Gooding, David: 5 - Ehud and the Moabites

Let us begin our study this afternoon by reading the biblical record of the second major captivity that fell upon Israel. This is the book of Judges then, and chapter three beginning in verse twelve. And the people of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel, because they had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He gathered to himself the Ammonites and the Amalekites, and went and defeated Israel. And they took possession of the city of the Palms, and the people of Israel served Eglon, the king of Moab, for eighteen years. Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the son of Gerar the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. The people of Israel sent tribute by him. Older English version sent a present to him, but of course the present wasn't voluntary. It's a polite name for tribute in this context. And the people then, uh, sent of Israel, sent tribute by him to Aegon, the king of Moab. And Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes. And he presented the tribute to Eglon, king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man, and when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute, but he himself turned back at the idols. Now notice that translation of this particular, uh, version. Earlier versions had he s- he he turned back by the quarries, uh, that were by Gilgal. It is unlikely that the word means quarries here. It means something cut out with a knife, and it's much more likely to be idols of some kind, or it might even be boundary stones that in the ancient world were often religious objects to which, uh, sacrifices were made from time to time, carved boundary stones. Somebody's hand up. I have... I have a... Oh, yes. Yes, I have my Bible. He has? That is stone. Stone images. He has what? Stone images. Stone images, that will do very well, sir, very. Stone images carved out, eh, uh, and they were, of course, religious objects. Thank you very much. Mm-hmm. Uh, so he made himself, uh, this sword with two edges a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes. He presented the tribute to Aegon, king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man. And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute. But he himself turned back at the stone images then, the idols near Gilgal, and said, I have a secret message for you, oh king. And he, the king, commanded silence, and all his attendants went out from his presence. And Ehud came to him as he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, I have a message from God for you. And he arose from his seat. And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly, and the excrement came out. Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them. When he had gone, the servants came, and when they saw that the doors of the roof chamber were locked, they thought, surely the king is relieving himself in the closet of the cool chamber. And they waited till they were embarrassed. And when he still did not open the doors of the roof chamber, they took the key and opened them. There lay their lord dead upon the floor. And Ehud escaped while they delayed, and he passed beyond the stone images and escaped to Seirah, where when he arrived, he sounded the trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim. Then the people of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was their leader. And he said to them, follow after me, for the Lord has given your enemies, the Moabites, into your hand. So they went down after him and seized the fords of the Jordan against the Moabites and did not allow anyone to pass over. And they killed at that time about ten thousand of the Moabites, all strong, able-bodied men, not a man escaped. So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel, and the land had rest for eighty years. That's the first, uh, uh, little fact we could notice about this record is that how it describes event in the south of the land. The Moabites had come across the Jordan. They had established themselves there in the south, in the city of palm trees, near where, uh, Jericho had been. The people that Ehud led are said to have been the Ephraimites from the hill country, not the people from right up north in Naft- Naftali, uh, you'll see. The next oppression is to be led by the authorities in the north of the country, and it will be the northern tribes, among others, that are called upon to deal with it. But this is in the south, and we should remember at this time that these affairs do not con- uh, concern the nation as a whole. Though, of course, the tribes were expected to be interested in the welfare and the condition of their, uh, uh, uh, of their neighboring brothers and sisters. The main enemy, therefore, at this time, uh, were the Moabites, and we shall look now at some of the features of Moabites. And here I proceed in my thinking, as I suggested this morning, that one way of discovering exactly who Moabites were, and what were their tendencies and their culture and characteristics, is to consider the Holy Spirit's comments on Moabites, not only at the time, but in the course of biblical history. So, if you come to the origin of the Moabites in the Old Testament, Genesis nineteen thirty to thirty eight, Moab was the son of Lot by his daughter. Of course, the infant Moab was not to be held responsible for it. But when we read that history, it is a sad, sad history indeed, isn't it? For Lot had come out with Abraham, his uncle, and, uh, set out with Abram, who, according to the New Testament, looked for the city that hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Abram had seen the vision of the glory of God, brought him out of Mesopotamia, and now to follow the Lord, to, uh, uh, receive and adhere to his promises, to remain a pilgrim in the land so far, and he did so, as I repeat the New Testament comments, he looked for the city that has the foundation, whose builder and maker is God. Lot joined him in that quest. But they went down into Egypt, you may remember, because there was a famine in the land. And there Abram fell into a temptation that readily assaulted him. He was afraid that if he acknowledged that Sarah