WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.800 All right, we're going to read together from the book of Judges in the Old 00:00:03.800 --> 00:00:11.439 Testament. Judges chapter 3. We'll read the whole of chapter 3. Now these are the 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:16.320 nations that the Lord left to test Israel by them. That is, all in Israel who 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:21.960 had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. It was only in order that the 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:26.760 generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:31.600 not known it before. These are the nations, the five lords of the Philistines, 00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:36.240 and all the Canaanites and Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:43.359 from Mount Bell, Hermon, as far as Lebo, Hamoth. They were for the 00:00:43.359 --> 00:00:46.840 testing of Israel to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the 00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:50.640 Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. So the people of 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:54.840 Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parasites, the 00:00:54.840 --> 00:00:59.520 Hivites, and the Jebusites, and their daughters they took to themselves for 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:03.640 wives and their own daughters they gave to their sons and they served their 00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:08.439 gods. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They 00:01:08.439 --> 00:01:13.840 forgot the Lord their God and they served the Baals and the Asheroth. Therefore 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:18.879 the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he sold them into the 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:24.080 hand of Kushan, Rishah, Taim, king of Mesopotamia, and the people of Israel 00:01:24.079 --> 00:01:28.439 served Kushan, Rishah, Taim eight years. But when the people of Israel cried out 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:32.519 to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel who 00:01:32.519 --> 00:01:38.200 saved them, Othniel, the son of Kinas, Caleb's younger brother. The spirit of the 00:01:38.200 --> 00:01:43.200 Lord was upon him and he judged Israel. He went out to war and the Lord gave 00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:48.000 Kushan, Rishah, Taim, king of Mesopotamia into his hand and his hand prevailed 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:54.719 over Kushan, Rishah, Taim. So the land had rest for 40 years then Othniel, the son 00:01:54.719 --> 00:01:59.840 of Kinas, died. And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:05.240 the Lord. And the Lord strengthened Yglon, the king of Moab against Israel 00:02:05.240 --> 00:02:09.560 because they had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He gathered to 00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:14.639 himself the Ammonites and the Amilokites and he went and he defeated Israel and 00:02:14.639 --> 00:02:19.079 they took possession of the city of Palms, that's Jericho. And the people of 00:02:19.079 --> 00:02:24.359 Israel served Yglon, the king of Moab for 18 years. Then the people of Israel 00:02:24.359 --> 00:02:28.599 cried out to the Lord and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehed, the son of 00:02:28.599 --> 00:02:33.919 Gera, the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. The people of Israel sent tribute by him 00:02:33.919 --> 00:02:38.719 to Yglon, the king of Moab. And Ehed made for himself a sword with two 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:43.719 edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes 00:02:43.719 --> 00:02:49.319 and he presented the tribute to Yglon, king of Moab. Now, Yglon was a very fat 00:02:49.319 --> 00:02:53.199 man and when Ehed had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the 00:02:53.199 --> 00:02:57.759 people who carried the tribute. But he himself turned back at the idols near 00:02:57.759 --> 00:03:02.439 Gilgal and he said, I have a secret message for you, O king. And he commanded 00:03:02.439 --> 00:03:07.599 silence and all his attendants went out from his presence. And Ehed came to him 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:12.840 as he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber and Ehed said, I have a message 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:17.680 from God to you. And he arose from his seat and Ehed reached with his left hand. 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:21.599 He took the sword from his right thigh and he thrust it into his belly and the 00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:26.199 hilt also went in after the blade and the fat closed over the blade for he did 00:03:26.199 --> 00:03:30.879 not pull the sword out of his belly and the excrement came out. Then Ehed went 00:03:30.879 --> 00:03:35.520 out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:40.840 them. And when he had gone, the servants came and when they saw that the doors of 00:03:40.840 --> 00:03:44.280 the roof chamber were locked, they thought surely he is relieving himself in 00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:48.039 the closet of the cool chamber. And they waited till they were embarrassed. But 00:03:48.039 --> 00:03:51.879 when he still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they took the key and 00:03:51.879 --> 00:03:57.199 they opened them and there lay their lord dead on the floor. Ehed escaped while 00:03:57.199 --> 00:04:02.039 they delayed and he passed beyond the idols and escaped to Sayyira. When he 00:04:02.039 --> 00:04:06.520 arrived, he went, he sounded the trumpet and the hill country of Ephraim. Then the 00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:10.039 people of Israel went down with him from the hill country and he was their 00:04:10.039 --> 00:04:14.000 leader and he said to them, follow me, follow after me, for the Lord has given 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:19.319 your enemies the Moabites into your hand. So they went down after him and seized 00:04:19.319 --> 00:04:23.199 the Fords of the Jordan against the Moabites and did not allow anyone to 00:04:23.199 --> 00:04:28.279 pass over. And they killed at that time about 10,000 of the