Sunday
1-22-17, Modesto, California
Today we
read Exod 3 – 5 and Luke 22
S = Scripture O =
Observation A = Application P = Prayer SOAP
for the soul.
S. Ex 4:10-12 But Moses pleaded with the LORD, "O Lord, I'm just
not a good speaker. I never have been, and I'm not now, even after you have
spoken to me. I'm clumsy with words." "Who makes mouths?" the
LORD asked him. "Who makes people so they can speak or not speak, hear or
not hear, see or not see? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go, and do as I have told
you. I will help you speak well, and I will tell you what to say." NLT
O. Moses seems unaware that the Lord
had been preparing him, first as an adopted son of an Egyptian princess with
the finest of education and secondly as a humble, wandering shepherd in the
desert. He pleads with God with the excuse that he is not a good speaker.
A. The moment I read this today I said
to myself, “That is me! I could not stand in front of my high-school class and
speak without reading my words from a paper that was hiding the faces that were
staring at me. Later in Bible School homiletics class each one of us had to
preach to the class. I was a total failure and I knew it.
Then came
the night I had been invited to play my Hawaiian steel guitar for a group of
sailors in uniform that just gathered for the music. I was suddenly asked to
preach. I was not prepared and refused, but at the second service that night
the leader insisted that I preach. I failed miserably, but at the invitation a
large group on military men knelt at cots and wept their way into the heart of
God. I was shocked as I walked among them and prayed with them. That night
changed my life. I was hooked. I knew that I had failed as a speaker, but the
message I was carrying was powerful enough to override my failure. I spent the
next two years preaching to military men at Victory Servicemen’s Center in
Longbeach, California, twice monthly.
P. Lord, Moses begged You to send
someone else. You know I did the same. I knew I was a failure with words in a
public setting. But You were not looking for experts. You had been getting me
ready since I was a little child running down West Burnside Ave. chasing one of
those men addicted to alcohol just to hand him a gospel tract and invite him to
a little rescue mission. Amen.
Ralph
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