Now in the 21st chapter, if you find
a dead body out in the field and
you don't know the circumstances of the death,
here's a man, he's dead in the field,
then they are to measure from that dead
body to the closest cities, and you're to
bring the elders of the city out, and
they are to sacrifice a bullock, and they
are to each one swear that they don't
know how this person died, and thus the
cities would be cleared from this person who
had been slain and whose body left there
in the field.
And so it was sort of a inquest
kind of a thing for the dead, and
in order that there might be sort of
the innocency from...
Now, if you go to war against your
enemies and you happen to see a beautiful
woman among the captives, and you want her
for your wife, you may take her for
your wife, but first of all she has
to shave her head and to pair her
nails, and then for 30 days she is
to put off her robes of captivity, and
after 30 days you may take her as
your wife.
But when you've taken her for your wife,
then you find out you don't like her,
then you can't sell her.
Now, in those days, of course, they had
slaves and they sold people, and the captives
were usually sold as slaves.
But the fact that you've taken her for
your wife, you can put her away, you
don't have to stay with her, but you
can't sell her as a slave.
You can't make merchandise and money off of
her.
Now, the man has two wives, and he
loves one and hates the other.
If the one that he hates has his
firstborn son, and the one he loves has
the secondborn son, you can't reverse the inheritance.
You can't give the second son, who was
from the wife that you loved, the first
inheritance.
You can't reverse the inheritances on these sons.
It doesn't matter if you didn't care for
her so much.
You've got to give the firstborn son the
first inheritance.
Now, of course, in those days, stubborn and
rebellious kids got into real trouble.
Because if you've had a child that's stubborn
and rebellious, you've spanked him, done everything you
can to correct him, he doesn't behave, then
you bring him before the elders and say,
I have a stubborn and rebellious kid here,
I've done everything I can to correct him,
he's incorrigible, I can't handle him.
Then they would stone him to death.
So, you'd say, my son is stubborn, he's
rebellious, he'll not obey, he's a glutton, he's
a drunkard.
So the penalty was being stoned.
Now, if a man has committed a sin
worthy of death, and he be to be
put to death, and thou hang him on
a tree, his body shall not remain all
night upon the tree, but thou shalt in
any wise bury him that day.
For he that is hanged on a tree
is accursed of God.
Let the Lamb be not defiled, which the
Lord God gives you for an inheritance.
Now, this, of course, becomes interesting to us.
Any man who was hung on a tree
was cursed of God.
Paul tells us that Christ became a curse
for us.
Because it is written, cursed is he who
hangs upon a tree.
Paul was referring to this particular verse here
in Deuteronomy.
But showing that Christ became the curse for
us, in that he took our sins upon
himself when he was hung there upon the
tree, he took the curse of God.
He bore the curse of God against sin.
When Adam sinned, Adam's sin brought the curse
of God upon man, upon woman, and upon
the earth itself.
God said to Adam that he would be
cursed, that the earth would no longer just
bring forth for him, but actually with the
sweat of his brow would he earn his
bread.
And the earth would bring forth thorns and
briars and thistles.
Harvesting your crops is not going to be
easy.
You're going to have to do it now
with the sweat of your brow.
Up until then, the earth was just producing.
Now you just go out and get whatever
you want.
You just enjoy it.
But now the curse brought the thorns, the
briars, the thistles, and it brought the hard
labor for men to eke out a living
from the ground.
To the woman, the curse in childbearing, the
labor pains and all.
To the ground, the curse of bringing forth
the thorns and the thistles.
And thus there was sort of a threefold
curse upon man, upon the woman, upon the
earth itself.
And of course the fourth, upon the serpent.
It shall go in the dust of the
earth on its belly and so forth.
Now, Christ has redeemed us from the curse
of the law.
Being made a curse for us, for it
is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs upon
the tree.
So you see, the law actually cursed me.
Man, if I was living under this thing,
I'd be stoned to death.
The law condemned me to die.
