[Music] foreign [Music] to our study in judges at chapter 11 beginning with verse 12.
Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said, “What do you have against me that you come to me to fight against my land?”
And the king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel on coming up from Egypt took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan. Now therefore restore it peaceably.”
Jephthah again sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said to him, “Thus says Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites, but when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh. Israel sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Please let us pass through your land,’ but the king of Edom would not listen. And they sent also to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained at Kadesh.
Then they journeyed through the wilderness and went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab and arrived on the east side of the land of Moab and camped on the other side of the Arnon, but they did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab.
Israel then sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites, king of Heshbon, and Israel said to him, “Please let us pass through your land to our country.” But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory. So Sihon gathered all his people together and encamped at Jahaz and fought with Israel.
And the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them. So Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites who inhabited that country, and they took possession of all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan.
So then the Lord, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and are you to take possession of them? Will you not possess what Chemosh, your God, gives you to possess? And all that the Lord our God has dispossessed before us, we will possess.
Now are you any better than Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever contend against Israel or did he ever go to war with them? While Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages and in Aroer and its villages and in all the cities that are on the banks of the Arnon 300 years, why did you not deliver them within that time?
I therefore have not sinned against you, and you do me wrong by making war on me. The Lord, the judge, decide this day between the people of Israel and the people of Ammon.”
But the king of the Ammonites did not listen to the words of Jephthah that he sent to him.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Lord, you have told us so much. You have helped your people so often throughout history. Let their example and their experience of you be a comfort to us. Let it build us up in hope and faith and strength and confidence in your purposes for your people even now. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So Israel had decided they chose the mercenary Jephthah, their forsaken exiled son, to be the captain and agent of their Deliverance rather than patiently waiting for the Lord to raise up a deliverer for them. But still, their selection of Jephthah was made in accordance with God’s eternal plan, and through the Lord’s good providence, he would be the leader used for God’s purposes and the good of his chosen people, Israel.
Now the Ammonites had been preying upon Israelites from the tribe of Manasseh in Gilead, east of the Jordan River, for around 18 years before they began crossing the river to prey upon the western tribes.
Now they had established a camp in Gilead to more greatly trouble Israel, which is why the leaders of Gilead called upon Jephthah. They knew that they were in serious trouble; they were as soft and weak people following 22 years of peace and prosperity under the judge’s chair. After suffering 18 years of raiding, clearly they were unable or unwilling to do much to defend themselves.
Therefore, they called upon Jephthah, a mighty warrior whom they had unjustly driven out of the land because of a scandalous parentage, and offered him power and authority over them if he would only just rescue them and lead them to victory against their attackers.
So what did this mighty warrior do? First, as he set out to deliver Israel, he sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites asking them why. Why are you provoking this fight? Saying, “What do you have against me that you come to me to fight against my land?” He asks what their complaint is, what their reason for attacking Israel is.
Maybe, perhaps, he hoped to find common ground in order to begin negotiating terms. I mean, any good mercenary commander, although battle is their trade, would not needlessly or recklessly commit their forces to battle until they absolutely had to because protecting the lives and the pocketbooks of their men is the surest way to preserve their loyalty.
I mean really, why would anyone risk life and limb if an acceptable settlement can be reached to preserve the peace? Perhaps a compromise could be made, concessions could be given, accommodations could be established, and then everyone could just get along.
Unfortunately, that is a vain hope. Anytime the side of right compromises with the side of evil, good loses and evil wins. Little by little, it becomes a slow death by a thousand cuts. So no, I do not think that Jephthah was wanting to negotiate a peace settlement with the Ammonites. Instead, I believe he asked so that he could better respond directly and confidently to their complaints and aggression.
Now the king of the Ammonites responded to Jephthah’s overture with the following answer: “Because Israel on coming up from Egypt took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan. Now therefore restore it peaceably.”
