Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Let me just recap very quickly before we go on because there's an exciting lesson today. We're talking about "Here am I, send somebody else," which is what we all do when we don't want to do the things God wants us to do. And that's the story of Moses. And that's an encouragement because when the big people that God really uses struggle with the things that the little people like you and me struggle with, then that's an encouragement.

But if you see somebody that you think is pretty well perfect and they're doing everything right, then it's not much comfort when you know how imperfect you are yourself. And Moses had a lot of, well, warts, as we call them in England. He was painted in the Bible as people are painted in the Bible, warts and all. They're not glamorized. They're not put out to be somebody that they're not. And Moses had this incredible task of having to lead the people out of Egypt into Canaan. And remember when I say the people, that was a city full of people.

But you remember when he stood in front of that little burning bush and he took off his shoes and stood on that holy ground? God presented Himself to him as Jehovah. That means, "I will be all that you need as the occasion demands." The God who will be all I need Him to be when I need Him to be all that I need. Want that again? The God who will be all that I need Him to be when I need Him to be all that I need. That's what His name means.

And I'm sure many, many times when Moses came hitting brick walls and couldn't get the work of God done and couldn't get his own personal struggles sorted out, he came back to the name of Jehovah. He was told to go in that name to Pharaoh and in prevailing prayer say, "Let my people go." Stand in front of Pharaoh and say, "Let my people go." At Pine Needles, we had a conference Stuart and I shared with athletes and their wives.

After the lesson, I get two hours with them in that particular session, so I taught the lesson and then I put them in groups with a worksheet. And when we came to this part, "Let my people go," I asked them to go around the group and identify somebody that they really felt Pharaoh had a hold of, that the devil really had a hold of, just one person. And then I said, "Now why don't you pray with that group of people and demand the devil lets them go, and in the name of Jesus claim that person for Christ?"

And it was a wonderful time, and it went right over the lunchtime into the lunchtime because people really began to weep and to pray that God would let their mother go, or their husband go, or their wife go, or their child go, or their friend go. And to feel the other people in the circle saying, "Yes, let my people go," you know, it was a real encouragement. And there was prevailing prayer.

And there was one particular group there with a very well-known businessman and his wife, and it was his first time, their first time at the conference. It was a couples' conference. And they went around the circle, and when they came to him, there was silence. And he said in quite a broken voice, "Would it be out of place to pray for me? I need to be a Christian and I'm not." And so the people prayed for him, and he became a Christian right there in the group.

And that was a very exciting thing. But what an exciting thing it is to perhaps band together with a few of you with one person in mind and pray until it prevails. That's what prevailing prayer is. Well, remember how the people had been freed and they had come to the other side. But as soon as they had this incredible experience of coming from Egypt through the Red Sea in redemption and they were ready to go into victory and enjoy the reason that they had been saved, that they had been delivered, all sorts of problems set in.

And we come to Exodus 17 today. Now, they'd already grumbled about the fact that there was no food, and God had rained manna from heaven on them. And the previous chapter tells about that, how that when they got up in the morning, there was manna all over the ground. I taught that lesson, that particular lesson, I talked about all the ways we have to go out in the morning if possible, although I'm talking to young moms, that's pretty impossible when you've got small children.

How can you get up before they get up in the morning? It's almost impossible. You have to find the best time of day when you can collect the manna, the bread of heaven that God is raining down upon you, waiting for you to collect. But we talked about the tools you need to collect it. I have a vision of this million and a quarter people going out with little baskets and spoons. I don't know how they picked it up and put it in their baskets, but God has given us tools.

He's given us commentaries and dictionaries and concordances and helps and Bibles with references, all sorts of things that He helps us, gives us in our hands to help us collect the manna for ourselves. And if you read that chapter and you go over the material, you can pick out all the different things, all the different ways and means that the people were instructed to collect the manna for themselves. They had to take their children with them and help the little children to collect the manna themselves.

And you know, the little children had to get their little bit. It said, "Everybody according to their own appetite." And I love that picture. And you as young moms and mothers of young children need to help your children collect the manna for themselves. Moses did not collect the manna for everybody else. He had to collect his own, and he also had to show everybody else how to collect theirs: the children, the teenagers, the mothers, the grandparents.

