← ArchiveTroubled HeartTroubled Heart: The Sin of Excess – Judges 3:12-30DateSeptember 26, 2021SpeakerJared MitchellTextJudges 3:12–30Passages in this sermonJudges 32:20Judges 25:18Romans 110:38Matthew 1612:40John 1613:36Audio recordingDownload the recordingTranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00Thank you. All right, well, good morning, church family.0:30It's good to be together for worship today. It's so good to gather in this place. My name is Jared, and I'm the worship pastor here at Bethel, and it is an absolute honor, and it's humbling for me to be able to stand before you and to preach the Word of God for us. As always, I'm incredibly thankful to Matt and the band for leading us again in worship so well. And so faithfully.1:00So would you join me in thanking them? I know Matt doesn't want this. But if you know anything about Matt, he's an incredible friend, and he walks in humility. And we're thankful for him, for sure. If you've been following along the last few weeks, you know that we have started a new sermon series in the book of Judges. And I think the reality is that there aren't many of us in the room who have heard an entire sermon series in the book of Judges.1:23I'm willing to bet that there aren't many worship pastors like myself who have even preached one sermon in the book of Judges. But something I've learned is that when your lead pastor has a Ph.D. in the Old Testament and he asks you to preach, you never know where in the Bible you just may land.1:49And today we've landed in the book of Judges, and I believe that it will be good for our souls. Because we need to be a church that loves to study the entire Bible, don't we? And when we say the entire Bible, we mean Genesis to Revelation, Old Testament and New Testament. You know, Jesus loved the Old Testament.2:18And I'm thankful that we find ourselves here today in the book of Judges, chapter 3. And if you're not there in your Bible, I would invite you to turn there with me. I'll admit that studying for this sermon has been challenging. It's been convicting. Because I believe that when we look at stories in the Old Testament, I believe that we see ourselves. And I believe that we see our sin.2:47But we also see God. And when we see God, we see Jesus. And when we get to Jesus, everything changes. Amen? And you know, here at Bethel, there will never be a Sunday that we don't get to Jesus. Because there is not a story in the entire Bible that does not point to Jesus. So as we look at this text today, we're going to break this story down into a few sections.3:19We're not going to read all at once, but we're going to go piece by piece. And I'd invite you to buckle in. Because there are some parts of this story in this text that are graphic. There are some parts of this story that there are no details left out. And I'll admit to you that it is okay to chuckle a little bit. To be honest with you, I did in preparing for this sermon.3:49But the reality is that we believe in expositional preaching here. And that's the kind of preaching in which we preach verse by verse. We walk verse by verse. So that's what we're going to do today. And I believe that God has much in store for our time together. So let me pray for us. And let's ask God to come and move through the reading and the preaching of his word. Let's pray. God, we come to you right now saying that you are so worthy of all of the glory and all of the honor.4:20You're worthy of all of our worship. Every song that we have sung this morning, we lift to you. So now, God, we come and we open your word and we ask that you would move. That you would move through simply reading the words. That you would move through the preaching of the words.4:47So, God, we are here. Your people are listening. Now, would you open up our eyes to see? Would you open up our ears to hear? Would you open up our minds to understand? And would you open up our hearts to receive? And we pray this in the name of your son, Jesus. And we all say, amen. Amen. So, real quickly, just to recap.5:16What do we see just a couple of weeks ago in Judges chapter 2? That Joshua, this servant of the Lord, he has died at the age of 110. And then the Bible tells us that after this happened, another generation rose up that did not know the Lord or the works that he had done for Israel. And this is the generation that Judges is focusing on. So, this book immediately starts in a tough place.5:44The people of Israel are in a bad place. And all throughout this book, it's going to get much worse. And as we read throughout this book, we're going to see a basic five-part storyline that likes to repeat itself over and over. And it's a cycle. And here it is. We'll have it on the stream. That the Israelites, they do evil in the sight of the Lord. So, then God hands them over to their enemies because of their sin.6:15Then the Israelites, they repent and they cry out to God for help. And then God raises up a deliverer each time to deliver them. And then finally, there's some peace. But eventually, they fall into sin