Fighting Battles God's Way - Life of Moses Part 33

Well, it was the hot summer of 1787, it was Philadelphia, and the Constitutional Convention had been going on for months. It seemed hopelessly deadlocked. In fact, some of the most prominent delegates had actually gone home in disgust.

Several state delegations were considering doing the same. And it was at this moment that Benjamin Franklin rose and spoke the following words, and I quote, he said, in the beginning of our contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this very room for divine protection. Our prayers were heard, Franklin said, and they were graciously answered. And have we now forgotten this powerful friend?

Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I therefore move, said Franklin, that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessing on our deliberations be held by this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, end of quote. You know, historians agree that Franklin's great speech was the turning point of the Constitutional Convention, which eventually produced the United States Constitution and established the framework of the great nation in which we live today. But the point that I want us to see is this, that when it comes to any crisis, when it comes to any battle, when it comes to any conflict in life, there are two ways for us to try to handle them. The first way is our way. This is a way that's based on our own human wisdom, our own human strength, our own human resources.

And this is how the delegates at the Constitutional Convention had been trying to do it for months and it wasn't working. The other way to try to handle problems and battles is to do it God's way. And God's way is based instead of hacking it out on our own. It's based on looking to God in prayer and relying on his wisdom, his resources, and his strength instead of our own. This is the strategy that Benjamin Franklin suggested.

And as we know, this is the strategy that worked. Now today, we're going to return to our study of the life of Moses, Exodus 17, to be exact. And we're going to see here in Exodus 17, God teaching the Israelites how to handle their problems and their battles according to the second way, that is God's way.

And then after we see that, we're going to boil the principles out of that and bring it all forward and talk about how that's applicable to your life and my life today as followers of Christ. So if you brought a Bible, I'd like you to open it to Exodus chapter 17. And if you did not bring a Bible, reach under the armrest there right next to you, you'll find a copy of the Bible, we're going to be on page 52, page 52 in our copy, Exodus 17 in your copy.

And while you're turning, let me give you a little bit of background. Remember that the Israelites after they crossed the Red Sea, they headed south, we'll show you a map down towards Mount Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula, and they reached a place called Rephidim in Hebrew, not far from Mount Sinai in the interior of the Sinai Peninsula. There they ran out of water. And Moses took the rod of God, the stick that God had been using ever since he went back to face Pharaoh, and he struck the rock there that was there. And God provided supernatural water for the people to drink to the tune of 11 million gallons a day.

Now that's where we've been. So let's pick up Exodus 17. Look with me in verse eight. It says then the Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Now up to this point, my friends, the Bible has said nothing about any other inhabitants of the Sinai.

But there were some folks living out there. And one of those groups were the Amalekites. Now what do we know about the Amalekites from history and from archaeology? Well, we know number one, that they were descendants of Esau.

Genesis 36 tells us that. We know number two from archaeology, that they were not a well-defined nation state, but rather they consisted of a bunch of nomadic tribes spread throughout the Sinai Peninsula and across what we think of today as southern Israel. And finally, number three, we know that they were fearsome fighters. They were a force to be reckoned with. So the Bible tells us that these Amalekites attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. But what you need to know is this is not the first time that the Amalekites had been harassing the Israelites.

Deuteronomy 25 verse 17, Moses said, remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. How as you moved along, they attacked all the stragglers who were faint and weary and how they had no fear of God. Up to this point, the Amalekites had been carrying out guerrilla warfare against the Israelites. They had been engaging in hit and run tactics. But instead of attacking the strong people at the front of the march, they had been picking on the weak people at the end of the march. The ladies, the sick people, pregnant women, disabled people, children, old people, and they had been picking on them the people who couldn't keep up with the main body.

They had been attacking them at the rear of the column. This was a despicable thing to do, which explains God's great anger against these people and the eternal curse that we're going to see him put on them in just a couple of minutes here. Well, anyway, the Israelites are now camped at Rephidim and for whatever reason, the Amalekites decide to now launch a full frontal attack. And so verse nine, Moses said to Joshua, choose men out, choose men and go out and fight the Amalekites.

And as you do, I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hands. So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses ordered him and Moses, Aaron and her went up to the top of the hill overlooking the battle. Now we all know who Aaron is. Of course, Aaron is Moses's brother, but this man named her, this is the first time he's mentioned in the Bible. Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that he was Moses's brother in law, that he was married to Mariam, Moses's sister. Is that possible? Well, sure.

