This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome back for day four of week three of our Look Through the
Book of Judges. We're going to be looking at chapter 11 verses 12 to 39 today.
Yesterday, we began to learn from Jephthah, the judge, about how to get off the
shelf.

And the first thing we learned from him is you need to reconcile past
relationships. That's where you start. If there's a relationship in your past
where there's an unforgiveness that's there, there's a bitterness that's there,
you start by reconciling that.

You might be able to do it with the person. You may need to do it with the Lord,
but that's where you begin. Second thing that he does to get off the shelf, and
this one might surprise you, is he exercised patience.

You get impatient on the shelf. You want to show people you don't belong there,
and that can cause problems. An example, a ball player sitting on the bench,
maybe for game after game, and when the baseball player finally gets into the
game, they are so anxious to get a hit that they strike out every time.

Now, you have to exercise patience when the opportunity comes. And Jephthah
shows us how to exercise this patience in a most excellent way. Jephthah's
example of patience is how he dealt with the enemy.

So look at what Jephthah does here. Instead of coming out with spears flying, he
takes time to ask some questions. He has the patience to give the opportunity
for a diplomatic victory.

What's the problem, he says? What is there between you and me? Now, the
Ammonites have an answer.

Israel took away our land. Jephthah gives this long answer about how the land
had come into the hands of the Israelites by the work of God, not because Israel
had taken the land. He sort of goes through and proves how God had orchestrated
this, not the Israelites.

And then he asks them a question in verse 23. Now, since the Lord, the God of
Israel, has driven out the Amorites before the people of Israel, what right do
you have to take it over? Instead of saying, you filthy lying Ammonites, he
gives them a history lesson.

He calmly presents the facts to show that they're not telling the truth. Now, it
doesn't do any good in this case. He gets no answer.

They disregard his message because they're left without an answer. And finally,
he's put in the place, finally, where he has to attack. But I'm more impressed
by Jephthah's patience before the attack than the actual attack.

He was a warrior's son. The automatic thing would have been to attack
immediately. But instead, he has the patience to give every opportunity for
understanding.

That kind of patience, and a man for whom so long he'd been put on the shelf, so
long he'd been ignored, it stands out. He could have easily been impatient
because of all the years that he had to wait. The truth is, patience has to rule
if you're going to get off the shelf.

It has to rule over your desire to impress. It has to rule over your anger at
having to wait. It has to rule over your feelings of inadequacy because you've
been shelved.

Now, how does that happen? How does patience rule? Well, the Bible says the
fruit of the spirit is patience.

You need God's spirit for this. But it also rules because you put your
confidence in God and not in people. You recognize it's not what they say about
me that's important, it's what God has said about me.

In fact, that's what you learn on the shelf. On the shelf, you learn it's not
what people say about me or where people put me or where people slot me that's
important, it's what God thinks about me. And the truth of the matter is, God
does things in your life even when you're on the shelf.

You learn about patience, you learn about a heart for God, you learn about
devotion to God, you learn a new confidence. Not a confidence in your
circumstances, not a confidence in yourself, but a confidence in God that allows
for this kind of patience. So the second thing we learn from Jeff Thaw is this
ability in his life to have patience.

Third thing we learn is that he completed his vows. One of the reasons he was
able to get off the shelf is he completed his vows. He was faithful to whatever
he told God he would do.

He was obedient. Jeff Thaw's vow is in chapter 11, verses 29 to 32. Then the
Spirit of the Lord came on Jeff Thaw and he crossed Gilead and Manasseh and
passed through Mizpah of Gilead and from there he advanced against the
Ammonites.

And Jeff Thaw made a vow to the Lord, if you give the Ammonites into my hands,
whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph
from the Ammonites will be the Lord's and I will sacrifice it as a burnt
offering. Then Jeff Thaw went over to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gave them
into his hands. So he made this vow, whatever comes out of my house I'm going to
sacrifice it as a burnt offering.

Chapter 11, verse 34, he gets a lot more than he bargained for. Listen to what
happens. When Jeff Thaw returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to
meet him but his daughter dancing to the sound of timbrels?

She was an only child. Except for her, he had neither son nor daughter. And when
he saw her, he tore his clothes and he cried, oh no, my daughter, you've brought
me down and I am devastated.

I made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break. My father, she replied, you've
given your word to the Lord due to me just as you promised, now that the Lord
has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request,
she said.

Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends because I will
never marry. You may go, he said, and he let her go for two months. And she and
her friends went into the hills and they wept because she would never marry.

After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had
vowed. And she was a virgin. Now, you read this story, and let me just tell you
that scholars, biblical scholars are split on this story.

About half of the commentaries that you read believe that she was offered as a
burnt offering, that somehow Jephthah burned her because he said that he would.
About half of scholars believe that he did not burn her up, but that instead she
was given into a life without marriage, without children serving the Lord. But
the idea of a burnt offering is like in the New Testament, where we're a living
offering, a living sacrifice before God.

Now, I believe she was dedicated to service. I don't believe that she was burned
up as a burnt offering. I understand why those who teach that teach that.

And I wouldn't say that they are wrong, but without going into this deeply,
there's just a lot of talk in here about her remaining a virgin, about her not
being married. Why would that even matter if she was going to be killed
immediately? That would have been the most important thing.

And the fact that Jephthah is affirmed in the New Testament as a man of faith,
there's just some clues for me that she actually lived this life of devotion
before God. And seeing it from that perspective, I see this as a vow that was
fulfilled. The words here, I have given my word.

And his daughter's affirmation, you must keep that word that you've given before
the Lord. He completed his vow. The shelf, being on the shelf, it's an
interesting place, it does things to us.

It can either erode your faithfulness or it can enhance your faithfulness. It
all depends on how you choose to respond. Am I, because I'm on the shelf, going to
feel like God has let me down, people are ignoring me, why should I even be
faithful to God?

Or am I going to recognize, it doesn't matter what people say about me. It doesn't
matter where people put me. God is still at work in my life, no matter what.

Now, maybe you don't feel like you're on the shelf right now. Truth of the
matter is, for all of us, at some point in your life, you will be. And when you
are, these are the lessons that we need to be reminded of.

Listen to what the Lord teaches us through Jephthah. When you're on the shelf,
you choose to be forgiving. You make sure there's no bitterness in your life.

You choose to be patient. You make sure you're not running ahead of God. And you
choose to be faithful.

You make sure you're continuing in obedience. You recognize the importance of
obedience. Obedience is not about some success you've had in your life.

And I gotta obey because God's going to do the next great thing in my life. No,
obedience is about love. So whether I'm having successes or I'm on the shelf, I
obey because I love the Lord.

When you feel like you're on the shelf more than anything else, here's what you
do. You put your confidence in God because God is greater than any shelf. God is
greater than anything that has you stuck.

Let's pray together. Our Father, we recognize that you're with us anywhere. And
if right now we're feeling like we're stuck, we're feeling like life isn't
moving ahead, we're feeling like we've been put on a shelf somehow, we come to
you and we ask that you help us in that place to have the heart of Jesus, to be
forgiving, to be patient, to be faithful.

Help us to trust you in this place, just like we trust you in any other place.
We want to trust you just as much on the shelf as we do with the success. That's
the kind of men and women that we want to be.

And so we ask for this in Jesus' name, amen. Make sure you join us tomorrow, the
last day of this week, we're going to begin a look at the life of Samson.