Morning devotional_Judges 4_The Lurking Master

 

 

1. Summary of the chapter. 

After the death of Judge Ehud, Israel sins again and God sells them to Jabin, king of Canaan, and they suffer for twenty years.
Deborah the Judge rises up and, with Barak, defeats the army of Jabin (king of Canaan), and Sisera(Jabin's military minister) is put to death by Jael, the wife of Hebel.

 

 

2. What God is saying to me today. 

(1) The Christ of resurrection life is with you, and contends for you. 

And Ehud died, and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD.
(Judges 4:1)

When the man of God, Ehud, died, the children of Israel fell back into sin. 
But the man of God to me, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, is not a dead god. 
He is the One and Only God, risen God, my Savior, my Christ. 

Therefore I do not fall into sin again. 

Jesus, the Judge of the Judge, lives with me in resurrection life. 
Christ becomes my envoy, defeating my enemies. 

I will be thoroughly Christ-focused in my behavior.

 

 

(2) Overcome with a prayer that cries out in distress.  
So the LORD sold them into the hands of Jabin, a king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Haggoyim.
Because he had nine hundred iron chariots and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the LORD for help.
Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time.
She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites came to her to have their disputes decided.
(Judges 4:2-5)

After Ehud's death, the Israelites sinned again, and the result was 20 years of suffering. 
At the end of their suffering, the Israelites cried out again. 
And God gave them victory. 

 

I need to cry out even more among people who are filled with the consequences and suffering of sin.
I will go to my prayer mountain to cry out.
continue to cry out against poverty, disease, ignorance, my family, my church, my nation, and the fulfillment of my mission.

 

 

(3) He will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. 

"Very well," Deborah said, "I will go with you. But because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the LORD will hand Sisera over to a woman"...... (Judges 4:9)

The name of Jabin, the king of Canaan, was Sisera. 
He was strong.
He led 900 iron chariots, the latest in weaponry, into battle. 

 

God said He will go with the Judge. 
But at the same time, He said He would give the decisive victory to a woman. 

 

God sent the judges Deborah and Barak to fight, but He did not give them the decisive victory. 
Rather, He placed the victory in the hands of a woman, the most despised class in ancient society. 

God ended the strongest of the day at the hands of the weakest. 
(In the next chapter, the judges who witnessed this praise God's power, not the strength of the army)  

 

reminded of the words of 1 Corinthians. 
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are,
so that no one may boast before him.

(1 Corinthians 1:26-29)

So is my calling. 

I have no strength. 
But He who called me is mighty. 
The same God who made the least of these to triumph over the greatest will also accomplish the work of my calling.
In God's time, in God's way, God will fulfill it. 

God will do the work of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, making disciples, and planting missional churches.

 

 

3. Prayer

Heavenly Father, my Lord and Master. 
I love you and thank you.

I praise you for your wisdom in raising up the warriors after Israel's long cry, but ultimately ending the battle at the hands of Jael, Hezekiah's wife. 
God will do it. 
God will accomplish it all. 
In God's time, in God's way, God will bring the work of world missions to the end. 
In Jesus' name,

Amen.