Greg Laurie here. You've heard about these devastating fires that we're experiencing right here in our backyard in Southern California. These fires are moving so quickly and they're 0% contained. So what should we do? Pray. Pray for these firefighters. Pray for their protection.
But we need to step into this situation. So we've created the Harvest Relief Funds for situations exactly like this. If you would like to send some support, to help people in need, you just go to our website, harvest.org slash relief. We want to bring help and hope to people in the name of Jesus Christ. I'm reminded of the passage that tells us that God can bring beauty out of ashes. Thank you for your prayers and let's pray that this fire is contained and stopped and that lives are spared and most importantly that people come to put their faith in Christ.
Thank you so much. I, as a human being, tend to think of the here and now. God, in contrast, thinks more of the by and by.
I think about what will make me happy in the moment. God's more interested in what will make me holy. Coming up today, Pastor Greg Laurie points out the Lord wants us to choose the kind of joy that will follow us into eternity. God's end game is to make us more like Jesus.
He's preparing us for heaven because heaven is a prepared place for prepared people. This is the day, the day when life begins. Smart grocery shoppers pay attention to expiration dates. You may see a dozen cartons of milk on the shelf, but a careful look shows that the expiration dates on some cartons are much further into the future. But sometimes we don't think carefully about the other things of life that may affect us.
Those things that bring quick enjoyment often bring long-lasting disappointment. Well, coming up today here on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us focus on the things above. It's a study of Moses.
It's the day, the day when life begins. I remember as a little kid I used to go to the desert. I lived with my grandparents.
I mentioned earlier that I was conceived out of wedlock. So basically I was with my mom part of the time. I was with aunts and uncles. But I spent a good part of my childhood with my grandparents and a little bit of it in military school. So my grandparents were interesting. They were from another century, right? You want to talk about old school.
They were the oldest old school you could get. So we lived in Southgate, California. They had a little cabin in Yucca Valley. Have any of you ever been to Yucca Valley?
Okay. That's the desert, Yucca Valley. So we had this little cabin. The problem was this cabin did not have electricity.
We would often get there at night. And I just remember it was freezing cold so they would light the little kerosene lamps and the potbelly stove. But the most traumatic thing for a little kid was having to use the outhouse. There was no bathroom. I went to the outhouse at night. It was cold. It was scary.
It didn't smell good, okay? If that wasn't enough trauma, my grandfather was of the persuasion that food should be fresh. So instead of like normal people going to the market and buying frozen chicken breasts, he would kill the chicken and we would have it. And it was tasty but scary because he took the chicken, live chicken.
I am like a six-year-old kid watching this. He puts it on his stump, chops its head off. The chicken body rolls off the stump, flapping around, blood going everywhere and the little head just laying there. I really believe to this day that that body was headed at me, toward me. And I thought, how is this happening? Is the head saying, turn right, turn right, go straight.
I don't know what. So these are some of my memories of hanging out in the desert. And I didn't really have anybody to hang out with so I would go and look for lizards. And one time I was allowed to bring a friend out. And so on the drive out he got sick in the car and threw up everywhere. So everybody got out of the car and they said, Greg, you have to clean it up. So in the hot desert sun I cleaned up my friend's vomit.
One of the great highlights of my life. So when you say desert I don't get excited. So maybe that gives new meaning to the word yucca, valley, right?
That is what it was for me. No offense if you are from there. I know it is a pretty place. And I bring this up because sometimes we find ourselves in a desert. We find ourselves in a wilderness of sorts. And we don't know why we are there. We can't make any sense out of it. That is a time of trial and hardship that you are going through. It might be a personal need that you have before you and you don't see how that need will ever be met.
It might be a time of spiritual dryness in your life and you are trying to figure out why this has happened to you. Well let's see what happened to the Israelites as they went into their wilderness. Quick recap and we will sort of catch up to where we are now.
You remember of course and I already alluded to it. Moses is spared by God because the Pharaoh had put out a decree that all the Jewish baby boys were to be put to death. He was taken into the house of Pharaoh. Adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh. The princess of Egypt. He basically was eating the finest food in the world.
He had everything one could want. He was literally the prince of Egypt. And the Jewish historian Josephus believes that Moses was potentially being groomed to be the next Pharaoh. But underneath the royal robes beat the heart of a Jew. And he saw his fellow Jews being mistreated and it distressed him.
He wanted to do something about it but he didn't know what to do. One day he saw an Egyptian slave driver mistreating a Jew and so he intervened and the Bible says he looked to the right and he looked to the left and he killed the Egyptian. And when the Pharaoh heard about that he put a contract out of Moses and Moses ran for his life.
