Life In The Penalty Box Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Most of us know Moses for parting the Red Sea, as Egypt's pharaoh let his people go. Lesser known is how Moses got there. The race of life for Moses led him through valleys as well as mountains. Today we begin a series that details how, over many years, Moses got closer to God. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win, with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line.

Pastor Lutzer set the stage for us as we begin this monumental journey. Dave, one of the most remarkable things about the Bible is the way in which it paints its heroes. We must understand that there are many earmarks to show us that the Bible is God's Word. But one of the most remarkable ways in which we can see the humanness of the Bible, and in that sense, even its accuracy, is the fact that when it tells us about God's people, it mentions their flaws and describes them as much as it mentions their successes. That's why we can learn from Moses.

We put him in a separate category, but the fact is he was just like us, particularly when he was in that desert. And today we are beginning that series entitled Getting Closer to God. It's from the life of Moses. It helps us understand ourselves and our relationship with God. I want all those who are listening to this to just sit back now and let's consider Moses as he is so discouraged with no hope in his future, because maybe you're like that.

And yet, as we shall discover, eventually God surprised him, and God has some surprises for us as well. Be encouraged as we begin a brand new series today entitled Getting Closer to God. I'd like to begin today by reading a letter that I received from a radio listener. I'm a man 31 years old and divorced, though I fought the divorce bitterly. I feel badly because I have no hope for the future. I often go home from church and cry, but there is no one to hold me when I cry.

No one cares. What hurts me most is that I begged God for the grace to be single for his glory and to fix my eyes on Jesus, but nothing changes. I continue to fail. I'm a basket case emotionally and on the verge of collapse.

Something is very wrong. I'm so crippled and embittered that I can scarcely relate to others anymore. I feel I will have to sit out the rest of my life in the penalty box. Have you ever been in the penalty box? You know what that's like? You can relate, maybe because of a bankruptcy, maybe because of a failed marriage, maybe because of some bad financial investment opportunities that you thought you were taking advantage of, maybe because of health reasons.

You're in the penalty box, and you wonder if you're going to have to be there for the rest of your life. Well, I want you to know that you have a friend in Moses. Moses was in the penalty box, 40 years for manslaughter. Who was this Moses? Stephen says that he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in word and deed.

That means that he was educated in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, and hieroglyphics. He had the best education that Egypt could offer. When he floated down the Nile River, it was to strains of beautiful music, and when he went down the streets of Egypt, soldiers ran ahead shouting, bow the knee, bow the knee, bow the knee, Moses is coming. Josephus says that Moses was a warrior, and when the Ethiopians attacked Egypt, he led troops to victory. Josephus also said that he was scheduled to be the next pharaoh of Egypt. But there was something in Moses, because of his upbringing, you remember he was a Hebrew, there was something within him that told him that his destiny did not lie within the palace.

On days when perhaps he had nothing to do, he would wander out and he would see his own people being harassed, being beaten and being used as slaves and this gripped his heart. One day the Bible says that this child of luxury and fashion who had the cream of Egypt poured into his cup went out and he noticed that there was an Egyptian and a Hebrew and they were arguing, they were having a rumble of some sort, and Moses intervened and he killed the Egyptian and he hid him in the sand. He thought that if word ever got out about it that the Hebrews would say, great, this man came out of the palace to deliver us. Next day he walks out and two Hebrews are arguing and he tries to bring peace to them and one says to Moses, are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian? Moses thought that he had killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

He thought that it was secret and now it was out and the rumor began to spread that Moses killed an Egyptian and Pharaoh was not amused and sought to kill Moses. In the book of Hebrews we read that Moses went out and when he became of age and he looked on his brethren and he was willing to turn his back on the treasures of Egypt and to esteem a different kind of reward. Stephen tells us that when Moses went out there to identify with his people and he probably did so on a regular basis, walking out and seeing what was happening, he supposed that his brethren would understand how that God by his hand would deliver them, but they understood not.

Have you ever supposed that brethren would understand only to discover that they don't? I sometimes say at pastors' conferences don't take it for granted that the brethren will understand how that God by your hand will experience deliverance in the church because sometimes our brethren and our sisters do not understand and Moses was deeply, deeply wounded, so wounded that 40 years later there's no doubt in my mind the hurt is still there. So what Moses does is he runs.

