Good morning. This is Tim Tribble, broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 107, verses 1 to 16. Exodus Chapter 15 versus 22 to 27 and Hebrews Chapter three, verses 1 to 6. Today's psalm is from Book five of the Psalms. They're broken down into books. And then this one is entitled Let the Redeemed to the Lord Say So. And this is a psalm that is talking about how God redeems us. Even though we don't always do what we're supposed to do, and he's redeemed us from trouble, even though we were hungry and thirsty and our souls fainted when we cried, the Lord, he delivered them from their distress, which is a continuation in Exodus chapter 15. So this is part of the story they may set out from the Red Sea and they went into the wilderness of. Sure. Well, the desert of shore is long was known as the Arabian Peninsula. This would be Saudi Arabia today, Saudi Arabia only just south of Jordan. And they've crossed the Red Sea there out of Egypt. And they're also out of water. So they've been in the desert for three days and anybody's been out in the desert for three days. You get you know, we die. How well we tell you as medics. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. You know the color of your teeth. All right. We all so we've seen that for those of us who for those who served over in either Desert Shield, Desert Storm, or in the later wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, out in the desert, you get you get dry real fast. You're sitting there going, oh, they what do we drink that Moses? What are we gonna drink? And so the grumbling is Moses. So he turned toward the Lord shoulder log, threw it in, the water, became sweet. And then this is where the Lord made a statute and the rule. And there he tested them, saying, If you believe in the wisdom of the Lord, the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His eyes and give elders commandments and keep all statues, he will give us none of the diseases of the Egyptians. Brian, who warned your healer? This is one of the first times that we hear about God in the healing realm. And of course, later Jesus becomes known as the great physician.
And so then they go to Elam and Allen was described as having 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees, and they encamped there by the water. So this is also in they believed to be in modern day Saudi Arabia. It is believed that the Jabal Mukalla makes a mountain in Saudi Arabia, is Mount Sinai. That is referred to in the Old Testament. And that would mean that Elam then is located in the northwest coast of Saudi Arabia, bordering the Gulf of Aqaba by the.
So one of the things that I always like doing is finding where these places are. I can get a little bit more of the reality to the story that these are real places. And so leaning more towards kind of for my intellectual side, convincing, you know, that this this was a real thing. And our reading from Hebrews today. So this is Paul's letter to the Hebrews. So the Hebrews were the non-Jews, and this is entitled Jesus is Greater Than Moses. So one of the one of the issues and this has been a thing going on, we as Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God sent down to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Therefore, creating the New Covenant. So they had the old Abrahamic Covenant. Now we have the New Covenant through Christ Jesus and His Death, Resurrection and the Ascension.
There are others who believe that Jesus was just another one of the prophets. Another one is the great Jewish leaders, but not necessarily the Son of God. And so this is Paul's explanations in the Hebrew nation. Do the Hebrews saying that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, our confession being the New Covenant and just as he was faithful to him, who appointed him the speaking of God, just as Moses was also faithful, all God's health. So Jesus is counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the building, the houses, the honor of the house himself. This is saying, is using his imagery of building a house. This is the house of God. And Moses was a faithful servant to all things that were spoken. But Christ as faithful over God's out as a son. So using imagery that they would be familiar with. So of course you have the house. So this is speaking, this is it. They're not necessarily referring to an actual physical structure. They're speaking to the heart of the family. So the house of. So my last name is triple the house of triple. Of course, this is me and my family. So you have servants and you have family members. So in here, Paul's using this imagery to say, okay, Moses. Yes, Moses was a great Moses was a great servant. He was definitely very, very committed and faithful in all God's house. But Jesus is the son and the son, the blood heir is more than the servant. So my son is more than someone who would be my servant. So this is again, Paul is considered one of the first theologians and trying to explain that's what theology is an explanation of. Okay, so what does all this mean? What do we got here? How do we do these things? And so he's stating here very clearly that, yes, Moses was great, you know, in very, very highly regarded in the Jewish tradition and others who who know of the story of the Jews, he is considered right. But he is not the son of God. Jesus is the son of God. And that makes him higher than Moses, because the son is higher than the servant.
This more of the details and things in the early church because there was there was this thing in the very early you know, I'm using the term early church. I'm talking about in the first hundred years right here. So there was a lot of things that went on. There were a lot of different interpretations, just like we have today, of what does this mean? Who is this? There were followers. So the deeper who the disciple or apostle was that went out and taught and founded a congregation, usually at someone's house, they would come in okay. So they were followers of the way. Thomas taught or the way Mark taught or Matthew or Paul or, you know, pick insert, you know, disciple slash apostle here and some of them kind of go low on the left side, the right side and kind of things kind of wandered around.
So then in the three hundreds, then we wind up having the Nicaea Council of Nicaea and Constantine's go, okay, guys, we're going to do this one thing here. And that's the way it's going to be. But before that, there was a lot of explaining and a lot of people were interpreting what was the way that was what it was called originally were not called Christians were called the way what that way was. So again, when we still have this today, we have all the different denominations, we have the great schism, we have the Eastern Church, the Western church, you have the Catholic, the Orthodox, you have the Independence Fund, the fundamentalists, and then all the different, you know, the Baptists and all these different different denominations that have come along over time saying, well, we believe this this way of it. So then it's all faith in God. That's what matters. Amen.