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To these wicked pagan nations and the result of that is that the next generation began to worship Baal and not God. This is how, this is the progression that we see of how a nation becomes reprobate. Because one nation tolerates the sin, the next nation does not access what the previous nation did in moderation. And then what happens after that? Well you go a couple of generations after that, they don't even know who God is. In fact they're actually serving the devil, they're serving Baal, they're not serving God anymore. Look what it says in verse 7, And the children of Israel did evil on the side of the Lord and forgot the Lord their God and served Balaam and the groves. Well that didn't take very long. He's like, hey these people are here to prove you, to test you, already failed. Already another generation in, they're already serving the devil, they're worshiping Baal and through the groves, so on and so forth. Look at verse 8, So does God say, well you know they're still my people though, you know I still love these people. No, therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. Just how you guys are feeling hot right now, you know I see some of you, you know, yeah it's hotter than that, okay. You know you ever get so mad that really your face turns red, you feel hot? That's what he's signifying there. Therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia and the children of Israel served Cushan Rishathaim eight years. So what did he do? He basically just gave them over to the nations that they wanted. So these nations who they were intermingling with and serving the gods, God said, if you want that, then okay, then I'm just going to have them overtake you, overcome you and you're going to serve them. And how long did that last for? Eight years it says. Verse 9, And when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Candace, Caleb's younger brother. Now before we get into Othniel, I do want to make some comments about verse 7 and 8. So what do we see here? Well, if you're, if the children of Israel chose not to war, chose not to go to battle, eventually those who they were creating an affinity with, they ended up serving them. Okay. So that foreign nation ended up reigning over them. They ended up serving their enemies and they reigned over them. Now in the New Testament, how can we make an application to that? Well, if you think about it, you know, these nations can picture our flesh and Israel obviously can picture the believer. The reason for that is because during this time, the nation of Israel did not have a central place for them to meet. They were kind of like nomads, right? Just kind of wandering about and conquering these lands and these nations. They were, they're basically like what? Pilgrims. Well, the Bible tells us in the New Testament that Abraham was a stranger and a pilgrim. Now, not only that, but we see that these strangers and pilgrims were going about in this land fighting wars, right? Well, in like manner, we ourselves ask, the Bible says, I beseech you, dearly beloved, as strangers and pilgrims, you know, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against your souls. So what do we see here? That us like the children of Israel in this world, we're in this world, but we're not of this world. What are we called to do? Fight against our flesh? The lust of the flesh, the desires thereof, the wickedness, the works of the flesh, and, you know, we're not, we're not to allow ourselves to be placed under that, that, that, that reign of our flesh. In fact, the Bible says, likewise, reckon yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore have reign in your mortal bodies, that ye should obey it in the lust thereof. I yield you your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. So we see that correlation there, that God is basically using this as a picture to say, hey, we as believers should not allow the flesh to reign over us. Now here's the thing. When the children of Israel got into Canaan land, were there, were there like, was there like zero enemies in Canaan land? No, right? It was filled with enemies. And if they didn't put the effort into fighting these wars, those enemies would overcome them. Now let me ask you this. When we get saved, do we just not struggle with the flesh at all? No. The flesh is there. And in fact, if you don't make a purposeful effort to fight against the flesh, the flesh is going to reign over you. You know, if you don't on purpose, strive to read your Bible, to pray, to come to church, to walk in the spirit, you will fulfill the lust of the flesh. The flesh will have dominion over you, just like Khushan Rishathayim had over the children of Israel for eight years. So for eight entire years, because they chose not to call upon God, they chose not to obey God. What happened? These foreign nations ended up having reign and dominion over the children of Israel. They didn't have to, just like us. In the New Testament, once we get saved, you know, the land is filled with enemies. There's a great and effectual door before us and many adversaries therein. We have a lot of adversaries. We have the