A Deliverer Unlike Any Other - Judges 3:7-11

Sermon Series: In Need of a Greater Rescue

Let me share with you something I am pretty disappointed about. Just a few days ago a movie began to show in theatres around our country. It’s an action movie that (from the trailers) appears to be filled with pretty intense action. Seeing trailers for movies that are filled with action usually gets me pretty excited because I really enjoy those types of movies. But rather than getting excited when I saw these particular trailers I had a very different response – one of disappointment. The name of the movie is The Bourne Legacy and it’s supposed to be the fourth in a series of Bourne movies. But there is, in my opinion, a HUGE problem with this particular Bourne movie – the main character, Jason Bourne, isn’t in it! When I saw the first movie in this particular series, The Bourne Identity, I was hooked. Not only was it action packed, but the main character, Jason Bourne, was awesome. He was unbelievably intelligent and able to adapt to any environment he found himself in; he could whip anybody who stood in his way; and he could drive a car like nobody’s business. So I absolutely loved the first movie. That being the case I was even more excited when I discovered a few years later that they were releasing a sequel, The Bourne Supremacy. Now I was going to get twice as much Jason Bourne. This meant there was going to be more to the plot, there was going to be more awesome fighting, and there was going to be more spectacular car driving. I couldn’t wait – and the movie absolutely lived up to my expectations. Well you can probably imagine how excited I got a few years later when a trailer for a third Bourne movie began to pop-up, The Bourne Ultimatum. I couldn’t believe there could be more to the story, but there was. And the third movie in this series was perhaps the best one of them all.

The third movie had a great ending that left the viewer wondering if there would eventually be a fourth movie. Jason Bourne escaped a deadly situation by jumping from a rooftop into the Manhattan River. And for what seems like an eternity the screen shows the silhouette of Jason’s body motionless and sinking towards the bottom. The viewer is left wondering if Jason has escaped the certain death on the rooftop only to die upon impact in the river. But just before flashing to the credits the viewers see Jason’s body begin to move and then we see him swim away. He is alive and Jason Bourne alive means more potential for action in the future. So when I heard that another Bourne movie was being released I thought to myself, “Can this really be? Can they make another whole movie centered around Jason Bourne’s character?” And I guess the answer is ‘No,’ because this movie, while titled, The Bourne Legacy, is about an entirely different guy! How can you do that?!? Why would you do that?!? What’s the point?!? There’s nothing stopping Hollywood executives from making new and different action films. In fact they should probably continue to make them because they make a lot of money. So I’m all for making new action films with new characters and giving them new titles. But what gives?!? Why in the world would you make an action movie about someone other than Jason Bourne, still give it a Bourne title, and try to include it with the other Bourne movies? It doesn’t make sense to me. And in my mind, no matter how good the movie may be or how awesome this new action character may be, he just won’t ever be Jason Bourne. In my mind there is no one else in that category of awesomeness. Jason Bourne stands out from all the others.

I understand that differentiating between action heroes may (for some) make for interesting debate or conversation. But I also recognize that discerning who the greatest fictional action hero is is pretty pointless. The characters aren’t real and the situations in which they performed in heroic fashion weren’t real. So there really is no point in spending time noting distinctions and making comparisons between fictional characters.

But there are times when distinctions serve an important function. In the book of Judges the author is going to give his readers accounts of seven different, historical judges whom God raised up to deliver the Israelites out from under the oppression of pagan kings and nations. And as the author of Judges gives accounts of each he draws out certain distinctions in each for the sake of the readers. These distinctions serve a purpose for the author and what He is trying to communicate to His readers. So as we work our way through the accounts of these judges over the next several weeks we will want to pay attention to the distinctions that the author makes and ask the Holy Spirit to help us discern why the author of the text made those specific distinctions. This week in particular we are going to turn our attention to the first judge appointed by God in the book of Judges, see what distinctions the author makes in his account, and do our best to discern why those distinctions are significant.

