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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Exodus 17:8-16

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Well, this morning we complete chapter 17 in Exodus. So we're inching our way ever surely towards Sinai.
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We're still at Rephidim. As we complete chapter 17, we actually see a lot of similarity to where we were last
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Sunday morning in chapter 17, verses 1 -7. Israel's in the same place, facing another test, another trial, from which they are suffering greatly.
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And as we'll see, God is going to intervene again to save His people. And He's going to use the rod of Moses as the means to save His people.
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The rod being that display, that picture of God's saving power.
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And so we pick up in verse 8. Now Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
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If you remember where we were last Sunday, we could say there's nothing quite like opposition to straighten out grumbling.
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It tends to be that when the church is at peace, she's at war within herself.
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When the church is at war without, she's at peace within herself. I think we can imagine something of that going on in the camp of Israel.
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There's no time for grumbling when the Amalekites are chasing down their rear rank. Now who is
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Amalek? Most understand him to be the son of Eliphaz, who would be the oldest son of Esau.
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That's from Genesis 36, verse 12. And Eliphaz became a chief in the tribe of the
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Edomites. Others don't view him as a descendant of Esau. John Gill, for example, finds him to be from an entirely different line, from the line of Cush, going back to Genesis 14, verse 7.
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We simply don't know. From my two cents, I think it's suggestive that he is from the line of Esau.
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And I think perhaps there's a revival or a resurrection of that sibling rivalry going on in this attack.
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But of course, we're given no explicit reason for this attack. All we read is that Amalek came and fought with Israel.
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We don't have the grievance. We don't have a provocation. We don't have a reason. Is it because he's a descendant of Esau?
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Is it because Esau is going to have descendants that are like a wild donkey of a man, almost like the
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Ishmaelites? And this rivalry toward Jacob, the favored son, is now exploding out on the battlefield?
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Or is it simply an opportune strike? They see this people, they see that they're weary, they're needy, they're not trained, they're not skilled in combat.
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This is an opportunity to enrich themselves. Or perhaps they're worried about the imbalance of power as this massive group of Israelites moves across their land toward Canaan.
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Or perhaps they're in league with the Canaanites. As we see later in Joshua, they're often in league with other people groups that are settled within Canaan.
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And any one of these could be possible. We simply do not know. One thing we know is that the testimony that has been going around doesn't seem to concern the
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Amalekites. And there is a testimony that's been going out ever since God collapsed the
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Red Sea upon the chariots of Pharaoh. When we get to Joshua 2, Rahab says in part, all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you.
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We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea when He brought you up out of Egypt.
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So this is the word that's spread all around, even to Jericho. And they're saying, we're weak, our knees are shaking because we know what the
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Lord God has done. We know that He collapsed the Red Sea upon your enemies. But this doesn't affect the
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Amalekites at all. There's no regard for God's sovereignty. There's no regard for God's power.
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The things that He manifested against the mightiest empire on the face of the earth at that time, the
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Egyptian empire. And who are the Amalekites that they're going to go toe to toe with this people when they're being led by this
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God? There's almost a bewildering confidence on the part of the Amalekites.
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Well, sadly, we don't have the cause, but we do have the manner of the attack. From Deuteronomy 25, beginning in verse 17.
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God reminds His people of what Amalek did on the way when they were coming out of Egypt. And this is what He says.
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How He met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks and all the stragglers at your rear when you were tired and weary.
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So who were the stragglers? What would be the rear ranks? Well, this would largely be the elderly, those who were sick, those who were maybe impaired, had some sort of relative weakness, or were just small, and so they lagged behind.
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Think young families. Think toddlers. Think your dear old granny.
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These are the rear ranks that are butchered by the Amalekites. And so God sees this with absolute outrage, as will come at the end here.
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He's going to swear that Amalek will be blotted out. And you have to picture this scene, this absolute butchery, this preying upon the weak.
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It's something similar to what happened in the kibbutz, in the various kibbutz in Israel, as Hamas made their way and shot elderly folks and young children, just this mindless slaughter.
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How does Moses respond? We read, verse eight, Moses says to Joshua, choose us some men, go out, fight with Amalek.
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Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. Now we're introduced to Joshua as if we already know him.
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We haven't met Joshua yet, this is our first meeting, but it's written as if we already know who Joshua is, which goes a long way in explaining something about how the
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Pentateuch came to be the scriptures of Israel. The first readers know who Joshua is, of course, so Moses writing,
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Joshua completing, Joshua having this recited to him, as it were, carrying it on, no wonder he doesn't need a long description or a long introduction.
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We already know Joshua, more on the name Joshua in a moment. Joshua is told this, choose some men, go out, fight.
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Don't you love that? Get some men, go out, fight.
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How epic is that? Joshua is told, gather the squad, go get your boys.
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Think of the camaraderie that would develop, think of the adrenaline, think of the momentum as they're gathering, perhaps, plundered
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Egyptian armor they took off the shores of the Red Sea, and they're donning on all this captured plunder, and they're running to the back of the camp of the
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Israelites to go and attack the Amalekites as this great counterattack. I think there would be less problems in the church of God today if men were cut from this cloth, that men would gather, go and fight the great battles or intrigues of the culture, the great needs of the society.
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The problem is we sort of have librarian lecturers in the church of God. We have psychologists in all the wrong ways, counselors in all the negative ways, rather than warriors, rather than men that will go and fight.
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This is not going to be an easy fight. Moses is already saying it's going to be a night and the next day, tomorrow
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I will be on the hill and I will have the rod of God in my hand. So you can imagine, just mustering the troops and preparing this counterattack while the
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Amalekites are churning their way forward up the ranks adds to the drama of this moment.
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Verse 10 is a summary of Joshua's obedience. As the Lord commands Moses, so Moses commands
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Joshua. They're both obedient to the will of God. So Joshua did as Moses said to him and fought with Amalek.
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And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Now here's another introduction.
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We're introduced to Hur as if we already know him. Of course, we don't know Hur. We have not met him yet.
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He's mentioned later on in chapter 24, again with Aaron. There they both are put in charge of the camp.
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They're deputized by Moses. So here's a trustworthy man, a man of the tribe of Judah, a man who's recognized for his ability, for his great leadership and strength.
