60+ Luncheon - Pastor to 60+ Dave Skorupa - February 5, 2026

Okay, we are live from the 60 plus lunch in beautiful downtown Fort Smith, Arkansas, and we're now going to have our time of devotion and Bible study.

As we begin, let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.

I thank you for the men and women who are assembled here together.

Thank you for the meal that we've enjoyed.

Lord, we would ask that you would bless those who have worked hard to prepare it.

We ask that you would bless those who have contributed to the work of this church to provide this meal.

But Lord, ultimately we thank you because we know you are the ultimate provider of all good things.

As we now go into your word, we remind ourselves that your word is inspired by the power of your Holy Spirit, that you have preserved your word against attack for thousands of years.

And Lord, our time here today, as the spirit that inhabits us as saved people by Jesus Christ, encountering your spirit-inspired word, that you do things in this time that you don't do in any other way.

And so we thank you, Lord, for what we are about to learn, what we are about to be reminded of, what we are about to recall.

And may you receive all the credit, all the honor, and all the glory.

We pray this in the matchless name of our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.

And God's people said, Amen.

So we are in our chronological Bible recap as a church, and we got through, uh we went through Genesis, and then we were in Job for what felt like a long time.

Then we went back to Genesis.

That's just my personal opinion, by the way.

If you love the book of Job, more power to you.

Then we were back in Genesis, and in the past few days, we have moved into the story of the Exodus.

We remember that at the end of Genesis, we had the story of Joseph, right?

Joseph, the son of Jacob.

Joseph, after all of the amazing things that happened to him in life, he becomes the second most powerful man in the empire of Egypt.

And at the end of Genesis, we have Jacob and the other sons, aside from Joseph and all of their families and all of their livestock and everything, they move into the land of Egypt.

And everything is fine for a while.

But we know that eventually a Pharaoh comes to the throne who doesn't know anything about Joseph, doesn't care anything about Joseph, and he decides that the Israelites are too numerous.

We're going to enslave them and put them into hard labor.

The people cry out at this.

God hears their cries.

He provides a deliverer for them by the name of Moses.

And Moses is the figurehead as God rains down plagues upon Egypt in order to convince the Pharaoh that the Israelites should be able to go.

The time comes when the Pharaoh finally relents and the Israelites leave Egypt.

And we know that as they leave Egypt, they come upon the Red Sea.

They think they're going to die.

God parts the Red Sea.

They walk across the bed of the Red Sea on dry land, and they then settle in new areas.

God crashes the waters of the Red Sea down upon the Egyptian army.

And you really don't read much about the Egyptians anymore in the book of Exodus after that.

Then begins a time where Moses and this nation of slaves, former slaves now freed, the Israelites, are out in the wilderness.

And if there's one word that you could use to describe the way the Israelites behave in the wilderness, you might have a different word, but the word that I choose is they complain.

They complain a lot.

Today we're going to be in Exodus chapter 17.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Exodus chapter 17.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

Chapter 17 begins, the first few verses of chapter 17.

The Israelites come upon a place and they're wanting water to drink.

They can't find water to drink.

God provides water to come from a rock.

Moses takes his staff.

I got props today.

I'm holding a big stick for those of you that are listening to this on recording.

Moses takes his staff, he strikes the rock, and water pours forth from the rock.

This is the same staff that Moses had when he confronted the confronted God speaking to him from the burning bush.

This is the same staff that Moses, when he struck the Nile in Egypt, it turned the, uh God turned the waters of the Nile into blood.

This staff of Moses is brought into play in several different places throughout the book of Exodus.

And it's interesting because when Moses is talking about the staff, he will refer to it more often than not as the staff or the rod of God.

And when God is talking about the staff, he will refer to it as the rod or the staff of Moses.

And so it's one of these things where God is willing to give Moses honor by calling it his staff, and Moses is trying to give God all the honor by calling it God's staff.

Now, was there anything special about that piece of wood?

No.

It was just a regular piece of wood.

As a matter of fact, if we think it's the same staff that Moses had when he was tending sheep, then we would think of it as nothing more complex than a piece of wood like the one I'm holding right here.