world, we have the devil, but we also have the flesh. That's what the Bible tells us. Walk in the spirit and ye should not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. So you have one of two choices, just like the children of Israel. And look, the flesh is there to test us, isn't it? Right? The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. So you have one of two choices. Either you purposefully, with a purposeful effort, fight against the flesh, dying daily, taking up your cross daily, coming after Christ and dying daily, or by default, if you say, well, I'm not going to do any of that, well, then you lose anyways. You can't say, well, I'm just not going to do anything. I'm just going to have like, you know, I'm just going to be passive about the whole thing. I'm not going to go too far into church. I don't want to go too much into the Bible. I'm not going to serve God too much. Well, then by default, you're being overcome. By default, your flesh will have dominion over you. By default, you will be reigned over by your flesh, by the devil, by the world. Mark it down. You know, this is not the time to just sit on your rear end. I mean, this is the time to sit on your rear end right now in church. Everyone gets up. You know, this is not the time, spiritually speaking, to sit on your rear end and just kind of put it on cruise control. We need to be purposeful in our fight against the things of the devil, the world, and our flesh. So the Bible tells us here that they served Cushan, Rishithahem for eight years because they chose not to fight against the enemies of God. Now look at verse 10, it says, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, speaking of Othniel, and he judged Israel, and went out to war, and the Lord delivered Cushan, Rishithahem, the king of Mesopotamia, into his hand, and his hand prevailed against Cushan, Rishithahem. So what do we see? We see that it took a spear-filled man to come and deliver Israel out of the hand of Cushan, Rishithahem. What is that a picture of? A picture of a preacher sometimes. And look what it says there. It says, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel. Because think about this, you think he just came and just like, don't worry guys, live as pagan as you want, I'll just take care of this king of Mesopotamia. No, he judged Israel first and basically told him, hey, you guys need to repent. Put away the false gods, repent of this wicked deed, put away all your garbage and your sinfulness, and then I'll deliver you. So the deliverer, Othniel, was not just the deliverer to deliver them from the hand of the enemy, he was there to judge Israel. In like manner, that's what a pastor's for. In like manner, that's what a preacher's for. A preacher is there to encourage you to go forward for God, to help you to be delivered from bad habits or from false ideologies, but it's also here to judge you. Don't judge me. Then you need to go somewhere else if you don't want to be judged. Go to no judging Baptist church. But you know what? The deliverer can only deliver if he judges the nation first. Okay? And look, if you were to judge yourself, you wouldn't be judged. You know, hey, Israel, if you would have just obeyed the Lord and just repented, you wouldn't have needed Othniel to come and deliver you from the hand of Cushah and Rishatthaim. You could have just obeyed God, conquered land, but you know what it took? It took you crying out to the Lord, a deliverer being raised up by the name of Othniel and judging you for your wicked idolatry and then delivering you from the hand of the king of Mesopotamia. And that's how it works today. You know? And you know, Christians should not get mad at the pastor. Christians should not get mad at the man of God, and look, other pastors should not get mad at the man of God. You know? Especially if the members of their church are listening to people who preach the word of God harshly, right? Hey, they're cleaning up your church members' lives so they can be good church members for you. You should be thankful for that. You know, we're sent to judge, okay? Now Othniel is the first judge that we see talked about in Judges chapter 3, but we saw basically he made a cameo appearance in chapter 1, if you remember. He is the nephew of Caleb, right? Caleb's brother, Canas, was his father, and we see Othniel making his guest appearance by fighting a war, and you know, Caleb came and he said, hey, if you want my daughter, whoever wants my daughter, you have to defeat, you know, Kirtjeth Safer is what he said. And then Othniel was like, I'll do it. He went there and he whooped him, and then he got to marry Axah, okay, he got his reward. So we see that Othniel, previous to chapter number 3, we already see him doing something. We already see that he's fighting the Lord's battles. He's not necessarily a leader, just the man who took the initiative. And let me say this, if you want to be a leader, don't look for the title, don't look for chapter 3, you got to go to chapter 1 first. And if you want to be a leader, here's a good quality to have, it's called initiative, amen? You know, if you want to be the deliverer of Israel, okay, then why don't you go