Hey, let me brief you a little bit on some current events too about Russia and Iran. Right now Russia has about 95,000 troops on the border of the Ukraine. Russia does not want NATO there and it's trying to get that out of the Ukraine. In dealing with us and Russia, the Biden administration is not going to put troops there, you saw, and they're going to send armaments to that area. It could create a hot war. We're not sure. We'll see what happens. But the Biden administration has sent many signals to the Middle East and to Russia that we don't want to get involved anymore, that we're not going to do what we need to do anymore to protect Ukraine or maybe Protect israel because at the same time that that's currently going on with russia You have the situation that's going on in iran and iran. They're going you're getting ready to go nuke on this thing, man And so, uh the biden administration again member the biden administration is the old biden administration is part of the deal that did the uh, the nuclear deal with iran back when obama was president and created a mess there that trump had to clean up And anyway, we're back into that same scenario again with Iran, that we're gonna be passive with Iran going nuclear. And Israel and even Saudi Arabia are saying, we can't be passive, we gotta do something about this. We can't let them go nuclear. And Iran sees it as a chance to do it within the Biden administration, because they know we won't do anything. And Israel is saying, okay, to us, if you're not gonna do anything, we will. And we're going to act unilaterally without your help because we can't have a nuclear Iran. And so the idea is that perhaps this spring, Israel might do an attack on Iran and go into a hot war and at least destroy their nuclear sites or whatever. We'll see. In fact, it could happen this winter. I don't know. But usually, they want to wait till better weather. I find that interesting. They always want to wait till the spring because in the Bible, it says, in the spring when the kings go to battle, It's always the spring that the kings go to battle in the Middle East because it's the better weather. But anyway, you're looking at two fronts right here of almost possibly going into a hot war. What does that mean for us prophetically? Well, it means that the players in the Gog of Magog alliance are flexing their muscles now. They're coming to prominence, and exactly what Ezekiel predicted about the young lions, which would include the United States, we start taking a passive role, not intervening and backing off of the Middle East, which is exactly what Ezekiel predicted 2,500 years ago. So now we're seeing this. right in front of our eyes. Russia's gaining power, they're exerting themselves. And before you know it, if Israel attacks Iran, I can rest assured you know what's going to happen. Iran's alliances with Turkey and Russia and other Islamic states will come and attack Israel. And so it could precipitate the invasion of Gog and Magog. I don't know, we'll see. But Gog and Magog war is a pre-tribulational event. It doesn't happen in the tribulation. It happens prior to the tribulation, because there's a seven-year cleanup of the weapons. And those weapons that Israel will be burning possibly came from the United States when we gave those over to Afghanistan. Isn't that ironic? So watch what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. Watch what's happening in Iran. Just keep your finger on that pulse and watch how this plays out. We'll see, because it could be setting up Gog of Magog. Anyway, let's go into our lesson today. From scriptures, we're going to do a summation of Moses. We're ending Exodus here, so I'm going to move into the book of Daniel once we get past Christmas season. And we'll be studying the book of Daniel for some time. Right now, what I wanna do is go to the Hebrews chapter 11, that actually summarizes Moses' life as a man of faith. Now, if you want the rest of Exodus, I'm not gonna do when it talks about all the tabernacle and the furnishings, because man, I would get bogged down in that for about another six months. I don't wanna do that. If you wanna know more about the tabernacle, there's plenty of studies online that you can watch, but every piece of the tabernacle points to Jesus, every piece, everything. And so that's the big lesson about the rest of Exodus. But anyway, we want to see What made this man? Obviously Moses is a man like you and I, makes mistakes. Murdered the Egyptian, remember that? Hit the rock twice, not allowed to go into the promised land. Remember all those mistakes Moses made. But overall, what the Bible does in the book of Hebrews is summarize his entire life and takes the summation of everything and basically states that Moses was in the hall of faith, so to speak. That he is the pinnacle of what it looks like to have faith, along with the other people in Names in chapter 11 of Hebrews. And that's what I want to look back at. I want to look back at what Moses did, and basically What you want to see with Moses is that his faith was illustrated in the decisions he made. And that's what we're going to learn. The measure of a believer's faith is seen in the kinds of decisions they make. So here's the deal. What's happening to you and I? We're being forced to make decisions right now. Decisions you didn't want to make, but they're being leveled against you, and you're being put against a wall right now. And it's not going to end, because they're forcing the whole world into these decisions, right? Just like they forced our culture to make decisions of how we're going to deal with the Charlie Vector 019er, and how we're going to deal with now vaccines being pushed on us, and mandates, and all this other junk that they're pushing on us. The idea is they want you to comply and make a decision of compliance. But what you'll see from Moses's life is that he had such an incredible faith He always made the decision for God and against Egypt and against the world system, against the government of Egypt. And that's what we're going to take home with us. I want you to see this and how it applies to you and I. So let's start in on understanding the basis of faith, or sorry, let me put it this way, how faith acts, okay? It's important to understand how faith acts. And the writer of Hebrews will say this in Hebrews 1. and he describes the nature of faith. He says, now faith is the substance. It's a hupostasis in Greek, which it's, the word in English would be assurance of things hoped for, but really assurance doesn't capture it. The idea here is this, that faith is the foundation of life. of things we hope for. So like I'm standing on the stage, that's my foundation. Faith would be that foundation. If you're building a house, the foundation would be faith and you build a house on top of that. That's what that hypostasis means in Greek, is to build on a solid ground. If you do not do that, you will be on jello. wishy-washy all over the place you don't know what you stand for like our politicians they don't know what they stand for they just stand for whoever's paying them the most right they'll go with whatever wind of political change there is because they don't have no principles they don't have any standards no values right so but when you stand on faith you're standing on what God has said And that puts you on a firm rock and you can't be moved. It gives you the confidence to stand there. And then he goes on and he says, the evidence of things not seen. So this goes to the idea of conviction in the Greek. And that this