Deborah: A Prophetess and Judge in Israel

For four if you turn that in your Bibles turn to that section in your Bible Don you do have You do record these don't you and so if you miss something next week or even any week you can just go over to the By the office and how soon do you have them is it like two weeks later? Sunday morning, okay So you can go on the internet and get it or you can come and pick up a CD Either one if you miss some things you want to pick up Judges chapter 4 I Talked about the last last week the first four verses of this and Introduction to what was taking place what's going to take place next? Verse Verse 4 of chapter 4 Deborah a prophetess of the the wife of Lippidoth was leading Israel at that time She held court under the palm of Deborah between Rhema and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim and Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided She sent for Barak son of Abinuam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him the Lord the God of Israel commands you go take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor I will lure Cicero the commander of Jabin's army with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and Give him into your hands Now the beginning the first three verses of this chapter Sort of set up the circumstances that they find themselves in After he who died the Israelites once again did evil in the eyes of the Lord So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin a king of Canaan Who resided at Hazor the commander of his army with Cicero who lived? Excuse me who lived in Horoshev Hagoim Because he had 900 Chariots and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for 20 years They cried to the Lord for help the pattern in the book of Judges follows a similar story every time almost the people of Israel act like the Canaanites They become like the pagans among whom they live Until finally the Lord then turns loose of them. Sometimes the Bible says he turns loose of them Sometimes it said he sells them. In other words. He's saying to them because you've violated the covenant that I've given to you I am going to refuse to fill my part of that covenant promise The promise to guide them and provide for them protect them and make them a great nation So again, they've turned their back on God. They did evil in the eyes of the Lord what he means by that they become acting like the Canaanites worshiping the Canaanite gods living like the Canaanites and Then he turned loose of them He gave them to Hazor gave them to the king Jabin the king of the Canaan of Canaan Who reigned at Hazor? So the pattern is started over again, and then it ends by saying they cried to the Lord for help Never never does it say that they repented of the things that they've done They just were saying we're in desperate circumstances and the book of Judges describes God's reaction to people who are in need his help as Act of grace not as an act of salvation Because they never repent for what they've done So again the circumstances arise However in this story, there's a peculiar difference Debra her name means bee or honeybee. She's a There's a parent hero of this story or heroine of the story Debra a prophetess Prophetess now, that's an unusual Profession for a woman in the Old Testament and in the culture of the Hebrews But it lets us know that while you read the Bible especially in the Old Testament and women have a significantly less role in the nation That there were exceptions that God had It wasn't that he said okay women can't ever have positions of leadership in this position. She is a prophetess Now it's not unheard of in the Old Testament for there to be women who are prophetesses now prophet in the Bible's Way is different than a lot of times. We think of it. We think of a prophet who can tell the future So that the prophet is someone who's able to see into the future And if you ask people about what a prophet is on the streets, most of them will say somebody tells a future The Bible does not see a prophet in that way For the Bible a prophet is someone who tells the message of God We might say that they're a preacher someone who settles disputes based on the scriptures They come to them with disputes from the family and they use the scripture the laws in the scriptures decide Who's in the right place and who's wrong in this circumstance? So she is a prophetess Now the prophetess though rare in the Old Testament is Not nearly as rare as the role that she takes as a judge She's not only a prophetess, but she's also a judge Now the judge in the role of the scriptures is not necessarily a legal entity so much as that you're a person who's Communicator of God's message people For example, if the family comes and they have dispute about the property or if two neighbors have dispute about something that they've done The laws in the Old Testament give specific concrete ways by which these issues are to be settled So a judge would have knowledge about the law Understanding what the law was and be able to settle these disputes based on what the Bible or the law says should be done So she is both a prophetess which is rare and a judge Which is practically unheard of for a woman to have that role you know in the role of the Old Testament all the roles for the priests were given to men not to women and women