In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the story of Moses and his encounter with God. Moses initially hesitates when God calls him to go back to Egypt and deliver his people, citing his age and lack of zeal. However, God reminds Moses that it is His zeal that will accomplish the task. Despite Moses' excuses, God insists that he go. Moses eventually obeys and delivers the Israelites with only a stick in his hand. The sermon also emphasizes the importance of allowing God to search and examine our hearts, as He sees everything and deals with the iniquity in the church.

Thank the Lord for his faithfulness, for his ways. I never quite understood at one time what Jesus was really saying on the way, the truth, and the life. I mean, it didn't bother me because, you know, this is the way, the truth, and the life, but in that order, too. Until I began to realize that that's the order in coming to life. We want to know the truth. We want life, so we want to know the truth. But often we don't really come to know truth and fullness until we follow the way. That's Jesus, the way. And Jesus looked back when a couple of the disciples were following him. He saw them following and, you know, questioned them. And they said, where dwelleth thou? He said, come and see. So they followed him and abode with him all that day. And what a tremendous thing to follow the Lord Jesus and then he invites you to come and stay with him all that day. But then, he's ever-present now. Every day we can follow him and abide with him. I know that there's a vast area of truth there that we have not yet possessed. I know I'm getting older. It doesn't really, what shall I say, I'm not upset about it. But I just know there's vast areas in God we have not possessed. And I look for the Lord to do that, to bring his people into full possession of their inheritance in God. Which at one time I used to, you know, what is that inheritance, you know? The Bible uses similes of the land being our inheritance. And all these are just symbolic of an inheritance we can't really describe. We have the land of Canaan. God said it's your inheritance. God's given it to you. It's a fruitful land. And to this day, multiplied thousands feel Israel just gets that land back. They'll be settled in their inheritance. I think God gave him that land. And Abraham knew that he walked in the land. After he had separated from Lot, Abraham gave Lot his choice. It seems we're just not pulling together too well. You know, there's always disagreements between your herdsmen and mine. Lot, he had followed Abraham all the way from one of the counties. So he got up and went again and Lot followed. Lot seemed to have no particular revelation except, well, Abraham's a man of God. I'm going to follow him, you know. I think a lot of people sort of have that concept. I don't need to know God for myself, but I know he's a good pastor. He's a good man of God. But we can't be satisfied with that. We've got to come and know him. And Moses, you know, God's chosen vessel to deliver the nation. And Moses knew it. They were told that the Lord put in his heart to go and identify with the people who were in bondage in Egypt. So I don't know if that was a sudden thing or what, but he finds himself away from the palace. And down there with these humble Israelites working there in their brick pits, no doubt, or doing some heavy work. And he began to identify with them. God put in his heart. By faith, he forsook the comforts of Pharaoh's palace to identify with the people of God. His brethren is something that began to occupy his mind, the state of his brethren. For his mother who brought him up, even though he was raised in the court of Pharaoh, his mother was his nurse. For how many years, I don't know. She told him who he was and how God has brought him. Now is the time. So he goes out and identifies with his brethren. Sees one being beaten up by one of the Egyptian slave masters. He couldn't handle it. He went and took the man and killed him. Buried him in the sand. The next day, two of the Israelites' brethren was quarreling. They went up to separate them. He said, who made you a ruler and judged over us? Are you going to slay me like you slew the Egyptian yesterday? Well, he thought he had done that in secret. That word got around. And he knew Pharaoh would be after him, so he took off. You can't imagine the grief in Moses' heart when he thought he was doing something valuable for the sake of his people and, you know, avenging them in their distress. God had put in his heart, it seems, to share the lot of the people of God. And they rejected him, you know. Who are you to, you know? They didn't know. They didn't understand where their deliverance really lay. And so, it went against Moses to the point where he decided, I've just got to get out of here. He went off to the land of Midian and tended sheep for 40 years in the back side of the desert of Midian. Can you imagine what he would feel like when he said, I'm a prince in Egypt? For as far as he was concerned, he was one of his choice princes, according to secular history. I understand he was his favorite prince. And he blew it. He had political