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Amen. Exodus chapter number 17, Bible reads in verse 1, And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin after their journeys according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. And what we see here again is that even though they are brought into a place of adversity, a place where there's a problem, there's not enough water, God brought them to that place on purpose. You know, God wanted them to be in situations where they didn't have enough to eat. He wanted them to be in situations where they didn't have enough to drink because he is testing them and he wanted to prove them. And he talks a lot about this event later in the Bible where he proved them at the waters of Meribah, right? You'll see that in later scriptures where they'll look back on this. And so it's very clear here that they were moving according to the commandment of the Lord, right? Their journey was according to God's commandment that brought them to Rephidim and there was no water for the people to drink. So just because things are going bad for you, and just because you're experiencing a lot of problems, don't just jump to the conclusion of, well, I'm out of God's will. You know, have you ever known people like that where any little thing goes wrong and they say, oh, well, I'm out of God's will. Are they going to do something good for God? And then they run into the first obstacle and then they say, well, God closed the door or something like that. You know, we have to understand is that a lot of times we're just being tried and tested and God doesn't always want things to be easy for us because he wants us to get stronger. If we actually lived our lives the way that we want to live our lives, where everything goes our way, you know, and when we were in school, let's fast forward our lives when we were in school. Let's say we would have just been the most popular and we would have been the best athlete and the best looking and we would have just had straight A's. You know what? We would all be just horrible people today. Every single one of us. We would be the most rotten people imaginable. Okay. What has made us who we are is adversity. Okay. David said, it is good for me that I've been afflicted, that I might keep thy word. And if everything went well for us, we would always be puffed up and arrogant and prideful. Think about if we'd never had financial problems, then we would never be able to empathize with people who had financial problems. We would just think, oh, you idiot. So easy, you know, to make money. I mean, what? So we, you know, we have gone through hard times. Maybe we've gone through persecutions or people harming us, people stabbing us in the back, problems physically. And those things are never fun. And we wouldn't choose those things, but God chooses those things for us because he knows they're good for us. And they're making us a better person. You know, maybe you're shorter than you want to be, or maybe there's something about your physical appearance that you don't like, some blemishes that you have, or just something physically. But you know what? God gives us those things to make us who we are, to keep us humble. And he puts us through trials, tribulations and adversities, because suffering makes you a better person. Okay. We don't want to suffer, but God knows we need some suffering in our lives, even though we don't know he gives us what we need. Okay. So he's bringing them to suffer on purpose. He brings them to a place where they don't have enough to drink because he wants to test them and try them. And he wants them to suffer so that they can become better people. Okay. Wherefore, verse two, the people did chide with Moses. So chiding with him means that they're striving with him, they're bickering, they're fussing, they're fighting with him. And they say, give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, why chide you with me? Wherefore do you tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water. And the people murmured against Moses and said, wherefore is this that thou has brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? Now it's pretty easy to sympathize with the children of Israel here, because it's not like they're lusting for something exotic here. They just want water to drink. They're not saying, where's the Coca-Cola? You know, all we got is, all we have is tap water. They don't have anything to drink. This is a reasonable concern, but I believe that the reason why God uses such a reasonable concern is to show us that complaining and murmuring is never okay. The stuff that we complain about is usually unreasonable. You know, first world problems that we have. Whereas in the Bible, I mean, these are legitimate concerns. We don't have any food. We don't have any water. Yet God says, don't complain. Don't murmur. Trust me, stay faithful. God does not like complaining. And you know what? The people around you don't like complaining. If you go to work and complain, it's the most irritating thing to the people around you. If you complain in your family, you're irritating your family. You're being a pain in the neck. So stop complaining. Stop murmuring. Here's what was always told to me when I was a kid. Suffer in silence. That's why parents used to always say that. Who was told that growing up? Hey, you need to learn how to suffer in silence. Okay. Sometimes you just suffer, but you don't have to just, I'm hot. It's hot. It's really hot. Oh, it's so hot. It's just like, you live in Arizona. All right. Get over it. But you know, people are just complaining and just murmuring and everything I got. But the Bible is clear that we should not complain. We should not murmur. We should not be a sniveler. But also they take it a step further here. They actually say some really wicked things. Not only do they just complain, which is already wrong, but they actually say some wicked things because they accuse Moses and really who they're accusing is the Lord of being malicious. And bringing them in the wilderness just to kill them or something, which, you know, obviously this isn't Moses's idea. God had to twist Moses's arm to even get him to take them out of the promised land. So when they complain against Moses, they're actually saying these things about God. And it ends up being blasphemous because they say, wherefore is this? That thou has brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst, right? You brought us out here to kill us. That's a horrible thing to say. And we need to be careful what we say when we're too hungry or thirsty or whatever. And we start complaining. Don't just be rash with your mouth and blow off your mouth and say these wicked things. Accusing people of maliciousness that are innocent and especially not speaking against God. And Moses cried unto the Lord. He's frustrated. He says, what shall I do unto this people? They'd be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses, go on before the people and take with thee of the elders of Israel and thy rod. Wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand and go. Behold, I will stand before thee upon the rock in Horeb and thou shalt smite the rock and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massa and Maribah because of the chiding of the children of Israel. And because they