FAMOUS BIBLE CHARACTERS

By Pastor Glenn Pease

CONTENTS

1.     GOD IN MAN’S IMAGE Based on Gen. 3:8f

2.     ABRAHAM THE INTERCESSOR  Based on Gen. 18:16‑33

3.     REBEKAH-A DEDICATED DAUGHTER  Based on Gen. 24:42‑66

4.     JOSEPH-DREAMS CAN COME TRUE  Based on Gen. 37:2‑20

5.     JACOB AND JOSEPH  Based on Gen. 42:1‑20

6.     JOSEPH THE ACTOR  Based on Gen. 42:1‑22

7.     MOSES MEETS GOD   Based on Ex. 3:1‑15

8.     RAHAB THE HARLOT Based on Josh. 2:1‑21

9.     DEBORAH THE WISE Based on Judges 4

10.   DEBORAH THE DELIGHTFUL Based on Judges 4

11.   JAEL THE ASSASSIN Based on Judges 4 and 5

12.   SAMSON THE SUPER FOOL Based on Judges 16

13.   RUTH THE RISK TAKER Based on Ruth 3:1‑13

14.   QUEEN OF SHEBA Based on I Kings 10:1‑13

15.   ELIJAH THE PROPHET OF FIRE  Based on I Kings 18:20‑40

1.     GOD IN MAN'S IMAGE   Based on Gen. 3:8f

  A young boy afraid of the dark called for his mother to come upstairs to his bedroom to be with him.  She came and sought to comfort him by telling him God was there with him, and so he didn't have to be afraid.  He was all right for a while, but then he called her again.  When she came up he offered this proposition:  "Why don't you stay up here with God while I go down stairs with daddy?"  The child was simply expressing the natural desire for a tangible companion.  The philosopher may feel at home with some abstract concept, but most people are like the child, and their desire is for something concrete. 

       Philosophy is concerned about God's nature and will, but it has never had much appeal to the vast majority of people.  It is abstract and talks about God as the Ground of being and the Fundamental Force of the Universe.  Most people need a concept of God that can be embodied in some kind of a mental image.  This is why the Bible is filled with what is called anthropomorphism. That is a big word that simply means the picturing of God in the form of a man, and with characteristics of a man.  God became a man in Christ, and Jesus said that when we see him we see the Father, and so our image of God is very manlike. Our highest revelation of God is in the man Christ Jesus. In Jesus God is a man.

     Even before man knew of God the Son the Father was described in terms of human characteristics.  The reason for this is obvious, for there is no alternative if man is going to have any intelligent concept of the nature of God.  If anthropomorphic terms were not used to describe God He would be so abstract as to be almost meaningless, and He would certainly not be thought of in a way that would be of much comfort.  God is infinite spirit, and all His attributes are so infinitely superior to ours that we cannot conceive of God at all in His essence.  Our knowledge of God has to be on the level of the finite.  This means we must be aware that even our highest concepts of God are fall short of what He really is.  God has had to descend to the level of our finite minds in order to be known by us at all. 

        If you want to communicate with a dog you do so with meat and bones and scratching behind the ears.  These are hardly the highest expressions of man's nature, or of his love, but these kinds of things alone can be understood by the dogs intelligence.  You would get nowhere in communicating with a dog by mathematics, art, or a lecture on biology.  These are above the dog's capacity, and so rather than get no response at all you stoop to the dog's level and speak his language.  This is what God has done with man.  He has revealed himself in man‑like ways, and with man‑like characteristics.  The result is that many young people form the concept in their minds of God as an old man of great wisdom with a long white beard.  Mature believer know this is not so, but as C. S. Lewis has said, it is better that God be seen this way than as a mere abstraction, which is even more false to reality. He wrote, "What soul ever perished for believing that God the Father really has a beard?"

       It is essential to think of God in human terms, and it is harmless as long as recognize them as necessary symbols to represent God, but not necessarily what He actually is.  The Greeks fell into this danger and had their gods on the same level with men, and this included all of their limitations and immoralities as well.  Most pagan peoples have done this, and so they have a very poor concept of God.  Any god who is too man‑like is a partaker in man's evils.  God rebuked this in Ps. 50:21, "You thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you." We must use the benefits of anthropomorphism, for the Bible uses them, but we must also avoid its dangers lest we make God in man's image. God made man in His image, and so it is reasonable to assume that God is man‑like in many ways. But we need to avoid any idea that God is like man in his fallen nature.

     God has always been in heaven speaking the words that formed all or reality, but then we come to Gen. 3:8 and all of a sudden we see God walking on earth in the garden.  He is now clearly in the image of man.  Our very first concept of God, which we can visualize is of a man walking in the garden and talking with Adam and Eve.   We cannot conceive of what He was before creation, but here we see Him as a man.  What is of interest is that this is not just anthropomorphic, but is a literal description of what God actually did.  He made himself in the form of a man and dwelt with man.  Only the literal interpretation fits the total unity of the Bible.  The ultimate goal is that God will again dwell with man. 

       It is not stated as such but it could very well be that this one walking in the garden could have been the second person of the Godhead.  Jesus became a literal man in the incarnation, but here we see him taking on the form of a man.  In the ultimate paradise that we see in the book of Revelation we know it will be Jesus who will walk with us in white, and we shall be like Him when we see Him as He is.  Anthropomorphism is justified because God began his relationship with man as a man.  He chose to reveal himself in the form of a man at the beginning, and actually became a man in history. 

       It is implied that God had walked in the garden before this, for how could they have known the sound of Him walking if they had not heard it before?  They did not see Him but heard Him coming, and if they had never seen God before in the form of a man walking, how could they ever suspect it would be God making the sounds they heard?  The text implies that God actually dwelt on earth with Adam and Eve.  This means that earth was once the dwelling place of God, and God had actually been on our world in the form of man before Christ.  It could have been the pre‑incarnate Christ who was here in the form of man.  He did not come into flesh through birth, but merely took on the form of a man as we see He did on other occasions in the Old Testament. 

       We see that the Old Testament works away from an incarnation of God, which was lost toward and incarnation of God, which gave hope.  It is no wonder that the Old Testament concept of the ultimate kingdom was earth centered, for this was the setting of the ideal in the beginning.   Even in the New Testament where the eternal kingdom is pictured as heavenly, there is still the new earth as a part of it, and it appears that this small planet will be forever a place where God will dwell with His people, and walk in the beauty of paradise. 

       The picture of God walking in the garden was like Jesus centuries later walking in Palestine, for He was the only man on earth who was perfect.  Adam and Eve had fallen and so they felt naked before God and they hid themselves.  We see two frightened shameful people who do not want to be seen in their nakedness.  God's first question to fallen man was, "Where are you?"  God was the great seeker of man, and Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost.  Everything about this first picture of God reminds us of Jesus.  God finds them, hears their confusion, judges them, and then provides them with coverings and the hope of redemption.  This whole account pictures God as Christ‑like.  We see God in man's image as the God‑Man.  

2.     ABRAHAM THE INTERCESSOR  Based on Gen. 18:16‑33

  What comes down from the heavens has a big effect on the values of real estate.  Take what happened in Stillwater in 1852 for example.  Jacob Fisher, who was a surveyor, had found a small stream called Brown's Creek in back of the town.  He dammed it up and made a lake, and he ran the water down the hill to power a saw mill.  John McKusick bought the whole operation and had a great business.  But then came May of 1852.  It had been raining for many days and people were just sick of it.  It would not stop, and the soil on the bluffs over looking the town could not absorb anymore.  On May 14 the people heard a rumbling and a roar as a great chuck of the hill came crashing down.  It covered trees and buildings.  It buried barns and shops and everything along the water front. 

      Fortunately the hill came down where the land was low, boggy, and worthless.  John McKusick would have sold it for a $1.25 and acre.  Now he felt he was ruined, for his mill was covered along with the 5 acres that the avalanche buried.  For several days he lamented the disaster of almost 20 feet of mud that entombed his mill.  But when it dried up he found that he owned 5 acres of new land by the rivers edge.  It was excellent land for business purposes.  The land slide converted his swamp into usable land, and he began selling it for five hundred dollars an acre.  Much of the present business area of Stillwater is now located on this land that was created by rain from heaven. 

     The flip side of this is Sodom and Gomorrah where the heavens rained down burning sulfur, and real estate values fell to zero.  The land became so totally worthless that it became the symbol of God's worst judgment for the rest of history.  To be like Sodom and Gomorrah was to be hell bound.  They were so completely devastated that to this day nobody knows for sure where this real estate is.   What the heavens rain down can do wondrous things to the real estate of this world, and to the people who live on that real estate.  That is why any influence we can have on the God who controls what falls from the sky can make a big difference in this world.

       Abraham was just such a man, for he could move the God who moved the forces of nature.  Abraham was the great intercessor of the Bible.  This prayer of his for Sodom is the first intercessory prayer of the Bible, and it is one of the most remarkable prayers in all the Bible.  An intercessor is one who pleads with God on behalf of others.  Much prayer is seeking God's gifts and guidance for your own life, but the intercessor seeks them for the life of others.  In the case we are looking at the others are people who deserve judgment.  They are so godless they would laugh Abraham to scorn if they knew he was pleading for them.  But we still see Abraham pleading on their behalf, and we can learn some important truths about interceding from Abraham.  The first is‑

I. THE INTERCESSOR IMPRESSES GOD.

     It is impressive to see just how impressed God was with the fact that Abraham cared enough about these godless people to plead for them.  God is very impressed with people who care about other people enough to pray for them.  There are many people in the world who never get a chance to experience the mercy of God and get a second chance.  It is because there is no person who intercedes on their behalf.  The Bible reveals that if nobody cares about people who are going to be judged, they are judged.  But if someone cares enough to intercede for them, God is impressed with that love and compassion, and He will be open to compromise.

      This sounds like heresy doesn't it?  God compromising!  Yet, that is precisely what we see God doing because of Abraham's intercession.  Abraham is bargaining with God.  He starts with the plea that if there are 50 righteous people in Sodom that God spare the city for those 50.  God agrees that this is fair enough.  Abraham is immediately aware that he may have been too optimistic.  Sodom was a hell hole and how could he expect there to be 50 people unspotted by such corruption?  He became a rapid realist and knew he had to convinced God to come down from this original agreement.

      Abraham is very clever and he uses the argument of triviality to get God to lower the number required to spare the city.  "What is 5 people less than 50?  Certainly you would not condemn the city for the lack of a mere 5 people.  So what if there are only 45 righteous‑will you spare it for that many?"  God agrees and Abraham keeps on lowering the number until he gets to 10.  He was too optimistic even at that level, but honors this man of intercession, for God is willing to compromise where he sees true concern.

      God makes it clear that where there is no concern, and where there is no intercessor, it makes a big difference in His actions.  Listen to these words of God in Ezek. 22:30‑31.  "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.  So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fierce anger..."   God could not find an intercessor.  There was no Abraham who cared enough to plead for mercy for these sinners, and the result is that God's judgment fell on them.  Had there been an intercessor there could have been a compromise and a second chance given. 

      Is God really that impressed with the intercessor?  Yes He is, and that is why the ministry of intercession is one of the most important there is, for it moves God to compromise and make deals for the sparing of those who deserve judgment.  Some Christians think it is really being a spiritual giant to take a strong stand and never make concessions.  If the law has been broken, then let the violator be judged with the maximum penalty.  God, on the other hand, is looking for a way to show mercy.  If He can find someone who cares enough to intercede for the guilty, He will be open for a deal.  Abraham said, "Shall not the God of all the earth do right?"  That is precisely the way God is.  He will always do the right thing, and the right thing is to find a way to beat evil and overcome it.  When God has to judge and let His wrath fall, then evil has won a victory. God is ever looking a way to prevent that. He has no pleasure in judgment and the death of the wicked.

     The sending of His Son to die for the sins of the world gives every sinner in history a second chance to escape judgment and be saved. Jesus ever lives to intercede for us that we might again and again escape the judgment we deserve, and instead experience the marvelous mercy of God.  It is true that the Old Testament is full of the wrath of God, and at times you wonder if God delights in it because of its frequency.  But the fact is, God hates judgement and loves mercy.  That is why He is so impressed with the intercessor.  The intercessor gives God the basis for mercy.  It gives Him a just reason to hold back His wrath and patiently wait to see if judgment can be avoided.  God can never care less than any other person, and so if there is an intercessor, God will listen.

      The ministry of intercession makes such an impression on God that it is one of the primary forces of history.  That is why Paul wrote in I Tim. 2:1‑4, "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone‑for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.  This is good, and pleases God our Savior who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."  God wants intercessors because He is pleased with those who care, and they play a major role in who is spared and saved.  In the light of importance of the intercessor it is tragic to think that there are people who have no one who cares enough about them to intercede for them.  There are people everyday who suffer the judgment of God because they had no intercessor.

      They deserve their judgment just as Sodom did, but they might have been spared if someone had cared.  God is willing to make a deal.  He is flexible and not locked in like a computer to destroy on command at a certain point.  The program can be altered by the presence of an intercessor.  God is willing to listen to any angle and try to save rather than judge.  Even when the cup of wickedness is running over God is willing to seek some way of escape.  This side of God is a side we need to see, for it motivates us to be intercessors.  Who knows what may be accomplished if we care enough to pray?  In a fallen world compromise is a necessity.  Even God does not say it is all or nothing.  Give me 10 righteous people and I will let the evil of the rest be spared.  Just give me a fraction of hope that the future can be changed and I will tolerate the present evil.  That is the compromise God is willing to make, and that is why it pays to plead with God.

      I know this is suppose to be a negative thing to do, and it is one of the stages of death and dying when people with terminal diseases try to make a deal with God.  It is the fox hole prayer that says, "God get me out of this alive and I'll go to church and tithe and be the best neighbor in town."  I know there is a lot of nonsense committed with this concept of making deals with God, but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.  Abraham is not praying for his own hide.  He is interceding on behalf of others.  There is a lot of difference.  It is okay and necessary to pray for yourself, and Christians need to do plenty of this, but in this area of prayer it is easy to get self‑centered and operate on the childish level of gimme, gimme, gimme.  This is not what we see in Abraham here.  He is interceding for others.  He is making a deal for the sake of others and not his own skin.

      God is willing to compromise when He knows someone else cares enough to seek away to spare the wicked from judgment.  Compromise has its evil side, but we ought not to neglect its positive side.  Compromise says I will be willing to change my plan for another if there is hope that good can come of it.  God was willing to spare a lot of wicked people who would go on being wicked if there was some sign that a hand full of righteous people could survive in that environment and have hope of changing it.  God believes that where there is a few righteous there is a way to change things.  Give Him 10 righteous people in a mass of the unrighteous and He will hold back judgment to see what the 10 can do to modify the evil.  God is an optimist, and if there is a ghost of a chance of good making a difference, He will go for that chance. 

      That is why God is amazed when there is a lack of intercessors.  When they can make all the difference in the world it does not make sense that they do not exist.  Isa. 59:15‑16 says, "The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice.  He saw that there was no one, He was appalled that there was no one to intercede."" In a world where often the only hope is intercession God is appalled that there is no one who cares enough to intercede.  But He is so impressed when He finds an intercessor, especially for the very wicked, as was the case in Sodom, that He is willing to bend to the limit to find a way for mercy.

      In the light of this fact one of the greatest roles in the kingdom of God is the role of the intercessor.  To be an Abraham type person is to care enough for a lost world to intercede for it, and possibly give a specific sinner in it to be saved from certain judgment.  This is possible because the intercessor impresses God.

Intercession leads to a lot of believe it or not stories.  One of the greatest generals of World War II was Erwin Rommel.  He almost took Africa for Hitler.  He was right at the gates of Cairo and victory was in his grasp, but then the whole plan unraveled.  In the book Rees Howells, Intercessor by Norman Grubb we are told that Rees had a group of people who were interceding for Africa at that very moment.  They were praying that Rommel would be defeated.  It seemed like a futile prayer for the battle was already lost.  But God is impressed with intercessors, and when God is impressed strange things happen.

       The British had just set up an 8 inch water line for fresh water.  On that day they were testing it for 3 hours with salt water.  Fresh water was too precious to use for testing.  It was during that three hour period that the Germans attacked.  They shot the line full of holes and began to gulp down the salt water because they did not realize what it was.  In the hot desert sun of 120 in the shade they were immediately immobilized.  With black tongues hanging out they gasped for air and life.  They threw down their weapons and surrendered, and the Bible lands were saved. 

       The stronger was defeated by the weaker because of the power of the intercessor.  Had the Germans attacked a couple of hours earlier or later they would have taken the land, but thanks to God's providence in history they were defeated by their timing. 

