Judges 3
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning church,
We’re going to continue in our Judges series this morning. I’m excited to share with you what is contained within Chapter 3 of the passage this morning. As a Youth Pastor this particular chapter contains one of my most favourite stories and probably one of my favourite Judges in the Old Testament. But this morning we’re also going to look at some practical things that I think God puts in our way to refine us and to make us more in the image of his son Jesus, which is the best thing we could ever want and experience.
Before we jump into the passage though I want you to think about when you took your lessons and sat your driving test. Now we know that this is a test to prove that we know the rules of the road and can perform that we can do the everyday skills that we need to drive, well for some of us. I remember when I starting taking my lessons, I had all intensions of learning to drive stick shift. Like I did all my lessons that way and during the practice tests I’d mess up, I’d get frustrated and panic and you know what happens when you don’t drive a stick shift car right, you stall. And for me you just don’t stall with no one around. No you stall on a hill with a line of cars behind you, which increases the panic and frustration. For me on the day of my test I think me and the driving instructor both agreed for me to abandon the idea of getting my license to drive a stick shift but instead do the lesson in an automatic. Did the lesson that way and was golden, passed. But I had to realize my limitations and to know where I was going wrong in order to do what was right and to be able to prove myself to the driving instructor and pass this driving test.
Now I share that silly story because of what we find in the first part of Chapter 3 of Judges. We’re going to take this chapter in sections so we’re going to first look at the first 6 verses. Chapter 3 verse 1 to 6 says, “These are the nations that the Lord left in the land to test those Israelites who had not experienced the wars of Canaan. 2 He did this to teach warfare to generations of Israelites who had no experience in battle. 3 These are the nations: the Philistines (those living under the five Philistine rulers), all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the mountains of Lebanon from Mount Baal-hermon to Lebo-hamath. 4 These people were left to test the Israelites—to see whether they would obey the commands the Lord had given to their ancestors through Moses.
5 So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, 6 and they intermarried with them. Israelite sons married their daughters, and Israelite daughters were given in marriage to their sons. And the Israelites served their gods.”
1. Being Tested by God
1. Being Tested by God
We learn right away that God was angry with the Israelites and he left the pagan people to live among them. And he left them there to ultimately see whether or not they would continue to follow him. This was a test. But this was no ordinary test. This is a test where God always knew the answer. He knew from the very beginning that the Israelites where going to fail. In Judges Chapter 2 we’ve already know that the Israelites are susceptible to messing up. In Chapter 2, for a quick recap, we see in verses 16-19, “18 Whenever the Lord raised up a judge over Israel, he was with that judge and rescued the people from their enemies throughout the judge’s lifetime. For the Lord took pity on his people, who were burdened by oppression and suffering. 19 But when the judge died, the people returned to their corrupt ways, behaving worse than those who had lived before them.” They were in this, what I’ll call, natural rhythm of messing up, God providing them a protector and guide, that guide dying, and then them messing up again, and God providing a protector and guide, etc. Now just for a little background, he’s leaving them with these pagan people. We see these people time and time again the people of Israel being influenced into this groups way of living and believing. These people God allowed the Israelites to defeat and drive away many times before. But now God is saying that he’s leaving them among them. A commentary puts it great when it says, “These nations would remain because God wanted to prove the faithfulness of Israel to Himself, and to improve their reliance on Him.” And we read he’s doing it for this test.
You see God knew them, just like he knows us, and because he loves them so much as we’ll see over our time in Judges, he’ll provide them with someone who’ll protect them and be their guide.
So I think a question that we should ask ourselves this morning, is why would God do that? Why would God allow the Israelites to be stuck in this place among people who wouldn’t be good for them or too them?
I think we can find the answer to this in James 1:2-4, where it says “2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. (or other translations say consider it pure joy) 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”
Now we know and we’ve heard this before. Let’s look at our trials as pure joy. Even as I say it to you it’s a hard thing to really embrace. When tough things happen to us, when we find ourselves in rough times, when we are struggling through a situation, to consider it pure joy. As I looked at the quick definition of joy it said, “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness”. Now that sounds crazy to have that while looking at facing hard times, even as we look at this covid situation, it sounds almost impossible to be like I’m going to consider this pure joy. But as I drilled down into this idea of joy I was struck by the quote from the Merriam Webster dictionary which defined joy as, “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.”
