Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: I'm going to be teaching tonight on Moses, so if you have your Bibles, if you'll take those and turn to the book of Exodus, the second chapter of the book of Exodus.
I want to read the first 10 verses.
And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took a wife, took to wife a daughter of Levi, and the woman conceived and bear a son. And when she saw that he was a godly child, or a goodly child, or your verse may read a proper child.
Some re beautiful. She hid him three months, and when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein. And she laid it in the flags by the river's bank.
And his sister stood afar off to watch what would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her maidens walked along by the riverside. And when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him and said, this is one of the Hebrew children.
Then she then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, and she may nurse the child for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, go. And the maid went and called the child's mother, and Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, take this child away and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child and nursed it. And the child grew. And she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she that is Pharaoh's daughter. And she called his name Moses. And she said for she said, because I drew him out of the water. And it came to pass in those days as Moses was grown, and that he went out unto his brethren.
Let's pause for prayer.
Heavenly Father, I thank you so much. I praise you for this evening and for those who are here. Bless them, O Lord, open our hearts and minds that we may get profit to our souls. We believe you for it. We thank you for it in advance in the wonderful name Jesus, the strong son of God. Amen.
There's a very successful movie, ultra violent movie called John Wick.
It was so successful that there have been subsequent John Wicks made since then. It starred Keanu Reeves.
There was also mentioned in the cast several other actors among whom was a man named Dean Winters. Most of you don't know the name. There's no reason you should particularly.
He was in include. He was included in a supporting role in John Wicked. He's been in many television shows. He was in an HBO series called Oz.
He is not known to you probably from any of those roles. I'm going to put his picture up on the screen right now and you will recognize him as the All State Mayhem is a fascinating, a fascinating coincidence.
Dean Winters suffered from a bacterial infection and had to have several toes and half of his thumb amputated. And he lives in constant pain.
He plays the part in the All State commercials of Mayhem. And I just happen to know that mayhem is actually derived from the word maim.
And mayhem actually means technically in ancient English it means one who is maimed or who has suffered an amputation.
Now, Moses is the star of his play.
Moses is the star of the Pentateuch. Moses is the star of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Moses is the star of the Hebrew nation. Moses is the star of the law. Everybody else in this, everybody else in the movie is a character actor. It's the Moses movie.
When Metro Goldwyn Mayer made the story of the life story of Moses, they called it the Ten Commandments. Actually, it's Moses.
But there are others in the story of Moses that have tremendous impact on the outcome of the story.
I would like to deal with several of those. That's the thrust of this entire series, which is an entirely new series for me. I'm 75 years old. I've got 10 million sermons in the can.
Why don't I just take some of those out and preach them? You people force me to write new stuff.
So I'm going to deal with several. First of all, let's deal with his birth family, his parents.
We are not clear that his brother Aaron, by the way, we're not clear that Aaron has been born yet. Aaron probably is older and just not mentioned in the birth story. But my guess is that he is older because the Hebrew male babies were being killed off, which Moses was being sheltered. And I wondered if the. If his mother had another male baby that she was also able to hide. So I'm thinking Aaron must be older.
And then there is his sister Miriam, which is the Hebrew version of Mary.
Miriam is older, certainly old enough to talk well, to represent herself well, probably 10, 11 years old. Aaron may be even older than that, or somewhere between them.
So there are two pharaohs in the story.
So the pharaoh who is pharaoh at the time of Moses birth begins to perceive that the Hebrew slaves are so strong, they're so healthy, their women are productive, they're having babies, they're growing in strength, they the, their diet, their strength. No matter how he works them, like slaves, they prosper and they are growing in number, their population is growing. And he begins to get paranoid about it and orders this demonic genocidal command that the Egyptian midwives if a male baby is born, they should kill it. And if it's a girl baby, then they'll let it live.
But all the male babies should be killed.
It's not the point of this message tonight, but I do want to say this in passing. It, it needs to be said.
There is an identifiable and historically traceable satanic hatred for babies.
Satan despises the, the reality of the newness of a life.
