Judges 4-5: Strong Women of Faith Audio Transcript
Judges: Scandalous Saviors
04 – STRONG WOMEN OF FAITH – Toby Beck
Intro
Amen. Go ahead and be seated. As we’re singing there, I’m just freshly struck by the very large things that we just said. Lord, I want you to be magnified in my life. That’s, you know, that’s very Bible-y sounding. And it is. It’s a nice thing to say.
And then it gets really specific there in the bridge. I won’t bow to idols. Okay, that’s worth some thought. I won’t be formed by feelings. Oh, there’s a challenge, hour by hour. If you put me in the fire, I’ll rejoice.
Because you’re there, too. Wow. I mean, I just was kind of like, my goodness, what are we saying? Are we really? I hope. So if that’s going to happen, great. If that’s your heart attitude, praise God. How? How is that going to happen? And basically, if we’re going to, if Christ is going to be magnified on the altar of our life, basically by how we live our lives, then we’re going to have to listen to him.
That’s pretty basic, right? Parent, child, if you want me to be happy, you’ll have to actually listen to what I say. Son, daughter, right? And so that’s what we’re doing right now. That’s why we’re opening the Bible, is the Father wants to talk to us and wants to help us to be able to walk along with Christ and to magnify and glorify Christ by how we live.
So that’s why we’re opening a Bible. It’s not just a habit, a thing we do in church. So Judges chapter four is where we’re going to be very excited about today’s text. In fact, I told somebody in the foyer, I said, this is the best chapter in all of Judges.
So lucky me that I get to be the one that gets to preach Judges chapter four, chapter five. This is a very unique chapter. There were a book of Judges, roughly 400 years of Israel’s history, 12 Judges total. Some of them, like last week’s Shamgar, you get one whole verse, not a lot.
Others like this, you get basically two chapters to tell you about the Judges. 12 Judges, all of them are men. Except one, and that’s Deborah.
Today we meet Deborah, an incredible woman of faith that God used to save his people. In fact, today we get to see not just one, but two incredible women of faith. One reason God put this in the Bible is to alert us to the fact that God raises up and equips godly women, strong women of faith to bless his people.
A Strong Woman of Faith
I was thinking through my own life and the strong women of faith that God has, he’s put more than one, in my life that have directly impacted me in significant ways. I wanna tell you about one of them. My grandmother, my mom’s mom, born and raised in Denmark, so we call her Mormor, which means mom’s mom.
And she, Karen, and her husband, Knud, K-N-U-D, that’s Scandinavian for you. They immigrated to America in 1957, settled in the Eugene area, and they had their six kids with them, all school age at that time, and began to build a life. Fafa worked in the plywood mill, Mormor managed the home, raised the kids.
Kids went to school. On Sundays they would all go to church, of course, Lutheran church, if you don’t know. The Lutheran church is the state church of Denmark, and so everybody goes to church, or at least three times a year, I mean, three times in your life.
Baptism, baptism confirmation, or baptism marriage, and then when you die.
So it’s very much a heritage thing for many Danes. Many do not have an actual relationship with Christ. Thankfully, both Mormor and Fafa did know Christ. They knew Christ, they knew the gospel, they had put their faith in Christ. But I will say, between the two of them, it was Mormor’s faith that was uniquely strong, and uniquely used by God in the life of everybody in her family, and beyond that, in her community and church as well.
You know, the kids are growing up here in America, and out of six kids, they’re gonna start going through the tests of life, right? All the different tests that life throws at you, and through all of the messy relationships, and financial struggles, and indulgence issues, and hopes and fears, and just all the stuff of life, when things were challenging, they would go to Mormor.
And why? Because they knew she would tell them the truth, and she would love them. And she’s not perfect, but she would do it so consistently that everybody knew it, everybody counted on it, including grandkids, when they eventually came along, knew, Mormor will always love you, and she will always tell you the truth.
Both of those are critical. And she did that because she had such a strong relationship of faith. It itself, no time for that story, was forged through very challenging circumstances as she lived her first half of her life in Denmark. I will just say, it is a beautiful thing for me to be able to see some of the fruits of her steady faithfulness.
She was like a rock, like a light, everybody knew it. Many testified to it when she passed away, and testified to the fact that she was so significant in their own faith, their own relationship with the Lord. She is a strong woman of faith. She’s kind of the personal touchstone that I have.
