Judges No.2 The Woman Prime Minister

Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne. Look at verse 2. The Lord of life, who triumphs o'er the grave, and rose victorious in the strife, for those he came to save. His glories now we sing, who died and rose on high, who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die.

Crown him with many crowns. Let's stand and sing this hymn of praise to God. Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne.

For our Lord, the Lamb of God, glorious King of His own. Awake, my soul, and sing, for Him who died for me. And live with us, Thy righteous King, through all eternity.

Crown him, Lord of life, who triumphs o'er the grave, and rose victorious in the strife, for those he came to save. His glories now we sing, who died and rose on high, who died eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die. Judges chapter 5, the song of Deborah after the defeat of the army of Sisera.

On that day, Deborah and Barak, son of Abinoam, sang this song. When the princes in Israel take the lead, when the people willingly offer themselves, praise the Lord. Hear this, you kings, listen, you rulers, I will sing to the Lord, I will sing, I will make music to the Lord, the God of Israel.

O Lord, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the land of Edom, the earth shook, the heavens poured, the clouds poured down water. The mountains quaked before the Lord, the one of Sinai, before the Lord, the God of Israel. In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the roads were deserted, travelers took to winding paths.

Village life in Israel ceased, ceased until I, Deborah, arose, arose a mother in Israel. When they chose new gods, war came to the city gates, and 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.

You who ride on white donkeys, sitting on your saddle blankets, and you who walk along the road, consider the voice of the singers at the watering places. They recite the righteous acts of the Lord, the righteous acts of his warriors in Israel. And the people of the Lord went down to the city gates, wake up, wake up, Deborah, wake up, wake up, break out in song.

Arise, O Barak, take captive your captives, O son of Abinom. Then the men who were left came down to the nobles. The people of the Lord came to me with the mighty.

Some came from Ephraim, whose roots were in Amalek. Benjamin was with the people who followed you. From Machir, captains came down.

From Zebulun, those who bear a commander's staff. The princes of Issachar were with Deborah. Yes, Issachar was with Barak, rushing after him into the valley.

In the districts of Reuben, there was much searching of heart. Why did you stay amongst the campfires to hear the whistling of the flocks? In the districts of Reuben, there was much searching of heart. Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan.

And Dan, why did he linger by the ships? Asher remained on the seacoast and stayed in his coves. The people of Zebulun risked their very lives. So did Naptali on the heights of the field.

Kings came, they fought. The kings of Canaan fought at Tainak by the waters of Megiddo. But they carried off no silver, no plunder.

From the heavens the stars fought. From their courses they fought against Sisera. The river Kishon swept them away.

The age-old river, the river Kishon. March on, my soul, be strong. Then thundered the horse's hooves, galloping, galloping go his mighty steeds.

Curse Meroz, said the angel of the Lord. Curse its people bitterly, because they did not come to help the Lord. To help the Lord against the mighty.

Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. Most blessed of tent-dwelling women. He asked for water, and she gave him milk.

In a bowl fit for nobles, she brought him curdled milk. Her hand reached for the tent peg. Her right hand for the workman's hammer.

She struck Sisera, she crushed his head. She shattered and pierced his temple. At her feet he sank, he fell, there he lay.

At her feet he sank, he fell. Where he sank, there he fell, dead. Through the window peered Sisera's mother.

Behind the lattice she cried out, Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why is the clatter of his chariot delayed? The wisest of her ladies answer her. Indeed, she keeps saying to herself, Are they not finding and dividing the spoils? A girl or two for each man. Colourful garments as plunder for Sisera.

Colourful garments embroidered. Highly embroidered garments for my neck. All this as plunder.

So may all your enemies perish, O Lord. But may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength. Then the land have peace for forty years.

This is the word of the Lord. Judges in chapter 5, and I particularly want to home in on verse 7. Judges 5, verse 7. Village life in Israel ceased. Ceased until I, Deborah, arose.

Arose, a mother in Israel. One of the saddest bits of biography I've read in years has to do with a couple who are no longer around by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Ceausescu. He was president of Romania.

Fated in Eastern Europe, a close colleague of the man who run the Soviet Union, or who did run the Soviet Union, received royally here in our country. They were shot some while ago. If you saw something of the conditions that they helped to bring about in Romania, you could understand something of the animosity of the Romanian people towards them.

He was pitifully taken from the flat-roof palace in Romania in Bucharest in a helicopter, dropped down somewhere some miles away, and a series of events took place in which ultimately they were arrested. He was very upset. She was as hard as nails.