tempted the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not? So this chapter is divided into two Bible stories. Verses one through seven is one story. And then verses eight through 16 is the second story. So in this first story, they're complaining. They don't have any water. God led them to that place on purpose. And in fact, he had a plan to do something amazing that would actually picture Jesus Christ. So it is a great picture of the gospel. So here we are complaining. Oh, I don't have enough food. I don't have enough water. I don't have to drink. And you know what? God has something so much bigger going on. You can just wait a little while to get something to drink so that God can foreshadow the coming of Jesus Christ to be crucified for all of our sins. Isn't that a little more important than you getting your little bit of water a little bit early? Do you see what I'm saying? God had this plan of smiting the rock that the water would come forth. Now, what is this a picture of? Well, the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 that they drank the water out of the rock. And it says that rock was Christ. That rock was Christ. So the picture here, when he smites the rock, it says in verse 6, Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it. Here's what that is. This is a picture of God the Father smiting the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says it pleased the Lord to bruise him. OK? And so Jesus Christ was smitten for our transgressions. He was wounded for us. And so when he hit the rock, that's a picture of Jesus is the rock, right? Being smitten, being stricken, being crucified, being killed for us. And then out of the rock comes water. That's a picture of the living water. OK, which represents everlasting life, eternal life. Jesus Christ talked about eternal life as living water. Remember when he spoke to the woman at the well, and he said, If you drink of this water, you will thirst again. But he said, Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. And he said that it would become a well of water springing up in him unto everlasting life. And then, of course, in John Chapter 7, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water in this spake key of the Holy Ghost that would be given. And so through the power of the Holy Spirit, we have everlasting life, and we also have the ability to get other people saved, right? We actually share that water of life. It's like a well of water that we have where we can then share the water of life with others by preaching them the gospel. And the Bible in the final call in Revelation Chapter 22, the last chapter where he's coming calling for people to come to Christ, he says, Whosoever will let him take the water of life freely. That's the final plea to be saved in the Bible. Take the water of life freely. So this is key. This is important. This is critical. And yet they missed it, you know, because they're too concerned on themselves and think about carnal things. But it's a beautiful picture here of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And, folks, getting saved is easy. It's as easy as eating a piece of bread, drinking a glass of water, going through a door. This is what the Bible compares salvation to. And a lot of people will criticize the gospel and say, oh, it's easy believism. You know, you're one of these easy. Yeah, you better know I'm an easy believism guy. Why? What do you want? Hard workism? Why is it so hard to get saved? You know what was hard is for Jesus Christ to live a perfect life and then be beaten and wounded for our transgressions and die on the cross and rise again from the dead. Hey, Jesus did the hard part. And our part's easy. Just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, except ye be converted and become as little children. You shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven. You've got to be like a little child who just reaches up and says, dada, you know, abba, father, right? It's like the little child fully relying on his parent. That's the picture of salvation, just drinking that water of life freely. It's not, look, the picture of salvation is not a monk in a monastery beating himself and studying scripture and chanting all day. It's a picture of a little child saying, dada, that's salvation. It's like eating the bread of life, drink the water of life. I'm the door. If any man enter in by me, he shall be saved and go in and out and find pasture. Hey, Jesus is the good shepherd. He's the door. He's the vine. It's, it's not hard to be saved. It's easy to be saved. Now, if you're reading a modern Bible version, they'll tell you it's hard. Oh, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It says in Mark 10 24 and the NIV, you got a King James that says how hard it is for them who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God. Why? Because people who trust in riches, they're used to doing everything for themselves. Have you ever known rich people who are just, they have this attitude that they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and they've built this company and they've built this empire and they've done everything for themselves and it's hard for a person like that who has succeeded in life to then realize that they're a failure spiritually and say, God be merciful to me, a sinner, whereas the person who has failed in life, the publicans and sinners and harlots, it's pretty easy for them to realize I can't get to heaven on my own. I've got to put my trust in Christ because I, you know, I'm not good enough. Okay. So salvation's only hard for people that are arrogant and prideful in general. Salvation's easy because it's so simple, right? Just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And so this is a beautiful picture of the water of life coming from the smitten rock drink and you'll be saved. That simple, right? And there are tons of pictures like this all throughout Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Every one of those five books have pictures of Christ that involve just eating food as a picture of salvation. Or how about this? Looking at the serpent on the pole, look and live, right? Look and you'll be saved. Eat and you'll be saved. Drink and you'll be saved. That's the picture. Get on the boat and you'll be saved. It's always something easy. It's always something simple, but it's always something that requires faith. Okay. So we're saved by faith, not by works, lest any man should boast. So let's roll into the second story here. So that's the first story. And by the way, let me just mention these place names in the Bible, uh, have significance. So when you're reading the Old Testament, he'll often tell you this place was called such and such because of this and that that happened. So what it is, that's what those names mean. That's what the Hebrew words mean. So like when he says here, he called the name of the place Massa and Meribah because of the chiding of the children of Israel. So that word Meribah, as we would say it in English, means actually strife or chiding, right? The strife is Meribah. And then that word Massa, or that's how I pronounce it. Cause I, it kind of reminds me of the Massa conference. You know, I like that. But anyway, you know, the, the Hebrew way to pronounce would be Massa, but basically that word Massa