Sermon

Drinking from the rock the Christ Exodus 17 1-7

Omega Church NZ

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  1. You've tuned into a mega church. We are people hungry to

  2. encounter God through worship and His Word being witnesses to

  3. the world around us. We pray this teaching blesses

  4. you and trust God will reveal Himself to you in a new way

  5. today. And.

  6. If you need prayer for healing or breakthrough, Want to find

  7. out more about Omega? Get to our website or Facebook

  8. page through the links below. As I was praying last night, not

  9. last night, the night before, the Lord showed me a picture of

  10. something very solid made of steel, a cylinder kind of a

  11. thing. But then when when the cap is

  12. removed inside I found found a hollow wooden thing inside.

  13. That means appearance is solid steel, but inside there is no

  14. stuff. So I said, Lord, what does this

  15. mean? Many may this is this.

  16. This picture goes into the message.

  17. It goes into everything we have. We project ourselves as

  18. something to the world, but we are not so inside in our heart.

  19. So God wants us to be solid outside and solid inside.

  20. Can we say it? The Lord wants us solid outside,

  21. solid inside. Amen.

  22. Amen. So I was also reflecting about

  23. this being Mother's Day. I thought if I don't say

  24. anything about it doesn't look nice.

  25. I had to say something. But I was thinking what should I

  26. say for mothers? It is something very, very

  27. important day for me. I appreciate mothers a lot

  28. because they are the pillars. As I said that picture, the Lord

  29. showed me the pillar inside. They are also strong mothers.

  30. They are strong inside. They are not only look outside

  31. strong, but they are also strong inside because they go through

  32. the loneliness. When the husbands are away

  33. working, trying to make money, they are stuck with the

  34. children. They are disciplined them.

  35. They have to shout at them, they have to bring them up.

  36. They are sick. They are stay with them too

  37. much. There is no job description that

  38. you can write down and say this is what a mother should do

  39. because they do everything. They are super mothers, I would

  40. say. So one super mother I want to

  41. talk about is Susanna Wesley Heard the name John Wesley's

  42. mother, Charles Wesley's mother, and she had 16 children.

  43. And how did she manage those children?

  44. No one knows and she would find time for every son, every

  45. daughter, daughter. She would find time to read the

  46. Bible, pray with them once a week, one hour.

  47. Every child should give and pray with every child and she has to

  48. educate them, teach them. You know, I am not I am not

  49. trying to promote homeschooling here.

  50. I am telling you, but those days that was an option that the only

  51. option most of the time and husband being a preacher, income

  52. was less. So she had to juggle so many

  53. things. And then one of the things that

  54. many of us think that OK, Susanna, Wesley So people still

  55. remember her. Was she a great preacher?

  56. Was she, did she write a book? Did she establish churches?

  57. No, nothing, nothing of that sort.

  58. She was a silent mother, but she shook the nation by her

  59. commitment to the family and the children.

  60. She shook the nation because she gave two sons who shook England

  61. and America. One is John Wesley, who started

  62. the Methodist Church, and Charles Wesley.

  63. He wrote thousands of songs and we still sing from the hymn

  64. books when we sing some of the Charles Wesley songs.

  65. So this is this is what she has done is that the house was a

  66. seminary. Children learn to read the Bible

  67. at home before there are 5 or 6 when they learn to start

  68. reading. They have finished from Genesis

  69. to Revelation, from the King James Version and they have read

  70. it. That is how they learn to read.

  71. And there is another man called. Welcome back to it.

  72. Sometimes you know his names, JGLM and Curry Blake.

  73. Curry Blake he was before he was five, he had read through the

  74. Bible and he would read the Bible until the mother goes to

  75. sleep. Sometimes she falls asleep

  76. listening to the word, but he learned to read that way.

  77. I tell you, the number one place where children are educated is

  78. in the home and a mother is the first preacher they are exposed

  79. to. She is the first disciplinarian,

  80. first teacher, everything. It is just mother.

  81. She was very faithful and she impacted her generation not

  82. because she went out and preached.

  83. Some of us, we think, oh, the preaching is the only way we can

  84. impact the people. No, prayer is very, very

  85. important too. And mothers are often the first

  86. pastors, teachers, disciple for the children.

  87. And amidst amidst all this busyness, one thing that stands

  88. out about Susanna Wesley is she would sit in the chair, pull her

  89. cloak over her, whatever she has to cover her head and sit in the

  90. chair and pray. How does she find time managing

  91. 16 children to find time for prayer?

  92. Some of us may say no, no, no. That is something extraordinary

  93. in where whatever you want to do, you will find time.

