One summer day, some families wanted to go blueberry picking.
The one family had a few younger children who were too young to
help and so they were dropped off at a babysitter.
There was one young little boy, maybe aged 4 or so.
He was not happy at having to stay with the babysitter and he
put up a lot of resistance. Verbally he fussed and
complained, but to no avail. He was little, he had no power.
His words of protest fell on deaf ears.
He had to stay at the babysitter.
The babysitter was an older girl, mature, and she tried her
best to calm him down, to bargain with him, offering him
candy and what not, to get him to comply.
I don't want candy, I want to go blueberry picking, he
complained. But he had to stay.
Nothing to be done. Sometime later that morning,
maybe mid morning toward lunch, the young boy came up to the
babysitter. The girl says, Now I would
already want the candy you wanted to offer me earlier.
The bargaining cards were not with him, they were with a
babysitter. Too often in life we forget to
hold the cards and so we do that.
And so our sermon title this morning is bargaining with God.
You ever done that? Ever pray something?
Lord, if you will, then I will. If you will do this for me, then
I will do that for you. Ever done that?
I'm not saying it's sin to bargain with God in that sense.
But what if the promises we make are wrong?
What if the promises we make are not thought through well?
And we thought, oh, what did I promise?
We're continuing our sermon series this morning in the book
of Judges. And in the next few sermons,
we'll be covering longer portions of Scripture, so we'll
be skipping some parts. Last Sunday, we finished the
life of Gideon and his son Abimelech.
When Gideon died, Abimelech came on the scene and we learned that
he wasn't very bad leader, a very evil man.
He had a very tragic end. Well, after Abimelech, there's a
man named Tola, and then there's Jair.
Very little is mentioned. They only have a few verses, and
so we will skip those leaders. In today's passage, we find the
people of Israel again in a time of idolatry.
And the main character of the story this morning is a man
named Jephthah. And in today's scripture we will
find quite a bit of bargaining going on.
One commentator that I read mentions there's five different
episodes of bargaining happening from chapter 10, verse 6 to
chapter 12, verse 7. Bargaining with God is something
that many people did in the Old Testament.
People still do today. But for instance, I'll mention
one in the book of Samuel, chapter one, we find the story
of Hannah praying in the temple. She's childless and saying to
God, if you will give me a son, I will dedicate him to you.
And God blessed her, gave her a son, and she dedicated him to
the Lord. That's not sin, that's not
wrong, but we have to be very careful when we make promises to
God. What kind of promises do we make
and are they honoring to Him? On what do they all imply?
So let's begin reading this morning out of chapter 10, verse
6 in your Bibles to the end of verse 16, and we will go all the
way through chapter 12, verse 7 towards the end beginning of
chapter 10, verse 6. Then the children of Israel
again did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Bales
and Astaroths, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the
gods of Moab, the gods of the people of Ammon, the gods of the
Philistines. They forsook the Lord and did
not serve Him. So the Lord anger of the Lord
was hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the
Philistines and into the hands of the people of Ammon.
From that year they harassed and oppressed the children of Israel
for 18 years, all the children of Israel who were on the other
side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites in Gilead.
Moreover, the people of Ammon crossed over the Jordan to fight
against Judah, also against Benjamin and against the House
of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed.
And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, We have
sinned against you because we have both forsaken our God and
served the bails. So the Lord said to the children
of Israel, did I not deliver you from the Egyptians and from the
Amorites, from the people of Ammon and from the Philistines
also the Sidonians and Amalekites and Mayonites
oppressed you, and you cried out to me, and I delivered you from
their hand. Yet you've forsaken me and
served other gods. Therefore I will deliver you no
more. Go and cry out to the gods which
you've chosen. Let them deliver you in your
time of distress. And the children of Israel said
to the Lord, We have sinned due to us.
Whatever seems best to you, only deliver us this day, we pray.
So they put away the foreign gods from among them and serve
the Lord, and his soul could no longer endure the misery of
Israel. Let's pause there.
Notice the prayer in verse 15. We have sinned due to us.
Whatever seems best to you, only deliver us this day.
We pray. They're bargaining.
