Engaging in God's Battle: From Wealth to Worship

This is a poem that is written to describe Israel's victory over the difficulties that they were going through. I want to begin the text this evening with verse 10 of chapter 5, but I want to read verse 9 because it sort of sets up the verse 10 for us. My heart is with Israel's princes and the willing volunteers among the people. Praise the Lord. The writer of the song, and this is what this is, a poem, it's really a song that they sing, is talking about the battle that they're ready to fight and saying that this battle, with all the desperate circumstances Israel is under, that the person leading this is talking about their heart is with the leaders of the nation of Israel. They're the ones that are going to lead the battle, so they're concerned about them. And then the willing volunteers are the army that volunteer for the battles. So they're the military leaders and the battles. The leaders are ready to fight. The volunteers that make the army are ready to follow. And now they praise the Lord, tell of His greatness because He has brought together this army, both the leaders and the people who are going to fight. So verse 10, it says, You who ride on the white donkeys, sitting on the saddle blankets, and you who walk along the road, consider. Now the message here is to the people of Israel themselves. The leaders had come out to battle. The soldiers had come out to battle. Now what was left were the other people who were not yet in this engagement. And the leaders who ride on white donkeys, the NIV says white donkeys. The Hebrew word here for this is a word that doesn't necessarily mean white. It means lighter shades than normal donkeys. So normal donkeys are gray, and there are some donkeys that end up being light brown or kind of an orangish color, and it really defines that. It's very rare that you would find a donkey that was actually white. So the word actually reflects on donkeys that are unusual. You know, for us, if you want to make an impression on your neighbors, you buy an expensive car and when they see it parked in your driveway, they're all saying, Wow, look at that. Well, the rich people in the Bible days didn't have the advantage of doing that, but they would find an unusual animal, a donkey, to ride, and that would signify their status as being wealthy people. Finding a white donkey would be very unusual, and so it would be expensive. Finding a light-colored donkey would be a safe fellow. If the white one was like a Cadillac, then the brown-colored one, light brown color, would be like a Buick. So you'd know your categories of wealth by the kind of animal that a person would ride. But then to top that, instead of riding on it bareback, they would cover it with very exquisite covering, a blanket to cover the donkey for them to ride on. They'd have the donkey decorated very attractively and a cushioned blanket on top of the animal. This is a description of how traders would oftentimes, animals that they would use as they rode carrying a caravan of goods from one place to another. So what he's talking about is you who are wealthy people, and he uses this to describe the donkey that they would have and the blanket that they would have on them, they were wealthy traders don't have anything in this battle because the people of Israel had been locked in their houses. They were afraid to go out because of the power of their enemies. So they were overwhelmed. But the traders were able to trade both with the Israelites and with their enemies. So they were getting wealthy in the middle of all the difficulties that were going on. So the writer of this song is saying, now you who are merchants and you're making a fortune without regard to the concern for your own people, you must wake up to what's taking place. You who ride on white donkeys sitting on your saddle blankets, you must wake up to the circumstances. Then he comes to the poorer people and you who are walking along the road, consider the voice of the singer. Consider. So he's trying to stir up all of the population from the poorest to the most wealthy to say, this battle is yours too. I think we talk about the church as a place in which God's people are struggling. It's difficult sometimes for people to engage themselves in what God wants done. A friend of mine told me one time, he said, we don't ever ask anybody in our church for volunteer service. He said they make enough money that they have their time is so valuable that they say, instead of giving you an hour or two of my time, I can give you enough money to hire somebody to work five days. Because they could, they excuse themselves from the sacrifice of giving themselves in service in the kingdom of God. What God wants is not simply the work to be done, but he wants the submission of ourselves to his authority and power. That's what he wants. It's not ours to decide what we're going to do in the kingdom of God. If you enter the kingdom of God, there is a king. It is the king's responsibility to say, this is your assignment. Everyone has a role to play in what God is trying to do, from the wealthiest person to the poorest. Because God is the Lord of all. So what the writer of this is announcing to them, is every one of you have to engage in the battle that God has for you, and it's true for us. There should be nobody in any church ever, anywhere, who does not have a responsibility both from God to the congregation in which they are serving. God wants everyone to take a part in that job. The spiritual gifting that God gives us is that he enables us to do whatever it is that he assigns us to do. And whenever you don't search for that assignment, you won't find it. But if you will search for