Fearless: Deborah and Jael

Fearless: Deborah and Jael (Judges 4-5)
Two women who delivered Israel were fearless because they were zealous (marked by active interest and enthusiasm) for God in three actions

1. Deborah listened to God

• Under the palm tree of Ramah she listened to God and judged the people with what God was saying to them (Judges 4:5) As helpful as technology is sometimes I have to turn my phone off to hear from God.  
• Have you ever had to just turn everything off and listen.  Silence is a spiritual discipline, and we should practice it more often

2. Jael acted on behalf of God

• Jael invited Sisera (an evil King) into her tent and killed him with a tent peg!  She took the tent peg and a hammer and drove the tent peg through his temple and into the ground, OOOWWWWW! (Judges4:17-24)

• I think of Jael and I think of maybe a modern day Jael in the famous missionary Gladys Aylward.  She lived from 1902-1970 saving children in China.  She traveled from London to Peking which is 5,000 miles on the trans Siberian railroad, adopted nearly 200 children and fled to the mountains to protect them when the Japanese invaded China.  What is God making you zealous for like Jael was for the deliverance of Israel.  What if we were as serious about our sin as Jael was about delivering Israel from a wicked King?  Would we take a tent peg through the head of our sin and kill it?

3. Deborah worshipped God (when he acted)

• Deborah wrote a song about how God acted (Judges 5:1-end) She gave credit to God as being the sole mover in this deliverance (5:2-5)

• Worship: sometimes we don't worship God because we don't really believe that God is the prime mover in our deliverance from sin. We think that we have a part in our own deliverance. Worship demands we believe that that God has wrought a miracle in our deliverance from sin!  These two awesome women of the Bible believed God had delivered Israel and they worshiped Him for it.