In the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord,
even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel.
Then shall the people of the Lord go down to the gates.
Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, utter a song, arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive,
thou son of Abinoham.
And I wanted to stop here and of course point out this important phrase, lead thy captivity
captive.
The reason why it's important is because this is going to be repeated in the book of Psalms
and then it's going to be quoted in Ephesians about the Lord Jesus Christ, okay?
So keep your finger here, flip over to Ephesians real quick.
Go to Ephesians chapter 4, this is an important thing to mention so might as well stop and
touch on it.
Ephesians chapter 4, the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 4, while you're turning there I'll
start reading verse 4, there's one body and one spirit even as you're called and one hope
of your calling.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through
all and in you all, but unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure
of the gift of Christ.
Therefore he saith, when he ascended, he is Christ.
When Jesus Christ ascended upon high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men.
Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts
of the earth?
He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might fill
all things and he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and so
on and so forth.
So the Bible talks about here that Jesus led captivity captive and it brings up the fact
that he ascended up to heaven but that before he ascended up to heaven, he first descended
into the lower parts of the earth.
So when Jesus Christ died on the cross, a lot of people just think, oh, he just went
straight to heaven, right?
Died on the cross and boom, straight to heaven.
Well no, because before he ascended, he first descended into the lower parts of the earth.
Now we know that when he ascended was actually after he spent 40 days with his disciples,
showing himself alive over the course of 40 days and teaching them and instructing them
and then he ascended up and they all watched him go up in a cloud and then the angels came
and told them this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come and
like man as you've seen him go into heaven, right?
That's the ascension.
What's the de-sension?
Well, the de-sension is that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, remember he has the sins
of the whole world upon him.
He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him.
So Jesus Christ, when he's on the cross, took upon himself all the sins of the world.
The Bible says his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree.
So when Jesus was on that cross, he in his body had all the sins of the world.
I mean he embodied all that sin.
He became sin for us.
So when Jesus Christ was on that cross, that's why it became totally black and dark upon
the face of the earth and Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why hast thou forsaken me?
So God the Father basically turned his back on Jesus in that sense.
The Bible says that God is of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity.
And so because of the fact that Jesus Christ embodied all that sin and became sin for us
and took upon him the sins of the world, that broke fellowship between God the Father and
Jesus.
Fellowship was broken.
Before that, they'd had fellowship.
Even before the world began, they had love and fellowship and communion.
And then when Jesus is on this earth, you know, he's in constant communication with
the Father.
He's praying to the Father.
He's doing the things that please the Father.
The Father even spoke from heaven a few times and said, thou are my beloved son in whom
I'm well pleased and encouraged him.
And so this is broken at the cross.
There's this rift at the cross between God the Father and Jesus.
And so Jesus says, my God, my God, why is that forsaken?
He didn't say, did you forsake me?
Why have you forsaken me?
So guess what?
He was forsaken.
Because of the fact that he is being punished for the sins of the whole world.
So God the Father turns his back upon him.
Okay.
So when you think about Jesus Christ dying for the sins of mankind, dying with all the
sins of the world upon him, you know, then it makes sense that when he died, his soul
did not go to heaven.
His soul went to hell for three days and three nights because of the fact that he's
inundated with all that sin.
You know, where, where is a sinful soul going to go to hell?
Now obviously Jesus did not do any sins.
There was no guile found in his mouth, but he who knew no sin became sin for us.
So he, the Bible says, descended into the lower parts of the earth.
That is referring to going to hell.
And he was in hell for three days and three nights.
Now the reason that this is using the word captivity is because hell is sort of like
a jail cell.
If you think about it, it's, it's a, it's a prison.
And the Bible talks about the devil being in hell for a thousand years and the end times.
And then it talks about him being released from his prison.
Okay.
So hell is referred to as a prison or as a jail.
That's where souls are held captive there.
They don't want to be there, right?
Nobody wants to be in hell.
They're being held there against their will.
So that's a type of captivity.
All right.
And so we see here that Jesus led captivity captive.
What does that mean to lead captivity captive?
Well, if we understand the story about Barak, then it makes more sense.
Barak starts out as a person who's living in a country that's not a free country.
He is in captivity.
Yes, the Israelites are in their own land, but they're still in captivity because they
are captive to the Canaanites.
And so Barak led his captivity captive.
And what that means is that he turned the tables on the captors, right?
So think about this.
If you're a captive and then you turn it around and you take your captors captive, you've
led captivity captive.
Makes perfect sense, right?
So that's what Barak did.
He gets them on the run.
Now they're his captives.
He led captivity captive.
So what does it mean when Jesus led captivity captive?
Well, Jesus went from being in hell to then three days later resurrecting from hell.
But here's what he said.
He said, I'm he that liveth and was dead.
And behold, I'm alive forevermore.
Amen.
And have the keys of hell and of death.
Now that's leading captivity captive when you basically are sent there as an inmate,
but then you end up with the keys.
That is leading captivity captive.
Jesus Christ went there with the sins of the world.
That's how he went in, right?
But then he arose victorious, having conquered death and hell and saying, I have the keys
of hell and of death and you know.