Deborah: The Only Female Judge of Israel

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Hey, good morning, everybody.

Weird morning, guys, or good afternoon or good evening, depending onizing.

Good night, and we're off. That's all we have time for.

There we go.

Hey, I was just gonna say, uh, we're excited because

this is this kicks off a brand new week. We're

still in the Book of Judges in the middle of this. Uh,

well not quite the middle yet, but we're in a

series called Milestones of the Old Testament.

That's right, or highlights highlights or we still haven't named it. No,

not really, we're just hitting the.

It's like the important big stories, our.

Favorite stories, our.

Favorite stories, Jeff and Chris's favorite stories in the Old Testament.

There you go, there, whatever it is, but it's fun. Well,

it's really cool. And when you're in.

The Judges, it's action all the time, Yes, all the time.

Action.

So if you missed last week, jump in maybe one

of the grossest stories in the Bible we talked about

last week with Ehud and a bunch of other fun ones.

So yeah, really great.

Well, Jeff today Desiree held back nothing. She didn't pull

any punches. She's kicking off a Monday with a stump

the past.

Start the week off with a tough one.

Yes.

Yes, and this question I read ahead. This question might be,

you know, one of the hardest things to deal with

in all of theology.

Never mind that it's eight in the morning. We just

got up and we'll kind of bed.

Yeah.

Okay, So here's what Nathan R. Says. And by the way,

thank you Nathan are for writing.

Hi Nathan.

He writes, why should we pray if everything ultimately comes

down to God's will? Why should we pray if everything

ultimately comes down to God's will?

Great question, Well I read.

It, so therefore your respond.

Oh no, Well I'm going to say, not everything comes

down to God's will?

And what do you mean by that? Because that sounds

like blasphemy.

Jesus taught us to pray your Kingdom come, your will

be done on earth as it is in heaven, meaning

sometimes God's will it's not done on earth as it

is in heaven.

Right. But but the heart of this question is if

we're always praying God's will, then why should we put

effort behind me?

I think what he's saying is everything's ultimately comes down

to God's will. Means everything's already predetermined God decided.

You think I didn't read it that way. Yeah, you

know what I read it as?

I read it as God's going to do what he

wants to do.

Yeah, sort of like why pray any other thing if

if the only thing that we should ever pray is God.

I don't know your will, but whatever it is, that's

what I pray for. Yeah, right, so it's like, well,

that's legit, but I just don't know that. That's what

I think his question is interesting.

Yeah, So so so here here's let me. Let me

take my angle and then you can take your angle.

My angle as I read it is God's just going

to do God's going to do. It all comes down

to God's will, right, So everything that happens, God's already decided.

He wanted that to happen. That's what he wanted to happen.

So that's why you answered the way God's will. Right,

So you quite understand your answer, but now I do.

Yeah, And so Jesus taught us to pray your will

be done on earth as it is in heaven because

God's will is not always done right right, and what

God wants and what God gets are often two different things.

It's spiritual. Warfare is real. The Bible wouldn't use warfare

kind of language to talk about the battles between good

and evil if there weren't actual casualties, if there weren't

wins and losses. Now, I read the back of the book,

Jesus wins, but between here and there he wins the war.

But between here and there, there's a lot of battles

that get lost. There's a lot of there's you know, martyrs,

and there's all kinds of bad things that happen. Evil

happens in the world. The Bible mentions multiple times that

God was grieved. If it was God's plan, God wouldn't

be grieved. God to'd be like, my plans come in together, right.

So God is grieved on these things. This is why

he invites this into the battle. I think that so

many Christians are kind of sleeping with this mentality of well,

God's just going to do what God's going to do.

As a post understanding. God invited us into the battle

to move the needle in his direction. Yeah, and so

I think that's it's it's very significant to think of

it that way. So that's how I was viewing it.

Was he was asking, if God ultimately decides everything anyways,

why do we pray?

Yeah, So if I could try to distinguish the two

in my words, I would say, you were sort of

receiving it from like God being in control.

Kind of perspective everything.

Yeah, And I was receiving it from I want to

be a good Christian, and I from from from the

Christian's perspective only, which is, okay, what should I pray?

And uh it seems pretty futile to even get on

my knees and try to think of anything else. If

all I ever should ever pray is just say, okay, God,

you will be done the end.

Therefore, why should we pray?

