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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, here's more about an unforgettable journey with Skip and Lenya Heitzig.

Skip Heitzig: Hey, quick question. What if the Bible came to life right before your very eyes?

Lenya Heitzig: Join us in Israel, April 5th through the 16th in 2027 for an unforgettable experience that will change the way you read your Bible.

Skip Heitzig: Together we'll explore places like Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, the Garden Tomb where some believe Jesus rose from the dead, and many of the places where Jesus taught and ministered.

Lenya Heitzig: Plus, you'll have the opportunity to attend the Epicenter Summit in Jerusalem and hear from Christian leaders like Joel Rosenberg, Greg Laurie, Anne Graham Lotz, and Skip.

Skip Heitzig: We'd love to experience Israel with you. You can learn more and reserve your place today at connectwithskip.com/israel.

Announcer: Now, let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig.

Skip Heitzig: Verse 18, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. That's the sin cycle. And this cycle gets repeated in this book over and over and over and over again. 350 wasted years of people not learning the lesson that God was trying to teach them. It came to pass, verse 19, when the judge was dead, they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers by following other gods to serve them and bow down to them.

They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way. But here's what I love. God's love is an unrelenting, pursuing love. Even though they keep blowing it over and over again, God says, I'm not giving up. I'm going to chase you down and make life miserable for you so that in your misery you'll say, I'm sorry, and then I'll bring you back. Even if you blow it again, I'll chase you down and you'll cry out and I'll bring you back. God's love is an unrelenting, pursuing, chasing love. And the book of Judges, even though it's tragic, shows me this lesson.

In fact, it could be summed up by that great hymn called The Love of God that says, the love of God is greater far than ink or pen could ever tell. It stretches to the farthest star. It reaches to the lowest hell. Could we with ink the oceans fill and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth the quill and every man a scribe by trade to write the love of God would drain the oceans dry, nor could that scroll contain the whole though stretch from sky to sky. The love of God, unrelenting, pursuing.

In fact, there's a word for it in the Old Testament. It's sometimes translated loving kindness. It's the Hebrew word hesed. Hesed means covenant love or loving kindness. Two years ago, I sat in Benjamin Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem and we were talking about Jesus. And he said, well, I have to admit Jesus Christ brought a whole different level of and he said he was trying to think of the word and he said it in Hebrew to his aide. He said hesed and I I recognized the word, so I interrupted. I said, loving kindness. He goes, that's it, loving kindness.

Jesus brought a whole new level of loving kindness. And he did. That is a word that describes God's love. That's a Hebrew word even from the Old Testament. Well, the first four judges shown in chapters 3, 4, and 5 are as follows, Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, and Deborah. These chapters record what they did in delivering Israel, but I got to warn you, they're violent. I already gave you the warning at the beginning of the book. It's details of their violence against their enemies. Now, when we get to the story of Deborah, chapter 5, I've always seen Deborah and I like she's the only female judge in this book, but she's there.

She's a leader. Deborah reminds me of Golda Meir. Anybody heard of Golda Meir? She was the fourth Prime Minister of the nation of Israel. She was called the Iron Lady of Israeli politics. A very apt leader. She was the Prime Minister during the late '60s. Um, in chapter 4, verse 4, Deborah is called a prophetess. Please mark that. It indicates there were prophets, but also there were women who were given the title prophetess. And she is one. Also in that verse she is called a wife, a prophetess who was the wife of Lappidoth. That's her husband's name, weird name, but that's her husband's name.

And that's an important designation. It doesn't say Lappidoth was the husband of Deborah, even though that would seem to be appropriate because she's the one that does the leadership, not him. But she knew her place within the family. And they knew what her place within the family. And her place within the family was different than her place within the nation. And so she is called a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth. So they understood each other. He knew that she was a leader and he gave her the freedom to do that. Somebody said marriage is like a long trip in a tiny rowboat.

If one passenger starts to rock the boat, the other has to steady it or they'll both go to the bottom together. So they learned the balance in their relationship. In chapter 5, verse 7, she sings a song after the victory God gives her. And it says, village life ceased, that is in Israel. It ceased in Israel until I, Deborah, arose arose a mother in Israel. So she is a prophetess, she's a wife, and she's a mama. There's an old hymn of the church, Faith of Our Fathers. Anybody heard that song, Faith of Our Fathers living still?

Really that's all the only four of you know that or have heard that song. Great song, Faith of Our Fathers. We need to add a verse. Faith of Our Mothers. She was a prophetess, a wife, she was a mother in Israel, and she was a leader that God raised up. The next few judges are Gideon. You've heard of him. Tola. You may not have be too familiar with him. Jair or Yair and Jephthah. Now, a couple of these have longer narratives, that is the story is told with more words. And the story focuses on the character flaws of these leaders.

So give Gideon. Gideon begins as a coward. He was a coward. He was scared. He was fearful of the enemy. But he he learns to trust the Lord through a process the God puts him through and he defeats the Midianite army with 300 of the children of Israel. By the way, on on our trips to Israel, we don't always do it, but I like to if we have the time, take people to the well of Harod and the spring that runs out of there. It's where he took the 300 men and had them bring the water to their mouth and and and lap.

