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00:08 And that's the story of Jeffa. At least the biggest part of the story. A
00:15 Lutheran pastor in the United States in commenting about the story of Jeff Th
00:20 said that's one of the Bible stories that they do not teach you in Sunday
00:25 school especially the last part of the story. I
00:30 am aware of one children's book that does include part of the story of Jeepa but just the first part showing how he
00:37 came from a difficult background a dysfunctional family and rose to be a great leader but they don't tell the end
00:44 of the story they fail to include that vow that he
00:49 made and what happened to his daughter I don't think there have been a whole lot of sermons preached on Jeffa
00:57 I know I've only heard one sermon in my life on Jeffa and that was when I was a teenager. So that was a long time ago.
01:05 But despite Jeffa not being the subject of very many sermons or Bible studies,
01:11 devotional thoughts, this story, especially the end of the story has
01:16 gripped some of the people in the arts. And we see expressions of this story
01:22 when we look at art and also music. For example, the Belgium painter, little bit
01:28 of European twist to his art, but nevertheless showing when Jeffa returns home and there's his daughter to greet
01:34 him. And we see the same theme, Jeffa returning home and he's so upset. It's
01:41 his daughter that comes out to meet him after he's made this rash vow. and two
01:46 more paintings also from Europe, but they're showing this tragic scene
01:52 between Jeffa and his daughters. In the music world, there's been a
01:58 couple of operas written about the Jeff the story and probably the most famous musical work on Jeff was by Gayorg
02:05 Friedri Hendel who wrote the ortorio entitled Jeffa. Now he's also the one
02:12 who wrote the ortorio titled the Messiah from which we sing the hallelujah chorus
02:18 and at this time of the year Christmas time many people know of that well in handles Jeffa he chose an alternate
02:25 ending to the story because he just couldn't present the story the way the Bible does and I'll talk more about that
02:32 a little bit later. More recently, there's been a musical production by a Jewish group, and these
02:40 Jewish girls are telling stories from the Old Testament about some of the
02:46 women in the Old Testament that faced difficult times. And so, the girls group
02:51 is named Girls in Trouble, but the name of their album also girls in trouble.
02:57 And one of their songs has to do with Jeffa's daughter. That would be the way
03:02 they would say it in Hebrew, I assume. But this is more true to the biblical
03:08 text, trying to emphasize the emotion that Jefftha's
03:13 daughter must have felt as she rushes out to greet her father and then finds
03:19 out that Jeffa has made this terrible vow that's going to then ruin her life.
03:27 So today we don't want to look at the other versions of the text. Not the scripture. I mean not the music, not the
03:35 art, not any literary depictions that tend to vary from the scripture. But we want to look at the story of Jeffa from
03:41 the scripture and see how God might want to speak to us today through his word.
03:48 Let's pray together. Father God, as we come to this difficult passage that is
03:53 not taught very often, we pray that you would open our hearts and minds to any truths that you would have for us today.
04:00 Pray that you would speak to us, that we would respond as you would have us to.
04:06 In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Just a reminder that as a congregation,
04:13 we are in the middle of a series of stories about the book of Judge. story
04:19 from the book of Judges. And today in our sermon, I'm wanting to emphasize
04:24 four points. The first point, somehow this did not come out right on my PowerPoint. Sorry.
04:31 The first point, sin or idolatry will lead to slavery.
04:37 Second point, God's grace provides deliverance.
04:43 The third point, faith in response to God's grace is to lead us to devotion to
04:49 God, not ourselves. In other words, faith is to be centered on God and his will, not on us and our desires.
04:58 And fourth, even people of faith can get things wrong.
05:04 So before looking specifically at our text, just want to remind you that in the book of Judges, we see that the
05:11 ancient Israelites are living in a pluralistic society and they're surrounded by all different kinds of
05:19 other religions. They're surrounded by idols. They're surrounded by people who have differing values, different
05:26 standards, different morals, different ethical conduct than they have, or at
05:31 least than they should have according to God's will. Because God has called Israel to be a holy nation, to be a
05:38 light to the peoples around them. But unfortunately when Israel was in this
05:44 pluralistic society surrounded by the other gods surrounded by these other values they
05:52 tended to accept the values of the others and be influenced by the world around them rather than remaining true
06:00 to the one true God and sticking with his teachings and his values. So that's
06:05 why the book of Judges is relevant to us today because we too, we who believe in
06:11 Jesus live in a world that surrounds us with competing values,
06:17 other morals, other ethical standards. And yet we are called to be true to God
06:23 and to be a light. We're called to be his holy people.
06:28 So like the ancient Israelites, we are tempted to turn our back on God and
06:34 conform to the world, but we can learn from them and unlike
06:40 the Israelites through the grace of God, maybe make some better decisions than
06:45 sometimes the people of Israel did. The book of Judges does deal with a very dark time in the life of the Hebrew
06:52 people. And this was marked by a cyclical pattern of rebellion against
06:57 God, oppression by the enemies, and then deliverance from God. And we see that
07:05 pattern here. Israel will disobey God.
