Roy Hession explores the name Jehovah Nissi, emphasizing that God is our banner and source of victory in spiritual battles. He recounts the story of Israel's battle against Amalek, illustrating how Moses' intercession and the support of Aaron and Hur led to Israel's triumph. Hession highlights the internal conflict between the flesh and the spirit, urging believers to recognize and combat the flesh with the help of the Holy Spirit. He reassures that with Jehovah as our banner, we can overcome our struggles and experience God's provision and victory in all aspects of life. Ultimately, he encourages the congregation to trust in Jehovah Nissi for their battles, both internal and external.

Now we continue with our studies on the name of Jehovah and the glorious compounds of that name which are to be found in our Old Testament and as we saw yesterday and I knew as well for the name of Jesus is yet another compound of Jehovah. Before Abraham was, I am. We love him, we worship him. What a privilege to think that ordinary folk like you have been elected by sovereign grace to be one of those to see the Lord and have these sweet revelations made to us. Will you turn to Exodus chapter 17. Exodus chapter 17. Then also followed the experience of the heavenly bread by which they were to live the next years in the wilderness, the manna. And then follows the provision of the water in the desert through the striking of that rock. Now that's a nice lovely story. It pictures for us our Exodus from that old life of sin and darkness and judgment into which we were born. The land of our nativity, Egypt. But we've been brought out of it and we've had the spiritual counterpart of those things I've just mentioned. Then, then, oh dear me, then came Amalek. It was not going to be altogether unhindered. Then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us 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' hands were heavy and they took a stone and put it under him. And he sat thereon and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, the other on the other side. And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. And Jehovah said unto 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 and called the name of it, by the only name he could think of that was appropriate. He called the name of it Jehovah Nissi. Which means, as you will see in the margin of your authorised version, the Lord, my Father. They discovered that their Jehovah was a badder indeed, leading them into glorious victory. For he said, this is Jehovah speaking, because Jehovah has sworn that Jehovah will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Here then is the second of our compound names of Jehovah, Jehovah Jireh yesterday. It was a very inadequate presentation of a huge subject, but you are learning it in experience I trust. Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah becoming to you, just what you need. Sometimes you are kept waiting, but in the nick of time always he is there. Jehovah Jireh, above all, providing a lamb for a burnt offering. God will provide a lamb, has indeed done so. Now here is the next one, Jehovah Nissi, meaning the Lord our badder. Now I have been asking myself, what is a badder? I asked Pam, what did she conceive to be a badder? And we talked together and light began to come. You of course will know exactly what a badder is. No, it is not really a thing you carry in a procession, with a special parade. That is not what a badder was originally. It has become that, a purely ornamental thing. But in olden times, a badder was very much a part of warfare. And when the armies went out to battle, they carried with them a banner. And it had tremendous significance for them, did the banner. It was a symbol to them of the victory which they hoped they would have as they went into battle. And when they did go into battle, they went with the banner. Perhaps the most important thing about an army was not so much its weapons, but a banner. It rallied their hopes. It gave them confidence. And they would defend that banner tooth and nail. For if it was taken, that was the end. That was the symbol. They had been defeated and all was lost. And there have been various pictures I seem to have seen, you know them. Wonderful graphic pictures, old time pictures, of a tremendous battle being waged around the banner. And a few men defending it with their lives. For that banner meant so much. For if it was taken, that was the end. It was defeat. But here it wasn't defeat. It was glorious victory against Amalek. And when it was over, Moses said, we must celebrate it. Let's have a memorial. Come on, build an altar. And they decided there was only one adequate name to put on that altar. Jehovah Nissi. The I Am has proved to be our banner. And because I Am, Jehovah, is what he is, did not suffer loss, neither did the people of Israel. I want to say, dear friend, if Jehovah is your banner, your symbol of victory, which he is, in a sense he has fought the battle beforehand. It needs to be implemented in your life, but the basics have been done. As I prayed in my prayer, a line from a great old hymn, which speaks about that