My understanding of the cross was expanded recently by Jeremy Treat, who said, “When I look to Scripture, I see that you can’t understand the kingdom apart from the cross and you can’t understand the cross apart from the kingdom. And it’s Christ himself who holds those together. He is the King who goes to the cross in establishing his kingdom and ransoming us into it. In this kingdom, the throne is a cross and the king reigns with mercy and grace.” The cross a throne! Paul wrote of Jesus, “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Even death on a cross. We preachers sometimes talk about Jesus having to push his raw and bloodied back up against the rough cross in order to breathe. But notice that the gospel writers did not do this. Though the physical suffering on the cross was extreme, the Bible emphasizes the shame, not the pain. 

The Roman soldiers crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them. Jesus was naked on the cross. And Jesus was mocked on the cross. Passersby wagged their heads at him and said, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” They mocked the King, saying, “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” The Gospels highlight the shame, because this was a shame and honor culture

In a shame and honor culture, the pinnacle of shame, surely, was to be crucified. Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame” for you and me. He disregarded the shame and suffering for the future joy of accomplishing our forgiveness. We all, as Paul wrote, “have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That is the shame we are born with and can do nothing about in our own strength. That is the shame that Jesus chose to take upon himself for our sake, so that we might be saved. The cross of humiliation became the throne of the King. Jesus said earlier that week, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Then he said it again, in reference to the cross: “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” 

The hour Jesus referred to was his death. It was on the cross that Jesus was glorified and given the name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. I know the disciples did not understand this and were in mourning, or even hiding, after Jesus’ death. But we need not preach it that way anymore. We need not say, as I have been guilty of saying, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” As if Jesus had lost the battle but we knew he would win in the end. No, it was on Friday that Jesus was enthroned as King. He cried a victor’s cry: “It is finished!” The word is “tetelestai,” a cry of victory from one who crossed the finish line and won. It was a cry of triumph from the cross. 

Instead of saying that Jesus proved he is King when he was raised from the dead, we should say that the resurrection revealed on Sunday what was true on Friday at 3pm. Jesus defeated the devil. Jesus conquered sin. Jesus reversed the curse for you and me. On the cross. Then he rose again and 40 days later he ascended to heaven. If either of those had not happened, we would have no hope. But they did. If Jesus does not come again to take us to be with him where he is, we have no hope. But he promised to come again and the Lord keeps his promises. We have hope because of his victory on the cross.

Jeremy Treat wrote, “Herein lies the paradox of the gospel. The self-giving love of God transformed an instrument of death into an instrument of life. The cross is the great reversal, where exaltation comes through humiliation, glory is revealed in shame, victory is accomplished through surrender, and the triumph of the kingdom comes through the suffering of the servant.”

Our victory was won on a wooden throne.

The ten commandments are inside-out.  They deal with the heart as much as they deal with actions or words. The sixth commandment, “You shall not murder,” is no different, and it was Jesus who raised the bar. He said this in the Sermon on the Mount:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” 

From that heart-level view, which one of us could honestly say that we have never committed murder? Jesus tells us to look beyond the letter of the law to the spirit of the law. He calls us to examine our hearts and to be honest about what comes out of our hearts through our mouths. You see the progression in Jesus’ example. It starts with a feeling of anger. We get angry at someone; it is an emotion we indulge every day and very rarely could our anger be called “righteous.” If someone pushes their way in front of me when I am waiting to order a cup of coffee, there is not a shred of righteousness in my anger. Jesus said anger can also lead to an insult. Out of the heart, our mouth speaks. I may call the person who cut in line a jerk, which would escalate the emotion to a harmful and potentially dangerous action. If I am really angry, I may resort to calling the person a fool or a term in the modern vernacular that would express my utter contempt for him. That person who would delay my caffeine intake by mere minutes suddenly becomes a person I speak to as though he does not deserve to live. 

