Judges 3:12-30 Ehud, the left-handed deliverer Good morning! Raise your hand if you re left handed. Ok, let s make this really simple, On behalf of all the right handed people in the room, I m going to ask all of you to get up and quickly move to the far corner of the room today s reading from Judges has us feeling nervous about letting you sit to close. In all seriousness, I m a little bit jealous. You re among an elite class of only 10% of the world! Did you know Leonardo De Vinci was left handed? And Michelangelo. Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix. Napoleon and Julius Caesar. Winston Churchill, and my mother-in-law. Yeah, it s true. You re a special group. And our reading this morning adds Ehud, the Benjaminite to your number. 1. Judges intro a. This book gives us the story of Israel s leaders after Moses and Joshua, but before the Monarchy. And like with our famous left-hander, Winston Churchill, there s an inevitable let down after the stalwart leadership of these two great Israelite leaders. After all, can you tell me who was Prime Minister of England immediately after Churchill? b. The book also wrestles with the question of inheriting the Promised Land. Israel has failed to completely drive out the foreign nations and now they must live among them and God declares that these pagan neighbours will be a thorn in Israel s side (2:3). c. Yet we see in Judges the very same startling reality that we have seen throughout our journey with God s people from Egypt to the Promised Land God remains faithful to Israel despite her repeated unfaithfulness. His transcendent memory of the promises he made to Abraham, Joseph and Moses are strikingly contrasted
with Israel s gold fish memory, each generation swimming laps around the same fish bowl of idolatry and unbelief read 2:10. 2. Pattern of Judges a. There s a pattern to the narrative in this book. Ben walked us through it last week, and it s the basic outline of our passage in chapter 3 this morning. It looks something like this: i. The people abandon the LORD ii. iii. iv. God punishes them by raising up a foreign power to oppress them The people cry out to God for deliverance God raises up a deliverer or judge to rescue them v. Rinse and repeat (reinforcing the reality that Israel was not truly repentant) b. But it s more than just a cycle that resets each time its starts over, it s more like a downward spiral. There are 12 judges beginning with Othniel, the model of what a judge should be, and descending like the turning of a cork screw until we reach Samson, the most morally compromised of them all. Read 2:18 (more corrupt than their fathers) 3. Ehud s Narrative a. Ehud is the second of these twelve judges. Why don t we look closer at the story of Ehud. Turn with me now to Judges 3:12. Read 3:12 then summarize to 17 Eglon, king of Moab was a very fat man. You could say Eglon has grown fat on the tribute that Israel sends him year by year. Four times the narrator mentions tribute, which is a tax paid to a powerful ruler to ensure safety and protection a tribute which rightly belongs to Yahweh, the true king of Israel!
Now in response to the people s cries, the LORD raises up a deliverer, Ehud, a left-handed Benjaminite. There s a paradox already here as we meet our supposed hero. The tribe of Benjamin means literally son of my right hand; Ehud s lefthandedness is contrary to his tribe s identity. He is a man at odds with himself. And notice how his narrative is riddled with deception and intrigue; verse 16: he hides a sword on his right thigh (no search), verse 19: he turns back in order to present a secret message to the king, verse 23: he locks the door behind him, deceiving the servants as he flees the scene. He s more like James Bond then like Joshua! And notice the geographic details of the narrative. Twice the narrator tells us that Ehud passes by the idols near Gilgal (19+26). Idols at Gilgal?!? Only a generation ago Joshua had set up an alter at Gilgal made of twelve stones from the river Jordan in order that Israel might remember what God had done there! Now the idols serve as landmarks, and the monument to Yahweh is a distant memory. b. But despite these tensions in the narrative, verse 28 remains a definitive statement of faith. Read it. Do you remember when Israel was preparing to sack Jericho in Joshua 6? These were God s words: And the LORD said to Joshua, See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor (6.2). Ehud also speaks in the perfect tense a statement of faith that God will accomplish the victory this day. 4. Hebrews 11.29-40 Men of Faith a. Yes, it s true. Despite their deeply flawed character, these men, these judges are men of faith. That s what the writer of Hebrews in the New Testament tells us. Do you remember the words from our first reading? Read Heb 11.32-33. What they
accomplished, they achieved by the grace of God, and by his hand. And though they are commendable for their leadership and faith, yet still look down at verse 39ff. Read 39-40. They did not receive what was promised? What does this mean? This is what the writer says in chapter 9: Therefore [Jesus] is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant (9.15). The people of Israel have inherited a new land, but it is not an eternal inheritance; and they have received God s covenant, but they cannot remain faithful to it. Only Jesus Christ can be the fulfillment of what was promised to Israel and to us namely the promise of redemption from our transgressions under the old covenant. b. We have a fascination with super heroes in our culture right now don t we? Batman, Superman, The Avengers billion dollar brands, and masculine role models aplenty. And it s easy to sweep these Old Testament heroes up into that category of heroic type for our sons and daughters to emulate. But are the judges meant to be Old Testament super heroes? When we teach their stories to our children in Sunday School, should we be putting their feet in the shoes of the judges? I hope you re beginning to see the danger in doing so! God uses these men and women for his kingdom purposes despite their far from perfect actions just as he will do the same with you and I! And look how Hebrews continues immediately following where we left off in 11:40. Read 12.1-2. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith! [Who is our role model? Our role model is Christ. Explain.]
