Thank you, John. I would have
gladly given you ten of my minutes to finish that. Tristan's going, oh, man. Well, you just heard a message
from the Lord, and I have a message from God for you this morning.
Turn with me to the Old Testament book of Judges, if you would,
please. Chapter 3, right after the book
of Joshua. Judges chapter 3. Before I begin reading the text,
I want to tell you a little about the book of Judges. The word
Judge or Judges actually means Defender. The word Judge or Judges
means Deliverer. That's what John just preached
to you, the great Deliverer. The King of Kings and the Lord
of Lords. After 400 years of Egyptian slavery
and bondage, God delivered Israel with a mighty hand. There was
no question that it was God that delivered Israel. God raised up a deliverer. His name was Moses. And when
Moses died, God raised up another deliverer whose name was Joshua.
And when Joshua died, God raised up judges. Those judges are no
doubt a picture and type of the Lord Jesus Christ. But as you
know, there is no perfect picture or type with man. These judges
like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob right on down through Moses and
Joshua, they were all just men. And as all men do, many times
they fail. They fall. And they always die. Samson was one of God's judges. You remember the story of Samson. He was just a man. He was God's
chosen deliverer. But my, what a mess he made of
things. Now one other thing I want to
tell you concerning the book of Judges is that there's a pattern
here concerning the nation of Israel, the Judges, and God Almighty
that just occurs over and over again. You can read Judges chapter
2 in your leisure and you'll see that pattern. We saw it all
through the book of Exodus. God would raise up a judge and
Israel would prosper both spiritually and physically under that judge. But then that judge would die,
as all men do. And soon after the death of the
judge, Israel would again do evil in the sight of the Lord.
Just what a picture of us. They begin to worship the false
gods of the nations around them. And the Scripture here says they
went whoring after other gods. God would then allow their enemies
to overtake them into bondage and slavery again. And then Israel
would cry unto the Lord. We cry unto the Lord when we
get in trouble. The Lord would hear their cry,
have compassion on them, and send them a judge, a deliverer,
a defender, a savior. And the process would just start
all over again. A careful study of the children
of Israel shows us something of ourselves, no doubt. Now,
look at Judges chapter 3 with me, verse 12. Judges 3 verse 12. It says, "...and the children
of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord
strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel because they
had done evil in the sight of the Lord. And he, either God
or Eglon, ultimately God, he's the first cause of all things,
of everything. He gathered unto him the children
of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and possessed
the city of palm trees. So the children of Israel served
Eglon, the king of Moab, eighteen years." And it's here that our
story begins. We see a Moabite king named Eglon
had now held Israel captive for eighteen years. And the children
of Israel find themselves right back in the same place that they
were in Egypt. In bondage and slavery. Oh, what a picture slavery is
of our bondage and sin. Paul said, sold under sin. Now
verse 15 says that the children of Israel cried unto the Lord.
The pattern here again. And the Lord raised them up a
Savior. a deliverer, a defender, Ehud,
the son of Gerah, a Benjamite, a man left-handed. And by him
the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab."
God again raises up a judge. He raises up a deliverer for
Israel. And it was then that Israel received
instruction from the Lord here. No doubt through this man named
Ehud, he was God's deliverer on how to proceed in being delivered. And this was how. They would
prepare a gift, a present, and they would take this present
to Eglon, the king of Moab. And don't you know that that
just struck his fancy? Eglon, the king, no doubt a gift
would appeal to his lust and his self admiration and pride
and arrogance and the thought of receiving a gift. Well, it
was appealing to him. We're not told what that present
was, it really doesn't matter, but we are told that while they
prepared it, Ehud made a dagger a cubit in length. Now this dagger
was about 18 inches long, the best I can tell, and it had a
two-edged blade. It was a two-edged sword. When
you read that verse there about our king having a sword, you're
exactly right. That's what he's talking about.
The Word of God, a two-edged sword. And according to verse
16, Ehud hid it under the clothing on his right thigh because he
was left-handed. So Ehud and the people that he
chose to go with him took this present to the king. And according
to verse 20, Eglon the king was sitting in his summer parlor.
