"THE PERFECT WILL OF GOD"

Exod 3:1-10  Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, [even] to Horeb. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush [was] not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here [am] I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest [is] holy ground. Moreover he said, I [am] the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which [are] in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Exod 3:12-14  And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this [shall be] a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses said unto God, Behold, [when] I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What [is] his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

Reve 1:10-18  I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send [it] unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks [one] like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and [his] hairs [were] white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes [were] as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance [was] as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I [am] he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

In both the Exodus and Revelation of Jesus Christ God appeared in similar visions.

• He appeared to Moses in a burning bush.
• He appeared to John in the midst of burning candlesticks.

• Moses was told that Israel would be set free, highlighted by plagues and entracne into a land flowing with milk and honey.
• John was told to write things that would shortly come to pass, highlighted in the world being plagued, and God's people delivered from the entire world to enter a new heaven and a new earth.

Exod 3:17  And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.

Exod 3:20  And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.

Thus, we clearly see that the messages to Israel in Egypt and to the Church in the world are similar, the former pre-figuring the latter.

There is an all -important truth we must recognize in God's message to Moses, and receive the reality that it foreshadowed to Israel.

Exod 3:8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

God was going to do the delivering.

• Nobody else but God.
• Moses attempted to do so 40 years earlier, and failed miserably.
• Moses knew he was going to be involved.
• But it was a revelation to realize just how he would be used.

• Pharaoh ordered that all Hebrew males be slain due to the rapid multiplication of Hebrews in Egypt, precipitating a fear that they might rise up against Egypt in their slavery and break the kingdom.
• After the midwives disobeyed Pharaoh, he ordered a second massacre.

Exod 1:22  And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

Exod 2:1  And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took [to wife] a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he [was a] goodly [child], she hid him three months. And when she could not 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 brink.

She laid him in an ark and floated him in the very river where the infants were thrown to be drowned and fed to the crocodiles.

• And when he floated downt towards the palaces of Pharaoh, Pharaoh's daughter found him and recovered him out of the water.

Exod 2:10  And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

• Since it was waters of death wherein Hebrew children were drowned, and since he was taken from that water, we see a picture of resurrection.
• Put into the place of death and receovered from it again is a picture of resurrection from the dead.

John 11:25  Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

• He would go to the place where all died, death, and come forth from the dead in resurrection power.

• Pharaoh's arch enemy was being raised under his own roof, while Pharaoh was footing all the bills for his education, and Pharaoh knew nothing of it.
• Similarly, Jesus was removed into Egypt while a massacre of infants occured at the hand of Herod for fear of a new King rising up and removing him from the throne of Judah.

Matt 2:12-13  And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

Later, when Jesus died, he again went into the stronghold of the devil -- the real stronghold -- into death, and there conquered death itself.

Hebr 2:14  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

Acts 7:25  For he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they understood not.

It was then that Moses saw the burning bush.

• It was then that a revelation came to Moses about how Israel would be set free.

• God's voice spoke forth from that plant.

• The candlestick was the menorah of the Hebrew Tabernacle and Temple, with seven branches.
• This candlestick was fashioned like a plant -- a tree.
• An ALMOND TREE.
• And it was made to appear like a burning tree.
• And from it, Jesus SPOKE to John as God spoke to Moses from the burning bush.

Exod 3:14  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

Reve 1:17-18  And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I [am] he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

• I AM was dead is alive for evermore.
• Who spoke to John?
• T he same I AM who spoke to Moses.
• And this I AM said He was dead and is alive forever more.
• THAT IS JESUS.
• Jesus is the GREAT I AM.
• The same God who spoke to Moses from the bush!

• Beforehand, Moses did everything on his own.
• But God corrected him and told him that GOD would deliver Israel and USE Moses, much like Jesus said He was the vien and we the branches, and we would only bear fruit by abiding in the vine.

• Moses found out he could not overcome anything in his own power.
• It would be in God's power that Moses overcomes.

Exod 3:11-12a  And Moses said unto God, Who [am] I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be with thee

• Moses failed and failed in the past, but this time God would be certainly be with Moses!
• You may have failed and failed, trying to overcome the odds against you in life.
• But you need to be corrected, as Mposes was corrected, and stop trying to do everything yourself.
• You need to know that God is one who overcomes.
• And He will be with you -- certainly.
• YOU CAN MAKE IT.

