So our reading is from Judges
chapter three, and we'll read from verse 12. 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 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
Eglint, the king of Moab, eighteen years. But when the children
of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer,
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. But Ehud made him a dagger which
had two edges of a cubit length, and he did gird it under his
raiment upon his right thigh. And he brought the present unto
Eglin king of Moab, and Eglin was a very fat man. And when
he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people
that bear the present. But he himself turned again from
the quarries that were by Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand
unto thee, O king, who said, Keep silence. And all that stood
by him went out from him. And Ehad came unto him, and he
was sitting in a summer parlour which he had for himself alone. And Ehad said, I have a message
from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat.
And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his
right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. And the haft also
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. Then Ehud went forth through
the porch, and shut the doors of the parlour upon him, and
locked them. When he was gone out, his servants
came, and when they saw that, behold, the doors of the parlour
were locked, they said, Surely he covereth his feet in his summer
chamber. And they tarried till they were
ashamed, and behold, he opened not the doors of the parlour.
Therefore they took a key and opened them, and behold, their
lord was fallen down dead on the earth. and Ehud escaped while
they tarried, and passed beyond the quarries, and escaped unto
Serath. And it came to pass, when he
was come, that he blew a trumpet in the mountain of Ephraim, and
the children of Israel went down with him from the mount, and
he before them. And he said unto them, Follow
after me, for the Lord hath delivered your enemies the Moabites into
your hand, and there and they went down after him, and 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, all lusty and all men of valour,
and there escaped not a man. So Moab was subdued that day
under the hand of Israel, and the land had rest fourscore years. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. It is a fact easily proved from
scripture that, and indeed from experience, that men and women
and boys and girls left to themselves will soon fall into sin and do
things that are hated by God. This has always been true and
it always will be. The prophet Jeremiah tells us,
the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And there is a constant battle
with sin in a believer's life. We shall discover that it is
to be seen all the time in the history of Israel. And while
that comparison is not exactly so with individual believers,
there is a kind of cycle that God blesses the people. He does them good. He saves them
from their enemies. And then after a very short time,
despite all their promises to be faithful, their expressions
of thanks and joy, they turn again to their own ways and they
forget that the Lord has helped them. For Israel, their great sin seems
to have been idolatry. This nation that had been so
blessed of God, so wonderfully delivered from their enemies,
from the time of Abraham and Moses and Joshua, all the way
through their history. This nation that knew the Lord,
that knew the only true God, and saw him at work in their
lives. They always wanted to be running
after false gods. Idols of their neighbours, idols
of their enemies. And in the opening verse of our
passage today, this little word, again, tells us how sin is deep
buried in our hearts and soon breaks out to separate our fellowship
from God. But we're also going to learn
something else as we study the scriptures together. We're going
to learn something else from the Bible. that despite the waywardness
of God's people, the Lord will not let the people of his love
and the people of his mercy remain in their sin forever. He corrects
and he restores them with great patience and faithfulness, just
like a loving parent does with a disobedient child. And on this
occasion that we've read about today, in order to correct his
people, the Lord put into the heart of Eglin, the king of Moab,
a desire and an opportunity to invade the land of Benjamin. Benjamin was one of the tribes
of Israel. And so this king of Moab invaded
across the River Jordan because Moab was on the east side of
Jordan and it probably suggests that he had already defeated
the tribe of Reuben on the east side of Jordan, although that's
not mentioned, before invading Benjamin. and the area around
the ruins of the city of Jericho. So he came across those fords
as well and he was able to enter into Israel from that point where
the children of Israel had previously crossed the Jordan as well. And
the other thing we notice about this invasion of Israel by Moab
is that Eglin brought his friends with him. He brought the Ammonites
and he brought the Amalekites. And we discover from that, I
think, and some who are older will perhaps testify to this,
that the world's troubles often come in threes. And so it was
for the children of Israel on this occasion. The last period
of servitude that we read about together had been eight years
before the people cried out for help to God and God raised up
the first judge, Othniel. This time, it was 18 years. And such is the rebel nature
of our sinful hearts that it took 18 years for the people
to cry out for help to the Lord. After this time the children
of Israel could bear no longer the trouble that they were under
and they cried to the Lord for help. But why did they wait? Why did they wait for 18 years?
