For over 45 years, Pensacola Christian College has set aside some time each spring semester for Bible Conference. These days of concentrated study and preaching from the Word of God are a time of spiritual enrichment for our students, faculty and staff, and many others who join us for these services. We're pleased to welcome you to the PCC Bible Conference. If you have your Bibles, I'd like for you to stand and turn to the 17th chapter of Exodus. The 17th chapter of Exodus. And it's a great story in the Bible. And one of the great things about the Word of God is that God illustrates His magnificent truths. He gives us a window through which we can see what He's saying. And let me read the Scripture before I say anything else. Notice what it says, please, Exodus 17, verse number 8. Notice what it says, then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Ephraim. And Moses said unto Joshua, choose us out, men, and go out. Fight with Amalek tomorrow. I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand. So Joshua did as Moses had said to him and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up into the top of the hill. And it came to pass when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him. And he sat thereon, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side, and his hands were steady unto the going down of the sun. Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. And the Lord said unto Moses, write this for memorial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua. For I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovanessi. For he said, because the Lord has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Let's remain standing. We'll have a word of prayer and then please be seated. Precious Lord, we thank you for everyone that's gathered here today. We thank you for the opportunity to preach at Pensacola Christian College. I know of no place on the earth where education in a Christ-centered environment is done more effectively and more consistently than this place. Lord, we pray your blessings upon this school, the faculty, administration. We pray the students, Lord, would receive help through this conference. For without you, we can do nothing. Maybe there's some that are discouraged, Lord. Maybe some that are ready to say, I've had enough. I pray that you'll lift their hearts. I pray for those that are on the right track and everything seems to be going well. I pray that they will keep their hand to the plowshare and never turn back. Give us some practical Christianity tonight, something like shoe leather that we could walk in and use for the rest of our life. We love You, Lord Jesus. Help us now to love Thee more. And it's through that shed blood that we're able to say, Our Father which art in heaven. It's through the blessed gift of the Holy Spirit that we're even able to pray it all. And we thank You, Heavenly Father, for giving this world Thy holy and only Son, only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. And that's the name that we pray this in. Amen and amen. You may be seated. Robert Frost said, two roads diverged in the wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference. This evening, with the Lord's help, I want to talk to you about the less traveled road of prayer, the less traveled road of prayer. It seems that prayerlessness is abounding to a point now in the church that it is now showing. It's now showing. You know how it is with sometimes people get diseases. They'll say you're in the early stages. Sometimes when they begin to calculate how serious they are, they'll say this is a stage two or this is a stage four. Brother Shoemaker, I believe we're in a stage four of the blight of prayerlessness right now, and it's very serious. It's a cancer that has now eaten away at the church in such a measure that even as we get to this point of talking about praying the prize, it's more difficult. If you can get some disease in the early stages, sometimes the treatment is very effective. I know that in Houston, which is probably the leading city in the world for cancer research, that for 40 years, from time to time, I will get a call. And oftentimes, some of the most famous people in the world will come there to see if something finally can be done. And how many times I have heard it said, well, Brother Pope, you know, I'm heading home now but I wanted to see you before I left Houston because they said what has happened in my disease is that it's gone so far now that the most severe treatment will not work or the most severe treatment would kill me. But yet there are those cases where people had done everything, and even in Houston there is the normal chemo path that many cancer patients take, and then there's that alternative. And in both cases, we have heard of miracles. Although when they get to that stage four, the miracle oftentimes doesn't seem as available. And so the subject that I'm dealing with this morning or this evening, and maybe I'll be picking up on this again later on, is that we might recover from prayerlessness, that we may take severe action now and do something about this. How sad that prayer seems to be that road less traveled by. Have you noticed that it often happens when you get serious about prayer? And you even set a time for prayer that so many interruptions come. So many demanding things begin to demand. And before you know it, the day has come and gone and you did not get an effective time of prayer. And sometimes the day turns into a week, and like the old saying says, seven days without prayer makes one week. That's spelled W-E-A-K. In the 17th chapter of the book of Exodus, it begins with a wonderful story. It came from the story of the smitten rock. The people were murmuring and complaining they had no water. God gave Moses a way to get water, and that is by striking that rock. Every Bible teacher knows that that was a type of