The Lord is My Banner - Pastor Tom Loghry
In Exodus 17:8-16 we see that God reveals himself to be not only the sustainer of Israel in providing them with food and water, but moreover, that he is their defense, he is their strength in the face of their enemies.
Transcript:
How does our story end? My story, your story, how does it end? This is a question that hangs in the back of our minds. We're not always conscious of it, but it is the question that stands behind all our striving. There's so much that's arrayed against us in life. We want a story that ends in victory. But we fear that it will end in defeat.
That stated, perhaps bluntly, we'll be ultimately branded a loser. Now, there is an effort in our time to deny that kind of framing altogether, the notion of there being winners and losers. Sometimes it's suggested that everybody's a winner, that everybody gets a trophy. But we know it's not true, and it's part of the reason why we are so anxious.
We feel that our city is surrounded. We are haunted of visions of everything coming crashing down like a house of cards. So much effort for nothing. The threats might be national, technological, financial, personal, or for those with eyes to see, spiritual. Alogether, we feel this tugging at the rug, that it might be pulled out from underneath us, all for nothing, all for nothing, that all will be lost. We can imagine that sort of feeling tugging upon the spirit of the American missionary Adoniram Judson.
In the early 1800s, he and his wife, Ann, traveled to Burma as missionaries, a land in East Asia that was without the gospel and which did not have the Bible in their language. Neither Adoniram nor Ann even knew the language of the people in Burma, and yet they sought, set about learning the language so that they might translate the, the Bible and spread the gospel in that very foreboding place.
In an article featured in Christianity Today, historian Thomas S. Kidd recounts Judson's imprisonment and the tragedies that surrounded his life. He writes, "Death constantly shadowed the Judsons' lives, even before his scourging confinement in prison. Their first child was stillborn and died before they arrived in Burma. In 1815, Ann gave birth to Roger Williams Judson, named for the great American colonial champion of religious liberty. But little Roger lived only eight months. Parents in the 1800s often lost children to disease, but the Judsons had almost no one except themselves and God with whom they could share their grief. Despite their constant difficulties, by 1823, Judson had completed a draft of the whole New Testament in Burmese, and the Rangoon church had more than a dozen baptized members. Then in 1824 came the horrors of war, prison, and torture. In addition to appealing for Judson's release and bringing whatever supplies she could to the prisoners, Ann cared for their baby, Maria, conceived just before Judson went to jail. In 1826, the Burmese finally released Judson, but the bitterest times of his life were yet to come. Just when the, when the reunited couple thought they might resume their ministry, Ann suddenly died. Judson was not even with her at her death, as he had been called away to negotiate a commercial agreement between the British and Burmese. Little Maria died six months later. Judson buried them both in Amherst, Burma, under a large hopea tree that became a pilgrimage site for Western missionaries and Burmese Christians. Judson had long practiced ascetic Christian disciplines, but Ann's and Maria's deaths sent him into a bitter spiral of self-denial and introspection. Emaciated and ill, he on many days ate only a bit of rice. At one point, he dug his own grave and sat on its edge, contemplating the day when his own body would molder there too.
Perhaps you can relate to Judson even if you haven't suffered as much as him. To come so far only for all to seem in doubt. It brings us to the situation of the Israelites. Last week, we recalled how God had led them to camp at Rephidim, a place that was without water. They grumbled and sinfully tested the Lord, questioning whether he was among them at all.
And then, as he had done time and again since their slavery in Egypt and every step along the way, God delivered them by providing water. The Lord instructed Moses to strike a rock with his staff, and water came forth. But now, another danger has emerged: the threat, not of starvation or dehydration, but rather the threat of annihilation from an attacking army.
The people had asked before, and they could begin to ask again, had the Lord led them out into the desert only to die? Of course, God had proven himself trustworthy and they should trust him, just as we should trust the Lord. And yet, we too may falter when we see threats surrounding us. But here in this case, we see a different kind of response of the people under the leadership of Moses.
