Deborah

Introduction

Well good evening Near North, it’s good to be with you guys tonight!

Texting Setup

We’re continuing in our series tonight called Great Stories and seeing how all of them point to the greater story of Jesus and the Gospel.

Tonight, we’re in the book of Judges.

And Judges is messy. It deals with some pretty dark stories and themes as it shows God’s people in this downward spiral of moral decline…and each story is darker than the last….and honestly, it’s not hard to read the book and end up asking, why’s this even in the bible?

And yet, it’s also a rich story of redemption as God refuses to give up on people who have regularly given up on Him.

So open your bibles to …it’s on page 203 if you grabbed one of the house bibles….

Let me pray. and we’ll get started.

Pray

Context of Judges

Okay, let me give you a couple quick things before we get started that will help us make sense of what we’re looking at tonight.

What is a ‘judge’?

If were looking at the book of judges, we need to get an idea of what we’re talking about here!

When we use the word Judge we can’t help but think about immediately think of a court room with a highly educated person sitting on the bench making decisions…but that’s not at all close to what a Judge is in the book of Judges.

I think one of the best examples is something more like what you see in an old western movie? Think, John Wayne…Clint Eastwood…[SLIDE]…these guys are really more like what the Judges were…you watch their movies and even see some of their characters…they’re not clean guys…they’re not always doing good things…but at the end of the story, they are they heroes, right! They are the one’s calling the shots! They have the authority…really they are the leaders. Same idea playing out here! Over and over again, we’re told that God raises up a judge to be a deliver. They themselves not always very good, but God still uses them to bring about good.

Cycle of Sin in Judges

And when you follow the story line, the whole thing is basically a big downward spiral. Each new judge is worse than the last. But you see this recurring pattern in all the stories…it’s usually called the cycle of sin…or cycle of rebellion. It works like this, let me show you a slide [SLIDE].

Each of the stories really begins with peace as God’s people are obedient to what He’s called them to do. Then something happens and they reject God and fail to live the way God has laid out for them…Israel sins, and worship other gods. So God delivers Israel over to the nations and they oppressed…Israel cries out to God—asking that he would deliver them…God raises up a judge and uses that person to ‘deliver’ them, and once again their relationship with God is restored and they live in peace and prosperity…until that judge dies…and the cycle starts all over again.

And you know what’s interesting about this story in particular is that it is actually told twice…both in chapter four and then it’s retold as a song in chapter 5…and so we actually get two different perspectives and more details on what’s happened.

Alright, let’s get started. , look with me starting at v. 1. It says this, “And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died.”

Ehud is one of the previous judges, And it’s his death that kicks off that cycle of sin we just talked about again. Israel rebels against God, and they end up becoming enslaved by a neighboring nation—the Canaanites who are really the arch enemies of Israel

Here’s where we meet some of the main players in this story—Jabin, the king of Canaan and his chief general, Sisera. Jabin has a powerful army of 900 Iron chariots…Let me show you a picture of what a chariot would have looked like back then [SLIDE]. Think about it this way…having chariots like that is the same kind of tactical advantage, in today’s world, as having drones and guided missiles when then other side doesn’t. There’s really nothing Israel could to do to defend themselves against the chariots. And on top of that, archeologists tell us, that in this time period, a general would have around 25 foot soldiers for every chariot…and so all things considered, Jabin has a standing army of at least 25,000 men and the chariots! Israel doesn’t really have anything.

And so Jabin and Sisera really can do whatever they want with no threat them…and in v. 3, we’re told they cruelly oppress Israel for 20 years. And Israel is stuck…and can’t really do anything about it themselves. So finally, after 20 years, they cry out to God. There’s the part of that cycle again [SLIDE].

Look with me at v. 4, “Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment.”

Now, we get to meet some of the good guys [SLIDE]. The first one we meet is Deborah. And we know two things about Deborah.

Verse 4 says, is as a prophetess…meaning at the time, she’s the one who speaks on behalf of God…that she is God’s representative to His people. And as a prophetess, she is judging Israel…which makes her the only female judge in the book.

