The Left Handed Man

The Game: A Night to Remember

Imagine if you will you are a a regular maintenance worker and Zamboni driver. It is nothing special but you get to go to Hockey games and watch your favorite team play. Hockey is a game that you have loved and played for a long time. It got to the point where you where even able to sometimes practice with your favorite team and still play as an adult with some less skilled teams. One day someone calls you and asks you to be an emergency back up goalie for the team. Likely just a formality in case of emergency, you know like a parachute on a plan. You never plan to use it but it sure is handy when you need it.

one day you are doing your job as normal when you notice one of the goalies on the opposing team gets injured. No big deal this happens all the time, they will just use the backup goalie. Well then the backup goalie goes and gets himself injured. Now all of a sudden there are no goalies left for that team. So what happens? the thing that was never supposed to happen, they call in the emergency goalie which is you. The pressure is intense, know one expects you to save any of the shots, the teams hopes of winning the game is lost now.

you enter the game midway through the second period.The first shot comes at you and you miss. The second shot comes at you and you miss. But then you start to settle in, making 8 saves on the next 8 shots and the team wins the game.

Many people know the story of this goalie and How he went on to become somewhat of a hero. But like this goalie, God uses unlikely people in surprising ways. although when God does it it is seen to be beyond the power of the one who he worked through so we have no other choice then to give the glory to God. Or at least that is the way that it is supposed to work.

In the book of Judges we move on to the next deliverer and what we can learn from Him. The left handed man from the tribe of Benjamin. This is quite the interesting story worthy of a Quentin terentino movie (but preferably without all the swearing and other not good stuff). What we are going to see in this Narrative is

do not give up on what God has called us to do even when we face discouraging, hopeless situations for it is God who delivers, even if it is in surprising ways.

As we go through this I want you to keep in mind the sin cycle. For we are going to see this at play throughout the book. Remember last we went through this we went through How even though we are a broken people, the Lord is faithful to save all who call on His name. The Israelite's went through the cycle of sin to judgement to repentance to salvation and had peace.

The peace lasted essentially long enough for the people to forget. I mean you would think they would remember all that God had done for them, but humanity tends to have a short memory and is prone to wander.

Why did they sin? History of syncretism (amalgamating beliefs). We still do this today

Easy to do this when the nations temp you, when you disobey and intermarry with the other nations. Easier to add someone else’s beliefs then try to lead the, to the true way of Jesus.

When no one was leading them they wandered away (no one keeping them accountable)

This is a warning to us. In the grand scheme it doesn’t matter why they sinned but that they did nd so do we.

After 40 years of peace

Judges 3:11 CSB

11 Then the land had peace for forty years, and Othniel son of Kenaz died.

Then the Israelite's started to fall to sin again. It was easy to do, after all the nations they un-obediently left in the land where wreaking havoc on them. It was to tempting to go along with the flow and they started to sin again.

Here is where it is going to be easier to follow along in your paper Bibles I know you all have, we are going to paraphrase the Narrative a bit.

- Israel does Evil in the sight of the Lord - Judges 3:12

Israel started to do evil in the sight of the Lord. Hey we all fall into the trap of easily falling pray to the trap of living like the world around us. laughing at the rude joke that our coworker says, gossiping about someone and saying something behind their back you would never say to their face. the list goes on. They had the problem of falling to the sinful ways of the nations the Lord was using to test them.

- Israel given into King Eglon’s hands - Judges 3:13-14

so because of that the Lord gave them into the hands of the king of Moab. remember the sin cycle? Israel forgot what the Lord had done for them.

for 18 years they where in the service of the evil king Eglon of Moab. essentially all the older generation would have been the only ones to remember the good times. Imagine that, an 18 year punishment for your sins.

God Raises up Ehud as a Deliverer - Judges 3:15-19

The Israelites cried out to God because of their poor situation that they had gotten themselves into. Now note in verse 15 that it does not say that they repented, but that they just cried out to God.We are under the assumption that many did not repent from their sins, they just felt bad that they where facing the consequences for them.

God raised up a deliverer for them, His name was Ehud. He was a different man, He was left handed. I find it kind of humorous that a left handed deliverer was raised from Benjamin, the tribe of God’s right hand. I have heard it said that God used a weak man to deliver Israel, But I don't think that Ehud was necessarily week. We are going to learn in Chapter 20 that the tribe of Benjamin had a contingent of about 700 soldiers that could use a sling in the left hand and hit things with incredible accuracy. They where incredible warriors it would appear. so maybe Ehud was one of them, we are not sure.

Ehud was supposed to deliver the tribute to the evil King. This is something that they had to do regularly. They would have to send probably a certain percentage of everything they had to the king to appease Him. Ehud went by the carved images the passage tells us. This is the idols that the people of Moab worshiped. so when Ehud told the king that he had a message for Him the king acted like he was about to hear a message from his gods that is why he sent everyone away as fast as he did. Well he was about to hear a message anyways, just not what he thought.

King Eglon Judged Judges 3:20-24

This is where the story starts to get a little x rated. who ever said the bible is boring must never have read any of it before. There was a cool room upstairs, EHud was likely to have been searched by the guards before they left the pair alone. Ehud said that he had a message from God for the king, just as the king expected. The king stood up from the throne, which was an important step fro Ehud if his plan was going to work. You see the king was exceedingly fat. Ehud had a short dagger that he was hiding on his right thigh and when the king was close enough he drove the dagger into the kings belley till it was swalloed by His fat and the king pooped himself.

