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In the book of Judges and chapter ten. Book of Judges, chapter ten and verse three. And after him rose Jair the Gileadite, and he judged Israel twenty and two years. And he had thirty sons that rode on 30 ass coals. And they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth Jaer until this day, which are in the land of Gilead. And Jaer died and was buried in Carmel. Chapter eleven and verse four.
And it came to pass after a while that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. And it was so that when the children of Ammon waged 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 chief, that we may fight with the children of Ammon. Verse twelve. And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come unto me to fight against my land? And the king of the children of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah, because Israel took away my land when he came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even unto Jabbok and unto Jordan.
Now therefore, restore those lands again peaceably. And Jephthah sent messengers again unto the king of the children of Ammon, and he said unto him, Thus saith Jedna, Israel took not away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon, but when they came up from Egypt, and Israel walked through the wilderness unto the Red Sea and came to Kadesh, then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land. But the king of Edom hearkened not, and in like manner he sent unto the king of Moab, but he would not. And Israel abode in Kadesh.
Then he walked through the wilderness and compassed the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and they pitched on the other side of Arnon. But they came not within the border of Moab, for Arnon was the border of Moab. And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon, king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon. And Israel said unto him, Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land unto my place. But Sihon trusted not Israel to pass through his border. But Sihon gathered all his people together and pitched in jackals and fought against Israel. And the Lord, the God of Israel, delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them.
So Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country. They possessed all the border of the Amorites, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan. So now, the Lord, the God of Israel, hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess them? Wilt thou not possess that which Chemosh thy God giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God hath dispossessed from before us, them will we possess. And now art thou anything better than Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive against them?
While his heir dwells in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroa and her towns, and in all the cities that are along by the side of Ammon hundred years, wherefore did he not recover them within that time? I therefore have not sinned against thee, that thou doest me wrong to war against me. The Lord, the judge, be judged this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon. How be it, the king of the children of Ammon hearkens not unto the words of Jessa which he spake unto him. Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jessa, and he passed over Gilead and Manasseh, and passed over Mis- uh, Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. Jethro vowed a vow unto the Lord and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver the children of Ammon into mine hand, 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, it shall be the Lord, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his hand, and he smote them from Aroa until now come to Linith, even twenty cities, and unto Abil Haranim with a very great slaughter. So the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. And Jephthah came to Mizpah unto his house. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with donkeys. 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 rent his clothes and said, Alas, my daughter, thou hast brought me very low. Thou art one of them that troubled me. For I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. Verse thirty nine: and it came to pass at the end of two months that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow, which she had vowed, and she had not known man. Chapter twelve and verse eight.
And after him, Ibsan of Bethlehem judged Israel, and he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters he sent abroad, and thirty daughters he brought in from abroad for his seven sons. He judged Israel seven years, and Ibzan died and was buried at Bethlehem. Verse thirteen: And after him, Abdon, the son of Hillel, the Pirathonite, judged Israel. And he had forty sons and thirty son sons, who rode on three score and ten asscoats.
And he judged Israel eight years. And Abdon, the son of Hillel, the Pirathonite, died. And he was buried in Pirathon, in the land of Ephraim, in the hill country of the Amalekites. God give us wisdom in the understanding of his word. We come now to yet another captivity under which Israel fell in the time of the judges. And following our normal pattern, our first task is to reconnoiter the enemy. The enemy on this occasion was chiefly Ammon, national half-brother of Moab.
But if you will trace Ammon and his history through Holy Scripture, you will find prominent among his characteristics these two features. Ammon is to be found constantly trying to filch and steal away the possessions and inheritance that rightly belonged to Israel. We have had an outstanding example of it in the passage that we have just read. For Jephthah's long argument, the thing that distinguishes this campaign from all the other campaigns of which we have record in this book, that long argument about history is all concerned with the ques- the question of disputed possession of certain territories in the Promised Land.