This is a pervasive sin even among Christians where the issue may not be coffee but things much more serious. It may be that our hurts are much deeper and our contempt is on slow burn all the time for the person who has wounded us. Dallas Willard wrote, “Contempt is a kind of studied degradation of another…it is never justifiable or good…In contempt, I don’t care if you are hurt or not. Or at least I say so. You are not worth consideration one way or another. We can be angry with someone without denying their worth. But contempt makes it easier for us to hurt them or see them further degraded…The intent and effect of contempt is always to exclude someone, push them away, leave them isolated.”

  What are we to do, then? We should examine our hearts and ask ourselves, “Why am I angry? What provoked me just now?” Or to use the modern term, “What triggered me? And…is this my normal attitude when provoked?” Willard also wrote, “Our exaggerated responses reveal that we did not simply become angry in the instance, but that we carry a supply of pent-up anger with us at all times.” Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “I am more and more convinced that most people get into trouble in the living of the Christian life because of their molly-coddling of themselves spiritually.” Ouch. We know there is a pattern of sin in our lives but we refuse to do what is necessary to change. We must do the serious heart work of examining, acknowledging, confessing, and renouncing the deadly fires of anger and contempt we see there. Because that would honor Christ. And because these patterns do much damage to our family, friends, church members, and co-workers. 

As I pondered this heart-work, I remembered working in our flower beds at home a few weeks ago, trying to get ahead of the spring explosion of weeds that are coming. I was too late. They were everywhere and in every flower bed: front yard, side yard, and back yard. I kept mumbling to myself, “Uggh! Why did I wait so long to take care of this?” What could have been easy was made much more difficult because I put it off. This matter of the heart, our anger and contempt, is something that we cannot afford to put off. It grows and festers and boils as it damages our own witness and all who are in its path. 

What is the good news in all of this? We have a Savior who drank the cup of God’s wrath on our sins in our place. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” He drank every drop of the cup that was stored up for you and me. He took the wrath of God on the cross that you and I deserve because of our sin, our anger, our contempt. He kept God’s Word perfectly to pay for the sins of those who break God’s commands every single day. 

And He opens His arms wide and invites us to come to Him and find rest.

The fifth commandment is, “Honor your father and your mother.” Or, as God says in Leviticus, “Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father.” God gets heavy with us in this command. That’s what the Hebrew word for honor means. Heavy. Weighty. It is the same word the Old Testament uses to speak of the glory of God, and of the weight of divine majesty and authority that He has. So to honor father and mother is to give them the weight of respect that is due. But we are also commanded to revere them. That means to reverence them, to esteem them highly. God chose them for us. And as Augustine said, “If anyone fails to honor his parents, is there anyone he will spare?” 

It has always been fascinating to me to read Paul’s list of sins in 2 Timothy 3 that he said we would see in the last days. And we are in the last days! These sinful people include those who are “proud, arrogant, abusive, and brutal.” And sandwiched in that list are those who are “disobedient to parents.” We almost have come to expect this disrespect and dishonor from teenagers, haven’t we? And the culture we live in promotes and seems to celebrate this sin. One magazine aimed at teen girls had this on the cover: “Do you really hate your parents? Like, who doesn’t?” And inside the magazine offered advice on “How to deal with your detestables.” Wow. Put that article up against the penalty in the Old Testament for cursing your parents: “For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.” Again, if we gathered every person who had taken the Lord’s name in vain (the third commandment) and every person who had cursed his father or mother and applied the Old Testament law…well, you get the idea.

 We all had our teenage moments, didn’t we? And we who have raised children to adulthood have had to parent those moments as well. I can relate to Mark Twain’s quote, “When a boy turns 13, put him in a barrel and feed him through a knot hole. When he turns 16, plug up the hole.” And I know I am also writing to some of you who grew up in a very different environment. No parents are perfect, but yours were particularly not. Maybe you had a great mother but your father was not good and kind. Instead, he was abusive and angry. Or maybe it was the other way around: your father was your encourager and it was your mother who deeply wounded you. In those cases, let me plead with you to do these three things. First, remember the people God sent your way to show you a father’s love and a mother’s tenderness. Give thanks for them. Second, ask God to give you grace to forgive your parents. Third, as God for the ability, by His mighty power, to honor them, despite their inadequacies. And know that if you never had parents who loved you and taught you, God stepped in to take their place. The Psalmist wrote, “For my father and mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.” Yes. He does and some of you know that more than I possibly could.

