Please open your Bibles with me tonight to the book of Judges, chapter 3, and we'll begin reading at verse 12, 12 through 30. The account of Ehud, the second of the judges, an entertaining deliverance, as we will see. All right, Judges chapter 3, beginning with verse 12. This is God's word. Once again, the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And because they did this evil, the Lord gave Eglon, king of Moab, power over Israel. Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel. And they took possession of the city of Palms. The Israelites were subject to Eglon, king of Moab, for 18 years. Again, the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer, Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gerah the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon, king of Moab. Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword, about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. he presented the tribute to Eglon, king of Moab, who was a very fat man. After Ahud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it. At the idols near Gilgal, he himself turned back and said, I have a secret message for you, O king. And the king said, Quiet, and all his attendants left him. Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, I have a message from God for you. As the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade which came out the back. Ehud did not pull the sword out and the fat closed in over it. Then Ahud went out to the porch. He shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them. After he had gone out, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, he must be relieving himself in the inner room of the house. They waited to the point of embarrassment. But when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their Lord fallen to the floor, dead. While they waited, Ehud got away. He passed by the idols and escaped to Sarai. When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them. Follow me, he ordered, for the Lord has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands. So they followed him down, and taking possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab, they allowed no one to cross over. At that time, they struck down about 10,000 Moabites, all vigorous and strong. Not a man escaped. That day, Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for 80 years. The account of Ehud and Eglon that we are looking at tonight, we could say is quite colorful, to use that adjective as it is sometimes used. Some of the details, as we will see, are rather gory, and they even border on the disgusting. It has its swords, its blood, its guts. And I imagine it was one of the favorite stories of the little Israelite boys as they sat around in their towns, that they would make their pretend swords and act out the story of Ehud and Eglon. And I must admit that it was one of my favorites growing up also for some of those reasons. But there's more to this account than just the blood and guts. There's also humor, irony, and wit in the way this story is told. In many ways, it's like a well-done movie that has different levels depending on how much exactly you catch, how much you understand. One that you could watch again and again and get new details each time you see it. And many of these are hard to translate. So you'll have to bear with me tonight as I try to take you through them. And as we look at these entertaining details this evening, we will see that the author uses all of these things to make fun of Eglon and Moab, showing how easily they are outwitted by the clever Ehud. But then after we look at the ins and outs of Ehud's masterful deliverance, we'll then take a step back, and we'll look at the bigger picture. Is this account really focused on Ehud and Eglon? Why was Israel in this mess to begin with? Were Eglon and Moab really Israel's biggest problem? And if not, what was their true problem and its solution? And so that will lead to our three points this evening. Ehud's entertaining deliverance, Israel's enduring problem, and God's eternal salvation. So let us begin with the situation that Israel finds themselves in. They are subject to Eglon, king of Moab. And he has gathered himself, this coalition of three nations that are antagonistic to Israel. And they've not only conquered or subdued part of Israel, they've even come in and set up camp, you could say. Taken over the city of Palms. The city of Palms, which if your Bible has a little footnote like mine, is most likely a reference to Jericho. So they have come in and the first city that Israel conquered when they came into the land, they have now lost. And Moab and Eglon have come there and set up their palace. And they had to pay tribute to Moab, as we see a little later in the story. And this was all for 18 years, 18 long years. Ehud, the eventual deliverer, he was probably just a youth when Moab came and conquered. So this was a long time. And what does Israel do? They cry out to their God. This cycle we see repeated again and again in the judge's story. They cry out and God answers them and he gives them a deliverer, a savior by the name of Ehud. Now, what do we know about these two characters now, Eglon and Ehud? What do we find out about these people? Well, we've seen Eglon is this king, and he's conquered parts of Israel, and he's come and set up his palace, and he probably