Judges 3:7-31 "Jesus, Our Unexpected Rescuer"

1:10James Bond is a flawed hero, so if he were real and if he lived in the ancient world of Israel, he could have been one of the judges because all of the judges were flawed heroes. This morning, we're entering into the hero stories of the book of Judges, and we'll be covering three. Of those 12 judges, three of those 12 heroes today, Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar. Poor Shamgar. He gets exactly one verse in the Bible. The least of all the judges, if you look at verse 31, after him was Shamgar, the son of Anoth, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an ox goad, and he also saved Israel.

2:01He killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad. Now, if you didn't grow up on a farm, you might not know what that is. Here's a picture of an ox goad. It's a long stick with a point on the end that you used to poke the oxen and get them moving. The other end is a flat part that you scrape mud off of stuff with. If you kill 600 people with a machine gun, that is noteworthy. If you kill 600 people with a samurai sword, that is special.

2:29If you kill 600 people with a piece of farming equipment, that's really impressive. But the main thing we learn here is that Shamgar saved Israel, which means that Israel needed to be rescued, but that's all we learn. Thanks, Shammy. In verses 7 through 11, we hear the story of Othaniel, Caleb's son-in-law. You may remember him from chapter 1, the courageous man who took a city in obedience to the Lord, and the Lord was going to use his faith. And his courage again. Because as we heard, they entered into the cycle that we discussed.

3:06The people of Israel rebelled against the Lord. So the Lord raised up a king and a nation to oppress them for eight years. We're familiar with that. We often get oppressed eight years at a time. God raised up Othniel to deliver them, and God gave them rest for 40 years. But Othniel dies, as all people do, and so they enter back into the cycle once again, which is what is happening in verses 12 through 14, where the story of Ehud begins. He is Israel's second judge, the second flawed hero of the book.

3:48And he is the focus of Judges 3. See, in many ways, James Bond, if you're familiar with those books and those movies, he is an expected hero. Right? He's smart, he's athletic, he's cunning, he's everything that you would expect a hero to be. But Ehud is not. He is an unexpected hero. And so what we're going to learn from Ehud's story is that God is the one who saves. Sure, God used Ehud, but Ehud was a very unlikely rescuer, an unexpected rescuer.

4:26The story is really about God, because ultimately God is the one who saves. So here's where we're going this morning, outline of the sermon. God's salvation has three parts. God remembers us, God rescues us, and God gives us rest. So let's look now at verse 12, where we'll see that God remembers us. And the people of Israel again did what 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.

5:06Now, why did this happen? Why did the people again do evil in the sight of the Lord? Well, verse 12 doesn't tell us. If you back up to verse 7, I think we get an idea there. Look at verse 7. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. Well, Baal was the most commonly worshipped Canaanite God. He was considered the God of agriculture, usually symbolized by a bull, representing strength and fertility. During periods of famine, people assumed that Baal was angry with them, so he was withholding the rain.

5:48And Asherah, we see the plural here, Ashtaroth, but Asherah was Baal's female consort. She was the mother goddess of the sea, worshipped by wooden poles known as Ashar. Poles. So, when you see those in Scripture, that's what it's referring to. So, why did the people start worshiping idols? Well, it's because they forgot the Lord their God. And here's the thing: that's not something that happens overnight. You don't go from worshiping God wholeheartedly one day to worshiping Baal and Asherah the next day. That is not how that works. That's not how sin works.

6:32Think about adultery. I mean, generally speaking, you don't have a great, committed, fulfilling marriage on Friday and commit adultery on Saturday. That's not how that works. There is a decision here, a compromise there. It's a slow fade over time. And in the same way, we don't go from worshiping God wholeheartedly on Sunday to worshiping idols on Monday. It's a slow fade. Perhaps it begins with neglecting corporate worship, skipping church for various reasons. Then you start neglecting Christian fellowship. You just don't spend as much time with other believers as you used to.

7:22And then maybe you start neglecting personal spiritual disciplines, reading God's Word, praying, fasting. Or maybe it's the other way around. You start neglecting the personal disciplines, and then before long you start neglecting the corporate disciplines. In my Christian life, I've seen it happen both ways. But no matter what path we take, we don't go from wholeheartedly worshiping God to worshiping idols overnight. It happens over a period of weeks, a period of months, a period of years.

7:59In Israel's case, the people served God while Joshua's generation was alive, and then they forgot God. Othaniel delivered the people. They had rest for 40 years, but then they forgot God and did evil once again. That didn't happen overnight. Friends, that is the root of our problems. The root of our problems is forgetting God, forgetting his character, his word, his works. We forget to remember. That's one reason God commands us not to neglect meeting together, to exhort one another daily, to pray together, to listen to God's word read and preached.

