Breaking Badly 6: The Book of Judges

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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Breaking Badly Episode six, Deborah and the Cup of Floors. Today we're going to come to one of the most remarkable stories in the entire Book of Judges, the story of Deborah and Barrah. And if we read carefully, we discover the real theme of this story is glory, the glory God delights to share with his people. Welcome to Gospel Podcast and Doctor Bill Senord YouTube channel. I'm your host, doctor Bill Siard. We're free wherever you get good podcasts on YouTube as well, and so if you're watching on YouTube doctor Bill Sinard, subscribe and leave a comment. If you're watching, if you're listening to Gospel Read podcasts, give me a comment at Bill at gospel dash app dot com. I love it and that helps us grow. Thank you for making Gospel Rant podcast one of the top ten percent of the world. Thank you for listening and watching every week. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love for the unlovable, the unloved, the unlovely, unworthy, the unlikely in the hurting. And that's all of us, that's me that you on any given day, if we were just a little bit honest, all right, I want to get right into this. After a brief word from our sponsors, I'll be right back. So the story begins with a pattern that by now should familiar to you and me. The judges tells us quote after Echhu died, the Israelites once again did evil in the eyes of the Lord. The phrase evil in the eyes of the Lord is covenant language. Israel has once again abandoned their loyalty to God. They've given up their experience of their favored status. They no longer go to God's face and look at to see his delight, which changes you. They're on their own, and as before, God says, okay, here, I'm going to give you over to the consequences of that decision. Romans one I've mentioned before, but his Romans one twenty one, and from a New Testament perspective, Paul writes, for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. But their thinking became futile, foolish, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools that exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the images made to look like mortal man, and birds and animals and reptiles. There it is therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their heart. And the Greek I've often taught it this way. If I held up a pencil and dropped it, I gave the pencil over to gravity. I was resisting gravity and holding the pencil of the air, and I let it go, and it just fell to its natural entropy. God has held them before his face so they could see his delight, and now he's letting him go to find delight other places, which is a fool's bet. This time, the oppressor is Jabin, a Canaanite king ruling from the city of hot Sore. His military commander is a man named Cicera Sisora commands a terrifying force nine hundred iron chariots. In the ancient world, that's an equivalent of an overwhelming military superiority. For twenty years, twenty years, Generation Israel lives under brutal oppression. Eventually they cry out to the Lord, and in this moment steps one of the most extraordinary figures in the Old Testament, Deborah. Again, no repentance, but they're crying out to the Lord. Debrah's introduced with very little fan fears. She's a prophetess, the wife of Lapidote, and she's leading Israel at the time. She sits beneath the palm tree between Rema and Bethel in the hill country of Ephrium, and the people come to her for judgment. Now, Deborah often becomes a center of modern debates about leadership rules. But if we focus only on that discussion, we miss the real part of the story. The editor is creating a contrast. In a nation where almost no one seems to be willing to listen to God God, Deborah does women great heritage. Here she stands almost alone. She knows God, she hears his voice, she trusts him. In that sense, she becomes a model not just for women, but for all of humanity, men and women. And she lives with the posture not my will, but yours be done. That's how she lives. That's who she is. What's striking about Deborah is how secure she is. You know, when we get into God's face and see and delighting in us, we become more secure. She isn't chasing influence or looking for a crown, or trying to increase her status, Her identity has already settled. She knows who she is because she's seen in the face of God. She's comfortable with being both a prophetess, a judge, a wife, a woman. Her glory comes from God's gaze upon her, not from human recognition or her role or her sex. Why we should learn a lot from that today. That would change the dialog sex and sexuality. I think all of our identities come from God. Yeah, all right. Deborah summons a military leader named Barak from the tribe of Naphthali. She is also not tribal, you know, like everyone else trying to further the agenda of their own people and tribes. She furthers God's agenda. She freely lists up a man from a different tribe. She is from Ephriam, Barak is from Notphthalione, and she delivers a message from God. There's another contrast in play. The previous judges were each trained warriors, military men. Deborah is not skilled in battle or strategy. Her place was officially sitting court under the palm tree, hearing and resolving disputes among people of Israel. She is presented