Judges 4:1-5:31, "Judgment Is . . . "

of Judges chapter 4 and 5. Hear the word of the Lord. 5

And the Lord said unto him,

I will take with me ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun, and lead the way to Mount Tabor.

6 I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon river, and give him into your hands.

7 Barak said to her, If you go with me, I will go, but if you don't go with me, I won't go. 8

Very well, Deborah said, I will go with you, but because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the

Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman. 9 So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh, where he summoned

Zebulun and Naphtali. 10 ,000 men followed him, and Deborah also went with him. 11 Now Heber the

Cainite had left the other Cainites, the descendants of Hobab, Moses' brother -in -law, and pitched his tent by the great tree at Za 'ananim, near Kedesh.

12 When they told Sisera that Barak, son of Abinoam, had gone up to Mount Tabor, Sisera gathered together his nine hundred iron chariots and all the men with him from Haroshah Hagoyim to the

Kishon river. 13 Then Deborah said to Barak, Go, this is the day the Lord has given

Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you? 14 So Barak went down Mount Tabor, followed by 10 ,000 men.

15 At Barak's advance, the Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot.

16 But Barak pursued the chariots and army as far as Haroshah Hagoyim. 17 All the troops of Sisera fell by the sword, not a man was left.

18 Sisera, however, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Cainite, because there were friendly relations between Jabin, king of Hazor, and the clan of Heber the

Cainite. 19 Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, Come, my lord, come right in.

Don't be afraid. 20 So he entered her tent, and she put a covering over him. I am thirsty.

He said, Please give me some water. 21 She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up.

Stand in the doorway of the tent, he told her. If someone comes by and asks you,

Is anyone here? Say no. 22 But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted.

23 She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died. 24 Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him.

Come, she said, I will show you the man you are looking for. 25 So he went in with her, and there lay

Sisera with the tent peg through his temple, dead. 26 On that day God subdued

Jabin, the Canaanite king, before the Israelites, and the hand of the Israelites grew stronger and stronger against Jabin, the

Canaanite king, until they destroyed him. 27 On that day Deborah and Barak, son of Abinuam, sang this song,

When the princes in Israel take the lead, when the people willingly offer themselves, praise the

Lord. 28 Hear this, you kings, listen, you rulers, I will sing to the Lord, I will sing,

I will make music to the Lord, the God of Israel. 29 O Lord, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the land of Edom, the earth shook, the heavens poured, the clouds poured down water, the mountains quaked before the

Lord, the one of Sinai before the Lord, the God of Israel. 30 In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jile, the roads were abandoned, travelers took to winding paths, village life in Israel ceased, ceased until I, Deborah, arose, arose a mother in Israel.

31 When they chose new gods, war came to the city gates, and not a shield or spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel.

32 My heart is with Israel's princes, with the willing volunteers among the people, praise the

Lord. 33 You who ride on white donkeys sitting on your saddle blankets, and you who walk along the road, consider the voice of the singers at the watering places, they recite the righteous acts of the

Lord, the righteous acts of his warriors in Israel. 34 Then the people of the Lord went down to the city gates, wake up, wake up,

Deborah, wake up, wake up, break out in song, arise, O Barak, take captive your captives,

O son of Abinuam. 35 Then the men who were left came down to the nobles, the people of the

Lord came to me with the mighty. 36 Some came from Ephraim, whose roots were in Amalek, Benjamin was with the people who followed you, from Machir captains came down, from Zebulun those who bear a commander's staff.

37 The princes of Issachar were with Deborah, yes, Issachar was with Barak, rushing after him into the valley.

38 In the districts of Reuben there was much searching of heart. 39 Why did you stay among the campfires to hear the whistling for the flocks?

40 In the districts of Reuben there was much searching of heart. 41 Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan, and Dan, why did he linger by the ships?

42 Asher remained on the coast and stayed in his coves. 43 The people of Zebulun risked their very lives, so did

Naphtali on the heights of the field. 44 Kings came, they fought, the kings of Canaan fought, of Taanach by the waters of Megiddo.

45 But they carried off no silver, no plunder. 46 From the heavens the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera.

