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- Desert Survival Series Pt 4 Moses The Man Of God
Desert Survival Series Pt 4- Moses the Man of God
Don Courville

Don Courville (dates unavailable). American pastor and evangelist born in Louisiana, raised in a Cajun family. Converted in his youth, he entered ministry, accepting his first pastorate in 1975. Associated with the “Ranchers’ Revival” in Nebraska during the 1980s, he preached to rural communities, emphasizing repentance and spiritual renewal. Courville hosted a radio program in the Midwest, reaching thousands with his practical, Bible-based messages. He pastored Maranatha Baptist Church in Missouri and facilitated U.S. tours for South African preacher Keith Daniel while moderating SermonIndex Revival Conferences globally. Known for his humility, he authored articles like Rules to Discern a True Work of God, focusing on authentic faith. Married with children, he prioritized addressing the church’s needs through revival. His sermons, available in audio, stress unity and God’s transformative power, influencing evangelical circles.
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the training of Moses, both at home and in the world. He emphasizes the importance of what goes into our minds, as it shapes our actions and character. The speaker highlights that while Moses was prepared for many things, he was not initially ready to deliver Israel and lead them out of Egypt. Moses needed further training and a deeper experience, which he gained through his time in the desert. The sermon concludes by encouraging listeners to set their minds on things above and to seek to know the ways of God.
Sermon Transcription
Turn in your Bibles, if you would, this morning to Exodus chapter 2. This is our Desert Survival series, fourth message. Moses, the man of God. Before we read this passage of scripture, let me back up a little bit from last time. We looked last week at the training of Moses at home. Today, we're going to spend our time mostly with the training of Moses in the world. And the reason we're going to do that is we want to see why Moses did what he did. It's very important as to what is the primary source of information for our mind. We know that the scripture teaches, Jesus taught us, that whatever goes into our mind, this is what we act like, this is what we become. All life must be fed. Did you know that? All life must be fed. And Jesus, in this realm of our spiritual life, said that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Every word is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, and so forth. And then something else I want to share with you on the life system that we have. And it says, I got to thinking about this area, because Jesus shared in Matthew 22, 37, He said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And we as Christians had better pay attention to this, because I believe we can commit spiritual adultery very easily by getting entangled with things of the world. If I was to have one statement for today, a propositional statement, it would probably be this. A worldly mind will produce a worldly life, and a spiritual mind, or a heavenly mind, will produce a heavenly life, or a spiritual life. It's just as simple as that. And as we're looking at Moses through this series, we're looking at Moses, how God raised him up, how God put him into the desert to make him the man that He wanted him to be. We're also seeing how God is allowing us to go through deserts so we can be what God wants us to be. The Bible says set your affection, your mind, your thoughts on things above, and not on things on the earth. And we saw last week how the parents of Moses gave him, I believe, the best possible training that they could have given to him at that time. But today we want to see how Moses thought, what he thought in relation to the world of God and God. We're going to see an interesting thing in his life, in his training. But let's read now Exodus chapter 2, verses 11 and down through 15, and then we'll pray. Starting with verse 11. And it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens. And he spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, one of his brethren. And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together, and he said unto him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? Intentest thou to kill me as thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared and said, Surely this thing is known. Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well. Let's bow for prayer. Father, would you add your blessing to the reading of your word, and would you open up our minds to the teaching of the word. Holy Spirit, do the work that you want to do this morning. I offer myself as available to you, and I pray that each of us would offer our minds, our bodies, our souls to you this morning, and say, God, would you do a work in my life? Would you tell me something? Speak to me this morning. Would you show me if there's something wrong in my life? Be glorified in my life, where I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. We want to get right into it this morning in the training of Moses. The training of Moses was basically in the world. In the world's educational system. And the worldly education