Our scripture reading tonight is from Deuteronomy chapter 25. Deuteronomy chapter 25. This is a section of scripture where the law is being given through Moses by God to cover a number of circumstances in the life of Israel. And then somewhat unexpectedly, in the midst of rather general laws, we have this very specific law being given to Israel, or we might better say commission being given to Israel. Deuteronomy 25, reading verses 17 through 19. Let us hear God's own word. Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God has given you for an inheritance to possess, You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget. So far the reading of God's word. Some of you know that this last year in the adult Sunday school class we were studying the book of Deuteronomy. And although some of you may have thought we weren't always making speedy progress through the book. In fact, there were any number of things that we had to leave out, particularly towards the end of that study. And these verses were one of the things that we had to leave out. And yet they intrigued me. And so I have spent some time studying them. And you are going to get the fruits of that study. And I hope it will be helpful and maybe even an encouragement. But in coming to this sermon, I remembered a quotation that I had read years ago, a quotation from one of the most liberal Protestant ministers of the early 20th century, a liberal Baptist preacher by the name of Harry Emerson Fosdick. And Fosdick was one of those liberals who said just flat out that he didn't believe everything in the Bible, And he didn't believe everything in the Bible was really that useful. And he said, in effect, in making that point, who really cares about the Jebusites? He said, a minister is pretty naive to think that people come to church eager to hear about the Jebusites. So bearing those words of Harry Emerson Fosdick in mind, I thought that might be a slightly provocative title. Who cares about the Amalekites? Maybe you don't care about the Jebusites, but you ought to care about the Amalekites. That's the point I want to make tonight. Apparently, not as many people care about the Amalekites as I thought. Church, I thought, would be fuller. But nonetheless, here we are, the good and the faithful, to think about the Amalekites. Now, Fosdick's point is that some parts of the Bible are just irrelevant. And I hope that we'll answer tonight that sort of attitude towards the Bible. But I suspect there are some who read this passage in our day and say, you know, this is worse than being irrelevant. This really seems cruel. It seems unfair. that a people should be blotted out at the command of the Lord. How loving is a God who says such things? Is this really the truth about God? And I was pondering that as a, I was thinking, modern problem. This is the kind of problem moderns sometimes have with parts of the Bible. We live in a very tolerant, very loving, sometimes very sentimental age. And I thought, is that kind of question really just a modern problem? And then I went back and read John Calvin's sermon on this passage. And in Calvin's sermon, he says, a man might at first blush think at a hard case that it should be lawful for the Jews to revenge themselves upon the Amalekites. So even Calvin in his day thought at first glance this passage is a little shocking, a little concerning. What does it really say about God? How does it encourage us to think about God? And I hope by thinking about this with you, you'll come to see that the case of the Amalekites is really a significant theme in the Old Testament that is instructive to us and is instructive to us precisely about the character and the work of our God. And so, first of all, I'd like us to consider the point that what we're told about the Amalekites in the scripture is an indication of the justice of God. Our God is a just God. And he manifests his justice in all his doings. So why this concern about the Amalekites? And what historical incident is God referring to in Deuteronomy chapter 25 when he points Israel back to their history coming out of Egypt that needs to be remembered. Well, the incident is recorded for us in Exodus chapter 17. And Exodus 17 is really a very significant chapter in the book of Exodus. The first part of that chapter is where Israel is encamped at Rephidim, you remember, and they don't have any water, and they're complaining about their lack of water, And it's the place where they murmur and complain against Moses. It's the place that God comes to call Massa and Meribah, the place of complaining and quarreling. And it becomes proverbial in the Old Testament. Over and over again, there's references to Massa and Meribah. There are references in the New Testament to it. It was the place in which Israel doubted if God was really with them or not. They tested God, and that testing was their doubt. They're wondering whether God was really with them or whether they would have been better off staying in Egypt. That's the first part of Exodus 17. And the second part, at the point where the people of Israel are so weakened, so weary, so faint, so cast down, so discouraged. It's at that point that they are attacked. And they are attacked by the Amalekites. And the attack is so severe that we have one of the famous stories of the Old Testament. where Moses pleads with God to give victory to his people, and the battle is so severe that Moses has to keep his hands lifted. You remember that story? Keep his hands lifted in prayer. And when he got tired and his hands began to come down, the battle would go against Israel, and he'd have to lift his hands in prayer to reach out to the throne of God for deliverance and for help. And when he got too tired to do it, then her and Aaron came and held his arms up. You remember that story? Well, I think sometimes we remember that story better than we remember who the foal was. Remember who the enemy was. The enemy there was the Amalekites. And Deuteronomy records that the Amalekites had harassed Israel. That in particular they had attacked stragglers that lagged behind. And then when Israel was divided and weak and weary, they attacked in force. Expecting to be successful, but God had delivered his people. God had heard the prayers of Moses. God had looked down on the staff of Moses that he'd held over the Nile and held over the Red Sea. And God had heard and blessed and delivered his people. But God had remembered