Jephthah & Co. : Leadership & Folly

Well, here we go.

What does it look like for a nation to be ruled by fools?

I'm sure for most of you as I ask this question,

your thoughts go to this guy.

It seems that the whole world is instinctively nervous

about someone like Donald Trump ruling one of the largest

and most powerful nations in the world.

People worry because he's so impulsive

and he doesn't even attempt to cover up his shortcomings.

Or even acknowledge them as shortcomings.

And we're especially worried because this guy's his opposite number.

And the combination of these two men is frankly a concern.

We probably feel then we don't really need to be taught

what it looks like for a nation to be ruled by fools.

But we actually do.

We need to be shown what folly looks like

because very often we don't understand

what it is actually that folly consists in.

We can easily misjudge what makes a ruler foolish.

And this is why the book of Judges is in the Bible.

The book of Judges offers us ample illustration

of what it looks like for a nation to be ruled by fools.

What's interesting is that the rulers that we meet

all the way through the book of Judges,

they're like the curate's egg.

They're a mix of good and bad.

They demonstrate both wisdom and folly.

I think you can only get a handle

on what the book of Judges is trying to teach us

when you can see how this is actually part of a much bigger story

of wise and foolish leadership.

And the narrative, of course, finds its great climax in Solomon.

King Solomon is supremely the wise yet foolish ruler.

Which is why the book of Proverbs

holds the key to understanding Judges.

The book of Proverbs warns us

that a ruler who lacks understanding

is a cruel oppressor.

And we see a bit of that tonight.

Proverbs also urges us to see how wisdom

is the essence of leadership.

One of the most beautiful passages in Proverbs,

I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence.

I possess knowledge and discretion.

Counsel and sound judgment are mine.

I have understanding and power.

By me, kings reign.

And rulers make laws that are just.

By me, princes govern.

And all nobles who rule on earth.

So Proverbs is very important

to understanding the book of Judges.

And there are actually very specific Proverbs

that put the wisdom and the folly

of each of the Judges in a nutshell.

And we'll see how that works out for Jephthah.

But before we get to him,

let's remind ourselves of what we're up to in the story.

We've had a couple of weeks off

the madcap story of Judges.

After the disaster of Abimelech,

which was a Gideon's son,

we have this string of leaders recounted

in short succession.

And we're told that the Israelites

keep turning away from God

to worship the local gods,

the local idols.

And the Jephthah story begins

on the back of this situation.

And we find the Eastern Israelites

under invasion from the Ammonites.

And what's worse, they're leaderless.

And so we pick up the story at this point.

And the first thing we're shown

is the folly of Israel's elite.

The elite of Gilead are in a crisis,

but they don't ask God for help.

They need a leader,

but there's absolutely no consultation of God whatsoever.

Instead, they dangle the carrot of power

in front of the masses.

In chapter 10, verse 18,

chapter 10, verse 18,

they say,

whoever will launch the attack against the Ammonites

will be the head of all of those living in Gilead.

Now, appealing to the base instincts of power

is a surefire way of making sure

you don't get a wise leader, isn't it?

If you dangle the carrot, you'll get a donkey.

And interestingly, there is no donkey foolish enough

to take up this offer.

Instead, they have to go hunting

and find the infamous outlaw Jephthah.

And so they go and they find Jephthah

and repeat the offer to him,

and he accepts.

But now in their folly,

they have a profoundly ill-qualified ruler.

And the narrator makes this clear

by including the detail

that Jephthah is the son of a prostitute.

Now, what marks Jephthah out as an ill-qualified leader

is actually not his pedigree, though.

What really marks him out is his folly.

And the story goes on to show us this

in two select incidents.

I'm sure there are many more in his life

they could have chosen,

but they choose two.

Jephthah's infamous oath

and Jephthah's infamous treatment of his challenges.

And it's crucial to recognize, though,

that in both of these,

we see ways that Jephthah also exercises wisdom.

And the reason this is so important

is that we are supposed to see

that it isn't just evil men who are fools.

We need to see this

if we had let God's Word

get some traction on our lives

now, this evening,

to hear what God is saying in this book.

It isn't just evil men that act foolishly.

People who show some degree of wisdom

can still act very foolishly.

Even people endowed with the Spirit of God.

And Jephthah is both of these.

And this should make us quiver in our boots.

It should make us quiver in our boots

because I take it that we, too,

are people who show some degree of wisdom in our lives

because God has given us of His Holy Spirit

if we've put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

So Jephthah actually looks a lot like us,

even though we might not have thought that at first.

