2. BY FAITH JEPHTHAH

3. It is really difficult to understand why a person like Jephthah would be included in God’s Hall of Fame.

4. Judges 11:1- “Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.”

5. Judges 11:29-34 “Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the

6. Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD: "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites

7. will be the LORD's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering." Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns

8. from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon. When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out

9. to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter.”

10. His main weakness in this passage is that he acted on what he felt was right rather than acting on the truth of the Word of God.

11. The sinful cycle of Israel had brought the People of Israel to the point they resembled their pagan neighbors more than what the Bible portrayed as the characteristics of God’s followers.

12. Is there anything in your life like that? How different is your life from the lives of unbelievers around you?

13. Look at all the ways he trusted God to work in his life: He made the best of a horrible situation.

14. He apparently held no bitterness.

15. He was willing to lay down his live for the very ones who had rejected him.

16. He understood that the source of victory would be the Lord.

17. 11:29 again, “Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.”

18. Lessons for us:

19. 1) God instructs us to live our lives according to His Word, not according to our feelings or thoughts.

20. Proverbs 12:15 “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who is wise listens to counsel.”

21. Proverbs 21:2 “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes..." When we live our lives according to what we feel rather than what the Word of God says, we will bring misery upon ourselves too.

22. 2) God chooses what men reject.

23. 3)God uses what men reject.