Scripture reading this evening is from Judges chapter 3, verses 12 through 30. Judges 3, 12 through 30. Listen carefully now to the words of Holy Scripture. Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the king strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. And he gathered to himself the sons of Ammon and Amalek. And he went and defeated Israel, and they possessed the city of the palm trees. And the sons of Israel served Eglon, the king of Moab, eighteen years. But when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for them, Ehud, the son of Garah, the Benjamite, a left-handed man. And the sons of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon, the king of Moab. And Ehud made himself a sword which had two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his cloak. And he presented the tribute to Eglon, king of Moab. Now, Eglon was a very fat man. And it came about that when he had finished presenting the tribute, that he sent away the people who had carried the tribute. But he himself turned back from the idols which were at Gilgal and said, I have a secret message for you, O King. And he said, keep silence. And all who attended him left him. And Ehud came to him while he was sitting alone in the cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, I have a message from God for you. And he arose from his seat. And Ehud stretched out his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. The handle went in. also after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly. And the refuse came out. Then Ehud went out into the vestibule and shut the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them. When he had gone out, his servant came and looked, and behold, the doors of the roof chamber were locked. And they said, He is only relieving himself in the cool room. And they waited until they became anxious. But behold, he did not open the doors of the roof chamber. Therefore, they took the key and opened them and behold, their master had fallen to the floor dead. Now, he had escaped while they were delaying. And he passed by the idols and escaped to Sarah, and it came about when he had arrived that he blew the horn in the hill country of Ephraim. And the sons of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was in front of them. And he said to them, Pursue them for the Lord your God has given your enemies, the Moabites, into your hands. So they went down after him and seized the fords of Jordan opposite Moab and did not allow anyone to cross. And they struck down at that time about 10,000 Moabites, all robust and valiant men, and no one escaped. So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel and the land was undisturbed for eighty years. So far, the reading of God's word. Please be seated. Help us, O Lord, our God, as we consider your holy word. Give us the aid of your spirit's illumination. Cause us to understand. Give us eyes to see. Give us ears to hear what the Holy Spirit himself would speak now through the preaching of your word. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I think I've repeated enough that you get the picture of the pattern that takes place in the book of Judges, that Israel does evil on the side of the Lord, that God sends an oppressor from the nations around them, typically, that the sons of Israel cry out to the Lord and the Lord delivers them. That's the pattern. We see it over and over again. In the first judge, Othniel, we see the typical pattern of the judges of this book. He's a hero figure. He leads the army out and he smites the enemy, rays up against Israel, and delivers them. In the story of the Ehud, the pattern of Othniel is altered in contrast to show us the unexpectedness of God's salvation. The unexpected way in which God works in the hearts and minds of His people. In this deliverance, the way God delivers, the man through whom God delivers Israel, the Lord says to His people, This is what I intend to do for you. And this is perhaps the way you expect things to go. You can pin me down as to the ultimate object, because I've promised that I'll deliver you. But you may also want to pin me down as to the way I deliver the method, because you love things to be manageable and predictable. That's the way we are, isn't it? We want things to be predictable. We want things to be manageable. We want things to be done in a certain way. But God doesn't always do things in the way that we would have them done, because God is not a man. And God doesn't think like us. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts aren't our thoughts. What God shows us in this account is that He is the ultimate judge. He is the ultimate deliverer. And the way He judges and the way He delivers is according to His sovereign pleasure. He shows us. that he's a god of the unexpected. There is in our text in the first place, an unexpected oppressor. Now, the impression, the oppression itself, that's not a surprise. Israel again, we read already in the early part of the Book of Judges. Israel again does evil in sight of the Lord. Surprise, surprise. Israel has turned away from their God, the true and living God, and they have gone after the gods of the nations around them. That's what already we've come to expect from the nation of Israel. The oppressor is the surprise. The oppressor in this case is what isn't expected. There are six nations listed as inhabitants of a land in chapter 3 and verse 5. Canaanites, Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Also mentioned are the Philistines, the Sidonians. But Moab isn't one of those. Moab is not one of the nations that we would have expected to come up against Israel. They had so far been a negligible enemy. When Israel came up from Exodus, Moab, in the Exodus rather, Moab was in great fear, the Bible says, because of the vastness of the size of the people of Israel. 