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

Judgment Begins at the House of God

Judges chapter 4 and 5, hear the word of the Lord.

The Lord said to Barak, Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisera into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you? So Barak went down Mount Tabor, followed by 10 ,000 men. 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.

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

Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, Come, my lord, come right in. Don't be afraid. So he entered her tent, and she put a covering over him. I am thirsty. He said, Please give me some water. 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. But Jael, Heber's wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted.

She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died. 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.

So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple, dead. 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.

Chapter 5. 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. 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. 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.

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.

When they chose new gods, war came to the city gates, and not a shield or spear was seen among 40 ,000 in Israel. My heart is with Israel's princes, with the willing volunteers among the people, praise the Lord.

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.

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. Then the men who were left came down to the nobles.

The people of the Lord came to me with the mighty. 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.

The princes of Issachar were with Deborah. Yes, Issachar was with Barak, rushing after him into the valley. In the districts of Reuben, there was much searching of heart. Why did you stay among the campfires to hear the whistling for the flocks?

In the districts of Reuben, there was much searching of heart. Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan. And Dan, why did he linger by the ships? Asher remained on the coast and stayed in his coves. The people of Zebulun risked their very lives.

So did Naphtali on the heights of the field. Kings came, they fought. The kings of Canaan fought. Of Tarnach, by the waters of Megiddo. But they carried off no silver, no plunder. From the heavens, the stars fought.

From their courses, they fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept them away. The age-old river, the river Kishon. March on, my soul, be strong. Then thundered the horses' hooves. Galloping, galloping, go his mighty steeds.

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. Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Canaanite.

Most blessed of tent-dwelling women. He asked for water, and she gave him milk. In a bowl fit for nobles, she brought him curdled milk. Her hand reached for the tent peg. Her right hand for the workman's hammer.

She struck Sisera. She crushed his head. She shattered and pierced his temple. At her feet, he sank, he fell. There he lay. At her feet, he sank, he fell. Where he sank, there he fell, dead. Through the window peered Sisera's mother.

Behind the lattice, she cried out. Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed? The wisest of her ladies answer her. Indeed, she keeps saying to herself. Are they not finding and dividing the spoils?

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. So may all your enemies perish, O Lord.

But may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength. Then the land had peace for 40 years.

Why Final Judgment Is Unthinkable to Many People

It's 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, particularly 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, 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 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 worldwide, there are fewer and fewer who 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, 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 killed a 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.

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 are 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 megachurch 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 that 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 frustrating that 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 that can be won over, can 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, of 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 4 and 5, we see that judgment is these 11 things. Well, first, judgment is for God's children.

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

Imagine that. 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, you know, judged for much lesser things.

Anyway, but here in verse 1, the sin cycle starts all over again. You see this over and over in Judges. It says in chapter 4, verse 1, the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight 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 bale 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 2, 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, Sassara, 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.

Judgment Is Risky and Providential

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. In chapter 4, verse 4 to 10, after 20 years of living in terror and harassment, Deborah, that's how I pronounce it, I know, that's not what you're used to, 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 Caesara.

But that's very risky. Caesara 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're 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 Caesara, you know, they make the announcements throughout Israel, let's get all organized together and let's go attack.

Several tribes got news and 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 Caesara, and they, you know, sorry, wish you luck. I'm busy. I've got things to do. 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 it occurs, 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. But Barak was able to muster 10 ,000 troops from the tribes of Zebulun 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 Sassara. He won't get the glory for the victory. Instead, a woman will do it. But how could a woman in an age of hand-to-hand combat where being stronger means an awful lot defeat this cruel oppressor, Sassara?

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? 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 in 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 chapter 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, you know, 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. It 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 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 Cicero's retreat.

Now, because they aren't Israelites, Cicero 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 that Barak and his army of 10 ,000 routed Cicero 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. It says there, 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 Cicero. You know, the problem with astrology is that it gives credit to the creation that 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 Cicero 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's fast. It's rapid. The ground is muddy. It can't get anywhere. It just swept them away. And those iron chariots that Cicero thought gave him 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.

They had superior numbers and all that, superior equipment. And so they began to think that they could not be beaten. 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.

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 ourself, 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, the government can take care of that too. If the government runs out of money because it's given you all this stuff, well, it 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 nations 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, 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 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 Caesara 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 Caesara.

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 Caesara too.

And judgment is unexpected. Caesara, fleeing from the battle on foot, just happens to come across Jael, Mrs. Heber. Caesara knows that there's peace between his kingdom, the Canaanites, and the Kenites, and so he feels safe with them.

You know, they had some way they could tell probably 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, with an ESV, with a rug, probably a thick blanket. He asks her for water because, you know, he's been running from the battle.

She has a better idea. She says, 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, Caesara 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 Caesara 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, the 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, you know, 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 would test us 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, trying to, you know, his body just naturalized to keep itself alive.

Now 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 card 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 Cicero.

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 Cicero'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, Cicero, 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.

You know, 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.