There we go, all right. It's 1129, three together. It says, then the spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah and Gilead. And from Mizpah of Gilead, he passed to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, if you give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me, I will return in peace. "'When I return in peace from the Ammonites, "'shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it up "'as 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 Arur, "'to the neighborhood of Mineth, 20 cities, "'and 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 dances, and 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 a 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 then. He sent her away for two months. She departed, she and her companions, and wept for her virginity on the mountains. And at the end of the two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow. that he, his vow that he 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 Gileadot, four days in the year. Let's pray together. Father, we come to your text seeking to understand, seeking to get but a glimpse of your character, of you. We thank you that you have not left us in the dark, but you have revealed yourself to us, and it's through your word. Give me strength now, as your servant God, that I may preach Christ, that I may show him, even though it's but a glimpse, God, that I may show him. Give me strength. Without you, I can do nothing. Christ, I'm afraid. Amen. So we start off again here with Jeff. And if you remember, we'll just kind of back step for a little while. We didn't get to meet last week. But the week before that, if you remember, the week before that, the question of the people was before Jeff to come on the scene, was when they were going to fight against the Ammonites, who will go before them? Who will serve them and be their leader and keep the covenant of God? And of course, God brought Jephthah onto the scene there at the beginning of chapter 11. The people had asked that question. If you remember, we can turn back in chapter 10 and 18. 10 and 18, the people and the leaders of Gilead said to one another, who is the man that will begin to fight against the Ammonites? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. That was the promise that they made. If you remember, they had cast Jephthah aside because he was the son of a prostitute. Therefore his brothers wanted nothing to do with him. They cast him aside. He went into another land where worthless fellows collected around him. But when hard times came upon the people and they needed a leader and none would go against the Ammonites, they came to him because he was a mighty warrior. He was a mighty man of valor, if you will. And they sought his help. They said, come and help us. And he said, why should I help you? And they offered him this. They said, come and help us. and you will be head over all of Gilead. That was that mountain region there. They said, you will be head over all of these things. And he had answered with, if the Lord gives them into my hand, it will be so. If I win, and if I do win, it will be because of Yahweh going before me, not on my own efforts, which seemed to be a good thing, seemingly putting faith in God in his battle and not his own strength, even though he was a mighty man, as it said, that if that happens, he would indeed be leader over them. They then made him a leader at Mizpah. If you remember, we talked about that location and all the things that had happened there. Directly after that, he had sought a council. He had sought letters, if you will, to speak to this foreign king who was coming against them and asked him why he was doing so. He then replied that when the children of Israel would come up from Egypt, they'd simply stole his forefather's land. They'd come in and took it away from them. We've seen how that wasn't so, because God had directed them not to take the land. They were simply seeking passage through it. And after twice not being able to go through a certain area to get to the promised land that God had told them about, the second king that they went against, the first, remember, he just cast them aside and said, you're not coming through my land. I don't care if you're peaceful or not. The second king not only did that, but he come out and war against them. And so when he'd come against God's people, we talked last time that that's coming against God himself. And so coming against Yahweh in that way, of course, they slayed the people with the edge of the sword and they won that territory. And some of the Israelites settled in those cities. And that had been, I believe he said 300 years, I believe so, since that time. And the Israelites had still been there. So this king now coming upon the people is wanting that land back. He's wanting to take it back for himself. After going back and forth if you remember at the end of the the talk there if you will that the king had totally rejected what Jephthah told him He had not listened to his words. He had not listened to his counsel And the big question that we were posing last time and we'll pose again today is that who will be the one, if maybe it will be this Jephthah, who will come and fight for the people and stop this endless cycle of judges coming up and leading the people into righteousness, yet dying short of the fulfillment of that covenant and the people going back into idolatry. Who will be the one that will come and lead the people into righteousness with Yahweh, into covenant faithfulness