What Sin Deserves

Ben Miller

Rebellion and Rescue • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Big Idea: Hold an accurate view of sin and what it deserves so that you can come to know the Lord’s mercy.

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If you regularly find yourself talking to people who do not follow Jesus, you likely have heard some version of this question about the God of the Bible, “Why does the God of the OT seem to be so angry? How could that possibly be a God of love and grace?”

Or it may come in a slightly different form, “How can a good or loving God tell his people to commit such horrific and violent acts as we see in the Bible?”

Maybe you’ve even asked questions like this before… or still ask them now sometimes...

And these questions are legitimate. They are things that people really struggle with as they seek to understand the God of the Bible.

And those of us here today NEED to be able to answer them…

I wonder... how would you answer the question, “Why is God so angry in the Old Testament?”

How would you answer if someone asked you, “How can you serve a God who kills innocent people? Or who seems to get violently angry?”

Too often, the answers that we give can be kind of weak.

I Googled one of those questions this week as I studied, and the response from a so-called pastor was to basically say that because the Bible was written by human authors, they were just justifying their sin by saying God told them to do it.

That is NOT the way we answer questions about the Bible… it basically all that the Bible claims to be.

This is the inspired word of God… the self-revelation of God to us.

Others will say, “Well, the Canaanites were just SO evil that God decided to wipe them out. They were the “REALLY BAD” people and that’s why they deserved it.”

This is getting a little closer, but still MASSIVELY MISSES the mark of what the Bible teaches.

Still others will say, “God can do what he wants! Who are you to question God!”

Still, even closer, but not exactly accurate… the Bible is clear that God CANNOT sin… and so if these acts are unjust or unrighteous according to his own standards, then how why SHOULD we trust this God?

So do you have how YOU would answer yet?

I believe Judges 3 will help us understand this complex topic better today.

We are in our sermon series called, “Rebellion and Rescue.”

We are learning to break the cycles of rebellious sin by seeking God’s merciful rescue.

That’s our vision for this series.

But we will never break the cycles of sin if we don’t understand what sin deserves.

We will never seek God’s MERCY if we don’t understand the nature of our sin.

What we see in Judges is yes, a God who gets angry at sin and it’s destructive effects… he punishes people for their sin in very severe ways… but ultimately he is INCREDIBLY MERCIFUL… because of what sin really deserves.

You see, if we are going to answer the question, “Why is God so angry in the Old Testament?” (which could also be asked about the New Testament as well), we have to understand what sin deserves.

And if we are going to explain “How can you serve a God who kills innocent people,” we need to understand that there is no such thing as an innocent person...

And the better question is, “How can God NOT annihilate ALL of mankind when he is so holy and righteous and loving and good???”

THAT question… and the heart posture it reveals... is the very gateway to understanding the gospel.

You can never understand the gospel of Jesus Christ if you don’t understand what sin deserves.

So here’s our big idea for today:

Big Idea: Hold an accurate view of sin and what it deserves so that you can come to know the Lord’s mercy.

Your Bibles are open to Judges 3… last week we studied the preceding verses that laid out...

The Generational Pattern: [show diagram]

There was a generation of Israel… Joshua’s generation… who fought the battle and lived with conviction.

God told them to conquer the land and devote its inhabitants to destruction… and they took that as far as they could in their generation.

There was a second generation who observed the battle, but lived compromise.

They allowed the nations and their idolatry to remain…

This generation still served YHWH… they knew better than to worship idols…

But they still didn’t obey God’s command to the end.

That led to the third generation who abandoned the battle and lived corruption.

They gave themselves to the idols of the peoples.

They wedded themselves to the nations around them, instead of being God’s distinct people.

And the rest of the book of Judges is about the ever-increasing cycles of rebellion and corruption in the generations that follow.

In chapter 2, the author ALSO laid out for us...

The Rebellion and Rescue Cycle that we see in each generation in Judges. [show diagram]

Israel rebelled. The Lord gave them into the hand of their oppressors… he gave them the consequences of their sin.

