Book of Judges
It is 9.29.25, and this morning I sensed the Lord saying, It is time for you to write a book, not just a blog. You have read the books of others, and you now see that this is very much something you can do with the help of the Holy Spirit. Stop putting it off. My people need the wisdom and insight that I give you.
The Book of Judges
Chapter 1
~ If You Think He Doesn't Remember ~
If you think God has forgotten those who have hurt or wronged you (His son or daughter), I can tell you with assurance this is not the case. I believe this is a question that plagues many as we step into our Christian walk and learn to walk closer and closer to Jesus. We die to self and become more and more like Jesus as we do, as He did, looking down from the Cross, realizing that Jesus loved and died even for those who stood below Him, laughing, mocking, spitting, piercing Him, and being so evil and hateful. That was God in the flesh. Those were His children doing that, and yet He said, 'Forgive them for they know not what they do.' Absolutely amazing! We see this only one more time in scripture with the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7. Stephen was not Christ, but as a man, he modeled that what Christ did was possible even for you or me.
Throughout all of history, men have come to want vengeance their way, but we must always remember that God clearly wants us to trust Him when He tells us vengeance is His.
Romans 12:19 NKJV
19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
There is a little-known story in the book of Judges that isn't easy to read, but we can't truly know God unless we know as much as possible about Him and His ways. I have come to learn that with God, there is always a why. I think many read stories in the Bible and think things like....
- Why did God do this or that?
- Why didn't He save this person (Abel from Cain)?
- Why would God wipe out millions of people that He created and only save one family (Noah & his family)?
- Why did the Apostle James die, but Peter was delivered from Herod's hands by an angel?
I believe it is also important to understand the similarities in God's call of Moses and His calling of Joshua.
First, God chooses Moses and speaks to Him through the Burning Bush. He tells him to 'remove his sandals for this is Holy Ground.
Joshua 5:13-15 NKJV
13 And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?”
14 So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.”
And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?”
15 Then the Commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.
Again, we see the words 'remove your sandal, you are standing on Holy Ground.' I do not believe the ground would be considered Holy if it were simply an angelic visit, but I may address that at another time. Why do I not believe it was an angel? Because Joshua also bowed down, and angels are servants, they are not to be worshipped. In fact, in Daniel, the angel Gabriel tells him to stand to his feet, and in the book of Revelation, it is made even clearer to us that we do not bow to angels. John has an experience that tells us everything we need to know about the role of angels. In fact, we see it written twice for our benefit...
Revelation 19:10 NKJV
10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
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Revelation 22:9 NKJV
9 Then he said to me, “See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”
Both Moses and Joshua were chosen, called, and used by God. Both had similar experiences. Moses parted the Red Sea in front of the Israelites, and Joshua parted the River Jordan so that the Israelites could walk across on dry ground. But now we get to the death of Joshua, who is buried in the Promised Land, and God's people have all been given lands in which they conquer the inhabitants and create their own cities of refuge, and are to raise their families in the Lord. This is clearly shown by reading the last few chapters of the book of Joshua. But now Moses and Joshua are dead, and this time God does not choose just one man to lead. He leaves them to rule their own lands and families. But here I see a terrible truth out of the book of Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV
“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
Man is easily turned through pride, arrogance, jealousy, and more to follow his own ways, and then they don't teach their children to love or serve the Lord, and generations fall back into sin and become more corrupt than those of their ancestors.
This is the book of Judges. With no actual leader after Joshua, they fall, cry out to God, He steps in to save them, they come back to God and do well for about 20 to 40 years, and they make the same mistakes over and over. They don't keep the fire burning in their hearts for the Lord, and even worse, they don't teach their children to follow God or His ways either. More rebellion, pride, arrogance, and wickedness take over their hearts yet again, and they begin worshiping idols and false gods, making the one True God burn with anger against them, and He leaves them for a time to themselves to show them that they cannot do it without Him. It is not His hate or anger that does this. It is actually His love that does this.
God created us so that He would have family. Again, I say He gave us free will, which is why we experience the things that we do. Not because He wills it. His will is that all would be saved and that all would come to know His Son, but is that happening? No, because He will not force Himself on even one of us. The book of Judges shows us that God is always listening. He steps aside until He begins to hear the cry of His people again, and those cries open the door for Him to come back in and deliver them.
This book reveals the heartbreak that our Father in Heaven goes through when He fights for us and cares for us and provides for us, only to have His children turn on Him for other gods, wooden statues, silver, and gold idols.
Now, let me get back to the title of this chapter, which is 'If You Think God Doesn't Remember.' I can assure you that you are wrong, and the short story of Adoni-Bezek proves this to me. Now Judah and the Simeonites were fighting for the land that would be given to Judah, and there was a promise made that once that land was conquered, Judah would help the Simeonites fight for their land. They slew 10,000 men, and the King of Bezek, the Bible says, fled. However, they caught up with him, and this completely sounds bizarre until you know one more thing. When they caught up with Adoni-Bezek, they cut off his thumbs and big toes. Yes, you read that right. Why on earth would they even think to do something like that? Why hadn't they just killed him or even beheaded him as they did in those days? But it is the words of Adoni-Bezek himself that tell the true story of God's vengeance. In this one little passage in Judges, we are given a window into the life of King Adoni-Bezek, almost as if we were a fly on the wall, taken back thousands of years ago. Let's look at what he said.
Judges 1:7 NKJV
7 And Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to gather scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has repaid me.” Then they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.
Adoni-Bezek had done the same thing to 70 other kings, and he knew full well that the One True Living God had repaid him for what he'd done. No one had to tell him. He knew. Had they simply killed him, he may have never known it was reaping what he'd sown, but because of how they did it, he knew immediately. Amazing!
Galatians 6:7-8 NKJV
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
Adoni-Bezek died like 70 other kings he had done the same thing to. He mentions that they were getting scraps under his table. What does this say to us? It tells us that he would cut off their thumbs and big toes and keep them alive under his table, scrapping for food until they bled out and died. I know, I know. I said it was a horrible little story, but you must get to know, especially in these last days, a God who loves you and a God of vengeance, because as things get darker and darker, you will see things you never thought you'd see and probably things you never wanted to see.
The short story of Adoni-Bezek tells us that he did not die right away. No, the Bible says that even after they'd done this to him, they brought him to Jerusalem and he died there.
You're enemies are also the enemies of Almighty God. If they do not repent and put their sins under the blood of Jesus Christ, just as you or I have done, reaping what they've sown will come to them. I do not rejoice over this beloved. In fact, our heart posture should always be to see these people changed and transformed, just as the murderous Saul became the great Apostle Paul. I do, however, believe this one very short story in the book of Judges shows that God does not forget. He loves you, and unless the evil doers repent, He will repay in a much greater way than you or I ever could.
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Chapter 2
~The Beginning of the Judges~
As we move further into the book of Judges, we see Caleb rise up, but not to fight. He rose up to lead and called a man to go up against Keriath Sepher (a city). He tells the men he will give his daughter to whoever takes this on. It is a man named Othneil who takes on the assignment.
Now remember that Moses had promised Caleb Hebron, and it was Joshua who fulfilled that promise.
Joshua 14:13 NIV
13 Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance.
and a mighty man he was, even after Moses died. He was not afraid of the Giants when he was sent out as a spy in the book of Numbers, nor was he at the age of 85.
Joshua 14:10-12 NIV
10 “Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. 12 Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”
Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak. Also, remember that Anak was a Giant. In reading through Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, and Joshua, the name Anak is always connected to Giants. I will not add all the scriptures here, but I hope you will take the time to look them up. We must realize that they needed God. The people they were driving out of the lands that God had given them weren't just your average neighbor. They were descendants of Giants and very strong and powerful against the men and even the armies of the Lord.
If hearing about the Giants is new to you, please read Genesis 6 and even the book of Enoch, which is considered an extra-biblical book left out of the canonized Bible. I personally believe it was left out on purpose to keep us in the dark about the Nephilim (Giants), just as I believe the book of Jubilee was purposely left out so that we would not know about what happened when the angels came down and mated with women in Genesis 6. The book of Jubilee also tells about the Nephilim (Giants) that were the offspring of the angels and human women, and also tells us about the Lunar calendar, and God's times, and seasons, and I dare say that if the instructions are left out of anything, you realize pretty quickly that it is much harder to understand or put something together. That is why I believe it was done on purpose when King James had the Bible put together. At least to me it is obvious that there was an element of control so that the people would not know certain things, and much of the church grew up grateful that they had a Bible in their home not realizing that there were things left out and changed so that the people could not comprehend who they were as the children of God and would not know their authority so they would never rise up against the Leadership of the day.
Why even bring this up? Because we have a westernized view of how things were in Bible days. We tend to see everything in a world view that we live in today. Our Giants are in front of us, but they look very different, and we don't see them walking around or eating people. There was a real fear back in those days that they saw with their own two eyes. A fear we've never known or even understood as we read through the Bible, but that might be another book entirely. Our Giants have been hidden very well, but God has revealed to us that we've had our Giants to fight as well.
In Judges 2, none of the tribes drove out the inhabitants, and so we find the angel of the Lord speaking to the tribes...
Judges 2:1-3 NIV
The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, 2 and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? 3 And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.’”
Disobedience always brought defeat. How did the disobedience creep in? The book of Judges clearly tells us...
Judges 2:10-13 NIV
10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.
In the Lord's anger, whenever Israel went out to fight, instead of God fighting for them, the hand of the Lord was against them. The Israelites were in great distress, and this is when God raised up Judges. All they'd known was Moses and Joshua, and now the Lord would try to help them by giving them men and even a woman to save them from themselves, but they would not listen.
These were definitely a stiff-necked people, as was written in both Exodus and Deuteronomy. Reading the book of Judges to me was like that old movie Groundhog Day, when the same thing happens over and over again, yet with new generations, the same thing happens again and again. They continually forget the God who loves them and delivered them out of slavery and purposely put themselves under other gods and become enslaved all over again. One thing that I can clearly see in this, that the Bible always mentions is that a new generation rises up who did not know the Lord. But how did that happen? It happened because those who had the wisdom and knowledge of God and what He'd done for them and their ancestors did not teach and train up their children in the way they should go, so they walked away time and time again.
Proverbs 22:6 NIV
Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
My last statement is not a fiery dart meant to hurt anyone, because as I write this, I myself am guilty of the same. I, too, had children who walked away from the Lord for a time, and I fully take responsibility, but I feel that we must, as parents, understand how this happens. Children are teachable when they are young, and all you have to do is look around to see that children can be trained up to love and serve the Lord.
