Preface: Jephthah was a judge in Israel for six years.....kind of like a one-term president....but a lot happened in those six years. We in America have not nearly humbled ourselves before God. All this 'God bless America' type of stuff is not humility. We are just trying to use God....to drag the Ark of The Covenant out to battle so to speak. There is little to no humility or mortification even in evangelicalism. Our pulpits might as well have a smiley face placarded on the front. The following post....Who Was Jephthath?....is from March of 2019.
The sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD....and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth....and because of this the pagan nations around them.....the same nations that God had previously delivered them from....afflicted and oppressed them for eighteen years.
It appears from the biblical account in the eleventh chapter of Judges that Jephthah was a real Rambo type. Alienated from his brothers because he didn't have the same mother....he went off by himself....and other black sheep types seemed to gather around him. At this point his brothers and home town didn't seem to care one way or another what he did....as they were more concerned with the Ammonites who were about to wage full-scale war with them.
OK....The sons of Israel eventually swallowed their pride....and went down to find Jephthah....Rambo remember....to see if He would come back and be their general against the Ammonites. Jephthah at first kind of played with them for while....oh you want me to lead you.....you didn't seem to want anything to do with me before?
Now Jephthah isn't quite a household name in Christian homes is it....(It's hard to pronounce....imagine whoever presides over the Senate calling this out....Texas forty votes for Jephthah....Florida 30 votes for Jephthah....Nebraska five votes for Jephthah?)....this in spite of the fact that the writer of Hebrews....in its famous chapter eleven on heroes of the faith.....mentions Jephthah right up their with Moses and Gideon and others. Why? It wasn't because Jephthah was the warrior that he was....and it had nothing to do with what Jephthah would do after the battle....and even in spite of the fact of what Jephthah did after the battle! The sons of Israel were looking at bad odds when they went to Jephthah who answered their request this way...."If you take me back to fight against the sons of Ammon and the LORD gives them up to me....." I'm going to stop there because herein is why Jephthah's name is recorded in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews....he attributed any victory that might be his....to the LORD!
There is more to the story of Jephthah and you can read it in chapter eleven of Judges and the first seven verses of chapter twelve. It's fascinating. Jephthah calmly went to the Ammonites beforehand to ask why they were about to wage war. After hearing their answer he very deliberately gave them the true history behind their complaints and finished with this...."I therefore have not sinned against you, but you are doing me wrong by making war against me; may the LORD, the judge, judge today between the sons of Israel and the sons of Ammon."
So you have probably heard this story in Bible studies somewhere along the way.....why bring it up in this post? It's because the story of Jephthah speaks to us today. What did we do when existential dangers started surrounding us beginning about three decades ago? Did we....in this once God-fearing nation....turn to Him as Jephthah did....and attribute to God any victories that He might give? No....we were no longer a people that could do something like that....although for a few weeks after 9/11 it looked as if we might.
We think that we are going to do this all by ourselves....throw in a few 'God bless Americas' and go out to battle. It doesn't work that way....particularly not for a nation once so blessed and so used by God. We would depend on a prince....and not the Prince of Peace. We would depend on a king....and not the King of Kings. We would not humble ourselves...we would make others humble themselves. We would not repent....we would make others repent for what they tried to do to us.
One last thing.....before the sons of Israel were led to seek out Jephthah....they humbled themselves before the LORD....big time....which is what we need to do in America....and what our pulpits must tell us....every week! That repentance was described here in Judges 10:15,16....(please heed this....for the message is profoundly humbling....and it speaks to us as if our names were written somewhere within)...."And the sons of Israel said to the LORD, 'We have sinned, do to us whatever seems good to thee; only please deliver us this day.' So they put away the foreign gods from among them, and served the LORD; and He could bear the misery of Israel no longer."