What if your parents were godly and worked hard to lead you, love you, disciple you, and grow you up to become godly adults? You cannot tell them too much or too often that you love them and give God glory for what He did through them. And if you are in this season yet, you probably will be one day, as you will swap roles with the ones who cared for you. You will be your parents’ caregiver as they age and become dependent. What do they say about us as humans? Once a man (or woman), twice a child? 

If we honor our father and mother in their vigor, we certainly must honor them in their infirmity and in their last years. 

I wonder which of the Ten Commandments is violated most often, even by those who know Jesus? I would guess the fourth commandment is near the top. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” I am just thinking of the sheer numbers of people who say they follow Jesus but do not gather with a local expression His body. Or the people who belong to God but work every day of the week. Or if they don’t actually go to work on Sunday, they use it as a catch-up day so they can get ahead for Monday. Or if they don’t do that, their thoughts are consumed with work on Sunday instead of taking that day for worship and rest. They want to be efficient with their time, I get it. But at what cost? Billionaire Bill Gates was asked why he didn’t believe in God. He said, “Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.” Yes, we have a lot of options for the use of our time if we choose to ignore the One who created it. And us. So, why do we keep the Sabbath? And how do we keep it? Should we become like the Pharisees and make an exhaustive list of all the things we can and cannot do on the Sabbath, and hold up our obedience as a sign to others whom we see fall short? Or can we look at this day and give thanks to God for calling us into a regular rhythm of work and worship, because He loves us and He knows what is best for His people? 

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” That is what we are commanded to do. God chooses the word “Remember” to start this command, which is significant. On the one hand, He is reminding his people in the wilderness of something. Remember? He had already laid a foundation for this commandment when He gave them manna. He told them then not to do any work on the day of rest, but to gather a double portion on the day before. Bake what you are going to bake and boil what you are going to boil on the sixth day. Prepare for sabbath before it comes. That day, the Lord said, “is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.”

 They were also called to remember this day every week. Not just on occasion, or just when it fit their schedule, or just when they were in a really good stopping place and they felt okay about taking a day off. No. If the third commandment calls us to honor God with our words, the fourth commandment calls us to honor God with our time. It is for God’s glory. And it is for our good. Every week. Have you ever thought about where weeks come from as a measure of time? Days are measured by the earth’s rotation, which takes 24 hours. Months come roughly from the moon’s cycle. A year is one lap around the sun for us earthlings. But a week? Where did the week come from? We have weeks because God worked for six days and then rested on the seventh. 

In each week, God gives us one day to stop and remember. And worship. And rest. Remembering to gather with the saints every Sunday is not just for worship but it is for our spiritual, mental, and even our physical health. The rhythm of rest and worship has been a subject of scientific study for years, and as always, science confirms what the Word has already stated as fact. A recent Harvard Public Health study revealed that those who attend church every week have “lower mortality risk, lower depression, less suicide, better cardiovascular disease survival, better health behaviors, and greater marital stability, happiness, and purpose in life.” God knew that truth eons before Harvard Public Health did. God knows our frame. He knows what we need. If we are commanded by God to take a weekly day of rest it is because we are finite and limited. 

We are created for work, yes. But we are also created for rest.

