Book of Judges, chapter number four. We'll begin reading in verse number 17. Our text is beginning in verse number 18, but we'll back up just a little bit to get a bit of context. Verse 17 of Judges chapter 4, Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. For there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me, fear not. And when he had turned in unto her, into the tent, she covered him with a mantle. And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink, for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be when any man doth come and inquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No. Then Jael, Heber's wife, took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground, for he was fast asleep and weary. And here's the most obvious statement in the Bible, So he died. Verse 22, And behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples. So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel. And the hand of the children of Israel prospered and prevailed against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan. Now it should be obvious to you that The biblical character JL has sentimental significance to me. Now, I have to be perfectly honest with you, I did not choose the name of our first daughter. In fact, I had very little input into the name of our first daughter. And if I would have had input, or if I would have had some decisive input, we would not have named our daughter JL. There's a lot of good, strong, biblical characters to name your daughter after, other than the one who killed a man with a nail and a hammer. You know, Mary, Sarah, there's a lot of them. But we chose JL. Now I will say that as I have As my daughter has gotten older, I have become more fond of the name J.L. I like the courage that she demonstrated and I like the strength that she had. Nevertheless, J.L. is an interesting character and I want us to spend some time tonight studying or just making some observation about this character, J.L. Of course, we're all familiar with the cycle of sin that is thematic in the book of Judges. Sin, oppression, repentance, deliverance, and then peace, and then back to sin again. The book of Judges illustrates to us that sin is both predictable and uninventive. To borrow the words of Solomon the king, there is nothing new under the sun. When we come to chapter number 4 of Judges, we now see this cycle that is repeated for the third time in this book. And while the region that this cycle is repeated has changed in Israel, here in chapter 4 from chapter 3, and while the judge that God raises up here in chapter 4 is different than in chapter 3, the real substance of the story has not changed. You find those same themes, sin, oppression, repentance, deliverance, peace, and then sin again. I will point out one interesting difference, though, between chapter 4 and chapter 3. In chapter 3, the enemy of God's people is without. It is outside of the border of Israel. Of course, you have in chapter 3 the main character, Ehud, the left-handed judge. And he had killed Eglon, king of Moab. And Moab was on the east side of the Dead Sea. It was on the east side of Judah's borders, on the east side of the Dead Sea. And Moab united in chapter number 3 with the Ammonites, who were bordered to their north. they form an alliance also with the Amalekites who were south of Judah. And so you have this alliance of the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Amalekites who are all outside of the border of Israel. But when you come to chapter number 4, you have an enemy that is within Israel's border. You have Jabin, king in Canaan. This Jabin was located in a city that belonged to the northern tribe of Naphtali, I believe. Hazor is the city. And so Jabin is located in an area that is occupied and that is owned by the Israelites. So in chapter number 3, the struggle is without, and chapter number 4, the struggle is within. Just to set the scene a little bit, I think sometimes we can get the idea in the Book of Judges in particular that one particular conflict impacts the entire nation as a whole relatively equally. But the truth of the matter is that these stories are oftentimes very regionally specific. In chapter number three, as I just mentioned, you have the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Amalekites who are bordered against the southern tribe of Judah. So the conflict that we read of in chapter number three of Judges is largely restricted to the southern part of Israel. Here in chapter number four, the conflict is almost exclusively, if not exclusively, contained in the borders of two of the three most northern tribes of Israel. And it's oftentimes that we think of Israel as a united country, and certainly for most of their history that was, or for some of their history, that was the case. But here in the book of Judges, it's best to think of the tribes as as an example, the states before the Civil War, when we had states' rights and states were much more independent than they are now and acted as more independent bodies than they do now. And that's very similar to how the tribes acted here in the Book of Judges. So when you come to chapter number four, this oppression that we're going to read about is contained within two or three of the northern tribes in Israel. And if we go back to Judges chapter one, in fact, turn with me real quick to Judges chapter number one. In verse number 30, we read, "...neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol. But the Canaanites dwelt among them and became tributaries." Now, Zebulun is going to be a key player in our story today. In