is from Judges Chapter 11. If you have your Bibles you can turn there after the book of Joshua before the book of First Samuel. If you don't have a Bible you'll find a portion of our text which is lengthy printed on the front of your bulletins or in your bulletins. I'm sorry. This morning we're going to look at four episodes from the life of Jephthah. The name will be familiar. as we enter into these stories, because one of those episodes will overshadow all of the others in this account. From the Book of Judges, Chapter 11, beginning at verse 1. Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior, but he was the son of a prostitute. Gilead was the father of Jephthah, and Gilead's wife also bore him sons. And when his wife's sons grew up, they drove Jephthah out and said to him, you shall not have an inheritance in our father's house, for you are the son of another woman. Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tab. And worthless fellows collected around Jephthah and went out with him. After a time, the Ammonites made war against Israel. And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob. And they said to Jephthah, come and be our leader so that we may fight against the Ammonites. But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, did you not hate me and drive me out of my father's house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress? And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, That is why we have turned to you now that you may go with us and fight against the Ammonites and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, if you bring me home again to fight against the Ammonites and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head. And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, the Lord will be witness between us if we do not do as you say. So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead And the people made him head and leader over them. And Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah. Let us pray. Father, our hearts will remain hard, impenetrable rocks apart from the ministry and work of your spirit. And so, Lord, open our hearts and our ears. Open our eyes spiritually, Lord. to hear and receive your word this day. And Lord, grant me the grace to speak truth, that Lord, we might be built up in the truth. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Gilead calls Jephthah to come and fight for them against the Ammonites. They want a warrior. They want a leader. You know that 31 of our 44 presidents have had military service before they became commander-in-chief, many after high-ranking command and combat experience from the Revolutionary War all the way through the Vietnam War. It seems we are prone to seek out leaders who have shown the strength to put themselves on the line to protect and deliver us from evil. There have only been three presidents since World War II that have served without that military experience, President Clinton, Obama, and Trump. Gilead was looking for a leader to command their army, but it becomes very clear very quickly they are not going to get rescued without rule. He wants both. Now, This was Gilead's choice, remember. They gathered together. They didn't seek the Lord. They figured out who they wanted. And they picked, it may seem, an unlikely choice. His mother was a prostitute. He was kicked out of the house, probably pretty young. Goes to the land of Tob. Now, that's not Israelite country, folks, just so you know. He was in a far away place. I wouldn't describe him as famous. I think infamous might be a better word, given the crowd that he gathered around him. He was not a West Point graduate, we would say. Keller calls him a pirate. He certainly was no Robin Hood. He lived rough with his ruffians and he learned how to fight. He was a survivor. And that may be what makes him a really likely choice. for this role. And so they go and they call Jephthah. Come, lead us. Well, Jephthah is shrewd. Why should I help you now? What do I get out of it? You had no use for me before. I have no use for you now, is the answer they get. And so it's humble pie time, folks. They got to bow down. They have to accept his rule over them, not just his attempt, his work to rescue them. Now here, remember the three questions we ask as we come into these passages? What does this tell me about God, who he is, his character, his work, his nature? What does this tell me about us, me? And of course, the picture is if there's a sinner here, that's you, that's me, right? But what does it tell us about us? And finally, well, how does this As Jesus says, these are the pictures, these are the words of the scriptures that speak about me. Where do I see the work of Christ? Where do I see it highlighted? Where am I pointed to it? Well, I think here is one of those places, in that there is a picture of a type of savior. They're treating Jephthah the way they treated the Lord. Now, there are many parallels to the treatment there, and I'm not the first to note them by any means. Many see. We go back to Chapter 10 verses 6 through 16 and compare it to Chapter 11 verses 1 through 11. What do we see? The leader that they get was initially despised and rejected as the Lord was of Israel. They suffer as a result. They cry out for help. They're rebuffed. Why should I help you