07:10 Then because of that, Israel is oppressed by neighboring peoples as God punishes them. Then Israel cries out to
07:17 God in repentance. God raises up a deliverer. So then Israel is delivered
07:22 by the action of God through this judge. Then Israel enjoys a brief time of peace
07:29 and then during the good times they forget God, turn their back on him and
07:34 the cycle begins all over again. And it tends to be a downward spiral.
07:42 Each judge seeming to get worse than the other. We see the first two parts of this
07:49 cycle. Israel disobeying God and then being oppressed by the neighboring enemies. In the first part of our text
07:56 today, verses six, we see, "And again, Israel did what was evil in the sight of
08:03 the Lord. They worshiped and served other gods, and they forsook the Lord and did not
08:10 serve him." And so in response, what happens?
08:16 They were crushed. They were oppressed by the enemies that God gave them into
08:23 their hand. So in these verses, we can see that sin or idolatry does lead to
08:30 slavery. Notice the word again in verse six. The
08:36 people again did what was evil. Again they served the baales, the
08:42 asteros, and the gods of five other people groups. Again, they forsook the
08:47 Lord. Again, they did not serve the Lord. Through Israel's brief history,
08:53 they had already forsaken the Lord many times. They had repeatedly done evil in God's eyes. And repeatedly, they had
09:01 reaped the consequences of turning their back on God. You'd think they would finally learn their lesson, finally
09:08 realize that yes, there are consequences to sin. Sin brings oppression. It brings
09:14 suffering. and it brings death. Sin has an addictive power over us and
09:21 it can bring slavery. You might remember from several weeks ago back in chapter 2, God had warned
09:28 them that the gods of the enemy nations, these false gods and idols, they will be
09:33 a snare to you. These gods will trap you. It's like a net or a hook that can
09:39 take the freedom away from a fish. These gods, these idols, they will take away
09:46 our freedom as they entra us and ens snare us and hold us tight, not letting
09:51 us go. Because sin wields an invisible but very strong power over us. It can be
09:58 addictive like a drug addict craving more drugs or an alcoholic craving the next drink or a
10:06 compulsive gambler having to gamble just one more time and he's going to win it big. and we just can't seem to resist
10:14 the addictive power of sin. So be careful. Sin can be attractive. It
10:21 will seduce you, but then it will entrap you and hold you.
10:27 Now, no, not everybody is tempted by every possible sin. There are some sins,
10:33 including what we will look at at the end of our text, that we consider to be abhorentt, repulsive.
10:39 But there are some sins that we don't find so repulsive. Think in your own mind what temptations
10:48 really tend to have a pull on you. What sins are attractive to you?
10:55 What sinful thoughts or desires or actions continue again and again and
10:60 again to surface in your life? Jesus said that anyone who sins is a
11:09 slave of sin. That's a harsh reality.
11:15 But it's true. Jesus said it. Another translation phrase is that anyone who
11:21 practices sin is a slave to sin.
11:26 Yes, sin does lead to idolatry. I mean sin does sin or idolatry does lead to
11:33 slavery. Another place in our text that also shows that idolatry leads to slavery is
11:40 when we get down to verse 7. Here we see that after the Israelite people had forsaken the Lord and refused to serve
11:48 him. Then in verse 7 it says that the Lord sold them into the hands of the
11:54 Philistines and into the hands of the Ammonites. Now God had earlier redeemed his people
12:01 from slavery in Egypt. Redeem carries with it the idea of purchasing, buying
12:09 back. It's as if God had bought or purchased the people. So now they belong
12:14 to him. When he freed them from Egypt, he brought them to himself. He said they
12:20 would be his treasured possession. And he promised them many wonderful blessings, many wonderful privileges.
12:29 But now the people rebel once again and they say, "No, God, we do not want you
12:36 to be our master. We do not want to be the kingdom of
12:41 priests that you want us to be. We don't want to be that holy nation. We want to
12:47 be like everybody else. We want to serve their gods. We want a different master.
12:54 We want to serve the gods of the Philistines, the gods of the Ammonites.
13:02 So, it's as if God says, "Okay, if that's what you want, you can have
13:08 what you want. You want to be like the Philistines and the Ammonites? Okay. You
13:13 want to serve their gods, go ahead. you want to let their gods be your master
13:19 instead of me. I'll let you do that if that's what you want.
13:25 God would say to them, I bought you, but if you don't want me, I'll let you have
13:30 a new master. I'll sell you to the Philistines, to the Ammonites.
13:36 So God had freed the Israelites from slavery, but now they're going back into
13:42 slavery again by their own choice because their idolatry is taking them
13:48 back into slavery. You see, we become controlled by what we
13:54 worship. We're owned by what or who we worship. It's like we become a slave to
14:02 whatever it is that we worship. So ask yourself, what idols are trying
14:09 to claim your highest allegiance? Who or what is more important to you
14:16 than God in his way and his will? Or ask who or what tends to control your
14:24 thoughts, your desires, your actions. Because everything that we do not
14:30 surrender to the lordship of Christ is an idol. So think, what is it that you do not
14:37 want to surrender to Christ? Anything that drives our desires and
14:44 values more than God, his will, his word, is an idol. So be careful. Those
14:49 idols want to control you. They want to hold on to you. And they will control
14:55 you if left unchecked. Sin and idolatry lead to slavery.
