Heads Up! Hands Up!

Psalm 95 / Exodus 17

The image used to introduce today’s message was taken April 29, 1945. It shows the cheering prison population of the Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich Germany, as Allied troops moved in to cut chains, break bars, open doors, and aid the weak and wounded.

13 years earlier, March 22, 1933, Dachau was opened under the watchful and guiding eye of Heinrich Himmler, aided in design by Theodor Ecke as a place to house political prisoners, known insurrectionists, and generally anyone identified as an enemy of the evil Nazi Reich. It was a prototype of other camps to come. Of the more than 30,000 Jewish men (not counting women, children, and gentile prisoners) who were interned in camps, a third spent at least part of their imprisonment at Dachau. It was a work camp with a sign by the prisoner entrance that read, “Arbeit macht Frei,” AR-BITE MACHT FRY (work shall set you free.)

This was, of course, a lie. I wonder how much of an intentional parallel remained on the minds of these evil men to a certain Egyptian Pharaoh who set the ancestors of many of these people to slave labor for being a threat to his own designs of power. Or if they feared in those early days loss as had befallen that Pharaoh so many millennia before.

Today’s message is taken from a narrative following and continuing from that initial release, but continues to underscore that God is a God of liberation; a God of rescue; a God of power over evil men and their schemes. It is an account of people who had work they were called to do, but it was their All-powerful God who set them free. May we see that we are similarly tasked; called to work, but that our works are never the grounds of our needed rescue. We are to be like the troops opening the gates of Dachau in 1945. We are to be the hands and feet; the instruments of God rescuing His people.

God’s Timing - v1-7

Christ

Romans 5:6 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”

The Exodus

Exodus 2:23-25 “During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”

Moses’ Age

Exodus 2; Moses’ birth to Moses’ fleeing Egypt ~ 40 years (Moses wasn’t the deliverer)

Exodus 3: God calls Moses to return - 80yo (God used Moses to deliver)

Low Morale & Grumbling

Ch 14 - The Red Sea (the ppl grumbled)

Ex 14:11 “They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?”

Ch 16 - Manna (the ppl grumbled)

Ex 16:3 “and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.””

Ch 17 - Water from the rock (the ppl grumbled)

Ex 17:4 “So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.””

We must trust in God’s timing. If we wait for what seems to be the right time in our circumstances, we will never find it.

Presence - v8-11

Amalek

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 17

Amalek The Amalekites were descendants of Esau (Edom) (Gen 36:12, 16). The territory of the Amalekites was situated in the desert south of Canaan, north of the Israelites’ location at this time (Gen 14:7; Num 13:29)

More trouble internal to the familial struggle

Proximity & Timing

They were always close; watching and waiting for the time to strike

Moses

God’s mouthpiece - 17:9

God’s presence - visible on the hill with the staff (v9)

God’s strength - v11 (It was not by their own might they prevailed)

Sometimes presence is about proximity of a resource.

If Amalek had not been right there; there wouldn’t have been a fight.

If the rock had not been there, and Moses to strike it, there would have been no water

There are times we need someone present for that hug we need, or a word of wisdom and encouragement

Sometimes presence is about a reminder, and a conduit of grace

Deck plate ministry / ministry of presence

Maybe no words or actions are needed

Maybe sometimes presence is message enough; no action needed

In this life, there will always be an opposing or evil presence nearby. Be they our crazy cousin Amalek who’s always had it out for us, or worse; a Himmler or an Ecke, ready to bring conflict at the worst seeming time.

One reason God calls us to live in community, and to interact with and love our neighbors (especially the church family) is to show Christ to one another, because our presence in each others’ lives is a reminder of the presence of our God; He is Emmanuel.

Heads Up, Hands Up - v12-16

God wins victories, and shares them with us! - v14-16

God’s flood, The Parade of Jericho, The defeat of Goliath

There is a reason we still sing Victory n Jesus!

Even more than his presence, Moses’ lifted hands communicated the strength and blessing of God to God’s people in the middle of the battle!

It was his posture that communicated on top of his presence

He did all he could to hold others up in their fight

Aaron and Hur saw the need, and immediately put themselves on the line WITH Moses, not AS Moses

They did not claim to be the prophet

They knew the stakes and did not distance or run

They saw a need and filled it

Church Family, let us trust in the Lord’s timing of both trials and deliverance! Let us never forget His presence among us in all circumstances. Let us keep our heads up; looking for the time to raise our hands for others, or even to help steady someone else as they stand, arms up raised, for the sake of others. God is a God of rescue; of liberation. Let us be His instruments of such.