Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. For more information on this ministry, visit lancelambert.org or follow us on social media to receive all of our updates. You can find the transcript for this message on our website, linked in the show notes.
In today's episode, Lance shares from the book of Exodus and compares the life of the believer to the rod of Moses. He teaches about the importance of the Lord's work to bring us to a place of being dry, dead sticks, and that through this experience of death and resurrection, we can be used by the Lord to wield his authority.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Now, I want you to be very, very honest.
It's not always easy to be honest, and it's certainly more difficult to be honest with those that we know.
In other words, when we are in a company of people that tend to know us a little more, it is sometimes more hard to be honest.
How many of you feel like dead, dry sticks?
Would you put your hand up?
Dead dry sticks, please be honest.
Put your hand down.
Are there any here who feel like living trees full of SAP?
Well, what happened to those of you who didn't put your hands up there?
Just feel ordinary?
Well, I'm very sorry to say that there is no such thing as being ordinary in the Christian life.
Now, what I'm going to speak about this morning is dead dry sticks, because this is precisely what the Lord uses.
Now, it's a paradox.
I ask the other question deliberately because there is in another part of the word talk about being like a tree planted by the waters.
Which bringeth forth its fruit at its season.
And there's a lot of talk about that. It talks of, for instance, Joseph being a fruitful bough that went over the wall. But there is a paradox, as always in Christian experience, in spiritual experience, and there is this other side. Now, we haven't got a lot of time this morning, and I tend to be always running over time when we speak in this room because we have no clock.
I want you to turn to Exodus and chapter four.
Now, normally the rod that was in Moses hand is taken quite rightly and correctly as a type of. Of the name of Jesus.
But I want you this morning to see it as a picture of yourself and myself, because in a very real sense, we have been named with the name of the Lord. That is exactly what it means. We have been incorporated in Christ.
We have been, if you like, placed within the hand of God. Our life is hid with Christ in God. Now, the first thing I want you to note is chapter four of Exodus from Verse two to verse four.
And the Lord said unto him, what is that in thy hand? And he said, a rod. And he said, cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground and it became a serpent.
And Moses fled from before it.
And the Lord said unto Moses, put forth thy hand and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand and laid hold of it, and it became a rod in his hand.
That they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob hath appeared unto thee. Then if you will just look in verse 17.
And thou shalt take in thy hand this rod, wherewith thou shalt do the signs. Now, the first thing I just want to say about this dead dry stick is that it is a stick which has lived its life and it's finished, it's dead.
It's a dead dry stick.
This wasn't some living bough of a tree or branch of a bush which Moses was waving around.
This was something which was dead.
And you know, one of the hardest things for us Christians to really go through with is the discipline of the Lord to bring us to the place where we're dead dry sticks.
We don't like it.
40 years in the desert, the Lord dealt with Moses to get him to the place where he was just like this rod, a dead dry stick.
Now, there's not a single believer who takes joyfully to that discipline those long drawn out years of just being on the shelf, seemingly of going through a kind of routine, humdrum routine.
But you know, time is the essential element in bringing us to death.
Now, never forget that some of us would like to die quickly.
We would like it all to be done in a moment. And it is perfectly true that there is a crisis associated with really coming into a knowledge of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ as well as his resurrection. But don't forget this, that there is always a long history before it.
Oh, the Lord. The time element is absolutely essential.
He will put us into jobs, he will put us up against people, he will make us share homes with people.
He will do all kinds of things. And sometimes he will take a decade or two in our lives to bring us to this. And all the time we're trying to escape, oh, we do try to escape from it. If there's one thing we would like to get out of, it's being a dead dry stick to be a tree planted by the waters, that's something wonderful to bring forth fruit in its season, that's Marvelous. But that's one side of things. But to be a dead dry stick, that's not anything we like.
It is the time element. Now, David had exactly the same. When the Lord was going to bring David to the throne, he allowed him to have those 20 years or so hounded in the wilderness from pillar to pillar till all thought of the throne died within him.
And even when he could have taken it by force, when Saul once or twice came into his hands and he could have taken the throne and taken the crown, he wouldn't do it.
The same with Moses. When the Lord finally appears to Moses, after this long discipline, Moses is altogether forgotten and about serving the Lord in this way.
And he said, I think you better send someone else. I tend to stammer, Lord.
