Word of Salvation – Vol.25 No.47 – August 1979

 

God’s Faithfulness Known And Remembered… In Our Dedication And Thanksgiving To Him!

 

Sermon by Rev. P. G. Van Dam on Exodus 17:8-16

Scripture Reading: Exodus 17:8-16

Psalter Hymnal: 286:1,2,4; 45:2,1,8 (law) or 195 (creed), 139:1,3; 48

 

There is more in this brief account of Israel’s battle with Amalek than meets the eye.  After all, Scripture is not meant to be a story book.  Instead, God has given us His Word for our instruction.  And the account which we just read serves that same purpose of our instruction: for us to understand better all the time ‘Who our God is’.  To know Him, in His glory and in His faithfulness to His people.  And to remember that He works all things for the honour of His name; He is God, and He alone.

In our passage we read of the same three ‘parties’ of whom we read right throughout Scripture: God, His people, and their enemy: Satan.

From a place like Revelation chap.12 we know that in His resurrection Christ has once for all destroyed the power of Satan over His people.  Not that Satan will admit this defeat; having failed to destroy the Christ he has since been trying to destroy His people instead.

While Amalek himself would not have been aware of this, if he had succeeded in destroying Israel Satan would have prevented Israel from reaching Mt Sinai where they were going to be formally declared God’s people.

Yet, this is precisely what Satan is aiming at all the time in his many different ways: to destroy the people of the Lord, their hope, their peace and their certainties.  His purpose is to destroy God’s people; either as a people or else the individual members of the people of the Lord.

In the account which we read, we read that the way Satan will try to reach his goal is by trying to come between God and His people.  By preventing or discouraging them from meeting with their God.  Once he would succeed that way he would have more than half his battle won.  For then the faith of the people of the Lord would weaken, and this would make them much more ready victims.

This is precisely also the weakness of – and danger for – those who take it easy with the worship services, where the people meet with the Lord there where He is Himself.

The fact that Amalek prevented Israel from the use of the waters of Rephidim is another illustration of this means of Satan.  Not having had the opportunity to refresh and strengthen themselves had weakened Israel.  Then, while Israel is weary, Amalek comes up from behind and hits the people in the back; those who are weak first.

This should remind us that Satan always follows this same method, really.  We may well have examples of this in our own lives, or in the life of the church.  He does not usually hit us in an open way so that we recognize him.  He hits us, as church and individually, where and when at times we are weak.  In a way in which we usually do not recognize that it is he who is ‘at us’.

And because we do not recognize him from the start we may well be inclined to think of other reasons as to why hardship may have come upon us.  We may blame ourselves and talk ourselves down as failures.  We may blame God and ask why He should not have prevented our hardship.  And perhaps our most common reaction is to hit out at others who, we say, have done a mean thing to us, or who have failed us.

But, strangely enough, we hardly ever accuse Satan who is the instigator of all evil.  Or admit that he is behind it all, trying to destroy us or our peace and trust in God.  Indeed, most of the times we don’t see him at work.  Or recognize that he will want to make full use of our weaknesses.  He always hits ‘from behind’ where we are weakest, and from where we did not see him come.  And he is very cunning, indeed, to detect our weaknesses; even of the ‘strongest’ ones among us.

Moses instructs Joshua to counter the attack of Amalek.  Meantime, we read, he himself climbs the hill “with the rod of God in his hand” (vs.9).  The meaning of this “rod of God in his hand” is that Moses is calling on God’s faithfulness.  This has always been the way in which Moses pleaded, or would plead, for His people.  He would never come with excuses for the sins of His people; he knew only too well that before the Lord there are no excuses for the failures of the sinfulness of the people.  He always pleaded for them on the ground of the faithfulness, the promises of their covenant God ‘Reminding’ Him, as it were, of the fact that these promises and that His faithfulness were, after all, a matter of the honour of His Name.

In this Moses does teach us an important lesson.  For that is the only way for us also to plead with the Lord.  The way the Lord Himself wants us to plead with Him.

