Well, here we go.
What does it look like for a nation to be ruled by fools?
I'm sure for most of you as I ask this question,
your thoughts go to this guy.
It seems that the whole world is instinctively nervous
about someone like Donald Trump ruling one of the largest
and most powerful nations in the world.
People worry because he's so impulsive
and he doesn't even attempt to cover up his shortcomings.
Or even acknowledge them as shortcomings.
And we're especially worried because this guy's his opposite number.
And the combination of these two men is frankly a concern.
We probably feel then we don't really need to be taught
what it looks like for a nation to be ruled by fools.
But we actually do.
We need to be shown what folly looks like
because very often we don't understand
what it is actually that folly consists in.
We can easily misjudge what makes a ruler foolish.
And this is why the book of Judges is in the Bible.
The book of Judges offers us ample illustration
of what it looks like for a nation to be ruled by fools.
What's interesting is that the rulers that we meet
all the way through the book of Judges,
they're like the curate's egg.
They're a mix of good and bad.
They demonstrate both wisdom and folly.
I think you can only get a handle
on what the book of Judges is trying to teach us
when you can see how this is actually part of a much bigger story
of wise and foolish leadership.
And the narrative, of course, finds its great climax in Solomon.
King Solomon is supremely the wise yet foolish ruler.
Which is why the book of Proverbs
holds the key to understanding Judges.
The book of Proverbs warns us
that a ruler who lacks understanding
is a cruel oppressor.
And we see a bit of that tonight.
Proverbs also urges us to see how wisdom
is the essence of leadership.
One of the most beautiful passages in Proverbs,
I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence.
I possess knowledge and discretion.
Counsel and sound judgment are mine.
I have understanding and power.
By me, kings reign.
And rulers make laws that are just.
By me, princes govern.
And all nobles who rule on earth.
So Proverbs is very important
to understanding the book of Judges.
And there are actually very specific Proverbs
that put the wisdom and the folly
of each of the Judges in a nutshell.
And we'll see how that works out for Jephthah.
But before we get to him,
let's remind ourselves of what we're up to in the story.
We've had a couple of weeks off
the madcap story of Judges.
After the disaster of Abimelech,
which was a Gideon's son,
we have this string of leaders recounted
in short succession.
And we're told that the Israelites
keep turning away from God
to worship the local gods,
the local idols.
And the Jephthah story begins
on the back of this situation.
And we find the Eastern Israelites
under invasion from the Ammonites.
And what's worse, they're leaderless.
And so we pick up the story at this point.
And the first thing we're shown
is the folly of Israel's elite.
The elite of Gilead are in a crisis,
but they don't ask God for help.
They need a leader,
but there's absolutely no consultation of God whatsoever.
Instead, they dangle the carrot of power
in front of the masses.
In chapter 10, verse 18,
chapter 10, verse 18,
they say,
whoever will launch the attack against the Ammonites
will be the head of all of those living in Gilead.
Now, appealing to the base instincts of power
is a surefire way of making sure
you don't get a wise leader, isn't it?
If you dangle the carrot, you'll get a donkey.
And interestingly, there is no donkey foolish enough
to take up this offer.
Instead, they have to go hunting
and find the infamous outlaw Jephthah.
And so they go and they find Jephthah
and repeat the offer to him,
and he accepts.
But now in their folly,
they have a profoundly ill-qualified ruler.
And the narrator makes this clear
by including the detail
that Jephthah is the son of a prostitute.
Now, what marks Jephthah out as an ill-qualified leader
is actually not his pedigree, though.
What really marks him out is his folly.
And the story goes on to show us this
in two select incidents.
I'm sure there are many more in his life
they could have chosen,
but they choose two.
Jephthah's infamous oath
and Jephthah's infamous treatment of his challenges.
And it's crucial to recognize, though,
that in both of these,
we see ways that Jephthah also exercises wisdom.
And the reason this is so important
is that we are supposed to see
that it isn't just evil men who are fools.
We need to see this
if we had let God's Word
get some traction on our lives
now, this evening,
to hear what God is saying in this book.
It isn't just evil men that act foolishly.
People who show some degree of wisdom
can still act very foolishly.
Even people endowed with the Spirit of God.
And Jephthah is both of these.
And this should make us quiver in our boots.
It should make us quiver in our boots
because I take it that we, too,
are people who show some degree of wisdom in our lives
because God has given us of His Holy Spirit
if we've put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So Jephthah actually looks a lot like us,
even though we might not have thought that at first.
