Judges chapter three and verse
five. And the children of Israel dwelt
among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perzites, and
Hivites, and Jebusites. And they took their daughters
to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and
served their gods. and the children of Israel did
evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgot the Lord their God,
and served Balaam and the groves. Therefore the anger of the Lord
was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chushan
Rishethem, king of Mesopotamia, and the children of Israel served
Chushan Rishethem eight years. And when the children of Israel
cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the
children of Israel. who delivered them, even Othniel,
the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. And the Spirit of the
Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war. And the Lord delivered Chushan
Rishethim, king of Mesopotamia, into his hand, and his hand prevailed
against Chushan Rishethim. And the land had rest forty years,
and Othniel the son of Cainaz died. Amen. May the Lord bless
to us this reading from his word. We've been thinking a little
bit about the early stages of the people's time, the children
of Israel's time in Canaan. And we've discovered in these
early chapters of Judges that the Lord continued to leave some
of the original Canaanite tribes in the land in order to test
and try the children of Israel. And we discover that very quickly
these tribes of Israel resorted to following after the patterns
and the practices of the Canaanitish people. And we are coming to
think now about these folks who are called the Judges. The Judges
in Israel were a group of 12 men and a woman, and we'll come
to her in a couple of weeks' time if we continue to the plan
that I have. But 12 men and a woman who are
recorded that the Lord raised up to lead and to judge and to
deliver Israel from their enemies during a period of about four
to five hundred years. This was between the time of
the death of Joshua and the establishment of what is called the Jewish
monarchy or the times of the kings of Israel. And this period
was a time of instability. It was a time when things changed
rapidly. They were unstable times, times
of war and peace, times of trial and testing, times of rivalries
and reconciliations. During these times, the tribes
of Israel rarely seemed to have operated as a united people. and their battles often appear
to have been fought locally with other nations on their borders,
such as the Moabites and the Midianites and the Ammonites
and the Philistines, and sometimes tribe against tribe in a kind
of civil war. For example, with the tribe of
Benjamin, one of the tribes of the children of Israel, and we
will encounter that later in the book. So there were rivalries
between the tribes as well. And during this period, we are
told several times in the book of Judges, for example, on one
occasion in Judges chapter 17 and verse six, that in those
days, That is the days of the judges. In those days, there
was no king in Israel. That's right, because it was
the judges who were raised up of God to rule and to deliver. But the point that the writer
of this book is making is that there was no king in Israel,
but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. So that is actually a condemnation. It's a judgement on the people.
that there was no king to lead the people, and it seems that
not only the tribes, but individual families and individual people,
they simply did that which was right in their own eyes. And that little phrase, I think,
is revealing and suggests that there was little cohesion and
little unity amongst the tribes. There is a saying, you may have
heard of it before, it says divide and conquer. And it simply means
that a lack of unity always makes a group weaker. David knew this
and he wrote later, it was after the time of the judges and in
the time of the kings, he wrote in Psalm 133, behold how good
and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity and
that's true and it's true in families, it's true in churches
and of course it's true in nations and amongst the nations of the
world. But it's true for you and for
me. We should always endeavour to
live together in unity. It's a good and a pleasant thing
for us all. But that little phrase also implies
that men and women did that which was right in their own eyes.
It also implies that the people of Israel did not take their
faith and their duty to God seriously. They were content to accommodate
the practices of the idol-worshipping neighbours amongst whom they
lived. They were prepared to copy the
religious practices of the Canaanites who still dwelt amongst them. And Judges chapter three verse
six says, and they took their daughters to be their wives and
they gave their daughters to their sons and served their gods. Very shortly after, the Lord
had proved himself so wonderfully to these people, we find that
their hard-heartedness and their wandering affections brought
them into open disobedience and rebellion against God. They did
evil in God's sight and therefore the Lord weakened them and humbled
them and caused their enemies to prosper and brought the tribes
of Israel into judgment and under pressure and duress. so that
we read in Judges chapter 3 verse 8, Therefore the anger of the
LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand
of Chushan Rishathim, king of Mesopotamia. And the children
of Israel served Chushan Rishathim eight years. Those must have
been long years. Some of you may not be too much
older than eight years of age and it is a long time certainly
to be under the dominion of a foreign power and a foreign king. Mesopotamia
that is being spoken about here was the land between the two
rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. It's north of the land of Canaan,
just as you sort of turn to go up into that area of Eastern
Turkey. And it is what is today called
modern day Iraq. and that area is sometimes called
the Fertile Crescent. It was the same place as the
Assyrian and the Babylonian empires dominated that we've been reading
about in the Book of Isaiah recently. And we've seen how these nations
from the book of Isaiah, they came to dominate Israel in the
centuries following. But at this time, and for eight
years, this man, Chushan Rishethim, oppressed Israel until we are
told the people cried out to the Lord. Now, think about that
for a moment. These people had been worshipping
Balaam and, we're told, the groves. They'd been worshipping idols.
