194 - Heroes - Faith Focused on the Promises [B]

Hebrews Lesson 194      April 15, 2010

^NKJ Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

Hebrews 11 is basically a series of illustrations on faith, that is faith as the application of an individual's trust in relation to specific revelation (specific promise) that God gives in Scripture. 

At the introduction of the chapter in the first 2 verses we read:

^NKJ Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

So, faith and hope are linked together with that which is not perceptible in terms of empiricism. It's not perceptible in terms of our ability to see and touch and feel it. There are promises that have yet to be fulfilled and the trust focuses on the promise that God gives because of the character of God, the character that lies behind the promise because of His promise. We know that because His character, we know that His promise will be fulfilled. The writer then pulls together the series of illustrations from the Old Testament to show how these Old Testament figures, despite failures, despite their own sin natures, despite times when they did not trust God, that there were key times in each of their lives when they focused on the promise of God and trusted God and there were significant consequences because of their trust in God. 

It begins with heroes before the call of Abraham looking at Abel and Enoch and Noah. Then the major focus is on those key figures in the history of Israel: Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, Joseph, Moses. Then as we have studied these, we come to last time the last couple of lessons looking at verses 30 and 31 in reference to the conquest. One of the things that the writer has brought out since verse 8 when the focus was on Abraham is the focus on the land promise. Faith always is in an object. It's not faith in faith. It's not just believe in some empty unexisting, unformed, vague nebulous idea. Faith always (scriptural faith, biblical faith) always focuses on a specific promise in the Word of God, a specific revelation, a specific principal, a specific proposition that it focuses on. So now the emphasis from Abraham on is on the land promise. Again and again and again God had promised to Abraham that this land He would give to his descendants to Isaac and to Jacob. That promise was given, yet they never saw the promise fulfilled. And to Moses, yet Moses was not allowed to enter into the land. 

It wasn't until Joshua led the people into the land at the conquest that's covered in the book of Joshua, and as exemplified in the conquest of Jericho, and then even the faith of Rahab who was not a Jew, she was a Gentile, a Canaanite; yet, nevertheless she trusted in the promise of God, and because she did marry into Israel. She in fact was in the line of Christ. She is an ancestor to the Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity and she is included in here as an example of those who believe (who trust in the Lord) and the Lord gives them victory.

Then when we come to verse 32. Now there is a shift in pace. It is sped up a little bit in verses 30 and 31 but now we really move into high gear because the writer realizes that he's running out of time. He's running out of space. But he wants to make it clear to his reader and the Holy Spirit wants to make it clear to us that he hasn't run out of examples, and that there are dozens and dozens and dozens if not hundreds of more examples that he could use up from the Old Testament from the history of Israel to illustrate the significance of faith in the life of believers. 

Remember that these Old Testament believers don't have the same spiritual life that you and I do. They are not indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. They're not filled by the God the Holy Spirit. They do not have a completed canon of Scripture as we do. Yet they were able to achieve great things in their spiritual life by simply trusting God. 

These are all illustrations of what we call the faith-rest drill; faith meaning that active belief on our part, rest meaning we rest and we trust in God to supply the victory, to take care of the challenge (the problem) whatever it might be on the basis of His Word. Then we learn the drill aspect means this is to be a regular discipline procedure in our life. 

So the writer begins here by saying:

³² And what more shall I say?

The way this is structured it is: "I could say a lot more, but I don't have time."

He goes on to say:

For the time would fail me…

"There's not time to go into all of the details related to the evidence that I could marshal. I could talk about Gideon and Barak, Samson and Jephthah, David and Samuel and the prophets."

He goes on to say in verse 33:

^NKJ Hebrews 11:33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,

^NKJ Hebrews 11:34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

So this is a great summary passage for what he has been teaching up to this point; and he'll go on to give some more examples in verses 35 down through the end of the chapter in verse 40.

But we'll stop tonight and we're going to focus on verse 32. I don't think we'll get much beyond that because I want to give a little bit of background on each of these individuals that he mentions. Remember he is writing to a Jewish audience. He's writing to a group of former Jewish priests who believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They're in a circumstance because of pressure because of hostility to their faith in Jesus as the Messiah that they're under some level of persecution and yet because they're not seeing any real change, it doesn't seem like Jesus is going to come back and establish the kingdom immediately, whatever the circumstance was they are about to just give up and go back into the Judaism. Yet the writer of Hebrews is challenging them to hang tough, to persevere, to endure just as the Old Testament heroes did and many of them never saw the promise fulfilled; but now of course with Joshua, Rahab and these others, these are individuals who did see the promise fulfilled.