verse 31, you have Asher, who doesn't really have anything to do with Judges chapter 4. But then you have, in verse number 33, "...neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Bathshemesh, nor the inhabitants of Bethanath. But he dwelled among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Bathshemesh and Bethanath became tributaries unto them." So we find these two tribes, Zebulun and Naphtali, who in Judges chapter 1 failed to drive out the Canaanites from the land. And in chapter number 1, it seems to me to be very clear that the Israelites had the upper hand on the Canaanites there in chapter number 1. They made the Canaanites tributaries or paid taxes to the Israelites. But as we are promised in Numbers chapter 32 verse 23, be sure your sin will find you out. And by the time we get to chapter number 4, the tables have turned. And now it is no longer the Canaanites that are under the hand of the Israelites, but it is the exact opposite. The Israelites are under the oppression of the Canaanites. So in chapter number 4, God raises up another judge and this time it is Deborah the prophetess. Now before we get any farther into the chapter, we have to stop and we have to acknowledge that Judges chapter 4 is one of the most studied chapters by scholars in all of the Bible. And that is quite obviously because they are looking for a way to to get around Paul's clear teachings about women's role in the church. And so what they do is they come to Judges chapter number 4 where Deborah seemingly leads the Israelites to victory, although that is not at all what she does here. And they use this chapter in Judges chapter number 4 as biblical cover to contradict what Paul, or to tell us that Paul did not mean what he said when he spoke clearly of women's roles in the church. Deborah, the fact of the matter is, Deborah did not lead Israel in chapter number 4. She simply inspired men to take the lead. That's what she does here. She inspires Barak to take the lead. And furthermore, in Judges chapter number 4, Deborah is not the hero of the chapter. Jael is. But JL does not fit the feminist agenda that they are going for. JL is not the type of lady that you're going to put on the cover of the feminist agenda with a bloody nail and a bloody hammer in her hand. The scholars that study this chapter somehow forget that JL is even involved in this and they seem to focus on Deborah and Deborah alone. So let's just walk through the chapter to get the idea of what's going on in the story and then I'll close with some observations about JL. In verses 1-3, you find the cycle off-repeated in Judges once again. They sin again. The children of Israel sin again. God sends them into oppression under the hand of a new king, Jabin of Canaan. And Jabin, by the way, is just a dynastic title. Much like Pharaoh is a title given to the king in Egypt, much like Abimelech is also a dynastic title, so Jabin is as well. And Jabin lived in a city called Hazor, which, as I mentioned earlier, was located in the territory of Naphtali. Along with Jabin, we're told about the captain of Jabin's army, Sisera. Sisera's army possessed 900 chariots of iron, and these chariots of iron were a particular thorn in Israel's side. And as we find from these verses, these 900 chariots allowed Sisera and Jabin to oppress the Israelites for 20 years. Now along with what we have in chapter number 4, we have chapter 5, which is a poem about the events of chapter number 4. And in chapter number 5, you find some information that we don't find in chapter 4, which adds color, which adds light to chapter number 4. Look with me at verse number 6. of chapter number 5. And these verses describe the conditions of the northern tribes during this time. Verse 6, In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied and the travelers walked through byways. The inhabitants of the village ceased. They ceased in Israel until that I, Deborah, arose, that I arose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods. Then was war in the gates. Was there a shield or spear seen among 40,000 in Israel? And so there in those verses, in verse number 6, we find it was dangerous for Israelites to travel on the main roads, and they had to travel by the back roads just to get to where they were going. In verse number 7, the Israelites also avoided living in villages. I imagine the villages would be ransacked by these opportunistic Canaanite armies and chariots, and so they avoided villages congregating together. Then in verse number 8, we find that Israel was not well armed, possibly because of the constant plundering that happened in the villages that the Israelites had once dwelt in. So Israel cries out to God as we read in these first three verses, and He graciously hears them. And in verse number four, we're introduced to Deborah, the prophetess. We find in verse number six that Deborah finds a man named Barak and tells him that God has commanded him to raise up an army of 10,000 men from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun and to go to the Mount of Tabor. Barak is also told that God will draw Sisera and his armies to the Kishon River, which lay at the base of Mount Tabor. Now Mount Tabor was surrounded by a valley that would have made it a really easy choice for Sisera to gather his armies and to surround the mountain. It was an obviously brilliant move. He would just park his 900 chariots around the base of the mount and he would wait for the Israelites to get hungry, to get bored, to come down from the mountain and he would kill them as they came down. It was an obvious decision. I mean this is a