indefinitely? Indefinitely. If you remember, the dilemma is the death of the man or their inability to keep the law. No man, we have not seen any man so far from Moses on that led the people, that led the children of Israel who was in fact sinless. So we're looking for one to come Who is? And the question on and on and on again through the scriptures is, is it him? Is it him? Is it him? Until finally we get to Christ. And he says, I am he. I'm the one who come to keep the covenant. And so we of course understand that Segeta is not the one. He's not the one that's going to bring in the covenant faithfulness of the people, the completion of it. He's not going to keep it indefinitely. And in our story today, that is what we're gonna find, this great sin, this tragic vow of Jephthah and what he brought upon himself. So with all that, let's jump into our text for today. Verse 29, then the spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead. And from this, Pope Gillian, passed on to the Ammonites. We start off with the Spirit of the Lord being upon Jephthah, seemingly a good thing in times that we've seen before. If we remember, this is not just simply regeneration. That is, it's not salvation. It's not simply saying here that, well, God saved Jephthah at a certain time in a certain place before this battle. That's not what it's speaking of here. It's speaking of the empowering of the Spirit to help men do certain tasks for God. Right. If you remember, we spoke the same thing about Othniel. The Spirit of the Lord empowered Othniel, and we'll see it time and time again with the judges. Othniel, he was able to slay his enemies, something that he would not have been able to do apart from the grace of God upon him, apart from the Spirit of God helping him in his endeavors. So this seems to be good for the people. The people's question was simply, who will fight for us? Who will lead us? He will get this portion of land. Remember when we said that was in contrast with the question should have been, who is the spirit of the Lord upon? Who is God working upon that he may lead us? And seemingly here, God is helping them through both. The man that they chose, even though it wasn't for that reason, even though that it was because he was simply a mighty man, a mighty warrior, God is now leading that man. Seemingly good when God works upon his people, when God's spirit is resting upon their leader. Good things happen, we've seen it before. We see that he's traveling through these different places, Gilead and Manasseh. This is most likely, and most commentators agree here, this is most likely because he was gathering troops. If you remember the last time, like we said before, the king had said what? I don't care what, basically, I don't care what you're saying. I'm still going to come against you. Even though the people didn't take our land, we tried to fight them, even though they weren't safe passage through. And then you took the land. I don't care. I want this land back. And he had not listened to his words. That was in 28. Yeah, 1128 there, I remember. But the king of the Ammonites did not listen to the words of Jephthah that he sent him. They were void. He turned them back on him. Verse 30, 31 in our text. It says, and Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, if you 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 here we see the vow. Jephthah makes his tragic vow, as it was, that whatever comes from the house to meet him, it shall be a burnt offering. Now commentators are kind of divided in this sense because at the time, possibly, it's possible, that Jephthah was simply thinking that one of his animals would come from the doorway. It's possible. I'll give him that. But it's also possible that he knew that it could be a servant or in fact a daughter or anything of that nature. The reason is he didn't care. He simply wanted victory, not thinking of the cost. And as we're going to see, it's going to cost him greatly. But anyway, at the time, there was seemingly two parts of a house, and both parts were connected. And the people would keep their sheep and their animals in one part of the house, and the people would live in the upstairs area most of the time. And so during the day, there would be free roam between both. free roam between both. So it could have been that he simply thought, well, any of my cattle, any of my sheep that come out from that doorway, I will sacrifice it. But nevertheless, this is what he vows. Anything, anything that comes from the doorway, it will be a burnt offering. A burnt offering is a sacrifice that is totally consumed by fire. A sacrifice that is totally consumed I've seen different views on this, that maybe the daughter didn't die, that maybe it was simply something tied to her virginity, as we've seen before, because she was weeping over it. I don't believe that. I don't think the simple reading of the text supports that. A burnt offering is something that is totally consumed by fire. And that's what he's offering up here. Whatever comes from my doorway, it will be consumed by fire. Listen, I don't mean to interrupt, but it's surprising that God would even accept that. Well, God doesn't accept human sacrifice. We'll get to that momentarily. But Leviticus 1, we kind of get the forefront here of burnt sacrifices. Leviticus 1, 1, the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them, when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, he shall bring your offering of livestock from the head of the flock. If the offering is a burnt offering