Moabites, all 00:04:28.279 --> 00:04:33.279 strong able-bodied men, not a man escaped. So Moab was subdued that day under the 00:04:33.279 --> 00:04:38.879 hand of Israel and the land had rest for 80 years. And after him was Shamgar, the 00:04:38.879 --> 00:04:43.199 son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an ox code and he 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:51.959 also saved Israel. This is God's Word. We are in a series on the book of 00:04:51.959 --> 00:04:57.959 Judges, the Gospel according to Judges. We're as late in history here as about 00:04:57.959 --> 00:05:06.719 1200 BC, sometime between 1200 and 1200 BC. It's a very ancient text, very 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:13.560 ancient story, very different from modern life. And in it, God in real history is 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:20.120 communicating to us over and over again that human beings need deliverance. So 00:05:20.120 --> 00:05:25.560 12 times in the book of Judges, the Israelites find themselves captured by 00:05:25.560 --> 00:05:29.520 another people group because of their sins, because of their idolatry, and God's 00:05:29.520 --> 00:05:35.360 sins 12 times, a deliverer to save them, to rescue them out of it. And the Word 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:41.680 that's used for that deliverer is most often the word judge, Shafet. A judge 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:47.879 is not a person who sits on a bench in a courtroom and sentences people to 00:05:47.879 --> 00:05:52.520 prison or something like that or issues judiciary pronouncement. A judge in this 00:05:52.520 --> 00:06:00.120 book is more like a warrior rescuer, more like a warrior deliverer, somebody who 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:05.879 comes in and battles and saves God's people. That's the meaning of judge 00:06:05.879 --> 00:06:10.759 throughout this book. And we've said the past two weeks, if you've been here at 00:06:10.759 --> 00:06:18.519 all, that these are 12 very real life pictures, historical pictures, of the 00:06:18.519 --> 00:06:23.120 fact that there is an ultimate judge that is to come. So in all 12 of these 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:27.600 stories, all 12 times these judges show up, they are pointing every single time 00:06:27.600 --> 00:06:32.040 to the ultimate judge, to the ultimate deliverer, the great deliverer himself, 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:35.360 Jesus Christ, in the New Testament, that every single one of these stories are 00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:40.400 ultimately about the gospel and that God tells the reality, the fact that the 00:06:40.400 --> 00:06:43.960 gospel is coming over and over and over again throughout the Old Testament in 00:06:43.960 --> 00:06:48.320 cycles. And that's exactly what we have here in the Book of Judges. And so what 00:06:48.320 --> 00:06:51.720 you can do is you can come to the Book of Judges and you can look at the stories 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:58.160 of these judges and learn in fresh ways about the meaning of the gospel and 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:02.200 about what it means for us, about ourselves, about our lives, even modern 00:07:02.200 --> 00:07:06.040 people like us can learn from a story like this. And that's because ultimately 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:12.120 this is about the gospel. And so in Judges 3 we have three judges mentioned, 00:07:12.120 --> 00:07:20.840 the first three of the 12, Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar. That's a great list for baby 00:07:20.839 --> 00:07:27.319 names if you're thinking about it. We've got to be selective. You read the 00:07:27.319 --> 00:07:31.599 text like this and you say, what are you gonna say from a pulpit about this? But 00:07:31.599 --> 00:07:35.479 you know, I had to throw a sermon away at the end of the study of it because 00:07:35.479 --> 00:07:39.839 there's so much here. And just choose one and be selective. And so let's think 00:07:39.839 --> 00:07:45.079 about what we learn about the gospel, about ourselves, from these judges. What 00:07:45.079 --> 00:07:50.919 we learn is the test of faith, how to renew your faith in a time of testing, 00:07:50.919 --> 00:07:57.079 and finally the messiness of Christian faith. So let's think about that first, 00:07:57.079 --> 00:08:01.279 the test. Now if you look at the very beginning of the passage it says, these 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:05.879 are the nations that the Lord left quote to test Israel. And so the very first 00:08:05.879 --> 00:08:11.919 thing we learn here is that God tests his people. And we've seen that already in 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:18.040 the Bible before this in Genesis 22, we learn that God tested Abraham. And 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:22.360 oftentimes in the Bible the word for test and the word for temptation are 00:08:22.360 --> 00:08:28.840 actually the same words, especially in Greek. God tests his people. And then 00:08:28.840 --> 00:08:34.960 James tells us, do not ever say that God tempts anyone to sin. And those are both 00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:41.360 true at the same time. God tests his people and he never tempts anyone to sin. 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:47.480 And what that means is that God never puts us in a situation where he tempts 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:53.280 our inner life towards the desire to sin. God never gives you a desire for sin, 00:08:53.280 --> 00:08:59.920 never. But he does put you in objective external situations that are tests that 00:08:59.919 --> 00:09:05.639 do come with external temptations. God tests his people. Do you believe that? The 00:09:05.639 --> 00:09:10.039 Bible teaches that from beginning to end that he sometimes often and often puts 00:09:10.039 --> 00:09:15.679 us in the midst of tests. Why? Why do you take a test? You know, I know that right 00:09:15.679 --> 00:09:20.839 now I think I don't yet fully understand the secondary system of 00:09:20.839 --> 00:09:25.679 hires and all the examinations. One day I will. But some people are in the midst of 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:28.519 that right now. Some people are taking medical exams right now. Why do you take 00:09:28.519 --> 00:09:32.720 an exam? Many of us have had