 Satan wants to discourage all the ministers of God. No matter what your ministry is, and no matter how long you've been doing it, he has tools in his toolbox for when you're starting off in the ministry, and he has tools in his toolbox for when you've been doing it for 40 years. He's like, oh, this person's now experienced, I can attack them this way. This person's a novice, I can attack them this way. And I know that he attacks all of those people who are wanting to serve the Lord, but I think it's really important for those of us who are wanting to minister to kids to be encouraged, because really this is frontline battlefield. This is the opportunity to plant the seeds of the gospel into someone's heart. And you know there's that proverb that so many parents hold onto, that when their kids go prodigal and wander away from the Lord, train up a child on the way they should go when they're old, they won't depart from it. I think that's also a good verse for Sunday school teachers, right? Because we have such a limited amount of time with the kids and our ministry really is completely by faith. We're planting these seeds and we're trying to pour into their lives and it seems like you're fighting against the whole tide of all the things in the world, all the craziness of their home life. So many kids, maybe a grandmother's bringing them to church and you're the first person that's gonna get to really tell them the gospel or the first person to teach them that God loves them or that God's powerful or the God answers prayer that you could actually teach a person how to pray and that the rest of their life when someone says, oh, you can't pray, they'll always remember. I know, but there was that teacher that I had a long time ago and I've secretly prayed all these years and when I prayed, God answered me and how many will we find in heaven when we all are there that day that they're part of their testimony as someone taught me about God when I was just a child and those things stayed with me. But for the Sunday school teacher, you won't see those till heaven. That's not in your resume. Your resume says I taught children's ministry for 12 years and it was a thankless and fruitless job. Right? I mean, there's always a notice in the bullets and we need more Sunday school teachers. Apparently it's a job, there's a high turnover. Someone saw Pastor David teaching in the big sanctuary and they thought, I think I could do what he does. And then they went to the assistant pastor and they're like, why don't you teach a Sunday school class? And the person quickly realizes, I don't know that I wanna teach. And it really, it's because kids are so honest. They'll tell you exactly what they think. Adults will pretend that they understand what you're saying. They're nice. I pastor a church so I know how adults are but I started my ministry with children and children are very different than adults. When I get done teaching on Sunday morning, there's a whole bunch of people that wanna tell me I did a good job. That never happened when I taught Sunday school. Never one time when I taught Sunday school did the kids line up and go, Rich, that was just a great Bible study. You know, I just, oh, I got so much out of that. That never happened. Ever. Not one time. And I remember one of the first times I ever taught. I think it was the very first day I taught. I had prepared the Bible study. I was actually a student at a university. I got saved in a different denomination from Calvary Chapel. Came to Calvary Chapel about halfway through my university experience but I was going to a Christian university in Orange County on the other side of the hills and so I was studying to be a pastor and so I thought I knew a lot of stuff and I had prepared this really great Bible study for these 10-year-olds. And just a few minutes into it, this kid raises his hand and I thought, oh, great, I'm connecting with him. He's already thinking and his question. I said, yeah, what's your question? You know, it's a question. Why are you so boring? Or no, I think it was literal. It's like, why is this so boring? And that was welcome to your teaching ministry, Pastor Rich. So it's okay if you don't call me Pastor Rich. You can just call me Janitor Rich. That's part of my testimony. I served at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa for five years as a janitor and I had the wonderful privilege of working for the assistant pastor at the time whose name was Romain. Some of you might have heard of him. He's been with the Lord now for several years but it was just such a blessing working for him. And then seeing the ministry unfold in a way, I just think there's some really crucial, applicable stories in the Old Testament that remind us of what we're doing and that what we're doing matters because sometimes we forget that God's ways are not our ways. You guys have that verse memorized probably, right? The ways of the Lord, how high are they above our ways? They're pretty high above ours, right? Like from Mount Baldy down to Ontario. No, no, no, much higher than that. As high as the heavens are above the earth. That's about as far as man could calculate distance. You take where we are to the end of the heaven. Well, that's about as far as humanly speaking, that's about as far as you could calculate. Well, as far as you could calculate, God's ways are higher than our ways. And so it's imperative for us as we're ministering to hang on to that reality that God's ways are not our ways. His ways are past our, so we have to take very seriously what God says. And then we have to pass that along to the people we're trying to help so that they'll know what God