“Then Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went down into the ground; for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” Judges 4:21
This past Wednesday evening at our church service we went through Judges 4. I would certainly encourage you to take some time and take in the message (https://ccgracefellowship.org/?ctc_sermon=nail-things-walk-lord-judges-4:1-24).
God, here will use two women, Deborah, the Judge and prophetess & Jael, a compromised man’s wife to deliver the victory for God’s people. Victory is something that God wants for His people. I want to remind you, that it is certainly something that God can accomplish in your life by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. Do you believe this? Can you have joy? Can God use you in your daily life? Can you experience God’s real presence in your life day by day? I love this story about victory by J. Alistair Brown:
Walking through a park, I passed a massive oak tree. A vine had grown up along its trunk. The vine started small–nothing to bother about. But over the years the vine had gotten taller and taller. By the time I passed, the entire lower half of the tree was covered by the vine’s creepers. The mass of tiny feelers was so thick that the tree looked as though it had innumerable birds’ nests in it.
Now the tree was in danger. This huge, solid oak was quite literally being taken over; the life was being squeezed from it. But the gardeners in that park had seen the danger. They had taken a saw and severed the trunk of the vine–one neat cut across the middle. The tangled mass of the vine’s branches still clung to the oak, but the vine was now dead. That would gradually become plain as weeks passed and the creepers began to die and fall away from the tree. How easy it is for sin, which begins so small and seemingly insignificant, to grow until it has a strangling grip on our lives. And yet, Christ’s death has cut the power of sin. Yes, the “creepers” of sin still cling and have some effect. But sin’s power is severed by Christ, and gradually, sin’s grip dries up and falls away.
Charles Spurgeon preached a wonderful sermon on Judges 4 entitled “Sin Slain” on how we can take Sisera as a type of sin, and his master (Jabin) as a type of Satan. He insisted that we should not be content to merely defeat sin, as Barak defeated Sisera in battle; we should not rest until sin is dead. And, just as Jael asked Barak to look at the dead body of Sisera, Spurgeon said we should look at sin slain by the work of Jesus, knowing He has already won the battle. “If you are content merely to conquer your sins and not to kill them, you may depend upon it, it is the mere work of morality — a surface work — and not the work of the Holy Spirit.”
I pray that God would give you day by day victory in your walk with our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
By His Spirit,
Pastor Bill