this Amalekite nation that ought to have known better, that ought to have feared God, because the Amalekites were descendants from Esau. In a sense, these were Israel's cousins. And yet they were a people who wickedly, savagely attacked Israel. And God remembers. God remembers as a matter of justice, we're being told here. Those who had wrongly attacked his people. And what's interesting, when we begin to think about God's justice and his justice as it operates in the world, not just at the end of history, but also in history, One of the things that the scriptures tell us is that God remains amazingly patient. You know, we read a story like this and we say, well, where was their time to repent? Where was the call to repent? Is this really fair? And then you go back and you think a little bit and what you realize is how very patient God is through most of biblical history. We see that perhaps as clearly as anywhere in Genesis chapter 15, where God is speaking to Abraham and making promises to Abraham about the blessings that will come through him upon the people of God. And one of the great promises, of course, is that he will give to the descendants of Abraham the land of Canaan. And then God says to Abraham, but not yet. I'm not giving you the land of Canaan yet. I will not give it until the fourth generation of your descendants, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. God has a timetable in mind for the nations of this earth. And he allows them to exist in rebellion for a time. Until he says the time is up. And think now of the Amorites who were sinful and rebellious against God. God gave them at least four generations to repent. But they would not repent and so filled up their full measure of rebellion. Or in Daniel 8 we read something similar. In the latter day of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, God wrote, There is a limit. His patience does not go on forever. Jesus used similar language with the Pharisees. Do you remember from Matthew 23? Fill up then, he said, the measure of your fathers. And then went on to say, your house is left to you desolate. And Paul in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 talks about those who were trying to hinder him so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. It's as if God has a big bucket in which he collects the sins of the nations. And until that bucket is full, he's patient. He's long-suffering. He sends out preachers of his gospel. He leaves testimonies to himself in the world, but the time comes, the scripture says, when his patience is at an end and when judgment comes, as I said, not just at the end of history, but also in history. It's interesting that in that 83rd psalm, a psalm very much about the enemies of God's people, very much about the judgment that will come upon the enemies of God's people, still in the 16th verse of that psalm we read, Fill their faces with shame that they may seek your name, O Lord. God's judgment is always preceded with God's call to repentance. God's judgment is always preceded by a word of appeal that people should come to him and find mercy in him. But God's word of mercy does not cancel out the reality of his justice or the certainty of his judgment. And the tragedy of human experience is that too often we see that when God is patient and kind, people are forgetful. And when God comes in judgment, then they complain. That's the whole history of Israel, isn't it? Not the whole history, but an awful lot of the history of Israel. In the good days, they forget God and presume on him. And in the bad days, they complain about him. And part of what's being taught us here in this remarkable section is that God does not forget what goes on in history. And there must be a payment. A payment of suffering the judgment of God or of finding a substitute. And part of the reason that it's so important that we keep the category of God as a just God before our minds is that we will soon begin to forget and trivialize the death of our Lord Jesus Christ if we don't have that notion of the justice of God clearly before us. Jesus Christ died to a great purpose, the purpose of doing for us what we could never do for ourselves. The purpose of bearing the judgment of God, bearing the justice of God in our place. And so, to the extent that we trivialize and diminish and ignore the justice of God, we're going to trivialize the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, we ought to care about the Amalekites as a picture of the justice, the persevering justice, the certain justice of God. But this word here in Deuteronomy about the Amalekites is not only to show us the justice of God, but it also shows us the wisdom of God. And it shows us the wisdom of God in this. God had said to his people, you need to blot out the Amalekites. Not just because it was just to do so, they had filled up their measure of rebellion and sin, But it was also wise to do so because if they didn't, the Amalekites would become a snare to them. It illustrates a very important spiritual principle that if we cozy up to the enemies of God, which includes the sins in our own life, they easily and likely become a snare to us. part of our tradition is after communion to have a sermon calling us to rejoice in the grace that Christ has given us in the sacrament but also dedicating ourselves to his service in the future and this point is very important here it's always tempting to be tolerant of our sins and of the enemies of God. And when that happens this passage is reminding us it leads only to trouble and woe and calamity for the people of God. What happens because Israel did not carry out the command of God to destroy the Amalekites. Well, when we read in the book of Judges, we find one judge after another had to confront Amalekites in war, who were troubling the people of God. Ehud had to fight against Amalekites. Gideon had to fight against Amalekites. Jair had to fight against Amalekites. They remained enemies. They remained troublers. But the great trouble came in the days of King Saul, as it's recorded for us in 1 Samuel 15. Samuel came to King Saul and said, It is time for you to fulfill the commission that God gave you to wipe out the Amalekites. And so Saul went off to war. And God gave him victory. And Saul failed to destroy the Amalekites, root and branch, as he'd been commanded. Do you remember who he spared? It's another story that you know better than you think