The book of Judges, however, isn't as much about doom and gloom as it is about the love of God, in that He always heard their cry. He was ever listening and always waited for them to call out to Him, and when they did, He always stepped right back in and saved or delivered them.
In the New Testament, Jesus is God's fix for all of this. The blood of Jesus saved and delivered us from ourselves. If we accept Jesus, we can now walk in that victory, not because of us but because of Jesus. Man can never rely on himself to fix anything. It's all about Jesus.
Reading the book of Judges gives you great insight into the heart of man and how much he hurt God and turned from Him time and time again, but it also gives you an even greater understanding of how good God really is. If He says I will never leave you or forsake you. He means it, and He truly won't. He may turn His head from your sin just as He had to do with Jesus on the Cross, but Redemption is always on His mind, and you, beloved, are always in His heart.
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Chapter 3
~ The First Judge ~
In everything there is a purpose. Sadly, many read Scripture as if it were simply a book. They see only words on a page, but that is the lie that countless people live with most of their lives. The truth is, the Bible is alive.
Hebrews 4:12 NKJV
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
It is not like any other book in the world. Just like God's creation of our world, the Word of God is a work of art. He speaks through words just as He did in the beginning. He expects us to use those words just as He did. Whether it's numbers or times and seasons or the sharing of dreams, God's word is perfect, and it is clearly how He speaks. To those who don't believe they can hear the voice of God, I say read His word. It truly is like opening the mouth of Jesus (He is the Word made flesh), and until we learn to hear His voice through the Spirit within us, we can learn much about Him and hear Him speaking to us through His Word.
John 1:14 NKJV
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
The end of Judges chapter 2 tells us that God was angry that the Israelites violated the covenant they made with Him, and He was no longer going to drive out the nations (people) that were left when Joshua died. However, even in this, God had a plan and a purpose.
Judges 2:23 NIV
2 and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? 3 And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.’”
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Judges 3:1-2 NIV
These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan 2 (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience):
Sadly, the test proved that they would not follow the instructions previously given by the Lord. They began marrying the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites and intermingling with people that were not born of the Lord or chosen by Him.
Judges 3:7 NIV
7 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
Because of this, they were subject to the king of Aram Nahariam for eight years. But when they cried out to the Lord and began to pray, He heard them from heaven, so He raised up another deliverer.
An important side note here is that often, people have a very incorrect mindset about God. They believe that because He is Sovereign, He can just step in and change things, but what they miss in their lack of knowledge, because they refuse to get to know Him by reading His word, is that He gave the earth to man.
Psalm 115:16 NIV
The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to mankind.
So, just like the days of God calling on Abraham, Noah, Joseph, Esther, David, or the Apostles, including Paul, He is ever looking for a man or woman that He can work through. God is looking for people to partner with Him, and He doesn't move unless He has a remnant praying and asking Him to intervene. The book of Genesis and even Ezekiel give us clues as to why...
Genesis 18:20 NIV
Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous
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Ezekiel 22:30 NIV
“I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.
If His people are crying out, He hears them, and if He hears no one, He does not intervene, but more often than not, He finds either a man or a woman who loves Him (like a Mary, mother of Jesus) who will believe Him and sacrifice all for Him and for His cause, no matter the cost to them.
From the very beginning, God gave man a will of their own. We see this in the Garden when Adam and Eve chose to follow the voice of the Serpent rather than remain in a relationship with the God who created them and fellowshipped with them in the cool of the day. He was creating a family that would love and want Him in their lives, and not robotic humanoids that would always live in His will. This, to me, is the heart of God. He does not control us. So, then people who say things like, 'Why didn't God change this, or why didn't God stop that?' It is clear that He absolutely will not control the things that are happening on the earth without men or women giving Him permission to do so, and even then, it is built out of a relationship with Him.
Would hearing the cry of just one Israelite in those days have made God intervene? Probably not. Although I do not know how many God needs to hear crying out, I do believe He wants a remnant of people. However, if we understand relationship rather than religion, then we see that Abraham alone was able to get God to rethink the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah. It was Abraham who, through his close relationship with the Father, stopped at 10 righteous, and in the end, because Lot's daughters and son-in-laws laughed and would not leave when they were told what was coming, there were not 10 righteous found, so only 4 escaped with Angelic help, and 3 lived because Lot's wife disobeyed what she was told.
While reading through the book of Judges, the one thing that I had to do was not focus on the hardship of the people because I found pretty quickly that they brought it on by walking away from God and breaking His heart over and over again. I began focusing on how much God continued to love His children, even through all the rebellion and breaking of covenant, He was willing to step in.
I found that throughout the book of Judges, the Israelites live in a cycle of forgetting God, walking away, and breaking His heart. They worshiped other gods, and then once they realize their error and find themselves enslaved and suffering under the hands of men and false gods, they'd cry out again, remembering the God of their fathers. In Judges chapter 3, He raises up a man named Othniel, who was actually related to Caleb, and God used him to save them.
Judges 3:10-11 NIV
10 The Spirit of the Lord came on him, so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war. The Lord gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him. 11 So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died.
You've probably never heard the name Othniel, but he was the first Deliverer and Judge after the death of Joshua. The Israelites had done it again. The cycle continued as they traded the peace and safety of being under the Creator of Heaven and Earth for being enslaved under man, and false gods, and He had to let them go. This time to the king of Moab. They were subject to Eglon, king of Moab, for 18 years.
It's almost like a bad dream. They begin crying out to the Lord, and this time He raises up Ehud. This story is somewhat unique in that the Bible describes Ehud as a left-handed man. You might wonder why that matters. Well, it mattered greatly in those days. Few men were left-handed, and so those who kept the king safe would watch the right hand of the men who came to get an audience with him. They never assumed a man would come in one day who was left-handed, and so they were not looking closely enough when Ehud came in that day.
Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword only a cubit long (small enough to hide) so that those watching over the king would not be concerned about Ehud's visit to Eglon. He goes in to visit and then leaves when everyone else leaves. All seems well and right, but Ehud turns around and goes back, telling Eglon's security men that he has a secret message for the king, and because they see no reason to be concerned, they let him in. In fact, the king tells his security to leave.
Judges 3:20-23 NIV
20 Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace and said, “I have a message from God for you.” As the king rose from his seat, 21 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly. 22 Even the handle sank in after the blade, and his bowels discharged. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. 23 Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.
No one even knew King Eglon was dead until Ehud was back home safe and sound. When he arrives, he blows a trumpet to get the attention of the Israelites who'd been in bondage under this evil king named Eglon for 18 years. Then Ehud tells the Israelites...
Judges 3:28-30 NIV
28 “Follow me,” he ordered, “for the Lord has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands.” So they followed him down and took possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab; they allowed no one to cross over. 29 At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not one escaped. 30 That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.
After Ehud, God used a man named Shangar, who the Bible says struck down six hundred Philistines, and he too saved Israel. With Judge after Judge, God continued to show His love and intervention for His people by bringing a deliverer to save them from the slavery and bondage that they would get themselves into. As generations of new Israelites were born and raised, the generation before them failed miserably in teaching about the God who had delivered them over and over from Moses and the Red Sea to a tiny sword that killed one king through Ehud, saving a nation. This is prominent, I believe, in what we are living through today. It has been proven once again that if we forget the God of our nation and our history, history will always repeat itself.
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Chapter 4
~ Women Arise ~
I absolutely love Judges chapter 4 because it proves that God has no problem raising up and using women. While religion says 'God won't use women or women aren't called and women can't be spiritual leaders, Pastors, Prophets, or Apostles. Some denominations do not even allow women to teach, unless it is to children in a Sunday school class. To me, this story in Judges dispels all of the religious mindsets about women not being called or gifted by God. In fact, before I move on to Deborah, I'd also like to share that, like Simeon, who the Lord kept alive until he could see the birth of Jesus, He also kept Anna to a ripe old age, who was called a Prophet.
Luke 2:36-38 NIV
There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
I am not trying to offend anyone, but honestly, God's people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. If women don't get into the Bible for themselves to not only find out who He is but also who they are in Christ, men and denominations will continue to keep you in bondage to their lies and deception. The truth is, both the Old Testament and the New Testament are overbalanced in men being in leadership, but we have to understand the times they were living in. Just because they did things one way over 2000 years ago doesn't mean we weren't supposed to grow and change. In Isaiah 43:19, the Lord said, 'Behold I do a new thing.' God isn't the one who is stuck. We are.
Another reason the story of Deborah is so important to us is that she is also a married woman. She was married to a man named Lappidoth. Aren't we glad that today we use names like David, Steven, Paul, and not Lappidoth?
Judges 4:4 NIV
Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading Israel at that time.
Like Anna, whom I just mentioned, Deborah was called a Prophet. Actually, depending on which version of the Bible you read, you will find Anna, Mirriam, and Deborah listed as either a prophet or a prophetess. The Prophet's office is a gift from God.
Definition of Prophet as given by ChristianAnswers.net
Biblical prophets are persons who convey a message from God, or teach the Word of God. In addition, sometimes God gave them a prophecy of the future to convey to the people of their time. In some cases, God used them in a miracle (e.g., Moses, Elijah the prophet, etc.).
The first thing you have to do when you think of Judges is get rid of your Westernized mindset that they put on black robes and sit in a courtroom. Deborah sat outside under what was called the Palm of Deborah, and the Israelites went to her to have their disputes decided. Deborah had a great amount of wisdom, I believe, because she was so connected to God in her day and led by the Spirit. Here is where her prophetic calling/gift comes in. She calls for Barak and says...
Judges 4:6-7 NIV
“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.’”
Were women to be in war in those days? Most likely not, but Barak actually tells Deborah that he will not go unless she goes with him. He knows that she is his connection to God and His voice. She goes with him but tells him he must understand that the honor will not be his because the Lord will deliver Sisera, who was the Commander of King Jabin of Canaan, who led 900 chariots fitted with iron into his hands.
So, although Deborah called on Barak to hear the word of the Lord and take 10,000 men to go up against Sisera's army, she made it clear that it would be God who would deliver Sisera into his hands, and it would not be Barak who could take the credit. One very interesting thing to mention is that I love to look things up in different versions of the Bible, and if we look at the Amplified Classic version, it actually says, Sisera would be delivered into the hands of a woman.
Judges 4:9 AMPC
And she said, I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the trip you take will not be for your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.
Deborah, not her husband Lappidoth. Why do I keep highlighting her husband? There simply is no explanation for why God uses Deborah rather than her husband. To me, this screams loudly, 'I am God and I can and will use anyone that I wish. I call, I gift, I choose, and I want you to know this truth. God looks upon the heart, not upon our flesh or what gender we are.' She was so connected to the Lord that she knew the exact day when Barak and the army should go.