And Ammon was for trying to dispossess Israel of Israel's rightful inheritance. We shall find Ammon doing that precise thing on other occasions too. And then we shall find it's a very marked feature of Ammon that he is for everlasting pouring scorn and mockery upon the Israelites and seeking to disgrace them and to make them a public shame. All part of the same technique, perhaps. Let us see that in actual black and white.
In the first book of Samuel, for instance, in days after the times of the judges, we read in chapter eleven and verses one and two, how that Nahash the Ammonite came up and encamped against Jabesh Gilead. And all the men of Jabesh said unto Nahash, make a covenant with us, and we will serve thee. Nahash the Ammonite said unto them, on this condition will I make it with you, that all your right eyes be put out, and I will lay it for a reproach upon Israel. Stern man, wasn't he?
Yes, he would make a covenant and allow them to live. If they let him put out one of their eyes and not only rob them of half of their eyesight, but also deliberately made fools of them. So that from this time forward, when anybody came to to Jabez in their city, they would say, what an extraordinary one-eyed show this is. And, and, and how do you explain this? And then all the story would be reeked up again, how they lost the battle, and they were such weaklings that they couldn't resist Ammon, and he made them look fools, and there was nothing they could do about it. Always trying to make them ashamed and to look fools.
Saul, among the few good things he did in his life, delivered Israel from that potential shame by beating the king of Ammon in battle. Some years later, so tells the book, the second book of Samuel in chapter ten, David was on the throne of Israel and Judah. And it came to pass after that that the king of the children of Ammon died, and Hanun, his son, reigned in his stead. And David, being the warm-hearted fellow he was, sent an official ma- uh, embassy along, you know, to comfort the king of Ammon over the death of his father.
It was, of course, a personal gesture from one king to another. It was also a political gesture of kindness and friendliness from the head of state to the head of state in the other country. But the newly, uh, appointed king of Ammon said to himself, along with his servants, thinkest thou that David means to do you honor and your father honor? Surely not. He sent to spy out the land and to overthrow it. So nothing would do, but not the king of Ammon took the servants of David, shaved off half of their beards, cut off their garments in the middle, and, uh, sent them away.
What fools they did look, and how embarrassed they must have felt with half of their beards shaved off and their clothes cut off, uh, in the middle. And the men we read were greatly ashamed. It led to a great ding-dong battle, I tell you. No, uh, was David content until Ammon had paid by defeat for this further attempt to shame Israel. You will remember, won't you, how Nehemiah tells us of his experience of the Ammonites and of Tobiah in particular.
Nehemiah chapter four, it is. Nehemiah and company were busy rebuilding the temple and rebuilding the city. And it came to pass when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, says Nehemiah, he was wroth and took great indignation and mocked the Jews. And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria and said, what do these feeble Jews? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they make an end in a day? And will they revive the stones out of the heap of rubbish, seeing they are burned? Whereupon Tobiah, not to be outdone in sarcasm, said, oh, these feeble Jews.
I mean to say for what? If a fox went out and brushed his tail against the wall, it would all collapse, these poor Jews. And try to use the same tactics of making them feel positive fools, in order to get them to stop this work that they were doing and give up an attempt to build the temple and the house and the city and the wall. You shouldn't be deceived necessarily into thinking that Tobiah the Ammonite and company really in their heart of hearts thought it was a foolish thing.
Pouring scorn on it all and making it look foolish and daft was but a tactic eventually of trying to stop it and then taking it over. For Nehemiah tells us that he not, Nehemiah now and chapter thirteen, that when on one occasion he came back to the city, if you will please, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of God, being allied unto the aforesaid Tobiah the Ammonite, had prepared for him a great chamber where aforetime they laid the meal offerings, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes of the corn, the wine, and the oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites and the singers and the porters and the eve offerings for the priests.
And if you please, this same Tobiah who had poured such scorn on the efforts of the Jews to rebuild city and temple, now, if you please, he got himself installed in the temple. And the things of God and the sacred vessels had all been thrown out, that the buyer, if you please, might install his household furniture and wares in one of these grand side chambers in the very temple of God. We have found in our passages, I have said, so that while the buyer, uh, the Ammonites were forever pouring scorn on Israel, give them half a chance, and they would tell you that you were outright fools to lay claim to this inheritance.
