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Amen, so as we begin the book of Judges tonight, let me just start out with some notes about the book of Judges in general, understanding what this book is. It's a very fun book to read. It's probably what I would describe as the gnarliest book in the Bible. It's got some really rough things because it represents a period in Israel's history where Israel is kind of the Wild West of Israel, a little bit uncivilized. Because if you go to the very end of the book, keep your finger in chapter one there, the final verse of Judges gives the theme of the book of Judges. And the book of Judges, along with the book of Ruth, they represent a unique period in the history of the Bible. Because of course, we start out in the book of Genesis, which is everything leading up to the flood, and then from the flood, we have the Tower of Babel, we have Abraham, and then Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, that's the period of the patriarchs, and then the children of Israel go down into Egypt for 400 years. Then they come out of Egypt with Moses, they wander in the wilderness for 40 years. With Joshua, there's the conquest of the Promised Land, and then when they get into the Promised Land, and Joshua's dead, that's where the book of Judges picks up, and it's that first 400 years of history in the Promised Land before they have a king. And then that enters a new phase of history where you have the kings, and you've got Saul and David and Solomon all the way down the line up until the captivity. So this is a significant period of their history, it's 400 years of Israel's history at a special time. And look at the last verse of the book of Judges, and this is where we get sort of a theme verse for the entire book. In those days, there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And on the surface, you could almost read that and think maybe that's a positive statement, like, hey, everybody did what was right. I mean, these are good people, they're following their heart, right? They're doing what's right in their own eyes. And really, that's what a lot of people's religion is today, it's just, you know, I just kind of follow my heart, I just go with my gut, I just do what's right in my own eyes. Well as we read the book of Judges, we're going to find out that when every man does that which is right in his own eyes, there's a lot of death, there's a lot of mutilation, there's a lot of bondage, there's some very gnarly, rough things in the book of Judges. Now as far as the way the book of Judges is laid out, chapters 1 and 2 form the introduction of the book of Judges. Chapters 3 through 16 are sort of the meat of Judges, and they go through the different individual Judges, 12 different Judges in order. And then chapters 17 through 21 is what I would like to call kind of the bonus material at the end of the book. And several Old Testament books are like this, where they take some stuff that doesn't really fit into the narrative, it doesn't really fit into the timeline, so it just kind of gets stuck at the end of the book. So like when you're reading 2 Samuel 24, you get to the last words of David, David's dying, and then all of a sudden you have several more chapters with just some stories about David and you're like, whoa, he really made a recovery there. But that's not what it is. What it is is that those are stories that are outside of the timeline or outside the narrative stuck at the end. It reminds me of, you know, for example, you know, on some of our documentaries that we've made, you know, you might have some DVD extras. You know, after you watch the feature presentation, you've got some extras at the end. So Judges 17 through 21 are like that. There are some extra stories that are outside of the timeline. So in the introduction to the book of Judges in chapter 1 here, what's interesting about it is that a lot of the themes of the whole rest of the book of Judges are actually introduced here in chapter 1 as we get into it. Let's just jump into it and we'll talk about it as we go. Look at Judges chapter 1 verse 1. Now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord saying, who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. Behold I have delivered the land into his hand. So the book starts out very promising here. I mean, God is promising the victory. The land is going to be yours. Joshua's dead, but even though Joshua's dead, they're still serving the Lord. They're still looking to him for guidance. They're still conquering the Promised Land. Because remember when Joshua was old and stricken in age, he said, hey, there remaineth very much land yet to be possessed. So here they are, they're continuing the mission, sounds good, the Lord's going to give them the victory. In verse 3, Judah said unto Simeon his brother, come up with me into my lot, that we may fight against the Canaanites, and I likewise will go with thee into thy lot. So Simeon went with him. And Judah went up, and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands, and they slew of them in Bezek, ten thousand men. So again, it starts out very promising, God's blessing, they're working together as a team. You know, one thing I want to point out here, first of all we see that Judah and Simeon are obviously referring to tribes of tens of thousands of people, but yet they're kind of just being personified as individuals here, but obviously we're referring to the whole big tribe. But you know, there's a principle that's actually taught throughout scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, about how we can do things for other people so that they will help us out in the future down the road. So you know, let's say I have extra money, and I help somebody out, you know, that's a good way to ensure that when I run into hard times, I'm going to have people that can help me out. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So that's actually a principle that we see throughout scripture, helping someone, and then later that person's there to help you. When we go through hard times, we want to have people to call on. Now obviously, ultimately, we fall on our knees and go to the Lord in prayer, but it's also good, humanly speaking, just to have parents that you can call, brothers or sisters that you can call, friends that you can call, church members or church people that you can get in touch with, you know, when you have a need to reach out and get help. And the people who have a network like that are people who invest in other people. Because if you spend your life investing in other people, then when you need stuff, people are there for you. Okay, but if you spend a life dedicated to self, and then all of a sudden you run into hard times and you, whoa, nobody's here to help me, because you've alienated everyone in your life, or you haven't invested in any real relationships, you know, relationships such as being a faithful church member, or being a faithful son or daughter, or being a faithful parent or sibling or uncle or aunt or whatever, you know, we want to make sure that we invest in other people. That's our safety net that we need today. We hear a lot of talk about the safety net that the government wants to provide, where they want us all to cast in our lot and all have one purse, and they want to take all of our money and redistribute it and create this welfare state, big safety net. But you know what the safety net used to be? It used to be God and church and family and friends when people didn't just live life for themselves. They invested in other people and other people would invest in them. But here's the thing about that. Jesus then teaches in the New Testament to take that to an even higher level because it is biblical to do things for other people so that they'll be there to help you out when you need it. That's a biblical principle. But then Jesus takes it to another level where he says, purposely do things for people that can't pay you back because then the Lord will pay you back. And that's why the Bible says in Proverbs that if you give to the poor, you are lending to the Lord and he will pay back what he's borrowed. So if you give to someone that can't help you, that can never return the favor, if you give unto that person, the Bible says it's as if you're doing it unto Christ. You know, you are lending unto the Lord. Imagine loaning the Lord money. You wouldn't have to worry about him not paying. You know he's good for it, right? You don't have to worry like, am I ever going to see this again? And that's what the Bible says. If you give to the poor, you're lending the Lord and that which he has borrowed, he will pay again. So that's an even higher level. But live your life doing things for other people, helping other people, taking care of other people's needs when you're doing well. And guess what? When you get to a point where you need something, they'll be there for you. So that's illustrated here. Judah is saying, look, you help me and then I'm going to help you. And it's a win-win. So look what the Bible says. They, you know, they go in and the Lord delivers the Canaanites into their hands. They slay 10,000 men. Look at verse 5. And they found Adonai Bezek in Bezek. So this is the Lord of Bezek or the King of Bezek, that's even what his name means. And they fought against him and they slew the Canaanites and the Perizzites. But Adonai Bezek fled and they pursued after him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and his great toes. Now right away, this is the first thing in the book of Judges where we see things go downhill. And this is a picture of what's going to happen throughout the rest of the book of Judges and throughout the rest of this chapter. Like I said, most of the major themes of Judges are going to be introduced in this first chapter. And one of the big themes in Judges is that the children of Israel were supposed to conquer the entire Promised Land and they were supposed to completely destroy the wicked, perverted, heathen nations unless you feel bad for them and say, oh man, how could they just do this annihilation or ethnic cleansing? Remember back in Leviticus chapter 20, it explains what the Canaanites were into, why they needed to be exterminated. And it lists all the horrific sins and the perversions that they were guilty of. That's why they needed to be wiped out. And God wants them completely wiped out. And what do we see here? We don't see them killing Adonai Bezek, which is what they were supposed to do. This is one man. But this is the first failure we see in this chapter is this one guy, Adonai Bezek, they're supposed to be killing this guy, but instead what do they do? They instead cut off his thumbs and cut off his big toes to keep him as a trophy, just to kind of have him hang out and be there. Now part of the reason why they did this is because they're giving him a payback for what he has done in the past. This is God's way of punishing him for what he's done, what goes around comes around. And that's what he says because in verse 7, Adonai Bezek said, three score and ten, that's 70, three score and ten kings having their thumbs and their great toes cut off gathered their meat under my table as I have done, so God hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem and there he died. So we see there that Adonai Bezek is kept alive and when it says there he died, he didn't die immediately. It's just saying he was there until he eventually died. He died there eventually. They didn't kill him. They took off his thumbs and toes and they allowed him to just hang out and still be there. Now this is a picture of what they're going to do with a whole bunch of the nations because if you look down toward the bottom of chapter 1, look what the Bible says in verse 28. And it came to pass when Israel was strong that they put the Canaanites to tribute. Now what does tribute mean? Tribute is taxes. So when it says they put them to tribute, it's basically saying they took over a nation. Instead of throwing them out, wiping them out, defeating them, what they're doing is saying okay, you guys can hang out but you have to pay us. You have to pay taxes to us because we've conquered you so you have to pay money to us. And obviously that happened throughout history. But look at verse 30. Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron nor the inhabitants of Nahalal, but the Canaanites dwelled among them, watch this, and became tributaries. Now you might have heard the word tributary as referring to a small river that feeds into a larger river, right? So you have all these little tributaries feeding in to the big main river and basically that's what's going on. The kingdom or the empire is the big river and these other tributaries are feeding in their money and goods and resources. Everybody understand why a little river is called a tributary and why these smaller nations are called tributaries when they're under a bigger nation? And so we see here in verse 28, verse 30, we see it in verse 33. At the end of verse 33, nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath became tributaries unto them. Verse 35, but the Amorites would dwell in Heeres and Eijelon and in Sheolbim, yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed so that they became tributaries. Now look, it all starts at the beginning of the chapter because you might sometimes think that some things in the Bible are just kind of random or just why are we bringing that? Why tell out of all these conquests, out of all these battles, why bring up this one guy getting his thumbs cut off? You know, is the Bible just trying to be morbid here, just being gruesome, talking about some guy getting his toes chopped off? Well first of all, that is introducing another theme in the book of Judges which is