Why did they not cry out after 17 years or 16 years or 10 or
5 or 2? because they were content to
suffer rather than admit that they needed God's help. Let you
and me not be like that. Let us not be like these Old
Testament people. Let us ask the Lord for help
early in our lives, early in our troubles, before the trials
of this world become so heavy that they are unbearable. And
may God give us all grace to call upon him. Ehud was a man
raised up by God to be the deliverer of his people. He was a left-handed
man and he wore his sword or his dagger on his right side. He was sent by Israel to give
a present or probably an annual tribute to Eglon, the king of
Moab. Eglin, we've already read, was
a very fat man and he had probably made a fort near to the ruins
of Jericho in order to have a place to go to every year in order
to collect these annual gifts from his subjects in Israel. And we're told that he had arrived
at Eglin's residence and he handed over the present. He probably
made a little speech as well. And then he left with the men
with whom he'd come. However, he didn't go too far.
He only went a little way before turning back by himself to the
king's house, where he let it be known that he had a secret
message for Eglin. And Eglin was curious, he wanted
to know what this secret message was. And maybe because he had
told him it was a message from the Lord, and as an idol worshipper,
he wanted to know what the gods had to say to him, So he permitted
Ehud into a private room in order to hear the message. And Eglin, despite his size and
despite the fact that he was a king, stood up when he heard
that this was a message from the Lord, probably because he
was superstitious and thought that here were the gods and he
had to stand up in honour of the gods speaking to him. So
eager was he that this fat king stood up when Ehud came into
his presence. As he did so, Ehud took his dagger
from his right thigh and plunged it so violently into the king
that the blade and the handle entered the king's flesh and
stuck there. And Eglin died at once, slain
by Ehud the Judge. He had then locked the door of
the king's chamber and he calmly made his escape through a waiting
room. As Eglin lay dead, his servants
thought that he must be, oh I don't know, at the toilet, or asleep,
or not wishing to be disturbed. So they remained outside his
room. And this gave Ehud time to escape. Ehud returned to Mount Ephraim
and he announced the success of his mission. He blew a trumpet
to gather all the people together and he led them to take the fords
of Jordan near Jericho. This was a strategic place. This
was the way back out of Israel to Moab for all of the Moabites
that were now dwelling in the land of Israel. So he trapped
the Moabites in Canaan. And in the coming weeks and months,
their king dead and their way back to their own country cut
off. The people of Israel slew 10,000
of their oppressors to rid the land of Moabites. The people
at least in this part of Israel, afterwards enjoyed peace for
80 years. Here's a couple of lessons that
we can draw from this passage. The Bible tells us that sin is
an offence against God and a constant presence with us in this life.
Even those who trust in the Lord Jesus as saviour are never free
from sin and temptation while we remain in this flesh and in
these bodies. Only in heaven will we truly
be without sin when these old fleshy bodies are changed into
glorious bodies like the Lord's own body. The children of Israel
were often charged with the sin of idolatry. And sometimes we
think an idol is a little statue that people bow down to. But
it can be actually anything that people can make an idol of. Idols imply the idea of worshipping
a creature or an image. But everything we set up in our
hearts to admire tends to lessen our honour for the Lord. And that can become an idol. Some people make their own body
an idol by looking after it and exercising it and pampering it
and being very careful about the things that they eat and
they think to themselves that their body is the most important
thing in the whole world. Some make it their work or their
hobby or their pastime or their family. May the Lord always be
first in our lives as he leads us to understand his way of life
in Jesus Christ. When the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is himself God, came into the world, he did so as a deliverer
raised up by God to free his people from the slavery of sin. Just as Ehud delivered Israel
from Eglon, so our great deliverer has saved us from our enemy. The big difference, however,
is Ehud slew Eglon in order to save his people from
the dominion of that king. but the Lord Jesus Christ, he
had to die to save his people from their sins. Sin requires
judgement and because we all are sinners, our sin must be
punished by God who is holy. God will not and cannot just
let us off with sin as though it doesn't matter to him or as
though it doesn't matter to us. If we are to be saved, someone
must suffer in our place. And this is what the Lord Jesus
Christ did for God's elect when he died. He took our sins as
his own. And though he was sinless, he
carried them in his own flesh and paid the price of our redemption
from sin and guilt and wrath and the just penalty of the law. Just as Ehud had been a deliverer
of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ became our deliverer from sin. When we say we trust in the Lord
Jesus Christ, we do not simply mean we believe he existed. We mean that we trust that He,
by His death in our place, has taken away all the judgment of
God against us and set us free. Delivered us from slavery to
our sin and our enemy the devil. Set us free like Ehud delivered
the children of Israel from Moab. Ehud was just a man and soon
the children of Israel returned to their sin and the cycle began
again. However, our Saviour is God the
Lord. And while we still sin because
we live in these sinful bodies, yet if indeed the Lord Jesus
Christ died for us, all our sin is forgiven because Christ paid
and atoned for it with his own precious blood. He sacrificed
himself for us. Ehud was a picture of a deliverer. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
true deliverer of all his people and he alone is to be trusted,
worshipped and honoured in our lives. Amen.