When I read that, I thought, well, isn't that precious? Eglon
has a summer parlor that he constructed especially for him, a place where
he could go and rest and get away and take a nap. I like naps. I take them quite often. Long
ones. We're told in verse 17 says that
they brought this present to the Eglon, the king of Moab.
And notice this, Eglon was a very fat man. It appears that after the present
was delivered, Ehud and those that delivered the gift to the
king were headed back to their houses. But Ehud made it as far
as the quarry. Now, the quarry here is a place
where the slaves, the children of Israel, actually carved out
the numerous deities and idols that the Moabites worshipped.
And I don't know, we're not told, I'm not sure what scene these
idols did to Ehud, God's deliverer, but he immediately seems to stop
in his tracks. I was thinking maybe his dad
worked in that quarry, maybe someone in his family that he
loved. But I know this, as we said last night, those idols,
those deities were an offense to him. He served the Most High
God. So, He Himself comes back before
the king. And as John said, you don't just
walk up to a king. And then he says to the king,
I have a secret errand. That means a secret word unto
thee, O king. And this got the king's attention,
so Eglon told all of his servants to be quiet, and then he winds
up just making them leave. And now Ehud is alone with the
king, and that's a very important statement. God's deliverer is
alone with this pagan king. God's deliverer is alone with
his people's enemy. God's Savior, God's Deliverer,
God's Defender is there with a two-edged sword to deliver
His people. Do you see the picture? In Ehud,
God's Deliverer, God's Savior, God's Judge says in verse 20,
I have a message from God unto thee. And the king rose out of
his seat, and God's Deliverer delivered the message. God did
have a message for him. Look at verse 21. And Ehud put
forth his left hand, and he took the dagger from his right thigh,
and he thrust it into his belly, into Eglon's belly. And the hat,
at least nine inches of that blade, went in after the blade,
and the fat enclosed upon the blade, so that he could not draw
the dagger out of his belly, and the dirt came out. What a
picture we have here of the believer's salvation. Ehud, God's deliverer,
is a type of Christ, slays the king of our hearts, called sin,
and he leaves it alone to die. That's the message of the Lord.
God has sent a Deliverer. God has sent a Savior to deliver
us from the bondage and the slavery of sin. What is the significance of Ehud
being left-handed? Thought a lot about that. Perhaps
it is to remind us that Jesus Christ being God became a man
to save us. Christ made Himself of no reputation. He took upon Himself the form
of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. Maybe that's
what it's referring to. I don't know. God became a man
in order to redeem fallen men. And as God, the Lord Jesus Christ
is our Deliverer, was able to deliver us as the perfect God-man. It took only God's left hand
to deliver us from our sin. Ehud said, I have a message from
God. And to Eglon it was a message
of death. Which is this message to you? God has sent us all a message. There's not a human being alive
that God has not sent a message to. Some might say, well, I've
never heard from God. I'm in an audible voice. I've
never seen a vision. I've never had an angel appear
unto me, a messenger of God. Well, neither have I. But I have
nonetheless received a message from God. There are many people
in this world that have never heard the Gospel preached. But
Romans 1 says they're yet without excuse. Because God as our great
Creator has spoken to all His creation, has He not? The message
is seen in His creation. God's sovereign power and salvation
being understood by the things that are made, created, even
His, God's eternal power and Godhead, so that all are without
excuse. You can go out at night and look
at the stars in the galaxy, and God's power and God's glory is
displayed in those stars of the galaxy. It takes the same power
to create light in you, a sinner, as it did for God to create light
in the stars of the sky. Same power. That's God's message
to you. The same power from God to save
a wretched sinner. It takes a mighty deliverer.