militarily, it's not even brilliance because it's so obvious. And so God is essentially telling Barak to take 10,000 men and to put themselves in one of the most vulnerable possible situations that they could possibly Now Barak gets a bad reputation for what is about to happen in the story in verses 8 and 9. And certainly what happens in verses 8 and 9 is not a good mark on Barak's reputation. But not many people consider the fact that Barak did not hesitate with God's plan. He had no issue with the plan, and I believe that's because he genuinely believed that God would deliver the Israelites from the hand of Sisera and Jabin and the king. Jabin, in fact, Barak, by the way, is found in Hebrews chapter 11 as a model of faith. He is mentioned in Hebrews 11 in the hall of faith, as we like to call it. And so he certainly had exemplary faith. But what Barak does in verses 8 and 9 is certainly a sad thing. In verse number 8 we read, "...and Barak said unto her, If that will go with me, then I will go. If that will not go with me, then I will not go." And so Barak makes a contingency. He will only go to the Mount Tabor if Deborah the prophetess goes with him. Now certainly Barak did not believe that Deborah would add a decisive or strategic advantage by adding her strength to their numbers. That's clearly not what Barak is intending by asking Deborah to go with them. Clearly the implication is that if Deborah goes, God goes. If Deborah the prophetess goes, then God will accompany Deborah with them. And if you think about it, Barak and Gideon are not all that dissimilar in this way. Barak here wants an external accompaniment. He wants external assurance that God is going with them into battle. And so did Gideon. Gideon laid out the fleece for God a couple of times to get some external assurance that God meant what he said to Gideon. And so here Barak asks Deborah to go, and Deborah says she will go. But she clarifies to Barak that if she goes, that Barak will not get the glory for this battle. And in fact, a woman will get the honor for this battle. Nevertheless, Barak is content. He decides to go anyway. He gathers an army and he goes up to Mount Tabor. Somehow the word of this gets to Sisera, captain of Jabin's army, and Sisera must have laughed when he realized that there were 10,000 men up on Mount Tabor. So he gathered his chariots and his armies and he went to the plains, the valleys that surrounded Mount Tabor. Then Deborah tells Barak to go and pursue the enemy and God delivers them into his hand. But again, we turn to Judges chapter 5 to get a little bit more information about this battle. If you'll look with me at verse number 19, the kings came and fought, then fought the kings of Canaan and Taanak by the waters of Megiddo. They took no gain of money. They fought from heaven. The stars in their courses fought against Zizra. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength. The only way that the Israelites were going to get a victory in this battle was if God controlled the forces of nature. And from chapter 5, that's apparently what God did. It seems like a thunderstorm came over them. The water from the mountains and the other high places came down into the valley and caused a flash flood. and the lightning and thunder would have also scared the animals that these chariots were hooked up to. And so you have really a disaster. The assets that the Canaanites used in this valley have now become, at the very least, they are totally neutralized, and at the most, they are now a liability. And in fact, that is obvious from chapter number four, because if you are Sisera and you are now running away from the Israelites because you have decisively lost the battle, you would want to run away in a chariot. But you wouldn't run away in a chariot if it was stuck in mud and the animals, the horses, were not responding favorably to their commands. So it's very clear that the Israelites didn't do anything to win this battle, that in fact God had won the battle. And truly it can be said that the battle is of the Lord. The troops that were assembled on Mount Tabor were nothing more than a decoy. And they were cleanup troops to go and get the victory that God had already won for them. In verse number 16 of chapter 4, we're told that Barak and his army killed all the host except Sisera. Sisera somehow got away and he fled to Jael's tent. Jael then lures him into her safety and when he's fallen fast asleep, she takes a nail and a hammer in her head and she nails his head to the ground. And sometimes the statement that is used on occasion, truth is stranger than fiction, truly that is the case sometimes. And in this story that is certainly the case. J.L. nails the captain of Jabin's army's head to the ground. Who would have thought it? And so you have this unlikeliest of heroes in J.L. No one could have possibly predicted J.L.' 