Only One Throne - Unwavering Faith in an Unraveling World

I don't know if you saw this on the news or not, but uh a few months ago uh we're in a place called Myrtle Myrtle Creek, Oregon.

This is a true story, um a uh uh a a Jeep This crazy driver uh drove a Jeep right into somebody's house.

And um uh there were there are eyewitnesses to it, one lady in particular She called the police right away and she said, uh the driver is driving erratically, and I don't mean to embarrass you, but honestly, he was almost totally naked, the driver was He was three years old.

That's the truth.

The babysitter fell asleep.

He went out to the Jeep. started the Jeep and got her running right into somebody's house.

The police found him inside the house watching cartoons And he refused to confess.

He is now serving time in the No, no, no.

So um And you say , if you could, somebody should say, you should not be driving.

Neither should you.

And neither should I.

And the good news, dramatically, from the book of Exodus this morning is.

You don't have to.

Four words.

This morning is all about four words.

And in a way, we're going to add two as we go along and make it six words.

And I'll tell you, as our world unravels more, and I just saw some news again from this morning, and it's just more and more of the same kind of terrifying things that are going on.

Well, these four words are what drive the life of someone who has an unwavering faith They are your mantra.

They are your marching orders.

They are your drumbeat.

They will make it possible for you to live Apart from being shaped by the stressors, the pressures, the bad news, the events, the circumstances Somebody said to our guy, you know, how you doing?

He said, well, I'm doing all right under the circumstances.

And the other guy said, what are you doing under those?

You don't ever have to be under the circumstances again if you understand the power of these words.

We go now to the book of Exodus and we're going to go to chapter 5 in Exodus 5 and beginning with verse uh 23 and uh now let me tell you what has gone on here.

The uh Moses has followed orders to go to Pharaoh and say, let my people go.

He didn't really get a great response to that.

In fact, we'll take a look at that in just a minute, but all Pharaoh does is make the lives of the Jews worse.

Because he's like, how dare you?

Remember he probably grew up with Moses.

So, um, you know, they they knew each other as kids, I suspect.

They were both you know, princes in Egypt and uh so now uh the people the Jews are going, is this is this what you had in mind here?

This is called deliverance.

So Moses goes back and Lord says, Lord, then what'd you get me into?

I don't know it doesn't say that in the Bible, but like, what is happening here?

Ever since I went to Pharaoh, he's talking to God.

Now Moses says, ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he's brought trouble upon this people.

And you have not rescued your people and all.

Well, let's go on.

Or can we go on?

We can't go on because do we have uh chapter 6, verse 2?

You got that?

Oh yeah, here we go God said to Moses, read these words with me, but read them slowly.

I am the Lord.

All right, let's go on.

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, by the way.

I want to just stop right there.

The reason God keeps identifying himself this way, I think.

One of the reasons is that it is a reminder to us that you are not the whole story.

My life, which is all I'm so focused on, my life, I am a chapter in a very long, long story I found through some genealogy research my, I think, sixth great-grandfather, Thomas Hutchcraft, who came over from England back in the mid-7 or early 1700s And what a thing it was to be in the um Maryland, state of Maryland State Archives and hold his will in my hand.

Unbelievable.

And this read in there that he started out before he gives away whatever he had, he said, and I my soul is safe in the keeping of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because of his pardon for my sins.

And I think that my six-time great-grandfather s came to this country with the seed of Christ in his heart.

I don't know how all that works.

I know what a miracle it took to get my dad to come to Christ.

It took my baby brother dying.

That's where our whole family came to Christ.

But I know I'm part of a whole and God keeps going.

I want you to know there's a whole big thing I've been doing for a long, long time before you came along.

I'll be doing it after you leave, and I'm gonna do it for you.

I've been this Lord to a lot of people Okay, I'm sorry, that was not in the notes.

That's just a little thing.

Over here, no extra charge.

I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but my name the Lord, which we'll be looking at in a minute, I did not make myself known.

I've not fully introduced myself yet.

Let's keep going.

Therefore say to the Israelites, read those words with me again, the first four words.

I am the Lord.

I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

I will free you from being slaves to them.

I will redeem you. with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

Man, it is about to really take off.

I will take you as my own people.

I will be your God Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

And then I will bring you to the land.

Not only am I going to bring you out, God always brings you out to bring you in.

He never takes you out of something, never takes something away without wanting to move you to something bigger and better.

I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac.

To Jacob.

I will give it to you as a possession.

Read these words with me.

I am the Lord.

And then we go to verse 28 in that chapter.

Now when the Lord spoke to Moses in Egypt , Read the words.

I am the Lord.

Five times in one chapter.

At a time when it appeared everything was falling apart, things were getting worse.

It was getting darker, not lighter.

Five times in this chapter, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord, I am the Lord It's 16 times in the book of Exodus, five times in this chapter alone.

So let us now go to where God gives in this holy One-of-a-kind moment in the human in the history of the human race.

God introduces his personal name.

You know, some of us here have titles.

Might be chairman or boss or president or or uh whatever, um that you may have been in the military and had uh a rank And you might, you know, to when I go to motor vehicle, which I'd rather not, uh, I'm, you know, I'm Mr.

Hutchcraft, or go to a business or something like that, or stranger calls I'm Mr.

Hutchcraft.

But I'm I'm Ron to all of you and and to my grandkids I'm Nalipa, which if you're wondering what kind of language that is.

It's no language.

I've explained this to some of you before, but uh the the the our granddaughter our our daughter-in-law Anna who is an Abo exp explained that the Navajo word for grandfather and grandmother is analiakabati bro Which I could get as far as Nolly.

That's really all these lips will do.

And so we became Nali Ma and Nalipa.

I think we might be the only Nali Ma and Nalipa in the world. uh because th there is no such thing.

But um but I'm Nalipa to them.

Dad to my kids.

There's my official names, and then my personal name.

