Good morning. You guys are stuck with me leading
the music this morning. Jeff, if you can turn this microphone
down, they won't have to endure my voice too much. We're going to be singing number
six from the Hartbeck Temple. Let's stand together. Number
six. Come, Barrow, almighty King,
help us thy name to sing. help us pray. Father, all glorious, O'er all
victorious, come and reign over us, ancient of days. ? Come Thine incarnate Word ?
? Gird on Thy mighty sword ? ? Our prayer attend ? ? Come and Thy
people bless ? ? And give Thy word success ? ? Spirit of holiness
? on us descend. Come, holy computer, thy sacred
witness bear. ? In this glad hour ? ? Thou
who almighty art ? ? Now rule in every heart ? ? And ne'er
from us depart ? ? Spirit of power ? ? To the great one in
three ? ? Eternal praises be ? ? Hence evermore ? ? His sovereign
majesty ? ? May we in glory see ? ? And to eternity love and
adore him ? Please be seated. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, that is
our prayer that you would be pleased to send your Holy Spirit
in power and enable us to enter into a spirit of worship whereby
the Lord Jesus Christ would be lifted up that you would be glorified,
that your people would be brought to find their comfort and their
hope and all their salvation in thy dear son and his perfected,
accomplished work of redemption. We pray for Caleb this morning
and ask Lord that you'd be pleased to bless the worship service
there in Montana. Give Caleb the ability to speak
and give ears to hear to your people. And Lord, we pray that
Christ would be lifted up and that your people would be blessed
there. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's open our Bibles together
to Judges chapter five. Judges chapter five. This is the second time in the
scriptures where the Holy Spirit has given to us a song of deliverance. The first one is found in Genesis
chapter 15, or Exodus 15, I'm sorry, when Moses led the children
of Israel in singing worship and praise to God for the deliverance
that the Lord had given them from Egypt. And here, Deborah
is, as the judge of Israel, a type of Christ, writing a song of
praise and deliverance from Jabin and Sisera. who represent Satan
and sin. You remember in the previous
chapter, we saw the destruction of the King of Canaan, Jabin,
who is a picture of Satan, and Sisera, you remember, Jael, who
nailed Sisera to the ground. and how that reminds us of how
the Lord Jesus Christ nailed our sins to the cross when he
bore them in his body upon that tree. And all of these songs
of deliverance are reminders to us of what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done in delivering us from the bondage of the Egyptian
taskmasters, the law, delivering us and crushing the head of Satan,
delivering us from sin. So when we read these songs and
these words of praise and worship, I hope the Lord will enable us
to see them. in light of the gospel of God's
grace in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that
we'll be brought to enter in to a spirit of worship. It'll be of God's grace if we
do. Worship is a work of grace in
the heart, and yet the Lord told that woman
at the well, the father seeketh after them that worship him in
spirit and in truth. And that word seeketh doesn't
mean that he's out looking for us, trying to find somebody that
will worship him in spirit and truth. That means that the Lord
is the one who makes us to worship him in spirit and in truth. This is a song of worship. Look at verse one of Judges chapter 5. And I've titled this
message, The Rehearsing of His Righteous Acts. And if you look
down with me to verse 11, you'll see where that title comes from. They that are delivered from
the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall
they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord. That's what we're
doing right now. That's my hope. That's the message I believe
the Lord has for us this morning. In the place where the Lord enables
us to draw water, It's the water of life. It's the water that
flows clear as crystal from that river that comes from the throne
of God and from the Lamb. It is that water that was made
wine for the forgiveness of our sins. And in the place where
the archers have ceased, what is that a picture of? Well, the
scripture refers to Satan casting his fiery darts at us. And our hope is that the archers
will cease in this place where we draw from the water of life.
And in doing so, we will be rehearsing his righteous acts. That's what Deborah's doing.