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Moses, of course, goes up on the mountain of God with Joshua. So you have
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Moses, Aaron, Hur, up on the top of the hill. Joshua leading his band of warriors running to the rear ranks to engage the
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Amalekites. Now who is Hur? There's a whole, we could do a whole bit there with who is
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Hur? He is who? Who is Hur? Who is Hur? Well, Josephus in antiquities has a tradition that is preserved among Jews, at least it was according to him.
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But this was actually the husband of Moses' sister, Miriam. But that's Josephus.
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And sometimes he gets on flights of fancy. There's really no way to substantiate that. More probably, Hur was a descendant from Judah through Caleb.
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And that's from 1 Chronicles chapter two. And so his grandson would be Bezalel, who the spirit of God descends upon and enables him to build the tabernacle.
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So you see this picture, it's very important, of godly lineage. Great men of renown and their sons and their grandsons taking mighty steps of faith and being used in mighty ways by God.
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And that ought to be a great encouragement to us. This is not something unique to the book of Exodus or the timeline of Genesis.
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You can look through the annals of church history and see that godly men of old often had godly sons and godly grandsons, men of renown.
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That is something that men and women ought to strive for. That is something that in this church we ought to strive for, a godly heritage.
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Verse 10, so it was when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand,
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Amalek prevailed. So this is no ordinary battle. Of course, it's between the lines that Moses understood that he would need the rod of God and that he would need to lift it up and so God would move through that very means to give his people the victory.
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There's a supernatural characteristic to this fight. The Israelites can only prevail if Moses' hands are held up.
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And implicitly, his hands are holding the rod. Remember, that was the emphasis from a few verses ago. So long as his hands, implicitly, the rod is held up, his people will prevail.
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We see that earlier, for instance, in chapter nine, chapter 10, chapter 14. Moses is commanded, stretch out your hand, but it's the rod that is the efficacy.
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It's the rod that is the means of God's power. So the men, notice, must fight, but their fighting will mean absolutely nothing unless the mediator is raising his hand.
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The men must swing their swords, batter their shields, but all of that effort, all of that striving will amount to nothing unless Moses is raising the rod of God to the sky.
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So here we see this marriage, this picture of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
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Now, you'd think this is going to be the easiest war ever, right? This is going to be
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Desert Storm. It'll be over in a week. I used to have Desert Storm trading cards when I was a boy.
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I used to put Norman Schwartzkopf on my nightstand. This'll be an easy war.
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What's the Baghdad air defense to a stealth fighter? This is going to be easy, and it was very easy until Moses' hands started getting tired.
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And then all of a sudden, he noticed, as his arms began to falter and the rod came down, that the
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Amalekites began to butcher and push their way forward to the ranks. Keep in mind,
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Moses is pushing 80, and it'll be hard for a 20 -year -old to keep a heavy staff above his head all day long, much less an 80 -year -old, even one as mighty as Moses.
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We read, verse 12, his hands became heavy. And so Aaron and Hur addressed this need.
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They see their leader faltering. They put a stone beneath him so that he can sit, and then, easy for them, as he's sitting, they can sort of come and just let their hands hang and hold up his hands.
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And so the rod of God is being lifted up, Aaron to the one side, Hur to the other side, and we read, his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.
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Aaron and Hur to the rescue. Godly leaders need Aaron's and Hur's.
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Godly leaders need Aaron's and Hur's. I remember Spurgeon quipping that he knew of many ministers around him that had no
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Aaron's and no Hur's. In fact, the only people they had surrounding them were pushing their arms down rather than supporting their arms.
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So I'm thankful to not be in a place quite like that. Godly leadership needs Aaron's and Hur's.
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It needs that support, that encouragement, that way of holding up the arms that are weak and tired and drooping.
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And this is actually previewing chapter 18, where Jethro is going to give advice to Moses that he needs to delegate help in order to lead the people of God.
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So we see that even here. Moses needs help from Aaron and Hur in order to lead the people of God.
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Now we read again, his hands were steady. It's beautiful, this word steady is actually from Emunah, which is always translated faithful or faithfulness.
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We have an illustration of what faithfulness looks like on this hilltop. Despite fatigue, despite stress, even when you need help in the midst of the battle, this is what faithful dependence upon God looks like.
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This is a steady hand in the sight of God. Now why did
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God orchestrate the battle in this way? Think of the 10 plagues, and there wasn't anything that was quite like this with the rod of God.
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Everything was instantaneous. It was a strike, it was a moment, and everything was unleashed.
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There wasn't something that required a perseverance of Moses throughout the whole day until the sun goes down.
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There wasn't an opportunity for Moses to be tired. All that adrenaline and that moment of striking the rod, the plague was unleashed.
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But here, they're losing the battle as he's tiring. What is God wanting to show Moses? What is
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God wanting to show His people? Well, certainly Moses is learning the lesson that he's been learning for quite a long time.
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Even as a shepherd and Midian, he was learning his need to depend upon the Lord God. And now the
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Israelites must learn that lesson in new ways as well. They must learn that their outstretched arms, swinging swords, will not accomplish anything unless Moses, their mediator that they've been complaining about, has his hands outstretched.
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Unless their leader that they've been grumbling at has his hands lifted up to the Lord, all of their striving, all of their laboring, all of their fighting will amount to nothing.
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Insofar as his rod is removed from them, they will be slain. They will be defeated.
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That's what they're learning. And so in a way, they're learning that God has designated Moses, and they must honor and revere
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Him in order to follow the way that God is speaking through him. We have this beautiful summary of the battle in verse 13.
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Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Literally in the
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Hebrew, it's the mouth of the sword, like the sword is gobbling up the enemies of God. Joshua defeated
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Amalek. We have the summary where Joshua is credited with the victory.
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Now, Joshua is actually Hosea, and we read in Numbers 13 that Moses renames him
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Joshua, Joshua being identical to Jesus in Greek, or Yeshua.
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It's Jesus. It's Savior. The Savior defeated
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Amalek. Joshua defeated Amalek. God saves. It's not lost on Stephen in Acts chapter seven.
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As he talks about Joshua bringing the people into the land. Matthew 121 says, you shall call
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His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.
