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and stand, the book of Judges, this is our 26th message and our 9th judge, Jephthah is our next character that we find in the book of Judges really it kinda ends in chapter number 10 where the Bible said in verse 16, they put away strange gods from among them and served the Lord and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel. I believe that we find that even though Israel repents once again, there are the scars of idolatry that's going to haunt the children of Israel. The Bible says, Then the children of Ammon, in verse 17, were gathered together and encamped in Gilead, and the children of Israel assembled themselves together, encamped in Mishpah. And the people and the princes of Gilead said one to another, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. And then chapter 11 beginning in verse 1 introduces us to a man named Jephthah that we're going to preach about tonight. It says that Jephthah the Gilead was a man of valor, a mighty man of valor, and he was the son of a harlot, and Gilead beget Jephthah. And Gilead's wife bare him sons, and his wife's sons grew up, And they, the sons of Gilead, thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house, for thou art the son of a strange woman. Now this is rejection, and this was going to be hurtful to Jephthah, and we're gonna see that hurt and rejection comes into people's lives, but we're going to find that Jephthah did not let his life be bound by His rejection. And I'm telling you right now tonight, there are many people who are living in the past, and they're not living in the present because their past has had some bearing upon them, and you can choose your present situation. You don't have to live in the past. Now Jephthah is going to teach us this tonight. The Bible said he was a mighty man of valor. Now remember when we looked at the life of Gideon and we found that he was a man that was hiding behind the winepress, but yet it said he was a mighty man of valor, which means his heart was turned toward God. Now Jephthah's heart is turned toward God, but the Bible says that he's the son of a harlot. Now Jephthah did not have any choice in that matter. but he did have a choice to be a mighty man of valor, alright? So it came in verse number 4, it comes, well Jephthah flees his brethren in verse number 3, And dwelt in the land of Tob, which would be where his mother was from. And there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him. And it came to pass in process of time that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. Now we saw that in verse 17 and 18 there in chapter number 10. So Ammon makes war with Israel, and verse 5 says, And it was so that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob. They said unto Jephthah, Come and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of Ammon. Now if Jephthah had wanted revenge, Or if Jephthah would have gotten bitter, or if Jephthah would have said, Well, you rejected me. If Jephthah would have said, Woe is me, I've been hurt, I'm not going to serve God anymore. He didn't do that, alright? And instead, Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did you not hate me and expel me out of my father's house? And why are you coming to me, thou, when you are in distress? The elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the Lord deliver them before me, shall I be your head, and the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The LORD be witness between us, if we do not sow according to thy words. Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them, and Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord in Misman. Now we're gonna stop there and look at the idea tonight of rejection, hurt, bitterness, what can happen to a person because of their past, And really Jephthah is a rejected Savior in the sense that he's the guy that can bring peace to the nation of Israel, but he was hurt, he was rejected, he was put away because of his heritage, if you would, because his brethren did not want him to inherit any part of their inheritance because of his situation being the son of a harlot father i pray that you would bless the reading and the preaching of your word i pray lord tonight we might understand that there is much hurt in the world in which we live there are people today that are living with the scars of rejection they're living with the scars of hurt, they're living with these scars, Lord, and I think of old Lester Roloff who used to say things, said that trials or things like this could make us better or could make us bitter. And Lord, I believe that we choose to be bitter or we choose to be better. and to use our past or the circumstances of hurt or the circumstances of rejection can be used to draw closer to you, because our encouragement is not in man, our encouragement is in the Lord. Our trust is not in man, but our trust is in the Lord so I pray we might get a hold of this great truth tonight in the life of this ninth judge named Jephthah in Jesus name we ask amen you may be seated I want you to go back to judges chapter number two and