31st May 2026 : Judges ch 3 v 26 - ch 4 v 4

Judges ch 3 v 26 - ch 4 v 4

I’m reading from the book of Judges chapter 3 verse 26 and going on to chapter 4 verse 4.

But Ehud had escaped while they delayed and passed beyond the stone images and escaped to Seirah. And it happened when he arrived that he blew the trumpet in the mountains of Ephraim and the children of Israel went down with him from the mountains and he led them. Then he said to them, Follow me, for the Lord has delivered your enemies, the Moabites, into your hand. So they went down after him, seized the fords of the Jordan leading to Moab and did not allow anyone to cross over. And at that time they killed about 10,000 men of Moab, all stout men of valour, not a man escaped. So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. and the hand had rest for 80 years.

After him was Shangar the son of Anath, who killed 600 men of the Philistines with an ox goad, and he also delivered Israel. When Ehud was dead, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Caesara who dwelt in Harosheth, Hagoyim. And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. For Jabin had 900 chariots of iron, and for 20 years he had harshly oppressed the children of Israel. Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time.

When I heard Sue Sinclair touch on Deborah last night, I thought, oh no. I prepared that the other day, I wouldn't mind but the Lord gave me that the other day. And then I thought, no, don't panic, don't panic. It's just confirmation really that if I'd seen that the other day and she was touching on it as one of her bullet points, you remember her message focused around, what was it? The faith of one, the power, the power of one. Thank you. Yeah. You remember something, better than me. But she touched on Deborah as a character and I thought, no, how dare you? But all it did was really confirm.

Actually, it's not Deborah I've come to talk about or the one before Ehud. It's the one in between. Remember his name? Chapter 3, verse 31, Shamgar. All right, you've never heard of him.

Well, let's pray. and invite the Lord to give us some clarity. Lord, in Jesus' name, we just pray over the word because it's your word. And if you've confirmed it as you believe you have, then Lord, it must speak to somebody. And maybe it's the retention of something I heard last night, a great blessing. But we pray that Lord, there will be further blessings on the back of that. Yesterday is already history and yesterday's food is already old bread. Lord, we seek new bread and we want you to feed us, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray that you'll meet us in some way, shape or form in the word and in the spirit and in the fellowship today. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Amen.

Well, the reason I gave a broader reading there, the message is really all one verse. There's only one verse about that character. Actually, that's not strictly correct. If you follow the book of Judges through a couple of chapters, chapter 5, verse 6, you'll see Shamgar mentioned again. He's mentioned by Deborah in a prophetic song, one of those prophetic songs in the Bible you see. Remember, the song of Moses and Miriam, the song of Mary, the song of Deborah, all right. And there's a number of those in the Bible. The song of Elizabeth is another one, isn't it, in the New Testament.

But Shamgar, the information about him, or all we have really, is in verse 31, chapter 3. And he fits in between two other judges of Israel. Now to explain this period of history, there are two points in the book of Judges that explain something to us and give us further insight. Chapter 17 verse 6 and chapter 21 verse 25 say essentially the same thing, that in those days, in those times, all men did as they saw fit in their own eyes. That's chaos, spiritually. That's chaos. You hear a lot of people like that now. Oh, I believe in God and I just follow my own, you know. And you think, well, you're just walking through a chaotic existence. What you need is the Lord in the centre of it. To fashion our thoughts. It's called the renewing of the mind, isn't it? Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2.

And it tells us also in the book of Judges, it's an account really of decline and deliverance. It's like a cycle. It's like a revolving door experience. In chapter 3, you see the Moabites had the upper hand and the children of God were oppressed. And the Lord gave them into the enemy's hands because they'd broken faith with God. They'd grieved the Holy Spirit. And then they cried out to the Lord and Ehud came, that character that was mentioned at the beginning of the reading, and he was a very unusual person. He was a left-handed man. So if anybody's left-handed, you're not condemned. Not particularly unusual for that. But in the priesthood, you could not qualify to be a priest as a left-handed person.

All right. That's just one of those Old Testament things you'll have to follow through to get the picture, literally. And Ehud was an unusual person for God to choose, therefore. Moreover, and also, he had a special sword made. I call it a dagger, really, because he strapped it to the inside of his thigh. But you can't put a very big sword down there, can you? It will stick in. So it's more like a specialist dagger. And he used it, if you read that story in chapter 3, to deliver Israel of the oppressor. All right.

And then if we leapfrog Shamgar for a moment, you do come to the story of Deborah and Barak and all that stuff and out there 900 iron chariots were overcome. You'll read there that really God did that. He lured those chariots into a valley where there's a soft soil riverbed and all the wheels got stuck and came off and stuff like that and then they all got killed. Hallelujah. And sandwiched in between these two judges who brought deliverance to God's people was this very, very unusual character. There's only one other person like him that I can think of in the Bible who did something like him. And that's Samson. And you're still in the book of Judges, chapter 15, verses 14 to 16. Remember the account of how Samson took the jawbone of an ass.

He must have been some bloke because he killed the fouls and Philistines. And a lot of people think, I can't read that stuff. It just sounds like a bloodbath. I don't like the Old Testament. But what we have to realize is those weapons are pictorial spiritually. Yes, they fought those battles in those days, but they all had significance spiritually. You see, God's people never have military problems. No matter how many times in the Old Testament you find God's people oppressed and overrun, you will also see that their problems were not military problems. They would grieve the Lord and do evil in the sight of God and he'd hand them over to the enemy. That's what you want. There you go.

