The Amalekite Spirit…(in me)
Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget! (Deuteronomy 25:17-19 NKJV)
I live in a culturally diverse area. It would be easy for me to read these verses and dismiss them as not relevant to my life because I am certain that no Amalekites live in my neighborhood. But maybe I can find some if I abandon my literalist tendencies and view these verses through spiritual eyes. First, let’s review Amalekites.
The Amalekites were the descendants of Amalek. He was the grandson of Esau, Jacob’s brother. The Amalekites became a semi nomadic people who had two opposing primary characteristics, they were cruel and they were cowardly. Warfare in the Old Testament was a very cruel thing in our modern eyes, even when the Armies of Israel fought. But the Amalekites were cruel cowards. When Israel was on the Exodus from Egypt, they just trudged along in one huge group. The old, the sick and often children lagged behind. In Exodus 17, the Amalekites revealed their cruel and cowardly nature when they attacked the stragglers like hungry wolves, slaughtering the weak when no one was nearby to help them. God condemned them and pledged to wipe them from existence. Everywhere they appear in the biblical narrative, these same two characteristics, cruelty and cowardace, also appear. It seems they never repented.
The Amalekites first appear in Exodus, then a few times throughout the Old Testament, and they appear again in one of the latter books, Esther. In the Book of Esther, Mordecai, a Jew who understood God’s contempt for the Amalekites, refused to bow to Haman because he was an Amalekite. Haman was faithful to the Amalekite tradition of being a cruel coward, and God was faithful to his pledge and His promise to give the children of Israel victory over the Amalekites. Mordecai trusted God’s power over Haman’s apparent favor with the Persian King, and in the end -- 13 Then Esther said, "If it pleases the
king, let it be granted to the Jews who are in Shushan to do again tomorrow
according to today's decree, and let Haman's ten sons be hanged on the gallows."14 So the king commanded this to be done; the decree was
issued in Shushan, and they hanged Haman's ten sons. (Esther 9:13,14 NKJV)
In a spiritual sense, I see my flesh as a cruel and cowardly Amalekite, always seeking a weak place to sneak attack my faith walk. God’s Spirit is at war with the rebellious Amalekite spirit of my flesh. God’s Spirit will never relent and encourages me to battle my flesh wherever it creeps up from behind and tries to attack with the straggling ungodly desires of my heart that have not yet been firmly re-rooted in the Spirit of the Living Lord, Jesus. God has pledged to never abandon this battle as I am sanctified by the Spirit. From the day I was saved until the day I go to be with the Lord, the battle of flesh vs spirit will continue.
God could have simply destroyed the Amalekites with fire from heaven, but He chose instead to challenge the Israelites to learn to recognize and destroy them wherever they appeared. God’s Spirit identifies for me the rebellions of my flesh through the witness of the Holy Spirit deep within me and as identified in His Holy Word, and He challenges me to recognize and destroy my cruel and cowardly Amalekite desires.
I guess the Amalekite spirit dwells closer to my home than I first thought.
I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. (Romans 6:19).
Copyright 2012 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be quoted or excerpted without prior written permission if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com
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THE BLACK HOLOCAUST
JOHN W. FOUNTAIN
author@johnwfountain.com
Last Modified: May 6, 2012
Imagine Soldier Field beyond capacity, brimming with 63,879 young African-American men, ages 18 to 24 — more than U.S. losses in the entire Vietnam conflict. Imagine the
University of Michigan’s football stadium — the largest in the U.S. — filled to its limit of 109,901 with black men, age 25 and older. Now add 28,223 more — together totaling more than U.S. deaths in World War I.
Picture two UIC Pavilions packed with 12,658 Trayvon Martins — black boys, ages 14 to
17 — nearly twice the number of U.S. lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now picture all of them dead. The national tally of black males 14 and older murdered in America from 1976 through 2005, according to U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics: 214,661. The numbers tell only part of the story of this largely urban war, where the victims bear an uncanny resemblance to their killers. A war of brother against brother, filled with wanton and automatic gunfire, even in the light of day, on neighborhood streets, where little boys make mud pies, schoolgirls jump rope, where the innocent are caught in the crossfire, where the spirit of murder blows like the wind. It is, so far, a ceaseless war in which guns are often the weapon of choice, and the finger on the trigger of the gun pointed at a black male is most often another black male’s.
The numbers alone are enough to make me cry — to wonder why — we as African Americans will march en masse over one slain by someone who is not black, and yet sit silent over the hundreds of thousands of us obliterated from this mortal world by someone black like us, like me. It is a numbing truth borne out by hard facts:
From 1980 through 2008, 93 percent of black victims were killed by blacks. Translation: For every Trayvon Martin killed by someone not black, nine other blacks were murdered by someone black.
In 2005, — blacks — accounted for 13% of the U.S. population but 49% of all homicides. The numbers are staggering, the loss incomprehensible. Add to the tally of black males 14 and
older slain across the country from 1976 to 2005, another 29,335 (slain from 2006 to 2010), and their national body count rises to 243,996, representing 82% of all black homicides for that 35-year period. What also becomes clear is this: We too often have raised killers. And this war is claiming our sons. But that’s still not the end of the story. Add to that number 51,892 black females ages 14 and older, plus five whose gender was not identifiable, and the total, not counting children, is 295,893 — more than the combined U.S. losses of World
War I, the Vietnam, Korean and Mexican-American wars, the War of 1812 and the
American Revolutionary War.
Is the blood of these sons and daughters somehow less American? Two hundred ninety-five
thousand eight hundred ninety-three . . . Imagine the United Center, Wrigley Field, U.S. Cellular Field and Soldier Field nearly all filled simultaneously with black boys, girls, men and women. Now imagine that twice over. Now imagine them all dead. As far as I can see, that’s at least 295,893 reasons to cry. And it is cause enough for reticent churches, for communities, for lackadaisical leaders, for all people — no matter our race, color or creed — to find the collective will and the moral resolve to stamp out this human rights atrocity occurring right under our noses. Just imagine the human carnage and the toll to us all if we don’t.
I can’t. I won’t.
JOHN W. FOUNTAIN
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