But Christ has redeemed me from the curse
of the law because he became a curse
for me.
He bore the curse for me.
Because it's written, Cursed is everyone that hangs
upon the tree.
By his being crucified upon the cross, there
he bore God's curse.
Actually, it is interesting that when the Roman
soldiers made a crown for him, what kind
of a crown did they make?
A crown of thorns.
And where did the thorns come from?
They came from the curse.
So the crown that he bore upon his
brow was really the sign of the curse
of God against the earth because of sin.
Really, the crown of thorns was a very
fitting crown because he came to bear God's
curse against your sin.
And then hanged upon the tree, redeeming you
from the curse of the law.
Now in chapter 22, in those days, they
punished people for non-involvement.
If you saw your brother's ox or his
sheep going astray, and you just sort of
try to ignore it, you don't go out
and get it and so forth, then you're
at fault.
You shall in any case bring them again
to your brother.
And if your brother is not near to
you, and you know him not, then thou
shalt bring him into your own house, and
you shall keep them until your brother seeks
after them, and thou shalt restore them again.
And like manners shalt thou do with his
ass, and with his raiment, and all that
is lost of thy brother's, which he has
lost and now has found, you are to
do likewise.
You may not hide it for yourself.
In other words, if you find something that
is lost, you are to seek to restore
it to its proper ownership.
You're not to try to hide it for
yourself.
Now if you see your brother's ass or
ox fall down by the way, and you
hide yourself from them, and not turn to
help and to lift them again, then you're
at fault.
Then a woman is not to wear man's
apparel, nor is a man to put on
a woman's garment.
For to do that is an abomination unto
the Lord.
Now, actually we are, you know, living in
a weird age, where
men are dissatisfied with being men, and are
having operations to become women.
And we have other men who aren't satisfied
as being men, and are wearing dresses and
makeup and that kind of junk.
And sometimes I wish I were living under
the Old Testament.
These things are an abomination unto God.
Now, they say, Oh, but what about a
woman wearing, you know, a pantsuit or something?
Well, let me tell you something.
I never wear one of those pantsuits that
the women wear.
I don't consider that men's apparel at all.
But the whole idea behind it is that
of lesbianism or homosexuality, where you are affecting
to be one of the opposite sex, or
seeking to be one of the opposite sex.
And that's what is actually being, you know,
what is coming down on here.
Women who are trying to be men, and
men who are trying to be women.
Now, it is interesting.
If you see a bird's nest, and the
bird is sitting on its eggs or whatever,
you're not to really disturb it.
If there are little young birds, if you
want to take the little young birds, you're
not to take the mother too.
But you're not to disturb a mother bird
sitting on its nest, unless the birds are
big enough to make it on their own.
You want those little birds, that's fine, but
you can't take the mother with them.
Got to leave her go free.
When you build a new house, and you're
putting on the roof, you've got to put
supports around, so no one falls off the
roof and gets hurt while they're working on
your house.
If you're sowing the vineyards, you're not to
sow with diverse seeds.
You're not to plow with an ox and
an ass together.
You're not to wear a garment with different
sorts of materials, wool and linen together.
You are to make these blue fringes on
the quarters of your garments.
And now, the law of marriage.
If any man takes a wife and goes
in unto her and hates her, and gives
occasion of speech against her, brings an evil
name upon her, and says, I took this
woman as my wife, but she wasn't a
virgin.
And you make these kinds of accusations against
her.
Then her parents are to bring forth her
tokens of virginity.
Now, in those days, when you had your
marriage ceremony, and you went in for the
neutral rites, actually, you would take a cloth
and hand it back out to your parents,
proving that you were a virgin.
And they would save that.
And then if the guy you married turned
out to be a dirty dog, and he
says, oh, she wasn't a virgin when I
married her, that kind of stuff, started spreading
evil stories, your parents would bring out the
tokens of your virginity, lay them out before
the elders, and you'd be found to be
a dirty dog liar.
