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.