Now this is interesting. We’ve got to feel this in their context…Deborah…a WOMAN….was judging Israel at the time. We can’t miss this. Women did not have influence in that day. And that’s gotta make us look twice, because something like this almost NEVER happened in the ancient world. And yet Deborah’s the one who is in this position of power…she is the one who’s calling the shots…she is the one who is leading the people at the time. And they’re coming up from all over the place to hear her wisdom in how she is deciding civil disputes between people…there is no monarchy yet, and so Deborah at this point is functioning as the spiritual and civil leader in Israel.

Just as a side note…one of the things I love about this story is that it shows very clearly that God gives tremendous leadership gifts to women. Ladies, He gives incredible leadership gifts to women and he uses you to be profound influences in the lives of his people and this is as true today as it was for Deborah. Some of you ladies here tonight have bene given strong leadership gifts by God and He calls you to use them. How are you using them?

So the people cry out to God, and God responds the same way He has through the book of Judges—He raises up a deliverer. And because Deborah’s the prophetess…the one who speaks on behalf of God, she sends people to bring to her a man named Barak [SLIDE].

Look with me at what Deborah says to him in v. 6, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand’?”

This is Deborah’s way of saying, ‘Look, Barak this is what God is calling you to do!’

So what’s clear here is that Deborah is not going to be the deliverer, Barak is. God uses Deborah, to call Barak to be the deliverer.

But look how he responds in v. 8, “Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” See, like I said, in the book of Judges there is downward spiral as each Judge…each deliverer is worse than the last, and here’s where Barak already begins to unravel. God tells him exactly what He wants him to do…He tells Barak how many men to get, where to get them, where to take them, what to do with them…AND God says HE HIMSELF will be the one to give Sisera and his WHOLE ARMY over to Barak!

And yet, in his response to Deborah, saying that he will only go if she goes with him… Barak fails to be obedient…because he’s not convinced God will do what He said He’d do.

Now we’re not told why Barak responds this way.

But sometimes, we need to read between the lines a bit to really see what’s going on.

See, Barak knows very well how powerful Sisera’s army is… he’s been living under their oppression for the last 20 years…and so Barak is hedging his bets. See, if Deborah…the prophetess of God… is with him, that is a tangible reminder and proof of God’s presence and power with him in Battle. See Barak is willing to do this…he wants to be the deliverer…the hero of this story…he just wants to make sure he’s got all right cards in his hand. And Deborah knows it. So she says to him, I’ll go with you…but you should know, the way you’re going about this will not lead to your glory…because now God is going to give Sisera into the hand of a woman. And when she’s done saying her piece, they go and Barak get’s the men ready for battle.

He gets the 10,000 men get ready but Sisera finds out…and he brings all 900 chariots with him to confront Barak in the river valley…

Look with me at v. 15, “But the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword. And Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot.” And we don’t get a whole lot of detail here about what happened, only that the Lord routed Sisera which is really interesting word in the original language of Hebrew…it’s mean to throw into confusion…and its really this picture of Sisera and his whole army getting ready to fight Barak and his army and then all of a sudden, something happens that stops them in their tracks.

But what happened?

Look with me at chapter 5 v. 4….remember chapter 5 tells the same story, just as a poem…it says this “Lord, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, the earth trembled…and the heavens dropped, yes, the clouds dropped water…” Sisera’s army is thrown into confusion…because it rained. That shouldn’t have happened! If it was the rainy season, Sisera would NEVER have brought the chariots into this river valley! That wasn’t supposed to happen! It would be like if we went outside today and it snowed!

And so now, almost all the Chariots are useless…the Israelites destroy Sisera’s army…But Sisera himself jumps of his chariot and escapes…and Barak chases after him! Remember what Barak has been told though already…because he originally refused to go out to battle unless Deborah went with him, Sisera himself was going to be defeated not by him, but by a woman. But see, Barak doesn’t really believe that…he’s still chasing after the idea of being the hero and so he takes after Sisera and follows him.

Sisera eventually makes it to the tent of a family he has an alliance with…and when he gets there, outside the tent, Jael…the wife of Heber [SLIDE]. Jael calls out to Sisera and says, “Turn aside my lord; turn aside to me…do not be afraid.” And so he quickly get’s inside the tent and Jael cover’s him with a rug so that he will be hidden…he asks for a glass of water and Jael brings him a some milk…picture this for a moment. It’s a tent in the middle of the desert…it’s warm, he’s under a blanket…he’s given a glass of warm milk…and he quickly dozes off to sleep. And here’s how the story ends…Jael quietly moves around in the tent to gather up a tent peg…and a hammer…and moves over to softly to where Sisera is sleeping…and hammers the tent peg right through his temple into the ground…and he died. As if that last detail was really that necessary…And as soon as she’s done, Barak shows up to this woman’s tent looking for any sign of Sisera.

