Father in heaven, as we've heard these praises shared tonight, Father, we want to give you all the glory. You have done marvelous things. As we look back in our life and, Father, in the life of our country, we see how you blessed in the past. because we were a God-honoring nation. Father, we want to thank you, Lord, for the change that you have brought so suddenly, Father, that hearts are being turned back to the God of the Bible. And so, Father, we ask, Lord, that you will continue to give our leaders, our president, wisdom, And Father, making decisions that line up with Your Word. And Father, we pray for those who are against Thee, Lord, in our nation and want to pull our nation away from Thee, Lord. We ask that You would minister to them and reach them, Father, with the gospel. And Father, we might see more and more come to Christ, Lord, during these last days. Father, we know we're in the last days and we're expecting the return of Your Son, the Lord Jesus. Until He comes, Lord, help us to be found faithful. Again, we pray for these who are sick and afflicted in our church family. Thank you, Lord, that Dave is now home and resting. Thank you for touching him as he recovers. And then all the others, Lord, that you know of. We just, again, want to lay everything into your hands. And now, Father, we ask that you speak through your living word once again that we might be encouraged in our journey to the promised land. And we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, if you'll take your Bibles, let's turn to the Old Testament book of Exodus as we continue our series, Wilderness Faith. Wilderness Faith, and we've come to chapter 17 in Exodus. As you recall, we have been following The Israelites, as they've left Egypt, they've gone into the wilderness. We've seen testing that has come their way, and it will continue to come their way. And God is trying to teach His people to trust Him, to obey. I think of that hymn, trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey. So here we come. to the journey in chapter 17. And let's look at verses one through seven. We're gonna read all the verses together and then break it down, okay? Verse one, Exodus 17. Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of sin, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim. And there was no water for the people to drink. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord or tempt the Lord? Verse three, but the people thirsted there for water. And there's that word, they grumbled against Moses. We have seen them do this in the past. They grumbled against Moses and said, why now have you brought us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried out to the Lord saying, what shall I do to this people? a little more and they will stone me. He's fearful for his life. Then the Lord said to Moses, pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you will strike, with which you struck the Nile and go. Behold, I will stand, verse six, behold, I will stand before you there upon the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he named the place Massah, or Meribah, because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the Lord, saying, is the Lord among us or not? So here's the first part of chapter 17. Notice in verse one that they were going from the wilderness of sin, and they camped at a place called Rephidim. Now, notice right before that what we read. The whole congregation journeyed there according to the command of the Lord. That's so important to remember here. According to the command of the Lord. Question, who had the GPS for the Israelites in the wilderness? Of course, God did. God was telling, through Moses, he was telling them which way to go. This is where, and then we see it right here. God commanded them to go to Rephidim. Do you think God knew that there'd be no water there? Of course he did. And yet, he led them there. You would think God would lead them to a place, okay, here's the water, and make everything easy on the journey. But no, he didn't. because God wanted to test the faith of his people, wanted to see if they were really gonna trust him with their needs. And so he brings them to Rephidim, and they find that there's no water there. Now, of course, Moses would hope that he comes there and there's no water. His desire would be that the people would begin to pray, that they'd begin to call upon the Lord for water, you know, and just begin to pray, or come together with Moses, and, Moses, would you pray with us? Pray that God would provide water. They had just seen God provide water Remember in the past that the bitter waters that they had endured, and then God suddenly brought, Moses brought a log, a tree, and threw it into the water and it became sweet. And then they're hungry, they have no food, they complain, but God provided the manna and the quail. So they saw God provide. But suddenly, when they were tested again, were waiting to see faith. And here, they're beginning to fail that test again. Because there in verse two, therefore, the people quarreled with Moses. Isn't it interesting that it's always the leaders that the people quarrel against and blame? You know, it's like they forgot God was even there. And yet, so they, he is, you know, he is their leader. God placed him there as a deliverer and leader, and so they come to him, and notice they're saying to Moses, give us water that we may drink. And Moses said to them, why do you quarrel with me? Now they just didn't say, give us water that we may drink. They must have done it in extreme anger. And they came to Moses, so much so that later he says, Lord, they're gonna stone me if it gets any worse. So they come and they complain and quarrel with him. And he says, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? By quarreling with me, you're quarreling with God, and you're testing the Lord. But the people, verse three, thirsted there for water, and they grumbled against Moses, And then they said, why now have you brought us up from Egypt to kill us all and our children and our livestock with thirst? Do you see their grumbling? What has transpired here? They keep pointing the finger at Moses saying, you brought us out of Egypt. You led us here to die. Nobody's saying anything about the Lord. And I think that's something that as we journey through our wilderness, you know, God is allowing us, you and I, to be tested as we go through life. And different tests, yours will be different than mine. But there will be those places of, say, spiritual hunger or thirst or something, suddenly there's a need. and God has led you to a place where you can't find it anywhere, you can't meet that need. It is at that point that God is trying to get our attention, saying, look up. Look up and see me and call upon my name in the day, call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things which you don't know. So here the people failed the faith test again, They're basically saying, Moses, you're the one that brought us out here to die. And turn with me to Psalm 95, if you would. Let's go over to Psalm 95. And here the psalmist refers to it, let's pick it up at verse seven. Okay, the psalmist speaks of this whole situation. He brings it up in the psalm here, verse seven. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Isn't that a comfort, though, that we are the sheep of his hand, that we are his people? Today, if you would hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, there it is, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, they tried me, though they had seen my work. See, God's saying, they had seen me provide for them before, and yet they put me to the test. Their lack of faith, they tried me, though they had seen my work. Verse 10, for 40 years I loathed that generation and said they are a people who err in their heart. They do not know my ways. Therefore I swore in my anger, truly they shall not enter into my rest. And there again he's talking about the promised land and there's a point we will see in the journey where they're ready to enter into the promised land, but again, They were tested, their lack of faith, and God shut the door for 40 more years. So we see here the psalmist is talking about the hardened hearts of the people. And this comes when I have unbelief, when I don't believe God's word and I allow doubts to enter my mind and I allow the circumstances of my life to dictate what I'm going to think and what I'm going to feel. And so I allow myself to go off track, and suddenly I'm upset, I'm bitter, and I forget even God is there, and I become just like the Israelites there in Meribah. And the point where they begin to complain, and so easy for all of us to get to a place where We can grumble about things. It's our old nature. It's natural to do that. But God is trying to teach His people and us, look up. So now, if you go back again to chapter 17, Exodus 17, then what do we see in verse 4? Well, Moses did the right thing. The people didn't do it, but Moses did. Moses cried out to the Lord, and that is what God desires of his people, to cry out to him for everything, no matter what the situation. He cried out to the Lord, saying, what shall I do with this people? And maybe tonight there's a situation in your life where you're saying, what shall I do, Lord? And we get to that point where I don't know what to do, Lord. We come to a brick wall and then God says, well, call upon me and I will answer. And so I have to trust him, even if it means waiting on his timetable. But Moses cried out to the Lord, what shall I do with these people? They're ready to stone me. Then the Lord says to Moses, verse five, pass before the Lord, I'm sorry, pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile and go. And behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb. And you will strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel." Now, it doesn't say that they did this in front of all the people. It may have just been Moses and the elders, the leadership of Israel. went to this place where he would strike the rock. But the people may have been there too and seen it happen, but no doubt, sooner or later, they were brought there. Moses said, here's the water, and the elders would affirm that Moses struck the rock. But I would think that maybe the people were there. But he went with the elders so that he had support. He had support of the rest of the leadership. And he had told them, this is what the Lord wants me to do. And he desires you to come with me to be part of this miracle. And so the Lord says in verse five, pass before the people and take with you some elders. So they did, the people did see him with the elders, right? And then go, take your staff. So there's that staff. that staff that God had used in the past. It's the staff that represented God. It was a symbol of God's power in their midst. When they saw, they knew that that staff of Moses, God used, as a symbol of his power to part the waters of the Red Sea. So this was the same staff also in which, notice it says the Nile. So this is also the staff in Egypt when he struck the Nile and the Nile turned to blood and also divided the Red Sea. And now God wants to use that because everybody knew what that staff meant. It reminded them of God. reminded them of his power. And sometimes there are things in our life that God will suddenly, we're in that dry period of our life, and we begin to murmur, and we don't know what to do, God many times will send a reminder, a