now? Go to the ones that you've been turning to all this time. You didn't need me before. They come back with a humble plea and deliverance is granted. You can go pretty much verse by verse through those sections and see the parallels. They called out for help, presuming, of course, that he would help, but they're forced to humble themselves. In the world today, the way people treat Jesus is the same treatment they'll give to the father. We know that Jesus was despised, rejected as the one who would save. Even his own family thought he was out of his mind. Go back and look at Mark 3, verse 21. There were questions about his birth. He lived and died poor. He lived rough. He was in the wilderness. Spent time there, tempted in every way. The difference between Jesus and Jephthah is that Jesus came through that time only in uprightness, integrity, and in truth. He never succumbed to sin. There was no rebellion. He would trust the Father to meet his needs. But here we are pointed to one who would be rejected. And yet, who would be the means by which salvation would finally come? And with it, rule as well. You can't separate them. I love what Peter, how Peter writes in his second letter, 2 Peter, because he speaks. Now, this is Peter. I almost did that with the children. Let's talk about Peter and what kind of man he was. But in 2 Peter, four times in three chapters, He speaks of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Peter understood, this is the one to whom I bow down. Bowing down to him is where I'll find salvation. And that picture is set before us here in Jephthah and in these chapters. Yes, he can deliver, but he will also rule. And so now we turn to the second and fourth, I'll call it, incident that are recorded for us here. The terms are accepted, Jephthah takes up the role, and he demonstrates both good reason and a penchant for retribution. Consider the Ammonites, for instance. I'm not going to read that whole passage, but from 12 through 28, we're confronted The Ammonites confront Jephthah. And the first thing they share is their claim. That's actually verse 13, if you're looking at the notes. Their claim is, you stole our land. Give it back. And the response comes threefold. He gives them a history lesson. Now, it's interesting to me that As you read it, and I don't have time to read the whole thing, but you'll see, he understands, knows very clearly the history of Israel. How God brought them out, how they were coming into the land. They come to the land of Moab and to Edom, all they want to do is cross through. No, you can't go, so we have to go around. They go to the east, they go north, they come to the land of the Amorites. And there, they send a message to King Sion. We would like to pass through your land to our land. It's a 50-mile pass. It's all we need. And so the message that comes back is not a messenger, it's his army. And he attacks Israel. And Israel won. And by the rules of engagement, the property is theirs. No one disputed it. Moab, Edom, not even the Amorites, because it was never, I'm sorry, Ammonites. The Ammonites never disputed it. They lived north of the Jabbok. That wasn't even their territory. 300 years later, hey, you took our land. Now, nobody ever mentioned this before, but we want it back. So give it to us peacefully. He gives them the history lesson. Theologically, he stands there and he says, if you came and conquered a land and the land and you took the territory, what would you say? Our God gave us the victory. Well, guess what? Our God gave us the victory. This is ours. And then, of course, he gives the legal rationale. Nobody has disputed this for all these years. But, verse 28, the king of the Amorites did not listen to the words of Jephthah that he sent to him. He was forced to fight. Now, again, it's interesting to me that they knew the history so well. He could recount it. He hasn't even been in Israel among the people, among God's people, for how long out in that land of Taub. But he knows the history. He knows the stories. But do they believe them, is the question. I look at the church across this country today, and probably, you know, many people will know many of the Bible stories. But do they believe them? Does the story of Jephthah, and the tragedies that take place here, do we understand what they mean? Do they have any impact on our lives, on our belief, on our trust in the Savior that the Lord would raise up? I'm afraid we may be much in the same place. We know the stories, but we don't know why. Forced to fight, they go to war, and the Ammonites will be defeated. The third episode takes us into chapter 12, the first six or seven verses of chapter 12. And now comes the claim of the Ephraimites. Now, these are their brothers, okay? This is part of the fellowship. This is part of the community of Israel. They are on the west side of the Jordan. Gilead is on the eastern side. And they claim, in verse 1, You crossed the Jordan to fight the Ammonites, and you didn't call us. How dare you? Just like in Gideon's day, the pride of Ephraim rises up. And he says, I called for your help, and you left me standing. Look at verse 3. I called for your help. You didn't bother to come. And so he doesn't this time give that reasoning soft answer to his brothers. He doesn't say, well, you know, I called for your help and you weren't able to come. You might not have gotten the message in time. And in the heat of the moment and in the battle, you know, we weren't going to let him get away. So we just crossed over and took the battle to them right there. No, he doesn't say that. Instead, he chooses to fight because he was insulted. In verse 4 of chapter 12, the second part, the second half of it, here comes the insult. You are fugitives of Ephraim, you Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh. You don't belong. You've run away. You're not part of us. And it really was meant as an insult. Now, it was taken that way. He was insulted, and he wreaks vengeance upon the Ephraimites as they come to attack. 