The Fights of Our Fathers (Esther 3:1–4) — Esther: The Invisible Hand of Providence

This Lord's Day will continue in our sermon series through Esther, the book of Esther, and we're picking up in chapter three.

But before I get to our text for today, if you'll indulge me for a moment, every generation inherits a battlefield.

And some battles our fathers have fought well before us. We're here because somebody stood their ground, right?

We live in a place where we can surely point to the good fighting of those who came before us.

Somebody prayed when it was costly. Somebody worked when it was thankless. Somebody built when it was slow.

Somebody held the line when pressure was real. And yet still other battles our fathers refused to fight.

Some sins were tolerated and then normalized and then celebrated and now enforced. One of the great lies of our moment is that history is just what happened, right?

That it's just wooden, it's facts, and that's it. But the truth is the opposite, that history is moral.

History is spiritual and history lives today. And it lives because we live downstream of decisions.

Right now, in many ways, we live in the shadow of compromises, we live in the wreckage of abdication.

We think about the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 70s. It was not merely a cultural shift out there, right?

It was a spiritual assault. And the church, in large measure, folded. Many compromised on biblical sexuality, whether then or now.

Many became embarrassed by the plain teaching of scripture. Many sought peace with the world rather than peace with God.

And when the church makes peace with rebellion, the next generation pays. This is not new.

Francis Schaeffer warned decades ago that when a culture rejects God, it does not become neutral. It becomes hostile, it becomes totalitarian, warning that when a nation denies

God, in its hostility, it eventually enforces the new orthodoxy with law.

Because the reality is, again, there is no neutral. It's Christ or chaos. And it very much seems like that is what our time has become.

And so as we do look to our days, we come to our day and look at it, analyze what's happening around us, there's a few options that lie before us as to what we'll do with the inheritance that we've been given.

Will we follow the pattern of failure, right? Either commiserating over what the boomers left us with, or groaning over the inheritance loss, or worse yet, just not engage in the fight at all, ceding the ground before us in the name of prudence, or will we endeavor to break that curse?

Will we fight back in faith? Will we insist on the battle today so that our children don't need to fight it later?

Will we hear the words of Joshua at the end of his life as he reviews the history of the people of God and he says plainly to the people in Joshua chapter 24, verses 14 and 15, now therefore fear the

Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the flood in Egypt and serve ye the

Lord. And if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day, whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood or the gods of the

Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the

Lord. Will we join Joshua in that confession that unlike those who came before us and squandered our

Christian inheritance, we will serve the Lord. Like in Psalm 78, which looks ahead to a generation to come starting in verse six, that the generations to come might know them, that being the law of God, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare the law of God to their children, that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.

It might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright whose spirit was not steadfast with God.

There is such a thing as repeating the sins of our fathers and there is such a thing as repenting of them.

There is such a thing as recognizing the errors of the past and laboring to fix those ills in faith.

And today's message is very much about this idea. It's God intervening in human history to confront and to destroy his enemies.

And he does that through both the successes and the failures of our ancestors, as well as our refusal to kick the can down the road any longer.

Our insistence to fight the battles that God would have us to fight today and not put off to another day or another generation that which

God would have us do today. And so with that, if you would please join me in opening your

Bibles to our text for today. We're in Esther chapter three still, but because of the nature of what we're looking at today in Esther, I also want to read the background history to the conflict here at the outset.

So again, our main text is Esther chapter three verses one through four. But before I read those to you, I'm gonna read

Exodus chapter 17 verses eight through 16. That's Exodus 17, eight through 16,

Deuteronomy 25, 17 through 19, and first Samuel 15, one through nine before closing with Esther three, one through four.

It's Exodus 17, Deuteronomy 25, first Samuel 15, and then Esther three.

Make sense? Praise the Lord. Hear the word of the Lord. First in Exodus chapter 17, verses eight through 16.

Then came Amalek and fought with Israel and Rephidim. And Moses said to 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 mine 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 there on. And Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the other side.