clout once, so he thought. Then he blew it. What was he thinking all those days, you know? But he must have loved God. He must have loved Him with all his heart. Must have puzzled a lot what went wrong. And he must have loved God. Because one day, just going about the ordinary occupation of his, the days of his exile from home, from Egypt, saw a little shrub there burning. And he watched it a bit, and then he looked at it again, and it still burned. I suppose like a tumbleweed of some kind. And what's wrong? That thing should have collapsed long ago. So I will turn aside and see what this is all about. God spoke. Take off thy shoes from off thy feet. For the place whereon thou standest is holy ground, and Moses bowed his head with reverence. God given us great commission. Go back to Egypt and deliver your people. But God, I tried that 40 years ago, and now I'm 80 years old, and God, don't call me, call somebody else. What all He said, but not me, Lord, was the emphasis He had. Anybody but me. Where's all that zeal gone, Moses, that you had one time? Strong, young prince in Egypt, and with political power. Where's it all gone? God was preparing him for the day when he would have lost all human zeal. That in the lack of human zeal, it would be replaced with the zeal of the Lord. Remember that scripture? The zeal of the Lord will do this. And there's nothing wrong with zeal, it's something God puts there. But like any other trait of our nature, it has to go to the cross. Whether it's music. Young people sometimes have musical talent. First thing you know, they're pushed over to ministry, unprepared. That has to be crucified before it comes forth in the song of the Lord. So God knows how to deal with the hearts of people that love Him, and that say, Lord, I want to go all the way with You. And then He begins to point out some of these pathways that His people have gone in the past. The people that were used of Him. Did God's will and accomplished great things in the kingdom. And that it takes preparation. Gotta know His way. And so Moses learned the ways of God a little. No doubt, in those 40 years, God called him, and he tried to get out of it. I can't, Lord, I can't, I can't even speak properly. God not me, you know. And it said the Lord actually got angry with him. But in spite of that, we know that God had prepared him for that hour, and God was insisting that he go, and his final excuse was, Lord, who am I to go down? I fled from that place because they're out to kill me. What have I got to go down there and deliver your people? What's that in your hand? A stick? He'd have, I guess, to tap the sheep once in a while, or the wolf came to take after him. A stick, God's a taker. Need any of our resources. What have you got? Oh, nothing really. A stick? Well, take that. Now, where's Moses? God was likening Moses to that stick. Dry stick. He delivered a nation in one night, perhaps two or three million of them, with a stick in his hand. So he went to Pharaoh and, you know, anything Moses would do that was miraculous, the Egyptians, the magicians would do, they'd do the same thing. There was a lot of power there in what we call the old cult. Moses would do something, they'd do something. Finally, Moses cast the stick on the ground and became a serpent. Come here, John. Can you do that? Sure. They cast their stick on the ground, they become a serpent. Moses' rod swallowed them all up. I know God doesn't really liken us to serpents. A serpent is an evil thing. But in a sense, God stoops down and takes from the gutter those who have been living the serpent life, you might say, and uses them to swallow up the serpents because of the false cults that are around. I believe God's going to do great things in the end time. I believe we have a picture of what God would do all through the Old Testament. That's why I like the Old Testament. When I began to realize it, wait now, this is speaking of something else. This is just a type, this is just a picture of something else. And that something else is what we want to know because what they did back there, that's centuries ago or millenniums ago and preserved here in the Word of God for our edification, our comfort, our hope. So we learn from the Old Testament, but we must get into the New Testament. For the first probably 17 years, I think, 18 of my Christian experience, I'd read the Bible through every year. But I'd read the New Testament again before I'd go through the Bible again. So I'd go through the Bible right through Revelation and then read the New Testament and then start over. And I look at the Word of God very highly. The Bible, the Scriptures. And I certainly never speak lightly of the Scriptures. But I know it's the letter. And I know that God all through the centuries has maintained this letter, this written Word of God. He's kept it. Oh, we say there's so many different ideas now of what this means and that. I know. There's a great language barrier between our English language and the Greek or our English language and the Hebrew. There's a Greek barrier there. And that used to bother me a little. One time when I had some time on my hands, I thought I'd get to know those