great victory, or sin and death and woe, that needs no second fight, and leaves no second foe. I want to tell you, if Jehovah is your banner, it's not going to suffer loss, and neither are you. You're going to get through. You're going to come through your battle. You're going to come through your trouble. You're going to come through your spiritual need, or your material need. It shall not. It shall not suffer loss, if you have made Jehovah your banner. So you're going to win. You got that? You're going to win. I remember hearing Pam giving her testimony, telling her what she found of this wonderful way of grace. So she said, friends, you see this way, you cannot but win. All right? Oh, you say, tell me more then. Tell me more about that way, in which I cannot but win, where Jehovah is indeed my banner. When I look at the story, Exodus 17, verse 8. Then came Amalek. Turn back to chapter 15, verse 1. Then sang Moses and the children of Israel, when they saw themselves emancipated from Egypt, when they saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore by the action of Jehovah. Then sang Moses, and they had good cause to continue singing, as they had those further experiences of grace on their behalf. But then came a different note. Then came Amalek. And that was another story. This was the first enemy, after the Exodus, which they had met. There is reference to Amalek's attack on them, in Deuteronomy 25, 17. If you want to turn to it, keep your finger in the other. But here it is, Moses, long after the event, is telling the people, remember what Amalek did unto thee, by the way when ye were come forth out of Egypt, how he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary, and feared not God. Then came Amalek. Now, Amalek, by pretty well universal consensus of Bible teachers, I mean Bible teachers, who get right into the word, and think into every aspect, by common consent among Bible teachers, Amalek is to be taken as a type and picture of the flesh. And I want to tell you, you're going to have problems, sooner or later, after the greatest experiences of grace, then comes Amalek. Then there will come that inner foe, with which you've got to contend for all your days. Someone has said, it's the Church of England catechism, it uses the phrase, what did your godfathers and godmothers do, when you were baptised? They renounced all the works of the world, the flesh and the devil. Perhaps you thought that phrase, that trinity, comes from the Bible, it doesn't, it comes from the prayer book. Dear old Cranmer, I like old Cranmer, he was a great boy, and it was a lovely summary of our foes. The world, the external foe. The flesh, the internal foe. The devil, the infernal foe. There's a nice trio to have to face, as you go through your Christian life. And we're thinking of that middle one, the flesh, the internal foe. And there's so much in our New Testaments about this thing called the flesh. All the time it's contrasted with the spirit, flesh and spirit, flesh and spirit. Paul, it's part of Paul's theology, it's part of his terminology. And he tells us that the flesh wars against the spirit. As we see Amalek warring against Israel, so does our Amalek war against that dear Holy Spirit who is being given to us. I refer you to Galatians 5.17, where we say, we read, the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, Galatians 5.17. And these, listen, are contrary the one to the other, so that she cannot do the things that she would. And all the way through, flesh and spirit. Alas and alas, the version of the Scriptures, which most of you seem to have, the NIV, will never translate the word sox, which is the flesh, by that term. For some reason they've got a rooted objection to ever using the word the flesh, or its adjective, carnal. They find that the sinful nature, or the sinful something or other, and the problem is, not merely that they don't like to use that word which they imagine doubtless the modern man wouldn't understand, but when they've put an alternative, they aren't consistent. Sometimes it's a sinful nature, sometimes it's a sinful body, sometimes it's even worldly. They are carnal. And I'm astonished. So rooted are their objection to using this word flesh, or its adjective, carnal, that they say, you are yet worldly. Worldliness is one thing, the flesh is another. To me, this makes the NIV almost unforgivable, or certainly unusable. I lose so many sermons through the NIV. And it doesn't, and there's a whole realm of things. Well, they say people don't understand. Well, I don't understand all that I read in a technical book on electronics. Niall Davis would understand, he owns his living that way, but I don't. But it's a technical book. And this that we've got is a technical book dealing with the greatest science in the world, theology. And there are expressions used at first sight, you don't know what they mean. But keep on reading. And do you know how you get to know the meaning of a word? How do children get to know the meaning of a word? By hearing it again and again in different contexts. And they come up with it. It's quite erroneous for us to say we must have everything in a