And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua discomforted Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

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 -Nissi. For he said, because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation."

Deuteronomy 25, verses 17 through 19. "'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 he feared not God. "'Therefore it shall be when the Lord thy God "'hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about "'in the land which the

Lord thy God giveth thee "'for an inheritance to possess it, "'that thou shalt blot out the remembrance "'of

Amalek from under heaven. "'Thou shalt not forget it.'" And then in 1 Samuel 15, one through nine.

"'Samuel also said unto Saul, "'The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king "'over his people, over Israel.

"'Now therefore hearken thou unto the voice "'of the words of the Lord. "'Thus saith the Lord of hosts, "'I remember that which

Amalek did to Israel, "'how he laid wait for him in the way "'when he came up from 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.

"'And Saul gathered the people together "'and numbered them in Telaim, "'200 ,000 footmen and 10 ,000 men of Judah.

"'And Saul came to a city of Amalek "'and laid wait in the valley. "'And Saul said unto the Kenites, "'Go, depart, get you down from among the

Amalekites, "'lest I destroy you with them. "'For he showed kindness to all the children of Israel "'when they came up out of Egypt.

"'So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. "'And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah "'until thou comest to shore that is over against Egypt.

"'And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive "'and utterly destroyed all the people "'with the edge of the sword.

"'But Saul and the people spared Agag "'and the best of the sheep and of the oxen "'and of the fatlings and the lambs and all that was good "'and would not utterly destroy them.

"'But everything that was vile and refuse, "'that they destroyed utterly.'" And that brings us today to Esther chapter three, verses one through four.

"'After these things, did King Ahasuerus promote Haman, "'the son of Hamadathah, the

Agagite, and advanced him "'and set his seat above all the princes that were with him.

"'And all the king's servants that were in the king's gate "'vowed and reverenced Haman, "'for the king had so commanded concerning him.

"'But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence. "'Then the king's servants, which were in the king's gate, "'said unto

Mordecai, "'Why transgressest thou the king's commandment? "'Now it came to pass, when they spake daily unto him, "'and he hearkened not unto them, "'that they told

Haman to see "'whether Mordecai's matters would stand, "'for he had told them that he was a Jew.'"

Thus ends the reading of God's holy word. May he write it on our hearts by faith. Let us pray.

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you this day that you have given this word to us for us to consider, for us to learn from.

May you help us now in the preaching of your word to receive all that you would have for us by faith, or that you would not have the things which are of me to cloud what it is that you have for us, your people.

Lord, give us hearts and ears and eyes of faith this day, again, that we would rejoice in and receive well the words of our

Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, and amen. Now, with all that reading, we can see why

Haman is introduced in Esther chapter three as the Agagite. But fundamentally,

I wanna start, just kind of lay the foundation of Esther chapter three. Again, it opens with the promotion. We know where chapter two ended, with Mordecai saving the life of King Ahasuerus, and chapter three opens with the promotion, not of Mordecai, but Ahasuerus elevating a man named

Haman. He sets him above the officials. He gives him status, authority, attention, and the command goes out that when

Haman passes, everybody bows, and all bow except for Mordecai. Now, if you've read the book of Esther before in its entirety, you might think that the issue is simply pride, right?

That Haman is proud, Mordecai is stubborn, and it's just a clash of personalities. But the Holy Spirit doesn't merely introduce us to Haman by saying,

Haman. He says, Haman, the Agagite. That is not just trivia, but really, today, that's the whole sermon.

History lives in those words. Agagite means connected to Agag. He's a descendant of this former

Amalekite king, and Agag is not merely a man, right? Agag is a name soaked in blood, soaked in covenant history, and soaked in the warfare between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.

This is not the first time that God's people have faced this enemy. This is not a random villain, that being

Haman, introduced for plot. This is an old war resurfacing. And right away, you should feel the weight of it and be reminded of his implications, that some battles do not disappear because you ignore them.

Some enemies do not retire because you get tired. They come back, they wait, and they rise again.

The past is never dead, especially in the course of God's conflict to take back his world.

