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The Desert Song | Memorizing What Matters

A New Beginning / Greg Laurie
The Truth Network Radio
January 17, 2025 3:00 am

The Desert Song | Memorizing What Matters

A New Beginning / Greg Laurie

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January 17, 2025 3:00 am

One of the great tools to memorization is repetition. If we hear something over and over, we can’t help but remember. We didn’t intend to memorize the words to that TV theme, or that corny commercial, but they’re stuck in our heads. Why? Repetition. The real question is, what do we let our minds hear over and over. But the fact you’re listening now is a great step forward. And today on A NEW BEGINNING, Pastor Greg Laurie brings some scriptural truth worth remembering.

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A New Beginning is the daily half-hour program hosted by Greg Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Southern California. For over 30 years, Pastor Greg and Harvest Ministries have endeavored to know God and make Him known through media and large-scale evangelism. This podcast is supported by the generosity of our Harvest Partners.

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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. You can do it. One of the great tools to memorization is repetition. If we hear something over and over, we can't help but remember. We didn't intend to memorize the words that TV theme or that corny commercial, but they're stuck in our heads.

Why? Repetition. The real question is, what do we let our minds hear over and over? But the fact that you're listening now is a great step forward. And today on The New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie brings some scriptural truth worth remembering. Let's grab our Bibles and turn to the book of Exodus.

And the title of my message is The Desert Song. We're back in our new series that we're calling Water, Fire, Stone. So we're getting to the stone part.

Why do we call it that? It's water, because remember, little baby Moses was put in this little ark, if you will. His little basket floated down the Nile River, brought into the court of Pharaoh.

That's the water part. And there's a fire. God called Moses at the burning bush.

And then there was a stone. God spoke to Moses in the Ten Commandments, written by the finger of God in tablets of stone. So we're going to talk about what happened to the Israelites as they were in the desert. Look at verse three of chapter 16 of Exodus. They say, if only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt. And then 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're 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. Now the Lord's 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'll 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. It was bread from heaven. In fact, the Bible describes it as angel's food.

Not angel's food cake, but the food of angels. But I want you to think of manna sort of like scripture for a moment. Jesus said I am the bread of life.

The psalmist said in Job 23, I have esteemed the words of my mouth more than my daily bread. So here's a few thoughts about manna. You had to gather the manna daily, verse 4 tells us that.

Every day you had to gather the manna. You couldn't keep it overnight, it would rot. I read the other day about some guy who's had a burger he bought at McDonald's 20 years ago. Why would you save a burger for 20 years?

Now I may have a few floating around in vehicles, I don't know, that are long gone. There might be an old burrito or something in there, but he says, and he took a photograph of it, it did look pretty similar I have to admit. Though I would never eat that burger. But manna, you couldn't keep it overnight, it would actually begin to rot. And in the same way, you need to start every day with the word of God. Don't live off yesterday's blessings. The Bible says his mercies are new every morning, so every day just open up the word of God and say, Lord, I need you to speak to me through this book.

I need to hear your voice. What did Jesus say? He said, lo, in the volume of the book, I have come. Number two, they were to gather as much manna as they needed, according to verse 16. Gather as much as they needed.

So one may need more than another. Well, you get it, get what you need, there it is. And in the same way, everything you need to know about God is found in the pages of scripture.

Everything you need to know about life is found there as well. The Holy Spirit will empower you to do all that God has called you to do, so receive it. But another thing is they had to prepare the manna. You didn't just eat this manna, you did things with it. They probably all had Moses' cookbook, 101 Ways to Eat Manna.

It's out of print now. You know, you had all the recipes, manna meatloaf, manna burgers, manna tacos, the manna splits, manna cotti, everything. It was all there in the cookbook, right? They even had manna jokes. Yo manna so fat. No, not really.

I don't think there were manna jokes. You know, in the same way to enjoy food, you need to prepare it. Nothing is as good as freshly prepared food, right? Now, I'm not much of a chef. If you follow me on social media, sometimes on Sunday mornings, I film scrambled eggs. I'm making them. It's just eggs, a little shredded cheese, and some chopped smoky sausages. And I'll get more likes from those posts than things we produce in our video department. And little sermonettes I give that people, I love to watch the eggs.