exams. We've all had exams in our lives. What's a test 00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:40.399 for? At its best, a great professor, a great teacher, will give you a test 00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:47.240 because they want for you to be able to show what you know, to show this is what 00:09:47.240 --> 00:09:51.639 I know, this is what I learned, and for you also to see what you don't yet know. 00:09:51.639 --> 00:09:57.600 So a test exposes you, but it exposes you in the best ways when it's given at its 00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:02.440 best. It seeks to grow you up by showing you and being able to show you in 00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:05.480 confidence. Here's what I know and then saying, but here's what you don't yet 00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:11.480 know. And so it's an opportunity, test for opportunity to grow. God does that for 00:10:11.480 --> 00:10:15.080 us. God gives us test in our lives in order to grow. This is an Old Testament 00:10:15.080 --> 00:10:21.000 thing and a New Testament reality. James 1-3, no friends that the testing of your 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:26.800 faith produces perseverance in order that you would become complete and 00:10:26.799 --> 00:10:34.599 mature as a Christian. So many of us may right now be in the midst of the test. 00:10:34.599 --> 00:10:40.759 What is the test? How do you know? Often you don't, you don't know, but what 00:10:40.759 --> 00:10:45.159 could that be? We learn about it right here. What is the test? The test that 00:10:45.159 --> 00:10:50.399 appears here is really the same test that happened and come into our lives that 00:10:50.399 --> 00:10:55.919 God sends. What is it? In verse 4 and 5, the testing of Israel here is that God 00:10:55.919 --> 00:11:02.439 has placed and left these Canaanite people groups all around Israel for their 00:11:02.439 --> 00:11:07.879 testing. Now what does that mean? That is not fundamentally about ethnicity. 00:11:07.879 --> 00:11:11.519 There's a temptation to see it that way, but that's not at all what it's about. 00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:16.879 Instead we learn what it's about in verse 6. Verse 6 says, their daughters took 00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:22.120 for themselves wives. So the daughters of Israel married the men of the Canaanites 00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:27.399 and the women of the Canaanites married the daughters of Israel. 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:32.279 And so the issue that he brings us to here is about marriage actually, and 00:11:32.279 --> 00:11:37.360 that's just an illustration for us when it gets connected to our lives. You see 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:40.679 what he's saying? It's not about ethnicity. We see this in marriage. In 00:11:40.679 --> 00:11:46.680 marriage there's a holism, right? Marriage is so holistic, isn't it? When you marry 00:11:46.680 --> 00:11:51.440 somebody, James pointed this out last week, if you are a Christian, a devout 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:56.840 father of Jesus, a Christian, and you marry somebody that's a Hindu that worships 00:11:56.840 --> 00:12:01.600 the gods of Hinduism, there's going to be real difficulty in marriage about that, 00:12:01.600 --> 00:12:07.480 right? Hinduism requires household gods, for example, and in the ancient world the 00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:12.840 polytheism of all the Canaanites meant worshiping regularly, daily, by tribute, 00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:20.160 sacrifice, household gods, and public gods of all kinds. And so the people of 00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:23.959 Israel are in the world, they're in the midst of people groups that are 00:12:23.959 --> 00:12:28.240 polytheistic, and they're marrying one another, and the holism of marriage 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:33.600 requires typically somebody to convert to the other faith, typically, quite often. 00:12:33.600 --> 00:12:38.240 And that's exactly what takes place. You see down in verse 7, the people of Israel 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:42.000 do what's evil on the side of the Lord. What did they mean? They forgot the Lord. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:48.079 They had intermarried so much. In other words, they had become integrated with 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:53.600 the people groups around them by way mostly of religion. And so by religion 00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:56.960 they came to worship the gods of all the people all around them all the time. And 00:12:56.960 --> 00:13:01.120 so we have the word in verse 7, they worshiped Bales and Asheroth. That's 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:06.680 male gods and female goddesses, that's what that's referring to. And the anger 00:13:06.680 --> 00:13:10.040 of the Lord's kindled against them because though they're in the midst of 00:13:10.040 --> 00:13:14.520 people groups, it's not a problem of ethnicity, no, not at all. It's a problem 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:18.639 of being exclusive, of worshiping the Lord, the true God, the God of the Bible, 00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:22.799 in the midst of temptations, in the midst of pulling all around you to chase 00:13:22.799 --> 00:13:27.039 after all sorts of other types of gods. That's the issue here. Now we know it's 00:13:27.039 --> 00:13:32.120 not about ethnicity because the third judge in Judges chapter 3 who gets two 00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:38.360 verses is a man named Shamgar, a son of Anath. And we don't know anything about 00:13:38.360 --> 00:13:44.279 him except that the name Shamgar and Anath are very probably Canaanite 00:13:44.279 --> 00:13:50.120 names, meaning that God raised up a deliverer from the Canaanites. Why? Because 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:53.919 Shamgar very clearly followed the true God, the true Lord, right? It's not about 00:13:53.919 --> 00:13:57.240 ethnicity, it's about religious integrity, it's about the 00:13:57.240 --> 00:14:02.959 holism, the exclusivity, the fact that God wants our worship in 00:14:02.959 --> 00:14:08.600 the whole of our lives, the whole of who we are. Now that teaches us the test. The 00:14:08.600 --> 00:14:14.960 test is the same here as it is for us today. And what is the test? Now let me 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:19.560 give you one more detail, make it a little more specific in order to answer. 