He instructed them, and they went out and collected it. And as mothers, we have to instruct our children how to collect that manna daily for themselves. There is a very good system to help you to do that. There's lots of helps in the bookstore, but I'm sold on one called Scripture Union. It's a method of Bible reading. And my children were brought up in it. It's English-based, Canadian-based, but now American-based as well.

And it starts with helps for children three to five years old. And it shows them how to collect the manna for themselves. When I first came to the States, I was a little bit distressed that all the Bible studies, American-based Bible studies, seemed to look like a tax form. I don't like tax forms. I don't like forms of any sort. And I would open this and I'd say, "Oh," and I would be totally intimidated because there were so many pieces to fill out.

I didn't know where to start and I thought, "What happens if I get it wrong?" Well, in America you don't worry about that because they always give you the answers. But in England, they don't give you the answers. And so English-based Bible study is very different, InterVarsity-based Bible study that I was brought up on in England never gave you the answers. They asked an awful lot of questions and you would have to look at the text and try and figure out the answer.

But you didn't know whether you were right or you didn't know whether you were wrong. It's just a different system of education we have. What that makes you do is it gives you a little bit of a relaxed feeling. It doesn't matter whether you're right or wrong, just think! Just figure it out. And you'll find out if you're right or wrong as you go on. And it stimulates you and encourages you to relax. It doesn't matter if you get it wrong.

Now, I'm a sort of A-type. I like to get things right. When I came over here and had to take a driver's test, it took me a year to get around to taking it. Why? Because I needed to study the book and make sure I got an A. I didn't want to get anything wrong. And it literally took me a year to take this driver's test. As you come to collect the manna, just collect it. Just do it. Don't spend forever getting ready to do it or thinking about doing it or collecting all the tools in the world.

Go out in the morning, open your Bible, and collect your food for the day. And don't worry too much about the methodology, just make sure that you're doing it. Well, they got over that instance, and in 17, they have another problem and that's water. No water, and that's a big problem when you've a million and a quarter people. And so once again, the whole Israelite community began to grumble.

Moses said, "Why are you quarreling with me? Why do you put the Lord to the test?" But the people were thirsty for water, and they grumbled against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?" This is Exodus 17. Moses cried out to the Lord, "What am I to do with these people? They're about ready to stone me." The Lord answered Moses, "Walk ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel. Take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock and the water will come out of it for the people to drink."

So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel, and he called the place Massah and Meribah, which means "quarreling" and "contention" because they tested the Lord saying, "Is the Lord amongst us or not?" Now then, this is another picture that the New Testament uses. Remember, the old is in the new revealed, the new is in the old concealed. The two parts of the Bible go together. Standing behind somebody in the bookstore the other day, I was sort of horrified to hear the lady say to her companion, "Why don't you buy a New Testament? That's all you need."

She wanted to buy a Bible. And I rudely interrupted and said, "Could I just have a little bit of input? I understood what you said. If you're going to buy a Bible, you need a Bible. And there's the Old Testament and the New Testament, they fit together. You can't really begin to study without both if there's an option and you can afford it. Please buy the whole Bible." I don't know what the other lady thought, but I was just concerned that you don't realize that it's one and the same thing.

There is a red thread of redemption from Genesis to Revelation that holds it together. And you can see Jesus from Genesis all the way through to Revelation. This is a revelation of God. Christ didn't start at Bethlehem in the middle of the Bible when He was born. He's there. And so the whole story has to be told. And here's a picture explained in the New Testament. The rock is identified for us in 1 Corinthians 10:4. "That rock that followed the children of Israel was Christ," it says.

So you have the picture of the Rock of Israel, it's a name of God, Rock, following the people, caring for the people, a solid reality for the people to put their feet on, all sorts of images and pictures when you think of God as your Rock, solid, reliable, firm foundation, all of that. But then it identifies that rock that followed them as Christ Himself. So here's a picture that you've got of Moses with a rod, striking the rock, water flowing out of the rock, and the people's thirst being satisfied.

It's a beautiful picture of Jesus, for He was smitten on Calvary. The rock was struck at Calvary, and water, the Holy Spirit, was released because the rock was struck at Calvary so that the Christians can be satisfied. Jesus talks about Himself as the water of life. "Come unto Me and drink; out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water." Now, the only reason we can be satisfied and we can receive the Holy Spirit is because the rock was struck at Calvary and the release of the Holy Spirit through redemption was made for us.

