Sermon Tone Analysis

About 15 years ago, it was very en vogue in Christian circles to talk about God’s calling on our lives to make extreme changes and do amazing things for the kingdom.

Books like “Do Hard Things”, “Radical”, and “Crazy Love” flew off of bookshelves, encouraging Christians to take radical steps in their lives to serve God.

And I think we all have that desire to do great things for God - to do something “radical” so God can work through us.

But when we look in the Bible, is that what we see?

I think we see quite the opposite.

I think we see a call for us to be instruments in God’s hands right where He already has us, through the lives we’re already living.

We see a call for people to love God and neighbor right where they are, through the things they already do, for the most part, so that God can do radical things through them.

It isn;t what we do, it’s what God does through people who are faithful in the little things.

Because it is God that does radical things, and He chooses to do them through our very ordinary things.

God uses ordinary people to accomplish great things.

I think the call on Christians today should not be to do radical things, but to do the ordinary things God calls us to so we can see Him do mighty works through us.

To be - right where we are - the ordinary means of God’s crazy love and radical power.

Like in our passage today.

We see ordinary people - weak, fearful, even sinful people - used by God for amazing things.

Used by God to work His power in the world and salvation for His people.

And God wants to do just that through us.

Let’s see what He did for Israel here:

Nahash was the king of the Ammonites - we’ll find that out in the next chapter.

Now why would the king of the Ammonites siege Jabesh-gilead?

Jabesh-gilead was on the east side of the Jordan - in the tribal inheritance of Eastern Manasseh - the tribe that was split: half on the east of the Jordan and half on the western side of the Jordan.

That means that eastern Manasseh is in the land that Israel took from the Amorites and from Bashan, but which originally belonged to Ammon.

But notice what is going on here.

We talked about the political turmoil already going on in Israel.

We have seen that Samuel was the judge over Israel, and he also had other local judges, including his sons, that ran other cities.

But every city named as places the judges were, in the book so far, have been cities on the western side of the Jordan.

And add to that the fact that a single city, like Jabesh-gilead, felt it was within their rights to make a treaty with a foreign king and come under his rule tells us how bad the situation was.

It would appear that the three eastern tribes were being pretty much ignored.

And we have already seen the heart of Israel in their rejecting YHWH as king because they wanted a king like the nations around them.

Well, here were Israelites that were literally willing to bow to one of those kings of the nations around them.

This is even worse.

As we have seen, any earthly king that the Israelites followed had to be an Israelite.

So these tribes in the east were even further from God’s will than most of Israel.

And realize, Jabesh-gilead - though in the eastern tribes - was not on the eastern side of those territories.

It was pretty close to the Jordan.

It was relatively deep into Israelite territory.

In other words, not only were the western tribes being ignored, but Israel was starting to lose the land that God gave them.

And here, they are willing to lose more.

Now, this gouging out the eye thing sounds so very brutal to 21st century ears.

And it is.

But there are a few things going on here.

First, the Dead Sea scrolls tell us that Nahash had made similar treaties with cities in Gad and Reuben - the other two Israelite tribes that lived on the eastern side of the Jordan.

So that means that this has been going on for a while.

Israel has been losing ground to Ammon, and have been consenting to this condition of their surrender.

This may be why the men of Jabesh-gilead react the way they do - they were probably expecting this condition of the treaty that they were all too ready to make.

Second, this kind of thing was not uncommon in the Ancient Near East in these circumstances.

Not only would boring or cutting the right eyes of the men be a sign of their humility before their new ruler, but it would be a major hindrance to them ever rebelling against him.

If you have ever shot a gun, and if you are right handed, you know that you need your right eye to aim.

The same would be true for shooting a bow.

This would essentially disable the warriors of the city being taken.

But third, the word here translated “treaty” is the word that is translated almost 98% of the time in the Old Testament as “covenant.”

Like when God made a covenant with Abraham or with Israel.

And the word that is always translated “make” when someone “makes” a covenant in the Old Testament - and not just in the Old Testament, but elsewhere in the writings of the Ancient Near East - the word used is not the verb “make”, but the verb “cut.”

Literally, covenants were not made, they were cut.

Because there would be cutting involved in ratifying a covenant.

There would always be blood.

Sometimes, animals were cut, like when Abraham cut the animals in two for God to pass through when He made a covenant with him.

But very often, there would be cuts made to the lesser party entering into covenant.

Like with Abraham when he entered into covenant with God, and like the whole nation of Israel when they entered into covenant with God.

They were the lesser party in those covenants, so the men would all be cut when the covenant sign of circumcision was taken.

They would have to bleed to enter into the covenant.

So here, the lesser party - the men of Jabesh-gilead - would need to be cut - would need to bleed - to ratify the covenant between them and their new ruler.

Now think again about the brutality of that.

And then think about what Christ did to ratify the New Covenant.

When He took the cup of wine at the Last Supper and told His disciples to drink - to partake of the wine - He said that it represented the blood of the covenant.

There would - as always - have to be blood spilled in order to ratify that covenant.

And there was.

And it was His blood.

Think about the humility of Christ.

When we want to point to the humility of Jesus, we tend to think of how He got on His knees to wash the feet of the disciples.

But He humbled Himself even more.

He took the role of the lesser party in the New Covenant.

He placed Himself not just a little lower than the angels, but those He came to save in order to establish the covenant made for many for the forgiveness of sins.

In other words, He took on our sin - the Bible tells us He became our sin - and made Himself the lower party in the covenant, so that we could rule over sin.

And He ratified the covenant by bleeding on the cross for us.

And when compared with the brutality of God taking on flesh, then humbling Himself to the point of death on a cross - the gouging or cutting of an eye doesn’t seem so brutal after all.

And when we look at the situation in Israel and in Jabesh-gilead, and in the whole territory east of the Jordan and the turmoil even on the western side of the Jordan where the people rejected God for an earthly king, we might be tempted to ask: Why?

Why did God let this happen?

And that is usually what we ask when bad things happen to us or someone we love or our lives are thrown into turmoil or we are being oppressed from without.

Why did God let this happen?

And we want a reason - we want to understand why, in the hopes that it will help us endure the trial.

We want to know there is a purpose and that it will end up for good.

But you know what bothers and sister?

We already know that.

We already know that God - regardless of our earthly circumstances - will work His good and gracious will for us.

Israel should have known that, too.

The men of Jabesh-gilead should have known that.

They all knew what God had already done.

None of this was out of God’s sovereign control.

And God would use all of these circumstances to place David on the throne and bring Israel peace and prosperity.

And ultimately He used every circumstance to place Christ on the throne and bring us peace and prosperity.

And we can be sure that He still does and always will use every circumstance to further His plan until Christ comes and physically reigns over the creation and we see with our own eyes that God used it all for good.

And the men of Jabesh-gilead - and all of Israel - were about to see God use far less than perfect circumstances for the benefit of His people.

He would use ordinary people to accomplish great things.

Now remember: Israel was in political turmoil.

They were losing the land.

The enemy was making progress and moving further into Israel.

Another city was about to fall.

They were ready to make a covenant and serve Ammon, they were ready to bleed to make it happen.

Things were about to turn very bad.

Unless they could find a savior.