What we're looking at in the scriptures, we're in Exodus chapter 18, and we're going to be looking at a situation that Moses got himself into, that we can all get ourselves into, and it's being overwhelmed and stressed out by life. And when you see all these end time things, the way the world's getting, there's a lot to be stressed out about, there's a lot to have a lot of anxiety about, and people feel pressured. I've been thinking about this, and there's nothing stopping this, that this vaccination thing is really going to be where, hey, if you're not vaccinated, you can't travel, you can't do this, you can't do that, you're going to have a restriction on your rights. And I'm very concerned about that. That's a little overwhelming. And then you think about, you know, the grab for guns or the limitations of guns. Because in order for a dictatorship to have success, you've got to take away people's guns. And if you notice, I mean, they've been full out, blowing through a lot of the laws, trying to curtail all the gun buying, everything, ghost guns, all kinds of things. And when you start realizing, where are we at? You start realizing, oh my goodness, we're in the last days. That's where we're at. This is why it's going down like this. This is why nothing's stopping it. But you and I have to be able to cope biblically with what we're seeing. And in order to do that, some of the things that you're gonna see with Jethro telling Moses advice about is gonna apply for you and I. And so I wanna take us through that. We're gonna parse it out, and we're gonna do some heavy application on this because What Jethro tells Moses, it would be like what Jethro needs to tell you and I right now. This is what you need to do in order to survive. This is what you're going to have to do to not bear the burden of what you're doing. I can tell you this, most of us, because we're Americans, the common thing about Americans was we're always busy. And the thing about American Christians, we also are busy and we put heavy loads on us Loads that we know we shouldn't bear, but we take in more than we should. We bite off more than we can chew. And we think we're superhuman. I'm with you, man. There's times I just think I can do it all. It's crazy, but that's what Moses starts doing. He starts thinking he can do it all. And what happens is, when you're young, you can get away with it. But now I'm getting close to 50. I'm 47 now. I'm starting to feel my age. And I can't do the things I used to do at 21. Man, at 21, you could just go out there and mow the lawn at 110 degrees and not think twice about it. If I did that today, I'd be down for two days because of that. But, you know, that's life. But here's the problem with me. I'm in a 47-year-old body, but my mind is 21. And I'm thinking I can do it all. And then I get hurt, and then I get tired, and I feel physically exhausted. But we all become like that. And this is what Moses is doing. So let me set the stage. The title of the message is When Burdens of Life are Overwhelming. The setting is this. This is coming on the heels of a short little battle here with the Israelites and the Amalekites. And what happens is, God tells Moses, I want you to extend the staff over your head, and then as he did that, the Israelites would win. Anytime he moved it down, they would lose. The power of God wouldn't be Coming through the Israeli soldiers. So what God was doing is empowering the Israeli soldiers. Okay, so Moses gets up there and he's doing this now You can only do that so long. So his arms start getting tired, right and so he's got to have to have help and And so Joshua and Hur come to him and hold his arms up, and it's a very famous passage, just like you're seeing in the scene, and they keep his arms up. And as long as he does that, then the Israelites have the power of God, and they have victory. And it's a short little battle, and God supernaturally lets them win. Okay, the point is this. It's a foreshadowing of what's going inside of Moses. The foreshadowing is he can't keep his arms up like that. He's gotta have to have help. He needs help. And so that moves us into the scene that we're in right now. So if you're like me, and if you're like Moses, and you're overburdened, and you've put too much on yourself, and you're spreading yourself too thin, this message is for you and I. Or, if we're playing the role of Jethro, and we see somebody we know that's overwhelmed, overburdened, then we need to play the role of Jethro. So, let's dig into this. Let's start in verse one of chapter 18. And it says, "...and Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law." Now this takes us back to when Moses met Jethro and met Zephora and ended up marrying Zephora, which is the daughter of Jethro. And this is the time when Moses runs, remember, to Midian away from Egypt because he had killed an Egyptian. and ends up staying with Jethro for 40 years, marrying his daughter. Now, a little bit of background about Jethro. He is a descendant of Abraham. He is a God-fearer. He believes in Yahweh, but before Israel was a nation, this is how it went. There would be Gentiles who would believe in Yahweh, and they would become a priest, like Job, and then you have Jethro here, or Melchizedek, or anything like that. You would have those situations. He descends from Abraham. His great-great-grandmother, I guess, would be Keturah. Remember when Sarah died, Abraham marries Keturah, and then she has kids by Abraham, and one of the kids is named Midian. And he's a descendant of Midian, so that's where he comes from. It's called the Midianites, and they're right there today where Saudi Arabia would be. I gave you a handout, and I hope you got a handout as you walked in. I'm not going to go over it. It is for your own study, but I want you to study the parallels between Jethro and Melchizedek. Now, as Melchizedek and Jethro, they are portraying themselves as a righteous Gentile that helps the Jews, okay? And that's been kind of a historical thing about Israel, is they've always had help from the outside, too, from righteous Gentiles. And if you go to like Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and you look at the Holocaust there, and what the Nazis did inside the memorial, you will go outside of Yad Vashem, and you will find 2,000 trees out there, that are dedicated to the righteous Gentiles that helped the Jews in the Holocaust. One of them being like Corrie ten Boom or from the movie Oscar Schindler, right? They have their trees there in Yad Vashem because there's always been these outside helps from these righteous Gentiles. God has always provided help from the outside to the Jews. And even today, those believing Gentiles like you and I look to help the nation of Israel, look to help the Jewish people and protect them. Okay, so this is what's playing out. So I want you to study that on your own, but I also want you to understand this. Jethro and Melchizedek is a typology for Jesus. And I didn't put it