• And the candlesticks were said to be the seven churches.
• The church of God must learn and understand that Jesus is in her midst.
• And we will overcome!
• The victory of the church is not some innate, human power that makes christians better than anybody else.
• The power is innate, alright, but not in the christians themselves.
• It is JESUS CHRIST IN THEM.

1. I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians...
2. I will rid you out of their bondage...
3.  I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments...
4.  I will take you to me for a people
5.  I will be to you a God
6.  I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob...
7. I will give it you for an heritage.

• This is referring to the WILL OF GOD.
• Seven is the "PERFECT" number, or the COMPLETE number.
• This is displaying to us the PERFECT WILL OF GOD.

• So many sincere believers seek "the perfect will of God" for their lives.
• And so many struggle to know it.
• But here it is!!

• It is understanding that your own power can never accomplish this kind of work.
• Without him you can do nothing (John 15:5).

John 15:5  I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

• This is precisely the picture John saw in the Revelation of Jesus.
• Branches, being seven churches, are who we are.
• And Jesus is the LIFE in the midst of the vine from which the church-branches grow.
• And the message Jesus was saying as the vine to we the branches, was the same message Moses heard when he saw the Lord speak from the burning bush, and what John heard when he saw Jesus in the Candlesticks shaped like branches.
• That message is "WITHOUT ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING.

Phil 4:13  I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Apostle Paul told the Romans the exact same thing!

Roma 12:1-15  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think [of himself] more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, [being] many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

Watch the uncanny correlation to Moses' message from God concerning the seven I WILL'S - the perfect will of God.

We need to give ourselves as a living sacrifice.

• Many people -- one sacrifice.
• A BODY.
• And we need to see that God will use us as HIS BODY.
• Like the fire in the burning bush, together we are the Body of Christ and He is inside us.
• John saw it clearly, the seven branches were the seven churches.
• And Jesus was in the midst, SPEAKING THROUGH THE CHURCHES.
• Moses was to SPEAK TO PHARAOH.
• God used Moses as a vessel.

• Hence, God speaks to us in a manner that tells us and corrects our understanding that WE CANNOT DO IT ALONE IN OUR OWN POWER.
• He spoke to Moses in a burning bush to tell him that Moses and the Hebrews will be like the branches of His life.
• And the only way that fruit of LIFE would grow, AND THEY WOULD BE FREED FROM THE LIVING DEATH OF EGYPT, was to depend upon God's power.
• "I WILL DELIVER ISRAEL, MOSES."

• He thought HE would do the delivering.
• He would play a part, but not THE part.
• God's power would be the source of deliverance.
• Moses saw his mind renewed when He saw the fire in the bush when God spoke to Him revelation that corrected his concept of how God would deliver.

We will only know the PERFECT WILL OF GOD when we know that God alone is the source of our strength.

• Our minds must be renewed to this kind of thinking.
• The perfect wil of God is "SEVEN I WILL's"
• God will, throughyou.
• And after saying that, Paul then said,

THINK:

• Reneweing the mind changes your thinking.

To think that Moses was going to do it all was not only incorrect thinking, but also EXALTED thinking.

• We ought not think of ourselves more highly than apt.
• God is one who will delvier.
• When we are renewed in our minds, we will never think more highly of ourselves than we ought.
• When we understand and prove God's perfect will, we will understand that HE IS THE REAL DELIVERER.

Roma 12:4-5  For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, [being] many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

• ...and that we are to give ourselves to Him as sacrifices.
• ...and that our minds must be renewed so we THINK NOT SO INCORRECTLY.
• ..and that WE ARE MEMBERS OF A BODY.
• LIKE BRANCHES OF A TREE.
• WE ARE A PART.
• HE IS EVERYTHING.

We are so privileged to be part of the Body of Christ!

• Thank the Lord!!!
• You were never expected to handle everything on your shoulder alone.
• Before John sees all the calamities of the world's destruction, God showed him that he need not put the whole world on his back.
• Jesus is in the midst of the churches.
• John was one of many members.
• ALL BELIEVERS TOGETHER, and WITH THE LORD also, will overcome!

• His complete will for what to do.

• After forty years, he was corrected.
• Why forty years?
• 40 years is one generation.
• HIS OLD WAY OF THINKING WAS GONE.
• A NEW GENERATION WAS RISING UP.