47 The river Kishon swept them away, the age -old river, the river Kishon, march on, my soul, be strong.

48 Then thundered the horses' hooves, galloping, galloping, go his mighty steeds. 49

Curse Meroes, said the angel of the Lord, curse its people bitterly, because they did not come to help the

Lord, to help the Lord against the mighty. 50 Most blessed of women be Gilead, the wife of Heber the

Cainite, most blessed of tent -dwelling women. 51 He asked for water, and she gave him milk. 52

In a bowl fit for noble she brought him curdled milk. 53 Her hand reached for the tent peg, her right hand for the workman's hammer.

54 She struck Sisera, she crushed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple. 55 At her feet he sank, he fell, there he lay.

56 At her feet he sank, he fell, where he sank, there he fell dead. 57

Through the window peered Sisera's mother, behind the ladder she cried out, Why is his chariot so long in coming?

58 Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed? 59 The wisest of her ladies answer her. 60

Indeed she keeps saying to herself, Are they not finding and dividing the spoils? 61 A girl or two for each man, colorful garments as plunder for Sisera, colorful garments embroidered, highly embroidered garments for my neck, all this as plunder.

62 So may all your enemies perish, O Lord, but may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength.

63 Then the land had peace for forty years. Blessings, the reading of his word.

Judgment is what this chapter is about, these two chapters. To many people today is just unthinkable.

The idea that people deserve punishment, a final kind of decisive judgment, that they can't accept, they don't understand.

Correction, they can perhaps understand, but judgment, no, that's too final, too authoritarian, too oppressive.

Correction, you know, discipline after all, that's more hopeful, it's redeeming, it exists after all to improve you, right?

To change you, to make you better, make you into a kind of person who will eventually not need correction, not need discipline.

But judgment, especially irrevocable, final judgment, that's something today that many people can't accept.

After all, surely no one, they think, surely no one could be so bad as to be beyond cure.

And so we have the controversy today over the death penalty. You know the death penalty, which for centuries, you look at it historically, for centuries nearly universally practiced, as far as I know.

I don't know of one nation that didn't, in history, didn't practice the death penalty. It's fallen kind of on rough times.

It's been a hard few, past few decades for the death penalty. Fewer and fewer nations practice the death penalty, even though actually of the three nationalities we have represented here, all three still do.

But, you know, worldwide, it's, there are fewer and fewer do. But the objection is that it's too final.

You know, it doesn't rehabilitate the criminal. Even one pro -death penalty argument

I read once said that we shouldn't even call it the death penalty. After all, a penalty is something that we, you know, that you have to, you suffer or you pay to teach you not to do it again.

If you get pulled over for speeding, you'll have to pay a penalty. The purpose, of course, is to teach you not to speed again.

But this person argued execution isn't like that. After all, you kill the person, you're not going to be around to do it again.

It's more like putting down a rabid dog. You know, the dog is no good anymore, so it has to be killed.

You wouldn't say you're giving the dog a penalty for being a bad dog, for getting rabies.

You'd say you're putting it down because it's no good. It can't be cured, or at least if it can, it's just too costly.

And when it comes to judgment, some will say people can't be that bad.

And so we have the common idea, like one seminary student in Chicago who told me that he doesn't believe in hell.

He doesn't believe in a final judgment, that in the end, everyone will be together. Now, my first thought was that is just so illogical.

You know, what is heaven to some people would be hell to others.

Now, somebody's got to be in hell because, you know, your heaven may be my hell, so one of us is going to hell.

You know, think of the scene in Revelation where people from every nation and every ethnic group and every race are gathered around the lamb and worshiping.

Now, that would be hell to someone like Adolf Hitler, wouldn't it, if he were allowed in?

But I guess what they mean is that somehow eventually love will win everyone over to the same point of view, even

Hitler. So that even he will gladly sing along with the Jews who were there to the glory of the lamb.

I guess that's what someone like Rob Bell, if you've heard his name, Rob Bell, a mega church pastor originally from Michigan and now in California.

Someone like him would probably say a few years ago he wrote a book entitled Love Wins. I've seen bumper stickers in Danville distributed by a church there.

It simply says love wins. I hope they don't know what they're saying. I hope they don't know what's behind that.