She's rehearsing the righteous acts of God. She is reminding
the children of Israel what the Lord had done in bringing deliverance
from Satan and from sin. And we are rehearsing. We are being reminded and recounting the events as
they took place. And we're looking at these Old
Testament events as they picture for us the events of the Lord
Jesus Christ destroying sin and Satan. Chapter 5, verse 1, Then sang
Deborah and Barak the son of a Bedouin on that day saying,
praise ye the Lord for avenging, for the avenging of Israel when
the people willingly offered themselves. What a description
of worship. We praise him for having avenged
his people. He He put away our sin. He satisfied God's holy justice. He destroyed the works of the
devil. He led captivity captive. He delivered his people. And
in doing so, He sends his spirit and makes those people for whom
he avenged righteous judgments. He makes, he sends his spirit
and makes them willing. When does he make them willing?
In the day of his power. In that day, notice in verse
one, then sang Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam on that day,
on the very day that they were delivered, they were They were
brought in their hearts to lift up their voices in praise and
in worship. Isn't that the way grace always
works? When God draws his people to himself in grace, they draw
near to him in praise and in worship. And you show me someone
unable to worship God, And I'll show you someone who doesn't
know anything of his grace. Here we are rejoicing over the
victory that God gave Deborah and Barak, Christ and his church
over Jabin and Sisera, Satan and sin. On that day, they lifted
up their voice. Hebrews chapter 13, verse 15
says, by him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifices of praise
to God continually. That is the fruits of our lips. We express our worship and our
praise to our God through the words of our lips right now.
The Lord's using these frail lips, but as you're hearing what
God has done, and as you're hearing about the truth of Christ, you're
saying the same thing, aren't you? You're saying in your heart,
amen to the words that you're hearing. And so though you may
not be speaking audibly, we're singing and making melody in
our hearts to the Lord as we hear about what He has done. Giving thanks to His name, rejoicing
in the Lord always. Rejoicing in the Lord always.
Turn to me to Psalm 18. Psalm 18. Oh, we have so much
reason to rejoice. If the Lord never provided any
more comforts for us in this life, physically speaking, What
we have spiritually in the accomplished work of Christ is enough to cause
us to rejoice and to be thankful. Psalm 18, look at verse 46. The Lord liveth. Blessed be my rock. Let the God
of my salvation be exalted. It is God that avengeth me, and
subdueth the people under me. He delivered me from mine enemies.
Yea, thou lifted me up above those that rise up against me.
Thou hast delivered me from the violent man." That's Jabin. Christ is praying here. And by
virtue of our union with Christ, we have this avenging deliverance
from the violent man, from Satan, and from sin. Verse 49, therefore,
will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and
sing praises unto thy name. Great deliverance giveth he to
his king, and showeth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to
his seed forevermore. The Lord gave this deliverance
to David and to his seed. We are the seed of David. We
are the offspring of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we have,
brethren, we have so much to be thankful for. Our Lord has
gotten the victory all by himself. You know, men talk about their
circumstances not being fair. You don't want fair, do you?
You have no interest whatsoever in God treating you fairly. Because you know that if God
gave you what you deserved, you'd go straight to hell. That's what's
fair. Now, let me ask you a question.
What do you have in your life that's better than that? Rejoice,
be thankful in all things for these things are the will of
God in Christ Jesus concerning us. What a merciful God we serve. And this song ought to be a song
on our hearts. Praise and Thanksgiving. Deborah's name suggests order,
order. In a world that seems to be completely
out of order with chaos and confusion, the gospel gives to the believer's
heart order. We understand what God is doing. We understand that our God reigns
sovereign over the armies of heaven and over the inhabitants
of the earth. We understand that all that he
does is good for his people and will ultimately be to his glory. We understand the order of things,
how that the Lord brings us to depend upon him for our very
breath of life and for the forgiveness of our sin. And so Deborah, as
a picture of Christ, is showing us in a world that would otherwise
be very confusing, he is showing us the order of things. How that sin, we understand that
sin is the root cause of all sickness and sorrow and death.
