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Flipside Christian Church
Madera Ranchos, CA
Thank you. Brian. David.
It just, by way of congratulations,
I want to say to my parents,
congratulations.
They celebrate their 61st
wedding anniversary, two days ago.
So, it's a big deal.
That's a big deal.
I called them, and I said, you know,
thank you so much for staying married.
You know, sometimes someone said
that the key to success
is just showing up, right?
So they just they showed up every day
to each other and still are.
And they're just a wonderful, wonderful
gift of God to me and to our family.
In this series, judges,
I want to go through three chapters today,
ten, 11 and 12.
And so we're going to move quickly.
If you have a Bible
and brought one with you,
I encourage you to
turn to judges chapter ten.
The time of the
judges is when God was leading his people
in the Promised Land
through individuals that he would raise up
for specific time in season and purpose.
These judges were not judges in
the judicial sense of a robe and a gavel.
They were more often
than not military leaders,
and when God's people
would get into trouble, they would cry out
to God for help, and God in his mercy
and grace, would rescue them.
And then they would be happy
that they were rescued
and they would forget about God and fall
into sin and reject God
and get into trouble and in their trouble.
Cry out to God, and God in his mercy
and grace would rescue them.
And then, then the rescue and joy
they would forget about God,
and then and forget about God.
They would get into trouble,
and they would cry out to God
for help and rescue.
And because God is merciful and gracious,
he would rescue them.
Do you see the cycle?
Yeah, that was true for them.
It's often true for us.
And so God, in his mercy
and grace, would raise up a leader
and they would rescue God's people.
And so this is the story
throughout the book of judges.
And I want to go through ten, 11, and 12,
and I want to introduce you to a man
who was just an outright bad dude.
His name was Jeff.
And he was a tough, tough
man that knew how to fight.
But before we get to him,
there's two judges
that are listed in the book of judges
that I want to share with you.
There's only a couple verses about them,
very briefly mentioned,
but we can learn some things from them
in judges ten, verses
one and two, the Bible says,
after the time of Abimelech, Abimelech
was Gideon's son who took over leadership
not put there
by God, asserted his own authority,
and everything went badly.
We looked at him the past couple of weeks.
A man of issue card named Tola,
son of Puia, the son of Dodo Rose.
If any of you are looking
for biblical names for your children,
you look elsewhere.
He lived in Shamir, in the hill
country of Ephraim.
He led Israel 23 years.
Then he died and was buried in Shamir.
That's all we know about this guy.
But there are some incredible lessons
we can learn from these two verses.
The man's name was what?
Tola.
That's an indication to us
that means literally worm.
And the way they got the people back
in ancient times got this color.
Scarlet was to take a lot of these worms
and crush them.
And the dye from the worms
would make the color scar millet.
Here's what's significant about this
scarlet worm.
In order to reproduce,
this worm would attach itself
to a tree to, would,
and and be pinned to the tree.
And then its larva would,
would, would eat the body
so it could go get nutrients from the body
that was stuck to the tree
that were the fixed to the tree, getting
nutrients from the body for its life.
When that worm died,
it would leave a scarlet stain on the wood
as that scarlet stain, the result
of the body pinned to the wood, would dry.
It would dry white as snow and fall off.
Here's why this is significant
in Psalm 22, verse six,
which is a messianic psalm about Jesus,
the Bible says in Psalm 22 six,
speak
just as Jesus prophetically I am a worm
and not a man scorned by men
and despised by people.
This is the prophetic psalm of
Jesus saying, I am taller.
I am that thing that will be affixed
to the wood, that will stain the wood.
Scarlet
my blood.
And when that has happened,
your life will come from my life
being affixed to the wood,
and it will dry and become white as snow.
As the Scripture tells us, though
your sins are scarlet,
they have been come white as snow.
So from this one man's name
we see, we can understand.
Wow, God, look what you have done.
The same word of this
man's name is used of
Christ in Psalm 22 six.
It's amazing to me. Listen,
everything in here is about Jesus.
Everything.
Everything in here is about Jesus,
even guys names.
And then you go to this next judge.
Very brief mention.
He was followed by a year of Gilead,
who led Israel 22 years.