42,000 are killed, and it really is vengeance because he's not going to let anybody get back. They take the Fords at the Jordan, and then there's that test. Say Shibboleth. Shibboleth. Aha! We found one and killed him. We lived in Gloucester, Mass for a while. My wife had a woman that she worked with. And they were talking. And Dale said, well, the woman said they were going to see the Amish. And Dale said, no, if you go there, it's the Amish. And her response was, there's no R in it. And Dale says, no, no, no, not Amish. Amish, like father, father. She could not say it. say Shibboleth, and the answer is Sibboleth? We might be hard pressed on some things as well. But it was vengeance. Not going to let anybody get back. 42,000 killed of their own countrymen, their own people. They showed greater mercy. He showed much greater mercy to his enemies than he did to his own family. He was ready to reason With the enemy, the only reason he fought was because he was attacked. But his brothers? Vengeance. We see it in our own households, don't we? And children, I'll speak to you. Be careful how you speak. I said things to my mother that I would never have said to a teacher or to another adult. I'm ashamed of it now because I treated her with such disrespect. Why? Because I knew I could get away with it, that she loved me. You know, that I wasn't going to end up in the quote-unquote principal's office. Now, that doesn't mean I never ended up on the cellar steps, because I did, you know, waiting for dad to come home. But how often do we do that? We say things to the people we love who are closest to us that we wouldn't say. We speak in ways that we'd never speak. We act in ways that we wouldn't act, because we don't want to be seen like that outside of the family. Patience with those outside of us. Maybe it's in the church because we expect everybody to be perfect. In the world, I expect that, you know, people are going to be foolish and ignorant and they're going to do wicked things. But in the church, everybody's, well, perfect like me. And when they aren't, well, then I become offended if they don't do what I expect them to do. and instead of love covering a multitude of sins, we keep records of the account. How different it would be, don't you think, if the church really was able to love one another. What kind of impact could we have on the culture if there was unity and love within the church and across the church? That's a separate sermon, and we are actually going to get to it. at some point here in the not too distant future. In the case with the Ephraimites, he chooses to fight. He isn't driven to it. It was the choice he made. But as I said, there's one event in the life of Jephthah that overshadows everything else. And even as you read through the whole passage from 11.1 to 12.7, It's very clear that we are supposed to see the weight of this passage. It was a rash vow that ended up with wretched consequences. Chapter 11 verse 29 if you have your Bibles. Then the Spirit of the Lord was great upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mitzpat Gilead, and from Mitzpat Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, I will give, if you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand. And he struck them from Aror to the neighborhood of Mineth, 20 cities as far as Abel-Karamim, with a great blow. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. And Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child. Besides her, he had neither son nor daughter. And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, Alas, my daughter, you have brought me very low and you have become the cause of great trouble to me, for I have opened my mouth to the Lord and I cannot take back my vow. And she said to him, My father, you have opened your mouth to the Lord. Do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites. So she said to her father, let this thing be done for me. Leave me alone two months that I may go up and down on the mountains and weep for my virginity, I and my companions. So he said, go. And he sent her away for two months and she departed, and she and her companions and wept for her virginity on the mountains. And at the end of two months, she returned to her father who did with her according to his vow that he had made. She had never known a man and it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year. This vow was totally unnecessary. Verse 29 tells us that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah. He already had the Spirit, the power, the hand of God upon him. The Spirit was with him. Do you think he didn't know that? You