I’m gonna encourage you to be thinking about your own. What strong women of faith has God put in your life that have really helped you in your own relationship with the Lord? Deborah is certainly one of these on a pretty grand scale in the people of Israel.
Judges: Scandalous Saviors
So God raised up Deborah in very dark times in the book of Judges. She’s the only woman amongst 12. That just naturally begs the question, why only one woman?
Or why one woman and not all men, right? And the bottom line is God. God chose, God raised up Judges. Nobody had a vote to see who will be the next judge of Israel. That’s how America does it, but that’s not how God raised up Judges. And it wasn’t like some sort of a royal lineage that the Judges all come from the tribe of Judah, for example, nope.
God raised up Judges for particular needs and particular times. So why did God only raise up one woman who led Israel at this time instead of maybe a little more 50-50 split? And I’ll just share. My view is that it fits within God’s overall design for the family and for his church that God calls men to be primary leaders both in the family and in the church.
And I’m well aware that there are others part of our fellowship that have a different view and I hope we can love each other well and agree to disagree, but I just see pretty clear scriptural indications that that’s how God normally leads. But I hope that you will also see, especially if you already have that view, I hope that you will see in this chapter that God also calls and equips and raises up strong women of faith to bless and benefit his people as well.
I think we can do the opposite error pretty easily and say, well, I don’t need to really pay attention very much to the leadership gifts and the faith that God puts in women. We really need to see that and not fall into the opposite error. And Judges 4 is just an absolute celebration of not one, but two strong women of faith, so encouraging, and I hope that we can celebrate that today as we look at the really admirable story of Deborah.
Judges 4:1-10
So if you’ve got strength to stand, go ahead and stand with me in honor of God’s word. I’m gonna read the first 10 verses to get us started. Judges 4. Sigh. Because he had 900 iron chariots and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for 20 years, they cried out to the Lord for help.
Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. She held court under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided. She sent for Barak, son of Abinoam, a Yiddish in Naphtali, and said to him, the Lord, the God of Israel, commands you, go, take with you 10,000 men of Naphtali and Zebulun, and lead the way to Mount Tabor.
I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands. Barak said to her, if you go with me, I will go, but if you do not go with me, I will not go. Very well, Deborah said, I will go with you, but because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman.
So Deborah went with Barak to Kadesh, where he summoned Zebulun and Naphtali. 10,000 men followed him, and Deborah also went with him. We’ll stop there for now. Lord, I just want to say thank you for encouraging my heart this week. Judges chapter four has so much to be thankful for, and it is a bright light in the midst of a dark, a book that’s got a lot of dark in it, and so thank you for that.
Thank you for the example of Deborah. Lord, you raised her up. You brought her to be such a shining example, not a perfect person, but a very admirable person, and I pray that we would just all be encouraged by that so that we could indeed magnify you in our lives, glorify you by the way we live, and so we pray for this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Strong Women of Faith
Amen, go ahead and be seated. How many of you saw the spin cycle right there in the first few verses? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you missed the message, I think it’s two weeks ago now, where we talked about the spin cycle. It’s that cycle that the Israelites found them stuck in again and again and again.
It would begin where they would slide into idolatry, slide, no, dive.
It was intentional. They made a decision to go worship idols instead of God, so basically cheating on God, and idolatry has consequences, and so they were then oppressed by their enemies, and it’s painful, so they would cry out to God for help, and then God would provide a deliverer again, and then the deliverer would save them, and then there would be a temporary peace.
So that’s the cycle they go through, and right there in verses one through three, you just see that cycle, but when God raises up a rescuer here, it’s a very unique rescuer. That’s why I’m calling point one God’s unique provision of leadership. Now, Deborah’s unique, not just because she’s the one woman out of 12 judges, but also because she’s the most admirable, at least going by the descriptions that were given, the most admirable of all 12 judges.
God’s unique provision of leadership
If you think about the last week, Pastor Ryan preached on the first three judges, and the only thing that we’re told about them is that they were really good fighters. Now, they might be really good guys as well. We don’t know. It just doesn’t say, and so we’re told that they’re really good fighters, and that they led Israel and saved them from their enemies.
The next eight judges that we will look at following after this, their character is either unknown or mixed bag or terrible as it gets steadily worse as we go. Deborah is great, not because of her fighting skill. In fact, she’s the only judge of the 12 that isn’t a warrior.
