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All right, guys, how to manage meltdowns. So this sermon, we're going to take a look at a story that prevented Moses from actually entering into the Promised Land. And the way I'm describing it here is that he had a meltdown. Something that I've had before, something I'm sure you've had before, or you know somebody that's had one. So in this sermon, you're going to see several different things. We're going to talk about how struggles get turned into strongholds, how aggressive action doesn't always equal effective action. In fact, there's two ingredients that are missing that actually do make aggressive action effective. And so we're going to give you that. So hopefully this is a blessing to you. If it is, do us a favor and share it with somebody. We want to help people as always. And we love seeing you guys on the channel. God bless and have a great day. And Miriam died there and was buried there. And there was no water for the congregation, and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people chode with Moses and speak saying, Would God that we had died where our brethren died before the Lord? And why have you brought up the congregation of the Lord into the wilderness that we and our cattle should die there? Wherefore have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us into this evil place? It is no place of seed or a figs or vines or of pomegranates. Neither is there any water to drink. And Moses and Aaron went from went from the presence of the assembly onto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And they fell upon their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared unto them. And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak unto the rock before their eyes. And it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth them water out of the rock. So thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. And Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock. And he said unto them, Here now ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly. And the congregation drank, and the beasts also. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believe me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them. This is the water of Meribah, because the children of Israel strove of the Lord, and he was sanctified in them. And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom. Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us, how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time, and the Egyptians vexed us and our fathers. And when we cried unto the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and have brought us forth out of Egypt. And behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the outermost of thy border. Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country, we will not pass through the fields or through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells, we will go by the king's highway, we will not turn to the right hand, nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders. And Edom said unto him, Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword. And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the highway, and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it. I will only, without doing anything else, go through on my feet. And he said, Thou shalt not go through, and Edom came up against him, with much people, and with a strong hand. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border, wherefore Israel turned away from him. And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto Mount Hor. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron and Mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because he rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto Mount Hor. And strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son, and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, and shall die there. And Moses did as the Lord commanded, and they went up unto Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son, and Aaron died there in the top of the mount. And Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount. And when all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they mourned for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel. Brother Josh, you want to preface? All right, amen. Numbers chapter number 20. So we're going to look at the incident that actually prevented Moses from entering into the promised land this morning, which is of course the situation with the rock. And what I'm going to title this sermon is how to manage meltdowns. How to manage meltdowns. Now you might think like, well, is it really a meltdown? It is, okay. When we break this down, you're going to see that's exactly what happened to Moses. And let me just say this, if a meltdown can happen to Moses, it can happen to any single person alive. Bible says that Moses during his time was the meekest man on the planet. This is not a guy who struggled with pride and arrogance, but yet we see him here having a meltdown. Now, obviously children, you know, kids, babies, you know, are prone to having meltdowns. And it's pretty obvious why, right? It's communication. They can't exactly be like, hey, I'm too cold. I'm too hot. I'm really hungry. I'm thirsty. My leg hurts. You know, they can't really exactly cry out to you and clear communication. And so you tend to see that more with babies. Hey, it's really what you're going to find though when you study this out, it's the same thing with adults. And it just looks a lot different. Okay. It breaks back down to a communication error. You know, I just, I was just thinking about this this morning, you know, as far as meltdowns go, I've seen some real crazy meltdowns. One of the first and funniest ones I ever saw was at