Judges 3

Due to technical difficulties the study begins at verse 2 of the chapter. "

" (ESV) This sounds like a crazy couple of verses. It's almost sounds a little bit like God's this warmongering deity that wants you guys to all know what fighting's all about. But that's not what's going on here. Let me explain what's happening. First of all, you'll remember in the previous chapters we covered, or chapter I should say, that we covered last week. God said to the people, Listen, you've already begun to stray from obedience, so here's the deal. I'm no longer going to be with you to oust the people from the land. In fact, if you go up against them, chances are they're going to put you to flight. I'm going to leave them here and I'm going to leave them here to test you. To test and see what your heart is all about. And God repeats that here and He's going to repeat it again. But he says here in verse 2, "

" What is that all about? Why does God care that you and I know what warfare is all about? Guys, don't forget the Book of Joshua and Judges are a picture of our walk with God. Our walk with Jesus Christ on a day-by-day basis. Guess what our walk with Jesus is largely about? It's about warfare. It is... Our walk with Jesus is done on a battlefield. It's not a bed of roses. It's a battlefield. And almost daily we deal with some element of difficulty or warfare. We must never forget that our walk with God involves warfare. And this is the interesting thing about this. Notice this is where we learn a little bit about the heart and the way God works among His people. He says, listen, here's the deal: I'm not going to take all these difficulties out of your life. I'm going to leave some difficulties there in the land for you to deal with. You know why? You need to learn warfare. You need to learn how to fight. There are battles every day and learning how to fight is a key element of staying strong.

There are things that are worth fighting for. I don't know if you've noticed. And there are things that are constantly under attack. Our marriages, constantly... Satan, the big scumbag that he is wants your marriage to go down the tubes. But it's worth fighting for. And, no; you get married and you realize about two days after your honeymoon that there are problems. That this is not a problem free relationship. This is a relationship full of challenges, full of difficulties. And you've got an enemy who's going against you, too. Is it worth fighting for? God wants you to learn warfare. Why can't God just take this... And we think that to get rid of the problem, sometimes we've got to get rid of the person. Oh my, how short sighted is that? You're just going to jump to another problem when you jump to another person, or problems. And yet we'll do it. We jettison that relationship thinking, well, that was a mistake. Oh, and we have all the excuses: We got married for all the wrong reasons; we were really young; I didn't know what I was doing; I was so immature. I've heard them all. You know what? I was all of those things: I got married for the wrong reasons; I got married when I was way too, young; and I was super immature. Tough, deal with it. You're married now. I'll never forget. I had a couple come and sit down and talk to me about their marriage in some 20... Oh heavens, it was a long time ago. We were living in Washington. First thing they said when they plopped themselves down, they started giving me the excuses about why they shouldn't have gotten married. I said, well, you know what? That doesn't change the fact that you're married. It's like, you're here now, so, now what are we going to do with it? Are you just going to sit and make excuses for why you shouldn't have? Or were you looking for an out? Were you looking for a loophole? That's what we do. We spend a lot of our time looking for loopholes. I don't think we're compatible, pastor. Yeah, God knew that going in. That's a lie of computer dating services. That people are compatible going into a relationship. Good grief, they're two sinful human beings. That's about as incompatible as you can get. They're coming into a relationship with a sinful nature and they're selfish. Yeah, that's all you need for all kinds of fun stuff. But you know what? Your marriage is worth fighting for. Because the enemy wants it to go down the tubes. And relationships with your children, in fact, your children are worth fighting for. They're worth fighting for. But you know what? You have to fight for your children in order to hang on to them these days. And it's getting to be more of a diligent battle that is required every day, isn't it? I mean, the culture in which we're living? Goodness gracious. You can't hardly let them out of your sight without them being exposed to all kinds of garbage today. Are they worth fighting for? Yeah, it's a battle, I know. But it's worth fighting for. I could sit and go on about all the things that you and I, have to fight for and that battles involved. But this is something that the Bible never shielded us from in any way, shape, or form. Let me show you. Paul wrote to the Ephesians who were not unaccustomed to fighting spiritual battles. And in the sixth chapter of Ephesians he said this. He said,