Which is how it reads. Why should we pray if

everything ultimately comes out? Which is interesting it kind of

it kind of works both ways. So uh So now

from that perspective, I would say that's a harder question

for me, because I mean the way you responded, I'm like, yeah, absolutely,

you know, because we live in a broken world and

God's not going to force his will and you know,

predetermine all that stuff that.

That's uh, that for me is it's easier to wrap

my head around. It seems more complex.

It almost seems like you're saying I gave a better answers.

I'm saying you answered an easier question.

That's what I'm saying.

But what I'm saying is is like it's like.

And by the way, I have thought about this, and

I have had discussions about this where people have said,

why do we even have to pray? You know, like

in other words, like if God's gonna, if God wants, uh,

you know, the one perfect thing in any situation, you

know what difference does prayer make? And then you know

where you respond with the fact that the Bible tells

us that prayer makes a difference, that you know, if

a bunch of all his people get together and pray

and plead. There's been demonstration and before in the Bible

where God has been persuaded by the hearts of people.

Right, God even.

Yeah, we we just read about Moses a couple of

weeks ago where Moses comes in and begs God that

we didn't read about it. I referenced it, okay, and God, God,

Moses begs God, don't wipe out your people. What what

are all the other peoples around going to say that

you just brought us out here to kill us in

the desert. And the Bible said God repented of the

evil he thought to do against the people.

Of is room. Okay, repent means change. He changed his mind,

right right?

Yeah?

And then and then even Jesus told us the story

right about the knocking. Remember, and he says, the kingdom

of Heaven is like this, and he said, you know,

and the guy says.

No, go away, go away.

And he says, but because of his shameless audacity, he'll

get up and he'll give him bread and.

Answer the door.

He said, in the same way, pray this way. So

I believe that God does have a will, and sometimes

his will is elusive. But really I've always thought this.

I've always thought it's I think it's less about knowing

his will and it's more about surrendering ours.

Yeah.

I also think that God has different levels to his will,

And I think Romans chapter twelve hints at that. Romans

twelfth two hints at the idea that there's God has

a perfect will, a good will, and an acceptable will. Right,

So there's the perfect way to get their straight linear line.

There's the zigzag and then there's the bouncing off the walls.

But God's going to get you there kind of a thing, right,

And I think that it's not as fatalistic as just

going God's going to do what God wants to do,

right right, That God is actually interacting with humanity. I

also think that most of what happens in life is naturalistic.

It's God's already set up here laws of nature. Gravity.

God doesn't have to if I step off the top

of building. God doesn't have to determine next what's going

to happen, right right, He's already decided gravity happens, you're

going to hit the ground. And so a lot of

things that happen in life isn't that God decided that

was going to happen in that moment, but rather God

set up the laws of nature so that if this happens,

then this is going to happen. And so God gets

blamed for a lot of things I think he doesn't

do as well. So I think most of life is natural.

And then when we ask God to intervene, we're asking

him to do something super natural. So when God chooses

to step in and do a thing. It's a miracle.

But I don't think that every single thing that happens

in life is an active decision to do a miracle

in that moment. But rather God set up the laws

of nature so that things would happen normally and naturally,

and then when we pray for God to intervene, sometimes

he steps in and does something supernatural outside of the natural.

Right, those are great thoughts.

That's a great, great, great question, Nathan. Yes, man, you

nailed it. Yes, good question. Woke us up this morning.

Yeah, we're in mode now.

Here we are, We're ready to go. Do you have

anything else to add?

No, I think I think those are I think it's

just a great thought. I think that we hit it

from both perspectives. So however he meant it is hopefully covered. Right.

I think you meant it my way. But yeah, whatever,

of course you do. Of course.

So, hey, we're talking about a lady judge. This is

the first only this is Deborah is of all of

the judges God uses, Deborah's the only female judge. Yeah, right,

and so this is kind of a she's wicked awesome. Yes,

So it says after e HUD's death. Oh, this is Judges.

Chapter four, Verse one, by the way, says, after e

HUD's death, there is lights again did evil.

In the Lord's sight? There's a theme my shocked face.

So the Lord turned them over to King Jabin of Hazor,

a Canaanite king. The commander of his army was Cisara,

who lived in Haro shethith Haro cheth Hagoiam. Does that

look good to you?

Haar cheth Hegoiam.

Cisra had nine hundred iron chariots ruthly oppressed the Israelites

for twenty years. Then the people of Israel cried out

to the Lord for help. Good job, guys, it took

you twenty years to think of the Lord. Deborah, the

wife of Lapidov, was a prophet who was judging Israel

at that time. She would sit under the Palm of

Deborah between Rama and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim,

and the Israelites would go to her for judgment. One

day she sent for Barak, son of a Banoim who

lived in Kidish in the land of Naphtalai. Dude, there

are a lot of weird words in this what that's

why you read?