I think it's just maybe time for a rewind or a reminder about this book of Judges and the cycle that the children of Israel went through I mean this is the ninth cycle, the ninth time that the people of Israel have backslidden and gone and served some other god beside the God of Israel I'm reminded of Assyria and the Queen of Heaven and Issachar or Assyria and their Nimrod and what we learned from Genesis 11 and now look at it, look at what that false religion has brought to the nation of Israel. It's brought a cycle, a repeated cycle of sin and then repentance and then God raising up a judge and delivering them because I want you to understand something tonight, God wants to deliver us. God does not want us to live in the past. God does not want us to live in our sin. God does not want us to be a person that says that I'm just this way because of my past. Well, Jephthah could easily have said that. I'm the son of a harlot, my dad. I had to leave the land of Israel. I had to go to the land of Tob. I had to go where my mother was from because my half-brothers have rejected me. They don't want to have anything to do with me. And so that's called rejection. That's real. And people deal with it. People deal with hurt. I don't know how many times in my ministry, personally, that I've had people that have come to the place where we're at, or in Knob Noster, who had gone through some kind of discouragement, some kind of hurtful situation, something, I mean, listen to this, I met a man just last week, me and my wife, began to talk to a fellow that used to go to a church and that we know, we know the pastor, he begins to tell us that there was a situation that happened in his family, and I invited him to come to church, and he's not in church today because something happened. Some preacher did something stupid. Some preacher did something wrong. Some preacher fell into sin. Well listen, just because that kind of thing happens doesn't mean that you're okay to just fall away and do your own thing and willow and wallow in self-pity and in sin and not serve God. No, God, you choose to do that. You choose to be bitter, people choose to be bitter. Now I realize that, and I'm not minimizing any hurt, not doing that tonight, because I know it's real. I've dealt with rejection. I've dealt where people lied against us. I mean, my wife has basically said, can you believe they're saying what they're saying? What are we going to do? I said, we're not gonna do anything. We're going to keep serving God. We're going to keep going forward. We're not going to be defined by what people say about us. We're not going to be defined because people are lying about us. We're not going to be defined because people are treating us incorrectly. That's your problem, not mine. and that's the way you need to look at it, and Jephthah is going to say, hey, that's my brethren's problem, it's not my problem, and while I do not want to minimize tonight, again, I've had people come, I remember one fella came to our church, I mean, you could see it all over his face, you could see it over the face of his family, you knew something bad had happened, took him long enough to finally get back into church, I basically said the same thing that I say to everybody and I've been saying this for 30 years as a pastor well if you'll just come to church and let God help you and listen to the Word of God stay in your Bible and read your Bible and pray and listen to what God has to say and the applications that can be made through the preaching of God's Word, God will make things right God has a way of stirring your soul and bringing you back and I just saw this family, I saw this man, I saw him begin to come to the altar, by the way that's a healthy thing to do that when God deals with something in your life, and I saw the hurt, and I saw the bitterness, and I saw the melting of God in his life, and I saw his heart begin to go from a hard, a stone cold, you know, a stiff, I'm not gonna be hurt again, so therefore I'm never gonna have a relationship with anybody, I'm not gonna like anybody, I'm not gonna invite anybody over my house, I'm not gonna be hurt again, and so I'm not gonna like people. but that's not God's, that's not the way the Bible teaches us, that's not church life, that's not Christian life, that's not right. And I hate it that the devil will get in any way he can to a person's life and try to mess them up and get them out of church. Let me tell you something, God knows, I'm sorry, the devil knows he cannot get your soul. So the next best thing is to get your testimony. to try to get you on a shelf somewhere. And Paul even said that he was concerned that when he preached to others, he himself would be a castaway. man there's casualties everywhere this man me and my wife man he's not in church today he's not serving God and I call the preacher that I know and I said hey I met so-and-so and he said to me oh brother Abel's that guy was poised for ministry he was he was he was in the youth group and he was serving God and then something happened into his family and he got out of church and and now he's living a life of