Judges 11:29-12:15

[0:00] portion of scripture. Judges chapter 11 starting in verse 29 and then we will read the entirety of the 12th chapter which only gets to 15 verses. So we'll read 11 29 through 12 15 and I just go ahead and tell you on the front end the book of Judges does not always make you feel good right the book of Judges is one of those books that you just have to wrestle with and you come with those I've wrestled with this passage just about all week for the greater part of the week at least just to be transparent with you there are ways in my wrestling that I tried to justify the passage I tried to clarify the passage I tried to simplify the passage I tried to make it where it was easier to accept than you get it at face value and I tell you all these things because you'll run across it in Bible study in Bible commentary I tried to maybe rectify how it would say this but then all of a sudden say this over here somewhere else and and just really tried to come in and I just came to the realization today after wrestling wrestling wrestling and I changed my whole outline this afternoon this is one of those weeks that I was early in sermon preparation so I actually had

[1:17] Sunday night's sermon I typically don't have it finished I thought I had it finished earlier in the week it really gave me some grace I thought but then this afternoon when I stayed he said well you're not finished yet so I wrestled and wrestled and wrestled and wrestled and I changed the whole outline because I realized that I was seeking to impose what I wanted the text to say upon the text instead of letting the text say what it says and we'll get to that in just a moment okay we do that by the way in scripture if we're not careful we don't want to impose our interpretation on the text our goal and ambition is to allow the Lord to show us the interpretation of the text we don't want to make it say something that it doesn't and and hopefully we don't do that hopefully I'm not doing that here because I'm just trying to take it at face value let's pray and then we'll just get right into it together Lord we thank you so much just for allowing us to gather together we thank you for the privilege of your word and God we thank you for great opportunities of study pray that you be with us tonight as we open up the pages of the old testament Lord that the truth would be seen and God that we would understand it clearly

[2:38] Lord I pray that you would take the great message of scripture and allow it to resonate within our heart help us to wrap our minds around it so that our lives may be changed and transformed for your glory and we ask it in Christ's name amen the account that we have before us in the 11th chapter we kind of lead up to it begins all the way back in Judges chapter 10 Judges chapter 10 the sons of Ammon are imposing an 18 year really raid upon the nation of Israel for 18 years the nation of Israel suffers under the kind of ongoing raid old parties and incoming torment of the sons of Ammon sons of Ammon are direct descendants of Lot right you have Moab and Ammon they're the descendants of Lot and therefore God's people were not to take their land so the nation of Israel did not push into the land of the sons of Ammon but the sons of Ammon are coming into the nation of Israel and in particular they're coming into the nation of Israel that is east of the Jordan River so those trans Jordan areas and that region referred to as Gleed and as they're coming into there because by the way when you do not fully enter into the promised land you do not fully you do not go all the way in you are setting yourselves up for an easier attack and that's exactly what happens so they're there and for 18 years and they cry out and God says I'm not going to listen to you won't you cry out to those gods you've been worshiping and see if they'll listen to you Judges chapter 10 they hear this and they say well that's not going to work so they put away all their gods they repent and they confess and it says and God could not take their misery any longer so God summoned the sons of Ammon brought them into the territory and the battle is set you remember that right and Judges 10 ends on this sad note here's the sons of Ammon here are the sons of

[4:33] Gleed also known as eastern Manasseh and they're there and they're getting ready to fight the battle and the leaders of Gleed look at one another and ask the question and it's the question for four weeks now it's been resonating in my mind who is the man that will go before us and begin to fight who is the man that will go before us and begin to fight the sad reality that the people of God had no man that would stand up and fight that's sad and no one would answer the question well they found that man in the 11th chapter in Jephthah Jephthah is a son of Gleed from a harlot so he's not really full-blooded his brothers had cast him out because they said you're not like us right you're the child of another woman so they cast him out so Jephthah goes and lives in the land of Tob which is on the border of Ammon and they later on in the time of David the people of Tob T-O-B become really partners with