He had 30 sons who rode 30 donkeys.
They controlled 30 towns in Gilead,
which to this day are called half off J.R.
When JR died, he was buried in came on.
Here's what I glean from that.
This guy J
here was very wealthy to have 30 donkeys.
Donkeys had to be imported
into into Israel.
They were natural of the land.
And so they had to be important.
They were very, very expensive.
So to have a donkey was a sign of royalty.
This was one reason
why Jesus rode into Jerusalem,
on a donkey.
It was his sign of saying
I am the king now.
Interesting.
The next time Jesus comes,
it's going to be on a horse.
As a warrior.
But this first time
he entered was honored.
So the new donkeys are indicative
of people of wealth.
And this guy had 30 sons,
which also means he had 30.
What?
He had a lot of women, a lot of women.
Idiot.
And but he had 30 sons
and they all rode on their own donkeys.
So he was a man of great wealth.
But the Bible doesn't say
that he had any impact.
Here's what we have to be careful of.
Be kind of a person of affluence
and not influence.
Do you understand?
He was a man of affluence.
We have to ask ourselves this question.
Is the focus of my life
on affluence or influence?
Most of us have gotten
into the lie of the culture
that says, as long as you are affluent,
you are successful
and so we work our lives
to have a good paying job
that allows us
to do what we want to do financially,
and so that we can retire early so
we can travel and buy cars and whatever.
And we pursue these lives of affluence
without ever given
thought to a life of influence.
We have to be very careful there.
Buy into the lie of culture
that says life.
The goodness of life and success of life
is a life of affluence,
while neglecting a life of influence.
And acts 1336.
The Bible says of King David,
he served God's purpose in his life time.
And then he died.
Now David was very wealthy, but the Bible
doesn't ever speak of his wealth.
It speaks about his influence.
He served God's purpose.
And when our focus here me,
when our focus is on affluence,
we will miss influence.
Am I clear?
Make sure that you know
where your focus is,
and make sure that you have chosen
the right focus.
Don't let your life simply
be a placeholder between generations.
This guy was a placeholder
between judges who actually did something.
Don't let your life be a placeholder.
Be a woman.
Be a man of influence, of godly
kingdom influence.
Before you're ever
a person of affluence
and use your affluence
to have a godly influence
to make sense.
So going on in in chapter
ten, again, there's why I said evil
in the eyes of the Lord.
They serve the bails in the asterisk,
and the gods of of around
the gods of sight and the gods of Moab,
the gods of ammonites,
and all the gods of Philistines,
like they were all over the place.
And because
the Israelites forsook the Lord
and no longer served him,
he became angry with them.
He, God, sold his own people
into the hands of the Philistines
and the ammonites,
who that year shattered and crushed them.
Just let this sink in.
This is from the hand of God,
because they forsook him
for 18 years
they oppressed all the Israelites
on the east side of the Jordan, in Gilead,
the land of the Amorites, the ammonites
also crossed the Jordan to fight against
Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim.
Israel was in great distress.
Here's what we have to understand
that when we neglect
God, we will replace God.
The people of God in this passage
neglected, forsook God,
and they replaced him with other gods.
Specifically,
the Bible says with veils and asterisks.
Veils
were the gods of wealth and prosperity.
Asterisk
were the gods of sensuality and pleasure.
And as I look at it, if you were wise
with eyes open, with look at culture.
These are still
the same gods that people are pursuing.
The gods of wealth and affluence,
and the gods of pleasure and sensuality.
Yeah, yes.
And when you take God
and you, you neglect God.
It's not that that
that there's a void there.
You will replace him.
We all do.
We were we were created as objects
to worship something.
So when you neglect God,
it will be something.
And there are many, many, many,
many people that aren't
realizing the worship.
The pursuit of the gods of affluence
and pleasure.
Be wise, my friends.
They forsook God
and it's so interesting to me
that because they forsook him,
he became enamored
and sold them into the hands.
There are times when we're going through
really, really rough stuff,
because the work of the evil one
is to steal, kill and destroy.
There are times we
go through really, really rough stuff
because of our own stupidity
and error.
And there are times when we go through
really, really rough stuff
because we have chosen time and time again
to forsake God,
and he gives us over
and all our prayers become God
help, God help, God help.