means, um, um, like testing, temptation. They're being tried. They're going through trials. So, but he explains it right here, right? Because he says he called the name of the place Massa and Meribah because of the chiding of the children of Israel. That's Meribah. And because they tempted the Lord. That's Massa, right? The tempting, the temptation saying, is the Lord among us or not? I mean, look, you just crossed the Red Sea on dry land. You're eating manna every day because remember they started eating manna in chapter 16. They're going to eat that all the way until the book of Joshua. Is the Lord among us or not? That's a stupid question. Amen. Okay, let's move on. Verse eight, then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidim. Now remember, Rephidim is the same place that they just arrived. So God brings them to this place where a, they don't have water because he wants to perform a miracle. He wants them to suffer a little bit and then get the miracle of the water of life out of the rock. And then he also brings them to a place where they're going to be under attack. I mean, he brings them to a place where they're going to be ambushed. It's God's will that they be attacked here. I mean, he leads them into this because it's part of his plan. So again, God has the good. I got good news and bad news for you. The good news is God has a plan for your life. The bad news is that plan is for you to be hungry, thirsty, and get attacked. All right, so, but the good news is you're going to win. It's going to be great. All right, so hang in there. So Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim and Moses said unto Joshua, choose us men and go out, fight with Amalek. So choose us out men, go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. So he says, okay, Joshua. Joshua is his protege. And of course, Joshua is going to take over for him when he dies and be the next great leader. So he sends out, you know, the young guy to go out and do the fighting because remember Moses is how old? Anybody know? He's 80, right? Because we haven't got to the 40 years yet. So he's 80 years old. So he's sending out the younger man. The Bible calls Joshua a young man to go out and lead troops to choose out, you know, whoever seemed to be the best fighters, the ones who are going to fight well. And then he says, I'm going to go up on the mountain. I'm going to hold up the rod of God so that we can basically invoke the power of God. You know, just like he held up the rod and part of the Red Sea, he's going to hold up the rod and invoke the power of God because he wants to rely on God for this battle, not to just rely on the flesh or just rely on Joshua or the fighters. So it came to pass, it says in verse number or let's go to verse 10 and Joshua did as Moses had said to him and fought with Amalek and Moses, Aaron and her went up to the top of the hill and it came to pass when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. So picture this. This is such a great story. He goes up there and he holds up the staff, you know, because he said, Hey, you're going to go down there and fight. I'm going to hold up the rod of God. Well, he's holding up the rod of God, but then he starts getting tired because it sounds like a great idea. Like I'm going to hold out the rod of God, you know, but then after a while you're kind of like, yeah, this is kind of tiring. So after a while he puts it down, you know, I mean, it makes sense, right? I mean, how long do you really have to hold it up? He didn't have to, he didn't have to hold it up the whole time on the red sea thing, you know, so he holds it up and when he holds it up, it's like, wow, Joshua is just routing the Amalekites. Just the battle's going great. But then he noticed because he could see everything. He's up with the bird's eye view from the mountain. As soon as he puts down the rod, he sees all of a sudden Amalek starts to rally and Amalek's waiting because he's seeing like a big picture of this fighting. All of a sudden now Amalek's winning. So then he holds up the rod again. And all of a sudden he's kind of like testing it. So he starts to get the picture like, wait a minute, I need to keep this thing held up. But he's a human being, right? I mean, there's only so long you can stick your arm out there with a big stick in your hand, okay? When you're 80 years old. And of course he's going to live to be 120, so he's a very healthy 80, but he's holding this thing up there. So he gets some help. You know, they get smart. It says in verse 12, but Moses' hands were heavy and they took a stone and put it under him. Now, when it says his hands are heavy, he didn't have like abnormally heavy hands here. This is talking about perception. The Bible often talks about things from our perception. If you hold your hand out, your hand's going to get heavy too, okay? No matter how light it is when you start. You know, anything that's easy, once you keep doing it, eventually it starts to get hard. You know, we think about as men, we do pushups, right? And we would scoff at doing girl pushups, right? Who knows what girl pushups are? Girl pushups are where you get on your knees and do pushups, right? Well, here's the thing about that though. When I was doing kickboxing, they would have us do pushups until we couldn't do pushups anymore. Then they would have us switch to girl pushups. Like after you've already done all the pushups you can do, and then the girl pushups are you're like, you know, you're like struggling to do a girl pushup because girl pushups are hard when you talk. And look, even if you didn't do the real pushups, if you just dropped and did girl pushups after 100 of them, 200 of them, I mean, eventually everybody's going to reach their limit where they're going to, where you're just going to be like, you just can't do it. It's just not possible. So it's the same thing with holding up this rod. I mean, you just can't do it. It's not humanly possible to do it. So basically what they do, his hands are heavy. That's his perception, obviously. So they took a stone and they put it under him. So they're like, okay, we got to get you a chair. So they roll over a little boulder or something because he's got to be to where he can see the battle and hold out the stick. So they bring over a boulder, they roll this thing over, and then he sits on that because he, you know, he doesn't want to stand up for hours. This is a long battle. So he gets to where he can be seated, keep his arm up, and then the Bible says that Aaron and her stayed up his hands. The one on the one side and the other on the other side and his hands were steady until the going down to the sun. So he can hold this thing up until the battle's over. Okay. This is a great story. I love it. And Joshua discomforted. Now that doesn't say discomforted. All right. That would be an understatement when they're getting slaughtered and dying and getting wiped out on the battlefield. Discomforted basically means that he throws them into panic, confusion, like he's basically got them off balance. You know what I mean? He's got, you know how it is when, when an army gets to a point where he just becomes pandemonium and they, they start breaking ranks. Everybody's just fleeing and they can't, they can't stay organized and they can't hold the line. And that's what it means to be