“People to meet in heaven: Ehud”
Judges 3:12-30
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Let me begin this morning with a question. What do Neil Armstrong, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Jay Leno and Marilyn Monroe all have in common? They’re left-handed, of course! It seems that quite a lot of famous people are!
Think of television and movie personalities like Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Bruce Willis, Pierce Brosnan and Goldie Hawn. Think of musicians Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. And think of presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barak Obama. They’re all left-handed too!
It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Thirteen out of every one hundred people are.
Scientists say that if you’re right-handed, you’re better skilled at language, math, logic and science. But if you’re left-handed, you’re better at music, creativity, spatial awareness and emotional expression. Right-handed people think orderly, methodically. Left-handed people think holistically.
But it’s not easy to be left-handed in today’s world. Not at all. Think scissors, serrated knives, tying shoe laces, sitting next to someone at a restaurant, playing guitar, pens on chains in banks, and pants with one back pocket. It’s a right-handed world.
Even language is rather anti-left handed. The Italian word for “left handed” is “mancino,” a word that means, “crooked” or “maimed.” In French, it’s “gauche,” a word that means, “awkward” or “clumsy.” And in Latin, the word for “left handed” is “sinister.”
As one left-hander once wrote in a poem: “So now we reach today, where you sit and watch me play, and yes, I play right-handed it is true. For the very simple fact is that I’ve had to adapt; something all us southpaws have learned to do. We have trouble tying ties, writing checks, using knives and scissors that were made for your right hand. And when it comes to sport once again we are left short, for in hockey and in polo we are banned. We’re the Southpawed Princes, we’re the lefties, you right-handers just don’t have a clue. But if you’d been through what we’ve been through, then maybe you would feel superior too!”
Even the Bible is a little hard on left-handers, for the right hand is always a symbol of honor and strength.
Psalm 118 says, “The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly; the right hand of the Lord is exalted.” Isaiah 41 says, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”
Even more, when Christ ascended into heaven, He sat down at God’s right hand. As Stephen died by stoning, he saw Jesus standing at God’s right hand. And in Matthew 25, as Jesus pronounces judgment over all mankind, He’ll say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” But to those on His left, He’ll say, “Depart from Me, You cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
The Bible seems a little hard on left handers.
But here in the book of Judges chapter 3, we meet a man, a good man, an important man, a left-handed man, whose name was Ehud.
Please turn with me to page 257 as I read the words of Judges chapter 3. I’ll start at verse 12: “And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He gathered to himself the Ammonites and the Amalekites, and went and defeated Israel. And they took possession of the city of palms. And the people of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.”
Let’s stop there for just a moment. It was some twelve hundred years before Christ, a time when judges, not kings, ruled the land, men and women like Othniel, Deborah, Gideon and Samson.
But as it often went, as long as the people were faithful to God, God blessed them. But when they became unfaithful, He withheld His blessing. Even worse, God sent other nations to conquer them and to punish them. That’s why it says in verse 12: “The Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”
But as much as Eglon wanted to conquer them, he couldn’t do it on his own. He needed a little help from his friends. So as it says in verse 13, “He gathered to himself the Ammonites, (who hated them), and the Amalekites, (who hated them even more), and went and defeated Israel.” And he ruled for eighteen years.
And for those eighteen long, terrible years, as the Israelites paid heavy tribute to Eglon, king of Moab, they got poorer and skinnier, while Eglon got richer and fatter.
Look with me now at verse 15 to see what happened next: “Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, a left-handed man.”
Let me stop there once again, because there’s something I have to explain, something really important.
Now when it says Ehud was a “left-handed man,” that’s really not the best translation. You see, technically, in the Hebrew, it doesn’t say he was “left-handed.” It says he was “weak, hindered, in his right hand.”
And we wonder why. Was it deformed? Was it crushed? What happened that made him have to use his left hand?
Stranger still is that he was of the tribe of Benjamin, a name that means, “Son of my right hand.”
Put it together and you find that, a left-hander from the tribe of the “Son of my right hand” was an unlikely hero, an underdog. He was handicapped. He was hindered. Yet God used him for His glory.