I hope they're just kind of ignorant because it sounds positive and attractive. Right. Love wins.

And in the book, Bell writes, if we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours.

That's how love works. It can't be forced, manipulated or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide.

God says, yes, we can have what we want because love wins. And he implies, although frustratingly, he won't be pinned down to a specific answer, but he implies that eventually love will win everyone over.

And so there's no real judgment. Now, there may be a penalty for some people that God lets us have because we choose the wrong thing.

But eventually, like a child with the right amount of right discipline and love, they can be won over and all be won over.

So we're not rabid dogs. Maybe some of us need more training than others, but none of us needs judgment.

They think now that's a popular way of looking at life, looking at ourselves. At God, love, what we call love wins.

But God tells us a little different story. He says, you see here in this story that he wins.

Here in Judges four and five, we see that judgment is. These eleven things.

Well, first judgment is for God's children. Now, sure, this is the this is the disciplining kind of redeeming kind of love or kind of judgment.

But God's true people get a taste of that. And we need to remember that before we get into a hurry to wish for judgment, judge them.

You know, the people we don't like. Maybe God is letting their sins pile up for a while.

Like he left the sins of the Canaanites pile up for 400 years. Meanwhile, he disciplined his own people in Egypt and in the desert.

Imagine that sin to the Canaanites were running wild, doing all kinds of horrible things. And he just let them go for centuries while his own people were being lashed and beaten and judged for much lesser things.

Anyway, but here in verse one, the sin cycle starts all over again. You see this over and over in Judges. The people of it says in chapter four, verse one, the people of Israel again did what was evil on the side of the

Lord. Now, the again reminds us that this is going to be a habit. You know, you think they would learn. Sin may be exciting and attractive for a while.

But after a while, it gets kind of boring. It's the same old thing.

You know, here it's probably bowing before Baal altars. Maybe today it's sexual, sex outside of marriage, or maybe it's intoxication, or maybe it's materialism, living for money and things.

You know, there are really only a few ways to be sinful. Someone says they lived in sin. You know, it's probably one of a few things.

It's not a whole wide variety that you can be sinful at. Sin really isn't creative.

It's not really new. The fast lane soon becomes an old rut, and Israel is stuck in the rut.

As soon as the left -handed Ehud dies, they go back to their old habits. And so in verse two, it says the

Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan. Now, this wasn't a travesty that is out of God's control.

It was judgment on God's people that they're under the thumb of this Jabin. In 1

Peter 4, verse 17, it says judgment begins at the house of God. In Hebrews 12, verse 7, it says it is for discipline that you have to endure.

God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? Even the

Son, Jesus, experienced this disciplining kind of judgment.

Hebrews 5, verse 8, says that although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

He had no sins to have to suffer for. That's not why he suffered. But he did have to suffer the human reality of having to say, not my will, but yours be done.

Now, the discipline here is that they are sold or given over by the Lord to Jabin, king of Canaan, and his general, who's the main character here,

Sisera, one of the main characters, the main bad guy, anyway. He had 900 chariots of iron, which he used, in verse 3, to cruelly oppress

Israel for 20 years. Now, the result is described in chapter 5 with the people being afraid, being attacked, and so they stopped traveling on the main roads in chapter 5, verse 6.

And the vulnerable, the small villages, you know, with no city walls, were so often attacked, the

Israelites just abandoned them. And they were a country constantly terrorized.

And chapter 5, verse 8 tells us why. It says, when new gods were chosen, then war was in the gates.

The sin, the new gods, the result, the judgment was war. They were being judged.

But that's not the controversial kind of judgment. That's disciplining, that's redeeming, and we can understand that.

But is there a final judgment? Well, the next 10 points are about that unthinkable, today unthinkable, final judgment.

And first, we see that bringing that God's judgment on earth is risky.

Chapter 4, verse 4 to 10. After 20 years of living in terror and harassment,

Deborah, that's how I pronounce it, I know. It's not what you're used to. It has an O there.

It's not Deborah, it's an O. Deborah, a prophetess, finally hears from God that God has heard their cry to Him.

Now, she's a woman judge, that's an unusual development. But she hears from God, and the people know it, and so they go to her to hear from God.