Faithfully declares God’s word
She’s great because of her character.
She’s great because of her faith in God, and it’s described with enough detail that we can really get a good view of it and enjoy it and appreciate it. She was, as it says, Deborah, verse four, a prophetess, meaning she’s declaring the word of God to God’s people.
Now, when you hear the word prophet or female form prophetess, normally we think first of, oh, you tell what’s gonna happen in the future. That’s what a prophet does. You prophesy what’s gonna happen, and that is true in that that’s sometimes what a prophet or prophetess will say.
It’s just not the main thing they say. The main thing that they declare is, or I should say the majority of the time they’re declaring God’s word. They’re declaring what God has done, what God is doing.
They’re declaring who God is, declaring his character. They’re exhorting people to godly living. They’re condemning sin and encouraging people to walk with God faithfully. All of that comes under the term prophesy or being a prophet, and so Deborah is doing this for God’s people.
She is a prophetess. She’s declaring God’s word to the people, and what’s interesting is to note that she is married, and there’s no indication that her husband was neglecting his duties in leadership, so God had to use Deborah because he wasn’t really up to the task.
There’s no indication of that, so I wouldn’t read that into the text. God just simply raised up Deborah to speak God’s word to his people, and I think that’s worth noting.
Faithfully reflects God’s character
Secondly, not just that she’s declaring God’s word, but she’s actually living it out. This is a sobering thing for me because I teach here a lot, right? If you’re teaching God’s word, but you’re not following it, you’re not living it out, well, that’s called hypocrisy, and God frowns very severely against that, so what’s beautiful to see is not only is she declaring God’s word, but she’s living it out and reflecting God’s character.
You can see that in verse five. She held court under the palm of Deborah, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided. Now, they came to her, meaning she was not the judge because of some popular vote put her in that position, so they set her up in a courthouse.
No, she was a person who was recognized to have wisdom, to recognize, to know right from wrong, to know justice and injustice, and to be able to declare that, and people were drawn to that. We’ve got to remember that in this period of time, why are they in this trouble?
Because they’re worshiping idols. Basically, worshiping idols is idolatry. It’s cheating on God, and very often, it involves sexual immorality, so it’s gonna involve adultery, basically. If they’re married, going to the temple and participating in the worship rites of the pagan gods is gonna involve sexual immorality.
So you’ve got a culture that is just filled with people behaving badly, treating one another badly, and so in the midst of this very dark Israelite culture, you’ve got Deborah who is living a godly life, who is reflecting God’s character, and when the chips are down, people are coming to her.
They’re being drawn to her because she is reflecting faithfully God’s character. In fact, as they saw Deborah, whether they thought about it consciously or not, they’re seeing a reflection of God. When they talk to Deborah, they’re getting a faint reflection, at least, of God’s justice and his righteousness and his compassion and his justice, all of the characters of God, and she’s living these out in a very consistent way, and so that’s why I really see she is, she’s like this light in the midst of a very dark culture.
She’s like a light and like a rock, and Friday, rock and a storm, or like a shepherd. When you are being taken advantage of, it’s a horrible feeling, and what you really want is somebody that will believe you and help you, right?
You want somebody that can speak the truth over your situation and try to employ something that’s gonna help bring justice to the situation that you’re in where you’re being taken advantage of, and Deborah was this kind of person, and I hope that not only will you admire her role in this time, in this culture, but that you might say, boy, that would be wonderful if that was me, right?
No, I’m not talking about notoriety. I’m just talking about what if you had a vision, and I hope that you do, had a vision to live out God’s commands with such consistency that people just simply come to know you as a person who speaks the truth and loves well?
What if, and I believe that the more that you do that, the more people, you don’t have to put up a sign saying, you know, I’ll adjudicate your cases for you. No, I don’t think that’ll work, actually. You just be that, and you’re gonna find people drawn to you, drawn to you to come to you to say, okay, can I talk to you about this?
And like I said, my grandma, Mormor, was that kind of person. People naturally, not only her own family, they were drawn to her. They knew that she would speak the truth and love them well. Kristen, my wife, she became a Christian, I believe in middle school.
Is that right, honey, wherever you are? Yes, right about there. But that’s where it really at least took off in terms of her faith development. And I remember her telling me that through high school, people just tend to come to her and tell her their problems and ask for her advice.