Now I am not sure why that was important to remember.

but likely it would have given Ehud enough time to escape out the window. The guards didn't come in because they thought the king was using the toilet in the room. Why he would have been using the toilet.

Israel has peace for 80 years - Judges 3:25-30

Ehud sounded the alarm and they all came out and destroyed the people of Moab. There was peace for 80 years after this. enough time for the people to start to forget again, but we will get into that later. now that we have the story told there are some things that we can learn from this.

So What?

so what is it that we can learn from such a violent story. God does use ordinary things in surprising ways. God used one man to free the people of Israel after they cried out to Him in distress. now whether they where actually repentant we are not sure, it does not say. but they did cry out to God and the Lord God did deliver them from their trials.

The first point that we need to remember, that is going to be repeated a lot is that Jesus is the only one that can deliver us from our sin.

we have gone through this a few times already but as the bible likes to repeat itself so as to get a point across so will I to help us remember. The deliverers in Judges point us to Jesus being the one true deliverer that would save us from our bondage to sin. we are unable to pull ourselves out of our own sin. We are all lost in sin at some point and we need to cry out to God in the midst of our sin and ask Him to deliver us.

This also looks forward to the future when Jesus will become the judge that will judge the nations for their sin, all the people ho have refused to follow Jesus with their lives.

But in the mean time God uses people now to do amazing things for His glory. The most amazing thing that He can do is save us from our sin and make us children of God. That is the biggest Miracle of all. But just as God used Ehud, an ordinary Left Handed man from the tribe of God’s right hand so God can use us for His glory in our humility.

Typically, this story gets preached as a call to let God use your unique characteristics or weaknesses in the same way that he used Ehud’s left-handedness. But the narrator gives no hint that we are to follow Ehud’s lead. Rather, this left-handed man from a tribe known for it’s right-handedness reflects how God delivers his people. The message is that God delivers his people from hopeless situations in surprising ways. this has been God’s method of operation throughout history. this is because we need to understand that this life is for the glory of God. It is not about us and it never has been.

Who would have thought that God would continue the line of promise through Tamar, a Canaanite woman who was more faithful to her culture’s standards than Judah was to his?! Who would have thought that God would deliver Moses from infanticide by having Pharoah’s daughter rescue him and then hire Moses’ own mother as his nanny?! Who would have thought that God would deliver his people from their sins by coming to earth in human form in the person of Jesus and dying on a cross for their sins?!

we must become less and the Lord must become great. It is when we are humble and meek that we realize how big a God it is we serve. We need to humbly get on our knees and ask the Lord to use us for His glory in whatever ways he sees fit.

this does not mean that we will always be pulled out of the hopeless situations but that God will carry us through them for his glory.

As Israel suffered for her sin we are promised that we will suffer for our faith. This may seem like a bit of a rabbit trail but this is something I have been thinking about As I was reading through the book of Judges the parallel seemed to jump out at me. God uses the ordinary for His glory in extraordinary ways but does that mean that we are done with the suffering. In the book of Judges the Israelite's where suffering for there sin and God used extraordinary means to pull them out for His glory. To apply that to our lives today does not mean that we will also be pulled out of our suffering and pain.

What we are promised though is that we will suffer for God as His children. But we suffer with joy knowing that we are counted as worthy enough to suffer for our faith in Jesus. do not lose hope in the midst of suffering - suffering is assured - 1 Peter (what is suffering) God hears our cries and will be glorified and give us the strength to withstand suffering. Our hope and joy is in God. Doesn't mean the suffering will always cease but our hope is rather in the battle that is won by God.

our joy is not in happiness but rather the everlasting peace in the presence of God. Our goal is holiness, to be found like God, living for God for the glory of God to be an example no matter what the world puts us through.

we fight a battle as well, but we fight on our knees with the word of God.

In the case of Ehud, God is able to turn evil into good. Ehud’s method of delivering Israel may not be God’s preferred way, but nevertheless, God used this flawed judge, a sinner like you and me, to accomplish his purpose. And like Ehud, we may not even be aware that we are God’s instruments.

And our weapons of war are not swords to kill, but God’s Word, “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword… and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12). The Word of God is living and active, just as God himself is living and active. He does not sleep, and he works in ways that we don’t even know, in ways that surprise us. God’s Word is able to penetrate man’s deepest thoughts and plans, even the wicked plans of kings and people.

Judges/Ruth, Revised Edition Human Level

How are we to wage spiritual warfare against those who abuse, exploit, and persecute the church? For Christians in certain parts of the world today, this is not a hypothetical question but a real and practical one.

As discussed in the Contemporary Significance section of 1:1–2:5 above, the concept of warfare is different between the Old and New Testaments. Nevertheless, while the warfare in which Christians are engaged is spiritual, not physical, the necessity of walking by faith in loyalty to Christ’s covenant is the only hope of victory. We are certainly not to fashion our own daggers as Ehud did but rather to engage the world with a better weapon already supplied—the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (Eph 6:17). This sword is “alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow” (Heb 4:12). This is not to allegorize the passage and equate Ehud’s dagger with the Word of God (i.e., the Bible). Rather, it is to acknowledge the role that the truth of that Word plays in the answer to the question posed above in the modern context

God worked through His imperfections to glorify Himself, God works through and in spite of the judge’s weaknesses in order to accomplish the saving of Israel