The Lord, Our Banner

Well, this morning we complete chapter 17 in Exodus. So we're inching our way ever surely towards Sinai. We're still at Rephidim. As we complete chapter 17, we actually see a lot of similarity to where we were last 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. 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. The rod being that display, that picture of God's saving power. And so we pick up in verse 8. Now Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim.

If you remember where we were last Sunday, we could say there's nothing quite like opposition to straighten out grumbling. It tends to be that when the church is at peace, she's at war within herself.

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. There's no time for grumbling when the Amalekites are chasing down their rear rank.

Now who is Amalek? Most understand him to be the son of Eliphaz, who would be the oldest son of Esau. That's from Genesis 36, verse 12. And Eliphaz became a chief in the tribe of the 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. We simply don't know. From my two cents, I think it's suggestive that he is from the line of Esau.

And I think perhaps there's a revival or a resurrection of that sibling rivalry going on in this attack. But of course, we're given no explicit reason for this attack. All we read is that Amalek came and fought with Israel.

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? Is it because Esau is going to have descendants that are like a wild donkey of a man, almost like the Ishmaelites?

And this rivalry toward Jacob, the favored son, is now exploding out on the battlefield? 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.

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. 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. 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 Amalekites.

And there is a testimony that's been going out ever since God collapsed the 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.

We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea when He brought you up out of Egypt. 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 Lord God has done.

We know that He collapsed the Red Sea upon your enemies. But this doesn't affect the Amalekites at all. There's no regard for God's sovereignty. There's no regard for God's power, the things that He manifested against the mightiest empire on the face of the earth at that time, the 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 God? There's almost a bewildering confidence on the part of the Amalekites. Well, sadly, we don't have the cause, but we do have the manner of the attack.

From Deuteronomy 25, beginning in verse 17, God reminds His people of what Amalek did on the way when they were coming out of Egypt. And this is what He says, 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.

So who are 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. Think young families, think toddlers, think your dear old granny. 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.

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. 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.

How does Moses respond? We read verse eight, Moses says to Joshua, choose us some men, go out, fight with Amalek. 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.

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 Pentateuch came to be the scriptures of Israel.

The first readers know who Joshua is, of course. So Moses writing, 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.

We already know Joshua, more on the name Joshua in a moment, Joshua is told this, choose some men, go out, fight. Don't you love that? Get some men, go out, fight. How epic is that? Joshua is told, gather the squad, go get your boys.

Think of the camaraderie that would develop, think of the adrenaline, think of the momentum as they're gathering perhaps plundered 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 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.

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.

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 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 Amalekites are churning their way forward up the ranks adds to the drama of this moment.

Verse 10 is a summary of Joshua's obedience. As the Lord commands Moses, so Moses commands Joshua. They're both obedient to the will of God. So Joshua did as Moses said to him and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

Now here's another introduction. We're introduced to Hur as if we already know him. Of course we don't know Hur, we have not met him yet. He's mentioned later on in chapter 24 again with Aaron. There they both are put in charge of the camp, they're deputized by Moses.

So here's a trustworthy man, man of the tribe of Judah, a man who's recognized for his ability, for his great leadership and strength. Moses of course goes up on the mountain of God with Joshua. So you have Moses, Aaron, Hur, up on the top of the hill, Joshua, leading his band of warriors running to the rear ranks to engage the Amalekites.

Now who is Hur?

There's a whole, we could do a whole bit there.

With who is 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, but this was actually the husband of Moses' sister Miriam. But that's Josephus, 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, 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.

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. 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. 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.

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. Verse 10, so it was when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hand, 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.

There's a supernatural characteristic to this fight. The Israelites can only prevail if Moses' hands are held up, 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. 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.

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. 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.

So here we see this marriage, this picture of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Now you'd think this is going to be the easiest war ever. This is going to be Desert Storm. It'll be over in a week.

I used to have Desert Storm trading cards when I was a boy. I used to put Norman Schwartzkopf on my nightstand. This'll be an easy war. 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.

And then all of a sudden he noticed as his arms began to falter and the rod came down that the Amalekites began to butcher and push their way forward to the ranks. Keep in mind, Moses is pushing 80. 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.

We read verse 12, his hands became heavy. And so Aaron and Hur addressed this need. 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.

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. Aaron and Hur to the rescue. Godly leaders need Aaron's and Hur's.

Godly leaders need Aaron's and Hur's. I remember Spurgeon quipping that he knew of many ministers around him that had no 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.

I'm thankful to not be in a place quite like that. Godly leadership needs Aaron's and Hur's. It needs that support, that encouragement, that way of holding up the arms that are weak and tired and drooping.

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. So we see that even here. Moses needs help from Aaron and Hur in order to lead the people of God.

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. 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.

