God's Unconventional Ways of Salvation

hand and drove off our enemies. God has saved us again. So the story is not told in a way to identify who he is, because he may not even have been an Israelite. The story is not told to say, well, the Israelites sinned and God put them aside, God took his hands away from them, because it doesn't fit all the rest of the salvation stories. But they record it because here God has acted to save them from an unusual and difficult way. Now, all these others, they're going to talk about what happens. We've sinned. God says, OK, I turn my hands loose with you. I'm not going to help anymore. And then they get in more trouble. And then they begin to plead with God for help. And he responds to them and they can see that he's responding to their cry by raising up one of their own and empowering that one of their own with all the strength that he needs to be able to defeat their enemy. They can see the hand of God at work. But here they only see the result of God's power at work. So they want to record it in the story of God's saving action, but they do not have the information that allows them to talk about all the rest of the things that God might have done, because all the rest of these people are Israelites and they can tell them what happened and they can talk about what's happened. But here is someone that the Israelites may have even been hiding while all this fighting was going on. And after it was over, came out and found out what had happened. God saves us, helps us, redeems us, takes care of us in so many different ways. We talked about this before and we went all the way through the book, how God's grace comes to the people of his own people. They rebel against him. They turn against him. They're not doing what they're supposed to do. And he sells them or gives them away to their enemies. And then they're in such distress. He hears their cry and he looks around at someone who will listen to him and he says, let me pick you. If you'll do what I want you to do, I will deliver my people through you. They see this pattern over and over. But here is one that's different. God just saves them. They don't know how. They don't know who he was. They don't know what he did. They don't know anything about him. All they know is we were oppressed. And all of a sudden, this man Shamgar came, ran out our enemies and disappeared. I think it's in the Bible to let us know that there are multiple ways by which God saves and changes us. The normal pattern is we get a need. We pray to God. Christian brother or sister comes along, helps us out. We say it's great to be a part of the family of God. But he works through so many different ways to save us. The end result is always the same. He too, that word in there, he too saved Israel. So we look at God's saving power and we see him acting through his own children, and we know that's the way it works. But there are other ways he works, too. In addition to the ways that we see normally in this book. Now, in chapter four, a different kind of story is told, just like this is a shortest one of these stories. Verse thirty one of chapter three. Now we're going to find the same story told in two different ways. The same story is found in chapter four that will be found in chapter five. But the difference between these two stories is that one of them is written in ordinary language, the way we would describe any historical event. And chapter five is written in Hebrew poetry. So if you read these two stories, you read chapter four and you read chapter five together, you will see they cover basically the same ideas. But you will see in chapter five the way Hebrew poetry is written. It's written different than just ordinary language, like we would write a story for ourselves. So we're going to have to take it in two different ways. Now, the first one, chapter four, is the is the basic description of what took place. And in this description, it's sort of like the events that happened after he died. Now, you'll notice that this starts off in the same way. Verse thirty one does. So we get an idea that there is a connection here between the story that precedes precedes Ehud and this story. So the story of Shamgar comes in between them somewhere. It was probably placed in after the story of Samson's because Samson killed all those people with the jawbone of a donkey. And this man killed a bunch of people with one instrument also. So they thought about it there. But here the writer has placed it here because there's a connection between the story of Ehud and these two stories. So in between, there seems to be some story about what took place that we don't know about except for the deliverance after Ehud died. And it's just telling us that this is subsequent to that. The Israelites once again did evil in the eyes of the Lord. So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, the king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of this army was Sesera, who lived in Horeseth Haggameen, Haggayim, Haggayim. That word is a Hebrew word for nations, people, all people. And it really, the two words together mean an organization of nations, like we would say the United Nations. It's a description of a city that was the headquarters for the empire. And it claimed to be ahead of the empire, not just that small area, but like all of the world. And we see the same thing in the word caliphate that we see with the Islam claims. That word means one leader of all people who are followers of Islam. And so that word has a special meaning. This one here does too. It's a word that describes all of the world was found here in the headquarters of this particular location. Because he had 900 iron chariots and had cruelly and cruelly oppressed the Israelites for 20 years, they cried to the Lord for help. So we're starting with the same kind of pattern that's been used to in the past. The story starts again. After Ehud died, the Israelites once again did evil in the eyes of the Lord. That phrase is used over and over again throughout the story. Remember what he means by that. He doesn't mean they broke the Ten Commandments. It doesn't mean that they sinned once in a while. What he's talking about with each of these is they became like the people who were not followers of God in their lifestyle. We would say, for example, about a church person or a follower of Christ, that they were living just like the people who never went to church and never followed Christ. They had adopted the lifestyle of the people who were not followers in the Old Testament of Yahweh. We would say about people like that that they live