Now for Exodus 17. A weird story, but one hugely helpful for our imaginations!
Here God records the first battle Israel fought after the Red Sea: ‘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.”‘ (Why the staff? Well, back in Exodus 4 it was the proof God gave him that he was God’s man wielding God’s authority. So his holding it up over the battlefield was a declaration of God’s authority with him over this situation. It’s just like when we pray in Jesus’ name about something today, claiming this authority as active over that specific situation.)
‘So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. 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 his hands up one on one side and one on the other so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army'(17:8 13).
A little strange (particularly the bit about folk insisting that Moses’ hands were in the air; have you been to a worship session like that?!) Seriously though: Why has God given it us? Well, surely the point is clear: as long as Moses prayed, God’s people prevailed; but when the praying stopped, there were real consequences. Serious ones: people actually started to die when the praying stopped; there were heads chopped off, spears plunging into Israelite intestines, Israelite gore splashed across the rocks; even though Moses had stopped praying for the legitimate reason of tiredness. (Perhaps some of the times when we feel like stopping praying out of weariness, can be the very times when the prayer battle is most crucial; so the enemy is doing his best to stop us? The fact that we don’t feel we’re achieving anything is no guide to what’s really going on.) God is sovereign; but He loves us, and really wants to partner with us as adults; so He’s given us real spiritual weapons, and it makes a big difference whether we use them or not. It’s part of the dignity of being His children: our actions have real consequences. He’s chosen so to arrange things that in general, if we pray, there is blessing, and if we don’t, there isn’t. ‘You do not have, because you do not ask God’ (James 4:2). (Although I’m glad there are exceptions – times when in His kindness He gives us what we omitted to ask for!)
We’re in a war. ‘Our struggle is not against flesh and blood’, says Paul, ‘but against… the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Eph 6:12); and unless we take the weapon of prayer (6:18) for committed warfare against Satan who has actually ‘blinded the minds of unbelievers’ (2 Cor 4:4), our efforts and arguments will be ineffective. We see this in outreaches: there are spiritual barriers that must be broken in prayer, so that the Word can go forward. Spiritual warfare by prayer is indispensable in the struggle. And that applies to the rest of life too. It’s like God has given us a big pipe, and one end is in heaven and we can put the other wherever we want God’s blessing to come – but we do need to use that pipe, opening the way for the blessing! Or like Watchman Nee says: prayer is like laying the railway track, so that the train of God’s blessing can come…
‘I want you to know’, says Paul, ‘how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and’ – great missionary prayer, this – ‘for all who have not met me personally’ (Col 2:1). His teammate Epaphras, he adds, is ‘always wrestling in prayer for you… working hard for you'(4:12 13). I might tend to give up when prayer starts to feel like ‘wrestling’: but again, that may be when we’re really engaging the enemy! So all this is a vital habit to learn. And as usual what matters isn’t success, but desire to grow: Matthew 5:6, `Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled!` If we commit to a lifetime of learning to release God’s goodness and power into the world, if we want to learn to pray and to prioritize prayer, He loves us and will surely help us do so, over time! (To be honest it took me years and years!)
PS In these chapters God is showing us those vital practical things that help us get through the wilderness. Last week we saw the need to ensure a weekly rest; the next chapter, ch18, focuses on learning (it’s the same lesson actually) not to try to do more than God has given us capacity to do: in other words, if we’re leaders, learning to delegate, which means (Eph 4:12) raising up the gifts of others. (Oswald Sanders’ classic Spiritual Leadership is excellent on this, as usual.) It’s interesting, too, that Moses is a prophet, but we see that, as a prophet, he still badly needs to listen to the wisdom of someone who isn’t (Ex 18:24)…