to us as taking the role given to the priesthood at the temple at Shiloh not that far away. So are we to understand that the tabernacle is not doing their job or is corrupted. The two epilogues cause us to wonder about both. Deborah decides, disputes, dispenses justice, pursues, reconciliation and unity among the people of God. She's a mobile temple. She was acting as a true priestess of God. Barak is to gather ten thousand men from the tribes of Napthali and Zebulen. Then he is to lead them to Mount Tabor, and God promises that he's going to lure Cisser's army into battle. I don't know if that's a good idea and deliver them into Barak's hands. And of course Barak hesitates right total outnumbering. He says to Deborah, Okay, if you go with me, I will go. But if you don't go with me, I'm not going. I totally understand. Yeah, a lot of reasons that won't go into It's an interesting moment. Barak isn't completely faithless, but he's not exactly courageous or bold either. And here's why I think Barak hesitates, and honestly, his hesitation makes sense to me anyway. There are at least four reasons why this plan sounds terrible. First, the command comes through Deborah, not directly from God to Barrack. Second, the military situation that he's going into is absurd. Cisera has nine hundred iron chariots. If that number is accurate, it just he has a lot. It's an overwhelming force. That's the point Israel has basically sticks plato courage. Third, the strategy makes no sense. Barak is told to bring his army to Mount Tabor, an exposed mountain. From a military standpoint, that's a terrible position. Cisra could simply surround the mountain and starve the mount And fourth, the risk is entirely baraqs. Deborah delivers the mess, but Barack is going to risk his life and the lives of ten thousand men. So yeah, Barak hesitates. I get it. If I wrote the story, I would present it that way too. It's only human. But eventually he agrees, so he pauses, but then he goes okay, And that's why he still appears in Hebrews eleven. The Hall of Faith so often the path that God sharing such glory with his children looks like a very bad and dangerous strategy. So I'm finally filled with the spirit and actually want to say, not my will, but you will be done. And then God tells me to do something that is crazy, it's risky, it's even foolish that I wouldn't have done logically. You know, I don't want that cup. Does that sound familiar? It's the cup of glory. This story reveals something important about how God often works. God loves to share his glory with his people, but that glory often comes through what we might call a dangerous cup, painful cup, risky cup, moments where obedience looks foolish, even reckless. And yet somehow those moments become the places where God's glory becomes visible and our hearts. My heart longs for such glory. I think it's part of our God image. I long for significance from meaningful legacy. But we often look forward to the wrong places or careers, relationships, achievements, identity markers, and they give a little bit of that. But this is something bigger, something different, more substantive. The Bible tells us that the deepest glory comes from God, from his hands, from his fingertips to you from his calling, and we hear it from standing in his presence all the time, from feeling and knowing his favor all the time, and his spirit in us well. The Battle Brocks still shows some surprising heroing willingness to obey every fiber of his military strategist experience. He gathers the troops in camps on the ridge, highly vulnerable, exposed Mount Tabor, and his greatest fear is realized when Jabin and Sisra hear where Israel is. They immediately start licking their chops. Cisra constantly encamps in the valley along the Kishan Wadi. All he has to do is lay a siege around the small mountain and wait the Israelites out. It's a slam dunk I bet Barak becomes a man of prayer right then, I imagine the entire ten thousand person army does too. Is they see a sea of chariots and men laid out around them in all directions in the valley. Because it's over. It's over. But then, as Barak sits helplessly watching, probably trying to explain to his leaders why he did this and why it was such a good idea. Who is this Debra lady? Anyway? The skies cloud up in a torrential rain pummels the mountain in the valley. Listen to the victory song of Deborah and Barakh quote. Kings came, They fought, the kings of Canaan, fought at Tanakh by the waters of Megiddo, and they carried off no silver, no plunder from the heavens. The stars fought from their courses. They fought against Cicera. The river Kishon swept them away, the age old river. The river Kishon march on My soul be strong close quote Judges five, nineteen to twenty one. It was holy war. Israel only had to stand and watch as the mighty Canaanite army is rendered helpless in a flash flood in the valley. They just had to wait until the chariots became worthless in the mud and then run down the hill and attack the highly armored, weighed down panic Canaanite superstitious Canaanite troops and slaughter them. God had produced directed started the entire thing. The total credits God. But here's the crazy thing. God freely shared his earned glory with humans, with Deborah and Barak. Israel did not engineer the victory. God did. It was holy war. God fought Israel simply watched. But there's more