17 I'll read start reading here
in verse 8 and read to the end of the chapter and talk about
Amalek Then came Amalek and fought with
Israel in Rephidim And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose
us out men, and go out and fight with Amalek tomorrow, and I'll
stand on top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand.
So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek.
And Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And
it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed.
And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses'
hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it up under him,
and he sat thereon. And Aaron and Hur 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. And
Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the
sword. And the Lord said unto Moses, Write, this for a memorial
in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua for I will
utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven and
Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah Nissi
for he said because the Lord has sworn that the Lord will
have war with Amalek from generation to generation you know Exodus is full of typical
teachings full of it Moses, of course, is the type of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the mediator and the prophet. Pharaoh is typical
of Satan and his power and his supposed authority. Egypt was
typical of the world. And Israel is slaves. And that's
typical of God's people before they were redeemed and brought
out from the world, brought out of Egypt. then there was the
Passover the way that they were redeemed
typical of Christ our Lord as the Lamb of God and brought out
of Egypt by the blood by the Passover and then we had Christ
the manna that heavenly food the true bread of life that came
down from Christ last week we talked about Christ as smitten
rock And that rock that followed them was Christ. And then we
said, seeing that, that Christ was smitten. And it was after
the smiting that the water gushed out. And also that was typical
of the Holy Spirit being shed on us abundantly. Remember our
Lord Jesus said in John 6.37, if any man thirsts, let him come
unto me. And I'll give him a drink of living water, and out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water. Out of Christ it shall
flow these rivers of living water. And he said, I'll not leave you
comfortless, I'll give you the Holy Spirit. And that's the water
that he gave us, the Holy Spirit. And that's the only way it can
be. And then Israel through the wilderness. They started out
in the wilderness. That's the type of the path that
we have to go through in this world we're in the wilderness
brought out of Egypt redeemed by the blood but we're in the
wilderness and we have to live by faith we live by trial we
live by going through this wilderness and we'll get out of the one
of these days and go into the promised land just as sure as
God's on his throne but here we have a battle with Amalek
And what we see here typically is the conflict, the warfare
between the two natures of a believer. The two natures of a believer.
There are people who do not believe the believer has two natures.
But I believe that they do. I think the scriptures is plain
about that. And after the rock was smitten, the Holy Spirit
came and took up his abide within us. And when that new nature
and the Holy Spirit comes in, he brings with him a new nature.
And He creates within us a new nature. And it's after the new
nature starts, and we have the new nature, that's when the war
starts. There's no war until you get
the new nature. And that's when the conflict
starts. You keep this, and look in Galatians 5. I'll show you
what I'm talking about. Galatians 5, you've seen this
so many times, but let's look at it again. In Galatians chapter 5, verse 17 look what it says here
he talks about the flesh and then he talks about the spirit look what he says in verse 17
this is what happens now for the flesh lust is that word lust
means war same thing as war against the spirit you see that word
spirits capitalized that's the Holy Spirit And the spirit against
the flesh. Flesh not capitalized. There's
nothing good about the flesh. And these are contrary one to
the other. They are opposed to one another. So that you cannot
do the things that you would. And so we have this battle, this
conflict that starts. Only it starts after the new
birth. Only after a person is saved
by the grace of God. Now, I don't know if you know
this or not, but in the new birth, when God saves us, nothing's
changed about this whole nature. Absolutely nothing's changed.
I am still, I have my personality that I had, and the heart and
mind, but what happens in the new birth, the old is set aside,
and something new is created in that person. Something that
never existed before. And that's what the new birth
is. He said, you know, said that being born, you know, we're new
creatures in Christ and old things are passed away. Our old standing
before the law is gone. Our old standing before God is
gone. Our old standing is gone. And we have a new standing before
God, a new nature. And in the new birth, we're given
a new nature. Our Lord Jesus told Nicodemus,
set a man be born of water and the Spirit. He can't see the
kingdom of God. So what God does is when He comes
into a man, He gives him a new nature. But He don't eradicate
that old nature. He don't do nothing with that.