You had no right to it, feeble and uneducated lot. For what were you doing meddling in things that you didn't understand? And hey, presto, when you said, oh yes, I think we are fools. Well, oh, well, well, perhaps we'd better give it up then. What, Ammon came in and took you. Thus it was that God had to speak through Jeremiah the prophet, as he records it in his forty ninth chapter. God had to say this to Israel, of the children of Ammon. Thus saith the Lord, has Israel no son? Has he no heir?
Why then does Malcolm possess Gad, and his people dwell in the cities thereof? Do you perceive what God is saying? What's this? How comes it that Ammonites are, are, are now in Israel's possession? Has Israel no heir to take over possession himself? How come that Ammon has installed himself in what is really Israel? And so, as we watch them down the centuries, we perceive that the Holy Spirit has been pleased to highlight this characteristic of Ammon, for everlasting trying to pour scorn on Israel, make them feel fools, so as secondly they might come and persuade him to give up his inheritance and let Ammon take it over.
It is, of course, a fact, and we should be less than realists if we forgotten it, that all down the Christian centuries, there have not been wanting men who likewise have tried and sometimes have succeeded in stealing from Christian folk what is their very birthright. Let's mention some of the things that are our birthright. What about the very fundamental matter of our forgiveness of sins that is one of the initial blessings, one of the fundamental blessings, and our certainty of salvation?
But oh, how many a man has stood up, and that in the name of God, and said, nonsense, you ignorant crowd. You oughtn't to believe that you have forgiveness of sins, and you mustn't be sure. Until dear good Christian folks have felt a wondering, well, oh, oh, perhaps we, perhaps we oughtn't to be sure of forgiveness. They have allowed men to filch from them this glorious bit of their inheritance, this certain knowledge of the gift of eternal life and of peace with God and forgiveness.
Or take another great part of our spiritual inheritance. It is the fact, is it not, that in this Christian age, every believer is a priest. And what a glorious bit of the inheritance it is. Not now, as in Israel's day, when you wish to come and present your sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, you had to come not directly, but through a professional priest. And he presented your sacrifice, and he took the gift and went into the holy place. And always you came at second hand through this intermediary. Not now.
It is a gift bought for us by the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, that every single believer is a priest. He is right to come immediately into the presence of God and address him without any mediator, save Jesus Christ our Lord. And yet the sad fact is that there have risen up Ammonites, shall we not call them so, legion in number, that have said, oh no, what are you daring to do? You mustn't handle the sacrament. You must give that over to a professional.
And they have robbed millions of dear Christian folks of an inheritance that was purchased for them by the blood of Christ. For thus it is written, unto him that loveth us and loosed us from our sins in his blood and has made us a kingdom priest to God and his Father. And what shall I say of all those rascally Ammonites who, when God gave his people an inspired Bible for their prophet, have dared to take it away, and have forbidden God's people to read it, and on times have forbidden them to read it on pain of death.
Could you imagine any bigger filching of a God-given inheritance. Till they have succeeded in telling generations of people and getting them to think that it was a sin for them to touch, possess, or read this holy book. Now, when we watch Ammon's tactics in Old Testament days, it is virtually impossible for us to forget that Christendom has known and knows still and shall yet know enemies whose tactics are still very much the same.
And how will you fight that kind of enemy? And what is the special qualification of a man who would be deliverer in that circumstance? The interesting and noteworthy thing of Jephthah's, uh, leadership is that, unlike the other men of whom we have read, before he went to war with the Ammonites, he exchanged diplomatic notes. I think the ambassadors had a foot-weary time in those days. As ambassador plied backwards and forwards with notes from one man to the other, and the argument was about the facts of ancient history.
