Turn with me this morning to Judges chapter 4. I want to encourage all of you to turn with me and read these things for yourselves. You know, when you're listening to somebody preach and they're quoting the scriptures, that's all well and good. But sometimes in quoting the scriptures, you leave things out. My memory is not what it was. And you leave things out, or you won't. One time back in the study, Don read a verse three times, and all three times. And he was reading it, actually, looking at it and reading it, and read it wrong three times in a row before we could get him to slow up and actually see it. But we're all guilty of that. And I like, I'm reading, I may leave something out or skip over something. If I do, and you're looking at the verse, maybe you'll pick up on it. So I encourage you to turn with me to Judges chapter 4. And we'll begin reading in verse 1.

And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord when Ehud was dead. Ehud was the first judge that God raised up in Israel. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor, the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Herosia of the Gentiles. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron. And 20 years, he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.

Now, these chariots, they had what one man described as scythes. You remember a scythe, a big two-handled, long-handled sickle. They cut wheat with it. Well, they put these big blades out from the axles on those chariots, and they'd just ride through an aggressive army coming at them. They'd just ride through those foot soldiers, and them things would just cut them up to ribbons. He had 900 of these big iron chariots and mightily oppressed the children of Israel.

And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramoth 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 Abinoam, out of Kadesh Naphtali, and said unto him, hath not the Lord God of Israel commanded, saying, go and draw toward Mount Tabor, and take with thee 10,000 men of Israel of Naphtali, and of the children of Zebulun? And I will draw unto thee to the river Chisholm in Syria the captain of Jabin's army with his chariots and his multitude, and I will deliver him into thine hand. Deborah's telling them this is what the Lord has said. And Barak said unto her, if thou go with me, then I will go. If thou will not go with me, then I will not go. And she said, surely I will go with thee. I will go with thee, notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor. For the Lord shall sell Cicero into the hand of a woman.

And Deborah rose and went with Barak to Kadesh. And Barak called Zebulon and Nephthali to Kadesh and went up with 10,000 men at his feet, and Deborah went up with him. Now Heber, the Kenite, which was of the children of Hobab, the father-in-law of Moses, Now, I don't know what Hobab has to do with Jethro, who was the father-in-law of Moses, but it's his kin. That's all he's saying. This family was of Moses' father-in-law. And he had served himself with the Kenites and pitched his tent onto the plain of Zionam, which is by Kadesh. And they showed Sisera that Barak, the son of Abinoam, was gone up to Mount Tabor.

And Sisera gathered together all his chariots, even nine hundred chariots of iron, and all the people that were with him from Herosheth of the Gentiles unto the river Chisholm. And Deborah said unto Barak, Up, for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hands. is not the Lord gone out before thee? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men after him, and the Lord discomfited Sisera and all his chariots and all his hosts with the edge of the sword before Barak. So Sisera lighted down off his chariot," this is the big general or captain or whatever he is, and he fled away on his feet. And Barak pursued after the chariots and after the host unto Erosheth of the Gentiles, and all the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the soul. And there was not a man left. Howbeit Sisera fled away on his feet to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. For there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me, fear not.

And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle, put a covering on him. And he said unto her, give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink, for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk and gave him drink and covered him again. And he said unto her, stand at the door of the tent, and it shall be if any man does come and inquire of thee and say, is there any man here, thou shalt say no. And J.L. Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, a tent peg is what she talked about here, and took a hammer in her hand and went softly unto him and smote the nail into his temples and fastened it to the ground where he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.

And behold, as Beric pursued Cicero, J.L. came out to meet him. and said unto him, Come, and I'll show you the man that thou seekest. And when he came into the tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temple. So God subdued on that day Jabin, king of Canaan, before the children of Israel. And the hand of the children of Israel prospered and prevailed until Jabin, the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin, king of Canaan. It continued the whole time.

I can't read my own writing. That's why I read it out straight out of the Bible. Now this is a most unusual, mysterious account I've ever studied in the Word of God. I read through this and I thought, what on earth is this talking about? And began to study it. It seems as if it denies the very things we know to be true, and yet here it is in black and white, inspired by God himself, written for our learning that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures, might have hope.

And if we're to make any sense out of this passage or anything else we read in the Old Testament, we're going to have to look at it through gospel glasses. It's the only way you're going to see it. Other than that, it makes absolutely no sense. The commentators accused J.L. of of sin and murder. But that's not what it says at the end of this passage.