They would groan and cry out to the Lord… usually that was just worldly regret over having to experience oppression...

But the Lord still would have pity… he would show mercy… by raising up a deliverer.

His mercy was based on the fact that he was merciful, not on the quality of their repentance.

And the deliverer would come… and bring a season of peace… but that season of peace was also a season of testing:

Would Israel turn their hearts to the Lord???

Would they learn the warfare God had called them to… driving out the nations as he had said through Moses???

And we will discover that they got a Failing grade on that test... again and again they would rebel… and the cycle would start over, worse than the time before.

And we said last week that everyone here can find themselves SOMEWHERE on this cycle...

And if we are going to break this cycle, it’s going to happen at two locations on this traffic circle:

Exit Ramp 1 is at the bottom of the cycle: we need to choose repentance over regret.

We need to care more about how our sin is an offense against a holy God than how the consequences are an offense against our self-perceived rights.

Exit Ramp 2 comes at the top of the cycle: we must remember that the times of peace are the times to fight sin to the death…

because our sin nature remains as long as we are in these bodies…

and God has a call on our lives…

And it’s not just about the sin we put off… but also the new identity in Christ we put on.

So that’s where we pick up in v. 6...

The introduction is over… and today we are going to read about the first three Judges… and the first three cycles.

The story of Othniel comes first… it’s a compact description of this cycle playing out in one generation.

Read with me in 3:6-11.

Do you see the cycle? Rebellion leads to consequence… that results in Regret and crying out which leads to Mercy… God raises up a rescuer who brings a season of peace.

So here’s what we learn from this first cycle:

1) Sin is evil, deserving wrath... yet the Lord raised up a deliverer. (v. 7-11)

Explain:Look at v. 7 again - The people did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. This is a phrase we see over and over again in the book.

They did what was RIGHT in their own eyes… but what was EVIL in the sight of the Lord.

That is the essential nature of sin.

Sin is evil.

The Hebrew word for Evil is translated based on the context throughout the Bible as “Evil… bad… harmful… wicked… trouble… grievous… disaster… wild (as opposed to tamed)… ugly…

Never pretty, right?

The people did what was EVIL in the sight of the Lord.

But they were just doing what THEY thought was right in their own eyes.

That’s the problem of sin… it is deceitful… our sin nature lures us to call evil “good”… and good “evil.”

Right is wrong and wrong is right.

Cycles of sin dizzy us like a merry-go-round until up is down and down is up. [PAUSE]

Even the way we use the word evil reveals our misunderstanding of sin.

We reserve the word EVIL for things we think are “really bad.”

That’s some list that we have running in our heads that rates sin from 100 to 1 with “acceptable sins” at the bottom of the list and “REALLY evil sins” at the top.

Depending on who you are, you put certain sins closer to the the top… most of us would have murder and abuse at the top of the list...

Some of us would have adultery-type sins pretty high up there.

Somewhere in the middle would be so-called private sins like pornography.

Toward the end would be… I don’t know... explosions of anger.... telling little lies… everyone’s list looks a little different in the way they classify sins.

But every single one of our classification systems is faulty.

Our lists prove that we have a moral compass, but it doesn’t point true north.

You’ve heard of this idea of a moral compass… a sense of morality that points us in the right direction, right?

If we had a moral compass that pointed true north, it would reveal that ALL sin is EVIL… it is harmful… disastrous… wicked… troublesome… grievous...

Even the slightest degree of variation will lead us in the wrong direction, thinking we are fine with God, because WIDE is the way to destruction and NARROW is the way that leads to eternal life.

But our moral compasses fall short of the perfection… the holiness… the glory… of God… because they do not view ALL sin as EVIL… as harmful… as destructive.

Sin is evil because it is rooted in the idolatry of our hearts.

Here in verse 7, the activity of sin that the Israelites fell into was serving the Baals and the Asheroth.

These were gods made up in the imaginations of the Canaanite people.

I mentioned last week that Baal was the storm God. He made it rain or not rain on your crops. He made sure your land produced, and also that you could have children in abundance.