it, God will reveal to you something that you can do that is beneficial to what he's doing. So from the richest to the poorest, God expects us to engage ourselves in the battle that is going on in our world. Verse 11, it says, The voice of the singers at the watering places, they recite the righteous acts of the Lord. The righteous acts of his warriors in Israel. Now the word singer that's translated here, I don't know if any of you have a different version than the NIV. It may have a different translation. Does somebody else have a different translation than that? What is it? Yes. Now what does it say? The voice of what? The noise of the archers. Okay. Any other translation of that? What does it say? It's singers too. The word that's translated singers here is a difficult word to translate. What it's really a word that describes sort of hollering. You might be singing too. But what they did was they brought their animals to a place, they watered them. And everybody couldn't bring all their animals to water at the same time. So the watering holes were places where people gathered to water their animals. And also it was kind of like a community gathering spot. I don't know if you've ever lived in a real small town. But I had a church one time in a very small community. And there's a post office there. Every morning, everybody in the whole community came to the post office. Now they weren't looking for the mail, but they did get their mail. But they wanted to check up on everybody else and what was going on. So they would get in the post office and they'd talk about everything that was going on. And there was a little grocery store next door. And they'd finally migrate over there and sit around in the grocery store and talk and talk and talk. It was sort of the community center of attention. Whenever they had the animals there, they had to take, we might say, a number. And so if you got there first, you may be number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And someone would take the responsibility to say, number 2. So people would know who was supposed to be next. They would sing out who was supposed to be next. So the word for singer here sort of is a word that's used to describe someone who is orderly arranging things, making sure that order is kept in what's taking place. So there the singer is hollering out instructions for those who have come to the watering hole. The voice of the singer is shouting out or singing out at the watering places. Here now they're discussing the things that are going on. They're reciting the righteous acts of the Lord. They're reciting the righteous acts of His warriors in Israel. This is a time of great difficulty. The people of Israel are now overwhelmed by their enemies. They're rallying their armies to go out and fight. And here in this community they're discussing the circumstances. They're remembering the times in Israel's history when God miraculously gave them the victory over their enemies. They're trying to remember these events that God has done, looking to the future, building up their encouragement and hope that God will do again what He had done in the past. So they're telling stories. I don't know if any of you grew up around families that told stories all the time. I don't see many of you shaking your heads. You did? Mine did. We were on the farm. We couldn't even get radio at night. And Jake Shell, who lived about a mile or two from us, would come down, and he and his wife and my mom would fix ice cream. And Dad was on the strike that year for the steel company. But we'd sit around on the porch, and they'd just tell one story after another, all the things they saw growing up, all the things that they did in their life. And you learn so much about them, and you learn so much about what it was like to live in the days that they were kids and growing up. So they were in a gathering place telling stories. And when they tell stories, they tell either terrible things that happened, like one time they were talking about a man who fell in a pit of snakes. The other times they tell about great things that they did or achieved or other people achieved or remarkable things that went on. So here were these shepherds while they were waiting for their sheep to be watered, and they were talking about the wonderful history of the people of God. Now you can tell as you look back on this from our point of view about the Exodus, all those things that took place. You can look out about all the wars that Israel fought and how they won those, how they walked across on dry ground at the lake, how water came out of the rocks. They were recalling all the great powerful things that God had done, doing this in light of the circumstances that were overwhelming to them, driving the enemies out of their land. So here are the people down there watering their animals, telling stories of hope, hope that they had seen in what God had done in the days gone by. And they call them the righteous acts of the Lord and the righteous acts of His warriors in Israel. Now the leaders of Israel have been calling people out to battle, so they're reminding themselves of the great things that God had done in the past. Some people divide this next verse as the beginning of the fifth section of this, as if it were a new part. Then the people of the Lord, now that phrase the people of the Lord is a rare phrase. In fact it's unique, it means it's the only time it's mentioned in this book of Judges. Because in the book of Judges all you're seeing are the people in rebellion against God. Every time we read a story the people have turned their back on God and have taken the ways of the world or Baal. Now he calls them, and this is the only place in the book