Ash Wednesday 2007

Ash Wednesday

Judges 3:12-20, 2:7-15

February 21, 2007

Judges, Justice, and the Cross – Ehud: A Left Handed Victory

Usually we think of Lent as a time for looking backward rather than forward. It’s a time for looking back at Jesus and simultaneously looking inward at ourselves. How intently we focus on Jesus depends on how earnestly we first look within ourselves. We need to know how desperate our need for Jesus is before we can fully appreciate what he has done for us. We can’t really move forward with Christ until we realize how far we have moved backward from him.

            In a word, we’re talking about repentance. And that’s what Lent is about. It’s a season that calls us to repentance. The first of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses says that the entire life of a Christian is to be one of repentance. It’s impossible for anyone whose entire life is not one of repentance to follow Jesus.

            For that reason, each sermon in this series will combine an encouragement to follow Christ with a call to repentance. As we do this we will understand that God, over time, has continually called His people to repentance. This Lent we will see how God sent His Judges to call His people from sin, and finally to deliver His justice through the salvation or deliverance of the judges that God sent. Ultimately we see that these judges foreshadowed the ultimate Judge of God, His Son Jesus Christ. He came with grace and truth to turn people away from their sinful ways, to return to God with repentant hearts and ultimately be saved from the judgment of God, the consequences of their sins. He does this by bearing the judgment of God upon Himself and ultimately as the one that will come to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdoms shall have no end.

            Tonight we shall consider Ehud a left handed Judge from the tribe of Benjamin.

            The book of judges characterizes the life of Israel in the Promised Land from the death of Joshua to the rise of the monarchy. On the one hand, it is an account of frequent apostasy, provoking divine chastening. In Judges 2 we read, “7 The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel. Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress. Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders.

            The Israelites lost sight of their unique identity as God’s people, chosen and called to be citizens of God’s emerging kingdom. Instead Israel attached herself to the people that they lived with and adopted their morals, gods, and religious and social beliefs.

            The book of Judges also depicts for us God’s grace by showing that it was through His mercy that Israel was not completely absorbed by the pagan nations around her. Individual Judges, as spiritual and political deliverers portray the role of Jesus as the Savior-King. The reoccurring cycle during the period of the Judges is; disobedience and apostasy, foreign oppression as a means to chasten and discipline His people, their cries of distress and finally God’s gracious and divine deliverance.

            Ehud was the second Judge that God sent to Israel. Ehud ben‑Gera was the Judge who fought against the Moabites, which were ruled by King Eglon. Ehud had made a short double edged sword about a foot and a half long useful for a stabbing thrust. He then hid the sword by strapping it to his right thigh under his clothing and met the king under the pretenses of giving him tribute. Being left-handed, he could conceal the sword on the side where it was not expected.

            Ehud then tricked Eglon by saying he had a secret message intended for the king. Eglon sent all of his attendants away and Ehud drew his sword and stabbed the king, who was apparently so fat that even the hilt of the blade sank in.

            After killing Eglon, Ehud locked the doors to the king's chamber and left, leading to a very humorous scene. Eglon's assistants came back to check on the king but when they found the doors locked they assumed the king was relieving himself. They "waited to the point of embarrassment" until they finally unlocked the door and went in, where they found their king dead. Ehud escaped during this time and made it to the town of Seriah. He then led the tribe of Ephaim to seize the fords of the Jordan, where they killed about 10,000 Moabite soldiers.

            Ehud was just a normal man who purely by his own wits killed the king of Moab, and there was peace in the land for eighty years.

            Sin always brings bondage; though it comes to us deceptively. The fish never contemplates the bondage of the hook when it goes after the bait; Satan snares us by making the bait attractive and hiding the hook.

            A news story told of a grease processing plant that opened up a 55-gallon drum of grease that came from a prison. Inside, they found a little bit of grease, but a dead prison inmate. He tried to escape by hiding in the barrel, but his quest for freedom became a means of bondage and death for him. He was deceived like we are deceived by sin, thinking that it can be a path to freedom. Instead, it only brings bondage and death.

            In Judges, the people sin, the Lord punishes them, then, they repent... and God sends them a temporal Liberator who becomes a Judge, a Governor... over and over for 13 times.
            What is our story? We sin, the Lord send us punishment to purify us, we repent, and Jesus liberates us from eternal Hell, by faith in Him. He becomes our Life... over and over...and forever

            Judges is the Book of Sin. After the death of Joshua, Israel became unfaithful to God. Ours is a life of sin!, "There is no one just… All have gone stray; there is no one who does good, there is not even one… all have sinned" (Rom.3:10,12,23)... the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom.6:23)... Yet, Jesus liberates us again and again... Christianity is not a museum of perfect people, but a clinic of sinners... are you a sinner? Then you are welcome to Christianity!

            While Judges is a book about sin, judgment it is also the book about deliverance and salvation. Yes, Judges is also the book of Deliverance... again and again, 13 times... and the deliverance is by the hand of the Lord and through a human being Lord.

God justice and liberation came through a human being. The greatest judge was and is Jesus, a man. He was not just man, He was the Son of God. As the son of humans HE could suffer and die for our sins. As the Son of God HE could bear all our sins upon His shoulders, bear the weight of it all, and conquer death for us through His resurrection. Jesus is our Great Judge, and this is His decree, that we might have life and have it to its fullness. That is for eternity. He wants all of us to go into eternal Heaven (iTm.2:4).

            It was Jesus judgment to go to Jerusalem and there to be crucified for us. At the cross He received the wrath and the judgment of God…all of it. On the cross he bore our sin and rebellion against God. Through His death we have received what we did not deserve, God’s grace and love…all of it. Know the judgment of God towards us is that we are innocent, declared righteous, right with God for the sake of Jesus.

            We know that when Jesus comes again to judge the quick and the dead, we who believe in Him as our Savior will be among the living. During this Lent we reflect upon our own sin…but not to much. Contemplating our own sinfulness does not make us right with God. During Lent we focus on our need for a Savior…but not too much. Knowing that we need a Savior does not make us right with God. Rather, during Lent we focus on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. We trust alone in Him and what He has done. And we remember that even as He is the righteous judge He comes to save. Jesus said, For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned.” He is the Lamb of God the takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace. He does. He takes away your sin, He has had mercy on you. Jesus has granted us His peace, a peace that the world does not understand, peace with God, peace with each other and peace and quiet for you souls. Amen.