[5:33] Ammon in their battle against David and later Solomon but Jephthah is living in Tob and he goes to Tob and he's just some find some worthless fellas because when people kick you out you go find some worthless fellas right and some worthless fellas gather around him and he makes his living making rattle parties much like what the sons of Ammon are doing he it's a good way of saying he goes and picks battles and he takes spoils from war right that's his job he's a valiant warrior well the people of Gleed didn't want anything to do with him when times were going good and I know I'm catching you up on a lot of stuff right they wanted they didn't want him there he said you had no inheritance among us until they needed a warrior and they found someone who was fighting a lot of battles so they said what about Jephthah so they go to Tob and they ask him to come and he asked the question why do you want me now you didn't want me then why do you want me now and they said well we'll make you leader over us if you go defeat the sons of Ammon we'll make you ruler over us and he said okay sounds like a good idea so he goes back and he asked that whole question we're into the 11th chapter halfway through the 11th chapter and we got to get to this point right he tries to be sensitive at first and he asked why they keep raiding and sons of Ammon said you took our land and he reminds them of the history for one we took it from the Amorites not the Ammonites big difference because God didn't say you not to take it from the Amorites he said don't take it from the Ammonites the second thing is is God took the land you did we didn't and if God took it then we're going to inhabit it that's a great principle who are we not to fully inhabit all that God gives us right why leave some of the blessing behind and the sons of Ammon the kings of Ammon want nothing to do with that so the battle is set you're going to have to fight and that's where we find ourself we find ourselves in the 29th verse of the 11th chapter which by the way in all of this event is the very first mentioning that God is even there because up to this time they can't find the man they finally found someone the leaders of Gleed picked him God didn't raise him up they went and got him prior to this the other judges it says the Lord God raised up the Lord God raised up the Lord God raised up the Lord God raised up and then we find the leaders of Gleed went and got right so now all of a sudden we see the difference and we're in the 29th verse now the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah so he passed through Gleed and

[7:58] Manasseh and then he passed through Mishpah of Gleed and from Mishpah to Gleed he went to the sons of Ammon and Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said if you will indeed give the sons of Ammon into my hand and it shall be whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon it shall be the Lord's and I will offer it up as a burnt offering so Jephthah crossed over to the sons of Ammon to fight against them and the Lord gave them into his hand he struck them with a very great slaughter from Aurora to the entrance of Mineth 20 cities and as far as Abel Kerimim so the sons of Ammon were subdued before the sons of Israel when Jephthah came to his house at Mishpah behold his daughter was coming out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing now she was his one and only child besides her he had no son or daughter when he saw her he tore his clothes and said alas my daughter you have brought me very low and you are among those who trouble me for I have given my word to the Lord and I cannot take it back so she said to him my father you have given your word to the Lord do to me as you have said since the Lord has avenged you of your enemies the sons of Ammon she said to her father let this thing be done for me let me alone two months that I may go to the mountains and weep because of my virginity I and my companions then he said go so he sent her away for two months and she left with her companions and wept on the mountains because of her virginity and at the end of two months she returned to her father who did to her according to the vow which he had made she had no relations with the man thus it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of

[9:41] Israel went yearly to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah the Galadites four days in the year chapter 12 verse 1 then the men of Ephraim were summoned and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah why did you cross over to fight against the sons of Ammon without calling us to go go with you we will burn your house down on you and Jephthah said to them I and my people were at a great strife with the sons of Ammon when I called you you did not deliver me from their hand and when I saw that you would not deliver me I took my life in my hands and crossed over against the sons of Ammon and the Lord gave them into my hand why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me then Jephthah gathered all the men of Galid and fought Ephraim and the men of Galid defeated Ephraim because they said you are fugitives of Ephraim oh Galidites in the midst of Ephraim and in the midst of Manasseh the Galidites captured the fords of the Jordan opposite Ephraim and it happened when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said let me cross over the men of Galid would say to them are you an Ephraimite if he said no then they would say to him say now Shibboleth and he said Sibboleth for he could not pronounce it correctly then they seized him and slew him at the fords of the Jordan thus there fell at that time 42,000 of Ephraim Jephthah judged Israel six years and when Jephthah the Galidite died and was buried in one of the cities of Galid now Ibn of Bethlehem judged Israel after him he had 30 sons and 30 daughters whom he gave in marriage outside of the family and they brought in 30 daughters from outside for his sons and he judged Israel seven years then Ibn died and was buried in Bethlehem now Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel after him and he judged Israel 10 years then Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried at Ajalon in the land of Zebulun now Abdon the son of Hillel the Parathenite judged

