Judges 5 – August 4
As we mentioned yesterday, Judges 5 is the story of Judges 4 retold in poetic form. In my Bible, this chapter is titled, “The Song of Deborah and Barak.” Judges 5 records the Israelites song (or poem) of victory over the Canaanites. Instead of focusing on the poetic nature and structure of the chapter, however, we will focus on the actual content, the words.
Notice the very last verse, verse 31. It says, “Thus let all your enemies perish, O LORD; But let those who love Him be like the rising of the sun in its might”. This final verse really sums up the theme of the whole chapter. What is the theme of the whole chapter? That God is sovereign and powerful and whoever he fights for will ultimately win! God’s side is the side you want to be on! Let’s just marvel together, today, at the power of our great God! Take a look back at verses 4-5. Verse 4 says, “LORD, when You went out from Seir… the earth quaked”. Verse 5 adds to that by saying, “The mountains quaked at the presence of the LORD.” Does reading verses like those ever make you stop and think, “wow, what a mighty God we serve!” Oftentimes verses like these, that highlight so brightly the power and majesty of God, make me realize how little of God I actually know and experience! I will even ask myself in wonder, “who is this God that I serve?” When reading the Word, I am quickly answered: “the creator of Heaven and Earth” (Genesis 1), “the Great I AM” (Exodus 3), “Lord of Hosts” (Psalm 46 and many others), and “the Lion and the Lamb” (Revelation 5).
We see so dimly in this life (1 Corinthians 13:12), but it is chapters like Judges 5 that I am so grateful for, for giving us a glimpse of the nature and character of our holy, triune God. That might not be doing much for you today, but let me say this: getting a glimpse of Yahweh changes everything. Note that I didn’t say it should change everything; I said it DOES change everything. That brings up the question: if I haven’t experienced this all-encompassing change then have I seen the risen Lord? I would simply say: no. Now, as we’ve said plenty of times before, meeting Jesus doesn’t make you a perfect person (at least not in this life!). However, meeting Jesus does indeed change everything about you little by little. It changes why you wake up each day. It changes how you live each day. It changes how you feel about everything in your life: work, relationships, politics, life events, etc. If you have truly met Jesus and the Holy Spirit has opened the eyes of your heart to see His glory then (and this is a guarantee!) you will worry less, because God is in control and you know that because you’ve met him. You will be less selfish and prideful because you know everything you have comes from God and He can take it away at any moment. You can defeat sins like anger and lust because you know and embrace that “the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God (James 1:20) and “the pure in heart shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).
Long story short: reading chapters like Judges 5 ought to give you a peace about everything because it gives you a glimpse of the one who created everything and is in charge of everything and has a plan for everything. A beautiful truth isn’t it?