Let's open our Bibles together
to the fourth chapter of Judges, Judges chapter four. Last Sunday, we saw the graphic
execution of Eglon when Ehud, you remember, made a dagger,
a cubit in length and plunged it into Eglon's belly until the
handle disappeared into his flesh. And the scripture says, then
the dirt did come out. Say, preacher, what point are
you getting to? Well, this morning, this morning, we're going to
hear about a woman by the name of Jahel, who took a man by the
name of Sisera while he was asleep and took a nail and a hammer
and drove it through his temple and literally nailed him to the
ground. This is God's Word that these
graphic stories are told to us in. This is the Bible. These
are the kind of things that make us cringe when we hear about
them. Why does the Lord communicate
to us with these horrible stories of murder and execution? And
the answer to that is very simple. The thing that we ought to cringe
over more than we do is sin. The one thing that bothers believers
about their sin more than anything else is how little it bothers
them. And yet that is exactly what
these stories are given to us to illustrate. The horrible,
graphic, bloody nature of sin. Question, is sin a battle that
believers fight every day? Or is it a war that has already
been won by Christ? You're right, Scott. The answer
to that question is yes. Yes. Resist the devil, the scripture
says, and he will flee from thee. And the scripture also says that
the Lord Jesus Christ crushed the head of the devil and that
the prince of this world was judged at Calvary's cross. So both are true. Both are true. Yes, sin is a battle that believers
fight every day. And it is a war that's already
been won by Christ. Romans chapter 13, verse 14 says,
put on the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, rest in the glorious
person and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself once and for all.
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then that same verse says,
and make no provisions for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. The lust of the flesh never goes
away. But in looking in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, he
restrains that from time to time and enables us to get some victory for Christ's sake and in Christ
over this fleshly nature that we have in this life and in this
body. The shortest summary of this
truth is found in Hebrews chapter four, when the Bible says, labor
to enter into his rest. We're always laboring against
the flesh, which wars against the spirit and the spirit against
the flesh so that we cannot be what we would be, what we want
to be. We long for that day when we'll
be completely without sin. But in the meantime, the battle
rages on. But the battle rages on in light
of the fact that the war has already been won. It is the knowledge
of the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he got over sin
and Satan that enables us to press towards the mark. For the
prize of the high calling to fight the good fight, to keep
the faith, What is it that, you remember
King Saul, the children of Israel asked for a King and the Lord
gave him a King. And then the Lord raised up the Philistines
to fight against Saul and his army. And all the army of Saul
was literally, the Bible describes them as shaking in their boots,
hiding behind the rocks in fear of this army called the Philistines. What gave Saul's army the courage
to get out from behind those rocks and pursue the Philistines? What gave them that courage? You know what did. It was when
David, when David slew Goliath. You see the picture there, don't
you? Our David, the son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ slew sin. He destroyed it. He put it away.
And it's only there, these Philistines that, oh, they're with us every
day. And yet our courage and our hope
and our faith comes in knowing that our David, Remember the
agreement that the children of Israel made with the Philistines?
You send out your strong man, we'll send out our strong man.
And here we have young David, a boy with a sling, going against
a giant. And they already agreed. They
said, whichever one wins, the whole army will be over the other. And David got the victory. And
it's not a story to inspire us to courage, to be like David.
