Well, as I've been doing on a
Thursday evening in the absence of our pastor, I would read a
sermon of the late pastor, Mr. Matronola. This is a prayer meeting address
preached by Mr Matronola on Thursday evening 8th of April 1993. It's
entitled Moses and Amalek and the text is that which we read
just now Exodus 17 and verses 8 to 16. Exodus 17 and verses
8 to 16. I want to speak with the Lord's
help from this familiar portion concerning the war with Amalek.
The children of Israel had many trials in the wilderness. They
had the trial of their continuing physical needs. In the beginning
of this very chapter they murmured and cried for water, and there
was the miraculous provision of water out of the rock. They
also had the trial of enemies, and we're going to look at the
record of the coming of Amalek against them. But their greatest
trial, whether it was in respect of their physical needs or the
enemies against them, was a spiritual trial. It was their unbelief. their proneness to doubt and
to fear. We come then to the war with
Amalek. Then came Amalek and fought with
Israel. Amalek was a people who had blood
ties with the Israelites. The Amalekites were descended
from Esau through Eliphaz the son of Esau. They were a numerous
people dwelling to the south of Petra in the area by the Dead
Sea. They ranged over a considerable
territory and they were probably already in the wilderness as
the children of Israel attempted to pass through it on the way
to Sinai. We are told in the book of Numbers
that they were the first of the nations to fight against Israel
after the exodus from Egypt. The source of this information
is the strange figure Balaam. Balaam, the Highling Prophet,
who was hired by Balak to curse the Israelites. But, although
he tried, he could not. Instead, he ends up by stating
blessings upon Israel and the discomfiture of all Israel's
enemies. When he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable and said,
Amalek was the first of the nations, but his latter end shall be that
he perish forever. Numbers 24 verse 20. The margin adds the sense of
it. The first of the nations that
warred against Israel. And here we have the record of
it. Then came Amalek and fought with Israel. Why did Amalek fight
against the Israelites? They were in the wilderness which
the Israelites were passing through and they may have felt some threat
to their territory. It may also have been that they
were somewhat afraid of the people. The number of the Israelites,
being something in the region of three million, would have
been a formidable sight. They may also have been covetous
for the spoils of Egypt, because the Israelites did not go empty-handed
out of Egypt. They were given gifts of silver
and gold, they had a great booty. They spoiled the Egyptians! What
a remarkable thing that was! They did not go out destitute,
but they had many possessions of silver and gold given to them.
These were the precious metals from which the tabernacle and
its furniture were constructed. These rich possessions would
have been tempting to a barbarous, warlike and marauding people.
But the main reason was the old enmity against Jacob. Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. There was no love lost between
these brothers, although there had been some measure of reconciliation
between them. The descendants of Esau were
inveterate haters of the Israelites. And no doubt this was one of
the prime reasons which moved Amalek against Israel at Rephidim. But especially, and closely connected
to this hatred of the Israelites, it was their hatred of the Lord
God. The hatred of Jehovah. which
is mentioned in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 25, 17 and 18. Remember what Amalek did unto
thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt, how
he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all
that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary,
and he feared not God. There was a solemn defiance of
Jehovah on the part of Amalek. Not even the fact that Egypt
had been devastated and the Israelites had been wondrously delivered
from Egyptian bondage made the Amalekites afraid to come against
them. They feared not God. And the reference in Deuteronomy
tells us how they fought against Israel. Their strategy was to
fall on the unprotected rear of the host. when they were faint
and weary after travel and exertions in the wilderness. Yet you see
divine providence in that they had had their hunger met and
their thirst quenched. If Amalek had come against them
when they were thirsty, when they had no water, or before
the provision of the manna to sustain them, it would have been
a very different case. But divine providence means that
even the enemies of God's people are curbed and restrained. And although they may and will
come against us, yet they cannot come against us at a time when
they will surely have the victory over us. The lovely verse of
Ryland says, not a single shaft can hit till the God of love
sees fit. not until they were ready and
had been supplied with food and drink did Amalek come, and therefore
they were able to go against them. Whatever comes against
us in the Christian path, and there are many adversaries who
seem to come when we are at our weakest, but they will never
come when our weakness is such that we cannot fight against
them at all. There will always be that way of escape that we
may be able to bear whatever trial God has appointed. May
we never be brought to the lack of faith of Israel when they
tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not? They had witnessed water from
the rock, they had seen the miraculous provision of the manna, and yet
they had this spirit of unbelief. What a picture that is of the
depravity of the heart, and we know something of it ourselves.