And so God is about to introduce himself personally in Exodus chapter 3 at the Burning Bush.

Which we will be coming back to, but we're going to look at it from the standpoint of God's personal introduction.

Moses said to God, suppose.

I go to the Israelites. . .

Moses was the king of reasons not to do what God said.

He was just amazing how many things he. .

Yah, but Yahbah!

You're king of the Yabutz.

Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, a God of your fathers who sent me to you and they ask me, what is his name?

Yeah, see I don't I don't even know to I don't know tell them who sent me.

What what what should I tell them?

Like who sent me?

God said to Moses, I am who I am.

This is what you are to say to the Israelites.

I am has sent you.

Up until now, through the book of Genesis, for example, God had been Elochim.

Elochim means the powerful one There are many dimensions to what it means, but to simplify it, it means the powerful one.

And the book of Genesis, as he's introducing himself to the world, that's what he wants to be known as.

You call me the powerful one, the all-powerful one.

Now, he is Yahweh.

He is Yahweh.

The actual Hebrew word, and I'm not a Hebrew scholar, I had five semesters of Greek, which qualifies you to eat in certain restaurants, but But uh the word Haya, Haya, is the root of the I am name.

It means very breath.

It means the very breath of God, literally, translated in English.

It is I am and Yahweh is not the powerful one It means the close one, the constant one.

It speaks of God's what I call always-ness.

I'm always there.

I'm always present.

I am constant, whatever may change.

There will be good news, there will be bad news, there will be good days, there will be bad days.

I am Yahweh, I am It is a name so sacred to Orthodox Jews, of course, that they will not even speak the name.

I believe God has given us permission to do that.

But when Jesus Was here, he referred to that and shocked the Jews.

We don't see it when we're reading our English.

But it was shocking When in John chapter 8, they go, yeah, yeah, yeah, but listen, uh, why are you talking about Abraham?

What do you know?

What do you know about all that he says?

Before Abraham was Yahweh.

I am.

They were stunned, ready to kill him from that moment on.

What did you just say?

When the when the the the uh temple soldiers came to get him in the garden and they're all armed and you've got this big phalanx of people coming in to get one guy, they're expecting this big thing and They ask Jesus a question and he says, I am he.

Yahweh, I am.

And it says the whole troop fell backwards.

All he did was say something.

He said, I am he.

Why would you fall back?

They understood that.

They were Jewish.

They understood.

He had just spoken the name. of the Almighty God and said, I am.

You're about to arrest Jehovah That's the power of the name, even to his enemies.

Secret number two of living unafraid.

Last night we talked, of course, about The importance of expecting the supernatural.

This morning, always enthrone Jehovah.

And this morning, if you looked at your title, there is only one throne There is no room for another throne.

Only one throne.

Always enthrone Jehovah.

Queen Victoria, who I never met personally, but John told me how impressed he was with her.

Thank you, John, I know, is a great memory.

She said, and I read this uh at the Billy Graham uh library in Charlotte, this was in the Daily News in 1903, Queen Victoria.

Had heard the Dean of the Abbey, the uh the Archbishop of Canterbury, speak on the second coming of Christ After hearing the dean preach a sermon about Christ's return to earth, Queen Victoria said, Oh, how I wish the Lord might come during my lifetime.

When the dean asked her why, she said, I should so love to lay my crown at his feet.

Mightiest sovereign on the planet at that time.

She said, I wish Jesus would come right now.

I'd love to give her my crown.

Because she knew there was only one throne.

So when Frederick Handel premieres the Hallelujah chorus in London, and George II, King of England, is there.

He instinctively does what other people do for him.

When he comes in, he stands for the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and he shall reign forever and ever.

There's awesome power in this.

Now, there are three reasons.

This we want to take a look at. while you can relax in the total supremacy of your God.

If you get this, if I get this , It will be the greatest standard to worry, anxiety, confusion, conflict If we can get the power that is wrapped up in four words, I am the Lord.

It sustains the entire narrative of the book of Exodus.

I am the Lord through it all.

I thought, John.

It was amazing that last night, where did you talk about?

I don't know if you remember.

Last night at the end, but John said, be still and know that I am God.

Read from Psalm 46, quoted that, said, Do you know what that word means in the Hebrew?

I did not know that's what it meant.

Relax.

I thought, John, have you been looking?

Did you peek at my notes?

Did you look ahead?

I think God just spoke that to him.

Relax in the supremacy of your God.

Now, one of the reasons you can do that, and we're gonna we're gonna take a look at these three reasons you can relax in the total supremacy of your God.

Reason number one is his prevailing power, not just his power, his prevailing power.

Let's take a look at how the outcomes in Egypt were decided.

It is the same way the outcomes of your life are going to be decided.

Let's look at this.

And let's go over to that next scripture over to Exodus.

We're back in Exodus chapter 3 again, right?

Yeah.

But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go.

God says I he'd not just go say, oh yeah, that's a nice idea.

Sure.

How soon do you want to go?

No, unless a mighty hand.

Compels him.

The most powerful man, most feared man in the world is about to experience the touch of the mighty hand.

And my mighty hand will decide.

Pharaoh will not decide the fate of my people.

This mighty hand will decide.

So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them.

After that, he will let you go God knows the outcome.

It looked very much in doubt as the initial as this subsequent events unfolded.

He said, He will let you go.

Let's go ahead to the next verses.

This is chapter 6 now.

We moved ahead.

Now we've he's gone back and they've gotten the bad reaction.

Things got worse for the Jews.

The Lord said to Moses, now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh.

Because of my mighty hand, he will let them go because of my mighty hand, there's a theme here.

These things are like over and over.

Because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of this country.

Let it be very clear. that the outcome of your life, the outcome of your situation will never be decided by a disease Will never be decided by a diagnosis.

Will never be decided by the government.

By the enemies of the gospel will never be decided by the economy, will never be decid decided by events and circumstances.