[11:37] Israel after him he had 40 sons and 30 grandsons who rode on 70 donkeys and he judged Israel eight years then Abdon the son of Hillel the Parathenite died and was buried at Parathen in the land of Ephraim in the hill country of the Amalekites judges 11 29 through 12 15 I told you it was a difficult passage I want you to see revelations in the dark days of a nation revelations we have in the dark days of a nation this passage is one that if you open up any number of study resources you will get one of two meanings one of two interpretations hopefully we'll be able to cover those here the interpretation which we will look at tonight that I believe is and if I didn't believe it and we wouldn't preach it is the most accurate interpretation is the one that I least wanted to preach it is a literal interpretation and hopefully as we look at that we will see both sides and come to a greater understanding we can slow down just a little bit on Sunday nights not too long but just a little bit to think to put our thinking hats on and to really get deep into the word there are some things that we have to reconcile in scripture when we open scripture the primary one being that scripture never contradicts scripture so it always holds itself to the same level we find Jephthah mentioned in the book of first

[13:13] Samuel chapter 12 Samuel refers to the judge of Jephthah as being one who was righteously used by God to deliver his people we find Jephthah being mentioned again in Hebrews chapter 11 and that one surprises me the most in first Samuel it is on the occurrence when the nation of Israel is asking for a king and Samuel is reminding the nation of how God has been faithful raising up judges who would deliver his people of one of one of which is Jephthah in Hebrews chapter 11 we speak of those who by faith conquered kingdoms subdued nations fought great battles delivered his people by faith and in that listing connected with Gideon and David and Samuel is Jephthah that young man got filled with the spirit when I was preaching this morning began to speak to me in tongues that's all I told him when they left I said he wasn't interrupting he was speaking in tongues let the young boy be covered in Hebrews 11 he's referred to as one of those men of faith and I'm just walking you through my thinking since he is commemorated for his faith in Hebrews chapter 11 then we must interpret the passage we have before us in light of that commemoration which means we can't just discount him and say well look at all the wicked things he did because God himself refers to him as a man of faith thus the problem because when we read the passage we wrestle with what he does or we should but yet God refers to him as a man of faith much like he does Samson

[15:12] Samson and we haven't even gotten to Samson I mean Samson set people's fields on fire ripped city gates down killed a number of people right referred to as a man of faith but we can almost reconcile that because we can say well at least he died good but here we meet Jephthah fights a battle offers his daughter as a sacrifice and then is the leader in a civil war which kills 42,000 and we have to ask ourselves how do we wrestle with these passages and I know it's man pastor that's dark but it's the Bible so we just want to look at this and see what revelations we see in the dark days of a nation because we can't ever remove Jephthah from his time Jephthah is living in a very the goal of if you will biblical interpretation is to dive into the passage in its context what was going on what was the time when was he alive where was it happening sure it transcends time but these things take place in a time and in the days when there was no king in the land of Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes

[16:35] Jephthah according to scripture is a man of faith who is used of God to deliver the nation of Israel but we see revelations by the way let these things not surprise you when you study church history you will be shocked to find that some of the great heroes of the faith did some of the most unspeakable things Calvin the founder of one of the greatest theological whether or not you agree to it adhere to it or stand beside it one of the greatest theological things in all of Christianity John Calvin one of the reformers of his day a contemporary of Martin Luther John Calvin who wrote so much about salvation and being the work of God and saved by grace and the doctrine of God understanding God being the God of salvation John Calvin is also the man that ordered the burning at the stake of his best friend because his best friend allowed an unordained man to baptize him because there was an argument over baptism history shows us that there's not but one that is perfect not but one and Calvin is just one of the many we don't pick on him we could go down the list through church history and see the great fathers of the faith the heroes of the cause and still we find each one of them

[18:21] Martin Luther himself the great leader of the reformation he loved the freedom outside the monastery there were things that we would say well I can't believe he did that because he had this newfound freedom of not being saved by works but through grace Spurgeon once said that if people didn't look at him the prince of preachers Charles Spurgeon said if he didn't think people would look at him funny he'd smoke two cigars at a time because he loved smoking cigars D.O. Moody didn't love smoking cigars but he loved food and he ate a whole lot of food and you say oh those are those are those small things well you can go a little bit deeper into their lives as well and see that they weren't perfect so we shouldn't be surprised when these things hit us but we do see revelations the first thing we see during this dark day when Jephthah is the one that God uses and we can't fully comprehend things the first thing we see is the consistency of the spirit's presence the 29th verse says now the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah that we read that and we think oh okay well the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah by the way the Trinity we sing about that praise father son the father the father son and holy ghost right we sing these things we sing of the Trinity we acknowledge the Trinity the Trinity is not a New Testament teaching the Trinity is a biblical teaching and you have all of these throughout scripture but here we see the spirit coming upon