was his wife, she being beautiful, the Egyptian Pharaoh might take her and, uh, kill Abraham for the sake of getting her. And so he came to a compact, it was he who suggested it, that when they got to Egypt, she should say, as he would, that she was his sister. It was a half truth, of course, but in the statement and in the context, that half truth was a lie. And he did it so that it might be well with him. Well, when he got to Egypt, the servants told Pharaoh that this man had arrived and his wife was exceedingly beautiful, and being asked, he said that he was, she was his sister, and Pharaoh took her. And the Egyptians treated Abram and Lot very well indeed, thank you very much, so that eventually they had much cattle and increase, and Abram became very wealthy, so did Lot. And then the Pharaoh discovered what Abram had done, and he was so disgusted that his servants took Abram and Lot to the border of the country and booted them out. Well, they came out, says Genesis, with much, uh, substance, rikuish is the word that the Hebrew uses, with much goods, if you like, you'll see. Mm. And that was very nice. They had plenty of cattle. But of course, they had so much cattle now that they couldn't dwell together. There wasn't enough grass, so they agreed in friendly fashion to split. And uh, Lot, uh, Abram gave Lot the first choice. He looked down and saw uh, the cities of the plain, and in those days before the Lord had overthrown Sodom and Gomorrah, there was, it was a very fruitful plain. There was much grass, and Lot naturally chose to go where the grass was, because, as I say, now he had, um, ra- large numbers of cattle. You have to take sensible business decisions, don't you? Got a family to rear. Food doesn't drop out of heaven. In those days, what you needed was cattle and grass, so you went where cattle and grass was. You have to be realistic in life, don't you? You do indeed. So happened, however, that the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly. It was perhaps a dangerous place to take children. Eventually, Lot got into Sodom, didn't he? We know the sorry story that developed there. In the end, the iniquity of Sodom was so great, the Lord decided to burn them out and fumigate the whole area. Sent the angels to Sodom and remembered Abram's intercessions on the behalf of his nephew. And sent the angels to deliver Lot out of Sodom. And Lot tarried, didn't want to leave it. And the angels persisted and said, come, Lot, we can't do anything until we've got you out. Well, he lost most of his family in Sodom. He came out with his wife and two daughters. His wife looked back aback and became a pillar of salt, as we know. The angel bid Lot make haste. Lot, according to two Peter chapter two, was a righteous man. God owns that he was a man of faith, in spite of his conduct. But he ended life in a cave, not only living in a cave, but living like a caveman. A man who had started out with Abram looking for the city that hath a foundation, whose builder and maker is God. Now you will remember that the story of Abram at this point is much concerned with the question of seed. As Abram pointed out to the Lord, Lord, you've promised to give me all this land to inherit it. What does sense does that make? How can I inherit it, seeing I'm such an old man now and have no son and heir? I can't inherit the whole place. I have no children to inherit it after me. What is the use of your telling me that I'm going to inherit the land, you'll see. And the Lord saw the point and said, no, uh, your steward will not become your heir and take over your property and inheritance rights. I will give you seed, the promised seed. And Abram believed the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness' sake. If that was Abram's preoccupation, having and preserving his seed, and how it was done, and the lessons it involved him in, in daring to trust God, and when his faith wobbled and he took other means to, to, to get seed, at Sarah's suggestion, took his slave girl Hagar and fathered a child, which was a sort of a big, very big wobble in his faith. And God had to teach him, no, Abram, well, Ishmael's a nice lad, I, I, I'll bless him, but it's not what I meant. When I promised to give you seed, I meant I was going to give you a seed, Abram. So Abram had to learn what trust in God is really. It is trust in God. And in the end, God left him till he was old and decrepit in body and far beyond fathering a child. And Sarah had already always been barren anyway, and God performed the miracle and gave Abram seed in the form of Isaac. Lot. Lot had a similar ambition. Alas. Or should I say his daughters had a similar ambition? To preserve Lot's seed. It's better to draw a veil over the whole proceedings. What a sad, sorry story of a drunken man producing his seed by an incestuous union with his two daughters. The origin of Moab then and Ammon. We mustn't blame the two boys, nor necessarily cast aspersions on the rest of the Moabites just because of that story. We shall take notice of what the Holy Spirit says of Moab in consequent centuries. But it moves me to turn aside, if I may, to remind myself and you of a lesson that is taught us in the book of Genesis at that point. Abraham had gone down with Lot into Egypt, told a lie about his wife, really. As a result, he came out with much substance. And then, of course, they had so much great substance that they couldn't dwell together, and Lot went off down near Sodom. And A- Abram went elsewhere, and God promised to be with him and bless him abundantly as he was, as he as he did. Then comes a story how a coalition of kings came to attack Sodom. And you know, they took away not only a lot of Sodom's people, but they took a- took away Lot and his wife and his substance, goods if you like. And when Abraham heard of that, he, he, uh, uh, called up his retainers. He had a lot of retainers. He was a very wealthy sheikh, and formed them into an army and went and brought, uh, uh, uh, and defeated the kings by surprise attack. Do you know he, he brought back Lot and his goods, you'll see, and the women folk. He brought back the goods and Lot, and the goods, and the women folk, in that order. Goods, substance. He came