on your handout, so this is your homework, is to look at all the facets of Melchizedek and Jethro and how they point to Jesus who is helping the Jews. Okay? Take that, and you can study that on your own. But anyway, let's continue on. He heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, his people, that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. So somehow caravans, merchants, or something, somehow Jethro gets the information, and news travels fast about what's going on in Egypt, and it's made its way to Jethro. And Jethro realizes that Israel's in Midian now. They've crossed the Red Sea. Actually, he knows they're in their backyard. So he plans a meeting. So then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zephora, this is Moses' wife, after he had sent her back. Now, let me explain this a little bit because sometimes this is hard to understand because we're not fully sure what happened. If you recall, Moses took his family, he's going back into Egypt and is going to be the mouthpiece for God. And along the way from Midian to Egypt, there's a situation where Moses had forgot to circumcise the boys. And Zephora says, look, you're gonna kill us, you're gonna kill yourself, God's going to judge you for not doing this. And so Zephora ends up being the one to initiate all of this and said, you gotta get this figured out, dude, do it now. For some reason, At that point, Zephorah goes back home to Jethro and leaves Moses. Now, I don't know the situation. There's commentary, I've read rabbis, I've read commentaries from Christians, and no one really knows what happened. Some say they got divorced. Some say they separated because they were mad at each other, and she was mad at him for not taking care of business. Some say that Moses saw what was getting ready to happen, saw what was gonna go down, and to protect his family, sent her back. Here's the deal, we don't know. There is good explanations on both sides, that they got divorced, or they got separated, and then he's bringing her back to bring the relationship back together. I don't know. I do know this, Moses did marry another person. he married a Cushite and had children with another woman. So whether it was a polygamous relationship, he had two wives, or he ended up divorcing Zipporah and they were divorced, or what, I don't know, remarried, it could be polygamy, or it could be divorce and remarry. I don't know, I don't know. I'm at a loss, I don't know what to say, I've read them, but we're arguing from silence, but somehow, Jethro is going to bring her and the boys in. He knows that's going to please Moses. He hasn't seen his family maybe less than a year to six months, so he knows it's going to help Moses with all that he's dealing with. At least to see the boys, if him and Zephorah are not getting along. with her two sons, of whom the names of one was Gershom, for he said, I have been a stranger in a foreign land, and the name of the other was Eleazar, for he said, the God of my father was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh. So Moses named the boys after his experiences. And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness, where he was encamped at the mountain of God. So, Let me show you how this whole drama is building. The end game is this, that God is actually providentially using Jethro to help Moses. So in order to do this, this is the principle, Moses is gonna be told the truth. In order to tell somebody the truth, you have to soften the truth with grace. or relationship, and what you're starting to see by bringing his family back to him is a softening of Moses to give him grace and then give him the truth. You never want to confront somebody with the raw truth, unless they're belligerent. But if you're coming to somebody and you have to tell them, look man, you're carrying too big of a load, you're stressed out, you need to drop some things off your list, In order to do that, that person has to realize you're for them, that you're trying to do your best for them and help them. If they don't see you as trying to help them, they won't accept the truth that you're giving. You might be totally right in what you're telling them, but if the relationship is not there, they won't accept it. So all of this is building up the relationship with Moses and Jethro for what Moses will be told by Jethro. So he brings the boys. Let me give you another bird's eye view of where we're at. We're in Saudi Arabia here. So let me give you a satellite map. This is Saudi Arabia, but this would be considered Midian. Right there where that red circle is, that's where Jethro is at, okay? The Israelites were by Jebel al-Lawz. Jebel al-Lawz is Mount Sinai. Sinai is not in the Sinai Peninsula. Sinai is in Saudi Arabia. The Apostle Paul said it was in Saudi Arabia. I don't know how the Catholic Church got that wrong. It says it in Scripture that Mount Sinai is in Arabia. And all the evidence obviously points to what the Apostle Paul said. I think I'm going to believe Paul rather than the Popes. Anyhoo. So Jebel al-Lawz is Mount Sinai. It has a burnt top, by the way. Let me show you another picture real quick. From Jethro's caves, where Jethro's at, this is looking to Mount Sinai. So you step out of Jethro's caves and Mount Sinai is the middle peak in the middle. Notice the burnt top on the top. It's all burnt up there. And they've looked at it, it's not volcanic because you can actually wash it off and the burnt marks come off. So there was a fire on top of the mountain obviously, we know because God was there. So this is what it would have looked like from Jethro's caves. Now if you go to Saudi Arabia today, which I know a lot of people are not going to go to Saudi Arabia, but if you ever get in there because you work for an oil company and you get a furlough, get a chance to go to Jethro's caves. So here's what Jethro's caves are. These are the remains of Midian. Midian was a hustle and bustle city. This was the main city and the main capital of Midian. And here's the remains of it. So basically what they did, like the Nebateans, is they carved their city into rocks. This is kind of like similar to what's going on in Petra. Anyway, let's continue on. and you can see how their buildings were built and carved out of the rock. But then I want to show you what is called Jethro's Caves. So to the Saudis, to Bedouins, to everybody in that area, and this has been an ancient tradition, that these are the caves of Jethro. They are named for that. Even, believe it or not, Islam that dominates the area reveres this place as Jethro's Caves. So they recognize it as well. And then if you look at some other pictures of these caves, you actually can go in them today. If you imagine, this is where Moses would have stayed with Jethro for 40 years in these caves. It wasn't a tent, it was a cave. And this is the inside of one of the caves. You can see the nooks that are carved out of it. And this is where possibly Jethro, Moses, Zephor were all