take care of Kirtjeth Safer, chapter 1 first, right? Which is what, like the trash or something? You know, the vacuum? Oh, I'm going to be a, I don't, I'm not, that's not what I'm about. Excuse me? The vacuum? Yeah, you know, if you want to be great, be a servant, right? Look at the areas that are lacking and fulfill, you know, see the need, take the lead. Be like Othniel. And look, Othniel wasn't necessarily looking for recognition. He was just like, I'll do it. I want me a wife, right? And he's like, he's like, I want me a wife, so I'll take care of that. And you know what? I'm sure God looked at that and said, you know what, that's going to be the first judge right there. This is the man, he's a servant, he's fighting the Lord's battles. He doesn't even know I'm going to call him to be a judge, but he's already fighting the Lord's battles at this time. So let me say this, before you get the title, fight the Lord's battles. You say, what's the first battle? The battle against your flesh. You know, the battle against selfishness. The battle of just being, you know, lax or apathetic, right? You know, I want to fight against the sodomites, great. Fight against the sodomites, but can you take out the trash too? Can you clean a window? Can you help me throw all the trash that they put on the side of the building? You know? He said, what trash? Exactly. You know? If you haven't noticed, people think that, like, Faithful Word Baptist Church is the place where they just dump all their garbage. Okay? No, this is the place where we take out the garbage, amen? Spiritually and physically, unfortunately, too. You know, I think it was, like, last year when we did the Compton Marathon, someone threw literally their full-grown dead German shepherd in our trash can. They didn't even have the decency to put it in a full trash can. They put it in a small trash can, and half of it was still sticking out. In the middle of summer, who helped me take that out? Mark. I said, Mark. I remember literally Janelle sitting in the back, and she was with child at that time, and, you know, she had this meek and quiet spirit, but her face was, like, and the reason why is because it was hot. Our A.C. is really bad, as you can tell, and it was, the carcass was just smelling like a carcass on a mid-summer day, okay, 100 degrees or whatever, and it was stinking. I told Mark, I was like, hey, I need your help to push this trash can around the building so we just don't smell that thing. I'm just getting this off my chest, okay? It was bad. What I'm saying is, hey, you know, being a leader or being a judge is not just a matter of delivering. It's not just a matter of judging. It's a matter of having previous successes, having previous victories, having a good report previous to you becoming a leader. How do you do that? By building a good report by doing the small things, amen? So that's Othniel, and there's not much that you need to say about him because he's already proven himself in chapter one, right? Look down at your Bibles. By the way, one thing that you see here, because remember, from chapter two, we see a vicious cycle, don't we? That the children of Israel are serving God while the judge is around. As soon as the judge dies, they go and they serve Baal, right? God has to judge them, place them under servitude of a foreign nation, and then they cry out to God, and then the cycle continues. Well, one thing you'll notice that each cycle renders more years of servitude because with Hushan Reshathayim, they're under servitude there for eight years, and then the numbers continue to increase. You see verse 14 says, so the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab 18 years. So the numbers increase more and more. You say, what's the application there? If you don't conquer yourself today, it's going to be a lot harder to conquer yourself ten years from now. If you don't kick that bad habit today, it's going to be a lot harder to kick tomorrow. Today is eight years, tomorrow 18, and it's not going to go down anymore after that, okay? Look at verse 12, it says, and the children of Israel, let me see if I covered everything that I wanted to cover. Yeah, that's good. Look at verse number 12, it says, and the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. Why? Because of the fact that Othmiel the son of Cain has died. So as soon as the leader dies, it's just like, party, time to go and serve Baal. That's not what they said, but basic is what they're doing. It says there in verse number 12, and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, again in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. Now Eglon is probably some wicked reprobate, okay? But God even uses the wicked of this world for his own purpose. It kind of shows you that God has Satan on a short leash. It's not like Satan could just do whatever he wants. He needs permission, right? God needs to give him his authority to do so. Verse 13 says, and he gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel and possessed the city of palm trees. So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab 18 years, but when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer, Echad the