Judges 4:14 NIV
“Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?”
As we continue, we find that the Lord confused Sisera and He routed all his chariots and army by the sword, terrifying them. In fact, verse 16 literally says not a man was left out of the 10,000 who were with Sisera, and by now he is running for his own life after leaving his chariot; the Bible says that he took off on foot.
Another woman arises...
Again, I am emphasizing this because it is my hope that some who read this book and may have a religious spirit or a religious mindset because of false teachings will get this right. I wholeheartedly believe that if we read the word and study, we can help the Father remove the scales from the eyes of others and deliver them from false doctrine that still to this day keeps women and men alike in a bondage God never intended for us to live in.
Barak and his army did their job, taking out King Jabin's army under Sisera, but the Lord had already made it clear that he would not get the honor or glory for delivering the people from Sisera. Now Sisera was alone, and after fleeing for his life, he finds himself at the tent of Jael. He certainly thought that Jael would help him when he saw her. Jael is also a married woman. In fact, in this story, I found it profound that in her case, the Bible does tell us why it was important for God to use Jael rather than her husband.
Judges 4:17 NIV
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.
So we see in verse 17 that Sisera went to Jael's tent because he knew her husband, Heber, had an alliance with King Jabin. Surely the Lord knew that Heber might have hidden him or protected him so that he could find favor with King Jabin, but God knew Jael would stand up and not allow this evil man to kill her people any longer.
She goes out to meet Sisera and assures him that he is safe and can come in. She gets him nice and cozy, knowing he is exhausted. Even goes and gets him a glass of milk, but he is still so fearful that he asks her to stand at the door of the tent and watch for anyone who might come by inquiring of his whereabouts. He begs her to say that he is not there.
Now, I never said when I started writing this that it wasn't going to get ugly, right? The Lord then uses Jael to take out an enemy of His people. At this time, King Jabin, with Sisera at his side, had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years. Therefore, the cycle had continued just as it had previously. God would save, they would turn from Him, He would have to let them go because of free will and then again they would cry out to the Lord, and because He loves His children, He heard their cries for help and raised up two women and Barak to deliver His people.
Judges 4:21 NIV
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.
So after Jael kills Sisera, Barak shows up looking for him, and she simply walks out to him and says, 'I will show you the man you are looking for.' Of course, in our minds, we are thinking, how could she do something like that? Well, God knows who He can use and who He can trust in any given calling. Deborah's prophecy came to pass right before Barak's eyes as he was shown that God had delivered Sisera into his hands, but he was not the one to take him out. Chapter 4 ends by saying that God subdued Jabin, king of Canaan, before the Israelites. God gets the glory, and that is what He is going to get in our day as well. God is using Donald Trump and many others, but watch and see. God will be the one to get the glory once all is said and done in our time as well.
Judges 4:24 NIV
24 And the hand of the Israelites pressed harder and harder against Jabin king of Canaan until they destroyed him.
I believe the book of Judges speaks to us, the reader, and shows us that although God's people broke His covenant and turned from Him over and over, He always waited for them to see their error and to cry out so that He could step right back in. God gave the earth to man and gave man free will. We, His people, and even those who do not believe in Him are not robots. Every choice and decision we make affects our own lives and the lives of others.
What if Deborah had never said yes to the Lord and argued with Him that He needed to find a man or use her husband? What if Jael had been a sweet little housewife waiting on her husband to return home and never had the thought of lulling Sisera to sleep and using a tent peg to take out one of her people's enemies? The truth is, in Deborah's day, God needed women to do the job. There was no man God could call on. I don't know why He couldn't use Deborah's husband, but we are clearly told why He chose not to use Jael's husband.
Judges chapter 5 is called 'The Song of Deborah'. We are told that on that day, Deborah and Barak sang this song together. Below I have given two different versions of the same scripture.
Judges 5:7 AMPC
7 The villages were unoccupied and rulers ceased in Israel until you arose—you, Deborah, arose—a mother in Israel.
&
Judges 5:7 NIV
Villagers in Israel would not fight;
they held back until I, Deborah, arose,
until I arose, a mother in Israel.
Verse 7 above clearly reveals that no one. No other men or women were doing anything until Deborah arose. I encourage you to read Judges 5 in its entirety. Do what I did and try to sing it if you can. God chose Deborah and Jael, and both were called for such a time, just as we are called for the time we are living in. Nothing escapes the Lord. He knows the end from the beginning. And I will share one final scripture here that I may actually share a few times throughout writing this because it is so impactful.
Acts 17:26 NIV
From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.
This scripture in Acts 17 to me says that there is never and has never been a time in history when God did not know who He would call, gift, and use for each and every situation that arose. In this chapter, two women arose and will forever be remembered because of such a powerful story. Their stories are recorded for us for a reason. God did not hide the fact that He called and used women. Men are the ones who do that because of one scripture in 1 Corinthians 14, where Paul says that women should remain silent in the church. Paul was speaking to a specific issue in that church, and yet man has used that to keep women in bondage for thousands of years.
It is because of Deborah and Jael, with the obedience of Barak and his army, that the land actually experienced 40 wonderful years of peace.
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Chapter 5
~ Mighty Man of Valor ~
After 40 years of peace, the Israelites fell away from God again. For 7 years, God gave them into the hands of the Midianites. What does giving them into the hands of actually mean? Many have wondered if God was evil or was doing evil by doing so. I believe that often times one place Christians miss God is that they see Him as Sovereign. They say things like, God can do anything He wants and this is true. He is the Creator of all things and could step in at any time, but He chooses not to. As I mentioned previously in another chapter, God gave the earth to men. He gave us free will and authority to trample on serpents and scorpions. His desire is that we would learn these things from His word and by His Spirit so that we would walk in them. If we did, then the serpents and scorpions would never overtake us. But God has also proven time and time again that when the enemy comes in like a flood, He will always raise a standard against him.
Why give them over, though? It would be so much easier if God just controlled everything and everyone, and they never had to go through the oppression that inevitably comes upon them, but God, we must realize is also a Father. He is God of the Universe, but to His own children, He is a good, good Father. He will not force Himself on us or make us love Him. Just as He wants us to train up our children in the way they should go, and desires that we would honor Him, love Him, praise and worship Him if we choose another way, He will stand aside and let us. This is where free will comes in. God will not control man. We are not simply puppets or robots. When His children fall away, He gives them over not to see them hurt or harmed but to allow them to find out what their own choices and decisions have done to them, their families, or even in their lives in general.
Now the Midianites were so oppressive that the Israelites had to carve out shelters for themselves in mountain cliffs and live in caves. This in itself is interesting because Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
In 2024, I began following and praying with a man named Brandon Biggs, who called himself a watchman, not a prophet, but he was the only one who knew in advance that Donald Trump would be shot and that the bullet would go so close to his ear that there would be blood. Several other prophets knew that there was an assassination attempt coming, but Brandon actually saw it in a vision months before it happened, which is what drew me to him. I found him on YouTube because the Lord told him to start a prayer channel and to get 1 million prayer warriors around the world to subscribe so that they would all be praying together for the same things.
Why am I mentioning Brandon Biggs? As I shared above, scripture tells us that there is nothing new under the sun. The Lord has taken Brandon to the future and shown him that His people who are left behind will be forced to carve out shelters for themselves in mountain cliffs and live in caves to hide from the drones and police that will be after them to force them to take the mark. I do not know when this will come. No one does. I personally believe once God turns things around, we have hundreds of years still on this earth, but the harvest must be brought in, or many will one day be left behind. However, we must be teachers of the truth and not the watered-down gospel that is leading countless people to hell.
Jesus is the only way to the Father, and He told us that many false teachers have come throughout history, teaching lies and deceiving people. Jesus is not religion. Religion is made by man to deceive multitudes, and it has done exactly what it intended to do. There are many who call themselves Christians yet don't know the Lord at all. Just for a minute, look at the Pharisees and Sadducees in the Bible. God did not send His Son to earth to become like them or even to become a part of them. Jesus chose 12 uneducated men and taught them the ways of God. God was doing a new thing. The Father's heart has always been relationship. He walked with Adam in the cool of the day, did He not? It is my hope that through this book, people will not only see that no matter what His children do, He will always lift them out of it again, but also that you will grasp with your whole heart that simply being religious is not of Him. Sitting in a church does not make someone a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.
If you are sensing that just maybe, you are more religious than relational today is your walk with the Lord. You can change that. You can know for sure by praying the prayer of salvation below and then following Jesus (not religion) and moving beyond having Jesus just as Savior in your life but allowing Him to be Lord taking the time to get to know Him daily. I have added the salvation prayer here for you if you need it but being a Christian is so much more than these few words, we are to speak out loud and mean with our whole heart.
The Prayer of Salvation...
“Dear God, I know I’ve sinned, and I need Your forgiveness. I believe Jesus died for me and rose again. I trust Him as my Savior and choose to follow Him as Lord. Thank You for loving me and giving me eternal life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
If you said that prayer, I rejoice with you, and the Bible says that the angels rejoice as well.
Now getting back to the Israelites, who by this time were starving, as the Bible says, the Midianites and Amalekites came like swarms of locusts eating all their crops.
Judges 6:6
Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.
This time God sends them a prophet who said,
Judges 6:8-10
“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”
In comes Gideon, who, like anyone else who has lived through difficulties and trials, believes that God is the one who did this to them. This is why even today, we have people who see God as hateful, mean, and angry. They never take responsibility for their role in what happened, and the enemy uses that against God, turning people from Him out of their own ignorance and lack of knowledge of what the Word actually says. We don't like to look at ourselves because it is so much easier to blame God, so that we don't have to change, but the truth is God wants change, not only for His benefit but also for ours.
Judges 6:13 NIV
“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
Interestingly enough, the Angel of the Lord does not answer his question. He simply tells him to go and save Israel out of the hands of the Midianites and says, 'Am I not sending you?' Like most of us, Gideon thinks so lowly of himself that he can't even imagine doing what he's being asked.
Judges 6:15 NIV
“Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
So the Angel of the Lord tells him, 'I will be with you.' Obviously, He is expecting Gideon to remember the stories that have been passed down about how God delivered His people through His servant Moses and also through Joshua. Gideon is now on board for this enormous task that has been set before him. That night, the Lord told Gideon to tear down his father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. Why is this important? Because of what it symbolized.
Baal was considered a god (little g), and in fact, in Exodus 14, God told Moses to take the Israelites to Baal Zephon and camp there. Another thing that many miss is that Baal Zephon was the god (little g) of water. The plagues that the Egyptians went through were not simply plagues. Each one had a meaning, and each one proved that God was the one true Living God and all of their gods (little g) were worthless. God had them go there so that they could see that Baal Zephon had no power over Him. God also used the Red Sea parting to take out the enemy of His people. Pharaoh who believed in Baal Zephon as one of his gods that controlled water would surely be there for, he and his men. In fact, it is believed that the reason that Pharaoh led his men in was because he trusted his god to save them.
