Thank you.
Well again welcome.
I appreciate you being here.
Labor day weekend.
You guys, we're the faithful ones.
We're the faithful ones that, So thank you very much.
my son Wyatt is dove hunting in Colorado right now.
I miss being out there.
but I'd rather be here with you.
At least that's what I'm saying.
The series on judges are going through the book of judges.
We're in chapter four today.
so if you ever buy one, brought one with you.
If you turn to the Book of Judges chapter four, it will be on the screen behind me.
It's also on our app.
I encourage you to to download that and make use of that app.
But let me just set judges for,
with acknowledging the times of the judges
and then judges 21 verse 25.
It gives us this one statement
about the overarching culture,
the overarching theme of the times with God's people.
And in judges 2125
I said
everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
The unstated statement is
no one did what was right in the eyes of God.
They all did what was right in their own eyes.
Though God's people,
there were a nation that was living in open rebellion
to God, open rebellion to God's Word,
open rebellion to God's ways, open rebellion
to God's standards.
Though God would say this,
they did what was right in their own eyes.
They probably were saying things like this.
Just be true to yourself.
Just live your truth.
You just do. You.
Love is love.
It was right in their own eyes.
Go ahead and live with somebody before you're married.
It's okay.
Figure out how it works.
It was right in their own eyes.
Though that's the statement of them in their time.
It could also be the statement of.
Us in ours.
There's one teacher
that was reading about the book of judges,
and he says this of that time.
Just see how this lands
of the Hebrews,
the Israelites of that time in the Book of Judges is what he says.
It was a time of anarchy, a threat to their national security,
cultural decline,
unsecure and open borders,
rampant sex and pornography,
drunkenness, weak leaders, debt,
governmental corruption, and a woke progressive past.
A church.
That was said of their times.
It's this time.
What we see
in the book of judges is this continual cycle
that we see in the pages of judges,
but if we're honest with ourselves, we'll see in our own lives.
And that cycle looks like this,
where God steps in because of his mercy
and his grace, and he delivers his people out of bondage
and slavery and difficulty and despair and pain.
And when they live
in that favor of God, having been delivered from those things
that were oppressing them and hurting them,
it lulls them into a sense of
doing what is right in my own eyes,
and disobedience,
where God's Word and God's ways are not necessarily
the priority anymore, because there's not an urgent need.
And in disobedience,
it eventually leads to ultimate defeat,
and they are once again defeated by enemies
subjected to their enemies
living in pain and difficulty,
and eventually, in that defeat,
experience great despair.
So much so that they're in so much despair and so much pain
that they cry out to God in repentance and God in his mercy, his grace,
not because they deserve it, but because God is a merciful and gracious.
God delivers them.
And then that deliverance, there's great
thankfulness and gratitude, and they serve God.
And then that graciousness continues and blessing continues,
and it lulls them into a sense of apathy and lethargy,
where God's ways and commands are not necessarily the highest priority,
and they slip into doing things that are right in their own eyes
and disobedience.
And disobedience,
left unchecked, without repentance,
leads to defeat and defeat again to despair and despair.
The pain is so bad now I realize I do need God,
and I cry out to him because God is merciful and gracious.
He delivers.
And in that deliverance there's great rejoicing and joy and gladness,
and it lulls us into a sense of apathy and lethargy.
And rather than God's words continuing to be in God's ways, continuing
to be the priority,
we do what's right in our own eyes.
You see the cycle.
And if not for repentance,
and if not for in repentance,
relying on God's mercy and grace,
doom is always the result
for them and for us.
One of the things I love about
my God is what it says in Second Timothy if we are faithless, he remains.
What faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
However, we must understand that God's faithfulness
in rescue and deliverance
is a result of our repentance.
And where there is no repentance,
there's continued defeat and despair.
Though God is faithful
when we are not, he is faithful to respond
in our repentance.