son of Gerah a Benjamite, a man left handed, and by him the children of Israel sent the president to Eglon the king of Moab. Now I'm going to read through a large portion of Echad's story, and then we're going to go back and make some comments about this. Look at verse number 16. But Echad made him a dagger which had two edges of a cubit length, and he did gird it under his raiment upon the right thigh, and he brought the president to Eglon king of Moab, and Eglon was a very fat man. Now look, for the Bible to say that, like God thought it necessary to like tell you hey, he's very fat. It probably doesn't mean like he was like 200 pounds or something like that. It probably means he was huge. And we'll see the extent of his hugeness in just a bit, okay? He's not being facetious here. He's not exaggerating either, right? Verse 18. And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away the people that bear the present, but he himself turned again from the quarries that were by Gilgal and said, I have a secret, secret errand unto thee, O king, who said, keep silence. And all that stood by him went out from him, and Echad came unto him, and he was sitting in a summer parlor, which he had for himself alone, and Echad said, I have a message from God unto thee, and he arose out of his seat, and he had put forth his left hand and took the dagger from his right thigh and thrust it into the belly. And look what it says, and the half also went in after the blade, and the fat closed upon the blade so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly. So basically he's like, well, that was my favorite knife, right, John? He just completely lost it. That's what it says. This is, and by the way, this isn't Hollywood. This really happened. Think about this. He, like, just thrust them, and it just keeps going, and he's just like, bye, you know? Kiss that thing goodbye. Now the strangest words in this chapter, and the dirt came out, okay? And there's a big spiritual principle that we can see there. Now I believe that when it says the dirt came out, it's actually referring to his excrement, okay, because he's stabbing him in the belly. That's potentially what it's referring to, but I know there's a spiritual application to that. Verse 23 says, and Echad, then Echad went forth through the porch and shut the doors of the parlor upon him and locked them, and when he was gone out, his servants came, and when they saw that behold, the doors of the parlor were locked, they said, surely he covered his feet in a summer chamber. And they tarried till they were ashamed, and behold, he opened not the doors of the parlor. Therefore they took a key and opened them, and behold, their Lord was fallen down dead on the earth. We'll stop there. So what's taking place? We see that Echad is sent to be an assassin, okay, to deliver the children of Israel from the hand of Eglon. He goes in there. He claims that he has a message, which he's not lying. There's just a message of death, okay? He kills them, and he slips out. His servants think, well, he's probably using the restroom, and they just kind of leave him alone, okay? And then they find out that he's dead. We see then later on that Echad, through this action, basically encourages the children of Israel to do an uprising, and they end up putting 10,000 men, all lusty, all men of valor, to death, and then not one of them escapes. So this great victory was wrought under the leadership of Echad through an action that he took, okay? Now let's make some comments on here about this judge by the name of Echad. Go back to verse 15. It says there, but when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer. Echad, the son of Gerah, a Benjamite, a man left-handed. So look, nothing's there by accident in the Bible, you know, just like he's a very fat man, was not on accident. There's a reason why it said that. Why I believe the fact that he's calling him a man left-handed is not by accident either. Now I don't know, the Bible doesn't clearly say, you have little pictures here and there of what this potentially might mean. We do know that because he says he's a Benjamin, potentially the tribe of Benjamin were either left-handed on purpose because of battle or because of some disability, okay? And the reason we know that the tribe of Benjamin was left-handed was because in the same book, the book of Judges in chapter 20, you have the tribe of Benjamin who at this, at that time were a bunch of reprobates and they were, the Bible specifically says that they're all men left-handed and they were able to sling a rock and not miss, you know, it talks about the distance that they're able to do it at. These men were men of war, they were men of valor. They're men who can literally like strike you from afar with their left hand. I mean, that's some skills right there, right? You have the men in the historical books, it's fleeing me right now where it's at that helped David deliver there in Ziklag and there were men who were ambidextrous as well. They primarily used their left hand and these were men of war. They were very precise in their striking ability and we don't know exactly why. We don't know that maybe purposefully they