[0:00] Now we begin in this chapter 17 where we read, All the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of sin after their journeys according to the commandment of the Lord and pitched in Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.
[0:17] Now this indicates to us right away that this isn't just a failure of navigation on Moses' path. He hasn't just taken a wrong turn somewhere. Remember that the pillar of cloud is going before the children of Israel by day and the pillar of fire by night.
[0:34] So where they have pitched and where they have arrived at, and indeed the barrenness of it, without any drinking water, is according to the commandment of the Lord.
[0:46] God, in other words, intends them to have been brought to this place where without the necessity, the most basic necessity of physical life, which is water, they are then left with what?
[1:02] With nothing but himself upon which to depend. Now we saw in the previous chapters, if you turn back with me, the chapter 15, verse 25, where we read how the people murmured, and he cried, Moses cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast it into the waters, this is the waters of man that were bitter, the waters were made sweet.
[1:25] There he made, there he made for them a statue, and an ordinance, and there he proved them. So first of all, when there was no drinking water, at the waters of man that were bitter, undrinkable, the Lord showed Moses a tree to cast into the waters, by which no doubt was merely a symbol, a statement of faith.
[1:46] And the Lord miraculously healed, and the Lord miraculously healed, and sweetened those waters, and made them able to be used. But he proved there, he tested the people's faith, and he said, if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give heed to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee.
[2:14] Healeth thee, healeth the waters, and then he brings them to Elam, where there is all the abundance of waters, where there are twelve wells of water, and three score and ten palm trees, and they encamp there by the waters.
[2:27] Then they move on, from Elam, and into chapter 16, where they have no food, and we read then, the Lord says, that I may prove them, verse 4 of chapter 16, whether they will walk in my law or no.
[2:42] And part of again, this proving of them, as he showed them his glory, verse 10 of chapter 16, that appeared in the cloud, his intention is to put before them, the glory of the Lord is there.
[2:55] The presence of the Lord is there, the help of the Lord is there to be asked for, to be entreated for. And so, in the absence of food, God will provide food, will you gather it?
[3:08] According to what he said, an omer for each person, which we said was approximately 2.2 litres, some authorities say 3.5 litres, it varies. Either way, it's a substantial amount, which even when it is baked and boiled down and cooked and so on, becomes simply sufficient for each individual person.
[3:28] So, he which gathered much had nothing over, he which gathered little had no lack. And then he orders them not to gather it on the Sabbath day, because he doesn't rain any manna on them on the Sabbath day, and some of them still do.
[3:41] And this also is part of their training up, of their obedience to him. So, having established that, given them the quails, the one-off for the meat, and then the manna day by day for the bread, now he has, with deliberate design, verse 1, according to the commandment of the Lord, brought them to Rephidim, where there is no water to drink.
[4:06] Now, the name Rephidim is difficult to establish exactly what it means. The im at the end, the im, implies a plurality.
[4:16] It implies, you know, several of something. But exactly what it means is unclear. The root word from the Hebrew implies, how can I put it, a sort of something to rest against.
[4:29] The sort of back of a bench or a couch, the sort of back bit that you would lean against. It's not quite the sense of taking your ease and reclining, but it's in the sense of perhaps being at rest against something hard.
[4:44] Something which is supporting you. And so, if this is a plurality, a multiplication of that which is the back against which you rest, we find that Rephidim, which is, commentators appear to agree on where it actually is in the Sinai Peninsula.
[5:03] One of the great things about a desert and a rocky massive is it doesn't tend to change over the centuries that much. And they reckon that they have identified the wadi, as it were, where it is.
[5:16] And reckon that it is a long, curved, how can I describe it, almost trench of rock, about 40 or so plus feet wide, with high rocks on either side.
[5:31] Now, this sort of trench almost through which they would be passing is comparatively narrow, obviously. It is nothing but bare rock, but the bare rock on either side, in this steep-sided trench through which they would be passing, you can see how that might be described as the sort of back against which you might lean, if not reclining, then certainly resting against it, because the fact of moving through this long, curved kind of trench of rock is that you would at least be sheltered from the worst effects of the desert sun.
[6:09] So they would have a little shelter, but they don't have any water to drink. Now, the desert outside of that trench of rock, outside of that wadi, is extremely barren.
[6:20] It's dry, nothing grows, not even shrubs grow in it, apparently. So here, in this long, curved kind of arc, about 80 miles long, they reckon, which is, that's one end of it at least, is about a day's march from Mount Sinai.