It's a story to tell us that the Lord Jesus Christ has slew
the giant. I was thinking along these lines,
having been in the military as some of you have been, One of
the things that commanders in the military have to be very
conscious of is the morale of their troops. If the troops ever
get the idea that this is a futile war, that it makes no sense,
and that we're losing, they have no motivation, they
have no desire to engage in it, and the threat of deserting becomes
very real. And to carry that illustration
over to a sporting event, if a team decides that the game's
already lost, they're going to throw in the towel and not going
to fight like they ought. Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to say that the
gospel is a pep talk or it's a commander trying to bolster
up his troops in a losing proposition. No, I'm saying to you, what if
someone was able to come from the future and speak to that
army and say to them, yes, I know the battle's tough, but I'm here
to tell you that I've seen the end. The war has been won. I've seen the final score. We're on the winning side. How
much would that encourage? That's my point. The Lord Jesus
Christ has gotten the victory. It may seem as if the battle's
being lost when we struggle with sin, but we've got the assurance
of God's word that Sisera, in our text, a picture of sin, has
been nailed to the cross. Satan has been defeated. The
verdict has already been handed down. The sentence is set, and
we are just simply waiting for the execution when that dragon
is chained and cast into the lake of fire. There's our hope,
brethren. There's our hope. That's why
the Lord says that we're to press on and resist the devil. That's
what Horatio Spafford had in mind when he wrote, it is well
with my soul. And he said, my sin, oh, my sin, not in part,
but in whole has been nailed to the cross and I bear it no
more. I bear it no more. Praise the
Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul. That's why the scripture
says, reckon yourselves. And again, the Bible by reckon
doesn't mean what we usually say. Matter of fact, it's just
the opposite of what we mean when we say reckon. You know,
you ask somebody a question in the South and they may say, well,
you know, I reckon so. Maybe. No. When the Bible speaks
of reckoning, it's talking about a dead reckoning. It's talking
about a sure thing. And so the Bible says, reckon
yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Reckon it to be so because it
is so. That Christ has died and that he has put away sin. And
then the next verse, In Romans chapter six says, let not therefore
in light of this glorious truth and this glorious hope that sin
has been put away, that righteousness has been established, that we
have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.
Let us therefore, not let sin reign in our mortal bodies that
we should obey the lust thereof. So, I'll go back to my original
question. Is sin a battle that we fight
every day? Or is it a war that's already been won by Christ? And the answer, child of God,
is yes. Yes. the naivety of new believers
who get the idea that, oh, I'm done with sin. It's over. I don't have to struggle with
it anymore. And then 20 years later, they
realize, oh, this sin problem is worse than it's ever been. They see more and more of the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, more and more of his holy nature,
and they're brought to hate their sin more and more. And so the
battle rages on while at the same time, they look in faith
to the Lord Jesus Christ for the hope of all their salvation
and the putting away of all their sin. Christ didn't just die for
your past sins. He died for our present sins
and our future sins. He put them away. Turn to me to 2 Corinthians chapter
10. We're gonna get to our text in a moment. Probably just gonna
have to tell you this story because it's a long story, but turn to
me to 2 Corinthians. This is so clear in this passage,
2 Corinthians 3. And we'll begin reading in verse
three. For as much as you are manifestly declared to be the
epistles of Christ, ministered, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians 10,
beginning at verse three. I knew that wasn't the right
passage when I began reading it. 2 Corinthians 10, forgive
me, verse three. For we walk in the flesh. We live in these corruptible
bodies of flesh, this sinful nature of flesh. For though we
walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. We do not
fight flesh with flesh. In other words, we don't try
to conquer this sin problem that we have with new determinations
and new commitments and worldly counsel. all those sort of things
that men use, and turning over a new leaf, and reading self-help
books, and all those sort of things. We're not fighting flesh
with flesh. We're walking after the flesh,
but we're not warring after the flesh. For the weapons of our
warfare are not fleshly, they're not carnal. We do have weapons,
and we are in a warfare, but we're not fighting them with
carnal weapons. No, they are mighty through God
to the pulling down of strongholds, casting every imagination and
every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge
of God. You see, there's our sin problem. Our sin problem
before coming to Christ was that we would not bow to him. And
our sin problem now is that we have thoughts. that exalt us
above him. How are we gonna bring this into
captivity? Bringing into captivity every
thought, doggone it, to my obedience to
Christ. I'm just going to be obedient
to Christ again, and I'm going to pull myself up by my bootstraps,
and I'm going to try harder and work better, and I can conquer
this sin problem. Is that what it says? bringing
every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. It is only looking in faith to
the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, who satisfied all the
demands of God's holy law and offered himself to the Father
as a sacrifice for sin, where our sin was nailed to the cross,
as Sisera was pinned to the floor. with a spike through his temple. This is exactly what Paul's talking
about in Romans chapter seven. When he says, he said, the law of God is holy
and just and good, but I'm carnal, I'm fleshly, sold under sin. When I would do good, evil is
ever present with me. To will. To will is present with,
that's what I want. I want to be holy. I want to
be without sin. But how to achieve that? I find
not. And then he concludes the whole
argument of Romans chapter seven with confessing, oh, wretched
man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Who's gonna help me with this
battle and this struggle with this old fleshly man that I carry
around as a dead corpse on my back? Thanks be to God through
Christ Jesus, I am free. There is now therefore no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. It is the grace of God. It is
the faithfulness of Christ. It is his accomplished work of
redemption that enables us day by day to fight the good fight
of faith, to press on. We know the war has been won. We know it's been won. Now, go back with me to our text.