's appearance in this victory. No one could have predicted this, except Deborah did. A few verses before, she told Barak that a woman would get the honor for this victory, and here J.L. is certainly getting the honor for the victory. Now I want us to spend whatever remaining moments we have just making some observations. I think I've got two or three observations to make about J.L. that I think are applicable to you and I. First of all, let me point out that J.L. knew who her allegiance was with. J.L. knew who her allegiance was with. There's a very interesting verse in the middle of this story that is really a parenthetical thought. And as I've studied the Scriptures, I've come to realize that when you come across a verse or a phrase or a thought that is in the middle, in particular a historical narrative, when you come across a verse that is seemingly out of nowhere, you need to stop and you need to ask yourself, what's going on here? And in verse number 11, we have one of those verses. Verses 1-10 is the narrative of this story just uninterrupted. It picks back up in verse number 12 and it goes down through the end of chapter uninterrupted. But in verse number 11, we get this seemingly out of nowhere random verse. Now, Heber the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, had severed himself from the Kenites and pitched his tent under the plain of Zanem, which is by Kedesh. And again in verse number 12, it picks right back up in the narrative. That verse is seemingly out of nowhere. But then you come down to verse number 17 and we get why Heber is mentioned in verse number 11. In verse number 17 we find the statement, "...there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite." So Heber the Kenite had migrated to an area, apparently at some point in his past he had left his Ken folk and he had migrated north to the border of the tribe of Naphtali. And he had located there, but with the rise and the expansion of Jabin, this king in Canaan, Heber had decided to make an alliance or a truce with Jabin king of Canaan. I mean, after all, You never know who's going to win this war, who's going to win this conflict, and it's better to straddle the fence and end up on the winning side no matter who would win this battle. So when Sisera fled the battle scene, after the battle is over and the Israelites have won it, Sisera is the only man that has escaped. Sisera goes to the closest ally that he can find, which is the house of Heber the Kenite. And so here he finds himself at Heber the Kenite's house. Unfortunately for Sisera, Heber the Kenite is not home, but his wife is home. And if I were Sisera, I wouldn't have a lot of distrust of Jael initially. I mean, after all, she is the wife of Heber the Kenite. Heber the Kenite is an ally of Jabin king in Canaan. And so, I imagine Cicero wasn't initially hesitant about JL. And any potential hesitation that Cicero had about JL would have been put immediately to rest. Because JL sees Cicero coming. She goes out. She tells him to come in. She greets him with hospitality. When Sisera comes into her tent and Sisera asks for water, she gives him milk. In fact, we find from chapter number 5 that she gives him butter as well. And again, this is not like milk and butter that you buy from a store. I'm sure she made her own milk and her own butter. And so for a short period of time, JL is actually the model of hospitality, only for a short period of time, unfortunately, for Cicera. I have certainly not heard JL preached as a model of hospitality ever before. And so here JL is hospitable, is kind to Cicera, and then Cicera goes to sleep. And then J.L. grabs a hammer and a nail and she nails his head to the floor. And what a bizarre turn of events that is. I mean, she has just been as hospitable to this man as she could have possibly been. And then she turns around and she kills him. Now what would cause J.L. to be hospitable and then to turn around and kill this man? I don't think she just got angry at him all of a sudden. I don't think this is because she didn't like his demands on her and so she said, I'm going to get this guy when he goes to sleep. I think there is a deeper much more serious motivation. I think we can reasonably conclude that Jael sided with God and with God's people in this conflict. She undoubtedly knew the history. She knew the covenant between God and God's people. After all, her family went back to Moses' father-in-law. And so in this conflict, she sided with God over the enemies of God. The enmity between Jabin and the Israelites would have certainly come up at the family dinner table. I mean, after all, this conflict had been going on for 20 years. 20 years. It's very obvious. And I imagine that maybe even in Heber's household there were family feuds over this conflict and over what Heber and his household would do about it. And no matter how Heber decided to handle it, Jael's allegiance was with God and with God's people. And you know, even today, allegiance to the Lord divides families. Allegiance to the Lord is an individual decision and thus sometimes you find family that are divided because of this allegiance. There are some wives that have to live with the burden of a husband that is not saved, is not born again. And that is tough for many reasons, among which there is no spiritual accountability or leadership. in the home. There is no spiritual encouragement in the home. A part of one spouse's social life, and a big one at that, is not a part of the other spouse's social life. And of course there is the greatest burden of all, the fact that your spouse, your husband, is not born again. What a burden that is. And I admire the faithfulness of a man or a woman who who is married to an unsaved spouse and that is faithful in spite of those circumstances. But there are also families that are separated in their allegiance to God, not by one spouse being saved and the other by not being saved, but in different levels of commitment to the Lord. There are some families where one spouse is committed to the Lord in a sold-out type of way and the other spouse is not. There are some families where one spouse wants to give sacrificially and the other does not. One wants to go to church during the midweek service, the other does not. One wants to go to the outreach activities or a missions trip, the other does not. And this isn't