propaganda video that came out of the World Economic Forum. And what they're saying, if you understand the background, is this. We're going to go from a free market system to corporate fascism, is what they're trying to do, which means we're going to get rid of the free market system and get a form of communism, fascism, socialism, Marxism, and we're going to equal everything out. And by doing that, we're going to save the planet. I don't know how you save the planet, because the planet's not dying, there's nothing going wrong with the planet, and this global hoax of carbon emissions being a poison, and the Earth warming, it's all a joke. We're actually getting ready to go into a cold snap, the way things are going with the sun. But anyway, their idea is, we've got to fix the economy so we can fix the planet. How does that work? How does me fixing an economy stop the weather? It's just pure propaganda. So I wanted you to see that, because if you don't know the background biblically or prophetically of what's happening here, they're forming a one-world government. They're forming a one-world religion and a one-world currency. It'll be a digital currency, but it is a one-world currency. That's what all of this is about. And notice how they say in the propaganda, well, there have been people that have said that word, the Great Reset's conspiratorial. Yeah, because it is. Because that's exactly what you're doing. Don't tell me that I'm not seeing what I'm seeing. So, I thought it's funny to see this, and the fact that, look, you know and I know, you can go outside and most people will think, oh, that sounds great, man, we're just gonna come together as a people and save the planet, save the economy, and sing Kumbaya, and it's gonna be all great. And it's a joke, right? It's all Babylonian. These are Babylonians, by the way. They're Babylonians because they're setting up the Tower of Babel again. And I want you to know that because it's going to segue into what we're going to study today. What we're going to study is a famous passage about Israel needing water and Moses striking the rock. And it's a famous passage, but the lesson from it is this. Israel is refusing to wait on the Lord. They won't wait on Him to deliver what He told them He would provide. And so they get anxious, they get mad, they start complaining, they pitch a fit, they start catastrophizing, they do all these crazy things, and in fact they want to kill Moses. They're just going to kill him. And so what happens is, and this is the principle, when God takes people to new stages and new circumstances of life, when they get into that new circumstances of life, they can sometimes freak out because even if they're believers, they will doubt that God will provide in the new circumstance. And we're moving quickly in our society and around the world to a new type of life that they're trying to impose on us. And they're getting their way. And so, you know, barring the rapture happening anytime soon, we're going to see a new change in our lives that you may not like. You may see your economics go down. You may see food rationing. You may see you not being able to travel anymore because you don't fit the narrative and they've seen what you've said on social media or whatever. You might get into kind of a how they live in China. God might come to America. And so this mismentality is growing, and this is where you and I are going to enter into this new circumstance and new experience and realize, okay, if God provided me back then, he can provide for me even when I'm dealing with this stuff, the hard times. And that's the same is true even on a personal level. Let's just take out of what's going on in society and go down to your personal level. You're going to go, just like Israel, through life in stages. You're gonna go from one stage to the next, one stage to the next. Seasons of life, we call them, right? And you're gonna go from season to season. And in each new season, you're gonna learn something different about God and about you. And in order to go from season to season, you still will have to maintain your trust in God's provision. And that's a lot of times where we start doubting that. And so, Each season brings its new set of circumstances and new sets of questions. Can I make it and survive in this new experience? Can I still live and function with this new circumstance? Now let's see what happens to Israel. And then I want to apply it to what's going on in our church, which is great stuff happening, and I want to apply this. And then I want to apply it personally to our lives, because when you're looking at Israel, you're looking at yourself. Don't ever get too hard on Israel, because that means you have to turn in the mirror and look at yourself, because they are a reflection of us. Exodus 17, one through seven, let's start there. The test of waiting on the Lord. Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the wilderness of sin according to the commandment of the Lord." Now, this is going to be a new stage, new circumstances. He's taking them to an area and they're in the wilderness of sin. I know your translation says from the wilderness of sin. They're not leaving the wilderness of sin. They're actually, the Hebrew is saying they're staying in it. They're just going deeper into the desert wilderness. So they're following the Shekinah glory in the desert of sin. And this is where the test is gonna come. He's going to lead them to a location where there's no water. He does this on purpose, okay? So if you kind of watch, if you can see, maybe the bigger map is easier to see. But the closer up here, you're in Saudi Arabia, and there's Midian right there, and then you can see on the bottom is Mount Sinai. Between Midian and Mount Sinai is the Wilderness of Sin, so this is the area they're at. So in a satellite