of Judges where he calls them the people of the Lord. They're remembering the purity of their time, the time when the people of Israel were dedicated to live in obedience to God. It's kind of like maybe you remember whenever you first committed your life to Christ, how exciting that was, how the Bible was brand new, how the church in its life was new to you, everything was fresh in your mind, spiritual changes taking place inside of you in such a powerful way. And when you see somebody who starts in this Christian journey, you see their life is so transformed that they're startled by it. They're just excited about what takes place. I remember going to visit Butch one time after he just made a commitment to Christ in his house. He was single at the time. He says, yeah, I'm having a hard time. I said, I just can't stop. I read the Bible all night long. It's so exciting to me because I've never been able to understand it before. So there's a special element that comes whenever a person is a part of the people of God, that freshness that comes. So they remind themselves. Then the people of the Lord went down to the city gates. Now they've thought about all these things that have taken place in the past, how God has called them and how he won the victories for them. And now they're ready to go to the city gates. Now the people of Israel didn't live in cities where there were gates. So this is a clear indication for us that they were going to attack the enemies who were possessing their land. They were going out to battle now. That's what this is really telling us. And the people of the Lord went down to the city gates. Wake up, wake up, Deborah. Now Deborah was the lady who would marshal the troops to come out and fight. So this is sort of a reminder now of how this happened. God had prepared the people of Israel ready to be able to fight. Now he came to Deborah and woke her up with this. Wake up, wake up, Deborah. Wake up and break out in song. So Deborah now is called of God to take the place of leadership. God always has leaders for what he wants done. And then he has people who can follow leaders to do the things too. He never neglects either side of this. It's unusual for a woman to be placing in a position of leadership in Israel. But God's call to her was clear and plain. A lot of times people limit women's roles in the church. God does not have that kind of limitation. God is interested in getting something done. He will use anything to get it done. He'll use men. He'll use women. He'll use children. He even uses animals sometimes to do the work that he needs to have done. God's primary focus is achieving his purpose. In this situation, he couldn't find a man who would be the leader as qualified as Deborah. She had a reputation as being a good judge and an honest judge. Someone who could know who could apply the scripture to the lives of people. That's what the judging was. The judge would come. People would come to judge sort of like this. My brother and I are having a fight. He's always trying to take everything away. He's not fair to me. The judge would listen to both sides of that. Then go back to the scripture and say, here's what the scripture says about this. You were expected to simply do it. It's like if you got in a fight with someone in your family. You came to me and said, okay, we're having a fight. What should we do? One of you tells me this side of it. The other one tells you the other side of it. I say, okay, you've got to forgive that person. You've got to quit acting that way. If I did that, you'd say, I'm not going to do that. But that's what the judge did. They were enforcing not the law as we know now, not to steal or whatever, but enforcing the basic principles of the Old Testament, how to treat people who are around you. So she was respected in this regard as being a scholar of the scriptures and someone who could apply the scriptures to the lives of people around her. So she was called of God. Wake up, wake up, Deborah. Wake up and break out in song. And then arise, O Barak. Now, in the story in chapter 4 of this book, Deborah is said to have called Barak and asked him to come and to lead the armies. He was reluctant to do that and said he would only do it if she would come with him and be there all the way, all the time. But here in this passage, the scriptures gives a little bit different picture of what took place. Deborah is to wake up, wake up, and break out in song as a leader of the nation. But here, Barak is called to rise. The word here is arise in the translation I have, but it means Barak was raised. It's the same word that's used all the way through the book of Judges for a savior or redeemer for the nation of Israel. He was made, he was raised up to be their savior or redeemer. So Barak was not just called or said to wake up, but he was asked to become the leader of the people to drive out the enemy that had taken over the country. It is the role of God to provide places for leadership. And all the church, all the way through the Bible, from the Old Testament, from the beginning of it all the way through the New Testament, leadership of God is called. It's not necessarily that we decide those things. It is a calling that God gives us. Deborah was called to take the role that she took, and Barak was called to take the role that he took. Now in this story, Deborah does not have the role where she is going to be the redeemer of the nation, even though the story is about Deborah. In the beginning it tells it's about Deborah. It really isn't about her. She is simply a part of this story. Barak is to play another part. Even he, we'll find out later on in this line, is not the heart of the story. There is someone else who takes the real role as the hero or the heroine in this instance. But God brings together both this woman who is to be the leader and Barak who is to be the one who actually goes out and does the battle. Wake up, wake up, Deborah. Wake up, break out in song, the song of victory. Barak, you have been raised to be the redeemer of Israel. Take your captives, O son of Abinuim. That's Barak. You are to go out and take the captives as they are in the role of battle. The men who were left came down to the nobles. The people of the Lord came to me with the mighty. Some came from Ephraim whose roots were in Amalek. Now, when Barak is called, he said, take captive your captives. This is his role. What had happened earlier in this chapter, a clear description of what was taking place. The people were imprisoned in their homes. The leaders of the enemy who had taken over the land had taken many of them prisoners. Now, Barak's challenge is you go take the prisoners that the enemy has taken to make them your own prisoners. You reverse, in other words, the situation that Israel is in. You are the one who is to change the surface of what Israel is facing. That's Barak's challenge. Then men who were left came down to the nobles, and the people of the Lord came to me with the mighty. The result was now that the people of Israel came to follow Barak and came to be able to fight this battle. They were prepared to do whatever was necessary to fight. And the ordinary people in the nation of Israel came too. Now, the word that's used here, the men who were left, is really a word for survivors. We use it to say someone is left. But if you had a battlefield and people were killed, and you had some who were not killed, you could say these people were the ones that were left that weren't killed. Well, the word also means they survived the battle. So what he's talking about here is the people of Israel, as they go out to do the battle, there are people who have not been captured. He says, Capture back the captors that have been captived. Now, there are survivors, people who have not gone, who the enemy have not captured. Those are the ones you are to use. The word to describe those who are left is also the same thing that describes those below who are the people of the Lord who came to me with the mighty. This same word, nobles and mighty, are the same word, the same idea. Those who are leaders, those who are powerful and those who are strong. And they are the ones who have not been taken. So they're free to be able to join the battle with the people of Israel. Now he starts with a description of those who were a part of this battle. He starts with some of the people in the nation of Israel, verse 14. Some came from Ephraim whose roots were in Amalek. Now here he's talking about the volunteers. Who were the people who came to fight the battle? Deborah was from the tribe of Ephraim, so it may be common or the place that she'd want to start. But when she starts with the volunteers who came from Ephraim, she uses two ways of describing them that end up making you think that maybe these people weren't good soldiers for them. Some uses some came and that could mean a few came, not very many from Ephraim, or it could mean just some of them did come. It depends on how the word is used in the Hebrew text. But it's no mistake about what happens next. Some came from Ephraim whose roots were in Amalek. Now Amalek was a man who caused great dissension in Israel's life. And he was quarrelsome and he was hard to get along with and difficult. What she's saying is the few that did come from her home country were not good soldiers. They wouldn't take orders. They wouldn't submit to what needed to be done. They decided that they would decide for themselves when they would fight, who they would fight, and how they would fight. So even though they contributed some people to this great battle because of their attitude and their spirit, they were not able to be useful to God in the circumstance they were in. I think all of us understand that whenever you have a military organization, there needs to be one leader, and that leader needs to be able to command the instructions and command and give instructions to those that are fighting. You can't very well tell people, now there's a place in our battle line that's weak. I want you to go over to that hill over there and I want you to fight with those soldiers there. If the people you tell that to says, no, I'm not going to do that. We're going to stay right here. Be successful at that. Now, what needs to be done is that everybody needs to be submissive to the authority that's in place. It's not necessarily the pastor, even though sometimes people try to think that way, and pastors sometimes seem to think that way too. But what the Bible is talking about is that God is ultimately in charge of everything that takes place among His people. And what happened to those people from Ephraim is they were not willing to submit themselves to the authority of God. And it's impossible to have good relationships with people around you if you're not prepared to submit yourself to the authority of God. If He tells you to apologize, you need to be ready to do that. If He tells you to quit doing what you're doing and start doing something else, you need to be prepared to do that. If He tells you He wants you to give your money, you ought to be prepared to do that. If He tells you He wants to give you your time, you have to be prepared to do that. Doing the work of God requires one authority, and that is God Himself. What causes so much trouble among the people of God is exactly what takes place here. There are some people who just are quarrelsome. They don't want anybody to tell them