And the fellow would have to pay your
dad a hundred shekels of silver, because he
had brought an evil name upon a virgin
in Israel.
But if you couldn't prove your virginity, then
you'd be in trouble.
You'd be put to death.
Pretty heavy duty.
And then the adultery of a man can
be found lying with a woman married to
a husband.
They'll both of them be put to death.
If a damsel that is a virgin is
betrothed to a husband, that is, engaged, and
a man find her in the city and
lies with her, then they're both to be
put to death.
That is, if he rapes her in the
city, she's to be put to death because
she should have screamed.
But if she is raped out into the
field, then only he is put to death
because she perhaps screamed, but nobody could hear
her.
And thus, you're to put the evil away.
Now, if you raped a girl and she's
a virgin and she's not brought by her
parents to someone else, then you're to take
her as your wife to pay her father
fifty shekels of silver.
In chapter 23, we find those that were
restricted from coming into the temple.
Eulogues were forbidden in the temple.
An Ammonite or a Moabite was forbidden to
the tenth generation for their failure to help
the children of Israel during their wilderness experiences
and because they hired Balaam to curse them.
And you're not to seek their peace or
prosperity.
However, an Edomite, being the descendants of Esau,
and the Egyptians, because you were a stranger
in their land, they may be brought into
the congregation of the Lord in their third
generation.
Now, there are certain rules of cleanliness and
sanitation that are given to them here that
are very practical, and I don't need to
read them or rehearse them for you.
And in verse 15, Thou shalt not deliver
unto his master the servant which is escaped
from his master to you.
There shall be no whores of the daughters
of Israel nor a Sodomite among the sons
of Israel.
Now, you're not to bring the hire of
a whore or the price of a dog
into the house of the Lord for any
vow that you want to make unto God,
for these are an abomination unto the Lord
thy God.
You're not to lend upon usury to your
brother, that is, of money or vituals or
of anything that is lent upon usury.
To a stranger you may lend with usury,
but unto your brother you shall not lend
with usury.
That the Lord thy God may bless thee
in all that you set your hand to
do in the land wherever you go.
And when you vow a vow unto the
Lord thy God, thou shalt not slack to
pay it, for the Lord will surely require
it.
And if you do not pay your vow,
it will be a sin to you.
That which has gone out of your lips,
you shall keep and perform it, the freewill
offering, according as you have vowed to the
Lord, and you've promised with your mouth.
Now, when you come into your neighbor's vineyard,
you may eat all of the grapes you
want, but you're not to put any in
a container to carry out of the vineyard.
In other words, you go into a field,
you're allowed to eat all the grapes that
you can hold while you're in the field,
but you can't carry them out of the
field except in your stomach.
And when you come into the standing corn
of your neighbor, you may pluck the ears
with thine hand, but thou shalt not move
a sickle to your neighbor's.
In other words, what you can carry out
with your hand, but you're not to take
a sickle to a standing corn.
Now, if a man has taken a wife
and married her, and it comes to pass
that she finds no favor in his eyes
because he has found some uncleanness in her,
then let him write her a bill of
divorcement and give it unto her hand and
send her out of his house.
So, the law of divorce.
Now, what does constitute an uncleanness?
A man marries a woman and finds an
uncleanness.
Now, some say, well, he discovers she's not
a virgin.
No, that's not it.
Because that has already been dealt with in
the previous laws.
If he says she's not a virgin and
they can't prove her virginity, she is to
be put to death.
So, it isn't that he marries her and
then finds out the uncleanness is that she's
not a virgin.
That was the big argument among the Jews.
What constituted uncleanness?
And one school of the rabbis said, well,
if she wasn't a virgin, but that could
not be so because God has already dealt
with that under other laws.
So, it left open what constituted uncleanness and
that is an open issue.
Now, surely they became extremely liberal in their
interpretation of it.