a Mariners game back in the nineties. The Mariners had lost really bad. They were ahead like 10 runs, wound up losing like some crazy score. And I watched this guy outside of the Kingdome when it was still up and he just goes, you know, boy, do we suck. And he just starts shaking real bad. And me and my friend were just looking at him like, what's going to happen? And he looks and there's a vending machine just like outside the gate and just runs full speed and does one of those kicks, like the Ninja kicks, like where you tuck the leg up. It just looked like a cartoon and just kicked the vending machine and just cracked the glass on there. And I was like, wow, this guy's like an old man. That guy is like an adult. He's this bad. And I was like, ah, maybe he's on drugs. And then, so you fast forward, I get to the military and I've seen tons and tons and tons of meltdowns. I've come close to having some myself. It's a real thing. You know, in the Bible, you'll see this, you'll see prophets. Like for example, Elijah, Elijah of all people had a meltdown after his victories with the prophets of Baal and Ahab. If you guys remember that first Kings chapter 18, what happens immediately after that? Ahab tells his wife, Jezebel, Hey, you're never going to guess what Elijah did in the sight of the people and how he destroyed the prophets of Baal. What does Elijah do? He goes, runs and asks God to take his life from him. It's not worth living. And you're going to see why he had his meltdown. It's quite different from how Moses has his meltdown, but these are really important things. One of the worst ones I've ever seen was when I was in the military. Just had a day, you know, they're just like messing with you. I remember there's this day we came back from breakfast and all of our matches. So, so our Bay was like on the second story of this big brick building. Okay. We go come back from breakfast and all of our clothes lockers are just dumped out mattresses all over the floor. And it was just constantly for hours, you know, bringing your mattresses up two flights of stairs, you know, putting them back together, making your bed perfectly. And of course they don't ever give you enough time. I remember looking at this kid, he just snapped, just snapped. He's literally on the floor, like pebbles and bam, bam, like the cartoons and just beating his fist. And at the same time, kicking his toes and I'm just crying his eyes out, just completely. I remember being scared. I was like, was that what's going to happen to me? This guy's literally having an anxiety attack. Like I've never seen or even thought possible. And the reason why I think things like that at stake would be is because I came from high school, you know, just, just a young kid where they're constantly telling you're going to be the leaders of the world. There's nothing you can't do. And here I am watching a grown man beating his fist on the floor because of what they're doing to us. And, you know, so a couple hours ago by they're still doing this stuff to us, you know, put one black sock on one white sock on, you know, put your dress uniform on your PT shorts, just, just really messing with us. You know, just, just, like I said, just for hours. And I watched another kid just had this, this pale look on his face and he's in the corner, clicking his heels together. And he's just like, there's no place like home. There's no place like, I'm like, he had checked out. He was done. Okay. And then what happened after that, that kid had to be put on suicide watch and wound up getting kicked out of the military because of that incident. So this is not something to play around with. A meltdown is a sudden unexpected loss of control over one's feelings or behavior as a result of something they are experiencing emotionally. And of course, as God's people, we want to see what the Bible has to say about these things so that we can check ourselves and also be a blessing to other people and to help them out as well. So let's get started here. Let's look down at numbers chapter number 20. Now, what I want you to think about, think about here. Okay. We've been talking a lot lately about precepts and principles. Okay. So what's the precept in the story we're about to read here. We're going to see in verse eight, the precept is that God told Moses to speak to the rock. Hey, that was the precept. That's the command. Hey, speak to the rock. And then after the waters come out, you are going to bring those waters to the children of Israel. So the command, the precept is to speak and to serve. Okay. That's the precept. Now, why is that precept in existence? Well, because of the principle. God wants the children of Israel to be sanctified in the sight of God. Okay. So that's why God told Moses to speak to the rock and serve the people. Okay. And so we're going to see what happens in between the precept and the principle. And there's a valuable lesson in this game. I want you to pay attention. Look at verse number eight. The Bible says this, take the rod. So this is God speaking here. Hey, obviously, you know, we just read the chapter, the beginning of chapter, the children of Israel, they're arguing. It says they have the people chode with him. Okay. So verse eight says, take the rod and gather thou the assembly together thou and Aaron thy brother. Okay. So you're supposed to take the rod with him, but him and his brother are going to go and look what it says next is and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes. And it shall give forth his water and thou now look at this shall bring forth to them water out of the rock. So thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. And understand the situation here. The children of Israel are very upset with Moses and Aaron and I'm on Moses side. I understand. And this is why I'm not Moses. Why I