When we turn to him,
when we cry out to him
and confess sin and repent and make his ways, our ways.
When we do that, God raises up a deliverer.
And that's what we see in the book of judges over and over and over again.
Other Luke delivers that God raises up in the book of judges
are weird.
Often times we would say that they're very much
ill suited for spiritual leadership.
many of them are violent and liars,
and some are womanizers and not those that you would say,
you know, they are worthy of leadership at all.
But I appreciate that about God, because it reminds me
that God oftentimes can work through failure,
because of his grace.
And I'm very thankful for that.
Daniel 1132, though, reminds us of
people who are strong in the Lord and what they do.
And it says the people who know their God
shall stand firm and take action is talking in reference
to in that day of the enemies of God coming in
and destroying God's ways and destroying God's people and destroying God's temple.
And through the prophet Daniel, it says, the people who know
their God will stand against that evil force,
against that prevailing culture of destruction
and evil, and they will stand firm and they will take action.
And this is the very thing that happened.
Shout the book of judges through those God raises up.
And I would suggest to you
that these days are no different.
These days are no different.
And judges for us about this very thing.
Judges for is about another judge that raises up after oatmeal that we read
about after
he had that we read about after Shem, GA, that we read about through chapter three.
We read in chapter four of Another Mighty Judge,
and her name is Deborah.
Incredible woman,
incredible strong, godly woman.
She has multiple roles in God's economy.
One of them is as a prophet. This.
One of them is as a military strategist, and one of them is as a worship leader.
Brilliant woman.
And I want to introduce you to her story.
Judges four verses one and two.
Again, the Israelites, you know, you
we could subset our name for the Israelites right here.
Again, Carl did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
You put your own name there.
Now that he had was dead, now that the leader was dead
left here sort of saying, left to their own devices, left to their own
decisions, left to their own discretion, they did what was right in their own eyes,
but not right in the eyes of God.
That's what I'm saying.
And often times in our lives, left to our own choices, left
to our own decisions,
without someone continually saying, thus says the Lord, left to our
own decisions, we will revert to that which is right in our own eyes.
Yeah.
So the Lord sold them
into the hands of Jamie, the king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor.
They're going to be sold into captivity.
Can be sold again into defeat.
At whose discretion and whose decision? God.
God's going to allow them and send them into times of peril.
Sisera, the commander of Jordan's army, was based in Harris.
Jeff head going now, I don't know if I said that right, but I've learned.
If I say it fast enough, certainly enough, you'll believe it was right.
So two people
remember off the bat, this guy's sister, who's the commander of the army,
and Jabin, who's the king of the Canaanites of this territory,
that they're in.
And because the people were doing what was right in their own eyes,
not honoring or having a priority of God in His Word,
in his ways, God says, you're not seeking me anymore.
You're refusing to turn to me rather than honoring me.
You're doing what is right in your own rights, which is not right in my eyes.
And so I'm going to give you into the hands of enemies.
We're going to defeat you.
So you will be forced to bend your knee to me.
Do you see that?
Judges three.
They've been rescued by Ehud and by Sham Gar.
Those people were dead, and now they had no one to keep them focused on God's word.
They had no one there to lead them
in the assault against the
evil that was encroaching upon their land and their people.
Jesus said, he called your decease,
says my disciples, you will be the salt of the earth.
In ancient times, salt was a preserving agent.
It slowed the rate of decay.
And this is what God's people are called to be today,
to slow the rate of decay.
It's interesting
that there was no one in their culture to slow
the current of evil that was overtaking them,
and because there was no one there to to slow the decay of the culture
that was encroaching and taking over them, God sold them into defeat.
So that they would come back to him and realize
how bad things have gotten.
God was behind the peril of his people
so that they would been their knee
in repentance and allegiance to him.
So these two men, Jabin the the
the king of the Canaanite, this territory where they were in, and Sisera, his
military commander, want you remember those two names?
We're going to come back to him
in verse three.