back. Unknown to him at the moment, the king of Sodom was about to come out and make him a very tempting offer. He was to say to Abram, Abram, you take the goods and give me the lives, the people, the lives. To anticipate that temptation, there came the great priest Melchizedek to Abram as he returned that early morning, and blessed, brought forth bread and wine, and blessed Abram in the name of God, creator and possessor of heaven and earth. And so filled Abram's heart and imagination with the reality of the one true God and all his created possessions and glory. When the king of Sodom came and said, you take the goods and give me the people, Abram replied, King of Sodom, I wouldn't touch your goods. You wouldn't give me not even a shoelace. I want your goods. All I take is what the young men have eaten. For in those first early days, God was teaching Abram, wasn't he? That in life we sometimes have to make choices. What is our main ambition going to be? Goods? Substance, as the old English has it. Or lives, people. I wonder what Lot would do if he had the choice all over again. For the sake of his goods, he went down to Sodom. Okay, it was a business decision and sensible in its context. It proved very dangerous. And in Sodom, he lost so many of his family, the people, the souls. And in the cave, what can we say about it? We too shall face that decision in life. We have to be realistic, we have to provide for our own, not to provide for your family is to deny the faith and be worse than an infidel. God help us to get the proportions right. Not to choose and put the emphasis so much on getting the goods that we lose the people, whether our own flesh and blood, or the people of God even, because we haven't got the time, nor the energy to give ourselves either to the teaching of the word or the pastoral care of the church. It was after that that God taught Abram the lesson of circumcision. With its message, its symbolic message of cutting off the flesh. Now, circumcision is interpreted in the d- in the New Testament as having meanings at many different levels. But it is interpreted by Paul in Philippians chapter three, We are the true circumcision that worship in the spirit of God and have no confidence in the flesh. But that story of the lesson about circ- uh, circumcision, its practice that God taught Abraham, is followed, of course, by the story of Lot, an exhibition of fleshliness in another sense. Because the flesh can show itself in various areas, can't it? It can show itself, as Paul points out in Philippians three, in the area of religion. And his un- his what appeared to be holy ambition to keep the law of God, he came to realize was an unholy expression of human flesh, independence of God in the things of the spirit. Fleshliness can appear in different guises. Sometimes I repeat that legalism such as Saul followed is not necessarily spirituality. It could be an expression of religious flesh. It doesn't take any difficulty of imagination to see the kind of thing that Lot p- eventually pursued was flesh in the other sense. So we come back to the rest of scripture. Excuse that digression, you see, but I'm an old man and I wonder. You'll see, ah, you'll see. So let's, um, come to Numbers twenty five. Balaam, for money, of course, he was a religious professional. Uh, Balaam taught the king of Moab to tempt Israel into eating things sacrificed to idols and into committing fornication. We should understand, gentlemen, that in this ancient world, the two things, eating things offered to idols and committing fornication, were often conjoined. Because as well as, uh, sacrificing to idols and joining in religious festivals and feasts by eating things offered to idols, many of these pagan nations also had sacred prostitution. We needn't go into the gory details of it, but you see, because of what is called sympathetic magic, they imagined that you could serve the God of fertility, and if you served him well, he would bless your crops, make them fertile, bless your animals, farm animals, and make them fertile. So how did you please the God of fertility? Well, it was a bit of a twisted logic, of course, but there were, that's what they did. And, uh, they had temple prostitutes. And for a fee that went into the coffers of the priests, if not of the God, you could avail yourselves of the temple prostitutes under the guise of religious service. That's how they did. It was widespread in the ancient world. Moab was no exception. I remember in my youth going on a tour of Greece, you'll see, and we arrived on the tour bus to Corinth, that is ancient Corinth, and I expect many of you have been there anyway, you'll see. And so we lighted, and we were walked to the marketplace, and there was a heap of stone and rubble in the middle of the old, what had been the marketplace, you'll see. Uh, the, uh, Greek guide, she said, you know, ladies and gentlemen, it would have been there that Saint Paul preached when he first came to Corinth, you see. And then turning around, she said, and you'll see the mountain behind us, ladies and gentlemen, Acrocorinth. Up there was a temple, she said, a very large temple devoted to Aphrodite, goddess of love. And there were a thousand priestesses there, open to all male comers that like to come. And turning to her, she said, I think Paul had a hard time when he came here. I was so moved. I went behind some of the ruins and got out my Greek te- my testament again and read how that great man of God, Paul, came to Corinth. What a lion heart the man had. To come into a middle of a system like that. It was a very refined city when he came, of course. It wasn't an old shanty town with a few Tesco's added on. It it it had a marble line pavement from the city down to the harbor. It was a place of culture as well as of commerce. It would have made some of our modern cities look like slums. But with religion, temple prostitution. You can understand perhaps why in his letters Paul has to tell Greeks, even Greek believers, that fornication is wrong. They wouldn't normally have known that. It never occurred to them to think anything like it. Not Greeks. He has to tell them it was wrong. And in the course of telling them it was wrong, he