Oh, you say, well, count me out right now because I don't like history. Fusty old stuff that you have to do at school. And what any use is it to us anyway? What matter if William the Conqueror came over and Harold looked up at the wrong time and got an arrow in his eye? What, what, I mean, what is the point of it to a modern generation? We want something relevant, not ancient history. Well, I know the feeling. But if we're going to be capable leaders and helpers amongst God's people, sooner or later we shall have to come to see the vast importance of history.
Listen to it here. Grounds of difference, ground of attack by the Ammonites was this. Look here, Israel, she said, you have no right to these lands. You've come and stolen our property. Do you think you're doing, my man, daring to claim this as your inheritance? Sorry, said Jethar, and with all due respect, but haven't you got your ancient history wrong? Let me remind you of a few facts, and this in particular, that we have not stolen your land. The facts are as follows, that when we were coming these hundreds of years ago through the wilderness, we came to Moab, and we came to Edom, and at that stage, so the records say, there was diplomatic approach made to Edom and Moab to allow us to come through, but the kings of those lands wouldn't let us go through, and we had to go around them.
And then the king of Sion came out, and we tried to be peaceable, but he wouldn't let us be peaceable. And in the end we were attacked and we fought, and God gave us what we now have. And moreover, aren't you rather late in the day coming with these accusations? For Israel has been in the land, uh, many, many, many decades now, hasn't she?
And when did we hear this before? Why didn't you try to recover it before? Thus and thus and thus, said Jephthah, as he argued his case on the facts of what was now ancient history. And against all medieval and modern Ammonites, we may well find ourselves having to do precisely the same thing.
You will remember perhaps that Paul, on occasion, wrote a letter to the believers in Galatia. It is a letter, this epistle to the Galatians, that is frequently quoted. That is, certain parts of it are frequently quoted. Lovely verses that are on the tip of every Christian's tongue. I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. Yet I suspect you have noticed that starting towards the end of chapter one and going on practically through the whole of chapter two, there's a long, long set of verses, and they are all about church history.
I went up to Antioch here, says Paul, and I met Peter there, and James said this, and Cephas said something else, and I said not at all, and they said this, and then we got down to a convention at Antioch, and Peter did that, and I said this. How you say, ah yes, I know it's there, but I normally skip that bit and go on to the interesting verses. All right. But you may find days when you don't, when you'll need not to skip those verses. Yes, I know they're ancient history, but there are times when they become vitally important. Let me tell you a story. I once was visited by a not so young gentleman who told me when he came to see me that he was thinking about, uh, changing his church and entering into an order and become a monk.
Said he, of course, you know, you evangelicals, um, you think you're the only folks saved, but, um, I'm saved as much as you are. I don't believe you have to have any, uh, emotional experience at all to be saved. You're just saved, um, through observing the sacraments. Oh, I said, how very interesting. And one thing bothered, borrowed another, and, uh, presently he told me of his desire to join an order, perhaps a contemplative order, maybe even a silent order. So for something to say, I said, well, you know, that's interesting, but the church that you are proposing to join is a church that curses me. Oh no, he said, come no. Yes, I said, that's true.
Because I said, you know, I'm one of those people who maintain that you can be saved and be sure of it. Oh well, he said, yes, of course. Uh, well, I mean, you shouldn't be sure of it. Oh, I said, well, that's very curious. Well, didn't you tell me just now that all you had to do was to get baptized and take the sacraments, and you could be sure of salvation too? Oh, well, no, it's not quite like that, he said, because it, it does all really in the end depend, doesn't it, on, on, on your works and how you behave. Well, I said, does it? Well, yes, of course, he said it does. So I said, well, what about this old chap?
And being horribly crafty, I started to read, uh, to him from Romans chapter four. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. There you are, he said, you see, works, it does depend on works. I said, half a minute, old chap, let me read you the next verse. But to him that worketh not. Well, what about him? Oh, he's... That's very curious. Well, didn't you tell me just now that all you had to do was to get baptized and take the sacraments, and you could be sure of salvation too? Oh, well, no, it's not quite like that, he said, because it, it does all really in the end depend, doesn't it, on, on, on your works and how you behave.