The third commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” could be paraphrased, “You shall not lift up the name of the Lord your God into nothingness.” There are many ways we can do this, and perhaps the most obvious one is with profanity. When God saves, He begins the process of sanctification, often dealing with the “big sins” first. When I trusted Christ as a teenager, I was first convicted about my language. My mom had washed my mouth out a few times with soap as a child because of my choice of words, to no avail. Then God changed my heart and my language. It has always been interesting to me the number of people who say they do not believe in God but use His name as a swear word. Nobody says, “Oh my Allah,” or “Holy Buddha!” They don’t write OMA in a text to express their wonder or disgust. No, it’s OMG. They say “My God” but do not know Him. We who do know Him should avoid taking God’s name in vain in those ways. Even to say, “As God is my witness,” or “I swear to God” is to misuse His name to try and prove our integrity. There’s a chilling story in Leviticus 24 about two men who were fighting and one of them blasphemed God’s name. They put him in custody to seek the Lord’s counsel. God told Moses to bring the man out, and all who had heard him curse were to lay their hands on his head. Then all the congregation were to stone him. Whoa. It is good that we live under a new covenant with a different legal framework. If not, people would be stoned in the street every day for profaning God’s name!

 We also misuse the name of God when we claim that God has told us to do something that we cannot support from Scripture. God has told us to do plenty, but those are clear in the Bible and apply to all of His followers. For example, the Lord has told every husband that he is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. But be very careful about saying, “The Lord has told me to leave my wife.” There are few cases where there is biblical support for that.  Some say, “The Lord has told me to leave my church.” Are there biblical reasons to leave a church? Yes, but do not bring God into it if there is no biblical case. To do so is to take His name in vain. And we can easily take God’s name in vain when we say to someone else, “The Lord has told me that you should do this or that.” I remember hearing in the late 70’s about Christian guys saying to their girlfriend, “The Lord has told me you are to be my wife.” That sounds like false prophecy to me. Her response should be, “Really? He hasn’t told me that!” 

We also misuse the name of the Lord when we don’t practice what we preach. Jen Wilkin wrote, “When we preach a moral code that we ourselves do not strive to uphold, we become like those Jesus railed against—a people who honor God with our lips, but whose hearts are far from Him.” Wilkin gives challenging examples in her book, Ten Words to Live By: “This is the parent who requires her child to apologize to her, but who never apologizes for her own missteps. It is the mentor who dispenses godly wisdom to a younger believer that he has not himself learned to employ. It is the woman singing praise songs at the top of her lungs, eyes closed and hands extended, who has not cracked open her Bible in months. It is the man who prays publicly with great piety and eloquence but whose private prayer life is nonexistent. It is the preacher who exhorts others to repent while himself harboring an unrepentant heart.”

What should we do? Obey the third commandment! Honor the name of the Lord your God and keep it holy. 

How does the second commandment relate to us today? “You shall make no carved images…(to) bow down to them or serve them.” How should we be warned or exhorted from this commandment? I hope none of us have idols in our homes. No images made of stone, wood, metal, or any other material that we kneel before and worship. But remember, the commandments are aimed at our hearts, not our knees. What are some modern idols that we must remove whenever we find them? Martin Luther said the heart is an idol factory. And he said, “Whatever your hearts clings to and confides in, that is really your God and your functional savior.” An idol is anything that captures our heart and our affections and draws us away from God. To put it another way, an idol is anything we are willing to sin to get, or willing to sin to keep from losing. 

Hey, it is good to enjoy life, to have good friends, to have teams that you pull for, recreational activities that you pursue, a wife or husband and children that you love. It is good to enjoy a meal or a vacation or a nap! But let’s keep everything in perspective and examine our hearts in three areas. In his first letter, John wrote, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” I think in this word God is giving us a test to see if there are any idols living in our heart chambers. 

Desires of the flesh: Paul talks about these in Galatians, the works of the flesh that we can so easily substitute for our pursuit of the Lord and His ways. Sexual immorality and drunkenness are mentioned by Paul in a list that is descriptive but not exhaustive. Anything we are doing to satisfy our sin nature will also weaken our heart for God. 

Desires of the eyes. Paul mentions jealousy and envy in the same passage. We look at what others have and it can breed discontentment in what God has provided for us. Or we can develop a guilty pleasure in judging others. That critical spirit begins to color everything we see. The ditch on the other side of the road is to be caught in the pit of self-condemnation; all we can see are the ways we fall short. Many in this ditch cannot accept that God loves them and that He offers them abundant joy. 