Look now at verse 16: “And Ehud made for himself a sword with two edges a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes. And he presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man.”
Now before I tell you what happened next, let me warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart. In fact, we even wonder why it’s here. In Sunday School, we like to teach stories about David and Goliath, Daniel in the lions’ den, and Joshua and the battle of Jericho. But never, ever, do we teach about Ehud and the king of Moab, because it’s just not very nice.
But since we believe that “All Scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for teaching, rebuking and correcting in righteousness,” there must be a reason it’s here.
And the reason is this--because just like Eglon, king of Moab, sin is a big, fat, ugly problem that God, and only God, can do something about.
As one author put it, “He is not a white-gloved, stand-offish God, out somewhere in the remote left-field of the universe, who hesitates to get His strong arms dirty in the yuck of our lives. The God of the Bible does not hold back in the wide blue yonder, waiting for you to pour Chlorox and spray Lysol over the affairs of your life before He will touch it. Instead, He’s the God who delights to deliver His people even in their messes, who allows weeping to endure for the night, but sees that joy comes in the morning.”
Isn’t that what our Savior Jesus has done? He didn’t keep His distance, wanting nothing to do with us. He blessed children. He touched the blind, the deaf, the sick and the dead. And He made them whole again.
And when He came to redeem us, He didn’t keep His distance there either. Instead, He stretched out not only His hands, but His feet as well, as men cruelly nailed Him to a cross.
No one could ever love us more than Jesus.
Now are you ready for what comes next? I’ll pick it up again at verse 18: “And when Ehud had finished presenting the tribute, he sent away the people who carried the tribute. But he himself turned back at the idols near Gilgal and said, ‘I have a secret message for you, O king.’ And he commanded, ‘Silence.’ And all his attendants went out from his presence. And Ehud came to him as he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, ‘I have a message from God for you.’ And he arose from his seat. And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly.”
I’ll stop there and let you read the rest.
Now as strange and as gory as this story is, it’s meant to teach us something very important. And it’s found in this—just as our God chose a man with a crippled hand from the tribe of Benjamin, the weakest and smallest tribe of all, even so He chose us.
That’s what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. He said, “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise. Not many were influential and not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things to shame the wise, and He chose the weak things to shame the strong…so that no one may boast before Him.”
And that’s how it always is with our God. Once He said to Abel, “What’s in your hand, Abel?” “Nothing,” he answered, “just a little lamb.” But he offered that lamb to God, and it became a sweet-smelling sacrifice.
He said to Moses, “What’s in your hand?” “Nothing but a stick, Lord,” he answered, “a staff to lead my flock.” “Take it,” He said, “to lead My people out of Egypt.”
“Poor widow,” Jesus said, “what is in your hand?” “Just two tiny copper coins,” she answered, “worth hardly anything at all.” But when she gave all she had, Jesus marveled.
“And Tabitha, what is in your hand?” “Just a needle and thread,” she answered. But with it, she warmed the poor and clothed the needy of Joppa.
Little is much in God’s hands.
Chuck Close is one of the great portrait artists in America. Look at his work, and you’d think you’re looking at a photograph. It’s that real.
But oddly enough, Close suffers from a condition called “prosopagnosia,” or “face blindness.” It means he can’t recognize familiar faces or even his own face.
Now you would think that if a man suffered from that disability, portraits would be the last thing he would ever paint.
But the very opposite happened. It motivated him. In fact, he said, “Everything in my art is driven by my disability.”
So his greatest weakness became the source of his greatest strength.
Think God can’t use you? Think you’re too poor, too plain, or too ordinary?
If God can use a man with a crippled hand to accomplish His will, He can use you too.
So it was with our Savior Jesus. He was born of a virgin, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a crude Bethlehem manger. Still He is Lord and Savior of all.
We thank You, dear Lord, for using an ordinary, left-handed man named Ehud in such an extraordinary way. We pray that, by Your grace, You would use us too, for Your glory. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen