DEUTERONOMY 25 YOUR FLESH WARS AGAINST YOUR SOUL2018 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Deuteronomy 25 Your Flesh Wars Against Your Soul

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2018.

Well, this morning we're here in Deuteronomy chapter 25 as we continue to work our way through the Bible in three years. And we're reading now in Deuteronomy in this book where Moses has led the children of Israel in the wilderness for about 40 years now. And they're now on the edge of the promised land for the second time. This time they're actually going to go in and they're going to take the promised land just as God told them that they would. But

But Moses is not going to be the one to lead them into the promised land. He can only take them to the Jordan River, to the edge. And then it's going to be Joshua now who takes the baton and leads the children of Israel into the promised land. And the book of Deuteronomy is Moses' last words to the people of Israel. And those final days before they cross over and enter into this new season that God has prepared for them.

Moses here gives these final messages in the book of Deuteronomy and recounts for them the things that God has revealed in the law and prepares them for this new journey ahead in the promised land. And as we look here at chapter 25 this morning, Moses takes an opportunity to remind the people about a battle that they fought back in Exodus chapter 17. It's a battle with a nation called

Amalek. And the battle with the nation of Amalek, the encounter that they have, and the things that God speaks to them about that, really provide us some good and important pictures to help us grasp hold of the battles that you and I face with our own sinful nature.

We often refer to our sinful nature and that battle that we have as the flesh. And so I've titled the message this morning, Your Flesh Wars Against Your Soul. And this probably is not shocking information for you. This maybe is not something that you've never heard in your whole life, and yet you're

In verse 17, Moses says, remember what Amalek did to you. And so even though this is not new information probably for you, that this morning the Lord wants to remind us of some battles that we fought, some exchanges that have happened, some issues with the flesh that have taken place. And we need to be stirred up and remember the seriousness of the war that we're in.

The seriousness of the battle that is going on. And it is sometimes easy to get relaxed and casual in our understanding and perspective in regards to our sinful nature. And this morning, the Lord wants to remind us

He says in verse 19 at the very end, you shall not forget. This is something to stand out. For the nation of Israel, don't forget. You're going to be tempted to kind of let this go and kind of, you know, after some time passes, the seriousness of it will kind of soften in your mind. But don't forget and remember what they did. And you're going to have to deal with that. That's what God tells Israel in a similar way. He speaks to us about our sinful nature. And he says, you need to remember and be reminded that

that it's a serious thing. And there's a real war going on for your soul. And you need to be prepared for that and to be considering that and don't forget about that war. Peter puts it this way in 1 Peter 2, verse 11. He says, "'Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, "'abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.'"

Amalek provides for us a good picture of the flesh for a lot of reasons, and I'm not going to get into all the details of that. But as we talk about the flesh and the sinful nature, Peter says to believers, right? It's not just something that unbelievers and those who don't know the Lord battle. It's not a war that is only for the unsaved. This is a war that believers in Jesus who are born again,

will face and will fight and is raging on within us and around us. There are the fleshly lusts which war against the soul. He says, as sojourners, as pilgrims, for you as a believer, abstain from fleshly lusts. There's a war to capture you, to captivate you, to consume you with the things of your own sinful nature, of your own flesh. And you need to fight against

This war. You need to recognize this war that is going on and be prepared for it. And God gives us some insight about how this battle takes place.

here as we look at this picture of Amalek. And so it's a good reminder for us of our enemy, the flesh. We also have our enemy, the devil, right? We have our enemy, the world system, and there are those different aspects of battles that we fight. But in particular, highlighting this one enemy, Amalek, we see

Some important principles about our flesh that we would not forget and put up with things and allow things to continue and allow things to go undealt with in our lives.

but instead dealing with the flesh as is appropriate in the life that God has called us to live. And so we're going to talk about four different things as we talk about your flesh warring against your soul. First, we're going to consider the type of attacks that our flesh, our sinful nature brings against us. The first point is found in verse 18, and that is your flesh attacks without warning.

Here's one of the interesting things that we need to consider about our sinful nature. Your sinful nature, your flesh, doesn't send you a letter in the mail and say, dear sir, I would like you to know that next week I will be mounting up an attack against you. Your flesh does not give you advance notice about the battle that you're about to engage in. In fact,

Your flesh will take advantage of any surprise it can get. Check out verse 17 and 18 again. It says, remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear when you were tired and weary, and he did not fear God.

He calls Israel to remember this battle, this encounter with Amalek. And again, this happened in Exodus chapter 17. You can check that out later on to get some more insights into this. But if you'll just think about the timeline for a moment. Exodus chapter 17 is very early in Israel's journey in the wilderness.

If you back up a few chapters, Exodus chapter 12 and 13, that's the Passover, the final of the 10 plagues where God is leading his people out of Egypt in a very dramatic way and incredible things are happening supernaturally as God is working miracles to deliver his people. And so they come out of Egypt that night on Passover night.