from the head, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord and Aaron's sons and the priest shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. Then shall they fillet the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. And sons of Aaron and priests shall put fire on the altar, and arrange the wood on the fire. And Aaron's sons and priests shall arrange the pieces, the head, the fat, the wood, on the wood, that is on the fire on the altar. But the internals and its legs shall be washed with water, and the priest shall burn all of it on the altar. It's a burnt offering, a food offering, with a pleasing aroma." I said, Lord, a burnt offering is to be totally consumed. There's a pleasing aroma for the Lord. Not only that, but this blood is to be cast upon it. They take all of this blood, it's simply for, we can just overlook that a lot of times. It's a massive amount of blood. Like, I butcher for a living, okay? And I do quarter pieces, so this is kind of giving me a little bit of understanding, but I do quarter pieces, which means that these animals are in quarters when I deal with them. gallons on gallons of blood a day. Gallons that I deal with. And that's after they've been hung. They've been drained of blood for 24 hours most of the time. And I deal with gallons. It's everywhere. Constantly cleaning, constantly this mess. And for the children of Israel, these hundreds of gallons of blood that flowed out from this altar was this constant reminder of sin. Constant reminder of guilt. Constant reminder of this is where sin ends. Right. It either ends in the death of this animal or it ends in the death of me. Right, right. You see it? We lose sight of that a lot of times because we simply have our meat prepared and it's put in a tray and you go and buy it. You don't have to deal with the process in between. Right. It's easy to overlook those things. But that's what a burn offering was. It was to be done in that way. And Jephthah is offering up whatever now as a burn offering simply to find favor with the Lord, simply to win this battle. Obviously his faith had waned in some sense. A lot of times it's easy to be strong, get in the face of danger, get in the face of things that come against us. It's easy for our faith to wane and us to seek something else besides Christ alone, besides God alone to lead us through those things. Very, very easily done. That's what's happening was Jephthah here, to find favor with the Lord. This is what he's doing. If you would just let me win, then I will give you whatever comes from those doorposts. I will sacrifice it to you in hope. This really makes no sense because if we think about it, the people were to give burnt offerings anyway. So Jephthah here is offering something to the Lord, but not counting human sacrifice, we'll talk about that in a minute, that was forbidden. But all the animals anyway, the best of it was already supposed to be given to Yahweh. That was his anyway. He commanded it anyway. So he's offering him something here. If indeed he's thinking about livestock, we don't know his inner thoughts, but if indeed he's simply thinking of whatever the best of my livestock that comes out from the door, I'll give it to Yahweh if you'll just give me that, that was the Lord's anyway. That belonged to God anyway. And if in return, he's thinking that any person that comes from the doorway, I will give to Yahweh. Yahweh said, I do not want that. That is not in a way that I want to be worshiped. Leviticus 20. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel, other strangers who sojourn in Israel, who gives any of his children to Molech, shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I myself will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among the people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean, and to profane the holy name. So what did Yahweh said about sacrifice? You sacrificing your children, it's profane. It's a profane thing. You don't sacrifice something that is in the image of God to a false idol. You don't even sacrifice something in the image of God to God. It is an image bearer. God never called for that, yet he's offering it up here simply for favor from the Lord. Did Jephthah have to incur favor from the Lord? No, he already had it. He already had it? Yeah. He did not have to incur favor from the Lord. He did not have to try to work these angles to get favor within his Bible. Why did he have favor from the Lord? Deuteronomy 7. Deuteronomy 7, we've been here multiple times. Why does God love Israel, not the other nations? Seven and nine. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your father, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He did not have to incur favor with Yahweh. Yahweh loved him. Yahweh loved the people. And it was not because any angle they was working. It was not because anything they was doing. It was simply because He loved them. That's it. Why is this important? Because it's the same in the church today. It's the same with us. God does not love us, and this is important. God does not love you or me because we are the ones that have the less sin, or we are the ones that do the most, or we are the ones that give the most, or go to the soup kitchen. That's not why God loves us. God loved us when we were at our worst. When we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That is the gospel. We do not incur favor with God by the things that we do. We incur favor with God because he loves us and is gracious to us, and that's the only way. But so