He is writing to this group of former Jewish priests and they're very familiar with the Old Testament. He doesn't need to go into a lot of detail with them on these particular individuals and what took place in their lives and what was revealed to them in Scripture. 

Now I always remember when I think about the knowledge that these priests would have had. I always think of the illustration that Arnold Fruchtenbaum frequently tells of back in the Middle Ages when the Jewish community was training up men who would be scribes whose responsibility it was to make copies of the Torah, make copies of the Old Testament Scriptures that would then be preserved and be the basis of the teaching in the Jewish community that these were men who came from certain families; and they were identified very early because of their intelligence, because of their ability to remember things and because of their grasp. They were then trained so that by the time they were bar mitzvahed they would be able to recite the entire Torah without a mistake from memory. Then by the time they were 18 or 19 years of age they would have to be able to recite the entire Old Testament from memory. They would be given a test where they would be given a Old Testament Scripture. A nail would be driven from the top down. Somebody would hammer a nail into the text and they would then be asked what word would that nail intersect on page, say, 457? Because they had virtually a photographic memory of the text, they would be able to tell exactly what word that nail would have intersected. They would know the first word and the last word on every page of the Bible. That is how they would make sure that they were accurate in their transcribing. They would know that what the first word, the middle word. They would often know all of the of the first words of every line, the last word of every line so that they can then check to make sure that nothing had been left out.

So there is the knowledge of the Scripture. Sometimes I feel like it's pulling teeth to get people to memorize 10 verses; sometimes to get young men who want to go in the pastorate to memorize 10 verses. Yet you have this emphasis on training historically in the Jewish community because they understood this was the Word of God and that you did not violate it. So it was held in such high esteem even though they may not have really understood what it said, they knew it was important. We have men today that often understand what it means, but they don't have it memorized. 

Scripture memorization is extremely important because you never know what circumstances or situations you might be in when you need to claim a promise. And we have all had that experience, especially when we were new believers where we'd go, "Oh! I know that's in the Bible somewhere. Isn't there a promise saying something like…", and then we just can't come up it. We need to as the psalmist says:

^NKJ Psalm 119:11 Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You!

So we need to know these stories. Not everybody here has listened to the series I did on Judges. If you've never listened to that series, I would encourage you to do that. I think that is one of the most significant series I've ever taught because it deals with how Israel went from a righteous believing community that was victorious immediately after the conquest to a fragmented relativistic pagan culture by the end of the book of Judges. You couldn't tell the Jews apart from the Canaanites they were so pagan. In fact there were worse in many cases than the Canaanites because they had succumbed to moral relativism and rejected the Lord. It begins with the great stories of the conquest as each tribe began with a mopping up operation in their particular areas of tribal allotment; and then as various foreign powers would come in to oppress them because of the subsequent generation would be disobedience then God would raise up a deliverer who was a combination of a judge, a military leader and in some cases a prophet (a spiritual leader.)

You begin with Othniel at the beginning of whom nothing negative is said and end with Sampson of whom hardly anything positive is said. When Sampson dies the people are still under the oppression of the Philistines. He is unsuccessful in throwing off of the yoke of the Philistines. 

So the key verse in the book of Judges is:

^NKJ Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

What a tremendous statement to them would also represent our own time and our own culture. People are into moral relativism. Everybody does what is right in their own eyes, and they don't recognize any higher authority than "whatever I feel like I wanted to right now". So Judges is a good study if you want to go back and listen to that.

That also reminds me that recently when we had the conference last month (the Chafer Conference) on creation and then I've wrapped things up in a summary lesson on Genesis 1:1-2 because many people were asking questions of me about where the fall of Satan occurred, the creation of the angels in light of creation. I studied that and somebody came up to me the other day and said, "People wouldn't be asking you these questions if they'd listened to those first 12 lessons in Genesis." This individual said that they have begun listening to me about the time I taught that when I was in Connecticut and so they understood what the situation was and what the issues were in creation and evolution. But a lot of people who come along and become part of the church since then or started listening to the ministry haven't done that so that's an important a section of the Genesis study to go back and review. It's about 12 or 15 lessons maybe, maybe as many as 20. But we're going through the entire first chapter or two in Genesis.