That he's talking about judges in verse three,
he's talking about the sister, the leader of the of the army,
because he had 900 chariots fitted with iron, iron chariots
and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for 20 years.
They cried out to the Lord for help those for him,
because the enemy had weapons
stronger than their iron chariots,
and because they had lived under defeat for 20 years.
That's what it took for them to cry out to God in repentance for help.
What does it take you?
Was it didn't take for us
to realize that what we are facing, the difficulty in our lives,
are so much stronger we can't handle it.
We can't be the enemies in our lives on our own.
Some of us,
some of you have tried for year after year after year, and you're still a slave
to the same hurts, habits, and hangups that have defeated you for years.
What's it going to take for you to realize the enemy is stronger than you are,
and you've lived with him for so long?
What's it going to take for you to cry out to God?
The historian Jesus tells us this that though
Jesus four mentions 900 chariots, the totality of James army under
the command of Sisera was 300,000 infantry men,
10,000 cavalry, and 3000 chariots.
They didn't need all of that to keep the Hebrew,
the Israelites under subjection.
All he needed was 900 of them.
But the army, the army behind
the 900, was vast and powerful.
And the fact that they were chariots
of iron in these days, biblical days.
Think of a chariot as a tank.
And the Canaanites have moved into the Iron Age.
The Israelites are still living in the Bronze Age.
And so what you had was an army full of tanks
fighting against peasants with rocks and ox goads,
sticks.
Completely outnumbered.
Completely overwhelmed.
Completely incapable of their own rescue.
Is anybody hearing what I'm saying? Yes.
Now, always remember,
though, the enemy is so far beyond you.
When we.
When God's people repent and come back to him,
no matter the weapon formed against you.
I tell Isaiah tells us that no weapon formed against you will prevail
when there is repentance and coming back to God.
I want you to remember this, though,
that it was because the odds were against them
that was orchestrated by God.
That was their impetus to cry out to him.
Here's what we have to remember that
when we cry out to God, God starts to move on our behalf.
It's not that he was unwilling to the first 20 years,
but they hadn't cried out to God, to repentance.
And when we do that, God starts
moving on our behalf, oftentimes in ways that are unseen by us.
We'll see that in the story.
Second Corinthians 12
remind us that in our weakness,
God's strength is perfected.
And so the weaker you are, the more you admit
how incapable you are, the better position we are in.
You are in.
Because our commanding officer
is greater than their commanding officer.
And I want him moving on my behalf.
Don't you?
And so God moves
finally to raise up a leader.
Deborah,
a prophetess,
the wife of Lepidus, was judging Israel at that time.
She used to sit under the palm of Deborah
between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim.
And the people of Israel came up to her
for judgment, for guidance, for counsel.
Incredible woman.
She raised the God, raised up Deborah,
who the Bible says she is a what?
The prophet is a prophet.
A prophetess does two things.
They hear, they listen and they communicate.
They listen to what God says, and they communicate what God says.
They listen for God's Word, and then they tell God's Word.
And that's what a prophet is.
What a prophet.
So, Deborah, his role was to hear from God
and then communicate what God was saying.
And people would come to her. What do we do?
What's the direction?
And she would hear from God, and she would tell them exactly what God.
She would explain God's Word to them.
And it's so in her, she said.
So apparently she had a palm tree that was hers.
The palm of Deb Deb's palm,
and people would come to her because they knew that God
had his hand on her life as a prophetess.
There are eight prophecies in the Bible, four
in the Old Testament, and for the New Testament.
And she ruled, and she reigned
as a prophet is not as a king man.
There's only one.
I don't know if you know this, you Bible students,
but there was only one queen in all of Israel.
That was a woman. It was Jezebel's daughter,
and her goal in
and reigning as the only woman king was to kill all the men.
She was demonic and possessed.
So God doesn't ask Deborah to be a king.
He asked her to be a prophetess.