There is something in the unmarred, innocent beauty of a child's face that reminds Satan of that child's creator and the lover of that child's soul.
There is a satanic hatred for babies.
The genocidal command of Pharaoh to murder newborn babies is so appalling, so horrifying, that we cannot imagine a sophisticated, urbane, contemporary culture ever countenancing such a nightmare.
But right now there is a.
There is a fight in the United States Congress over whether or not a law can be passed that if a baby should, despite his mother's will and the doctor's actions, somehow survive an abortion, that the doctor should be forced to give it life savings treatment after its birth. So if the law is not even to deal with abortion, it's not to outlaw abortion. It has nothing to do with abortion. It is to say if the baby survives, the doctors must administer treatment to save the baby's life.
And half the United States Congress voted against it.
There is something demonic that hates babies.
It's beyond explanation. The fact that these were Jewish babies adds to the second demonic hatred, and that is Satan hates the Jewish people.
There is a third level, and that is this.
Deep down somehow, Satan has always been afraid that his defeat would come in the form of a baby.
This baby is born and the mother, somehow or another is able to keep the baby secret.
She nurses the baby for three months but at three months, he's becoming bigger and louder. And so she hides the baby among the flags or cattails, the. The bulrushes along the edge of the Nile River.
It is. It is not clear what she hopes for Something.
Is she just hiding the baby and she's going to go back at dark?
Is she putting the baby out by the river and just see what happens?
Trust the baby into the arms of God in the Nile River?
Is she hoping that someone will find the baby and preserve it? We don't really know what's in the woman's mind. She just hides the baby and the bulrushes alongside the river.
There must be some way in which, from the very beginning of creation, God has had in his mind the power, the redemptive influence of a loving and caring family.
Adam and Eve came to each other full grown.
They had no history of familyhood.
They didn't.
They knew nothing about any other societal connection except themselves.
A boy in my fifth grade Sunday school class when I was 22 asked me if Adam had a navel.
I said, son, I don't know.
But they came to each other full grown.
And yet God says to them, for this cause shall a man leave his mother and father and cleave only unto his wife.
You see, that's a.
That's a crazy thing to say to Adam. He doesn't know from mother and father.
It is because the family was in the heart of God from before the beginning of the creation of humanity.
There is this little girl.
She is bold, this Miriam.
When the princess, the daughter of Pharaoh, scoops this baby up and will come to her, she's another person mentioned in the cast.
But Miriam doesn't hide, shrink away. This is a royal woman. This is a princess. This is an Egyptian. She's a little Jewish girl.
And she steps up boldly and says, I know this lady that could nurse that baby for you. Of course it's the baby's mother.
I think that Pharaoh's daughter knew it was the baby's mother.
I think she knew that Miriam was probably the baby's sister. I think she knew because people misunderstand this. Many people think that Moses mother came to the palace and nursed the baby. Pharaoh's daughter gave the baby up for three months, said, take. Take the baby home.
So there is Miriam.
She's strong, she's outspoken. She steps right up. She's bold.
Now we're going to come back to Miriam because she's not flawless.
She's important, but she's not perfect.
Then we have Pharaoh's daughter, another bit character in the story.
What in the world inspired this moment of mercy?
Her father has ordered this baby to be killed.
By rescuing this baby, she is actually committing an act of political intrigue.
And she's not mistaken.
She doesn't say, I wonder who this baby is. Do you heard me? As I read it, she said this is one of those Hebrew children that my father ordered to be killed.
There is this mystery of compassion. If there is a mystery for hatred of babies, a satanic mystery, there is another mystery for the compassion for babies.
There is just something in a, in a crisis, in a catastrophe and a war. And whatever it is, there is something inside of everybody that says at least save the babies.
Try to save the babies. And she does. She takes this baby. It's beyond that.
I don't know if she is barren, we don't know what it is, but she loves this baby. It's more than simply compassion to rescue this child. She loves this baby.
Now I don't have a theological proof for this, but I believe God can actually.
Certainly there is a love for babies. Innocent baby everythings are cute. Baby elephants are cute.
You ever see a baby elephant? Baby elephant is cute. But you look at it and you know, in just a few months that thing can squash me.