It's not highly decorated, doesn't have anything really to distinguish it from any other stick.

When we get to the second part of chapter 17, we have another event happening in the life of Moses and the Israelites, and once again the staff or the stick is called into play.

We're going to begin reading in Exodus chapter 17, and we'll begin reading in verse 8.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

I'll be reading from the New King James Version this morning.

Now Amalek came and fought with Israel and Rephidim.

And Moses said to Joshua, choose us some men and go out, fight with Amalek.

Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.

Stop here for just a moment.

Okay, this thing's gonna make a lot of noise.

I apologize to everyone who's listening on the audio here.

All right, so Amalek comes and fights with Israel.

Who or what is Amalek?

If you look in your Bibles in the book of Genesis, and since we're doing the chronological Bible recap, it makes sense for us to do this.

You learn that Amalek was the son of Eliphaz, who was the son of Esau.

And so what we have is the line of Esau is going to war against the line of Jacob or Israel, the two brothers.

We talked about Jacob and Esau in this room just a couple of weeks ago.

Well, Esau had a son, Esau's wife's name was Ada.

And Ada and Esau made things so miserable for Esau's parents that Esau's mother said, Oh, why did he marry this woman?

Why is he marrying these Hittite women?

We got to get them out of here.

I can't stand living in the same house with Esau's wives.

And so Esau's wife Ada gave birth to sons, and one of those sons was by the name of Eliphaz.

Those of you that read your book of Job are familiar with the name of Eliphaz, because Eliphaz is one of the people who comes and gives Job bad advice about how to figure out what's going on with all his pain and misery.

There are two schools of thought about that.

Some say that this is the same Eliphaz who is the son of Esau.

Others say that it is an ancestor of that same Eliphaz who has the same name.

Either way, we know the type of advice that Eliphaz gives, and it's not good advice.

We know the type of wisdom that Eliphaz shares, and we know it's not good wisdom.

So Eliphaz had a wife, and he also had a concubine.

He had a servant.

And through that servant, her name was Timnah, through that servant, that concubine, Eliphaz has a son by the name of Amalek, which takes us back to where we are today in our scripture reading.

Amalek.

This Amalek became so powerful that he was regarded as a chieftain of people.

Now, it's been roughly hundreds of years since Amalek was born to Eliphaz, son of Esau.

But the people that are attacking the Israelites right now claim him as their creator of their tribe or the creator of their nation.

They have named their nation Amalek in his honor, in honor of the grandson of Esau.

The Israelites at this point, they've just crossed the Red Sea.

They don't have any experience with fighting.

They are not military generals.

They don't know how to do a battle.

This is the first battle of the Israelite people after coming through the Red Sea.

And you know how many, guys, I don't want you to speak up on this.

I just want to prime your memories here a little bit.

And some of you ladies may have a memory like this too.

I can still remember the first fight I got into in grade school.

All right?

I can still remember, and if I weren't being recorded right now, I would say the name of the kid that I got into my first fight in grade school with because I still remember that jerk.

He's probably, and I want nothing but happiness and joy for him in the rest of his days.

But I remember, I remember his name.

I remember where the fight took place.

I remember how the fight came out.

I may remember it a little bit more to my advantage than it actually was, but there is something about that first fight that you have with someone who's not in your family that you remember.

Guys, if I'm if I'm saying things that you identify with, just give me a little finger wave or something like that, that you know, okay, okay, all right.

There is something about that first fight that sticks with you more than any other battle that you might have in life.

Or not perhaps more, but I would just say it's unique in the way that it sticks with you down through time.

This Amalek, this battle against Amalek, is the first battle that the Israelites have after being liberated from slavery in Egypt.

We're told that they come up against Israel in Rephidim.

Moses says to Joshua, Joshua already being identified as a man who could lead the military exploits of Israel, he says to Joshua, Choose us some men and go out and fight with Amalek.

Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.

Verse 10, Joshua did as Moses said to him and fought with Amalek.

And Moses, Aaron, and her went up to the top of the hill.

Let's pause here for a minute in verse 10.

So we have Moses on top of the hill.

He has his brother Aaron with him.