hatred and enmity and separation. It's all caused by sin. We understand
that. We've got some understanding
of how that works and how the order of that applies, and so
we can't We can't point our finger outside of ourselves and blame
others. We see that this is all on me. I've got to have a savior. The
Lord is giving us his understanding and his purpose in order. We understand how that death
has been conquered. how that the sting of death is
sin, and the strength of sin is the law, and thanks be to
God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,
for he has fulfilled the law. The order of things is that the
law has been satisfied, it's been fulfilled, and that we have
a righteousness in Christ before God that is complete and perfect
in the very sight of a holy God. rehearsing His righteous acts,
recounting them, telling them again and again. And that word
rehearsing in verse eight that we've taken our title from this
morning, if you look it up in the original language, the verb
has an intensity to it. that means that it's to be emphasized
and repeated over and over again. And isn't that what we do every
time we come together for worship? We're rehearsing the righteous
acts of our God. And we're resting and rejoicing
in what he has accomplished for the salvation of his people.
And we're finding all our hope and all our salvation in him.
That's what this song is. That's what Moses' song in Exodus
chapter 15 was. And that's what the song that,
well, Ephesians chapter five, verse 19, speaking to yourselves
right now, even though you're not making an audible sound,
I'm the only one doing that, speaking to yourselves in songs
and songs and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart to
the Lord, giving thanks always. for all things unto God and the
Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, remembering his
righteous acts. Oh, I pray the Lord will convict
us quickly when we murmur, when we complain about our circumstances. Well, you know, when you do that,
you're raising your fist to heaven and you're charging God with
wrongdoing. How evil is that? This is why we need to rehearse
the mighty acts of God, don't we? The righteous acts of God.
Because we're so soon to forget. We're so prone to wonder. We're
so prone to leave and to even charge the God that we love. Notice in verse one of our text,
go back with me to Judges chapter five, how soon Did Deborah write this song on
that day? On the very day that Jabin and
Sisera were destroyed when Sisera was nailed as a picture of our
sin to the cross and Jabin was taken away of his power and of
his strength over the children of Israel. His head had been
crushed even as the Lord as the Lord promised Christ would do
from the very beginning when he said that he would bruise
his heel, that Satan would bruise the Lord's heel, but that the
Lord in return would crush his head. And now Jabin has been
destroyed. And on that day, on that very
day, they lifted up their voices in praise. As soon as the Lord
comes near to us in grace, we draw near to him in praise. Psalm
107 verse two says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath
redeemed from the hand of the enemy. Let them say so. Let them
rejoice in what he has done. You remember when that, when
Peter and John were going into the temple and there was a cripple
outside the gate called beautiful, that's a picture of, he wasn't
able to go in because he was unfit for worship. And that gate
called beautiful is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the gate
into heaven. And, and, and he's begging for
alms. And Peter looks at him and says,
silver and gold have we none, but such as we have, we give
unto thee in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, stand and walk.
And the next verse says, and he leaped, he leaped for joy
and followed them into the temple to worship. You see, as soon
as God shows grace, the recipients of that grace show thanksgiving
and praise. On that day, on that day, she
worshiped him. Luke chapter 24, the scripture
tells us about those disciples that were going home from Jerusalem
to a city called Emmaus. And I understand that city is
about 15 miles east of, or west of Jerusalem. And they get, and
they're walking along and the Lord comes alongside of them.
You remember, and they didn't know it was the Lord. The Lord
had hold in their eyes and they're walking with him and, and, The Lord is reminding them of
all that was written in the scriptures concerning himself. And he said,
oh, not these things to have been. And when they got to Emmaus,
it's evening time now. And the importance of this is
that you don't travel at night. You know, it just wasn't safe
to travel at night. And so it's evening and the scripture
says that they pleaded with the Lord to stay over the evening
and have dinner with them. And they sat down and in the
breaking of bread, their eyes were opened and they saw him
for who he was. That's always the way it is.