his circumstances where if he would just be under sound preaching and he would be in the house of God and just listen to what God has to say, God can take the Word of God and break our hearts and melt us and mold us because the devil is in charge of bitterness, not God. And I'm just telling you, Jephthah was rejected by his own family. Now let me say that praise the Lord for forgiveness of sin, but sin will leave scars and the scars of idolatry is real. So back in Judges chapter two is just a cycle of repeated. I just wanted to look at this and just look at verse number 16, down to verse number 19. Never the Lord raised up judges. now this can be, we can apply this that the Lord will raise up churches or the Lord will raise up preachers or the Lord will raise up missionaries to go to a place to help people, to be leaders among people now I know these are judges and there was no king in Israel, God was their king But the judges delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they would not hearken unto their judges. But they went a-whoring after other gods. Now that's modern day backsliding. It is so easy to backslide, is it not? It's easy to get out of church. It's easy to quit reading your Bible. It's easy to quit praying. And it starts out just a slither sometimes. And I'm telling you, people that used to sit on the front row, when they get to the back row, the next place is out the door. And they went a-whoring after other gods and bowed themselves unto them. I really think that we have a hard time understanding idolatry like this. But it was the way of the world. It's like modern day materialism, humanism. Everybody's after the almighty dollar. See, while we may not, while our culture may not bow down to a literal little idol, but we bow down to idols. So they backslide, they turn away. Notice this term in verse 17. They turned away quickly, out of the way, which their fathers walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord. but they did not sow and when the Lord raised them up judges then the Lord was with the judge so that tells us he's going to be with these characters that we're reading about some are men of valor some are men of their generation like Ojar and Tola some are a little skeptical but God can use the most of all unlikely and he raises up judges and the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge repented the Lord because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them and it came to pass when the judge was dead that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers In following other gods to serve and to bow down unto them, they cease not from their doings, nor from their stubborn way. Wow, there it is right there. Their stubborn way. So I just wanted to reintroduce that repeated cycle. But we look at Jephthah tonight. And all the judges are different, aren't they? They all have different personalities. They all have different backgrounds. They all have different situations. I mean, Gideon is hiding behind the wine press. They're being oppressed by the Midianites. Now it's the Ammonites in the text that we live. But can you imagine growing up in the household of this particular household? and basically his life is a life of rejection my wife and I have been foster parents adoption we have people I'm telling you children they receive the brunt of their parents sin some of these kids don't know what it's like to be loved they live a life of rejection but you don't have to live your life based on how you, based on your past. I've often said this, we don't have a choice in who our family is. You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends. You can choose the church you go to. You can make choices that'll help you in your life. Your family, that's a bummer. For some of us, or some people. But isn't His life, His life is a life of rejection? His life is a life of contrast? Now what do I mean by that? He's a mighty man of valor versus the son of a harlot. Now I said this earlier, but Jephthah didn't have a choice on how he came into the world. But he DID have a choice of being a mighty man of valor. Now here's what I want you to understand tonight. Do you realize even with our past, if things have not been well, or the situation wasn't good, God can use both traits. His valor, His might, His courage would be molded by God. Now listen, I think you know this, but this is kind of just like the first message of Jephthah. God's going to use Jephthah to accomplish victory for God's people. He's going to be the judge that's going to be used by God. But, here's the deal about his past. He's going to use his past to drive him closer to God, rather than to becoming a bitter man. And it's very likely, I mean we could write a totally different story about Jephthah if he had chosen to relish in his past. He paid a heavy price of his parents' sin. But he did not choose this, he overcame it. Everybody listen to me? He overcame it. His presence among his brethren caused them to reject him. Now, this would be hurtful. I think you understand, this would be very hurtful. Say you're living in a family, and you're the