Rev. Jared Buss
Pittsburgh New Church; March 2, 2025
Readings: 1 Samuel 30:1-10, 15-19 (children’s talk); Exodus 17:8-13; Secrets of Heaven §8593
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The story that was read to the children was about David and his men overcoming in the face of an almost hopeless situation, and rescuing their families. They overcame because David “strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (1 Sam. 30:6).
What we’re going to focus on now is the enemy that appears in this story—we’re going to focus on the Amalekites, and on what they symbolize. This is worth doing because the Amalekites symbolize a particularly sneaky spiritual opponent. They symbolize falsities, or lies, that are slipped into our thinking and attack us when we’re down. So what we’re really focusing on today is how to recognize these falsities for what they are: how to recognize when the thing that’s oppressing us, the thing that’s making us feel hopeless, is a lie. These lies rob us of our happiness—but if we look to the Lord we can beat the Amalekites, and take that happiness back.
The next passage from the Word that we’re going to consider is another story about a battle between Israelites and Amalekites. This is part of the story of the exodus from Egypt. The things that are described here happened after the children of Israel had crossed the Red Sea, as they were traveling through the wilderness to Mount Sinai. The Israelites have been complaining about being hungry (Ex. 16:2, 3) and thirsty (15:24, 17:3), and have been “contending” with Moses, their leader (17:2, 7). This is important to bear in mind, because the Amalekites attack us when we’re down. That’s the context, and here’s the reading: [17:8-13].
The bit about Moses needing to hold the rod of God above his head is interesting, because it’s so obviously symbolic. We’ll come back to that detail. For now, we’re focusing on the Amalekites. The Amalekites attacked when the people were wandering in the wilderness—when they were hungry and thirsty and already inclined to be angry with the Lord. And this was their M.O. They were opportunists who attacked weak points. Much later, in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the children of Israel of these events, and here’s what he says:
Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God. (25:17, 18)
The Amalekites attacked from behind, and they attacked the weakest people in the group. We see the same sort of thing in the reading from 1 Samuel: the Amalekites attacked Ziklag when David and his warriors were not present. In the teachings of the New Church we’re told that all of the enemies of the children of Israel symbolize specific evils (e.g. SH §§1444.4, 1868). You could also say that they symbolize specific kinds of evil spirits—the spirits that inspire those specific evils. The idea that the Amalekites were opportunists who attacked weak points gives us a pretty good sense of the kind of spirit that they symbolize.
The term that’s used in the teachings of the New Church to describe this Amalekite spirit is “falsity arising from interior evil” (SH §8593). Falsity means lies. And our next reading, which is from the book Secrets of Heaven, explains what “interior evil” means [read from §8593].
We’ll continue with the reading in a moment, but we should note that what we’ve read so far is mostly talking about not-so-nice people who live in this world. But the next part of the reading is about those same not-so-nice people after they’ve died and entered the spiritual world. Specifically, it’s about the way that those spirits attack us [read from §8593.2].
So the first part of that reading is about people who really don’t mean well, but do an awfully good job of appearing to love their neighbors. It’s good to be aware that people like that exist. Obviously the Lord doesn’t want us to becomes suspicious of everyone who seems nice—“are you secretly an Amalekite?” And obviously this reading isn’t an invitation for us to start judging people’s hearts. But it is useful for us to be aware that evil often doesn’t want to look evil. It goes to great lengths to pass itself off as good.
But for today’s purposes, the more significant part of that reading is the second part—the part that describes how these Amalekite spirits treat us. They never pick a fight when we’re in a strong position. They wait until we’re staggering, and then they show up to give us the final push. And don’t we all know what that feels like? Don’t we all know that it’s when we’re already struggling, when we’re already stressed and tired, that the craziest and nastiest thoughts pop into our heads? The Amalekites symbolize that spirit that comes to us in our lowest moments and nudges us towards rage or despair.
Remember, the Amalekites are said to be “falsity from interior evil.” The way they nudge us towards despair is by telling us lies. And the lies that they tell are sneaky. When you hear the word “falsity,” what do you think of? Sometimes “falsity” makes us think of great big false concepts—like “the world is flat.” And we imagine that the way we fight falsity is by hitting it with the truth—“no, the world is round.” We tend to imagine that if hell is coming at us with falsity, that means that hell is trying to contradict the things that we believe. “You think God is real? No, God isn’t real!”
But the reading from Secrets of Heaven says that these Amalekite spirits don’t attack the truths of faith—they attack the good of faith (§8593.2). Because these spirits know that if we have any faith in God, then that faith is a source of strength. And they don’t attack us where we’re strong. There’s a book called The Screwtape Letters, written by C. S. Lewis, and in this book a fictional devil named Screwtape advises another devil on how to corrupt human beings. The purpose of the book is to expose the tricks that the hells try to use on us. And Screwtape’s very first piece of advice in this book is “don’t argue with people.” He says, “by the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?” (p. 2). The “patient” means the person that these devils are trying to lead astray. The point is that clever devils don’t argue with us, because they know that if they do we might start to argue back. This is a pretty good illustration of what we’re taught in the Word.