Roles in God's
economy are very distinct and sassy,
so she served as a prophet to hear from God and to speak.
Now, let me just say this as I'm talking about this issue, that some people
with good hearts but misinformed understanding have used
Deborah as the reason that they say women should be senior pastors.
That's not what this is about at all.
If we go back and apply biblical times to our times,
biblical local church was called a synagogue,
and those who led synagogues were priests, and nowhere in all of the Bible does
God ever ask a woman to fill the role as a priest,
the leader of the local church, though he does call
women to be this is leaders
who speak
God's word, who understand what God is and speak it.
But it's not the role of a pastor.
Do you understand this?
We we have here this thing.
A lot of people try to make cases for things that aren't in the Bible
because they're doing things that are right in their own eyes.
So we have to be careful.
She's a prophetess.
She's an incredible leader.
She's a military strategist, as we'll see. She is a worship leader.
So see, she's a speaker of God's Word that we'll see.
She's incredible. Woman. Incredible woman.
If she were running for president, I would vote for her.
She sent and summoned Barak,
the son of Behnam, from Kadesh Naphtali, and said to him, has not the Lord see?
She's heard from God.
She's saying, Hasn't God already said this?
Hasn't the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you?
Go gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000
from the people of Naphtali in the people of Zebulon, and I will.
This word says, I will draw Sisera, the commander of the enemy army.
I will draw Sisera, the general of Japan's army, to meet you by the river.
Keshawn.
Remember that with his chariots of fire, and remember that and his troops.
And I will give them in your hand.
She says, don't you remember what God has already said?
She's living that role of prophetess.
God has already said this.
He's already commanded that.
And she says, take
these men 10,000 and go up to Mount Tabor.
She's a military.
She is part of the military strategy for defeating the enemy.
She tells them to go up to Mount Tabor.
Tabor isn't some huge mountain.
It's more of a hill about 1300 feet in elevation.
It's not huge.
But why would she tell as strategy for the commander Barak, who,
interestingly enough, a weak, ineffectual government official named Barak?
Why would she?
Why would
you get that later?
Why? Why would she tell him to take those troops up to Mount Tabor?
I regret it's higher ground.
What does the enemy have?
Iron chariots pulled by horses.
It's ineffectual going uphill.
So she's saying strategically in this moment.
Take him in up there. They'll be safe.
There's more to the strategy that's coming.
But for now, strategically go muster your forces, get your act together.
You haven't done what God tells you to do with.
Just muster them up here.
You'll be safe there.
So when she tells them brilliant,
later,
they'll come down the mountain for a surprise attack.
Brilliant strategy, but watch what happens,
she says. Don't you remember?
God said, I won't lower Sisera to the river.
Here's.
Here's what I want you to know.
When we cry out to God, God orchestrates our rescue.
This she is the mouthpiece.
But God is the orchestrator.
God tells her, tell
Barak to take the men up to day and wait.
In due season, I will draw Sisera out to where the remember?
To where? To the river.
Just remember that
when we cry out to God,
God starts orchestrating our rescue.
God could have done this at any point, but he waited until they cried out to God.
He raised up and delivered to set wheels in motion.
Watch Barak's response.
He said to her,
well, oh,
you go with me. I'll go.
But if you if you have them, if you don't go, I don't I don't want to go.
See anybody, see the flocks.
If God says go. Go!
But what if Trump was with you?
Just go.
If God says do, do.
But what if you have to do all on your own
to do?
This,
this to me,
is a sign of a very weak man.
And the sad thing about it is that this week
man was the strongest of all the other weak men.
There's something broken
in the soul of a man who doesn't stand up and say.
I will stand between the forces of evil and those who cannot stand
before them.
There's
something broken in the soul of a man
that says. I will be the tip of the spear.
For those who cannot be.
Men, husbands.
Fathers, grandpas. Do you hear me?
There's something broken in this man.
Was it wrong for Deborah to go with him? No.