again. And this cycle repeats itself. So, I just want to be honest up front. That if you're hoping to get to the end of Judges and see a happy ending, Well, you can skip ahead and see that it just doesn't happen.6:45Do we see God's grace in this book? Yes. Do we see his mercy? Yes, we do. Will we see God in this story today? Yes, we will. But this entire book, it is a sobering explanation of the human condition. And ultimately, it points out the need for God's grace to send a king who is not just a political figure, but an eternal savior.7:09So, church, as we read today, we have a three-part plan. Let's see the text faithfully. Let's see ourselves. And then let's see Jesus. So, that is the plan. And let's begin reading together. Judges chapter 3, starting in verse 12. It says this.7:40The Israelites, again, did what was evil in the Lord's sight. So, he gave King Eglon of Moab power over Israel, because they had done what was evil in the Lord's sight. Now, after Eglon convinced the Ammonites and the Amalekites to join forces with him, he attacked and he defeated Israel, and he took possession of the city of Palms. And then the Israelites, they served King Eglon for 18 years.8:08Okay, so let's go ahead and stop right here, look at what we're reading, that we see that the people of Israel, they have once again done evil. They have once again turned their back on the Lord. And this is not the first time, but it has happened once again. And all throughout this book, we're going to read, and we're just going to keep shaking our heads, thinking, oh, no, here we go. Because once again, they have sinned.8:37And you'll see that the title of the sermon today is The Sin of Excess. Because at this time, the Israelites were dwelling in the sin of excess. They were living with an all-I-want mindset. It's this attitude that says, I want what I want. I'll do what I want. I'll get what I want.9:07And that's really the definition of sin, isn't it? Living with an all-I-want mindset. And we see this all around us. But let's not talk about ourselves yet. But we see this in our kids, right? But my four-year-old daughter, Presley, who I love, she is constantly tempted to live with an all-I-want mindset. Now, recently, we've had a baby boy born into our family. And since then, Presley now has a brother.9:35So she is starting to learn and realize that she doesn't get what she wants whenever she wants it. And I'll admit to you that as her dad, and she is my princess, that I'm also learning not to give her everything she wants when she wants it. And I'm pretty sure it's probably tougher for me than it is for her. But let's not only talk about our kids. We're tempted to live this way too, aren't we? This attitude of, I just want more.10:04I want more money, more things, more of anything, just more, more, more. And when we live this way, it is a dangerous place to be because when we get caught up in an all-I-want mindset, we take our eyes off of the Lord and we no longer want what God wants. And all throughout Scripture, we see that God takes this mindset.10:30He takes this sin very seriously. In Romans chapter 1, we see that God gives people over to the sinful desires of their flesh. And that's what we see him do here in verse 12. When it says, The Israelites, they again did what was evil, so he gave King Eglon of Moab, he gave the king this power over Israel.10:53It was God who gave the king the power. This king did not take power without God's approval. So let's talk about the king. And what we're going to see about King Eglon is that he rules from excess.11:18He rules from taking. So the people of Israel, they will not repent from this all-I-want mindset. So God gives them over to a king with an all-I-want mindset. And what this king wants, he's going to take. And when he takes it, he's going to take it from them. And it's interesting that when we hear this theme, troubled hearts, for the sermon series,11:45we have a tendency to think, oh no, poor Israelites. What did these poor people possibly do to make their hearts so troubled? Oh, these poor people. Let's not miss it this morning that the Israelites, they did this to themselves. Their sin put them here. And that leads us to our first point, that a sinful heart is a troubled heart.12:15When I am living in sin, when I am living with an all-I-want mindset, and I'll do anything I can to get what I want, I'll run over anyone I can to get what I want. When I am living this way, my heart will never be content. Jesus tells us this in Matthew 16 when he says, For what will it benefit someone if he gains the entire world, but yet he loses his life?12:43He loses his soul. Friend, your heart will always be troubled until it is content in Jesus Christ. And when we say heart, we don't mean an organ inside of your body. We mean your desires, your wants, your mind, everything that makes you who you are. You were created to know Jesus, and without Jesus in your life, you will be troubled.13:09And there are some in the room that are thinking, Well, I know Jesus, and I find myself in