[6:41] It's quite close as the crow flies, but the ground is obviously very, very rugged. Here they are in this trench of rock, where they've got mountains on either side of them, steep-sided, very, very narrow.
[6:55] And so if you've got a million and a half people coming through this Namagy fire, then they're squashed up quite close. They are sheltered, yes, but they're beginning to really feel the thirst and the lack of anything to drink.
[7:08] God has brought them here by design. That's the first thing we need to recognise. Because he intends them to have nowhere to go but to him.
[7:20] Sometimes in your life, the Lord may bring you to that place where you think, why has God done this to me? Why is my life in such a rotten case? This has gone wrong, that's gone wrong.
[7:31] This door is closed, that door is closed. He may bring you so low that there is literally no hope except in him.
[7:43] Nobody who can deliver you except the Lord. Nobody who, even if they understood, actually has the power to get you out of that hole except the Lord.
[7:54] He sometimes does bring us to the place where there is literally nowhere else to go. No way else to turn but to him. And have I been there?
[8:06] Yes, I have been there. I can tell you what it's like. It's not nice to be down there in that hole. But it is sometimes a means by which the Lord turns us to himself when everything else is hopeless.
[8:22] There is literally nowhere else to go. But instead of going to the Lord here, who has provided water for them at Marah, provided water at Elam, provided food with them, manna from heaven, which will still be falling, remember, day by day.
[8:39] Now, instead of saying, well, the Lord's provided all this so far, he's bound to provide us again if we only ask him. Instead, they start mourning again. So, testing and trying of them, there's a long way to go.
[8:53] The rough edges are still very persistent. They have to be smoothed over. The people, the child, with Moses, said, give us water that we may drink. Where is Moses meant to find water?
[9:05] In this rock trench, this kind of wadi that is so deep and so, so steep-sided. How is he meant to help them? How is he meant to be able to find what they need?
[9:17] Give us water that we may drink. And the people first stood there. And Moses said, why chide you with me? Why tempt you the Lord? And they said, why have you brought us out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?
[9:31] So, Moses did what they should have done. Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, what shall I do unto this people? They be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses, go on before the people and take with thee of the elders of Israel.
[9:47] It doesn't say how many at this stage. And thy rod, wherewith thou smoteest the river, take in thine hand and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb.
[9:59] And thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. Now, he's not just to go by himself. Because otherwise, no doubt people say, ah, there was one of you all the time.
[10:12] Moses made a wee secret place. He just wasn't telling us. If only he told us there was water, we wouldn't have had to chide. We wouldn't have had to quarrel or complain or moan to him or to the Lord.
[10:24] So, he, ye were a lord. Ach, we should have realized. But Moses is not the one finding a wee secret store of water. This is one reason why he is told to take the elders of Israel with him.
[10:36] So, he takes them as witnesses, takes them to the side of the rock face, a huge, big, largely perpendicular mountain. It's heading them in on both sides of this rock trench through which they are traveling.
[10:51] And at a particular place, wherever it is, the Lord says he will stand before them, smack the rock, and the water will come at. So, the elders are there to witness the fact that there is no water, there is no secret of the spring somewhere, but that when Moses strikes the rock in the presence of the Lord, water gushes out.
[11:15] That it is the work of God and not the work of Moses. It is intended to be a miracle that the people may see. The elders can then tell the people what they have seen.
[11:27] God intends to provide what the people need, but to be the one to whom all the glory is due. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
[11:41] And he called the name of the place Massah, which means temptation or testing, and Meribah, which means chiding or quarreling or striking, because of the chiding of the children of Israel.
[11:55] And because they tempted the Lord, say, is the Lord among us or not? Now, there's nothing wrong with wanting water. It is, as we said, the most basic necessity of physical life.
[12:07] But what was wrong was that which they still had to learn, and which time after time after time, they just aren't getting.
[12:18] God recognises your needs. And Jesus makes reference to this in the Sermon on the Mount. You know, your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things, he said.
[12:29] Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find. God desires you to come to him with your needs. To come to him with your problems.
[12:40] To come to him with your petitions. Sometimes he puts you in a situation where you have nowhere else to turn, just so that you will come to him.
[12:51] Let us take this simple example of water. You know, does God provide water for us? Well, yes, of course he does. I mean, yes, it falls down out of the sky on a regular basis. The rain never stops.
[13:02] And because the rain never stops, because almost every day there's a shower of hail or rain or something, does that make us think? How good God is that gives us water that drops down out the sky.