picture, you can see the wilderness of sin, then I want you to move down and see the rock of Horeb, and then Mount Sinai is to the very bottom of your screen. This is where they're at. This is close to the Red Sea crossing. They have been in this location for three months, just three months, okay? As you can see in this location, it is desolate. There's nothing there, no water, nothing. It's like going to the moon. In this area, these are the passageways you would cross through these deserts in the wilderness of sin. Continue on, and you can see the rocks, they're very jagged, and note the jaggedness of the rocks, okay? I'm gonna make a point about that. But this place is very jagged. See, and there's camels that go through the area today, and sometimes people get in there, they sneak in there, because they work in the area for oil, Chevron, or different places, and they take a furlough, and they go into this area. These are why we have the pictures we do. because these people have escaped from their compounds and went out into this area and taken pictures because the Saudi government doesn't want you out there and basically what you're seeing is the remains of where the children of Israel were at. It's really amazing. All this area, I'll show you when we get to Mount Sinai, all the other things that are there, the top of the mountain is burnt, the bottom is the corrals for the animals, you have the 12 pillars, you have the other barriers around Mount Sinai, and in this location you have the Rock of Horeb, the Rock of Sinai. And so he takes them to this place. Now the place is called, if you go back to the scripture, the place is called Rephidim. It says, and they camped in Rephidim. Now here's the thing, Rephidim has a meaning behind it. It means support. So God's taking them there where there's no natural water in order to show Israel that he can support them in a new territory. The whole idea of Rephaidim means I'm going to take care of you, I will support you Israel because they're going to doubt his support is the idea. Archaeology shows that in this area A very interesting thing. Now this is, you can see the desert floor there in Rephidim, and you can see where the Israelites would spread out, but notice these rock formations on the bottom. The rock formations have been there for 3,500 years. So 3,500 years, these rock formations there, it's just like they left and nothing was moved. So in these rock formations, what you're seeing is an encirclement of rocks. These rocks were encircled around the tents of Israel. They were the anchor of the tent of Israel they would put around the edges of the rock, and the rocks are still there to this day. I mean, this place is barren. No one goes out there, no one does anything. And so the way it's left, it's left as if you went back 3,500 years ago to the times of Moses. And so there is the tents of where Israel had their rocks anchoring down their tents. Anyway, let's go back to the text. But there was no water for the people to drink, so he purposely did this to test them, okay? So let's see if the pass the test. Verse 2, therefore the people contended with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink. So they failed the test right out of the box. The human wait, they got there and all of a sudden they start arguing Moses, they're complaining, and they demand that Moses give them water that they can drink. So it's just instantaneously they get into a big fight. And so Moses responds back and he says, So Moses said to him, why do you contend with me? See, the idea is I'm not the one that's leading you. It's Yahweh and the Shekinah glory is there and he's led us to this place. You're complaining against me, but I'm not your problem. Your problem is you. And you'll see this in Israel's life. They'll constantly complain against the leader, Moses or Aaron. In fact, they'll want to kill him a lot of times. You'll see this in the text. They want to kill him over this thing. And those who are victims and don't want responsibility of their lives, always tend to blame others. They always blame the leadership for what's going on in their own personal lives. It's kind of like what we saw, and I mentioned this last time, you saw four years of blaming Trump for everything, every problem, you know, making up stuff. That's what they're doing against Moses. They're just making up stuff. You've brought us out here to die, they'll say. Moses didn't bring you. God did. And you're not being brought out to die. So this is classic of cancel culture. This is classic of the media. This is classic of academia. Hollywood, all these people. So when you see this and them attacking Moses, it's what our culture's doing today. So he comes back and he says this. Why do you tempt the Lord? So the idea of tempting the Lord is that they are making a demand on God and wanting him to do something right away. It's called trying to manipulate God. And really, this is the lowest of the lowest. When a person gets to this point to where they're gonna make demands on God, they're really out of fellowship at that point. They're not thinking straight, they're catastrophizing, and they're having problems spiritually. But this idea of, okay, why are they doing this? I mean, this is where I want to drill down. Didn't they see what happened in Egypt? Didn't they see what happened in the Exodus? Didn't they see what happened to the Red Sea? Don't they remember the bitter waters being turned to sweet by the wood being thrown in the water? Don't they know about the manna that's coming every day? Don't they remember the quail? What's happening here? They're not even looking at their history. That's not even on their thought pattern. So let me give you some principles of why this is happening to Israel because it's the same thing that happens to us. Number one, when we tempt