[20:00] Jephthah now the spirit is a manifestation of the presence of God it is a person right we don't want to refer to it as a thing because it needs a personal pronoun it is fullness of God it is I believe in the Trinity I cannot define the Trinity but I know that God is fully God and is all God the spirit is just as fully God and is all God and the son is just as fully God and is all God right so we understand that you cannot separate them they are all united but yet they are three we just aren't even going to try to define it because our brains will start smoking and we got a difficult passage enough for us but what we see is the consistency of the spirit's presence and it is amazing because in the darkest of days when men were neglecting God forsaking God and falling down literally on their faces in front of a multitude of idols so much so that God said why don't you cry out to those idols and see if they will deliver you when the things of the world had become the things of the people of God we can't call it the church but when the practices of the world had become the practices of God's people

[21:16] God was still there even in the midst of those dark days the period of the book of Judges is probably arguably one of the darkest periods in the nation of Israel but yet through it all the spirit of the Lord came upon him we read that oh that's good no think about this God manifested his presence in an individual at that time God chose to be present among them in those days when everyone else was hopeless and helpless and trying to do things their own way we really can't even begin to explain the atrocities that they were entering into sure there's always this remnant there's for every time in the period of Judges you always have a Boaz right you always have a remnant

[22:18] God always has a remnant but what is astounding is that though his people had neglected and forgotten him he had not neglected and forgotten them surely as Jeremiah reminds us in Lamentations 3 his mercies are new every morning and his loving kindness is never cease loving kindness we've looked at that word just a little bit that word hesed which means everything that is for my good that he does to me it's more than he just loves me it's not a warm fuzzy feeling it's not that he's just kind it is everything that must be done that is for me that is for good is how God responds to me and when Jeremiah penned that in Lamentations 3 it's called Lamentations because he's the weeping prophet because he's mourning over the fall of Jerusalem remember that Lamentations they're falling to Babylonian captivity and it's this grief stricken letter

[23:24] Lamentations where people had resulted to cannibalism and and and this the most unspeakable of things are happening Lamentations when when they wanted really nothing to do with God and God was chastising his people Jeremiah pens his mercies are new every morning and his loving kindness says never cease for the Lord my God is my hope therefore I'm confident see one thing that we see in dark days is there's this consistency of the spirit's presence we know that God is with us in the good times what is so astounding is that God is with us in the bad times that we got ourselves into and that revelation of this dark day shows us in the spirit of the Lord came upon him so everything that he does now stay with me here everything that he does from this point forward is empowered by the spirit but that does not mean that every decision he makes is commissioned or ordained by the spirit you understand what I'm saying he empowers him to fight the battle he did not call him to make the vow big difference you say well how can you reconcile that well how can you reconcile the fact and how can

[24:58] I reconcile the fact that according to scripture we are not covered with the spirit we are filled with the spirit be ye filled with the spirit and how can we reconcile as Jesus says that if he goes to heaven then once we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior the fullness of God dwells within us he says that I and my father will come and make our abode our tabernacle in you and right prior to that in John 15 he had just said that the spirit would come and tabernacle with you and so just in a few short the Bible tells us not that the spirit has empowered us but that the fullness of the Trinitarian Godhead indwells us so how can we reconcile that even with that indwelling we still sin that does not mean that everything we do he made us do it right Jephthah is covered with the spirit we are filled with the spirit he is empowered to fight the battles but that does not mean that the spirit calls and commissions him to do everything which leads us to our second thing we are reminded of the consistency of the spirit's presence number two we see the reality of man's problem the book of judges shows us the problem of man that when man has his own way he can't do right when man does what is right in his own eyes he's just going to go down down down down down down and we see that right and in these dark days we see that the spirit is consistent