Well, here we are in Hebrews and the writer says:

^NKJ Hebrews 11:32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of

And then he lists 3 pairs of heroes.  

Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets:

Now here's a test, pop quiz!  See who is alert tonight. Any anybody notice anything unusual about that list? Put everybody on the spot. Anybody notice anything unusual about that list?

Well, not really contrast, but you do have 3 groups. But notice – what? What did you say? Did you say they are out of order? Is that what you said? That's right. Gideon comes after Barak; Samson comes after Jephthah; and David comes after Samuel. So you have 3 pairs and in each pair their chronological order is reversed. And there are a lot of different explanations for that and probably the one that makes most sense to me is that the writer of Hebrews is following the order that is given in 1 Samuel 12:11. 

When Samuel is giving his farewell speech to the people in Israel he said:

^NKJ 1 Samuel 12:11 "And the LORD sent Jerubbaal,

That was the other name for Gideon.

Bedan, Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side; and you dwelt in safety.

So there is at least the reversal of order there of Jerubbaal and Barak although he gets Jephthah and Samuel right. In each of these pairs one would think that the most known story would be the first one. Gideon is more well-known than Barak. Sampson is more well-known than Jephthah. And David it's more well-known than Samuel. That's the only way I can think that the writer would switch it around like that is in that particular order. 

But he speaks of these 6 individuals because of the place that they hold in the growth and development of the nation from the conquest to its final fullest and realization under David and its greatest expansion of the kingdom. The greatest amount of land that they had under the control of Israel was during the reign of David and Solomon. So it goes from the conquest up to its greatest expansion in the land. What lies behind all these promises going back to Hebrews 11:8 is that promise to Abraham, the promise to give his descendants the land. 

As we get into this we're faced with asking the question of what all of these have in common. They have 3 things in common. First of all, they each faced overwhelming odds. In human terms there was no way in which any of these individuals could conquer and militarily defeat their opponents. They were outmanned, and they were outgunned. They were vastly outnumbered by professional troops; and these professional troops usually have superior technology than what the Israelites had. So that was the first thing. They faced overwhelming odds.

The second thing they faced is that each of these leaders had direct orders from the Lord to do what they did. They were given a divine commission to take and to raise an army of Israelites to deliver the Israelites from the oppressor. They each had a direct order from the Lord, which included a promise from the Lord to give them victory.

Then the third thing is they all understood in a broad sense that the land had been promised to them by God and that therefore they had a divine right to the land and that the land that God had promised to Abraham was theirs. They trusted the Lord to give them victory in the battle. 

Now we're in a different kind of battle in the Church Age. We are not in a battle over territory. We're in a battle for the mind. We're in a battle in spiritual warfare in terms of our own thinking and being challenged by various tests and various adversities. So we claim many promises, and some of these Old Testament promises we can apply to the battles that we face.

I just want to run through 3 or 4 of these promises. 2 Chronicles 20:15 is at the time of Jehoshaphat when he is going to war against the Edomites. The command to him is:

^NKJ 2 Chronicles 20:15 And he said, "Listen, all you of Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat! Thus says the LORD to you: 'Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's.

That's the problem we always have is that we look at these circumstances. We get our eyes on the details. We get our eyes on the other persons or the situation's overwhelming negative factors and then we minimize what we have on our side. God plus one is always a majority. We forget that if we have God on our side it really doesn't matter what else we're facing in life. That was the main promise that undergirds each of these is that battle is the Lord's. The battle is not ours. It is the Lords. 

This is what David recognized when he went up against Goliath.

^NKJ 1 Samuel 17:47 "Then all this assembly shall know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD's, and He will give you into our hands."

In fact many times the nation that has the greatest technology and training has the worst performance because of God's plan to either discipline them through defeat or to protect whomever they're aggressing against. The ultimate issue is not technology. It's never empiricism. We always want to go to empiricism. 