She invites him in.

And there he is, dead on the floor of the tent, having been defeated by a random woman just moments before he showed up to do the job himself.

What an ending, right!

And honestly, this is why the book of Judges is such a hard book for us to understand, right? I mean what are we supposed to do with that?

But what do we do with this story? What’s the point—no pun intended…?

But you see, as I’ve been processing through this story over the last week, I think the point is actually to raise a question.

And I think this story forces us to ask…more so than any other story in the book of Judges…if the book is about these deliverers…when we look at this story of Deborah, Barak, and Jael…we are forced to end up asking, ‘Who is the hero?’ right? I mean you go back and look at who all’s involved in what happens and all three of them, Deborah, Barak, and Jael play a part in delivering Israel…but none of them is the undisputed hero!

There’s nothing really wrong with Deborah but she’s not the deliver—it’s not her role…Barak was close, under his generalship his army defeats Sisera’s army…but he fails to believe God…and actually gets absorbed in the pursuit of his own glory and fame in spite of what God already told him! Jael kills Sisera, but did nothing to his army. We don’t even know anything about Jael! She’s not an Israelite…we have no idea why she did what she did! In fact outside of chapter 5 where she’s mentioned once…she’s never mentioned again!

See everyone is close but, they’re not the heroes! And so again we have to ask, ‘Who is the hero of the story?’

But what if we were never meant to see Deborah, Barak, or Jael as heroes?

See, this story is actually pointing to someone else…this whole time…it’s actually God himself who’s the hero of this story!

See, He’s the one working in the background to deliverer His people from their enemies! See it’s God who makes the promise of deliverance…it’s God who leads Sisera’s army to the river side…it’s God who makes it rain…it’s God who goes out in power…I mean you keep going back over the details of this story and Israel should not have won…they should not have had the victory…but v. 23 sums it all up saying, “So on that day God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the people of Israel.”

And that friends, is what we’re supposed to walk away thinking about…that GOD is the hero of the story…and not just this story but the whole point of the bible is that He is the HERO of the whole story…of every story. His is the true and better hero of my story…he is the true and better HERO of your story…

But let me throw out a question to you. Why is it, that we have such a hard time actually believing that?

Why is it that for many of us right now, to say God is the hero of the story…it just sounds like a nice Christian saying…or maybe even like bumpersticker wisdom…something that works in a perfect world, but ultimately not something too helpful for us right now?

Friends, I would suggest to you the reason we struggle with this is because often we believe our stories have another hero.

You see, behind all of this…is the fundament belief that WE are the heroes in our own stories, right? And it’s subtle the way this plays out…but it’s real! Here’s ONE OF THE WAYS it works in my life:

Just last Monday, we had an ALL Elder’s meeting here at Park…right here in this room actually…and one of the things we do with those meetings is have each on of the pastors give a quick update on what’s going on at the campus…and so as I’m thinking about what to share for the Saturday Night Gathering, you know I start thinking about a lot of the momentum we’re celebrating here…many of you are really stepping up to get after serving, there’s a lot of growth in community here…the pot-lucks are going really well…we see new faces EVERY week…there’s just a lot to be excited about! But if I’m honest, do you know how easy it was to begin framing all of my comments around the idea that we are growing and gaining momentum because of what I’m doing or because of how I’m leading! And I take what’s going on in my life…I look at what I’ve been up to and use it as ‘exhibit A’ to prove that I’m the hero! My heart wants to say, “Look at what I’ve been able to do!”

We all want to do this with our successes…don’t we? Just like Barak, we are the ones who want the credit…we are the ones who want the recognition…when we’ve nailed a project at work. When our kids have hit the right developmental milestones…when we get a raise…our natural response is to be wowed at what we’ve been able to accomplish! And I’m not saying we should look down on ourselves, but what I am saying is there is a very dark side to celebrating ourselves…and thinking that I am the hero. Because, you see the thing is, it’s not just that we want to be the hero of our own stories……it’s that we NEED to be the hero!

What we don’t realize is that we have to tell ourselves we’re the hero because if we’re honest, we believe its our ability to do things for ourselves that actually makes us valuable. That it’s our ability to get the recognition…the credit…that in these things we earn our value! And so what we’ve accomplished…what we’ve done…is actually our value system. It’s how we determine our worth…it’s how we know we’re even living a meaningful life so much so that what we’ve done…what we’re doing and even what we’re NOT doing…becomes our identity. And what happens, without even realizing it is that we become enslaved to being our own heroes.

And let me be clear…to believe that you’re the hero, doesn’t mean you always feel good about yourself…actually, it might play out the opposite way…in feeling like we’re not living up to what we should be, right? It’s the reason that as a mom, you feel like your failing because as the hero, you should be doing MORE!

We want to be the hero…we need to be hero…but at the end of the day, we need to see that we can’t be the hero! Because we cannot deliver ourselves…all we end up doing is enslaving ourselves!

The story of the bible tells us that in our failure to live as God commanded…we have rebelled against God…we have all sinned! In our belief that we are the heroes, we have rejected God and so in our sin have become enslaved and have become his enemies! In our sin, we have all become Sisera!

And yet, there’s hope. Because as this story of Deborah, Barak, and Jael demands we ask, ‘Who is the hero?’ what we begin to see is that in the larger story of the bible, there is a true and better hero! It’s the Gospel that tells us there is one who can fully and finally deliver us! It’s the gospel that tells us that Jesus is that deliverer…that He is the hero! And frankly this whole story points to Him!

See Jesus is the better Deborah!

He is the one who perfectly reveals God’s will to us…as he is God in the flesh! Showing and telling us how we were created to live!

Jesus is the better Barak!

He is the one who perfectly judges! Unlike Barak, he is the one who was perfectly obedient to all of what of what God commanded, living the life we should have lived, but have failed to live!

Jesus is the better Jael!

As He once and for all brings a final end to God’s enemies! And yet instead of driving a tent peg into them, Jesus took the place of God’s enemies, you and I, and had the pegs driven into HIMSELF on the cross! You see it’s in the Gospel that Jesus He took the punishment for our failure…he took the death we should have died, and died IN OUR PLACE and FOR OUR SIN! And on the third day he rose again fully conquering Death itself…and bringing with him the promise of true and final deliverance, from our sin and from ourselves…see the Gospel is the story of Jesus as the true and better hero! And now it is the gospel that actually allows us to live free and fully at peace with God, not because we’ve been able to rescue ourselves but because as followers of Jesus we’ve been delivered! That’s the good news! That’s the Gospel. YOU ARE NOT THE HERO OF YOUR OWN STORY, JESUS IS!

And when we believe that, we can do what Deborah and Barak do in chapter 5…we can celebrate the story God’s deliverance…that He is the Hero! See now, as followers of Jesus, we can celebrate the truth Jesus is the hero of our story!

Alright, what are we supposed to do with this?

One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about this week, especially since that Elder’s meeting, is ‘who is the hero of the story I’m telling?’ See all of us, when we’re sharing about lives, talking with people about what’s going on with us…giving updates, a lot of times it way too easy to focus fully on ourselves…let me ask you this…after a Facebook post…after a conversation you have with someone…who are people more impressed with? Is it you…or are you living in a way that points to the true and better Hero?

One of the pictures we have of this is the practice of Baptism. Essentially, baptism is a way to publicly proclaim that you are no longer the hero of your own story, but that Jesus is! It is a tangible reminder of the work that Jesus has done in your life and the declaration that he is the true and better hero! Some of you are followers of Jesus, and you have never been baptized. Your next step is to get baptized this summer on July 16th [SLIDE]. Take the classes we’ve got coming up…and if you can’t make one of them, reach out to me, and we’ll make sure we get the ball rolling on this! Being baptized is part of living in a way that shows Jesus is the true and better hero of your story!

Last thing I’ll say is this—some of us need repent and believe. We need to repent of the fact that we’ve been living as if we’re the hero of our own story…and finally come to a place of rest in the truth that Jesus is a far better hero than we could ever be!

Would you pray with me?