wouldn't be putting this position here because at verse on verse three, when they started arguing, I would have been getting upset already. Sometimes I would be like, you know what? I'm not even going to pray for you. I'm just done with this whole situation. Okay. That shows you where it shows me at least where I'm at. You guys are probably far better and good on you for that. Okay. But they do the right thing and they go to the Lord and they ask, Hey Lord, what should we do here? Okay. And God says, okay, so I get it. They're arguing with you. They're, they're ungrateful. You know, and if I, if you're in Moses's shoes, right, you're in Aaron's shoes. You're thinking like, we just with God's help rescued you from bondage from 400 plus years of actual hard labor slavery. Okay. And you've seen miracles. You've heard the promises. Okay. God hasn't slacked on anything yet. And here you are just wishing that we would have just left you back in Egypt. So there's plenty of reason to be upset here. Okay. And so the answer from God, the precept from God may seem okay. It may seem to us like you want me to serve them. You want me to speak to this rock. Okay. That's cool. That's going to bring forth water. That's interesting. But now you want me and Aaron to take the water and bring it to them. They can get their own water, right? I mean, that's, that's how we are. That's human nature. That's how we think. Okay. But look at verse number nine. This is Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him. Sounds good. Seems to be doing okay. Okay. So remember the precepts speak and serve. That's the precepts speak and serve. Look at verse 10 and Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock. And he said unto them, hear now ye rebels. So I'm like, yeah, that's right. These people are rebels. That's right. Here now he rebels. Now look at this. Must we fetch you water out of the rock? Moses is heated. Okay. This is unlike Moses seemingly. Okay. He's like, wait a second. I'm upset. I ain't playing games. You know, God's saying we have to serve you. Okay. He's upset here. Look at verse 11 and Moses lifted up his hand and with his rod, he smoked the rock twice and the water came out abundantly and the congregation drank and they're beasts also. Okay. God said, speak. What did Moses do? He smoked. God said, speak. He smoked. God said, serve. And he called them rebels and said, oh, we got to fetch you water. So there's a problem here. Keep your place here in numbers, but go to John the gospel of John, John chapter number two. Okay. And so the first point this morning is this aggressive action always equals. I'm sorry. Aggressive action does not always equal effective action. Okay. Aggressive action does not always equal effective action. Now there is a time and a place for aggressive action. Okay. But there are two ingredients that are missing from the situation here that Moses is in. And if he would have had these, I believe this would not have happened. Okay. And I'm going to give them to you. So you're going to go to John chapter number two. Hey, aggressive action doesn't always equal effective action. Now, obviously I don't have time to get into this, but this is also a picture. Okay. Think about it. The rock. Okay. That could be a picture of Christ. God tells him, Hey, Moses, speak to the rock. Hey, we're supposed to speak to Christ, speak to the Lord. And he provides our needs. He fills our needs in that situation, that, that, that relationship that he's given us with him is also what sanctifies us, the people in the side of God. Okay. This is why we have a prayer and praise list and why we encourage you guys. Hey, if you've got a praise, if you've got a prayer that was answered and you don't mind, put it on that card and drop that in the box, because then we can bring that up in front of the whole congregation and people get edified. Okay. Like, wow. We had prayed for this situation to happen and look at what God did. Look at the miracle that happened. Okay. And then God is elevated in the sight of all of us. So that's really the, the, the, the, the, the hidden, the metaphorical spiritual lesson of the situation among many. The problem is Moses lost control of his emotions and took aggressive action, which I can't blame him. Okay. I'm not better than Moses. I definitely see myself doing something like this. And I have done things like this. I'm sure that we all have. Okay. So Moses lost control of the emotions, which lost the two working ingredients that I'm going to show you guys that makes aggressiveness actually effective. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because they don't want us to confuse meltdowns with proper aggression. Okay. A synonym of aggression is zeal. Okay. There's nothing wrong with zeal. As long as we have it according to knowledge, right? We've got to have zeal according to knowledge. There's nothing wrong with being bold, assertive, zealous, things of this nature. Okay. But aggressive action doesn't always equal effective action. And I just don't want us to be lying to ourselves. Oh, the reason why I did that is because I'm aggressive and I'm just really zealous. It's like, well, there's a couple of bits of knowledge that we're missing here. Okay. So let's, let's get that squared away. So let's take a look at something here. Okay. John chapter two, verse number 13. What you're going to see here between 13 and 15 is what we talked about on Wednesday. And that is temperance or self control. That is what the word temperance means. Look at verse 13. It says, and the Jews Passover was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the temple, those that sold oxen and sheep and does, and the changers of money sitting. Okay. And so obviously this is wrong. We've gone over this several, several months ago, but look at verse 15. He says, and