The same thing applies to our nation today. The problem in this nation is not a problem of politics. The problem in this nation is not a problem of taxation. The problem in this country is not a problem of Islamic terrorism. Those are all just circumstantial details. The problem in this country is that people have turned their back on the truth of the Word of God and until that is resolved these other things are continuously going to crop up as part of God's discipline on the nation. 

It's analogous to what God had promised Israel. The curse is related to their breaking the covenant (the 5 cycles of discipline). Now we don't go through those same 5 cycles because that's part of God's to Israel in the Old Testament. But there are similarities and there are parallels that when a people violate the created order of God's world when they violate those creation ordinances and the divine institutions – those establishment principles that we've gone through recognizing individual responsibility which includes individual labor. 

Number 2 is marriage which is between a man and woman and must be preserved that way and even when you thinly disguise what you are doing as some sort of civil union, a civil union by any other name is a marriage, because you're calling it something else but you're giving all of the legal attributes to a civil union that you would a marriage. When you start messing with those divine institutions and the family and the breakdown in the family because of carnality and arrogance and violence that occurs in families and the high divorce rate and fragmentation in families, all of this leads to fragmentation within the culture, the fragmentation of the nation, the polarization of society; and we see our society becoming more and more polarized and greater and greater levels of civil discord. For at least the last 10 years we've heard people talk more and more about why there just isn't any respect any more when you get crowds of people out or you get different groups talking about and disagreeing about political issues. That's because the polarization that occurs from the totally conflicting worldviews is so great that you can't compromise these things anymore. 

Back and we have a homogenous society where nearly everybody operated on some sort of loose Judeo Christian set of values, people could find something to agree on. They could find some sort of common ground where they could agree. But when you have part of the culture that is totally committed to atheism, to secularism, to moral relativism and what that means is that whatever is in the past has no value for today. If we're committed to evolution, then we're always getting better and better and better so why go back to what the Founding Fathers wanted to do in the original documents? 

In fact as one congressman said recently, "We don't pay any attention to the Constitution. We just make it up as we go along."

Why? Because in their thinking what was done 200 years ago isn't relevant because in an evolutionary world where everything is governed by chance, what happened in the past or history isn't relevant to the present at all. The only thing that matters today is what we want to do today. That's the same problem you had in Israel during the period of the judges that led to the complete fragmentation (polarization) of the nation. And they also have some horrible civil wars in Israel between the tribes during that particular time. 

So we have the same problem they did. It wasn't a problem of technology. It wasn't a problem of politics. It wasn't a problem of economic theory. It is a problem of a failure to submit to the authority of God and a failure to trust in His Word. Once that happens and the people have destroyed themselves spiritually, then all of these other consequences are naturally going to fall out. So the only real solution isn't a political solution or an economic solution or any other field. The real solution is a spiritual solution and until that is put in place, everything else is just a band-aid. Everything else is just a temporary fix to get us through until the next crisis occurs. And it's only until we have some major crisis where people have to really focus on what's truly important and what has real value that perhaps we may see people turn back to the Lord. But I'm afraid that if life has any consistency and what we've seen in our personal lives is we know that we know we ought to right with the Lord and we don't get right with the Lord until He makes it so miserable and painful sometimes that then we're finally forced to submit to Him. We have to recognize that we don't put our hope in man. We don't put our hope in political parties. 

That doesn't mean we don't get involved. I think Darby was very wrong when he taught the Early Plymouth Brethren that it was a sin to be involved in secular things, that it was a sin to even vote. I think that that's part of our responsibility as a citizen, but it's not the real solution.

Tea parties are doing a good thing. There are other people that are doing good things but ultimately those are just working on temporary fixes, even though they're important. They're still not the real solution. So we dare not put our ultimate hope there.

The battle is the Lord's, not ours. 

Psalm 44:6-7 is another promise.

^NKJ Psalm 44:6 For I will not trust in my bow, Nor shall my sword save me.

^NKJ Psalm 44:7 But You have saved us from our enemies, And have put to shame those who hated us.

The battle is the Lord's again.

^NKJ Zechariah 4:6 So he answered and said to me: "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Says the LORD of hosts.

The ultimate battle in this world we must recognize as believers is in the angelic conflict, and our real power comes from the Word of God, from doctrine, from God the Holy Spirit.

Then at the time of Asa:

^NKJ 2 Chronicles 14:11 And Asa cried out to the LORD his God,

This is a great prayer. We often go and we talk about prayer. We go to prayers in the New Testament. We go to the Lord's Prayer. This is a fabulous prayer.

and said, "LORD, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power;

Listen to that line of reasoning. He's appealing to the omnipotence of God. He says it's nothing for you to provide a lot or a little. It's the same to you because of Your power. 

help us, O LORD

There's the plea.

our God, for we rest on You, and

That's his rationale. In God we are trusting in you, and you alone!

We are calling upon you to supply our need and in this case to give us the victory.

in Your name we go against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; do not let man prevail against You!"

Notice this is not a self absorbed man-centered "God I need you to solve my problems."

"Lord this is your problem", and so putting it completely in the Lord's hands. This is how they operate.

Now I want to give you a couple of maps and orient you as we get into Judges. Let's just turn back. We're not going to be able to go through all of these tonight, as I'm sure you already figured out. But I will take them in chronological order and just focus on the high points. If you have questions and want to get into these in more detail, then again I encourage you to go back and listen to the more detailed studies in the book of Judges.

The first one we'll look at is actually the second one mentioned and that's Barak. In Hebrew the accent is always on the second syllable and so just like the former prime minister of Israel was Ehud Barak. That is how you pronounce the name here. In fact we have both of his names present in this particular episode. In Judges 4 is where we are told the incident Deborah the judge and Barak the general. So we're going to look at these 6 men that are mentioned in Hebrews 11. We have Gideon who's the reluctant general in Judges 7, Barak who is the weak general in Judges 4-5, and Sampson who's the unsuccessful deliverer in Judges 16. He's the only one who doesn't raise an army. And we have Jephthah who is the rash general in Judges 11. 

Then we get out of Judges and we'll go to Samuel for David who is the faith-focused warrior-king and his life is covered in 1 Samuel 17 through the end of 2 Samuel and then Samuel who is the prophet, priest and the last judge. His life is covered basically in 1 Samuel 1-17. 

In Judges 4 this is actually the third judge. The first judge is Othniel; the second judge is Ehud. The third name listed in Shamgar in verse 31. But Shamgar is not called a judge. He just delivers them. But he's not actually mentioned as a judge and if you want to details on Shamgar I encourage you to go listen to the study. It's a little bit technical, but Shamgar wasn't even Jewish. His name is not a Jewish name. It's more of a Hurrian name or possibly a Hittite name. There is an indication that he is part of a mercenary corps called the sons of Not who were a group of warriors who were formed an elite guard to the pharaoh. At this particular time Egypt of course had control of the Sinai, and the Philistines down in the area of Gath were just on the edge of the border of Egypt. So you have Shamgar kill 600 Philistines with an ox goad and this is going is to relieve some of the military pressure on Israel. 

We wonder why Shamgar is there. What in the world is this guy doing here? Why when you go from Ehud to Deborah  do you have this one verse talking about Shamgar? I believe that the reason Shamgar is mentioned is that Israel was in such a state of spiritual apostasy after the deliverance of Ehud and their initial deliverance, then they had rest for 80 years and then they're back in apostasy again, going through that cycle that we see in the book of Judges, that there wasn't a Jewish leader to be found. So in order to relieve the military pressure against them, God has to use a pagan warrior from outside of Israel. This forms a little backdrop for understanding what happens in the fourth chapter, because God raises up Deborah, because you've got a culture that the males have wimped out. That is indicated by Barak. 

God raises up Deborah as a prophetess and as a judge. This is an exception when we get into issues related to women teaching and being pastors in the New Testament. We often have people go back and say, "Well, look at Deborah." Deborah wasn't equivalent to a pastor or a teacher. She has a different role. She is a prophetess. One reason she's raised up is because there's a vacuum of leadership in this paganized Israel. When she calls for Barak to come and lead the forces against Sisera and Jabin the king of Canaan, and Sisera is his commanding general over his chariot corps, then Barak comes along and his response. He doesn't trust the Lord. His response: "Well, if you'll go with me Deborah, then I'll go. But if you won't come with me, I won't go."

