Morning, everybody. Turn, if
you would, in Judges chapter 11. Judges chapter 11. Good to be with you all this
morning. Judges chapter 11. We're going
to look at the whole chapter this morning. If you want to
know what this story is about, it's very interesting. All you
have to do is look at the very first two words of verse 1. So
once you get there, Judges chapter 11, look at verse one and just
look at the very first two words. They say, now Jephthah. We'll see in a moment that Jephthah,
at least for the first half of this story, is a very powerful
type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now his daughter, towards the
back end of the story, is going to take on that role, and she
will be the type of Christ. But at least for the first half,
Jephthah is a very powerful type of Christ, and in knowing that
type, Those first two words tell us everything we need to know
about the story. Might as well just say, now Christ. Because
that's who this story is about. This is the old, old story about
the Lord Jesus Christ and how he saved his people. You say,
well, isn't every story in the scripture about that? Yeah, but
this is very, very overt. Very overt. And we're going to
see that very plainly and clearly, if the Lord's pleased to reveal
it to us. Now there's 40 verses here. It's
a lot of ground to cover in a very short amount of time. And I don't
want to preach any longer than normal. So we're going to have
just enough time. I'm going to read some to you. I'm going to make
some comments. But if the Lord's willing to meet with us here
this morning, I think we'll see the gospel very plainly and very
clearly. And that's my only goal out of
all this. Now pick up in verse 1, and we'll read the first two
verses. It says, now Jephthah, the Gileadite, was a mighty man
of valor. and he was the son of a harlot.
And Gilead begat Jephthah, and Gilead's wife bare him sons.
And his wife's sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah,
and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house,
for thou art the son of a strange woman." Now, like I said, Jephthah
in this story is a very powerful type of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we're given three things about him right up front to tell
us that. First, it says he's the mighty man of Baal. As a
title that is given to only six men in the entire scripture,
but truly only one man can bear that title, the mighty man of
valor, that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Speaks of the strong
man, the capable man, speaks of the hero, the warrior, the
one who can get it done. Now, what do I mean by that though?
What does the scripture mean that he is the mighty man of
valor speaking of Christ? This is the only scripture I'm
gonna have you turn to, but it's a good way to start off. Turn over to Romans chapter
eight. Romans chapter 8 and look at
verse 3, speaking of our mighty man of valor, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Romans chapter 8 verse 3 starts with, for what the law
could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. Now let me
stop there for a second. Where is the weakness in the law? Is
there anything wrong with God's holy law? No, not at all. There's nothing wrong with God's
holy law. It's beautiful. It's perfect. Where's the weakness
in the law? There's no weakness in the law,
the weakness is right here. The weakness is in you and me, that
we can't keep it. And furthermore, the law was never given as a
mechanism of salvation. The law has one purpose. The law only
does one thing, it exposes guilt. That's the only thing it does.
Now read again, verse three, for what the law could not do
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, I want you to consider
this, how powerful this is, condemned sin in the flesh. Our mighty
man of valor had this great power, this great strength, that he
was able to condemn sin. Think of the magnitude of that
statement. My sin is what condemned me. Your sin is what condemned
you before God's holy law. But this man had the power to
condemn sin. Sin condemned us, but he condemned
the sin. How did he do that? By burying our sins in his body
and suffering all the wrath associated with it and putting it away. This is our mighty man of valor.
He had this power to condemn sin in the flesh, in his own
flesh. Now look at the results. Verse four, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the
flesh, but after the spirit. The law now looks at Christ.
It looks him over, looks for something to expose, and it says,
I see absolutely nothing. I've got nothing to say to him.
He's perfect, absolutely perfect. And what he did, he did as an
us. Because when he looks over all of God's people, everyone
who Christ bore their sins in his body, the law looks them
over and it says, I'm fulfilled. I have absolutely nothing to
say to him. He's perfect because everything
Jesus Christ did, he did as an us. Him and his people are one. That is the power of our mighty
man of valor. Now, two other descriptors he's
given. The second one is this. Jephthah's mom was a harlot.