didn't think he didn't know the strength that he had? And the calling that he had? Would God go with him? If he would remember his history at all, as God was with his people, they came against the Amorites and conquered them. They came against the people of Canaan and they conquered them because God was with them. God would give him the victory. He had spent too many years in Tob. He makes bargains with God. If you give me this, well, I'll give you It's the way of the world. We make a deal. But God doesn't work by deals and bargains. He can't be manipulated or conjoled into doing what we want. He is the sovereign Lord over all. He knows the plans that he has laid for us. How do we know that we secure his favor? It is ever and only an all or nothing proposition. And he sets the terms. What are those terms? To know his blessing, to know his favor. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, were the words given to the Philippian jailer. What are the terms? What do you have to give up? What do you have to, you know, bargain? What kind of bargain is here? No, believe. on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Jesus said, John 5, 24, truly, I truly, I say to you, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. There's no bargain here. No saying, well, God, I'll do this if you will. If you'll do this, then I'll do that. No, here are the terms. You believe me. You trust me. And I will work. How sad. How sad that he tries to bargain with God when there was no need. God had already set the terms. It was an unwise vow. We have to ask why Well, first we ask, what did he promise? And there's little debate as to whether or not he was actually vowing to make, to give a burnt offering. And he didn't expect a pet to come out the door. But we have to ask, why would you make such a promise? And again, I think it's all those years spent in the land of Tob. of time spent away from the Lord and away from his people and away from that community that might have served him well. He became the frog in the kettle, if you will. He lived too long as an outlaw. There was too much of that foreign land in him. And he accepted the violence of that culture, and he accepted many of the ways of that culture, so that his sensibilities and his values began to be conformed to that culture. Now, you and I would never do such a thing. Well, we'd never do such a thing as offer up our children as burnt offerings, I don't think. But how much has our culture influenced our commitments, our ideals, our views, are activities, anything and everything from gender issues to immigration policy to the sanctity of life to race relations, the role of government, my time commitments, my spiritual commitments, my views and understanding of the church or the word of God or the ministry of the spirit. And it goes on and on. How has it affected my zeal for the body of Christ and the people of God for the lost? And if you think, well, it hasn't had any impact at all, You'd better get those convex mirrors on your side view mirrors because there are blind spots. And the reason they're called blind spots is because you can't see them. I hope that that should be self-evident. Otherwise, they wouldn't be blind spots. Jephthah had a big blind spot and he makes a wretched a rash vow and a wretched decision. Now there's a debate as to what he actually did. Did he keep this vow in terms of a burnt offering? For some, it's improbable and maybe impossible. No believing Israelite could not know about that prohibition of Deuteronomy 12.31. Jephthah, after all, is listed in that Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11. Could he possibly be included if he had sacrificed his own child, his only child, the only hope of his heir, the only hope of his posterity? They point to the emphasis on his daughter's virginity, that she would never marry, promoting Yes, promoting a view that she was committed ultimately to the service of the Lord and to the tabernacle, and so she never married. She was apart from her family. Fred, do you mind if I use your name? Fred has done an excellent one-page paper to outline very clearly that position, and it You know, if you want to ask him for a copy, I'm sure he'd be happy to give that to you so that you can see pretty clearly the arguments that is there. And it does have support by many evangelicals. For others, did he keep that vow to sacrifice his daughter? Others take the view that it is quite likely. I can't make a dogmatic statement on it, as some do, but I lean toward the view that he made that sacrifice. It fits the agony of the situation. She mourns for those months because she will never have children. She will have no one to remember her. And I believe it fits the downward spiral that we see in judges, this degrading quality of leaders and the sin, the depths of sin to which they lead the nation. It is tragic, worse than tragic. One of the most heinous events recorded in all of scripture. They could have avoided, he could have avoided the disaster. And there are lessons we have to learn here, brothers and sisters. We need to be careful with our words. God takes vows seriously. When the people of Gilead called Jephthah, they vowed to him that he would be their ruler. And they kept that vow. There are vows that must be broken and this was one of them. It needed