is okay. I've had a fair chunk of it myself. I've had three universities where I've picked up a little bit at each one. But I've found out something about that. Unless God is able to use it, he doesn't get the glory. And if I'm not careful, secular education, or even biblical education, can just be used for self, to do what I want to do. It's just, can God get the glory in my life, through what comes into my life, and all that goes out of my life? I want to read you a passage of scripture in Acts chapter 7, 21, 22, which gives us a little bit about his education. And then I'm going to share a little bit more about it as we go on. But in 21 of that verse in Acts 7, it says, When he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son. Nourished is a word for feeding. He was fed, I believe, physically. And they tried to feed him spiritually in the pagan religions, but I don't believe he would take it. He wouldn't buy it. He wouldn't soak it in. He wouldn't absorb it. But he did absorb the educational training that was given to him. For it says, And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds. Now, that education was okay. It's okay for Moses, it's okay for you, as long as it's not the supreme influence in your life. The supreme influence in the life of Moses was God. He never forgot his early training. There in the home with his mom and dad and his family. How they pumped into him scripture. How they told him history. Israel's history and how God was going to send a Messiah. And all of that. And I believe that his mother probably believed that he might have been the Messiah. But it didn't turn out like that. But the supreme influence in his life was not that education. It was his training that he got at home. God was the supreme influence. And he never forgot it. He never moved away from it. Your soul life, the level where your life progresses and arises from the very innermost being of you, your soul life, is on the level of thought. It's on that level of the ideas that come into our mind. So it is very essential that this level is the supreme level in relation to God. And we saturate ourselves in that level. That's why Jesus said, You won't live on bread alone. Man shall not live. In other words, the biblical man, the believer, will not live and shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And Moses was raised in that way. By the way, Jesus, just before he went back to heaven, he told his disciples in the Lord's Prayer in John 17, he says, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world. Jesus knows that we have to live in the world, that his disciples had to live in the world. But he did pray this, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. The root of that goes back to the pornos. So much of this world is pornography for our spiritual life. Spiritual pornography along with the regular pornography. Now the Bible tells us that Moses, he grew up, he was mighty in what? In words and deeds. In words, I believe that Moses was a statesman. And when we get over there to when he doesn't want to go out and be a statesman for God, we're going to learn some things about that. But he was a statesman. He could get up and give a political speech to the whole nation. He was a man of character. They looked up to him. He was mighty in words and also in deeds. That means as a leader. Probably a military leader. He could lead the nation. He was raised up in their system to be that type of a man. Actually I believe his education covers seven areas. Now if you'll pay attention to these seven areas when I get done, you should pick it up right away. He was trained highly in organization. He was trained highly in discipline. He was trained highly in the area of patience. He was trained highly in the area of administration. And he was trained highly in the area of communication and also authority, those seven areas. And as we follow the life of Moses, we'll see that all seven areas God uses in his life to lead the children of Israel. And even in the apostle Paul, if you go look at him, with all of his training, God uses that. God just does not throw it out the window and say, that's no good. No, he will use that which has come into our life if he can get the glory for it. So, Moses was a man mighty in words and deeds. And then verse 23 goes on to say, and when he was a full 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. Now if I can throw in a little inflection here, maybe what you might want to call it, if it's an exegesis passage, where we call it eisegesis, where you read into the passage. I just wonder if Moses, as he was raised up, was waiting for his 40th birthday. Now why would he wait for his 40th birthday? Most of us, when we begin to get up to that age, we begin to say, hey, these things are clicking by pretty fast. And I don't want that 40th one because that seems to be a major one to some people. And I've got one coming up this year. We'll see if I have a crisis on that. But, I wonder if Moses didn't think that all of these years, God is raising me up to lead the children of Israel. And when I get to be 40, that's going to be the year. Because when a man reached 40 in the Hebrew nation, that was the age that he really stepped into the limelight of being the leader. And if you remember, Jesus