And then in Exodus chapter 14, they cross over the Red Sea and they, you know, have the walls parted. The army of Egypt is destroyed. They cross over the Red Sea. It's Exodus chapter 16, where they first become hungry and God provides manna. And so it's very early, right? They just left. It's like they've had their first meal. And now Exodus chapter 17, they have their first battle.

But the thing that God is highlighting here is, as you think about this timeline, Israel was not prepared for this battle. They didn't even know they were at war. They knew that they were going to go to battle into the promised land. God had told them about the inhabitants of the promised land, and they were going to have to deal with those inhabitants. There was going to be some battles and wars that would take place. And that was still a far time, you know, far away, far distance away, far time away. And they were going to have to deal with those inhabitants.

Here they are. They're just like barely delivered, just barely had their first meal. And then all of a sudden they find themselves in a war that they didn't know they were fighting. In a battle that they didn't even know was going on. They heard about it as, you know, word spread through the ranks. It was something that caught them off guard and they were surprised about. Now, if I sneak up behind Pastor Sisko and smack him on the head and take him down, I might have a chance.

But if I try to come at him face on, I'm in trouble, right? There's no way I could do it. Dozens of people have tried to take down Pastor Sisko. They can't do it. But if you can catch him off guard, I remember one time we were doing baptisms and

And Sisko gets a little bit freaked out when we're doing baptisms at the beach. And it's not a very spiritual thing to do, but after the baptisms were over, Sisko was heading back to the beach ahead of me because he was in a hurry to get out of the water. And so I came up behind him and I, boom, took him down. And that was the only way I could do it. If I caught him off guard, if I caught him by surprise, he didn't know there was a battle. That's what Amalek did to Israel.

They're just kind of like enjoying the honeymoon of, wow, we're out of Egypt. Wow, God's provided manna. Things are going great. And it's like, we have a whole new life ahead of us. They're not ready for that battle. They're not even aware that there is a battle. All of a sudden, it tells us that Amalek sneaks up behind them. They don't march out there with their troops and their banners and present themselves in battle array and say, all right, let's fight. They sneak up behind Amalek.

So that the leaders aren't aware of what's going on. Most of the people aren't aware of what's going on. And they find there's these stragglers at the end of the congregation. And they begin to take them out little by little, one by one. It's a dirty and underhanded way to fight. Now, of course, war is not pretty no matter what. There's going to be casualties. There's going to be ambushes.

not all war is going to be, you know, like present ourselves ahead of time, announce war. Not all war is going to be like that. But to attack a people who don't even know they're at war, there's a special level of evil in that regard. It's a surprise attack of those who don't even know they're at war. And that's what Amalek did. They came up from behind and attacked Amalek.

the stragglers, the people who were at the back of the pack without warning. This provides for us an important reminder, a good picture of the way that our sinful nature operates. Our sinful nature is not a gentleman. I'm going to let you know, hey, there's some temptations that I'm going to be craving. There's some things that I'm going to be desiring. There's some things that I'm going to be presenting to you. Our

If it was possible for our sinful nature to devour us completely and cast us away from God without us ever even knowing that there was a battle or an opportunity to repent and turn to God, that's what our flesh would do. That is the condition of our sinful nature. It is against God. And there is this battle within because, well, as Paul describes it later on, he talks about the flesh warring against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. There is this battle that rages within and

As believers in Jesus Christ, we have victory promised, but we still have this battle. And we must not forget, just like any type of battle or war, there's, you know, waves of battle. There's seasons. There's attacks that come, and then there's times of reprieve. And sometimes in the times of reprieve, we can get lulled into a false sense of security.

It's why we need to be reminded that our flesh wars against our soul because we can find ourselves in a position where we are unprepared, not expecting a battle, not expecting a trap, not expecting a temptation, not expecting this kind of thing to be at work in our lives. And then all of a sudden, before we know it, without warning, here we are in the midst of a very serious battle with our flesh.

Pastor John Corson puts it this way. He says, There can be the temptation, the tendency in our lives to get to those kind of, you know, seasons, those periods where

We're blessed with a little bit of relief from the battle, but we need to be encouraged and warned not to let our guards down, thinking that the battle is over, thinking that the war is done. Listen, this side of eternity, we are always going to be engaged in this war, and your flesh is going to be fighting against you until the very, very end, even when you're really old and decrepit like David Burnt. He still has to battle the flesh.