just a husband-wife dynamic. When there is any member of a family that is not as committed as the rest of the family, it can really dampen the joy of a family in serving the Lord. And we look at even this church, and I truly believe that this church is uniquely strong because of the strength of our families. There are a lot of families in here that are equally yoked together in the sense that we're going the same direction. We want to serve the Lord with everything we've got. And there's a lot of families, I believe, in this church that husband and wife are heading the same direction with the same speed. But I'm sure that even in this church there are some families where there is one spouse that is that is committed to Christ in a sold-out, dedicated-type way, and there is another spouse that is not. That is along for the ride, so to speak. Yeah, they may participate in all the activities that the other spouse participates in, but their hearts are not in it. in a sold-out type of way. And I would say that if you are the spouse, or if you are in a family where you are not the committed one, where you're always being prompted to get involved in the ministry in some other way, if you're always being pushed to go to Saturday visitation, or to go to church when you don't want to go to church, or to give money to missions, I would encourage you to, one, listen to the advice or listen to the request being given to you, to get involved but not just get involved, but put your heart into it. Catch up, so to speak, to the other member in your family. Get committed, put your heart into it, to the Lord Jesus Christ. But beyond that as well, if you are on the other side of that and you are pushing a family member to serve the Lord in a more dedicated and more committed way, keep on pushing. I think JL ought to be an encouragement to you to keep serving the Lord, to keep being faithful to the Lord, to make sure that your allegiance is truly with the Lord Jesus Christ. I remind you of what Jesus said Himself in Luke chapter 14. In fact, let's just turn there. Luke chapter number 14. These are certainly harsh words in Luke chapter number 14, but I think it's good for us to keep these words in our minds. Because I believe Jesus meant what He said very seriously in Luke 14. If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, in his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. That is the level of discipleship that we are called to. We're not allowed to let our family, to let our spouse, to let our family get in the way of our allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me ask you a question. Who is your allegiance with? Are you all in on God's work and God's will? Or are you holding some back? Are you living a little for the flesh? Are you like Hebor the Kenite? Are you straddling the fence between God's work and God's will and my will and my work? And we know what Jesus said and what Jesus thought about that. You can't serve God and mammon. You've got to serve one, but you can't serve both. You can only serve one. And I encourage you that if you are a fence-straddling Christian, to get off the fence. As Joshua said, choose you this day whom ye will serve. Jael knew who her allegiance was with. Let me make one other observation. And that is that J.L. seized her opportunity to make a difference. I want you to imagine the life of J.L. J.L. was not the type of lady that would make the cover of any type of magazine. I'm sure that she was a rugged woman. In fact, she would probably put many of our men to shame. I imagine her days were passed with dull and laborious work. She probably made blankets for her family. I'm sure she made milk and butter and prepared meals for her family. She kept the house and she was obviously hospitable. And the Kenites were generally nomads. And so it would have been her job to take down and to set up the tent many times throughout her lifetime. And boy, did she get good at driving a tent nail in the ground. Her life was characterized by mundane tasks, and perhaps J.L. felt insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps she didn't feel like she was playing a big role in God's work and His will. But then one day, that ability to drive tent nails into the ground became very useful. And you know the Christian life is full of opportunities. You just got to open your eyes to them. The Lord is not going to write in the sky that you should witness to your neighbor. But when the neighbor gets bad news from the doctor, it should be obvious to you that this is a witnessing opportunity. And I do believe that we are blinded oftentimes to the opportunities that the Lord gives to us because we're too selfish, We're not too busy, but we think we're too busy to seize the opportunities that the Lord gives us. And just as an example, nearly every adult here or teenager is going to come across an opportunity in the future. Next time that you are standing at a gas station and you are putting gas in your car, instead of checking social media, look around. and see if the Lord impresses you with an opportunity. I am absolutely positive that if you open your eyes, that the Lord will impress upon you to give a gospel tract to someone. And of course, being ready to seize the opportunity means that you've got to have gospel tracts with you. But it also means that you've got to be looking for the opportunities that the Lord presents you. And then as it relates to, so obviously there's the opportunities of evangelism, but there's also the opportunities of edification, of encouragement. And in fact, this is, I think oftentimes this is a