William Cooper was one of the most famous poets of the 18th century in England.
He was also a hymn writer, but he spent most of his life fighting through severe bouts of depression.
He even spent a year in an insane asylum, if you know anything about his story.
After three failed attempts at suicide, he was committed to an institution for a year,
and he would continue to struggle with these bouts of depression really throughout his entire life until he died in 1800.
But he did eventually find some refuge at the conclusion of his institutionalization there at St. Albans in England,
and even beyond that, he eventually found some refuge in a fervent Christianity.
And despite his ups and downs even throughout his life from that moment until his death,
he was really a faithful Christian, and he was a faithful Christian in using the gifts that God had given him in poetry and in writing
for the glory of God and for the good of God's people.
Through a series of events after he was released from his hospitalization,
he met one couple that he began to live with that introduced him to a man named John Newton.
And John Newton, the famous writer of Amazing Grace and pastor in Olney, England,
became his pastor and close personal friend.
He would eventually begin to work alongside of John Newton, at least for a few years there in Olney,
and he would assist with pastoral duties that Newton had.
But primarily what he did was he assisted Newton with a collection of hymns,
and they compiled a hymn book.
They called it Olney hymns, and William Cooper contributed a number of his own poems to this particular hymn book.
And one of his most well-known of these poems was actually initially published under the heading
Light Shining Out of Darkness.
We know it by a different name.
We know it by God Moves in a Mysterious Way.
Perhaps you've sung the song before in a church service.
It was a reflection on the fact that God's work in us, God's work through us, God's work around us,
is often quite mysterious.
His ways are routinely difficult for us to comprehend and to understand,
or to even recognize that he's at work at all.
Here's what the first stanza of Cooper's hymn says.
God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.
He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable minds of never-failing skill,
he treasures up his bright designs and works his sovereign will.
Cooper understands that.
He understood God's absolute sovereignty over all the events of his life,
while also acknowledging that God's work is often a mystery to us.
It's mysterious, hard to understand.
Here was Cooper, who was committing his life and his talents and his gifts to the service of the Lord,
even after his conversion, and yet he was still suffering.
God moves in a mysterious way, is his response.
No matter how many times maybe he sat at home, unable to even attend a church service,
because of the deepness of his depression,
surely he wondered, is God even working at all?
God's work is often a mystery.
God doesn't fill us in on everything we'd like to know about what he's doing,
but he instead calls us to trust in his sovereign purposes.
Just crucial to the Christian life, isn't it?
It's not always clear why he uses certain people or certain circumstances in our lives,
yet his word shows us repeatedly that he's always working for his glory and for our good.
The story of Shamgar, as small as it may be and as obscure as it may be,
is shrouded in the mystery of sovereignty.
God is clearly in control of all the events that are taking place in Shamgar's life,
but we're told almost nothing about what happened and why it happened the way that it did.
It's a mystery.
But even the things that we do know as we read this one verse about Shamgar
is unusual to say the least.
When I was a kid, if you were like me, you liked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
And anybody have a favorite Ninja Turtle?
You want to admit who your favorite Ninja Turtle was?
Let me tell you who my favorite Ninja Turtle was.
You'll never guess it.
Donatello.
That's weird, isn't it?
Donatello was a weird favorite Ninja Turtle because Donatello wasn't the cool one.
He was the smart one with glasses.
And here's what he carried.
Not a sword like Michelangelo.
Donatello, he carried a stick.
That's all he had.
He had a stick.
If Ahud is the James Bond of Judges that we learned last week,
Shamgar is the Donatello of Judges.
All he has is a stick, essentially.
And he carries out this tremendous victory under the power of God.
And we look back at that and we think,
why in the world does God do things like this?
Why does he do such strange things?
His way is mysterious.
Really, at the end of the day, the verse, it provokes more questions than it gives answers.
But we know that while not all Scripture is equally impactful, it is all profitable.
That's what Paul tells us.
It's all profitable for our faith.
It's profitable for our maturity in Christ.
And this little verse about Shamgar is no exception.