600,000 men. alone, not including women and children. 600,000, probably well over a million people, en masse, coming up into the land of Canaan, coming by the borders of Moab. Even before that, in Exodus 15, 15, Moab heard of Israel's great deliverance by the hand of this god, Yahweh, and they were already petrified. And so who would have thought that God would strengthen the hand of Eglon? You notice how the text says that God Himself raised up this enemy against Israel. God strengthened the hand of Eglon and he came up He gathered to himself the sons of Ammon and Amalek, and they went in and they defeated Israel. Nor is it an insignificant defeat because they lost the city of Palms. That was Jericho. Jericho is the city of Palms. It was the first city. It was the token of God's blessing and deliverance. When they you remember how that story goes when they walked around the city. Seven times and then the horns were blown and the walls of the city fell straight down and they moved in and stormed the city and took it. That was God's sign to his people that this was going to be a successful conquest. And now they lost that city. Why did God bring this surprise, a pressure? It was a consequence of their sin. God brought the suppression against Israel as a consequence because they did evil in the sight of the Lord. Now what you and I must come to grips with is that that's the risk that we take every time we sin. Every time we disobey God. That's the risk that we take, that God will bring some form of chastisement against us. Israel's oppression under Eglon wasn't permanent. God turns the tables and overcomes the enemy in the end. But he brings this oppression against Israel as a chastisement for their sin. You and I have to come to grips with the fact that when we sin, God may, and God does, bring illness. He brings affliction. He brings troubling circumstances into our lives. Not as retribution, but as a means of discipline. A means of bringing us back. A means of stopping us short. Stopping us up so that we don't continue in that sin. And it comes from... It comes unexpectedly, doesn't it? We don't expect God to do what He does. We don't expect God. We're surprised. when the chastisement comes. But that's how God deals with his people. We see in the first place an unexpected oppressor. We see, secondly, an unexpected deliverer. Ehud, we've already said, is not like the first judge. He's not a hero figure. We, as we read of Othniel, we admire his qualities as a leader of Israel. He was the one that won the hand of Caleb's daughter, Oksah, by responding to Caleb's challenge to take Kiriath Sefer back in the first chapter. He is the typical hero figure, a leader of the armies of Israel. Ehud, on the other hand, is a man who can't even use his right hand. The Hebrew here isn't a positive statement that Ehud was a southpaw, that he was a lefty, and he was good with his left hand. The Hebrew indicates that he was impeded on the right. He's unable to use his right hand. In other words, Ehud is handicapped. Maybe he was deformed or maybe he was paralyzed in his right hand. But there's also an irony and maybe even a pun on part of the narrator here, because we're told that he's a Benjamite. Benjamin means the son of my right hand. So here's a son of the right hand who can't use his right hand. Now. If you think. About the rest of the Bible, about the rest of Scripture. It's not difficult. To see what's being implied here, the Lord's right hand. is his hand of power, honor, glory, and blessing. By his right hand he swears to bless his people. Isaiah 62, 8 and 9. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore. We read that this evening in Psalm 16 in God's providence. There his chosen one sits The Messiah, Psalm 110. But more to the point, with his right hand, he destroys his enemies. So if we were told that the Lord stretched out his right hand and raised up a son of the right hand, who would then use his right hand to wield the sword of deliverance, we would say, oh, how fitting. that God raised up this Benjamite, the son of the right hand, and took with his right hand and slew his enemies. But this one can't use his right hand. Instead, we're told that he's crippled. And so, we say, how odd. How strange. That's the conclusion that we're supposed to come to. How strange it is. unexpected God is in the way he works in the lives of his people. And he uses people like you and me who are weak and handicapped in other ways. No offense. Disabled, unable in other ways. Weak people. Not strong people. That's not God's way. That's the way we expect things to go. And sometimes he's pleased to work in that way. Sometimes he's pleased to use the gifted. But God uses the ordinary, too. We don't think he will. We don't even think he can. But he does, because he is the God. of the unexpected. An unexpected oppressor, an unexpected deliverer, and an unexpected method. Ehud is not your conventional warrior. He's not the Othniel or the Gideon or the many other deliverers that God raises up to lead the armies of Israel against their enemies. Ehud is more like a secret service operative. He slips into the palace undetected and he takes out his objective. And the central section of the narrative is in verses 15 through 26, and so we have these two bookends, bookended by the Israelites' misery in the introduction and then their deliverance in 27 through 30, and then 15 through 26 is the central portion of the narrative, and