1 Chronicles 4:41-43
These, registered by name, came in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and destroyed their tents and the Meunites who were found there, and marked them for destruction to this day, and settled in their place, because there was pasture there for their flocks. And some of them, five hundred men of the Simeonites, went to Mount Seir, having as their leaders Pelatiah, Neariah, Rephaiah, and Uzziel, the sons of Ishi. And they defeated the remnant of the Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day.
Tag: No Part of Sin Should Remain
The story of Israel conquering the land is used by several writers in the New Testament as a metaphor for the struggle of the Christian to enjoy a life of rest and victory. Just as Israel had to conquer the land to enter in rest, so too does the believer have to fight (by faith) to conquer all the sin in his/her life. The writer of Hebrews calls this “entering in His rest.” The concept of “rest” in the Christian life is quite relative. Each believer has a different walk before God. We tend to think that we are supposed to have a life like others. We see others at “rest” and we wonder why we don’t have it. In the above passage we see a random story in this book of Chronicles about the descendants of Simeon (a son of Israel) and their conquering the remnant of the Amalekites. There is nothing historically significant about this story. It simply is a fact the composer of Chronicles gives us. What we do see is that this remnant saw the the enemy of Israel (Amalekites) were still living up in the mountains and they pursued them and conquered them. The enemies of Israel are, metaphorically, a picture of sin in our lives. God told them to drive out these people from the land of God. Israel did not drive them and they enticed Israel to sin. The point of the entire picture is that when we don’t drive out anything that draws us away from God we will have to deal with the oppression of that enemy all our lives and not have the rest God promises. Israel refused to drive out all the enemies of the land and, instead, made peace with them. These enemies, eventually, enticed Israel to follow their ways and caused Israel to fail to follow God’s ways. The above story is refreshing as it shows that there was still a group of people in the land of Israel who thought it wise to “drive out” the remnant of the enemy. When we allow any type of influence of the enemy (sin) in our lives, we are subject to compromise and lost of “rest.” This is a great story about making sure we have NOTHING in our lives that opens the door for us to walk away from God. It is a constant fight of faith. But, it is a war we must wage ... each day!!
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