And almost her last words to the Romanian people were these, I was your mother. And if you look around, some of the places where often boys and girls eke out their existence in that unhappy country, you would wonder why anyone would boast to be the mother of that nation. I was your mother.

And her palaces and those of her husband brought such terrible suffering to boys and girls that will continue throughout this next generation in terms of its aftermath. Now, there is a way in which a person could think of herself as being more than just a literal mother to others. You say, what do you mean? Well, when the Apostle Paul is writing to the Romans in the 16th chapter and around the 15th verse, he mentions a friend of his called Rufus.

And Rufus has a great mother. And Paul sends greetings to Rufus's mother and mine. In other words, this lady behaved as a mother to Paul.

What has... ...the Maya in common? Anybody out there? They were all prime ministers. The second thing that they have in common that runs along with that fact is this. They were all prime ministers in countries where males were very much dominant as the political force.

You say, what on earth has this got to do with judges? Well, here is someone who arrogates, who takes for herself the title of a mother in Israel. Here is someone who, if you understand this, at least in principle, but not too literalistically, became, if you please, the prime minister of her land. Many people looked up to her.

And I want to say that the redeemed community in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, that is, the Church of Jesus Christ, of Old Testament stock and New Testament stock, owes a great deal to womenfolk who were prepared to hazard their lives in the interests of the gospel and for the sake of other people. I have one natural mother, but I have many people who slot into the category of a mother in Israel who showed me love and affection and prayed for me during the formative years of my life. And I want to say to some of you womenfolk to whom I dedicate this address, and to some of you single womenfolk especially, that when you look into the story of Deborah and bring to... and are brought into line with the teaching of the Old Testament and the New Testament regarding womanhood, then may you appreciate that your life, like hers, can count for something in this world for the influencing of other people and bringing honor and glory to God.

For that certainly was the case with Deborah. So let's open up our little address this evening by talking about the personality that she was. Village life in Israel ceased, ceased until I, Deborah, arose, arose a mother in Israel.

The personality she was. Do you ever thank God for being who you are? And I'm not being humorous. You see, a lot of us live in a sort of wishful arena all the time.

We wish we were someone else. I know girls who wish they were boys. I know single people who wish they were married.

Married people who wish they were single. People who wish that they hadn't been born with that type of personality or this particular physique. And yet here is a woman who is able to thank God for who she is and for the gifts that he has given to her.

At the height of her popularity amongst conservative politicians, at one of their conferences, Margaret Thatcher was given an ovation of a most peculiar type. They started to sing to her or of her, for she's a jolly good fellow. Frankly, had I been Margaret Thatcher, I would have been most annoyed.

A woman was never meant to be a fellow. A fellow was never meant to be a woman. Femininity belongs to women.

Masculinity belongs to men. That's one of the reasons why I've never really understood why Christian people can watch drag artists. It's an offense to the Lord for a man or a woman to pass him or herself off as the other sex.

Though we are compassionate and tender towards those who have biological problems in that area, but I'm not referring to those. I'm referring to deliberate drag. Deborah is a woman in Israel who lives at a time when Jewish people actually look down on women to the extent that in the Jewish prayer book, so to speak, you've got this little gem, thank you, God, that I am not born a Gentile nor a dog nor a woman.

I think the Tory party were guilty of great chauvinism when they sang of Mrs. Thatcher, for she's a jolly good fellow. Thank God for who you are, a woman or a man, and for the personality that he's given you that can be refined into something beautiful and retained as something unique. Not only was she obviously a woman who recognizes her femininity, but she was a lady endowed with a great charisma.

She was known as Deborah the prophetess. A study of prophecy and its gifting is interesting in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. There was this particular empowering of the spirit that rested on Deborah that was so recognized by the rest of the people in her day that they singled her out as someone who was unusually equipped by the Lord at a time when, well, Israel needed leadership and help and someone who could reproduce what the Jewish people would say in their own tongue, the bath kohl, the voice of God.

And when there wasn't a man to preach, Deborah came along, filled with the spirit and was enabled by God to proclaim his word in a day when the economy was just slightly better than the spiritual condition of Israel, which was appallingly low. Deborah was the only judge who actually lived up to her name in the book of Judges, for none of the other judges, as far as I know, ever judged. But Deborah did.

They sought her counsel. They came to her, men and women, because they wanted her advice. And I want to tell you that the church of Jesus Christ has always been indebted to women who were prepared to wait upon the Lord and to believe when all the men, virtually, had given up hope.