Even when your hair's falling out and you're all gray and you're wrinkly, there's still the battles of the flesh. You guys remember David Skarin, that old guy? He walked with the Lord for years, right? And someone asked him one time, like, hey, so when does the battle with lust end for a guy? And he's like, I don't know. I've never come to the end of it. And if you want to hear a good impression, you can ask David. He can do it pretty good. But to the very end. And sometimes we forget and we get lulled into these times of

thinking that it's not so much that we make a deliberate choice and we would say hey yeah my battles with the flesh are over but the way that we're living the attitude of our heart and the mindset that we have is indicating that we've been lulled into this idea that i don't really have to battle like that like i used to any longer that that's not a issue anymore

Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12 says, therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Again, there's this warning. There's this call to pay attention. In 1 Corinthians 10, the Apostle Paul is talking about the Old Testament record. And he's saying, look, all of these things happened to teach us not to lust after things like they lusted.

Learn from their example where they failed, where they fell short in lusting after these things and lusting after those things. And it's a common battle for all of us, he explains. And so if you think you stand, take heed lest you fall. The next verse goes on to say, no temptation has overtaken you except what is such as is common to man. That these are things that we all face. And this morning, the Lord would have you be reminded that

Your sinful nature. Maybe you're facing a battle right now and you're very aware of the presence of your sinful nature. And so you're in the midst of that battle, but maybe you're kind of in the in-between battles season. And you need to be on the alert and recognize your flesh is looking for an opportunity to come and bring the battle once again, to cause you to rebel against God, to turn from God.

It's looking for an opportunity to attack when you're not expecting it without warning. Continuing with that line of thought, and still here in verse 18, we get point number two, and that is your flesh attacks when you're weary. Not only is it looking for that surprise opportunity, but also it's looking for that moment of weakness, that time of weariness that

And that, as far as your flesh is concerned, is an opportune time to try to take advantage of you. Again, verse 18 says, Can you picture the nation of Israel in the wilderness? They've crossed over the Red Sea. They're beginning their journey. And

Even at the beginning of the journey, there's already people who are tired and the congregation is moving. God is leading them. They have the cloud over them by day, the fire by night. God's leading them. But there are some people are just having a really hard time keeping up with the congregation. There's just some people who I'm sure God wasn't causing them to run, right? God wasn't like making them jog for 20 miles a day. God was doing it the right pace and

But there were some who were just not able to keep up with the rest of the congregation. And so there were those who fell to the back, the stragglers. Why did they fall to the back? It says that they were tired and weary. It's all the overweight people and the people who were sick and they're panting like, hold up, hold up.

I always like that picture in the Lord of the Rings, you know, with the dwarf, you know, like, hey, we're natural sprinters, but we can't run long distance. You know, like everybody else is running ahead and you got this one, you know, chubby guy running in the back. And that is who Amalek focused on. Again, they didn't come towards the front where the strong warriors would be. They didn't come a direct attack where, hey, give me your best. We'll give you our best and we're going to have a really good fight. No, no. They were looking to exploit Amalek.

the weariness and the weakness, a moment of fatigue, and those who were unable to defend themselves, they were looking to exploit this moment to take those people, their possessions, what they had, and to destroy them. Now again, war is not pretty no matter what. And there's going to be ambushes, there's going to be casualties, but it's a whole nother level when there is deliberate attacks on the sick, on the weak, on

on the civilians, on the women and the children and the elderly. And we recognize that those are especially wrong types of warfare, right? But that is the type of warfare that our flesh engages in. Your flesh attacks when you're weary. And you need to be aware that times of weariness are opportunities as far as the flesh is concerned.

Your enemy waits for you to be tired. Now, you can think about this in a variety of ways. First of all, physically. And sometimes just physical fatigue and exhaustion. Although we usually attach our sinful nature to the idea of this physical body, it's actually not a direct connection. The sinful nature is a lot deeper than just the physicalness. It is this desire to rebel against God that is deep within us.

And it combines and it exploits our physical nature so that when we're physically tired, many times that's when our defenses are down. And we are most vulnerable to attack at that time and to give in to temptations that our flesh will be craving and sin that our sinful nature will be desiring. And we need to be conscious of this reality. It's not just the physical tiredness, but

there's also emotional fatigue. And when you're worn out and drained emotionally, when you're just a wreck internally, that is many times what your flesh would consider an opportunity to take advantage of you and take you out, cause you to rebel against God, to sin against God. Your flesh is not interested in a fair fight.

Again, it's not going to send you a letter. It's not going to send you a challenge. Let's meet on this day and let's battle. It's not going to, you know, prearrange and schedule the time. It's going to be looking for opportunity to take you out before you have an opportunity to mount a defense and to prepare for the battle. When you're tired, when you're weary, when you're worn out, when the worst thing that's ever happened in your life hits you,

Your flesh doesn't say, oh, wow, you're having a really bad day. I'm going to back off for a little bit, kind of give you some breathing room, you know, let you recover a little bit. No, your flesh says, wow, that's the worst day of your life. That's a good opportunity for me to try to get you to turn from God, to ignore what God has said, to disregard the instructions of the Lord. You can't trust your flesh is the point.