And if we will apply our hearts and our minds to wisdom this morning,
I think what we will find is that it provides some wonderfully edifying truths
about the nature of God's work and God's grace.
Okay?
Looking at the nature of God's work and God's grace.
Here's the first thing I want you to see.
I want you to see God's preserving grace.
God's preserving grace.
We can get into a lot of questions about this particular verse that we can't actually provide
answers for.
But the most pressing question of all is, why is this story here in the first place?
In fact, you could easily remove it and you wouldn't even recognize that anything was missing
in the text.
In fact, start reading with me at chapter 3 and verse 30.
And we're going to read to the first verse of chapter 4.
But we're going to skip over this verse about Shamgar.
Just notice this.
So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel and the land had rest 80 years.
And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ahud died.
You could literally skip Shamgar and wouldn't even know it.
So why is it here?
Well, the final phrase of the verse at least gives us the general purpose of it.
It says, he also saved Israel.
That tells us the general purpose, doesn't it?
Like every narrative in Judges, this little story is about how God delivers his people.
But that doesn't explain why the author found it so necessary to include this little obscure
story in the middle of a book that has much more dramatic stories about that same truth.
Every one of them.
We start with Othniel and Ahud and then Barak and Deborah.
And then we're going to eventually get to the big ones like Gideon and Jephthah and Samson.
They're all saying the same thing.
God is faithful to his covenant.
God delivers his people.
Right?
So why did he feel it so necessary to leave this verse in here?
Some have concluded that the verse was a later addition by a different author and really serves
no purpose at all.
But that's unhelpful conjecture.
It can neither be denied or validated.
Many have written that the author was really trying to include 12 different deliverers so
that he could match the number of tribes in Israel.
The fact is God probably raised up many more people than this that helped deliver Israel
at various times during this time frame.
And the suggestion is the author was just picking 12 of them, 12 of them.
And in doing that, he matches the number of the tribes of Israel.
And by matching the number of the tribes of Israel, he communicates that God's salvation
is complete.
That his salvation is full.
Nothing is left wanting.
And to be honest, there is some merit in that particular view.
But I still think it lacks a satisfying resolution to this particular question.
I want to suggest that the primary purpose of the Shamgar narrative is to highlight an often
neglected or maybe even completely ignored aspect of God's salvation.
His preserving grace.
And my conclusion is based on the timing of events.
Look at the first phrase of this verse.
After him was Shamgar.
Well, who is the him?
After who?
Ahud, right?
The timing of Shamgar's exploits overlaps with the leadership of Ahud,
which is who we studied last week.
That's the previous verses.
But Ahud's death isn't recorded for us until the first verse of chapter 4 in the Barak cycle.
So notice with me at the end of verse 30, we find that because of Ahud, the Lord gives the land of Israel's land rest for 80 years.
And then when we get to verse 4 and we find that Ahud has died and now the cycle starts all over again and Israel does evil in the sight of the Lord.
And then that rest is now taken away.
So since the land had rest for 80 years, and at the end of that rest, it's directly linked to Ahud's death,
we can deduce that what Shamgar was doing then had a unique purpose in the work that God was doing during the rest.
Okay?
Now, that might have been really confusing.
Let me try to simplify what I just said.
God provides 80 years of rest due to Ahud's victory.
Shamgar's actions take place during that time of rest.
Okay?
So what's happening with the Philistines is not, the rest isn't being brought to an end.
That doesn't happen until the Barak cycle.
So Shamgar is operating in between these two narratives, right?
So what's God doing?
Shamgar isn't delivering Israel from an oppressive government like the Moabites or Jabin, the king of Canaan that we'll study about next week.
What Shamgar is doing is preserving the rest that was initiated by Ahud.
Do you see that?
It's what he's doing.
This is what I'm calling God's preserving grace.
His preserving grace.
Now, it's possible that there were many people in Israel who were blissfully unaware of the fact that there was a new enemy forming in the northwest corner.
And while they were enjoying the blessings of peace,
they might not have even known that there was this farmer in the north land
who was fighting off this fierce enemy.
God had raised him up.
And the reason was God was preserving their peace.
He was delaying something catastrophic.