Not necessarily.
There's nothing in the text that says it was wrong for her to go.
But Barak was wrong for saying he wouldn't go if she didn't
do understand the difference.
What he should have said was, I'm going.
You're welcome to come along.
I would love to have you with me, but I'm going regardless,
because I will stand before the hordes of evil.
And you, dear woman.
Well, certainly I'll go with you, said Deborah.
But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be
yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera in the hands of a woman.
So Deborah went with brought to Kadesh.
There Barak summoned Zebulun, and Naftali, and 10,000 men
went up under his command.
Deborah also went with them.
Deborah.
Sure. I'll go.
But you're not going to be credited with the victory.
A woman is going to be.
Listen, if God wants to use you, if God wants to use me and we don't jump
in, God will still do what he does, but he'll leave us out here.
And that should be the greatest FOMO
of your life.
That you get left out of God's blessing.
Because you don't go.
When we step into serving,
it will be the best adventure of our lives.
Please understand this, my friends.
Saying yes to God lead
you into the best, into your best life and your finest hours.
It always does,
but we seek our best life and our finest hours in
what is right in our own eyes, not in what is right in the eyes of God.
And because of that, we languish and our defeated and in despair, saying
yes to God leads us into our best
life and our finest hours.
We do what is right in his eyes.
I'm going to introduce you to some more people here now.
Heber the Keenan, not the key.
Night had separated from the night
and then tells us the key nights of whole Bab.
The father in law of Moses.
He had pitched his tent in the sky.
He pitched his tent as far away as the oak of Zion.
And name which is near Kadesh.
Now here's all this meat.
The key nights were descendants of Moses, his father in law.
Moses was the guy that led the people of of God out of Egypt.
He married this gal and his.
This is his wife's dad.
That is the father of these key nights.
Heber was one of them. So?
So Heber was part of God's people.
But he didn't want to live with God's people.
So he pitched his tent.
That means he lived away from them near the Canaanites.
King Jabin and the commander Sisera.
Do you see that?
So he's
he he's a man who has his foot in both worlds.
God's world and the culture's world.
He's aligned himself with both.
And that's
it's always dangerous.
Never trust a man or a
man's got a foot in both worlds.
When they told Sisera that Barak,
the son of Benham, had gone up mount Tabor
since he was summoned from, Harris
had going to the Kishan River,
all his men and his 900 shirts fitted with iron.
Then Deborah said In Barak go,
this is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands.
Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?
So Barak went down Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him.
Now, sister was told, the men were up on Mount Tabor, who told him?
Heber, that guy who had his foot in both worlds,
a dual allegiance.
That's why I said you never trust someone with their foot.
In both world, both kingdoms, they're untrustworthy.
So you out.
And so sister is told the men are up there.
He draws his men together at the river.
And Deborah prophesies again, just simply tells Barak what God has already said.
Hasn't he said that he will go with you?
He's ahead of you. Go.
And so she says,
come down from Mount Tabor into the valley and fight.
Okay? Now listen. Listen, man.
Remember, they're up at Mount Tabor because the enemy has what?
Chariots and church can't fight uphill, right?
And so now she says, now take your seats there.
Come down into the valley.
Where do chariots work best
in the valley?
And so now she's saying, okay, here's the strategy.
Now leave your safety and come down
into a place of peril.
At this point, I am certain that some of them are thinking,
this is why you don't put a woman in charge of the army.
This is bad strategy, right?
But it was brilliant
because this woman knew the heart of God.
This woman knew God said this woman had faith in what God would do,
and called God's people
out of what felt safe into what felt perilous.
Here's what we have to understand.
There are moments when obedience leads us away
from what feels safe.
When following God, it feels like it doesn't make sense.
It feels like it's backwards.
It feels like it ain't going to work.
There are moments when
obedience feels like it leads us away from safety.
Here's a question can you follow God in fear?
Most of our prayers are God.
