# Then Came Amalek

Category: Obedience to God’s Will
Key Passage: Exodus 17
Speaker: Dumpert
Date: June 7, 2024

Take your Bibles and go to the book of Exodus chapter 17.

Last Sunday morning, the pastor, he’s a good man of God. He’d been around the block a few times. And he did a wonderful, wonderful job, and he dealt with “Walk in the Light.” How many remember that sermon? “Walk in the Light.”

And at the end of the message, he gave an invitation. And put three or four different aspects to it. And he had, one of the aspects was, how many would dedicate this week to walk in the light? Any of you do that? Any of you?

My question: How did you do? You don’t have to raise your hand; just rhetorical question. How many of you have had a perfect week of walking in the light? Perfect. Sunday to Sunday. You never got upset with your mate. You didn’t kick the dog. You didn’t say some things that you shouldn’t have said when you got upset with one of the coworkers. If you walk in the light, you ought to walk in the light in the church, and ought to walk in the light going from the church to the car, right? Right. Why did we fail? Why didn’t we fail? Any struggles?

Well, I believe here in, there are three words that I want you to underline when we get to them. Let’s take a look at chapter 17 in the book of Exodus.

The Bible says, “And the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after the commandment of the Lord.” I wish we would journey from the wilderness of sin. Amen.

The Lord designed it now. The Lord has ever to you that nothing has ever occurred to God. He knows the beginning of the end of everything. He directed these people—a million and a half, two million people—the way how to go. And he directs our lives. He directs our lives. He knows what we’re going to be doing tomorrow and who we’re going to cross paths with, the ins and outs of all of it.

We’re moving right along. And they pitched in Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. Get a hold of this: God took them to a place where there’s no water. You’ve got a million and a half plus people that got their livestock, plus their own beings, and they’re going; they have no water. We’re in the desert.

Wherefore the people, in verse two, they did chide—meaning they got angry, viciously angry, as you’ll see—with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.”

And Moses said unto them, “Why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord?”

And the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses and said, “Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?”

And 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.” And this next four verses of the text are very precious in the Old Testament, as you’ll see.

And the Lord said unto Moses, “Go on before the people, and notice and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb: and thou shalt smite the rock.”

Who are you going to hit before you get to the rock if he’s on top of it? And there shall come water out of it that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the children of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because of the tempting of the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Let’s finish it up. “Then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidim.”

And Moses said unto Joshua, “Choose out 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.” 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.

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’s hands were heavy, and he took a stone and put it under him, and he sat there on, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, 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—you might want to underline that word—and Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

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 the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” And Moses built an altar; the name of it, Jehovah-Nissi. For he said, “Because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek,” notice, “from generation to generation.”

I want you to look at verse number eight. I want you to underline the first three words: “And then came Amalek.”

Then came Amalek. The grandson of Esau—Jacob and Esau—a wicked man. His people are wicked. They hated Israel. Then came Amalek. That’s the title of the message.

Father, we love you. And Father, I thank you for this opportunity to speak, to fill in for the preacher. We love him dearly. He’s been here a lot of years, and he’s been doing a great work. You’ve been blessing in his life, and these people are here because of that. So, Father, I pray that we might not hinder the pulpit ministry, that we might be a blessing to it and to you, dear Jesus, and to these people. Thank you now, and I love you. Please bless, in Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

And then came Amalek. Why didn’t I succeed to walk in light? Have you ever made a decision to do something, and you made a commitment to something, and it just seemed like as soon as you made a commitment, boom, something happened to interfere?

Do you know the month of January is the number one month for people committing suicide? It’s a long month. Why is that? Then came Amalek. You got Christmas, New Year’s, spendy, spendy, spendy. Then you come into January, and it’s usually a long month, if I’ve checked the calendar out. It’s a long month, and it’s usually overcast, not as sunny. And people begin to, what? Regret? They spent so much money; they go in debt. You ever get advertisements come on your phone or whatever now? Ways to borrow money. Refinance your home so you can take some money out of it. Then came Amalek.

The Bible here in Exodus chapter 17, 1 through 7, is a very beautiful, rich text: the smiting of the rock. And in Corinthians, it says the rock followed them in the wilderness. And that rock, the Bible says, was Jesus.

The Lord said, in the scriptures here, it said that they smote the rock and water came out of it. And the Bible says Jesus said that I am the living water; you’ll never thirst again. And yet we thirst. Why is that? Why is that sometimes? Why is it? Well, sometimes we just want to give up. What’s the use? I’ll just go into church, and Frank will hit me on the shoulder. Why come to church? Yeah?

Why do we fail? Why do we struggle? Why do we not have victory? We’re in church, and a preacher is preaching, the Spirit of God comes down, and you make a commitment: “I’m going to give my life to Christ. I’m going to become a Christian.” Come to the altar, the counselor works with you and says, “Why did you come forward?” “I come to be saved.” Fantastic. Everybody cheers.