And so these few words mean something significant in the cosmic war for the world that God has established

Esther as queen, right? This just happened in chapter two. And Satan now has countered by establishing

Haman, the Agagite, a hater of God's people, as the hand of the king. And so let's look closer at this history to appreciate the significance of these words of Haman, the

Agagite, here in Esther chapter three. Again, looking at Exodus 17, the

Israelites are fleeing from Egypt, and it's here that they meet another enemy, not the Egyptians, whom

God has just defeated, right? That serpent king Pharaoh that God defeated. Now the enemy working again,

Satan working again to attack God's people. This time Amalek comes out and attacks Israel. But we pay attention to how

Amalek fights. And Deuteronomy later clarifies it for us as well, that Amalek struck the stragglers, the weary, the faint, those at the back.

Not a fair fight, but a predatory attack, opportunistic evil. And so Israel goes to battle with them.

And Moses goes up on the hill with the staff of God, his hands raised. And when Moses' hands are up, Israel prevails.

When his hands fall, Amalek prevails. And Aaron and Hur hold up Moses' hands until the sun goes down, and until Joshua defeats

Amalek. And God says something incredibly important in verse 14.

He says, 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 then in verse 16, the Lord has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

God has declared perpetual war with Amalek, not because God is petty, but because Amalek has set itself against God's saving purposes.

Amalek is attacking the line through which God will bring salvation to the world. They're attacking the people of God.

And this is not merely a nation being mean. It's not the art of war, it's not ancient geopolitics.

This is enmity with God and enmity with the people of God. The Amalekites even are likely descendants of Esau, right?

So if we understand this history, this covenant history going all the way back to the garden, we see the ways in which the

Amalekites are connected as being the enemy of God. They are in opposition to God and his people.

Continuing to Deuteronomy 25, God commands Israel in verse 17, says, 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 behind most of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou was faint and weary, and he feared not

God. So God charges, charges Israel this day, that there will be a day that he will give

Israel rest, right, in Deuteronomy 25, he promises this, there's gonna be a day that I'm gonna give you rest.

And at that time, he tells them that they shall not, or they shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

Now shall not forget it. So God requires two things of them in Deuteronomy 25.

Remember what happened, right? Remember what Amalek did to you. Remember what they did to your people. Remember how they attacked you at your weakest points.

And the second thing, when I give you rest in the promised land, finish the job.

But this requires moral clarity, right? It requires courage. And more than anything, we'll see it requires obedience to actually do this.

That's what brings us to 1 Samuel 15. It's one of the most tragic chapters, really, in all of the

Old Testament. God has brought rest to Israel, just like he promised. He established them in the land.

He's even given them a king in Saul, the Benjamite son of Kish. Remember, this makes him an ancestor of Mordecai and Esther.

And God commands Saul to devote Amalek to destruction. And Saul goes out and fights, but he spares

Agag, the king of the Amalekites, and he spares the best of the livestock. To say it another way, he keeps what looks valuable to him.

He preserves what God commanded him to destroy. And Saul's excuse is religious sounding.

You know, I kept the best to sacrifice to the Lord. I did basically everything required. And even,

God, I'd say I did better than maybe you even asked, because now the people have sacrifices for you.

He appeals to the prophet Samuel when he's confronted in verses 20 and 21. Says, yea, I have obeyed the voice of the

Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me and have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the

Amalekites. But the people took the spoil, sheep, and oxen, the chief of the things, which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the

Lord thy God in Gilgal. But in verse 22, Samuel answers with thunder.

He says, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the

Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. Rebellion might as well be witchcraft,

Samuel goes on to say. And because Saul rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord rejects Saul from being king.

And Samuel, in his righteous zeal, executes Agag himself. But we know from Esther chapter three, from Haman's lineage, that it's too late, right?

The destruction of the Amalekites doesn't come. And so what's the lesson here as we understand this background history?

Half -hearted obedience is disobedience. Selective obedience is rebellion.