And that's what people have such trouble with. Is they think that
this flesh can be controlled. The only way you can control
this flesh is to be continual on the sound of the gospel. And search the scriptures and
look to the God and look to Christ. Because if you don't, this flesh
will be amalek. When the flesh is weak, He'll
prevail. And when the spirit is high, then you prevail. The new nature is created by
the Holy Spirit. You know, I'm going to tell you
something. I want you to see this in 1 John 3, 9. I'm not going to be in no hurry
tonight because there are some things we need to look at here
before I set up this. 1 John chapter 3 and verse 9. You know, the scripture says
being born again, being born again, not by corruptible seed. That's what we was born with
the first time, a corruptible seed. But being born again, not
of corruptible seed, but incorruptible seed. What is that incorruptible
seed? It's the Word of God. And when
God puts the seed in a person's heart, now when that seed springs
and when it brings forth life, God only knows that. But He puts
a seed in a man's heart. That's why he says, you know,
you'll reap what somebody else has sown. You know, somebody,
the holy gospel, and God will plant a seed, and then I may
be gone, or they go someplace else, and somebody else comes
along and preach, because that seed's been there, then life,
it springs up into life, like that. But I tell you what, look
what he said here in 1 John 3, 9. Whosoever is born of God does
not commit sin. I just read over there, the flesh
lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.
They're against one another. You can't do the things you would.
But he said, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. Now
who's born of God? God puts a new man in us. Puts
a new nature in us. Gives us something that never
existed before. And I tell you what, you never
had a problem with your flesh until God gave you that new nature. Now watch this. And I'm telling you, there's
a person in us that cannot sin. And that's what makes this flesh
so awful to deal with. But they said, we do not commit
sin. Says, He don't overcome sin. He's trying not to sin. He'd
like not to sin, but it says here, He does not commit it.
Why doesn't he commit it? For his seed, whose seed? Christ's
seed remains in him. The incorruptible seed, the Word
of God remains in him. Now listen to this, and he cannot
sin because he's born of God. Now because of that right there,
that's why this flesh is so hard to deal with. Ain't that right? And I'll tell
you, born of water and the Spirit, and even though God implants
in us a new nature, made partakers, the scripture says we're made
partakers of the divine nature. Now let me ask you something.
If you, we got this flesh to contend with, but we've gathered
in here. Gary read back in the study tonight, he said, I was
glad when they said unto me, let us go unto the house of the
Lord, go into the house of the Lord. Now listen. What nature is it that you worship
God with? What nature is it that you understand
the Bible with? What nature is it that makes
you seek God? What nature is it that makes
you trust God? What nature is it that makes
you desire to live to the glory of God? What nature in it makes
you want to come and sit and let somebody talk to you and
tell you that you're nothing? And that Christ is everything.
What nature is, is that makes you reach out your soul. David
said my soul reaches out for you. What nature is that that
does that? If that's not a new nature. If
that's not a nature that comes from God. I never done that before
when I was unconverted. Did you? No. But now since God gave you
this new nature, You want God more than you want anything else
in this world. You want a relationship with
Christ more than you want anything else in this world. And that's
the most precious thing to you is your relationship with Christ.
It really is. For her, for you, all of us,
we've got husbands, we've got wives, we've got kids. And we
love them. We love them dearly. And we love
them. But our desires are after Christ. And that never happened until...
I used to preach in the flesh and preach out to the flesh and
tell everybody what they ought to do. One of the men sitting
there today said it went from being a how-to book to a hymn
book. And that happened after God saved
me by His grace. Look, yet that old sin for nature
remains in us and unchanged until death puts it off. He said this
corruptible must put on incorruption. This moral must put on immortality. So that means we're corruptible
right now. But one of these days we're going
to be incorruptible. We're moral right now. One of
these days we're going to be immortal and change just like
that. So in every believer, every child
of God, there's two natures. One sinful, the other sinless.
One born of the flesh, one born of God. They're different in
their origins. The flesh comes from our mother
and daddy. The new birth comes from God.