[13:15] So the rivers and the streams rush down the hills and bubble past as we go over our little bridges on the roads. And here you can see them gushing away when there's been a heavy shower of rain. Do you give glory to God?
[13:26] For the fact that you turn on your cap when there's plenty of water there? Yeah, well, that's it. It's not the rain water, is it? It's the reservoir. How do you think the reservoir spill up? How do you think the water supply is maintained?
[13:40] It is not from the fact that God makes the water literally fall down out of the sky. And if he stopped doing that, how quickly we would run out.
[13:51] How soon we would then have something to complain about. But the fact that he gives it every single day, does that make you more grateful? Or less? Does that make humankind more grateful to God?
[14:04] Or less? If God sends a miracle on a regular basis, we do not give more glory to God. We say, that's not a miracle. That happens on a regular basis.
[14:14] It's always raining here, my goodness. If it had rained on the Israelites with water the way it rained manna from heaven, they too perhaps would not have thought much of a miracle.
[14:24] But God brought them to the place where he had no water, so that they would be dependent upon him. He called the place Massah and Medivah.
[14:35] Testing, temptation, chiding, strife. Because they failed the test again. The good news for this, however, is that having sort of been compelled to learn yet again that God would provide for their needs.
[14:52] This is until the episode of the golden calf, which is quite a bit later on, this is the last time for the next little while that they fail in this way.
[15:03] It's almost as if they learn their lesson. Almost as if they recognise that God is going to provide for them. Just as he provides them manna, so he'll provide the water.
[15:14] Now, you consider, for a moment, that one and a half million people, roughly, and the amount of water that's going to have to come gushing out of this rock, it's not going to be just a wee trigger, much of that, a wee stream, like whatever passes under the road when you're driving to and from the church.
[15:32] This must be such a gusher as would flow through the camp. They'd have to dig channels to keep it away from their tents. They'd have to dig pools to gather it in.
[15:43] They'd have to make sure they can serve as much as possible. A positive river would flow through that wadi, through that channel in which they are. They have more water than they don't want to do with.
[15:55] Indeed, nowadays, that particular wadi, that particular area of Sinai, is recognised as having an oasis in it. But, of course, they wouldn't have been an oasis at that place where they were at that time.
[16:10] Because if there was, why would they need the miracle of water? But nowadays, they're recognised as being an oasis within the wadi that is thought to have been refuted in the Sinai Peninsula.
[16:22] But the Lord provides the water that they need. We're told in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 4, that they did all eat the same spiritual meat, and they'd all drink the same spiritual drink.
[16:36] For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. Now, what Paul is meaning by this when he writes to the Corinthians, is that the implication is that water from the rock continued, at least for a period of time, as they travelled, the Lord continued to provide water either by natural means, or by supernatural means.
[17:03] The water is described as being spiritual, not because it isn't actual and physical, but because it is miraculously provided. They did all drink the same spiritual drink.
[17:16] The water which the Spirit of God provided from the rock, and that rock from which it flowed, was Christ. Now, Paul is using a metaphor here, obviously an illustration.
[17:29] Jesus is not physically the rock in the galley there, through which they were travelling. And he's saying, this rock from which the water flowed that saved the lives of the Israelites, who otherwise would have perished for first.
[17:43] This is the rock that points us to Christ, the rock of our salvation, the one from whose side water and blood flowed out for the cleansing, for the saving of the lives of his people, of those who would trust in him.
[18:01] He is the rock of our salvation. He is the one whose wounds, if you like, pour forth both blood and water. Blood for the cleansing of our sin, water for the washing of our souls, as well as the slaking, of course, of our spiritual thirst.
[18:19] Yes, Paul is working in, in the Corinthians, this spiritual message. What is happening here to the Israelites is a physical happening, but all of the physical realities of the Old Testament point us forward to the spiritual fulfillment in Christ.
[18:37] It is God, the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who is looking after his people, who is providing for them. The rock that is smitten is described as being Christ, from whose broken side these waters flow out, whose salvation and saving of his people is that which he undertakes.
[18:59] Remember, of course, that Jesus says, John chapter 7, verse 37, In that last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.
[19:15] Now, of course, it's not merely physical water that we're to get. Remember how he said to the woman at the well of Samaria, you drink this water from the well here, in Sychar, you'll be thirsty again. When you take the water that I will give him, the water of eternal life, you'll never be thirsty again.
