“How to Avoid Foot in Mouth Syndrome” Judges 11:29-40

 Pastor Manny Ojeda

When I was 17 I was fresh on the road with my brand new driver’s license.  I had already felt like an expert driving my 1981 Toyota Corolla.  In my vehicular invincibility the achilles heal of my new experience were the police who so passionately looked out for speeders and law breakers on the road.  Because of this fact, I was very careful to stay one step ahead of the citys finest.   My quest to remain one step ahead of these great officers climaxed one day when I noticed a group of police vehicles hurrying to the sight of an emergency.  In my young wisdom, I thought that if I remained behind them at a distance of course, but followed them in their speed that I would be able to speed, yet remain safe from those great little peaces of paper called tickets.  One day I tested that theory and of course since I couldn’t keep up with the officer, I let him go while maintaining my speed above the legal limit.  Immediately I saw those colors behind me and had to stop to receive a ticket for my efforts.  Let me tell you that I felt justified in my course of action and I freely explained that to the officer.  The officer did not like the presumption that I believed in.  He went on to scold me and teach me that I was presumptuously taking upon my self a dangerous attitude and that it was illegal.  So you mean that I cannot go as fast as you do, I asked the officer; “NO” he said and wrote me a ticket.  My very first ticket ever was because I was presumptuous, it should have read, “Manny Ojeda here by receives a speeding ticket of $100.00 Dollars because he was presumptuous.”

            Is it equally as dangerous to be presumptuous in our Christianity? Could it be said that presumptuous Christianity loses out on God’s blessings.  A story in the book of Judges chapter 11:28-31 comes to mind when talking about presumptuous Christianity.  Here in Judges 11, we have the story of Jephthah, a Gileadite Judge who was a mighty warrior.  As Jephthah was about to attack the Ammonites and defend Israel, the Bible tells us in verse 29 that the Spirit of God was upon him and then he made an vow to God, a vow that would haunt him later on.  Jephthah’s vow was one that at first seems inspired and passionate, but we see that it went as far as to become illegal in the eyes of God.  What was this great vow, well we read in Verse 30 of chapter 11 that Jephthah vowed to the Lord that “if you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”  Excessive? Radical? Illegal? Yes, yes and yes.  Here we have a Biblical character, a judge of Israel, a man of God who has just been filled with the Holy Spirit of  God  and then presumptuously sped behind a group of cops thinking that he is a cop himself, thinking that he can speed and not get burned for it.  What we are looking at is presumptuous Godliness that seems to even contradict God himself.

            In order for us to figure out this puzzling story let’s look at the facts.  First of all, we know that Jephthah had some time of dependence on God, so much so that God actually gave Jephthah His Spirit as we see in verse 29 of chapter 11.  This is not the first time that God had given the leaders of His people His Holy Spirit. We also see in Deuteronomy 20:4 that God went with His people to fight against their enemies, we also see in Judges 3:10 where Othniel who was also a judge received the Holy Spirit in order to go to war against Aram which by the way was a victory for Israel.  Let’s not forget Samson in Judges 13-16 who had power through his hair because of the Holy Spirit.  The question that we are wrestling with is why did Jephthah have to make such a vow when he already had the Holy Spirit who had so many times before proven that He could help them be victorious? Some of us could blame Jephthah’s heathen past and the fact that he spent some years leading an adventurous band of men who were clearly heathen.  Sure, we could blame him for that, but the true problem is that he did not trust God and still held on to his own power.  Jephthah had to put his hand on the plow instead of letting God take over.  This is presumptuous Christianity and it is very dangerous. 

            We are talking about faith in its rawest form.  We read in the book of Hebrew chapter 11:1 that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  Faith is when we trust in God even though we may not see the outcome.  It is total trust in Him and assurance that because he is God He will come through for us completely.  The problem that we see with Jephthah as we see with so many other Christians is that we know that God promises great things as we trust in Him, but we are reluctant to give it all to Him.  As a matter of fact many of us believe the saying that says that “God helps those who help themselves”. We believe that this means that we must help God along, and or give Him a hand.  The issue of faith is not to act without God, but to act because of God.  That is why Jesus in Matthew 21:21,22 tells us that  “If you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' it will be done.  Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive."  Let us not think for a second that we are the ones actually moving that mountain.  We are not, but it is God through our faith that is moving that mountain.  Faith is a belief that God can do.  Presumptuous faith though, is a belief that God can do, as I do for God.  We read in the book Desire of Ages page 126 “But faith is in no sense allied to presumption. Only he who has true faith is secure against presumption. For presumption is Satan's counterfeit of faith. Faith claims God's promises, and brings forth fruit in obedience. Presumption also claims the promises, but uses them as Satan did, to excuse transgression. Faith would have led our first parents to trust the love of God, and to obey His commands.”  In short, God does not need our help.  Jephthah on the other hand, being such a man of strategy and command, seems to have had plenty of head knowledge of his tactics and strategy, but he lacked heart knowledge, a knowledge that included total blind trust in God.  Blind faith is a practice that we all have trouble with.  You see my friend we are all tacticians coldly calculating our way around life.  Like Jephthah, we establish our band of adventures, (see Judges 11:3) and set up our earthly kingdom all by ourselves, and after we organize our lives, we seem to plug God in just where we want Him.  But God requests total surrender; total submission of Life to Him.  But again we forget that presumptuous Christianity loses out on God’s blessings.  Unfortunately, Jephthah’s presumption had grave consequences.

      In our story of Jephthah, in Judges 11:34, we read that who should come out of Jephthah’s house but his one and only child; his daughter.  But let’s remember that Jephthah made a vow to God and he had to keep it.  Here Jephthah realized that he had made a grave mistake.  His presumption took the situation out of God’s hands and placed it in Jephthah’s.  Let me tell you my friend that when we take life away from God’s hands and place it in ours, we enter into dangerous grounds.  My step brother is a nuclear engineer onboard a U.S. Navy submarine.  He has the incredible responsibility to work with a nuclear engine that is very dangerous.  I am glad that he does that job because that means that I don’t have to do it.  First of all, I would be afraid to work around such a thing; second of all, I don’t have the experience that he does.  You would not want me working on a nuclear sub with nuclear materials with my training as a pastor.  We are not trained to be God, we did not create the world, design the atom or the universe, we cannot be everywhere at the same time. And we cannot solve the complex problems of humanity.  It’s great not to be God, why would we then, like Jephthah presume our way into God’s realm?

            The pain is obvious, yet we still negotiate, we bet, we barter, we politicize, we compromise and we auction our Christianity on a daily basis.  Let’s not be too hard on Jephthah though, I believe that his pain is punishment enough, but we cannot forget that Jephthah was not the only one that presumed his own method of victory, as a matter of fact the father of faith, Abraham himself presumed that Ishmael was the son of promise but God still had other plans.  When we take upon ourselves the work of God, when our faith steps out of bounds with God’s will, we become a Jephthah, and our lives suffer as did his and his daughter’s.  Why didn’t God stop him from sacrificing his daughter as he stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac? Well could it be that when we presume matters into our own hands that we tie God’s hands with the choices that we make? Don’t get me wrong, God is not limited by our choices or anything else, but when we take matters into our own hands, we take it in essence out of God’s hands and forfeit His protection and blessing over that matter.  Presumptuous Christianity loses out on God’s blessings.  Don’t chase cops around, you are not a cop, and don’t make vows that you cannot support, you are not God.  Let’s pray that we may depend on God for all of our battles. Let’s depend on Him as we wait upon Him for all of our needs.