were not to work at all in the experience of making sacrifices in the temple They were not open to that sort of role but here We have an unusual situation Now when you go back to verse 4 chapter 1 of chapter 4 After he who died the Israelites once again did evil in the eyes of the Lord What you're looking at is a country Where the people have failed to be obedient and submissive to God The role that this lady plays probably magnifies the reality that the priesthood As well as all the rest of the people is strayed from what God was trying to do And so the people in the countryside Did not trust to go to the priest for help that may have been what the situation was and God as he often times does He doesn't let what we do stand in the way of what he's trying to accomplish What he's trying to accomplish So when he has the priesthood at the temple who's unreliable and people can't trust them. He raises up someone else and Gives to that person the authority that he had been giving to the priests So the people of the nation have come to this lady Who is a prophetess and a judge the role that we would normally have for a priest in the temple? It gives us a sign of the spiritual Decay That has happened in the nation of Israel. This is a serious situation people have lost all confidence in the temple and the priests and God because his people need someone has raised up another person who is Qualified to be someone who communicates his message to the people of Israel So you see something of the moral degradation that's taken place in this situation and The woman Deborah is the one who is the leader? now she's announced as the wife of Lippidoth and It helps us to understand that she's an ordinary woman married to a man having a family and God has taken her from this ordinary circumstance and placed her as a Person to whom all the people of Israel come to visit with her She was leading The wife of Lippidoth was leading Israel at that time. She was the Primate she was the leader spiritual leader of the nation of Israel You can see that God has elevated her to a status Beyond even what we've seen in some of the other people who were listed already in this book So that God has placed her in a position of influence power and authority She held court under the palm of Deborah She chose to sit under a palm tree as court would set up Now whenever says she held court Under the palm It was her sort of courthouse. We might think this was sort of Second-handed or amateurish But it was common practice for every community when they had a court set up For it to be set up outside the city gates in the open so anybody could come and everybody could be there So that's not necessarily unusual except that she had this one tree palm tree that was her Station if anyone wanted to come and talk to her that's where they would come She held court under the palm of Deborah between Rhema and Bethel now this Location is about halfway between the north and the south Of the nation of Israel, so she was centrally located so everyone could come to where she was in the in the hill country of Ephraim and Israelites came to her to have their disputes settled now This sounds like they come for quarrels and arguments primarily only but the the Language that's used here can sometimes be translated a little differently It can be translated to simply say to the troubles that they've experienced The disputes they did their disputes settled to have their troubles settled There's kind of a hint here in this passage That what the people of Israel were coming to her for? was Because Jabin was in control of their nation They were facing terribly difficult circumstances a pagan person Was now in control of Israel and the people were crying out as it said in verse 3 They were crying out for help if you have a spiritual leader Who is? Identified and recognized as a person with spiritual connections to God and you have spiritual concerns. That's where you would bring it. I Imagine or suggest or feel like in this situation that not only were they bringing ordinary cases of settling issues between people But they were coming to her and saying we are under the heel of a pagan man. Jabin. What are we going to do? So she was confronted with the spiritual condition of the people of Israel Who had been crying out to God for help and some resolution to the circumstances in? Which he found herself. I Think the next verse or next sentence helps us to see that maybe that was what was happening here as a result of these disputes If that's all it was she would have simply said well, he's right and you're wrong pay him go on get out next case But what she does as a result of them coming to settle their troubles is she says She sent for Barak the son of Jen aboem aboem She sent for him from Kadesh and asked him to come to lead an army now his name is Barak means lightning and Lightning was the symbol for the gods of Baal in in In that land the pagan gods of Baal so here she sent for a man who his name means lightning to battle the gods of lightning in the nation She is sent for him. We don't know why we don't know anything about him. We're not told any circumstances of his life Except she knew somehow or other that he was a man who could be a leader for the nation So she sent for him Kadesh and in Neftali and Kadesh would have been right on the border