But right now it's cute. You know, there is that.
But I believe there's something else that's happening here.
I think that God is creating a supernatural love in this Egyptian princess for this Jewish baby.
I think it's a supernatural thing, a God done thing that she's. Something just wells up inside of her to love this baby. She adopts this baby and raises him the next 40 years as a prince of Egypt.
Now don't tell me that God doesn't have a sense of humor because that, my friends, is a great joke on the king of Egypt.
The king of Egypt. The pharaoh says, I will kill all the Hebrew babies.
And God says, raise this one.
There are some fascinating passages of scripture about the divine sense of humor. If you have your Bibles, if you'll turn to the book of Psalms, if you will please. And turn to Psalm 2 first of all, then 37 and then 58, Psalm 2, then 37 and then 58, psalm 2.
4.
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.
The Lord shall have them in derision.
It makes God laugh. When we rebel against him.
We say, oh, we hate God. God chuckles.
We say, there's no such thing as God. God chuckles. He says, we're going to Meet pretty soon.
Psalm 37, verses 12 and 13.
The wicked plotted against the just, and gnash upon him with his teeth. And the Lord shall laugh at him, for he sees that his day is coming.
That's a pretty powerful verse, isn't it?
When we see that the wicked rise up and are crushing the innocent, we should say to ourselves right now, this is horrible. We hate this. We're going through this. But we. When we strain our ear heavenward, we can hear God laugh.
Because in the end, he who laughs last laughs best.
Psalm 58, verse 8.
Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, both living and in his wrath.
Oh, sorry. Verse 8. As a snail which melteth, will let every one of them pass away like untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
Well, I am in the wrong verse.
I'm not going to search for it.
The point is that God is in control of this whole thing. God places this baby in the household of Pharaoh.
And Moses is raised for 40 years because of two families.
A Hebrew family that preserve his life and an Egyptian family that raise him.
Now, Moses, as you know, commits manslaughter.
He rises up to try to help a Hebrew fellow Hebrew slave. He kills the Egyptian guard, and then he flees and flees to Midian.
It's not clear where Midian is, but it seems to be in the edge of Saudi Arabia.
And there is a man there named Jethro.
And Jethro is a fascinating and intriguing figure. He is referred to as the priest of Midian.
The Druze religion. Anybody ever heard of the Druze religion in the Middle East? In Israel and Jordan and elsewhere? The Druze people. D R U Z E the Druze people, they believe that they descend from Jethro.
Their religion is based on Jethro.
And they are a fascinating religion, entirely secret. I've been in many Druze villages in the Middle east, and it's a very secret religion.
Jethro welcomes this wanderer into his family.
Moses protects Jethro's daughters and sheep from some wandering tribesmen. He's evidently very strong and trained as an Egyptian warrior. And he defeats these people, and Jethro welcomes him in, and he marries Jethro's daughter.
And he lives 40 years in Jethro's family.
So his first 40 years, he is protected by two families, Hebrew family and Egyptian family.
In his next 40 years, he is protected by a Midianite family.
Jethro plays a very important role in In Moses life.
When Moses encounters God in the burning bush and God tells him to go down into Egypt and take the people into liberty, Jethro doesn't try to hold on to him.
Jethro affirms his calling. Jethro releases him to go and do the thing that God has called him to. It's a very important influence that this man, who could have said, no, don't desert us, stay here. You didn't hear anything. That burning bush, you had an hallucination or something. Don't do that. Instead, he affirms his calling, encourages him. And then later, Jethro brings his daughter and children back to the camp. After the Exodus, they leave and they come to mount, to Mount Sinai. Then Jethro brings his daughter and his family to Moses there.
And he watches Moses leading the people of Israel. And he gives him great wisdom.
He says, you're not doing this right.
This is too big for one man. He says, why don't you appoint 70 elders and divide up the this? So this is going to crush you.
So we see in Jethro an embrace of a stranger.
He is a. A loyal person. He's a liberating person. He sets Moses free to pursue his call, and yet he is a wise person. So Jethro has a, has an influence upon him for good.
