GENERAL SUBJECT
CRYSTALLIZATION-STUDY OF JOSHUA, JUDGES, RUTH
Message Seven
God's Raising Up of Deborah as a Judge of Israel and as a Mother in Israel Who Practiced the Female Submission to the Man in Order to Keep God's Ordination and Bring All of Israel into a Proper Order under God's Kingship and Headship
Scripture Reading: Judg. 4—5
I. The book of Judges shows that Israel had offended God by rejecting Him as their King; it is a great wickedness, a great evil, in the sight of God if we reject Him as our King, our Lord, our Head, and our Husband—1 Sam. 8:7; 12:17, 19; Judg. 21:25; 17:6; Luke 19:11-14; Jer. 11:13; Ezek. 16:24:
A. We should continually take, experience, and enjoy Christ as our King, our Lord, our Head, and our Husband so that He can be our blessing to make us a channel of blessing to the saints and all the churches—Matt. 2:2; John 1:49; Heb. 7:2; Isa. 32:1-2; 33:22; Phil. 2:9-11; Rom. 14:6-9; 2 Cor. 4:5; Col. 2:19; Eph. 1:22-23; 2 Cor. 11:2-3; Hosea 2:19-20; Num. 6:23-27; Psa. 128:5; 48:2.
B. Matthew 1:1 speaks of Christ as "the son of David, the son of Abraham":
1. Because we are rebels, we need to repent and receive Christ as the son of David, that is, as our authority, as our Sovereign and King, so that He may rule in us and over us in God's kingdom.
2. If we have Christ as the son of David, the greater Solomon, we will also have Him as the son of Abraham, the real Isaac; this means that the more we take Christ as our King (the son of David), the more we are under His ruling, and the more we are under His ruling, the more we enjoy Him as our blessing (the son of Abraham); this is the blessing of the processed Triune God consummated as the all-inclusive Spirit—v. 1; Gal. 3:14, 16, 29.
3. This will cause us to become channels of blessing for the saints' progress (their growth in life) and for their joy of the faith (their enjoyment of Christ); we have been called to bless others, so we, as a blessed people, should always bless others that we may inherit blessing—Phil. 1:25; 1 Pet. 3:9.
II. God raised up Deborah as a judge of Israel who practiced the female submission to the man in order to keep God's ordination and bring all of Israel into a proper order under God's kingship and headship—Judg. 4—5:
A. The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah after Ehud died (4:1), so Jehovah sold Israel into the hand of Jabin the king of Canaan, the captain of whose army was Sisera; he had nine hundred iron chariots, and he oppressed Israel severely for twenty years—vv. 2, 3b.
B. At the time of Judges 4, the men of Israel had failed in their God-ordained function of leadership; this forced God to do something extraordinary and unusual in raising up a female, Deborah, as a judge of Israel; the raising up of such a female changed the entire condition of Israel—vv. 4-5.
C. The children of Israel cried out to Jehovah (v. 3a), and Deborah, a prophetess, was raised up as a judge of Israel; she would sit under the palm of Deborah, and the children of Israel went up to her for judgment (vv. 4-5).
D. In the Bible a proper female indicates one who is in submission to God, one who keeps God's ordination; this is the position that Israel should have taken before God as her King, her Lord, her Head, and her Husband, but Israel violated God's ordination, leaving her position as God's wife and forsaking Him for hundreds of idols; this brought Israel into a miserable situation and condition:
1. Samson was a Nazarite from his mother's womb for the full course of his life; the Nazarite was to let his hair grow long, signifying that he was to remain in subjection to the Lord's headship, wherein is power—Num. 6:5; Judg. 16:17; 1 Cor. 11:3-6, 10, 15.
2. But Delilah pressed him with her words every day and urged him to tell her the secret of his power until "his soul was tired to death" (Judg. 16:16); because of Satan's wearing-out tactics, Samson fell into Satan's snare, his hair was shaved by Delilah, and he was captured by the Philistines, losing his Nazarite consecration, his power, his testimony of sanctification, and God's presence (Dan. 7:25).
3. Those who accept the different and wrong teaching that the believers should not submit to deputy authorities appointed by God will be spoiled by this teaching; with us (especially with the married sisters—Eph. 5:22-24), there should be a submissive spirit, standing, atmosphere, and intention; if you are such a person, there will be a great blessing for you and for your future.
E. By reading Deborah's song in Judges 5, we can see that she was full of ability, capacity, insight, and foresight, but such an excellent and capable person was very submissive; God made her the leader, yet she kept the proper order and took Barak as her covering—4:6-9; cf. 1 Cor. 11:3-6, 10.
