If you would please take your Bibles or turn in one of the church Bibles to the book of Exodus, chapter 17; page 59 in the church Bibles. Exodus 17. Then once you have your copies of the Holy Scriptures open before you, would you bow your heads with me as we pray together. Let’s pray.
O Lord, we pray that Your perfect Law would revive our souls, that Your sure testimony would make us in our simplicity wise, that Your right precepts would bring joy again to our hearts, that Your pure commandments would give light to our eyes, take away our blindness, and show us the way. We ask, O Lord, that You would give to us a taste of the sweetness of Your Word, sweeter than honey from the comb, that we would come to value it and find it precious and enriching beyond much fine gold. Warn Your servants by Your Word and help us to understand that in keeping Your commandments there is great reward. Come to us, and by Your Spirit speak, for we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.
Exodus chapter 17. This is the Word of Almighty God:
“All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ And Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.’ And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’
Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, ‘Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.’ So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek
prevailed. But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.’ And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord Is My Banner, saying, ‘A hand upon the throne of the LORD! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.’”
Amen. Thanks be to God that He has spoken in His holy Word.
Last time as we were studying this passage we said that the church has always faced threats to its spiritual welfare from two sources. There are internal threats and external threats. Last time, we looked at chapter 17:1-7 and we saw some of the internal threats. You will remember that the people of Israel camped at Rephidim had begun to grumble and complain. They had been obeying carefully the commandment of God who has regulated their steps as they’ve made their way through the wilderness but their relationship to Him seems to have been construed entirely on the basis of careful obedience to commands so that when trials come and difficulties begin to take place in their lives their relationship to Him begins to fall apart. They turn to grumbling and complaining and putting God to the test. Yet nevertheless, as we saw, God was merciful and provided water from the rock to supply their thirst.
An External Threat
And having dealt with the internal threat, almost immediately, an external threat descends upon them. The Amalekites, while the Israelites are taking their rest as the oasis at Rephidim which Moses renames Massah and Meribah because of the quarreling and the testing of God that took place there. The Amalekites, the semi-nomadic people of the Sinai Peninsula, decide to put a stop to the Hebrew advance into lands now encroaching upon their own territory. And as we examine what takes place, what happens in the conflict with Amalek, I want you to see four things with me. First of all there is a danger to avoid, a pattern to imitate, a principle to trust, and the deliverer that we’re looking for. A danger to avoid, a pattern to imitate, a principle to trust in, and the deliverer we’re really looking for.
I. A Danger to Avoid
First of all, the danger to avoid. Look at verse 8 and then look down at verse 16. Verse 8, “Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.” Verse 16, “A hand upon the throne of the LORD! The LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” You see it there bookending the passage – “war with Amalek.” It begins with the Amalekites attacking Israel and ends with the Lord Himself waging war on the Amalekites. It starts out with Amalek holding the strategic advantage, assaulting their enemies from a position of power while they take their rest at the oasis. And it ends with the assurance that the Lord Himself will utterly blot out from under heaven the name and the people of Amalek.
There is a warning here, isn’t there, that we need to notice right at the beginning. There is a danger to avoid and it is simply that it is never safe to stand against the people of God. It is never safe to stand against the people of God, to attack the church or threaten its freedoms. The church, remember, is the bride of Christ and He will defend her. Isn’t it easy in these days of widespread indifference to the claims of the Christian Gospel to adopt a stance of urbane superiority and cultured disdain toward the church of Jesus Christ? It’s easy to mock her worship, to deride her principles, to disdain her ethics. Easy to exclude her voice from the public square. Easy to marginalize and exclude and vilify and denounce the people of God as backward and regressive and narrow-minded – the enemies of free thought and forward progress. And the world will applaud and think you terribly wise for adopting such a perspective.
The other day I was watching TV. An ad came on from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, at the end of which looking straight into the camera their spokesman said with a smirk, “I am Ron Reagan, lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.” It’s a chilling moment. “Not afraid of burning in hell.” The truth is, to stand against the church of God and the cause of God and the Gospel of God is to find yourself opposed by Almighty God. The Lord will fight against you. There is a danger to avoid. Hell is real. Don’t follow the Amalekites’ path. You have nothing to fear from the church but you are a fool to think you have nothing to fear from the church’s Lord. There is a danger to avoid.