there, living there for 40 years. Now, they have other caves that the Saudi Arabian government has blocked off and have put fences around them. American researchers have went over there and asked them, what's in those other caves? They are told that this is the burial cave of Jethro and Zephora, and we're not letting you in. So again, we can't confirm that, but this is what the Saudi officials tell other researchers coming into the area, why these other caves are blocked off. Could be, I don't know. But the best archaeological standpoint and tradition points to these being the area of where Jethro lived and obviously Moses. Just to kind of give you an idea of where we're at on the planet. Let's continue on. Now he had said to Moses, I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons. Again, prepping Moses, and we're coming to you. I'm gonna bring your kids to you right now so you can see your kids. Again, relationship. So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, bowed down, and kissed him. So this is humility on Moses' part. Moses is one of the humblest men in the scriptures. He is not prideful. He got that pride knocked out of him 40 years in the desert, okay? 40 years in the desert will knock your pride out. So he bows down to Jethro, kisses him, and shows him reverence, respects him, obviously. And notice this, and they asked each other about their well-being, and they went into the tent. Notice the relationship is first. Notice we're gonna ask Moses, how you doing, dude? I heard all of what was happening down in Egypt. Are you okay? How are you doing emotionally? How are you doing physically, spiritually? Are you okay? So this is a friendly exchange. Obviously they haven't seen each other for a while, maybe less than a year. But obviously Jethro knows what Moses went through. So as a father-in-law, he's checking on him. But notice the order. Grace first, relationship first. Okay, notice the order. Verse eight, and Moses told his father-in-law all that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel's sake, all the hardships that had come upon them on the way, and how the Lord had delivered them. Notice this. Moses is real. What do you mean by that? When you asked Moses, how are you doing, he didn't say, praise the Lord, I'm great today, brother, couldn't be better, I'm walking on clouds, angels are holding me up by their hands, couldn't be better. He didn't do that, does he? He says, hey dude, it was hard, we went through some rough patches, man, but the Lord delivered us. Notice the balance. Being real doesn't mean you have to fake anything. If you had a hard week, tell people you had a hard week. but also balance it out with how the Lord delivered you out of that. Notice the balance that Moses is doing. When you encounter people that everything is like peachy keen, couldn't be better, my life is great, I'm blessed, brother. If you're running into those kinds of kids, they're fake. They're fake. I want somebody that's real. How you doing? I don't know, man. I don't know if I'm gonna make it through next week. All right, how can I help you? But see, people who are fake don't want people on the inside. They don't want people knowing them. They don't want people in their life. They're pushing them out by saying, I'm good, leave me alone. That person is gonna get themselves in a situation where they will be overburdened because they have no help because they've been telling everybody, I don't need anyone's help. So eventually, life will crush them and they'll have no one to turn to. So we wanna be real. Yes, we want to talk about the great things that God does in our lives, but also tell people, hey, I'm struggling here, man, I need help. That's being real, that's being honest. That's what Moses is doing. He's being what we call transparent. And if you want help, being transparent is the first step. And Moses is there. Nine, then Jethro rejoiced for all the good which the Lord had done for Israel. So amen, that's great, that's to be celebrated. Whom he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Jethro said, blessed be the Lord. Notice he used the word Yahweh. That means Jethro has a personal relationship with God. He doesn't call him a generic Elohim, he uses the word Yahweh. So it's a personal relationship. who has delivered you out of the land of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, and who has also delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods. Now why does he have to say that? Because in the ancient world, they knew about fallen angels, they knew about demons. And these ancient cultures worshiped these fallen angels and demons. But they didn't call them like we do today. We call them fallen angels, we call them demons. They didn't call them that, they called them Elohims. Elohim could be used plural for gods, that's why it's translated gods in the text. But Elohim can actually refer to Yahweh as Elohim, which is plural as well, referring to the Trinity. So you've got to know what context you're talking about. So in the ancient world, they just used the term Elohim for all spirit creatures. And then what he's saying is this, I know Yahweh in a personal way, but now I know Yahweh in a different way in the fact that he is above all the other Elohims. Spirit creatures, fallen angels, demons, and he is the one true God. He is the great I am, and he is the eternal being. The other ones were created by him. I know that's a lot to say, but that's when in effect what he's saying theologically, that he is the most high God among the other gods, or Elohims, or fallen angels, or whatever I should say. Let's continue on. For in the very thing in which they have behaved proudly, he was above them. Now, that's an interesting statement. Your English doesn't bring it out, so let me tell you what it's really saying in the Hebrew. When he says this, he says that Yahweh has excelled the Egyptian gods in the very things to which they laid claim to. What do you mean by that? He is saying, You had the Egyptian gods who said they were in control of the weather, control of the Nile, control of the crops, control of all these other different aspects of the physical world. What Yahweh has proven is that he is the one in control of all of this, not them. He's controlling the Nile. He turns it to blood. He controls the weather, the plague of hell. He's the one who has proved that no, it's not Satan and the fallen angels that control this world, it is Yahweh, it is Jesus Christ who's controlling it. So it's an amazing statement by a non-Jew, by a righteous Gentile, okay? And it pictures, again, even you and I as a righteous Gentile, that they even know the right theology as well. Verse 12, Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took a burnt offering and other sacrifices to offer to God. And Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law before God. So they have a big meeting with the elders, with Moses, basically what they're doing is they're