Amalek

… First reference to the book of Exodus, chapter 17. Verse 14 of chapter 17 of the book of Exodus. And the Lord said to Moses, write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out of your memory the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah. This is from my side. For he said, because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Deuteronomy 25, verse 19. Verse 17, chapter 25 of Deuteronomy, verse 17. Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way. When the Lord thy God has given thee rest from all thy enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt block out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. Thou shalt not forget it. The third scripture is one that is known, 1 Samuel 15. Verse 1, chapter 15, the first book of Samuel. Samuel also said unto Saul, the Lord sent thee to anoint me to be king over Israel. Now therefore harken thou unto the voice of the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid waste for him in the way. When he came up from Egypt, now awokens my Amalek. I know that they destroy all that they have, and spare him not. But slave of man and woman, infant and supplicant, ox and sheep, camel and ass. Verse 9, but Saul and the people spared Agatha and the rest of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the cattle, and of the lambs, and all that was good. Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It is better for me that I have set up Saul to be king. For he has turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And he grieved Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord over night. And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, he bestowed Samuel, saying, Saul came to Canaan, and, behold, he set him up a place, and he was gone about and passed on and gone down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have performed the commandments of the Lord. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleeding of the sheep in my ears, and the looing of the oxen which I have healed? And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed. Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Stay on. And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, and wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed thee king over Israel. And the Lord sent thee on a journey and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore then, dish down not the voice of the Lord, but dish, fly upon the spoil, and dish evil in the sight of the Lord. Then Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and I have done the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag, the king of the Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, and the sheep of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and yield up. And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to harpen than to cut a branch, for rebellion is as a single witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words, because I fear the people, and obey their voice. We've come down to days when there has to be straightforward speaking. And if there's straightforward speaking, it has to be the word of the Lord. There's a place for prayer eternally. There will be the place in which we'll be occupied eternally with prayer. There's a place for prayer. And I don't think it is, when you say it's neglected, there is a place for prayer and we're thankful for it. Our very course through this world necessitates it, and we have that outlet. But there is a side of things which is inclined to be neglected, and that is merely the word of the Lord. That's the burden of my heart at this moment. I believe it's the burden of the readings which we have come to read in the letters to the churches. For it is, hear and act, and hear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches. And I take it, and I think it's been brought forth to us in our readings, that this has a continuous and a present application. It's a word of the whole profession. It's addressed to the churches, but since, because of the state of things in Christendom, the churches are not found hearing what the Spirit, what the Lord has to say to the churches, but it falls to the individuals, and the individuals will be found, we are sure of that, who will show that they have an ear to hear what the Spirit says unto all the churches. Three scriptures come to one's mind in regard to the way the Spirit of God takes up this matter. He said, Be the wicked of Christ in action. Things are not just left in the hands of man without power and direction, but the very act of the Spirit of God here is the unfailing power of God available for the beginning, the continuance, and everything that is deemed to be necessary for the testimony of the Lord. And that, we are certain, will be pursued. It has been pursued, and nothing has stopped it. Neither war nor famine, not even the state of the church has prevented the testimony from going out. But whereas it should have gone out in the full responsibility of every true believer, yet there being failure, man being what he is, it resolves itself into individuals who show their hearts and consciences, and the opportunity is given to show an allegiance to an absent Lord, in caring for their business interests, that they should be paramount, even as in the case of the Apostle Paul, it was more to him than his life. It was more to him than his health. He was not concerned about old age, and what becomes natural to us, to be very careful to be concerned about our own affairs, so he expressed himself. He was ready not only to prepare himself, he speaks in native Romans as he counts himself a sheep to the slaughter. For thy sake we have killed all that we want. Only one thing he looked for here, in the course of serving the Lord, and that was, he didn't expect anything but death, and therefore, he was never, never a disappointed man. If we are looking for anything else in this world, there will be no time to put us to disappointment. So, in reading the Old Testament Scriptures, we have there, on record, that which serves to show us how those before us have failed, people called the Christians a sore body, but the Scriptures I have read show how he missed the mark, and the whole point is, in not giving, in not being disobedient, in not fulfilling the word of the Lord. The Scriptures I have read also show, in the circumstances, that he was deflected and slain by the