like Asaph, we wonder if the Lord is with us is his mercy
clean gone forever? does his promise fail forevermore?
has God forgotten to be gracious? but of course he cannot forget
behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands he has
said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee notice next
the place of Moses and Joshua. Moses said unto Joshua choose
us out men and go out fight against Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand
upon the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. Joshua
is his tribe minister. It was Joshua who led the children
of Israel after Moses was dead and who took them into the land
of Canaan. It was Joshua who, with Caleb, did not succumb to
unbelief concerning the ability of the Israelites to enter Canaan
and to possess the land. It was Joshua who was commanded
to fight against Amalek. The Israelites were not commanded
to fight against the Egyptians, but they are commanded to fight
against Amalek. This is a war that the Lord commands
them to engage in. Amalek started it, but the command
to Joshua is, go out, fight with Amalek. And Moses says, I will
stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.
While the people are fighting, Moses intends to stand on the
top of the hill and engage in prayer. Joshua did, as Moses
said, and fought with Amalek on the next day. And there are
those who say, in their unbelief, that this was impossible. How
could they fight against Amalek? What weapons had they? Whatever
weapons they had, they were most efficient in the use of them.
Of course they had weapons. There must have been many weapons
littered along the shore of the Red Sea. Weapons of wood that
would have floated up when the great army of Egypt was lost
beneath the waves of the Red Sea. And they would also have
had weapons which were given to them when they left Egypt.
They were not unarmed. And a chosen company go out the
day after the order is given to engage in the battle. Joshua
did as Moses said and fought with Amalek. And Moses and Aaron
and Hur go up to the top of the hill. We know very little about
Hur. Josephus, the historian of the
Jews, says that he was the husband of Miriam. But whether he was
or not is immaterial. Suffice to say that Moses is
accompanied by his brother Aaron, and by this man Hur. They climb
up the hill, not to have a better sight of the battle, but in order
that the Israelites might see them upon the hilltop. Particularly Moses, with the
rod of God in his hand. We are told what came to pass.
When Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. When Moses
let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. This is Moses in prayer with
the rod of God in his hand. He could have wedged it in a
crevice of the rod, but it was not the rod which was the secret
of their success. It was the prayer of Moses that
counted. The rod was the symbol that Moses
was engaged in prayer. It was a symbol to those who
were fighting in the valley of Rephidim. But there was one who was continuing
in the labor of prayer on their behalf. Believers are kings and
priests unto God. We are a kingdom of believer
priests. And this is part of our service,
our spiritual service, that we are engaged constantly in prayer,
as Moses was. I believe that Aaron and Hur
were engaged in prayer also, but we are made to think particularly
of Moses. Moses is the leader. Moses is
the representative of the people. He is praying there before God. Moses is a man of prayer. We are reminded that the effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth March, James 5.16. Moses' prayers availed March. In his prayer, as he held his
rod aloft, there was victory in the battle. When there was
a ceasing of his prayer, and through weariness he let down
his hand, then the battle went against the Israelites. In other
words, there was a direct connection between Moses praying on the
mountain and Israel's fortunes in the battle. This is worthy
of our notice. Dr Keto says, We notice here
grouped together that hallowed combination of agencies, which
ought never to be separated. dependence upon heaven with the
use of appointed means, the rod in the hand of Moses and the
sword in the hand of Joshua, the embattled host in the valley
below and the praying hand in the mount above, all are necessary
in the divine economy to the victory of Israel over his foes. And Spurgeon says, It matters
not how loudly Joshua shouts to his men, unless Moses fervently
cries to his God. the young soldier would soon
have left the field if the old commander had left his closet.