to be broken because it violated so much of the word, it violated the direct word of God, it flew in the face of the character of God. It was wrong and to keep it was sin. It's hard for me to think of examples of vows that, you know, shouldn't be kept, shouldn't be made. because I'm not in the habit of making vows. But I hear them, so help me God. You understand, that's a vow. If you commit a vow that causes you to violate the law of God, you cannot keep it. If it causes you to break the commands of Christ, you cannot keep it. It must be broken. And repentance needs to come to your heart. But if a word is given in faith, even if it's in accord with the word of God, even to your own suffering, our confession talks about the fact that it needs, those vows need to be kept. And so when we come to membership vows, for instance, we spend considerable time on those because they carry the weight of a vow before God that must be kept. It is a legitimate vow. We can't take them lightly. Be careful, brothers and sisters, that we don't try and make bargains with God. The challenge, of course, is to let God be God and submit ourselves to his care, to his love, to his plan, knowing, trusting, believing that those plans are good, even if they do mean trial and suffering for us. Yet his plans are good. And so we need to be students of the word of God to keep from becoming disciples of the culture around us. Do not be conformed to this world. J.B. Phillips says, don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. Now, it's hard for us to see blind spots clearly. Men, just ask your wives if there's anything you might need to consider that isn't particularly honoring to her. or in your life, and then brace yourself for the answer and try not to get too defensive too quickly. But how are we going to see our blind spots? Well, we're going to need the church. We're going to need those people that we sometimes push away because they aren't the perfect people we want them to be. We're going to need time with believers and in fellowship so that we're breaking off you know, so iron can sharpen iron. We're going to need mature believers, inviting them maybe even into our lives to help us keep sound in the faith. And it's never done. It's never done. I still need mature believers in my life. I still need to be bumping up against the body of Christ. I still need the church desperately. Now, I've been speaking primarily to my brothers and sisters here. I know that. Let me just take one moment as we close to speak to those of you who may be sitting here and thinking, I'm not ready to give up control. Not to God, not to Jesus, not to whatever. I think my life has gone pretty good as it is. I'm not really suffering right now. I don't need relief. I don't need rescue. Therefore, I don't need someone who's going to rule and direct my ways. Things are going well enough. Two things I can say. One, trouble will come. And I can say that with absolute certainty. It came for the Israelites over and over again as they tried to manage their life according to their own desires and plans. And God offered them rest and peace only when they looked to him and to him alone for provision and protection and direction. If they would come to him, they would find saving power in his rule. Trouble will come. I guess the other question I would ask is how much are you willing to risk? Because what God says is that it is eternity that's hanging in the balance here, not just this life. but eternity. How much do you really have to lose if you put your life in the hands of the maker of heaven and earth? If you put your hands in the one who made the only sacrifice that could suffice for our sin and bring real peace, lasting and eternal peace, not a bargain. Okay, God, I'll do this if you'll do this. No. If you will believe. You will have. Eternal life. And his reign and rule as well. But the judges couldn't provide sinful and human as they were. And as we still are. God reveals and accomplished in his son. And he offers that rest in Christ, even in the midst of trial or struggle or sorrow or grief. My last word. Back to my brothers and sisters. We look at Jephthah and we see a mix of noble and ignoble. qualities. And for those of us who are honest, we'll readily identify with that inward and sometimes outward battle in ourselves. But here's the glory and the grace. As we read in First Corinthians, the Lord uses broken and weak vessels So don't despair that the Lord cannot redeem and transform us into those useful, profitable vessels for his service. The Lord calls and uses the weak and the broken to his glory. May he strengthen us and purify us for ever greater, more faithful service before him that we together may one day hear, well done, good and faithful servant. Now, even in our weakness. Father, open our eyes. Open our hearts. Take away that desire, Lord, to make a bargain. As if we have something to offer. Something that you need. Father, let us hear the words that were the words of the Lord to the Israelites that were the Lords of the Now that were the words of Jephthahs to the Gileadites. I have nothing to offer. Instead, Father, all I can do is hear your call. So open our ears and use these broken vessels, we pray, transforming them by the power of your spirit, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen.