From His Heart

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Can God use someone like you? Of course he can. Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

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What we're going to see in chapter three is three different Judges, very, very different guys. But God used them to deliver Israel, to save Israel from sin to servitude, to supplication, to salvation.

And what you're going to see is, hey, if God can use those guys, he can use me, too. So the question is, do you have what it takes for God to use you? God wants to use you. Do you want to be used?

Speaker 1

Do you have what it takes for God to use you? Of course you do. You may not think so or feel like you're up to it, but today you'll learn what God thinks about your ability. Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve.

This month we're studying the Old Testament Book of Judges as he records the repeated cycles of compromise against God's people. And it's the kind of compromise that brings disaster. Yet even in the mess, God raised up unexpected leaders, each flawed human beings to deliver Israel and call the people back to the Lord.

We're in Judges chapter three today, investigating three very different men who God used to deliver Israel from sin to salvation. Hey, if God can use those men, he can use you, too. The message today is from Pastor Jeff's series Before There Were the Cost of Compromise.

And it's our gift of thanks to you for your support this month to From His Heart. You can find out more when you go to fromhisheart.org. Open your Bible now, though, to the Book of Judges, chapter three and the lesson called "Can God Use Someone Like Me?"

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In the Book of Judges, you have this cycle of sin. There are seven cycles of sin. Now, Judges takes place from around 1350 to 1050. It's after the death of Joshua and before King Saul, the first king of Israel. And you have this time period, about 300 years, some say 350 years, where there is no king in Israel. God would raise up Judges. The people had come into the land through Joshua and they came in to conquer the land. They did conquer the land during the time of Joshua, but there were still battles to fight. Not everybody was gone. God had told them to drive out all the Canaanites, but they didn't do it. They said, "No, we can just live and coexist with these people." But that didn't work very well, and that created all kinds of problems.

We have this cycle of sin that you see in the Book of Judges: peace in the land, Israel serves the Lord. That's what happened after Joshua died; they served the Lord. But then Israel does evil in the sight of the Lord. They get away from the Lord, and God punishes Israel, and Israel is enslaved. So sin turns to enslavement. Then there is the cry for God to do something. They make supplication to the Lord. Israel cries out to the Lord, and God answers. He raises up a judge, and the judge delivers Israel. Then there's peace in the land, and they serve the Lord until that judge dies out. The whole cycle starts again. We see that in Judges chapter three. It's tragedy and triumph—tragedy, triumph, tragedy, triumph. It's a sad way to live.

Here is what the scripture says. Judges, chapter three, beginning in verse five: "The sons of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. They took their daughters for themselves as wives and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods." They were not supposed to intermarry with those people; those people were pagan and very wicked. But they did. They took daughters and served their gods. The sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and forgot the Lord their God, and served the Baals and the Asheroth. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan Rishathaim, King of Mesopotamia. The sons of Israel served Cushan Rishathaim for eight years. When the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the sons of Israel to deliver them.

What we're going to see in chapter three is three different judges—very, very different guys. But God used them to deliver Israel, to save Israel from sin to servitude, to supplication, to salvation. What you're going to see is, hey, if God can use those guys, he can use me too. So the question is, do you have what it takes for God to use you? The answer is, everyone does. Because the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the whole earth that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his. God wants to use you. Do you want to be used?

The first person we run into in the Book of Judges, the first judge, is a man named Othniel. He represents a person with great ability. See, God can use a person with great ability. You say, "Well, duh, no kidding." He can use a person with great ability. But let's look at Chapter three, verse nine. When the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the sons of Israel to deliver them—Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. The spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel. When he went out to war, the Lord gave Cushan Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, into his hand, so that he prevailed over Cushan Rishathaim. Then the land had rest for 40 years, and Othniel the son of Kenaz died.