waited until he was 30 before he went into his public ministry. Young men, they had to be quiet. They just had to listen and learn. And then when they got older, they could go into more public things. From age 30, and then at 40, was a major break into leadership. But I just wonder if Moses, all those years, when he was 20, Moses, do you want to be the Pharaoh? You're the next one in line. You can be the Pharaoh. At 20 years of age, history tells us, he said no. He turned it down. And then history also records again, at age 25, do you want to be the Pharaoh? You're Pharaoh's daughter. You can be the Pharaoh. He turned it down again. And then the years rolled by. 30, 35, and now 40. At age 40, Moses said no, the last time to be in the Pharaoh. He was raised up to be a Pharaoh. All seven areas were training him to be the Pharaoh of the greatest nation on earth at that time. But he said no. And I believe the reason he said no was because he knew that God wanted to use him to lead him out of Israel. He wanted to use him to lead Israel out of Egypt. He knew that in his heart. He said, God has allowed me to be saved. I wasn't drowned in the river. The crocodiles didn't eat me. And all those years of training his mother gave him and then the witness of the Spirit of God in his heart, he knew that God was going to use him. And so when he got to be 40, as we read in our passage, he said, I believe he's got to think, and it's now or never. I've waited all these years, 40 years. And so when we come to that passage, when he came out one day and he saw two of the Hebrews driving together, he just had such a burden for Israel, for his nation. He couldn't stand to see them fighting. That really tore him. So he went in there and got in between them and said, why are you doing this? Let's break it up. We're brethren. And then the next day when he saw an Egyptian doing that to a Hebrew, he killed the Egyptian. We're going to get into that in just a second. But I believe that he's thinking, I'm going to lead them. And this is the time, I believe he was making his move. He rejected the pharaoh ship, and now he's making his move. And I don't know what his plans were, how he planned on doing it, but we're going to see what God does in all of this. But maybe he thought it's now or never. We're going to make our move. I'm going to identify myself, and I'm going to lead my nation. Maybe he thought there'd be a rebellion or whatever, but they were going to make their break. I don't know what his thoughts was, but I knew that he did know and think that he was going to be the deliverer. Now, let's learn some principles from this Exodus passage. Remember, as we go through this desert survival series, the principles that you gain from this will be the most valuable thing that you can use in your life. We're not going through this just for fun and games. We're going through this because we need to know these things to survive in life. And I believe this is why Satan will try to keep you away from these messages. This is why he'll try to keep me from giving these messages. These are vital, all right? The first principle. I'm going to just state it, and I'll give you the specific principle in a second. But verse 11, notice. It came to pass in those days when Moses was grown that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens. He spied on the Egyptians, spied on the Hebrews, one of his brethren. I mean, oh, he killed that Egyptian. He didn't like that. But here's a principle here, the principle of carrying a burden. Who gave Moses the burden? God did. Moses loved his people even though he was raised up. If Moses would have walked down the street, you would have thought he was Egyptian because later on in the passage here when he ended up out there in Midian and one of the daughters came out to get water, who helped you out? This Egyptian did. He's dressed like an Egyptian. He looked like an Egyptian. He walked like an Egyptian. He talked like an Egyptian. But he didn't have an Egyptian heart. And we may be like that in the world. We may dress and talk. Our talk will be godly though. But you know, in our communication in the world, if we're in the business, you know, if we're in the computers, we talk computer talk. If we're in mechanics, we talk mechanic talk. We just talk like anybody else in the world. But we don't have a worldly heart. He didn't have an Egyptian heart. A lot of people talk like Christians, dress like Christians, act like Christians, go to church like Christians, but they don't have a Christian heart. The heart is the important thing. Now he had a heart that had a burden for his people. God gave him that burden. But somebody else had the burden first. And that was God. And he needed to keep his eyes on God. And for a second here, we're going to see what Moses does. He lets his burden get carried away. He lets his emotions maybe get carried away when he sees this Egyptian killing somebody that he has a love for, a burden, and he gets carried away and he kills the Egyptian in turn. Now, here's the principle on burdens. We mentioned burdens as this. If you want to know Christ, do you want to know the Lord? If you want to know the Lord Jesus Christ and really know Him, then you will know Him by knowing what hurts Him. If you want to know