thinks he's pretty big stuff, we could say. And our author tells us, yes, he is pretty big stuff, though in a different sense. Look at verse 17, the end of it. Who was a very fat man? Now, I need to emphasize, the Bible does not make fun of Eglon for his weight. In fact, being large or weighty in the Old Testament, the word used for that is also the word used for glorious. To be weighty was to be glorious. And I'm sure that's what Eglon thought of himself. He was this king. He had tribute coming to him. He was this man worthy of glory, weightiness. But the biblical author uses a different word. It uses a word here that is almost only used to describe animals. Animals that have been out to pasture, and they've gotten plump. They've been well fed. They're fattened up. They're ready for slaughter. So that is the word that we find here, this very fat man. And we get another way that the author tells us about Eglon is just his name. His name is a little bit funny to Israelite ears. Now, you probably think all of their names are funny, but this one even for the Israelites. And names are often important in the Old Testament, and sometimes the biblical author will even tweak them somewhat to make a point. Just previous in the book of Judges, Otniel fought against somebody called Kush Rishathayim, and it means Kushan, the doubly wicked guy. So probably his mother didn't call him that. But the biblical author used that so you don't have any doubts as to who's the bad guy in the story. Well, Eglon is very close to the Hebrew word for calf, a baby or a young cow. So not only is he using words that are used to describe cattle, his name is even related to cattle. This Eglon, who thinks he is a powerful king, is nothing but a fatted calf, ready for slaughter. He's been fatted up, fattened up on Israel's tribute, and now it's time. He is ready for the butcher. So who's going to slaughter him? What do we know of Ehud? Well, verse 15 tells us that he is from the tribe of Benjamin. And as you read through the Old Testament, you see that Benjamin is often known as a warrior tribe, as fierce battlers. They were good fighters. But he was no ordinary Benjaminite. He was of a special group. We see that in verse 15 again, he is described as left-handed, a left-handed man. And a more wooden rendering of this phrase would say that he is bound of his right hand. And most translations go with the left hand to render that. But the other place that this is used is in Judges 20, verse 16. And in that particular place, it's used to describe a group of the tribe of Benjamin that were their elite fighters. It said in Judges 20 verse 16, Among all these soldiers there were 700 chosen men who were left-handed or bound with reference to the right hand, each of whom could sling a stone at a hare and not miss. So these were the real gunslingers of Benjamin. And many people think and postulate just by the description that these warriors probably were not naturally left-handed. They probably actually were born right-handed, but when they were young, they were trained to fight with both hands by actually binding their right hand to their body so that they have to use their left hand. If anybody's had their right arm in a cast, you know that you begin to learn very quickly when you have to. And so probably Ehud was not left-handed, he was actually ambidextrous. He had been trained in that from his youth. So these Benjamites that were left-handed, they weren't just in the military, they were the elite. They were the special forces, they were Israel's Navy SEALs, if you will, and Ehud was one of them. But how is Ehud going to kill Eglon? We will see it's a very stealthy assassination. He gets close to Eglon by being part of this group that brings tribute. It tells us that at the end of verse 15, the Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon, king of Moab. And most likely the tribute was their agricultural products. And that's why there's a whole group of them carrying it there. Their grain, wine, olive oil, and such. But as we pay attention to the details in here, it says particularly that the Israelites sent tribute to Eglon by his hand. Something that has a greater irony since we just learned that he's very skilled with his hand. And the word there for tribute could also be rendered present. It doesn't have to be tribute. It could be some other surprise. And Ahud proceeds to make that other surprise in our next verse. Verse 16. Now Ahud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long. He is preparing for this. He's prepared as they send him to bring tribute. He makes for himself this small sword. This sword that he can hide under his robe. And he puts it on his right side so that he can grab it with his left hand. So he can draw it out. And by that, he can seem to be unarmed. Since most were right-handed, they would look for the sword on the left side, the natural place to draw it if you were right-handed. And so he can sneak more readily a weapon in by hiding it on his right thigh, under his clothing. And it's not any sword that he makes. A normal sword at this time probably had one edge, one edge that was sharp, that was used for cutting, for fighting, just like a kitchen knife you have. Usually it only has one sharp edge. But this one was sharp on both sides, more like the swords we're used to. And it was shorter, and it was really more of a