And if we were to avoid his folly,
we need to understand exactly where he went wrong.
And so to do that,
we need to look quite closely at these two incidents,
his oath and his treatment of his challenges.
Now, the situation of Jephthah's disastrous oath
was his admittedly challenging responsibility
to take the fight to the Ammonites.
And it's here that we see some remarkable qualities in the man.
I don't know if you noticed that,
but we're told that he's some kind of pirate,
but we actually see him acting more like a prophet.
He gives this long speech
that started at verse 15 in chapter 11.
Jephthah indicts the king of Ammon of his sin.
The king of Ammon is accusing Israel of stealing land from him,
but Israel has stolen nothing.
Israel was given that land by God,
and it was God who took that land, actually,
from the king of the Ammonites.
It wasn't the Ammonites at all,
and he gave it to Israel.
And Jephthah also emphasizes
that he is not the great ruler.
It is simply God's representative.
God, not Jephthah,
is the judge of Israel.
He's actually the only person in the whole book that says that.
God is the judge of Israel,
in verse 27.
So like a true prophet,
Jephthah publicly entrusts
the whole situation to God's ability
to defend his own honor.
So these are the words of a man
upon whom the Spirit of God rests.
And we're told that explicitly in verse 29.
God has opened Jephthah's mouth,
and that's actually what his name means.
In Hebrew, Jephthah means God opened.
So there's puns running all the way through
about Jephthah in his big mouth.
But God opened.
And so we see that.
When Jephthah opens his mouth,
he speaks wisdom.
But also when Jephthah opens his mouth,
he speaks like a fool.
Now Jephthah musters the men of Manasseh for war,
and on the eve of battle,
he makes a vow.
In verses 30 and 31,
Jephthah says to God,
If you give the Ammonites into my hands,
whatever comes out of the door of my house
to meet me when I return in triumph
from the Ammonites will be the Lord's,
and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.
It's here that the book of Proverbs
really helps us to understand what's going on.
Many of you will know it.
Proverbs 20 verse 25 warns us,
It is a trap for a man
to dedicate something rashly
and only later to consider his vows.
Now Jephthah is the very definition
of a rash vow, isn't it?
What we've got to see though
is that the rashness of the promise
isn't necessarily determined
by how quickly it's made.
It's possible to make a very well calculated promise
in haste.
The rashness of a promise really though
is determined by its folly.
Now most English Bibles actually smooth over this
by using the word whatever.
In English, whatever implies a thing,
doesn't it?
A thing could be a person,
but it isn't necessarily a person.
It's here that I think the RSV,
did anyone grow up with the RSV?
I remember struggling with that as a nine-year-old
trying to read the RSV.
But the RSV actually gets it right.
Verse 31 in the RSV version,
it says,
The reason I think that it's really clear
to see that the RSV gets it right
is that animals don't go out the front door
to meet returning conquerors, do they?
Jephthah is not thinking that his pet dog's
going to come bounding up to him
and to lick him when he comes home in triumph.
In all likelihood, he's thinking of a male servant
or a male slave.
And that's where actually the gender in Hebrew
helps us too.
There's masculine and feminine gender.
And Jephthah's vow, we just see,
is supremely foolish at this point.
Jephthah is promising God a human sacrifice.
What makes this so bad
is that he's treating God like Chemosh,
the very pagan deity that he's opposing
in God's name.
Now remember how this battle was framed
as a fight between Chemosh and God.
In his wonderful prophetic speech,
in verse 24,
Jephthah says to the king of Ammon,
Will you not take what your God Chemosh gives you?
Likewise, whatever the Lord,
our God has given us,
we will possess.
Now, Chemosh was worshipped with human sacrifices.
In 2 Kings chapter 3,
we're told how our battle was going very poorly
for the king of Moab.
So he offers up his son as a sacrifice
on the city wall.
And here we have Jephthah promising to do
exactly the same.
And it is this total ignorance of God
that makes Jephthah so profoundly ill-qualified
to lead his people.
And Jephthah and his daughter pay a very high price
for this folly.
But Jephthah's folly holds
more wide-ranging consequences for the nation.
And I think you can get so shocked
by what's happened so far
with his daughter being sacrificed
that you can miss this,
that we've got to see it.
His folly holds far worse consequences
for the nation.
And that's what we're given the two stories,
the two little examples.
And so we come to the second one.
