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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the Bibleignmenistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turning your Bible to the Book of Judges, the Book of Judges, and we’re just going to ramble a little bit tonight. Ramblin can be good for you once in a while. We’re going to be here and then we’re going to be there. We are in the book of Judges and we’re going to look at chapter four and chapter five. So of course we’re not going to look at every verse, comment on every little point there, but kind of get the highlight of this I think beneficial.

Now we know that in the book of Judges they were individuals that God raised up to deliver the people a Savior, a deliverer, because the people had left God. And when they leave God they choose for themselves false gods. And when they begin to worship false gods then God has to sell them into slavery. He brings another nation to whoop them. Now if you listen to what happens to these people here you will find out what God will do in your own personal life because things ain’t changed.

They haven’t changed. And so once they’re sold in the slavery then they don’t like it so then they cry out to God, whoa is us, have mercy, mercy, mercy. And so God raises up a person in order to deliver them. Now sometimes there’s a man that can do the job and when God can’t find a man I guess God will find a woman. You know a woman in the hands of God is better than a man that’s not in the hands of God wouldn’t you agree with that?

So can God use women? Well of course. Christ came into this world because of a woman through a woman. And you know, if it hadn’t been for Eve, you know, none of us would be here. So God has used the women. And I’m so thankful for my mom because without my mom, I wouldn’t be here. So I’m thankful for the Lord using women. In a lot of churches, if it wasn’t for the women, there wouldn’t be a ministry. Sometimes even the girls go to a mission field because the guys won’t go.

And that’s a shame. Wouldn’t it be great if men would just step up to the plate and be men and be strong leaders? But here we have a story about a woman named Deborah. And Deborah, well, she was called a prophetess, But look there in verse 1 of chapter 4. And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord when he had was dead. So what would happen if you stopped serving the Lord? So whenever God’s leaders died off, well the people did what they did before.

They get back into that old cycle. You see, people need leaders. You need leaders. This is why every home, the man is supposed to be the spiritual head of the home. He used to be a leader. In a lot of cases, the man is not a spiritually strong individual. So you want to have a man that will take charge. Now you find out that lo and behold, Israel has, well, they’ve been evil again. Going to this cycle. So in verse two and the Lord, and here’s that word again, sold them into the hand of David, King of Canaan.

Now look up here just for a second. You have the Dead Sea. See it? There’s a Dead Sea right there. You can see that, right? That’s a Dead Sea. Now up here you have the Sea of Galilee. And then Jordan River runs from this sea down to the Dead Sea. I’ve been there a number of times. I’ve floated in the Dead Sea. I’ve preached upon the Sea of Galilee on a number of occasions. The first time was with Dr.

Hankeland from back in 1985. When Betty and I went over there and we were celebrating our 25th anniversary. So here you have Mount Tabor. Mount Tabor is right at the end there, like of the Sea of Galilee and there’s Mount Tabor. Now Mount Herman’s own up here toward the north. Dan settled up into that area. Now, Canaan was over here into this area. But there was a barack. I don’t think there’s much difference between the two of them. I look at this.

But there was barack. And so here’s Samaria. And so if you kind of get an idea of where some of these things take place, even talks about kadish. The kadish is not is actually is ephraim, but it’s not the kadish barnia that’s down in the southern part of Judah. We know whenever they left Egypt and they came through the wilderness there in 11 days journey and they came to kadish barnia. That was a different place. So this is another individual place.

So anyway, you look there in verse two and the The Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan that reigned in Hazar, the captain of whose host was Cicera, which dwelt in Herosheth of the Gentiles, and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. The reason they cried is because they were in subjection for almost 20 years they were oppressed by the king of knights. whenever they get enough then they start crying out to God and God deliver us from this devastating dilemma.

Now these people had 900 tankschariots. Here in verse three and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord for he had 900 chariots of iron. So figure up, I mean horses, how many people on the chariots. Now this was a mighty army. The Bible tells us that they were a mighty force to deal with. And the thing is, Israel didn’t have many leaders. There were not enough men that would take leadership and do anything about this. So the Bible says in verse 4 that Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, which some say that this is supposed to be the man’s name and others say that it just means that she had a fighting spirit.

