Rescued Down Under

A sermon based upon Exodus 2: 23- 3: 15

Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, Pastor

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Disciple Series, 5 of 15, September 9, 2012

When my daughter was small, like most children, she loved “Disney” animated films.  Because we were living in Germany during her preschool years, to watch something together “American” was always a treat.  One movie we often watched together was entitled “The Rescuers Down Under”.  It was a cartoon based on the rescue of a little Australian boy by his eagle friend.   This movie came out after the Crocodile Dundee film had such great success as America’s new Tarzan hero.  This new Australian craze and curiosity enabled not only the making of this Disney animation, but also the success of a well-known restaurant, Outback Steakhouse, and even the design of a new Japanese-American car by that name.    

Critics will tell you the film nicked-named “Rescuers” had a mediocre storyline, but that it redeemed itself with its marvelous graphical images of the eagle in flight who rescued him from an evil poacher.  But who says that a story about rescue is ever mediocre, even if it’s a child’s story?  If you are the one needing rescue, the storyline of a “rescuer” could be the most important storyline for your life.

In the book of Exodus we encounter the most famous storyline of rescue from the ancient world.  The rescue of Israel from Egypt is not only the most elaborate story of rescue ever described, it is a story still remembered and reenacted today by both Jews and Christians, when they celebrate “Passover” or partake in “Holy Communion”.  But that’s getting ahead the story. Our text today begins at the very beginning this great story of rescue. 

The story opens with Israel down under, both geographically and politically, suffering and crying out to God because they were being oppressed and enslaved by their Egyptian landlords.   As we enter their story of pain and protest, the King in Egypt has died, but the situation is no better.   Israel still suffers underneath the burden of slavery, crying out to their God for help.    This time, something different happens.   Now we read how “God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them” (Exodus 2: 24-25).  There’s a lot being said about God as rescuer in these few words: God heard, God remembered, God looked and God took notice.  This means that story of protest, pain and suffering under oppression in Egypt is about to change into a new story of deliverance, liberation and salvation.

GOD RESCUES THROUGH HEARING OUR PRAYERS

There are many parts of the story that could engage our thinking, but the first part of this rescue story is reminds of the God who hears.    “Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God.   God heard their groaning.”   This is where the biblical story of rescue and salvation begins: People cry out and God hears.  

The story of rescue opens with a “cry for help”.   Most of us would not think of God at all if we didn’t have hurts.   I don’t understand the mystery of pain and suffering, but I do understand what it can do to us and how it can make us ‘cry out’ in ways we never thought possible for us. 

I heard a military man say once that there are no “atheists” in foxholes.   That may or may not be true, but in the moment of pain, suffering, fear or uncertainty, most people will pray—or at least respect those who do.

No matter how well you have it now, one day you will cry.  Even if you are a very tough person and not given to crocodile tears, if you have a heart, something will one day take hold of your heart and you will cry out from within.   My Father was a very tough man in many ways.  His Father died when my Dad was just 12 years old.  There were 7 children in his family.  The oldest was only 16 when my grandfather died of an infection after appendicitis.  No long afterward, my Father had and his other brothers had to go off to war either in Europe or in the Pacific.  They all came back home, but life was hard without their Father. 

Dad did not tell me much about the war, as few did, but he worked hard and I never saw him complain or cry, until his mother died.   Even then, he fought the tears back, but they still came.   No matter how tough we are, someday we will all “cry out to God”.  It is part of the human condition to eventually face our human limits and discover our own need for God.  Someday,  no matter how good you have it now, life will not go your way and you will feel like you are ‘down under’ a load you cannot lift.   Life comes at you fast.   It will be a ‘load’ you don’t want to bear.  Life happens.  Life hurts.  We will groan and we will cry out.

When one of my seminary teachers was a solider in the Korean War, trying to hold the front line, one night the North Koreans overran their camp and he laid in a foxhole begging God not to let him be killed.  Delos Miles laid in the Foxhole where all of his buddies were lying dead.  The enemy walked by him shooting all those who moved.  He pretended to be dead, but his prayer life was very much alive.  “God, if you get me out of here, I’ll go wherever you call and do whatever you say.”  This was his prayer over and over for 18 hours lying still in that trench.  This was his moment to cry out to God in ways like never before.