accepting this righteous Gentile into the family of Israel. He's not becoming an Israelite, he's just welcomed as another Yahweh worshiper, and they're affirming this officially, that he has our stamp of approval. So then when he's sent back to Midian, he will take this message out about Yahweh and continue to spread the message of who Yahweh is. But this is a fellowship meeting. So here's what I want you to see. Jethro brings his boys, and we don't know if the wife is connecting to him. Maybe, maybe not. But at least the boys are there. Jethro sees how he's doing, and then they have food. In the Middle East, having a dinner like this is a big deal. It is a major fellowship for them. It signs, seals, and delivers the friendship, okay? That's why Jesus says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. Anyone who opens the door, I will come into him and do what? Dine with him or sup with him and he with me. It's a Middle Eastern term of we will have fellowship with one another. So this seals the deal. What I have showed you is this. before Jethro lays down the truth, he has done all of this to show Moses, I'm for you, man, and then he's gonna give him the truth. And so it was on the next day that Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening. And this happened, by the way, every day. Now this is not uncommon for ancient Near East leaders to do this. You would have a military leader who is a political leader, but also a judicial leader all in one office. So Moses is not doing something uncommon. Moses is doing something he has seen modeled. Now here's the thing. You don't want to get too down on Moses. He only knows what he saw with Midian and how Jethro functioned, and he only saw how the Egyptians functioned. He has not been told by God how to function right, especially in the office of judiciary. So he's just going off of what he's modeled. But I will say this, it is a wrong model. It is not how God wants him, and that's why he's bringing Jethro in. Be careful. What happens is when a third party comes into your life, and a Jethro comes into your life, and they have good intentions, and they wanna help you, they're going to confront what you saw modeled growing up. They're gonna say, yeah, I know you learned this from your mom and dad, but it's wrong. Boom, and then that's when it hits you. What, I've been doing this, my grandfather did this, and my father was like this. So my grandfather was a workaholic, my dad was a workaholic, and I'm a workaholic. Yeah, but it's wrong. Your family modeling was wrong. Whatever you saw modeled was wrong, and here's the biblical way to handle this. That's what he's going to do. But you gotta be careful if you're receiving that information, because someone might confront you like a jet throw and say, how you're functioning is abnormal. But see, what happens to you and I is we function so long off of what we saw modeled in front of us is that we think that's normal. And so the abnormal actually becomes the normal in our daily lives, and we don't even know that, until an outside person comes in and says, oh my goodness, what are you guys doing? Are you crazy? You can't function like that. Well, we've been doing this all of our marriage. What's wrong? So that's what Jethro's doing. But it's not to blame Moses. It's not to blame him. He just saw what he saw. He doesn't know what to do. So he just starts doing this, and he's doing it from sunup to sundown, for goodness sake. So when Moses' father-in-law saw that he had did for the people, he said to him, what is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you alone? Notice the term alone. Sit. You're not doing wrong per se, Moses, but you're doing it all alone. You have no help. And all the people stand before you from morning until evening. So not only are you doing this alone, that's problem number one, but problem number two is you're delaying justice. because it's taking so long to work through the court system for you that things are being done and so justice is not being meted out because they have to wait so long. It's kind of like our court systems today, right? Before you get a conviction, you'll be five years later, right? Justice delayed is justice not happening. And so that's what he points out. Now here's the deal, what he's saying. You're not wrong for what you're doing, you have good intentions, you're doing the right thing, but your methods are wrong. Notice how he separates the two out. You're okay, I understand your heart, but your methodologies have got to change. Notice how Jethro is objectifying the problem. He's not getting personal with Moses. You're so stupid, how could you think like that? I can't believe your mother raised you like this. I can't believe your daddy did you wrong and you're just copying the same thing. You're just like your father. He doesn't say that. He just says, look, we gotta change the methodologies here. You have the good heart, we're gonna change the methodologies. You're not doing right. Okay. That's objective. I can argue with someone like that. I can have a good conversation with anybody if they'll stay objective, but the minute they go personal on me, you're a jerk, you're always like this, you'll never change, the argument's over. It's over. So even Jethro knows how to relationally deal with him. So Moses responds, and honestly, it's an honest response. And I don't blame him for this. Moses said to his father-in-law, because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a difficulty, they come to me, and I judge between one and another, and I make known the statutes of God and His laws. He says, what do you want from me? I'm a prophet, number one, and I don't know what else to do. They don't have access to God like I do, so I have to tell them as a prophet what God is saying. So at this point, you can't get on to Moses. He is trying to do his best as a prophet and giving the revelation out, but the problem is his methodologies are wrong. He needs to do this, but a different way. So Moses' father-in-law said to him, this thing you do, the methodology, is not good. Your methodology is wrong. Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. So you're not only gonna wear yourself out, you're gonna wear out the Israelites waiting for justice. For this thing is too much for you. You are not able to perform it by yourself. There we go. Now he's getting to the heart of this. Moses, let me get a little personal. If you keep doing the same methodology that you've always done and you just keep this up, you won't be able to bear it. It will actually destroy you. It will destroy everything you're trying to do here because you don't have it in you. You are not Superman. You're carrying too much burden. See, and that comes back to you and I. With all that's going on in this crazy world, we have a tendency to start putting on too many burdens on us, start spinning too many plates, and here's my problem, and I'm sure it's somebody else's problem. You start believing that you can take it all in, that you're Superman, and I can just do it, God has given me the grace and I can handle it, and you just start stacking more, stacking more, stacking more. That's what Moses is doing, he's stacking. And the thing is about this is you actually start getting used to carrying that weight. In fact, you won't perceive that you're even carrying the weight. It's like all of a sudden someone tells you, put on your side 25-pound dumbbells and start walking around like that. The first few weeks you feel it, but after a few weeks you don't feel the 25. And then you start adding the 35, then you start adding the 45. You know how I know I've taken too much on? I only find out when I'm on vacation. I'm dead serious, what happened? I go on vacation, I finally get a break, turn off the phone, and it takes me three days to decompress, or decompose, I guess, I don't know, it's one of the two. And so about the third day, I'm feeling all right, this is, what happened? I feel lighter. What happens to me is I realize, oh my goodness, I was used to carrying so much weight, I didn't even know I was carrying that. And you only find that out when you go on vacation. And so, I don't know if you've been in that situation, but that shows you that you're carrying too much. Now here's another thing. How do you know if you're carrying too much? Well, someone that's carrying too much, I can tell you this, they're always on edge, dude. And if something goes wrong, they have no margin for when it goes wrong. So if you're carrying a bunch of weight, and you're spinning 17 plates, and a tire goes flat, or something goes wrong with your battery, or all of a sudden there's a problem at the school with a kid, all of a sudden, it's like all Hades is broken loose. I can't do, it's a straw that broke the camel's back. Oh my goodness, we're gonna die here. We've gotta get this figured out. And the littlest thing, Like maybe the kid gets an F or something and the teacher's calling you about the F. The littlest thing sets off the whole family. You know why? Because mom and dad are carrying too much burden. They're spinning too many plates, trying to do everything. Hey, I'm 47 right now, like I've told you. I'm getting close to 50, man. And I still think like a 21-year-old, like I told you. As a 21-year-old, you think you can go out and do everything. And the problem is, we're in a different body. You might have the same mind, but you're in a different body. You can't do it anymore. And this is the thing, you don't know how to back off. You just don't know how to back off. And so you see this with guys on the weekends, man. They become weekend warriors. And you know what happens to weekend warriors on Monday? They're in the doctor's office, right? Because they've done something stupid, like rock climbing on Yosemite, How many times have you done that? I don't know, but it's one of my bucket lists, and I'm going to go rock climbing in Yosemite, and then you fall. And I have a broken leg. How'd you do that? I was climbing rocks in Yosemite. Do you normally do that? No. I just wanted to try it. OK. Whatever, dude. Keep it up. Keep it up. And then another guy I was talking to, he's like in his 50s, and he started doing marathons. All right. I don't recommend that. Getting your exercise, obviously, but doing marathons at over 50, at 55 or something, hey, we need to think twice about that. So what happened? He starts training for marathons. Starts training and starts training and starts training. And you know what starts happening in his training because he's old now? He starts having stress fractures in his foot because his feet can't take the pounding of it. And so all of a sudden, he starts having these little fractures in the little bones of his feet. Guess what? He's in a boot now. And so he can't do the marathon anymore. And it's like, hey man, do you know you're 55? I don't know, man. 26.2 or whatever? Really? Who are you trying to prove to? It's over. You should have proved it in high school. It's over. Trying to relive the glory, I guess, I don't know. But you know what happens, that's what happens. We start taking more on and then we get hurt. And this is what Jethro's trying to point out to Moses. You can't do this, come on, dude. You're gonna wear yourself out. Now, verse 19 says this. Listen now to my voice, I will give you counsel. Here it is, I'm gonna lay it out for you, dude. I love you, man, but here's the deal. And God will be with you in this, I'm sure he will. Stand before God for the people so that you may bring the difficulties to God, that's number one. So what you're needing to do and what you're not doing in your methodology is you need to get the revelation from God and take it in and then dispel it to the people. Quit doing the one-on-one. Now there's a place for one-on-one, but what Moses is doing is he's receiving the statutes of God and giving it one piece, one piece to this person, one piece to that person, to where no one else knows what's going on. Only Moses and that individual. So the information is not made public. So Jethro is a genius. He's saying what you're doing is you're privatizing the information, you need to make that information public. So the point number two in verse 20 says, and you shall teach the statutes and the laws and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do. So Moses, get the information from God, give it out. Why is that important? Why is it important to give the information out? It's because they can solve their own problems if they have the information in their hands. That's, and that will lessen the judicial system. Oh, I find that curious. In the modern day, they have taken the ethics and morality of God out of the schools, out of our whole culture, and they wonder why they have a problem with criminal activity. Huh, it works hand in hand. If you let the people know what is required of them, they will solve their own problems and it will reduce the crime, Moses, That's brilliant, but you know what? No one running our judicial system knows that. In fact, what they do is build more prisons, put more prisoners in there, but you know why? Because if they would teach them morals and ethics like they should, we wouldn't have so much of that problem. We would still have the problem, but we wouldn't have as much as we're having. We just got people that are wilder and peach orchard boar hogs running around, and they don't even know what's right and wrong anymore. That's what's happened to our society. It's like lawlessness, anarchy. "'cause they don't know." And then he goes, moreover, you shall select from all the people able men. Ah, this is key. This should be given to every person coming on our Supreme Court, every person coming on our appellate courts. If actually our court system, our judicial system, our judicial branch of the United States would follow these four things from Jethro, we would have an entirely different judicial system. Check this