Hey four hundred and fifty episodes ago, I said, you

read because.

I don't feel like tackling all that.

She said to him, this is what the Lord, the

God of Israel, commands. You call out ten thousand warriors

from the tribe of tribes of Naphtalaie and Zebulun at

Mount Tabor, and I will call out Sisra, commander of

Jabon's army, along with his chariots and warriors, to the

Kishon River. There I will give you victory over him.

Barak told her, I will go, but only if you

go with me. Very well, She replied, I will go

with you, but you will receive no honor in this venture,

for the Lord's victory over Siser will be at the

hands of a woman. So Deborah went with Barak to Kadish.

At Kadish, Barak called together the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali,

and ten thousand warriors went up with him. Deborah also

went with him. Now Heber the Key Knight, a descendant

of moses brother in law Hobab Man Alive, had moved

away from the other members of his tribe and pitched

his tent by the by the oak of Zaananim near Kadish.

When Cicero was told that Barak, son of Abinowim, had

gone up to Mount Tabor, he called for all nine

hundred of his iron chariots and all of his warriors,

and they marched from Harrishef Hagoyam to the Kishan River.

Then Deborah said to Barack, get ready, this is the

day the Lord will give you victory over Sisra, for

the Lord is marching ahead of you. So Barak led

his ten thousand warriors down the slopes of Mount Tabor

into battle. When Barak attacked, the Lord throw Sisra and

his chariots and warriors into a panic. Sister leaped down

from his chariot and escaped on foot. And then Barack

chased the chariots and the enemy army all the way

to harrischeth Hagoyam, killing all of Sister's warriors. Not a

single one was left alive. Meanwhile, Sisa ran to the

tent of Jail, the wife of Heber the Key Knight.

Because Hebrew's family was on friendly terms with King Jab

and a hazor. Jail went out to meet sister and

said to him, come into my tent, sir, Come in,

don't be afraid so he went into her tent and

she covered him with a blanket. Please give me some water,

he said, I'm thirsty, and so she gave him some

milk from a leather bag and covered him again. Stand

at the door of the tent. He told her, if

anybody comes and asks you, if there's anyone here, say no.

But when sister fell asleep from exhaustion, Dale quietly crept

up to him with a hammer and a tent peg

in her hand. Then she drove the tent pig through

his temple into the ground, so he died. When Brock

came looking for Sisra, Jail went out to meet him.

She said, come and I'll show you the man you're

looking for. So he followed her into the tent and

found sister lying there dead with a tent peg through

his temple. So on that day Israel saw God defeat Jabon,

the Canaanite king, and from that time on Isra became

stronger and stronger against King Jabin until they finally destroyed him. Wow,

what right, dude, those were? That might have been the

hardest read.

Yes so far. Yeah, that was a man alive.

Well, I'll tell you what this This story is one

of the most graphic but different, different graphic than last week.

Yeah, yeah, it was just gloss.

I guess this is gross too, But I guess men

who don't mind like war violence type stuff. So I

remember my pastor, he called him jl. I know you

called him jail jail, but jail or whatever however you

pronounced his name. Okay, oh excuse me, yeah, her name,

of course. But anyway, I remember him back in the eighties,

talked about driving his head through a spike into the ground,

and then he got on the ground and he ran

in a circle like with his head in the middle.

H So, so he's trying to get him run nail

to the ground, which I'm.

Sure didn't of course happen.

But but I remember my youth aster doing that, you know,

and you know, he had his head in the middle

and he's running around a circle and everybody just started laughing,

right exactly, well in the eighties, right, So anyway, I

remember that visually, and I was just a high school student,

and I remember thinking, like, wow, this is one of the.

Coolest stories ever.

But think about the wisdom of this woman who again,

you know, I mean I'm sure that she was It

doesn't say that she was a mother, but she had,

of course, you know, motherly instincts. But I remember back then,

even then, the youth pastor's wife speaking up and saying,

isn't it interesting how she knew how to give him

warm milk to put him to.

Sleep, because that's what that's what grandma does. That's what

grandma does, right right, some chocolate chip cookies and some

more meal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so of course she was exhausted.

But but you know, she did whatever she could. She

was cunning. That's just a sign of her being wise,

being cunning, being knowing exactly what she's going to do

to play the part. You know, she's like, hey, don't

know why sister has found my tent, don't know why

this is meant to be, but I'm going to do

my part.