original Scriptures. And I started with Greek. I studied it quite well for about three or four months. And then I had a different type of job. I had a night job at the time and I had most of the day there to do what I wanted. And people would come in. I was working up in a lime plant off Tixeta Island. I was with the conscientious objectors in the camp where most of them were Mennonites. We got along very well with each other. The Mennonites even asked me to give them Bible studies. Can you believe that? And really, that was my first time I did anything like that because I never did it back in the church I was going to. Of course, I was young. I was a pastor looking after things like that. But those were good days. And then after a few years, they gave us the option of going to some industry where they couldn't get men to go up because they could come down to the city there and get a job anywhere, you know. They couldn't get men to go up some of these isolated areas. And the Pacific Lime Company up on Tixeta Island was one of them, so if you want to go up there. And I heard reports that a lot of the boys that went there didn't like it. But anyway, I wanted to get out of the forester camp. I was in, so I volunteered. I was firing a lime kiln for a few months. One of those old type of kilns that reminded me of the furnace that Nebuchadnezzar threw the three Hebrew children in. It was a big thing. It went up about 50 feet, maybe. Anyway, they dumped the rock in. It trickled down. It got red hot, white hot, actually. The limes don't get white hot. And we had to stand there pushing in the logs of wood to keep the flames going up there and go down below after a certain length of time to draw out the lime. Anyway, we had some good fellowship there. Some of the brethren, men and knights, some of the brethren. So in all these things, you wonder, what's it all about, Lord? I felt from my earliest days as a child that I had to be a minister. And my concept, of course, growing up Pentecostal circle, more or less, although we were always independent, or some kind of independent Pentecostal meetings that we went to generally. Although I remember going to Nazarene and Salvation Army and Methodist and you name it. Because our folks were never really denominationally minded. So none of our family got stuck on this is the way, this is the church, we'll never leave this. Till this day, I mean, they go where they fell. The Lord wants them to go. Which, perhaps, wouldn't be for me, but, you know, that's their choice. I'm not saying it's good to go to these denominational churches, but that's been the beginnings of probably most of you people. Have you heard about the Lord? Perhaps most of you in your own home. Some of you know the Lord, maybe. Even in your home life as children, I don't know. What I'm saying is that God, from the beginning, has ordained a people for His glory, and He has His eye on you. He pedestines you. And you can't discover your destiny until you come to know Him. But He predestines. I'm not going to argue that point, which has divided the church all through church history. But it's wonderful to know that without even discussing it too thoroughly, whom He did foreknow, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son. So it's not a scary word when the destiny God has ordained for you and I is to be conformed to the image of Jesus. And so having that background and knowing God's desire for my life, just very, very vaguely, I felt I must know the Scriptures. And I thought if I just knew the Greek and Hebrew, what advantage would it be? After three or four months at a different job, I didn't have time to get into that. And I used to regret that later on. I knew so very little Greek. I wouldn't say I know any Greek, really, but I had enough to handle a concordance and things like that. But I think it is during those thoughts that the Lord gave me this understanding that the real Word of God is the Lord Jesus Himself, who was in the beginning with God and was God. That's the real Word. Infinite in its scope, infinite in its term. And then when man sinned, He had given creation as a revelation of Himself. Before man sinned, all creation spoke forth the glory of God. And even after he sinned, that's the only Bible man had, really, until God gave a written Word to Moses. How many centuries later, I don't know. Creation was the only Word man had. And it is so clear that the Apostle Paul said that no man is without excuse, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that he made, so that they are without excuse. Well, then, how do you find God then in nature? Well, you don't, really, because our minds are so darkened. But in the beginning, before the darkness had overwhelmed the human race, there was a knowledge of God that even after the fall, there was a knowledge of the true God. Even Cain the murderer. God talked to him, and he answered back, and God told him what to do. And he said, I'll put a mark upon you, and I'll preserve your life. And there was a revelation of God in the things that he made. But God is a God of unfolding revelation, I believe. And even though it's still true that in the things that God has