Thursday, February 13, 2020

* Judges: Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon


Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet

Judges 10:1-5    And after Abimelech there arose to defend Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim.  And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir.  (23-years a judge) 

And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years.  And he had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havothjair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead.  And Jair died, and was buried in Camon.   (22-years a judge)


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6-9   And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the Lord, and served not HIM.

And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and HE sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of AmmonAnd that year they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel: eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

(18 years of trouble) 

Moreover the children of Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim; so that Israel was sore distressed.

(After sin, comes trouble.)

James 1:14-15   But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.


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God tells them to get the gods they serve to deliver them: 

Over and over the pattern occurs.  

The children of Israel serve other gods.  Mostly they serve the gods of the people which they did not expel from their lands when they took possession.  God told them the people of other nations would pull them away from HIM, the God of Abraham, but they didn't believe HIM.  God told them these other nations would be thorns in their sides if they tried to live among them, but they didn't believe HIM.

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In 2019, I encountered a woman who told me her teenaged daughter was going out to try to turn a young man back to the church group which he had left.  I don't know whether the church group was evil or he was evil, but one thing I did know, which I told the mother:  

"Your daughter will not turn this young man but he will turn your daughter."

She didn't believe me and she began telling me her daughter was so strong in faith that no one could turn the daughter.

I know that is not the case with me.  I have to be very careful concerning those people I am around.  They can greatly affect me in negative ways.

In the 1980's, my mother told me a dream she had about me.  In this dream ... I had come to visit her.  I was driving a large bus-like vehicle.  I kept walking around that bus, protecting it.

I knew this bus was symbolic of the ministry assigned me by God which I protect continually so I am able to do this work which God has assigned to me.  I know I could be pulled off by associations.  

If you think you can't be pulled away, you are in danger!


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Now once again, the children of Israel are distressed by those other nations and their gods.


This time God rises up against the children of Israel.

God says to them: 

Judges 10:11-14    Did not I deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines?  The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, did oppress you; and ye cried to ME, and I delivered you out of their hand. 

Yet ye have forsaken ME, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation. 

16    and HIS (God's) soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.


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17-18    Then the children of Ammon were gathered together, and encamped in Gilead. And the children of Israel assembled themselves together, and encamped in Mizpeh.  

And the people and princes of Gilead said one to another, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. 


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Judges 11:1-10   Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he was the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah.  And Gilead's wife bare him sons; and his wife's sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house; for thou art the son of a strange woman.

Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him.

And it came to pass in process of time, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel.

And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob: And they said unto Jephthah, Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of Ammon.

And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father's house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?

And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.

And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the Lord deliver them before me, shall I be your head?

And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The Lord be witness between us, if we do not so according to thy words.



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11-28    Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh.

And Jephthah sent messengers unto the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to fight in my land?


And the king of the children of Ammon answered unto the messengers of Jephthah, Because Israel took away my land, when they came up out of Egypt, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and unto Jordan: now therefore restore those lands again peaceably. 

(This was incorrect information)

And Jephthah sent messengers again unto the king of the children of Ammon: And said unto him, Thus saith Jephthah, Israel took not away the land of Moab, nor the land of the children of Ammon: 


But when Israel came up from Egypt, and walked through the wilderness unto the Red sea, and came to Kadesh; Then Israel sent messengers unto the king of Edom, saying, Let me, I pray thee, pass through thy land: but the king of Edom would not hearken thereto

And in like manner they sent unto the king of Moab: but he would not consent: and Israel abode in Kadesh.  

(So Israel did not even try to go through their lands:  Edom was given by God to Esau.  Moab was given to Lot.  God would not allow the children of Israel to take those lands at that time.)

Then they went along through the wilderness, and compassed the land of Edom
(they went around the land of Edom and did not try to go through Edom or Moab), and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and pitched on the other side of Arnon, but came not within the border of Moab: for Arnon was the border of Moab.

And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said unto him, Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land into my place.  But Sihon trusted not Israel to pass through his coast: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and pitched in Jahaz, and fought against Israel.