They're different in their characters. I've got this old nature that
makes my character sometimes to be awful. And then the character
that Christ put in me, the nature that Christ put in me, sometimes
it's gracious and kind. Oh my! So we have these natures
and we have different dispositions and activities. And the flesh
and the spirit, neither one of them, the flesh has nothing in
common with the spirit and what the spirit does in us has nothing
to do in common with the Spirit. And this what we see in this
conflict with Amalek. It's like Abraham and two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. Ishmael was
born of the flesh. Isaac was born of promise. And
Sarah says, my son is not going to live with this child of flesh. And that child of the flesh,
Abraham's child by Hagar, could not dwell with that child of
promise. So they run him off. They had
to go. And I tell you what, beloved, it's like Jacob. He's called
Jacob, then he's called Israel. When he does wrong, he's called
Jacob. God calls him Israel. So showing the two natures in
him. The two natures in him. Well look here in verse 8. Let's
go down through here and see what we got to say. See what
is happening here. Then came Amalek and fought with
Israel in Rephidim. Notice this. They came and fought
with Israel in Rephidim. That word Rephidim means resting.
They are resting there. And here's what's happened, when
that rock was smitten, water began to run like a river out
of it. And Amalek knows that there's water up there, and they
see water running out of that rock, and it's a river coming
out of there. And they want to come up and
take possession of that river, take possession of that water.
And they were the identity of Israel's enemy was Amalek. They're
called warlike, warlike. And that's why Peter says, you
know, Fight those fleshly lusts which
war, war against the soul. And the first of the nations
to war with Israel was Amalek. Look over here in Numbers, right
over to your right, Numbers 24, verse 20. Amalek was the first
nation to ever fight with Israel. First nation to ever fight with
Israel. Look what he said here in verse
20. No, 24. I'm in 20. Let me go
where I'm supposed to be. I'll read the wrong thing. And
you all say we're in the world. Yeah. All right, here we 2420. And, and when he looked up, Amalek And when he looked on Amalek,
he took up his parable and said, Amalek was the first of the nations.
And in the margin said, the nation that warred against Israel was
the first of the nations, but his latter end shall be that
he shall perish forever. This old nature is going to perish
forever. And you know what his character was? Let me show you
his character in Deuteronomy 25. That's the last book in Joshua's,
in Moses' Deuteronomy 25 I want you to see this and then I'll
get into this thing if I can But look what his character was
look what Amalek's character was His Israel's enemy his warlike. He was a descendant of Esau Jacob's
brother Descendant of Esau and he saw
repentance and couldn't find it But here in verse 25, look
in verse 17 and 18. Remember what Amalek did unto
thee by the way when we were come forth out of Egypt. Remember
how he met thee by the way. is in the wilderness, and smote
the hindmost of thee, got behind you, and smote the hindmost of
you, even all them that were feeble behind thee, when thou
wast faint and weary, and watch this, and he feared not God. He found the weakest, the frailest,
the feeblest, and he feared not God. Well this is the way our
flesh was. It feared not God. It feared
not God. And then look back over here
in verse 8. Deuteronomy, Exodus 17. Then came Amalek and fought with
Israel. Then, it says then. It was when
Moses had smoked the rock and the water was given. And then
Israel had to do some fighting. They'd never fought before. They
didn't know what it was to fight. They didn't have to fight down
in Egypt. They had no need to fight. They were slaves. They didn't fight at the Red
Sea. God parted and took them through it. But now, since that
Holy Spirit has been given as typical of that water that comes
out of the rock, that's when the warfare starts. And it's
only, only after we receive that new nature that the flesh and
the spirit start fighting one another. And I want you to notice
this. Amalek attacked Israel. You know
what we want? We despise fighting. We despise
arming. You know, Amalek, not Israel
didn't attack Amalek. The new nature delights in peace.
Delights in comfort. Delights in feeding upon the
word of God. Communion with God. Spiritual
things. And it really disturbs us. when our peace is disturbed. And when things are not going
well for us, it really disturbs us. So you know, we didn't attack
Amalek until Amalek attacks us. The flesh attacks us. And the flesh won't let you live
in peace. He just won't do it. He won't
do it. You know, the flesh is like two
armies against one another. Over here is the flesh. He's
pitch camp. He is dug in. And over here is the spirit.
