Page 65 - SABBATH

Acts 7:22
Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power
in words and deeds.

This power of Moses’ was a power that came from his flesh. In this power he
attempted to deliver his people and failed miserably. How many ministers of God are trying
to deliver God’s people and perform the will of God in their own power? I tell you that
nearly the entire lot are doing so, and they are just as surely failing to accomplish God’s
desire as was Moses. People, do not be driven by those who tell you that you must be out
doing the works of Christ. If you have not been given the power of God to do such works,
then all is vanity and striving after the wind. We must all learn the lesson of Moses.
Were the forty years that Moses spent in the wilderness before God sent him to Egypt
wasted years? Was Moses wasting his life when the people of God suffered in cruel
bondage? Was it a sign of his selfishness and lack of compassion that he did not go back and
try to deliver them again, through whatever means that he might employ? No! Moses
wanted to deliver his people, but he was an honest man who realized that the ability to
perform this work was not in him.
How many are the saints today who are less honest? How many are told, and tell
others, that those who are compassionate for the world will be out winning souls and
bringing forth the kingdom of God, and that they must not wait for God to empty them and
then empower them? Oh how deluded we have been! As I look at all the gimmicks and
programs and plans of human effort to win souls and bring forth the kingdom I am greatly
grieved. A world of men and women who are mighty in their own carnal words and deeds
has gone forth to bring forth the kingdom of God on the earth, and to deliver the
inhabitants of the earth from bondage. They may manage to slay a single Egyptian, and
encouraged by this achievement they go on tirelessly as they believe that the kingdom of the
enemy is being destroyed by their efforts. And all the while Satan laughs with derision, for
the church grows darker and darker while gross darkness creeps over the earth.
What is needed is for the children of God to flee to the wilderness, acknowledging
their inability to bring forth salvation for the earth. In the wilderness they need to
experience the emptying that Moses knew, so that no longer will they ever seek to perform
the works of God in the strength of their own words and deeds. They must remain in the
wilderness until they confess, “God, I have nothing to offer You. I cannot even speak.”
See then the cleverness of Satan’s corrupted wisdom. By driving the children of God
to spend their lives in one activity after another, in this program and that campaign, and to
get them to engaged in works done in the power of their own flesh, falsely thinking that this
is the voice of God driving them to these things, they never enter into the wilderness where
God can truly prepare them for Kingdom works. Satan is such a deceiver that the saints are
made to feel guilty if they do not immediately embark upon some work and effort in the
name of God. To go to a place apart where God can bring forth a death to their soulish life
is a luxury they feel they cannot afford. The enemy speaks to them and tells them that they
are lacking in compassion if they are not somehow ministering every day. By such deceit
does the enemy prevent the children of God from receiving the power that Moses finally
attained in order to destroy the kingdom of the enemy.
Saints, have you not come to see yet that the kingdom of the enemy is not being
toppled through your puny human efforts? Can you not see darkness everywhere entering
into the church, rather than light into the world? The reason is plain. The people of God are