says. Because I remember this great verse, I've just been meditating on it this week out of my devotions, that Lord, help us in trouble for the help of man is useless. And what we need is the help of God and we need to give the people the help of God and especially the kids, the things they're going through, the timeless truths that come from the word of God. So let's pray and then we'll dig into some of the words. So Father, we thank you for your love for us. We thank you for the opportunities to minister that we have. We thank you for all the people that are represented by all the people who are here, all the people that our lives get to touch, our family, our spouses if we're married, our parents, our children, if we have them and the classes that we teach, the people that we meet with, that we get to point them to your word and we pray that you'd encourage us. We pray that we'd be a people who has confidence in the word of God and in the power of the Holy Spirit and that we would minister in great faith the truths of the word no matter what it looks like or what things appear to be happening or what appears to not be happening that we would faithfully stick with what you said realizing that you know what you're talking about. When you said your word never comes back void without accomplishing that for which you sent it forth. When you said that your word is alive and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword that we would hold forth the word of life that we would realize your word is like a fire and it's like a hammer and that it's immutable, it's unstoppable, it is a living word of God. Ultimately, Lord Jesus, you're the word of God and we wanna minister you and so Lord help us, encourage us. I pray for each one of us as we spend the day today all of us together going to different workshops and main sessions Lord that you would help us to leave today just fill with the spirit. Fill with the spirit filled with a joy of sharing the word of God and that we would look to you Lord and realize that you can do exceedingly and abundantly beyond all that we could ask or think. So encourage us even right now Lord as we look at your word we pray in Jesus name, amen. As I mentioned at the beginning of Satan's tactics and attack and if you want open your Bible the second Kings to chapter three, second Kings chapter three. Satan's attacks against God's people usually center around the word of God calling it into question, trying to stir up doubt, trying to create controversy, trying to undermine trust and belief and commitment to the word of God. Remember and you guys know this is what's, I love teaching in these kind of settings where the people you're teaching are Bible teachers. So you guys know these stories, you've taught these passages and that first temptation that came in the Bible where Satan appears in the garden in Genesis chapter three and says, has God said? First thing out of his mouth when he speaks to Eve is questioning the word of God. Did God say this? And hasn't he been saying the exact same thing ever since then? I mean, I imagine right now, if you open up your smartphone and went to Yahoo and just saw the news feed, I would imagine you probably could pick out three or four articles just right off their top 15 or 20 and just say, oh, this one's about the word of God. This one's questioning the word of God. This one's saying God doesn't know what he's talking about, right? I mean, it's just he's always doing it. And we're those frontline servants of God that are right there with the people saying, hey, this is what God said. This is actually what God said. And this is why you can trust it and this is how God comes through for you. And as we're doing that, we have to remember that we're facing spiritual warfare that not just in the ministry as we're doing it, but also against us personally. And I wanted to share from second Kings chapter three in this story about the children of Israel the children of Israel going out into battle and into a situation really that they shouldn't have put themselves in. They did put themselves in it. And then this really strange occurrence that happens as they finally ask God what he wants them to do and they get the word and they actually do it. It's kind of an interesting story. And in second Kings chapter three, verse one, it said, now Jehoram, the son of Ahab became king over Israel at Samaria in the 18th year of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah. And he reigned 12 years. And then his biography, verse two, he did evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and mother. Who were his father and mother? He's the son of Ahab. And so Ahab's wife, who was his mom? Jezebel was his mom. So he was evil, but not quite like them. And he put away the sacred pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, verse three, he persisted in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who'd made Israel sin and he did not depart from them. So that's the setting. Jehoshaphat is the king in the South. Jehoram is the king of the North. And Israel's divided at this time. So you guys know the history. Verse four, now Misha, king of Moab was a sheep breeder and he regularly paid the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. But it happened when Ahab died that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. So the setting of the story is Ahab had gained dominance over the king of Moab. The guy had to pay him tribute every year, huge amount of money in the form of wool. They'd shear the sheep and the rams or whatever. And so the dad dies, now the kids, the leader. And so the guy says, I ain't paying this anymore. And it's just