between the tribe of Judah where she was and the tribe of Neftali where Was the next tribe to the south so it's right on the border. She sent for him and Said to him the Lord God of Israel commands you Go take with you ten thousand men of Neftali and Zebulun and Lead the way to Mount Tabor When she came when she when he came she knew had Clear specific instruction from God She was to get it says really 20 Companies of 250 people that's what the the language really says they just here total it to 10,000 But go get 20 regiments of 250 people each and come to be ready for battle the Lord God of Israel commands you go the first thing and Get you together an army. Those are the two commands that she was given and Then this is chapter verse 7 is saying from God's point of view Not hers I will lair lure Sistera the commander of Jabin's army with his chariots and troops to the Kishon River and Give him into your hands now in chapter 1 verse 16 of the book of Judges We find out that the people of Israel had already had some experience with People on chariots The descendants of Moses father-in-law the Kenite went up from the city of palms with the men of Judah to live among the people in the desert of Judah and Negev and That's not the word when the one I wanted to read They had already experienced before Some the tribe of Dan had already experienced before in trying to conquer the land that was theirs that they were unable to do so because The nation that they were trying to fight or the people they were trying to fight had iron chariots so they Already discovered that the power of these chariots were overwhelming to them they were the most powerful military force of that time and because of their power they were unsure Or an insecure and thinking they could win the battle with them now They face somebody with a lot of chariots Nine was to say 900 chariots 10,000 men I will lose to Syria the commander of Jabin's army with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and Give him to your hands and when he comes he comes with 900 chariots to be able to fight Now You can see Barack would have been faced with a difficulty because He knew the army that he was facing and with all these chariots and the power that it has they had He would have seen that they could easily destroy any kind of army they do put together So he was asked to get the 10,000 people Prepare to lead them to Mount Tabor God says then I will lure Cicero the commander of the Jabin's army with his chariots and his troops to the river and give him into your hands What God is saying is I'm not asking Barack to be the leader of this group I am the commanding officer. He is merely my deputy This is an important ingredient for us to understand about how God works For example, if God asked you to do a job for him He does not expect you to do that job by yourself For example, if he asked you to teach a Sunday school class He simply asked you to be the mouth through whom he wants to speak to that group If He tells you that there's someone he wants you to tell your experience with God about He is not asking you to do that on your own He's saying to you if you will go to them and begin to speak. I will put the words in your mouth When God fights his battles when God does his work he does it through us But we are simply a medium through whom he works and speaks So whenever we get nervous about doing something God's asked us to do We're really ignoring how God works in the world So you say well, I can't witness to anybody. I could never do that But you can If God says to you I want you to go tell this person what just the story of your life and how I've affected you when you go Jesus said to his followers. Don't worry about what you're going to say for God will put the words in your mouth So whenever you say I can't do it because of my limited ability You're really giving excuse not a reason Because God has made a promise to us If you will do what I've told you to do, I will give you all the tools you need to accomplish that Now what you look at is you say? Well, I couldn't do that on my own. Well, you're right He's not asking you to do it on your own he's asking you to open your mouth and enact your brain and let him put the thoughts in your mind that you need to say and If you will do that He will communicate through you if you refuse to do that. He cannot do his work through you So all the way through the Bible this very critical issue is addressed to us God wins his victories through people But he never wins the victories because of people In other words, he's not looking for the brightest Light in the community to use he's not looking for the person with the best financial with the best communicating skills He's looking for people who are willing to do what he asks and if they're willing they will be able to open their mouth and say the wisest things they've ever heard and Be astonished that they were able to say them and even think them Because it's God speaking through them In this instance, it's different Barack is to go and he's to do he said to do get the army together march to Tabor and the Lord said I Will leer Cicero to Mount Tabor He would put it in the mind of that man that that's what he ought to do I'm going to put him in the position. I want him to be in so you can attack him and win this victory. I Will lure this