Your sinful nature is still there. It's looking for that opportunity. Again, we have sometimes those seasons of reprieve where we don't feel that battle, that struggle so much. And we need to recognize that, well, as we have another season of difficulty, hardship, sorrow, weariness, fatigue, doubt, whatever, you know, things that we go through in this life, those are occasions for the flesh to rear up

and to begin to intensify its battle against you. You know, sometimes we can be lulled into this idea of, wow, you know, I used to really struggle with that. I'm blessed, you know, I don't really struggle with that anymore. And maybe you're thankful, and maybe you even say, oh, thank you, God, I don't struggle like that any longer. And you can be tricked sometimes into thinking that battle's done. I will never struggle with that ever again. I have some bad news.

Those struggles, those battles that you fought fiercely for years, you know, maybe in your younger Christian life, you had those battles. Maybe before you became a Christian, you had those battles. And later on, you think, yes, victory, I've done it. You know, we don't battle with that any longer. Be careful. Your flesh is still looking for opportunity to bring you back into bondage of that thing that once held you captive.

And you could be there thinking, la-di-da-di-di, la-di-da-di-da, everything's great, and then all of a sudden, you're tired, you're weary, and bam, your flesh mounts a full attack and you find yourself back immersed in things that God has delivered you from. Remember this.

how Amalek treated you, God says. Remember how your sinful nature has taken advantage of you in the past. Remember how these attacks have come and recognize that this is the tactics of your sinful nature. One final aspect to consider about your flesh and the tactics that it uses in its attack against you. Still in verse 18, your flesh does not fear God. Your flesh, your sinful nature does

does not fear God. Again, in verse 18, well, let's go back to verse 17, just to refresh our memories. It says, remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear when you were tired and weary, and he did not fear God. Remember, he says, don't forget. You're going to be tempted to forget and time is going to pass.

and it's going to kind of lessen the severity in your mind you know at first you're like horribly offended like how could they treat us that way and attack us that way and you know after some years pass it's like yeah you know that was kind of bad but you know it's a long time ago remember he says don't don't let it become casual don't let it become lessened recognize when amalek came against you he did not fear god

Your sinful nature, when it comes against you, when it's held you in its grip in the past, when it comes against you again in the future, it does so in a way that it's not regarding at all the holiness of God, the judgment of God, who God is and who you are to God. And that's why the sinful nature behaves the way that it does in that

Well, it's sneaky, it's dirty, it's underhanded, it's looking for weaknesses to exploit, it's looking for ambushes to set, it's looking for those opportunities to sabotage you in your relationship with God and your walk with him. And the flesh operates this way because it does not fear God.

I thought Thomas Nelson had a good thought about this idea of fearing God. It says that he did not fear God is a way of saying that he had no regard for the special status of God's people. Amalek didn't look at Israel and think, wow, Israel is so special to God. Look how God has miraculously delivered them out of Egypt. Look how God's brought them through the Red Sea and provided for them manna. Like they are so special to God. Amalek did not look at Israel and think that way.

Now, the reality is, the truth is, you are very special to God. You are so special to God that he loved you so much that he was willing to provide himself the sacrifice to deal with your sin, to deal with the issues of your flesh, to receive the punishment and the penalty for the behavior of your sinful nature. But your sinful nature does not respond to that and say, oh, wow, you're so special to God.

I better back off. I better go light. I better not, you know, tempt you too severely or tempt you to do something too bad. You know, I'll only tempt you with like white lies, you know, not black lies. Like I'll only tempt you with like little sins. I won't tempt you with big sins because you're special to God. Your sinful nature is not just trying to get you to trip up a little bit. Your sinful nature is warring against your soul and it seeks to turn you to outright rebellion against God.

does not fear God. Your sinful nature is opposed to God. You have this battle within because your flesh is seeking to run from God, to rebel against God. It's a serious battle. There's serious things at stake. Eternity hangs in the balance in this war against your soul. Remember

when Satan came into the presence of the Lord to accuse Job, it paints some important pictures for us to consider. Here's God saying, have you considered Job, right? He's a righteous man. There's no one like him, man. He loves me. He walks with me. God could say, Job is precious in my sight. And Satan had no problem to walk right in there. Hey, that guy who's precious to you, that guy you love like crazy, that you love more than that guy right there. And he brings accusations against Job.