F. Deborah realized that she needed a man to be her covering; as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:3: "Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ."
G. When this excellent, extraordinary woman took the lead to practice the female submission to the man, the entire country came into an excellent and proper order; all the leaders took the lead, all the people followed, and the army was formed; everyone returned to his or her proper position before Jehovah.
H. Thus, Deborah could say in her song, "That the leaders took the lead in Israel, /That the people have willingly offered themselves, /Bless Jehovah… /Then a remnant of the nobles went down; /The people of Jehovah went down with me against the mighty"—Judg. 5:2, 13.
I. The first and greatest function of the sisters in the church is to be submissive; if the sisters can learn this lesson, the church will be strong, enriched, and renewed:
1. To be submissive requires the supply of life, the enjoyment of grace, the working of the cross, and the denial of the self.
2. Those who are filled with Christ are filled with submission; the Lord, who was submissive throughout His life, has given us His life of submission and obedience—Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 5:7-9.
3. For a sister to marry a brother means that she is willing to offer herself up and say, "I am willing to submit"; if a sister has never intended in her heart to submit to the one whom she intends to marry, she should not be his wife and should not marry him—Eph. 5:22-23; 1 Pet. 3:1-6.
III. Deborah rose up not only as a judge of Israel but also as a mother in Israel—Judg. 5:7:
A. When the church life in practicality reaches a peak, there should be some real mothers in every church; in Romans 16:13 Paul says, "Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother as well as mine":
1. The apostle Paul needed a mother; without a sister as a mother to take care of them, all of those who bear the burden for the Lord's service would be sorrowful; we all need the care of spiritual mothers, whose care is our real nourishment and our real protection.
2. Paul's having a spiritual mother indicates that the saints in the church life in Rome had a life transfer through the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ; the best way to have a life transfer is by following the pattern of Paul, who did not determine to know anything but the all-inclusive Christ, and this One crucified—1 Cor. 2:2.
B. The Gospel of John is a book on life, not on the natural life but on the transferred and transformed life; originally, John was not Mary's son, and Mary was not John's mother, but by Christ's lifereleasing death, by His life-dispensing resurrection, and by His life union with them, His beloved disciple could be one with Him and become the son of His mother, and she could become the mother of His beloved disciple—19:26-27.
C. Our first relationship is in the f lesh, but the second is in the spirit, that is, in the transferred life; because we have the second birth (3:6), surely we have the second relationship, the second family relationship with the real sisters and the real mothers.
D. If the sisters exercise their spirit of prayer and faith to be real mothers (2 Cor. 4:13), they will realize how selfish they are and how much they are in themselves; having good children in the spirit will expose them to the uttermost; furthermore, the sisters will grow and mature in life by taking care of some spiritual children.
E. If the sisters love the Lord and mean business to be for the church life in the Lord's recovery, they need to consider themselves as serving nurses, as church nurses, who give nursing care in the church as a true hospital; all the sisters need to be serving sisters by prayer and loving mothers by the most excellent way of love in order to help the needy ones and the younger ones in their spiritual life and church life; this is the best way to receive the blessing, the growth, the spirituality, and the real enjoyment of the Lord—Rom. 16:1-2, 13; Isa. 66:12-13; 1 Cor. 12:31b; 13:4-7.
IV. The Bible says that at that time among God's people, there were "great resolutions in heart," and there were "great searchings of heart"—Judg. 5:15-16:
A. To have a great resolve is to make a firm decision, and to have a great searching is to devise a plan to live to the Lord and to live out the Lord for His up-to-date recovery in the building up of His Body, the preparation of His bride, and the ushering in of His kingdom in its manifestation—2 Cor. 5:14-15; Rom. 14:7-9; Rev. 19:7-9.
B. As Brother Lee was in the process of being oppressed by the Japanese military police in 1943, the Lord gave him a dream in which he saw the day dawn, like the dawning in the morning, with a broad highway, very bright, very straight, and stretching on boundlessly; this is the broad highway, the rising sun, and the boundless future of the Lord's recovery—cf. Prov. 4:18.
C. We need to aspire and pray to be like those whom Deborah describes at the end of her song, which concludes in a glorious way: "May those who love Him be like the sun /When it rises in its might"—Judg. 5:31:
1. For the sun to rise in its might means that it shines brightly, brilliantly, and gloriously; if all the churches would experience the resolutions, the searchings, and the rising up to shine like the sun, they surely would enjoy the Lord as their victory.
2. The overcomers who are reconstituted with the healing Christ as the Sun of righteousness will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father—Mal. 4:2; Luke 1:78-79; Matt. 13:43.