Othniel was something else. He was some kind of guy. As we look at these three judges, we're going to kind of, in New Testament terms, look at them this way. Jesus told a parable about the master who went away and entrusted his possessions to his slaves. To one, he gave five talents. To one, he gave two talents. To one, he gave one talent. Well, Othniel is a five-talent guy. He is a guy who had lots of ability. We read about him six times in Scripture. The rabbi said, of all the judges, Othniel was the champion. He was the greatest of all the judges. Now, six times in Scripture, three times that you read about him, he is connected to his uncle Caleb. Caleb was one of the 12 spies who spied out the land—Caleb and Joshua. Caleb was a man who followed the Lord fully with all his heart. He was a godly guy and a courageous guy, a man who walked by faith and not by sight. Othniel is connected to Caleb; Caleb was his uncle. Caleb no doubt had a great influence on Othniel's life.

So we think of this first deliverer of Israel as a guy who has great ability. I love his name, Othniel. It means "lion of God." The lion of God. This guy was a lion. He came from a godly family. He had great courage because in chapter one, he fought for a place called Debir. Caleb said, "Hey, if anybody takes Debir, I'll give him my daughter in marriage." Othniel stood up and said, "I'll go fight Debir." There were giants in that area, and he said, "I don't care. I'll go fight." God delivered the people of Debir into his hands, and he was given Caleb's daughter in marriage. A man of great courage, just a great champion. If you looked up his high school yearbook, he was voted most likely to succeed. That's Othniel. He was captain of the football team. He was in the "Who's Who." He was in the honor society. He's a five-talent guy.

You say, "Well, no kidding. Obviously, God can use that kind of guy. I'm not like that. I don't track with him at all." Well, some of you in here are five-talent people, but just maybe not across the board. I remember asking a seminary president this question one time. I said, "Who do you know who's really, really smart?" He said to me, "People are smart in different ways." I thought that was an amazing answer. I'd never thought about that before. Some people have a lot of book smarts; they are five talents when it comes to mental prowess and book smarts. Other people have five talents in reading people; they're very smart when it comes to people. They have street smarts. Some have book smarts, some have street smarts, and some have a body that's very strong and can do lots of things because they have been given physical prowess by the Lord and they work that. A lot of athletes take the God-given abilities that they have been blessed with and hone that skill. Some people have the ability to make money, and they've been very good in business. There are five talents when it comes to business.

Here's the thing about how God has blessed. If you are a person that says, "You know, God has given me a lot," there are two things to consider if you're a person with great ability. Number one, a person with great ability has great responsibility. You need to remember that. Great responsibility comes with great ability. With great blessings from God comes great responsibility from God. Luke chapter 12, verse 48: "From everyone who has been given much, much will be required. And to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more." If you've been given five talents, God expects you to use those five talents to the full. He doesn't expect you to rest on your laurels. In the parable in Matthew 25, the five-talent guy used those talents. Now, a talent is a weight—60 to 80 pounds of silver or gold. So five talents, two talents, one talent is the amount of money that the Lord entrusted his slaves with. If you've been given a lot, the Lord expects a lot. If God has given you a mind that is like a steel trap, then the Lord expects you to use that. If he's given you the ability to make wealth, he's saying, "What are you doing with the wealth that I've given you? I've blessed you so much financially. Are you storing that up for yourself?" Jesus said, "Don't store up treasure on Earth. Store up your treasure in heaven."

I was talking to a friend of mine just yesterday, and this man's name came up. I said, "Now, is he wealthy?" He goes, "Oh, he's very, very wealthy, but he never gives anything to the cause of Christ." I said, "You know, he claims to be a believer, but he won't support things." I said, "You know, it's a scary deal to think in your mind one day you're going to die and you're going to leave all that you have earned." When we die, we leave all that we have, and we just take with us all who we are, all that we are. We take that before the Lord and stand before the Lord. He says, "Okay, I blessed you with millions of dollars. What did you do with it?" "Well, Lord, I had several cars. I had homes across the US. I had a nice lake house. I had a boat. I went on expensive vacations. I bought myself lots of trinkets and jewelry and this and that. I spent it all on myself." Man, that would be a scary endeavor.

