Prayer Warriors, Overcomers

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.  --John 3:14-15

This past week as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I saw some commentary on Exodus 17:8-13 that didn't sound quite right to me, but I forgot about it and kept on scrolling.  Then, this morning, I heard a sermon from my pastor online (most churches in my area are still closed due to COVID-19 restrictions), and  it was the same scripture with a remarkably different take.

It reminded me to trust my gut spiritually, and to speak against false teachers.

If you are not familiar with the story in Exodus 17, Moses is leading the children of Israel (Jacob, grandson of Abraham) through the wilderness.  He is met with a nomadic, warring tribe led by Amalek (grandson of Esau, Jacob's brother).  Moses tells his lieutenant Joshua to muster all the men of fighting age, and to lead them into battle.  Moses knew that the men that Joshua would recruit had absolutely  no military experience, and probably no offensive weapons.  Remember, they had gone into Egypt as a group of shepherds, and had come out some 400 years later as a slave class of brick-makers and masons used to build the pyramids.

Moses also knew the provision of God.  He knew that God would not leave His people without defense.  He had already witnessed God providing food from the sky and water from a rock.  The same God who had provided what they needed to ward off hunger and thirst would also be their defender against their enemies.

Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.  So Moses said to Joshua, "Choose for us men, and go out and fight with with Amalek.  Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand."  So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.  Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.  But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side.  So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.  And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.  --Exodus 17:8-13

Catholic tradition states that Hur was married to Moses' sister Miriam.  So Moses watched the battle from a high vantage point, and he asks his brother and his brother-in-law to go with him.  He stands with both hands aloft, probably holding up the rod that he had used to part the Red Sea.  As long as the rod is held high, the men of Israel won the battle; when Moses rested, the men of Israel lost the battle.

So this is the back-story.  This past week I read the essay from the questionable theologian who seemed to imply that there was no causative relation between Moses holding up his hands and the defeat of the Amalekites.  From this side of history, he believes that it was ultimately God's will for Israel to prevail and go on to the Promised Land.  Therefore he used some Hebrew linguistic argument about causative verbs vs. permissive verbs in Scripture.  In other words, whenever an Old Testament story starts, "God caused..." followed by whatever tragedy occurred, it really means that God allowed the sinful, fallen world to do what it does.  This line of thinking is the basis for the argument that God is love, good and gracious always, and He is never jealous, never hates, and never could cause harm.  The argument is that God allows death, disease and destruction, but He never is the author of them.  He allowed the Black Plague, for example, but the He gave grace to the survivors.  Similarly, He could not have caused the current global pandemic, but by His grace the elect will allow His people to overcome.  Therefore, the essay went on to say, there was no correlation between Moses having his hands up or down--God would not allow His people to be defeated.

Well, well.

I think my pastor had it more correct, more in line with the nature of God.  His belief is that Moses was up on the hilltop in an attitude of prayer.  As long as he lifted his hands to heaven, God answered his prayer.  Whenever he grew weary of praying, God withdrew His blessing.  Realizing this, Aaron and Hur did what they could to support Moses in his intercessory mission.  They made him comfortable.  They lifted him up, certainly physically but probably also spiritually, so that he would not become weary.

If you believe, as I do, that the gospel can be seen in both the Old and New Testament, then you can see similarities in the work of Moses and the work of Christ.  Romans 8:34 says, "Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us." (Emphasis added).  Like Moses, Jesus sits upon a high vantage point looking down on our battles.  Like Moses, Jesus pleads with the Father for us.

When Jesus was meeting with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who was seeking the truth, He used an image that every little Jewish boy knew well.  The story is from Numbers chapter 21, where God sent a plague of vipers to attack, because the people had disobeyed God's command.  God then told Moses to make an image or representation of a snake out of bronze, and to raise it up on a pole for all to see.  Those who looked up at the image of the viper and believed would be healed.  Those who would not, died.  Jesus referred to this story when He said, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life."

Moses interceded for the people, and Jesus intercedes for  us.  Moses lifted up a symbol of sin and death so that the peopled could be saved, and Jesus was Himself lifted up on a symbol of torture and death, and took all our sins upon Himself, so that we could be saved.  Our job, then, is to follow God's call to us.  We are to seek the face of God, like Jesus (and Moses) did.  We are to pray and not grow weary, as Moses (and Jesus) did.  We are to lift up the leaders who shepherd the people of God, and support them as Aaron and Hur did.  Most of all, we are to proclaim the gift of God to all around us, to be obedient and follow God's will, and to realize that God's grace and mercy will one day run out.  When that day comes, the sheep and goats will be separated, and the sinful will be cast into a lake of fire.

Do you ever feel like God is trying to get our attention?

So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind.  --Revelation 9:15

We are 60 days into the COVID-19 disruption where I live.  Other countries started their quarantine much earlier, I know, and have therefore suffered much worse economic disruption. The World Health Organization recommended a very aggressive limitation of economic activity very early on, hoping that being pro-active in this situation would "flatten the curve" of the number of expected cases, and therefore the hospitals and healthcare systems would not be overwhelmed.

The mortality rate among those who were infected is somewhere between 1.3% and 3%.  Thankfully, however, most people will not be infected.  Although it is a serious public health threat, it is not nearly as deadly as once predicted.  As an example, if the same number of people in the United States come down with the coronavirus as contracted the flu last year (about 35 million), then up to 500,000 could die.  Statistically, given a US population of 330 million, the number of projected deaths from the pandemic would be just 0.15% of the population, or just 1.5 deaths for every 1000 people.

I have heard reporters in the media refer to this pandemic as something "of biblical proportions."  Those reporters have no idea what true biblical proportion means.

The eighth chapter of Revelation describes a judgment in which one third of the ocean will turn to blood, and one third of all sea creatures will die.  I have heard of an oceanic condition called Red Tide, but it has never resulted in the death of a third of all sea life (including ships and their crews, by the way--read Revelation 8:9-11).

The ninth chapter of Revelation describes a judgment in which one third of all mankind is killed.  Given the current world population of 7.8 billion people, a 33% mortality rate would result in 2.5 billion deaths in a short period of time.  According to www.worldometers.info, only 135,000 people died today, and the annual death rate currently is about 49 million per year.  As the world population increases, the number equal to one third of the population also increases, so by the time this prophecy comes true, it could affect many more.

If a flu-like virus with a mortality rate of just 3% has gotten world-wide attention, can you imagine the effect of a cataclysmic event ten times as deadly?  It should wake us up as to how powerful God is.  Yet Revelation 9:20 speaks of how hard-hearted the World is: "The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts."

I read an economics textbook in college that referred to the Black Plague in Europe, around 1346-1353 A.D.  At that time, almost 60% of the population of Europe died, but according to this economist, the result was a concentration of wealth among the survivors.  The two great social forces in the time were the State and the Church, and both sought to profit from this new-found wealth.  The state government, which had taxing authority, edged out the Catholic church and grew more powerful in the ensuing years.

I am afraid that the COVID-19 crisis has revealed the power of the State in the modern world.  Almost every government represented in the United Nations has declared a national emergency, and those within government are finding ways to profit from it.  Political theorist Saul Alinsky wrote, "Never let a crisis go to waste."

I am hopeful that God will send a spiritual revival in the hearts of people, so that they can see the absolute power and authority of God in the middle of the pandemic.  However, I can see that people are hard-hearted, and I am afraid that they are distracted by wealth redistribution and concentration of government power, and that they are looking to themselves or to the government to find a way to go about their day-to-day lives.