Judges 11, the title of the message is

Jephthah, a man of faith, a picture of Christ. Jephthah, a man of faith, a picture of Christ. Our Lord was a man of faith. He believed God. As a man, he believed God and he believed God perfectly. I think of that story in the Gospels where Peter said, Lord, if it's you, bid me come out on the water where the Lord was walking on the water. And the Lord said, Come. And Peter actually stepped out of the boat and for a few steps walked on water. Then he began to sink. He began to notice the wind, how boisterous it was, and the waves. He took his eyes off Christ.

And one day I was reading that, and it really struck me. There was one man standing there on the water whose faith did not fail. He didn't sink. His faith never failed. He believed God perfectly. See, Peter's faith, and our faith, is not perfect faith. We have faith in a measure. He did not have faith in a measure. He had it perfectly. He believed God perfectly. That's why he could sleep on the boat when it was storming and the disciples were losing their mind, like we would, because we were on that boat. And they said, Carest thou not that we perish? They had to go wake him up. That's perfect faith. You can sleep in the storm. No matter how bad things are, you can go to bed and go to sleep at night. That's faith. When you can rest knowing this is of God. And it's not going to take my life because my life is hid with Christ and God.

Now that wasn't part of the message, but it is now. It just struck me when I was reading that. Sometimes I think maybe the message is what I don't have written down. But here we have Jephthah. His story begins in shame and rejection by his brethren, but it ends up with leadership being the head of them and victory, victory over the Ammonites.

In him we see a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the rejected son, the rejected cornerstone, WHOM GOD EXALTS, MAN DESPISES AND REJECTS, BUT GOD HAS EXALTED HIM TO HIS RIGHT HAND. THAT MAN THEY CALLED THE GALILEAN. CAN ANY GOOD THING COME OUT OF NAZARETH? ABSOLUTELY, GOD DID. GOD CAME OUT OF NAZARETH, THAT MAN'S GOD. AND GOD HAS EXALTED HIM INTO GOD'S GRACIOUS WAY.

WE SEE IN THIS, A GOD'S GRACIOUS WAY. of turning human failure into victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it says in verse 1 that He was a mighty man. Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, of courage. That word has the meaning of courage. He was a courageous, courageous man and he was a son of a harlot. Jeff, the inner scriptures marked by both strength of man of valor and shame, son of a harlot.

But as we know, God often raises up the weak things, the base things that bring down the strong and the proud. That's how God operates. Aren't you glad He does? I'm sure glad He does or I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here. But you know, He says He is the Son of a harlot. Now when somebody is born of a harlot, they are looked down on, aren't they? Are we any better? Are we any better? Really, seriously! We are all spiritually dead by nature, that is how we come into the world. We are all totally depraved, aren't we? It's the sovereign grace of God and hand of God that keeps some from going to the extent of sin that He lets others go to.

He enters in strength, but He also shows up shame here. But then I thought of the Lord of Glory. Jephthah is born of the heart. Think of the Lord of Glory coming into this world. He came into this world through the womb of a virgin, didn't He? But no less a sinner, no less totally depraved than anybody else on this earth. The Son of God, the Holy One of Israel, the One whom the Seraphims cry, Holy, Holy, Holy, He came and took His abode in the womb of a sinner. Now, she was a virgin, She was kept, God kept her as a virgin so that His Son could come into this world through a virgin and it would be evident that the seed of Adam did not enter into His birth. That's the purpose of that. The seed of Adam is not going to enter into His birth. He's born of the Holy Spirit. A body hast thou prepared me. His body was prepared by the Holy Spirit. Sin had nothing to do with it.

But now, Mary is a sinner like me and you. Christ had to die for the Virgin Mary, what we call the Virgin Mary, as much as He had to die for Mary Magdalene. If Mary had been the only one He died for, He'd have had to die the same death on the cross. She's a sinner. She's a sinner. Just like me and you. Just like we are.