And she summons Barak in verse 6, and she tells him that the

Lord is telling him to lead an army against Sassara. But that's very risky.

You know, Sassara has all those iron chariots. It's kind of like having tanks today.

Imagine a well -armed army with a lot of tanks and trying to go against that without any tanks.

Well, that would be risky. Chapter 5, verse 8 says, Israel hardly had spears and shields.

So they are vastly outmatched. They're outgunned here. No guns, but they're outgunned.

They were so outmatched that when Deborah and Barak sent out word that the Lord was leading them to overthrow

Sassara, you know, they make the announcements throughout Israel, let's get all organized together and let's go attack.

Several tribes, you know, got news, talked about it, analyzed the situation, debated it back and forth, and thought, eh, it's too risky, better not.

The men of Reuben in chapter 5, verse 15, it says, wrestled with great searchings of heart.

You can see passionate debates around the campfire and then finally deciding, eh, nah, too afraid to join.

Others in chapter 5, verse 17, the people in Gilead, that's east of the Jordan River, and the other tribes of Dan and Asher near the coast, they're too busy with business.

So they hear about this, let's join, let's overthrow Sassara, and they, you know, sorry, wish you luck,

I'm busy. I've got things to do, you know, I've got money to make, I've got a business to attend to. So some have too little faith, and some are just too tied up in this world to change this world with God's judgment.

One Israelite town known as Meraz, and this is the only place I know where they can curse, probably because of what happened to it.

But in chapter 5, verse 23, it's cursed because it won't take part in this judgment.

And so the Lord says there, curse it thoroughly. Those who are afraid to take the risk to bring

God's judgment on earth are judged. Barak was able to muster 10 ,000 troops from the tribes of Zebelin and Naphtali, and they are praised in chapter 5, verse 18, as a people who risked their lives to the death.

Judgment is risky. It's so risky. Even Barak says he's only willing to go if Deborah goes with him.

Maybe he thinks, well, you know, she's telling me to go, but talk is cheap. See if you're willing to put your life on the line,

Deborah. And she will. But she says because Barak will only go if she goes, then

Barak will not get to bring the judgment on Sisera. He won't get the glory for the victory.

Instead, a woman will do it. But how could a woman in an age of, you know, hand -to -hand combat, where being stronger means an awful lot, defeat this cruel oppressor,

Sisera? How is that possible? Well, today bringing God's judgment on earth will require risk, still today.

Maybe for the unborn children, the unborn who are in this country, slaughtered because maybe they're inconvenient.

Are you willing to take a risk for them? Are you too afraid you'll lose and you'll look like a radical?

Or are you just too caught up in your own issues? You know, sure, you've got a wish.

There wasn't so much abortion, but, you know, you're most interested, you know, what's the government going to do for me?

A few weeks ago, I mentioned how in some places, Christians in some businesses like baking are being persecuted in this country for living their faith in the marketplace.

And you can make light of that and say, you know, sure, that's not real persecution. They're not being burned at the stake yet.

They're only being, you know, told they either got to do this or lose their business. But it is persecution.

Hebrews 10, verse 34 speaks of how the early believers, one of the first things they had to experience was the confiscation of their property, of their goods, because they were believers.

Now, to be a Christian who lives his faith outside of the church today is beginning to be risky.

Right here in the good old USA. Judgment is providential.

In chapter 4, verse 11, at first it looks like an irrelevant detail. You know, you're reading along,

Barak and Sarah and Deborah, and then there's this, what's going on?

Who cares about Heber the Kenite with connections to Moses' in -laws that he moves near an oak tree near Kadesh?

We care because that is providential, meaning that God arranged it. Not supernaturally.

God didn't pick up this man and beam him, you know, like rapture him from one place to another, but through natural events.

Something happened that says that he separated himself, probably suggesting there's some kind of disagreement with him and the rest of his tribe or his ethnic group.

He's not Israelite, he's from another nation. And he wanted to put some distance from him, between himself and the rest of the people.

Now, if you had been there and seen these events that caused this man to move, you wouldn't have thought there's anything special about him.

It's just, yeah, that's the way life works. But God was orchestrating it all. Putting the right person in the right place.