Because of that (and we know this is the wrong attitude because there's immediately the pronouncement of that judgment against him), because he is not willing to trust the Lord for the victory, he's not going to get the glory for the victory. In fact the glory is going to go to a woman. The two heroes in the passage are Deborah and Jael. The men are spiritual failures, and this is what happens in paganism. As a culture becomes paganized, there is a role reversal between men and women and the women become masculinized and the men become a feminized. That's seen in our culture as well. 

But despite the fact that he's a wimp and despite the fact that he doesn't start off well, Barak does step to the plate and he does trust the Lord and he does win the battle and defeat the chariots. He is facing an enemy in the Valley of Jezreel, the area that we're familiar with.

Now here's a map to orient us because as we talk about Barak and Gideon especially in these first 2 examples, they both are operating up in the north in the area of Galilee. This map in particular has shaded in the tribal allotments according to the book of Joshua and the area that we're talking about for Esdraelon Valley is this line of demarcation here along the northern border of the tribe of Manasseh. Notice how much tribal land Manasseh has: part of the tribe on the west side of the Jordan and part of the tribe on the east side of the Jordan. This whole area here running from where we have this little bump along the coast which is where modern Haifa is located, from there running to the southeast you have the Kishon River which today just looks like a little bitty creek. Brays Bayou looks like it has more water in it than the Kishon River. That is because all of this water is bled off now into the irrigation in the valley. This is the breadbasket of Israel in the Esdraelon Valley or the Valley of Jezreel. 

This is the area where both of these episodes happen. Mount Tabor is right here on the northeast side of the valley and just to its right if you're looking from the west is Mt. Moreh, which is where the battle with Gideon is going to take place. This is the area. This is Jezreel, which is where we studied about how Jezebel met here death there, Megiddo where a couple of the kings of the Northern Kingdom held up and died at Megiddo. So this is a very prominent area. 

Again here is a picture taken from Mount Carmel looking across to west to the east looking across the valley, the Esdraelon Valley. You can just see a little bit of it all right over here Mount Tabor, this little bump here is a very unusual shaped hill. Then just to the right of it over here is Moreh. Just below it down here is Herod's Springs which is where the episode with Gideon takes place. Over here is Mount Gilboa, which is where Saul was defeated by the Philistines and he takes his life. Then down here in the foreground is the Valley of Jezreel and this little bitty darker green that you see right here is the Kishon River. So it doesn't seem to be very much today, but it plays a key role within the whole episode of this battle.

Now here it is another picture of looking across the Jezreel Valley with hill of Moreh in the background. What happens is that they're facing Jabin who is a Canaanite king and he is from the village (the town, the city) of Hazor, which is located up by the Sea of Galilee. He has gained control over the northern part of Hazor. So he's gained control of all of this northern area of Israel; and he is taking excessive tribute from them and oppressing them. This has gone on for several years, and he is more militarily advanced than they are. He has 900 chariots of iron. For 20 years he's been oppressing the Israelites, and they do not have the equivalent of technology so they can't protect themselves. 

Now God had raised up Deborah, who is the judge. She is also a prophetess, and she calls upon Barak to lead the force against Sisera. But he doesn't have any faith at the beginning. He's not any different. What we see is the deterioration and degradation of the faith in each one of these leaders as you go through Judges. He doesn't want to go. He doesn't have any confidence; and so she rebukes him. 

^NKJ Judges 4:9 So she said, "I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.

This shows that there is a failure on his part and so the glory for the victory will go to someone else. So Barak sends out a call, and he raises troops from the tribe of Zebulun here, from the tribe of Naphtali, to come down to Kadesh and he raises ten thousand men under his command and Deborah goes with him. 

Then we're told as sort of an aside that:

^NKJ Judges 4:11 Now Heber the Kenite, of the children of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, had separated himself from the Kenites

So they had thrown in their lot with the Israelites.

and pitched his tent near the terebinth tree at Zaanaim, which is beside Kedesh.

One Kedesh is up here in the region of Naphtali in the northern part of Galilee.

^NKJ Judges 4:12 And they reported to Sisera that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor.

So he's down here pulling his troops together here at Mount Tabor. 

^NKJ Judges 4:13 So Sisera gathered together all his chariots, nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people who were with him, from Harosheth Hagoyim to the River Kishon.