Christ. Matter of fact, the Bible says that that rock that followed them in Corinthians was Christ. And that was the term that he used, it followed them. Christ, our rock of ages, cleft for us. So We see that before this lesson is taught in this beautiful story, God sets up in the context of scripture the power from the smitten rock. The Bible commands us in Hebrews to come boldly before the throne of grace and there's one reason and one reason alone that we can come before the throne of grace and that's because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ and the power of his redemption. And in this story, as we read to you there, it's a story without mentioning the subject of prayer or intercession by name, is singularly one of the most impressive illustrations of the power of prayer that you'll ever see in the Bible. And now for Lord Tennyson's Idols of the King, which was really fashioned after Sir Thomas Malory's, the Lord to Arthur, One of the most touching scenes take place and that is when in the final combat between Arthur and Mordred. Mordred is killed and Arthur is mortally wounded and all of the knights of Camelot now have been killed except for Sir Bedivere. He calls Sir Bedivere to come to his side, the side of the dying king in Avalon. In the closing moments, King Arthur requests from his remaining valiant knight to pray for him. And I love the eloquent rhyme of Tennyson who phrases it most beautifully when Arthur says, More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain? If knowing God, they lift not their hands of prayer, both for themselves and those who call them friend. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. I am here in answer to a mother's prayer. I have missed flights that crashed, killing everyone, too, that I was scheduled to be on, which was an answer to prayer. King was correct. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Let's examine the passage. And even though we did not read these first few verses, it's really pertinent that we do read these first verses there in the 17th chapter of Exodus. And I want to bring to your attention that God is the fountainhead. God is the source. Notice what it says in Exodus 17, 1 through 4. And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin after their journeys according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim. And there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore, the people did chide with Moses and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? Wherefore, do you tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water and the people murmured against Moses and said, wherefore is it that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried and the Lord saying, what shall I do unto this people? They be almost ready to stone me. In verse number 7 of this 17th chapter, we see that they are at a place There are two words. Let me read you your verse number 17 for just a moment here. I'm sorry, chapter 17 and verse number 7. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah because of the chiding of the children of Israel. Massah, testing. Meribah, quarreling or complaining. The people were demanding water from Moses. Moses quickly informs Israel their issue is not with him, but with God. Well, why are you tempting him? Why are you putting God to the test? Why are you looking to me? Deuteronomy 6.16, you should not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted him in Massa. Matter of fact, Jesus made reference of that in Matthew 4, 7, Jesus said in them, it is written again, he says this to Satan, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. In America, we must remind ourselves that although we live in an environment where average citizens live far above the norms and standards of the reign of the rest of the world, we need not arrive to the conclusion that we are in this place because we earned it, that we are the recipients because we are a better people, we have better DNA than other people. This place where yearning masses or huddled masses yearning to be free, as the Statue of Liberty says, from every tribe and nation, somewhat akin to what God sees and tells us about in the book of the Revelation. Every tribe and nation comes to one place. So there's really no ethnicity that we may say, we are here and America has been blessed because of our tribe. No. Not only are we from many tribes, but we ourselves are the composite of the many peoples of the earth. I believed until two years ago that I was mostly Irish and my wife believed that she was English. And we had jokes all of our marriage. She would joke to me about being Irish. I would joke to her about being English. And then our youngest son and his wife did that, the testing of our blood. I'm almost all English. And she's got more Irish than I could ever desire. We had no idea. And she's got German, and I thought I was the seventh grandson of Chief Blackhawk of the Sauk Indians. That's what my, that's what my uncles told me. That's what my dad told me. There's not a drop of Indian in me. How many times I played with my friends. I'm son of Blackhawk. I'm nothing like Blackhawk. Although I do look scalped. Showing again my English side, yes. Oh, we think that we got here on our own. Moses, do something about this. We're the chosen people. He says, why are you tempting God like this? There's a need and you're murmuring. There's a need, you're quarreling. There's a need and you're begging for me something I can't give you. Isn't that what often happens when we go through a testing? If we have no prayer life, by the way, never forget this, crisis is never the time to learn how to pray, but I mean, it's better than not praying at all, but the best time to learn how to pray is when you're really not in crisis and you have gone, as Andrew Murray said, through the school of prayer, you've passed the test, and when the crisis