gruesomeness and mutilation which is going to come later. But why bring this story up? It's because it's indicative of what they're going to do later. They let this one guy live and they're going to keep him around but he's been totally tamed, right? No thumbs, no big toe, this guy's not going to be able to fight. That's why they cut off his thumb, he can't hold his sword. That's the purpose. They cut off his big toes, he's not going to be able to walk or run properly so he's no threat. But is he no threat? See the devil wants us to think that we can keep sinful things and sinful people and kind of tame them and have them as our pets instead of just getting rid of them, okay? So basically all it starts with is this one guy like, hey, let's keep Adonai Bezek around because he's a fun guy to have at the dinner table and he can't hurt us, he's not a threat to us, let's keep him around. God said wipe him out. But they're going to keep him around as their pet, he's totally harmless, he's totally tamed. But you know what, I think Adonai Bezek could still do harm because he could be a bad influence just with his words, with his customs, with his wickedness. He's an abomination of a person if you study scripture. And the thing is that it starts with one guy and then it starts being whole groups of people where it's like, oh, these people right here that we're supposed to wipe out, you know what, they can pay money for us. They can actually contribute taxes. Maybe it's better if we don't wipe them out and we keep them around. Or when they fail to wipe somebody out, they just say, well, that's okay, we'll just put them under tribute, we'll just kind of keep them as our pet. And people have their pet sins that they think they can play with and not be harmed when really we just need to get rid of those things out of our life. Another thing I thought of when I thought about these wicked nations dwelling among them as tributaries, I thought of these big liberal megachurches who basically just want to fill their membership with just anybody. And they don't care if the people are saved. They don't care what people believe. They try to keep the sermons as vague as possible so that all different denominations and all different beliefs and all different heresies can just feel right at home and be welcome. And they don't want to say anything controversial. You know why? Because they want to have the Canaanites over here as tributaries and they want to have the Hivites in this part of the auditorium as tributaries. They want to have the Perizzites over here as tributaries. Why? Because the Perizzites are putting money in the offering plate. They don't care. Bring in all the weirdos and perverts, God-hating queers that pretend that they found Jesus or whatever. They'll bring in all the weirdos, they'll bring in and hey, deny the Trinity, no problem. Is your money green? We're good to go. And here's the thing. What we understand is that the church is supposed to be a called-out assembly of born-again baptized believers. So the goal of Faithful Word Baptist Church is not, hey, let's see how many bodies we can put in a room to listen to Pastor Anderson preach. Is that really what we're trying to build here? Is that what we're trying to do? Is that God's plan for the church? Just an auditorium where people come and listen to a speaker? No. The church is a body. The church is an organism. The church is not a building. It's a group of people and the purpose of the church is to go to a place of like-minded believers so you can have fellowship. What does fellow mean? Fellow means you're two of the same kind, like my fellow electrician, we're both electricians. My fellow Americans, we're Americans. That's what fellow means. That's what fellowship. How can I have fellowship with someone that I don't have anything in common with? It defies the very meaning of the word fellowship. So the purpose of church is to get together with people who believe like us. They've got the right salvation, the right baptism. Now here's the thing. Obviously, there are going to be some people who come to the church and they haven't been taught. Maybe they're not even saved. But their heart's in the right place, they're learning, we don't want to just shut those people down. And look, if somebody comes to church and I give them the gospel and they don't get saved right away, I don't worry about it. I don't say, well, you don't get saved the first time you hear the gospel, get out. Because some people need to hear the gospel over and over again and eventually they're either going to get in or get out. And sometimes people need to come. So be gentle with people. Don't just blow people out of the water. And especially people that are saved but just have a different view on Israel or a different view on the sodomites or a different view. Give people time to learn and don't expect everyone to believe exactly like us. This isn't some cult where we're all in lockstep, all believing the identical things. But at the same time, there are certain essential doctrines that we have. Essentials on salvation, the King James Bible. And here's the thing. If people start coming in here and they're using other versions and they don't want to learn and they want to get other people to use those versions or they're spreading a false gospel or whatever, then we got to get those people out. If somebody's in here and they're not saved, you know, we want to help them get saved, be patient, give them time. But if somebody comes in and they're actually like teaching another gospel and they're going around trying to preach another gospel, they're out. Why? Because we don't need them as a tributary. We don't need them fouling up the water here, okay? We're here because we're Baptist. This isn't a Seventh-day Adventist church. We don't want our church filled with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists and Oneness Pentecostals. That's not the goal. Now, here's the thing. If some Catholic comes in and visits, great. If a Pentecostal comes in and visits, great. If a Mormon comes in and visits, you know, well, I'm suspicious because I know that they have a literal agenda of sending their members to infiltrate and visit churches. Even the missionaries will come with the name tags and visit independent fundamental Baptist churches. I've seen it like about 15 times in my life where just the missionaries will just come in and just sit down with a stupid grin on their face the entire sermon. We're just like you. But what we have to understand is, look, we want visitors, people that are new. That's great. But here's the thing, though. We don't want to just have like a faction of our church that is just not saved or just a big faction of the church that doesn't believe in the Trinity or, you know, a big faction of the church. And people don't understand, you know, why you got to get rid of all this oneness people, you know, because that's a deal breaker. You've got to believe in the Trinity. Okay. And you don't want to think that you can just have all these people here to gain their resources or something. It's not worth it, friend. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. We don't need anybody's money. Okay. What we need is to be joined together with people who actually believe like us. And I'm talking about on the essentials. I'm not talking about on, you know, Bible prophecy or something. I'm talking about on the essentials. Okay. We don't want to just have a seeker-sensitive church that's just filled with people who believe a whole bunch of different things. You know, and here's the thing. If 90-some percent of our church is right on on the gospel, then it's not going to hurt us to have some new people that we're obviously teaching and reaching and growing. But, you know, you go into these mega churches and some of them the pastor's saved. Some of them the doctrine of the church on paper is the right gospel. But yet literally half the church is unsaved, literally. Literally two-thirds of the church. And we know. You say, how do you know that? Well, because I went door to door and I took a little poll called do you know for sure if you die today you go to heaven in that neighborhood. I'm serious. I've talked to hundreds of church members from various churches, hundreds of people from this church, hundreds. And you know what? Pretty soon you start to see a pattern develop. You don't even need to put it into a spreadsheet because it just starts becoming obvious, hey, almost everybody I talk to from this church ends up not being saved. And almost everybody from this other church ends up being saved. It tells you a lot about the church. But here's the thing. A lot of these pastors, they don't care if their church is filled with heretics and false teachers and whatever because they're just tributaries unto them. They're putting money in the offering plate. We need to understand what an Adonai Bezek can do to poison our church and to poison our life, to poison our family. We need to make sure that we understand the dangers of keeping wicked, evil pets in our lives. Okay? And that's what this story of Adonai Bezek is all about. And then that is a precursor to bigger problems. So like I said, the themes in the book of Judges are being introduced in the first chapter. Look what the Bible says in verse number 8. Because remember at the end of verse 7 it says they brought him to Jerusalem and there he died. Of course it wasn't called Jerusalem back then. It says, now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem and had taken it and smitten it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire. And afterward the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites and dwelt in the mountain and in the south and in the valley. And Judah went against the Canaanites that dwelt in Hebron. Now the name of Hebron before was Kirjeth-arba and they slew Shishai and Hymen and Talmai. And from thence he went against the inhabitants of Deber and the name of Deber was Kirjeth-Sefer and Caleb said he that smiteth Kirjeth-Sefer and taketh it to him will I give acts of my daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz Caleb's younger brother took it and he gave him acts of his daughter to wife. And it came to pass when she came to him that she moved him to ask her father a field. And she lighted from off her ass and Caleb said in her what wilt thou? And she said in him give me a blessing for thou has given me a south land. Give me also springs of water and Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs. This is another foreshadowing of one of the themes that's going to come up in the book of Judges which is that of basically a woman taking the lead here. Because here in the story we see that she moves her husband to ask of her father a field. It's unclear whether he even makes that request. But what we see her doing is she gets off of her ass and Caleb says to her what wilt thou? So she goes to Caleb verse 15 and she said in him give me a blessing for thou has given me a south land. Give me also springs of water. This is a good request because we have to understand that while the children of Israel are doing a conquest of the promised land they're supposed to want to take over everything and throw all the bad guys out. Get rid of the wicked heathen and possess the land and have dominion over it so do it. And so God wants these people to think big. He wants them to possess and take land. And so she's got the right idea here saying hey I see what you've given me. Give me more. Let's do more. And it's not like she just wants it handed to her because remember she is given to the man who goes and fights the battles and wins and so forth Othniel the son of Kenaz. So he's a great warrior, he's a fighter and she's his wife and they want more. She wants more. That's a good desire to actually want to possess the land and wanting to inherit. But what we see here though is that it's a little bit out of the ordinary for a woman to be taking the lead here in this. Seems like her husband doesn't want to ask because it seems like she moves him to ask but does he ask? She gets off and asks herself. And this is a foreshadowing in the book of Judges where sometimes male leadership is lacking. Now of course the whole book of Judges is about the fact that leadership in general is lacking because what was the theme, the theme verse of the book was there's no king in Israel. Every man did that which is right in his own eyes so we're talking about a lack of leadership. And if you remember a little bit later in the book of Judges, in Judges chapter four Because of Barak's weakness as a leader, you know, he ends up having to lean on Deborah. And we have a female judge in the book of Judges, Deborah, that Barak ends up leaning on her and she rebukes him for it and says that because, and I'm paraphrasing but she basically tells him, look because you didn't have enough faith to do this, because you didn't have the guts to do it yourself, the victory is going to go to Israel but it's going to be by the hand of a woman. You're not going to get the glory. You don't get to do it. It's going to be a woman that brings the victory. And of course he's probably thinking it's going to be Deborah. But of course it's not Deborah, it's a woman named Jael. And Jael ends up ramming the tent spike through Sisera's head in Judges chapter four. So again we see this theme in the book of Judges where we have women kind of stepping up to the plate. Starting in chapter one we've got Othniel's wife stepping up to the plate, which doesn't really seem like a big deal, right? But then it's kind of a big deal in chapter four when Barak's just totally paralyzed unless a woman will lead him. And then when Jael actually ends up destroying the enemy herself with the hammer and spike in Judges chapter