commander Jabin's army with all of his chariots and troops to the river Now that wouldn't be a very comforting thing Because of the powerful military force this was but God was prepared to do something that they didn't have any idea how it would take place and His promise was I will give him into your hands This is the salvation part of these stories, I will save him through you through what you do All the stories in the Bible Let us know That whatever happens that people do That is significant in the kingdom of God is done because of the wisdom of God and the power of God and the ability of God and When we think That we have things down so that we can do the work of God without Asking God's help or depending on him or taking credit for it We set ourselves up for a great disaster Disaster Because God wants everyone in the world to know that he is the only one who saves He's the only one that changes a person's personality He's the only one that can cause people to forgive He's the only one in the world that can cause someone to be able to hold their temper and to return good for evil These are not normal natural circumstances for us They are the experience of God's power to change the way we think and the values that we hold on to So here's God's promise You do what I've told you to do. I've told you to get this many soldiers I've told you to go to the mountain. I will bring your enemy right in front of you. So the battle can be taken Barack said to her if you go with me, I will go but if you don't go with me, I won't go We see something that the lightning man reveals about his character, he's not a thunderman He's a little bit Insecure and what he's going to do. He knows that she speaks for God and He knows that God treasures her So he thinks if you go with me Then I will have the voice of God or the communication with God right next to me his lack of confidence and what God said Caused him to want to depend on another human being to be his support you know, it's kind of like just emotional security for us all the time, you know, I Mentioned this before but sometimes and Carol's gone, you know, I'll go to bed and I hear cracks in the house noise around the house and When she's there, I never I'm afraid whenever I hear those now she couldn't fight a dog, you know, it's just But just the fact that you have somebody there with you sometimes changes the status and circumstances in which you're in and if that person is spiritually powerful as Deborah was He knew that he had the voice of God and the words of God and the correction of God right with him So you can see why he'd be interested in having her go with him God may not protect me, but he's not going to kill her Because she's too precious to him. So he asked if she go with him Very well, Deborah said I will go with you But because of the way you're going about this the honor will not be yours For the Lord will hand so Sarah over to a woman now in this story. What do you think is going to happen? Does it sound like Deborah is going to win the victory and she's going to become the hero after all That's what the story is about Deborah the judge Well throughout this story there are hints and leadership in one direction or another and then this turns change Deborah starts out then she calls on Barack and he's going to be the hero Then he turns around says he's not going to go unless she does and then she says to him God's going to give this victory to a woman and it looks like in that stage that God has said, okay Barack I'm not going to let you win. But since you counted on Deborah and she's going to have to go with you She's going to be the one who gets all the glory for the victory that I'm going to give you But that's not exactly what happens So Deborah went with Barack to Kadesh Where he summons Zebulon and Naphtali 10,000 men followed him and Deborah also went with him Now the story sort of changes here and with a sort of side note we have Heber the Kenite that had left the tribe the other Kenites the descendants of Hobab and Moses Moses brother-in-law and pitched his tent in the great tree near xenonym near Kadesh this little piece of sort of Interruption in the story is setting the place for what's going to take place a little later on when Cicero When they told Cicero that Barack son of Abinuim had gone up to Mount Tabor Cicero gathered together his 900 iron chariots And all the men with him from Haroset Heguim to Kishan to the Kishan River now. We don't know how Cicero knew that these troops were gathered there Speculation didn't always help us because it's not honest or substantial But when the movement of these troops went Maybe it was Heber Who was a spy for Jabin he obviously had a treaty with Jabin so that Jabin and Heber were on the same side. They were connected they were they'd had a treaty together, so they were allies and Heber may have seen the movement of all these troops It was right by where he was and reported it to the enemy of Israel or the enemy of Barak now we know that there is another ingredient in this story a Different person is not a Hebrew. It's not going to be someone who's on their side But here another enemy force is brought into the story When they Then Deborah said verse 14 and Deborah said to Barak go This is the day the Lord has given Cicero to your hand has not the Lord gone ahead of you