It will be decided by the mighty hand.

When we came back from our summer of hope this summer, I was so overwhelmed I was We were we were two days done and someone was driving carrying me back and and I don't know what happened.

I was talking and all of a sudden I couldn't talk anymore.

I was I was just overwhelmed with tears I'm not afraid to cry, but I don't get like that very often.

And I was just overwhelmed because it all hit me what God had done.

And I thought about Psalm 44.

Is it Psalm, yeah, 44, verse 3?

It was not by their sword.

That they won the land.

Nor did their arm bring them victory.

It was your right hand.

Here we go with the hand again.

It was your right hand, your arm, the light of your face.

For you love them.

Well, the power of that hand, I was thinking about, this is ridiculous, has really little to do with it, but When we were when the kids were growing up, there was in a sense we understood the power of a hand.

Well, they understood.

They'd get the three count.

Have you done the three count?

One.

I'm waiting, I'm hearing God do this with me.

One, two , three, and then we would have what we call the five-finger surprise.

That's a euphemistic description, isn't it?

It's really nice.

One, two, three, four, five.

Surprise!

Wasn't a surprise at all.

It did change behavior sometimes, but um not in all cases.

But God says, I will decide the outcome by my mighty hand, even when the most powerful empire on earth.

Is the one who appears.

They make all the decisions.

They have all the power.

So what about his power, his prevailing power?

First of all, his power defines your battles.

His power defines your battles Exodus 14, Red Sea.

We've described the impossible situation caught in the vice between the Red Sea and the on-rushing Egyptian army.

The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites.

Now he's changed his mind.

I can't lose my whole labor force, who were marching out boldly.

The Egyptians, all pharaohs, horses and chariots, horsemen and troops, pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Piheroth, opposite Baalzephan As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians marching after them.

They were terrified.

They cried out to the Lord.

Now what's gonna happen?

I mean, if I was telling our kids Bible stories like I did when they were little, that's where I would end the story.

We'd always do that.

We'd say, okay, we'll come back tomorrow night.

They're like, we're gonna sleep now You know, we have the Egyptians bearing down on us.

But back in, here's what God says, but I have raised you up.

This is his word to Pharaoh.

He tells Moses to Telemis, hey, Pharaoh, you're not Pharaoh because your daddy was Pharaoh You, I raised you up for this very purpose.

This is why you're on earth, man, to let my people go.

That I might show you my power.

Not that you show me yours.

That I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth, and for all the centuries since then, the parting of the waters at the Red Sea has defined Israel and it has glorified God and shown his might to a world to this very day They're making another movie about it.

I understand.

I'm sure it'll be biblically accurate to the detail.

But now, you see in your notes, God is at his best when things are at the worst for you.

Any of you experienced that?

God's at his best when things are at your worst.

When it's the darkest.

Exodus 5.

We already saw that.

I don't think we need to go back there.

Because that's exactly when Things got worse because what happens is that Pharaoh when when he has the demand to let my people go, he comes back to them and says, oh, okay, you want to you want to leave?

You know what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna make it harder than ever That's it, brought trouble on the people.

We've already kind of read this.

But what happens after he says all this about his mighty hand?

It doesn't look like his mighty hand's doing anything because Pharaoh says, you know what?

I'm gonna make it worse for you guys.

You think it's been bad.

You're gonna have to go find your own straw for the bricks and make just as many bricks as you were making before.

You're not gonna have any more time to do it.

I want the same, you're gonna meet all the quarters.

But you are gonna have to go find your own raw materials.

I'm not gonna provide them anymore.

That's not fair.

Oh it's not fair?

I don't care.

You're lazy.

You're gonna go find the he calls him.

He said, You lazy?

Go get out there and get that straw And that's when the Jews come back and go, if this is deliverance, we don't want to be delivered.

Our situation is terrible.

When it's the darkest is when he says in chapter 6, I am the Lord.

Doesn't feel like it, doesn't look like it.

I am the Lord.

When the obstacles are impossible, these are the times that the word the phrase come up.

When they're standing and it looks like nothing is going to change.

It looks like it's gotten worse, the hold of Pharaoh, the chokehold on them, he's strangling them tighter and tighter, holding them closer and closer.

Doing more damage, be more brutal than ever.

It looks impossible, but that's when God says, I am the Lord.

It's interesting when he makes these statements When it's darkest, when the obstacles are impossible, Exodus 6-6.

Let's go on to chapter 6 again Therefore say to the Israelites, I am the Lord, I will bring you out from under the yoke of Egyptians, I will free you from being slaves, I will redeem you with an outstretched arm when you feel hopelessly enslaved.

That's another time.

God says, I am the Lord.

You say it's never going to change.

I am going to be I'm trapped in this situation.

It's always going to be this way.

Or I am addicted or I can't stop this, and God steps in and says, that's when I am the Lord, when you are hopelessly enslaved.

When it looks like God's promise ain't going to happen.

Again , with the verses we just read, it looked like God said, I'm going to get you out of here.

I'm going to take you to another land.

Yeah, right.

I am the Lord.

It's when he says I am the Lord, right in the middle of all that.

When it looks like God's promise ain't gonna happen.

And chapter 14, you know where we are.

We'll get to go back to the Red Sea Then the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me?

Tell the Israelites to move on.

Raise your staff.

Stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.

Who could have ever guessed?

I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them.

And I will gain glory.

Through Pharaoh, not something Pharaoh ever wanted to do was to glorify Jehovah God But I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army through his chariots and his horsemen.

And that's actually happening even today in this room.

The Egyptians.

Now he said originally, I want you to know I'm the Lord.

The Egyptians will know that.

Read the words with me.

I am the Lord.

All this stuff that's been going on has been to create a scenario.

Where even Pharaoh and your slave masters will know it's gotta be God.

I am the Lord, when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.

