Naas Presbyterian Church

God said that those who kneeled to drink should be sent home. This had nothing to do with who was going to be the better soldier. God simply wanted to reduce the size of Gideon’s army to a small number because God always saves his people in a way which will cause us to praise him. By saving his people with only 300 men, everyone who heard about it would say: ‘Isn’t God great the way he saved his people: the only reason Gideon and his army won was because God was with them.’ God saves us from our sins and from eternal condemnation in a way that causes us to praise him. He saves us by his Son who died on the cross to pay for our sins. When we finally come into the presence of God in eternity, no one will be boasting about themselves and what they have done. We’ll all be boasting about God and what he did to save us by his Son.

God sent Gideon on a mission to destroy the idols and false gods the Israelites were worshipping so that they would return to the one true God. And Gideon risked his life in the process: the people were mad with him and wanted to kill him. But he risked his life out of obedience to God and he rescued the people from idolatry and false worship. Well, the Lord Jesus not only risked his life, but he lost his life out of obedience to God. God the Father sent him into the world to suffer and to die in our place on the cross in order to bring us to the one true God. And out of obedience to his Father, and in order to bring us to God, Jesus died on the cross.

Most of the stories in the Bible are about men. But there are some which are about women and what they did. Can you think of any? There was Ruth who married Boaz and gave birth to David’s grand-father. There was the girl who advised Naaman the leper to visit Elisha. There was Esther who saved her people from being wiped out by Haman. There was Mary, of course. And there’s this story about Deborah and Jael. Once again, God’s people sinned against him and did evil in his sight. In order to humble them, God allowed their enemies to overwhelm them. When they turned back to God, God was merciful and saved them by Jael’s hand. How surprising! That this mighty warrior Jabin should be beaten by a woman! Who would imagine it! And very few people imagined that Jesus was the Son of God and that by his death on the cross God was saving his people from their sins. Who could have guessed that this was the way God would save us. But that’s precisely what he did.

God’s people forgot God. But he never forgot them. Whenever they cried out to him in their misery, he sent them leaders to save them. He sent them Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar. And as we continue to read the book of Judges, we’ll learn about the other leaders God sent. All of the leaders in the book of Judges point forward to the even greater leader who was to come into the world. They all point forward to Jesus Christ. And whenever God’s people cry out to God to save them from their sins, God saves them by his Son Jesus Christ. How does Jesus save us? Well, the leaders in the book of Judges saved God’s people by killing their enemies. But when Jesus came, he didn’t come to kill. He came to be killed — and by his death on the cross he paid for all our sins so that we can have eternal life.

Throughout this book there’s a pattern. The people forget God and go after false gods. God handed his people over to their enemies. In their distress they cried to the Lord for help. The Lord sent them a judge to save them from their enemies. And then, following the death of the judge, the pattern was repeated. Well, God saw us in our state of sin and misery, and he sent us a leader to save us: the Lord Jesus Christ. Unlike the leaders in the book of Judges, our leader — though he died — rose again and lives forever and he is able to guard us and to keep us always.

It was the Lord’s will for the nation of Israel to take over the land of Canaan because the Lord had promised to take this land away from the Canaanites because of their sins and to give it to his people. But as we read through the book of Judges we’re going to see that God’s people kept sinning against God. Again and again and again they disobeyed him. And so, again and again and again God sent their enemies to attack them and to take the land away from them. What happened to the Canaanites who disobeyed God happened to the Israelites when they disobeyed him. However, again and again and again, God had mercy on his people and he sent them a leader to save them from their enemies and to give them back the land. Every leader in the book of Judges who saves God’s people reminds us of our leader, the Lord Jesus, whom God sent to save us from our sins and to give us the promised land of eternal life.