He was the son of a harlot. Now, I am in no way insinuating
that our Lord's mother was a prostitute, Mary. That's not what I'm saying.
Although the Lord did have a harlot in his lineage. You remember
Rahab? She was in the Lord's lineage, one of his great grandmothers.
That's not the point. The point is this, our Lord's
benevolence, his love, and his affection for sinners. We're
gonna talk more about that here in a minute. The third descriptor
we get at Jephthah was this, he was rejected by his brother.
Now, that's a reoccurring theme in scripture, isn't it? Remember
Joseph? His brother sold him into slavery? It's a reoccurring
theme. Why does this keep on popping
up? Because of this. This is John 1, 10 through 11 says, speaking
of Christ, he was in the world. And the world was made by him,
and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his
own received him not. Now, our Lord was born a Jew.
He was born unto his typical people, the Jews. And when he
was born unto these people, they rejected him. But understand
this, what they did, they did as a representative of the entire
human race. Our Lord was born a man. Consider
the magnitude of that for a second. He was the God man, but yet he
was born a man. God was born into human flesh.
He was born unto men, and man rejected him. Why? Because it is in our fallen nature
to do so. By nature, we are born hating
God as he is. And that's why you see so many
idols. Idol is not just a totem pole out there that someone's
worshiping. An idol is a false god. And there's several of them
out there. They have many names. Many of them go under the name
Jesus Christ. But it is not the Jesus Christ of the Bible. It
does not have his attributes. It's not who he actually is.
Man makes a God that is more palatable to him because he hates
God by nature. And if there's an attribute of
God that man hates more than anything else, it must be his
absolute sovereignty. Now, you recall when the Lord
was crucified, Pilate made a superscription. He wrote a sign and he put it
on the cross. You remember what it said? Jesus of Nazareth The king of the Jews. And what did the Jews say? What
did we say? Take that down. They could not stand the idea
of him being king, being ruler, ruling over them, although he
did. And he does over every sinful man. They said, take that down,
say, he says he's the king. See, man hates the God who will
show mercy to whom he will show mercy. He hates the God that
chooses and does all things according to his will for his particular
people and passes by others. He hates him. He hates the God
that rules all men and all events, everything in time, according
to the counsel of his own will. He can't stand that God. Now,
I want to take just a moment here and I want to speak to something
briefly. I want to talk about election for a second, the sovereignty
of God and salvation, the most hated thing, the thing that men
hate more than anything else about God. If any man ever preaches
election to you, God choosing, and it sounds like a gate that's
designed to keep people out, he doesn't understand election.
And he doesn't understand the sovereignty of God. Election
is not a gate that keeps men out. Men are beating on this
gate, begging for mercy, and he says, no, I just didn't choose
you. It's not a gate, folks. It is a benevolent, strong, sovereign
arm that reaches out and it grabs that man that is blaspheming
God's name, that is running away from him, saying, I will not
have this man to rule over me. And he grabs him and he says,
not you. Everybody else gets to run away.
Everybody else gets to blaspheme my name, but not you. I've loved
you with an everlasting love, and that arm comes out and it
plucks him right out, and he brings him against his will, and as
my pastor says, with his full permission. That's a cute way
of saying he changes his will, gives him a new man. Folks, that's
the sovereignty of God. What man hates, what the natural
man hates, is that not our hope? Because if he wouldn't have chosen
us, we would have never chose him. Alright, let's look at verses
3-11 of our text. We'll read them. It says, Then Jephthah fled from
his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob, and there were gathered
vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him. And it came to
pass in the process of time that the children of Ammon made war
against Israel. And it was so that when the children
of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to
fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob. And they said unto Jephthah,
Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with the children
of Ammon. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not
ye hate me, and expel me out of my father's house? And why
are you come unto me now, when ye are in distress? And the elders
of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee
now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children
of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.
And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, if you bring me home
again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the Lord deliver
them before me, shall I be your head? And the elders of Gilead
said unto Jephthah, the Lord be witness between us, if we
do not sow according to thy words. Then Jephthah went with the elders
of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them.
And Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord in mitzvah. Now, I said we were going to
circle back to this concept of our Lord's love and affection
for sinners, and there's no better place to do it but in verse 3.
Look down again. Then Jephthah fled from his brethren,
dwelt in the land of Tob, and there were gathered vain men
to Jephthah and went out with him. Now, were gathered, it does
not mean that these men gathered themselves to Jephthah. It does
not mean that these men were looking for Jephthah and they
were coming to Jephthah. What this is talking about is those
men being idle. Idle as a stalk of corn on the ground where the
farmer has to go and pick it up and take him with him. Jephthah
came to these men. These men did not come to Jephthah.
Just how the Lord Jesus Christ comes to his people. He comes
to us where we're at. Now, don't miss the description
of these men. Did you catch it? Vain men. You know what that means? It
means empty, it means wicked, and it means worthless. It's
exactly what that means. Who does God love? Who did Jesus
Christ come to this world and shed his precious blood for?
Who is it that the Spirit gathers, comes to a man where he's at
in his sins, and gathers him unto Christ by the call of irresistible,
invincible grace? The empty, the wicked, and the
worthless. Want more evidence of it? Look
at verse six. And they said unto Jephthah, come and be our captain,
that we may fight with the children of Ammon. Now this is interesting.
They didn't want anything to do with Jephthah before, but
now we need a captain. We need you to rule over us,
be our head. Now something very similar happened
to David. I'm gonna read this to you. This is 1 Samuel 22,
two. It says, and everyone that was
in distress, and everyone that was in debt, And everyone that
was discontented gathered themselves unto him, speaking of David,
and he became a captain over them. And they were with him
about 400 men. Now, there's a three-fold description
of everyone who has a right to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the first one is distressed, distressed. You say, well, what
kind of distress are you talking about? The kind of distress you
feel when you find that you are nothing but a sinner, and you
sit in the hands of a sovereign God, and he can do whatever he
wills with you, and his demand, the only thing he will accept,
is absolute perfection. That type of distress. Now if
you look here in verse seven, Jephthah talks about it. It says,
and Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, did not ye hate me,
and expel me out of my father's house? And why are you coming
to me now when ye are in distress? They hated Jephthah before. They love him now. They thought
that Jephthah was subordinate to them before. They thought
they were up here and Jephthah was down here. That's switched
now. They need Jephthah to be their head, be their captain,
to rule over them, to lead them, to guide them. They're down here
now. They see where they're at. They're down here, and Jephthah's
up here. They saw no beauty in Jephthah. They saw no capability
in Jephthah. Now they're saying, you gotta fight for us. We can't
win, we can't fight. The only one who can win this
battle is you, Jephthah. That's it. It is amazing how
the Lord works. He takes a man who hates him,
absolutely hates everything about him to the core, and he reveals
the Lord Jesus Christ to that man. And in doing that, he gives
that man a new heart and a new nature, one that loves God, that
believes Christ, that looks to Christ for everything. And now
these two natures exist in that one man. That old man is still
there. He still hates God. He's still as sinful as he's
ever been. He will never believe. You have the new man who loves
God, who's holy, who's perfect, who looks to Christ. And you
know what happens when those two men are present in that one man?