She didn’t go looking for that. She just was that kind of a person. And so I share that example because this is not just for old people. Like those of you in the room that are young that are still in school, this is for you. You could be that kind of a person who’s just simply walking with God, and I expect that you will find that God will give you opportunity to speak truth and love to the people, students coming around you.
Faithfully strengthens others’ faith
Deborah was that kind of a person. One more thing about Deborah, we see her faithfully strengthening the faith of others. It’s in verse six that we’re introduced to the character of Barak, son of Obama from Kiddush and Naphtali. Sorry, it’s impossible for me to read that name and not just immediately think of a recent president.
So same name, but Barak, son of Abinoam from Kiddush. Now, little geography, I should have had a map. Sorry, I didn’t do it. But if you can basically picture Sea of Galilee up north, Dead Sea down south, Mediterranean Sea on the west. Deborah conducted her, you know, the Palm of Deborah.
She’s down in Ephraim, which is down closer to the Dead Sea area, Jerusalem area down south. Barak is, all the action takes place up north. That’s where he is, up by the Sea of Galilee. So he had to come a long ways, and I think it speaks to the authority that was given to her and the respect that was given to Deborah.
Like when she called for him, he came all the way down to hear what she had to say, and what she had to say was significant, right? I have a word from God for you, which is basically go attack the enemy.
God promises you will be victorious. Barak is clearly the most significant military leader of this time for the Israelites. Now, Barak’s answer gets a lot of discussion. Verse eight, Barak said to her, if you go with me, I will go, but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.
So I’ll just say, all the way this week, up until Thursday, I read that as conditional obedience to be condemned. Shame on you, Barak, for telling, say, well, if you’ll hold my hand, I’ll go lead the battle. And so I thought this was a lack of faith, and it may be.
There’s more than a few commentaries that take that tack, but a couple of other commentaries say, slow down a little bit.
This can be read a couple of ways, basically saying if, well, Deborah responds, okay, the way you are going about this, the glory’s not gonna be yours. God’s gonna hand Sisera, the enemy general, over to our woman. So I’d been reading that as shame on you, Barak.
You’re not gonna get the glory for this. But the other commentary said, it can be read of, just so you know, you undertake this, you’re not gonna get the glory for it. And they made the argument and actually convinced me that this was not shameful lack of faith, this is actually commendable faith.
Why? Here’s why I think that’s actually the right way to read it. Number one, having the idea that I want the speaker of God’s truth to be with us as we go do God’s will, that should be commended, not condemned.
It’s when you won’t listen to the prophet, that’s the problem. When you want them along to make sure they’re declaring God’s word, that seems to me to be a good thing. Secondly, he doesn’t seem to care that people are going to rebuke him and make fun of him for partnering with a woman.
It was not highly thought of, not often happened in those days, and people have been making fun of him for, well, now several thousand years, myself included, through the first half of this week. And so he didn’t seem to be bothered by that. He said, no, no, no, whatever.
I want the speaker of God’s truth along. Thirdly, he said, I am willing to go lead the infantry against 900 iron chariots. And if you know anything about that style of warfare, that’s not close. 10,000 infantry don’t stand a chance against chariots.
They’re like essentially tanks against infantry. It doesn’t go well, and yet he is willing to lead because God has said so. Fourthly, he is told, you’re not gonna get the glory for this. God’s gonna provide victory, but you won’t get the glory. And he’s good with it.
I thought, since when should we commend somebody for wanting their own glory and condemn them for not caring about it? I think I had it upside down. So I actually am convinced, if you disagree, that’s fine. I won’t fight you over it. But the bottom line is, I think that he is admirably responding in faith.
And I actually see this as Deborah strengthening his faith and his response of faith strengthening her own faith, which I think is a really beautiful picture of how God wants his church to work, where we are men and women together encouraging one another’s faith as we remind each other of what God has said, what God has commanded, what God has promised, and we respond in faith.
And so we are encouraging one another’s faith. I think this is a good picture of that. So God has provided some unique leadership, both in Deborah and in Barak. And now we’ll get to the battle, God’s brilliant provision of victory, beginning in verse 11.
God’s brilliant provision of victory
Now, verse 11 seems like this totally random detail that has nothing to do with the story. It’s a setup, okay? In fact, it’s a sovereign setup that involves both a person and a place. God first sets up this whole thing with a person. His name is Heber the Kenite.