Heber, with his wife, Jael, in their new location, would just happen to be right on the path of Sisera's retreat.

Now, because they aren't Israelites, Sisera would be open to believing that they were on his side.

He wouldn't know that they are relatives of Moses and so sympathetic to Israel. So everything is arranged so that just the right person is in just the right place at just the right time.

Chapter 5, verse 14 simply tells us that Barak and his army of 10 ,000 routed Sisera and his chariots.

It doesn't tell us how. We think we want to know, how did Barak manage to defeat 900 chariots?

Who knows how many more men? Maybe, I should say, chapter 5, verses 20 and 21 tells us how.

Providence says they're the stars. Now, it's probably both kind of a slap at the astrology that the

Canaanites trusted in and also a reference to the sky and what comes from the sky. Fought against Sisera.

You know, the problem with astrology is that it gives credit to the creation. It belongs to the creator.

The stars don't determine your destiny. The one who created the stars does. Now, here there was a storm.

That's why it came from the sky. And so, in verse 21, that river. Remember that river he mentioned that Deborah told him to go down beside Kishon?

To us, it'd be kind of small. It'd be basically a stream. But Deborah told Barak to go there, and they would meet

Sisera in battle there. The river Kishon. It's a big storm. The river floods.

What do you think happens to iron chariots when they're in a flooded river? Chapter 5, verse 21, the torrent.

Now, it's no longer a river. It's a torrent. It's flooding. The water is fast. It's rapid. The ground is muddy.

It can't get anywhere. It just swept them away. And those iron chariots, the Sisera thought, gave them such an advantage.

Now, they're like lead weights. They're bogged down. They're easy targets for the Israelites sweeping in.

Providence brought a storm. Now, God's providence arranges things, often in ways that we're totally unaware of, even as it's happening.

It's kind of like a hidden trap that God puts in place and only becomes clear when it springs, and he puts it there to bring his judgment into the world.

You know, in the Civil War, Robert E. Lee's Southern Army had amazing victory after amazing victory against superior numbers and all that, superior equipment.

And so they began to think that they could not be beaten. They just figured they had what it took.

And so when they came to Gettysburg, they thought they could beat the Union Army there. It had hills to the south of it, and it was a flat, open field to the west of it, about a mile long from the forest to the town.

There's this field, corn field, important detail. The Southerners first tried to make it around that field by going up those hills, but they couldn't.

And so they thought that they could successfully march through that open field for a mile into the middle of the

U .S. Army. Now, they had been enslaving and oppressing people for 200 years and were fighting to keep enslaving them.

They thought there would be no judgment on them for that, but Providence had arranged for the

Southern Army to be slaughtered in that field. Over 1 ,800 years later, or I should say earlier, we haven't gone to 1 ,800 years later yet, 1 ,800 years before that,

Providence had arranged that the Roman Empire would adopt a cruel form, probably the cruelest form of execution ever developed.

A crucifixion. The cruelest form of execution, crucifixion, prepared by a cruel form of flogging.

It was so cruel, it was reserved only for non -citizens.

Roman citizens were not to be crucified and lashed like that. And Providence had arranged that this empire would be in control of Israel so that when hypocritical religious leaders wanted to execute a man they despised, they would have to do it the

Roman way. And so Providence arranged that what Isaiah saw, even 700 years earlier, before there was even a

Rome, before the city had even been established, would come to pass what

Isaiah saw in chapter 53. He was pierced for our transgressions.

By his stripes we are healed. Judgment is providential.

Judgment is unavoidable. Many people today think judgment is unnecessary, that love can charm everyone from their sins and eventually just win everyone over.

Judgment, they think, is a barbaric idea. You know, for people who don't understand the right techniques to attract people to the truth.

Or, you know, for ourselves, the right ways that we can avoid judgment. If there's a providential judgment for sex outside of marriage, they think, they can avoid that by the use of birth control.

If they have to, they'll resort to abortion. If that results in family breakdown and STDs, well, the government can take care of that.

If abortion or promiscuity results in guilt and depression, psychologists can take care of that.

If you can't afford the psychologist, well, government can take care of that, too. If the government runs out of money because it's given you all this stuff, well, they can raise taxes.