He was preserving the rest.
Something that maybe they weren't even aware of.
We mostly think of God's work in terms of crisis or in the moment of crisis, don't we?
We don't always think about what he may be doing to delay or prevent a crisis in our lives altogether.
In fact, it's often in retrospect that as Christians, we look back on particular moments of our lives and we see,
okay, I didn't understand it then, but this is what God was doing.
And you can clearly trace his hand through the events of your life.
But even then, we typically, in retrospect, relate those things to moments of crisis.
Have you ever stopped to consider a time of peace in your life and a time of comfort and joy in your life?
And just look to see, what was God doing in my life to preserve that peace and that joy and that comfort in that particular moment?
I think that's what God's doing with Shamgar.
It is a unique feature of God's grace that we don't often think about.
He's preserving something for his people.
Preserving something.
He had brought his people peace and was graciously preserving it,
even though they had probably already begun to slip into another cycle of idolatry.
That's what's even more amazing about it.
It's not that Ahud dies in verse 1 of chapter 4,
and then just all of a sudden, the next morning, everybody wakes up and decides,
okay, I guess we'll worship Bel again.
That's not what's happening.
And as we've said, week by week, the cries of Israel out for deliverance,
they weren't necessarily cries of repentance.
They were cries of distress.
Please help.
It wasn't returning.
It was please help.
And God took pity and compassion on them,
and he delivered them despite their sin.
So during this time of peace, we can understand that Israel was still doing what they should not have done.
There may have been some type of reform, but they were still in sin.
And yet God still does this amazing work.
Undoubtedly, God was giving his people more time,
more time to turn back and repent
before he unleashes another round of wrath.
They would eventually be able to look back and see that that's what he's doing, I think,
that God was patiently enduring their sin.
Perhaps you've been in a moment, or maybe you're in a moment in your life right now
that matches Israel's situation pretty clearly.
You've spent a lot of your life maybe in rejection of God,
or at least in rejection of really full commitment and surrender to God.
You've kind of toyed around with it.
You've done the Christian thing, but you've never really surrendered to Christ.
And you've enjoyed peace.
Your life really hasn't been all that bad.
You've had it fairly easily, perhaps.
Sure, we all have moments where things are tough and difficult,
but for the most part, your life has been pretty easy,
and you feel really comfortable in that ease.
And what you don't realize is that the peace that you feel
is the grace of God's kindness
that's actually meant to bring you to repentance.
He's withholding wrath for a season
in order to give you time to turn back to Him.
Isn't that not what it seems like He's doing with Israel here?
He raises up a man to help them
when they don't even know that they need help, perhaps.
And He does it in order to keep
from pouring out His own wrath so early.
Paul talks about this in the book of Romans.
Romans chapter 2, he says,
Do you presume on the riches of God's kindness
and forbearance and patience,
not knowing that God's kindness
is meant to lead you to repentance?
And when we don't use that time frame for repentance,
Paul goes on to say,
Because of your hard and impenitent heart,
you are storing up wrath for yourself
on the day of wrath
when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
The Shamgar narrative tells us
of God's steadfast love and grace.
He preserves rest for His people
and He preserves time for people to repent,
but that time to repent
will eventually come to an end.
That's Paul's point.
Don't you realize God's being kind to you right now?
He is giving you time to come back,
time to turn,
time to believe.
And as long as you continue
with a hard and impenitent heart,
you are storing up wrath.
It's like you've got a barn in your backyard
and it's designated for all of the terrible things
that God's going to judge your life for.
And you just keep adding to it with no hope.
And eventually the barn doors are going to open
and you're going to have to face
every bit of wrath that comes out of it.
Don't you realize God is gracious
to give you time to turn?
Don't you realize that we owe gratitude to God
for all the ways we don't see
that He is preserving peace for us right now?
That's the first thing we see.
God's preserving grace.
Number two, God's peculiar methods.
God's peculiar methods.
This is really no surprise to us, right?
We're used to God working in strange ways.
Look again at verse 31.
After him was Shamgar, the son of Anath.
Well, let's think about this man for just a moment.