four. And so what we can take from both of these stories, if we take both stories together to Adonai Bezek's story and the Othniel's wife story, you know we can kind of put together and say things that start small get big. Small problems, small sins, small imbalances and issues, they get bigger, don't they? If we don't take care of them while they're small, they get bigger. It becomes a bigger problem. Now what do you make of this, you know, female judge? Because obviously the Bible clearly teaches, I suffer not a woman to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence for Adam was first formed, then Eve. And obviously God, all the way back in Genesis chapter three sixteen, said to Eve that her husband would rule over her. And the Bible talks about wives are supposed to obey their husbands and the Bible teaches that men should be in authority. And in fact in Isaiah chapter three it's brought up as a punishment where a nation is ruled over by women and children, because it's backwards, doesn't make sense, right? Women and children are not to be the leaders. Men are to lead and women and children are just as important and valuable members of society but they have a different role in society, they're not the leaders. We don't believe in having a woman pastor, we don't believe in having a child as a pastor. There's a church here in Phoenix, a great big church with lots of people in it, that their boast was they had the youngest pastor in the history of the state of Arizona because the pastor became pastor when he was sixteen years old. And I'm talking about Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, which I believe the pastor died many years ago. So he died pretty young. So I guess he was just kind of on an accelerated program through the whole thing. But the point is this guy became, and I don't feel bad about joking about that because he's a false teacher. And you know that poll where you go door to door, seeing if people are actually saved? Well, sorry, most people from Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church end up not being saved. Now I did meet a lot of people from there that were saved, but I met a lot more that weren't. In fact, I met a teenage girl who'd grown up there and she was kind of blown away when I told her about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And she was like, whoa, did this really happen? I'm like, yeah. And she thought it was the coolest thing ever. So I don't know what they're teaching her down there. But anyway, the point is, you know, a sixteen-year-old pastor, the Bible says not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. You think a sixteen-year-old should be put up on a pedestal like that and be a leader and look at the kings who became king when they're eight years old and twelve years old. That's not good. It doesn't end well. It's usually a negative thing. We don't want women and children ruling over us. I don't want my house to be run by women and children. Your house shouldn't be run by women and children. And certainly God's house should not be run by women and children. Our country should not be run by women and children. And so we see, though, and here's what, you take a clear statement from the Bible, I suffer not a woman to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence, or let your women keep silence in the churches, or whatever. All these verses, and here's the, well, yeah, but what about Deborah? It's like, okay, well, what about chopping off that guy's thumbs? I can chop off people's thumbs too. Stories in the Bible are about what happened. They're not about what's ideal. The Bible tells us about people sinning all the time. Oh, well, what about Abraham? You know, he had that concubine or it's like, well, does that mean you should have a concubine? Well, you know, David married extra wives, so hey, you know. But look, folks, just because people did something, we need to go by the clear statements of the Bible and let them interpret the story. Folks, get the context. We're in, like I said, one of the gnarliest, most brutal books of the Bible, Wild West. Everybody's doing that which is right in their own size. There's death on every page. Every page of Judges, somebody's getting killed, somebody's getting mutilated, somebody's getting abused, something bad's happening. It's a rough book. So, you know, throwing in a female leader and if people would actually read the story, they'd hear the part where Deborah rebukes Barak for relying on her. Well, Deborah proves that we should have female leaders. Deborah proves we should have a female pastor, female preachers. Well, then explain to me why Deborah is rebuking Barak saying, you know what, now you've done it, buddy. Now the victory's going to go to a woman. Even she thinks it's a bad thing. So Deborah's not a feminist. She's not like, oh, it's so cool, the victory's going to go to a woman, yay, girl power, woo. You can do it. That's not what she's saying. She's actually lamenting if you'd actually read the story in Judges 4. She's lamenting the fact that the victory will go to a woman because she would rather live in a world where men are leading. Deborah would rather live in a world where men are doing their job and leading. And here's the thing, you know who I blame for feminism? I don't blame women. I blame men because men have allowed women to take over. Folks, throughout history, men have led. And here's the thing about that, men are stronger than women. So it's not like women came in and took it by force. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Men are stronger than women, so if women are leading it's because men allowed them to lead. Because they could have put a stop to it at any time, but yet they embrace the Sarah Palins and the Kamala Harrises and whoever. And here's the thing, even today's godly conservative Christian men in this country, if the right Republican chick came along that said all the right things, you know what they'd all do? They'd all just be gushing all over her and all excited. You know that I'm telling the truth, am I right? They wouldn't even stop and say, whoa, this is a judgment from God. Like we're all supposed to fall all over ourselves and get all excited about this new Supreme Court justice who's a woman. I'm just thinking to myself, what's a woman doing on the Supreme Court? And why is the Supreme Court for the last several decades only Jews and Catholics? When more than half of America is Evangelical Christian. America is predominantly Evangelicals and Protestants, about 20% Catholic, about 1% Jewish. The Supreme Court's all Jews and Catholics, and oh, let's have women on the Supreme Court. Well, sorry, that's not biblical, and I don't care if you like that or not or if that offends you or not, and it's nothing against women. Women have a role to play in society and men have a role to play, and their roles need to remain separate. And