symbol of who he is and his power. And that symbol, like the staff, It may be another person, another Christian who God has sent into your life or my life, just beautifully the way you put that, John. About you look around and how the brothers and sisters in Christ here, they were praying for you. And they came up and you were encouraged by them. And God will send people or other situations into our life or something will happen that God wants to remind us. I am here, I am here, and I am going to provide for you. What's interesting to note about this story here is that God does not rebuke his people. Do you see that? We don't see it anywhere. The people were complaining. Moses cried out to the Lord. Verse five, then the Lord said, Moses, this is what you are to do. Notice he didn't say why those rotten people, those disobedient children, and brought the hammer down on them. He was aware of their weakness. He was aware that they failed the test, and you and I are gonna fail many times the test of faith in our life. but the Lord understands. He understands our weakness, and He will always be there, and He is a merciful God and an understanding God. And so therefore, what does He do? He provides for them anyway, in spite of their complaining and their murmuring. What a merciful God we have. And so He instructs Moses, take your staff, and then go strike the rock. He instructs him to strike the rock. This is a different account because there's the account of the water from the rock in Numbers. And some people thought, well, you know, Moses, I remember Moses struck the rock three times in the story in Numbers. and God was displeased with him, because there, God told him to only speak to the rock. So these are two separate occasions. Just remember, it's not a different, a retelling of the same story, but these are completely different situations, just to remember that. That's a totally different one. So, Later in that one, in Numbers, God's gonna tell Moses to speak to the rock. Here, he actually tells him, yes, I want you to strike it with the staff. And so, he struck it with the staff, proving that God is the one. Using the staff, it was showing the elders, as well as the people, that this is God's doing. This isn't Moses' ability. but it's showing Moses is showing them God is gonna provide for you and the proof is in this staff. The staff was so key for the people and for Moses because it represented the Lord. Oh, that we might look for those things that would represent the Lord Jesus. And as we see, he struck the rock and water came out of it that the people may drink. Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel, verse six. And he named the place Massah or Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel and because they tested the Lord. And that word Meribah means quarrel. But they tested the Lord and how did they test the Lord? The end of verse seven, they said, is the Lord among us or not? And sometimes, have you ever found yourself in a place where you go, Lord, where are you? Is the Lord really with me? And the doubt set in, where's the Lord? He brought us here and there's no water anywhere. God must not be with us. And so easy sometimes to think that maybe God has forsaken us. We've all been there and we thought, God, have you heard my prayer? Well, Lord, where are you? And all the while the Lord is saying, continue to call upon me, continue to trust me and wait upon me, but remember that I will never leave you nor forsake you. So they learned another lesson of what it means to walk by faith. They failed this test. But then we wanna wrap up here with the last few verses of chapter 17. We have this second account which also involves the staff of Moses. So let's read together and start at verse eight and we'll finish the chapter. Then Amalek came and fought against Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, choose men for us and go out and fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand. There's the staff. And Joshua did as Moses told him and he fought against Amalek. And Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. So up on the hill they could watch the battle. And it came about, and we all know this story very well, ever since you were in Sunday school. So it came about when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed. When he let his hand down, Amalek prevailed. We don't know why this is. We don't know why God chose to do it this way. But when Moses' hands were up and he was holding the staff, okay, and he's holding the staff up, that represented, again, the symbol of God's power and God working. But for some reason, when his arms got tired and weary and he dropped the staff, then suddenly the tide in the battle turned and the enemy was winning. And so noticing this, verse 12, But Moses' hands were heavy. Then they took a stone and put it under him. They had Moses sit down. And he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Thus his hands were steady until the sun set. Can you imagine? He did this all day. till the sun set. So Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. By the way, does anybody here know any Amalekites that you've ever met? How about Jews? Yeah. God kept His promise. There's no more Amalekites. He wiped them off the face of the earth. And verse 15, And Moses built an altar and named it, The Lord is My Banner. And he said, The Lord has sworn the Lord will have war against Amalek from generation to generation. So he built an altar of thanks to the Lord and giving God the glory. And he wrote it in a book to remember what took place here. But how important it is to see this here, what had just happened? They had just dealt with an internal problem, you know, with the congregation and Moses. And