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There's a greater Joshua given for a greater battle. Exodus 17 verse 14, and the
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Lord said to Moses, write this for a memorial in the book. Recount it in the hearing of Joshua.
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Literally, put it in the ear of Joshua. I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
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This victory, and not just the fact of it, but the manner, how it came about, was to be recorded and recited.
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Joshua was to be reminded of everything that transpired across these two days.
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As he made conquest into Canaan, he would need to be reminded of who it was that was fighting for the people of God.
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Though he had his band of men, his fighting men, though they fought with all their strength, they would surely be defeated if it was not for the
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Lord being on their side. Joshua needed to be reminded of that. Write it down, put it in his ear.
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Let him know that I'm going to blot out the enemies of God. Let him know that I fight for the people of God.
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You couldn't be more enigmatic, more aggressive with this language of blotting out.
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It's effacing. It's wiping away. We have it utterly because it's doubled up in Hebrew for emphasis.
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It's wiping, I will wipe. God's going to utterly wash away the
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Amalekites. The Amalekites are going to pay for this barbarous act. In Psalm 83,
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Amalek is linked together with all of the other nations that oppose God. And they all have this one aim in sight.
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And so the psalmist cries out, don't be still, O God. Behold, your enemies make a tumult.
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Those who hate you have lifted up their head. They've taken counsel against your people, consulted together against your sheltered ones.
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They've said, come, let us cut them off from being a nation so that the name of Israel is remembered no more.
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They've consulted together with one consent, with one mind, one voice, one aim. And they form this union against you, the tents of Edom and the
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Ishmaelites, Moab, and the Hagrites, Gabal, Ammon, and Amalek. Now, what you notice in Psalm 83 is what the psalmist recognizes.
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To be against the people of God is to be against God. Those who hate you.
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To hate the people of God is to hate the God of the people of God. They've consulted against you.
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Of course, their great aim is to blot out the people of God. We're going to cut them off, their name will be remembered no more.
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So we see this not as petty vengeance, but God's promise of judgment is retribution.
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It's a holy and just judgment. You would wipe them out, you would blot them out if it weren't for my restraining grace, if it weren't for my sovereign control, you would cut them off from the face of the earth.
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And so here's my just judgment, you will be cut off from the face of the earth. I will blot your name from the memory of all the peoples of the earth.
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The enemies of God would leave God's people with no heritage, no lineage, and so God, in retribution, says, you will be left childless, with no heritage, no lineage, no memory.
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Again, this is not some petty tyranny, some arbitrary act of vengeance. This is the just judgment of a holy
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God. And we misunderstand this if we don't see this as a sort of foretelling of that final judgment yet to come.
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God promises to blot them out, and yet, his wrath is long -suffering. Doesn't happen right away.
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He lets generations go by. He lets centuries hang in the balance. God's wrath is a patient wrath.
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He's not willing that they would perish. He allows their sins to come to their full measure, like the iniquity of the
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Amorites. And so, in the intervening time, they continue to assault, they continue to harass.
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Again, God is restraining, and if he were to let off the restraint, Psalm 83 would be the result.
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They would blot the people of God away. We read in Judges 3, Judges 6, Judges 10, by the time we get to 1
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Samuel 15, the day of judgment has come. Or at least it should have come if Saul had obeyed.
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Now is the time that God said, go and utterly blot out the Amalekites. It was
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King Saul who, though they were put under the ban, though they were harem, that meant everything wholesale is to be destroyed.
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You don't take a sheep, you don't take any of the cattle, you don't take a cloak from one of the huts. Nothing that's been defiled by their rebellion, by their idolatry, is allowed to be taken as spoil.
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They're wholesale devoted to destruction. But what does Saul do? Well, he kills
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Agag. He kills the Amalekite king, but he spares the best of the flock.
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He spares the best of the cattle. And when the prophet comes, he's so confident, he says,
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I have obeyed the command of the Lord. And he still had the blood of Agag around the bottom of his cloak.
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But the prophet, one of the great moments, it was one of the, I preached this sermon three or four times when I first started preaching and doing pulpit supply.
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One of my favorite exchanges. What then is this bleeding in my ears?
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You fulfilled the command, what then is this bleeding in my ears? It's an incredible picture of mortification.
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The bleeding sins, the bleeding disobedience that cries out. And as a result of this, the crown is removed from Saul as a result of his disobedience.
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And so the Amalekites are spared and they gather up and they're still a thorn in the side of Israel, even in the days of David, as we read in 2
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Samuel. It seems that they're finally destroyed in 1 Chronicles 4 under the reign of Hezekiah.
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There, finally, it seems it's hard to trace them. Although in the days of Esther, we read of Haman, this great enemy of the people of God, and Haman was an
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Agagite. In other words, he seems to have been a descendant of Amalek. So from chapter 17 all the way through, the
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Amalekites are this persistent enemy of the people of God. But as we see this victory here, so the final victory is assured.
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Because one greater than Hezekiah, one greater than David, one greater than Joshua has come. And when
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Moses builds an altar, we can't help but reflect on the significance of that picture. In fact, the early church, whenever they thought of the outstretched arms of the mediator, they were all over Calvary.
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They couldn't but see that as a picture of the crucified Christ outstretching his arms on the cross in order to bring the enemies of God's people to ruin.
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And that's why an altar is built. And that's why the people of God can proclaim, the Lord is our banner.
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Now, with the last part of our text this morning, there is some textual difficulty.
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I don't want to spend too much time on this, but it is important because I don't think our translation gets it quite right. And it's not because of translation so much as textual issues.
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We have it as, Moses built an altar and called its name, the Lord is my banner, for he said, because the
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Lord has sworn, the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
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Well, there's good reason to think that originally this text was not because the Lord has sworn. We have this word for banner, which is nase.
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And so you've probably heard Yahweh nese or Jehovah nese, the Lord, my banner. This word for banner, nase, seems to have been inserted or what we call a conjectural emendation.
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They think this is what the scribe meant to say. And so they conjecture it into the textual transmission.
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I think there's good reason to reject that. It's not that the Lord has sworn. I think actually the translation should be, and this isn't me so much as me surveying commentators and translation committees and understanding the debate.