And so it's a picture. In fact, I don't know if you know the whole story of Moses, but later on, Moses, struggling with his temper as he did all through his life, came to another place where they were thirsty, took the rod in his hand again, struck yet another rock twice in sheer temper. He was told to strike it once because that was God's picture, His painting. And in a sense, Moses took his paintbrush and added a few strokes.

And God was very angry with Moses because He said, "Christ is only going to die once. He's only going to be struck once, one sacrifice for all, it's sufficient, and you spoiled My picture." And God was so angry with Moses for spoiling the picture that He had in the scriptures for us to understand that He said to Moses, "The children of these people will go into the promised land, but you won't. You'll see it, but you won't go in because you've spoiled a very important picture, the picture of My Son being struck once for the sin of the world."

So pictures in Exodus are extremely important. And this is a wonderful picture, and the people got the message that God would sustain them, that God would give them what they need. What's that little phrase again? Jehovah means the God who will be all that I need Him to be when I need Him to be all that I need. And God said, "You're not going to spoil My picture, Moses." So however at this point their thirst was assuaged.

Then we come to verse 8. And in the King James, I like it better, it says, "Then came Amalek." And I like it better because it's a little phrase that maybe will stick in your mind, certainly sticks in mine. As soon as you've got through one trial and you've come through it and you've learned your lesson, then comes Amalek. Now, what's happening here? The devil had apparently swum across the Red Sea and he'd arrived. He had not been drowned.

He was there, and he has not been drowned today. He's here. And remember, his intent is to either bury us in Egypt and stop us getting converted and saved and coming out of Egypt into Canaan—picture of coming out of sin into salvation. If he can't stop us coming out of Egypt into Canaan, he's going to swim across that Red Sea and meet us on the other side and stop us from going into Canaan. What does that mean? Camped in worldliness, just buried, just the other side of redemption, never growing, never going, never enjoying the Christian life. The devil's going to try and do that.

Now, how's he going to do it? He's got a strategy. Remember, there's a war going on. I'm talking about the war between good and evil. And evil has a strategy. Just as God has a plan, so the devil has a plan. And he has forces. He has an army, he has a navy, he has an air force, if you like. His army is the world. His navy is the flesh. And he has himself when all else fails, just raw devil.

And what you need to do is to know the enemy: the world, the flesh, and the devil. And so he looks at Israel, he looks at you and me, he looks at Christians camped the other side of redemption, and he says, "Now what tactic shall I use at this point in my campaign? Maybe I'll use the world. That'll do it. Maybe I'll use the flesh. That'll do it. Maybe I'll just have a power encounter, just raw devil power. That'll do it when all else fails."

And we need to recognize what he's doing. Paul said, "Know your enemy. Don't be ignorant of his devices." And incidentally, his devices haven't changed, Paul tells us. So as we look at his devices today, we can recognize them today for they haven't changed from the time that, having tried to prevent their redemption and failing, he got to the other side of the Red Sea and said, "Which branch of my armed forces will I send against these people of God?" And he chose, first of all, the world.

They got to the other side and they began to say things like, "I don't like this light bread, this manna that God's given us. Boy, if only I could be back in Egypt and have a camel steak! That's what I'm hungry for." It's like Americans on holiday, they're always looking for McDonald's. "If only I could have a hamburger." And you know, they had this yearning for the food they used to eat back in Egypt.

And they even said, even though God had rained down bread from heaven, "Our soul hates this stuff. I don't like it. My soul loathes this light bread. If only we could go back to Egypt where they had that neat heavy bread." Must have been like German bread, German sausage. "If only we could go back there." And then they started to say, "And if only we could have leeks and garlic." Well, shows distance lends enchantment to the view, doesn't it? I mean, can you imagine pining away for leeks and garlic? Well, that's what they wanted.

And so they began to long for the world that they'd left behind. That's worldliness, when you begin to long for the world that you'd left behind. To do the things you did before you became a Christian, to go to the places you went to before you became a Christian, to taste the things you tasted before you became a Christian. That's worldliness. That's loving the world more than loving the God of the new world, the new kingdom that you've come into, the new land that you're supposed to be living in.