They're praying. Do as you see fit.
What's the first thing we notice here?
Surrender, the first thing that has to come into place if we
want to come on to God's side, we have to surrender.
We have sinned. Do to us whatever seems best to
you. Only deliver us this day.
We pray. That's desperation.
See, they are now where they should have been before they
started worshipping idols. Before we look at how bad their
situation was, let's look at back again what had happened
that made it so bad. So let's go back to verse 6.
It tells us in verse 6 they did evil in the sight of the Lord
and served the bails #2, the Ashtaroths.
And each of these nations that mentions here had their own
group of gods. The gods of Syria, the gods of
Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of Ammon, the gods of the
Philistines. They forsook the Lord, did not
serve him. Seven different God groups are
mentioned here. They had completely, totally
immersed themselves in the cultures around them.
Most likely there was not one idol they did not embrace.
They blended in well. You know how it worked well in
the first little while? Probably until it didn't.
Why 7? Why 7 different groups?
Again, going back to some commentators that you say that
the number 7 is often used as a symbol of completeness in
Scripture. So basically saying there's
nothing they didn't do, they did it all.
They had fallen perhaps to the lowest that this that they had
ever been. We do not find the children of
Israel ever having fallen lower than they were at this point.
And as we go through the story of Judges, we find toward the
end, it gets really, really, really bad.
It was worse now than it had been.
It was going to get worse yet down on.
But let's go to this story today.
So the cycle of oppression began again.
They embraced all these idols. And in time, it went badly.
For 18 years they came under oppression.
But you know, something in their minds, they remembered.
They knew they had not forgotten.
They had forgotten God, but not forgotten.
They cried out to who? The God they rejected.
It's interesting how people conveniently brush God aside in
life when it's to their advantage to brush him aside,
only to later beg him. Get Me Out of this mess that I'm
in. Please rescue me.
You know what they do after God says Nope, I'm not going to
rescue you. You go cry to those gods you
worship. You go after them now you know
what they do. We're 16.
So they put away the foreign gods from among them.
They clean house. They serve the Lord and God.
True to his character, his soul could no longer endure the
misery of Israel. He's always a God of compassion
and mercy whenever people surrender.
But he holds the cards. They ended the idol worship.
They ended it. Did they just somehow now
realize it was wrong? No.
They knew all along it was wrong.
But it was attractive, it was tempting, and they fell for it.
They knew exactly what they'd done, and before they could
expect God to rescue him, they had to do something.
The lesson here is this. For 300 years by now they had
been a nation in Canaan. They knew what happened before
they had the history. But it's so tempting and this
will work. The lessons of history were not
gone. They knew them.
God reminded them. And now God says, I'm not going
to rescue you. But then they repent, then they
change, they surrender. You know, isn't it amazing how
people know the right thing to do when they get desperate?
There's always this thing when children disobey.
They don't know exactly what Mom and Dad instructed, what mom and
Dad said. And then when they get caught,
then they bargain, then they want mercy.
But now, having repented, you know, something that did not
change the circumstances, that did not yet get them out of
their situation, they still needed help.
I've sometimes said this in the past.
Nobody needs any help in messing up their life.
We could all do that by ourselves.
If anyone tries to tell us you mind your own business, who are
you to judge me? But later, when life has fallen
apart, then we want help. I'm sorry, can you help me?
I did because and I didn't know. And excuses.
When we finally realized excuses do not work, then the next step,
hey, I know I was wrong, but I said sorry.
I apologized. That's not repentance.
That's demanding. If we do the right thing, we let
down our guard. We simply say something.
Look, I know I'm responsible. I sinned.
I put myself at your mercy. Do to me as you see fit.
Please rescue me this day. That's the prayer.
They should have prayed a lot earlier.
They had rebelled. They had worshiped idols.
Their lives are in a mess now. They're getting ready to get rid
of the mess now. They owned it.
But that doesn't fix the mess. That doesn't get them out of the
mess. They have their mess.
They own their mess. Now they need to deal with it.
Let's continue reading verse 17. Then the people of Ammon
gathered together, the very guys who oppressed them.