It said God delivered him, didn't it? This account is not about natural Israel fighting over a piece of real estate. This story is a gospel story, and it's about God's elect being reconciled to God. The story shows us God's elect. being born into an evil world.

This is a new generation. And it says that often, that another generation arose and did evil in the sight of the Lord. Well, doesn't every generation do that? We go astray as soon as we be born, speaking lies. And that's what this is talking about. This story is showing us God's elect. of people that he chose in Christ, and they're born generation after generation after generation. Go down to the hospital, and there's a whole room full of babies out there. You look through that window, you may be looking at some of God's elect. I don't know. But his elect are born and generated from all of them, sons and daughters of Adam. But among them is God's elect, God's people.

And they're born, he's showing us here, they're born into an evil world. A world full of idolatry and pagan religion. Religion of long-standing generations of tradition and champions of their faith. It's their religious influence, actually, that God warned them about, wasn't it? Watch out for these people, don't marry into these people. Why? because of their pagan religion.

They won't be influenced by you. You'll be influenced by them. That's how it works. Don't ever think, I'm going to go to church with one of my relatives, and maybe I can have some influence on them. No. They're going to have influence on you. That's how that's going to work. Now listen to me.

The Canaanites did not see themselves as ungodly any more than this world does. Go down to First Baptist Church, talk to anybody in there. They don't see themselves as ungodly. They had their gods. They had their places of worship. They had their sacrifices, their priests, their elders, their mosques, or temples, or whatever they called them. And after centuries of practice, their ways are accepted as the norm. Israel was the invaders. Israel was coming in with something new.

You see what I'm saying? And that's what prompted those philosophers at Mars Hill to invite Paul to preach. They looked for something new all the time, didn't they? Some new thing. Had monuments everywhere to all these gods and all these things. You know, King was exiled out of paradise after he tried to offer a false sacrifice unto God, tried to worship God without a sacrifice, and he was exiled out of paradise, and he and his false concepts and his relatives and friends, they all moved away to the land of Nod. You know, I used to look out when I was in false religion and people doing, they look like that little dog you see in the back of the window, you know, you do it, that's the land of Nod.

That's what that is. They're all shaking their head and don't have a clue what that man said. And he had very talented children. His children are actually the authors of music. They came up with all kinds of instruments of music, King's children did. And they were very talented. They were wise men. But after practicing his false concepts of religion, I guarantee you, after a few generations, it was just normal. Just normal.

And God's people are subject to their influence. And they have in them a fallen nature on top of everything else that's enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. That old nature is not subject to anything except its flesh. It's as natural as standing up or sitting down to sin.

They see nothing evil in it, they just And over and over it tells us here, another generation arose who knew not the Lord nor the works that he'd done for Israel, and they did evil in the sight of the Lord. What evil? Judges chapter 2 verse 9, look back there with me. What evil did they do? It says when it came to pass when the judge was dead, that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers. This new generation is worse than the old in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them.

That's the evil. Why are you always harping on religion out here? Because it's evil. That's why. It's evil. Chapter 7, Stephen may have had this passage in mind when he said to them, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do you. You do the same thing. And this is the story of all God's elect in every age.

Born into this present world, unconverted, at their best state, altogether vanishes, Scripture says. Subject to every evil influence under the sun, and nothing in them to resist it but a conscience. And that, after a few times, is seared as with a hot iron, Scripture says. It doesn't even bother them anymore.

And this story is a story of a people made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of enlightened saints. A people delivered from the power of darkness, translated into the kingdom of God's dear son. It's my prayer this morning that the Lord will be our teacher. And in this narrative, we've got a king. First thing he mentions is this king, Jabin. He's a picture of Satan ruling in the hearts of men. We don't think of ourselves before conversion as Satan ruling, do we? There's a throne in men, natural men, and on that throne is Satan.

Read about it in Ephesians chapter 2. You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein you walk before you according to the course of this world, now listen, according to the prince of the power of the air. That's how you walked. He dictated your walk. He dictates your thoughts. His influence is more than you can resist, and we just follow after him. That's natural man. That's the story. That's the story here. This king, Jabin, he's a picture of Satan. He resides in Hazor. If you go back into our studies back in Joshua, you'll find out Hazor was a king.

But what his name means is a walled city. It means a refuge. Satan rules in a false refuge, don't he? He sits back there in his walled city and nothing can touch him. That's what our Lord said, when the kingdom of God come, this strong man, he's armed. He's got 900 chariots. He lives in a walled city. You can't touch him, and that's his confidence.

