Gooding, David: 7 - Deborah, Barak and Jael

Let us now begin our evening study by reading in the book of Judges and chapter four. The book of Judges and chapter four, beginning in verse one. And the children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord when Ehud was dead. 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 Harosheth of the Gentiles. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel. Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidot, she judged Israel at that time, and she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. And the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of Kedesh Naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not the Lord the God of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw unto Mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun. And I will draw unto thee to the river Kishon, Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude, and I will deliver him into thine hand. Verse twelve. And they told 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 Harosheth of the Gentiles unto the river Kishon. And Deborah said unto Barak, Up, for this is the day in which the Lord hath delivered Sisera into thine hand. Is not the Lord gone out before thee? So Barak went down from Mount Tabor, and ten thousand men after him. And the Lord discomforted Sisera and all his chariots and all his host with the edge of the sword before Barak. And Sisera lighted down from his chariot and fled away on his feet. And Barak pursued after the chariots and after the host unto Harosheth of the Gentiles, and all the host of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword. There was not a man left. God give us good understanding of his word. We come now to the beginnings of the third oppression of the Israelites by the Canaanites. And our first task is to reconnoiter the enemy that oppressed them. Let's think a little of their history. In the time of Joshua, mentioned in chapter eleven of the book of Joshua, at Israel's entry, led by the living God, Jabin the First, as he is normally called, led a great confederacy of northern kings against Joshua to thwart the purposes of God, which were to establish Israel in the land. And Joshua defeated that confederacy of kings. Let us notice the poetic description of that in chapter five, given in Deborah's triumphant song, you'll see. Verse three of chapter five. Hear, O you kings, give ear, O you princes. I, even I, will sing praise unto the Lord. I will sing praise to the Lord, the God of Israel. Lord, when thou wentest forth out of Seir, when thou marchest out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the heavens also dropped, yea, the clouds dropped water. The mountains slowed down at the presence of the Lord, even yon Sinai, at the presence of the Lord, the God of Israel. She is recording in poetic form the journey of the Israelites as they came from Sinai, from which, of course, God is sometimes known as the God of Sinai, and proceeded eventually through Edom and up the other side to the west, uh, to the east of Jordan. The appearance of, therefore, the Lord leading the forces of Israel into their promised land, you see. By the time we come to Judges, there seems to be another king in charge of the Canaanites in Hazor. Now, I'm aware that the archaeology, archaeologists have great disputes among themselves about these two kings, Jabin I and Jabin II, and I'm not archaeologist enough to decide between their arguments. I follow those who suppose that by the time we come to Judges four and five, we had a, a revival of the city of Hazor, uh, Jusi under a successor of Jabin the First, whom therefore is called Jabin the second. As a result of his oppression of Israel, Deborah describes the results of the revival of Canaanite power. See chapters five, chapter five, verse six and verse eight. In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travelers walked through the byways, frightened and afraid to walk down the highways. The rulers ceased in Israel. They ceased. So Israel lost its local government. They ceased until I, Deborah, arose, that I rose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods, that is, Israel did. Then was there war in the gates. It led to civil strife as well as hostility from the enemy, and it led to a di- dis- uh, disarming of the people of Israel. Was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel? They lost their weapons of defense and attack. Let's turn to features of the enemy for a moment. We've seen a little of the history. The name Jabin may or na- may not be, uh, uh, significant. It appears to mean he perceives, and may be a throne name given to the kings of Hazor, kings, uh, being supposed to be brilliant and very able in their perception. We do notice their technology, nine hundred chariots of iron, though we shouldn't be misled by that description. It doesn't mean that the chariots were made completely of iron. They would have been very heavy objects in those far off days if they had been. It means that they had chariots made largely of wood, of course, but decorated with iron, and iron in suitable places, presumably to give them strength. But it was the height of technology at the time. You will begin to notice how different these northerners were from, say, the flabby king of Moab down there in Jericho. Canaanites were also famous as merchants. So eventually the term Canaanite came to signify merchant. A typical reference would be Zechariah, prophecy of Zechariah, chapter fourteen twenty one, when it