Let's look at Exodus 17 again. Exodus chapter 17. We started this Wednesday night,
smitten rock. And I thought of this passage, someone
sent me an email, and I immediately thought of this name, Exodus
17. Verse 15, Moses built an altar
and called the name of it Jehovah Nissi, which means the Lord my
banner or flag, the Lord my flag. We read in Isaiah, wasn't that
wonderful, Isaiah 11. The Lord, an ensign, same word,
flag. The Lord, my banner. The one I follow. The one I pledge
allegiance to. A patriot, you know, is someone
who defends the honor, who loves and supports and defends their
country. Well, the Lord is our banner. Paul said, I'm set for the defense
of the gospel. and love to him, his glory and
his honor. I'm sure most of you have seen
a military funeral. Your dad had a flag on his coffin,
didn't he? He did not. I've been to several
military funerals where a veteran or someone who served in the
armed forces was buried with full military honors, where they
put the flag over the coffin, flag-draped coffin, and 21-gun
salute, seven men. You and I went to Dan Park's
father's funeral. 21-gun salute, seven men with
rifles, fired their rifles three times, 21 guns by tradition. And then they play that mournful
bugle taps, taps, called to rest, and there's nothing more touching,
nothing more memorable. I remember it quite well in my
brother's funeral as a 14-year-old boy. It left an impression upon
me, chills, I get still when I see it now or hear it, it sends
chills up my spine. And you watch that flag or that
casket being brought in with the flag over it, covered with
that flag, and hear that gun, those guns firing, those taps,
farewell to a fallen comrade. It's a fitting tribute, really,
to someone who gives their life and the sacrifice of their country
for the freedom for the freedom that we enjoy. It's a fitting
tribute. And for that reason, it angers me when people desecrate
that flag. It really does. That people died
to give them the freedom to do that. But that's not what I'm here
to talk about. This is not the flag I'm flying this morning. There's something that happened,
it's a far greater honor and service and sacrifice. It's the
sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for his people. Laying down his
life in service to his father, to his people, his country, his
kingdom, his people. laid down his life. You know,
the red in our flag stands for blood. You know how much blood
has been shed in wars and men and women defending our country. And so they draped that flag
over the body of one who's... Well, our Lord's body was covered
in his own blood. His garments dyed red with his
own blood and sacrifice. to his country. Now the story
here is of a great battle, a great battle, and a victory won by
Joshua. That's the story. That's the
story of the Bible. We talked this morning about
comfort. Isaiah said, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, speak
to their hearts, speak ye comfortably unto them, say unto them, first
thing, here's your comfort, the warfare is accomplished. The
war is over, and our captain won, obtained
the victory, defeated our adversary. This is not a cunningly devised
fable. It's not a parable. This is the truth. The truth
as it is in the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, look at this. This
is the story of Christ crucified. Joshua represents, Rod represents. Verse 8, then came Amalek and
fought with Israel and Rephidim. My brother and I were talking
yesterday how that our tempting God, our unbelief, our tempting
Him, we don't get... His children don't get by with
anything. You know that? He hath not dealt with us after
our sins. Now, we received the Lord's hand double for all our
iniquity. Christ paid for our sin, but He deals with us righteously. And He chastens. He sends things. He sends things. And verse 7,
look at this, verse 7, He called the place Massa, that is, temptation. The people didn't believe Him.
They tempted Him. And Meribah, Meribah, chiding
or strife because of their murmuring, because of their complaining,
because of their temptation, all that. And after all that
God did, smiting the rock, giving them bread to eat, they still
said in verse 7, is the Lord among us or not? When are you going to believe
Him, Israel? When are you going to trust Him? And so what happened? What did
God do? Sent the Amalekites. Look at the next verse. Then came Amalek. Then came Amalek. An enemy. An enemy. It was Solomon, you
know, that the Lord, because Solomon went after strange gods
and so forth, God raised an adversary. He didn't kick him out, but Solomon
vexed God, so God vexed him. Do things vex us? Well, they
ought to, because we vex our God. As David, after all that
God did for him, sinned against God, so what did God do? He raised
up adversaries in his own house. But he did not deal with him
after that sin did. He didn't cut him off. He didn't
kick him out. Nevertheless, there were things
that vexed him. The Amalekites came. Amalek.