He's dug in. And every once in a while they
get up and they go to fight one another. Now who's going to win? You know, the Spirit says you
cannot do what you would. We come in this building and
we come in here and it's our purpose, it's our will. It's
our will. Paul says like this, to will
is present with me, but how to perform, I don't know. But we
come in here with the intention of paying the best attention,
to be fed, to pray for the preacher, and to follow along in the Bible
and hope we learn something. And then when we get here, That's
our intention. That's what the Spirit wants
to do. That's what the Spirit wants to do. But we get in here,
and that flesh goes, mine goes over there, goes over here, thinks
about this, and what I've got to do tomorrow. Boy, sure, I
don't feel very good right now. You know, you get your flesh
gets weary and your eyes and lids get heavy. And I mean, that's
just that's the flesh. But if you had your way when
you come in here, the flesh would have nothing to do with you. So you can't be as spiritual
as you want to be, and the Spirit won't let you be as freshly and
as carnal as you would be. When you go so far, He said,
that's enough. He won't let you go so far. Huh? And oh my. And how is Raphael
and Malek? Look how it happened here now.
Look in verse 9. Moses said unto Joshua, Choose
us out men, He's talking about all of Israel. Choose us out,
men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Go fight with him. Tomorrow I'm going to stand on
the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand. So Joshua
did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek. And Moses,
Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Now watch this. And when it came to pass, Moses
held up his hands, Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hands,
Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy,
and they took a stone and put it under him. And he sat there
on it, and Aaron and Hur 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. And Joshua discomfited
Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. You know,
Israel Success against Amalek was determined by Moses' uplifted
hands. Now this is emblematic of prayer. Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift
up my soul. Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift
up my hand. Paul said, Lift up thy hands,
holy hands, unto the Lord, is what he told Timothy. And he
said, Oh, I said, Moses' hands was what's emblematic of prayer.
Then it says, Moses' hands grew heavy. Now beloved, how soon, how soon
do we grow weary of calling on the Lord? How soon do we grow
weary of praying and seeking the Lord? Sometimes, you know
when you do it the most? Is when you've got the heaviest
burdens on you. That's when you do it the most.
If you ain't got real burdens on you, you'll just Say a few
words, but if you really concerned for somebody, really burdened
for somebody, not even yourself, but somebody else, you will be
intense. You'll be earnest about it. And
then after the Lord does something, then we grow weary again and
we grow afraid. And I tell you and that's why
our Lord told his disciples when they went off in the garden against
him did Peter John and James He said you fellas watch right
here with me watch with me now. I'm gonna go over and pray He
came back and there's all three asleep And he woke him up said
could you not watch with me just one hour Now he said God Lord
said the Spirit is willing He said the Spirit's willing here
the Spirit's willing But oh how weak that flesh is. And I tell you our Lord says
men ought always to pray and not to faint. And oh how quickly,
how quickly our hearts get heavy as soon as we lose sight of our
dependency upon the Lord Jesus Christ and the flesh will prevail. It will prevail. And oh, when our hearts get heavy,
and we cease to pray as we should, in the way we would, but then
what Moses did. But Moses wasn't left to himself,
and we're not left to ourselves. Thank God we're not left to ourselves.
What about happening now? When his hands was up, Israel
prevailed. When it was down, the flesh prevailed.
Huh? Oh my. Moses wasn't left to himself. Look what it says. Aaron, you
know who he is? He's the high priest. Her, you know who he is? That
word his name means light. Light. So who's holding up his
hands? The high priest on one side,
And light, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God on the right. So
I tell you, that's what he had. The air and the high priest up
on one end, and the light, the Word of God hold him up on the
other. Er, the light. And oh my, not left to himself. And I tell you, beloved, God
don't leave us to ourselves. And the Lord provides for us
on both sides. Or front and back, whichever
way you want to call it. Our great high priest is passed
into the heavens. And what does he do? He makes
intercession for us. And oh, listen, beloved. And
our great high priest, and then he gives us that great high priest
from heaven, and you know what he gives us on this earth? For
the light is word, and the Holy Spirit, the scripture says, the
Holy Spirit helpeth us after our infirmities, according to
our infirmities. He helps us with our infirmities.