people. Now that's the whole point of what I have read. We have been referring in our readings, even so far, about the works of the Nicolaitcanese, and the doctrine of the Nicolaitcanese, that is, the way those in the profession have been wrought upon by imposing persons. It's very, we are very susceptible to that. We are very susceptible to intimidation. Peter was found there, you know, in the incident recorded for us in the Galatians. There he was in the full light and the liberty of Christianity. Having cleared himself from all the trammels of Judaism in regard to the matters of eating, but he only needed imposing men to protect themselves from the Jews, and Peter was affected. Now, we have to protect ourselves from that, dear friends, dear brethren. There is only one thing that will deliver us from that, and that is having the Lord distinctly before us, and that is our exercise. It will deliver us from scares. It will deliver us from intimidation. It will deliver us from listening to the majority. And the scriptures I have read clearly show and emphasize that there lies danger, and we are not immune ourselves from succumbing to that error, and if we speak of it as an error, it's the most serious error, because by succumbing to it, we virtually set the supreme authority of the Lord aside. Now, I did refer in my opening remarks that the necessity of hearing what the Spirit says to the church, if he has a message, the Spirit speaks its perspective, and that was in connection with a period, something like the 4th century, that many showed their powers to hear the spirits and so on. And the Spirit speaks daily in the Ephesians, and the Spirit speaks continuously in these letters that we are reading to the churches, and the whole point, beloved friends, is that we should have redirected to the Lord himself. He will never, never surrender the place he has, and it's our privilege to give him that place, and that will become our exercise. Now, we are faced with problems in our deliberations, people experience of this, and where it calls for the individual to stand on the Word of God itself, even though we may find the opinions and the inclinations and the experiences of human thoughts, because of certain tantrums, swingers, as they did, saw on this occasion. We read the verses, I emphasized them in reading them, that the reason they didn't carry out the Word of the Lord, and show that obedience which became him as the first man in that nation, Israel, the anointed king. And the reason for that faith was that he was turned aside from obeying the Lord by an attempt to be popular with the people, being conquered by the people, he virtually was conquered by the people. In principle this faith indoctrinated by the works and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. He listened to the people. Therefore, he did not carry out the strict commandment of the Lord. And I read the scriptures in the 17th elections to show how important that order was. Our brother, in the course of our readings, he made a very important statement in that, being what we are, we may stay in our faith, be more concerned about sparing our friends, and not offending them, but at the expense of not offending them, we may contravene the Word of God and offend God. The scripture in the 17th of Exodus is important in particular, for there is a principle in the nation of Amalek. And whilst we have our problems, in the 17th of Exodus, this is a matter that God has taken up, and in the scripture I read, it's a war that he will never, never, it goes on, it went on from that day in regard to Amalek. And the cross of Christ is the evidence that something was to be done by God which was a necessity, that had his own name in his glory, and the place is signed by Christ himself in view. And Christianity is brought in on the basis of that cross, and you can't have Christianity without the cross. There's no such thing as Christianity practically for God without the cross. There's no Christianity without that death, and when he speaks of blood, it's merely that it's the emphasis on the death that was necessary, and that death being necessary, because that kind of death was the cross by which he died. And you can't have Christianity for it. The 13th of John, God is not glorified only on the basis of the cross, Christ having come, even in the face of the betrayer, who was about to betray the Lord Jesus in view of it, which meant the cross, he said, now is the son of man. The universal aspect that is contested by this world, Jesus has that in view, now is the son of man glorified, and God is glorified there. He's referring to that death. He will have war with Adelaide from generation to generation, and we are told in our day, you know, that we're living in 1967, and things are different. And we have to look at things differently in 1967 to what we had in 1850, or even in the apocryphal days. Granted that there are differences, we're obliged to, we can conceive that there are differences, but in principle, in what is for God, the things apply just as today as they did then. Therefore, there is the principle of Amulet in every individual. We couldn't have a body without the principle of Amulet. We couldn't have a body without the expression of the will. And if there are two things which are the cause of all that is dishonoring of God in Christianity, it is the principle of the flesh, and it is the action of the human will. And so in 1967, and even proceeding until the Lord comes, those two things are present with every individual. And the conflicts, the issues are there, and every believer, and every true believer, in loyalty and in allegiance to Christ, and what is due to God, he must in necessity be in accord with God's determination, and the relentless war, the conflict that goes on in respect to that principle of the flesh and the will of man. We revert to Job this afternoon. There we have a man who was surprised again what cake-like was that Job had a will. And this matter of God's dealing with the Christian is, in principle, it is to set that will aside. The danger of the will is that we set God's will on one side, and we revert to man's will. And so we have the doctrine, the works of the Nicoletanis, and the doctrine of the Nicoletanis. And in principle, it sets the authority of Christ as Lord and as end on one side. Think of the words of the prophet of King Saul, a very solemn verse, God sends his