Distress. Distress. because that new man
owns the sins of the old man. And it causes that one singular
man with these two natures to cry out, God, be merciful to
me, the sinner. Now here's the beautiful part
of that. The Lord does not react to a man with mercy when he asks
for it. The fact that a man asks for mercy is the evidence that
the Lord was merciful to him long, long ago. He's just finding
out about it right now. Distressed, in debt. Means you
can't come up with the goods. You cannot come up with God demands. What does he demand? Absolute
perfection. That's his marker, and that's
the only thing he will accept. I'm in debt, I can't come up
with the goods. I can't please God. Can't even come close. And
discontented. Distressed, in debt, and discontented. Discontented with what? With
anything but Christ alone. You go to man's religion, you
hear their call, which is, if you do this, God will do this. Your salvation is dependent on
what you do, and that gives you no hope, that gives you no peace,
leaves you in utter discontent. The only message that gives you
any contentment whatsoever is, it is finished, it's done, just
rest. And I tell you what, if you have
that distress, if you are in debt, and if you are discontented
with anything but Christ alone, You have every right to believe
that what the Lord Jesus Christ did, he did for you because he
did. Who came to David? Who said, be our captain? Distressed,
in debt, and discontented. Now, look at verse eight again. Everybody who comes wants the
same thing. And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, therefore
we turn again to thee now three things, that thou mayest go with
us. and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head. Is this not what you want? Go
with us. What do you mean by that? What
do you mean you want Christ to go with you? I don't know if I can intelligently
speak it in just a few sentences, but there's a song out there
that describes it perfectly. Here it is. It says, while blessed
with the sense of his love, a palace, a toy would appear, and prisons
would palaces prove if Jesus would dwell with me there. And
I'll take it a step further. I don't want just a sense of
his love. I want to know it because I want to have it. And I don't
care where we go, go anywhere you want, wherever you're going
to take me, let's go. As long as you're with me, as long as
I know you love me, that you have your guardianship over me, that you're
going to protect me, that you're with me and you're for me, let's go.
But I have to have you. I have to have you. I have to
have Christ. Fight for me. Who do we need
him to fight? Our enemies, our sins. Something
has to be done about our sin we stand before a just and a
holy God and there's absolutely nothing we can do about our sins
Fight for us do battle with our sins and put them away and be
our head What's that talking about? Colossians 118 says he
is the head of the body The church is talking about union with Christ
Isn't this what we want? Wherever the head goes, the body
goes. I want to be a part of that body. And I want to be led
by that head. And this is what we confess in
Believer's Baptism. When we stand above the water, we are saying,
when he lived, when the Lord Jesus Christ lived, and he worked
out that perfect righteousness, and he obeyed his Father in all
things, and he honored his Father in all things, I did too, in
him. When he walked the paths of righteousness,
I walked them too, because I was in him. And his righteousness,
his perfect law keeping, it really is mine. Don't let anyone ever
tell you that the righteousness of Jesus Christ and his people
is just a certificate you put on your wall to get you out of
jail. It's real. Union with Christ is real, and
every believer is right now in this world righteous with the
very righteousness of Jesus Christ. As he is, so are we, when? In this world, that's real. And when we go under the water,
we say, that's when I was punished. Every man has to be punished.
I was punished in the person of Jesus Christ. When he went
to the cross and he bore my sins in his body, he bore me in his
body. And when he was punished, I was punished. And when he died,
I died. That's my sin payment. And when he was raised again
because of justification, because all the sin was put away and
God was satisfied, I was raised again, too, in him. And I have
no sin completely justified before the Father. Is there anything
you want of him that That's whatever the believer wants. All right, verses 12 through
27 of our text, I'm gonna save you the pain and suffering and
listen to me read 15 verses, and I'm just gonna tell you about
this, because I'm only gonna make one point from it. This
is Jephthah taking a shot at diplomacy. So essentially, this
is what happens. Jephthah sends a messenger over
to the king of the Ammonites, and he basically says what seems
to be the problem. And the king of the Ammonites
fires back, and he says, OK. He goes, if you'll remember,
about 300 years ago, our two countries were at war. There
was a battle that went on, and you whipped us. And when you
whipped us, you took our land. And we've decided now, 300 years
later, we want that back. Jephthah comes back and he says,
well, let's talk about a few things. He says, number one,
that battle you're talking about 300 years ago when we whipped
you, we didn't pick the fight with you. You picked the fight
with us. And so what he's talking about, this is about 39 years
after the children of Israel had been delivered from Egypt.
They're wandering through the wilderness and they're trying
to get to the promised land. They're just about able to go through.
And so where they're at, they have to cross through the land
of the Amorites and the Moabites and eat them. And they go to
the kings, and they say, listen, we don't want to take over your
land. We don't want to fight. We just want to march through your land so
we can get to our land. And they say no. And so the children of
Israel, they try to avoid conflict. And so they try to just skirt
around the land. Well, when they do that, these kings come after
them. They make war with Israel. And so they get into a fight.