Give me courage and God says, I want you to be obedient.
In your obedience.
You will find courage.
Listen.
Because every battle is God's.
Victory is a result of obedience, not strategy.
Don't miss this
strategically.
Not a great strategy to come down from the mountain
and face iron chariots with rocks and sticks in a valley
where they are like a blitzkrieg, fast and powerful.
But Deborah wasn't concerned primarily
with strategies, concerned primarily with obedience.
And for every one of us,
every battle of God's people is God's.
And so my victory, your victory is not the result
of your strategy doing what is right in your own eyes.
It's a result of your obedience.
Do you see this?
God loves studying the Bible.
It's so good.
Yeah, yeah,
it's so good.
At Barak's advance, the Lord routed
Sisera and all his chariots and the army by the sword.
And sister got down from his chariot and fled on foot.
Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harry's going.
And all Sisera, troops fell by the sword.
Not a man was left.
Did you notice how that passage started
at Barak's advance?
He's being obedient.
The Lord routed.
Here's what we have to understand.
Obedience invites God into the battles you face.
When Barak was obedient, the Lord routed.
The Lord didn't take care of the enemy until there was obedience in place.
You understand that?
So yours are my own.
Obedience invites God into our battles
we can't forget.
But watch what happened. This is so.
This is so like.
Sisera, meanwhile fled on foot to the tent of jail.
The wife of Heber, the guy who had his foot in both camps.
Why? Because he went to her camp.
Because he figures her friends.
Okay.
because there was an alliance between Jacob and the King.
His are in the family of Heber the Canaanite.
So the sister flees on foot.
Now, why do you leave your tank
and run away on foot?
Why would you do that
tank?
If anybody who knows anything about military,
a tank is only effective if it has treads that work, right?
Otherwise it's dead in the water.
You understand?
When my dad was in Vietnam,
he was in charge of a group of tanks called the On Toes.
Six big
guns on each side with a 50 caliber on top.
And it was an anti-tank tank.
And then the brilliance of military strategy
of the Marine Corps in the Vietnam War.
They helicoptered my dad and his group of tanks into, hot zone.
But before they did, they took off all the armament on the tread,
and they put a plywood thing on the top to make it look like a bulldozer,
thinking that if the Vietnamese, the Vietcong, saw a bulldozer
being dropped in by a military helicopter, they would think it was doing
agricultural work and wouldn't fire upon them.
My dad was dropped into this thing, and then the
all the armaments of the tank were helicoptered in
and in a hot zone being fired upon, they had to put the tank together.
It was ridiculous.
What they told me is that a tank that can't move
and has no weapons is a sitting target.
So Sisera gets out of his tank
and runs. Why?
What would make a chariot immobile?
It's an iron chariot.
Where did they draw?
Where did God draw them into? By a what?
By a river?
Now what does this is what's going on?
We don't know this from this, or we know this from
the song that Deborah will write about this account.
Chapter five is a worship song about chapter four.
And in chapter five, what we realize, and this is brilliant,
what we realize is that God, this is what God was orchestrating
when you this is what she writes in chapter five,
when you, Lord, went out from sea hour, when you marched from the land of Edam,
the earth shook the heavens.
What the heavens poured in the clouds, what poured down water?
She's writing about this battle, the river Keshawn, which is where
God drew this only to swept them away.
The age old river.
The river Keshawn. Brilliant.
They came down for the place that they thought was safe, into a place of peril,
because God was orchestrating a rainstorm to overflow the river
and to make the ground muddy, thus
making ineffective the chariots and the tanks that were against them.
So the army had to flee on foot, so the army of God could overtake
him and kill him. Brilliant.
Okay,
so Sisera runs away
on foot and he runs into a tent.
Listen, God, seek
first the kingdom of God, and everything else will take care of itself.
Okay?
His ways have got to be priority.
He'll take care of the church.
He'll take care of the.
He'll take care of everything.