So we look to the second half of Exodus 17. We'll first look at verses 8 through 10. Again, it says, "The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, 'Choose some of our men and go out to 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." So again, because they are traveling to the promised land, you have to recall that the Israelites are living a nomadic life. They're very exposed. They don't have battle defenses in place, and they're in very rough terrain.
The area of Rephidim, remember where we're traveling here, they, they crossed over from Egypt, and now they're going down into the Sinai Peninsula, and Rephidim is roughly in the area where that red mark is found. And if you get up a little closer, you can see just how formidable the, the terrain is. Well, as they are in that place, they come under attack from the Amalekites.
And when you go through the scriptures, you'll find all kinds of ites, all kinds of Canaanites, Amalekites, Hittites. And you wonder, "Well, where do these people come from?" Well, the Bible tells us. In Genesis 36:10 through 12, it says, "These are the names of Esau's sons." Now just to stop, pause here, Esau was the brother of Jacob.
Jacob later was given the name Israel, one who wrestles with God. And so it's from him that the 12 tribes of Israel come from. So we're talking about some relations here. These are the names of Esau's sons: Eliphaz, the son of Esau's wife Adah, and Reuel, the son of Esau's wife Basemath. The sons of Eliphaz, Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz. Esau's son Eliphaz also had a concubine named Timna who bore him Amalek. These were the grandsons of Esau's wife Adah. So Amalek is a grandson of, of Esau, and his descendants therefore are actually relatives of the Israelites, and yet they're coming here and attacking them. In fact, we, we find greater detail in Deuteronomy 25:17-18 as far as what they actually did because it wasn't as though they came up politely and said, "Sirs, we'd like to engage you in battle."
That's not how they they went about this at all. They said, it, it says here, "Remember what the Amalek, Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind. They had no fear of God." So you can imagine the people as they're moving along and there's some stragglers, probably older people, children.
The, the Amalekites lick their chops and they say, "Ah, here's our opportunity," and they swoop in and they're attacking those who are straggling behind. Very wicked thing to do, especially, this is God's chosen people, and as, you know, these are their relations, too, distant though they be. And they're trying to get in the way of the people of God going to Mount Sinai as God had called them to do.
So the response here that we see is that Moses commands Joshua to choose some men and go out to fight the Amalekites, and that he's going to stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in his hands. Now this, this, obviously this wasn't something that Moses came up with on his own. We can assume that this is something that God instructed him to do and to instruct Joshua to do. There's a time for them to go to war and to fight.
Now, as we kind of step back and we consider, okay, what sort of reminder can this passage give to us today, who are very far removed from this situation as God's people today? It reminds us that there is a time where we are called to arms, that the church is called to arms, but not with the weapons of this, this world.
Yes, at that time, literally take up sword because the, the, the Lord was determined that he was going to settle the people in the land of Israel, that all these things were to take place. But now, on the other side of the cross, we are in a new situation, and we've actually come to realize in Christ who our true enemies are.
That our enemies ultimately are not human in nature, but it's deeper than that. That the battle that we're about is, is spiritual. And so we fight that battle with weapons that will actually succeed. In 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, the Apostle Paul tells us, "So, for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." Wouldn't it be interesting for us if we just stepped back and we looked out on our world and we said, "Maybe the real battle here is spiritual."
Maybe in fact, some of these evil regimes that persecute the church, maybe they know pretty good where their real opposition stands. We look at it and say, "Why would they oppose such a peaceful church? They're not trying, these people aren't trying to fight them or anything." But it's 'cause they know. They can intuit that these people know where the real battle lies, and they're undermining our power.
And this should lead us to believe that the, the peace that we seek, the true flourishing that we speak, it cannot be established by any human sword. Now, ultimately, we know that we're waiting for the day of Christ's return, and there will be a final battle, and evil will be destroyed. We know that. But even here in the interim, we can know that if we're going to enjoy anything of the goodness, the righteousness, the peace of God, it comes not by the weapons of the, this world, but by the weapons of Christ. Returning back to Rephidim and the situation with the Israelites and the Amalekites, we see what transpires in verses 11 through 13.