He brings schemes. He brings attacks and afflictions and a desire to absolutely destroy. Satan was not just trying to get Job to trip up a little bit. Satan was trying to take Job out completely. And Job encounters, you know, the first round of afflictions. And then in chapter two, Job goes, or Satan goes back before God. And notice, Satan is not afraid of

To enter into the presence of God and to God's face say, yeah, that guy right there, I'm gonna get him to curse you. That's what you call not fearing God. And your flesh has that same attitude, that same mindset. Your sinful nature is not afraid to look God in the face and say, I don't care what you say, God. I'm gonna get what I want. I'm gonna do what I want. You need to recognize and you need to understand and don't forget that you have this sinful nature that

that is against God in a severe way. And that's why there's this war. That's why there's this battle. Because your spirit, as you believe in Jesus Christ and are born again, you have the Holy Spirit desiring the things of the Lord. And you have your spirit with the Holy Spirit combined in battle against your flesh, your sinful nature. And it rages within. Don't forget about that. Don't get lulled into...

an idea, a false sense of security that the battle is over. But you need to like be prepared and mount up and engage in the battle. Now, how do we do that? How do we fight this battle? How do we deal with an enemy that is so internal and is willing to treat us in this way, attacking without warning?

exploiting our weaknesses and our wearinesses and our times of devastation? How do we fight this kind of battle with an enemy within that doesn't fear God and that desires to destroy our lives? How do we fight this kind of battle? Well, that's what I want to finish off with. Point number four, as we look at verse 19, is battle your flesh with God's rest. There is a serious battle. It is a war that rages.

But we need to learn how to fight this war, to fight this battle in the right way. And if we try to fight it the wrong way, we're going to be setting ourselves up to continue to fail. But we need to learn to fight these battles, to answer this war that is going on with, well, something that is kind of counterintuitive to us. And that is with rest, with rest that comes from God. Again, looking at verse 19, here's what it says.

Therefore, it shall be when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven, you shall not forget. Now think through the picture here. Think through the events that Moses is describing. It's been a few years now since Exodus chapter 17.

In fact, it's been 40 years since Exodus chapter 17, where they had that first encounter with Amalek. And they had a battle with Amalek. And you might remember that battle because it's the time where Moses goes up on the mountain. He sends Joshua onto the battlefield with the army. Moses goes on the mountain. And as the fight is going on, Moses has his arms extended. It's a picture of intercession of prayer for the army. And as long as his arms are up and extended over the battlefield...

Israel is experiencing victory on the battlefield. But over time, Moses' arms get tired. They begin to kind of drop a little bit and drop a little bit. He's like, man, I gotta rest. And he's like shaking them out. And all of a sudden, Israel's losing on the battlefield. Oh, no, no. And he puts him back up. And then Israel's winning on the battlefield.

And they're like, okay, but now I'm getting tired again. And you know, getting tired faster now because I've been having him up for a while. Okay, he drops him. And all of a sudden there's losses and defeats. And the tide of the battle is changing depending on whether or not Moses is able to lift his hands. And so finally, Aaron and Hur, you remember, they prop themselves up. They give Moses a rock. They hold up Moses's arms so that his arms can continue to be extended and Israel can have the victory that day over Amalek.

Now that battle was the result of Amalek's sneaky, underhanded, dirty tactics of trying to take out Israel from the back without warning, without exploiting their weaknesses and all of that. But it wasn't the end. They didn't defeat Amalek in a way that all of Amalek was destroyed and they would never fight them ever again. They won the battle for that day. But God says the war is going to go on for a long time. Now,

Verse 19, therefore it shall be when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, then will be the time to blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget. God is saying, look, Exodus chapter 17, that's not the time to stop everything and finish this war. We're going to finish this battle. We're going to have victory in this battle and

We're going to put a pin in that thought right there. And we got to move on now to the other battles that God has for us. And then later on, after it says God has given us rest. So we're in the promised land for the nation of Israel. They're in the promised land. They've had the wars with the inhabitants of the promised land. They fought those battles that they knew were coming and that they were prepared for, that God had set before them. And when they have a rest from those battles, right?

when they have experienced victory in those battles, then God says, now go back and deal with Amalek. At the time was not right then in Exodus 17 to deal with Amalek, but later on, you're gonna have to come back and fight this battle. Later on, when there's some victories, later on, when there's a break from the other battles that you will face, later on, you'll need to come and fight these battles again.

when you have God's rest. And again, it paints a really important picture for us. You know, sometimes we want things dealt with in our timeframe. You have this temper and man, you want to be done with it. You wish it was resolved right now and you would change the schedule if you could and say, let's just drop everything. Let's deal with this. Get rid of this. I never have to deal with this again. But many times that's not the way that God has called us. That's not the way that it's going to be unfolding in our life.

Many times you're going to have to win that battle and move on to other things, other battles that God has for you. But that doesn't mean you're never going to battle that ever again. And there's going to be times where you have to go back and fight those battles again later on. But you do so from a position of rest. For us, as we consider this idea, battling with God's rest, I'm going to just kind of put it simply. Here's how you conquer the flesh.