      Intercession does not manipulate God, but it does impress Him, and He responds to it.  It is not a matter of certainty, however. Abraham saw Sodom go up in smoke in spite of the effectiveness of his intercession, and many who see miracles and wonders happen through intercession also see many unanswered prayers.  There is no formula by which we can control God, but intercession is a means by which we can impress God and possibly get a hearing that can lead to His acting in our favor.  Erwin Prange in A Time For Intercession tells of interceding for a pilot who had a broken ear drum and he was healed, but of 4 others he interceded for who were not healed. He prayed for one man who wanted to quit smoking and he became nauseous at the smell of tobacco right away and never smoked again. But many others had no such experience.  The point is that intercession does not give you the power to control God and guarantee results. It is just the key means by which we get God's attention, and a possible answer that may never be if we do not intercede.  The second thins we see is,

II. THE INTERCESSOR IMPACTS MAN

     This does not seem to be supported by the facts, for Sodom and Gomorrah were utterly destroyed and wiped from the face of the earth. It would appear that all the interceding of Abraham was much ado about nothing. It was a much answered prayer that in the end was an unanswered prayer. He got God down to ten, but he just as well had left it at 50, for it was a hopeless cause he was pleading. This is the most successful prayer never answered, and you might ask, what is the point of it all when it didn't change anything?

     But that is just the point, it did, and the prayer was actually fully answered to the extent that God could do so consistent with the facts. Abraham pleaded that the righteous not be destroyed with the wicked, and that prayer was fully answered. It was not a lot but Lot and his two daughters were saved, and it was a direct result of Abraham's intercession.   In Gen. 19:29 we read, "So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham, and He brought Lot out of the catastrophe that over threw the cities where Lot had lived."  God remembered Abraham.  That is, He listened to his intercession and the result was that Lot and his girls were spared.  Lot became the father of the Moabites, of whom Ruth was one, and she became the great grandmother of David, and she is in the genealogy that led to Jesus the Messiah.  The whole future of God's plan of salvation was impacted by this prayer of intercession.  It even touched those who were judged and destroyed, for it had an impact on history all the way to Jesus. 

      Jesus will be the ultimate judge of all men, and He says in Matt. 11:23‑24, "And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the skies?  No, you will go down to the depths.  If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.  But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."  The compassion of Abraham for those wicked people lives on in the heart  and mind of the Messiah, and in the end they will still be dealt with in mercy. 

      The point is that intercessors cannot ultimately fail.  First of all they please God by being intercessors, and there is no higher success than that.  It pleases God that you care, and even if God cannot spare those you intercede for because they will not cooperate and respond to His grace, it is still a successful ministry.  God loved Abraham in a special way because he cared about people.  He gave him the greatest promise in the Bible when He promised that through His seed He would bless all the people of the world.  The whole plan of salvation is a fulfillment of this promise to Abraham.  Every sinner on earth can be saved through Jesus who is the seed of Abraham.  Abraham is in the center of the whole plan because he cared about lost people and was an intercessor. 

       To be an Abraham means that you become a person who cares about others and it will to intercede on their behalf.  It is to stand in the gap and link these people to the merciful heart of God.  Caring might not change them, for it did not change the people of Sodom, and it did not change the people of Jerusalem that Jesus wept over.  Intercession is not fool‑proof, but it is always successful just because it pleases God and makes you more like Christ.  The rich young ruler walked away and Jesus failed to win him, but Jesus wept because He never failed to care.  That is the success of the intercessor.  They never fail to care.  They impress God and impact man in ways that may never be known in this life.

      Abraham did his best and when the cities he pleaded for were wiped out he did not say, "That is the last time I waste my breath pleading with God."  He just moved on to the next stage of life and made the best of it.  He did not say that prayer does not work.  He recognized the limitations of what can be done by prayer.  God as limits too.  He could not say, "Okay Abraham, just ask me to spare Sodom if there is one righteous man," for he knew Lot was there, and so the whole evil population could be spared for this one man.  Many wonder why Abraham didn't keep going.  He was on a role, and so why not go all the way to one?  If God would spare it for 10, why is the lack of a mere 9 people the cause for their destruction?  Just 9 more people could have spared them all. 

      There comes a point where that logic has to stop.  If Lot had lived in Sodom all that time and had not won another person into the kingdom of God, then it was obvious there was no soil fit to receive the seed.  It there had been 10, it would show signs of growth, and the possibility of that 10 becoming 20, or many more.  Where God can see the seed planted and growing there is always hope.  But where there is no growth it makes more sense to take the righteous out and destroy the wicked, and that is what God did. 

      This reveals the importance of growth.  If Christians can just touch a few lives, it holds back the judgment of God.  God will patiently wait as long as He sees any progress.  That is why intercession is not enough.  It is not God's will that all be like Abraham.  There has to be people like Barnabas who befriended people and Andrew who won people, and Timothy who trained people in order to have total success.  But the Abrahams are vital to the whole plan of God.  May God help us all to improve in the area of the ministry of intercession.   

3.     REBEKAH-A DEDICATED DAUGHTER  Based on Gen. 24:42‑66

  Bach never wrote an opera, but the closest thing to it was his Coffee Cantata.  He became quit an expert on coffee because in his day coffee drinking was the popular vice much like drugs have become in our day.  There were laws against it and spies roamed the city sniffing the air to catch people in the act of roasting  coffee beans.  Frederick the Great was disgusted with the increase of coffee drinking among his subjects.  He was brought up on beer, and many of the great battles had been won by soldiers nourished on beer.  The king felt that coffee drinking soldiers would not be strong in their warfare against his enemies. 

       The cantata of Bach is about a father who was greatly disturbed about his daughter was hook on coffee.  If she does not get it three times a day she says, "I'm no better than a piece of dried up goat meat."  Papa tries everything‑he argues, he threatens, but nothing works until he promises to find her a husband if she will kick the habit.  She agrees, but in the closing trio she confides that she will only marry a man who will let her drink all the coffee she wants.  This is Bach's idea of a prodigal daughter.  It is a rather mild rebellion in comparison to the Prodigal Son.  We know that daughters can be equally rebellious and as foolish as sons, but the Bible seldom reveals a bad daughter.  There are sons galore who bring grief to their parents, but very few daughters. 

      The Bible is much more son oriented than daughter oriented.  But there is more about daughters then we realize.  Believe it or not, there are about 500 references to daughters in the Bible, and about 90 of them are in Genesis, which makes it the most daughter oriented book in the Bible.  Most of Genesis is about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his 12 sons.  But here in Genesis 24 we see entire long chapter of this male dominated book revolving around the young daughter Rebekah who would become the grandmother of the 12 sons of Jacob. 

      Rebekah got in on God's plan for history because Abraham did not like the girls he saw in Canaan.  They were idolaters and corrupted by their culture.  He did not want his son Isaac to marry one of these girls, and so he sent his servant Eliezer back to his native Mesopotamia to find a daughter among his brother's family.  This was probably the longest journey in the Bible to find a wife.  It was a 6 weeks trip across the desert.  In our culture we don't send servants out to shop for a wife.  We prefer to see the merchandise for ourselves and make our own choice.  Isaac is 40 years old, and yet he does not go along to have some input.  He just took the one the servant selected, and they had a long and fruitful marriage.  They had their fights, but they overcame them and became the grandparents of the 12 tribes of Israel.

       For some reason the Patriarchs had a hard time having daughters.  Abraham had just 2 sons‑Ishmael and Isaac.  Then Isaac had his 2 boys‑Jacob and Esau.  Then Jacob had the 12 sons from his 4 wives, but then Leah finally came through with one daughter named Dinah.  She is the only daughter we know of for 3 generations in that family tree.  Because of this lack of daughters the line of Abraham had to go back to the family of Nahor his brother to find their wives, for girls were abundant in his line.  It gave us Rebekah, Rachel and Leah.  It is a strange reality, but it is still true today that some families tend to have all boys and others have all girls, But the majority get a mixture of the two.    Such was the case with the family of Rebekah.  She had a brother named Laban. 

      The thing that surprised me in studying the families of Genesis is that many of them just had 2 children.  I guess I assumed that most families were large in the Bible, but if you read with the intent to count, you discover that families with from 1 to 5 are the majority, and 2 or 3 are very common.  Part of the problem in counting is that daughters are often not listed, for the family tree followed the sons.  That is why it is rare to have a passage like the one we are looking at where a daughter plays the leading role on the stage of history.  She was not forced to play it either, but chose to play it by her own will.  It was a male dominated world, but we see that the males who dominated Rebekah's life respected her right to determine her own destiny.  We read in verse 57‑8, "Then they said, let's call the girl and ask her about it.   So they called Rebekah and asked her,  "will you go with this man?"  "I will go," she said."  

     She did not hesitate to make the choice of leaving her family to go to a far land to be married to a total stranger.  It was an awesome decision, but she choose to go.  She was the female equivalent of Abraham leaving his family to go to Canaan.  Good parenting and good relationships of all kinds demand that we respect the rights of people to have a say in the direction they go.  They should be consulted and given the right, and not have their destiny determined by someone else.

      It is one of the hard parts of parenting to give guidance with trying to impose your will on your child.  A mother was listening to her little daughter say her prayers one night.  She was really into blessing with God bless daddy and mommy, grandma and grandpa, uncle Bill and aunt Dorothy, and the mailman and Mickey mouse and, the mother seeing no end to the list said "Amen."  But the little girl said, "Don't listen to her God.  She doesn't know when I am done."

      It is hard to let children be children and have their own feelings because they often do not fit our adult agenda.  One of the major problems in our culture is the refusal of parents to let their children be children.  The parents are captives of the culture, and they feel the pressure to impose an adult life style on their kids.   Childhood is a non‑productive period of life, and so the goal is to get over it as quickly as possible.  Such is the thinking of many.  It is a waste of time to be children in their minds, but this is in direct contradiction to the Bible. 

       John Drescher in What Parents Should Expect writes, "Because we do not see childhood as a legitimate phase of life itself, and because we as parents feel the need to find our success in our children, we do many ridiculous things.  At 3 months we buy toys parents like to play with.  And electric train is purchased and set by parents whose child still wants to stack blocks.  A tricycle stands riderless with the driver still in diapers.  We dress 5‑year‑olds in caps and gowns for kindergarten graduation.  A little fellow recently said, 'I think it is bad I graduated because I can't even read.'"  He goes on giving numerous illustrations of how parents refuse to let their children be children.

       We live in a childhood denying culture.  Animals do not have much a childhood.  There born and very quickly are on their own.  God made people different from the animal kingdom.  He made them to need a long period of childhood before becoming adults.  We don't like God's plan.  The animal kingdom is what we want, and so we deny that man is different and go along with the evolution philosophy that man is just another animal.  And so we reject childhood as a waste and want our children to become adults as quickly as possible.  This has led to children having breakdowns increasing numbers, and at younger ages.  The drive to be grown up leads to inferiority feelings.  This has become the number one emotional problem of teens.  Almost all of them feel inferior because they cannot be mature adults, and so they turn to alcohol, drugs, and suicide to escape a world where they don't fit in.

      Jesus said adults are to become like children, and we have reversed that to say that children must become adults.  The result is a culture where families are breaking down at record pace.  You cannot contradict God's plan for life and not pay a price.  There needs to be more of verse 57 in family life.  It says, "Let's all the girl and ask her about it."  Let your children share their feelings and dreams.  Let them have choices about their destiny.  Don't impose your dreams, or those of your culture on them.  Let them be who they are as God has designed them. 

      Florence Nightingale changed the history of nursing in hospitals, but few realized how her choice to do so was fought by her family.  She and her sisters were educated at home by their father.  As a teen she fell in love with the idea of studying nursing.  Her mother had other dreams for her.  She was pretty and witty, and she smart and talented.  Her mother did everything she could to frustrate her dream of becoming a nurse.  It was not a respectable profession in those days.  Her mother and sister actually felt it was immoral to be a nurse, and her sister refused to talk about the degrading topic. 

       Florence felt called of God to be a nurse, but her family's resistance led her to depression so deep that she wanted to take her own life.  At age 30 she finally escaped the clutches of her family and got some training with the deaconesses in Munich, Germany.  But when she came back home she was sentenced to be her sister's slave for 6 months, and she was forbidden to mention nursing.  She was deeply depressed again and realized she had to follow her own will regardless of her family's wishes.  She left home and went back to Munich.  She wrote to her mother pleading for her support, but her mother would not respond.  Her family resented her and felt she had disgraced the family name.  She was treated like a criminal for becoming a nurse.

      You can understand why Florence wrote in July of 1851, "The family uses people, not for what they are, nor for what they are intended to be, but for what it wants them for‑its own uses.  It thinks of them not as what God has made them but as the something which it has arranged that they shall be."  Her family interfered and got her fired from her first job at age 32, but she fought back and got reinstated.  It was not until she became famous that the family stopped fighting her.  It was too late then, however, and even though Florence nursed her own mother the last 7 years of her life, they were never close because she was a parent who never had the wisdom to say, "Let's call the girl and ask her about it." 

      Let your daughters and your sons tell you how they feel.  Let them express their own dreams, for God could have put in them, as he did in Florence, the ambition and ability that you have no understanding of and not interest in, but which are a part of His plan for their lives.  The Bible is mainly about men who leave their land and people to go into an unfamiliar world to do the will of God, but here in Gen. 24 we have a daughter doing so.  As history developed more and more daughters have become called of God to make such commitments.  Today there are more women on the mission field fulfilling the great commission than there are men.

      Rebekah's life reveals that commitment like hers can change all of history, but it is not necessarily glamorous.  We take famous people like Florence Nightingale and pick out the honors she received and the great events of parties with the Queen, and we think such a life would be so glamorous.  But the fact is, she had a hard life, and it was full of loneliness and sorrow with very little glamour.  She saved many thousands of lives by her influence and commitment, but it was mostly just blood, sweat, and tears, and not a lot of enjoying ambrosia‑the nectar of the gods. 

     As we follow Rebekah back to Canaan to be the wife of Isaac we see it was a commitment that changed history, but there was not a lot of glamour.  Isaac was a rather generic sort of husband.  He was not a very exciting personality.  He like to hunt and so he favored Esau the hunter.  But she favored Jacob, and so there was conflict in the family.  She sent Jacob back to her brother and never saw him again, and Esau was a great disappointment to her, for he married pagan girls.  The point is, she played a major role in God's plan, but her life was not full of the spectacular.  There was disappointment, boredom, loss, and just the typical life of most wives and mothers.  But she remained committed, and that is why she was God's choice for this role.

       She was given a choice and she remained committed to that choice, and that is what God is looking for in daughters and sons.  Rebekah was pretty we are told, but she never became famous for anything.  She just had a family of two boys and did her best to raise them.  Nobody is clamoring to get the movie rights to her life story.  It was a rather commonplace life she lived, but she had the key ingredient that makes any daughter and asset to the kingdom of God, for she had commitment.  If you teach your child to be a committed person, you will prepare them to be used of God. 

      Lack of commitment has always been a major weakness in people.  Adam and Eve were not committed to obey God's will whatever the cost, and they lost paradise.  Lack of commitment has been the major problem of man ever since.  The bottom line cause of every problem every church faces is the lack of commitment.  If all believers were committed people, there would be no problem in getting people to do the work of the church, or to fund missions, or to achieve any of the realistic goals that are aimed for. 

      A missionary society wrote to the famous David Livingstone in Africa, "Have you found a good road to where you are? If so, we want to send other men to join you." Livingstone replied, "If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all." We are a soft people. We have so many options of enjoyment that it is painful to do anything that is hard and costly. Commitment involves pain, and we just do not like the idea. There was pain involved for Rebekah to leave her family and travel for weeks over the desert to marry a stranger. It was hard, and called for commitment.

     An old Swedish hymn has this line, "There is nothing that is not won by the love which suffers." This is so true of God's love which gave His Son to die on the cross to achieve the reconciliation of God and man. But it is true in every realm of life. Commitment is love for anyone or any goal that will be pursued, even if it means suffering. John Audubon became the famous naturalist and the name to be ever associated with bird lovers because he was committed to learn about birds. He would go out at midnight and crouch in the swamps just to learn more about the nighthawk. He would stand in water that was stagnant up to his neck while poisonous water moccasins swam past his face in order to get a picture of a New Orleans water bird.  He risked his life for what seemed so trivial because he was committed to his goal.