If the government destroys the economy by raising taxes too high, well, we just won't think that far ahead.

Judgment, they think, can be avoided, but it can't. Well, here,

Cicero believes that his vastly superior army with 900 iron chariots, and take in mind, at this time, iron was a pretty new development, and this is cutting -edge technology he's talking about.

His better equipment, that would keep any judgment away. Many Americans think the same today, that our military is so more advanced and better equipped than any other nation's that we're safe.

Well, here, it only took a rain storm and a flooding river to rout Cicero's army, and if God wills, it won't take much to humble

America either. Judgment is unavoidable, and that's what we see when

Jesus is praying desperately in the garden. Remember? He prays there. If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.

Jesus prayed that if the judgment that he was about to experience could be avoided, if there was any other way, then let him avoid it.

But there wasn't any other way. Fifth, judgment is the

Lord's. But this is precisely what so many people today find just unimaginable, to ascribe slaughters like at Gettysburg or here by the flooding

Kishon River, or what will happen in just a little bit to Cicero's head, to ascribe that to God, to say he's responsible for it.

That idea to many today is just atrocious. It's highly offensive.

I've been in theology classes in a liberal seminary, where it's just assumed that such things, you know, there are horrible crimes, and they're just to be condemned.

Sometimes they are. And even when that's true, as Psalm 19, verse 9 says, the judgments of the

Lord are true and righteous altogether. So keep in mind two things.

God is in control of all things, and God is always right.

Now, people may be wrong who bring his judgment on earth. In Acts chapter 4, the apostles say two things.

Pontius Pilate and Herod were wrong for murdering the only truly innocent person who ever lived.

They are guilty of a crime. And they did it as instruments of God. They brought his judgment on earth.

You read chapter 4, you don't believe me. Look at Acts chapter 4, that prayer. I'm sorry, I don't have the verse number right here. They pray that.

They did this crime. They murdered the righteous one, and they did it at your will.

Pontius Pilate and Herod were wrong. But God was not wrong to work through them.

So you can say for yourself, someone is wrong.

Maybe they did something unjust to you. They betrayed you. They hurt you. They stole from you, whatever. You know, you don't just say, well,

God willed it, and so they're free. No, you can say you're wrong. You can press charges in court against them and all that.

But then you have to ask the Lord, what is he training you to do? Why has he brought this judgment into your life?

How do you need to change? Are you too attached to the material things that were stolen? His instruments can be wrong, while he himself is always right.

Judgment is the Lord's. Deborah tells Barak in chapter 4, verse 14, and really what is the crux, the center and the pinnacle of this chapter.

She says, this is the day in which the Lord has given Sisera into your hands.

Does not the Lord go out before you? So this victory that happens is the result of the

Lord. In verse 15, the Lord routed Sisera. Now, Barak had to go out there with his swords and weapons and bring it about.

But the Lord was behind it. Barak was just his instrument. And the Lord has a special instrument to take out

Sisera, too. And judgment is unexpected. Sisera, fleeing from the battle on foot, just happens to come across Jael, Mrs.

Heber. Sisera knows that there is peace between his kingdom, the

Canaanites, and the Kenites. And so he feels safe with them. They had some way they could tell by the way she looked or dressed or whatever.

She's a Kenite. And Jael comes out to greet him, repeatedly inviting him into her tent.

She says, turn aside, my lord. Turn aside to me. Using a term of respect, you know, my lord.

She assures him, do not be afraid. Jael covers him. She comes in, covers him and says,

ESV with a rug, probably a thick blanket. He asked her for water because, you know, he's been running from the battle.

She has a better idea. So for water, here's some milk. More satisfying and much more likely to induce sound sleep.

He trusts her. But just in case she doesn't know what to do, Sisera instructs her in verse 20.

Look at that verse 20, chapter 4, verse 20. Talking to her like she's a naive child, exactly what to do.

Someone asks where I am. Ask if he's in there. If I'm in there, say lie. Say no, no one's in here.

Now Jael probably nodded quietly. Okay. Verse 20, though, shows us how completely

Sisera trusted Jael. You know, he thought she would lie for him.