They gathered together and camped in Gilead, and the
children of Israel assembled together and encamped in Mizpah,
their idols. They had embraced them,
worshiped them, and a bunch of others.
Those very people had oppressed them.
Now there's a mess. Now they're going to fight
against them. A war was coming, verse 18, and
the people, the leaders of Gilead said to one another,
who's the man who will begin the fight against the people of
Ammon? He shall behead over all the
inhabitants of Gilead. They got rid of the idols.
They're back to to godly worship the life they had behave
themselves into. They now have to fight their way
out. They're in a situation where
it's only going to be a very painful way back to freedom.
You see, it's like I've said in the past, you can dig yourself
into a hole. You can't dig yourself out.
You need help to get out. It takes a lot of effort here.
They are oppressed. Now they're going to have to
fight. In Chapter 11.
There's a little small insert into the story.
It's it's something that's kind of by itself just gives us a bit
of a backdrop into the character of the guy we're going to talk
about. Let's read 11 Chapter 1 now.
Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, but he was
the son of a harlot, and Gilead begot Jephthah.
Gilead's wife bore sons, and when his wife's sons grew up,
they drove Jephthah out and said to him, You shall have no
inheritance in her father's house, for you are the son of
another woman. Then Jephthah fled from his
brothers and dwelt in the land of Tobe, and worthless men
banded together with Jephthah and went out raiding with him.
This story is just a tiny insert giving the backdrop of the
leader that the people of Israel would end up calling to help
them out of the mess that got themselves into says in verse 4.
And it came to pass after a time that the people of Ammon made
war against Israel. So here in verse 4, now we're
back to the end of the story in chapter 10, the last part there.
Now here in verse 5 and Chapter 11, it says, and so it was when
the people of Ammon made war against Israel that the elders
of Gilead went to get Jephthah from the land of Tob.
They said to Jephthah, come and be our commander that we may
fight against the people of Ammon.
Now who holds the cards? Listen, we're 7.
So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, Do you, did you not
hate me and expel me from my father's house?
Why have you come to me now when you're in trouble, in distress?
And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, That is why we've
turned to you again, to you now that you may go with us and
fight against the people of Ammon and be our head over all
the inhabitants of Gilead. You see the back and forth,
verse 9. So Jephthah said to the elders
of Gilead, if you take me back home to fight against the people
of Ammon, and the Lord delivers them to me, shall I be your
head? That's the card here.
We see this going on, verse 10, And the elders of Gilead said to
Jephthah, the Lord will be a witness.
No more idle talk. The Lord will be a witness
between us if we do not do according to your words.
Notice the reference. They had not forgotten.
They turned back to God. Now here's the reference point,
verse 11. Then Jephthah went with the
elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over
them, and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord in Mizpah.
Now they're back on track. They got this agreement, they
got the arrangement. Now it's going to work.
See, back in the earlier years when the elders of Gilead, his
brothers, rejected him and threw him out, it probably never
crossed their minds. Oh boy, we may need this guy one
day. We may have to go back to him.
He was a man of valor who's very brave, very courageous.
He had, he had, he had, he had. He's a very daring man.
But now when the idol worship had got them in this mess and
they had now repented and turned back to the Lord, it's enough to
fight their way back to freedom. They have to.
They already humble themselves. Now they go back all small and
little. And you know what that points us
to? To the next point here
demonstrate humility. It wasn't easy to convince
Jephthah. He had remembered, he had not
forgotten, he reminds them. But the balance of power now
rested with him. Just to recap, first the nation
had rebelled, gone into idol worship, 18 years of oppression,
life was a mess. They wanted God's help, God's
reluctant to help. Then they totally repent.
God then gets going with this. And so they begged God and God
provides. But the man able and qualified
to do the job, None other than Jephtah the rejected 1.
He'd been treated very badly. But now when things are dark,
can you help us? Jephthah had conditions, he has
boundaries. Let's continue reading in
Jephthah in Judges chapter 1110 eleven verse 12.
Now Jephthah gets to work. Jephthah sent messengers to the
king of the people of Ammon saying, what do you have against
me that you've come to fight against me in my land?