And you walk out of the building, and the Amalek meets you at the door down there. Amalek could be your wife or your husband or one of the kids. You ever been there? You’re in a church service, and God speaks to you about, you know, you ought to be baptized. Here’s something I haven’t shared with my wife. I shared it with the pastor, and I will probably deal with it in a few weeks. But I have struggled with the area of baptism in my life. I got saved, and then I went through a lot of troubles, personal difficulties. And then I went through the Bible again and led myself to Christ the second time. Should I be baptized? I talked to the pastor about it. I’m considering it seriously after all these years.

We stall sometimes because of Amalek. Amalek was a grandson of Esau. He was an ungodly people, an ungodly person. He hated Israel, and Amalek hates you. His method of warfare: he always comes after victory. Always comes after victory to make a commitment. “I’ll join the church. I want to join the church.” And then you go out the door: “What did I do?” And you go home, and the kid says, “You did what?”

Amalek. He comes after victory, comes after commitment, he comes after a decision for what you know is right. Why does he do that? To discourage you, to discourage you.

Notice there it says in verse number 13, “And Joshua discomfited him.” He didn’t kill him. Yet God will say in this text and elsewhere—there are about 10 references on Amalek in the Scriptures—and God will say, “I’m going to take his name clear out of here. I’m going to destroy the whole nation.” He did. But you’ll notice in verse 16, “Amalek from generation to generation.” He’s around today, folks.

How does he work? Well, let’s give you an idea. Go to Deuteronomy 25. Deuteronomy 25:17.

“Then came Amalek.”

And Deuteronomy is kind of a summation of the penitence of the first five books of the Bible. It’s the fifth book in the Bible. And Moses gives a summary how God brought you out of Egypt and how the wandering. And before I go home to go with God, to go to God, I want to kind of give an idea of what’s transpired. And you come into verse 25 and you look at 17.

He says, “Remember what Amalek did unto thee, by the way, when thou camest forth out of Egypt.” Now, hear me. You talk about victory. They have victory. They’ve come out of Egypt, the strongest nation in all the world. It’s like a country like the United States of America taking on England about 250 years ago.

And they get out of Egypt, and they’re wandering across, going into Canaan, headed for Canaan, and they don’t have water, and smite the rock, and they smite the rock, and the water comes out, and everything is hunky-dory, you know. And then came Amalek.

Let’s go on. It says in verse 18, “how he met thee by the way, and smote,” notice, this is how he works, “the hindmost of thee.” Those that lag behind, lag behind, are not committed, just follow the crowd. They don’t get involved. Hello.

He smote even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary. And notice Amalek, he doesn’t fear God. He didn’t take on the leadership; he took on the fellowship. He’s wicked. The ones that lag behind, the ones that don’t get involved, the ones that hear this preacher get up here and preach, and his heart is torn out about something, and he shares with a congregation that God has spoken to him about, and you sit there, he’ll get over this a little bit, and you go on down through life. Don’t get involved. He goes after the feeble.

Feeble in the Lord, the weak in the Lord. You know who they are. You come into church, and you watch them come. You’re a member of the Rutherford County Baptist Church. You love this place, and you give your tithes and you give your offerings, and you’ve gone through the baptism of water, you’ve gone through membership, you’ve gone through everything, and you see new people come in, and you watch. They don’t know John from Job in John 3:16, the bathroom on the third floor. They don’t know anything. They’re feeble.

Every year, as I pastored, I think every church, I would usually on a Sunday night, not Sunday morning, Sunday night, I’d have someone to bring in a little baby, six, eight months old. And I’d bring that baby up, and I’d hold them in my arms, and everybody—all the women—they just go bananas on it, you know, beautiful baby and all that stuff, you know. And we’d tease the baby, and it’d be all smiles, you know. And then I would bring it around to applications. The new people that are 40, 50, 60 years old, 30-year-olds, 20-year-olds, they’re like that baby. They’re feeble; they’re newborn. And you hear the baby cry, what do you do? You go to the baby. You pick up the baby. You love the baby. You encourage the baby. Likewise, we need to do that to the Church of Jesus Christ. The same idea.

And Amalek’s going to go after those feeble folks. Amalek’s going to go after those that are tired. I remember years ago, my home pastor up in Indiana, Pastor Rickner. We were talking. He had eight—I think eight—building programs. And one building program is enough to kill a preacher, you know, and eight building programs.