Not so, it was a trap set by God Himself knowing that Pharaoh would do exactly what he did. God knows the end from the beginning and this beloved is what we are facing today. The one true Living God is setting trap after trap for the evil ones and there will be a Red Sea moment that they can't get back out of. God is the way maker and He will close the Red Sea around them all once the last sandal of His children gets across. I encourage you to do research on Baal or the little g gods that were used against His people throughout the Bible. You will be so shocked to find how many times God had to prove Himself to His children and pull them out of the death grip of Baal. In fact, I believe you will see the Exodus in a whole new light and realize that God uses everything.
Who was Asherah, and what is an Asherah pole? Asherah was a Canaanite fertility goddess who was connected to Baal. An Asherah pole was a sacred tree or pole that stood near a religious site. In the years that followed, it became what we know of today, in a bar or being used as a striptease. Women, even back in those days, would dance around the Asherah pole, attempting to seduce men and women alike and pull them into sexual sin and away from a holy and moral God.
I seem to keep going on rabbit trails here, but the truth is, I don't believe you can truly understand who your God in Heaven is if you are ignorant of how the enemy has oppressed and tried to destroy God's people by deceiving them and pulling them away from Him as a Father who loves you and desires a relationship with you. How can one have a true relationship with God and a little g at the same time? How can one be holy as their Father is holy if they are dancing around an Asherah pole? This deception must be brought to light to the church in order to pull them out of darkness that is even now consuming so many.
The people were upset the next day, and after investigating, found that it was Gideon who had torn down his father's altar to Baal and burned the Asherah pole. So, they go to his father, Joash, and tell him to bring him out so they can kill him, but I just love what Joash says. His son literally tore down his altar to Baal and burned the Asherah pole, and Joash says...
Judges 6:31 NIV
But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.”
Not only did Joash save his son, but he also gave the angry mob some things to really think about. If Baal is a god, let him defend himself. So they renamed Gideon that day Jerub-Baal, saying Let Baal contend with him. The Midianites and Amalikites joined forces and crossed over the Jordan, but the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. He blows a trumpet to summon his people to follow him and sends messengers calling the people to arms. However, Gideon is still nervous and questioning whether the one true Living God is really going to be with him.
Judges 6:36-40 NIV
Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.
39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
God came through for Gideon. I found it priceless that God didn't get angry at Gideon for questioning Him or even just move on to another. No, He understood that when His people are oppressed, it is hard for them to have faith and believe again. God is faithful and answered both of Gideon's fleeces, and in the next chapter, we will get into how God actually used him.
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Chapter 6
~ The Sword of the Lord ~
Now Gideon realizes it truly is God who is speaking to him and that He will be with him. He obeys the Lord and gathers an army of thousands, but God comes to him and says, 'You have too many men.' Gideon, like you or me, thinks more is better, but with God, more isn't necessarily better. In fact, if we look at the story of David killing Goliath, King Saul had thousands in his army, and yet they were all terrified of this Giant that came out several times a day mocking their God and asking if anyone was willing to fight him. It was not King Saul. It was not one in his army or even his son Jonathan who took this on. God is working behind the scenes and has Jesse (David's father) send his son, who is just a 17-year-old shepherd boy, to bring his brothers, who were in Saul's army, food and supplies. Did David really take Goliath down, or did God take Goliath down using David? God uses man, but my point is that God does not need many; He simply needs one. One man or woman who will allow Him to work through them, and when He finds that one person, everything changes.
So God says to Gideon, I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast about themselves, saying they had the strength and saved them all. God is already telling Gideon he has to cut back on the men. So to those who believe God will not cut away from things like your church, your business, or even your friends or family, I hope that through this story you can see that just as He wanted the glory when Cicera was killed, and the Isrealites took out King Jaben it is important to understand that God isn't taking away the glory that comes upon men or women who do a work for Him. He lifts up, and He brings low, but when God removes people from your life, it isn't to hurt you but to show you that He is with you and mighty to save. So God says...
Judges 7:3 NKJV
3 Now therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead.’ ” And twenty-two thousand of the people returned, and ten thousand remained.
Did you see that? Twenty-two thousand men left, and only ten thousand remained. In the mind of man, this is crazy. Again, isn't Gideon supposed to be building an army? Isn't more better? No, because God is a God of the impossible, and so He purposely dwindles down the army to a size that in the eyes of man looks ridiculous and absolutely impossible to achieve victory. However, the Lord still felt there were too many men. So He tells Gideon to take them to the water and pay attention to how they drink the water.
Judges 7:4 NKJV
4 But the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will test them for you there. Then it will be, that of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ the same shall go with you; and of whomever I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ the same shall not go.”
I love Gideon's obedience. Most people, even of faith by now, would be arguing with God, but he goes along with it, and God is now going to pick between each and every one. You see, we just read over the words in the Bible. Many pick up a Bible and read it as if it were a book, but it is alive and is ever speaking and teaching us. Some read it and never put the time or the gravity into what they are reading. Gideon must have been thinking, how can we win a victory if the Lord is now saying even ten thousand is too many?
Judges 7:5-6 NIV
5 So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” 6 Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink.
I'm sure many reading this have heard it explained why God sent home those who lapped water like a dog compared to those who knelt down and cupped their hands for water, but it bears repeating. Those who simply ran to the water and lapped like an animal were focused on self and not aware of anything happening around them. This position in any army can get you killed quickly. But those who knelt down as if they were kneeling before the Lord and cupping their hands to bring the water (Holy Spirit) to their mouths were in a position of humility and watchfulness. Even in a position of submission to the Lord and giving thanks to Him for the very water they were drinking.
Gideon sent home all but 300 men. Did you get that? Gideon started with twenty thousand men, and the Lord purposely had him send away twenty-one thousand seven hundred men who could have fought. Because of the fact that Gideon is still afraid, God tells him to take a servant and go secretly to the camp of the enemy and listen to what they are saying. This, I believe, is mind-blowing and should encourage any Believer who knows that God speaks through dreams, night visions, etc Let's listen in...
Judges 7:13-14
13 Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”
14 His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”
God literally uses a dream that is had in the enemy's camp to speak to Gideon to show him the end result. He even shows Gideon that those in the camp are afraid of what is coming. We often remember the dreams of Joseph, Pharaoh, or even Joseph Jesus stepfather, but how often do we remember this simple dream? Also amazing to me is that dreaming and interpreting the dream was so normal that even this Midianite knew right away that God was speaking, yet today those of us who know Jesus and have the Holy Spirit dream and often just brush them aside as pizza dreams rather than seeking God's wisdom and interpretation. How do we interpret dreams? The truth is, we must have the word of God in us to understand and comprehend the symbolism that is used to speak to us, or we will just brush them aside.
Gideon then bows before the Lord in thankfulness and worship, and he calls his men to get up! It is time to fight. The Lord has given the Midianites into our hands.
Judges 7:16 NIV
16 Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside.
Gideon divided the men into 3 companies.
Judges 7:19-21 NIV
19 Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. 20 The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” 21 While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.
The Lord then causes the men to turn on each other with their swords. Some even fled, but many actually killed each other in fear of what they perceived Gideon had coming for them in his army, but what did he have? He had only 300 men with jars and torches. It all sounds crazy. It actually is crazy. Then the men who had previously been sent home now come back into play because Gideon sends out a message...
Judges 7:24b
“Come down against the Midianites and seize the waters of the Jordan ahead of them as far as Beth Barah.”
So all the men of Ephraim were called out and they seized the waters of the Jordan as far as Beth Barah.
Amazingly, God gave them victory with only 300 men, empty jars, and torches. Could they take the credit for this great win? No, and that was the point. God wants us to know that He is with us and that with Him, nothing is impossible. Then the men who were originally afraid after seeing this great victory lost all fear, knowing God was truly with them, and they captured two kings and the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon.
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Chapter 7
~ The 300 ~
Judges 8:1 ESV
4 And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over, he and the 300 men who were with him, exhausted yet pursuing.
As Gideon continues to move forward in the things of the Lord, he is in pursuit of two kings. First, he comes to Sukkoth, asking that his men be fed, but he is turned away. This is a great example to us of how even when we know that God is with us and helps us to do great and mighty things, He also uses man, and sometimes man refuses to help. Gideon and his 300 men have been fighting and are now tired and hungry, and so, as the leader, Gideon goes to the Officials of Sukkoth and kindly asks that his men be fed. Gideon isn't asking for himself. He is concerned about his troops, who are now exhausted, and Gideon's plan is to continue going after the two kings (Zebah and Zalmunna) even while his men take a break.
Finally, we can see that Gideon is confident in who he is and that God is with him as he begins to come upon hardships, but we find that he is basically forced to begin prophesying the downfall of the leaders and cities who reject his requests to take care of his men who are trying to deliver them. This is not just Gideon's Army. These are the 300 men that God Himself handpicked and chose to go up against the evil rulers to take back what was stolen and to again save His people. God does take these things personally, and to those who don't believe this is true, I say go read the story of Nabal in 1 Samuel 25. Gideon is not letting these men off so easily, and so he warns them of what is to come.
Judges 8:7 ESV
7 So Gideon said, “Well then, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will flail your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers.”
These Officials have questioned him, his calling to deliver them, and whether his God is truly with him. They have decided on their own that Gideon will probably fail, so they don't owe him anything and have no plans to help him or his men, even though this is not a plan of Gideon at all but a perfect plan of God to bring them all out of slavery that they've walked into on their own yet again by walking away from the true Creator of Heaven and Earth. God has chosen Gideon to bring down these evil, wicked, and controlling kings, but just like usual, and we still see it today, men cannot see beyond their own frailties. They don't understand that God doesn't leave them because He wants to. He turns His head from all the sin, the idol worship, and how they reject Him. They make choices that push God away, but all He needs is a remnant to begin to cry out, and He always comes back in to save His people out of their own messes.
As I have probably already previously mentioned, we see this in the story of David as a young man. Saul's army is standing against several kings at once, and his own men are shaking in their boots and unwilling to go out because the other side has a Giant named Goliath of Gath who is coming out and taunting them daily, instilling fear, and even mocking their God. A young man of only 17 years old shows up simply to bring food for his brothers at his father Jesse's request, and he hears Goliath cursing his God and is astonished that all of these men have so little faith and none will go up against this Giant that is mocking the One True Living God. Only David has the faith to do what is necessary. Gideon's story is similar in that God chose him and fully intended to use him and the 300 men to bring about a great deliverance, but could Saul or his army of thousands see it? No, they stood there for 40 days, allowing Goliath to come out several times daily, making them look the fools and mocking Yahweh. David found his own brothers, who were in Saul's army, shaking in their boots just like all the rest.
