When we get to Judges four, we see the ‘Judges cycle’ repeating itself. Ehud dies and the people again go after false gods. God allows them to be under the control of the wicked king of Canaan,  Jabin. Jabin has a captain named Sisera.

Sisera is a really bad guy! He roams the land with a crew of about 900 iron chariots. For the Israelites it’s like someone let the Hell’s Angels MC have free range with no police force to stop them. They aren’t there to help you, they are there to take from you, exploit you and hurt you.

The iron chariots were the brand new military achievement of the day. Nine-hundred iron chariots could easily take on ten thousand men. It just wasn’t a fair fight. No wonder the Israelites were scared. They couldn’t win!

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD after Ehud died. And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. Then the people of Israel cried out to the LORD for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years. Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the LORD, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand’?”(Judges 4:1-7 ESV)

Then Deborah enters the scene. She is a poet prophetess ( Really! She drops some incredible Hebrew meter in chapter five, but we’ll get to that later.)

I don’t know if you noticed this, but Deborah is a woman. That’s an issue for some folks. They read into this passage things like, “Where all the men folks at, must be being lazy, or something. Only way God would raise up a woman was if the men was lazy.” Now look at your bible. Does it say the men were being lazy? Does it say the men were missing? No, we actually know that Deborah was married and she sends for a male military general who was anything but lazy

The author of Judges simply says that she was a prophetess, meaning she had a close walk with God and could discern His will. This helped her in her day job which was being a judge. She literally decided court cases and settled litigation. She’s an important figure in Israel at the time

Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” And she said, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh. And Barak called out Zebulun and Naphtali to Kedesh. And 10,000 men went up at his heels, and Deborah went up with him.(Judges 4:8-10 ESV)

Deborah tells Barak that God has given Sisera and his cohort over into their hands. He only needs to meet them in a strategic valley in order to set a trap. Barak is all on board but he wants to make sure the Deborah is coming along for the ride. He says, “I’ll go, if you go.”

Now lots of folks think Barak is being a coward here.  It’s more likely that he wants to know God’s opinion in real time as things unfold.  In fact, the author of Hebrews includes him, but not Deborah in a list of those who had faith at the time of the Judges in Hebrews chapter 11!

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— (Hebrews 11:32 ESV)

If I were going to be bold enough to go against the iron chariots that stopped my ancestors and countrymen from completing the task at hand (Judges 1:19), I would want some assurances that God was with me too! I mean this man had one conversation and he was ready to take on the enemy that no one had been willing to take on. He really does have to have some kind of incredible faith to take on Sisera and his iron chariots, so we have to give the man some credit.

Now Heber the Kenite had separated from the Kenites, the descendants of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as far away as the oak in Zaanannim, which is near Kedesh. (Judges 4:11 ESV)

So then out of nowhere appears this small verse that seemingly doesn’t fit. Barak is putting together his army, getting ready to take on these iron chariots and we learn about a dude who moved away from his family. Then we go right back to the story. It’s crazy. Everything is progressing. We’re gearing up for battle. If there is music in the background it’s building because troops are assembling…. Out of nowhere the scene shifts to a meadow with a bubbling brook, chirping birds, and a flute playing in the background… then back to building music. It’s weird.

When Sisera was told that Barak the son of Abinoam had gone up to Mount Tabor, Sisera called out all his chariots, 900 chariots of iron, and all the men who were with him, from Harosheth-hagoyim to the river Kishon. And Deborah said to Barak, “Up! For this is the day in which the LORD has given Sisera into your hand. Does not the LORD go out before you?” So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him. And the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword. And Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot. And Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.  (Judges 4:12-16 ESV)

Sisera finds out about Barak amassing the troops. He runs out the door hops on his hog, ahem, I mean he gets in his chariot and rallies the troops. They come barreling down the plain 900 strong ready to shred the troops that Barak has amassed! Thinking that they are going to surprise Barak and force him into a trap!

Then something strange happens. You have to go to chapter five to get some of the details but basically as Barak and his men come barreling down the mountain, the Lord goes with them in the form of a thunderstorm. 

“LORD, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, the earth trembled and the heavens dropped, yes, the clouds dropped water. The mountains quaked before the LORD, even Sinai before the LORD, the God of Israel.  (Judges 5:4-5 ESV)

The battle has been tipped. It was supposed to be Sisera slaughtering Barak and his army, but a little mud and flash flooding goes a long way and now it is Barak slaughtering Sisera and his army.

You really want the Lord on your side when you go to battle. The Bible often depicts God as a warrior delivering his people. When they escaped Pharoah’s chariots through the Red Sea Moses sang a song depicting God as a warrior:

The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name. “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O LORD, glorious in power, your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy.(Exodus 15:3-6 ESV)

Something similar is happens here in chapter 5 of Judges as Deborah sings a song declaring that God was marching to battle!

“LORD, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, the earth trembled and the heavens dropped, yes, the clouds dropped water. The mountains quaked before the LORD, even Sinai before the LORD, the God of Israel. (Judges 5:4-5 ESV)

From heaven the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera. The torrent Kishon swept them away, the ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon. March on, my soul, with might! (Judges 5:20-21 ESV)

Mud stops the chariots from being able to escape and Sisera decides he can get away faster on foot. He abandons his horse and takes off. He runs and runs until he can run no more. Finally he comes upon a tent. It’s the tent we awkwardly heard mention of before. It belongs to a housewife who lives there with her husband, hours away from their nearest relatives.

But Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael came out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord; turn aside to me; do not be afraid.” So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug. And he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” So she opened a skin of milk and gave him a drink and covered him. And he said to her, “Stand at the opening of the tent, and if any man comes and asks you, ‘Is anyone here?’ say, ‘No.’” But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died. And behold, as Barak was pursuing Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” So he went in to her tent, and there lay Sisera dead, with the tent peg in his temple. So on that day God subdued Jabin the king of Canaan before the people of Israel. And the hand of the people of Israel pressed harder and harder against Jabin the king of Canaan, until they destroyed Jabin king of Canaan. (Judges 4:17-24 ESV)

Jael is what we would call a housewife. She doesn’t have a job outside the house. She’s a homemaker. She’s not a Deborah and people aren’t flocking to her for advice. She’s not a Barak; people aren’t looking to her for military leadership. She doesn’t have a lot of people depending on her. We don’t even know if she has kids depending on her.

Sisera stops and rests at her tent. He is tired and thirsty. He makes his way into her inner chamber to hide under a rug and asks for water, but she gives him some milk knowing that it will help put him to sleep. He lays down on the floor and goes to sleep. This is a very awkward situation for her.

While he is sleeping Jael slips up on him. She curls back his hair, finds his temple. Then gently places a sharp tent peg on the side of his head and forces it in. She uses a hammer to make sure the job is done and done right. She pins him to the ground.  This is the highlight of the story. The evil captain who wandered the countryside abusing Israelite women (Judges 5:30) is murdered in his sleep by an ordinary housewife.

Deborah writes a song about the whole thing that gets recorded as chapter five in your bible. It doesn’t look or sound much like poetry once it has been translated into English, but if you heard someone read it in Hebrew you would swear you could hear the tent peg being hammered in by Jael in the background as you get to this point.

Between her feet he sank, he fell, he lay still; between her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell—dead. (Judges 5:27 ESV)

It stands as an incredible piece of poetry.  It’s the focus of a huge celebration. This man who murdered Israelite men and took advantage of Israelite women is no longer a threat and he didn’t go out guns a blazing, he died in his sleep at the hands of a woman.

So now let’s look back and see WHO delivered the nation of Israel. Was it Deborah? No she didn’t fight a battle or kill the commander of the army. Was it Barak then? He listened to Deborah and he did fight the battle, but he didn’t kill Sisera. Was it Jael? Well she did kill Sisera, but she didn’t hear from the Lord or command an army. I think as we look back on this we see that God didn’t just raise up Deborah, he didn’t just raise up a Deborah and a Barak, but he raised up Deborah, Barak and Jael all to work together! Not only that, he went with the army in the form of a Thunderstorm. God is the one who fought for his people that day! 

When you look at all three human heroes of this history, it’s kind of an odd picture. You get a prophetess judge. She’d be kind of like someone working for a parachurch ministry to place orphans into the loving arms of adoptive parents and helping families work through issues. Then you have an army commander who would be like a Sr. Navy Chief, used to barking commands and having people listen. Then you have Jael. She’s a housewife.

Now it makes sense! That awkward verse about a man who lived hours away from the nearest relatives in the midst of the battle scene… That was God! While everyone was sharpening swords and greasing up chariot tires God moved a man and his wife to the middle of nowhere, far from family, and set them up so that SHE could help deliver Israel.

So there are a few things we need to draw from this! First, God delights in using the most unexpected means to save his people. We saw it last week with Ehud and a sword, shamgar and a farming instrument, and now it’s a house wife and a tent peg… These are all shadows illustrating that there is a greater reality to come. One day God would save us all from an enemy even bigger enemy than Sisera. He would save us from our sins and He would do it in the most surprising of ways! He would win by losing! He would take an instrument of torture and death (much like we view the electric chair) and he would turn it into a symbol of victory! Jesus would go to the cross and die for our sins. He would rise from the dead. He would ascend into Heaven where He now stands at the right hand of God making intercession for us and he will return. The only way that Jesus’ victory counts as your victory is if you repent of your sin and trust him with your life.

We also need to know that God delights in using the most unsuspecting people to do the most miraculous of things. He doesn’t use princes and people with perfect complexions nearly as often as you would think. He uses ordinary people like you. You might not think you are anything special. You may in fact think of yourself as a nobody, but I guarantee you that God can use you. Not only would he, or could He use you, but He would delight in using you! See what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians who were boasting that they had it all together:

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.  (1 Corinthians 1:26-29 ESV)

What if just one of the main characters in this story decided not to obey God? What if Deborah never called Barak? What if Barak chickened out and wouldn’t go to war? What if Jael never put a tent peg through Sisera’s temple? Any break in the chain anywhere and things would have been different. You see we all have people counting on us. We may know them or we may not know them, but they are counting on us. There are things that I’ve said and done that have had a ripple effect on others and set things in motion in the lives of others. Sometimes simply taking time to have coffee with a man sets a life, a family, a village of people on a different course because you were at the right place, at the right time, trusting God.

Ultimately I think what we are supposed to see here is that God fights for his people. If you are His and walking with Him, you are never in the fight alone! When we would repent of our sins and cry out to God for deliverance he will fight for us. Please know that when it comes to rooting habitual sin out of your life, that you are not in the fight alone. Indeed you could never succeed on your own. Christ is the one who fought for you at the cross and still promises to be with you even to this day. The great twist of the Christian faith is that we win by surrender. We give our lives to the Lord and then we see him conquer our enemies and it happens in everyday conversations, moves across the country, and even in the faith step to take on our darkest nightmares with the confidence that He will fight for us.

[1] In Judges 5:30, Sisera’s own mother is depicted as figuring that her son is probably off raping a few girls on the way home.