Unwanted but Needed (Part B)

And when a person makes a vow, the New Testament really sort of says, you know, it's an indication your faith is not where it's supposed to be. And the Old Testament was a little different, but really, to me, not too much. I try not to make vows. Lord, if you will do this, because I have in the past, and it's been a rough ride, and God has always been faithful, but boy was it scary.

So I'd rather just live with what I have. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Rick is currently teaching through the book of Judges.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will continue his message called, Unwanted but Needed, in Judges chapter 11. Saying, please let me pass through your land, but the king of Edom would not heed, and in like manner they sent to the king of Moab, but he would not consent, so Israel remained in Kadesh. So the Jews, under Moses, were trying to get across the desert into the Jordan so they could cross over. Edom and Moab said, you can't come through, and if you do, we're going to go to war against you, and Japheth is telling this story. Verse 18, and they went along through the wilderness and bypassed the land of Edom and the land of Moab, came to the east side of the land of Moab and encamped on the side of Arnon, but they did not enter the border of Moab, for Arnon was on the border of Moab.

Now you may say, that's just a lot of heavy-duty reading, and you are right. Verse 19, and then Israel sent messengers to Sihon. Now he's getting to, you know, where they got the land. Israel sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, not Ammon with two Ms in our language, but Amor, the Amorites, who are different people.

We discussed that a little bit last session. King of Hejban. That's a nice name for a husband. Instead of, you know, king of the castle, wives, you can call him king of Hejban. All right, I just thought it was cute.

Anyway, coming back to this. And Israel said to him, please let us pass through your land into our place. Now verse 20, but Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. So Sihon gathered all his people together, encamped in Jiz, and fought against Israel. And that is where Sihon loses, and Israel takes this land. And you remember the two and a half tribes of Israel said to Moses, we kind of like this land. We don't want to cross over the Jordan.

We want to stay here. And it was granted to them under the condition that they warred with their brethren in the promised land. So he's setting the record straight. Now the Ammonite king at this time, listening to Japheth's defense, he doesn't really care. He's going to go to war. His mind is made up. But we're getting that the type of character Japheth is. He's not this gangster out there robbing people.

He's a smart cookie. Verse 21, and Yahweh God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel and they defeated them. Thus Israel gained possession of all the land of the Amorites who inhabited that country. Verse 22, they took possession of all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to Jabbok and from the wilderness to Jordan.

Now what I get out of this is as I'm reading the names of these rivers is that there are some hotter names coming up for me to read. So this is the history of captured territory in war. Verse 23, and now Yahweh God of Israel has dispossessed the Amorites from before his people. Should you then possess it? God delivered the land into our hands from the Amorites, but here you come and you want to take it from us. This is not right. And you know this.

He's going to bust him a little more. Verse 24, will you not possess whatever Chemosh your God gives you to possess? So whatever Yahweh our God takes possession of before us, we will possess. I love it. I love it. He says, live with it. He says, listen, if your God gave you a victory, you'd be, ooh, God gave this to me, and you're not going to give it up. Well, Yahweh gave this to us.

You don't have no problem. It's a role reversal. You have no problem if the roles were reversed, but they're not. Now Chemosh was the God of Moab. Now that's kind of important to the story, possibly. The Ammonites, Molech, was their champion God. So Jephthah, he indicates the wrong deity, assigns the wrong deity to the Ammonites. So he's either, you know, kind of careless and just, I don't care, whoever your God is, or intentionally he's insulting him.

And I like that one more. So verse 25, and now are you any better than Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against Israel? Did he ever fight against them? Well, see, he's a master, again, a masterful statement. He says, you know Balak.

It's legendary around here. Three hundred years ago, people are still talking about how he never fought with the Jews with swords. He sent the women in. We've covered that quite a bit through our Old Testament studies. But Jephth brings it up to say Balak was smart enough to keep away.

It's veiled, you know, you should do the same thing. Verse 26, while Israel dwelt in Heshbon and its villages, Aurore is one, one hard to pronounce. It's not easy to pronounce Aurore.