Before we jump into our text this week let’s first step back and remember what we saw transpiring through the first two chapters of the book of Judges. Judges began with a profound question to God from the Israelites, “Who shall go up first for us . . . ?” We said that this was a profound question because it demonstrated the Israelites’ amazing understanding of God’s plan and ways. From the very beginning of history God had set forth a plan to rescue and deliver humanity through an individual. It began in Genesis 3:15, when God promised Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Immediately after the fall (when humanity sinned against God) God set into motion a plan to deliver and rescue humanity from sin and Satan through an individual. And as history began to work itself out we saw God begin to foreshadow this great Deliverer.  God used Noah to deliver and rescue his family and humanity from HIs punishment for sin – the flood. Later God would ask a man named Abraham to take his only son, to lay the wood for a sacrifice upon his back, and to lead him up a mountain where God commanded Abraham to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice that would atone for sin. We know that the angel of the Lord intercedes and stops Abraham before he does kill Isaac, but the picture again is of a father offering a son as a means of deliverance and rescue from sin. A few generations after Abraham we see God work through a man named Joseph who delivered his family, an entire Egyptian empire, and several of the surrounding areas from a disastrous famine. Later the book of Exodus recounts the story of an individual by the name of Moses who delivered the Israelite people out from the bondage and captivity they were experiencing under the mighty hand of Pharaoh. And after Moses God raised up Joshua to go before the Israelite people and to give them possession of the Promised Land. So with Joshua’s death and a clear understanding that God’s plan was to work through an individual the Israelites began to look to God to raise up a new deliverer.

As chapter 1 continued we saw that God was still present with the Israelites and still fighting on their behalf (something that we saw Him doing throughout the entire book of Joshua). But what we saw begin to transpire in the first half of Judges which was unlike the Israelites’ exceptional obedience through the book of Joshua was that the Israelites started to make small compromises in regards to their obedience to the covenant which they had entered into with God. And as the first chapter of Judges concluded we saw that those small compromises that they thought were insignificant had become a pattern for the different tribes of Israel and that they were failing to completely drive out the inhabitants of the land and to destroy their idols and places of worship.

While chapter 1 gave the readers insight into ‘what’ was transpiring, chapter 2 gave the readers insight into ‘why’ those things were transpiring. The key verses in that chapter were verses 11-12, “And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger.” The generations of Israelites who lived after Joshua had turned their backs on God and the nation that was once characterized by exceptional worship and service to God had chosen to worship and serve other gods. As a result God told the Israelites that He would no longer go before them to drive out the nations and that He was going to leave the nations in the Promised Land as a means of testing the Israelites. God wasn’t going to allow a disobedient and idolatrous generation to reap the benefits of Joshua’s (and his generations’) great obedience. God would leave the nations and their gods in the Promise Land to see who the Israelites would choose and who they would direct their worship towards.

Our text begins this week with a negative assessment of the Israelites’ decision making from the author of the book of Judges. In verse 7 he says, “And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth.” Last week we discovered that this was the problem that was devastating the Israelites. In Joshua’s time (while he was leading the Israelites to be exceptional followers of God) the Israelites had followed Joshua’s example closely and had had lived in faithful obedience to Yahweh. But as that generation passed away the author of Judges explained that the generations which followed became more and more corrupt (see 2:19) and that idolatry became the sin which defined those generations. Joshua and the generation of Israelites that he led had both loved God and served Him well, while the generations that followed them were choosing to abandon God and serve the false gods of the people who were already inhabiting the land. From the readers perspective it is clear that this idolatry is both a breaking of the covenant which the Israelites had entered into with Yahweh and a breaking of the commandments which God had given to His people through Moses in the wilderness. But as we also noted last week, outside of 2:4-5 there doesn’t seem to be any genuine or sincere repentance on the part of those who are committing this idolatry. So God warned the Israelites that their disobedience and sin would have consequences – He was going to take His hand off of their opponents and refrain from driving their opponents out of the land which God had promised to them. As a result, the Israelites began to experience great distress because of their sin (see 2:15) but they never showed any remorse or repentance for their sin. So this negative assessment of the people probably shouldn’t catch any of us by surprise.