And so he tried the world, and God dealt with that, so he tried Amalek, the flesh. And Amalek is a picture throughout scripture of the flesh. Now, when we say flesh, that is a word that the Bible actually uses in the New Testament. But if you turn it around, it makes it a little bit more modern and take off the H and it spells S-E-L-F, self. Our selfish self, our self before we knew Jesus. And whenever you read about the flesh or self in the scripture, it's talking about the old man, the old nature, the old me, BC, before Christ. Okay?

And a picture of that is the flesh or Amalek. Amalek is a picture of the old me. And so you just get over one hurdle, and then comes me. That's what it means. Then comes me. Do you ever really blow it as a Christian? Do you ever stop and say, "Oh, there I go again?" Then comes Amalek. So instead of saying, "Oh, I blew it again," next time say something scriptural: "Then came Amalek, and he got me." Recognize him, don't be ignorant of his devices.

How do we know he's a picture? Because the scriptures tell us. The scripture is its own best interpreter. The scripture explains itself. That's why you need a good reference Bible. Try an NIV reference Bible or make sure you've got a lot of references in your Bible. Probably you don't need anywhere else than your own Bible and figure out, just follow all those little references down the middle and they'll lead you to other places of scripture that explain this scripture. For example, Genesis 36:12 tells us that Amalek was a son of Esau.

Who was Esau? Esau stands in scripture for the flesh, for wanting only what can satisfy the immediate, the now, the bodily appetites. Remember Jacob was the spiritual man that wanted spiritual things. Esau was his brother that wanted worldly things. He was hungry. Jacob said, "Sell me your birthright," and he did for a bowl of soup because his stomach meant more to him than his spirit. That's Esau, and that's his family. And one of his family, one of his descendants, was called Amalek. He had his father's nature, Esau's nature.

Now, they gave Israel a hard time. In Deuteronomy 25, God comes out with some incredible statements about Amalek. He said, "I'm going to fight them throughout all generations, and I want you, Israel, to wipe them off the face of the earth. I want you just to wipe them away because they're a picture of the flesh and that's how they live and that's what they do. They're abomination to Me. I will have war against Amalek throughout all generations." God is against selfishness. He's against the me that was before I accepted Christ, the person that only has worldly principles in mind. God's against that part of us. He wants us to become God-centered, not self-centered.

And so He's declared war against Amalek. And this is the picture. Now, in Deuteronomy 25, God says to the Israelites, "Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, look out. They met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind. They had no fear of God. Now, when the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land He's giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget."

Over and over again, you can pick up that theme. Just by following your references, I picked up six themes, six times that God said, "I don't like Amalek. What you've got to do is fight Amalek." What are his tactics? I've just read them to you. "When you're weary and worn out, look out, Amalek will come." Now then, I'm talking to mothers. It's easy to apply, isn't it? When do you get most selfish? When you're weary and worn out.

You know when your first child gets, well, this is my generation because we didn't have all the inoculations. First child, David, he got measles. Second child, three weeks later, gets measles. Third child, three weeks later, gets measles. Fine, except the first child now gets mumps. Second child now gets mumps. The third child now gets mumps. No husband, away on the road for three months. So here I am nursing night after night and coping with three preschool children on my own. And at the end, I get mumps.

And that's not a good idea when you're an adult. And I had it extremely badly because I had no resistance left. Then came Amalek. I couldn't control my temper, I couldn't control my tears, my glands had all gone, I had no I had no resistance to anything. I'd lose my temper with my kids, I'd scream at them. I'd shut the windows first in case anybody heard. I was after all in a Bible school teacher there, didn't want anybody hearing me scream at my children.

But I tell you, then comes Amalek, watch it. When you're weary and worn out, that's what it says here in Deuteronomy. Then comes Amalek. And when you're lagging behind, they were rotten people. They would wait and they'd see the women or the children or the single parents or the people that couldn't keep up or the people that were fed up or the people that had had enough, and they'd get separated from the company of Israel and they were lagging behind. And what do they do? They pick them off.