conviction that once you believe something and are convicted by it, that conviction will actually push you towards action. Whether that's saying something you need to say, doing something you need to do, but it causes an action in us. So when you see Christians that are passive in their walk with the Lord against this culture, you're looking at shaky faith. Those who are bold and speak the truth and act and go against all that this culture is pushing us is standing on solid faith because they have a conviction and that conviction makes them fight back. At least say something, right? And the idea is of things not seen. See, faith allows you to see the unseen realm. That's why you and I can connect dots of what's going on in our culture. If you listen to the talking heads in the media, even the conservative media can't connect all the dots. But you can go further because you're operating on faith about what God has said. And if you know prophecy, you know what he said about that. So all of the stuff that's happening, you actually connect dots to the very end. They can't. A guy like Tucker can't. Gunn-Beck can't. John Hannity can't. They can't go as far as you can go. They stop at the political level, or they stop at the financial level, but they can't go into the spiritual level. That's the advantage you have. You can connect dots because you believe in the things that are not seen. Do you understand this physical world was created out of the unseen world? So what's more real? It's the unseen world that's actually more real than even the physical world. The physical world was produced out of the unseen world. So faith allows you to see that. Just like with Elijah's servant, he was freaked out because an army was around him, and they were going to get destroyed. And so what does Elijah do? Prays that his servant would have eyes to see the spiritual realm. And what happens is his eyes are lifted, he sees the spiritual realm, and there's chariots and fighting angels all over the place that he couldn't see before. That's what faith allows you to see. And that's how it works. That's how it worked in Moses. So then you have the necessity of faith that comes in. So the writer of Hebrews would say, look, without faith, it's impossible to please God. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. This is not a salvation passage. This is a passage written to believers. So let's unpack this a little bit to understand Moses. Nothing you can do outside of faith can please God. You know that about salvation, but you shouldn't know that in your sanctification. If you serve the Lord in 17 different locations, and you're doing all these things, spinning these plates, serving the Lord, but you have no faith, it's useless. If you're doing good works without faith, it's useless. It becomes philanthropy. The basis of our relationship with God is faith, and out of that faith flows our service to Him, our good works to Him, and all that stuff. But you can't get the cart before the horse, and a lot of Christians attempt to do so. Well, I'll get real busy for the Lord. Yeah, but do you have faith? Because if you get real busy for the Lord, you'll end up being Martha instead of Mary. You remember the scene? They're preparing dinner, and Jesus is there, and Martha's busy preparing the house and preparing the meal, and she rebukes the Lord. as arrogantly as she did, and says, get her to help me. Get Mary to help me. And what does the Lord say? No, she has chosen the better thing. She's sitting at his feet learning from him, increasing her faith, and then she can be ready to go out and serve. But Martha wants to serve without faith. And so Jesus corrects that. That's how you and I have to function with the Lord. And then understand this. For he who comes to God must believe that he is. Now, he's not saying, well, believe in God. That's the wrong interpretation. Well, yeah, you just gotta believe that God exists. He's talking to believers. Believers already believe that God exists. What does this have to do with faith? It has to do with this, when he says you must believe who God is, you must understand what the great I am means. You must understand his name Yahweh. And basically this, you must understand his nature and character in which his attributes flow. That's what he says when he means you must believe who he is. Now this is important. Many people have wrongly thought that, well, if I see a miracle, then I will believe. That's totally wrong. That's backwards. In fact, if the Lord did something in my cousin's life, then I know my cousin would believe if he saw something miracle. No, he wouldn't. That's not true. In your relationship to Jesus, even seeing his miracles and his works won't increase your faith. What increases your faith is knowing who Jesus is. His character and nature, that's actually what increases your faith. Because I want you to look at what the Bible says about the generations that saw the most miracles. The generations that saw the most miracles, the exes generation, that was a flop. They saw the mighty works of God and they still went to the golden calf, didn't they? Let's move to Jesus' day. You're seeing miracles all over the place from him. A minority believes, but the majority of Israel doesn't, and the religious leaders reject him despite seeing the evidence of miracles. Let's move to the future. In the future, during the tribulation, there will be supernatural things occurring all over this planet. They will see flying angels manifest. They will see demons manifest. They will see the waters turn to blood. They will see all kinds of cosmic disturbances. And yet, the majority of humans won't believe the miracles. They won't. Because why? Because it starts with accepting the character and nature of God, who God is. That's where faith is built. So when you're doing your studies in the Bible, that's what you have to focus in on. What's God's character? What is his love? What is his justice? What is his holiness? What is his compassion? What is his mercy? All those factors are telling you who he is. And when you know who he is, it actually increases your faith. and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So if you want to know who God is, he will reward you by that. So in this context, how is the reward given? Well, you know God more intimately, which then creates a solid foundation of faith, and that solid foundation, part of that reward is you will make correct decisions. Your life is gonna be categorized when they do your funeral, okay, by what decisions you made. Your life is based on all the decisions you made, good or bad. And so that's the summation of everything. So this is fundamental. If I wanna make godly decisions, I've gotta have this faith. Then that means I gotta know who God is. And then I gotta seek this. I can't just sit by passively and think I'm just gonna grow in my faith. It doesn't happen like that. You have to seek God for this. Okay, so that's the basis of understanding how to grow your faith. This is what Moses did. Remember when Moses said, I wanna know your ways. I'm not concerned so much of what you do, I'm more concerned about who you are. That's what Moses said. And that's why he's a man of faith. So let's watch how it worked in Moses' life. The first principle that you're going to see in the book of Hebrews is this. Moses' parents made a faith decision to obey the Lord instead of obeying governmental tyranny. Okay, so how so? By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king's command. Now, the idea of beautiful doesn't mean like, oh, he's