God’s sovereign setup
Heber the Kenite, verse 11, had left the other Kenites, descendants of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law. Are you lost yet? Yeah, Moses’ brother. Yeah, you know, second cousin twice removed, that kind of thing.
But the bottom line is the key element is this guy named Heber. Most of his family and fellow Kenites lived down south in the area of the Dead Sea. But Heber took his family and they moved up north and they just so happened, coincidentally, providentially, to live near Mount Tabor where this battle’s gonna go down.
So just keep that in mind. Now, this is King Jabin territory, so how can he live there since he’s connected, at least by marriage, to the Jewish people? Well, apparently he’s got an alliance, a friendly, he’s got a, he’s on friendly terms with King Jabin, so Heber the Kenite gets to live there.
Okay, so just tuck that away. It’ll become really relevant in a moment. The second key piece of the setup regards a place. God tells Barak, gather your soldiers and go to the top of Mount Tabor.
God inspires faith
So he’s giving them the advantage of high ground and he’s got another reason because Mount Tabor is situated geographically such that Sisera’s army is gonna have to, in order to get there, is going to have to cross the Kishon River. And the Kishon River, normally, no difficulty crossing it with a chariot, but as we’re gonna see, this won’t be normal.
And so the setup of the person, Heber the Kenite, and the place is very significant. God arranges the details. Nobody had any idea that these were important, but they will become important when the action begins. So verse 14, finally the moment is here.
All the preparation is done. Deborah says to Barak, verse 14, go, or literally up.
God defeats evil
This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you? And so Barak went down Mount Tabor followed by his 10,000 men. What I love about this is it’s not just Deborah saying, go, Barak, you can do it. You know, just believe in yourself.
You can do anything you put your mind to and all the other modern nonsense that we pitch is basically just positive self-talk. She says, no, God has commanded you. God has promised you. That’s why this is gonna go well, right? Because God, so she basically exhorts him to trust God.
He has promised you victory. And then Barak responds in faith. Yes, that is the word of the Lord. God has gone before me. And so he charges, right?
Mount, verse 14, Barak goes down Mount Tabor followed by his 10,000 men. And then notice also, it’s not just Barak. You can imagine how disappointing that would be. Deborah says, go, you know, trust God. And he charges down the hill and everybody else just stands.
No, 10,000 troops come right behind. So they’re responding in faith as well. So they’ve got Deborah speaking God’s word, Barak responding in faith, all the soldiers following behind. Remember, militarily speaking, these 10,000 soldiers have to assume we’re going to our deaths.
God’s promised victory, but those are still iron chariots that we’re going against. And we are foot soldiers. This, militarily speaking, shouldn’t go well for us. So they’re following in faith.
And what I want to see, like, again, 10,000 soldiers charging down the hill. If you’ve seen Lord of the Rings, you’ve got to see the riders of Rohirrim charging. The numbers are about the same too, by the way, for you Lord of the Rings nerds. Praise God for that.
But just have, you know, you got to visualize it. That’s what it looks like. And this picture of the declaration of God’s word, the response of faith, both by the general and by all of the soldiers, it’s this picture of, this is how the people of God should operate.
This is a beautiful picture. In fact, chapter five is called the Song of Deborah or the Song of Deborah and Barak. It’s basically a lyrical description of everything that we’re reading about, right?
It’s a song about this episode. And I can’t read the whole thing, but I’m just going to drop in periodically and get a little bits of it. Look at verse two of chapter five. It’s a picture of this very thing. When the leaders in Israel take the lead and when the people willingly offer themselves, praise the Lord.
What is it saying? It’s basically when the leaders are leading in faith, when the people are responding in faith, praise God, that’s the picture. That’s the way God’s people are supposed to operate. Leaders leading in faith, people responding in faith.
That is God’s people. That’s the picture for God’s people back then. That’s the picture for God’s people today. People walking in faith together. God delights to do his good work through that. And so the charge is on and God produces the victory.
Look at verse 15. At Barak’s advance, the Lord routed Sisera. So the soldiers are fighting, but who wins? The Lord. The Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and his army by the sword. And Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot. But Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Herosheth Haggaim.
And all the troops of Sisera fell by the sword. Not a man was left. Wow. So this was not close. They absolutely crushed the enemy army. God wins a spectacular victory. You got to see the picture. So it says the Lord routed Sisera. But please see that the soldiers are in their weapons, shields, fighting with full strength.
