(304) 757-9222 connect@tvcog.org

Judges 10:6-10  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!) he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites, 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. 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? It was a bit of a reality check, a bit of a wake-up call for them.  

God was actually restraining Himself from swooping in and saving their day. I think His response caused them to evaluate their chosen loyalties. I think they started asking themselves, “Just what have we given ourselves to? In what have we placed our trust?” And in that moment, they realized what a sham their false gods were. They realized there was no hope or help they could offer. They held no power.

And 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.

What is it that you have looked to for significance and security? What have you made your source for hope and peace? If it is anything but God, God is calling you to repent, to do a 180, to get rid of any idol, any god, but Him and to serve Him alone. No earthly success, no social status, no career achievement, no amount of money, no identification with a certain group of people, no addictive substance or vise, none of it has what you need to satisfy or sustain you. None of it can subdue your enemy. None of it can protect your heart, your mind, or your soul. God, alone, has what you need for victory and daily fulfillment.

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.

How many sermons have you heard about Jephthah? I don’t think his name has left my mouth more than once. I did a series on the Judges of Israel once, and I’m sure I took a look at his life in that series, but in my 17 ½ years of preaching, I guarantee I haven’t talked about him more than that one time. While he might not be a well-known Bible character, He was well-known by God for his faith. That is why he made the cut in Hebrews 11 in the list of all who were commended for their great faith. 

I don’t know if you have taken note, but in our Hebrews 11 line-up, there are people in the Hall of Faith with titles and people without titles. There are Jews and there are Gentiles. There are people who were born with an elevated social status, people who were promoted to an elevated social status, and people who were well-known but for the wrong reasons. Listen, you don’t have to have a pedigree to have strong faith. You don’t have to be born into a privileged family to have strong faith. You only have to act on what you know about God, and He will take you beyond where you ever thought possible. Whether you have had an early start in the Christian faith or you are just getting started with Jesus makes no difference at all. What matters is what you do with what you know.

Jephthah had the deck stacked against him from birth. Judges 11 tells us how his life started. Look at it with me. 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.

You see, His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute. 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.”

Because he was the son of a prostitute, the rest of his siblings, his half-brothers 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.

I want you to hear something loud and clear this morning: 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.

Jephthah became the leader of a gang of scoundrels! Here’s what I think. Jephthah found other people who had been rejected, wounded, and hurt and he started a club! I don’t know how you advertise that and get people to sign up, but he did! He formed the “Scoundrel’s Club!” 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. Anyone 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!

Jephthah was skeptical. He asked them if they were really going to make him their leader. They said in verse 10, “The Lord is our witness; we will certainly do as you say.” So, Jephthah went home, and he went over the contract one more time just to make sure no one forgot the deal. Let’s not skip over the reality that Jephthah was voluntarily putting himself at risk to lead this military operation. Instead of seeking revenge on the people who rejected them, he chose to become their protector. That’s a wow for me. This story is already so good, and we aren’t even to the faith part!

Judges 11:12-28 tell the faith story as Jephthah assumed the role of military leader over his people. He went to the Ammonite King and started questioning him, and this is the question he asked him:  “What do you have against me that you have attacked my country?” You get the idea that Jephthah not only believes he is the head of his family, but all of the sudden, he sees himself as the head of the country. Go big or go home! The Ammonite King gave a reply about how he felt Israel had stolen their land, so the Ammonites were going to take it back.

The truth is that the Ammonites had no claim on that land. (At one time it actually belonged to the Amorites, not the Ammonites.) God had graciously given the land to His people. Jephthah schooled the Ammonite King on the covenant love of God.  These verses are where we see that Jephthah really knew God! He told him that Israel didn’t take the land, but God drove the Amorites out of the land and gave it to Israel. He made the argument that Israel was simply possessing the Land God had given to them, and he said, “Why don’t y’all take what your god, Chemosh, gives you?” Our God gave us this land. You occupy the land your false god gives you. And he followed that little snarky comment with this: “Whatever the LORD our God has given us, we will possess.”

There it is. 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.

God was still fighting for Israel. Jephthah knew they couldn’t fail because what God does cannot be undone. The Ammonite king wasn’t persuaded by anything Jephthah said, so the battle was on. Judges 11:29 says, “The Spirit of the LORD came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.

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.

There is a lot more that I could say about Jephthah that wouldn’t fall into the faith realm. There was a lot of flesh in Jephthah’s story. There were failures in his story. I’m not sure he ever got over the wounds he suffered from his family, but when he had a decision to make about whether to surrender God’s blessing to God’s enemy, he stood his ground in faith.

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.”

You might be in a season now where some things are shifting, where you are being displaced from a job or a relationship or you feel like you are losing some-kind-of-status.  Maybe you feel like you are finding yourself in a situation where you have to start all over again. My friend, can you believe with me in faith this morning that God is simply distancing you from the drama so that he can promote you to the place He has had in mind all along?

Jephthah wasn’t the only Bible character who was rejected by his family. Do you remember Joseph? He was given prophetic dreams as a child and was told he would rule over his family. Even though his brothers rejected any idea of that ever happening, and even though they sold him into slavery to try to ensure nothing like that could ever be possible, God’s plans for Joseph didn’t fail.

He wound up in Egypt and even though he suffered some more bumps and bruises along the way, because God was with Joseph, Joseph eventually became second in command to the Pharaoh of Egypt. He wasn’t Egyptian born. His family didn’t even live in Egypt. He wasn’t Egyptian educated, but none of that mattered to God. God moved Joseph’s family to Egypt, reunited them and gave Joseph the privilege of ruling over and providing for his family.

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.

I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. II Timothy 1:12

Live convinced! Live by faith. Stand still and see the deliverance of the Lord!