But when one stronger than him comes along, he takes him down and spoils his house. He does away with his chariots, takes away from him his armed restriction. When you're talking about Satan ruling, you're talking about a spiritual refuge. And then Sisera, he represents the religious host of Satan, kind of the power behind the throne, so to speak.

Religion. Religion. Large denominations. They're champions, like Billy Sunday and Billy Graham and on and on the list goes and so on. and many more whose names I cannot recall. But you can read back in church history, and you can come from our present day and just take these big, well-known, televised evangelists, and you can just trace it back from there. Iron chariots. To me, that represents man's free will and works religion.

That's those chariots. You can't get past them. They just mow you down. You try to do anything, they just And what? Universal redemption, universal love, heaven for the asking, pardon made effectual by your decisions. And God arranges in his providence so that his people begin to realize that they're in trouble. They're not just living out their days under a king, under a strange government. They're living out their days being oppressed. They're in captivity. I never thought that when I was a kid, did you? I never thought I was in captivity. I thought I was free as a bird.

But you're not. And when they begin to realize it, they begin to cry unto the Lord. And I don't know what that situation might be for you. God, he may cause some calamity to come into your life. I don't know what he's going to do. He's going to make you to understand that you're captive, and you can't do anything about it. But God doesn't answer like men thinks he would.

Religion always leaves a person looking within. Search your heart. Isn't that what they used to tell you, what they told me? Search your heart. Why? It's nothing but a black hole. Look deep into your heart. No, you don't want to do that. You might as well go out here and stick your head in that sepia tank. That's what it is. It's a cesspool of iniquity. That's what's in you.

Religion always leaves a person looking within, and there's nothing within to lend a hand. Our Lord said, when that rich young ruler walked away, The disciples were thinking among themselves, who then can be saved? This man had all the potential in the world. And the Lord said, with man, it's impossible. He didn't say it was unlikely. He said it was impossible.

They're looking and crying for a savior. Moses. They're looking for a Joshua. They're looking for a great man of valor, a sword-wielding general on a white horse. That's what they're looking for. God raises up a prophetess, a poet, and a songwriter. We wasn't looking for that. Wow. Her name's Deborah.

I don't know if you do word studies, but if you ever do in the concordance, it'll have a number. And you go look that number up, and it'll tell you what that name means. And then it'll tell you it was derived from this number. And you go back a little bit, and then it'll say this is what this means. And it came from this number. So you go back one more. Sometimes you do this four or five times. But eventually, you're going to get back where the prime root, what they call the prime root, this is where the word comes from.

And so way down the line, it means bee. Deborah means bee, like a honeybee. And somebody said it's where our word busy bee comes from. She was busy. I don't know. But I don't think that's where it comes from. I went back and looked some more at this, and it means to move. in an orderly fashion. Now you watch a honeybee. Honeybee's on a mission. He's not just flying around to see what he can see. He's not out there to just look at the world and sit in awe of it. He's on a mission. He's got to get stuff and get it back to the hive. That's what Deborah's name means, to move in an orderly fashion. And then, if you go back to the prime root, it means to communicate, to teach, to direct, to command. And in short, everything that defines a pastor is in her name, Deborah.

Well, why a woman judge? Is this the foundation for women pastors? No. I'll give you four things. Why a woman judge? Well, first of all, she's a picture of the bride of Christ, his church. We're all feminine in that respect, are we not? We're the bride. Why does he call his church the bride? He calls her his bride because she's a weaker vessel. Pastors one with his church and then secondly she's the weaker vessel and as such shows the power of God affectionately working through her and not of her. And being a woman she's typical of the work which must be done a new birth.

Where are the sons of God born? In Zion. Are they not? When Zion prevails sons and daughters will be born. And then fourthly, God uses a woman to establish his sovereignty and salvation. You're going to bow to this woman. Boy, don't you know that struck Barrett sideways. Deborah said, yeah, you're going to go, but notwithstanding your going and your bravery and your fighting, you're not going to get any honor out of this thing. God's going to sell this man, Sisera, to a woman. He's going to fall at the hands of a woman. That's God's sovereignty.

You mean I have to listen to a preacher? You bet. You bet. Why? Because God's going to teach you something about his sovereignty. He's going to shut you up to a man, and you're going to listen to him. And Deborah has a counterpart in this story, J.L. Now listen to me.