I don’t really know. I don’t care. You can look up all kinds of things on these things. But she judged Israel at that time. So here’s a woman, maybe with a fiery spirit, but whatever she was, she put the men to shame. God used a woman. And God told her what to do. So in verse 6 says, and she’s sent in call, Barack Obama, no I’m just a, Barak the son of Abinon out of Kedish, Natalai, see that’s a tribe, the tribe of Natalai, and said unto him, half not the Lord God of Israel commanded say him, go and draw toward Mount Tabor and take with the 10,000 men of the children of Natalai and of the children of Zebulan, Now, they would have had a pretty good size, no resistance for us here.

If these two represented 10,000, that means 5,000 for meets tribe, but if you had 12 tribes and 5,000 meets tribe, it had 60,000 people. So that would be pretty good. But the problem was not everybody wanted to get into this battle. It’s kind of like Obama trying to get a coalition together to go after ISIS, and you can’t get the people to do anything. And the thing is, all the ones that are helping him right now are the ones we got problems with.

But why they announced that they’re going to bomb these certain targets so that people got time to get out is beyond me. So, something’s wrong with this picture, but anyway, I’m just going to have to let those people in Washington handle it because they haven’t called me yet on what they want me to do about it. But you’ll notice here it says go and draw toward Mount Tabor and take with the 10,000 men and I got a job for you.

So here’s these Canaanites with 900 chariots and You got 10,000 and you’re going to go and take so Deborah tells Barak says, here’s what I want you to do. In verse 7, I will draw unto thee to the river Kishan Sisera, the captain of Jabin’s army with his chariots, 900 of them, and his multitude. So it’s just not the chariot, multitude. And I will deliver him into thy hand. And Barak said, Yeah, right. What do you want me to do now?

Give it to me one more time. I want you to take the 10,000 and you’re to take and go up toward Mount Tabor. And on Mount Tabor, I want you to wait until I give you a signal and we’re gonna lure him towards you. You’re the bait. We’re going to lure them in. You know they got all of these chariots and multitude, but there’s 10,000 of you. You see why sometimes your heart can fail when you see a problem that’s bigger than you can handle.

And that happens a lot. It doesn’t just happen here in this period of time. It happens in our lives that we wonder how in the world is God going to get me out of this? And so you have to wait and see. And lo and behold, you and I won’t appreciate it until we get to heaven and find out the little miracles that God did behind the scenes working because in this story is really an awesome story. How that a few people is going to whoop all them Canaanites with 900 cherries, multitudes.

So he says here, I want you to do this. So he says in verse 8, and Barak said unto her, If thou will go with me, then I will go. But if you’re not going with me, I ain’t going to go. So here’s the man, a man telling a woman, I’ll go with you go, but if you don’t go, I’m not going. So it’s amazing that the strength that this man is able to muster together because she says I will go.

So he says here in verse 9, and she says I will surely go with the notwithstanding, the journey that thou takeeth shall not be for the vine honor. It’s not for your honor. For the Lord shall sell sassira into the hand of a woman, and Deborah arose and went with Barat to Cateish. So they have a plan. Now this plan was given to them by God. So how is this woman in a scaredy cat man gonna work this miracle against Canaan with 900 chariots and a multitude of people and they’re gonna lure him into this trap.

Sounds exciting doesn’t it? Make a good movie wouldn’t it? Anyways you go down through here and you see these things and so on look there in verse 13. Now years before when Moses was coming out. Remember, his father-in-law was a kingite and now as years have passed, look to in verse 11, I’ll just show you this. And now he burnt the kingite which was of the children of Hobad, the father-in-law of Moses had severed himself from the kingites and pitched his tent under the plains of of Zem’em, which is by Kedish.

And they showed Sisera that, Barack the Sun. A benonon was gone up to Mount David. So somebody there squealed and told them where they were. So it’s amazing how that God has a way of taking all the things that seem like it would go against you and can work it to your advantage. God wanted him to go there. So the person at the right place, at the right time, says the right thing. And so he knows where to go and his Lord right in.

