Battlefield Records (Part A)

The apostles were not so quick to draw attention to themselves. Who could blame? Who could blame them after having walked with Jesus?

I mean, how do you bring any attention to yourself after that? So Paul writes, who is sufficient for these things? Not that we are sufficient for ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. We have nothing to boast except God.

Now you can believe that and you can embrace it. It's still going to be a tough going sometimes, waiting for God, following His lead. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in Judges chapter 5 as he begins a new message called Battlefield Records. We are in Judges chapter 5, if you have your Bibles.

Battlefield Records, that's what we are going to center some of our attention on in this fifth chapter. Because in this Song of Deborah, she gives us more information about the battle that took place in chapter 4, when General Sisera of the Canaanites came out to war against the people of God and were defeated. And so, the writer shifts from the narrative of chapter 4 and now gives us this song, this poem, that's the word I want, about how the Jews defeated the Canaanites. Now we have to remember that the Hebrew poetry is not exactly like our English poetry or Western civilization's poetry. It has reoccurring themes, it repeats itself, it has an outburst of praise or prayer within the song, it gives historical information, it goes all over the place.

And the personal pronouns in this poem of Deborah, this Song of Deborah, which you could be recited or you could sing it, indicates the personal pronouns that she indeed is the author. And these poems were given to the people so that they could remember their own history, that they could celebrate it, that they could learn from it, that they could teach their children, that they could better serve the Lord. That's the ideal and it's not much different today in the New Testament church. We tell our children Bible stories, we give them songs, we're doing everything we can to equip them, to arm them against all that's going to come against them from the world, that doubt, the leaven, the corruption of the world's ideas. You know, Mom and Dad has taught you this, but we know better. Remember, Mom and Dad is dumb compared to us and all of a sudden all those Bible lessons, all the time you spend in the children's ministry and in the sanctuary begin to crack and show signs of defeat. And out comes the white flag many times.

Well, we are working to keep that from happening just as many of the righteous Jews were working to keep it from happening. And so in those days, the songs were used to celebrate and to train and to equip a child and the adult alike. They were also entertaining. You need, you know, boredom can be a very dangerous thing. The idle hands of the devil, the idle hands of the tools of the devil, that's how it goes.

Today, most of our entertainment is centered on gore and special effects and almost history and not very trustworthy. In fact, with the Internet now and everybody is a historian, everybody is a philosopher, everybody is a scholar. You had so much information coming at you. Who's telling the truth?

You still have to do your research. You just can't trust what you hear. You're watching now and listening to me. Well, there's truth in that because you've got the Word of God before you as where I'm going to be speaking from in just a moment. And so this song, it cheers along the heroes of the faith and it rebukes those who did not show up for duty. It includes also, of course, God's miraculous intervention on the battlefield. So we look at verse one, then Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinaim, sang that day, saying, when leaders lead in Israel, when the people willingly offer themselves, bless Yahweh. Well, whenever this rhythm is absent, this rhythm of the leaders and the people, the leaders leading and the people following, when that rhythm is absent, there is defeat and there is unnecessary loss.

Even the world knows this. The Jews had that Ark of the Covenant and in that Ark, that chest that was under the mercy seat of God, the mercy seat of God was over it all. Because without that, there would be no word of God. It would be no provision of God. There would be no authority of God through his servants, that mercy seat. But those items in the chest, the writing, the provision, the authority, they were to teach the people then and they're supposed to teach us now. I fear many Christians could care less about the contents of the Ark. Oh, they speak about the word so many of them. They want the provisions, but when it comes to the authority, that one they have to sign off on.

But the other two they love, not all Christians, but many. It's a fact. To be a leader, you have to make unpopular decisions and stick by them.

Fact. To be led, you have to follow unpopular decisions and stick by them, that decision that you make to follow. Or else nothing gets done right and wherever and throughout history, this case is made throughout history amongst the righteous and the unrighteous alike.

