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"For Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and
accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking
peace to all his seed" (Esther 10: 3).
This foreshadows the purpose of the Lord and the happy results that will follow the
casting down of all opposition and the introduction of that perfect day when God will be
all in all. The throne of God and the purposes connected therewith have been assailed.
Satan is the arch rebel, and the principalities and powers directly under him are the
Amalekties of the church of the one body. Just as Amalek barred the way towards the
land of promise, so in the heavenly places are the opposing principalities and powers.
There our conflict lies.
This conflict of the age is figured throughout Scripture under various titles. The
Canaanites were to be utterly destroyed by the conquering Israelites. Each one may see
in these ancient foes the sketch of his own. Each dispensation, too, has somewhat
parallel marks. Blessed be God, Satan is to be overcome, and the words of Zech. 14: 21
are to be understood in their fullest and highest sense:--
"In that day there shall be no more Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts."
#54.
A parenthesis and its lesson (Exod. 18:).
pp. 26 - 29
The Companion Bible puts chapter 18: into a parenthesis saying that the actual
event occurred later, and quoting Deut. 1: 7-14 says that Jethro's counsel was given and
taken when Israel was ready to depart from Sinai. If this be true, then we must seek the
lesson intended by the introduction of Jethro's coming and advice immediately following
the conflict with Amalek. By nature we are apt to be extremists. Written in the fly-leaf
of our Bible we have the following extract from the writings of Adolph Saphir:--
"Men undertake to be spiritual, and they become ascetic; or endeavouring to hold a
liberal view of the comforts and pleasures of society, they are soon buried in the world,
and slaves to its fashions: or holding a scrupulous watch to keep out every particular sin,
they become legal and fall out of liberty; or charmed with the noble and heavenly liberty,
they run to negligible and irresponsible living; so the earnest become violent, the fervent
fanatical and censorious, the gentle waver, the firm turn bigots, the liberal grow lax, the
benevolent ostentatious."
The flesh profiteth nothing. It can find no place in the service of God. We should
repudiate it and all its works. Let us, however, not fall into the error of confounding the
flesh with the physical, or of believing that God's service entirely suspends all creature
co-operation. We find in Exod. 17: and 18:, much as they differ, that they have one
item in common, viz., the overtaxed servant Moses, and the provision for his support and
relief.