00:14:19.560 --> 00:14:24.720 And that's when you get to the Othniel story from verses 7 to 11. We learn that 00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:29.560 because of this idolatry, because of serving male and female goddesses in 00:14:29.560 --> 00:14:35.960 the context of polytheism, worshiping and chasing false gods of all kinds, that 00:14:35.960 --> 00:14:41.680 they are given over by God to a man named Kushan Rishiatayim, verse 8, king of 00:14:41.680 --> 00:14:46.680 Mesopotamia. Verse 8, there's lots of humor and sarcasm in this passage, as you 00:14:46.680 --> 00:14:50.440 might have saw when we read it. We'll come to the majority of it in just a second. 00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:54.860 But right here it already shows up in verse 8 because it says in Hebrew, 00:14:54.860 --> 00:15:01.320 Kushan Rishiatayim, king of Aram Nahariim. So it rhymes in Hebrew, they 00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:05.160 didn't translate it exactly like that. King of Mesopotamia is how they 00:15:05.159 --> 00:15:10.519 translated it, but his name very literally means Kushan the double wicked, the king 00:15:10.519 --> 00:15:16.399 of the two rivers, or the double river, the doubly wicked king of the double 00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:21.120 river, that's what it says. And what that tells us is that the double river in the 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:26.719 area Aram is the Tigris and the Euphrates at its edges, and that tells us 00:15:26.719 --> 00:15:32.639 that he is from Babylon. This is the king of Babylon, so that means that the 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:36.759 very first people group that oppress Israel because of their idolatry are the 00:15:36.759 --> 00:15:40.519 Babylonians, and all throughout the Bible, there's a big narrative arc 00:15:40.519 --> 00:15:45.879 throughout the Bible where Babylon is the symbol of all that's wrong with the 00:15:45.879 --> 00:15:50.879 world. It's the symbol that really stands in for the world, the flesh, and the 00:15:50.879 --> 00:15:55.199 devil, the world under the grip of sin. And you see what God's doing, he's saying, 00:15:55.199 --> 00:15:59.600 if you choose idolatry, if you choose to chase after things that you love in this 00:15:59.600 --> 00:16:04.399 world more than God, I will give you over to Babylon. You've chosen Babylon. And 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:08.960 you see, that's the test. The test comes to us all throughout the Bible, Jeremiah 00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:14.960 29, the Sermon on the Mount, to be salt and light, John 17, what is it every time? 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:23.600 It's go and be in the world, but not of it. That's the test. Go be in Babylon, but 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:28.080 never of Babylon. Jeremiah 29, when you're in the midst of Babylon, seek the 00:16:28.080 --> 00:16:33.480 shalom of Babylon, but never be of the idols of Babylon. It's the test, it's 00:16:33.480 --> 00:16:37.400 always the same. It's the same for us as it was for them. Go be salt and light in 00:16:37.400 --> 00:16:42.360 the world, but never chase after the values, the idols of the culture all 00:16:42.360 --> 00:16:48.280 around you. Always be both in it and distinct simultaneously. Be exclusive 00:16:48.280 --> 00:16:52.920 towards the Lord, the God of the Bible, and yet before the people in the city 00:16:52.920 --> 00:16:57.720 that God has put you. That's the test. That's basically the generalization of 00:16:57.720 --> 00:17:02.040 the test, and it comes to us in all sorts of specific ways and so many ways 00:17:02.040 --> 00:17:06.319 throughout our personal lives. What do we learn here as we move, we need to move 00:17:06.319 --> 00:17:11.600 on? Here's what we learn. We have a command that is also a test in our lives. 00:17:11.600 --> 00:17:16.799 To be on the one hand, be in the world and not of it. That means be in the world 00:17:16.799 --> 00:17:22.480 friend, go and be in the city. And yet as Paul puts it to the Corinthians, a 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:27.680 dearly beloved flee from the idols. He told that to the Corinthians, go be in 00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:32.600 the midst of Corinth, be a part of it, be salt and light, and run from the idols. 00:17:32.600 --> 00:17:38.360 That's the first thing we learn here. The second thing, the second thing, when we 00:17:38.360 --> 00:17:43.200 go and do that, we've entered into the test. And when we've entered into the 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:47.680 test, we've got to know that when we are being in the world but not of it, 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:54.360 sometimes, sometimes it's almost impossible for us to not be of it in 00:17:54.359 --> 00:17:59.359 certain ways. What do we learn in Judges? If nothing else, that God's people go 00:17:59.359 --> 00:18:05.000 through cycle and cycle and cycle of being in Babylon and becoming Babylon. 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:10.639 And God has to come every time and rescue them. That it really is a struggle for us. 00:18:10.639 --> 00:18:14.199 That we're called to that and we're fighting and we're striving and 00:18:14.199 --> 00:18:19.079 sometimes we're struggling with the idols that surround us all the time. 00:18:19.079 --> 00:18:23.240 We have to constantly be told by the Lord. We have to constantly be renewed, be 00:18:23.240 --> 00:18:27.279 delivered, that we're always in the midst of the test and struggling with the 00:18:27.279 --> 00:18:31.799 test. And so let me read to you from Ralph Davis. When I have to preach morning 00:18:31.799 --> 00:18:36.720 and evening, I end up having to rely on whoever I think really is most helpful 00:18:36.720 --> 00:18:40.920 on a passage. And Ralph Davis is most helpful on Judges 3. And this is what he 00:18:40.920 --> 00:18:44.880 says. You can be baptized. What this passage teaches us is you can be baptized, 00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:50.640 catechized, or whatever background. You can be a Christian of any kind, of any 