Faith Like Jephthah
In the year 2085 BC, God gave Abraham an amazing promise:
“To your offspring I will give this
land.” (Genesis 12:7) (NIV)
About 600 years later, in 1446 BC, God spoke to
another man, named Moses. And God … said to Moses, “Say to the
Israelites...
… I have watched over you and have seen what has been
done to you in Egypt. And I have promised to bring you up out of your
misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites,
Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’ (Exodus
3:14-17) (NIV)
Forty years later, when the Israelites, the descendants of
Abraham, were about to enter the Land that God had promised them, Moses told
the people this:
All these blessings will come on you and accompany you
if you obey the Lord your God:
You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the
country.
The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of
your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the
lambs of your flocks.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
You will be blessed when you come in
and blessed when you go out. (Deuteronomy 28:2-6) (NIV)
So the promise to Abraham was that his descendants would be given
land, and that in that land, everything they touched would be blessed.
Not only that, the chapter goes on to say that they would have protection over
their enemies. Enemies might still try to attack
but the Israelites would always defeat them. Verse 7 says:
The Lord will
grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before
you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.
(NIV)
So, this was the promise. In the same chapter, Moses told
the people that if they chose not to follow God, then their lives would
be cursed. They would have disease, fever, inflammation,
confusion, heat, drought, mildew, tumors, madness, blindness, failure,
oppression, hunger thirst and poverty, and they would be defeated by their
enemies.
Well, the Israelites entered the Promised Land in 1406 BC,
and about 300 years later, a mighty warrior named Jephthah rose up. When the king of the Ammonites came with
his army to attack Israel, the people went to Jephthah and asked him
to be their leader against the enemy. Jephthah
agreed, and we read his story in Judges 11:
… Jephthah sent messengers to the Ammonite king with the
question: “What do you have against me that you have attacked my country?”
The king of the Ammonites answered Jephthah’s messengers,
“When Israel came up out of Egypt, they took away my land … Now give it back
peaceably.” (Judges 11:12-13) (NIV)
“This is what Jephthah says: Israel did
not take the land … of the Ammonites. (Judges 11:14)
(NIV)
“Now since the Lord, the God of Israel, has driven the
Amorites out before his people Israel, what right have you to take it over? …
whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will
possess. (Judges 11:23-24 NIV)
To paraphrase, the enemy said “you stole our land.
Give it back.” Many people would have
looked at the size of the enemy army and given over the land peaceably.
But not Jephthah. Instead, Jephthah answered, “We didn’t steal
your land, God gave it to us. And whatever God has given us, we will
possess.”
Where did Jephthah get his courage? How could
he be so certain that he was right?
He had faith.
Faith in the promise of God. Faith that God had given the
Israelites the Land, faith that they would be blessed in the
land, and faith that any enemy that came against them would be defeated.
We can learn 2 things from Jephthah.
First, Jephthah knew what his blessings were and he knew what a
curse was. When the king of the Ammonites wanted to come in and
steal some land, an alarm went off in Jephthah’s head – warning, warning,
this is a curse!!!
He didn’t listen to the lies of the enemy.
The enemy said- you guys took OUR land- now give it
back. Jephthah didn’t question for a moment…
did we take their land?
Are we being unfair to the Ammonites?
Or, is God mad at us? And does God want us
to give our Land to these guys?
No, in Jephthah’s mind, he knew what a curse was and he knew
what his blessings were. And he remembered that, even in the
Promised Land, enemies would still sometimes rise up and try to steal.
Deuteronomy 28:7 says:
The Lord will
grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before
you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. (NIV)
Many times we face problems in life, and the first thing we think
is…
God must
not want me to have this blessing … or I would have it by now.
Or God
must not want me to have it … or it would be easier to keep it.
Or I
must have done something wrong … God must not be happy with me.
And we beat ourselves up like this. Instead of fighting the
devil, we fight against ourselves. And then in the end we just give
our blessings over peaceably to the
enemy. But Jephthah didn’t do that.
Jephthah recognized it immediately for what it was – the
enemy was trying to steal his blessing. And he would not allow
it. Jephthah boldly rose up and told the other king:
…whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess.
(Judges 11:24) (NIV)
Hebrews 11 says this:
… anyone who comes to
(God) must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who
earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6) (NIV)
Most Christians believe that God exists, but
never receive blessings because they also believe…
that God takes away
Or that God punishes
They don’t deserve to be blessed
But Jephthah received
because he knew what a blessing was, he knew what a curse was, and he
believed that God rewards those who seek Him.
The second thing we learn from Jephthah is that he knew
that God GAVE it to them. Jephthah said, whatever the Lord our God
has given us we will possess- “has given” is past
tense. God gave the Israelites the blessings in
1406 BC when they entered the Promised Land.
That sounds like Ephesians 4:8, which says, “When Jesus
“ascended on high, He gave gifts to His people.” (NIV)
What gifts? Galatians 3 says:
Christ … redeemed us
in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through
Christ Jesus... (Galatians 3:13-14) (NIV)
Every blessing that God gave Abraham He also
gave you!! Because of the cross,
all of the promises that Jephthah believed in...
all of the promises given to Abraham and his descendants
all of the promises of blessings and protection
... are also yours!!
God gave the Israelites the blessings in 1406 BC
when they entered the Promised Land, and Jesus gave us the
blessings in 33 AD when He died on the cross and rose again!
Your blessings are already yours!! Jesus gave them
to you. They are invisible, yet you begin to see them manifest when you
begin to believe they are there.
We don’t see our blessings; they are invisible to us – but they’re
not invisible to the devil. The devil knows what your blessings are.
And when you start believing that you are blessed, the devil will
try as hard as he can to convince you otherwise.
God didn’t really bless you
You’re not worthy enough- You’re not good enough
You don’t have enough faith- you don’t do enough good deeds
You don’t deserve it
Just like Israel had an enemy who was always trying to steal their
blessings, we also have an enemy- the devil.
But how do we fight the devil? We use our faith- we simply
believe we already have the blessing, and we will receive.
By faith we… receive the
promise…”Galatians 3:14 (NIV)
The promise comes by faith…”
Romans 4:16 (NIV)
According to your faith it will be done
to you.” Matthew 9:29 (NIV)
We believe the blessings are there, so we just start rejoicing in
them – that’s using your faith.
Thank You Jesus, You’ve already given me this victory...
I’ve already defeated this enemy
My kids are blessed
My health is blessed
My work is blessed
Everything I touch is blessed
Jephthah had this faith. He knew what his blessings
were, he knew what the curses were, and he believed that God is a God who
rewards anyone who seeks Him.
Because he believed these things, he could see that the enemy was
lying to him, and he rose up in faith against the enemy.
Did his faith work?
In verse 28, the story continues:
… Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and
the Lord gave them into his hands.
He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of
Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon. (Judges
11:29-33) (NIV)
So Jephthah was successful- he was blessed.
The enemy rose up against him but he rose up in faith and defeated
them. And we can do the exact same thing that Jephthah did!!
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible,
New International Version, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by
Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved
worldwide.www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version”
are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by
Biblica, Inc.
Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible
copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol
Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Comments
Post a Comment