dagger, you could say. And it was used not for slashing like a normal sword, but for stabbing, a quick blow, a very stealthy maneuver. And we should note one more thing about this sword. In the Old Testament, when you talked about the edge of a sword, it's called the mouth of the sword. And so Ehud makes for himself a double-mouthed sword. That we could say is the wooden rendering of it. And swords are related to the mouths, to tongues, and to speaking throughout the Old Testament. And a double mouth is sometimes something of deception, a reference to deception. And so we pay particular attention as we go on to what comes out of Ehud's mouth. Will he be like his sword, double mouthed? So Ehud comes to Eglon with his sword hidden away, bringing the tribute. But he doesn't go right away. He has to wait for the right moment to strike. Because Eglon's in his palace. There's guards all around. How is he going to get close enough? He only has this short sword. And once he gets close enough, how is he going to get away? Or will this be a suicide mission? So he first delivers the tribute and then sends away the people that took it with him, going a short distance to Gilgal. But then at Gilgal, he turns back, turns back at the idols that are at Gilgal. And he pretends to have a message for Eglon. And in verses 19 and 20, we see that Ehud, he first tells Eglon that he has a secret message. And then he heightens it. He not only has a secret message, he has a message from God or the gods. And most likely Ehud was again being crafty in this. He had gone to the idols and turned back at them so that Eglon thought that these false gods had given him this message and that he was now delivering it to him. And we must at least mention, and it should pop out at us as we read this, what were these idols doing there anyway? And we'll find that they come up again. And we wonder Ehud's relationship to them. But Ehud brings his message to Eglon, and Eglon falls for it. He buys into it. Ehud's probably trying to get at his ego. Not everybody gets a secret message, especially not from the gods. And so Eglon is willing and ready to take this and ready to clear out everybody as he calls for quiet and everyone leaves. And now Ehud is alone with Eglon. But there really is another trick here. Because Ehud, when he's giving his message to Eglon, he uses a word that can have two meanings. The most normal or often used meaning for it is message or word. But it can also refer to an object or a thing. And so when Ehud says, I have a secret message for you, he can also be meaning, I have a secret thing for you. A hidden thing. A thing on his right thigh that he's ready to deliver. A thing from God. the one raised up to be the deliverer. And so Ehud makes Eglon think he has a divine message, but really he's referring to the sword under his clothing. Ehud has spoken with two mouths, deceptively, like his sword, and to push the pun even farther, we could say that the sword mouths are ready to deliver their message to the king. And now we get the climactic moment, and the story almost goes into slow motion, as we're told of every movement of Ehud, as he sends his left hand to his right thigh, as he takes this hidden sword, and he thrusts it into Eglon's body, and the sword goes all the way in, and even the hilt goes in after it, the part that you hold on to, and the fat of Eglon closes over it. The perfect strike with the perfect murder weapon left inside the victim. Ehud has delivered his present by his hand to Eglon. He has given him this secret thing, this secret object from God. And now what happens? Well, in verse 22, there is something we need to pause on. At the end of the verse there it refers to something going out and the word that is there that goes out is only used here and so its meaning is a little bit uncertain. The NIV translates it as the blade. So you see in verse 22 they have the events that the handle sank in after the blade which came out his back, is their translation. But a better translation can be found in some of the other versions. And it has an ancient pedigree going way back. And it's seen in the ESV, which translates verse 22 as this. And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly. And the dung came out. After Ehud struck Eglon, excrement came out of Eglon. As we say in my house, he went poopy. And this would have been as disgusting and humiliating to the ancient Israelites and Moabites as it is to us. In his death, this great king, this king who had controlled and oppressed Israel for 18 years, cannot even control his own bowels. Ehud strikes him and he involuntarily goes to the bathroom. This great king ends up on the floor in a pool of his own feces. So great in life, so humiliated in death. But Ehud doesn't wait around to celebrate. He has to go about and escape. And again, there is some uncertainty as to how he does this. But a very plausible reading of the text is that Ehud was alone, as we saw, in a room only with Eglon, in this palace room. And he goes to the door of it and locks it from the inside because we see later that the guards, when they come back, they have to lock it, they have to find a key to unlock it, to get into this room. And inside of this room, there must have been the royal bathroom because when these guards come back and they're waiting around, wondering why the door is locked, they think to