made, men are without excuse, because there it is. You know very well that there's no kind of machine or invention that man will ever come to, although I think they have dreams of it, where you could make an apple tree and have it produce apples and tomatoes or whatever. And they might say, give us time, you know, and we'll do it. There's such a perverseness in the scientific world that we've got to get up there and find there has to be another planet. This is just a little speck of dust in the universe. There's got to be more like them, and we'll discover that. And first thing you know, we'll be able to know how to get there, and we'll have another planet to, you know, continue on our works. Nothing will hinder them. God said, if I don't stop them, they're going to build this tower if I don't intervene. You can be sure God's going to put a stop to this whole thing. And though they build their nest in the stars, God says, I'll bring them down. The thing is, there's billions and billions of dollars to land a thing up there on Mars. And people going, you know, and living in poverty all over America, many places. Get up there. Find a way to get up there. God won't allow that. He's given the Earth to the sons of men, and given man lordship over it. Man governs the Earth, and he hasn't made a good job of it. And as a result of his government of the Earth, the Earth and the state it's in now, which has to be undone. And I'm not saying that. I'm not talking about any number of years. I don't know. But when I was the age of you young people, it never occurred to us that planet Earth would wear out. Never occurred to us. Now they're afraid it's wearing out. Got to do something about it. Vegetation's wearing out. Heard a panel of scientists on the Earth a couple of months, a few months ago from different nations. The fish in the sea are in danger. They said if Canada and the states do not put a stop to this mass fishing of the oceans, within ten years there'd be hardly anything left. Great big trawlers with nets that go, I don't know, many hundred feet each side. Sweep them up there. They said, we don't stop it. Fish will become extinct. And so they're worried about these things. And of course about the global warming. And they're scared for planet Earth for the last 20, 30 years. Thought in my own heart that when Peter said, we know it's the last time and in the last days scoffers will come saying where's the promise that is coming for all things continue as they were from the beginning, they're not saying that. We've gone past that. They're not saying everything's the way it was from the beginning. They say things are getting worse. This planet can't survive the way we're going. We're going to use up all the oxygen. Cut down the forests which produce oxygen. We're going to lose it. You should understand the environmentalists getting concerned when they don't believe in God. We've got to save this planet. The Bible says it's all King Jesus, King Jesus over all the Earth now. Let's put all things under his feet. We don't see it yet, he said, but in God's mind and purpose he's declared Christ to be King over all the Earth. And that the old Earth he's going to take and he's going to wrap it together like a garment and set it to one side. But now we're at the same night. Years shall never end. So it's wonderful to have that hope but I don't know how... I can understand why there's such a sense of hopelessness in wealthy countries, in wealthy countries. You see, what hope is there? The whole thing is tottering. So let's thank him continually. God, you've opened my eyes to know that Lord Jesus, your King on the throne, God has established you in the holy hill of Zion, the heavenly Zion, the new Jerusalem, as King of all kings and Lord of all lords. And the time comes when you're going to deal with the iniquity in this world. That's what the book of Revelation is all about. It's the triumph of the Lamb. I understood that until maybe halfway through life, maybe a little less. Because out up in the church, the theme of Revelation was Antichrist. 666, beasts out of the sea. You know, hailstones. That was my thought of Revelation and it still is with most people. If you notice in the newspapers in recent times, how often they use the word apocalypse, thinking of things that could happen. Apocalyptic? Sounds like it's apocalyptic. What does it mean? It's on the way out. But that's not the word. That's not what apocalyptic means. Apocalypse is a Greek word translated the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's just the apocalypse. The apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which means taking away the veil. It's the revelation of Jesus. That's what his books are about. The unveiling of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when you read it in that light, you'll see all the way through. The Lamb overcomes. And then you see a people following the Lamb, whether it's whoever he goes. And they sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb, saying, Great and mighty are thy judgments, O God. They rejoice when Babylon falls. And the whole system, as we know it, collapses. There's going to be people