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And I have to side firmly on this. The idea is not so much the banner being replicated at the end of verse 16, but rather this interesting term case, which the closest thing we have to that is throne.
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If it's in the construct, it's almost certainly throne. And it is in the construct with Yah here. I know I'm going a little overboard, but the idea here is it's because the hand is upon the throne or another legitimate translation, because the hand is against the throne.
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This is, Hebrew is so evocative, so full of imagery. But I think verse 16 is rightly understood as, because the hand is upon or against the throne.
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Now the question is whose hand? We know the throne belongs to the Lord, but whose hand?
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Well, it could be the hand of the Israelites. In other words, the hand is upon. The hand is sort of outstretched pleading for God to give the victory.
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The hand is upon the throne. That's why the Lord is the banner. Or it could be the Lord is the banner in so much as Amalek's hand is against the throne.
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And the preposition there is more likely against. And it could be ambiguous for this reason. So we have this beautiful picture of the altar.
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And on the one hand, God's people, sort of pictured in Moses, lifting up their hands so that God from his throne gives the victory over the enemy of God who's raising up their hand in defiance against his throne, in defiance of his sovereignty.
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And that is all held together by verse 16, which brings our focus as we turn now to application.
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It brings our focus to the need to understand the battle, the need to understand the battle.
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What does it mean for the Lord to be our banner? It means we are engaged in warfare.
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And the only way we shall prevail is if the Lord is on our side, if the
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Lord is our banner. So in application, let's talk about the cause of battle first, and then the means of battle, and then lastly, the sides of battle.
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So the cause, the means, and the side. Well, first, the cause of battle.
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We have to keep in mind, this was a very significant experience for the Israelites. Centuries of being slaves probably gave them strong arms and strong backs, but they didn't really know how to fight.
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They had absolutely no military experience. They had no military experience in all of this time. Israelite boys may have played with G .I.
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Joes like I did, but that didn't amount to any battlefield experience that was of use. They had lived for centuries as slaves.
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When they were brought out of Egypt, God fought for them. They didn't have to raise a spear or a sword.
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God fought the battle, and he delivered them from that bondage. And so as he led them through the wilderness, they had learned how to rely upon God's provision, even as they had relied upon God in the battle.
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Remember that he had led them in a very particular course in chapter 13. There we read verse 17. He did not lead them by the land of Philistia.
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Why? Although it was near, God said this, perhaps the people will change their minds when they see war.
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And so he led them a different way. In other words, when they were just delivered from their bondage,
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God knew they will falter. They will turn back to Egypt if they're brought against an enemy.
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If they have to fight, they're going to throw their hands up, not for me to give the victory, but throw their hands up in retreat, and they're gonna go back to being slaves in Egypt.
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So he led them away from war. Now several chapters have commenced. He's provided.
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He's gave them manna, quail, water from the rock. He's crushed the Egyptian army in the
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Red Sea. Now they have enough grace. Even though they're grumbling, they have enough trust that they're ready to fight.
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And here, they're knee -deep in war, knee -deep in war.
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The nation of Amalek against the nation of Israel. How quickly this combat erupts.
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It's this whirlwind, especially as we read the pace of the narrative. It's like out of Egypt on the
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Passover night, through the sea, the sea collapses. Here's some bread, here's some quail. Hit the rock, here's some water, and now war.
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And they're sort of spinning around. How could it be that we've gone from being freed to being fighting that quick?
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And in the Christian life, we often think, well, I've been liberated by God. Ha ha, the biggest battle is over.
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I'm a Christian now. Oh, the biggest battle is just beginning. You're a
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Christian now. The fight has just begun now that you're a Christian. The fight wasn't getting you out of Egypt, it's getting you into Canaan.
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It's actually securing the land, fulfilling the promise. It's actually running this race as to win, fighting this good fight of faith up until this upward call into Christ.
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We so often begin, and as we're warned not to think, we do think, how strange, this fiery trial.
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How could this conflict be upon me? I'm a Christian now. It should be smooth and safe sailing.
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Now is the summer, now is the sunset of my struggle. And we forget that the struggle in many ways, the battle in many ways, has just begun.
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That doesn't mean God doesn't give us seasons of peace. We praise him for it, we're thankful for it.
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It's unfortunate that our blue hymnal is filled mostly with testimonies of seasons of joy and seasons of peace.
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Not many testimonies of seasons of sorrow or setback or depression like the book of Psalms.
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Christians, of course, need to fight. And as we have in Exodus 17, Christians need to fight until the going down of the sun, until a better sun rises, or a place that doesn't need a sun, like a city whose lamb is the light.
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We fight until the sun goes down. You fight to the very end if you're a Christian. The devil doesn't rest, the world doesn't stop.
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Sin doesn't cease, whether without or within. And until we put off this old man, and all that corresponds to the flesh, and not the new creation we are in Christ.
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Until that battle ends, we can never stop fighting. We're men of war, men and women of war.
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This band under Joshua or Zena, Princess Gloria, we're all men and women together. We're this fighting band where the
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Lord of hosts is on our side. By profession, by position, in this life, sooner rather than later, our courage will be put to the test.
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Our faith will be put against the opposition. It's through much tribulation that we enter into the kingdom of God.
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And that's why we fight the fight, the good fight. Now, why is this the case?
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Why is it that we must fight? Why is it that we're born into combat? Why is it that Christians must put on the armor of God, and take up the shield, and take up the sword, and go about fighting for the rest of their lives until the captain of their salvation returns?
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Why is that the case? Well, ask Israel why they were attacked. It's almost bewildering, isn't it?
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Why do they hate us so much? What have we done to them? It's one of the things that's so confusing.
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They don't even know why they're being attacked. It's not stated. It almost doesn't add up. They're no threat.
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All they're doing is passing by. They're barely out of Egypt. They make no provocation, but war came.
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And this is what it's like for the Christian. The opposition is the world under the serpent's spell. And that opposition breaks out against true
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Israelites. And as soon as we separate ourselves from their ways, as soon as we're released from that bondage, as soon as we come out of darkness and we don't run in that same flood of dissipation because we're setting our faces toward the promised land, as soon as that happens, war breaks out.
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And we're confused, we're baffled because we think, I've come to the light. I'm better than I was.
