Judges 10:6-10 6 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. (That’s a lot of gods!) And because the Israelites forsook the Lord and no longer served him, (the one, true Living God wasn’t even one of the gods they served. He didn’t make the cut!) 7 he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites, 8 who that year shattered and crushed them. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites. 9 The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim; Israel was in great distress. 10 Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, “We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.”
You think? At this point, it’s at least encouraging to read that they confessed that what they had been doing was sin. They didn’t just want a bail out, but they wanted a clean out, a cleansing. They admitted that they had been doing was wrong. Worship of their false gods included evil practices. It was evil on steroids.
God’s response was somewhat surprising. Look at verses 13-14: 13 But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. 14 Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”
God was like, “You think your gods are so great? You think they are worthy of your attention and affection? You think they have what you need, let them save you!” I kind of like that reply. God was kind of popping off, wasn’t He?
The Israelites knew they couldn’t look to their false gods for any help, and they decided to make a real and lasting change.
15 But the Israelites said to the Lord, “We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.” 16 Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord.
Look at the end of verse 16, “And God could bear Israel’s misery no longer.” God was overwhelmed by His love for His people. He couldn’t continue to watch them suffer, and He moved to act by raising up yet another deliverer.
Jephthah had the deck stacked against him from birth. Judges 11 tells us how his life started. Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. He must have been physically strong. People respected him on some level. He had earned the title of “Mighty Warrior.” He had made something of himself in spite of the way his life began and in spite of the way his family treated him.
He was the son of a prostitute, and the rest of his siblings forced him to leave the family, and they cut him out of any family inheritance. He was rejected by his family for something he had no control over. He didn’t do them dirty. He didn’t harm them. He was simply born, and they viewed him as a problem.
Listen, Faith in God and a personal relationship with Jesus can enable you to overcome any dysfunctional family dynamic.
If his family of origin wouldn’t accept him, he would find people who did. Verse three says he fled from his brothers, and he went to a town called “Tob.” He formed his own “family.” Judges 11:3 says that a gang of scoundrels gathered around him and followed him.
I don’t know what the Scoundrels Club did together, but whatever they did, (We probably don’t want to know) but whatever they did, Jephthah became known as a mighty warrior. So, I’m guessing they didn’t sit around and crochet or scrapbook. I’m guessing they were a little rough and tumble. Guess what, God can use rough and tumble!
Well, lo and behold, some of the very people who had rejected him decided he might be useful. In fact, they decided they needed him after all, and they came to Jephthah and asked him to take them into battle against the Ammonites. His Mighty Warrior status had reached the folks back home, and they saw him as someone God could use to deliver them from their oppressors. A down-and-outer became a “standouter” because God was preparing to elevate Jephthah.
Jephthah responded like most anyone would. He was like, “Didn’t you kick me out of the family? Didn’t you drive me from my father’s house? Didn’t you cut me out of the family inheritance? Why should I help you now?” And his family said, “Yeah, yeah. Let’s let bygones be bygones. We’re turning to you now for help, and if you help us, you will be the head over all of us who live in Gilead.”
You guys, he was going from being kicked out of the family, cut off from the family, to being made head of the family. If he was going to be head of the family, his inheritance would certainly be restored. I love a good full circle moment. I love a good restoration moment. Do you know what I’m talking about? You thought you were out, but God put you back in, and when He did, you came in at a higher level than you were when you were kicked out. You were disrespected and disregarded, but God allowed people to see something they had been blinded to before and caused them to humble themselves to ask for your help in a situation. That’s the kind of stuff our God does!
Judges 11:12-28 tell the faith story as Jephthah assumed the role of military leader over his people. He went up against the Ammonite King and told him he wouldn’t relinquish the ground God had given to His people.
He declared in faith, “Whatever the LORD our God has given us, we will possess.”
Jephthah stood firm in faith that what God had given to Israel, they would possess. He knew what God gives His people their enemy has no legal claim to. He believed when God opened a door, no man could shut it. People with an activated faith hold fast to what God gives them.
We’re not even talking about something God had promised. We’re talking about something He had already delivered. They had already acquired the land in play. They had already been established where they were living. To let the Ammonites have their way would be to relinquish the blessing God had bestowed on them. Jephthah wasn’t having it.
Jephthah had stood his ground in faith, and as a result, God anointed him for battle. The Spirit of the LORD came on him. God’s Spirit dwells in and rests upon people who are willing to stand their ground against the enemy’s schemes. God was surely with Jephthah in power. Jephthah devasted twenty Ammonite towns. That’s a lot of territory, folks, and the text says, the LORD gave the Ammonites into his hands.
Listen, Child of God, you don’t have to cave when the enemy comes calling. You don’t have to back down when Satan says he has a right to something God has delivered into your hands.
You might get displaced and dismissed by people along life’s way, but if you will exercise faith in the one, true, living God, you will never be disconnected from your Divine Destiny.
Don’t let Satan steal God’s blessings from you. Don’t let him cause you to doubt that the good things God has given to you are really for you. Don’t let him disqualify you from the good things God has for you. Stand your ground, and you do that by standing in faith. Jephthah said, “Whatever the LORD our God has given us, we WILL possess.”
Our God cannot be stopped. Can you believe that God will enable you to be what He has created you to be? Can you believe that no weapon that fashioned against you will prosper? Can you believe that God will guard you in all of your ways? Can you believe that the only ending for a child of God in any life circumstance is victory? Can you believe that greater is He who is in you than He who is in the world? Can you believe that there is always a greater plan at work than the one you can see in the natural and that God’s ways and purposes are higher than yours? Faith is the “evidence” of things unseen.
Live convinced! Live by faith. Stand still and see the deliverance of the Lord!
