Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Those who don't think God approves of women taking leadership roles need to look at Deborah, who ruled Israel as a judge. Her wisdom and prophetic gift drew the entire nation. During oppressive pagan rule, she motivated Israel's troops to victory. Today, more of her remarkable story.
From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, there are lots of examples in the Bible of women being used of God at crucial times in history. Deborah is one among many.
You're right, Dave. Of course, as you know, there's a lot of controversy as to what the role of women should be in the church, but there's no doubt that historically God has mightily used women. And of course, there are also those who are famous for other reasons. I'm thinking of the woman Eunice.
The Bible indicates that she gave birth to Timothy, and the apostle Paul honors her because she passed on the faith to her son, and we can thank God for the ministry of Timothy in the New Testament. All that to say, isn't it wonderful that whether we are well known or not well known, that God nonetheless uses us all. We want you to know that this is a very special time here at Running to Win because the month of August is matching gift challenge month. Now, just imagine, some of you who perhaps have never contributed to the ministry of Running to Win, this would be a wonderful opportunity for you to give your first gift because it will be doubled. And at the end of this broadcast, I'm going to be giving you some important contact info. Meanwhile, let us always remember that God is the one to whom we are accountable, and we thank God for those who went before us historically as well as those who are running the race of life with us. And so you'll notice it says in verse six, she sent for Barak a son of Abinohom from Kadesh in Naphtali, and said to him, the Lord God of Israel commands you. Go take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun, those were the tribes that were around the Sea of Galilee, and lead the way to Mount Tabor. I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands. Those are God's words. Deborah says, I'm commanding you because God is saying, take ten thousand men, go to the Kishon River, which is actually south of the Sea of Galilee, but that was the territory that was occupied by the king of Canaan. And because he had a coalition of people together up there north of the Sea of Galilee, and they were moving south and they were occupying that part of the land. And he says, what I want you to do is to, God says, I want you to go there and take ten thousand men and go right to the River Kishon.
Kishon basically is not a deep river, it's like a creek, unless it's a rainy season. And God says, I, Deborah is speaking here the words of the Lord when she says, I will lure Sisera into your hands. She's saying, God says he will do this. Now you'll notice that she gave him both a command and she also gave him a promise that if you obeyed the Lord, victory would be certain.
And so she was a woman who was able to motivate the troops. You see, Barak was a great military leader, but he was timid, he was scared. In fact, we can see how scared he was because Barak says to her in verse eight, if you go with me, I will go, but if you don't go with me, I won't go.
Hey, is that a man speaking or what? 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 a Sisera over to a woman. Now you would think, wouldn't you, if you just read this far, that Sisera is going to be handed over to Deborah, but that's not true.
Sisera was handed over to the hands of a woman, but a different woman who's mentioned later in this chapter. My point is simply that Deborah was able to motivate people to action. She was able to encourage Barak and say that I will even go with you.
If you're too scared, I will go with you and we'll rally the troops together. Now that's the kind of leadership that gets results and our desire here at the church and throughout all of the evangelical community should be that we should have leaders that are so committed and so brave and so courageous and so wise that even the timid will be willing to follow them. She was a motivated woman, but she was a God-theoring woman. She was a believing woman.
She was a woman who trusted God. Now here's the point that you have to understand that Israel was totally outnumbered, out-financed, out-gunned. Israel had 10,000 troops with very little equipment, very few swords and shields. You remember the text says that Jabin the king and Sisera, his military commander, had 900 chariots of iron and archaeologists have shown that yes, there was iron in those days. In fact, later on you'll remember that it talks about Israel actually having to go to the Philistines in order to get their iron sharpened and to get what they needed to be able to build iron tools. And so you have an overwhelming superiority. You have 900 chariots and an undisclosed number of men.
We don't know how many, but certainly a lot more than 10,000. And here are the Israelites going to the Kaishan River, in effect, putting themselves in harm's way, politically, militarily committing suicide because this would not be a wise military move except that God had said do this. And in the midst of that, Deborah had confidence that God would deliver the enemy into their hands.
What a remarkable woman. Remember that our greatest need always is to get a new fresh revelation from God. No matter what you're going through, no matter who your enemy may be, whether real or imagined, you always need to understand that our vision of God has to be expanded.
We have to be renewed in the spirit as to what God can do and the power of God and the love of God and the care of God and the long suffering of God. Actually, the military excursion turned out this way. It has three stages and I'll tell you them briefly and then you can read them in the rest of the text at your leisure. First of all, Israel does get together 10,000 men.
Barak does. He goes to the Kaishan River. That's stage number one. And stage number two, the king of the Canaanites says to himself, this is a marvelous opportunity.
I'm going to march in and I'm going to take over. It was not even close. But the scripture says something happened. And Deborah and Barak later on sang a song. You'll notice in chapter five, verse one, on that day Deborah and Barak, son of Abinom, sang this song. Now we don't know whether or not they sang a duet or whether they sang solos or whether they taught the choir. But this is the song of Deborah. And you'll notice that she says in verse 20, from the heavens the stars fought.