So it gets worse before it gets better.

I mean look at the Mary and Martha say Lazarus is really sick.

We're not sure he's going to make it.

Go tell Jesus.

They go tell Jesus This is a this is a get there quick.

This is a cold blue situation.

This is a uh emergency.

Jesus come.

He's uh you might get here before he dies Jesus let him go.

What's interesting is that the beginning of the chapter says, Jesus loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

Now, we know he loved everybody.

It says he loved John, but other than that.

I don't know where it specifically says you had to hear. . .

It has to be spelled out.

Jesus really did love Mary, Martha, and Lazarus because it's about to not look like it.

But he didn't go anywhere.

He just sits there.

He's not doing anything else.

He just sits there Gets this news.

Lazarus dies.

Martha, when she when Jesus finally shows up, goes, you know, kind of accusationally, if you had been here If you could have made it, Jesus, it would have been nice if you could have made it.

My brother would not have died.

It got worse See, they had enough faith to believe Jesus could heal a sick man.

Jesus said, I'm going to raise a dead man.

And he got greater glory, and they stood in awe of him.

But it had to get worse for that to happen.

Maybe why Jesus is waiting right now on the thing that you have asked for.

When the Titanic went down, there were two ships that were critical in the story.

When I was a Californian, the Californian was thought to be about five miles away.

They actually could see each other's lights.

They were at least close enough to see their lights.

Californian got some radio distress signals from the Titanic, turned off the radio.

This is subsequent investigations. uncovered that they had chosen to wait till morning to respond because there were tremendous iceberg fields out there and the captain's choice was not to go.

About 30 miles away, no more than that, I forget it was 30 or 40 miles away, was the Carpathia.

And Captain Rostran, a Christian, by the way, a follower of Christ, was captaining a Mediterranean cruise.

It was like a vacation cruise for people.

And um he heard by radio about the Titanic in trouble.

His response was a little different He went to the people and he said, folks, I know we're on a cruise, but he said, the Titanic is in trouble.

I think it might be going down.

We need to get there.

He said, I hope you'll understand.

He had uh 1,500 passengers on there He shut down the heat, he shut down everything so that all the all the energy, all the fuel, everything could go into making maximum speed.

It went about two knots faster than it was designed to, than it was anybody thought it could ever go, because he directed everything he had into getting there.

Later they realized that there were 25 major icebergs That ship navigated in the dark at night.

One took out the the Titanic.

They could not get there to his broken heart.

They could not get there in time.

The ship was long gone.

But they got there while the before the people in the lifeboats died of exposure.

And the 700 survivors are because of Captain Captain Rostin's decision.

Of what to do with his ship.

A New York reporter asked him about the dangers of running the Carpathia full speed in the dark. through an ocean full of icebergs.

And in a hearing he said, someone else's hand other than mine was on the wheel that night.

Someone else's hand is on the wheel.

It is the mighty hand.

I am the Lord.

God has some favorite ways of letting us know He's the Lord and reminding us of that.

Here's three I found.

Weather.

You think you're in charge?

I was in New York when Hurricane Sandy hit.

Wall Street wasn't in charge.

New York closed down.

Everything shut down.

The UN shut down.

Eases weather?

He uses health and he uses money.

Wouldn't you say?

Three of his most powerful I am the Lord tools.

So realize this, God's greatest platform.

Is your greatest problems.

The greater your problem, the greater a platform for God to show up and show you, the people around you, Who is the Lord?

By the way, this is really cool.

This is also the power that hell feels.

Talk about prevailing power.

Let's real quick, let's go to the uh the throne room of Pharaoh.

Um what had happened was that uh they produced um The next plague after um the uh the blood and the frogs didn't work was they were going to turn the dust.

Moses and Aaron were gonna turn the dust into gnats.

And that happened.

And so, so far, uh, the magicians of Egypt have been able to reproduce.

Look what what Moses had done.

He turned the sea the river to blood.

It was terrible.

It was in every water supply in Egypt.

And so the magicians said, we can do that, and they do that.

Pharaoh hardens his heart and says, see , yeah, we can do that too.

No big deal.

And then and then the frogs came and the frogs took over.

That must have been exciting.

Frogs everywhere Frogs in the kitchen, frogs in the closet, frogs in your sandals, frogs in your chariot, frogs in your bed.

Everywhere you go, Kermit is there, and he ain't cute.

You got frogs everywhere.

People were jumpy.

It was just it really was a very difficult one People were going, honey, if they don't go away, I'm gonna croak.

I mean it was a very, very difficult situation to have um frogs everywhere.

And um well and Moses uh or uh Pharaoh's guys go, we can do that too.

And it was really this is just a little sidelight.

I I just of course I laugh sometimes when read the Bible.

Moses says you want Pharaoh's like, please, please pray to this God of yours and get rid of these.

He says, Well, when would you like me to?

I'll let you you just tell me when.

And Pharaoh inexplicably goes, tomorrow, you want to spend another night with the frogs.

What?

It's really amazing though when God speaks to people and God summons people.

A lot of times you'll go, oh, how about tomorrow?

I'll s I think I'll spend a little longer with the with the frogs before I do what you say.

But anyway, just a sidelight there.

Tomorrow I just don't get.

Tomorrow, yeah, I'd like to be with the frogs a little more.

I've kind of gotten attached to them.

The next day Moses obliges, he prays, and all the frogs die at once, and it says a great stench, we're not there at the land.

I don't know what you think live frogs are bad, dead frogs may be even better.

At least you can shovel dead frogs. and throw them away somewhere.

Now we come to the gnats.

We're gonna turn dust into gnats.

You know how you ever see those little fruit flies at home?

Where did they come from?

They just appear.

You ever notice how they just kind of float by?

And they just oooooo you know You can't I I did my own frustration.

I you can't kill them They're like, if you somebody walks in, you're going around the dining room like this, you know, like uh what are you doing?