Hopefully you know it already, but let me remind you of what you already know. Here's how you conquer the flesh. You feed the spirit. You feed the spirit to conquer the flesh. The reality is you can't conquer the flesh. You can't battle the flesh with your efforts. You can't battle the flesh with your works. You can't battle the flesh with your discipline. You can't battle the flesh with your determination. You can't battle the flesh with your laws, right?

Like, why don't we just pass a law? Thou shalt not lose your temper. Okay, now, whew, I'm set free. I don't have that battle no more. I'm so thankful. You could try that. It doesn't work. Paul tells us later on in Galatians that the ideas of legalism have no value in the battle against the flesh, the indulgences of the flesh. They sound great. They're super convincing, but they don't actually help in your fight against this flesh. How do you have victory? How do you win this battle?

You have to start with the rest of God. Now, there's a lot of aspects to this that we could consider. I'm gonna walk you through some 27 different types of rest. No, I'm just kidding. I'm gonna throw out a couple, but I wanna ask you to consider this in a particular way. Since we're in this season, we're in the summer, right? Summer vacations are at hand. You're gonna have perhaps some times of rest, maybe some special days off, special days that are a break away from the normal routine, right?

And what I would encourage you to do and what I would encourage you to consider is that those times of rest, those days of rest are days and times that God wants you to feed your spirit so that you can battle the flesh. Again, thinking about verse 19, he says, when the Lord is your God has given you rest from all your enemies all around. Now for Israel, they were going to go into the promised land and there was going to be

for a while, just like normal everyday battles. You wake up in the morning, oh, hey, good morning, love. Hey, good morning. What are you going to do today? Same thing I do every day. I'm going to go to battle against the Hittites or the Canaanites or the Perizzites. That was their daily routine. We have to go to battle. We talked about that maybe last week or the week before. Those battles that God had called them to fight against the inhabitants of the land. But

For a season, those were their normal everyday battles. And for you and I, we have normal everyday battles, right? You go to work and it's a battle. In fact, it's a battle before you get to work. You get on the freeway and it's a battle, right? You come home and there's battles. And you go to family functions and there's battles. And you participate in events and you look at politics. And, you know, there's battles that we fight. There's battles that we face. There's attacks of

our enemy, Satan, and the world. There's those kinds of battles that we face on a regular basis, on a day-to-day basis. They're just part of everyday life. You have to fight battles. But then we also have those times off, those times of rest. And you know, one of the tendencies for us in those days off, in those times of rest is, well, to just rest. Maybe you picture like a hammock in your head when you think of this idea of rest, right? It's a good picture. It's

And I would say God wants you to rest and have those opportunities to rest. But at the same time, I would encourage you to consider that God wants you to not just rest in the sense of relaxing, not causing yourself to struggle or work or do anything you don't want to do. But those times of rest are also times where you need peace.

To invest in your spiritual life. I mean, maybe your day off, you just think of it as, well, that's the day where I do my honey do's, right? I mean, I work the rest of the days and on this day, that's the day I do all the stuff that my wife wants me to do that I'm not able to get to during the week. And so your day off is your honey do day, right? Well, okay. And probably God wants you to do some of those honey do's. But maybe you need to consider that day off, that time of rest, that

You need to devote some of that to feed your spirit because the battles against the flesh are not won by your efforts, by your techniques, by your disciplines, by your works. The battles with the flesh are won by a surrender to the Holy Spirit. J. Vernon McGee puts it this way. We cannot overcome the flesh by fighting. The only way we can overcome the flesh is by yielding to the spirit of God.

Only the Spirit of God can produce the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. The flesh is seeking to devour us. In Galatians chapter 5, Paul, you know, describes the characteristics of the flesh and of the Spirit and how different they are. There's a huge contrast. And they're the works of the flesh, but it's the fruit of the Spirit. It's what's produced. The characteristics and the nature of God is produced in us by the Holy Spirit.

not by our efforts, not by our works, but by our relationship with God. And God wants you to use times of rest. Not that, you know, okay, you have a day off and, you know, you better be praying all day long in your closet and not do any of those honey do's and, you know, otherwise you're going to lose the battle. No, not, not, it's not one or the other, but it's

But to think about it in a way and to understand that those times of break where you have a break from the regular day-to-day battles, those are opportunities for you to invest in the Spirit, to invest in your relationship with God so that you can be prepared for the battles that are ahead. Paul tells us in Galatians 5, verse 16, I say, "'Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.'"

