Judges chapter 4. Judges chapter
4. Judges chapter 4. And our text
will be found in verse 22. The Scripture says, And behold,
as Varric pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said
unto him, Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent,
behold, Sisera lay dead. and the nail was in his temples."
The title of the message is, Come and See Sin Slain. Come and See Sin Slain. We know this, that throughout
the history of man, there has been no absence of great cruelty. Man, from the beginning of the
earth, There have been great tyrants, so great and evil and
wicked were their imaginations of the torture and enslavement
of men, that I suppose if they were to read their own history,
they themselves couldn't bear to read the crimes that they
have committed. Everything in history has been,
there has always been murder and oppression by tyrants and
mighty men. subduing and taking captive slaves. There's always been this. And
there always will be this as long as this world continues
until Christ comes. This world is full of oppression. I know that a lot of us in this
country may feel fear because of oppression. We know that oppression
is coming. We're not blinded as others. to not see that this is the history,
this is the way it's always been, this is the way it will be. Men
will come and dominate and rule and try to gain power, but this
is not our home. We're just strangers and pilgrims,
if you're a believer in Christ. And I'll tell you, there's never
been a more cruel taskmaster than sin. There have been a lot
of cruel men. But there's never been a crueler
and more dominant taskmaster upon men than sin. This was the
case of Israel when they were enslaved by Jabin, king of Canaan. Go back to chapter, verse 1 of
chapter 4, and it says, And the children of Israel again did
evil in the sight of the Lord when Ehud was dead. And the Lord
sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, that reigned
in Hazor, and the captain of whose host was Sisera, who dwelt
in Herosheth of the Gentiles. And the children of Israel cried
unto the Lord, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and
twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel." The
children of Israel were at peace until the death of this judge
Ehud. It was the children of Israel,
it's then that they did evil in the sight of the Lord. And
this is a reflection to us. This is a reflection of the case
of every man who is born into this world. Every woman, that
is, every child. This is all of our case. This
has to do with every one of us here. This is reflective of the
truth concerning our case of sin. When God created Adam, He
created Adam in peace. He created Adam upright. But when our Father failed, when
our Father sinned, He died. And from that point on, we all
died in Him. We all died when we were born
because we were born of the seed of man. We were born of Adam's
race. And we all inherited this sin
nature. And therefore, all of us did
evil in the sight of the Lord when we were from our youth.
We came forth from the womb, speaking lies. We were all enslaved to Sisera. It was a mighty man, a mighty
captain of a large host of men. In twenty years, he dominated
Israel. Twenty years, he oppressed Israel. And so it is with our sins that
we are like Israel in that we are all born captive. We are
all born enslaved to sin. Born in chains. One sad thing
about being born in chains is we never understand what it is
to be free. Someone that's born in chains,
they don't know anything different than what they're born into.
If you're born into slavery, you have no taste of freedom,
so therefore you have no idea what you're missing. You know,
this happens even to animals. When you take an animal from
the wild and you put him into the zoo, Most of them don't live
or don't produce. But it's those that are born
in captivity that may thrive in those places. We are born
in captivity. Every man is. And there are some
who think themselves free. Some think themselves to be free
to do what? To sin. They say, oh, I'm free
to sin. They think their dungeon to be
a palace. They think their chains to be
as gold. And they often say, well, I'm
free to do as I please, to sin as I want, but this is not freedom. This is tightening the chains
of enslavement. Sin is a cruel taskmaster. And if any one of us would be
honest with ourselves, We know this, that the fruit of our sin
has yielded nothing but torture and torment in our lives. Let me ask you this, if somebody
in this government, this rule, were to give us something and
make us to drink something so vile as to dull our minds so
that they can control our every action, let me ask you, would
you call that freedom? No. Neither is it with sin. Sin is not freedom. When we sin, all we can do is more sin. We are not free to do righteous. We are not free to do good, because
evil is present with us every time. You have a slave that does
something good. Well, that doesn't free him from
being a slave just because he did something good for somebody.
