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"REMEMBER THE AMALEKITES"
I. REMEMBER WHAT AMALEK DID TO YOU. WHAT DID THEY DO?
A. They met them just as they came out of Egypt and sought to defeat them.
1. Here were people who had been slaves in Egypt for years.
a. They were totally untrained in warfare.
b. The nation had just been born.
c. The Amalekites came with their well trained army to seek to destroy them.
2. This is that battle where Moses and Aaron and Hur went up into the mountain overlooking the battle field, and as long as Moses held up his hands Israel prevailed, but when his arms dropped, Amelek prevailed. So as his arms got weary Aaron and Hur held up his arms until Israel defeated the Amalekites.
3. The Amalekites had attacked them at their weakest position.
a. They came up behind them where the older and more feeble were trying to keep up with the others.
b. They came against those who were faint and weary.
B. Moses was commanded to record this event in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for the Lord will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek forever.
1. Moses made an altar to the Lord and called the name of the place, Jehovah Nissi (The Lord our banner).
2. For the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
II. THE HISTORY OF THEIR DELIVERANCE FROM EGYPT AND COMING TO THE LAND OF PROMISE IS WHAT IS CALLED TYPICAL HISTORY.
A. When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church he said that all these things happened to them as examples for us.
1. Their slavery in Egypt was a type of our slavery to sin.
2. Pharaoh who did not want to let them go is a type of Satan who fights to maintain control over your life, and keep you in bondage.
3. Their passing through the Red Sea was a type of our baptism, where we mark the point of the end of the old life of slavery and the beginning of a new life in Christ.
4. Christ was the rock from which the water of life flowed.
5. Amalek is a type of the warfare we have with our flesh.
a. The moment we make the commitment to follow after God, the flesh is there to challenge that commitment.
b. We as believers are in a war with the flesh.
c. In
Galatians 5, Paul said that the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh so that we do not always do as we would.
d. The war is for the control of your mind, Paul wrote to the Romans, "They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, and they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. Now the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace and joy."
e. The mind seems to be the battlefield.
f. James said:
JAM 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
JAM 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
JAM 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
g. Sin begins in my thoughts. This is where I must first deal with it.
h. Paul wrote that I must bring every thought into captivity unto obedience to Jesus Christ.
i. It is while it is in the thought that I must fight it, and it need never go any further than the thought. Where we get into trouble is when I begin to entertain the thought, playing with it, next you will find yourself devising how to fulfill it, and next you will be in full blown sin as you are doing it.
6. Even as Amalek attacked at the weakest and most vulnerable point, so the enemy will attack you at your most vulnerable point.
a. His whole purpose is to destroy you.
b. God said that He will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
c. The problem is that this is a continuing battle that we have with our flesh. It is not a once and for all victory.
d. It is a daily battle and comes up several times in a day.
e. Almost in every situation we must choose whether we will respond after the flesh or after the Spirit.
B. God's command concerning Amalek was: When you have possessed that land of promise and have rest from all or your enemies, wipe out the remembrance of Amalek.
III. LETS JUMP AHEAD SOME 400 YEARS TO THE TIME WHEN SAUL IS KING OVER ISRAEL.
A. We read that Samuel came to Him and said:
1SA 15:1 The LORD sent me to anoint you as king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD.
1SA 15:2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember what Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
1SA 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
B. God ordered the utter and complete destruction of Amelek.
1. This also is God's command for our flesh.
ROM 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
ROM 13:14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.
C. What do we know about the story of Saul?
1SA 15:9 But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all [that was] good, and would not utterly destroy them: but everything [that was] vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
1. The thought is that there is no need to utterly destroy everything of the flesh life, there is some good there, so save the best.
IV. NOW LET'S JUMP AHEAD JUST A FEW YEARS. LESS THAN 25.
A. David and his men have joined with Achish to go to battle. The Philistines are leery about David fighting with them and ask he and his men to return home.
1. When David and his men get home they discover that the Amalekites have taken advantage of all of the men being gone and have attacked the city where David was living and sacked it and have taken all of their families as hostages.
2. True to form, they attacked at the time of weakness.
3. This proves that Saul did not utterly wipe them out as he had claimed to do.
V. NOW LET'S JUMP AHEAD ANOTHER 500 YEARS, THE TIME OF QUEEN ESTHER.
A. We know her story, she was a Jewess living in the Persian Kingdom and through a beauty contest was chosen to be the new Queen of Ahasuerus the Persian King.
B. There was a prideful man Haman who was one of the chief counselors of the king, who was incensed because a Jew who stood at the gate of the palace refused to bow when he walked by.
C. This Jew was named Mordecai and was a cousin to Esther.
D. Haman devised on a plot to destroy all of the Jews so as to destroy Mordecai.
E. The interesting thing that we are told about Mordecai was that he was an Agagite, or a descendant of King Agag whom Saul refused to kill.
1. This teaches us an important truth about dealing with the flesh life of which the Amaleks were an example.
2. If you do not destroy it, it will rise up and seek to destroy you.
VI. OUR VICTORY OVER THE FLESH LIFE.
A. Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet it is not I but it is Christ that liveth in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who gave Himself for me."
1. Thus he wrote to the Romans, "Reckon your old life to be dead, crucified with Christ, that sin should not reign over you."
2. Reckon is a word of faith.
3. I am not actually dead, I am still in this body of flesh, but I through faith am a new creation in Christ Jesus, so I reckon that old life to be dead.
4. I do not make provision for my flesh to live after the flesh.
5. When sinful thoughts come into my mind, I stop them right there and say, "That is not an option, I will not go there." You don't look longingly at it and wonder if you should or shouldn't, you don't think of how pleasant it might be.
6. You just say, that is a part of the old life, from which Jesus Christ paid a horrible price to redeem me from, through His denial of self to suffer on the cross for me, and I will deny myself and take up my cross to follow Him.
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