Last Man Standing
Judges 3:7a & 9-10a & 11
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. … But when the people of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer … who saved them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. The Spirit of the LORD was upon him, and he judged Israel. … So the land had rest forty years. Then Othniel the son of Kenaz died.
The slog of despondency I found myself wading through when opening Judges 3 and reading the all-too-familiar line in the epithet of man, “And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD,” suddenly transfigured into a grassy meadow upon reading the line, “The LORD raised up a deliverer … Othniel the son of Kenaz.” In fact, were there an actual meadow before my eyes right now, I’d jump up from this bench and dance around with the spirit of Julie Andrews, singing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music!”
To see Othniel’s name again is a welcome relief. Remember him? He was the valiant brother-in-law who won Caleb’s winner-take-all competition for Achsah’s hand in marriage, and I speculated at his last appearing that he’d been cut from the same cloth as Caleb. Well, how proud Caleb must be now as he looks down from heaven to see that he left his kinfolk in such steady hands. Especially now that a new generation is rising that threatens to undo all the hard-fought progress of the former generation. New boys and girls are growing up seeking favor with the remaining Canaanites, pursuing a syncretistic existence, lusting after worldly pleasure. Most of the former giants like Joshua and Eleazar and Phinehas aren’t around anymore to promote the pursuit of purity. This is a world where you get called a prude or a cultist or a bigot for refusing to bow your knee to foreign gods, not a hero. Oh, but godly men stand firm in good times and in bad, in days of revival and in days of revolt. Wherever hell’s floods are ruthlessly flowing in the tides of men, you can bet there’s an Othniel standing in the middle, as a dam, minimizing the impact.
Friend, if you see the torrent of darkness rising higher and higher today, that’s not your cue to run for cover. It’s your cue to stand even taller.