And the Lord God of Israel delivered Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they smote them: so Israel possessed all the land of the Amorites, the inhabitants of that country.


And they possessed all the coasts of the Amorites, from Arnon even unto Jabbok, and from the wilderness even unto Jordan.

So now the Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before HIS people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?

Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? 


So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.

And now art thou any thing better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them, 

God would not allow Balak to curse Israel by Balaam.  Numbers 22-24 

While Israel dwelt in Heshbon and her towns, and in Aroer and her towns, and in all the cities that be along by the coasts of Arnon, three hundred years? why therefore did ye not recover them within that time?

 Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to war against me:  the Lord the Judge be judge this day between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon.

Howbeit the king of the children of Ammon hearkened not unto the words of Jephthah which he sent him.   

(He, the king of Ammon, could not be reasoned with.) 

I Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:  for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.


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29-40   Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed over Gilead, and Manasseh, and passed over Mizpeh of Gilead, and from Mizpeh of Gilead he passed over unto the children of Ammon. 

30-31  And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,  Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.

(Vows before God are "scary" and should not be done lightly!)

So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the Lord delivered them into his hands. 

And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. 

Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.


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And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

(Remember the vow Jephthah made to God:  Judges 11:30-31)

And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back.


(The seriousness of vows made before God.)
And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.

And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.

And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.

And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man


And it was a custom in Israel,  That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year. 

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Judges 12:1-15   And the men of Ephraim gathered themselves together, and went northward, and said unto Jephthah, Wherefore passedst thou over to fight against the children of Ammon, and didst not call us to go with thee? we will burn thine house upon thee with fire.

And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands.  And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the Lord delivered them into my hand: wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me?


Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites.

And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;  Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
  (42,000 dead)


Since they could not pronounce it, they knew they were lying to them.



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And Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then died Jephthah the Gileadite, and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.

And after him Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. And he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters, whom he sent abroad, and took in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years. Then died Ibzan, and was buried at Bethlehem.

And after him Elon, a Zebulonite, judged Israel; and he judged Israel ten years. And Elon the Zebulonite died, and was buried in Aijalon in the country of Zebulun. 

And after him Abdon the son of Hillel, a Pirathonite, judged Israel. And he had forty sons and thirty nephews, that rode on threescore and ten ass colts: and he judged Israel eight years.  And Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died, and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the mount of the Amalekites. 


God used HIS judges to fight the battles and to lead the armies of Israel and to turn men to God's way and to God's purpose.

For at that time, every man did that which was right in his own eyes.


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New Testament church:

Today God gives us HIS Spirit to judge in us and to turn us to God and to God's way.

But some will not choose that which is shown them by the Holy Spirit in the issue at hand and they choose the way of their own fleshly preferences or the ways of devils as they bring their ideas to man.

And if a man refuses the way shown by the Holy Spirit and refuses to keep God in his thinking and in his decision making, we read:

Romans 1:28    And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

These are really like those in the children of Israel who departed from God and worshipped the gods of the people around themselves, shown us in Judges 11:6.


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Have you ever encountered a person who has been turned over by God to a reprobate mind?

I have.

In one case, this church woman started out with a good spirit.  Along the way, she turned dark.  She even said to me that she read quickly through Bible and blog to get to something "more interesting."

Toward the end, she became totally irrational, unbending in her twisted thought, and she was without understanding.

Implacable:  not capable of being appeased; one who cannot be calmed or reasoned with; one who cannot be turned even when confronted with many truths.

She was vicious in accusations against godly.  She showed malice.  She lay in wait looking for something to use in accusation against godly, as the Pharisees did against Jesus.  

She became uncontrolled with her speaking, striking out with her tongue.

And she was cut off from the people of God, and didn't care.

(Incredibly this woman was in our church group for 39-years before she turned against us.)

Reprobate is one without God's judgment, from whom the judgment of God has been removed, and they are turned over to their own thinking, and are given to madness.

Paul said:

II Corinthians 13:5-6    Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

But I trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates.



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