The text is almost entirely silent about his identity,
but there are a couple of clues here that may help us,
particularly his name and designation.
And though they don't answer all of our questions,
they do reveal enough for us to see
something of God's peculiar work
in choosing Shamgar, okay?
Here's what's strange about it.
Shamgar is not a Hebrew name.
It's a Canaanite name.
He might not have even been an Israelite at all.
But even more is his designation, son of Anath.
This connects him to the Canaanite gods.
Now, it's not unusual for you to read your Bible
and find that somebody was identified
by being the son of a particular father, right?
When Jesus even came back to Nazareth
and he was preaching the gospel,
remember what the people say?
Is this not Joseph's son, right?
We see this all throughout the Bible.
What's unique about this particular name
is that this is not a man's name.
This is a woman's name,
which is not quite as usual in the Bible
for someone to be identified by their mother.
But then when we dig in just a little bit further,
we find not only is this a female name,
Anath was the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess of war.
And the Canaanites worshipped her
as one of Baal's consorts.
So Baal is their big god,
and then Baal has all of these female goddesses
that are like his queens.
And we've already talked about Ashtaroth that way.
Well, the Canaanites believed that Anath
was one such queen,
one of these consorts,
and they worshipped her as a false god.
Some have even suggested that
maybe Shamgar belonged to
an elite group of soldiers
that we know about historically
that were known as the troop of Anath,
and that this designation is connecting in there.
All of it makes us question,
is Shamgar even an Israelite at all?
And wouldn't it be somewhat strange,
at least in this book,
for God to choose someone to use
that doesn't even belong to his covenant people?
That would seem a little strange, doesn't it?
I think Shamgar's heritage
actually does something for us here.
It represents the general disobedience of Israel,
which in Judges is underscored
by their proclivity for intermarrying
with the Canaanites,
and then subsequently worshipping the Canaanite gods.
Hasn't that been the problem?
From the very beginning,
God said, don't marry them, extinguish them.
But what Israel did immediately
was they married them,
and they did exactly what God said would happen.
They intermarry with the people of the land,
and then they begin to worship the gods of the land.
And now we see this guy Shamgar come up,
and I think maybe he's a representative
of this particular sin.
It's possible he was a Canaanite,
but there is a pattern in Judges
of God raising up deliverers from Israel
who have less than ideal pedigrees.
Jephthah would be another noticeable part of that pattern.
Either way, here's the takeaway.
God is pleased to use broken, sinful people
for his glory and for the good of his people.
Isn't that interesting?
There's this problem going on in the north.
We would expect,
who's God gonna raise up to do something?
Well, surely it's gonna be like the golden boy Othniel, right,
who we have nothing negative about at all
in the book of Judges.
Surely it's gonna be somebody like Joshua,
somebody like Caleb,
who God is gonna use,
but it's not that at all.
It's Shamgar.
Shamgar, who if he's not a Canaanite himself,
is at least identified by name
as a Canaanite worshiper.
And yet God uses this man.
After all, who else is God gonna use?
Apart from the Lord Jesus,
there's no other kind of person.
Are you a broken, sinful human?
Guess what?
Be encouraged.
You're precisely the type of person
God wants to employ in his work of grace.
And just by a little bit of study on this man's name,
we find out something else about our God,
that he's not looking for perfection for use.
He'll use anybody.
But God's choice of Shamgar
is not the only peculiar thing
about God's methods in this verse.
Let's consider the way that God used him.
Look again at the verse.
After him was Shamgar, the son of Anath,
who killed 600 of the Philistines,
with an ox goad.
600 of the Philistines with an ox goad.
Now the Philistines,
this is the first time
we're really being introduced to them in this book.
We're not gonna hear from them again
until we get to the Samson cycle.
And then of course,
you're gonna read all about them
beyond that in the books of Samuel and Kings.
The Philistines were a seafaring people.
They originated from the island of Crete
or other places around the Aegean Sea.
And they arrived in Palestine
about the same time as Israel.
Israel was coming in in the southeast by land.
The Philistines were coming in in the northwest by sea.
And they began in the northern end,
which is probably where Shamgar
was fighting against them.