Then we see the second Pharaoh.
The first Pharaoh, Moses adopted father dies and another Pharaoh comes, presumably his adopted brother comes to the throne. And Moses returns and confronts this Pharaoh, this new Pharaoh, to let the Hebrew people go.
And Moses. The conflict now becomes between the star of the show, Moses and this Egyptian also mentioned in the cast, Pharaoh.
And the conflict now becomes man. Man to man, kingdom to kingdom, God against Egypt.
But what is the essence of the contest? What is it that they're really about?
This is very, very important.
Moses is not really confronting the sin of slavery. It is a sin, but that is not the contest. He doesn't command Egypt to quit having slaves. In fact, there may very well be other slaves. He only says, God says what? Let, come on, you know it. Let, say it out loud. Let my people go.
So the issue for God is the ownership of the Hebrew people.
That is also the issue for Pharaoh.
God says they're my people, Pharaoh says they're mine. So the issue isn't the idolatry of Egypt. Moses isn't trying to get them to quit worshiping false gods. He's not trying to clean up Egyptian culture. He's not trying to make them stop having slaves. He's not dealing with immorality or any other thing.
The issue is who owns the Hebrew people. That's the only issue.
God says they're mine. Pharaoh says they're mine. So the contest is over the ownership of the Hebrew people.
So Moses has been preserved alive by a family, nurtured as an adopted baby in an Egyptian family.
He has been loved, appreciated, married, has given, has now has children in a Midianite family.
So he is now in his third internationality, racial thing, if you will. And now comes this conflict. This is the first major conflict of Moses life. And the issue is over the ownership of God.
So there are people in life that the whole thing is about them.
They confront us in our lives. They cause all this confusion and turmoil. And the whole thing is that they think Pharaoh thought he was the star of the movie.
Moses thought God was the star of the movie. It's God, Moses and everybody else. Pharaoh thought it's him and then everybody else.
There may be those people in your life that everything in the world is about them.
They're. They're hypersensitive. They. They're possessive. They own everything, they want everything, and they. And everything centers around them. You slam the door on the back of the house as you leave, and they yell, what do you mean by that?
Everything is about them.
So Moses now is dealing with three families that have loved and nurtured him and a confrontation for life and death.
Now we return to Aaron and Miriam.
Moses takes the people into the desert. As you know, remember, we're not dealing with Moses. We're dealing with those also mentioned in the cast.
And during the time that they're in the desert, Aaron and Miriam both have monumental failures.
The first is Aaron, and it's one of the most comical verses in the Bible. Not everybody thinks stuff in the Bible is funny.
I think it's funny when the pastor can't find a verse in Psalms, but not everybody thinks it's funny.
So it's the story of the golden calf.
So Moses goes up on the mountain, and Aaron fashions this golden calf.
And when Moses comes back down, he says, where'd this golden calf come from? And Aaron says, I just threw some gold in the fire and out came a calf.
And any. Have any of you ever, your junior high school child, ever come up with a lie? Exactly that stupid. Have you ever?
Am I the only one? And now he's a great pastor, but it's just such an absurd lie.
I. I don't. Did I. I did not make this golden calf. I just. I don't know what threw the gold in the fire and pop, out came a calf.
It. It's comical to me. It's a monumental failure. Aaron is supposed to be the founder. He is to be the founder of the Aaronic priesthood. And now he's falling into crass idolatry to help the people in their desire to worship the gods of Egypt.
That is passed through and Aaron lives over it and they move on.
And then comes this moment, Aaron and Miriam, who I believe to be. We know Miriam is older and I think Aaron is also older.
Their little brother is now the star of the movie.
Moses says Moses leads. Moses calls Moses Moses, Moses.
And they get sick of it.
And they say to each other, can't we hear from God? Is Moses the only one that can hear from God? We can hear from God.
Miriam makes the issue about Moses second wife who was African, and she makes the issue a racial issue.
He shouldn't be married to that African woman.
Makes it. She chooses something to make the whole thing about.
And they rebel.