We see then that prayer is to accompany all our effort. Does this not set before us an
ongoing type of the Christian in his spiritual battles? We
do not need a Moses, an Aaron, or a Her, for we have the right
and privilege as believers to come in prayer to God and to
cry for His help, and He will help us. As we seek to do that
which is right, for He has showed the O man what is good, and what
doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. Or may we be those that
pray earnestly, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous
man availeth much. We are told that Moses' hands
were heavy and they took a stone and put it under him and he sat
there on and Aaron and her stayed up his hands the one on the one
side and the other on the other side and his hands were steady
until the going down of the sun. Through the holding up of the
rod Moses' hands were heavy and Aaron and her came to his aid
and supported him. Is it not true to our experience
that it is difficult to continue in it? Is this not our experience
in prayer? It is difficult to continue in
it. Men ought always to pray and not to faint. We are exhorted
in many scriptures to pray in everything by prayer and supplication,
let your requests be made known unto God, and to pray without
ceasing. The Saviour said, watch and pray,
yet it is often such a wearisome thing to pray. It is not that we are wearied with
the praying, but that we find it so difficult to continue in
prayer. This is something which is very suggestive to us. Moses,
holding up the staff, felt the weariness of this position and
he was sustained by the men on either side. They sat him down
and they supported him. Or do we not often feel weary
in prayer? The devil would seek to make
us give up praying. But it is not for us to give
up. We are to pray until the going down of the sun. When do
we stop praying? When we are no longer in this
world. God, make us to be prayerful
until we come to our last day. May we be those that know the
power of the secret place of prayer. May we not be strangers
to the life of prayer. But, nonetheless, it is that
which is difficult. It is not a mystical thing. Prayer
is a real, earnest, crying to God in words. And it is something
which we can tackle in a practical way. It is tackled in a practical
way here. Moses is weary. But we find he
sits down. And he gets helpers, one on either
side, to hold him up. And if you find that prayer is
difficult, and if your thoughts seem to wander, then it is not
wrong to see if you can improve the practicalities of prayer. Perhaps it is the wrong time.
There are some who pray last thing at night when they are
almost too tired to pray. It might be better, if we're
so tired when we come to pray, if we prayed earlier in the day.
Perhaps pray before you go to work. It may be that we are praying
in an uncomfortable position. There's no command so that we
should pray in a particular posture. In the Bible they prayed prostrate,
they prayed kneeling, they prayed more often standing. Standing
would seem to be the main attitude of prayer in the Old Testament.
I believe that it is not the position that we're in any more
than it is the place in which we are found. It is for us to
seek to use whatever means to help us in order that we might
maintain the life of prayer. It may be the use of our Bibles
may help. I find that I pray much better
after reading the Scriptures. I read and then I pray. Reading
the Bible often seems to lead us into prayer. If our wandering
thoughts are such that we scarcely know what to pray for, it may
be necessary to make a list of what we should pray for. I deplore
anything that becomes a mechanism so that merely by rote we are
saying our prayers. We have been delivered from formalism
in prayer, but at the same time we do not want to be so delivered
from formalism that we are no longer praying. Is it any better
to be a formalist that is praying, or one that is a true believer
who is not praying? We want to be rather the believer
who is diligently and earnestly praying, praying without ceasing. It is that which we must give
ourselves to. It is not praying today, nor
yet tomorrow, that we'll win the victory. It is praying until
the going down of the sun, until the end of our lives. Oh that
we might be those who pray, do we pray more now than we did
when we first became Christians? Or do we, let us address the
question to our own hearts with Holy Ghost honesty, do we pray
less now than when we first became Christians? I think it would
be a very salutary thing if we periodically asked ourselves
such a question. It is not what other people think
of our prayers, but what are our prayers really like? Robert
Murray McShane said, what a man is on his knees before God, that
he is and nothing more. It is persevering prayer. despite
the weariness that we find in the difficulties and demands
being made upon us. There was a great demand being
made upon the Israelites in the valley, but it didn't keep Moses
away from the mountain of prayer. Indeed, it was the praying man,
as I have said, upon the mountain that caused success in the valley.