Think of it this way. Are we not sinners in whom the Lord dwells? Are we not sinners? How sinful are we? We don't even know. Only the Lord knows how sinful we are. We don't even know. We couldn't handle it. We couldn't handle it. If the Lord really gave us a real full-blown revelation of our sinfulness, we couldn't even move. We wouldn't even be able to move. It would just stifle us. We couldn't handle it. Look at the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. He swept great drops of blood over us. I've never swept one drop of blood over my sins. Not one. He did. He not only swept great drops of blood, His blood was shed for my sins. My blood's never been shed for my sins. And by God's grace, it never will be. His blood was shed for it.

Now, Jephthah, his name means this one that's born of a harlot now. He's born of a harlot. But what a name he was given. It means Jehovah opens. What a beautiful name. Jehovah opens. Our Lord opens the way to Himself. He's our Jephthah. He opens the way into the Holy of Holies. Isn't He our Jephthah? He opens. The door is open. He said if He opens the door, no man shuts it.

And notice this also here in verse 2. The son is rejected by his own. Jephthah's brothers thrust him out. They didn't just ask him to leave. They kicked him out. They threw him out of town. They thrust him out because his mother was a harlot. Boy, was he looked down on by his brethren. HE WAS DESPISED AND REJECTED BY HIS BRETHREN. THEY RAN HIM OFF. WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT ALL OF US, AND I KNOW THOSE WHOM GOD HAS SAVED, YOU UNDERSTAND THIS, WE WERE BORN IN SIN AND SHAPED IN INIQUITY.

And in sin did our mothers conceive us. It doesn't mean it was a sinful act. It was a sinful seed. It was a sinful conception. Let us be careful not to let our morality become our undoing like it did then. They were so self-righteous they threw them out. Your mother's a harlot. This is the great-grandson, no, this is the great-great-grandson of Joseph. His grandfather is Manasseh, the son of Joseph. This is who this is.

Our Lord saves sinners. My soul, He saves and He uses sinners. I'm living proof of it right now. That the Lord saved me and He's using me to stand here and preach the gospel. The gospel of His glory, He's entrusted that to you and He's entrusted it to me. God has entrusted the gospel of His glory to us! Sinners like you and me! Sinners like us.

Oh, let us not be like that young man who said, ALL THESE HAVE I KEPT FROM MY YOUTH UP! That's spiritual death. If you think you've really done that, you haven't kept one of them. But here we see a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son, rejected by His brethren, and they rejected Him for several reasons.

Number one, He's God and they hate God. They said this, We know you, you're the carpenter's son. They rejected Him because of His low birth. You're a poor carpenter's son. We know you're a family. They're nobody from nowhere. Has any good thing come out of Nazareth? He's called the Nazarene. Ain't nothing good come out there. Doesn't have a good come out there. He's despised and rejected of men. And the Jews rejected him. They despised him. They rejected him. They turned him over to the Romans.

But look in verse 3, we see the REJECTED SON'S COMPANIONS. You see, the son is REJECTED because of his BIRTH, not realizing we are all BORN SINNERS. But look here, Jephthah dwells in Tob, and vain men gathered to him. Vain men. Like David in the cave at Adullam, remember who gathered to him? Those who were in debt, those who were discontent, those who were nobody, those were the only ones who came today. They became his army. And like Christ Himself, the rejected one becomes the leader of the outcast. He becomes the leader of the publicans and harlots, sinners, sinners. They charged him with this. What they meant as a slander, as a slur, was a compliment. This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. It was a compliment to him, but they didn't mean it that way. This man receiveth publicans and harlots. That's why they rejected him.

