Title: Wear a great warrior
Contents
Bible Text: Judges 11:1-11
wear a great warrior
Six months after the birth of a son, his father passed away. The only thing the father gave to his son was tuberculosis bacteria. Since I was a baby, I suffered from tuberculous arthritis and could not walk properly. His mother was a peddler, but her system was broken and she was in debt, so she abandoned her and ran away. The child was left with his mother and barely left elementary school. The self-bred lame kid roamed the streets, hanging out with rogue children. He even went to a juvenile detention center for threatening the detective chief's son with a knife and stealing money.
It was the street, not the family or parents, that raised the child. It was broken on the roadside and it was made there. He stood up because he became a member of parliament. His name is Cheol-yong Lee. I am now a church elder.
Among the characters in the Bible, there is such a person, Jephthah.
born out of nowhere
“Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man, the son of a prostitute who was born of Gilead” (verse 1). They are no more proud than Ishmael, who was born in the body of a slave girl.
One of the things that a person loses confidence in is an ignorant birth. Being born from a parasitic body, the spirit is broken. However, a person's origin cannot be determined by one's own will or choice. It is not my decision whether I will be in the red or not. What's wrong with a child born of an affair? If it is a sin to have the child born, it is only the parents' fault.
Jephthah was born through anyone. Even if you resent your parents or resent the world, it is of no use. Jephthah was born with problems. I was brought up with humiliation. He carried the label of being the son of a gisaeng. The mother who gave birth to him is not human. She was a pathetic woman with no animal instinct to raise her own child. He abandoned the child he had given birth and went on his own path.
Shame is the cause of a feeling of inferiority. It doesn't make you feel confident. Born with the most unbearable fate. This is a terrifying poison that denies its roots.
It is a terrifying fault of giving up on yourself. Nevertheless, Jephthah became a brave man and a great warrior. The name appears in the same class as Gideon, Samson, David, and Samuel in the book of Hebrews. He praised that he had overcome the kingdom through faith and received promises (Hebrews 11:32-33).
What made him a hero? Not a good family or a good parent. Not a first-class school or a respected teacher. It was his courage that made him a hero. The first step to becoming a hero is to have courage.
kicked out by brother
“The wife of Gilead also bore her sons. And her sons grew up, and they drove out Jephthah, saying, “You are the son of another woman, and you shall not inherit in our father’s house” (verse 2).
The most miserable feeling a person feels is abandonment. There is no greater pain than the pain of being abandoned. There are no words that sting your stomach like the words you said when you drove Jephthah out. “You are the son of another woman, and you will not have an inheritance in my father’s house.” It means that you cannot be called a father. He cut the rich man's kite and dropped him off a cliff.
He is left on the bare ground. Jephthah was abandoned the second time. At birth, his mother abandoned him. Now this wife's sons have abandoned it again. My half brothers chased me away.
When you get dumped, you get a big shock. What are you doing with a life like me? It makes me want to die and give up. However, in this case, the reaction varies from person to person. It's the same thing that hurt is pain. However, wounds can be a cause of failure or a motivator of success. Pearls are treasures made by scars. An unbroken oyster cannot be a pearl. The liquid from the wounds hardened and became a brilliant pearl.
Henri Nouwen, in his book “The Wounded Healer,” says that the true healer is the one who has been wounded and healed. The wounds you experience become a tool to heal others. A person with a painful wound can be a neighbor to a person with a painful wound.
live in the land of dob
“Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and dwelt in the land of Tob, and miscellaneous goods gathered to him and went in and out with him” (verse 3). Miscellaneous goods are those who chatter with miscellaneous thoughts. A person who speaks without action is called a weed.
There are first-class and third-class, but they are surrounded by miscellaneous goods that are neither second-class nor third-class. Grass has weeds, and trees have weeds. Dogs are hybrids, and humans are also hybrids.
What are omnivores? These are people who have been pushed out of the mainstream. They are rogue and worthless sorts, worthless filth. There is happiness in them too. There was also a space for people to grow.
The meaning of the word ‘outlier’ is a person who lives outside the home, a homeless person, an object separated from the body. Jephthah is an outlier. Seeing that his friend is miscellaneous, he was one of them.
