Hall of Fame Faith
March 31, 2008
Judges 4:6-10 CEV
(6) One day, Barak the son of Abinoam was in Kedesh in Naphtali, and Deborah sent word for him to come and talk with her. When he arrived, she said: I have a message for you from the LORD God of Israel! You are to get together an army of ten thousand men from the Naphtali and Zebulun tribes and lead them to Mount Tabor.
(7) The LORD will trick Sisera into coming out to fight you at the Kishon River. Sisera will be leading King Jabin's army as usual, and they will have their chariots, but the LORD has promised to help you defeat them.
(8) "I'm not going unless you go!" Barak told her.
(9) "All right, I'll go!" she replied. "But I'm warning you that the LORD is going to let a woman defeat Sisera, and no one will honor you for winning the battle." Deborah and Barak left for Kedesh,
(10) where Barak called together the troops from Zebulun and Naphtali. Ten thousand soldiers gathered there, and Barak led them out from Kedesh. Deborah went too.
People often look at Barak as a man of weak faith, one that would hide behind the skirt of a woman. Did you know that this same man who hid behind the skirt is listed in Hebrews 11 in the Hebrews hall of fame? If he is a man of weak faith how did he get there.
Barak walked in the faith that he had. In those days, a woman that had gotten to the prominence that Deborah had, judging all of Israel, would have been very rare. It was a male dominated society. And one thing is for sure, woman, no matter how prominent they become would not go to war. I will sometimes picture myself as the people I read about in the Bible. As I meditated on this situation I pictured Barak being called by Deborah and being told to go fight a war. Now he did not have the men or the machines to go to war, and here is this woman, who can stand behind the lines, way behind, safe in her house and she is telling him to go to war. I can almost feel him saying, 'that is easy for you to say. If you are so sure, go with me.' And to some degree, that required a whole lot of faith. If she had died in the war, he would have gone down in history as the man who killed a prophetess , a judge of Israel. Not the type of way I would like to be remembered.
To her credit, Deborah called his bluff and they went to war. And they won. And Israel had peace once again, at least till the next time they forget God again.
God can take what little faith you have, faith that is so small it is hardly noticed, and put you in the Faith Hall of Fame.
Read through the Bible in one year in Historical order
Today
Judges 3:1-5:31
Tomorrow
Judges 6:1-7:25
http://tinyurl.com/24beby for a daily reading tool