Replying by saying, “You took land that was once mine. I want it back!” Now on its face, you would think that his argument in complaint might have some merit. I mean, after all, when Israel approached Canaan, they did come having the intention to conquer it because it was the land that the Lord God promised to them and their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
However, they were expressly prohibited by the Lord from attacking or claiming any land belonging to either the Moabites or the Ammonites. Deuteronomy 2:19 says, “And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession because I have given it to the sons of Lot for possession.”
See, they in Israel were distant kinsmen, and in this respect, Israel was obedient. So Jephthah replied to their complaint by relating the historical narrative from Israel’s wandering, explaining that after Israel had asked for safe passage through the territories of several nations, they were often refused and sometimes attacked in return.
See, Israel had traveled the long way around the territories of both Moab and Edom on the route to Canaan until they came to the land of the Amorites. After they received a safe request for safe passage and were refused, King Sihon gathered all his people together and encamped against Jahaz and fought with Israel.
And the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them. So Israel took possession of all the land of the Amorites who inhabited that country, and they took possession of all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan.
You see, the land that the king of the Ammonites was now laying claim to was land that had previously been possessed by the Amorites. Following the Exodus, the Amorite King Sihon attacked Israel unprovoked because he did not trust them and because he feared them. After he unjustly attacked Israel and lost, he and his people forfeited the right to the land, and so Israel took possession of it.
This territory, which Israel now claimed, was from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as to the Ammonites, for the border of the Ammonites was strong. This made them the neighbor of the Ammonites, not their enemy. Israel did not invade or attack any Ammonite territory.
Now, Jephthah does not credit Israel’s victory over the Amorites to their strength of numbers or to their military prowess, but solely to the will and divine providence of the Lord. Israel did not provoke the fight, yet they benefited from the Lord’s judgment against the Amorites whom they had removed from the land. Jephthah believed, as all Israel believed, that God gave them the land, and they credited God with the victory.
See, this perspective and attitude of divine patronage was very common in the ancient Near East. Human military conflicts were often considered as divine proxy battles. Armies and nations would fight, and whoever’s God was greater gave their people the victory.
This led to the common practice of people taking the idols and implements of worship out of the temples of the defeated peoples and placing them in the temple treasuries or sanctuaries of the victorious people’s gods as trophies.
And so that is the context and background which led to Jephthah’s next point of argument, saying, “So then the Lord, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and are you to take possession of them?”
Saying, “Our God took the land away from them. Did he give it to you?” He argued that because the Lord took the land away from the Ammonites and gave it to Israel, then the Ammonite king does not have the power, authority, or ability to take it away from Israel.
Then he further escalates the argument, transforming it into a challenge or a taunt: “Will you not possess what Chemosh, your God, gives you to possess? And all that the Lord our God has dispossessed before us, we will possess.”
Asking him, “Do you really think that your God Chemosh is strong enough to take this land away from our God, the Lord Yahweh? I dare you!” Asking, “Are you willing to risk your whole land to bet and gamble all of your present territory on the hope that Chemosh is the greater God?” Since all that the Lord our God has dispossessed before us, we will possess, meaning that if you come out against God’s chosen people and lose, then you just might end up losing what you already have.
“I double dare you!” Asking, “Do you really want to find out if your God is greater than my God Yahweh? I double dog dare you!” See, it’s almost as if he was trying to provoke a fight with this challenge. On the one hand, well, on the other hand, he’s also offering the enemy king an opportunity to back down and save face if he acknowledges that Yahweh is greater than Chemosh.
Just then, Jephthah suggests that the Ammonite can consider Israel’s history and compare himself to some others who came out against Israel before, asking him, “Are you any better than Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever contend against Israel or did he ever go to war with them?”
Do you all remember who Balak the king of Moab was? His story is found in Numbers chapters 22-25, but here are the highlights. Yes, he tried to contend against Israel since he feared their might after what they had done to the Amorites. He hired the prophet Balaam to place a curse upon Israel, but instead, the Lord only allowed Balaam to bless Israel.
