Today’s passage is Judges 3:12-31.
The Israelites do evil and the fat king of Moab, Eglon, ruled them for 18 years. The Israelites called out to God who sent left-handed Ehud to deliver them. He went with a group to deliver tribute. He told Eglon he had a message from God for him and with a short sword stuck him through his fat stomach. Then he mobilized the Israelites and they killed 10,000 Moabites at the Jordan, ushering in 80 years of peace.
Why is Eglon so fat? Why does Ehud have a double edged sword? What is God’s secret message?
God raises up a left-handed deliverer to show the people that someone they consider unclean just because they use their left hand to wipe themselves is not someone God dismisses.
So God uses Ehud to kill the fat bellied Eglon and Ehud locks the body in the toilet room. Good joke.
Nothing is dirty to God as Peter learned in his vision where God commanded him to eat all foods.
On the way to Jericho to kill Eglon, Ehud passes by the quarry where idols are made. On the way back he dismisses the men who had brought the tribute with him and he turns back to Jericho to deliver Eglon’s death blow.
He again passes the idol making place (19, 26). Idols must continually be passed. I can’t stop to worship them. I must constantly turn away if I am to receive God’s secret message.
Ehud wears his double edged sword on his thigh, his biggest muscle.
But it and not the muscle is what is truly powerful.
The double edged sword is God’s Spirit (Hebrews 4:12). It divides soul and spirit, bone and marrow.
It divides fat Eglon from life itself.
The sword goes right through Eglon, his fat belly swallowing the handle as the blade goes out his back.
Ehud delivered the secret message of God, his Holy Spirit, which freed Ehud from the need of a physical weapon.
Ehud himself becomes the weapon of God through his Spirit.
How has God divided me from my sin through this Spirit?
How has he killed me today?
God sent one of my teachers to do it.
We were discussing the need for a study hall for our students when they’re not in class.
We don’t have any room to make one but we daydream about what it could be like.
In describing it, the teacher said the students would need carols to work in to give them a modicum of privacy with their computers.
I wondered if that would be a good idea because then they would look at inappropriate sites, pornographic ones.
The teacher immediately confronted me with my negative comment, which was contrary to the positive ones I use with the students and with speeches to the teachers.
My remark reflected my own sin and my own unredeemed attitude.
The teacher plunged the sword of the Spirit into my fat sin and divided me from it.
I immediately said she was right, thanked her for confronting me and, like David after taking a census, felt the force of self-reproach.
Why did I say something stupid like that about students I love and am tasked with their education?
Lord, inspire me with your attitude towards others. Let me not bow down to the idols of cynicism but turn away from them to live your love for others. Let me serve you more diligently, more responsibly.