And Baal did that by having relations with the Asheroth… a group of female goddesses...

And the Canaanites (and therefore the Israelites) encouraged him to do this by having relations with the Temple priestesses.

Now if that makes you feel uncomfortable… good. It should. It should leave a sour taste in your mouth… a pit in your stomach that this was considered the worship of a god.

It is evil. Sick. It distorts the beauty of God and lessens him to our own base, unrestrained desires.

Now, as you experience that sour taste… as you feel that sickness… realize that your sin is just as evil.

Our sin is rooted in a heart of idolatry. When we sin, we are serving a god of our own imagination… a god that we have created.

You might not think that’s true, but let me show you how this works.

The New City Catechism gives this definition for an idol: Idolatry is trusting in created things rather than the Creator for our hope and happiness, significance and security.

Earlier in the service we thought through and confessed our sin in relationship to four types of idols:

Material Idols

In Baal worship, there is a physical idol. And a physical act.

Today, this could be a physical graven image… more common in Solanco would be the idolatry of homes, cars, tractors, trucks, money (and the job that gives it to you), a certain body type:

Anything physical or material that you would think or behave like, “I HAVE to have that thing or else I can’t have hope.”

This may be something that you have in abundance… or it may be something you totally lack and think you absolutely must have in order to be WHOLE.

If your hope and happiness rises and falls on any material or physical thing… if your significance and security is defined by it… you are bowing down to an idol.

And that is EVIL.

Maybe material things aren’t it for you… maybe you are more tempted to bow down to other people...

People Idols

In Baal worship, there was a dependence upon the Priests and priestesses and their knowledge of how to please Baal.

Today, this could be a family member… a fellow church member or leader… or even a friend who has excessive control over you.

Your hope and happiness are wrapped up in the quality of that relationship...

Your sense of significance and security rise and fall on what they think of you.

That’s evil. It’s harmful. It’s destructive to your soul. It’s sin.

Just so you know that I’m not talking AT YOU today, this is the idol that I find trying to creep back up on the altar again and again… and I have to destroy it often.

Maybe for you, it’s not other people… maybe it’s yourself.

Self-Focus

The very idea of Baal worship found it’s root in selfish desire. It was an excuse for pursuing your own pleasure in the name of worship. It was all about getting what you wanted from God.

This could show up in so many ways… Pride, pleasure-seeking, going off and doing whatever you feel like doing, not even thinking about what God wants for you...

Excessive focus on what makes your flesh feel temporarily happy: sports, hobbies, etc.

This Self-Focus could also look like self-loathing, or self-doubt or perfectionism that constantly looks inward.

Here’s how you know you serve the idol of Self: It’s when your hope and your happiness are found by looking inward.

Your significance and your security are dependent on your own expectations and desires and comforts being met.

Now if all these other types of idols don’t resonate with you (and I’d be very surprised if you were being honest at that point), maybe this one will...

Thinking too little of God. (Imaginary Gods)

Baal was and imaginary god... the exact opposite of God. He was weak, dependent and impure.

In his book, Knowing God, JI Packer talks about the idolatry of our imaginations about God. He writes, “Imagining God in our heads can be just as real a breach of the second commandment [which commands us not to make graven images] as imagining him by the work of our hands.”

We lessen God by imagining him to be ONLY LIKE one thing that we see on earth, while denying other parts of his essential nature.

Any time we say something like, “I like to think of God like ________,” in some effort to escape some other part of his character, we are guilty of idolatry.

Maybe you think of God as only loving (in a cuddly sense)… or only angry (in an abusive sense)… if we ever diminish God to one part of his attributes, we think too little of him.

Our understanding of God must come from his word, not some pop-culture concept of who he is.

The cultural concept of God is idolatry. It is evil.

Our sin, which is rooted in idolatry, is evil. So then what does it deserve? Well it’s clear in verse 8 that sin deserves wrath…

The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.

We had our first fire in our backyard pit this past week.