 “God hears”.   Somehow, God heard Delos Miles and he got out of that trench alive.   Somehow, Israel believed that God would heard their own cries of distress.   The answer is about to be realized in a story still captures our imagination, but remains as mysterious as it is miraculous.   As we read how God heard, remember, looked and took notice of them, we are confronted with the question of how God hears, remembers, looks upon or notices us.   The miracle for some of us is that God has rescued us too.  The mystery is that sometimes we have cried out God’s answer came too slow or not at all.  Israel is about the see a miracle of dramatic rescue, but sometimes we have to deal with the mystery of unanswered prayers.  

The common response of many believers, who have trusted God when their prayers were not answered, is that God sometimes must answer with a no, but he still answers.   We also know that Israel had to wait for their answer for a long time.  I’m sure that many prayed for years to return to their homeland, but died without any inclination of rescue.   As the book of Hebrews declares, many lived toward the promise, but never attained that promise.   Some had to suffer without the promise being realized.  Some had to die without the promise ever being fulfilled.   But all had to wait for God to hear, to remember, to look and take notice of them.   Waiting is also part of the mystery of prayer they faced and we still face.    As in our text, we believe in faith that God’s answer will come, but for now we can only know that God hears, God remembers, God looks and God takes notice.   We wait and we still hope.  Such waiting can be the hardest work faith ever knows.

GOD RESCUES THROUGH HIS HOLY PRESENCE

Perhaps most critical to having faith in God as our helper and rescuer, is to gain the kind of knowledge of God, which only God can give.   Moses was “keeping the flock of his father-in-law” while “beyond the wilderness” and was not looking for this knowledge when it came.  It came unexpectedly.   It was uncalculated.  It was completely unforeseen. 

We read in our text that when Moses came “to Horeb, the mountain of God, the “the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush.”  But this wasn’t just any ole bush that was burning, but it was “bush that was blazing, yet was not consumed.”   The whole spectacle caused Moses to stop and look and try to figure out why “the bush is not burned up.”   It was then that he heard a voice calling,  “Moses, Moses”.   But just as Moses moves in to get close, he suddenly hears the voice give warning, “Come no closer!  Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”   

There is something about this story which should cause us all to stop and consider.  Before we can know that God takes notice of us, we must take notice of God.  Of course, we want rescue.  We want to be heard.  We want to have access to the all the promises and the purposes of this rescuing God, but there is no right approach to God’s saving promise in our world without gaining an awareness of God’s holy presence in our lives.  Without a true revelation and knowledge of who God is, there can be no saving, no answer, and no promise to prayer.   For the God who rescues is as miraculous and mysterious as the rescue itself.   We must become aware that he is near, but we can’t get too close.   We must become knowledgeable of his name, but it must remain unspeakable on our lips.   Before God helps us know he hears, we must first confront his holy presence, feel his burning fire and hear his unspeakable name.     

Some of you may have heard the name Blaise Pascal.  He was a French great mathematician of the 17^th century, who gave us one of the first forms of a calculator.  He was brilliant in mind and in spirit.   Right after Pascal died, they found some secret words pinned inside his jacket.  The words have now become world famous, helping us appreciate his soul as much as we have his mind.  Those words were short and brief, known as "The Memorial". 

The year of grace 1654.  Monday, 23 November, feast of Saint Clement, Pope and Martyr, and of others in the Martyrology.  Eve of Saint Chrysogonus, Martyr and others.

From about half past ten in the evening until half past midnight.

Fire

'God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,' not of philosophers and scholars.

Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace.

God of Jesus Christ.

God of Jesus Christ.

My God and your God.

'Thy God shall be my God.' The world forgotten, and everything except God.

He can only be found by the ways taught in the Gospels. Greatness of the human soul.

'O righteous Father, the world had not known thee, but I have known thee.' Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. …Sweet and total renunciation.  Total submission to Jesus Christ…

…. I will not forget thy word. Amen.

Pascal’s fire is also Moses’ fire.  It is fire that still burns.  It is the fire of God’s holy presence   which can’t be extinguished, explained, or analyzed, but must be adored, worshipped, revered, and venerated.   We cannot know what he will do until we encounter who God is.  God rescues through, not around his holy person and his holy presence.  This is the heart of his healing fire.