And Moses knew only too well – as should the people after the plagues which the Lord had sent upon Egypt and after their miraculous salvation by the waters of the Red Sea – that their only hope is in the strength and in the faithfulness of their God.  He alone was their – and is our – strength and victory.  Provided that we in our responsibility continue to call upon His faithfulness.

But this is more than asking for a favour or for help only once.  It is a matter of a continuous, living relationship with him!

Symbolically this is shown in the need for Moses to keep his hands lifted up.  For as long as his hands are lifted up Israel is winning; the moment his arms slacken it is losing.  And as in Moses’ case, we owe one another the support and encouragement we all need at times.

We may note from the account we read that while the battle rages in the valley, the outcome is decided on the hill.  In fact, that goes for all of our lives, and for the battle in this world, but the outcome is decided ‘on the hill’.  And we may expect that outcome to be a victory only if we continue to claim God’s faithfulness to His people as a matter of the honour of His Name.  Again… that is the only ground on which we can plead with our covenant God!

Once we read that Moses climbed the mountain that there he might claim God’s faithfulness to His people, we cannot help but think of that mountain on which Christ suffered and died for the guilt and the failures of the people of the Lord.  Where His blood atoned for our sins, and united us with our covenant God in the bond of a true and everlasting covenant relationship.  His blood was the seal of the faithfulness of our God for his people.  His blood is the claim we have on our God!  Indeed, our claim.  For is not this what we mean when we end our prayer with the words, “in the Name of Jesus”?  His blood was the seal of God’s faithfulness.  With the words “in Jesus’ Name” we point God to that seal!  And on the basis of that seal He will hear us!

The mountain, it also reminds us how Jerusalem, the ‘city of our God’ (Ps.46,48, etc), was built on a mountain.  Jerusalem, symbol of the people of the Lord, the church, in whose midst their Saviour-God lives.

And mountains are the symbols of God’s glory and power.  Of the Lord, our God!  The battle of the life of the church and of our lives must be fought; we cannot withdraw from it, we just cannot.

The outcome is sure, on account of the blood of Christ shed on the mountain where He was crucified; where He shed the blood as the sign and seal of God’s faithfulness.

But as far as our own responsibility is concerned, which God never omits or ignores, that outcome is also decided here, on the mountain of the Lord where He Himself lives in the midst of His people.  Indeed, where we are now; where we have come into His presence.  If we are here – yes, if we are here – and have lifted our hearts and hands joining in the confession with all our being of the faithfulness of our God.  Not to be here, is letting our hands fall down.  Then we will be on the losing end of our battle.  Worse, yet, we are ‘letting down’ our faithful God, and ignore the blood of the Son which sealed His faithfulness unto us.

Let us remember: our failure is never God’s failure.  The blood of Christ would for ever deny, remove, any accusation that God could have failed us!  It is out of the question!

Is this, then, why we are here?  To draw close unto Him, with uplifted hearts and minds?  Confessing that His faithfulness is our hope, our only hope?

After Israel had gained the victory over their enemy – in the way of their dedication to their God and of His faithfulness – God gives Moses the instruction: “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”  “As a memorial in a book…!”  Obviously for the purpose that the people will remember the mighty deeds of their Lord for them, and His faithfulness to them.  As His Church we have such a book also.  It is the book of which God spoke to Moses in our text; but we have that book completed!  A book written by the guidance of God Himself, in which through His Spirit He guided Moses and the other authors to write His Word.  In which are recorded all the deeds of His power and of His faithfulness to His people.  Yes, for us also.  For He is the same God Who gave Israel the victory over Amalek.  The same God.  He will never change.  We remember those beautiful words of Malachi 3,6: “For I the Lord (Yahweh) do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.”

His book, the record of His faithfulness to – and of His mighty deeds for – His people.  To remind them and to reassure them, of their victory.  Their victory as a matter of the honour of His Name!  And of the Name of His Son in Whom we are “more than conquerors through Him Who loved us” (Romans 8:37).  For that is what His Word is all about: the record of His faithfulness to His people – to remind them that He has never failed them.  Not even in the guilt of their sins in which they had so often failed Him, ignored and denied Him.  Precisely then did Jesus Christ die for them (Rom.5:8).