Israel wins. And they take their lands. To the victor goes the
spoils. And that's kind of what Jephthah
tells them. Tough, man. You lost fair and square. These are our
lands. And then he tells him this, he says, listen, there's
been 300 years pass since then and now, been a lot of kings
before you. None of them tried this. We've
lived in relative peace the entire time. None of them thought this
was a good idea. None of them thought that they
had rights to this land. They knew they were whipped. And then
the final thing he says is this, I want you to look at this, it's
verse 23. The final rebuttal objective. He says, so now the Lord God
of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people
Israel. And shouldst thou possess it,
will not thou possess that which Chemosh thy God giveth thee to
possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God
shall drive out from before us, Them will we possess. Now here's
what Jephthah is saying. He said, when we fought that
battle, the only reason we won is because our Lord gave us the
victory. Our God gave us the victory.
And in giving us the victory, he gave us those lands. And because
our God gave it to us, it's ours. We have every right to it. I'll
say that again. Because our God gave it to us,
we have every right to it. It's ours. Now here's my point.
Believer, what your God gives you, it truly is yours. Now we've talked about some things
up to this point. We've talked about the forgiveness
of sins for Christ's sake. That is a grace to you. You got
that by grace. You did nothing to earn that.
That is all based on the work of Jesus Christ, but it's given
to you. It is given to you. That means it's yours. You have
the forgiveness of sins because the Lord Jesus Christ did. The
righteousness of Jesus Christ is given to you, therefore it's
yours. Nobody can take that from you. Sonship with God himself,
that's yours. Nobody can take that from you.
But what else does the scripture say about it? Let me give you
a few examples here. James 4.6 says, but he giveth
more grace. By grace are you saved. Through
faith and that of yourselves, it is the gift of God. We are
saved by sheer and utter grace. Did nothing to earn it. If anything,
we dis-earned it. We're saved by grace. But it
doesn't stop there. He giveth more grace. What's gonna happen
tomorrow? I don't know, but I know this.
We're gonna be graced to deal with it. How am I gonna persevere
all the way to the end in faith? Persevering grace. How am I gonna
die with some courage? dying grace. He giveth, giveth
more grace. That's yours. John 10 verses 27, 28 says, the
Lord speaking, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and
they follow me and I give unto them eternal life. Right now,
if your hope is in Christ, you're alive. You have eternal life. There was life before and that
life is going to continue on. And when you lay down this old
man, when you physically die, you're going to continue on,
and you're never gonna know the wrath of God. You're never going to know
separation from the Lord Jesus Christ. When you put down this
flesh, things are gonna get so much better, because that eternal
life, that new man, he's gonna continue on, but without this
flesh dragging us down. And that's an unchangeable state.
No one can take that from you. I've been stood on this one for
the last couple days. I love this. This is Job 34, 29, it
says, when he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble. Now, current events certainly
look like the world is in chaos right now, doesn't it? It's not. It's absolutely not. The Lord
is in control of everything that is happening. Everything he is
doing is just accomplishing his purposes of glorifying himself
and doing good for his people. That's all he's doing. But I
tell you what, when he's done accomplishing his purposes through
all this, you know what he's going to do? He's going to give
quietness. He's going to say, that's enough,
quiet. And nobody's going to be able to make any trouble.
Remember when the disciples were in the boat, And the boat kicks
up, the waves start coming, the wind's howling, and they think
the boat's going to capsize, right? They think they're all
dead. And they go to the Lord, who's asleep in the hull. He's not worried.
Sovereignty's never worried. He says, Lord, don't you care
that we perish? And he gets up, and he says, peace! Be still. And the waves were kicking up,
the wind was roaring. And you know what? After he said
that, that sea was glass. It was solid glass. Nobody could
make any trouble after that, because he said, peace. That's
the end of it. But also this, he gives quietness to his people.
