Judges 12:1-7

Intro

Proverbs 16:18 ESV

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

This proverb is perhaps one of the most quoted today in all kinds of contexts. You hear it in sports games, kids books, poetry, narrative books, political controversies, and just about any situation where you see someone become bloated and blinded by pride.

Famous examples many of us have heard about are people like the greek myth Icarus flying so close to the sun that his wings melted and he died, the military efforts of people like Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler refusing to back down even in the face of certain defeat, or the political overreach of Julius Caesar which led to his assassination on the ides of March.

Its normally an ugly thing to see the bloated conceit of a prideful people come crumbling down, and that is exactly what we see in the passage we have in front of us tonight.

Pride Divides and Destroys

Ephraimites are bloated by pride

Judges 12:1–3 ESV

The men of Ephraim were called to arms, and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house over you with fire.” And Jephthah said to them, “I and my people had a great dispute with the Ammonites, and when I called you, you did not save me from their hand. And when I saw that you would not save me, I took my life in my hand and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me?”

State: To understand what is going on here, we need to back up and remember that we are reading about the end of a story. Over the last several weeks, we have been looking at the story of Jepthah, which has been divided up into two parts. When we hear the name Jepthah, we may be more familiar with the story of the tragic vow and the fate of his daughter. More positively, we can also remember that he defeated the Ammonites to deliver Israel from foreign oppressors as judge; it is this more positive story that has led to the current confrontation in our passage.

In the wake of the victory over the Ammonites, the Ephraimites gather themselves together and cross the Jordan river to confront Jepthah in Gilead; but not to celebrate with him or thank him. The Ephraimites saw that Jepthah had been victorious, and they grew jealous that they weren’t in the spotlight.

If this sounds familiar to you, its probably because this exact thing happened in Gideon’s story, when the Ephraimites also grew jealous of his victory.

A theme that begins to play itself out in the book of judges is that the Ephraimites are a prideful people; they very much view themselves as the cream of the crop in the nation of Israel. If there is glory to go around, they feel that they need to be getting their portion of it.

In this specific instance, the Ephraimites have witnessed Gilead, a small piece of Israel, led by Jephthah, the son of a prostitute, deliver Israel singlehandedly from the oppression of the Ammonites when nobody else could or would.

While we can look at this and see the faithful hand of God at work in delivering his people from oppression, the pride of the Ephraimites has blinded them to that reality and has prevented them from praising God for the victory; rather, all they can see is the lack of glory coming their way.

This leads them to initially threaten Jepthah; they say that they will burn him alive inside of his house.

When Gideon was threatened by the Ephraimites, he played into their ego and responded with compliments. Not so with Jepthah. Jephthah responds by telling the truth; that he did ask them to come and fight in the battle, but they were unwilling and left him out to dry.

This truth telling wasn’t going to do anything for the ego of the Ephraimites though, but it only made their rage grow stronger as their pride was further damaged.

Illustrate:

Apply: How often are we bloated and blinded by pride in this manner? How often are we willing to twist and misrepresent the facts in order to save face? How often do we get jealous when we see others thriving, and then act in hurtful ways because of our damaged pride?

Pride has brought division and destruction

Judges 12:4–6 ESV

Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim. And the men of Gilead struck Ephraim, because they said, “You are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh.” And the Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me go over,” the men of Gilead said to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” When he said, “No,” they said to him, “Then say Shibboleth,” and he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time 42,000 of the Ephraimites fell.

State: Because of the pride of the Ephraimites, brothers will turn on brothers. What we see breaking out is a full-on civil war between two regions from the nation of Israel; the Ephraimites would rather kill their brothers or die trying before they would allow the glory to go anywhere but to themselves.

Before fighting, the Ephraimites hurled more insults at the people of Gilead. Because Gilead is a region sandwiched between Ephraim and Manasseh, and apparently were looked down on by the people of both, the Ephraimites are calling them an illegitimate people.

The Gileadites responded to these threats, insults, and assaults by fighting back; and winning convincingly. Not only did they win the battle, but they took control of the entire Jordan river and wouldn’t allow any Ephraimites to pass. Whenever anyone wanted to cross over, the Gileadites would ask them if they belonged to Epphraim; Ephraimites were denying it for fear of their life.

And here is a twist of irony: the men of Ephraim, who were just moments ago so full of pride and so quickly looked down on the Gileadites, are terrified to claim that they even belong to Ephraim.

But they couldn’t hide their identity, because they had an accent that prevented them from pronouncing the “sh” sound in “Shibboleth.” Once they failed to pronounce this correctly, they would be killed on the spot by the Gileadites. in total, 42,000 Ephraimites died that day; and for what? Why did this have to happen?

Because they were so bloated with pride that they started picking fights they couldn’t win.

By the way, this is going to be a bit of a turning point in the book of Judges. It has normally been from the outside that Israel has been oppressed, but here we see the poison has seeped in deeper. Now the aggression isn’t coming from outside, but from inside.

Here we see two devastating effects of pride: it turns brothers against each other to cause deep division, and it brings forward devastating destruction.

Illustrate

Apply: Pride is doing this today in our homes, in our communities, in our churches.

When everything becomes a competition about who is better, we see each other as competitors rather than allies.

When the church just begins to see everything as a turf war for who can get more people in their doors, we see each other as competition rather than brothers and sisters trying to achieve the same goal: the glory of God.

When personal glory sneaks into our heart’s desires, we begin to see our friendships, spouses, family members, kids, and everyone as opportunities to elevate ourselves. Rather than sacrificing for their benefit, we see how we can manipulate them into elevating ourselves.