in Judges chapter four. Verse one, and the children of
Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord when Ehud was
dead. Is that your story? We see this
at the beginning of every chapter in the book of Judges, don't
we? Soon as the judge, as they lose sight of the judge, they
go back to their sin. And the Lord sold them into the
hand of Jabin, king of Canaan. Now, Jabin's name translated
means one whom God observes. And the Lord sold them into this
king who God was in control of. I mentioned this last Sunday,
I'm so thankful God's got his dogs on a short leash. He will
not allow them to be lost. He will not allow them
to get so lost in sin that they're condemned. Oh, he keeps bringing,
here, one whom God observes. The Lord knows our thoughts before
we think them. Psalm 139, he knows everything
we've ever done, every word we've ever spoken before we speak it.
Is there anything that's outside of his observance? And yet, this king has to have permission,
doesn't he? Satan had to get God's permission
before he could tempt Job. He had to have God's permission
before he could sift Peter. The Lord said, Peter, Satan has
asked to sift you. He has to come to me to get permission
to enable you to do this, to tempt you in this sin. Be of
good cheer, Peter, I prayed for you. And when you've recovered
from this, you teach the brethren. Oh, you know how to encourage
your brethren who are falling into sin because you've fallen
into sin. This is the story here. People
read this story of Deborah and Jael and Barak and even the medieval
artists. What have they done? They portrayed
Deborah as some heroine dressed up in armor and she's the conqueror. And Barak is some sort of scared
little boy hiding behind his mother's coat skirt, you know. Well, in a sense, that is the
story here. But if all we understand it is
as a physical victory, then we've missed the image. You and I are
Barack. Barack says to Deborah, I will
not go without you. I will not engage in this battle
unless you go with me. Who was Deborah? Deborah was
the prophetess of Israel at the time. She was the judge. She
was the presence of God among the people of God. She was the
word of God. These judges picture Christ.
And Barak says, I'm not going to go to battle against Sisera
unless you go with me. Let's read on. The Lord said
unto, turn him over to the hand of Jabin, one whom God observes
in the land of Canaan. And Canaan means lowland. Child
of God, that's what you experience every time you're confronted
with your sin, isn't it? You find yourself in the lowland.
You find yourself in a battle that you can't fight and you're
in need of a savior. your need of being reminded once
again by the preaching of the gospel. And that's who JL is
at the end of the story. JL is the bride of Christ. She's the church. She's the one
who's lifting up the Lord Jesus Christ and what he did in nailing
our sins to the cross. She's the one who puts Cicero
to death. This is all about the death of
sin. The death of sin. The end of sin,
that's what this is about. The king of Canaan that reigned
in Hazor. Hazor translated means castle
or fortress. And you're locked up in a castle
in the lowlands by a king that you can't defeat. But one who
is being observed of God. One whom God will not allow to
destroy you. One who will try you and tempt
you, but will be used of God to bring you back to look in
faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for all the forgiveness of your
sin. That's what this is a picture of. Sisera. Oh, he's the captain
of the army. And he's the one that Baraka
is going to pursue, but he can't catch him. Isn't that our experience? Always
in a battle, always in pursuit, and never been able to conquer. And yet, Jael conquers him. Deborah conquers him. Verse three, and the children
of Israel cried unto the Lord, for he had 900 chariots of iron. In 20 years, he mightily oppressed
the children of Israel. Oh, what an army. What a fortress. What a strength. Sin and Satan,
you can't conquer them. I can't conquer them. They are too formidable. They
are too wicked. That's why Paul said in Romans
chapter seven, he said, I'm a slave to sin. I'm in bondage to it. And Deborah, a prophetess, the
wife of Lippidoth, she judged Israel at that time and dwelt
under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in Mount
Ephraim. And the children of Israel came
up to her for judgment. So here's the woman God has raised
up to be the spokesperson for God. She's the prophetess. She's
got the word of God. They wanted to know what God
had to say about something. They went to Deborah and Deborah
would tell them what God had to say. They cried out. They had this great army against
them. They could not defeat. Can you see yourself in this
story? Yes, brethren, sin is a daily
battle. And yes, brethren, sin is a war
already over. And it's the realization of it
being over that enables us to press on every day. In verse six, and she sent and
called Barak, the son of Abenoim, out of Kadesh Naphtali, and said
unto him, hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded, saying,
go and draw towards Tabor? Draw towards Tabor. It's a river. and take with thee
10,000 men of the children of Naphtali and of the children
of Zebulon. Now Naphtali translated means
wrestling and Zebulon translated means exalted. Here's the two natures. We wrestle
with our sin and we're exalted in Christ at the same time. And
so Deborah tells Barak, said, take these two nations, take
Naphtali and Zebulon, the struggle with sin and the exaltation that
you have in Christ and go against Sisera and defeat him. God has given you the victory
already. That was God's word. And that's
God's word to you and me. The victory has already been
won. The battle's not yours, it's the Lord's. It's the Lord's. He's already gotten the victory. And I will draw unto thee to
the river Kishon. Here's the river. And this river, Kishon, means
windy. It's one of those snaky rivers.
