Wisdom International Devotionals

by Seth Davey

  An Ode to Fear Judges 6:22-24 Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD. And Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face.” But the LORD said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD and called it, The LORD is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.   Our sense of fear is a double-sided gift from the Lord. On the one hand, it serves as a biological mechanism for protection from danger. Consider the way children react to an ugly face with a menacing grin or a stranger driving down the street or a big wolf spider that crawls out from the shadows or a rundown house in the woods or a witch on someone’s porch at Halloween or the upstairs hall when the power goes out. Fear gives us a sense of evil. Those shivers down our spine and that crawling on our skin and that recoiling in our stomach is a physiological alarm that someth...

  A Word that Could Move Mountains Judges 6:11-12 & 15 Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD … said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” … And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”   Our Lord’s appearance to young Gideon by the terebinth tree outside a secret winepress remains my favorite Theophanous appearance in the entire Old Testament. Why? Because it is so marvelously mundane. There’s no flaming bush to lure Gideon’s curiosity. There’s no thundering voice speaking through a mountaintop torrent. There’s no shepherd staff transforming into a king cobra nor a Red Sea parting to form a highway nor a cloud of honeyed wafers falling like snow. Just the LORD of heaven mee...

  Sin is So Unproductive Judges 6:1-4 a The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And … because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land … and leave no sustenance in Israel.   Like the slow, painstaking tunnelling of prisoners through thick cell walls, such is the joyless travail of trying to carve out an existence in a failed, godless state.   Listen, friend, past the distant clanking of hammer on chisel that rumbles on through these Israeli nights to the emptiness all around. Where are the sounds of youths playing football in the valley at a homecoming parade? Or the sounds of men building patio furniture for their ...

  I Will Awaken the Dawn Judges 5:31 “So may all your enemies perish, O LORD! But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.” And the land had rest for forty years.   The same psalmist who just personified the heavenly stars as heavenly embodiments of spiritual entities now personifies the bright, morning star around which our mortal lives revolve by the masculine “he” and “his.” As if to suggest that the sun that reigns over our pale, little earth is representing another spiritual Being at the center of the cosmic order: the brightest of all heavenly bodies, and the mightiest of all celestial warriors, and the very Light that gives light to all men—the absence of which our world would cease to be. Oh, but hear the chorus of Deborah and Barak as they sing together with full heart and voice in their own unique tones! Hear their yearning after the face of God! Reflect on the mission of sanctification afresh, which is to be refined day by day under Heaven’s refining, ...

  Song of the Stars Judges 5:20-21 “From heaven the stars fought, from their courses they fought against Sisera. The torrent Kishon swept them away, the ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon. March on, my soul, with might!”   There are commentators today who view astronomical lines like  “from heaven the stars fought”  as windows into the wider cosmic spiritual war of which our little earthly lives are more permeations. Like when Paul pulls back the curtain in Ephesians 6:12 by proclaiming that  “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  Words like these open our minds to the legions of angel armies all around us, fighting over us and with us and perhaps even for us as we do our part, choosing ambitions, words, and deeds that please God. Add to that the enigmatic proclamation from God to Job in Job 38:4 & 7,  “Where were you when ...

  Sabbath Psalm  (January 25-26)   (Adapted from Fanny Crosby’s hymn “Tell Me the Story of Jesus”)   Tell me the story of Jesus,  Write on my heart every word; Tell me the story most precious,  Sweetest that ever was heard! Tell how the angels, in chorus,  Sang as they welcomed His birth; “Glory to God in the highest!  Peace and good tidings to earth!”   Fasting alone in the desert, Tell of the days that are past; How for our sins He was tempted,  And how He endured to the last. Tell of the years of His labor,  Tell of the sorrow He bore— He was despised and afflicted,  Homeless, rejected, and poor.   Tell of the cross where they nailed Him,  Writhing in anguish and pain; Tell of the grave where they laid Him; Tell how He lives yet again! Love, in that story so tender, Clearer than ever I see: Stay, let me weep while you whisper, Love paid the ransom for me!