      Shun Fujimoto of Japan, in the 1976 summer Olympics, broke his right knee in a floor exercise.  He refused to give up, and he competed in his strongest event, which was the rings.  His routine was excellent, and when he dismounted with a triple summersault twist the pain shot through his whole system like a knife.  Tears ran down his cheeks, but the tears were soon gone, for by his commitment he won the gold medal. 

      The stories are endless of people who are so committed to a goal that they will suffer greatly to achieve it.  We need to have goals that we know are God's will that we are pursuing with diligence no matter what suffering may be involved.  It does not have to be a commitment to be great or famous.  God does not put that kind of pressure on us like parents often do. He just wants us to be like Rebekah, and be committed to what He has called us to be. She was called to be a wife and mother, and that is a worthy calling. Today daughters are called to be just about everything that sons are called to be. We need to encourage them to follow their dreams and be committed to do all that they do for the glory of God.

     The thing that impresses me about God's call to people in the Bible is that all He really asks for is commitment. He does not ask them to be great. He does not ask them to do spectacular things. He just asks them to go where He wants them to go and be committed to the goal. Abraham was not told he had to go to Canaan and be a hero of any kind, or become famous in the land. He was just called to go there, and that is what he did.  Rebekah was just asked to go to Canaan and be a wife, and she went and was committed to it. She did not have to become great or famous. All she had to do is be what she was called to be‑a wife and mother. God does not put pressure on His children to be something they are not called to be, or gifted to be. He just wants us to be the best of what we are called to be, and that is what Rebekah was as a dedicated daughter.

4.     JOSEPH-DREAMS CAN COME TRUE  Based on Gen. 37:2‑20

     Vanna White, the glamorous star who shows the letters on Wheel of Fortune, was a leader in her church youth group in North Myrtle Beach, North Carolina.  Her pastor wrote about how he asked her, when she was a senior, what she was going to do after graduation.  She responded that her dream was to become a model, and so she was going to modeling school in Atlanta.

     This is how the pastor reacted:  "Vanna, no!"  I said.  "Don't do that!  Those schools will do nothing but take  your money.  Nobody ever gets a job at one of those places.  You have brains! Ability!  You could be more than a model!"

     She thanked me politely and said, "But I have this dream of going to Hollywood and becoming an actress." "From North Myrtle Beach?"  I asked.  "Vanna, that only happens in movies.  This is crazy!" He goes on to say he is not surprised that her autobiography does not mention his ministerial influence.  He points out that Vanna makes more in one week than he makes in a whole year of giving good advice to aspiring teenagers.  His point in telling this story is to call attention to the fact that it is not wise to try and interfere with other people's dreams.

     A dream can be an escape from reality, but it can also be an alternative to a present inadequate reality.  A dream can provide an ideal toward which we strive and thereby change reality for the better.  In his book, Finding The Goal Posts, Lawrence Howe tells of such a dream in the life of Cecil Rhodes.  He was 22 years old when he conceived the idea of an international scholarship fund.  A plan that would bring the keenest minds from around the world to study together, and grow in their appreciation of the culture and learning of other lands.  Such a project would, of course, take millions of dollars, but with no money and a dream, Cecil Rhodes made out his will bequeathing millions of dollars to this noble cause.  Then he signed his name to his dream and went out into the world to back it up.

     He struggled against adversity; sometimes succeeding; sometimes failing, but before long he came into possession of the great Kimberly Diamond Mines in South Africa, and he became world famous for his fabulous wealth.  He was comparatively young yet when her fell prey to tuberculosis and he knew the end was near.  He called for his will to have it read.   He did not need to add anything to it except a paragraph of instructions to his lawyers advising them how to make his wealth available to fulfill his dream.  He did not even need to sign it, for he had done that years before.  As Howe said, "He literally signed his name beneath his ideals.  He built great castles in the air, and then went out by hard work to put foundations beneath them..."  Here was a dreamer who built his castle from the top down.

     His dream was not an escape from the real, but an ideal he sought to make a part of the real. This kind of dream ought to be standard equipment in the mind of every Christian, young and old alike.  As Christians we are bound to be realistic, but we are not bound by reality, for our ideals are always to be far superior to the reality of what is, and they are to drive us on to change the real till it conforms to the ideal.

     In an article titled "Dreams: Pathway to Potential," Kent Hutcheson writes:

“A person who has dreams is filled with                  expectation, and no obstacle seems insurmountable.                  He had a positive attitude, is excited and is never bored.”

     This means that dreams are practically the same thing as faith. Listen to Heb.11:1, "What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us...." Faith and dreams are one. It is a weak faith indeed that has no dreams of being more of what God wants you to be in the days ahead. Someone printed on a piece of stationary, "The poorest of all men is not the man without a cent but the man without a dream."

     In the Congressional Library over one of the entrances leading to the archives are these words:  "They build to low who build beneath the stars."  Thank God we have ideal that soars far beyond the furthest star into the very presence of God where Jesus sits at His right hand.  There is our ideal, and our dream, if it is divine, is to be conformed to His image.  This morning I want you to consider with me a dreamer in the Old Testament whose life conformed to that of Christ in many ways. Joseph is one of the most widely known and loved characters of the Bible.  He is one of the few great heroes of the Bible whose life is not blotted by a fall.  Like Jesus, he was tempted, but remained faithful.  Like Jesus, his own received him not, and he was unjustly persecuted, but like Jesus, he forgave and became the savior of the very ones who hated him.  We want to consider his life from the point of view of the three results that can come into the life of the dreamer.

I.  DREAMS CAN CAUSE TENSION.

     Have  you ever wondered as you watch your children fight like animals, what good can possibly ever come of them?  Jacob must have wondered this often as he watched his 12 boys growing  up.  There would be tension enough without creating special sore points as Jacob did. He showed such a special favoritism to Joseph that he made the other boys jealous to the point of hating him.  Joseph was the child of his first love Rachel, and he was born to him when he was 91 years old.  Jacob made no attempt to hide the fact that Joseph was special.  He broadcast it by making him a long robe of many colors.  This was the garment of an overseer-one who is superior.

     It was perfectly natural that Joseph was not popular with his brothers. This was not his fault, but it was the fault of Jacob showing favoritism. I read of a father who heard a knock on his bedroom door and he said, "Is that you pet?" "No it isn't pet, its only me." replied a little voice

quivering with sorrow. The father's eyes were opened and that was the end of pet in that family. Jacob did not see his error, however, and so tension remained in his family.

     Then came the straw that broke the camels back. Joseph had a dream that only added fuel to the flame of hate already raging in his brothers hearts. He had a dream, and he shared it, that all his brother and even his mother and father would bow before him. It was a God given dream, of course, but the family just considered him an arrogant brat. Even his father rebuked him for such a dream.

     A somewhat similar relationship existed between Isaac Watts, the great hymn writer and his father. As a boy Watts had such a talent for poetry that he made his general conversation rhyme. His father tried to discourage it and one day he became so exasperated by Isaac's constant rhyme, he threatened to punish him in  a very un-poetic manner if he did it again. Being so much a part of him, he unconsciously did it again and his father picked up the rod. Isaac fell to his knees and pleaded-

dear father on me mercy take,

and I will no more verses make.

     His father was disarmed and recognized his son was born to be a poet. He recognized his sons dream was God given, and so the tension was eased. But this was not the case with Joseph's family. Things went from bad to worse and so we see, not only can dreams cause tension, but-

II. DREAMS CAN COST TRIAL.

     Jacob sent Joseph to see if all was well with his brothers. When they saw him coming they plotted to get rid of this arrogant dreamer. They said we will kill him and then see what becomes of his dreams.

     The majority can never tolerate the dreams of the one who seems inferior to them. The man who dares to be different and put his dreams into practice must be prepared to face trials. When George Stephenson planned to draw a train of cars by steam at the rate of 14 miles per hour, he was regarded as a fit candidate for the madhouse, but he had a dream and he went for it. When Fulton proposed to use steam to navigate the Hudson river, men of science ridiculed him and called it  the silliest idea to ever enter a silly mind. Most scientific dreamers face the same

criticism, but without these dreamers their is no progress.

     In the realm of social reform nothing would change without dreamers. Why do we have a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday? It is because he was a man who said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." The dream cost him his life, but it was a dream that changed our nation more than most of us can imagine.

     When William Carey shared his great dream of bringing the Gospel to India, he was criticized by theologians and politicians. His plan was publicly denounced in the House of Commons as the "mission of a lunatic." Even after his dream began to become reality, Christians expected the wrath of God to fall on him for this interference with God's business. Sidney Smith, a brilliant man of his day called the early missionaries, "a little detachment of maniacs." Today we know Carey as the Father of Modern Missions, and one of the great heroes of Christian history. But he

had to pay a price to fulfill his God-given dream. Dreams are not free if you are determined to follow them.

“The man is called a fool or knave,

Or bigot plotting crime,

Who for the advancement of his race

Is wiser than his time.

For him the hemlock shall distil.

For him the ax be bared,

For him the scaffold shall be built,

For him the stake prepared.

Him shall the scorn and wrath of men

Persue with deadly aim,

And malice, envy, spite and lies

Shall desecrate his name.”              

Author Unknown

     Joseph's dream cost him 13 years of trial. He was 17 when his brothers sold him into slavery and he was 30 before his dream was fulfilled.  During those 17 years his faith in his dream was tried to the utmost by the pit, Potipher's wife, and prison. Yet in perseverance, patience and purity he held fast to his dream and God honored him. We tend to think it is harder to stand for our ideals in our day, but nobody ever faced greater odds against him than Joseph. He stood alone with the majority always against him. It always seems to be that way for dreamers.

     Luther came to the point where he stood before his superiors and had to choose for safety and conformity, or for his God given convictions. He did not have an army  behind him. He stood alone and his decision changed the course of history. He said, "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me."

“The fighting heart may some day win.

The quitter never can.

There's many a battle turns

Upon the spirit of a man.”

     No young person has ever faced more pressure to be immoral than Joseph. Potipher's wife tried to seduce him. You can talk about all the pressure of modern times to entice you to forsake your Christian convictions, but they could never be harder to overcome than what faced Joseph. It was go to bed with her or go to prison. He refused to dash his dream to pieces with the hammer of lust and chose prison. That is an awful  price to pay for holding to a dream, but he paid it.

     In prison he got along well, but thanks to a forgetful and ungrateful butler, whose dream he interpreted, he had to remain in prison for 2 extra years. It was all so unjust and unfair, and he could have easily said phooey on the dream, but the fact is that is what was enabling him to hang in there. In all his trials we do not hear him complaining and rebelling and doubting. How could he do it? The answer is in the poem of Edgar Allen Poe,

“That holy dream-that holy dream,

While all the world were chiding,

Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,

A lonely spirit guiding.”

It was a lonely road to travel, but Joseph traveled unyieldingly faithful to his dream and the God who inspired it. We have seen that dreams can cause tension and that dreams can cost trial, but the good news is our final point,

III. DREAMS CAN COME TRUE.

     The brothers said, let us cast him into the pit and we will see what will become of his dreams- and they did, for they saw the dream come true. Joseph never wavered through all his trials and even when the real was in utter contrast to the ideal he remained faithful until he finally came to be the prime minister of Egypt with the power of life and death. He used that power to save his family and thereby prepare the way for the great plan of God for the children of Israel.

     It is marvelous to see Joseph's attitude when he was in power.  What character he had.  He was faithful in prosperity as well as in adversity.  He never forsook his ideals.  No wonder the story of Joseph is one of the most popular in the world.  God entrusted His great plan in history to a 17 year old shepherd boy.  God could not have given a more clear demonstration of His faith in teenagers.  Give God a teenager who wants to build above the stars; a teenager who dreams of a life in God's will; a teenager whose ambition is to be like Christ and to be guided by Christ, and I'll show you a teenager that God is willing to use to change the course of history.  God wants teenagers, and pre-teenagers, and post-teenagers who dream inspired dreams, and who live their lives according.

     Anyone can sit down and list reasons why a thing cannot be done, but the dedicated dreamer will go ahead and do it.  The task of the church in winning the world is humanly impossible.  But God calls us to dream gloriously and then live for the glory of that dream.

Are you laid low by dilemmas,

Or are you lifted by dreams?

     Dream your own dreams.  Don't try to fit your life into somebody else's dream. The glass slipper would fit only Cinderella because that was her dream and nobody else's.  Everybody wants to be somebody, but too often they want to be somebody else.  Do not dream of being somebody else, but dream of what God can do through you, for you have the same capacity to dream as anyone else.  Why do you think Lincoln was president when our nation went through the Civil War?  It was because Lincoln had a dream of a country where all the people were free. He never gave up that dream even though he had to endure great opposition.  He was willing to pay the price for his dream, and God saw to it that the slipper of victory fit his foot, and he became the man who set the slaves free, and saw his dream come true.  God uses dreamers of every age.  Edwin Markham wrote,

“Ah, great it is to believe the dream,

As we stand in youth by the starry stream;

But a greater thing is to fight life through,

And say at the end, the dream is true.”

     Victor Frankl has become one of the great authors and speakers of the 20 th century. He survived Hitler's concentration camp, and he tells us why. "Others gave up hope. I dreamed. I dreamed that someday I would be here, telling you how I...survived the Nazi concentration camps.......in my dreams I have stood before you and said these words a thousand times." His dreams kept him going when the non-dreamers died in despair.

     Dreams will never come true if we go on sleeping.  Paul says in Rom. 13:11, now it is high time to awaken out of sleep. We must wake up and get into action to make our dreams come true.  It may take days, months, even years, but if we have a dream that is consistent with God's will, we will see some, much or all of it come true, and any part of a dream coming true is far better than having no dream to aim for and achieve. Someone wrote,

“Hold fast your dream within your heart,

Whatever might befall;

Let others laugh, if laugh they will,

But keep your dream through all.”

  Jammie Buchingham tells of a young woman he visited in prison.  She had been a part of the Charles Manson gang, and had been convicted on 7 counts of murder.  She was sentenced to die in the California gas chamber, but just before she was executed her sentence was changed to life in prison.  Somebody sent her a Bible in the mail, and she just tossed it to one side and never looked at it once.  Unknown to her there were people who had the audacity to dream that such an awful person as her could become a child of God.  They prayed and sent her letters telling her

of God's love.  She finally picked up the dusty Bible and began to read.  She had only known hate all her life.  When she read the life of Jesus, and saw His love for and tenderness toward the fallen, she realized that is what she had dreamed of all her life-to be loved and accepted.

      The Bible told her she could be forgiven and accepted if she opened her heart to Jesus.  She slipped off of her cot in that lonely cell and asked Jesus to come into her life and be her Savior. Susan Atkins is still in prison, but she is a free woman in Christ.  She has led a number of other women to Christ in the prison, and God has made her greatest dream come true, for she is loved and she is loving-the two greatest dreams anybody can have.  It looked as if her life would end as a nightmare, but the Gospel made her dare to dream again, and she discovered what God wants all people to discover; if we will dream the dreams God dreams for us, we will see our dreams come true.

     We have just started a new year, a new century, a new millennium and the one thing we know will be true of the future is that God will use dreamers to make a difference in time and eternity. Tony Compolo said, "Without personal dreams about the future, we are all dead." One of his goals in life is helping people dream bigger dreams.  The future for us as a church will depend upon its dreamers, and it is never too late to start dreaming. What can you do for this church? What can you do for this community? What can you do for your family, friends and neighbors? What can you do for yourself?  What can you do for the kingdom of God? What is your Dream?

5.     JACOB AND JOSEPH  Based on Gen. 42:1‑20

     If the strong‑willed child is the greatest challenge for parents, the strong‑willed adult is the greatest challenge for God.  The greatest obstacle to God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven is the strong stubborn self‑will of man.  All of the judgments of God through the Bible and through history are due to man's stubborn will.  Over and over the story is repeated of Jesus in sorrow saying, "I would but you would not." 

      Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let God's people go, and the result was that Egypt suffered great judgement.  Then the people of God stubbornly refused to take the land God provided for them, and they were condemned to wonder in the wilderness until all the stubborn people died.  One of the Proverbs most often illustrated in the Bible and history is Proverbs 29:1.  "A man who remains stiff‑necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed without remedy." 

      The stubbornness of men is the primary cause of the judgment of war.  Stubborn dictators have forced us into many costly wars, but Christians have their share of guilt as well.  DeWitt Talmage, one of the great preachers in American history during the Civil War, tells of how Christian leaders came up with a plan to avoid that tragic war.  The plan was for the North to pay for the slaves and set them free.  This way the South would not suffer the economic loss and slavery could be ended without great instability in the economy.  The leaders of the North laughed and said they would not pay, and the leaders of the South said they would not sell.  The result of their stubborn refusal to except this Christian compromise was the worst war in our history.  The North ended up paying not only all it would have taken to buy the slaves, but it paid in the blood of half a million of its men.  The South paid even more in blood and money, and the end result was far greater instability.  Everybody lost because of stubbornness, and many of these leaders were Christians.