  94. That is the rule. You do not have time for prayer

  95. because you do not want to do the prayer part.

  96. If you want to do prayer, you will find time.

  97. And she would have this busy schedule.

  98. Early morning she will get up and late in the night she will

  99. sleep. Managing the children, feeding

  100. them, crying, teaching them, teaching them everything she

  101. would do. And she will sit in a chair,

  102. cover her head. It is like Moses entering the

  103. tent of meeting outside the camp.

  104. That is her tent of meeting. Cover her head and sit there and

  105. pray. That is how she impacted the

  106. children. That is how she impacted the

  107. nation. Can we have more praying mothers

  108. and fathers? If you want to pray, you will

  109. pray. If you don't want to pray, you

  110. will have many other things listed up to do in the slot.

  111. So my heart is for prayer and I personally pray quite a lot.

  112. I am not trying to boast before the congregation, but I do pray

  113. and I believe that is how you serve God, not by preaching.

  114. Preaching is only a side business.

  115. The main business is everybody say what is it prayer?

  116. That is the main business. So we have to develop that kind

  117. of a lifestyle. Cool.

  118. So let us again give clap for our great mothers in our

  119. congregation. Well done church.

  120. That is awesome. So now we go into the scripture.

  121. That is the Exodus chapter 17. Yeah, that is the one Exodus

    Exodus 17 chapter mention Exodus 17 chapter mention

  122. chapter 17. The story is very simple.

  123. They are travelling from place to place as God commanded them.

  124. How was He guiding them? There was a pillar of fire by

  125. night and a pillar of cloud by day.

  126. When the cloud lifts, the whole camp lifts and moves and the

  127. cloud settles. They all settle down and put up

  128. the tents. So now in this chapter 17 we see

  129. the whole Israel community set out from the desert of sin.

  130. This SI and sin is not talking about the sin.

  131. We generally use the adjective whatever it is, the sin is a sin

  132. sin is a name of the place. It is not talking about the

  133. literal sin that we talk about. S desert of sin travelling from

  134. place to place as a Lord commanded.

  135. Now they had a reputation. The Israel had a great

  136. reputation. What kind of reputation they had

  137. when they came out. You know, everywhere they go,

  138. people were trembling in and sometimes they won't even stop

  139. these people. They will come to fight.

  140. You'll see it more in Book of Joshua.

  141. You'll see that when they send the spice and they come to this

  142. lady and then she says we know that your God is a living God

  143. and we know that your God is fighting for you and men of this

  144. place, they have lost their heart.

  145. It is became like water. I know that you guys are going

  146. to come and you are going to conquer this place.

  147. But Remember, Me and my family spare us because I had given

  148. you. I have protected you from this

  149. being founded by the King's soldiers.

  150. So the reputation is there. The Israelites had a great

  151. reputation. The day God is a fearful God and

  152. a God who fights for them, a God who establishes them, God who

  153. leads them, a God who is a living one.

  154. God who meets their need, protects them, guides them,

  155. provides for them. They have got a great

  156. reputation. How this Red Sea, he split them

  157. for for them. How he was guiding by pillar of

  158. cloud by day, pillar of fire by night, and then so many

  159. miracles. The last we saw is last week He

  160. rained down bread from heaven, manna.

  161. But the people, they do not have any appreciation for what God is

  162. doing for them. When the trouble comes, they

  163. immediately go into another mode, mode of complaining,

  164. mumbling, grumbling, complaining, fighting,

  165. quarreling. This is what all the Christians

  166. down to the centuries have been doing.

  167. We have a very short memory and we forget the miracles God does

  168. for us and we fight with Him. We want to demand more miracles.

  169. Miracles do not produce faith, but faith produces miracles.

  170. I'll repeat again, miracles do not produce faith, but faith

  171. produces miracles. So many times in our life we get

  172. stuck because we have the appearance that we are super

  173. Christians, but inside is good, not solid steel.

  174. That's the reason why these people had to learn this lesson

  175. and God was taking them through this problem.

  176. He brought them to a place where there is no water.

  177. Does God know there's no water there?

  178. Why does He bring them there? To expose their heart.

  179. Their heart will be exposed only when they are brought to this

  180. place. So He brings them to this place.

  181. And now when you see in Exodus chapter 17, it says travelling

    Exodus 17 chapter mention

  182. from place to place as the Lord commanded, they camped to refede

  183. him, but there was number water for the people to drink.