says there shall be no more Canaanite in the house of the Lord, may well be intended to mean there shall be no merchantment more in the house of the Lord. And with that, we remember how when our Lord came to Jerusalem, he found that merchandise and making money out of religion had invaded the very temple of God in Jerusalem. Other features of the enemy, Sisera was killed through his brain. We saw it was somewhat suitable that, uh, J- A- A- Aegon, king of Moab, should be killed through his belly. Sisera was killed through his brain. And if that is likewise significant, it is because, you see, in dealing with the northern Canaanites, you are dealing with the leading edge of technology in those far off days, men of great intelligence and invention. Three times over, we're told the name of the city in which Sisera, com- captain in, uh, commander in chief of the forces o- of the king lived. The king reigned in Hazor, which you may still go and visit if you care to in Israel. His commander in chief dwelt in a place called Harosheth. One is tempted to translate it literally as a f- meaning a factory, but we won't do that for the moment anyway. Uh, uh, Sisera lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles. Now notice that description is repeated in the text. You'll come down to verse thirteen, for instance, uh, you'll see the people that were with him went up from Harosheth of the Gentiles. Verse sixteen again, but Barak pursued after the chariots and after the host unto Harosheth of the Gentiles, and all the host of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword. It is an interesting phenomenon that the place Harosheth is further depicted as being of the Gentiles, and one naturally wonders who gave the city that, uh, description to be appended to it? Uh, it seems to me it's unlikely that the Canaanites themselves described it as Harosheth of the Gentiles. Canaanites, after all, were Gentiles. It would be a little bit odd if English people referred to London as England, uh, as London of the English. They're not likely to do it unless, of course, they are distinguishing London in Great Britain from London in Ontario in Canada, you'll see, and they then might say it's London in England. But normally the English don't refer to London as London of the English. I doubt whether the Canaanites refer to Harosheth as Harosheth of the Gentiles. It's more likely a name given by the Jewish, the Israeli historians, distinguishing this Harosheth from other Harosheths that may have been about the place. This is the Harosheth belonging to the Gentiles. Of course, thus to say, uh, uh, brings to mind the description that Matthew gives in his gospel, where he talks about Galilee of the Gentiles. It was, of course, at that point where Israel was very near to the Gentile nations. It also becomes significant that our Lord began his public ministry not down in Jerusalem, center of Judaism, but way up north in Galilee of the Gentiles. So notice first some of the biblical descriptions in the Old Testament. The Amalekites, as we mentioned the other day, were sinners like everybody else, and everybody else sinners like the Amalekites. But when the Old Testament refers to the Amalekites, it's liable to describe them as the sinners, the Amalekites. And so grievous was their sin that God ordained that the tribe should be eliminated. Saul came, uh, unstuck when he, being charged to destroy the Amalekites because of their sinfulness, he spared the very king of the Amalekites. The sinners then, the Amalekites. Many nations were uncircumcised, so the Philistines did not stand alone in that. But in the Old Testament, in particular the Book of Judges, but even in the Book of Samuel, when the Philistines began to be prominent in their opposition to Israel, they are referred to commonly as the uncircumcised Philistines. They were, of course, uh, not members of the covenant. They were Gentiles, probably came from Crete, you'll say perhaps part of the sea peoples, the Minoan civilization, and they came down and dwelt on the seaboard of southern, uh, uh, Israel. Hence the country began, came to be known amongst foreigners as though it were the land of the Philistines and called Philistia, and then came to to be called Palestine. But notice that description, the uncircumcised Philistine. When we come to deal with the Philistines in the later part of the book, that description will be significant. And so I want to suggest to you at least that when we are told that Harosheth was a Harosheth of the Gentiles, we should consider both its geographical significance and its moral and spiritual significance. This Jabin then, with his commander-in-chief from Harosheth of the Gentiles, mightily oppressed the Israelites. And one is tempted to say, but... why should a nation advanced in technology not be thought a suitable nation to rule Israel? And why should they have so oppressed Israel? And a nation that might have given itself to commerce, well, what's wrong with commerce? The fact is they did oppress the Israelites. And so starting from there this evening, I want to come directly to the New Testament for the beginnings of our study. And if we don't complete our study of this, uh, oppression tonight, well, God willing, there will be another day. But let's turn to passages in the New Testament where we are warned to behave not as the Gentiles behave. And the first passage is Matthew chapter six, Matthew chapter six and verse 7. This is our Lord directing us how to pray. Verse six: but thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee. And