GOD RESCUES THROUGH HIS HOLY PEOPLE

Finally, God hears our prayers and reveals his holy presence to rescue, with our help, not without it.   The miracle that is about to give this people rescue, freedom and hope, will not come until the people accept the mission of becoming rescuers themselves.   Later, at this same mountain,   the LORD will speak to Moses and give some of the most important words in all the Bible:   We read them in Exodus 19: 3…. "This is what you should say to Jacob's household and declare to the Israelites:  You saw what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you up on eagles' wings and brought you to me.  So now, if you faithfully obey me and stay true to my covenant, you will be my most precious possession out of all the peoples, since the whole earth belongs to me. You will be a kingdom of priests for me and a holy nation. These are the words you should say to the Israelites" (Exo 19:3-6 CEB).

The miracle of the Red Sea crossing was only a one time, unrepeatable miracle.  But the miracle of the creation of a new people called to be a ‘kingdom of priests (for God)’ is a miracle of the mission given to God’s people to bring his rescue to the whole world.   This is the mission that was given to Israel, and it is now the mission also given to us, Christ’s church.   Isn’t this what Peter meant in his first epistle when he wrote: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who are God's own possession. You have become this people so that you may speak of the wonderful acts of the one who called you out of darkness into his amazing light.   Once you weren't a people, but now you are God's people. Once you hadn't received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1Pe 2:9-10 CEB)

When People look back at great miracle of Israel’s deliverance, the big splash was the water.  But that water is the water we all go through, which we call baptism.  But the miracle of our Baptism is what we are baptized “for” not “how” we are baptized.   Just like Israel, we are baptized into the mission to be a new people, who are to bring God’s rescue mission into the world.  God hears prayers, but most often he answers those prayers through his people.

And this is exactly the problem we find, as we come to the end of this text, which continues into the next chapter.   Moses does not want to be part of the answer to prayers.  Moses does not want to be a man on mission.    Moses is making excuses, many excuses, as to why he cannot be a part of God’s rescue mission in the world.   We all know Moses’ excuses all to well, because they are our excuses too.   “Who am I to go…?” (11), he first tries to excuse himself   “What am I supposed to say to them…”(13), he continues.   This is where our text ends, with Moses questioning and making up excuses.  What if the story ended right there, just where some of our stories have ended?  What if Moses continued to make excuses and was not willing to be part of the miracle as a person who joined the mission?  What if?

In the next chapter, the excuses get even bigger.   “But what if they don’t believe me, or pay attention to me?” (4.1)…. “But Lord, I’ve never been able to speak well…I have a slow mouth and a thick tongue.” (4.10)….”Please my lord, just send someone else…How about my brother, Aaron” (4:13).   The excuses kept on coming, but God would not take no for an answer.  There would be no rescue, unless there was also a Moses along with Aaron.  Still today, there will be no rescue, unless the people of God become the “priests” and the “peculiar people” of God who “speak of his wonderful acts of the one who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2.9).    Unfortunately, many prayers are still not answered, many revelations of a holy God are not seen, and many missions of rescue are not carried out, because God’s people are still more about “excuses” than “action”, about maintenance, rather than mission, about chasing our own dreams, rather than answering the dream of God.

Excuses,” some wise sage once said, “are like armpits. Everyone has them and they usually all stink.”  Once a news article listed the most absurd excuses The Metropolitan Insurance Company had received from its customers reporting automobile accidents. Listen to some of these excuses; they were “real” excuses, if you call them “real”:

·         An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car, and vanished.

·         The other car collided with mine without warning me of its intention.

·         I had been driving my car for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had the accident.

·         As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision.

·         I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.

·         The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran over him.

·         The telephone pole was approaching fast. I attempted to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.

·         The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.

·         The indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.