She Deborah takes her next important piece of significance She has this connection to God and she says to him God now says this is the time for you to go into battle Go and fight the battle and win the victory so Barak went down Mount Tabor followed by 10,000 men at Barak's advance the Lord routed Cicero and all his chariots and army by the sword and Cicero abandoned his chariots and fled on foot Now in chapter 15 whenever this story is told in poetry We find out a little more detail about this part of the story in chapter 14 When it says the Lord routed Cicero and all of his chariots and the army by the sword What we find out is these heavy iron chariots in the valley God sent a huge rain There in the fields Where they were trying to maneuver these heavy chariots The mud was so thick and so heavy that the chariots were useless So what God did was he took the chariots and made them instead of a great military power Against the army of his people. He made them worthless and useless So in the middle of this the people who thought they were having such a great opportunity to win Suddenly found themselves running on foot out of their chariots being chased by these other soldiers and With they had no weapons and no way to defend themselves or protect themselves. This is what the Lord meant. I Will win this victory for you now we don't often think of Miracles in terms of natural order and sometimes people say well, you know, this was a miracle and The Bible looks at miracles in a different way than something outside the order of nature The miracle is at this very moment when they're ready to go into battle a rain came now if you'd been there and you'd been and you knew as much about weather as we do and You had all the tools that we have you could have predicted maybe a day or two or three days ahead of time In this valley, it's going to rain and it's going to really rain hard But they had no way to know that But God had every way to know it so when he said To Deborah tell Barak now now is the time to go He knew something no one else knew It was going to rain and it was going to rain hard And those fields were going to be a quagmire and his soldiers would be able to sweep in and win this victory easily What's important for us to understand is we don't always know when we look ahead to the circumstances We face all the other things God has brought together Oftentimes, you know when I call to talk to someone They would say I've been wanting to talk to you Sometimes I'm afraid to call and ask to talk to him because I'm afraid they won't want to talk to me Afraid they want to want to be you know, I bother them But it always surprises me when they say, you know, I've been wanting to talk to you It shouldn't surprise me but it does Because it's so extraordinary That God speaks to two people at the same time in the same way to bring them together Here Brock had every reason to say why should we attack now? What's going on here? But he accepted the word of Deborah that the message of God was to attack They didn't know what was going to happen but God had already drawn the enemy into this mud pile and he was already bringing the rain and The victory was going to be certain and sure so in the middle of all this chariots back bogged down and Barak advanced and the Lord routed always notice this the Lord routed to Sarah and All his chariots and army by the sword There's the sword of the people of Israel, but they were helpless because of the confusion all their military plans We're going to have the chariots go and run over these people Then you soldiers come up behind and and wipe and wipe the rest of them out Now there are no chariots. The military plan is worthless and the soldiers of the Israelites Swept over them The Brack At Brack's advance the Lord routed to Syria and all the chariots and army by the sword and Cicero Abandoned his chariot and fled on foot verse 16 but Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as heresy a goim He went east he went west and Cicero fled east He followed the army that was running away and Left the leader of the army with no one to chase him all the troops of Cicero fell on the sword and not a man was left Cicero however fled on foot to the tent of jail Her name means mountain goat Didn't get as good a name as his Deborah however Cicero fled on foot to the tent of jail the wife of Heber now You know why he was introduced into this story the Kenite because they were They were there were friendly relations between Jabin king of Hazor and the clan of Heber the Kenite now we see that there was a Friendly contract between them they were allies in other words, so he thought he would be safe in Heber's family because there was a contract now the Covenant or contract that they made or treaty that they made together would have required Heber and all of his people to protect the followers of his friend who he had a contract or treaty with So he feels safe there Jail went out to meet Cicero and said to him come my lord come right in don't be afraid Now that sounds very appealing and attractive She sees who he is she recognizes him says she'll give him protection He won't need to be afraid so he entered her tent and she put a covering over him probably a sheepskin To hide him so if anybody came to look they could only see this skin on the floor I'm thirsty. He