It says, "As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword." As we look in these verses, it doesn't tell us explicitly that he was holding up the staff, but there's, again, he said that he was going to go to the top of the hill with his staff, and so it seems reasonable to conclude that as he's holding up his hands, he's holding up this staff.
Now, there was nothing magical about the staff in and of itself. It's that the staff was representative of the power of, of God. That it wasn't Moses that was doing these things, but God working through Moses instrumentally. And so as Moses is holding up this staff, so long as he holds it up high the, the Israelites are winning.
But as his arms grow tired and it lowers, the Israelites begin to lose. And so it's, it's a little bit of a back and forth and, and so when he's starting to grow weak, I mean, any of us, even if we just hold up our hands like this, never mind holding a staff, we know we begin to get tired. And so as Aaron and Hur are with him, they say, "Okay, let's put a stone under this guy so he can sit down."
And they're holding up his arms to ensure that the battle continues to go in their favor. And that's exactly what happens. His arms remain upheld, and God gives Joshua and, and the army of Israel the victory. Now, when you look at this story, some among us might be kind of skeptical and scoff and say, "Well, this seems kind of simplistic."
It might seem sort of superstitious that he holds up a staff and they win, and it lowers and they lose. I have to say, I think God works in such a simple way here because He knows that we as human beings are so thick-headed and simple-minded that we need a clear illustration of where the true power lies. What this, all the events that transpire here reveal to us that we're really cooked on our own, that without God on our side, we have no reason to expect victory.
And we see this even in the weakness of, of, of Moses. It wasn't Moses, even Moses himself, all he had to do was hold the staff. He couldn't even do it on, on his own. He needed a couple of guys to hold up his arm, arms in doing that. And it reminds us as, today as the, as the people of God, and that even as much as we go about ministry together, the success of ministry doesn't rest on, on one person.
That's, that's foolishness. Nor doeis it even rest upon the whole collection of, of, of giftings of people. It's God who gives the victory. And the people of Israel have recognized this. In, in Psalm 44, verses 3 through 7, the sons of Korah writing about this, the, the exodus of, of Israel on their journey to the promised land and said, "It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory. It was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you love them. You are my king and my God, who decrees victories for Jacob. Through you, we push back our enemies. Through your name, we trample our foes. I put no trust in my bow. My sword does not bring me victory. But you give us victory over our enemies. You put our adversaries to shame." King David in Psalm 124 writes, "If the Lord had not been on our side, let Israel say, if the Lord had not been on our, on our side when people attacked us, they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us." And then in verse 8 he says, "Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and Earth."
Now, what's really interesting is we have, you know, we have actually another instance in which the Israelites fight the Amalekites and also the Canaanites in which they didn't have God's backing, and they lose. In Numbers 14 through 40, 40 through 45, God had called them to go into the land of Canaan.
They doubted that God would be able to give them the victory over the people in that land. They saw giants, and then they were like, "Well, actually, no, we will fight. We will fight, God." And God said, "No, I'm not letting you go in." And they try to do the battle on their own, and they get whooped.
So we see here in this passage that yes, victory only comes from the Lord. But we also see something else that's pretty interesting, which is that though victory comes from the Lord, it does not mean that he doesn't involve us. Isn't it interesting? I mean, God could have just struck fire down from heaven and taken out the Amalekites, but he called the army of Israel into the field. He called Moses to raise up his hands and for Aaron and Hur to stand at either side of him
God invites us in on the work that he's doing. He invites us in on the mission. Now, we can't know for all the reasons why that he does this, but I think part of it is that it just gets back to the fact that he wants to have a relationship with us. He's called us His children, and He wants us by His side in the work that He's doing.
He wants us to have faith and trust in Him, and if you're gonna step out on a battlefield, that takes some, that takes some faith and trust. Adoniram Judson. That took some faith and trust to go to a place you've never been to. You hadn't even seen it on TV or the news 'cause they didn't have that back then. It takes faith, trust, it takes love.