A quietness of knowing that he has made our peace with God.
We can lay our heads on our pillow at night knowing that God is
not angry with us. That the Lord Jesus Christ has
made our peace with God. That which separated us from
our God, our sin, he put it away. It's gone. And you know what?
Nobody can make trouble with that. Nobody can bring up a past
sin and say, look, he's guilty. No, those sins are paid for.
Nobody can make trouble with that. Because of what the Lord
Jesus Christ did, we have peace with God and we have quietness.
We have this reassurance. God is not mad with us. As accepting
as he is of Jesus Christ himself, that's how accepting he is of
us. Because once again, we're one in him. Ecclesiastes 2.26 says, for God
giveth to a man that is good in his sight knowledge and joy
and wisdom. You know something that the natural
man does not. You know who God is. You have wisdom. You know how he saves sinners.
It's by grace. And you know what his command
is. It is not to do, it's not to work, it's to rest and to
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to trust him. And you know
what that breeds? It breeds joy. the joy and peace of believing,
knowing the work's done and it truly is finished. Isaiah 40,
verse 20 is nine, says, he giveth power to the faint, and to them
that have no might, he increases strength. Hosea 12.3 says this
concerning Jacob. It says, he took his brother
by the heel on the womb, And by his strength, he had power
with God. Now here's what happened. When
they brought Esau out of the womb, Jacob came out too. He
was holding on to his brother's heel. Jacob had one strength. He had one power in life. It
was a God-given power. It was not natural. It's what
the Lord gave him. He had one power in life, one strength,
and it was to cling. He clinged on to Esau's heel, and when Esau
came out, he came out too. Years later, the Lord rustled
with Jacob, rustled all night long with him. He says, let me
go, the day breaketh. What did Jacob do? He clung,
the only power he had, he clung to the Lord and said, I will
not let you go until you bless me. He only had one thing, that
was it, only one power, only one strength, and that was to
cling. I tell you what, folks, that's the power we have. The
Lord gives us this power, this strength, to cling to Christ,
to look nowhere else. to need nothing else, to want
anything else, but Jesus Christ and him crucified alone. And
this last one I thought was, I wouldn't say comical, but I
enjoy it. Job 33, 13 says, why dost thou strive against him?
For he giveth not account of any of his matters. He does all
these things. He gives all these things to
his people, and he does it unapologetically. answering to no man, and not
having to explain himself to anyone, because he is in absolute
sovereign control at all times. All right. Let's read the last verses. Look
at verse 28. We'll read to the end of the
chapter. Howbeit the king of the children
of Ammon hearken not unto the words of Jephthah, which he sent
him. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed
over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mitzpah of Gilead.
And from Mitzpah of Gilead he passed over unto the children
of Ammon. And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said,
If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine
hands. Then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the
doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the
children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer
it up for burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over unto
the children of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered
them into his hands. And he smote them from Aor, even
till thou come to Minneth, even twenty cities, and unto the plain
of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children
of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. And Jephthah
came to Mitzpah unto his house, and behold, his daughter came
out to meet him with timbrels and with dances, and she was
his only child. Beside her he had neither son
nor daughter. And it came to pass when he saw her that he
ran his clothes and said, alas, my daughter, thou hast brought
me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me, for
I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, my father,
if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according
to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth. For as much
as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even
of the children of Ammon. And she said unto her father,
let this thing be done for me. Let me alone two months, that
I may go up and down upon the mountains and bewail my virginity,
I and my fellows. And he said, go. and he sent
her away for two months. And she went with her companions
and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to
pass at the end of the months that she returned unto her father,
who did with her according to his vow, which he had vowed,
and she knew no man. And it was a custom of Israel
that the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter
of Jephthah, the Gileadite, four days in the year. Let's talk
about this vow, Jephthah's vow. Is this something that you and
I should seek to recreate? Should we be vowing vows to the
Lord, saying, if you'll do this, I'll do this? No, absolutely
not. Let's get that out of the way.