mentions, as we shall presently see, this incident in Numbers twenty five, When Israel, now getting very near to Jordan, and having to pass near by Moab, were tempted by the young ladies to join them, go home and meet papa and mama. They were pretty, you know. Some of them highly painted. And, uh, when they went, they joined in the festival rites, of course, and the food was offered to idols first, and then they partook of it. And then, of course, don't be old fashioned, they said. You know, done in the name of religion, it's okay. The men have only ate things offered to idols, but literally committed fornication. That's Balaam and the Moabites. Jeremiah is a slightly different angle. Jeremiah forty eight eleven and twenty nine. Moab has been at ease from his youth. And Jeremiah talks about the sins that beset him, his pride, his arrogance, his haughtiness, and his bad temper. He's been at ease from his youth. We shall remember it now in five minutes time, when we come to envisage the king of Moab and where he was when Ehud came to him. He was in his summer chamber, hmm, the cool of the day, enjoying himself. He didn't work very hard, did the king of Moab. He's a very large man, as the text reminds us. Judges three, uh, th- uh, chapter three. The king of Moab, a very fat man, killed through his belly. The next enemy commander will be killed through his brain. God goes for a man's strong point, or shall I say his weak point. King of Moab killed through his belly. I cite these various places where Moab is characterized in scripture. They seem to me to run true to a type all the way through. And what does the New Testament say? One Corinthians ten verse eight and again ten twenty one to twenty three. Paul has to warn the believers at Corinth against both moral fornication, literally so. Had to be told it was wrong. And, uh, spiritual fornication, which is taking part in idol worship or eating food that has been immediately offered to idols. And then supremely we listen to the voice of the risen Lord. As he dictates letters to the seven churches, I cite one of them, the Revelation two verse fourteen: Thou hast some that hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication. If thus our Lord sums up the character of Moab, then we can hardly disagree with his characterization. If I therefore said that in that sense and in these various senses in the plural, uh, that Moab speaks to us about our enemy, which is the flesh, you will understand the various senses in which I mean it. But now let us think of the tactics of Ehud was a Benjamite, and he was left-handed. And he had been the man that led the deputation to take the regular tribute to the king of Moab. That's one way of treating him, so long as you give him what he wants and indulge the old boy, then he'll let you get on with life. If you try and stop giving him what he likes, then that will be another story. But Ehud got fed up with taking in this tribute and thus perpetuating the domination of Moab. He made himself a little sword. It wasn't quite so little, but the details are given us. He made this sword, two-edged it was, what one edge didn't cut, the other did, and he bound it on his right thigh, under his clothes. And that was a good tactic, wasn't it? You'll see, with right-handed men, their sword would be in a scabbard on the left of the body. Hence, anybody no- knowledgeable in these things, if they had seen a man like Ehud come in and the king was watching him and he had stretched out his right hand to grab something on his left thigh, the king would have once, uh, been alerted that he had a dagger there and was going to do something terrible. Ehud was left-handed, so he didn't put the sword on his left thigh, he put it on his right thigh. And when presently he entered the king's presence and put out his left hand, the king would not perhaps have immediately realized what was going to follow. But we're told that he went and he delivered the tribute along with the deputation, and then he went out and sent the people away, but he himself turned back. And the historian notes the context, the con- uh, in which, and the position and the location. He turned back by the stone images, the carved images that were by Gilgal. The word for stone images means something carved out. Salim. You will perceive that those two places remind us of two uses of the knife, if I may put it that way. The carved stone images used to produce these attractive, to their their way of thinking, attractive images of their gods. And circumcision, the use of the knife to cut away the flesh. And I can leave you to think about the various levels at which the New Testament expounds the significance of circumcision. It was a sign and seal to Abraham of the righteousness which he had by faith. It didn't contribute to his justification. For his descendants, it was a token of physical descent from Abraham. That did not either contribute to their justification. If those descendants of Abram were ever going to be justified, their circumcision would contribute absolutely nothing, not even in those far off days. They had to copy Abram in their personal faith in God, such as Abram had before he was circumcised, and be justified by faith. Circumcision was also a kind of promise that the people who received it would be willing and determined and give every effort to the fulfilling of the whole law. To take the symbol of circumcision and then not fulfill the law was theref- rendered the symbol empty of meaning, as Paul argues in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter three. The circumcised Jew who boasts over the Gentile, that he, the circumcised Jew, is circumcised, and the Gentile is a sinner of the Gentiles, uncircumcised. Oh yes, religious pride indeed, if the Jew who is circumcised makes no attempt to keep the law anyway. That's a principle that has further extensions, doesn't it? To have the symbol of baptism and not walk a baptized life, for instance. To keep the Lord's Supper and forget what the Lord's Supper is about, and partake of the bread and wine unworthily. Symbols, after all, are only symbols. They have to be matched by understanding and honest fulfillment. And of course, Paul takes circumcision, as