And we have this third man mentioned, Her.

Her.

Her hasn't exactly come down in history with a lot.

Now, some of you are immediately thinking, is that the father of Ben-Hur, Pastor Dave?

Is that the father of Ben Hur?

Ben-Hur is a fictional account written by General Wallace of Judah Ben-Hur.

And it could be, we'd have to pick General Wallace's brain when we see him in heaven.

It could be that perhaps this had something to do with his choice of a name.

But Her is one of those people that makes, he walks onto the stage of Scripture, makes an appearance, and then we really don't hear much about him at all after that.

We know Moses, we know Aaron.

We don't know much about her.

The Bible tells us in other verses that her was from the tribe of Judah, which is the tribe from which the Lord Jesus comes.

But these three men go to the top of a hill.

And as you picture this in your mind's eye, you need to picture that they are so high on this hill that everyone who is battling can look up and see them.

Let's go to verse 11.

So it was when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

But Moses' hands became heavy.

So they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it.

Aaron and her supported his hands, one on one side, the other on the other side, and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.

Stop there for a moment.

This stick is it's not really all that heavy.

But it's not all that heavy.

But if I were to hold it out like this and not move, within a few minutes, I would start doing this a little bit.

And within a few more minutes, it would be very hard to keep it in an upward position.

So what would I do?

Same thing you would do.

I would take the other arm and I might do it like this for a while, but eventually I'm gonna get to a place where it's easier to hold it like this.

Well, battles take time, especially the way ancient battles were fought.

And Moses' arms get tired.

And so we have the two men, Aaron and Her, who probably didn't think in their minds that they were gonna have to be holding Moses' arms up when they went up on that hill that morning.

Someone is able to roll a stone over.

Moses is able to sit down on the stone, and he's able to hold his hands up.

Now I want to ask you something.

In the verses that we have read, is there anything that suggests the idea that the stick is doing anything?

No.

Is there anything to suggest that Moses is doing anything?

Not really.

As a matter of fact, there's nothing explicitly stated that says that the Lord is doing anything.

But we know from experience that the Lord is the one who determines the outcome of any battle.

And so God is doing something, even though it's not explicitly stated in the verses that we're reading.

I think it's more than just a morale booster when Moses holds up the rod of God, and people remember, oh, that's the same stick that God used to strike the waters of the Nile.

That's the same stick that Moses held out over the Red Sea, which resulted in God parting the Red Sea.

When they saw that stick, they were reminded of the power of God, which probably caused them to fight all the harder.

And so, in many ways, there is a morale boost that is happening from the stick that is being lifted.

But let's get back to the men on the hill.

We have Moses, and we're going to read more about Moses as you continue to go through your book of Exodus.

We have Aaron, and you read lots about Aaron, good, bad, and ugly about Aaron as you go through the book of Exodus.

But then we have her.

We have her, this man who just sort of is there.

We don't really know much about him.

And that caused me to think a little bit.

You know, I would have expected perhaps Moses and Aaron and Joshua to be there, but Joshua's busy.

Joshua's busy down fighting against Amalek on the ground.

I would have expected perhaps Moses, Aaron, and their sister Miriam to be there.

Miriam makes several appearances, good, bad, and ugly, in the book of Exodus, in the time of Exodus.

But instead we have this man her.

So what is God doing here in having this man who makes this appearance and then disappears for the most part from the pages of Scripture?

And then I started realizing this is a this is a passage of Scripture that is talking about prayer in a lot of ways.

It's talking about prayer.

How many of us, when we are in a battle, a spiritual battle, a battle against temptation, a battle against choosing to do the wrong thing because we think that it's more expedient or practical, a battle against not doing what God calls us to do rather than doing what God calls us to do.

How many times, how many times have we had people in situations of medical emergency or financial disaster, and you go to your friends or you go to your Sunday school class and you say three words.

You say, pray for me.

Pray for me.

And when people pray for you, what are they doing?

They are taking your situation and they're looking at your situation in light of God's almighty power.

Those men that were down fighting against Amalek, not trained soldiers, not men who had spent a lifetime in military training, but rather former slaves fighting against these raiders from Amalek.

