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Moses Lifts His Hands to Heaven - El Shaddai Christian Ministries

Moses Lifts His Hands to Heaven

Exodus 17:8-15 – Story Summary

This story comes as Moses and the Israelites are in the desert. They have been unhappy with their situation. God has provided manna and quail for food and water from the rock at Horeb (also known as Sinai).

Refer back to Exodus 4, where God turned Moses’ shepherd staff into a snake. This is the staff that is referred to in Exodus 17:9. In Exodus 4:17, God told Moses, “But take this wooden staff in your hand. You will be able to do miraculous signs with it.”

The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites. Moses called on Joshua to choose some men to go fight. Moses said he would stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in his hands. The Amalekites (Amalek was the grandson of Esau, Jacob’s twin brother.) The Amalekites were semi-nomadic people and known warriors, but not noble warriors. They never fought a fair fight.

As long as Moses held up his hands, holding the staff of God, the Israelites were winning. When he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When his hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under Moses to sit on. Aaron and Hur held his hands up. Joshua and the Israelites overtook the Amalekites. God promised to erase the memory of the Amalekites from the earth. As we continue to go through Old Testament history, we will encounter the Amalekites several times.  (See the story of Esther. Haman descended from the Amalekites)

Moses built an altar and called it;

 The Lord is my Banner ( יהוה ניסי  Jehovah Nissi )

This is actually a fairly short story. It is easy to overlook the significance of what this story reveals to us. Moses stood in complete surrender to the Lord. His upheld hands stood as an appeal to God for help. Without his surrender, the Israelites would not have won against the Amalekites.

In today’s society we are caught in a major battle between God and the forces of Satan. In biblical times, as well as today, there are thousands of God that exist. There is the one supreme God who rules over all the others and is the one that we as Christians worship. We must remember that when Lucifer was thrown out of heaven he took one third of all the angels with him. I feel that these are the ones that the pagans worshiped as gods. Daimon or Daemon (δαίμων: “god”, “godlike”, “power”, “fate”) originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy.

Ephesians 6:12 states: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual {forces} of wickedness in the heavenly {places}.”

When Moses fought the Amalekites he was outnumbered and the Amalekites never fought a fair battle. Today we are caught in very much the same battle. We are extremely outnumbered by the forces of evil that prevail in the world today for leadership right on down. As long as Moses held his hand up to God for help he was victorious. We need to remember that without completely leaning on God we will lose. We fail to recognize that these lesser gods can still be very powerful in their own right as is demonstrated by the prevalence of the occult in our society. 60% of those in America believe in some sort of mysticism or occult, whether it be statues, Ouija boards, voodoo, fortunetellers, horoscopes, or the like. They are no joke. We must and I mean must keep our faith in Christ and keep ourselves constantly in the word of God or we run the risk of losing the battle. That realm can sneak in like a cancer that we don’t realize we have until it’s too late. Prevention by staying in the word of God is always the best choice.