[19:31] Now, he doesn't mean you'll never have physical thirst again. What he means is, you take that which I give you, then you will never need anything else for your soul but what I give you.
[19:41] Because when you have Christ in your heart and in your soul, it continues to bubble up like a divine spring within. Christ continues to supply your need day by day, and as you go to him day by day, you find that that spring is always welling up within.
[20:00] He is always providing that refreshment, that thirst-quenching salvation for our soul, such as nothing else quite satisfies.
[20:12] Now, we all like to drink different things, whether, let's say, physically you're having tea or coffee or lemonade or iron brew or whatever it might be. We all like the taste of different things at different times, but we also all know ourselves.
[20:28] Now, when you've been drinking different things and then maybe you're getting a bit dry and a bit thirsty, you know, you get fed up of all the kind of artificially tasting, sweetened stuff, and then you get a glass of cold, clean water.
[20:41] Maybe it will ice in it a bit and you realise just how good water tastes on its own. Just pure, simple, clean water tastes so good, so thirst-quenching, and you forget just how good it is.
[20:59] And sometimes we may likewise get a bit distracted by the things in the world. They seem to be more brightly coloured. We see the taste so much more exciting than the gospel.
[21:09] It's a wee bit sort of tame at times. And then we taste these things and then they stop satisfying. We get a bit bony and we get a bit thirsty and then you go back to the cold, clear waters of Christ and his gospel.
[21:24] And it is so sweet to the taste. It is so refreshing to the soul. It is that which springs up within to eternal life. This is what Jesus meant when he said, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink and I will provide whatever he needs.
[21:44] This water that was in such abundance, such abundance that we're told in Psalm 105 at verse 41 that he opened the rock and the waters gushed out they ran in the dry places like a river.
[22:02] A river flowing through the camp and continuing to such an extent that they were so well satiated that they had abundance of all they needed.
[22:14] The implication from Corinthians is that that provision continued to follow them through much of the wilderness and not all of it, through much of the wilderness because Christ, God, was looking after them through it all.
[22:30] And, by implication, they began to learn their lesson. Why do we say that? One reason we say that is because we read in verse 8, then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
[22:47] Now, this is the first actual attack of another people upon the Israelites since they became a nation. You could count the Egyptians but it's not really the same thing.
[23:02] The Hebrews were in the land of Egypt. They were multiplying hand over fist. The Egyptians got the stage where they enslaved them and they used them to build their treasure cities and so on.
[23:14] But even that, you could say, there was a kind of economic pragmatism about it. It wasn't just hatred for the sake of hatred. And even the fact of wanting to destroy their baby boys, yeah, you could say that's getting pretty dark.
[23:29] Yes, but it is also with the practical aim of containing the growth of this potentially rebel population. There are pragmatic reasons for what the Egyptians did.
[23:42] However dark and pagan emotives, you can at least explain a wee bit of it in real practical terms. But for Amalek, there's no excuse for this.
[23:55] There's no reason why they're attacking the children of Israel here. Amalek is descended from the children of Esau. We read in Genesis 36 to verse 12, Timnah was concubine to Eliphaz, Esau's son, and she bared to Eliphaz Amalek.
[24:15] In other words, the original Amalek who founded the nation was a grandson of Esau. So the same relation to Esau, but for example, Joseph's children would be to Jacob.
[24:28] So the descendants of Jacob's children are in the same relation to Jacob as Amalek is to Esau. In other words, they are related. But Amalek is from the people group that were disinherited by Jacob.
[24:45] You could say there's been a reason to hate them, but not enough to justify what they did. Deuteronomy tells us in chapter 25, verses 17 and 18, Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way when you 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.
[25:15] Therefore it shall be when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the language the Lord thy God giveth thee for inheritance that possess it, thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
[25:28] So he came at them and as it were behind in the defile, in the trench in which they were moving through and encamping in with the great walls of rock on either side and began to attack those at the back of the people of this jail.
[25:45] Those, now at the back of one and a half million people you're going to have perhaps the stragglers, the sick, or the children, or the old or whatever and without mercy they attacked these people and so Israel eventually got themselves organised and had to fight back against them.
[26:04] Now we tend to think perhaps of children's Bible illustrations or whatever of this battle in Rephidim taking place in a big wide plain and a mountain on the side with Moses up the mountain and his hands being held up by Abraham and her on either side and this great big field with the battle prevailing and the battle moving one way and then the other sort of thing we probably have to put that image out of our head.