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:56.720 tradition. And at the same time you can be presently enslaved by an idol. You can 00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:02.640 be a Christian, baptized, catechized, and enslaved by an idol in your life. And 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:06.560 that's exactly what's happening to God's people over and over again. Now the 00:19:06.560 --> 00:19:12.920 third thing, the last thing before we move on, maybe you're there right now. In 00:19:12.920 --> 00:19:16.720 some sense, you're there right now struggling with an idol, being in the 00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:20.400 world and becoming of it, struggling with becoming of it in some way. And let me 00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:24.960 say, what this passage also tells you is that God will not leave you there. And 00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:31.320 here's what Ralph Davis says. He says, even here in the Lord's anger you find 00:19:31.320 --> 00:19:37.120 hope for Israel and for us. So what does God do? In his anger at their 00:19:37.120 --> 00:19:43.600 idolatry, he gives them over to it. He lets them experience oppression when we 00:19:43.600 --> 00:19:48.040 choose idolatry. And here's what Davis says. He says, the Lord's wrath is the 00:19:48.039 --> 00:19:54.200 heat of his jealous love by which he refuses to let go of his people. He 00:19:54.200 --> 00:19:59.680 refuses to allow his people to remain comfortable in their sin. And so, serving 00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:06.879 Kushan Rishi Atayam, it may not sound like salvation. And it isn't. But if being 00:20:06.879 --> 00:20:12.039 given over to the consequences of our idolatry forces us to lose our grip on 00:20:12.039 --> 00:20:19.079 our idols, it may be the beginning of our salvation. You see, what he's saying 00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:22.839 here is that sometimes the beginning of being rescued, of being delivered, is 00:20:22.839 --> 00:20:29.440 actually to see how much our idol cannot save us, cannot fulfill us, cannot help 00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:32.440 us, how much it's going to leave us empty. Sometimes that's exactly what we 00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:38.680 need. You chase money in this modern economic world and you lose it and you 00:20:38.680 --> 00:20:43.799 have to lose it to sometimes realize, Mammon cannot save me, not really. And 00:20:43.799 --> 00:20:52.180 C.S. Lewis says, only when romantic love ceases to be a God in your life can it 00:20:52.180 --> 00:20:57.880 cease to be for you a demon. You know, you chase romantic love as your God and 00:20:57.880 --> 00:21:01.160 the breakups happen and the relationships fall apart and the 00:21:01.160 --> 00:21:04.840 relationships struggle or they don't fulfill. And you know that romantic love 00:21:04.839 --> 00:21:10.000 has become something that it's never meant to be. And that's exactly what we 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.559 learned here, that God refuses to allow us to sit comfortably in the idols that 00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:19.519 we chase. Now secondly, how then do you find renewal in the midst of the season 00:21:19.519 --> 00:21:23.679 of testing? How do you find faithfulness in your life in the midst of testing? The 00:21:23.679 --> 00:21:28.039 most important thing we learn here is to just to look at the deliverer, see the 00:21:28.039 --> 00:21:35.319 object of your faith, the deliverer. That's the big thing. So E.H.U.D. E.H.U.D. story. 40 00:21:35.319 --> 00:21:42.359 years Israel had a rest after Othniel delivered them and then later under E.H.U.D. 00:21:42.359 --> 00:21:47.000 the same thing happens. They're in the world and they become of the world. 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:52.279 They worship false gods, idols of all kinds and so God gives them over to Moab 00:21:52.279 --> 00:22:01.759 this time. Now Moab is a name of a man, Moab. He was a son of Lot. He's Lot's son 00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:06.519 by way of his own daughter in the book of Genesis and also he that happened 00:22:06.519 --> 00:22:10.599 again with his other daughter and that produced the Ammonite people. And so the 00:22:10.599 --> 00:22:16.399 Moabites and the Ammonites both team up here to oppress Israel. And it's very 00:22:16.399 --> 00:22:20.680 important just to mention this, try to do this anytime, this kind of historical 00:22:20.680 --> 00:22:27.360 fact or data comes up. We have a fragment, not a fragment, a whole piece of 00:22:27.360 --> 00:22:35.880 stone called the Mesha Stelae. The Mesha Stelae is a one-meter stone. I 00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:40.640 think it's at the Louvre. I forgot to look this up recently right now. And it is 00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:48.440 from around the year 900 from Moab. And it is a piece that refers to the 00:22:48.440 --> 00:22:56.279 events of 2 Kings chapter 3 but written by the Moabites. So we have a text that 00:22:56.279 --> 00:22:59.920 describes exactly what happens in 2 Kings 3 in the Bible written by Moabite 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:03.279 Han and we learn a lot about the Moabites. They refer to the lineage of 00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:09.160 David, the tribe of David in the Stelae, this stone. And they refer to their God 00:23:09.160 --> 00:23:12.559 that we know the Moabites worship throughout the Old Testament, Kamosh. 