when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple and the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers money and over through the temples. Now what I see there, and because I've studied this out throughout all of the gospels, this isn't his first showdown with these people over this issue. Okay. I don't have time to develop that this morning, but the point is Jesus did not just fly off of the handle because he was upset. This is not a meltdown. And I have to bring this up because a lot of people out in the community that are enemies of Christianity will say, well, Jesus lost his temper and he lost control and therefore he sinned. Okay. And that is not true whatsoever. Obviously it takes time to make this scourge of small cords in order to do what he did. Okay. So what do we see here? We see temperance. Okay. Is Jesus being zealous? Is he being bold? Yes. Okay. He is. But what ingredient he's showing us right off the bat is that temperance. It is that self-control. This isn't just, Oh, something happened and bam, I'm just going to lash out. Okay. He is in complete utter control here of his emotions. And I believe that is what this is teaching us. Okay. Look at verse 16. It says, and said unto them that soul doves take these things hence make not my father's house and house of what merchandise. This is a violation of scripture that these people are doing here. So what do we have now? We have temperance and we have knowledge. You see that there, we've got temperance and knowledge, both of which are lacking in the situation with Moses. Look at verse 17 and his disciples remembered that it was written the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. Okay. So aggression without suppression always leads to destruction. Look at verse 18, then answered the Jews and said unto him, what signs show us thou unto us seeing that thou do us these things. Okay. So like, wait a second. Why are you closing up shop? Why can't we, why can't we exchange money and have business inside here? This doesn't make any, who do you think you are? Okay. Verse 19, Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Okay. So Jesus is giving them a precept, which they have no clue what it means. Okay. They can't, they can't dig into this at all. Verse 20, then said the Jews 40 and six years was this temple and building and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. Now look at this precept here in verse 22, when therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had said. Okay. So what do we see in this passage here? We see zeal, we see the zealous of the Lord, but we also see the zeal of the people buying and selling in the house of the Lord. One is right. One is not right. Okay. The one that's right is obviously from the Lord Jesus Christ. And what does he display in the story? Temperance, self control, and obviously knowledge. Okay. Knowledge. What was the fruit of this? Okay. Well, the precept here, hey, destroy the temple in three days, I'll raise it up. Okay. And then what's the other precept? Hey, don't be buying and selling into the Lord's house. Okay. Well, what's the principles right here in verse 22, when therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered. So they remembered that he said this unto them and look at this, they believed the scripture. So there was fruit, abundant fruit that came of what Jesus did. Okay. So again, we don't want to be like the people that are like, oh, you know, don't ever take any, you know, you don't want to be super jealous and super bold. That's aggression bad. Okay. Not if it's according to temperance and knowledge. So let me just say this, go back to Numbers chapter 20. Aggressive action according to knowledge and temperance equals effective action, but aggressive action without those does not always lead to effective action. Okay. So again, that's what I see there, two missing ingredients from this type of situation and something that we want to help understand so that we can manage meltdowns. Okay. So we can stop ourselves from behaving in this way, which we're all prone to do. We've all done it. Okay. Now let's get on to point number two. You're looking at verse 12 numbers, chapter 20. Obviously after the, uh, the, the incident here. Okay. They got the precept there in verse eight. You see the actions in verse 10. Now let's look at this principle here. This foundation for why God gave them the precept verse 12 and the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron. And look what he says here, because he believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel. Therefore you shall not bring this congregation into the land, which I have given them. So in other words, you know, we're supposed to speak to Christ. You know, if that's a picture of prayer, we don't want to try to beat prayers out of Christ because that doesn't do any good. That's not a good testimony unto people here. And so God's upset here. And you might read this for the first time and be like, man, this seems kind of harsh. Like, like, doesn't he get some grace? I'm going to answer that later. Okay. But look at what God says to these guys, because ye, remember ye is plural in the King James Bible more than one. Okay. Because ye, so Moses and Aaron, because ye believed me not. Okay. So what, I mean, it seemed like Moses believed he grabbed the rod and was going to go do it. Okay. But he actually did not believe what God had said here because he believed me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel. What does sanctify mean again? It means to set apart. Okay. It's to make holy. That is what that means here because Moses and Aaron did not do that. According to God's statute, according to his precept, the result is, well, you didn't believe to believe me in what I had said. So therefore now you are not going to bring the