It takes the judge of all the earth to slay the king of sin. Paul told Timothy, for the time
will come when men and women will not endure sound doctrine,
but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers
having itching ears. and they shall turn away their
ears from the truth and shall be turned into fables." Just
mere fiction. Just mere lies. Man's imagination. Men have made a God of their
own imagination. He doesn't resemble the God of
Scripture. God's message is seen in His creation. God's message
is found in this book that you hold this morning. This book
has a message from God to you. It's a message of love. It's
a message of grace. It's a message of forgiveness.
It's a message of substitution. It's a message of a blood sacrifice. Why? It's a message of a mediator.
One who goes before God and does for us what we cannot do for
ourselves. It's a message of a great high
priest. It's a message of Jesus Christ. It's the message of Him
crucified. And it's the only way that you
can be reconciled to God. God has a message in this book
for you. We've sinned against God. We've
followed after idols. We're a mess just like Israel
was. I can remember many times we were studying through the
book of Exodus at home on Wednesday evenings and I can remember reading
those accounts in Exodus and just kind of shaking my head
like, what's wrong with these people? And then it dawned on
me, that is you! We're prone to wander. Prone
to leave the God that we love. God sent us a Deliverer. Jesus
Christ is God's Judge. Jesus Christ is God's Savior.
And how did man respond to that? With their wicked hands they
took and crucified the Lord of Glory. Men killed the very one
that could save them. But we know it was by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. That's how God's gonna save
sinners through His beloved Son. When the believer's sin is found
on Christ, God killed him in our stead. Will you hear this
message? A father once asked his son,
a young boy in a church where Brother Mahan was preaching,
and he asked his son if he'd heard the message that Brother
Mahan had just preached. And the little fella kind of
scratched his head and he said, well, I tried not to, but I did
anyway. That's exactly what happened
to me. I could not come to God. I would
not come to God. I would not listen to this message.
Not until God gave these deaf ears hearing. I'm so thankful
that He did. Men and women try not to hear,
but some do anyway. Because God is going to see to
it that all His chosen people hear, believe, trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ. How shall they call on Him and
who may not believe? And how shall they believe in
Him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? I heard you this morning loud
and clear. And you did preach to my heart,
brother. That's what we need. That's what we've got to have.
I have a message from God for you. Will God enable you who
are yet without Christ to hear? I sure do pray that He does.
God sends His message through creation. God sends His message
through this book. God sends His message through
providence. God does in time, providence, what He purposed
in eternity. No such thing as luck. No such
thing as chance. Those are two words that just
crawl all over me any moment. Oh, He sure was lucky. No, He
wasn't. God's on His throne. No such
thing as luck. No such thing as chance. All
things are done on purpose. Done according to God's will
and purpose. Paul said all things are predestinated
according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things. How many
things, John? You were talking about this morning.
I came upstairs to hear Paul and John preaching to each other. And I just sat down and listened.
Wish I'd taken notes. God does all things. All things. According to the counsel of His
own will. Everything that comes about in
time, in providence, God purposed in eternity. Every single thing. And that's where we can rest. That's where we can think if
God didn't send anything, that He's not going to work together
for our good. Isn't that comforting? But God
speaks to us through adversity. David said, it's good for me
that I've been afflicted, that I may learn thy statutes. Now
that word statutes there in that verse means God's appointments.
Through adversity and trials, we know that God appointed and
sent all things, and He sent them for our good. Sometimes it doesn't seem like
they're for our good. But they are nonetheless. God
speaks to us through sickness. God speaks to us through death.
It's appointed unto men once to die. And after that, the judgment. And it's God that does that appointing.
God speaks to us through health. It's in Him that we live and
we move and we have our being. Ehud told Eglon, he said, I've
got a message from God unto thee. And to Eglon, it was a message
of death. You know, to some, the gospel
is a savor of life unto life, and to others, it's a savor of
death unto death. Which is the gospel to you? Men and women are without excuse We were down at Brother Darwin's
last week, Paul and I, and he's built these garden beds, and
he's growing all kinds of fruits and vegetables. There's fruit
hanging off the vine. And as I looked at those, I thought
to myself, Christ is that vine that produces the fruit. Without
Him, we can do nothing. Without Him, we can bear no fruit.