form easy for the man in the street to understand. Well, the technical books don't speak that way. But if a man's interested in electronics, he's got to get down to it. And we've got the highest wisdom in the world. You'll never be able to read it as you read a newspaper. The flesh, what does it mean? All right, now here we are, here we've got a subject. This is where we inform ourselves because it's so frequently used. And it is this that wars against the spirit. What is the flesh? In order to explain that, I want to go in for a few minutes of what I would call biblical psychology. How is man constituted? What are the constituent parts of his make-up? Well, the Bible division in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 is this, where Paul says, and by the way, you may not have time to turn them up, but pop it down and look it up later on, pop the reference down. 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, I pray God, says Paul, your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless. A tripartite being. Spirit, something quite different, soul, and then something quite different again, body. Now the spirit is the topmost faculty in the human make-up. It is that faculty by which a man holds communion with God and can move and be comfortable in the unseen world. The spirit. The soul is different again. The word for spirit is pneuma in the Greek. The word for soul is psuche from which we get psychology. It's the real you. It's your personality. It's your emotions. You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You are a living soul. That's the real you. Oh yes, the body is only the house the real you lives in. And so there are our three. Spirit, soul, body. Now at the fall, when man committed sin against God, a big thing happened within him. That wonderful topmost faculty called spirit atrophied. Whether it's right to say it died, I'm not quite sure. But it certainly became inoperative. And the man of the world today, his spirit is not really functioning. What he needs is resurrection. And we're said to be resurrected, raised together with Christ. What is raised? That dead spirit. And suddenly you have access to that unseen world. I want to tell you quite frankly, God, the Son and the Holy Spirit is more real to me and I'm sure to you too if you're a believer that's devoted to the Lord than your wife. You've been born of the spirit. And that spirit that was virtually dead is made to live again. The soul, of course, is still there. That hasn't necessarily in itself changed. And the body too, that's still there. But there's another thing that happened at the fall. Not only was the spirit brought to atrophy, if that's the right word, but there came into existence another alien influence called the flesh. You can't say it's exactly a part of man and yet it's in man, the flesh. Now the flesh is that principle which is self-centred through and through, that makes self its centre, makes yourself your gratification. That is very much the product of the fall, the flesh. And what the flesh has done in the case of many of us is to capture the soul. This is what it's done in the man of the world. He's got a soul. He is a soul. He's got some wonderful capabilities and possibilities. There's nothing wrong with the soul. It's lovely in so many cases capable of so much. The question is who's going to control it? And until he's born again, it's the flesh. And all the capabilities of the soul are captured and made to function in a self-ward direction. The central letter of the little word sin is I and it's the flesh that makes a man live with I in the centre. The things he does may be gross. That's the flesh. On the other hand, they may not be gross as normally understood. They may be very proper. They may be even religious. But still, what that man's doing is prompted by self and for self's glory and is done by self's effort and self's schemings. That's the flesh. And the flesh, until we're born again, has captured the soul and made all your lovely capabilities work in a self-ward direction. Then comes the great day of new birth. Hallelujah! And you who were dead, that spirit in you that was dead is made to live. And the Holy Spirit comes to live in your spirit and the whole faculties. You're understanding much of what I'm saying because the spirit is revealing them to you. A natural man wouldn't understand what in the world that fellow's talking about. All right, we understand that. But he's not beyond grace. God can do it. And then, when you're born again, the spirit lives and takes over until Amalek realises what is happening. Hey, he said, I never reckoned on this. I had free play. I could control that man so as I liked. And so we read in Galatians 5 that the flesh takes battle, takes issue with the spirit. I'd like you to turn to Galatians 5 and see it. It's very important at this juncture. Galatians 5, verse 17. It assumes that the person concerned has been born of the spirit and the flesh is not going to let that situation remain untroubled. The flesh lusts against the spirit because it wants to possess the soul which the spirit is now possessing. But, oh, thank God, the spirit