One school of the rabbis, they taught that
if she doesn't fix your eggs to suit
you for breakfast, that's an uncleanness and you
can give her a writing of divorcement.
And, of course, in those days divorces were
quite easy.
All you do is write out, I divorce
you and you hand it to her and
she's had it.
Now, Jesus was challenged on this very issue.
And really the challenge was what constitutes uncleanness.
They came to Jesus one day with a
trap question and it was a definite trap
question.
They said to Jesus, can a man put
away his wife for any cause?
Now, here under the Mosaic Law, if he
finds an uncleanness in her, he can give
her a bill of divorcement.
Now, they knew that Jesus was teaching a
more strict code.
So, they came to him with this trick
trap question, can a man put away his
wife for any cause?
And Jesus said, if a man puts away
his wife and marries another except it be
for fornication, he causes her to commit adultery
and whoso marries her commits adultery.
Aha!
He's fallen right into their trap.
That's just what they were hoping he would
answer.
So, they came right back at him and
they said, how is it then that Moses
said, let him give her a writing of
a bill of divorcement?
They figured they'd trapped him.
We've got you now.
Because it is acknowledged that God gave the
law to Moses.
No challenge, no question about that.
It was a well-established fact that the
law came by God to Moses.
So, Jesus is actually now in conflict with
what God declared.
For God said unto Moses, let him give
her a writing of a bill of divorcement
and the law of divorce was established by
God through Moses and it's there within their
law.
And for Jesus to come down in such
a strict way puts him now at variance
against God exactly what they were hoping to
do.
But Jesus went on to say, in the
beginning it was not so.
Now, the law was added later on.
The law came many years later.
In the beginning, God now goes back to
Adam and Eve.
Jesus now goes back to God's perfect initial
plan for family relationships, for husband-wife relationships.
It was originally God's divine intent that you
have a once-for-life marriage relationship.
In the beginning, God made them male and
female and for this cause shall a man
leave his mother and father and cleave to
his wife and the two shall become one
flesh.
Therefore, that which God has joined together, let
no man put asunder.
And that is God's divine ideal for every
couple.
But, Jesus said, because of the hardness of
your hearts, Moses said, let him give her
a writing of a bill of divorcement.
Now, Jesus is not going back to the
law.
He's going back before the law.
He's going back to God's divine intent for
man and for husband and wife relationships.
But because man's heart was hard and he
could not come up to God's divine ordinance
and will, God then, under the law, gave
the law of divorce that a man, finding
an uncleanness in his wife, could put her
away.
Now, I
believe that some marriages are a mistake from
the beginning.
They should never have been.
Young people, so often getting married, have a
totally wrong concept of marriage.
I'm tired of living at home.
I don't want to take orders from my
parents anymore.
I'm going to escape.
I'm going to get married.
I want my freedom.
And you say, well, when are you going
to get married?
Oh, we're getting married the first.
The first what?
The first chance I get.
You know, they're just out to get married.
So that, many times, they do not use
good sense or good judgment in their choice
of a marriage partner.
Because he was good looking and was a
tackle on the football team, played first string
and all, oh, you know, I'm in love.
But the guy's as mean and rough in
the home as he is out on the
football field.
He has no love, no care, no tenderness.
The marriage was a mistake from the beginning.
He uses his wife as a punching bag.
He gets rid of all of his aggressions
on her, and the poor little thing is
beat up, terrified.
Now, does God say, well, young lady, you
made a mistake.
You made your bed.
You live in it.
You're just going to have to settle down
to the fact that you're going to be
his punching bag and you're going to live
the rest of your life in terror of
this brute.
I don't believe so.
I don't believe that God requires that.
I don't believe that God ever intended that
marriage be an experience where you live in
constant terror.
I don't think that that was God's intention
for marriage ever.
In fact, God said to the husbands, love
your wives as Christ loved the church and
gave himself for it.
But there are some people whose hearts are
hardened against God's divine ideal.
Whose hearts are hardened against God and thus
they make very poor marriage partners.