And have you you know how when you're walking through the woods?

And it's getting dark, it's getting the shadows are creeping in, and you you know how the gnats swarm?

Isn't it aren't they pesky?

They're annoying.

You just freak from me Well imagine the dust of Egypt turning to gnats.

I mean they sent in the SWAT team.

I mean they did everything they could to get rid of Wake up the morning people, explain it to them, well yeah, thank you.

Um I mean the at night morning people Couldn't resist.

I had I should control myself better.

So Pharaoh says, you do that, you do that, there's magicians, you do that, you do that But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not.

You know why?

This is an insight into your enemy.

Your enemy can manipulate Use, distort, and twist.

What God has created.

But he can't create.

See , frogs are already created.

You know, this is creating life.

This is creating life.

And the gnats were on men and animals.

The magicians said to Pharaoh, This is the finger of God.

Well, it still didn't get through to Pharaoh, but what's interesting is that they knew, and I will tell you, as we confront some of the most entrenched , forces of darkness in the strongholds of America's Indian reservations.

I can tell you that the medicine men and the shamans in the deepest and darkest of religions, ultimately know where the greater power is.

They know Jesus Is the final word.

They will not serve him.

They will not bend to him.

But they know where the power is.

This is the power even that hell feels.

So the greater the problem, the greater glory for God when he steps in.

The greater your problem, the greater glory for God, and ultimately the greater good for you.

Pardon me, veterans, for telling this story, but it is one of my all-time favorites, and I never tire of what happened to George Mueller on the ship when he was nearing Newfoundland.

Newfoundland.

There's a town in New Jersey.

That's how they say it.

I'm confused.

And I'll just read you what the captain had to say that day.

He said, I'd been on the bridge 24 hours and never left it because of this fog.

Did you guys notice somebody took the lake overnight?

I mean, you know, I don't know where the who took the lake.

George Mueller said, uh Captain, I've come to tell you that I must be in Quebec Saturday afternoon.

Oh, that's that's impossible.

Captain said that ain't gonna happen.

Well, then um if your ship can't take me, God will find some other way for me to get there.

I I I've been um I've never broken an engagement in 57 years.

I'll tell you what, why don't we go down down below and pray?

Well the captain wrote, I looked at that man of God, thought to myself, what asylum did he come from?

I never heard of such a thing.

Mr.

Mueller, do you know how dense this fog is?

No, he replied.

My eye is not on the density of the fog.

It's on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life.

We should, we can't, we should, we can't.

I'm comparing this to the size of my God.

You're comparing you to the size of the fog.

He knelt down and prayed one of the most simple prayers, and when he finished, I was going to pray, but he put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to.

He said, first, you don't believe he'll answer.

And second, I think he already has.

So there's no need for you to pray about it.

I looked at him and said, Captain, I I have known, or he I said, George Mueller said, Captain, I have known my lord for 57 years.

There's never been a single day I have failed to get an audience with the king Get up, Captain, open the door.

You'll find the fog gone.

I got up, the fog was gone.

Saturday afternoon, George Mueller was in Quebec for his engagement.

I am the Lord.

Now I want you to picture.

I don't know what battle you're going through right now.

I don't know where the struggle is, confusion, the conflict, the stress.

But I want you to imagine.

Yahweh, standing over your battle, and saying, I am the Lord I will decide your outcome.

And I love you more than you could ever imagine.

I will decide.

I am the Lord.

It may not look like it.

It may get darker.

It may get bet worse before it gets better.

I am the Lord through it all.

Standing over my battles makes all the difference.

And the other thing about you got his power that defines your battles, but his name reveals your name.

Stick with me on this.

Because his name is I am.

Guess what that means my name is?

I am not.

If he is I am, then my name is I am not Why do you call me Lord?

Oh, twice.

Lord, Lord.

If you say it twice, it's really intense.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord?

And.

You don't do what I say.

If he is I am, that means I am not And what that means is you and I can be freed from the hopeless job of trying to be God.

And we may all be more guilty of that than we realize.

I found it very helpful in a book by Louis Giglio how he spelled this out.

He said, God was telling Moses, I am the center of everything.

I am running the show.

I am in need of my glasses.

And uh did I bring them oh the right I need my glasses to find my glasses.

Excuse me.

Here we go.

I am the same every day forever.

I am the owner of everything.

I am the Lord.

I am the creator and sustainer of life.

I am the savior.

I am more than enough.

I am inexhaustible and immeasurable.

I am God.

Which means I am not the center of everything.

I am not in control, Mr.

Control Freak I am not in control.

I am not the solution.

Like John the Baptist, we need to say, I am not the Messiah.

I'm trying to fix my wife, I'm trying to fix my husband, trying to fix my kids.

Trying to fix our church, trying to fix our everything.

I gotta I've got to fix I am the Messiah.

I've got the I've got it I am not the Messiah.

I am not the solution.

I am not all-powerful.

I am not calling the shots.

I am not the owner of everything.

I am not the Lord.

That's liberation.

More than from Egypt, to be free from trying to do what is God's job to do.

Now Coming from what Louis put down.

I want you to watch the screen and I'm going to ask you to say with me thoughtfully.

The phrases you see come up.

And if they are not reality, I hope speaking them will move you toward that goal.

Let's go on to that list.

Would you say that with me?

I am not running anything.

I am not the head of anything.

This is hard, huh?

I am not in charge of anything.

I am not the Maker.

I am not the Savior I am not holding it all together.

I am not all knowing.

I am not God.

Does it kind of feel good to say that?

That's liberation.

By the way, in round one of the story of Moses the liberator, he did not understand this.

If you go back to Exodus chapter 2, now stand by.

I'm about to ask the question about you in the picture?

Watch.

One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched their hard labor.

He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people.

Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hit him in the sand.

The next day went out and saw two Hebrews fighting, he asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?

