Ex 4:11+12, And the Lord said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? "Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say." 
In this morning’s reading we are presented with one of the great scenes of man claiming to be incapable of doing that which God asks. Despite the fact that we are created by God and that He knows us so much better than we know ourselves, we have this tendency, in our natural self, to argue with God when He first gives direction. Hopefully, as we learn to obey the fact that God is Omnipotent and Omniscient and Omnipresent, we realize that immediate obedience and faith in Him to see us through is always the best course for our lives. Until we learn that, however, we often find ourselves, as did Moses in this discourse with God, arguing about why we should not be the one so chosen to go in the name of the Lord. 
Moses is not the only person in the Bible with this classic sense of distrust in himself to do that which God commands. There are many, many examples throughout scripture where man and God collide in the course of what God asks and that man is willing to do. However, in these examples, we learn, if we pay attention, that God is the One Who made us exactly as we are in order to so use us in the manner that will show forth His Glory and His Majesty and His Magnificence each time we listen and obey. 
As but one example, consider the Prophet Jeremiah at the beginning of his service unto the Lord. Jer 1:6-12, if you would please turn to it. Jer 1:6-12, Then I said, "Alas, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, Because I am a youth." But the Lord said to me, "Do not say, 'I am a youth,' Because everywhere I send you, you shall go, And all that I command you, you shall speak. "Do not be afraid of them, For I am with you to deliver you," declares the Lord. Then the Lord stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, "Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. "See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, To pluck up and to break down, To destroy and to overthrow, To build and to plant." And the word of the Lord came to me saying, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" And I said, "I see a rod of an almond tree." Then the Lord said to me, "You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to perform it." 
    	As with Moses, Jeremiah declared that he was not the right person for the appointed task. He was too young and again, too limited in the manner of his verbal abilities. As with our morning’s verses, God declared that He would be with Jeremiah and would give him the words to say and the strength to speak them. As is so true every time that God gives direction, He is the One Who will go before His servant and perform all that is needed. …Because everywhere I send you, you shall go, And all that I command you, you shall speak. "Do not be afraid of them, For I am with you to deliver you," declares the Lord.  
	As well, in this passage, is a great truth that is for all those who are called to teach and to preach and to instruct according to the Word of God. Then the Lord said to me, "You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to perform it." When we are called to minister the Word of God, it is a great charge filled with tremendous responsibility. This is testified to by the whole course of God’s dealings with His appointed prophets, apostles, and ministers throughout the scripture. Yet, there is this great truth and reality upon which we absolutely must stand in order to be effective in our teaching and in our counseling and in our instructing and in our delivery unto those to whom we are sent. God does watch over His Word and He is the One to perform it! 
	As a pastor, it is of utmost concern that the Word delivered is the Word of the Lord and fully in accordance with all that God desires for His people to hear. Therefore, it is without reservation that we urge that everything that is proclaimed as His Word is taken back to scripture and kept before the Holy Spirit in prayerful consideration and concentration upon what God has spoken. Never accept anything spoken from any pulpit or given in counsel or read in books as truth unless it is verified scripturally by God, Himself. He is the One Who performs it! 
	And please be very careful on this point as well. Just because something is preached that we do not like or do not want to hear or seems to be too personal or against what we might have been taught, does not make it invalid. When we are struck with that which batters against our thoughts of what is of God, we need to take it to the Word and to the Holy Spirit to see if, in fact, our thoughts and our ideas are off base and not in line with His Word. The Word of God is the guidepost of all that we ever need to know and understand. It is the Living Word of God because it will always point to Christ Jesus. It will always declare that everything that God has done, throughout all the course of humanity will always find its source and its conclusion in the glory of His Love and His Mercy and His Grace and His Holiness and His Righteousness brought forth for all of eternity in His Only Begotten Son.
The Prophet Ezekiel had to be encouraged by the Lord in this reality in Ezek 3:27, "But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth, and you will say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God.' He who hears, let him hear; and he who refuses, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house. There are those who will refuse to hear the Word of God because it is not what they want to hear. They will be rebellious and will not listen to the truth, no matter who speaks it. Even in this, the Lord will give ears to those who will listen and will choose to hear what He is telling them. We need to learn to take every word back to scripture and to seek after the Lord to make known that which is of Him and that which is not of Him. Then, when we do hear those things that stab at our hearts and conflict with our thoughts and our ideas, but are fully in line with His Heart expressed in His Word and validated by His Holy Spirit, we can more readily adjust ourselves and our minds to that which is of Him. 
This is where we learn to trust and obey the Lord in all that He desires for our lives. As we are told in Prov 16:1-4, The plans of the heart belong to man, But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the Lord weighs the motives. Commit your works to the Lord, And your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil. 
It is as we commit our works and our plans and our hearts and our minds and our efforts unto the Lord that we will find that He goes before us and accomplishes that which He has so determined. A key aspect of this commitment is found in the fact that we are to seek His way and not our own in any measure. 
Too often we tell the Lord what we want Him to do, and that will never succeed. Just as both Moses and Jeremiah tried to do in declaring that they were not the right instruments for the Lord to use, so were they brought into the reality that the Lord was going before them and He was going to do the work. They were to just commit themselves to do that which He commanded. 
With each direction of the Lord, He gives everything that will be needed in order to accomplish the task. Again we read the following in Prov 20:12, The hearing ear and the seeing eye, The Lord has made both of them. God is the One Who has formed us, even in our mother’s womb in order to fulfill that which He has ordained for us from before the advent of His creation of time and eternity. Who are we to question how we are made and the purposes for which we were created? Everything comes together into perfect and harmonious functionality as we obey the guidance and the plan as God so directs for our lives in Jesus Christ. There is nothing too difficult or too far beyond the scope of God’s power and wisdom!
As an example, consider how even Balaam’s donkey was made able to talk by the power and the might of the Lord. Num 22:28, And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?" The donkey could see the angel of the Lord with the flaming sword, and Balaam couldn’t and so Balaam struck the beast as she was trying to avoid the angel’s wrath. The Lord, through that animal’s miraculous voice, opened Balaam’s eyes to see and to understand what was going on. This episode reinforced the fact that Balaam was to speak only that which the Lord gave him to utter to the king of Moab. It would not be what the king desired to hear, but it must be only what God had given to be declared. 
This takes us into another element of our being given the words and the ability to speak forth, as evidenced in the Psalms. Ps 51:15, O Lord, open my lips, That my mouth may declare Thy praise. It is only the Lord Who can cause us to bring before Him the praise and the worship and the declaration of His honor and glory. It all comes as we are so given the ability and the heart to give voice to Him in song and in prayer and in the reading of His Word as it is returned unto Him with hearts of thanksgiving and praise. 
Please think back to those times of greatest worship in our hearts and minds. So often, it is after the fiery trials and situations that caused us to seek the Lord to be Our every source of salvation and safety and comfort on this earth. That is when our hearts have been softened to the point of complete surrender when our eyes have been given the clearest vision of what God is accomplishing in us unto Himself. 
The greatest praise springs forth as we see the Hand of God in full operation to bring to fruition His perfect plan of salvation in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones. It is then, during the burning away of all that is not Christ, that we are enabled to truly praise and honor Him with joy and satisfaction that we are in His hand of love and grace and mercy. He opens our lips with His so great and awesome work in the revelation of Himself into our hearts. We are then made to respond with all the fullness of seeking to proclaim from the mountaintops that Our God reigns, now and evermore. 
This all comes into focus as we see that He is the One Who has performed all that is necessary in the only manner in which it could be effectively and perfectly instituted. We often decry our circumstances and moan and groan and complain while we or our loved ones are going through the fiery and trying times. But, after the embers have cooled and the smoke has dissipated from our eyes, we see that all that we endured worked together for good in our lives and in the lives of those we stood with throughout the dilemma and storm. 
    	Rom 8:28-31, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 
	This, then brings us full circle back to God’s declaration to Moses. As the Lord chose Moses as the one to deliver the Children of Israel from their bondage in Egypt, so did God always go before Moses and do everything that was needed for that deliverance to come to fruition. It was never to be about the capability of Moses to speak or to act. It would and will always be God acting through those who commit themselves in complete service unto Him. His Hand of operation will be seen in those Whom He created for His purposes who go forth and declare the awesome power and glory of the Only Lord God Almighty.
	The Psalmist once again pronounces this in the fact that the One Who made us is the One Who hears and sees and knows all that is necessary to accomplish His work in our lives and in the lives of those Whom He chooses unto Himself. Ps 94:9, He who planted the ear, does He not hear? He who formed the eye, does He not see? There is nothing hidden from God and there is nothing that He cannot nor will not accomplish to bring His Divine plan and purposes into place for all of eternity. 
	His Lordship is in place despite all the arguments and the defiance and the faithlessness of man, caught up in the horrific daily battle between self-exaltation and self-denial. Everything comes back to the fact that we have been purchased by God through the blood of Jesus Christ. Our lives are His with which to bring forth honor and glory to His name on this earth. As we learn to give ourselves wholly unto Him and set aside our doubts and our insecurities and our argumentative manner of distrusting the path that God has made for us, will we see this single truth. In ever growing and glorious reality, God always goes before us in order that our lives will manifest His Power and His Wisdom and His Abiding Glory throughout the whole of His creation. So be it!
And the Lord said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes him dumb or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? "Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you are to say. Amen.

	

	This morning’s benediction is Ps 138:4-6. All the kings of the earth will give thanks to Thee, O Lord, When they have heard the words of Thy mouth. And they will sing of the ways of the Lord. For great is the glory of the Lord. For though the Lord is exalted, Yet He regards the lowly; But the haughty He knows from afar. Amen.