Eventually, they would move south
because they had no success in the north,
perhaps because of Shamgar.
So they move south
and they eventually settle
in the southwest region of Israel
with five city-states
that become confederate with one another.
And they become a complete pain in the neck
to King Saul and to King David later on.
You know exactly what they do.
They were trained warriors,
making Shamgar's success
that much more unbelievable.
So here we have a peculiar deliverer
facing a determined enemy.
But the most peculiar facet of the whole story
is Shamgar's weapon,
an ox code,
which was a crude farming instrument
used for prodding cattle.
It was a thick rod,
eight to ten feet in length.
And on the end of it would have maybe a nail
or some type of iron hook on the end.
And what they would do
is they were plowing their fields
in order to get and motivate
and provoke the oxen to move forward.
They would poke them
or they would smack them
or whatever it was.
And on the back end of that stick
would just be a flat edge
that they would use to clean out the plows.
This is not a weapon.
It's used as one,
but it's not what it is.
It's a crude farming tool.
Shamgar did not have a sufficient weapon for war.
And yet, God uses him to kill 600 of these Philistines.
Probably not all at once.
Probably in that guerrilla type warfare
that farmers and militia people are known for
in the United States from about 250 years ago.
Here's what Matthew Henry said about it.
It's no matter how weak the weapon is,
if God direct and strengthen the arm.
An ox goad, when God pleases,
shall do more than Goliath's sword.
And sometimes he chooses to work
by such unlikely means
that the excellency of the power
may appear to be of God.
Just as an ox goad
becomes a powerful weapon of war
in the hands of Shamgar,
so does Shamgar become a mighty weapon of war
in the hands of Almighty God.
You see, God loves using crude instruments
like us
to affect deliverance for his people.
Paul says it to the Corinthians
in 2 Corinthians 4-7,
but we have this treasure in jars of clay
to show that the surpassing power
belongs to God and not to us.
The treasure that Paul spoke of
is the gospel of Jesus.
And each of us, each believer,
we're a jar of clay,
a brittle pot.
There's nothing glamorous about it.
There's nothing particularly useful about it.
We're elaborate about it.
And yet God still uses us
to bring sinners
to a saving knowledge
of Jesus Christ.
Again, we may be broken,
sinful people,
but God is pleased to use us
for his glory,
for the good of his people.
Is that not a primary takeaway here?
Is that not something
that we often forsake in our lives?
We come up with every excuse in the world
for why God can't use us
or won't use us
or whatever it is,
and we drift off into oblivion
of Christian apathy.
And then we come to a passage like this
and we see,
you mean God was able to do this
with this guy
and with this thing?
We may not be flashy, polished instruments,
but God loves using the weak things
of the world
to confound the wise
and the strong.
Earlier this week,
Kara text,
Julie and I,
she had put together a,
I don't think she would mind me saying this,
she had put together a,
just like a little blurb
about her personal testimony
of conversion
that she wanted to include
either on a website
or in a gift package
for her business that she runs.
And she was asking
that we would read over it
for language.
And then she asked this question
and she said,
she said,
do you even think
that this is a useful way
to try to share the gospel
with somebody?
And you know my response
to that question is,
why not?
Why not?
You know what I think
God loves to use?
Little insignificant paragraphs
about our testimony
of conversion.
I think he's pleased
to use those things.
Why not?
I had two different conversations
this week.
One with Andy and Amy
and then one with Chris
about people that they know
that they've thought about
inviting to our friend day
in two weeks.
The problem is,
both situations involve somebody
whose first language
is in English.
And the question is,
is it even worth it
to really go so far
as to invite them
when they may not
get anything out of it?
And my response is,
why not?
If God doesn't use
the crude things of the world,
if he isn't using
the unusual circumstances
of the world,
what's he going to use?
I think he loves
to use things like that.
I think God loves
to use people to bring,
look at what God did
in the Bible.
He spoke truth
through a donkey
at one point.
You don't think
he could maybe use me
once?
You remember
the day of Pentecost?
These simple fishermen,
they stand out
in Acts chapter 2
in Jerusalem
and they begin
to proclaim
the gospel of God.