such a beautiful baby. Everybody's baby's beautiful when they're born. That's what they think, but, and you have to go along with it. Yeah, it's a very beautiful baby, it's breathtaking. But anyway, it doesn't mean it's beautiful in the sense of physical. The Hebrew actually means that they noticed something about him that was different, that somehow, I don't know how God communicated this to him through the heart, that there was a special plan for Moses to be a deliverer of Israel. Now how do we know that? Because Stephen mentions it. Stephen mentions that even Moses when he grew up understood that he was called by God to do a mission of deliverance to Israel. That's why he killed the Egyptian. He thought he was on mission at that point. And so he knew it, their parents knew that something was different about him, so we have to preserve him. And what was the edict that came out of Egypt? The government. The government was telling them that you're gonna create infanticide. I want every Hebrew boy thrown into the Nile to the crocodiles. So basically it was their form of abortion, but only for Hebrew babies, right? Again, it's like Holocaust type of stuff, right? And so anyway, They didn't comply. They did not comply. They hid him for three months, but after a while, you can't hide a baby after three months, start making noise. And so they had to come up with a plan. And the plan was, it's ingenious. This is, I don't know how they got led by the Lord to do this or what, but it was ingenious. We're gonna put him in a basket, and it's not like they just cast him out on the Nile and just let him go. They didn't cast him too far, he was in the reeds, and Miriam was watching the little basket to make sure it went to the right place. And the right place, what they did was to set it up that it would come at the right time when the princess of Egypt, the pharaoh's daughter, was bathing. It wasn't an accident, they actually knew, they wanted Moses' basket to go in front of her. depending on her maternal instincts to take care of this little boy who was sentenced to death. And lo and behold, the plan worked. The faith was doing that, letting Moses go to that path. Now, here's the thing. They stood in the face of governmental tyranny, a mandate, telling you must kill your baby, and they didn't do it, and they trusted God for that to preserve his life. And when they let go, that was the faith. Lo and behold, she finds baby Moses, she adopts him. Oh, and Miriam's right there at the reeds. I know the perfect nursemaid for him. My mom can nurse him. Okay, well let's go do that then. So the reward of them defying the king of Egypt is they gave Moses away to have it boomerang and have him come back and be raised by Jochebed and Amran. Even though he was adopted son of the princess, he was raised by his mom and dad. You see how faith works? You must be willing to see the invisible, to trust God's provision and plan. This little boy has a plan. God's not gonna destroy that, and so let's act in faith to get him rescued, and then what happened is the reward is it came back to them. and they were able to raise Moses in the fear and abomination of the Lord. Moses' faith, a lot of it, not only attributed to him and his walk with the Lord, but it came, a lot of it, from his parents. His parents passed on the baton of faith to him. They told him, Moses, you're not Egyptian, you're Jewish. We are your brethren. I'm your family. And God's going to deliver us. He's promised to deliver us. And perhaps you play a role in that. And that's where it started. It started from his parents. Okay? So Hebrews wants you to see the background in all of this. Now we move to Moses. Well, let me do some current event things. Okay? A mandate from the Egyptian king. Huh. Sounds familiar. a mandate. You must do this and comply. Well, guess what? There's a global mandate everywhere now. Australia, France, Europe, everywhere. And this is what we're seeing, right, all over the world. There's mandates. How many are complying and how many are not? You see what I'm saying? Some have enough faith or whatever you want to call it, even if they're unbelievers, they have enough to say, no, I will not comply. For believers, that would be God. I will not comply because I have faith in God. I'm not going to put my faith in Fauci. I'm not going to put my faith in Pfizer. I'm not putting my faith in Moderna. I'm not doing that. I'm going to put my faith in God. And this is what we see all over the world. And now they're getting worse with these mandates, right? Look at Australia. If you're unvaccinated, you're locked down, dude. People are fined up to $16,000 per year for not complying with the vaccine mandate in Austria, creating central COVID vaccination register. Is that coming to America? It could. They're trying it out in these other countries. How about this one? New York rolls out mask mandate for businesses that don't require vaccines. So if you don't require a vaccine, they're going to make you wear a mask. Are you going to comply? Are the New Yorkers going to comply? Are they going to fight back against this? You see what I'm saying? Same principle. How about this? This is going on in Australia. I want you to see this video captured. This is a woman who's simply standing there to protest the governmental mandates for vaccinations and lockdowns, okay? If you think this can't come to America, you need to think again. Oops. These are the police! Are you a mother? Are you a mother? Please don't touch her. I'm recording this. She's asking you to remove her hand. Can you please stop moving closer towards me? Can you stop moving closer towards me? Excuse me, she has a stomach ache and she's done nothing wrong. What a joke. You're embarrassing. You're embarrassing. You are scaring a child. You're embarrassing. You are trying to make a point. She has done nothing illegal. Leave her alone. Stop it. She has her son with her. You're embarrassing. Leave her alone. Can you please not get so close to me? I've been social distancing. You have come within a metre and a half of me. I've been social distancing. okay all she did was stand there with a sign But this is the Gestapo, this is the Stasis, this is the Nazi brown shirts, okay? If that doesn't stop, it's coming to America. I hope it doesn't, and I hope the one factor that keeps us safe is they know we're armed. I'm serious, man, because Australians are not armed. Europeans are not armed. These guys are not functioning like police. This is a police state. This is what you get from mandates. This is the same stuff that Jochebed and Ammon were facing with Moses, a mandate. And if you got caught not doing it, you died. You died at the hand of Pharaoh. This is what's happening here. Same stuff we're dealing with, right? Let's go to another decision that Moses had to make. Moses made a faith decision to separate from Egypt And basically why? Why did he separate from Egypt? He understood the Egyptian alliances or allegiances were worthless, okay? But his allegiance to God was worth everything. He realized this. Now how so? It's spoken of in Hebrews 11, 24. By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Now that's a big deal. It's not like he went and divorced his family. He divorced himself of all of Egypt, all that it stood for, everything that Egypt stood for. Now, please understand, when we're talking about Egypt, Egypt is a typology for the world system that's controlled by Satan. So Egypt was controlled by Satan, and he says, look, I'm turning my back on it, I'm done. He was about 40 years old when