I had a stain rag that I had been drying out in a metal bin in the sun so that I could safely dispose of it...

So I decided to use this as kindling…

We lit the match, it caught… carefully at first… and then it went up quickly… burned hot… and consumed everything that got near the flame.

Think of that when you read: The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.

Their evil sin was the match that set the anger of God ablaze.

So how did God express his wrath in this circumstance? He sold them into slavery.

He gave them over to another idolatrous people.

It’s like God is saying, “Do you want to find your hope and happiness, significance and security in Baal? OK, I will show you how much he can protect you. I will show you how much hope your idolatry produces… ABSOLUTELY NONE!”

It’s interesting, he sold them into the hand of the King of Mesopotamia… Mesopotamia means “Double rivers”...

And the name of the King is Cushan-Rishathaim… which is probably a derogatory term that the Israelite’s gave him… it means Cushan, Double- Evil.

So instead of the King of Double Rivers, the Israelite’s called him Double Evil.

In him, they could see more clearly how Evil sin was.

God sold them into the hand of Double Evil… He gave them over to a clear expression of Evil… in order to show them what their sin deserves… in order to show them the true nature of their idolatry...

But here the cycle is on display again… When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer.

We don’t know their heart in this… for that generation, was it regret or repentance? We don’t know.

But what we DO know is that they sent their desperate plea to the right mailing address.

The Lord raised up a deliverer… who saved them… Othniel.

The first judge mentioned.

We actually read about him in chapter 1… he was the nephew of the great Caleb, Israel’s faithful spy and warrior…

He had secured some land for Caleb… he was faithful in the Conquest of the Promised Land and won Caleb’s daughter’s hand in marriage.

And now the Spirit of the Lord was upon him to judge… or DELIVER Israel.

Notice the operative force in this deliverance: The Spirit of the Lord.

Othniel is probably the most upright of all the judges, but he is not the hero, he is the tool.

The Spirit of the Lord was upon him to defeat “Cushan-Double-Evil.”

The Lord was not just delivering them from some uncomfortable circumstances… he was delivering them from Evil… from Sin… against which his wrath burns.

This is total mercy.

How MERCIFUL of God to awaken them to the reality of their sin instead of destroying them immediately in his wrath...

How MERCIFUL of God to rescue them from the King of Double-Evil when they cried out to him.

And the result is rest n the land.

Peaceful quiet. Undisturbed by the attacks of the enemy.

The opportunity for fully enjoying the Lord’s blessing… his salvation.

I could make some incredible gospel connections here… but you will have to wait… for now, just hold in your head the absolute EVIL of Israel's sin… next to the absolute MERCY of God’s rescue.

But before I make the jump to the gospel, I want us to be convinced of what sin deserves… and the author of Judges wants to take us next to another oppressor… and another judge… Eglon and Ehud.

Read v. 12-30.

The next generation comes… Israel decides to take another spin on the cycle of Rebellion and Rescue… the details of their rebellion are scarce… but their consequence and rescue is more defined.

This time, the consequence of their sin is a guy named Eglon.

He is the King of Moab… and he is the ultimate “bad guy.”

The word that comes to mind is not just EVIL… but switch the letters around a little bit and you get the word “Vile.”

2) Sin is arrogantly vile, deserving gory death.... and the Lord raised up a deliverer (v. 12-30)

Explain: The picture of sin we get here is the picture of Eglon.

HE (and the coalition forces of Moab, Ammon and Amalek) are the consequence that Israel’s sin deserves.

Israel sinned… and God though Eglon would be an appropriate oppressor to awaken them to the nature of their sin.

This en-slaver is vile.

Dictionary.com describes “vile” as “1) wretchedly bad, 2) highly offensive, unpleasant or objectionable, 3) repulsive or disgusting.”

When I think of Eglon, the character that comes to mind is “Jabba the Hut” from Star Wars. [show picture]

Jabba is powerful… he is self-confident… he gets his way by commanding ruthless henchmen to do his bidding. He controls his little corner of the galaxy.