She's recounting what happened that day. From the heavens the stars fought. From their courses they fought against Sisera. The river Kaishan swept them away. The age old river, the river Kaishan, march on my soul, be strong. What happened is, at a dry time of year when nobody was expecting a rain, and when it says the stars fought, it doesn't mean that the stars caused the rain.
This is very poetic here. What she's saying is that the sky began to pour rain. The Kaishan River began to flood. The 900 chariots got stuck. And the Israelites were able to rout the enemy because the king's force and coalition fell apart and everybody was trying to scramble for his own life and everybody was running. And the Israelites were able to conquer that day.
And the Bible says that God gave the enemy, important words here, God gave the enemy into the hands of the Israelites. That's step two. Step three is that Jabin dies at the hands of a woman, but it is not at the hands of Deborah. He goes into a tent and he thinks that it's a tent of a friend by the name of Heber. You know, Heber and I, we used to hang out, he said to himself. And so he goes into the tent, but Heber has a wife by the name of Jael, J-A-E-L. And Sisera is sleeping there in the tent, the military commander of the pagan Canaanites. He was so zonked and she went over and she took a tent peg and put it through his temple and nailed him to the ground. That's what you call nailing somebody. And in the Bible, with characteristic understatement says, and he died. I guess he did.
He died. And then she and Barak, they sing this marvelous song about God's deliverance and they talk about the wonder of his power. What a remarkable woman Deborah was. But we have to get this nailed in a different way.
We have to get this down to where we live. So let me give you three life transforming lessons that we can take with us today. Number one, the future of all nations ultimately is in God's hands, not ours.
Oh, I'd like to shout that from the house tops. You'll notice in the text, and I emphasize this in a previous message and you probably will hear me say it again, but please remember that it says the Lord has sold Israel into the hands of Cusham. The Lord sold Israel into the hands of Eglon. And now we read it today again in another text, chapter four, verse two. So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin, king of Canaan. And later on, when they won the victory, when Israel won the victory, it is said that God gave them a victory and delivered the enemy into Israel's hand. Who is in charge here anyway but God?
I do need to tell you that I don't know. You should maybe be careful what I say at this point, but could it be that theologically we could say that it is God who has sold us into the hands of liberal judges? It is God who is selling America into the hands of prenographers. It is God who is selling this nation into the hands of those who would want to destroy freedom of religion. Could it be that back behind all this is God and why was he doing it in Israel's time? Because of their disobedience. Might it be that this is the price of our lukewarmness and disobedience as his people? I don't want to press the point, but theologically God is in charge. We have many people today who believe that the real hope of America lies in politics. And they think to themselves that if we can just elect the right people and keep them in office and give them a Congress that supports them, we'll turn this country around.
Well, politics is important, but it is not, it is not the thing that ultimately determines our destiny as a nation. It is God. Many of you know that on five or six occasions, I've been in the Wartburg Castle where Luther translated the Bible, the New Testament into German and a tradition says that he threw an inkwell at the devil. And years ago, tour guides used to actually put a little bit of soot on the wall there because you know, it's disappointing. You pay so much to go to Europe, you have to climb so many stairs to get to the castle and then you don't even see where the inkwell landed. And so there was a little soot there in the room. But I'm not sure that he threw an inkwell at the devil.
And I'll tell you why. I don't think that there's one devil in the world who is scared to death that somebody is going to throw an inkwell at him. He doesn't say, look at that inkwell.
Boy, glad I missed that. I'm not sure that Luther threw an inkwell at the devil. In his table talks he said this, I fought the devil with ink. What he meant was I fought the devil by the translation of the Bible into the German of my time. Now there's a way to fight the devil.
My dear friend, we have to use the right weapons to fight the right battle. Is America's great problem moral? Ultimately not. Is America's great problem political? Ultimately not. The reason that we have a clash of morality is because we have a clash of gods and at the end of the day it is a spiritual battle and the fundamental question that we have to determine is the gospel of Jesus Christ being the power of God unto salvation and it is that that is the gospel and it is that that is resisted and it is that message that is yet our great hope in this country of ours. When will we learn that if there's any good news it'll probably not come from Washington.
If there's any good news it's going to be an ellipse and hearts of believers who live out their faith who understand the spiritual dimensions of the gospel and living out our faith. It is God who sells them. It is God who buys them back. Back behind history is God.