Now I can get behind that. That when we are in the midst of trials that we can consider what is happening, which in most cases really sucks, as opportunities for success looking at what is going to be coming out from all of this. Which is that when we place our faith and trust in Jesus, James tells about what these trials that we face will produce - endurance, which is patience and stick-to-it—iv-ness, knowing that we will get through it. And not only that we’re getting through it but knowing that all along it was Jesus that was carrying us through it.
And right now no matter what you are facing, I know we’re all going through this Covid thing together, but there are also other trials that many of us are facing, could be home and family troubles, job troubles, health challenges, whatever it is. Know that with your faith in Jesus, which calls us to rely on him, will draw us to enduring and getting through these trials. 1 Peter 1:7 takes this a step further and tells us, “7 These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” This is the success and what we are looking for through these trials that we are facing. Rick Warren sums up this idea of joy really amazing he says, “Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be alright, and the determined choice to praise God in every situation.”
2. Crying out to God
2. Crying out to God
Judges 3 then moves on to introducing us to first 3 judges. Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar. Some wild names right. Let’s read about Othniel together and I’ll summarize Ehud and then we’ll end by reading about Shamgar. I think we can get some good things to take from each of these Judges.
Judge #1 - Othniel
Judges 3:7-11 read with me, “7 The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. They forgot about the Lord their God, and they served the images of Baal and the Asherah poles. 8 Then the Lord burned with anger against Israel, and he turned them over to King Cushan-rishathaim of Aram-naharaim. And the Israelites served Cushan-rishathaim for eight years. 9 But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, the Lord raised up a rescuer to save them. His name was Othniel, the son of Caleb’s younger brother, Kenaz. 10 The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he became Israel’s judge. He went to war against King Cushan-rishathaim of Aram, and the Lord gave Othniel victory over him. 11 So there was peace in the land for forty years. Then Othniel son of Kenaz died.”
With Othniel we read that people of Israel, who we realize have a short memory, did evil in the eyes of God and began worshiping idols and other gods. And rightfully so the Lord got angry with them and he turned them over to their sinful desires. And then they cried out to God, and this is important, they cried out to God and he raised up among them a rescuer. Othniel, who God’s spirit came on and he was able to get victory over their captives.
So much good stuff here. Firstly God gave them up to just what they wanted. They did what their heart desired which was evil in God’s eyes and because they what they wanted God gave their hearts over to these evil desires. This is tough, but we see time and time again that God allows us to experience and have what our hearts are clamoring for. And in the case of Israel its all things evil. We read that and we’re like man how can they be that dumb and fall for this again. But we can find ourselves in that same place time and time again don’t we. We can be in a place where we seek out self satisfaction and whatever it is that we want. And the sad thing is that we know it’s wrong in Gods eyes, but we somehow convince ourselves that that is what we want. We have this short term satisfaction on our minds, and that’s just what it is, its short term joys that fade and you know what we want it again. And we read and even see God gives them over to what it is that they want the most. And that is sobering, because it puts us in a place where we often come to the end of ourselves. Where we feel the most alone and without everyone, even if we are surrounded by people. You hear that time and time again, that that sort of life will bring people into a place where they aren’t satisfied by any stretch of the imagination and they feel the most alone.
The cool thing in our story is that after eight years the Israelites remembered and cried out to the Lord. This is the incredible part because God was waiting, he was like that parent who watching their toddler biff it after doing something they shouldn’t and they start crying and calling out for their parent and the parent is waiting for them with their arms open wide, ready to scoop up their child to dust them off and comfort them telling them its alright. It often takes many years of suffering and being in bondage before man looks away from themselves, their own desires and looks up to God. And the amazing realization is that God is waiting like that parent, there’s no terms and conditions or additional hoops that we need to jump through. We know in Romans 10:13, “13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And once we do that he will begin to unwind and clear all that stuff out of our lives that we’ve built up and he will refine and renew us.
In this case of our passage he sends them Othniel, who is raised up among them. And I think God is just getting Israel prepared for their messiah who’d come to them years later. Who’d rescue them from their oppressors. God’s spirit came on Othniel and he defeated their oppressor and lead them to 40 years of freedom. All this took was for them to cry out to God.
Folks God just wants us to recognize that he is all we need. He wants us to recognize that now, but he’ll also wait for us to go through these hard times and to come to the end of ourselves for us to run back into his arms. Tony Evans said, "God will meet you where you are in order to take you where He wants you to go." No matter where you are today God wants you to realize that He is all you need, he wants to bring you from death to life, from suffering into salvation. All he’s asking from us is to cry out to Him.