[26:31] If you think of this great big narrow rock defile through which the Israelites are snaking slowly this huge group of people with water flowing through the middle of it now and you've got the Amalekites coming up attacking their rear guard attacking the behind most of them.
[26:50] So when the Israelites fight back a huge big army is no use against this kind of enemy because you can't use the thousands of people you've got you've got very narrow locked walls on either side this I would suggest to you is one reason why Moses said to Joshua first mention of Joshua by the way now he's got this book named after him he does all these mighty things later on but this is the first mention of Joshua who is Moses' personal servant here choose us out men and go out and fight with Amalek it's not take all the thousands of Israel that's no use if you're all tempted and you can't actually fight because the walls are so narrow choose us out men chosen men who can go out in amongst the Amalekites and fight man to man one to one amongst the rocks and amongst all the sort of defiles and crowds in the rocks it's going to be hand to hand it's going to be one to one it's going to be messy it's not going to be a great big battle with armies on either side it's more like guerrilla warfare amongst the rocks so it's going to be individual chosen men that we need here and Moses goes up the side of the mount of the defile so that they can see him silhouetted as it were against the sky and when he holds up the rod in his hand that with which he has smitten the Nile and turned it into blood then this becomes the
[28:23] Lord's banner and the people recognize that the Lord is fighting for them so they are strengthened and they begin to prevail against the Amalekites but when the banner comes down they go maybe the Lord isn't on our side so much and Amalek begins to prevail now of course there is nothing of particular power in a piece of wood in a wooden rod nor is there anything special in Moses hands going up or down but rather God has specifically told him take the rod that is in thy hand and hold it up choose out Moses did as he had said to and it came to ask when Moses held up his hand that Israel prevailed and when he let down his hand Amalek prevailed he went up and stood on the hill with the rod of God in his hand so this rod became their banner of God's power over their enemies when it was up they knew the Lord was with them when it was down they didn't now
[29:26] God of course can weigh with or without such empty symbols we might say but what he wants to convey to the Israelites is that when that which symbolizes the Lord is with them they are unstoppable and when it is apparently not with them the enemy prevails what is he trying to do here he is trying to train up in the way that they should go to test to prove to instruct his people that they are to look to him to lean upon him that rod by which Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea by which the Nile was turned into blood that rod through which the Lord has worked his wonders has no power in and of itself it is only the Lord who is their power the Lord who is their strength the Lord who is their banner now the implication
[30:26] I think we should understand is that when Moses goes up this hill with Aaron who is his brother and her who is mentioned for the first time here and whom we don't really know who he is but most commentators tend to agree that he is most probably Miriam's husband so in other words you've got Moses and Aaron the two brothers and you've got their brother-in-law the husband of Miriam probably that's who her is who are up there and the implication is that when his hands are raised to the Lord this is the symbol of implication of sorry of impleding the throne of grace that it is a symbol of prayer the hands outstretched up toward heaven in prayer when the hands go down it looks as though prayer isn't being laid so when the hands are stretched up Israel knows they are being interceded for and the Lord answers that prayer and the battle flows for Joshua and the
[31:28] Israelites but when the hands come down the implication is that the prayer isn't quite so strongly made and so the Lord causes the Amalekites to prevail a little for a time because he wants to instill his people that the battle is the Lord's it is not Joshua it is not Moses but rather it is that which the Lord himself unfolds this work of Amalek in falling upon the people you might say it's just out of sheer nastiness on the one hand possibly having witnessed that water now flowed through the camp at a purely practical level they might have been fighting them for the water perhaps but at the end of the day we read in 2nd chronicles chapter 6 when Solomon is dedicating his house he says verse 34 the house of God if thy people go out to war against their enemies by the way that thou shalt send them and they pray unto thee toward this city which thou hast chosen and the house which
[32:36] I built for thy name then hear thou from the heavens their prayer and their supplication and they tame their cause now there's not yet a city that the Lord has revealed to his people there's not yet a temple built to his name it doesn't matter the heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool says the Lord so he can be impleaded from any place upon earth and when he is when he is pled with when the Lord is prayed to for help the Lord is the strength of our battle it is faith in the Lord that wins these warfare the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong hopes 1st John chapter 5 and verse 4 for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith if Israel is beginning at last to have faith in God they are stronger you see when Amalek comes against him they don't say oh no we first took the water and now we have enemies coming against us what are we going to do nor did they say we haven't got any armor we haven't got any weapons we took spoil from the Egyptians we took riches and we took gold and silver and precious clothes maybe they took one or two ornamental swords as well maybe they picked up one or two weapons from the seashore when the
