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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . mighty man the man who's listed in the hall of faith in hebrews chapter number 11 as a positive figure he made a vow unto the lord let's take a look at that vowel look at the rest of the verse and said if thou shalt without fail deliver the children of amin into my hands verse 31 then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me when i return in peace from the children of amin shall surely be the lord's okay so he look at his language here okay he's like whatever comes out so he's thinking probably he's thinking an animal you know he's thinking you know whatever goat or you know whatever animal comes out you know that's what's going to be offered okay now look at how he's going to do this offering and i will offer it up for a burnt offering okay i'll offer it up for a burnt offering we have an unknown we're trying to find out the answer to that okay well what do we know we know that jeff that made a vow to the lord and that vow was going to be whatever comes out of his home first is going to be offered up for a burnt offering we know that that's what he said okay skip down for sake of time verse 34 says this jeff that came to mispa unto his house and behold so this is obviously after the slaughter after the battle okay he's coming home victorious verse 34 and jeff that came to mispa unto his house and behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances and she was his only child beside her he had neither son nor daughter okay so now what do we know we know that jeff made a vow that vow was to be whatever comes out first would be offered up for a burnt offering who comes out first his daughter we know this verse 35 it came to pass when he saw her that he rent his clothes and said remember when somebody rents or they tear their clothes in the bible that is a very serious thing it is a very serious expression of an eternal or an internal problem remember back then you couldn't just rip your shirt and go down to fred meyer let me pick through the racks here and see what they've got okay no it wasn't like that it's difficult okay so this meant business here so we see that he's upset he rents his clothes he's upset why he says this lost my daughter thou has brought me very low and thou are one of them that trouble me for i have opened my mouth unto the lord and i cannot go back what do we know we know that he made a vow that whatever came out of his house first would be offered up for a burnt offering what do we know we know that his daughter came out first what do we know we know that he rent his clothes and he's upset he says i cannot go back on what i just said that is what we know look at verse 36 and she said unto him look at her attitude here and she said unto him my father if thou has opened thy mouth unto the lord due to me look at this according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth for as much as the lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies even of the children of ammon okay let's add to that no she says do to me according to what you have vowed did he vow to give her up to a life of celibacy like samuel the prophet is that what it says if it says that somebody raised their hand to let me know because my king james bible doesn't say that i'm sorry but it doesn't i wish it did but it doesn't look at verse 37 and she said unto her father let this thing be done for me let me alone two months that i may go up and down upon the mountains and bewail my virginity i and my fellows why does she want to do this because she knows that she's never going to get the chance to have a family she's never going to get to experience that and what what that's like so she requests a little bit of time to bewail that to mourn that okay verse 38 and he said go and sent her away for two months and she went with her companions and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains verse 39 and it came to pass at the end of two months that she returned unto her father now look at this we're looking for what we know to find out what we don't know okay and it came to pass at the end of two months that she returned unto her father and did with her according to his vow which he had vowed and she knew no man and it was custom in israel it is very clear what he vowed the narrator here is telling us that he paid that vow as he vowed it if anybody's got some something else okay that is different than this let's sit down and talk about it try to convince me i don't want to believe this but this is what it says and so that's what i believe because i know how to study the bible and i know that we have to take what we know before we ever go to what we don't know what we don't know is that other side where people say no you know it was given over to live a celibacy how did you come to that conclusion that's all i want to know i'm not trying to be a jerk i just want to know so bring it to me afterwards but this is what it says verse 40 that the daughters of israel went yearly to lament the daughter of jeff the the gileadite four days in the year so again just adding to what we know okay this became a custom because of this tragic event and so what i'm trying to say here is the fourth thing the fourth point this morning is do what you say but beware of what you might pay hey that's what we really need to learn from this i get the scholars and what a lot of the liberals say oh you know that was a kenanite practice and so jetha was a kenanite he really shouldn't even be mentioned in hebrew chapter 11 again disregard disregard we have the word of god and what it says why is that so hard to understand now this is a hard story to swallow it is i you know like there's some things in the bible it's like man this is a tough saying but god left these things in there to teach us