And that's like that with sin. Sin is a slave. Sin is the root of all tyranny
and oppression. And as Israel was enslaved and
oppressed by Jabin and kept by the might of Sisera, so is every
one of the child of Adam kept by the might of sin. Sin. And this man Barak, this man
Barak here in the Scriptures, was called to go out and to fight
against Sisera. Here in Judges chapter 4, we
see the picture of the experience of this man Barak. Barak. Now, Barak is a picture
to us of every believer in Christ. His experience here. The Lord
has laid out His experience here for us so that we might see the
experience of ourselves. I'm sure that when I go through
these three things, every believer in Christ will say, yes, I know
where that place is. I've been there. I've been there. Every one of us can identify
with these things. Everyone who is saved by grace.
Now, first of all, the experience of being called to battle. Every
one of us has experienced a call to battle sin. Go ahead and look at verse 4.
It says, And Deborah the prophetess, the wife of Laodicea, she judged
Israel at that time. She dwelt under a palm tree of
Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim. And the children
of Israel came up to her for judgment. And she sent and called
Barak the son of Abinuam out of Keredesh Naphtali, and said
unto him, Hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded, saying,
Go and draw toward Mount Tabor, and take thee with thee ten thousand
men of the children of Naphtali and the children of Zebulun?
And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon-Sisera, the
captain of Jaban's army, with his chariots and his multitude,
and I will deliver them into thine hand." Now, Israel was
in such a wicked state that God had to, God, the only one God
would call to speak to them was this woman, Deborah. It was a
vile and wicked state to where there was no man. There was no
man. No man to judge Israel. Now,
the rule of a woman is not a sign of the great wisdom of Israel.
They didn't look down and say, well, man, you know, we need
to equal out the sexes here. Let's just elect Deborah as a
judge. No. It was a shame. A shame. It was a judgment of
God upon this nation to have this woman to speak and to rule
over the man. Look at this. I want you to see
this. Go to Isaiah chapter 3. Real quick. I want you to keep this in mind
as you see our so-called civilized nation, our so-called blessed
country, endowed with man's wisdom, I want you to see that this nation
is judged. The nation we live in right now
is judged. Isaiah chapter 3 and verse 11,
Woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him for the reward
of his hands shall be given him. As for my people, children are
their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they
which led thee cause thee to err and destroy the way of thy
paths. The Lord standeth up to plead
and standeth to judge the people." This was a condemnation to the
nation of Israel that Deborah had come. To have a woman rule over a nation
is the judgment of God against that nation because that nation
has rejected God who is sovereign. They have rejected God who has
the right to rule as He pleases. And God has set an order of things. God has set this order. And yet,
what is the nature of man? It is to kick against the order
of God. It is to defy God. So Deborah,
she calls Barak, and she gives him the commandment that he knew. You see, she's asking him a question
there in verse 6. When she called him,
she said, Hath not the Lord commanded? In other words, he's heard this
before. He's heard this before. Hath not the Lord commanded for
you to go up? And yet it took this woman. He
wouldn't even go up without this woman. He said, I won't go up
unless you go up. You see how far that man had
fell. And this is true faith. I know that this man had faith
in God. That's where we're coming from
is Hebrews chapter 11, when it said, time would fail me to tell
of Barak. Barak is listed in that hall
of faith. But yet his faith has been so low that he had to have
this woman to go with him. And so Deborah calls him to go
up and destroy this army of Sisera. Even so, when a man is touched
by the Spirit of God in pervenient grace, when God goes before,
He moves all things. When he begins this work of grace,
he calls men to see their need of freedom from sin. And we who were deaf to the sounds
of our chains begin to hear them rattle. Just like the bones when
they began to rattle. when Ezekiel spoke and prophesied
unto the bones. They began to rattle. And that's
what happens, begins, in the heart of every believer. We always
begin here. We're called up to battle against
sin. The jewels of sin that we thought
were so great, now then they're crumbling as dung in our hands. They're nothing. They become
fruitless. The pleasures we once received,
they taste horrible. They're no longer as pleasant
as they were to us. And we begin to know this. We're
captive. We can't get out of it. We know
we must be free. We don't know how. All I know
is that something's wrong with me. Then, like Israel, we begin to
cry out unto the Lord. Now, we at this point don't know
exactly what we're crying out for. At this point, we just know
there's a battle that must be fought. There's something must
be done about my life. At this point, we may not yet
fully see the extent of our sin or even the extent of our inability
to overcome our sins. But one thing we do know is that
we must be freed or die. We must be freed or die. This is the experience of everyone
who is called by grace. We begin to see that if God doesn't,
if we are not to get rid of our sins, if we can't get rid of
our sins, we know that we should suffer and die under the wrath
of God. So then what do we begin to do?