Many a time, We are not having the success in the workplace
or in the family that we hoped to have, because we are not praying
about these things. We've given up the prayer that
once was part of us. And God deliver us from it. If
we are those who claim to be Calvinists, and yet we are not
praying, we should be utterly ashamed of ourselves. Prayer
was appointed to convey the blessings God designs to give, long as
they live, should Christians pray. for only while they pray
they live we believe that prayer is in the decree of God he will
bring his decrees to pass irrespective of whether we pray or not but
if he has appointed prayer it is for us to pray we learn so much from Moses praying
supported by Aaron and her upon the mountain The result was that
Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the
sword. The Amalekites were the losers of the battle which they
had initiated. When they had taken unfair advantage
of the stragglers and laid in wait for Israel, they were defeated. We are not left in ignorance
of this event, for we have it written down for us. The Lord
said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book. When I was at a liberal and modernistic
theological college, the Old Testament tutor, said that Moses
could not have written this down because there was no such thing
as writing in the day of Moses. Even unbelieving archaeologists
have long since disproved that fallacy and shown that writing
antedated Moses by centuries. Moses knew how to write. Moses
was used to write the greater part of the first five books
of the Bible. We thank God that we have this record of the battle
with Amalek. We possess the book, the memorial
of it. Rehearse it in the ears of Joshua. Tell Joshua, immersed
in the heat of the battle, what was going on on the mountaintop.
He has had the victory in the field. Tell him the place of
prayer on the mountain. Joshua must continually have
remembered it in the days when he was the leader of the people,
when he himself had foes to face. when nearly 40 years later, after
all the wanderings in the wilderness, they entered into Canaan. He
had the written record of it. It was rehearsed in his ears.
He would never forget. And by and large, when you read
the book of Joshua, you read of the Lord's people with great
blessing upon them. There is a quickening, there
is a brightness about them in the day of Joshua, which sadly
did not last after Joshua died, because then there is the relapse
into unbelief and all manner of sin. The period of the judges
which follows is a period of sin, then chastisement, then
repentance, then restoration. Joshua learnt from these things.
A godly man will learn from what he hears and is taught. Joshua
was taught concerning the place of prayer. Although Amalek was
discomfited in the battle, they were not destroyed. The Lord
says, That will come to pass one day. I will utterly put out
the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And although it
was delayed, it did come to pass. It could have come to pass in
the days of Samuel. Saul was commissioned to destroy
the Amalekites because of their great wickedness. They were almost
a byword for sinfulness and unrighteousness. I remember that which Amalek
did to Israel. how he laid wait for him in the
way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek and utterly
destroy all that they have and spare them not. 1 Samuel 15 verses
2 and 3. But Saul disobeyed and would
not slay the Amalekites. And that marked the end of Saul's
reign. We are told that after that Samuel
saw him no more. For from that point onwards the
Lord had passed over him as king. God's favour would henceforth
be with young David, the son of Jesse, although Saul would
persecute him. Saul kept the best of the flocks
and spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites. And it was Samuel
who did what had to be done and hewed Agag in pieces before the
Lord. If God commands the utter destruction
of a nation, it must be done. Our God is a good God. His general
providence is a benevolent providence. If he wills, therefore, that
a people should be destroyed, there are reasons for it. Saul's
sparing of the Amalekites meant that in the days of Esther there
arose a Haman. Haman was an Agagite, a descendant
of the Amalekites. Haman's intention was to get
rid of all the Israelites that were in Persia, to have them
slaughtered in one night. Again, God had to intervene on
his people's behalf, and God brought it to pass that Haman
was hanged upon a gallows. We are to take God at his word,
and when he commands us to do a thing which may seem to us
to be rather extreme, it is for us to obey. To obey is better
than sacrifice. and to Harkon, then the fat of
rams. As a result of the victory, Moses
built an altar. Not many more altars would be
built because soon there would be the brazen altar that would
stand before the tabernacle with the holy place and the holiest
of all, the pattern of which God would show to Moses in the
mount. But they had not yet come to
Sinai, let alone built the tabernacle. Therefore an altar must be built.