typical, right? Nothing new under the sun. And so when that news comes, verse six, king Jehoram went out of Samaria at that time and he mustered all of Israel because how do you respond to a tax revolt? You get an army and you go kill the people, okay? This is just normal. This is what the way the world is. So verse seven, then he went and he sent to Jehoshaphat the king of Judah. Now Jehoshaphat we know he's a good king. He's a king in the South. He actually has a heart for the Lord. He's kind of a hero in some sense. If you look at some of the stories, the events of his life, he was a guy who trusted God. He was a guy who stepped out in faith. He's someone who looked to the Lord. But there's one strange and tragic part of his life. He just loved going up North and hanging out with those guys up North. It's almost like if you lived here, he's like, this guy just loved going to Vegas. Is this the way kind of the way you put it? It's like, Jehoshaphat, why are you always going to Vegas? Like what's that all about? Oh, I just, you know, the buffets. You know, the buffets are so cheap, bro. You know, like I don't know, like, you know, hotel rooms. You know, I can just get a cheap room and my wife and I love the prime rib. Like dude, I don't know that Vegas is where you want to get your prime rib. What's going on with you? But he hung out with Ahab and Jezebel. He's a good king, but he was close to them. In fact, he even took one of their daughters and had her marry one of his sons who becomes king after him. It creates a bunch of drama in his families. So this is a tragic part of his life. He's close with these guys up North and never says that he participates in their sin, but he's just with them. So as this guy's stirred up in the South King Jorah and he sends a message to Jehoshaphat in verse seven, he says, the king of Moab has rebelled against me. Will you go with me to fight against Moab? And so Jehoshaphat says, I'll go up. I'm as you are my people, as your people, my horses as your horses. So we're homeboys, you know, I'll go with you. These are, you know, if they got a beef with you, they got a beef with me, I'll have your back. So then verse eight, then he said, by which way shall we go up? And he answered by the way of the wilderness of Edom. So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom. So they picked up some other guys to have their back. Now, why does the king of Edom wanna be part of this? Well, if you think about Israel geographically, if you think of this Israel, I was, I'm pretty simple in geography. So I went to public school and didn't pay a lot of attention. I didn't get saved until I was 17. So geography is not my strong suit. But if I think of Israel as kind of like a rectangle, just overly simplify it, okay? So the top part of the rectangle is the northern kingdom, the southern part of the rectangle is the southern kingdom, Jerusalem's in that little smaller rectangle. And then south of them is Edom and then kind of south this direction is where Moab is, right? So it'd be like south of Jordan today, southern Jordan, I guess. So these guys are all south, southerners, right? So they're coming down from the north, he picks up this guy, says then he gets this other dude and then they're gonna go over here. Now, they all decide to do this and they march verse nine, they march on that roundabout route for seven days. Now, what have we not read up to this point? Nobody prayed. Well, that makes sense. The king of Edom, is he gonna pray? He might have offered some blood sacrifice to some false God that he has. I don't know, whatever, he's a pagan. How about Joram? Well, we're not expecting that dude to pray. He's totally carnal. I mean, his mom and dad are Ahab and Jezebel. We read already, he did evil in the sight of the Lord. He did do not as bad as his mom and dad but he still isn't a guy who seeks God. So that makes sense. How about Jehoshaphat? What in the world is this guy doing, joining up? Hey God, do you think this is a good idea that we go start this trouble and get all into it with this guy over taxes? Nobody prayed, nobody sought the Lord. And what usually happens when you don't pray and don't seek the Lord? Great things happen. All kinds of great things. I mean, great like in a bad way. Great bad things, really crazy big bad things. So they take this route and they're going across the desert and verse nine goes on and it says, they went for seven days and there was no water for the army nor for the animals that followed them. And now all of a sudden we have a theologian in the group, verse 10, the king of Israel all of a sudden gets his theology. He said, alas for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. So what's his take on it? He says, it's his God's fault. We never asked God what to do. We decided to do this in our own energy. We totally have ruined our lives. Why did God let us do this? It's God's fault. Isn't this typical backslider talk? Remember when you were a backslider, you talk like this. Backsliders talk like this, don't they? I don't know why God, I sought the Lord. He didn't answer me. Like, dude, I don't think you did. He would have told you not to take a gun and rob the liquor store. It's God's fault. But verse 11, here comes Jehoshaphat. God bless him. He knows the Lord. He shouldn't be there, but he says in verse 11, is there no prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of the Lord by him? Now, what I love about this story is not only is Jehoshaphat there. Like, he's kind of like, he shouldn't be there. But there's like a sneaky, there's like a spy because look who else is there. They said, well, there is. One of the servants, the