Moses made this decision. Okay, before then, Moses had one foot in the world of Egypt and one foot in the world of biblical faith, being trained by his family and also being trained by the Egyptians. But he finally said, that's it, I'm done. I'm done with what they're doing. And you know what the catalyst was? When he saw Pharaoh issue a decree to kill baby Hebrews. That was it, Moses is done at that point. He goes, they went too far. Now, I don't know what the catalyst will be for you. Maybe the catalyst has already come to you through where you say, you know what, I'm just done. I'm not playing the games anymore. I'm not following in. I'm just going to side with God, and I don't care where it gets me. I'm gonna side with God. I'm done. I'm done watching this. I'm done seeing it. Now again, we're not talking about Moses removing himself from the world, or you removing yourself from the world. It's the concept of this. I'm in the world, but I'm not of it anymore. I'm done with the whole system. A lot of people have approached me and quit their jobs and told me, I can't be a part of this anymore, Brandon. I've watched lie after lie after lie, and our supervisor or bosses are just flat out lying. I quit. That's what we're talking about. It's that kind of break. I'm not gonna be part of a system that continually gives lies out, hurts people, and we've seen even people leave Planned Parenthood and realize what they were doing is killing babies and selling baby parts. That can't be a part of that anymore. That's what Moses did, and the catalyst, again, was killing of babies. It's happening to a lot of us. We need to cross that line and break off. look though at what the church is doing to make allegiances from the world. The church, what you're seeing now, won't leave the world. It allies itself with them. Like Moses, he didn't see anything that Egypt offered that was any value. Only what God offered was of value to him. But these churches now see, well, there's something to be offered by the world. So if we comply with them, practice their practices, then we'll get that reward from them. And this is what they do. So now you have these pastors coming out being drag queens. Excuse me. I don't understand. Are we really seeing this? But yes, they are because they're making alliances with the world rather than Jesus. They're severing ties with Jesus I'm not even saying these guys were saved to begin with but they are pretending to be They're pretending to be allied with Jesus. There's a lot of that fake stuff going on right now There's more of it. It's not just one incident. It's multiple multiple instances Churches making alliances with the world How about this, Christmas? Just to show you how bad our world is, they've turned Christmas now into a gay pride celebration. And they've taken Christ out, and now you have a Nutcracker guy flying the gay pride flag. You have nativity scenes that kids would color in their classrooms, but they're coloring it with the rainbow flag and stuff like that. What is this? This is about making allegiances to the culture, whether that came from a school, whether that came from a department store. But why are they doing this? Because they're making allegiances with Egypt, not with God. Our culture is severing ties with God. And you probably already have seen this, but it's getting worse. How about this? How would you like to go to Lowe's or Home Depot, and this is your nativity scene that they're selling? It's a joke, right? It's crazy. No, no, this is real. They sell this. So instead of being Joseph and Mary, it's Joe and Bob. And you can buy this for your lawn. Now, you see the allegiance? What are they bowing down to? They're bowing down to the world system, right? They're not bowing down to God. It's insane. How about this? Did you know Santa has a husband now? Yeah, I thought it was Mrs. Claus, and she kept him fat and happy, plump and ready for Christmas, right? No, no, it's not Mrs. Claus now. It's Mr. and Mrs., Mr. Claus, and that's the new thing. It's crazy, right? Could you imagine you living to see this one day? That's insane. Now, Christmas cookies now are not green and red and have the colors of Christmas. No, no, no. They're flying the gay flag now. Oh, you see the alliance being made? Yep. How about this one, Hallmark, and these other LGBT Christmas movies, you know? You can snuggle up and watch a Hallmark movie, but now it's Tom and Steve now are gonna be hooked up. And every Hallmark story is the same, you know that, right? You can watch the first five minutes and know exactly where the Hallmark story's going, right? So now the Hallmark story's gonna be about two gay guys. And here's the Hallmark plot. I could write every movie for them. And it goes like this. Big city girl, comes from the city, she needs to take a break, so she comes to the country where her parents live. And her parents, they run like a farm or a petting zoo or they run a cookie shop or a candy shop, just to get away from New York and the big city. And so she's there helping her parents for a season during the Christmas season, baking cookies and stuff. And lo and behold, she meets John Boy. He's a farm boy. And he doesn't have much, but he's sincere. And he seems like he's caring. Because her other boyfriend in New York, he's more about his career, and he loves his career more than he does her. Even though he says he loves her, he really doesn't love her. And so this farm boy's more genuine. She starts falling in love with this guy. And she realized she's gotta break it off with this big city guy, and then get married to him. And by the time the movie ends, they're getting married on Christmas Day. That's... how every story in Hallmark is portrayed. And now, the new thing is, you will have Steve and Bob go through the same thing. Big time guy comes to the country, meets farmer boy, and the two boys get married on Christmas Day. It's sick, it's sick, where are we at? Oh, that's right, I forgot, it's not the United States, it's Sodom, that's right, nevermind. I totally messed up, I didn't realize where we were at. That's what Moses broke away from. Please don't forget that. He said, I've had enough of that, no more. Not happening on my Christmas, not happening in my family, not happening. And Moses turned his back on it. The other decision Moses made, he made a faith decision to be obedient and understanding that that obedience would cost him. It would be hard, right? But he knew this, that sin and its consequences were infinitely worse. Now, how did he know this? Well, he knew this, number one, because he killed an Egyptian thinking he was going to deliver Israel at that point in time, and he had to spend 40 years in the desert figuring out that was the wrong move. He might as well have been put in prison because he was in a desert climate of Saudi Arabia. 