I have already quoted. We are the true circumcision that worship in the spirit of God and have no confidence in the flesh. For in Paul's day, there were those who, professing Christ- Christianity, professing to believe the Christian gospel, nonetheless had the idea that Gentile believers, though justified by faith, had somehow or other to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, otherwise they couldn't be saved. There came a great, uh, assembly in Jerusalem, recorded in Acts fifteen where the matter was settled by the apostles, who all agreed, in keep in, and Peter included, that Jew or Gentile, circumcision did not help contribute in any way at all to justification. Justification, be it for Jew or Gentile, was altogether and solely by faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. But now, that being so, let me draw your attention to what might be at first sight very curious apparent similarities between the story in Judges three, what Paul writes in Philippians three, And if it appears to you that to draw the similarity is fanciful indeed, well, say so, and if you wish, shut your ears for the next five minutes. I'm not saying that the one is a type of the other, gentlemen. Just calling your attention to a few facts. I leave it to you to make up your mind about the facts, whether or not they have any relationship. Ehud was a Benjamite. And talking of his prowess and attainments in Judaism, Paul cites the fact that he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, of course. Moab, the fat and fleshly man. Now Paul dis- discusses the whole question of confidence in the flesh. Look out for dogs, he says. Look out for the evildoers. Look out for those who mutilate the flesh. Paul is getting our rate and he's describing circumcision as a mere right. For we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. Though he says, of course, I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more reason. And so he cites the long list of his Jewish background. Hebrew of the Hebrews, tribe of Benjamin, you'll see, and so forth and so on, a Pharisee. And then his attainments of zeal under that system. Persecutor of the church as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Not faultless, but you couldn't have put a f- a a a a pointed a finger at him, so to speak. His tremendous achievements in religion and what he thought was spirituality. He now came to see it was but the product of proud, independent flesh. We are the true circumcision, says he, who are prepared to cut off that kind of confidence in the flesh. That I might be found in Christ, not having a righteousness which is of my own, but that which is of faith through Jesus Christ. That earlier righteousness which he had achieved by his own fleshly effort, he now kicks out of the window, counts it but refuge, that he might gain Christ and be found in Christ, not having the righteousness which is of his own making, by his effort to keep the law. That doesn't mean, as Paul goes on to explain, it doesn't mean that Paul there afterwards was careless as to whether the righteousness demanded by the law should be fulfilled in him or not. Faith for justification, faith and not works for justification, does not mean for Paul that he could go out and live just as he pleased and indulge himself because his salvation didn't depend upon his works. Faith in Christ for justification and the death of Christ on his behalf has motivate him, motivated him with an altogether different motivation, that he might know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death, if by any means he might attain to the resurrection of the dead. But now he has a further word to say. Not that I have already obtained this, this spiritual progress, or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on to the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature make this m- m- th- those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many walk, for many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as the enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. May Their God. God is their belly. If you sort of hear and feel raw flesh being cut by a sword at that stage, so you may. We are the true circumcision, applied at the level of conversion and justification by faith. Justification by faith to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness which we ourselves have fabricated, but that which is through faith of Jesus Christ. Leading on to the pursuit of Christ-likeness and fellowship with Christ. And a goal before us to attain to, because Christ has called us to that. Though none of us have ever reached it, perhaps never will reach it in this life, and only will fully attain it when we see the Lord. That standing in vivid contrast to some who profess Christianity, who in spite of it, minded earthly things. Beware of them, says Paul. Mark them, and be careful to follow us and those who perpetuate our example. If you think anything differently from this, well, wait on God, and God will reveal it to you. Ah, but when Ehud said that to King Eglon, went into his presence and said, I have a message from the Lord to you, sir. Whereupon the king rose and commanded all everybody to go out, and did his best to rise up from his throne. And the message from God to King Edgon proved to be a sword to his belly. If anyone is otherwise minded, says Paul, God shall reveal this to them, that I'm telling you is the truth. Some walk, enemies of the cross, their God is their belly. The king assassinated. Ehud went out and locked the door. The servants, finding the door locked, felt the king was relieving himself in his chamber there. So they were, they waited and waited rather than interrupt. When at length he didn't, uh, he didn't open the door, didn't summon them. They got anxious and opened the door themselves, and there he lay dead on the floor. That had given Ehud time to escape, get up into the hill country, and call the clans of the Ephraim in the hill country to come and follow him. And he led them down to Jordan and took the four fords of Jordan, and as the Moabites now in the west of Jordan tried to run back home east of Jordan, they killed them as they tried to come