Pride of life. Paul mentions fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions. Jake Daghe wrote that this is “thinking we are stronger, smarter, better, or holier than others and even God. One of the most common modern-day idols is our elevation of self and our own merits and abilities.” These three, desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes, and pride of life can easily take up residence in our hearts. 

Call them idols or call them strongholds. Call them anything you want. But do all that you can in the power of the Spirit to tear them down! 

As John wrote to close his first letter, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” 

In 2015, Lex Bayer and John Figfor, wrote a book entitled, “Humanist heart, Atheist Mind.” To help get information for the book, they offered $10,000 to a would-be atheist Moses who could produce the best answers in a “Ten Non-Commandments Contest.” Interesting that they wanted to find some rules to follow…just not the ones God gave us. Here’s a sampling of what they thought the best non-commandment commandments are, with my commentary in italics: 1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence. 2. Every person has the right to control of their body. (How about the body growing inside you?) 3. “God” is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life. (You should ask Him about this.) 4. Treat others as you would want them to treat you. (Hmm, this sounds a lot like one of God’s.) 5. There is no one right way to live. (Doesn’t this eliminate rules 1-4?) 

Thank you, God, that you have not left your people without instructions so that we have to come up with our own. Thank you, Father, that you have revealed yourself to us, and given us your Word.

I want you to notice that the very first word God spoke to the people at Mt. Sinai was not law but grace. God reminded them of who He is and what He has done. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” In other words, I have chosen you for myself and I have loved you and I have carried you on eagles wings and saved you. I have set my affection on you and that will never change. This is God’s covenant promise for His people, built on His love for us.

Marriage is also a covenant and it is not based first and foremost on laws and rules. If it is, that house of cards will fall in upon itself. No, marriage is a holy commitment to one another based on love, which is not a feeling but certainly should come with feelings. A happy and blessed marriage is built on love and grace, not duties and responsibilities. Are their duties and responsibilities? Of course, and the Bible makes those clear. But marriage God’s way is where a husband and a wife know they are unconditionally and absolutely loved by the other. We love each other imperfectly, but God’s grace teaches us how to grow up in that.

The first commandment is this: “You shall have no other gods before me.” This is the most fundamental of the ten. If we get this one wrong, we get everything wrong. God will not share His glory with any other. Isn’t this also the foundational truth about marriage? Marriage is a creation of God that calls for one man and one woman to leave their father and mother and be joined to one another in marriage for life. Till death us do part. What would your wife say, men, if you came home with someone from work? And you said, “Hey sweetheart, I want to introduce you to someone I met today at the office that I really, really like. I mean, I still love you most of all, but I am going to be spending some time with her, too. Don’t get me wrong, sweetie! You are still number one but I found a second one to love!” What would your wife say? I mean, after you woke up from the blow to the head? She would say something like, “Me or her, buddy. Choose you this day whom you will love.”

In the same way, God has cut a covenant with us through the precious blood of His Son. He has adopted us and purchased us and redeemed us to be sons and daughters. He is our God and will not share that position, and that glory. Later in Exodus when the covenant is renewed because the people had worshiped a golden calf, God says, “You shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous god.” We think of jealousy as a character flaw and it usually is for you and me. Our jealousy is selfish and sinful most of the time. But God’s jealousy is rooted in covenantal love for His people. His jealousy is righteous and holy and all consuming. Simply put, God does not tolerate dating around when it comes to our relationship with Him. Our complete surrender to God is for His glory and for our good! God’s jealousy, to use John Piper’s explanation, “is the measure of his zeal for our happiness in him. His anger at our spiritual adultery, at our having other lovers besides him, is a reflex both of his zeal for his own worth, but also of his zeal for our joy. If we turn away from him as the greatest treasure, we turn away from our own greatest pleasure.”

 Why would we want to do that? There is no other God.