Christ, you will know Him by knowing what hurts Him. It will hurt you also. Now, is that biblical? You bet your boots. Philippians 3.10. And you know you're not supposed to bet either. But anyway, Philippians 3.10. Paul said what? That I might know Him. Have you ever wanted to know Him? Okay. Philippians 3.10 is the verse. That I might know Him in what? The power of His resurrection. What was the power of His resurrection? Well, that's the power of the crucified life. If we will die to self and just let Him live His life through us, that's the resurrection life. It's a powerful life. But Paul said that I might know Him in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death. It sometimes scares me when I get to looking at this verse, but I want to know Him. And I want to know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. And we don't have time to get into it this morning. But this principle, if you want to know Christ, then you get to know Him by becoming acquainted with the power of His resurrection, living the crucified life, just dying to self and sin. Whatever you would want, just make sure that's what God would want, that it would be okay with Him. And get on into it and then you'll identify and you'll learn Him. But this principle of the burden, if you want to know Christ, then you get to know what hurts Him. And you get to know Him by getting into the Word. Study His life. Follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Learn the Word of God. This is why many things in my life I've had to stop. And there's maybe some things yet that I need to cut out. Because I found out that they hurt Him. And whatever hurts Him, I want it to hurt me too. I don't want to hurt Him. I want to be like Him. I want to love Him and know Him. Now, Jesus, let's throw it over for a second. Jesus is the greatest burden bearer the world has ever known because the Bible says in Isaiah 53 that He had borne our griefs and He had carried our sorrows. When He went to the cross, He carried all our grief. He bore all our sorrows. He bore all of our sin. And I was studying on this passage this week and something really gripped me like it never gripped me before. But the thing about the cross was not the cross itself, the piece of wood or that tree. And not just the fact that He died. The thing about it was that when He died, He made His soul an offering for our sin. And for three hours, all of the demons of hell and all of those demonic atrocities converged on Him and attacked Him. God the Father had to turn His back on Him. For those three hours, He experienced all of our sin, all of the evil of the world. He bore our griefs, He carried our sorrows, He became sin for us. He is the greatest burden bearer. So when you, as you go through day by day, week by week, moment by moment even, whatever is a burden to you, whatever begins to break you down and bury you down and burden you down, come back to Him and let Him have it. He can handle it. He is already borne all of the grief and all of the sorrow. And we go through some pretty deep things. But He is the great burden bearer, the great sin bearer. And there is another principle in this. I don't want to stay all this time on the burden, but it's this. This principle here, you are not able to bear your burden alone. I think this is where Moses got out of bounds a little bit. He began to carry that burden alone too much. And then he felt like he had to do it all himself. Well, he was going to do it all right, but it wasn't going to be all himself. And the reason, I think that Moses maybe tended to have a problem in this area, because later on when he is leading the children of Israel through the desert, and they are going through all their trials and the experiences that we are going to see and we are going to experience too by way of identifying with them, at one point the people were complaining and they displeased the Lord and Moses was not happy with them and they wanted manna and they weren't happy with the manna when they got it. You know, they wanted some food and they weren't happy with that. Complaining, you know, all of that. The scripture says in Numbers 11, 11, it says, And Moses said unto the Lord, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? And wherefore have I not found favor in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me? He began to relapse again a little bit, thinking that all of this, it was all his responsibility. And it wasn't. And we get the feeling like that sometimes. If life is a burden to you, then you are carrying a load that Jesus never did intend you to carry. We are going to have some trials and things that weigh us down and everything. But the burden that we are talking about is the type of thing that will just destroy you and will make you do things that you shouldn't do, as Moses did. You are not able to bear your burden alone. I can't bear it. And sometimes I try to and it begins to bend me over. And I'll begin to complain and mumble and rumble and maybe feel sorry. And you will too. And maybe get discouraged or get depressed or whatever you go through. I used to go through the depression, the discouragement especially. Don't do it anymore. There are certain other things that I have to watch out for. But years, I'd get discouraged. And