[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you will be blessed by the preaching of God's Word.
[0:14] I am accepted because you were condemned. Powerful seven words. It would solve the vast majority of problems we have as Christians, if we just believe that as we sing it. Deuteronomy chapter number 24, and I will continue there in verses 24 and 25.
[0:30] I hope you like Christian music. We're in church, so none of you would raise your hand and say you don't like Christian music, but I hope it's part of your life. I hope you learn songs and listen to it, and it will really help you in your spiritual battle to be able to sing songs and to know things.
[0:44] Do you agree with me? All right, if you do or not, it's still true, but I'm glad that you do. Deuteronomy chapter 24 and 25. Thursday night we said that there's three chapters of what's called miscellaneous legislation, meaning that they're not of lesser importance.
[0:58] It just means sometimes it's hard to know how they're all connected together. And we said, why does God care so much about every one of these details? And then we said, well, that's an exciting truth.
[1:09] The fact that God cares about all these details of life is exciting to us because it shows that our God cares about us and the way we live our lives. And so we say that's how they're all connected.
[1:20] Our God cares. Our God cares about marriage, we saw, and the example that he gave and how we should treat, the dignity to a woman, the way that we should treat when somebody is a widow, passes away, the inheritance.
[1:32] We also said, Naomi, that God cares about Mondays, which is important to you, I know, because you have a personal war against the day Monday. And he cares about the value of life is where we ended, meaning that if you kidnap somebody, you would lose your life.
[1:46] And he was reminding us of how important life is. We have two more, actually three more that we will look at tonight, two more we didn't cover last time. God cares about justice, not justice my's only, but justice, that attribute of God.
[2:01] He also cares about our generosity and integrity. And we're going to look at those together. And then at the end of chapter 25, when we get to the end of that third chapter of these miscellaneous legislation, he's going to say, remember Emilelech, and we're going to remember him, and we're going to remember that group of people.
[2:21] And we're going to go through the Old Testament and see what happened when they were not obedient to pushing them out of the land, the problems that it caused. And then the New Testament telling us how that sin in our lives is going to have the same consequence as well.
[2:35] So let's just jump right into this with the time that we have together. So chapter 24 and verses number 16 through 18, here we learn that courts, parents, leaders, their job is to justify the righteous and condemn the wicked.
[2:49] Verse 16 of chapter 24, The father shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin. Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor the fatherless, nor take a widow's raiment to pledge.
[3:05] But thou shalt remember that thou wast the bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence. Therefore I command thee to do this thing. Justice is an attribute of God, and the lack of justice greatly upsets him.
[3:20] So he was explaining to them how he wants things to be handled here. Judgment was to be upon those who had committed the crime. It seems pretty simple, doesn't it? That you're supposed to reward the righteous, and you're supposed to penalize the unjust.
[3:32] And he said that was their job there. Those in leadership were to do that. This does not make God unjust when he allows a curse to come upon a family for a number of generations. The problem is not God but man.
[3:45] As an example, if a man insists on taking drugs, it will affect his offspring for a number of generations. He is speaking to the man here, and he's saying, the crime of the son should be paid for by the son, and the father shouldn't pay for it.
[3:58] And he's defining how justice should take place. Those in authority are not supposed to take advantage of the lowly. Verse 17, that should not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor the fatherless, nor take a widow's raiment, the pledge.
[4:12] So in a court case, there's a stranger in land. He doesn't have as much influence in the community. The guy that has money, the guy that knows everybody, shouldn't go to the judge and say, come on now, you understand this.
[4:23] The judge's job is to execute righteous judgment and not to be partial there. They should remember how they were once mistreated unfairly, and because of that, they should want to do what is right.
[4:37] And there's applications to hear that God cares about justice. What is our job here is to execute what God would have. And our children, that's how we should do things. We should, when they do right, they should be rewarded if they're righteous, and when they're doing wrong, there ought to be executement of judgment there.
[4:54] We are just the executive branch here, okay? We don't make the laws, we just help them get lived out in your life. That's a fun conversation with a five-year-old, but I try it, okay? Is that we don't make the rules, but we just enforce them here in the home.
[5:09] So we see that. We see that the job is to justify the righteous and to condemn the wicked. Verse 25, verse number one. This is going to show us that there should be a restraint in punishment.
[5:20] If there be a controversy between men, and they come into judgment, that the judges may judge them, that they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, then the judge shall cause him to lie down and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number.
