But our factious spirits go ahead and say of everything they find in Moses, Here God is speaking, no one can deny it; therefore we must keep it.‖ So then the rabble go to it. Whew! If God has said it, who then will say anything against it? Then they are really pressed hard like pigs at a trough. Our dear prophets have chattered thus into the minds of the people, Dear people, God has ordered his people to beat Amalek to death‖ [Exod. 17:816; Deut.
25:1719].11 Misery and tribulation have come out of this sort of thing. The peasants have arisen,12 not knowing the difference, and have been led into this error by those insane factious spirits.

Had there been educated preachers around, they could have stood up to the false prophets and stopped them, and said this to them, Dear factious spirits, it is true that God commanded this of Moses and. spoke thus to the people; but we are not this people. Land, God spoke also to Adam; but that does not make me Adam. God commanded Abraham to put his son to death [Gen. 22:2]; but that does not make me Abraham and obligate me to put my son to death. God spoke also with David. It is all God’s word. But let God’s word be what it may, I must pay attention and know to whom God’s word is addressed. You are still a long way from being the people with whom God spoke.‖ The false prophets say, You are that people, God is speaking to you.‖ You must prove that to me. With talk like that these factious spirits could have been refuted. But they wanted to be beaten, and so the rabble went to the devil.

One must deal cleanly with the Scriptures. From the very beginning the word has come to us in various ways. It is not enough simply to look and see whether this is God’s word, whether God has said it; rather we must look and see to whom it has been spoken, whether it fits us. That makes all the difference between night and day.13 God said to David, Out of you shall come the king,‖ etc. [II Sam. 7:13]. But this does not pertain to me, nor has it been spoken to me. He can indeed speak to me if he chooses to do so. You must keep your eye on the word that applies to you, that is spoken to you.

The word in Scripture is of two kinds: the first does not pertain or apply to me, the other kind does.

(from Luther’s Works, Vol. 35, pp 167ff Word and Sacrament, Vol. 1, “How Christians Should Regard Moses”)