The scene in Exodus 19 is one that Universal Studios cannot hope to capture. They could try to duplicate the noise of thunder and the flash of lightning and the cloud and the smoke and the blaring trumpets and the fire. They may even be able to make a mountain tremble. But that would not be enough. No one could show us what two million people saw that day on Mt. Sinai. Because the Lord had come down; he had descended from heaven in fire and smoke on the mountain. Everything about the scene was designed by God to put His glory on display. Philip Ryken wrote, “The dark cloud was a sign of his mystery, showing that there are aspects of his being that we cannot penetrate. The fire was a sign of God’s holiness, his bright and burning purity. Fire both attracts and repels… The trumpet signified his sovereignty…the coming of a king…The people who saw (this scene) could never forget that they had been in the presence of the living God in all his holiness and majesty.” 

We know that God is invisible, so they could not see Him. No one took out a sketch book and drew a picture and said, “This is what God looks like.” No, they trembled at what they saw. I think we need a lot less trembling in the presence of celebrities and rock stars and presidents and kings, and a lot more trembling in the presence of Almighty God. There’s a fascination in people sometimes to devour anything they can find on a particular athlete or team or actor or politician, and it can become an obsession. I would think there were people in the crowd that day at Mt. Sinai who had distractions as well, things that were interesting that consumed their thoughts. That was about to change for many of them. At least it should have.

The people in the camp trembled because on the third day, God came down. It reminded me that on the third day, God came down and raised Jesus from the dead. On the third day, death was conquered for all who know Jesus Christ as savior and Lord. This scene at Mt. Sinai points us to that day in Jerusalem. Not only that, the resurrection of Jesus points us to that great Day still to come, when our Lord will descend from the heavens. Jesus will come down as our King, and all will see His glory and all will fall at His feet. 

Moses brought the people closer on that third day. And they recognized their own sin, their own unworthiness, their own uncleanness. He brought them out of the camp to meet God. That’s our job as followers of Jesus. To bring people out of their camp, out of their fears, out of their confusion and anger and bitterness to meet God. And when we are talking with someone about Christ, or are planning to talk to someone about Christ, our prayer should be that they would see we are just practicing our Gospel presentation. Unless people see themselves as sinful, they will not see themselves as needing a savior. 

As Hebrews 12 tells us, God led His people from Mt. Sinai to Mt. Zion. He has taken us from the law that shows us our sin to the cross where our sins are forgiven. But there is still a warning to be heeded! See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. Listen and rejoice and give thanks for the kingdom of our awesome God you have entered, a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

Moses shared with his father-in-law Jethro the story of God’s deliverance of His people from slavery. He told him about the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea that led to their salvation. He told him about the trials and troubles they had faced since the Red Sea, and he told him “how the LORD had delivered them.” Moses witnessed to dear old dad-in-law, telling him ALL that the Lord had done!

Saints, this is how we tell anyone about Jesus. Some believe that though Jethro was a monotheist as the Midianite priest, he did not know the one he worshiped. And that this was the point of his salvation, as he said to Moses after hearing his story, “Now I know that the LORD (Yahweh) is greater than all gods.” Why? Because Moses had been careful to tell his father-in-law all that he had seen God do with his own eyes. He loved Jethro with the truth. He loved Jethro with a testimony of God’s great faithfulness to His people. Moses shared the good news of Israel’s salvation by the signs and wonders and the miracles that God had performed for His people who had been enslaved for more than four centuries. Moses pointed his father-in-law to God and His goodness and mercy to save. 

We have the same testimony! We have all been slaves to sin and we have all, if we are disciples of Christ now, been delivered from sin by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross. “We preach Christ crucified,” Paul wrote. And we preach Christ risen from the dead. “He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.” And when we do that, sometimes God brings life where there is no life. 