You're not geared for that. And its villages, and in all the cities along the banks of Arnon, for three hundred years, why did you not recover them within that time? He's another here. He says, I'm sorry, grounds for war has expired.

You missed it by three hundred years. Oh, he's like, what a doofus. He thinks we're going to just like, okay, we're here.

We'll just take our pots and pans and leave everything for you. Verse 27, therefore, I have not sinned against you, but you wronged me by fighting against me. May Yahweh, the judge, render judgment this day between the children of Israel and the people of Ammon. So God gets you because you're wrong and I'm right. And it's very important to be right.

And we all know that because who here tries to be wrong unless you're trying to make trouble? And so he says, you've had centuries, you've missed it. Verse 28, however, the king of the people of Ammon did not heed the words of Jephthah, which Jephthah sent him. Well, it's war.

War means broken hearts. Jephthah tried to avoid this. This aggression could not be ignored. Evil had to be resisted.

And that is, that principle applies to us also. Verse 29, then the spirit of Yahweh came upon Jephthah and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed through Mizpah of Gilead. And from Mizpah of Gilead, he advanced toward the people of Ammon. Now we're already told in earlier, the previous chapter, that they've already come to striking distance, the Ammonites. And so Jephthah, he advances towards them. Confirmation from God, that God is with them.

He's got it. The spirit of the Lord is come upon him. And it's going to be a little like it was with Gideon, and sometimes with us. You know, we just know the Lord has got this. And then the roller coaster starts going down.

And he says, ah, maybe he doesn't, maybe he doesn't. And he's going to have some of that. So they started the war with Jephthah. But he's taking the war to them.

And I like that. He is on the attack. This aggressive tactic is probably his style, why he is legendary, has this reputation amongst his own people. And that's why they said, get Jephthah. We need someone to fight to be our general, get Jephthah, because he knows how to do it.

But without the spirit of the Lord upon him, his aggressive style would have failed. Samuel will bring up Jephthah in a good light. He will mention that the Lord sent Jephthah. He will also mention others, Barak and Gideon. And of course, Hebrews 11 touts him as a man of faith. And we're seeing why.

They have the same information we have. Verse 30 now, And Jephthah made a vow to Yahweh, and said, If you will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands. Now we pause there, mid-sentence. This shows how badly he wanted the victory. The Lord was with him. And this is what we do, you know, we begin to, the stress is on us and we begin to buckle when we need to default back to the Lord is with me. He's already made that clear. I'm going to stay with that plan and not depart from it. He's given me no reason to feel that he's departed from me.

This is part of the struggle. And so he offers to God without authority. He has really, you know, this is just a rash vow. God did not prohibit vows, but he did not demand them either. You could have just said nothing. And when a person makes a vow, in the New Testament, it really sort of says, you know, it's an indication your faith's not where it's supposed to be.

In the Old Testament, it was a little different, but really, to me, not too much. I try not to make vows. Lord, if you will do this, because I have in the past, and it's been a rough ride, and God has always been faithful, but boy, was it scary.

So I'd rather just live with what I have. If you've made a vow recently, tell me how it works out for you. I mean, we're rooting for you so long as it's wise, but this is a big lesson. This is a lesson in the Bible that says, you want to make a vow? Pay attention to this story. Verse 31. Then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, then when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be Yahweh's, and I will offer it up a burnt offering.

Well, this sounded like a good idea at the time, and most of us, I think, know the story, and you're waiting to find out, did he or did he not? Well, I'm going to spoil the ending. If you're watching online, you can fast forward and hear what I'm going to say. He's thinking this is going to impress God. He's thinking that, you know, this is a deep vow. Whatever comes out, Lord, it could be my prize bowl.

It could be whatever comes out. That's how Jephthah is thinking this. It's a silly move, and it ruins the story, and it's a little irritating. It's a lot of irritating because it infuses exposition with debate and uncertainty and frustration and unnecessarily so. Did the historian purposely leave it this way?

I think they did. There is an alternate ambiguity that belongs to the story as far as the translators go. You can render it this way, moving it from an alternate Hebrew understanding to an English understanding.