And sure enough, holy cow.

Right, Yeah, there's a couple of really great things here.

When Deborah tells Barack, which by the way, brock means peace, right,

so it's kind of an interesting he's a general named piece.

But when she tells Barack, yes, I'll go with you,

but it's you're not going to get the glory from

this victory. A woman is you think she's talking about herself, right,

that's what you think happened. And she goes with him,

and then what you find in this story, which is

just fantastic, I think, is the autonomy of this this woman.

So you tend to think back in those ancient days

how oppressed women were and all these kinds of things.

But even within the.

Israelite worldview, the Jewish worldview, women were much more respected

and autonomous. So her husband was an ally of Sisera

and of that king what was the king's name, Jabin right,

And Jale's like, yeah, I'm not voting for Jabin.

Right, She's definitely.

That's right, and so and so it's really great I

think in the in the Jewish culture, in the Jewish mindset,

as they would read their Bible, their Holy Book, they

didn't even blink at the idea that this woman had

this much autonomy. Right, she's the hero of the story.

That's fantastic, and that's why it's shared there. So she

winds up driving this tent peg through sister's head. You

can imagine how pleased he was. I have an ally

having no idea. He minimizes the strength and the autonomy

of this woman, and he thinks, well, her husband's for me,

so she said before me too, right, and she's got well,

I have another thing for you.

Right.

It's interesting.

They have a little map here in the Life Application

Study Bible below, and it's interesting how they place. And

I guess, I guess this would be true. I would

have no way of knowing this before I look at

this map. But but hero cheth Agoyam looks like it's

right on the coast, just or just west of the

Sea of Galilee, just just a little bit south, but

just completely west on the coast.

Interesting. Yeah, yeah, that's where that would have taken place.

So when you were in Israel, did you see Mount Tabor?

I know, I can remember we drove, we were going

through and we came across the Kishon River there into

that valley, and the one of the guides in historian

that I was sitting up front talking to, he said, oh, hey,

by the way, this is the this is the area

right here is where you know JL killed Cicera. Really yeah, yeah,

so it was kind of a kind of any thing. Yeah,

it's two big hills. Well, there's several hills in the area, hills,

and then this kind of this flat valley in the

river just kind of winds.

That's the thing about every trip to Israel. You can

drive for two weeks and still not still one fifth

of it.

Oh yeah, and this happened here, and this happened here.

It's NonStop.

Well that but it's an Old Testament and New Testament thing. Yeah,

so they're like, well, in the Old Testament, here's what

happened here. In the New Testament, here's what happened here.

And this is what's so important about our faith as

opposed to other faiths, say.

The Mormon faith or whatever.

And that is within Christianity, within Judaism, within Christianity, everything

that we believe is rooted in a place with real

places and real people. Right, there's never been a thing

that's been when it comes to you read these things,

by the way, all these funny names. I was trying

to read them as plowing through them. You go, and

this guy went to this place, and this place and

that place, and this guy went here. Right, that's what

you sometimes, So don't get hung up with the words.

Sometimes I like to try to plow through them. It's

kind of a challenge for me. But don't get hung

with the words. Stick with the story. But understand, there's

never been a time in archaeological history that they've come

and went, oh, that's not a real town. I've been

able to prove it later as a matter of fact,

every time they actually find the town, even to the

point of you remember we've read here recently all the heights,

the parasites, the gerbisites, right, the hit Tites. For the

longest time, one hundred years ago, archaeologists saying hit Tites

never existed.

It's not true. They didn't exist.

There should be And it turns out instead now we've

discovered the hit Tites had a very large They were

spread out over a very large portion of land.

Right.

And so.

The historical things you read them and you kind of

blast through them or get past them, and I get that,

But just understand the reason why God includes those things

is to say this is these are real people in

a real place at a real time. It's not just

some kind of legend like Hercules. It's not some kind

of odd thing that was given on gold tablets to

talk about Jesus visiting the Native Americans. This is all

this being unprovable. Instead, he says, this is legitimate. These

are real places, go find them and the people. And

that's what's so cool. Even on a bus, Right, even

on a bus, the historian goes, yeah, and see this

rivery here right over in that little valley, probably right

at the base of that hill is where is sister died?

What? Right?

And then you go on to the next one. And

it's not just one or two. It's like you said,

we could go weeks and weeks and just over and

over and over and over again. We know where these

things happen. It's legit, and it lends to the authenticity

of this book, right, because if God's accurate with the

little details like this, then we can trust him to

be accurate with the big things too.