And Jabba’s internal character is expressed outwardly in the Cinema of Star Wars...

He is a slimy slug-like thing… who oozes at the mouth… He is a disgusting eater… he is perverse... he is fat.

That’s the image that comes to mind when I think of Eglon.

And Eglon is the image of sin and what sin deserves.

Now you have to understand, Eglon’s fatness is not a slam on being fat...

Don’t read this through a “Diet Culture” lens…

Eglon’s fatness is a symbol of his power… it’s a status symbol… it’s what the Israelites wanted in their sin, but could not obtain.

Eglon could have whatever his heart desired... and so he took it… and he consumed it for himself. That’s what is represented in his fatness.

Psalm 73 is a good picture of an Israelite’s common response to a guy like Eglon… the Psalmist writes,

“For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.” (Psalm 73:3–9, ESV)

When you read the name Eglon, that’s the description that I want you to think about.

He is the literal personification of the vileness of sin.

And HERE… God gives them over to THAT… as the consequence of their sin.

How could GOD use a guy like Eglon?!?!?!

It was what their sin deserved. He is what they asked for.

Just like Eglon, they were VILE and ARROGANT before God.

They took the 40 years period of rest that God had given them and used it to do what was EVIL in his sight.

They WERE the wicked who set their mouths against the heavens.

How could God NOT use a guy like Eglon to show his people the vile arrogance of their rebellion?

Even more, how could God raise up a deliverer to save his people from the consequence of their sin?

Verse 15 - the people of Israel cried out to the Lord and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud. That is SO MERCIFUL!

Now Ehud is an unlikely deliverer…

He’s from the smallest tribe: Benjamin.

He’s left-handed. I’m left-handed.

Today that doesn’t mean much… left-handed people might even be celebrated as creative...

But to the people reading this, it means Ehud is backwards. He is weak.

And yet, his weakness becomes the source of his victory.

He becomes a spy for Israel… his job is to take Eglon a tribute… a gift to buy his favor… and ultimately this becomes his opportunity to assassinate Eglon.

He fashions a two edged dagger for himself, about a cubit or arm-length long. [pull out wooden dagger]

[This is a wooded dagger that my Father-in-Law made for my kids.. it reminded me of Ehud’s dagger.]

He straps this dagger to his inner right thigh.

Now, because few people were brought up being left-handed… few soldiers would BE left-handed… and therefore Eglon’s men would have patted down his inner left thigh where a dagger would be hidden for right-handed people.

And that means they MISS the dagger on the right. Under a robe, no one is going to see it.

This is the first instance of effective concealed carry in the Bible. ;)

So Ehud presents the tribute, and he sends his people away so they wouldn’t be implicated in his plan.

And he says, “Eglon, I have a secret for you from GOD… but I need to clear the room.”

So his attendants go out for a donut break… and Ehud and Eglon go up to the roof chamber…

Imagine a four-seasons room on the second or third floor of Eglon’s palace.

And Ehud walks over to Eglon to whisper in his ear. “I have a message from God for you.”

And in that moment he pulls the knife from his thigh and plunges it into Eglon’s belly.

And this dagger, a full cubit in length, went in handle and all...

And the dung came out. He must have pierced his intestines and caused quite a smell.

If this story were a movie, it would be rated R for violence and gore and foul humor and irony.

I can hear some Hebrew mom covering her kids ears as they read this around the family dinner table and saying, “Honey, this is not appropriate to listen to.”

Like, why do we need all the disgusting details?

Here’s why: Because Eglon’s fatness is now being exposed for the disgusting nature that it is: vile pride.

It’s no longer something the Israelites WANT… it’s gross. It is smelly. It’s refuse.

And it DESERVES gory death.

THIS was the Lord’s message to Eglon.

YES, the Lord used Eglon to discipline his people… but NO, the Lord would not abstain Eglon from his sinful, proud oppression.

This is the moment in Psalm 73 when the Psalmist discerns the end of vile pride,

“But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.” (Psalm 73:16–22, ESV)

Asaph sees the end of the arrogant and proud… and because he envied them, he sees that he was just. like. them.