And God, I think says,
why don't you come back and quit
forsaking me first?
And look at verse ten.
Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord,
we have sinned against you,
forsaking our God and serving the bill.
So they've moved from attention
and pursuit to serving.
Understand how this happens.
When we forsake God, he will be replaced.
And when we replace
God will serve something else.
And this and this.
This is what the Bible says in
Jeremiah two.
God says,
my people have committed two sins.
They have forsaken me.
So they've turned away
the spring of living water, and they've
dug their own cisterns, broken cistern.
Second, cannot hold water.
What he's saying is this God says,
I am the spring of living water,
like I am life, and my people
have forsaken me and chased after others.
So much
so that rather than coming to the living
water myself, they've dug systems
that can't hold water now.
Cisterns
in ancient times were think of big wells
like swimming pools that were covered,
big pits that were covered in plaster
like a swimming pool.
It and as it would rain,
as the rain run off,
it would, would, would seep
through the ground and the ground
it would come
back, would fill the cistern,
it would fall into the system
and fill the system.
It was good water.
After a while
it would get a little bit stagnant because
stagnant water just gets stirred, but
you can still filter it and drink from it.
There were very, very, very important,
but when the system became broken,
it couldn't hold water
anymore, just leaked out.
And what God is saying is you forsaken me.
I am living water.
You have access to living water
and instead you've broken and systems.
It just doesn't make sense.
Why would you go to that system?
That hand cannot help you.
That will only hurt
you. Why would you do that?
I don't know, why do we do it?
Why do we neglect?
Looking for help
from something that is broken.
So when we neglect God,
he'll be replaced with something
and not just something.
It will lead us to serving another.
The Bible says you can't serve
two masters.
You'll love one and hate the other.
But you will serve something.
So they're serving these gods.
Verses 11 through 14.
This is the Lord reply.
When the Egyptians, the Amorites,
the ammonites, the Philistines
incident ends.
The Amalekites
and the Maronites know that not them
mayonnaise ites,
but the Moabites from Gideon.
When all these people oppressed you,
and you cried out to me,
didn't I save you from their hands?
This is God talking back to him.
Said, you got all this trouble.
Didn't I act on your behalf then? Yes,
of course I did.
All these people I saved you from.
But you have forsaken
me and served other God.
So look at what God says.
So I will no longer save you.
Wow. What about the
go and cry out to the God you chose?
Let them save you where you're in trouble.
Friends,
this is a very dangerous place to get.
When God, over
and over and over and over, is merciful
and gracious and acts on our behalf
and saves and rescues and blesses,
and we continue to over and over
and over and over, turn away from it.
Eventually he may get to the point
of saying, fine, I'm done.
Go chase after that.
What you've been chasing this whole time?
I've been saving you.
See what they can do.
Romans 124.
Therefore, because they continue
to neglect God and ignore him,
God gave them over in the sinful desires
of their hearts
to sexual impurity, for the degrading
of their bodies with one another.
God says, find
you want to chase after that
over and over and over, I'm
going to give you over to it,
to your own destruction.
It's not
that God is angry or upset and holds
a grudge.
God leveled
everything against Jesus on the cross.
But he will allow us
to chase after destruction
if we insist on chasing
after destruction.
To our own destruction.
Verses 15 and 16
and the people of Israel said to the Lord,
we have sinned due to us.
Whatever seems good to you,
I want you to remember that phrase
we're going to come back to do to us
whatever seems good to you,
only please deliver us this day.
So they put away the foreign gods
from among them and serve the Lord.
And he became impatient
over the misery of Israel.
Here's what's going on.
God says, go chase after those things
you've been chasing after.
I'm going to give you over to them.
And they said, no, no, no, we have sinned.
And look at their prayer.
Do to us whatever seems good to you.
God, this is such a profound
and submissive prayer.
This is a prayer that can only be prayed
by the spiritually mature who understands.
They must submit completely to the Lord.
See, most of our prayers go like this.
Do to me whatever seems good to me.
Right.
That's our prayer.
God, do to me whatever seems good to me.
This is what I want you to do.