the Lord or we contend with him, it's because we refuse to wait on the Lord to take care of our needs. So my God will supply all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ. Okay, but it'll be on his time, not ours. We want it now. That's what Israel wants. They get there and say, I want it now. We demand that you give us water right now. And this is the problem. When we start demanding of God things that we need, you're going to cross the line. And you have to be very careful. You will start tempting the Lord. You will test the Lord. And that's no good. It will not go well with you on that one. Number two. The other thing that starts happening is why we contend or why we make demands on the Lord like this is because we refuse to see God's history with us of Him meeting our own needs. Now, like I said, how come they're not looking at the past three months of what God has done for them miraculously? Isn't that amazing? I mean, you and I remember that, but it's the same thing we will do with our own personal lives. Well, what do you mean? When you start flipping out, or panicking, or having, you know, anxiety attack or whatever, because you're in a new circumstance and you're starting to freak out, it's because you don't look at your history with God. Now, the Bible is going to give you the record of history of God dealing with Israel, dealing with the church, and you'll see the record of Him doing what He does. And then, if to take it one step further, if you'll just look in your life with the same eyes, you will see the same things. But most people don't do that. They can't, for some reason, they're blocked from seeing what God has done. Now here's my sub-point, and this is the thing I wanna bring out. This is important. Sub-point A, it stems from a lack of faith or doubt in eight areas of God, about God. Now let me show you these eight areas and explain why people don't see their history with him. Number one. They don't understand the person of God. What I mean by the person of God, of his attributes, his nature, that he's unchanging, that he's loving, that he's justice, that he's fair, that he'll never leave you or forsake you, things like that. They don't look in their past and see the person of God. The second thing they don't see is the presence of God in their life. If you ask them, look back in your life and can you see the presence of God from when you were a little kid all the way up to today? Can you see his presence with you? A lot of times they'll say no. And I'll tell them, look a little harder. How was he there for you? What did he do? And number three is provision. They don't see God's provision in their own personal life of how he provided for them all the way through their lives to get to this point. Even in bad stuff, did God provide? Yes, but you've got to look for it. Four, they don't see his protection. Now, you say, well, I had a lot of bad things happen to me. Yes, but it could have been worse. It could have been worse. You could be dead. So the issue is, what you see in God's protection is, He actually protected your life from certain things. Believe it or not, when you get to heaven, He's gonna show you all that He protected you from, and you're gonna be shocked of how much He protected you from things. from bad decisions that would have destroyed your life, from bad moves, whatever it is, bad relationships, He actually protected you from that and guided you away from that. Even though you had your own free will, He protected you. then people don't see His power in their life. What do you mean? I mean, obviously the Israelites are seeing all kinds of power being displayed, but understand this, that you may not have a grade A miracle like you're seeing with Israel, but what you'll see in your life are providential miracles, and that's showing the power of God. That things happened in your life providentially that illustrate the power of God. That there's no way you could have been able to do this, or have this, or go here, whatever, without God's power. And you have to see this. And there's gotta be things in your life that you say, man, that couldn't have happened without God. That's God's power, right? Providence, that coupled with all of this, that God has been guiding you through life. Well, you say, I have free will. I don't feel like God has been guiding me. Yes, he has. Even though he's allowing your free will, he still is guiding the path for you to be on. That's why you're here at this moment. That's why you're here at this point in life. Or whatever your state in life is, he has actually got you to this point, whether you know it or not. Last two I want to show you. In looking back on your life, Can you see where he prepared you for this time? Can you see that every stage you've went through, he has actually prepared you for the next stage, whether you knew it or not? That you couldn't have been able to cope with this stage had you not been prepared prior to this. This is why God doesn't rush anything. This is why God doesn't have shortcuts. Because if he has shortcuts and he rushes you, you're not prepared for the next level. You will be overwhelmed. And then lastly, the promises. People look back on their life and they don't see any promises coming to fruition. Well, how about this? What do you mean by the promises? Well, God says, I will supply all my needs according to His glorious riches in Christ. Okay, that means He meets your needs, and He has been meeting your needs ever since. It may not be how you wanted your needs met, but He did meet your needs. How about the promise, I will never leave you or forsake you? Can you see in your life that that promise has always been there? Or you say, well, I don't know. I've never seen God in my life. Look harder. He says, I don't leave or forsake you. Look harder. He has never left you. He's