that's just because I had my eyes on myself. Moses, keep your eyes on me! And he's telling us that too. The greatest burden that we'll bear though is the burden of sin. We need to watch out for that. We watched a show last week on TV and after we got done, we questioned whether or not we should watch it or not. It wasn't that bad of a show. It was the one on vital signs. Maybe you watched it. And some of these shows, I don't know how they are going to end up. But that one there ended up, there was a father who was an alcoholic. He was a doctor. And the son, he was a doctor too. But he was a drug addict. And both of them were being defeated by their problem. And so the father ends up killing himself. That's his solution. Kill himself. While the son, he ends up, he tries to break his own drug habit himself. He goes off, they get a room, a place and his wife and he tries to do it himself. And you know, he can't do it. And the whole thing was, he comes back, the whole point of the whole message, you need help. And so he goes into the treatment program they have, voluntarily gives up his license. But that's the way the world is. They do everything to help you and do everything they can to try to get you through. But they never do come to God. They always leave him out. And you can't get through life without God. And the greatest burden of sin, you'll never make it without the Lord. But I just thought about that story. The burden of trials of life. Think about Matthew 11, 28. We're really getting hung up on burdens here. Maybe we need to be here this morning. But Jesus said, come unto me, listen, come unto me all you that are heavy laden and I will give you rest. As your sin is bearing you down, he says, come to me and just let me take this sin off your shoulders. Let me cleanse you. Let me give you this rest. Salvation is a great rest. It's a great relief of all your sins. And then what happens as a Christian? We get enticed and we get back off into sin again and we get this burden of sin on us again that Christ has already paid for. But then he said, take my yoke upon me and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. If you're a Christian and you're being burdened down with something, then you're not carrying the same burden that Christ wants you to carry. You're under another yoke. And this is no yoke, you know. There's no joke. This is no joke that Christ gives us that bears you down. His yoke, whatever he gives you to do, you're going to be able to take it. And there's going to be joy in your heart because he's on the other end of that yoke. Well, Moses had to learn this and I think he relapsed as we go back into Numbers and when we get there we'll see that he had this little relapse of this thing. But he got carried away and thought he had to carry the burden alone. You know what that caused him to do? It caused him to presume. And he made a presumption. He made two wrong presumptions, I believe. And maybe when we get to heaven he might get me straightened out on some of this stuff. But I believe he presumed, number one, that the Hebrew was on his side. Do you notice? First of all, he turned against the Egyptian. He saw this Egyptian smiting this Hebrew and he went and he killed him and buried him in the sand. He looked this way and he looked that way and nobody's looking. But he forgot to look up. And what I mean by that, he forgot to say, can I do this to the glory of God? No, you can't do that because you're not supposed to kill. And I believe maybe, maybe part of the thing of him being out there was God had to put him in jail for a little while. Get him out there. You've killed a man, Moses. That wasn't in my will. I don't believe it was God's will for a man to be killed, to be murdered like that because that's a basic guideline in scripture. But Moses presumed that the Hebrew was on his side when he went to break up the Hebrews. And the Hebrews, you're an Egyptian. Moses said, I'm going to identify with you. No, you're not. You're an Egyptian. You're going to kill us like you killed that other Egyptian. He assumed that they were on his side and I believe then also he presumed that God was on his side. Well, God, the Bible tells us, is no respecter of persons. He's no respecter of persons. And Moses killed. Killing is sin. And it was an effort in the flesh. Galatians 5, 13 through 17 tells us all of the things that come from flesh. Killing is one of them. Murder. Murdering others with our tongue. And then the result of this action. What's the result? He says, uh-oh. I made a mistake. I have stepped out. I broke from Egypt by killing this Egyptian. I've identified with the Hebrews. I've cut myself off behind. And now these guys don't want me. I am hung. And I'm just adding into that. But the result, he learned, he did not rule over them. He thought, I'm going to step forward. I'm going to be their leader. They say, no, you're not our leader. He cut it off behind and they cut off in front. Here he is hung. Do you ever get hung? You know? You ever get out on a tree branch or something? You get hung there and somebody has to help you out? That's the way he is. He's hung there. Now, what's he going to do? I believe he learned he made a mistake. So what do you do when you make a mistake? Do you ever make a bad mistake? Do you