king of Israel answered and said, Elisha, the son of Shaphat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah. And Jehoshaphat said, the word of the Lord is with him. And so the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him. So Elisha hears about this thing and he thinks, I'm gonna go with these guys. And he just puts himself in a place where he's gonna be able to, you know, see what the Lord's gonna do. So they come to their senses because they've run out of water. And Elisha, when they came to him, verse 13, he said, what do I have to do with you? He says this to Jehorah and the king of Israel. What do I have to do with you? You go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother. That's a rebuke, isn't it? He's kind of the Romain of the Old Testament. That's something Romain would say. Why don't you go seek your prophets? And the king of Israel said, you know, for the Lord has called these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab. And then this is where the story changes. Now they're seeking the Lord. Verse 14, Elisha said, as the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand surely were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah. I would not look at you nor see you, but now bring me a musician. And then it happened when the musician played that the hand of the Lord came upon him. And he said, and here's this interesting change in the story. God does speak to him and tell him what to do. Verse 16, he said, thus says the Lord, make this valley full of ditches. For thus says the Lord, you shall not see wind, nor shall you see rain, yet that valley shall be filled with water so that you, your cattle and your animals may drink. And this is a simple matter in the sight of the Lord. He will also deliver the Moabites into your hand and you will attack every fortified city, every choice city. You'll cut down every good tree and stop up every spring of water and ruin every good piece of land with stones. That's a amazing statement. So they come and say, oh, the Lord's brought us out here to kill us. And so there's a correction, there's a rebuke. And then there's this statement of something to do. God says, fill the valley with ditches. All you guys that think you're soldiers, you're all ditch diggers. Everybody's digging a ditch and I want you to fill this whole area with ditches and you're not gonna see the storm. You won't see any wind, you won't see any rain, but I'm telling you tomorrow, this whole valley is gonna be filled with water. All those ditches are gonna be reservoirs and not only is God gonna give you water, but your enemy that you think is gonna come and destroy you. God's gonna give them into your hand. You're gonna wipe them out. Well, that's a pretty radical thing to say. Now, when I first was reading this story, I was thinking of my own childhood. I grew up in Orange County, but my grandparents, when I was a small boy, they had bought some property up near Lake Isabella, up in the high desert. And it's about 20 miles south of Lake Isabella. And in those days, it was really in the middle of nowhere. It was maybe four houses within about 15 miles of their house. And south of their house, there was, you could go all the way to here before you'd hit any houses. I mean, it was really out in the boonies, a high desert. And so we would go up there. My uncles and their kids would ride motorcycles and we never really had motorcycles. So we would just go up there and hang out with my grandfather. Me and my little brother, we'd go on walks with our grandfather. I have a lot of fond memories of the desert. The hot wind in your face, being all sweaty and grimy, being miserable. I just have, just the hotter and more miserable I am, the happier I am. I just connect it with these sweet memories I have of my grandfather. So I, as a little boy, ran all over the desert. I remember getting spanked for bringing home a dead rattlesnake on a stick. I knew better than to pick it up. I had our dog killed this rattlesnake and carried it back and my grandfather spanked us as congratulations. Me and my cousin, Steve. And we would just, as little boys, just wander all over. There's a lot of mining up there and we would find these old empty mineshafts and climb in them back in the day when you could do stuff like that as a kid. And I just love the desert. And so to think of these people walking across the desert, it's not hard for me to get my mind around that and to think of what would, what did the wind feel like? They went seven days before they got water. So they're, you know, you ever, you ever hiked? You ever backpack and you know how much water you have and you know where your next water source is and seven days you haven't hit a water source? What's your water? What's happened? You're watching your water supply sink down and you're looking at your bag of water you're thinking, dude, we got like a couple of days left and you went seven days already. That means you got to go how many days to get back to where you know there's water. Seven days back. They've gone past the point of no return. The reason why they're freaking out is they know their ration is not gonna get them back to where they know there was water. What are we gonna do? You got this army, essentially, if you could think of it in terms of athletics, these guys are gonna enter into hand-to-hand combat totally dehydrated, that ain't gonna work. So you've gone out to try to do something and now you just totally sunk your boat. It's hot, you're dying, you're adversaries right there and you're gonna have to face him and you don't know where the water supply is and then here's what God wants you to