Then while Israel dwelt at Shittim on the plains of Moab, at his encouragement, the women of Moab enticed the men of Israel to engage in sexual immorality and worship Baal at Peor.
So although Israel fell into sinfulness and were disciplined by the Lord, the machinations of Balak did not stop Israel from passing through the land of Moab or from claiming God’s promised land.
So this Ammonite king must have stopped to consider whether he believed that he was better or stronger than Balak. Then Jephthah asked while Israel lived in Heshbon and in its villages and in Aroer and its villages and in all the cities that are on the banks of the Arnon for 300 years, “Why did you not deliver them during that time?”
Israel possessed the territory which the Ammonite king was now trying to claim for around 300 years, ever since the days of Moses. So Jephthah demands to know, “Why now? Why not then? What has changed? Why did the Ammonites believe that they could conquer and control the land now when they had not before?”
And then finally, Jephthah declares the innocence of Israel concerning any wrongdoing, saying, “I therefore have not sinned against you, and you do me wrong by making war on me. The Lord, the judge, decide this day between the people of Israel and the people of Ammon.”
Insisting that they were innocent of causing any offense against the Ammonites which might justify their aggression, the leader of Israel called upon the Lord God to judge between them and to enact his divine justice upon the situation.
See, ultimately Jephthah asked the Lord to decide which of them was in the right, and he was willing to let God’s sovereign will be done. He placed all of his confidence and trust in the Lord for a positive and successful resolution to Israel’s situation.
So it seems as if Israel, as if the elders of Gilead actually made a good choice in placing their confidence and faith in Jephthah because his confidence, his trust, and his faith was in the Lord God.
But what does all this history mean or have to do with us? We know that God brought the Ammonites against Israel as judgment for their sinfulness and to bring them back to a place of repentance. He wanted them to put their faith and trust in him alone.
However, we must understand that although he used them, God did not cause the Ammonites to invade Israel. It was still their own sinful desires and their human wills that drove them to invade Israel. Yes, the Lord willed that Israel should be disciplined for their sinfulness; that was the first and primary cause. But then as God ordered things, he allowed the Ammonites’ jealousy of Israel to fester and grow so that they attacked them.
That’s a secondary cause by which the Lord’s will was done. Simply put, God willed it to happen, and the Ammonites were happy to oblige.
So really this secondary cause is our point. The Ammonites, they were a worldly people typical of all other worldly people in their day. They hated Israel, and they hated God’s people. But why did they hate Israel? Because Israel was different from them.
Because Israel was a people set apart from all others, chosen especially in the Lord’s sovereign grace and mercy. Israel was not of this world; Israel was not to be a part of the world. Therefore, the world hated them; therefore, the world feared them because of what they represented: holiness, goodness, and righteousness.
Therefore, the world feared them because of whom they represented, the Lord God Almighty. While the Ammonites, as the example in this particular case, they represented all the peoples of the world and its master, Satan, the devil.
So yes, this was a divine proxy battle—Satan versus God. And it’s always, as always, a futile battle for Satan because God wins no matter what the devil may try.
You see, the complaints of the world against God’s people, Israel, are the same as the devil’s complaint against God. Satan, in rebellion against the Most High, falsely lays claim to the world, to the earth and all that dwells within it, as his personal possessions to rule over as he pleases in sin and wickedness.
And he makes his claim because of his corruption of Adam and Eve through deception. Yet the Lord sovereignly chose for himself a people called Israel, and set them apart from all other people. He removed them from Satan’s dominion and Satan’s power, even as he still left them to sojourn through Satan’s domain of the world.
Satan believes that God stole the people of Israel from him after he claimed all humanity by right of conquest, and he will do everything that he can to reclaim, spoil, or destroy us just to deny us to the Sovereign Lord out of spite.
This is why the world has always been antagonistic against Israel. Satan wants us back, but if he cannot have us, then he works to deny us to the Lord.