That covers this area of the Jezreel Valley along here; and they are prepared for battle. 

^NKJ Judges 4:14 Then Deborah said to Barak, "Up! For this is the day in which the LORD has delivered Sisera into your hand.

So he has a specific promise from God and the Lord has delivered them. 

Has not the LORD gone out before you?" So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him.

^NKJ Judges 4:15 And the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army with the edge of the sword before Barak; and Sisera alighted from his chariot and fled away on foot.

Now in this account of the episode we don't see another thing that happens, but in the next chapter which is the Song of Deborah where she sings this victory song over the defeat of the Canaanites she indicates that it's of the torrent of Kishon. So there is a flood that occurs that God uses to panic and to defeat the Canaanites. That is a way in which God uses meteorology to wipe out the chariots. It's hard to drive those chariots through the mud. They just sort of bog down and you get trapped and then you are overwhelmed. When he had 900 men with chariots with iron wheels, he could outmaneuver the infantry of the Jews, but now he is trapped in the mud and can't do anything. He has to flee. We are told all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword. 

In verse 16, no one was left. 

^NKJ Judges 4:17 However, Sisera had fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; for there was peace between Jabin king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite.

Again we have reference to this group of Kenites. She though is oriented to the God of Israel as opposed to most of the Kenites who are in league with Jabin. She is very polite to him and invites him into the tent. Then he turns aside. She says she is going to hide him. She covers him up with a blanket, and she feeds him. So then he relaxes and he takes nap. While he is sleeping Jael comes in and this is the first example of anybody really getting nailed in history. She took a tent-peg, which was very large. This isn't like a small nail; this is like a railroad spike. She took that and snuck up on him and drove the peg into his temple so that it goes all the way through his skull and into the ground. She just pegs him right there. So she gets the glory and the song of victory is all about her.

^NKJ Judges 5:26 She stretched her hand to the tent peg, Her right hand to the workmen's hammer; She pounded Sisera, she pierced his head, She split and struck through his temple.

Don't you love it? The Holy Spirit is so graphic here. Of course there are too many people today who just think: Oh, isn't that terrible? The terrible thing is the sin and the terrible thing is the oppression. And this is their deliverance so that they can have freedom. 

That is the story of Barak. Where he's valuable is he trusts God. He engages the enemy. God gives him the victory. 

The next account is of Gideon. As I said I am just hitting the high points. The story of Gideon is another great episode. Let's look at a couple pictures here so we see what it's like. Here's the Jezreel Valley. The hill of Moreh in the background is where the Midianite and the Amalekite troops are camped. Then it's off to the right that you have the Spring of Herod. This is where the Israelites are going to come. This picture that you see on the screen is a full color picture that was taken probably about 9 or 10 years ago. Then we're going to flash back 100 years and this is what the area looked like 100 years ago. It gives you a little bit of an idea because I would imagine except for the car and the concrete road it hasn't changed a whole lot two or three thousand years. It was just the farmland. So this is the exact same area. I'm going to show you again the contrast here. 

Then this is an aerial shot where we have in Herod here; this is an Israeli village that is built around the Spring of Herod. Then over here is Gilboa. So you're looking at the area of the Esdraelon Valley there, the Jezreel Valley. 

Again this is a shot in Herod where the Spring of Herod is located. They have a swimming pool here, a spring-fed swimming pool. It's a very attractive area, and they have a village that's built around there. But this is what it looked like a hundred years ago, and there was a lot of water there. Today so much water has been bled off into irrigation that there's not that much water coming out of the spring, but this picture from a hundred years ago shows that there's a lot of water there.

Here's a cave that you see located here. Here is the where the water for the spring comes out. You see most of this area here has no water so it's a walkway. But 100 years ago it was all filled with water. So at the time of Gideon there was a good bit of water there for the troops that he's bringing to the area. He has about 10,00 troops that he brings for water so they have to evaluate how they're going to handle it.

Just a couple more pictures. There's the Kishon River as it existed a hundred years ago. It's not just a little bitty thin line that we see today, but a tremendous amount of water was in the Kishon. This is the river that flooded that wiped out the chariots of Sisera. 

In chapter 7 of Judges Gideon has already been commissioned to be the deliverer of Israel from the oppression of the Midianites. He gathers 32,000 troops. 