without regard to Christ, without regard to his teachings, without regard to living in obedience and submission to him. That was their big crime. It means that they had rejected the authority of God to direct their lifestyle. Now, I want you to understand this and just really bear down on it. If you had gone up and down the streets of any place in Israel where they were, and you'd stop someone on the street and say, Do you believe in Yahweh as the God of the world? They'd say, Yes. Do you worship him? Yes, we go to make offerings all the time just like the Old Testament, the scriptures tell us to. But what they were doing was they were compromising on the lifestyle that they lived. They did this for their Jewish faith and they lived like pagans around them in their lifestyle, their character, their nature, their behavior. And, you know, that's common to a lot of people who are in church, you know. They live like the devil all week and then go to church to get forgiveness. That's what he's talking about. Your lifestyle should be shaped to be like God 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So when he's talking about the people of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord, that's what he's talking about. And it's primarily only the first commandment. You're to have no other gods before me. Because what he means by this is, I am the one who should control the way you live and the choices you make. And if anyone or anything in the world controls your choices except me, then I am no longer in control of your choices. You can't have two people driving the car at the same time. One of them is going to get control and take it wherever they want to take it. So there can't be two drivers to your life. Either God is driving your life, guiding you as to what you ought to do and where you ought to go when you speed up and when you slow down, or Satan's doing that. This is the fine line that God gives. So what makes him angry is they did evil. They were Canaanized. That's what we're calling it. So the Lord this time sold them into the hands of Jabin, the king of Canaan. You know, sometimes he talks about he gives them to him. Here he talks about selling them to him. Both of them are the same basic thing. God turns loose of them. But here, whenever he talks about this, it really sounds like he's saying he's getting rid of them, like you sell something that's no longer yours. That's not, of course, what he does, because he still sees them as people he has promised Abraham to protect and guide. But what it tells us is that he has broken the covenant with them. I will no longer do the things I told you I'd do. I will no longer guide your choices. I will no longer provide your needs. I will no longer protect you. I will no longer make sure that your life is a powerful influence for good to the people around you. Those are the four covenant promises that God makes to all the people from Old Testament and New Testament to follow him. So now I've turned loose. I'm no longer going to keep my end of the covenant because you have broken yours. Their covenant promise was we will do everything you tell us to do. Now they were not doing that. So he starts again with that circumstance in which they are. So the Lord sold them to the hands of Jabin, the king of Canaan. Now, if you go back to the book of Joshua, you'll find there is a Jabin in that location too. And he lived in Hazor and he was the king of Canaan and Hazor. So it appears as if that story maybe is being retold here. Some people think it is because they're a hundred years apart. But Jabin probably was the name, a title that was given to whoever the ruler of Hazor like the Pharaoh. There are many Pharaohs, but when we talk about Egypt and Pharaohs, Pharaoh is the title like our title president. You say the president did something. We have to stop here in our country and say, OK, what year was it? So we know who the president was. So Jabin was probably the title that was given to the person who ruled the nation that he was in, the nation of Hazor, the king of Canaan who reigned in this city of Hazor. Now, the Bible talks about Hazor three different times, three different ways. First, it tells about the time when Joshua took over the city and killed it and completely destroyed the city. And then in Solomon's reign, Hazor is rebuilt. And it's a long, long time after this. So when you look at those, you say, well, how could this guy be here when it says it was rebuilt only in the day of Solomon? Well, the city Hazor doesn't mean it was right exactly at the same place, and it doesn't mean necessarily that it was rebuilt completely, but it was the headquarters for this king. That's what it's trying to tell us. So we get a general location about where it was. The commander of his army was Cicero. Now, this name Cicero is the same as the one that we saw before with Shamgar. It has three, it has four, four consonants in it. So it's not a Hebrew name and it's not either a name that is normally associated with the Canaanites. It's a name that comes sort of out of the tradition of the Philistines. You know, you can pretty well tell something about where people are from, what country they're from by their name. You see a name, it's clearly Chinese and you know it's Chinese. You pretty well guess that's what it is. You see names that are pretty common to be Muslim names, so you know that's their nationality. And when we read these in the Bible, we're not familiar enough with them to identify these names with particular nationalities. But the name that's given here, Cicero, is not a name that was found in Hazor, that nation. It's more a name that would be coming from the Philistines. The Philistines were people that were, sometimes they were called sea people, because they came from somewhere outside this part of the world. And like the United States, or like people from Europe came to the United States on boats. And whenever you see pictures of the Native Americans and you see the people from England or Spain who came there, it's easy to tell these people are foreigners. Well, this name identifies this man as a foreigner to the nation he was in, and he's not an Israelite. So he probably was a mercenary soldier. You know, many wars were conducted over the period of history by people who hired soldiers to come in and fight their battles. So this appears to be a man who's a commanding general who has an army who's hired out to Jabin to fight his battles for him. So in this structure, then, the people of Israel find themselves in a difficult spot because Hazor has been rebuilt. Jabin, the pharaoh or