Judges 4

all right well good morning good morning good morning welcome to coffee and devotions this morning we are at Judges chapter 4 we're going to talk about a special lady she's her sister Esther we don't have an Esther yeah you typing es this one Esther was for Bible memorization not for coffee and devotions you literally have a sister who we're going to talk about let's have some coffee we'll pray we'll get into God's word let's pray father we thank you so much for this day we thank you for your word God we pray that you would please help us to understand your word we pray that we would be Lord that we would be taught by your Holy Spirit our minds could be distracted with many other things our hearts could be hard God we pray that you would please teach us this morning in Jesus's name amen all right so we are going to try to work through the entire chapter right so all of Judges chapter 4 okay don't choke man uh it's only 23 verses so uh why don't I read I will read uh the first 13 verses and you can read U well I'll read first 16 verses and you can read to the end verse 17 okay when eood was dead the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord so the Lord sold them into the hands of Jain king of Canaan who reigned in hazor the commander of his army was cicara who dwelt who dwelt in harth Haim and the children of Israel carried out cried out to the Lord for jabin had 900 Chariots of iron and four and for 20 years he had harshly oppressed the children of Israel now Abra a prophetes the wife of lapido was judging in Israel at that time and she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between ront and bethl in the mountains of Ephraim and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment then she sent and called for Barack the son of abinoam from Kadesh in Neftali and said to him has not the Lord God of Israel commanded go and deploy troops at Mount tabore take with you 10,000 men of the sons of Neftali and of the sons of zebulun and against you I will deploy cicer the commander of jabin's army with his chariots and his multitude at the river Kishon and I will deliver him into your hand and baric said to her if you will go with me then I will go but if you will not go with me I will not go so she said I will show surely go with you nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking for the Lord will sell CIS into the hand of a woman then Deborah Rose and went with Barack to Kadesh and Barack called zebulun and Neftali to Kadesh he went up with 10,000 men under his command and Deborah went up with him now Heber the kenite of the children of hob the father-in-law of Moses had separated himself from the kenites and pitched his tent near the taben tree at zanim which is beside Kadesh and they reported to cisar that baric the son of abinoam had gone up to mount tabore so CIS gathered together all his chariots 900 Chariots of iron all the people who were with him from harth Haim to the river Kish then Deborah said to Barak up for this is the day in which the Lord has delivered CIS into your hand has not the Lord gone out before you so baric baric uh Barack went down from Mount tabore with 10,000 men following him and the Lord routed cisar and all his chariots on all his army with the edge of the sword before baric and cisar alighted from his Chariot and fled away on foot but Barack pursued the Chariots and the Army as far as haroth Haim and all the army of cisar fell by the edge of the sword not a man was left however CIS had fled away from the foot to the tent of Jael the wife of heop the kenite for there was peace between the between jebin king of hezar and the house of heot the can and J went out to meet sis and said to him turn aside to meet sis and said to him turn aside my Lord turn aside to me and you fear and when he had turn aside with her to the sent she covered him with a blinket then he said to her please give me a little water drink for I am 30 so she opened a jug of milk gave him a drink and covered him and he said to her stand at the door of the tent and if anyone comes and inquires of you and say I is there any man here you shall say no then J Abo's wife took a tent Pig and took a hammer in her hand went softly to him and drove the peg into his Temple and it went down into the ground he was fast asleep and we so he died and then as Barack pursued CIS J Came Upon out to meet him and said to him come I will show you him and said to him come I will show you the man who you see whom you seek and when he went into the tent they all lay sister Dead with peg in his Temple so on that day God subdue the jabin king of Canan in the presence of the children of Israel grew stronger and stronger against jabin king of Canan until they destroyed japen king of caning okay so we have three questions we a what is it about B what is the best thing for us to summize and C what are we call today okay I'm going to grab a my Hebrew one of my Hebrew Bibles here off the shelf I want you to talk about uh who the three different characters are main kind of three or may maybe who are the main characters in the story I think there more three okay so who are they um there's CIS okay so cisar who's he uh the the the person who's keeping them under control okay so cister is a can Canaanite good and then there Deborah okay there's Barack Barack okay who's who's Barack uh he's the he's I don't know the leader of the army I think yeah right we don't really get any information from about him other than then she sent and called for Barack the son of abinoam the from Kadesh and neali doesn't give a tribe it just here's a guy boom he's he's on the scene okay uh okay so there's Barack there's Deborah there's CIS who else is there JL and then there's JL that's right which is kind of important yeah why is JL important uh cuz she's the one who actually killed s very nice way too yeah right so she's the one who who kills CIS good all right Soh as we talk about this so we we let's talk about just kind of what goes on walk me through the story um the children of the Lord turn away from God and like you did it again I'm G have to punish you so they go to they get captured by canites and Dev says didn't doesn't the said you just got to take your army and he's deliver them in oh who's Deborah though she's the judge that's a woman judge mom judged yeah your mom does judge but yeah there's there's no doubt here it calls her uh that they would go to her for judgment right she was judging right it's it's mishpat right the same word that the book is named for mishpatim right judges so she's definitely a judge interesting she's not a judge at The City Gate like normal this seems like an abnormal type thing she's like in a tree Deborah's tree yeah she's at Deborah's tree right it's like it's almost like there's no men in the cities to actually do the judging right so this is an abnormal thing so she callused Barack and and yeah what right go go and do the thing and what's his response okay but only if you come with me and what's her response to that like I'll go with you but it's going to you're not going to get any Glory it's going to be in the hands of a woman yeah