The Amalekites don’t attack our faith. They don’t try to take the things we believe and turn them on their heads. They tell us lies, but the lies they tell are designed to attack our affections. The Amalekites are sneaky. They come in the dark and attack the parts of us that we ourselves understand most poorly: they attack our feelings. The teachings of the New Church compare their lies to “deadly and imperceptible poison” (SH §8625.2).
Those lies probably take thousands of subtle forms. But here are a few examples of the kinds of things these spirits might be trying to make us believe:
· The world is an awful, greedy place where might makes right.
· If I take someone down so I can get ahead, I’m only doing what they wish they could have done to me.
· Pleasure is the only good thing.
· What this person did actually is unforgivable.
· I can never be better than this.
So far we’ve focused on a lot of unpleasant things. There is a use in that: it’s good to know your enemy. But of course, what we really want to know is how to escape this enemy. How do we overcome the Amalekites? To overcome them is to rise out of a dark and tangled state of mind. It’s to rise up from the overwhelm that we feel when our emotions—our anger and our fear—have been weaponized against us.
No one will be surprised to hear that if we’re going to overcome this evil, the first thing we need to do is look to the Lord. David was overwhelmed with grief, his own people were turning against him, but he “strengthened Himself in the Lord his God” (1 Sam. 30:4, 6). He asked the Lord what He should do, and the Lord gave him purpose and a direction: “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them…” (v. 8). We see the same dynamic in the story from Exodus: Joshua went down to fight with the Amalekites, but Moses went to the top of a hill and held up the rod of God (17:9). The rod of God symbolizes the power of the Lord—the power of truth that is joined to good (SH §§8598, 8599). While Moses held his hands up, the Israelites were able to beat the Amalekites. But if he put his hands down, the Amalekites started to win (Ex. 17:11). What this means is very simple: if we look to the Lord, we can overcome what hell throws at us. If we stop looking to the Lord, we will stumble (SH §8604).
This teaching might seem too simple. “Yes, yes—look to the Lord.” We can get the impression that the Lord is supposed to be a magic wand, and that if we wave the magic wand we’ll feel fine. But there are no magic wands. Part of what the Word is saying when it tells us to look to the Lord is that we need to just get out of the mentality that the hells construct for us. Their strategy is to overwhelm us with doubt and darkness, and often they succeed at trapping us in the middle of that doubt and darkness. They get us to play the game on their terms, and we spend time and energy trying to hold all of the feelings that they give us, trying to answer the unanswerable questions that they give us. And what the Word tells us is to just get out! Stop believing that you need to hold what hell gives you. The Lord is like the sun in the sky, above the smoke and the darkness—lift up your eyes, and let Him lift you out! We don’t have to follow the crooked road that hell has put beneath our feet. Just find the Lord. Find Him in prayer. Find Him in His Word. What does He say? In today’s recitation He says, “I am with you to save you and deliver you” (Jer. 15:20).
Looking to the Lord is the first step to freedom—but it’s not like our problems go away as soon as we look to the Lord. We have to keep going until the battle is over. David strengthened himself in the Lord, and after that he and his people had to pursue the Amalekites. And that would have been exhausting. It was so exhausting that two hundred of David’s men gave up the chase and stayed behind at the brook Besor (1 Sam. 30:9, 10). And when David finally caught up with the Amalekites, he still had to fight them, and that fight lasted “from twilight until the evening of the next day” (v. 17). We see the same thing in the story from Exodus: Moses couldn’t just put his hands up once. He had to keep them up throughout the battle. And his hands became heavy (17:12). Looking to the Lord isn’t so hard, but keeping Him in our thoughts is harder. We need to find things that strengthen and support us in our commitment to following Him (cf. v. 12; SH §§8608-8613). We need to stay the course. That was the message of last week’s sermon.
And it sure helps to do these things with a bit of a fighting spirit. Moses was up on the hill with the rod of God in his hands, but Joshua was down in the valley fighting the battle, and Joshua symbolizes “fighting truth” (SH §8595). Think of the zeal that David and his people must have felt, as they chased down the Amalekites to take back their wives and their children. Hell wants to take what’s good away from us, and when we say “no” to hell, it doesn’t hurt to let there be some fire in our voices. That defiant edge is captured in these words from the book of Micah: “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; when I fall, I will arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me” (7:8).
This fighting spirit will let us down if we look to ourselves for strength. True confidence—confidence that we can get up every time we fall—is confidence in the Lord. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Ps. 27:1).
Amen.