8:44It's why God calls us to read and meditate on his word day and night. It's why there are so many calls in the Bible to remember. It's one of the most common words in scripture. The Apostle Peter took that. Reminding ministry very seriously. I want you to look at what he wrote. He says this in 2 Peter, I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me.

9:22And I will make every effort so that after my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things. Oh, friends, that is my goal as a pastor. Is that if Jesus calls me home, I want you to remember, I want you to recall all of the things that I've preached and I've taught to you because I reminded you so much. Parents, that should be our goal for our children: that if something were to happen to us, or, of course, one day we will eventually be gone, that our kids can remember and recall these things because we reminded them so often of the truth. Because we are a forgetful people.

10:07Brothers and sisters, do you tend to forget God throughout the day, throughout the week? Do you have theological amnesia? Forgetting great spiritual truths that you know and that you believe in your heart, but just get put out of mind between Sundays. Do you have gospel amnesia where you forget the good news of Jesus Christ in your day-to-day struggles? This is a constant battle for me. Living and acting at times as though Jesus did not, in fact, raise himself from the dead.

10:49I think that happens to all of us. We are forgetful people. So I don't know where I would be without God's word in my life on a daily basis. I don't know where I would be without you, my church family, to remind me of these truths on a weekly and multiple times a week basis, because I am a forgetful person. We all are. But here's the good news: we may forget God, but God never forgets us.

11:26He never forgets us. He remembers his people and the promises that he made to us. We saw this earlier. Look back at verse 9. But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel who saved them. God did not forget his people. When they experienced the consequences of their sin and they cried out to the Lord for deliverance, God raised up Othaniel and he saved them. Later on, he raised up Sham.

12:01And in just a moment, we're going to see God raise up Ehu to save them. We may forget God for hours, for weeks, for months, even for years, but God will never forget us. Even when you feel forgotten by God, he will not forget you. Look at these encouraging reminders from Isaiah 49. But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?

12:45Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. God says, how absurd is it to think of a woman forgetting her nursing child? But that's possible. Improbable, but possible. God says, even if they forget, I will never forget you. Friends, you may have felt forgotten by God in the past. You may feel forgotten by God even this morning when you think about your chronic illness, your depression and anxiety that you don't seem to be able to shake, your discouragement. With your relationships, the fact that you want to be a father, you want to be a mother.

13:37For these and many other reasons, you may feel forgotten by God, but rest assured, God will never, ever forget you. You can be certain of that. So, Israel has forgotten God, they've done evil. As a result, God raised up the Moabites to conquer and oppress them, and they need God to rescue them. So, that's exactly what he's going to do through an unexpected deliverer. Look at verse 15. Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, a left-handed man. The people of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon, the king of Moab.

14:27So, God's people need to be rescued. He raises up this man to rescue them. And it's very apparent here that God's ways are not our ways. Because God raises up this man, Ehud, and what we learn is that he is the son of a Benjaminite. Well, the name Benjamin means son of the right hand. How about that? Ehud is not right-handed, he's left-handed. Where are my left-handed people in the congregation this morning? I see you people.

15:01Your messy handwriting and your weird scissors. It turns out only 10% of the people on earth are left-handed. You know, when I learned that Joshua was left-handed, I said, that makes sense. But here's the thing: in the Hebrew, this word, this phrase translated a left-handed man, that doesn't just mean that he prefers his left hand, it means that there's something wrong with his right hand. It was withered, it was deformed, it was not functional in some way. And that is a big deal because, not just because of the irony that he's a Benjaminite, a son of the right hand, not just because God promises to save his people by his strong right hand, not just because God promises to vanquish the people's enemies by his right hand. It's a big deal because your right hand is your fighting hand. That's the one that you wield a sword with. So surely this left-handed man, this physically limited, handicapped person, God can't deliver Israel through him, right?

16:16Look at verse 16. 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. Now, this is James Bond's stuff right here. Of course, James Bond wouldn't have been doing this himself. He had a quartermaster, Q, who made his explosive chewing gum and put guns in the headlights of his Aston Martin and stuff like that. But Ehud is not a British spy, so he does not have a quartermaster. In fact, he's not a spy at all. He's just a common man, a common man with a physical limitation. But God is going to use him, and so he makes what the ESV calls a sword, but it's more like a dagger. This thing is 18 inches long, a cubit long. It's double-edged, and the text says that he straps it on his right thigh under his clothes. That's going to be significant later on. Look at verse 17.

17:21And he presented the tribute to Eglon, king of Moab. Now, Eglon was a very fat man. One of the things God wants to be very clear about in this text is that Eglon is fat, very fat. And that is humbling. Israel did not get conquered by a warrior like Maximus Decimus Meridius of Gladiator. No, they got conquered by a fat guy. And they have to pay tribute to him. When we rebel against God, He humbles us.