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I'm kinder. I'm better. I'm more patient. I'm more thoughtful. I'm more helpful.
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I'm more loving. How could it be now that I'm reviled? Now that I'm rejected?
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Now that I'm mocked more than I ever was before? How could it be that in San Francisco you could go steal $900 worth of whatever you want from any store on the block and almost get winked at?
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But if you go against the rainbow agenda or put your neck on the line for something that we would consider decent and good, that is when the walls come crashing down.
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We're getting closer and closer in our country to the saying, no good deed goes unpunished.
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All we're trying to do is live peaceably. Now, of course, without compromise, which means we have to have salt and light and leaven as we walk through this wilderness toward our heavenly city.
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But on the way, here comes this combat we didn't ask for, we didn't provoke, we didn't expect, and it can be bewildering to new
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Christians. Why does the world hate us so? Well, as you know, it's not just the war within that embroils the
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Christian, it's the war without. As God's people, we're called to live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
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And this inevitably means we renounce the worship of idols, of false gods, and of all the sins that correspond to rebellion against God and idolatry, sexual morality, greed, drunkenness, grumbling, unbelief.
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We renounce these sins, and for that reason, opposition breaks out against us. We see that in the book of Acts, right?
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You go and you mess with people's pet sins. You provoke people's idolatry, and what happens?
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The whole city is ready to stone you. The whole city is ready to throw you into the arena. This is what happens to Christians.
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This is the cause of our battle. We preach and try to live as best as we can, according to the law of God, by the gospel.
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And when we face opposition, whether from enemies without, or from our own temptations and flesh within, we stand firm, and we must stand firm, because war breaks out.
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The attacks begin to come. And so secondly, God gives us means. He gives us means to stand, means to fight, means to war.
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We have the cause, now we have the means. What's the means in Exodus 17?
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Oh, God has appointed the means, it's the rod. The rod of God, the rod that God gave to Moses.
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This was the means that were appointed. With this rod, he had wrought wonders in Egypt.
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He had defeated the empire with a stick. Think of that. The mightiest empire on the face of the earth was turned upside down and inside out with a stick.
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Don't you love God's sense of humor? Just take a staff, that'll do. Touch the ground with it, that'll do.
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Even here on the hilltop, as Moses takes up this rod, he couldn't have helped but reflect on how
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God had answered all of his prayers, all of his pleas, all of the needs, all of the threats against his people through that rod.
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Soon as he had that rod, can you just imagine that sense of confidence welling up in Moses? He knew that God would deliver.
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He knew that God would win. God does not need to employ means to accomplish his ends, but in his wisdom, according to his purpose, he does employ means.
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We speak of ordinary means, ordinary means of grace, ordinary ways that God chooses in his wisdom to give grace to help his people persevere.
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There's ordinary means because there's also extraordinary means. He's not bound to means. He can so choose to zap you in any way he sees fit, but if you've been a
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Christian for any length of time, you know that he's not really in the business of zapping people, especially lazy people. He likes rather in his wisdom to draw them to use the means that he has appointed.
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What a way to show Moses' weakness. What a way to show Israel's need right next to God's power.
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And as the people of God were being attacked, they could look up and see their mediator outstretching his arms, and they'll notice that somehow through them, almost not by them, but from them, they were pushing back the enemies of God.
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As the mediator lifted up this symbolic rod of his power, they prevailed. The Lord is our banner, not the rod, not
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Moses, not Aaron and Hur, but the Lord. They knew it was from the
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Lord. And so it is for Christians. We have our eyes fixed on the power of God, which is manifest to us through Christ by the
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Spirit. And if we don't fix our eyes on that, we falter. If we don't look to that banner, we fall backward.
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But again, please notice this victory of God's people, it involved fighting.
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It involved energy, it involved skill. You couldn't go out half -happily.
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You couldn't just gaze and keep your arms down. These men were sweating and bleeding. They were wounded, they were fighting, they were heaving and panting.
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It was the great fight of their life, a great struggle to not be killed, to kill or be killed.
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And yet I say the victory of God's people involved their fighting, involved their energy, involved their skill.
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It did not depend on it. It only involved it. What it depended upon was the power of God.
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And as a Christian, you must understand that vital distinction between what the Christian life, what this warfare involves and what it depends upon.
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And those who don't understand what it involves will not find they are prevailing.
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They'll find they're being pushed back. They'll find they're faltering. They're not actually in the fight. They're not involving themselves in the way that they should.
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But those who are striving and laboring, panting and sweating, and yet not depending upon God will be just as easily pushed back, just as easily faltered.
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So I see Exodus 17 on the first part, on the one hand, as a great exhortation, fight.
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It's Paul in Ephesians 6 saying, put on the armor of God so that you can stand, having done all to stand.
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All right, it's an exhortation on the one hand, but just as quickly as that exhortation begins to sear our conscience, the encouragement comes.
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Cast all of your cares upon the Lord. Look to the Lord your banner. That's the only way you prevail.
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And so these two things are held together. We are working out our salvation, but even when we begin to falter and feel weak like the drooping arms of Moses, we look to that banner, and there's our victory, having looked to the
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Lord, depending upon him by faith. Moses knows more than anyone. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
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And so as his sort of lactic acid begins to build and his arms begin to tremble and the pains begin to clench and he feels feeble, he looks to the banner.
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And the word comes like it comes through Isaiah 35. Strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees.
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Say to those who are fearful, be strong, don't fear. Behold, your God comes with vengeance, with the recompense of God, he will come and save you.
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The Lord, our banner. I've been interacting with someone lately, and it doesn't seem how much
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I try to exhort, it's just not quite getting through. In their mind, their arms are drooping.
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In my mind, they haven't lifted their arms in a year. They're not involving themselves, they're not engaging.
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They're not listening to what God has said. How could they possibly look to the banner if they're not engaged in the heat of the battle?
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You only look to the standard if you're confused and you're overwhelmed and you need to know, are my soldiers with me?
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Are we still in this fight? Where is our line? Where are we advancing? You look to the banner so that you are filled with this momentum to keep going.
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If you look to the banner and it's half fallen over and all the way back, then it's time to retreat. If you look and you can't find the banner, it's time to get out of dodge.