And if we were to avoid his folly,

we need to understand exactly where he went wrong.

And so to do that,

we need to look quite closely at these two incidents,

his oath and his treatment of his challenges.

Now, the situation of Jephthah's disastrous oath

was his admittedly challenging responsibility

to take the fight to the Ammonites.

And it's here that we see some remarkable qualities in the man.

I don't know if you noticed that,

but we're told that he's some kind of pirate,

but we actually see him acting more like a prophet.

He gives this long speech

that started at verse 15 in chapter 11.

Jephthah indicts the king of Ammon of his sin.

The king of Ammon is accusing Israel of stealing land from him,

but Israel has stolen nothing.

Israel was given that land by God,

and it was God who took that land, actually,

from the king of the Ammonites.

It wasn't the Ammonites at all,

and he gave it to Israel.

And Jephthah also emphasizes

that he is not the great ruler.

It is simply God's representative.

God, not Jephthah,

is the judge of Israel.

He's actually the only person in the whole book that says that.

God is the judge of Israel,

in verse 27.

So like a true prophet,

Jephthah publicly entrusts

the whole situation to God's ability

to defend his own honor.

So these are the words of a man

upon whom the Spirit of God rests.

And we're told that explicitly in verse 29.

God has opened Jephthah's mouth,

and that's actually what his name means.

In Hebrew, Jephthah means God opened.

So there's puns running all the way through

about Jephthah in his big mouth.

But God opened.

And so we see that.

When Jephthah opens his mouth,

he speaks wisdom.

But also when Jephthah opens his mouth,

he speaks like a fool.

Now Jephthah musters the men of Manasseh for war,

and on the eve of battle,

he makes a vow.

In verses 30 and 31,

Jephthah says to God,

If you give the Ammonites into my hands,

whatever comes out of the door of my house

to meet me when I return in triumph

from the Ammonites will be the Lord's,

and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.

It's here that the book of Proverbs

really helps us to understand what's going on.

Many of you will know it.

Proverbs 20 verse 25 warns us,

Proverbs 20:25

It is a trap for a man

to dedicate something rashly

and only later to consider his vows.

Now Jephthah is the very definition

of a rash vow, isn't it?

What we've got to see though

is that the rashness of the promise

isn't necessarily determined

by how quickly it's made.

It's possible to make a very well calculated promise

in haste.

The rashness of a promise really though

is determined by its folly.

Now most English Bibles actually smooth over this

by using the word whatever.

In English, whatever implies a thing,

doesn't it?

A thing could be a person,

but it isn't necessarily a person.

It's here that I think the RSV,

did anyone grow up with the RSV?

I remember struggling with that as a nine-year-old

trying to read the RSV.

But the RSV actually gets it right.

Verse 31 in the RSV version,

it says,

The reason I think that it's really clear

to see that the RSV gets it right

is that animals don't go out the front door

to meet returning conquerors, do they?

Jephthah is not thinking that his pet dog's

going to come bounding up to him

and to lick him when he comes home in triumph.

In all likelihood, he's thinking of a male servant

or a male slave.

And that's where actually the gender in Hebrew

helps us too.

There's masculine and feminine gender.

And Jephthah's vow, we just see,

is supremely foolish at this point.

Jephthah is promising God a human sacrifice.

What makes this so bad

is that he's treating God like Chemosh,

the very pagan deity that he's opposing

in God's name.

Now remember how this battle was framed

as a fight between Chemosh and God.

In his wonderful prophetic speech,

in verse 24,

Jephthah says to the king of Ammon,

Will you not take what your God Chemosh gives you?

Likewise, whatever the Lord,

our God has given us,

we will possess.

Now, Chemosh was worshipped with human sacrifices.

In 2 Kings chapter 3,

2 Kings 3 · chapter mention

we're told how our battle was going very poorly

for the king of Moab.

So he offers up his son as a sacrifice

on the city wall.

And here we have Jephthah promising to do

exactly the same.

And it is this total ignorance of God

that makes Jephthah so profoundly ill-qualified

to lead his people.

And Jephthah and his daughter pay a very high price

for this folly.

But Jephthah's folly holds

more wide-ranging consequences for the nation.

And I think you can get so shocked

by what's happened so far

with his daughter being sacrificed

that you can miss this,

that we've got to see it.

His folly holds far worse consequences

for the nation.

And that's what we're given the two stories,

the two little examples.