children of Israel into the promised land. It's done for, it's not going to happen. Okay. So I'm going to say this for point number two, how we handle our emotions determines whether we delay, detour or destruct. Okay. The three bad D's. Moses was headed to the promised land. Leave your place there, but go to Ephesians chapter four. Moses headed to the promised land and detoured course. Okay. He's not going to make it. God's going to bring them close so he can have eyes on it so that he can see it. But unfortunately, because of this meltdown, he will not enter into the promised land. Okay. What's the lesson here? We got to understand how human emotions work. We got to understand how this old man, how this flesh just riots against the new man, how it just riots against what God wants us to do. Okay. And of course, the more self-control, the more temperance we develop, the more knowledge that we acquire. Okay. The better we're going to be in controlling of these things. Now, Ephesians four, look all the way over in verse 30. So the Bible says this, Paul telling the Ephesians and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are, now look at this, sealed until the day of redemption. Not sealed until the next time you sin or the next time you have a meltdown. Okay. You're sealed until the day of redemption, which hasn't happened yet. Okay. If it ain't the day of redemption, guess what? You haven't become unsealed. Verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and look at this word here, clamor. Hey, what is clamor? Clamor is an outcry or a protest or what I'm going to say and attribute to a meltdown, a tantrum. Okay. He says, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. So in verse 30, there's that word again, that's that preset. Hey, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Okay. Understand you're sealed until the day of redemption. Once you're saved, you are always saved. Okay. How do we do it? Let all bitterness. Okay. It starts with a bitterness. Moses was bitter and we can all relate. Like I read this story and I'm like, you're the rebels. That's right. That's what they are. Okay. However, if we don't have a process in our lives where we're developing temperance, self-control, restraint. Okay. When we're faced with situations like this. Okay. The odds are we're going to have a meltdown versus managing a crisis. Okay. So we start by putting to bed bitterness. Okay. Wrath, anger. It's not wrong to be angry as long as we don't let the sun go down upon that. And as long as we are angry about the right things. Okay. Righteous indignation is fine. Okay. But when we allow the flesh to control, obviously, okay. We're starting to grieve the Holy Spirit there. So bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor. Okay. All of those things. Okay. That bitterness, that wrath, that anger, that's going to lead to clamor. And then once you're there, evil speaking. Okay. What Moses did. Okay. Hey, you rebels. Hey, God said, serve. You call them. He served them up. All right. He served them a word salad and called them rebels, called them what we all were thinking, but that's not what God wanted. Okay. God has his precepts because behind those precepts are foundations and principles and things that we have to unpack in order to gain a greater understanding of why his laws are in place. Remember God does it. God's not just like, Hey, do this because I said so. He's like, Hey, do this. And by the way, here's why we do this. Understand the foundation of why I'm telling you what I'm telling you. Okay. Verse 32. He says, a solution here gives us a solution. It says, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. So again, it always goes back to this, right? Being kind to people. It doesn't say you got to be best friends with everybody. Just be kind, tenderhearted and forgiving. Okay. This is not only good for you spiritually, but believe it or not, it's also good for your flesh. Okay. It's also good for your body. It's good for your mental health to have a pattern, to have a manner of being kind to other people, to being tenderhearted and to forgiving people because we are not perfect and we will all step on each other's toes from time to time. Okay. So go to Exodus chapter number two. Exodus chapter number two. So point number one is aggressive action doesn't always equal effective action. However, aggressive action, according to knowledge and temperance does equal effective action. And of course you could exchange that word for zeal, boldness or what have you. Now point number two is how we handle our emotions determines whether we delay, detour or destruct ourselves. Okay. And this is what we want to avoid. We want to try to avoid this type of situation from happening to us. And so let's take a look at something here because I said earlier that, well, you know, if you just read real quickly through the book of Numbers, you're like, man, just because Moses got mad, he was the meekest man on earth. He got mad and he smote the rock when he should have spoke to the rock. God, just like that, boom, instantly you're done. You're not going to get to see the promise then. It's kind of harsh. Okay. But what you have to understand is before you got to Numbers chapter 20, the expectation is that you read through Genesis, that you read through Exodus. And this isn't the first meltdown that Moses has ever had in his life. Okay. Let's take a look at this here. Exodus two, look at verse 11. It says, and it came to pass in those days when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens. So this is back in time now when they're in bondage. Okay. Moses had been raised by, by the Egyptians. You guys know that whole story. Okay. He's grown up now. And it says that he went out to, or unto his brethren and looked out there or looked on their burdens and he