He runs from Midian because now he's a wanted man and he goes to Midian and the text of scripture, I'm in Exodus chapter 2, the text of scripture tells us that verse 15 of chapter 2, when Pharaoh heard what Moses had done he sought to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. He's running now as a fugitive and he sits down beside a well and if I may be a little informal here we could say yuck. Unending gravel, sand, burning heat, isolation, you're suddenly all alone and the whole thing is lost. Everything is gone. Your fame, your fortune, your admirers, they're not there for you anymore and he sits down beside a well, bucket of medals but nobody to congratulate you.

They call a party, there's nobody there to come. But we should know that it is when he was in the desert that he learned lessons that the palace could never possibly teach him. Success at the end of the day is a very poor teacher, failure is a much better teacher. Believe me when I tell you that you'll learn a lot more when your stocks fall in value than when they rise in value.

You'll learn a lot more when you're sick than you ever will when you are well. The palace is a poor teacher but the desert does wonders. What we'd like to do is to look at the three lessons that Moses learned in the desert that he could never have learned in the palace.

First of all you have the lesson of servanthood. We're still in Ephesians 2, we're there, it says in verse 16, now the priest of Midian had seven daughters and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. The shepherds came and drove them away but Moses stood up and saved them and watered their flock. When they came home to their father Ruel he said how is it that you've come home so soon today? They said an Egyptian delivered us out of the hands of the shepherd and even drew water for us and watered the flock. He said to his daughters then where is he?

Why have you left the man? Call him that he may eat bread and Moses was content to dwell with the man and he even gave Moses his daughter Zipporah or Zipporah depending on where you put the emphasis. He gave Moses his daughter as a wife.

The lesson of servanthood. I want you to see that Moses served. Moses served first of all in obscurity, in obscurity.

There beside the well nobody knew that he was next in line to be the next pharaoh of Egypt. Later on when he marries into the family and spends 40 years in the desert nobody knows that they are in the presence of greatness. The other shepherds don't realize the history of this man. They don't understand his resume. They don't understand where he came from, what he was destined for. He is an ordinary person serving in obscurity where nobody knew him and worse nobody cared.

Not only did he serve in obscurity, he also served in humility. We'll never understand this until we realize that the Bible says in the book of Genesis now shepherds were an abomination onto the Egyptians. The Egyptians believed that if you were a shepherd it was at the bottom of the totem pole. In fact, they weren't shepherds. They would use slaves to be shepherds.

We think that being a shepherd today is a wonderful thing. Well, you ask a shepherd and you realize that they are remarkable people. You go to the Middle East and you see a goat coming out of the same tent as a Bedouin. Somebody said to the Bedouin, how in the world can that possibly work?

He said, no problem the goats get used to it. Moses was destined for the most humiliating despised vocation that there was available. In fact, what he was doing was an abomination in the culture in which he was reared for 40 long years. His aptitude and desire and training was in one direction. Have you ever had a vocation that you just absolutely hated to get out of bed because it was so inconsistent with who you were and what you wanted to do? Here's Moses who has all of his aptitudes in one direction and he is forced day after day after day to work in something that was considered to be the lowest of the low 40 years.

Talk about somebody who was overqualified for his position. Serving in obscurity, serving in humility. It's so easy to serve the Lord in the limelight.

Years ago I used to quote a poem and I didn't have it this morning and you know just so that you know I was able to remember it. Lord you know how I serve you with great emotional fervor in the limelight. You know how I effervesce in Bible study groups and fellowships but how would I react I wonder if I had to wash the calloused feet of a bent and old woman day after day where nobody saw and nobody knew. The palace will never teach you to be a servant. In the palace you are served in the desert.

You learn to serve others. I'm so glad that God has called me to Chicago. It's a wonderful city. When you're in Chicago you feel as if you're in the middle of things. Sometimes when I drive out to the country like one summer when we went to a state in these great United States called Montana. Ain't much going on in Montana I could figure. Came to a little town called Plentywood, Montana. Entirely different understanding of time there.

Things are so laid back. Some of those folks out there bless them I think it would take them an hour and a half just to watch 60 minutes. I mean it's a whole different way. But I had to ask myself what if I'd been called to obscurity. Moses was called to obscurity for 40 long years his most intelligent conversation was and he believed that that's what it would be for the rest of his life. But it's in the desert that you learn servanthood not in the palace. There's a second lesson and that is the lesson of trust.

The lesson of trust. Now we're in verse 23. It says that during those many days the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.

