Act Two: Divine Revelation (Judges 4:4-7)

12/22/2009 7:36 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                              Focus:  Act Two:  Divine revelation

Bible Reading & Meditation                        Reference:  Judges 4:4-7

            Message of the verses:  “4 ¶  Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. 5  She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel came up to her for judgment. 6  Now she sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali, and said to him, "Behold, the LORD, the God of Israel, has commanded, ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun. 7  ‘I will draw out to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his many troops to the river Kishon, and I will give him into your hand.’”

            Israel was a male dominated society and so it may seem odd for the Lord to choose Deborah to judge and lead Israel.  However Deborah looked at herself as a mother to the people of Israel:  “I, Deborah, arose, Until I arose, a mother in Israel.”  This is from Judges 5:7, a portion of that verse.  Perhaps God’s desire was to humble Israel at this time or perhaps there were not men strong enough to lead Israel at this time, at any rate Deborah was the one whom God chose to lead Israel at this point in their history.

            God had a plan that He revealed to Israel through Deborah and that plan involved a man named Barak who was to lead the army of Israel into battle against Sisera who was the commander of Jabin’s army.  God’s plans are always perfect and so if Barak will follow this plan then Israel’s enemy will be defeated and they will not be oppressed by Jabin any longer.  The question is will Barak be willing to follow this perfect plan of God.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  One of the things that I have learned from this section is that I must have courage to do the correct thing, the things that I believe that God wants me to do, and one of those things is to witness to the lost, and perhaps another thing it to be involved in the solutions of the problems that are going on at GBC.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Put on the full armor of God:  The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.
2. Trust the Lord to guide my path today.

12/22/2009 8:16 AM  

Act One: A Tragic Situation (Judges 4:1-3)

12/21/2009 7:44 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                        Focus:  Act one:  a tragic situation

Bible Reading & Meditation                        Reference:  Judges 4:1-3

            Message of the verses:  “1 ¶  Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, after Ehud died. 2  And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; and the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. 3  The sons of Israel cried to the LORD; for he had nine hundred iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years.”

            This SD begins a new chapter in Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on Judges, “Be Availble.”  He treats this chapter, which covers chapters four and five of Judges, as a play and today’s SD is the first act.

            I have highlighted “the Lord sold them” in verse two because it is a recurring theme in the book of Judges, and it happens right after a judge dies and the nation returns to idolatry.  The nation that the Lord uses this time to discipline the king of Hazor, which is one of the city-states that made of the Canaanite people.

            In verse three there is another recurring theme in the book of Judges, and that is that the people cried out to the Lord for deliverance from this king because he had 900 iron chariots. 

            On the service there does not seem to be a problem with this but the problem is that the children of Israel only want deliverance from their bad situation, not deliverance from the sin that has caused the problem in the first place.  “To ask God for comfort and not cleansing is only to sow seeds of selfishness that will eventually produce another bitter harvest.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I was trying to pray early this morning about the difficult situation that is going on at GBC the thought came to me that the entire church needs to be praying to the Lord to search their hearts so that God can uncover in all of our hearts any sin that is causing the problems that are going on at our church.  There seems to be two sides two this problem, and the sides seem to divided into the difference in ages.  A spiritual revival is certainly what is needed in our church, a revival that will cause every person to get on their knees and cry out to God for forgiveness, for their selfishness and seek the Lord’s will at GBC.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Ask the Lord to search my heart.

12/21/2009 8:15 AM

    

Shamgar: Persistent Courage

12/19/2009 11:40 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                              Focus:  Shamgar:  persistent courage

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Judges 3:31

            Message of the verses:  “31 ¶  After him came Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad; and he also saved Israel.”

            There is not much known about this man, but it is probably true that he was a judge in Israel.  It is not know how long it took him to kill the 600 Philistines, but that he used an oxgoad is for certain.  An oxgoad is something that was used to make the oxen work.  It has a sharp metal point on one end and a spade like thing on the other end used to clean the plow.

            The oxgoad was probably the only weapon that he had, but put in the hands of God it was enough to get the job done that the Lord wanted him to do.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have always said that Balaam’s donkey is my favorite character in the OT, and the reason is that his donkey was available to do what the Lord wanted her to do, and not argue or make any excuses, but just did what she was called to do.  The same could probably be said of Shamgar and his oxgoad.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Trust that what I have the Lord will use for His glory.