across the fords. Notice how the, um, story ends at the end of Judges four. So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. Mark how Philippians chapter three ends the long exhortation by Paul. Philippians three: As distinct from those whose God is their belly and mind earthly things, our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. These bodies of ours and our life in them, subject as they are to all kinds of movements and emotions and ambitions and whatnot, and often the scene of our defeats. But it shall not always be so. For we follow after the Savior, who can graciously develop his work in our hearts to give us victories even now, that the righteous requirement of the law shall begin to be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. Meaning, not trying to be holy by dint of our own independent, strong will and determination, which will prove not to be enough. Who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit, and have learned to rely upon the power of the Spirit of God to do his transforming work in our lives and make us nearer to the Lord Jesus. But we look forward to the complete victory, my brothers, my sisters, in time when the last battle, as far as we're concerned, shall be over. For we look for the Savior who shall transform the body of our humiliation and make it transform it, make it to be like his glorious bo- bo- pa- body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. The victory is ours, and the victory shall one day be ours completely and And forever. forever. Hitherto, then, my attempt to make some sense of the narrative story of the second great captivity. But my brothers, seriously enough, I say it, you have, um, thought long since about these things and may have come to very different conclusions from what I have come to. And first of all, in our question time now, which extends to a quarter to five, eh, I look forward very much to hearing your contributions. Yes, and there's a hand up already, that's a very good sign. Yes. Well, uh, well, brother, hopefully I'm not being too fanciful either. Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Uh, looking at your comparison, I was thinking about, uh, Benjamin being son of the right hand. That does indeed, yes. And, um, it's interesting, uh, that's also the hand of power. Yes. And the left hand being perhaps the one of weakness. Yes. And, uh, the fact that the Benjamite, the man, uh, you know, the son of the right hand who is weakness Yes. gained the victory. Yes, that's right. And so I think that's perhaps a picture there, uh, the fact that not only did Christ gain the victory in weakness by coming, but we can also, as Paul says, gain, uh, you know, my strength is made perfect. Perfect. In weakness. In weakness, that leads us to dependence upon the Lord, yes. Now, thank you very much for that comment. And a question here. Uh, this Contribution, I mean. Jericho, what was in the land of Ephraim, was it not? And that is why that tribe, uh, put this upon himself. Oh. You were talking about the location. Oh, I see. Uh, b- because eh eh eh eh eh Jericho is down near the river, yes? Yes. Yes. But if you try to go from Jericho up, because it's down by the river, and that's a long way down, you'll come up the, up the hill country, do you see, which you may remember from, uh, last week, was it, or earlier this week, or sometime or other. We were thinking of how Joshua led the troops up from Gilgal, that was near Jericho, to the relief of the siege at Gibeon, and that would have to be, uh, an ascent up the hill country. That was a very difficult ascent, and he led the army all night up that ascent, uh, to surprise, uh, the people that were besieging Gibeon. So, uh, Ehud, uh, in that space of time where of delay ran up the mountainsides. That is where Ephraim's territory was. Of course, it extended a long way up. Did it go all the way down to the river where Jericho is? Oh, now you'd have to, uh, cite me the actual geographical details in Joshua. I have to confess, at my age, I don't carry them in my head, you see. But, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, you could check it there as to how far east it went, eh, whether it went down to the river. But, uh, uh, certainly Ephraim occupied that hill country, uh, and he went to get the Ephraimites. Mm-hmm. He was the son of Benjamin, you'll see, a Benjaminite, and uh, Benjamin was one of Jacob's sons. Yeah. It's on. When you say that, that these different, like the Moabites only control part of the land, and it says in verse fourteen, so the children of Israel served Elon, the king of Moab, eighteen years. You just, you think that just part of Israel served Elon, or that the whole country? And he makes that statement several times as it goes through the judges. Yes. Those are just geographically specific, or? I think there it is very important to, to, uh, examine the tech- uh, uh, the, the, uh, terminology very carefully. I myself don't think that, uh, when it says the children of Israel, it means the children of Israel right the way through the land and all their possessions. Uh, those right up north by Hazor and so forth and so on. Eh, for Moab to have controlled the, that part of the land, it would have had to go right up north, you see. Uh, I doubt whether it means that. It simply means that if you came to, uh, London and you took London, for instance, one of these days the Americans might think of doing that, perhaps, but, uh, if you came and took London and you decided to eliminate the English, people would first of all take you to mean the English that lived around London, you'll see, uh, and not further north up, uh, to the Yorkshire that are a special breed of English, uh, s- still less in Scotland, you see. Mm-hmm. I think it means, and it's worth, uh, uh, investigating that and this period of Judges. It's worth investigating from that point of view. We stressed last, uh, in our first study of Joshua, that Joshua went all around the country taking cities, not necessarily destroying them, but seizing them, executing their kings and inhabitants. Of course, a lot of the inhabitants ran, ran off before Joshua could get there, but he never attempt to settle down anywhere, nor