Stammering Lips

      As a child, I stuttered.  It was really bad and I dreaded the times that I would have to speak before the class at school or to recite some poem that we had to learn by heart.  Certain words were terrible with me such as the word, “radish.”  My Aunt Hattie knew about my problem as did the rest of the family but she took it on herself to at least make me say the word “radish.”  She pronounced it slowly and loud and it kept getting louder and slower as I tried to blurt out the “ra, ra ra, ra….”  I just couldn’t do it.  The stuttering plagued me in my life also while with A. T. and T. Co. and one of the difficult things for me to say was my last name, which was required many times while working on telephone circuits for putting information on work tickets.   My stuttering decreased when I decided to go into the ministry.  It seems like an impossible thing to take place, but it did.  I was able to preach and to teach the Word of God and my verbal stumbling was considerably less.  Some words would still give me trouble, but I knew how to control them and to sometimes replace them with other words.  I pretty much do not stutter anymore but I find that I now have trouble with typing the correct letters for the words I wish to put down on paper.  I have been relying on my spell checker to catch the obvious mistakes, but they often slip by.  You are probably saying that you know all of the mistakes that I make and how you have to correct them in your mind.  Exodus 4:10-11 says, “And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.  And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?”

Moses had trouble with speech also, or at least that is the excuse that he tried to give to God as to why he was not suited  for the task of leading the Israelites out of Egypt.  It is safe to assume that Moses didn’t want the job and was looking for anything possible that might disqualify him from doing it.  God, however, had chosen him and there was no excuse that Moses could come up with that God did not already have the solution.  We know that Moses ended up doing what God had commanded him to do.  The lesson for us is that whatever God calls us to do, He will equip us with what we need in order to do it.  When we think of clarity of speech we can come to the quick conclusion that God never stutters nor does He falter in His words.  After all, He is God.  What should amaze us is the famous grouping of words that says, “Thus saith the LORD.”  This little grouping of four words occurs some 413 times in the Old Testament. 

I hope you are as amazed about this phrase as I am.  What follows on each occasion is the fact that God says something.  It should excite us to know that God says anything but we have it recorded 413 times in the Bible.  You pretty much get to know a person by what they say and do.  I have a little email that I receive during the week that includes quotes by famous Christian leaders.  Some are quoted more than others because of what they said and how famous they are.  Spurgeon is quoted a lot and so is John MacArthur.  The prophets were saying that “these are not my words, but the words of God.”  “If you have a problem with what He said, take it up with Him.”  In the end, we can thank and praise God for His words to us and the fact that He never falters in His speech to us.