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Devotion Brought to You by Ehud
The dictionary defines winking
as … “closing and opening one eye [quickly, deliberately, or in an exaggerated fashion] to convey friendliness.”
God’s instruction to you and me is that we not wink at the enemy, especially if the winking is meant to convey friendliness. By enemy we are referring, of course, to the saboteur, the frustrator of our walk with God.
God’s instruction to you and me is that we, instead, be lethally ruthless, fatally ruthless, mortally ruthless with the enemy. We choose to be accommodating of the enemy, we choose to toy with the enemy, we choose to cuddle with the enemy to our own spiritual detriment.
For the children of Israel, the enemy, the saboteur of their worship of and service to the one and only true God—the saboteur was embodied in one, any or all of the “ites” (Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites). These “ites” the Bible exposes as the source of Israel’s allurement away from the worship of the true God and towards the worship of other gods (cf Deut 7:4a; cf 20:18a). Against these “ites” the Lord instructs Israel to “utterly destroy them” (Deut 7:2).
Now, numerous times Israel heeded the instruction to utterly destroy as in the case of Jericho for instance (Josh 6:21) or Makkeday (Josh 10:28) or Eglon (Josh 10:34-35) or Hebron (Josh 10:36-37). Israel was lethally, fatally, mortally ruthless with the enemy.
However there were also numerous times when Israel failed to heed the instruction to utterly destroy (Judges 1:21, 27, 28-33). Instead, the chose to wink, to be accommodative of the enemy, to toy with the enemy, to cuddle with the enemy.
The story of Ehud begins with the winky phase: The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD (Judg 3:12a). Show me the outworking or display of sin, and i will pinpoint for you the moment some winking took place. Sin follows on the heels of the wink. So if Israel did evil, its because they winked.
The winky phase gave way to the “whipy” phase: …the LORD strengthened King Eglon of Moab against Israel, because they had done what was evil in the sight of the LORD. Judg. In alliance with the Ammonites and the Amalekites, he went and defeated Israel; and they took possession of the city of palms. So the Israelites served King Eglon of Moab eighteen years (Judg 3:12-14).
The “whipy” phase ushered in the “weepy” phase:…the Israelites cried out to the LORD (3:15), Weeping in the book of Judges elicited divine mercy which expressed itself through the provision of a deliverer. This time the deliverer was a left-handed man by the name of Ehud. The face of the oppressor from whom Israel needed deliverance was a morbidly obese character by the name of King Eglon. To cut a long story short, Ehud … reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into Eglon’s belly; the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly; and the dirt came out (Judg 3:21-22).
The lesson that I draw from this story is ruthless dealing with the enemy. Matt. 5:29 states that “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” Don Clark was a bespectacled lecturer during my days at NIST. Don was weird, so we thought. Anytime he was about to cross paths with a woman, gorgeous or not, Don would remove his glasses so he would not have to stare at the woman’s body. That was Don’s way of tearing his eyes. That was his way of dealing ruthlessly with the enemy, in this case the eye that would potentially cause him to sin.
How ruthless are you, how ruthless am I when it comes to sin in all its various forms?
Devotion Brought to You by Jephthah
At an apartment (flat) one block to the right of where we lived on the East side resided a family of five—a single mother, a son (Toni) and Toni’s three sisters. Toni’s mum was a whore. I cannot recall any of us ridiculing Toni in his face or even behind his back for his mother’s trade. We never gave him grief over the fact that he was an SOH (son of a harlot). But that does not mean that Toni did not walk around throughout his teenage years and probably beyond with this unshedable cloak of shame. After all, as kids, we interpreted the expression “mama yako ni Malaya,” not as a compliment, but as an insult.
Brother Toni would identify quite a bit with a character in the Scriptures who likewise was a resident of the East side. We know that Jephthah hailed from Gilead, the territory of Israel east of the Jordan, on the ground that the Gileadites of whom Jephthah was one traced their genealogy back to Mannaseh through the person of Gilead and his daddy Machir. Another reason why we know Jephthah was from the East Side is the gist of the back and forth dispatch between Jephthah and the King of Ammonites beginning in judges 11:12 all the way to verse 27,namely, a contested land mass that was located on the East side.
Bro Toni would identify with Jephthah in yet another way. Like Toni, Jepthah was an SOH (Judg. 11:1 ¶ Now Jephthah the Gileadite, the son of a prostitute,). Talk of walking around cloaked in shame. Add on top of that being disinherited (Judg. 11:2).
I am impressed by Jephthah’s choice not to retaliate against his brothers especially because as the CEO of a company called “bad boys”( Judg. 11:3) he could easily have set the bad boys loose to chew up his brothers. One reason as to why Jephthah did not seek revenge was sooner than later the same people who flung the door shut behind Jepthah found themselves having to roll a red carpet for Jephthah (Judg. 11:4-10).The stone that the builders rejected as become the corner stone!!!
The real lesson that I draw out the Jephthah story is
(a) vow-making:
(Judg. 11:30 And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, Judg. 11:31 then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD’S, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.”)
(b) and vow-keeping
(Judg. 11:32 So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the LORD gave them into his hand. Judg. 11:33 He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. Judg. 11:34 ¶ Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. Judg. 11:35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow.”).
Every June 24th, I am reminded that, like Jephthah, I made a vow,yes to my wife, but ultimately to God.
Jepthah kept is vow:
(Judg. 11:39 At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made).
Will I keep my vow? Will you keep your vow
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