Next, Gideon goes to Penuel and makes the same request, but they answer him the same as the Officials of Sukkoth had, so again we find Gideon prophesying.
Judges 8:9 ESV
9 And he said to the men of Penuel, “When I come again in peace, I will break down this tower.”
Gideon and his army of 300 men are still going after the two kings of Midian, Zebah and Zalmunna, who have now lost thousands of men. In fact, they only have about 15,000 out of the original 120,000 that they started with. Please take a minute to comprehend the miracle here. As I often say, we just read over things and brush them aside too quickly. When God came to Gideon speaking through an angelic visit, Gideon didn't even see himself as much, let alone being able to do much for anyone, let alone the God of his fathers who had delivered them from Egypt. Now, with God's wisdom and help, the opposing armies have lost 11,850.00 men.
Once Gideon captures the armies, he comes upon a man and begins questioning him about Sukkoth. The man literally writes down the names of the 77 Officials and Elders who had turned down his request to feed the army of the Lord. By this point, it is obvious Gideon has no fear. He knows that God is with him, and those who stood against what the Lord had asked him to do needed to be taught a lesson, so he brings to pass exactly what he himself prophesied to them at Sukkoth and Penuel.
Judges 8:16-17 ESV
16 And he took the elders of the city, and he took thorns of the wilderness and briers and with them taught the men of Sukkoth a lesson. 17 And he broke down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.
Because of what the Lord accomplished through Gideon, the people asked him to rule over them, but in his wisdom and without pride or arrogance, he said no; he knew something they never seemed to understand. God wants to protect and provide for them. It is God who wants to be their King and ruler.
Judges 8:22-23 ESV
22 Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.” 23 Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.”
You see in what they say to him that they believe it was Gideon who saved them. They can't get their eyes off the natural realm. God's people must see into the supernatural realm, or they are truly blind. Most people today cannot comprehend this, but if we go back to Saul yet again, we find that the people are crying out for a king, and the Prophet Samuel goes to God, thinking the people are rejecting him, but God realizes right away what is happening. The people are not rejecting Samuel; they are rejecting Him. So of course, He gives them what they want. Rather than a God who loves them ruling over them, they want what others have, which was their downfall when God gave them Saul and remained so as Saul grew increasingly wicked for countless years until God raised up a young man after His own heart named David, who would eventually become a King with God's heart toward the people.
I feel it is important to interject here that, because many do not believe that God intervenes or cares what is happening to His children or to our world, He is not involved in politics, but the stories we are told in our Bible do not teach that in any way. The kings of days gone by were the rulers. They were the politicians of that day, and so today we have Kings, Prime Ministers, and Presidents who rule over us, who in our time became more and more evil as they were slowly but surely pulled away from the One who loves them and created them in the first place. We have to take responsibility for what happened and where we are today because things will not change going forward if we, as a people, do not take the time to look back to see where others failed before us or where we might have failed ourselves.
Like Saul, man is often more than willing to be exalted if not by self, then most definitely by others. Gideon, however, is not one of them. He rose to the occasion and did what the Lord asked him to do to save his people, but he never did it with a heart to be lifted up in any way, and wouldn't even allow his son or grandson to become their ruler. Gideon does, however, make a mistake that he certainly never saw coming. Because those they won against were Ishmaelites who wore a lot of jewelry in those days when the Israelites brought back the spoils and plunder, they ended up with gold, silver, jewels, and the like. In fact, more than they could even imagine. This is yet another time in history where God's people experienced a wealth transfer. It also happened to David and his mighty men when they got everything and more back in Ziglag.
The truth is you've been lied to by, in some cases, well-meaning people who were just simply wrong. Also, you've been lied to by infiltrators who were not well-meaning at all but wanted their evil and wicked agenda to take everything from you so that they could have all the money. Many don't realize that they have lived through another Pharaoh in Egypt experience, just on a much grander scale, with many Pharaohs, and it must all be exposed. It is not God who wants you broke, busted, and disgusted. It is the thief who comes to kill, steal, and destroy.
John 10:10 NKJV
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Jesus came to give us life abundantly, so if you are not living in the abundant life, the thief is involved. This is why it is IMPERATIVE that you do not look to man to teach you about God. Read His word for yourself. Pray and seek the Holy Spirit. Learn to hear His voice and how and when He is speaking, and do not let a Priest, Pastor, Prophet, or anyone tell you that God does not want His children to be healthy or blessed financially far above all they could ask or think.
- Why was Abraham wealthy?
- Why was Issac wealthy?
- Why did God raise up Joseph to bring in the wealth for His family when he brought them to Goshen in Egypt?
- Why did He put Esther in a castle and marry her to a King?
- Why did God give her uncle Mordecai everything, including the job and home of Haman, when He turned things around?
- Why did God make sure that out of all the men the King had to choose from, Daniel and the 3 Hebrew men would be seen as the best, so they would be lifted up?
- Why did David become a wealthy King, and his son Solomon become the wealthiest man to ever live?
Does any of this sound like a God who doesn't care or wants you broke? Does any of this sound like a God who couldn't care less about what the Leaders in the land are doing to His people? The truth is God always has a heart for His own people to be loved and cared for. He wants them to have wealth and wants them to prosper. There is no prosperity doctrine. It is the heart of your Father in Heaven that you not only have what you need but also that you have so much that you can be a blessing and a giver to others to advance His Kingdom on earth and introduce people to His Son and precious Holy Spirit.
Getting back to Gideon and where I believe he did miss it with the Lord. Gideon decides to ask those who are willing to bring gold, silver, jewels, etc, to donate so that he can have an Ephod made, and they are more than willing to do so. At this point, they are thankful to Gideon because they see him as the one who saved them, and although his heart is to get their eyes on God and not him, there is yet another setup here that turns their hearts. They quickly spread a cloak on the ground, and the people came and threw their riches of jewels, gold, and silver until it was piled high. But Gideon's idea is to create an Ephod. What is an Ephod, you might ask?
The ephod is a ceremonial garment worn by the high priest in the Old Testament, symbolising a connection between God and His people.
Gideon wants to connect his people to God. His heart was absolutely in the right place, but his good intentions did not go as planned. It must have been a beautiful picture to see his people delivered, and especially to see them in such prosperity, knowing that it was God who had truly done this. It had to be beautiful for him to see the people willingly sharing the wealth and prosperity the Lord had given into their hands but in his desire to have an Ephod created to remind them of what the Lord had done and so that they could always remember that God had blessed them with so much wealth that there was a time when they threw it into a pile on the ground because they had so much they wanted to give back.
Gideon places the Ephod in Ophrah, his hometown, but instead of it being a symbol of remembrance for the great things the Lord had done for His people through a man named Gideon and an army of only 300 men, they got their eyes off of God and began worshipping the Ephod. I feel the need to add a lengthy portion of scripture here that is found in the book of Romans. Read it in its entirety, but focus on verses 19 through 23.
Romans 1:18-25 NIV
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Yes, they did it again. They took something they clearly saw created by man to be a monument to the God of Heaven and Earth and something to remind them of His goodness, and began worshipping the Ephod. Sadly, it went from Gideon's original intent, and the people turned it into another Idol.
During Gideon's lifetime, the land did have peace for 40 years, and he went back home to live. Believe it or not, Gideon had 70 sons with many wives, and he also had a concubine in Shechem who bore him a son whom they named Abimilek. Gideon died, the Bible says, at a good old age, but this is where we must pay attention. Even though Gideon would not be their ruler, the Bible clearly says they had peace for 40 years, so even though he'd never been exalted as a King or Ruler over them, they saw him as such and remained in peace for the rest of his life.
Judges 8:33-34 NIV
33 No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god 34 and did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.
Gideon's story is absolutely amazing in that God took a man who not only thought very little of himself but also had an offense toward God Himself, and yet God worked with him and through him to save His people from the hands of their oppressors, only to have them turn on Him and worship Baal-Bereth (a special deity of the Schechemites).
What are we yet again seeing in the book of Judges? We've seen it over and over with the flood in Genesis and even in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God's people are well cared for, and He wants to be their God, their Father, their Ruler and King, but they can't seem to grasp that God is a Spirit that they cannot see and that He uses man to do His will upon the earth and takes man's natural and puts it with His Super and creates miraculous things happening in the SUPERNATURAL to save His people time and time again. We, like them, go around the same mountains over and over because evil is always looking for a way to use men and women to rise up and take God's children from Him. He uses the wicked hearts of men who need to dominate others. Just like the Garden of Eden, when the serpent confused Eve and Adam, who was standing with her by questioning God's integrity and what His heart really was for them, that old serpent confuses people and gets in by asking questions of us.
- Someone died in your family. Would a loving God really allow that?
- Your kids left home and abandoned you. Would a loving God allow that?
- You lost your job and have no other opportunities. Would a loving God allow that?
And I will close this chapter by sharing that this scripture in Deuteronomy is mind-blowing to me. Read it over and over and pay attention to how many times He says the word life. I close my eyes and see a vision of My Father in Heaven saying this to me. It isn't just words. This is His heart for you personally. See Him so in love with you that He is practically begging you and me, as well as all of those that He loves so deeply, to choose Him and to CHOOSE LIFE!
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Chapter 8
~ Abimelek ~
The tragedy of kids who don't follow in your footsteps
So, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, Gideon had 70 sons. Yes, you read that right. Obviously, not all through one woman. In fact, we know this immediately while reading...
Judges 9:1-2 NIV
Abimelek son of Jerub-Baal went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother’s clan, 2 “Ask all the citizens of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Baal’s sons rule over you, or just one man?’ Remember, I am your flesh and blood.”
So, Abimelek had a different mother than the rest of the sons, and he went before his own clan saying, 'Remember I am your flesh and blood.' He immediately pulled the family card in order to exalt himself. Although I can't imagine how leadership worked with all 70 of Gideon's sons, you can see right away that Abimelek chose himself, and God was never behind his hostile takeover. You will see as I continue writing what I mean by hostile.
His uncles go around the city of Schechem talking up the leadership of their nephew. People begin to follow, but then once they put silver into Abimlek's hands, he doesn't use it for the betterment of the people, the community, or even his family. Let's take a look at verse 4.
Judges 9:4 NIV
4 They gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, and Abimelek used it to hire reckless scoundrels, who became his followers.
