Sermon Tone Analysis

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.