15:02 Be careful what you desire. You might get it.
15:08 There's an old fairy tale that talks about a very greedy man who just had a lust, an insatiable desire for gold. And
15:16 really, the only redeeming factor in this man's life was that he was a good
15:21 father and he dearly loved his only daughter. Well, one day a fairy or a genie
15:28 appeared to him and granted him one wish. And he said, "Oh, the wish that I
15:33 have would be that everything I touch would turn to gold." And he was asked, "Is that really what
15:39 you want?" "Oh yes, I would be so happy if that's what I could have." So he was granted his wish.
15:47 He wanted to check it out. So he touched his cup and sure enough it turned to gold. He touched his table, became gold.
15:56 He gets so excited, he goes to the edge of the room, he touches the door handle, gold. He touches the door, solid gold.
16:04 So he runs to his daughter. Dear, we're rich. And he gives her a big hug
16:10 and she turns to gold. Be careful what you want. You might get
16:16 it. Now, no, you're not going to get that wish. Whether you want it or not, you're not going to be able to touch
16:22 anything. And it turned to gold. That's just a harmless fairy tale. It's
16:27 impossible to happen. But be careful. The idols that you think
16:33 you might want to adopt can lead to slavery, can lead to oppression, just
16:40 like what happened to the ancient Israelites. The ancient Israelites wanted a different God, so God let them
16:47 have their way. and it turned out to be a disaster.
16:53 Listen to the psalmist as he's writing about the history of the ancient Israelites.
16:58 God is speaking, "Oh Israel, if you would but listen to me, there shall be no strange God among you. You shall not
17:05 bow down to a foreign God. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the
17:10 land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it."
17:16 So God is reminding them of his covenant, of his great love, how he has redeemed them, and he will give them
17:22 blessings if they remain true to him.
17:28 But God says, "My people did not listen to my voice." Israel would not submit to
17:33 me. Very grave words follow.
17:39 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsel.
17:48 Scary words. They wanted something and God gave it to
17:53 them and they found out it's not what they wanted.
17:59 Oh that my people would listen to me that Israel would walk in my ways. I would soon subdue their enemies and turn
18:06 my hand against their foes. And that's exactly what Israel wanted, but they had
18:12 turned away from the only one who could provide that deliverance.
18:18 The Israelites got what they wanted, some new, some different exciting gods to serve.
18:25 But then they were oppressed greatly by these gods.
18:31 So when they were deeply oppressed, then they cried out to God back in Judges 10:10, "God, we have sinned against you
18:39 because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baales." And the Lord answered,
18:46 "Did I not save you from the Egyptians and the Amorites and the Ammonites and the Philistines and many other nations?
18:54 You cried out to me and I saved you out of their hand. Yet you have still forsaken me and served other gods.
19:03 And now look what God tells them. Therefore, I will save you no more.
19:13 And then God's words gets even harsher. Go cry out to the gods whom you have
19:19 chosen. Let them save you. Those are the gods you have chosen.
19:25 Don't come talking to me. Let the gods you worship save you.
19:31 The gods they had chosen to worship gave them plenty of opportunity to sin.
19:38 Gave them many opportunities to conform to the standards of the people all around them.
19:44 But when trouble came, these gods could not deliver them. Because idols lead to
19:52 slavery, not to salvation or to deliverance.
19:58 Just this past week, I was talking with a young man about matters of faith, and he was giving his impression on God, and
20:06 he was saying, "I think that anything you believe in is God."
20:12 Now, I realize that English was not his first language. So, he might have been
20:17 trying to imply something similar to what I'm saying about anything you have
20:22 faith in can be like a God. But that's not what he said. He said anything that
20:29 you believe in, if you have enough faith in that, then that is God.