This time of year, we see the fowls of the air. God speaks
to us through the fowls of the air. We see these birds flying
south, multitudes of them. And I think to myself, not one
sparrow falls to the ground without God's permission and without
Him knowing it. Oh, God speaks to us in so many
ways. But this is how God speaks to
His people. He speaks to them through preachers. By the foolishness of preaching,
God saves to please God to save those who believe. David had a Nathan, and David heard his message.
That Ethiopian eunuch, he had a Philip, and he heard Philip's
message. Lydia, she had a Paul. You've got a Paul. And Lydia heard his message. But you know what? Felix had
the same Paul. And he didn't hear. Who makes the difference? Oh,
it's God that makes the difference. It's God who makes you to differ
from another. God sent this same Paul to King
Agrippa. You remember that? And Agrippa
didn't hear him. Agrippa said, thou almost persuadest
me. Raised in a Southern Baptist
church, they used to sing, almost persuaded. I'm almost persuaded. That won't get the job done.
Might as well be a thousand miles away to be almost. No almost. No maybes. No uncertainty. Except you repent,
you're going to perish. That's what God said. Except
you be born again, you shall not see or you shall not enter
the Kingdom of God. Except your righteousness exceed
that of the Pharisees, you shall in no case, no wise, enter into
the Kingdom of God. except you be converted and become
as a little child, you shall not inherit God's Kingdom. A man can receive nothing except
it be given him from above. Last week, Brother Paul said
in a message, I can tell you the Gospel in five words. Salvation
is of the Lord. And it is. Now look at verse
21 again. And Ehud put forth his left hand,
and he took the dagger from his right thigh, and he thrust it
into his belly, Eglon's belly. And the hath went in after the
blade, and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not
draw the dagger out of his belly, and the dirt came out. As I mentioned
a moment ago, Eglon is described as a very fat man. Eglon is a
picture of all of us by nature. Eglon was a very fat man. By nature, you and I are very
fat. Have you ever noticed that the
Word of God is not politically correct? God doesn't have to
be politically correct. I remember my pastor, he used
to call me tiny. It took me a while to figure
out that it wasn't because I was tiny. Eglon was not said to be a big
man. He was said to be a fat man and
a very fat man at that. So are we. So are we. We're full of sin. We're fat
with sin. We're very fat with filthy self-righteousness. We're very fat. We're satisfied
with our fatness. Satisfied with the girth of our
arrogance. Satisfied with the obesity of
our pride. Satisfied with the fatness of
our idolatry. As one old fellow said, say amen
or owe me one. It's true, isn't it? When our
Judge and when our Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ, came and
He slew our sin and He put it away, that two-edged sword could
not be removed until all the dirt came out. The Hebrew Bible refers to the
word dirt here as food. And that very well may be the
case. Eglon being a very fat man, maybe all his food came
out. I don't know. But what a picture
that is of our sin. He put away our sin. When Christ
slayed our sin, all the iniquity that we drank like water came
out. All the filthy self-righteous
impurities that we gluttonously eat came out and was put away. This is the purpose for which
Christ came. Christ came into the world to save sinners. He
came to put our sin away. Aren't you glad that He did? It's a faithful saying and worthy
of all exceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners. Are you a sinner? How did Christ save sinners?
He put their sin away by the sacrifice of Himself. The just
saved the unjust that He might bring us to God. Oh, I have a
message from God for you. Christ came into the world to
save sinners while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us.
Christ died for the ungodly. This is God's message to a convicted
sinner. To the lost and dying, this Gospel
message is the good news of substitution. It's the good news of satisfaction. It's the good news of salvation
accomplished. You know, when the Lord Jesus
said, it is finished, that's what He meant. The work was finished. The work was done. Salvation
is accomplished. To those who seek not Christ,
but rather opt for the idols of their own merit, the messenger
is out to kill. Take no prisoners. I heard Brother Henry say that
Mr. Barnard used to say, he said, if I'm going to show you my God,
I'm going to have to kill yours first. No truer words ever been
spoken. And that doesn't sit well with
the religious multitude, but it's nonetheless true. You know, once the Word of God
finds its target, it doesn't go away. He couldn't remove that
sword from Eglon's sin, not until it was all poured out, not until
it was all gone. It's a two-edged sword piercing
even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow and
quick to discern the thoughts and the intents of the heart.