always been there, present with you, just like the Shekinah glory is out there in the desert with Moses. So when you look at your history and you see these eight things, It will give you strength to trust Him in the new circumstance. This is what Israel's failing to get. Three, this is a long one, but it's necessary to say this. When we don't trust Him for the provision, when we don't, in the new experience we're having, and we start contending with Him, we start quarreling with God, it's because we try to manipulate God to get something either earlier, in greater quantity, or of better quality. Notice those three things. We want it now, I want more, and I want a better quality by demanding or complaining that he does something special for us, because we're special, right, in our circumstances that we either don't deserve or haven't earned. So because we're so narcissistic, and we think we're entitled, we will try to manipulate God saying, look, I have these needs and here are my needs, but you're not meeting my needs. And why is God not meeting those needs? Because those needs are wants and you've turned them into a need. So you're saying, I need a new car. Okay. And God, I just need it. That's a need. I got to get from home to work. And so then he supplies A bobcat runabout. You remember those cars? The old bobcat runabouts? They're little tiny little things. You gotta go back in history a little bit. It's like one of those little two-seater cars. I mean, it's tiny, and then it was just junk. So God provides, you need a bobcat runabout. You're saying, no, no, I want a Ferrari. I want a Ferrari to get from home to work. And he says, no, no, you just need transportation. So the bobcat will do just fine. But no, I want a better quality. See how it works? Or, God, I need $10,000 right now, pay all my bills. I need $10,000, wipe everything out. Please, God, provide for my need of paying my bills so I can be free. And he provides 100 bucks. Well, I need more, because God, you know I have 10,000 bills and I need it paid, but you're only giving me 100. You're not giving me enough. So what's the deal? Because you provided for them. You gave them stuff. Or how about I need a bigger house now. I need a bigger house and I need a five bedroom house, but God said, no, I'm only providing for a three bedroom house. But I need more room. I need more space. You don't understand. I need five bedrooms. No, I'm giving you three. And then we start contending. Well, I just don't understand. I go to church and I do what's right, and I'm a moral person. Why can't you give me five bedrooms instead of three? You see how it starts going? That's what happens to us. We want more, we want a better quality, and we want it at the right time. And God's saying, I'm not playing that game with you. You're trying to manipulate me, and when you do that, you are tempting me. Remember what Satan tried to do to Jesus? Satan had brought Jesus on the pinnacle of the temple and said, throw yourself over the top and his angels will carry you, quoting a psalm. And Jesus says, thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God. So if Satan was to convince Jesus to do that, Jesus would be actually tempting the Father. What does that mean to tempt? Is that you're making, you're doing something to demand that God act. And folks, if you throw yourself off the temple demanding that God acts, you're gonna hit the pavement. Boom! And you will splatter out and you're gonna say when you're going to heaven, where were you God? And he says, you tempted me. I'm not gonna react like that. I'm not a pagan deity. And so this is what's happening. Number four, last one, and we'll move on after this. The fourth thing of why we do this is because the root problem is that we think that God isn't giving us what we think we deserve, or that he should have done a better job of providing for our needs. Now this goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. When Satan is telling Eve, look, he's holding back on you, man. He knows, he knows if you eat of this, treated the knowledge of good and evil, you're gonna be like him. So he's holding back on you. I'm for you, man. I just want the best for you. I want you to know everything like him. I want you to be omniscient like him. He's holding back on you. Why would God prevent you from being like him? He must be jealous or something like that. What's the deal? You see how Satan worked in her head? And she's, yeah, that sounds about right. Let me eat of it. And the minute she did it, She, before she did it, she thought she deserved better. And it got her in hot water, obviously. Plunged us all, obviously, with Adam too, plunged us all into the situation that we're in. So this is the root problems. This is what's going on in Israel, this is what goes on with us. So let's return back to the text and watch how this plays itself out, okay, with this attitude. It says this in verse three. And the people thirsted there for water. And the people complained against Moses and said, why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So they're catastrophizing. We're not gonna survive. God's gonna kill us, doomsday mentality. And this is classic of what happens sometimes to Christians. We start catastrophizing. We're just not gonna make it. I don't know how I'm gonna make it through. Verse four, so Moses cried out to the Lord saying, what shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me. Are you kidding me? They're one to kill him for what's happening. This is how crazy they have become. They've become lunatics. They're wanting to kill Moses? Yeah, this is like our cancel culture. This is like what you see in our society. They're lunatics. What is the one guy from Twitter or whatever said, we need to line all these conservatives up and shoot them? All these Trump supporters and