The second example of Jephthah's folly
shows us not just how Jephthah himself
suffered for his folly,
but how he made the nation suffer.
Now like all rulers,
all leaders,
maybe some leaders here in business
will know this well,
you encounter challenges,
challenges to your authority.
And we're told how the unruly Ephraimites,
they come after him.
In chapter 12, verse 1,
the Ephraimites come up to Jephthah
and they say,
why did you go to fight the Ammonites
without calling us to go with you?
We're going to burn down your house
over your head.
Now Jephthah opens his mouth
in folly once more.
Jephthah doesn't see that a dispute with God,
God's enemies, sorry,
a dispute with God's enemies
might require a different response
to dispute among God's children.
And Jephthah sadly adopts
the exact same approach
that he did with God's enemies,
with the king of the Ammonites.
And tragically,
this leads to the same outcome,
to a war on his fellow Israelites.
Now what we've got to remember,
this stands in stark contrast
to what Gideon did
a few chapters before.
Gideon handles the same problem
with the same people
in chapter 8.
There we see how the Ephraim apps,
they come up to Gideon
and they accuse him
of the same things
and he responds with gentle speech.
Here again,
the book of Proverbs
helps us get a handle
on what God's trying to teach us here.
Proverbs 15 verse 1
reminds us,
and perhaps many of us
know this
because we need to be told
this many times
in the course of a week
that a gentle answer
turns away wrath.
Jephthah, however,
has no gentle words
for the Ephraimites.
Instead, his anger
and his answer
stirs up more and more wrath
and it precipitates
something close to genocide.
We're told in verse 6
that Jephthah is responsible
for the death
of 42,000 Ephraimites.
And here,
we're supposed to see
something of a
sobering comparison
with the previous judge of Biblick,
if you can cast your minds
back to previous weeks.
Things are going from bad to worse
in Israel.
Abimelech killed thousands
of fellow Israelites.
Jephthah, however,
kills tens of thousands.
And the point is simply
that Jephthah lacks
the wisdom of Gideon
and his folly
vastly outweighs
that of Abimelech.
So things are going
from bad to worse
and just to keep this thought
in your mind
as we go into
the sermon series further
over the next weeks
and the closing chapters,
we see a repeat
of these same stories
but in a more dissonant key.
We see the shameful treatment
of another girl
and the genocide
of another tribe.
It's good to keep that in view
as we keep going.
So the story of Jephthah
is an object lesson
in what it looks like
for a nation
to be ruled by fools.
But what are we
to make of all this?
I heard that Neil
was being a bit cheeky
this morning
saying probably
how I'd apply the passage.
How does it connect
with our lives?
At a very basic level,
actually agree with Neil,
I think he's right.
Don't try this at home.
Don't sacrifice your daughter.
Jephthah is clearly
not an example to follow,
is he?
But I doubt anybody here
really will find themselves
tempted, you know,
to make that promise
to offer a human sacrifice
through the week
when things are getting tough.
It's the bizarreness
of these stories
that can make it really hard
to miss the point
that they're making.
But if we do take that effort
to scratch the surface a bit,
it's actually not too hard
to see how it gets traction
on our lives.
The Bible shows us
these two sides
to Jephthah's folly,
the personal
and the public.
Did you notice how
Jephthah's rash vow
cost him dearly,
but it didn't hold
any consequences
for the nation?
And how his rash treatment
of the Ephraimates
held devastating consequences
for the nation,
but it actually didn't affect Jephthah.
We're shown both
his personal and public
consequences of his folly.
And if we follow this through,
it actually becomes
pretty clear
how these consequences
also hold implications for us.
Let's just think about
the personal side of things first.
Ignorance of God
is what lay at the root
of Jephthah's rash vow.
Jephthah acted foolishly
because he was ignorant
of how God
should be worshipped.
This dynamic of ignorance
leading to folly,
I'd like to suggest
is every bit as real
for us
as it was for Jephthah.
Like Jephthah,
we too
need to know
how God
is to be worshipped.
Paul tells us
in the letter
to the Romans,
I urge you,
brothers,
in view of God's mercy
to offer your bodies
as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God.
This is your spiritual
act of worship.
So in the same way
that Jephthah acted in folly
because he didn't know
the answer to this question,
what does it mean
to actually
offer your body
as a living sacrifice?
What does it mean
to worship God?
What does it mean?
Because Jephthah
couldn't actually
answer that question,
he acted in folly.