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But if you look and the banner is held confidently high and you see the army advancing ahead of you, then you press on, you press on.
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We never read, as one preacher quipped, we never read that Joshua's hand grew tired from wielding the sword.
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We don't read, you'd think that was the hand that would be tired, swinging around these swords. Maybe it was like a Scottish claymore with these big two -handed swords that just a swing at once would be a feat.
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But we never read that Joshua's hands are tired. It's Moses' hands that get tired.
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I think that's instructive too. Spiritual things are much more difficult.
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Spiritual means are much more difficult. Go find an unbeliever, go find a worldling.
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They could do circles around you with their self -discipline, with what they're able to accomplish, with how they're able to order their life and their time and their resources, and they could have all of this discipline.
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But if that was a spiritual discipline, they wouldn't be able to hang in for a day.
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Spiritual disciplines make your arms drop to your side. Because it's not just the motivations that are inspiring to our flesh, it's the war of the spirit against the flesh.
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So spiritual means fill us with this sense of absolute exhaustion, this overwhelming sense of,
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I don't know if I can keep going. And it's that moment that we're looking for the banner.
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We're looking for the Lord to send us forth, looking for the Lord to give us that victory. Hebrews 10, this is something
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I exhorted this man. Hebrews 10, 36, you have need of endurance. You have a need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive this promise.
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A little while, and he who is coming will come. He will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith, and if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
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Again, why would a soldier draw back? Because they're not looking to the banner.
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We have a need of endurance. Chapter 17 shows us the Lord provides means for this very reason.
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Now to the unbelieving eye, the means that were used by Moses were the most impractical, useless means in the struggle.
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You have a war that's broke out on the rear ranks. You have untrained, inexperienced men at your disposal.
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They never probably even owned a sword, and now they just grabbed a sword. They don't even know how to use it. And what's the means that God gives?
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Well, here's the battle plan. I'm gonna go on a hill and raise my staff. Does that inspire great confidence in you?
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I'm gonna go on the hill, and I'm gonna raise my staff. To the unbelieving eye, that's the most ridiculous, most useless means.
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It's weak. It's powerless. It's not gonna change anything. The change is in the fight.
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The change is in the swinging of the sword, not in lifting up hands, not in standing on a hill, not in beseeching
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God. To the unbelieving eye, Moses' little strike force is the only thing that can actually affect the battlefield.
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And they're sleep deprived, and they're weary, and they're frustrated with their commander, and all he's doing is lifting up a stick on the hilltop.
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What rational warrior would think this would amount to anything? Gideon, having his force reduced to 300.
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What rational mind would think this could amount to anything? But God employs weak means in such a way that he gets the glory, and his people's faith resolves in him.
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He wants his people to depend on him rather than themselves. And so he loves using weak means.
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All we have are, relatively speaking, weak means. In the morning, you open up your
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Bible, and you have a little time to read, and you're half distracted, and you're half waking up. And your kid barges in, you spill coffee on Luke, and you just get frustrated, and you think, well, that was a complete waste.
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That was useless, as useless as a man, an 80 -year -old man on a hill waving a stick in the air.
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But that little time you had in the morning was a way of pushing forward in the fight.
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It was a weak means, and you didn't even realize the power contained within it. You gather on a
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Thursday. You didn't even want to go. In fact, there were so many hindrances to you just coming out, so you're there, half frustrated just to be there, and you can't help but every five minutes kind of in a secretive way glancing at your watch.
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How much longer, how much longer? Okay, they, they, they prayed. That's seven prayers. They usually pray, they don't pray. Maybe 10 more minutes.
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You think this is such a, we're just talking to a room. What is this accomplishing? It's a weak means, but this is what it looks like to advance in the fight.
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You gather for fellowship. It just seems like you're getting together with brothers and sisters. You don't realize the power of God that is prevailing through that means.
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It's a weak means. You invite someone over for a meal. You're in your head the whole time, and you don't realize what's going on in their heart, or their affections, or in their conscience.
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The Lord is using you mightily in this fight. He loves using weak means, and it's the weak means that lead to the ultimate victory.
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God will not let us depend on the arm of flesh, even when it's our own arm of flesh. Weak means, means like a rod, means like a staff, means like a
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Bible read, means like prayer, fellowship, hospitality, and prayer is very much pictured by Moses lifting up his hands.
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Again, some commentators just say that's all he's doing is basically he's lifting up his hands while he's praying, and the whole battle is turning on prayer.
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I think that's going a little too far for reasons already mentioned. Clearly, the rod is in view as the means, and yet, certainly it's not less than that.
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As he's raising, he's certainly beseeching God. He's imploring and praying to God, and it's right for us to make application from that.
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As one Puritan noted, to pray without using means is like mocking God. To think the power's in our prayer rather than the one we pray to.
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To pray without using means is to mock God. To pray and not act is to mock
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God. But to use means without prayer is to despise
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God. Men can stand against anything but prayer.
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John Knox knew that so well. It was
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Mary who said that she feared the prayers of John Knox more than the armadas of Spain. Men can withstand anything but prayer.
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Anything but prayer. Our enemies can withstand all of our books, all of our conferences, any of our meager attempts at protest, any of our responses, any of our outrage.
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They can handle and sort of maneuver past all of that, but the one thing they can't stand is our prayers.
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I see sort of this hellish deception when something horrific happens in the news, and the leftists come out and mock thoughts and prayers.
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This is a time for more than thoughts and prayers, and they wanna mock thoughts and prayers. That's weak, that's useless.
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We need to act, and that's despising God. God uses weak means in such a way that victory gives him the glory.
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Spurgeon said, we would pray the very gates of hell off their hinges if we could pray like men from the past.
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I believe that. I believe that because empires were turned upside down in very short order.
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We would pray the very gates off of hell if we could pray as some men have done in the past.
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Oh, that we had might in prayer. So we have this marriage of divine sovereignty, human responsibility,
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God employing weak means, and us, through them, looking to the banner to advance in the fight.
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Just look at Ephesians chapter six, this great depiction of Paul wearing the armor of God, and what does he say?
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Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, verse 14.