literally trained with the left hand, you know. He said, why would they train with the left hand? Well, because the majority of people who fight are right-handed. Now let me ask you, who's left-handed here? All right, my people, okay. I'm left-handed too, okay. I don't know if you're left-handed, you raise your right hand, I don't know man, I'm just kidding. He's like, I raised my hand with my right, okay. So one thing that I learned even like doing martial arts, they've always said that the South Poles have an advantage over other fighters because of the fact that it's unorthodox. People who fight right-handed, you know, it kind of throws them off a little bit because they train for right-handed fighters, okay. Well, in like manner in wars, especially when it comes to close quarters and close combat, that would kind of throw them off too. And remember that it specifically says that he put the sword where? On his right thigh, okay. Instead of putting it on his left thigh. See if someone was left or right-handed, they would have to put it on their left thigh. That's why he was able to infiltrate King Anglong's palace. It's not that there wasn't any guards, they probably looked to see if he had a sword on him but because it wasn't on his left thigh, they let him go, right. So that's why he was able to reach to his right thigh because he was left-handed. Now it says there in verse number 16, but Ehab made him a dagger which had two edges of a cubit length and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh. Now let me give you a couple of things that we can learn from him. Number one is that, you know, the courage of one can liberate the captivity of many. Man this is risky right here. You know, it could have ended really bad. Who can just go up to a king and say I have a message for you or I have a message for the king and just let him go all the way to the king's summer parlor. Close the doors, assassinate him and get away. I mean you have guards there checking to see if you have weapons. He cleared the, you know, TSA. He cleared the guards, everyone, the servants, made it all the way to the summer parlor, killed the very fat man and still got away unscathed and really to encourage his people and then they ended up killing 10,000 of the Moabites. That's a great accomplishment. That took a lot of guts. That took a lot of courage. Took a lot of boldness to do something like that. And the principle that we can learn there is that all it takes is for one man just to be courageous in a spiritual sense we're talking about obviously today. You know, to be courageous and you could really liberate the captivity of a lot of people. You think of it in the matter of soul winning. You know, all it takes is one courageous person to just say, you know, I'm going to learn some soul winning. You know what you can do? You can liberate the captivity of those who are lost. You know, throughout the many decades that Lord willing, the Lord gives you to be on this earth, you can liberate a lot of captives from the clutches of Satan through you building up the courage to go out there and preach the gospel. But not just that. How about the courage of one just to stand up for rights, just to stand up for simple Bible doctrine and, you know, Bible principles. The courage of one can really liberate the captivity of those who are in fear. Someone here can attest to someone who inspired them to take a stand for something. Myself included. We all have a man, two men, three men that we've known over our lifetime that had the courage to stand alone and because they stood alone, guess what? That liberated us from the captivity of fear. Right? And at one point maybe it was just Pastor Anderson, but now we have a bunch of men standing up, right? Pastor Grayson Fritz. Pastor Tommy McMurtry. Men who are individuals who are just getting the courage to actually stand up and say something, to just stand up for truth. You know, and this is a principle for us that each and every one of us could be like an e-hud, okay? All we need to do is muster up the courage. You know, whatever you fear, you know, the Bible says that perfect love casteth out fear. God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. And we need to take that and take it to the bank and understand that we can cash in on some courage. Amen? So that's the number one principle that we can learn there is that, hey, don't ever think, well, I'm just a nobody. Nobody knows who I am. I don't have a YouTube channel or, you know, whatever, I'm not famous, but you know what? All you need is a little bit of courage and you can encourage someone. You can inspire someone. You know how what moves men to do something great for God? Another man doing something great for God. You know what moves the masses of men to go and stand up for right, even to the point that they're willing to give up their lives? It just takes one man to have the courage to stand up and say, I'll do it. I'll die. I'll give it all up, right? That's all it takes. The courage of one man to liberate the captivity of many. And you know what? Ehud, this one action that he took liberated the children of Israel for, look what it says in verse 30, four