See, it's that walk in the Spirit that prepares you to not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Sometimes we kind of think of it as in like, okay, I'm experiencing this really strong lust of the flesh, this really strong temptation. And now, like in this moment, okay, now how do I walk in the Spirit from this point? And that's a good thing to consider, and you need to learn how to, you know, exit that temptation. But I think overall, the Lord is saying,

No, no, walking in the Spirit is the preparation for the lusting of the flesh that you're going to experience tomorrow. You know, you do that today. You take this time of rest to invest in the Spirit so that you can be prepared for those lusts of the flesh that are to come. And so as we enter into this summer season, and perhaps you have some special days off, some special, you know, breaks from the normal routine,

I would encourage you to battle your flesh with God's rest. Take some time to rest, to break physically, to have that relaxation. That's good. That's important. God doesn't want to take that from you. But also don't use your time of rest to just indulge your flesh and not even necessarily in a rebellious way. Now, one of my favorite ways to get away is a cruise because you can just kind of go like this and people come and feed you.

People come and do your bed. You don't have to decide where you're going to go. You don't have to find directions. You don't have to, like, you get to decide, do I want to eat in this room or do I want to eat in that room? You know, do I want to eat this delicious thing or that delicious thing? Not, you don't have to do dishes. You know what I mean? Like, it's just like, you get just to just be treated like a king. And in some ways, it's not in a sinful way, but in some ways, it's kind of like just indulging your flesh a little bit.

In a controlled way, right? It's like not in a rebellious against God, I'm going to sin against God, but just like, hey, I'm not going to do anything I don't want to do. I'm not going to exert myself when I don't want to. I'm not going to, you know, have to work at anything. I'm just going to relax and not do anything that I don't want to do. I'm going to only do things that I want to do and feel like doing, and I'm not going to do anything that I don't feel like doing. And

And that's great. And God wants those kinds of times in our lives. And they're not bad in that sense. But we do need to consider if our times of rest are only those kinds of times, we're not preparing ourselves for the battles that are to come. And there needs to be an investment in our walk with God. We need to feed the spirit, not just relax the flesh, right? We need to feed the spirit and draw near to God.

And God will use that, those times of rest that God gives us, our times that God is preparing us for the battles with the flesh that are to come. And so God says, when that time comes, when you have that rest, then go deal with Amalek. Now again, God hasn't called us to go and fight directly with our flesh. Like we don't beat ourselves physically. We don't fight against the flesh in some tactics in that way. But we walk in the spirit of

And then the spirit deals with the flesh. We fight, we win these battles, not by a direct fight against the flesh, but by a pursuit of the things of God. And that's where it becomes very tempting to forget about the battle with Amalek. Again, here in chapter 25, God is saying, remember what they did to you and you shall not forget. Don't forget, take it seriously. Because later on, if you think about

where Israel was in the promised land, Amalek was down to the south, nearby where they came out of Egypt. They weren't right in their face, like their other enemies. And so it would be tempting for them to kind of, yeah, they're far away and, you know, just let it go. Not a big deal. Water under the bridge, the past is the past, you know, all of those thoughts that we might consider. God says, you're not to have that kind of attitude towards your flesh. You're

Don't allow that to creep in and to think that that battle is over and that it was a long time ago. But you need to be preparing now for that battle that is to come by walking in the spirit, by feeding your spirit with spiritual things. Later on, this command will come in 1 Samuel chapter 15. God gives them the command finally. All right, now's the time. You're in the land, you're settled. You've got rest from your enemies. Now go deal with Amalek. And God issues that command to King Saul.

And you know what King Saul did? He forgot. He went to battle, but he forgot about the seriousness of the battle that he was called to. He was relaxed. And so he went and fought. They had a battle. He didn't finish it. He didn't deal with Amalek the way that God had instructed him to. He dealt with it casually because he forgot. He wasn't prepared for that battle because...

Well, already up before that, Saul was not pursuing the heart of God. We saw that in great depth on Wednesdays as we went through 1 Samuel. He was not pursuing God's heart. And it put him in this place where when it came time to fight Amalek, fight the flesh, and he wasn't ready. And he failed miserably. And God specifically dealt with him because of his failure to battle Amalek the way that he was called to.

I would encourage you to consider this morning. Your flesh wars against your soul. Don't forget. Don't be like Saul and then take it casually and hear, okay, yeah, I know there's this battle and stuff, but you know,

Just get there one day at a time, you know, no big deal. I mean, we'll just fight the fights we fight and hey, if I sin a little bit or whatever, like that's why there's grace and you know, we just have this casual cavalier, relaxed, lulled into a sense of security idea. Like I don't have those battles anymore. You know, that is not,

The way that God wants you to approach this. Now, God also doesn't want you to be consumed and terrified with, you know, your flesh. Like, no, no, he has the victory. But you have the victory. You walk in victory as you walk with him. Rest is how we find victory in this battle against the flesh. It's counterintuitive when you think about how the flesh works. It's seeking to surprise and attack without warning and taking advantage of our weariness and not fearing God and coming at us in blatant ways.