And so he makes a statement here in verse 13, and says, Sir, gathered together all his chariots, even 900 chariots of iron and all the people that were with him and they came to the river Kishan. So you know that down in the valley there is the river. It’s like in the plains of Megiddo because that’s right over here in this area and this is where the last great battle is going to be. So there’s a great valley in here.

I was standing up there on the tail which is they call it Megiddo and you can look out in that plane and And all of a sudden I saw this thing open up like this and a jet flies after another thing and then it closes back down and it looks just like a big old field. You can’t even see it. You didn’t know it was there. But we happened to be there at the right time and we saw that.

But anyway, there’s going to be a great battle there someday. But look what he says down here in verse 14, and Deborah said unto be right. For this is the day in which the Lord have delivered the sissera into thine hand is not the Lord gone out before thee? And Barak says he did? I mean, he wasn’t the most confident, boldest man you probably have ever met in your life. But so Barak went down from Mount Tabor and 10,000 men after him and get this.

The Lord discomforted. It means they gave him a route. It means they defeated him. It means they overthrew them 10,000 over them. But it doesn’t tell you all that happened. All the details. Well, what did he do? How did he do it? But it just says here that in all of his chariots and all of his hosts with the edge of the sword before Beret so that Sussira lighted down off his chair, fled away on his feet. So now he was running for his life.

When little Jordan would be outside and we’d play a little football. Well, I could outrun him then. So I would throw them to football and then I’d start chasing. I’d say, run for your life, run for your life. So he’d start running for his life. And of course I’d catch him and I’d grab a hold of him and roll him over on the ground. Oh, I loved it. He loved it too. And so Eddie sent me a picture the other day where they played against this football team and Jordan was going to go out for a pass.

So they threw the ball, Jordan caught the ball, made a touchdown. And the score was 42 to nothing. So they really, what they call it, discomforited them. It was called a route over through them. And I said, did y’all play the kidney gardens? I shouldn’t have said that. But anyway, I’m proud that he made a touchdown. I think it was his first touchdown. But now, notice what he says, if this man was running for his life, I emailed Jordan later not so Jordan.

I say, remember what Pop always said, run for your life. You get the ball and they’re coming after you. Me, I turn on and say, you want the ball, you can add the ball. Or you run for your life. But look what he says here. He fled away. And then in verse 16, but Barak pursued after the chariots and after the hose unto a harisheth of the Gentiles and all the host of Cicero fell upon the edge of the sword and there was not a man left.

Now would you say that’s a pretty good fight? But you don’t find any details. Now there’s a detail here about how Cicero got killed and it talks about how that he went there to, you know, because he was the, went there in this place looking verse 17. Hobbits, Cicero, fled away on his feet to the tent of jail, the wife of Hebrew, the kingite. And there was peace between Jabin, the king of Hazar and the house of Hebrew, the kingite.

Of all the places that he had to go, and they had already broke off from the canines, and then he is looking for a place of safety. And so he goes to the place and there’s the wife. So he says here in verse 18, J out went out to meet Cicera. She is a woman. said unto him, turn in my Lord, turn in to me, fear not, and when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle.

And he said unto her, give me I pray they little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” And she opened a bottle of milk and gave him drink and covered him. Again he said unto her, stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be when any man have come and inquire of them, say, is there any man here? Thou shalt say, no.” So he told her what to say and took it down. I mean, he’s had a hard day.

He’d been running for his life. He’s tired and he’s thirsty. So he goes to sleep. It’s not good to close your eyes when there’s a woman around. There’s a reason not this is in here. Does it remind you a little bit of a guy named Samson who went to a woman’s barbershop? When I used to read that I said, man I’ll never go to a woman’s barbershop. I mean no woman’s going to cut my hair. Well I have now been to a woman’s barbershop and they’ve cut my hair.

But anyway you go back here and you’ll find out something happened in verse 20. Again he said in her stands in the door. And in Verse 21, then, jail, Haber’s wife, took a nail of the tent and took a hammer in her hand, went softly unto him, smote the nail into his temples and fastened it into the ground, for he was fast asleep and weary and he died. Well, you would die too if you had your head nailed to the ground.