In verse 8 God continues to remain faithful to the conditions of the covenant that He entered into with Israel. So the first part of verse 8 doesn’t come as a surprise, “Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel . . .” The Israelites were robbing God of the worship that He was due and they were directing it to made up, imaginary gods. There’s really no surprise here that this would anger the only One worthy of worship. What does come as a surprise in this account of Israel’s first judge is whose hand God sells the Israelites into. The rest of verse 8 says, “. . . and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia.” While very little is declared about this particular king in this passage, in the rest of Scripture, or in other ancient writings or artifacts, the insight that the text does give us is surprising because it reveals that this king and his kingdom originated outside of the Promise Land. Cushan-rishathaim is identified as the “king of Mesopotamia” - or more literally “king of Aram Naharaim,” which is translated in English as “king of Aram of the two rivers.” This detailed title reveals to the readers that this Cushan-rishathaim was the king of a massive kingdom that extended from the area northeast of the Sea of Galilee all the way east of the Euphrates River (in modern day Iraq, approximately 720 miles away from the Promise Land) and that it was specifically the area east of the Euphrates River where he made his home. His title reveals to us that he isn’t the king of some very small nation or people group residing within the Promise Land – he was the king of a very large empire and was without a doubt the most powerful and greatest of enemies that Israel faced in the book of Judges. As the book of Judges (the “book of deliverers”) gets out of the introduction and into the recounting of the different deliverers which God raised up on Israel’s behalf, we would expect to discover that the first oppressor God gave Israel into the hands of would be one of the inhabitants of the Promise Land. Instead we discover that God gave Israel into the hands of a far greater and far more powerful king than we would have anticipated or expected.

Sometimes we fail to realize the gravity of our sin and fail to realize the consequences which result. We are often guilty of thinking too lightly of our sin. And if our sin isn’t that big of a deal then we find ourselves believing that God wouldn’t really allow us to be held captive by someone or something that has incredible power and might – we think that He’s more likely to allow us to be held captive for a time or a season by someone or something that has just a little power or might (if He even allows us to be held captive at all). But God’s response to our sin is consistent with what we find in verses 7-8, when we rob God of the worship that He alone is worthy of and direct it towards other things then God gives us into the hands of an incredibly powerful being who rules over an incredibly massive kingdom. His name is Satan and he is the most powerful of all enemies and the ruler of a kingdom that is far bigger and far greater than most of us imagine.

The Israelites, having been suppressed by Cushan-rishathaim for eight years and realizing both the extent of his power and the extent of their hopelessness, cry out to God in verse 9. “But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord . . .” Be sure to note that in no way does this cry communicate any degree of remorse or repentance. This cry is nothing more than a cry of pain and distress, and a cry for help. Having been subjected to this king for a number of years the Israelites had realized that on their own there was no way to escape from this king’s grasp. They needed someone to deliver them. And if he was going to be successful in delivering them he was going to have to be an extraordinary deliverer! Then the rest of verse 9 says, “the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel, who saved them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.” In a great act of compassion and mercy – even when no repentance was demonstrated at all – God raised up an individual to save the Israelite people. This isn’t the first time we have been introduced to Othniel in the book of Judges - we first met him in 1:11-15. In those verses we discovered an interruption to the flow of the text and the insertion of a short narrative. The story told us that Caleb (the father in the story) offered Achsah (the daughter in the story) as a bride to the one who could overpower his enemies for him. And in the story Othniel is the one who accepts the challenge and who defeats the father’s enemies and who receives the daughter as his bride. Now we continue to look at the text for this week and discover that not only is Othniel the one who defeats the father’s enemies and receives the daughter as a bride, he also becomes the one whom God, Himself raises up and whom God, Himself empowers, “The Spirit of the Lord was upon him . . .” (vs. 10). So having been raised up and empowered by God, “he judged (or delivered) Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord gave Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand. And his hand prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim.” The author of the book of Judges tells us that God raised up and empowered the one which He had appointed to save Israel and that one (Othniel) goes out to battle this incredibly powerful king and kingdom and prevails over him.