blasphemous ways. And the way that we attack back, the way that we fight is from a position of peace and rest in the presence of God. You think about war and I think about men screaming and loud, but that's not the picture. The picture is you run to God and you walk with God and stay close to God. Rest in the work of God. Now there's some other areas of rest to think about

in this battle. You need to rest in the work of Jesus Christ, particularly in dealings with the flesh. Listen, we all fail in areas of the flesh. The most spiritual of us will be caught off guard by the flesh, be surprised when the attack comes, and find themselves in the midst of sin before they even realize there's a battle. That's going to happen to every one of us. And in those occasions, you need to rest in the work of Jesus Christ.

in the work of forgiveness that he's accomplished for you upon the cross, in the doctrine of justification that it is the work of Jesus Christ that makes you right before God, not by your works, not by your efforts, and even when you fail, you're righteous before God because of what Christ has done. Don't try to work to put yourself in a pleasing status before God. You are pleasing to God because you believe in Jesus. You need to rest in the work of Jesus Christ.

And that scene where Moses is on the mountain with his arms raised over the battlefield, right? Remember that scene? Jesus is on a mountain called Golgotha, his arms stretched out. And the author of Hebrews says that he ever lives to make intercession for us. Rest in the work of Jesus. He's praying for you. He's interceding on your behalf. His work is complete for you so that even when you fail in those battles with the flesh, you're forgiven.

and you have access to God, you're able to walk with God and draw near to God, rest in the work of Jesus Christ. Rest in the leading of the Holy Spirit, the direction of your life. You know, sometimes when we experience battles with the flesh or any kind of battles, we begin to wonder, maybe I'm like way off base. Maybe I'm not where God wants me to be, and that's why there's all these battles. And sometimes we do experience difficulty and affliction because we're running from God. But you know,

A lot of times we're experiencing battles because we're right where God wants us to be. We're right where we need to be. Here in verse 17, it says, remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt. Now, let me ask you, why was Israel coming out of Egypt? Because God was leading them out. Why were they on the way? Because God brought them there. Why were they at that position in the wilderness where they were vulnerable to attack?

they were following god god's cloud was leading them they were right where god wanted them to be don't think that the attacks of the flesh are an automatic indication that you're not where god wants you to be you might be right where god wants you to be rest in god's leading rest in the leading of the holy spirit let god show you where to go and how he wants you to go the attack doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong necessarily

Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness where he was tempted for 40 days. And that's so like kind of weird for us to think about, but that's the reality. Sometimes the path that God has us on is a path where we're going to experience afflictions and difficulties and temptations. Rest in the leading of God. Trust in God and let him direct you. Another aspect of rest you could consider is to rest in God's timing.

Rest in God's timing. Again, sometimes we want to fight battles that God is saying, that's not for you to fight right now. We'll fight. We'll deal with that. But there's some other areas to address first. There's some other things, a different direction you need to go first. And then later on, we'll come back and take care of this. Sometimes we can be out of sorts because we want things dealt with in our time frame, what we want, when we want it. We need to rest. Hey, God's going to finish the work that he began in you.

The fact that you still have the battle, the fact that there is still a struggle, that's not necessarily an indication that you're not where you're supposed to be, that you're, you know, God's not at work and he's not doing what he wants to do and you're not experiencing that completion of the work that he's begun in you. Rest, trust, God is at work. He is leading you. As long as you're seeking him and walking with him, hey, he's leading you. Trust in him, rest in him. And it is in that that you will find victory over the flesh.

It is through that process of seeking God and walking with God. Again, we don't fight this battle by raging, by screaming, by shouting, by making laws, by being determined, by being disciplined, by, you know, our efforts. You need to remember about this war, this battle that's raging against your soul and the viciousness of your flesh so that you spend time with God, that you feed your spirit and you invest in your relationship with him. Let's pray.

God, I pray for each one of us today, Lord, and the things that we are facing this day and this week, the things that we're not aware of yet, but you know about. Lord, there's some ambushes ahead. There's some things that we're not thinking about and perhaps thinking we'll never battle in that area again. And yet we will find ourselves in the midst of a struggle once again, because our flesh wars against our soul.

God, as you gave this exhortation to Israel to not forget and to remember how Amalek treated them, Lord, I pray that you would help us to remember the ways that our sinful nature has deceived us. Help us to remember the grip that it once had upon us, Lord. And it's the grip that it desires to resume and to gain control again. And so, God, I pray that you would help us to be prepared for the battle by seeking you.

by even using our times of rest to draw near to you, to fill our lives with more of you, to learn to love you more, to learn to know you more, to learn to walk with you in a closer way. God, I pray that you would help us to rest in your grace, to rest in your mercy, in your goodness, and in your love. Lord, let it be opportunity for us to draw near to you, recognizing that, Lord, you are the one who's able to give us victory today.

and to finish the work that you began in us. And so, Lord, would you do that work as we draw near to you? In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.