A Cookie Cutter God

A series on the Judges of Israel
 – Jephthah from the tribe of Manasseh in Transjordan
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Judges 10:6-11:33 

[The book of Judges is a roller coaster ride. It’s about the history of Israel following their entry into the Promised Land. Unfortunately, Israel went through cycles of rejecting God and then repenting. Each time, the Lord saved them by raising up a leader who was called a judge. In this series, we will be looking at some of these judges to learn about God’s character as well as our own.]

Every year before Christmas, my wife invites our grandchildren over to bake Christmas cookies. When she started this tradition, she used metal cookie cutters to form the dough into various Christmas images like a tree, a star or an angel. They would make a whole batch of cookies that all looked and tasted exactly the same.

 

However, life isn’t like that. It’s not a cookie cutter pattern. Life takes all kinds of unexpected twists and turns, ups and downs. Here’s a story for you that exemplifies this.

 

⁶ Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. They served the images of Baal and Ashtoreth, and the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, Ammon, and Philistia. They abandoned the Lord and no longer served him at all.         NLT

 

What happened next was predictable. The Lord burned with anger and gave Israel over to the Philistines and the Ammonites who oppressed them for eighteen years. Eventually, Israel repented and cried out to the Lord for help. But the Lord said no!

 

¹⁴ Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen! Let them rescue you in your hour of distress!”       NLT

 

Finally, the Lord relented when Israel “put aside their foreign gods and served the Lord”. But when the Ammonites prepared for war by gathering their armies together in Gilead, none of the leaders of Gilead wanted to lead the fight against them. Enter Jephthah! But there was a problem!

 

Even though Jephthah was a mighty warrior, his mother was a prostitute. Plus, his father had other sons by his wife. Those half-brothers decided to force Jephthah out of the region of Gilead. Something about not wanting to share the inheritance. As a result, Jephthah was an outcast in a foreign land.

 

Despite this, the elders from Gilead approached Jephthah and asked him to lead their army. They knew his reputation as a mighty warrior. Following some negotiations, they promised with “the Lord as our witness”, that if Jephthah accepted their offer, they would make him the ruler over all the people of Gilead.

 

Being a mighty warrior, you might have expected Jephthah to immediately attack the Ammonite armies. Instead, he sent messengers to negotiate. However, when the king of Ammon rejected Jephthah’s message, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him.

 

³² So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the Lord gave him victory.  NLT

 

Jephthah’s life and faith was anything but a cookie cutter pattern. There were many unexpected twists and turns, ups and downs. But through it all, the Lord was at work.

 

Like Jephthah, the Lord is at work in your life and mine. But He is not a cookie cutter God. Not every person that has faith looks like a tree, a star or an angel. The Lord works in unexpected ways and in ways that we may never understand.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

Mighty Warrior

A series on the Judges of Israel
 – Gideon from the tribe of Manasseh
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Judges 6 

[The book of Judges is a roller coaster ride. It’s about the history of Israel following their entry into the Promised Land. Unfortunately, Israel went through cycles of rejecting God and then repenting. Each time, the Lord saved them by raising up a leader who was called a judge. In this series, we will be looking at some of these judges to learn about God’s character as well as our own.]

  

¹ The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites.    NIV

 

Bam! Just like that! The cycle started again! Only this time, the Lord didn’t oppress Israel through an occupying nation, but instead through a nation of nomadic herdsmen that invaded the lush Jezreel Valley, the breadbasket of Israel. Like clockwork, when Israel was harvesting their crops, the Midianites would invade.

 

⁵ These enemy hordes, coming with their livestock and tents, were as thick as locusts; they arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare. ⁶ So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help. NLT

 

Because the Midianites were so cruel, the Israelites hid in the “mountain clefts, caves and strongholds”, especially when they were harvesting crops. Such was the case for Gideon who was hiding in a winepress to harvest his wheat.

 

An angel of the Lord appeared and spoke to Gideon saying, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” Gideon was anything but a “mighty warrior”. He saw himself as a fearful farmer. A man whose clan was the weakest and whose family worshiped Baal. He even accused the Lord of abandoning Israel. Here’s what the Lord said.

 

¹⁴ Then the Lord turned to Gideon and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”            NLT

 

Gideon needed reassurance. Therefore, he asked the angel to show him a sign that it was the Lord who was speaking to him. It was a small step of faith, but Gideon was “going with the strength you have”.

 

Following this, the angel gave Gideon a challenge. He told Gideon to tear down his father’s altar to Baal and the Asherah pole. Because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, Gideon did it at night. Still, he took a huge risk. This step of faith brought him closer to being ready to fulfill the angel’s title of “mighty warrior”.

 

As the Midianites and their allies gathered in the Jezreel Valley, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. He called the Israelites to prepare to fight. But even then, before Gideon was willing to go to battle, he twice asked the Lord for a sign.

 

Gideon was no different than you or me. He was afraid to take risks; to step out in faith; to lose control. He saw himself as the world saw him, not as the Lord saw him. He let the culture around him shape his life. Despite this, when he was called and sent by the Lord, he obeyed.