  184. So they moved from desert of sin to refede him.

  185. So you think is A is desert of sin, B is refidem?

  186. No, no, no. To look what this really means,

  187. you have to look up at numbers 33.

  188. I'm sure it is numbers 33. When you go into numbers, it

  189. shows numbers 33 versus 12 to 14.

  190. If you can put it up, it will be great.

  191. Numbers 3312 to 14. They left the desert of sin and

  192. camed at Dopka. They left Dopka and Camed at

  193. Alush. They left Alush and camped at

  194. Refidim where there was number water for the people to drink.

  195. So there is a three stages. They leave one place, come to

  196. another place, from there to another place, there to another

  197. place. This is what I understand is

  198. that when I try to look up the geography of the place, it looks

  199. like every of these places are about 10 to 12 kilometers apart.

  200. So it will be a day's journey, mostly one day's journey.

  201. So they travel, come to from sin, the wilderness of sin, they

  202. travel and come to Dopka and then at from Dopka, next day

  203. they travel up to Alush. And then third day they travel

  204. from Alush to Refidem. So this is how God is bringing

  205. them. And then they arrive at Refidem

  206. to find no water, no water, 2 million people and the cattle,

  207. sheep and camels and whatever they had all the cattle.

  208. And if you have two million cattles as well, that makes it

  209. double S the problem. And you need water for all the

  210. people. It's not a small job.

  211. You cannot have a well dig there a well and say oh, here is the

  212. well, drink the water. Because to put pull the water

  213. from the well and feed 4 million mouse is not a small job.

  214. Those days very hard. Life is very hard, so God had to

  215. do a miracle, which God himself knows.

  216. When the Holy Spirit guides us, we think life is going to be

  217. very smooth, don't we? Let's say God says to a man,

  218. here is the lady I want you to marry.

  219. OK. And what do you expect?

  220. Everything will go smooth? No.

  221. And this is a woman who says, I am praying.

  222. I want to find the perfect husband and God says I will show

  223. you a perfect husband and she will think life is going to be

  224. very smooth from now on because I found a perfect husband.

  225. No, you might be asking me how dare you make a statement like

  226. that in front of so many people? This is a human experience.

  227. Jesus Christ himself was led by the Holy Spirit into wilderness,

  228. not into a palace, not into a Vyas is where you have got palm

  229. trees and water everywhere. No, he was LED into a

  230. wilderness. The Holy Spirit leading Son of

  231. Man into wilderness. If he did for Jesus, you think

  232. you can be exempted from us? So that is how every problem

  233. will expose our heart and every problem will help us to grow.

  234. Every problem will expose our heart and every problem will

  235. help us to grow. That is how God designed life.

  236. So don't complain when you have problems.

  237. Thank God because as you thank Him for the problems, you will

  238. grow. You will grow.

  239. That is the way we have to overcome life.

  240. That is the way we have to solve the problem, not by complaining,

  241. not by murmuring. So these people, they were, what

  242. did they do in verse 2? They quarrel with Moses and said

  243. give us water to drink. Quarrel.

  244. Basically the old English version says chided Moses.

  245. No, I used to think chiding is, you know, some getting angry,

  246. but actually quarreling. Argumentation.

  247. Moses, where are you? You are sitting inside the tent.

  248. Come out. We want water right now.

  249. We are all thirsty. You know, when you have no food,

  250. sometimes you can survive for a while, but without water you

  251. cannot survive long. Water is very, very important.

  252. And when you do not have water, you will not have any strength.

  253. Your face will fall, your limbs will go dull, and you would not

  254. be able to walk. And for the journey that they

  255. have to do, surviving in the wilderness, water is essential.

  256. So what they are asking for is not unreasonable, but the way

  257. how you ask God is very, very important.

  258. So many times we complain to God, murmur, I say, oh God, what

  259. is happening in my life? Are you there?

  260. So many times you ask this question, are you there?

  261. That's what they asked the question.

  262. You look at verse 7. They said and he called the

  263. place Masa and Meribah because Israelites quarrel and because

  264. they tested the Lord saying is the Lord among us or not?

  265. Is God there in the midst? That's the question.

  266. And every Christian asks this question in his life several

  267. times. Several times it is.

  268. If you are not asked this question, is God there in my

  269. life? You are not a Christian.

  270. Why? If you believe in this Jesus,

  271. there will be times when you will go through waterless

  272. places, you will see you will go through desert, experience

  273. scorching sun and thirsty body thirst tormenting you and you

  274. say, my God, did you bring me here to die?

  275. That that's the kind of questions you we are going to

  276. ask. And when we trust him, you know,

  277. so many times we think God answers prayer because you're

  278. crying. No, you can cry whole night.

