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Looking at the book of Judges here, we just kind of get into the story and set the scene. It kind of transitions us from the book of Joshua into the book of Judges. And the book of Judges is one of the most action-packed books in the entire Bible. Chapter 1, not so much. Chapter 1 is just kind of laying the stage, but good night. This book is filled with some of the most interesting stories in the Bible. Now, in the book of Joshua, we saw the children of Israel coming into the Promised Land. They've been wandering the wilderness for 40 years. They come into the Promised Land, and it's filled with all these other nations. And they were wicked, horrible nations that God wanted them to drive out, to destroy. And He didn't want them to inherit the land with these people. He wanted these people gone. He wanted them to slay them with the sword, drive them out of the land, whatever. And then they were going to inherit the Promised Land that was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Well, in Judges chapter 1, it explains some of the failure of the children of Israel to drive out some of these other nations. It's also covered in the book of Joshua. But in the book of Judges, he explains how many of them, the Judites, for example, they had to get the children of Simeon to come help them, because they didn't have the boldness to go do it on their own, that God would deliver it to them. So they get the children of Simeon to come, and then they don't win, they don't end up driving them all out. And they just start listing all the tribes that could not complete the mission. And it wasn't because God wasn't with them, because God promised that He would be with them and drive them out. It was because they didn't have the faith in many cases that they were afraid to take on some of these enemies. And so they just decided, well, you know, let's just let them dwell among us, and we'll just put them under tribute. We'll just tax them and charge them different money and everything. Look at verse number 6. It says, You see, the children of Israel were supposed to get rid of all these people. They were supposed to kill them, drive them out. But instead, they took this man captive, Adonai Bezek, and they cut off his thumbs and his big toes. Now where did they get that idea? From the heathen, because that's what Adonai Bezek had done. So they wanted to be cool like these other heathen. So they basically did the same thing and just kept this guy alive in Jerusalem as a spectacle, just kind of like a trophy that they defeated him. And so all throughout the chapter of 1, you basically just see that they're not obeying God's command. They're not completing the job. They're driving out some of the inhabitants and saying, Oh, this is fine. This is good enough. I'm just going to stay right here and let them live in the mountain, let them live in the valley, whatever. And we'll keep some of these guys alive, and we'll keep them as a prisoner and all this stuff. They're just completely disobeying what God told them to do. Well, because of that, look what happens in chapter 2. It says in verse 1, And I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land. That means make it kind of an agreement with them, a treaty with them. And he said, Ye shall throw down their altars, but ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have ye done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. And it came to pass, when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept. So the reason that they couldn't get the victory, according to this passage right here, is that because they were not complete in their obedience, because they were making leagues with some of these nations, letting them live in the mountain, letting them live here, putting them under tribute, taxing them, instead of just driving them completely out, God said, well now you're not even going to be able to drive them out. And some day you're going to wish that you had gotten rid of these people, because they're going to be a snare to you, they're constantly going to be attacking you, they're constantly going to be causing you problems. And part of the symbolism here in our life is that we think that we can play with sin in our life. You know, the promised land here is representing the Christian life, the victorious Christian life, and here they thought that they could have a little bit of sin in their life, just kind of put it in a certain place, kind of have it off in a mountain somewhere, or maybe just cut off the thumbs and the big toes like they did to Adonai Bezek, because of the fact that as long as we can have it subdued and under control, but the reality is that if you let a little bit of sin creep in, it just multiplies, it just takes over. You know, every big sin starts with a little sin. You know, no one just becomes a raging alcoholic and a drunk. It starts out, they're just a social drinker. You know, it just starts out with one beer. You know, it starts out with the gateway drug, and then pretty soon it's cocaine or whatever that's more extreme. And so these people are basically trying to play with sin, trying to keep it around and flirt with it, and because of that, they were not able to take the whole promised land over. There were these certain little enclaves and pockets of enemies, of the Parisites, of the Canaanites, of the Philistines, and these people that would basically vex them for hundreds of years to come. Now in the book of Judges, there's a pattern that happens over and over again, and that pattern is explained in chapter 2 verse 11. He starts out explaining. Basically, the children of Israel in the book of Joshua were worshipping God, they were following God's commands, they were doing what they were supposed to do, but in verse 11 it says that they did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baalim, and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt and followed other gods, or the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth. This is Judges chapter 2 verse 14. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of spoilers that spoiled them. And he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them, and they were greatly distressed. So here's what happened. As soon as the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River, you know, the walls of Jericho fell down, they defeated the Canaanites, and they basically took over the promised land, well then they started to get comfortable. And of course they didn't drive out all the enemies because they figured this is good enough, you know, we're good enough here. And they just started to get comfortable and started to get prosperous, and everything was going pretty good. Well as soon as things started going good, they pretty much just forgot about God. You know, they needed God when they're wandering in the wilderness and relying on him to give them their food every day in the form of manna. They relied on God when they had no homeland, they had to come across that river and face all these enemies and take over these cities, Jericho, Ai, etc. They relied on God, but once the battle was over, once there was no more fighting, once they were not under attack