stepchild, whatever, or you, and by the way, there's blended families today, I recognize that, but you got a blended family, well, you know, we don't want you in our home, and so we're gonna reject you, we're gonna put you out. Rejection always brings hurt. Hurt can lead to bitterness, but bitterness is a choice. People hurt people hurt people. Sometimes people don't even realize how to live because they've been hurt. They feel like it would be best for them to hurt somebody else. That's bitterness. Hurt people hurt other people. And I'm telling you, you don't have to live like that. God's word heals people. Did you hear me? People hurt people, but God's people, God's word heals people. Now think about, I think about Joseph, all right? There's other illustrations of this. Joseph was rejected by his brothers because he was the child of Rachel, Jacob's favorite. Now Jacob has got a lot of problems. And man, Brother Sam did a good job of preaching about the problems of Jacob and how he raised his children incorrectly and how things were messed up. So let's just think about Joseph. I mean, Jacob was a deceiver, so therefore Jacob was deceived. and for all those years he thought Joseph was dead but you're talking about a rejection can you imagine Joseph being down in that pit and his brothers said man let's sell him let's make something off of him how wicked can you be and they sold him into slavery and he finds himself on a caravan to Egypt Now I'm just telling you right now, I can't imagine a 15 year old boy, 16 year old boy, I read the biography of Davy Crockett within the last eight months to a year. And Davy Crockett when he was 14 years old, you know he killed a bar, you know he killed bars and stuff. And so when he was 14 years old his dad was gonna spank him. And Davy Crockett did not want to be spanked by his father, so he jumped on a wagon and was gone for two years. Now can you imagine a 14-year-old boy leaving home in the wilderness of Tennessee, and by the way it was a wilderness back then, and his family had this cabin that they fed people on the travel way and it was a house where they fed them, they spent the night before they went on. So Davy Crockett got on one of the wagons that was leaving out the next morning because he hid from his father all night because his dad was going to whoop him. And he gets on this wagon and he's gone for two years. And when he gets back, when he comes back after two years, first thing he's concerned about is if his dad's going to whip him. But his dad was so glad to see him, he forgot about the whipping, but Davy Crockett hadn't forgot about it for two years. Now that's a modern day story. Joseph is about this age, sold into slavery, finds himself being sold to a man named Potiphar, And he, listen, he didn't get, he couldn't call on the phone. He couldn't Google the internet. He's in Egypt, rejected by his brothers. Now I'm gonna tell you something right now. I'd be mad, and probably bitter, and say that life is not fair, and woe is me, and look at my situation. Joseph didn't do that. What an example. that Joseph is, of when life throws you a curveball, or when life gives you lemons, instead of being bitter and sour and puckered up, you make lemonade and you drink it. And we know he rose to the place where he was taken over Potiphar's house, and then he gets falsely accused, and he gets thrown in prison. How can it get any worse? Now he's in prison, and he didn't do anything. He didn't do anything to deserve being sold into slavery. He didn't do anything to be deserved to be put in the prison. But what did he do? He rose to the place where the prison guard goes, Man, I'll let you take care of everything. Now we know the story of Joseph, but I'm telling you it could have been a different story if he had been bitter. You don't have to let your present and your past dictate your present and your future. I'll give you a modern day example. Go visit Dennis Howard sometime. Just go visit him. And if you go in there with the idea that I'll be a blessing to him, you're wrong. He's confined to a bed and he's been there for quite some time. and he'll make you cry before you leave because he's so happy and you're not even happy because somebody pulled out in front of you on your way down to go visit Dennis Howard. He is not letting his present situation dictate the joy of the Lord that's in his heart. And I'm just telling you tonight, Jephthah is a great picture of what it means. Life was unfair to Joseph, life was unfair to Jephthah, but instead of living in the past, and both of these guys blaming their brothers, Joseph and Jephthah, he was a man that God used, because it's not about my past. It's about where God wants me right now. I think about Jesus Christ, now think about Him, the Son of God, the Savior of the world. In many ways, Jephthah is a rejected Savior. He's the guy that can actually, he's gonna be the guy that can actually take Israel out of their present situation. But look at Isaiah 53, if I could get you to go there. Isaiah 53, don't leave your text too long, we'll be right back. But look at in Isaiah 53. This is just another example. of rejection, hurt. Now think about this. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, never did anything wrong. Sometimes when people do things against me, I'm thinking, man, I'm wicked, I'm a sinner, I've made mistakes. Wow. Oh, but so have you. We're not perfect. But Isaiah 53, Jesus Christ was perfect. Verse number three said, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Now listen, the next time somebody says something ugly to us, or we get the door slammed in our face when we're knocking on a door, or somebody says something sideways to us, You know what, I'm just telling you, it's taken me a while, but I've come to the place where that is not my problem. That is your problem. I choose how I'm going to react to your foolishness or other people's foolishness. Because it is foolish sometimes the way people act. But Jesus carried our sorrows, we esteemed Him stricken, in verse 4, He was wounded for our transgressions, verse 5, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Look at that, He was oppressed, He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth, He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before his shears is done. So he opened not his mouth, he was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people. And here's the way I would put it. Joseph and Jephthah were rejected by their brothers. Jesus was rejected by mankind. Jephthah was rejected by his family. Now listen to this. And you have been hurt, people have been hurt, people have been rejected, and while people may reject us and people may hurt us, God doesn't reject us. And God's never hurt me one time. You know what our problem is? Is we put our eyes on the people that hurt us, or the people that wronged us, instead of putting our eyes on the Lord. Now of course this reminds me and not even in my notes but it reminds me when David just like Jephthah now King David let me talk about him for just a minute King David took all the malcontents of society and they came to him and he made an army and some of those men became mighty men of God they were David's mighty men man I love reading about those mighty men and some of the exploits and the thousands of people that they killed and the things that they did is unbelievable did you know most of those guys were malcontents of society at one point and David took them in and they did great exploits for God. They expanded the land of Israel. They fought for God. God was making David a man of war, a king. He was making him a great king. He started doing that back when he was a shepherd. Remember Zigglack? They were out fighting and he comes back and the place where his men was burned and all the women and their wives and their children had been taken captive. And the Bible says, that the men turned on David. All of these men that David had led them, they turned on him. And they even talked about stoning him. And David got real bitter and quit the ministry. No, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says David got alone and encouraged himself in the Lord. You wanna get away from bitterness and hurtful people? Encourage yourself in the Lord. Now he sought the Lord and the Lord said, pursue, and they pursued, and they got all their stuff back, and they got their wives back, and they got their children back, and all those people that tried to hurt David were put to shame. Because God was in control. Somebody say amen. God would use Jephthah as the ninth judge to save Israel from Ammon. Every person has a choice on what to do with his past, especially if it's not an ideal past. You can use your past to become bitter, or you can use your past to show God's amazing grace in your life. King David was called the least in his house, and even his own father thought him the very unlikely one when Samuel showed up at the house. and was going to anoint one of the sons of Jesse to be the king of Israel. And old Samuel said, Oh, surely Eliab, he's the Lord's anoint. Look at that guy, man. And he was rejected, and every son passed by. And finally Samuel, in his disarray or his not understanding the situation, said to Jesse, Do you have any more? Yeah, we got one more. He's out there with them sheep, stinking up the place. Well, go get him. And here comes David running in. What's kicking, chicken? David was like a squirrel out there, man. He's like, what's going on? You don't go out and kill a bear and a lion and take it by the cuttage throat, man, unless you got a little moxie. David shows up, what's going on? And the Lord sent him, anointed. Really in front of his family, he was anointed as a young boy to be the next king of Israel, because God had rejected Saul. Now he didn't become king the next day, everybody with me? God just was revealing he was gonna be the guy. Why was he the guy? Because his heart was turned toward God. And David would go through a lot of hurt, David would go through a lot of rejection. I mean, Saul rejected him. Saul threw a spear at him. But I love David's heart. I love David. He never tried to put his hand against the Lord's anointed. He never said anything bad about Saul. I mean, he played the heart. He was a mighty man of valor. But he could have very well, listen to me, he could have got bitter when he was rejected by his brothers. and his dad thought he was the unlikely, and then he goes down there to see the battle. Man, he's fired up, and then he sees Goliath come out there, and his brothers speak ill about him. You just came out here, you little snotty-nosed kid. Is there not a cause? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? Folks, all that is is heart. That's heart. Now, he didn't get bitter. He didn't go, oh, I've been rejected by my brother. I mean, the preacher didn't even shake my hand this morning. Really? By the way, let me say something about that. That kind of goes both ways. If the preacher didn't shake your hand, why don't you come shake his hand? Okay. Because that's your problem, not mine. Our encouragement comes from the Lord. Sometimes people disappoint us. But God never has disappointed me. God still uses the unlikely. I'm not gonna go to 1 Corinthians chapter one, but it's in there. God is a master artist of our life and he wants to paint a picture of our life that gives him honor and glory. You know what Jephthah learned to do? Jephthah learned to depend on God. and not be bitter of his circumstances. Isn't this amazing that Jephthah, this is a fact right here, Jephthah used the personal name of God in the text that we read about his life more than anyone else in the book of Judges. What does that mean? That means he learned to depend on God. In his suffering and in his rejection, he didn't blame others. He didn't blame God. He didn't become discouraged. He did not let his heart become hard or bitter. He learned to have joy in the trials. Now, there is a New Testament application here. Go to I Peter chapter number one. I Peter chapter number one. 1 Peter chapter number one, look down at verse number six. 1 Peter chapter number one, verse six, wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations. that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found under praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. You know what that means? Don't let your past dictate your present or your future. Chapter 2 of 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 21. 1 Peter 2. Hmm, wrote the wrong one down. Okay, never mind. We'll just stick with that one. How about this one? What'd Paul say? Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. Now let me make some comments here. Rejection is not fun. Nobody likes it. Being hurt is not fun. It's not. In fact, it is very painful. Now let me just give you an example. I've been picked last on the team when it comes to choosing sides. Smallest sometimes gets the rejection. If you show up with a bunch of kids and you're 10, 11, 12 years old, and you're the littlest one, they pick you last. And you know what, or if you play baseball, or you play baseball, they put you in right field. Everybody with me? I've been there both. I've been, I was right field. I remember, you know, little league, first time ever. They looked at me, all these kids are a lot bigger. Right field, Abels. You go out for recess and we're gonna pick teams. I'm the last one picked. I'm going to tell you right now, you can do a couple things with that. You can mope home and cry to your mama and say they picked me last or they put me in right field. No, we're not going to do that. We're going to get fired up. We're going to show them by determination I ain't going to play right field the rest of my career. I'm not going to do it. By the time I was 12 I was on the all-star team playing second base and catcher. Why? Because I was going to hurt somebody. They pick me last, they're going to pay for it. Somebody is going to get hurt. You know what that is? That's a choice. That's a choice. I'm just telling you right now, our encouragement comes from the Lord. Jephthah learned to depend on God. Rejection is not fun. Being picked last on the team. Smallest. But what it did is it can turn you into being a determined person. If you respond correctly to adversity, you can be molded in the right way. Jephthah, listen to this, now in the text, back in our text, now go back to our text. Jephthah was a lot like David in the sense that the malcontents came to him. You know what he did with him? He learned military strategy, how to fight a war. He used the life experiences of this son of a harlot, but he took the word of God, he built character, and he was used by God. He took the misfits and the social rejects and he built an army. That's how David got his start. On the run from Saul, he built an army of the unlikely. Jephthah became the Robin Hood of the Hebrews. You know what he did? He took a negative and he turned it into a positive. But more than anything else, he learned to trust God. So, the message tonight is, don't let your past dictate your future. Now look at this. I call Jephthah, the rejected one, but I like verses five through nine because Jephthah returns. He comes back. And even though there was a rejection, now there's a return. And Jephthah is called to a place of leadership. And by