lessons guess what don't think that we're any better than jetha all of us have this inside of us all of us have the ability to make rash decisions that could have grave consequences and that's what god wants us to learn from be careful of what you say because you never know what you might have to pay so what is what is jeff the teaching us here well i mean we're talking about a tough dude here he followed through on the vow how many of us would do that how many of us have promised something and it got really tough it got really hard and we're like yeah i changed my mind and we start reasoning and coming up and again you also have to remember that the book of judges is very clear at the end that every man did that which was right in his own eyes okay i'm not saying what he did here was right okay i'm just saying that it was right in his own eyes he vowed it that's what he did again if you got something clear let me know because i would love to believe that she didn't get burnt but i have to go with what is written here i'm forced to do that and so we're going to go on to number five here but kind of continuing on with that same theme here's another reason why you're going to want to believe that look at the very next verse which is going to be found here in chapter 12 here remember i'm just rolling right through this okay so chapter 12 i know there's a chapter break and a verse break here but don't let that distort your reading okay this is continuity here this is flowing this is the same story so if you're reading this without chapters and verses so just be part of the same story look at the very first word of chapter 12 and verse number one and okay so this is a conjunction here and look at the next word the men of ephraim okay look at this here and the men of ephraim gathered themselves together and went northward and said unto jephthah wherefore passest thou over to fight against the children of ammon and did not call us to go with thee so we're looking at why jeth is mentioned in hebrews chapter 11 why is he so tough what gives him those uh that that ability to be so tough to be such a great leader well we saw that he was the type of person that would do what he said did he make a mistake obviously he should have thought before he made that vow we all understand that we all agree with that okay but look at what happens next these people here from ephraim who is are a very large number in israel very large tribe in israel or word okay so they come to jephthah and what do they do they want to challenge him right off the bat okay look at what they say we will burn thine house upon thee with fire and why do you think they said that why don't you think they said hey why don't you call us to fight now we're going to fight you now we're going to kill you now we're going to beat you up now we're going to do something why did they choose the method of fire and you well probably to add injury to insult okay so as a leader you just have to realize you're going to make some decisions and sometimes they're going to be wrong and guess what people aren't going to be that compassionate towards you they're going to take the knife and stick it in and twist it and push it and laugh in your face that's what people do that is what people do and that is how people are but because jephthah is tough here look at how he handles this here in verse number two and jephthah said unto them okay i mean think about what he just went through think about what he just went through with his daughter now he's got these people saying we're going to burn you in your own house because you didn't call us to fight okay that would have been enough to send any of us into a flying triggered outrage okay or maybe that's just me i don't know but verse two and jephthah said unto them i and my people were at great strife with the children of ammon and when i called you you delivered me not out of their hands isn't kind of funny how people are right like hey you didn't call us to fight well what's the other side of the story well the other side of the story is they did call jephthah did call and fight look at verse three and when i saw look at that again when i saw that you delivered me not i put my life in my hands and passed over against the children of ammon and the lord delivered them into my hand look at his attitude here he's still giving glory to god and the lord delivered them into my hand wherefore then are you come up unto me this day to fight against me so the fifth thing that i want to point out something we say all the time something i was taught way back in the day he doesn't react he acts okay he doesn't react immediately he's not like oh you want to fight let's just go right now no he actually tries to establish some truth he's like hey hold on for a second i actually called you and when i saw that you weren't going to respond i took my own life and put it in my own hands and god delivered me that's the situation now as you read the story it becomes very clear that the ephraimites they aren't buying it they don't care they don't want to hear what he has to say they didn't get the glory that they wanted and so now they're bitter now they're upset and so they make an insult to him and his people look at verse four then jeff that gathered together all the men of gilead and fought with ephraim and the men of gilead smoked ephraim because they said look at this eugileadites are fugitives of ephraim among the ephraimites and among the monastic so they're like hey you people you gileadites you guys are just nothing your fugitives you should be in one of our tribes but you guys stole away a little spot over here by ourselves and you're trying to puff your own selves up and you're trying to do your own thing and we're not going to let that happen okay so jeff has already talked with him he's already tried to establish peace here but they