And it is all the more remarkable because this was the Moses who was the spokesman for the Hebrew people. You remember when he saw that man ill treated, that Egyptian ill, Captain ill treating a Hebrew slave, he stepped forward and spoke up for the Hebrew people.
Well, now, that's the thing. First we've got to understand.
Now, you and I are for signs.
Now, perhaps I'm pressing it too far, but that little rod was a sign. It was a picture. It was something through which God did sign after sign of. He worked miracle after miracle after miracle. In itself. The stick was a sign, as you can see by the very fact that the Lord said to him, throw it down. And it became a serpent. Pick it up by the tail, he said. And when finally he did so, it was a rod again in his hand.
Now, dear child of God, that's what you and I are.
We are signs.
In other words, let's put it this way, your life and my life is filled with spiritual significance.
That's why the Lord is taking such a long time over us.
He's not going to take any shortcuts. He's not going to do anything cheaply or shoddily or superficially.
He is out to fill our lives with divine significance for all eternity. Now, there'll be a day when people will marvel at Christ in you. They won't marvel at you, but they'll marvel at Christ in you.
The perfection of Christ in you. The moral beauty of Christ in you. The glory of Christ shining through you. And it's all been worked out down here.
The capacity for glory has been worked down here in humdrum circumstances.
Therefore, the. The more time the Lord takes with you, the deeper he goes, the more painful sometimes the experience, the greater the significance.
Now, this is exactly what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, our light affliction, which is but for a moment we don't look at it, but we look at the eternal and exceeding weight of glory.
In other words, he caught hold of this simple fact that our lives, the Lord is trying to fill them with divine and eternal significance.
We're signs.
Nothing happens to the Christian but by coincidence, nothing. You remember the story of Ruth?
She hacked upon the field of Boaz.
That's how the scripture we know. It wasn't any mere coincidence.
It was the Spirit of God that was leading her so that without her knowing it, she was touching her kinsman, Redeemer.
He didn't even know it. So it is in our lives, every illness.
My dear friends, we can trust the Lord for healing, but remember that whatever comes to us, there's divine significance in it.
Whether it is to immediately heal us or whether it is to leave us, there's divine significance.
Our circumstances, they're not coincidental.
Everything works together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
So your job, your home, your, Your. Your. Your circumstances, the situation in which you're present, not a coincidence.
Even where it's been through mistake, it's still the Lord, still behind it, as he was with Bathsheba, who became. Who was David's greatest mistake and most terrible mistake, but who became the mother of both Nathan and Solomon, both of them in the messianic line.
So that in the end you can hardly understand how it was a mistake so inextricably woven into God's eternal purpose. Is David's mistake a sign? But while I speak about this sign and its importance, I just would like to say this.
When you have finally recognized that you are a dead dry so stick. And it may take at least 40 years. It did with Moses.
When finally we've got to that place, do you know what the Lord says to you about your life?
Throw it down.
Throw it down.
And waveringly you've got to the place in a sense where you feel you aren't any use. You had such big ideas of yourself once. You were going to serve the Lord. You were always going to stand up and spout little words that everyone was going to say, oh, how marvelous. You were always going to give hymns, always leading prayer. You were going to be the forefront of the battle. You were going to go out probably as a great apostle in the finish.
Tremendous ideas you had about yourself absolutely dust up the whole of Europe and.
And half the rest of the world as well.
Tremendous ideas we often have of ourselves at the Beginning. And they're not wrong. They're because we have a sense of purpose.
It's not just ambition, it's a sense of purpose. We have a sense that we're in something tremendous, full of divine potentiality, and we're caught up in it.
But there comes a time when the Lord's disciplined us and the time element has played its part. When we feel quite worthless, dead and dry. So when the Lord says, throw it down on the ground, we say, yes Lord, quite happy.
Then we discover there's a serpent in it.
We discover that there is a selfhood that is just like a serpent.
And even after 40 years of divine discipline, the serpent is still latent there within our self life.
Then the Lord says, take it up by the tail. Now I don't know if there are amongst us any snake charmers or any snake handlers, but I think all of you know, even those of you who dislike snakes or reptiles a lot, that you never pick up a snake by the tail. Now don't forget that all of you.
There may come a day when you see one and might feel that you should remove it. You never pick up a snake by the tail. You pick it up by its neck, just behind its head. I'm talking as a layman, just behind its head, or fangs or whatever they are, never its tail. Why, if you pick up a snake by its tail, it turns around and strikes you.
