Good morning. Take your Bibles and let's turn
to Judges, the book of Judges chapter one. This is an account of the taking
of the city of Debir. And this is actually recorded
for us in Joshua chapter 15 as well. And so it happened It would
seem then it happened during the days of Joshua when he was
alive and in command there over the troops of Israel. Now, what
we'll see here, what this particular account is of in verses 11 through
15, it's the raising up, it describes the raising up, the exaltation
of Othniel in the eyes of the people of God. And that's important
because Othniel is going to play an important role as a deliverer,
as a judge in Israel. which means he's a savior of
the people of Israel. There's coming a time when he's
going to be used of the Lord to save the people. It says in
Judges chapter three, verse nine, when the children of Israel cried
unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer or a savior to
the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel, the son of
Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. But here, What we see with Caleb
and Othniel, Caleb is a picture. He's a type of God the Father. He's a picture of the Father.
And he gives the battle. He determines to give the result
of the battle into the hands of Othniel. He commits it to
Othniel to conquer Debir. And this is to glorify Atheniel
in the eyes of the people. To glorify him in the eyes of
the people and to win the heart and the hand of his daughter,
Aksa. It's to exalt him in the eyes
of the people and to win the heart and the hand of Caleb's
daughter, Aksa. Now, there's two pictures here
in this account that I want to bring out that show us the Lord
Jesus Christ. And these are given to us here
in this account of Othniel, first when he conquers Debir, the city
of Debir, also known as Kirjathsephir. Kirjathsephir. And it also shows
us what he does for Aksa, what she is given to the hand of Othniel. It's a picture of the church,
the bride of Christ, and what Christ does for his bride when
she is given to him as his wife. And so this account has to do
with the destruction, the conquering of man's wisdom, of man's earthly,
fleshly wisdom. And after that, Christ has come
and made everything to the believer. We see how that Christ becomes
our wisdom. So first, he destroys, he brings
to nothing the wisdom of men. And then he has made wisdom to
his people, his bride. I've titled this message, Athneel,
Aksa's Wisdom. Athneel, Aksa's Wisdom. And we'll
begin here first, looking at the conquering of Dabir, and
then we'll see how that he has made the wisdom of Aksa. Or in
other words, how that Christ has made our wisdom. So verses
8 through 10, they're about the account of the conquering of
Jerusalem and Hebron. And when they conquered Hebron,
that's when they overthrew or eliminated three sons of Anak. who were also giants or men of
stature. The description of them was that
the Israelites said when they saw them 40 years earlier, we
were as grasshoppers in the eyes of these guys. These are some
tall men. These are some big people here.
And they were little in their eyes. And so here, now when they
came into Israel, They conquered them. The Lord gave them into
their hand. That's Shishai and Haman and
Talmai. And I know that from reading
Numbers 13 verse 33. But here in verse 11, Judges 111, we read, and from
thence, from there, he, and that he, it looks like here in the
context it's talking about Judah, but in Joshua, it speaks of Caleb. So from there, he or Caleb went
against the inhabitants of Dabir. And the name of Dabir before
was Kirjath Sefer. Kirjath Sefer. Kirjath means
the city of. And Sefer is the book. So this
is the city of the book. The city of the book. Now, historically,
that would mean this is an important city. This is where they kept
the records of things. This is the seat of the wisdom
of this people. This describes their doctrines,
their laws, their gods, their practice and worship of their
gods. This describes the manner and
the ways and the thoughts of this people here in the city
of Kirjath Sefer. And so Caleb has come up now
to destroy the city of the book. He's come to destroy the city
of the book. That is, he's come to destroy
the wisdom, the seed of wisdom of this people. Our Lord tells
us that I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to
nothing the understanding of the prudent. Now, we're going
to see this verse, this is 1 Corinthians 1.19 that I just quoted to you. I want us to see that in the
context here of Othniel, who is a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ destroying the wisdom, destroying this city. Because
Christ is how our God destroys our vain fleshly wisdom. He does it through His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the one who overcomes
our darkness. He's the one that overcomes our
foolishness. He overcomes our vain, false
wisdom and knowledge and understanding of things, and He reveals to
us the Father. He makes us to know true wisdom.