prophet, and there always will be the prophetic word, God has a right to say it. Our privilege is to praise, and praise God we shall praise, and we cannot do without prayer. But what one would press is the necessity that our ears should be opened because God has a right to speak. He has a right to speak to the great, he has a right to speak to the intimidators, he has a right to speak to Nicoletanis, and he has a right to speak to every individual Christian. Psalm 48 and Psalm 49 will tell you that the whole creation must hear when God speaks, and in that which is the best that God has brought in, it is God who will speak in man's tongue. And vested authority is in that vested person, the one who holds the stars in his right hand, there is the authority. The authority that anyone to contest that could only be to their own detriment. Now that, if in King Saul he allowed himself to be swayed in this way, what solemn words are said, let us read them again, the verse, in that verse, in the prophetic word to King Saul. Verse 2. Ask the Lord as great delight in burnt offering and sacrifices. Now the human experience may decide, and does decide, according to human standards as to what should be served. But then has God respect and delight to what we think should be served up to him, which can merely be the product of the human will, and the best in man, the flesh. For when we speak of the flesh, it's not only the worst, the drunkenness, and the fornications, but it's the best in man, it's worth the worst, and the cost is necessary. To set aside and set in the man aside, and to set in the man aside the best went before the commercial. But the assumption may be, that if this is disregarded, that in experiencing the human mind is to work to serve up what is supposed to be the best. The best that man can introduce, and he can have the form of music, and the arts, these are the things that have been pushed forward by, not the illiterate, but by the most educated, and the most cultured. The most cultured person has assumed that these things could be accepted. When God, in the light of this, that God has set the whole man aside in the death of Christ, it's what we have referred to in the book of Peter, it's the way of Cain, the best in man. And that was in the presence of the form when man was turned out in the garden of Eden, without a home, and without clothing. Unfit for the presence of God, he wasn't fit for the presence of God, he was as good as being naked. And he had the home as a wonder. And from that very moment, the poverty and the dearth of the creature is unchanged. Well, ask the Lord, this is the question in this way, ask the Lord, as delight in burnt offerings as in obeying the word of the Lord. We have brought that. He will have war with Amalek. All the way that the flesh and the will of man may show itself and assert itself, and we have to say that the flesh and the will of man has shown itself in the very best of God's interview, that is in Christianity. A solemn and solemn word for us. And then we are told what this is. To obey, to obey is better. This is the extreme, to obey to. This is the matter that is put before us, this is put on our plate. And we cannot leave the Lord without it. To be comfortable, this is to be in lawlessness, and yet we are brought into righteousness, we are brought from lawlessness into righteousness. And the simple thing is to abide, to abide in Christ is to be practically apart from the lawlessness. And that is to judge the will and to judge the flesh, and God has given us the cross for that. He has also given the Spirit, and it is the only way we can be for God, especially on the basis of the cross, and in the power of the Spirit of God. Well, this is a matter of God's haste. The Lord has much delight in burnt offering as obeying the word of the Lord. To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken, to hearken. We have a body, and that is a body we have, and yet to hearken, it's a whole movement. Let me refer to a very striking incident in the life of the Lord Jesus. And I believe we have the whole principle of God's approach to man with a view to his full restoration in a miracle that the Lord Jesus performed, recorded for us in the Gospel of Mark at the end of chapter 7. There's a man found there, and he's not only deaf, but because he is deaf he is dumb. Now think of that, one of God's creatures that can neither hear his voice nor reply to it. The birds reply to God, and even the pig grunts in satisfaction. And the best of God's creatures doesn't hear his voice and therefore can't even reply in thanksgiving. Romans 1, neither were they thankful. We must have revelation before, since there is the fall, then we depend upon revelation. We depend upon the revelation of the heart of God, the Lord Jesus in that instance. He comes and a deal for the man's ears. In view of him hearing the very communication which God has for man, which can only be made through the one who was there to perform that miracle. He opened his ears. And Jesus brought the message of God's love for that man to hear, and for every believer to hear that message only through Christ. And hearing that message then, there's one thing certain. The mouth is open. If the ear is open for the communication, and that is the whole principle of Christian revelation. For that which the Lord Jesus brought from the very heart of God, to enter the human heart by way of the ear. It is that the man is no longer dumb but speaks, and is able to give thanks and reply to God. It's the whole principle of revelation and approach. And so the importance of it is, beloved, is in the hearing of his voice with a view to being put right and kept right. And we hear him as under Isai to be, there's only one way we can be forgotten, and that is by being subject and obedient. The Lord Jesus, in the tent of Luke, Mary was sitting at his feet hearing his word. She was listening to one who himself was subject to him. What other communication could she have from him, but in knowing what it is to be subject, and in being subject. And without subjection, there's no support from God. We must get a rebuke without subject. But being subject, and that is the kingdom. And it comes first in Christianity. The kingdom is so necessary. And the kingdom will assure some divine support. And so the principle is, it's better. Better to have. And we are here to ensure this wisdom by having the hearing test. …