Now Moses had been 40 years in the desert. He knew very well what this poisonous viper was.
When the Lord said to him, pick it up by the tail. The Lord knew just what he was doing. It required faith easily. Moses had thrown it on the ground.
Now the Lord said, pick it up by the tail.
Moses fled from before it.
And the Lord said, come back. Moses picked it up by the tail.
Now any man who's been 40 years in the desert knows all about these poisonous type of snake.
It was a tremendous thing to do today. Take it up by the tail. This is what God does for us. When we realize we're dead dry sticks. We can start to be quite comfortable and complacent about it. Well, I'm nothing.
I leave it to the youngsters who are still green.
I'm nothing. The Lord's dealt with me.
I. I've not got any big ideas. The serpent is still there, all unaware.
It's only when you throw it on the ground and really let go of it in a new way. Suddenly you see the serpent there, all out for itself.
All out for itself. Once it was out for glory, now it's out for rest, sit back and let the others take part. Those youngsters and all the rest. It's nice to hear them.
This is a bit of.
You take it up by the tail and then it becomes a dead dry stick.
Do you know how to deal with your self life yet few of us do, if any.
Never deal with it by the head.
You have to take it by the tail. In other words, it's safe.
That mortifies is faith that paralyzes the self life. So every time you're waiting for feelings of really being nicely dead, most of us are.
We're waiting to have a feeling that our flesh life is really finished.
Never.
God has to show us again and again it's a serpent and the only way to cut it off is to deal with it by faith.
In other words, again and again say that's crucified, that's out with Christ, that's under Christ's feet.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Take it up by the tail.
Well that's one thing. If you turn to Exodus chapter 14 and, and verse 16 we read, lift thou up thy rod and stretch out thy hand over the sea and divide it.
Do you know that God's idea in getting you to be just a dead dry stick in his hand is that he might exercise his authority.
He doesn't want to exercise his authority apart from from you. He wants to exercise his authority in and through you.
What a silly little thing this dead dry stick was. Yet every single thing that happened in the wilderness was connected with the dead dry stick.
Everything the Lord did was somehow or other connected with this little stick.
Authority again. Here's I think another lesson for us all.
Few of us are prepared to really exercise the authority which is in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Because we're waiting to feel something.
God says, you're all together looking in the wrong quarter.
I want you to be a dead dry stick.
Dead and dry. And then when you're like that, that's when my authority can be exercised. You're safe.
You're absolutely safe. It's when you're full of feelings and so on that the enemy can push you and you overreach yourself.
And if you look back in your experience you will find every time you have overreached yourself and got into trou has been at a time of great spiritual blessing.
Not great spiritual pressure, but great spiritual blessing again and again. When we look back we find the safe times have been the times of spiritual pressure.
The unsafe periods have been the times of Blessing, because the enemy comes as it was floating in alongside the blessing, as he did in the great Welsh Revival, destroyed, it.
Just comes in alongside. So as people's feelings have been aroused, so he takes over the feelings and pushes them.
And then people start to have these damning, damning conversations with the devil, calling the hosts of darkness names, start taking on things that they have no business to.
Even the Archangel Michael durst not bring a railing accusation against him, but said the Lord, rebuke thee, Satan archangel.
So we must remember these things. Authority. Authority is connected with being like a dead dry stick. We're safe when we're in that position.
Oh, what the Lord has to do to get us there.
And you see, the whole point is that when the lord's got us 40 years in the backside of the desert and we're absolutely dead dry sticks, we don't feel like exercising authority.
First the Lord has to get us to the place where we're dead and dry, and then he's got to get us to exercise faith so that every time that dead dry stick was used to bring the Lord in an authoritative way, it was faith that was behind it.
The just shall live by faith.
Oh, if we could only just see this point, because so many of us, we haven't got full assurance of faith.
We're looking for something to do much more with feelings. We even mix up the witness of the spirit with feelings, and it is in an essentially different sphere.
This is all very important, what we're saying, but a lot of you are dead dry sticks. I'm glad to see it. And therefore I am quite sure that the Lord's going to try and bring you to this point first, where you cut off your own self, life all the time, because it's there like a serpent waiting to sting.
And secondly, by faith, that is just cut it off.
And then to use the authority which is yours. Now, if you turn to chapter 17 and verse 8, we read this.
Then came Amalek and fought with Israel. And refugee Moses said unto Joshua, choose us out men and go out fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.