many times in our walk, it is so easy to take our eyes off of the cross of Christ, off of the work that he has done and completed, and seem to think that we can do something to earn a little bit of merit and a little bit of one-up on God. I do this in the church, I do that in the church, I've been a church member for 40 years, I've been a church member for 50 years, surely I'm a higher level of Christian. Surely I'm something better. And the answer is that you're not. The reason that God loves you is because he simply loves you. That's a glorious thing. It is. Because if God loves you, because of merit that you produce, listen to me closely, you are damned. Right. You are done for. You are undone. Nothing will save you. If God has to look within us and see something special, nothing will be found. Nothing will be merited. And that's what Jephthah does not understand here. So in seeking to get favor, in seeking to get merit that he already has, He offers this up to God. God, if you do this, I'll do that. And we can fall into the same trap. God, if you just let me have this, I'll do this for you. If you give me these things, I'll do more of this. I'll serve the church more. I'll attend Sunday night service. I'll do all these things. I'll tithe more. All the while, we have as much favor with God as we're gonna get. How? How is it that at the moment of your conversion you have as much favor with God as you have at the end of your life, say 50 years on? It's because it's based on the righteousness of Christ. Amen. Which never fails. No, it can't. You are as righteous when you are saved as you are when you die because it does not depend upon your own efforts. It depends upon the blood of Christ. Right. This is important for us to understand, especially in our culture. The major two misunderstandings of God's nature and God's love are this, it's antinomianism. And what that means is no law, free grace, do what you want, right? No consequences, go out and live your life because grace will abound. Misunderstanding of God's love. The second of that would be legalism, right? a misunderstanding of God's grace upon you. Both these are dominant views in our culture. Wherever you go, you will find ditches on both sides of this road. You'll find people who don't understand God's love, and so they think that he's always got the lightning bolt ready to strike them on the least thing that they do, and you will find people that think God's a hippie and happy-go-lucky and loves everyone. This is what we find in our culture. The correct understanding of God and who he is understands that he loves his people, therefore he hates sin. He loves the sheep, therefore he hates the wolves. To love anything means that you hate something. I love my wife, therefore I hate men that would seek to do her harm. You see it? Only a correct understanding of God will help us in these areas. And that's something that Jephthah did not have. And it will cost us dearly. Let's continue. When we... Let's see what time we got. I'm gonna have to continue on. Spent way too much time on that section. Alright, let's look at 32 and 33. 32 and 33. So Jephthah crossed over the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord gave them into his hand. And he struck them from Aror to the neighborhood of Meneth, 20 cities, as far as Abel, Cherimim, with a great blow. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. So here it seems as though this worked. It seems as though they had an agreement, right? He just won the battle. And the answer to that is he would have won the battle anyway. He would have won the battle anyway. It required no working of his hands. It was the grace of God. It was the grace of God that helped him in his endeavors. It's the grace of God that helps us in our endeavors. It's why there's no condemnation for us. As Romans 8 says, there's therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. Meaning what? If you're apart from Christ, there is condemnation. You see? Any works of your hands will be apart from Christ, and when you're apart from Christ, you are condemned. To stand before the Father apart from Christ is to stand condemned. Make sure we understand it. If you're going to say, I bring these things in my hands to show before you, you will do it apart from Christ and you will do it condemned. It's not Christ plus, not Christ plus. It's Christ alone. It's just like you say in there, you know, a lot of people, they say, well, I told God I'd do this and he's done this for me. So since he's done this, I've got to do this. But that's wrong. Yeah, that's so wrong. You're adding yourself into and great what you're talking about. And people get this mentality in their head is because I've done this. God honors this. God honors the love that we honor him and the love that he's done for us. I mean, like you're saying he does stuff for us not because God does stuff for me not because I'm faithful. He likes it. I'm faithful. But he don't do stuff for me because he loves me. That's why he does stuff for me. That's why he saved me. He don't do stuff for me because I went the extra mile to do that. He may like it, but he didn't do that for me. But me and you just, in our soul, you'll hear them brag, you'll say, we did this as a church, or we did that, and that's great, but God really blessed us. God was gonna bless them anyway. Just the simple fact that they know him, they're blessed. But it can be, we can, We're taken from Christ when we add ourselves to it, like you're saying. I wanna say that. Because I've been