The Role of Judges and God's Deliverance

Othniel is the judge in this story, the first one of the judges in this book. I want to start reading at verse 7. We looked at that last week and I want to finish, pick up at verse 9 to reflect on this evening. The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. That's the first thing that he always talks about, about the tribes in each of these circumstances. He explains why they forgot the Lord their God, which he talks about, talked about them being Canaanites, that is becoming like the Canaanites, serving the Baals and the Asherahs. And God's response to it was the anger of the Lord burned against Israel. So his result was, here sold them into the hands of Cushon Rishiathim, whose name simply means double evil, twice evil or double evil, the king of Aram and Naharim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years. So God's response to this is to say, I turn loose of you. In this way, he's talking about them as if they were sold away, like sold slaves, so that they'd be slaves of these other rulers. Verse 9, but they cried out to the Lord and he raised up for them a deliverer, Aphneel, son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, who saved them. God's response was, whenever they cried out to him, and all the way through the book of Judges, and even if you look back at the story of the Exodus, God's response was for the people to cry to him, to express their pain and anguish and difficulty they were going through. And because they were his people, he responded with compassion to them. And here's the same kind of language. God cries out and sees their agony and their pain. And so he does these three things. He raises someone up to be able to help them, who delivers them, and he saves them, rescues them from the hand of the enemy. Now, the person that he uses to do this is Aphneel, who is not someone who has been canonized. In the beginning of this book, in the beginning of the book of Judges, he talks about the difficulty that he's had because people have strayed away from what God wanted. And they had married into the family of the people who were in Canaan. He had explicitly told them they were not to do this because it made the family a divided family. They could not maintain their integrity of worshiping Yahweh God, the God of the Jewish nation and our God, if their families were split so that the husband or wife was worshiping the gods of Baal and the other spouse was trying to worship Yahweh God, then they would be divided. Their loyalties would be divided. It would be impossible for them to have the unity that God wanted them to have. So he emphasizes here, Aphneel is the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. Caleb was one of the leaders in the nation of Israel. So he was an Israelite faithful to the God of Israel. And he was the one that God used. The language that he uses to describe in verse 10, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, is common to the Old Testament. It describes that the Spirit of the Lord came to them and oftentimes in the Old Testament it gives them power to be able to do something or it gives them wisdom to be able to do something. Sometimes it's even seen as the ability, for example, when they were building the tabernacle to give people a skill like a craftsman's skill to be able to build the tabernacle. So when the Spirit of God comes on them, it doesn't mean necessarily that there was anything like visible that took place, but that they were able to do the work that God had given them with the kind of proficiency that was needed. Now we think about this in the New Testament when you look at the book of Acts and you see in the book of Acts that unusual circumstance where the people of God were there and the Spirit of God came in the room like flames of fire over the head of each person and everyone there heard the sound of a mighty wind so that the Spirit of God came on them. We think of this as if the Old Testament did not have the same presence of the Holy Spirit there. But the Holy Spirit is the part of God's triune nature that connects with human beings. God connects to us, and we use it in the computer industry to say it's interfaces, and it has to have the same kind of language to be able to interface. So we have a spiritual nature in us, and God is spiritual, and He connects to us not through our ears or through our eyes or through our touch, but He connects to us through the spiritual nature of our lives. That is a part of us that has the spiritual dimension that animals do not have. That way we're the inmate in the image of God, and it's how He connects to us. He connects to us in all kinds of different ways. He tells us that we've done something wrong. He affirms us when we do something right. He guides us to do the right things. He helps us to give choices so long as He's the Lord of our lives. If He's really the Lord of your life, if you've said to Him at any time, I commit myself to live in obedience and submission to you, then the Spirit there is available to connect with you. He's always in people around us. He's the one that tells people when they do wrong, even if they're the worst kind of criminal. But He's working now whenever people are yielded to Him in a different way by guiding them and by providing for them and protecting them and making their life an influence to the world around them. That's what He does. So the stories tell us in the Old Testament that here He comes into the life of this man. He's not the leader of the nation, Caleb was, but he's a genuine Israelite. He had never compromised himself to the gods of Baal. And unlike the other Israelites who married women who were in the nation of Canaan, he did not. He married the daughter of Caleb. The story is found in the first chapter of Judges. From there they advanced against the people living in Debir, formerly called Kiriath-Sephir. And Caleb said, I will give my daughter Aksa in marriage to a man who attacks and captors Kiriath-Sephir. Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it, so Caleb gave his daughter Aksa to him in marriage. So we see that he not only was a faithful Israelite, but he also married someone who was an Israelite. So he had what God wanted as a home united under the authority of God. So the Bible lets us see in this first Judge that he was a man that God chose because of his faithfulness to what He asked of him. But he wasn't a great man. I mean, he wasn't the king or a necessary leader in the army. But the Spirit of God came on him. Now when the Spirit of God came, it gives him wisdom to know what to do. It gives him the ability to make the choices he needs to make. And it gives him the power to be able to do what needs to be done. So the Lord now has called him to this job. I want you to now come and become the one through whom I will deliver and save my people. God had already called him. And when He called him, He empowered him to do what he needed to do. There's not any difference in the New Testament in this pattern than in the old. When God gives us a call as to what He wants us to do, I mean by that, you know for sure that you should do something. Something good. Something that you know God would approve of. Something that you know is placed in your mind. And when He asks you to do that, the result is He empowers you to be able to do it. So many people know something that they should do that God wants them to do. But they're hesitant to do it because they look at their own ability and their own wisdom and intelligence. And they look at the tasks they have. And they look at their own skill and they see the difference between those two. And it frightens them. All the way through the Scripture, the pattern is the same. God says, I want you to do this job. And when you start it, you will have the ability to be able to accomplish it. I will give you the wisdom to be able to make the right choices. And I will empower you to be able to do whatever is needed to do it. So the Spirit at work in the Old Testament is doing the same thing that the Spirit at work in the New Testament does and in our age. God lets people know what He wants them to do as He did here. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Him so that He became Israel's judge. He gave them the ability. Now the role of the judge, when you think of this, you think of a guy in court sitting behind a table and asking people to give them the evidence that they need and making a judgment. But the judge in each of these instances, when you go through the story, he's not just someone who makes decisions about legal issues, but he is someone who tells the people what God wants them to do too. He instructs them about what God wants as well as being able to help them make the right choices consistent with the instructions or what the Old Testament, what we call the law, what God wants His people to do. We would say about that that he's like a preacher or he's like someone who is a counselor who's saying to the people, this is what God wants you to do. And they come and say, tell me what to do next. And he has their answer for them, a guide for them. So he's a judge in this sense, not necessarily a prophet because he didn't speak about the future or about what God is trying to do more than the individual life of the person. Prophets generally spoke about circumstances for the nation or bigger pictures, but he acts in a way that lets the people of Israel know what he wants. So God fills someone with the Holy Spirit, the same spirit that guided Jesus' life and that comes into the life of a believer who yields themselves to God. And he gave them the ability to lead the people of Israel. So he was elevated to the place where he was the most significant leader in the nation of Israel. And then he gives him the ability to become a general leading the army of Israel so that Israel went to war. So he was called by God, empowered by God, and set out to be able to go to war. God came to them. They went to war. He gave them then, as a result of this, you'll notice how this works, the Spirit of God comes on Othniel and empowers him and gives him wisdom. But whenever the Bible talks about it, it is God who accomplishes the mission. That's really an important ingredient for us. If you do something, God asks you to do something for him and you take that step and you're surprised at the result that comes out, you should never take credit for that. You should always stop and remember how you felt before you started trying to do what you know God wanted you to do. Remember that the end result is the result of God's activity in your life. That way you're always aware that the result is outside of what you have and what your ability is and what your skill is. So from the very beginning, God teaches us how to be able to walk with him. The Spirit of the Lord came on him. He knew what to do. He became the judge of Israel and he was effective at that. He led the people then to go to war, to drive out those who had captured their country. The result was God gave Cushion Rishiatim, this double evil king, to Othniel. God gave the victory to them. This pattern is a pattern that's going to find all the way through the story of Judges and all the way through the Bible. They overpowered this king and the land had peace for 40 years until Othniel, son of Kenaz, died. The story always ends by talking about how the period of time for the victory of the king or the judge at that time lasts and it lasts his lifetime. And then when the judge dies, the people forget about God and they start becoming even more canonized until the next disaster comes along. So this time it was 40 years. Another thing you'll find all the way through the book of Judges, they talk about periods of time in terms of units of 20. 20, 40, 60, 80. We don't know exactly why they do that, whether they're trying to get some idea that 40 years is a generation so that you see it's for one generation or 20 years is a half of a generation or 80 years is two generations. We don't really know why. But all of the length of their rescues are always in multiples of 20. So here he's in 40 years or one generation normally. The next judge now arrives on the scene, Ehud is his name, and verse 12, once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Now whenever he talks about this, each time he does the same thing here that he did with the first judge. Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Now there's a world of difference between what a person sees to be right or wrong and what other people would see. I suppose you've discovered that, you're married, you discover that sometimes what you think is a wonderful thing, the person to whom you're married doesn't think it's so wonderful. And you have different perspectives on what's taking place. The Bible lets us know that it's not a matter of what you think is right. I hear a lot of people talk about the things that they do and they say, I don't see anything wrong with that. Well, with regard to God, that has very little standing. For God sees things from his own perspective and if you want to see his perspective you read the Bible. You see what the commandments are. You see what the teachings of Jesus are about. And he measures us to get this standard. And the fact that we don't see anything wrong with it has to do with our perspective. In other words, if I, Carol took a trip and she went to visit with her son and his wife and they had a baby. And when she's gone, I sort of move my office on our kitchen table. And if you've seen my office, you know that's not a pretty sight. And there's stuff stacked up here and there and yonder and I don't see anything wrong with that. And when she's been gone a week and she's coming back, she has a whole different perspective on the kitchen table than I do. And it can be drastically different. So you have a lot of people who live their lives and they say, I don't see anything wrong with what I'm doing, the choices I'm making. But God sees things differently. And if you went to court and you told your story in a law, in a case and it's over, and the judge says, I find you guilty and I judge in favor of your opponent. If you bolted up in your seat and said to the judge, I don't see anything wrong with what I did. You think he would reverse his opinion? You've been in court and probably seen some of that take place. No. And if a judge on human terms has that kind of confidence, God has even more. So it's very important that we ask God to tell us what we're doing right or wrong, because that's a basis on which he judges our spiritual lives and our physical lives. So once again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Now, we know what that is. They were being canonized. They were marrying into the families of those pagans who lived in the land. They were involved in idol worship that were opposite of God. And they were failing to be obedient to the instructions that God gave them, to have nothing to do with the people that lived there, to intermarry with them or to worship their gods. And because they did this evil, the Lord gave Eglon, the king of Moab, power over Israel. Now, early in the story of the Exodus, the nation of Israel came to the nation of Moab. Now, if you remember that story, it's a story that they hired Balaam, who was a prophet, to come and give a curse to the nation of Israel. And Balaam, well-known in that area for being a prophet, having contact with God, came and he looked out across the... he's asked them to take him to a mountain. He looked out across the Israelites' camps where they were, and he was hired to give a curse on them. But when he thought about it, he knew that these were the people of God and he couldn't give a curse. So he couldn't even get it out of his mouth. They tried three different times to get him to do it and he couldn't. God stood in the way to protect the people of Israel from the Moabites. Now, because they're in the land and they've canonized themselves, no longer does he stand between them and the Moabites. Because they've stepped over the line. It's like God draws a circle and says, in this circle you're safe. And they get outside the circle. So they did evil. And because of this, the Lord gave Eglon, the king of Moab, power over Israel. Before he said, he sold them into the hand of their enemy. Now he simply says, God gave their enemy power over them. Now, if the Israelites are reading this story, they know what this is about. They remember the time that they were getting ready to go in the land of promise. They had wandered through the wilderness. They didn't have any army. They didn't have any military skill. And here was the nation of Moab with all their military might. And they had called the prophet to prophesy against them. And God stopped him dead in his tracks. And he presented them in their helplessness before Moab. Now that they've come into the land of promise, and they have driven out many of the people who were there. And their military power had been demonstrated. And they were now seasoned veteran fighters. They had driven out of the heart of the nation of Israel, the people who were from Canaan. And now the Moabites, you see, these were people from outside of Canaan. They had invaded the country. And they were now enemies of the people of Israel who were trying to clear out the rest of the land. They could remember the time in which God stood between them and Moab. And God told them that he did it then because the people of Moab were descendants of Lot. Abraham, Lot was a nephew of Abraham. And so because of that connection, Lot came up with Abraham out of the Chaldees. And God had led them to be together. And Abraham had let Lot choose the prime land that he wanted. And God was blessing him. And when they came up the first time, he said, you're not to fight with these Moabites, they're your relatives. Now because they've crossed over this line, God has withdrawn that protective shield. Not only has he withdrawn the protective shield, but instead he has given Eglon, the enemy, the power to overcome them. What Balaam was supposed to do was to curse the nation of Israel so the Moabites could conquer them. And God stood in the way of that. He blocked it. Now not only has he removed that blockade, he empowers their very enemy to come and attack them. And Eglon did it this way. He got the people on his side, the Ammonites and the Amlekites. The Amlekites were a constant enemy to the nation of Israel. And he had made a treaty between himself and the other two countries. And now they came with power to be able to conquer these people that before even the Moabites themselves could not do. Now he gives them power and the ability to attack them. So Eglon came and attacked Israel and they took possession of the city of Palms. The city of Palms, if your Bible has notes, it is the city of Jericho. You remember when the people of Israel came into the land of promise and they conquered Jericho, God made a promise that there would be never anybody who would be able to build that city and prosper from that city. It was to be cursed. And Eglon came in and made that apparently his capital for his conquering the nation for the Canaanites and the Israelites who were there. The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for 18 years. Now when it means that they were subject to him, it means that they