And it was the fall of the year when they had the changeover for General Motors. They used to make a big—you’d have one car in 1965 and 1966. There’d be another totally transition from a Pontiac to a different Pontiac. And they had a big changeover deal. And one of the men was a Tool and Die man at General Motors, and he was exhausted. They’re working six days a week, sometimes seven days a week, ten-hour days. Horrible. This went on for week after week after week. They’ve got to get the machinery all set up for the new makes of the cars.

And Pastor Rickner on a Monday evening—they were going to have a special board meeting where they were going to bring before the congregation—first run it through the deacons—going to bring before the congregation this next phase of the building program. Money, a lot of money. And so he set up to date on a Monday night, and here comes—we’ll call him John—here comes John in the building. He’s worn out. He hadn’t seen his family much. He just comes in and crashes on a bed, gets up, next day goes to work week after week after week.

And the pastor was greeting him as to come in, and he met John, and “How’s it going, John?” And John looked like death warmed over. And John said, “Pastor, going to talk to you a minute.” “Sure.” “Got it inside.” He said, “Pastor, tonight we’re going to vote on a very important meeting issue. And he said, ‘I’m tired. I’m worn out. How should I vote?’”

“I’ll shoot a vote.” I took a real man of God to do that. A real man of God. He was worn out. He wasn’t going to make the bad decision. He knew how the pastor wanted it. He knew the—he understood all the ins and outs of it. But Amalek will go after the tired people. He’ll go after the children. He’ll go after the faint-hearted, the weary ones. And he doesn’t fear God.

I think of people—Amalek almost sort of used David, my son-in-law, my grandson, son-in-law, my grandson—a number of weeks ago, he got up here and he preached right here, of course, David. Am I right, David? I sat back there as proud as punch. He got up here and he spoke before this congregation. You remember that? That was Sunday night. And he gets out of the pulpit, and he walks back there, and people are shaking his hands, they’re patting him on the back: “Good job, David,” blah, blah, blah. And he did a good job. That next week, then came Amalek about destroyed him. Remember right, David? Amalek went after him big time to destroy.

I think of President Trump. He’s been fighting the left-wingers for how many years? He goes into election. My brother-in-law was up here this summer. We were talking about the election coming up. And Jim said to me, “I don’t see where the—” Jim, I think they’re going to have a problem in this election. I said, “No way. I said, President Trump is going to be a landslide.” And Jim said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think so.” What happened? Then came Amalek. Crooked, conniving, cheating, lying. I don’t know your political position, but I know this: whether it’s for the Democrats or the Republican, none of that should go on. But they were out to destroy him and destroy anybody else to get a hold of.

Walk in the light. Folks, listen to me. We ought to make a commitment that this week we’re going to walk in the light, we’re going to walk with Jesus, following his footsteps. Yes, count me in, count me in. And two days later we get irritated with my wife and say something I shouldn’t have said.

Joshua discomfited him. He crippled him. He didn’t kill him. He weakened him, but he didn’t kill him. He overwhelmed Amalek, but he didn’t kill him. The principle of Amalek is alive today, every generation.

Here are some helpful hints in dealing with Amalek, okay? Give me some—you know, I can tell you there’s a problem, I can tell you all this, okay? Help me, preacher, help me to know what to do.

Number one: Expect Amalek to fight any decisions that you make that are right. Expect Amalek to show up after there’s victory in your life. Number four: He hates you. Number five: He’s not to cripple you, not kill you.

When I was in the Marines and doing some—Ben knows more about this than I do, because I was an aircraft mechanic, and he was one of the ground pounders, and pretty much, am I right? He was one of those guys like me. Anyway, they have a landmine that they will use, the enemy will use. We may use it too. And when you’re on patrol, when you step on this landmine, it doesn’t kill you. It takes your leg off. It takes your foot off. Why? It’s going to take a medic to deal with you, and probably two others to help the medic to get you back where you’re safe. That’s four people. You just took a squad—upon a fourth of the squad. You just took them out of operation. And that’s exactly what Amalek will do. He wants to cripple you. Cripple you through discouragement. “Why even go back there? All they want is my money.”

Here are also some things about Amalek: Pray for the weak. People come to the altar: strong Christians, weak Christians, indifferent Christians, whatever. And I know when the pastor was giving an invitation, I got my head bowed too. But you may get an idea who came to the altar. Pray for them. They’re going to face some trials the very next week.

We have an overseer. Why does God say that the pastor is an overseer? Moses got up on the hill; who’s overseeing the battle? Our pastor does the same thing. He knows things. I’ve said a couple things to him. He says, “Oh, I know. Yeah, I’m aware of that,” just recently. He gets to know you people. He knows your ins and outs. He doesn’t go blabbing it off at all; that’s confidential. But he’s an overseer. Therefore, we as a body of believers need to pray for that man of God. I think I’ve got a couple more: Support your Moses.

