Spiritual Warfare And The Prophetic

Moses may have been the most influential prophet to ever live, because he was the person who taught us what God is like and how to approach Him. God gave the law through Moses -- that all Jews throughout all time study and live by. And his writings are the first five books of the Bible as well. God spoke powerfully through Moses and did many signs and wonders through him. Moses did not volunteer for this, God drafted him and then sent him to His people.

And Moses' job description came with a lot of spiritual warfare built into it. In fact, his ministry started with a power encounter against Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt. God sent him to Pharaoh to demand that he let the Israelites go worship God. But Pharaoh hardened his heart at the beginning and a power encounter ensued, where God sent ten plagues on Egypt. Each of the plagues was designed to defeat one of Egypt's gods. (About half way through, Pharaoh was not so anxious to harden his heart, but God wanted to address and confront more of the Egyptian gods, so He actually hardened Pharaoh's heart for him so that He could continue the power encounter to defeat Egypt's gods (Ex 10:1).

Each of the ten plagues defeated and humiliated one of the Egyptian gods. Let's take a look at this. The first plague turned the water of the Nile into blood, which was an attack on Memphis, the "daughter of the Nile." The second plague was frogs from the Nile, which was an attack on Heqt, the frog-headed goddess of the Nile. The third plague was dust that became gnats, attacking Geb, the "god of earth." The fourth plague was flies, attacking Nut the "sky goddess" and Sata the "goddess of the air." The fifth plague was against the Egyptian livestock, attacking Hathor who was depicted as a cow. The sixth plague was boils, attacking Isis in her role as the goddess of medicine. The seventh plague was hail, attacking Seth, the "god of the storms." The eight plague was locusts (brought in by wind). This was an attack against Amon the "wind god" and Amaunet "the wind goddess." The ninth plague was darkness, an attack on Ra the "sun god" and who was considered the top god or ruler of the Egyptian gods. The final plague was the death of the firstborn sons. This was an attack on Nutpe who presided over births and nursing, but it was also punishment to Pharaoh and Egypt for killing the Jewish baby boys.

God defeated and humiliated the human leadership and the demonic spirits that were over Egypt. And these demons got mad and did their best to fight back and counter attack Moses, who lead God's offense. They noticed that God had raised Moses up as the leader of His people, so the devil's spiritual counter attack against Moses attempted to undermine his authority and leadership. Satan still likes to use this type of counter attack against God's leaders today, particularly against pastors, heads of ministries and senior business executives and some Christian politicians.

Let's take a look at how some of these attacks played out in Moses' life and ministry. We see God establish Moses and Aaron's leadership with the elders and people of Israel in Ex 4:29-31, "Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped."

But things did not go the way the people expected. They expected that Pharaoh would succumb to Moses' request because of the miracles he did. But instead Pharaoh resisted and made things worse for the Jews. He made them go gather their own straw for making bricks but did not decrease their daily brick making quota. This was the first enemy counter attack to undermine Moses' leadership authority. We see the result of this attack in Ex 5:20-21, "When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and they said, 'May the Lord look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.'" In other words, the Jews turned against Moses and hoped God would punish him for what he did to them in making their work load worse. That is quite a change from Ex 4:31 where they believed that God sent Moses to deliver them from Egypt.

I am sure that their response shook Moses to the core. He was not a very confident person to begin with. He had tried his hand at leadership before God commissioned him, and he failed miserably. He had come from his palace to try to help the Jews. He saw an Egyptian abusing a Jew and he killed the man and buried his body in the sand. Then Moses found out that his murder was public knowledge, so he fled Egypt because Pharaoh would execute him for murder as soon as he found out about the crime. His confidence was so shaken by this that when God commissioned him, he asked God to send someone else instead (Ex 4:13).

Moses finally agreed to obey God and go lead the children out of bondage. And his first action as leader did not go so well. Instead of leading them out of bondage, he found himself making their bondage worse. To make matters worse, public opinion turned against him and the people he was sent to help were actually cursing him. Fortunately, Moses' response was the very best response he could possibly make. He took the problem back to God and asked Him about it. We see this in Ex 5:22-23. And God responded to Moses in Ex 6:1-8 with a very strong promise that He would bring them out of Egypt with signs and wonders.

So, Moses went back to the Jews in Ex 6:9 and "reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage." And that really shook Moses. We see this in Ex 6:12, "But Moses said to the Lord, 'If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?'" In short, the enemy counter attacked Moses, trying to get him to disqualify himself. The enemy tried to convince him that he was incapable as a leader and should step down. And this became the pattern for pretty much the rest of Moses' ministry. The enemy would attack and cause something to go wrong or go poorly, and the people would complain and murmur and challenge his leadership authority.