Well, I said, does it? Well, yes, of course, he said it does. So I said, well, what about this old chap? And being horribly crafty, I started to read, uh, to him from Romans chapter four. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. There you are, he said, you see, works, it does depend on works. I said, half a minute, old chap, let me read you the next verse. But to him that worketh not. Well, what about him? Oh, he's no good, he said. Oh, I said half a minute.
Let me finish the verse. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned unto him for righteousness, to him that worketh not. Well, he said, I don't know what that means. He said, I, I, I didn't know that was in the Bible. Well, I said, yes, it is there. Look at it. I read it again. How well, he said, that's the trouble with you chaps. You're always quoting isolated verses here and there, do you see? And that isn't the way to read the Bible. You see, it's no good folks like you and me trying to understand it anyway, he said.
You see, but I'm sure that Paul didn't mean that. You see, actually what happened is that the church gave us the Bible, and if you would understand it aright, you must let the church interpret it to you. And you see, if you took that to the church, she would surely be able to explain it that it doesn't mean to him that works not. I said, but half a minute, old chap. Church gave us the Bible? Well, she said the church gave us the Bible, and therefore you must let the church interpreted it, interpret it. I said, but it, is that historically true?
That the church gave us the Bible? Well, she didn't give us the Old Testament to start with, did she? But come, I said, tell me, if I had been out in the Middle East in the days when Saint Paul the Apostle was alive, and God's spirit had made me uneasy in my conscience, and I, I was wanting to be saved, wanting to find forgiveness, and one day I came across the Apostle Paul, and I said, oh, thank the Lord for this. Now here is Paul. Now I said, now Paul, tell me, please, old chap, um, how do I get saved? How is a man justified before God? And suppose Saint Paul had said to me by word of mouth what he here writes in his book.
What he said, gooding old boy, it's like this, to him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness. Said I to my friend, could I have believed that, just like that? And believing have been saved? Or would I have had to say, well, now I hear what you say, Paul, but of course I shall now have to take that to the church to get the church to interpret it for me. Oh, he said, you'd have to take it to the church, of course. I said, of course you wouldn't. So let me read you what the apostle says about this very thing. And I read him those verses from Galatians chapter two, that long watch of church history.
And I did thank God that was in the Bible. How Paul says that he went up to Galatia. Now, what was it all about? Well, Mark, he says as he opens his epistle, I am an apostle not from men, neither through men. That is, says Paul, I got my apostleship not from men. I got it from God. I got it from the risen Christ, direct from the risen Christ. I didn't get it from men. But someone might have said, oh no, Paul, you didn't get it from men.
It came originally from God, but didn't it come to you through the church? No, he says it didn't even do that. It didn't come from men, and it didn't come through men. I got it direct from the Lord. I didn't get it from the church. Oh, said my friend, but he must have done. I said, old chap, it's no good you're hitting your head against a rock. I'm reading you ancient history, and it happens to be inspired ancient history. And this isn't Paul telling us, but I didn't get it from the church nor through the church. And he says, I went up to Jerusalem, and there I met, uh, the veritable pillars of the church.
Um, there was Peter there, and there was James and Cephas and John. Now listen. But from those who were reputed to be somewhat, whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me. God accepteth not men's persons. They, I say, who were of repute, imparted to me Nothing. An inspired piece of ancient history that tells us quite straightly and clearly that Paul did not get his gospel from the church.
Not even from the other apostles. He got it direct from Christ. I said to my friend, would you, would you happen to be knowing why Paul makes all this fuss just at this stage in this particular letter that he got his gospel from the church? No, didn't not from the church, but from the Lord. No, he said. Well, I said, let me tell you what it's all about. Paul is here discussing this very matter of how a man is right with God. Is it by the works of the law, or is it by faith through grace? And because people's very salvation depends on it.