Judges 3:15 tells us that the LORD raised up for Israel, a deliverer named Ehud in order to rescue his people from the Moabites. Colossians 1:13 tells us that God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Ben told us last week that the judges enabled Israel to survive, but never thrive in the land. Friends, we were created to thrive under Christ s good governance and grace in this land and in the eternal inheritance yet to come. 5. One more lens on Judges: The Book of Ruth a. I would like us to make one more stop before we wrap things up. Flip with me to the last page in the book of Judges Judges 21. Good, now flip the page. What do you see? The Book of Ruth. One commentator calls it a brief calm in the midst of a storm. He s referencing the fact that it s sandwiched between two much larger books with a great deal more action and drama Judges and 1 Samuel. In the Hebrew bible, Ruth is placed with the writings towards the back of the canon, but the Christian Old Testament has moved Ruth to where it fits chronologically in Israel s history. Look at 1:1 with me, In the days when the judges ruled... The story of Ruth takes place near the end of the 200 year period of the Judges. It s about a Faithful Israelite woman, Naomi, and her foreign daughter in law, Ruth, returning to Israel after they are made widows in a foreign land. Ruth refuses to abandon her mother-in-law, whom she loves. Beginning at 1:16, she says read it. There s no life insurance for these women, no social security. They survive by gleaning what is left over after the harvesters of a family relative have passed through the fields. But Ruth s faithfulness to Naomi catches the attention of this
wealthy kinsmen, Boaz, and when Ruth finally places herself at his mercy, he takes the honorable step of agreeing to marry her because he is a close relative of her deceased husband. Boaz is called her redeemer. To redeem is to buy back something which belongs to another for a price. 20 times in this short book, a variation on the word redeem appears. Friends, if we re going to start looking for biblical heroes and role models for our adolescent boys, let s start with Boaz. Boaz s voluntary act as redeemer is a picture for us of what we saw on a far grander scale when we read from Hebrews 9:15. Jesus Christ is our great Redeemer whose voluntary act required his death in order to redeem us from our transgressions under the old covenant! b. Ruth is a book about the hidden and continuing providence of God. God is working in the humble, ordinary circumstances of everyday life to redeem his people and fulfill his promises. Do you know already how this ordinary family fits into the big picture of God s plan? Ruth 4:17 tells us that a son was born to Ruth and Boaz, and he was the grandfather of King David! Ruth, this foreign nobody finds her name among the genealogy of Jesus Christ! God uses this simple domestic narrative in his grand plan to bring salvation for all the nations. Ruth and Ehud. What a contrast! God uses the cunning, devious Ehud to slay the corpulent Moabite, Eglon. And lest we forget that God can work in any circumstance, he uses the faithful Moabite woman, Ruth, to prepare his people for move from judges to Kingship in anticipation of our great and final King, Jesus. Friends, some of us are left handed, but most of us are right.. Some of us God raises up to public office as judges or politicians or. Some God uses in much more humble, intimate, but equally dramatic and dynamic ways. For the cost that Christ
paid to redeem each of us was the same, regardless of our status or office because we are each loved beyond measure by the God who redeems.