It's recorded in this book and and we reenact that scene there and even drink if if if you trust the water enough. If you trust the Lord enough to drink the water, we let you try it there. So let's meet our hero Gideon in chapter 6, verse 11. Now, the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree, which I just kind of like. Here's an angel just like just sitting down under the tree, under the shade. That's what angels do. Which is in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite. While his son Gideon, now watch this, Gideon threshed wheat in the wine press in order to hide it from the Midianites.

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. A wine press is located at the bottom of a hill. Wheat is not threshed at the bottom of a hill. Wheat was threshed at the top of the hill. The threshing floor was on the top of the hill so that the afternoon breezes the blow through you can throw the wheat in the air with your pitchfork. The chaff gets separated from the wheat and blows away. The wheat falls to the ground, but you need a breeze for that to happen.

The best breeze is on the top of the hill. That 's why threshing floors were always on top of a hill. Wine presses were on the bottom. He's not on the top, he's down below at the bottom cuz he's scared. He didn't want doesn't want to be in plain sight, so he hides and he throws his wheat up in the air and there may be a little bit of a breeze blowing through, but it would take like four times as long to separate that stuff. But that's why he's down there. So it's funny when the angel of the Lord says, hey, mighty man of valor.

He's probably looking around like, is there somebody else up here or down here? Now, why does the angel of the Lord call this coward a mighty man of valor? Here's why I believe. God doesn't see you just as you are. He sees what you will become by his strength. He is not a mighty man of valor, but he will become one through this process God is putting him through. Now, he should be at the top of the hill, but fear always brings you down. So he is not a mighty man of valor, but the Lord calls him that through his angel cuz that's what the Lord wants to do with him, just like Peter was called a rock.

He was given the title Cephas was called a rock. Um, Jesus knew what Peter could become. Now, that's Gideon, but the story goes on to show the dark side of Gideon. Let me kind of sum it up for you. Gideon murders a bunch of Israelites, his own people, for not helping him defeat the Midianites. Then, to make matters worse, he takes gold that he got from the battles. He makes an idol out of it. And when he dies, the children of Israel worship the idol and the sin cycle begins all over again.

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Receive both when you get $50 or more to share biblical truth with more people around the world. Request your copies at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. Now, here's more from Pastor Skip.

Skip Heitzig: So good guy had a bad bad son. When we come to the ninth judge called Jephthah in chapters 10 through 12, we come to another great warrior, but immoral in many ways. Jephthah was adept in battle, a real warrior. But you you have to think of Jephthah sort of like a gang thug. Yeah, he was the guy giving all the signals. He was the mafia boss. He fights against the Ammonites because they asked him to. Chapter 11, verse 1. Now, Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, but he was the son of a harlot and Gilead begot Jephthah.

So he's an illegitimate son. He is scorned by people. That's how he grew up invariably in that culture. Maybe that helps us understand a little bit of his rough around the edges character. Verse 3, then Jephthah fled from his brothers and dwelt in the land of Tob and worthless men banded together with Jephthah and went out raiding with him. These are idle men, they're bored, they want action. Now, here's what you need to know about Jephthah. Jephthah used by God, I grant that, but he is so unfamiliar with God's character that he treats God, the true God Yahweh, as if he were a pagan deity, a Canaanite deity.

What do I mean by that? He is willing to take his own daughter and sacrifice her, kill her as a thanksgiving for winning a battle. Chapter 11, verse 29, it says, the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he advanced toward the people of Ammon. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, if you will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands, then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the people of Ammon will surely be the Lord's.

I will offer it up as a burnt offering. Whatever comes out if my cat comes out, it's a dead cat. It gets sacrificed. If my mother-in-law comes out I made a vow. Sadly verse 34, his daughter came out after he had won the battle, after he had brought the victory. His daughter comes out with timbrels and she's singing and she's dancing. And in verse 39, he keeps his grizzly vow. Why is this story even in here? It's in here to help highlight how bad a shape Israel was in at the time, that they no longer even knew the character, the nature of their own God.

Chapter 12, there are three more judges. There is Ibzan, Elon the Zebulonite, meaning he's from the tribe of Zebulun, and Abdon who is the Pirathonite. Simply means he is he is from Pirathon. I have no idea where that is. It just says he is from there. I could find it, but I didn't. Samson, chapters 13 through 16. Samson is by far the worst of all the judges. You go, worst? Come on, he was my Sunday school hero. I remember the story. He's the Superman of the Old Testament. He's the terminator of the Old Testament. He's the transformer.

That's Samson. Actually, Samson was promiscuous, violent, arrogant. Yes, he won great victories, but at the expense of his own integrity. Joseph Parker, a contemporary of Charles Spurgeon, said Samson was an elephant in strength, but a babe in weakness. You know the Sunday school stories. You know he could rip lions in half. You know he could take 300 foxes, tie their tails together, light it on fire and burn the fields of the Philistines. You know that he could take the jawbone of a donkey and and kill the enemy. In fact, in this story he even runs 38 miles with doors on his back.