He is at pains by God's guidance to relate to us these facts of ancient church history, that we might see it clearly. And oh, what a wonderful thing it is. Don't let anybody filch it from you. You want to know how you can be saved? You may come to God's word, penned by an inspired Apostle Paul. You may come direct to it yourself and read it and understand it and believe it and be saved. You don't have to come to the church, for it is not true that the church gave us the Bible.
Oh, I want to say it again. But there is still a lot of loose talk around the place, and sometimes it masquerades as biblical scholarship. But it borders on the double think and the double talk to say the church gave us Bible. It did do no such thing. The church is composed ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine percent of people that never were inspired. It was to them that God gave his word. To the church God gave his book, and he gave it to a small handful of inspired writers, and in the New Testament, most of them apostles.
Or get hold of it. This is not some ancient, musty academic, irrelevant stuff. Our Christian liberty. The liberty of a man before God. The very basis and channel of his salvation is at stake. Stand fast in the freedom which Christ has made you free, and don't you ever let yourself be entangled again by any Ammonites in a yoke of bondage. Thus far then, Jephthah and his lessons from history.
The Ammonites wouldn't listen, and Jephthah, according to the principles of his age, had to take to the sword. I repeat, that is not our method, to take to the sword, not to the literal sword. Allow me to observe once more, we shall need to know our spiritual swords well, shalt we, and be able to use them. There is not a comma in the whole of God's word that is not practical. I know what folks mean when they say, oh, but we want something practical. I know what they mean, and I know what I hope they don't mean.
I hope they don't mean that God Almighty has written a lot of stuff in this Bible that isn't practical. Because that borders on blasphemy to suggest that there's anything in this book that is somehow less than useful. And each in its day, each part in its day will be found necessary to the man of God, that he may be truly furnished, ready unto every good work. But let's turn now and think of the episodes that come at the end of Jephthah's great victory.
Two of them in particular, and they are very sad. First of all, there is the question of Jephthah's daughter. And you say, this is where I wake up tonight. I wanted to know what he was going to say about Jethro's daughter. And in particular, please, will he say, did Jethro sacrifice his daughter on the altar, or didn't he? And alas for you, he isn't going to say it. Would be interesting to know, wouldn't it, whether he did or not? But if it were important for us to know, the matter would have been put beyond any doubt, wouldn't it?
Sometimes we ask the wrong questions when we come to the Bible, and because they're the wrong questions, we don't get any answers. What was it all about? Well, this much I can say safely. And just before Jephthah went into battle, he offered God, if I may put it crudely, a blank check. He said, Lord, if thou wilt indeed deliver the children of Ammon into mine hand, then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.
Why do you think he put it that way? Why didn't he say to God, look, God, if you will give me victory in this battle, when I get home, I will sacrifice to you my fattest bullock, my best sheep. Now, he didn't put it that way, did he? He left it open. He said, Lord, when I come home, whatever comes out of my house first, I'll give it to you. And the man was sincere. He wasn't hoping, when I do hope when it, when, when I get home first, the first thing that will come out is a tiny little chicken. Of course not. He was feeling very devoted to God.
It was an hour of peril. He was risking his life. And he was saying, God, if you'll give me victory, then take what you like, God. Well, Jethro would have believed that the Lord could have controlled what came out of his house first. He was indeed inviting the Lord to control what it should be. He was in fact saying, God, you take what you please. And God took. God said, thank you, Jephthah.
I'll take your daughter. You say, but why ever her? He's only got one daughter. Beside her, he had neither son nor daughter. He wasn't like those other judges we read of. There was one man, he had thirty sons and thirty daughters, and another fellow, he had forty sons. See them all parading down the street, you know, on the Sabbath morning, each on his own ass. Whoo, what a proud father he was, Forty. Jether only had one daughter. And she wasn't married, so he doesn't have any grandchildren either.
And God took her. You say, was she sacrificed or or was she put away in perpetual virginity? Well, you make up your own mind about that. It has the same effect, doesn't it? She never married. She had no grandson. And never did there become a dynasty, a royal dynasty from Jephthah. You say, what do you mean? Why this? Let me remind you what Jephthah had said on an earlier occasion.