God finished the plagues and Pharaoh let them go. So, Moses led them out of Egypt. Then Pharaoh changed his mind and sent an army to pursue them. When the Israelites saw the soldiers chasing them, they were terrified. So the first thing they did was to come and criticize Moses and blame him for their predicament. Ex 14:11-12 says, "They said to Moses, 'Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, "Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians"? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!'" This was another incident of that same "two-pronged" spiritual counter attack, designed to 1) undermine Moses' leadership authority in the eyes of the people and 2) to break his confidence and try to get him to step down from leadership.

Moses, as was his habit, cried out to God and took the problem to Him. God performed a mighty miracle by splitting the Red Sea and causing them to cross over on dry land. Then He destroyed the army that was pursuing them by closing the waters over them and drowning them. And the people were ecstatic about this, celebrating and worshipping God. They understood that God came through for them, and that Moses was His appointed leader. You would think that experience would be enough to break them of their bad habit of murmuring against God and criticizing Moses as a leader. You would think they would have learned their lesson. But no, it did not work that way.

The enemy launched the same spiritual counter attack a mere three days later, and it worked again. I think the enemy was retaliating because God destroyed the Egyptian army. The people had a brief celebration on the other side of the Red Sea, complete with tambourines and dance and prophetic song. Then they set out in the wilderness They did not find water for three days. They finally came to this oasis named Marah, where they expected to have water. But the enemy caused the water at Marah to be contaminated, so they could not drink it. Ex 15:24 shows us their response to this situation: "So the people grumbled against Moses." Verse 25 tells us, "Then Moses cried out to the Lord , and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet." Moses response was the same -- he did not have an answer to the people's criticisms, so he went to God for help and God helped him.

This pattern continued over and over again. Things went well for a short while and then the enemy brought in another problem. As soon as the problem arose, the people complained and criticized Moses. Ex 16:2 tells us, "In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron." Each time there was a problem, God would back Moses up by bringing a solution in some miraculous way. But then the next time a problem came up, the people would just complain about Moses' leadership again. The Exodus 16 grumbling was about not having food to eat, so God gave them manna from Heaven. Then they continued their journey through the desert and the people became thirsty there. So, Ex 17:3, they criticized and attacked Moses again saying, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?"

Can you imagine how frustrating this must have been to Moses? Can you imagine how it might shake his confidence in his calling? Ex 17:4 gives us an insight into his feelings. "Then Moses cried out to the Lord , 'What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.'"

Poor Moses experienced this spiritual counter attack the entire duration of his ministry, over and over again. In Ex 16, Korah organized a rebellion against Moses, and God brought judgment on them by having the ground open up and swallow everyone involved in that rebellion. How did the people respond? Ex 16:41-42 tells us, "all the congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, saying, 'You have killed the people of the Lord.' ... the congregation gathered against Moses and Aaron."

Sometimes you have to be amazed that the demon could get the people to act so stupid. A group had just risen up against Moses to rebel against him and God stepped in and struck them all dead. Wouldn't that be a pretty clear indication that this might not be the best of times to attack and criticize Moses? Yet the entire people of Israel rose up like an angry mob against Him. I think that the demon had become pretty secure in his control over them, and that is how it was able to incite them like that -- each time they had fallen prey to his strategy to use them to criticize Moses, his control over them got a bit stronger. Now it was so strong that he could incite them to go against all common sense.

God's response, verse 44, was that God wanted to kill the whole congregation. But Moses and Aaron fell on their face before God and begged Him to spare them, and he did, but He still killed quite a few of them with a plague in response to their rebellion against the leader that He appointed for them. As sad as this incident was, it was also a sort of break-through, the key to Moses' success in dealing with this enemy strategy against him. He learned to love the people who God had put under his care. He loved them to the point where he was willing to endanger himself, to incur God's wrath, in order to protect them.

Even after that, the demon continued to launch the same strategy against Moses -- he would cause something to go wrong and then the people would criticize him and challenge his leadership. Moses now had a strategy in place to counter this attack, based on his love for the people. In other words, he understood it was their nature to complain and criticize but he loved them anyhow and did his best to ignore their complaints and lead them in the ways of God. I believe that Moses reached the point where the criticisms no longer destroyed his confidence in his calling. I am sure that they remained painful and annoying each time they happened.. after all, spiritual warfare is not intended to be "fun" -- the enemy tries to inflict as much damage as he can.

But Moses had discovered a two-fold strategy against the enemy's counter attack. Part one was to bring the criticisms and problems back to God and let God handle them. And the second part of the strategy was to love the ones who God sent him to lead.