But his ways have got to be a priority.
God always frustrates whatever we place in priority over him.
Always.
He always frustrates that
which we place in the priority over him.
Let me just be real honest with you real quick,
as if I haven't been up to this point.
Let me.
I feel so stupid.
I say stuff like that. Like,
listen, this is why tithing works.
And this is why when we don't tithe.
We never have enough money.
At the end of the month, we're always in debt.
We're a slave to credit.
Because when we put things as priority
over God's ways, he frustrates it.
This is why
serving one word exhausted and tired work.
And this is why, when we don't serve, it seems like we're too busy.
We're too exhausted, were too stressed
because when we put things ahead of God's ways,
he frustrates it.
Seek him first in his kingdom.
Be obedient.
He'll take care of everything else.
Jael went out to meet Sisera.
Jael, the wife of this of Heber, the guy who had to sit in both camps
and said, come, my Lord, come right into her tent.
Don't be afraid.
So he entered her tent and she covered him with a blanket.
I'm thirsty, he said.
What for? She's been fighting and running.
Please give me some water.
She opened the skin.
A milk skin, a milk and gave him a drink and covered him up.
Now listen.
You and I both know you're hot and tried to working outside.
You want a big old glass of water?
None of us asked.
Can I have some warm milk, please?
And she gives him a skim.
Now here's what we have to say.
This was not refrigerated.
Obviously it wasn't pasteurized.
It wasn't the watery non milk called nonfat.
This was goat's milk
that was warm, that was turned and curdled.
And in that culture it was almost like warm cottage cheese, yogurt,
unflavored.
And she gives him this big skin and he just downs it.
Now, what we know from this time is it was full of tryptophan
that regulates melatonin and serotonin.
And what we know from Thanksgiving time is that makes us sleepy.
He's exhausted.
He's scared to death. He's on the run.
He drinks this nasty milk curd yogurt,
tryptophan,
and he falls asleep and she covers him up.
This is a great story.
You stand in the doorway of the tent.
He told her, if someone comes in and ask you, is anybody here?
Say no.
But JL, Hebrews wife picked up a tent peg and a hammer
and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted.
Now listen.
Women
in this culture were the ones who were responsible
for packing up the tent,
packing the animals, getting to where they were going,
unpacking the tent, setting the tent up, setting the campsite up there.
Response for the animals.
The men sat around and drank coffee.
It was a beautiful time.
We need to get back to Bible days.
But because she was familiar
with hammers and tent pegs,
she drove the peg through his temple into the ground.
She's awesome.
Come on in.
Let me take care of you.
You think it's a safe place?
Have some who could defend you.
Let me cover you with a blanket. Don't worry.
I got you going.
And I don't know why.
The writer decided they had to add those three words and he died. Duh.
I guarantee you, someone in the church says he was right.
It was like, well, we don't know if he really died or not.
Maybe he did it.
Maybe he's still there. Some somebody.
And so they put it in there.
No, no, he died.
Jael didn't
agree with the duel alliance of her husband,
and she did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
Incredible women,
incredible women.
Ladies, do you hear me?
Let me just make another side note.
I know a Jeff is back there going.
You did this in the first service
and we had to start late and the live stream was messed up.
And I'm sorry, you know, Jeff, you know, this is the way it goes.
I appreciate you.
Thank you for your patience.
When we're first introduced to Deborah, having known all of this,
it says that she is the wife of her husband.
I just love the fact that though she is a leader, she's the strong one.
She's the mouthpiece of God.
She's the prophetess, she's a military strategist.
She's a worship leader and writer composer.
She still is the wife of her husband.
She's a beautiful picture
of incredible strength and leadership
type a,
and yet submissive at the same time.
It's just a beautiful picture of Proverbs 31.
And God highlights who he is and what he does for these two ladies.
Ladies, please don't ever lose sight of judges for men.
Don't ever lose sight of judges for.