troubling times. I know Jesus, and I'm in trouble right now. And I want to be clear that this doesn't mean that we will not have trouble. Yes, we will have trouble in this world. Jesus promises that in John 16 when he says, You will have suffering in this world.13:39You will have trouble. But then he says, Be courageous and take heart. For I have conquered, I have overcome the world. So yes, I will find trouble in this world. But my heart can rest knowing that this world is not my home. And for the believer, like Paul, we can say for me to live is Christ and to die is gain, because this world, the closest to hell is I'm ever going to get.14:08And praise be to the Lord that in the midst of the storm, my heart can rest. And my heart doesn't have to be troubled. So as we read this story, it should break our hearts, let it break our hearts, that the Israelites did not get this sooner. That they did not rest in the Lord sooner. Because look at 14. It says, The Israelites served the king for 18 years.14:35Their sin led to them being oppressed by this sinful king for 18 years. That's a long time. Why did God let them be oppressed for so long? Where was God for 18 years? And some of us are in the room right now thinking, God, why so long? In my own life, where have you been for the last 18 years?15:03And for some of us, it may be 18 years, but for some of us, it may be, God, where have you been for the last year? The last six months? The last month? And this is where I want to look at the Bible really closely. And I want to zone in on the text, because what we see, the next verse, verse 15, it starts a new paragraph. It starts a new journey, and it seems that God was waiting on them.15:32Verse 15 says, Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord. So I want to see, that between these two verses, 14 and 15, there's an 18 year gap. But the people of Israel have finally repented. Finally, after 18 long years, the Israelites have humbled themselves,16:00and they have cried out to God. And then we see how God responds. It says, 15, the Israelites, they cried out to the Lord, comma, and he raised up Ehud as a deliverer for them. Okay, so don't miss this, that the Israelites, they cry out to the Lord, comma. Now, if you look in your Bible, you're going to see a comma right there. There's not a period.16:31There's no waiting for a new paragraph. But what does a comma mean? God is saying, don't go anywhere, because this sentence is not done yet. You see, the Israelites, they lived in sin for 18 years, a gap. But when they cry out to the Lord, he responds with a comma, and he's coming immediately. He is not waiting. His deliverer is on the way. Now, some of you have been waiting for 18 years,17:00or for five years, or for one year, or whatever it may be. You've been waiting to repent of your sin, and turn to God. And I just want to ask, what are you waiting for? What are you waiting on? We need more gaps in our lives to become commas. If you are living in sin, if you have not cried out to God, don't let this gap widen anymore. Don't let this gap go on for 18 years,17:28but call out to God, and in an instant, he will respond, and your story can change. Your story is not over yet. And neither is this story. As they cry out, and then we see God responds, and he sends a deliverer in the person of Ehud. Verse 15, the Israelites, they cried out to the Lord, and he raised up Ehud,17:57this son of Jerah, this left-handed Benjaminite, as a deliverer for them. So let's stop again, and let's point out that Ehud has been given a physical description here. And this doesn't happen much in Scripture, so I believe it's something that we need to pay attention to. Ehud was left-handed, and this is interesting, because back then, if you were left-handed,18:26you were seen as having a disability. Surely something was wrong with you, and one thing was for certain, you were no match for a king. But what did God do? He raises up this man, Ehud, this left-handed man, and he turns his disability into deliverance. that this one who seemed disabled and disqualified18:56and disqualified turns out to be a deliverer for the people of Israel. And some of you think that God could never use you. You're worried to step in and serve because you think that you're not ready yet. You think that you don't have the skill that it takes, or you think that you've got some disability either internally or externally. In church, there is no person that God is not willing to use for his kingdom. Because it's not about skill.19:27It's about power. And friend, if your heart is willing, God supplies the power. And we need more of it. You know, there's some of us that are walking around and we've got a lot of skill. We can do a lot of things really well. I'm starting to think that we've got a lot of skill, but we've got no power. And God supplies the power.19:55So give God your heart. Trust in his power and let him use you for his kingdom and for his glory. Thank you, Ehud, for the example. And back to the text, there's this saying, and you may have heard