The prayer that God desires
and the prayer of submission
and the prayer of maturity is God.
Do to me whatever seems good to you.
Can you pray that prayer?
I mean, I challenge you, I challenge me.
That's a dangerous friend.
Pray over.
And the
the times when we get to these
points are the times when we realized
that every system in
our life is a broken system,
and nothing works.
And God
has given us over to our own destruction.
And that's why God does it.
So that we will finally bend the knee
and say, father, do to me
whatever seems best to you.
I give up.
That's a good and it's a safe place to be.
See, due to me, whatever seems good to you
only please deliver, says they.
So they put away the foreign gods
from among them and serve the Lord.
Here's what happened. See, they repented.
That's what this is.
But understand what repentance means.
Repentance means to turn to
and to turn away.
So repentance is I'm going to turn to God,
and I'm going to turn away from
these other things.
The you understand?
I'm saying we can't just say, God,
I'm going to turn to you help repentance.
I'm going to turn to you,
and I'm going to turn away.
See, all of us.
I think all of us are here because
we're turning two, which is fantastic.
That's step one.
But until there's a
there's there's there's
also a turn away.
They're turning two
is complete.
And so for all of us
good for us for turning two.
But I think God may be speaking to
some of us just saying
you also have to turn away man.
What is God saying?
You got to turn away from.
And so this is where they are.
They're they're in this really bad spot
and they're like, God, you have to help.
And I love the fact that the Bible says
God rose grew impatient with their misery.
Here's what that means.
Yet God
doesn't like to see his kids in misery.
We won't want to see her,
our own kids in misery, right?
We want to see a miserable
that is want to see his kids miserable.
He will allow us to live in misery
for a time.
So we've been learning.
But God is so loving and so gracious
and so merciful.
He grows impatient in with our misery.
He's like, look,
I don't want you to be miserable.
I want you to get past this.
I want you to get beyond this.
I'm getting impatient
because you're so stubborn,
and he wants us to get through this.
He doesn't enjoy the seasons of our lives.
He loves us so much, and he's so gracious
and so merciful.
He says, will you please just turn to me?
Because I'm getting impatient
with all the misery you're facing.
I want you to be delivered from it.
And so in response of that,
just the guilty.
Tonight was a mighty warrior.
Do you remember who else was called
a mighty warrior of these judges?
Any of you Gideon.
Except Gideon wasn't a mighty warrior.
He was a coward.
He was down in the wine,
fresh threshing grain.
Because he was afraid
of these Midianites. Sauron.
He was scared spitless.
And God came, kind of his tongue in cheek,
a mighty warrior like you're a coward.
This guy is a mighty warrior.
This was one bad dude.
This cat knew how to fight.
He was rough. He was brutal.
This guy had a tough upbringing.
He was a my his father was, Gilead.
His mother was a prostitute.
So daddy was messing around
where he shouldn't be with woman.
He women.
He shouldn't be messing around with God.
One of them pregnant.
That's this guy.
Jillian's wife, not the parachute.
His actual wife also bought him sons.
And when they grew, were grown up.
They drove the
kick jester out of the house.
You're
not going to get any of the inheritance.
Are family, they said, because you're
the son of another woman, right?
So jester fled from his brothers
and settled in the land of Tod,
or a gang of scoundrels.
The little worthless men
is how it actually reads.
Gathered around him and followed him.
So you got this guy
whose daddy was hooking up
with prostitutes,
got one of them pregnant.
He's living in this home
with his his his half brothers.
They're upset. They're like,
you're getting no inheritance.
Get get out.
And they kick him out of the house.
He goes down to this land and he falls in
with this gang of worthless men.
These is a gang banger
for all intents and purposes.
And the boy knows how to fight.
He been in some scraps.
I mean, he's probably bitten the ears off
and, you know, like some people,
like, he's a rough guy.
But I want you to notice who God chooses.
Now, please,
let me make this point and please hear me.
Though there may be
some illegitimate pregnancies,
there are no illegitimate children.
Am I clear?
Every one of them.
Fearfully and wonderfully made
by God himself.
His daddy was a Hebrew.
His mama was probably a Canaanite.
He's a half breed.
He's a thug.
Nobody wants him.