00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:19.159 And Kamosh was like Molek. He required sacrifice to the highest degree, to the 00:23:19.159 --> 00:23:24.279 worst possible forms. And this is the type of people group that are capturing 00:23:24.279 --> 00:23:32.919 Israel here. And we learn about Eud. Eud is a left-handed man. Now what is going 00:23:32.919 --> 00:23:38.519 on? Why this little notion? He's left-handed. And it's because as far as 00:23:38.519 --> 00:23:44.799 we can tell, the commentators mostly say, that left-handed training was 00:23:44.799 --> 00:23:51.200 basically like special forces. So we see these left-handed warriors coming up 00:23:51.200 --> 00:23:55.440 throughout Scripture on occasion and they're unusual. And it seems from both 00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:59.680 the Bible and extra biblical data that when you were trained as a left-handed 00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:03.879 warrior, it was like the special forces being dropped in. You know, you can fight 00:24:03.879 --> 00:24:07.200 with your right hand, you can fight with your left hand, you can do both. This is 00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:13.000 the redemption for all of us left-handers in the room. Left-handed people, special 00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:17.360 forces in the Old Testament. That's what he is. He's some kind of particularly 00:24:17.360 --> 00:24:22.880 specialized warrior. And he's chosen by the people of God Israel to be their 00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:28.120 judge, to be their leader. And we're told here also that he creates a double-edged 00:24:28.120 --> 00:24:32.920 sword for himself, which is also unusual. Most of the time the swords were 00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:37.880 blunted on one side with a sharp side just on the other. So most people were 00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:40.800 right-handed in their fighting and they would carry their sword on their left 00:24:40.800 --> 00:24:45.039 side and draw it like this. But we're being told in this passage, E. HUD is able 00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:48.960 because he fights with his left hand as well to put a sword hidden on his 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:53.519 right side. Now the reason that that's important too is because we think that 00:24:53.519 --> 00:24:58.320 most often in security checks in the palace, you would almost always only 00:24:58.319 --> 00:25:03.240 check the left side where you would keep a sword if you were 00:25:03.240 --> 00:25:07.119 right-handed because it was so unusual to fight left-handed. And that's very 00:25:07.119 --> 00:25:13.960 important to see in the text. Now Eglon is this king of Moab. He's a man, we're 00:25:13.960 --> 00:25:19.039 told, of wild overindulgence to put it kindly. The text takes it more 00:25:19.039 --> 00:25:24.439 bluntly than that. The implication here is that what has happened is that this 00:25:24.440 --> 00:25:29.840 man has put Israel under 18 years of starvation. That's the idea. He's an evil 00:25:29.840 --> 00:25:34.640 oppressor. And you can think if you've read the book Dune or know the story of 00:25:34.640 --> 00:25:41.960 the Vladimir, the Baron Vladimir, the Harkonnen Lord type figure. He's a 00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:47.279 man of wild overindulgence that just seeks to oppress everyone. And that's 00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:52.320 exactly what's happened here. He's the head of four other kingdoms, Ammon, the 00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:55.559 Amelokites, and he is the head over them all, oppressing Israel. He's the head of 00:25:55.559 --> 00:26:01.759 the snake. He's the head of this serpent, this evil serpent of oppression. And the 00:26:01.759 --> 00:26:06.799 tribute that is brought to him, the sense of the text, is that it's food. And so 00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:12.159 it's so large we learned that multiple people had to carry it in. The people are 00:26:12.159 --> 00:26:16.359 paying tribute. He's requiring taxes basically as the people's food and 00:26:16.359 --> 00:26:20.159 they're bringing them and he's eating it. Now the assassination, this is where we 00:26:20.160 --> 00:26:24.680 get to it. How can you, how can you, what do you do in the midst of the test? And to 00:26:24.680 --> 00:26:28.360 find that out you got to look at what happens here. A stranger it is, an ancient, 00:26:28.360 --> 00:26:34.920 but it tells us and this assassination, Eglon goes up into his cool chamber and 00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:42.680 this is a spa of some kind up on the roof with open windows breezy area. And in 00:26:42.680 --> 00:26:49.920 verse 20 we're told that we're told that Eihad says to him, I have a word of 00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:55.759 God from you. Another important facet here is that a word of God, from God for 00:26:55.759 --> 00:27:00.920 you, it's the generic word for God. It's not the name of the God of the Bible. And 00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:06.840 so Eglon thinks that he's saying I have a word from one of the gods for you. And 00:27:06.840 --> 00:27:11.880 that's because we learn Eihad had gone out to the center place of idolatry and 00:27:11.880 --> 00:27:17.600 pretended, if you will, to pay homage and then came back and said I have a word 00:27:17.599 --> 00:27:23.399 from a God for you. And so he's, Eglon doesn't understand, he thinks 00:27:23.399 --> 00:27:27.199 that the idols have spoken, that there's some important word for him. And so he 00:27:27.199 --> 00:27:31.519 dismisses all of his servants and he's in this spa, this cool chamber and it's 00:27:31.519 --> 00:27:39.359 there that Eihad draws this two-edged sword and sticks it into Eglon's belly 00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:47.119 all the way in, it says. And there it is, Eglon dies in the most messy and brutal 00:27:47.119 --> 00:27:52.919 way in the midst of his own spa. Now look, if you look at it, we didn't have time to 00:27:52.919 --> 00:27:58.519 look at Othniel's delivery, but Othniel is a man of the tribe of Judah and he 00:27:58.519 --> 00:28:00.959 delivered the people of Israel. And you know what the people would have sang about 00:28:00.959 --> 00:28:08.119 it? They would have said Othniel, the son of Judah, the lion of the tribe of Judah. 