Like this is, they’re not just standing back on the top of Mount Tabor going, all right, let’s watch God work. No, you wanna watch God work, go, get involved. And that’s what the Christian life looks like, by the way. It means moving, it means striving, it means struggling, it means getting up and moving forward.
It does not mean sitting back and when God gets it all set, then I’ll get up and then I’ll kind of enjoy the fruits of his victory. No, the picture of the Christian life is all about battle, spiritually speaking. It’s all about fighting against your own flesh, against sinful temptations, against the whole culture of our world, which is all pointed in darkness and self-focus.
And so the reality is God wins, but he is working through us as we fight, as we work, as we struggle and strain.
And we also see that God wins this brilliant victory, like God wins a victory, how does he do it? Well, this is where that place becomes significant, right? The Kishon River, right? They have to cross the Kishon River in order to get to Mount Tabor. Normally no big deal, but this is where we go, look at the song, the song gives us a couple more details.
Look at verse four. Verse four references this thing where the earth is shaking and the heavens are pouring and the clouds are pouring down water. Pam, I think you were right in Bible study that this really is talking about God sends water. Suddenly, instead of a nice day, it is just pouring down rain and normally easy to cross river becomes a very flooded river and everything around it becomes a big money mess.
Look at verse 20, from the heavens, the stars fought. That’s a reference to God fighting from on high. And from their courses, they fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept them away, the age old river, the river Kishon. So you get the picture that all of these 900 chariots, they’re either being swept down river or they’re stuck in the mud.
Suddenly they don’t work anymore. And now this is a fair fight. And you can imagine that these soldiers who are used to fighting from chariots and feel very, very confident and safe in chariots, now that advantage has been taken away and they’re not happy about it.
And so the Israelites are very inspired by that and they win a decisive victory. And Sisera bails from his chariot, which I assume was stuck in the mud or swept away and he takes off on foot.
I want you to notice one more thing before we move into this final piece. God called them to charge before it says anything about how he was taking care of the chariot problem. He says, you attack and then I’ll show up. You stand up there safely on Mount Tabor.
And when it looks like it’s safe, then you come down and kind of mop up a little bit. No, and you see that all the way throughout the scriptures. Remember the Israelites standing on the edge of the Red Sea? Step in the water and then I will act. You step out in faith, Jesus and Peter, right?
Get out of the boat, right? Walk on the water. Then you’ll find out that I am faithful to my promise.
And I think that’s really significant. We are often called to take a step of faith and trust that God is gonna meet us where we’re at in the ways that he has promised us. Okay, one more piece. And if you’ve not read this before, I don’t think you’ll forget it.
God’s unexpected provision of courage
Some of you are like, yeah, what’s he gonna do with this? Okay, so I said there’s two women of faith. So the Canaanite army has been crushed, but General Sisera, I’m gonna call him General Sissy, has run away. Well, he has, he’s bailed. And where does he go?
Well, that’s where verse 11, the little note about Heber the Kenite becomes important. He’s running to, oh, Heber lives nearby. We have a friendly relationship with him. I’m running to a friend. So he runs to the tents of Heber the Kenite, verse 17. But Heber doesn’t seem to be home.
Faces danger instead of hiding
But his wife Jael is. And she, Heber may be friends with King Jabin, but Jael apparently is quite loyal to God and his people. And so when she sees the General Sisera running toward her tent, how does she think she felt? Oh, man. The first thing that I’m amazed at is how she faces danger instead of hiding.
Look at verse 18. She goes out and meets Sisera. Like, she’s apparently watching. She knows a battle’s happening nearby. And whoever you see is gonna tell the tale of how it’s going. So she sees General Sisera coming this way. I am assuming she already knows him.
It’s very familiar language. Come in, my Lord, come right in. Don’t be afraid, she says to him. So clearly she knows him. They live in King Jabin’s territory.
They’ve probably hosted Sisera for dinner before. And so she invites him in. Now, she is deceiving him. She’s acting friendly because they’re supposed to be friends but she is not friendly toward him. I think, let’s see, order. One of the things that you gotta recognize is that King Jabin and Sisera, the enforcer, have been oppressing Israel for 20 years now, brutalizing them.
And brutalizing in many ways, economically but also physically. If you read the latter part of the song in chapter five, you find out that General Sisera and all of the army typically treated women as part of the prize that you win when you win a war.