At this point, they had turned from following Yahweh and began worshipping Baal-Berith, which means 'Lord of the Covenant'. Does this sound familiar? It should because the enemy uses the same playbook over and over. You simply have to have eyes to see it.
- Exalt Self.
- Get others to support you.
- Hire thugs to help you control the people.
- Pay the thugs so that they will also become your followers, and no one will stand against you.
At this point, I have a question, as I'm sure many who are reading this do. If you want to be a king, who are you the king of, or over, if you've murdered everyone? I think when he first started killing his brothers, it should have been obvious that they'd made a very bad decision supporting him.
So, now we get to my favorite parts of the story. Here again, we see prophecy being fulfilled because of what the youngest brother Jotham said when they lifted Abimelek up in the first place. But also, the Lord doesn't use a man to kill Abimelek. He amazingly uses a woman to destroy him.
Judges 9:52-53 NIV
52 Abimelek went to the tower and attacked it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire, 53 a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull.
Abimelek is still alive but humiliated beyond anything he can imagine. He asks his armor-bearer to kill him so that no one could say a woman killed him. His armor-bearer, the Bible says, ' ran him through'. Meaning he took a sword and forced it into Abimelek, and he died.
Judges 9:56-57 NIV
56 Thus God repaid the wickedness that Abimelek had done to his father by murdering his seventy brothers. 57 God also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them.
We are told that it was the curse of Jotham, but I can't help but see that Jotham was used by God to prophecy exactly what would happen, and I feel to close this chapter out by sharing his words to Shechem after they crowned Abimelek king.
Judges 9:19-20 NIV
19 So have you acted honorably and in good faith toward Jerub-Baal and his family today? If you have, may Abimelek be your joy, and may you be his, too! 20 But if you have not, let fire come out from Abimelek and consume you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and let fire come out from you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and consume Abimelek!”
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Chapter 9
~ Tolah, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon & Abdon ~
For More than 76 years, God continues to lead His people
After Abimelek, a man named Tola arose from Issachar, who led Israel for twenty-three years.
He was followed by a man from Gilead named Jair, who had thirty sons who controlled thirty towns in Gilead. The Bible says to this day they are called Havvoth Jair. Jair and his songs led Israel for twenty-two years.
Now Jepthah is one of my husband's favorites. He has told me about it over and over throughout our marriage of over 30 years because it reminds him a bit of himself. Here again, Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and left Him to worship the Baals and the Ashtoreths as well as the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines.
You would think that history would show them what not to do, but the sad reality is that every 20 or so years, they would fall away. I believe I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. 20 years is enough time for people to raise children who do not follow after them or walk in their ways. This is why it is so important to train up a child in the way they should go, so that when they are old, they do not depart (Proverbs 22:6). What I see throughout is that God's people start out well and then slowly but surely get pulled away by what the Bible calls the Baals. Meaning that many false gods were constantly trying to pull His people away.
In 2023, 2 of our children walked away very unexpectedly. Our son, who was 22 at the time, had our youngest daughter, who was almost 19, move in with him. He had many issues with us as parents and felt that he would do better. This was a very difficult time for me as a person and definitely as a mom. Up to that time, I had truly thought I was such a terrific mother that hearing what was said to me that night was quite devastating, but one thing that I remember the most was that my son said, 'God is more important to you than we are.' Of course, I stood up and said, 'That is how it is supposed to be,' and of course, he said, 'See, that is what I mean.'
Why bring this up? Because as parents, we failed to lead our own children to the Lord so that they would follow Jesus on their own and build a relationship with Him that they would never consider walking away from. What had we done all those years? The same thing that many do in ignorance and error. We taught our children religion, and not relationship at all. We did not teach them true Christianity, but rules and regulations, leaving them to feel they could never be good enough, not only for us but also for God. This is what I see in the stories that I am sharing in this book. At about 20 or so years, the people always fall away. Why? Because false gods creep in, deceiving people little by little. Pulling them away from the truth, and then of course they have a deep love for their children, so they bow down and allow their kids to start directing their households or their lives, and all of a sudden they realize they've abandoned God entirely.
In our case, I did not bow down, but I lost my kids because I was unwilling to let go of my Father in Heaven. My kids were my world, but somehow they didn't see it the same way. At that time, my husband was very ill and in a nursing home. Once I told him, I was quite surprised to find that, although heartbroken, he stood with me in standing with God. We love our kids, but we had to stand with God, believing that just like the Prodigal in Luke 15, He would show them the truth about the road they were on and then He would bring them to themselves and one day send them back home. More important than coming back to us is that they find their way back to God.
Isaiah 49:25 NKJV
But thus says the Lord: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, And the prey of the terrible be delivered; For I will contend with him who contends with you, And I will save your children.
Now, the interesting thing about Jepthah's story is that he is born to a prostitute, and his siblings reject him to the point where he is sent away. In a way, this reminds me of David's story. Although nowhere in Scripture does it say that David's mother was a harlot, the brothers appear to reject him and simply want him to stay out in the fields tending sheep. They are completely shocked when the Prophet Samuel shows up at their home and anoints David to be the next King. In Jepthah's story, he too is made the leader of the people. Once they rejected him and sent him away, and now they are begging him to come and save them from the oppressors all around them.
There is one more very important aspect to this story. Jepthah's mother, the Bible clearly says, was a prostitute. There is no assumption here, but yet out of all the brothers in Jepthah's family, God chose him to deliver the people. Just as happened for Jesse's sons, David was chosen to become one of the greatest kings Israel knew, and his throne was firmly established, from which his son Solomon became King after him. Why is this important, you might wonder? Because too often Religion teaches us that you must be perfect to do a work for the Lord, or that God is looking for something that He truly is not. God does not look on the outward appearance like man does. God is looking at the heart of the person. He cares very little who someone was born to or what their past was like. He cares whether you are sold out to Him and are willing to be small in your own eyes so that He will get the glory for what takes place when He delivers His people. Anytime we get our eyes on race, Appearance like tattoos, piercings, hair colors, etc... that we don't have, or even what family you come from, we are already deceived. God does not see things as we do.
1 Samuel 16:7 NKJV
For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Getting back to Jepthah, who the Bible does say was a mighty warrior...
Judges 11:7-8 NKJV
7 So Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Did you not hate me, and expel me from my father’s house? Why have you come to me now when you are in distress?”
8 And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “That is why we have turned again to you now, that you may go with us and fight against the people of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”
He obviously has a heart to forgive in that he chooses to take them up on their offer to be their leader, but also, he is not just going to be a leader; he also has to go up against those who have oppressed the people of God. The king of the Ammonites was against the people and wanted their land. Jepthah writes a very lengthy letter (Judges 11:14-27) of explanation as to why the land does not belong to him, and the king ignores it entirely.
Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jepthah, and he went to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gave them into his hands, devastating twenty towns. He later called the men of Gilead together and even had to strike down the Ephramites because they came against him and what the Lord had him do as well. In the end, Jepthah only led Israel for six years, and then he died, but this is an important story because it shows us that God does not choose the things or the people that we would choose. He is telling us through even the Old Testament stories that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. It is we who need to pay attention.
1 Corinthians 1:27 NKJV
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
After Jephthah Ibzan of Bethlehem led Israel for seven years. After Ibzan came Elon (bet you didn't know that name was biblical), the Zebulunite who led Israel for ten years, and after him was Abdon from Pirathon, who led Israel for eight years. The next chapter will begin to focus on Samson...
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Chapter 10
~ An Unlikely Choice ~
Chapter 13 of Judges begins, 'Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord.' What does this actually mean, though? Does it simply mean people were falling into sin? No, not really. It means even though His people knew Him, knew He was the Creator of Heaven and earth, and knew full well that there was no other God besides Him, they turned away and chose to worship idols made of gold, silver, metals, and even wood. Baal and Asherath are often mentioned in these years, but as I read through, I could clearly see that sometimes these fake gods were not emphasized. Yes, there has always been a deceptive seduction to pull God's people away from Him, but truth be told, all it took was TIME, and His people would forget the miraculous history of their forefathers being delivered from slavery and from the Pharaoh in Egypt. They simply could not comprehend that they could be enslaved again. In fact, it is almost like slavery is what they wanted, and it is difficult to look around our world today and not see the very same thing. There are actually people who want to be under tyranny and have no problem living in lies and deception. God's own children can become just like a dog running back to its own vomit, but the pattern that we clearly see is that they fall away in mass. Oh, it might start out one here and one there, but it's like a cancer and takes the people over entirely.
To me, the story of Samson is proof that God can and will use anyone to help and to try to bring deliverance to His people. He loves us that much, beloved. One cannot read the book of Judges without seeing the goodness and grace of God. His people do evil in His eyes, and so God gives them over to it. This beloved is the difference between the Creator of everything and Religion. Other religions will force you to stay, follow rules and regs, and what most people miss is that God is not a God of religion at all. Read your Bible again. Jesus did not choose 12 Pharisees (who were the religious teachers in those days). No, when he stepped into His ministry, He chose 12 regular guys that He could train and mentor to become more like Him and not to be religious at all. God, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah, the Great I Am, Jesus, or whoever He is to you will let you go your own way. God loves them but will not force Himself on people, and therefore, in the story, He'd given them over for another 40 years.
Deuteronomy 30: 19 NIV
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
Why am I sharing that scripture once again? Because it is important to me that you see the truth about God, and this scripture reveals His heart. When I read this, I see Him almost begging. No, God does not beg, but what I mean is I see that He loves me so much that it is that important that He says, choose life twice. I imagine God sharing that His heart for me is LIFE and BLESSINGS, but that if I want to, I can choose death and curses. I choose. He doesn't. But His final words in that scripture are crying out to you and me, 'choose life' and not only for yourself but also for your children. The choices that you make, beloved, bring life and blessings or death and curses, not only on you but also on your children. It is my prayer that once you read this book and have a better understanding of the heart of God, you will choose life and blessings.
So, again, we go through another 40 years, and this time, because of their worship of Idols and other gods, the Lord gives them over to the Philistines. When I saw the word "Philistines," it immediately reminded me of David & Goliath. Goliath, the Bible tells us, was from Gath, which was a Philistine city. I also found it interesting that David's story is approximately 100 years before the birth of Samson. Why? Because one has to wonder if there could have possibly still been giants in the land when the mighty Samson grew in strength.
What do I mean when I say, gives them over? I mean He gives them what they want or at least what they think they want. They think they want freedom from rules and regulations, but as always happens, they end up under tyranny and complete control with no freedom at all. What happens is they become slaves to the king that they serve, which brings much more destruction upon them and their families than serving the One True Living King ever could have. God steps aside, seeing that His children do not want to love and serve Him, so He takes His hands off. He removes His protection and lets them learn the hard way that without Him, they are nothing. They can do nothing. They cannot feed or clothe themselves or even protect themselves from those who, in the end, would lord over them.