So I give you the example of Anna, who stays faithful to the purposes of God and the prophecies of the Old Testament and waits for the birth of the Messiah and stays in the temple area in Jerusalem and ultimately has the Christ child in her arms. There is a scripture that says of our Lord Jesus when he's in great need, I look for someone to have pity on me and there was no man. I don't want to push scripture too far and to exploit its meaning, but it seems to me that there could be a niche of meaning within that statement that suggests, though there was no man, there were women, because around the cross of Calvary, when the men had gone, there were a little group of women, timid doves, Charles Spurgeon calls them, who stayed the course and kept their eyes on the Lord Jesus and their affections ever open towards him.

Village life in Israel ceased, ceased until I, Deborah, arose, a mother in Israel, someone who's impacting society. Some of the greatest women of all time, never married, but there were mothers a thousand times over and the history of Christian missions is studded with their example. The personality she was, the authority she assumed.

It must be difficult, not so, being a Turkish woman, or rather a Kurdish woman, perched on one of the mountains of Turkey at the moment. Wouldn't you be afraid, afraid for your kids, if you knew that just a few miles away were the troops of a man who has dropped weaponry that, God forgive us, he bought from the West, poison gas, on some of the people that you knew? If you shifted the name Saddam Hussein and replaced it with the names of the two men who feature in the fourth chapter of Judges, then you would understand the terror that the Israelites were in at the moment when the name Hazor and Sezira, verse two, were mentioned, then they were afraid. If you interpret 900 iron chariots in terms of helicopters with guns and you have no helicopters and you have little in the way of armament, then you will have a classic modern illustration of the problems surrounding the Israelites at the time when Deborah became a mother in Israel.

And if you winced at what J.L. did, when the man who was bringing in the genocide policy was in her tent, then who amongst you would dare to stand up and criticize a Kurdish woman if she had the possibility of eliminating the man who was guilty for the genocide policy amongst her people? You see, the reason why I balance contemporary illustration with Old Testament incident so you can get the gravity of the situation into perspective and you can feel the message of this book, which is always contemporaneous, that is up to date. The authority, she assumed, village life in Israel ceased as it ceased in the Kurdish community and a thousand places that I could tell you of, at least 100 that I could tell you of, in various parts of the world where there is animosity, where one man rebels against another man and puts his family to flight. There are so many places in our world like Kurdistan where there are not freedoms and where we need good and godly spiritual people to take a lead.

Village life in Israel ceased, ceased until I, Deborah, arose, a woman in Israel. Well, George Carey is now enthroned. We've got our, what is it, 103rd Archbishop, I've lost count, but I believe that's around the number.

I hope you're praying for him. He needs your prayers. Got off to a slightly bad start by allowing, as I mentioned in Notes and News a little while ago, I speak with feeling for Carey, he went to the same college, at least did his postgraduate work at the college that I went to.

And he actually suggested that those who oppose the ordination of women were guilty of serious theological heresy. Backed off from the words, but it was written. It was a studied remark.

I got no interest really in the Anglican debate in this area. I'm not an Anglican, and, you know, they can sort it out themselves. I'm not even too happy about the whole business of ordination anyway because it seems to me that there isn't such a thing.

I mean by that that we're all the people of God and there isn't a distinction between the clergy and the laity. There is a sense in which the New Testament teaches us that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there's neither bond nor free, there's neither man nor woman. There's neither reverend nor non-reverend.

The Church of God consists of men and women who've been washed in the blood of our Lord Jesus or filled hopefully increasingly with His Spirit and are given specific tasks to do, different engiftings. That's how I understand the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which means, which means excitingly that there is opportunity for women as well as for men to engage in the advance of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And here is a woman in the Old Testament who assumes a sort of authority.

Actually, I say that she assumes it, but she stands in because there aren't any men to do the job that she's engaged in. As happens today, check the books of any missionary society in the United Kingdom and I will guarantee you that at least two-thirds of the people serving the Lord abroad are women and not men. Not because God calls women to go abroad more than He calls men, but because women tend to have more of a spirit of obedience to the commands of God than men do.

Met a couple of people in Africa, excuse me, some of you, I've mentioned this before, but it was a long time ago. A couple of women thought they came from South Africa. They're now working in the heart of Africa.

They've been there for 40-odd years. They've gone from place to place establishing small churches. They've moved around so rapidly they're known as the Go-Go Girls.