He grew up hard.
The wrong side of the tracks,
brutalized, victimized,
cast away.
If you been there.
And look who God chooses.
God is.
But God chose the foolish things
of the world to shame the wise God.
You can't use someone like this.
They're trash.
Right?
God chose the weak things of the world.
The shame, the strong.
You don't have the right pedigree.
You don't got the right background.
And God loves
doing this so God can highlight
how good God is.
And he uses people like he.
Neither does use people like he chooses
people like he could chose anybody
and he chose.
If you're one of these,
God has chosen you.
I love this guy.
And so verses
four through 11,
let me just highlight a couple things
as we go through this.
These ammonites were attacking
God's people and and they were scared.
You know what to do.
They couldn't defend themselves.
And so they, the men of like,
go find Jephthah.
I just like you gotta help us, man.
These guys are beating the snot out of us.
You got to come fight against
you and your game.
You got to come fight.
And I and I love what Jephthah says in
verse seven.
He says, did you hate me
and drive me away from my father's house?
Why do you come to me
now, now that you're in trouble?
Right?
Like you
didn't want anything to do with me before,
and now you got any that
you think I can meet now you come begging.
Has anybody ever done that to you?
Right.
And. And when I look at that, I'm like,
you know what?
This is exactly what we do to God.
God, I don't want you part of this
part of my life right now
until we're in trouble.
And then we're like,
oh, God, please, please, please.
And I'm so thankful
that God doesn't respond like that.
You didn't want me before.
He's so good.
And so they're like, yeah, we get it.
We we didn't like you, but now we do
because, you know, you're our only hope.
So will you please come
meet these guys up?
And Jeff was like, look, if I do,
how do I know that you're still going
to let me lead you? And they said,
we promise. You promise you promise.
And so
Jeff says, okay, find me
and my boys will come in, will rescue you.
And so he writes this letter
to the ammonite king,
the ruler, and he says, look,
he says, you sent me.
What do you have against us?
This is verse
12, that you have attacked our country.
And the king of the ammonites answered,
just this messenger.
When Israel came up out of Egypt,
they took my land.
Now give it back peaceably.
And so this ammonite king saying, look,
dude,
we're fighting because you took our land.
Now the God's people
are in the Promised Land,
and they have an outside
nation coming in saying, this is ours.
It's not yours. Give it back.
Sound familiar?
And so just to sends them on this history
lesson,
he says, let me tell you the history
that you are ignorant of.
I love the fact that Jephthah is a warrior
and he's intelligent to.
And he says, let me tell you the history.
Here's how this thing went down.
This isn't your land to begin with.
You were here.
The Amorites came in and wiped you out.
They took over your land.
When we were coming up out of Egypt.
We were a bunch of civilians.
We didn't have an army.
And the amiright?
King attacked us civilians in this land,
and God was on our side, not theirs.
Defeated them and gave us the land.
So now you're coming back
saying we took it from you.
We didn't take it from you.
We took it from the Amorites,
who took it from you.
And God gave it to us.
So quit talking.
It's the same thing that's going on
in this part of the world today.
God has said, Israel, this is your land.
I've given it to you,
and you got all these nations around them
that are attacking civilians
in Israel, saying, you don't belong here.
Give it back.
Let's make a peace accord to give us land.
That's exactly what they're doing.
This has been
the devil's plan from day one,
because the Messiah was to come to Israel
through Israel.
When Messiah Jesus comes back, he's
coming to Israel on the Mount of Olives.
And if the devil can wipe Israel
off the planet and the people of God
off the planet, he thwarts the plan of God
for the Messiah's return.
Do you see it?
Don't miss what's going on.
And this has been his plan from day one,
and it's still his plan.
And God is still sovereign
and still on the throne,
and God will still rescue his people.
Amen.
And it's so interesting, Jeff Ellis,
this whole thing.
And the and the
and it says verse 23 and 24,
look, look at this.
Now, since the Lord,
the God of Israel, has driven the Amorites
out before his people Israel, what right
do you have to come try to take it over,
will you not take what your God
she must gives you?
Likewise.
Whatever the Lord gives us, we'll take it.
I love this response.
He says, listen, you want to throw down
between you what you believe in.