This is a steady hand in the sight of God. Now why did 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. Everything was instantaneous.

It was a strike. It was a moment and everything was unleashed. There wasn't something that required a perseverance of Moses throughout the whole day until the sun goes down. There wasn't an opportunity for Moses to be tired.

All that adrenaline and that moment of striking the rod, the plague was unleashed. But here, they're losing the battle as he's tiring. What is God wanting to show Moses? What is God wanting to show his people?

Well, certainly Moses is learning the lesson that he's been learning for quite a long time. Even as a shepherd and Midian, he was learning his need to depend upon the Lord God. And now the 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. 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.

Insofar as his rod is removed from them, they will be slain. They will be defeated. 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 him in order to follow the way that God is speaking through him.

We have this beautiful summary of the battle in verse 13. Joshua defeated Amalek and his people.

With the edge of the sword.

Literally in the Hebrew, it's the mouth of the sword. Like the sword is gobbling up the enemies of God. Joshua defeated Amalek. We have the summary where Joshua.

Is credited with the victory.

Now Joshua is actually Hosea and we read in Numbers 13 that Moses renames him Joshua. Joshua being identical to Jesus in Greek or Yeshua.

It's Jesus.

It's Savior. The Savior defeated Amalek. Joshua defeated Amalek. God saves. It's not lost on Stephen in Acts chapter seven as he talks about Joshua bringing the people into the land. Matthew 121 says, you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

There's a greater Joshua given for a greater battle. Exodus 17 verse 14, and the Lord said to Moses, write this for a memorial in the book. Recount it in the hearing of Joshua. Literally put it in the ear of Joshua.

I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

This victory,.

And not just the fact of it, but the manner, how it came about was to be recorded and recited. Joshua was to be reminded of everything that transpired across these two days. As he made conquest into Canaan, he would need to be reminded of who it was that was fighting for the people of God.

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 Lord being on their side. Joshua needed to be reminded of that.

Write it down, put it in his ear. 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. You couldn't be more enigmatic, more aggressive with this language of blotting out.

It's effacing.

It's wiping away.

We have it utterly because it's doubled up in Hebrew for emphasis. It's wiping, I will wipe. God's going to utterly wash away the Amalekites. The Amalekites are going to pay for this barbarous act. In Psalm 83, Amalek is linked together with all of the other nations that oppose God.

And they all have this one aim in sight. And so the psalmist cries out, don't be still, O God. Behold, your enemies make a tumult. Those who hate you have lifted up their head. They've taken counsel against your people, consulted together against your sheltered ones.

They've said, come, let us cut them off from being a nation, so that the name of Israel is remembered no more. 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 Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites, Gabal, Ammon and Amalek. Now what you notice in Psalm 83 is what the psalmist recognizes. To be against the people of God is to be against God.

Those who hate you.

To hate the people of God is to hate the God of the people of God. They've consulted against you. 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.

So we see this not as petty vengeance, but God's promise of judgment is retribution. 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.

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.

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. Again, this is not some petty tyranny, some arbitrary act of vengeance.

This is the just judgment of a holy God. And we misunderstand this if we don't see this as a sort of foretelling of that final judgment yet to come. God promises to blot them out and yet his wrath is long-suffering.

It doesn't happen right away. He lets generations go by. He lets centuries hang in the balance. God's wrath is a patient wrath. He's not willing that they would perish. He allows their sins to come to their full measure like the iniquity of the Amorites.

And so in the intervening time, they continue to assault, they continue to harass. Again, God is restraining and if he were to let off the restraint, Psalm 83 would be the result. They would blot the people of God away.

We read in Judges 3, Judges 6, Judges 10, by the time we get to 1 Samuel 15, the day of judgment has come. Or at least it should have come if Saul had obeyed. Now was the time that God said, go and utterly blot out the Amalekites.

It was King Saul who though they were put under the ban, though they were harem, that meant everything, wholesale, was to be destroyed. 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. They're wholesale devoted to destruction. But what does Saul do? Well, he kills Agag. He kills the Amalekite king, but he spares the best of the four.

He spares the best of the cattle. And when the prophet comes, he's so confident, he says, I have obeyed the command of the Lord. And he still had the blood of Agag around the bottom of his cloak. But the prophet, one of the great moments, is one of the, I preached this sermon three or four times when I first started preaching and doing pulpit supply.

One of my favorite exchanges. What then is this bleeding in my ears? You fulfilled the command, what then is this bleeding in my ears? It's an incredible picture of mortification. 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. And so the Amalekites are spared and they gather up and there's still a thorn in the side of Israel, even in the days of David, as we read in 2 Samuel.

It seems that they're finally destroyed in 1 Chronicles 4, under the reign of Hezekiah 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 Agagite.

In other words, he seems to have been a descendant of Amalek. So from chapter 17 all the way through, the Amalekites are this persistent enemy of the people of God.