Now Amalek here is a descendant of Esau. He's an illegitimate
son. Amalek was an illegitimate son
of a concubine of Esau's son. He's not a child, a legal child
at all. He's a bastard. Amalek. That's who he is. He's the illegitimate
son of Esau. Who's Esau? God said, Jacob have
I loved and Esau have I hated. God has a people that he chose.
His elect. They're called the sons of Jacob.
And he loves them. Esau have I hated. They're not
God's children. Jacob's issue. And God chose
Jacob, but not Esau. And Amalek represents the sons
of men. Amalek represents this world.
Amalek represents that old man in you. Jacob and Esau were twins. They were twins. They were bosom
brothers. Came out of the same womb. What
made the difference? God made the difference. God,
sovereign, elected love, set His love on Jacob, not Esau. He left Esau alone. He would
not leave Jacob alone. He would not leave Jacob to himself.
And there's two men inside of every believer. There's a new
man in Christ and there's an old man. And that old man is
your enemy. He's your sworn enemy. Esau hated
Jacob and he went after him. And that old man is out to get
you. But I love brother, brother David
Edmonds have been saying this a lot. He says, God's out to
do you good. That's the way he put it. He's out to do you good. Well,
God does whatever he's out to do. You know that? And that old
man's out to get you. He ain't going to do it. Well,
who's going to fight him? Did we in our own strength confide,
our fighting would be losing. We're not the right man on our
side, but man of God's own choosing. Who's that? Joshua. Moses chose. And some men to help him. Amalek
represents this world. Amalek represents the men of
this, the people of this world, the things of this world. Amalek
represents sin, that old man in us, that man of sin. Alright,
look at verse 9. Moses said to Joshua, And by
the way, you know, have you ever thought, if I could just be without
sin, if I could just be without temptation, if I could just be
without these things, I would be fine. My life would be just
fine. No, you'd forget God. No, you
wouldn't. Because these things vex you
like a lot inside of them. Don't they vex you? And what
do you do? You're standing in the gate waiting
on the Lord to come get you. Help me, help me. You wouldn't
call on God for everything if you didn't have any trials and
troubles and tribulations. You wouldn't call on God. Alright,
verse 9. Moses said to Joshua, choose
us out men and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will
stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. Moses said to Joshua, choose
out men, go out and fight with Amalek. Moses is the law giver. This was God's word to his people
through this man. Christ is all this. He's Moses, He's the rod, He's
Joshua. He's the rock, He's the stone. He's everything, Christ is all.
But Moses represents God's word here, God's law. He said to Joshua,
this is the first mention of Joshua. You know that? First
mention of Joshua in Scripture. Here it is. Joshua, the obedient
servant of the lawgiver, Joshua sent, what's his name mean? Jehovah
saves. Joshua was sent, called by God,
to go out and fight with Israel's enemies. Well, that's our Lord Jesus Christ.
His name is Joshua, Jesus. For He shall save His people
from their sin. In the end of this story, it
sounds like Joshua defeated all those Malachites by himself. It says Joshua discomfited them.