00:28:08.119 --> 00:28:11.959 You see, Jesus Christ is the better Othniel. And when you come to Eihad, you 00:28:11.959 --> 00:28:16.679 say what is going on here? And you see, Eihad came and killed the head of the 00:28:16.680 --> 00:28:20.640 snake, crushed the head of the serpent, and how did he do it? He did it with a 00:28:20.640 --> 00:28:26.600 double-edged sword. And when you come to the New Testament, you learn that the 00:28:26.600 --> 00:28:32.799 Word of God in Hebrews goes forth into the world as a two-edged sword, a sword 00:28:32.799 --> 00:28:36.880 that's sharp on both sides. And the Word of the Lord in Hebrews is not just the 00:28:36.880 --> 00:28:39.680 Bible, it's talking about Jesus Christ Himself. And you turn to Revelation 00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:43.519 chapter 1 and there's an image of Jesus Christ and there what is coming out of 00:28:43.519 --> 00:28:47.480 His mouth, a sword with two sides sharpened, a double-edged sword. And you 00:28:47.480 --> 00:28:53.839 see that Eihad, he delivers judgment, the Word of the Lord comes literally in 00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:59.400 judgment by way of this double-edged sword. And Jesus Christ comes into the world, 00:28:59.400 --> 00:29:04.240 the greater Eihad, to destroy the serpent, to crush the head of the serpent. The 00:29:04.240 --> 00:29:09.519 head of the serpent thought, the serpent thought that he had him. And yet Jesus 00:29:09.519 --> 00:29:13.319 comes in and brings judgment by his two-edged sword right into the heart of 00:29:13.319 --> 00:29:18.559 the evil serpent. And Jesus Christ is the better and greater Eihad. And we learn 00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:21.879 right there what it means to be delivered. We learn what it means to 00:29:21.879 --> 00:29:25.759 persevere in the midst of the test that may be going on in your life. And here it 00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:31.240 is, first, you do what they did. They were in the midst of the test, they knew 00:29:31.240 --> 00:29:36.200 their idolatry, and that says that they cried out to the Lord. And that's it. 00:29:36.200 --> 00:29:40.279 Tonight you might be in the midst of the test and you're struggling with some 00:29:40.279 --> 00:29:44.080 idol and you're able to identify it. And the first thing is just to cry out to 00:29:44.080 --> 00:29:48.759 the Lord and be honest with them. The second thing we see here is then you got 00:29:48.759 --> 00:29:53.160 to look up and you got to see the deliver, that there really is a deliver in 00:29:53.160 --> 00:29:59.519 the middle of history that came to crush the head of every serpent. The ultimate 00:29:59.519 --> 00:30:04.840 serpent himself and every single little idol that looks like mimics the serpent 00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:10.679 in the midst of our lives. As soon as you do that, you know, verse 28, as soon as 00:30:10.679 --> 00:30:14.879 that happened, he went out to the people and said that the head is dead. I've 00:30:14.879 --> 00:30:20.039 crushed the serpent and he says, now follow after me. You cry out to the Lord, 00:30:20.039 --> 00:30:27.439 you see the deliverer and you follow him. And that path of renewal is actually the 00:30:27.439 --> 00:30:32.039 exact path we all have to take over and over and over again in our lives when 00:30:32.039 --> 00:30:37.680 we're in the midst of struggling with a particular idol that we're facing. Ralph 00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:43.079 Davis says, deliverance is an act of holy, vicious violence by which Christ 00:30:43.079 --> 00:30:47.879 wrenches his people out of the clammy clutches of the Prince of Darkness 00:30:47.879 --> 00:30:53.599 himself. When you do that, you have experienced the sword of Christ, the 00:30:53.599 --> 00:30:59.639 two-edged sword, not as the sword of judgment, but as the surgeon's scalpel 00:30:59.640 --> 00:31:06.840 that enters you to cut you in order to heal you again. Now, that's the way out. 00:31:06.840 --> 00:31:17.080 No left-handed Savior can ever break us free from our true tyrant. But there is 00:31:17.080 --> 00:31:22.280 one with nail-scarred hands who can and who does and who will tonight for you 00:31:22.280 --> 00:31:29.600 if you're in the midst of the trial of idolatry. The only tragedy we can face 00:31:29.599 --> 00:31:34.559 in our lives is if having the Savior, we don't cry out to him. We don't seek 00:31:34.559 --> 00:31:41.000 deliverance because he wants to deliver. Now lastly, let's close with an epilogue, 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:45.839 the messiness of the Christian faith. We could stop there, but I just want to say 00:31:45.839 --> 00:31:50.519 a note about the messiness of the Christian faith. If you've been tracking 00:31:50.519 --> 00:31:54.240 just a couple minutes, if you've been tracking with this story so far, you'll 00:31:54.240 --> 00:31:58.519 know that you'll have seen. When we read it, when we've talked about it, it's 00:31:58.519 --> 00:32:03.960 messy. And I didn't point out all the mess that you could have 00:32:03.960 --> 00:32:10.000 read about in the passage. It's very literally messy. The Bible is not 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:17.000 prim and proper. It teaches us real religion for very real problems. And 00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:23.240 the messiness and the disorder and the ugliness of our sin brings a life of 00:32:23.240 --> 00:32:28.359 messiness for us quite often. And the Bible, the Word of the Lord, the actions 00:32:28.359 --> 00:32:33.479 of God into history come and situate right in the midst of human mess. God 00:32:33.479 --> 00:32:37.279 comes all the way down. He comes right to our earthiness and our messiness that 00:32:37.279 --> 00:32:40.119 we brought into this world. You know, you read a passage like this and you just 00:32:40.119 --> 00:32:45.000 got to say God deals with real problems in real ways. And when you go through the 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:48.759 Bible, you see this. You see a God who gets his hands dirty, who gets deep into 00:32:48.759 --> 00:32:52.679 our lives, the lives that we, the world that we have dirty that we have made a 00:32:52.680 --> 00:32:58.560 mess of. And from the temple all the way to the cross, we see the cost and that God 00:32:58.560 --> 00:33:01.279 will come all the way down. So let me just say a word about 00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:07.740 eglons, very ugly death here. The servants think that he is locked in the 00:33:07.740 --> 00:33:13.680 chamber because he's on the toilet. So it says literally in Hebrew, they were 00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:17.840 embarrassed because they thought he was quote covering his feet. That is a 00:33:17.839 --> 00:33:24.720 euphemism. It's the same euphemism that Americans use like bathroom. You know, 00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:30.240 the bathroom, the restroom, it's a euphemism. It's not literal. And that's 00:33:30.240 --> 00:33:33.879 exactly what the Bible says here, that he was covering his feet, a euphemism. And 00:33:33.879 --> 00:33:37.519 the commentators when you read them will say, this is sarcasm, it's irony, it's 00:33:37.519 --> 00:33:43.199 meant to be funny in a way. And Ralph Davis says this, as modern people, let me 00:33:43.199 --> 00:33:47.000 say, I'm saying this and then I'll quote Ralph, as modern people we struggle 00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:51.680 sometimes with the violence, the messiness in the stories of the Bible, 00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:56.200 don't we? And that's a very real thing, that's a very important discussion to 00:33:56.200 --> 00:34:00.880 have in detail about every single one. But if you're, you've got to take yourself 00:34:00.880 --> 00:34:05.720 out of the modern context and remember here, we have Israelites who for 18 years 00:34:05.720 --> 00:34:10.480 have been oppressed and taxed to the bone under King Eglon. And in Israelite, 00:34:10.480 --> 00:34:16.039 living in persisting poverty, ecking out some sort of borderline existence in the 00:34:16.039 --> 00:34:19.599 hill country of Ephraim, well then you won't be surprised but rather will 00:34:19.599 --> 00:34:24.119 understand the devastating humor in the biting satire that's written into the 00:34:24.119 --> 00:34:30.119 Hebrew of this narrative. God has delivered them from a tyrant who 00:34:30.119 --> 00:34:35.440 stole all their food and he's done it in the most ironic way. And that means 00:34:35.440 --> 00:34:41.000 that we've got to be willing to see, I think, as modern Christians with our eyes. 00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:44.960 The poverty, the enslavement, the fact that they were being taxed to death and 00:34:44.960 --> 00:34:49.920 starving and that God comes to save them all the way to exactly the place 00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:55.599 where they are in a way that makes sense. This story shows us that, that God deals 00:34:55.599 --> 00:35:02.480 with messes. Let me draw two conclusions. One, we've got to be as porous and as 00:35:02.480 --> 00:35:09.199 earthy as the Bible is. This is the Bible. The Bible talks about the messiness 00:35:09.199 --> 00:35:14.360 of human sin and Christians in ministry have to know that human sin really is 00:35:14.360 --> 00:35:19.039 so messy and that ministry sometimes often follows that and gets really messy. 00:35:19.039 --> 00:35:23.519 And that means I think this passage is inviting us again to say if you're a 00:35:23.519 --> 00:35:27.800 person of faith that's stepping out into the world to walk next to sinners 00:35:27.800 --> 00:35:33.840 knowing yourself that we can't be easily offended. We can't be easily shocked. We 00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:39.000 can never be surprised by sin and all the ways it gets into the bones of 00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:44.639 humanity. It's a call to be honest about the messiness of the world and God's 00:35:44.639 --> 00:35:50.639 people, the church, this church family is a place for sinners in need of redemption. 00:35:50.639 --> 00:35:54.559 Not a place for the righteous, not the righteous, not the righteous, oh, but 00:35:54.559 --> 00:36:00.079 sinners. Jesus came to call and that means ministry is always going to come 00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:03.559 with messy bits and we can never be surprised by that. The second thing, the 00:36:03.559 --> 00:36:10.679 final thing, comfort. The Lord deals with the dirty. The Lord deals with the messy. 00:36:10.679 --> 00:36:16.559 Jesus Christ came to touch the leper and that is the glory of this passage that 00:36:16.559 --> 00:36:20.880 God deals with the dirty mixed up affairs of life in which all of us find 00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:25.159 ourselves sometimes. And so one final quote from Ralph Davis and I'll give him 00:36:25.159 --> 00:36:29.480 the final word because I don't think this quote could be much better. Here we 00:36:29.480 --> 00:36:34.679 are. This is a paraphrase. Some of us in family situations that we have messed up, 00:36:34.679 --> 00:36:39.599 some of us in family situations that have been messed up by others. Some of us in 00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:44.519 emotional trauma, some of us in grief and sorrow are in the clutches of temptation. 00:36:44.519 --> 00:36:51.159 Life seems to be a mass of twisted coat hangers and disconnected doorknobs. And 00:36:51.159 --> 00:36:57.240 the glory of this passage is that it tells us that the Lord is not a white 00:36:57.239 --> 00:37:02.719 gloved standoffish God out there somewhere in the remote left field of the 00:37:02.719 --> 00:37:09.000 universe who hesitates to get his strong arm dirty in the yuck of our lives. The 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:12.559 God of the Bible does not hold back in the wild blue yonder somewhere waiting 00:37:12.559 --> 00:37:17.279 for you to pour Clorox over the affairs of your life before he will touch it. 00:37:17.279 --> 00:37:21.519 Whether you can comfortably put it together or not, he is the God who 00:37:21.519 --> 00:37:27.639 delights to deliver his people even in their messes and likes to make them 00:37:27.639 --> 00:37:33.159 laugh once more. He is the God who allows weeping to endure for a night but he 00:37:33.159 --> 00:37:38.199 sees, he will see, that joy will come in the morning. We have a God who delights 00:37:38.199 --> 00:37:44.480 to deliver us in the midst of our messes and longs to make us laugh again. Let us 00:37:44.480 --> 00:37:49.880 pray. Lord we thank you for E. HUD the deliverer who points to a much greater 00:37:49.880 --> 00:37:56.000 deliverer who came to crush the head of the most evil serpent. So we sing and 00:37:56.000 --> 00:38:02.200 celebrate tonight Christ the victorious Christ the victor and we thank you God 00:38:02.200 --> 00:38:06.720 that you don't stand far off but you come all the way down into the mess of our 00:38:06.720 --> 00:38:13.480 lives the sin all the things that the broken world has become and you deliver 00:38:13.480 --> 00:38:18.079 you heal you restore you save and sometimes you do that in mighty acts 00:38:18.079 --> 00:38:23.880 the acts of a warrior. So we thank you we thank you ultimately for how this 00:38:23.880 --> 00:38:28.440 points us to Christ and we ask Lord that it would make us into people who are 00:38:28.440 --> 00:38:33.319 ready and willing to walk along others who are in the midst of a hard 00:38:33.319 --> 00:38:37.159 circumstances messes that have come about through the complications of human 00:38:37.159 --> 00:38:42.199 behavior in the midst of sinful world and so make us like Jesus in that way Lord 00:38:42.199 --> 00:38:48.319 and we pray that in Christ's name. Amen.