And so we come to the second one.

The second example of Jephthah's folly

shows us not just how Jephthah himself

suffered for his folly,

but how he made the nation suffer.

Now like all rulers,

all leaders,

maybe some leaders here in business

will know this well,

you encounter challenges,

challenges to your authority.

And we're told how the unruly Ephraimites,

they come after him.

In chapter 12, verse 1,

the Ephraimites come up to Jephthah

and they say,

why did you go to fight the Ammonites

without calling us to go with you?

We're going to burn down your house

over your head.

Now Jephthah opens his mouth

in folly once more.

Jephthah doesn't see that a dispute with God,

God's enemies, sorry,

a dispute with God's enemies

might require a different response

to dispute among God's children.

And Jephthah sadly adopts

the exact same approach

that he did with God's enemies,

with the king of the Ammonites.

And tragically,

this leads to the same outcome,

to a war on his fellow Israelites.

Now what we've got to remember,

this stands in stark contrast

to what Gideon did

a few chapters before.

Gideon handles the same problem

with the same people

in chapter 8.

There we see how the Ephraim apps,

they come up to Gideon

and they accuse him

of the same things

and he responds with gentle speech.

Here again,

the book of Proverbs

helps us get a handle

on what God's trying to teach us here.

Proverbs 15 verse 1

Proverbs 15:1

reminds us,

and perhaps many of us

know this

because we need to be told

this many times

in the course of a week

that a gentle answer

turns away wrath.

Jephthah, however,

has no gentle words

for the Ephraimites.

Instead, his anger

and his answer

stirs up more and more wrath

and it precipitates

something close to genocide.

We're told in verse 6

that Jephthah is responsible

for the death

of 42,000 Ephraimites.

And here,

we're supposed to see

something of a

sobering comparison

with the previous judge of Biblick,

if you can cast your minds

back to previous weeks.

Things are going from bad to worse

in Israel.

Abimelech killed thousands

of fellow Israelites.

Jephthah, however,

kills tens of thousands.

And the point is simply

that Jephthah lacks

the wisdom of Gideon

and his folly

vastly outweighs

that of Abimelech.

So things are going

from bad to worse

and just to keep this thought

in your mind

as we go into

the sermon series further

over the next weeks

and the closing chapters,

we see a repeat

of these same stories

but in a more dissonant key.

We see the shameful treatment

of another girl

and the genocide

of another tribe.

It's good to keep that in view

as we keep going.

So the story of Jephthah

is an object lesson

in what it looks like

for a nation

to be ruled by fools.

But what are we

to make of all this?

I heard that Neil

was being a bit cheeky

this morning

saying probably

how I'd apply the passage.

How does it connect

with our lives?

At a very basic level,

actually agree with Neil,

I think he's right.

Don't try this at home.

Don't sacrifice your daughter.

Jephthah is clearly

not an example to follow,

is he?

But I doubt anybody here

really will find themselves

tempted, you know,

to make that promise

to offer a human sacrifice

through the week

when things are getting tough.

It's the bizarreness

of these stories

that can make it really hard

to miss the point

that they're making.

But if we do take that effort

to scratch the surface a bit,

it's actually not too hard

to see how it gets traction

on our lives.

The Bible shows us

these two sides

to Jephthah's folly,

the personal

and the public.

Did you notice how

Jephthah's rash vow

cost him dearly,

but it didn't hold

any consequences

for the nation?

And how his rash treatment

of the Ephraimates

held devastating consequences

for the nation,

but it actually didn't affect Jephthah.

We're shown both

his personal and public

consequences of his folly.

And if we follow this through,

it actually becomes

pretty clear

how these consequences

also hold implications for us.

Let's just think about

the personal side of things first.

Ignorance of God

is what lay at the root

of Jephthah's rash vow.

Jephthah acted foolishly

because he was ignorant

of how God

should be worshipped.

This dynamic of ignorance

leading to folly,

I'd like to suggest

is every bit as real

for us

as it was for Jephthah.

Like Jephthah,

we too

need to know

how God

is to be worshipped.

Paul tells us

in the letter

to the Romans,

I urge you,

brothers,

in view of God's mercy

to offer your bodies

as living sacrifices,

holy and pleasing to God.

This is your spiritual

act of worship.

So in the same way

that Jephthah acted in folly

because he didn't know

the answer to this question,

what does it mean

to actually

offer your body

as a living sacrifice?

What does it mean

to worship God?

What does it mean?