He gives us the fear of the Lord. He's the one who ministers grace
and peace and light and understanding to his people. In fact, we read
in 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 5, Paul writes that, though we
walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. This isn't
about the manner of the flesh and the greatness of this flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through
God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and
every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge
of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. And man's wisdom, man's thoughts,
man's ways and ideas exalt themselves. We think we're so wise. We think
we're so intelligent that we know how things are. But we don't
know anything if we don't know the Lord. And we know the Lord
through His Son, Jesus Christ. He's our wisdom. He's our wisdom. He's the one that teaches us
the true and living way. So with that understanding of
Christ being made our wisdom, let's read verse 12. Judges 1-12. Caleb said, He that smiteth Keerjot
Sefer and taketh it, to him will I give Aksa, my daughter, to
wife. Now I already said Caleb is a
picture of God the Father, and he says, He that smiteth Keerjot
Sefer and taketh it. or he that destroys the wisdom
of the wise and brings to nothing the understanding of the prudent,
to him will I give Aksa, my daughter, to wife. The wife being the one
whom Caleb chose to give to the conqueror, to the one who conquers. Just as God the Father chose
the bride of Christ and gave her to his son, who fulfilled
all the will and purpose of our God for his people. To fulfill that purpose where
God will be gracious to you, through Jesus Christ, his son. Rejoice, brethren, rejoice. God
has purpose to be gracious to you, to minister grace to your
hearts, to give you double for all your sins, not according
as our sins deserve, but to be kind and merciful, to put away
our sins, and to give us eternal life, inheritance with our God
forever in the sun. And so Caleb, think about it,
Caleb's already conquered Jerusalem and Hebron, so Caleb could have
gone in there and just taken Debir himself. but being moved
by the spirit. Whether he understood what he
was doing or not, I can't say. But he purposed to glorify the
man that would take Dabir. Or he purposed to glorify him
in the taking of Dabir, so that in the eyes of the people, this
man would be esteemed highly for what he had done. And in
the eyes of his daughter, this man would be esteemed in her
eyes, who did this work for her hand. All the people would know,
this man took this city. This man defeated the wisdom
of this people. And his daughter would know,
this man did this work for my heart. He loved me and gave himself
for me. He put his life on the line for
me, to give me life with him. So the prize was the bride. And Othniel knew it. He knew
that I'll take that city, and she will be my bride. I'll do
this for her hand. And so willingly, he went and
did the will of the father. He did the will of the father. Verse 13, and Othniel, the son
of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it. He took it. He defeated
it. And Caleb gave him Axa, his daughter,
to wife. So in this account, there's a
two-fold picture of what Christ has done in fulfilling the will
of his father by destroying the wisdom of man and saving, delivering,
purchasing his bride, his wife, the church. So first he came
to fulfill the will of his father. Our Lord tells us, I seek not
mine own will, but the will of the father which hath sent me. I'm here to fulfill his will. I'm here to do the will of the
father. And that will of the father is now revealed to us,
made known to us through Jesus Christ the Son. Because Christ
did this, we know the Father. We know His will, His purpose
of grace toward us through the Son, by the Son. Because Christ
has accomplished that redemption by Himself. that he might present,
we're told that Christ did this to save the bride, to save his
bride, that he might present his bride to himself, a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it
should be holy and without blemish. That's Ephesians 5, 27. So this
bride is chosen of the father and given to the son. the choosing
of the bride by God. We know this in Ephesians 1-4,
we're told that it's according as God hath chosen us in Him,
in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him. in love. And so it's through
the Son that we are brought to the Father. It's through the
Son that we are redeemed and made the children of God, brought
into the beloved family of God through the redemptive sacrifice
of Christ, who gave His life, who shed His blood, who laid
down His life bearing our penalty to deliver us from that penalty
and to give us life in himself. Life to know who the true and
living God is. He shut down and destroyed our
darkness and vain false wisdom to give us true light and true
wisdom in the Son that we might know our God and what he's done
for us. So Kirjath Sefer, it's a picture
of us in this flesh. We by nature are citizens of
this vain, wicked city of man's wisdom, which is man's darkness. And this brings me to the second
thing that our Lord accomplishes for us. We dwell in in enmity. We dwell in darkness by nature. We dwell in enmity against the
true and living God and rebellion against Him. And so the Lord
must destroy this vain wisdom. He must destroy this darkness
that's in us and this bondage that we're in to sin and to Satan
and to death and the grave. He must destroy all these things
which keep us held fast in that enmity against the true and living
God. And he does this by Christ Jesus,
so that he becomes all our wisdom. You know, a lot of people, we
meet a lot of people in our lives, as we go through our lives, and
you'll hear people that speak as though they are very religious.