anymore, and they were prospering and doing good financially, all of a sudden they forgot about God and just started to worship all these other gods, and pretty much to pattern themselves after the heathen that were around them, after the wicked people that they had kept in the land. So look what God did. It says in verse 16, "...and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For it repented the Lord because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down unto them and cease not from their own doings nor from their stubborn way." So basically the book of Judges is a pattern, over and over again. Chapter after chapter you're going to see this pattern repeated. Everything's going great because they worshiped God, because they kept His commandments. Everything's going great. And then they get comfortable, they forget about God, or the next generation rises up after the judge is dead, and the children have not been taught the things of God, and basically they go into wickedness. Then how does God judge? He brings in another nation to come punish them. Whether it be the Philistines, the Moabites, the Midianites, that comes in and takes over and basically puts them in slavery, taxes them, oppresses them. Then they start crying out to God, oh God we're sorry, why did we do this? And then when they cry out to God and thank God for help, then He would send them a man. He would send them a judge that would rise up and deliver them from their enemies, that would preach God's word, that would get them back serving the Lord and following Him, and then they'd get back on board, and then as soon as things started going good again, then all of a sudden they would just forsake God, and the whole thing would happen again and again and again and again. It's human nature, and this is repeated throughout history, even just not in the book of Judges. So many times even in your personal life you can find yourself when things are going the best, not reading the Bible like you should, not making church a priority, not going soloing, not praying. You see when things are going bad, boy you're on your knees begging God for help. That draws you closer to God. David said this in Psalm 119 71, it is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn my statutes. Because many times our prosperity, and when we do well, that just allows us to get caught up in the cares of this world. And some of the bad things that happen to you in your life, it's just God trying to get your attention, trying to get you back following Him, because otherwise you'll get too comfortable, too apathetic, and too lukewarm. But when you're in the midst of a battle, when you're in the midst of a fight, you don't get apathetic, you don't get lazy. I mean that's when you're seeking God, that's when you're reading the Bible and memorizing it like never before, because you need it. You need God to help you, and we have learned that when the good times, to seek the Lord even in the good times so that He doesn't have to bring us through this kind of stuff to get our attention. You know, so that all these bad things don't have to happen before we'll turn to God. I remember when September 11th happened. You remember all these people just turning to God because they were afraid, because they didn't really know what was happening? I mean, looking back now, we understand what really happened on 9-11, but at the time, nobody knew what was going on. Just everything's great, everybody's going along, and then all of a sudden, and here's the way I heard about 9-11. I got a phone call from my dad, I was asleep because of the fact that I had worked a night shift the night before. We were doing a fire alarm in a school and we could only do the work at night. So I had worked really late the night before, because I was working at a late shift, and so I had slept in. So I get a call from my dad in the morning, waking me up, my phone rings, and I'm really tired, and he's just like, Steve, planes are crashing all over the United States, we're under attack, they're slamming into skyscrapers. He's like, planes are going down all over America. I mean, he made it sound like there were just hundreds of planes crashing, we were being bombed. He's like, you gotta come over to my house, because I don't have a TV or anything. So I get in the car, me and my wife hop in the car, I'm like, I don't know what's going on. So we go to my dad's house and start watching the news to see what was going on, and it turns out it wasn't quite 200 planes or whatever they did crash. But at the time, do you remember when they were saying that the casualties were like 100,000? Do you remember that? Because it turned out it was about 3,000. But do you remember if the numbers were around 100,000? Who remembers what I'm talking about? I mean, in those first few hours, they were saying there could be 100,000 people dead in those towers. Because it turned out there were a lot less people in the buildings than they thought and all that stuff. But the way the media was reporting it at first, they were talking 10,000, 50,000, they had all kinds of numbers out there. And when it happened, you didn't know if more attacks were coming, you don't know what's going on, you don't know why it happened. And a lot of people were turning to God at the time, if you remember. There were bars that would say like, God bless America, hanging on the outside of a bar. Do you remember that? And everybody turned to God. I remember going to church and there was a record attendance at church. I mean, we went to Regency Baptist Church and it was packed. I mean, it was packed with people. Everybody was there. People who barely ever came to church once in a blue moon all showed up because they wanted to seek after God because they didn't know what was happening. They didn't know what was going to happen with our country. They were afraid and that drove them to seek God. But when things are going good and just a few weeks went by after September 11th and everybody could tell that everything was fine, then all of a sudden, you just saw it all disappear, everybody went back to what they were doing, everybody went back to the same pattern. Sometimes it's bad things that drive us to a closer walk with God and when things go good, we back off from them. That's why it has to bring bad things into our lives sometimes. But all throughout the book of Judges we see that pattern. Let's look at chapter 3. In chapter 3, he starts to get into the actual judges specifically. Chapters 1 and 2 are pretty much introductory chapters. In chapter 3, he begins to explain what these different judges did. The first judge that's mentioned is Othniel, the son of Kines. This is Caleb's younger brother. The Bible says in verse 7, it says, So this man is basically the king of what today would be Iraq, Mesopotamia, the land between the two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. It says in verse 9, When the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up to the children of Israel, a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kines, Caleb's younger brother, and the spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war, and the Lord delivered Cusham, Risathaim, the king of Mesopotamia, into