That's why I think part of the reason why God has called us to be part of this mission to bring the gospel to the world is because the same love that He has for us, He wants us to have for others. And so He calls us into that mission to bring salvation to the ends of the earth
Now this, our battle, this mission that we are about, again, as I've said before, it's a spiritual battle at its very heart. Now, we wanna be nuanced here in saying that we do, we do face human opponents, obviously. Now, in saying that we're facing a spiritual battle, we shouldn't rush to say that, okay, so so and so, that, you know, person or leader or, you know, even the most evil people you can think about in this world, that they're the devil.
Sometimes those, those people have actually very consciously put themselves in league with the devil. Doesn't mean that they're literally the devil though, of course. But it's also the case that many people themselves have been deceived and have become unwitting accomplices of the devil. Sometimes they think they're doing good, when in fact they're doing great evil. And it, and defeating that sort of opposition, again, the true victory does not come by the sword, it comes by spiritual warfare, spiritual weapons that are given us by the Holy Spirit and are given us by the Lord.
The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6, verses 10 through 12 tells us, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
And this full armor of, of God includes all these different virtues: faith, truth, hope. We, we need to equip ourselves with those virtues that are given us by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit if we're going to be able to stand and resist 'cause otherwise, there's a really perverted thing that happens.
And, and I think we see it going on in our society today where people say, "I'm standing for what is good and right in the face of evil." When they're, when they're not doing so in the Lord's way, when they're not fighting with the armor of God, we see those people begin to come, become twisted in the ways of the world in the way that they fight.
They do not fight in the way of, of Christ. They get compromised in their own resistance to the evil that they see around us. And that's what we must be wary of ourselves, is that in resisting evil, we don't become vulnerable and compromised along the way, but that we are well-equipped by looking to Christ and the equipping that he provides us in the Holy Spirit.
In the aftermath of the battle, the Lord gives Moses one further word of instruction. Says, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.' Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is My Banner. He said, 'Because hands were lifted up against the throne of the Lord, the Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.'"
The Lord tells Moses to speak these words, to write these words on a scroll as something to be remembered so that Joshua will hear it, because it's ultimately going to be Joshua who leads the people into the land of Israel, and they're going to have to reckon with the Amalekites. And what we see here is that the Lord has judged the Amalekites to be sworn enemies.
They're ultimately sentenced to destruction, and it's because they have put their hand in rebellion on, on the throne of the Lord. Now, as we think about this, sometimes when we go between the Old Testament and New Testament, our heads can begin to spin because we thought, "Well, I thought we're supposed to love our enemies and be forgiving," and, and here God's laying down judgment. And the judgment that he gives is, is right and true. And even as much as we remember that, yes, Christ has called us to love our enemies and to bring the gospel to them and hope that they would repent and receive forgiveness, we must remember that there is a final judgment that is coming, that all will be held to account.
Now, in the pages of the Old Testament, we see people being held account, to account very quickly, almost immediately. In the present, God in his patience and kindness is giving people an opportunity to turn to Christ, but there is a judgment that's going to come. In 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 6 through 10, Paul tells us, "God is just. He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you because you believed our testimony to you." It's this assurance that releases us as Christians from having to seek vengeance against anyone. If anyone has wronged us, we hope that they repent and would be restored and would be forgiven. But if they do not repent, if they continue on in their sins, and the wrong that they have done us goes unaddressed, and sometimes the wrong things that people do against us, they, it can't be addressed by the legal system, or the legal system is so flawed that they don't hold people to account. If they escape all that, we can rest assured, we, we can be rest assured that God is going to hold them to account. And so because we know that God's going to hold them to account, we do not, we don't need to be a people of, of vengeance. We can be at peace and say, "Okay, God's going to take care of them at the final day."