20:35 Not it becomes a God or it is like a God or it has a control over you, but that is God. In other words, basically
20:42 anything and everything is God. So I continued in my conversation with him
20:47 and asked, "How can those gods help you? How can they serve you?" And then I told
20:53 him the story from Isaiah chapter 44 where God is talking about the foolishness of worshiping other gods. He
21:01 says, "A man will go out and he'll plant a tree and over time with the rain this
21:06 tree will grow. And when the tree gets bigger, the man will go cut down the tree,
21:12 and then he'll take some of the wood, burn it in the fire to stay warm in the cold weather. He'll burn some of the
21:18 wood in the fire and cook over the coals, cook his bread, and then he'll take part of the wood from the very same
21:25 tree and carve a statue out of it and say, "You are my God." And he bows down
21:31 to this piece of wood, the same wood that he had used for fire, just a different section of the tree. And he
21:38 calls out, "Please save me." And Isaiah asks the question, "Can a block of wood
21:45 save you?" Yes, we can have faith in a lot of
21:50 different things, but idols cannot save us. rather than saving us, they will
21:57 enslave us because sin and idolatry lead
22:03 to slavery. And there is no deliverance from this slavery
22:08 except through the grace of God. Which brings us to the second point I
22:14 want us to look at from the story. God's grace does provide
22:19 deliverance. Now, throughout the history of the people of Israel up to this point, God's
22:25 grace has been evident many times. And even in the book of Judg, as we've already seen several examples of God's
22:33 grace in the life of the people. You see, way back at the beginning, God had
22:38 called them to be his chosen people, his treasured possession, through whom he
22:43 would bring blessing to all peoples of the earth. Through this people, he would give the law. He would send his prophets
22:50 and most importantly he would send the Messiah, the promised savior, Jesus. The
22:57 word of God made flesh would come through this chosen people to bring salvation to all peoples. So they have
23:04 experienced God's grace over and over and over again. They experienced God's
23:09 protection, his watch care. Now yes, over and over again, we see God judging
23:15 their sin. But when the people repented and called out in faith, God delivered
23:21 them because of his grace. And in our text today, we see once again God's
23:28 grace. As we continue reading further, verse 15, the people of Israel said to
23:35 the Lord, "We have sinned. Do to us whatever seems good to you. Only please
23:42 deliver us this day." So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord and the
23:50 Lord became weary of Israel's misery.
23:55 Another translation reads, "God could bear Israel's misery no more."
24:02 And we will see in the next chapter that God then does provide deliverance
24:08 for the people of Israel, deliverance from their enemies because of his grace.
24:14 Now, of course, the people did not deserve God's grace.
24:19 Nobody deserves God's grace. That's what grace is.
24:25 Unmmerited mercy, favor, love expressed towards those who don't deserve it.
24:33 Because none of us deserve it. We can be grateful it is expressed towards us. and
24:39 nobody can earn God's grace. The idea that some religions have that somehow
24:46 your good deeds can either balance out or possibly outweigh your good deeds can
24:51 outweigh the bad deeds, that shows a very faulty understanding of sin. People
24:58 do not take the seriousness of sin or its deadliness serious enough if they
25:04 think that anything they do good can possibly outweigh the bad.
25:11 The view that you can earn God's grace also shows a very low view of God. It
25:16 shows a total misunderstanding of the holiness of God.
25:21 The Israelites did not deserve God's grace. They could not earn God's grace.
25:28 Yet God in his love and mercy offered it to them and he brought about their deliverance.
25:35 But we do see that the Israelites did not experience God's gracious
25:41 deliverance until they truly repented.
25:46 I'll say that again. The Israelites did not truly experience God's gracious
25:52 deliverance until they repented. Look again at verse 15.
25:59 What did the people say to God? They said, "We have sinned." They
26:05 confessed to God that they had turned their back on him. They sinned. Now, what's the big
26:12 difference in this text, verse 15, where they confess their sin with what they
26:18 said the first time a few verses earlier where then God responded, "I'm not going to deliver you anymore. What's the
26:25 difference?" Not much. Matter of fact, words are identical. We
26:32 have sinned the first time and God said, "I'm not going to listen." Second time,
26:38 we have sinned. Both times they use the exact same words. It appears that both times they
26:44 are confessing their sin. So what's the difference? Why did God the first time say, "I'm not
26:51 going to deliver you. Call on the other gods." But then the second time we see
26:56 God is moved and he can bear their suffering no longer.
27:02 It seems like the first time the Israelite people said the correct words.
27:07 They said the right words. But it appears that they did not truly repent.
27:14 And God knows our hearts. He knew their hearts. You see, it's possible for us to
27:20 say the correct words and our heart still be far from God. It's possible to
27:26 go through correct religious rituals and do Christian things, whatever they might
27:32 be, but still be serving idols, letting something else be the ultimate
27:39 controller of our lives. The actual words of confession from the
27:45 first time to the second time didn't change. So, it appears that what had
27:50 changed was their heart. It appears that they had truly repented because we see
27:56 in verse 16 along with their words this time they put away the foreign gods
28:04 and they served the Lord. Now a change of heart is necessary
28:11 before the change of action will do any good. Otherwise your actions just serve
28:17 as a an attempt to try to bribe God. And we're going to talk more about that
28:22 later. But if indeed there has been true repentance, then it will be evident in
28:30 our lifestyle. It appears this time the Israelites had
28:36 truly repented, had experienced a change of heart. We need to beware of an attitude that
28:42 tends to take God's grace for granted. Don't take God's grace lightly.
28:50 It's dangerous to think, "Yeah, it doesn't matter what I do. I can sin any
28:55 way I want, and when I come to God, he'll forgive me."