I don't know what's going on. That's pretty much my entire repertoire. I had my grandkids over the other day. I said, okay, you can have scrambled eggs, toast, or sliced apple or sliced cheese. Notice the variation there.

Not a lot of options, but my wife, you know, she'll go to the kitchen and sometimes she doesn't have everything that she needs, but she just takes all the ingredients and makes something fantastic. And that's the way it was with manna. You need to prepare it. In the same way with the Word of God, you need to read it, but then you must internalize it.

You know, it's interesting. In the book of Revelation, a promise is made to the person who reads this book. It says, if you read this book, it's speaking of Revelation, but I think it applies to the Bible in general. It says, whoever hears this word and keeps it.

It says, read this word and you keep it. A blessing is promised to the person who both reads, hears, and keeps the word. So it's not enough to just read the Bible. You have to hear the Bible. And by hear, I mean, as Jesus would say, he that has ears to hear, let him listen. So listen. You know, you can read a whole chapter without comprehension.

Am I right? I was reading and I read a whole chapter. What did it say? I don't know. But I read it.

Can I go to social media now? No, no. Read it. Now hear it. Think about it.

Ponder it. Internalize it. Memorize it. Oh, I'm not good at memorizing. Yes, you are.

Yes, you are. Your brain is filled with all kinds of trivia. Your favorite song lyrics, lines out of movies, other things you have an interest in, scores from games that have long come and gone, but you remember who was in the World Series, you know, 15 years ago, but you can't memorize John 3.16.

Give me a break. You can do it. Another thing is meditate on the word. Now we hear the word meditate. We think of meditation in the eastern form. But in eastern meditation, one tries to empty their mind. In biblical meditation, one fills their mind with the Word of God.

There's a big difference. Fill it with the Word of God. Someone says of the wise men in this book, he meditates day and night. Point number four, the manna was not appreciated by everyone. The manna was not appreciated by everyone. Now I have to go to another passage that's from the same narrative, but a different book of the Bible, the book of Numbers. Here's what happened.

It says Numbers 11, 4 to 6. Then the foreign rabble who were traveling with the Israelites began to crave the good things of Egypt, and the people of Israel also began to complain. Notice the connection. First the foreign rabble, called the mixed multitude in the King James translation, started to complain, and then the Israelites began to complain. Oh, we want some meat, they said. We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt.

We had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, garlic, and onions we wanted. But now our appetites are gone, and all we ever see is this manna. Who were these people, this foreign rabble, this mixed multitude? It appears they were not believers, that joined the Israelites as they left Egypt. They were probably impressed with the wonder-working God of Israel, and they too wanted to escape.

But though they left Egypt, apparently Egypt never left them, and they were a bad influence on God's people. And listen to what they craved. They said, man, we remember our old diet, leeks, onions, garlic. Man, their breath must have stung, seriously. That's what you miss.

But here's an interesting thing. This foreign rabble heated the manna. We hate it. Here it is, it's bread from heaven, sent from God. We hate that manna. We don't want that manna in our life.

In the same way, a non-believer does not get why the believer loves Scripture. Here's a real test of your spiritual life. Listen, do you look forward to Bible study?

One person does. Look forward to it. Oh, I can hardly wait. I love it when we open the Bible. Or do you dread it? Is this going to be long?

Can we get it over with? That's an indication of where you're at spiritually. A hungry believer is a healthy believer.

If you go to see the doctor, he'll ask you, how's your appetite? So if you're strong spiritually, if you're healthy spiritually, you'll constantly be hungry for more of the word of God. And if you're an unhealthy or a sick believer, you won't. So these people were being influenced by these ungodly people. This is why Paul warns us, don't be unequally yoked together with non-believers. For what fellowship does light have with darkness, or righteousness with unrighteousness, or Christ with the devil?

More Bonner translation puts it this way. Don't become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong?

That's not partnership, that's war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?

Good questions. So these people were a bad influence on the believers. Think about who your influences are. You show me your friends, I'll show you your future. And if you hang around people that do not believe as you believe as a Christian, they can influence you and bring you down.