And God does not think this is funny and strikes them both with leprosy and tells them they cannot be healed until Moses prays for them.
So they have to humble themselves and go to the one that they have said. He thinks, oh, Moses thinks he's everything. He thinks he's the big guy. He thinks he can heal people.
We hope so.
Then we see this next group of people, and that is people in your life that at some point or another fail or disappoint you.
Moses doesn't cast them out, he doesn't hate them.
He's not unforgiving, he's not cruel. He prays for them and they're healed.
And in Hebrew culture, Miriam is considered a prophetess.
So the Bible makes it perfectly clear. Always, all the way through the Bible, the only, even Moses, the only perfect man ever to live is Jesus.
There are going to be people in your family that help you, support you, strengthen you at one point. At another point, they do something stupid, act sinful, even rebell, rebellious turn against you, try to hurt you.
But you have to keep that meek spirit of Moses. So let's summarize all this then.
Loving and caring family, somebody that saves you when you're defenseless, someone that adopts you when you're in need, someone that receives you when you're out of the country, immigrant wandering in. You get married, you begin to there. Then there's someone who oppose. There are some that oppose you, that fight you, that struggle with you for the things of God. And there are other people that you love and care about that disappoint you.
All of those people have impact in your movie.
You're the star of your movie.
But also mentioned in the cast is a mother who gave birth to you, somebody that cared for you, somebody that hurt you, somebody that wounded you, somebody that fought you, somebody that cared for you.
All of those people have impact on our lives.
Turn it the other way.
That also means you're in somebody else's movie.
What you say impacts somebody's life.
How you live, who you disappoint, who you oppose, who you fight, you touch. Somebody's life, everybody else, all these other people are in your movie. But you got to remember you're in somebody else's movie.
I've got a great friend. He's a retired Methodist preacher.
He's been retired for some years now. When he was a little boy, quite little preschool, his father died and his mother made an unfortunate remarriage.
A very cruel and wicked man.
And he hated that little boy.
He wanted his own children, and he didn't want that stepson.
And he told that little boy, I'm taking your name away from you.
You're no longer named this name.
I don't want to say his name, so just call him Bob, okay? Your name is no longer Bob. He said, from now on, your name is.
And he used a very vulgar and obscene phrase.
That's your name.
And he would beat that little boy until he would say it.
My name is this over and over and over and over again.
When he started the first grade, on the first day of the first grade, as all teachers do, she said, I want everybody to stand up and say your name.
We'll go and we'll start with you. And Bob was on the front row on the corner seat. And she said, what's your name? And all of that came up inside of him. And without a moment's hesitation, he stood up and said, my name is this horrible phrase.
Well, of course. A room full of first graders dissolved in laughter, the little boys crying, it's horrible.
So the teacher said, I want you to stay with me after class.
She said, who told you that was your name?
And he told her all about it.
And she said, here's what you're gonna do.
She said, you're going to come to school every day, 15 minutes early.
Every day at recess, when the other kids go in the field to play, you're gonna stay with me 15 minutes. Every day at lunch, you're gonna stay with me for 15 minutes. When school is over, every day, you're gonna stay with me for 15 minutes. So four times 15 is an hour.
So every day for an hour, she talked to him. You are smart. You are beautiful. You are handsome. Your name is Bob.
Your name is Bob. Your name is Bob.
And she made him say it over and over and over again.
He told me the only reason, he said, it's not just the only reason I'm in the ministry.
It's the only reason I'm sane.
It's the only reason I'm not a mass murderer. It's the only reason I'm not in prison. It's the only reason I'm not as cruel and vicious and horrible as my stepfather is my first grade teacher. And an hour a day she taught me who I was.
You're in somebody else's movie.
Maybe a casual thing. It may be somebody that checks you out at the Walmart.
You're in somebody else's movie all the time.
The only way to pray is Lord. If you can use Moses and Miriam and Aaron and Pharaoh and Pharaoh's daughter and a basket in the Nile.
If you can use all those things, surely you can use me.
Let me be in somebody else's movie.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leader's notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on X at Dr. Mark Rutland or visit his website, drmarkrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