score years. How many years is that? 80. So his actions changed the course of action for the children of Israel for 80 years. Just because he was willing to just like a boss go into the palace and just like, I'm going to kill this guy and I'm going to leave unscathed. That's pretty cool right there. I like Ehud, you know, he's left handed. Great man. Amen. But the second principle that we can learn here is that God often uses the weak things of this world to bring to not the mighty things, right? To confound the mighty. He said, well, how do you know, why do you say that? Is Ehud weak? Well, I believe the reason it's saying that he's left handed is to insinuate that he is weak. Why is that? Well, because if you look at the connotation that hands carry in the Bible, it's often a symbolic of power, right? The power of thine hand. But more specifically, the right hand is often symbolic of power. Like Jesus Christ sits on the right hand of the father. So it's very contrast would be that the left hand is weak. If you have the right hand being powerful. Now you say, well, what does it have to do with the story? Well, I believe it's showing that because he's left handed automatically by default, you just think he's a weak guy. Can't use his right hand, he's using his left. But it was the weak man, the left handed one that actually confounded the mighty. That actually conquered Moab. That actually killed Eglon. Go to 1st Corinthians chapter one. Hold your place there in Judges chapter three. Hey, this is good stuff, amen. 1st Corinthians chapter one. And again, we don't know why he's left handed. We don't know if it's a disability. We don't know if he purposefully did that to make people think that he's weak to kind of, you know, have the drop on them, right? We just know the common people would use their right hand. It's symbolic in the Bible of power, therefore it's contrast should be weakness. And it fits with the New Testament understanding of weakness. It says in verse 26, For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things that are despised, which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to not the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. Our weaknesses are made strong in the Lord, right? Christ's power is perfected in our weaknesses. Therefore, I think this thing of him being left-handed is showing that God is using even someone who is weak to overcome evil, to overcome eglon. And in fact, if you remember, as we mentioned in Judges chapter 20, you have the tribe of Benjamin who were all left-handed, right? And they were able to, you know, smite people and obviously these are reprobates but just in regards to the principle, it was one tribe, verses 11. So it was a smaller tribe, weaker tribe, and what do we see? They actually whooped them two times out of three, you know? And I think the principle there is that it's showing us that a left-hander is often, in the Bible, symbolic of weakness but it's the person that God wants to use. And obviously I'm not saying, hey, hey left-handers, God's going to use us greatly one day, we're better than all the right-handers. I'm saying this is symbolic is what it's showing here, okay? That's what it's showing here. And really at the end of the day, the principle is this, is that God can use us as weak, right? As we're weak to really show His strength and His miracles and His work. Oh, you guys are such a small church, what are you guys going to do? Yeah, we're going to do great things for God. Because when we do great things for God, you're not going to give us the credit. Guess who the credit's going to go to? God. Because you're like, how can this Muslim look alike, you know, how can this church with no AC, how can this place in the middle of Omani, you know, we don't even know what that city is until this church came around, how can they do so great works? You know, because all the glory goes to God at that point. So you know, we shouldn't desire to be all high and mighty. Because once that happens, God can't use us, because then we get the glory. Let's be left-handers. Let's just be weak in the Lord, you know, put the blade on the right, and then God can use the weak to confound the things that are mighty. You know, with God, we have the advantage. Just like Ehud had the advantage. He took the weight of the sword on the right side, and he had the advantage to be able to smite and kill him and really just win a great war there. But the last thing that we can know, we can glean from this story, is that was it really Ehud? Was it really him that really killed Eglon? Who was it? Or what was it? It was the sword. You see, it was the weapon in his hand that made the difference, right? Because he could be... I know a lot of weak people. I know a lot of weak people. You know a lot of weak people? Weak people have a choice. Either you use the sword or you don't. You know, and there's a reason why he talked about in verse number 16 that the sword had two edges, right? Two-edged sword. For the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder. So it doesn't matter. You're like, I'm weak. Yeah. But are you using the Bible? Because at the end of the day, that's what wins