out. This is brilliant on Jethro's part. You shall have all the people able men. Okay, that means these men have a natural aptitude for judging correctly. That means they're impartial. So that would eliminate pretty much the Ninth Circuit, right? That would eliminate most of our appellate courts because we don't have able men. We sometimes have leftist politicians in a black robe making decisions. Number two, such as fear God. Well, that would pretty much eliminate about 98% of the judges here in America. A lot of them don't fear God, because we can tell the way they judge. Huh. And then it says men of truth, oh my goodness. That almost goes without saying, men of truth, yeah, men that will stick to what God says. Or how about this, even in our situation. Men who will stick by the Constitution, for goodness sake. Our Constitution was blown away all the way going back to Obama. They haven't been using the Constitution since. They just blew right through it. And our judicial system's doing the same thing. But men of truth means that they are trustworthy. They take the information they have, whether it's from God or the Constitution, and they rule by it. But that's not our court systems today. And then lastly, hating covetousness. What does covetousness have to do with a judge? It has to do with bribery. That's it, that these people cannot be bribed, Moses, because you know what people do. They cannot be bribed politically. Look at what happened in our Supreme Court. We put people on there that we thought were conservative, and then all of a sudden, they get in there and they flip. What's that about? It's because either one, they were hiding what they truly were and they lied, so that means they violated this one, you're not trustworthy, you're not true, because you lied to get in here, or they were either bribed. Someone got to them, someone threatened them, someone gave them money, I don't know, some backroom deal. But what you start realizing is, oh my goodness, if I use Jethro's four principles and put them on our judicial system, it would eliminate about 98% of the judges here and most of the Supreme Court. And now they're wanting to pack the court? Uh-oh, I know why, and you do too. Because they're gonna get dishonest judges to make rulings and to kill our Constitution. That's what's coming, if it's not stopped. Anyway, these guys from the ancient world, most people think, oh, they're just dummies, they don't know what they're doing. No, no, no, super intelligent, super wise. That kind of information. Let's continue on. And they'll place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. Do you know what that is? That's Jethro saying you have to have an appellate court. You have to have lower courts, and then you have to have a supreme court. Brilliant. This is a guy from Midian. That's what he's doing, he's chopping the numbers up to say this court system will handle 50, this court system will handle the 100, this court system will handle the bigger numbers, and then Moses is the Supreme Court. Brilliant. And let them judge the people at all times. Let them do it all the time. Moses, I don't need you doing it. I just need you weighing in on the big cases. Then it shall be that every great matter they shall bring to you, which will be less frequent. But every small matter they themselves shall judge. They'll judge at the smaller levels. So it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you. Brilliant. By the way, this structuring of Israel in the 50s and going from 10s to 50s to 100s, Jesus did that at the feeding of the 5,000, to say that he's the fulfillment of the prophet Moses predicted, and that he sat them down and fed them in the same groupings, in the same appellate court system, because why? Messiah is the ultimate, not only savior, he's the ultimate judge. So he sits the 5,000 down in the appellate court sizes. You see the parallel? It's amazing. It just keeps going. Anyway, this is the birth of the Sanhedrin. So when he does this, he'll get 70 elders, and then you have 71, referring to the high priest, and this is the beginning of the Sanhedrin. And it will continue to morph all the way into Jesus' day. And then, by the way, the Sanhedrin, even today, this is where they plan to be in their new temple. And the Sanhedrin have reconvened in 2004. The Sanhedrin, why is that important? It's the 70 elders that will eventually receive the Messiah and cause the nation of Israel to go into a three-day repentance for the Messiah during the tribulation. So it is a big deal that the Sanhedrin are back together again. You could read more about it on the internet. Just type in Sanhedrin and it'll pull up several, they have two sites, one in Hebrew, one in English, and that's their seal. So they're back in convening, so this goes ancient, Ancient times with what Jethro said to Moses. Verse 22. Or 23? Where am I at, Sam? There we go, right there. If you do this thing and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure and all the people will go to their place in peace. So he does it. So Moses heeded the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all of Israel and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties, rulers of tens, that's the appellate court. And so they judged the people at all times. The hard cases were brought to Moses, so they judged every small case themselves. Then Moses led his father-in-law to part, and he went his way. to his own land. So Jethro departs and goes back to Midian, which is why I think there's good evidence that if they say one of those caves is a burial spot for Jethro, would be lined up with Scripture, because Scripture says he didn't continue with Moses, he went back because Jethro was going to spread the message there in his own homeland in Midian. Okay, with all that being said, You pattern his grace, relationship first, then he gives Moses the truth, and then Moses, because he accepts the truth, then implements the new system, and it works well, and everything goes great because of this. What's the application for this? Well, it's several things. And the first thing I want to bring to our attention is we need to delegate, obviously. That's a big deal. And seek help during stressful and overwhelming times. And so if we're overburdened, you've got to get help. You've got to go reach out to people. Well, again, what prevents people to not delegate? What prevents people from not seeking out help? What prevents them from being real with others? What is it that stops them? Well, first of all, it's our background issues. A lot of times our background issues prevent us from doing what we should be doing. What do you mean? Well, we saw something that was modeled in front of us, like Moses saw as modeled. And what sometimes we saw modeled in front of us is not correct. And so our modeling is wrong, and so we have to be willing to change our modeling. The second thing is that what we experienced in life. Now some of you might have this