won't let it go and they're like no no you're you're you're fugitives of us okay and so jeff has had enough he's like okay now i'm not gonna act i'm gonna react now i'm going to do something about this because this problem isn't going to go away i've clearly demonstrated truth to you i've clearly demonstrated that you're at fault you've got no right to come here and say where why didn't you call me to fight when he actually did so look what he does verse five and the gileadites took the passages of jordan before the ephraimites and it was so that when those ephraimites we're getting close to being done here and when those ephraimites which were escaped said let me go over that the men of gilead said unto him art thou an ephraimite if he said name so they got this test okay so they cut off the city here and people are fleeing because they realize wait a second jeff is a mighty man he just smoked the ammonites the lord's on his side yeah we messed up so people are trying to leave okay and so they've got a test for these ephraimites okay they can't tell just by look so they have to go by speech look at verse number six then said they unto him hang say now shibboleth and he said sibboleth for he could not frame to pronounce it right then they took him and slew him at the passages of jordan and there fell at that time of the ephraimites 40 and 2 000. so again you know we know this is crystal clear in the bible that god hates and fighting he definitely despises it just because this is being recorded for us doesn't mean that god's like blessing it okay this is just the unfortunate reality of people people fight where there's people there's problems that's just what it is every man in this time frame in history is doing what is right in their own eyes so jeff is like well they're not gonna let it go um yeah let's just scrap and so what do they do they start killing people and they have this test here and you know they want to say shibboleth and like sibboleth okay well you're an ephraimite and they kill them you know and so i mean think about that that's how they put them on trial there they're able at least they're not just out just slaughtering everybody there's you kind of look like an ephraimite we're gonna kill you no they've got a way to make 100 for certain that they are ephraimites and they handle their business and right here is where we're going to end verse seven and jeff the judged israel six years so he's got a short reign but he judges six years then died jeff the gileadite and was buried in one of the cities of gilead so again what makes jeff the so tough and if you can only remember one thing remember this rejection become can become an infection or you can use it to guide your direction that's what jeff does he uses that rejection more so like a motivator you know like like okay you know i'm gonna leave you don't want me here no problem but in that process he learns some great leadership attributes and how to honestly be a pretty mature person but even in that remember we still see that the best of men are men at best because he still makes a mistake he still vows a vow okay before checking how much that could actually cost him which is not wise and he suffered greatly for it and then what happens well then his own nation wants to come at him for something vain because he didn't call him or because they perceive that he didn't call them to the battle and so again rejection can become an infection or it could be used to guide your direction and you know we want to learn from this and that we want to realize you know not all of us are going to be the same we're all going to be different on certain things and that's okay because we can still all learn from each other and we can still all have one goal which is what to edify the brethren and to evangelize the lost that is the mission of the church that is what we are here for and that is what we do and it just becomes so much easier when you realize hey people are different but i can still help you i can still learn from you there's still a way that we can work together and so we're going to leave it right there for this morning and we'll have a word of prayer real quickly here thank you so much lord for the truth that you gave us this morning i just pray that you'd help us to apply to our lives and just pray that you bless the fellowship after the service and the soul winning to come in jesus name i pray amen all right we're gonna have one more song and then we'll go ahead and be dismissed all right everyone please grab your hymnals one last time this morning and turn to song number 379 bringing in the sheaf song number 379 on the first sewing in the morning sewing seeds of kindness sewing in the noontime and the dewy eve waiting for the harvest and the time of reaping we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves on the second sewing in the sunshine sewing in the shadows fearing neither clouds nor winter's chilling breeze by and by the harvest and the labor ended we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves on the last going forth with weeping sewing for the master though the loss sustained our spirits often grieved when our weeping's over he will bid us welcome we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves ringing in the sheaves we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves bringing in the sheaves we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves! All right everyone let's bow our heads and dismiss ourselves in a word of prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for this time we had to hear your word be preached. I ask you please help us to remember these things and apply them to our lives. I also ask that you please bless the fellowship after the service, as well as the soul wanting to come. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We are dismissed. Amen.