In the breaking of bread, that's what we're doing right now. Pray
the Lord would open our eyes and we would see him for who
he is. And what did they say? The Lord disappeared immediately. And they said, did not our hearts
burn within us as he spake with us along the way? And immediately
they took that treacherous 15 mile journey back to Jerusalem
to report to the disciples what they had seen. Immediately, the
Lord had shown them grace and I can see them running back to
Jerusalem. to report on what the Lord had
done. In Luke chapter 13, there was
a woman that was hunched over. The scripture says she was bent
over with an infirmity for 18 years. And the Lord saw her and
had compassion upon her and laid his hand on her and said, be
healed. And she straightened up immediately. And the scripture
says, and immediately she glorified God. She glorified God. As soon as he, our inability
to glorify God is only a testimony of our lack of grace. As soon
as the Lord shows grace on that day, she wrote that hymn. You remember in Luke chapter
1 when Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, is made
mute because of his unbelief. And then when John's born, Elizabeth
says, no, his name's not going to be Zacharias. It's not going
to be a family name. It's going to be John. The Lord
had told them that his name was going to be John. And the scripture
says, and they handed Zechariah a tablet, because they didn't
take Elizabeth's word for it. They wanted to hear from the
father. Are you sure you want to name this boy John? You don't
want him to have your name? And Zechariah wrote on that tablet,
his name shall be John. And immediately his tongue was
loosed and the first words out of his mouth were to glorify
God. Always works that way. Grace
always leads to praise and thanksgiving and worship on the very day that
grace is received. Blind Bartimaeus, son of David,
have mercy upon me. What would you have me to do
for you? Oh Lord, that I might see. And immediately as eyes
were opened, And the Lord told him, he said, go your way. And the scripture says, and immediately
he followed Jesus in the way. The way of the Lord Jesus Christ
was his way now. And it always works that way. You know, if we're unable to
express praise and thanksgiving and worship to our God is because
we've become, at best, we've become short-sighted of his grace,
and at worst, we know nothing of his grace. Isn't that true? Look at verse two. Praise ye
the Lord for avenging, for the avenging of Israel, when the
people willingly offered themselves. God's grace always results not
only in joyful praise, but willing praise. We're made willing. Turn to me to 2 Corinthians 8.
2 Corinthians 8. We'll begin reading in verse one. Moreover,
brethren, We do you to wit of the grace
of God. We want, that's just old English
language, we want you to know of the grace of God bestowed
on the churches of Macedonia. Now these are the churches of
Philippi, the church of Thessalonica, the church of Berea. These would
have been poor, insignificant towns. They weren't like Ephesus
or Corinth, which would have been centers of trade and wealth
and prosperity. So these are poor believers in
these little cities. And Paul says, he's writing to
the church at Corinth, which would have been comparatively
wealthy and saying to them, we want you to know about the grace
of God that was bestowed upon these poor congregations in Macedonia. Look at verse two. how that in
great trial of affliction we just read we just studied in
the last month or so Paul's preaching in these cities and how riots
broke out in every one of them and how you remember Justin was
taken and beaten and Believers were persecuted. It never turned
out well for, I mean, it never turned out easy for the believers
in these, how that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance
of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their
liberality. For to their power, I bear record,
yea, and beyond their power, that they were willing of themselves. Oh, the Lord had given them so
much grace and mercy. And in spite of the fact that
they were, that they were afflicted and persecuted and poor. Their generosity abounded in
a willingness. Look at verse four, praying with
us, much entreating that we would receive the gift and take upon
us the fellowship of the ministering of the saints. I'm sure that
when they offered to support the other churches that Paul
said, no, you all need to keep that for yourselves. we'll get