2. The second Judge, which is one of my favourites is Ehud. Another pretty wild name. And this is a pretty long passage so I’m not going to read it through, I’d encourage you to do this at some point. It’s an incredible story. But what is happening here is that the Israelites again did evil in the eyes of the Lord, they decided to go their own way. And so the Lord gave them over to their own desires and they were ruled by a King called King Eglon of Moab. This is important because we can see the Israelites drifting again. This victory through God was something that they needed to continually tap into. Just like for us. We need to be continually working on our relationship with Jesus. He’s always there waiting for us, we need to do our part and continually go to him. We need to be pouring scripture into our hearts and minds, spending time with him in prayer and really feeding that in our lives. I love what C.S. Lewis says, he says, “Relying on God has to start all over everyday, as if nothing has yet been done.” This is a regular thing, not just a one time thing. I truly believe when we do that we can avoid being in the same place as the Israelites, where they fall away.
So we see the Israelites had to serve King Eglon for 18 years. Again after this time of doing what they wanted and serving their own desires the Israelites cried out to God and ran into his arms. God is so incredibly patient. God raised up another rescuer from among them and this time it was Ehud, who they make sure to mention was a lefty. I just want to throw out there that left handed people are pretty awesome, the lefty’s that I know are pretty amazing and being one of them I can say this with pretty good confidence. Anywho, Ehud was sent to be the rescuer. He was tasked with taking tribute money from the Israelites to the king, which the story mentioned was very rotund. He was a really big and fat guy. Ehud made a double edged dagger and conceiled it before going to the king. He delivers the tribute to the king and after leaving we assume that he was given some divine prompting. He went back and told the king that he had a secret message for him and the king being really interested told his servants to leave the room. When he was alone with King Eglon, Ehud said that he had a message for him from God and drove the dagger into the king, which the bible says disappeared into the kings fat. And it was at this point that the kings bowels emptied. Ehud leaves the kings chambers and escapes down the latrine. The kings servants are outside his chamber and they’re not sure if they should enter. They think the king is in the washroom but after a while they enter his chamber and see him in this state dead on the floor.
While the kings servants where figuring out what happened and what to do Ehud escapes and leads the Israelites to defeat the Moabites. And after this they have peace in the land for eighty years.
Isn’t that a cool story. You can see why it’s one of my favorites. It’s jam packed. But what I think is pretty incredible about this story and where I want to land on this point is that Ehud has to face this person who kept Israel in bondage and he had to get his hands messy. In order to free the Israelites he had to do the dirty work.
And I think this is the same for each one of us. If we want Jesus to address and fix the sin in our lives then we have to let him get to source of the mess and to get rid of it. And this means letting Jesus into our lives and into the places where we are holding onto the sin, into the hidden and secret places.
And the thing God uses to help us with that, to correct us and encourage us is through his word. Ephesians 6 talks about the full armour of God. Here Paul says to put on this armour to be able to stand firm from all the strategies of the evil one. In verse 17 he says specifically to use the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. This is something that we use to both defend ourselves and to attack when we need it. In our lives when want to know how to live, what’s right and wrong we need to go to the bible, this is the place for refinement, for refreshment for rejuvenation. Just like Ehud here we need to use our sword, the scriptures, to deal with whatever might be keeping us down keeping us in bondage. And we need to use to it get a hold of this. We need to use it to clean whatever mess we might find in our lives.
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t easy. For us it means letting go of our own desires and letting God take control. We generally want to do what we want to do. But God is asking for us to let him be in the drivers seat to take control. But if we trust God and trust that he wants whats best for us then we need to give it all to him; our struggles, desires, the good things the bad. And we do that because we know God loves us and he wants the best for us. And just like Ehud and the Israelites we will see him lead us into battle to defeat whatever is oppressing us. To lead us to victory.
3. And then we have our last Judge for this morning. And we’re not going to spend a lot of time on him cause the bible really just gives us a glimpse of him. Judges 3:24, “31 After Ehud, Shamgar son of Anath rescued Israel. He once killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad.” This guy is just amazing. And oxgoad is just a stick that is 8 feet long and would have been about six inches around at the big end and was pointy at the other. This guy was a skilled warrior that we see God used again to rescue his people, with something that wasn’t spectacular. Cause we know God can use the most unassuming person or thing for his glory in our lives and the lives of the people around us.
Conclusion
So as we finish I just want to remind you that God uses trials in our lives to refine our faith in him. All God wants from us is to cry out and to come to him. In that he wants to work out our mess and whatever it is that is keeping us held down. And he can use even the most unassuming thing in our lives for his glory!
I’ll end with a reminder from Romans 8:28, “28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”
Let’s pray.