Now, why do rivers become snaky? Well, you know the law, the physics
law. Water takes the path of least
resistance. Isn't that your problem with
sin? Aren't you always, when you sin, you're taking the path
of least resistance. What you think is the least resistance. And then you find out that the
consequences of that are greater than you can bear. And Deborah says, I'm gonna draw
you out. God's gonna draw you out. And he has to draw us out
to see ourselves in this story and to see ourselves for what
we are, sinful, without any righteousness, in need of a savior. The Lord's
got to draw us out. He's got to cause us to see.
He's got to take us down to the river Kishon and cause us to
see what our real problem is. All right. Older I get, the more
I deal with people, the more I realize that somebody presents
to me a problem that usually what they're presenting is not
the problem. You know that's true, Robert,
don't you? You know, it's amazing how, how we can fool ourselves. And I think oftentimes when I,
when I deal with people, I think you just don't know yourself.
And then I think, I wonder what there is about me. I don't know.
It seems like nobody really knows themselves. Always blaming, always
accusing other people. When God makes you to be a sinner,
all that goes away. You find yourself standing in
the presence of God, He draws you out. He separates you from
everyone else. And you stand in the presence
of a holy God and you find out for the first time in your life,
everything about me is sinful. And if God doesn't save me, if
he doesn't give me the righteousness of Christ, if he doesn't nail
my sins to the cross, I'll go to hell for the very best thing
I've ever done. I've said this before. I'll say
it again. If God judges me for what I'm doing right now, I'm
going to go to hell for it. If God judges you for what you're
doing right now, you made the effort to come to church this
morning. You're making the effort to worship God. You're listening
to the word of God. In your heart, you're offering
up prayers to God. And yet in between all of that,
how much sin is there? If God judges any of us for what
we're doing right now, we're gonna go to hell for it. You see that, don't you? You
need a savior. You need a righteousness that's
acceptable to God. You need one to nail that Sisera
to the ground, to put a spike through his temple. You're pursuing
him, you're chasing him. Deborah says, go get him, God's
given him to you. And the rest of the story is
that Barak pursues Sisera and he never can catch him. Isn't
that our experience? Isn't that our life? Look at verse eight. And Barak
said to her, if that will go with me, then I will go. But
if that will not go with me, then I will not go. Oh Lord,
send your Deborah with me. Send your word with me. Send
Christ with me. Send your spirit with me. Lord, I can't fight
this battle. Cause me to see that it's the
obedience of Christ that enables me to bring into captivity every
thought that exalts itself against God. or this sin problem I've
got, I can't deal with it. If you don't go with me, I won't
go. This is not a cowardly soldier
hiding behind the heroine of a great victor. You know, this
is you and me hiding behind Christ. Okay. And she said, I will surely
go with thee. Notwithstanding the journey that
thou takest shall not be to thine honor. For the Lord shall sell
Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah rose and went with
Barak to Kadesh. You're not gonna get the glory
for this. You're not gonna get any credit
for this. If you're able to resist, By God's grace, the lust of the
flesh, it'll be to his glory. If you have your sin put away
in the presence of God, it'll be to his glory. You're gonna
find yourself hiding behind your Deborah, and she's gonna get
all the glory. And God's people say, amen. Amen. See, that's the problem with
the false gospel. He said, men want to take some
credit. Well, you know, I prayed the prayer. I accepted Jesus.