conservatives, we just line them up and shoot them? Really, you're on that level? Yeah, because on that level, that's the level that Israel got to. We want to kill Moses. What are you crazy? Yes, that's the idea. They are crazy because they're catastrophizing and then they don't think God can provide. They obviously can't provide for themselves, so they're freaking out. This is what happens to people who freak out. They start getting murderous. And so, I can't wait to talk to Moses and say, we just studied you, man. I feel so bad for you. I'm so sorry they did this to you, because he will put up with this his whole life. I don't know how he did it. I'm going to tell Moses, look, Moses, you must be a man of patience. I couldn't put up with it. I would have walked early, very early. I wouldn't have put up with it. But he's a better man than I am. But anyway, he goes before the Lord, he does the right thing, and he says, verse 5, And the Lord said to Moses, Go on before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river, and go. So three things I want to point out there. The three things is he's gonna put Moses at the head where the Shekinah glory is. Now why is he doing that? Because he's reestablishing and confirming the leadership of Moses. This is my God-ordained leader, you will follow him. He's only following me. So when you get mad at him, you're actually getting mad at me. He represents me. So he puts him out there in front with the Shekinah glory. That's important. He's doing this for Moses. The second thing is I want your elders to come and I want them to watch what I'm about to do. Now why is this important to have the elders? You've got to have witnesses because the miracle that's going to be done will not be viewed by all of Israel. So you have to have the elders there so they can go out and disseminate what happened and where the water is coming from. because he's going to provide water. So he doesn't want them to think they found the well, or they discovered some oasis. The elders are going to tell, as a witness to the rest of Israel, where the water came from. And lastly, notice the staff is going to come with Moses. I want you to take the staff that you struck the Nile River with, and I want you to bring the staff with you. Now the staff is a representation of God. It represents God's presence, power, and provision. So all three elements are in the staff. And so what God is doing is distancing Moses from the miracle. He doesn't want them to see that Moses does the miracle. He wants them to see that God does the miracle, that God is the one providing. So in your life, what will happen is maybe God will provide for you, but he'll provide from another human. Your job is, yes, to thank the human, but to see beyond the human, because the God of the universe put that on that person's heart to help you. So you have to move past him to see that it's God doing it. That's what the staff is doing. It's separating Moses from the miracle, from Yahweh. Okay, so that the Israelites see that this miracle comes from the presence, power, and provision of God. Okay, we got all three. Let's move on. Behold, I will stand before you there on the on the rock of Horeb. So God is gonna be with Moses right there by the rock and You shall strike the rock See the word in English strike Now the strike the rock in Horeb. The word is nakhash It's like a softer sound nakhah not nakash but nakhah Now, what's the big deal about this word? In English, you don't pick up on it. You have to see it in the Hebrew. The rabbis had a big problem with this word, necha. It was perplexing to them. They actually didn't know how to explain it. They couldn't figure out why Moses used this word to hit the rock. So, to this day, they still struggle with it, but you and I don't because we have the New Testament. The word necha means to take the staff and not just tap the rock. It doesn't mean just to tap the rock. It actually means to violently strike the rock as if you're trying to murder somebody. Now that brings a whole new level of meaning, doesn't it? It's not just strike it like that, it's you take it as if that's a person and that rod is going to hit them over the head and bash their head in and murder them. Hit it that hard, Moses, and I want all of them to see it, how hard you hit it. It's a murderous strike on the rock. Huh, I wonder why. And water will come out of it that the people may drink. So once it's happening, the miracle will happen is that the water will come from the rock. The rock will produce it. Not a well, but the rock will do it. And that's the miraculous thing that I will provide. So let me show you some pictures of the area. So this is the top view. You can see the red dot is where the rock is. And then the green view, the green little pin, that's where Mount Sinai is. It's burnt on the top there. So you can see the Rock of Horeb on the right-hand side of your screen. It's very large. It's on the peak, so everybody on the ground could see it. So let's say you're camped out right here, and see how you can see the rock? It's visible to everybody. This is where the water would be coming out. So as you close into the rock, this is what the rock looked like. And notice that the rocks around this rock of Horeb are smooth. They're not jagged because they've been worn out by water. Water erosion has caused the rocks in the area to be smooth. Remember I mentioned in this area the rocks are jagged? In this area, everything is smooth. And the rock is split right in the middle. Just as once Moses hit it, it splits the rock. And you can see a top view from the top. And again, on each side, you can see where the water would have flowed and that area is very smooth rock in that area. Now, if you want, you can go to Google Earth and go there yourself, type in Mount Horeb. sorry, the Rock of Horeb, and