his hand. And his hand prevailed against Cusham, Risathaim, and the land had rest forty years, and Othniel the son of Kines died. So this man steps up, he judges Israel, he preaches God's word, he leads them out to battle, they defeat the enemy, they've been enslaved for how long? Eight years. They defeat the enemy, and then for forty years, things are going good. They're serving God. Everything's great. For four decades, and that's a long time. That's longer than I've been alive. And so for forty years, everything's great, but then they forget God again. It says in verse 12, When the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. Look at verse 14. So the children of Israel served Eglon, the king of Moab, eighteen years. But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer. Eud, the son of Gerah, a Benjaminite, a man left-handed, and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon, the king of Moab. It says in Eud, but Eud made him a dagger, which had two edges of a cubit length. Now a cubit's about a foot and a half long, so it's about an eighteen inch dagger. Basically, to give you an exact Bible definition of a cubit, it's the distance between the middle finger of a man's hand all the way down to his elbow. So it's about eighteen inches depending on the man. It says he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh. And he brought the present unto Eglon, king of Moab. And Eglon was a very fat man. And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that bared the present. But he himself turned again from the quarries that were by Gilgal and said, I have a secret errand done to thee, O king, who said, keep silence. Now, here's what's going on. Basically, Eud is the judge, the man that God is raising up, who's filled with the spirit of God, who's the righteous leader, who's going to defeat the enemies of the Lord. First it was Othniel, the son of Canas. Well, Eud basically rises up to judge Israel and they give him all this great present. So he comes into this big, fat king Eglon and brings this really rich, fancy present to him just to kind of butter him up and gain his confidence. So he gives him this great present and he's so happy and, oh, these people really love me. And he said to him, hey, I've got a secret errand for you. I've got a secret message. Nobody else can hear this. So this guy Eglon says, okay, yeah, yeah, send everybody out. So he sends everybody out and here's what he says to him. It says in verse number, let me find my place here. It says in verse 20, and Eud came unto him and he was sitting in a summer parlor, which he had for himself alone. And Eud said, I have a message from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat and Eud put forth his left hand and took the dagger from his right thigh and thrust it into his belly. Okay, so this guy comes in and says, oh, man, I've got a secret message for you. And he has this dagger hidden there and he's left handed. So that basically could come at him without him really seeing it because, you know, you expect people to be right handed. He pulls out this 18-inch dagger and just shoves it into King Eglon's belly, the Bible says. And it says in verse number 22, and the haft also went in after the blade. So, I mean, he put it all the way in, okay, to where there was none of it sticking out basically. And it says the haft went in, let me find my place, after the blade and the fat closed upon the blade so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly and the dirt came out. Now, the dirt there is basically just referring to what was in his intestines, you know, the waste that was there. That's an old word. Today we think of dirt as being just the soil and the earth, but it had a different meaning back when the Bible was translated. And it says, and the dirt came out, then Eud went forth through the porch and shut the doors of the parlor upon him and locked them. When he was gone out, his servants came. And when they saw that behold, the doors of the parlor were locked, they said, surely he covereth his feet in the summer chamber. So they basically come in to figure out why he's taking so long in this meeting. And, you know, Eud had basically escaped out the side and they come to the door and the king is just in this room and they're knocking on the door saying, you know, is he using the restroom, you know, what's going on? And they keep knocking on the door until they're ashamed, the Bible says. It says, behold, he opened not the doors of the parlor, verse 25, therefore they took a key and opened them, and behold, their Lord was fallen down dead on the earth. And Eud escaped while they tarried and passed beyond the quarries and escaped unto Sirach, and it came to pass when he was come that he blew a trumpet in the mountain of Ephraim, and the children of Israel went down with him from the mount and he before them, and he said unto me, follow after me, for the Lord had delivered your enemies, the Moabites, into your hands. And they went down after him and took the fords of Jordan toward Moab and suffered not a man to pass over, and they slew of Moab at that time, about ten thousand men, all lusty and all men of valor, and there escaped not a man. And then the Bible says in verse 30 that the land had rest four score years. So after this, for eighty years, God blessed them. For eighty years they had peace in the land. And what happened is, because basically Eud had killed King Egon, that basically demoralized the enemy, took them by surprise, then he got the armies together and it was easy to defeat them because they had this moral victory where they had defeated their leader before the battle even started. And so for eighty years they served God. For eighty years God blessed them, but then of course another generation rose up that knew not the Lord. It says in verse 31, And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew the ballistines six hundred men with an ox-goat, and he also delivered Israel. So we basically have had so far Othniok the son of Kenaz, we've had Eud, we've had Shamgar. The fourth in this succession is found in chapter 4. It says, And the children of Israel, chapter 4 verse 1, did evil again in the sight of the Lord, when Eud was dead. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor, the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Herosheth of the Gentiles. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel. So here we see that basically they've done evil again, they forgot God, they forgot all this works that he'd done, and God delivers them into servitude again to this Canaanite king. But as soon as things start going bad, just as always, they get on their knees and start crying out to God and say, Oh God, we're sorry, help us, please save us out of this hand. Look what it says at the end of verse 3, he mightily oppressed the children of Israel. So basically he's taken away their wages, he's taken away their food, he's putting them into bondage and servitude and slavery. It says in verse 4, And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time, and she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim, and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. Now what's funny is a lot of people take this passage right here in Judges 4, and they'll say, See, it's okay to have women leaders and women preachers and women presidents and women rulers of state, because look at Deborah! But hold on a second. Deborah was in power when they had done evil on the side of the Lord. Look at Isaiah chapter 3, keep your finger here. Keep your finger in Judges 4, Isaiah chapter 3. And by the way, let me just give you a great tip on interpreting the Bible. You can't always go by what people did to determine what's right. Go by what God said. Because the Bible contains two things. The Bible contains stories about what people did, and then it contains statements that God made. Now a lot of people in the Bible did a lot of bad things. Look at people like David, who had multiple wives. Does that mean that it's okay for us to have multiple wives? Absolutely not. The Bible says that God made them male and female, that a man should cleave to his wife, and that day two should be one flesh, and that what God has joined together, man should not put asunder. It was never God's will for a man to have multiple wives. But yet some people in the Bible had multiple wives. But people in the Bible committed adultery, committed murder, stole. That doesn't make it right. We don't look at just what people did. We look at what God said to determine what's right. And God said that marriage is a man and a woman, not a man and two women. And so we've got to be careful not to just look at a story about Deborah and say, see, this was the ideal situation. No, they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. This woman, Deborah, was judging them. But look at Isaiah chapter 3, and you'll see that the Bible teaches that when people basically rebel against God, part of the punishment is that women rule over them. Look if you would at verse number 11. It says, woe unto the wicked. This is Isaiah 3.11. It shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him. As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy past. Go back to the book of Judges. So look, God makes it clear that part of the judgment of God when a nation becomes wicked is that women begin to rule over them and children. And by the way, I don't care what anybody says. I don't care if this is popular or politically correct. The Bible says, I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. That's in the Bible. That's 1 Timothy chapter 2. It says, For Adam was first formed, and then Eve. And the Bible makes it clear that women are not the boss. Now you say, oh, you think men are better than women. No. Men and women are equal. According to the Bible, they're equal in value, they're equal in dignity, they're equal in their rewards when they get to heaven. But let me explain something to you. Men and women are different. Now I know that the modern day scientists that are so smart that they think that we came from a monkey and everything came from a big explosion will try to teach you there's no difference between men and women. The professor of Harvard got in trouble for saying that men are better than men, statistically. Did you hear about that? He got in trouble just for saying that they did a study because they have all these students that are some of the brightest minds. And they did this study, and it showed that men were better at certain subjects and that women were better at other subjects. And this man was attacked in the media, called names. I mean, he just had data. He just had facts. Let me explain something to you. Men can run faster than women. It's true. Men are stronger than women. Woo! I've done that before. I've challenged any woman to come up here and arm wrestle me, and no woman has ever beat me at arm wrestling in this church. And look, it's not because men are better than women. Does anybody want to challenge me right now? I'm going down. That's what I thought. But listen, I'm serious. Look, it's not that men are better than women. It's not that women are better than men. It's that they have different functions. It's like this. I have a dishwasher, and I have a washing machine. Which one's better? They both serve a purpose. If I put the dishes in the washing machine, I'm not going to have a good result. If I put clothing into the dishwasher, it's not going to do well to wash my clothes. Why? Because one's better? No, because it's a different function. It's a different application. Men have a different function than women. And today, the so-called feminist movement is telling women, Be like a man. Dress like a man. Act like a man. Talk like a man. And it tells us that if you're a woman, and you're going to really succeed, you're going to be the CEO of a company, and you're going to wear a little business suit around, and you're going to be the President of the United States, or you're going to be in Congress. Look, I will not vote for any female politicians. I don't care how good they are. I won't do it. Because I don't suffer a woman to usurp authority over a man. I don't believe it. In my house, I wear the pants in my family. I'm the boss in my house. The Bible says that wives are to be obedient to their own husbands. That's what it says. I one time showed that to a Christian so-called. I showed him in 1 Timothy. I showed him in Ephesians 5 where it says that wives are supposed to obey their husbands. They pointed at my Bible and said, Do you believe that? Yes, I do. Of course I do. It's the same Bible that has John 3.16 in it. And today, we have a bunch of homes that are like a two-headed monster, where the wife is trying to rule, the husband's trying to rule, and you have chaos. You have an unstable situation because there's no clear leader. When it ought to be that the man leads in the home. Not that he's treating his wife badly or being a dictator or she walks ten steps behind him like he's a Muslim or something. But that there's a final authority. That's it. And if women would follow their God-given rules, they'd be a lot happier. But they want to have freedom. Now look, does my wife wear a name tag? Somebody help me out. While I'm at work every day, does my wife wear a name tag? Does she have a uniform that I put her in? Does she clock in and clock out on a time clock? Does she have a surveillance camera watching her? Does she have all these deadlines that she has to meet? But she's in bondage, right? Poor Zuja is all locked up in this. She's in bondage. That's why she has credit cards, her own minivan. She does whatever she wants all day. But wait a minute. The women's lib crowd put on a name tag, put on a uniform, have a code of conduct, have somebody watching them all day long, have a boss on them all day long. They clock in, they clock out. They're told what to do all day long. That's freedom. You go girl. You know, it doesn't make any sense. Follow God's plan and don't get mad at the preacher who tells you what the Bible says. You'd be a lot happier if you'd follow God's plan. And men, you'd be a lot happier if you followed God's plan too. Get off your rear end and go to work and pay the bills. You'll be a lot happier. Let your wife do what God created her to do. Back to Judges 4. That was a message from our sponsor. Back to the story of Deborah here. Deborah is basically the judge in Israel. Is this God's