His book is the record of His faithfulness to us in Jesus Christ.  A book of memorial: “Remember and believe as we use these words at the table of the Lord’s Supper.  The table to re-assure us of His never-failing love and care for His people, for the sake of the work of Christ.

To remind us that He will blot out the remembrance of Satan and of all his evil and destruction as surely as He did indeed blot out the name of Amalek as He had said He would.

In response, we read that Moses built an altar.  An altar is the O.T. symbol of thanksgiving and dedication, in remembrance of all God had done for His people and their salvation.

Moses called the altar: “The Lord is my Banner”.  That is to say: “The Lord is my protection and my salvation”.

We do not build altars anymore.  We need not build altars anymore.  The outward ritual of the service of thanksgiving has passed away; our worship is the worship of our hearts.  The altar of the New Testament people of God is their heart.

But the question has remained the same, or – in fact has become more urgent: how often do we offer the Lord the thankfulness and dedication of our hearts?  Yes, the question has become more urgent.  For we have seen what Moses had not seen with his own eyes: the cross of Calvary and the empty tomb.

But if we do not offer the Lord the thanksgiving of our hearts and renew our pledge of dedication to His service, is it because we do not remember His mighty deeds for our salvation very often or very clearly?  And is that because we do not read the Book of Memory too often?  Do not lift up our hands to the Lord too often.  And are fighting a losing battle?

You know, the Lord always blesses His people in a double way, twice.  In reminding them – through His Word! – of His salvation and of His faithfulness.  But in the second way He blesses us in and through our thanksgiving itself is such a rich blessing!  It calms our souls, and renews our trust in our God.  In fact, do we know that true thanksgiving (thanksgiving from the heart, that is) is the key as far as our responsibility is concerned, to the meaningfulness and the strength of our faith, in the battle of our every-day’s life in this world?  But if we would fail to come, fail to join in remembering His mighty deeds where they are “recited in the ears” (vs.14) of the people, and where the people offer thanksgiving, we would not know that two-fold blessing the Lord wants His people to have.  Then Satan has managed to come in between God and His people.  Between God and me!

Then, finally, there follow these words: “A hand upon the throne (rather than: upon the banner) of the Lord!” (vs.16).  The precise meaning of these words is not quite clear.  But in the first place we may think of the hand of Moses which he lifted up to the Lord.  Of his plea, as the mediator of the people, for their victory over and their salvation from – Amalek.

As we know, in Moses we see the Mediator for the people for whose sin and guilt He died and rose.  To make them a victorious people of the Lord!

Where Moses could only place a hand upon the throne of the Lord to plead with Him before his people, we know that Jesus Christ has satisfied all the requirements of the Father in order that we should be His children.  So, Christ rightfully claims of the Father that He always keeps and guides us until the day that our salvation shall be full, and we shall see our Victor and the victory we have in Him with our own eyes.

And the Father being a righteous God cannot deny this claim of His Son, our Lord.  There is no uncertainty left anymore in our salvation and in the hope of the life of the world to come.

But this is a reason all the more why we should come, and lift our hands.  That we should not “neglect so great a salvation”! (Heb.2.3)

We must always reach out to Him.  Put our hands in His.  As a child puts its hand into that of its father, for assurance, strength, comfort, safety, peace – so must we put our hands into the hands of our God on the throne!  And remember the words of Revelation 5.6, of the Lamb slain for our sins, standing between the throne and His people, their saviour and mediator.  Indeed, what do we do with our hands?  How clean are they; how dirty?  How strong do we think they are?  Or how weak do we feel they have become in our old age?  Our hands do tell the story and the truth of our lives in this world.  Then, again, it does not matter, after all, what they are like, does it?  The only question which does matter is: do we want to lift them up to Him, and put them into His hands?  True, this does mean that before we can do this we must first put down or put aside what we are holding in our hands!  But if we do lift our hands and put them into His He will assure us of the comfort of the last words of the passage we read.  He will not cease His war with Amalek.  Amalek, the enemy of the people, shall not have them.

Sin and Satan shall not have you.  Never.  The blood of Christ is the pledge, the guarantee of His faithfulness to you.

Amen.