in praying, use not vain repetitions as the Gentiles do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them, for your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him. These things tell us valuable facts and exhortations about the manner of our praying. We ask, says Paul, to let our requests be made known to God. What a delightful thing that is for believers to be able to come and unburden their hearts before their heavenly Father and make known their requests, like a little child coming to its parents. But as so often with little children, the parent already sees what the child needs. Even more so it is with God. In one sense, we don't have to inform God. He knows already, you know. I would say, if he knows already what I need, why does he make me come and ask for it? Well, Mama has, you might think, prepared an ice cream for her child. She doesn't like the child to come and grab it when mother isn't looking. She likes the child to come and ask for it. She has determined to give it to the child anyway, before it asked. But what a lovely bond it makes between mother and child to have the child come and ask for it from mother, and mother being delighted to give it in answer to the child's request. That is a big experience for the child, isn't it? And she gets, the child gets not only the ice cream, but a lasting piece of relationship between the child and her mother. So our Heavenly Father knows what we have need of before we ask, but likes us to come and ask. Because in the very asking and the receiving, there is built into us an experience of God, our Heavenly Father. An experience that will last when all the other gifts, ice creams included, have disappeared forever. In therefore your praying, don't use vain repetitions, as do the heathen. Prayer wheels are an example, aren't they? You attach your prayer to a bit of a flag and put it on a prayer wheel, and the more times it goes round, you hope the more time the God you're praying to will notice it, you see. So you can wear him down in the end by much repetition of the same thing, you'll see. Without, I hope, being over- overcritical, there's a practice now that seems to have fallen out of, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, custom. When the Roman Catholic Church used at funerals to hand out cards, uh, on behalf of the departed, and the cards had a photograph on it of the departed, and around the card were simple prayers like, Mary, Mother of God, hear us now and in the hour of our death, and Paternosters and things like that. And you were asked to pray for the dead out of the charity of your heart, because praying when you didn't have to earned indulgences, and then you could transfer the indulgence that you had, uh, re- uh, built up by your saying of these prayers, you could, uh, uh, transfer them to the account of the departed person in purgatory and help to get them out of purgatory, you see. And on these cards, the value of the prayers were indicated. Pray this prayer a hundred times, and that scores so many indulgences, as you see. Vain repetitions. Thinking to put pressure on God by simply repeating and repeating and repeating the self same. We also need to learn the lesson. We are to persist in prayer, are we not? According to what our Lord taught us. May not always to pray and not to give up. There are things in which we should never give up, such as praying that God will avenge his elect. To give up is to suggest that God is not really righteous after all and has forgotten his people, whereas he does not forget them, and he will avenge his elect that cry unto him day and night. And meantime, we are to pray and not to faint, you'll see. It is right to persist in prayer over certain things that God indicates that persistence in prayer is a good thing. Let's try and beware of mere phraseology that substitutes for simple, straightforward thinking. Let's talk to God, not in stilted phraseology and cliches. Let's talk to God if we can, and that includes in public, in words straight from the heart, reverent, of course, but not mere cliches, phraseology repeated so often they become almost meaningless. Don't pray like Gentiles, therefore. For your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask him. Don't behave like Gentiles in your prayer life. But later in this chapter, our Lord warns us not to have the same objectives in our daily work as do Gentiles. So let us read what he has to say on this score later in that chapter six of Matthew. Verse twenty four: no man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon simultaneously. Therefore, I say unto you, be not anxious for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the food and the body than raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not, are not ye of much more value than they? Yes, but don't let's get the argument the wrong way round. The dear old, uh, uh, uh, uh, birds, do you see? I don't know anything about sowing, really, and reaping. They, you wouldn't expect it of the module. They are beautiful but somewhat lowly creatures, and they haven't got those skills, and yet God feeds them. You have the skills, if that's your avocation to go farming. You could sow and reap. You've less concern, less reason to worry than the birds have, surely, when God has given us the abilities sensibly to, to go about providing for our sub- our sustenance. And which of you, by being anxious, can add one cubit unto his stature? Why are you anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. Yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Again, we