discomforted. Okay. So Joshua discomforted Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. And the Lord said unto Moses, write this for a memorial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. So there's a lot that we can learn from this story. Okay. So let me, let me go through some of the things that we can learn from this. First of all, we realize the battle is the Lord's, you know, without the Lord's help, we're going to lose. So we must trust in the Lord to fight our battles for us and not lean on the flesh, not put confidence in the flesh or in man or in ourselves. Okay. Number two, we see that, you know, we need godly leadership. You know, we need Moses, you know, we need God's man to be there. He has a role to play. Even if he's old, even if he's 80, you know, he's still necessary to the work of God here. We still need the man of God. And then we see that in order to do what God wants us to do, sometimes we need help. We need people to help us. We need Aaron and her in our life to help us out. You know, Noah, no one is just an Island unto themselves. And no one just does everything on their own and never needs help. You know, all of us need help sometimes. So don't, don't get this attitude of like, I don't need any help. I don't need anybody. I'll just do it by myself. I'll do it on my own. I'm a lone ranger commando. I'm a rebel. I'm a loner. You know, you've got to realize that we need other human beings to help us. We don't just need God to help us. We need humans to help us because Moses needed God's help. And you know, he's got to hold up the rod so that he can get God's help, but he also needs the help of his brothers in Christ. And so we, that's what we need church for because we need help. There are going to be times in life where, you know, our hands are heavy. Metaphorically speaking, we can't do the work of God that we need to do. So we need to be willing to reach out to other people and get help and not try to just do everything on our own, but to reach out and get help and rely on other people. You know, don't be afraid to ask someone for favor. If you need help and reach out and get help and ask people to assist you. Okay. And you know, I, this is something I've had to learn as a pastor because earlier in my life, my nature was to want to do everything myself as a pastor. And that was just kind of by nature. And I, and I think I kind of learned that from my parents because that's kind of how my dad was. He liked to do everything himself. He was self-employed. He ran his own business and he never had any employees except just for, you know, little times when he, for example, he broke his leg. He had somebody, you know, keep his business going while he had a broken leg. But in general, he would always do everything himself. And even when he would bring us along as helpers, you know, he would usually only have us do grunt type work. You know, like I grew up crawling through addicts, crawling under houses, just being a gopher, but he didn't really have me do any of the important electrical work. So I actually didn't learn very much electrical from my dad, but I was able to put on a job application that I, Hey, I worked with my dad for years. You know, I didn't tell him I was only a gopher and an attic crawler, you know, but I did pick up some stuff. But anyway, you know, he did help me get a job doing electrical, but you know, he didn't really teach me that much. And his, this is what he would always say, you know, those who can do, and those who can't teach that's, that was his thing. And so he was kind of a self-reliant guy. So I kind of, you know, that's kind of how I was raised. So when I, when I started out pastoring the church, I kind of had this attitude, like, I got to do everything myself. I got to do everything myself. You know, I need to, I just, let me just do it myself. And I've had to learn to delegate. Now I feel like I delegate a lot now, you know, I delegate stuff to brother Corbin, brother Daniel, brother Segura, and, and, um, you have to, that's the only way to grow. I mean, how can the church grow? If you have one guy trying to do everything himself, you're just not going to get enough done. And not only that, that one guy is going to burn out, you know, Moses is going to burn out if he's just trying to hold up the rod of God without any help, he's going to burn out, right? So he needs Aaron and her to put the chair under him. And you know what? And there's so many great lessons from this, but we need to understand that as a leader, and I know you're not a pastor because I'm the pastor, but you have other leadership roles in your life. Like maybe you're a mom or a dad, or maybe you run a business. You need to learn to delegate. You know, you've got to let people help you because if you let people help you and, uh, you know, learn to delegate, you'll be able to get more done. You'll be able to grow and advance. You know, a lot of mothers, they just try to do everything themselves and then they get burned out and they're tearing out their hair and they're frazzled and I can't take this anymore. It's like, you got to put the kids to work. You got to delegate. And a lot of times you say, well, it's harder to delegate. I'd rather just do it myself. Delegating is always harder in the beginning because you have to sit and train somebody and sometimes training somebody can be harder than just doing it yourself. But you know what? You got to make that investment to train someone and then it's going to pay off when now you never have to worry about that job again. That job's just taken care of because you can pass that off. Okay. So as a pastor, I have to delegate things and here's the thing, don't get mad at me for delegating things. You know, I want pastor Anderson to come visit me or I want pastor Anderson, you know, to do this or that or the other, whatever need you have. You're like, you know what? It might not be me that meets your need. It might be a staff member. You know, I need to talk to pastor Anderson on the phone right now and I need him to answer my Bible question and I need him to come and pray for me and this and that. You know, sometimes it might be a staff member that does that or, or, or just another layman in the church because I have learned to delegate because I don't want to do this for one year or two years. I'm trying to do this for my entire life. And so if I'm going to be like Moses and last for 40 years, I need somebody to help me. I need helpers. I need, uh, assistance and I have some great helpers, you know, I really appreciate brother Corbin wrestle, brother Daniel writer and brother Chris Segura. I mean, they are great workers. They do a great job. They helped me out a lot and so I appreciate them and, and, and you know what? Because of the fact that I can rely on them, it frees me up to be able to go do a missions trip or to be able to go film a documentary or to be able to do things that I wouldn't normally be able to do. You know, when I was over in Cyprus for a week and a half doing soul winning every day and making that film and everything, you know, which I feel that was an important work that I did over there. But you know why I was able to do that is because I have people here holding down the fort and I know that when I come back, you know, they're not going to be worse being the golden