     There are wars that are necessary, but this worst one was total folly due to the stubborn refusal of men to listen to Christian advisers.  Their plan could have prevented it all, and made both sides winners without a war.  In our text we are focusing on one of the most stubborn men in the Bible, but one whom God used greatly.  He illustrates that godly people can still be obstacles to the will of God.  Good and godly people are often part of the problem.  It is good to see this so we do not pretend that it could not be us who are hindering the will of God.  We have the biographical accounts in the Bible to challenge us to look at ourselves in the light of their lives, and learn to avoid their mistakes.  Jacob's life is loaded with lessons, for he made so many mistakes.

      Jacob had lost his favorite son Joseph and thought he was dead.  This loss had an impact on his emotions, and it was still affecting him 21 years later.  It made him over protective of his younger young Benjamin.  He is not little Benji any more.  He is a grown man with a good size family of his own, but he is the only son left which was born to him by his first love Rachel.  Jacob will not let Benjamin out of his sight.  He sent his other 10 sons off to Egypt to face the dangers of thieves, war, and the unknown, but not his baby Benjamin.

      The older boys have apparently adjusted to their father's favoritism by now.  They hated Joseph for being his favorite, and they got rid of him by selling him into slavery.  But there is no hint that they had any hostility toward Benjamin.  He is still alive and well and being treated royally.  Dad says that the rest of you guys can go and risk being lost or killed, but not my boy Benjamin.  If you are a child of Rachel, you are exempt from risk from this family. 

       As the story unfolds the brothers go to Egypt and encounter their long lost brother Joseph, but they do not recognize him.  Joseph, however, knows them, but he does not know what has happened over the last two decades.  He does not know if they have found a way to eliminate his brother Benjamin as they did him, or if he really is safe at home.  Joseph has to find out if his brother is alive before he reveals himself, and so he demands that they bring their youngest brother to Egypt to prove they are not spies. Simeon is kept in prison until they return with Benjamin.

      When the boys get home and report this to Jacob he builds his own private wailing wall.  He laments that life is rotten and everything is against him.  The chapter ends with Jacob saying in his stubborn determination, "My son will not go down there with you.  His brother is dead and he is the only one left.  I'll die in agony if anything happens to Benjamin."  Everyone knows it is inevitable that Benjamin will have to go, for the whole family will die of starvation if he doesn't.  Jacob is trapped, but he will not give in.  He is obstinate old man and will resist reality as long as he possibly can.  With bulldog tenacity he holds on to his self‑will saying, "No way‑never."  Like Peter saying to Jesus, "You will never wash my feet," in his pig‑headed stubbornness he has no idea that going to Egypt is the will of God for the salvation of his whole family. 

      He is blind to all but his own agenda.  He does not consider the possibility of God providently controlling the events of his life.  This is the life of fear rather than the life of faith.  Faith says, "Who knows‑maybe God is leading this way for my good."  Fear says, "I don't like it, and I'm not going to cooperate with what seems inevitable."  It is easy to understand why Jacob's ten boys are not great men of faith with the example he gave them.  He created so much friction for his family by his radical favoritism.  He said that Benjamin is the only one left.  Ten boys stand there as his sons, but Benjamin is all he has left.  You can see why there is no chapter on Jacob about how to win friends and influence people.  He didn't even have the courtesy to pretend that his kids were all equally loved.

      God loves them all, however, and has a plan by which all the tribes of Israel can be saved from the famine.  Jacob has to be dragged kicking and screaming into this plan of God.  He hated it and resisted it.  He, no doubt, prayed that God would help him get his way.   He did not know it, but his prayer was saying, "Not thy will but mine be done."  He could not conceive that God's will was for him to cooperate with this unknown authority down in Egypt, who was, in fact, the so he so much loved and missed.

     God is trying to save Jacob and his family, and Jacob is trying to fight it every step of the way.  In this case his ignorance was not bliss, but the basis for his blindness.  We have to be somewhat sympathetic with Jacob.  We can see the whole picture of God's providence at work, but all he could see is that he was losing control of his life and family.  He is being a stubborn neurotic, but he is doing it because he cannot stand the pain of even thinking about losing his only son left from his first love.  We have to feel some of the pain he is feeling and recognize it is understandable that he is being so mulish on this issue.  Most of us are in the same boat when life does not go as we plan, and we feel forced to go a way we don't want to go.

      The problem is that we tend to see life from the perspective of fear rather than faith.  This is what makes the difference between the pessimist and the optimist.  The pessimist says, "Look at all the things that can go wrong."  He lives in fear and tends to pull into his shell.  He refuses to stick his neck out and take a risk.  This was Jacob, for he feared to let Benjamin go to Egypt because there were two many negative possibilities.  He never dreamed of the positive possibilities, but was guided by a pessimistic attitude toward the future.  The optimist knows life is risky too, but he refuses to live in a shell.  You have to give God a chance to use your life for good and greater things, and so you take a chance and walk into the unknown future in faith believing that He will guide you. 

     Faith goes beyond what is seen and trusts in the unseen hand of God working in history.  Poor Jacob did not know it was his son Joseph down in Egypt that was putting him through such a dilemma.  If he had known there would be no need for faith.  Someone said, "Faith is a willingness to trust God when questions cannot be answered by the knowledge that is available to us."  Nobody in the family but Joseph knew what was going on, and how God had made the salvation of Jacob's family possible by the position God had lead him to possess.  Joseph did not need faith at this point, for he had knowledge, but Jacob needed faith, and that is where he was weak. 

      All of us live by fear or faith in everyday life.  Which one dominates us determines whether we are optimists or pessimists.  When we walk by faith we believe that even if things are going wrong from our point of view God has a plan for the future and we can press on in hope.

Faith is more than just a word,

It is a feeling, deep and true

That with every passing hour

Hope is born anew.

Faith means having courage

To know as days go by

That just as long as faith lives on,

Then hope can never die.         Author Unknown

     Faith is not believing a creed.  Faith is trusting God and believing that we don't have to fear the future just because it looks so scary and so contrary to our own plan.  We can go with the flow of events and accept the inevitable that we can't change or control, and believe that God is working in it for our good.  That is exactly what God was doing in Jacob's life, but in fear he fought it and missed the joy and peace of walking forward in faith.

      What we need to learn from Jacob's loss of joy in his journey with God is that even virtues can be vices when they hinder our faith in God's providence.  Jacob had a lot of tough times in life.  He had to leave home young and never see his mother again because his brother Esau wanted to kill him.  He got ripped off by his uncle Laban who gave him Leah on his wedding night rather than Rachel.  He also robbed him of his just wages.  He had plenty of tension with the four mothers of his 12 sons.  There was jealously, envy, sibling rivalry, and rivalry between Rachel and Leah.  Joseph is taken away and presumed dead.  One by one his wives all die before him, and by the time of our text he is a widower with a large family of children and grandchildren.

      It can actually be seen as a virtue that he wants to preserve the special son of his special wife.  He has had so many problems in life, and so why not work like crazy to keep one of the good things he had keep going for him?  You can call it selfish, but it seem like a justified selfishness.  He at least feels justified, and even feels noble that he is so protective of his son Benjamin.  It seems like a virtue to him, and if we didn't know the will of God, it might seem like a virtue to us as well.  That is the problem with virtues‑they can be so extreme, or so persistent, that they become a hindrance rather than a help to our walk with God.

       I think of the testimony of the great American mathematician Ernst Straus who worked with Einstein.  One day when they finished a document they had written together they looked for a paper clip to hold the paper together.  They found one, but it was twisted, and so they then looked for a tool to straighten it.  In their search they found a whole box of good paper clips.  Einstein took a good one and began to use it to straighten out the twisted one.  When Straus pointed out that it was no longer necessary to do this, Einstein replied that once he set his mind to a certain goal nothing could deflect him.

     It is a noble attitude to press on to your goals, and this was a virtue in Einstein, but when you press on even when the goal is meaningless you have let a virtue become a handicap and a nuisance.  This is what Jacob did, and his love for Benjamin became a hindrance to pressing on to experience the joy of God's guidance in his life.  From God's point of view everything was going just right.  Joseph was now in position to save the whole family.  All that had to be done now was to get Jacob to stop being such a stubborn pessimist. 

     It only he had the faith of Paul who could say, "If God is for me, who can be against me?"  But instead he cries out in verse 36, "Everything is against me."  Jacob is the father of the whole history of Jewish pessimism.  Abraham Ibn Ezra in the 17th century lamented,

My labor's vain,

No wealth I gain.

My fate since birth

Is gloom on earth.

If I sold shrouds

No one would die.

If I sold lamps,

Then in sky,

The sun for spite

Would shine by night.

     This is the spirit that was gripping Jacob.  Everything is against me he is saying, when the fact is, everything was working for his good.  He is crying that his son Joseph is dead, but the fact is, his son Joseph was the Prime Minister of Egypt with the power to save his whole family.  He is lamenting that Simeon is gone, and in fact he is under the protection of the most powerful man in Egypt, which happened to be his brother.  He fears Benjamin may be harmed when the fact is, he is the key to all their happiness.  His sky was bright with stars of hope, but he saw none of them, for he covered them all with a dark cloud of gloom because he stubbornly refused to believe that life can be going God's way even if it is not going the way that seemed best from his perspective. 

      Jacob is one of the great Bible examples of how godly people can live lives of non‑faith.  Jacob spent years of his life and much of his emotional energy grieving and worrying about things that never happened.  Studies show that the vast majority of things people worry about never happen.  It is wise to be cautious and not take unnecessary risks, but to fret and worry and be an emotional cripple over potential dangers is folly.  Jacob lived on the negative side of life and wasted so much of the joy of life.  Everything turned out better than he could have ever dreamed.  He lived in peace and prosperity with his entire family in the best part of Egypt.  He had the best of everything, and he died in luxury with the love of his large family surrounding him.  The same of it is, he wasted so much of his God guided life because he refused to believe that God was guiding. 

     Joseph lived in great contrast to Jacob.  He never said, "Woe is me, for everything is against me."  No one had more right to see life through pessimistic eyes, for he really had a lot of awful things to endure.  He was rejected by his own brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused and unjustly sent to prison.  Yet, with all of these negative events, Joseph was a man of faith who believed that God would guide and use his life to make dreams come true. 

      Here is a father and son with two different ideas about God.  Jacob could only believe God was in his life when their were good times.  He had a sunshine concept of God.  It is the concept that God loves me because I never get sick, my car always starts on the coldest mornings, and I can always find a good parking place.   This is a popular concept of God, but the problem with it, in a fallen world where Murphy's Law is as persistent as gravity, is that it leads to a lot of pessimism.  Where is your God when things do go wrong, and everything seems to be against you?  Jacob feels God forsaken, pessimistic, and in despair.

     In contrast, Joseph has an all season God.  He is a God you can trust even when life is not easy, but one trial after another with no apparent meaningful purpose.  Joseph does not have a theology that says, if clouds darken your sunshine and life gets hard, and you suffer injustice, then you are forsaken by God.  Joseph lives a faith life that says, God will work in everything for good for those who  love Him.  When I can't see it I trust Him and press on.  Meanwhile I will do my best to enjoy the detour and use my gifts to serve others. 

     Now keep in mind that both Jacob and Joseph are God's men.  The contrast here is not between the believer and the unbeliever.  It is between two different kinds of believers.  Christians tend to fall into these two categories.  The Jacobs who are fear conditioned and the Josephs who are faith conditioned.  The Jacobs are the pessimists and the Josephs are the optimists.  This duel perspective will never change until we all become like Jesus.  Some Christians will take the low road and some the high road.  The good news is that both Jacob and Joseph fulfilled the will of God.  God can and does use even the pessimist to accomplish His purpose.  But the Jacobs cannot enjoy the journey of life as much as the Josephs.  They cannot in everything give thanks because they do not believe God is at work even when it seems meaningless.

     Since Jesus had the Joseph spirit, and we are to become like Jesus, it follows that God's goal is for us to develop the Joseph spirit and overcome the tendencies to be like Jacob.  Instead of, "Everything is against me," it should always be, "If God is for me who can be against me?" 

6.     JOSEPH THE ACTOR  Based on Gen. 42:1‑22

     The old joke is the question, who was the greatest actor in the Bible?  The answer is Samson, because he brought down the house.  The surprising thing is that there really are actors in the Bible and Joseph is the first.  He put on a performance that would have won him an Academy Award.  He portrayed himself as a tough guy when his heart was so tender that he was fighting back tears constantly.  In verse 24 we see Joseph overcome by his emotions, and he had to turn away and let some tears flow to release the pressure.  But then he turns back and acts like a cruel tyrant by having his brother Simeon thrown in the slammer. 

      Joseph not only has to fool his brothers by this act, he has to fool his own emotions, for they are ready to explode in compassion.  He cannot let his identity be known until he knows his brother Benjamin is alive and well.  So he not only has to deceive his brothers, but his own heart as well, which longs to rip off the mask and embrace these ten brothers of his.  Joseph is wearing a mask and playing a role that is not his real self, and that is what an actor does.  It is interesting that the first acting we see in the Bible takes place in Egypt.  Scholars who study the history of theatre tell us that the art of drama was first developed in Egypt.

      In the thousand page book A History Of The Theatre by George Freedley and John Reeves, the first chapter is on dramas for trade on the pyramids of Egypt going back to  3200 B. C.  The priests were the first actors.  It is interesting to note that Joseph married Asenath the daughter of one of these priests.  Joseph, no doubt, saw the portrayal of the many religious dramas of that time.  He knew about acting, for it was a part of his culture just as it is a part of ours.

      Joseph is so convincing in this drama of the Stranger And His Brothers that go back to Jacob thoroughly persuaded that this harsh and ruthless taskmaster means business.  They had no intention of crossing him, and so Joseph was really quite good as an amateur actor.  Ordinarily the rulers of nations brought in actors to entertain them, but here we have the ruler himself putting on the show for his own benefit to achieve a goal he could not achieve in any other way.  It was a controversial choice, and not all commentators are pleased with his deception.  John Calvin found the deception offensive, and some Jewish scholars feel Joseph should have avoided this whole scene by contacting Jacob and letting him know that he was alive before this event even happened.

      It is easy for modern men to try and second guess Joseph and pretend they have a better plan.  But let's face reality.  God had led Joseph to this point where he could be the savior of his people.  The plan of God is working perfect, and what Joseph does accomplishes the goal.  I agree with Robert Candlish who says in his classic commentary on Genesis, "...we must regard him as all along acting by inspiration."  This conclusion not only fits the context here with Joseph, but a study of acting in the Bible confirms it.  Acting is a legitimate means of conveying truth, or for dealing with situations where the truth needs to be hidden from those who can use it for harm.

       David was quite a dramatic actor, and it saved his life on one occasion.  David was afraid of the king of Gath, for he could have easily had him killed.  We read in I Sam. 21:13‑15, "So he feigned insanity in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard."  It was so real that the king said to his servants, "Look at the man!  He is insane!  Why bring him to me?  Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me?"  David's act got him out of that mess, and they were glad to let him escape.  Here was a mini‑comedy that David, no doubt, repeated around many a fire for a good laugh.  His acting career saved his life. 

      Acting also played a major role in moving David to actions that others wanted him to take.  Nathan the prophet came to him putting on an act about a rich man who stole a poor man's only lamb.  This made David very angry, and then Nathan let him know that the story was really about him with his 8 wives taking the one wife of Uriah.  David saw that he was the man that made him so angry, and he repented.  Acting moved him to repent when nothing else could.  Sure it was a trick and a form of deception, but it was God's prophet who did it for the good of David, for he had to be moved to repent in order to be forgiven.  Acting saved him again.  Acting also saved his son Absolom from his own anger. 

      In II Sam. 14 we have the account of the greatest actress in the Bible.  She is not named, but just called the woman of Tekoa.  She was instructed to pretend to be a widow in mourning, and to dress in mourning clothes and not wear any makeup.  She was to go to David with a sob story about her two sons getting into a fight and one killing the other, and leaving her with only one son.  Her surviving son was going to be killed for his crime, which would leave her destitute with no family left in the world.  David is moved by the performance, and he issues an order that her son was not to be touched. 

      She then takes off her mask and asks David why he is not being as compassionate to his own son whom he has banished.  David saw the point, and he issued an order allowing Absolom his son to come back and live in Jerusalem.  The point is, acting and pretending to be someone but who you really are was a powerful force in moving people in the ancient world, and it still is today.

