From His Heart

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Are you a difference maker for good in your life and relationships? Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

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Deborah in the Bible, she's one of the greatest women in Scripture, and she was very industrious and she made a difference. So the question how can you be a difference maker like Deborah?

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There is tremendous truth.

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In the book of Judges, chapter four, we're introduced to Deborah, one of the greatest women in Scripture. She was wise because she operated within the role that God set up for her to have and encouraged others to do the same. Is it possible for you to be a person like Deborah?

This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. Thank you for joining us today as we continue the series, "Before, There Were the Cost of Compromise," and today's lesson is called "The Difference Maker." In the lesson, Pastor Jeff will help us discover how, just like Deborah, we can rise to the challenge and make a difference for Christ if we want to.

Right now, open your Bible to Judges, chapter four. Here again is Pastor Jeff Shreve to begin the lesson, "The Difference Maker."

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We're going to learn today some wonderful lessons from the life of Deborah. Deborah means industrious bee. And Deborah in the Bible is only talked about in Judges four and five. She's one of the greatest women in Scripture, and she has a significant place in Scripture. She was very industrious and made a difference. As we look at her life, we can say, "Okay, I can do these things that she did, and I can make a difference, too." I think every single person wants their life to count. We want our lives to make a difference in the lives of other people. Well, Deborah makes a difference because her impact influenced a man named Barak, who could lead the armies to throw off the oppression they were experiencing under a man named Jabin, who is called the King of Canaan.

So let's look in Judges, chapter four. It says this beginning in verse one: "Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died." It's a broken record. Remember we said we have seven cycles of sin in the Book of Judges? They are doing good, and then they fall prey to the Canaanites around them. They start serving the Baals, and God sells them into the hand of their oppressors. Things are horrible and terrible. They cry out to the Lord, and God responds. He sends a deliverer, and the deliverer defeats the enemies. Then there's peace in the land while they're walking with God. But they keep doing the same thing over and over again. So Ehud was a good judge, and they were serving the Lord during his lifetime, but then he dies, and they go back to serving the Baals.

Verse 2 states, "And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor." Actually, in Hebrew, it's called Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth Hagoyim. And that's a baby name; you probably wouldn't find anybody that has that name. But that was the name of the town he was from. The sons of Israel cried to the Lord, for he had 900 iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for 20 years. Think of tanks. This guy had 900 tanks. The Israelites, it says in chapter five, among 40,000 of the Israelites, couldn't find one shield and one spear. And this guy has 900 iron chariots. It is bad. The sons of Israel are oppressed severely for 20 years.

Now, it says in verse four, "Now, Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time." She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. The sons of Israel came up to her for judgment. I want you to notice with me four qualities that Deborah has that the Lord used to turn things around for his ancient people. So the question is, how can you be a difference maker like Deborah was a difference maker? Well, you can do the four things that she did to make a difference.

Number one, you can be wise. She was wise. You know, it's not an accident or just a coincidence that people sought her out to judge in a dispute or a difficulty. They would come to Deborah. She would sit under the tree of Deborah; that was where she held court, so to speak. Think of Judge Judy. We have that in our mind, where these people come before Judge Judy. Deborah is like Judge Judy, except she's nice, and Judge Judy's not all that nice. Interestingly, I looked this up: Judge Judy did that program for 25 seasons. That's pretty amazing. Anyway, that's just an aside, not part of the message.

Here is Deborah, and she is judging Israel. She is adjudicating, and she's helping them decide. She has lots of wisdom. You don't go to a person that has zero wisdom to ask them to judge in a dispute and in a difficulty. So she was wise. Now, I would hope that we would want to be wise. You can be wise or you can be foolish. Who wants to be foolish? We want to be wise. So where does wisdom come from?

Well, number one, wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord. If you want to be a person who is wise, the Bible says in Proverbs 9:10, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." It says the same thing in Psalm 111, verse 10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, a good understanding of all those who do his commandments. If we're going to have wisdom, the number one thing you have to have right off the bat, the first button in the shirt, is the fear of the Lord. That's the reverence for God. That's to recognize that God is God and you're not God. You give God his rightful place as king in your life, and you take your rightful place as his Doulos, his slave.

Now, how do you know if you fear God? Solomon said, "You know the conclusion when all has been heard is fear God and keep his commandments." This applies to every person. For the Lord will bring every act of judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. We're going to have to do business, every single one of us, with God one day, saved or lost. You're going to have to give an account of your life to the Lord.

So how do you know if you are fearing the Lord? Proverbs 8:13 states, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth I hate." If you're loving evil, guess what? You're not fearing the Lord. Because when you fear the Lord, you turn away from evil. So that's the first step in obtaining wisdom and becoming a wise person: it's the fear of the Lord.

Secondly, wisdom comes from the word of God in prayer. If you want to be wise, you need to spend time in the word of God. You need to spend time in prayer. Proverbs is the book of wisdom. When I was in college, my friend Sean Breedlove said that he would read the 31 proverbs. He said, "I'd read a proverb a day." He said, "Every day, for every day of the month, you read a proverb." Before I would read, I would pray, "God, this is the book of wisdom. Help me to be wise, teach me how to be a wise person, so I'd make wise decisions." In Psalm 19:7, the scripture says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple."