Wherever this is abandoned, there's disaster. David will write in his song, the God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spoke to me. He who rules over men must be just ruling in the fear of God and he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, like the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining rain.

Very poetic, very beautiful, very romantic, but to put it into action, a whole other story because the critics will come up from sources that you never expected. Loyalty should mean something. Leadership should mean, these are not philosophies.

When leaders lead in Israel, when the people willingly offer themselves, bless Yahweh. That's what she wrote in her song. Very poetic, very meaningful. And again, wherever leadership and loyalty are absent, defeat and unnecessary loss are sure to follow. I don't know, it's an added irritant when something is just so avoidable. We have words like, that's dumb, that's stupid, that's nonsense.

We should invest ourselves in avoiding and skipping the dumb steps as best we can. Yes, we make mistakes out of ignorance or other reasons, we make them, but they should not be what we practice. We may look at this verse and we may say, when Jesus is allowed to reign in the heart of the Christian and submit to his lordship, blessed be the name of the Lord, God is glorified. All of this, all of this in this one verse in contrast to those Jewish warriors that did not show up to make war.

Because in this chapter we're going to get the tribes that said, you know what, I'm not interested. Verse 3, she sings, hero kings give hero princes I, even I will sing to Yahweh, I will sing praise to Yahweh God of Israel. So of course there's some energy in the song or the poem, however you want to take it.

It's a poem if you don't know the tune, it's still beautiful, but if you have a tune to go with it, it's a song now. And it's hero kings give hero princes, it's a call to worship. The somebodies are called into worship because through those somebodies everybody should get what is being said. Verse 4, Yahweh, when you went out from Sierra, when you marched from the field of Edom, the earth trembled and the heavens poured, the clouds also poured water, the mountains gushed before Yahweh, this Sinai before Yahweh God of Israel. She has no hesitation about mentioning the covenant name of the Lord, that makes the song beautiful. This is all about God, she's saying, what he has done. God wants to lead us on the battlefield, that's what Deborah is saying and he did it. And that's what the whole Bible is telling to the believers, God wants to lead on the battlefield. And he wants to lead in preparation for the battlefield.

Good times and bad and peace and war. And so she gives the Jews a brief review of their march through the wilderness and she's saying, Yahweh was with us in the wilderness, our ancestors. And he was with our ancestors into the promised land known as Canaan. And he's with us now because we just beat the Canaanites.

He never left them and he won't leave us. If the leaders are led by God, the leaders will lead the people and the people will follow. Victory will be remembered in song. She makes in verse 4 and 5 a reference to the water and the rain and the river.

These are the instruments of creation God will use and she'll get back to it in the song. This is what God used to defeat the Canaanites. They never saw it coming, they had 900 chariots. They thought they were invincible. They said, this is the time to use chariots, we have nothing to worry about. And they were wrong because creation is in subjection to God.

And he'll use it and we'll come to it. Verse 6, in the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were deserted and the travelers walked along the byways. Village life, verse 7, ceased. It ceased in Israel until I, Deborah, arose, arose a mother in Israel. A mild degree of boasting there.

That's okay. Nehemiah was notorious for it. It wasn't the wrong kind of boast. It was the sort of a rejoice. I, Deborah, rose up because God sent me.

That's what's in her song. Same with Nehemiah. I was the man God appointed. In fact, the apostles were not so quick to draw attention to themselves. Who can blame? Who could blame them after having walked with Jesus?

I mean, how do you bring any attention to yourself after that? So Paul writes, who is sufficient for these things? Not that we are sufficient for ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. We have nothing to boast except God.

Now, you can believe that and you can embrace it. It's still going to be a tough going sometimes, waiting for God, following his lead. Well, verses 6 through 8 describe the dreadful social conditions, not because so much of corruption in the society, but because of the oppressors surrounding the people in the society. Jabin, king of Hazor, was defeated in chapter 4. But even in Shamgar's day, that gallant warrior who killed 600 men in a battle, I mean, still the roads, the highways, the people had to watch themselves because they were oppressed. There was lawlessness. There was the threat of abuse from the ruling peoples of the Canaanites. God warned his people that these were the type of punishments that would come if they departed from following him.