Finally, (He says) be strong (I love this) in the Lord (not in yourself, but in the Lord) and in the strength of (whose might?) his might. (In fact, he said), Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. (Because that's what the devil likes to do - scheme against you. And then he goes on to say) For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, (But against what? Well, their) spiritual rulers and authorities and against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. It's funny; I read that section of Scripture, and it sounds rather intimidating. I don't know if it sounds intimidating to you. But it sounds like, here I am all by my lone. And I'm dealing with all these cosmic powers. I'm dealing with all these principalities and powers that are out to nail me and take me out. And good grief! How in the world am I ever going to do that? But it says, “…be strong in the Lord and in the… (power) of his might.” First of all. And that is so incredibly important, Christians, that you and I, understand that not only is this life a battle, but you and I, have been given what we need to fight it. It's one thing for God to put you in a situation that requires warfare. It's another thing for Him to equip you for that warfare. You got a problem? You got problems in your marriage? You got problems in your home? You got problems in life? Know this: God has equipped you to deal with those things through His Word, through His Spirit. He has not left you in the lurch. He has given you what you need. He's given me what... We don't always take hold of what we need. But it's there. He's given it to us. And this involves every area of life. Whether we're battling for our marriages, or our kids, our own hearts, our thoughts, our actions, whatever. There are constant threats all around us every day. And I love the reminder that Paul gives us in that passage when he says, it is not people that you're battling. See we love to pick the person who we think is at fault. It's you. Right? It's you, that's my problem. It’s you. And Paul says your battle is not against flesh and blood, but it's against these forces. So, life is warfare. God says, I'm leaving the nation's... Some of these nations in the land that you would learn how to battle and fight in the strength of the Lord. Well, you know what? When you've got battles around you every day - and we do, don't we? I mean every day. You're going to learn something about the person. You put him in a difficult situation... And God does. He knows He put you and I, in a difficult situation. But again, He gave us everything we needed to walk in victory in that situation. But by the same token, you put somebody in a difficult situation and you're going to learn a lot about that person. You're going to find out a lot about what's in that person's life and heart. You're going to find out whether there's any perseverance in them. You're going to find out whether there's any patience. You're going to find out whether there's any faith, any trust. You're going to find out how easily they become discouraged by life and so forth, and difficult things. You're going to find out a lot. And that's what God is saying here in these first few verses of Judges. I'm leaving these people in the land, so that I might find out what's really in your heart. And whether you're willing to go to war for the things that I've promised you. The things that I've given you. The things that I want to bless in your life. Are you willing to fight, or, are you just going to lay down and give up? Verse three; it then names the nations - mentions them by name. "3 ...these are the nations: (These are the ones that have been left in the land) the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath." That doesn't mean anything to you unless you understand, or know, or have it in your mind exactly, where all the geography of the Bible is. But just know this: they took a pretty good chunk of the promised land and continued to live there. Enough so that it wasn't a minor influence.