      Jesus even used this tool of acting to accomplish His purpose.  On the road to Emmaus after His resurrection He met and walked with two of His disciples.  He did not reveal who He was but acted like a stranger.  He acted like He did not know what had happened and why they were so sad.  They explained the whole story of the crucifixion and the women's experience at the tomb that morning.  Jesus then gave them a lesson on Old Testament prophecy, and then it says in Luke 24:28, "Jesus acted as if He was going further..."  It was only pretense, for he wanted to stay with them.  They urged Him to come into their home and He did.  It was there that their eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread.  Jesus pretended to be somebody else.  He had on a mask an played the role of a stranger before those who knew Him well.  Jesus was sinless, and so it follows that acting is no sin, for Jesus did it, and the church picked up on the power of acting to convey truth.

      When Rome fell the theater was lost for centuries.  But it was the church that revived it.  It all started with reenacting the great events of Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter.  For hundreds of years all drama was in the church with actors and elaborate costumes.  The church was to the Middle Ages what TV is to us today.  It was the place of entertainment, but it was also for the purpose of teaching religious truth.   The oldest and most numerous of plays that exist are of the 3 Mary's going to the tomb on Easter.  Over 400 have been discovered.  By 1536 there were elaborate plays like the Acts Of The Apostles with 300 actors playing 494 roles.  Today there are passion plays all over the world, and Christian plays by the thousands.  The greatest story ever told is told again and again through the medium of drama.

      One of the greatest examples of a Christian play is Joan Winmill Brown's Corrie The Lives She Touched.  Corrie Ten Boom had some elaborate deceptions by which to save Jewish babies.  When she got the message that the orphanage in Amsterdam was going to be raided and the babies killed, she contacted 30 teenage boys in the underground and asked for their help.  They had German uniforms from soldiers who had defected.  These young men put on the uniforms and drove up to the orphanage in trucks and demanded that the babies be turned over to them.  The orphanage workers believed they were authentic and wept as they handed over their Jewish babies.  They had no idea that what seemed like tragedy was really the salvation of those babies.  They were put in many homes and their lives were spared all by means of good costumes and good acting. 

     I do not know if Jesus meant, when He said we must be like children, that He was saying we must learn to live in a fantasy world of imagination, and learn to pretend more.  There is, however, no escape from the facts of the Bible and history.  God has used pretending or acting in some marvelous ways.  Let's not be superficial, however, and assume because acting can be a legitimate tool of God that it is free of all danger.  That is not the case.  Acting is equally a tool of the devil, and a lot of harm has been done by acting and pretending. 

       The drama from hell began in the garden when Satan put on the serpent outfit and pretended to be a friend of Eve.  He deceived her into disobeying God.  He tried the same trick in tempting Jesus.  He acted like a friend who was helping him to get the fame and power he rightly deserved.  Jesus saw behind the mask, however, and was not deceived by this clever actor.  Jesus had to be on His guard constantly against actors out to deceive Him.  In Luke 20:20 we read, "Keeping a close watch on Him they sent spies, who pretended to be honest.  They hoped to catch Jesus in something He said that they might hand Him over to the power and authority of the governor."  People pretending to understand Jesus were always asking Him which seemed sincere questions, but they were hypocrites really seeking to trap Him in some violation of the law. 

       We could study the word hypocrite, for it means to be an actor, and this is why we tend to have a negative view of the actors, because they use deception.  We think it is all one sided and evil, but the point of this message on Joseph's acting and other actors of the Bible, including our Lord, is to point out that there is also a good and positive side to it.  Just because Satan corrupts everything and uses it for evil does not mean the Christian has to give it up.  It is to be used for good, and for doing God's will, and that is why drama is so popular in the church again today. 

      There is a danger of us rejecting it because it seems like conformity to the world.  The world is fanatical about drama and acting.  The heroes of our culture are actors, and there is a movie madness in our land.  To go along with this and add plays to the church seems like just going along with the crowd.  There is a real risk that this will happen and so we need wisdom.  But we cannot escape the facts.  Acting can be used for good as well as evil.

       Look again at the story of Joseph.  The very Hebrew word for Joseph's pretense, which is NAKAR is the word used in Gen. 37 when these ten brothers now before him came home to their father Jacob with the bloody coat of Joseph.  They were pretending that he had been killed by a wild beast.  They put on a play of great sorrow at such a tragedy.  Poor Jacob was fooled by it.  Jacob had a whole family of hams, and that is bad news for a Jewish father.  But these same ten actors are now being deceived by Joseph the very way they deceived Jacob.  They are getting a taste of their own medicine.

       We need to see that the very tools that are used for doing evil need to be redeemed and used for good.  The deceivers need to be deceived and brought to a point of repentance, and this is what Joseph is doing by his acting.  I would not be surprised that Satan, the great deceiver, was being deceived himself by the crucifixion.  Satan had to think that he was succeeding by getting Judas to betray Jesus, and by getting the leaders of the Jews to crucify Him.  It looked like he was a clear winner, but he was deceived, for by entering death Jesus was able to release the captives of Satan, and destroy his greatest weapon over man.  Jesus did to Satan what Satan did to Adam and Eve.  He led him to believe that he was gaining a total victory when in reality the cross meant his total defeat. 

      This is what is going on in this story of Joseph.  He is now in a position to reverse the awful story of their evil.  He can turn this whole account into a comedy with a happy ending, but he needed to use his gift of acting to make it happen.  Just as the devil should not have all the best songs, so he should not have all the best actors.  Evil needs to be fought with its own best weapons.  Many plays downgrade the Christian faith, and it is only right that Christians write quality plays that exalt the Christian faith. 

      Joseph could put on his act with no rehearsal because he spoke to these brothers in the language of the Egyptians.   They could not tell if he should the wrong emotion and under the stress of the situation forget his lines.  Verse 23 tells us that Joseph spoke through an interpreter.  The brothers assumed he could not understand their language, and so they talked in his presence not knowing that he could understand them perfectly.  He had them at a real disadvantage.  He knew all that was being said, and they were in the dark about who he was and what he was up to.  This made it easy to deceive them, but on the other hand, it made it so hard for Joseph to control his emotions.

     When he heard his oldest brother Reuben tell the others that they were now paying for their sin against their brother Joseph, he was so deeply moved that he had to turn away and weep.  He had not known through all these years that his oldest brother had loved him and tried to save him.  Hearing that brought a lump to his throat and tears to his eyes.  Joseph was a very emotional man.  He cried more than most men, and he was not acting when he wept.  It took enormous energy to play his tough guy role because of his emotions.  It was a difficult battle to keep the act going and not blow his cover.

      In 43:30‑31 we see two decades of suppressed emotions held back even though they are pushing with flood force against his heart.  The ten have returned to Egypt with Benjamin, and we read, "Deeply moved at the sight of his brother, Joseph hurried out and looked for a place to weep.  He went into his private room and wept there.  After he had washed his face, he came out and, controlling himself, said, serve the food."  He has temporary control, but as the play goes on Judah gives a moving speech about the love of Jacob for Benjamin, and the fact that he will die if he is not brought back. 

      This causes Joseph to lose it.  He is a strong man, but he is overwhelmed by the flood of emotion, and we read this in the first two verses of chapter 45:  "Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, 'Have everyone leave my presence!'  So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.  And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh's household heard about it." 

      Then we read in verses 14 and 15, "Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him weeping, and he kissed all his brothers and wept over them."  The act was over, but not the tears.  When Joseph's old father Jacob was finally brought down to Egypt it was flood time again, and in 46:29 we read, "As soon as Jacob appeared before him, he threw his arms around his father and wept for a long time."  Two more times Joseph wept, but I think we have seen enough tears to know that he was one of the most emotional men of the Bible.  Real men do cry, for Joseph was a man's man, yet he wept frequently. 

      All of this has relevance to acting, for the emotions of Joseph were a real handicap to him, but in spite of them he was able to act his role out and accomplish his purpose.  There are fears in tears, and all sorts of emotions that have to be overcome to be a good actor, but they can be controlled, for we see it in the experience of Joseph.  God's will was served by his acting, and it continues to be served today by those who portray the good news of Christ through acting. 

7.     MOSES MEETS GOD   Based on Ex. 3:1‑15

   J. B. Phillips in his book Your God Is Too Small tells of how he asked a group of young people to give a snap answer to the question, "Do you think God understands radar?"  They all said no, and then they roared with laughter as they considered how foolish their answer was.  It showed that in the back of their minds they thought of God as an old man who lived in the past and was rather bewildered by modern progress.  Nothing is more pathetic than a mature person with an immature concept of God.  Such an adult is seldom a dedicated Christian, or an active servant of God.  More than likely they reject God completely.  They mature in all other areas of life, but in their concept of God they remain childish.  To make things worse, they think the rest of us are worshipping the God of their immature conception.  They think we are quite simple and unacquainted with the hard facts of life.

       These people have not rejected God, for they don't even know Him.  They have only rejected a god who doesn't exist anyway except in their own mind.  What these people need is a true biblical concept of God.  This is what we all need, for our conception of God controls our attitudes and actions, and it determines the measure of our devotion to Him and His will.  Is your God just a spare time God you call upon only in emergencies?  You answer that by your commitment to Him.  The person who gives his God only one hour a week of his life has a very small God and not the God of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

       One cannot stand in the pulpit and hand over to you an experience of the greatness of God any more than one can measure the horizon with a ruler.  This can only come when a person says with Moses, "I will turn aside and see this great sight."  A man has to be willing to forsake his old concepts if he would grow in the knowledge of God as He really is.  When Martin Niemoller was in Hitler's prison he had time to think, and he turned his thought toward God.  He had to give up his old opinions about God.  He wrote, "It took me a long time to learn that God is not the enemy of my enemies.  He is not even the enemy of His enemies."  He had to give up the God He had created in his own image, and he came to see that God is love. 

        Moses needed to grow in his knowledge of God as well.  God had prepared him to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.  The first 40 years of his life he gained the best education possible in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but this knowledge was not enough for the task God had for him.  He needed some good practical experience, and so God in His providence saw that he got it, and for the next 40 years he was a shepherd in Midian where he learned the ways of desert life.  He learned about the plants and animals, and about water sources and hardships.  Now the second 40 year training period was over, and all Moses needed now was to meet God, and this he did at the burning bush, which is the Damascus Road experience of the Old Testament.  We want to look at this experience and draw from it 3 things which God does that enlarge our concept of Him. 

I. HE DEMANDS REVERENCE.  v. 4‑5

      You will notice that God appealed to the curiosity of Moses.  Some people feel that faith and curiosity are contradictory, but this is not so.  The impulse to inquire and learn is essential to a growing faith.  God says, "Come now let us reason together," and all of nature is a stimulus to investigation.  Curiosity is what made Watts ask why the lid on a boiling kettle bobbed up and down?  His search for an answer led to the first workable steam engine.  Curiosity is what made Sir Alexander Fleming investigate a mold, which led to the discovery of penicillin.  Curiosity is what led Zaccheaus climb a tree to see Jesus, which led to his conversion.  It may have killed the cat but curiosity saved him and many others.

       God wants people to investigate, but we see that when Moses came near He stopped him and tells him to take off his shoes.   This was a sign of reverence and God demands that.  If one is going gain from his search he must come in reverence and humility, for neither God nor His creation will reveal its secrets to the proud and irreverent.  "Moses was led through the gates of curiosity into the sanctuary of reverence.  Those who come to God or nature in pride to force the truth from them are courting disaster.   You can count on it that those working with atomic energy are reverent before its power, and they are not careless and proud as if they needed no caution in its presence.  To do so would be as foolish as for a Jewish person of old to stumble into the holy of holies.

       The great men of science such as Copernicus, Newton, Kepler, and Edison have been men of reverence in their inquiry.  Edison said, "I sit down before the law.  I try to find out how the law operates.  I try to bring my mind and mechanisms into harmony with the way things are, and the more I obey the law, the more the law obeys me and serves my purpose."  Success in science comes through obedience just as success in the Christian life does.  This is the only way to know God and His will.  You must adjust to reality and not try to twist reality to your proud and preconceived notions. 

       A proud self‑sufficient tourist went through one of Europe's famous art galleries looking at many great masterpieces.  As he was leaving he said to the custodian, "I don't see anything so great about these paintings."  The custodian replied, "Sir, these pictures are not on trial, those who view them are."  So it is with Scripture, God and His Word are not on trial, but you are.  You must come in reverence seeking to know God if you expect to grow.  The poet wrote,

Earth is crammed with heaven,

And every common bush aflame with God,

But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.

II. HE PROMISES HIS PRESENCE.  v. 11‑12

           Moses said, "Who am I?"  Forty years before Moses felt he could handle things and he killed an Egyptian, but now he is more mature and humble.  He wondered how a shepherd like him could walk into the palace of Pharaoh and persuade him to let hundreds of thousands of slaves go free.  It can't be done was his thinking, and he was right if he thought the success of the plan depended on his eloquence and ability to charm Pharaoh.  Without the promise of God, "Certainly I will be with you," Moses could not have succeeded.  This is the case with the Apostles as well.  Without the promise of Christ to be with them they could not have succeeded.  Nor can we, or anyone else, for we all need God's presence to be successful.  With His presence comes all the other promises.  If God wills it then it can be done.  The poet has written,

Never say it can't be done,

It simply isn't true.

What you mean my son

Is it can be done,

But can't be done by you.

       One of the greatest fallacies in the world is that one does not count.  All of history proves it to be a lie, and yet we believe it.  What can I do?  Problems are to big for any one person to make a difference, and so I ignore the problem and become a part of the problem.  It is true that you cannot do anymore than Moses could on his own, but could we believe and claim the promise of God to be present with us, then we could say with Paul, "I can do all thing through Christ who strengthens me."  When David Livingston returned to Scotland after 16 years in Africa where he suffered 27 attacks of African fever, had one arm rendered useless by the bite of a lion, lived among a people whose language he did not know, and whose attitude toward him was often hostile, he said, "Shall I tell you what supported me through all these years of exile?  It was this, 'Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.'" 

       There has never been a power that has been able to conquer a people who live and believe in the presence of God.  When Julian the Apostate was Emperor of the Roman Empire he did all he could to destroy churches and erect idols.  Libanus, one of his friends, asked a Christian one day, "What is your Carpenter of Nazareth doing now?"  The Christian responded, "He is making a coffin."  And soon Julian was in it and all the idols were swept away.  In his dying breath Julian cried out, "O Galilean!  Thou hast conquered!"  The early church believed that there has always been success where there has been one or more persons who believe that God is with them, and that through them God can accomplish His will.  Moses said, "Who am I?"  But that is beside the point said God.  It is not who you are but who is behind you and with you that counts. 

III.  HE REVEALS HIS ESSENCE   v. 13‑15

       To try and define God is to confine Him.  Our minds cannot fully grasp His nature.  This should not surprise us, for we cannot fully understand anything.  The Psalmist cried out, "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me.  Thou understandeth my thought afar off."  But when he reverses the process and considers God he says, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it."  This does not mean we must join those who think of God as a vague blur.  We cannot find out by searching, but we can know who God is if he speaks to us, and that he has done.  Paul constantly urges us to grow in the knowledge of God, and we can only do so by searching His revelation.  Someone said, "We can never attain a maximum love of God with only a minimum knowledge of God."

       A virtuous godly man may be ignorant of many things, but his ignorance is not one of his virtues, nor is it the cause of his godliness.  It would be strange if God could be loved better by being known less.  What I am saying is that theology is not just for the theologian, but it is for all believers.  Imagine telling a man who is going to drive across a field and over a hill that he better watch out for the tree just over the hill, and he says, "Don't talk to me about trees.  I'm a motorist and not a botanist."    This is carrying specialization too far, for that tree is not only a fact of botany, but a fact of life.  Likewise, God is not just a fact of theology, but He is the greatest fact of life. 

       The first and most basic fact that God reveals here to Moses is that He is a Person and a God of persons.  Those who know God only as He is revealed in nature come to think of Him as a power rather than a Person.  They call Him the first cause, the unmoved mover, the cosmic organism, or the stream of tendency.  It is easy to see how they arrive at this conclusion, for power is what nature reveals.  A prominent physicist tells us that if we had to pay for the light bill from the sun at one penny per kilowatt, one‑hundredth millionth part of a second would cost us more than World War II.  Thank God he doesn't charge for His power.  The Bible tells us that this power has its source in a Person, and it goes further yet and even says He can be known as a Father. 