Bill Bright used to ask wealthy people for lots of money. He had no qualms about doing that because he said, "They're going to have to give an account to God one day of how he blessed them and what they did with that." I'm trying to help that person break free from the love of money. So if you've been given a lot, you have a great responsibility. To whom much has been given, much also shall be required.

The second consideration is that a person of great ability has great susceptibility. Not only great responsibility, but great susceptibility. What's the pitfall there? What's the susceptibility? That I would trust in all that God has given me, that I would trust in my ingenuity, my brain power, my physical strength, my ability to lead people, and my resources. I trust in my resources rather than trust in the Lord. Othniel could have trusted in his pedigree. "Hey, you know, you talk to Othniel. Well, who are you to lead us? Do you not know who my uncle is? My uncle is Caleb. I'm part of this crowd. I'm part of Caleb's line." He could have trusted in his ability as a warrior. He could have trusted in all that. He didn't. The Bible says pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before stumbling. The moment that you start thinking you're all that in a bag of chips, you're not all that in a bag of chips. You lose it all.

You remember Samson? He's one of the big names in the Book of Judges. Samson had incredible strength. They could never figure it out. How is this guy so strong? People like to draw pictures of Samson, and they draw him like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know? I mean, he's just this guy with muscles everywhere. They're always trying to figure out what is the source of his great strength. Well, have you seen him? I mean, he looks like Hercules. I don't think Samson looked like Hercules. I just think he looked like a regular guy. He looks like Don Knotts. And then you're like, "Well, good night. How's this guy whipping everybody?" The source of his great strength was the Lord. Remember, he tells his girlfriend Delilah, who is awful. She says, "Samson, tell me the secret of your great strength." Finally, she wears him down with her tears, and he tells her, "A razor has never come upon my head. If you cut my hair, I'll be as weak as any man." She causes him to fall asleep in her lap, and then she cuts off all his hair. She calls the Philistines and wakes him up, saying, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you." He says these words, "I will go out as at other times and shake myself free." He did not know that the Lord had left him. He was as weak as any man. They rushed upon him and gouged out his eyes. Then he became a grinder in the mill. He forgot that God is the source of his strength. He thought that he was strong all by himself.

With great ability comes great susceptibility. You and I have to constantly yield ourselves to the Lord. Humble yourself, Peter says, under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you at the proper time. Now, Othniel, the key to his greatness was that he recognized that God is God, and I'm not God, and I need God. It says of Othniel in verse 10, "The spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel." He was yielded to the Lord, as one commentator said, Zechariah 4:6 was his verse: "Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord."

So God can use a person. That's the first judge. We run into a person who has great ability. The second kind of person is a person with glaring disability. Great ability? Oh yeah, God can use him. Now we have a guy who has glaring disability. His name is Ehud. He spells it E-H-U-D. We would say Ehud, but it's pronounced Ehud. This is what the scripture says: "So they had rest for 40 years, and Othniel the son of Kenaz died. Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord." Broken record—cycle of sin. "So the Lord strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. He gathered to himself the sons of Ammon and Amalek, and he went and defeated Israel. They possessed the city of the palm trees. The sons of Israel served Eglon, the king of Moab, 18 years. But when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for them—Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man." The sons of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon, the king of Moab.

It tells us about Ehud. Ehud is a left-handed man. It's interesting that the word of God brings that out. It's like, "Well, it didn't say that Othniel was a right-handed man." It just says that Ehud's a left-handed man. Literally, in the Greek, it says that Ehud was bound, handicapped, hindered in his right hand. That's what the word means. It's not left-handed per se; it's that he couldn't use his right hand. He was hindered in his right hand because he was left-handed.