And so when leaders fail to finish what God commands, the consequences don't promise to stay contained.

More often, those consequences will take root, they'll spread, and they'll haunt the future.

Again, some battles do not disappear just because you ignore them. Now, thankfully, our confidence, our hope, is not in our ability to obey fully, right?

Because otherwise, we'd be, and rightfully so, a little nervous, right, about our abilities to obey

God's command in full. But rather, our hope is in a God who will have the victory. And even the pagan prophet

Balaam's prophecy, and this is from Numbers 24, verse 20, Balaam prophesies regarding Amalek.

He says, Amalek was the first of the nations, but his latter end shall be that he perish forever.

And so the storyline is set, right? Amalek opposes God's people, God declares war,

God commands Israel to finish it, Saul refuses, and the kingdom is torn from him, and now, centuries later, an agagite stands in Persia with imperial power, ready to wield it against God's people.

That's not coincidence, right? That's judgment and providence colliding, right?

So when we see the spirit include this detail, this is important, critical even, for our understanding of what's happening in Esther.

Again, Esther chapter three, it's not the beginning of this conflict, it is the resurfacing of an ancient one.

And that's because the conflict in Esther is not just between these two men, it's not just between Haman and Mordecai, it's between two seeds, two kingdoms, two loyalties.

It goes all the way back to the garden, to the fall, where in Genesis chapter three at verse 15,

God announces enmity between the serpent and the woman, between his seed and her seed. That's not merely about snakes and why people don't like snakes today, right?

It's a spiritual storyline of the whole world. And so when Amalek attacks Israel, it's not merely geopolitical, it's the serpent's seed attempting to strike the covenant line.

It's hell attempting to interrupt the history that leads to Christ. And we even take that as a sermon,

Israel leaving Egypt, leaving being slaves to sin, and as they're leaving, they're not utterly free, they're still under attack, right?

They need to continue in the fight against the enemy, even after they've been freed and redeemed by God.

And Esther sits in that same line, right? The Jews at this time are the covenant people of God, through them come the promises, the

Messiah and the salvation of the nations. And so Haman's hatred is not only ethnic hatred, it is not only a personal offense, it is satanic, it is dragon rage, it is the ancient hostility of Genesis 3 .15

breaking the surface again. God has established Esther, he's established a Jew to be in a position of power in the largest kingdom in the world.

And so Satan is counterattacking with Haman. But Jesus says in John 8, verse 44, that those who oppose

God show themselves to be of their father, the devil. Revelation 12 .17 says the dragon makes war on the offspring of the woman.

Again, at this point in history in Persia, that is Esther, it's Mordecai, it's the Jews. Now, here's where this gets very practical for us.

There's a reason that unbelief can sense faith, right? Haman isn't established because he senses that Esther is a

Jew. Obviously there are spiritual elements to this. Satan is manipulating even

Hoshuaerus to establish him. Even without that, even apart from the spiritual realm, we can sense faith in others.

And even the unbeliever can sense faith in us, such that they have a great disdain at times for us.

There's a reason that the world doesn't merely disagree with Christianity, it often resents it.

And it's not only because Christians can sometimes say things poorly or act foolishly, that's true of anybody, but it can be true of Christians.

That's not why the world hates Christianity. Because even when

Christians speak carefully and live quietly, which we can see in our culture today, or over the past 40 years, the hostility still comes against the

Christian church. And why is that? Well, in the cosmic war, faith and unbelief recognize each other.

When you belong to Christ, you carry his name, you bear his image in a renewed way. You confess his

Lordship, you represent his kingdom in miniature. And that creates a spiritual collision.

Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 2, verses 15 and 16. For we are unto

God a sweet saver of Christ in them that are saved. And in them that perish, to the one we are the saver of death unto death, and to the other, the saver of life unto life.

In other words, the same Christ is preached, the same gospel is offered, the same light shines, and yet two opposite reactions happen.

To those being saved, Christ is life. To those perishing, Christ is an offense, not because he's morally ugly, but because he is morally absolute.