Joshua brought them down. Joshua killed the enemy. Why
does it say that? Because Jesus Christ really did,
by himself, defeat our enemy. Alright, look at verse 9. It
says, I will stand on the hill with the rod of God in my hand. You remember God saying, I'll
stand there upon the rock? God said, I'll stand there on
the rock. of horror, right there, and you'll smite the rock. God
was in crying. Christ is that rock. Or Moses,
and the Lord says, I will come down and stand with you on a
rock, chapter 33. Well, here He tells Moses, you
stand on that rock, on the hill of God. What's that hill? Mount
Calvary. A hill called Golgotha. That's
where God was. That's where Christ was. Mount Zion, that's where God
has promised to be and stand there. And he's got the rod. The rod in his hand. Look at
verse 10. So Joshua, the rod of God in
his hand, Joshua did as Moses had said to him. He stood there,
or Joshua went out to fight that enemy, Malachi, as the obedient
servant, fought with the enemies of God, fought the battles for
them. While Moses, it says, in verse
10, Aaron and Hur all went to the top of the hill and stood
there on that hill, and there stood Moses with the rod of God
in his hand. And his other hand, I believe,
was lifted up toward heaven also. And on his right hand was Joshua,
on his left hand was Aaron, the high priest, and on his left
hand was her, okay? There he stands with that rod.
Holding up that rod while Joshua was fighting this battle. What
is that? That rod is the Word of God.
That rod is the truth of God. That rod is the gospel of God. That rod is the cross of Christ. That rod is Christ himself. Didn't
you read that? It's become a rod out of the
root of Jesse, a rod. That rod is as it were, and later
on God said, this is the flag. This is the ensign. This is the
banner. This is the thing you look to,
or rather the one you look to. In looking to it, you'll be saved
like the serpent on the pole later on. For all to see the
Word of God, the Gospel of God, the truth of God, the Christ
of God, Christ and Him crucified. Moses, I'm sure, held up his
hands high with that rod in his hand for all to see. Everyone
needs to see this rod. Down through years, flags, countries
have flown flags, and particularly in battle. Our star-spangled
banner was written when there was a great war being fought,
right? Oh, say, does that star-spangled
banner still fly? Is it still flying? Can you see
the star spangled? Can you see it? They flew these
flags. There would be a flag bearer.
It was a man. He was out in front of everybody.
And he had this flag on a pole. Number one, it united everybody. It united everybody, this flag. Everybody gathered around the
flag. Everybody got behind the flag, okay? Number two, it encouraged
everybody. It encouraged everybody. As long
as the flag was flying, everything's okay. The enemy
hasn't taken our flag. Because that's what the enemy
does when he conquers. The first thing you do is take
your flag down and put his flag up. Are you with me? Okay? And it encourages those behind. You know, if the flag would fall
in a battle, someone else would pick it up. Like Elisha with the mantle of
Elijah. What's the mantle? What's the flag? What's the cause? What do we gather around? Christ. I told you I got an email from
someone, and this man claims to be a believer, and he was
going to Washington with that group of people to protest. He wanted me to pray for him. And the man that they were to
follow in that group said the man would be flying a flag with
President Trump's picture on it. Riding on a dinosaur. You know how disappointed I was
that he would want me to pray for him for that. And I told
him, I wrote him back and said, I'll pray for you alright. I'll
pray that the Lord will show you that that's not the cause
that we're all about. The cause of Christ is our cause. We don't follow a man. We don't
follow a flag with a man's picture on it. Christ is our banner.
Jehovah-nissi, it's His cause. We're not taken up with. Our
Lord himself said, my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, Christ said, my servants
would fight. But it's not, so we're not fighting
that cause. But we are set for the defense
of the gospel. This is the fight. When David
stood before Goliath, the Philistine giant, he said, is there not
a cause? What was David's cause? He said,
he's defied to God my God. He's defied God's people. I'm
going to take his head off. You? Yeah, one little stone will
fail him. One little word will fail him.
That's what you played. Martin Luther's great. One little
word will fail him. We rally around the cause of
Christ, the gospel of Christ. That's the kingdom we fight for.
Army, we're in, isn't it? The Gospel, the Word of God is
the Gospel, is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we hold
it high, rather Him, we hold Him high. What did Christ say?
