Beth Moore — A Story Fit for a Song
I want to show you lastly and we'll camp on it for a few minutes so stay with me here if you would as we're finishing up our series on a story that is fit for a song. I want you to hear number eight and it is this.
It is a story of tested character and true courage — a story of tested character and true courage. I've got to show you something that I found incredibly interesting.
I want you to look toward the very end of Judges chapter five. This is going to be on the song version, four being the story and five being the song.
I want you to look toward the end of it. I'm going to pick up with a new character that we find that jumps on the page in verse 28. It tells about in the previous verses, it talks about Jael and her driving the tent peg through the head of Sisera but then it says in verse 28 in this song of Deborah and Barak. It says:
28 "Through the window peered Sisera's mother; behind the lattice she cried out, 'Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed?'
I want you to stop here because that's such archaic language it tends to go right over our heads, but something extremely intriguing is right in the middle of it. After we've been told what a harsh ruler the Canaanites have and how Sisera is such an enemy to the Israelites, at the very end of the song we get this picture of Sisera's mother.
And she is looking out, even though it is the enemy's family, she is still a mother that is looking for the homecoming of her son. She is peering out the window going, "Why don't I see him? Why don't I hear the hooves of the horses pulling his chariot? Why isn't he coming?"
And it says that the women, her ladies in waiting around her answer her answer her and it says, "Indeed, she keeps saying to herself." So the women around her and then she is going, "You're exactly right! That's exactly what's happened.
What's taking them so long? Well, you know they're dividing up the plunder! All the garments and then a woman for this one and two women for this one."
Stay with me here because this just blew my mind when one of the commentaries pointed this out. That literally, if we were to take it as close to the Hebrew rendering as we possibly could, it would say — and just hear this out for a moment, it would say, "A womb, a pair of wombs for the head of each man.
And out of Nivack, one of the commentary series it says and I'm quoting that, "It is an overtly sexual expression." That other words could have been used for a woman or maiden or a damsel but it is saying and I'm quoting now, "To victorious soldiers, the women of vanquished foes represent primarily objects for sexual gratification, another realm to conquer."
Here's the point that I want to make to you because our last statement that we're making together about how to have a story that can turn into a song is we have to be people of tested character and courage. What has happened in this picture could happen to every single one of us in this culture.
And for just a moment, I do believe that this will also speak to you men so hang in here with me for a second. But I really want to drive this one home. Almost like a peg in the head as we make the point of the crudeness that had overtaken the women in a crude culture. That the women themselves were saying, "You know what they're doing? They're getting them a woman as part of their plunder before they come home."
Now this was oppression to the women. This was rape. This was wrong! But in such a crude society the women had taken on the crudeness and they themselves had become part of the oppression to their own gender. Is anybody staying with me here for a second?
You and I, all of us, male and female, we live in this western world and many parts of the world but I can't imagine that any nation would exceed us on this one. We live in a very crude culture, all of us may know a whole lot of godly men — I certainly know a lot of godly men but we also know a whole lot of crude men.
And what can happen in the society that we live in is that women can lose their femininity and we can become as crude as the guys. Now gentlemen, please don't take me wrong in this. I'm not saying that you are crude. I'm saying that we live in a crude culture.
What is happening is that we've kind of taken on the "Sex in the City" kind of attitude that if we as a gender, I'm speaking of women, if we can't beat them, we'll join them. We'll talk just like them and act just like them and we've taken on the role of crudeness.
It is a call back to modesty: Modesty of character; modesty of heart and purpose. We don't want to be crude! We want to keep the protection over our hearts and over our gender.
When we're part of something that demoralizes and minimizes our gender, we've just taken on the same crudeness. When we watch things or pay for things or support things that are demeaning to our own gender and then we're going to complain about it later in another realm, we've just been part of it.
This is a call back to femininity. A call away from crudeness; that we don't talk like the rest of the world, we don't think like the rest of the world. And we don't consider ourselves spoils to the enemy. It was very, very penetrating to me.