do. Spend the day digging ditches because that's what you wanna do in the desert. Can you imagine digging a ditch in the desert? Amit, like, come on, are you kidding? Maybe on a backhoe with the shade over the top of me I'll dig a ditch, but by hand, no, I want you to fill this valley with ditches and you're not gonna see the wind or the rain. Something's gonna happen and you're gonna have to, in obedience to what God said, just do what God said to do and you're not gonna know how this is gonna work but I'm telling you it's gonna work. This story is just so great because we know what happens. Verse 20, it says it happened in the morning when the grain offering was offered that suddenly water came and it says, by the way of Edom and then the land was filled with water. So where did the water come from? Well, the storm was storming somewhere else. They didn't ever see the storm. It was up in the way of Edom. The way the geography is, they're kind of down in a plane and miles and miles and miles away and the high planes of Edom go up to some places up to 5,000 feet in elevation. So there's one of those storms, like you guys live in an area where that can happen or you just drive up the 15 or whatever and you go along, I remember so many times going up to my grandparents house where you'd come to those old washes and there'd be a sign, watch for flash flood. And I remember always asking my dad, why is I have this sign, we're out here in the middle of nowhere, there's desert, what do you mean wash for flash flood until one of the days we were driving, there was no storm and there was no clouds in the sky and there was a river going across old Highway 395 from back in the day, just a river. And I'm like, dad, there it is, watch for flash flood, well, here it was, finally, saw one. And the water was so deep, we had to stop, a whole line of cars, you know, just everyone's waiting. Well, where was the storm happening? Miles and miles away, higher up, it was raining and all that rain was making its way down and now out in the desert, all this river flowing. So you guys need to dig a reservoir and then it's gonna be raining somewhere else and that water's coming. You need to do what God told you to do. So they did it and the water came and filled the place. To me, this is one of the stories that illustrates for us that God's ways are not our ways. I've spent almost my whole entire adult life serving in the church in one capacity or another. I've been a youth pastor, I've been a senior pastor, I've been an assistant pastor, I've done the bookkeeping, I've been a Sunday school teacher, I've been the toilet cleaner at the church. Like I think I've had kind of every job you could have in the church, secretary, because you know, when you're in a small church, you could be everything. I've been the secretary of the church, I've overseen the Sunday school ministry as well as been the Sunday school ministry, you know, in a smaller church context. So my perspective on the church is I could just imagine if this was all, I'll just pick on Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa from my time there. If I just think of all the guys that I was working with when I worked at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, if we were these guys, what would the conversations have been like, right? Let's just pull back the curtain and say, what are we really like? Not when we're all together going, hey brother, good to see you. How are you doing? I'm doing great. How's that children's ministry going, oh, it's going great, man, we're reaching the kids. And then you pull back the curtain. I hate my life. My wife hates me, the kids hate me, I hate everything. Pull back the curtain. You imagine you're there, you've realized we don't have enough water, this is a terrible idea, we're all gonna die. And then the profit shows up, the guy starts jamming on his guitar. And then Elisha says, the spirits told me you guys need to dig a bunch of holes. Really? He told you that? You know God told you that? Well, God, no man, I'm the prophet, God told me, you guys all need to dig ditches. And then as you're digging a ditch, you know what a ditch looks like if you're out in the desert and you're totally dehydrated and you have no water? You might be digging your grave. I'm thinking of the guys I work with and what conversations we might be having, I'm just speculating, but I work with those brothers for five years and I can imagine one particular fellow, I won't say his name, but imagine him saying, oh, great brother, digging our grave. Like no, we're digging holes because God said it's awesome. Yeah, we have no water, we're gonna die. What if the King of Moab sees this ruckus that's happening and they decide to come out and fight us and we're completely vulnerable, we're not armed, we'll be exhausted? How do you feel at the end of the day digging ditches all day long? You're beat, you're worn out, you're not really preparing to fight, you're preparing to get whooped. I can just imagine all the things they might be thinking or I can also imagine how the devil might come because this really is a great illustration of sometimes what we face in ministry. Oh, this was a great idea. Do you ever have these thoughts pop in your head? Oh, really? So you're just gonna read the Bible to the kids and it's gonna magically change their lives. Hadts worked really good so far. How long have you been teaching this class? It's been a year and look at them. You haven't, yeah, I mean, sure a couple of them got saved, but they moved away. The one kid that was doing well, he graduated, you know, he went under the next class. I should be getting paid by the guy who's