Sometimes you and I feel like we're drowning in a world of negative influence. Don't we? It's like... It's so all around us. I mean, television, radio, billboards, magazines, our neighbors, our own hearts. I mean, we're just surrounded by all these things. And for the most part, Israel was surrounded by these pagan nations that were there pushing their influence, always. And isn't that the world - pushing, pushing, pushing its influence all the time. Never relents, never holds back. Whatever's under attack in your life, you're always going to have the world pushing in, pushing in, pushing in. And trying to get you to respond according to its rules of combat. Or, its philosophies of right and wrong, or whatever the case might be. Constantly. Constantly. Constantly. It is a relentless attack on your heart and mind by the world. Constant. Never stops. And then he repeats in verse 4; this is important. Might not even be bad to just in your heart - just mentally underline verse 4. "They were for the testing of Israel, (Look at this) to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses." Now, you and I are not under the Old Testament law, in the sense that Israel was under the Old Testament law. We aren't bound to that covenant like Israel was bound to that covenant. But we still have the Word of God in our lives. We still have the guidelines, the wisdom, and the insight of God’s Word, even though we're not under the law. Right? And God is still allowing things in our lives, so that He might test our hearts. Paul said it this way. Or actually, James talks about the testing of your faith, developing perseverance God is allowing. (James 1:2-4) Why are you doing this God? Why are you allowing this in my life? Because I want to see where your heart's at. Will you trust me? I've given you everything you need for life and godliness. God’s Word says. Life and godliness, I've given you what you need to walk in victory. Now, will you trust me? Isn't it interesting? We don't like to really admit this, but without opposition, where would we be? Where would we be? We'd be untested, wouldn't we? We'd be untested. Some of you may know that our youngest son Tim, decided for his last year of high school... We've homeschooled all of our kids from day one. But for this last year of high school... And he's still being homeschooled. But he decided to play basketball with the public school this year. And that was the thing we had to pray about as a family and talk about at some length. Because we just... I wasn't sure at first, it was a good idea. Sue and I, were both raised in the public school system. And we were no stranger to what goes on and that sort of thing. And even more so since then. But anyway we made the decision to go ahead. And he tried out for the team and not only made the team, he made the starting five. Which was pretty impressive. The dork head is actually a pretty good little basketball player. But anyway I... I completely forgot where I was going with this. Huh? Yeah, testing. I got nothing. Let me look here at my notes. This wasn't in my notes. (Pastor Paul mumbles) Oh yeah! I know what I was going to talk about. I just needed a minute. It's old age you guys. Give me a break. He was talking to me. It doesn't get any better. Thank you, Kathy. I appreciate that. That's good. He was talking to me just like yesterday about how much he's improved his basketball play. And we talked about why he said he's playing with guys that are pushing him, really pushing him hard. And I got to thinking about that and I thought, wow, that's life. Isn't it? You respond to the resistance. You respond to the push. You respond to the difficulty. If there's no difficulty. There's nothing to overcome the fact that we are more than over comers through Christ Means that we've got more than our share of difficulty and resistance and problems and challenges. You can't be an overcomer without problems. There's nothing to overcome. You know what I'm saying? It's a really important thing to keep in mind, particularly when we're looking at life. And we're saying to God, why is this in my life? Why are you allowing this in my life? And God says, to keep you alive. To keep you moving forward, to give you something to fight. Life in Christ is warfare. And when we sit back and just go with the flow and we stop fighting, we find ourselves just moving with the sewage. Excuse the example, but I'm sorry. That's just the way it just happened in my mind. We're just going with the flow of the world. Because we're no longer really fighting the current any longer. We're no longer trying to keep our head above the water. We're no longer trying to tread water. We're just going with the current. We're no longer fighting. I learned when I first started swimming, that you got to keep moving to keep your head above the water. The minute you stay completely still, you sink. And isn't it the same thing that's true in our Christian walk? Well, what is it that keeps our arms kicking and our legs and moving and stuff? It's the challenges, isn't it? God says here, I've... These things in your life are for your testing. Verse 5 says, "So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites." Verse 6. This is another important verse to take note of "And their daughters they (meaning the daughters of those Canaanites and Hittites and so forth, they) took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, (meaning the Canaanites and the Perizzite sons) and they served their gods." And that single verse right there is a description of the lukewarm people of God. Right there. That's it in a nutshell. When you see the people of God, essentially opening their hearts and integrating with the people of the world, you have entered into a level of compromise that is basically pointing you toward the end. I didn't actually plan on doing this, but just keep your finger here in Judges and pop over to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Just keep your finger there and scoot on over into the New Testament to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. And I want to show you a passage here that you're probably well familiar with but is worth looking at again here. At least as it relates to what we're dealing with here with the Canaanites and the Perizzites, and how the people of God began to integrate with them. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and then down, skip down to verse 14. This is something that Paul echoes now in the New Testament, knowing what he knows about the Old Testament. And how compromise is spelled out in pretty graphic terms here in the Book of Judges. He writes to them and he says in verse 14,

Paul is using all these rhetorical questions to ask the question to you and I: What's the connection? Why is there a connection? Why are you integrating intimately with the things of the world? Doesn't mean that you and I aren't supposed to live in the world. We are called to live in the world. We're called to serve the world. We're called to love the people of the world in the sense of serving them and opening our hearts to them for ministry.

But notice what he talks about here. He talks about being yoked. And he says, it's an unequal yoke. Now I think marriage certainly comes under the qualification of a yoke. Because talk about walking together... I mean, that's what yoking is all about. If you've ever... You can go downtown Ontario, and see that display they have of the Oregon Trail with the oxen and the thing to just see what a yoke used to look like. And how you would hook up a couple of oxen and they would pull the cart, trailer, wagon, whatever they were pulling. The point is you have two animals that aren't equally yoked and you got problems. They're pulling in different directions. They're pulling with different ideologies, with different goals, with different philosophies. What happens? Here's what happens, you guys. When you have an unequal yoke going on, there's going to come a point where somebody is going to win. Somebody's going to win. Who's it going to be? Do you know nine times out of ten, it's the unbeliever. The Bible says, bad company, corrupts good character. (1 Corinthians 15:33) It's very rarely the other way around. Now you've got a situation where we've begun to integrate in an intimate sort of a way with the people of the world, yoking ourselves to them. And now there is just this attitude. Well, eventually... We just get tired of pushing when they're pulling. And going this way when they're going that way. And then pretty soon we just give up and we just go with the flow. And then what's the last thing that he says? Now scoot - go back to Judges chapter 3. It says - the very last part of verse 6. The first part of verse 6 says, they took the pagan daughters, women for their sons. They gave their daughters to the pagan men. And what was the result? They served their gods. They served their gods. Now, the gods of the world today are what: money, pleasure, sex, drugs, power. There's all kinds of different gods that are being served in the world. Are we serving the same gods? Are our children serving the same gods? If it is, it's because we've integrated so, so intimately with the world that we've brought on this unequal yoke and we've just begun to give up. Keep, reading with me. It goes on here, verse 7, it says,