Now, this is a warning. Don't lag behind. Keep up! What is God telling you to do? What is He telling you to learn? What is He telling you to do about your service and your involvement in the kingdom work? Do it! Don't lag behind. That's when Amalek will come. Now, Amalek isn't really interested in when you're feeling good; he's interested in when you're feeling bad, and that's when he'll come. And you know, the flesh is very like that.

Do you remember when the disciples were too tired to have a quiet time? They all went to sleep. It was a beautiful, beautiful place for a sleep, it was the garden of Gethsemane, one of the prettiest gardens on the world, I think. Been there many times. Thousand-year-old oak trees still grow there, thousand years old. Beautiful stones and rocks, and Jesus' favorite place, a garden. Now, we think of Gethsemane looking back to the cross, but when Jesus used to go there, the cross hadn't happened. And so He'd take His disciples, and they loved it too. It was so peaceful and it was so great.

And one night Jesus said, "Look, you need to really have a quiet time." But what happened? The flesh was weak, so they went to sleep. And what they didn't know was there was a cross around the corner of tomorrow. Jesus knew, of course. And He kept saying, "Guys, wake up, you gotta get ready." And they couldn't keep their eyes open, it says. And in the end, Jesus said, "Well, go on, take your sleep. It's too late. They're here to arrest me. I'm betrayed."

And then what happened? They blew it because they weren't ready. Why? Because Amalek came. My husband has a very simple rule: never put your head on the pillow without having your nose in the book. I think he gave that from the pulpit not too long ago. Never put your head on the pillow without having had your nose in the book, however tired you are. If you want to fight Amalek, make sure you collect a little bit of manna every day.

We must fight the flesh because Amalek might be shell-shocked, but he isn't done in. He's momentarily stunned, but he's there. The devil isn't killed. He might too be momentarily stung, but he's not done with. He swum across the Red Sea, remember. So then, how do we fight the flesh? Look at verse 8 in Exodus 17. The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men, go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands."

So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered him to, and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. And as long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and they put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up, one on one side, one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset.

So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered, and make sure that Joshua hears it because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven." There we go again. How is Amalek to be defeated? Well, it's an obvious picture, and it's one of my favorites. Be a Moses on the mountain, be a Joshua in the valley. That's how you're going to do it.

You gotta be a Moses and you gotta be a Joshua all wrapped up in one. You've got to pray. Now what did he do? He went up the mountain, he found a place, and he held the staff, the rod of God, which is a symbol, if you remember, of the authority of God. He held it over the sea and the sea parted; he held it over the Jordan and the Jordan parted. It symbolized to Moses and to the Israelites the power of God, the miracle of God's intervention and presence amongst us.

And so he held the staff of God up over the battle. And that's a picture of holding the authority of God over the battle that you happen to be fighting, whatever it is. Because in the Romans, it tells us, "Sin shall not have dominion over you." So I want you to try and think at the moment what you're battling in this area of flesh or self, selfishness. What habit is it that just is distressing you no end, that you've never been able to shake? Or what is that thing that you really thought you had, and you haven't? Maybe your Achilles' heel, whatever it is.

What is it that discourages you because you say, "Oh, there I go again, then came Amalek"? Well, you've got to hold the authority of God over that particular habit, and you've got to start and tell yourself something. God does not intend me to be defeated. Now, I spend a lot of time running all over this world telling people that. They come to me and I listen for hours, and I try and isolate the nub of the problem.

And the first thing I say when I begin to talk after listening is this: God does not intend you to be defeated by this. He's against the thing that's defeating you. He's declared war on it. He died to give you the victory. He rose to give you the victory. Christ died to make you fit for heaven; He lives to make you fit for earth. So sin shall not have dominion over you. "Oh, but sin does have dominion over me." But you've got to realize God does not intend this, and He has enabled and given you resources to overcome it.

He has provided the power to overcome it. So then we pray about that right there. I say, "Let's talk to God about that. I want to hear you say to God, 'I understand I am not to be beaten by this sin.' Tell Him." Now, that takes a long time to be able to tell Him that, especially when you don't even know if it's going to make any difference. But I don't go any further until we've got to there, and maybe I take them to passages of scripture and illustrate it and talk about it and share some experience in my own life.