calf. I know that when I come back, it's not going to, it's not going to be a mess or something when I come back. And you know, what's cool is that when I'm gone, I literally, I mean, I I'll just, I'll go days without even checking in with them. And then I check in with them. Everything's great. Everything's smooth. I come back. Everything's, everything's great. I mean, that is so nice. And I remember the early days of the church just having to do everything myself and it's strenuous. It's hard. You know, you got, you got to let go of certain things and delegate and it can really help you to, to expand. You know, in order for the church to grow, you got to delegate in order for a business to grow, you got to delegate, you know, in order for your family to grow, you got to delegate. All right. So how do you have 11 kids? Are you crazy? You know, I can't even handle my two kids, but you know, you learn how to do it. You learn how to delegate. You get a system. You got, you got to have some discipline and rules in place and you can make things work and have a well-oiled machine. Amen. So you got to learn to delegate, but here's another good, I mean, there's so many lessons. This is one of my favorite stories. I really liked the story about Aaron and her holding up Moses arms. Not only that, how about this? Be humble enough to do a menial job. Be humble, you know, cause we're kind of looking at it from Moses perspective. Now let's look at it from Aaron and hers perspective. Be humble enough to do a menial job. So basically what is Moses saying to Aaron and her? Hey, give me a chair to sit in. What do I look like? Your slave, you know, get your own chair. Isn't this how kids are sometimes like, I'm not going to serve you. But you know what? The Bible says, whosoever is greatest among you, let him be your servant. So we need to have a servant's heart and not feel like jobs are beneath us. What, you think I'm a gopher? You think I'm an attic crawler? Yeah, you are. And you know what? If you crawl attics and be a gopher, someday you get to be an electrician and make good money. And so, you know what? I'm thankful that my dad had me crawling on my belly under the house as a little kid and crawling through all that fiberglass in the attic and, and doing all the attic crawling and, and, and doing all the grunt work because you know what? I was learning how to work and then eventually I got to make a lot of money. And guess what? When I was an electrician and when I was doing alarms and CCTV and fire alarms and stuff, guess what I did? I crawled a lot of attics and I, and that was one thing I knew how to do. You know, one thing, one thing, you know, I never stepped through the sheet rock. Who's ever stepped through the sheet rock before? I didn't step through the sheet rock because my dad was just like, don't step through the sheet like he gave me this big talk and I was so scared that, you know, I stayed on those studs. All right. But anyway, uh, now one time I did go through the sheet rock. I actually jumped through a ceiling intentionally because this room was locked and there was no way to get in. And I'm just like, I'm coming from the ceiling. And I just, so, but I don't think that counts. So, cause I was, I did that on purpose, but I meant to do that. But anyway, uh, the, the point is, don't be, uh, ashamed to do a menial job. You know, Jesus Christ actually did what? He washed the disciples feet. He took a towel and girded himself and washed his feet. And they were even shocked by this. Remember Peter said, you're never going to wash my feet. And then, you know, Peter kind of tends to vacillate because 30 seconds later he's like, wash my whole hands and head and everything else. You know, no, no, no. I'm just going to wash your feet, Peter. Relax. Peter is kind of an all or nothing guy. You're never going to wash my feet here. Wash my hands too. Wash my head. So the point is, don't be ashamed to do a menial task because you're being Christ-like when you're being a servant. If somebody says, give me a bottle of water, give me a chair, give me, you know, the boss that were, man, I'm sick of the boss at work barking orders at me. Hey, the boss at work has every right to bark orders at you. And if the boss at work says, hey, go grab me that. Hey, go buy me a sandwich. Go break, you know, slave. No, I'm just kidding. If he, look, just do it. And you know what? If you humble yourself, you'll be exalted. But if you exalt yourself, you're going to be a beast. So be willing to do stuff like, hey, grab a chair, put the rock under, uh, Moses, hold up his arms, right? These guys had an important job because without Aaron and her, Joshua would have lost. It would have been literally physically impossible for Moses to hold up the rod of God for a sufficient amount of time without Aaron and her. This, this battle was, was lost. Aaron and her were necessary. Amen. So the most menial servant in the ministry or at work is necessary. Okay. And so don't feel like you're not important because you're doing a menial job. Being a silent partner out soul winning is critical. What are you doing when you're a silent partner? You're Aaron, you're her. When you're a silent partner, you, what are you doing? You know, the guy who's doing the talking out soul winning is Moses. And you know what? Moses needs Aaron and her, and you're actually, you're doing double duty. You're Aaron and her. All right. Cause we're only going two by two, typically not three by three. But you as that silent partner have an important job. And you know what? I can't emphasize this enough. Don't ever downplay the importance of the silent partner. This is very important. Don't miss what I'm saying right now. Without silent partners, we'd have half, we'd get half the soul winning done. Because if we have two talkers show up, we're going to pair them up together. They're going to go out soul winning. But if we have two talkers and two silent partners, now we have two teams. We're going to knock twice as many doors. We've doubled our team. Now, a lot of people don't see the importance of a silent partner. So here's what they do. Anytime their partner starts giving the gospel, they ditch their partner. Don't be that guy. Don't ditch your partner. Don't just always be, every time you're just run off and go do your own thing and say, well, I'm going to go soul winning too. I'm not going to be a silent partner. You know, be humble enough to stand there while your partner gives the gospel and be a silent partner. Learn to be a silent partner. Now you say, what's the point? I'm just standing there. Well, you know what? You're supposed to be praying. And when you're praying, you're like Aaron and her. You're supporting the talker spiritually there. You're giving him spiritual support just as Moses needed support so that he could give spiritual support to Joshua. You're giving spiritual support to the talker by praying in your heart. And you're also there in case things go wrong. Now, sometimes you might not be necessary in a carnal sense, but you know what? Sometimes you will be necessary and you know what? I don't want to just constantly be abandoned by my silent partner. And this is especially true when we go on a missions trip. You know, we're down in Guyana and you know, people have this tendency sometimes, like I said, to just kind of