The advantage of omnivores is their wildness. Those who grow up rolling on the streets are as tough and strong as weeds. A good environment will not breed wildness. House-grown plants are beautiful but fragile. Wind-blown and trampled weeds are definitely different. Wildflowers grown in nature with the sea breeze are also beautiful.
The wood from which the musical instrument is made is the highest and noblest resonance from the trees grown in the high mountains. On the surface, it looks crooked and unlikely. Despite this, he stands out from the master and becomes a master in the hands of the master.
Jephthah is a pathetic person who gets along with all sorts of things. That is the outward appearance of Jephthah. But it is the land called “Dob” that made him a hero.
There is a saying “tripping point”. It is the moment in life when you hit the buttocks and realize through your mistakes. Every field has a bottom line. Founders all started from the bottom up. You have your own way. Jephthah is a man with bare feet, bare feet and bare hands. It is the principle of the world that if you grow up well, you can't live well. That is the reason why they raise their beloved children harshly and harshly.
called as minister
“Then he said to Jephthah, “We are going to fight the children of Ammon; come and be our captain” (verse 6). Because the children of Ammon wanted to attack Israel (v. 4). The children of Ammon were about to attack Israel, so the elders of Gilead went to Jephthah and told him to come and become our captain. He was regarded as a leader and a person who would solve the national crisis.
“The people of Gilead and the princes said, Who shall go out first and begin a war with the children of Ammon, and he shall be the head of all the inhabitants of Gilead” (Judges 10:18).
To be a head, you must have a head. He who does not have what his head hears cannot be a head. The head here is one who has physical strength, intellectual power, and courage. When the people asked to be the head, Jephthah saw that he had the power to defeat Ammon. He was regarded as a commander who could lead the army on the battlefield. When there was no commander who could lead the army, Jephthah learned leadership in the miscellaneous things that came to him.
Jephthah did not yield to his fate. How would he have become a judge if he had resisted the humiliation and disrespect that he had been subjected to with hatred and retaliation? Look at the elders of Gilead. After years of being expelled, he comes to Jephthah for help. It was a greater humiliation for the elders to ask Jephthah for help than they had done to Jephthah.
Although the miscellaneous people who followed Jephthah seem like wild and selfish people, they were drawn by Jephthah's leadership and noble character. He had an appealing quality.
“A prudent servant will rule over the son of his master, who does shameful things, and he will inherit an inheritance among his brothers” (Proverbs 17:2). there was It is said that luxury and heroes are not born in the same country. Jephthah was born as a hero among the miscellaneous things he lived with while staying in the land of Tob.
speak before the LORD
“…Jephthah presented all his words before the Lord at Mizpah” (verse 11). This means that when the elders of Gilead came to him and proposed to him, he discussed it with God. It means that he consulted with God when making important decisions and made his decision known to God. Now I see that it was God who raised Jephthah. He lived in consultation with God. God paid for his pain and his tears.
“The plans of the heart belong to men, but the answer of a word comes from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:1).
Jephthah was a leader who knew the importance of words. I believed that if I spoke to God, God would remember and make it happen.
Eventually, Jephthah accepted the elders' offer. And first, Jephthah carefully negotiated with Ammon, but failed. Now that he had no choice but to go to war, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah (verse 29). The Lord delivered the Ammonites into Jephthah's hand. You made me win. The spirit of Jehovah upon Jephthah was the spirit of war. The children of Ammon completely surrendered before the children of Israel (verse 33).
Jephthah is a stand-up. He was an expelled one. He was a marginalized person who could not enter mainstream society. But in the deserted land, in the bare land where the miscellaneous things dwell, he became a hero.
There is a saying in our proverb that “out of the rags a hero comes out”. Jephthah is a hero from the stream. He was called to become a minister. Jephthah considered the call to be God's will.
The Spirit of God gave us victory and made us judges. Jephthah defeated the invading Ammonites. Those who were ordinary until the Holy Spirit came, when the Holy Spirit came, they become extraordinary and become warriors. May the Spirit of God be with you.
“…it is not by might, not by might, but by my spirit” (Zechariah 4:6).