He does not come as one option among many, he comes as Lord. And so the world smells what you are.

It can often tell when a Christian is not merely playing at religion, but is actually loyal to the

King. That's why Jesus tells his disciples in John 15, 18, that if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.

The world does not only hate certain Christian conclusions or beliefs, it hates what those conclusions imply.

That the world is not sovereign, that it is not innocent, that it must repent, that there is a throne above its thrones.

And that's what's happening here in Esther 3. Mordecai and Haman clash, and it looks like it's all because there's one guy just won't bow.

It looks petty, it looks personal. But the deeper reality is this, that the old enmity has found new clothes.

Haman does not merely want honor, he wants submission, he wants worship adjacent compliance, like Satan as he tempts

Jesus, when he says he'll give Jesus the whole world if he'd only bow down and worship him.

He wants the covenant people to behave as though the Lord is not the Lord. And Mordecai's refusal is not merely a personal disagreement or a private scruple, it's covenant loyalty, right?

It's the seed of the woman refusing to make peace with the seed of the serpent. Come what may for him or for the

Jews. So this is what's happening beneath the surface here in the book of Esther, particularly here in chapter three, as we meet

Haman. But what else is there that we could take from this, other than this, obviously very interesting, very important background truth to the story?

Well, the first thing that we know is that there's always more than meets the eye. It's important for us to remember.

One of the great weaknesses of modern people is that we think the visible world, the material world is the only real thing.

We think that's it. That what we can see is all there is, but scripture shatters that illusion.

Ephesians six at verse 12, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Second Kings chapter six, when Elisha's servants, they panic because they see the enemy army, but Elisha prays and God opens his eyes and he sees a mountain full of horses and chariots of fire.

Daniel 10, Daniel sees the vision of the angelic conflict that's happening behind earthly events.

Colossians 1 .16, we know Christ created all things visible and invisible. And so it's important again for us to remember this, that there is more going on in your life than you can see.

It doesn't mean that you should become superstitious. It means that you should become biblical, right?

It means that you should stop interpreting everything as merely human motives and earthly causes. You stop living essentially like a materialist with religious hobbies.

And it means that you stop being shocked when the world turns vicious toward simple faithfulness, right?

Sometimes the fiercest hatred that you receive is not because you are rude, but it's because you're faithful. And Esther should teach us that what happens in palaces and offices and courts and voting booths and college campuses, this isn't just culture war, right?

It's covenant conflict. This is conflict that spans across all of redemptive history.

And so we don't live in fear because God's not wringing his hands by what we can see. Right, Romans 16 .20

says that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. 1 John 4 .4, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.

Psalm 46, therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way. Fear is functional atheism, but courage, it's not pretending the enemy is weak.

Courage is knowing that your God is stronger. It'd be easy to think that the world is just stuff, right?

And the things that, things are just happening randomly around us, but the historical realities that we see coming to a head in Esther tell us otherwise.

There's more to life than what we can see. It was true for Esther in Mordecai. It's true for us today on a macro level, right?

With our government or whatever it may be difficulty and even personally in your individual life, there's more than meets the eye as to what is happening.

God is moving. We take heart at this in 2 Corinthians 4. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

While we look not to the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

So we need to discipline ourselves to have eyes of faith in our cultural moment, right?

Don't just look at what we can see and presume to know where things are headed. Trust that the

Lord is moving and has us where we are perhaps for such a time as this.

And what's more, we should learn from this part of the narrative of Esther and the history underneath it, something very personal.

But there is a way in which you can admire Moses and Samuel and Mordecai from a distance and still imitate

Saul up close. Because Saul's sin is common, right? That partial obedience, half -heartedness, keeping the best for yourself, doing the religious things while refusing the costly things.

Saul fights Amalek, but then he saves Agag. Saul obeys as long as it does not threaten his reputation, his comfort, his control.

And the question for you is where are you half -hearted in your worship? What sin do you pet instead of kill?