spied an Egyptian smiting the Hebrew, one of his brethren. This does something to Moses. This triggers something inside of him. Verse 12. And he looked this way and that way. And when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. You say, well, this was just instantaneous, just filled with rage. Okay. This was premeditated. You know how I know that? Because he looked this way and he looked that way. He thought about it. Saw the situation, looked left, looked right. Looks good to me. And boom, just murders this guy, just kills him. Kills this guy. And then what does he do? He hides the Egyptians body in the sand. And so I'm going to say this for a third point is that meltdowns can come from mismanaging minor meltdown. Okay. That's probably one of the bigger points in this whole thing is that meltdowns can come from mismanaging minor meltdowns. You say, well, how did he mismanage this? I mean, yeah, it's the Egyptians versus the Hebrews, right? It should have taken care of him. Well, do you think he should have murdered this guy? Okay. That's not even the issue here. You say, well, yeah, God didn't bring it up after this, but there's a lesson in this. Okay. Did you notice this? So he looks this way, he looks that way, kills this guy, hides him in the sand. Okay. What I think he should have done is been like, whoa, hold on here. How did I go from hero to zero in 60 seconds? How did I get that amped up that quickly? Okay. And so what I'm trying to say is what happened here is instead of him becoming delivered, you know, and coming to knowledge and understanding what he did probably wasn't the best choice because now he's got to flee and I get it. God still uses him and all goes well, more or less. Okay. But what happened in this situation is that Moses developed a pattern. He became discreet instead of becoming delivered. Okay. And so instead of learning from the situation here, he actually carries it with him. He carries it with him and things compound. Okay. Things compound. So he develops a habit of discretion here. Okay. Go to Exodus chapter 32, and I'll show you another one. Exodus chapter 32. And I'll show you another one. Now, another quick lesson just in this story here in Exodus two is that obviously, well, you'll see that here in just a second, but yeah, obviously here, Moses becomes discreet instead of realizing like, wait a second here. I might've, might've been a better way to go about it. Okay. Might've been a better way to handle the situation, but you see this pattern here in the life of Moses. And I want you to see this Exodus 32. I'll look down at verse number 18. So Mo, let me give you the picture here. Okay. So Moses obviously coming down with the word of God, you know, ready to distribute the word of God to the children of Israel. And so that's kind of the situation here. Look at verse 18. And he said, and this is Moses. And he said, it is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome, but the noise of them that sing do I hear. Okay. So Joshua had been like, Hey, I think there's a noise out here. I think there might be some war going on here. You know, what in the world's going on here? And keep in mind, God had already told Moses, Hey, just so you know, your people are already turning away and Moses is like, ah, this is great. I'm happy. I'm in the presence of God. Let me go down there and just cheerfully give the word of God out to the people. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Verse 19. And it came to pass as soon as he came nigh unto the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing and Moses' anger waxed hot. Okay. It waxed hot like real quick. And he cast the tables out of his hand and break them beneath the Mount. That was pretty funny. What happens after this, right? He stamps those calves down into powder and obviously has a conversation with Aaron. He's like, what's going on here, man? You know, he's like, well, I threw this golden fire and out came these cows. It just kind of happened here. And so obviously he beats the people down and kills the people and, you know, poses a great question. Who's on my side, who's on the Lord's side. Okay. And there's that whole situation to deal with here. But what I want you to see here is in verse 19. Okay. And it came to pass as soon as he came nigh unto the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing and Moses' anger. Here it is. Moses' anger waxed hot. Waxed so hot that he broke the word of God. Okay. Now obviously God gives him more. He's like, you know, go bring up some tablets and I'll write it again for you. But the point is here, he breaks the word of God in anger because his anger waxed hot. Okay. That's in there for a reason. God is showing us a pattern that Moses has in his life. Okay. Moses' struggles, I'll put it like this. Okay. Moses' struggles are pictured basically in Exodus. Okay. They start off as struggles. He's got this issue. Kills this Egyptian guy. Now he's got to flee. And we said that, you know, this thing that he did, it didn't turn into deliverance. It basically made him more discreet. Now we see all the way over here in Exodus 32, he gets angry. And again, you know, every time he gets mad, we get mad. Like I can relate, man. I could definitely, I'm with you. I understand how quickly they turned away from the Lord and wanted to worship idols. It's infuriating. Okay. All of us would be angry. Okay. But what I'm trying to demonstrate here is that these struggles in Exodus, by the time you get to Numbers, where we started in Numbers chapter 20, are actually strongholds. And so his struggles got turned into strongholds. Go to second Corinthians chapter number 10, second Corinthians chapter number 10, and we're getting close to being done here. Okay. Second Corinthians chapter number 10. So meltdowns can come from mismanaging or not