This type of self-important pride is divisive, and it drives brother against brother. It causes us to murder each other, either literally with our hands or figuratively in our hearts. It causes marriages and households to crumble and fail. It causes parents to live vicariously through their children, seeking some glory that they failed to obtain for themselves and highjacking someone else’s childhood in the process. It has led to the death of countless churches and will certainly lead to the death of more.

Pride is gnarly, ugly, divisive, and destructive.

What hope do we have as a prideful people, hell-bent on destroying others at the benefit of ourselves?

Let us look to Christ, our Lord and Savior who humbled himself to save a prideful people like us from the fate we were doomed to bring upon ourselves. Believing in his gospel is the antidote to pride, and the only hope for us.

Christ Brought Unity and Healing

Christ displayed great humility

Philippians 2:5–8 ESV

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

State: Consider how drastically different Christ is from us. We are very much a people plagued by self-important pride, insisting on our own way and elevating the self over others. Christ, on the other hand, humbled himself to a degree that we cannot possibly comprehend. To be the eternal, infinite, unchangeable Son of God, and then to take on yourself a human nature like the people you created, is an act of humility that we cannot even come close to understanding. There are no illustrations, no examples that compare.

Illustrate: I heard Jerry this year at camp make that comment that for us to become ants wouldn’t even come close to being a picture of the humility that Christ displayed by taking on a human nature.

Apply: Christ is without a doubt the greatest example of humility that we have ever seen. In his humility, we see on grand display his righteousness juxtaposed with our unrighteousness. We see his love and our conceit. We see how wonderful our savior is, that he would humble himself even to the point of death on a cross to obey his Father and save his people.

But that goes to my next two points: Christ is so much more than an example for us to follow. Through Christ’s humility, he has brought estranged brothers together in unity and has brought widespread healing and salvation where there was only death and destruction.

Christ’s humility has brought estranged brothers together

I want to see how Christ’s humility has done this by focusing on a story we read in the gospel of Matthew.

Matthew 20:20–28 ESV

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

State: Here we see an example of pride in the very early church, amongst two of Jesus’s disciples. They were thinking about themselves, and asked to have a place of honor in the Jesus’s Kingdom. Immediately we see the divisive effects; the other disciples begin to grow indignant towards them. If left to themselves, this is the type of thing that causes brothers to divide and destroy one another. Thankfully, Jesus steps in and shows another way.

Jesus helps us to see that even though pride is a virtue in the world around us, it isn’t going to be like that with the church. Rather than seek self-elevation, we seek to elevate others as we serve them. Why do we do this? Because even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and even to give his life as a ransom for many.

The Kingdom of God doesn’t consist of climbing the corporate ladder, putting in time and effort to elevate yourself, building your resume so that you can be exalted; the Kingdom of God flips all of that on its head and considers that it is the servant of all who is the greatest. This was instituted, exemplified, and imputed to the people by the humility of the Church’s head himself, Jesus.

Illustrate

Apply: He has given us this mind to have amongst ourselves! (Philippians 2:5)

as we have faith in him and believe in his gospel, our pride is destroyed and we are both called and made to consider one another as more significant than ourselves.

As we believe the gospel, we are reminded that we were once lost and dead in sin and were saved by grace through faith, not our own doing, so that none of us can boast.

In fact, the gospel reminds us that if we are going to boast about anything, it will be our own weaknesses so that we can show the world just how powerful the grace of God is that is at work in us.

As we have faith in Christ and are sanctified, we are graciously transformed more and more into the image of our servant King.

In doing this, Jesus is binding us together by the power of his Spirit at work in us. Though we were once far off, Jesus has brought us all close. Though we were once estranged, Jesus has made us brothers and sisters. Though pride has divided, Jesus has brought unity.

In addition to bringing unity, Christ has also brought healing and salvation through his humility.

Christ’s humility has brought widespread healing and salvation

Matthew 20:28 ESV

even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

John 10:11–16 ESV

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

State: Just as Christ brings his flock together, he also lays down his life to save ours.

As I stated earlier, the gospel reminds us that we were lost and dead in sin. In our pride, we are vessels of destruction; hating one another and being hated by others. We leave trails of destruction, which ultimately ends in our own death as we continue to sin against a holy God by elevating ourselves against his glory.

In his love for us, Christ has laid down his life for a sinful, prideful people to save us from the sin that threatened to destroy us. He has called us to himself, brought us into his flock, and laid down his life to save us from the attacks of the enemy, to save us from the sinfulness dwelling in us, to save us from the disease that plagues us.

He humbled himself to work this out for us.

Illustrate

Apply: Though our pride had only brought on destruction, Jesus humbled himself to bring on our healing and salvation. In our sin, we had only death to look forward to. In Christ, we have been resurrected, made alive, healed, saved!

Thank God for Jesus Christ, who humbled himself to the point of death on a cross to unify and save a prideful people like us. May he receive all the glory and honor. Amen.

FCF: Pride leads to ultimate destruction

CFC: Christ became a servant of all in order to heal his people

Pride leads us to

Gossip and slander one another (tear down to elevate self)

Argue and bicker with one another, insisting on your own way (thanksgiving)

Drive families apart

Murder and kill one another (maybe murder in your heart?)

Christ leads us to

Build one another up in love

Focus on a shared foundation in the gospel

Consider others more significant than yourself

Unify under his headship

Lay down our lives for one another, as he laid down his life for us.