#194: You’re Not Meant to Write Alone

I wanted to read the little story in Exodus 17, 8, 13, and. And then just comment with a couple things. So in verse 8 of Exodus 17, it says, while the people of Israel were still at Rephidim, the warriors of Amalek attacked them. Moses commanded, Joshua, choose some men to go out and fight the army of Amalek for us. Tomorrow I will stand at the top of the hill holding the staff of God in my hand. So Joshua did what Moses had commanded and fought the army of Amalek. Meanwhile, Moses, Aaron, and Hur climbed to the top of a nearby hill. As long as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage. Moses arms soon became so tired he could no longer hold them up. So Aaron and Hur found a stone for him to sit on. And then they stood on each side of Moses, holding up his hands so his hands held steady until sunset. As a result, Joshua overwhelmed the army of Amalek in battle.

And that is the word of the Lord.

And how many of you recently have spent any time trying to hold your arms above your head for any length of time? How many know that even a minute and you actually begin to start feeling some fatigue, Right? I've actually heard stories where. I heard a story where a volleyball coach told his players to hold their arms up while they were sitting on the floor, and he spoke to them for 10 minutes on something, and he told them not to put their arms down until he was finished. Now, I want you just to think about, hold your arms up for even a minute, and you begin to.

At least feel it. Now, you could probably last the 10 minutes, but you feel it. And I know sometimes when we're in church, our pastor will have somebody up on stage and he'll say, the rest of you out in the audience, extend your hands out as I pray for this person up on stage. And so you're extending your hands. I have to admit there's moments where it could be like, say, a minute and a half, two minute long prayer, and I'm beginning to almost put this hand up, like to keep my arm extended toward the stage. Or maybe I'm just a wimp in terms of my arm strength these days. Scrawny distance runner strength compared to what it used to be. The bottom line is we do begin to feel that. And I think if you want to put yourself in Moses's sandals, so to speak, you could just have that little exercise where you hold your hands up, you. You Realize, okay, this was a man just like you and I, he got tired. And yet it says that when he lowered his arms.

The army would begin to be defeated. They'd lose momentum against the Amalekites. When his arms were raised with that staff.

They were overwhelming the enemy. So what happens? His brother Aaron and his nephew Hurricane come to his aid, and they raise his arms and hold him up there through sunset. It was a team effort. And when I thought of that and her, by the way, you know that Aaron is Moses. Brother Hur was his nephew. So you might even say it was a family affair, a family gathering together.

Holding each other up, supporting one another. And it made me realize how valuable these gatherings are for us, how valuable it is to meet Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews even says, don't forsake meeting together. I don't think the writer was just thinking of a Sunday morning service. I think he was talking about getting together for these prayer times, fighting the battle together, having victory together as we hold each other's arms up. And isn't it interesting when you read through these Old Testament stories, that God uses the most? I'm just even going to say weird means in order to bring about the victory. While his arms were up, they had victory. If they went down, oh, no. We start to see momentum shift the other way. Why was that? I don't know. Why was it that he had the army march around Jericho seven times and then the walls fell down? Right. And so it's just this idea, like God sometimes would have the people do unorthodox, what we might even call weird things that didn't quite make sense. But you know what? I think the bottom line is at the end of that, no one could take credit except for the Lord for that victory. And I think that's what it's about right there. I don't think it's the technique, like, okay, if we just hold these staffs up, we're going to have victory in every area of our lives. So let's go out and buy staffs and let's just hold up as long as we can, and it's going to guarantee victory. Oh, that's what God wanted in that circumstance. Another circumstance. It was marching around the wall, another circumstance. It could have been something different. But the bottom line was, at the end of the day, it wasn't human effort. It was human effort plus God bringing his divine power, his divine victory. Yes, he did ask Moses to partner with him in that act of obedience, of holding that staff up. You and I can't do this whole kingdom writing thing on our own. We have got to have the support of one another. We serve as Aaron and Hur with one another, and we call upon this God that can bring about the victory. And without him, without his power, we're probably not going to be very successful, at least from an eternal standpoint in the words that we write. So I just want to encourage all of us here this morning. These war room gatherings are doing battle. And as we help each other with holding up one another's arms, we're going to see momentum shift against our enemy. We have a great enemy. Let's not candy coat that there's a real enemy out there, but greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world. We have that power at our disposal to call upon, but we have to do just that, right? Call upon the Lord. And that's why we meet in these gatherings. I thought this would just be a great reminder of why we meet and what can come about as a result of these war room gatherings. And so I'm always excited. I do feel the battle and resistance sometimes to get to these meetings, but, oh, I'm so glad when we can gather together. So that's my encouragement for us all.