29:01 If that's your attitude, it could be that when you ask for help, you might
29:06 hear God tell you what he told his people. Go cry out to the gods that
29:12 you've been serving. Go let your idols take care of your needs. let them save
29:19 you in your time of distress. But you will experience God's grace when
29:25 you call on him in true repentance. So in our text, we will also now see
29:32 God's grace in the life of Jeffa. Jeffa is introduced to us
29:38 chapter 11 after the background to his work as a judge is presented. First of
29:46 all, we just see Jeffa's background and we see that Jeffa had a bad start in
29:51 life and it was not his fault. His father had had an affair with a
29:57 prostitute and he was the result. Undoubtedly, Jeffa grew up hearing
30:03 people calling him ugly names because he was an illegitimate son and he grew up
30:08 hearing people insulting his mother. He was rejected by his family.
30:16 They forced him out. They didn't want him to have any of the inheritance. So, he sent away penniless. His brothers
30:23 obviously hated him. They rejected him. They were jealous of him, afraid he
30:29 would get too much money, so they just threw him out. Came from a very dysfunctional family.
30:37 He suffered because of the sins of other people.
30:43 Yet God decided to use this rejected, mistreated person in his service.
30:52 God was gracious and used a person that nobody else thought fit for anything.
31:00 And an interesting point is that the difficulties that Jeffa had to face, the
31:07 experiences that he suffered through probably helped to prepare him for the
31:13 service that then God used him in. Undoubtedly, his experiences helped to
31:20 make him strong, made him a mighty warrior.
31:25 This can be encouraging for each one of us. We see that our background does not
31:31 have to determine our future. Our background does not prevent God from
31:38 working in our life, changing our lives and doing great things through our
31:43 lives. That's good news. God's grace can break into your life. No matter what's
31:50 in your past, God can and wants to use each one of us
31:55 in his service to advance his purposes. And it's also encouraging to realize
32:01 that sometimes the difficulties we go through can later help us. They help us to be
32:09 strong. They help us to face additional challenges that come in life. And they can also help us to help other people
32:17 just like Jeffo was able to help other people partly due to his background
32:23 because the Lord's grace came in and was evident in his life. And by the way, the title for this
32:29 sermon that was given was assigned to me, Jeff, the outlaw leader. We find the
32:35 reason for that in verse three. You see, when Jeffthal was forced away from home,
32:42 it seems like he became a great warrior and he led a group of men who were basically scoundrels or outcasts. One
32:50 translation calls them adventurers. More than likely, it was an armed gang that
32:55 survived by going on raiding parties into the enemy territories. And so, they
33:01 honed their fighting skills. So, Jeffa had quite a colorful past. You could
33:06 call him an outlaw and be kind of like a mafia boss. But of course, he was just
33:11 trying to help his own people, not just hurt the others. But we do see that God's grace was
33:18 evident in Jeffa's life in the fact that God chose somebody with such a bad background to bring about deliverance
33:25 for his people. Now after this brief introduction to Jeffa, we see that the leaders of Israel
33:33 from Gilead went to Jeffa and asked him to be their commander to lead their army to go against the Ammonites who were
33:40 oppressing them who had come in and invaded their land. And Jeff responded to them, "Did you not hate me and drive
33:47 me out? Why are you coming now to me when you're distress?"
33:52 They wanted him to be their leader, they told him. So then Jeffa said, "If you
33:58 will bring me home again to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gives them to me, I will be your head." And the elders
34:06 of Gilead said to Jeff, "The Lord will be our witness between us if we do not
34:11 say do as you say." So Jeff went into the elders with the elders of Gilead,
34:16 and the people made him head and leader over them. And Jeff spoke all these
34:21 words before the Lord at Gilead.
34:27 So Jeffa realizes if he's victorious, it's going to be the Lord's work and he
34:34 is speaking these words before the Lord. They agree they will make him their
34:39 leader. Then Jeff sends word to the Ammonite king and I won't look at that passage of the text, but it's a very
34:45 skillful piece of diplomacy. Basically, he's just telling them the truth, reminding them of the history, giving
34:51 good theological reasons, pointing out past precedent. And he concludes by saying, "And the
34:58 Lord himself will be judge over this matter." The king of the Ammonites would
35:04 not listen. He wanted to have war. And so then we see that God in his grace
35:10 delivers his people from oppression. And we see in verse 29 that then the spirit
35:16 of the Lord came upon Jeffa to empower him to deliver the people. And so Jeffa
35:22 crossed over to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gave them into his hand and the Ammonites were subdued before the people
35:29 of Israel. So we see that God's grace does provide
35:34 deliverance. A third thing that we can learn from this text is that faith in response to
35:42 God's grace is to lead us to devotion to God, not to ourselves. Faith is to be
35:49 focused on God, his greatness, his will, his kingdom, not on us, our will, our
35:57 desires. Unfortunately, in the text and also in our lives, we see that the attempt is to
36:04 focus our faith on ourselves. And we often try to use faith as a means
36:10 to advance our cause. We try to exercise faith with the hope of it accomplishing
36:16 our will. And it appears in the book of Judges to the Israelites, God was more a God of
36:23 convenience than a God they were committed to. seems like they wanted God
36:28 only when God would give them something they wanted, such as a miracle, a favor,
36:33 or deliverance. Last week, Dr. Peter talked about transactional faith,
36:40 an attempt to have a relationship with God, not based on love, not based on his
36:45 mercy, not based on him, but but rather centered on what's in it for me. How can
36:51 I get God to do what I want him to do? I'm reminded of a lady I met a few years
36:58 back and she wanted to get pregnant because in her culture, a lady who's
37:04 been married this long and does not yet have any children, that's disgraceful.