One thing that countless believers don't seem to recognize is that we are the clay and He is the Potter. He knows that even though we can become marred, there will come a day when we cry out and allow Him to pick us up again and make us into another vessel that seems good to Him.
Jeremiah 18:6 NKJV
6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!
In other words, no matter how it appears, even when He gives us over, we are never so far gone that the Potter can't or won't take us (the clay) and reshape us again for His glory.
Another thing I'd like to bring to your attention, as you read the Bible or even this book, is how many women were childless or barren before they gave birth to a very important person called by God. God chooses the times and seasons, but He literally steps in and completely changes their life because it is a part of His plan. In Judges 13, a man named Manoah from the Clan of the Danites had a wife who the Bible says had never given birth. Then an angel appears to her and says...
Judges 13:3b-5 NKJV
“Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. 5 For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”
I stop often in my writing to bring your attention to things that I have picked up through the years. One thing verse 5 brings out is that Samson was going to BEGIN TO DELIVER. God knows the end from the beginning, and He already knew that Samson was not going to finish the job. Also, we must realize that the words in our Bible are not simply stories. God speaks through them, but it goes so much deeper than that. Notice here again that God didn't go to a man and say, 'Do you mind if I speak to your wife about something pretty important or a great plan I have?' No, just as He didn't go to Joseph before speaking to his betrothed Mary or even Zechariah before He sent an angel to his wife Elizabeth, He sends the Angel of the Lord (I may get into this further in other chapters) to the vessel He intends to use, not to the man just because he is a man. And this might shock you, but I will go one further. Whether the husband agreed or not, God still used the woman (His chosen vessel). This is clearly proven in the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. God needed John the Baptist to be born before His Son could be put on the earth. John was to be a forerunner preaching 'make way for the King'. Zechariah literally had to be made mute so that he would not, with his words of unbelief, mess up God's plan. Zechariah was not able to speak again until John was born and named. This means that he most likely went through this season of not being able to speak for at least 9 months, if not more. There truly is so much false doctrine about men and women and husbands and wives, but it is time to clear it up as we are living in an Acts 2:17-18 era...
Acts 2:17-18 NKJV
17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.
18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days;
And they shall prophesy.
God has always used women and has always intended to. The false doctrines that put women down and keep women out of everything are even now in this time going to be wiped away as the truth is finally taught because God makes it clear that it is the truth that sets us free (John 8:32). God is bringing all of us to a place of humility where we see that we didn't know all and most shouldn't have been teachers or preachers at all for leading His children astray. The Bible is not just a book, but if read correctly with the help of the Holy Spirit is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12). There is a misconception that the Holy Spirit is somehow a little god or simply an invisible part of the Godhead that can be brushed aside, but that is the false. The Holy Spirit is just like Jesus. He is the 3rd part of the trinity and was there from the beginning. Go through your Bible just looking for where the Holy Spirit was named or what the Holy Spirit did. He is not lesser than God, just as Jesus was not lesser than God, and there is a wakeup call coming for those who reject the Holy Spirit by ignoring or rejecting Him. Why? Because they are actually rejecting God Himself.
Getting back to the angelic encounter, Manoah's wife goes and tells her husband of her visit. Now Manoah used wisdom and, rather than get into unbelief, he humbly went to the Lord in prayer, asking that the Lord would send the angel back. Not to confirm what had been said to his wife, but to give them both more instructions on how to raise the child. I love Manoah because never once does he question that his wife heard from God. In fact, he begins his conversation with the angel this way...
Judges 13:12b NKJV
“Now let Your words come to pass! What will be the boy’s rule of life, and his work?”
The angel goes over the instructions again, which are of great importance. Why? Because Samson was to be a Nazirite dedicated to God from the womb. What is a Nazirite? It is a man or a woman (Numbers 6:2) who has been separated and consecrated to God and to the work of God. He or she will serve God, keeping their vow to Him and to His ways. They live a sacrificial life, not able to do things that others can, but it is also a place of honor not given to everyone. It is a respected call or mandate among the Israelites.
Is it possible that John the Baptist was a Nazirite separated to God, also given to a woman who was barren? John lived a separated life, and never drank alcohol or cut his hair that we know of. Although Samson's mother's name was not mentioned in scripture, she is often called 'the wife of Manoah'. While in some contexts she is called 'Eshet Manoah", which means "wife of Manoah". She, like Elizabeth, played a significant role in her day. One cannot downplay the importance of this woman in the 10th century BC, which was at the time of King Herod the Great.
In the next chapter, we will look more into the life of Samson and what destroyed him. If you ask most people, saved or not, they will quickly say it was Delliah, but by the time you finish the chapters on Samson, I believe you will have a much better picture and understanding.
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Chapter 11
~ The Little Foxes ~
Song of Solomon 2:15 NLT
Catch all the foxes, those little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard of love, for the grapevines are blossoming!
Every time I read the scripture above, it reminds me of Samson's story. How can one read of foxes and love without thinking of what the Bible says in Judges 14 & 15 about Samson and the women in his life? Many Believers have never read Samson's story. In fact, most just hear the name Samson and automatically think of Samson & Delilah, but the truth is that what happened with Samson did not really start with Delilah. It actually ended with Delilah. It's quite astonishing that Samson, knowing that he was to be a Nazirite and deliver his people from the Philistines, chose to marry a Philistine woman, but it happened.
Judges 14:1-2 NLT
One day when Samson was in Timnah, one of the Philistine women caught his eye. 2 When he returned home, he told his father and mother, “A young Philistine woman in Timnah caught my eye. I want to marry her. Get her for me.”
One thing that I noticed right away is that Samson didn't really allow his parents to speak to him, question him, or give him advice. He simply told his parents he saw her and wanted her, then said, 'Get her for me.' Now his parents knew full well that this was not a good idea, and we can only guess that just maybe his parents were intimidated by him, his calling, and maybe even his strength. His parents did ask isn't there an acceptable woman among our people, but Samson's response was yet again, 'Get her for me.' Obviously, Samson's calling and separation had very early on made him think more highly of himself than he ought. He was not willing to be challenged about the things of the Lord, let alone be mentored by those of the older generation (his parents), who might know better what the Lord would have wanted in this situation. No, Samson lived by the flesh. He lived with the lust of his eyes, and when he saw something and wanted it, he would make sure that he had it, even if he had to use his parents to bring it to him and even if it might cause destruction.
In order to continue, we must first revisit the book of Numbers, where we clearly see how God laid out the Nazirite vow.
Numbers 6:1-21 NIV
The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of dedication to the Lord as a Nazirite, 3 they must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or other fermented drink. They must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins. 4 As long as they remain under their Nazirite vow, they must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins.
5 “‘During the entire period of their Nazirite vow, no razor may be used on their head. They must be holy until the period of their dedication to the Lord is over; they must let their hair grow long.
6 “‘Throughout the period of their dedication to the Lord, the Nazirite must not go near a dead body. 7 Even if their own father or mother or brother or sister dies, they must not make themselves ceremonially unclean on account of them, because the symbol of their dedication to God is on their head. 8 Throughout the period of their dedication, they are consecrated to the Lord.
9 “‘If someone dies suddenly in the Nazirite’s presence, thus defiling the hair that symbolizes their dedication, they must shave their head on the seventh day—the day of their cleansing. 10 Then on the eighth day they must bring two doves or two young pigeons to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 11 The priest is to offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering to make atonement for the Nazirite because they sinned by being in the presence of the dead body. That same day they are to consecrate their head again. 12 They must rededicate themselves to the Lord for the same period of dedication and must bring a year-old male lamb as a guilt offering. The previous days do not count, because they became defiled during their period of dedication.
13 “‘Now this is the law of the Nazirite when the period of their dedication is over. They are to be brought to the entrance to the tent of meeting. 14 There they are to present their offerings to the Lord: a year-old male lamb without defect for a burnt offering, a year-old ewe lamb without defect for a sin offering, a ram without defect for a fellowship offering, 15 together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and a basket of bread made with the finest flour and without yeast—thick loaves with olive oil mixed in, and thin loaves brushed with olive oil.
16 “‘The priest is to present all these before the Lord and make the sin offering and the burnt offering. 17 He is to present the basket of unleavened bread and is to sacrifice the ram as a fellowship offering to the Lord, together with its grain offering and drink offering.
18 “‘Then at the entrance to the tent of meeting, the Nazirite must shave off the hair that symbolizes their dedication. They are to take the hair and put it in the fire that is under the sacrifice of the fellowship offering.
19 “‘After the Nazirite has shaved off the hair that symbolizes their dedication, the priest is to place in their hands a boiled shoulder of the ram, and one thick loaf and one thin loaf from the basket, both made without yeast. 20 The priest shall then wave these before the Lord as a wave offering; they are holy and belong to the priest, together with the breast that was waved and the thigh that was presented. After that, the Nazirite may drink wine.
21 “‘This is the law of the Nazirite who vows offerings to the Lord in accordance with their dedication, in addition to whatever else they can afford. They must fulfill the vows they have made, according to the law of the Nazirite.’”
I realize that was long, but unless we understand what Samson's parents were told and what was expected of Samson, we cannot comprehend the mistakes and errors that he made that eventually gave him over to the Philistines, whom he was supposed to help deliver his people from.
Now, before Samson even introduces his parents to this woman that he says he must have while they are yet walking to Timnah, a Lion comes after him, and the Bible says the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he tore the Lion apart with his bare hands. He decided, however, not to tell his father or mother what he had done. Samson really likes this woman (who is never named), and he goes back to marry her and comes upon this Lion's carcass. In it, he happens to see a swarm of bees and honey, so he goes against his Nazirite vow and puts his hands inside the dead carcass, scoops out the honey, and eats it along the way, even giving some of it to his mother and father when he meets up with them. Samson puts on a feast because it was customary to do so. By this time, the Philistines had already chosen 30 men to be his companions. Samson gives them a riddle that actually has something to do with what he'd just done in breaking his Nazirite vow.
Judges 14:14 NIV
“Out of the eater, something to eat;
out of the strong, something sweet.”
The men could not figure out the riddle, so they went to his wife and begged her to coax her husband into explaining the riddle. They literally threatened her and her father and told her that if she didn't do what they were asking they would burn her and her father's household to death. In order for you to see that Delilah was not the first, I must share another scripture.
Judges 14:16-17 NIV
16 Then Samson’s wife threw herself on him, sobbing, “You hate me! You don’t really love me. You’ve given my people a riddle, but you haven’t told me the answer.”