125 degrees watching sheep for jet throw for 40 years. Don't think for a moment God didn't brand that consequence into Moses's brain. Don't you ever act unilaterally without me again. That was the consequence was 40 years. That's stuck with Moses and he realizes, I'm not gonna do that ever again. I'm going to obey no matter what it costs me. Now the writer of Hebrews says this, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Now again, when Moses turned his back and said, I'm not gonna be called Pharaoh's, sorry, I'm not gonna be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and he broke ties with Egypt, He didn't stay in a neutral position, because there is no neutral position in this world. You're either for God or against him. He realized that Egypt was against God, so he turns his back, but what does he go to? He goes to the people of God, where God is at, right? And so he identifies with God and the people of Israel at that point in time, and not identifying with the things of Egypt. Now, when he did this, he knew he would lose everything. Everything was lost. His position, he could have been pharaoh one day. He gave that up. The wealth that he had, he gave that up. The power that he had, he gave that up. To what? To identify with the Jews, and once he went in that direction, he became a pauper. He lost everything. I mean, he was now reckoned with slaves. Goes from prince to a slave. And he made that decision because he knew that the passing pleasures of sin were not worth it. He had everything to him. Now again, he's like Solomon in many ways. He could have anything at his disposal. And it's not like even Moses was an immoral man as an Egyptian, because he knew better because he was being trained by his mom and dad. But the pleasures of sin don't have to come in the forms of physical pleasure. It actually comes in the form of protecting your reputation, getting along with this world, making allegiances with this world, networking with this world, and that's what was going on. So let me give you an example of real-world situations where people choose to go into the world's sin for the passing pleasure, okay? We understand that the Garden of Eden happened. We understand that the temptation happened to Adam and Eve with a piece of fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And you know they took it. Why? Because there was something pleasurable in it. It looked good, it promised to make them wise, and their flesh desired it, to eat it and to taste it. That's the nature of sin, the passing pleasure of sin. It does feel good. It does give you temporary relief. It does have that aspect to it that is pleasurable. It's not like Satan goes out fishing without a bait. When he goes fishing, he puts a bait on the hook. That bait is appealing to you and I. That's what he's doing with this world. It does create something for them, money, power, fame, whatever, okay? So here's what people do, they compromise to get it. They compromise to get the bait, and this is what they do. FDA docs now show 40,000 serious adverse reactions, 1.2 thousand deaths associated with the Pfizer jab in the first two and a half months. Now we're way past two and a half months, way past it. But look, what was the worldly pleasure? Well, I'll comply, and then I'll get a false sense of security that I'm okay. Even Bill Gates came out, I think, this week and said, yeah, the vaccines don't stop the spread. They're not that effective. Bill Gates said it. But why did everyone rush to do this without any information? They were afraid. but it gave them a false sense of security. Oh, I'm vaccinated, now I'm good. Now they're dropping like flies. Now they're having health problems. You see the price of sin? You do it for something, the carrot, false sense of security, and it ends up biting you in the end. How about this? Female at University of Penn, Swimmer. It says the team supports for Trans Swimmer is fake. We all know it's wrong. Now here's what's happening over there. The university and the coach are applauding this. So this dude who thinks he's a girl goes over there and he's breaking all the records, man. Of course he would, he's a guy. He's a guy. It's just like the gal who thought she was a guy went into a UFC fight with a guy and he bludgeoned her. And people are like, this needs to stop, this is wrong. No, no, it's the UFC who allowed that. What are you thinking putting a girl in the ring with a guy? She's gonna get pummeled. Well, now this guy's breaking all these records. And so the coach is saying, oh, isn't this great? Isn't this wonderful? The school, oh, isn't this wonderful? But the team is saying this is wrong. But here's the deal. The team is not gonna go too far because if they spark up against it, they're gonna get cut. Well, just get out of here. If you're not a part of this narrative, then get out of here. I wonder if anyone on that team will make the stink and allow themselves to be cut. I doubt it. I get it. But at the same time, what's the worldly pleasure? Well, the school and the coach, even though they know it's wrong, they want to be accepted by society, that we're tolerant and we're inclusive, and this is all good. It's just like the principal at that one school I know if you heard the story, they had a gay, well no, transvestite boy, he was 18, and he was in the homecoming queen competition as a transgender. And he won! He won! And so they interviewed the principal. Okay, Mr. Principal, or I don't know if it was a girl, Mrs. Principal, what do you think about this? I would say, man, this is an abomination. I can't even believe this is happening. What's going on here? No, no, we just celebrate the wonder of this and inclusion, and isn't it wonderful that our kids are a reflection of us? No, your school is a reflection of Sodom and Gomorrah. That's what it is, lady. But see, what do they want? Acceptance from the world. You have to cut ties with the world. You can't accept their acceptance, because I don't want their acceptance. I don't want their approval. I only want one person's approval, it's God's. And then you look at here, worldly pleasure of maintaining a reputation with the world. Why? Well, who could have seen this coming, right? The article states, hospitals that laid off unvaccinated staff are now overwhelmed. Duh! We all knew that. And we knew that, but how come the hospital administrators didn't know that? Oh, we're just going to do what we need to do. Why? Because they want a reputation with the world. We don't want to be looked at as unsafe and a danger to society. So all you unvaccinated people, get out. You're all lepers. Get out. Get out. And now you're understaffed. You fools. You fools. And the problem is you're going to go to get health care, and there's no beds available for you. There's no staff available to you. You'll sit there on a gurney for 48 hours before someone comes to you. You'll die before they get to you. That's what they've created, a monster. Why? We want to be viewed as helping society, helping Fauci, helping the gain of function, right? This is what you do when you make a ties to the world. This is what Moses broke away from and we have to break away from, right? So obedience has a price. Every Christian knows this. When you obey, you will pay a price for it. Obedience is not easy, but Moses knew that, but he would rather be obedient to the Lord than pay the price of sin. And right now, where's the persecution coming? The persecution's coming to the remnant church, the Philadelphia element of Christianity, and it's coming to Israel. Again, both groups are people of God. The Jews are in unbelief, Right? And they're going to come to belief in the tribulation. They're going to come to faith in Messiah. So there's a program for them. And then we're here fighting the battle. So guess what? This is why Israel is hated. This is why you and I are hated. We represent those who are loyal to God in that sense, and the world hates it. The world absolutely despises us. And because of that, you're going to pay a price. How about this? Here's a small price. But I want to show you this is where our country is at. This is a small price of persecution. This is what we call soft persecution. It's not a threat of physical violence or anything. But look at what happened. Christmas carolers went out, and they got thumbs down and shouted out, angry lawnlookers drowning them out with amplified noise. So some dude opened his window, blared out his music, I guess, went to 90 decibels, and drowned out the carolers. And of course the carolers responded as they should, Merry Christmas, but what's my point? The point is this is where we're at as a culture. That it used to be a thing in America where you would listen to carolers sing about Jesus And our society is so evil, they don't want to hear the carolers sing about Jesus now. They drowned it out. They shut it down. Again, it's soft persecution, but it's happening, and it's going to get worse. How about this? Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter doesn't care about black people. We understand that, right? This is not about race. Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization as a whole. But now what they come out, instead of making it Merry Christmas, we're going to have a Black X-mas, and we're dreaming of a Black Christmas, they say. That means no spending on white companies during this period of time. You see how they're hijacking Christianity? How they're hijacking even Christmas? Christmas has been hijacked by secularists, right? They've commercialized it. But now, this is going into other extremes, guys. I want you to see this, because this is where we're at. We can't have a part of that. But yet, I will see pastors support BLM. I will see Christians support BLM. And I'm thinking, do you know that you're supporting Marxists? Well, Brandon, they're supporting black lives. No, no, no, that's not what they want you to believe. It's not that. It's a completely communist Marxist organization. Of course, as a believer, we support all different ethnicities. What's the big deal? We're all from Adam. I don't get it. It's them making the racial issues. and making us to be Christians to be the racist. No, no, if we go back to the Bible, there's no way you could be a racist if you understand everyone derives from Adam and Eve in the story. That's it, settles the problem. Another decision Moses made. He made a faith decision based on earning eternal rewards instead of achieving earthly riches, power, and glory. He could have had it. But he said, no, I'll wait for my reward later. See, there's a payday someday. There's an old sermon like that, payday someday. I think R.G. Lee preached it, if I'm right. And the idea is, look, if you compromise with the world, you're gonna get your pay now. But if you don't compromise, you'll get your pay later through God. What would you rather have? Being paid by the world or being paid by God? You have to wait for God's. You see how it works? That's what Moses did. It says this, esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. Now the idea of the reproach of Christ, Moses knew about the Messiah. He didn't have all the facts that was later revealed about the Messiah, but he did know an anointed one was coming that would solve the sin problem of humans. He didn't know that. And what he realized, that the reproach he got for stepping out in faith, he was identifying with the reproach of the anointed one that was to come. Somehow Moses knew. Maybe it was interfacing with God, I don't know. It wasn't written down, but somehow the writer of Hebrews states this, so apparently Moses knew about this, that suffering for God's sake was suffering for Christ's sake, for the anointed one, the Messiah that was coming. So Moses related to that, and Moses, think about this, he knew that the Messiah would be rejected by Israel. Because this passage talks about reproach of Christ is rejection of the Messiah. It's the shame put on Messiah by the world. So Moses knew that, that if he sides with God, he's going to get the reproach of the Messiah. And he would rather do that than take the treasures of Egypt, because he looked to the reward. Now let's talk about the reproach of Christ. When you and I stand and turn our back against this world, you're going to get reproached. You're going to get maligned. You're going to get slammed. You're going to get blasphemed. You're going to be called all kinds of names, and they could even physically come after you. That's the reproach of Christ. It's what he said, they hated me, they'll hate you. This is what he means when he says, take up your cross and follow me daily. What is the cross? Well, he said this before he was crucified. So basically what was going on, that the lingua franca of the day, the common idioms of that day was the idea of taking up your cross meant shame. Shame so when he said to the disciples take up your cross and follow me. He's saying take on my shame What shame? Messiah was innocent, right? The shame from the world accusing you of things. What did they accuse Jesus of? Sedition, they accused him of blaspheming, they accused him of being illegitimate, they accused him of doing works by the power of the devil, didn't they? They made stuff up. That's the shame they put on him, okay? That's the shame the world's gonna put on you. So he says, take up your cross daily is take on my shame. Okay, so how do I do that? How do I take on the shame of the Messiah? Well, it's simple. You have to publicly identify with the Messiah in word and deeds. This is not about putting a bumper sticker on your car or putting an igloo's fish on the back of your car. That's not what he's talking about. He is saying this. that when you're in this world, you're going to have to speak the truth, and you're gonna get a pushback like you've never thought before. When you speak the truth, it's gonna hair-lip a lot of people. Now here's what he says, look. He says, if you're ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you. The idea of this is, look, if I am not willing to bear the reproach of Christ, then when we're before the Father, He's gonna be ashamed of you and I. We don't want that. That's not something we desire. We wanna be approved. And so the idea is we have to be willing to take this on for the eternal rewards. Now, here's a guy. I'm not saying he's a Christian. I'm just saying that this is a guy who went for the riches of this world. and it got him busted, right? But this is how people sell out to this world. It's so tempting, it's hard to deny. It's so tempting what the world offers that you will literally stage your own assault, put a noose around your neck, and have one of your gay lovers attack you. That's how appealing the world system is. Jesse Smollett went for it, because his career's on the downside, no one really cares about him, so he's gonna do an uptick. And so he's gonna have to do something in stage, a so-called MAGA attack from Trump supporters, and there were two Nigerian guys, and one of them was his lover, so he knew both of them, pays him $3,500 to attack him, has the noose around his neck, wanted the cops to show up hours later, Why did he do this? Because he wanted the fame, he wanted the power, and he wanted the riches. Because he knew the world gives that. And so he was willing to do all this. Now, it bit him, didn't it? Because all the defense attorneys needed to do is say, people of the jury, I'd like to introduce a mirror today. The mirror will be the witness. And the mirror is gonna be taken, and I'll show you through the mirror who the real attacker was. And all they needed to do is put it in front of Jesse Smollett and said, that's your attacker. Because he did it. He did it to himself, he lied. But I show you this to show you that's the lengths people will go to get the riches of this world. Sad, isn't it? How