And since we don't have any other information, we'll just kind of assume that. So this was his brother and his brother in law up on the hill with him. Verse eleven, and as long as Moses held up his hands with the rod of God in his hands, the Israelites prevailed. But whenever Moses lowered his hands, the Amalekites prevailed.

Verse twelve, but Moses's hands grew tired. You know, when I was in high school, I pledged a fraternity and one of the hazing activities that they used to practice is they would make a stand at attention with our arms stretched straight out and they would put a shoe in each hand and then they would ask us to stand there and hold these shoes for as long as we could while the brothers in the fraternity screamed at us at the top of their lungs that we should hold them longer, hold them longer. Don't we dare let our hands drop. Don't you dare put your hands down.

And, you know, it was a, it didn't last long. I mean, if you, you know, if you think that you can stand like that a very long time, I have a little exercise to recommend to you. When you go home today, go in your closet, get out a pair of shoes, stand at attention in front of the mirror, hold your arms straight out with a shoe in each hand and see how long you can last. And if somebody comes in the room and thinks you've lost your mind, just told them, well, Lon told me to do it and it'll be fine. Don't worry about it. And I guarantee you, you won't make it very long. You might think, take a guess of how long you think you'll make it and then see if you make it that long.

I bet you you won't. Well, friends, Moses was not pledging a fraternity out there on that Hill, but what he was trying to do is hold up the rod of God in prayer and petition to God. And just like me, when I was a teenager, he couldn't hold them up all by himself for a long. And so verse 12 continues. Then Aaron and her took a stone and they put it under Moses and Moses sat down on it and Aaron and her held his hands up one on one side of him and one on the other side of him so that Moses's hands remain steady until sunset.

How long did this go on up on this hill? Well, the Bible said it went on till sunset, 12 hours, 14 hours out in the scorching heat of the desert. This was constant, relentless, tenacious, prevailing prayer that Moses engaged in up on that hill. And the result, well, verse 13 says, so Joshua defeated the Amalekites with the edge of the sword.

And then look what Moses did. Verse 15. Then Moses built an altar there and named it. The Lord is my banner, literally in Hebrew, Jehovah Nissi. The word nice in Hebrew literally means a military banner that an army marches under and fights under.

Today we would call it the colors, so to speak. And by building this altar and naming it Jehovah Nissi, the Lord is my banner. Do we understand what Moses was really doing? Moses was deliberately and exclusively giving all of the glory, all of the honor, all of the credit for the victory the Israelites had had. He was giving it all to God. He was giving none of the glory to Joshua, none of the glory to Joshua's army, none of the glory to Aaron and her, none of the glory to himself.

He was seeing to it that God got every piece of the glory for that victory. Now, before we move on, one other interesting fact, verse 14. Then the Lord said to Moses, write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under the sun. This is a judgment that God pronounces on the people of the Amalekites, a judgment pronounced on them because of what they had done to Israel, particularly for attacking the weak and the old and the sick and the disabled at the rear of the column. God said, I'm wiping these people off the face of this earth as a judgment.

Now, you know, it's interesting if you're here and you've never trusted Christ as your real and personal savior. One of the things that may you may have heard as a criticism of the Bible and maybe it's hanging you up, I don't know, is that the God of the Old Testament is cruel. The God of the Old Testament was brutal. The God of the Old Testament was capricious and mean. And one of the passages, the classic passage that's pointed out in this regard is 1 Samuel 15, where God tells King Saul to go wipe out the village of Amalekites. Here's what God said. 1 Samuel 15, 3. He said, Saul, go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything they have put to death, their men and their women and their children and their infants and all of their livestock. And people will say, how in the world could I possibly believe in a God who's this cruel?

How could I possibly believe in a God who is this barbaric and this brutal and this mean and capricious? But listen, you have to read the verse that went before this verse two of that chapter. God says this is what the Lord says. I will now punish the Amalekites for what they did to the Israelites when they waylay the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. My point here, folks, is that God's command to tell King Saul to go annihilate the Amalekites. This was not an act of capricious cruelty on the part of God.

Instead, this was the fulfillment of a judgment that God had pronounced against these people 400 years before for their despicable actions here in Exodus Chapter 17, picking on the weak, the helpless and the disabled. And you say, well, why in the world did God wait 400 years before he carried out his judgment? Well, I don't know.