Google Earth will actually take you right to the ground. That's where I got these images. It's from Google Earth. You can go and watch it and look at it. It's pretty fascinating. And it's like just everything's been left there. Now this area around it has former lake beds. There was lakes there. There was streams of water all through this area archaeologically. And it hasn't been touched. There's been no water there since, but there's areas where all this water is coming from. Anyway, let me show you a video. And you can get a better idea from a drone. They flew a drone around it. And you can see the rock that Moses struck. It's massive, isn't it? Just massive. But I think the idea is it couldn't have been a little rock because all of Israel, two million people, needed to see this thing. and they needed to see that's where the flow of water is coming so that you can see why it's so massive. Okay, so at this point, Moses violently, murderously strikes the rock and then out of the rock it splits and then the water starts flowing down. And again, these are artist's renditions of perhaps what it looked like, what they would have seen. Keep going through this. And the water's flowing. Look at the size of Moses compared to the rock. You can see the size, how big the rock is compared to Moses. Massive. And the water would have flowed from this as continuing to flow. Now, what's happened is an artist did this, and I found this picture, and this is interesting, because he mapped out the ground from the rock area, and there's basically these dry lake beds and river streams in this area. Now, there's no water there, but when you put water there, you can see of what would have formed from the rock. There were the massive lakes, because you've had to have that, because there was two to three million people. There was flocks and animals. So what happened is it created a lake. in the middle of the desert for all of Israel. And this is where they got their water. It was living water. Living water is not sitting water. It's living, it's bubbling up from like a brook or a stream, this moving water. And so this is what they had there in the desert. Okay. So God did a miracle and provided what they could not provide for themselves. They had his timing and the way he wanted it. What's the lesson here? The lesson has a spiritual lesson for Israel, but a spiritual lesson for us. And it has to do with the rock. Now in the Bible. The rock is always called as referred to it to be God. God is always called a rock. Now, you'll see the theme of the rock all through the Bible. So when you get to David, when he's running from Saul, he will go to places like in Getty and call it the rock of my refuge, the rock of... you know, a place where I can go and hide, when he was hiding from Saul, and he'll actually have two locations that he calls the Rock of God for his running from Saul. So David even mentions this. And then David will go further in Psalm 118, I believe it is, I'm going off the top of my head, and he'll say, the stones that David prepared for Solomon, for some reason, He had this idea that the cornerstone that he made for the temple would be rejected. Maybe he prophesied this in Psalm 118, that the stone that it was made, the builders would reject. would cast away, but it eventually becomes the capstone. And so he prophesies that about the stone. And then you move to Isaiah, and Isaiah prophesied that the stone, the rock, will be a rock of offense. It will actually cause people to stumble when they hear about the rock. And then if you move to Daniel chapter 7, Daniel prophesied he'll see in chapter 7 the Son of Man approach the Ancient of Days, and then be given an eternal kingdom to put on this earth, and this Son of Man will take this kingdom, this eternal kingdom, and bring it to earth, but it's brought in the form of a rock. And that rock will come and destroy Daniel's metallic man, which represents the Gentile empires of the world, and the last one being the Antichrist. And that rock that was cut out without human hands comes from heaven and smashes the Antichrist's kingdom. Always a rock. Always a rock. Always a rock. And upon this rock, on this foundation of this rock, I will do what? I will build my church. Not on Peter. Peter's not the rock. Messiah is the rock. And upon him, the church will be built. You see the themes? So now let's connect dots. Look what the Apostle Paul said. 1 Corinthians 10. Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware of all of our fathers were under the cloud. Talking about the children of Israel in the text we're studying, okay? All passed through the sea, talking about the Red Sea splitting, right? All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, so Israel had its baptism going through the Red Sea. Three, all ate of the same spiritual food. What's the food? Manna. Four, and all drank of the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them. That rock was Christ. The rock of Horeb is the Messiah. Now connect why Moses was told to violently strike and try to attempt to murder the rock. You see now why? Because if the rock is the Messiah, and Messiah is God, then God would be the one struck murderously by the hands of men. But out of that murder, out of that death of the rock, comes living water, eternal life given to those who believe, and the Holy Spirit. Let's go to the next connection. Now hold on. At the Feast of Tabernacles, The last feast of Israel would be held in the temple precincts. It was in late October, somewhere in that neighborhood. The Feast of Tabernacles is a celebration of the kingdom to come. And in this feast, seven days did it last, and each day of the feast, they would take water and pour it on the western side of the altar, okay? On the eastern side, they would pour libations of wine. But on the western side, it was