[26:34] God his favor his loving kindness his mercy is there the grace is there but man's problem still remains too it is a real issue so it says that the spirit overpowers him so he goes through galeed and manessan and he comes back to mispa so what it does is he he goes through all this region and he's gathering his troops right he's getting his people together and he goes back to mispa which is his home and his home base and it's from mispa that he will launch his attack to go on amon before he goes into amon to attack and he attacks them in israelite land by the way so this is a defensive attack not an offensive attack because the sons of amon have come into the israelite territory so they're not breaking the vow that they made with god they're not going into the land of amon they're leaving them alone so he's there but before he launches his battle he makes this as many say a rash vow but he makes this vow and he says lord and he uses the covenant name of god if you allow me to be victorious the very first thing that comes out of my house to greet me i will give it to you as a whole burnt offering makes this vow now what you need to know these are the things by the way this is where i started trying to it just in my own desire because he says in the text and it shall be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when i return in peace from the sons of amon it shall be the lord's and i will offer it up as a burnt offering there is some opportunity in the greek or not the greek in the hebrew to make that and an or so you can make it seem like he's saying it will be given to you or if it's an animal i will give it to you as a burnt offering but and this is where if you read a lot of bible studies you're gonna you're gonna encounter that no reason i'm bringing it to you but i want to say that according to the passage according to the passage it reads and he carries the weight from the very beginning jephthah is making a vow to offer a human sacrifice because in his day the only thing that would come out of the door of your house would be another human being they wouldn't have had pet dogs animals wouldn't have been in there so from the very beginning it reads as if he is making a vow to offer to god the very first person that comes out of his house now this would astound us unless we remember that jephthah on his father's side of israelite is of israelite descent but his mother is a harlot that is of non israelite descent and he has lived the majority of his life in tab which is near the sons of amon and in that region it was very very common for military leaders to make similar vows to this if i am victorious then i will offer and human sacrifice was a very real thing is one of the claims that god made against inhabitants of canaan for their sins he grew up here's the problem of man the culture in which he grew up in saw this as acceptable okay now just stay with me and since this was acceptable in his culture he began to combine the acceptability of culture with the reality of worship he grew up and this is something you did but now he's just going to go serve the lord and be a captain of the army over here and serve god's people so he took what was acceptable in society and began to combine it or merge it with worship of the true god by the way there's always always always a problem when we take that which is accepted in society though it is rejected in god's teaching and we begin to merge the acceptance in society

[30:35] with the worship of the sovereignty there's always problem there when we begin to try to blend what society does and what god commands and when we try to blend society standards with god's worship we cannot serve him the same way we just can't and he's merging the two here because this is what he's used to he's going on faith he's empowered by the spirit because the bible tells us so but there's still this part of him that is kind of by society's acceptance he goes and wins the battle captures 20 cities it's a great battle Jephthah is the undefeated one when you read of him in scripture he never loses a battle right he he wins this one he goes and captures all the land back the sons of Ammon are pushed out never again do we see the sons of Ammon arising in the book of Judges they don't come back up we see them later on but the nation of Israel is on the offensive then and moving into their land not the defensive so much but we don't see them ever causing any problems after this because it is a grand battle and we pick it back up here in the 34th chapter when

[31:52] Jephthah came to his house he looked and behold his daughter his one and only child his daughter comes out of the house dancing and playing the tambourine and singing again a very prominent custom of that day that ladies would come rejoicing in the victory that was given to the general of the battle and someone would be leading the processional the one leading the processional is his daughter now the reason we know that again there's an interpretation here and I'll go ahead and put it out there for you that okay so in this he he sees his daughter and he dedicates her holy to the Lord and she remains a virgin until her death and some people will interpret it that way some people will say that's the way the text reads that she was wholly dedicated to the Lord and it actually wasn't they will say it wasn't a literal sacrifice that it was a full dedication remember you got to go back to that word and because there they interpret it as or and since it was or that or if it was an animal I will offer it as a whole burnt offering but if it's a person I will give them wholly totally to you and that's be honest with you that is the interpretation I'm more comfortable with in the flesh okay it makes me feel better that he when they said that's why she went into the woods for two months and she mourned her virginity and it says they commemorate that every year and then they come on down here and they kind of stretch the translation of this word commemorate that they commemorate the daughter for four days of the year they were that word commemorate means to kind of hold this festival and they say that means that they would converse with her about it so she's alive afterwards that's stretching the