        God is not a power that is unconcerned for us, but He is a Person whom we can know by faith in Jesus Christ.  The Christian attitude to the wonders of the universe is in the words of the hymn, "This is my Father's world."  All of reality should take on new meaning to one who knows God.  A mother rushed up the stairs as a thunderstorm broke loose thinking her little boy would be frantic with fear, but she found him at the window with his eyes bright with excitement.  He was shouting loudly with every clap of thunder, "Bang it again God!  Band it again!"  He had no fear of the power because he knew the Person behind the power. 

       The second thing God reveals about Himself is that He is the Eternal Present One.  God never began, but always is.  If He began then whatever caused His beginning would be greater than God.  When the skeptic asks when did God begin, he is contradicting himself and does not realize it because of his false concept of God.  He is asking when did that which had no beginning begin?  God by very definition is without beginning.  How far down is a bottomless pit?  Bottomless by very definition eliminates the possibility of giving any meaning to the question how far down?  How long is eternity?  This is asking when does that end which by definition has no end.  If you ask where was God before creation, you are asking where was God when there wasn't anywhere, and where was God when there wasn't any when.  You might say that you don't get it, and you are not alone, for eternity is just not part of our experience.  About all we can say about it is that it is not time, and we cannot think a part from time.

        Eternity is ever present, but in contrast time is never present.  You might say that it is right now, but that is not so for even in saying the word now you see the constant flow of time.  By the time you say the w the end is already past, and when you finish the word the time you referred to is already gone.  The present is so short, and so all of life is either in the past or the future, whereas in eternity all is present.  The present is just the hole in the needle through which the thread of time passes for us, but for God it is where He dwells beyond any of the limitations of time. 

       What God says to Moses implies many things about the nature of God.  The important thing is that we begin to see that the God of Scripture is greater than any concept that man has.  The gods that many atheists reject are puny concepts that have nothing to do with the God of Scripture.  We do not believe in the gods most people reject either.  They are often the product of man's imagination and not God's revelation.  On the other hand, we do not believe in the many gods that others create in their own image.  The god of the alcoholic is liquor and they are deeply devoted to their god.  They love neither father nor mother more than it, and they will go to any length for it.  There are many such gods that people are devoted to, but they are not the God revealed in Scripture through Jesus.  He alone is worthy of our worship and devotion. 

        God taught Moses that He demands reverence, promises His presence and reveals His essence to those who seek Him and obey Him.  Your God is not big enough if He is not this God who revealed Himself to Moses and more completely through His Son Jesus Christ. 

8.     RAHAB THE HARLOT Based on Josh. 2:1‑21

Women do not have fight to play a major role in war.  The gentle schemes of women are often able to do what bombs and bullets cannot do.  Mary Murray is a great example from the Revolutionary War.  George Washington and two of his generals had escaped from the British in New York, but General Putnam was still evacuating lower Manhatten.  What they did not know was that they were marching right into the path of the British General Howe, who had just come to the colonies with 8,000 fresh troops.  It would have been a terrible defeat for the colonies.

     Mary Murray, the wife of a wealthy New York merchant, learned of this impending disaster, and she went into action.  She invited the British General to stop for a cooling drink in the spacious parlor of her mansion.  This pulled him off the road, and she sent one of her servants upstairs to watch the cloud of dust so they could know when the American troops had passed by.  Fortunately, it was a hot day that September 15, 1776.  General Howe accepted the invitation, and when he prepared to leave she insisted he stay for a mid‑day lunch.  General Howe hesitated because his men had to stand in the hot sun.  She solved that by having tables set out in back under trees.  The whole British army was kept cool and entertained until the Americans were safely past. 

     The British never knew that a great victory slipped through their hands because of a kind hospitality of a woman.  On Park Ave. of New York City there is a tablet honoring Mary Murray for her heroic hospitality that made it possible for the American army to escape.  She helped win the Revolutionary War with the weapon of kindness.  It is a very effective weapon, and we want to focus on a biblical woman who became one of the most famous women in history because she was kind to the Israelite spies, and helped them escape from what appeared to be a  hopeless situation.

     This one act of kindness led Rahab to become a part of Israel's history, and to even become a link in the chain that led to the Messiah.  She is part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.  She is referred to by James as a great example of the power of works, and in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11, she is one of the two women named in that great faith chapter as a great example of faith.  In spite of all her fame, and all the coverage she gets in God's Word, her name never became a popular name, which is usually the case with women who do good and great things in the Bible.  The reason for her name never becoming widely used is due to the first aspect of her life that we want to consider. 

I. HER PAST PROFESSION.

      Rahab was a harlot, or better known in our culture as a prostitute.  Here is a paradox, for she was a heathen harlot who became a messianic mother, her name never escaped the taint of her past, even though she did fully escape that past, and will be singing in eternity the song of the redeemed.  The study of Rahab forces us to look at the subject of prostitution, for this profession is always linked with her name except for one time in the genealogy of Matt. 1.  Even when she is held up as a great example of faith and works she is called Rahab the harlot.

     The question that comes to our minds is why?  Why is prostitution so  persistently prevalent all through history?  It is known as the oldest profession, and it is a profession that has played a major role in history.  You cannot study the role of women in history, and not study this aspect of it.  The Bible recognizes it as a major subject.  Harlot is used 40 times in the Old Testament, and 8 times in the New Testament.  Whore, whoredom, and whoring, are used 83 times in the Old Testament and 9 times in the New Testament.  These represent just a partial list of the biblical material on prostitution, but they represent 140 verses of God's Word on this issue.  There is more on prostitution in the Bible than on many other subjects, and it is because God knows the heart of man better than we do.

      Prostitution is, and always has been, a major economic issue.  Women have turned to it all through history for survival.  Men have always been tempted to cash in on the willingness of other men to pay for sex.  God knew the Jews would be no different, and so He warns in Lev. 19:29, "Do not degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will turn to prostitution and be filled with wickedness."  God knows that prostitution is the door to every other form of evil, and once you open that door, the nation is on a downhill slide.  With it comes drugs, gambling, and crime of every sort.  It gives the underworld a major in road to society. 

     The point I want to focus on out of many we could consider is that the degrading of women by means of prostitution is primarily the responsibility of men, and when men treat women this way, they destroy their own values, and their own ideals.  Men cannot treat women in a lowly manner and expect to rise themselves.  Men rise or sink depending on how they treat women.  Keep in mind that for every prostitute there are many men who keep this profession alive.  This means that women are only a fraction of the problem.  The main problem is the lust of men.

     The reason prostitution can never be eliminated by men is because men are the power behind it.  I have never studied a subject that was more frustrating.  Millions and millions of women are enslaved, and almost nobody cares because the power structure of our world demands these slaves.  The economic system of many nations depends upon prostitution.  Tourism and prostitution go hand in hand around the world.  Business is a key supporter of prostitution, and men are rewarded for a good job by being given a night with a prostitute.  Governments and businesses entertain customers and diplomats with prostitutes. 

     This is not a new thing in our day at all.  It has been a part of history.  So basic is prostitution to the way of life of sinful man that the great leaders of the church were not in favor of abolishing it.  St. Augustine, one of the most influential men in the history of the church, said, "Remove prostitutes from human affairs, and you will unsettle everything because of lust."  Centuries later the great theologian St. Thomas Aquinas said, "Prostitution in the cities is like the sewage system in the palace.  Do away with it, and the palace will turn into a place of filth and stink."  Church councils have supported prostitution as a way to control men's lust so that it does not lead to rape, adultery, and the contamination of the marriage bond. 

      My point in all this is that the prostitutes of history have been some of the most pathetic people because they have been slaves that no one is interested in setting free.  Even Christians have not really tried to eliminate this blight, because they see beneficial fringe benefits.  The vast majority of prostitutes hate what they have to do, but they have to no way of escape.  Poverty forces most of them into it, and economic necessity keeps them there.  You can, in self‑righteous pride, say I would starve first, but you do not understand what life does to so many women. 

     In Indonesia, for example, the extreme poverty forces up to 60% of the women into prostitution.  In Jakarta back in 1979 there were 600 Christian prostitutes who joined together to care for their children.  They had Bible studies and prayed together, but there was no other way to survive, and that is why they were prostitutes.  Studying the history of this tragic reality of life has helped me understand why the Bible conveys such a message of sympathy for the prostitute.  I can better understand why Jesus let a prostitute wipe His feet with her hair.  I can better understand why He was willing to accept the woman at the well in spite of her shabby past.  I can better grasp how Jesus could let the woman taken in adultery go free and unpunished.  What I can better see is that God understands that women are victims of system that forces them into immorality that they would not choose if they were free to make a choice. 

     I am not blind to the many wicked women in history who love evil, and who love to enslave other women, as well as men.  That is a part of history as well, but the fact is, the majority need compassion for they are slaves and victims.  By the providence of God Rahab got the chance to be free of her past, and she grabbed it and became a godly woman.  If the prostitutes of the world were given a chance to be free and have the ability to make a decent living, most would make that choice.  Jesus said to the Pharisee that the harlots and Publicans would enter the kingdom before them.  The implication is that they would respond to the Gospel and become godly people. 

     What we need to see is that the ministry to prostitutes is a valid ministry of compassion.  Economic inequality has always been the main cause for prostitution.  The more poor women you have in this world, the more prostitutes you have.  There are those, of course, who are rich and high class, but the majority in the world are pathetically poor.  Only women themselves can stop the exploitation of their sex.  The power structure of men will never stop it.  Abortion is so hard to fight for the same reason.  Any effort to halt the free expression of man's lust will face enormous opposition.  Unless women organize to change the way things are the best we can hope for is that, like Rahab, one by one there will be those who escape this oldest profession to live a life of dignity and respect.  The second thing we want to focus on is‑

II. HER PRESENT POSSESSION.

     As we confront her in our text she is a woman of faith, and not a woman of filth.  She is intelligent and not immoral.  She is an impressive person who is decisive, and she makes a choice to save her family at the risk of her own life.  So much is noble about Rahab that it is easy to see why one of the spies fell for her.  According to Jewish tradition one of these two spies later married her, and she became a part of Israel, and a mother in the blood line to Christ.  Her son Boaz grew up to marry Ruth the Moabite, who was another Gentile.  With a mother like her he had no fear of marrying a Gentile woman, for he knew they could be marvelous.  God did also, for both of these Gentile women became a part of the blood line to the Messiah. 

     Rahab possessed a keen intelligent mind.  She kept up on current events, and  she knew what the God of Israel had been doing.  She listened to the news, and paid attention to the changing times.  She was ready to change to fit the new circumstances that history was bringing.  She could see her people were doomed, and that the future was with Israel.  She was prepared to act on her faith in that future.  It was not a self‑centered choice.  She loved her family.  She may have been the black sheep of the family, and may have been rejected for her decision to be a prostitute, but she did not reject them.  Her deal with the spies included her whole family.

     It is not true that a prostitute is incapable of love.  Rahab was one of the most loving daughters we have any record of in the Bible.  We do not know what her parents and siblings thought of her, but we know how she felt about them.  In spite of her degrading profession she still possessed a deep love for her whole family.  People caught up in the most degrading aspects of human life can still be very likeable and loving people.  Rahab still possessed the capacity, in spite of all the lust and abuse she had seen, to see the beauty of what God intended in the male‑female relationship.  I have read stories and seen movies of prostitutes who fell in love and made good wives.  This is not fiction, but fact.  Many prostitutes have married and made wonderful respectable wives.  It takes a unique man to make it work, however, and many men could not handle it.  It was certainly providential that one of the spies was just such a man.

     What we see in Rahab is the other side of the depravity of man.  We see the dignity of man.  We see that even in the fallen state men and women still possess the shattered and tattered image of God.  Rahab had a lot of good qualities even as a heathen harlot.  That is why it is important for Christians to approach all people from the point of view of respect.  Even the harlot has the capacity to respond to what is good, noble, and righteous.  The harlot has the same capacity to chose to follow the light as anyone else.  The result is we have a story in the Bible of Jewish spies entering into an agreement with a pagan prostitute.  They made a treaty with her, and they promised her deliverance because of her faith in the God of Israel, and her action to preserve their lives.

      Don't write people off because of who they are, or what their past is.  God providentially led the spies to Rahab for her sake, and for a lesson to His people for all time.  The lesson is not that everybody will turn out good if given a chance, for this is not so.  The lesson is that people in every category must be offered a chance, for no matter how depraved they are, they can chose to trust God and rise to a level of dignity and usefulness in the plan of God.

     Jesus was virgin born, but lest anyone gets the idea that God will not use anyone who is less than perfect, there are women like Rahab in Christ's genealogy.  The majority of the human race is closer to Rahab than to Mary, and Jesus came to seek and to save the fallen and the lost.  The plan of redemption cannot be fully seen by looking at Mary.  We need to see Rahab as well before the picture is complete.  Then, and only then, can we see the glory of God's amazing grace.  Had God consulted the Pharisees He would have been told it was in bad taste to include a harlot in His Son's genealogy.  But God is not concerned about what people were.  He is concerned about whether or not they possess faith.  If they do, then that present possession can wipe away the bolt of their past profession. 

      By faith Rahab saved her future husband by helping him to escape.  By faith she saved her whole family.  By faith she saved herself, and by faith she has saved many others because God used her example in His Word so that many others through history could see the good news of her deliverance, and put their trust in the same God to deliver them.  Like the woman at the well, this Old Testament woman of ill repute gained the reputation of being one of God's best tools for evangelism.  The last aspect of her life we want to focus on is‑

III. HER FUTURE POSITION.

     We are looking at what she became in history long after she was gone from the stage of history.  No one could ever dream that a woman like Rahab could gain a position in Israel, and in God's plan, that would make her a great example.  She was a  Gentile, and a woman, and a prostitute.  The only possible way she could have sunk any lower would have been to add to this list the term leper.  She was, for all practical purposes, the least likely person to ever become an example for anyone, let alone the people of God.  She illustrates that a Gentile can become a Jew by faith and by marriage, but more important, she illustrates a person in darkness can become a great light by the grace of God.

     It is important that we see that the Bible gives us great examples of women who are redeemed so that we never think they are secondary in God's plan.  Lydia was the first Christian convert in Europe, and Rahab was the first pagan convert to Judaism in Canaan.  All through history we see that women are often the first to respond to the grace of God, and they open the way for men to follow.  Women are often spiritual pioneers who blaze new trails that become highways for millions. 

     There are other prostitutes who have become famous, but none as famous as Rahab.   As a youth, when I stood by her grave on the hill outside Deadwood, South Dakota,  I thought that Calamity Jane was a great woman.  I later learned that she was one of the worst women who ever lived.  She was a foul mouthed, crude, and very unfeminine prostitute.  But her story illustrates two points I am trying to convey in this message on Rahab.  She was forced into prostitution by society.  Her parents with 6 children were pioneers, and shortly after her mother died on the trail, her father died when they reached Salt Lake City.  The younger children were taken by the state and put up for adoption.  Jane was 15, and so she was left on her own.  She became a prostitute for survival.  This is the way millions have become prostitutes through history.  A study in Paris in the year 1828 showed that there were 1255 prostitutes in that profession because they lost their parents, or were abandoned. 

     The more you read about the causes of prostitution, the more compassion you have for those women who are in the worst of all types of slavery.  I cannot admire Calamity Jane as I did in my youth, but neither can I despise her because of what I have learned about her background.  Jesus had such compassion on sinners because He knew why people lived on such a low level of immorality.  It often takes us along time to understand the reasons why people are what they are. 

     Calamity Jane also illustrates the fact that the worst have something of the image of God in them yet.  In 1878 when smallpox swept through Deadwood, and people were dying like flies, she worked day and night nursing the sick and dying.  The paper referred to her then as an angel of mercy.  She was a dark angel, to be sure, but she set an example.

      Rahab's example is the greatest, however, for she abandoned all other loyalties, and put her faith in God.  She risked everything, and even became a traitor to her state.  She rejected her pagan gods, and put her trust in the God of Israel.  This was a daring thing to do, but she did it and became one of the only two women in Heb. 11 as great examples of faith.  Sarah is the other woman, and Sarah means princess.  So we have the princess and the prostitute, the high and the low, but both are examples of great faith, and they make it clear that faith is an open choice for all.  No one need miss God's best because of their past, however vile and out of God's will.  A present faith in Christ can lead anyone to have a future position in God's eternal kingdom.  The story of Rahab gives hope to all the sinners of the world that they too can become children of God by faith in the Christ who will cast none out who come to Him in faith.