When the Ammonites first began to make life uncomfortable for the Israelites, they sent and called Jephthah. And Jephthah, because of a family squabble and dispute, had been earlier thrown out. And now his brethren were obliged to eat humble pie and come and plead with Jephthah to come back and save them from the, uh, Ammonites. And Jephthah saw his opportunity, didn't he? Hmm, fine, he said. Hmm, different story now, isn't it? Some years ago, and you didn't want me. Some years ago, and you wouldn't have me, in fact, and you chased me out.
Are you sure you want me now? And of course, they ate the humble pie, and they said, well, let's bygones be bygones, old chap, and if only you'll come back. And, uh, right how he said, I bet I'll tell you on one condition I'll come back. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, if ye bring me home again to fight with 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 shall be witness between us, surely according to thy word, so shall we do.
Now, if you have some any sense of history, you will, in a sense, draw your breath hard when you read those verses. Your mind will go back a few years to, to Gideon. And you will remember that when he came back victorious from the battle, his, uh, friends and neighbors had come to him and they said, Gideon, old chap, you be lord over us, you rule us. And Gideon had said, not on your life. What are you talking about? I rule you? When it is the Lord that should be ruling you.
Never, said Gideon. I'm just a servant that God has raised up to do this particular battle. I will not usurp the place of lordship over you. Times have changed, haven't they? We dwelt on it last occasion, that after Gideon went, there arose Abimelech, and somebody called Abimelech, Abimelech, my father is king. Somebody was already thinking of grasping the opportunity to set up a kingship and a hereditary monarchy.
Funny that, isn't it? How people will sometimes do that when they were free before, unnecessarily set up a monarchy. But at this time, God's moment to set up David on his throne had not yet come. God was ruling them as he pleased in those days, by direct theocratic rule. Gideon wouldn't have dreamt of usurping the Lord's place and setting up a dynasty. But as I say, times had changed, and Gideon's successors, yes, Abimelech tried it, and it was a disaster. Under Jephthah, well, it doesn't raise a hair.
Nobody doesn't, eh, nobody even realizes that the thing is wrong. Jephthah merrily stands there and says, well, if the Lord gives me victory, shall I be your head and rule you? And there isn't anybody there that's got a clue that it's wrong. Oh, yes, yes, they said, yes, yes, yes, you be ruler, you be head. And if Jephthah had been head and ruler, Jephthah would have stood in great danger of doing what Abimelech wanted to do before he was killed, and that is to set up a dynastic succession and hereditary monarchy.
Jester went out to fight. Lord, he said, you give me the victory, and I shall be the king. Really? That's a nice proposition, isn't it? Lord, you be give me the victory, then I be king. And Lord, you can have what you like. Said the Lord Jethro, I'll give you the victory. I shall take your daughter. Before she is married, you will never have a son. You will never have a grandson, and you will never be in the position ever to set up an hereditary monarchy.
Thereby hangs a lesson. Jephthah was a great man of faith, and he wrought a victory. Enough then that Jephthah sink into obscurity, if need be. God didn't want any movement, starting with Jephthah and going down into history as the great Jephthah movement. And Christendom would have been wiser, don't you think, to have learned a lesson? Oh, what great men there have been in the course of history. What mighty deliverers has God raised up from time to time among his people, when his people have been sore oppressed by unspiritual men and unspiritual institutions?
All great deliverers that have won back for God's people at large their great inheritance. I think of a man like Luther, great courageous man of God, standing against the vast forces of darkness and winning back for us the knowledge of justification by faith. I thank God for Luther. What a debt every one of us sitting in this room tonight owes to Luther. But... Why should I be a Lutheran?