the class in front of me. Wouldn't it be great if Sunday school was like fantasy football where you could just trade the kids? You're like, okay, I got this one guy, man. He's a memory, he's always, he's into it. That guy reads his Bible. But if you'll, I'll give you him if you take these two other ones. You know, package the deal. So that's not how it works though, right? They come and you have Peter in your class. They're like, oh, hi Simon, son of John. I'm gonna call you Rocky. And then into his mouth goes his foot. And then you have the sons of Thunder come to Sunday school, couple of tax collectors, doubting Thomas is in your class, Judas Iscariot. No, careful, Judas does not go to your class. There is only one son of perdition. Judas isn't in your class. But the devil can come after you, can't he? And say, oh, you really think that you're gonna make a difference in these kids' lives? I mean, they've got these, they got these things that they carry around and they can just go like this and go like that and they can see stuff and they can participate in stuff and they're snap chatting and they're posting. And you really think that, you really think that you're just gonna take this old ancient book and you're gonna explain it to them and it's gonna do something in their life. You think that digging a ditch is gonna mean anything? Well, listen, God's ways are not our ways. God's chosen through the foolishness of preaching. The foolishness of preaching is what Paul says. The preaching of the cross is to those who perish foolishness but to those of us who are saved, it's the power of God. To the Greeks, it's foolishness. To the Jews, it's a stumbling block but we preach Christ crucified. We preach the gospel. Why? Because we know the message that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. And we hold forth that word of life to those children every week. And Satan will come and attack us and say to us if we pull back the curtain, he'll say to us, you know, you probably should just quit. That's probably the best thing you could do for those kids is stop telling them who God is. He'll insinuate, did God really say, you know, in this day and age, we probably need to have this, we probably need to have that, kids these days. You know, they've been talking about kids these days since I've been serving the Lord. I got saved in 1983. I went right into the university. At that time, the universities were really in the early 80s, mid 80s, the whole church growth model of thinking about ministry starting back in the 70s. They began to do all this research, Dr. Arn and these other guys and they started analyzing ministry and looking at it as sort of a sociological thing or kind of following the more of a business, you know, way of approaching ministry and analytics of ministry. Well, people think like this and people think like that. You know, it's been happening since I've been saved. Well, the kids these days, like, well, hey man, we've gone through a few generations of quote unquote, kids these days. What's not changed? The word of God hasn't changed. And guess what else? Kids haven't changed. They're just as kids as they've ever been. The kids in Paul's day were the same, right? Human beings are human beings. No matter what color they are, no matter what are the cultural backgrounds they're coming out of. Culture might be different. Human beings, they're the same. I've been blessed the last several years to be all around the world. We've done a, we've had a really neat opportunity to minister in Africa. One of the things that's really been interesting to me is that women don't like submitting anywhere in the world. I've never been yet in a place where they say, you know, one of our favorite verses is why submit to your husbands. We just, our culture, we're right there. No, no, no, no. Never been in a place yet where husbands want to love their wives like Christ loved the church. I'm just looking for more opportunities to be a self-sacrificial lover. No, they never say that. The cultures are different. Human beings, exactly the same. Never changed. What do the kids need? They need Jesus. They need the word of God. They need to understand who God is. And just like in this story, you could, this story is kind of hyperbole. It's one of those, it's kind of crazy. It's outlandish. Who comes up to these people in the desert and said, here's what you need to do to get yourself out of trouble? Dig holes all day long. You don't have any water. You don't have any hope. You've already given up. That's the only reason you're seeking God in the first place, right? This is one of those like last-ditch efforts. You know, before I sign my will and testament and just completely give up, well, let's pray. I mean, they've given up. God's our last resort and God's solution is not, it doesn't make any sense. You need to remember, as you're ministering the word of God, you're just gonna do what God said. Do it the way that he said it. Be simple. Give people the word of God and watch and see what God'll do. God will never fail. And what I love about the story is while they're doing this, you call it foolish thing, what's happening? It's already raining. For the water to get there in the morning, when did the rain start? It started before. It's already raining. They're digging ditches. Maybe they're digging ditches and complaining. If it was me and my friends, I don't know, why am I, how long are we gonna do this? How many ditches do we dig? How deep does he want them? Right? Hey, the bigger the ditch, the bigger reservoir. So I mean, you look at it and you think, well, the receiving of the blessing is kind of directly connected with