always just kind of run off in a bunch of directions, kind of ditch their silent partner. Everybody wants to be a talker nonstop and everybody goes different directions. And then what happens is people are in danger because in foreign countries it can be dangerous, you know? So we're down in Guyana and you know, a couple of guys got a little scattered. Next thing you know, one of those guys is being threatened by some thug and he's, you know, he's all by himself and he's being threatened and everything. Look, you know, on a, on a Mexico trip, uh, you know, there have been people who tried to rob different people in our group or, um, you know, most of the people down there in Mexico and Sonora are really nice people. But guess what? There's some criminals down there. There's some thugs down there just like anywhere else. And when we were down there a couple of times ago, we got the window smashed out in the van. And what did they even steal? Was there even anything to steal? Your what? Oh, his phone holder. Yeah. So they, they, they stole his little gadget. It wasn't even that big of a deal, but they bust in the window, stole his electronic gadget and then they tried to steal somebody's camera and you'll get these thugs and, and guess what happens when you're by yourself, you're like 10 times more likely to get targeted by thugs than when you're, when you're with somebody else. If there's two of you, you're not a target, but when you're just by yourself, you're just this white guy in a country where nobody's white except you and you're just like standing out like a sore thumb. Like I'm a tourist, I'm not local, I'm an American and you're in these poor countries and they just see you like they see you like Sylvester sees Tweety Bird. Like you're just this little, like you're this little chicken dinner with legs, you know, or like you're the little, you're the little walking lollipop, the sucker, you know, they see the sucker coming, they see the little chicken dinner walking, you know. So you've got to stay with it when you're in a foreign country, you don't just go out by yourself in a foreign country. You know, I'm glad I'm bringing this up because we got a Mexico trip coming up. Stay with your partner. Stay with your partner. Because sometimes interruptions can come and sometimes as a silent partner, you got to run interference too and keep distractions at bay and kind of put out fires so that the talker can stay focused and you can be praying and also you can be learning. Well, I already know everything. Well, you know what? That might not be true. You might be able to learn something too from the conversation. So provide spiritual support, provide companionship, provide friendship. Don't be that one where it's just every time we get back to the van, it's like, where's your partner? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. You know, my brother's keeper. Stay with your partner. All right. Stay with your silent partner and stay with your talking partner. Work as a team. And somebody asked the question, you know, hey, if I go out as a silent partner, am I going to get any rewards in heaven for that? Absolutely. There's no question about that. Okay. Because, you know, you're out there. The Bible says that if you give a cup of cold water to a prophet in the name of a prophet, you're going to receive a reward. How much more if you go out with that prophet side by side with him, being his companion, encouraging him, running interference for him, praying for him. Of course you're being rewarded. So look, you say, well, I'm a silent partner. I don't matter. Yes, you do matter. Well, I mean, I go soloing, but I'm only a silent partner. You're great. Be a silent partner till Jesus comes. Being a silent partner is cool. All right. Don't ever let people talk down at you. If you're a silent partner, you need to start talking. Hey, when you're ready to talk, talk. But until then, you're serving God being a silent partner. That's what matters. You know, you're, you're out there. Not everybody plays the same role. And you know what? I guarantee if you spend enough time as a silent partner, eventually you'll want to do the talking anyway. But, but there's nothing wrong with being a silent partner. There's nothing. Look, there's nothing wrong with being Aaron and her. That's what the silent partner is. He's Aaron and her. He's a support team. And if you, if you take another step back in the story, Moses is a support. If you think about it, Moses is a silent partner. If you think about it, cause Joshua was kind of the talker. If you look at it that way, Joshua is the talker and Moses is a silent partner. And then if you look at it the other way, Moses is the talker, Aaron and her are the silent partners, right? Depends on which way you want to look at that. So don't be, don't be embarrassed or ashamed to do a humble job. Be a helper, be an assistant, be a servant. Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant. Jesus Christ said, even the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. In fact, that's why pastors are called ministers. You know what it means to be a minister? The word minister literally means servant. That's what it means. So if I say as a pastor, if somebody asked me, what do you do for a living? And I said, I'm a Baptist minister, right? What do you do for a living? I'm a Baptist minister. What am I actually saying? Literally, I'm actually saying I am a servant. Okay. That's what it means to be a minister. So leadership in the church is not leadership like some king or something who just reigns for his own glory. Being a leader in the church is about being a servant, right? It's about serving people. So don't get this attitude of wanting to be served. And I always have to be the talker and I always have to be the main event. Hey, be willing to take a support role. Moses took a support role of Joshua. Aaron took a support role of Moses. Her took a support role of Moses. And you know what else you see from the story is that there are more supporters needed sometimes than even the guy who's doing the main job. You know, there are sometimes more people end up doing a humble job. Here you have two people doing the humble job and one guy who's going, yeah, with the rod of God and two helpers. Okay. So be humble, be willing to do whatever job God needs you to do and to steady the hands of the man of God. So it says Joshua discomforted Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. And the Lord said unto Moses, verse 14, write this for a memorial in a book. And of course we have it written right here in a book. We got the whole book of Exodus, which includes this story and a lot more. And he said, rehearse it in the ears of Joshua for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. It's interesting what he says there. You know, write this down because I'm going to utterly put the remembrance of Amalek out from under heaven. Here's what he was saying. If it weren't for the Bible, we wouldn't know who Amalek is. I mean, outside the Bible, who's Amalek? I mean, does Amalek have any fame outside the Bible? No. Why? Because that isn't that what God predicted would happen. God basically said, I'm going to wipe out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. So the only way anybody's going to remember this story is if you write it