And God knowing that people could not achieve,
that is, all people could not achieve his
divine ideal, then created the alternate out by
the law of divorcement that he gave to
Moses.
But know that that isn't God's best for
a person's life.
The best and first ideal of God for
a person is one marriage for life.
Now, those that have made mistakes or can't
live with that, God has developed the alternate.
Let him give her a writing of a
bill of divorcement.
Now, it is obvious that this would come
early.
If he marries her and finds an uncleanness
in her, in other words, just as soon
as you're married, you realize, hey, this was
a mistake.
Then you're allowed to put her away with
a writing of divorcement.
Now, if then she would go out and
marry another man, and the other man that
she married in time would die, and you
think, well, she wasn't too bad.
Maybe I'll take her back.
No, you can't do that.
You've already put her away once.
Unless you're not to take her back again
as your wife, this would be an abomination
unto the Lord.
And so, interesting law of divorce that is
here under the law that God did give
in certain conditions, and Jesus declared, the law
was given for the hardness of the hearts
of the people.
Because man could not come up to God's
divine ideal.
How much better if we come up to
God's divine ideal?
But if you can't handle that, then God
has made the out through divorce.
Now, when a man has taken a new
wife, he doesn't have to go to war
or charge with any business for a whole
year.
He can just stay home and cheer his
wife.
With some wives, it wouldn't be much cheer
after a few months.
You're not to take the nether or the
upper millstone as a pledge.
Now, the reason why you weren't to take
a millstone as a pledge is because people,
actually, that was their livelihood.
You use your millstone to grind your meat,
your wheat and all.
If you don't have your millstone, man, you're
out of bread, you know.
So, you weren't allowed to take these as
a pledge for a debt.
If a man was found stealing or kidnapping
any of the children to make merchandise of
them, he was to be put to death.
Kidnappers, capital punishment.
Then, watch out for the plague of leprosy.
Let the priest follow Moses' instructions on that.
Remember what the Lord did to Miriam.
That is by her coming against Moses.
So, honor the leadership.
And then, further laws concerning the pledges that
you could take and the pledges that you
weren't to take.
You weren't to take a man's blanket as
a pledge because at night, if he got
cold and said, Oh God, I'm cold, and
start praying to God, God would hold it
against you because you had his blanket.
So, you're in trouble with God because this
guy's complaining to God and you're the fault,
is he?
So, you don't want to do anything that
would cause the fellow to complain to God
about his situation because then God comes to
you for it.
And so, if you hire a man, you're
to pay him at the end of the
day lest he is hungry and say, Oh
God, I'm so hungry and he didn't pay
me today, you know, and oh, I'm hungry.
And then God comes to you because you're
the fault of this guy bothering God.
And so, you're not to put the fathers
to death for the sins of the children,
neither shall the children be put to death
for the sins of their fathers.
Every man was to be put to death
for his own sin.
You're not to pervert the judgment of a
stranger or the fatherless or take a widow's
raiment as pledge.
God watches out for the strangers, for the
fatherless, for the downcast, for the outcast, and
so forth.
God has a special tender care for them.
Now, when you cut down the harvest in
your field, if you remember, Oh, I left
a sheaf out in the field.
Don't go back and get it.
You just leave that for the poor.
They can come in behind you and get
it.
When you go through and pick your olives,
you only pick the olive tree once.
Those olives that are still green and not
ready to be picked, you just leave them
on the tree and then the poor people
can come into your grove and they can
pick the olives that you leave.
When you go through and pick the grapes
in your vineyard, you're to not pick them
all, leave the green ones, those that aren't
completely ripe, but you can't go back and
pick your vineyard the second time.
You have one shot through to get your
harvest.
Whatever's left, you just leave it on the
vines for the poor people.
So, really, it was an excellent welfare program.
The poor could always go out into the
fields and gather up whatever was left there
in the fields.
Now, I've noticed up here a lot of
times when they're harvesting the cabbage and all,
actually they leave as much in the field
as what they pick almost.