Leviticus 26, for example, verse 22, I also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number, and your highways shall be desolate. God is saying, I will withdraw blessings if you withdraw from Me. When we read in the scripture that who has hardened his heart against the Lord and prospered, this is a very serious verse. The temptation to be resentful towards God is very easy. You just have to pile up enough defeats or denials in your life. You've covered enough stuff and don't get it, you begin to get a little bitter. You see someone else who has what you want and you can't lay your hands on it, you can become very resentful towards God if not careful.

And then the next step is you harden yourself towards God, and the Bible says you won't prosper. That won't work. Don't do it.

Just take it. Endure it. Trust God.

Live within your means. Take up your cross and follow Him. You know, that's so easy to say in the early days, but as the decades roll by, it gets a little tough. God knows that and He's able to minister even in those times. God can minister when you're sure He's not ministering. He's still ministering because He can and He does. Sounds like a contradiction.

It is not. Verse 8, they chose new gods when there was war in the gates. Not a shield or a spear was seen among 40,000 in Israel. Now those who would sing the song, they knew what these things meant, and if they didn't, someone did and they would inquire and get their answer. They would meditate and figure it out. But here in verse 8, they chose new gods. Apostasy.

Apostasy is in the house now, the house of Israel. Idolatrous hearts. The idolatrous heart decides that it can make a better God than God. You know, the God we have by revelation, we can do better.

It supposes. And this is the idolatrous heart. In Micah's day, I love those Old Testament prophets because they got to the point, they got to the truth, they got to it right away, and their opponents knew it, tried to silence them for it. They even told Amos, go preach somewhere else. We don't want to hear it anymore. Just go preach somewhere else. As they said to Micah, this prattling's got to stop. Well, he writes, he says, If a man should walk in a false spirit and speak a lie, saying, I will prophesy to you of wine and drink, even he would be the prattler of these people.

Sarcasm packed into that. A drunk could come along and you follow him, but a true prophet comes along, backs up what he's saying, oh no, we can't have him. Paul had that same problem in that region of Galatia.

He marched into that Galatian region. He gave birth to churches everywhere. He said, look at what you're following and look at, listen what I have.

Look at, listen. They did, and they said, we follow Christ. Paul went back, did more things, went back to Jerusalem, reported these things, went back to Antioch, and in his absence, they began to mingle what Paul said with falsities and other religions, or they began to turn from it all together. We find it still going on in the book of Revelation, in the first two chapters, the churches that were infested with the Balaams and the Jezebels. Paul says, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in grace, the grace of Christ, to a different gospel. Now, we have our youth, they go off again to the world, to the universities, they start mingling with the maybe watered-down Christians or abject atheists or whatever is out there that's not following the scripture. And the next thing you know, they're turning away to a different gospel. And so we say to them, I'm amazed you're turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different good news, and then Paul adds, which is not another. There are some who trouble you and want to pervert the good news of Christ.

There are people that want to trouble you. It irritates them that you are impressed by God's word and that impression has left the image of Christ on you. They want the image of Caesar on you, of anybody but Christ.

There's got to surely be room for something else to impress you. When Jesus said, give to God the things that belong to God and give the things that belong to Caesar to Caesar, that's when they gave him a coin and he said, whose image is on it? Whose impression is on it? We watch our youth and our children and our loved ones gobble up this junk and the fight is on.

And you better be fighting and not giving up or listening to them come back from the universities and pollute your mind because they'll do it. When someone learns something new, they can't wait to share it. That's fine if it's good. As it's been said, bad news has wings, while good news is still trying to find its shoes. Good news travels very slowly it seems.

But the bad news, oh boy, everybody knows the bad news right away. It says in verse 8, then there was war in the gates. Because that's what apostasy brings. They chose new gods, then there was war in the gates. That's how it reads in verse 8. And Deborah knew it.