  279. You may not get any response. You can be complaining,

  280. absolutely no response, your cry will not even go above your

  281. head. But when you have faith and

  282. trust Him and say I know you are a living God, I know you will

  283. come through, I know you will refresh me, I know you will

  284. provide for me, I know you will guide me.

  285. And when you say it, I know you can do it.

  286. He says you understood my heart. Now, one of the things you see

  287. in the book of Psalms when they talk about the children of

  288. Israel is they did not understand His ways.

  289. How many Christians know God's ways?

  290. We have to know His way. We have to know how He thinks.

  291. We have to know how He feels. We have to know how He guides.

  292. We have to know how He will provide.

  293. We have to know how He heals, how He provides, because when we

  294. know His way, then you are living a Christian life.

  295. Otherwise we are going to be ending up complaining and

  296. quarrelling, complaining and quarreling.

  297. Sometimes it is Moses we are complaining, sometimes it is a

  298. pastor, you know Moses is their pastor basically.

  299. Sometimes congregation may have a problem and they will say this

  300. is my pastors problem. He has not prayed for me.

  301. That is why I have this problem. Some people can think like that,

  302. but what can Moses do? It is not in Moses hand to fix

  303. every problem, but he did go to God.

  304. Every time there is a problem people complain where did he go

  305. to God. There was one other time when

  306. Aaron and Moses they are being criticized by people.

  307. He walked to the tent which is to be set up outside the camp.

  308. And when Aaron and Moses went near the tent, the cloud

  309. appeared, the glory of God came, and when they saw the glory of

  310. God come on the tent, people prostitute fell down, and then

  311. God says. You guys just move outside.

  312. I want to kill the whole people because they what they are doing

  313. is not right. If what God did to the children

  314. of Israel, if he does today in the church, you will not have

  315. anybody in the church all over the world.

  316. We had understand He is holy and we have not understood the

  317. holiness of God. That is the problem.

  318. We do not understand who is God. If we understand who is God, we

  319. are going to live differently, we are going to worship Him

  320. differently, we are going to obey him differently, we are

  321. going to follow him differently. We need to know who is our God.

  322. That he is holy and he expects us to be holy is very, very

  323. important. So Moses says why do you quarrel

  324. with me? Why do you put the law to the

  325. test? Basically he is saying you are

  326. not complaining against me, you are complaining against God, you

  327. are complaining against God, you are murmuring against God, you

  328. are showing your dissatisfaction against God.

  329. Southern, we need to be very careful what we say, how we say,

  330. to whom we say. But the people were thirsty for

  331. water there and they grumbled against Moses.

  332. They said, why did you bring us out of Egypt?

  333. To make us and our children and our livestock die of thirst.

  334. So problem is Moses, not their problem.

  335. You brought us from Egypt to kill us, our children and our

  336. livestock. Is it reasonable pro?

  337. Is it a reasonable complaint? Don't they want to be free?

  338. Did not Moses become a mediator so that he can help them to come

  339. out of Egypt, confront Pharaoh and armies and fight those

  340. people and see them down in the Red Sea?

  341. He did everything. Now they are saying you brought

  342. us to kill us here so many times.

  343. What we do is not just grumble against the mediator, not just

  344. grumble against the leader. We try to stone them because he

  345. said Moses says to God, when he goes to God, he says, look at

  346. this, look at these people, Moses, cry out to the Lord, what

  347. am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone

  348. me. They are discussing among

  349. themselves. Let us get rid of Moses because

  350. this problem, he is responsible for the problem.

  351. No, Moses is not responsible. They are responsible.

  352. You know when there was famine during the time of Elijah,

  353. Elijah three years, there is no rain.

  354. And when King Ahab meets Elijah, what does he say to Elijah?

  355. You are trouble of you trouble. You are trouble of Israel and

  356. Elijah said not me. You are the troubler of Israel.

  357. So many times when we complain, you know somebody said when you

  358. point your hand like this, show one finger to somebody, you got

  359. three other fingers showing towards yourself.

  360. So that is how it is. We cannot complain, we cannot

  361. grumble. So they walk on.

  362. He says they are ready to stone me.

  363. The Lord answered, walk on ahead of the people, take with you

  364. some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with

  365. which you struck the Nile. You know the staff that he had

  366. the big stick, many, many miracles were done through that,

  367. but judgment came through that staff.