water. Now, where did they get the water from? They would have to go down to the Pool of Siloam and get the water from the pool of Silom. So here you see the Temple Mount on the top right hand of your screen? And then you would have to go down to the pool of Silom that has a square around it. That's where the pool was. Now that water came from a tunnel that Hezekiah dug from the Gihon Spring that's in the Kidron Valley. And what Hezekiah was able to do is funnel and channel that living spring outside the city of David and funnel it inside of Jerusalem so that Jerusalem, if it was sieged, would have an internal source of water, always, continually, from the Gihon Spring. And so the Pool of Siloam provided living water, and so they would use that water and take it to the temple and pour the water out. Now what did the pouring of the water meant for the Jews? It meant, Zechariah chapter 12, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Israel in the last days and was symbolized by the pouring out of that water. But here's what I want you to note about the water. Notice where the Pool of Siloam is. It is in the walls of first century Jerusalem. It's not outside the wall. It's in the wall. Now, why is that important? The water is coming from internally inside of Jerusalem, and then it's being poured out. Why the Pool of Siloam? Why inside Jerusalem? What's the connection here? On the last day of this feast, Messiah gets up and says this. On the last day, the great day of the feasts, Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, as they're pouring the water, imagine them pouring the water of Siloam. And then he gets up there and says this in the temple precincts. Jesus stood and cried out, saying, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of where? His heart, internal. Out of the pool of Siloam. Internal, inside of Jerusalem. So the pool of Siloam represents the heart. So out of his heart will flow what? Rivers of living water, as it did in Moses' day. But this he spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in him would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." Ah, we got it. Now we understand what the water is. The water represents not only eternal life, but the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit inside each and every believer that wells up in him a spring, just like the rock of Horeb, eternal life that's constantly flowing inside believers. Bingo! We got it. So what God prefigured with Moses in the desert is a picture of what Messiah would do for his believers and has done for you. And this image of water being the gift of life is everywhere, everywhere. Even in the messianic kingdom, in the temple, we will one day see the coming temple when Christ rules and reigns from Jerusalem. The temple has a water source, and the water source emanates from the throne of Jesus in the temple, and it goes out from the temple out into all the world. It heads to the Dead Sea, then it hits the Mediterranean, and it hits all water sources on the planet. to renew the planet with life again through the water. Because the water, after the tribulation, has been turned to blood. So God, Jesus, renovates the earth and creates the water of life and all kinds of fish and every life-giving thing comes from this supernatural water. Again, a picture of salvation. In the New Jerusalem, if we should be raptured today, which I would like to be, We would go to the New Jerusalem, and in the New Jerusalem, guess what's down in the center of the city? Water. And where does this water emanate from? The throne of God. The water actually comes from God himself, from the throne, symbolizing water. And this is why the book of Revelation always ends with an invitation, that the water of life is given freely to him who thirsts. Anyone can take it. It's available to them if they will take the water, which is simply believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation So with all that being said there's where the connection point with the typology goes now in verse 7 let's go back to verse 7 and And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. So he called the name of the place Massa, which is testing, and Meribah, which means quarreling or fighting, because of the contention of the children of Israel, because they tempted the Lord, saying, is the Lord among us or not? And it's kind of like they were insulting God, saying, look, if he said he's going to be present with us, how come he's not providing? And it's like going up to an athlete saying, like in a football game, basketball, baseball, whatever, and they're playing the game, they're actually playing the game, and the coach going up to them saying, are you gonna start playing? You get what I'm saying? It's kind of an insult. Or like you're cooking dinner or something, and it's like one of your kids come up to you, are you ever gonna start cooking? Well, I am cooking. It's an insult. When are you gonna start making dinner? I'm already making dinner. So when they're saying this to God, they're saying, They're equating his presence with him fulfilling their needs, which is, they're completely insulting him. But, thank God he's a gracious and merciful God, and thank God they're ignorant of a lot of things, because that spared them from being pounded. They could've got pounded real quick, but they're babes, and he's letting them go with their ignorance, and he's being patient with them, like he is with us. Okay, what's the point? The point is, notice how he delayed. He got him to the place and then he delays. And the delay is a time of testing. And then he does provide, obviously, but he made them, he made them delayed to see whether or not they would pass the test. Obviously they didn't. Now let's bring it to our court. Let me use Rock Harbor as an example of this. You realize today After 