the war, is the word of God. So at the end of the day, it was the weapon in his hand that made the difference. You know, there's a bunch of weaklings in the denominational, the non-denom churches, the liberal churches, a bunch of queer-looking sissies over there, but you know what they use? They use like NIV. They use these butter knives and these chopsticks and, you know, those toy lightsabers, a light with no batteries, you know? That's what they got, whereas, hey, these left-handers here, we use the King James Bible. We use the word of God. And at the end of the day, whatever battle you fight, you're only going to win if you use the right sword, okay? The Bible says, if a man also strived for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strived lawfully. Go to 1 John, if you wouldn't. First John. Look what it says in 1 John, chapter number 2, in verse number 13, he says, I write unto you, fathers, 1 John chapter 2, verse 13, I write unto you, fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the father. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. So in verse number 13, we see that the young ones, the young men, have overcome the wicked one. In verse 14, he basically expounds as to why they've overcome the wicked one. Why? The word of God is strong in them. It abides in them. In other words, if we're going to win spiritual battles, if we're going to kill Eglon, him and his fat body, we need to have the word of God abiding in us. And that's what makes it great. That's what makes this story great is that it's not based upon how many push-ups you can do, though it's good to do push-ups. It's not based upon what martial arts you know, though I think that's good. It's not based upon what kind of caliber gun you have. Really at the end of the day, it doesn't matter who you are, as God gives you free rein, as long as you know how to use this. It doesn't matter if you're black or white, Mexican, Guatemalan, I'm just kidding, you know, Guatemalan from Southeast Asia, doesn't matter where you're from. Can you use the Bible? Is the word of God abiding in you? Is it strong in you? Because that's the only requirement that God has, for him to use you and to do something great. He says there in verse number, Judges chapter three, Judges chapter number three, it says in verse 20, And Ephod came unto him, and he was sitting in his summer parlor, which he had for himself alone. And Ephod said, I have a message from God unto thee. I mean, that's the message from God from through his word, right, the sword. And he arose out of his seat. So I'm, because sometimes I read this and I'm picturing Eglon's probably thinking it's food. It's probably the only thing on his mind, right? And he had put forth his left hand and took the dagger from his right thigh and thrust it into his belly. And the half also went in after the blade, and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly, and the dirt came out. So I believe that's a spiritual application there. Why? Because when the sword goes in, the dirt comes out. That's not only for the spiritual battles that we face against the enemies of God, you know, because the fact that when we preach the word of God, we basically expose all their dirt. You know, when Hollywood shines the light on the sodomites, they look all great and happy. But when the Bible shines the light on the sodomites, you see it's a bunch of crap. Bunch of escriment is what it is. When the word of God shines into the wicked people, the sodomites and the reparations of this world, all you see in that light is that it's a bunch of crap. Bunch of escriment is what it is. The dirt is coming out. Because we testify of their works that they're evil. That's what the word of God does. It sheds light on the fact that it's a wicked world, they're wicked, they have a wicked agenda. That's what the word of God does. But you know what? In like manner, when we read the Bible, what happens? The sword goes in, and the dirt comes out. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee, right? We put the word of God in to get the dirt out. Oh man, I struggle with my thought life, or I struggle with, you know, just thinking about vain things that just are not profitable. Well, first of all, turn off the television, amen? But second of all, read the Bible. Think upon the Bible. Meditate on the Bible. What happens? The sword goes in, and the dirt will come out. If I have problems thinking about things that are just not about the Bible, then you need to put the word of God in. And look, you know, obviously memorization is important, but I guarantee you not a whole lot of people memorize the Bible. There might be some, and that's good if you do. But the main thing which you have to do is what? Read the Bible. Because the way you get the word of God into your heart and into the inner recesses of your soul, into the inner man, into your reigns, is by reading it over and over and over and over again. Meditating upon the word of God. And by the way, I don't mean, when I say meditation, I'm like, that's not meditation. That's some wicked pagan stuff from India or Nirvana, you know, Kurt Cobain stuff or whatever. That's that stuff. That's