[5:38] Forty stripes he may give him and not exceed, lest if thou shalt exceed and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee. We should remember this in the New Testament when you study the life of Paul.
[5:52] Remember three times he got beaten, forty times save one. They left that one off to make sure that they didn't surpass what was given there. Doesn't seem very nice, right? We can't beat you forty times, so we'll beat you thirty-nine times on three different occasions.
[6:06] Seems like it's a loophole around the system there. But God was putting a restraint there upon the punishment. The court's job is to justify the righteous, as we saw. The apostle Paul benefited in 2 Corinthians 11, 24.
[6:20] And as parents, we should not seem vile, which means morally bad or wicked, as we would demonstrate a punishment to our children or those. They should not find us finding pleasure in their punishment.
[6:34] Saying, you ought to punish them thirty-nine, say forty. He said, I want to see restraint in what you're doing. This isn't, they shouldn't look at you and say, this man's wicked, this person's vile, because they enjoy what they're doing.
[6:46] And that's the nature of God. God cares about justice. And we execute judgment in the life, and we have to make a decision. Maybe it's obvious to me, because I'm raising small children, that application.
[6:58] But there's other places in your life where you have to make a decision, and where you have to penalize somebody in the workplace, or do this. And you ought to be just, you ought to be fair, and there should be restraint.
[7:09] And in the last paragraph here, I won't read for you on this. There's a scenario where two men are fighting, and then the wife gets involved in the fight, which is a real shame, man, if you have to have your wives fight for you.
[7:21] And she gets involved in the fight, and it says that if she gets involved in the fight, you should chop her arm off. And not only should you chop her arm off, the Bible's not boring, is it? All right?
[7:32] You should chop her arm off, and you shouldn't look at her with pity. God cares about justice. He was saying, this is what I want. In this instance, when she does this thing, chop her arm off, and don't even have compassion upon her, don't have no pity upon her.
[7:49] And so, as I said to you, it's hard for us to make application of this, because I haven't fought with any of you men in here, for many reasons. One being, I don't think I'd win. And two, I shouldn't fight with you.
[8:01] Maybe I should switch those, right? And God says that if you was to be a fight, seriously, I can't make application of that. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that information. And I remind you on Thursday night, as we said, as we're looking, we're not looking for things to do.
[8:16] We're looking for the nature of God in this, and we see that God cares about justice. He doesn't want us to be flippant in the way that we treat one another.
[8:26] He doesn't want us to be flippant or careless in the authority that we have. He wants us to be patient. He wants us to be wise. He wants us to pray. I know application for me, when I think about that God cares about justice, is I make decisions too quickly sometimes when it comes to other people, when it comes to my children.
[8:44] And I should slow down. I would say, God, how would you want me to handle this? How can I be consistent here? How can when I execute a penalty to my kids, they don't see an inconsistent father, but they see me being just as somebody who is just an instrument of God working in their lives?
[9:05] And you make that application as well, knowing that God cares about justice. Verse chapter 24, verses 19 through 22, we're going to find that God cares about our generosity and our integrity.
[9:17] Verse 19, When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it. It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, for the widow, that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand.
[9:32] When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again. It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. When thou gathers the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it afterward.
[9:45] It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. And thou shalt remember that thou wast the bondmen in the land of Egypt. Therefore, I commend thee to do this thing. And that was God's welfare program, and it beats any welfare program of any country in the world the way that he sets it up where he would have us to be generous.
[10:05] You probably think of the story of Ruth and Boaz. Remember, it says the handfuls on purpose. There's a way that they were supposed to take in the harvest there that would leave something behind for other people.
[10:16] The rich caring for the poor, but the poor working for what they would receive. Meaning that it was left for them, but it wasn't brought to them. It was available to them, but it wasn't served to them.
[10:28] Isn't that just an incredible lesson that we were taught? There's so many examples that this is God's word. One being that the wisdom found in this, no man would write it and give credit to anybody else.
[10:40] Meaning that if God did not inspire this, the man that came up with these ideas would let the whole world know they came up with them. And so just in one little short story, we see how we should be pushed toward, we should be generous, but we also see how those that are in poverty ought to work to advance their lives and go forward.
[11:00] And it's wiser than any nation on this earth right now, any program they would have. We find it in God's word. God said, if you don't work, you don't eat. 2 Thessalonians 3.10.
[11:12] Remembering the Egyptians' experience of slavery and poverty should inspire their charity for the poor and needy. They should want to do that. They should want to leave that. Pastors talked about it, but we see it through the Bible.