II. A Pattern To Imitate
Then secondly, notice there is a pattern to imitate. As the Amalekites attack, do notice the plan. Moses appoints Joshua – first time Joshua is mentioned. He will go on to become Moses’ lieutenant, right-hand man, and eventual successor. He is their military commander here charged with organizing the defenses, gathering a fighting force, and dealing with the Amalekite threat. Verse 9, “Choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek.” Now remember the Israelites have seen extraordinary divine judgments fall upon the Egyptians. They’ve seen God obliterate their enemies, deluging them beneath the Red Sea, destroying them. They were told simply to “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” They have only to be silent, God said, and He won the victory. Their lives have been hemmed in. We’ve seen this again and again as we’ve tracked their progress from bondage in slavery all the way to this point in their wilderness journey. Their lives have been hemmed in, surrounded by the supernatural, led by the pillar of cloud and by fire, fed from heaven by manna every morning, their thirst quenched by water from the rock. God has saturated their lives with His power and presence in extraordinary and miraculous ways. How tempting then to think that God Himself now will simply take care of the Amalekites, to conclude that actually to strap on your armor and march to war – wouldn’t that be an act of unbelief? “Surely God will take care of the Amalekites. We should simply stand back and let Him do it. To live by faith is to live in total surrender, to wait passive and at rest for God alone to act. Everything else robs Him of His glory, right?”
It’s a heresy like a dandelion in my front yard. No matter how many times you chop its head off, unless its root is dug out and discarded it just keeps coming back and back and back, again and again and again in the life of the church – this idea that we should simply “let go and let God” and He’ll take care of it; there’s nothing for us to do. The Israelites have been gloriously, wonderfully provided for. They do live surrounded and hemmed in by supernatural grace. But there’s no thought here of passivity, is there? There’s no, “let go and let God.” A confidence in the mighty power of divine omnipotence is not the opposite of busyness in the use of the means God has given us for our own welfare day by day. Trust in the grace of God, dependence on the Spirit of God, leads to, results in, produces men and women who go to war, who do what they’re called to do, who will be practical and wise and use all the means at their disposal to advance the cause of God and the church of Jesus Christ. Trust God and go to war. Trust God and use the means He has provided for the welfare of your soul. Even when the battle rages and the enemy comes in like a flood, trust God; get practical. You’ve heard the old gag about being “so heavenly minded that he’s of no earthly use,” haven’t you? I hope you never, never say that. the truth is that heavenly-mindedness is always useful and practical and real. A passive Christian is a stunted Christian, an at-risk Christian. Trust God and use means. There’s a danger to avoid; there’s a pattern to imitate too. The Israelites, for all their awareness now of the sovereign provision of God, still go to war.
III. A Principle to Trust
Then thirdly notice there’s a principle to trust in. Look at the central section of our passage, verses 9 to 13. As I was studying these verses I was reminded of being a teenager listening to music with teenage friends. Some dreadful atonal nightmare would inevitably come on the radio and everyone would say it was so cool. “Great music!” And so equally inevitably as a teenager you know you don’t want to stand out from the herd and so you nod and pretend that you’re really into this dreadful cacophony but the truth is you just don’t see it. As Joshua here marches to war, Moses takes Aaron and Hur up to the top of the hill overlooking the battlefield. He takes the rod of God in his hand and holds it up. When his hand fell the battle goes ill and the Amalekites seem to have the upper hand. When Moses’ hand is strong and steady the Israelites prevail. And so as Moses gets weary, Aaron and Hur put a rock under him to sit upon and they hold up his hands until the morning and until the Israelites have triumphed. And everyone says this is a passage about prayer; that’s what Moses is doing on top of the hill. He’s praying; he’s interceding for the Israelites and Aaron and Hur, I guess, are his prayer partners. This is a prayer triplet. It’s a small group.
Only I have to admit to you, at risk of being the only teenager who doesn’t like the music, I just don’t see it. There is no mention at all of prayer in our passage and actually the focus here is neither on Moses nor Aaron and Hur but on the staff of God, the rod of God. It’s in Moses’ hand. When the staff falls, the Israelites fail. When they hold up the staff, the Israelites prevail. That’s the key. This isn’t a lesson in small group ministry or a reminder of the value of intercessory prayer. This is a reminder about the true source of victory in the struggles of the people of God. While we must use means, while we must, as it were, strap on our armor and be ready to march into battle, while we must do our duty and be diligent in the daily tasks that God brings our way, we must never forget the battle belongs to the Lord. We get the impression from the text, don’t we, that Moses’ hand rose and fell more than a few times before Aaron and Hur took action so the fortunes of the Israelites rise and fall with the staff in Moses’ hand.