calling that myself. I've been calling and thinking, well, we've done this for the Lord, we've done that. He's pleased. Maybe he is. Think why God blesses us. People say, if you live this life, if you have this much faith, that'll move God and you'll get this. It's like we're doing something that God gave us something. Absolutely. And he's thinking because he said this, God gave it to him and he was already in his hands. God gave it to him. He didn't even have to make a wish. Absolutely. That's a trap. That's a trap for most Christians today. That's the reason I want to say that because that's a scary thing. I thank the one God blesses us, I thank him for it. It ain't because I did this or did that or had an extra prayer, or I kept the peace or all that. He commands us to do that. Just like he commanded to give the offerings. That was a command already and here he is offering something back to God that God doesn't command him to do. Absolutely. Yeah. We we obey maybe a point of clarity. We obey Christ in the new covenant because because what he has done for us and that we are justified not to gain that justification. Right. Amen. Are you seeing it? I don't work up to my justification, say, I do this, I do that, I do that, and then I'm justified. I'm justified, and then I work for the Lord. You see? I'm freed to live that life for God. In the Old Testament, the law, what the law, now there was a lot of grace in the Old Testament, we've already seen it, but what the law said to the people was obey and live. Obey this law and live. What Christ says to us through his cross, is live and obey. Amen. We get to live in the newness of that life and then we obey Christ. And that's a correct understanding. That's how you won't fall into the pit of the antinomian or the legalist, is to understand what God is doing. Right. To understand God's work in the Christian's life. That's an important distinction there. Okay. Well, well, well, let's see. So here it seemed to work. That's right, 32 through 33. Here, the battle was won. Seemingly, his deal had wrought favor with God. Maybe he's thinking all he simply has to do now is go to his house and sacrifice whatever comes to meet him. 34 through 35, let's look there together. Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah, and behold, his daughter came. out to meet him with tambourines and dances. She was his only child. Besides her, he had neither son nor daughter. So here we have the price that Jephthah has to pay, and it is too much. It is too much. And can I tell you this? To actually incur favor with God, to get favor from the Lord, it could take a million daughters. it still would not bought out your sin. That's right. It still would not give you the favor that you have in Christ. This promise was great. Jephthah was besides himself. As we'll see, look in 35 there. And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, Elias, my daughter, you brought me very low and become a cause of great trouble for me. For I've opened my mouth to the Lord and I cannot take back my vow. So he's already mourning. Rinse his clothes. I'm mourning because you're as good as dead. Because while I promised to Yahweh, he must now offer up as a burnt offering. This was his only child, we are told. It was something that was valued in this day. People don't really anymore, but at this time, children was seen as a blessing from God. And this was his only one. He had neither son nor daughter besides her. And he now has to offer her up. Something that is very hard for a man to do. Something that he would not have done apart from his vow. But think of this, it's something that God done willingly. Amen, amen. He did. It's something that God done willingly. What did he do? He offered up his son. Christ said, I will go. I'll be a sacrifice. I'll be the sacrifice to end all sacrifice, the perfect one. Although it would have took millions and billions of daughters, the single sacrifice of Christ appeased the wrath of God. It was a propitiation for our sin. That's the love of God. So he rips his clothes and mourns because he cannot take back his vow. We can say this in Deuteronomy 23 here, when Yahweh instructs them about vows. Deuteronomy 23, 21. If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it. for the Lord your God will surely acquire it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. But if you refrain from vowing, you will not be guilty of sin. You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God, what you have promised with your mouth. I don't think that we understand the gravity of this, especially in our culture. We say, how is that, the way that we treat one another, the way that we treat other image bearers of God, how easy it is for people to promise people things and vow people things, and even vow God things, and go back upon it. You see, they understood the gravity of this. The things that people had seen, you do not want Yahweh's face turned against you. They had seen civilizations wiped They had seen great kings brought low. All these things, all those that oppose Yahweh are destroyed. And you do not want to be one of those people. And so this is why Jephthah must keep his vow. And this is why those words should not have come from his lips. There was no need of it. But as man is, so he wants to put his part, he wants to put his share. in his salvation, in his rewards. Here it was the salvation from the people. For us, it's the salvation that we get from Christ. Let's continue. 