The Danger of Wanting a God You Can Control

Today, we're looking at how they rejected Moses and ultimately God Himself as we walk through Acts 7:17-43

17 “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt 18 until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. 19 He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive. 20 At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God’s sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father’s house, 21 and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. 22 And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. 23 “When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. 24 And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. 26 And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ 27 But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. 30 “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. 33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’ 35 “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’ 38 This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. 39 Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, 40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 41 And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. 42 But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: “ ‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices, during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 43 You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’

R.C. Sproul's own ten part series on Moses' early life, the same history Stephen is summarizing for us here, opens with this exact observation: "Just as Joseph's brothers intended to bring about his destruction, Pharaoh sought to destroy all the Hebrew baby boys. Instead, God used this evil edict to preserve His servant Moses."

What you have is God's same providence and pattern being explained from Joseph to Moses. This is a healthy reminder that "what they meant for evil, God meant for good" doesn't end with Joseph.

Let's look at Acts 7:17-19

17 “But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt 18 until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. 19 He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive.

During this time of the promise, the nation of Israel grew in number, but not in might. They became slaves to a Pharaoh that did not know Joseph or what he did. God's Word is true. Always true, which means that God was going to raise up a deliverer for His people. This person was Moses who was "beautiful in God's sight" and "mighty in his words and deeds."

Look at how deliberate Stephen is with the timing of everything in this whole section: Verse 20, "At this time", Verse 23, "When he was forty years old", Verse 26, "the following day", Verse 30, "when forty years had passed", Verse 36, "for forty years", verse 41, "in those days". This is all about God's patience in fulfilling His Word in terms of centuries and decades.

For you and I, this means that God is not slow to fulfill His promises. His promises are kept until the right time. He will never fail in His Word. I've been a follower of Christ for 26 years and I've heard for 26 years that Christ is coming soon. 26 years is a long time to hear that message but guess what? Christ is coming soon! Why? Because He said He would. And that's enough.

God had specially prepared Moses. The author of Hebrews records the events in Moses' life in chronological order and says

24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

Moses was prepared by the Lord and he knew it. But Moses was rejected by his own people.

I. Prepared in Egypt, Rejected by His Own

When Moses interceded, the Hebrews said "Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?" and it's a direct quote from Exodus 2:14.

Stephen gives us insight into what Moses was thinking, Acts 7:25

25 He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.

So Joseph, as we saw last week, wasn't recognized, but here we see that Moses was flat out rejected. So Moses fled and became an exile in Midian. That's interesting because it's the same word found in 7:6 as "sojourner". So for the third time by Stephen's recollection, God's chosen man ends up outside the land completely.

So notice what Stephen has said so far: every deliverer has been prepared by God and rejected by His own people. Stephen wants the Sanhedrin to see this pattern because it hasn't stopped. The same thing has happened again, only this time the Deliverer is greater than Moses. But God sends them anyway and I want you to see what happens. Let's look at verses 30-38.

There is a span of 40 years that takes place in Moses' life where he has a call from the Lord and an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. Exodus 3:1-2

1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.

This is the third time God reveals Himself outside of the land. You have Abraham in Mesopotamia, Joseph in Egypt, and Moses in Midian. This is important for the Sanhedrin because Stephen is stating that God's presence is not fixed to a certain location. God is not confined the way the Jews believed Him to be confined. In fact,

33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

This is the exact charge that Stephen is accused of breaking. Stephen isn't making a vague claim that God can be anywhere. He's making a specific one: God's presence was never confined to Jerusalem or the temple, and He proved it centuries before either one existed.

Look at the question the Hebrews asked, Acts 7:27

27 But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

The answer is found in

35 “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

So it was God who appointed and sent Moses. So it's truth given to the Hebrews in the exact title so they can clearly see God's work toward His people. They rejected him. God sent him. They rejected Jesus. God raised Him from the dead. This is the same thing played out.

What did the people have? They had the word of God. They had the promise. But when God fulfilled His promise, they didn't believe. John Chrysostom said, Homily XVII on Acts, "Marvel not, if they on whom Christ confers His benefits refuse His kingdom, seeing in the case of Moses it was just the same."

Jesus was given this title in Acts 5:31. It's translated differently, but the same words in the Greek. And the word for rejected here in verse 35 is the same word that Peter used in Acts 3:13-14

13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. 14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,

Here's the simple version. Stephen is using the same language Peter already used about Jesus. Moses was rejected by Israel, yet God appointed him ruler and redeemer. Jesus was rejected by Israel, yet God raised Him up as Savior and Lord.

II. Rejected as Ruler and Judge, Sent as Ruler and Redeemer

We see that Stephen is kind of doing the same thing here too, because Moses performed signs and wonders and Stephen was doing the same thing in chapter 6. Moses was a prophet of God and promised a new prophet to lead them, and Stephen tells the Sanhedrin that that Promised One has already come. So the council's accusation of blaspheming God and Moses is wrong. If anything, they are the rebellious Israelites rejecting their ruler and judge.