 

¹⁶ The Lord said to Gideon, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.”      NLT

 

The Lord doesn’t want a mighty warrior. He wants us to “go with the strength you have” and in the knowledge that the Lord will be with us.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

World Domination

A series on the Judges of Israel
 – Deborah from the tribe of Ephraim
 (Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Judges 4-5 

[The book of Judges is a roller coaster ride. It’s about the history of Israel following their entry into the Promised Land. Unfortunately, Israel went through cycles of rejecting God and then repenting. Each time, the Lord saved them by raising up a leader who was called a judge. In this series, we will be looking at some of these judges to learn about God’s character as well as our own.]

  

Risk is a board game where winning means world domination. It requires strategic alliances and risky cutthroat moves. The board is a political map of the world that is divided into 42 territories across six continents.

 

Each player starts out with the same number of playing pieces (their army) which they strategically place on the board. From there, you try to capture other territories from your opponents. The goal is to conquer and eliminate all the other players. But in order to win, you have to take risks!

 

In the opening verses of Judges 4, we see Israel's cycle repeating itself. Israel turned from the Lord; the Lord gave them over to Jabin, a Canaanite king who oppressed them for twenty years; Israel cried out to the Lord for help; the Lord sent a judge to deliver them.

 

Deborah was not only the Lord’s judge who led Israel, but also a prophet who settled the disputes of the people. One day, possibly after the people asked her what could be done about Sisera, she sent for Barak with this word from the Lord.

 

^6b “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. ⁷ I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’”                    NIV

 

Even though the Lord promised to give Barak victory over Sisera, he wouldn’t do it unless Deborah came with him. He wouldn’t take the risk. Deborah complied with his demand, but prophesied that a woman would defeat Sisera, not Barak.

 

In the meantime, a spy informed Sisera of Barak’s plans to take his army to Mount Tabor. With this information, Sisera gathered his 900 iron chariots and all his warriors at the Kishon River. With the Jezreel Valley spreading out between the two armies, the stage was set for an epic battle.

 

Chariots were the tanks of the ancient world. So even though Barak had ten thousand fighting men, the Israelites were outmanned. Despite this, upon Deborah’s command, Barak and his army charged Sisera and his chariots, soundly defeating them. How did the Israelites overcome their superior weaponry?

 

God had provided a downpour that caused the Kishon River to overflow its banks making Sisera’s chariots useless in the mud. And when Sisera fled the battlefield and tried hiding in the tent of Jael, the wife of the spy, she killed him by hammering a tent peg through his temple.

 

We may not be in a fight against flesh and blood where we’re overpowered by their weaponry. But we do fight with an even more dangerous enemy. Paul described it as “mighty powers in this dark world”. And Peter gave this warning.

 

⁸ Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.        NIV

 

Like the game of Risk, the battles we face in life also have great risks, but the rewards are much greater. It’s not for world domination, but for eternal life.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Regular Joe

A series on the Judges of Israel
 – Ehud from the tribe of Benjamin
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Judges 3:12-30 

[The book of Judges is a roller coaster ride. It’s about the history of Israel following their entry into the Promised Land. Unfortunately, Israel went through cycles of rejecting God and then repenting. Each time, the Lord saved them by raising up a leader who was called a judge. In this series, we will be looking at some of these judges to learn about God’s character as well as our own.]

 

"Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! 

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's SUPERMAN!!!

 

This was the introduction for every episode of the TV series “Adventures of Superman”. What made it more amazing was that Superman in real life was a mild mannered reporter who wore glasses. But, when Clark Kent heard about a crisis, he stepped into a telephone booth and emerged as Superman ready for action!

 

The story from this passage in Judges opens with Israel doing evil in the sight of the Lord. Therefore, the Lord gave Eglon, king of Moab, control over Israel. As a result, Israel was oppressed by Eglon for eighteen years.

 

Because of this, the Israelites cried out to God for help. So the Lord raised a rescuer by the name of Ehud, a left-handed man. In the meantime, the Israelites sent Ehud, along with others, to take their annual tribute to Eglon.

 

However, what the Israelites didn’t know was that Ehud had his own plans. He had made a double edged dagger which he strategically strapped to his right thigh hiding it under his clothes.

 

After delivering the tribute to Eglon and leaving, Ehud circled back without the others. He told Eglon that he had a secret message for him from God. Once all the servants were out of the room, Ehud quickly grabbed his dagger with his left hand and thrust it deep into the king’s belly killing him.

 

He then fled the city going to the hill country of Ephraim where Ehud sounded a call to arms for Israelites to follow him in fighting the Moabites. They killed ten thousand of their able-bodied warriors. Consequently, Moab was subject to Israel for eighty years.

 

Like Clark Kent, Ehud was just a “regular Joe”. In fact, in that culture being left handed was considered a weakness. Therefore, Eglon would not have expected an attack from his left hand. But God had raised up a deliverer by using Ehud’s weakness to show the Lord’s strength.

 

Paul wrote about this paradox of strength through weakness in his second letter to the Corinthian believers.

 

⁹ But God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.    ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.           NIV

 

When you think about it, what Ehud did was pretty remarkable. He acted decisively without anybody to back him up. He was motivated because God had raised him up as Israel’s deliverer. And even though being left handed was considered a liability, he turned it into an asset.

 

As you can see one person, even a “regular Joe”, can make a difference.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com