10 years, I want you to think about this. This is the last day we will set up and tear down. It's the last day. We've been doing it for 10 years. Those of you who started with us, you know what I'm talking about. Stockdale, then we had Liberty, then over here. We were all over the place, and now we're gonna go to 24-hour fitness. Once we're at 24-hour fitness, no setting up, no tearing down. The only thing we'll have to do is when our building is built, we'll just do a one-time move over there, and we'll set up shop. Why 10 years? Okay? So I want you to use Rock Harbor as an example for your own personal life. Why 10 years? At year one, I was already ready. Lord, provide a building for us. Let's get going here. Provide a building for us. And you know, no, no. You just keep setting up and tearing down. Keep your mouth shut, Brandon, until I tell you. And so, kept going. Here comes year three around. Here comes year four. Is this ever gonna happen? So I start contending, right? Start quarreling with God. What are we doing here? We're spinning our wheels. What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? Year five, nothing. You're six, nothing, seven, eight, nine. Start getting some hints maybe. Why do the set up and tear down for 10 years? Because this month right here is the month I applied 10 years ago in 2011 for our tax exemption for our church, to get our licensing for being a church. So we're at 10 years right now, this month. Here's the idea. It was a time of testing for our church. That's what it was. Will you continue to set up and tear down as long as I want you to, and then I'll provide for your needs later on? How long will you do this? Will you give up? Will you stop? See, there was a lot of people that started complaining. And they said, you know, our people are getting tired. They just can't keep doing this. Well, what do you want us to do? What is the option? Just to shut down? Is that the option? But see, we had the grumblings and complaining. I mean, I'm talking years ago, right? And this is like after year three, they're already complaining. I don't want to, so they just drop out and they would leave. And they would say things like, we're not going to come back until you have a permanent building. Okay. I get it. It's hard, I get it. We were at Stockdale. Times there's no air in 110 degree weather. Go in the wintertime, no heat. Come in to some of the places in Stockdale. The facilities guys hadn't thrown away the trash. Piles and piles of lunch from the kids on Friday and we had it on Sunday. We had to throw away the garbage. Come into facilities like Liberty and it were filthy, filthy dirty. And we had to clean bathrooms. We had to do all that. One time at Liberty, they had such a roach infestation, people were going to the bathroom, and while they were going to the bathroom, the roaches were crawling up their legs. No joke. No joke. jerked around from here, from this facility, from that facility, from people that don't care about us. We're just at the whims of people whether they're gonna have it or not. Sometimes we had to have Christmases on two days before Christmas because they wouldn't work on that day. All kinds of crazy stuff. It was nuts. But why? Why? Was God playing a sick joke on us? Toying with us? Messing with us? No. What 10 years of setting up and tearing down did for all of us? It's more than just setting up and tearing down. It is fighting through problems. It is facing the problem and hitting it head on and not letting it deter us, not letting us get so frustrated that we throw our hands up and quit, that we just kept pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And every time we pushed, we got stronger spiritually, stronger and stronger and stronger. To the point now, God says, finally, I got you to the point where I need you to be. You have this spiritual strength, it's part of your DNA, no one can knock you down. Now you're ready for the next stage. Because what's coming, folks, is gonna be very difficult for a lot of people. But not for you, because you stayed in the game. What's coming will knock any Christian who is tiptoeing through the tulips out. It will make what's coming, will make Christians compromise, but not you. Because you hung in there, you fought, you cleaned bathrooms, you did the setup. All that hard work was to get you ready. Because where's Israel going? They're going to the promised land. Who's in the promised land? Nephilim, giants, all kinds of warring tribes and pagans who are going to fight them. They're now being prepped to fight. To fight a spiritual battle. And that's what you and I have been put through. The ten years put steel in your soul. It made you have the strength that you have today that when these knuckleheads tell you to shut up, you won't be silent, will you? You will say it because this is what the training did for you for the last 10 years. That's why it took 10 years to make you the person you are today. Don't ever neglect that. Don't ever look down upon those 10 years. They're part of you. And it's what's gonna carry you forward. You watch. You just watch. As people start falling off because of what's coming, you will say, what's the big deal? They can't put up with a little bit of that? Oh yeah, the shutdown. Oh, I can't go to church. I'm gonna fall apart like a wilted flower. What did we do with the shutdown? Hey, we're not shutting down. We found this place. God provided this place. Back at it. Back at it. Not gonna hold us down. Gavin Newsom's not gonna stop us. Don't take that for granted. That was part of you. A lot of Christians just, oh, I just go to sleep. Now I lay me down to sleep. Pray the Lord the soul to keep. You are not cotton candy Christians anymore. You're not. So thank the Lord for the last 10 years. Thank the Lord that we're now ready to move on. Let's break.