it's one of the most colorful narratives in the Bible. It's not a story for the prudish or the squeamish at heart. But try to see it through Israeli eyes. For 18 years, this king had oppressed them. For 18 years, he has overtaxed them. That's what kings did. They were bringing their tribute because Eglon, they had become vassals, servants of the king. And so Israel, once an independent nation, is now subservient to the nation of Moab. And that's what Ehud is doing. He's bringing a tribute that's been collected from all the people. They contribute, each contributes, there's a tax, there's a head tax in the land, and Ehud is chosen to take that tribute up to the king. And for 18 years this had been going on. For 18 years they had eked out a miserable existence under his oppressive hand. And so the Israelite, hearing the story, although it's filled with these colorful details, would have enjoyed the account of God's unorthodox deliverance. We find in this central section the main details of the narrative. Ehud is chosen to head the delegation, sent to bring this tribute to Eglon. He makes himself this two-edged sword, about a foot and a half long, what we would call a large dagger. He presents the tribute to Eglon, and the writer prepares you for what's going to happen in verse 17. He says, Eglon was a very fat man. And so, he presents that tribute, and those who The others who carried the tribute, probably they brought produce as well. Other items to give to the king. He sends the rest of those who helped to carry the tribute back. And when they reach the idols of Gilgal, Ehud turns back to the court of Eglon and makes it known that he has this secret message from God. And Ehud, in turn, foolishly dismisses all his servants. These were the men who were to guard him, to keep him from harm. So he's alone. Or rather, Eglon dismisses those servants. He's alone before Ehud. And then the announcement comes again. I have a secret word for you from God. And the writer even throws in a detail that he struggles to get up. in order to receive that word. And then, as the narrative continues, the camera of the narrative slips into slow motion in verses 21 through 23. Then Ehud stretched out his left hand He took the sword from his right thigh and thrust it into his belly and the handle went in after the blade and the fat closed over the blade because he didn't draw it out of his belly and his guts spilled out. That's what essentially it says in verse 22, his guts, the refuse came out. and then he had goes into his vestibule and shut into the vestibule shut the door of the chamber and locked it and that provides his means of escape. His servants come think that he is relieving himself a euphemism for using the restroom, which is in itself a euphemism for relieving himself in the cool room. And they wait until they can't wait anymore. But behold, the doors wouldn't open, and so they take the key, they open it and behold, there their master is, dead. And the rest of the story is history. The glory of this passage is all those colorful details that make us cringe a little bit. Because, as one commentator says, it tells us that Yahweh deals with the dirty, mixed-up affairs of life in which His people find themselves. Here we are, here every one of us is, in this mixed up sometimes world, and it's mixed up sometimes life. Some who have family situations that they've messed up, some in emotional trauma, some in grief and sorrow, some in the clutches of temptation, some depressed, some discouraged. And God reaches down into the midst of our circumstances, and He's not afraid to use a figure's speech, to get his hands dirty with our affairs. The glory of this passage is that Yahweh, the God of heaven, the God who exists over the vault of the earth, the transcendent God, isn't a white-gloved, standoffish God who exists somewhere out there in the universe. and hesitates to get involved in the muck of our lives when we mess them up. Recalls another very graphic passage, at least to my mind, in Ezekiel chapter 16, where we read that the word of the Lord came to me, came to Ezekiel saying, Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abomination. The Lord God to Jerusalem, your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite. Your father was an Amorite and your mother, a Hittite. That's an insult, by the way. For your birth on the day you were born, your naval cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing. You were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in clothes. No, I looked with pity upon you to do any of any of these things for you to have compassion on you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field. You were abhorred on the day you were born. When I passed by you, I saw you squirming in your blood. And while you were in your blood, I said, live, I said to you, while you were in your blood, live. I made you numerous like the plants of a field. Then you grew up and became tall and reached the age for fine ornaments. Your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare. And I passed by and saw you and behold, you were at time for love. So I spread my skirt over you and covered your nakedness. And I swore to you and entered into a covenant with you. so that you became mine, declares the Lord. The same kind of details that make us squirm a little bit when we hear them, but which indicate the kind of intimacy into which God enters with you and me in our salvation. Because none of us, no matter what our backgrounds, no matter whether we were brought up in covenant homes, or were on the other end of the spectrum, were a pretty sight before a holy God. Because