  368. What came judgment on Egypt? He stretched the staff and some

  369. plague will come. He stretched the staff,

  370. something will happen. He stretched the staff on the

  371. Nile and dip it in the water Nile and it turns into blood

  372. judgment. But God says, take that staff of

  373. judgment and go on with the elders, and I will be standing

  374. before you and show you the rock that He should strike.

  375. Now you have got here this story, you have got all three

  376. persons of the Godhead. You will see here is the Holy

  377. Spirit there with them, how the pillar of cloud by day, pillar

  378. of fire by night is the Holy Spirit is Yahweh with them.

  379. Sorry, is Yahweh with them. Yes, Yahweh was going before

  380. them standing by the rock to tell Moses strike this rock and

  381. God the Father, no one has seen. He is invisibly present there

  382. too. In your problem, God is there,

  383. in my problem God is there. We have, we need eyes to see

  384. that he is there. So many times when you go

  385. through the problem, you don't see that God is with you at all.

  386. But after the problem is over, you look back and say, oh, I see

  387. God was with me. So the English word that we have

  388. is retrospectively you understand God.

  389. Retrospectively you look back, you understand God.

  390. Many times we don't look back, don't evaluate.

  391. That's why we don't see God's hand.

  392. Look back 40 years ago, 50 years ago, 60 years ago in our life

  393. and you will see the hand of God guiding you, providing for you,

  394. protecting you, saving you. That is how Christian life

  395. works. You know these truths that I am

  396. talking the very, very important truth.

  397. Why that will that will change the way you think of life.

  398. You understand life when you look at it retrospectively.

  399. You look back, then you understand.

  400. Look forward, looks blank. Look back.

  401. You'll understand. That's how it works.

  402. Does it make sense? Can I hear Amen from you guys?

  403. Amen. Cool.

  404. And then what happens? He says, which take with you

  405. some of the elders of yourself, take in your hand the staff with

  406. which you struck the Nile, and go, I will stand there before

  407. you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will

  408. come out of it for the people to drink.

  409. What should Moses do? Strike the rock.

  410. And who is this rock? Who is the rock?

  411. It is Jesus himself because Paul writes to Corinthians and he

  412. says the rock was Christ. Where is it the scripture for

  413. it? The quarrel?

  414. OK, one Corinthians chapter word Corinthians chapter 10 verses 3

  415. onward. They all ate the same spiritual

  416. food and drank the same spiritual drink.

  417. For they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied

  418. them. And that rock was Christ.

  419. But the rock had to be struck, which is a symbol of the

  420. crucifixion of Jesus. The rocks to be struck is a

  421. symbolic of crucifixion of Jesus and from that rock water flows

  422. today. That is why Jesus could stand up

  423. on the last day and shout and say if anyone is thirsty, come

  424. to me and drink and whoever drinks of Maine out of his

  425. bellicel flow. Rivers are living water.

  426. So this is not a rock that you drink one day and then you go

  427. forward 10 more kilometers. There is no more water because

  428. that water is physical. Locate is fixed, defined by a

  429. location, and you go forward. The same water will not come

  430. there. You have to again.

  431. God has to feed you again fresh. But when, when you come to

  432. Jesus, you become a source of living water.

  433. Living water flow out of your belly.

  434. What a great truth, what a refreshing truth.

  435. Do we have this living water flowing out of our bellies?

  436. If you are a believer, if you have believed Jesus, you will

  437. have this happen, you will have this experience because living

  438. water shall flow out of your belly.

  439. Is it for yourself? No, that living water from your

  440. belly is to refresh other people.

  441. So now we see again testing. God is demanding proof, though

  442. He already has given evidence. One of the things that I see

  443. here is how do you describe a people, 2 million people who see

  444. miracles and keep demanding miracles and have no faith.

  445. Imagine Jesus Christ feeding 5000 people and people are

  446. coming looking for a very Jesus, very Jesus refined.

  447. Oh, you are here. You are following me.

  448. Not because you are following me, because you are.

  449. You ate, ate enough of your belly, stomach full.

  450. Do not look for the bread that perishes, OK?

  451. And he goes on to teach them many things.

  452. And then he says, I am the bread of life.

  453. I am the bread of life. They ask, give us his bread.

  454. I am the bread of life. And then they did not want to

  455. believe the bread of life. Basically they did not want to

  456. believe. And then they asked the

  457. question, what miracle? You are going to give us a sign

  458. from heaven so we may believe that you are the bread of life.

  459. They just ate the food yesterday, bread and fish, and

  460. today they are forgetting again and saying give us a sign from

  461. heaven. This is the heart of man.