What compromise do you manage instead of mortify? What do you keep around because it looks useful, profitable or harmless when

God calls it wicked? Some of us are mostly obedient husbands or wives, mostly obedient fathers or mothers or children, mostly obedient church members, but mostly obedient is disobedient.

And we remember Saul's unfinished business, his disobedience becomes Esther and Mordecai and all the

Jews crisis later on. Saul's descendants, right? His children's children. So don't tell yourself that your compromise is private.

It's not, it echoes and it lives. In your families, your failures today can echo into the lives and homes of your children.

Do you complain? Do you get angry? Do you lack self -control? Are you unloving, impatient, dissatisfied?

Well, then don't be surprised when your children struggle with those same fights because you haven't properly forgot or excuse me, fought the sins away to protect them.

In our church, we have large aims here at this church. We have many things that we hope to do, cultural evils to destroy, cultural glories to build and rebuild and all in obedience to what we believe

God would have for us. But we must take care not to be a people who are merely excited about the idea of a thing.

Because if we're only excited about an idea and not the work, then I guarantee you that our obedience will be half -hearted.

We'll grow weary when the work gets hard or the results seem unattainable. And you can't just move to New Hampshire to be spared from Massachusetts liberalism forever.

You can't just move to Idaho or Utah or more established communities to protect yourselves and your children from the fight.

It's true that that might buy you some time and there's great encouragement to be had in larger, more established church communities and the programs and ministries that they have in place to be sure.

I don't discount that there could be wisdom in such a decision in certain situations. But to look at the fight before us and especially for us here in Massachusetts in the year of our

Lord, 2026 and have to constantly reconvince yourself to not run from it is setting us up for failure.

If we're gonna be obedient to what we believe that God has called us to, then we need to be certain of what it is and we need to be certain of our commitment to see it through.

If we're half -hearted in any way, we will not succeed. And what's the result of that?

Right, is it as simple as we just weren't able to do it? Right, no big deal? In some cases, maybe that's true, hopefully even, because the alternative is far worse, but more likely.

Much more likely that it'll be like Saul, right? That every fight that we aren't willing to see through will be passed down to our children to fight.

And the enemies that we won't fight will only get stronger and stronger against them. And you can't run from that forever.

No matter where you go, if you don't confront the enemies, they will eventually, maybe generations into the future, find you and your children and your children's children again.

But perhaps God has us here to lead the charge on this front.

Your obedience matters. It matters to God and it matters to the people around you.

And so lock in, right? Don't be satisfied with something half -hearted. All of Christ for all of life is the aim.

Anything less needs to be anathema to you. Insist on a full obedience and trust that God would bless that.

That's the type of husband that your wife needs, type of father your children need, the type of men this church needs if we're gonna build the type of culture that Massachusetts needs.

And so men, don't be half -hearted. Don't push off the fight for another day. Give obedience to your

God and faith. And ladies do the same, right? Your husbands and your children in this church and our culture need you.

Are you willing to pour out your life for the people around you? To walk in the kind of godly womanhood that our culture despises?

And even our children, perhaps even most of all to our children, don't waste your youth with frivolity.

God has you in or coming into the period of your life where you'll have the most energy to give to his service.

Do not waste it. Practice obedience today and trust that as you grow older, the

Lord will bring honor to you. He'll honor your faith and his promises will be true, that it will be well with you and that it will bless you.

In this war, we all have a role to play. We all have a fight in the battle.

Again, the question that we have to reckon with is whether we'll actually fight with the weapons of faith and obedience, trusting

God to bring the victory to us, or if we'll lay down our arms and let them win because it seems too costly.

Now, if we zoom out to our fathers, again, depending on how far back you're looking or how large of a period you're looking at, you can see it's some fought and many failed, right?

Many men would not lead. Many pastors would not speak. Many fathers would not discipline. Many churches would not confront.

Many Christians wanted winsome more than faithful, accepted more than obedient. And now we live in a moment where the world is not asking politely.

It is demanding our obedience to them and not to God. So again, the question to us, it's not really about whether you will fight.

