Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Where Do You Find Confidence? | Judges | Judges 5

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're going through the Book of Judges. If you haven't subscribed to our new podcast, Truth Over Tribe, I'd encourage you to take some time and go do that right now. We've got interviews about culture, politics, and the things you really care about with people like John Mark Comer, John Tyson, Oz Guinness, and many, many others. It's going to be a great podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:33 I've been excited about the interviews and the topics that we've taken on. So stop right now. Go subscribe to Truth Over Tribe on your podcast player. Probably not a question I get very often, but last winter, my friend asked me if I'd listen to Justin Bieber's new album. She told me to listen to his new song titled Holy and let her know what I thought. She said it was catchy and interesting. Well, I had to listen about three times to make sure I had the right words,

Starting point is 00:00:59 because in this song, Bieber switches back and forth between the title lyrics, holy, holy, and hold me, hold me, which obviously sound much the same yet mean very different things. And after about three times, I did have the words and the song and the beat stuck in my head. Run into the altar like a track star and the father and the water and Joe Pesci, Parley, and Desi, will they make for a pretty solid combo of lyrics that might get stuck in your head too? So kudos to Bieber, because Googling the YouTube video of that song led us to five tickets to see him in concert. I'm 100% confident we're going to have an amazing time at his concert. And I doubt it was his intention, but I'm also 100% confident that I shouldn't leave my

Starting point is 00:01:43 understanding of theology in the hands of his holy holy song. We can all do this, though. We can all let the lyrics get stuck in our head of us or us plus God. We're tempted to look for God through the lens of us and let the lyrics of our experience define who he is. The Bible, though, teaches us something completely different. The Bible defines all human existence by the sovereign creator of the universe, and it trains us to see our own lives and experiences through the lens of who he is and what he's doing.

Starting point is 00:02:19 We want to find ourselves in everything, but the Bible doesn't let us do that. It calls us to a higher vision of seeing God in everything. When I hear people talk about setting the book of judges, most people say it's a church. challenging book to work through, because the people get worse and worse and the situations they're in get darker and darker. And just a note, I share these thoughts, too, although digging in is changing my mind a bit. Chapter 5 is a little nugget that stands out from the rest of the book. All the other chapters are written in the narrative style and outline the cycle of human rebellion and divine intervention. But chapter 5 is poetic and reflective. It retells the

Starting point is 00:03:00 events of chapter four through the lens of divine perspective, finding and celebrating God in every detail of the heart preparation, the battle preparation, the natural events, and the military success. Chapter 5.1 begins, on that day, Deborah and Barack, son of Abbenoam, sang this song. They didn't waste any time to give all the praise and all the glory to the Lord. And Deborah sings, when the princess and Israel take the lead, when the people willingly offer themselves, praise the Lord. While they were under captivity to Canaan, the Israelite soldiers had lost steam and they'd lost heart.

Starting point is 00:03:40 Their army wasn't mentally or physically prepared for a battle of this magnitude. They lacked weapons and equipment for war, either because they didn't have the strength to care about it anymore or because their oppressors had confiscated everything they had. On the other hand, the Canaanites had large armies. they'd been recruited by force and law, and the Canaanites had chariots, and the Canaanites were riding through the villages on expensive horses with saddle blankets, and they were flaunting their status and their wealth.

Starting point is 00:04:10 Before God intervened, everything looked like it was in favor of Jabin, king of Canaan, who was oppressing Israel. From a human perspective, it appeared that the power and the wealthy had the upper hand. If they were riding around on horses and flaunting everything they'd, had. While your people were tucked away in hiding, you would assume the power and the upper hand belonged to them too. But Deborah's song describes how God took a weary, oppressed nation that had rebelled against God and lost heart and turned their situation upside down. Deborah sings, Villagers in Israel would not fight. They held back until I Deborah arose,

Starting point is 00:04:52 until I arose a mother in Israel. God chose new leaders when war came to the city gates, but not a shield or spear was seen among 40,000 in Israel. My heart is with Israel's princes, with the willing volunteers among the people. Praise the Lord. Is she tuning her own horn? It doesn't sound like it. She's finding God in every detail, even in making her ready, equipped, and willing to go to battle. She's praising the Lord for equipping her, for providing new leaders, for making people willing to fight the enemy.

Starting point is 00:05:27 Her confidence isn't downplayed, but it's rooted in the goodness of the Lord. A woman named Nancy Wake was also a war hero, a World War II war hero. In April of 1944, acting as a spy and a special ops executive, she was one of 39 women and 430 men parachuted into France to help with the allied preparations for D-Day. On the ground in France, she collected night drops of weapons and ammunition, and she set up wireless communications. She escorted an estimated 7,000 Jewish refugees and downed pilots and resistant fighters into safety. The Nazis called her the white mouse because she drove them crazy and they couldn't catch her.

Starting point is 00:06:14 When she reflected back, she had something interesting to say about the whole thing. See, one of our daughters picked out a book when she was really little called Bedtime Stories for Rebel Girls. And the book also tells the story of Nancy Wake and her bravery, but it has a quote from her saying, They didn't parachute me into France to fry eggs and bacon. I love it, not because I love eggs and bacon or people that fry it or people that don't. I love it because it shows her confidence to do what she was equipped to do. In her song, in Judges 5, Deborah is neither arrogant or self-depregating because she was confident in the Lord. Her song retells the way God involved his people and his creation to rescue his people.

Starting point is 00:06:59 God could do it however he pleases, but he chooses to involve us. And rather than let that get to our heads, it should go to our hearts and cause us to be more humble before him and more confident in him. We can get so caught up in our cultural narratives and the lyrics playing in our head that we miss our opportunity to glorify God. God is sovereign. God is limitless. God is creator. God chooses to use us and work through us. In Deborah's song, she recounts the events with true and accurate detail.

Starting point is 00:07:34 She gives ownership to the soldiers to herself, to Barack and to Jail, and all the glory goes to the Lord. This is a really good measuring stick for where and when and how we should be confident. Does it glorify me or my family? does it glorify a cause? Does it glorify a political party, an idea? Or does it glorify God? When Paul is writing to the Corinthians, he's calling them to place their value, not in the land or the homes they have or don't have, but in their status before the Lord. And he writes in 1st Corinthians 126, Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the

Starting point is 00:08:23 world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. And verse 30. It is because of Him that you were in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let the one who boasts, boasts in the Lord. Our confidence ultimately comes through Jesus Christ, who gave every part of himself so we could be righteous, holy, and redeemed. Are there places where you look back and see that you've taken a risk in obeying God's word, and he equipped you and provided for you? Or when he provided for someone else through your efforts, are there ways you should also be doing that now? We should be living our lives both relevantly,

Starting point is 00:09:12 and theologically. We take on challenges and look for opportunities to use the gifts and skills God has given us, but we do it knowing our lives belong to God. We do it to bring glory to His name and to be light in His kingdom. Framing our lives from a divine perspective keeps us from being arrogant and self-sufficient, and also keeps us from despairing in our weaknesses and outcomes. A daily active approach of praising the Lord, for all he has done stands out in a world that is dark from the worship of so many lesser things. Let's be people who focus less on the story of us and more on the story of him. He will be faithful to include us in his adventure. Thanks for listening.

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Where Do You Find Confidence? | Judges | Judges 5

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