And bless His name, we got both of them. We got the Holy Spirit
and God's blessed word on one side holding us up, and we got
our great high priest on the other holding us up. And if we
didn't have both of those, you know what would happen? That's why he said, lift up those
feeble knees, those hands that are hanging down, lift them up,
lift them up, lift them up. And then it says, Joshua discomfited
Amalek with the edge of the sword. You know what our sword is? Hebrews
4.12 said, the word of God is quick, sharper than any two edged
sword. He said, it is written, The sword
of the spirit is the word of God. David said, I've hid that
word in my heart that I might not sin against you. And Paul
said, fight the good fight of what? Faith. Faith. And believe me, it's a fight.
Sometimes it's a fight. You know as well as I do, it's
a fight. Fight the good fight of faith. That's why Paul said,
I fought. It's a good fight of faith. Finished
my course. And beloved, thank God we've
got faith. So we got something to fight
with. God's Word and faith. Huh? And Amalek was destroyed. Discomfited. But not completely
vanquished in this battle. And as long as we live, as long
as we live, we're going to have this old nature with us. And you know there's reasons
God leaves us with this old nature. God could have saved us and took
us straight on to glory. God could have saved us and gave
us a nature that we never had to contend with the flesh whatsoever.
He could have done many of those things. But you know why he does it?
First of all, we have to learn to trust God. To learn to live
on God and Him alone. Secondly, He sends this flesh
and this flesh, oh my goodness, how it humbles us to think, to
think that I would have said that or done that or went here
and acted that way. And He lets these things happen
to us to humble us. And another reason He does this
is to teach us how weak we are. You know anybody weaker than
me? Is anybody weaker than you or me? Do you know anybody weaker
than us? God said He remembers our frame
that we're but dust. And He pities us as a father
pities his children. And oh my, teach us how frail
we are. How frail are we? You see people
when they get old, we're just talking about a dear, dear brother.
And I hope I hear him the night before the night's over that
he's gone to be with Christ. The Lord took him home. But you
see old folks and they get to where they just Shuffle along,
you know, just barely can't go. You see them getting old and
their memory starts going. Then it hurts you see folks get
like that. Well, that's because they're old and frail. That's
the way we'd be without Christ. We couldn't go. We'd be so frail
we couldn't go. We'd be so frail, we couldn't
attend the gospel. We'd be so frail that we wouldn't,
that this flesh would just bring us down. We couldn't go, we'd
be so frail. But oh my, it said about Amalek,
they smote the hindmost, the feeble that was behind thee.
When they were faint and weary, and he feared not God. And I'll
tell you something, that's why we got to be so watchful. and
seek the Lord and trust Him for everything. Don't fall behind. Don't fall behind. Don't fall
behind. Huh? Don't get faint and weary. That's why Paul, he told them,
said, oh listen, don't be faint, don't be weary. I was talking
to a dear brother the other day and I said, I understand that
you fail and he said yes and you
know I got out of bed and I was going to the bathroom and next
thing I know I was laying in the floor and I fell didn't know
how to fail and I hurt my head didn't he and he said I didn't
even know where I was when I come to and he's a young man that's
what it means to faint you get weak headed and you feel like
you're gonna he said don't get that way don't get weak don't
get faint you know the only thing that'll keep us from getting
weak and faint The only thing that will keep us from being
weak and faint, this blessed book, the Word of
God. And I tell you, I've seen so
many people, they do get weary, they get faint, and after a while,
they'll get so weary and they'll get so faint that they're too
weary and too faint to show up for the services. And then after
a while they just get weaker and fainter and weaker and fainter
and weaker and fainter until they can't come at all. And that's not good. That's not
good. But let me show you what happens,
what you can do when you get faint and weary. Look over here.
