We'll see you next week.
Man, Judges 11, we have the story of Jephthah,
and the first thing I want to point out before we get into the story of Jephthah
is that Jephthah is mentioned in the New Testament, very briefly,
but in Hebrews 11, which is known as the Hall of Faith,
where you have all these great men of faith listed,
and you go down through the list, you know, with Abel, down through Noah, and Moses,
and, you know, all the big names, but at the end, he says,
And what shall I more say, for the time would fail me
to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Jephthah?
So in the list of guys that he doesn't have time to go through,
he mentions Jephthah as being another man who did great things for God by faith.
So even though there are some negative things about Jephthah in the story here,
we want to realize that he's still a man who God used greatly.
He was a man of faith, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him.
Now, God, throughout the Bible, uses imperfect people.
He uses people that have serious flaws in their character,
and truth be told, we all have flaws in our character.
Every single one of us is a sinner.
There's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not, the Bible says.
There's none righteous, no, not one.
Some people's sins are more grievous than others.
Some people have bigger problems than others.
But throughout the Bible, we read about people who do some pretty wrong things and bad things
because of the fact that the Bible is about real life.
Now, it always cracks me up when I run into somebody out soul winning,
maybe he's a Vietnam veteran or something,
and he'll come at me with this thing of like,
you know, I saw some stuff over there,
and that's why I don't believe in God,
or that's why I don't believe the Bible.
You know what I'm talking about?
Have you ever run into somebody like that,
where they've seen some gnarly things,
and they lost faith in God?
You know, if you actually know the Bible,
the gnarlier the things you see in this world,
the more you're like, wow, the Bible really is right on,
because the Bible's a gnarly book.
Now, if the Bible were all sweetness and light and unicorns and rainbows,
and then you go over to Vietnam and see that stuff,
then you'd wonder, is the Bible really true?
Because the Bible is painting this rosy picture of the world,
and the world is this rough place.
But let me tell you something, there are some dark things in the Bible,
because there are some dark things in our world,
and the Bible matches reality.
Over the past few days, I'd put out some videos about Islam and the Koran.
I was responding to some things that the Muslims were saying,
and one of the things that the Muslims love to point out is,
oh, the Bible's so bad, because you have prophets in the Bible doing bad things.
You have David committing adultery with Bathsheba,
and they go down the list of negative things done by men of God and prophets,
because their book, the Koran, is such a cheap, cardboard, lame story.
It's not even a story, but when it tells a story, it has no storytelling ability.
And one of the biggest, just most obvious differences
between good literature and bad literature
is that good literature has complex characters.
Bad literature is just like the bad guys are just like super bad,
and the good guys do no wrong, and they're just perfect in every way.
It's like a cartoon or something, like Krang, Shredder.
I'm thinking of cartoon characters from my childhood.
They're not very complex of a character. They're just bad.
But in the Bible, even the bad guys will sometimes do good things,
or the good guys will do bad things, but isn't that how real life is?
And when I look at the Bible stories, I'm seeing reality.
I'm connecting this and making it relevant with experiences that I've had
and experiences that I'm going to have, whereas the Koran is just junk.
It doesn't tell real stories about real life, and it's really just a boring book.
Obviously, the Bible is more than just a fun read, but it is a fun read.
Thank God if we're commanded to read the Bible every day,
at least thank God it's got some great stories,
it's got some really complex characters,
it's got some things that really make you think,
not just kill the infidel, burn them everywhere you find them.
It's so one-dimensional. It's not even good literature.
That's why no one outside Islam studies the Koran,
whereas tons of people outside Christianity study the Bible
and consider it just for its literary value alone.
And so this is one of those complex characters, Jephthah, okay?
And people with very small brains that are very simple-minded
just want to put everything in a box. Was this guy good or bad?
Well, he's a good guy, but there's some bad stuff about him,
and he's a complex character.
So you might have to actually think a little harder, you know, God forbid.
But you'd have to actually analyze the story.
But here's the great thing about it. You could read this story,
and ten years from now we're going to still be reading Judges 11,
and it'll still be interesting.
And we'll be gaining new insights. We'll be looking at it from new angles.
You know, you read the Bible five years from now,
it's not going to speak to you exactly the same as it did five years ago
because it's so deep. There's so much to learn.
There's this layer upon layer of meaning.
And that's why we can read the Bible over and over again our whole lives
and never get sick of reading it.
And what a blessing that is.