History is indeed his story. That's the first lesson. The second lesson is God doesn't take slothfulness and fear lightly. Deborah could have said to herself I'm not going to do anything until God intervenes. She was doing something and then she asked Barak to go and to get this army together and in the poem the song of Deborah you have a lot of interesting historical information that we would not otherwise know. For example we discover that there was one tribe I'm speaking now of verse 15 the last part of the verse there was one tribe by the name of Reuben who did not respond to the challenge to volunteer to help. In the districts of Reuben there was much searching of heart. Why did you stay among the campfires to hear the whistling for the flocks? In the districts of Reuben there was much searching of heart you know and they said to themselves let's have a discussion as to whether or not we should participate and the discussion went on and on and on and the problem was that they were fearful and they didn't help and it's listed in God's Word. You find also other tribes that did not come through. For example in verse 17 it says Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan. Now Gilead was beyond the Jordan so we might be willing to pardon them and Dan that was one of the tribes why did he linger by the ships?
Asher remained on the coast and stayed in his coves. He didn't come to help and God lists it. I would not want to read God's books and discover my name was there as someone who refused to get involved in the cause of righteousness and the proclamation of the gospel. That would not be the place where you'd want to show up and yet God takes note of it. He thanks and gives credit to those who are willing to go to battle and he identifies those who either were too fearful, too self-absorbed to become involved in the prevailing ideas and battles of the day. So God takes note of faithfulness and unfaithfulness.
But there's a final lesson and that is that God uses darkness to try to show people how much we need the light and that is the bottom line isn't it? Why all of this slavery? Why are people in subjection to pagans? Why all this? God says I'm trying to get your attention.
I'm trying to get your attention. Don't you see that you have to call to me and first of all they were enslaved eight years then 18 and the next time 20 because they were getting slower and slower at their repentance and therefore God was not intervening on their behalf and I need to simply say to you and to me today that the worse things get the louder God is shouting asking us to turn to him and what is true as a nation is actually true too of individuals. I just want you to know that some of you have come here today with with all kinds of sin on your conscience. Some of you have been experiencing defeat.
Some of you have addictions. Some of you have struggled with issues in your life and with sin in your life for years until you've concluded that there's no way out of your dilemma. What is God trying to do? Why all this guilt? Why all this emptiness? Why all this dissatisfaction? What's going on here? I'll tell you what's going on is God is shouting to us as individuals and saying look to me be willing to pay any price because you remember what the bottom line is human beings will not change until the darkness becomes unbearable until they desperately cry out to God and it is then that God says I will intervene.
They will not change until their misery, their misery is greater than their fear of exposure, their fear of honesty and reality. So God shouts to us. He shouts to us by his blessings but he also shouts to us by our sins and by our defeats. Jesus said that those who come to the light, they are the ones who love the light and it is there in the light, painful though the light is. It is there that there is healing and restoration and forgiveness and we know that the intervention of God through Jesus Christ took place so that we could be forgiven and reconciled to God and those of us who know Christ as Savior that we might be able to walk with him and enjoy fellowship one with another if we walk in the light. All of that becomes a possibility because of the coming of Jesus Christ to this world. As children we used to stand under yard lights or street lights.
The further you get away the farther the shadow is cast and the longer the shadow is but the closer you get to the light if you're right under it there's almost no shadow at all. I guess what I'm trying to say is I urge all of us individually and collectively to come to the light to be willing to say God here I am. Do with me as seems good in your sight. I lay down all of the self-protection devices that I have and I simply want to be exposed to you because I know that you use darkness as a means to come to the light. God says that to us nationally.
He also says that to us individually. So I need to ask you today where are you walking exactly? Scripture says in the book of Proverbs that the wicked stumble and they don't know what it is that they stumble over because they're walking in darkness. Jesus the light of the world says to us today come to me to be saved.
Come to me to be healed from your afflictions of sin. Come to me the light of the world. With that Deborah would agree. The wonderful poem that she and Barak composed ends this way. So O Lord may all your enemies perish but may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength.
The light is painful but only the light can heal. Isn't that beautiful to know that Deborah and Barak won such a great victory but most importantly they gave God the glory. And we here at Running to Win want to indicate that our own hearts are always God-ward. That is to say we thank God for the expansion of this ministry.
We give him the glory but as you've heard me say possibly on another occasion we give God the glory but it is people just like you who deserve our thanks. Have you ever considered a gift to the ministry of Running to Win? I was explaining to someone on the phone last night that thanks to the gifts of many people we are now in 50 different countries in seven different languages. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this broadcast if you have never contributed this would be a great time to make that contribution because your gift will be doubled. We have some people who are willing to say we're willing to double all gifts up to $90,000.
So whether your gift is small or large it will be doubled. Now for some contact info I hope that you have a pen or a pencil handy because here we go. Simply go to rtwoffer.com.
That's rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. From my heart to yours I want to thank you so much in advance for helping us. We appreciate so much your prayers, your investment because of the ministry of Running to Win you have a part in sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world. Thank you for being a part of this ministry.
You can write to us at Running to Win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's road map for your race of life. Pastor Erwin Lutzer concluding A Woman Against the World the story of the times of Deborah a judge in Israel. It's the third of 12 messages on the topic we've been down this road before taken from the book of Judges. Next time we'll find out what happens when God comes calling. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