Notice again what God actually called Moses in verse 35: not redeemer only, but ruler and redeemer. Both titles, one man. You don't get to keep one and set the other aside. That's exactly the claim Jesus makes on your life too. Israel wanted God's rescue without God's rule. They wanted out of Egypt, but they didn't want Moses telling them how to live once they got there. We can make the exact same mistake with Jesus.

You might be here and you might think you have everything you need to sort everything out. You might think you've heard it all and you have your life all together, but the truth is that you have a tremendous need for Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who was sent to be Savior and Lord. He is both and He must be both in your life. You cannot have Him as your propitiation and reject His presiding. You may not accept His love and decline His leadership. You are not given the option to obtain His mercy by faith and spurn His mastery by the Spirit. Jesus is God in the flesh and He is Lord and Master, Shepherd and Friend. You need all of Christ, not just the parts you want in the moment. As A.W. Pink put it, any thing that comes into competition with the Lord's ruling us in a practical way is an idol, even when that thing is a version of Christ we've built to our own liking.

Watch what happens next. When people reject God's appointed ruler, they don't stay neutral. They turn somewhere else. Israel rejected the ruler and redeemer God sent, and it wasn't long before they replaced Him with a god they could see and control.

Look at verse 39,

39 Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt,

In their heart they turned to Egypt! When we were going through Exodus back in 2020 I said, "While Moses was there, the Israelites behaved themselves, but they didn't even need someone to tempt them to commit idolatry. It was already there. It was already in their hearts, and they longed for Egypt, not the promise of being with the Lord in His promised land."

This is what led to them creating the golden calf. A.W. Pink said that "Man must have an object, and when he turns away from the true God, at once he craves a false one." John Calvin said it this way, "The human heart is a perpetual factory of idols."

Just to give you some context. In Exodus 20, God gives the Ten Commandments. In the following chapters, He gives laws on how to conduct themselves and be a separate people.

7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Moses afterwards goes up the mountain and the Lord gives specifics on the Tabernacle and how He is to be worshipped. For five chapters God describes in detail how He wants to be worshipped and what is pleasing to Him. But in chapter 32, the people of God reject Moses, reject the covenant, and ultimately reject God by creating a false god and made sacrifices to it. Point 3:

III. Given Living Words, They Built a Dead Idol

God had called His people out of Egypt and into His Covenant. This is the way of Israel throughout its history. In Acts 7:7

7 ‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’

That word worship is the same word found in verse 43 here, Acts 7:43

43 You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’

God gave them over to worship the host of heaven according to verse 42. The very word God used to promise Abraham that his descendants would worship Him rightly, Stephen now uses to describe Israel worshiping the stars instead. Same word, the opposite direction.

Watch one more word alongside it. Back in verse 4, God "removed" Abraham, resettled him, into the land God had promised. That's the same word Stephen uses again here in verse 43, where God resettles Israel into exile, out of the land. It's the only two times that word shows up anywhere in the New Testament, and Stephen uses it both times in this one sermon. The blessing and the judgment are described with the exact same verb. God has not changed. His people have.

Stephen quotes Amos 5 here, but he changes one word. Amos originally warned Israel they would be sent into exile "beyond Damascus," the nearer judgment, the Assyrian captivity that came on the northern kingdom. Stephen changes it to "beyond Babylon," pulling the warning forward into the larger sweep of Israel's continued rebellion, the exile Judah would actually suffer generations later. He's not misquoting his Bible. He's telling the Sanhedrin that the pattern didn't stop at the golden calf. It kept going, generation after generation, all the way to Babylon. And it hasn't stopped. It's happening again, right now, in this room, to the very Redeemer God sent.

We don't melt down our jewelry and shape it into a calf. Our idols are quieter than that. It's the retirement account we trust more than we trust God's provision. It's the relationship we'll compromise our convictions to keep. It's the comfort and control we're not willing to hand over, even to Him. Israel wanted a god they could see and manage. So do we. We just call ours something else.

So here's where all of this lands. Throughout Israel's history, God graciously sent deliverers, and His people repeatedly rejected them. Moses was rejected as ruler and judge, yet God sent him as ruler and redeemer anyway. Israel received God's living words, and they turned around and built a dead idol. Stephen isn't telling the Sanhedrin this story as ancient history. He's showing them that this same pattern has reached its climax in Jesus Christ. The Deliverer God promised has already come, and they have rejected Him too, the same way their fathers rejected Moses. But hear this. The One they rejected, the One we have all rejected, is the very One God sent to redeem rebels like us. He died for that rejection. God raised Him from the dead to prove it wasn't the end. Jesus is not merely a Savior we receive when we want forgiveness and nothing else. He is the King we submit to, the Redeemer we trust, and the Lord we obey.

HEAD: God wants you to know that we have a history of rejecting the deliverers God sends, and that history reaches its climax in our rejection of Jesus.

HEART: God wants you to believe that Jesus is the Redeemer God sent, and He is worthy of your complete trust and submission.

HAND: God wants you to surrender the idol you've been trying to control, and give that area of your life to Jesus as Savior and Lord.

He is Ruler and Redeemer. Will you stop tryin to manage Him, and finally follow Him?