Deborah and Jael - Mother’s Day
Today is Mother’s day so today we honor all of you mothers today! I hope everyone, even the guys have a happy mother's day (If mom ain't happy ain't nobody happy, lol).
Abraham Lincoln: No one is poor who has a Godly mother.
How do you become a godly mother? By being a godly mother!
Kids are watching. Your relationships tell who you are.
Are you hateful and vindictive? Or are you loving and kind?
Your kids learn how to be from you! Scary isn't it!
Love God and love your spouse love your family. Your kids are watching!
It’s wonderful to see faithful women in the Bible. Today we are going to talk about Deborah who was very interesting, faithful, and loyal! She was a Wife, a Mother, a Prophetess, a Judge, and a Warrior! Wow! She was the only female judge mentioned in the Bible and one of the few prophetesses in the Bible.
Mothers are great influencers!
They Influence their children. Children will rise up and call her blessed! They Influence their husband. They Influence their family. And, like in Deborah’s case, she Influenced a whole nation! There are several cases in the Bible where moms and even grandmas influenced great men of the Bible. Such as Lois and Eunice who influenced Timothy and Hanna who influenced Samuel and did so much good!
Now Israel had a problem. The problem is known as “The Sin Cycle”. Things would go well for Israel and so they would forget and turn away from God. God would sort of say, you like those other gods, well you can have them, and things would go really badly for Israel. The people would then be in such dire straits that they would repent and cry out to God. Then God would restore them. So the cycle goes: rebellion, retribution, repentance, and restoration. This is similar to the worldly quote: “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” God appointed judges to try to help the people stay focused on God but eventually the people would stray and thus the sin cycle would begin again.
Judges 4:1-3 Foreword
1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, now that Ehud was dead. 2 So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Haggoyim. 3 Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.
In this chapter we see that times had been going well for 80 years under Ehud, but Ehud the previous judge, had passed away and so the people were starting to stray again. Because they had strayed, enemies had come back to haunt Israel. God will sometimes use enemies to bring His people back to Him. Deborah had begun leading as a judge and Barak was commander of the Israelite army. The Cananites had been pestering the Israelites and the commander of the Cananites, Sisera, was unbeatable with his 900 chariots. Chariots in those days were like the tanks of the day and the troops had no chance against these tanks. But the people were crying out to God and God had a plan to stop the Cananites.
When you stray from God, what brings you back? They say there are no atheists in a fox hole. Sometimes, hard times, make you remember that you need to go back and stick close to God. When we wonder where God went, it’s often not that He went away but that we went away and we need to get back to Him! Nearer my God to Thee!
Judges 4:4-7 About Debora
4 Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time. 5 She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. 6 She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. 7 I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’”
Deborah, being a judge, would hear disputes of the Isrealite people and she would do it underneath a palm tree. This palm tree became known as Deborah’s palm and she must have been very wise because she became famous in the land as a prophetess and judge.
Barak was the commander of the Israelite army. It’s sort of weird that he was in Kedesh in Naphtali which is sort of a sanctuary city and sort of a relaxing town. Was he on vacation taking it easy? Is that what army commanders do? So it’s already a little weird. Deborah summoned Barak from there!
God spoke to Deborah to tell Barak that the Lord commands him to take 10K men to Mount Tabor and will give the Canaanites into his hands!
Judges 4:8-9 Deborah and Barak
8 Barak said to her, “If you go with me, I will go; but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go.”
9 “Certainly I will go with you,” said Deborah. “But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh. 10 There Barak summoned Zebulun and Naphtali, and ten thousand men went up under his command. Deborah also went up with him.
Barak replied in a weird way. Instead of just agreeing, he said he would only do it if Deborah went with him. It seems a little cowardly. You know, sometimes if you reject God’s call, it doesn’t go well for you. Sort of like Jonah and Nineveh, when Jonah went the other way, he got swallowed by a big fish until he repented. So anyway, Deborah replied that she would go but that Barak would no longer get the glory or credit, instead it would go to a woman. Deborah was not speaking of herself but of another woman, btw.
Isaiah 6 shows us a picture when God asks who will go for Me, Isaiah says to God, Here I am, send me! We should always be like that!