it, that if you come at the king, you best not miss. So King Eglon is up and he is waiting and left-handed and left-handed Ehud is coming.20:25is coming. And then we see a strategy here. Verse 15, that the Israelites, they sent him with tribute to the king. They sent him with a gift. This is a good strategy because if you remember, King Eglon, he rules by taking. He is a king obsessed with excess. He wants their gifts. He wants their tribute. So when he hears that they are coming with tribute, he knows that this is something20:55for me. So this king gladly welcomes this meeting. So Ehud, he comes, verse 16, and it says that he made himself a double-edged sword, 18 inches long. And he strapped it to the right thigh under his clothes. Okay, we have another physical description that he put his sword on his right thigh. So this means he'll be coming from his left. So King Eglon isn't going to see21:24this coming, nor would he even expect this from a left-handed man. Then all the way through verse 20, in 17, it says, he brought the tribute to King Eglon of Moab, who was an extremely fat man. And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he dismissed the people who had carried it. Now with the carved images, he returned and he says this, King Eglon, I have a secret message21:53for you. And the king says, silence. And all of his attendants left him. And then Ehud approached him where he was sitting alone in his upstairs room where it was cool. And Ehud said, I have a message from God for you, not for anybody else, for you. And it's at this time the king stands up from his throne. So we see this word tribute again, that the king is excited22:23is excited to get more, but we have another physical description, that this king was an overweight man. But listen, it is crucial, it is crucial this morning that we see that this king's sin was not overeating. C.S. Lewis, he puts it this way, he says that gluttony is simply the sin of all I want.22:52want. And this king is completely consumed with an all I want mindset. I mean, look at it, play out in the text. When Ehud says, hey king, I've got a secret for you, at once, the king says, silence everybody out. He says, everybody leave. You can almost feel this animal-like desire in his voice that when he hears the word secret, he says, give it to me. That if this secret is for him and no one else,23:21this meeting has now reached a new level. The tribute that they brought, the gifts that they brought weren't enough, but he wants more and he doesn't even care what it is. Again, his sin was not overeating. His sin was simply not getting enough of anything. That he would want and want and want until he could want or have no more. Gluttony is simply the sin of all I want. That leads us23:52to our next point that the sin of excess, it affects every area of our lives. Not just food. And church, this sin, it creeps up into every area of our life, doesn't it? That we want more. And somehow we convince ourselves that we need more. That we need more money. I need a better job. I need a bigger house. And some point, at some point, we've got to ask the question,24:22the question, where does it end? You know, it doesn't matter if you're the richest person in the cemetery. And when you leave this earth, you're not going to take a trailer full of things with you. But the world, it comes at us. And it lures us in. It's like the world saying, hey, Jared, come here. I've got a secret for you. Jared, come here. If you'll just come, I'll give you this secret. And then without knowing it, we blindly follow church. We cannot buy24:51in to the lies of this world. We just can't. We can't afford it when Jesus is more than enough than we could ever want or need. I look at my own life. My needs are met. And I look at us in this room. We've got the building. We've got the people. We've got the programs. We've got the resources. But what we need more than anything is we need God to come and move. And God doesn't move25:23through a building or a program. And I'm not saying those are bad things. But ultimately, God moves through his people being faithful to him. And church, would we be faithful? Just like Ehud was faithful. And now in the text, we see the power of God intervene. When Ehud says, I've got a secret for you from God, it says, the king stands up from his throne. And the second, this is the power of God, the second this king25:52stands up from his throne, God sees to it that he will never sit down on it again. That this king that rules from taking, he rules from excess, he's now being removed from power. God is saying, you are done. Now get ready because we mentioned this was coming earlier that we're about to get a description of the king's death and it's pretty violent, it's pretty graphic26:22and there are no details left out. So starting in 21, it says, Ehud, he reached with his left hand and he took the sword from his right thigh and he plunged it into Aegon's belly. Now even the handle went in after the blade and Aegon's fat closed in over it so that Ehud could not even