Careless Act of Worship
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Careless Act of Worship
Careless Act of Worship
How many of you have been uncomfortable reading some parts of your bible?
How many of you have been made uncomfortable because others have brought up stories that you cannot explain?
I have opportunities to talk to different people who will bring up bible events that are uncomfortable.
It usually goes like this...
If God is a God of Love...
Then why did God...
Then why didn’t God...
Something we often forget is that the ONLY HUMAN that was good, in all the pages of scripture, is Jesus.
One such story comes to us today from Judges chapter 11.
At that time the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he went throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead, and from there he led an army against the Ammonites.
Jephthah (yiphtach, He will open)
Turns out HIS NAME is prophetic
Jephthah does not know God or God’s ways.
He knows the ways of the people in the land.
He worships God like other people worship God.
Does God use Jephthah to further his plan?
Yes.
But Jephthah does not follow God.
Jephthah has a TRANSACTIONAL relationship.
And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. He said, “If you give me victory over the Ammonites, I will give to the Lord whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
He has a IF YOU WILL…THEN I WILL…type of relationship.
This vow is a RASH vow.
WHAT IS GOING TO COME OUT OF THE DOOR OF HIS HOUSE?
I posit that HE KNEW what he was doing.
The Ammonite god is Milkom, the DEVOURER OF CHILDREN.
He is APPLYING the WORSHIP of the god Milkom to YAHWEH.
He is taking the BELIEF SYSTEM of another god and making it YAHWEH’s.
So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave him victory.
When we read this, we ASSUME that God is in agreement with the plan.
NEVER does God agree to the plan. IMPORTANT.
When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter came out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. She was his one and only child; he had no other sons or daughters.
Ughhh…Here is the hard part…What do we do with this?
WATCH WHAT HE SAYS…You tell me if this is a man of faith…a man who KNOWS God and Torah.
And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.”
So this is his DAUGHTERS FAULT?
She BROUGHT him low
She is the CAUSE of great trouble for HIM
Who is HE focused on here?
Do you remember what his name means?
He will open...
**** NEXT SLIDE
He has opened his mouth.
Does he have a choice here?
YES!!!
He could take the punishment for breaking a vow.
He could offer himself and ask for God’s mercy.
He could ask for forgiveness.
WHEN SHE becomes aware of what happened, she tells him that he MUST KEEP THE VOW because YAHWEH has KEPT his part of the IF…THEN…agreement.
She is wrong.
YAHWEH was going to give a victory regardless.
She does not know YAHWEH either.
She asks to go away for a few months to mourn her impending death as a virgin.
And...
“You may go,” Jephthah said. And he sent her away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children. When she returned home, her father kept the vow he had made, and she died a virgin. So it has become a custom in Israel for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah’s daughter.
God was going to USE Jephthah REGARDLESS of this VOW.
And this STATEMENT from Jephthah puts God to the TEST.
God has declared that the Ammonites will be destroyed, because they are a human sacrifice cult. It is detestable to him.
So what is God to do? Does he grant a victory to the Ammonites to save the child?
Or...
Does he let Jephthah make a rash vow and have victory over the human sacrificers?
NOW…WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS?
CAN WE LEARN SOMETHING HERE?
Avoid:
If you do this for me,
then I will do that for you.
Avoid this at all costs...
But, the Biblical authors don’t stop here.
A young girl has lost her life at the hands of her father because he imported the WORSHIP PRACTICES of other gods into the WORSHIP of YAHWEH.
What can be done?
WHAT WILL A GOD OF LOVE DO?
We have an event in Luke 8 that I did not cover when we went through Luke.
Jesus has just returned from the land that used to be known as Gilead.
Jephthah was battling the Ammonites in Gilead.
Jesus has just cast out a demon named Legion.
Legion has called Jesus the “Son of the Most High God.”
The Judge that preceded Jephthah was named JAIR, he was from.....GILEAD.
Jair was judge before Jephthah
Then a man named Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come home with him. His only daughter, who was about twelve years old, was dying. As Jesus went with him, he was surrounded by the crowds. A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure.
Notice the similarity of the names
JAIR - JAIRUS
Jesus has just come from GILEAD, where Jephthah fought.
Jesus has come from where the Ammonites worshipped Milkom, the Devourer of Children.
STARTING TO SEE THE Hyperlinks?
WHAT HAPPENS...
While the leader is pleading with Jesus to come, the women reaches out and touches Jesus.
THIS causes Jesus to delay and have a conversation with this woman.
She is alive, the girl is dying.
She forces her way to Jesus in what SEEMS LIKE a Careless Act of Worship.
But it is NOT. Jesus rewards her faith.
But...
While he was still speaking to her, a messenger arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. He told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.”
The girl dies.
But when Jesus heard what had happened, he said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith, and she will be healed.”
This is my opinion, but I think Jesus SEE THIS as an OPPORTUNITY to REVERSE something WICKED that happened.
When they arrived at the house, Jesus wouldn’t let anyone go in with him except Peter, John, James, and the little girl’s father and mother. The house was filled with people weeping and wailing, but he said, “Stop the weeping! She isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.” But the crowd laughed at him because they all knew she had died.
Look at HOW QUICKLY the CROWD TURNED!
Then Jesus took her by the hand and said in a loud voice, “My child, get up!” And at that moment her life returned, and she immediately stood up! Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat.
Do you see the links?
Jephthah’s Story
An Israelite leader who worships Yahweh in the manner of false gods. His selfish vow results in the human sacrifice of his Israelite daughter to a foreign god and she dies.
Versus...
Jarius’ Story
A Jewish leader who embraces Jesus and unselfishly pleads to Jesus for the life of his daughter, leading to her resurrection by the true God, she is raised to life.
God is restoring
what has been wrecked
God can restore what has been lost
Bad theology leads
to bad outcomes.
It is unlikely that any of us are going to do something as careless as Jephthah.
We may do something less intense:
Ignore your family
Treat others poorly
Steal
Adultery
Anger
Let’s look as some examples:
Loving God at the expense of others
Enriching yourself and ignoring the poor
Well, its my kids fault, wifes fault, husband fault. (remember Jephthah, it was his daughters fault.)
This is JUST WHO I AM, I CANNOT CHANGE.
God, IF YOU…THEN I...
OR the REVERSE...
God must dislike me because...
All of these are rooted in BAD THEOLOGY.
You know what you need to CHANGE.
If you are SERIOUS…THEN you will do WHAT IS NECESSARY to CHANGE.
You are the Image of God with a mission and purpose on earth. You have been given all you need to get the job done.