mustn't get the argument the wrong way round. The lilies of the field, the anemones or whatever they were, they don't toil and spin. How could they? God clothes them nonetheless. We can, if that's our gift, toil and spin and clothe ourselves. How much less cause we have for worry, therefore, is the kind of argument you'll see. He shall clothe us, and if he takes this trouble on mere plants, what will he not do for his children? That is, as I, I, I, I, I understand it, the force of the argument. Our Lord speaks in typical Semitic idiom. He's not telling us not to sew and not to, uh, weave clothes. We are to be diligent in business, and he who doesn't provide for his own has denied the faith and is worse than an interval. Of course, we are to work at these things, but what is in question is our basic motivation in working. So verse thirty one continues, be not therefore anxious saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek you first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. In the context, we are in- in- instructed to s- be not like the Gentiles. And the context is what the Gentiles are seeking when they go to their daily work. This is their motivation, primary motivation, to get food and clothes. That's number one. Why would the majority go to work if they didn't have to go to work to earn food and clothes? Don't be like them. That's how the Gentiles go to work. That is their prime motivation. Don't you be like the Gentiles when you go to work. Somebody says to me, what are you talking about? The lateness of the evening has derailed your mind somewhat. Why do you think we go to work if it wasn't to get food and clothes? If we didn't have to get food and clothes, we'd take a wife on a cruise around the world. Well, I mean, of of of course we go to work to get food and clothes. What else would we do? Well, I see, yes, yes, yes, of course you do. That's one of your motivations. Is it your prime motivation? Would you put that as your first motivation in going to work? Well, if you do, you're like an old gentile, and our Lord tells us not to be like the old gentiles. What should our first and prime motivation be in going to work? Getting the food and clothes. Pardon? That's right, Josie. We are to seek first as our primary, uh, uh, uh, motivation, the kingdom of God. Meaning what? When I was a youth, I took these verses to mean that before you went to your daily work, you should be interested in giving out tracts to the unconverted, and thus extending the kingdom of God. Well, that was a very good motivation. Isn't quite what this verse means, surely. Seek first the kingly rule of God, is what the term kingdom means. Kingly rule. And in a moment, I may well quote you verses elsewhere from the epistles that use the term kingdom of God in the sense of the kingly rule of God. Our first motivation in going to work, therefore, is not to get food and clothes. Your heavenly Father knows that you need those things. Our Lord is making the point. He knows that you need those things, and he knows that work is normally the method by which you get those things. And food and clothes are certainly a good and profitable dis- uh, benefit, uh, uh, and uh, and uh, uh, uh, profit from going to work. It should never be the first motivation. In going to daily work, the first motivation is the rule of God in our lives, which, if we seek it in our daily work, will have the effect that is verse thirty three describes. But seek you first his kingly rule and his righteousness. Because if I seek the kingly rule of God in my daily life, it will produce in me a practical righteousness of character. Seek the rule of God, the kingly rule of God, in your daily work, and it will produce in the- in you a righteousness of character from God. And in normal circumstances, all these other things like food and clothes will be added to you as well. Let me take an illustration of this, if I told you before, have mercy on an old man, about the importance of this basic principle. I was staying in Scotland with a gracious gentleman and his wife, now retired, interested, of course, keenly interested in the Lord's work of every kind. He told me that in his professional life he was a company secretary, which in English means a, a mixture of accountant and lawyer. At one stage, the chairman of the company, chief executive, called a meeting of the board because the income tax inspector wanted to come and question the directors over certain things they'd done about certain of their properties and estates in various parts of the country. And of course, the Christian man, being company secretary, had to attend the meeting. The income tax inspector asked some very penetrating questions as to what they had done with this, uh, uh, com- these, uh, the- these properties and the investment they represented. In fact, the directors had fiddled the thing, not as bad as Enron did, I suppose. But bad enough. And when the income tax inspector asked, now, what have you done with it, and so forth and so on, the chairman of the company turned to this Christian man, company secretary, and said, you answer him. And the Christian man told me as I sat at his table, in that moment, I knew if I told the truth, I would lose my job. What was he to do? With the house and the mortgage and a wife and children to educate. What should he do? If he had he as his prime motive getting the food and clothes, he would have done what the directors wanted him to do and told a fishy story that wasn't