And we see this in, in, so turning back to Amalek and Israel, we see that God is bringing judgment upon Amalek. It's not something that Israel has whipped up on their own as to what the outcome should be for that, for that people. In a way, the Amalekites are almost iconic of opposition to God. And we're reminded of the fact that this is a divine judgment that is given because in 1 Samuel 15, some of you might be familiar with this story of King Saul, actually goes to battle against the Amalekites, and God had ordered him to destroy them completely, and King Saul doesn't do that.
Instead, he keeps some of the, the cattle alive. He says, "Well, I'll make sacrifices of those." And then he keeps their king alive. And because of his disobedience against God, the throne is ultimately stripped away from King Saul. This is how we go from King Saul to King David, because he was disobedient in this instance in bringing the judgment upon the Amalekites that God had commanded
Now again, you know, I was talking about us resting, being, being able to be, rest assured because it's God who's going to bring about true justice. We remember that this comes from Christ, that this has been secured by Christ, that it doesn't depend upon us. In Revelation 19, verses one through two, it says, "After this," this is the Apostle John speaking. He says, "After this, I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting, 'Hallelujah. Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.'"
It's God who, who ultimately holds people to account. And, and we see Moses here build an altar of remembrance of the reality that this victory that they enjoyed comes from God. As, as is the case for any victory that, true victory that we would enjoy. In verse 15 it says, "Moses built an altar and called it, The Lord is my banner."
Our victory does not come from ourselves. We are sent into battle, but victory or loss is not decided by us. Our victory is only secured by the completed work of Christ. It is the Lord who is my banner. It is the Lord who is your banner. And we come to share in that victory by our faith in Him. The Apostle John tells us in 1 John 5, verses 4 through 5, "For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God." Our faith itself isn't what saves us, but our faith in Christ, the one who has overcome, that is what saves us because he is already victorious, and that victory will be revealed at the day of his return.
Death confronts us. Satan's accusations assail us. But the Apostle John testifies in Revelation 12:10-11 that we overcome in Christ. He says, "Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, 'Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,'" talking about Satan here, "'who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.'"
It is Christ who is our confidence. He is the reason why we don't take a single step back. He's the reason why Adoniram Judson persevered. Judson would be remarried and lose another wife. He would marry again, and then he would eventually succumb to disease. But he never despaired. We do not yet know the full fruit of Judson's work, but even now we can see the Lord's victory in his life.
In closing, Kidd tells us Judson's long missionary career saw no spectacular ingathering of converts. Most converts in Burma during his lifetime came from the Karen tribe, not the ethnic Burmese majority to whom he devoted the most time. Judson did not, did receive praise in America for his Bible translation, but of course, only the Burmese could read it, so few Americans ever read any of his work.
He spent most of his adult life toiling in relative obscurity in Burma and primarily spent the last ten years composing a dictionary. As a missionary, he was not sensational, but he was extraordinarily disciplined and resilient. Judson left a profound legacy in Burma, but he did not always see the fruit he initially expected.
As one Burmese Christian commented more than one hundred fifty years after the publication of Judson's translation, "Whenever someone mentions the name Judson, great tears come to our eyes because we know what he and his family suffered for us. Today, there are millions of Christians in Myanmar, and every one of us traces our spiritual heritage to one man, the Reverend Adoniram Judson."
When Christ returns and Judson is raised from his grave with the rest of us, he will then know his story. And he will know that it is a good one, not because of himself, but because of Christ who worked in and through him in ways seen and unseen. Not a loser, a great conqueror because of Christ. And in Christ, the same will be true of our own stories.
Our stories that are caught up in this one great story. You have to understand that God's story doesn't end on the last page of the Bible. It continues forward, and we are part of that story. And we are not forsaken. The Amalekites will not win the day. Now our battle does not end in a day as at Rephidim, but its outcome is no less certain in Christ because in a single day the war was won, on the day of Calvary, the day of the cross. Despite all appearance of weakness, we are assured that the battle belongs to the Lord and we will emerge victorious. And so it's with this confidence that we make war with the devil, that we give him fits. Because we will not despair. Rather, we will march onward in Christ, clinging to Him as our staff, as our banner, as our salvation.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we worship God together. It's our joy to welcome you into our community
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)