You know that word, they-men, has this meaning, it means poor. It means without property. It means without employment. Spiritually bankrupt. That's us. Spiritually bankrupt. We have absolutely nothing to offer to God. Not even for one sin. We can't offer anything for one sin. If you only had one sin, And you had a life of nothing but obedience after that. That life of nothing but obedience would NOT pay for that one sin. It couldn't do it. God has to punish that one sin. And my righteousness, my goodness, my good works won't pay for it. You can straighten up and fly right, and it's still going to end up wrong. Because you can't pay for it. You can't pay for it. spiritually bankrupt that's every one of us but we see here in verse 4 that God's providence is always at work and it's always working for our good and it says in verse 4 see here trouble arises because God's going to deal with the Ammonites they've been a real problem for Israel but now he's going to deal with them And God providentially, once He's disciplined His children, once He's dealt with them, then He takes away the problem. And the Ammonites were the problem that He was using. God uses whatever He will. All things are His to use.

But in process of time, in the providence of God, is what that is, the Ammonites make war. You know, Satan and sin never rest. They never rest. The world never rests. They never give you rest. You're always being tormented either inwardly or outwardly, aren't you? Most of the time inwardly. That's probably about 90% of my problem, inwardly. Probably about 10% outwardly. Yet God's providence moves everything along to accomplish His purpose for our good in bringing us to glory.

FOR OUR GOOD AND THE GLORY OF CHRIST. GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS. Here's the mystery. Oh, this is a gospel mystery. It's not a mystery once God reveals it to you, but here it is. The people, through this process of time and this warring that goes on, they return to the one they rejected. Isn't that something? The one they despised and rejected, turned on, now they've got to go and bow down to him. Oh, the wisdom of God. Oh, the wisdom of God.

Judges 11 through 5 and 6, you'll see that the elders seek Jephthah and they ask him, they said, Come be our captain. Lead us. Lead us all like a song, Savior, like a shepherd, lead us, lead us. Satan is sin, God uses them to drive us to Christ, the one we first rejected and turned from. The work of God is astonishing, it's astonishing. The one despised now becomes the captain. Now He becomes the Deliverer that we look to and bow to.

And we eventually learn, and we learn this. Have you learned this? Without Me, you can do nothing. Have you learned that? And notice how they come to Jephthah in verse 7. He said, Why come now when you are in distress? Just as with Joseph's brothers, need is what brings the distressed to the Savior, isn't it? What brought you to Christ? Well, the Holy Spirit, convicting you of your sins, brought you to the Lord Jesus Christ. Distressed! Did you come to Christ distressed?

You know, I've watched, and you've seen these, these Billy Graham crusades, and at the end of it they get all these people coming down, and they're laughing and talking and just smiling, and they're all walking down there going, except Jesus as their personal Savior, going to repeat a prayer and we're saved. Do you see distress on any of them? I've never seen a face distressed and distraught. When God saves a sinner, He's going to distress that sinner. You're going to be distressed over your sins. You're going to be distressed over your life. And you're going to be distressed about dying if God doesn't save you. You're going to be distressed. If you're not distressed, God's never dealt with you yet. He's never dealt with you yet.

I like this song, Come ye poor and needy, weak and wounded by the fall. That's all I can remember of it. I've tried to look for the tune of it, but I don't know if we have it in the song. Do we have it in the song? I don't know. I know that much of it. Our Lord said, Come unto me, all ye that labor and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Come to me. But our Lord has to distress us in order for us to come to Him. distressed by the law, the threatenings of the law, distressed by our sins, distressed by Satan, distressed by the world, we come to Christ and say, LORD, be my captain, be my Savior, save my soul.

And Jephthah says in verse 9, listen, And Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, If you bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the LORD deliver them before me, shall I be your head? Is this temporary? Now listen, listen, he's asking a good question here. Is this temporary? You know, many people make a profession in times of trouble, and for a while they show And then they leave, don't they? Or they take Jesus as their Lord, their Savior for a while. It's temporary. And that's what he's saying. If I do this, am I going to remain your head? Is this a temporary thing? Are you going to run me off again? No, no. Many people make that profession in times of trouble, but I tell you this, not when God saves you. He's not our temporary head. He's our eternal head.