9.     DEBORAH THE WISE Based on Judges 4

   Everyone has heard of Paul Revere, but very few would recognize the name of Sybil Ludington.  Her father was a colonel in the Revolutionary Army in Connecticut.  One night a messenger came banging on the door of their home.  Sybil let him in and went to get her father.  She listened as her father received the report that 200 British troops had over run Danburg, Conn. 

     The British had taken advantage of the fact that the American troops had gone home to their farms to plant their fields.  The British easily stormed past the guards, and they began to loot and burn the town.  Colonel Ludington realized the messenger has to go out to the militia immediately, but the messenger was too exhausted.  Sybil volunteered, but her father refused to let a 16 year old girl go riding into such a dark and dangerous night.  But Sybil insisted, for she knew the country and there was no one else to go, and time was running out.

     Sybil got her horse prepared and off she rode.  Through the night she rode to every farm house and shouted the message, "The British are burning Danburg.  Meet at Colonel Ludington's mill."  She fought back many tears in the lonely night and her voice gave out.  Her horse was also exhausted, but she achieved the goal, and the British were driven back to their ships.  Sybil became known as the female Paul Revere.  In 1975 a stamp was issued in her memory, and a statue of her stands in Memorial Hall in Washington, D. C.

     All through history women have played a major role in war, and in the defense of their people.  Women warriors who actually led troops in battle are more frequent in history than most of us would ever think likely.  Probably the most famous of all is Joan of Arc who lived from 1412 to 1431.  This 19 year old girl led France to victory in a war they had been losing to England for 75 years.  Joan had no schooling, and never learned to read, but she heard the call of God to save France.  She persuaded the French Commander to give her the chance.  They had nothing to lose, for it looked hopeless, but this young girl rallied the French Army and won victory after victory.  She united a divided nation and reestablished France as a major world power.

     We want to focus our attention on Judges 4 where we see the Joan of Arc of the Old Testament.  Deborah also rallied the forces of the nation of Israel, and she won for her people freedom from what seemed hopeless odds.  For 20 years Israel had suffered oppression from Jabin the king of Canaan.  He had 900 chariots of iron, and Israel had a grand total of zero.  You talk about an uneven balance of power.  This was like trying to fight tanks with bows and arrows.  In our world today one of the key issues is balance of power, and who has the most and fastest strike capability weapons.  Israel was certainly not the leader in that day.

     When Israel did evil and developed life styles out of God's will, the pagan nations around her won all the wars, and they were slaves.  When they repented and called upon God for deliverance God would raise up a leader who would set them free even though their weapons were inferior.  Weapons were never the key factor in the wars of the Bible.  The key was always the relationship of people to God.  Unless God has changed His ways of dealing with nations, the future for Israel and America is more a matter of worship than of weapons.  When people turn to God, and call upon Him for His guidance and help, then he raises up leaders to accomplish His will in history.  That is what the book of Judges is all about.  One of these judges that God raised up was this female judge by the name of Deborah.

     Why God raised up a woman to do what is generally considered a man's task,

I do not know.  But its in the Book, and we have to face up to the fact that God is an equal opportunity employer when it comes to using the sexes to do His will in history.  Every so often God uses a woman to do what he usually does by means of a man.  This forces us to keep our minds open to God's leading, and not be limited by custom or tradition.  If God gives a woman the gifts to lead men for their good and God's glory, then let her lead.  The legalistic Christian says, "We never did it this way before."  The biblical Christian says, "God is always doing things like He never did before.  If He empowers a woman with superior gifts, then we need to submit to God and follow her leadership." 

     This is precisely what we see the people of Israel doing with Deborah.  God was on and exaltation of womanhood campaign in this period.  He not only raised up Deborah to lead His people as a prophet, a patriot, and poet, but He made sure that no man got the glory for killing the cruel oppressor Sisera.  By His providence this job was done by the hand of the woman named Jael.  God wanted women to be the heroines of this period of history.  It ought to keep the greatest of men humble to see that they have done nothing that God could not have done as well through a woman if that was His choice. 

     Sexual pride has no support from the Bible.  The Bible has no interest in the issue of which is superior, the male or female.  The Bible is very clear on this issue, for it says that the godly male or female is superior to the ungodly male or female.  Sexuality is not the issue, but spirituality is, and that is why Paul stresses that in Christ there is no male or female.  The only status that really matters to God is not, are you a Jew or Gentile, are you male or female, are you in bonds or free, but what matters is, are you in Christ, or out of Christ? 

     Deborah was used of God, not because she was a woman, but because she was a woman of faith who committed all of her abilities to be used by God.  Like the other judges of Israel, she came to power by the sheer force of her marvelous gifts.  She had no royal blood, but was just an amazing and brilliant woman.  Men came to her for guidance because she was so wise.  We want to look at the three areas where her wisdom was revealed.  First she was wise as‑

I. A PROPHETESS.

      A  prophetess is not the wife of a prophet‑she is a prophet ‑a female prophet.  Her husband Lappidoth was likely a godly man, but nothing is known about him.  He is an obscure husband married to a famous and gifted woman.  She is superior to him because God chose to give her gifts that He did not give to Him. The result was the people of Israel did not come to him, but to her for leadership.  We have no reason to doubt they had a wonderful marriage in spite of this role reversal.  It is exceptional, but the point is, the exceptional is real, and the Bible deals with it.  In the New Testament we have another illustration in husband and wife team of Pricilla and Aquilla.  She was superior to him, and became the leader of that team.

     What the Bible demands is just common sense.  If the wife is gifted in some area or all areas, then wisdom demands that she be the leader where she is strong.  Paul recognized this with Pricilla.  He puts her name first whenever he refers to them.  Does this destroy what Paul says about wives being submissive to their husbands?  Not at all.  It just destroys the legalistic application of the principle, which is the only thing any woman could object to about that principle.  Submission is simple an acknowledgement of another's gifts, wisdom, and authority.  Paul demands that it be mutual between mates, for sometimes the wife has superior gifts.  Both the Old Testament and New Testament illustrate this, and Deborah is the prime example. 

     The times were chaotic and pressures were tremendous, and yet we see the people of Israel turning to a woman for wisdom.  Women are not supposed to be as emotionally stable in a crisis, but this was long before any of those studies were published, and so Deborah just went on giving her wise judgments.  Deborah means, "A bee," and just like the bumble bee who never read the reports that it is not built right to fly, goes on flying, so she went on doing what women are not supposed to do well.  She kept cool, and gave forth the Word of God for personal and national guidance.

     She is the one who sent for Barak, and gave him the Word of God that he was to be the general of Israel's army to fight Sisera the general of Jabin's army.  She is the one who gave him the prophecy that he would win the battle.  God gave a woman the gift of prophecy, and this exalted that sex to the level of being the very mouthpiece of God along side of men like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.  I have not heard many women preachers myself, but regardless of how I, or anyone else, might feel about them, in the light of Deborah I would not have the audacity to ever say it is not biblical for women to proclaim the Word of God.  This is a hot issue for many, but it certainly wasn't in the day of Deborah. 

     The thing that impresses me about this whole account of Deborah is its naturalness.    It is just recorded as fact. Deborah was wise, and she was a prophetess that everybody accepted as God's choice for leadership.  There is no big hassle made about changing history to herstory, or boycott to girlcott, and all of the nonsense we have in our day about trying to change sexes language.  The Christian is to simply accept the providence of God as did Israel.  If God gives a woman gifts, then let them be used, and praise God for them.  The male or female that is God's choice will be a blessing to both sexes. 

     If God raises up a gifted woman, men need not fear to follow her, for her leadership will only exalt the male role. Deborah is the one who got Barak exalted to a place in Heb. 11 where she never made it herself.  The male role and status are not threatened by her leadership.  By this we can discern between women who are truly sent of God, and those who desire to use their gifts to defeat and dominate men for their own glory. Deborah's concern was for the glory of God and the good of His people.  A great and godly woman will always be one who lifts men to a nobler level. Deborah did just that, and made her mark in the public arena of political leadership with God and the people's full approval.

     As a prophetess Deborah was able to discern the mind of God, and to declare it to men, and, thereby, see God's will accomplished.  Thank God for men who know when to listen to women.  Had Pilate listened to his wife he may have treated Jesus differently.  Had Nabal listened to his wise wife Abigail and let her handle his public relations, he would not have gone down in history as a blundering fool.  The point is, the Bible supports the truth that most of us have to learn the hard way, and that is that your wife may be right, and you need to listen to her.  She may, in fact, be your best advisor, just as Deborah was the best for Israel.

      The opposite is also true, for Ahab never should have listened to Jezebel, and Herod never should have listened to his wife.  Solomon undermined most of his wisdom by listening to his foreign wives.  The female is equal in folly as well as in faith, and so we are not trying to superficially exalt the female as a paragon of virtue.  We are simply recognizing that the female has all the same potential for good or evil as the male.  Therefore, she is to be treated, and related to, in ways that acknowledge that equality.

     That prince of expositors G. Campbell Morgan writes, "The one great message of the story seems to be that it warns us to take heed that we do not imagine ourselves to be wiser than God.  When He calls and equips a woman to high service, let us beware less we dishonor Him by refusing to recognize her, or cooperate with her."  In other words, the Christian attitude is to let women rise to the level of their gifts and abilities.  Listening to, and following, a wise and godly woman can be the key to God's best in life.  God can do what He wills without a woman or a man, for that matter, but that is what makes it so wonderful, for He chooses to change history by using men and women who will cooperate with Him.  Next let us consider Deborah as‑

II. A PATRIOT.

      A patriot is one who loves his or her country, and zealously supports its interests.  The people of Israel were sick and tired of the 20 years of slavery to Jabin, and they crying out to God for help.  The way God spells relief is DEBORAH.  She was God's answer to their prayers.  A godly woman can be the best weapon a nation can have.  We know that Eve was God's answer to Adam's prayer, and that females have been the answer to the prayers of men all through history. Deborah is an example of the fact that God may also answer national prayers by raising up a woman.

      Deborah was the real source of inspiration and leadership, and this is acknowledged by Barak the general in verse 8 where he says to Deborah, "If you will go with me I will go:  But if you will not go with me, I will not go."  Barak was a man of faith, but he was not going after 700 iron chariots without the presence of Deborah.  She was obviously a charismatic personality that gave confidence and assurance to all who were with her.  He needed someone special, for he was taking on a well drilled army with the best and newest fighting machines.  He was fighting with men out of training, and with nothing but homemade weapons.  He needed her to motivate his men. 

      Deborah was no Cleopatra, eager to reign over men and dominate them.  She was eager to inspire them to do the will of God, and gain freedom from their enemies that they might more effectively live for God and His purposes.  She aroused her nation from its lethargy and despair.  She awakened in them a determination to be free from their bondage.  Without her the victory would never have been attempted. Deborah is proof that a woman may be the best national advisor.  For a woman to be on the supreme court of our land, or to be in the president's cabinet is no problem for those who see how God has worked in the history of His people.  History and the Bible make it clear that patriotic women are a vital part of any nation that is blessed by God. 

      Deborah went from settling personal disputes among God's people to settling international disputes.  All through history God has used women, not just in the home and the church, but in the public arena of politics.  It is not for all, or even most  women, but the point is, when God calls women to get involved in major political ways, they have a tremendous impact.  Never underestimate the power of women to change the course of history. Deborah's leadership reversed the history of Israel, and instead of living as slaves, they had 40 years of peace and freedom because of her.

     In our own land we enjoy enormous blessings because of patriotic women.  I think of just one group that God has used so uniquely in our land.  The Quaker women have always been treated as equals.  They receive the same good education, and the same freedom to use their gifts.  The results are that this small group of women have had a profound influence on all Americans.  They were a major force in fighting slavery, and in building institutions for care and education.  They provided the first battlefield nurses.  Lucretia Mott became one of the greatest women leaders of the 19th century.  She and other Quaker women, like the Grimke sisters were the first Americans women to speak out in public and win for women the right to express themselves in public.  Then came Susan B. Anthony whose labors led women to gain the right to vote.  Quaker women were the first to do many things in our land to benefit the whole nation.  Their theology allowed them to enter into the freedoms of our nation, and they expanded those freedoms for all.   The third area of Deborah's wisdom is that she was‑

III. A POETESS.

     Judges chapter 5 is considered one of the first pieces of literature ever written, and Deborah was its author.  One of its famous lines is, "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera."  It is a poetic way of saying that the universe is behind what is good, and that nature itself will fight the forces of evil.  Women did write parts of the Bible. It was mostly songs like those of Miriam and Deborah in the Old Testament, and Mary and Elizabeth in the New.  A number of scholars are convinced also that Pricilla is the author of the book of Hebrews.  That may never be determined, but what is determined is that God has, and does, inspire women as well as men. 

     Deborah was something of a female Solomon.  She was wise in discerning what was right, and people respected her judgments.  She also had his creative gift of writing songs.  This is patriotic song of Israel, which records and rejoices in the Lord's guidance to bring victory to them.  It is of interest that women have always enjoyed equality with men in the area of writing poetry and songs. History is filled with women who have excelled in this area of creativity.  Some of our most patriotic songs were written by women.  America the Beautiful was written by Katherine Lee Bates, and the Battle Hymn of the Republic was written by Julia Ward Howe.

      Many of the songs we sing to praise God, and to express our faith, are songs that God has given to us through the minds and pens of women.  This is a vast field of study on its own.  As Deborah's gifts were used to bless God's people in her day, so the gifts of women have blessed the whole family of God all through history, and will continue to do so until history ends.  The point of all this is not that women should go away singing, "Anything you can do I can do better," but that they rejoice with men in the God who loves and uses both sexes to bless His people, and through them the people of the world. 

10.   DEBORAH THE DELIGHTFUL Based on Judges 4              

  I have enjoyed war stories and war heroes since I was a small boy watching the news on the movies screen in the local theater. I never realized, however, that not all of the heroes were men. I heard of Joan of Arc when I got into the upper grades of school, but I never had the concept of the heroin in my mind until recently as a retired pastor.  The history of the women warriors on the battlefield has not been available until recent years when female historians have brought them to light. Even those in the Bible have not been known because they are overshadowed by the great male warriors of the Bible. It has been my delight to discover that women have played a major role in defending the freedom and value system of America and of the people of God through history. One of the most outstanding is Deborah.

     Here we have a woman who rose to the top in a day when all the world around here was filled with masculine brutality. Her story takes place between the years 1209 and 1169 B.C.  Life was one war after another, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Moral standard were so low that even the godly people did things that would be a disgrace in our day. Almost nothing was unacceptable. The masses of people were following pagan practices and were not different from the pagan people around them.  But in the midst of this awful period of history we suddenly come to chapter 4 of Judges, and to our surprise a woman is in charge. No woman had been a judge of Israel before and none came after her. She was a one of a kind female, and she was able by her God‑given gifts to rise to the point of being the leader of God's people.  Israel had been oppressed by the cruel Canaanites for twenty years. They were devastated and were crying out to God for help. This is when we begin to get the story of this delightful leader named Deborah.   In Judges 4:4‑10 we get some basic facts about her.

She was a prophetess.

She was a wife.

She was a leader of Israel.

She was a literal judge who decided disputes.

She was a messenger of God's word to men.

She was a partner with the male commander of Israel's army.

In Chapter 5 we see also that

She was a poetess and a singer.

She was a mother‑5:7.

     What this marvelous women illustrates is that a woman can do it all. She can be a wife and a mother, and still be a leader and public servant. She can have both a private world and a public world where she can be successful. God delighted in this unusual woman and used her in a unique way to bless his people. Lets look at the ways she was used of God by some of the roles she played.

1. AS PROPHETESS.

     This means God used her as a spokesperson to communicate his message to others. You do not choose this, for it is God's choice as to who is going to give his word to others. God does not discriminate against women and use only male instruments to communicate. The role of prophetess is found in both the Old and the New Testament. Miriam the sister of Moses was a prophetess as we read in Ex. 15:20. It is of interest to note that Miriam was also a poetess and singer like Deborah. It makes me feel that women who are closest to God will be channels of joy and song for others. Much, if not most of the poetry and song by which believers have praised God all through history has come to us through gifted women. Others called prophetesses are Huldah in 2 Kings 22:14, Noadiah in Nehemiah 6:14, Anna in Luke 2:36, and the four daughters of Philip in Acts 21:9.