The man said, who made you ruler and judge over us?

You thinking of killing me like you killed the Egyptian?

Uh-oh.

Then Moses was afraid and thought, what I did must have become known.

And of course he flees now to the desert.

When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses.

But Moses fled Pharaoh and went to live in Midian where he sat down by a well.

Now, let's go to the New Testament.

We'll learn more of the motive of Moses and what he did.

Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them.

But they did not.

Now that's what was going on in the heart of Moses, and I'm glad that we have that further information from God because it helps us realize this.

That Moses thought, did he have the right idea?

That God's people were to go free?

Yes, he had the right.

Was it a noble cause?

It was God's cause.

It was the right thing.

It was the wrong time.

That was the wrong way.

Moses said, I'm going to make this happen.

I'm going to promote myself.

I have declared myself the rescuer.

God had not called him yet.

He hadn't had his burning bush yet.

I will make it happen, and I know this so painfully from my own experience that when you try to make it happen, you make a mess.

And many of us in this room have had some success in our life because we have been Make It Happen people.

Many people you say I wouldn't be where I am if I weren't a a a hard driver and a and an achiever and uh I I I think I'm you know I'm pretty smart and I I think I'm uh I can be maybe pretty persuasive.

I think I can get things done.

I'm a planner.

We got strong people in this room.

I know many of them.

They're strong, and strong people are the ones who have the hardest time fully surrendering to the words, I am the Lord.

He is the Lord.

I am not.

And Moses said, I am going to deliver them, they're going to know I'm going to deliver them.

And he rushed it and he ruined it.

When you try to rush it, you ruin it.

Like having a premature baby or pulling something out of the oven.

Before it's done, I'm sure women would love to have the pregnancy over at six months But that's how to go there.

You want the healthiest delivery, you want to have a full term, not a premi.

Moses was pushing for a premi.

Uh I read this quote that was sadly convicting.

Listen to this.

Because we think that God's mind and ours are the same.

Look, God wants his people out of here.

I want my people out of here.

God wants me to do it.

I know I'm his guy.

So we uh we I'm gonna get this done Because we think God's mind and ours are the same, we set goals for God.

We know what we want.

Get this.

We know what we want.

And so we put it into the mouth of God.

We put it into the mouth of God.

You know, I believe the Lord's really leading me to kill this Egyptian.

Really?

God gets blamed for the dumbest things.

So um I have to, as you see Moses trying to force it and a little ego and some flesh and some control freaking and some impatience.

Control issues, I have to stop and say, are you in this picture?

I want to take you 40 years later.

Notice as God speaks to Moses at the burning bush and says, I want you to go for me.

Listen to what Moses says.

Exodus chapter three, verse eleven.

But Moses said to God , Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?

Do you notice a slight change of tune here?

I'm the guy.

Oh, I couldn't be the guy.

God says, now you are.

Then you weren't.

Ego guy.

Controlling guy.

Make it happen guy.

In charge guy.

I'm sorry, I can't use that.

And what got Moses to the point where he knew who was the Lord and who was not?

40 years of desert.

There's two kinds of desert in the Bible and two kinds of desert in your life.

One is the desert that God plans and ordains to make you strong, to make you his warrior, and to build you up.

The other is the desert that in a way is the product of your self-centered, if seemingly righteous, choice.

Moses went to the wilderness to be stripped and to be humbled.

And to become what he thought he should have been 40 years before.

God uses time in the desert to do his humbling work.

He might be in that process right now.

And when you get the message, you move out of the desert.

There's a uh a second reason why you can relax in the supremacy of God, and that is his personalized love.

This really gets good.

We've got his prevailing power.

It is personalized love.

I want you to notice in Exodus chapter 6, this is pretty, you won't, it looks so like you've seen this before so many times, you won't get it unless we pause for a second.

Therefore, say to the Israelites, I am the Lord, I will bring you out from under the yoke of Egyptians, free you from being slaves, redeem you.

Let's go on.

I will take you as my own people and I will be your God.

Now let's stop for just a minute.

He said, I am the Lord The Hubble Telescope, they already had said that they discovered a hundred billion galaxies I can't imagine a hundred billion anything.

Can you imagine a hundred billion galaxies?

I can't.

We got to our moon and we got we took pictures of Mars.

We are pretty hot patootis, aren't we?

One one solar system.

Actually, if you travel the speed of light across our galaxy You could do that trip in just a hundred thousand years to cross our galaxy.

A hundred thousand years at the speed of light.

I am the Lord.

And now the Hubble telescope has caused us to estimate there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, and we may be discovering hundreds of billions of galaxies for as long as we are here.

But now comes this incredible statement, I am the Lord, your God I am the Lord.

Yes, I am.

Sovereign over it all.

But I'm your God.

I want you to be my kids.

You'll be my people.

So he puts together Yahweh.

Elohim I am the constant, close one.

But I am the all-powerful one.

I am Yahweh Elohim.

The Lord, your God.

It is that personal.

He is totally in charge and he's totally committed to you.

He is totally in charge of everything that happens in the entire universe.

And he is totally in love with you.

He is the always one.

He is the powerful one.

And he is both for you.

So, I want you to see Psalm 147 verse 4.

To me, I read this one day.

I'm actually going to do it in reverse.

He determines the number of the stars.

Right now the estimate is that there are 70 billion trillion stars.

Would you just start writing that number down for me right now?

70 billion I have no idea how many zeros.

You don't have a big enough piece of paper to write 70.

There are 70 billion trillion stars.

We see about 3,000 on a good night.

That was enough for David to say, when I consider the stars, what is man that you are mindful of?

The 3,000 that he can see.

Now let's go back.

He determines the number of the stars.

And he calls them each by name.

I dare you to remember the name of just the people here by the end of the weekend.

Let alone a hundred, billion, trillion names for his stars.

Let's go on.

Great is our Lord, mighty in power.