And there was not yet the Aaronic priesthood, although Aaron was
of the house of Levi. Moses therefore built an altar,
and he called the name of that place Jehovah-Nissi, the LORD
MY BANNER, in token of the victory given, the LORD MY BANNER. For
he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have
war with Amalek from generation to generation. and the margin
supplies because the hand of Amalek is against the throne
of the Lord. There will be a continuing conflict
until Amalek is no more. It is a type of the believer's
warfare with sin, the world, and the devil. That will be an
ongoing fight until there are no more such enemies for us to
grapple with. But until that time comes, We
have got to be under the banner of the Lord, which is the encouragement
to us that the Lord is on our side. Our enemies will not prevail
over us. As we seek God, he will give
us the victory. Be strong in the Lord and in
the power of his might. May we see that the battle goes
on. The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against
the flesh. And these are contrary, the one
to the other. There is the constant warfare of the devil against
the people of God. We must seek not to be taken
by his wiles. Resist the devil, and he will
flee from you. It belongs to us then as individuals
to see that we are in a fight. We are up against foes. As Amalek
came against Israel long ago and we need to learn the place
of prayer in the fight and in every success. For every success
we have and every advantage we gain are through the Lord's gracious
provision. He who says, I will yet for this
be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them. Whether it be to increase them
with men like a flock or to give them whatever needful thing to
support them in this wilderness journey. The apostles saw the place of
prayer. We will give ourselves continually
to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. Acts 6 verse 4. May the servants of God be those
who are given to prayer. Note it is prayer and the ministry
of the Word. It is not as you might perhaps
have expected to read. The ministry of the Word and
prayer. No, we will give ourselves to
prayer and the ministry of the word. We need Aaron's and hers
in the ministry. We need those who will be as
Aaron's and hers in the pew to hold up the hands of the servants
of God in the work of preaching. May we learn from these things
and especially may we never forget that we have in the fight prayer
which is our part in the will of God. We also have Christ with
us in the heat of the battle, Joshua, Jesus. As Joshua fought
and discomfited Amalek with the edge of the sword, so we have
one who fights with us. He is never absent. He is never
distant. He is near to us. He is the great
captain of our salvation. He is with us in the battle.
And under his banner, Jehovah Nisai, we shall prevail. I trust
we are on the Lord's side this night and we know that the battle
is the Lord's and trust that he will give us the victory.
The weapons of our warfare in the gospel church are not carnal.
It is not by the gun or by the sword that we make our advances.
It is rather by spiritual instruments. by the word preached, by the
prayers of the saints, by Christ with us, enabling us to win the
day and to extend his kingdom in the hearts of men, until he
brings from north, south, east and west the people for whom
his blood was shed, and fulfills all the sovereign good pleasure
of the Father. May we then give thanks for the
Saviour, Jesus Christ. who is spiritually with his people
in the heat and burden of every day and in the hottest place
in every battle. May we be those that learn from
this chapter these lessons concerning conflict and prayer and thank
God that it was written for our instruction. Whatsoever things
were written aforetime were written for our learning. that we, through
patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. May the Lord
bless his word, for his name's sake. Amen.