true. Had he done so, he might well have kept his job. Had the food and the clothes, and the house and the mortgage and the car. He would have lost the very reason why God sent him to work in the first place. And in daily work, he would seek the rule of God. And in daily work following and carrying out the rule of God, whatever it cost, would create in him a righteous character. And very simply and not boastingly, he told me, when the, when the uh chief director of the company's uh uh head of the company told him to answer the income tax inspector. He said, I told the truth. And after it was over, the chairman came to him and said, we shall not need your services anymore. Anymore. In your daily work, seek first the rule of God. Now, I know some famous missionaries have said that they made shoes to pay expenses so that they could get on with the work of the Lord. And Paul himself had a trade, and when necessary, he used the trade so as to make enough money to support himself and his team, if you please, by his own work, paid the expenses of his team, so as to be able to evangelize in parts of the Roman world that otherwise he could not have done had he been dependent on money from home base somewhere, wherever that was. So that making the money became a subsidiary thing to the preaching of the gospel, and in that sense the extending of the kingdom. But we shouldn't normally regard daily work as merely a means to an end of providing cash, should we? It's more valuable than that, gentlemen. Infinitely more valuable. It's the way the Creator has ordained it and the Redeemer has ordained it, that we should, uh, going about our daily work, take the opportunities it gives to seek the rule of God and thus develop a righteous character. I am an impossible theorist, as you have already have gathered, you see. I like study, you see. It's no difficult for- difficulty me for study. To be practical is a much more difficult thing, you'll see. And to be patient, that's another thing. So God meant, uh, sent me to teach in a university where I had a lot of students to teach. Can you see the effect it was had? Hope you can see a little bit. For I sorely needed to learn patience and got ample opportunity to try and be unselfish and to see after their needs, those particularly who found life a bit difficult, even though it cost time that otherwise I grad- I grudge- begrudge because it took the time away from my research. But life isn't just about professional advancement, is it? It's about the rule of God and learning these, uh, as characteristics of patience and unselfishness and such and such and such and such and such. Seek first the rule of God and the practical righteousness that comes thereby. Don't be like the Gentiles and go to work primarily to get the food and the clothes. There is another portion of the New Testament that talks to us about not being like the Gentiles, and we shall eventually find that it is relevant to this story of the Canaanite oppression, eh, that we read in Judges. This comes in the epistle to the Ephesians. And in passing at this late hour, I point out the earlier context of Ephesians four. We shall have to come back to it on another occasion. But it is in Ephesians four and verse, uh, uh, Eight and nine and ten and eleven, that Paul refers to Psalm sixty eight, and Psalm sixty eight refers to the battle that Barak waged against Jabin, king of Cizre. So that its connection, the connection, that is to say, of that account of the Canaanite oppression and the battle that Deborah and Barak waged against the Canaanite is not irrelevant to this exhortation that we are about to read. This is chapter four of Ephesians, verse seventeen. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles walk. In the vanity of their mind. Being darkened in their understanding. Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. Because of the hardening of their heart, who being past feeling, gave themselves up to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. A dark critique, that is indeed, of the Gentile mind of Paul's day. We are to be careful to avoid the mindset of the Gentile world around us. The emptiness of it, the vanity of their mind. This is not merely talking about scatterbrained people who have not a thought scarce in their head, to whom life is an irresponsible game. It can apply to the profoundest scientist who will not have it that there is a God designer behind our universe. If there be no God behind our universe, then its effect on our rationality is, in the end, catastrophic. Why? Because if there be no God, then our very rationality is the product of mindless forces. Modern theories of the brain, which tell us that there is no such thing as mind as distinct from brain, and there is no such thing as person or soul or spirit. There is nothing but a machine made up of electrochemical forces and material. Push that to its implications, and eventually you do away with true rationality altogether. If what I'm now saying to you, gentlemen, is the product of mere matter and electrical forces, you've no reason to believe what I say, have you? Why should you listen to me? But if my, uh, brain is like that, so is yours. And therefore, to deny that our brains are the design by God is to remove, as C. S. Lewis would put it, to saw off the branch on which we sit. They no longer walk as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, being darkened in their understanding. What a magnificent result of man's rationality it is to have discovered that our reason is a product of