37:09 She told me she had been to a Buddhist temple to pray, been to a Hindu temple to pray, been to a seek guided to pray,
37:17 been to a Muslim mosque to pray, been to a Catholic church to pray. Still no
37:22 answer. So now she wanted a Protestant to pray with her. Just trying all the gods. Doesn't matter which God, as long
37:30 as I can find some God out there that will give me what I want.
37:35 That's transactional faith. But it's really not faith at all. And it's
37:40 usually expressed like this. God, if I do this, then I expect you to do that.
37:48 If I say the correct words and quote the sinner's prayer, then God, you've got to take me to heaven.
37:54 Taxi driver told me that one of his clients who was a Chinese man, worshiped traditional Chinese religions, asked him
38:01 one time, "Do you think if I went to the Catholic church and prayed to Mary that she would give me the numbers for the
38:07 lottery?" Well, we laugh at that, but don't we sometimes do the same thing? God,
38:15 if I do this, then I want you to do that. Or we can express it this way.
38:22 God, if you will do this, then I promise I will do the other. And it's like we're
38:28 trying to bargain with God, like he's somebody that works down at the fruit stand at the market, and you're trying to bargain to get a good price. And
38:36 unfortunately, it appears that that's what Jeffa did in this passage.
38:41 You see, when I read this verse earlier, I left out two important verses, verses
38:47 30 and 31. Look at those verses. Jeffa made a vow to the Lord and he
38:53 said, "If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out of
38:59 the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it up as
39:06 a burnt offering, a terrible vow, a rash vow, something
39:13 that had not been well thought out, possibly made because of a lack of
39:18 faith. God's spirit had already come upon him and given him the power to defeat the enemies. But for Jeff though,
39:25 that wasn't enough. He thought, I better secure this deal with God. I'm going to make a bargain with him. God, if you do
39:32 this, then I will do that. Recognize the pattern?
39:39 That's exactly what Jeffa did. He had a transactional approach at this point in his life to faith and it brought about
39:47 tragic results. We worship God
39:52 because he is God. Pure and simple. We worship God because
39:58 he is God. He is the only one worthy of our worship. The only one worthy of
40:04 being the center of our affection and holding our ultimate devotion. We don't worship God just in order to
40:11 get things. Faith focuses on God. It's centered on
40:17 God, not us. So when we respond in faith to God's grace, this is to lead us to
40:23 devotion to God. And the last thing we can learn from this text is that even
40:30 people of faith can get things wrong. And this is the tragedy we see at the
40:36 end of chapter 11. We've already seen that Jeffa had made this vow that if you do this then I will
40:43 give you whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me.
40:48 I will make that then devoted to the Lord. I will offer it up as a burnt offering.
40:55 And when Jeffa comes home, what comes out to meet him? His daughter,
41:02 his only child. and he's brokenhearted because he has made this vow. He will sacrifice as a
41:09 burnt offering whatever comes out of his door. And he says he can't take his vow back.
41:16 And his daughter also says, "No, you should not take your vow back. But let me mourn the fact that I'm single, that
41:23 I've never married, that I'm a virgin, that I've never had children, that my family line, that our family line will
41:30 not be able to continue." He lets her do that and after two months she comes back
41:36 and it says her father did to her according to the vow that he had made.
41:44 Tragic ending. And I think it shows that even people of
41:50 faith, even people whom God has used in a mighty way can still get things
41:57 terribly wrong. And that's probably why we don't hear this story very often because of this
42:03 tragic ending. It's disturbing to us to see that people of faith that God has
42:09 anointed and used in a mighty way can still do horrible things.
42:15 But scripture reminds us we are all sinners. And scripture reminds us of the insidious nature of
42:22 sin, how terrible it is. and that we have the capacity to do
42:29 terrible things. In looking at the vow that Jefftha made,
42:37 we remember the horror that Jefftha expressed when he saw it was his daughter.
42:43 And the easiest way to understand this vow and the way God carried it out was that Jeffa did indeed offer his daughter
42:52 as a sacrifice, a human sacrifice. Now, the law of Moses explicitly
42:57 prohibited this. But what else is new? Think back at the life of the children of Israel. They had
43:04 been ignoring the law of Moses for years. They were surrounded by people who
43:11 practiced other religions. And in their religion, it included human sacrifices.
43:17 So being surrounded by these other people, they just seem normal. Huh?
