Word of Salvation – Vol.42 No.06 – February 1997

 

Hands Lifted Up To The Throne

 

Sermon by Rev. R. Brenton on Exodus 17:8-16

Scripture Readings: Exodus 17:8-16; Hebrews 7:24-26

 

Congregation of our Lord.

A desperate man once cried out to the Apostle Paul, “What must I do to be saved?”  “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” said Paul, “and you will be saved.”  It’s true.  “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  It’s that simple.  Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me” – on God – “has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”  It’s that simple.  It’s that instant.

The Lord saves you at once!  In the blink of an eye you cross over from the Land of the Dead to the Land of the Living.  By faith you receive the life that is really life.  It’s as if God has given you new life.  He has.

But living the new life is not so simple as receiving it, as you’ve probably found out by now.  All of us who have it fight to hold on to it.  We have learnt that it’s not easy to live up to what we have attained.  We have learnt that this new life which began, from our point of view, with a simple act of faith, now calls for constant faithfulness.

Every day – yes, every minute of the day the Lord is calling us to keep the faith.  We have learnt that that simple promise, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” is accompanied by admonitions to keep on believing.  Here’s one from Paul: “God has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation – if you continue in your faith, established, firm, not moved by the hope held out in the gospel.”

My brothers and sisters, we may not have realised it at the time, but at that moment when we crossed over from death to life we were set on a new path.  You see, the new life is a new way of life.  We have been given no choice but to take that way to the very end.  This means that we have to finish what has been started for us.  This means that we have to persevere – stick with it – endure to the end.  Jesus says that the person who stands firm to the end will be saved.  And Paul reminds us that if we endure, we will rule with the Lord Jesus.

It’s like this: We, believers in the Lord, have been saved, all right.  But we are being saved as we continue trusting and obeying the Lord.  In the end – if we endure till then – we will be saved.  So, we must follow our Lord along the Way until we come to the End.  We must endure to the End.  But will we?  Can we?  We who are walking the Way have learnt by now that it is narrow in places; slippery, too.  We’ve been warned: If you think you are standing firm, look out!  You may fall.

Watch and pray, says the Lord.  Many dangers, traps, and pits mark the Way.  And sometimes we get caught in the devil’s trap.  Sometimes we fall into temptation.  Our lives get roughed up; our faith shaken!  And sometimes we lose heart and grow weary of the Way, so we backslide.  When we come to our senses we realise that we have to recover the distance that we had travelled once before.

And then there are those stretches in our life when we are so on-the-move, yet going nowhere with the Lord.  At such times we wonder whether our faith will endure to the end.  When all is said and done, will I be saved?

You and I are not the first to wonder whether we’ll make it.  Our forefathers and mothers who first walked the Way had a long, hard journey ahead of them.  When Moses, their leader, parted the waters of the Red Sea, the whole lot of them – all Israel – crossed over from death to life, while Egypt, who kept Israel in death, was drowned in the Sea.

So, when Israel made it through to the other side, they left their old life – death! – behind them.  But Israel was yet a long way from home; there were miles to go before reaching the Promised Land.  And only one way to go: the Way of faith.

What else could they do along the Way but keep on believing their Lord?  They had to learn to trust him for basics like food and water; also for courage and strength against the enemy who would do all in his power to prevent Israel from reaching the End.

Exodus 17 tells the story of our saved-from-Egypt forefathers and mothers facing their first enemy, the Amalekites.  The hostility between Israel and Amalek goes back a long way.  Amalek was the grandson of Esau.  And Esau was the twin brother of Jacob (who was given the name Israel).  Israel was loved by God and chosen to inherit life from God.  Esau was hated by God and cursed

In fact, Esau despised his birthright and so forfeited the blessing he might have had from the Lord.  Esau became one of Satan’s slaves, sowing bad seed for his Master.  Amalek was bad seed!  Amalek’s ambition was to choke God’s good seed before it can take root in the Promised Land.

Early on in Israel’s journey along the Way, the Amalekites came and attacked them at Rephadim.  Moses said to Joshua, the commander of Israel’s army, “Choose some of our men and go out and fight the Amalekites.  Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.  So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill.”