And they probably are very religious. And they talk about God, and
they talk about the Father, and they say a few things about the
Lord Jesus Christ. But if Christ is not all their
hope, If they speak of God as though Christ is just a side
component to the truth of God, they're just vain babblers. They
might sound like they care, and they may sound like they know
God, but they don't know Him if they don't know the Son. Because
that's how we come to the Father. is through Jesus Christ the Son. That's how we come to the Father. So turn over to Ephesians chapter
2. Go to Ephesians 2 and we'll start
in verse 1. And Paul there says, and you
hath he quickened? You hath he given life, spiritual
life, who were dead spiritually in trespasses and sins. You had
no spiritual life. You had no real true life. You were sinners, perishing under
your own sin. And by nature, we were citizens
of that fallen city, that Kirjat Sefer. And here he describes
it. Wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, That is those who will not hear the
word of God. They do not believe in the son
of his salvation, the one whom he's appointed to save his people.
They don't want to hear that. They don't believe that. They
reject that. They don't care for that. They have no interest
in the salvation of God. Among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past. in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. But Christ Our God sent
His Son, Jesus Christ, who crushed that power that was over us.
He destroyed that darkness. He destroyed that power, that
dominion of sin and death, which held us fast. And He leads us
out of the darkness. He leads us out of that prism
of sin, and He brings us into the kingdom of His light. Now,
going back to 1 Corinthians 1, where I quoted verse 19 to you
before, I want us to see it in the context of what our God does
to destroy our wisdom. I just want you to see it here
in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 18 and 19. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness." We preach the cross. We preach
Christ crucified. And to those who have no knowledge
of God, to those who have not the Spirit of God and are not
washed in the blood of Christ, that message is foolishness to
them. They don't understand it. They
don't believe it. They don't see the need or the
point of it. But unto us which are saved,
to us who are washed in the blood of Christ by the grace of God.
To us it is the power of God because we see that God made
the difference. We didn't get ourselves saved.
We didn't do anything to put ourselves in the path of God's
grace and mercy. Our God in grace and mercy chose
us and plucked us out of the fires of hell and brought us
into the light of his dear son. We're saved by the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding
of the prudent. So we didn't destroy the wisdom
of the vain babblers of this world. That's where we were.
That was our city. That was our part. Our God and
mercy brought us out from that dead, vain wisdom of man. He delivered us by the Son, Jesus
Christ, through the preaching of Christ crucified. through
the preaching and attending that word with his spirit to give
us life, to give us an ear of faith, to hear and to receive
what our God is declaring to us and to believe on his son
that the saving of our souls because that's the will of God
for his people whom he loves, his bride that he gave to the
son. the bride that he gave to the
son. And then look down at verse 30 and 31 there, 1 Corinthians
1, 30, 31. But of him, of God, are ye in
Christ Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption, that according as it's written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. So we see how that
our God by Christ destroys our fortress of man's wisdom. He destroys that pain knowledge
that we have by nature and brings us to see that Christ is all
my wisdom. He's my salvation. God has saved
me by the blood of his son and delivered me from that dead city,
that city of dead men. and brought me into the light
of his son. All right, now this brings us
a little more into the second part that I want you to see of
how that Christ has become the wisdom, the all of his people. Christ is all and in all. We see that, that he's all. And
it's seen here in these last few verses of our text. So back
in Judges 1, let's read verse 13 again. Anathneel, the son of Kenaz,
Caleb's younger brother, took it. And he gave him Aksa, his
daughter, to wife. And so Aksa is now married to
Athnael. Now we come up to where Aksa
is the bride of Athnael. She has been given to him to
marry. And she's been given to Athnael
as his wife, so that Athnael, her husband, is her head. He has the rule over her. And that's because in marriage,
the Lord tells us in Ephesians 5, 23 and 24, that the husband
is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the
church. And he is the savior of the body.
Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives
be to their own husbands in everything. And so that order of the Lord,
that order of our God who's appointed us a head, and that head is Christ. So it is in marriage, and we
see that displayed here with Aqsa and her husband before she
goes to her father. to ask of him a blessing, she
checks with her husband. She goes to her husband, Othniel,
to make sure that he's okay with what she's going to do. Because
in reality, When a wife, if she goes to her dad, if she goes
back to her father and never checks with her husband, says,
you know, I was thinking, hon, what do you think of this? I'd
like to do such and such a thing. But instead, she just goes right
around him and goes right to the husband. That actually shames
the husband. It doesn't speak well for a husband
because she's not trusting him. She's not trusting that, you
know, the Lord gave me this man as my head, let me go to him
first. And so that's how it is for us
as the church. we go to our head, the Lord Jesus
Christ. We seek his will and purpose. And so verse 14 says that it
came to pass when she came to him, to Othniel, that she moved
him to ask of her father a field. In other words, she asks, I'd
like to go to my father and ask him for a field. I'd like to ask my father for
a blessing. Is it OK if I go and ask him
for a larger dowry, basically? I want to ask him for a larger
dowry. And Othniel blesses it. He says,
wife, that's great. That's good. You have my blessing.
You go to your father and you ask him for a blessing there. And so she goes to her dad and
it says she lighted from off her ass. She came off the donkey,
the beast of burden that she was riding. Now, There's a picture
there. I found it odd that the Lord
put that little note in there that she came down off the donkey,
off the burrow that she was riding in on. But it's a picture of
the Lord Jesus Christ, actually. It's a picture of Christ. Through this little extra detail
that the Spirit gives us, it makes us to see. It makes sure
that we catch that when Aksa comes to her father, She's coming
to him in the blessing of the son. She's coming to him in the
blessing of her husband. And so it would seem that, at
this point, Othniel's not even in the picture. But in reality,
Aksa blessed her coming. He gave her. the donkey, and
she used that donkey to go to the father. And so the picture
here, the point is, brethren, is that Christ, our husband,
he's that beast of burden. He's the one who bore the weight
of all our sin. He's the one who labored to purge
us of our sins. He's the one who labored to make
us righteous and accepted with the Father, to gain us an entrance
to the Father, to be received by Him because we come perfect
and holy and spotless by the Son, Jesus Christ. We're told that by one offering,
He hath perfected forever. then that are sanctified. We're sanctified by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that now we have fellowship with
the Father. We are received of the Father
through the mediator, the God-man mediator, his Son. So that down in Hebrews 10, verses
19 through 23, we read, having therefore, brethren, boldness,
enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. He as the servant
of God labored for our deliverance, labored for our life, labored
for our inheritance, so that now we have boldness to come
before our God, trusting that I am righteous. I don't need
to do anything more to make myself more righteous and accepted with
God. I come to the Father through
Jesus Christ the Son, by a new and living way, which he hath
consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And having a high priest over
the house of God, Let us draw near with a true heart in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold
fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful
that promised. That is, our God has promised
us life in His Son. He's promised us life in his
son. So the picture of Aksa here coming
to her father, riding upon this ass, it's a type of Christ. It shows us coming, being born
up upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who labored as the servant of
God to bring us to the Father, to bring us to seek of Him, blessings,
to seek of him mercy and grace, to give us the things that we
have need of through Jesus Christ the Son. It's a picture. You
see Christ there, the one who comes before the Father and says,
Behold, I and the children whom thou hast given me. He brings
us to the Father. And he tells us, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, whatsoever ye ask of the Father in my name,
he shall give it to you. He shall give it you. And so
she lighted from off her ass, and Caleb said unto her, what
wilt thou? What wilt thou? Verse 15 says
that she said unto him, give me a blessing, for thou hast
given me a south land. Give me also springs of water.