experience, that you grew up taking care of yourself. You grew up fending for yourself. That you were a little adult, and you learned how to take care of yourself. You didn't have any safety net underneath you. And so you had to make it happen. That kind of person is very good at surviving, no doubt about that. But that person has a very hard time reaching out for help because they're not used to asking for help. And so what ends up happening is what they've experienced is actually causing them not to ask for help. So your modeling is important, your experience is important. But how about some other issues? I'm just gonna go through these really rapidly and see if you're in them. Because I'm all over this thing right here. I'm in it, man, I'm all over. The other thing that prevents us from reaching out for help, or delegating, or saying, hey man, can you help me, I'm overburdened, is our trust issues. We just don't trust anybody. We grew up not trusting people, people burned us, and so we don't typically let people do things for us, because we don't trust them. The second thing is our pride issues come up. Now this is not an issue for Moses, he doesn't have pride. He's very humble. But pride issues, the person, in order to reach out for help, has to admit a weakness. And people don't want to admit weakness. Guys are the worst for this. We don't want to admit that we need help so we don't reach out. And that's what Moses, obviously, he's not reaching out, he's not getting the help he needs, and he's gonna crumble. And then our perfectionist attitudes. If you're a perfectionist, there's only one right way to do it. There is no other way to do it. And so a perfectionist says, I know how to do it, and this is how it's gonna be done. If you want something to do, you have to do it yourself. That hurts you, that will actually hurt you. An idealistic attitude and this idea of I want to do it all, I should be able to do it all. That's kind of what Moses is doing. He thinks he should be able to do it all. That will crumble you. Or how about your control issues? Well, if I ask for help, and I get other people, and I delegate some authority to them, and I get some other people involved in this, I will lose control. And I don't want to lose control. So I have to do it all myself in order to keep the control. Well, then you're a control freak. Okay? That's just what it is. because that's why you're not delegating. Or recognition issues. Man, if I let some other people do this and other people do that, then I'm not gonna get the recognition for doing this. They will get the recognition. Are you really concerned that much about the applause of men? That you would rather just kill yourself doing what you're doing? Think about that one. Or how about valuing your work over results? What do you mean? Believe it or not, there are people who value the work or the mechanics of work, but they don't care about the results. So it's like, let me give you an example, the college, university, and teaching profession. They have a problem, big time. They keep doing the same things over and over again, and the system keeps failing. Because we have kids that can't read, they can't do math, they can't spell, and the system keeps producing this type of individual, right? There's no change, and it actually is getting worse, right? And what do the teachers' unions do? What do the system does? What do the administration? Just keep doing the work. You fool. You're working, but you don't look at your results. If you're working and it's not producing results, you need to stop doing what you're doing. But they're in love with the work. This is what people do. They love what they do, but they have no results. I would like to say, if you were in a small business and you were trying to make a living, how much would you work and not get results? You would stop that right away. But that's the government for you, right? Or how about this, time issues? Well, Brandon, I just don't have time to train people. I don't have the time to put in what's my head into someone else, okay? So this is what happens to people who start a business and then they want to hand it over to their kids. They have not spent enough time with the kids to hand it over, and the kid doesn't know what's in dad's head of all the life experience. That is not in the kid, so then the dad has a heart attack, or he has to retire, and he can't do it. And then what happens? I'm gonna let my son run the business. And he runs that thing right into the ground, doesn't he? all the way into the ground. And why is that? Because the dad wouldn't spend the time to put in his head what was in his. And so the kid doesn't know. And he just, look around Bakersfield. You can see it. When the owners who started the business, the restaurant or whatever, hand it over to the kids, what happens to the kids? They can't run it. They don't know what they're doing. That's the point. You do have to make that time to train. Or how about feeling threatened by others? What do you mean? Well, if I have to bring in more people to help me, what if they're better than me? They're gonna show me up. I can't bring in people. They're gonna threaten me. This is what happens at companies that hold other workers down. You ever seen that happen? They're holding people down because the supervisor's incompetent, and he won't let the other ones who are smarter than him rise to the occasion. That's another issue. Or how about this, a pessimistic attitude? A pessimistic attitude. What do you mean by that? Some people already say no to others in their head, and they say it for others. Like for instance, they'll say, yeah, I need the help. I plan on, I would like to ask old Charlie to help me, but I know Charlie's gonna say no. He doesn't want to help me. Notice how the person's so pessimistic they're saying no for other people, he doesn't know. And they're so pessimistic they won't ask for help because they're so pessimistic. That person's on a spiral to collapse. Now what is all this about? Those are just things that, I mean, I'm in like 98% of those things, by the way. I see myself all in that. What's the point? The point is, at some point in time in your life, If you're that stressed out, that overburdened, then God's gonna bring a jet throw into your life. And that jet throw is gonna come from the outside. He's not in the middle of it. Notice that no Israelite said, hey man, we need to calm down on Moses. He looks stressed out. Can you see his face? How come no Israelite said that about him? It took an outsider to do that. Because it's like in a marriage. When they're going at it, The two don't see what's happening. Both of them are dysfunctional, right? And each one is throwing their dysfunction at each other. And they can't see it. But then they go to a counselor, and here's a third party counselor coming in, and they come in, okay, tell me what's going on. Oh my goodness, that is so abnormal. Who in the world does those kinds of