FOUR CRACKED POTS
Hebrews 11:32
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. A visiting minister was very long-winded. Worse, every time he would make a good point during his sermon and a member of the congregation responded with "Amen" or "That's right, preacher" he would get wound up even more and launch into another lengthy discourse.
2. Finally, the host pastor started responding to every few sentences with "Amen, Pharaoh!" The guest minister wasn't sure what that meant, but after several more "Amen, Pharaohs" he finally concluded his very lengthy sermon.
3. After the service was over and the congregation had left, the visiting minister turned to his host and asked, "What exactly did you mean when you said "Amen, Pharaoh?"
4. His host replied, "I was telling you to let my people go!"
B. TEXT
“And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah” Heb. 11:32.
C. THESIS
1. Long-winded preachers, take note of this verse. Some long-winded preachers don’t know when to quit; the writer of Hebrews did!
2. Like all truly gifted speakers, the author of Hebrews could read the clock on the wall. Knowing that he had plenty more material, he decided that having already made his point, he didn’t need to belabor it.
3. Because he didn’t have time to write out the full story of ALL the great heroes of the faith, he decided to mention only a few names and then go for the finish in verses 33-40.
4. Out of nowhere he picks 4 men from the period of the judges, a wild era in Israel’s history when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25 ESV).
Here’s what we know about the four men:
a. Gideon defeated the Midianites.
b. Barak defeated the Canaanites.
c. Samson defeated the Philistines.
d. Jephthah defeated the Ammonites.
5. A PECULIARITY: THESE 4 ARE MENTIONED ONLY HERE IN THE N.T.! That fact ought to make us pay attention.
6. We also need to know that EACH OF THESE 4 MEN HAD SIGNIFICANT CHARACTER FLAWS. No plaster saints here.
7. These are real men, flesh and blood heroes whom God considered honored in spite of their flaws. Their faith was like ours, mingled with fear, soiled with unbelief and doubt, spotted with compromise, troubled by human reasoning.
8. God knew all about their faults but he honored their faith anyway. We’re going to look at each of these men and see the marvel of God’s working.
9. The title of this message is “FOUR CRACKED POTS.”
I. GIDEON WAS FEARFUL
“I do not have time to tell about . . . Gideon.”
A. CHALLENGES TO GIDEON’S FAITH
1. Let’s travel back in time over 3000 years to meet a man named Gideon. The angel of the Lord came to him one day and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior” (Judges 6:12).
2. This surprising word came in the midst of the Midianite invasion of Israel. They came riding on camels each year during the harvest time just as the Israelites were harvesting their crops.
3. They would plunder the land, get on their camels, ride out of town, and then stay away until the next year’s harvest.
B. WEAK FAITH USED GREATLY
1. When you look at Gideon’s life, you don’t see a man of great faith, you see a man of weak faith whom God used greatly.
2. So each year the people of God were losing the harvest of their labors to the enemy. They were reduced to living in caves.
3. In response, God tapped Gideon on the shoulder and said, “I am going to use you to deliver my people.” God repeated it two or three times in Judges 6.
4. Gideon says, “Who, me?” “Yes, you.” “You’ve got the wrong man.” “No, I don’t. You’re the man, Gideon.”
5. Spring arrived. All is now set for the showdown. The men of Israel are gathering, the enemy is approaching, all is ready for the great battle -- except Gideon.
6. He’s still not sure if he’s the right man to lead Israel. At that point Gideon asked God to give him a sign -- the fleece wet and the ground dry, then reversed it. Judges 6:36-40. Finally Gideon believed.
7. It wasn’t a sin to ask God for a fleece; but it was a sign of his weak faith because he already knew what God wanted him to do. If you make that a habit in your life, it is a sign of weak faith.
C. GIDEON’S SUCCESS
1. Turns out that Gideon made a fine military leader once he got past his fear. Gideon and his 300 men sprung a nighttime assault on the unsuspecting Midianites.
2. God had him use a classic military ruse to make them think his army was much larger than it was. The Midianites fled in total confusion, leading to a total victory for Gideon’s men.
3. Turns out that Gideon made a fine military leader once he got past his fear. As long as he thought he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t. But once faith replaced fear, he could do all things through God!
II. BARAK WAS TIMID
“I do not have time to tell about . . . Barak.”
A. BARAK’S CALL TO DEFEAT THE ENEMY
1. Whenever you mention Barak’s name, you must add
another name with it, -- “Deborah and Barak.” Who was Deborah? She’s not his wife. Deborah was the only female judge of Israel.
2. The spiritual life of Israel had fallen so low that the nation was now being led by a woman. This is no knock on Deborah because she is clearly brave, decisive and bold.
3. She judged Israel because none of the men would step up and do the job. After twenty years of humiliating oppression at the hands of the Canaanites, God raised up this prophetess to represent him to the people.
4. Since Barak commanded the army, Deborah sent for him and told him to go into battle. She even gave him the battle plan;
5. “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you 10,000 men of Naphtali and Zebulun 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’” (Judges 4:6-7).
B. BARAK’S WIMPY RESPONSE
1. All he has to do is rally the troops. But check out his timid response: “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go” (v. 8).
2. Excuse me for saying this, but that’s just pathetic. It’s a man’s job to man up and face the enemy – men are supposed to have courage in the face of great danger. But Barak won’t even go!
3. What a namby-pamby, mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy answer Barak gave. Can you imagine John Wayne talking like this?
4. “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 Sisera over to a woman” (v. 9).
5. We can partly understand Barak’s hesitation because of the fact that the Canaanites had a super-weapon: they had iron chariots! That meant the enemy had a huge advantage on the battlefield.