You get women, you take them home and you use them. That was normal but it doesn’t make it good. And so that was pretty normal. So I say that because I bet you that’s part of here comes the person who has been oppressing us for 20 years and who has been abusing women for as long.
And she shows incredible courage to go out and meet him and invite him in. I think most people would naturally hide, even if you were on friendly terms, I think you’d hide. If you’re running, who’s probably chasing you? Do you want that in your tent?
I wouldn’t. So not naturally would you wanna go meet him but she goes right out and takes the initiative, invites him in. I wanna contrast that with some of those who didn’t even bother to show up for the battle on the part of Israel.
Again, chapter five, I can’t go into all the detail but it lists specific tribes. Naphtali and Zebulun were the two primary tribes that supplied the 10,000 army soldiers that fought. But the other tribes contributed soldiers as well because there was a call that went out, come, we’re revolting against our cruel overseers, our cruel overlords.
And so there was a call that went out and most tribes responded, but some did not. As it says in chapter five, verse 15, in the districts of Reuben, there was much searching of heart. I picture it being, come on, Deborah has said God will give us the victory.
Come help us, join the fight. And Reuben says, well, I need to pray about it. I’m just not sure this is God’s will for me. Are you kidding?
There’s a direct command from God. Well, there was much searching of heart. And I think it’s a real warning to us about when God’s command is clear and we need a long time to deliberate. That’s not seeking God’s will, that’s resisting God’s will. And that’s a real danger we need to guard against.
Jael didn’t hide, she didn’t deliberate. She went right out and faced danger. And then she fought evil, that’s the way I’m describing it, despite incredible odds. First, she’s alone. There’s no description that there’s anybody else around. I have to assume there’s maybe servants, but they are servants.
There’s no mention of her husband, so I have to assume that he’s not around. Maybe he’s up at King Jabin’s, we don’t know.
Fights evil despite the obstacles
But she seems to be alone and she’s acting alone. She’s about ready to go against this guy and not just the danger of fighting this guy, but breaking the family alliance with King Jabin. Like, this is crazy. This is such an astonishing, bold is the positive way to describe it.
Others see this as she’s definitely violating the general rules of hospitality, as you’ll see. And being deceptive in the process, I hold a different view. But she’s alone, she’s going against her family alliances and allegiance. Thirdly, she’s a woman, obviously.
And there’s this simple, I don’t care if she’s stronger than the average woman, there’s no way she has the strength, the training and the weaponry to match the guy that just came in, the guy that she just invited in.
Don’t picture, you know, Xena, the warrior princess, you know, or Scarlett Johansson’s character, Black Widow, trained as an assassin from her very earliest days, you know, and so she’s just ready. She’s been training for this day her whole, no! She’s a housewife, right?
She manages the tents. So the one thing that she’s really good at is setting up tents. Apparently that was women’s work. Handy. As it turns out. And so she’s, and she’s facing not just any, you know, Canaanite soldier, she’s facing Sisera. I have to assume if he’s leading the Canaanite army, he’s probably bigger, stronger, more commanding, more skilled, more devastating, more intimidating.
I was picturing like, to try to get this into real, Osama bin Laden’s coming to your door.
You ready for that? Like, whoa, that would freak me out. And she’s a woman and she plays offense and she pretends to be his friend. She’s no match for him in hand-to-hand combat. She knows that. She uses deception. Some commentators have a big problem with that.
I think chapter five would say otherwise, we’ll get there. So she pretends to be friendly. He says, he says, I’m thirsty. Give me a drink of water. She brings him milk. She’s honoring him or pretending to honor him. He says, hide me. There’s some irony in here.
Hide me. And she puts him under some blankets and tells her, and tells her, verse 20, stand in the doorway. If someone comes by and ask you, is anyone here?
It’s literally, is there a man in here? Say no. Is there a real man in here? No. There’s a sissy in here though. It’s in there. It’s in there. It’s literally, is there a man here? He’s basically pronouncing his own doom. And then the critical moment comes, verse 21.
Strikes a decisive blow for freedom
But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quiet to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. And she drove the peg through his temple into the ground and he died. Whoa. I had a guy joke to me about, I’m wearing a helmet to bed.
I’m wearing a helmet to bed. This is a grisly scene. And I won’t dwell on the grisly part of it. But here’s the thing. The scripture, far from kind of shying away from this, actually zeroes in on it. If you look at the song in chapter five, look at verse 24.