18:03And why do you suppose that Israel chose Ehud to bring tribute to King Eglon? Well, friends, we don't know for sure, but I'm going to guess that they're so scared of King Fatty that they wanted to send somebody who could never be seen as a threat. Whatever might happen, this guy who can't even use his fighting hand, this guy is not going to cause a problem. We don't want to be seen to be causing problems. We don't want them to think that we're causing problems. We're going to send this guy with a withered right hand. Look at verse 18.

18:37And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute. But he himself turned back at the idols near Gilgal and said, I have a secret message for you, O king. And he 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.

19:07More James Bond here. Ehud gives the king no reason to suspect that anything is amiss. Ehud arrives with his entourage, he pays the tribute, and he leaves without incident, like a good, obedient, conquered person. But then he turns back at the idols. Do you notice the subtle message there? He turns back at the idols. And he says he's got a secret message for the king. The king sends all of the attendants out of the room. Now, think about this. I want you to imagine some random foreigner representing a conquered nation rolling up to the security gate at the White House and saying to the attendant, I have a secret message for the president.

19:58Is there any way that guy is getting an audience, a private audience with the president? Of course not. That's absurd. But this is the wisdom of God. Nobody sees Ehud as a security threat. He can't use his right hand. What's he going to do? What could possibly go wrong? Verse 21. And Ehud reached with his left hand, so the king suspects nothing, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. And the hilt 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 dung came out. Then Ehud went out into the porch and closed the doors of the roof chamber behind him and locked them. What a graphic story. Kids never let anyone tell you the Bible's boring. But what a picture of how God works. Israel forgets God and does evil, so God humbles them by having fat King Eglon conquer them. Fat King Eglon pridefully thinks that he's untouchable, that Ehud can't possibly represent a threat to him, and so he ends up dead on the floor of his roof, laying in his own poop.

21:23Ehud, still giving James Bond, closes and locks the doors to the roof chamber and slips away undetected. The next part is one of my favorite scenes in the Bible. Verse 24. When he had gone, the servants came, and when they saw that the doors of the roof chamber were locked, they thought, surely he is relieving himself in the closet of the cool chamber. Translation, surely he's sitting on the toilet. He's always sitting on the toilet. And they waited till they were embarrassed.

22:03Your Highness, do you need more toilet paper? He shouldn't have eaten those pot pies. Every moment they waited, secure in their belief that Ehud couldn't possibly pose a threat, Eglon is dying, and Ehud is getting away. By the time they finally force their way in, Eglon is dead, and Ehud is gone. Two truths I want you to glean from the story thus far. First, God is the one who rescues us. God is the one who rescues us. Israel got themselves into this mess by forgetting God and sinning against him. That is the reason God raised up the Moabites against them. They got themselves into the mess, but they could not get themselves out of the mess. That is exactly the same situation with us and our sin. We have gotten ourselves into a mess by rebelling against God, and we cannot get ourselves out of the mess we've made. On our own, we cannot stop sinning against God. And even if we could, it would not make up for the sins that we've already committed. We are trapped in sin. We are trapped in sin's consequences. Only God can rescue us. And thankfully, he does.

23:30Second truth, God uses unexpected people to rescue us. God uses unexpected people to rescue us. Ehud was not some great warrior like King David, who would slay Goliath the giant and be credited with slaying tens of thousands more besides him. No, not at all. Ehud was chosen by Israel and was unsuspected by King Eglon and the Guards because he is the last person that anyone would have ever considered a threat. But there's the wisdom of God for you. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, God's foolishness is wiser than man's wisdom. Who would have guessed that God would rescue his people through a man like Ehud?

24:25And who would have guessed that God would rescue his people once and for all through Jesus of Nazareth? Isaiah 53 tells us that he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Born in the little town of Bethlehem, raised in the backwater of Nazareth, he had a nobody for a moment and a carpenter for a dad.

25:06But the child who was born in a stable and laid in a manger would grow up to heal the sick, to raise the dead, and ultimately, after his own brutal execution, to raise himself from the dead. Friends, only God can rescue us. And he. Rescues us through unexpected people. No one suspected that Ehud could rescue them, and no one suspected that Jesus could rescue them either. Human nature is to look to the obvious saviors of the world. The people who are strong, brilliant, wealthy. That's what we do. But God does not save us through the strong, the brilliant, and the wealthy. King David was strong. His son Solomon was brilliant and wealthy. But neither of them could save us from our sins. They couldn't even save themselves from their own sins.

