Ex 2:11-22
What To Do When God Crushes Your Dreams
We do not know how, but somehow Moses had a sense that God was going
to use him to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt. At this
point in his life, he is about 40; and seeing a Jewish man being
mistreated, he assumed it was time for him to act.
\\#11-12\\ Moses killed an Egyptian and buried the body. The fact
that he looked around before he killed him indicates Moses decided
before he helped the Hebrew that he would have to kill the Egyptian
to keep word from getting back to Pharaoh.
No passage in the Bible either directly condemns or approves of Moses
killing the Egyptian. Even though the account in Exodus leads me to
believe that Moses killed him on purpose, that may not be case.
Exodus tells us what Moses did, but Acts 7:25 gives us Moses motive.
Acts 7:25 For he supposed his brethren would
have understood how that God by his hand would
deliver them: but they understood not.
So God had already impressed upon Moses what he was to do, namely,
deliver Israel. Of course, the people did not understand. They
probably considered Moses to be an Egyptian and could have cared less
what happened to him.
Moses was left with only one option. He fled for his life.
Get this, Moses thought he was to be Israel’s deliverer. He thought
he was doing what God wanted. He thought God was going to jump in and
do something great! Then, he had to flee for his life. That is what
I call death to a dream.
From there, Moses found rest in Moab. Moab was a distant relative to
the Jew. Interestingly, it was the Moabites that carried Joseph and
ultimately the Jewish nation into Egypt and it was the Moabites that
helped Moses so that he could lead them back out.
Moses must have felt that he had either failed or misunderstood.
1. He married.
2. He had a child.
3. He started a career of shepherding.
4. He lived for 40 years in Moab, probably figuring that was
where his life would end.
5. I suspect that he dismissed whatever impression he had from God
got on with the remainder of his life.
Moses is not the only one in the Bible who thought he had received a
purpose from God only to be disappointed.
1. Joseph-Had a dream where the sun, moon, and eleven starts
bowed before him. He had a second dream where every one
else’s shelves come and bowed down before his. Even his
family could interpret those dreams. It meant that he was to
be a ruler so great that even his family would have to bow at
his presence. Unlike Moses, Joseph did nothing to force his
dreams to come to pass, but his brothers hated him and sold
him into slavery in a foreign country. What was to become of
that dream now?
2. Abraham-His was not a dream but a direct word from the Lord.
He was to have more children than sand on the sea shore or
stars in heaven. He was to become a great and mighty nation,
but after years of trying to fulfill God’s word through a
concubine, Abraham turned 99 and wondered what God would do
to fulfill His Word.
3. David-Just the youngest of the Obed’s sons, the one who had
to keep the sheep. He had no aspirations, but Samuel came to
his house, called for him, and anointed him king over Israel.
David did nothing to force his rise to king, but Saul began
to hunt him anyway. Now after years of hiding, he was
discouraged and had fled to the great enemy of Israel, the
Philistines, for refuge. What was to become of the dream now?
Perhaps you too have felt God had a purpose for your life.
1. Maybe you, like Moses, tried to force it and now things seem
ruined.
2. Maybe like Abraham, you only tried to help God a little.
3. Maybe, like David and Joseph, you didn’t do anything but the
reality of the dream is so far out of sight you can’t imagine
it happening.
4. Perhaps you did not realize until what seemed too late that
God was even giving you a dream.
I. God never changes His mind about what He made you to do.
A. There are many things that I probably cannot tell you.
1. I probably can’t tell you if your dream, your vision, or
your impression was of God or not.
2. Even if I knew that it was of God, I probably could not
tell you when, where, or how God might fulfill it.
3. These are things that I some times cannot tell about my
own life, let alone yours.
B. However, I can tell you that God does not change His mind
about what He created you to do.
1. God has created you to do some thing and He has gifted you
to do it.
2. He will not change His mind.
Ro 11:29 For the gifts and calling of God are
without repentance
C. This verse tells us two things.
1. One is about gifts.
a. If God has equipped you with a gift or an ability, He
will not pull the plug on the equipment!
b. God does not take back His gifts.
2. The other is about purposes.
a. God does not change our purpose.
b. We are created for a purpose and whether we achieve it
or not, our purpose will remain the same!
c. If I resign this church today and walk away vowing to
never preach again, I will still be a preacher.
d. Nothing I do will make me into something else.
D. I was called and given whatever equipping I have that I might
preach God’s Word.
1. I may lose my health, my speech, my very mind.
2. But with whatever of me that I have left, God will still
want me to proclaim that Jesus Christ is the Savior of
the world.
3. The when, the where, and the "how effective I may be" may
change, but my calling, my equipping, and my purpose will
not.
4. Neither will yours.
II. You can force God to shelf you by having a stubborn, rebellious,
and unrepentant heart.
A. While God will not change your purpose for existence or take
away the gifts He gave you to accomplish that purpose, He
may change His mind about letting you do what He created you
to do.
Lu 9:25 For what is a man advantaged, if he gain
the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast
away?
1Co 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it
into subjection: lest that by any means, when I
have preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway.
1Ti 1:19 Holding faith, and a good conscience;
which some having put away concerning faith have
made shipwreck:
20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I
have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn
not to blaspheme.
B. All of these verses describe a real possibility for God’s
highest creation.
1. Namely, they may serve God or they may be shelved by
God.
2. What will decide? The life the one called lives.
C. Paul both knew those who had become shipwrecked.
1. They had been granted the abilities and the calling from
God to preach the gospel, but they had ship wrecked their
lives and shelved themselves.
2. You are never too old, too important, nor too experienced
to ruin your life and service for God.
3. I know that might stir up some fear in some who are trying
to do right, so let me tell you what I think.
D. I do not think that you will be shelved because of honest
errors or being inadequacy. If one could, I would be
shelved.
1. I do believe you can sin the opportunity God gives and
end up living an unfulfilled life sitting on a shelf.
2. I think many have sinned away their ability to ever be
fulfilled and happy.
3. They will spend the remainder of their lives selling used
cars, insurance, or scratching out a living doing
something that they were not created to do because they
chose to rebel against God or enjoy some sin instead of
serve Him.
4. But I do not think if you serving God will an honest,
humble heart you will ever fail so badly that God will
shelf you.
E. And if you chose not to serve God in the past, I do not think
it is ever too late to get started.
1. I think you might have lost a lot of opportunity, but I
do not think it is too late.
a. If God gifted you to handle His Word, you may never be
a pastor.
b. If God called you to a be a missionary, you might
never reach foreign soil.
c. If God called you to write books, to sing songs, or to
paint pictures to glorify Him, you may never reach
the heights you could once have reached; but I do
not think it is ever too late.
2. Time lived in a backslidden or worldly condition may cost
us some effectiveness, but God will not pull our gifts
and will not nullify our calling.
3. We alone can end our ministry and that by choosing to sin
so that God will have to put us on the shelf.
III. So what do we do when you think you know what God wants but it
doesn’t seem to be coming to pass?
A. Do not connive.
1. Our conniving steals God’s glory and compromises our
integrity.
2. Moses killed a man thinking he was doing God a favor.
3. Abraham had Isaac and while he was a good man, from his
loins nations have risen who have plagued the people of
Israel.
4. When God makes a promise, God will make a way.
5. Our job is not to kick open a closed door or to blast
open a solid wall.
6. Our job is to:
a. Prepare ourselves to be the best we can be.
b. Wait for God to open doors for us to step through.
c. To stay faithful to the call of God regardless of how
difficult, disappointing, or prosperous we may be.
B. Don’t fall into the pit of doubt and despair.
1. Discouragement and despair are two tools that Satan has
certainly mastered.
2. I was one who was subject to those tools at one time and
am still affected by them.
3. Any time anything goes wrong, a sensitive person is likely
to think it was their fault.
4. Whether it is or not, you cannot let the devil cast you
into his pit of despair.
a. As long as you have life, there is something else God
wants you to do.
b. Learn from your mistakes and keep going.
5. I do not claim to be an expert on depression. The only
things I know are:
a. Depression is not of God. If God wants to rebuke you,
He will not do it by making you feel about
everything. He will convict you and offer to build
you up in the area of your weakness.
b. Depression is not productive.
c. The longer you stay depressed and the more times you
give into it, the more grip it will gain on you.
d. God will help you over come depression. Depression is
no bigger than any other problem people have and the
promises of God are include depression.
Php 4:13 I can do all things through Christ
which strengtheneth me.
Joh 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide
in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall
be done unto you.
Isa 40:29 He giveth power to the faint; and to
them that have no might he increaseth strength.
6. As the believer, you are going to have to figure out how
God will deliver you and use that power.
7. For me, there were several keys.
a. I had to realize I was being attack by the devil.
(People say, "You need to realize it is a mental
illness. Not me. For me, I had to realize that I
was being spiritually attacked.)
b. I had to resist the devil, to make up my mind that I
was going to win the fight through Jesus.
c. I had to catch myself early. I soon realized that I
could tell when the attacks were starting.
d. When I sensed an attack, I would use that as a signal
to start doing something for God.
(1) I would start praying for people, memorizing
Bible verses, go pass out tracts, call someone
and try to encourage them in the Lord.
(2) I don’t think the devil like that.
8. One day I realized it had been a long time since I felt
the urge to climb into the devil’s pit.
9. I believe the Apostle Paul had to fight depression:
Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
a. He pressed or pushed himself onward.
b. If God has spoken to your heart about something, just
keep moving forward.
C. Stay humble and tender to the leading of God. Whether you
have a dream from God or not, the only way to be lead of God
is to be obedient to Him.
D. Be patient.
1. God measures time in millenniums, not days.
2. All of these who received dreams had to wait until long
past a reasonable time for them to become reality.
Is this what Moses did? I am not sure. He will spend forty years in
Moab. That’s a long time to forget the dream God gave, but God didn’t
forget it and didn’t let Moses do anything that would shelve him.
Beside, Moses didn’t have the Biblical example of Moses. If Moses
made some mistakes, we can learn from them. Don’t give up on the fact
that God is going to use you.
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