We saw the same struggle play out in the history of ancient Israel that Jephthah recounted. The Amorites came out against Israel in force and tried to destroy them. Balaam tried to curse them and cause them harm or misfortune because of their obedience to the Lord. And when Balaam failed, Balak tried to corrupt them to transform them and assimilate them into the worldly Moabite ways of immorality and idolatry.
Again and again throughout redemptive history, we see how the devil works against God’s people, Israel. He either tries to wipe us out, or he tries to seduce us into apostasy. And this same battle continues through the New Testament into today.
Jesus Christ was born to be the second and last Adam, the federal head of God’s chosen Israel, representing all of God’s adopted children. He was born to live as our righteous representative and to die as our substitute for sin, to justify us before God, to satisfy God’s just wrath against our sin.
Shortly after Jesus was born, when King Herod heard about the birth of a new king of the Jews, his response was to try to have that child killed by massacring the boys of Bethlehem. Through Herod, Satan was trying to stop God’s eternal plan of redemption unto salvation by destroying the hope of Israel.
Immediately after Jesus was baptized, he went off into the wilderness for 40 days, where he was tempted by the devil. Satan tried to coerce Jesus and convince him to rely upon himself, upon the power that was within him, to sustain himself.
Satan tried to convince Jesus to test the Lord and his promises. And Satan tried to offer Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would only bow down and worship him. Each time Jesus refused, rebutted, and denied Satan’s attempts.
Satan tried to corrupt the sinless Jesus just as he had corrupted Adam. Satan tried to convert Jesus to serve as his bondsman, just as humanity had been converted into his slaves. And finally, when Jesus most likely seemed most likely to be accepted by the people and elevated as the earthly king of the Jews, when it looked as if God might rise in triumph and claim power over the world by inaugurating a new and faithful Davidic kingdom, Satan exerted influence upon jealous and sinful men who were more concerned with their own power and authority than they were with the righteousness and glory of God to plot against Jesus.
They falsely accused Jesus and arranged his murder to preserve or improve their own worldly positions.
See, again Satan tried to forcibly prevent God’s eternal plan, yet by his rebellious activity, he became the principal agent in achieving its fulfillment.
So as with all his efforts against ancient Israel, Satan may appear successful for a time, but only for a time. Pharaoh claimed Israel as his possession, denying God’s command to let my people go. Yet Moses led them out from Egypt to the edge of the promised land.
The whole history of Israel shows them repeatedly apostasizing, yet later repenting and returning to the Lord. When Israel was taken off into exile and assimilated into the nations, later the Lord returned a remnant faithful to him to the land.
And God the Son, Jesus Christ, died on a Roman cross but later arose from the grave conquering sin and death.
So it is clear that despite Satan’s worst efforts, God always wins. God will always win. And now still the world treats us Christians, the people of the church, God’s greater and broader People Israel in the same manner.
The world hates us because we are different, because we have been set apart for holiness, and because we refuse to conform or be transformed back into our prior sinful selves.
The world demonizes us, falsely accusing God’s righteous ones of actually being the wicked ones. It calls us unloving, uncharitable, intolerant, and bigoted because we refuse to accept or celebrate its sinfulness and deviancy from the biblical norm as now being the social good.
We Christians are called evil because we affirm biblical and scientific truth that there are only two human genders: male and female. We are called unloving because we distinguish between the goodness of the God-honoring and commended loving union of a man and his wife from the wicked, lustful, and unnatural passions of a man for men or a woman for women.
We are called hateful because we refuse to endorse the sexualization of children or because we refuse to allow them to make permanent, physical, life-altering decisions that are prompted by the gender-based confusion which society promotes when they’re already naturally confused enough by a person’s ordinary hormonal developmental processes with all the strangeness that goes with it.
See, Satan seeks to destroy us, or at least to shout us down and silence our voices as he tries to keep us from speaking the truth, God’s truth in love, the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And when the threat of martyrdom fails, he attacks our livelihoods and finances, our social relationships and our politics, attacking us in ways that feel more painful and seem to be longer lasting than a temporary transition through death into glory.