Yeah, and it is amazing.

How if you think about how curious mankind can be

and how exploratory you know, we are, and think about

the professions that have you know, allowed us to spend

I mean, you know, groups of people, they spend their

entire lives either trying to prove or disprove things you know,

by archaeological digs and by history and everything else and

none of that. But think about this, Think about the

droves of people throughout the world that are determined to

prove Christianity false.

Right. I mean there are people who you.

Know who they have testimonies where they talk about groups

of people where their mission is just to find one thing,

and you know, can we just find one thing that

proves that it's false?

And every single time it's proven to be true.

When God lays out these these minute details, it's almost

like he's challenging us.

Go ahead, right, go ahead, right, because there's.

Such minute details. Well, hey, let's pivot this a little bit.

Take the last couple of minutes, and let's talk about

Deborah herself. We kind of blew past that. Deborah was

a judge for forty years.

It's awesome.

Forty years she led the nation of Israel.

And there's this really great little thing here in the

Life Application Study Bible. You should get yourself one. She

was the only judge of Israel. She had great abilities,

as we see, as a mediator. She's sitting there, you know,

underneath this trade people come and sort things out. She

was an advisor, she was a counselor. And when it

was her turn to lead, when God called on her

to lead, she was able to plan and direct and

delegate even to generals setting up for this great battle.

And then of course the Bible says she was a prophetess, right,

and so just a really powerful woman. I love this story.

You know, there's been a couple times here recently where

we mention there aren't very many people in the Bible

that God mentions that don't have some kind of big

flaw too, right. I think we've mentioned Daniel doesn't seem

to have a big flaw, Joseph maybe doesn't have much

of a big flaw. Chad reck, Mischek and Bendigo don't

seem to have big flaws. But I mean, dude, a

bunch of the others do Moses killed a guy, David

killed a guy and had an affair. I mean, you

just go down the line. Abraham lied, right, you had

all these things. But Deborah is one of the other ones.

I think when we made that list before, of just

a stellar reputation with no nothing is mentioned to her

about her her weaknesses.

Yes, she just is a great leader for forty years, and.

As a reader of the Bible for the last thirty

something years, I often wonder about that sometimes.

So sometimes I because.

I'm a very firm believer and we're going to get

to heaven all of us, every single one of us,

and every one of us is gonna be wrong about something.

Oh sure, right, and so we're going to get to

heaven and we're going to understand.

Oh that's what that meant. Right.

If God wanted us to know, he would have told us.

There are things that are omitted, not because you know,

not because they didn't exist. It's just could be that

they just weren't recorded. So there's a part of me

that wonders, is it. Did she have flaws but they

just sort of, you know, isolated this one section of

her life and highlighted it in full detail reference to

her big accomplishments and then moved on even though she

also had these big flaws. Or is it to where

she was a woman of integrity and leadership And maybe

it was she get to the end of the life

and it was so stellar that she had no flaws

or very little.

Yeah, she wouldn't be sinless.

I think there's a difference between waking up on Monday

mornings and being grumpy until you get your coffee right, and.

I don't know, having an affair and killing a guy.

So one is a flaw.

The other is a fail one example, one's a fatal flaw,

right one is a devastating This is a massive mark

on your reputation. And what she doesn't seem to have

is any massive negative marks by her reputation. Daniel didn't

have any. Daniel wasn't perfect, but he didn't have any

massive reputational marks.

I have a tendency to lean toward that if there

was a flaw, it would have been mentioned. And the

reason why is because God goes out of his way

to talk about the depravity of all of this followers

right to just demonstrate to us that, yeah, we refer

to them in the New Testament, for instance, as saints,

which by the way, is a pretty unfair label, you know,

because yeah, if you go by the definition of saints,

I guess it could work, but saints. What that does

is it sort of separates us from them. But the

reality is is everything in the Bible communicates to us

that they were exactly like us, flawed in every way.

And so what we can learn from her is here's

a great leader who's available to her people. Everybody knew

where she was, had access to her, and she courageously led,

but she led in the power of God's spirit and

with God's wisdom.

Right, that's what she did.

So I think she's a great lesson for all of

us and we should look up to her. And you

might want to go on and read she writes this

really beautiful song of celebration in.

The next chapter, chapter five.

We didn't take time to read it, but yeah, pretty great.

Well, that's all the time we have right now, and

hopefully we'll see you tomorrow.

On the Bible Gus