It's when will you finally do it? When will you finally engage in it? And will you be faithful in it?

Hebrews 12 says, we have a cloud of witnesses and to run with endurance the race that set before us.

Look to Jesus. 2 Timothy 2 says, endure hardship like a good soldier.

Philippians 2 .16 speaks of not running in vain. So don't squander what you inherited.

Don't waste the sacrifices of those who went before. Don't be the generation that hands your children an even more ruined church and a hollowed out civilization because you wanted comfort.

There's a kind of softness that is not gentleness. It's cowardice dressed in therapeutic language.

But God has not called the church to be a social club for timid people. God has called the church to be an outpost of the kingdom of Christ.

And if you do not fight the right battles, you are more likely your children will end up fighting worse ones later.

So who will we be? Will we be half -hearted in our obedience to the call of God to serve

Him and labor for His kingdom where we are? Or will we pick up the fight in faith and embrace the battles that He's given to us at such a time as this?

Not leaving the fight for another day or another generation more faithful than us. Now, as we close,

I wanna close with this because the ultimate point is not, you know, try harder, be braver and do better than your fathers.

That's a point. That's not the ultimate point. The ultimate point is that God is in control, right?

He is sovereign. His invisible hand of providence is moving and He finishes what

His people fail to finish. And God does that through Christ. In Jesus Christ, God has disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them in the cross.

Through death, He destroyed the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and delivered those who were subject to lifelong slavery.

Through Him, He destroyed the works of the devil. And so, yes, there is cosmic warfare, but the decisive blow has been struck at Calvary.

The serpent has been crushed. The dragon's doom is sure. Haman is not ultimate. Caesar is not ultimate.

The mob is not ultimate. The academy is not ultimate. The state is not ultimate. Christ and Christ alone is ultimate.

And so we press it home that if Christ has conquered, we don't live like we are conquered.

If Christ has triumphed, do not live like you are defeated. If Christ is King, do not live like the world owns you.

And if Christ has bought you, do not sell yourself cheap. Repent of cowardice, repent of compromise, repent of sparing, agag, and then stand, humbly, cheerfully, and firmly, because the

Lord has war with Amalek from generation to generation, and the Lord will finish what he started. And therefore, the call at the end of this understanding, this review of the history of God's people, of the

Amalekites, it's not despair, right? It's dignity. It's steadfastness. It's holy courage.

In many ways, our fathers labored honorably and gave us a great inheritance. And many others, especially more recently, they faltered in the fullness of their obedience, and much more has been lost.

But neither of those things can be an excuse, right? You can't allow a great inheritance to spoil you into apathy, nor can you allow what you didn't get to sour you into a professional complainer.

Rather, we must recognize that God is pleased to use their successes and their failures, in our successes and our failures, for his glory and his purposes.

And in that, we must determine that we will walk worthy of the calling to which we've been called and to fight the fights that he's given us, so that our children can fight the fights that he'll give to them.

There's a great scene towards the end of the movie, Saving Private Ryan. A group of soldiers are led on a mission to find this

Private Ryan, to get him out of the war. This is in World War II, and to send him home, because all of his brothers have died in the fighting in the course of the war.

As the movie approaches its end, most of the men sent to save Private Ryan die in a firefight in their return.

And Captain Miller, that's the man that is played by Tom Hanks, and he leads the battalion.

He's wounded, he's dying after the fighting. And he says these final words to Private Ryan, who survived the fighting.

Again, the man that they all went to save. He's one of the few survivors at the end. He says to him, earn this, earn it.

So much was given for you, right? These men gave their lives for you, earn it.

Earn that sacrifice, be worthy of it. Your fathers sacrificed greatly for you.

They stood up for the truth. They crossed an ocean, they fought a war. They've given you an inheritance, now earn it.

And what's more, Jesus Christ died for you freely. He gave up the glories of heaven and put on human flesh.

He lived a life without sin and died a sinner's death for you. Now earn it, not to save yourself, but to glorify him that saved you while you were still an enemy.

And to see his kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.