Because Jephthah

couldn't actually

answer that question,

he acted in folly.

And we too

will act in folly

if we do not know

the answer to this question.

Our lives will be

a blasphemous act

of worship

if, like Jephthah,

we are ignorant

of what pleases God.

So how are we to know

what pleases God?

The answer is

incredibly simple.

God has told us.

He's told us in the Bible

all we need to do

is to listen to him.

In this regard,

a really troubling aspect

of contemporary

evangelicalism

is the increasing

retreat of Scripture

in church services,

especially the Old Testament.

In many,

if not most,

contemporary

evangelical churches,

the only Scripture

that's read

is the ten or so verses

that forms the basis

of a sermon.

And this is a fairly

recent development.

It's only happened

in the last 20 or so years.

In the church

I grew up,

there was always

an Old Testament reading

and a New Testament reading.

And the service

usually began

with a psalm.

I'm getting grey hair,

but I'm actually

not that old.

It's only in the last

20 years

that things have changed.

But in evangelical churches

today,

that would be a rarity.

An Old Testament reading,

a New Testament reading,

and a psalm.

That would be a rarity.

And this is a troubling

development because

the Bible is to be

the mirror

that shows us

whether our worship

is pleasing to God.

And if the Bible

takes a back seat

in our church services,

how will we know

whether our worship

is in fact

pleasing to God?

There's a very real

temptation though

to be lured into thinking,

oh, it could never

happen to us.

We could never possibly

be led into Jephthah's folly.

But think about it.

Jephthah was no

liturgical innovator.

Sacrifice was the right way

to worship God.

And Jephthah thought

he was offering

the most preeminently

valuable sacrifice

he could think of.

The life of a person

is infinitely more valuable

than that of an animal,

isn't it?

The Bible even says that.

Why else would the

Chemosh worshippers

offer up their children?

See, Jephthah was offering

up worship par excellence.

And however alien it might seem,

there is a logic

to what Jephthah did.

He was only sorry

that it was his daughter

that came out the front door,

not one of his servants.

And in his cultural context,

that vow made perfect sense.

And we too can be convinced

that we are offering up

the most valuable

worship there could be.

And with our cultural

frame of reference,

it will all make perfect sense.

But this is precisely

why we have to be on our guard.

There is always logic

to folly.

It always makes sense.

It's the only reason

we ever do foolish things.

We only ever act foolishly

because it seemed like

a good idea at the time.

And there is always

this logic to folly.

And the only thing

that is capable

of unhinging that logic

is the Word of God.

Jephthah's worship

made sense,

but it was not guided

by the Word of God.

Jephthah had plainly

never heard Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 18:10

chapter 18, verse 10.

Let no one be found

among you who sacrifices

his son or daughter

in the fire.

Had he heard this,

it would have cut across

the logic of his worship

like the knife that passed

across his daughter's throat.

But what verses of Scripture

might there be

that cut across

the logic of our worship?

Which passages of Scripture

would shine a light

on what in our worship

is unpleasing to God

or profoundly unwise?

And I like to suggest

in the same way

that Jephthah couldn't know

what he didn't know,

we too cannot know

what we don't know.

We will not be able

to recognize

where there's a mismatch

between our worship

and what is pleasing to God

unless we cultivate

a deep familiarity

with what God

sets out in his word.

Now if we want to avoid

this kind of mismatch

between what we think

is pleasing to God

and what is in fact

pleasing to God,

we need to make it

our business

to familiarize ourselves

with every nook and cranny

of the word of God.

This will keep us

from the kind of ignorance

that led to Jephthah's folly.

Now one practical way

of checking whether

we are doing this

is simply asking ourselves

questions like

when was the last time

I read the book of Judges

or to Peter

or Zephaniah

or, or, or?

One of the things I do

to make sure

that I can answer

this question

is I make a photocopy

of the contents page

of my Bible

and as I read

the scriptures

by myself

through the week

I cross off

put a line through

one of the books

of the Bible

on that sheet

and eventually

I work my way

through all of it

and when I'm done

I photocopy

the contents page again

and start crossing

off books

once again.

I do this

so that I don't

leave bits out

so that I don't

end up just

gaining a lopsided

picture

of who God is

and a lopsided

picture of

what actually

pleases Him.

I can know

that wherever

I do develop

this lopsided

picture of God

and everybody does

it will only be

a matter of time

before I come

across the verses

that will challenge

that conception

of God

that is faulty.