They, you can be sure, were praying that they would survive the battle that they were in.

They would look up on that hill and they would be reminded of the power of God being with the people of Israel.

And there alongside Moses were Aaron and her.

Now, if Aaron's not, if uh if her is not there, if her is not there, what's going to happen?

Well, eventually, what's going to happen is Moses' arm is going to start getting tired, and Aaron's going to have to go back and forth, switching, trying to lift up the arms of Moses.

We get the impression Moses was 80 at the time of the Exodus.

Aaron probably wasn't that much younger or older, right?

No, having her there means that Moses can keep his arms lifted and that the power of God is in front of that army the entire time because we've got Aaron and we've got her helping Moses lift the rod.

When we ask people to pray for us, sometimes we can be tempted to find the people that are in the spotlight of the church.

Oh, if I can only get Pastor Greg to pray for me.

Oh, if I can only get the Sunday school teacher to pray for me.

Oh, if I can only get Pastor Dave to start talk stop talking and get him to pray for me.

Okay.

We think if we get the people that are in front of the crowds to pray for us, we think that somehow that's a better prayer than finding the person who isn't in the spotlight, a person like her, who nonetheless was able to lift up the arms of Moses so that people could see the power of God.

Hers role that day.

Was every bit as important as Aaron's.

And Aaron's the man who goes on to become the first high priest of Israel.

Hers work that day was very important to Moses.

I'm sure that even though Moses had those people helping him with his arms, I'm sure that when Moses got into the tent later that day, he was like, oh my goodness.

Oh, boy, my arms, my back.

Boy, I don't know how bad I'd feel if it weren't for Aaron and her helping me.

No, the work of her that day accomplished all the things that the work of Aaron accomplished that day.

It accomplished all the things that the work of Moses accomplished that day.

We do learn a little bit more about her as we go.

Let's continue reading in the passage.

Let's go to verse 13.

Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

The Lord said to Moses, Write this for a memorial, recount it in the hearing of Joshua, so that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from heaven.

Stop here.

In time, Israel would have many enemies as they moved into the promised land that God had given them, and they had to force lots of people groups out of that land.

Throughout the Old Testament, we see recurring problems with the Moabites and the Philistines and the Ammonites and the Jebusites and the Termites and all the rest of them.

We see all these problems that the people of Israel had with the Canaanites.

But God had a special place of dishonor for the people of Amalek.

Because the Bible tells us in other places that the way the Amalekites attacked is they went around the people of Israel and they chose to attack a section of the camp where most of the defenseless women and children were.

On top of that, Israel had done nothing to incite the violence of Amalek.

Amalek had just decided on its own that it would attack Israel.

And just like us guys, we can remember that first fight that we ever had.

God remembered the first fight that his people ever had.

And throughout the rest of the Old Testament, whenever the name of Amalek or the Amalekites comes up, you will see God more often than not telling the people of Israel, I told you to get rid of those people once and for all.

In a few months will be in the book of 1 Samuel, perhaps one of my favorite books of all the Old Testament.

Wrote my dissertation out of 1 Samuel years and years ago.

And there comes a time where the first king of Israel, Saul, is told to go out and defeat the Amalekites and don't spare any of them.

Saul obeys somewhat what God had said, but then he disobeys to a pretty good degree.

God gets so mad at Saul that he says, you're no longer fit to be king of Israel.

You see, God's wrath against the Amalekites burned hot.

Burned very, very hot.

Those of you who have ever studied the book of Esther, and you know how Esther is trying to protect the Israelites from a genocide campaign by a man by the name of Haman.

Haman is somehow one of the few surviving Amalekites in that period of Old Testament history.

And it all comes back to this passage here in Exodus chapter 17, where the Amalekites attacked the Israelites without provocation and attacked them in a way that showed that they were interested in attacking the weakest and most vulnerable of the people.

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

Amalek is the, they're an offshoot of the people of Esau.

Let's keep reading here in verse, let's reread verse 14.

The Lord says to Moses, write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

Verse 15.

Moses built an altar and called its name, The Lord is my banner.

For he said, Because the Lord has sworn, the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

Okay.