And I salute those women and many more like them. Well, here is a lady who has an opportunity for service simply because there aren't sufficient men as women today have an opportunity for service within the redeemed community, pushing out the gospel to those who don't know the Lord Jesus as Savior. It's interesting that this woman, Deborah, rubs shoulders with two men.

There is her husband called Lapidoth and there's also Barak. Interesting Hebrew translations there. Lapidoth means torch and Barak means lightning.

And one commentator with humor, perhaps he didn't even recognize what he was saying, suggests that the translation of these two men's names should be Flasher and Lightning. Well, however you translate their names, the lightning didn't seem to do too much in causing them to accept leadership. Barak is reluctant.

He could do nothing without Deborah. And he became her hands and she became his head. And together they started to resolve the problem that confronted Israel, what to do with these Canaanites and these bestial soldiers.

Brothers and sisters, God could take a woman like Deborah and enable her to give heart to a man like Barak. Barak would only engage in the service of God provided he had Deborah with him. Barak said to her, verse 8 of chapter 4, if you go with me, I will go, but if you don't go with me, I won't go.

Very well, Deborah said, I will go with you, but because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours for the Lord will hand his era over to a woman. So Deborah joins forces with Barak and the result is, well, you've already guessed it because Anne so clearly in her little preamble spelled it out. And in the song of Deborah, it's fleshed out again that the butcher of Israel has killed himself and the Israelites are, as a result, left in safety and in peace.

So this is the personality Deborah was and the authority she assumed. But finally and briefly, what about the challenge she left? I mean, this woman, this prime minister, if you please, this female judge of Israel, she does leave a challenge and it's encapsulated, it's tucked away within this glorious song that she and Barak sing. What challenge is it? Well, it's the challenge, first of all, of the weaker vessel.

The challenge of the weaker vessel. It's she who, in God's grace, is unable to help Israel. So I believe that we've got people here who recognize their weaknesses, who God wants to use more and more.

So I ask you to do a Deborah, to be a mother in Israel, or if I could just make this masculine for a moment, I want to ask some of you fellows to respond to Deborah's challenge. Let me speak personally and pastorally, hurtfully but lovingly. We need some of you young men.

We need some of you young women. We have our sessions of prayer and where are you? Where are you? We need you because the conditions in our land are so bad. Amongst the twenties, we need you.

Not just to have your fellowship on a Sunday night fortnightly. Thank God for that. But we need you to pray on a Sunday afternoon.

You say, I can't pray. Can you talk? Good. You qualify as a prayer.

We need you in the mainstream of church activity. You see, Deborah could have backed out. It's a man's world, or it was in her day.

Well, nowadays it's not a man's world, at least not here in Europe. And we want weak men and weak women who are prepared to hazard things for Jesus, who are prepared to say, Lord, will you fill me with your Spirit as you filled Deborah with your Spirit and enable me to make an impact despite my inadequacies? And I'm going to do it for Jesus because he loved me and he gave himself for me. Here is a challenge to resist the soft option.

Have your Bibles still open at Judges 5, will you? And dip into the heart of that poem. Drop to the 15th and 16th and 17th verses. You see, half of Israel was threatened by a force which was as mighty and as bestial in those days as Saddam Hussein's forces are today.

And when Deborah sends a cry throughout the whole of her part of northern Israel, she gets an unequal response. Verse 15, the princes of Issachar were with Deborah. Yes, Issachar was with Baruch, one of the tribes.

They rushed after him into the valley. Here was a tribe that Baruch and Deborah could rely on and praise God for later on. But in the districts of Reuben, there was much searching of heart.

Why did you stay among the campfires to hear the whistling for the flocks? In the districts of Reuben, there was much searching of heart. At Christie's time in Israel, with a woman calling the chips, these men, these people of Reuben, were not prepared to respond to her call. And the valiant army of Baruch and Deborah put to flight all the mob of Sisera.

And at the end, when they started to evaluate the situation, the question was, where were you when your country needed you? Or as was said after the First World War in posters around the country, what did you do in the war, daddy? It's much more comfortable to be a shepherd with a bleating of the sheep in the warmth of a campfire at night than to be in the forefront of the battle. Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan. Verse 17, Dan, why did he linger by the ships? Asher remained in the coast and stayed in his coves, but the people of Zebulun risked their very lives.

So did Naphtali on the heights of the field. You see the point? It was an unequal response to the cry of this woman, and it was to the disgrace of these tribes as a result afterwards as they did an inventory as to who had done what during the day of conflict. The challenge of resisting the soft action.