You say, "Well, I'm not a very smart man." You know, you're like Forrest Gump: "I am not a smart man." But listen, if you spend time in the word of God, the Lord makes wise the simple. So time in the Word and then time in prayer. James, chapter one, verse five states, "If any of you lacks wisdom." Wisdom is the ability to see things from God's perspective. Somebody said the difference between wisdom and knowledge: knowledge is the ability to take things apart, and wisdom is the ability to put things back together. You can have knowledge without wisdom, but you can't have wisdom without knowledge. Those things go together.

Well, if any of you lacks wisdom, James 1:5 says, "Let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him." So we pray, "God, give me wisdom. I have this decision to make, and show me what you want me to do. Help me to see this from your perspective."

And then thirdly, where does wisdom come from? Wisdom comes from wise friends. "He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm." Proverbs 13, verse 20. This is really for younger people; you start to ask yourself, "Okay, who do I hang out with? Am I hanging out with wise people who are wanting to walk with God, or am I hanging around fools?" He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Now, some of us will remember that there was a popular T-shirt a few years ago, and it had this little saying on it: "I'm with stupid." You'd wear it, you know, you'd be out with your friends, "I'm with stupid." Well, you're stupid for being with stupid, right? Listen, wisdom rubs off, and so does stupidity. If you walk with wise men, guess what? Their wisdom is going to rub off on you. If you walk with fools, well, their foolishness is going to rub off on you. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. You don't want to do that. You want to be a person who is wise. Deborah was a person who was wise, so that's the first quality she had. We say, "Hey, I can do that, too." I may not be very wise right now, but I can live in the fear of the Lord always. Proverbs 15:23. I can spend time in God's word. I can pray, and I can choose wise friends to hang out with.

The second quality is that you can understand your God-given role. Deborah understood the role that God gave her. It says again in verse four, "Now, Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time." She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim. The sons of Israel came up to her for judgment. Now she sent and summoned Barak, the son of Abinoam from Kedesh Naphtali and said to him, "Behold, the Lord, the God of Israel has commanded. Go and march to Mount Tabor and take with you 10,000 men from the sons of Naphtali and from the sons of Zebulun. I will draw out to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army with his chariots and as many troops to the river Kishon, and I will give him into your hand."

Deborah knew her role. She is one of a very few group, a very few amount of people that are called prophetesses. You have Miriam; she's the first prophetess talked about in Scripture. Deborah is not a priest because a priest is a person who represents God before the people, the go-between, you know, the Aaronic priesthood, Aaron and all his sons. Aaron is the brother of Moses. Miriam didn't do that; that was for Aaron and his sons. She is not leading her family; she's not the head of her family. How do we know that? Well, because it says in verse four that she was the wife of Lapidoth, who was judging Israel at that time. She's the wife of Lapidoth. It doesn't say that Lapidoth was the husband of Deborah because that would put Deborah and I'm her husband. I'm the tag along. No, he's the husband; she's the wife of Lapidoth because she understood her role.

The Bible is very clear about the roles that God gives us. It says in the book of Ephesians, chapter 5, "The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, himself being the savior of the body." Remember this because this is a huge hot-button issue today, especially in the Southern Baptist Convention. God made men and women to be different but equal. That's a basic, basic truth. Men aren't better than women, and women aren't better than men, but we're different from one another. I like what Adrian Rogers used to say: "Women are infinitely better than men, and men are infinitely better than women at being men." God made us different and gave us different roles.

When a husband marries a wife, the two become one flesh. We're a lot stronger together as husband and wife than we are by ourselves. Now, no doubt you have seen or heard that men and women, when you do the biology, when you do the physiology, are way different. Scientists and medical people can look at a skeleton of a man and a skeleton of a woman, and they can immediately tell that was a woman, that was a man. You don't have to have any flesh, no organs or anything; you can just tell from the skeletal structure because the skeletal structure is different.

Men have more muscle mass than women. It doesn't mean that men are better than women; it just means that's physiologically how God made them different. Adam was made from the dirt, and Eve was made from the flesh and the bone of Adam. Women have a higher percentage of body fat. Women are curvier than men. Men tend to have larger lungs and higher lung capacity than women. Men also have longer and thicker limbs and more pronounced muscle attachments. This is not something I got from some Bible study; this is from some medical journal that I looked up. Men have larger hearts and blood vessels, which means they can pump more blood and oxygen to their muscles. This can give them a performance advantage in certain types of physical activities, such as running and weightlifting.

Now we live in an insane society. Lots of times on Twitter, I'll put a hashtag "stoptheinsanity" from the catchphrase of the 90s, Susan Powder. We are so insane, professing ourselves wise, we have become fools, as it says in Romans chapter one. We think that a man, because he feels like a woman, can be a woman and compete in women's sports. If we let that continue to go on, you're going to destroy women's sports. Why? Because men and women aren't the same. God made a man, in general, to be bigger, stronger, and faster; he's going to be able to do things physically that a woman can't do.

