Does anybody happen to know who said the following statement? War means fighting, and fighting means killing. And no, it was not Sherman. I have a feeling Bob just said that. No, it was actually somebody on the other side. That was actually General Nathan Bedford Forrest who said that, who eventually became the overall commander of the Confederate cavalry in the final years of the Civil War. But yeah, that's actually a very famous quote. Again, war means fighting and fighting means killing. It's interesting, General Douglas MacArthur Many of you know that name very well. He had a statement where when he spoke to the cadets at West Point, one of the final speeches he ever made, he actually said, war is the most malevolent scourge and the greatest sin of man. Now you think about that, here's a guy whose most of his life was in the service of war, and yet he would recognize as a soldier that it is the most malevolent scourge and the greatest sin of man. And he would even say as a soldier that of all people, soldiers hate war more than anyone else. Now, I don't know if you can really say that generally across the board, but I would dare say anybody with any measure of sanity would agree with that, that war should be something that is hated. And I bring that up because when we turn to Judges chapter 12 tonight, we're seeing, as I had mentioned last week, this last segment of Jephthah's life is one that ends in sadness. We again, as I had referenced last week in chapter 11, the sacrificing, the burnt offering of his daughter, that was not the final chapter in Jephthah's life. The final chapter in Jephthah's life that we see in the scripture is actually where there is a civil war that he is involved in. And we read again, a group of men, one of the tribes, Ephraim, was known for, sadly, its contentious spirit. And Miss Lynn, can I have you go get me a bottle of water? Thank you. If you happen to remember, a few chapters back, Gideon dealt with these people. And again, as I remember in preaching about the life of Gideon, they came to him and said, well, why didn't you ask us to come along and help you out with the war that took place? And they really were very upset. And as I said then, and say again to you, Gideon dealt with that very diplomatically where he prevented conflict. Well, guess who comes along to Jephthah after the battle with the Ammonites, overcoming and taking care of this group of people. And again, that's the sacrifice of his daughter. We read then in chapter 12, verse one, and the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together and went northward and said unto Jephthah, wherefore passest thou over to fight against the children of Ammon and didst not call us to go with thee? Almost the exact same words they said to Gideon. And then it says there, we will burn thine house upon thee with fire. So in other words, what are they threatening him? Death. So because you did not include us in the victory that God's people enjoyed, we are going to kill you. And Jephthah responds and says, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon, and when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands. Now, you go back and look, we don't have this dialogue that had occurred. But yet we see that Jephthah said, I did call you and you refused to come at the beckoning I made with you. So what does he say? He says in verse three, and when I saw that you delivered me not, I put my life in my hands and passed over. Thank you, Lynn. Passed over against the children of Ammon and the Lord delivered them into my hand. Wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day to fight against me? See what he's doing? He's laying right back in front of their own feet. You are causing a war to start in this land. This does not land on me. It's on you. And so the very next verse we see, Jephthah gathers together the men of Gilead and they fight with Ephraim and the men of Gilead smoke Ephraim because they said, ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites and among the Manassites. Now, that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to us in this day and age, but what it simply is is where the Ephraimites said to Jephthah and the Gileadites, you're nothing but a bunch of scum. in modern day vernacular. And so obviously Jephthah and these men took that very personally and they arrayed themselves as an army to go to war against some of their own brethren, other Jews. And what do we see that happens here? It says the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites, and it was so that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, let me go over, that the men of Gilead said unto them, art thou an Ephraimite? If he said nay, then said they unto him, say now Shibboleth. And he said Sibboleth, for he could not frame to pronounce it right." Now, that's pretty intelligent when you think about it. They used a a form of their vocabulary against them for their benefit. Now, again, and you can understand this throughout the world. different cultures and different languages have way of saying things that are different than other sections of the world. I know when my wife, when she was very young, she was at the Shrine Hospital in Massachusetts. I