the faithfulness of obedience. Interesting. But all the while they're digging, it's already raining. Can I just encourage you with that? All the work that you're doing for the Lord, it's already raining somewhere. It's already raining. God already knows. God's designed people to respond to his word. It's the sword of the spirit. The spirit doesn't have another sword. His sword is the word of God. And what you guys are doing is sharing the word of God with the young people. So you're not gonna see this happen, but the water's gonna come. And so it comes. Now verse 21, because there's another part of the promise that even your enemies are gonna be destroyed. And verse 21, when the land gets filled with waters, the water runs, it fills up all these reservoirs. If they didn't dig reservoirs, the water would have done what? It would just run right through, right? It would have been absorbed. A lot of it would have been absorbed and most of it would have just been run off. They wouldn't have got the blessing. So the blessing was already coming and God had already prepared for it. Now they did it, thank God, and then the land is filled with water. And then verse 21, when all the Moabites heard that the kings had come up to fight against them, all who were able to bear arms and older were gathered and they stood at the border. So they were ready to fight them. And verse 22, they rose up early in the morning and the sun was shining on the water and the Moabites saw the water on the other side as red as blood, it was sunrise. And the sunrise was reflecting in the water and it looked like it was blood. And so they thought, verse 23, they said, this is blood. The kings have surely struck swords and killed one another and now, therefore, Moab to the spoil. So they interpreted what they saw as a conflict between these three kings. Hey, the king of Edom, the king of Israel, the king of Judah, these guys maybe aren't together and they got out there and they just turned on each other so they must have fought and killed each other. So these guys get the command to the spoil. Now, when you hear to the spoil, what does that mean? I mean, we're not going to battle. Whoever can get there first gets the coolest stuff. So what you have kind of as a giant land grabber, just a rush of, hey, people are throwing away their weapons and just running, you're going to get the clothes, the gold, whatever loot these guys have, as they're now obviously they're dead. Look at the whole land is red. They're like a red liquid, you know? Let's go get them. And so the whole enemy army runs out at these guys unarmed. Now, can you in your wildest imagination think of a time when an army would be ready to fight in a battle, throw down their weapons and just run in there? I mean, that would never happen. Remember God's ways are not our ways. God, can I just say that? I mean this reverently, God's really smart. I mean, he's really, really smart. He's so wise and he loves to work in ways so that he gets all the glory. He's not just interested in what happens. He wants it to happen a certain way so that when the thing happens a certain way and everybody sees the thing happen, they say, wow, that was God. Isn't that how he works? Aren't we part of a group of churches? What, our churches are Calvary Chapel churches, right? Now, what are we known for? We're known for the word, but what about the guys who are being used? What are we known for? Losers, okay? Let's be really honest. You ever read the book, Harvest? Guys, it's a sad tale. The guys of God used. I mean, did you read Steve May's testimony? Now, Steve May is with the Lord now. He's perfect. But before he went to be with the Lord, he was imperfect, right? Raul Reese's testimony. Your pastor, David Rosales' testimony. My testimony, your testimony. We're the group of people that will take anyone and then we'll let anyone do anything. Hey, man, the brother's a Christian now, he's saved. Yeah, but he used to, I know what he used to do, but he didn't do that no more. He got saved and, well, he never went to school. He never had that. He never, well, no, he studies the word of God. He's a devoted student of the word. We're the ones that'll say, we see God's hand on that person. God's using them. They love the word of God. They're studying the word of God. They've grown. Yeah, well, God could use them. They're really, in the body of Christ at large, who else does that? I'm not saying that to boast. I'm saying like, we're like, that's us. Continuation, high school Christianity. The other denominations are like accredited normal schools and then there's Calvary Continuation Church. I believe, this is my opinion, but I believe that one of the reasons God really raised us up and part of our ministry to the body of Christ at large is that. We're just a little reminder that, hey, guess what, I could still do something. I don't really need your help. This story teaches us that, doesn't it? When this all happens, can Joram go, yeah, we went down there, we took those guys out. They wouldn't pay my taxes. Maybe he's a little like Trump. You know, like, speaking all hard. You know, if they won't pay my taxes, well, I'll just get an army, we'll take them out. Okay. Well, can you say that? Well, you come back and you tell the news media, well, we heard you were victorious down there. What'd you do? Well, we were about to die. We never sought God. Total bunch of morons, we ran out of water, we didn't know what to do. We were seven days from water, got the musician, spirit came upon Elisha, we got this, we dug a bunch of holes. We're awesome diggers. Our enemies came running at us without their weapons. So yeah, we took