other churches to support them. And the church at Corinth certainly
would have been able to. But they said, no, don't rob
us of this. Don't take this joy away from
us. We've been recipients of God's grace and his mercy. We
want to do all that we can do. That's what this, go back with
me. You know, there may be some kicking
against the pricks before the new birth, like there was with
Saul of Tarsus. But when the new birth takes
place, Lord, what would you have me to do? Isn't that what Saul
said? Lord, what would you have me
to do? Willingly bowing, wanting to express our gratitude and
thanksgiving. in worship and praise to the
God who's been so merciful and so good to us. And I think about Mephibosheth
and David saying to his servants, is there anyone left from the
household of Saul that I might show him mercy for Jonathan's
sake? Here's God the Father, is there
anyone that I might show mercy for Christ's sake? What did Ziba
say? Well, you know, Jonathan's got
a crippled son who's hanging out, hiding out in Lodabar, a
land of no bread. But David said fetch him. And
when Ziba showed up in Lodobar and found Mephibosheth, Mephibosheth
thought, well, it's over now. And I tried to hide to spare
my life, but David found me, and I'm a dead man now. I mean,
that would have been the pattern of kill anyone left of the previous
administration or reign in fear that they might try to, that
was just common practice. And Ziba was certain that, Mephibosheth
was certain that's what was going to happen. And when David saw
Mephibosheth, what did he do? Oh, Mephibosheth, Mephibosheth. He saw Jonathan whom he loved
in the likeness of his son. Sit thou here at my table and
thou shalt eat of the king's fare the rest of your life. And
by the way, we're gonna hide those crippled legs underneath
my tablecloth. No one's gonna see them. Oh, there's the... And Mephibosheth, oh, he loved
David, even after he was accused later by Absalom of not being
faithful to David. Oh, he was. He was lied against. That's always the result. Here's what the Lord has done
for us. We are rehearsing the righteous acts of our God. We
are being reminded of how Deborah and Barak slew Satan and sin
and delivered his people with a great deliverance. And pray
that the Lord will cause this rehearsing of his mighty acts
to want us to be willing servants and worshipers of our God. Look at verse three. Hear, O
ye kings, and give ear, O ye princes. I, even I, will sing unto the
Lord. I will sing praise to the Lord
God of Israel. What is Deborah saying? Deborah's
calling on the kings and princes of the world to worship God.
She's acknowledging that they are honorable men and women,
that they have a place of honor, but their honor is nothing. Their power is nothing. They are nothing but pawns and
puppets in the hand of a sovereign God. And she's calling on the
kings and princes of the world with their great power to see
how small they really are in comparison to her God. Kings
and princes, you need to be, I'll follow you and I'll respect
you and honor you until you get between me and my God. And then
I'll have to suffer the consequences of disobedience because I'm going
to worship God and you need to worship God. And the other thing I see here
in verse three is that believers are called kings and priests
in the scriptures. God has made us to be kings and
priests unto himself. That means that he's, by virtue
of our union with Christ, he's made us royalty. He's put us
into the family of God. You know, men, men of this world,
they boast of their, of their heritage, don't they? And they,
you know, we meet someone who's related to someone famous or
someone who is famous or someone who's got, you know, a long lineage
of royalty and oh, they get special honor in this world. And those
honors are nothing, nothing. compared to the honor that you
and I have as the children of God. How can we compare the two? There's no comparison. That's what she's saying here.
Oh, ye kings and priests, I'm going to worship God and you
should worship him too. You should worship him. Look what he's done in adopting
you and making you members of the family of God. going to reign
with him for all eternity. Look at verses 4 and 5. Lord,
when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchest out of the
field of Edom, The earth trembled and the heavens dropped and the
clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before
the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel.