She was a prophetess, the Spirit of God was operating in her and through her and to her. Everybody that followed the Lord understood this as we do today. Apostasy brings conflict. Conflict that you're not prepared for.

That's the next clause. Not a shield or spear was seen among 40,000 in Israel. They were weaponless.

That's why Shamgar had to use an ox goad. They couldn't have the blacksmith. The apostasy cut off the blessings from God. They weren't prepared for conflict with God.

And they weren't prepared for conflict with men. And such was the condition of the people who had chosen new gods. Such is the condition to those who go out and say, you know what, I'm tired of Christianity, it's hard. Jesus promised it would be hard. That's the whole thing about take up your cross.

But he also promised it would be fruitful. My heart, verse 9, is with the rulers of Israel who offered themselves willingly with the people. Bless Yahweh. So Deborah says, I love those men that stepped up.

Thank you, Lord. That's what she's saying in the song. She was blessed to see the leaders join the struggle. When she spoke, they could have said, you know what, so what.

Five tribes at least and a part of another tribe did just that. Yeah, we're not interested. And so the singer of the song, Deborah's song, we today, we would apply this to our heart. We would say the same thing. My heart is with the rulers of Israel who offered themselves willingly.

My heart is with the leaders who got in the fight instead of against them. Why are you doing that? That doesn't make any sense. How about doing that? Oh, man, it can't function.

It can't breathe. That doesn't mean that they're doing their own thing indifferent to everybody else. They're God's people.

Let them lead. Verse 10, she says in her song, speak, you who ride on white donkeys, who sit in judge's attire, who walk along the road. A lot of these Hebrew phrases are idioms. They're difficult to translate. They don't work if you translate them literally. And so that's why you have different translations. You have different translators trying to get at the heart of it.

And they may use different words, but most of the time, they come up with the same meaning just in a phrase in a different way. Here, the overall meaning is those with the speak to you who ride on white donkeys. Well, that was rare. I mean, it was a prized possession like having, you know, you who ride in limousines or something, you know, the people who were well-to-do, the upper class generally, and the leaders would often be part of that. He says, and who walk along the road. So you have a contrast. You have those riding white donkeys in style. And these donkeys, they weren't very big donkeys. It's kind of goofy looking to us in some ways, their feet almost dragging on the ground as they rode. But those who walk on the road, these were the commoners and the middle class people. So you had those riding white donkeys and you had those walking on the road without the white donkeys.

It would have sort of, if you think about it, it's one of the first, she'll be riding a white donkey when she comes. All right, verse 11. Thanks, those of you who are here of the stream team, thanks for helping out. Still quiet. All right, verse 11. Far from the noise of the archers among the watering places, there they shall recount the righteous acts of Yahweh, the righteous acts for his villagers in Israel, when the people of Yahweh shall go down to the gates. This far from the noise of the archers, that's relatively, you know, in the safe zone.

You're away from the combat. And among the watering places, they shall recount the righteous acts of Yahweh, the righteous acts of his villagers in Israel. Well, it's village life and around the watering hole, where the people gather and mingle and talk and the word would spread. And then he says, then the people of the Lord or of Yahweh shall go down to the gates.

That's the hub of the cities or even a village, the hub where leaders of the city would gather. And so the mighty acts of God would be discussed and would spread, and it is all part of the song of victory. Verse 12. Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake, sing a song, like Barak, and lead your captives away, son of Abinoham. It's just electricity in the song.

Awake, awake is, you know, so you get to that part. You know, every song's got a part where, not every song, there's some songs you just don't like through and through. But then there are songs you like, and in many songs there's that part that you really like. And this would be one of them, I would think, if you were singing this because of the repetition. Awake, awake, Deborah, awake, awake, sing a song, and you could just throw some energy into the song as you were at the same time enjoying the meaning. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Judges. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. If you'd like more information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there, and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app, or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today. Join us next time to continue learning more from the book of Judges, right here on Cross Reference Radio.