I'm not trying to lay a foundation here for women preachers. I said that a few minutes ago. I won't say it again. I'm not trying to lay a foundation for pastors at all here in the book of Judges. Ephesians 4, Titus, 1 and 2 Timothy pretty much established the foundation for pastors. If you really want to know what a pastor is, you can go study those books and find out. What I'm laboring to do here is to show you how God's salvation works. I want to show you a picture of it as it's given to us of God. There's two women in this account, Deborah, which is the pastor, and J.L., which is her counterpart, or a picture of how the Holy Ghost works in us. What does the Holy Ghost do in the preaching of the gospel?

What does he do to a man? He slays him. Isn't that what he does? And then he raises him. And that's pictured both in the death of Sisera and in the victory of Israel. That's what he's showing here. She's doing what God said he would do. through his pastor. Deborah said he's going to sell him to a woman, and so he did.

Barak is the child of God whose pastor has opened his eyes and heart, and he begins to realize his oppression and captivity and begins to turn to God. He's ready to go into battle, but he's still ignorant. He's still ignorant. He's still following instructions. That's what happened.

Paul said, I know your election of God. You become followers of us and the Lord. I'm showing you God's way and you realize that God's teaching you through me. And so you become followers of us and the Lord. She's following what Deborah said God said was going to happen.

And he got up and went out to battle. He faced those 900 chariots. He faced all these things. He follows the word and will of God. He begins to fight. All the while, he's pursuing Sisera, religious evil, armed to the hilt. Sin disguised as an army for the preservation of peace. That's what religion is. And suddenly, Beric's going along in pursuit. He pursues the host. He pursues the chariots. When that's over, He comes back to get Cicero. He ain't going to leave him. Everybody else is dead except the captain. So he comes back, and what happens?

He was directed to a house, and out comes this woman out of this house. And she said, come on in, and I'll show you the man. That's what we're trying to discover, what's in here. I know what God said, but I got to discover. And God sends JL, and she comes out, and she said, hey, come in here. Come in here. I'm going to show you the man, this man you're pursuing. I'm going to show him to you. And he comes in, and this man laying dead with a tent stake in his temple, peeing to the ground. Slain. That's what God, in the gospel, he shows you how you're slain. Where was I slain? On the cross. How was I slain? Nailed. Nailed. As Deborah and countless others have set forth the word of God, Then we have to wait on the Lord, don't we? Have to wait on the Lord to bring these things to pass. Our story ends in verses 23 and 24.

It says, so God subdued on that day Jabin, king of Canaan. How did he subdue him? He killed the power behind the throne. Old Brother Barnard said, I'm going to preach to you the God of the Bible. But before I preach to you the God of the Bible, I'm going to have to kill your God. That's what happened here. The reigning power of Satan is in religion. And the fear and dread holds men and women in captivity until they see the old man dead. Oh, what fear.

You know, you make a profession of faith and then you fear losing it, don't you? But when you find out that salvation ain't in you, it's in Him. You would lose it. If God gave it to you, you'd lose it before you got home. I'd lose it the first time somebody got on my bumper going home. But you're not going to lose it because it ain't in your hands. Though we believe not, yet he abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself. He's going to save his people. And the way he does it is to slay you. He kills you in your own sight.

I was reading to Yvonne this morning something over here. If I can find it real quick, I'll read it to you. It's in Ezekiel 36, if you want to look at it. And he's talking about this new heart. He's going to give us a new heart. And a new spirit. Look down at verse 31. Now this is God establishing His covenant with the believer. And He's doing it with the inward work of the Spirit. I'm going to give you a new spirit, a new heart.

And He says in verse 31, Then shall you remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not good and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abomination." You're going to hate yourself. And that's exactly what David said in the Psalms. I hate myself. Why? Because nothing comes out of here but sin.

My hope's in another. My hope's in the new man, which is Christ. And he's all my hope. He's all my hope. And it says in verse 24 of our text, and the hand of the children of Israel prospered and prevailed against Jabin the king of Canaan until they had destroyed Jabin king of Canaan.

If I be dead in Christ, Satan can't do any more to me. I'm dead. He can't bring me under the curse of the law. He can't tie me up in his religion. I'm in Christ, and I'm dead. But that new man is my hope. And that new man's seated on the throne next to God. You see what I'm saying? That's our hope. That's our hope. And I know what this world thinks, that those people are a cult down there. I'm not a cult. I'm telling you the same hope that God gave to Abraham I'm giving to you. Same hope. Blood of the Lamb.