If your life is one big mess…
Tola, Jair, Jepthah
Judges 10:1 – 12:7 Romans 9:20-24, II Cor. 4:7-12, II Timothy 2:20-21
November 1, 2009
INTRODUCTION:
Is your life a mess? Jephtha’s was! His story is one of the longest of all the Judges… and it’s not because of his accomplishments. It’s because Jephtha’s life was a mess from beginning to end.
1. His family relationships were a mess
Judges 11:1 Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. 2 Gilead’s wife also bore him sons, and when they were grown up, they drove Jephthah away. "You are not going to get any inheritance in our family," they said, "because you are the son of another woman."
Jephthah started out as a proverbial black sheep in his own family. He was the son of a different mother than all the other brothers, and though his lineage was none of his own doing, it caused him to start out with a dark smudge on his portion of the family tree. He may have been older than his other brothers causing them to fear that he might expect the eldest brother’s share of the inheritance. What ever the reason, they not only showed their disapproval of him, but actually cast him out of the family quite literally. He had to move out of the house and settle away from family land.
2. His career was a mess
Taking a look at his career as a leader and a soldier we notice that Jephthah evidently had leadership ability, and that the Jewish elders recognized it, for when the Ammonites made war against the tribes of Israel, the elders of the tribe of Gilead came to him to ask if he would lead them into battle against the enemy. His response was,"Didn’t you hate me and drive me from my father’s house? Why do you come to me now, when you’re in trouble?" That was a good question which threw their own hypocrisy back into their faces. If Jephthah was nothing more than an illegitimate son of a prostitute why call on him when you need leadership?
The elders promised Jephthah that they would indeed make him their leader if he would help them now in their war with Ammon. So Jephthah went to the Ammonite king asking, "What do you have against us that you have attacked our country?" The king’s answer included some revisionist history about Israel taking land from them when they came up out of Egypt. What we see here is an ancient example of what we are seeing today in the Israeli/Palestinian mess, and this ancient king was just another predecessor to today’s Palestinians. He offered Jephthah peace if they would just give up their land and turn it over to Ammon.
Jephthah gave the actual historical account of their disputed land saying, in essence, “Our God gave us this land. Who are you to take it away from us? We have possessed this land for the last 300 years, you’ve had all that time to take it away and didn’t so why try to get it now? We have not done you wrong, but you are doing us wrong now, so let the Lord judge between us and settle the dispute between Israel and Ammon.” So, having tried and failed to negotiate a settlement Jephthah and his troops prepared to war against Ammon.
3. He even made a mess of his greatest victory
The text says that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah (Judges 11:29) which means that God intervened on the side of Israel, and gave Jephthah His inner strength for battle. Sadly, it was at this moment, that Jephthah made a foolish and presumptuous vow to God. He promised that if God gave him victory, he would sacrifice the first thing to come out of the door of his house when he returned home from battle. The Lord gave him victory enabling him to devastate 20 towns in the disputed area and subduing the Enemy decisively.
But when Jephthah came home in victory who should come out of his house first, but his only child, a daughter dancing with a tambourine a victory dance for her daddy. Jephthah was crushed. He had made a vow he said he could not break. His daughter did not protest, but asked for a month’s time to be able to grieve with her friends because she would never be able to marry.
This is a perplexing and problematic text in the book of Judges for it suggests the idea of a Spirit filled man of God offering his own daughter as a human sacrifice which we know is against God’s law, and an abomination of a practice carried out by Canaanite heathens. Looking at the Bible Exposition Commentary (Wiersbe) we gain insight on what was actually in the Hebrew text itself. An alternate translation of the Hebrew conjunction “WAW” can mean either “and” or “or” therefore allowing this alternate meaning, “If we take this approach, then the vow was twofold: Whatever met him when he returned home would be dedicated to the Lord (if a person) or sacrificed to the Lord (if an animal).
Since he was met by his daughter, Jephthah gave her to the Lord to serve Him at the tabernacle (Ex. 38:8; 1 Sam. 2:22). She remained a virgin, which meant that she would not know the joys of motherhood and perpetuate her father’s inheritance in Israel. This would be reason enough for her and her friends to spend two months grieving, for every daughter wanted a family and every father wanted grandchildren to maintain the family inheritance.
Nowhere in the text are we told that Jephthah actually killed his daughter, nor do we find anybody bewailing the girl’s death.
—Bible Exposition Commentary - Old Testament
But even if we eliminate the possibility of human sacrifice, we may still assume that Jephthah was presumptuous to make a promise with such an unknown variable within it. We are warned in the scriptures to avoid making hasty promises because the Lord expects us to keep our vows.(Ecclesiastes 5:1-6) (vs.2- Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.) Perhaps we would be wise to rethink the kind of hasty promises we tend to make these days. With a 50% divorce rate we may need to rethink hasty wedding vows. With so many repossessions and foreclosures we need to give a second look to our promissory notes and mortgage contracts. How often do our mouths speak thoughtless oaths we have little or no intention to keep.
Jesus warned us to let our “yes” be yes and “no” be no (Matt. 5:37) for anything more comes from evil. Though Jephthah was a valiant leader and warrior, his hasty promise eliminated the potential for grandchildren.
4. His life was a mess to the end:
We notice another battle Jephthah faced, but this time it was against his own Ephriamite brethren who became angry because Jephthah had not called them to fight along side of the Gileadites against Ammon. They threatened to burn his house down with him in it, and he had to go to war against another Israelite tribe. In the end 42 thousand Ephriamites lost their lives. Jephthah ruled his own tribe for about 6 years and then died. Thus ending the sad tale of another Israelite judge. Jephthah was a man who started out badly, lived a life spotted with successes and failures, and died without grandchildren to carry on his lineage.
Verse 29 is the KEY verse: 29 Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. It makes me think of one of my favorite scriptures: Not by might, not by power but by my Spirit, says the Lord. Zechariah 4:6
Two other judges were mentioned briefly before Jephtha:
Tola had status (might);
Judges 10: 1 After the time of Abimelech a man of Issachar, Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim. 2 He led Israel twenty-three years; then he died, and was buried in Shamir.
Jair had large, powerful family (power);
Judges 10:3 He was followed by Jair of Gilead, who led Israel twenty-two years. 4 He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkeys. They controlled thirty towns in Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth Jair. 5 When Jair died, he was buried in Kamon.
Jephthah had only God’s Spirit … no status or power of any kind. Don’t depend on your own might or power. Whether we have might or power or nothing at all … it’s God’s Spirit that will give the victory.
It was Jephthah who made the New Testament Hall of Fame. Tola and Jair aren’t mentioned, but Jephthah is right in there with the big heros of the faith:
Hebrews 11:32-34 And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephtha, or David and Samuel and the prophets 33 who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.
Notice that the New Testament doesn’t even mention the many flaws of Jephtha.
CONCLUSION:
Is your life a mess? Very few have a big a mess as Jephtha:
None of that matters, if the Spirit of the Lord comes upon you. It’s not by might or power but by God’s Spirit.
Because of Jesus, God does not focus on your mess. When God looks at you, he sees only your faith.