And how wonderful it would be if after
they'd gone through, rather than plowing under the
cabbage, the poor people could just come in
and help themselves to the cabbage or the
celery or the lettuce or these various fields
that are planted up here.
Much better than plowing it under.
It would be to just say, alright, you
know, it's there, help yourself, and let people
just come in and help themselves to it.
That was what they did in those days.
You could shake your olive tree once and
whatever shook down the first shaking you could
have, but then you had to leave the
rest of it and the poor could move
in and thus the poor could actually, you
know, gather enough to get along themselves.
And so it was an excellent welfare program
for the poor.
You shall leave it, you're not to glean,
for it will be for the stranger, the
fatherless, and the widow.
Now in chapter 25, he continues these interesting
kind of regulations.
If two men have a controversy between themselves,
then they come to the judges and let
the judges justify the righteous and condemn the
wicked.
And if it comes to pass that the
wicked man is worthy to be beaten, then
you are to lay upon him not more
than forty stripes.
Forty stripes was the limit.
Now forty is the number of judgment, and
they weren't to lay upon them more than
forty stripes.
Usually they would lay upon them thirty-nine,
because you couldn't exceed forty and so you
want to have mercy tempered with your justice
so the sentence was so often thirty-nine
stripes.
And that was the sentence that was laid
upon Jesus, thirty-nine stripes.
Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he
is treading out the corn.
As long as the ox is working, treading
out the corn, then he gets to eat
all the corn he wants.
Don't put a muzzle on him, let him
eat.
If your brethren are dwelling together, one of
them dies and he has no child, the
wife of the dead shall not marry outside
of the family to a stranger.
Her husband's brother shall go in unto her
and take her as his wife and perform
the duty of a husband's brother unto her,
and the first child that she bears shall
be named after the brother that is dead,
that his name not be put out of
Israel.
So it was a neat little provision so
your name wouldn't die in Israel, you married
a gal, and you died, then your brother
would have to marry her.
And the first son would be named after
you so that your name would go on
in Israel.
Now, if your brother didn't want to marry
her, he said, man, she's a dog, look
at all the problems she gave to my
brother, I don't want that woman.
Then he could come before the elders of
the city and he could say, I don't
want to marry her.
So he would have to take off his
shoe and hand it to her, and then
she in turn would spit in his face.
Verse 9, I'm not joshing you, it's here.
Then shall his brother's wife come unto him
in the presence of the elders and loose
his shoe from off his foot and spit
in his face, and shall say to him,
so shall it be done unto that man
that will not build up his brother's house,
and his name shall be called in Israel
the house of him that hath his shoe
loosed.
So you became sort of a villain kind
of a guy in Israel after that.
You were the dirty guy who wouldn't, you
know, fulfill a thing of raising up your
brother's name or keeping alive your brother's name.
You would be called the man from, or
the house from whom the shoe was loosed.
And quite a title that you would have
to bear.
Now in verse 11, if men are striving
together and the wives intervene and so forth,
then it all depends on how they intervene.
They can be in big trouble.
You're not to have in your bag different
weights, great and small.
Now this is a common practice.
You know, they did everything with balances.
The only scales they had were balanced scales.
But fellows would often have two weights for
the balances, one when they were buying and
one when they were selling.
Diverse weights.
And so here's the national standard of weights
and measures that got established in Israel.
You're not to have different weights in your
bag.
But you're to use the standard weights when
you're buying or selling, you know, instead of
having the heavier ones when you're selling and
the lighter ones when you're buying.
Diverse weights are an abomination under the law.
There's a proverb to that effect.
And it was something that people were guilty
of doing.
Thou shalt not have in thine house different
measures, a great and a small.
But thou shalt have a perfect and a
just weight, a perfect and a just measure.
In other words, God wants you to deal
honestly in your dealings with each other.
No deceit, no cheating of one another.