You remember that the staff, this rod, is the emblem of the power of God and the presence of God to bring judgment on Israel’s enemies and deliverance for Israel themselves. By it the Nile was turned to blood; by it the sea parted and the Israelites passed through on dry land. By it the water flowed from the rock and now by it the Amalekites are defeated. The rod of God in Moses’ hand is the symbol and the emblem that God Himself is the Warrior and He shall win the victory. We use means but it’s God who works by them and gives them their efficacy. Not one Amalekite died that day on the battlefield except an Israelite slew him. Yet not one Amalekite would die unless God Himself gave Israel the victory. That’s the lesson of the rod of God here. When it is not in view, the battle goes badly. When every eye could see it and know that God is with them, triumph was guaranteed.
That’s what Moses means, by the way, in verse 15 when he names the altar that he builds after the war as the battle is concluded, “The LORD is my banner.” The staff he held up on the hillside is like a banner, a standard for the troops down on the plain. But the staff of God was merely the signpost, the reminder of the one upon whom they could utterly rely as they marched to war, one around whom they could rally. “The Lord is our banner,” they could say as the battle is joined. A glance to the hillside would remind them, “God Himself is with us. He is our champion and where His presence and power is known, no enemy can stand.” There’s a principle here to trust in. Use diligently the means. Let us work hard at holiness. Let us obey in the details of our daily duty. But let’s never rest our confidence in the means that we use or in our diligence or in our own efforts but always in the power and presence of God who is with us. You remember the hymn, “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before. Christ the royal Master leads against the foe, forward into battle see His banners go.” Take courage from the knowledge that the presence of Christ goes with you. Rest your confidence and hope there and fulfill your duty and obligation to God without fear and with great confidence.
IV. The Savior That We Need
There is a danger to avoid, a pattern to imitate, and a principle to trust in, and finally and very briefly let’s think about the Savior that we need. Moses lifts up the rod of God, the sign of God’s presence and power, but he can’t do it for long. Have you ever tried to hold your hands up like that for more than five or six minutes? Your shoulders will ache after a while. Moses is aging; his strength is flagging. You can imagine his hands beginning to shake as he tries to hold this thing up. And eventually they begin to fall and Israelites start to die on the field and the Amalekites look like they’re going to win. He needs some help so Aaron and Hur come and act like props to hold up his hands. Moses is the deliverer of Israel but he’s a weak, aging, infirm man. And we are reminded that we badly need a better Savior than Moses. In Isaiah 11 at verse 10 it is the “Root of Jesse,” one of the titles for the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Root of Jesse who stands as a standard, a banner for the people. He’s talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. He will, Isaiah goes on to say, He will extend His hand and gather His people from all the nations and none of the enemies of His people will stand. They will all be overthrown. He’s the Savior that we need, to whom poor feeble Moses and the staff in his hand points us. By Him, by means of His cross, sin and death and Satan have been defeated. By Him the people of God are perfectly delivered and His hand, you know, never falls. His work on our behalf never fails. There is no weakness in Him. What a perfect Savior you have, a perfect Deliverer upon whom all your hope can rest – You have in Him. His promises never fail. His strategy is secure. His defense of your soul always, always perfect.
And so as you labor and fight down here on the battlefield with sin, with the temptations of the world, look to the hill where Christ is lifted up as your standard. The Lord is your banner. The Israelites found encouragement to press on from Moses’ feeble efforts and the Lord gave them the victory. What encouragement they knew should be as nothing compared to the comfort and strength and encouragement we know in the mighty presence and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, the greater than Moses, an all-sufficient Savior for all who will look to Him. You know all people everywhere will either have the Lord fight against them and blot them out as the enemies of His cause, or he will have the Lord to be their deliverer, the Lord to be their Banner and standard, their champion and their Savior. Which will it be for you? Everyone in this room will either have Jesus Christ as Judge to condemn and destroy or Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord to rescue and redeem. Which will it be for you? We have a perfect Savior in Christ. Won’t you come and cling and trust in Him? Let us pray together.
Father, we thank You for Jesus. We thank You that He is the greater than Moses whose hand never falls, whose presence and power is our banner, who gives us the victory. Help us diligently to use all the means You have appointed to be hardworking, practical Christians, busy about the tasks to which we have been called. Save us from passivity. And we pray for any here who stand as did the Amalekites in our text, opposed to King Jesus, to His kingdom and His people. O Lord, deliver them before judgment falls. Save them from the foolish posturing of a world that rejects the Gospel not knowing that the Lord will fight against them. Be a gracious Redeemer in our midst this morning for Your own great glory, in Jesus’ name. Amen.