He had no idea, no expectation what she was planning. He's exhausted.

Now he's snuggled under a thick blanket with a stomach full of milk, feeling safe, lulled into relaxation, not expecting any danger.

The last thing that probably went through his head before he went off to sleep was, how lucky I am to have such a good friend at just the right place.

But that wasn't the last thing to go through his head. The last thing that went through his head was something he never expected, judgment.

And judgment is brutal. Jael knew what she was doing all along.

So having gotten the result she wants, having set him up perfectly, she takes a tent peg and a mallet, a big hammer, and walking quietly up to him so as not to wake him up, she aims the peg just right on the temple of his head, and then, bam!

She drives it so hard, goes all the way through his skull into the ground.

It had to be a horrific scene. You know, blood and brains and bone lying around.

Disgusting. You know, this scene, if it's put in a movie, it'd have to be R -rated. It's so brutal.

I remember a fellow student once asking Professor Fuller, the founder of Fuller Seminary, what do you say to people who say the idea of hell is psychologically damaging?

And Professor Fuller replied, hell is psychologically damaging. That is the reality of it, psychologically and otherwise damaging.

It's not just an idea, a primitive idea that has been manufactured and now we should abandon because now we want to be positive and encouraging, and after all, love wins.

It's real and brutal, and so brutal it's known for its wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the state of Ohio tried executing a man who was guilty of rape and murder with a new drug that hadn't been tested, and now while the prisoner,

I don't know who had tested him today, but whatever, he did apparently. He was apparently, although he may have been unconscious by the time he was gasping for breath, but for a while, for several minutes, he was gasping for breath.

His body just naturalized to keep itself alive. People described it as brutal, and now his family is suing the state.

It's almost to be expected. There's this idea, though, that executions should be clinical, look clean and neat, humane, but you can't.

You're still going to have a dead body left. Death is brutal. It's ugly. There's no way around that, and so once you understand that, and the fact that we have death, and yet it is brutal, you are left with only two choices about God.

Either God, one, has no control of the world, and is just up there kind of feeling sorry for us, but not really able to do much about it, in which case he's really not

God, is he? He's just kind of wishing us well, sending us cards every once in a while.

That's about it. Or, number two, there is something so wrong with us that we actually deserve the brutality of death, and God is right to give it.

Now, that's offensive and astounding to many people today. So self -righteous are we.

But the really astounding reality, God hasn't just dished out death.

He's taken it. Even the most brutal death imaginable. Death on a cross.

Judgment is humiliating. You know, later when

J .L. sees Barack passing by, waves him in here, come in here, I'll show you

Cicera. He's lying in her tent with a peg through his head. There he is.

He is the great general. The man in charge, respected, saluted. And there he is with a smashed skull.

The instrument of his judgment was a woman, something in their day they thought would be completely humiliating, to be killed by a woman.

And speaking of women, even Cicera's mother is humiliated. Chapter 5, verses 28 to 30.

Just mocks her. It mocks the fact she's now peering out her window.

She's waiting for her boy, Cicera, to get back home from the battle as he has returned from countless raids on Israel in the past.

For the past 20 years, he's come back home with loot and girls. But he's late.

Why is his chariot so long in coming? What's going on? She's wondering, and so she's assured by the other women around her.

Maybe there's more spoil than usual this time. More embroidery they're looking forward to divide up.

More girls to rape. In verse 30. Maybe that's why they're so late.

Raping and pillaging. Well, he's late because his chariot got bogged down in a flooding river and he ran for safety.

He fell asleep in what he thought was a friend's tent, only had to have a stake driven through his brain. That's why he's late.

He's humiliated, and so is his mother, now mocked for looking out her window, vainly expecting him to return.

Judgment is humiliating. Judgment is without mercy.

Think about that passage in chapter 5, verses 28 to 30. You may listen to it, read it, and pass over it quickly, and not really think about it.

But think about it, because it contradicts exactly what many of us have been taught is the godly, the

Christian way to look at things. Here is Cicera's mother being mocked, and we aren't meant to feel sorry for her.