Now think back to verse nine.
Deb says, certainly I'll go with you, but because of the course you've taken,
the honor will not be yours.
But the Lord will give Sisera into the hands of a woman.
She wasn't talking about herself.
She was a prophetess.
She said, a woman going to get the glory.
And down through the history in the ages,
the Bible tells the story for every generation
of a woman who was the mouthpiece and leader of God's people,
who called people to account and men to account,
and a woman through whom God used to deliver his people.
It's a beautiful scene.
And so let me just finish with this.
I have three lessons in three sense in the arts.
Real simple.
The lessons are this God's Word always comes true,
always
and always comes true.
Though it may not look right in your own eyes
because of the culture we're growing up in, this is truth
and it always comes true.
It says this always accomplishes the purpose for which God set it out
to perform.
And God always responds when we cry out to him and repent.
Always
to what he does.
Now that repentance or his response, rather
usually comes in unexpected ways,
he's got a great way of orchestrating things behind the scenes
that we don't see that forces us
to prove our faithfulness in obedience.
But he does respond.
So the questions are this
what have I put as a priority above God?
That God may be frustrating.
See, God's strategy is right here.
This is his strategy.
Too often we have our own strategy.
This God says this is
what's right in my eyes.
And when we do what is right in our eyes
rather than God's eyes, he will frustrated.
And so the question for me, the question for you is what has I put?
Have I put as a priority above God's strategy
that he may be frustrated?
The same question
is this in light of that, what do I need to repent of?
What do I need to come
before God and say, look, God, I'm sorry,
I know I've been living according to what's right in my eyes, but not yours.
And I need to confess that.
And then live
with the expectation that God will respond somehow
and be open to how he surprises you with it,
because he will.
Once you prove me, father, thank you.
Thank you for this day.
Thank you for judges for thank you for Deborah.
Thank you for jail.
Thank you for these incredible women in their day,
and some even in ours, who are listening to your voice, who are here in your word,
who are leading so well.
Thank you.
Thank you for what it teaches us.
Thank you for what it tells us.
Thank you that you hear the prayers of your people right now.
Friends, I would encourage you in this moment, just between you and God.
Is there something
that you have trusted,
done right?
What is in your own eyes and not in God's?
What can you identify in your life that you know
has been frustrating and stuck
because God is frustrating? It?
Because you've put things
above his priority, above his strategy, his word.
Confess.
That just means a good professor just means to agree with him about it.
Don't wait 20 years like they did
to cry out to him.
And in humility and submission,
say God, I'm sorry.
Thank you for your forgiveness.
I repent.
And I choose this day for you to be my priority.
Your ways to be my priority, your strategy to become
mine.
And repent.
And allow him to respond in deliverance
in some way that will blow your mind that you don't see yet.
And expect that.
Father, I thank you that this is who you are, and this is what you do.
Hear us, see us,
those of us who are coming to you in repentance,
and those of us who are coming to you in repentance.
Give us all that your grace will allow us and move mightily on our behalf.
Even if you call us out of the mountain and the plane before a river,
we know that.
We know that your deliverance
is very close at hand.
We count on that, rely on that, and we know that that is true
because you are who you are.
I pray these things in your name, Jesus, Amen.
Listen,
go home and read chapter five.
It's the kind of poetic song. Of what?
Of what we read in chapter four.
It's, it's it's a beautiful worship song about a guy getting his head
nailed to the ground with a tent. Peg, it's.
We should write a song about that.
Jeff, I remember VeggieTales.
I don't remember
vegetable being about the tent peg, but that would be a great cartoon that would.
Body foot in the flood with Noah's Ark and dig through temples.
And what a great.
Cartoons for children.
Read chapter five
and then read chapter six, because we're going to start
a three week through the next few chapters.
In looking at a man named Gideon,
one of my favorite and all the Bible, it's awesome.
Okay, you got it.
Let's sing a little bit.