ideal plan? Is this God's ideal situation? No. They've done evil on the side of the Lord. This is the situation that they've ended up with. Deborah does not want to be the authority. Deborah does not want to be the leader. Watch what she says. It says in verse number 6, Now this is not Barack Obama. This is a different Barack. So Barack was the guy who was supposed to be the judge. Not Deborah. And she's telling him, look, what are you doing? God has called you to lead this army, to go defeat these enemies, to bring freedom to the people of Israel. And so she's telling him, rise up, go do it. God already told you to do this. Why aren't you doing it? Watch what Barack responds. It says in verse 8, What is wrong with this guy? He's like, well, you have to go with me. Come with me and I'll do it. You've got 10,000 guys going with you. Is 10,001 not enough? You've got to have this woman going with you? So watch what she says. She says, okay, I'll go with you. And she said, I will surely go with thee, notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor, for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose and went with Barack to key this. So now the woman is not Deborah. She comes up later. But basically she says, look, I'll come with you, but because of your fear and cowardice, because you were too timid to do this on your own, you are not going to get the glory. Now look, let's face it, Barack is not really a very common baby name. Who's ever heard of anyone else named Barack besides Barack Obama? But who's ever heard a sermon preached about Barack in the Bible? Before today. I know you're listening here right now. You know, this guy isn't really a glorious Bible character. Who's ever heard sermons preached about David? King David. David and Goliath. What about Gideon? You've heard preaching on Gideon. Yeah, every hand's gone up. Samson. Who's heard about Samson? You know, all these judges in the Bible, you pretty much hear about them. This guy doesn't really get the glory here because he doesn't really play a huge part in this story. Even though God wanted him to be the leader and be the judge, because of his fear and cowardice, the victory was going to go into the hand of a woman by the name of Jael. And we're going to get to her in a minute. So basically he says, OK, she says, I'll go with you, but basically it's going to go into the hand of a woman. So they go out to battle. The Bible says in verse 15, And the Lord discomfited Sisera and his chariots and all his hosts with the edge of the sword before Barack that Sisera lighted down off his chariot and fled away on his feet. So here's what happened. Barack has his army of 10,000 men. Him and Deborah take these troops out to battle to defeat the Canaanites that had them enslaved. Now the king of the Canaanites was Jabin, but he had a captain of his host, which was like the lead general, and the general's name was Sisera. So this guy Sisera is leading the battle, while Barack and his troops basically defeat them, and they defeat all the 900 chariots and so forth to where this guy Sisera is running away on his feet. I mean, he's throwing off his horse. He's just fleeing away on his feet scared. Let's see what happens. It says in verse number 17, Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Canaanite. For there was peace between Jabin, the king of Hazor, and the house of Heber the Canaanite. So basically this is an ally of Sisera's. This is an ally of his wife, named Jael, who has some tents set up, and she's watching over the flocks and so forth. It says in verse 18, And Jael went out to meet Sisera, this is a woman, this is the wife of one of his allies, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me, fear not. And when he had turned unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle. And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink, for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. So basically he comes in, he's been running, he just got out of this battle, he barely survived with his skin. And he comes into the tent, she puts him to bed, puts a blanket over him, you know, he says, Oh man, can I have some water? She opens a bottle of milk and gives it to him. Watch what happens, and he says, And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little milk, you know, or a little water, she gives him milk. Again he said unto her, verse 20, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and inquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? That thou shalt say, No. So he's basically telling her, You know, lie and say that I'm not here. Just if anybody asks, nobody's here. Then jail Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground, for he was fast asleep and weary, so he died. And behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, jail came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples. So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel, and the hand of the children of Israel prospered and prevailed against Jabin the king of Canaan until they had destroyed Jabin the king of Canaan. So basically, what this woman did, who knows what your temples are? That's this soft part of the side of your head right here on each side. Basically, she waited until he was asleep, the bad guys, Sisera, and basically took one of the spikes that was holding the tent in place, removed one of the spikes, and came and took a hammer and basically drove it through his head into the ground. And basically, again, that defeated their... I mean, the army was already being defeated, but this woman was the one that basically defeated the leader, the general. And so basically, Israel again had freedom, and God blessed them, and everything was going great. Chapter 5 is just a song of triumph about how they defeated them. Look at the last words of chapter 5, just the very last words. It says, And the land had rest forty years. So after God gave them this great victory, and each time they're defeating an enemy that has way more, way more resources, way more troops, way more soldiers, way more horses than they did, but God gave them the victory through all these different circumstances. Once they won, once they had peace, once everything was going good again, for forty years they served God. For forty years, they obeyed His commandments. For forty years, everything was great, and at the end of forty years, it says they did evil. Verse chapter 6, verse 1. The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years, and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Now, we're not going to read this one. I'm just going to tell you the story here for the sake of time of Gideon. Who's heard of Gideon before? Put it up your head. Now, Gideon is born into this time where for forty years they've had peace. For forty years, God's been blessing them. He's a fairly young man at this time, and they're in servitude to the Midianites. The Midianites are ruling over them. They're taxing them. They're taking a big chunk of what they grow, what they earn, and basically, Gideon is working on a farm that grows wheat. Okay? Well, Gideon's trying to hide some of that wheat because he doesn't want to give it all to the Midianites. They're taking everything they've got, so