Familiar Foes
Tuesday, March 25
Familiar Foes
Judges 12:1-3a
The men of Ephraim were called to arms, and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, “Why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house over you with fire.” And Jephthah said to them, “… when I called you, you did not save me from their hand. And when I saw that you would not save me, I took my life in my hand and crossed over against the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into my hand.”
This reminds me of those numerous instances in the four Gospels where Pharisees confronted Jesus in similar fashion. So often they’d miss the miracle and fault the method. Like the time in Luke 5 when Christ gives a lame man new legs and tells him, “Your sins are forgiven,” and they rise up in fury to condemn him for blasphemy. Or the event in Luke 6 where He heals a man’s withered hand—tendons, bones, and all—and they get furious because He did it on the Sabbath. These ministers of God’s Word should’ve been Christ’s most ardent disciples, yet, due to the envy and pride in their hearts, they remained His greatest enemies. And somehow, by a dumbfounding loss of reasonableness (remember: you can’t be righteous without being reasonable), their response to watching Him heal the lame and cast out demons and raise Lazarus from the dead was to shout, “Crucify Him!”
Well, here are the Pharisees during the days of the Judges. Here are the better-than-thou, self-righteous, unreasonable men tainting the congregation in Israel. Not having the brotherly love to aid Jephthah in battle but condemning him for winning without their help. White-washed sepulchers, keeping their hands uncalloused by the toil of war, yet demanding a share in the glory afterward. Seriously, they should be coming to Jephthah with gold and frankincense, offering allegiance, and asking forgiveness for not trusting him before. But instead, they have the audacity to storm to the very doorstep of the fiercest warrior-general of a generation and threaten to burn him alive for the good he just did!
It’s a sad day in any commonwealth when wicked men light the torches of injustice. But it’s a great day when God has placed a reasonable and righteous leader at the helm to put out the fire.