He's taking total ownership. He's the leader now, and he's
going to start with conversation.
He's the leader and verse 12 and on to down to verse 28.
I won't read all of that. We have this exchange through
letters, people bringing letters to the king of Ammon, The king
of Ammon bringing letters back to Jephthah, and this
conversation is going on. Jephthah is trying to reason
with the king of Ammon to avoid war.
He doesn't want war, war, but he's the leader now, so he will
do what he can to avoid it. Nothing works in the end.
King of Ammon is convinced, Nope, the land you took from us
and it wasn't actually true. If you read the story, it's not
how it happened. The king of Ammon is not honest
and he's trying to convince Jeff that, yeah, you took my land.
Jeff, this says, no, we didn't. We took what God gave us and we
didn't actually take your land, somebody else's land.
And the king of Ammon just wants it now.
And then verse 27, Judges Chapter 11, verse 27 says,
therefore Jephthah is saying I've not sinned against you, but
you wronged me by fighting against me.
So Jephthah is taking this really personal.
May the Lord the judge render judgment this day between the
children of Israel and the people of Ammon.
The die is cast. Whoever the king of Ammon did
not heed the words Jephtah sent him.
Well, now the next thing that we need to see what's important
here. It's easy to talk.
What is even heavier is when you actually need to do something
and now the fighting will begin. So you have to have courage.
First there was a surrender by the people and they had to
humble themselves. Now it will take courage.
It's easy to give way to fear in difficult times, but fear is
something that just somehow doesn't have.
He has courage. The king had insisted, Nope,
it's my land, I'm going to take it.
And Jephthah says no. And now the next step is battle.
Let's read on to chapter Chapter 11, verse 29.
We'll continue on. Then the Spirit of the Lord came
upon Jephtah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and
passed through Mizbah of Gilead. And from Mizbah to Gilead he
advanced toward the people of Ammon.
Now let's pay careful attention to what happens here.
Jephtah has some flaws of his own.
Verse 30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, if you
will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it
will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet
me when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, surely
shall surely be the Lords, and I will OfferUp as a burnt
offering. Wow, let's read verse 30 again.
If you will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands in
verse 31, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors
of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the people
of Ammon shall be surely be the Lords, and I will offer it as a
burnt offering. Did God tell him to do that?
No, God didn't tell him to do that.
He did that kind of as a bargaining with God.
God never told him to do that and it would backfire.
Well, let's continue reading Judges Chapter 11 verse 32 now
so Jeff that advanced toward the people of Ammon to fight against
them and the Lord delivered them into his hands.
The Lord did and he defeated them from a roar as far as
minutes 20 cities and to Abel Karamim with a very great
slaughter. Thus the people of Ammon were
subdued before the children of Israel.
So far so good. 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, he tore his clothes and said, Alas, my daughter, you've
brought me very low. You're among those who trouble
me, for I've given my word to the Lord and I cannot go back on
it. Let's stop there.
Did he think this through when he made that promise?
Did he think that the chances could be his only daughter would
come out of the door? What was he expecting?
Was he expecting an animal? One speaker listened to me to
mention that the Israelites in those days, their houses often
were built in a way. The animals and the people live
in the same house, except the different ends are in the animal
and was a bit lower than they were and where the people were
at. So that could have been was
expecting maybe a goat or a sheep, could have been, we don't
know. We're not told what he was
expecting, but we do know what he was not expecting.
He was not expecting his daughter.
That much we do know. You see, when we make promises,
we need to be ever so careful to think through what we promise.
So next point, promise carefully.
God had not told Jeff to make that vow.
And the story gets very complex. It's very difficult.
Not everything is clear in this story and I won't read the rest
of Chapter 11. But to summarize, his daughter
was a submissive surrendered girl and she didn't ask to be
spared from what her father had vowed to God he would do with
her or to her. So she asked her father for
permission to take a two-month leave and go with her friends
and mourn her virginity because she would never marry and have
children. It tells us in the end of
Chapter 11, at the end of those two months, just that did to her
as he had vowed to God. It's a tragic story.