you know. He spared King Agag. Do you remember King Agag? Now, Saul made up a story when Samuel came to complain. You remember the story he made up? Oh, I just saved Agag to kill him later. That's not true. He spared Agag because kings like to spare kings in hopes if they ever lose a battle, they'll be spared. But God is furious with Saul for being disobedient. Saul says, well, I was just going to have a bigger sacrifice. And that's where then the prophet, speaking for God, says, obedience is better than sacrifice. And then Samuel says to Saul, God has rejected you as king. You see the snare? The failure to follow out on what God had called his people to do led to this trial. led to this calamity in the life of Israel and in the life of Israel's king. And do you remember how Saul turned out? Again, I sort of knew these stories, but I had not seen the connection between them. Saul goes to battle and he's mortally wounded by Philistines, right? But in 2 Samuel chapter 1, Saul is still alive. He's dying, but he's still alive, and a man comes by. And Saul says to the man, help me die before the Philistines get their hands on me. And so the man helps him and kills him. And the scripture says that man was an Amalekite. You see this thread of the enemy of God asserting itself to harm the purposes of God and to harm the people of God. And so the Amalekites say to us, don't forget the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God that says when he commands something, he doesn't do it arbitrarily and purposelessly. He doesn't do it just as a whim, but he has a good purpose for his people in this command, that they might be spared the kind of snare that the Amalekites proved to be generation after generation after generation to the people of God. Now strangely, I would want to argue that not only does this passage show the justice of God and the wisdom of God, but it also shows the love of God. Because in this passage is a promise. When I give you rest from all your enemies. That's the promise of God. There is a day of rest coming when I give you rest from all your enemies. People of Israel tasted that to some extent. We're able to read that Joshua had given the people rest and that David had given the people rest and that Solomon gave the people rest. And particularly in 1 Samuel, we have a record of David completely triumphing over the Amalekites. To give his people rest. And when he is victorious over the Amalekites, what does he do? He distributes gifts to his soldiers. Both those who actually fought and those who didn't fight. David is portrayed there for us as God's champion. As the one who fought for God. And as the one who was victorious and in his victory gave gifts to men. Does that sound familiar at all? There is another greater champion who fought for God and who was victorious over the enemy. And in his victory, in his ascension, gave gifts to men. That's our Lord Jesus Christ. David here is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ fighting the world, fighting the flesh, fighting the devil, and achieving the victory, and in his victory, giving rest to his people. That's what he's promised us, especially at the last day, that he will come again in glory and make all things new. And that great enemy, death, will be defeated. And life will be eternal and glorious because Christ has won the victory. But it's not only at the end that Christ is victorious. He's also victorious in history. When he commissioned his disciples to go out and make disciples of the nations. To take the gospel to the end of the earth. Wherever the gospel has gone and the light of the mercy and goodness of Jesus Christ has shined, he's won the victory and he's given the gifts of blessing. We're here today, aren't we? Because of the victory of Jesus Christ. Because of his victory in history. Now, some of you may not know it, but there are a little people in Europe that are called the Frisians. I don't know if you're aware of that. By one account at least, they were the very last people in Europe converted. They were particularly stubborn and resistant. The good news is, once they were converted, they have remained determinedly faithful. Not all of them, but a lot of them. But that was a victory. That was a victory of Christ. We could trace in Europe and around the world how the victory of Christ has gone forward from country to country to generation to generation because the love of God is that he will give rest to his people from their enemies, from the enemy of the devil. from the enemy of the devil's agents, from the enemy of death, and perhaps for us most particularly, from the enemy of sin. Sin cannot hold us. Sin cannot triumph over us because God in love has come to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so this little story about the Amalekites recorded for us in Deuteronomy but drawing together threads that run through the Old Testament really speak very powerfully to us about the character of our God. Our God is just and in some ways we must tremble before the reality of his justice. Our God is wise. What he tells us is always good and helpful. And our God is loving. He promises that in Christ we will find rest. The Sabbath is a foretaste of that week by week as we look forward to that eternal Sabbath where we will have complete deliverance from our enemies and eternal life in the victory of Jesus Christ. May God grant that each one of us has that blessing. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, we are thankful for your holy word, and we acknowledge before you that even the smallest details of it, sometimes seemingly irrelevant to us, speak to us about you and about your character and about your work. They all are part of the tapestry of your truth and part of the plan of your victory. And so we are thankful for that word, O Lord, in all its details. We're thankful for the things that are so clear and obviously helpful. But we're also thankful for those things which often seem more obscure. and we are encouraged to see as we look into that word that it speaks one single truth from beginning to end that you are great and just that you are wise and good and that you are loving and saving in Jesus Christ and so oh Lord may your Holy Spirit be with us to direct our lives in paths of wisdom as our lives seek to reflect your great love for us in the Savior who died in our place. So hear us, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.