The Decayed Places

The word decayed in the dictionary means having rotted or decomposed. That paints a pretty good picture, friends, of what decayed means, like a rotten, stinking corpse. Like Lazarus was dead in his tomb for four days and Martha said to Jesus, he stinketh.

It's a revolting side of hopelessness and helplessness and everything deadness. Some common sentiments for decay or decompose, putrefy, rot and spoil, they each describe a thing that's too far gone. In Isaiah chapter 44 and verse 26, God declares, I will raise up the decayed places.

Now, you either believe in a God who can do that or you don't believe in a God who can do that. I believe God is the God of decayed places. I believe no matter how foregone the situation is, that with God, there is still hope because he is the God who can raise up the decayed places.

He proved it already time and time again in his written word with the history of the Jews. There they would be enslaved in Egypt without any hope, making bricks out of straw under hard taskmasters. And lo and behold, God sends a man.

He sends Moses to deliver them. Now, the funny thing about that is this. Moses himself was in a decayed place before God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush.

You see, friends, Moses was a fugitive from justice, having killed a man in Egyptian that was mistreating a Jew. So Moses looked this way and that way and killed him, thinking he was doing God a favor. But it backfired on Moses.

He had to flee for his life under Pharaoh. He ends up on the backside of the Midian desert where he meets a shepherd named Jethro, who the Bible says was a priest of Midian who had seven daughters. Well, there's probably not a lot of suitors out in the middle of the desert.

So Moses helps to water the flock of Jethro. And he meets these daughters of Jethro. And the text in Exodus reads, And Moses was content to dwell with the man.

And he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. Well, the text says that Moses was content, but don't believe that for a skinny minute, friend. Don't read too much into the understanding of that word from our comprehension of it.

In the Hebrew, the word content is a verb meaning to choose to do something. In other words, the meaning here is not that the word content means satisfied, but rather Moses looked at his options. He weighed them, which weren't that many.

And he chooses to go to work for Jethro as a shepherd of the sheep. And part of his package, so to speak, is getting a wife to boot in the person of Zipporah. For the next 40 years of his life, he is walking behind stinking, smelly, dumb sheep, guiding them through the wilderness, through the crevices of the rocks and the backside of the Midian desert.

I don't believe he was satisfied at all. I believe the whole thing was a trial to him. There he was raised in the lap of luxury in the household of Pharaoh as his own Hebrew mother becomes a hired nursemaid to him, to Pharaoh's daughter, who names the baby Moses because I drew him out of water.

And this Hebrew child grows up under all the privilege, the learning, the wisdom of Egypt, which was at the time the most populated nation on the face of the earth. He grows to become a statesman and he foolishly and recklessly throws it all away by defending a Hebrew who's mistreated by an Egyptian. The text says he slew the Egyptian and hit him in the sand.

Well, you can't get away with murder, friend. It will catch up with you sooner or later. So Moses becomes a wanted man, a criminal, and he runs away.

To think that Moses was content in Midian is to compare him to a body decomposing every day as he's pushing those dumb sheep around the crevices of the mountains. He dies a little more on the inside. I like what F.J. Hegel said about Moses, which I feel is a proper assessment, friends.

Hegel wrote, For 40 years on the lonely slopes of Midian, the fiery Moses is schooled. There were graves, if I may so speak, scattered all over the mountainside where hope after hope was buried until at last self went down in utter annihilation. Well, that's a pretty good summation of that, friends.

And then we read in Exodus chapter three of this incredible encounter with God at the burning bush. Now, Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. Now, let me interject this, friends, to say Moses didn't even own a flock of sheep himself.

He's just a hired hand tending his father-in-law's goods. Moses owned nothing. He was nothing, at least in the eyes of the world and in the sense of being useful to God here.

But then out of the blue we read, And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Well, that's all we need to know. That's all we need to know, friends, about this for our message today.

God showed up in a flame of fire just like he always does. And Moses was never the same man again. Now, listen to this, friends.

Moses lived to be 120 years old. The first 40 years of Moses's life in Egypt is covered by 15 verses of scripture. The next 40 years of Moses's life on the backside of the Midian desert is covered by only 10 verses of scripture.

But the record of Moses's life after he encounters God is covered by approximately 4,252 verses of scripture. Surely, this clearly demonstrates the significance of a life for God after that person has had an encounter with God. Our text over in Isaiah chapter 44 and verse 26 declares, I will raise up the God of the decayed places.

Now, you either believe that or you don't, friend. But I can assure you it's true. No matter how hopeless your situation is, friend, God is the God of the decayed places.

Brother Pastor, no matter how much division and trouble you're experiencing in your church right now, God is the God of decayed places. Dear friend, no matter how hard your marriage is right now, God says, I will raise up the decayed places. Where there's hope in God, there is hope.

Our nation could not be sicker morally than it is right now. Why, the perversion in this country spills over everywhere like putrid sewage. But God can send us revival.

He can change everything, for he declares, I will raise up the decayed places. Can this nation get any more rotten than it is right now? God is our only hope. But we must look to him and lean on him and pray to him and seek him and trust in him and hope in him to come give us an encounter with him that will change everything.

Oh, great God, come raise up the decayed places in my life. I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.