They'd been enjoying the sensual aspects of the religion of the
Canaanites. They'd been worshipping these
idols. Perhaps they'd been sacrificing to these idols. And probably
they were asking these idols to help them in their troubles
with the king of Mesopotamia. I imagine they'd cried out to
the god Balaam at the groves, long before they cried out to
the Lord. But you know, it is no good crying
for help to gods that don't have any ears. However, when the people
cried to the Lord, the Lord heard their cry for help and he raised
up Othniel son of Canaes. We're told he was Caleb's younger
brother. This Caleb that is referred to
here, he was a famous man and that's why his name gets mentioned
here again. He was the other spy who went
into Canaan many years before with Joshua and had come back
with a good report that the people should enter the land and of
course there were 12 spies went 10 came back and said, no, no,
we can't take over the land. And two, Joshua and Caleb had
said, yes, we must go in. So that's the same Caleb. So
this man Othniel was of the same family as Caleb. So he probably had a good start
in life as far as the worship of God is concerned. He was part
of a family that had known and worshipped the Lord. And he,
it was, who was the first judge who was raised up to judge and
to lead Israel. And we're told that he went out
to fight with the king of Mesopotamia and he prevailed against him
or he repulsed his armies so that the people had 40 years
of peace under the rule of Othniel. So I want to just leave a few
interesting points, or points that I think are interesting
from this little passage. The first one is this, just to
go back to the fact that the people cried out to the Lord
for help. The children of Israel had very
quickly reverted to idolatry, and they spent these eight years
suffering before calling to the Lord for help. And I think that
is intended to show us just the nature and the extent of the
hardness of man's heart. Despite all the good done to
the people by God, they forgot the Lord and they did what was
right in their own eyes, not what was right in the eyes of
the Lord. and I think that they would have
continued to do so for another 8 years and maybe another 80
years had God not given them grace to repent and to turn to
him for help. Any time that a sinner truly
comes to God for help, it is because God has planted a sense
of need in that person's soul. And it was as if that there was
a general awareness on the part of the people of Israel that
this wasn't right. We shouldn't be paying tribute.
We shouldn't be sending our sons and daughters. We shouldn't be
placing our people into the armies of this foreign king. and sending
him our crops and sending him our goods. This is because we
have forsaken the Lord. And we notice how the first evidence
of grace in a sinner's experience is to cry for help to the Lord. When God intends to do a person
good, he first sends a sense of need to humble that soul so
that the individual will leave their false gods and their worldly
hiding places and flee to God for help. It was the Lord who
inspired and initiated this cry for help. And I just want to
say this, when you, when you feel such a need, never be too
embarrassed or ashamed, no matter what it is that you have done
or the need that you feel, never be too embarrassed or ashamed
to ask God for help. It might be eight long years
that we suffer without seeking His help, but crying to the Lord,
crying out to Him is the beginning of blessing, the beginning of
forgiveness, the beginning of help, and this is what the children
of Israel did. The second thing I want to point
out is that the spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel. Othniel was the first judge in
Israel. So there really wasn't a pattern
of what to expect or what he might do or what would happen
when this man came into power. Nobody knew what a judge was
and what a judge would do. However, we must remember that
Othniel was no different to anyone else until the Spirit of the
Lord came upon him. Because every man did that which
was right in his own eyes, including Othniel, until the Spirit of
the Lord came and brought him to that place of leadership. The Spirit of the Lord transformed
him. It enabled him. It called him,
or he called him, to serve God and deliver his people. The prophet
Zechariah, sometime later in the history of Israel, tells
us that it is, in fact, always so. because it is not by might
nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. And the spirit of the Lord inspired,
equipped, and enabled Othniel to serve this purpose and fulfil
this calling. It is always the case with God's
work. If we are going to serve the
Lord, it is only when the Spirit of the Lord enables us to do
so. If we are going to worship the
Lord, it is only when the Spirit of the Lord enables us to do
so. If we are going to do anything
for him, it must be done spiritually and it must be done by faith.
And indeed that was true even of the Lord Jesus Christ and
his ministry, just as it was for Othniel. In fact, in Isaiah
chapter 61 and verse 1, we read prophetically there that the
Spirit of the Living God is upon me. And these are words that
the prophet places upon the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because
the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the
meek, He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to
them that are bound. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
himself knew what it was to have the spirit of the living God
upon him. Grace and goodness comes to the
experience of a man and a woman and a boy and a girl by the powerful
work of God the Holy Spirit. And this is why we thank the
Lord when a sinner comes to Christ or a blessing is received or
some good gift is enjoyed because these are good gifts from the
Spirit of God. Grace is God's gift and we thank
him for it. And just a final point and then
we'll be done. The Lord raised up a deliverer
for the children of Israel. Othniel was raised up by God
to defeat a powerful enemy and bring peace to the nation. And
this man, Othniel, in this capacity is a lovely picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who also was raised up of God, who was sent by his
Father to deliver God's elect people, and he willingly came
to defeat our powerful enemies, so that we might experience rest
and peace from the dominion of sin. Satan and the fear of death. These Old Testament people, these
children of Israel, these tribes of Jacob and the events of Surrounding
them, point to our Saviour and remind us of God's purpose, that
it has always been to gather his beloved children out of this
world and bring them into rest and fellowship with himself.
For eight years the children of Israel laboured under the
King of Mesopotamia until the Lord showed them mercy and brought
them back to himself. Eight years they worked for a
wicked master. They pledged allegiance to a
wicked master. They paid tribute to a wicked
master. and it was only when God raised
up a deliverer that they found this 40 years of peace. When the Lord Jesus Christ defeats
our enemy, when he defeated them on the cross, when he brings
peace to our souls in conversion and in saving grace, it will
not be only for 40 years, it will be an everlasting peace
and it will be eternal life. Jesus said in Matthew 11, come
unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give
you rest. What a wonderful rest that is,
eternal life with God in heaven. Such a deliverer is our wonderful
Saviour. Othniel was Israel's first judge. May the Lord Jesus Christ be
first in your life and in mine as the great Deliverer and Saviour
of our soul. Amen.