All right. Ask God when you get to heaven, if you really care about it. I don't have the answer to that. But, folks, I want you to understand, if God's orders to Saul here in First Samuel 15 were based on arbitrary meanness and cruelty and barbaric, a barbaric treatment of these people, then you know what? I couldn't follow this God either. But, friends, if his command to King Saul here was simply the carrying out of a righteous judgment against these people for what their own actions had brought on them, then you know what? I'm good with that.

I'm good with that. And you need to be good with that, too. God is not a barbaric God. God is not a cruel God. And God is not a God that practices capricious meanness. But God is a righteous God. And God is a holy God. And when he pronounces judgment and carries it out, that is his sovereign right. And that's what he did in First Samuel 15. He did not engage in capricious cruelty.

He carried out judgment for people who deserved it. Something to think about. Well, that's the end of our passage for today. So it's time now for us to ask our most important question. And you know what that question is. So are you ready?

You sure? All right. Here we go. Nice and loud.

One, two, three. Oh, yes. You say, Lon. All right. I hear everything you said.

Makes sense. God bless you up there. What difference does any of this make to me when I walk out of my house tomorrow morning to go to work to go to school?

Well, let's talk about it. You see, friends, I believe just like the Israelites here in Exodus Chapter 17, I believe as followers of Christ, we often find ourselves in battles. This is why, as a matter of fact, the apostle Paul referred to the Christian life as a fight. He said, Second Timothy Chapter four, he said, I have fought the good fight.

He says in First Timothy Chapter six to Timothy, he says, Timothy, fight the good fight of faith. And in First Corinthians Chapter nine, the apostle Paul compared the Christian life to a boxing match. And I don't know about you, but I tend to come into church every single weekend feeling like I'm coming from the front lines of an all out war in the week behind me. And maybe you're a lot like I am. Maybe you walk in here every weekend and you feel like you're coming out of battle. Maybe you've been fighting all week with your sinful human nature. Or maybe we've been fighting all week with some besetting sin, trying to keep it where it belongs so that we can stand for Christ and live for Christ. Or maybe we've been fighting all week against an unbelieving husband or an unbelieving wife and their influence or unbelieving parents, unbelieving co workers or friends at school. Maybe we've been fighting all week against an enemy at work or neighbor or someone at school or in our family who is just flat out to get us.

I don't know. But listen, the Christian life is a fight. What Paul said, it's a battle. And God has a strategy for how he wants us to fight the battles in the Christian life. It's the very same strategy that Moses used here in Exodus 17. It's the very same strategy that Benjamin Franklin suggested to the Constitutional Convention.

And the best part about it, my friends, is that it is a strategy that will work. There's three parts to it. Moses demonstrated them all in Exodus 17.

Let me show them to you. And my challenge to you is take these three principles and fight your battles this way. Number one, principle number one for fighting our battles, God's way is total dependence on God and not ourselves. Now, you remember when Moses went up on that hill, what he took with him? He took with him the rod of God. You remember that? The staff, the stick. Now, this was the rod that had turned the Nile River red with blood.

You remember that? This was the rod that had turned into a snake on the ground and eaten up the snakes of Pharaoh. This is the rod that had opened the Red Sea. This is the rod that had closed it back again on top of Pharaoh's chariots. This is the rod that Moses had just used to hit that rock and bring water out for all of the people. Folks, this rod was a symbol. It was a symbol of God's prior victories and of the power of God that he had displayed in giving victory to the Israelites. And by raising this rod up on the hill, Moses was trying to send a message to those soldiers down in the valley, those Israelites. He was trying to send them a message that don't trust yourself down there in the valley. Trust the same God who's given you all these victories that you've seen this rod produce.

Friends, let's make sure we understand. There was no magic in this rod. Let's make sure we understand there was no magic in raising this rod up. When it was raised up, remember they were winning. When it went down, they were losing. There was no magic in raising up this rod.

The power didn't come from the rod being up in the air. The power came from the Israelites down in the valley, taking up the challenge to trust God totally and utterly for their victory instead of trusting themselves. Psalm 20, I love what David said. He said, Some trust in horses and some trust in chariots, but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God. The former group has bowed down and fallen, the one who's trusted in horses and chariots, but we who trusted God have risen up and stand firm. You say, well, Lon, isn't there some kind of balance here? I mean, are you saying that whatever battle we're in, we don't do anything. We just stand around and trust God.