them. What a weird story, right? God loves that. God loves that. God doesn't share his glory with any man. God doesn't want glory to be given to a man. God, we give God all the glory, right? When something's happening, they say, what did you guys do? Well, we just walked them through the Bible. Oh, you know what kind of study school thing? What teaching do you do? What curriculum? Well, we got this curriculum, it's the Bible. No, no, our curriculum's the Bible too. You have at ours is, we just kind of read it, explain it, help them understand it, and then we go to the next chapter. No, no, no, we do that too. Like, well, then that's what we do. How'd you do that? How'd you organize those people? Well, we pretty much, I don't know. The Lord did it. We dug holes, we saw the Lord, and then he told us to do this, and then our enemies ran at us without their weapons. And so then we won. Don't you love that? Isn't that wonderful to be part of that? That's what you guys are doing. That's what you're part of. This is our history. This is the history of us. It's not necessarily Calvary Chapel history, but it's anybody who follows God. This is our story. We're part of this. We're continuing saga. What will these people do in their generation? What will these people do in their day? Will they seek God and hear what he says and be faithful to do what he says, just trusting him? My ways are not your ways. As high as the heavens are above the earth, that's how high my ways are above your ways. So God's told us what to do. How do you think of the days of Ezra? They read the scripture to them, they gave the sense and caused the people to understand the meaning. And the enemies run down there, they see that and verse 24, we'll finish the story off. When they came to the camp of Israel, Israel rose up and attacked the Moabites so that they fled before them and they entered into their land, killing the Moabites and they destroyed the cities and on that they won. Did everything God told them to do. So I wanna encourage you to keep doing what you're doing. And when you hear that voice of temptation come into your head, maybe it's your own voice, I don't know how the devil does that. I know that I have enough insecurities on my own to dissuade myself or discourage myself. Well, that was a great teaching or that was great. You should just quit. I mean, I could do that on my own. I don't think I need his help, but I know that he does wanna help me lose hope. But could I just remind you that it's already raining? We win. The word of God's powerful. It never comes back void. My wife and I, we have five kids and they're all now grown. They're not in the home anymore. Our youngest, we just dropped off at college. She's at a very, very liberal, small liberal arts college in Western Massachusetts called Amherst College. Tiny little like 470 kids per class, 470 freshmen, 1,800 students. Small liberal arts in that little Pioneer Valley, their Smith College, it was kind of the birthplace of feminism in the 70s, all this riding coming out. It's a very, very liberal area. We dropped off our 18-year-old kid there. Good luck. Be warm and be filled. We were just talking to her the other day and she was visiting a friend that she made in high school. She went to a unique high school situation online so she made friends with this one guy. We just really love her friend. She went to New York to visit this gal and just completely sharing the word of God with her friend. Her friend, I was asking her questions about gender identity, questions about homosexuality. Wanting to know, she asked her, well, you know in the Old Testament it talks about having clothes that can't be part cotton, part some other thing or wool and some like the mixed garment verse, you know, like, well, you don't follow that. So what about the homosexual verses? I mean, really, those kind of hard questions. Our 18-year-old daughter, I'm thinking, what'd you say? She starts to share with us how she answered these questions. Oh, could you repeat that? I mean, ah. And exactly, how did you say that again? What, what sentence? It was unbelievable. She's the byproduct of 18 years of Sunday school. She was, she's been in a church where in her fellowship where she went to church and she went to church, she's been in the word. The word coming from the pulpit, the word in the Midweek Bible study, the word in her Sunday school class, the word in her home. And she gave some really, really well thought through. It wasn't Christian ease. It wasn't, here's a bandage for your cancer. It wasn't a non-nuanced or well thought out answer. But she wouldn't go there prepared for those things. She just got asked that she said they probably had a couple of hour long conversation with a bunch of these really kind of challenging questions. And she was just sharing with us what she shared with her friend that she loved so much. Sharing the truth with her. And how did she get that way? Somebody was digging ditches. Somebody was doing what God said to do. And you know, it's already raining. So dig, the rain's already there. God's gonna work. Pray for those kids by name every day. They're your sheep, man. Jesus said, I know my sheep. My sheep know me. Pray for them every day by name. If you're discouraged, one of the best ways to get out of discouragement is pray. Pray for that situation. Pray specifically. Pray every day for those kids. And give them the word of God. Keep digging your ditches. And when the devil says, well, what's gonna happen? You say, well, these ditches are gonna be filled with water. And then the enemy's gonna get wiped out. That's what happens. We just do what God says. And God does what he said.