So we see that Amalek is basically put forever upon God's bad list, and they suffer throughout history for what they've done here.

But let's go back to her.

Let's close by going back to her for a minute.

As I said, there's not much really said about this man, her, other than the fact that when the time came and they needed someone in that spot to help run interference, to be working with the Israelites and them being able to see the power of God, that he jumped in, he did what he was supposed to do.

We don't know much else about his life, but we do know that his family line played an important role in things that would happen later with the people of Israel and the man Moses.

When you jump forward in time, you get to Exodus chapter 31.

Exodus 31 · chapter mention

We're in 17 today, we get to Exodus 31.

God is giving Moses and the Israelites instructions about building the Ark of the Covenant and about building the Old Testament tabernacle.

Can we all agree that those two are pretty big projects?

You know, if I were if I had a sheet of paper here and I said, okay, we're we're going to build a tabernacle, and we're going to build the Ark of the Covenant, and I'm going to give this assignment to a whole bunch of you would be saying, I'm getting out of the way.

I don't want that to be handed to me.

That's important work, that's critical work.

The building of the Ark of the Covenant, can you imagine that being given to you as a craftsman?

That would just the responsibility of you are going to be the person who builds the throne seat of Yahweh.

Well, when it came time to find a man to build the tabernacle and to build the Ark of the Covenant in Genesis 31, in verse 1, the Lord speaks to Moses, saying, See, I have called by name Belzael, the son of Uri, the son of her of the tribe of Judah.

It is the grandson of her who is given the task of building the Ark of the Covenant and building the Old Testament tabernacle.

Verse 3, I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and all manner of workmanship.

To design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for settings, in carving wood, and in all manner of workmanship.

Guys, how many of us have a workshop in the garage?

All right.

Yeah.

Oh, David, I know you've got one.

Can you imagine the work that you're able to do with modern-day tools?

And then compare that to the work of a man who is filled with the Spirit of God for the purpose of being an artisan in making these things.

We know that this did not occur, but it would be like building the Ark of the Covenant and then putting your name in the corner or something like that.

It's very important work.

It's building the tabernacle and finding a place to put your signature.

That certainly did not happen, but it could have, given our understanding of the way things are built and the way things are signed by their artisan.

Balezel, the son of Uri, the son of her.

Hers grandson did all of this.

Now, most of us in this room, we either have grandkids, some of you got great grandkids, and some of you go a little further than that, but don't tell me about it.

Isn't it great when you can brag on your grandson?

You know, sometimes with our own kids, we go, you know, I'm proud of my son or I'm proud of my daughter, but I also saw them grow up in this house, and I know they're not all that great, you know.

But our grandkids, in a lot of ways, we think, oh, they they hung the moon.

Our grandkids, we're super proud of them.

Can you imagine her from the tribe of Judah would be able to say to people, my grandson built the Ark of the Covenant.

My grandson built the tabernacle where we go to worship the Lord.

Her himself, people would say, Well, her, you're not exactly a lightweight yourself.

Her, I've heard about that day that you were out there with Moses and Aaron, and you were holding Moses' arms up so that our people could defeat the Amalekites, and her would say, Well, all I did was hold up the arms of Moses.

That really wasn't much.

When we step in and pray for one another, when people come to us and say, Pray for me, I need my focus to be on God during this time of trial, during this time of spiritual combat, during this time of physical illness.

And people say, Pray for me, don't take that lightly.

You are being asked, like Aaron, like her, to lift up the power of God in the situation that people are going through.

Amen?

All right.

Let's close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we love you.

We thank you that even in stories like this, which we've doubtlessly read many, many times before, we are so thankful, Lord, that we can go to these stories, these pieces of history, and we can see you at work.

Lord, we thank you that this brother of yours in the tribe of Judah, this man, this man, her, is an example to us.

And Lord, may we, the next time that someone comes to us and say, Pray for me, may we take that responsibility seriously.

May we remember to pray for one another.

May we remember to thank those who are praying for us as we go through times of challenge.

And in all things, Lord, may we give you the honor, the credit, and the glory.

We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, and God's people said, Amen.

And we are dismissed.