The Midianites have them outnumbered about 4 or 5 to one. They have about 125,000 or so. You think, "Well, they're outnumbered about 4 to 1 so that's not bad. God can still work things out and give them victory."

But God says, "No, we've got way too many people."

The first way the troops are weeded out is, the Lord said to Gideon that there's way too many people.

"We need to see if they are really committed to battle."

^NKJ Judges 7:3 "Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, 'Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.' " And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained.

Now want to show you the comparison there between the promises we had earlier talking about "don't fear because of the battle is the Lord's." Those who are fearful need to go home, and 22,000 people went home. At least they were honest. That's good a good crowd. About 10,000 remain. The Lord said, "No, 10,000 is still way too many so we need to weed them out again."

The next procedure (the next test) was to come to the Spring of Herod there and whoever lapped the water up with their hand like a dog and kept their eyes ahead focused ready to go into battle, those were the ones you wanted. But the men who got down on their hands and knees and took too much water, well those weren't ready for combat so send them home. So Gideon was left with three hundred.

The Lord said, "That's just about right."

So the Lord said, "I'll deliver you."

^NKJ Judges 7:7 Then the LORD said to Gideon, "By the three hundred men who lapped I will save you, and deliver the Midianites into your hand. Let all the other people go, every man to his place."

After everyone left, the people took their provisions. They had trumpets and they made camp just above the camp of the Midianites in the valley. But that night as the Lord instructed Gideon to make a recon mission, the Lord said – notice in verse 10.

^NKJ Judges 7:10 "But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant,

^NKJ Judges 7:11 "and you shall hear what they say; and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp." Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outpost of the armed men who were in the camp.

God understands that we are afraid at times and so He reinforces His will and His commands to that we're strengthened and encouraged. So Gideon goes down. They overhear these two soldiers talking and one of them is talking about this dream he has. He says that he dreamed that there was a loaf of barley bread that tumbled into the camp. It came to a tent and it knocked the tent over and the tent collapsed.

Then his friend turned him and said, "Oh! I understand that dream."

So obviously the Holy Spirit is at work in the background though we're not told about it, and he said that represents the sword of Gideon the son of Joash who's going to deliver Israel from Midian and wipe out the whole camp.

The only way you can get that is if there's been some sort of divine revelation. When Gideon overheard that he realized that he was going to have victory, have confidence in the Lord and he went back, divided his 300 men into 3 companies of 100 each and each man had a trumpet, an empty clay pitcher and a torch that was inside the pitcher so that its light was dim. Normally you would have one man with a trumpet and one man with a light for every 50 men or 100 men or something like that. What they're going to do is surround the camp and at a signal they will blow the trumpets and then they will break the clay pots and all these 300 lights will appear which will make it seem as if there are many more enemy men in the hills. The Midianites just panic and the Israelites don't have to attack. Gideon's men don't need to attack. The Midianites just panic: a great example of psychological warfare and the use of deception. They panic and as they're charging every which way the camp they are mistaking one another for the enemy and they began to kill one another. Then they finally flee, and they are pursued them across the Jordan. Their leaders are captured, and their leaders are killed. So Gideon again provides a tremendous victory because he trusts the Lord. 

Now did he fail?  Oh boy, did Gideon fail many times leading up to it. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to trust the Lord. He kept asking what he thought was impossible things of God to lay out the fleece, put dew on it. I'll lay the fleece out tomorrow and won't put dew on it. Whatever – he's trying to avoid what God wants him to do. But finally he understood and he trusted God. 

He's not any different from you and me. We don't want to trust God sometimes because it's beyond our understanding. But he led the people in victory. Then afterward of course he caved into arrogance and that led him into idolatry. But he makes it into the list in Hebrews 11 because at a key point he trusted God and saw God deliver the people. He let God use him. The same thing is true for us. We need to recognize that we're not any different from all of these men listed here. They had great spiritual failures, but they had great spiritual successes at key times because they were willing to trust God and let him use them. And we can do this thing.

So we'll come back next time and look at the next pair, which is Jephthah and Sampson. And they're really a lot of fun. They just get more and more corrupt. It's better than any soap opera you could ever watch.

Let's bow our heads in closing prayer.