so we see in the book of Judges this theme of a woman taking the lead, a woman jumping in and asserting, trying to get her husband to do it. He doesn't do it. She jumps in and does it. That's going to be foreshadowing of Deborah and jail. And here's the thing. A lot of people will say, like, well, you know, that's why we've got to have female pastors because men just aren't stepping up to the plate. Except here's the problem with that, though. In every single town in America, there's a Baptist church with a hair-legged man behind the pulpit. You know, it's not like we're living in some country where there's no Christianity except just a few people and there's just this one woman and it's like, well, I guess this woman's going to preach to us because she's literally the only person in our nation who knows the Bible or something. Folks, and here's the thing. You say, well, in that situation, would you be for it? That situation has never existed and never will exist. And number two, no, I would not be for that. But that's not what's going on anyway. You know, well, women, if I had to step up to the plate because I'm a... Folks, there are lots of men out there preaching. There are men preaching in every city in America, in every town and hamlet of America. There are men preaching the Bible. So no, we don't just need women to step up and preach the Bible. It's nonsense. And we don't need women leading our country because there aren't enough men to do it or something. But again, women do go into leadership because there's a void of male leadership that's strong, that's doing its job. And like I said, women can only lead if men allow them to lead. And so shame on the men for allowing them to lead, okay? Because no women will ever lead this church. No woman will ever preach behind this pulpit. No women will ever call the shots or make the decisions or lead in the direction of this church. As long as I'm the pastor here, it'll be over my dead body that that would ever happen. So that's another foreshadowing here. And we don't want to walk away thinking that this is a good thing. We want to understand that it's a bad thing when women are in charge. It's bad. Okay. And this is nothing against women. And you know what? It's the feminists who are the real woman haters. They hate women so much they're trying to transform themselves into men. Let's celebrate womanhood. Let's celebrate femininity. Why would you tell women in order to have total value, you must be like men? In order to fully reach your potential, you have to go to work like a man. You have to lead a business like a man. You have to become a politician like a man. You know, now you've arrived. You have to make as much money as a man. No, I would say that stage is the way you are. And you know what? It's a beautiful thing for a woman to just do woman stuff and just mother and wife and just nurture and take care of people and, you know. And look, there are many things that women can do in the church. And here's the thing. Our church doesn't just tell women, hey, just cook and clean and shut up. You know, our church actually has a lot of women out soul winning every week. And that's very biblical. That's a whole sermon. I could show you all the New Testament examples of women going out and preaching the gospel and getting people to say, hey, I love the fact that our church since day one has been a church where women go soul winning. You know, amen to women out there. And look, that's really the big job. I mean, that's the big thing is soul winning. Right? I mean, that's kind of the main thing for us as Christians is, you know, being a witness for Christ. And you know, women get to do that. So it's not like women don't get to earn the rewards. Hey, you can earn boku rewards out there soul winning. Go for it. You can press toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. You just can't pastor the church. But here's the thing. Look at all the men that aren't pastoring the church. Am I right? It's like, oh, how come a woman can't be a deacon or a pastor? How many how many people really end up being a deacon or a pastor? The vast majority of men are never going to do that. Does that mean that somehow they haven't achieved their full potential? Of course not. Because the body isn't just all the head or all the eye or all the ear or all the hand or all the foot, right? We all have a different role to play in the body, okay? Christ is the head. We are all the body parts and we're all necessary, whether we're the mouth, you know, the preacher I guess is like the mouth, right, you know, speaking or whatever. But the point is, we need the eye, we need the ear, we need the hand, we need the nose, we need everything. Let me hurry up here and get through the rest of this chapter. But it says in verse number 16, and the children of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah which lieth in the south of Arad and they went and dwelt among the people. Now these are not bad guys to have around. These are a good group of people to have around and so these are not a negative. It says in verse 17, and Judah went with Simeon his brother and they slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath and utterly destroyed it and the name of the city was called Hormah. And Judah also took Gaza with the coast thereof and Ashkelon with the coast thereof and Ekron with the coast thereof. These are of course three major cities of the Philistines, of the five major cities. Those are three of them. And the Lord was with Judah and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron. And I want you to be very careful how you understand the word could there because they could have, God told them to do it and God would have given them the strength to do it. The reason that they could not do it is because of their lack of faith. They couldn't do it because they limited themselves. They limited the Holy One of Israel. It's not that God couldn't have done it. It's that they couldn't do it because of their own human failings and if you get the context that's obvious. Verse 20, and they gave Hebron unto Caleb as Moses said and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak, these are of course giant warriors on the order of like nine feet tall. So when the Bible talks about giants, we're not talking Jack and the Beanstalk. We're talking Shaquille O'Neal or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. We're talking about just nine feet which is a little taller than those guys but you get the idea. And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day. In the house of Joseph, they also went up against Bethel and the Lord was with them. In the house of Joseph sent to scry Bethel, you know you could say what's that word scry? It's similar to the word describe. Just put a B on the end of it, right? They're basically checking it out and doing a little bit of a survey of the land. Now the name of