12/19/2009 11:50 AM

Ehud the Deliverer (Judges 3:15-30)

12/18/2009 11:35 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                        Focus:  Ehud, the deliverer

Bible Reading & Meditation                        Reference:  Judges 3:15-30

            Message of the verses:  “15  But when the sons of Israel cried to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer for them, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man. And the sons of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab. 16  Ehud made himself a sword which had two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his cloak. 17  He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man. 18  It came about when he had finished presenting the tribute, that he sent away the people who had carried the tribute. 19  But he himself turned back from the idols which were at Gilgal, and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." And he said, "Keep silence." And all who attended him left him. 20  Ehud came to him while he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you." And he arose from his seat. 21  Ehud stretched out his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh and thrust it into his belly. 22  The handle also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly; and the refuse came out. 23  Then Ehud went out into the vestibule and shut the doors of the roof chamber behind him, and locked them. 24  When he had gone out, his servants came and looked, and behold, the doors of the roof chamber were locked; and they said, "He is only relieving himself in the cool room." 25  They waited until they became anxious; but behold, he did not open the doors of the roof chamber. Therefore they took the key and opened them, and behold, their master had fallen to the floor dead. 26  Now Ehud escaped while they were delaying, and he passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah. 27  It came about when he had arrived, that he blew the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was in front of them. 28  He said to them, "Pursue them, for the LORD has given your enemies the Moabites into your hands." So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan opposite Moab, and did not allow anyone to cross. 29  They struck down at that time about ten thousand Moabites, all robust and valiant men; and no one escaped. 30  So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land was undisturbed for eighty years.”

            In his commentary on this section Dr. Wiersbe points out four problems that Ehud had to overcome in order to pull off the killing of this evil king of Moab and then leading the defeat of the armies of Moab thus setting Israel free from their being ruled over the Moabites.

            Ehud probably had a disabled right hand and thus was left-handed.  It is the way that the wording is in the Hebrew that makes one think that his right had was disabled.

            He had to go with the men who were paying the tribute to Eglon, and then he had to get alone with him so he could kill him, then he had to escape, and then he had to gather Israel for battle against the Moabites and win the battle.

            The Lord was with Ehud and used his disability as an advantage, for because of it Ehud trusted the Lord with his plan and the Lord blessed Israel through Ehud.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I believe that it is my weakness that God uses to bring glory to Himself through me, and the reason is because if He used my strengths then I would probably want the credit and not give glory to the Lord.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Trust the Lord with my weakness so that He can use them to bring honor and glory to Himself through these weaknesses.  Paul said “when I am weak, them I am strong.

12/18/2009 12:08 PM

           

Eglon the Oppressor (Judges 3:12-14)

12/17/2009 8:09 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                                               Focus:  Eglon the oppressor

Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Judges 3:12-14

                Message of the verses:  “12 ¶  Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD. So the LORD strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the LORD. 13  And he gathered to himself the sons of Ammon and Amalek; and he went and defeated Israel, and they possessed the city of the palm trees. 14  The sons of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.”

                The book of Judges has some repeating scenarios in it as mentioned in an earlier SD.  The highlighted portion of verse twelve is familiar to readers of Judges, as the downward spiral begins again seeing Israel doing evil in the sight of the Lord, and then the Lord rose up another nation to oppress Israel.  This time it was the Moabites, who were actually realities of Israel through Abraham’s nephew Lot.  This oppression will last for eighteen years.

                The city of palm trees probably refers to Jericho even though it had not been rebuilt at this time it probably served as a good point for military operations.

                One has to wonder how the nation of Israel continued to fail in serving the Lord because that had such a rich history starting with Abraham and moving on to Moses delivering them from bondage, and then they were given the covenants, commandments and the priesthood along with the Levites, yet the continued to fail the Lord and continued to fall into idolatry. 

                Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I suppose that an even more difficult question to answer is why have I fallen into temptation when I have more than what Israel had at the time of the Judges, for not only do I have all that they had, but I live on the other side of the cross and have a completed Bible and also I have the Holy Spirit living in me to guide me and to fill me so there is no excuse for me with the exception of the old nature that fights against everything that I want to do good.  Paul wrote of this struggle in Romans chapter seven, as he had the same struggles, yet he overcome temptation to become probably the greatest believer ever to live, and claims that he was the worst sinner ever to live.  There is hope for me.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Continue to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
2. Give myself to the Lord for worship and service.
3. Continue to learn contentment.
4. Trust the Lord to guide my path.
5. Put on the spiritual armor for the battle today:  The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.

12/17/2009 9:11 AM