down. Okay. So that's why it's here in the book of Exodus for us. Verse 15 and Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah Nissi. For he said, because the Lord had sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. So this is another one of those significant place names, right? And this is also significant because it's one of the few places where we get the name Jehovah in our English Bible, right? Because we only have the name Jehovah a few times in our English Bible. And, and, and the King James version is right to use the Lord instead of using Jehovah. And let me explain to you why. Because throughout the Bible, and, and, uh, when we see even in verse 16 here where we have Lord in all caps, when you have Lord in all caps, that's actually Jehovah there. And when you have just a capital L, but the O R and D are lowercase, that's not the word Jehovah. That's not the name Jehovah. That's just the word Lord. Okay. What we would think of as Lord, like master or boss, like Lords and ladies, because Lord is not necessarily just the name of God. You can also have the Lord of the manner or something, right? Little Lord Fauntleroy or whatever. Okay. So basically when we see the Lord in all caps, it means Jehovah. Now, now seven times in our King James Bible, you'll see the name Jehovah spelled out as just that Jehovah. So the reason that they did that seven times is just so that we'll be aware of that name. Now the Jehovah's Witnesses will criticize this and say, you've removed the name of God, you know, 7,000 times because that Tetragrammaton, the fancy name for it, Tetragrammaton means four letters, Tetra four grammaton letters. Tetragrammaton, which is four letters in English, you know, works out with the capital L capital O capital R capital D that name had stopped being pronounced by the time Jesus was on this earth. Okay. And that's a long story, but the Jews had some weird beliefs and stop pronouncing it and whatever. So they, they basically forgot how to pronounce it too. They stopped pronouncing it. And because there are no vowels in Hebrew, it's all consonants. They didn't even know how to pronounce it. So basically by the time Christ comes on the scene, they're no longer pronouncing it. And what they're doing is instead they're just saying the Lord, the Lord. So here's what the New Testament does. And this is very important. Whenever the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, because remember the Old Testament is written in Hebrew and the New Testament is written in Greek. When they quote the Old Testament, every time they come to that name, Jehovah, do you know what they put in the New Testament in Greek? They put the word Lord, the Greek word for Lord. So basically if God, when he translated, cause, cause look, isn't the New Testament being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost? So isn't the Holy Ghost moving upon them and aren't they speaking as they're moved by the Holy Ghost? So isn't the Holy Ghost responsible for the translation from Jehovah to translate that as Lord in Greek, right? So in English, if we're going to translate the Bible in English, shouldn't we follow that same lead? If Jesus translates Jehovah as Lord and the apostles translate Jehovah as Lord, wouldn't it make sense when we're translating the Old Testament to do it as Lord? That's what they did. You know, that wasn't something that they came up with in England or something like, Hey, let's just, let's just hide the name Jehovah. Let's hide it and let's put Lord instead. All they're doing is what Jesus and the apostles did. Jesus and the apostles, when they quoted the Old Testament, they said Lord. So basically the King James is doing the same thing. Now, you know, uh, in the Spanish Bible, when you're reading like an old, uh, Reyna Valera Antigua, they just spell out Jehovah every time, Jehovah, Jehovah, 7,000 times. Okay. Now that's not wrong per se because that is what that word is. But I do think that the King James is superior to do it as Lord because they're following the example of Jesus and the apostles. So it makes more sense the way the King James does it. So you can't really point to the Spanish Old Testament and say, Hey, this is wrong when it says Jehovah, because it is Jehovah. It's just that the way the King James does it is superior. Okay. So he does give it to us in the original and a few places like here, it's a place name. So he wants us to understand the place is called Jehovah Nissi. So what does that part at the end mean there? The Nissi. So this word, this Hebrew word Nissi means my banner. Basically, these are the ways the King James translate. Cause that word is used throughout the Old Testament. Here's how the King James translates it throughout the Old Testament. The King James will translate it as banner, ensign or standard. Okay. So three words of what this means. So basically what this means is Jehovah or the Lord is my banner. The Lord is my ensign. The Lord is my standard. That's how you translate this name. So he's saying, call the name of the place. He builds an altar and he called the name of this altar. The Lord is my banner. The Lord is my standard. The Lord is my ensign. Now I'm going to help you remember these definitions. So that you will know what this Jehovah Nissi, what does that mean? Okay. Cause this is one of God's names here, you know, or the name of this altar at least. So turn in your hymnal to song number 405. All right. I'm going to help you remember this forever. So turn to song number 405 and you'll see how these words are used interchangeably. Cause when we hear the word standard, we might not really know what a standard is. We might think of a different definition of standard. Like when we hear the word standard, we think like, oh, it's kind of something that everybody agrees on. That's the standard, you know, like a standard measurement of what a gallon is. We all agree that it's 128 ounces or whatever, but this is a different meaning for a standard. A standard is like when you go into battle and you'll see like a flag being held up in battle, right? Or sometimes if you look at like ancient pictures and things, it's kind of like a more like a banner than a flag, you know? But even we call our flag, you know, the star spangled banner. So an ensign, think of like an insignia, a symbol, a flag, a banner, or a standard. That's what those things are called that they would carry into battle. Different colors, you know, red, white, and blue, or whatever the colors are. That's called the standard. So think about this song uses these words. Okay. So let's sing. We'll just sing the first verse acapella. All right. There's a Royal banner given for display to the soldiers of the king. As an ensign fair, we lifted up today while as ransomed once we sing, marching on, marching on for Christ count everything but lost and to crown him king toil and sing need the banner of the cross. Okay. So you notice there, there's a Royal banner given for display to the soldiers of the king, right? So they're going out to battle and they've got the banner. And then it says as an ensign fair, we lifted up today. You see this other meaning banner and ensign. But now let's get the third part here. Okay. Look at the second verse. Though the foe may rage and gather as the flood, let the standard be displayed and beneath its