Now I wrote down here and I highlighted it. Why did I come to Christ? Why did I come? Can I really answer that question? Why did I come to Him? Am I still coming? Am I still coming? Is Christ still ahead? That shows up in our life if we really believe He's still ahead. Ebeneez is going to bow to Him there in verses 8 and 10. The elders, they plead again acknowledging, they acknowledge Jephthah as their head. You know, Ebeneez is going to bow to the Lord, but I tell you this, we bow willingly, we bow willingly, and we bow all the way home.

And they said, Yes, yes, the Lord be witness between us if we do not so according to thy words. Can you say that? The Lord is my witness. I believe. Peter said, Lord, you know all things. You know, I love you. God is my witness. You know, I love you. God is my witness. Lord, you know, I believe. That's what they said.

And then the head here is established before the Lord in verse 11. Jephthah is established as head and captain. And it says there that they made him their head. Now listen, we don't make Christ Lord, do we? We don't make him our head. But here's what we do in keeping him with this, keeping it in context, we own him as our head. GOD MADE HIM OUR HEAD, GOD MADE HIM OUR LORD, BUT NOW WE DO OWN JESUS CHRIST AS OUR LORD AND OUR SAVIOR, OUR HEAD, OUR KING. WE OWN HIM AS THAT!

And one of the first things we do in doing that is confessing Him in BAPTISM. A person who will not confess Christ in baptism has never owned Him. They've never owned Him yet. When they get rid of that shame, they'll own him. When you're not ashamed of him, you'll own him. You'll follow him.

Then he listens, but he knows what he does. I hope I don't run out of time here. He goes before the Lord after this all happened. He goes before the Lord and he opens his heart up. He opens his heart to the Lord. He goes before the Lord for this appointment. Not to be of men, but to be of God. This man is a man of faith. One of the very things he does is he prays about it. He seeks the Lord about this. He doesn't just start popping his suspenders. Well, you know, they came to me. Now look at him, look at him crawling. No, he doesn't do. He's humbled. He literally is humbled. And then he goes before the Lord. You know, our Lord did not exalt Himself. Jephthah is not exalting Himself. He's going before the Lord and asking direction and guidance here, counsel. And our Lord did not exalt Himself, the Father exalted Him.

You see, the true Deliverer takes His place openly before God as our Lord did. And then here in verse 12, Jephthah declares the TRUTH to the enemy. He confronts the king of Ammon with TRUTH. He confronts him with TRUTH. And first he says, Why do you fight against me? Why do men fight against one another? SIN. James answers it this way. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not, hence, even of your lusts, that war in your members?"

This king is willing to lose a lot of lives and to take a lot of lives for what? A piece of land that belongs to God. He said, God disposeth you people, it's His, and He gave it to us. Now it's ours, we're not giving it back. If God gave it to you, keep it. It's yours. It's yours.

Why do men fight against Christ? Because they love not the truth. Do you want to say it's over in Psalm 2? Let us break their bands asunder. We don't want God. I'll be God. I'll be the King.

You know, every time the gospel is preached, the enemy is confronted with the truth. Every time the Gospels are preached, the TRUTH is set forth, just like JEPHTHAH is setting forth the TRUTH to this king about the history of Israel. This man is just born of a harlot, is STEEPED in the history of Israel because he KNOWS it?s attached to the Covenant.

You know, God?s a God of Covenant, and He KNOWS the history of Israel. I thought to myself, how much do I really know about the history of the church? My ancestors, our ancestors, which they are too, they are our brothers and sisters. It's amazing how much people don't know and should know, but we don't read the Bible. We don't read the Bible.

I asked someone the other day concerning a person, I said, does this person and having a little conflict, and I said, did this person ever read the Bible? Did you ever catch this person reading the Bible? No. I said, well, that's the biggest part of the problem. We confess to know God, then we take it home and throw it in the corner. There's no learning in a mess. Not you particularly, but somebody I'm thinking of.