right that so the there's all sorts of undertones of like that shameful right the men should be doing this work you should have the courage Barack you should be leading you should be doing this but instead right you're you're needing a a lady right so there this is this all all sorts of this is abnormal isn't it okay so anyway so uh so you're not going to get the glory so what's Barack do he says okay and they go and he wins but then sis keeps running away yeah right so so sis he hiils it he he ditches his Chariot Bo he ditches his Chariot he high tails it on foot he runs like crazy the dude is so tired he shows up where uh at Jail's tent yeah between Canaanite and Israel good so supposed to be the peaceful just okay so he so he shows up there and and how's the scene unfold there oh yeah you're good you're here you're fine mhm you enemies and then he has for stuff she gives it him she even gives it better instead of just giving water she gives milk yeah right gives him a little bit of milk for his tummy all right and then he's like oh if anybody says like he's a man here just just don't tell them and then squish squish yeah that's a that's a pretty gory thing right why would JL do that like that's like false Hospitality probably because I actually don't know yeah right I think it's because she trust the Lord right she's actually part of the family of Moses's father-in-law oh I I forgot it it explained like he was like yeah and so so I think she's she's one of the people who starts following the Lord afterwards and so I think that's revealed uh when afterwards and then as Barack pursued CES Jael came out to meet him and said come I will show you the man whom you seek and when he went into her tent there lay CES Dead with the with the peg in his Temple right so this is her saying like Barack hey I got him interest isn't that interesting is it Deborah that gets the glory or somebody else who gets the glory for killing cisar JL JL JL gets the glory it's not Deborah it's j who gets the glory for defeating the king sometimes I I think I think sometimes when like sometimes I don't know this but like I've noticed like through history there's like lots of um like prophecies and like somebody likes to try to interpret it so it fits them and you're like oh well that yeah that make sense and then you're like oh duh it wasn't about them at all it wasn't so how does the final thing close in 23 and 24 um see I close to 23 uh so the so that day God subdued J and king of can in the pris of the children of Israel all right so who who gets the B who gets the win Isel God yeah God does ultimately doesn't he right so Israel eventually gets strong enough they defeat japin altogether right all right so we've talked about the story we read the story now tell me real quick what do you think this is about what did it mean to those people it was written to at that time uh [Music] well so we get hit with a tent Pig but um that that they couldn't have got and sister just like by themselves okay so that's what I took away from it all right so maybe like uh the Lord delivered CIS over yeah right and I I think this is one of actually the fun things is you weren't in here when Daniel and I talked about yood right but this left-handed assassin right it's kind of you wouldn't expect this guy to be the hero here nobody expected JL to be the hero right you might expect a strong man like Barack should be the hero right but it's no it's a woman who's has the courage to do something all by her herself did you know she had to sneak up right soft softly right she was going quietly she's like a spy right just an assassin she risked her life right she could have died but she had the courage to go do it nobody else around but going and doing what she knew should have happened so uh yeah so it's the Lord right it's God who's raising up judges hearing their cries even though they're apostate people showing them Mercy apostate yeah so apostate meaning so maybe they're not all apostate right so apostate means that they're turning away from the Lord but normally we apostasy like apostasy the judges fall I was like I don't think that what was no no so apost I'm talking about the people so and the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord right so so they're turning away from the lord they're going towards Idols right they're doing these things God brings an oppressor they cry out to the Lord the judge raises up a judge they believe him and yeah and then they turn away and the Lord gives them Deliverance right now every time you're hoping they won't turn away but for some reason they do interestingly chapter four is followed by chapter five that's not interesting but this but it's a song it's a victory song that Deborah's gonna have in chapter five not interesting well Deb debah would like that de's gonna maybe I should call Deborah in for this next time be devastated uh so the point being right is that uh you bring uh God's bringing the victory God cares for his people even though that they continue to stray away so all right well it's a big p passage I'm not going to make us choose the best verse if somebody online wants to let us know what they would choose but do 24 I probably do okay Nathan is going to choose the best verse through 24 one through 24 you guys are horrible all right uh so tell me see calling how does this show you Jesus Christ and what are you called to do um sometimes God gives you jobs that aren't yours to do DEA wasn't called to De didn't have to go into battle mhm jelle didn't have to do what she did but could could have just said oh I'm not going to come okay so do your duty you it doesn't even make sense yeah but I'm not sure that that fits the overarching while that's true right I don't want to squash you I do want to say that I think one of the things the Lord is trying to point out again and again and again right is that he is going to deliver his people though that they continue to be faulty and failing people right God remembers his side of the Covenant even though the people continue to fail I think is is God displaying his Mercy to people who are constantly driven by fear and idolatry that's so helpful to me because I'm too often like that and how has he shown us the depth of his Mercy towards us as Sinners right saving us again and again and again by giving us Christ right forgiving us 70 times seven times you ready pray yep all right Lord we pray that you would please let the men of your kingdom step up and do what they are called to do we pray that we would not be cowards Lord we pray that you would please raise up deboras and J's in the church that even when the men fail to do their jobs that you'd not be left without a witness Lord we thank you that you are faithful that even though we are sinners so often cowards afraid and driven by our own hearts Lord You're so faithful to draw us back to yourself please so please God help us turn our eyes to Christ strengthen us Lord let us walk in your ways by the power of your spirit in Jesus's name we pray amen may the Lord bless you may you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ and we'll see you next time bye bye