How many of you are like those Reubenites warm by the fire, comfortably aware at a weekend perhaps in your house or your yacht or what have you? So many things that you can do. Why be too involved with Christianity? Don't get too extreme, you know? Great danger that the British will go extreme. When our Lord and Savior returns, there are hardly, I speak carefully, any people here who will be afraid on that day in regard to their sins because I think the vast majority of you have confessed Jesus as Lord.

But when our Savior returns, He will check on what you and I have done for the advance of the gospel. On that day, could it be that you will have resisted the challenge of the soft option and said, Lord, when the mothers of Israel, when the fathers of Israel, when my mother in God, when my father in God, when my pastor, when my elder, when my church leader, when they asked me to do such and such a thing, I did it willingly. I was there, I was regular, I was reliable.

This, you see, is the challenge that comes from the lips of a charismatic woman centuries ago when village life had more or less was extinguished. I, Deborah, became a mother in Israel. I sounded forth a challenge and many people from many tribes came and as a result, Israel was released from the bondage that politically she was in, but it was to the eternal disgrace of so many people that at the hour of need, they never came along and helped us.

We salute Deborah and all who are like her. And I ask you in the context of what I've just shared, in the New Testament background, will you respond to the challenge of Deborah's today, spiritual father's today, and get involved where the action is, in our prayer meetings, yeah, around the Lord's table, telling others about Jesus, sharing your love, emptying your pocket, using your home, employing your car, being where the action is, following the pattern that Deborah illustrates and calls for. Let's pray.

Just a moment of quiet reflection. So much to do in our world. So much for Christians to be engaged in.

I don't think my secretary, see if she can check with you if you think this is an exaggeration, I don't think there's a week that goes by without in my office mail, I don't get at least two or three requests from various churches or missions, here in England or around the world, for help, finance-wise or personnel-wise. Ian Land and Tim and Hugh will tell you of so many jobs that could be done here in the Tavern Maybridge to make us more effective. So much that we could be involved in, within our giftings, we're not all going to be preachers, we're not all going to be extrovert people, but within the personality framework that God's given us, we can all release our potential.

That's what God wants us to be, that's what God wants us to do. Some of you here need to make your way to the old rugged cross and ask for our sins to be forgiven. It's just amazing how it speaks to us, even knocks the speaker flat as it preaches back to him.

Thank you for a woman who was prepared to risk everything for you and to be a woman in all her grace and all her stature. Enable all womenfolk to do that here. May every Christian woman become a mother in Israel.

May we all be fathers in God, whether we have natural kids or not, have an interest in the upbringing of others in the spiritual family, and use us, Lord, in these days to reach people with a good and glorious gospel. And that infilling of the Spirit which Deborah had in such large measure, oh God, give it to us. May our belief not be in mind only, may we know the overwhelming of the Spirit, to be caught up in that dynamic power that enables us to be effective, to run well in the course of our lives.

Bless all these dear young people, and my older friends too. Bless this church, oh God, we love it so much. We want to be the people that you want us to be.

In the name of the Savior, and all the people of God said, Amen. Let's go to a hymn that Deborah would have liked. And you may not all know it, so let's hear Evelyn stomp it out on the keyboard.

384, and Ray can come in on his instrument. Not without a cause do we go marching forth to war. Not without a cause that we'll see righteousness restored.

Clean your weapons, stir your hearts, shed all fears before we start. When we stand to do our part, we shall save. Let's stand up.

Not without a cause do we go marching forth to war. Not without a cause that we'll see righteousness restored. Clean your weapons, stir your hearts, shed all fears before we start.

When we stand to do our part, we shall save. Not without a fight do we achieve our silent score. Not without a fight that we will proudly roar the whole.

Lift your banner, lift it high. Peace has been our battle cry. As we lift it, we shall die by his side.

Not without a fight do we prepare ourselves to fight. Not without a strife against his foes or from their might. And our hope is to save the day when we rise once again.

Rest and cry in disarray when we say Not without a fight do we achieve our silent score. Not without a fight that we will proudly roar the whole. Lift your banner, lift it high.

Peace has been our battle cry. As we lift it, we shall die by his side. Not without a shield may we stand to guard the tree.

Not without a team to set him on the throne of peace. Eyes on fire and faces green, we will free Jerusalem. Through the gates we'll follow him as he slays.

Not without a fight do we achieve our silent score. Not without a strife that we will proudly roar the whole. Lift your banner, lift it high.

Peace has been our battle cry. As we lift it, we shall die by his side.