the city before was Luz and the spies saw a man come forth out of the city and they said unto him, show us we pray thee the entrance into the city and we will show thee mercy. And when he showed them the entrance into the city and smote the city with the edge of the sword but they let go the man and all his family and the man went into the land of the Hittites and built the city and called the name thereof Luz which is the name thereof unto this day. Now look, this guy's always bothered me. I don't like this guy. My whole life I've always thought this guy's a bozo and let me tell you why. Now I understand the issue here of the children of Israel are coming in, they're unstoppable, they're unbeatable, the Lord's on their side, God's with them, they're fighting a righteous cause, the city is wicked as hell, hey if I was this guy I'd tell them how to get into the city too. They're the good guys, the city's the bad guys, might as well save your own skin and your family. I get that. That's not my issue with this guy. My issue with this guy, why I think he's a complete bozo is that he betrays his city to the Israelites and then he goes and moves into the land of the Hittites and builds a city and calls it the same name of the city that he betrayed. Now that's just stupid. That makes no sense. I was thinking about all the different applications of this or how this could apply, like what this guy is like. You know what it kind of reminded me of? Kind of reminded me of these people who come from one of those countries that Trump would have called like a bleep hole or whatever and basically they want to come here and they want to bring that religion and culture and way of life and set it up here instead of assimilating and becoming an American. They're kind of like this idiot who basically leaves a failed city, a city so perverse and wicked that God just completely allows to be wiped out and destroyed and removed and gone but he's just going to go keep the dream alive. And he's the one who helped destroy it. He's the one who helped ruin it. And then he's going to go take, he's just like, yeah, I still like that place. It's gone. What a dork. I mean, think about this, but isn't that like these refugees, they go, they're fleeing from some super messed up, screwed up place where the wonderful religion of peace has made it so nice for them over in the Islamic world. But then they want to come here and then they want to get mad if everybody doesn't want to just accommodate them in their hijab or of course now everybody's wearing a hijab. Now there's like a statewide hijab mandate practically. But anyway, you know, they want to come over here and they want to take a picture on their driver's license where they look like a ninja on the front of their driver's license because it's their religion. It's like, you know what, if your religion and your way of life and your country is so great, then why did you come here? Why do you want to ruin our country like your country is ruined? And you know what, America was not built by Islam. America was not built by the, you know, these, these kind of people that came here and want to just impose some foreign way of life upon the people who live here. And by the way, it's, I'm not just up here preaching America because you know what, if I went to Mexico, if I moved to Mexico, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to speak Spanish. You know, if I moved to Japan, I'm going to be speaking Japanese, you know, and I'm going to fit in with that way of life. I'm not going to just impose on them and say, well, we're celebrating the 4th of July here, you know, and I, you know, that sounds like a joke except I've literally seen missionaries in Europe leading their churches to celebrate the 4th of July, celebrating Thanksgiving and the 4th of July as a church in Germany and this is not, this is real, I've seen it. And folks, that doesn't make any sense. But it still makes more sense than some derelict from East Africa coming here and wearing a hijab and just trying to convert as many people to Islam. Islam is a perverted, wicked, stupid religion that screws up every country that it's in. It's not a blessing, it's not helpful, you know, I mean at least these Americans over in Germany, you know, at least they thought, hey, you know, apple pie and fireworks and you know, maybe we can straighten these Germans out a little bit, whatever. But the point is though, that's not what they need. They need Jesus, they need the Bible, they don't need to change their culture, right? They don't need to change and become Americanized in order to be Christian because God is not an American, right? God transcends all nationalities and so he's the God of the whole earth and you don't have to give up your culture to become a Christian. You don't have to embrace American, Western culture in order to become a Christian. You just have to embrace the gospel and embrace Christ. But you see people coming here from failed states and they act like their country's better or something, or that there's something better about their way of life. You know, if you come to America, you need to learn how to speak English, okay? And if you come to America because America is better, then you know, maybe you should shut up and learn something about what's better about it or why it's better and not try to import ideas from a failed state. This guy is heading into modern day Turkey, land of the Hittites, which is today modern day Turkey around Ankara, and he wants to bring in a failed ideology and hey, let's build a town just like back home in Canaan that God just had to wipe out because it was so stupid and wicked. Now let's go ahead and import that religion and let's import that culture and let's import that. Let's keep it alive today in Turkey. And that's why this guy is a complete bozo. Verse number 27, neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Bathsheon in her towns nor Tanakh in her towns nor the inhabitants of Dor in her towns nor the inhabitants of Ibliim in her towns. This is not a small problem. It's not like, well, the children of Israel, they got 90% complete. They are leaving loose ends everywhere. That's why they're going to have so many problems in the book of Judges. That's why they're always going to have problems because this isn't just a few loose ends. Start out with one guy. Now it's just this long laundry list. Verse 29, neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites. Verse 30, neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron nor the inhabitants of Nahal. Verse 31, neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Ako nor the inhabitants of Zidon nor of Olab nor of Aksib nor of Helba nor of Aphek nor of Rehob. But the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of Ephraim. Why? For they did not drive them out. Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh nor the inhabitants of Beth-Anath, but he dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh and of Beth-Anath became tributaries. Oh, oh, what a relief. They became tributaries. Great. Except the tributaries end up having a great influence on the conqueror. Let me give you a historical example of this. The Romans conquered the Greeks. We think about Daniel's four kingdoms and we think about the Babylonians, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Greek-Macedonian Empire, and then the Roman Empire. The Romans conquered the Greeks, but here's the interesting thing about the Romans having conquered the Greeks. Interesting how the New Testament's not written in Latin. You know why? The Roman Empire, Greek, was by far the bigger language. Every Roman senator except like one spoke Greek fluently. And most people growing up in Rome around the time of Christ learned how to read and write in Greek and then Latin. And they ended up embracing all the Greek culture. The Greek culture became their culture. The Greek philosophy, the Greek religion, it all came. So it's like, who conquered who here? The Romans conquered the Greeks, but they ended up just absorbing all of their culture. So here we see the Israelites conquering the Promised Land, but what are they doing? They're being infected by the Canaanites' way of life. It kind of cracks me up. It reminds me of the king of Israel who defeats a foreign king and then he decides, hey, I'm going to start worshipping that guy's god, the guy that I just defeated. Because God's not blessing that guy. And so we have to understand that by conquering the Promised Land, but having all these tributaries, they're still there exerting a bad influence, because a bad influence can sometimes still travel uphill authority-wise. So we've got to be careful playing around with the wrong things and the wrong people and trying to keep them tame and under control. They can still have an influence upon us. And the Amorites, verse 34, forced the children of Dan into the mountain. And of course, this is one of the most failed tribes in Israel if you study the Old Testament. Dan is one of the tribes that just very early on just ends up getting the most messed up, the most idolatrous, almost never serving God. They're already getting their tails kicked and being sent into the mountain in Judges chapter 1. And the Amorites wouldn't let them come down into the valley. The Amorites would dwell in Mount Heres and Eijelon and in Sheolbim. Yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed so that they became tributaries. And the coast of the Amorites was from the going up to a crabim, from the rock, and upward. And chapter 2 is a major gear change. The introduction is in two parts, chapter 1 and chapter 2. Chapter 2 is completely different than chapter 1. What we see from chapter 1, just to kind of sum it all up in a nutshell, is we're introducing the whole book of Judges. So what are the themes that come out in chapter 1 that we're going to see throughout the whole book of Judges? Well, first of all, we're going to see that the children of Israel did not drive out the inhabitants of the land. And those people will plague them. They'll be a bad influence on them. They will turn the tables on them. The tributaries of today are going to be receiving tribute tomorrow. The Philistines are lords over Israel later on. The Amorites are lords over them. The Hittites become lords. They're all going to, at some point, be turning the tables on Israel and a thorn in their flesh, whether it's from below or above. So that's a major theme. The incomplete job of conquest leads to all these problem people hanging around. And then the other theme we saw was women having to step in and take the lead and take a leadership role, which, again, is a bad sign, curse from God. And we see just a whole book of death and carnage and suffering because of a lack of godly leadership. And so it's a very relevant book for the day that we're living. If we look at the book of Judges, we're not going to lack for parallels that we could connect with our own situation in the United States of America today. Because although we have leaders, we don't have godly leaders. And so we could find ourselves in many ways like the children of Israel. And not only that, the children of Israel, they're allowing these people to dwell among them. These people are horrible perverts. They are weirdos. They are doing all those Leviticus 20 sins. And you know what? Here we are in the United States of America. And what are we doing? We're tolerating that. We're allowing that to exist. And we think, well, you know, it doesn't bother me. You think you can let that exist, my friend? It is going to spread like a cancer, the sodomites, the weirdos, the trannies. Folks, you can't allow that to exist in a society. And because we're allowing it in the United States of America, it is having a devastating influence not just on unsaved people, but even on the churches themselves that are being influenced by them through Hollywood, through Madison Avenue. They're allowing these filthy people to influence them. And so we as Christians, we can't control what our nation does. And we can't control what the government does. But you know what we can control? We can control what happens in God's house. And we can control what happens in our house. And so let's make sure that even if our nation is filled with parasites and amorites and Jebusites, that we at least get the parasites, the Jebusites, and the amorites out of our home. And that we at least get Adonai Bezak out of our church so that at least our churches and our homes can be a promised land worthy of God's blessing. Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great book, Lord. It's going to be fun and exciting, Lord, to go through the rest of the book of Judges, such an interesting book. It's a fascinating book, Lord. Thank you for giving us the truth. But Lord, thank you for packaging it in such an enjoyable way, Lord, that it could be such a pleasure to read your word and study your word, Lord. And I just pray that, Lord, every single person who comes to this church would be blessed and edified by studying the book of Judges, that it would help them in their personal lives and in their walk with you. And in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Amen, let's grab our hymnals and turn to number 468. If you need words for this one, Isn't He Wonderful, number 468. Number 468, sing it out, sing it twice, number 468. Isn't He Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful. Isn't Jesus, my Lord, Wonderful. Ours have seen, ears have heard, it's rejoined and has heard. Isn't Jesus, my Lord, Wonderful. Isn't He Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful. Isn't Jesus, my Lord, Wonderful. Ours have seen, ears have heard, it's rejoined and has heard. Isn't Jesus, my Lord, Wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you.