withdraw the sword out. And then the king's waist came out.26:50came out. If this story ever makes it to Netflix, I'm not going to watch. Like we kind of want to cover our ears and our eyes and not see it. And listen, I'm just reading the words. And there's not much I'm going to say about these details other than King Aegon has died and I think that we can all agree that this is not the way that any of us want to go. Amen. But it is interesting, right, that this king27:19who is completely obsessed with himself, he dies in complete humiliation. God has a way of humbling us even at the very end. And then we come to the end to Ehud, our humble hero. 26 through 30 it says this, it said, Ehud escaped while the servants waited and he passed the Jordan near the carved images and then he reached Shara. And after he arrived, he sounded the ram's horn27:49throughout the hill country. So the Israelites came down with him from the hill country and he became their leader. He told them, follow me because the Lord has handed over your enemies, the Moabites to you. So they followed him and then they captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Moab and they did not allow anyone to cross over. And at that time, they struck down about 10,000 Moabites, all stout and able-bodied men and not one of them escaped.28:19escaped. And Moab became subject to Israel that day and the land had peace for 80 years. We come to the end and we see Ehud, this unlikely hero, this man who was left-handed. He was seemingly disqualified because he was disabled. He comes down after defeating the king and the last thing he wants to talk about is himself. He says, follow me because the Lord has handed over your enemies.28:48your enemies. Come and see what the Lord has done. So they followed him. And now the Israelites, they have turned back to covenant faithfulness with God. And now, with the power of God, they go and they defeat 10,000 men. Again, church, we may have all the skill, but there is nothing that can stand against the power of God. And from that day, 18 years of grief,29:1818 years of bondage turns into 80 long years of peace. They cried out. They experienced God's deliverance. They experienced his power. And now, they're going to experience God's grace through 80 years of peace. But we didn't say forever. Because as we walk through this book,29:48remember, there is a cycle that we mentioned earlier. And we're going to turn the pages and just next week, we're going to come to chapter 4 and we're going to see that they do evil once again. That the people of Israel, they fall back into their sin and it just seems like this cycle will not end. Maybe you're there. Maybe this cycle of sin will not end for you. And it wouldn't end for them because Ehud, this man,30:18this man, this human deliverer, he could save them from King Eglon. He could save them from their political enemy but he could not save them from themselves. Some of us, we put our hopes in government or leaders or people around us and I'm just saying, church, you don't need a political leader to deliver you from your enemies. You need a savior that can30:47save you from yourself. You need a savior that can save you from you. no man can do that. And if you put your faith in man, you will always come up short. But this savior that we talk about, he has a name and his name is King Jesus. He is the son of God, the creator of heaven and earth. And he31:18And he came to this earth and he lived a sinless life. He died a death that I deserved to die. Because of my sin, I deserve to die. But Jesus died in my place. He died in your place. So if you put your faith in Jesus, he'll forgive you of your sin. And today it's the sin of excess, but what's it going to be tomorrow? It can be so many things because our sins, they are many,31:47many, but church, his mercy is so much more. Praise the Lord. So do you have a troubled heart? Like the sermon series theme. Is your heart troubled because of your sin? Don't waste any more time. Don't let your gap go any longer. But call out to God. Run to Jesus. And like this hymn says, it says, O soul, are you weary? And are you troubled? Is there no light in the darkness that you see? But there's light when32:17light when you look at the Savior. And it is life and it is more abundant and it is free. So turn your eyes on Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. Church, turn to Jesus. If you want to pray, I'm down here. I'd love to pray with you. Pastor Benny's going to come up and he's going to be up here. We would love to pray with you.32:47you. We would love to talk to you. But don't let this gap get any longer. Don't let it go for 18 years. Don't let it go for 18 more minutes. But look at Jesus and let everything else go dark. Because he is the light that you need. He is the savior that can save you. Let me pray.← Previous in Troubled HeartTroubled Hearts: Forgetfulness leads to a troubled heart (Judges 3:7-11)Next in Troubled Heart →Troubled Hearts: Should I Stay or Should I Go (Judges 4:1-3)More sermons on Judges →