doesn't let that remain unchallenged from the other point of view. There are times when the flesh lusts against the spirit, the flesh comes back again and I'm acting like the old I used to be. Then it is the spirit reverses the process. The spirit lusts against the flesh and he challenges you. He convicts you. That wasn't as a Christian should be. That was the flesh! And he doesn't let you go until you repent and back to calm again. Then on the other hand the flesh doesn't like it so he tries to come again but every time the flesh comes and seems to gain the upper hand the spirit lusts against the flesh. Now that's your experience. You've known it? This inner conflict in the life of the Christian. I'm so glad the spirit does lust against the flesh. Oh, when I dominates I he comes to convict me and to bring me to repentance. And so it is the believer is one whose spirit has been raised but in whom the flesh remains and as a result there is this conflict between flesh and spirit as to who's going to get hold of me. Am I going to rule? I? Or is Jesus going to rule? And that battle goes on. And of course you've got the deciding vote. Now the man who is not born of the spirit is called in a very important passage we can't look at it just now but I give it to you, pop it down 1 Corinthians 2, 14 to 3, verse 3. The man who's not born of the spirit is called the natural man. And that word natural is the word psychikos to do with the psychology of the soul. As I say, where we get the word psychology psychikos he can appreciate music he loves the organ even stained glass windows can give him a lift. But he's still only a natural man it's psychikos. On the other hand the man whose soul has been dominated by the spirit and is living that way he's called the spiritual man and the Greek is pneumaticos psychikos pneumaticos pneuma being the word for spirit and pneumaticos being the adjective. But where a spiritual man's soul has been attacked and taken over in some degree by the flesh he's called carnal. Please turn the cassette over now do not fast wind it in either direction. Natural spiritual carnal and in the Greek carnal is psychikos that's quite nice you remember that pneumaticos psychikos have I got it right the right way round psychikos is natural psychikos is carnal and pneumaticos is spiritual and so it is when a man comes out of Egypt is born of the spirit and redeemed by precious blood and has many lovely instances of the power of God on his behalf he's rejoicing his soul is dominated by the spirit of God he's in a new realm then comes Amalek and it's always then that the flesh begins to make his fresh approaches it's very often happens after the most exalted experiences in the Christian life then comes Amalek in other words use the Galatian experiences the flesh begins to lust against the spirit who has no right to control that man that I've been controlling so long then comes Amalek and so would that the psychikos element was taken away it isn't I'm born the natural man is the spiritual man but alas the flesh still remains the Amalek still remains and as this story ends when they did win the victory God swore that he would have war with Amalek from one generation to another until he was exterminated and so it is that you have still alas within you the flesh that comes of which God is the sworn enemy he was the sworn enemy of Amalek it says so and I want to tell you that thing in me that sometimes catches and gets me to act in a self-centered way that is the thing of which God is the sworn enemy of the flesh I want to tell you that if you get nothing else from this morning I want you to understand that there is something in you to which God is eternally opposed the flesh the wickedest thing the most terrible thing and one alas which is all too common is the flesh in the service of God the things that happen in our churches the things that I've done the letters I've written the way I've answered the way I've told somebody what I think of them and where they're wrong that's the flesh that for which God has nothing but judgment it's there and you're called not to walk after the flesh but after the spirit saying yes to the spirit when he convicts you of what is flesh and this flesh this self-centered principle will intrude does intrude sometimes yours it is to have the privilege of repenting when it does and finding grace to help in time of need but if you don't repent you're going to go on dominated by the flesh and you will be a Sarkicos Christian a carnal Christian I told you the other day how indignant I felt at Keswick and how I went up to Richard Buse and told him with great indignation that his orchestra were doing what they were asked not to do and so on the Lord said that's the flesh that said that that for which I have nothing but judgment it wasn't the spirit it was the flesh it was Roy Hessian under the domination of the flesh oh how this can intrude yes the more obvious grosser sins of course that's the flesh the sex sins if in thought if not indeed that's the flesh but it's these other things which we sometimes do in the name of God in his service it is the flesh I agreed with God and all the