[11:24] Shaking the olive tree, leaving things behind for them, being generous in the way that they would do that. And we should as well. We should know in what God has given us that part of that, that all of it belongs to Him.
[11:36] And some of that was never given to stop with us, but God's trying to give through us to deal with issues and places in this world and to help. He also said that He cares not only about our generosity, but our integrity.
[11:49] We see that in verses 13 through 16. Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers' weights, a great and a small. This is really funny to me. Thou shalt not have in thine house divers' measures, a great and a small, but thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and a just measure shalt thou have, that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
[12:09] For all that they do such things and all that thou do unrighteously are an abomination unto the Lord thy God. So in case you didn't catch it, what I understand here, so you've got a bag, a leather bag, and inside of it, you have this measure, this weight.
[12:23] And so somebody says, I want to buy from you a pound of a meal. All right? And so they reach into their bag and they grab the measurement that weighs 0.8 pounds.
[12:35] And then they bring it up on the scale and they put the 0.8 pounds there and then they put the meal on it and they say, this thing says it weighs a pound even though they know it weighs 0.8 pounds. And they sell the meal, a pound of meal, even though they're giving 0.8.
[12:50] And then another person comes up to them and said, hey, we want to sell you something else. And I'm not very doing good with the terms here. Another bag of meal, okay, of a different flavor.
[13:00] And they come up to you and he says, I want to buy a pound. Let me get my one pound weight. Reaches into the bag, gets the weight that weighs 1.2 pounds, but says one pound on it, puts it on the scale and gets from that person 1.2 pounds for the price of one.
[13:17] And so it's not being of integrity. It's playing the system here. And so we have the divers weights, the diverse weights that are there and working. And he says, I don't want you to be like that. I want you to pay for what you get.
[13:29] I want you to give an honest product for what you're selling here because God is interested in our integrity. Ways and measures were areas in which there was dishonesty that occurred.
[13:40] It was happening. In all the instances we have, the reason that God wrote the law and gave that to them was because it was happening. And the story that I told before about the two men fighting and the wives getting involved, it's amazing he had the right of law about that.
[13:53] Apparently it was happening. Here in this situation, apparently it was happening. It was common practice, but not for us, not for those that are God-fearing. We don't do that. It doesn't matter if every other company has a bag of diverse weights and everybody knows the system.
[14:09] We weren't supposed to be like that. They would have one weight that weighed less than the other. They would use it to give less product for the price. In principle, it says, when a nation ceases to be honest, its future is in jeopardy.
[14:22] Cheating in this matter is unrighteous conduct and it's an abomination to God. We know that God cares about our integrity, that it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal to everybody else.
[14:35] It's not a big deal to the unbeliever, but it is a big deal to God. And he says, I care about you and I care about you being a person of integrity. And we see all of this and we should see him as a shepherd.
[14:49] We are sheep. You say, all this is common sense. Well, it might be common sense, but we needed God to teach it to us. Without him, we wouldn't know these things. We wouldn't be better off than any pagan group of people out there in the world.
[15:01] We did not. We have a father that guides us. Even more than seeing him as a shepherd, we see him as a savior. We need to be led and he will teach us. God is in the details of life and looking to him for guidance in all of our daily decisions about conduct.
[15:17] We get to know him better. That brings us to chapter number 25, verse number 17. So we've had all these different stories that we put in categories, caring about marriage, caring about Mondays, caring about justice.
[15:28] We find the things that God cares about in our lives and we're going to be reminded here that he cares about our battle with sin. Verse 17, Remember what Amalek unto thee by the way when you 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 was faint and weary and feared not God.
[15:51] Therefore it shall be when the Lord thy God had given thee rest from all thine enemies round about in the land which the Lord thy God has given thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven and thou shalt not forget it.
[16:05] Remember what Amalek did. Let me remind you what he did. They met the children of Israel when they first came out of Egypt. They were not trained soldiers. They had been a nation that just was formed and they were born.
[16:18] They had been servants. Amaleks were trained warriors at that time and they seek to destroy the children of Israel. In this battle is where Moses had Aaron and Hur went up on the mountain overlooking the battle.
[16:30] Moses raises his hand. Aaron and Hur takes the hands and holds it up and as the hands are being held up they win the battle. The Amaleks had attacked them at their weakest position.
[16:43] They came up behind where the oldest and the most feeble would have been. Having all the young people in the forward, they're not trained soldiers but those prepared for the battle were in the front.