Moses, he’s up overlooking his thing, and he raises his hands up—some say it’s an attitude of prayer—and his arms got weary. Don’t you think the preacher gets weary? And you come in the building, and he’s all smiles and laughing with you? I’ve been there. I’ve been there when you come to the pulpit, and your heart is broken over someone in the church that’s getting a divorce, or they’re going through a terrible situation, and you don’t ever let the congregation know. You need to fight.

Here’s Moses praying. Here’s Aaron and Hur supporting him. Where is Joshua? He’s got the sword out; he’s fighting. Sometimes you need to have in the congregation some people that will, “Hey, preacher, the law says this about this. We can do thus. I don’t care what the world says, but the law says this. We’re going to stand up to the law. We’re going to do what’s right.”

Here’s another one: Rehearse this. Notice it said, “a memorial,” and it said, “and rehearse this.” Rehearse this. You’ll know some people that maybe are hinting about doing something for God. Hey, you know, watch out for Amalek. Watch out for Amalek. He’s around the corner.

What did he call it at the end? Look if you would at verse 18. No, they’d go to a rather better test. Look if you would at verse 15. “And Moses built an altar.” By the way, let me just share this with you. When Israel came out of Egypt, God led them to the big tub, big bunch of water, part of the sea. They go through. God did all the fighting for them. God did all the fighting for Israel when they were putting up with Egypt, when he was fighting Egypt. The Israelites didn’t do any fighting.

The very first battle that they’re going to face, God designed it that way. And at one place it says, in the New Testament, God tested them or tried them or tempted them. They’re in the wilderness. How are you going to respond? You know how they responded? First thing: “Oh, Moses.” Then he went to God in prayer. And then the Bible says he built an altar here. It’s all over. He built an altar.

And notice what he called the altar: Jehovah-Nissi. “The Lord is my banner.” In the middle of the camp of the Israelites, they had Asher and Ephraim and Naphtali; they had these different tribes, and they had their banner up. “We belong to this.” At the top of it said—at the top of the banners they said, “Jehovah-Nissi.” They passed the word all around: “The Lord is our banner. He’s our leader.” People need to know that. He’s our leader.

Then came Amalek. I said in recent days to two people in this congregation—we’ve been here about how many months, Mona? Two years? Yes. Not really. I said, someone said something to me, and I want a case, and I don’t know all your names yet. I just say, “Hey, you.” And somebody said something, and I said, “Then came Amalek.” He looked at me like a calf looking at a new gate. And a few weeks later, someone said something to me, and our Taffala shipping around here, and I responded by just simply saying, “Then came Amalek.” And that person had the same expression on their face. I said, “Have you ever heard about that?” “No, I don’t know anything about him.” I said, “Okay.”

And then the preacher called me up, and he said, “Would you fill in for me?” And immediately, then came Amalek. We need this. We need this. You’re going to fight some battles.

Mike Salter, a good friend of mine, related to him and his family—he and his family to Christ—had his funeral. And his church was having a special missionary giving program to whether it’s going to build a children’s mission program in China, mainland China, away from Wuhan, sure. And Mike had money saved up for retirement. And out of that, he took $2,500, and he’s going to give it for that mission program. He was talking to his sister right before he gave the money, and he said, “You know, our church is wanting special money and giving for this missions program, and I’m taking out of our retirement $2,500, and I’m going to give.” And that’s by far as you got. And they said, “You’re going to do what?” Then came Amalek. He’s there around the corner waiting on you.

Hey, do everything in your world to cripple you. A wounded soldier is a difficult person to get around. A wounded bear, right? He wants to wound you; he wants to hurt you, not destroy you. And we as Christians, we need to be like Aaron and Hur. We need to say, “I’m going to lift up my preacher. I’m going to pray for my preacher. I’m going to be concerned about my preacher, his family.” Because Amalek is just right on his doorstep.

Someone has said the very most difficult door to get through to go out soul-winning is the one that hangs on my house. That’s true, isn’t that right? Then came Amalek.

Does this message say to you, “Well, if I don’t go to the altar and make decisions for God, then I won’t face Amalek”? Wrong. Don’t let Amalek use the convicting power of the Holy Spirit to deal with your life. Whatever it is. Whatever it is.

Let’s bow in a word of prayer. Father, we love you and thank you for this evening. Thank you for this opportunity, Lord, to stand in for the preacher. And Father, we’ve all probably faced Amalek in our own lives as we meditate upon it. Think about it. We’ve planned to do some things, and we made commitments. And then Amalek came along and, “What do you think you’re doing?” Always questioning, always trying to discourage. Lord, we love you. Now we thank you. We pray, Father, that folks might use this time to hit the altar and just spend some time with you. May we pray every day to build a hedge about us to keep Amalek out of our life. And we love you. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Original File: Then Came Amalek - Bro Dumpert