managing your minor meltdowns, your minor, not to say that it was a minor thing with what Moses did with the Egyptian. We, we can relate to that too. You know, nobody likes that kind of bondage. That's obvious. Okay. But the lesson in this for us is that struggles, if they are not dealt with properly, will turn into strongholds. You say, well, what do we know about strongholds? Okay. Second Corinthians 10, look at verse number four. So Paul says this, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, meaning they are not physical. Okay. Not, that's not a knock against having weapons or anything like that. I have weapons. Most of us in here do. Okay. But he says for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty. And look at this through God to the pulling down of strongholds. I'm telling you right now, the struggles in your life that we fail to deal with will become strongholds. And Paul saying that our weapons, okay, we have weapons to deal with these things. You are not left hopeless. You are not left without a solution. Those weapons come through God from him himself. He is the rock. He is the word of God. He is the one that can help us smash down these strongholds. Okay. And these strongholds, according to this verse, they are fences that we build in our mind. They are the supposed logical ways that we reason in our minds on why we do the things that we do. Why I had to kill this guy because, you know, we're God's people and they're not, they're Egyptians, they're satanic. And then, so that's okay. You know, and well, God didn't really say anything to me about it. So I'm good to go. I'm just going to keep this pattern of behavior. Okay. And that's not why God didn't do anything about it. Okay. God wanted him to learn a lesson about mercy and trust and in all these different things. But unfortunately, Moses being human did not learn that and it cost him in the end. So when we fail to deal with our struggles in the Exodus, we're going to be expected to pay for it in numbers. Okay. So again, strongholds, they are fences that we build in our mind. They're the arguments that we set up in our head and what do they do? Okay. What do they do? What are these fences? What are these strongholds in our minds? What do they do? Look at verse five, casting down imagination. So again, this goes back to mental warfare here. Okay. These are things that happen in our mind. We build up these, these situations. We label ourselves. We do all these things we always talk about. Okay. Casting down imaginations. That's what they are. And every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God. So these strongholds, which used to be struggles. Okay. They float around in our minds. Okay. And they become barriers to the knowledge of God. And so Paul says that our weapons, which obviously are many things which come from the word of God, we've talked about temperance. We talked about knowledge. We talked about putting away bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, all of these different things. And we do that through forgiveness, through kindness, through tender heartedness. Okay. These are part of your weapons, which come from God and they all lead to what? Sanctifying God and the sight of people. That is the goal. That is the principle here. But Paul says in verse five, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity, every thought to the obedience of Christ. Our biggest battle today is in the mind. Okay. It is in the mind. It is in the voice that is trying to creep into our head, or that is already in our heads. Go to Song of Solomon in the Old Testament, chapter number two, Song of Solomon chapter number two, and we're going to be done. Okay. Song of Solomon chapter number two. So Paul saying, you know, this victim mentality. Okay. This stronghold lie that we allowed to fester in our minds is going to turn into trouble. It is going to begin to block the knowledge of God. Okay. Why? Because it's a major distraction. That's what it is. It's a distraction that prevents us from going to the promised land. It prevents us from finishing the race strong, not losing salvation. Okay. But it prevents us from being the powerhouse that we were called to be. That's what it does. And that's why Paul brings this up to the Corinthians because they definitely were dealing with this. Okay. Mental warfare is very, very real. It is a very, very serious thing in our lives today. Why? Because the battle is spiritual. Okay. It is, everything is spiritual. We know that, um, we were, we're constantly surrounded by spiritual warfare. Go read Ephesians six on your own time. I got to get this wrapped up here. Song of Solomon chapter number two. Look at this in verse number 15. So the Bible says, take us the foxes. Now obviously I don't have time to get into this whole chapter, but I just want you to see, you know, anything to do with Solomon. You're always going to find a proverb. Okay. So he says, take us the foxes. Now look at this next phrase here, these next three words, the little foxes that spoil the vines for our vines have tender grapes. So this goes back to managing meltdowns. This goes back to managing the minor things, the problems when there's still struggles before their strongholds. Okay. The miniature meltdowns and managing and recognizing those things before they become major. Okay. And what I believe Solomon is telling us here, what God is telling us in this verse here is we don't want to wait till the little foxes become big foxes. We want to take care of them while they're little foxes because it's easier. Okay. It's easier and it reaches a permanent solution. But when the Fox has grown up, it becomes much more difficult unless you're Samson to really go around and and capture them and destroy them and preserve your fruit. Okay. What you were trying to build here, your