Judges 4:11-12 Sisera gets word of Israel marching To Mount Tabor
11 Now Heber the Kenite had left the other Kenites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and pitched his tent by the great tree in Zaanannim near Kedesh.
12 When they told Sisera that Barak son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, 13 Sisera summoned from Harosheth Haggoyim to the Kishon River all his men and his nine hundred chariots fitted with iron.
So Sisera, the commander of the Cananites, heard that Israel was coming so he prepared his 900 Chariots and probably 40K men to meet him at the Kishon River. Sisera surely thought he had the big advantage! 4x the men plus 900 chariots! This was going to be easy!
Judges 4:14-15 The Battle of Mount Tabor
14 Then Deborah said to Barak, “Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?” So Barak went down Mount Tabor, with ten thousand men following him. 15 At Barak’s advance, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera got down from his chariot and fled on foot.
16 Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Harosheth Haggoyim, and all Sisera’s troops fell by the sword; not a man was left.
So Deborah said Go, the Lord has given Sisera into your hands! And Sisera’s men were slaughtered! So wait a minute, Sisera had the big advantage of 900 chariots and probably 40K soldiers, what happened??? Well, if you read the next chapter, Deborah and Barak sing a victory song and tell how it happened. The Lord sent a cloud burst and it flooded the Kishon River. Because of the flash flood, the area became muddy and all the chariots got stuck in the mud and were immobilized. This was no coincidence, this was God giving Sisera’s army into their hands.
Judges 4:17-21 Jael & Sisera
17 Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was an alliance between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite.
18 Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Come, my lord, come right in. Don’t be afraid.” So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket.
19 “I’m thirsty,” he said. “Please give me some water.” She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.
20 “Stand in the doorway of the tent,” he told her. “If someone comes by and asks you, ‘Is anyone in there?’ say ‘No.’”
21 But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.
Wow Violent! Yikes!
Sisera fled and went to the Kenites because they were a neutral party. Jael probably wondered how the battle at Tabor was going but when she saw Sisera trying to hide out, I’m sure she figured it out that it wasn’t going well for him. Sisera surely was worn out and with the little bit of milk she gave him, he fell asleep. Then Jael killed him. So Deborah’s prophecy that the credit for killing Sisera would go to a woman became true. Why didn’t Barak agree immediately to do what God had asked him to do? If God commanded you to do something, do you think you would do it? If not, would you be shamed if God gave that blessing to someone else? Don’t be 50% faithful, be 100% faithful! Sadly Barak should have been brave but he seemed he wasn’t. Sometimes when one will not step up, God will call someone else to step up, and that person will instead get the blessing.
It’s like the one legged, Irish man, who was a missionary to these people. They asked him why he was a missionary and he said no one else would go. Sometimes greatness is just being willing to go when others won’t!
Judges 4:22-23
22 Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. “Come,” she said, “I will show you the man you’re looking for.” So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple—dead.
23 On that day God subdued Jabin king of Canaan before the Israelites. 24 And the hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder against Jabin king of Canaan until they destroyed him.
So Jael showed Barak that she had killed Sisera, so Barak didn’t get the chance to do it. But still the Israelites took the day and continued until the king of the Canaanites had been destroyed. Under Deborah’s lead as judge, Israel had 40 years of peace.
Steve Camp song:
Will you be the one to answer to His call? Will you stand when those around you fall?
Will you take His light into a dying world? Tell me will you be the one?
The book of Judges is often thought of as our Christian life. When we go through the sin cycle, we too stray from God via sin or turning to idols. God tries to bring us back gently at first and then sometimes it takes that spiritual two by four across the noggin to wake us up. You don’t want to learn a lesson from the school of hard knocks, instead, learn from these stories and take heed so that you don’t get that spiritual two by four awakening! It’s no fun, trust me! Don’t let sin take over your life, you always will regret it when you find yourself in sin. Turn back to Jesus, He loves you, and He forgives sin if you repent and ask of His forgiveness. If you are not saved, Jesus forgives unbelievers too. You just have to, funnily enough, become a believer that Jesus is the Son of God and that he can take away your sin if you have faith in Him.