Now, I have a son-in-law, Travis, who is left-handed. In the world, about 10% of people are left-handed. We live in a right-handed world. That's just the way things are. You go buy a guitar; they're right-handed guitars. You have to look high and low to find a left-handed guitar. You go to play golf, and I've heard from people that said, "I was left-handed, so I had to learn how to play right-handed because there were no left-handed clubs." You know how a filing cabinet works? You punch that little button, that slide with your right thumb, and pull it open. If you're left-handed, how do you do that? You gotta do it with your pinky. We live in a right-handed world.

People, especially the ancients, looked at left-handedness as a weakness, a deficiency. You are hindered in your right hand. The word "sinister" means wicked, and evil comes from the Latin, which means left-handed. "Gauche" is a French word that means awkward, clumsy, socially inept. It's a French word that means left-handed. That was always thought to be, if you're left-handed, there's something—watch out for that guy. This is a left-handed deal. Here's a left-handed guy; he's got a glaring weakness. But God is going to use that weakness as a strength.

Now, everyone has weaknesses. Everyone. Even Othniel had weaknesses. Even though he's a five-talent guy, he had weaknesses. But this is a guy—Othniel didn't have glaring weaknesses. You would have to dig in his life to find his weakness. But Ehud had a glaring weakness. It was very obvious when you hung around him. "Hey, you don't use your right hand very well, do you?" "Now I'm left-handed." "Oh, you're one of those," you know, that kind of thing.

Everyone has weaknesses, and here's the good news: God delights in using weak things. He just does. This is what the scripture says in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1: "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble." Now notice it doesn't say that there were not any wise according to the flesh, not any mighty, not any noble. Paul, who wrote this by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was wise. Paul was smart. Peter says in 2 Peter that the things that Paul writes are hard to understand. Peter's the number one name in disciples; he's always named first on the list. He talks about Paul. He's like, "Man, I read some of that stuff he wrote in Romans. Good night. That's hard." Some things that he writes are hard to understand because Paul was wise. He had brain capacity—five talents. Peter didn't have that.

So Paul says, "There are not many of you wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, that he might nullify the things that are so that no man may boast before God." You know, God loves ordinary people. He loves extraordinary people. Othniel's an extraordinary guy. He loves extraordinary guys, but he loves ordinary people. We could almost say that God loves ordinary people more than anybody else because that's what he made—so many ordinary people.

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This has truly been an encouraging truth to everyone everywhere that God does use ordinary people. With God working in us and through us, we can become extraordinary.

We're halfway through this third message in the 10 lesson series, "Before There Were Kings: The Cost of Compromise." It's a study of the book of Judges, a chapter at a time, with an eye-opening reminder of what happens when people reject God's truth in favor of their own desires. It was a time of chaos back then—no king, no clear direction, just a cycle of sin and suffering and desperate cries for deliverance. And yet, even in the midst of this chaos, God raised up imperfect, unexpected, ordinary people who were called leaders to get God's people back to Him.

In this new 10-message series, "Before There Were Kings: The Cost of Compromise," Pastor Jeff unpacks the lessons of Judges, the warnings against apathy, the dangers of compromise, and the hope of redemption. The truth of it is clear: when you stray from God's way, life unravels. But when you turn back to Him, He is always faithful to restore.

The series is our gift of thanks to you for your support this month of any amount. To get the series in the format of your choice, call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-24253) or go online to fromhisheart.org. Be sure to reach out today with that gift, and we'll send this extensive study right out to you.

Well, we're going to pause right there in our lesson for today and for the next few days. We'll take a break from the series "Before There Were Kings" so we can begin to get everyone ready for Mother's Day celebrations this Sunday across America. We’ll begin tomorrow with a message designed for moms and dads to hear, reminding us how important mothers are. It's called "Home Sweet Home."

Be with us on Thursday as Pastor Jeff will open God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart here on From His Heart.

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Every scar with truth. Real love. Real from his heart.

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From his heart is the listener supported Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world.

Remember that no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out more at fromisheart.org.