3637. And she said to him, this is his daughter, my father, you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what you, what has gone out of your mouth. Now that the Lord has avenged you on your enemies on the Ammonites. 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 and my companions. So here, the daughter but has one request. She tells her father, surprisingly, he tells her father, her understanding of gravity of what he's done too, because she didn't want God's face to be turned against her father. And a love for him, I believe, is what's happening here. She tells him to do what he said, sacrifice her as a burnt offering, even though Yahweh wanted no part in it to do so, so that his face will not be turned against him. So he went on and cried wrath upon himself. She simply wants two months to go to the mountains, her companions and weep for her virginity. Why? It's a good question. Like I said, some people say here is this just simply her being celibate, I think. For the rest of her life, I don't believe so. But she wanted to go and weep for her virginity on the mountains. She'll never have children. She'll never have that blessing that God gives his people. More than that, I believe what it's getting at is she will never be an ancestor of the one who is to come who will save them. You see this? What would be a woman's main role at the time would be to bring offspring up, and God promised them what? When Adam fell, he said, through Eve. Through this offspring, one will come, and he will keep the covenant. He will crush the head of the serpent. He won't fail. He'll bruise his heel, but he'll crush his head. But now it is in fact seen to the girl that through her line, the head crusher won't come. The Messiah will not be through her line. She will have no part in that. And I believe that's the morning. That's the morning. She would not be able to fulfill the job of a helpmate. She would not be able to be an ancestor of the Messiah as promised in Genesis 3.15. 38 through 40. So he said, go. Then he sent her away for two months. She departed, she and her companions, and went for a virginity on the mountains. And at the end of the two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow, that is, she was a burnt offering, that he made. She had never known a man. And it became a custom, it is, that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah. the Gileadite for four days in the year. This custom brings up, I'm calling it because of the tragic life of this girl, because of her life cut short, because of the misguided understanding of God from her father, a misunderstanding of God's love. And this is what happens many times is when we don't understand God right, these things come upon us. When we don't understand who God is and what he has set us to do, we simply miss the picture entirely. That's what had happened here. This is what cost this girl her life. So that is another grim story. That's pretty rough. That's grim. This daughter was burnt. We don't know if she's burnt to death, but we know she was burnt. We've seen many stories like this in the book of Judges, and I want to recall this to them every time. And this is the reason. What we're being shown here is that blood spread upon the altar. What we're being shown here is the ugliness of sin. The ugliness of sin. And even more surprising than that, it is this ugliness that Christ comes from heaven and ascends down into, born of a virgin. It is this ugliness that Christ comes into to save his people. this despair, this depravity, these gruesome things that we've seen. It's this that he comes into. It's this that he comes to redeem from. And it's this that he takes upon himself on the cross. So much so that in Matthew 26, 36, we won't go there for the sake of time, but if you remember what Jesus had said there, groaning in his humanity, Lord, if this father, if this can pass from me, if this cup can pass from me, let it pass. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. All that is in him as a man did not want to incur the wrath of God upon him. We're talking of Christ, who from the very beginning of everything had perfect communion and union with the Father and the Spirit, was now gonna become exiled and burdened down with the sin of his people. This gruesome tales, these gruesome actions laid upon the Holy One, laid upon the Messiah. This is redemption. This is what Christ come and done. And of course we understand that he did not negate it. He didn't, although he could have, although he could have left and said, this is too much. These people don't deserve such, which we don't. He drunk the cup down to the dregs. Down to the dregs, as Josh says, which really just means like those little pieces floating around in the bottom of the cup. I had to look this up because Josh says it all the time. Which really means that all those little pieces, you know, like you drink a cup of coffee and there's flour, he drunk every bit of it. To its fullest, empty cup, nothing left. And that was our sin. And that's what was laid upon him. And that's why we can now live in this newness of life as God's people. Well, let's pray together. Father, I'm but a sinful man, God. Even at my best, Lord, I fail to even compare to Your holiness. I fail to even compare to Your righteousness, God. I am but dirt. I am but a worm. Help us now to lean not on our own understanding, to flee from all these things, Lord, that present themselves as mighty and victorious, that aren't Christ, and to see them as what they are, the sham and the lie, and to cling to Christ and all that He is. In his name we pray, amen.