mindless forces who one day will destroy us and our rationality and won't even know they've done it. What a superb discovery by rationality. Forgive my sarcasm. Romans chapter one likewise talks of people that deny the Creator and become vain in their reasonings. But it also goes over, you'll see, into the, uh, spiritual and moral life, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart. And that has moral implications and repercussions, as Paul again cites in Romans chapter one, where he traces man's attempt to suppress the knowledge of God and how in the end it, uh, uh, lowers and darkens his mind and its moral judgments. Beware of the mindset of the Gentiles. So Cicero got down out of his chariot, and the story remains for another time, God willing, for it's eight o'clock and I must cease. And he ran away to escape Barak and his soldiers, and ran to the tent of jail. She had no option, really, as a defenseless woman whose husband wasn't there at the time, but to let him into the tent and into the women's apartment. It would have been a bad job for her if her husband had come home and found the man still alive. She laid him down, brought forth butter in a lordly dish, as the ancient English has it. And when he fell asleep, tired with his energies in the battle, he took a tent peg. Handy object, because in that ancient part of the world, in those times, it was a woman's responsibility to look to the security of the tent, you see, for her family. So she was used to driving in tent pegs into the ground. They were very important part of practical life, of course. If you've got a wind or a storm and the tent peg didn't hold, the whole colla- house could collapse around your head, so to speak. So she was used to that kind of thing in the normal d- uh, walk of life to keep the house, the tent, that is to say, secure for the family. And when Sisera was asleep, she took the tent peg, a tent peg, and hammered it through the old Gentile brain. If on going home, gentlemen, you had a look in the front door and around one or two places and you saw an old Gentile brain somewhere? You might be wise also to hammer a tent peg all the way through it. Beware of the Gentile mindset. So tonight I've taken the liberty of your time, instead of expounding Judges, to preach it. You will find it in your heart, I think, to forgive me. You'll say he's old anyway, and it's late at night, and, uh, well, that's the best he could do, uh, you'll see. But it is a practical lesson that we need to learn from this about the tactics of the battle that was used and the guidance of God, and what it portended, and what Deborah made of it when she gave her triumphal song, and what the psalmist made of it when in Psalm sixty eight he thought about it, and what Paul made of it when he thought about the Psalm sixty eight and about, uh, Judges four and five. and wrote what he has written in Ephesians chapter four. Of all those things, we shall have to th- think on another time. God bless his word to our hearts now, for his name's sake. But I have, uh, fifteen minutes to spare. I've been good, as you'll say, and I have fifteen minutes to spare that the, the authorities say I should spend, uh, uh, for questions and discussion. So once more, over to you, gentlemen, for questions and discussion. And I'm interested in them, of course, but much more interested in your contributions, if you should be pleased to make further contributions to the topic. Yes, there's a gentleman there. Uh, what's your opinion about the chain prayer? Pardon? Opinion of the same prayer? Chain, chain, chain. No, that team. Somebody will, uh, pray for one hour, then the same subject, somebody else will say chain prayer. Chain. Oh, chain prayer. That is to get a lot of people praying about the same thing. At different hours or con- consecutively. Yes, well, I'm not, I'm not au fait with the mechanism of chain prayer, that, uh, Paul, uh, in his epistles calls upon the believers to pray for him. That is his habit, of course, is asking people to pray, the more the merrier, yes. So it can't be wrong. I'm not quite sure what praying p- chain prayer does involve, but to get folks to pray surely is not a bad thing. We should resist all notions of merely making it automatic think that, to think that God is, so to speak, influenced by the sheer number, like a politician. He's got so many people have written in letters that his political career is at stake if he doesn't, uh, appear to favor them. God isn't like that. His career isn't in doubt. Uh, do you see? He's not n- eh eh eh eh influenced merely by number, but on the other hand, he expects his people to pray, and Paul carries, uh, ca- uh, seeks for the prayers of all the saints in the spiritual battle. We do not altogether understand, do we, how our prayers affect the principalities, powers, mights, and dominions. But in our intercessions in the presence of God, it does influence what happens? So Paul says, there a great door and effectual is opened unto me. There are many adversaries. Pray for me, that I may be given boldness to speak and to know how I ought to speak in this kind of situation. So yes, by all means, call upon as many people as you can to pray. Why I mentioned, uh, while you're slow, a little bit slow in coming forward, it was a, why I mentioned we are to pray constantly for some things. Paul tells us that he had a thorn in the flesh he prayed for three times, but the Lord answered him so definitively that presumably he didn't pray again. But certain things are important that we carry on praying