But I have to get people to that point, and so do you. And you have to get to that point if you're the one that's struggling, where you say, "You mean He's already won the victory? Okay. There is an answer. I don't need to be in bondage to that. That's what He delivered me for, to give me freedom from this sin, this sin shall not have dominion over me." Now let's try and apply this, and I'll use a very obvious illustration that all of us probably can relate to: cookies. Okay? Chocolate chip cookies.

When I first came to America, a deacon's wife from this church arrived three days later with a bag of flour, chocolate chips, fat, and whatever else you need, and a mixing bowl because she didn't know whether I had one. And I looked at her rather surprised, and she said, "I've come in to show you how to make chocolate chip cookies." And I was a little taken aback; I didn't realize this was a sort of national necessity. But apparently it was. And to me, it was really it was exciting. It was different.

I mean, we have biscuits, which you call cookies, and they don't have chocolate chips in them and they're different. And I knew how to make my nice English shortbread, but I had certainly never seen a chocolate in cookies before. And so this was fascinating, and we spent all day and she made me do it, and that's how I learned to make them. Having made them, then came Amalek. Right? Uh, now what was I going to do?

And I had pounds of these things. I mean, she brought this great big thing, you know. Well, you freeze them and whatnot, but you can always get them out of the freezer. And I did all the things you do, you know, you buy this horrible picture of a hippopotamus and put it on the fridge and you know, nothing seemed to help. And I found that I was really having a struggle with cookies because there was an appetite that was getting out of control.

Now, I knew that Jesus had overcome the temptation of the flesh in this regard because when He was hungry and was tempted to turn stones into bread, He had resisted. And I remember saying to God, "Well, it's not stones into bread that's my problem; it's flour into cookies. Is that the same?" And I observed that Jesus said no and stayed hungry. God didn't take His appetite away. So that sort of gave me a clue that maybe for the rest of my life I was going to have to be hungry for chocolate chip cookies and say no.

But how to do that? I heard about a lady that was fighting this cookie battle, and there was a delicious little shop that baked them fresh every morning on the way to work. What a rotten thing to do! She had to drive past that shop every day. Now, everybody loved that little shop, and so everybody would park outside on the way to work. And this was helpful because if there was no parking place, she could just go straight through.

So one day she had this incredible fleshly yearning for a cookie. And she got in her car and she thought, "Lord, if there's a parking place, it means You want me to have one today, so I'll just draw in and get my cookie and go on to work. But if there isn't a parking place, I'll go straight by as usual and go to work." So she drove along and she approached, and in her words to me, "So the third time round the block..." That is not victory. Uh-uh.

Then came Amalek. You know, you have to say no, you have to drive past. It's no good hovering until you get an opportunity because the devil will see to it there's a parking place. That's what I've observed. There's always a parking place. No, you have to be a Joshua. Yes, you have to be a Moses and realize that God wants you to have victory over this unholy thing, whatever it is that's beating you. But then you have to get in the valley and fight.

You have to get in the car and go past. You have to say no, you have to remove your foot for evil. So you get the invitation to this particular party that's been a snare to you in the past. You pick up your pen, you have to be a Joshua, you have to say, "I'm sorry, we're not coming." You have to do that. God will not do that for you. You have to fight the flesh knowing, however, that the victory has been won already on the mountain.

So you get in the valley and you know that you're covered, it's been prayed over. Take Aaron, take Hur with you, find three other people that love chocolate chip cookies and say to them, you know, we're all in this together, why don't we fight it together? Somebody here at Elmbrook told me that her sister went to the doctor, she is vastly overweight, I mean vastly, dangerously overweight. The doctor said, "You have to get this weight off. This is going to cause serious health problems."

So she wrote to her sister and told her what this was about. And her sister told me, who is a little overweight, "I said to her, 'Get the diet, we'll do it together.'" And she said, "I have another friend that needs this help." And they are, if you like, a picture of Moses, Aaron, and Hur. And when one's hands get weary, the others hold them up. And you need maybe a prayer group or two or three to help you.

I know a group of smokers in this church that have done that. They've got together and they're holding each other's hands up saying, "Sin shall not have dominion, we're going to give this up, we're going to beat it because God wants us to." So that's the picture. That's how the flesh will be defeated. But remember, the devil swum across the Red Sea. He's tried the world, didn't work. He's now trying the flesh and he'll try it again. This time Joshua won.