So be very careful. That's what the mixed multitude or this rabble did with Israel. 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's a major leap forward in our national ministry and we adapt teachings from the New Believers Bible.

Do you know about that? That's a Bible project I worked on years ago and they're 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's 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, we're seeing how God supernaturally provided for the Israelites in the desert as Pastor Greg continues our series of the most requested messages of the past year.

Let's continue. Well, now they're thirsty. They've had their meat and they've had their manna.

Now they want something to drink. Exodus 17, verse 1, at the Lord's command the whole community of Israel let the wilderness of sin and move from place to place. Eventually they camped at Rephidim, but there was no water there for the people to drink. So once more the people complained against Moses. Give us water to drink, they demanded. Quiet, Moses replied.

Why are you complaining against me? Why are you testing the Lord? But tormented by thirst they continued to argue with Moses. Why don't you bring us out of Egypt?

Are you trying to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? Look, if you have a need, bring it to God. There's nothing wrong with praying about whatever it is you're in need of. The Bible even says in James 4-3, you have not because you ask not. So pray about it, but don't complain about it. And don't falsely accuse God if he hasn't come through as quickly as you want him to. I think it's a really good idea to write down the things the Lord has done for you. You know my wife keeps a little diary and she'll write down how prayers are answered. She said to me the other day, you know what Greg, one year ago, do you know what we were dealing with? Oh yes, I'd forgotten actually. She said we're dealing with this and we prayed and look what the Lord did.

It's so true. It's good to reflect on those things and they weren't reflecting on all that God had done for them. I want you to think about it. Look at what God had done. He spared them from slavery. He didn't allow the plagues to come upon them. He parted the Red Sea.

He destroyed the Egyptian army. He led them step by step through the wilderness with a fire by night and a cloud by day, the best GPS you've ever seen. He fed them with manna and they complained. Now I want you to think about what God has done for you because God's done a lot for you already. First of all, he saved you from hell.

That's the biggest thing of all. He brought you out of darkness into his light. He forgave you of all of your sin. He filled you with the Holy Spirit. He's provided for you. He has guided you. He has protected you. For many, he's healed you. How many of you have ever experienced a physical healing from God? Raise your hand up.

See, that's almost everyone. God did that for you. Maybe he did a miracle in your life.

How many of you believe you've seen a miracle in your life? Raise your hand up. Look at that. Remember that. Remember that the next time when things aren't making sense. Remember that the next time when you are tempted to say, oh, God has abandoned me.

No, he hasn't. He was with you yesterday. He's with you today. He'll be there for you tomorrow because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Philippians 1 says, being confident of this, he who has begun a good work in you will complete it under the day of Jesus Christ.

Or literally, carry it to completion. Are you in a wilderness or a desert right now? Do you feel like God has forgotten about you? Do you feel as though he has forsaken you?

Well, he hasn't. Because 2,000 years ago at the cross, Jesus was forsaken, so you might be forgiven. One last movement in this story. I'll just share it with you. We won't read the verses, but they want water, so the Lord says, go over to that rock.

Strike it with your staff. You don't usually find water in a rock, but you do when God wants you to. So Moses struck the rock with his staff and broke open, and all of this water just came gushing out, torrents of fresh water, and they're drinking, taking it all in.

Why does that matter to us? Because in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul talks about all that Israel went through. He said, they went through these things as an example for all of us. And then he said, and the rock that was broken was Christ. So that broken rock was a symbol of Jesus Christ being crucified on the cross. His body was broken so I could be forgiven of all of my sin. Isaiah 53, 5 says, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. So are you down? Are you hurting?

Do you feel alone and isolated? Think of all that Jesus did for you so you could come into a relationship with him. And I want to ask in closing, have you asked Jesus Christ to be your own Savior and Lord? We're all born as sinners. We're all born separated from God. We're all born in need of a Savior. And Jesus came to this earth and was born in that manger and died on a cross for us, was crushed for our sins. And then he rose again from the dead and he stands at the door of our life and he knocks.