he's threshing the wheat secretly, trying to hide it from the Midianites so that they don't take it away from him. Well, while he's doing that, an angel of the Lord comes and speaks to Gideon, and he says, God is with thee. He tells Gideon, God is with you, thou mighty man of power. And Gideon says, if God is with us, if the Lord is with us, you know, where are all his miracles? Where are all the great things I've heard my parents tell me all the stories about how God delivered them, how they crossed the Red Sea? He says, you know, I don't see it. We're in bondage. We're in slavery. And the angel of the Lord explains to him and says, look, the reason that you're in slavery, the reason you're in bondage is because even your own father is an idolater. Even your own dad is worshipping Baal. Your whole nation is worshipping other gods and doing all these wicked things. And so he said, before I can use you, the angel tells Gideon, before I can use you to free your people and bring deliverance, first, you're going to have to throw down the altar of Baal that's in your father's house. That's step one. You know, you need to get rid of the idolatry and the wickedness. So he says, okay. And he goes by night, because he was a little bit fearful. He went by night, and he tore down his father's altar to Baal, you know, worshipping this false god of Baal. He destroyed it and tore it down. Well, in the morning, everybody in the town wakes up, and the altar of Baal is destroyed. You know where they're worshipping and they're worshipping Baal? It's really Satan. Because a member of Jesus in the New Testament called Satan Baal-zebub. And in another place, he tore it to Beelzebub, okay, which is Satan. So they're worshipping this satanic religion. And they wake up in the morning, and the altar is destroyed. The altar is broken down. And they say, who did this? Whoever did this can be put to death. And somebody said it was Gideon that did it. You know, and they said, well, bring him here, we're going to kill him. Well, Gideon's dad steps in, the one who built the altar. He steps in and says, wait a minute. If Baal is a real god, you know, maybe Baal can judge this. Maybe Baal can punish him. You know, is Baal even real? You know, and he basically explains to him, you know, why are we even worshipping Baal? You know, and he basically, it kind of gets everybody's attention and gets them thinking about the fact that they should be worshipping Baal. So because of that, now that he had passed that test, Gideon, God is going to use him to lead the armies of Israel to defeat the Midianites and bring freedom to his people. Well, he gets an army together of 32,000 men. That's a pretty big army, right? Well, it sounds big, except for look at chapter 6, verse 3 of Judges. It says, And so it was that when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up and the Amalekites and the Judah of the east, even they came up against them, and they encamped against them and destroyed the increase of the earth till they come unto Gaza and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor ass. So basically they took away all their food, all the money that they had to buy food. They just took everything these people had. And it says in verse 5, For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude. For both they and their camels were without number, and they entered into the land of the destroyed. So this is a pretty big army, right? God says, I'm not even going to bother numbering it. It's too big to even count. It was like a horde of grasshoppers. Their animals were without number. They themselves were without number. I mean, we're just talking about a mass of troops. Other places in the Bible, there were armies that were hundreds of thousands. The biggest army in the Bible was 1.1 million. Huge armies. This was a pretty big army. We don't know the exact size, but I guarantee you that it was at least several hundred thousand men with camels. Well, Gideon is able to get 32,000 troops together. It seems like he's totally outnumbered, right? 32,000 versus hundreds of thousands. I mean, they have more than ten times the troops, and they have all these camels that Gideon doesn't have. Watch what happens. Look at chapter 7. It says in verse 2, And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give them any knights into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, My known hand hath saved me. So basically God's saying to him, you have too many troops with you because I'm afraid that when you guys win, you're going to say, yeah, we won. We had the powerful army. We did this in our own strength, and I'm not going to get the glory. So he said 32,000 is too many. Gideon's like, what? 32,000 is too many? He's already severely outnumbered. So watch what happens. He says in verse 3, Now therefore, go to, Proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and depart early from Mount Gilead. So he says, if you're scared, just get up real early in the morning before anybody sees what you're doing and just kind of sneak out and leave. We don't want you here. So if you're scared, just get up real early tomorrow morning, just leave, just quietly, just get out of here. Well, it turns out that 22,000 people left, okay? He's got 32,000. 22,000 said, okay, we're scared. See you later. So they got up and rose up and left. It says in verse number, the end of verse 3, and they returned to the people 20 and 2,000, and they remained 10,000. And the Lord said unto Gideon, the people are yet too many. They're still too many. Now, before we look at this, keep your finger here. Go back to Deuteronomy chapter 20. Keep your finger in Judges. Fifth book of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 20. You know how they asked them if you're afraid, and then he said, if you are scared, just go home? They were supposed to have done that anyway. God didn't even have to tell them that, because God had already made this rule back in Deuteronomy. Then no one had to fight it. They didn't want to. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 20, verse 1. It says, when thou goest out to battle against thine enemies and seeest horses and chariots and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them. For the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. So in verse 1, we see first the command, be not afraid. It doesn't matter how many troops they have. It doesn't matter how much equipment they have. If I'm with you, you're going to win. He just said, just fear not. So first he commands them not to be afraid. Then in verse 2, he says this, and it shall be when ye are come nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, and shall say unto them, Hear, O Israel, ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies. Let not your hearts faint. He's telling them again, Fear not, and do not tremble. Neither be ye terrified because of them. And if there's any other way to say it, don't be afraid. It's like four different ways. Don't let your heart faint. Fear not, don't tremble, don't be terrified. You get it? And then he says, For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you. And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man is there that hath built a new house and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicated it. And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard and hath not yet eaten of it? Let him also go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man eat of it. And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife and hath not taken her? Let him return unto his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her. Now look at verse 8, this is the key. And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? You know, even though we told you like five times not to be. Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart. Okay? So go back to Judges. He basically tells them, If you're scared, if you're afraid, God commanded them to send all the scared people home. You know, we don't need them. They're just going to, because fear becomes infectious. You know, terror and fear spreads among people. Panic spreads. And he said, We don't want one person to be fearful and to make everybody's heart faint. So just go home, if that's you. That's what they did here in Judges 7, but God said, Nope, you still have too many people. He said, The people are yet too many. Chapter 7, verse 4. Bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there. And here's what he does. He has them go down to the water and drink out of the river. And basically, God tells Gideon, there's two ways that these people are going to drink. Some people are going to stick their face all the way down into the water and just start drinking up the water. Others will cup their hands like this and lap the water out of their hands. And he said, The ones who lap the water out of their hands, those are the ones that you're going to take to the battle. And all the ones who put their face down in the water to drink, they're all going to go home. Okay? So here's what happened. It says in verse 6, And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand in their mouth, was 300 men. But all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water. So basically, you know, Gideon's like, Are you sure you didn't have that the other way around? You want to send these 300 people home? No. Those are the 300 people you're going to take with you. So now Gideon has 300 men only. And he's told, you know, You're going to defeat the Midianites with these 300 men. And he's just thinking, What? You know, are you crazy? So here's what happens. He goes to the battle and God tells him this. God gives him a special plan. He says, I want you to break into three groups of 100 each. He said, I want you to take a pitcher in one hand, he said, with a lantern inside the pitcher and a trumpet in the other hand. And he said, I want you to take these three groups of 100 men and surround the camp of the Midianites, which is just hundreds of thousands of troops. And he said, I want you to surround them and then when you get the signal from Gideon, basically he's going to cry out and say, The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. You're going to break open the pitchers and expose the lanterns and then blow the trumpets. Okay? So they're, you know, they're okay. I mean, they basically just had to do this by faith. I mean, God, it's a strange, it's a strange plan, but God told them to do it. So they go out there, they do it. They break the pitchers, they blow the trumpets and cried out, The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. Now they're surrounding them, but there's only 300 people. There's only 300 trumpets. It's a huge crowd. But God basically performed a miracle here and caused them to hear the sound as if it was the sound of just huge armies coming at them on all sides. And he made them to hear a sound of, you know, all these great armies and they felt like they were totally surrounded and being attacked from all sides. They panicked and just started trampling each other because this is the middle of the night, they're asleep. So they just get up, they start trampling each other. They're accidentally killing each other thinking that they're the enemy and they basically just have confusion. They're defeating, they're defeating each other and then they all just flee and run away trampling upon one another just in panic because they don't know what's happening. Well, these 300 men are chasing after them, but there's, you know, hundreds of thousands of them running away and there's only 300 men chasing them, but they don't know that. So these 300 guys are just chasing them, you know, just after them. Well, once these 300 guys are chasing them, then the rest of the Children of Israel start to hear about how the Midianites are losing, how the Children of Israel are defeating them. Then basically all of a sudden they want to get in on the winning battle. You know, now that it's a winner, they want to get in on it, you know. So then all of a sudden all the multitudes and tens of thousands of the Children of Israel come out and start to pursue the Midianites as well. And the way it is in battle, you know, when you're on the run, when your back is turned to the enemy, you're in a bad place. You know, you don't have any fortifications or anything like that. You're in a real bad position. And so therefore the Children of Israel defeated the Midianites, delivered them from the oppression that they were under and so forth. You know, that's just a few, that's just getting us through Chapter 7. But all throughout the Book of Judges you'll see the same pattern played out over and over again. We just went through, we saw, you know, Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, we saw Barak and Deborah, we saw Gideon. It goes on throughout the rest of the book, this pattern. Of the Children of Israel doing evil in the sight of the Lord and he brings punishment, he brings judgment. This is always the way it is in this world. We get prosperous, we get comfortable, things are going well, we forget about God, we get too caught up with our house and our cars and our business. We get caught up with all the cares of this world, all the fun and prosperity, and we feel like we don't need God. And then our children grow up thinking that God's not that important, soul eating's not that important, the Bible's not that important, prayer's not important. And then they grow up and do wickedly in the sight of the Lord. That's what happened all throughout this book. And then God brings judgment. That's where we're at in America. There have been some generations in our country of righteous people, of godly people. But yet today their children, the current generation, has forgotten the Lord and instead of going to a real church that preaches the Bible, that teaches what the Bible says, that preaches God's Word, they choose to go to the entertainment centers, they choose to go to the entertainment center, the mass entertainment center with the rock and roll and the spotlights and the soft soap sermon, the 15 minute, you know, God loves you, love your neighbor, good God, good sin, cold hell, you know, in Jesus' name, amen. And basically that's what people have chosen today and they're not worshiping the Lord, they're serving other gods. You know, they've got all these new Bibles because they don't like what the Bibles say. They don't like some of the words that