stupidity. You look dumb when you do that. That dumb yoga stuff. You know, meditation simply means to ruminate. It means to chew on the word of God. It means to think about it. You know? To reflect on the Bible. To think about stories versus to dissect it in your mind. You say, well, what's the purpose of that? Well, how do you think the Holy Ghost is going to bring those things back into remembrance? He uses your meditation and rumination to do so. Right? So the word of God, the sword goes in and the dirt comes out. He says there, let's see here. Skip down, we're almost done. Verse 26. And Ehad escaped while they tarried and passed beyond the quarries and escaped unto Saraiath. And it came to pass when he was come, that he blew a trumpet in the mountain of Ephraim and the children of Israel went down with him from the mount and he before them. And he said unto them, follow after me for the Lord hath delivered your enemies, the Moabites, into your hand. And they went down after him and took the fords of Jordan toward Moab and suffered not a man to pass over. And they slew of Moab at that time, about 10,000 men. That's a lot of dudes. And by the way, not just regular men, look what it says, all lusty, what does that mean? Valorous, strong, men of war. So it's not like you're just regular Joe Schmo pawn or whatever. These guys knew how to fight. But you know what? When you have God on your side, it doesn't matter how good they are. If God be for us, who can be against us? Oh, yeah, there's so many more wicked people out there than us. Yeah, but us and God, we make the majority. When we have God on our side, it doesn't matter how many people there are. Because we have God, right? He says all lusty, all men of valor, and their escape, not a man. So it wasn't one guy who was just wounded, who just escaped to tell a story. God said, all of them die. And you know what he's emphasizing here? That when you have me on your side, when you have God on your side, then you know what? The battles of the Lord, right? Verse 30, so Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel, and the land had rest four score years. Because Edith stood up and did the job, amen? He led the people out, they slew these men, and then they ended up having peace for 80 years. Verse 31, and after him was Shamgar, the son of Anath, which slew the Philistines 600 men, with an ox goad, and he also delivered Israel. Now verse 31 doesn't say a whole lot about Shamgar. The story is not as elaborate as Ehud, but it's still pretty cool. For one guy, you can't breeze over some of these things. For one guy to slay 600 men, that's a lot of guys. And it's not like he had a sword either. He didn't have a blade, he didn't have a sword. He used an ox goad, those are the prong, to prong the cattle to get them to move along, the ox, it's a stick. He just used it. So one stick slew 600 men. Like that's impossible. Well, not with God. This is a man filled with the Spirit, amen? This man filled with the Spirit was able to conquer 600 men with an ox goad. Great stories here, okay, and we're off to a good start, but, you know, sorry to, you know, what do they call it, not Easter egg, what do they call it? Spoiler alert, thank you, spoiler alert. You know, it's going to go downhill from here. Now other good judges come up, but, you know, the next judge that comes up is Deborah. And in case you didn't know, that was a woman. Look, I'm not saying women can't do great works for God, but this is showing you in chapter 4 the spiritual aptitude, the temperature of Israel at this time, where they need a woman to lead them, okay? And you know, next week, no women are coming to church. That's all right. But, you know, we started off great with Othniel, Echad, and Shamgar doing great works, but as I mentioned at the beginning of the book is that we really see it going from good to worse to just destroyed at the very end. It just decreases, the nation goes into atrophy, the leaders get worse, the nation gets worse because every man does that which is right in their own eyes. That's pretty much it. Let's go ahead and bow our heads and we'll have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for the book of Judges, and thank you for these great men, Othniel, Echad, and Shamgar, and probably just regular men. If we were to imagine them in our minds, we'd probably think that they were fit and big, but really they're probably just small men because at the end of the day they had a big God. And I pray, God, that you'd help us to recognize that we don't need to be wise, we don't need to be the strongest. We need you is what we need. We need to know the Bible. We need to depend on you. We need to be spiritual. And I pray, God, that you'd help us to do so. Thank you for these examples. Help us to be an example. Help us to have the courage to stand up for the truth, the courage to go out and preach the gospel. I pray that you bless tomorrow, Lord. Keep us safe as we go to Santa Maria for the soul-willing tomorrow and Saturday that you would give us a great amount of people being saved. Lord, may you prepare the hearts of the people we're going to speak to. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.