Here you have perseverance.
Now, again, of course, it's authority, but in this connection we have perseverance.
Because you see, before, Moses just lifted up a rod and immediately the waters parted.
They went over as on dry ground. But this time he went up and he had to keep his hand up the whole day, from dawn to sunset, sunrise to sunset. And in the end Aaron and Hur had to come either side of him. And he sat on a stone with his arms propped up and the battle went for the Lord's people.
Dead dry sticks.
Why, you know, as those children, Israel went out to meet the armed might of Amalek. You could have said dead dry sticks. A lot of them erstwhile slaves, nothing at all. Not trained in a military way at all. They're dead dry sticks.
That was the secret.
That was the secret.
While the dead dry stick in the hand of Moses was lifted up to God, the battle went for the Lord.
And is it not interesting that we have this very obscure and difficult Hebrew name in chapter. In verse 15 of chapter 17, he built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah Nissi, which means the Lord my banner. And then verse 16, and Moses said, the Lord hath sworn the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. You will see in your the margin, because there is a hand lifted up in the throne of the Lord.
No one is quite clear whether it's a hand lifted up against the throne of the Lord or whether it's a hand lifted up on the throne of the Lord or for the throne of the Lord. But really it's probably all three. It's the whole point.
There is a hand come against the throne of God to cut us off from our water supply, to kill us. Water is essential to people in the desert.
Here is a hand against the throne of God. But the rod the dry stick lifted up was a hand in the throne of God. That's where you and I are. We are in the throne of God.
Now, perseverance is an all essential thing in the battle. And there are few Christians that can persevere. We all like to see the Red Sea divided into instantaneously, or it's glorious. We like to see the ground open up and swallow up the rebels in an instant. And that's the end of that.
That spot of trouble settled rather nicely and forever.
We like this kind of settling of things instantaneously. But when we lift up the rod and nothing happens instantaneously, we get a little weary.
Now, that's why we must be dead dry sticks.
Because if there's any life about us at all, we can't wait.
Oh, we can't wait at all.
Something's gone wrong. We say, well, the Lord can't be with us.
We have to persevere.
I must hurry on to Numbers, chapter 20 and verse 8.
Numbers 20 and verse 8.
Take the rod and assemble the congregation. Thou And Aaron thy brother. And speak ye unto the rock before their eyes that it give forth its water. And thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock, so shalt thou give the congregation and their cattle drink.
And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him. Isn't it interesting thing that evidently this old dead dry stick was always in the presence of the Lord.
Here you notice whenever Moses uses, he always takes it from before the presence of the Lord.
This old dead dry stick laid up before the Lord.
Do you feel like that it is better to be a dead dry stick laid up before the Lord than a flourishing plant somewhere else?
Now here you will see that it's all to do with water out of a rock.
Water out of a rock.
Many of us so anxious to have our thirst quenched, so anxious to be filled.
You know, I think sometimes we can get into a trap that the enemy very cleverly lays for us, so that without our understanding it. It is self centeredness that has become the principle of our service.
This is water for others as well as myself.
There is such a fine, but such a real difference between wanting my need met that I might meet others and wanting my need met.
I am perfectly sure that the reason the Lord has to hold back with many of us in quickly meeting our needs is because there is the selfish principle in it.
You know, when we're first saved, the Lord runs to do everything for us. But as we grow up, he doesn't.
He has to wean us away from everything for ourselves.
No longer what I get, but what he gets and what others get.
And that is really the difference between spiritual childhood, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and spiritual maturity. When for the first time we start to say, what is he getting out of my life? What is he getting out of my circumstance? What is he getting out of it all? What are others getting out of it rather than I'm getting nothing out of it?
Water from the rock.
This rod that the Lord used here, this dead dry stick, brought water out of a flinty rock.
It was faith again.
And water gushed out not only to meet the children of Israel, but to meet all their cattle and herds and to meet Moses own meat as well.
That's why that hymn we sang together. Life out of Death, dear master, as it's spoken of, a life here or in the bitter land, was Brother Watchman Nee's favorite hymn, Life for Others.
Not just for myself, for others. Now that's why the death principle has to operate right, must operate.
Otherwise it's not for others Death in us, life in them. Death in us, life in them. Always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus. The life also might be manifested. Now we have to be very careful that we don't put all the accent and emphasis on the death.