James 5.12 says, but above all things, my brethren, swear not,
neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other
oath, let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay, lest you fall
into condemnation. Don't vow any vows before the
Lord. Folks, if you want something, bring it before the Lord. Asking
Christ's name, which is to ask for His sake, that you would
be heard for His sake. Asking the Lord's will in it.
If this be good, if this is your will, let it be. And you know
what? If it's not His will, you don't want it anyways, do you?
Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay. Don't vow any vows.
So what's this talking about? What are we supposed to learn
from this? This vow, the Egypt of vows, this is typical of the
covenant of grace. the eternal covenant as referred
in the scriptures. The covenant was made between
the Father and the Son in eternity past before the world ever began.
This is where the Father looked to the Son and said, these are
my people, my elect right here, I'm giving them to you. And you're
going to go, you're going to live for them, you're going to
die for them. And everything I require of these people, I'm
going to look to you for. I'm not going to look to them.
I'm not going to hold them responsible in any way. I'm going to look
to you for everything I require of them. And I'm demanding that
you bring them back to me without a scratch on them. And the Lord
Jesus Christ said, I will. And he took on the responsibility.
That's what's being taught here. Now, there's some general observations
I've made about the covenant of grace from our story here,
and I want you to see them with me real quick. This is the first
thing I saw, the permanence of this vow. This is what Jephthah
tells his daughter. He says, I have opened my mouth
unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. The covenant of grace is
a permanent covenant. Why? Why must it be permanent? I'll give you these reasons.
Number one, because it was eternally purposed. Before time began,
this was the purpose of God, to glorify himself through the
salvation of a people by the work of Jesus Christ alone. This
was the eternal purpose of God. And everything the Lord eternally
purposes must play out in time. You want to know why? Because
he's immutable. He cannot change and his purposes cannot change.
And if they could, and if he did, he would cease to be God. Second reason, he cannot go back.
He couldn't go back because Christ would have lost his bride and
the father would have lost his children. There can be no mercy
at the expense of justice. Somebody had to die. Somebody
had to put away sin. Someone had to live a righteous
life. Somebody had to die. And if the Lord Jesus Christ
wouldn't have agreed to be the surety, if the father would have
been unwilling to sacrifice him, then the Lord Jesus Christ would
have lost his bride, his people, and the father would have lost
his children. Third reason, he couldn't go back because the
collective Godhead would prove to be a failure. It would mean
that the love of God means absolutely nothing. It would mean that the
predestination, the election of God, means nothing. It would
mean that God could love a man, and he could desire that man's
salvation, and that man end up in hell anyways. And the Godhead
cannot fail. It is outside their capability. Notice the pain this caused Jephthah.
Now I want you to envision this for a second. He's riding high
off his victory, right? They just won the battle. Now
Israel's safe. They're keeping their lands.
He's fulfilled his role as the captain. He's ready to go home,
take his boots off, maybe have a drink or something, right?
He's riding high. He feels good about this. As he's walking towards
his door, that door opens and his daughter walks out. She is
the first thing to meet him. What's the first thing he remembers?
His vow. I want you to think about this
for a minute. Think about the sheer and utter terror that came
over him once he saw her walk out. thinking about what he was
going to have to do with that girl. The anguish, the terror,
the darkness. I mean, he's riding high. He
feels good. And all of a sudden, sheer and utter tears, tears
streaming down his face. Anguish, the darkness he felt
knowing what he was going to have to do with that girl. Now, that is
a small glimpse, just a small glimpse, of how the father felt
having to sacrifice his son. Jephthah loves his daughter,
and we love our children. We love them imperfectly. The
Father loved the Son perfectly, with a perfect, everlasting love. And whatever Jephthah felt, it
didn't even come close to what the Father experienced. I think
sometimes we mistake that the Lord has no emotion. We are made
in the likeness of God. You have emotions. You experience
joy, you experience sadness, all those things, anger. You're
made in the likeness of God. He has emotions. Now, they're
holy emotions, they're perfect emotions, they're different than
us. But he's not a God without emotion. As much as Jephthah
loved his daughter, the father loved the son so much more. The
anguish he experienced was so much more. But yet, he remained
true to his character. He has no respect over persons.