We believe in you.
Pursue what you believe, will pursue who
we believe,
and let's just judge the results.
You don't want to follow God, all right?
Follow what you want to follow.
And let's
just look at how that goes for you.
As for me in my house, as Joshua said,
we will serve the Lord.
And let's see how that goes for us.
It's a great response.
And this is what every Christ follower
also needs to say.
Listen, we're going to follow this.
You follow whatever you want.
If you don't want to, that's up to you.
But this is what we will follow
and let's just judge the results.
What you follow is going to fall apart.
Might happen soon, might be years for now,
but it will fall apart.
As for me and my house, this is where.
And the Bible says those who trust in
the Lord will never be put to shame.
So this is the foundation.
This is the rule of life.
And I know that when we follow,
this will never be put to shame.
I was talking to a young couple
that just took over a church
in the valley, and this church has
been doing stuff that just is
following the ways of the world,
and they don't have any money,
and they're trying to fund their money
through grants, through government grants.
And that's
just not the way the Bible says to do it.
And so they're talking to me
like we're in peril.
We don't know
how we're going to keep the doors open.
We're writing all these grants.
What do we do?
I said, get out your dang Bible,
open it and start doing it.
The Bible says,
if you're convinced
that your church is too poor and
and God can't give you the finances,
you need to keep the doors open.
But you believe the government can.
Who's your God?
Who's more powerful?
Right,
right.
I mean, at some point we gotta quit
living like Christian atheists.
People
who believe in Jesus to go to heaven
but don't believe in the power of God
on earth.
And social justice saying, look, you fine.
We're going to do God's way
and we'll just judge the results.
That's it.
It's beautiful.
And and so he goes on to look,
for 300 years we've been here
and this wasn't ever a problem before.
And now you're going to come
and raise an issue and try to kick us out.
We're not going anywhere.
He says that the Lord judge
between me and you.
And and
if you look at the king's response,
the king of Ammon,
however, paid no attention to the message
that Jephthah sent.
And I just wonder how many of us
have heard
the message of God and have acted like
the king of Ammon just paid no attention.
Just pay no attention.
Verse 29.
Then the spirit of the Lord
came on Jephthah.
He crossed Gilli, Adam and Asaph passed
through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there
he advanced against the ammonites.
And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord.
Watch this
if you give me,
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 as a burnt offering.
What he's doing was
what was very common
in the Canaanite religions.
His mama was probably Canaanite.
He's bargaining with God.
God, if you do this for me,
I will do this for you.
It's a real dangerous thing
to try to bargain with God.
We do for God because God has said, do
any time you get in this scenario, God,
if you do this, I will do this.
You are on very, very, very shaky ground.
And it's not biblical.
I've had people in the past,
me, a pastor guy,
playing the World Series of Poker.
I'm getting this, Larry, whatever.
But if God gives me a big
winning in all of it, my response is,
why don't you try that in faith,
as if you want?
Like like, don't bargain with God.
God, if you make me successful,
I'll do this for you.
Real dangerous.
Because at the end of the day,
what you're trying to do
is manipulate God.
And God will not be played.
A fool and he will not be manipulated.
And so verses
32 and
33, do you have to went out to fight?
God gave him victory.
He's made this vow.
You gave me victory.
All sacrifice,
whatever comes out of my house.
Verse 34.
When Jephthah returned to his home
and Mitzva
who should come out to meet him,
but his daughter.
Dancing to the sound of Timbrel.
She was an only child except for her.
He had neither son or daughter
when he saw her.
Because he knew his vow,
he tore his clothes, right?
Oh no!
My daughter,
why have you have brought me down?
And I am devastated.
I've made a vow to the Lord that I cannot
break.
Oh! Let me just ask you a question
real quick.
Who did he
think was going to come out of his house?
He has one daughter, one child.
The only other one was his wife.
Maybe that's what he was for.
I don't know.
Sorry, honey.
Can you imagine?
So what do you do?
Do you break your vow?
Hey, thank you, Rob,
for being honest with you.
Because everybody else is here to act
in real religious, like, you know, honor.
I'll break my bow. You kidding me,
right?
Some of the kids,
like they better break their vow.