With no details about the war (e.g. where it was fought, how it was fought, or what strategies were used) and no insights into how exactly Othniel prevails, the author of Judges establishes Othniel not only as the first judge of Israel, but also as the greatest of the judges of Israel. In this account not only does Othniel prevail over the greatest and most powerful of Israel’s enemies named in this book, he also does so without displaying any unrighteousness or questionable character traits. He is raised up by God, empowered by God, and in obedience to God carries out His calling with no demonstrations of unrighteousness, and delivers and rescues the Israelites out of the hands of (in the book of Judges) their greatest and most powerful enemy.

When we read this account of Othniel we cannot help but see a foreshadowing of the Deliverer whom God promised after humanity’s fall. The promised Deliverer would be one raised up by God, empowered by God, and who would (in obedience to God) carry out His calling in perfect righteousness and holiness to defeat the greatest and most powerful enemy and deliver and rescue God’s people! Othniel is a foreshadowing of Jesus! Jesus was the One who was and is the promised Deliverer. And we stand in desperate need of Him because Satan is the greatest and most powerful enemy that we will ever know. Because of our disobedience and sin we have become enslaved to sin and Satan and we are unable to break loose from his power and dominion over us. Every person who has ever lived has been held under his power, hopeless to do anything to escape. But Jesus was raised up by God for this purpose. Jesus was empowered by God for this purpose. And in complete righteousness and obedience Jesus came to us to do battle with Satan so that He might completely and utterly destroy him and rescue us from his power and grip. That’s what the cross was all about! And if Jesus’ perfect life, extraordinary miracles, and substitutionary death on our behalf weren’t enough to cause Him to stand out from every other professed deliverer, Jesus did one more thing to set Himself apart – He rose from the grave! Every other individual who has professed to be a deliverer or who we admirer as a rescuer has never had the power or might to overcome the grave. They have all been overpowered by death. But not even death could overpower Jesus. He is alive and well today, seated on the throne in heaven where He is ruling and reigning over all things. He is the Deliverer who is unlike any other and He will deliver you from your captivity to sin and Satan if you will acknowledge and confess your sin to Him, ask Him to forgive you, and then turn and follow Him with all of your life. You can’t earn His forgiveness or work for your freedom – our works don’t work! The amazing news of the gospel is that Jesus has already done it all and offers forgiveness and deliverance freely to us.

Connection Point Questions for Discussion:

1. In the narrative account of Othniel we saw two important distinctions that caused Othniel to stand out as the greatest of all the judges in this OT book: (1) he overcame the greatest and most powerful of enemies to oppose the Israelites (in the book of Judges) and (2) he carried out God's call to deliver His people without any signs of unrighteousness or questionable character traits.  What are some of the character traits or qualities that Jesus possesses which cause Him to stand out as the greatest Deliverer and why are the distinctiveness of those character traits and qualities so important?

2. Judges 3:10-11 say, "And his [Othniel's] hand prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim.  So the land had rest forty years.  Then Othniel the son of Kenaz died."  During the time that Othniel served as judge God worked through him to deliver the Israelites from Cushan-rishathaim's grasp so that Cushan-rishathaim no longer had power over the Israelites.  What, if anything, are we completely delivered and rescued from when we come to faith in Jesus as our personal Savior and Lord?  Is there anything that we must still be delivered from on a day to day basis and if so, what is it?  How can/does Jesus/Holy Spirit work as our deliverer and rescuer in those situations?

3. The narrative account of Othniel ends, "Then Othniel . . . died."  This is a clear pattern that is established throughout the OT book of Judges.  God raises up a human to deliver His people, but the deliverance never lasts long past the deliverer's own death.  How is this different in regards to Jesus?  What, if any, hope and encouragement should this give to us?