Although he loved his son, he loved him to the end, when he
saw sin on his only begotten son, he would not spare him.
This is the perfection of the character of God. Even though
he loved his son, when he saw sin on his only begotten son,
he wouldn't spare him. That is the justice of God. Notice the willingness of Jephthah's
daughter to be sacrificed. Now, see if you can envision
Jephthah in all this. He finally has to tell her, right?
He has to tell her what's going on. And he's got tears streaming
down his face. I'm sure he's vomiting, thinking about what
he's going to have to do. His hands are shaking. And he's telling
her, he's like, all right, I made a vow. And the vow was that the
first thing that walked out the door to meet me, I have to sacrifice.
And she would have known what that meant. That means he has
to bind her. He has to look her in the eyes
when he slits her throat. He has to catch her blood in the
basin. Then he's got to quarter her body. That means to saw her
body up into quarters and then put her on an altar and light
her on fire and stand there and watch as the fire devoured his
only daughter. This is what she's facing. This
is what he's telling her. This is what I'm going to have
to do. And what would you expect her to do? Don't you love me? How could you do that to me?
You expect her to run, you expect her to flee, you expect her to
scream, you expect something like that, right? That's the obvious
reaction, but what's her reaction? Do it. You vowed a vow to the
Lord? You best get to keeping it. Do
it. This speaks of the willingness
of our Lord Jesus Christ to be our sacrifice. Isaiah 53 verse
10 says, yet it pleased the father to bruise him. It means exactly
what it says. It pleased the father to bruise
him. Why? Why did that cause the father joy? Why did it please
the father to bruise him? Seems contrary to the anguish
we just talked about. Many reasons, but for this reason,
because he could take it. Because he was the willing sacrifice.
No one else could take it. No one else could bear the sin.
No one else could bear the punishment. No one could so well put away
sin and actually accomplish what God sent him to do that he could
be raised from the dead. No one else could carry out this
task. No one else would have been willing to carry out this
task. But our great mighty man of valor, the Lord Jesus Christ,
stepped up and said, I'll do it. Do it. Do what you have to
do. Do it to me. What love for his
people that he's willing to do something like that for you and
me. Last thing I notice is the trustworthiness
of Jephthah's daughter. Look at verse 37. And she said unto her father,
let this thing be done for me. Let me alone two months, that
I may go up and down upon the mountains and bewail my virginity.
I and my fellows. Now look at verse 38, see how
immediate this is. And he said, go. There's an immediacy
to his daughter. She says, you vow to vow to God,
do it. Do it. No fear in her eyes, not a moment's
hesitation. Do it. Just that. Now there's
no hesitation in Jephthah. She says, let me go, bewail my
virginity for two months. He says, go. He absolutely trusted
his daughter. Somebody would have looked at
Jephthah and been like, Jephthah, are you sure that's a good idea? Aren't you
afraid she's going to run away and you'll never see her again?
You are going to have to sacrifice her when she comes back. And
Jephthah says, no. I trust her completely. She's going to do
exactly what she said she's going to do. And when two months are
up to the very day, to the very hour, she's going to be right
here. And she was. He trusted his daughter perfectly.
Ephesians 1.12 says this, that we should be to the praise of
his glory who first trusted Christ. Now, who trusted Jesus Christ
first? His father did. His father trusted
him perfectly and completely. He gave to him what was most
precious to him, the elect. He gave his people to Christ,
and he trusted him completely to bring us back to him without
a scratch on him. He said, I'm going to look to you for everything,
and I can trust you completely because you cannot fail. You're
the mighty man of valor. You can't fail. You're going
to do exactly what you said to do. Now, here's my question.
If God the Father, who knows all things and sees things as
they actually are, put all his trust in Christ, is there any
reason you and I shouldn't? Is he worthy of our trust? He
was worthy of the trust of God the Father. Of course he's worthy
of our trust. All right, I hope I didn't preach
too long. I'm gonna leave you all there.