So he was no longer the prince of Egypt. But there after 40 years in the wilderness thinking his life was done for God recommissioned him. As I have said before Moses spent 40 years in the Pharaoh's court finding out he was a somebody. 40 years in the wilderness finding out he was a nobody.
Then 40 years finding out what God can do with a somebody who realizes they are a nobody. Commissioned by God to lead the Israelites out of the bondage of Egypt. Moses takes along Aaron who would prove to be trouble later.
We will get into that in a future message. He demands the release of the Jews. The Pharaoh digs in and refuses. A series of plagues come upon Egypt. And finally the Israelites are free. And now they are making their way to this new land but they come to what looks like an insurmountable obstacle.
It is called the Red Sea. And we also read in Exodus 14 10 they saw the Egyptian army in pursuit. So they took their eyes off God and put them on that Egyptian army which by the way was the mightiest army on earth at the time. And they thought we are going to die. And they came to Moses. What are you going to do? Did you bring us out here to watch us die? And Moses began to pray and the Lord effectively said this is not a time to pray. This is a time to move. Did you know there can come a moment in your life when you don't need to pray about something any longer?
You just need to act on it? That time had come for Moses. The Lord said hold up the staff over the Red Sea.
And he did. And the waters opened up and parted. And Israel traveled right through the middle of it. And then when they got to the other side the waters collapsed on the pursuing Egyptian army. And now the people of God give glory to the Lord.
Bringing me to point number one. Remember to give thanks to God for His faithfulness to you. Again remember to give thanks to God for His faithfulness to you. Psalm 128 3 says the Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy.
So that is what they did. Exodus 15 1 says the people of Israel sang the song to the Lord. I will sing to the Lord. He triumphed gloriously.
He has hurled both horse and rider into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song and He has given me victory. This is my God and I will praise Him. My Father is God and I will exalt Him. A lot of times we are passionate in prayer when we need something from God.
And there is nothing wrong with that. You pray about whatever you are facing. But after the Lord has answered your prayer.
Let me take a quick poll. How many of you have ever had God answer your prayer? Raise your hand up. Ok. After He has answered your prayer be just as passionate to give Him thanks. You know we make a lot of noise and we have the need. The Lord answers the request. Now say Lord thank you for what you have done for me.
Now this is interesting. They have their song. Their song in the desert. That is why I called this message by that title. But now they are going to go into the wilderness immediately on the heels of this great blessing. Reminding us that trials often follow blessings. Sometimes valleys come right after mountaintop experiences so called. Have you ever had that happen? Maybe you go to a retreat and you are blessed and you feel like your life has been impacted.
And when you return there is all these troubles waiting for you. Or sometimes even after church difficulties come your way. Well you will find precedent for this in Scripture. Remember Jesus was baptized by His cousin John on the Jordan River.
The Father said, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. The Holy Spirit came upon Christ in the form of a dove. And what happens after that? The Bible says immediately the Spirit of the Lord led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested. Immediately.
Right on the heels of it. For Jesus after the dove came the devil. And for you after the blessing may come the trial.
That is what was happening to Israel. But listen there are truths that can only be learned in the desert. And I am speaking metaphorically. There are things that can only be learned in a wilderness so to speak. Jesus went into His wilderness. Moses came out of His wilderness. You remember even the Apostle Paul as he was getting prepared to serve the Lord.
He went for a time into the desert as well. There are things we learn there. It has been said Christians are a lot like tea bags.
You don't know what they are made of until you put them in hot water. So maybe you are in the hot water of a trial right now. God is at work. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. Hey everybody I want to tell you about a major new ministry initiative that we have here at Harvest called the Harvest Discipleship Platform. So it is a major leap forward in our national ministry and we adapt teachings from the New Believers Bible.
Do you know about that? That is a Bible project I worked on years ago. And they are all around the world where we have excerpts from the New Believers Bible. And also we have an online community of believers who are looking for what is next in their spiritual walk. So at Harvest Discipleship you can find trusted Bible teaching in a community that cares for you and positive encouragement in your spiritual life. That sounds pretty good right? So become a part of the Harvest Discipleship Platform.
And you can do that by just going to Harvest.org. Well today Pastor Greg is offering a number of important principles in his message from Exodus 16 called the Desert Song. Let's continue with this study now.
One of the most requested of the year. Point number two. God will allow trials in the life of the believer to help them to grow spiritually. God will allow trials in the life of the believer to help them to grow spiritually. You know if He wanted to the Lord could have just taken Israel straight to the Promised Land. Like come through the Red Sea, fast forward, get airlifted right over to the land of Canaan flowing with milk and honey. But instead they were in the wilderness.