  462. This is the heart of every man and woman.

  463. We demand miracles every day and when we are demanding miracles

  464. every day, that means there is no faith in our heart.

  465. There is no faith in our heart. When we have faith, it will be

  466. surrender to God. Though Job said, though you slay

  467. me, yet will I trust you. You kill me with a sword, yet I

  468. will trust you with those three children of Hebrew children who

  469. are thrown into the fire. We know that our God is able to

  470. save us, but even if it does not save us, we are not going to bow

  471. to any other idol that you install.

  472. That is faith. Faith is being so strong in your

  473. belief that Jesus is God and you have to believe so strongly that

  474. nothing will shake you from your faith.

  475. No circumstance, no situation, no challenge is going to shake

  476. you. So here is a situation which is

  477. basically like exposing their heart.

  478. When they are grumbling and testing, they are exposing their

  479. heart, they are thinking, they are demanding science, they are

  480. demanding a proof. But it is not.

  481. And with next question that we ask is this happened in the Old

  482. Testament? We are in the New Testament.

  483. We are in the New Testament. You can ask, you can question

  484. God, you can complain against Him, you can murmur against Him,

  485. get away because we are in the New Testament.

  486. Is it true? No, Paul talks about Exodus 17

  487. in Second Corinthians chapter 10 and he says their bodies were

    2 Corinthians 10 chapter mention

  488. lying in the desert. Why?

  489. Judgment of God. They grumbled and quarrel.

  490. Did he say you people die here? He didn't say that.

  491. He split the rock and gave them the water, but none of them

  492. entered into the promised land. They all died in the wilderness.

  493. 40 years roaming around and you have got Psalm 95.

  494. You got Psalm 106 where it talks about wilderness experience.

  495. Every sentence, every verse talks about negative things,

  496. about what these people have done.

  497. I read through the Psalm. I said this is not looking good.

  498. But if we apply that to the Christians, what is going to

  499. happen? We are going to be exposed as

  500. people without faith because we quarrel, because we complain.

  501. It is not a good thing at all. And next thing that we see here

  502. is another instance that we have to see is there is one more time

  503. God provided water for them in the wilderness.

  504. But that time when they again cried out to God, complained to

  505. God, God said to Moses, go, I will stand before you and show

  506. you the rock and speak to the rock.

  507. Water will come out. What did he say?

  508. Speak to the rock, water will come out.

  509. And Moses went with the elders, took the staff with him this

  510. time, bang, he hit it, water came out, they all drank, but

  511. God was unhappy with Moses. Why?

  512. Christ will be struck only once on the cross.

  513. Jesus died on the cross for once to provide water for you.

  514. You don't demand a miracle again, because when they

  515. demanded miracle, he said no miracle will be given to His

  516. generation except the sign of Jonah.

  517. What is the sign of Jonah? People will crucify Christ.

  518. He will be buried, but he will be right.

  519. He will rise again from the dead on the third day.

  520. That also has happened already. What more miracle do we need?

  521. What more miracle do we need to believe this God?

  522. He died for us and He rose again from the dead.

  523. What more miracle we need? That one miracle is enough to

  524. sustain 8 billion people for next 8 billion years or forever.

  525. Because that is such a powerful, powerful miracle.

  526. His death, burial, resurrection is the most powerful miracle

  527. that man can can ever see. Do we see?

  528. Do we appreciate His death on the cross?

  529. So Moses was stored by God because you dishonored me before

  530. these people. You will see the Promised land

  531. from a distance, but you will not enter there.

  532. Punishment comes, whether you like it or not, when we deserve

  533. a God. But when you come to Christ, He

  534. forgives and He restores. Even a man like Saul who was

  535. persecuting the church, pulling people from their houses,

  536. throwing them into the jail and whipping them.

  537. And God had mercy on him and appeared to him so that he

  538. becomes the bearer of the message, not the persecutor of

  539. Christ anymore. That is the mercy of God.

  540. But when we resist the mercy of God all the time, there comes a

  541. point where there is no turning point.

  542. We cannot turn back anymore. You go far enough where you

  543. cannot turn back anymore. That's the reason why we need to

  544. guard this heart. Guard the heart and your faith

  545. and anything that comes in between you and God.

  546. You fight it in the name of Jesus and that will set you

  547. free. That will set you free.

  548. Many of our hearts have been hijacked by Satan.

  549. Your emotion, your will, your soul is hijacked by.

  550. When you go through trauma, when you have a difficult situation,

  551. when you are going through very, very difficult situation, it can

  552. be ill health, it can be relationships, it can be loss of

  553. job, it can be business collapse.

