Ehud

Intro

Now I bet you didn’t expect to walk into a series on Judges and here the name Frankenstein, but here we are, and now you’re going to hear it.

the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster is a classic that has received countless adaptations and halloween costumes over the last two centuries or so. Theres something about that story that fascinates us, as a crazed genius sets his mind to create sentient life in a lab.

People may have told him he was wrong for his experimenting, but that wasn’t going to stop Dr. Frankenstein. He was sure that he could create and control life, that he could even become like God. The 1931 film adaptation makes the sin of Dr. Frankenstein most explicit; as his creation finally comes to life he exclaims, “now I know what it feels like to be God!”

He was in for a rude and humble awakening when he came to realize that he wasn’t in control of his creation, but was rather at its mercy. His creation, that he was so confident he had control over, would haunt him. It would bring an end to his career, his wife, his father, and anything that brought him happiness. Dr. Frankenstein lived as a man conquered by his sins.

Now I guess I owe you an explanation as to just how exactly the story of Frankenstein and his monster relates to Ehud and Judges 3.

Well, in a similar sense, the people of Israel have become convinced that they can play with their sin without it coming back to haunt them. In keeping the pagan people in the land, they thought they knew better than God, and that they would be in control rather than the Moabites.

But we will see that sinful lives always become conquered lives.

In our flesh, we live as a conquered people

Sinful lives become conquered lives

Judges 3:12–14 ESV

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He gathered to himself the Ammonites and the Amalekites, and went and defeated Israel. And they took possession of the city of palms. And the people of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.

State: The people of Israel had fallen under the dangerous assumption that they were the masters of their own fate, the rulers of their own lives, and that they could do whatever they want without facing negative repercussions.

In the conquest of the promised land, we see something that starts out as very encouraging quickly become very concerning. When they first entered the land, they consecrated themselves to God, followed the Lord into battle, and worshiped him.

But they didn’t end how they started. They were told to root out the pagan people from the land, but they decided only to weaken and enslave them. This was an act of sin, as it was a direct transgression of God’s very clear command to completely uproot them.

When people read through the book of Joshua, or the very beginning of judges, the question is often asked, “why did God command them to drive out all the people?” and we see here, and will see in many other places, the reason why: that God’s people are unable to stand against the temptation to syncretism.

In other words, God’s people will constantly bow down and worship the false gods of the pagan people in the promised land.

But that isn’t what Israel thought would happen. They didn’t expect to be so drawn in by the temptation of false worship. When they refused to completely drive out the people as God had commanded, it was because they saw an opportunity in front of them; they saw a people that they could enslave and keep around to do all the hard labor nobody else wanted to do. They thought to themselves, “we can keep them around and make our lives so much easier. We won’t serve them, but they will serve us.” They saw themselves as conquerors; and they were, for a moment. It wouldn’t be long before they would find themselves conquered by that which they were so confident they could keep beneath them.

But this leads us to recognize a very important truth: sinful lives become conquered lives, always and without exception.

Illustrate: Don’t we have a plethora of examples from our own lives that show us this is true? How many people have we seen in the news, or known personally, or perhaps this even describes our own lives, who have found themselves conquered by sin?

Josh Gordon was a standout wide receiver entering the NFL, and everyone was ready to watch him explode onto the scene and break records. He did explode onto the scene, but then his entire career was plagued by suspensions because he kept smoking marijuana. He continually made decisions that broke the law and the NFL player code of conduct, and he found himself in a loop that destroyed his promising career, cost him countless millions of dollars, and continually let his teammates and fans down.

Tiger Woods is the most famous golfer of all time, and probably the only golfer the average person knows of. Everyone loved him because of his incredible skill and personality that he brought to the game of golf, but we all eventually found out that he had been conquered by a sexual sinfulness that cost him his marriage, affected his kids, altered his career, and burdened his mentality to the point that it even showed in his golf game.

I have watched as some of the people closest to me began to experiment with different drugs, only to become absolutely dominated by them. Every decision they made, whether it was with their time, money, who they hung out with, where they went (or didn’t go) was completely dictated by their obsession with their substance of choice.

In my own life, I have felt what it is like to be owned by something that I hate, and I am sure that you have as well.

Apply: Don’t we make these same mistakes? Don’t we sometimes act like we can get away with sinful living, convinced we have it under control? How long is it before we are willing to recognize we’re no longer in control and are, in fact, completely conquered by it?

Gentlemen, for some of us its time to admit that the screen has conquered you. What started out as a guilty pleasure has become a dominating force, a cruel slavemaster that bends you to its will.

for some of us its time to admit that alcohol has become too important to us. No longer is it something to enjoy socially with friends, but it has become something that needs to be done in order to experience any pleasure.

for some of us its time to admit that impatience and anger have conquered us. No longer do we act in righteous anger at sin, but the smallest of offenses cause us to lash out at those we love.

Gentlemen and Ladies, its time for some of us to admit that gossip owns us. No longer are we simply looking to share prayer requests or concern for another, but we have become addicted to discussing the latest drama and sticking our noses where they don’t belong.

Some of us need to realize that grumbling and complaining is ruler over us. No longer do we just have a sarcastic sense of humor, but we can’t serve anybody without making some pointed comment about how much we’d rather not.

Brothers and Sisters, sinful lives always become conquered lives, and we are no exception. Paul said it to us all in his letter to the Ephesians and to the Romans

Ephesians 2:1–3 (ESV)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

or when he posed this question to the Romans

Romans 6:16 ESV

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

We have all presented ourselves as slaves to sin, to obey its desires, and have lived as a conquered people.

But I want to emphasize one more point in this matter: it is the very things we idolize that so often become our captors.

Our idols become our captors

State: This point is worth emphasizing because its dealing with something that I think is happening to all of us, most of the time without us even realizing it.

It was the very people whose gods Israel began to serve that would conquer them. This nation that rules them, these gods that stand over them, they weren’t forced on them; at least not at first. The text says that the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, which in this case was exactly the danger they allowed themselves to face by refusing to uproot the pagan people. The people of Israel began bowing down to these false gods not by force, but by their own desire. Just as they did 40 years earlier in the time of Othniel, they once again forgot the Lord and chose the gods of the pagans in the land. They liked these idols.

In the beginning, they casually frequented these pagan temples and worshiped them, simply adding them to their religion and syncretizing the pure faith God had given them. It started out as a game to them, something that they could control for their own pleasure.

Illustrate:

Apply: we worry about the things that we hate becoming our captors (Russia, China, liberal culture), but we rarely are concerned that the things we love will become our captors.

My friends, the things that own you started out as the things you went to for pleasure, or affirmation, or dopamine. You once found them desirable, but they have become your master.

Israel once found the idols of Moab interesting and enjoyable, but now they have to walk through the statues of those idols as they bring a forced tribute to Moab as their conquered slaves.

We too walk through this life under the shadow of our idols, constant reminders that we are a conquered people.

But does it have to be that way? Is this our fate, to live as slaves to these idols we have welcomed into our lives?

It can sometimes feel that way, and it probably felt that way to many of the Israelites that spent 18 years serving Moab.

But notice what these conquered people did; they didn’t consign themselves to a life of service to these idols. They didn’t continue to eat the lie that they had the power to overcome those idols either, though.

What did they do?

They ate some humble pie. They finally admitted what had been obvious to everyone except for themselves: they were outmatched and in desperate need of help.

In this humility, they cried out to the Lord that they had abandoned those 18 years ago, and hear this my friends:

THE LORD ANSWERED THEIR CALL!

After 18 years, their God had remained patient and faithful to hear their call to him.

The Lord answered, and he raised up for them another judge by the name of Ehud.

But this judge wouldn’t come in the form of someone they expected, which leads us to recognize something important about the way God works: God uses what appears to us as foolish in order to deliver us from our enemies.

In Christ, we live as a conquering people

God will use what is foolish to shame our enemies

Judges 3:15 (ESV)

Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, a left-handed man.

Judges 3:26–30 ESV

Ehud escaped while they delayed, and he passed beyond the idols and escaped to Seirah. When he arrived, he sounded the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim. Then the people of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was their leader. And he said to them, “Follow after me, for the Lord has given your enemies the Moabites into your hand.” So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan against the Moabites and did not allow anyone to pass over. And they killed at that time about 10,000 of the Moabites, all strong, able-bodied men; not a man escaped. So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years.