Well, that's going to bring up the first judge that we're going to be looking at. We're going to look very briefly here tonight at 3 of the first judges.

Now, do you remember Othniel? We heard about him actually at the latter part of the Book of Joshua. And he was a he was a pretty godly man. Look what it says in verse 10, about him. It says,

It's interesting, not only do we see a progressive decline in the spiritual life of Israel, we actually see a progressive decline in the spiritual lives of the Judges to a fairly large degree. We start off with Othniel, who was a man who was a direct relative of Caleb, Who was a godly man and he had a heritage. And “The Spirit of the LORD was upon him." And it says good things, you know what I mean. The man just did some good things as a judge. You get toward the end of the Book of Judges, you're dealing with people like Samson who was a total loose cannon. I mean, the guy was a piece of work from the word go. And by no means any example of virtue or godliness. You got guys like Jephthah, who we'll get to; who made a ridiculously, stupid vow. That he'd sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house, if the Lord would give him victory. And we'll deal with some of those things through the Book of Judges. But the point is, there was a progression, even in the lives of the Judges that we see, related to their lives. But Othniel, is a godly man. And he fights against this king of Mesopotamia who comes against them to enslave them. And when we say enslave them, you know what we're talking about. Don't you? The other kings would come in and they'd basically say, my army is bigger than your army. I'm going to beat up your army. And they do it. And then they would put them under tribute. And that meant, you got to pay us now. You owe us. It's like... This is where we get taxes from other countries. We have conquered countries and you get money from them or goods. It's like, okay, here's what you owe us. Two times a year you got to bring this much gold. You got to give us spices and almonds and whatever they happen to grow or whatever. You owe us this... Wheat and so forth. And it was a creepy way to live, but Othniel got them out of it. Praise the Lord! Hey, wonderful! Here's what I was thinking about. I was... Read the story. I thought, what were the people of Israel thinking when God gave Othniel, victory over their enemies. What were they thinking? Because we know what they'd been doing. What they'd been doing was they'd been backsliding. It says, they forgot the Lord. And what did they do? They served these other pagan gods. They literally, were going through the worship rituals of these other pagan gods. And what happened? Well, God brought this Mesopotamian king along who conquered them. And then put them under tribute to burden them. And then basically, make life miserable for them. But they started to cry out to God. And God raises up Othniel who says, oh, no, you don't and rides to their rescue. And it works! He conquers the Mesopotamian king. And it says, "...the land had rest for forty years." That's a long time. What were the people thinking during that 40 years? What were they thinking the day after the victory took place, or a week after? I bet they were thinking, oh, we're good. We're good. Yeah. God is pleased. We're good. Conquered our enemies. Praise the Lord! Now, let's go back and worship Baal. Yeah. See, that's the problem. There's a problem you guys. We have this interesting sort of a mentality, when we get victories in our life, we think God... We think we're doing everything right. We assume we're doing everything right, because God's doing good things. Good things from God equals, I'm good. I don't need to change anything. And this is good. This happens in the body of Christ. It happens, oh, all the time. We forget that God is merciful and kind, and He blesses us, despite ourselves. We forget that. And rather than looking inward and saying, all right, God has been so gracious. He literally pulled our fat out of the fire on this one. I mean He was just...Oh, thank you Lord. We got ourselves into a pickle, and here's why... Now, He delivered us. Now, what are we going to change? They never asked that question. They just assumed, we got delivered, we're good. Were good. And we Christians, again, we make this mistake. And we'll even do it... This is a weird example for me to throw out. But even in the body of Christ sometimes there'll be some wild and wacky thing going on in the body of Christ. People are flying to somewhere in the world because God's moving there. They heard about some move of the Lord that's going on somewhere in the world. And we're going to go find out what this is all about. And they go there. And they get touched by God. And they get touched in a powerful way. And they go, see, that's obviously a move of God. Not necessarily. Not necessarily at all. It just means God's good. It means, you went there with a heart of expectation. You went there with your faith expecting God to do something. And God met you because of your faith. It doesn't mean that situation is good. You have the Word to look for that you. We are not to judge situations based on circumstantial evidence. Right? That's exactly what Israel does. God delivers them and so circumstantially, things have improved. So, ah, the pressure's off. We can go back to serving Baal. No looking inward. No looking at our life and saying, what needs to change? What are we doing wrong that we got ourselves in this issue? It's really an important thing that we understand. Just remember that victory is a sign of God's mercy and goodness, not necessarily His approval. Okay. God did not approve of their lifestyle. But He gave them victory anyway because He's merciful. And then the second Judge is Ehud, "