  554. Whatever has to have happened, there's a trauma for the soul.

  555. When you dwell on it for too long and don't come to God,

  556. Satan comes and puts his hand on your shoulder.

  557. Don't worry, I am with you and he'll take you down downhill,

  558. not uphill. He won't pull you out, He'll

  559. push you down more. He'll put chains on you and put

  560. you in unbelief forever and ever and ever until you cry out to

  561. God and Jesus says let him go free.

  562. Let her go free and the chains fall from your hand.

  563. Until then you will be in the hands of shade.

  564. So I'm not trying to terrify anybody.

  565. This is just the normal spiritual reality.

  566. Normal spiritual reality. We have to open our eyes to see

  567. that God gives us the freedom to say yes to God or no to God.

  568. But when you say yes, you have got so many good things, but

  569. when you say no, then so many negative things waiting for us.

  570. But God is a God of mercy. Let's all say it.

  571. God is a God of mercy. He wants to bless you, He wants

  572. to save you, He wants to provide for you, He wants to protect

  573. you, He wants to guide you, He loves you.

  574. The whole question is, are we willing to believe and trust him

  575. or we want to say no, no, no, I don't want to believe anymore.

  576. I don't want to trust you anymore because there are times

  577. when I have gone through difficult times.

  578. You did not come through me and help me.

  579. So one of the scenes from the movie called Ben Hur, it always

  580. touches me where he was being put in chains and he was walking

  581. along and he was very thirsty and many people are getting

  582. water. But this guy who is taking this

  583. captives, he tells no water for him, no water for Ben Hur.

  584. And he was being dragged, and he falls down, and you see Jesus

  585. coming and give him the water. And as he was drinking, somebody

  586. comes, kicks it off. But that water sustained him,

  587. sustained his faith, sustained the spirit of rebellion in him.

  588. And he always remembered that. Why did that man give me water

  589. and save me? Because that water, if he did

  590. not drink, he would die. So he comes through like the

  591. parable of Benhar. He comes through to feed you,

  592. refresh you, give you a drink when you are in the trouble.

  593. But sometimes we don't see or you just drink that water and

  594. forget the man who gave you the water.

  595. That's when the trouble comes. Oh, there's so much more to say.

  596. I'll conclude with the story because I know you love stories.

  597. I'll conclude with the story. This is there was a copper mine

  598. in the desert of Atacama in Chile.

  599. That mine collapsed and 33 people were trapped inside the

  600. mine. How many people 33 this happened

  601. on They were set free on October 13th 2010.

  602. And people inside they have no light, no food, no fresh air, no

  603. water to drink. They are trapped inside and I do

  604. not know how they survived for because it took 69 days for them

  605. to be set free. But until the 17th day there was

  606. number hope. They were complaining.

  607. They were in the in the darkness.

  608. They were shouting to each other.

  609. Somebody would shout loud, hey, is there a God here?

  610. If he is there, why doesn't he save us?

  611. Day one is gone. Day 2 is gone.

  612. Day three is gone. Day four Day 17 A shaft comes

  613. crashing through a drill bit. With a camera attached to it and

  614. they wrote a small note on it and stuck it.

  615. All 33 of us are alive. And when the shaft was taken

  616. back, they said, oh, the people are alive, but it took 69 days

  617. before everyone of them came out of the thing.

  618. So after that, probably they must have provided them air to

  619. breathe, water to drink, food to eat.

  620. They must be feeding through the little pipe.

  621. They had to make a separate shaft until they pulled out

  622. every one of them. See 33 people, they saved every

  623. one of them. Everyone came out.

  624. And one of the miners, he said when we were inside, trapped

  625. inside, we were not 33 people. We are 34 people because God was

  626. with us, because God was with us, I tell you.

  627. Problem does not have any color. Problem does not have a name,

  628. does not have preference. Oh, this man is tall, so I will

  629. be favorable to him. This man is short.

  630. I am going to be cruel. Nothing.

  631. Problem itself has got no favorites.

  632. It is the same for everybody, but what we do, how we react to

  633. the problem decides the outcome. You can be trapped in the 33

  634. people and you can question God and say where are you?

  635. Are you there, Why are we dying in this place?

  636. Or you can say you are with us and we will wait for your

  637. salvation. We will wait for your salvation.

  638. This is not a cooked up story, this is real story.

  639. In 2010 it happened and I remember reading in the

  640. newspapers this every day there is a lot of TV activity going on

  641. trying to give you update. Every morning you will see how

  642. anything happened. Every morning you will wake up

  643. and look up the news and say hey, what's happening today,

  644. 69th day, everyone of them came out.