the Bible used or the Bible was too hard, they want something easy to understand. They want something that's simple because they're a simpleton, because they're a fool, because their mind is so filled with TV and rock and roll that they cannot comprehend a normal English sentence anymore. Because they've been dumbed down in the public school system. Because instead of reading and studying God's Word, I mean, my children don't have any trouble understanding the king's English, it's because they were born and raised on it. But when you're born and raised on PlayStation and Super Nintendo and TV and cartoons and artificial sweeteners, you know, and then you wonder why you can't understand the King James Bible. And then you want to dumb down God to fit you instead of making yourself more intelligent to fit God's Word. You know, you want to just change, let's just change the Bible to fit me because I'm dumb. Because I refuse to learn. Because I don't read. Because I just want to play around all day and have fun, fun, fun, and not do any work or study or reading or anything that has value in this life. You see, today we've forgotten about God and we have a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. Going to a church that's nothing more than a fun center where you don't learn anything from the Bible. I mean, most people in America today have never even heard of these stories that I just preached. They've never even heard of E. Hud. They don't even know who Barack is. They think it's Barack Obama. They don't even know the Bible story about Barack. They don't know Deborah. They don't know Shamgar. They don't know Othniel, the son of Caleb. They don't even know who Caleb is, Othniel's brother. They may not even know who Gideon is. They've never even heard these stories. But ask them about Robin Hood. They'll tell you all about it. Ask them about Batman. You know, the only reason they know about Robin Hood is because they just came out with the 17th Robin Hood movie. You know, and Batman 12 just came out, or whatever. Superman. Oh, wait, wait. Spongebob. Oh, yeah, I know him. You know, Gideon, huh? Adam and Eve? What? Adam and Steve? No. Adam and Eve, my friend, man. You know. Oh, uh, uh, square pants? No. And people today don't know the Bible. They don't know God's Word. It's just like in the book of Judges. They forgot the Lord. And let me tell you something. If you don't know who Adam and Eve are, if you don't know who Samson is, if you don't know about David and Goliath, if you don't know about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, if you don't know about Peter, James, and John, and the Apostle Paul, you forgot the Lord. You know, just because you have some religion about some spirit in the sky somewhere, that doesn't mean that you're worshipping the God of the Bible. Today, people have forgot the Bible. They forgot the Lord. They don't even know the story. They don't even know who they are. They think they know what Christianity is, but they've never even read the book cover to cover. Yeah. They've been spoon-fed 1% of it. 1% of it that's been hand-picked by some pastor somewhere that decided, well, this is the part I'm going to give you. Let me tell you something. We're going to find ourselves in the same place. You say, why preach on the book of Judges? Why preach on all these crazy stories? You know, is it just for the entertainment value? Well, let me tell you something. Judges is a very entertaining book. And if you've never read the book of the Bible, Judges, cover to cover, I challenge you to go home this afternoon and read it. I challenge you to shut off your TV, shut off your video game, and put away all your comic books and fun books, and why don't you just pick up the book of Judges and read it and come back tonight and tell me what you thought about it. Tell me what you learned from it. Read the hardest chapter, chapter 1, at the beginning of the service. So start in chapter 2 and read the whole book and tell me what you learned. It's time to crack open the Bible and read it. You say, why preach the book of Judges? Because we're living in a time that's like the time of the Judges, where we've forgotten the Lord and we're serving other gods and therefore God's judgment is coming. And now, if we're smart, we'll do like the children of Israel did whenever God's judgment came. What did they do? We saw the pattern five times. What did they do when judgment came? What did they do when things got bad? What did they do when they were oppressed? What did they do? They turned to God. They prayed unto the Lord, they cried out to God, and they asked God for deliverance. And what did He do? He sent them deliverance. He sent them a man. He sent them somebody to rise up and lead them, or maybe a few different people to lead them. But He sent deliverance when they turned from their wicked ways and cried out to Him. Unfortunately, that's usually what it takes. I wish the people during the good times would just seek after God and read the Bible. But it takes you losing your job or having a death in the family sometimes before you turn to God, before you turn to His Word. It takes you becoming ill and going to hospital. You get so sick of watching the golf channel that you finally pick up the Gideon Bible, hopefully it's the King James Version anymore, and read it, because you just can't stand another round of golf. But really, you should have read that Bible when you were at home, healthy, feeling good. But many times God has to judge us and chasten us before He gets our attention. Why preach the book of Judges? Because we need to understand that the same God of the book of Judges is the same God who is on the throne right now. God never changes. He said, I am the Lord, I change not. Hebrews 13 says, Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever in the book of Judges and now it's the same God, the same commandments, the same principles, the same thing that God's attuned of Israel to trouble in the book of Judges is the same reason why America is in trouble. We need to get on our knees and beg God for His deliverance and turn unto the Lord. And by the way, if you've never read the book of Judges, you need to read the book of Judges. Know what we're facing. Know the God we're dealing with. Get to know God by reading His Word. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much for this book, dear God. And I thank you for the warnings, dear God, that we have in the Bible, the stories about punishment, but also the great stories about deliverance, dear God, and courageous people who won the victory through boldness, dear God, through following your commandments. God, I pray that you help each and every one of us to be diligent to teach our children the Word of God so that they don't grow up and forget the Lord like many of these people's children did. Help us to train up and teach our children to fear you. Help my children, dear God, to know these stories, to know these events from the Bible so that they don't forget them and therefore be doomed to repeat them, dear God. Help them to learn the lessons from this story and not have to repeat it in their own life before God gets their attention. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.