ever get afraid after you made it? That's what Moses did. He got afraid. Look at the passage. You know? Moses, they said, who made you a prince over us? Are you going to kill us like the Egyptians? And he says, Moses feared. And said, surely this thing is known. Moses feared. Where there is no faith, there will be fear. And where there is fear, there won't be any faith. So there was fear instead of faith. The Bible says, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. I believe Moses stepped out of the will of God at this point. I believe he's done pretty good up to this point. But the principle is, if you can't ask God's blessing on it, then don't do it. And I don't believe Moses could have asked his blessing on it at this point. Now, verse 14. What do you do when things get tough? You want to run. Right? What did Moses do? He said, surely, you know, I'm in trouble, 15. Pharaoh says, he's in trouble. Pharaoh heard this saying. He sought to slay Moses. Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well. He headed for the, down where I come from, we say he headed for the woods. Down there, he headed for the desert. You know? What's going to happen now that he gets down in this desert? We run. He fled. There are three concluding things I want to say on this passage, and we're going to close up on it. Number one. His training prepared him for a lot of things, but it did not prepare him to deliver Israel. It did not prepare him for that. He was not ready to lead a nation of 2 or 3 million people out into a desert to follow God. It's just like he needed some heart training. He needed some deeper experience. He needed the desert survival course. And we need it too. And we're going to get it. It reminds me of a shoe salesman when I was in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska. I was in there getting some shoes, and this guy over here cussing around. Thought he was a sailor. Ex-sailor. Almost felt like asking him, are you an ex-sailor? You know? No, come to find out, he was an ex-missionary. Oh, okay. Figures the ex part I can see. You know? And, you know, he didn't have the training in the heart to be a missionary. That's why he's a shoe salesman. Not a very good shoe salesman either. We didn't buy shoes. But Moses needed some deeper training. And just the fact that he exploded forth in this energy of the flesh, slew the Egyptians, was proof of it. God allowed these things, and God uses these things. Now, he needed spiritual training. Another thing, number two, he didn't understand that before he could lead Israel, he had to learn to follow God. To the T. You know? Right to the point. And he'd been following God except to this point he wasn't following God. Because God does not cause us to do things in the energy of the flesh. Thou shalt not kill. Later on, he gives in this commandment. Thou shalt not kill. But in his heart, he knew that he shouldn't kill. You go all the way back to the beginning. When Cain slew Abel, he knew that he was wrong. The heart will bear witness when you're wrong. And this is why he was afraid. If he'd done it in faith, if it was with God, he'd have had no fear. And he would have withstood. And then a third thing. Moses knew what God wanted. Do you know that? Moses knew it. Moses knew that God wanted Israel out of there. He knew the scriptures. But what Moses didn't know, and what you and I don't always know, is this. He didn't know when, and he didn't know how. This is why when we pray, we say, if it's your will, Lord, I want this. And it's not a cop-out by faith either. We don't bully God around. But Moses knew what God wanted, but he just didn't know when, and he didn't know how. The when was 40 years later. I just wonder what would have happened if he'd stayed there for those 40, you know, just to see what God would do. Let God make the move. And he didn't know that God was going to lead them down into that desert like that. They wanted to go home, back over to Israel. A straight course would have been the way. But he didn't know how God was going to do it. And here's the last principle I'm going to share with you. It's this. God's timing is as important as God's training. God's timing is as important as His training. So as we go through the lessons that He's going to let us have, let's don't get ahead of Him and let's don't get behind Him. Let's just stay with Him and let Him do what He wants to do. We sometimes want to get excited. You know, when Christ came, they didn't understand God's timing. They didn't understand God's ways. They didn't understand God's reason. You see, Christ came and He came to die on the cross. They didn't understand that. The ways of God are often foolish to the ways of the world. But they didn't understand God's timing because they wouldn't read God's Word. God's Word told them the time that He'd come. Daniel, when we get through with Daniel, we're going to see that Daniel prophesied to the day when the Messiah would come. They could have known it. They didn't want it. But they didn't understand God's way. If they'd understood Scripture and followed Scripture, they would have understood that God's way had to be a sacrifice of His Son because He had told them. Isaac was a type of Christ when Abraham took Him to the altar. And they didn't understand