We all make our excuses.   We makes excuses for the simple moments when we forgot something or wanted to get out of something, and we make our excuses trying to avoid something we were supposed to do, but didn’t.   But nowhere are the excuses more prominent and more precarious than when God needs us for his mission in the world, but we still make our excuses to the one who has already has heard it all.   “We’re too busy,” we say.  We don’t want to be bothered.” We’re too sorry and lazy:  We don’t even want to know and we don’t even want to learn how.  We’re sure smart and work hard in everything else, but “God’s work is just too hard!.”  We just can’t make this sacrifice, so still make u our excuses to the God who will not accept our “no” for an answer.   In fact, if we say “no”, then the answer to our prayer will be much the same: “no”.    In Moses’ case, and perhaps also is our case, there will be no great answer to prayer, without our own answer to God’s call and claim on our life.   But if we answer “yes”, God can use us, with and beyond our own abilities.

A pastor was leading a building campaign in his church and need to raise some additional funds. One day, the minister was checking the store room and he discovered several cases of bibles that had never been opened or distributed.  In his Sunday sermon, the pastor asked for three volunteers from the congregation who would be willing to go door-to-door selling these bibles for $10 each to raise money for the building fund.

Peter, Paul, and Louie all raised their hands to volunteer. The pastor knew that Peter and Paul both earned their living as salesmen and were quite capable of selling some bibles, but he had serious doubts about Louie.  Louie was not a salesman, but always tended to keep to himself because of his speech impediment.  Louie stuttered very badly.  But not wanting to be a discouragement to Louie, the pastor decided to let him give it a try.  The pastor stacked each man’s car with after the service, and sent them on their way with instructions to report back in a week’s time.

Next Sunday came, and the pastor was eager to find out how each man did. He asked Peter how many bibles he had sold. Peter proudly handed the pastor an envelope and said, “Pastor, I am proud to report I sold 20 bibles, and here is $200 for the building fund.”

     “You’re a fine salesman, Peter, and the church is indebted to you,” replied the Pastor.

Then the pastor turned to Paul. “How many bibles did you sell, Paul?” asked the pastor.

      Paul stuck out his chest proudly and responded, “Pastor, I’m a professional salesman, and I am pleased to offer my gifts to the church. I sold 28 bibles and here is $280 cash to go toward our new building.”

    “Wonderful,” the pastor said. “It is great to have such willing people serve the congregation.”

Finally, the pastor came to Louie. A bit apprehensively the pastor asked Louie how many bibles he had sold. Louie just handed him an envelope. The pastor opened the envelope and to his amazement there was $3,200.00 inside. “Louie,” the pastor exclaimed, “are you saying you sold 320 bibles?”  Louie just nodded.

Of course, Peter and Paul could not believe it. “We’re professional salesmen. Do you mean to stand there and tell us that you sold ten times as many bibles as we did?  How could you do that?” “Yes, Louie,” the pastor said. “That does seem a bit strange. Can you tell us how you managed that feat?” 

Louie just shrugged and said, “I-I-I-I re-re-really d-d-d-don’t know f-ffffor sh-sh-shure.”   Peter interrupted, “For crying out loud, Louie, just tell us what you said when these people answered the door.”   “A-a-a-a-all I-I-I-I s-s-said w-w-w-was,” Louie replied, “W-w-w-w-would y-y-y-you l-l-l-l-l-like t-t-t-to b-b-b-b-buy a b-b-b-b-b-bible f-f-for t-t-ten b-b-b-bucks o-o-o-or w-w-w-would y-y-y-you j-j-j-just l-l-l-like me to s-s-s-s-stand h-h-h-here and r-r-r-read it to y-y-y-y-y-you?”  (From a sermon by Lynn Malone; http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/there-are-no-excuses-with-god-lynn-malone-sermon-on-moses-82943.asp?page=4).

God enables those he calls because he calls us follow our heart and our passion. There really should be no excuses with God.  God wants to hear our prayers, he wants to reveal himself and he wants to use us.  Let me ask you, if you’ve heard the call of God in your life? God’s call comes in many ways.   He calls us to salvation.  He calls us to sanctification---to be like Jesus, and finally he calls us to service, to be on mission with God in the world.  But today, the sad truth is, as a Presbyterian pastor once said to me, “Many are called, but more than a few are still “frozen”---God’s frozen chosen.  W-w-w-w ould-y-o-u-u-u- like m-m-m-e-e- to pre-e-e-ch long-g-g-e-r-r or-w-w-w-ould yo-u-u-u join hi-s-s- re-cu-u-u-e t-eam-m-m to-to-to-day!  Amen.