In studying this, what I found interesting is different
commentators come to polar opposite conclusions of what
actually did happen. They're commentators who, on the
one hand, are fully convinced that Jephthah did in fact kill
his daughter and offer her as a burnt offering on an altar to
the Lord. Well, that's weird.
That's strange, and commentators give their reasons as follows
and the reasons they give why they believe that is human
sacrifice was widely practiced in Canaanite culture, in the
Canaanite countries, the idols that they had embraced, this
would have been very normal. We read later on the kings of
Israel did the sacrifice children to the God Molotch and
so on. Human sacrifice was common or at
least practiced, shouldn't say common, but it was widely
practiced. Many did that, and the passage
simply reads that way. So commentators say, well,
that's what happened. Then there are those
commentators who totally disagree and for the following
reasons. Well, the Israelites knew the
laws of God. Sure, they worshipped idols, but
they were not stupid. They knew what Deuteronomy said,
Deuteronomy 12, and there was a death penalty on sacrificing
people, Jeff. They would have known that it
was a capital offense. Leviticus 20 verse 2 talks about
that. It's a capital fence to offer to
sacrifice human beings. And not only that, the the New
Testament writer of Hebrews in Hebrews Chapter 11 verse 32
includes Jephthah in the Hebrew Hall of Fame.
So did he kill his daughter? Some commentators say he didn't.
Who's correct? There are those commentators who
say that the Hebrew reading of the passage of the text could be
interpreted differently based on how the wording is understood.
I'll just let's put it on the slide here.
Then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my
house to meet me when I return in peace from the people of AM
and I shall sure it shall surely be the Lords and and some
commentators said the word or can be used as well shall surely
be the Lords or I will offer it up as a burnt offering that
makes that makes a huge difference there.
So I'm not a Hebrew scholar. I'm not an authority on this
question, but was does stand out as this Jeff that made a vow
that cost him unnecessarily and put his daughter in a bad
situation. Whether he killed her and
sacrificed her or whether he dedicated her to the Lord for
for temple service or House of God service.
I will leave that open. But it's a vow he regretted, it
says in verse 39, and it was. So at the end of two months, she
returned to her father. He carried out his vow with her,
which he had vowed, and she knew no man.
At the worst, she was sacrificed as an offering, or at best she
was dedicated for service in the House of God as a virgin.
She could never marry. So whichever case that way that
may have been, it was a bad vow should not have made it.
And I won't claim either position here, but it does tell
us make promises carefully. Well, these were not the end of
Jeff, this problems. This was not the end of it.
He had been rejected before. He had lived in the land of
Tobe, did not live the best lifestyle.
Worthless characters followed. He went raiding.
That's not a good thing. The people of Gilead come to
him. We need help.
We've come back to God. We want help from the Ammonites.
We need you. And he bargains and they bargain
and they agree. And God gives the Ammonites into
his hands and and he has this experience with his daughter.
It's not a good experience. So now the lands in freedom,
right? Problems not over yet.
Let's continue reading. 12 verse one to three.
Then the men of Ephraim gathered together, crossed over to Zephan
and said to Jephthah, why did you cross over to fight against
the people of Ammon and did not call us to go with you?
We will burn your house down on you with fire.
What's that all about? Read verse 2.
And Jeff said to my people, and I were in great struggle with
the people of Ammon, and when I called you, you did not deliver
me out of their hands. So when I saw that you would not
deliver me, I took my life in my hands and crossed over against
the people of Ammon, and the Lord delivered them into my
hand. Why then have you come up to me
this day to fight against me when you think it should be
better? Then there's internal problems.
He had a hard life partly because how he was treated,
partly because his own personality and not making good
choices. Now again with other people
messing around. But one thing these Ephraimites
forgot or didn't think of, Jeff, there was not a man to be messed
with. Remember, he was a man of valor.
Things have gone well with the Ammonites, not with his
daughter. Now the men of Ephraim are
giving him a hard time telling him we're going to kill you,
burn you alive. And here Jephthah does
something. It's not judged, it's not right
or wrong, it's not mentioned, but I question his, his, his
path. Let's read verse 412, verse 4,
chapter 12. Now Jephthah gathered together
all the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim.