So he throws it all overboard and he just comes with this power encounter. Moses goes up the mountain, receives the Ten Commandments, comes down the mountain. What does he see at the bottom? A golden calf. Now, this is just sheer devilry. "Worship me, don't worship Him." Moses has got the whole thing in his hands. Worship God first. "You shall have no other gods before me." And the devil says, "Yes they will!"

And when he's tried the world and he's tried the flesh, he'll come to you and try and get you to worship anything in the world rather than God. Maybe it's New Age, maybe it's another religion as it was for them, a golden calf religion, an idol religion, something new, "the old didn't work so we'll try something new." Be careful of that. If your Christianity isn't working, don't go running over here to look for a sacred cow. Don't worship a sacred cow!

Realize that if something isn't working, then you haven't quite got the thing right. It's not God's fault, it's yours. You're lacking in prayer or study or application of the truth or an appropriation of the power that you already have. There'll be something in your spiritual walk that needs help, instruction, encouragement, that can put the thing right. Don't run after the sacred cow, that's not the way to go. But the devil will try it.

He'll try it. And you know, Israel fell dreadfully. Naked they danced in front of this. The flesh, the world, the devil, they'd all come upon them and they'd succumbed. And so did Moses. And he threw down the Ten Commandments he'd just received, and he broke them. Why? Because of that temper! Wasn't cookies with Moses, it was anger. Haunted him all of his life. He broke the Ten Commandments, and you always do when you lose your temper. He broke it literally, didn't he?

He had to climb the mountain again and get ten more. But he lost it. You know, I remember fighting that battle with my small children, but specifically with my teaching career. And I think I was fighting it because I had not realized the principles I've been trying to get over to you: that God is on my side, that sin shall not have dominion over you. Oh, day after day as a young Christian, I come home from school and I'd say, "Lord, then came Amalek, I fell, I lost my temper. I was angry."

And then one day I realized that Jehovah was standing there in the corner of my classroom, not to rebuke me and not to judge me, but to say, "I am Jehovah. I am the God who will be all that you need to be when you need Him to be all that you need." And so I started to pray and I got people to pray for me over my temper, one other person that was struggling with it and one that had got the victory.

And we began to pray and they held up their hands for me over this particular situation. And one day I realized that God was standing in the corner of my classroom observing me losing my temper, but what He was saying was, "Aren't they awful? They're terrible. What horrible little children!" Do you think God ever says that? Well, I don't know if He says they're horrible little children, but He sure understands the frustration. And I had street kids who didn't know anything about discipline and never had. It was a wild classroom.

When I was on playground duty, I used to call it "vice patrol" because that's what it was. And I tell you, God was on my side, you see. He was on my side. And once I got that, He said, "I've got a world full of children just like this, all doing horrible little things. Now then, come on, I'll show you how I cope with them. I'll give you My patience. Let's get in the valley and let's beat this together. Are you on the Lord's side, Jill?" "Yes, I'm on the Lord's side." "Well, I'm on your side."

And that's what Moses did. He stood apart and he said to those people in front of the golden calf, "Who is on the Lord's side?" All the people that were came over to him. Who is on the Lord's side? Can you say, "Well, I am"? Then who is on your side? He is! He's for you! He'll help you! He's declared war on Amalek from generation to generation. The devil is beaten when the rock was struck. The devil's days were numbered.

And there is water from the rock, there is manna for your soul, there is power to overcome even Satan himself. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank You for the pictures of the Bible. Thank You for the incredible teaching that's here. Thank You that You want us to be holy and You've given us the means to be what we could never be in our own energy and strength. And thank You for this story. And remind us of it during the days ahead.

Lord, when we're lagging, Lord, when we've just had it with the children, Lord, when we're sick, when we're weak, then comes Amalek. Help us to recognize him this week. Help us to get our mountain ready and recruit our Aaron and our Hur and ask them to pray for us. And help us to hold the authority of God over this particular situation. And then teach us to get in the valley and go into action and say no and win in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We ask this that we may live a life of victory in Canaan, for that is why You brought us from Egypt and that is Your intent, to live like Christ. So thank You for these thoughts. And may our week be different because we've spent this time with You. For Christ's sake, amen.