You know, some guys go to the gym and work out with weights. He worked out with doors. Incredibly strong. At the end of his life, he brings a house down, literally. He stands in the temple of Dagon between two pillars, pushes them aside. God answers his final prayer, destroys himself and his enemies in that temple. Now, it would be great to have Samson as your big brother. I had a big brother who was 6'8". 6'8". I loved when he was around. I loved when I got bullied. I go, Bob. Be great to have Samson to do that.

He he'd be a great big brother. He was a horrible spiritual leader. In fact, you read a story, it seems like he has no spiritual values at all. In chapter 13, verse 1, again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years. Now, that's the longest period of their oppression in the book of Judges. In the 350 years, this 40 year length is the longest period. And it's because of the Philistines. Let me tell you a little bit about about the Philistines.

The Philistines originated in the area of Greece and the Aegean Sea, the islands around the Aegean Sea. They had been forced out of their homeland and in 1200 BC they sailed from that area, went to Egypt and attacked the Egyptians and won. Egypt Egypt was a superpower. Philistines beat the Egyptians, then started moving up the coast from Egypt into the land of Israel and settled along the coastlands of ancient Israel in five principal cities mentioned frequently in your Old Testament. They are a Gaza, it's still a city today in the territories called the Gaza Strip.

Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. Those are the five Philistine cities. Typically on a tour of Israel we'll take a half day and we'll go down to the Philistine country into the valley of Elah where David slew Goliath and see where Samson was born in that area called the Philistine country. The Philistines, once they settled in the land, they had an advantage over Israel because they were advanced in metallurgy. They had a a lot of metalsmiths, blacksmiths. They knew how to mine iron and smelt it and form weapons. And so they had that advantage over Israel.

So as the Philistines are oppressing, God gets hold of the parents of Samson. Verse 5 we'll jump to the story. For behold, you shall conceive God says to them and bear a son and no razor shall come upon his head. For the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb. And he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines. So God God had great plans for him. The and and the plans God made for him was to be a man of God. But he becomes a man of the flesh.

He really wants nothing to do with God ruling over his life. Very strong, but very weak morally. Now, he's to take a vow of a Nazirite. It's unusual because God says he's going to be a Nazirite from his birth. A Nazirite vow was usually for a certain period of time, had a beginning, had an ending. You don't cut your hair. You cut it at the end of the vow and you burn it. You don't touch wine. You don't touch any of the dead to be defiled. There are certain restrictions for a Nazirite. He was to be a lifelong Nazirite along the lines of later on John the Baptist in the New Testament.

That's how he had set up. Go down to verse 24. So the woman, that is Samson's mom, bore a son and called him Shimshon. Now, I didn't say it right. It's it's Samson in English, but in Hebrew Shimshon, which is a word that means of the sun or sunny boy. So sunny boy's name probably comes from the sun worship, Baal worship, so that his parents were already influenced by the paganism of the Philistines that were around them. He is called sunny boy or of the sun, Samson, Shimshon. Says the child grew and the Lord blessed him.

And the spirit of the Lord, watch this, the spirit of the Lord began to move upon him at between Zorah and Eshtaol. The spirit of the Lord began to move upon Samson. This is the secret of Samson's strength. It's not his hair, it's not his arms, it's the spirit of God moving upon him. Jesus in the New Testament will say, without me you can do how much? Nothing. So the strength of this man was not his hair, was not his arms, was not the fact that he worked out with doors and ran 38 miles, got really in shape.

It was the spirit of God that was on him. That's the secret of this man's strength. Now, I want to stop right here and make a note of this. At key times in Israel's history, both with judges and with kings, the spirit of God will come upon a person to empower that person to accomplish God's work, and in this case to accomplish deliverance. The fact that God uses him does not mean that God endorses him. You need to know that cuz you go, what? This guy's wicked. It says the spirit of God came upon him.

He's not in him. He does come upon him for a specific season to accomplish a specific task. The fact that God uses a person doesn't mean the God endorses a person. Now, you should know that from your reading of the Bible. God raises up a guy by the name of King Cyrus, a Persian, uh, a pagan, hates Israel, oppresses Israel at first, helps them later. But he's called the servant of God. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, hated the Jews, burned their temple, took them captive. But it says God used him and he was a servant of the Lord.

Uh, Caesar in the New Testament, God uses Caesar to make all the world get registered, which is why Joseph and Mary leave Nazareth to go to Bethlehem so that Jesus can be born in Bethlehem. So all the kings of the world can be used by God at specific times. And the fact that God uses them does not mean that God endorses them. So that's a very very important concept to get. Now, God wants to save his people and God wants to rule over his people. The truth is this is all he's got to work with.

These knuckleheads called judges so flawed, so imperfect. That's how bad Israel had become. That's really the point. God really wants to do a work, but all he's got to work with is knuckleheads like this. So he does.

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Singer: Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast your burdens on his word. Make a connection. A connection.

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