No, no, no. Listen here. There's a balance. Sometimes in our battles as Christians, sometimes God will ask us to stand still and know that he is God. Sometimes God will ask us to add, to do absolutely nothing and let God do it all for us. For example, like he did at the red sea for the Israelites, like he did for Daniel in the lion's den, like he did for Daniel's three friends in the fire referness, like he did for the apostle Paul in the jail at Philippi. And you know, in those times it's easy to trust God a hundred percent because, and our, and ourselves zero percent because we're not doing anything anyway. But there are other times where God will ask us to do, to take some human action in our own defense, to use horses and chariots as David refers to, just like here in Exodus 17, God asked Joshua to go on out and fight just like Gideon. He asked Gideon to do the same thing.

He asked Esther to go in and see the king and plead for her people. But the secret is, listen, even in those situations where God does ask us to do something human to assist him in winning the battle, the secret is that you and I look past those human things we're doing and we still rely on God a hundred percent. We don't trust the human things we're doing at all, even though we're doing them, but we're trusting God a hundred percent to use those things and the victory is still based in God, not in us.

You understand what I'm saying? I remember when David went out to face Goliath. You remember that story. King Saul called him in, put all his armor on him.

You remember that? Put his helmet on David, his breastplate on David, his leg guards on David, his chain mail on David, his big old sword on David. You know what David did, don't you? He took it all off. I guess he figured, hey, if this hadn't helped Saul go out there and beat Goliath, what do I want it for?

Makes sense to me. David understood he didn't need all this human armor. He didn't need all this human weaponry. He just needed to walk out there with a simple childlike trust in the living God.

And that's what he did. And God gave him the victory. I love what Proverbs 21 says, the horse is prepared for the day of battle and sometimes you have to use the horse, but the victory comes from the Lord. And folks, just like David, we are often constantly challenged as people, as followers of Christ, to put on Saul's armor. We are constantly being tempted to trust human weaponry in our battles instead of trusting the living God alone.

You say, what do you mean by that? What I mean is we often end up trying to trust our education or our physical strength or what our money can buy us or our human charisma to win our battles. We often are tempted to trust our human power, you know, on a full weight around, to win our battles.

We're often tempted to trust our human contacts. It's not what you know, it's who you know to win our battles or our statesmanship ability or our salesmanship ability or our own human logic. But folks, listen, God may use these things in giving you the victory sometimes, but the key point is for us to remember to look past these things and remember that it is not these things that are giving us the victory, even if we're using them, it is God himself who is still responsible for the victory. The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but the victory still comes from the Lord.

Principle number two is prevailing prayer. You know, Moses went up on that hill and he raised up the rod of God as a symbol of trusting God a hundred percent, but he also raised up the rod of God as another symbol, as a symbol of prevailing prayer, fervent prayer. And as we saw in Exodus 17, when the rod was up and the prayer was going on, the Israelites were winning. When the prayer stopped, the Israelites stopped winning. The point God's trying to get us to see in Exodus 17 is that prayer was more central to their victory than all the swords down in the valley were.

And let me tell you why this is. Friends, it's because as followers of Christ, we are not in a physical battle. We are in a spiritual battle. The Bible makes that clear that our battle is not against flesh and blood, Paul says Ephesians 6, but against spiritual wickedness in high places, against Satan himself and the forces of evil that he commands. And listen, Satan was in this situation in Exodus 17. He was behind the Amalekites trying to destroy the Israelites.

You say, why would Satan even care? Listen, folks, because if there are no Israelites, there can be no Messiah. If there's no Messiah, there was no cross. If there's no cross, then there's no redemption. There's no plan of salvation. There's no eternal life.

There's no forgiveness of sin. This was a spiritual battle, not a physical battle. Moses understood that. And Moses understood that the spiritual battle that was really happening here was being fought in the heavenly places, not down in that valley. And Moses also understood that as any battle goes in the heavenly places, that's how the battle goes on earth.

You understand what I'm saying? Now, friend, I'm wondering if you've learned that in your Christian life with your battles, folks that the victory down here on earth comes from victory in the heavenly places first by prayer, that victory in the valley comes from victory on the hill, that victory on our feet comes from victory on our knees, that victories here on earth are merely outworkings of victories we have won in the heavenly places by prevailing prayer. And so my challenge to you is don't try to win your victories on your feet. Win your victories on your knees, because that's where the real battle is, folks. You win the victory in the heavenly places.