State: We are told that the Lord raised up a deliverer named Ehud, and we are also told that he was left-handed. This is an important detail for a couple of reasons that may not make immediate sense to us today. To be left-handed in this time was considered a disgraceful thing, and much of the time a man who was left-handed was considered to be of relatively little value. In our context today, when you have a son who is left-handed, you might start to get excited at the thought of baseball scholarships. At that time, you were viewed as weak, unfit to wield a sword for war, and maybe even cursed by God. So immediately we see that God is choosing a deliverer for his people that would have appeared to be foolish to most.

The second reason its important that Ehud is left-handed becomes apparent as we continue to read the story.

It was time for the people of Israel to bring their tribute and pay their master what they owed him. As Ehud walked down the path lined with the idols of the false gods of Moab, he had a sword strapped to his right leg. This is significant, because nobody who was a normal right-handed man would have placed a sword there.

So as he approached the fat King of Moab, who I imagine was the spitting imagine of Jabba the Hut, he asks for a private audience. No sword on his left side, no perceived threat, and so the servants are sent away, leaving Eglon and Ehud alone in the rooftop chamber. Ehud approaches, and says “I have a message from God for you.” He reaches for his right thigh, produces a sword, and buries it in the gut of that oppressive tyrant, spilling his dung on the floor and leaving the blade as the king’s fat rolled over the top of it. Quickly locking the door, Ehud escapes out of the second story window and goes to gather the army of Israel as they are poised to overthrow their now kingless opressors.

Who ever said the Bible is boring?

God humiliated the enemy of his people.

After 18 years of being conquered, God chose what was considered foolish by the world to free his people in a moment.

This is exactly what God has done for us in Christ. Christ appeared to the world as foolish, and yet it was going to be through him that God would free his people who had been in bondage to an enemy far worse than Eglon and for a lot longer than 18 years.

When the fullness of time had come, and when God’s people were still in sin, he sent not just another judge to free his people from oppressive Rome, but he sent his Son to free his people from the oppression of Satan, sin, death, the flesh, and all its effects.

God sent forth his son, born of a woman, a virgin at that, in humble condition. Nobody thought anything of him, and in fact they despised him. Yet it would be this man- considered foolish by the world- that would devastate our enemy in even more spectacular fashion than Ehud had managed.

Isaiah 53:2–3 ESV

For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

In the depth of his humiliation, it was on a Roman cross where our deliverer remained nailed and tortured where he would deliver our ultimate victory.

Isaiah 53:4–6 ESV

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

After Ehud had killed Eglon, he was able to walk past the idols of Moab not as a conquered man, but as a conqueror and the deliverer of his oppressed people.

After Jesus eviscerated Satan on the cross, he rose from the tomb and walked the road to Emmaus with his disciples as he explained to them his victory- their victory and our victory.

Illustrate:

Apply: .My friends, the victory of Christ was your victory. You were born as slaves to the flesh, slaves to sin, and we have all been found in a desperate condition, dominated by sin and in need of saving.

I’m pleased to proclaim to you today that sin has been gutted, death has lost its sting, and the people of God have been set free by victory of Jesus.

Romans 6:17–18 ESV

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

In his love for us, Christ has removed the heart of stone that presented itself as a slave to sin, and has given us a heart of flesh that presents itself to him instead.

We have been set free, and all those in Christ are truly free from the bondage of sin. It is for this freedom that Christ has set us free.

Galatians 5:1 ESV

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Church, we have a long road ahead of us in the book of Judges. Spoiler alert: the people of Israel are going to submit again to a yoke of slavery. They will become proud again, play with sin again, and become dominated by sin again. But they will be humbled again, and in that humility God will set them free again.

Don’t continue to commit the same mistakes as Israel. Don’t submit to a yoke of slavery to sin again. Don’t become proud, convinced that you can play with sin and walk away unscathed.

Sinful lives will always become conquered lives, but lives humbly reliant on God will become liberated lives.

Humble yourselves, be reliant on God and have faith in Jesus as your only deliverer, your only strength, your only victory, and walk in the freedom that he has purchased for you by his blood.

Humbly Dependent Lives become liberated lives