At first the Israelites put it to the Amalekites.  And then the Amalekites came storming back.  Back and forth the battle went: first one side taking advantage, then the other side.  Nothing unusual about that.  With two evenly matched sides the advantage often changes hands; sometimes in a hurry.

At this battle, though, there is a reason for the sudden shifting of advantage.  Moses on top of the hill was holding up his hands.  As long as Moses kept his hands up, Israel was winning over Amalek.  But let me tell you, it isn’t easy to keep your hands up in the air for a very long time.  Just try it.

Sure, it looks easy to do.  And at first it is easy.  But after a while gravity has its way and pushes with all its might to force your hands down.  What goes up must come down!  You just can’t beat gravity.

And neither could Moses.  Try as he might, Moses finally had to give in to gravity and drop his hands.  But then Amalek started winning over Israel.  And poor Moses had to push his gravity-weary hands up toward heaven again for Israel’s sake.

Up.  Down.  Up.  Down.  Up.  Down.  Israel.  Amalek.  Israel.  Amalek.  That’s the way it went.  ‘Didn’t take long for the three men on the mountain top to get the picture.  Hands must be lifted upward to the throne of the Lord, if Israel is to win the battle.

So, Aaron and Hur took a stone and put it under Moses (for a chair), and then the two helpers held Moses’ hands up standing on each side of him — so that his hands stayed steady till sunset.  “So [we read] Joshua overcame the Amalekite Army with the sword.”  Surely this was a day for our forefathers and mothers to remember.  Who could forget a day like that?

Let me tell you that the memory of that day has been preserved for us, too.  We need this memory for our walk on the Way.  We, too, have quite a fight on our hands before we come to our Promised Land.  The Scriptures say, “The Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation until he completely blots out their memory from under heaven.” Vs.16

Until that day comes we will find ourselves in the Lord’s Army at war against Satan and his seed.  That being the case, the Way to the End is more like a battlefield than Easy Street.  Fact is, we’re all in the Lord’s Army.  All fighting the good fight of faith.  And sometimes we are on our own, so it seems, engaged by the enemy in hand-to-hand combat.

Like his father the devil, Amalek revels in prowling about and picking off the slowpokes, the stragglers, the sleepyheads, and the softies – all who aren’t army-fit and battle-alert!  Amalek likes to pick off God’s people one-by-one-by-one.  Amalek likes to isolate you and make you fight him one-on-one.

Amalek, you see, is Esau’s revenge.  The Incarnate Spirit of Esau remains hell bent on depriving us sons and daughters of Jacob of our inheritance in the Promised Land.  Is it any wonder Amalek attacks in the early days of Israel’s newly saved-from-Egypt life?

So the devil, the great spoiler, like a roaring lion, is poised to pounce on us the moment he senses we are off our guard.  We need to be on our guard because our Joshua — our Commander — has called us to take the battlefield.

As we do, let’s remember that the battle is out of our hands.  While we go hand-to-hand against the enemy, fighting for our lives just to make the Way passable for us, Someone Else is lifting his holy hands to the throne of God.

What Moses did for our ancestors during that first Exodus, our Lord Jesus is now doing for us in the final Exodus of God’s people.  It’s true.  Our Lord Jesus is interceding with his God and Father.  He is making contact with the highest throne in the universe in order to plead our cause.

In John 17 we’re given a glimpse of Jesus’ intercession as he prays for us.  Listen to him praying (verses 11 and 24).  He says this to God about us: “I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world.  Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name – the name you gave me – so that they may be one as we are one.  Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

This is how Jesus prayed for us right before he was taken back up to heaven to share in his Father’s glory.  And you can be sure that he keeps on praying for us this way.  While we fight Amalek here below, he is up on the hill top, hands lifted up to the throne.  Only because he does this, we can stand our ground and endure to the End.  There can be no other explanation for our endurance along the Way.  Yet, far too often we get used to the smooth stretches along the Way.