43:23 Everybody's doing it. Now, to be fair on the treatment of Jeffa, there are a few
43:29 commentators, and they are a minority. There are a few that want to try to
43:35 make this text have a happier ending. And so, they'll take that word and and
43:41 make it into an or. Whatever greets me first coming out of
43:47 the door, I will devote to the Lord. and or else I will offer it up as a
43:53 burnt offering. In other words, if whatever comes out of the door first as a human, then I will just devote this
43:60 person to the Lord maybe to serve at the tabernacle for the rest of their life like Hannah offered her son Samuel to
44:06 work at the tabernacle. So, we'll offer this person to serve God the rest of their life. Or if it's an animal, then I
44:12 will sacrifice it as a burnt offering. Problem is, that's not exactly what the
44:18 text says. And there are attempts to try to make this have a happy ending.
44:26 I mentioned earlier handle in his ortorio. He just created a happy ending. Jeff is
44:33 ready to sacrifice his daughter. An angel stops him and calls out, "Don't do this. Just offer your daughter to the
44:39 tabernacle to serve." And they all lived.
44:44 Maybe not happily ever after, but they lived. But that's not what the Bible says. It appears that Jeffa actually did
44:53 sacrifice his daughter. It seems like the reason that people don't want to accept this is two
44:59 premises. One, we have the worldview that judges like
45:05 Jeff and other heroes of the faith, they're good guys. And so the good guy
45:11 always does good. But that's not the reality.
45:18 If you accept these premises that good guys always do good and judges are good people, then probably Jeffa did offer
45:26 his daughter to tabernacle service. Or another view, if they do good things,
45:32 they could say when Jeffa offered his daughter as a human sacrifice, that was
45:38 good. I don't see how anybody can come to that conclusion. But I told you
45:43 earlier, I'd heard one sermon in my life on Jeffa. I was a teenager and I still
45:49 remember it because of the horrible conclusion the pastor made. And Jeffa did the right thing by sacrificing his
45:56 daughter because he was a man of his word. He kept his vow to God.
46:01 Even as a teenager, I thought there's something wrong with that man's thinking.
46:07 Either way, he's going to be violating God's law. He's either going to be breaking his vow or he's going to be
46:14 offering a human sacrifice. Either way is going to be wrong. And when you only have two choices and they're both bad,
46:22 go with the least bad of the two. So I reject the premise that judges are good
46:28 people and so everything they do is good. I think it shows us that even
46:34 people of faith can mess up. They can do horrible things. because they can get things
46:40 wrong. We might ask, why did he do this?
46:45 I already mentioned lack of faith, a transactional view of faith, trying to buy God off or manipulate him.
46:54 How could a man of faith get something so wrong? How is that possible?
46:59 One reason, not only for him, but for us today, why people get things so wrong is
47:06 ignorance of the truth. In Germany, I was preaching one time and
47:12 I was looking at Romans chapter 1 where it takes a very dim view of homosexual behavior. And after the church service
47:18 was over, two Christian people came up to me and said, "I had no idea that was in the Bible,
47:25 just ignorance of God's word. Possibly Jeff had not been well schooled in
47:31 matters of the faith." Another example would be an incomplete understanding of biblical truths.
47:39 Remember one time after I preached a sermon about stepping out on faith using Abraham as an example, somebody came up
47:47 to me after the service and said, "Thank you for your sermon. I'm going to take a step of faith.
47:54 I have been worried so long that if I divorce my husband, I won't have enough money to pay my bills. but I'm going to
47:60 take a step of faith and divorce my husband and just trust God to take care of me. I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I
48:06 think there's an incomplete understanding of biblical principles here."
48:12 Or sometimes we just choose to accept one passage of scripture and ignore
48:18 another. I can remember when I was in the university, friends of mine, this is a Christian
48:24 university, a Baptist college, by the way. At the university, these friends of mine just made the announcement, guy and
48:31 a girl, not married. They decided, we're going to go ahead and live together, sleep together, because the Bible says,
48:39 "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." And so, we're going to take this freedom.
48:45 And they ignored the passage of scripture. says, "Don't use your freedom as an opportunity for sin." And they
48:52 ignored the clear teaching on sexual morals and guidelines.
48:58 You see, we're so often influenced by our culture, by the lifestyle of those around us. Rather than being a light to
49:06 the world, we let the world influence us.
49:12 and the world will hold as fast take over. And sometimes we're not even aware
49:21 of where the problem is. And that might have been Jeffa's case. He might have had a blind spot to the fact that human
49:28 sacrifice is not acceptable to God because he saw it all around him.
49:35 What are blind spots that there might be here in this Malaysian culture?
49:41 You might say, "I don't know. I can't see them. It's a blind spot." But if you think, you might be able to
49:47 recognize some. I can think about my country. Back in the 1800s, there were many great sermons preached about why
49:54 God condoned slavery, why God even demanded slavery.