“I haven’t even explained it to my father or mother,” he replied, “so why should I explain it to you?” 17 She cried the whole seven days of the feast. So on the seventh day he finally told her, because she continued to press him. She in turn explained the riddle to her people.
So this is where we understand that although Delilah was a problem, the truth is Samson was not really consecrated to God as he should have been. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and with whom he wanted, and the things that he did were to satisfy himself. He was not connected to the Spirit like King David was. He was simply a man with an enormous calling upon his life that used it for his benefit rather than for the glory of God or to help deliver his people.
His wife does tell the men the riddle, and when they tell it to Samson, he knows exactly how they found out. In his anger, we are told that he goes to Ashkelon and strikes down thirty men to keep his vow to the men. Wait! Did I say vow? Yes, he wasn't big on keeping his vow to the Lord, but when the riddle was given at the feast, Samson specifically made a deal (vow) to them telling them what he wanted out of the 30 men with whom he would share the riddle. Of course, for them it would have simply been giving over their own clothing to him, but in Samson's error of judgement about these men and his wife, he never thought they could figure it out, and when he lost, he now had to go and find 30 men to get these items from. His wife telling these men the riddle put Samson in a terrible position of feeling he had to keep the vow he made to the men at the feast. The truly heartwrenching part of all of this is what he felt he had to do. The Bible says he struck down 30 men. Does this mean killed them? I believe it does. Did these men have families? Did their children see the Mighty Samson do something like this? All because he needed 30 garments and sets of clothes. This was absolutely evil and not God. He quickly began losing the respect and honor that he'd been given because of being a chosen one. A Nazirite, for our God.
This is something that Samson cannot get over. We are told that his wife was given to another. In fact, it was her father who did this because he thought surely Samson would hate his daughter after all that happened. Samson then decides that he needs to get even with the Philistines.
Judges 15:4-5
4 So he went out and caught three hundred foxes and tied them tail to tail in pairs. He then fastened a torch to every pair of tails, 5 lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.
Again, Samson is thinking of himself as the very woman that he had to have and wanted so badly is now murdered along with her father and household because the Philistines hold her accountable for Samson's actions. Samson is angry that they have done this, and so he begins killing them and taking revenge on them, which causes problems for his own people. He even ends up having to hide out in a cave, and then his people find him.
Judges 15:11-12
11 Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cave in the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines are rulers over us? What have you done to us?”
He answered, “I merely did to them what they did to me.”
12 They said to him, “We’ve come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.”
Samson said, “Swear to me that you won’t kill me yourselves.”
He allows the men to tie him up but when the Philistines come out to get him the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he kills 1,000 men.
Now, here again, Samson is touching dead things. What do I mean? Well, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him to give him the strength to fight, but what does he find to kill the 1,000 with but a fresh donkey's jawbone? A dead thing. Slowly but surely, Samson was not at all following or walking in the Nazirite calling that was placed upon him.
By this time Samson had already led Israel for 20 years, and in the next chapter, I will get into all that happened and his ultimate doom over Delilah.
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Chapter 12
~ FROM TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH ~
By the time we get to Judges chapter 16, Samson has already led Israel for 20 years, and the enemies want him dead, which sounds very familiar even in our time, regarding one of the best leaders we've ever been given by God, Donald J. Trump. The enemy will do anything to take out the one person that he knows God has called to stand up and stand against what he is trying to do to God's people.
One thing I feel to mention before we continue in Samson's story is that God ALWAYS uses very imperfect men. Even David, who was a man after God's own heart, sinned greatly by taking Bathsheba into his bed chamber, and then, even worse, he had Uriah, her husband, killed so that he wouldn't find out that Bathsheba had become pregnant while he was away. My point is that not everything these men who were truly called and chosen by God did was of Him or His heart. They made their own choices and decisions, and often without even checking with God or knowing if it would be His way.
Samson sees a prostitute and goes in to spend the night with her. Women are obviously a weakness for Samson and became a trap for him time and time again. Why do I say that? I believe the enemy became familiar with Samson's weaknesses and used them against him. The Philistines had already tried to kill him previously when he was married, and sadly, in the end, the enemy did kill his wife, who by this time had already been given to another, and even her father.
Judges 16:2 NLT
2 Word soon spread that Samson was there, so the men of Gaza gathered together and waited all night at the town gates. They kept quiet during the night, saying to themselves, “When the light of morning comes, we will kill him.”
So Samson gets up in the night, and with his strength, he takes hold of the doors of the city gate. He literally has no fear of these people or what they think they can do to him. They believe they have captured him by closing and locking up the gates to the city with him inside, and yet Samson simply pulled it all up like a weed and took their gate with him as if it were a trophy.
One does wonder why Samson couldn't find love or a wife among his own people. His own mother and father asked this very same question. He knew his calling and clearly walked in it for 20 years, but he was led by his flesh and not by the Lord. Throughout the story, you never really see Samson praying. In fact, it isn't until Judges 16:28 that he asks the Lord to help him and to intervene.
Delilah was never in love with Samson, and because the Philistine rulers knew his weakness, they immediately began plotting for his downfall, and so they came to Delilah and paid her to help them take him down. She began questioning him about his strength from the beginning of their relationship. Because this same thing happened with his wife, you would think Samson would have learned. But again, his fleshly desires got in the way. He thought he could just make up stories to get her off his back, and it worked at least until after he deceived her twice. Why didn't Samson realize this wasn't the woman for him? It seems he never saw through it, and all it took was what people often say even today. The fluttering of eyelashes, or a downcast look, and he stayed around for more.
Judges 16:13 NLT
13 Then Delilah said, “You’ve been making fun of me and telling me lies! Now tell me how you can be tied up securely.”
Samson replied, “If you were to weave the seven braids of my hair into the fabric on your loom and tighten it with the loom shuttle, I would become as weak as anyone else.”
So while he slept, Delilah wove the seven braids of his hair into the fabric.
Hadn't he been here before? Isn't this exactly what happened with his wife previously? She does exactly what he just told her to do, and for some reason, he doesn't feel this woman is plotting with his enemies against him. She clearly calls him a liar, and this time, not only does he fall for it again, but she stands strong and believes that if she keeps it up, she will get what she wants and give him over to the Rulers who have paid her.
Judges 16:15 NLT
15 Then Delilah pouted, “How can you tell me, ‘I love you,’ when you don’t share your secrets with me? You’ve made fun of me three times now, and you still haven’t told me what makes you so strong!”
Scripture tells us that she prodded him day and night. Can you imagine putting up with this type of relationship? Again, I have to wonder why he never found a wife amongst his own people. Someone who would have loved him for who he was and honored him for being chosen by God rather than setting him up to kill him day after day. The best prayer that Samson could have prayed would have been a Solomon prayer. This guy needed wisdom because he clearly had none.
Judges 16:20 NLT
20 Then she cried out, “Samson! The Philistines have come to capture you!”
When he woke up, he thought, “I will do as before and shake myself free.” But he didn’t realize the Lord had left him.
He had no fear or reverence of the Lord. He had no appreciation for the calling on his life to be a Judge and to walk as a Nazirite. He somehow never grasped the importance of the gifts God had given to him. He took everything for granted as if it would never change or as if God would always be there. He saw his strength as his own and not as a gift the Lord had given him to use as a tool, and even a weapon against the enemy, not something to impress women, but actually a blessing and a way to help His people.
I can't think of anything more horrible than the death of Samson. This mighty Nazirite was bound with bronze shackles, and his eyes were gouged out. He went from being a Judge of Israel to a slave and a prisoner grinding grain for the Philistines, who laughed and mocked him because, in their eyes, they had won. They had finally captured the mighty Samson. The Bible doesn't tell us how long he was enslaved, but it does give us a clue because we've already been told that Samson judged for 20 years, and it also tells us that when he died, he had judged for 20 years. To me, this clearly tells us that most of what took place with Delilah and the Philistines happened within a year's time. Whenever I hear someone preach about Samson, they inevitably use verse 30b to explain it all.
Judges 16:30b NLT
So he killed more people when he died than he had during his entire lifetime.
This is true, but I can't help seeing a man who, although called, protected, and anointed by God, simply never understood it or cared. One wonders if Samson knew God at all. Yes, he judged for 20 years, so we can give him honor in that, but it is really difficult to read about the life of Samson and come away seeing God getting the glory as He deserved. The failure of man made the God who truly cared and loved His people look uncaring, immoral, and self-serving. God knows that man often looks to others as Idols. Surely God knew that Samson, in his strength, would become an idol. Maybe this is one reason God allowed Samson to come down.
As a Nazirite, Samson was chosen to be separated and consecrated, but the reality was that he used the strength God gave him to overcome those who would interfere with his immoral lifestyle rather than to fulfill his destiny and truly take care of God's people.
In the end, we know that God answered Samson's prayer, giving him back his strength, and he brought the temple down on himself and all those who stood there watching and mocking him. They loved to see this mighty man in chains. In fact, he had become a performer to them.
Judges 16:25b NLT
“Bring out Samson so he can amuse us!” So he was brought from the prison to amuse them.
The New King James version of the Bible literally calls him a performer.
Judges 16:27 NKJV
27 Now the temple was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there—about three thousand men and women on the roof watching while Samson performed.
Did God get the glory? Yes, of course, He did. The people who had taken His chosen Nazirite and Judge and now mocked and enslaved him were crushed by the very temple they forced him under by one simple obedience. It wasn't really even the obedience of Samson, although we do have to give him credit for finally crying out to the Lord and realizing where his strength had always come from and asking for his strength back. But one small thing that seems very insignificant and is often left out of the story is an important factor in it all, at least to me. What is it? A child who obeys is overlooked. It is the lad found in verse 26. Had he not obeyed Samson, he might still have been performing for the enemy for many years. God heard Samson's prayer, and He wasn't going to let them mock and ridicule Him for too long, but I believe God also placed that lad there to bring it all down. Just like the lad who was willing to sacrifice his loaves and fish in John 6, we had a lad here in Samson's story who obeyed and led him to the exact spot where he was able to put his hands on the pillars and bring it all down.
Judges 16:26 NKJV
26 Then Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars which support the temple, so that I can lean on them.”
Samson was buried by his brothers and his father's family in the tomb of his father Manoah. To me, this is a tragic story all around. I read it, wondering what could have been, but in reality, we could do that about anyone's story, couldn't we? So many men and women of God have fallen in recent years. Truth be told, we've all fallen short of the Glory of God, but He still chooses who He will. Samson's story, although tragic, was given to us to learn and to remember. It is my hope that reading this book will help you to see God more clearly in your own calling and never take God, His gifts, or callings for granted.
Isaiah 46:10 NKJV
Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’
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