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Stand therefore, having girded your ways with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with preparation for the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
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Take the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer, supplication in the
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Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance, supplication for the saints.
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And I love that. He's just given this description of a
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Christian engaged in combat, and he says, you're in a fight. You gotta put on the armor.
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You're in a fight, whether you like it or not. You're a Christian. Put on the armor of God. He spends verses elaborating what this armor is.
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And he's the one wearing this armor. And he's all decked out in all of this armor. His sword is bigger, his shield is stronger than any of the
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Corinthians, than any of the Ephesians, any of the Philippians. But what does he say?
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Pray for me. Pray for me. In other words, be on my hilltop.
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Be beseeching the Lord for me, because that's the only way I can advance. And me praying for you is the only way you can advance.
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In other words, all that armor amounts to nothing if we're not praying, praying always with all prayer, supplication in the
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Spirit. Pray for me, he says. And as he goes on to talk about opening his mouth boldly, speaking what he ought to speak, he realizes all that armor won't equip him to do that if it's not funneled through and fueled by prayer.
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So he says, pray for me. It's not the substance, it's not the act of prayer, it's the object.
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It's not the means, it's not the rod itself, it's not the printed book itself, or the time on a
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Thursday night itself, it's not the act, the event, the substance, the content, it's the object.
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The means are effective, powerful, they lead to victory because they lay hold of the
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Lord, because they draw from the Lord. That's what makes the means so powerful. That becomes our strength and our victory.
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And so lastly, we come to the sides of the battle. There are two sides to every conflict, ultimately.
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Ultimately, there's two sides. And as we rehearsed in vain, Israelites expect any lasting peace as long as there's
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Amalekites in this world. Israelites are born again by the Spirit of God and we're passing on to the heavenly city so long as we're doing that, until he returns,
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Amalekites will attack. That's the conflict. The Lord may give us peace for a time, but even if we don't have war without, a hostile culture, sort of godless society, even if we don't have war without, we have war within.
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War never ends, whether war without or war within. And the question is, do you feel something of that conflict?
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Do you feel the call? Do you feel, do you feel the attack?
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Do you feel that need to defend, that need to fight? Do you have that zeal?
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The burning question that's asked by the great hymn is, who is on the Lord's side? Who is on the
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Lord's side? We know the Lord is on the side of his people. The question for all of us here this morning is, who is on the
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Lord's side? Are we engaged in the fight that he's fighting? Who is on the
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Lord's side? If you're gonna be on the Lord's side, you must be fit. Joshua chose men, right?
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Sluggards and degenerates couldn't waltz their way into the fight, they weren't worthy. They hadn't been called, they hadn't been chosen.
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One of the craftiest maneuvers of Satan has been, slowly but surely in the past half century, curtailing the natural warrior spirit of the
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Christian. He's so patient how he does this, and so many moving parts that are manipulated in the world that is under his spell as the prince of the power of the air.
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But he has curtailed, he has marginalized, he has found a way to newspaper and pad over the natural fighting instinct of Protestants.
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We are Protestants. The word protest is in our name, protest. There's something aggressive about a
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Protestant, something restless about the Protestant energy. Something indefatigable about that Protestant energy.
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And over the past half century, you can see it dwindle like Moses' arms falling down by his side until we've become a big sentimental ineffectual puddle.
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Not only do evangelicals refuse to fight the good fight, they don't even think they're in a fight. They end up fighting on the wrong side, instead of the side that they claim to be on, the side they should be on.
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They can't even see that their faith requires a battle against the world and the flesh and the devil.
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So they blend with the world, and they flatter the flesh, and they're in league with the devil. There's a total war against those who are actually at war against the devil and all those in his bondage.
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You want proof of this, just look at the development over the past week. Our brother sent it out on Signal. I saw it at the beginning of the week, this statue of Satan being put up in the
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Iowa State Hall. And then a few days later, a brother named
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Michael Cassidy inceremoniously beheading and putting in the trash can that statue, and I was so encouraged to read from his page, right, within two hours, all of his legal funding was kind of filled.
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And this is what was written on his sort of give, send, go page. He was not willing to see
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God reviled, especially in a building where lawmakers must honor
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Jesus Christ as king and look to his law for wisdom as they legislate with justice and righteousness.
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That's just Psalm 2. Kiss the son. We're not gonna kiss the
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Iowa Senate floor. We kiss the son lest he be angry. It's his wrath that is kindled in a moment.
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And this brother was not willing to see God reviled while so many dozens of talking heads that were the good old
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Baptist preachers in Iowa went on their spiel and basically were expositing the
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First Amendment rather than expositing the word of God. That's a problem. As encouraging as Michael Cassidy's beheading was,
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I was almost more discouraged to see the howling ranks of soft compromise, not under the banner of the
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Lord, but under the banner of secularism. How many talking heads would have, in a different day, restrained
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Gideon from smashing the altar of Baal? We shouldn't do that.
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We want fair treatment too. Is it a good thing to have statues of Satan?
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Is that a good thing? Why don't Protestants have the mostly peaceful protests that are always aired on CNN?
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We cannot be on the Lord's side. We cannot fight under his banner so long as we have this spiritualizing, psychologizing tendency to everything we encounter in this world.
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There's a latent Gnosticism in evangelicalism. What I mean is there's this sort of divide, this dualism which separates spirit and flesh in such a way that the
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Christian's hope in this Gnostic frame is to be released from creation, released from the flesh, released from this world, which is against the grain of what it means to be redeemed.
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That's why this world is groaning. It's awaiting redemption. We're the first fruits in Christ of that redemption, new creatures in him.
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When we understand this, that spirits and matter or spirits and flesh may be distinct and yet they're not separable.
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God is the creator of both. Both things are always at play. We begin to see that this Gnosticism over many decades has made the church effeminate and weak.
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And at some point we must recognize, by virtue of just the incarnation of our
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Lord Jesus, the logic of redemption. If you need any example of why physical and spiritual are bound together, look at the example of Christ in his bodily incarnation and in his bodily resurrection.
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It was only about 15 years ago that an Australian Bishop went asked, what if there was conclusive proof that we found
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Jesus' tomb and we found his ossuary and you yourself said this is beyond any skepticism, what would happen to your faith?