more neglected part of our Christian life, and yet the opportunities to edify, to encourage, and on occasion to rebuke one another are there in true abundance. But again, we've got to look for the opportunities to encourage. There are some Christians, and I know this because I've seen it with my own eyes, who view their fellow Christians as rivals rather than fellow Christians, rather than fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. That ought not to be. And there are some of you that should stop looking for opportunities to put one another down and start looking, and even if it's in a joking manner, listen, I speak this as one who is naturally sarcastic. I naturally seek opportunities to put others down. It's in my nature. And on occasion, I have to be rebuked for it. And praise the Lord for those that do, even though I may not accept it gracefully. in the moment. So I speak this, I'm preaching to myself more than I'm preaching to anybody else here tonight. But instead of looking for opportunities to put one another down, even if it's in a joking manner, we ought to look for opportunities to lift one another up, to encourage, to edify. The opportunities are boundless to edify and to lift one another up. And what I'm saying is, as a Christian, there can be so much joy and value in seizing the opportunities that God has placed in front of us. Just as an example, you talk about encouragement. You know, you can text someone. One, you can pray for someone. And you can text them and let them know that you pray for them. I get a text every single morning from a lady in our church that lets me know she's praying for me. And I'll tell you, that's uplifting. That's encouraging. You know, it'd be great if we all did that for each other, and I don't want to get 150 text messages every morning, but it would be good if we encouraged one another, if we prayed for one another, if we let each other know that we're praying for one another, that we're, as Paul said in Galatians chapter 5, to lift one another's burdens. We ought to be edifying one another, we ought to be encouraging one another, and we ought to be looking for the opportunities to help and to seize those opportunities that God places in our life. Now consider this as well. Jael had every possible excuse to do nothing. She was a woman. Certainly in the world that she lived in, it was a man's world. No one would have blamed her if she didn't do what she had done. Sisera was a great warrior. This is not her responsibility. Jael wasn't even a Jew. And yet, here she is, and she seizes the opportunity that is placed in front of her. And I ask you, what are your excuses for not seizing the opportunities that God has placed in front of you? And if there's one thing I want to rid from our minds, it's that It's this mentality that if I'm not in full-time ministry, if I'm not in full-time service, then I am relegated to a rather useless existence. That couldn't be further from the truth. You have no idea how much eternal significance you can have, how much eternal impact you can have by lifting another brother up, by witnessing to your neighbor. There is much eternal significance to be had by seizing the opportunities that God has placed in front of you. Jael was not a full-time ministry worker. She simply did what she did on a day-to-day basis, and she seized the opportunity that God placed in front of her, and she was rewarded greatly for it. But consider also, one other thing, the huge risk that Jael took in accomplishing this task. I mean, after all, what if Sisera wakes up, and here she is, kneeling next to him with a nail in her hand pointed at his head and a hammer in her other hand. If Cicero gets past that first blow, he is going to have the upper hand on her. I mean, he is a warrior and she is simply a woman, a nomadic woman. So there's great risk in this. If Cicero wakes up, he is in all likelihood going to kill Jael. And there's the risk of what is Heber's response to this going to be? After all, Heber does have an alliance with Jabin king of Canaan. And so what is he going to think once he returns home and finds out that Jael has killed a man whom he was in alliance with. So there was great personal risk to what J.L. had done here, yet she did not consider that, or maybe she considered it, but she didn't factor it in when she made the decision to seize the opportunity placed in front of her. And you and I, like J.L., ought to seize the opportunities. One, look for the opportunities that God has placed in front of us. And once we realize that God has given us an opportunity to seize the opportunity that He has given us. But I want you to notice one other thing in closing, and that is the honor that is given to JL. If you will, look at chapter number 5, verse 24. In chapter 5, there is a poem that is written by Deborah, a song written by Deborah. And in part of this song, there is honor that is given to JL. In verse number 24, Blessed above women shall Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, be. Blessed shall she be above women in the tent. The blessing we find here is very similar to the one that we find in Luke 1 to Mary. And that is in Luke 1, verse 28, Blessed art thou among women. And here we have the blessing given to Jael. Blessed above women shall Jael be. And what a blessing this is to Jael. And what did Jael do to receive such a blessing? She simply seized the opportunities that God had placed in her life. And I'm telling you tonight in closing that honor awaits those that are committed to Christ and that seize the opportunities that God places in front of them. Let's pray.