[33:16] Hebrew a little bit by the way not that I know Hebrew but I know some good people who do know Hebrew C.H. Strong he writes a pretty good Hebrew lexicon so you can go read there so if you know some people who know some people that's okay right so anyway it seems to be stretching the the wording there a little bit it seems to be forcing that interpretation upon the text so there are some who say well he just gave her to the Lord and they say and the reason he's so upset is because he'll never have a lineage as king because she'll never he'll never have any well it won't be his anyway right because he has a daughter he doesn't have a son and if his daughter has sons then they're not his kingly lineage but what we the reality of it the force and the thing that we just have to wrestle with is that when he comes home he rips his clothes he cries out in pain and misery because this is going to be so much more than just maintaining her virginity for the rest of her life this is a vow he made and here we see the problem of man because he says first of all he projects his problems onto his daughter he says you're the cause of all my pain and suffering she came out to greet her dad the cause of his pain and suffering is the fact that he made a vow that he was never called to make right and and she takes it graciously we're just reminded of

[34:44] Abraham and Isaac and we see this and and she's like okay well you know whatever I need to do and she goes in two months and because as he come back and he says he made this vow he said I have to keep my word well numbers tells us that if a man makes a vow he has to fulfill it right and tells us that ladies can kind of get out of that if their husbands or their father say oh you shouldn't have done that but a man if a man makes a vow he has to fulfill it but you know there's also this portion in the book of Leviticus that says if a man makes a vow that is unholy or unbecoming and all of a sudden realizes it then he can get out of that vow by offering an offering so he didn't fully understand all of scripture these are dark days these are dark days it says so he did to her according to his vow and we wrestle with that because what we understand is even though he was a man of faith in battle he was a man of flesh in his thinking and his pain and his problem and his misery was a direct result of a vow that he chose to make that God never called him to and the reality is is the only reason he made that vow was because he was afraid that he would not win the battle but if the spirit had empowered him to win the battle he was going to win the battle anyway

[36:01] God didn't ask for a special promise society says this is what you do and he began to merge the two and we see the reality of man's problem trying to hold on to the things of the world and the things of God at the same time and it cost this young lady her life now I know you're asking the same questions I am could not God have stopped this from being the first thing that came out of his house yes could not God have yes yes yes yes yes the answer and that goes on ad infinitum or to infinity right that we could always say could not God have yes the greater question is should not should man not have he should have never made the vow and that would have stopped the problem we're not looking at what God could have done what we're looking is what man chose to do the problem of man and we see that third we see the price of unchecked pride so we transition into the 12th chapter and I knew this wasn't going to be a glory hallelujah make you feel good time right but we see the price of unchecked pride because you go into the 12th chapter

[37:19] Jephthah comes back and he's won this great battle he was on this high and he came back and he saw his daughter so he goes to this immediate low he fulfills his vow to the Lord and then the sons of Ammon it says so the sons of Ammon are not sons of Ammon the sons of Ephraim are summoned they gathered themselves together now the sons of Ephraim means those on the western side of the Jordan River those in Canaan in the promised land this should come as a reminder to you not as a surprise to you because the sons of Ephraim come say why didn't you tell us you were going to battle we would have went and fought with you this is kind of a deja vu moment we have heard this before the Ephraimites had done the very same thing to Gideon remember when Gideon went out and fought the battles and Gideon won all the battles and he had went chasing the people and he came back with the kings and after he came back with the kings they had the crescents from the camel's neck and the sons of Ephraim showed them said why didn't you tell us you were going to fight we would have went and fought with you remember that same thing they done to Gideon and we defined it then that the sons of Ephraim were not so concerned about going into battle as they were concerned about getting the notoriety from having gone into battle they wanted the fame and more importantly the fortune that came from a victory they didn't want the suffering that came from the fight the sons of

[38:41] Ephraim were notorious for for showing up after the battle and saying well you should have called we would have longed to have gone with you and they do the same thing here we call that pride because they were a little bit bigger they were on the other side of the Jordan and if you look at your map you notice they have much more territory that is the greater portion of them now half of them were over here the other half were over here and and we see here that they come they say you should have called us and said they were mad and they said rather than being peaceable the way Gideon Gideon kind of pampered them a little bit and said well what have I done look at what you've done you've done more than me you're right you're right we did by capturing these three kings we did so much more than you did you just fought a little battle you know you had 300 men and you fought a little battle we we've done so much more than you Jephthah doesn't do that they said well you you went fought a battle you should have called us and now that you didn't call us we're going to burn your house down we're going to burn you and your house down we're going to take vengeance on you see what has happened is Jephthah has beat the beat the enemy on the outside now he's going to have to fight the battle with the enemy on the inside it's one thing to defeat the external foe is a whole nother thing to defeat the internal one and this one is pride based not land based as the sons of Ammon had said so Ephraim says I'm going to do this and Jephthah says wait a minute that's not right he said I did ask for help when I was going around gathering troops I asked and we're not told that in scripture so we just have to take Jephthah to his word he said I asked you for help and you wouldn't come help you know when they came for I mean they had 18 years to help by the way for 18 years the sons of Ammon had come in for 18 years at any time descendants of Ephraim