     These women received direct revelation from God, and this enabled them to announce what God was going to do. They were the only people who could know the future and tell others what was going to be. They were extremely valuable when it came to knowing how a battle was going to turn out. Anyone can be brave in facing a battle if they know ahead of time that they are going to win. Deborah knew that the forces of Israel could now overcome the enemies of Israel, and so she was a pure delight to Barak the commander of the army of Israel. So much so that he says in v.8 that he will not go to war unless she comes with him. Here is a male warrior who refuses to enter the battlefield without this female by his side.  Because she knew the future she was a picture of faith and confidence, and he and his men needed that. She was to the army of Israel what Joan of Arc was to the forces of France. She gave them motivation and confidence to fight with assurance of victory.

     We see God's sense of humor in this whole setting, for Sisera the enemy commander has 900 iron chariots at his side, and Barak has Deborah at his side.

The name Deborah means honey bee, and this was the weapon that gave him courage. He was going head on against 900 iron chariots with a honey bee at his side. It was the bee verses the iron beast, but here was a bee with a sting for her foes and honey for her friends. Those who messed with this bee were stung into defeat, and those who followed this bee were blest with the sweet honey of peace for the next 40 years.  She is called a mother in Israel, and a mother is one who nourishes and encourages her children. This is what Deborah did, and that is why all the people delighted in her.

2. AS JUDGE.

     Most prophetesses were not the leaders of the land. They were gifted to communicate the message of God, but they were not gifted with the wisdom to settle disputes and to be the ultimate authority in governing the people. Deborah stands out as extremely unique in this sense. Being a judge in the time of Judges was equivalent to being the king or the president. She was the supreme court, the legislature and the President all rolled into one, and this made her one of a kind in history. Most all of the other judges of this period were known for their leadership in battle. They were great with the weapons of warfare. Deborah was great with the mind. She was an educator who helped people in unique ways that made them delight in her caring spirit. No other judge did what she did.

     The people of Israel came to her to settle disputes, and so people had confidence in her just like they had in Solomon later because she was obviously wise and fair. They trusted her judgment for she was a woman who was committed to do the will of God, and she sought God's guidance for her decisions. In the midst of so much ungodliness her court was an oasis of godliness. It was so rare to have such a wise woman judging the nation's people at that time, but in our day there are many women in our courts as judges, right up to the Supreme Court of the land. We even have a Jewish woman by the name of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as one of our Supreme Court justices. Women have always been capable of being educated and rising to the top of any profession, but they never had the chance through much of history. That is why it is a delightful surprise to find a Deborah in the day of the Judges rising to the top.

     She just illustrates that God has never been opposed to using women for the highest purposes in his plan for the world. If they are rare in olden times it is because they never had the opportunities that they have today. The important thing to recognize is that it has always been acceptable to God to have a woman in the highest places of leadership. The people were open to it in the day of Deborah, but when the society looks down on female leadership then it is not possible for them to rise to such positions. Today there are many female leaders because we live in a culture where they are free to use all of the gifts God has endowed them with. This has not always been the case even in Christian cultures. There is still the feeling among many males that is threatening about a woman leading them, and so the story of Deborah is often ignored and not taught in Bible classes.

     There are still those who will not let a woman teach men, but this is folly if the woman is the best qualified to teach, which is often the case. John Macarthur is a well known Bible Teacher of our day, and he says this in a message about Deborah:

"Just because we think a woman can't or shouldn't do something, doesn't make it so. Now let me add that I'm actually very conservative when it comes to woman's work. I'm not always comfortable with some roles women take on and I believe there are some jobs they shouldn't do. But just because I think that way it doesn't limit who God can use for whatever purpose he has in mind. Deborah led Israel not because there were no men who would do it but because, from God's perspective, she was the most qualified. You see it did not matter if Deborah was a man or woman because it was God working through her not the other way around.

"God will use you today not because of your gender or your age or your position or your abilities but based on your submission to him. That's why Paul could write in Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." God will use any of us if we will let him. The problem is we often hinder God by our obsession with titles and positions. Who cares if you are a man or a woman? Who cares if you are an elder or deacon? Who cares if you have a graduate degree from a Bible College or barely finished high school? Who cares if you are articulate or shy? We do. God doesn't."

3. AS PARTNER.

     Many women feel that they need to oppose men in order to become equal, and they make the battle of the sexes their focus. This is not what we see in Deborah. She used her wisdom to cooperate with the male leaders, and this unity of the sexes is what led to victory and blessing for the people of God. Any woman is at her best when men admire her and gladly follow her leading. There was no desire of Barak to dominate Deborah, and he did not go all to pieces with a deflated male ego when Deborah said that a woman would get the honor he might have had by killing the commander of the enemy forces. Jael got that honor, but Barak was just delighted to be a partner with women who were used of God. Deborah actually told Barak that he did not need her and that he could win the war without her. She did not try to dominate him either. She was humble in her leadership and sought for no glory but the glory of God. It was this ideal relationship of male and female leadership that God blest. Deborah makes it clear that strong female leadership is based on partnership and full cooperation with male leadership. A woman who wants to lead in hostility to men is not wise in the long run, for God blesses unity of the sexes.

     Barak could have said that he was not going to take advice from a woman who had no military experience. She came up with the hair‑brained scheme of calling an army together who had no decent weapons to face a vast enemy who had the best weapons in the world. He had every right to be skeptical of her plan, but he had respect for her as a woman of God and he knew she would not come up with this idea unless God had given it to her. Had he not believed in her being an authentic messenger of God he would not dream of following her lead. Here was a man who had full confidence in a woman's word as being the very word of God.  He had more confidence in her than he had in himself, for he would not fight without her at his side. Rare is the man who will listen to a woman in an area where he is supposed to be the expert. He delighted in Deborah, however, for she was clearly God's spokesperson.

     Matthew Henry comments, "Some struggles, we may suppose, that brave man had made towards the shaking off of the yoke, but could not effect it till he had his commission and instructions from Deborah. He could do nothing without her head, nor she without his hands; but both together made a complete deliverer, and effected a complete deliverance. The greatest and best are not self‑sufficient, but need one another." She had the greater faith, but she needed male leadership to get the job done. We see the perfect unity of male and female leadership in this relationship.  Everyone has to delight is such a rare and beautiful partnership.  Some want to accuse Barak of being a wimp for needing Deborah, but God honored him as a great man of faith in Heb. 11:32. His faith in Deborah was faith in God, for he believed her as a true source of the word of God. He would not be in the great faith chapter if his trust in Deborah was not pleasing to God.

     If you study the history of women in warfare, it is surprising how often women join men on the battlefield just to be encouraging partners. During the Civil War it was not uncommon for a wife to go with her husband into battle. There are examples of soldiers who, like Barak, refused to go to war unless their wives could come with them. Keith Blaylock refused to go without his wife, and so the recruiting officer allowed Melinda Blaylock to be sworn in as his brother, and listed her as Sam. Many women have insisted that they have the right to fight along side of the men. Since it was not officially permitted the women usually had to disguise themselves by dressing as men. They were willing to give up their identity in order to be partners with men. It is estimated that between 500 to a 1000 women fought in the Civil War disguised as men. Several even rose to the rank of sergeant without being discovered.  Many were discovered and discharged, but some managed to maintain their disguise all through the war. Others were allowed to remain even when it was known they were women. Here, for example, is the record of one woman.

"Goodrich, Ellen Her father disowned Goodrich when she announced that she intended to join her fiancée in the war.  She fought by his side for three years and was wounded in the arm by a minnie ball.  She nursed her fiancée when he was ill and married him a day or so before he died."

     Deborah was not a warrior, as far as the text would indicate, but she was there as one who could give the commander and the soldiers moral support. She did not go into battle and kill the enemy, but stood with the commander overlooking the battlefield. She was delighted, however, when Sisera, who was the commander of the enemy forces, was killed by the hand of a woman named Jael.  Deborah had predicted that a woman would have this honor, and when she wrote her song of praise that is recorded in Judges 5, she gave praise to Jael for her role as  female partner in defeating the foes of Israel.  God had used two woman as partners in delivering His people from the oppression of the Canaanites.

     It was rare for women to play the roles that Deborah and Jael played, but the important point is that they were honored for these roles in Israel. The Word of God does not hide them, but exalts them. That is all that should have been necessary for people of future generations to know in order to recognize and reward female partnership in the battles for freedom. Unfortunately, custom and tradition has always been allowed to be more powerful than God's revelation. The result has been that it has taken many centuries before woman could get the honor and recognition they deserve as equal partners with men in warfare.

Dr. Mary Walker was a Civil War doctor who wore men's clothing and carried two pistols at all times. She fought for freedom and saved many lives. She was captured and spent four months in an enemy prison. She was scarred physically and emotionally, but she continued to serve her country, even though she was resisted constantly because she was a woman. She was of such a benefit in the war that she was rewarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1865. But it was rescinded in 1917. She refused to give it back and wore it until her death in 1919 at the age of 87. It was 58 years later before the U.S. Congress posthumously reinstated her medal. It was restored by President Carter on June 10, 1977. She is the only woman in the history of American warfare to receive the Medal of Honor. My point in sharing this is that she was not honored while she lived, and she died alone and penniless with the feeling of being rejected by the country she served. This was due to the Bible record not being the basis by which people are measured and respected. Had the record of Deborah been respected, Mary Walker would have been a great heroin in our culture, and children would have been singing of her service to our nation.

     The record of Deborah is in the Bible because God inspired it to be there. It was real history, and God ordained history. It is there for an example of how God uses women as well as men in the highest roles of leadership. They are partners in every realm of life, and those who let the Word of God be their guide will delight in them and give them the honor they deserve, just as God gave honor to Deborah the delightful leader of His people.

11.   JAEL THE ASSASSIN Based on Judges 4 and 5

    Assassins are never heroes in the history of Americans, for they are always those who seek to kill our presidents whom we admire. This is not always the case in other nations. The Jews, for example, have some assassins who are heroes in their history. Two of them are Hakim and Bet Zuri. They were sent to Egypt to kill Lord Moyne, who was the British Minister of State and the man who shrugged off a German offer to free a million Jews: "But what would I do with a million Jews" Their was justifiable hatred toward a man who would refuse to save the lives of a million people, and they targeted him for death. They succeeded in their mission, and though they were captured and hung, they became heroes of the Jews.

     There are many heroic assassins in history. It does not sound like a noble profession, but it can be the very tool of God to bring judgment on those who are ripe for judgment. This is the case with Jael who assassinated Sisera while he was sleeping in her tent. It may not sound as noble as most assassin stories, but it was just as effective. Sisera has been the oppressor of Israel for twenty years, and finally God gave Israel a female leader who motivated the army to go to battle with this powerful commander of 900 iron chariots.  He was watching his army being wiped out and so he leaped off his iron horse and high tailed it to a safer place, he thought.

     He headed for the tent of an old friend, but Heber the Kenite was not home. His wife, however was completely hospitable. Jael invited him in and treated him like royalty. She assured him that he had nothing to fear. "Come on in." she said with a cheerful voice. It was just what he needed‑a place of refuge. He did not hear the message behind the voice that was, "Come in said the spider to the fly." He was totally taken in by her friendly manner, and was confident she would protect him and even lie about him being there to lead any pursuers astray.  She even gave him milk instead of the water for which he asked, for she knew this would help put him to sleep. Then when he was all comfy in bed and fast asleep, she took a hammer and tent peg and drove it through his temple and nailed him to the ground.

     By that act of assassination she became a heroine of Jewish history. Deborah and Barek sing of her heroic deed in their great song in Judges 5.  In 5:24 she is called the most blessed of women. But this act which made her so famous and praised also made her one of the most controversial persons in the Bible. The debate is over whether she can be considered honorable or horrible because of the way she carried out her plot. She did not face her foe and strike him when he could defend himself. She lied to him and deceived him. She broke all the codes of hospitality, and so many consider her a terrible person and not a heroine at all. Before we defend this woman as a biblical heroine we want to look at the negative perspective first.

I. THE NEGATIVE PERSPECTIVE.

          We all know it is not fair to shoot an unarmed man, and it is not fair to shoot him in the back. There are rules for a fair fight, and it appears that Jael never read the manual for fair fighting. She broke all the rules in the book, and this means she is not to be admired. She is better off forgotten, and many have done just that so that millions of people have heard the Bible expounded all their lives and never once heard of Jael the female assassin. She killed a man in cold blood while he was sleeping, and this is never justifiable. Many feel her image is blotted with the foul taste of treachery, and is no model to be put forth for praise.

     Rev Dr Susan Durber had done some great research on this issue and she quotes this sermon preached in 1876, which gives a typical Victorian view of Jael.

"How are we to regard this deed of Jael?  There seems to me to be no doubt as to the answer.  Her act was one of vilest treachery with scarcely a single extenuating circumstance. . . . We are in no way bound to find excuses for the act, because it is recorded in God's Word. . . . Nor need we feel any compunction at speaking thus strongly, because Jael appears to have been a special instrument in the hands of God for bringing to pass a deliverance for Israel. . . . We must confess that Deborah actually praised this horrible act of Jael's. But the words of Deborah are not the words of God. . . . The song of Deborah is the utterance of human passion and human weakness, not of divine unswerving justice and strength."

Dr. Durber goes on to point out that this was the teaching in the textbooks of the time. William Smith's Concise Dictionary of the Bible from 1865 made it clear that there could be no justification for her act. I was reading the famous commentary by Keil and Delitzsch when I came across their perspective: "Such conduct as that was not the operation of the Spirit of God, but the fruit of a heroism inspired by flesh and blood; and even in Deborah's song it is not lauded as a divine act." There are some strong feelings against admiring and praising this female assassin.

     A Doctor Lord de Tabley wrote a long poem titled Jael back in 1893, and in it he implies that Jael had ambitions to get notoriety, and that was the motive for her treachery. He wrote,

"And in his sidelong temple, where bright curls

 Made crisp and glorious margin to his brows‑

 So that a queen might lay her mouth at them

 Nor rise again less royal for their kiss‑

 There, in the interspace of beard and brow,

 The nail had gone tearing the silken skin;

 And, driven home to the jagged head of it,

 Bit down into the tent‑boards underneath;

 And riveted that face of deadly sleep."

This was a poetic description of what the text says, but then he decides to make a judgment of the motive behind Jael's act. He wrote,

"This woman was a mother, think of that;

 A name which carries mercy in its sound,

 A pitiful meek title one can trust;

 She gave her babe the breast like other wives,

 In cradle laid it, had her mother heed

 To give it suck and sleep. You would suppose

 She might learn pity in its helpless face;

 A man asleep is weaker than a child,

 And towards the weak God turns a woman's heart;

 Hers being none. She is ambitious, hard,

 Vain, would become heroic;  to nurse babes

 And sit at home, why any common girl

 Is good enough for that. She must have fame;

 She shall be made a song of in the camp,

 And have her name upon the soldier's lip

 Familiar as an oath."

Now we need to look at her defense and focus on‑

II. THE POSITIVE PERSPECTIVE.

      The first line of defense is that those things that are not acceptable in daily life are a normal part of life in warfare. You do not lie and deceive people as a way of life or you are a villain of the worst kind. But if you are a commander in time of war you do all you can to deceive the enemy. You set up an ambush if possible and kill them before they have a chance to fire back. We say all is fair in love and war, and though that is not an absolute, it has much truth to it. In war it is kill or be killed, and so the primary rule is get them before they get you, and this may call for all kinds of deceit and trickery. This is what we see Jael doing to Sisera. She has a plan to kill him, and the best and safest way to do that is to lure him into a sense of security where he will take a nap. Who would expect this housewife to try and take down an experienced man of war, who has killed many a man in hand to hand combat?

     It is folly to criticize a woman for doing what a woman does best in such a situation.  She is not alone in using her feminine charms to lure a man of war to his death. Another of the great female heroes of Jewish history is Judith, and she did the same thing as Jael. She deceived a warrior leader into thinking she was a friend, and that she would be willing to share some sexual favors. She was exceedingly beautiful, and he was captivated by her beauty. He gladly allowed her to have a time in private with him where she got him drunk and cut off his head. She thereby saved her people and became a heroine. Assassins are not held to the same code of ethics as are the non‑assassin. Any woman doing what Jael or Judith did in time of peace would be arrested as murderers in the first degree. But in time of war they did what no man could do, and that is why they are heroines.

     Someone has beautifully summarized the famous story of Judith that is told in the Apocrypha.  I believe it was the Rev Dr Susan Durber

"Book of Judith opens with Assyrian emperor Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of the Near East. As his forces mount the invasion of Israel, the town of  Bethulia is besieged by his foremost general, Holofernes. The pass defended by the town is strategically vital: if Bethulia yields, the whole country will fall into his hands. Ground down by famine, the populace begs the city's elders to surrender, and they agree to do so within days should the Lord fail to rescue his people. When Judith, a respected widow, hears of this, she summons the elders to a meeting and