what to do. They don't want anybody to tell them when to do it. They want to do exactly what they want to do, the way they want to do it, and when they want to do it. And those people, even though they volunteer to fight, are a terrible burden to the army because the leader that God has chosen, and He's directing that leader, He needs to have the people submissive and willing to do whatever He asks. The story of the Scriptures is a story of the Bible as the church unfolds itself. And the key ingredient from this battle here is the same as in the battle we face in our own culture and society. We have to, all of us, be surrendered and submissive to the Spirit of God. So many times in the church, destruction comes because people are not willing to submit either to God or to each other. We had a meeting in Hoisington, and a fellow there had come to the meeting. We did the Walk with Jesus we did here a week ago. And he was talking about his own church over there in Hoisington. It was a thriving big church. It got into a situation where one group was upset and wanted to run things, and the other was upset and wanted to run things, and the church just died. It was a big church. It had a big, nice building. Nicer than the one that we're in. And the one that we're in over there died because of the same thing. We had people that determined that they were going to control what happened. And whenever pastors came, they couldn't get together with them. One pastor after another came and was driven off. And they were determined they were going to do what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it. One time they had a pastor who had just had a baby born, and they didn't pay him enough to pay his hospital bill. He took a job out at TGNY. It's been a long time ago. Those of you who lived here know. And he was working nights. He'd go in like at 10 o'clock and work until like 4 in the morning. Then he was trying to work the church work the rest of the day. And so I asked our state convention if we could help that church and that family. And we don't have any work in lacrosse, and I'd started a Bible study up there, and I thought, he could go over there and work in lacrosse and get another Bible study started with people that don't go to church in lacrosse. So I got the state to agree to pay him for one day so he could make enough in that one day that he wouldn't have to work at night. So we wrote a letter to the church and said, propose this. Your pastor's having to work from 10 o'clock at night until 4 in the morning. It's hard for him to have enough energy to work during the day. We'd like to have him just take one day out and go to lacrosse and start a Bible study over there. So within two weeks, I got a letter back from the church, and it said, this is our pastor. It's none of your business how we pay him. It's none of your business what we do. We want him to be full time in our church, and we would appreciate it if you'd keep your nose out of our business. Well, of course, he couldn't keep that up, so as soon as he found another place to go, he left, and that church died too. You see, God wants us to be open to whatever he wants us to do, and our own little petty ways of thinking get in his way. And what happened to the people of Israel was that they had people who volunteered to work, but they were a stumbling block to the army. And you know, the fact is that oftentimes when these difficulties come in churches, they're not the people who don't go that cause us trouble. They're the people that are there all the time. And it's a matter of recognizing that we don't get our way about what's done, but God gets his way. Submission to God is a key ingredient in what happens in a church. You can only become a follower of Christ when you say to him, I will do whatever you want, in any way you want, any time you want. That's how you become a follower of Christ. You can't say, God, I'll do anything that I want to do, if it suits me and pleases me and is comfortable. No one ever gets into the kingdom of heaven that way. What God wants and needs are people who are willing to volunteer. These people did, but they volunteered to do only what they wanted to do, when they wanted to do it. And they didn't want anybody telling them anything. And so they ended up having their page in history marked. Some of the guys from Ephraim came, but they were troublemakers. They didn't help us. They were a problem. Not every volunteer is a great benefit to you. For sometimes people volunteer to control. Sometimes they volunteer to take charge. Sometimes they volunteer for themselves. But what God needs is a volunteer that says, anywhere, any time, any way, any place, no matter what the cost. And then God can make great victories take place. Let's pray. So I want to ask you, if you've ever said to God, I give my life to you, and whatever happens, whatever you ask me to do, I will swallow my pride, I'll swallow my own ideas, and I will do exactly what you want. Just make it clear to me what you're asking. This is the door to the kingdom of heaven. It's what Jesus said, the narrow door. Because there's no other way into the kingdom except to trust God completely with your life. So notice sometimes whenever something happens you don't like, you have to stop and ask yourself, is this something God doesn't like or I don't like? Whenever things don't go the way you want, you have to ask yourself, did it go the way God wanted? Father, we don't want the mark beside us to say they volunteered, but they were stubborn, rebellious, and hard to deal with people. We want you to be able to say about us that we were yours, obedient, submissive, and faithful. In the name of Christ we ask for this quality. Amen.