6. For the Israelites to attack would seem to be a suicide mission, like sending out the Boy Scouts armed with muskets to do battle against a tank brigade.
7. So God sent a storm that flooded the Kishon River, trapping the iron chariots. It turned into a slaughter, a rout, a total victory for the men of Israel.
8. In another ironic twist, Sisera, the captain of the Canaanite army was killed by a woman named Jael who drove a tent peg through his temple.
9. So even though Barak led the troops in battle, Deborah and Jael get the credit. Was Barak a bad guy? No. He’s listed in Hebrews 11:32 as a man of faith, but he was timid when he should have been a strong leader.
III. SAMSON – OUT OF CONTROL
“I do not have time to tell about . . . Samson.”
A. SUMMARY OF SAMSON’S LIFE
1. Most of us know the general outlines of Samson’s story. We know that:
a). he defeated the Philistines,
b). Delilah tricked him into revealing the secret of his strength;
c). his eyes were poked out and,
d). he gained revenge by killing 3000 Philistines in one of the most dramatic death scenes in the Bible.
2. Samson had it all -- good looks, great strength, popularity, and the blessing of God, but he threw it all away.
3. He had unlimited potential. No man in the Bible started out with as much going for him; no man ended with less. He had it all and lost it all.
B. SAMSON’S PROBLEMS
1. His life shows that you can be empowered by the Spirit of God to do great things and yet not to have your life yielded to the full control of the Holy Spirit.
2. Samson had all kinds of problems:
a. He had a weakness for women.
b. He had uncontrollable fits of anger.
c. He lusted after Philistine women.
d. He lacked common sense.
e. He was empowered by the Spirit yet he often lived in the flesh.
3. Samson’s MASTER PROBLEM was that he never
learned how to control his emotions. First he’s filled with lust and then he’s filled with anger, over & over again. He’s always riding an emotional roller-coaster.
4. Proverbs 16:32 could have been written about him: “Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.”
5. In his day Samson had taken more than one city, but he never learned to control his temper, how to rule his spirit.
C. LESSONS FROM SAMSON
1. His life instructs us that it’s not only important to be being full of the Holy Spirit, but to be obedience to the Word of God.
2. As I often say, “If you have the Word without the Spirit, you dry up; if you have the Spirit without the Word, you blow up; but is you have the Spirit And the Word, you grow up.”
3. Samson could sometimes do amazing things for God and then make incredibly stupid mistakes. But God still honors the works we do for Him, even if partial: Samson showed up in Hebrews 11!
IV. JEPHTHAH WAS FOOLISH
“I do not have time to tell about . . . Jephthah.”
A. JEPHTHAH’S RISE FROM IGNOMINY
1. Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute, which made him far less in his relative’s eyes.
2. Others knew about his past and held it against him. This may have driven him to prove himself over and over again, and made a mighty warrior out of him. But he was driven away.
3. When the Ammonites attacked, the men of Israel asked Jephthah to come back home and lead them in battle because he was their best warrior. After some negotiation, he accepted their offer.
B. JEPHTHAH’S FOOLISH VOW
1. Jephthah made a foolish mistake that would haunt him forever.
2. After the Spirit of the Lord came upon him as he
prepared to go into battle, he vowed that if the Lord would help him win the battle, he would offer to the Lord as a burnt offering the first thing that came through the doors of his house when he returned home (Judges 11:30-31).
3. No doubt he expected the “first thing” to be an animal of some sort. To his shock and dismay, it turned out to be his daughter, his only child, coming out to welcome him home.
4. Many commentators believe he did because Judges 11:39 says, “he did to her as he had vowed. She died a virgin” (NET Bible). Others believe he offered her to the Lord in a life of perpetual virginity. Either way it was a rash and foolish vow.
5. So here we have the son of a prostitute, who made a rash vow, wins a mighty victory, apparently sacrifices his own daughter, and shows up in Hebrews 11.
V. LESSONS FROM 4 CRACKED POTS
A. THE FOUR CRACKED POTS
1. SUMMARY OF FLAWS:
a. Gideon who was afraid to answer God’s call.
b. Barak who was so timid he needed a woman to tell him what to do.
c. Samson who couldn’t control his emotions.
d. Jephthah who made a foolish vow.
2. These are seriously flawed men, yet they made the Book!
If there is room for them, there is room for you and me.
3. Down deep they were men of faith who believed in God and were willing to act on what they believed.
4. Their very significant faults do not keep them out of the Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11!
B. WHY GOD USES CRACKED POTS
1. God uses flawed people to demonstrate His grace so that when the victory is won, He alone gets the glory.
2. Professor James Denny of Scotland said, “there’s always been men…so clever that God could make no use of them.”
3. Paul said, “Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us” 2 Cor. 4:7.
4. That’s all we are, just clay pots, ordinary kitchenware, clay pots that are easily cracked and often broken. We’re not expensive China. Wow! And God uses us anyway!
5. If we believe in the redeeming grace of God, we won’t be surprised that God uses flawed vessels. We’re glad He does -- because that means He’ll use US too.
6. God honors our faith! Let’s push on by faith, despite our failures, knowing that if God can use men like this, he can use us too.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
2. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
3. After awhile, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, but the poor cracked pot was ashamed that it was only able to accomplish half of what it had been made to do.
4. After years, the cracked pot finally spoke to the water carrier about what it supposed to be its bitter failure; “I am ashamed of myself, and because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”
5. The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flowers on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you've watered them. All these years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house .”
6. Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We're
all cracked pots, but it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make God’s grace have to be administered to us and then to others.
7. Accept each person for what they are, and look for the good in them.
B. THE CALL
1. Prayer.
2. Altar call.
[This is a reworked version of Ray Pritchart’s sermon of the same name]