His understanding has relimited.

You're like, oh my goodness, this is a God, a mind-blowing God.

But go back to verse 3.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds So as you stand at the casket, the God of a hundred billion trillion stars And a hundred billion galaxies has his arm around you.

For he is the Lord.

And he is your God.

And he stores your tears in a bottle, David said.

He is so big.

He is so close.

The Lord, your God.

That's why there's only one throne.

And you and I need to get out and regularly, consistently enthrone Jehovah.

The story is told of a Roman emperor returning from a great victory, or tour, yeah, from a great victory, and coming back. in uh the victorious in an ornate chariot and and uh the people are cheering but all of a sudden this one little boy uh manages to go between the soldiers' legs and he starts running out there toward the chariot and the soldiers grab him and he's kicking and screaming and uh and they're like that wait wait wait you can't do that and finally he gets free and he's he runs uh toward that chariot And they said, stop, he's the emperor.

And the boy just turned and as he's running toward the chariot, he said, your emperor, my father.

Yes, for the whole world.

Yahweh.

Or Elohim.

For the whole world, Elohim.

Oh, he's the emperor.

But the emperor is your daddy.

The emperor is your daddy.

Unbelievable.

So John, you know something I don't know?

So we're getting there though.

You stay there.

You're ver Huh?

No, that's fine.

Stay right there.

That's good.

Then we'll know if you're awake.

Um When um when uh our daughter Lisa is here today, God bless her, and and uh the big sister of Doug and Brad.

Any of you had did you ever have a big sister?

Big sisters are like means if you have a big sister you have two mothers.

But Lisa was Jordan, our our oldest grandson, who you'll meet this weekend if you haven't already.

Jordan was two years old And his baby brother Blake was on the way, and Alicia was going through a pretty tough time in the pregnancy.

And uh He was almost there.

He was about to come.

But she had a respiratory infection, and the best thing for everybody involved was for her to sleep in another room.

Well, Jordan was used to sleeping in the same room with mommy and daddy. at that point and mommy was in another room.

Jordan never talked about it.

But what he did do was he got in bed and he slept with daddy.

And um he crawled over and until daddy woke up.

He went, Daddy, hold.

Daddy, hold And so Rick would respond, they go back to sleep, and only minutes later, until Rick woke up, Daddy, hold.

He never talked about mission mommy.

But he knew daddy would hold him The Lord God of the universe invites you to say those words amen.

How many times have you?

Daddy, hold me.

I don't even know.

I can understand the feelings I have, but Daddy hold and he will.

And he won't go to sleep.

I just want to quickly touch on that third reason you can rest and relax in the supremacy of your God.

You have got his prevailing power.

Got his personalized love and then his perfect plan.

His perfect plan.

You know, if you just look at the book of Exodus It is an incredible narrative of the plan of God.

God takes his people to Egypt.

Why does he send them to Egypt, that little band of 70 nomads?

Why did they go to Egypt for all those years?

Well, the Bible doesn't explain it all, but we know some things that happened to them there.

We know that they learned Egypt is not a good place to be.

We know that they learned that the Lord is God.

We know that eventually God would enrich them By having been there, by the j by the Egyptians given away all their jewelry and everything to them, we know that uh they would become a great people while they were there, and then through the plot of an evil man A Jewish boy becomes a kid of Pharaoh, who would have guessed?

A baby in a basket.

And the basket floats down the Nile River.

At the same time that Pharaoh's daughter, the princess of Egypt, happens to be going down to bathe in the river, just happens to be.

It just so happens that the basket lodges in the bull rushes where Pharaoh's daughter is coming.

It just so happens that the baby cries right on cue.

Cue the baby.

Moses cries right on time.

I think does God pinch babies?

I don't know, but but he cries. and and and Pharaoh's daughter, she says, oh, the poor baby.

And her heart has moved sympathetically.

Her dad has ordered babies like this killed.

What?

Who could write this story?

Who could make it happen even if they wrote it And she takes him and adopts him and he grows up learning the ways of Egypt, which he will have to know someday.

But then he also needs to know the wilderness.

So now circumstances take place that make a prince of Egypt flee to the wilderness to learn.

I mean the weave of the story is incredible.

And God is going to build a tabernacle to his glory in the wilderness, but he wants it to be beautiful.

He wants it to be rich.

How is it going to be that?

These are slaves.

I got an idea.

How about that the Egyptians hand you their jewelry?

Who could write this script?

Who could imagine that they not only are gonna let go of their labor force But they are going to say, please take my I said they actually God says to the Jews, go ask the Egyptian gals for their jewelry.

Excuse me, ma'am.

I'd like your could could I have your bracelets and and uh your necklaces and and your rings, please?

Will you leave?

Yes!

Take it all.

Here's my whole jewelry drawer.

Go Who could have written this script?

But it took all those plagues that they were questioning.

Why?

Why are we going through all this?

Because They're gonna see I'm the Lord.

And and Moses ' uh Pharaoh will be so glad to see you go.

The people will be so glad to see you go.

He will order you to go.

He will ask you to leave.

You'll be able to leave instantly, and you'll have all this riches that go with you.

Poor slaves are going to become rich overnight.

And one day, those would be given in an offering to build a place to glorify God with.

Do you believe God has a perfect plan working like that for you?

You can't see it.

Because we see the threads.

God sees the tapestry.

But you're old enough now to look back, aren't you?

And to see how some threads you didn't understand have now been weaving the tapestry you're living today.

Can you believe right now that the dark threads that don't make any sense to you are having the same divine patterning taking place?

Yes, I see the threads, but I know the tapestry is being woven.

Um So you can stand back at any point in your life. and say there is always something bigger going on than what I can see.

Did you get that?

In front of you is the situation you're going through.

But on any given day, and many times when there's been a turn of events that have been troubling for me or for Karen, or for our children, or for our ministry.