Jl, The story's not finished yet. Cisra escapes the battlefield on foot. He runs to the tenth of a woman named Jl, the wife of Heber, a Kinnite, meaning a descendant of Moses's father in law. So they lived in the land, but they weren't politically aligned with Israel. But they were politically aligned with Javid right, not Yahweh, so supposedly in cohoots with Cicerra. So she Jl invites the fleeing general picture an Iranian mullah running through your neighborhood into her tent, to her house, into her bedroom so he can rest. She offers him sanctuary, which was expected in hospitality. Very little was more holy in that day, and there was reason for sister to expect safety. So he catches up with some needed sleep, and while asleep, she kills him. And for this shrewdness of deceit to defeat God's enemy warrigan, she receives glory. Are you hearing this today? And can relate to Jl about being a religious outsider. Maybe you were raised in a family that could say nothing good about Jesus or Jesus followers. There's many of you. Maybe you've been an active atheist or a secularist, and right now you wonder if you have crossed some invisible line and can never be by Jesus's side, never have Jesus smile at you. Well, consider Jl. She was a clear outsider who became not only an insider, but a Hall of famer. Deborah's prophecy is confirmed. This very unlikely non Jewish woman share the glorious title chauffetine judge of Israel. God is so pleased to share his cup with in these and outis we will be surprised who. Well. Most remarkable here is how freely God shares his glory. He gives it to Deborah, to Barak, to Jl, even to tribes that simply showed up to battle. And that's something I mean. God delights in sharing the honor of his victories with his children. Maybe you've experienced that, Maybe you want to experience that. Yeah. In Judges chapter five, Deborah and Barak compose a song celebrating the victory, and one phrase stands out. It celebrates the people who willingly offered themselves. The Hebrew word here suggests something fascinating. It describes people who were moved from within to offer themselves, as if some external power stirred their hearts, which is exactly what happened. God himself moved their hearts, incited them with courage, made them willing to sacrifice for him. That's what has to happen. I've found that in my life. Man, I'm not doing a lot of moving from here. I'm doing a lot of moving from the spirit withinside of me. But not everyone joined in the battle. The song singles out the tribe of Reuben, who sat back. They debated, they reflected, the analyzed, they did the strategic analysis. They looked at their hearts and said, you know, this doesn't make any sense. They didn't go. They stayed home. In other words, they do what many of us do. We former committee, we think that's valuable. We consider all the risks, that makes sense, and we decided, you know, Ben Franklin approached, don't do it. And the difference between the tribes was that intelligence and morality. It was proximity to God. Those who stood close to him were changed, those they became willing. Those who stayed distant remained cautious and unmoved. And we all have to decide on any given day, where are we right? This story teaches us something beautiful. God is not like theaan God's who hoardes glory. He shares it. He invites ordinary people into his victories, into his glory. It feels good, and those victories often require a step of faith, which he gives us, and the willingness to say not my will, but yours, which he gives us. Listen, if you follow Jesus for a length of time, you've probably had both Barack moments and Reuben moments. I have times when you step forward in faith in times when you went no. I don't think so. But here's the good news. Jesus never had a Ruben moment. His perfect faithfulness is now credited to you, in me, his glory, his hours. We're going to experience it more and more heaven for sure, and through his spirit. God still works in us to awaken courage in our hearts, to move us to places we wouldn't go. He calls us, he invites us into something far greater than we can imagine, and we go, or we pause So what's next. I'll tell you after this briefoot from our sponsors. My book Good Enough Parent is out. It's receiving great reviews. It's up for a couple of book awards. Parenting is hard. We know that too many Christian parents feel like we're messing up our kids, ruining them. We don't know what to do. So I've pulled together eighteen biblical, neuroscientifically attachment theory informed tips. Pick the top two or three that fit with your family and run with them. Did you know that your child, no matter what age, is asking themselves subconsciously two questions. Don't you want to know what those questions are? They're they're wild, and they will help you. It's it's worth the book. It's available in audible and paperback and on kindle. Yeah, you'll love it, right, Get it for your church, Get a bunch of them for your teen group, your mid teen group, Bible studies, book club, homeschooling groups. They will thank you. It's sure it could be read in a sitting. Yeah. Well, next time we're going to continue deeper into judges for story begin to move towards a central figure, a man named Gideon, and the breaking is about to get wush. Thanks for listening to Breaking Badly. We'll see you next time. Take our child of God