the conflict was from within, among believers. And they turned on Moses, of course, turning on God. They forgot God. That was an inward test. It was a test of the children of Israel, whether they were gonna trust God and trust Moses, who was God's representative. But suddenly, now, God sends a different kind of test. Not one from within, but an external test. One from the outside, from the enemies. And that's a different kind of test. of our faith. And that's what happens when suddenly Satan grows stronger and he has his people, and they will begin to turn against you and me, against God's people. And suddenly we may, in the days ahead, we still may see persecution. I believe it because we're in the last days. Persecution will come upon the church and believers. Right now we thank the Lord for where we are at, But think of the other countries in the nations where believers are being imprisoned and killed and martyred for their faith. And so the Amalekites came, and Satan was behind it all, of course. Of course, God allowed it to happen for a test, a physical test. Notice one thing, too, about this, that verse 10. While Moses was at the top of the mountain holding up his hands and the staff, Joshua did as Moses told him. He fought against Amalek. He fought against Amalek. What's the difference here between this test and the one they just experienced with the water? It was that God expected them now to do something. Joshua had to take the men and had to fight against the enemy. Sometimes God will choose to do things without our help, but then there are other times where he will choose to have us get in the battle and have to struggle and have to fight with the enemy. And suddenly we are put to the test, and we may be put in a place where we are, we must do something to fight against the enemy. We must take a stand. And that's what happened here. And it's just a reminder to us of God sometimes will just take care of things as we pray and call upon him, but there are other times where we may have to struggle. You know, and that's what Paul said. We don't struggle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of darkness. That's our battle from outside, and Satan will always be at us and trying to get us to doubt God and give up on our faith in the Lord and His promises. But notice what happened. Moses got so tired, and he's had to sit down, and he couldn't hold his staff up any longer, so Aaron and her, one on each side, supported his hands, and thus they held up his hands steady, and God blessed that. What does that, what can that remind us of and encourage our hearts with? That this kind of a scene, that God would use Aaron and a man named Hur to help Moses. I have no doubt that Moses was praying during this time. No doubt that he was praying. The lifting up of hands and the staff, of course, is God's authority, but I'm sure back then they would lift up their hands to pray. And no doubt Moses was praying all that time, going before the Lord and asking God to give them the victory. God told them to go out and fight against them. But notice, In verse 9, when God told Moses what to do, God does not say, oh, by the way, I'm going to give you the victory in this. Just stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. No, we don't see the guarantee there. Here, what do we see? We see the faith of Moses. We see the faith of Moses going up to the hill and saying, I believe our God. I have his staff. This represents our God. And he is going to fight this battle for us and help us to win it. And so he held it up to remind the people who were fighting down there, God is with you. But then the staff began to fall, and the people would look up and wouldn't see the staff, and then they began to lose it and go, the staff isn't there, God may have left us. And suddenly the battle turns. But here Aaron and her holding up the arms, that I believe is a great reminder of intercessory prayer. of us going to the Lord and helping others, praying for others. Just as Aaron and Hur helped Moses here, they supported his hands, you and I have the blessed opportunity to pray for each other, to pray for others, and to stand with them, and to be able to those who may be struggling to come by and help hold up their hands in the battle. That as they are praying, that God may intercede and minister to them. But what a reminder to each one of us that if we would be willing to say, Lord, how can you use me, like Aaron and Hur, Give me someone, Lord, help me to look for somebody here that might need my help and might need my encouragement, might need me to help them lift in their life and to carry through in the time when maybe they are struggling and they are praying and they are weak, just like Moses began to be weak. What a reminder, again, of faith. Moses reminded us what faith is in the midst of the trouble. He looked to the Lord. Oh, may we take these lessons tonight and may we apply them to our own hearts and lives as we continue the journey and that the Lord might strengthen our faith as we rely upon his word and stand upon it. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you so much Lord, for what You have taught us once again, through Your Word, Lord, as we've seen the children of Israel. And Father, how You did bring them through that wilderness, but there were times of testing. And Lord, we see that there are times that they failed in their faith. Help us, Lord, in our wilderness journey, Lord. to not give up, to not complain, but to lift up our hands in prayer in the midst of the battle and call upon You in the day of trouble. For we know You've promised to answer and help us to just wait upon You and trust You for deliverance. And we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.