For all of those that do such things
are unrighteous and they're an abomination unto the
Lord.
Now in verse 17, God goes back and
He says, Remember that guy Amalek, what he
did unto you.
And in time to come, you're not to
forget what Amalek did.
He was dirty.
What he did is he attacked them from
the rear and killed off those people who
were lame or sick and not able to
keep up with the group, the stragglers.
And he was attacking from the rear and
wiping out the stragglers.
It was a dirty tactic that Amalek did.
And so you're to remember what Amalek did
and one day you're going to get revenge
and when you do, you're to wipe out
Amalek completely.
Now the time came when Amalek was to
be wiped out in their history and you
remember that Samuel ordered Saul to go down
and wipe out Amalek utterly.
Don't leave anything or anyone alive.
Don't even leave their cattle or their sheep
alive.
Destroy them utterly.
Now as we get into biblical typology, it
is interesting because Amalek is a type of
the flesh and God's edict for our flesh
is wipe it out utterly.
Don't leave any remnants.
And any place you leave a remnant in
the flesh, you're going to be in trouble.
Well Saul went down and he saw that
some of the cattle were really healthy and
good looking, you know, stock and all.
So he kept those alive, but the sickly
ones, man, they just really hacked them to
pieces.
And the same with the sheep.
Some of those good, healthy looking sheep they
kept alive, but the sickly ones, man, they
just really cut them in pieces.
And he also saved the life of Agag,
the king.
And so as he was returning from this
battle, an aged Samuel came up to meet
him.
He said unto Samuel, As the Lord liveth,
I have done all that God has commanded
me.
And Samuel said, If you have done all
that God has commanded, how come that I
hear the bleeding of the sheep and the
lowing of the cattle?
And he said, Oh, he said, We decided
there was such nice stock and all, we
decided to bring them back so we could
use them as sacrifices.
We're going to offer these as sacrifices unto
God.
And there is where Samuel answered, Thou hast
done foolishly.
It is better to obey than to sacrifice,
and to hearken is better than the fat
of rams.
In that you have done foolishly and not
obeyed the voice of God in utterly wiping
them out, God has now rejected you from
being king over Israel.
Well, now here, back under the law, God
had declared that the Amaleks were to be
utterly wiped out.
When the time came, Saul failed to do
it.
Now, do you know who the last Amalek
is in the Scripture that is recorded?
He comes up in the book of Esther,
and his name was Haman.
And you remember that he conspired to wipe
out all of the Jews.
You see, if you don't obey God and
utterly get rid of the flesh, then the
flesh is going to rise up and one
day seek to destroy you.
And so in your typology, that is why
God ordered the utter destruction of Amalek.
Here under the law, don't forget what Amalek
did, and therefore it shall be.
Verse 19, When the Lord thy God has
given you rest from all your enemies round
about the land, and the Lord God gives
you for an inheritance to possess it, you
shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from
under heaven.
And don't forget it.
But Saul failed in that, and his failure
almost cost the Jews their national existence.
Haman had the day set for the extermination
of all the Jews.
And it was only because God divinely intervened
through Esther that the Jews were spared.
But interesting story of Amalek, if you want
to follow it through in a biblical typology,
it's very fascinating indeed.
Shall we stand?
May God's hand be upon your lives.
In a special way this week, we're entering
into the time of frenzy as people are
preparing to observe the birthday of our Lord.
Or are they?
May the Lord keep you from the frenzy
of this time of year, from the season.
And may for you it be a time
of real reflection upon the Lord, upon what
the coming of Christ has meant to you
personally, upon the gift that God has given
unto you, his only begotten Son, eternal life,
his Holy Spirit.
And thus may this be a very beautiful,
rich time of the year as we remember
again how much God cares.
For God cares for you.
And God loves you more than you'll ever
know.
He just wants you to know that love
and experience it.
And so may this be a week of
experiencing God's overflowing love.
Just let it flow.
Let it happen.
In Jesus' name.