we were all inbred with Adam's sin. The guilt of that sin was upon us. And yet, God entered in and saw us writhing in our bloodiest state, and he rescued us. That's the beauty and that's the glory of a story like Ehud. And the rest of the story is history. The horn is blown, the troops are rallied, now Ehud does become like that commander of the armies. And Israel is called out and Israel defeats their enemies. What are we to take away from this narrative in the book of Judges. What are we to think? Since God is the God of the unexpected, the God of surprising salvation. Well, in the first place. You don't know how. You don't know when. You don't know if God will save. or what instrument he'll use to save. On the one hand, he'll use a man with a handicap, or he'll use people like you and me involved in the affairs of the lives of others to bring salvation. He'll use us as his instruments. On the other hand, he uses men like Othniel and Gideon, those who represent the hero figures in the period of the judges. He delights in showing himself strong in weakness, but he isn't averse to using the gifts that he has given to men. Because he's the sovereign God of salvation, he does things as he pleases. Most of us have relatives who remain in their unbelief. Most of us have grandparents or parents or children or siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, for whom we pray for years and years and years. And our faith is expressed in the prayers that we pray, but we don't anticipate that God can and does save people in extreme situations and in unusual ways. What our text is teaching us is that God does these things. We ought to expect God to do the unexpected because he is the God of the unexpected. He's a God who can take one of the greatest persecutors that the church has ever known and make him into one of his greatest apostles. He's a God who saves, yes, through the covenants, who blesses us brings up children, and brings them to saving faith in Christ. But He's also the God who can at the very last moment of a man's life, on a cross beside Him, save a man. We can see from the broad spectrum of the way that God works throughout the history of salvation. that we ought not to shrink back. We ought to exercise great faith because God is a great God and he has chosen to save in remarkable ways. And so let that be to you a great encouragement to continue in prayer, to persevere in prayer, not to let up and to exercise your faith and to expect that God will do the unexpected in unexpected ways because we don't know how he in his sovereign way will choose or if he will choose. No one has the right and no one can dictate to him how he's going to do it. But the story of Ehud also Not only does it teach us that we don't know how or when or if or what instrument he'll use in salvation, it teaches us, it prepares us for the surprising nature of God's salvation in Christ Jesus. Who would have guessed that God would send his only begotten son into the world to take on a true body and a reasonable soul. Who would expect this marvel of marvels within the marvel of the Trinity itself? Who would expect another great mystery projecting from the Trinity? Who would have guessed that the Savior would be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of her, yet without sin. Who would have guessed that he'd be the son of simple individuals like Mary and Joseph, his own people, his own brothers, his own family members. His own countrymen couldn't understand how in the world it could be that this man, this Nazarite, could do such things. Isn't he Mary's? Isn't this Joseph and Mary's son? Who does he think he is? And who would have guessed that a gruesome death on a cross at a place called Golgotha The hill of the skull would be the very means that God would use to secure your salvation. Who would have thought that God would use death to bring life? God is a God of the unexpected. God is a God of surprising salvation. This is the great God that you and I serve. And the sooner that we understand that the better we shall know how to walk before him how to express our faith and how to bring him the honor and the glory that he deserves. May it be so. Let's pray. We thank you for the wondrous narratives of Old Testament scripture, these revelations throughout the history of redemption that always point us to your wondrous grace and your wondrous nature. We thank you, O God, that you've revealed yourself even in this manner in ways that we wouldn't expect. through the stories of handicapped people, through the stories of weak men and women, people who are much like us in many ways. We thank you, our God, for the great wisdom that you have shown in your revelation. And we pray that you would teach us that You would give us understanding, even that this text, O Lord, would continue to bear fruit as we meditate in the coming week, as we meditate upon it. We ask, O Lord, that You would cause us to exercise greater faith, that we would anticipate that we would be expectant of you, a great God who does great things and who often works in ways that we wouldn't otherwise expect Him to work. We do pray that you would use us, common folks who have weaknesses just like Ehud did, and many more, I'm sure. We ask, O God, that you would deliver our family members and our friends and neighbors in unexpected ways. And we pray, O God, that you would forgive our minute faith and our low expectations. And that you would be pleased to do great and mighty things in us and through us and in the lives of those we know and love, so that you, O Lord our God, would receive honor and glory. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.