themselves, well, maybe he's relieving himself. And so there must have been a bathroom attached to it. They probably got a whiff of what came out of Eglon. So how does Ehud get out of here? He's in this locked room with no exit. Well, most likely, he snuck out the royal toilet. Now, the toilet isn't like ours with a little hole that goes down to the sewer. Instead, it would have been more like an outhouse with a large hole that you sat over. Only it wasn't like an outhouse in that everything was gathered underneath, stinking up the palace. Most likely there was a channel that they would clean or maybe it had water running in it that would carry everything out. And this channel was probably big enough for a man to escape through. So Ahud jumped down the toilet and escaped out this water channel. Very clever indeed. And while Ehud's making this escape, Eglon's guards, they can't decide what to do. They keep asking questions and wondering, why is this door locked? Maybe the king's going to the bathroom. Can he still be going to the bathroom? This is way too long. And so finally they get so frustrated, they go get a key and open it up. And they find their lord dead on the floor. And meanwhile, Ehud has escaped, going past these idols again that we mentioned earlier. And he has gone and he's rallied the troops up in the hills of Israel, blowing the horn, and telling them, follow me, for the Lord has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands. Ehud, by this profession, we see, saw himself very much as bringing about the Lord's salvation. He knew that no matter how craftily he made his plan, there were many details, many variables that if God had not blessed it, it would not have happened. And God had done it. And so now he is leading Israel to the victory. And so Israel goes and they take up their position at the crossing of the Jordan. And these Moabites who are seeking to escape across the Jordan are cut off. And they utterly wipe out this Moabite army. This army which, again, in poking fun manner, is called fat. In verse 29, the end that's translated, at this time they struck down about 10,000 Moabites, all vigorous and strong. Vigorous could also be translated fat. So just like their king, they also were ready for slaughter. What a victory. After Ahud killed their king, the Moabites fell apart. They may have oppressed Israel for these 18 years, but now they run away and they have no way of escape. And these details, I hope, were somewhat entertaining. I hope I enlivened the text to you. but they're not just meant to entertain us. Why does God have this story here? Why tell it in such a way? Well, they are meant to show us that when God raises up a deliverer, it's not really a fair fight. The fattened calf Eglon was easily slaughtered by the skilled hands of Ehud. And we may praise God that he's more than able to deliver his people. But now, we need to move on to the second point. And don't worry, it's not as long as the first. The second and third point, as we take a step back now, and we think about Israel's enduring problem. As great as Ehud's deliverance was, with all its twists, and shall we say again, colorful details, did it really solve Israel's problem? Sure, they were oppressed by Moab, by Eglon. They cried out, and now they've been delivered. And we see that they have peace in the land for 80 years. But why was Israel in this pickle to begin with? How did they fall under Eglon's control? And now we really should look back at the beginning of our passage, which you may have noticed I kind of skipped over. Verse 12. Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And because they did this evil, the Lord gave Eglon, king of Moab, power over Israel. All of this began with Israel's sin. And this is the pattern we see throughout Judges as Israel sins again and again and again. The sons of Israel do evil in God's eyes. And so God strengthens Eglon because they do evil. God was the one who strengthened Eglon, king of Moab. And this really shifts our perspective on the whole passage. Eglon didn't come out of nowhere, catching God by surprise. No, God, he was not only the king who could raise up a deliverer, but he was the one who caused Moab and Eglon's plans to succeed. Our text, it says that the Lord strengthened Eglon, king of Moab, against Israel. Eglon, I'm sure, thought it was all his doing, his might, his power, his stratagem, that he was this big, powerful king, and yet it was all the Lord's doing. God raised up Eglon to punish his people. He forced Israel to live under Eglon's oppression for 18 long years to cause them to cry out, to see the errors of their way, to see their sin. And so it's no surprise, really, that just as quickly as God can raise up Eglon, he can also cut him down. When God is no longer strengthening Eglon, this king, who had control, as we saw, cannot even control his own body. And in this, we see God's power and control over all. And Israel should have taken this to heart, these accounts of God's sovereignty. Because all around them were nations that seemed to be bigger, seemed to have better kings, seemed to have better weapons, more powerful armies. But they needed to remember that all of those nations only had power because God gave it to them. And God was working through them for His purposes. Their kings, no matter how glorious they seemed, No matter how high and lofty, they would