Now I will add they were in their wilderness longer than they needed to be. The Lord did want them there for a time but they made it a lot harder than it had to be. But wouldn't it be nice if the moment you accept Christ you just went to heaven. Lead people in prayer and they are in heaven. Just pray this prayer. Lord Jesus come into my life. I know I am a sinner. Thank You for dying on the cross for me.
I give my life to You now. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. In heaven.
Whoa! I like this. God could do that. But instead He has us go through life.
We go through blessings and trials and all kinds of things. As He prepares us for heaven. Why did the Lord let them go to the wilderness? The answer is given in Deuteronomy 8.2. Where the Lord says remember how God led you through the wilderness for 40 years humbling you and testing you to prove your character.
And to find out whether you would obey His commands. Bottom line our spiritual roots grow deep when the winds around us make us strong. Because God's end game is to make us more like Jesus.
He is preparing us for heaven because heaven is a prepared place for prepared people. I as a human being tend to think of the here and now. God in contrast thinks more of the by and by. I think of the temporal. God thinks of the eternal. I think about what will make me happy in the moment. God is more interested in what will make me holy and happy. I look at the small picture.
God looks at the big picture. As I have said before trials, hardships are like God's gym. You break down the muscle to build up the muscle. And I don't know about you but I don't like to exercise. If I could find a way to never exercise again.
Never go to a gym again. I would be happy. Very happy. But no such thing exists.
But I will talk to people. They just went on a run. I had a great run.
I am like what is wrong with you? You had a great run? I mean really? Oh it was great.
I had a great run when I went through an outburger the other day. But you know come on. But I put up with it because it produces something that is important. And in the same way we don't necessarily like trials. In fact Hebrews 12-11 says, no discipline is enjoyable when it is happening.
It is painful. But the end result is worth it all. James says, count it all joy when you fall into different kinds of trials. And James 1-2 or as a more modern translation puts it, consider it a sheer gift friend. When tests and challenges come at you from all sides you know that under pressure your faith life is forced into the open.
It shows its true colors. I like that translation. But what do we do? Often we complain, Lord why are you letting this happen to me? Look at verse 3 of chapter 16 of Exodus. They say, if only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt. And there we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. And yet you brought us into this wilderness to starve us to death.
What? This is one month after they were delivered from Egypt which they had been praying about forever. This is one month after the Red Sea had been parted and their enemies are drowned.
And they are basically saying, oh great you just brought us out here to die. Man we remember how awesome it was back in Egypt. We just had pots filled with meat, meat everywhere.
And bread, oh so much bread. Actually that wasn't true at all. Because as you read about their history they suffered, they were in pain. It was so hard for them but you know sometimes the devil, he's clever. He'll bring back certain memories from our past.
And they're never the miserable memories of the few good times that we had. And we all had a little fun before we were Christians, let's be honest. And the devil will say, remember that one time when? And you'll say, ah yeah that was fun. Hey hey remember this other time and this time? Oh yeah that was great.
He'll never say, hey remember the time when you were so depressed you wanted to kill yourself? Remember that? Remember how you were wrapped with guilt each and every day? Hey remember when you would wake up in the morning with a hangover? Remember that? Hey remember when you had to face the repercussions for your sin? Wasn't that cool?
No. He doesn't remind you of that stuff. So in the same way they're having this memory that isn't even based on reality. The first step to going back is looking back. That is why we're told no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of heaven. So you know you can get people out of slavery in a day but you can't get slavery out of people all that quickly.
It's a process. Alan Redpath a great British preacher that I had the privilege of getting to know. He's wrote a lot of amazing books. In fact my son Jonathan his middle name is from Alan. He's Jonathan Alan Laurie.
So named after Alan Redpath. Alan Redpath made this statement and I quote, The conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment but the manufacture of a saint is a task of a lifetime. That's called sanctification. Salvation is instantaneous. Sanctification becoming more like Christ that takes a lot of time. In fact it takes a lifetime. So they prayed and they asked God to intervene and he did intervene.
And that brings me to point number three. God will always provide what you need when you need it. God will always provide what you need when you need it.
Sometimes before never after. Now the Lord is going to provide them with something to eat called manna. Let's read about it Exodus 16 verse 11. Then the Lord said to Moses, I've heard Israel's complaints. Now tell them in the evening you will have meat to eat and in the morning you will have bread. In fact all the bread you want.
Then you will know that I am the Lord your God. That evening vast numbers of quail fell in and covered the camp. The next morning the area around the camp was wet with dew. When the dew evaporated a flaky substance.
A flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground. The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. What is it they asked each other. They had no idea what it was. Now remember these people had never read the book of Exodus.
Okay so this is like all happening in real time. God says I will give you meat and it rained quail and bird. There is your meat.
And now here is your bread. It is called manna. We are told it was sweet and it was a flaky substance as fine as frost. It comes from the Hebrew frosto flaco.
Not really. But remember frosted flakes. I used to eat those when I was a kid.
I liked them. But it was bread from heaven. In fact the Bible describes it as angels food. Not angels food cake but the food of angels. You know interestingly in the Bible bread is a staple of life. So if you are on the keto diet sorry about that. Or on Atkins. But bread was a part of pretty much every meal.
You take your bread and dip it into various sauces and such. And put your fish in there and so forth. And so that is why Jesus said in the Lord's prayer. And he taught us to pray.
He said we should pray. Give us this day our daily bread. That is not just talking about bread in particular. It is effectively saying God give me everything that I need in life. So bread would mean your food. It would mean your housing. It would mean your career. It would mean everything that you need.
Your money. In fact it is funny back in the 60s we used to call money bread. You would say hey man do you have any bread.
Which is another way of saying can you give me some money. So bread. So this is something God gave to all of them.
And here is the thing that we need to remember. God has promised to provide all of your needs according to his riches in glory and grace. But he has not promised to provide all of your wants. He will provide all of your needs but he won't provide all of your creeds.
And sometimes I think we confuse the two. Well Lord I really need this new car. Well maybe you want it. I don't know if you need it.
I really need this bigger house. I really need this other thing. Well maybe you need it.
Maybe you don't. Listen if you have food in your stomach and a roof over your head God has met the needs in your life. So remember to give him thanks. Having said that we also read in scripture that he is able to do exceedingly above and beyond that which we could ask or think. So you might say well Lord I don't know if this is a need or not.
It is something I would like. And the Lord may say no. But then again he might say oh actually I want to give you more than you prayed for.
That happens too doesn't it. So the Lord will meet your needs. He has promised to do so. So he gives them this manna. Some great practical encouragement coming from the experience of the Israelites in the desert. It's part of Pastor Greg's top ten message today here on A New Beginning titled The Desert Song. Pastor Greg it's God's love that compels him to provide for our needs.
That's right. And it's that same love that reached out to help with our greatest need. You know the need to have our sins forgiven and our relationship with the Lord restored.
Yes. If someone wants to make that kind of change right now what would you say to them? What I would say is he's only a prayer away. Which means if you will call upon the name of the Lord right now through prayer he will hear your prayer and answer your prayer. Listen if you want Jesus Christ to come into your life. If you want him to forgive you of your sin. If you want to know that you'll go to heaven when you die just pray this prayer right now after me. Just pray Lord Jesus I know that I'm a sinner.
But I know that you're the Savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. I turn from my sin now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward as my Savior and Lord as my God and my friend. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
Amen. And if you have just prayed along with Pastor Greg and meant those words sincerely. Well we want to welcome you into God's family and we want to help you get started in your new faith. Pastor Greg would like to send you his New Believers Bible free of charge.
Along with some other helpful resources. You'll love the scores of helps just for those who are new to the faith. So let us know you prayed with Pastor Greg and that you want the New Believers Bible when you call 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime at 1-800-821-3300.
Or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or go online to Harvest.org and click the words Know God. And then let us take a moment to thank you for praying for this ministry and for supporting it through your generous donation.
It's an investment in kingdom business. Isn't that right Pastor Greg? That's really true Dave and I believe it's so important because you know the gospel saves lives. It saves eternal lives because when a person believes in Jesus according to scripture they pass from darkness to light. From the power of Satan to the power of God. And then of course that changes the course of their future.
That impacts their children and their children's children. The gospel changes everything and thousands and thousands of people respond every single year. Thanks to the Lord. Also thanks to you for your investment in this ministry enabling us to reach people wherever they are. So if this is something you care about I encourage you to make a financial investment in A New Beginning and Harvest Ministries. Yeah that's right and we really do appreciate your support. Thanks for partnering with us today.
It can make a real difference not just for today or this week but for eternity. So get in touch with your support today by calling 1-800-821-3300. That's 24 7 phone number 1-800-821-3300. Or write A New Beginning Box 4000 Riverside California 92514.
Or go online to harvest.org. Well next time more insight from our study of Moses leading the Israelites in the wilderness. It's part of our series of most requested messages of the year. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie. This is the day, the day when life begins.
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