By Hammer and Storm

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 105:1-5
• Hymn — O Praise the Lord, His Deeds Make Known (Psalm 105)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Scripture Reading — Ephesians 6:10-20
• Hymn of the Month — The Grieved Soul (Joseph Hart)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Sermon
• Hymn — Soldiers of Christ, Arise (#540)
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Sermon Title: By Hammer and Storm

Scripture: Judges 4–5

I. The Need for the Lord to Triumph Over His Enemies

A. The cycle of sin repeats in Judges 4:1

1. Israel, the covenant people, repeatedly abandons the Lord for idols
2. The Lord sells his people into oppression to test and purify them, driving them back to himself

B. The two oppressors: Jabin and Sisera

1. Jabin is called "King of Canaan" four times (Judges 4:2–23); Canaan represents the spiritual foil to Israel — a wicked people occupying the promised land
2. A prior Jabin, king of Hazor, appears in Joshua 11; this connection signals that in a fallen world awaiting God's final victory, there will always be a Jabin
3. Sisera, Jabin's general, is the direct source of cruel oppression; his 900 iron chariots represent his military dominance
4. The poetry of Judges 5:28-30 reveals the depth of Sisera's cruelty — his mother's court boasts of women taken as plunder by his armies

C. The pattern of doubles throughout the account (two oppressors, two women, two generals) serves to highlight the one the story is truly about: the Lord

II. The Details of the Lord's Triumph to Deliver His People

A. The victory belongs to the Lord

1. Deborah's prophetic word in Judges 4:7 — "I will draw out Sisera... I will give him into your hand"
2. Deborah's word to Barak in Judges 4:9 — the glory will not go to Barak, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman; the focus is on the Lord who does the selling

B. The Lord orders every detail — equipment and location

1. The 900 iron chariots of Sisera are referenced seven times; their great weight becomes significant in the Lord's purposes
2. Barak is directed to specific locations: Mount Tabor, Kedesh, the Kishon River (Judges 4:6-7); Barak gives up the strategic advantage of the high ground, descending at the Lord's direction
3. Heber the Kenite's seemingly incidental relocation of his tent to near Kedesh (Judges 4:11) is no coincidence — the Lord is ordering the chessboard

C. The Lord delivers by a storm

1. Judges 4:15 — "The Lord routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army"; the Hebrew word for "routed" often describes divine thunderstorm
2. The song fills in the details: Judges 5:4 — the earth trembled and the heavens poured water; Judges 5:20-21 — the stars fought against Sisera; the torrent of Kishon swept the army away
3. The heavy iron chariots sink in the mud; the Lord taunts his enemies — you come with iron chariots, I come with thunder, lightning, and flood

D. The Lord delivers by a hammer

1. Sisera flees on foot to the tent of Jael, wife of Heber, trusting in her hospitality and the treaty between Jabin and Heber's house
2. Judges 5:24-27 — the poetry celebrates Jael: she gave him milk, then drove the tent peg through his temple; "where he sank, there he fell — dead"
3. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 5, affirms that God in his ordinary providence makes use of means — all details great or small are God's details, even surprising secondary means

E. Jael points us to Jesus

1. Genesis 3:15 — the seed of the woman will crush the head of the seed of the serpent; Jael, a woman, crushes the head of a seed of the serpent
2. At the cross, Jesus is nailed by a hammer; at his death he declares "It is finished" — victory over sin and Satan is won
3. Sisera never rises from where he fell; Jesus rises from the tomb, the true seed of the woman crushing the serpent's head
4. Luke 10 — Jesus declares "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven"; the triumph secured in the wilderness and sealed at the cross

III. The Duty of the Lord's People to Glory in His Triumph

A. Deborah and Barak sing on the very day of victory (Judges 5:1) — twice declaring "Bless the Lord," "I will sing to the Lord"

1. The glory belongs to the Lord alone — not to Deborah, not to Jael, not to Barak
2. They model how God's people respond to redemption: with praise

B. The antidote to cold Christianity

1. Reformed Christians are tempted toward a "frozen chosen" formalism
2. The remedy is to see with Deborah and Barak — worship follows deliverance as we recount the deeds of the Lord
3. Philippians 4:4 — "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice" — the New Testament command to God's delivered people