And he says, if we'll hear his voice and open the door, he'll come in. Have you asked Jesus to come into your life yet? You can't live off the faith of your parents. You can't live off the faith of your husband or wife or someone else. You need your own relationship with God. And Jesus is ready to come into your life and forgive you of all of your sin and give you the hope that you so desperately want. And until you believe in him, you're going to walk around in life with that big hole in your heart and that ever-present guilt and that fear of death because you're not sure if you'll make it to heaven. You can be sure right now by putting your faith in Jesus Christ. And in a moment we're going to pray.

Now I'm going to extend an invitation for you to believe in Jesus. But there might be others that have sort of fallen away. Not sort of, you have fallen away.

You're like the Israelites here. You've doubted God, you've walked away from God. You've been looking back and some of you have started to go back. And you're doing the stuff you used to do before you were a Christian. And it's not so much fun anymore, is it?

You want to know why? Because you know better now. See, before when you were a non-Christian, you didn't know better. You just thought, well, this is life. It sucks.

That's it. But then you believed in Jesus and you tasted of his forgiveness. You knew what it was to wake up in the morning with no guilt, with Christ in your life. But now you've gone back into those old things again and you'll never find the enjoyment you used to find in them. You'll never find the pleasure you used to find in them because you know what is true. And some of you have started to do that.

You've been looking back, you've been going back. It's time to hang a U-turn and make a recommitment to Christ. So I'm going to give you an opportunity to do that as we all pray together, okay? Let's pray.

Everyone bow their head with me if you would. Now, Father, speak to the heart of every person here, every person watching, wherever they are, if they don't know Jesus. We pray that your Holy Spirit will convict them and convince them of their need for you and help them to come to you and believe. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Pastor Greg Laurie with an important prayer.

And if you'd like to do just that and make a change in your relationship with the Lord, Pastor Greg will help you in just a moment before today's edition of A New Beginning concludes. And then let us say a word of thanks to those who support us financially those who make it possible for us to bring you these studies each day. We're definitely a listener-supported ministry.

It's the generosity of listeners that help us be here with these programs. So if you've partnered with us, thank you. And if you have yet to partner with us, I hope you'll get in touch today and let us know that you're standing with us. Even a small investment would help. It's actually an investment in changing lives. Thank you for partnering with us. You can donate securely online at harvest.org or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call us at 1-800-821-3300.

Again, that's 1-800-821-3300. Well, Pastor Greg, today you wrapped up your message by talking about eternity. How can someone listening know that they're going to heaven? Could you help them with that? Sure.

I'd love to. In fact, I would like to just pray a prayer, and I would ask you to pray it after me. You might even pray it out loud. Pray these words. Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, but I also know that you are the Savior because you died on the cross for my sin and you rose again from the dead. Jesus, come into my life and forgive me of every sin I've ever committed.

I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Thank you for hearing this prayer. Thank you for answering this prayer, Lord, and I pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen. If you just prayed that prayer and meant it, I want you to know on the authority of Scripture, God Almighty has heard your prayer, and He will answer this prayer. You are now a newly minted child of God, so congratulations. You've made the right decision, and welcome to the family of God.

I want to send you a special gift because of that prayer you've just prayed. It's called the New Believer's Bible. So the New Believer's Bible is the New Testament in the New Living Translation with hundreds of notes that I wrote that will encourage you in this commitment you are making to follow Christ. There are some other materials included as well in what we call the New Believer's Growth Pack, but let me get this New Believer's Bible into your hands as quickly as possible.

Here's Dave to tell you more. Yeah, just get in touch and ask for your New Believer's Growth Pack, containing Pastor Greg's New Believer's Bible. It's free of charge if you prayed today with Pastor Greg to accept Christ. Ask for it when you call 1-800-821-3300.

That's 1-800-821-3300. Or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or go online to harvest.org. Hey everybody, I want to encourage you to join us for something we call Harvest at Home. It happens every Sunday at harvest.org and on our brand new app, Harvest Plus, which is available on your mobile TV devices. Download it now and you can watch Harvest at Home with Christians from around the world as we worship together and study God's Word. So again, join us for Harvest at Home at harvest.org or on Harvest Plus. Well next time, a study called Between Impossible and More Impossible, another of our top ten most requested studies of the year. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher, Greg Laurie.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-17 09:42:09 / 2025-01-17 09:52:47 / 11

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