[34:03] Egyptians appeared dead on the seashore but not much they're going to be largely unarmed as they go against their enemies what is going to be their strength Amalek comes against them out of simply the desire to destroy them as Psalm 83 tells us verse 3 they have taken crafty counsel against thy people and consulted against thy hidden ones they have said come and let us cut them off from being a nation that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance verse 7 Hebal and Ammon and Amalek the first signs in the heavens of Tyre you see whoever it is that ranges themselves against the Lord's people whether it be Herod whether it be Pilate whether it be communism or whether it be the LGBT movement or whoever it may be those who focus their enmity upon the Lord and his people do so for ultimately spiritual reasons they cannot abide that which is seen to be not of this world the values that the
[35:14] Lord instills in his people the love that he has for them is not of this world the values that will not bow down to dictators and put their pictures up in the houses of God and in the places of worship instead of the ten commandments the worship of the Lord which is to be held fast to will not admit of the powers and of the values of this world and the world hates them for it and it doesn't matter whether it is Amalek or the Philistines or Tyre or the things of this world or the forces of secularism or whatever it may be or false religions across the world they will hate the Lord and his people because they are ultimately not of this world Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world but that which overcomes the enemy is our faith that's what 1st John tells us chapter 5 verse 4 and again at chapter 4 verse 4 we read ye of God little children and have overcome them the enemies that come against us because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world we are not of this world appear in
[36:30] Christ Jesus said in this world he shall have tribulation but be of good cheer I have overcome the world now Amalek is coming against the children of Israel but when Moses lifts up his hands in prayer and imprecation towards the Lord Israel prevails and Joshua is comforted 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 him and Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah Messiah now that means the Lord my banner the Lord my banner in Psalm 20 we read at verse 5 we will rejoice in thy salvation and in the name of our God we will set up our banners the Lord fulfill all thy petitions Psalm 60 verse 4 thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee that it may be displayed because of the truth
[37:37] Selah the Lord is that around which his people rally the Lord is the one who gives the victory one closing thought here you might think well isn't it a bit unkind that the Lord now says we're going to completely wipe out the name of Amalek from under heaven God will have war with Amalek from now until forever the Lord has sworn that he will have war with Amalek from generation to generation notice what is happening here Moses builds the altar not for sacrifice or anything like that but rather as a memorial and writes upon it Jehovah Messiah the Lord my banner that all Israel may recognize that when the enemy comes against them when the enemy comes in like a flood it is the Lord and the Lord alone who delivers them not Moses not Joshua not the rod that is waved overhead or whatever it is God second thing we should notice here is just as how Babylon as we mentioned this morning is if you like a picture an emblem of all the forces and powers of this world and all that they offer the lost soul so likewise
[38:50] Amalek here stands for the first of those who set themselves against the Lord's people simply because they are the Lord's people look at Psalm 83 again and see all the lists of nations trying to destroy Israel think of all those who down the years have sought to destroy the church of Jesus Christ think of how in ages gone by you know you had the waves of Islamic expansion in the middle ages and then you had the Vikings in the dark ages wiping out Christians and burning churches and so on and what happened yes the Christians were slaughtered in their thousands but in due course the Vikings were converted and in due course the gospel was established in their lands and the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ overcame all the enemies of this world Amalek symbolises all those who set themselves against the living
[39:56] God and his people as Zechariah says he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye so if the Lord is going to be attacked and if his people are going to be attacked then these nations that do so are setting themselves into a war which they cannot win and therefore if they are launching themselves into a war that war will go on until it is concluded and it can only ever be concluded with one result God is not going to be defeated he is not going to be overcome and therefore that war will continue for as long as the forces of the world the flesh and the devil set themselves against the Lord and his people for the forces of the world the flesh and the devil read Amalek as long as they continue to attack and make war with the Lord there will be war with them such a war as they cannot win because the
[40:59] Lord has already won the victory over death and over the world and over the devil because the Lord has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation this is a war that will never end except with the ultimate victory of Christ now that victory has been won so the question is for us again whose side do you desire to be on Jesus said he that is not with me is against me he that gathereth not with me saffareth abroad this is a war in which there can be no neutrality as Joshua himself the hero of this battle later on at the end of his life said to his rights in that generation choose you this day whom you will serve as for me and my house we will serve the Lord to hug this thing heiver he he the hour here at heiph he who you