Just.
Just look at what happens.
My father.
The Bible says
you've given your word to the Lord.
Do to me as you have promised.
Now that the Lord has advanced
your enemies, the ammonites.
But grant me this one request.
You said, give me too much.
So roam the hills
and weep with my friends,
because I will never marry you may go,
he said.
He let her go for two months.
She and the girls went into the hills
and wept because she would never marry.
After the two months,
she returned to her father,
and he did to her, as he had vowed,
and she was a virgin.
So you may have a problem with this.
So there are two sides of this, of this
coin.
You could you could fall on
because
this seems to indicate one of them,
that he did exactly as he said
and offered her as a burnt sacrifice,
which is just absolutely horrible
spirituality.
God had said in his law,
you may not ever do that.
It was a common practice
with the Canaanites.
And God said in his law,
I completely and forever
forbid this.
Is a really bad
that could be.
They did, however,
think about it.
When God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac,
God stayed Abraham's hand
so that no harm come to the boy.
Why would he allow it? In this sense?
Think about it.
This was completely contrary
to God's plan and law.
Why would God ever accept this sacrifice?
It doesn't make sense that he would.
The actual commitment
he made was
I will dedicate whatever comes hours
I will dedicate to the Lord
or offer as a burnt sacrifice.
That's how it literally reads.
So it could be in his mind.
He was thinking, whatever comes
out of the house will be dedicated to God.
Or if it's my cat,
I don't mind a burnt sacrifice comes up.
That's how it literally reads.
There was the custom.
If you go back to Exodus
38, where women were became
women of the Tabernacle,
and usually it was elderly women
who were widows would give themselves
voluntarily to the work of the Tabernacle
and agree to never be married again.
And so it could be that when he said,
I will dedicate it to the Lord,
if it's my daughter, I will dedicate her
as a woman of the tabernacle, which was a
biblical thing that they did.
The tragedy
of that for her as a young lady,
to be given to the women
of the tabernacle, to forever be unmarried
and a virgin, and never have a family,
and to live the rest of your life
as a young lady
with all these elder widows
serving a church, can you imagine?
And he gave her up that way.
And the fact
that he's listed in Hebrews 11,
in the Hall of Fame of Faith,
how would a child,
the one who gives her child
in, in, in burnt offering,
be listed in the Hall of Fame of faith?
And so you have these two scenarios,
and it's not explicitly clear
that that's exactly what happened.
So you got to decide
what do you believe about God?
What do you believe? God's word.
What do you believe about justice?
But here's the thing that overrides
all of this.
There was an easy out for him,
but his problem and the thing
that caused so much pain and destruction
is that he didn't know the Word of God
in Leviticus 27
one through five, in God's law it says,
if you've made
a vow of a person to the Lord,
you can buy back that vow.
It would have cost him ten shekels
to fulfill the promise of God and buy back
his daughter.
That's it.
But his problem is,
he didn't know the Word of God,
and because he didn't know the Word of God
when he should have
incredible devastation and harm,
you understand?
You see, it.
You know God's Word.
It will save your life.
It'll save your marriage.
It'll save your kids.
It'll save your finances.
It'll save your future.
We've got to know the Word of God.
Problem is, often times
we don't feel we need the Word of God
until our need is overwhelming.
I'm doing fine.
I'm going to church. That ball girl.
Tell me what I need to know.
It's no big deal.
Until your need is so overwhelming
and still falling apart
and being destroyed.
Then you start getting hungry.
So can I just finish up chapter 12?
There's only like a few verses going to
kind of just press that a little bit more.
I know what time it is.
You can catch up the scores on ESPN later.
I got a thumbs up right there.
So we're going to go throw okay.
So let's just let's just
look at this okay.
So chapter 12 verses one through three
that every of my forces were called out
and they crossed over.
And they said to Jeff, why didn't you,
why did you go fight the ammonites
without calling us to go with you?
We're going to burn down
your house over your head,
Jeff answered,
I am I
people are engaged in a great struggle
with the ammonites, and although I called,
you didn't save me out of their hands.
So when I saw that you wouldn't help.
I took my life on my own
as it crossed over to fight the ammonites.