happiness the relief of agreeing with God I agree that in me is something of which you are the sworn enemy I agree and I dealt with it as such God made an effigy of the flesh in the person of his son that was what Jesus became the likeness of sinful flesh and God judged Jesus on the cross he didn't judge Jesus as his son he judged Jesus as the one of whom he was in the likeness me and I agreed with that so can you may you and I be made more sensitive to what is of the flesh especially in the Lord's work I have an itch sometimes to tell somebody when I think they're wrong sometimes we justify it under the phrase I'm walking in the light you're doing nothing of the sort so often you're walking in the flesh and I've done it I've written letters and I had to recognize they were in the flesh and you're not going to get anywhere in the Christian life and yet as you're prepared to deal like that with every expression of the flesh thank God it's potentially judged in the cross and I can say amen to that and then it proceeds to go further than mere intrusions there comes another form of the flesh life and that is the worship of the flesh fantasies ever since I was a boy at school my besetting sin has been fantasies if as a school boy I was watching an athletic match I was in a fantasy I was the best hundred yard sprinter in the world and that sort of thing has subsisted if I go to a concert I'm away in a world of fantasy I'm the bestest musician and when it comes to preaching most shameful of all those fantasies Billy Graham just isn't in it in my fantasies listen God has helped me to call it sin the flesh and you know I find I have to say yes Lord it's sin several times a day sometimes it becomes such a habit I've given up repenting much of it and it's almost part of my inner life and those are the days when coldness comes and you and I have got to recognise it this is the flesh lusting against us maybe this is not your problem it's Roy's I like that phrase about the sin that does so easily beset us I'm longing for a sort of intimate fellowship meeting where we will each tell one another what is the sin that so easily besets us I think I know more than one and I'd be quite willing in such a fellowship to tell them this is it this is the thing about which I need to repent more than anything else what is yours some form of the flesh now here's this battle between Amalek and Israel but this isn't the subject it's the victory that God gave how did victory come to Israel in their battle with Amalek well you've just read it Moses was up there in the mount lifting up hands praying and Joshua was down there in the valley leading the formations against Amalek and as long as Moses held up his hands in prayer Israel prevailed but when he got too tired to hold them Amalek prevailed and so Aaron and her propped the old boy up and kept his hands going and as he they did that they discomforted Amalek I like that phrase in the author discomforted that's a nice phrase I should say they're putting it mildly they were roundly defeated in other words it was a joint victory on the human level between Moses and Joshua so it is with us a joint victory first on the man up there on the part of a man up there because he hath an unchangeable priesthood he is able also to save then to the uttermost that come unto God by him because he ever liveth his hands grow not weary to make intercession for us the man up there the fact he's up there at all means there's power in his blood had it not been there was power in his blood he never would have got there sin our sins would have excluded him from the holy place but he paid the price to such a degree that the king of glory was able although he'd been in that dark place of Calvary to enter in and that man up there and the Holy Spirit down here in me and by the intercessions of the Lamb upon the throne and the Holy Spirit you're enabled to get the victory progressively or it wasn't once for all when Moses stopped the battle didn't go too well when he lifted them up it was fine and there are variations that's alright don't worry if there is failure that man up there is offering the symbols of Calvary the wounds the blood on your behalf and they needn't hinder you the fact that on this point and that point you fail admit it and the man up there is on your side and the Holy Spirit within you energising you working in you a holy hatred convicting you helping you to say yes and so there's victory and that banner it doesn't suffer loss or maybe you're not left with a wonderful record why should you have a good track record the only one who matters to have the good track record is Jesus how's he getting on up there for me he's adequate feeble man that I am failing man that I am it's all been anticipated in that finished work the memorials of which he presents to the Father there for me the Saviour stands spreads his wounds and shows his hands and God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me and the Holy Spirit in me convicting me energising me working in me a hatred helping me to repent again and so it is victory comes and we'd just like to make this little further definition about victory I heard