Now Sinai is a mountain of the law. When did all of this take
place? It took place at the cross. The earth shook. When our Lord
bowed his mighty head and said, it is finished, Father, into
thy hands, I commit my spirit. I commit my spirit. There'd been
three hours of darkness. The Lord had already cried out,
my God, my God, blest thou forsaken me. The graves were opened, dead
saints came to life. The veil in the temple was rent
from top to bottom. When the veil of our Lord's flesh
was rent on Calvary's cross. Even the centurion said, oh,
this has to be the son of God. There's nothing to explain this,
what's happening right now in the world. God is doing business
with God and putting away the sins of his people. This is what
this is. All these Old Testament types
point us forward, don't they? We're rehearsing the righteous
acts of God. when the Lord Jesus Christ was
made sin and the full fury of God's holy wrath fell from heaven. The heavens were opened and mercy,
mercy and justice met together at the cross. They kissed each
other. Righteousness and peace kissed
each other. What a violent and glorious moment
that took place. This is what Deborah is speaking. She's writing. She had no way of knowing this
was going to happen, the way it did. But Holy Spirit is moving
her. She's writing under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit of things that would come to be. And now,
we're able to look back to the cross and to Deborah and see
how the Lord has ordered all these things and knit them together. Isaiah chapter 63, the Lord says,
who is this that cometh out of Edom? That's what we came out
of. And the Lord went into Edom. And he has dyed his garments
red because he has trodden the winepress of the wrath of God
by himself. That's what he did on Calvary's
cross. All the blood flowed. And God said, when I see his
blood, I'll be satisfied. I'll pass by him. And that's
what he did. Okay, verse six through eight. I will
close with these verses. Here's what the Lord has delivered
us from. In the days of Shamgar, the son
of Anath. You remember the last verse in
chapter three of Judges mentions Shamgar, this judge. I preached
a message on Shamgar a couple of weeks ago. There's only one
verse given to him. What did he do? He slew 600 Philistines
with an ox goad. And how the Lord uses the gospel
to goad us and to prick us and to cause us to see our need for
Christ. But in the days of Shamgar, before
he slew those Philistines and brought deliverance to the children
of Israel, The scripture says that the enemies of Israel had
taken away all their weapons. They didn't have any weapons.
And the robbers and the thieves manned the highways. So that if you were an Israelite,
number one, you didn't have a weapon. Number two, if you wanted to
get from one place to the other, you had to sneak about in fear
through the woods. That's the only way you could
get from one place to the other. Here's a picture. of our life
before Christ. We live in fear. We have no weapons. We don't know anything about
the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. We don't
have the shield of faith. We've got no way to defend ourselves
against the enemy. We're conquered by him. We're
bound by sin and we're behind the very gates of hell. And so
in the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, Jael's name translated means
a sure-footed mountain goat. And she's a picture, you know,
she's the one who drove the nail through the temple of Sisera. And she's a picture of the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has made her feet sure like
Heinz feet, the scripture says, so that she shall not fall. You see these mountain sheep
and goats walking. I mean, they defy gravity the
way they travel around on mountains. And here we have Christ and his
church. being pictured. The highways
were unoccupied and the travelers walked through byways. The inhabitants
of the villages ceased and ceased. They ceased in Israel until that
I, Deborah, arose. That I arose as a mother of Israel. Deborah is God's prophet now. She's his prophetess. She's the judge of Israel, and
she's representing, she's picturing for us the Lord Jesus Christ.
Until I rose, and he takes his children like a mother, pitieth
her children. Father, pitieth her children
like a mother, takes her children to her breast, and here's the
tenderness of our Lord. providing and feeding his people. And here's our reason why we
are in such fear and such destruction. Look at verse eight. They chose
new gods. Then was war in the gates. Was
there a shield or a spear even among the 40,000 in Israel? Did
we have any way to defend ourselves? No. What was our problem? We chose new gods. we turned
away. And you know, there's a sense
in which this is true as believers every time we turn our eyes away
from the Lord and try to find our strength and our comfort
and our hope somewhere else. So this is a gospel message for
those who are strangers to God's grace. And this is a gospel message
for those who lose sight of God's grace. to be reminded who our
God is and what he's done for us. Rehearsing the righteous acts
of our God, that his word would prevail and his people would
have peace. Our Heavenly Father, bless your
word. Forgive us of our sin. For Christ's sake, we ask it.
Amen. you