the king or the president, whatever his real name, whatever his real title would be, called Jabin here, is now in force and he's ready to enforce on them the law that he holds. And he's got himself a powerful general to lead his army. There are two things in this story that jump out at us when we begin to look at this. Because he had the commanding of the commander of the army was a Sera who lived in Horosheth Haggoyim because he had 900 iron chariots. Now, we already saw back in chapter one that the people of Dan were going to take the part of land given to them, but they couldn't do it because the people there had iron chariots. And so they even refused to go to battle. Here now, he's talking about a man who has a fortress of iron chariots and there were 900 of them. Now, whenever he talks about iron chariots, it doesn't mean like we would look at maybe some of those that were in the Roman days when there were iron wheels and iron, I don't know what you, whatever kind of cart you'd call where you sat in it, wherever bit of it was iron. What they were, what they were, were mostly wooden chariots, but they were reinforced around the place where the man riding the warrior would be standing with iron. So if you shot an arrow and he was behind that, it wouldn't hit him. If they'd been all metal, they would have been very difficult to maneuver around. But they were wooden chariots, but they were reinforced with iron. This was the most advanced military equipment that was possible in the world at that time. Before this, the horse was seen as the most powerful military force because you're fighting in a battle and a big horse comes charging at you and run right over you. Now, here's a chariot with a horse or two horses in front of it. And the soldier then is standing behind metal so that your sword, he can hide behind it so your sword won't affect him. You can throw a spear, he can duck behind that and protect him. He can hide from the arrows that you shoot at him. He can see them coming and duck and get behind that. This was the latest military technology. And he had 900 of them. The nation of Dan, when they started trying to settle, saw that this soldier, that the people they were fighting had some iron chariots. Now the people who are here see this Jabin with 900 of them. They're traumatized by this. Dan wouldn't even go to battle because there were a few. Now they have no hope whatsoever of being able to protect themselves. It's like we're sitting here and we know our enemies have atomic bombs and they can drop them on us. And they send us a letter saying, you don't do what we tell you, we're going to drop an atomic bomb on you. No defense against it. Vulnerable. So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin and Jabin has the power to be able to control them. That is beyond anything they could imagine they would ever defeat. And then Israel and then he had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for 20 years. So they had been under this threat for 20 years with this army that he had and the military weapons that he had. But he also was a very cruel governor. He oppressed them. The idea is to press down on someone, push them, squeeze them. And there was two tribes in that area and they were squeezed by these armies, pressed in on them. They were taking their territory and land. There's nothing they could do about it. So the scene is set. Here's a circumstance. The people of God have sinned again. God has taken his hand away from them and now they have a man with 900 metal chariots. And he's a mean fellow. And they have no hope. Oftentimes, when we find ourselves in circumstances, we think we're like this, I don't see any way out of this. But the Bible is trying to help us see over and over again that all the way through history, God has dealt with people who have no hope. They sit down and look at the circumstances they're facing and say, there's not one thing in the world I can do about this. And so they get overwhelmed. They have somebody who is pressing in on them, giving them constant trouble and pain. And they just feel like every time I turn around, that person or that circumstance is overwhelming me. What he's helping us to see is our circumstances are not much different than what the Bible has seen over and over again all through the years. And the people of Israel were overwhelmed and they cried to the Lord for help. What happens to us oftentimes whenever we ask God for help is we ask God for help and he helps us and we get used to seeing, OK, God can do this much. But then when it gets worse, we tend to lose faith. Well, I know he can help me do this, but this problem is so big, I don't see any way in the world God can help me. But the Bible is showing us is that over and over again in the history of God's dealing with people, he's found his people in circumstances like that. And what he wants us to understand is it doesn't matter what the circumstances or difficulties are that we face. God has the power to deliver us. You won't have a problem bigger than God. You won't have a difficulty greater than his power. You won't ever face anything that is overwhelming to you that God can't overwhelm. Nine hundred metal chariots. No one will ever be able to help us out of this. That's what they thought. If you have a situation to get into like that, this is a story you need to read. For God is telling us it doesn't matter how bad the things are around you. You know what's going to happen. God's going to save them. Would you bow your heads, please? I just want to ask you if you have something that's really a burden to you, a difficulty for you, maybe beyond anything you can do to change it or help it. If you're willing to say to God, take my life, I will learn what you want me to do and I will do it the best I can. I will put aside everything but obedience to you and I'll live exactly as you want me to. I trust you to take care of the disaster that I'm in. It can be something so overwhelming you can't ever imagine you'll ever be able to overcome it. It could be some pressure on you that's greater than anything you can ever resist and you're just boxed in on every side. God can always rescue his people. He doesn't rescue strangers. He rescues the people who live in obedience to him. And so, Lord, we're going to leave this story with people in the very worst of circumstances. But we know that you have a way of helping them. So if we get in circumstances that are terribly difficult this week, remind us of this story and bring us to the book to read how you dealt with it. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.