Now listen here in verse 13, the king claims Israel stole his land. Whose land is this? We sing a song, this is my father's world. I don't know if you've ever sang it here or not, but this is my father's world. The earth is the Lord, the fullness thereof, and they who dwell therein. This land is God's land. All land is God's land. Ain't nobody going to die and then suck it down with them. It's going to stay here. This is God's land and He'll give it to whomsoever He will. WILLFUL IGNORANCE ALWAYS DISTORTS SPIRITUAL TRUTH and that's deadly. David said in Psalm 56, Every day they rest my words. They take the Word of God and they twist it. When the Scripture says God loves everybody, it does not say that. Christ died for everybody, it does not say that. That's resting the scriptures to your own destruction. What we have here is a misinterpretation of history and it leads to conflict. You know that's a real problem. If people would actually get history right, if they really add some knowledge, they could probably cut down on a lot of conflict. Most people are fighting out of emotions, they're not fighting for knowledge. You just get caught up in the mob mentality.

Ammon's false historical claim contrasted with Jephthah's accurate version leads to a conflict. When truth and lie meet, there's a fight. When truth and truth meet, we don't fight, do we? But when truth and lie meet, there's going to be a fight every time.

You see, Israel asked permission to pass Edom and Moab, and they refused. So Israel avoided their land entirely. Only Sihon, that king, fought, and God gave Israel the victory, and He gave them the land. So whose land is it? It's Israel. You know what they're still trying to do today? Still trying to take that land from Israel. They're still trying to take it from them. Isn't that amazing? They're still trying to take their land.

So what Jephthah does here, he recounts God's past works. And this man shows a deep knowledge, as I said, of the history of Israel. Because God's identity is tied to this. Now he challenges them. He gives a challenge. Let your God defend you. Let Him give you the Lamb. Let Him fight. So he says, let Chemosh defend you, let him dispossess us, and let's see what he can do.

The gods of this world are powerless, only the Lord gives inheritance and victory, it's all His, nobody can do anything. He said 300 years of silence went by, Israel has held this land for centuries. If you had any real claim to it, what took you so long to do it now? Why are you doing it now? What took you so long?

You see, this is interesting. If Ammon truly had a claim, why did he wait 300 years if he really had a claim? False claims cannot withstand the test of time. The truth of Scriptures has withstood the test of time. You just take the Word of God and you just go back through history. It'll stand the test of time.

And he says here, and I'm gonna close here in a minute. He said, well, and this is why, this man, God gave this man wisdom. This man's a believer. There ain't no doubt in my mind. What we know is he's in the Hall of Fame, or he's in the Hall of Fame of Faith.

He says here, THE LORD, JEHOVAH, THE JUDGE, THE JUDGE, THE REAL JUDGE, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE REAL JUDGE. Judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon. He appeals to God, the righteous judge, to be the judge. Well, guess who wins? Israel. God, He was a judge. He whipped them, whipped them good.

When men refuse truth, GOD HIMSELF WILL SETTLE THE MATTER, IT WILL BE SETTLED. And then last of all, HARD HEARTS, HEARTS LEFT TO THEMSELVES, WILL ALWAYS REFUSE THE TRUTH. After he gave him a history lesson, a correct history lesson, the King of Ammon, and this is a terrible phrase here, Harken not. How many times have men and women heard the gospel and harken not? Harken not.

And yet God is so merciful, so merciful that He allows them to come back and hear it again and again. Men will naturally bow MEN WILL NOT NATURALLY BOW TO TRUTH, ONLY GRACE CAN BREAK THE STUBBORN HEART, LIKE HE BROKE YOURS. If the Lord leaves us alone, we will never bow to the truth. All the Lord has to do is leave us to our natural self and we will do just as the children of Ammon did, they hearken not.

Aren't you glad that God didn't leave you alone? You hearkened to His voice. And we're going to see, Lord willing, the next time we'll see in verses 29 through 40 that JEPHTHAH was a real man of faith. And we'll see the gospel in it as well.