What do we see in sports today? You have this guy who is grossly confused, and people who are going along with the fact that the emperor has no clothes. They will say, "Well, sure, you identify as a woman. You can compete in women's swimming; you can compete in track and field." And they blow the women away because they're men. Let them compete with the men; they don't do so well competing with the men, do they? You can always find some woman that's way outside the norm, but in general, we're just different. It doesn't mean one is better than the other; it just means they are different.

God commands us to operate within his parameters, within the roles that he sets for us. So who's the leader of the home? In the marriage relationship, the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. God has given me the role of leadership in my home. Let me tell you something: Debbie is naturally a better leader than I am. But that doesn't matter. It's not about who qualifies in terms of taking a test. God says, "You're the designated driver; you're the head of the home. I put that on you. I put that mantle of leadership on you just as Eve was created to be Adam's helper."

Debbie helps me, and when we had little kids, I mean, I couldn't have done that without her. But the responsibility for running the family, ultimately, if it went haywire, God was going to call me into account. "Hey, I gave you that responsibility." "Well, Lord, Debbie's just messing up all over the place." "No, it's your responsibility. If she's messing up, you figure out why she's messing up. You help her." But you have the responsibility. You're the designated driver; you're the head coach; she's the assistant coach, and you work it together.

Now, in the church, the mantle of leadership is given to men. God says, "I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man because it was the man who was first created and then the woman." First Timothy, chapter two. It was not the man who was deceived, but the woman, being quite deceived, fell into transgression, which means Adam's sin was worse. Eve could say, "Well, the Devil deceived me, and I ate." Adam couldn't say that. Adam wasn't deceived; Adam ate. We don't really know why he did that. I guess he said, "Well, Eve didn't die. Maybe she was using her as a guinea pig. Yeah, try it. See if you like the fruit, and if you drop dead, I'm going to make sure I don't eat it." It's horrible.

However you try to conjure that up in your mind, the Lord doesn't really tell us all the inner workings in their minds. But here's the point: God has designated you have a certain role, and you have a certain role. On a football team, you have the quarterback who throws the ball to the wide receiver. You say, "Well, who's more important, the quarterback who throws the pass or the wide receiver who catches the pass?" Well, they're both important. They're both equally important. If the quarterback doesn't get the ball there, well, that's an incompletion. If the wide receiver doesn't catch the ball, that's an incompletion. They're both very important.

Some have said, "Well, why is Deborah the leader in Israel if God is big on male leadership?" Isaiah 3:12 gives us insight into this. In a rebuke, it says, "Children are your oppressors, and your women rule over you." That's not a good thing; that's a bad thing. It doesn't reflect poorly on Deborah. Deborah was a great woman, the mother of Israel and Mother Enoch Israel. But it reflects poorly on the men. At this time in Israel's history, there wasn't a man to step up, and men desperately need to step up.

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You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve today, and you heard part one of the lesson called the Difference Maker. God created us to make a difference in this world, often through acts of kindness and service and justice, and especially devotion to worshiping Him. Are you a difference maker? We hope today's lesson has begun to encourage you.

Our study this month is Walking through the Book of Judges a chapter at a time, and it serves as an awakening reminder of what happens when people reject God's truth in favor of their own desires. It was a time of massive chaos, and they didn't have a king, no clear direction, just a relentless cycle of sin and suffering. And yet in this mess, God remained merciful, raising up imperfect and unexpected leaders to call his people back to Him.

In this series called Before There Were the Cost of Compromise, Pastor Jeff Shreve points to the warnings against apathy, the dangers of compromise, and the hope of redemption. These lessons teach us the message is clear: When you stray from God's way, life unravels. When you turn back to Him, He is always faithful to restore. Don't miss this timely and convicting series, Before There Were the Cost of Compromise. The 10 lessons are our gift to you for your support to From His Heart this month of any amount, and you can receive the series on a flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or MP3 download of your choice. To get yours, call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go online to fromhisheart.org.

God bless you for joining with us in this journey and mission effort to share the truth of God's Word with the world. We also hope that you visit our website each day, where you can hear the daily Real Hope minute from Pastor Jeffrey. Sign up for the weekly Real Hope email encouragement letter from Pastor Jeff. You'll get it every Friday morning in your inbox or download an MP3 of any broadcast you may have missed. Plus, you can easily join Pastor Jeff on social media channels when you go to fromhisheart.org.

We want to close out the broadcast today with Truth From God's Word to encourage you if you are encountering pushback because you will not compromise on issues of faith and morality. God's Word assures us, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

Thank you for being with us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles inviting you to be back tomorrow for part two of the lesson, the Difference Maker. Join us on Wednesday when we will again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope—hope from God's heart here on From His Heart.

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There is treasures true There is love There is hope that you always dream Love he can heal every scars of truth Real Love, Real Hope 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, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more@fromisheart.org.