Whatever met him when he returned home would be dedicated to the Lord if a person, or I will offer it up as a burnt offering if an animal. The people who tell us this, you know, you can't just dismiss them. What you do is then say, then why didn't you translate it that way instead of leaving it like this? But you know, translation can be very difficult. There are idioms. There are just tenses, and there's all sorts of things involved.

And so we're going to go with how they have translated it, and we'll take it as it is. And I don't think that's not intimidating. It's annoying. It's not intimidating. Not anymore. Verse 32, so Jephthah advanced toward the people of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his hand. So he wins the battle.

We're not told. On the attack he is, we're not told about the slaughter, but he wipes them out. Verse 11, and he defeated them from Aroor as far as Minnith, 20 cities, and to Abel-Korimim with a very great slaughter. Thus the people of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. Verse 34, when Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing, and she was his only child.

Besides her, he had neither son nor daughter, and it came to pass when he saw her that he tore his clothes and said, alas, my daughter, you have brought me very low. You are among those who trouble me, for I have given my word to Yahweh, and I cannot go back on it. Well, they're big words of strength, right? I've given my word to Yahweh, and I cannot go back on it. They're brainless words in this situation.

They're even cruel. Even if, no matter how you interpret the story, he really has no right to subject anybody to this, but that's not how the historian has left it for us to look into it. This is not noble religion. This is blind religion that we're dealing with, and I'm pausing to say that because there are still people that have a narrow, narrow mind.

Not the narrow way of Christ, but a narrow mind when it comes to approaching life and scripture and Christianity. That's why the Proverbs says, it is a snare for a man to devote rashly something as holy and afterward to reconsider his vows. So these promises made to God, God tells us, I want you to think it through. I don't want you just rushing because you've got this emotional surge in you that you feel like your passions justify whatever comes out of your mouth. God is saying that's not the case.

I'm going to hold you accountable to that. If this were a matter of him dedicating his daughter to be a burnt offering, well, the law of the Jew had, there were legal options. They were mandated, they weren't an option really, to redeem the person. You couldn't murder somebody and then present them as an offering and call it a sacrifice. That was prohibited. So you have, we have to, there's a case where we have to preclude, we have to rule out that he killed his daughter and then offered her as a, it's hard to even say it.

Even when I'm studying, I'm like, you know what, I don't want to think like that. So never is a pledge to do evil binding for God's people. David made a pledge. You know what, if I don't get my hands on every male in Nabal's house and kill them all, may God do to me, well, you know, Abigail just diffused that whole thing. He never even got to the, you know, fence. And that was the end of that vow.

And David did not, of course, was not judged by God. He made a vow recklessly. So you have to just understand what God is trying to say to us. He's saying, tone it down.

I know, you know, you get all passionate, but you can be trouble. No one is bound to an oath of evil. If someone tries to get you to rob a bank and you say, okay, I'll do it, I promise. And then you say, you know what, I changed my mind.

You're free. You don't have to know I'm sorry, I gave a vow, I got to go rob the bank. So I hope that helps us understand as we peel the layers off of this. I never believed that he offered his daughter that way, but I do believe he created a big problem for her and himself. Well, it's verse 36. So she said to him, my father, if you have given your word to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out from your mouth, because Yahweh has avenged you of your enemies, the people of Ammon. So what we get out of this is that they have a great relationship. He's a good father. And she's, dad, whatever, you know, I'm with you. This unnamed maiden is a remarkable person and a remarkable woman, that too, but she's a person that's remarkable. And she seeks to help her father fulfill his foolish, his dumb word. Verse 37, then she said to her father, let this thing be done for me.

Let me alone for two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains and be well my virginity, my friends and I. Now, the historian, if you were to say to him, what, why didn't you tell us if he did it or not? I think the historian would have said, you're crazy. Of course he didn't do it.

We're Jews, we don't do that. Didn't you see that he knows the scripture? He would have known those other sections.

He just knew about land rights or something and war? Don't ask me that. That's what I think kind of answer. I would have given it, but then I wouldn't have written it this way. I would have got to the point right away, because I don't like suspense.