Look at what is said about Jael. Most blessed of women be Jael. The wife of Heber the Kenite. Most blessed of tent dwelling women. That’s high praise. And she got that for taking out Osama. I mean, that’s the parallel, the equivalent. He asked for water.
She gave him milk. In a bowl fit for nobles, she brought him curdled milk. Her hand reached for the tent peg, her right hand for the workman’s hammer. She struck Sisera. She crushed his head. Remember, this is a song. Can you imagine singing this? Let’s turn to hymn number 542 and sing.
Most blessed are Jael. No. But it is. It’s zeroing in on this moment. She struck Sisera. She crushed his head. She shattered and pierced his temple. At her feet, he sank. He fell. There he lay.
At her feet, he sank. This must be the chorus. He fell. Where he sank, there he fell, dead. So again, my wife and I have talked. And you’re like, some of us don’t love all this. Like last week was just so gross with the sword and this is so gross. And I’m sorry, this is not just me going, hey, I’m a guy and I like action movies.
So this is, you know, I’m really shining in this moment. This is the Bible slowing us down and say, notice this. Why? It’s not to celebrate gore. I’m absolutely convinced that’s not what it is. It is to celebrate several things. Number one, this is God defeating evil with someone who you would never think could defeat evil.
God using the weak to defeat the strong.
God delights to do that. Even last week, King Eglon, he’s described as being a very fat man. And that’s not body shaming. That is picturing that this man has been basically oppressing the Israelites and enriching himself, literally bloating himself on the backs of others.
That’s what this was a picture of. And God delights to take him out using Ehud, who by all accounts has one working arm. God takes out the oppressive king with a disabled person. Now that’s amazing. And this is similar. You’ve got General Sisera, oppressor of God’s people for 20 years.
And he takes, God takes him out with a woman.
Not just takes him out, takes him out with a woman. The weak defeating the strong. God delights to do this. The mismatch between Jael and Sisera is larger than David versus Goliath. At least David knew how to use a sling. He was trained to fight. I don’t think that Jael went through military training.
And so God delighted to defeat evil using weakness. Now there’s one more picture here. And I gotta tell you, it’s so fun just how God does these things. Jacob asked me, Pastor Jacob asked me after church last night, do you think there’s any reference in this whole tent peg thing?
Because the scripture really zeros in on it. Any connection between that and that promise that God makes all the way back in Genesis chapter three after they’ve sinned and God says, I’m gonna put enmity between basically mankind and the devil and the devil’s gonna get in, the devil’s gonna strike your heel, but the seed of the woman’s gonna crush the serpent’s head.
And I thought, and I went looking through commentaries this morning like, does anyone else see this? Nope, couldn’t find it. And I said, just because commentators don’t see it doesn’t mean it ain’t there. And so I, at least at the very least, this reminds me that God ultimately defeated evil by being pierced.
The seed of a woman, Jesus was not snuck up on and got while he wasn’t looking. No, voluntarily allowed himself to be pierced to ultimately to strike the decisive blow against evil. I don’t know if God intended that, but he sure made me, as soon as Jacob said that, I thought, I think you’re right.
I think this is reminiscent of the ultimate defeat of evil.
Celebrating Strong Women of Faith
And so I praise God for the way that he does these things, the way that he wins victory, including through the people that you might not expect, including strong women of faith. I wanna, I just wanna praise God as we close for strong women of faith that God has blessed our church with.
There are so many. I think about, I have the privilege of being here every day. And I think every day except Wednesday, there are a group of women, different groups of women that come, they meet here for their Bible study. And it’s not just a social hour.
These are powerhouses. They seek God together in his word. They focus on God’s word. They pray together. Like when I really want something to get prayed for, I go to these groups and say, please pray with me for this. Our Thursday night prayer group meets right here every Thursday night at seven.
And some of our strongest prayer warriors are women. And I hope that you personally have been blessed with other strong women of faith in your life that God has used to point you toward himself, to help you walk with Jesus in faith. And what I wanna do, the worship team’s gonna come and they’re gonna get ready to lead us.
But I’m gonna give you guys just a couple of minutes in little groups nearby, turn and talk, if you will. Share how, if God has given you a strong woman of faith in your life, or like me, more than one, just mention who they are and how they have impacted your life through their own faith in Christ.
So take a few minutes with that and then we’ll turn our attention and celebrate the Lord together.