On the other side of Wellington Harbour is the Rimutaka Range.  And in the Rimutaka Forest is a popular tramping trail called the 5-mile track.  The track is so wide and so gentle that experienced trampers have nick-named it Main Street.  Someone like me who takes his first tramp on this Main Street can fool himself into thinking that tramping is easy.

That’s how I felt as I tramped down the 5-mile track on the way to the little goat track that goes up Mount Matthews.  So, this is what tramping is all about (I thought to myself).  It’s so easy.  Anybody can do it.

There was a time when Jesus had to help his own followers get ready for the steep and rocky part of the trail that lay ahead, in effect, Jesus was saying that they were about done tramping the 5-mile track and were ready to do Mount Matthews.  He said, the Way ahead is going to be too tough for the whole lot of you.  You’re not in shape for it.  You won’t make it.  You’ll all find the going too tough.  So you’re going to give up and go back home, leaving me to make the tramp up the mountain on my own.

Do you remember Peter’s reaction?  He said: Not me, Lord!  Everybody else may go home, but not me.  I’m going to stay with you to the End of the Way.  No, Peter (responded Jesus).  Not this time.  This time you are going to fall away.  Truth is, you are going to fall into Satan’s sieve.  He has asked permission to sift you as wheat: Satan wants the world to see that you are nothing but worthless chaff, that your profession of faith is a mouthful of empty words.  Peter, Satan is going to make you look bad, really bad.  When he gets through with you, there’ll be nothing left worth bragging about.

Jesus was right.  Satan sifted Peter as wheat.  Satan shook Peter up so badly that Peter denied Jesus as his Lord.  Not just once.  Three times!  When cornered, big-talkin’ Peter couldn’t come up with one good word in favour of the Jesus he had once called his Lord.  Instead, Peter proved to be the biggest coward of all Jesus’ disciples.

Yes, Jesus was right about Peter.  He predicted Peter would give up on him.  And Peter did.  But listen.  Even knowing ahead of time what would become of Peter, Jesus refused to write him off like a car demolished in a bad smash.

Even before Satan got a hold of Peter, Jesus said to him, “But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.  And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”  Luke 22:31-32

My friends, Peter fell.  Oh, how he fell!  Oh, how hard he hit rock bottom!  Think of it.  The first person to profess his faith in Jesus Christ – the first real Christian – fell down hard.  It happened to Peter.  And it can happen to you and to me.  We who are so sure of where we stand, and who say that the Way ahead is wide and smooth — we may fall!  It might happen to us.

Behind the scenes Satan (that Enemy Spirit) may rant and rave in God’s face against the likes of you and me as he shakes us in his sieve.  You may even hear him snarl in your own ear that you’re nothin’ but an old dried up, useless-to-God piece of chaff.

And you just might find yourself agreeing with him.  Choking back the tears, you cry to the Lord, “O Dear Lord, I don’t amount to much right now; you know I haven’t been living up to my profession; my walk lately isn’t worthy of my calling as a Christian.” And then you think to yourself, “Maybe Satan’s got me pegged right after all: a worthless piece of chaff stuck in his sieve!”

Maybe.  But listen.  Your Jesus loves you.  Did he not choose you and make you his own?  If he has, then who will bring a charge against you, a charge that can stick?  It is God, after all, who puts you in the right with him.  Who condemns you?  There is nobody around to do that anymore.  What Satan says doesn’t go anymore.  Nobody can condemn you because Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for you.

So, who can separate you from the love of God?  Can trouble or hardship?  Persecution?  Famine?  Nakedness?  Danger?  Amalek’s Sword?

No!  In all these things you are more than conquerors through him who loved you.

It all comes down to this.  Our Jesus, the one who died for us and now lives again, is able to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  He is able to save completely those who come to God through him.  And how so?  Because he always lives to intercede for them.  We have someone on our side whose hands are lifted up to the throne.

My brothers and sisters, we must endure to the end, if we would be saved.  But we shall endure because our Jesus, even now, lifts, his hands to heaven’s throne.  That’s what he does for a living… so that your living and mine will forever be with him.

Today Jesus says to you: I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.  I’ll sustain you to the End of the Way.

Amen.