can't remember, I'm not sure if it's the one that's in Boston or elsewhere, but she had a number of operations when she was young. And there were some young people there that were either from Costa Rica or from one of the Central American countries, I'm not sure, but they could not say Sherry. They'd say Cherry. And there was this one young girl that was always talking with my wife constantly when they were there together, and she would always say, Chetty, Chetty, this is the picture that we have here. It was literally, for this young girl's tongue, impossible to make the sh sound. Well, guess what? She had something in common with the Ephraimites. They said Sibyleth, not Shibyleth. And that would mark them as different from the Gileadites. And when they would attempt to cross over and the Gileadites found out they were Ephraimites, they would kill them because of it. And so what do we read then? It says there in verse six, then they took him and slew him at the passages of Jordan. And there fell at that time of the Ephraimites 40 and 2,000. That's a civil war. Now, again, in comparison to other civil wars in the world, such as our own American Civil War, the English Civil War, that seems like a small amount. But still, nonetheless, dear ones, it was war. And it wasn't a pleasant time. Now, as I was meditating again on this chapter 12, and thus we have more following in verse 7 to the very end, which is not much more. it seems to be we could get very discouraged as we read over and over and over and over again of how horrible these days were. And yet, right here in this chapter number 12, and I see this really, if you want to give this as a hallmark or a title of this chapter, I still see the goodness of God on display. Well, Pastor Brown, where do you see that? In the very fact that God, despite the sins of the people, as we saw back a couple of chapters where we see that phrase over and over again, the people did evil again in the eyes of the Lord, here again in the matter of a civil war where the people are now killing one another, we still see God's goodness in doing what? Raising up judges for them. Now, we might think, well, Jephthah's been on the scene, as it says then in verse 7, Jephthah judged Israel six years, then died Jephthah the Gileadite and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead. But look what follows in the next verses. God was not done with them because, we read in verse 8, Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel and he had 30 sons and 30 daughters whom he sent abroad and took in 30 daughters from abroad for his sons and he judged Israel seven years. Now, here again, we're not reading about any sort of conflict going on, oppression. It seems like from the wording of this passage that as soon as Jephthah died, this man, Ibzan, stepped up by God's will and judged the people. He led them. He delivered them. He was a man that was, again, the word that we know for judge is where we get the word Messiah or Savior from. But then following on the heels of this man, as it says in verse 10, he died, and he was buried in Bethlehem. Then after him, Elon, a Zebulonite, judged Israel, and he judged Israel ten years. And Elon the Zebulonite died and was buried in Ajalon in the country of Zebulon. And after him, Abdon, the son of Hillel, a Perianithite, judged Israel. And he had forty sons and thirty nephews that rode on three score and ten ascots. And he judged Israel eight years. And Abdon, the son of Hillel, the Perianithite, died and was buried in Pirithon in the land of Ephraim in the mount of the Amalekites. Now again, we're seeing time after time after time after time what happened. When one judge passed, another one came on the scene. When he passed, another one came on. When he passed, another one came on. Does this mean that the people of Israel had changed? Not on your life, because look at what it says then in verse number 13, and the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. Here's round number seven. Now, when you think about it, would we not in our human capacity and thinking and feeling, would we not have washed our hands of these people a long time ago? Probably. They keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. But yet God, because he's good, showered them with mercy, grace, and kindness. Why? Well, I want to take you to a passage of scripture that I just absolutely fell in love with many, many moons ago. Psalm 119. Psalm 119. We have a very short verse there, verse number 68. Psalm 119, verse 68. where the author says this, speaking to God, thou art good and doest good. Now you notice it's not the reverse. You doest good and art good. The works that God does that are good stem from the fact God is good. And here the author says, because you are good, you do good. Why did God continue to show goodness to the people of Israel even when they kept rejecting Him, forsaking Him, forgetting about Him? It's because He's good. Dear ones, we can take heart in that. How many of you in here get tired of the fact that you sin? Can I see your hands? Yeah, if you're alive and you're a Christian, you should put your hand up. Do you get tired of the fact that God forgives you? No. We should never get tired of that. We