vines, your, your, your tender grapes. This principle is taught throughout the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation. I mentioned this at the Red Hot Preaching Conference. You open up Genesis and who do you see? You see Satan depicted as a serpent. Yeah. You see him depicted as a serpent. We know he's not a serpent. He's a fallen angel. By the time you get to the book of Revelation, what has he become? He has become a dragon and the world's okay with that. There's just like, ah, it's just like normal, right? In Genesis, when Eve was looking around, it's like, oh, there's a serpent talking. It's not like she, the Bible doesn't record that she flipped out. It's like, whoa, you can speak. You can actually talk. You know, there's a conversation that takes place there. And it's a real tree by the way. I don't want to get started on that, but there's this conversation that takes place. Why? Because you don't, you know, there's nothing out of the ordinary with a snake in a garden. That's normal. Okay. And so you see this conversation take place, but by the time you get to Revelation, okay, the Bible tells us that the Antichrist or Satan is basically a dragon pictured as a dragon and the whole world worships him. Why? Because in the end times, the dragon fits in perfectly with society, which kind of cues you in onto how people's behaviors are in the end times and things of that nature. Okay. So the point here is, okay, the biggest thing is to understand and to start when you have these issues and we all have them, you start melting down and start having these anger problems is to look and say, what got me just so quickly from here to here? Okay. What was that? Is there a lack of self control? Then we need to work on that. We need to start with some small things and start making sure that we are exercising temperance. This is why when babies are starting to grow, right, we start to withhold things. You're not going to eat candy all day. Okay. You know, we make them wait. You're not going to be snacking all day. Okay. There's a time and a place to eat. We're trying to instill into them temperance. Okay. And obviously not just because I said so, but we're trying to provide them with knowledge. Well, here's why. We don't want you to have gut problems. We don't want your teeth to fall out. You know, we want all these good things to happen to you. So we start to communicate to them precept with principle and in hopes that instills in them temperance and knowledge, and they learn to behave aggressively when it is necessary so that they can have an effective life so that they can produce effective action. Okay. But if that goes unchecked, if that goes unchecked for a period of time, like it obviously did in Moses life. Okay. And you can't blame him. We can't knock Moses because all of us have been there. You know, if you were in charge of these people, you would be the same way. Like these people are terrible. There's a reason why Moses was chosen for the job because he was the best person for the job. But like I always say, men at best are all, are just men at best. I mean, there's no other way to put it. Okay. Men have issues. Men have problems. Okay. So is there an issue with temperance? Is there an issue with knowledge? Is there an issue with us just not going back and saying, Hey, you know, my attitude with the Egyptian, what could I have done better? You know, some self-reflection and understanding, Hey, I've got some struggles that are turned into strongholds, but that's okay. That's no problem because Paul said that our weapons are mighty. Okay. The weapons and the tools that you get from the word of God are better than your guns. They're better than your knives. They're better than your spirits. They're better than all of your physical weapons because they can penetrate the physical without hurting and actually do proper cleansing. And Paul is saying that the word of God can take those strongholds and pull them down so that now information can flow properly. So now the knowledge of God in verse five can bring those things into captivity and then get you back on track, back in control of your emotions. Now, other times I don't have time and I wish I had time to get into this. We talked about Elijah a little bit. I just mentioned Elijah at the beginning of the service. Okay. Why did he have his meltdown? What did God do in response to his meltdown? He gave him food and he gave him solitude. And I think the lesson in that is sometimes that's just what it takes. Sometimes I think people just need, we're doing too much. We just need a break. We need a vacation. Maybe we need some nutrition. You know, there's definitely a lot of problems with the food in today's day and age. I get that. So sometimes it just boils down to food, rest, and a little bit of solitude. Other times it developed, you know, it's just, there's something wrong. There's a disconnect between self-control and knowledge. Those two things. Okay. It's not complicated. The complicated part is actually recognizing and saying, I got to make some changes. I got to be better. I've got to do better because I can do better because greater is he that lives in me than he that is in the world. And we're going to go ahead and stop it there for this morning. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much, Lord, for this church and for all that you continuously do for us. I just pray you would help us to be able to recognize these things when they pop up in ourselves, Lord, and understand it. If this can happen to Moses and the prophets, it will happen to us. And we need to know how to deal with it so that we can be fruitful and that you would be sanctified in the sight of people, Lord, in Jesus' name. I pray. Amen. All right. We're going to have one more song here and then we'll go ahead and be dismissed.