I did this. I did that. I've been a good person. And
they want to take some credit for their salvation. And the
child of God says, no, no, you're not going to get any honor for
this. You're not going to get any praise. He's going to get
it all. And that's how we discern the
difference between the truth and the lie, don't we? Who gets
all the glory? And only in the gospel of God's
free grace, in the accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
is Sisera put to death. Only then is sin conquered. Go down with me to verse 15.
And the Lord discomforted Sisera and his chariots and all his
hosts with the edge of the sword before Barak, so that Sisera
lighted off his chariot and fled away on his feet. So his army
is defeated, but here he goes, he's escaped. Barak goes after him. Verse 17, Halbi at Sisera fled
away on his feet to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber, the
Kenite. For there was peace between Jabin
and the king of Hazor, and the house of Heber, the Kenite. Here she is. This is the church. This is the woman that's gonna
get the glory by virtue of her union with her husband. She's
gonna get the glory and he's gonna get the glory. Oh, the
Lord Jesus Christ does glorify his wife. He does, he holds her
up. He exalts her and she exalts
him. And she knows that all of her
abilities and all of her praise and all of her beauty all of
her beauty. He's made her comely with his
comeliness and he's put his beauty and his righteousness on her.
And so JL says to him, look, look at verse 18. And JL went
out to meet Sisera and said unto him, turn in my Lord, turn into
me, fear not. For when he had turned in under
her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle. And she said
unto her, and he said unto her, give me, I pray thee, a little
water to drink for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk
and gave him to drink and covered him. What is milk a picture of? Oh,
as newborn babes crave after the sincere milk of the word
of God. It is the word of God that points
us to Christ. The land that's flowing with
milk and honey, this is it. Naturally speaking, physically
speaking, what does warm milk do for you at night? Makes you
sleepy, doesn't it? It's the milk of God's word that
puts sin into a death sleep. That's exactly what's gonna happen
here. So he's covered up and he's asleep, but he's not dead
yet. And he said unto her, stand at
the door, verse 20, And it shall be when any man
doth come and inquire of thee and say, is there any man here?
That thou shall say no. Then Jael, Heber's wife, took
a nail of the tent and took a hammer in her hand and went softly unto
him and smote the nail into his temple and fastened it to the
ground. And he was fast asleep and weary. And so he died. Oh, our sins were nailed to the
cross. Not in part, but in whole. Reckon yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin. God has put them away by the
sacrifice of himself once and for all. Yes, this life of faith
is a war. It's a battle. It's a struggle. As long as we're in this flesh,
it's going to be. But here's our hope. With every battle,
we look in faith and know that Jael, in lifting up Christ, has
nailed Sisera to the ground, right through the temple. We
had no coming back from that. No coming back from that. Sin's
been put away, brethren. Christ gets all the glory. He gets all the honor and all
the praise. And God's people love it that way. Is sin something we struggle
with every day? Or is it an accomplished, successful
work that's been put away by Christ on Calvary's cross. Yes. Our merciful heavenly father,
bless your word and help us as we're walking in the spirit and
looking to Christ for all our salvation. For it's in his name
we pray, amen. 232, let's stand together, 232. Christ, our Redeemer, died on
the cross, died for the sinner, paid all his due. Sprinkle your soul with the blood
of the Lamb, and I will pass, will pass over you. When I see the blood When I see
the blood When I see the blood I will pass, I will pass over
you ? Chiefest of sinners, Jesus will save ? ? All he has promised
that he will do ? ? Wash in the fountain open for sin ? ? And
I will pass, will pass over you ? ? When I see the blood of Jesus
shed ? When I see the blood, I will
pass, I will pass over you. ? Judgment is coming, all will
be there ? ? Each one receiving justly his due ? ? Hide in the
saving, sin-cleansing blood ? ? And I will pass, will pass over you
? When I see the blood When I see the blood When I see the blood
I will pass, I will pass over you ? O great compassion, O boundless
love ? ? O loving kindness, faithful and true ? ? Find peace and shelter
under the blood ? ? And I will pass, will pass over you ? ?
When I see the blood ? When I see the blood When I see the blood
I will pass, I will pass over you