were captured. And whenever a foreign country comes in and captures them, then there is a tax usually given to them to support the king and all of his armies. So they were no longer free to be able to do what they want. Instead this king, Eglon, was now their ruler. The Moabites and the Israelites had a longstanding conflict between themselves. This story that you're looking at is sort of a funny story. To the Israelites it would have been. The Moabites are a constant enemy and now the person who has captured them, the previous king that captured them was double evil, double wicked. This king's name is Little Bull. That's what Eglon means. It's an attempt to reflect their king as if he were sort of a dunce. You're going to see later on in the story he's overweight and not only that, the story also talks about all the Moabite fighters as if they are stout or fat or overweight. So the Israelites reading this story would see a little funny story right here. The king of our worst enemies is just a baby bull. He's not really a person of significance or value or importance at all. And he's not really a king, he's a doofus. The story as it unfolds makes him look even more and more foolish as the story goes on. But you see the point is, as much as he's a doofus and as much as he's ridiculed, Israel became subjects to the Little Bull, the king of the fat Moabites, for 18 years. If the doofus, who's the king, has the ability to have control of your nation, what does it make you? There you go. So in reading this story, the Israelites see in this story that God writes here what's happened to them. They came into the land with all kinds of power and authority. They drove out the enemy before them when they had no skill to be able to do it. God did such miraculous things as let them walk around the city of Jericho and just the walls fell down. Over and over again He gave them strategies that allowed them to win victories. And now that they've settled in the land of promise, failing to keep the things that God asked them to do, they're controlled by a sort of idiot, a person who's a joke. It's like, you know, if you're a strong man and you have all kinds of power and a little child comes in and knocks you out and you're laying there cold on the floor. What does it say about you if a child can do that? The story is letting us see how far down or degraded the people of Israel were because they abandoned God and they allowed themselves to do the things that they shouldn't do. We've seen in the first story how the Spirit of God comes on an insignificant man in the nation of Israel and gives him power to drive out the most powerful nation in the world at that time. That's what Othniel's power was about. He defeated one of the greatest military powers of his time, just a small-time sergeant in the army because the power of God was on him. Now that conquering was done, 40 years goes by, Israel's thinking about how great they are, how powerful they are, all the strength they've had, all the success they've had, and the first thing you know, here is some doofus who now has control of them. He's exacting payment so that their taxes now are paying for the army that's keeping them in control, and he is a joke, and they are a worse joke. So the story starts with a rather demeaning picture of Israel, captured by an enemy that God used to protect them for, an enemy that God empowered to defeat them when they had far better military strategies and soldiers, and the worst of it was, the guy who did it was really a joke. So the people of Israel were subject to the king for 18 years, verse 15, and again the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer, Ehud. The Bible doesn't say that the people of Israel confessed their sin, nor that they asked for forgiveness, but just that they said, God, we are in trouble. It's a very powerful thing here for us. No matter how far a person wanders away from God, no matter what your life has been like away from God, he hears the cry of people who need help, and if there is a genuine need in the life of a person, and they recognize the authority of God, and they call on God for help, he hears and responds. Don't simply think that the only people God responds to are people who are righteous and holy and have never done anything wrong and are doing everything right. God responds to the needs of people when they call on him. Don't discourage anyone you meet from praying. They may not have the guidance and wisdom to know how to pray without learning how to listen to the Spirit of God, but if people cry out in anguish and pain, God will respond. His love for the world is declared, not just in the cross of Christ, but in all these stories. Here he's rescued these people. They've turned their back on him. They brought all this on themselves, but when they're in deep pain and they say, God, help us, God responded. Would you bow your heads for a moment, please? The stories of the Old Testament are stories about the nature of God, how he listens to people who are in pain and anguish, and how he responds to our prayers. What is it in your life that you think God wants you to do? What is it you think he's asking you to do? You may see in your own mind that it's far beyond your ability and skill, and it sure is if God is asking you to do it. And I challenge you to take a step of faith and do what you know God wants you to do. When you start, you'll start with your own strength, but when you take that first step, you'll find the power of God is there that has allowed you to take that step. I'd like to ask you to ask God to open your eyes to the people around you who are in desperate trouble and need to know that they can call on God for wisdom, direction, and power if they are willing to allow God to control their lives. Father, we're thankful for the picture you give of yourself, a God of compassion, but a God with great principles and high principles. We know that you do not tolerate our rejection of you or ignoring you, that you bring judgment on evil. But even when you bring judgment on evil to the people who are caught in that judgment, you are prepared to listen to their cry and appeal for help. Help us to be messengers to the world about what you require and what you can do to change the course of human life. In the name of Christ, we pray that you will not allow us to be canonized by our culture or our world, but instead to be shaped to be like yourself. In the name of Christ, we ask this, amen.