HE was brutish and ignorant. HE was like a beast before the Lord.

When we talk about learning to confess our sin and repent as one of our goals for this season of ministry at Oak Hill, Psalm 73 is an EXCELLENT example of what we are talking about.

Because, can I just suggest, too often we want to identify ourselves with Ehud in the story.

We want to be the left-handed hero who drives the dagger into the belly of the villain.

But as God inspired this story, perhaps he wanted Israel… and us... FIRST to identify with Eglon???

EGLON was the consequence for ISRAEL’S sin… HE was what their sin deserved… BECAUSE they were just. like. him.

Brutish and ignorant. Like a beast toward the Lord.

And THEY deserve the gory death. BUT the Lord raises up another deliverer who destroys the vile arrogance and escapes with his life.

Just wait… we’ll get to the gospel connections...

But for now, the servants see Eglon for who he is.

They think he is using the bathroom… it stinks on the other side of the door because there is dung everywhere.

They don’t want to open the door and see his shame… but eventually they are like, “What is TAKING SO LONG???”

And so they go in… and the shame is far worse than they imagined… Eglon is lying dead in his own poop.

Listen… I’m being disgusting because that’s what the text wants us to see… SIN is VILE.

Meanwhile Ehud escapes with his life… he goes OUTSIDE of the boundaries of idols that were set up to protect Eglon…

(This is an image of the fact that Moab’s idols were worthless.)

He gets to safety… and then he sounds the alarm… and Israel wages an all-out attack and the Lord gave Moab into their hands… 10,000 skillful fighting troops.

The Lord, through Ehud, pierced the King of Evil Forces… and then led his people to final victory.

And the land had rest for 80 years.

Again, the gospel connections are SO strong here… but you will have to wait.

Because we have one more judge in this triplet of three stories.

He gets ONE verse in the whole Bible… but God cared enough to inspire that one verse and preserve it for us here today:

Read v. 31.

So far we’ve seen that Sin is Evil, deserving wrath… sin is arrogantly vile, deserving gory death… through Shamgar, we see that...

3) Sin is formidable, deserving full annihilation... and the Lord saved his people. (v. 31)

Explain: The author does some abbreviating with the Shamgar story… we’ve just seen the cycle take two rounds… we can assume it has taken a third.

The Israelites rebelled, and God gave them the consequence of enslavement by the Philistines.

They cried out in some way… and the Lord raised up Shamgar.

Shamgar reminds me of Jackie Chan. [show picture]

Jackie Chan would be fighting all these well-trained fighters… and he’d just pick up whatever was near by and use it like a weapon like he had practiced with it a million times.

Now Jackie Chan usually faced like 12 guys.

Shamgar faced down 600.

And he beat them all using an oxgoad [show picture]

An oxgoad was some sort of long stick… usually about 8 ft long… with a sharp point on the end.

Not a bad weapon if you need to fight 600 guys.

But don’t let that fool you… 600 Philistines are a formidable fighting force.

Formidable, by the way kids, means that they would be REALLY DIFFICULT to fight, especially all by yourself… they would be overwhelming.

Think about being on a battlefield all by yourself… and people are fighting you, one right after another… 600 at a time.

Does your life ever feel like that? Do the attacks of Satan ever come at you like that?

Do you ever want to give up and throw in the oxgoad and say, “This is too much!”

But Shamgar stays in it til the end.

If he doesn’t, he dies. His enemy is formidable. He must wage all out war until they are annihilated!

And so he fights to the death.

And the reason he can do that is because he is not alone.

You see, because of the words, “After him,” we are to associate Shamgar with Ehud… and even Othniel.

Shamgar was a Judge… and the judges did not deliver on their own… the Spirit of the Lord was upon them… the Lord delivered their enemies into their hands.

The power of the judges over the literal forces of Evil is the power of God himself.

Verse 9 - the LORD raised up a deliverer… who saved them.

