended they gave all the proceeds of the sale to the church.  They died.  Holy is the Lord.  God made them examples.

We should not think that all those who died at the hand of the Lord under such circumstances were all eternally lost.  They were examples.  Through them God warns us that our gracious God is a consuming fire.  He is the purifier.  God deals harshly, God disciplines severely in order to prevent the complete ruin of His people.  God would rather hurt his children for a moment than to see them lost forever.

So when Moses repented of his sin, and persuaded Zipporah to circumcise Eliezer, God withdrew his hand of discipline.  Moses recovered to continue his journey and the task which the Lord had given him.

God is a gracious God.

Faithful to His covenant.

He carries on His purposes in spite of the sins and failures of His people.

For One has never sinned.  One never failed in his duties.  It is Christ who fulfilled all the terms of the covenant.  And it is because of Him that God will still be our God and we can still be His people.

In Christ, we may say, God is for us.  God is on our side.  He will free us from the enemies which seek to destroy us.  He will free us from our own sins!

God will save us from ourselves.

That is a humiliating business.

Therefore, if we boast, let our boasting not be in ourselves, but in the Lord God who is holy and who has still, somehow, seen fit to adopt us into His holy family.

Surely we can only exist there in the holiness of Christ.

Amen.