I mean, I don’t know how long this knife, this nail was, that they put down the stakes for the tent, but this woman did him in. And so remember where Deborah says, for sassira is not for your honor and not for your glory, for he shall be taken by a woman. So here’s a woman that did this man in. And here is Deborah, a woman that God used in order to free the people of Israel from the Canaanites. And now notice what happened.

It says that in verse 22, and behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, jail came out to meet him and said to him, come, I will show thee the man whom thou seeketh. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera laid dead and the nail was in his temple. So God subdudes on that day. Now we meant, what did God have to do with this? I mean, these people did this, right? But You know that behind the same God says and told Deborah, I’m going to give you victory.

She believed what God said. She had to talk, you know, back into believing her, but victory did come. See God doesn’t always tell us how it’s going to be accomplished. We just got to walk through it and He’ll walk through it and you’ll see how that God is going to work in your life. See, a lot of people want to see God do something. Remember this. It’s kind of like the big olephant that’s walking across the swinging bridge. Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, and this mosquito comes along and gets a ride on the back of that elephant.

And I get to the other side, that mosquito says, boy, we really shook that bridge, didn’t we? There’s always somebody who wants to get credit for what somebody else did. But you see in the next chapter, there’s what we call the Song of Deborah. Now when you go back to Deuteronomy, you also find that there was a song of Moses. A song of victory, when you come out of the, in the book of Exodus, in chapter 14, they had this great victory going through the water, And then they had a victory song, giving God credit for what God did.

Well, the same thing happened again here. But look down in verse 23. So God subdued on that day, J.A.B.N. the king of Canaan before the children of Israel. God did this. But God used a woman. God used two women. God even used Barak. And look how many tribes are where they’re 12 tribes, but not all of the tribes. Came together. Not all of them helped in this time. You see God called for help. God called for help and they did not come.

Just look a little bit quickly in verse 23 of chapter 5 where it says, Cershi Marath said, the angel of the Lord. Cershi bitterly the inhabitants thereof because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. God had a plan, but his plan included all the tribes of Israel uniting together, and God wanted that to be done. But does everybody always do what they’re supposed to do? You’ll find out some time in your Christian life how much easier it would have been in various parts of the ministry if everybody helped a little.

A picture of five men up here with a great big old log on their shoulder. And these five men are carrying this log and they’re gonna take it over there. But that log is so heavy, and they can’t get other people to help. And because they can’t get somebody to help, a couple of those guys really get discouraged. And so two of them says, I quit. Now there’s only three carrying that log. Is it heavier or lighter? Is it true that sometimes people just quit?

And when they quit, the low doesn’t get lighter, it gets heavier. It means that the load has been placed upon the shoulders of fewer individuals that’s got to do the work. And almost every ministry, probably 10% of all the people do the work. Wouldn’t it be native? All the people was involved in doing all the work. But sometimes it doesn’t work that way. So if everybody else isn’t going to do it, I guess I won’t either. are you the kind of a person if it’s just me and the Lord?

I’m still gonna do it and do what God wants you to do. But look there in verse 1, then sing Deborah and Barak, they begin to sing a song. Now after they just had a victory, what should they do? Well they sung, they were filled with joy, They were happy. They were praising the Lord. The inverse to praise you, the Lord, for the avenging of Israel. And look at this part. When the people willingly offered themselves, people volunteered to obey God.

So God don’t make you do things, but God will bless you if you do. And God, when he gets through, could make you wish you had of. So this happens. Now look there in verse 4, Lord, when thou windeth out of seer, when thou marches out of the field of Eden, the earth trembled in the heavens, drop the clouds also of drop water, the mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel.

See sometimes things happen like they used to happen. who God does once in my view again. You’ve been listening to another great message from Dr. Arnold, and we hope that Bibleline is a blessing to you. In appreciation for your support of this ministry, we’d like to send to you a gift. During this month, for a gift in any amount, we’re going to send Dr. Arnold’s teaching on the subject of marriage. This nine-lesson CD series includes titles such as God’s view of divorce, eight pressures of raising children, how to love your wife, and the humorous but insightful teaching, and then the war began.

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And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed. caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.