rejoicing over it. What do we do then? The whole economy goes down. I don't know. What would Israel do when they got across the Red Sea and they sang the victories on there, free from their enemies? Now what? The next day, now what? They didn't know. But God had it all mapped out. He had it all mapped out for them. And they forgot that mighty deliverance from Egypt and began to murmur. And a day goes by. And their grub was getting a little lower in stock. And their water was maybe drying up. And two days go by, three days go by, and still nothing to eat around us at all. And they're complaining and crying out to Moses. And he cries out to God. And you suddenly see a pool of water down there. Oh, man, what a thrill! Well, I estimate there could be two to three million people, counting the little children, 240,000 young men ready for war. How many would that mean today if there was 240,000 men your age? Well, there's wives, there's children, there's older folks. Beyond the age of warfare, two or three million out there in the wilderness, nothing to eat that they could see, nothing to drink, no, that they could see. And we're facing days like that, I believe. And there'll be many people that will be totally devastated, not boasting that we won't. Let's never have any false boast, but now is the time, I believe, when God wants to assure us He's the same God as He was when Moses led the people across the Red Sea. Devastating Egypt, while they were there, devastated them, but sparing Goshen, where Israel lived, looking after them in Goshen. And of course, that was wonderful. Egypt's being judged, but He's looking after us. And then they leave Egypt. Now who's going to look after us? This is no Goshen. This is no place where you can grow gardens. No fruit trees here. God had it all figured out. So they saw this pool of water, and they go running to it, and they stoop down to drink and spit it out. Salty brine. Oh God, what are you doing to us? And I used to wonder, why would God do that in the first stage of their journey? When they were hungry and thirsty and famishing and weary of the trip down, I don't know how far it was, three days' journey. Here's a pool of water, and it's briny. And I think that some years later, I realized that whole journey through the wilderness was a picture God was giving you and I of the wilderness that we are. So going through the wilderness then is God's revelation of our own hearts and minds and thoughts. Revealing what's really there. He's redeemed us as He's not yet. He's redeemed us for His. But there's a fullness of redemption, I believe, yet to be revealed when we're redeemed fully from all that inner mass of corruption which He accomplished at the cross. And He's given us a foretaste of it, I know. But as long as we have that carnal nature alive within us, to me it's a sign that we have not yet entered into the full rest that pertains to the people of God. And God has it for us, but it's necessary we go through these wildernesses that God might reveal what's in our hearts. We examine our hearts. Oh, 90 percent? Yeah, 95 percent for God? Maybe. But David went further and he said, No, Lord, You search me. You search me and know me and try my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me. So we invite him to search us out because we can search out with faulty eyes and give ourselves a good grade. And God searches in. Oh, there's nothing can escape the gaze of those seven fiery eyes. And that's how He appears in the church when He rises up to deal with the church. It's an awesome picture we see in the book of Revelation. The Son of Man standing in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, which means I'm here in the church to deal with the iniquity of the church. And so in one of the churches He appears as He that liveth and was dead and was alive forevermore. And that was a persecuted church and many were being persecuted and slain for the cause of Christ. To others, I am He that hath a sword with a sharp, a mouth with a sharp... He said, I'm going to come against this church and fight against it with the sword of my mouth. So not this, but this that has become part of our being. The truth that God has written here to convey to us, but written within us. So certainly we honor the Scriptures. And I typed it out once. And I put references in here and there. I typed it out with a little portable typewriter. I brought it with me because when we go to Nanaimo, this little girl there heard about this guy that typed out the Bible. And I didn't know where she heard it from. She got my address from the teacher. I didn't know who she was. I thought I didn't. And she wrote me. I heard that you wrote the Bible. Well, I thought, what does she mean by that? And I understood that someone had told her to type out the Bible. I thought that was awesome. Tell me about... What do you know about the Lord? Or something like that. An 11-year-old girl. And so the next time I was out there, this teacher goes to the little group that hopefully we'll be going to next week. She's gone there many times. She wrote and asked to bring this Bible along. So I got it with me here. And just to show some