And the Lord
gave me the victory over them.
Why are you coming out to fight me now?
This is what the f for my to do.
They get so offended.
They're so fragile
that they don't engage
in the battle on the front,
and they just complain
about not being involved in on the back.
And they did it to Gideon.
They did it to Jephthah.
There are some people in
your world who are so fragile
that they don't want to
jump in on the front, and but they will.
They will hold stuff against you forever
because they feel like
they've been offended by you.
Just for the air.
Months.
And they said, look, we're going
to burn your house down around you.
And so Jephthah responds
and he says, look, guys,
these guys are coming to fight.
We got to muster our forces.
And so this is how it went down.
He said, these people, we can't really
tell who enemy forces are in good forces.
And so we're going
to camp out at the river.
And when these people push,
we're going to ask them to say the word.
We're going to ask them
to say the word shibboleth.
And if they say shibboleth,
we'll know that they're enemies
because they can't pronounce
in shibboleth.
It's like being from Canada
and you say aboot instead of about.
It was one of those things.
And they say, if they say aboot instead of
about, we'll know that they're the enemy
and we need it.
And the Bible says
because of their speech,
42,000 of them died,
42,000.
So I just want to paint the picture
for you here.
42,000 the efforts were killed.
Why? Well, please understand
what's going on here.
Ego and being offended
are the surest signs
of spiritual immaturity.
This was the from
which their ego was hurt.
And they got offended by Jephthah
and his men.
It's a sure sign of spiritual maturity.
Friends, please understand
that when your ego gets bruised
and you get offended at someone else's
offense,
it's a sign of immaturity.
People are going to be offensive.
You don't have to be offended.
You know when you stand,
people are going to be idiots.
It's okay.
We oftentimes are too.
And so once you feel your ego
and I'm just offended
that they would just realize
you're being really immature,
42,000 of them died.
Spiritual immaturity kills every time.
Spiritual immaturity will kill you.
Look at your relationships.
There were two things that prompted
that civil war that killed for
those two things.
One was the heart.
They got offended, and two was the tongue.
What they said.
You see, the lesson?
There are two things in our lives
that's going to cause civil wars
with the people
that we're supposed to love,
the same things that cause wars
between us,
our heart and offense
and what we say.
Luke 645 says, out of the overflow of your
heart, your mouth speaks.
No, the word of God.
And that's the word.
Ask God that through the word
to change your heart.
You understand?
Listen,
I want to wrap up
and challenge us in this moment
to pray that prayer in the very beginning.
God, do to me whatever seems best to you.
It's a sign of a submissive life.
It's a sign that says, God,
I'm going to trust in you,
and I'm going to trust
that I'll never be put to shame
because I trust you.
So do to me whatever seems best to you.
Romans 1011.
Those who trust in God will never,
ever be put to shame.
You ready?
I'll make a deal with you.
I'm gonna try to do it God's way.
You can try to do it a different way.
And let's just
judge the results between us.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for this day.
Thank you for your word.
Thank you that it is useful for teaching
and rebuking error
and correcting and training
so that we are equipped
for every good work.
Thank you that you love us.
Thank you.
Give us Your Word
and your Spirit within us to guide us.
And there are some of us in this place
who are willing to say, father, do to me
whatever seems best to you.
God for us.
That's a tough prayer to pray,
because there are times that
we don't really trust that you will do
what is best.
Help us stand on the promises of your word
that says those who trust in
you will never be put to shame.
And so, father, right now
hear our hearts and those who will pray,
God, do to me whatever's best for you,
friends. Amen.
Invite you in this moment to pray
that very prayer between you and God, to
them from the depths of your heart,
just to say, God, do to me
whatever seems best to you.
I will trust in you.
And I will rely on your promise
that because I trust in you,
I will never be put to shame.
God, we are yours.
In your name I pray.
Amen. Amen.
I love you and I love going through
God's Word with you.
It is fun.
The Bible is fun and it is good.
Next week, Samson the
he man with the sheep problem.
Okay, that's my kind of tagline
for Samson, so read it.
We're going to take three weeks
to go through his life. It's amazing.
All right, so read that.
And judges and Brian
we got one more right.
And thank you man. Appreciate.