One of the first things I have to stand back and say is there's something bigger going on than this.

I want to cooperate with God.

He doesn't have any reason to have to explain it to me.

I want to play my position well and be this in a God-honoring way, so I am part of the bigger thing.

That he is doing right now that I can't see.

And how are you gonna how are you gonna know his plan?

I um was in a dark room this morning.

My my heart patient honey was up as she often is.

She was up very late counseling a native gal by text and by Facebook and so on last night.

That happens a lot.

So She uh encouraged her to sleep for her health this morning.

So I was moving around a dark room.

Not sure where we'd left stuff last night late at night and I couldn't say it was totally dark in there.

But you know, we have this.

She said, I brought a flashlight.

I said, we have cell phones.

And so I'm trying to poke my way through the room like this, hoping I don't trip over something I should have put away last night.

You know what I could see with that light?

I could only see my next step.

Guess what I guess how many steps I could take at a time?

One.

I didn't run into anything.

But the way was revealed to me one step at a time, but I had to take a step to see a step.

That's how God reveals his will.

It is revealed one roll of the scroll at a time.

And you will not see a step if you don't take a step.

That's how you discover God's will.

You take a step.

He'll show you the next one.

You say, I want to know the whole plan.

He goes, no, you take a step and I will show you one.

Because otherwise we'd walk off with the scroll under our arm and so, thank you, God, I know the plan.

See you later.

And if he showed us the whole thing, one of two things would happen.

We'd either love it so much we'd run to it and ruin it.

Or it would scare us so much we'd run away from it and say, oh no, I don't want that.

But when he does it one step at a time?

It seems like the natural next step.

Let me point out one more thing about God's perfect plan.

God's plan uses a painful process to bring about a beautiful result.

Going through those plagues, all of that stuff, that was no fun whatsoever.

But every w woman in this room who ever had a baby knows.

I mean why in the world do you have more than one kid after you go through labor?

You know what you're going to go through.

It can't be you're like, I really want to do that again.

I enjoyed that labor thing so much.

Honey, can we go?

Some of you have gone back a lot of times, you know what?

What in the world?

No.

You just know by now that the process is worth it because it leads to a beautiful result.

Why don't we learn from the way we're born?

How God works?

The pain you're going through right now is all to create a beautiful result.

So uh to wrap up you should know what outcome God wants in this situation.

You know what outcome you would like.

You'd like that prayer to be answered.

You'd like that person to change.

You'd like the marriage to be fixed.

You'd like your kid to be fixed.

You'd like things to be different financially.

You'd like healing from your the the issues, whether emotional or relational or medical But the point of the plan is your relationship with the Lord your God.

He is going to do it, do whatever will help you and those around you know he is the Lord.

He said, Moses, everything I'm doing and the way I'm going to do it is for the purpose of everybody knowing that he is the Lord, but he wants you to know he is your God.

And the tragedy And we're not going to look at the verses, but the tragedy is have a God who is so in charge have you doubting him.

Because it got dark.

Because things got worse.

You can see the references all through Exodus The people, as soon as it gets hard, as soon as it looks like it's not working, they go, you know, it wasn't so bad in Egypt.

We had plenty to eat there, and you were slaves.

Remember?

Can we go back?

Moses, what have you done to us?

They start doubting the plan, doubting the plan, doubting the plan.

Listen to the wisdom of a saint I heard a long time ago, many of you had it told to you, never doubt in the darkness.

I say this so you may have heard it before because you might be doing it right now.

Never doubt in the darkness.

What God has told you in the light.

And you can be sure that Yahweh Elohim We'll walk with you every step of the way.

Karen's grandpa lived to be um ninety-two years old.

Last couple of years he had a hard time putting everything together mentally, but he still lived on the little farm where we now live here.

And Karen called him one day and and uh she said granddad uh this is Karen.

Now I have to tell you that Karen having grown up on that same road, had walked that road as a little girl.

On her way to first grade, her mom had gone off to work.

Her dad was busy trying to hold their little dairy farm together.

And so she would walk down this road and she would Grandma would see her here and then the neighbor would wave and say, hi Karen, have a nice day.

But the last stretch, and I've driven it, is all covered with trees, and it's dark in the at the no matter how bright the sun is, it's pretty dark all the time She had to walk that alone the rest of the way to the bus.

And she would sing a little song while she did.

Jesus loves me, this I know.

And she made it all the time.

Well, now she calls her granddad, many years later.

She said, Granddad, this is Karen.

He says, who?

I don't know who this is.

Well, she said, Granddad, I love you.

Uh who is this?

He's a little nervous because uh he's 92 and a strange woman is saying she loves him.

She says, uh, granddad, you know you you have one son.

He has two grand daughters.

I'm your granddaughter, Karen, I'm his daughter.

I love you.

I'm I'm sorry, I I don't know who this is.

Karen said, well, granddad, the important thing is Jesus loves you.

Granddad said.

Now him I know.

For a little girl.

Walking a dark stretch alone.

Yahweh Elahim.

The Lord your God was walking with her In the last dark stretch before eternity.

Yahweh Elohim Who said before Abraham was, I am, walks with you.

The Lord, your God, of whom shall I be afraid?

So when you come to your Red Sea, when you're at the end of your resources, When things got worse, when there's no human solution , There are three words that you can say that will change everything.

God 's got this.

God's got this I'm okay.

God's got this.

It's out of my hands.

He is Lord.

I am not.

There is only one throne I will never for a moment again try to take that throne in any situation.

God's got this.

And he's got me.

And he is the Lord.

Oh Lord, help us absorb this into our personality our decision-making processes, what it means, four words standing over our battle, over our brokenness, over our confusion.

Over our despair, over our pain.

I am the Lord.

May we hear that from heaven, but hear it in our soul You, the God who names the stars, but who heals the brokenhearted and binds up our wounds.

May we relax from here until we are with you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.