We begin to remove one chain link at a time. We start cutting
off sins. We start saying, well, I've got
to take an overview of my life, and then I've got to cut this
out. Man, that looks like sin. I've got to cut that out. And
so we start taking one link at a time out of the chain. And we begin our warfare then
against sin. This is in your text, verse 14. Judges chapter 3, verse 14. And Deborah said unto Barak,
For this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera
into thine hand. Is not the Lord gone before thee?
So Barak went up from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him. And the Lord defeated Sisera
and all 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. We like Barak understand we have
a battle and so we go with our 10,000. We go with our 10,000. All of the strength that we have,
we go and against our sin we'll fight. And yet we come to that
river and we find out that our 10,000 looks very small in comparison
to the 900 chariots and the multitude of men. 10,000 times 10,000. You come with your good works,
your good deeds and match them against your sin. And you'll find that you have
no good deeds in comparison to your sin. And so then we begin
to engage in the battle, because what else can we do? What else
can we do? We know that sin is evil. We
know that we must kill sin or die. So then we begin the battle
and we start to fight sin. But the more we fight sin, the
more futile this battle becomes. The more we slay one sin, ten
sins take its place. The more we try to repent, the
more we know we haven't repented enough. The more we cry, the
more we know we've not cried enough. We realize after a while, by
the grace of God, that we will never be finished with this battle. If we were to engage all of our
life against the battle, unless sin is slain, unless Sisera was
slain, Barak knew they could not win, unless Sisera was dead. And this leads me to the experience
of routing our sins. Now, I'll tell you, at this point,
we seem to have some measure of success. We seem to have some
measure of success. The natural man can start and
stop sinful habits. He can become moral and shine
above his peers. But this is never enough. Sin
must be not only cast out, it must be destroyed. I like this, what Spurgeon wrote.
He said, it's not enough. Our moral deeds are not enough.
That external morality will not save the soul. Like Barak, he
has conquered Sisera, but not content with seeing him flee
away on his feet. He wants his dead body before
him. No, he says, it is not enough
to vanquish. I must destroy. It's not sufficient
to get rid of evil habits, but I must overcome the propensity
of sin. It's not enough. Sin must be
slain. And I'll tell you this, it's
not a work of the Holy Spirit unless it's a radical work. Anybody
can fight against sin. But I'll tell you, it takes the
Holy Spirit to rout sin and destroy it. It takes an act of God to
do that. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. If you are content merely to
conquer your sins and not kill them, you may depend upon it. It is merely a work of morality,
a surface work, and not the work of the Spirit. Sirs, be not content
with driving out your foes. They'll come back to haunt you. Is that not true of every sin
that we have tried to cut off? Ask the religious folks how many
times they have to repent of a sin. Because they're trying
to repent of one sin at a time, and yet that sin is never repented
of, never done. This is a dangerous thing. It's a dangerous thing to make
the mistake the externals for the internals. It's a mistake,
a dangerous mistake, to look at the outward sign rather
than the inward grace. Rest not content until the blood
of your enemy stains the ground, until sin is crushed and slain. And that's the experience of
every believer. We would not rest. We would not be contented
with just battling our sins ourselves. We would not be contented even
if we became moral. Even if we became religious.
We are not content with that. Sin must be killed. It must be
slain or else I die. Not content with it. Well, how
do we know that sin is slain? Well, this is the work of grace.
This is only the work of grace in the heart by God. Even though you can't slay your
sin and free yourself, I tell you, if you are in this condition,
pursue after your sins until you see them slain. How many
men have come weeping to me? And they have they have lamented
their sins. They have they're in a bind.
They're in a trouble. They're in a difficult situation.