God's reason. God's reason was that they need to be saved by faith and trust the blood of Christ alone for their salvation. But they thought, God's way is we'll do our works. We'll do all this and that. It doesn't work out that way. I was just thinking of some verses. Let me share them with you quickly and then we'll close up. David said in Psalms 27 and 11, Teach me thy way, O Lord. Teach me thy way, O Lord. And then Isaiah 53, verse 6 says, All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. So we need the Lord to teach us His way for salvation. His way is you just trust Christ as your Savior. And then David said, Teach me thy way, O Lord. In Psalms 86 and 11, I will walk in thy truth. The way of the Lord is always directly in proportion to His word. He'll never lead you contrary to His word. So he says, Teach me thy way, O Lord. I will walk in thy truth. And then he says, Unite my heart to fear thy name. We walk in the fear of the Lord. Then also he said this in Psalms 103, 7, And this will be the difference between the Moses and just the crowd. You see, God wants you to be a Moses. He wants you to be an eagle. He wants you to be an overcomer. He wants you to be able to stand above the crowd. He doesn't want you to be washed here and there by different doctrines and emotions and things. He wants you to be solid amidst all the storms. The difference between the Moses and just the multitudes was this. In Psalms 103 and verse 7, it says, He made His ways known unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel. His ways were made known unto Moses, but His acts unto the children of Israel. And what that's saying is, because God drew Moses to Him and Moses went through the experiences, he went through the desert survival training series. He went through the trials and he let God teach him things and sure, he made some mistakes. But he didn't make near as many as I've already made. We're going to learn from his mistakes and things. But he knew the way of God. He understood the heart of God. And it says in that scripture that the multitudes just knew the actions of God. They could just see the actions. They could see the thunder. They could see the manna come down. They could see the pillar of cloud. They could see the enemies being overthrown. They could see the sea part. They could see these things. But they didn't know what God was doing. But Moses did. This is why it says, He made His ways known unto Moses and His acts unto the children of Israel. Don't you want to know the ways of God? I do. There's a lot of blessing there. Let's bow for prayer. Father, thank You for this time this morning. And as we're getting these introductory sessions underway, we're learning principles already that we'll see as we go on applied in the life of Moses. And then we'll see that we need these things in our lives. Holy Spirit, You take these things now and You use these things in our life. These principles are so vital. We may forget the message. We may forget the messenger. But we better not forget these principles that the Spirit of God teaches us. Because these principles, we can apply into all kinds of different situations. Thank You for giving them to us, Lord. We know that we can apply them. We know that we should. Holy Spirit, You help us to do it. And if there's one here today that needs Christ as their Savior, Lord, You draw them to You. You help them to make the decision that they need to make to follow Christ. To surrender all to the Lord Jesus. For we know, and we're finding out, if we don't surrender all, then whatever we try to keep, we lose. We've learned that principle. But whatever we give to You, we get to keep. Even to the point of our very innermost life, our time, our thoughts. If we'll just give that to You, our time, and even give our thought life to You, we'll keep it. And we'll find that it, in turn, is the thing that makes us stable and makes us usable to You. But if we try to be selfish, Lord, as many times we learn, if we try to do what we want to do, just study what we want to study, go where we want to go, memorize just what we want to memorize, then all of that produces death to the Christ life. Thank You, Lord, for this time now. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Desert Survival Series Pt 4- Moses the Man of God
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Don Courville (dates unavailable). American pastor and evangelist born in Louisiana, raised in a Cajun family. Converted in his youth, he entered ministry, accepting his first pastorate in 1975. Associated with the “Ranchers’ Revival” in Nebraska during the 1980s, he preached to rural communities, emphasizing repentance and spiritual renewal. Courville hosted a radio program in the Midwest, reaching thousands with his practical, Bible-based messages. He pastored Maranatha Baptist Church in Missouri and facilitated U.S. tours for South African preacher Keith Daniel while moderating SermonIndex Revival Conferences globally. Known for his humility, he authored articles like Rules to Discern a True Work of God, focusing on authentic faith. Married with children, he prioritized addressing the church’s needs through revival. His sermons, available in audio, stress unity and God’s transformative power, influencing evangelical circles.