about this guy? How far has Fauci had to go to get what he wants? Right? I mean, he's killed people. Not himself, but through his gain of function. He's killed people. Some of your relatives are now dead. And then the vaccines, right? They're killing people too. At what price? Millions and millions of dollars, that's what that price. They don't care about you and I, they need the money. So this is what it's all about. This is how people sell out. This guy has turned into Dr. Mangala because of his desire for power and riches and fame. That's all it comes down to. Now there's more behind the scenes, very satanic and stuff, but I'm just making a point with him. This is what they do when they sell out. This is what Moses would not do. He had it available to him, and he said, no more. I'm not taking that anymore. I'm not taking a dime from this world system. Let's talk about the reproach of the camp. There's a theological concept I want you to see. The reproach of being outside the camp. Now, the writer of Hebrews will talk about this, and this is connected to the reproach of Christ, and I want you to learn this. It's a great principle. Hebrews 13 will talk about this, and it goes on to talk about the sacrifices in the Old Testament. And it says this, for the body of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside of the camp. Okay, so they would slit the lamb or goat. his neck, let the blood drain out on the altar, and that's what would cleanse the sin, or not, sorry, cleanse, but cover it, I should say. And then they would take the carcass out, and they would have to take it outside of the camp, and in Jerusalem, they'd have to take it outside of Jerusalem, and then destroy the carcass, whether bury it, sorry, not bury it, burn it, or even take the ashes from the burnt offerings and take the ashes outside of the camp. Okay, that's what the writer of Hebrews is talking about. Now follow me, because it's going to refer to the reproach of Christ, okay? Therefore, he makes a conclusion, and he says, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered where? Outside the gate, or outside of the camp. In that time, it was Jerusalem, so he would suffer outside the gate of the camp. The camp being where Israel Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp. Go forth, go to Jesus outside the camp bearing his reproach. Okay, so what does this mean? How do I interpret? Well, let me give you the background on this. If you're going to commune with Jesus and build up your faith in order to make good decisions, you better go outside the camp to meet him. because you're not going to meet him inside the camp because the camp is defiled. The city of Jerusalem during Jesus' day was defiled. The temple was defiled by these money changers, the Sanhedrin, and everyone connected to this fake religious system they had created. Jerusalem was defiled. So in order to meet Jesus, you've got to go outside the camp. Where did John the Baptist preach? Wilderness. He was never in a city. Where did Abraham live? In a tent outside, where did Lot choose to live? In the city of Sodom. You see the difference? In order to meet God, you gotta be outside of the camp, okay? Follow me. So the first time where we get outside of the camp is when we studied Exodus, that the camp of Israel had been defiled by their practice of worshiping the false golden calf, right? So the camp was defiled. So at that point, then Moses sets up a tent of meeting outside of the camp where he would meet one-on-one with God. Now, follow me. any Israeli that wanted to meet with God and pray to him had to leave the camp and everyone saw them, public, it's public, everyone saw him go to the tent of meeting outside of the camp. So it was a public identification And everyone saw what you were doing. So you couldn't keep your Christianity, it's not Christianity, but your belief at that point in Yahweh a secret. You had to identify with him. And then they saw obviously Moses there, so it supported his leadership. That's the first instance. So I gotta leave where defilement is to where I can meet with God outside of that camp. Okay, keep that thought in your mind. Now let's go to Jerusalem first century. Jerusalem first century, you can see the elevations where the Mount Moriah is stated, that's where the temple actually is built. But Mount Moriah continues to go northwestern up that slope. And so that square box that I put on there, it's blue, that's the continuation of Mount Moriah, okay? So it's higher than the elevation of where the temple is, okay? Remember the temple was defiled. So this is looking from the southward view and Mount Moriah is on the northern part of Israel as it ascends up higher than where the temple and the city of Jerusalem. This is a picture of what Jerusalem looked like in the first century with Jesus. Here's another picture of Jerusalem first century and you see where Mount Moriah is. Mount Moriah is where? Outside of the gate. See that? Here's another picture, this is coming from the western area and you can see Mount Moriah north of the Temple Mount structure and Jerusalem. Okay, here's a picture I found and this is an old picture because today there's a bus stop right there so it must have been from 1948 to 67 somewhere in that neighborhood this picture was taken. because there's no construction around there. But here's where Mount Moriah is, looking back at the northern wall. This would have been the area that Christ was sacrificed, outside of the camp, outside of the walls of Jerusalem. Okay, so what's the point? There's two things I want you to understand about being outside the camp. Israel had defiled themselves, obviously. Jerusalem was defiled. Therefore, for God to have the perfect sacrifice, it can't be in the area of defilement. It had to be where the defilement doesn't exist, which is outside of the camp, the tent of meeting. So Messiah was taken to the cross, to that site outside of the walls, so that he would be the perfect sacrifice and that nothing would defile that sacrifice. Now he was perfect, obviously, but the area is key. Okay, so how does that relate to you and I? The way it relates to you and I is this. Jerusalem or the camp that got defiled represents the world. So if I'm going to meet with God, I have to leave this world behind. I have to go outside of the camp to where the sacrifice is to be able to meet one-on-one with Jesus and to be built up in my faith. What's the lesson? You and I will not be able to build up our relationship with Jesus if you keep practicing the things of this world. If you stay stuck in this world, you will not be able to go meet with Jesus one-on-one. We're not talking about salvation, I'm talking about fellowship. When you're friends with the world, James says you're an enemy of God. That's the idea. You can't stay in Jerusalem. You can't stay in the camp. You must leave the camp. And then your faith can be built up as you meet one-on-one at the Tent of Meeting or at the cross. That's where it's done at. So it's a big lesson about how you leave the world. What did Moses do? He was trying to straddle both until he was 40, and at 40 he says, I'm done, I'm gone. I'm going outside the camp. I'm done with Egypt, I'm leaving. And where outside the camp from Egypt was he supposed to be? In the wilderness. In the wilderness is where Moses met God, not in Egypt. You see? Same pattern every time. Moses, by faith, chose to obey God because he feared God rather than man. That's the base of a lot of his decisions. Look what he said. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, not fearing the wrath of Joe Biden, or Gavin Newsom, or Klaus Schwab, or any of the other knuckleheads. For he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Who is invisible? God. Faith allows you to see the invisible God. And he feared God more than man. But that can only happen if you have faith in God. This is why so many Christians are buckling right now. It's because they really don't fear God. They fear their employer. They fear their supervisor. They fear the medical community. They fear the scientific community. They fear the educational community. They fear their principal. They fear all these other things. And that doesn't allow them to make good decisions. Fear God, and then you can make good decisions. Everything will flow from that. That's what happened to Moses. But look at these churches now that are caving in to the fear of man. So now Hillsong Link Australian megachurch adopts pro-gay inclusion statement. Of course they do, because who do they fear? The LGBT movement, the world. They fear the world rather than God. That's why they would do something like this. How a titlist on a, on a pure political thing. I want you to see how they caved in. Titus bans customers from personalizing golf balls with Let's Go Brandon, which I couldn't believe how much fame I was getting. I thought it was from the internet. People were wearing shirts, Let's Go Brandon. I said, all right, man, you're listening to my podcast. That's awesome. And then I hear him chanting my name in stadiums. And I'm like, wow, that YouTube's really helping us out, man. And then I recognized, oh, it wasn't for me. Anyway, but they won't let you print, let's go Brandon on the golf ball, but they'll let you print, kill Trump. You see the problem here? Titleist, and I love playing golf, and I hit Titleist balls. I'm not hitting them anymore, I'm done. But the point is, Titleist caves in to the world. They'll let you kill Trump. Do they not see the hypocrisy in that? Do they not kill Trump versus let's go Brandon? Vastly different. Moses made a good faith decision because he put his confidence in God's provision. How so? Well, it's this way, when you saw in the Passover, by faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. Remember the Passover, what was the idea? God made a provision that they wouldn't get killed, why? How? By putting the blood on the door. If the death angel saw the blood on the door, they wouldn't get killed. That was trusting in God's provision in the blood that he provided, just as you would trust in the blood of the Messiah for your salvation, that's it. Faith in the blood and death of the Messiah is what gets you salvation. That's faith in God's provision. So let's bring it down to a practical thing. What if your employer says, hey, look, man, you gotta be vaccinated, or hey, look, man, you gotta go woke, because if you're not woke, you can't work here. If you get fired, do you trust in God's provision? I just talked to someone earlier at the last service. She quit her nursing job. She says, I'm done. I'm not dealing with Kaiser anymore. Because Kaiser is like Kaiser, like a king, a tyrant. And so Kaiser said, no, we're not moving on this. So she said, I'm out of here. I quit. And the Lord told her to leave. She quit. And guess what? She found another job later on. Because God provided. She trusted. She trusted and had enough guts to quit. Say I'm not doing this anymore, I'm not participating in your stupid lies anymore. And what did the Lord do? He honored that and gave her another job. Bingo, that's how it works guys. That's how it works. That's why you can have confidence in stating the truth. And the last thing. Moses knew by faith he would be vindicated by the Lord one day. He didn't know when, but he knew all the heat he received, all the junk he was given by the Egyptians and the world system, he would one day be vindicated by the Lord. Have you been vindicated yet for some of the right things you did? And you paid an awful price for it, didn't you? Have you been vindicated yet? If you've ever experienced that vindication, you can trust the Lord even more when he says, I will right the wrong, I will bring the circle back, and I will make sure everything is righted one day. So how this happened in Moses' life, by faith he passed through the Red Sea by dry land, whereas the Egyptians attempting to do so were drowned. Egyptians trying to kill Moses, accusing him of all kinds of things. Guess what? Instead of them killing Moses and killing the Israelites, they are killed by God. Drowned in the Red Sea. That's called vindication. And one day you and I will be vindicated by our Lord. He promises that. He promises He will right all the wrong. You will get back your life that you lost from this world. Everything they took from you, all the persecution, all the heat that you took, will one day be righted by Jesus when he comes back. And he will destroy enemies, and he will destroy sin and death and everything when he comes back and sets up his kingdom. And so at the end, here's the vindication. He wins, and when he wins, that means you win. But you have to trust that, don't you? Your faith has to allow you to see that one day you'll be vindicated. If it allows you to see that you'll be vindicated, then you can endure like Moses did. And what's the key? Faith. Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, for what we can learn through the life of Moses. What an example of faith. We want to live our lives like that. Incredible, incredible what he faced. and he went for it because of his faith. He stood in the face of tyranny, stood in the face of mandate, stood in the face of Pharaoh who wanted to kill him. Help us to be like that, Father. Help us to increase our faith by spending time with you, knowing your nature and your character, so we can be on the solid rock standing there, being confident. Father, I pray also, if there's someone here that doesn't know your son, that they would, by faith, believe He died on a cross for their sins, was buried, rose on the third day, and that He gives eternal life to anyone that simply believes by faith. Speak to hearts now as we have a time of invitation. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Will you stand with me? We're going to have this time of invitation. Our deacons will be up here. If you have any prayer requests, come talk to them. They'll pray for you, man. anything that's on your heart if you need health issues that you want someone to pray for they'll pray for you if you need to make a decision for the Lord or salvation or baptism or joining the church come talk to them about those issues okay O come, O come, Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel And stay standing and Pastor Frank will come and close us out in the word of prayer and we'll get you running, okay? All right, two quick announcements before we get you out of here. We still have some yard signs out there in the lobby, so if you got one, please, and you feel like you want an extra one, please grab one. And then also, our evangelism at the Riverwalk Park got moved to one o'clock, so just a heads up on that, okay? Let's pray and get you guys out of here. Dear God, Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and your blessing, Lord. Thank you for this message that we've heard, Lord. I pray that as we go about our week, we'll be able to stand in truth, Father, and speak the truth, Lord, out to a world that's hurting, Father. Lord God, we love you, and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. You are dismissed.