But all of these people,
they weren't hearing it
in Hebrew.
They were hearing it
in their own language.
God does weird things.
God does miraculous things.
God is limitless
in his power.
Who cares what it is?
Just put out
your ox code.
Just get it out
of the closet.
Start to wield it
and see what God might do.
Why not use
your seemingly weak method
to reach others for God?
If God can use
ShamGuard
and his ox code,
he can surely use us,
right?
I think God is pleased
to use little churches
that meet in elementary schools.
I think God is pleased
to use kids programs
that have six or seven kids
on a Sunday afternoon.
I think God is pleased
to use the coffee top
conversations
and of course,
God is pleased
to use the elaborate
ministries as well.
There is no limit
to what God can do.
And when are we going
to stop telling them
how limited he is?
When are we going
to stop telling God,
I'm not useful enough.
You can't do this.
You can't do this thing
or this would never work.
Why would we tell God
something like that?
ShamGuard killed
600 warriors
with a farming tool.
You're telling me
he can't use that
friend day card
that was on your chair
to bring one person
to a service
that might hear the gospel
and respond
in the grace of God?
Wasn't this
Cooper's point
in that hymn?
God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform.
Deep and unfathomable minds
of his unfailing skill,
he works out
his sovereign will.
We don't have to know
what he's doing
or even think
that it's worth it.
You just have to do it.
God goes from there.
Third thing I'd like you to see
is God's power to save.
God's power to save.
Last phrase,
he also saved Israel.
He also saved Israel.
ShamGuard's an obscure
individual to us
for sure,
but we ought not
let that lead us
to think that he was
unknown during his own time.
He probably wasn't.
Eventually,
maybe not at the particular time
that he was doing these things,
but eventually
he became known in Israel.
Chapter 5 tells us that.
Just flip over to chapter 5
and verse 6.
This is the song
of Deborah and Barak,
and here's what they say
in verse 6.
In the days of Shamgar,
son of Anath,
in the days of Jael,
the highways were abandoned
and travelers kept
to the byways.
So,
they're even referencing
his time frame,
not only for what he did,
they're referencing an era
based on ShamGuard,
which tells us that
not only was this
an honorable thing
to ShamGuard and Jael
eventually,
but this was somebody
that became renowned
in Israel
for what he had done.
Not only was he familiar enough
to be included in the song,
but that particular era
is referenced by his
and Jael's work,
which is surely a sign
of honor,
as I said.
But despite his eventual fame
as a deliverer,
we can't miss the fact
that his success
was not due to his
personal abilities,
right?
ShamGuard's victories
against the Philistines
were miracles.
They were miracles
from the mighty hand of God.
And this verse may not
specifically articulate that,
but it does come later
in the book.
Flip over to chapter 10.
Chapter 10.
And look with me
at verse 10.
Chapter 10, verse 10.
And the people of Israel
cried out to the Lord,
saying,
We have sinned against you.
We have forsaken our God
and have served the bills.
And here's what the Lord said.
This is just before
the Jephthah cycle.
And the Lord said
to the people of Israel,
did I not save you
from the Egyptians
and from the Amorites,
from the Ammonites,
and from the,
who's that last group?
The Philistines.
Now, before this point
in the book of Judges,
the Philistines are only
mentioned one time.
ShamGar.
What's God saying
to Israel in chapter 10?
He is claiming victory
over the Philistines.
He himself claims responsibility
for having saved the nation
from this new enemy.
However unique ShamGar's abilities
might have been,
it was the Spirit of God
that empowered him
in this moment
to do what he did.
ShamGar was simply
an instrument
in the hands of God
who alone
has the power
to save his people.
And this fact
has never changed.
When we consider
our own deliverance
from sin and death,
we must never think
that it has come
through any power in us.
We need to be careful
not to glorify
God's instruments of grace
above God himself.
As grateful as we are
for the people
God has used
to guide us to Christ,
they are just instruments
in the hand of God
who alone
has power to save.
That's the point.
Salvation belongs to God.
He alone deserves glory
for what ShamGar did.