comes, you don't even look at it like a speed bump, boom, you just keep on moving. In Ayn Rand's book, The Fountainhead, the case is made for individualism versus collectivism. The Russian author is really protesting communism and socialism, which I also protest to the core, especially when I see it seeping, well, seeping nothing, it's coming in like a stream, it's coming like a flood, Marxism and communism teaching, although they're not always calling it that. But going back to Ayn Rand's book, The Fountainhead, the protagonist was Howard Rourke. And in his second trial, he gives this famous eloquent speech. He argues that individuals, not societies, propel history. And if he left it like that and added one other thing, it would have been pretty good speech. But he added one other sentence. Of course, Ayn Rand, although she did appreciate capitalism and individualism and freedom and liberty, she did not believe in God. So no matter how wise people seem to be or smart they seem to be, the Bible says, you're a fool. A fool has said in his heart, there is no God. He argues that individual societies propel history, not societies, or not societies. He says that the individual creators are the fountainhead of civilization. His speech was passionate. It was lyrical. The audience receives it with awed silence. But he's dead wrong. God is the fountainhead. Jeremiah 10.23 says, Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not a man that walketh to direct his steps. Proverbs 16.25, there is a way that seemeth right into a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Lamentations 3.22, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fell not. James 1.17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." God is our source. Where's the water? Moses, give us a water. Why are you tempting God? This was a call to prayer, and you're complaining, and you're murmuring, and you're asking me to do something that's beyond my power. Number two, I bring to your attention that redemption is the focal point, is the fulcrum point of prayer. Notice what it says in verse number five. And the Lord said unto Moses, go on before the people and take with thee of the elders of Israel, and thy rod wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Oreb, and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it. that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Masa Ameribah because of the chiding of the children of Israel and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not? It was Archimedes that said, Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. Redemption's the fulcrum point of prayer that really lifts our prayers to the heavenlies. Psalm 66, 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So when we do business with God and we give God the glory for being found in heaven, then he's gonna give us the fulcrum of his redemption, the power in the blood, the power of the cross, the power of the resurrection. Interesting statement, but again, It's God, our creator, who is our source. William Ernest Henley wrote a poem that many people have used and many people just think is the greatest poem, Invictus. It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. No, you're not the captain. And if you try to be, you'll find really how bereft you are of anything and everything. Jesus said in John 15, without me, ye can do nothing. What a man does without God, he does miserably. and fails. If a man or a woman, middle-aged, senior citizen, college student, tries to be the captain of their own soul, they will, we will, I will crash and burn. There's a story of a captain of a mighty destroyer who believed he had mastery over the sea only to find that he was on a collision course with disaster rather than destiny. Now, I got some dates here and I've heard different versions of this. So whether it's spurious or not, I will say this, it certainly will serve as a vehicle to drive the point that I'm trying to make home. The lighthouse in the U.S. naval ship. A transcript of a radio conversation between the naval ship, U.S. naval ship and the Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. This was what was released by the chief naval operations, so called, or as it was given to me as I wrote it down from what I read from October 10th, 1995. This is from the Americans. Please divert your course 15 degrees to the north and to avoid a collision. The Canadians. Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision. The Americans. This is the captain of a U.S. Navy ship. I say again, divert your course. Canadians. No, I say again, you divert your course. Americans. This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States Atlantic Fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers, and numerous support vessels. I demand that you change your course 15 degrees north. That's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship. Canadians, this is a lighthouse. Your call. My friend, you try to ship, you try to captain your own ship, you are heading to a crash. Live a life without prayer on an individual basis and you'll find, you know, it's really strange because many times when you start learning how to pray, it's boring to you. Prayer is a duty. It's not delight at first. And you're thinking, this is boring, but the truth is, when you learn to pray and live a life of prayer, it's the most exciting life you'll ever live. Without a prayer is no way to live. Moses was commanded to strike the rock. Very touching picture of Christ, the salvation of our soul. Isaiah 53 and verse 4, surely hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem and stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. Israel did not deserve that water, but they got it by the mercies of the Lord. Titus 2 says, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifying himself from peculiar people, zealous of good works. I want you to see the