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And he said, well, I would believe that Jesus rose in my heart. And he thought that was such a pious answer.
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Instead of recognizing that was blasphemy, that's heresy. Paul says you're a fool.
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We're wasting our time. We're fools if Christ hasn't risen. We're fools. We're just wasting a
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Sunday morning. But it's easy for an Australian Bishop to think that way because of this latent gnosticism.
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All that really matters is the spiritual, my heart, my feelings, not the bodily, not the fleshly, not the worldly.
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And when you go downstream from that, this is what that becomes. Well, I pinched incense to Caesar with my hands but not in my conscience.
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Well, I bent my knees to Dagon but not in my heart. And God does not look upon that with any sort of pleasure.
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Brothers and sisters in places like North Korea or in some of the cities like Chengdu or Beijing are suffering because they don't have this latent gnosticism.
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They recognize that they cannot bend the knee. They must face the music. If you were at the
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Bolton Conference and Jeremy Walker in his last session spoke of going to a pastoral retreat with a number of Chinese ministers, and not him personally but someone who was telling him about it.
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One of the men there wouldn't partake in all the meals they were having at the conference. He would just eat a little portion and that was it.
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And he was so gaunt and they wondered, is he ill, is he sick? Well, he had caught wind that any moment he'd probably be taken by the authorities and imprisoned.
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And so he was training himself for prison rations. That's what it looks like to fight.
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That's what it looks like to be at war. It's not just the war within.
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It's all we ever talk about. It's the war without. It's the kingdom of God advancing, not in a mystical cloudy realm, but in this world.
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He is a redeemer for this world. Our political theology has essentially become a reaction against any fear of depending on the flesh rather than the rod.
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And in reacting against that legitimate concern, our answer has been, let's just not fight.
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Better to not fight than make it fleshly. Well, thank God that his spirit is working through brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, unlike he's working through Western Christians.
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Praise God. A plague on both your houses, whether to lean on the arm of flesh or to just stop fighting.
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Spurgeon preaching of this, I'm so glad, it's both 19th century, 19th century preachers were the culprits of this.
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They psychologized and spiritualized a lot of the application here. Spurgeon had a whole sermon about mortification and inward sin, but he also had a sermon dealing with sins without.
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And he said, England would not have been what it now is if it had not been for her religion. And in the hour when we see
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England forsaking her God, her glory will fall. And the day when the gospel is silenced and our ministers cease to preach, when the
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Bible is chained, in that day, God forbid it should ever come to pass, in that day, England may write herself as among the dead.
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She has fallen. Christian men, in this fight, you're fighting for your nation. You're fighting for your liberties, your happiness, your peace.
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Because unless the religion of heaven is maintained, these will all be destroyed. If you ever read
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Robert Graves novel, I, Claudius. And he has this amazing passage where the general
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Varus has gone into Germany on conquest with three of the mighty Roman legions. But because of this ambush in Teutoburg forest in 89, three of the legions are lost.
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And more significantly, the battle standard, the banner, the standards were lost. They were taken away as plunder by these
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Germanic tribes. And so that mighty Roman eagle, that symbol of imperial dominance was now being paraded around German huts in the deep forest of Germany.
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And in Graves novel, I, Claudius, he has Augustus being sort of disturbed in his sleep.
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And he begins crying out to this ghost of Varus. And he says, Varus, Varus, give me my eagles.
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In other words, because the banner was lost, he was in anguish.
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Because it wasn't just the banner, it was all that the banner meant. And I wish
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Christians would have something of that anguish when we see in our land that the banner has fallen, that the arms have fallen low, that the
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Amalekites and all of their defilements and godless culture are beginning to drive back Christianity and droves.
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We should be filled with anguish and say, Lord, Lord, give us back our banner. Raise the arms of the mediator high.
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Advance your cause and your kingdom in this land. And do we even consider the great cloud of witnesses and what that means?
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One of the reasons that the Romans went in a completely instrategic and useless endeavor, they went and they conquered those
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German tribes just to get the eagles back. It was a worthy risk.
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Why? Because it wasn't just the eagles in and of themselves, it was what they meant. It was all those who had fought under them, all those who went before them.
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It was the symbol of their strength, the symbol of their courage. It was their pride. It was their dignity. It was their honor.
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And don't we have that as Christians? How many of our brothers and sisters have fought and bled and been martyred, have suffered, have been faithful witnesses under the banner of the
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Lord? And would we now, in our day, in our turn to fight, disgrace that banner?
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Would we lose it? Would we not go forth looking to the Lord for prevalence? Where is the spirit of Phineas?
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Where is the spirit of Rutherford when he wrote to David Dixon, my great sorrow is I can't get
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Christ lifted off the dust of Scotland high up into the air? That's what you do with a banner.
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So what does it mean for us to be on the Lord's side? Does it mean that we're looking to the banner so that we press on fighting with greater strength than we did in 2022?
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Will 2024 for GRBC be an advance for the kingdom of God in this land, in this region, in this town?
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Will we slink back with drooping arms and go back to spiritualizing and soothing our consciences and saying, well, there's many different ways to fight.
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Rank on rank, the host of heaven spreads its vanguard on the way. The light of light descends from realms of endless day so that the powers of hell may vanish as the darkness clears away.
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The dawning of the light has begun. It cannot be stopped. The dawning of the light has begun.
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The day is now fixed. The day is quickly coming. The forces of Amalek are doomed.
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They may fight more fiercely, more creatively, more extensively than they have because the day is fast approaching, but Christ is on the hill.
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We're fighting in the valley. Are we fighting in the valley? Christ is on the hill. And so we will prevail.
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And so we go forth and we conquer. And all the more as the day approaches because the
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Lord is our banner, amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.
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Bless it to us. Change us by it with our eyes fixed upon it. May we fight,
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Lord, looking to you as our banner, as our refuge, as our armor, as our all. Show each one here,
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Lord, ways that they've abandoned or ways that their arms are drooping in this fight.
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And let us as a church contemplate what it will mean to be faithful in this year ahead. Know that our flow is great.
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The war has already commenced. And now we must act whether we care to or not,
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Lord. The war has commenced and so we pray. Give us the victory through the means you've appointed as we look to you and trust in you for Christ's sake.