We are in verse 37. She says, let me be well my virginity. Well, if she were about to be slaughtered and made a burnt offering, you think she'd be welling her virginity? I think there'd be a lot of other things. I think she'd be upset about some other things. It's like, oh, you know, I'm not going to get to make love to someone and have kids.

Bummer. I think, what, are you going to kill me? Listen, I'm going to go with my girlfriends for two months in the mountains and then we're going to keep going and not come back. That's what I think she would have said. So this more celibacy and childlessness is the curse that she has got to endure because of her foolish dad's vow.

Who is an otherwise great man? But this just messed it all up. So these words are key, that she's bewailing her virginity.

That's a key word to understanding what's going on. And it's emphasized, it's echoed in verse 38. And she is memorialized for obeying her father and in this society for a woman to voluntarily be childless for the Lord.

Anything related to him was monumental. It's paramount to a man going to war and getting valor for the Lord. She, in that sense, was offering her life as a sacrifice. And there is no knowledge in further scriptures of anything pointing to this, and it would have been. Somebody would have called this out later on as an shameful thing in Israel. Now, there is brutality in the book of Judges, and we'll come to that, but that's not the same thing. And it's not done by the hand of a man of God who is in the book of Hebrews as a man of faith, a man who is filled with the Spirit of God, who is raised up by God, and so we're not going to charge them.

However, there are those who are inflexible. They're inconsiderate. They're Bible prudes, if you would.

They will protest, yeah? Well, he said, burn offerings. That's what the Bible says. Well, beware of that, because Jesus said, beware the leaven of the Pharisees. And when the disciples took it literally, he got on their case about that. Yeah, you're so dumb.

Didn't I just teach you about this? He straightened them out. Listen, you've got to use your brains when you come to Scripture. I'm not talking about bread. That's what he was saying to them. Mark chapter 9, he says, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. If you take that literally, then the fire can't burn the worm. Then it's not fire. So you've got a problem here. You've got to think it through. So if you say, no, there's a worm, and he's just going to eat you, gnaw on you for the rest of eternity, and you're going to burn at the same time. Well, that's not what it means.

And so just be careful with a, I would recommend you not do that. Are there scholars that say, no, he did it? Yeah, there are. But the strength of there is just on that one statement. They have nothing else to support that statement.

And they don't do that in other areas of Scripture, as my observation is. So again, I am right. Verse 38, so he said, go, and telling her daughter, his daughter, go. And he sent her away for two months. And she went with her friends and bewailed her virginity on the mountains, and that she's not going to have children.

And this, again, was a big deal. And it would have been almost foolish if, you know, well, I got to get back. I said two months, I got to get back. They're going to cut my throat and gut me and put me on an altar and cook me. Let me pause here. I'm not, I've gone through this in my head. Am I just looking at this from a 21st century view of what is barbaric and what is not?

Or am I putting myself there at the time? Well, if I put myself there at the time, I've got the, I've got the law. And it would have been murder, not a sacrifice. And it would have been a very sad, and the village people would have rose up and said, we can't, we don't do this.

You go over the Molech and Chemosh and they would do things like that. But we don't, we don't do this. In fact, we won't hear about human sacrifices until we get to Ahaz and Manasseh, in Israel, that is.

We hear about some of the others doing it. Well, verse 39, and it was so at the end of two months that she returned to her father and carried out his vow with her which he had vowed. She knew no man and it became a custom in Israel.

You see, again, it's emphasized. She didn't know a man and it became a custom. Well, killing girls didn't become a custom. She was honored as just a champion of her word and submission and just a lot of things. But it was a big mistake on Jephthah's part, and we don't know what else happened.

Verse 40, that the daughters of Israel went four days each year to lament the daughter of Japheth the Gileadite. And that is her condition. So I don't think there's much else to say about any of this.

Certainly he would have known the story of Abraham and Isaac and knew that God is not into that and would not have crossed that line. And so that's it. That's all I've got to say about that tonight. That was easier than what I was anticipating.

I was really planning to really go into these long rabbit trails. But again, Jephthah is applauded as a hero of the faith and I think he would have forfeited that had he carried out the vow. As we would think it reads, I think that he would have exercised his option out of killing his daughter and just satisfy the oath. 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.