I love to underline these verbs and you can underline them in your Bible as I've underlined them in mine. God heard their groaning. He wasn't deaf after all. God remembered his covenant. God remembered.

He doesn't have a bad memory and he doesn't have bad eyesight. Verse 25 God saw the people of Israel. He saw the people of Israel when nothing was happening when they were there in bondage and in slavery. He saw them in their monotony.

He saw them in their despair. God was there and God was with Moses. I believe that God allows every one of us to go through a desert experience.

If you've never been through a desert experience there probably is one in your future. Israel was in the desert for 40 years and what was God doing during those 40 years that Israel was in the desert? We find that the Lord says this. He found him, that is Jacob or the children of Jacob, in a desert land and in the howling waste of a wilderness. He encircled them. He cared for them. He kept them as the apple of his eye like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions. You know what eagles do? Eagles build nice nests and make them very comfy.

First of all they put in sharp rocks and pieces of twig and even sharp objects that they might be able to find if they can pick up a piece of glass or something. They put it there and then they fill out the nest and make it very, very comfortable with all kinds of feathers and everything and those little eaglets absolutely love it. The problem is the little eaglets won't go out of the nest to test their wings. And so what mom eaglet does is she begins to take away the feathers, begins to pull out the down and these little things find themselves on a sharp edge of rock and they say you know things are so bad we'd better learn to fly.

And then if anything the mother eagle will come and push them out of the nest and then swoop under them, catch them when they're in flight. God says that's what I was doing for you when you were there in the desert. They were in the desert because of their own disobedience and the disobedience of those before them but God says I'm with you there in the desert.

I am working there in the desert with you. You know it's easy to trust God when the bush is burning, when the waters are parting, when that mountain is shaking and when the money is flowing and when the board is glowing. It's easy to trust God. But it's hard to trust God when you're in transition, when you've been unfairly fired from a job. It's hard to trust God when your optimistic dreams and hopes in a relationship suddenly end in bitterness and in disaster.

It's difficult to see God there but blessed is the person who knows that God is not with us only in our ups but also in our downs, not only when we are there in the palace but also when we're there in unending monotonous desert day after day, week after week, month after month. It says it came to pass after these many days that God intervened. How many days? Multiply 40 times 365.

Thank God for pocket calculators as some of you have heard me say when it comes to math I've always said as long as I'm right 90% of the time I mean who cares about the other 5%? 14,600 days of monotony, of boredom, of hopelessness. Moses had to learn to trust. Oh my friend today this is Pastor Lutzer and even as I listen to this message my own heart has stirred because I can't help but think that there are many of you who are in that desert boredom day after day after day hopeless but I sure hope that you listen next time because we're going to discover that God has a surprise for Moses and God has surprises for us as well. I've written a book on this series of messages entitled Getting Closer to God. I'd love for you to have a copy and I'll tell you why it will bless you. It will challenge your life and it will help you to see that the same God who worked in the life of Moses is indeed the same God who works in our lives as well. Oh yes we're very different from Moses indeed he seems to be in a different category but the same God meets us in the desert. Now you can get a copy of Getting Closer to God for a gift of any amount. Here's what you do go to rtwoffer.com now that's all one word rtwoffer.com and for a gift of any amount as I've mentioned this book can be yours or if you prefer you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now let me give you that phone number again 1-888-218-9337 and thanks in advance for praying for us.

Thank you so much for your support because together here on Running to Win we're making a difference. It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Anthony listens to Running to Win and has a question taken from what many feel is the oldest book in the Bible. He asks do we know the length of time during which Job faced his trials? No Anthony I don't think that we have any clues as to how long Job's trial lasted but if you read the end of the book you do discover that that ending was put on the book to help us to see that in the end Job prospered again. If I recall correctly he ended up with double the number of camels and animals and even ended up with 10 more children of all things. He lost 10 and he still has 10 in this life. So that gives us some kind of a time frame but we don't know how long he sat in the ash heap. We don't know how long he was there before God began to restore him.

All that we have is the story as it stands. Thank you Anthony for your question. Thank you Pastor Lutzer for your answer. If you'd like to hear your question answered you can. Just go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337. That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Today Erwin Lutzer spoke on Life in the Penalty Box, the first in a series of 12 messages about Moses, a man getting closer to God.

If life were a bed of roses we'd never appreciate how good roses smell. For 40 years of Moses' life herding sheep was his lot, a time during which God prepared him for leadership beyond his wildest dreams. Next time the story of Moses continues. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.