Don't worry about the earth. The earth, the victory on earth will happen. And so how's your prayer life when it comes to the battles that you're facing, huh? And let me ask further, how's your prayer life for McLean Bible Church? I mean, we're an army here on a mission to reach Washington, D.C. for the Lord Jesus Christ.

There's an enormous battle going on in the heavenly places right around this church and what we're trying to do in this town. And I'm wondering how many of us spent five minutes last week praying in prevailing prayer for the ministry of this church, raising up the rod for the ministry of this church. You know, we gave you when you walked in today a prayer booklet. Usually it's 31 days of prayer.

We picked the month of March. But we've actually got 39 days of prayer because we're going to go all the way up to Easter, which is in the very beginning of April. And the purpose of giving you this is to call this church together to corporate prevailing prayer for the ministry of this church to call us together to prayer that wins in the heavenlies than winning here on earth is not a problem.

And you say, well, Lon, I'm confused. You keep using the term prevailing prayer. What do you really mean by that? Friends, prevailing prayer means having a prayer life that is constant, that is ongoing, that is regular, that is systematic, that is tenacious, that is relentless, that is steadfast, that is immovable. You got the idea, right?

You got the idea. And I beg you to take this booklet and for the next 39 days to really unite together as a church family in prevailing prayer for this church. And I urge you to become a person of prevailing prayer in your life for the battles and the crises that you face in life. Remember, if you win the battle on your knees in the heavenly places here on earth, it's just a mop up.

Trust me. Principle number three. And finally, and Moses did this, too, is making sure that God alone gets all the glory. This was the whole point of Moses building that altar as soon as they had won the victory. And, folks, if we as followers of Christ want to see great victories from God in our lives, we have to have the same kind of commitment that Moses had, a commitment to make sure that God gets all the credit, all the glory, every bit of it goes to Him. Folks, there must be no altars to self in our life. There must be no altars to man in our life, not just outwardly, but even inwardly in the secret recesses of our soul. When we look at our victories, our souls got to rise up and say, none of this was because of me. And I don't deserve the credit for any of this. Lord Jesus, it all belongs to You.

Not five percent, nothing belongs to me, God, and I'm not going to even take five percent. It's You, God, and I know that. See, this is why God refused to give Gideon the victory until he got down to three hundred men.

Why? Because God wanted to make sure when they got the victory, He got the credit. This is why if you're smart as a follower of Christ, and I'm smart, we'll make one of our life verses. Psalm 115, verse 1, what does it say? It says, Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your own name, give the glory.

I love what A.W. Tozer said. He said, God is jealous of His glory, and He will not share His glory with another. If you're serving the Lord with your life, and yet slyly you're hoping to get just a little five percent commission on the glory, then look out.

It will chill the power of God in your spirit. We must determine, Tozer says, that we will never take any of the glory, but rather we will see to it that God alone gets it all. End of quote. And he's right.

So let's conclude. God has given us a battle plan for fighting the battles, the crises, the issues in our life as followers of Christ. It's a battle plan that has been used by every great saint in the Bible.

Check it out. It's a Bible plan that thousands of Christians down through the centuries have used and have tested and have found it to be good. And it's based on three principles. Number one, total dependence upon God in our battle for victory and not ourselves. Even if God asks us to use some human means, we don't trust them. We trust God. Number two, prevailing prayer that wins the battle first in the heavenly places. Then the battle on earth is easy. And finally, number three, a commitment to making sure that God gets all the glory from the victory. Folks, until God stops being God, which is never going to happen, I'm telling you this plan is guaranteed to work.

It may not work as fast as you want it to work, but it will work if you stick to it. And I pray that God will help you start fighting your battles different tomorrow morning as you leave your house and go out to work, to school, wherever you go. You fight your battles like this and I'm telling you, you will see God work in those situations.

Let's pray. Lord, thanks for talking to us about practicality. Paul wasn't kidding when he said the Christian life is a fight. And Lord Jesus, whatever kinds of fights we all have here, remind us that the very same battle plan works. Help us to use it this week and for the rest of our lives. And Lord, help us trust you that in your perfect timing, if we use this plan, you will give us victory in every battle that we face. And so, Lord Jesus, change our lives, change the way we live and the way we react to life. Because we were here today and we studied the written and holy Word of God. And we pray these things in Jesus' name and God's people said, what did you say? Amen. Amen.