Will I be trying to maintain the Lutheran movement? Alas. Oh, I think of, I, I think of, uh, Wesley. Oh, tremendous man of God. And what a tremendous debt we owe to the dear. And what, uh, and what glorious fellowship, even though the man's in heaven, as we stand and sing his hymns. And feel the glories of a personal salvation and an intimacy with God that Wesley knew. We praise God for his tremendous efforts in the gospel when England was sunk in darkness and in formal religion. Bringing us deliverance from it and into the realities of a personal experience of salvation and a personal experience of God.
Opening up to us the vistas of the possibilities of personal holiness by the power of God's spirit. Oh, what a tremendous debt we owe to Wesley. Do you think it's been for the best that there should have been a Westly movement. Why should I attempt to keep going a Westly movement? I think of that Irishman, I know not what to say about him, whose name was J.M. Darby. What a giant of an intellect he was.
And what a learned scholar. Some who talk despisingly of him, they never, they never knew a tenth of what Darby forgot. How valiantly he brought us back to showing us the privileges of every believer as a priest. And the importance of following the New Testament when it pronounces upon church matters. Brethren, that doesn't mean that I ought to be maintaining a Derby movement of it.
That is not God's mind. God is not interested, I say it reverently, God is not interested in maintaining movements. His spirit will raise up men in the course of history to deliver his people. Let us thank God for them and enjoy the vo- fruits of their victory, but let us not fall into the mistake of trying to bolster movement. I know we can be loose in our terminology, and we can sometimes say things that we don't really mean, but let's be careful, because what is common parlance in the end becomes theology. I've heard folks thinking, and they talk like this, oh, ah, but that's brethren doctrine.
Did you ever see a brethren doctrine? Oh, seriously. Oh no, we can't agree what what what he says because that's not the view of the brethren. Who are they? And who is the brethren movement to be a criterion of what the truth is? The way to preserve God's holy word and truth and all the insights that he has given us through history is precisely not to form a movement round it. God forbid that we should talk as though we were members of a chain store of shops or something, and think of evangelists going out to add another one to our assemblies.
What are you trying to do? Maintain a movement? Let me remind you of the lesson of history that there isn't a movement, but what that movement has gone wrong. And if folks succeed, as some of them appear to be doing, if folks succeed in making a brethren movement, it will fall as all other movements have fallen to modernism and other sad and sorry things.
No, we no need to to to to maintain a movement. We have need to get to a word of God, and let each generation read it, thankful for the benefits of the past, and yet coming back always to God's word to obey in order what God's word proclaim. Thus shall we get s- be kept safe. And thus, instead of being encrusted with the organization of a movement, we shall be free to obey and to move forward with God and his spirit into the further reaches of the future until the Lord comes.
Jephthah didn't quite see it like that, did he? Poor man. I shall let you go now. But one little thing. Jephthah, after his victory, got insulted by some of his brethren. He said, I'll teach them a thing or two. So down to the folds he went. And as the men came over, he said, say, Siboleth. And he couldn't do it.
He said sybileth. He's like some Englishman that can't pronounce oh do we. And you can tell they come from England because they don't know how to say it. And he said, try shibboleth. No, sybileth it came out. So he cut his head off. And the irony was that the chap was trying to say the same thing, and it meant the same anyway. But no, couldn't we rest content that it meant the same? The chap wasn't one of his clique, didn't come from his short close dialect, didn't come from his little village, didn't come from his little part of the country.
And if you don't belong to our little part of the country, and you don't say things exactly like we do, even though you mean the same, the worst for you. And he killed him. And he thought it was a victory. And you say, well, how far have things fallen? There were days when, yes, Ehud had stood at those forts, and in the name of God he had slain the king's enemies, and then people rightly rejoiced. Slain the Lord's enemies. What a sad day when a man of faith stands by those same falls and thinks it's a victory when he slaughters his own fellow men of faith just because they don't speak with exactly the same phraseology and dialect as his little group groups speaks.
did. For we must not underrate the fact that Jester was a man of faith, and Hebrews records it to his everlasting credit. The fact that that man of faith could make such a ghastly mistake of that and think he was doing right is a warning to us.