folds as soldiers of the Lord for the truth be not dismayed. Marching on, marching on for Christ count everything but lost and to crown him king toil and sing need the banner of the cross. So look, so you've got the banner, the standard and the ensign. All right there, right? So these are three words that are used throughout the Bible. You'll find all three of these words throughout the Bible. And they're all translating this Hebrew word that's in this place, his name, this Jehovah Nissi, the Lord is my banner. The Lord is my standard. The Lord is my instant. And then even later in the song, the third verse talks about the Crimson banner, you know, referring to the blood of Christ, the cross of Christ. So the song is about going out into battle and basically having this emblem or insignia or banner or standard that rallies us, right? And so that staff being held up by Moses, right? He's basically holding that up. And that's why they won when they held up the rod of God and he had his hands up in the air with the rod of God that kept them winning the battle. So basically he's saying, Hey, you know, it's not really a physical stick here. It's not like some magic trick. Like, look, I hold up the stick and the, you know, it wasn't magic here. What this is is the Lord is fighting the battle and holding up the staff is just a symbol. It's just a picture, right? It's not actually the rod that had magical powers or something. It's actually the power of God. But in order for God's power to be invoked, we have to obey. So if God says, smite the rock, we smite the rock, water comes out. It's not that the staff made the water come out. It's that we obeyed and then God did a miracle. So when God says, Hey, hold up the rod of God on the mountain. That's just God testing obedience. And then, you know, they had to do some work and be committed and everything, and then God will do the miracles and that's what's going on. So it's really, the Lord was their banner. The Lord was their standard. So I think Moses is building the altar and calling it by this name because he wants to acknowledge the fact that it wasn't his power. It wasn't just him holding up his rod. It was really the Lord's power. He was the actual banner or standard. Because what is a banner or a standard or an ensign? It's that which is held up, right? You hold it high during battle to rally the troops, okay? And that's what Moses was basically doing with the rod. And it's actually, he's saying, no, no, no. You know, I'm not the banner. The staff's not the banner. The Lord is my banner. You know, he's my standard. He's my insignia. So, you know, basically people get really into insignias, don't they? We don't really use the word ensign, but we use the word insignia, which is the same word. Okay. You know, I remember I was out soloing. I saw somebody's whole house was painted green and yellow with a Green Bay Packers symbol on the garage. You know, you see entire vehicles painted this way, right? Entire houses painted this way. And, you know, a giant Raiders, Oakland Raiders decal filling up the entire window. What, folks, you're too into sports at that point. It's ridiculous. It's overboard. If that look, if that just becomes your whole identity, where you're painting your entire house like that, and you're painting your whole car like that, it's just like that's you're too wrapped up in that. You know, the Lord should be our banner. You know, if anything's going to obsess our lives, it should be the Lord, right? It doesn't need to be a sports team. And look, I'm not saying that it's wrong to have other hobbies and things that you're interested in and whatever. But you know what? More important than the American flag, more important than the Green Bay Packers or the Arizona Diamondbacks or Arizona Cardinals, or it's real important to me, you can tell or the Sun Devils or whatever you're into here. You know, more important than any of that is the Lord should be our banner. You know, why don't you wave? Where's the American flag here? Oh, well, you know, we're under construction. So if anybody asks you where the American flag is, just say, Oh, well, the Lord's our banner. You know, the Lord is our standard. He's our ensign. You know, he's the only flag we wave is the Bible. Here's our flag, right? There we go. So what's the banner? The banner of the cross, like the song we just sang, right? The Crimson Banner. That's our colors are crimson blood red for the blood of Christ, right? That's what we need to get excited about. And that's what we need to rally behind and not get super overboard into sports teams or into patriotism for that matter. You know, we're America, love it or leave it. And, you know, all that stuff. It's just look, these colors don't run. You know, it's just like, chill, because you know what? Being a Christian is 100 times more important than being an American man. And he said he called the name of Jehovah Nissi before he said, Because the Lord has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Man, you don't want to be this Amalek guy. Amalek sounds like a reprobate. Okay. And this nation got wiped out. We didn't even know about it unless we're reading about it in the Book of Exodus, because he I mean, he wiped out the member. And then and then people will come along and say, Oh, yeah, well, if the Bible is true, then how come there's no archaeological evidence of Amalek? There's no archaeological evidence of Amalek because the Bible is true, right? Now, I don't I'm not sure. Maybe they have dug up some stuff from Amalek. I'm not sure if they have or not. I don't really care if they did or not, because my faith has found a resting place, not in archaeology. I trust the ever living one. His wounds for me shall plead. All right, so I'm not I'm not trusting in a fossil or an archaeological dig to prove the Bible to me. You know, for years, they said that the Hittites didn't exist. And they said, Oh, the Bible made the Hittites up until they discovered the Hittites and then deciphered their language a little over 100 years ago. And now it's considered one of the main precursors of our Indo European languages. It's one of the it's one of the early Indo European languages and scholars study the Hittite language. But, you know, they used to point at the Bible. The Bible is not true. Some of these nations like the Hittites and the Amalekites, they just got so wiped out because they were so wicked. That's why we didn't talk about them or find out about them. So you don't want to be like Amalek, right? We want to be on the Lord's side. And if we're on the Lord's side, we're on the winning side. And I'd rather be thirsty on the Lord's side. I'd rather be hungry on the Lord's side than to be on the devil's side and have plenty to eat. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this chapter. Lord, help us not to murmur. Help us not to complain. Help us to always trust in you. And Lord, help us to do whatever job you have for us, Lord. If you have us in leadership, help us to lead and delegate and be efficient. And Lord, if we're a servant, help us to be humble and serve. And no job is too low for us. Lord, help us to do our best and to always give you the honor and glory because you truly are the banner. You are the one who brings the victory. And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.