And we too
will act in folly
if we do not know
the answer to this question.
Our lives will be
a blasphemous act
of worship
if, like Jephthah,
we are ignorant
of what pleases God.
So how are we to know
what pleases God?
The answer is
incredibly simple.
God has told us.
He's told us in the Bible
all we need to do
is to listen to him.
In this regard,
a really troubling aspect
of contemporary
evangelicalism
is the increasing
retreat of Scripture
in church services,
especially the Old Testament.
In many,
if not most,
contemporary
evangelical churches,
the only Scripture
that's read
is the ten or so verses
that forms the basis
of a sermon.
And this is a fairly
recent development.
It's only happened
in the last 20 or so years.
In the church
I grew up,
there was always
an Old Testament reading
and a New Testament reading.
And the service
usually began
with a psalm.
I'm getting grey hair,
but I'm actually
not that old.
It's only in the last
20 years
that things have changed.
But in evangelical churches
today,
that would be a rarity.
An Old Testament reading,
a New Testament reading,
and a psalm.
That would be a rarity.
And this is a troubling
development because
the Bible is to be
the mirror
that shows us
whether our worship
is pleasing to God.
And if the Bible
takes a back seat
in our church services,
how will we know
whether our worship
is in fact
pleasing to God?
There's a very real
temptation though
to be lured into thinking,
oh, it could never
happen to us.
We could never possibly
be led into Jephthah's folly.
But think about it.
Jephthah was no
liturgical innovator.
Sacrifice was the right way
to worship God.
And Jephthah thought
he was offering
the most preeminently
valuable sacrifice
he could think of.
The life of a person
is infinitely more valuable
than that of an animal,
isn't it?
The Bible even says that.
Why else would the
Chemosh worshippers
offer up their children?
See, Jephthah was offering
up worship par excellence.
And however alien it might seem,
there is a logic
to what Jephthah did.
He was only sorry
that it was his daughter
that came out the front door,
not one of his servants.
And in his cultural context,
that vow made perfect sense.
And we too can be convinced
that we are offering up
the most valuable
worship there could be.
And with our cultural
frame of reference,
it will all make perfect sense.
But this is precisely
why we have to be on our guard.
There is always logic
to folly.
It always makes sense.
It's the only reason
we ever do foolish things.
We only ever act foolishly
because it seemed like
a good idea at the time.
And there is always
this logic to folly.
And the only thing
that is capable
of unhinging that logic
is the Word of God.
Jephthah's worship
made sense,
but it was not guided
by the Word of God.
Jephthah had plainly
never heard Deuteronomy
chapter 18, verse 10.
Let no one be found
among you who sacrifices
his son or daughter
in the fire.
Had he heard this,
it would have cut across
the logic of his worship
like the knife that passed
across his daughter's throat.
But what verses of Scripture
might there be
that cut across
the logic of our worship?
Which passages of Scripture
would shine a light
on what in our worship
is unpleasing to God
or profoundly unwise?
And I like to suggest
in the same way
that Jephthah couldn't know
what he didn't know,
we too cannot know
what we don't know.
We will not be able
to recognize
where there's a mismatch
between our worship
and what is pleasing to God
unless we cultivate
a deep familiarity
with what God
sets out in his word.
Now if we want to avoid
this kind of mismatch
between what we think
is pleasing to God
and what is in fact
pleasing to God,
we need to make it
our business
to familiarize ourselves
with every nook and cranny
of the word of God.
This will keep us
from the kind of ignorance
that led to Jephthah's folly.
Now one practical way
of checking whether
we are doing this
is simply asking ourselves
questions like
when was the last time
I read the book of Judges
or to Peter
or Zephaniah
or, or, or?
One of the things I do
to make sure
that I can answer
this question
is I make a photocopy
of the contents page
of my Bible
and as I read
the scriptures
by myself
through the week
I cross off
put a line through
one of the books
of the Bible
on that sheet
and eventually
I work my way
through all of it
and when I'm done
I photocopy
the contents page again
and start crossing
off books
once again.
I do this
so that I don't
leave bits out
so that I don't
end up just
gaining a lopsided
picture
of who God is
and a lopsided
picture of
what actually
pleases Him.
I can know
that wherever
I do develop
this lopsided
picture of God
and everybody does
it will only be
a matter of time
before I come
across the verses
that will challenge
that conception
of God
that is faulty.