they served him. Eighteen long years. That means again, they had to pay tribute to this guy, on a regular basis. And Eglon probably took a lot of tribute from them. And you'll see why here in a moment.

"15 Then the people of Israel cried out to the LORD, and the LORD raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, (Ooh, interesting,) a left-handed man. The people of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab." As a deliverer, he doesn't even look like a deliverer. He looks at first, just like a messenger boy. It's like, well, we got to pay the king of Moab, Ehud, why don't you take it? We owe him our stuff. And we're paying our livelihood, remember, to this guy. Because we've been defeated by him. We're literally taking food out of our children's mouths. And we're giving it to this king that we dislike and who's making life miserable for us. Ehud, you go. And Ehud's like, okay. He's going to go take whatever they owe him. "And Ehud (it says in verse 16) made for himself a sword with two edges, (In other words - a double edged sword.) a cubit in length, (which is about 18 inches) and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes." Let me tell you why that's an important note in the text here. Most people were right-handed, of course. And they would - being right-handed - put their sword on their left thigh because you'd pull it out that way in an attack. Now, whenever you go in front of a king, they're going to, of course, frisk you and see if you're carrying any weapons. Well, since most people are right-handed, they're going to check your left hip. But this man, actually, we're going to find out, gets into the king's presence simply because he put a sword on this hip. (Pastor Paul indicates right side) And they didn't look on that hip, not knowing, apparently, he was a left-handed man. There you go. Verse 17 says, "And he presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon (it says,) was a very fat man. (Isn't that interesting?) 18 And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute. 19 But he himself turned back at the idols near Gilgal and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." And he commanded, "Silence." And all his attendants went out from his presence. 20 And Ehud came to him as he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you." And he arose from his seat. 21 And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. 22 And the hilt also went in and after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out."

And I'm not sure why we needed to know all that. I think it probably just could have said, and he ran him through with his sword and they all lived happily ever after. But, We just...They decided they wanted to give us some of the graphic details. "23 Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them. 24 (And) When he had gone, the servants came, and when they saw... the doors of the roof chamber were locked, they thought, "Surely he is relieving himself in the closet of the cool chamber." 25 And they waited till they were embarrassed. But when he still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they took the key and opened them, and there lay their lord, dead on the floor. 26 Ehud escaped while they delayed, and he passed beyond the idols and escaped to Seirah. 27 When he arrived, he sounded the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim. (And) Then the people of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was their leader. 28 And he said to them, "Follow after me, for the LORD has given your enemies the Moabites into your hand. (And) So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan against the Moabites (who did not allow) and did not allow rather anyone to pass over. 29 And they killed at that time about 10,000 of the Moabites, all strong, able-bodied men; not a man escaped." Ten-thousand people. That's a lot of people to die. If you woke up tomorrow morning and found out that there was a disaster and 10,000 people were dead, you would go, whoa, this is huge! And it says, they were all able-bodied men. "30 So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest (look at this,) for eighty years." Once again, God is merciful to Israel. Provided them ample time to reflect on this unmerited victory and to change their lives to obedience to God’s Word. We have one verse to finish out the chapter. It says, "31 After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an oxgoad, and he also saved Israel." There's obviously very little information that is given here about this third instance of a judge in Israel. Which appears to have occurred sometime during the eighty year rest that came through Ehud. And it could be because Shamgar foiled an attempt, on the part of the Philistines during that time, that never really took hold, or something we're not really sure. But what is interesting about Shamgar, and this is an interesting point. Shamgar is not a Hebrew name. And we're not really sure whether the man was a Hebrew with a pagan name. And he was given a pagan name just because the people had so integrated with the pagan people that they were now using their names for their children. Or whether this man was in fact not a Jew. In either case, this is a very ironic situation because God is delivering His people, the Jews, by this man's hand. And which underscores the fact that God can bring about victory however He chooses.