power of partnership in prayer. And this is really getting into that road less traveled because it's really speaking to us of the power, not only of individual prayer, but the power of corporate prayer. If any two of you shall agree as touching heaven, it shall be done. Prayer, when we join together, becomes exceedingly strong. Verse number eight, then came Amalek and fought with Israel at Erephim. This is a cruel foe. Amalek was the one that attacked Israel in the hindquarters and took advantage of them. They were always up to something wrong it seems like. Notice the plan of battle, verse number 9 and 10. And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out. Fight with Amalek tomorrow. I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. What a great concept. Joshua will be fighting down in the valley with Amalek. Moses has taken the rod representing the authority of God to the top of the hill. Aaron and Hur are going to be on either side of him as prayer partners. And we're going to see this great illustration, and first of all, the problem in the prayer. It says in verse number 11, and it came to pass when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy. So now he's getting to the point where in this duration of battle, he's so weak in his hands that he cannot lift his hands in prayer. So they bring a stone and he sits down upon it and put it under him and he sat there on and Aaron and her stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side and his hands were steady under the going down of the sun. And I love the way the King James Version says it. And Joshua discomfited Amalek. What an understatement, right? Made it very uncomfortable. He whipped him. So when he could not lift his hands any longer, you know what's an amazing thing is that when you think of Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Paul, Peter, John, James, you almost look at them as though they came out of the Marvel comic books. These are superheroes. That's what the Bible says. Elijah, the Bible says in James, was a man of like passions, has the same problems you have. When Elijah was upon Carmel, and he prayed to God one time, and the fire fell, and he killed 450 prophets of Baal right off the bat. Powerful. Then Jezebel threatens his life, and he runs like crazy. He can kill hundreds of false prophets, stand like a bold lion, but when it comes to one woman mad at him, he runs. Yeah, he does. Gets under a juniper tree. Even the point, go ahead and take my life, Lord. He's afraid. He's a man of like passions as we are. They get tired like we get tired. They need sleep like we need sleep. They need to eat like we need to eat. Moses did not have the physical strength to lift up his hands. And the lesson here is not that you have to have physical strength in order to get your prayer made. God was using this as a visual aid to us. For those of us that were reared up in church in Sunday school, we probably saw what we used, what my mother and others used a lot, flannel graph lessons. And you have these characters in the Bible, and here's Moses, and his hands are up, and then they're down. And then you have another picture, and there's Aaron on one side, and her on the other side, lifting up those hands in prayer. Oh, how I can still hear the voices. of those wonderful teachers. You see, boys and girls, we need to pray, and if we don't pray, there's gonna be failing. Notice what the Bible said there in verse number 14, and the Lord said unto Moses, write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua. I want you to remember this, he says, He says, for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. Moses built an altar and he called the name of it Jehovah Nissi, which means the Lord, our banner. The Lord, our banner. The Lord who is our great esprit de corps, our signet, our seal, our token, our symbol of everything that we stand for. the little ships of Kuwait were being blown out of the Suez Canal and the enemy would not stop doing this. And they gave them permission to fly the American flag. And when little Kuwait put the American flag up on their ship, no one from the enemy ever fired upon them during that time. because of the banner that had been lifted up. The Lord, our banner. The Lord, our strength. Our Lord, our help. The power of partnership and prayer cannot be avoided. We need to look at this carefully and remember that there's great power in this. If you have your Bibles, look at Ecclesiastes 4 for just a moment. Look at Ecclesiastes 4, okay? I think some of you probably know where we're going with this. You know, a lot of times, well, a lot of times, or at least sometimes, I've seen kids use this in weddings, and I think it's a great illustration. But let me show you Ecclesiastes 4 for just a moment. Ecclesiastes 4, verse number 9, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow, but woe unto him that is alone when he falls, for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat, but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." So we see that the victory in the valley for Joshua was won on the mountaintop of prayer. More things are wrought by prayer than this world ever dreams of. So many times we, again, have failed to see the importance of prayer because we've never lived under the effect of prayer. We've never got an answer to that prayer. We've never known that very present help, as Psalm 46, one says, in time of need. How's your prayer life? Here you left your room this morning. Did you think to pray? You've been listening to a Bible Conference message from Pensacola Christian College. You're welcome to pass this sermon along to others. Please don't charge for it or alter it without written permission from Pensacola Christian College. For additional information about PCC, visit us online at pcci.edu. Pensacola Christian College, empowering Christian leaders to influence the world for Christ.