of the students. So that's why I brought it, really. I do use it for study Bible. Well, the print is as big as this, maybe. A little bigger. But anyway, I love this book. I honor it. But I know that it's not finished there. What do you mean? It's not completed, having a Bible to take to church and to hear a preacher preach from it. That's not the purpose of it. That was the truth that's here to be so written in our hearts that we become, what does Paul say? Living epistles. We, the people. Living epistles, known and read of all men. And most people didn't have Bibles. Some of the scholars did. And perhaps some of the scriptures, Old Testament scriptures, were available. But the New Testament church, when it was found, didn't have a Bible. Paul, no doubt, had the copy of the Old Testament scriptures. Maybe some of the other apostles did. But they didn't have any New Testament written down. And that's when the church was founded and progressed and spread so rapidly throughout the Roman Empire that within a hundred years, the estimated half the empire had been converted to Christ. Because the people of God was that Bible. So I just mention that because, yeah, we must stand true to this Word. But it's our defense. We don't have to defend it. They've tried to wipe these scriptures from the earth many times. Never succeeded. God's kept it alive. But what I want to emphasize is He's kept it alive for His people that they might not just read it and know it and be able to write it out and so forth, but that it might be written within. And that's the New Covenant. We say the New Covenant, let's see, Matthew, Mark, Luke. Well, that's the letter of it. But the New Covenant is this. I will write my laws in their hearts and in their minds while I write them. And they shall be my people and I will be their God. That's the New Covenant. God writes it in you. So when I understood that more fully, I had no more regrets for not having studied Greek and Hebrew. Thankful for the little bit I did of Greek just so that I can handle the concordance a little bit. A word like apocalypse might give us a little more understanding. It's a revelation of Jesus Christ just here in the book. But what's in the book must be expressed in us and throughout the earth. The unfolding, the unveiling, the taking away of the veil from the hearts and minds of people. For there's a veil, the prophet said, that lies upon all people. A veil. Paul knew that. That's why he said, God gave me a ministration of the Gospel to cause men to see. We don't hear words like that. We've got the Gospel. We know the Gospel. Let's go to the nations with the Gospel. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John pass out the New Testament. And I do that. And I send New Testaments and Bibles to people that write me many times. That's not God's full intention. His full intention is that this which is called the New Covenant becomes a New Covenant here. Written not with ink, Paul says, but by the Spirit of the living God. Not with ink. Not on tables of stone, but with the precious tablets of the heart written there. That's the New Covenant. God's going to write that New Covenant in the hearts of His people. I believe the time has come when God wants us to know that and be ready for Him to begin writing. Write it, Lord, in your hearts. Our minds. I think my mind is the thing that is my greatest problem. My heart, I think, is right with God, but my mind can get off into such tangled areas. And Lord, clear my mind of all this stuff. Clear my mind. And the enemy is there to clog our minds with all kinds of stuff. You can't walk down the street without seeing the works of the enemy. And Lord, give us the mind of Jesus. I believe God will have a people that walk down the streets of Vancouver and see all the sin and iniquity and debauchery that goes on. And through it all, look at it with the mind of Jesus. Not disturbed, not frustrated by it. I don't know what. Lord of all. He's Lord of all. God wants to give us the mind of Jesus. I believe God wants a people walking on the earth as Jesus was. With His heart, with His mind. The same mind. He's given it to us. See, I know, Lord, but there has to be an unfolding of it. I know You put it there. There has to be the full growth of it. There has to be the metamorphosis of this worm that we are. There has to be a metamorphosis. I remember, I'll never forget as a kid, almost every spring, I don't know how old I was when I quit doing it, I'd find this fuzzy caterpillar, because somebody told me you could do that, put them in a jar, put some leaves in there, maybe a drop of moisture once in a while, and put holes in the lid of the jar. To me, it's the most fascinating thing in life was to see two or three weeks later the most beautiful creature come out of that cocoon, and I'd take them out and I'd let them fly. I mean, it's totally amazing. Worm. They'd say I'm a worm, no matter. Yeah, that's what we are. God wants to transform us. He wants to make us not crawling creatures, but creatures of the heavenly atmosphere. Fly in the pure air of the heavenly realms. That's for us. In this life. I can't shake that off, even though I'm getting older.