[40:18] Kassu said okay we'll come across the Jordan River and help you but they didn't do it and he says so much so he says I asked for help you didn't come help so I took my life in my own hands and me and the people that were with me we went out and fought the battle now that we won the battle you want to come in and be mad because I didn't ask you to join and if we read the text it gets kind of confusion they keep saying all year just the half offsprings of this such and such essentially what happens is sons of Ephraim start calling them names and start putting them down so the people of Gilead gather their army back up and start fighting and scripture tells us that the people of Gilead overrun the people of Ephraim so much so that the people of Ephraim are seeking to flee the land they want to go west young man and they're going to get back on the other side of the Jordan River but before they can go west and go on the other side of the Jordan River the descendants of Gilead the people of Gilead capture the ford there's only one place to go right and so they bring them there and here all these people are trying to go west and get out of this land of Gilead they want to get away from this battle that they didn't think was going to be this severe because their pride had thought that I can come in and impose my will upon Jephthah and

[41:18] I'll get my riches and my pride will put me in a place all of a sudden pride has not come to bring about everything they thought they would so they just want to go home the problem is is that the people of Gilead have captured the ford and when they get there they say are you from Ephraim no I'm not from Ephraim then say shibboleth and they couldn't pronounce the sh they said sybileth it's the first time that an accent ever gets you in trouble and since they couldn't pronounce it they knew that they were not from around there so to say you aren't from these parts so they slew them there and here's the reality 42,000 men of Ephraim die 42,000 the price of unchecked pride Ephraim in their pride decided to show up after the battle and declare that they had a right to be there and their pride cost them a silver war which led to the death of 42,000 men finally the final revelation we see and I'll be wrapping up is a continuation of an unstoppable pattern continuation of an unstoppable pattern we don't know anything else about Jephthah other than the reality that he judged

[42:39] Israel six years says in verse 7 of chapter 12 then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead so much like those who went before him he served God used him he delivered them by faith he has problems sure he's delivered them for six years and then he died and then we're introduced to three more what are referred to as minor judges we have Ibsen Elon and Abdon and all we know well we know a couple of things some of them are amazingly wealthy right got all kinds of kids 30 sons and 30 daughters and taking wives for the sons from out here and giving their sons and their daughters over there one of them with 40 sons and 30 grandsons and having 70 donkeys I mean that's just that's a lot for one that's a lot of donkeys but that's also a lot of money that's a lot of wealth we know they're wealthy and the only thing other than that we know is they judged they came from somewhere and then they died they judged for a time and then they died they judged for a time and then they died see we see this unstoppable pattern and it's the pattern we've seen over and over and over and over again the book of judges and it's the whole reason the book of judges stands before us as an example and the pattern is this deliverance by man is but temporary and whatever man can give you in the moment will not last because it ends as soon as the man dies what is needed is a judge that we're judge is redeemer what is needed is a redeemer who is eternal what is needed is a redeemer who will come and die and come back never to die again because deliverance by man is but temporary it doesn't matter how good they are or how bad they are deliverance by man is brief and temporary they all die every one of them dies because there's only one who will ever come that will be able to deliver eternally and he's the one that died and came back and said oh I've been there let me walk you through that valley and here's that unstoppable pattern over and over and over and over and over and over and over again we see it all throughout scripture until we get to a garden in gethsemane and there's one wrestling and then he goes to a cross of calvary and then he goes into a tomb and three days later they come back to that tomb and he who was died is no longer there and the angels declare why do you seek the living one among the dead because the true redeemer he may have died but he came back and he lives eternally to lead us as the captain of our salvation and to lead us home let's pray well we thank you for this word we thank you for scripture we thank you for the opportunity we have had together together we pray oh God that you would walk with us throughout this week we ask that you would empower us to be your people for your praise and your purposes God for every situation that will come before us for those that may be hurting and those ministering to the hurting God we pray for empowerment Lord help us to be those who walk faithfully hand in

[46:42] hand with you for your glory and honor and we ask it all in Christ's name and amen and miss Lynn I think we would just dismiss right there so I do appreciate you guys thank you so much thank you thank you thank you