things? Well, we do, we've been doing it for 30 years. It's not right. But why couldn't the other spouse correct the other spouse? Because they're too enmeshed. There's too much emotion. There's no outsider. And that's what's happening with Israel and Moses. They don't even see that Moses is all stressed out. They can't help him. So what God does is bring an outsider, Jethro, this is all providential, and say, hey, look, dude, you're gonna kill yourself and you're gonna kill the Israelis. And it'd be something like a counselor would say, hey, dude, you guys keep fighting like cats and dogs. Someone's gonna pull a gun and shoot each other, man. You've gotta stop this. When the outsider comes to you, he's going to be a little unfamiliar to you. You're going to act, well, this guy doesn't know anything. This guy doesn't, he doesn't know my situation. He doesn't have to. An outsider can come in objectively without emotion and say, let's assess the situation because I don't have a dog in the race, but I just want to help both of you. That third party is going to be someone that wants to help you. Not a criticizer, but a constructive criticizer. He wants to help you, she wants to help you. And you have to be willing to accept that and say, yeah, you know what, doggone it. You have to be humble like Moses saying, tell me what I need to do. And Moses, look at Moses' attitude towards the criticism. You're right, man, I'm gonna die here. What do I need to do, Jethro? And Jethro goes, okay, we're gonna do this, boom, boom, boom, boom, follow, here's the plan, we're gonna follow. Boom. And it changes all of Israel at that point. That's amazing. It only happened because of Moses' humility of saying, you're right, I can't spin 17 plates. I can't carry this burden anymore. I'm thinking I'm Superman. This is crazy. Right. Amen, and then it changes the whole situation, great. So here's the deal for us as far as being receptive, but here's another thing we have to do. We have to look out for each other. We have to be that jet throw. We have to be looking at people's eyes, people's demeanor. Hey man, you okay, dude? You look stressed, you look overburdened, you look like you're carrying the weight of the world. Are you okay? You have to be that jet throw in other people's lives. Again, this is if you have a good relationship with them and all that stuff. Because the time that we're entering in is gonna be very tough, very difficult, and we will need one another checking on each other, taking care of each other. Let me give an illustration. to kind of drive home this point about checking on one another. There was a farmer who had a farmhouse, obviously, and had his wife in there, and so this mouse was looking at the farmer and his wife, and they had just brought a package back from the store. And the mouse was watching, and the farmer's wife grabbed the bag, pulled out what's in the bag, and pulled out a mousetrap. Now the mouse saw this and he was freaking out. Oh my goodness, this is my death sentence. They bought a mouse trap for me and they're gonna put cheese on it and I know I can't resist cheese or peanut butter or something and I can't resist it. So the poor mouse goes into the barn, runs into his friends and he first goes to the chicken. And the chicken is pecking away, and he says, chicken, Mr. Chicken, they put a mousetrap, and that's for me, and I need help. And the chicken kept scratching and pecking, and he says, look, dude, I can't help you. I'm too busy pecking and scratching and making out my own living. I'll pray for you. You heard that before, right? He says, okay, no luck with the chicken. I'll go to the pig. So he goes to the pig. Mr. Pig, I need help, man. They put a mousetrap in there. They're gonna kill me. I'm overburdened, I'm overstressed. And the pig says, hey dude, I can't help you. I'm trying to help myself, I'm trying to lose weight. I can't help you with this, man. So I'll pray for you. Okay. Goes to the cow. Mr. Cow, no, not Mr. Cow, Mrs. Cow. Mrs. Cow, I need help. They put a trap in there, they're gonna kill me, man. Hey, I can't help you. I'm too busy chewing the cud. And then plus I'm nursing these babies here, these baby cows and these calves, and I'm too busy to help you, man, so you're gonna have to deal with this on your own. So dejected, the mouse goes back. And he goes back into the house, and there's the trap there, and he's, oh, man, I don't know if I can take that temptation. It's peanut butter, and I don't know if I can do this. So that night, the mouse prayed, Lord, give me the strength. Yes, you gotta go along with it. Go along with it. Go along with it, okay. So he's praying, Lord, help me avoid this temptation, because no one's helping me, Lord. No one comes to my aid, no one's there. A brother and sister in the animal farm is there to help me. And so through the night, trap goes off. It's dark. Farmer and his wife hear it. They come into the kitchen to see what was in the trap. They flick on the lights, and what they saw in the trap was that the trap was set and hit on the tail of a rattler, a snake. It actually, it snapped on a snake that was traveling through the kitchen, but the snake was still alive. It snapped its tail. Anyway, for some reason, The farmer's wife gets too close, and the snake bites her. And then she goes down, obviously. So the farmer has to rush her to the hospital. They give her some medicine to offset the venom, but then he brings her home. And obviously she still comes home, and she has a fever, and she's not doing too well. So in the old days, what they would do is make chicken soup, right, to make you feel better. So the farmer goes out to the barn. He gets the chicken, slaughters the chicken, and makes chicken soup with the chicken. But she doesn't get any better. In fact, she's deteriorating and getting worse, and so now all the farmer neighbors are coming to see her because, oh my goodness, we don't know if she's gonna make it. And so all these people are gathering around the house, and the farmer goes, well, I gotta feed them. So he goes out and slaughters the pig. and that provides the food for those visiting his wife. Hmm. Time goes on, she's not getting any better. In fact, she dies. Ah, it's too bad. So the farmer has a funeral for her, and then the gathering after the funeral, you know, the potluck and all that stuff that happens after funerals, is happening at his house. And so in order to feed them, he goes out and slaughters the cow to give him the meat to feed the funeral. The message of the story, the mouse is the only one that's still alive. Everyone else is dead. But the ironic twist on this is the mouse was worried about his life and no one cared about him. So in the end, the other three animals got exactly what they deserved. You don't care about them, so when it comes your time, no one will care about you. That's why we have to look out for one another. We have to take care. We have to be that Jethro. You okay? You doing okay? Let's pray.