In fact, just the opposite. And here we have two choices to make. Either the

Bible is wrong. Maybe we make up some doctrine that was the primitive,

Old Testament thinking. Now we've evolved beyond that. That's just there kind of where we've come from.

Now we're better. Or we decide that our view of God and of ourselves has been wrong, that we've been missing something, like the reality of judgment.

Think about this. Cicera's mother is anxiously waiting for her beloved boy to return, and we're supposed to say, good, let her wait.

And it'll be good when she hears the news that her boy has had a tent peg hammered through his head. Serves her right.

Notice in verse 30, the women are waiting and saying to each other, they're saying, maybe their men are, maybe our men are dividing the spoil.

A womb or two for every man. The NIV that we heard just translated as a girl or two for every man.

They know, these women talking about it, they know that their men have been raping, and they think they are busy raping and pillaging again.

And they couldn't care less. So the New Testament tells us, judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.

Then, 10th, judgment is thorough. This wasn't just a setback for Jabin's Canaanite empire.

Remember, he's the big king in charge of Cicera. This was the beginning of the end. In chapter 4, verse 23 and 24, the power of Jabin and the

Canaanites is over, and the momentum that started by this victory eventually results in the total destruction of Jabin, king of Canaan.

In the end, judgment doesn't just curtail evil, set it back, prune it.

Judgment will thoroughly destroy it. And finally, judgment is celebrated.

Some Christians may agree with everything said so far, and yet conclude that's all necessary, but sad.

Well, the Bible only agrees with half of that. It is necessary, but it's not sad.

Now, sure, it would have been better if there had never been any sin in the world. No one had sin and no need for judgment, but we're past that already.

Now, judgment is necessary, and so when it finally comes, it's celebrated.

That's what chapter 5 is all about, right? It's a song. It's the only song in Judges, and it's all for celebrating their victory.

It's a strange song by our standards, isn't it? Have you ever heard a song today with the words, she's crushed his head, she's shattered and pierced his temple?

We need to put that to a catchy tune. Try that as a special one day. And it's a happy song, don't forget.

It celebrates in verse 11, when it says, the righteous triumphs of the Lord, and it concludes, after all this, pierced temple, staked through his head, and all this stuff.

So, in this way, may all your enemies perish, O Lord, but your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.

When God brings his judgment on earth, we're right to look at those judgments, like Julia Ward Howe, who looked at the

US Army marching south to bring judgment on slavery, and saying, glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on.

Now, sure, today, in our lives, our real enemies aren't flesh and blood, and judgment is the

Lord's and not ours, but in the end, in Revelation, when the world is finally judged, when the judgment has been completely meted out to everyone who has rebelled against him, the response from the great multitude, from the church that's gathered around the

Lamb, is, hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our

God, for his judgments are true and just. That's in Revelation 19.

Judgment finally means that our prayers have been answered, that God's kingdom has come on earth as it is in heaven, and so it's a cause for celebration.

I know this is a bizarre idea today, even to hear about judgment.

It's much stranger to hear it celebrated and to be told to embrace its brutality.

After all, we think, doesn't love win? Aren't we saved from judgment?

Yes, we are. We are saved from judgment, but the unexpected reality, it was so unexpected, the apostles themselves didn't understand it until the risen

Jesus explained it to them himself. The unexpected reality is that we are saved from judgment by judgment.

The sins that make judgment necessary are borne by the

Son for his people, so that we will not have to be judged. He took our judgment, beaten, brutalized, humiliated on a cross, and horrific sight of blood and death.

Isaiah 53 celebrates that by oppression and judgment. He was taken away.

Now, the oppression, we understand, the religious leaders were hypocrites and Pontius Pilate was unjust.

That's oppression, but the servant Jesus was taken away by judgment too.

God's judgment says it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

By that, Isaiah says, that Jesus, the servant, made many to be accounted righteous.

In other words, God could look at many, like you, as righteous because of what he did, of how he judged the

Son. He bore our iniquities. Judgment was without mercy on him, on the cross, so that the

Lord could have mercy on us. In the end, love does win.

Love for God's people, whom I hope you are all among, whom he saved by judgment, and love for God's glory in all things.

Glory we celebrate in his judgments that are true and righteous altogether.

In the end, love wins because God is love.