[16:54] Amalek, they come from behind and they laid in wait in 1 Samuel chapter number 15. We're told that they're waiting for them to come through here. Moses was commanded to record this event in a book, Exodus 17, 14 and 15.
[17:09] And the Lord 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 Jehovah Nisi.
[17:21] He says, I want you to write this down, Moses. I want you to tell Joshua about it. I want all the children of Israel for the generations to come to know what Amalek did and know these were dirty, rotten scoundrels and we should not let them possess any of our land.
[17:37] And so it wasn't that I was forgotten about. It had been ignored. Moses made the altar before the Lord, which is the Lord as our banner and the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.
[17:49] Verse 16 of that passage said for generation and in one sense that battle continues the day and we'll see that. We find that Saul deals with Amalek. Left the children of Israel, out of Egypt, their first battle with them, they were supposed to completely destroy Amalek and they don't and so what happens?
[18:08] We read, And Samuel came to him and said in 1 Samuel 15, 1 through 3, The Lord sent me to anoint you as king over the people over Israel. Now therefore, hearken now unto the voice of the words of the Lord.
[18:18] Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember what Amalek did to Israel. We're still remembering Amalek, how he laid weight for him in the way and when he came up to Egypt, now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and spare them not but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
[18:35] Does Saul completely destroy Amalek on this occasion? Yes or no? Louder please. All right. Thank you. He doesn't. Should he? Yes. And what are the consequences of it?
[18:47] God told him to destroy them and he doesn't. And we know in the story that he doesn't. Saul and the people spared Agog and the best of the sheep and the oxen, the fatlings, and the lamb and all that was good and he would not utterly destroy them but everything that was vile and refuse he destroyed but he kept some of it and this is where we learn that obedience is better than sacrifice.
[19:06] He kept some of it back justifying I can use this again in the future for something that is good here. 25 years later David is going to deal with Amalek again.
[19:18] David and his men had joined Achish to go to battle and at that time they were going to fight against the Philistines. That's 1 Samuel 28 verse 1. And when David and his men get home they discover that the Amalekites had taken advantage of all the men that had been left behind.
[19:35] True to their form what do they do again? What do they do? They come and they fight at their weakest time. All the men are off the fight and these people come in while their men are off for fighting and they take over the weak that are there.
[19:51] This proves that what Saul did and not utterly wiping them out has come back now to hurt the children of Israel. Let's fast forward now 500 years later Queen Esther is going to deal with Amalek's people as well.
[20:07] You know the story of the beauty contest for the Persian king. Mordecai was a cousin of Esther. He refused to bow down. Haman devises a plan where he's going to destroy all the Jewish people.
[20:19] We have Esther there acting in wisdom. Haman it says in Esther 3.1 After these things the king of Cyrus promote Haman the son Hamadatha the Agagite and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes that were with him.
[20:35] This teaches us an important truth about dealing with our sin when Amalekites here as an example if you do not destroy it it will rise up and seek to destroy it.
[20:46] Not 25 years later not another 500 years later so she is dealing with the descendant here that should have been taken care of a long time ago in the story.
[20:57] Do you see where I'm going with this? Are you picking up what I'm putting down as they say? Do you get what's happening? All through the Old Testament this group of people that shouldn't have been part of the storyline they're continuing to be there because they were never dealt with when they were told to be dealt with keep showing up and keep causing problems.