allowed any Israelites to settle down. Brought them always back to the base camp at Gilgal. But then in the second half of Joshua, he allots the territories, and you get the first hint of people going off into their inheritance. So we read that the people of Judah came, and among them came the Kenizzite, uh, Caleb, and asked to be given the por- portion of land that, uh, Moses had promised him. And he was given it, and he went off, and he conquered the giants that lived in Hebron and took it. And then he stimulated Othniel to go and take another part of the Judah, uh, territory. This is the beginnings of the tribes entering their inheritance, you'll see. And the text of Joshua, as we saw, is careful to tell you that that wasn't a lightning procedure. That took quite a long while, and even when Judah and Ephraim had been given their possession, uh, still seven tribes had been slack and not gone into their territories up north particularly, you'll see. Now, at the beginning of Judges, you get that, uh, uh, expression, uh, you see, after, after the death of Joshua, the people inquired of the Lord, that is the all tribal assembly got together as the, uh, uh, body in Israel that controlled things that related to the whole of Israel as distinct from individual tribes. The all tribal assembly got together and inquired of the Lord who should go up for us first, and the Lord said, Judah, go up first. Because that operation, as the tribes began to peel off from the united army, was a very ticklish operation. If they didn't do it wisely, uh, they could have opened themselves to attack from various nations like the Philistines down southwest, who had not been conquered, and so off, so on and so forth. It's worth, therefore, investigating the exact meaning in each context of the term the children of Israel. Yeah, someone there? Yes, sir. Um, when you talked about them, uh, crossing the board or keeping the mole bites from crossing the fjords, uh, I'm not sure there's more light that you could shed on it, but, uh, was it that it they they had to come down there and have a nozzle effect where they would only go a couple of places, and then they trapped them there? Or did you imply that it was in the river, or is my question too simple anyway? Oh, I think it's a practical question, sir. No, uh, uh, when uh, uh, Israel was brought across Jordan. Israel what? When Israel was brought across Jordan, Yeah. they didn't come across the fords. The river was in flood anyway, and it would have been a very difficult thing to get all the hou- thousands of Israel across the fords. It would have taken an enormous long time, even if there were immediate fords in that area. I'm not, uh, I'm not au fait with the geography o- of the Jordan at that point. There were shallow parts of Jordan where you could walk across, perhaps in, uh, an inch or six inches of water or a foot of water, you could walk across a ford. But how many there were and how frequent, I don't know. The rest was a deep river. And so Moabites fleeing for their lives would make for the fords. They would have known them, of course. But Ehud and his troops had had time to take the fords over, I dare say, a stretch of river, uh, several of the fords. How many, I don't know, but I expect, uh, uh, there were more than one f- ford, and get the, uh, the Moabites as they tried to cross them. Is there a hand over there, up there? Yes, sir. It, it would seem to me that from your presentation, Philippians chapter three is not a contrast between an Abraham and a Lot, so much as it is a contrast between the converted and the unconverted, though the danger of the flesh oppressing the believer is a very real thing as well. Would that be an accurate assessment? As far as the first part of Philippians three is concerned, it is altogether a difference between the converted and the unconverted. In describing his confidence in the flesh, as he says, I could have more than they, because Saul was in a position to talk to Jews, he was one, and as those who maintained that you had to keep the law for salvation, a vast number of them never kept it anything like with the punctilious care that Saul of Tarsus had kept it. So if they're going to be boast about their keeping the law, their attainment, Paul could say, I, I have more reason to boast than they have, more reason to have confidence in the flesh than they have. But then he gives his conversion experience, and he's learned to count all that matros, you'll see, for the sake of the excellency of the knowledge of his Lord. And it's a question of out, uh, basic salvation, isn't it? To be found in him, not having a righteousness which of, of my own, but that which is through faith of Jesus Christ. So that's the difference between true faith and conversion and being born again, if you like, between mere Jewish religion. When it comes to the second half, however, I think I would put it this way. Um, there were in the early churches disconcertingly soon people that professed to be Christian, but lived in the manner that Paul here castigates. You see it also in the later epistles. In second Peter, there were men who had come into the church. They were teaching sexual permissiveness. Peter devotes a whole chapter to them. Jude repeats much of which what Peter himself says, not only sexual permissiveness, but false religious ideas into the bargain. Now, if you say, were people like that genuine believers, well, their teachers weren't, but they obviously confused a number of genuine believers. If you got Greeks brought up in that kind of society, who needed to be taught when they became Christians that fornication was wrong, they wouldn't have known it from their own morality. And you get false teachers in the church that say it doesn't matter, and we mustn't be puritanical, then true believers can be led away. And that is the danger of the thing in the church, I would want to say. And the answer to it is not just mere negative, that's wrong. The answer Paul gives to it is the powerful dynamo of motivation to go on with Christ and experience fellowship with Christ that I might know him, the power of his resurrection, and then conformity to his sufferings. That is the, the positive power to, to counteract this tendency in the church. Amen. There is an ongoing, uh, also asking you to comment on something. I don't know how it is in your continent, but here there is a, um, a teaching linked with what we're talking about, these permissive teachings that are invading evangelical Christianity, that the word of God, God did not necessarily condemn, uh, same-sex union, but what was condemned was fornication, quote unquote, defining fornication as that sexual activity that took place specifically associated in pagan temples with temple prostitutes, and therefore not applicable to relationships between two people, be it heterosexual or homosexual, where there is a commitment between them. I don't know if that's going on over there in Ireland and England. That is sweeping evangelical Christianity today. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. We have the phenomenon in Britain, of course, as you may have heard, because the Church of England, from the Archbishop downward, are concerned very much with what threatens to split the Anglican Church throughout the world, the Anglican Communion, because in some countries, bishops have appointed clergy who are practicing homosexuals, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has asked them to desist. They may appoint a man who is a homosexual to a bishopric or to become a a clergyman, so long as he doesn't practice homosexuality. But it, uh, looks as if it will split the Anglican Church. It is the African bishops are taking their stand against it. Thank God. But as to that distinction, that clever distinction, it is false. Because Israel are not merely told not to go to pagan temples, they're told that homosexuality itself is wrong. And so does Paul teach in, uh, Romans chapter one. You'll see. Amen. Yes, hello there, someone there. So is... do any of these, uh, judges overlap each other, or is it all separate times? Oh, sir, that's a very interesting question. I'm afraid I should have to come back to you for the answer, because I have never worked it out myself. You see how careless I am, uh, to have ad- admitted it's a very worthwhile question to ask. Do we, do we know how long they were judges? We know how long some of them ruled. Eh, the figures that are given may be round figures. The term forty years occurs very often, which in Hebrew is often a round figure, but it becomes important when you compute various other things, uh, like the date of Solomon's temple and so on, and how many years there were between that, and when you compute how long Israel was in Egypt, and uh, so forth and so on. I do read, I say that in self-defense, I do read the learned, um, discussions, uh, by such people as as uh, Professor Herner and others. I read them diligently. I'm afraid my mind is not just capable of these things, and as soon as I've read them, I've forgotten it. I don't suppose you suffer from that, but it happens to some people, and I don't know, but it's worthwhile investigating, sir. Yes, somebody there? Yes, um, stepping back a little bit to the reference you made about Abraham regarding causing his wife to lie in Genesis 12, that, uh, when he left the Negev Yeah. the famine that he had gone down in Egypt. Mm-hmm. and asked her to lie that he, that she was his sister. Yes. You know, on the surface, that was perplexing to me that he would ask his wife a lot about that. But then later on in, in Genesis, I felt a little bit more comfortable because in Genesis twenty, he, she actually was his half-sister. Well, she was all the time his half-sister, yes. Mm-hmm. I had to find it that because he goes back to the Negev, inlet number one is there. Yeah. And same instance happens to him again, in which he answered a lie about him her being his wife. Yes, that's true. And it is revealed that he all the time was his half sister. That's right. Mm-hmm. Yes, that is perfectly true. Actually that, you call it a half truth, or it was actually true. But if you tell a half truth to mislead people as to the full facts, then it can be a form of deception, can't it? And in saying that her sis- she was his sister, that was half true, she was his half sister, but he did it because if Pharaoh, he thought that he was, she was his half sister, but he did it because if Pharaoh, he thought that he was, she was his wife, Pharaoh, who had a way of liking pretty women, uh, do you see, could decide to take Sarah, and if she was Abram's wife, he would have no compunction in killing Abram to get the g- the woman. It was to avoid that, that Abram told his wife to say that she was his sister, so that if Pharaoh took a liking to her, and here that comes the difficulty, if Pharaoh took a liking to her, he would take Sarah without killing Abram, and that was what Abram was prepared for. And what indeed happened? Pharaoh took a liking to the woman and took her without killing Abram, and that contented Abram, alas. He did it again with the Philistine king. There are three major periods in Abraham's life, and with this I must, uh, break off, uh, helpful as your comments are, but, um, there were three major periods in Abraham's life. In each of them he commits a wrong with a woman. Woman. And the wrong committed is, lies at the very center of what each of those periods is concerned with. The first wrong, of course, is with Sarah as she went into Egypt, and it's, uh, is connected with that whole problem of goods versus life. In the second great period of his life, it's, uh, the wrong he committed when he listened to Ha- to Sarah and took Hagar and fathered Ishmael, with all the trouble that that brought upon him. And in the third major period of his life, it was that qu- thing that he did again, saying Sarah was his sister, and did it with the Philistine king. You'll see that also is related to the major, uh, concern of that third period. I wish I had the time to explain what I mean, but I don't, uh, but it is an important feature of the Abrahamic story. But now the calendar, if not the clock, tells me that I must finish now, and, uh, since we are, um, ten minutes gone over time, then, uh, we don't begin, uh, our next session until five ten, ten minutes past five. It will be a very short period, but never mind.