Verse 10 - the Spirit of the Lord was upon him… the Lord gave Cushan-Double-Evil into his hands.

Verse 15 - The Lord raised up for them a deliverer… Ehud the Son of Gera… the unexpected Lefty Benjaminite...

Verse 28 - The Lord has given your enemies... into your hand...”

Verse 31 - “He also saved Israel.”

The LORD delivers!

Israel is guilty of sin… so were their oppressors…

Whenever the Lord was dealing with the EVIL, the VILENESS, the FORMIDABLE NATURE of sinners, they were getting EXACTLY what they deserved.

The question is NOT, why was God so violent against them… the question is rather, “Why did God DELIVER ANY OF THEM!!!”

And the answer to that question is, “Because he is MERCIFUL.”

Because he is a God who delivers his people.

Because he had a plan of MERCY and LOVE, through the nation of Israel, to raise up another deliverer to SAVE his people from their SINFUL rebellion.

He sent his messenger to a poor virgin woman named Mary… and he said, “The Spirit of the Most High will overshadow you, and the child to be born to you will be called the Son of God.

That woman came from was from an unexpected place… Nazareth… a town of poverty. A town of weakness.

Nothing good comes from Nazareth!

This is God pulling out his left hand to show it is just as mighty as his right.

This small town in the middle of nowhere the place that Jesus made his inaugural speech, reading from the book of Isaiah...

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”” (Luke 4:18–21, ESV)

Almost out of nowhere, God raised up this unexpected deliverer… who healed diseases and proclaimed forgiveness… who cast out demons and proved his authority over the great oppressor of the souls of his people: The Prince of Evil, Satan himself.

And Jesus, like Shamgar and Ehud, faced his foe alone.

He walked into the city of Jerusalem… into the den of the sin of his people... he came in close... but instead of piercing ME through for MY evil idolatry and vile arrogance… in perfection righteousness and humility, he allowed nails to pierce his own hands and feet.

Instead of piercing 600 of the enemy’s soldiers with an oxgoad, he allowed soldiers pierced his side with a spear… and the blood and water flowed.

But in that moment, the Bible says that what looked like his defeat was actually his victory.

Because he was nailing OUR SIN to his cross… and putting the powers and authorities in the heavenly places to OPEN SHAME… like Eglon lying in his own dungheap.

And it was as if he drew Satan close and whispered in his ear, “I have a message from God for you: It is FINISHED!!!”

The WRATH OF GOD is SATISFIED!!!

The POWER OF THE OPPRESSOR IS BROKEN!!!

And three days later, he PROVED his victory by rising from the dead!!!

And he ascended to heaven… and ALL AUTHORITY in heaven and on earth has been given to HIM!!!

He sits at the right hand of the Father… and his Holy Spirit has come upon his people to go out and finish the battle...

First of all against their own sin in the power of his victory...

And then against the powers of sin that still blind the eyes of unbelievers...

And the victory is SURE… the LORD has given it into our hands!

IF we would turn from our sin… and cry out to HIM for deliverance!

You see, as long as we don’t think that our sin is that bad… we will never see our need for mercy.

And we will never understand the cross.

When we look at the cross, we see what sin deserves.

It was gory. It was violent. It was spiritual anguish.

It was Jesus taking OUR WAGES OF SIN upon himself.

Every day I need the cross, because the sin that still remains in my heart is EVIL… and ARROGANTLY VILE… and FORMIDABLE!!!

But the Lord delivers. The Lord saves.

He saves me. And he wants to save the people around me.

And the question is, will YOU see your sin for what it is?

Will YOU see what YOUR sin deserves? And will you cry out to God and receive the deliverance of Jesus Christ?

Will you use the peace that he brings to live for HIS glory?

Will you tell others how much they need a Savior?

It sort of sheds new light on that question, “How could God be so angry? How could he be so violent against sin?”

We now learn to replace it with, “How could he be so merciful???? How could he take the violence that WE deserve, and inflict it upon himself so that we could see his victory???”

That change in question will change your life. Will you allow it to transform your heart today?

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