and don't give up. And one I mentioned is one which our Lord himself teaches us about. We ought to pray that God would avenge his elect. That is not unchristian to do so, that God will intervene on behalf of his elect and stop injustice being done to them. Now, our Lord ensures us that God will intervene, though he is a long time doing it, as it appears to us. And to enforce the exhortation, our Lord told a parable to the end that men ought to faint, or ought to always to pray and not to faint. He says there was a widow in a certain place, and she went to a judge, the local judge, and said, avenge me, not revenge, gentlemen, question of taking revenge, but avenge, that is, see that justice is done against my enemies that are perverting justice, you will see. Avenge me of my enemies. But the judge was a wicked character. He cared neither for God nor man, and moreover, I suspect he played golf with the local businessmen that were afflicting the widow. So for a while he did nothing. But the woman wouldn't give up and constantly came and constantly came and constantly came till the man said, you'll, you'll beat me black and blue if it goes on like this. So he intervened to avenge her, not because he cared for justice, but because he wanted to get rid of this troublesome widow, you'll see. And from that, our Lord drew the exhortation. And will not God avenge his elect that cry unto him day and night? Of course he will. Though he is long suffering over them. Not only individuals, but many, many, many of his elect. The great problem of evil. Why doesn't God intervene and stop evil? The big problem of evil, and we as believers have to carry on praying. For to stop praying would imply that God is as bad, if not worse, in character than that unprincipled judge who in the end answered the widow's prayer. So surely will God, says Christ. Hello? You justify in the light of what Jesus said on the cross and what Jesus said when he was shown. Mm-hmm. We should forgive our enemies. How, how do you, how do you reconcile praying to avenge the wrongs done when the Lord Jesus and Stephen prayed that they, that they would forgive their enemies? Oh. Is that right, Fred? Yes, that's a very good and very perceptive question, and it troubles many people. Our Lord told us to pray for those that despitefully use us, do you see? Eh, what the widow was doing was not praying for revenge, simply for God to intervene and put matters right. Now that's not praying for revenge, simply for God to intervene and see that evil practice is put to an end. It is that that God will intervene and do. The further matter of what punishment he gives to those that have misbehaved, that's a further thing. All the widow was asking was for her rights to be respected and the iniquities of the local businessmen be stopped, and, uh, she be avenged of them in that sense, not revenge. She was not asking for anybody to be punished. She was asking for, uh, simply her rights to be granted to her. So it's not a question of asking for people to be punished. Yes, another question at the back there. Yes, we we not only obviously have jail, the woman with the ten peg, but then Deborah also is a woman. Yes, that's right. And, um, I was just wondering about, again, thoughts on the women now, the judges going from a man to actually women, and then the apparent, um, trepidation of the man, Barrett, needing the encouragement of the woman, and then with that thought in mind, also, uh, Deborah. Uh, is it right to say that she still maintained a private posture as a mother and a woman in the home in Israel, or did she have a very open and public ministry of prophesying and teaching and ruling and so on. Ah. Well, sir, I see you are interested in the topic, so I've got a hook with which to catch you. Come back tomorrow night, and I'll deal with the matter. Yes, you see, but it's a very good question, and to answer the substance of what you say arbitrarily and in a few moments. Uh, she had a husband, his name was Lapidoth. She was a mother in Israel and a prophetess, and Israel came to her for judgment. It wasn't just, uh, she had private things. She w- Israel came to her for judgment, and in those days that judgment meant directing Israel as to what they should do. And you see an example of her that she took the initiative in telling Barak what to do. And when it came to the battle, it was she that told Barak at the precise moment to bring the troops down from Mount Tabor to attack, and was so in touch with God that God did the miracle without which, if Barak had come down that mountain with his men and the miracle hadn't taken place, Sisera's charaters- charioteers would have made mincemeat of him. She was a woman in touch with God over it, and therefore, uh, guided in the, in the actual tactics in, in the battle, you'll see, as well as seek- singing her triumphal song. So yes, and she also told Barak that he was, uh, uh, going, had got to go on this thing, but it wouldn't be for his honor. The Lord would give the, uh, commander in chief of the enemy into the hands of a woman. That is all very interesting when it comes to the observation that this enemy was an enemy known for his brain power, and his might, and his engineering, and his technology, and all that went with that. And God defeated him not by some extra brainier man, but by a woman in touch with God. Amen. And now it is a quarter past eight, and I've exhausted your question time. Forgive me if you didn't get the chance to ask the questions you wanted to, uh, and uh, now I give way to my betters.