The point is water out of the rock. That's the point. The whole point of that dead dry stick is to get water out of a rock. Just like the whole point of that dead dry stick was to get victory over Amalek. Just as the point of that dead dry stick was to to cleave away through the Red Sea.
Here it is to get water out of the rock. But it's got to be a dead dry stick in the hand of Moses.
Life.
Do you know anything like that? Try it.
Perhaps the Lord hasn't been meeting you because you want it for yourself. Let God search out your motives. Bring them to the cross again.
Let the Lord do the job. Don't you try to do it. Let the Lord do it. And if it's there, put it on him. Don't let the enemy make your life a misery by turning you in on yourself, so that darkness comes to you and heaviness. And so that's not what the Lord wants at all, to bind you to a continual introspection of all that you are. Look away from yourself to the Lord. And if you're conscious today that it has been for yourself, you've been seeking something for yourself, just say, lord, I'm sorry.
Now get me over onto the other side like this dead dry stick. Oh, dead dry stick. Nothing to be worried about there.
It's just that it can be for used for others.
And you'll find that God will meet you.
There is that which scattereth and yet increases. There is that which withholdeth more than is meat, and it tendeth to poverty.
So the more you hold on to your dear self, the more poverty stricken you will become.
And the more you scatter what you have of the Lord and share it, the more it will increase.
You shall receive what you have given, pressed down, shaken together and running over.
What a measure.
Well, I think we must end. But we'll end with one other little point in chapter 17 and verse 2. And I shall have to leave you to read this chapter about Aaron's rod that budded.
Now someone says. Ah, now then, the preacher's wrong.
You see, here is the story of a rod that had got life in it. Quite right.
But I want you to. I want to point out to you that it was a dead dry stick. All the way until a crisis came. And the crisis was over.
Who is the servant of the Lord?
And when the great crisis came, then the Lord made the dead to dry stick blossom.
In fact, it was quite extraordinary. All the seasons it went through. All the seasons in one night.
Spring, summer and autumn, all in one night, the whole lot.
It buddied, it blossomed, it leafed, and it fruited.
And when they went into the house of the Lord, there were the. The sticks laid up before the Lord. But Aaron's rod had budded. And do you know what the Lord said about it?
He said, put it in the Ark of the Covenant along with the tables of stone which are called in scripture, the testimony.
Put it in with the testimony forever.
Forever. The old dead dry stick in the Ark of the Covenant.
Well, now, what does that speak to us about? It speaks to us about resurrection, that's all. Why? Don't worry about being a dead dry stick. You've got resurrection there.
You've got resurrection. When God wants to bring the resurrection out powerfully, he can do it in an instant.
Rather be a dead dry stick like that than to have put in some potted azalea which wilted overnight.
It's a dead dry state. Laid up before the Lord, dead and dry.
But suddenly there is divine life in it.
Resurrection. Oh, what God can do. You see, God's got all these resources absolutely at his fingertips, all kinds of resources. All he requires is a dead dry stick.
And then. And faith, absolute faith. And don't hit back, don't fight, never fight.
That's why you must be a dead dry stick.
When others say, hmm, who does he think he is?
Who does she think she is?
Don't get upset. Be a dead dry stick laid up the house of the Lord.
That's all.
Always add that on. Don't just say, I'm dead and dry. Say I'm a dead dry stick by the grace of God.
And it is by the grace of God laid up in the house of the Lord.
And when the Lord wants to, if there's a challenge to what he's done, he can call resources into play which can forever settle the issue.
So don't fear.
Shall we pray?
And now, dear Lord, thou knowest all about us, all, every one of us. Thou knowest our hearts, Lord, before Thee, O Lord, how we pray that we might be those that thou canst use.
Now, Lord, thou knowest all the dangers of this being disciplined in the desert.
Thou knowest the dangers, Lord, of just becoming dead and dry, although it's under Thy hand the dangers of unbelief, of complacency, of laxity.
O Father, we pray together that we might be a people who, though dead and dry in themselves, are full of faith, full of faith, looking away from ourselves and unto thee, Lord, so that we might know what it is to exercise the authority which is ours to persevere, Lord, and to stand with Thee in all the victory that is thine to know life out of the rock for others as well as ourselves, and to know that resurrection life of Thine whenever we need it, and we ask it all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: May you know the resurrection life of the Lord in dry times may you learn to use the authority the Lord has given you by his grace. May you know the deep, deep love of Jesus.
