Exodus, Message 8.2: The Continual War with Amalek

Crystallization-Study of Exodus, Message 8.2:

"The Continual War with Amalek"

The book of Exodus can be broadly divided into 2 parts. Chapters 1-17 are about God's dealing with enemies, whereas chapters 18-40 focus on the building up of tabernacle, God's dwelling place on the earth. 

In previous chapters, God delivered His children from the first 2 enemies, Pharaoh and Egyptians, which signify Satan and the world respectively. Here in chapter 17, God was going to deal with the last enemy before the tabernacle would be built up. This fight was going to be different, because it was in fact the first battle that the children of Israel had ever fought.

8 Now Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim.
9 And Moses said to Joshua, “Choose us some men and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.”
10 So Joshua did as Moses said to him, and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.
11 And so it was, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.
12 But Moses’ hands became heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.
13 So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.
14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”
15 And Moses built an altar and called its name, The-Lord-Is-My-Banner;
16 for he said, “Because the Lord has sworn: the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
(Exodus 17:8-16 NKJV)

Amalek typifies the flesh, our inner and life-long enemy.

The journey in the wilderness continued on. Since they left Elim, they had received wonderful provisions from the Lord. God miraculously provided them manna and water. They had been enjoying the provision of the Lord. And then, Amalekites came out to fight with them. Previously, the Lord had fought for them. At the Red Sea, all they had to do was walk through the sea on the dry ground. They did not have to fight with the Egyptian army by themselves. But now, they as the army of God had to engage in the warfare.

In typology, the manna and the smitten rock that supplied water for the people both represent Christ as our life supply (John 6:48-51; 1 Corinthians 10:4). Christ is the bread of life and the water of life. We have had abundant life supply from Christ. Not until we have had the enjoyment of daily eating and drinking of Christ do we have enough strength to fight against our inner enemy, the flesh, which is typified by the Amalekites. On the contrary, if we do not have continual fellowship with Christ, we will surely be defeated by this strong enemy. In fact, the flesh will not even bother coming to fight with us, because we submit ourselves to it already when we are walking in the flesh, not in the Spirit.

In contrast to sin, Satan and the world, the flesh is our inner and subjective enemy. We have been redeemed from our sin by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross for us, as typified by the Passover. We have been delivered from Satan and the world through the process of getting out of the world and baptism, as typified by the exodus from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea. Fighting against these enemies seems not so difficult compared to the flesh, because they are the enemies without, whereas the flesh is the enemy within. As the war between the children of Israel and the Amalekites would continue from generation to generation (Exodus 17:16), our fighting with the flesh is also a life-long process.

What is the flesh?

Flesh is simply the practical living out of our old man with its fallen nature. It is directly against Grace, which is God Himself coming into us as our life supply and enjoyment. Grace is God doing everything for us, in us and through us. Everything we do is flesh, whereas everything God does is grace. To reject Grace is to reject God. And we do need grace to overcome our flesh.

Why is the flesh so bad?

Of course, not all the works of the flesh look bad. Some of them seem to be very good. Even humility, love and kindness can be the works of the flesh if we do them with our own efforts. However, God cannot use them to accomplish His eternal purpose. The flesh, even good flesh, tries its hardest to frustrate us from enjoying the Lord, following Him, participating with Him in the building up of His Habitation on the earth and bringing in His kingdom.

The tabernacle could not be built up until Amalek had been defeated. Likewise, God's dwelling place cannot be built up until the flesh has been seriously dealt with. Sadly, the flesh has severely damaged the church throughout history. It has caused divisions and confusions among the believers. That is why dealing with the flesh is such a serious matter.

How can we defeat the flesh?

Now let us learn the lessons about how we can defeat the flesh from this wonderful story.

1. We must engage in the warfare.

Of course, God was able to wipe out Amalek in a millisecond by Himself. But that was not His way of doing it. He would like to do it through His people, with the leading of Joshua. It seemed to be impossible for them to win, as the children of Israel were not a strong army, having had no fighting experience. But with God, they surely could.

Like Joshua, we must fight the battle against our flesh. St Augustine noted, "Without God we cannot; without us, He will not." It is God's ordained way to fight against our flesh through us. He is not going to do it without our participation. Even though we are weak and our flesh is so strong, we know we will win the battle with God's help. We just need to humbly admit that we cannot do anything by ourselves, and totally depend upon Christ, knowing He is always by our side and always for us. He will surely help us win the battle when we engage in the warfare against His enemies for His name.

2. We must have prayer lives.

While Joshua was fighting against Amalek, Moses went up to the mountain to pray.

On the one hand, Moses represents Christ as our intercessor. He is now at the right hand of God interceding for us (Romans 8:34). On the other hand, Moses also represents us. To win the battle, we need to pray.

In the story, we see that it was impossible for Moses to raise His praying hand all the day. He needed help from His companions - Aaron and Hur. Furthermore, he needed a stone to sit upon. Aaron, Hur and the stone were needed for Moses' praying ministry, which was the key to the victory over Amalek.

Christ's prayer life is perfect. He is the only one who can pray unceasingly. He does not need any help. But we definitely do, because our praying hands are so easy to become heavy. God commands us to pray "unceasingly," but how can we do that? We need Aaron, Hur and the stone to support our prayer life. Without these supports, we can never have a successful unceasing prayer life, the key to win the battle against our flesh. What do these 3 represent?

Aaron obviously represents priesthood. To have Aaron is to have a continuous contact with the Lord. We must fellowship with Him regularly through Christ, our Mediator.

Hur came from the tribe of Judah. He therefore represents kingship. To have Hur is to be submissively obedient to the kingship of the Lord. A little disobedience can destroy our life. Even though we can never be 100% sinless in this life, we must seriously deal with all the sins that are exposed by the Spirit to our mind.

The stone/rock definitely represents Christ, our solid foundation, upon whom we rest. We are so easy to get weary. And Christ invites everyone to come to Him and have rest. We rest while we are praying.

 Thirayost Nimmanon (Tony)

Further reading

• The Holy Word for Morning Revival: Crystallization-Study of Exodus, week 8.
• Life Study of Exodus, messages 29, 47-49.