But as we see this victory here,.

So the final victory is assured. Because one greater than Hezekiah, one greater than David, one greater than Joshua has come. And when 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. 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.

And that's why an altar is built. And that's why the people of God can proclaim,.

The Lord is our banner.

Now, with the last part of our text this morning, there is some textual difficulty. 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. We have it as, Moses built an altar and called its name, the Lord is my banner. For he said, because the Lord has sworn, the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

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 nes, and so you've probably heard Yahweh nisi or Jehovah nisi, the Lord, my banner.

This word for banner, nes, seems to have been inserted or what we call a conjectural emendation. They think this is what the scribe meant to say, and so they conjecture it into the textual transmission.

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, 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.

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.

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. Now the question is, whose hand? We know the throne belongs to the Lord, but whose hand?

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. 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, 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, 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, and that is all held together by verse 16, which brings our focus, as we turn now to application, it brings our focus to the need to understand the battle, the need to understand the battle.

What does it mean for the Lord to be our banner? It means we are engaged in warfare, and the only way we shall prevail is if the Lord is on our side, if the 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.

So the cause, the means, and the side. Well, first, the cause of battle. 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.

They had absolutely no military experience in all of this time. Israelite boys may have played with G .I. Joes like I did, but that didn't amount to any battlefield experience.

That was of use.

They had lived for centuries as slaves. When they were brought out of Egypt, God fought for them. They didn't have to raise a spear or a sword. 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.

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.

Why?

Although it was near, God said this, perhaps the people will change their minds when they see war, and so he led them a different way. In other words, when they were just delivered from their bondage, God knew they will falter, they will turn back to Egypt if they're brought against an enemy.

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, so he led them away from war.

Now, several chapters have commenced. He's provided. He's gave them manna, quail, water from the rock. He's crushed the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. Now they have enough grace, even though they're grumbling, they have enough trust that they're ready to fight, and here, they're knee-deep in war, knee-deep in war.

The nation of Amalek against the nation of Israel. How quickly this combat erupts.

It's this whirlwind,.

Especially as we read the pace of the narrative. It's like out of Egypt on the 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.

And they're sort of spinning around. How could it be that we've gone from being freed to being fighting that quick? And in the Christian life, we often think, well, I've been liberated by God. Ha ha, the biggest battle is over.

I'm a Christian now. Oh, the biggest battle is just beginning. You're a 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.

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. We so often begin, and as we're warned not to think, we do think, how strange, this fiery trial.

How could this conflict be upon me? I'm a Christian now. It should be smooth and safe sailing. Now is the summer, now is the sunset of my struggle. We forget that the struggle in many ways, the battle in many ways, has just begun.

That doesn't mean God doesn't give us seasons of peace. We praise him for it, we're thankful for it. It's unfortunate that our blue hymnal is filled mostly with testimonies of seasons of joy and seasons of peace.

Not many testimonies of seasons of sorrow or setback or depression like the book of Psalms. 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.

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, 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, until that battle ends, we can never stop fighting.

We're men of war, men and women of war. This band under Joshua or Zena, Princess Gloria, we're all men and women together, we're this fighting band where the 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.

Our faith will be put against the opposition. It's through much tribulation that we enter into the kingdom of God. And that's why we fight the fight, the good fight. Now why is this the case? 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?

Why is that the case? Well, ask Israel why they were attacked. It's almost bewildering, isn't it? Why do they hate us so much? What have we done to them? That's one of the things that's so confusing. They don't even know why they're being attacked.

It's not stated. It almost doesn't add up. They're no threat. All they're doing is passing by.

They're barely out of Egypt.

They make no provocation, but war came. 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 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.

And we're confused, we're baffled because we think, I've come to the light. I'm better than I was. I'm kinder. I'm better, I'm more patient. I'm more thoughtful. I'm more helpful. I'm more loving. How could it be now that I'm reviled?

Now that I'm rejected? 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.

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. We're getting closer and closer in our country to the saying, no good deed goes unpunished.

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. 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 Christians. Why does the world hate us so? Well, as you know, it's not just the war within that embroils the 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.

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.

We renounce these sins, and for that reason, opposition breaks out against us. We see that in the book of Acts, right? You go and you mess with people's pet sins. You provoke people's idolatry, and what happens?

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.

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. 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.

The attacks begin to come. And so secondly, God gives us means. He gives us means to stand, means to fight, means to war. We have the cause, now we have the means. What's the means in Exodus 17? Well, God has appointed the means.

It's the rod, the rod of God, the rod that God gave to Moses. This was the means that were appointed. With this rod, he had wrought wonders in Egypt. 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. Don't you love God's sense of humor? Just take a staff, that'll do. Touch the ground with it, that'll do.