I love the story of CT Studd, the famous missionary to Africa and China who left his wealth and his fame as a cricketer to serve the Lord on two continents. But do you know how he came to Christ? His father, Edward Studd, was a wealthy Englishman who was profoundly converted by the preaching of DL Moody. His sons were in school at the time and they knew nothing about what had happened with Dad. Until he shocked them by coming to Eton to see them in the middle of the semester. Instead of taking them to the theater as he normally did when he visited, he took them to hear DL Moody preach. CT Studd wrote later, “Before that time, I used to think that religion was a Sunday thing, like one’s Sunday clothes, to be put away on Monday morning.  We boys were brought up to go to church regularly, but, although we had a kind of religion, it didn’t amount to much…Then all at once I had the good fortune to meet a real live…Christian.  It was my own father.  But it did make one’s hair stand on end.  Everyone in the house had a dog’s life of it until they were converted.  I was not altogether pleased with him.  He used to come into my room at night and ask if I was converted.” 

I love it! There was a father who would do all he could to see that his sons came to know Jesus, knowing full well that it would be Jesus only who saved them. You know what? There are perhaps millions in China and central Africa that are glad CT Studd’s father loved his sons enough to keep sowing and watering seeds until God gave the increase.

A humble, unashamed, and saved dad is a great witness to his family.

You all know this story well. Just a few weeks after God delivered His people from slavery in Egypt, they were attacked by the Amalekites, who cowardly targeted the stragglers in the back of the procession. That led to Moses commissioning Joshua to gather men who would fight a battle the next day.  Men died on the battlefield, but God did not inspire Moses to write about the costs, how many men died and how many were injured. He inspired Moses to write about who won the battle, and the how and the why, the strategy that brought victory. Simply put, it was prayer. Moses took his staff and went up on the top of a hill, probably so the men could see him up there and so he could see the men. Aaron and Hur went with him. Every time Moses had lifted up his staff before this, he was directed by God and the staff was a symbol of God’s power. Now his people were being attacked and Moses lifted his staff as the battle raged below him. I believe Moses reaching up to ask the Lord to do what was needed, lifting up holy hands to our mighty Warrior God. It was a physical picture of prayer, whether he was actually saying any words or not. Moses also began to realize that whenever he lifted up his hand to God, Joshua’s army prevailed over the Amalekites. When he dropped his hand, the Amalekites prevailed. We might say, Moses, why do you keep dropping your hands? But seriously…how long could you hold up one or both of your hands in the air? Could you do it all day? Of course not. 

Aaron and Hur saw what was going on so they got a stone for Moses to sit on and then stood on either side of him, helping him hold up his hands. I honestly don’t know how they held up Moses’ hands all day long, but it may be that when they stepped up to help, God gave them strength beyond their ability. But I love this picture. These two men came alongside to strengthen their brother. We see this story played out in the lives of the first believers. Jesus told Peter that he was praying for him that his strength would not fail after Satan sifted him. Then Jesus said, “When you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Peter did just that, didn’t he? He took the hand of the lame beggar and lifted him out of his infirmity. Later, when Peter was in prison and expected to be executed the next day, the church gathered to lift up their hands and their voices for him. God heard their prayers and sent an angel to deliver Peter from prison. The church could not physically deliver Peter from prison but they knew the One who could, so they came together for prayer. It is what we are called to do as well. To hold up the arms that are weary. Paul wrote, “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” 

We know this battle with Amalek is a physical picture of a spiritual reality. We get tired of battling with sin. We get weary of running the race God has called us to run. We get beaten down by the mundane chores of everyday life, taking care of a house and trying to stay healthy and paying the bills and just trying to keep our head above water. And added onto that for many are troubled marriages, kids rejecting the faith, young people longing to be married and not knowing where that person is, older people fearful of the future or a medical diagnosis. And all around we hear people crying, “I need help! I can’t keep going.” Be willing to answer that cry. You may be Aaron or Hur who hold the arms up for someone else.  You may sometimes be a Moses who needs others to hold your arms up. 

I like what JC Ryle said: “The Christian is known by two great marks: his inner warfare and his inner peace.” He is also known for his willingness to serve others who are weary from the battle and no longer able to stand. 

Go ahead. Lift up your hands, and help others do that, too!