the way, let me say something about that. That could come at any moment, so be ready. and Jephthah was getting ready, and Jephthah had men, and Jephthah knew what it was to fight, and Jephthah knew what it was, and so that's why wherever you're at, prepare for what might come in the future. Our responsibility is to be involved where we are. Where God has put me, let me learn the lessons he is teaching. Be faithful in the present, and God will take care of the future. I had a conversation this week with Mitch O'Neill, He pastors over in Ashgrove now, Bible Baptist Church, Ashgrove. And we were reminiscing of the past 20 years ago, blah, blah, blah, and he goes, oh, and they all still call me preacher, he still calls me preacher, he goes, preacher. I was just thinking the other day, man, I sure would like to go back to Knob Noster. Back when I was just a church member, sitting in the pew, just being a servant of the Lord, I said, oh, hush, man. it's not what God wants you to do but I said but brother you were doing all those things because you were preparing for what God would have for you later on and you wouldn't want it any other way you say you want to go back we all say we want to go back but the truth is I don't want to go back Our responsibility is to be involved. And then Jephthah's reverse, verse number 8 through 11 where it begins to talk about, hey, I thought you rejected me. I didn't think you wanted me. Yeah, but now we need you. Joseph was in prison and became second in command of Egypt. Daniel was thrown in a lion's den and became the leader of the kingdom. Mordecai was on his way to execution and became a counselor to the king. When a person gets saved, don't you listen to this, he goes from condemnation to a home in heaven. Our judge in the story tonight of Jephthah did not get bitter, he got better. He didn't come back and kill all of his brothers. He didn't require revenge. And by the way, Joseph didn't either. His brothers were so convicted by their wrongdoing, they lied to Joseph after their father died and said, now here's what daddy said. And Joseph said, what? Daddy didn't say that. And here's what you need to understand. What you chose to be bad, God turned to good. And I'm telling you, the rejection of Jephthah and the rejection of our past and the hurts and the bitterness and the things that have happened to us can be used to mold us and to make us good Christians, good leaders, good church members, good Sunday school teachers, good bus workers, Not people that are out of church tonight, wallowing in their self-pity because somebody hurt them. That is their problem, folks, not yours. So don't make it their problem. Don't make it their problem. I'm gonna choose, as Joshua said, but as for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. Hey, I'm gonna tell you right now, You just write it down, I'll sign it for you if you want me to. People will hurt you. People will disappoint you. Because they're people. But not the Lord. So who are you serving tonight? People or the Lord? Let's stand tonight, every head bow. Every eye closed. Don't let your past dictate your future. Can I tell you something else? This is an amazing thing. We're preaching out of the book of Hebrews on chapter 11. Did you know that Jephthah is listed in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11, 32? So that means not only was he a mighty man of valor, but he was also a man of faith, which means he trusted the Lord, he returned evil for good. And Jephthah's life shows us that God can make us a blessing. even to those who hate us, when we respond in a right way. Now the book of Proverbs says it something like this, when people do, I'm gonna just paraphrase it, but when people do you wrong, you just go ahead and do right anyway. It'll heat coals of fire on their head, not yours. So you just do right, no matter what. Don't let life circumstances dictate how you're gonna serve the Lord. Lord, you're a good God, we're thankful. Lord, I'm glad that we can trust you. And I know the devil, how he works, his wiles, his ways, how he uses people to hurt others, and rejection is a part sometimes of life. And Lord, while Jephthah did not have the choice in being the son of who he was, he did not have that choice. But he did have a choice to be a man of faith and a mighty man of valor. And Lord, Jephthah was not a perfect man in any sense of the imagination. In fact, we'll see that there's some very hard things that happened in the life of Jephthah. But Lord, we do know that he's in the hall of faith. We do know he was a man of faith, and we do know he's a mighty man of valor. We do know he was rejected, but he did not allow that to define his life. God help us tonight, I pray. in Jesus' name, amen. 505, have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way. Hey, listen, if you've been hurt, it's not an easy thing. It's not something that you relish in. And God does not want you to be bitter. He doesn't want you to take revenge. He does not. And I'm telling you, People have done you wrong. People have done things against you. Hey, don't let it define your Christian life.