Brother Gary Sunday Morning 5/5/13

Brother Gary Sunday Morning 5/5/13

Exo 34:14  For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

God’s name is jealous not in a bad thought but it is a wonderful conception to us that He cares that much about us.  God chose at this particular time to express to Moses that He is a jealous God.  He is jealous in that He is zealous to give them what is best, to teach them the way to happiness, and zealous to lead them in the right way and to supply all their needs.

It is the design of God to supply all our spiritual needs, our literal needs, our emotional needs, and physical needs.  God is a jealous God and desires mankind to choose to place Him first in their lives.  God requires first place in our lives. 

Many individuals would like the benefits of serving God but want to be in control of their own life.  We have the opportunity to choose self or to crucify self and live pleasing to God. 

God spoke to Moses.  Reading in Mark has challenged my thinking, they brought to Jesus a child that could not hear.  Jesus placed his fingers into the child’s ears, touched the child, and healed him so that he could hear.  I have a serious question on my heart for some that I love and you love and some that I pray for and you pray for.  Are they hearing God speak to them?

It could be that they need a miracle of God touching their ears so that they could hear.  I sense a seriousness come across this audience as I say this.  Can God speak to us and we hear? 

For those that are in such desperate straits as young lady that I talked to this last week is, unless she can hear God speaking to her, she will reinvent sin and heartache all over and over and over again. 

There is not anyone that you and I would not like to spare from the heartache of sin.  I thought of my sister recently.  Even though she is in eternity, the heartache that was her life because of her choosing! 

Any of us in this audience would do anything that we could to help individuals to choose to hear what God has to say.  What God has to say to you and to me is as what He had to say to Moses and to the children of Israel.  Not only does He want to help us in this short time world, He wants to give men and women eternal life, life without end.

God spoke to Moses and told him to hew two tables of stone like the first and He would write on those two tables of stone.  He then said to be ready in the morning.  There are times when we are too tired and have reached the point of zero energy.  God said to Moses, “I want you to be your very best when I deal with you.  Come by yourself into the mountain and present yourself there to me.” 

What an awesome experience having God speak to men, to women, and to little children.  Of all the opportunities that you will have in life, the greatest opportunity is having God speak to you. 

Many things are magnified and elevated in life.  You will be told that you will only have this or that opportunity once.  I hope that I can press on you this morning that when you hear God speaking to you it is an opportunity that you want to take advantage of.

God told Moses, “I want you to be without the influence of anyone when I speak to you.”  There are many voices that speak to us: the voice of our mind, of our human, the echoes of many voices of past conversations.  It is vital that we know how to present ourselves in order to close out all the voices.  The hardest voice for me to close out is the voice of my mind and of my own self.

God was saying, “I want you to hear only the voice of my own mouth on the top of the mountain.”

I love the recording of Moses taking the tables of stone that were prepared.  The tables of our own heart need to be prepared to meet with God.  We sometimes go prepared to tell God all we know.  When we do, we miss it.  Instead of us listening we tell Him things that He already knows.  He was before time, He is in time and He will be for eternity.  He already knows everything. 

Exo 34:4  And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.

Exo 34:5  And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

Not only did God come down but He stood there.  Order your life so that you are not rushing through your times alone with God.  I know that everyone in this audience works very hard and has a busy schedule.  The parents of one child are busy.  The parents of two children are busy.  The parents with three or four are busy.  Everybody is busy. 

I don’t care if you worked all week last week in your yard.  If you go out and look, you will see more to do today than you can get done this week.  I don’t know if you have cleaned your freezer or your closets recently, but if you were to you would see that some of this stuff needs to go.

Moses was the leader of the Children of Israel.  They had many problems.  They were going through a land that was not a tame land and were headed into a land that would not be easy to conquer.  Moses needed to meet with God.

We need to meet with God.  It is vital that we do and that we are prepared to meet with God.  If you are blessed as Moses and have God come down and just stand there. 

I thought of all the mothers that have gone into eternity.  I thought of Mothers that were so instrumental in helping me to survive spiritually that are in eternity this morning.  You and I will not have an opportunity to spend time with them this week, they are in eternity.  But I believe that God will come this week, stand there for a while and speak.

Exo 34:6  And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

The Lord, the Lord God:  He was visited by the eternal, self-existing God.  God described himself as merciful.  He went on and described himself as gracious.  The very being of God is a merciful God and a gracious God.  He is a God of longsuffering.

Many express the thought pattern, “I am laboring to gain this ground spiritually.”  God is a God of mercy and justice.  His attitude is, “I am calling upon you because I have the desire and jealousness to see you be what I desire of you.”

He is abundant in goodness and truth and keeps mercy for thousands.  Not only does he keep mercy but He is a God that forgives.

Exo 34:7  Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

We see in this scripture that God can break the cycle of family tradition and sin.  Some think that they will always be as they are because of their family and their genes.

There was a young lady 50 or 60 years ago that lived in Ohio whose life was being set up and planned by a very wicked mother.  She was positioning and using this girl in a red light district in Ohio.  This girl cried out to God, “I want a different life.” 

God has given everyone of these children a compass that always points in tenderness towards, “I want what God has for me.”  This young lady’s compass pointed toward something different than a life of sin that her mother had prepared for her.

God in His mercy and great goodness caused this young lady’s life to cross one that told her of salvation.  She sought God and one day she drove into the Idaho camp-meeting and sang, “I love thee more than this old world.”

You don’t have to be handicapped by the sins of your parents.  We have a God that delivers and said, “I’ll wipe the slate clean and deliver you.”

Exo 34:8  And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.

Exo 34:9  And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.

Exo 34:10  And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.

I want some things from God, but am I willing to make covenant with God?  A covenant involves two parts.  Some people are saying, “God would you do this or that.”  Stop.  God wants to give you His very best because He is a jealous God but in order for Him to give His best, He wants you to give everything. 

God does terribly, wonderful things.  God did some terrible things as in what happened to the Amalekites.  He did some wonderful things for the children of Israel. 

During the battle, Moses went to the top of a mountain and lift up his arms and when his energy reached zero his arms began to sink.  The Amalekites then began to push forward.  Aaron and Hur came along and lift up his arms. 

Moses wanted others to know that it was God that won that battle.  He worshipped God and said, “God is my banner.”

We need to let the saints help us win the battle.  There are some things that we will never get by trying to do things our own way.  We need to humble ourselves and take what God gives us from the saints.

Exo 34:11  Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

Exo 34:12  Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:

Exo 34:13  But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

Exo 34:14  For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

We have been taught right about salvation and Bible sanctification.  We have the theory and we want to keep it.  The other thought of sanctification is not only to be cleansed from the carnal nature but to also be set apart.  Keep yourself separate from the gods of the world.  The gods of this world are consuming and do not satisfy. 

It takes God, salvation, and truth to satisfy.  “Thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God.”

Thou:  You and I must take that responsibility.  What am I going to be worshipping?  Worship is a wonderful thing; it is life changing event and a day changing event.

God is a jealous God.  He looks at you not to see how He can destroy but how He can take what you yield to Him and make it beautiful and more beautiful, to make it useful and make it more useful.  He is zealous of providing everything we need to be victorious over the gods of this world.

This true God will come down and stand there.  The Gods of this world will not be there to comfort you when you are brokenhearted or when you are aching in pain.  The gods of this world will not be there.  Know this jealous God, in the hour you need him most.  You will need him. 

I appreciate the efforts of all the godly parents that do their best to raise a child to fear God.  There has been no child like that child ever.  Every child is different.  The counselor is God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit of God. 

The counselor that can help us make the right choice in automobiles, education, the right job, is God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit of God.

This jealous God is zealous in giving victory, fulfillment, contentment, satisfaction.  You will never know contentment until you know the beauty of God being a jealous God.  He knows what is best for everyone of us. 

You may say, “This one is telling me to go this way and this one to go that way.”  If you talk to 96 people they will give you 97 different ways to go, because some will tell you two ways.  They could all be wrong.  This zealous God created us for His glory.  He provided for every need to be fully satisfied. 

We are not predestined by the choices of others.  This is why Jesus came; this is why there is the cross.  Salvation through the zealous God opens the treasure houses of God.  He is a jealous God to love you as His very own.  He is jealous to have you love Him as your very own. 

You can say, “MY God, My Father.”  Moses chose God, God chose Moses.

Jer 29:11  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

God is a God of peace.  He has thoughts of peace for us.  We have a tendency to live way below our privileges.  We allow the events of the day to take our peace. 

We have a jealous God.  He has plans to bring us to an expected end.  At the ending of your last day He wants to tell you, “You have fought a good fight, you have kept the faith and have finished your course.”

He is a jealous God.