And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs. Before Axel was married, she
had no inheritance. The Debir wasn't hers. It wasn't
hers until Othniel took it, and she was given to Othniel to be
his wife. And so this Debir here that is
now hers with Othniel is described as a south land. And that's what
Caleb gave as a dowry, that south land, that city of Debir or Kirjath
Sefer. But the south land isn't really
a good land. And you think about what Christ
sacrificed and what he did in coming in the flesh to where
we are to obtain an inheritance for us. But he dwelt among us
in the Southland. And when we look at ourselves
and what we are in this flesh, we see now that's not very impressive,
what we are. We don't think very much of ourselves
in the light of our sin and what we are by nature. But in Christ,
we have a greater inheritance. And so this Southland is what
we see here about us. And it's pretty barren, and it's
pretty bleak. And we're given a thirst for
more. We're given a thirst for the
blessings of our God, the riches of Him. And so now that she's
married to her husband, with the wisdom of her husband, she
goes to the father and asks for springs of water. And Caleb,
the father, gave her the upper springs and the nether springs,
which is the lower springs. So he gave her the upper springs
and the lower springs. When Christ is made our wisdom,
he becomes our head. And he knows our infirmities. He knows our weaknesses. He knows the things that we're
going to ask him, even before we ever ask him. And being touched
with the feeling of our infirmities, he's moved by us, by our cries
and our sorrows and what we see in this world and the bleakness
of it and so in grace and in mercy he gives us the spirit
whereby we are moved to pray to our god to breathe out to
him being helped by the spirit it says in romans 8 26 likewise
the spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should
pray for as we ought But the Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. She asked for springs
of water. Relieve my thirst, Lord, help
me. Help me, I'm parched. Lord, I
need springs of water, those everlasting springs that you
speak of and describe in your word. And Caleb gave her more
than she asked for. He gave her the upper springs
and the lower springs. He blessed her with heavenly
things and the promise that we have a heavenly inheritance even
being seated with Christ now, brethren, and we have that blessing
and knowledge of these things even here and are comforted and
blessed in our Savior. even here in this South land. And so our God has done much
for us. And we see how that not only
did he put away our sins and give us life, but he's given
us a knowledge of that salvation. He's given us a hope in him even
now and moves us is moved and moves us to pray and to thirst
and to cry out, Lord, have mercy. Help me to see more of your son.
Help me to walk in faith, believing you and trusting you and to just
be comforted and rest in the salvation that you've promised
me in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, help me to walk in the
light of your son whom you've blessed me so richly with. And so John 1, 12, and 13 says
it this way, as many as received him, to them gave he power to
become the sons of God. That is, to experience what our
Savior has done for us, to make us to know. He doesn't leave
us in darkness to what Christ accomplished. He makes us to
know, my God did this for me. He did this for my hand, for
my heart, to make me his bride and to know it even now, even
now in this south land. And so, brethren, we see sweet
pictures of Christ in Nathanael, who conquered the city of man's
wisdom, who conquered that city and carried us out as precious
vessels from the strong man's house. He didn't leave us behind.
He took us out of it. And he made us his own, giving
us a new heart, giving us his spirit, regenerating us in spiritual
life to know what our God has done for us, how he's blessed
us richly and causes us to seek his face and to seek him for
blessings. for mercy and greater views and
understandings of our Savior. He gathers us together as a body
of our Savior, rejoicing in the light and salvation of our God
in the face of Jesus Christ, who loved me and gave himself
for me. And so I pray that the Lord bless
each of you to say those words as well, rejoicing in your Savior. Amen. All right, let's pray,
and then we'll be dismissed for 15 minutes. We'll come back at five after
the hour. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your grace and mercy, what you've done for us in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that you conquered
our wisdom, that you delivered us from dead things, from the
vain wisdom of this flesh, and brought us under the headship
Jesus Christ, our husband, our Lord, our Savior, to come to
you in the sun, to come to you having no confidence in ourselves,
but in the confidence that we are the Lord's, that we are spotless
in Him and accepted by you in the sun. and that he's all our
acceptance, and that you bless us richly with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Lord, thank
you for this word. Thank you for these beautiful
pictures of our Savior, and help us, Lord, to remember them every
time we read this passage, that we would think of our Savior
and what he's done for us. It's in Christ Jesus' name that
we pray and give thanks. Amen.