50:00 Well, they weren't really great sermons, but their congregation thought so. They just fit in with the society around
50:08 them. And because of the influence of the culture and also the financial aspect, they were affected. Sermons
50:15 justifying racism, trying to show that people of darker skin
50:20 are inferior. Today in my country, people mix God and
50:26 country. And I heard one Christian man say, "I have trouble telling the difference between the two." And I
50:32 thought, "If that's the case, you don't know God. There's a big difference in the US and God.
50:40 Not only God and country, but God and materialism. And that's not only in my country,
50:47 that's here. I'm reminded of the movie Crazy Rich Asians. You remember towards the beginning of
50:53 that movie, there was a Bible study. Did you catch the passage of scripture?
50:58 Colossians chapter 3:1. If you are risen in Christ, set your affections on things
51:05 above. And the lady in charge of the Bible study got upset when people got off the
51:11 target, got off the subject. But as soon as the Bible study was over, the
51:16 affections were not set on things above rather than on strictly materialistic
51:22 things, family ties, anything except God.
51:31 What else might be a blind spot? Feelings of superiority.
51:36 Feelings that my race is better than others. Looking down on people that have a lower
51:43 socioeconomic status than we do, your maid, the guards, migrant workers.
51:51 What else might be a blind spot? ignoring God's
51:56 great commission to make disciples of all peoples when we ignore the vast majority of people living in this
52:03 country and with serious consequences.
52:10 Yes, even people of faith get things wrong.
52:16 So, how do we respond? First of all, don't put people on a pedestal. They'll disappoint you.
52:23 Second of all, don't put yourself on a pedestal. Scripture says, "Be careful. He that
52:31 thinks he stands could easily fall. Pride goes before a
52:36 fall." And that's possibly what happened with Jeffa.
52:42 We need to not use this as an excuse. Oh, well, everybody does it. But instead, when we realize there's sin in
52:48 our life, we need to repent. And when we repent, that brings us to the last thing
52:54 we're going to think about in this sermon today. We all need a savior.
53:01 The book of Judges shows the inadequacy of human judges. Jeffa in his talk to
53:07 the Ammonite king had even said, "The Lord is the judge."
53:13 And the book of judges in salvation history shows us that they were trapped by sin. We see corruption of the judges.
53:21 We see that in those days there was no king in Israel. Therefore, everybody did
53:26 what they wanted to. And this is leading to the fact that
53:32 since there was no king, there was the need of the king. And we see God anointing David. But David also was
53:39 inadequate as a leader. He failed. David's kingdom was pointing towards the
53:45 Messiah. the Messiah that would bring a new
53:50 covenant. The book of Judges shows the absolute inadequacy of people, the absolute
53:57 sinfulness of people, the tendency of us to do things that's right in our own
54:03 eyes. But in the book of Judges, we see the holiness of God
54:10 compared to the sinfulness of man. And we realize that judgment must come
54:16 upon our sin. But we also see God's grace and his
54:21 mercy. And it's as if these two things in the book of Judges are held in tension. God's holiness, his justice,
54:28 his judgment, his punishment on sin, God's his grace, his love, his desire to
54:35 deliver. And this tension remains throughout the Old Testament
54:41 until we see it resolved in Jesus on the cross.
54:47 And on the cross, we see God's holiness is justice served as sin is paid for
54:54 with the horrible penalty of death. But we see Jesus is the one paying the
55:01 penalty which shows us God's great love.
55:06 And through faith in him, we can experience God's grace.
55:14 This morning, we want to remember what God has done for us, paying the penalty
55:21 for our sin through Jesus death on the cross,
55:26 remembering God's justice, but also remembering his mercy, his
55:32 grace. In remembrance of this, we want to take together the Lord's supper.
55:38 If you failed to pick up the elements of the supper when you came in, please
55:44 raise your hand. There will be some ushers that will be able to come by and
55:49 give this to you.
55:54 But if you have the elements, you can go ahead and start to open them.
56:10 Jesus said that this is my body which is broken for you. Jesus gave his blood. He
56:19 gave his body. He gave his life as a sacrifice for sin.
56:24 Before we take of this, let's have just a time of silent prayer.
56:30 Think about your relationship to God. Confess any known sin and give God
56:37 thanks for the sacrifice of Jesus.
57:07 Father, we see your holiness and when we look at the we're reminded
57:13 of our sin. We thank you for your grace.
57:20 pray that we would respond in repentance, in a faith that worships you because you
57:27 are God. Help us to remember that we can go
57:34 astray. Help us to keep our eyes focused on you. Guide us as we partake of the
57:40 Lord's supper. I pray that this will be a time that would strengthen our faith. Help us to continue our focus and our
57:46 walk with you. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
57:53 Jesus said, "This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
58:06 In the book of Exodus, we see God making a covenant with the people. That
58:12 covenant was sealed in blood as Moses sprinkled the blood of the lamb on the people and said, "This is the blood of
58:18 the covenant." But we see the people breaking the covenant.
58:23 And now Jesus, he comes with the new covenant.
58:29 And he said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
58:35 Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