He alone deserves glory
for your conversion.
He alone deserves glory
for whatever he may
or may not do
in our church here.
And is this not the song
that we'll sing in eternity?
Revelation 7,
After this I looked
and behold a great multitude
that no one could number
from every nation,
from all tribes
and peoples
and languages,
standing before the throne
and before the Lamb,
clothed in white robes
with palm branches
in their hands.
Here's what they cried out
with a loud voice.
Salvation belongs
to our God
who sits on the throne
and to the Lamb.
It would be a mistake
to come to this text,
this little verse,
and say,
how awesome was ShamGar?
No.
We come to this little verse
the same way
we come to all the others
and judges
and we say,
what an amazing God
that he would use
such crude people
and such crude instruments
to deliver his people.
What an amazing God he is.
And we must reflect on that
in our own lives.
We think about our own conversion.
We don't say,
man, what a great preacher
this guy was
that I came to faith.
He might have been
a great preacher.
We say,
what a great God
that he would open
my heart to believe.
What a great God
that he would go
to such great lengths
to rescue my soul
from sin and hell.
As impressive
as ShamGar's deliverance was,
it unfortunately
didn't last.
It wasn't long
before Israel
was in danger again
and as you know,
the Philistines
became a formidable foe
against Israel
for a long time.
But God's use of ShamGar
points us to a greater Savior,
doesn't it?
Jesus is the true
and better ShamGar
who did what ShamGar
could never do.
He brought us a victory
that will never fail.
It will never be taken away.
It will never come
to an end.
And his instrument
of deliverance
was also crude.
But it wasn't an ox goad.
It was a Roman cross.
Which reminds me
of another Cooper hymn.
Dear dying lamb,
thy precious blood
shall never lose its power
till all the ransomed church
of God
be saved to sin no more.
You know that one,
don't you?
There is a fountain
filled with blood.
ShamGar fights valiantly
for God.
God empowers him.
He kills 600 enemy soldiers
and he preserves peace
for Israel.
But the peace
eventually goes away.
Jesus,
the Son of God,
comes and he dies
on a cruel Roman cross
and he raises from the dead
and he establishes a peace
that will never go away.
Never.
He does what ShamGar
couldn't do.
He alone
is worthy of our praise.
He alone
is worthy of our faith.
And because of Jesus'
death and resurrection,
we cling to this hope,
don't we,
of eternal peace.
Listen to this promise
from Micah chapter 3.
He, speaking of the coming Messiah,
shall judge between many peoples,
shall decide disputes
for strong nations far away.
They shall beat their swords
into plowshares
and their spears
into pruning hooks.
Nations shall not lift up
sword against nation.
Neither shall they learn war
anymore.
But they shall sit,
every man,
under his vine,
under his fig tree.
No one shall make them afraid.
For the mouth of the Lord of hosts
has spoken.
That's a wonderful promise,
isn't it?
It's a promise that has not yet
been realized.
You see,
we live in that
already but not yet
time frame,
don't we?
Christ has come
and he has brought salvation,
but he has not yet come
to deliver this particular peace.
But one day he will.
One day he will.
One day Jesus is going to bring
a complete reversal
to the predicament
that Israel was in in Judges.
Where swords will no longer
be used as swords,
but as Micah says,
they will be beaten
into plowshares.
Spears will no longer be
instruments for murder,
but they will be turned
into pruning hooks
for farming.
In that day,
an ox goad
will just be
an ox goad.
For the peace of Christ
will reign
over the whole world.
And that's where
we would say
with John the Apostle
at the end of God's book,
even so come
Lord Jesus.
Is that not our prayer now?
Jesus has done
what Shamgar couldn't
and Jesus will do
what no one else can.
He will eventually
bring this peace.
Trust him.
Follow him.
Glorify him.
God indeed does work
in mysterious ways.
this story is mysterious
and a lot of stories
in the Bible
actually are.
And you may think
it would be
quite a mysterious thing
if God were to use
my life as well.
I think that's a mystery
that God is willing
to write.
And I think we just need
to be sympathetic
to his cause.
Live our lives
for his glory.
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