[21:15] 1 Corinthians 10 1 tells us that we're given this as an example unto us that in slavery in Egypt they were type of slaves to sin they were representing Satan Christ was the rock the water comes from it and Amalekite is the type of warfare that we have with our sin we have been made free from sin Romans 8 2 for the law of the spirit of life is Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death but there's a battle that continues sin begins in the thought and this is where that drawing away takes place that James talks about when every man is tempted when he is drawn away for his own lust and enticed then when lust has conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death this drawing away when it hasn't been dealt with you're probably familiar with that Ashley Madison case where a lot of people had a login account they had affairs all across the nation do you know that Alpharetta was number 8 on the list of places that happened how does that happen it doesn't happen when a man creates a login account to have an affair it starts in the thought life it starts when one of those people
[22:23] Amalek are left in the battlefield and they're not taken care of it's when one little thought is running around and a man does not put it to death and he lets it stay there he shows up again and he causes problems and it has to be put to death here God said that we will have war with Amalek from generation to generation do you still deal with Amalek do you still deal with something that should have been taken care of years ago when you wage war on sin how aggressive are you against it victory against Amalek explain the New Testament I'll just give you a quick summary of this last point where do we go we are not we have this church has more swords than your average church we have more weapons around here I would think that if any church ever got under attack we would be more prepared than most we got a couple swords there probably some in the pastor's office so we don't have this group of people the Amaleks and it almost feel like it would be easier right if I said hey did you know on the north side of Dawsonville there's like 12 people left we were supposed to kill them but they're still alive let's go kill them because if we don't they're going to grow bigger and stronger and start a militia and if we ignore them in 25 years from now they may come and take over our church that would seem easier and more tangible but we might say it's not that big a deal they're in north
[23:44] Dawsonville I never go up there why would we ever go up to that part of the country let's just leave them alone and left alone well we know that's not what we're talking about we know that we're giving an example in this battle of the blind of how we're supposed to deal with sin which means it's supposed to be taken care of completely we're supposed to be aggressive against it we are supposed to know where we are at and so Romans 6 gives us this no reckon and yield case here Romans 6 9 knowing that Christ being raised up from dead dieth no more death has no more dominion over him for in that he died he died unto sin once for in he that liveth he liveth unto God what are the doctrinal truths that we're supposed to know we're supposed to know that in Adam we were plunged into death but Christ gave us a promise of life and because of that we are new and we're no longer under the tyranny of Amalek or any other sinful group in this world we no longer have to serve those people we put off the old man Colossians 3 18 and we now serve Christ we cannot and do not serve two masters we said goodbye to the old master and we said hello to King Jesus and we now serve him and that's been done away with on the cross our Savior completely did what we could not do he destroyed them he came into a land where we let sin run rampant and he destroyed it for us and now it's our job to reckon this verse 11 likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof in likewise manner with all the truth we have learned in the first 10 verses let's hold on then and continue in this it's our duty is always founded on this doctrine if the first part deals with the heart know dealt with the mind reckon is to make it true to conclude that this has already happened to know that the victory is already there meaning that you've already been given the victory over sin and when you confront sin in your life that's the first thing that you know the example I like to give is of my grandfather at the end of World War II when he was on a bus and all of his friends got off the bus because they had been declared that the war was over and they start shooting their guns and celebrating and my grandfather didn't know what was going on so he rode over underneath the bus and he was looking out there with the gun because he thought they were under attack and then they finally said get up Johnny because the war is over but for a moment he was underneath the bus thinking they were still in battle when it was time to be celebrating when it comes to your sin you need to know that the battle's already been won for you you do have victory over that sin you're no longer a puppet on a string you do not have to let this rule over you you have the power now to overcome sin not because of your strength or your goodness but because of what happened on the cross we are now told to yield our members as instruments of righteousness yield to the real you there the one that is a stranger and pilgrim in this world who abstains from fleshly lust the one that it is no longer me that I do it but the sin that dwelleth in me yield to the truth that sin will no longer have dominion over me when we remember
[27:06] Amalek and we think back to that we think about the past we should praise God for the victory when we face Amalek today we can be certain that victory has already been secured our God cares about your life he cares about your marriage so you should care about your marriage he cares about your integrity at work so you should care about integrity at work he cares about the way we treat one another so you should care about that God cares about justice and God cares about sin so much that he left heaven came to earth and secured our victory against him just like in the day of the real battle the first battle the literal battle against Amalek when they look there and they're not trained to fight there's no reason they should be winning this battle but when they would look up on the hill as long as the hands of Moses were being held up high then they would know that they were winning the battle today in the world we live in when you face Amalek when you're facing sin you look to a hill and you see that
[28:07] Jesus Christ had his hands nailed to a cross and in there his hands were not coming down that he has gained victory and it isn't going anywhere that it's already been secured to you just as in Moses the battle was won because his hands were held high our Moses and Jesus Christ has already won the battle against sin for you and that should give you great confidence not in the flesh not in who you are but in what God has done in your life and you shouldn't let that dwell in you you should find no place in your heart for it and you should declare war against the sin in your life because he came to the cross to give you victory against it and God cares about it remember Amalek does it just seem like a tagline God said I want to let you guys know I care about you I care about every detail of your life oh remember Amalek remember what happened that time you didn't deal with this group of people and then they grew and they tried to take over well you need to remember as well remember that sin in your life remember it needs to be taken to death because the death happened upon the cross
[29:17] I am grateful that we have a God that cares about us and a book that tells us where he does care about us this message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia for more information log on to www.visionbaptist.com where you can find our service times location contact information and more audio and video recordings to do