in the end be humbled, be humiliated, shown to be mere men, men who cannot control even themselves. And so we also can take encouragement from this as we read of corrupt leaders in the world that are bent on war and destruction. This world, if you believe the newspapers, is quite the scary place. There's nuclear bombs, terrorists, murderers, thieves. And we will see pain and destruction, even oppression in our lives. And yet, we always need to take that step back and see that God is in control of it all. But the main focus here is not just on God's sovereignty, we could say. It's really on Israel's sin. Even though the main bulk of this account is about Eglon and Ehud, it's really the story about Israel and God. God revealed himself to Israel. He was the creator. He was the one who had redeemed them from Egypt. He had brought them to this land of promise, this land of blessing. And what did they do? They rejected him. They turned to false gods. They forgot about him. They treated him as if he didn't exist. And not only did they do this once, they did it again, and again, and again, and again. And we also have this same problem, don't we? We have God's Word. We know that He is the Creator, the God of all, the only true God. And yet, how often do we forget Him? Do we reject Him? Place our confidence in something else, in money? Find our fulfillment in something else. Our job, our family. We become enslaved to the things of this world. So often in practice we live as if God does not exist. Do you live every moment of every day with the knowledge that God is your creator? That all of your activities are to be for His glory? I know that I fail in that. That we become selfish, self-reliant, We look to ourselves. We look to success as this world measures it. And how often do we respect and fear the authorities in this world, those that have power? We may, you know, to take a light example, how does your driving change as you see the police officer on the side of the road? And yet, when you're all alone, when nobody's around, how do you act? Do you act as one who really believes that you're in the presence of the living and almighty God, the one who you will stand before at the end of days, the judge of all? Jesus said in Luke 12, verses 4 through 5, I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. How often do we tremble in the face of people like Eglon, who seem to have power and authority, and yet we can forget about our God. Eglon was shown to be nothing, an object of ridicule, but God is the one whom we will stand before at the end of time, to whom we will have to give account. And so we go to our third point, God's eternal salvation. Thanks be to God that God does not treat us like we treat him, like our sins deserve. Israel would forget God, but he would not forget them. Instead, he was determined to bring them to himself. And we see this in the book of Judges, as God would continue to listen to their cries and turn to them, raising up saviors. And yet, we see in the book of Judges also that these saviors were not what Israel needed in the end. They needed more. They point us to a true savior, what a true savior needs to be. Ahud brought Israel's safety, brought rest to the land, But he could not change their hearts. He could not make them right with God. We even saw in his own life, we can point out and go back to a detail here, that he went by these idols. And then later as he's fleeing, he goes by these idols again. And we wait to hear. Because what were these idols doing in Israel? In Gilgal of all places. The place where God first brought them in. and sanctified them to himself. Why did not Ehud cut off these idols as he was commanded, as we see in the book of Moses? Ehud himself had his own failures. And so leaving these idols, Israel again falls under idolatry. And we see in the book of Judges how they get worse and worse. But in all of this, God was preparing the way for his climactic deliverer. the one who would fully restore his people, bringing a greater deliverance because it was from our enduring problem. We read in Matthew 1 verse 21, Matthew tells us that Jesus was raised up by God not to save them from Eglon, not to save them from the Romans at that time, other oppressive rulers, right? But Jesus was raised up to save us from our sins. He has restored our right relationship with God. Those who look to him, repent and believe. God sees not our enduring problem, but Christ's perfect righteousness. And not only that, but he sent his spirit That continues to change our sinful hearts, minds, so that we think new thoughts, do new activities. That we are remade, we are renewed after the image of Christ. So that we can delight in God's law, live for His glory. A change that we yearn for the completion of, which will be complete in heaven. And Jesus didn't secure 80 years of rest, right? It is an eternal salvation. We know that though now we suffer, now we may be under oppressive rulers, now we may see tears and toil, that we have a future salvation that is secure, eternal life in heaven. And so as we close, I challenge you. Who do you fear? Do you fear men like Eglon, who at the end of time will be shown to be weak, who will be humbled? Or do you fear God, who will judge, who will judge you, me, and all men? Fear God and accept his gracious salvation that has been provided and secured through Jesus Christ. Amen.