26:15But Jesus could, and Jesus did. God rescued us through Jesus of Nazareth, an unexpected person, because his ways are not our ways. So, friends, don't make the same mistake of overlooking Jesus. Don't make the same mistake that Israel made in overlooking Ehud. Don't overlook Jesus, the unexpected Savior. Don't assume that Jesus cannot rescue you because he does not look strong, because he does not appear brilliant to the world, because he had no money or wealth. Jesus is the only one who can rescue you from your sins and their consequences. So look to him. Put your faith in him. Trust in Jesus alone. Because when you do, God will rescue you. And more than that, God will give you the rest that you have been looking for. Let's finish here in verse 27.

27:18When 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 10,000 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 80 years.

27:59When Ehud returns from his mission, the first thing he does is he tells the people, Follow after me. Why? Because he's such a great warrior? No, not at all. Look at what verse 28 says. Follow after me, for the Lord has given your enemies, the Moabites, into your hand. As we saw a few moments ago, God is the one who rescues us. He is the one who gives us victory over our enemies. And so they do it. They follow Ehud and they do what they've been unwilling and unable to do up to this point. They fight and defeat the Moabites. Look at that description in verse 29.

28:43And they killed at that time about 10,000 of the Moabites. Look at this. All strong, able-bodied men. You know, unlike Ehud, who is not able-bodied, it is God who rescues us, and He rescues us through unexpected people. And when He rescues us, He gives us rest. After 18 years of oppression by the Moabites, they get 80 years of rest. An entire generation is born, lives, and dies, knowing nothing but the rest that comes from God. Friends, that's all we want, isn't it?

29:29I mean, if you're young, that may not sound that great to you. If you're over the age of like 23, rest probably sounds awesome. But I think all of us, that's what we really want. We want rest because our bodies, our minds, and our souls are restless. Sin has affected every part of us, our bodies, our minds, and our souls. Our bodies are restless. They get sore and sore. Tired and sick, and eventually wear out completely and die.

30:06Our minds are restless. They race until the last second when we fall asleep at night. We wake up in the middle of the night and our minds are racing. When we get up the next morning, our minds are back at it, thinking about that thing that we're anxious about, that obligation, that trouble that we've got. Our souls can't rest. They want peace, but our souls don't have it because we're bearing the guilt of Adam's sin and we're bearing our own guilt. We want rest because our bodies, our minds, and our souls are restless. And so we will spend our lives looking for rest unless we find rest in God.

30:52Because so many would-be rescuers offer themselves to us, don't they? Diets and workout plans, meditation exercises, and mattresses, self-help books, science, medicine, they all promise to rescue us. They all promise to give us the rest that we're looking for. And don't misunderstand me. You will probably feel better if you eat cleaner, if you exercise, if you invest in a good mattress. And if you talk to a friend or a counselor, those things all offer a measure of rest.

31:39But they cannot rescue you from the underlying problem, which is our sin. And because they can't rescue us from our sin, they cannot give you the perfect rest that you're looking for. But there is one who can: Jesus, the unexpected rescuer of our bodies, our minds, and our souls. Look what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 11. He says to you this morning, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

32:30Friends, Jesus promises us the rest that we are looking for, and he invites all of us, those of us who are already his followers, and those of us who are not yet his followers, to come to him. And if you come to Jesus, you will find rest. If you come to Jesus, and as long as you keep coming to Jesus, you will find rest for your soul. For your mind. And one day, when Jesus returns or when you die, rest for your body as well.

33:12That is what Jesus is offering to us. Friends, we need to be saved because of our sin, but we cannot save ourselves. And other people, no matter how strong, no matter how smart, no matter how wealthy they are, they cannot save us either. Only Jesus can save us through his perfect life, his sinless life, his death in our place on the cross for our sins, and his resurrection from the dead. Only Jesus can save us. So, friends, for the first time, or yet again this morning, put your trust in Jesus. Put your faith all in Jesus, the unexpected rescuer.

34:03Let's pray. Father, we confess to you. That we have looked everywhere for salvation. We have looked to products to save us. We have looked to vacations to save us. We have looked to people and money and religion and so many different things to save us. And yet, every time we have looked to those things, we have still found that we are restless. As Augustine said, our hearts, our souls, they are restless until they rest in you.

35:14And so we pray this morning that you would help us to find our rest in Jesus. Jesus, you said that if we came to you, you would give us rest. We believe that those words are true. So I pray for those who have not yet come to Jesus and are restless this morning. I pray that today would be the day that they come to Jesus and they experience the rest that you promised them. I pray for Christians who are here, who, in spite of their genuine belief in you, Jesus, their True faith in you, they still find themselves anxious.

36:06They still find themselves restless. They still find themselves agitated and exasperated. On a regular basis, God, I pray that they would learn, that I would learn, that we would learn to come to Jesus to find the rest that we're looking for. Oh, God, thank you for remembering us. We often forget you, but you never forget us. Thank you for rescuing us. We got ourselves into this mess, and yet you came and you saved us. Thank you for promising and giving us the rest that we are looking for. Help us to take hold of that today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

37:01Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.