it first in Brazil Joe Church and I had been having a meeting for ministers and later we went to a college a theological college from which college some of the students had been to that conference for ministers and one young man told the others in his testimony that the previous term had been a difficult term for him he'd been falling falling falling again into sin but they'd been having prayer meetings for revival and he said do you remember fellas that one night when God seemed to come down we were flattened out in his presence as we prayed into the early hours for revival you know I said I think I've got it I've got it at last a few days later the term ended and he went home and there he was falling to the old sins and in that condition he said I came to this conference and there I learnt and he expressed what he learnt better than we had said it at the meeting he said and I came to see that victory was not me dominating sin but Jesus dominating me and breaking me whenever sin came in and taking me to the cross not me conquering sin but Jesus conquering me breaking me to admit it again and I went to the cross and out I came and delivered him now that is the best definition I ever heard of what real victory is not you dominating sin so much as Jesus being allowed to dominate you and break you when he ever comes and out you come into liberty by the power of his precious blood but I must say that this great victory this banner of the Lord is not merely over this internal conflict between flesh and spirit but every other conflict you have in your circumstances or you are having a hard time Jehovah is your banner it will not suffer loss you are going to come through friend into victory in your domestic troubles Jehovah is your banner you are going to come through oh there may be some times when you feel so discomfited but you hang on to it commit that situation if there is any matter where you have to take the place of the wrong one then take it knowing it is going to be a very safe place to take if it is indeed a fact our Christian service Jehovah is it now frankly I don't know how we are getting on in this week's conference I don't know are we breaking through are we not but I don't know Jehovah Nissi and we are going to conquer and I believe grace is going to so work in our lives that is only going to be one name to celebrate the great things he will ultimately do and that is Jehovah Nissi our banner I want to tell you it is for you for me in our internal life in our exterior life this is the name whereby he shall be called Jehovah Nissi my banner it shall not suffer loss Psalm 60 verse 4 will be our last passage let's look at it Psalm 60 verse 4 I wish someone would introduce invent a word processor or something some other thing whereby I could touch a button and there would come the verse I wouldn't have to keep thumbing through until I find it well we've got some technicians here maybe you can start working on that Psalm 60 verse 4 thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee that it may be displayed because of the truth that's a good passage and Jehovah Jesus is my banner potentially he's already dealt with the foe but as you and I get hold of those old promises say Lord I'm going to ask you live up to your name please he said I'm delighted it's so to do I'm so glad you've given up striving and struggling you're omitting your helpless apart from me I'm going to be your banner your certainty of victory dear one there may be some who are hurting I want to tell you just because you're in the presence of this great Jehovah God you're going to come through you're going to have as much cause to praise him as have multitudes of others and you'll have good cause to write in your diary when he begins to answer and work Jehovah Nissi hallelujah he proved it to me you want to prove it to us and if your internal battle is one of certain temptations listen friend you keep on judging the flesh coming into liberty through the blood and even if the devil brings it back you go on and the day will come you'll find you're strangely free from that besetment of course there'll be another problem that's all right you've got the answer to the one you've got the answer to all of them you go to Jesus again to the cleansing power and you're washed in the blood of the land and there once again with him up there and the spirit down there you're through again well what a wonderful compound name Jehovah Nissi now a closing hymn rejoice in the lord one eight four let us stand and sing amen now rejoice in the lord let his mercy share his righteousness and his glory we'll keep by his blood what should be of him his Jesus our Lord in heaven the world will be our guest that's true through his mercy our Lord in heaven the world will be our guest let us stand rejoice in the lord one eight four let us stand and sing our Lord in heaven the world will be our guest let us stand And if this was a television program, the camera would lift itself from the tent to some mast, and fluttering in the breeze would be Jehovah Nissi. Let us pray. Shall we say the grace together? The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.