said please give me some water. She opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and then covered him up He gives her advice Here's a man in the tent of a woman married to someone else What if somebody came by and said is there a man in there Having a man in her tent would have been a very dangerous thing for her and a very dangerous thing for him So he said stand in the door If anyone comes and ask you is anyone here say no The jail Heber's wife picked up a tent peg and a hammer and Went quietly to him as he lay fast asleep and exhausted She drove the peg through his temple into the ground and he died you remember back when it talks about the Shamagar has was the Savior of Israel he took a Ox goad and killed 600 of the Philistines and now here we have a woman with a tent peg Who kills the archenemy of the people of Israel? Brack came in pursuit of the Syrian jail came out to meet him come. She said I will show you the man You're looking for so he went in with her and there lay so Sarah with tent pit with the tent peg through his temple dead The Conclusion on that day God subdued Jabin All the different people through whom he worked that God did his work in the last one Jail was a Pagan she was a Kenite. She wasn't even a Jewish person It sort of sounds like what happened when we hear of a hood who was not a Jewish man That God used him to rescue the nation of Israel Again, it's not Deborah who does it? It's not Barack who does it? It's a pagan lady who becomes the hero of this story the twist and turn in the story are amazing But what it does show to us is that God uses all the tools at his at his hand to accomplish his purpose JL didn't do it Barack didn't do it. Deborah didn't do it The Lord did it on that day God subdued Jaben This is our conclusion on that day God subdued Jaben We got is trying to teach us through all these stories from the beginning of the Bible to today is The is the problems that we face are never secured or overcome by our own ability And when people say things like I can't do that I Can't forget I can't forgive I can't they are right What the Bible wants us to understand is whatever God asks us to do He has the power and ability to give us the capacity to Do and accomplished what he set out for us to do and accomplish what he needs from us is the confidence that he will and The ability to step out and do it or try to do it before we're sure that we can God Always defeats our enemies. We don't do that We can't do that. And if you think you can you will find yourself deluded You may think you've won victories only to discover that the victory you thought you won spiritually Wasn't any victory at all God Defeated the enemy of his people because they said we need help and he had grace and mercy on them he subdued the Kate the Canaanite King before Israelite before the Israelites and The hand of the Israelites grew stronger and stronger against Javan the Canaanite King until they destroyed him Once they were willing to do what he asked them to do. The victory was secure and assured it's not only true of A person's life, but it's true of the church, too The church has no enemies that it faces that can stop it And Jesus talked to his people. He said even the gates of Hades can't stop you the church and The outside forces never stopped the church what stops the church from its work and causes churches to die Is the fact that they fail to believe that doing what God has told us to do Will succeed It causes them to think I can't do that. So they don't It causes people in the church to say I'm not talented enough or skilled enough or have gifts that I should and so they don't Where there are people who are willing to do anything God tells them to do his church always thrives And we're gonna have an opportunity in a couple of weeks to have a lot of people in our church whose Children come here and they love coming to this church and they love what they've done here And we hope the parents are seeing in their lives some things that are changed But what we're asking you to do Is we're asking you to focus your attention on people who need God's encouragement and support Sunday, we sit down went through a long list of people who are on our church row We have on our Sunday school row. We have 248 people on our Sunday school row and think last month our Sunday school attendance was about 80 people 248 and 80 of them Averagely came to our church It's a hundred and sixty people That are not coming Maybe some of them came and some of them didn't come to average it out. That's a lot of them that are not What we need to do is to look at those people who sometime or other came and said I want to be a part of this Sunday school or church and then somehow or other faded away or dropped out and Nobody talks to them. Nobody visits with them I'm gonna ask you That as we begin to look at these names That you will say to God if you'll show me someone on that list Who's sort of fallen by the wayside I will be willing to adopt them as a spiritual brother or sister in Christ and take the effort to get to know who they are if you don't already and To take the effort to build a relationship with them and encourage them in their spiritual walk They never would have come and joined our Sunday school our Bible study groups unless they wanted Sometime in their life to study the Bible