And this is

something that

churches can do too

churches can order

the public reading

of their scripture

in such a way

that there won't

be passages of

scripture that

their congregations

have simply never

heard.

One of the most

stunning things

for me as a pastor

over four years

was we had a

reading of one

of the most

famous stories

of King Solomon

and there was a

woman in our

church who had

a theological

qualification

and she said

I've never

heard that

story before.

That was a

stunning moment

of what I'm

saying is it's

not made up.

There is a

profound retreat

of the scriptures

in evangelicalism

and even someone

could hear for the

first time as an

adult one of the

most well-known

stories of the

life of Solomon.

So in a very

practical way we

can learn I

think from this

personal dimension

of Jephthah's

folly just to

take an audit of

our ignorance.

If Jephthah had

Deuteronomy on

his reading list he

would never have

made that vow.

It's as simple

as that.

Now that's the

personal side.

But you see

Jephthah's folly had

a very public side

and I think it's

hard for us to

feel this but I

actually think this

is the weight in

the book of Judges.

His actions held

disastrous consequences

for the nation.

Absolutely disastrous

consequences because

he was a ruler.

Now none of us are

rulers.

I know some of us

work with rulers but

none of us actually

are rulers.

Even if we were there

would be very important

differences between

the first minister of

Scotland being the

first minister and

being a ruler of the

tribes of Israel.

But what's exactly the

same is that we like

the people of Israel

stand to suffer if our

nation is led into

folly.

This is why the

Apostle Paul tells us

that we should uphold

our rulers in prayer.

In his first letter to

Timothy Paul writes,

I urge then,

first of all,

first of all,

that requests,

prayers,

intercession and

thanksgiving be made

for everyone,

for kings and for all

those in authority,

that we may live

peaceful and quiet

lives in all

godliness and

holiness.

This is good and

pleases God our

Saviour who wants

all men to be saved

and come to a

knowledge of the

truth.

Because we stand to

suffer under foolish

leadership, Paul makes

it really clear that we

should pray for our

rulers.

We should pray for

them so that life can

proceed under normal

conditions.

And note how this is

linked to people coming

to a knowledge of the

Lord Jesus.

It pleases God that we

can live peaceful and

quiet lives in all

godliness and holiness

because God wants all

men to be saved.

Now of course God is

still capable of saving

people in the midst of

chaos, but from what

Paul says, I think we

can take it that peace

and stability is what

allows the gospel to

flourish.

And so we should be

praying for Nicola

Sturgeon and for the

SNP.

We should be praying for

Theresa May and the

Conservative Party.

Irrespective of whether

we support the agenda

of these parties, their

leaders deserve our

prayers.

And we should pray,

especially on behalf of

our brothers and

sisters around the

world for the leaders

of the less stable

countries in the world.

If things get out of

hand between Donald

Trump and King

Jong-un, our Asian

brothers and sisters

stand to suffer

tremendously.

Who can imagine what

would unfold if the

shenanigans we see in

the papers actually

escalated into some

kind of armed

conflict?

Paul reminds us that

we should pray, first

of all, that all

Christians can live

quiet and godly lives

and that this will

result in a saving

knowledge of the Lord

Jesus Christ, a saving

knowledge of his

gospel.

So as we leave church

tonight, I think we

need to remind ourselves

once more that it's not

just evil men that can

act foolishly.

I think that's actually

the key to letting this

really come home.

even people endowed

with the Spirit of God

can act foolishly.

And the story of

Jephthah is a good

reminder.

We shouldn't think that

we're somehow immune to

folly.

And let's take note of

the core problem of

Jephthah's folly.

Take that into the

coming week.

It was ignorance that

led to his rash

promise.

And we too will act

foolishly if we are

ignorant of what is

pleasing to God.

And we stand to

suffer personally if we

fail to uphold the

leaders of our nations

in prayer.

But a failure to uphold

our leaders in prayer

risks hindrance to the

progress of the gospel.

In the book of Jephthah

we're given this portrait

of what it looks like

when a nation is ruled

by fools.

Why don't we pray that

we'll be delivered from

that being replicated in

our lifetime.

Let's pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Loving Lord Jesus we

ask that you would

preserve our lives from

folly.

Fill us with the wisdom

that comes from an

intimate knowledge of

you through your word

and empower us Father

to walk in wisdom.

We pray Father that you

would do that in our

lives at a personal

level.

We also pray Father that

you would have mercy on

rulers of our nation

of the nations of our

brothers and sisters.

We ask this according to

Jesus' name.

Amen.