And he used it as a rod of chastisement to bring them back, to make them cry out to him. In every example that's true. It still is. It still is. You know Christians can get themselves into awful trouble, some of them, and go into bondage. Not possession, but bondage. And part of the process of God's healing and God's restoration may be what you see in the Old Testament there, of bringing them back. He might use a rod of chastisement, not always. Sometimes it's just a wound from a close friend. That's what scripture says, isn't it? Painful. Painful are the wounds of a friend. You know, somebody who's honest enough and loves you enough to tell you straight when you need it.

Now, these weapons are unusual in the Old Testament. Coming back to verse 31, then all of a sudden we find that Shamgar took an ox goad and he killed not 1000 like Samson, but 600 Philistines. But that tells us a number of things. Actually, it gives us much more information than we realize at first glance. First of all, Shamgar's weapon was not typical of an army. It wasn't ordinary. It was by no means, it wasn't fashioned like Ehud's sword. It wasn't put together like somebody's spear or javelin. It was something that he probably picked up off the floor. Just like that. And he did something which was impossible under normal circumstances. no matter what weapons he'd had, it would have been impossible against 600 Philistines who were trained, seasoned, and experienced warriors. You don't take on 600 people. You don't even take on six people, you know, like that, unless you've got the means to overcome them.

And Shamgar did. Why? Because God had appointed him. Because God had equipped him. Because his weapons were by no means ordinary. Right now I want to describe some of those weapons to you. I want to read it to you actually, because that's better. I'm going to read it to you from 2 Corinthians in chapter 10, starting at verse 3. If you want to follow that, follow it with me. Give you about 10 seconds to find it. Hallelujah.

2 Corinthians 10, starting at 3, verse 3. And the word of God tells us there, and this is to the New Testament church, for though we walk in the flesh, we're ordinary people. We do not war according to the flesh. Neither did Shamgar. Do you get it now? And then in verse four, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God. They're not ox goads either. And we don't fight with the jawbone of an ass do we? No, our weapons are spiritual.

It goes on to say, our weapons are not carnal, but mighty in God. Why? For the pulling down of strongholds. The pulling down casting down every argument that sets itself up, any high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Wow.

Those are not carnal weapons, are they? Those are spiritual weapons. And who can use spiritual weapons? Only spirit-filled people. Only people that God has appointed for the use of them. And he appoints them for a reason. It's for the pulling down of strongholds, not for the toleration of them. It's not to put up with things. as though they're going to be the same, as though we have to resign ourselves that it's like that and it always will be. Not at all, no. Any high thought, any argument that sets itself up, any philosophy, any wokism that sets itself up against the gospel, against God's word, as soon as you hear it, as soon as you discern it, it's time to pull it down straight away.

And how do you do it? With spiritual weapons. And those weapons are the word of God and the word of your testimony and praying in the spirit on all occasions. What kind of occasions? These will do, won't they? Cry out to the Lord in prayer. That's what they did. And what did God do? He appoints people, he equips people, and he does it wonderfully. And sometimes we think, what a peculiar person. How odd that God would choose the Jews. How odd that God might choose you and equip you for the pulling down of strongholds to overturn the kingdom of the enemy and supplant it with the kingdom of the Lord. And to move in, whatever realm you encounter and face opposition and you will.

And sometimes, I've experienced this last week. That's probably why this word probably came to me in the 1st place. I'm not sure on that. But, you know, I was almost expecting the enemy to turn up after a past couple of weeks. You get used to it. But we didn't and nothing happened. And I thought, what a surprise. This is very odd. I thought something, I thought the budgie would fall off its perch or something. And then instead, it was something really strange that happened. I won't go into details in it now, but it was with greater subtlety. If it doesn't get you with the obvious or the brutal, it'll get you something almost innocent. And his biggest trick is to make you think he doesn't even exist.

But when you look at that verse, chapter 3, verse 31, what you also see is the Philistines were in the land and they should not be in the land. That's tantamount to seeing that which should not be standing in the place where only the throne of God should be. The Philistines were in the land, wherever you see that or discern that, who are the Philistines now? We just read it in 2 Corinthians 10, didn't we? Every high thought that sets itself up against the gospel, every spiritual stronghold that you discern or identify in any way, shape or form, Philistines, all of them, pull them down. Don't wait, pray in the spirit.

Your weapons are not carnal. Your weapons are your fellowship, your praise, your prayer, your willingness to share with one another, to get together. You see something or something pertaining to you and you say, look, you folks pray for me at the moment or something like that. It's a breakthrough. I'm pinching a word from Sue Sinclair from last night now aren't I? She talked about breakthrough. How does she know all this? Anyway, a breakthrough is what we're really looking for, to see God's envisioning and God's purpose revealed in Leigh. In this whole district, in your lives, in every situation you face, I believe that reading from Isaiah 42 before the communion table was prophetic. I absolutely do that verse.

Do you feel like a broken reed? You know, a bruised reed? Do you feel like just a smoldering Christian with no flame? But God is the flame and your weapons are not carnal, the spiritual. And when you look at Sham guy, it didn't seem to last very long, but he bridged the gap between Ehud and Deborah. And God is still looking for people like you to bridge the gap, to stand in the gap. And he wants to find people like you and appoint people like you and equip people like you, not with ordinary things, but with spiritual weapons.

All right, that's believe I should stop there. That's God's word for today. I'm just going to seal that in prayer. If anybody wants prayer afterwards, it just happens and falls out that way. Amen.

Lord, in Jesus' name, your word is good, your word is precious. Lord, I pray for every soul in this room that you'll make them like Shamgar. Lord, unusual, different, and all because they're filled and equipped with your Holy Spirit and ready to wage a good warfare and pull every stronghold down. This we proclaim in Jesus' precious name. Thank you, Lord. Amen. Amen.