should get tired of our sin. But dear ones, that's a cause when we go to prayer tonight to rejoice in God. that we can go, just like John says in 1 John 1, 9, that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why is that? Because He's good. He's good. The people of Israel experienced, whether they knew it or not, the goodness of God time after time after time with every judge that was raised to deliver them. Now, I tend to think when you read judges, they really weren't aware of this. It just seems that, well, hey, things were getting bad. Let's pray. Let's ask God to deliver us. He, again, in his goodness and mercy and love, sends a judge to deliver them. They're delivered from the oppression. And what happens is, and it says this every single time, that when these judges passed off the scene, they did evil again in the sight of the Lord. But did God's grace and mercy run out? No. Why? Because God is good. He's good. And I see even in the lives of the judges God's goodness. Who's the next judge that comes up after this chapter and chapter number 13 and following? Yeah. I remember and I loved this. I heard a sermon years ago. It's been probably 15 years plus. that a pastor gave a title of a he-man with a she-problem. A he-man with a she-problem. I mean, and you drive down here on Easley Road. And on the right hand side before you get, a little ways before you get to Wade Hampton Boulevard, there is on the right hand side a company that has borrowed Samson's name and it's called Samson Stone. Now they got this picture, it's really a caricature of a, of a profile, a body profile of what they make Samson look like where he looks like one of these power or power lifters or body builders. But the marvel that we see about Samson is the Philistines and everybody else for that matter continue to ask what? What was the question they continually asked about Samson? Yeah, where is his strength coming from? So, dear ones, I have a problem when I see Samson in cartoons, Bible storybooks, with just bulging muscles, almost like he was Arnold Schwarzenegger times 10. That's not the case with Samson. He was, again, a plain, ordinary, Joe Jew. There was nothing about him that made him stand out as different than anyone else. But we see again the goodness of God in that man's life, despite his sinfulness. By what did God do for him time after time after time? The Spirit of the Lord came upon him. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him. We read that multiple times in Samson's life. And that was God's goodness to this man, despite who he was. Again, I want to look in some detail, not tonight, but next Wednesday, we'll look in some of the details of Samson's life. And again, just to showcase not who Samson was, but who the God of Samson is. For dear ones, as I quoted last week, when you turn to Hebrews chapter 11, what do we see about the author there of Hebrews saying there? He mentions Samson's name. Now you would think, why of all people would Samson be counted in that hall of faith? But yet he is. Because again, those that are in Hebrews 11, they're not the point. The point is, They point to the one coming up in chapter 12, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. These men and these women, Deborah, were raised up by God to point to Him, not to them. Because every one of them we see in their lives, there was something regarding sin. But yet they pointed to the God who is good. Dear ones, is that not the point of why God has raised us up as His people? You know how Romans talks about how people have despised the goodness of God? And because of this, they don't repent. One of the realities that Paul brings out is that a hardened heart does not see God's goodness. Though it's on display every day. Every moment of the day. The very fact that we breathe in the air and we wake up in the morning and we have food provided for us through God's providence and we have our health, we have our strength, we have all these blessings, it's because God is good. James brings that out in James chapter one. Every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights. We have a reason to praise our God. We tend to go to salvation, which is great that we do. But dear ones, there is even so much more than just praising God for our salvation. He bestows gift upon gift upon gift, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute in our lives. That's where every one of us, including myself, need to be in our thinking and in our spirit. And in this, it will cause us to be a people that live with a spirit of rejoicing because He is always good. He's always good. Let's bow for a word of prayer. Our Lord. We thank you for just the joy that we have to open up the scripture and see your good hand on display in the lives of the judges and in how you cared for the people of Israel, even when they were in rebellion against you. Oh, our Lord, teach us these lessons that we need to learn, that our God is always good despite who we are. and that our good God bids us come to him and confess our sin and praise his holy name. We thank you for this time to follow. We ask our Lord as we do come before you tonight that you would hear us for Jesus' sake. We pray this all in his name. Amen.