That's what God's work does. The Lord Jesus who is the Word
of God puts away our sin by Himself just as Ehud put away Eglon by
Himself. The law of sin and death has
no hold on Christ because Christ kept God's law perfectly. The
Scripture is very clear. It must be perfect to be accepted. The work of righteousness that's
done for us has got to be perfect for God to accept it. We cannot
provide what God requires of us. But the Lord Jesus did. And because
of that, death could not bind Him and the grave could not hold
Him. Look at verse 23. Then Ehud went
forth through the porch and he shut the doors of the parlor
upon Him and locked them. And when he was gone out, his
egg-lawn servants came. And when they saw that, behold,
the doors of the parlor were locked. They said, surely he
covered it with his feet in the somber chamber. Surely he's taken
another long nap." Oh, he did. Verse 25, and they tarried until
they were ashamed. They were confounded. They didn't
know what to do. And behold, He opened not the
doors of the parlor, therefore they took a key and opened them.
And behold, their Lord was fallen down dead on the earth. And He had escaped while they
tarried and passed beyond the quarries and escaped into Sarah. And you know names in the Scripture
mean something. Did you know that the Hebrew
name for Ehud means united? His name gives strong reference
to our English word, union. When Ehud escaped to Sarah, that's
talking about Mount Ephraim. And in the Scriptures, Mount
Ephraim was called the mountains of Israel. When the Lord Jesus
Christ died in the sinner's room instead, He arose from the dead
and we were united with Him. He sits at the right hand of
God. And we sit there with Him if we belong to Him. The Lord Jesus ascended into
the mountain of Israel at the right hand of God. And the child
of God was united with Him because we are one with Him and union
with Him. Look at verse 27, And it came
to pass, when He was come, that He blew a trumpet in the mount
of Ephraim. And the children of Israel went
down with Him from the mount, and He before them. And Ehud
said unto them, Follow after me, There's another great Deliverer
that said that. Follow after Me. My sheep know My voice, they
hear My voice, and they follow Me. That's what we're doing here
this morning. We're following the Lord Jesus. Verse 28, And Ehud said unto
them, Follow after Me, for the Lord hath delivered your enemies.
Who did? The Lord did. The Lord had delivered
your enemies, the Moabites, into your hand. And they went down
after him, and they took the fords of Jordan toward Moab,
and suffered not a man to pass over. And they slew of Moab at
that time about ten thousand men, and there escaped not a
man. So Moab was subdued that day
under the hand of Israel, and the land had rest." Four score
years. Now that's something I'm interested
in. Rest. The Lord Jesus said, you that
are heavy laden over your sin, come unto Me and I'll give you
what? Rest. Soul rest. The rest that only
God can give. The peace that only God can give.
That peace that passes all understanding that keeps our hearts and our
minds through Him. Are you interested in that rest? God's Deliverer. Christ Jesus
subdues and destroys our great enemy of sin. And the children
of God have rest. Let's rest. Let's rest. Oh, I have a message from God
for you. The Lord Jesus said that very thing. Come unto Me
and I'll give you rest. He gives rest by putting away
that sin by the sacrifice of Himself. I never grow tired of
hearing that. To those of you who are yet without
Christ, come to Him. That's my message to you. Come
to Him. I can't find nowhere in Scripture
where He ever denied someone who came to Him for help and
for rest. Not one time. Dear sinner, there's no promise
of tomorrow. That's why today is the day of
salvation. No promise of tomorrow. Eglon
is a witness to that. Well, may God be pleased to cause
you to hear this message from Him. And believe it. And come to Christ. There's no rest any other place. Absolutely not. May God be pleased
to make it so, for Christ's sake. Thank you.