God's got a remedy for that. Look in Isaiah 40. The Lord's
got a remedy for us. Look in Isaiah 40. Oh, don't fall behind. But God's
got a remedy for this faintness and this weariness. Look what
it says here in verse 30. Isaiah 40 and verse 30. Even the youths, the young people
among us, shall faint and be weary. When I was young, I got
faint. and weary, and the young men
shall utterly fail. But, listen to it, but they that
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Oh, don't that bless your heart?
When you get like this, just wait, just wait. Just wait, so
I'm too faint and weary, just wait. Wait upon the Lord shall
renew their strength. Listen to this. They shall mount
up, get up with wings as eagles. They shall run and they won't
even get weary anymore. And they'll walk and walk and
walk and walk and walk and they won't get faint. Oh my, God got a remedy for that. And I tell you what, just wait
on Him, just wait on Him. You just wait and the Lord, that
strength will come back. That vigor will come back. That
blessedness will come back. You just wait and see. And then
look what here happens in verse 14 here, over here in Exodus
17. And the Lord said unto Moses,
write this for a memorial in a book. Write it down. Now I
want you to write what just happened here. And then you tell Joshua,
when you get, when Joshua gets old and you get ready to leave
here, said you rehearsed it in Joshua's years, tell it to Joshua.
For I'm going to utterly put out of the remembrance of Amalek
from under heaven. I'm going to destroy their name.
They ain't even going to exist anymore. And oh my, God promised
the annihilation of Amalek. That's what he said. He promised
it. And Moses built an altar. He built an altar. And he built
it in confidence of God's promise. And you know what he called that
altar? Jehovah Nisai. The Lord Our Banner. The Lord My Banner. Now you know
what a banner is. People put banners out in front
of their house, you know, for Tennessee or West Virginia, where
they put these banners out. Let everybody know what side
they're on. Well, Moses put one out and says, the Lord's my banner
and I want everybody to know He's on my side and He made me
a promise that He's going to destroy Amalek. And I'll tell
you what, He made us a promise that this flesh is going to be
changed like unto His glorious body and we're going to be just
like Him. He made us that promise. Oh my. I'll tell you one thing, beloved.
I tell you, this is what's going to happen. This old, when the
Lord's our banner. And I'll tell you what, that's, and
he's the one that made the promise that Amalek's going to be destroyed.
This old flesh is going to be destroyed one of these days.
And you know when it's going to be destroyed? When the Lord
Jesus Christ comes back, Paul told the Philippians, he said
this, he said, when he appears, He shall change this vile body,
that's what it's called, this vile body and fashion it, fashion
it like unto His glorious body. And you know what'll happen then?
We'll be plumb saved. But until we're here, Just get
them up or we're going to fight. Just put them up or we're going
to fight. And I'll tell you what, when we're fighting this flesh,
kick it, beat it, do whatever you got to do. Don't let... You know, that's why Shirley
said on the way over here today, I'll hush in a minute. On the
way over tonight, she said, boy, I pray the Lord gives you something
to say, gives you a message. I said, I just pray that He helps
me. She said, yeah, we had it this
morning, but said, we got to go back tonight because this
morning is gone. And that's why we come. That's why we come. Need another
meal. Need another meal. And thank
God, God feeds us. Wait upon the Lord and he shall
renew thy strength. Shall mount up with wings as
an eagle. Shall run, and you won't be weary. and walk, and walk, and walk,
and walk, and you won't faint. Amen. Our Father, oh, our Father, precious
name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, thank you for the day. Oh, what
a blessed day, what a blessed God we have, what a blessed Savior
we have, that meets with us, allows us to know one another,
love one another, worship together, have your precious word. We thank
you. We thank you that we have this
blessed privilege and blessed time together around your word. God bless these dear saints.
Go to their homes, go to their works, go to their jobs, go back
to their troubles, go back to their trials, go back to what
they have to deal with. And Lord, uphold them and give
them grace and give them strength and abundance, all of us. And
teach our hearts and cause our hearts to love you more and look
to you more. As we get older, oh God, teach
us, teach us, teach us to look to you, trust you, always, always,
and always. Amen. Learning to live learning to
lean. I'm learning to lean on Jesus. Finding more power than I'd ever
dreamed. I'm learning to lean See you Wednesday, God will and
good night and God bless