  645. It is a long time, long time to survive and to keep your faith.

  646. And I tell you we are in the same situation, but we have to

  647. look to God for our salvation. He is the rock that is following

  648. us. He is the bread who is going to

  649. satisfy us. He is the light.

  650. He is everything to us. And I am telling you after so

  651. many years, one shift that I had to make in my mind to say

  652. audibly, very clearly every day several times is Jesus your God.

  653. That photo that you have seen Jesus with a shepherds rod in

  654. his hand, with a lamb in his hand and chucked up when he is

  655. the holding in his hand, it has robbed Christ of His divinity.

  656. It has robbed Christ that He is God.

  657. You have a picture that He is a Savior.

  658. You have a picture that He is Redeemer.

  659. You have picture that He died for you.

  660. You have picture that He is a shepherd, but you don't have the

  661. picture that He is God. What changed for disciples is

  662. precisely this. This Jesus was walking with

  663. them. This Jesus was doing miracles,

  664. was healing the blind, was healing the paralytic who was

  665. healing the leprosy people who was raising the dead, making the

  666. crippled walk. They had to see that he is God

  667. because they heard Yahweh is God and now he is Jesus is God is a

  668. big shift and Christians are still like the Jewish people.

  669. God is 1, Jesus is Savior. No, God is 1, Father, Son, the

  670. Holy Spirit and Jesus is God. If you have Jesus, you have the

  671. Father and the Holy Spirit. You cannot have one without the

  672. other. And I had to sell tell myself

  673. after so many years, I am telling you now I am a Christian

  674. for nearly 4748 years and now I am saying to Jesus every day, I

  675. am saying you are God, you are God, you are God, you are God.

  676. And that shifts something like what shifted for the apostles.

  677. Why did they do miracles? Why did they cast out demons?

  678. How did they heal the blind? How did they do the miracles?

  679. Because they made that mental shift that Yahweh is Jesus,

  680. Yahweh is Jesus. He's the one who followed them.

  681. They drank from the rock, the Christ.

  682. Shall we bow our heads in prayer?

  683. Father God, I thank you. We humble over the 30 feet.

  684. We have our own story. We have our own struggles.

  685. We have our own questions. We have our own, My Father, the

  686. innate desire to rebel against you, question you, quarrel with

  687. you, argue with you. Oh, my God, we are so foolish.

  688. Forgive us, I have done it a lot so many times in my life.

  689. I pray now for your divine touch.

  690. Holy Spirit, I invite you now to alight upon your children,

  691. expose their heart, show them who they are or they they have a

  692. reputation to be solid Christians, like a pillar, but

  693. inside is hollow. And I pray that you feel this

  694. hollow Ness with your presence, with your glory, with your

  695. power. And I thank you Father, Holy

  696. Spirit, for dwelling in us. Thank you for filling us with

  697. your presence. Thank you for filling us with

  698. your power. Oh Lord, I praise you only once

  699. again, Jesus, but we are dwelling in us.

  700. We are one spirit with you and I worship with Jesus.

  701. You are God, you are God, you are God, Yahweh, you are, you

  702. are God. We worship you this time.

  703. We praise you Jesus. I command the rock to open for

  704. your children every situation they are going through which is

  705. sounding like a rock they tap on, it sounds like a rock, but I

  706. command water to come out for them in the name of Jesus.

  707. I command water to come out of rock for your children in the

  708. name of Jesus. Drink deep, be refreshed,

  709. castaway your unbelief and put your faith in Him because he is

  710. waiting to show himself. God in our lives.

  711. SAR haste barano moravande sambhakare bosaro renima raste

  712. saktaro hosanna mahastakuroni. The Lord says only you have the

  713. power to stop the rain. I want to pour the rain on you,

  714. but you have the power to stop it.

  715. Change it this morning and say, God, let it rain, let it rain,

  716. let it rain, Let there be light in my life and the darkness will

  717. go. Call out to Him and he wants to

  718. touch you and change the story. Oh me praise you, we praise you,

  719. we praise you this morning. We thank you for your word.

  720. May your presence continue to go with us and help us to mediate

  721. upon the scripture before we hit the bed again and bow in your

  722. presence and thank you, for you are the rock that is following

  723. us. We worship Jesus in Jesus name.

  724. We have asked and everybody says Amen.

  725. Amen. Thanks for joining us at Omega.

  726. If you need prayer for healing or breakthrough, or simply to

  727. find out more, please head to our website or Facebook page in

  728. the links below.