See, that’s the way of the Amorites or how Satan works against us—by infiltrating the church. We saw it happen with all the liberal denominations over the past 150 years.
He assaults the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith with the world’s lies by teaching people to deny the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture; by denying miracles, the virgin birth, and the resurrection; by corrupting and confusing our understanding of the Lord’s creation; by teaching people to think that truth can change, that what was once true for people in the distant past is no longer true now because we know better; by teaching that what really matters is only having faith but that what a person actually believes in is unimportant; or by teaching that there are many ways to heaven, by teaching that Jesus is not the only way to God.
That’s the way of Balak—trying to corrupt us and seduce us with damnable lies and heresies, by trying to lead us astray and separate us from the sanctifying truth of Jesus Christ, trying to make us look more like the world than the Israel of God.
This is what Satan does not want us sharing with the world: that God shows his love for us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and that since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. Great news for us, but bad news for Satan and his dominion.
Satan and all his minions have been trying to steal away what belongs to God at least since the Garden of Eden. His power, his glory, his authority, his people, his creation, and more. Satan works by force, through coercion or outright destruction, and by deception and persuasion, through seductive lies and false promises.
However, the good news is that while the Lord God, Jesus Christ, allows Satan to believe that he has succeeded, such that his pride will increase until his final fall, God’s patience is not infinite. He is long-suffering—not forever suffering. He will always continue to rescue, redeem, and preserve his sojourning people through their lives in this world unto the next when his kingdom finally comes.
Both sides lay claim to the Christian soul, but by God’s mercy, we belong to Jesus alone. Both Satan and God demand that their servant totally conform to their ideal image—either to the devil and all his angels or to Jesus Christ.
Both sides are working to transform us and transition us so that we match their image. The Holy Spirit conforms us to the image of Christ by divine election and his sanctifying work, or the world and the pleasures of sin will lead us to match with Satan in depravity and reprobation.
Like Jephthah and ancient Israel in relation to the Ammonites, Jesus and God are innocent of any wrongdoing against Satan. The devil is the guilty one who offends against them, falsely claiming ownership over everything that rightfully belongs to the sovereign creator.
And those who belong to the Church of Christ are also innocent of any wrongdoing against Satan, and his efforts trying to draw us back under his wicked influence offends the Spirit of Christ within us, and it must offend our spirit as well.
So whenever the world comes against you, whenever devils assail you and your spirit, respond to their belligerence as Jephthah responded to the king of the Ammonites because you are on the side of right.
Think of all of God’s works of providence that you have received in your own life and that you have learned about through his history of redemption found here in the Bible. Consider all of his victories won on your behalf, and remember that the one who attacks you is a toothless old lion—neutered and impotent.
Remember that when you are being unjustly and unfairly attacked by Satan, you are in good company. Take comfort in the warning of Jesus to his disciples from the Gospel of John when he says, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it has hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; but all these things they do to you on account of my name because they do not know him who sent me. Whoever hates me hates my Father also.
But the word that is written in their law must be fulfilled: they hated me without a cause.”
Hatred, opposition, and persecution is the world’s response to God’s work within you. When you suffer these, it is a cause for joyful celebration because it evidences your election and is a more surety of your salvation. Because the more that the world is against you and the more that Satan attacks you, then the more conformed to the image of Christ you are becoming.
So you see that the more things seem to change in this life, the more they stay the same. Because in the end, God will still always win.
And just as the king of the Ammonites did not listen to the words of Jephthah that he sent to him, Satan will never cease his futile attacks until Jesus Christ returns in glory for the final judgment and the consummation of his eternal kingdom.
Then and only then will there no longer be anyone to lay any charge against any of Christ’s holy ones. Then we will rest forever secure in God’s love for his chosen children because he has triumphed over all of his and our enemy. Amen.