And the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim because they said the
Ephraimites said, You Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among
the Ephraimites and among the Monasites.
The Gileadite seized the Fords of the Jordan before the
Ephraimites arrived. And when any Ephraimite who
escaped said, Let me crossover, the men of Gilead would say to
him, Are you an Ephraimite? If he said no, then they would
say, then say shibboleth, and he would say sibboleth, for he
could not pronounce it right. Then they would take him and
kill him at the Fords of the Jordan.
There fell at that time 42,000 Ephraimites and Jeff the judge
is over six years. Then Jeff the Gilead died and
was buried among the cities of Gilead.
What a mess. What a mess.
Back to Jeff the here these arrogant proud posturing of the
men of Ephraim expecting special treatment, recognition and so
on. Jeff, I did call you Jeff that
says but you didn't come. Nothing to be done.
What they didn't count on who was Jephthah his old character,
Jephthah the Gileadite, who was he?
A man of valor not to be messed with.
That leads us to her last one. Beware of your old nature.
It may get the job done, but not necessarily in the right way.
The men of Ephraim had no right to threat threaten Jephthah when
in reality he had done them no wrong.
And they had no right in mocking the men of Gilead and calling
them fugitives either. There's a lot more history here
than meets the eye. But for our purposes this
morning, obviously for the men of Ephraim, they did need to be
taught a lesson. They picked the fight with the
wrong man and paid dearly. Well, Jetha was having none of
it. And true to his nature as a
warrior, the men of Geddes followed him and 42,000
Ephraimite men lost their lives. Was this God's will?
I don't believe so, but God allows people to make choices
and reap the consequences of their choices.
And here the men of Ephraim chose badly.
One could say, well, they had it coming true doesn't make it
right. They lost thousands of men
because of their stubbornness and arrogance and pride and
Jephthah might have found ways better than to deal with them
that way. We're not told.
Proverbs Chapter 11 verse 2 says when pride comes, then comes
shame. Isn't that the case?
But with the humble, there's wisdom.
And this whole mess here, the people of Israel was so ugly.
How much struggle, how much pain could have been avoided all
these years if they never wandered away from God in the
1st place? All these cycles, this repenting
and coming back, how much better to not have to repent.
We'll never get out of repenting by the way, just let me tell
you, we all need to always repent.
But there's a difference in how we sin.
Is it because we just didn't know something or we see
something? OK, that's sin.
I'm going to repent or I'm going to do this anyway.
I remember having a conversation with a man many years ago.
He was going to do something and I remember telling him I said
that's wrong, I don't care. God made you and me in His
image. He wants a relationship with you
and me, but guess what? They're on His terms, not ours.
He holds the cards. We don't.
We can surrender ourselves, humble ourselves, become honest,
transparent, watch our words, watch our steps, walk with Him.
We can spare and save ourselves a ton of trouble.
Maybe you're here today and you've behaved yourself into an
oppressive situation, whatever that may be.
You've done things that in hindsight shouldn't have done,
that you never thought this would happen, or you're in that
process right now. You know what I'm I know it's
not right, but hey, I'm going to do it anyway.
Watch out. Sin in the end never brings good
fruit. And yes, God is patient, but
remember, He holds the cards. You can try bargaining with Him,
but in the end He will get the glory.
But if we do it right, if we repent, humble ourselves, come
to Him on His terms, maybe not perfectly, come on His terms, He
will save us. It'll cost us everything we
thought it would give us, our pride, our sin.
But we'll be left with something better.
We will have peace, joy, love when we walk, and surrender and
humility in relationship with Jesus.
May that be our goal this morning.
Let's pray or we thank you for the story of Jephta.
Not a pretty story. He had serious problems in his
life. He was rejected, had his own
issues, made decisions he shouldn't have.
But Lord, you never gave up on him.
And today he's in the Hall of Fame.
Or there may be people here this morning who feel that they've
made so many wrong choices, they have no hope a pray will touch
their hearts and minds. But thank you for the promise in
your word that you'll save us when we call you.
Reach out to all who repent and believe, and if we do, we'll be
saved. Or maybe take heed and follow
your teaching. We pray in your name.