And they're crying and weeping over their sin and say, oh, oh,
what do I do? I said, come and sit down and
listen. Come and hear the gospel. And then after a while, their
conscience dies down and they're back off where they were. You
see, they've not experienced any grace. Because when grace
comes, we'll pursue our sins until we see the dead corpse
of our sins before us. Won't quit. I know God is sovereign. I remember this in my heart. I knew this, that if God were
to damn me, He'd be right. He would be right. But if God
were to save me, the only place He'd save me is under the sound
of the gospel. And I would sit there, either to be damned or
to be saved, but that's where I would be. Because there was
no other place to go. Have you been there? Have you
been there? I have. And now, if you are there, I
tell you, come and see. Look at that in verse 22, our
text. Behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jahel came to meet him
and said unto him, And I will show thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent,
behold, Cicero lay dead, and the nail was in his temples." This is the last experience,
the experience of the open door. The experience of the open door. barrack pursued after Sisera. When he did that, Sisera went
into this tent of this woman called Jael. She was the wife of one of their
allies, supposedly one of their allies. And he thought himself
safe. He went into that tent of Jael,
and he thought he was safe. And so he said, hey, give me
a drink of water, and she brings him a bottle of milk. He said,
give me a cover, and she covered him. And he said, when a man
comes and asks for me, you say there's no man here. And so he
went to sleep. And as soon as he was asleep,
Jael took one of the tent pegs in her hand, and in her right
hand she took a hammer, and she softly went up to him and drove
the nail right into his temples, and drove it into the ground. This, friends, is a picture to
us of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done to our sin. To our sin. When God's elect enter the fray,
they don't know it yet, but as soon as they come in by faith,
into the door which is Christ, they will see this, that their
sin had already been slain. Now, I don't know how long Barak
pursued after Sisera, but I know this, Sisera was dead while Barak
pursued him. Sisera was already dead, and
yet Barak pursued. And he would not be content until
he saw the dead, the dead man laying at his feet. He wouldn't
be content. Even so it is with God's saints.
And I tell you, here's the open door. Come see. You that want
to see your sin slain, then I tell you, come and see. Come and see
the man. Come and see the man you seek
for. Your old nature. See that he's nailed. And he's
nailed by an unexpected hero. This woman, Jael, he thought
it was safe to go into this tent. But God had already for told
that it would be a woman that slain him. In verse 9 of chapter 4, Deborah
said, I will surely go with thee, notwithstanding the journey that
thou takest shall not be for thine honor, for the Lord shall
sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. You see, friends, it
was the seed of the woman that killed our sin. The seed of the
woman. It wasn't the seed of the man.
The man was to receive no glory. Even so it is with God's elect.
We received no glory for this. We did not slay Sisera. Nor could
we have slain Sisera. You ever try to pin mud down? When you step in mud, what happens
is it squishes. That's like our sin. We couldn't
pin it down. We couldn't find it. We couldn't kill it. It moved. Changed type. Changed ways. But
yet now it's nailed down to the ground by the seed of the woman,
Jesus Christ. This is the only gospel which
is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And we see that in JL, as in
Christ, Our sins were nailed to His cross. Have you any sin? Then come see
the man slain. Come see and behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Come and see the
man who has slain all our sins. All that God demanded. Behold
Christ! For sinners slain. See the door of the slain Sisera. And I'll tell you, can you imagine
how horrible the sight of that was? We've never experienced
anything like that. We've never seen anyone... You
see it in maybe movies or something like that, but you have never
experienced it in real life, seeing someone like that slain
out before you with the blood all over the ground, his head
nailed down to the ground with a tent peg. What a horrid sight that must
have been. What a horrid sight the cross must have been. You
want to see how grotesque your sins are? Then behold, the blood
pouring out of every pore of the Messiah. For you. For you. Because of our sins. But yet at the same time, it's
not just a grotesque sight, it is a joyful sight. Yes, he walks
in and sees the grotesqueness of it, the ugliness of that monster
laying there, dead. But yet the joy, because now
Israel is free. I thought of David and Goliath.
What a horrid sight that was when he chopped off the head
of that giant and he pulled it up and showed, and the blood
was everywhere. What a horrible sight! But yet
Israel cheered because he had the victory. And you can rejoice
if you are in Christ. Come in the tent and see and
believe. Trust in Christ. He alone has
slain our sin. Is that true for you? Have you experienced those things? What a great joy. And even though
I pursue right now after my sins, I still hate my sins. I still
hate them. But I know one day I'm going
to walk through a door. I'm going to walk through the
doors of heaven. And when I do, everything will be made so clear
concerning my sin being gone. Everything will be clear. I'll see what it is to be perfect,
holy, righteous, sinless, because I'll see the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God, worthy
is the Lamb that has redeemed us by His blood out of every
nation and kindred and tongue and tribe. I pray that these are your experiences
of grace, because they are every believer's pray that God will bless us and
give you comfort to know our sin has been slain and we're
free. I pray that God bless us to your
heart.