And this is
something that
churches can do too
churches can order
the public reading
of their scripture
in such a way
that there won't
be passages of
scripture that
their congregations
have simply never
heard.
One of the most
stunning things
for me as a pastor
over four years
was we had a
reading of one
of the most
famous stories
of King Solomon
and there was a
woman in our
church who had
a theological
qualification
and she said
I've never
heard that
story before.
That was a
stunning moment
of what I'm
saying is it's
not made up.
There is a
profound retreat
of the scriptures
in evangelicalism
and even someone
could hear for the
first time as an
adult one of the
most well-known
stories of the
life of Solomon.
So in a very
practical way we
can learn I
think from this
personal dimension
of Jephthah's
folly just to
take an audit of
our ignorance.
If Jephthah had
Deuteronomy on
his reading list he
would never have
made that vow.
It's as simple
as that.
Now that's the
personal side.
But you see
Jephthah's folly had
a very public side
and I think it's
hard for us to
feel this but I
actually think this
is the weight in
the book of Judges.
His actions held
disastrous consequences
for the nation.
Absolutely disastrous
consequences because
he was a ruler.
Now none of us are
rulers.
I know some of us
work with rulers but
none of us actually
are rulers.
Even if we were there
would be very important
differences between
the first minister of
Scotland being the
first minister and
being a ruler of the
tribes of Israel.
But what's exactly the
same is that we like
the people of Israel
stand to suffer if our
nation is led into
folly.
This is why the
Apostle Paul tells us
that we should uphold
our rulers in prayer.
In his first letter to
Timothy Paul writes,
I urge then,
first of all,
that requests,
prayers,
intercession and
thanksgiving be made
for everyone,
for kings and for all
those in authority,
that we may live
peaceful and quiet
lives in all
godliness and
holiness.
This is good and
pleases God our
Saviour who wants
all men to be saved
and come to a
knowledge of the
truth.
Because we stand to
suffer under foolish
leadership, Paul makes
it really clear that we
should pray for our
rulers.
We should pray for
them so that life can
proceed under normal
conditions.
And note how this is
linked to people coming
to a knowledge of the
Lord Jesus.
It pleases God that we
can live peaceful and
quiet lives in all
godliness and holiness
because God wants all
men to be saved.
Now of course God is
still capable of saving
people in the midst of
chaos, but from what
Paul says, I think we
can take it that peace
and stability is what
allows the gospel to
flourish.
And so we should be
praying for Nicola
Sturgeon and for the
SNP.
We should be praying for
Theresa May and the
Conservative Party.
Irrespective of whether
we support the agenda
of these parties, their
leaders deserve our
prayers.
And we should pray,
especially on behalf of
our brothers and
sisters around the
world for the leaders
of the less stable
countries in the world.
If things get out of
hand between Donald
Trump and King
Jong-un, our Asian
brothers and sisters
stand to suffer
tremendously.
Who can imagine what
would unfold if the
shenanigans we see in
the papers actually
escalated into some
kind of armed
conflict?
Paul reminds us that
we should pray, first
of all, that all
Christians can live
quiet and godly lives
and that this will
result in a saving
knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ, a saving
knowledge of his
gospel.
So as we leave church
tonight, I think we
need to remind ourselves
once more that it's not
just evil men that can
act foolishly.
I think that's actually
the key to letting this
really come home.
even people endowed
with the Spirit of God
can act foolishly.
And the story of
Jephthah is a good
reminder.
We shouldn't think that
we're somehow immune to
folly.
And let's take note of
the core problem of
Jephthah's folly.
Take that into the
coming week.
It was ignorance that
led to his rash
promise.
And we too will act
foolishly if we are
ignorant of what is
pleasing to God.
And we stand to
suffer personally if we
fail to uphold the
leaders of our nations
in prayer.
But a failure to uphold
our leaders in prayer
risks hindrance to the
progress of the gospel.
In the book of Jephthah
we're given this portrait
of what it looks like
when a nation is ruled
by fools.
Why don't we pray that
we'll be delivered from
that being replicated in
our lifetime.
Let's pray.
Amen.
Loving Lord Jesus we
ask that you would
preserve our lives from
folly.
Fill us with the wisdom
that comes from an
intimate knowledge of
you through your word
and empower us Father
to walk in wisdom.
We pray Father that you
would do that in our
lives at a personal
level.
We also pray Father that
you would have mercy on
rulers of our nation
of the nations of our
brothers and sisters.
We ask this according to
Jesus' name.
Amen.