If I be lifted up, I'll draw all men down. Like that serpent
on the pole. And when held high, if people
will look to Him, We'll get carried, we'll be united to Him, we'll
have peace, we'll see, like Joshua. He's our captain, He's our Lord,
He's our Savior. And God upholds all things by
His Word, He upholds all things by His Christ, and the Word lifted
up. Oh brethren, that's who I preach,
that's who we preach, isn't it? The rod of God. So Joshua did
as Moses told him to do, verse 10. And Christ came down here
to do what God sent Him to do. Did He do it? This is all our
comfort, all our assurance. Did He do it? Yes, He did. Well,
it says, Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the
hill. Where does God dwell? Mount Zion, among His people. And Moses was holding up that
rod. Moses was just a man. Joshua was the one out there
fighting. Moses represents the preacher of the gospel. Moses
was a prophet. Joshua represents Christ out
there fighting our battles. And Moses held up that rod and
there were two men helping him, supporting him, holding up his
arms to do what? To hold up the rod. That's what
he was to do. How long? Long as it takes. Until
the enemies are gone. Until the battle's over. Hold
up the rod. It says, well, verse 11, it came
to pass, Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. He let down
his hand, the enemy prevailed. What's that? Brothers and sisters,
the gospel is the power of God. Woe is unto me if I preach not
the gospel, which is Christ crucified, who overcame the world, who destroyed
Satan, our enemy, who put away our sins. If I don't preach the
gospel, we fail, don't we? The enemy will have us. Doubts and fears and worries
and our sins will plague us and vex us and the world will trouble
us and all that. We think we're all going to be
destroyed. But if I keep holding up Christ, look, He shall not
fail. He hath not failed. He did not.
He does not. He shall not fail. Till all His
people are in His kingdom and the enemy is completely destroyed.
This is my job. What's your job? What's your
job? Hold up my hand. Moses got tired. He got weary. Verse 12, his hands
were heavy. My, my. You know, we all have jobs we
get tired of. Everything's tiresome. Mutt studies,
weariness of the flesh, and on and on it goes. And you think,
I'm quitting. I want to quit. I'm tired. No, brother, don't
quit. Don't quit now. You're almost
there. It's almost over. Here, I'll
hold your hands up. How do you hold up my hands?
Prayer. Prayer. Look what they did for
Moses, verse 12. Moses' hands were heavy, so they
took a stone and put it under him. Moses, you sit on this stone. Sit. Just rest on this stone. We'll hold your hands up. That's stone. There's stones
everywhere in there. Jacob was resting on it. God was standing
on it. Moses is sitting on it. There's
stone everywhere there. What stone? It was there all
along. Here, Moses, sit on this stone. Rest. You hold your hands
up. Aaron and Her. Aaron is a priest, her is a priest
also, but they represent the law and the prophets, they represent
the apostles and the prophets, they represent the word of God,
they represent the grace and peace of God, they represent
mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, they represent so
many things, all of which holds up the truth. Holds up the truth. It says,
Aaron and her stayed up his hands, one on the one side, other on
the other side, and his hands were steady until they're going
down in the sun. Long time stood there. Well, what happened? As long
as he's holding that rod up for all to see, look at it, verse
13, Joshua discomfited Amalek, meaning he destroyed him. He
put him down with the edge of a sword. With the edge of a sword,
go back to Isaiah 11 that Brother Ron read. Let's go back there
and look at that again in light of this. It says this rod that
Moses was holding up and Joshua discomforted Amalek, the enemy
of God's people, with the sword. Look at that. Isn't this wonderful? It says that our Lord Jesus Christ,
My, my, didn't it go with Colossians 2, understanding and wisdom and
all that? Verse 1, there shall come forth a rod out of the stem
of Jesse, a branch shall grow out of his roots, the Spirit
of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom, understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of
the fear of the Lord, and it will make him of quick understanding. In the fear of the Lord, he shall
not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after
the hearing of the ears. That is, he looks on the heart.
And with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove
with equity for the meek of the earth. And he'll smite the earth
with the rod of his mouth. And with the breath of his lips
shall he slay the wicked. And where's the verse that speaks
of the sword? Somebody help me here, I didn't
write it down. It says the sword. It says his
rest will be glory. Verse 10, in that day there'll
be a root of Jesse that'll stand for an ensign, a flag. A banner
to all of God's people, to it shall the Gentiles seek, that
is, Christ crucified, and His rest shall be glorious. Glorious. Glorious. And down
in verse 15, the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian
sea. That's our Lord Jesus Christ.
Calvary's tree. All that he did to accomplish
our salvation. And here's what the Lord said.
Go back to our text. Back to our text, verse 14. So
the Lord said unto Moses... Joshua destroyed Amalek. The Lord said unto Moses, write
this for a memorial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of
Joshua. Write this in a book for everyone to read from all
eternity. and give it to Joshua for a memorial. And our brothers
and sisters, this whole book is a memorial. It's all about
Christ and Him crucified, how He fought our battle for us,
our enemy, put away sin by the sacrifice of himself and upholds
all things by the word of truth, the gospel. And it's in a book. It's in a book. And he says,
I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
There's going to be a day when he's gone completely. Won't you be glad when that happens?
And so Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah
Nissi. Lord, our banner. There are several
scriptures that say this. One in particular I love, Psalm
60. If you want to read later on
for yourself Psalm 60, read the whole psalm. It's right after
David went out and destroyed 50,000 people. Gettysburg in three days, about
50,000. sea of blood. David thought everybody
was out to get Israel. Everybody. David defeated every
one of them. Every one of them. He fought
all his life, David, all his life, until he was about 68 years
old, and the Lord gave him rest from all his enemies. But his
whole life, from the time he was 16, was spent fighting God's
enemies. And they never did defeat Him.
No man took His life from Him. But God laid it down. That's
a picture of Christ, the Son of David. In Psalm 60, God says,
He says, You've given a banner. Thou hast given a banner. David
said this after that battle. Thou hast given a banner to them
that fear Thee, that it may be displayed because of truth." Here's the banner. Here's the
flag that we fly. Because of truth. Selah. Stop. Just stay right there. And pledge
allegiance to that one. who laid down His life for you,
the cross. This is why Paul said, I'm determined
not to know anything, I've got no causes, but one, the cause
of Christ. And we hold forth this gospel,
we set forth Christ, the gospel of Christ, Him crucified. You
know, I told you about a military funeral. And what they do after
that funeral is over, that flag-draped coffin, two men reverently and respectfully, men of honor, men of courage,
comrades in arms, they'll step to take white gloves on. We're
not going to touch that flag or desecrate that flag with our
filthy hands. And they'll both stand. You've
seen this? They'll both stand over that
carpet and raise it reverently. Well, this person died for this.
And I'm talking now about Christ. And they'll take that flag up
and stretch it tight. Don't let it hit the ground.
It's not going to hit the ground. And they'll begin to fold it.
You know, God's going to fold this earth up like a vesture.
Done with it. But his banner was going to fly
at the top of it all forever. And those two men reverently
with those white gloves on in full honor, not smiling, not
laughing, this is not fun and games, this is serious. Somebody
laid down their life. And they'll fold that flag up
carefully. And they'll walk toward each
other folding that flag. And they'll get it where those stars
are showing. What are the stars all about?
Huh? One thing. Set forth Christ. Alright? Then one of those souls
will take that flag. You seen that? He'll take that
flag and put it against his chest. Against his heart. You ever seen that? And then you know what he'll
do? He'll take that flag over. And if the man that died was
married, he'll give it to his bride. Here, that's your banner
that your loved one died for. Holy dear. Don't let anybody
desecrate it. This is the memory of the one
that died for you. Dare we do anything in any way,
in any fashion, but preach the gospel of Jesus Christ who died
for me. This ain't fun and games. This ain't about you and me.
It's about Him. And this is the banner. This
is the cause. This is our cause, isn't it?
God help us to never lay it down. But let us die for the same cause. Amen? Amen. Okay, Brother John,
you can go.