  The Duet, pt.2 Judges 5:16-18 “Why did you sit still among the sheepfolds, to hear the whistling for the flocks? Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan; and Dan, why did he stay with the ships? Asher sat still at the coast of the sea, staying by his landings. Zebulon is a people who risked their lives to the death; Naphtali, too, on the heights of the field.”   Despite the deficiency of modern English to translate the poetic power of these Hebrew verses, the spiritual currents rumble under the page, as if the scroll is a dam holding back torrents of water, and the dam is about to burst—about to immerse us into the shadowy depths of self-examination.   Upon searching my own heart just now, I encountered within myself a promised land divided. I found a Zebulon in my ambitions that is willing to throw everything on the line for the sake of the gospel, willing like Peter to die for the LORD, and, like Paul, to conside...

  The Dynamic Duet Judges 5:1-2 & 10-11 a Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day: “That the leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly, bless the LORD! … Tell of it, you who ride on white donkeys, you who sit on rich carpets and you who walk by the way. To the sound of musicians at the watering places, there they repeat the righteous triumphs of the LORD, the righteous triumphs of his villagers in Israel.”   Take this literally or take it figuratively, but there’s no greater or more striking resonance of the rumblings of God’s vocal cords than in a man and a woman singing together in harmony. That’s how the whole story started, isn’t it? Adam, being uniquely man, and Eve, being uniquely woman, became together something even more uniquely wondrous. Something incomprehensibly complete. Adam’s brassy, baritone notes hummed through Eden’s groves but there was something missing in it. It lacked the sweeter, soprano vibrato ...

  Sola Deo Gloria Judges 4:17-18, 21 a But Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kenite. And Jael came out to meet Sisera and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord; … do not be afraid.” So he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug. … But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple … while he was lying fast asleep from weariness.   As a lifelong Manchester United soccer fan, I remember watching Manchester United’s legendary 1999 European championship final against the juggernaut German team, Bayern Munich. Bayern Munich went up early,  1-0 , and pinned United back for most of the 90 minutes. But with only 3 minutes left on the clock, against the run of play, United striker Teddy Sheringham received the ball at the top of the goalie box and took a s...

  Faith and Force Judges 4:14 b -16 So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with 10,000 men following him. And the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword. And Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot. And Barak pursued the chariots and the army to Harosheth-hagoyim, and all the army of Sisera fell by the edge of the sword; not a man was left.   The author doesn’t tell us whether God performed a miracle on behalf of Barak’s army here by infusing Barak’s men with super-human, Samson-like strength in battle, or whether the natural ability He’d gifted them with at birth sufficed here. In other words, did these Israeli warriors stampede through Sisera’s 900 iron chariots like NFL linebackers through a 9-year-old peewee team, or like a herd of elephants through a corn maze? Or did they fight by the sheer strength and stamina they’d trained so hard to possess and win by the tactical genius of their superior commander, ...

Gender Gaps Judges 4:6, 8-9 She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the LORD, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. …’” Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” And she said, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the LORD will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.   I can hear modern feminists now, heralding Debrah’s boss-lady attitude over Barak, interpreting this unusual moment in biblical history as a triumph of forceful femininity over toxic masculinity. To them, Barak is a faceless relic of a bygone patriarchy, meekly walking behind Deborah, refusing to fight unless she holds his hand the whole way.    But the very God who masterfully ...

  Sabbath Psalm (January 18-19)   (Adapted from the Latin hymn “The Strife is Over,” translated by Francis Pott)   The strife is over—the battle done, The victory of life is won; The song of triumph has begun:   Allelujah!   The powers of death have done their worst, But Christ their legions has dispersed; Let shouts of holy joy outburst:    Allelujah!   The three dark days have quickly sped,  He rises glorious from the dead;  All glory to our risen Head!   Allelujah!   He closed the yawning gates of hell, The bars from heaven’s portals fell; Let hymns of praise His triumphs tell:   Allelujah!   Oh praise the love that reaches me!  The hands that bled to set me free! The wounds of deepest empathy!   Allelujah!

A Familiar Voice Judges 4:1-2 a  & 4-5 And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD after Ehud died. And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. … Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at the time. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment.    Persecution is a great leveler for God’s people. In times of duress and injustice and even enslavement, times where freedoms of speech and religious expression are censored, times when godless Pharoahs and Eglons and Jabins rule with an iron fist rather than a shepherd’s staff, times where the church has to assemble in secret apartments or underground catacombs, times where adherence to God’s Word will get you thrown into prison and beaten up or even martyred, times where seminary courses and theological podcasts and bibli...

  A Bone of Contention Judges 3:31 After him was Shamgar the son of Anath, who killed 600 of the Philistines with an oxgoad, and he also saved Israel.   Shamgar sounds like the name of a caveman from a cartoon, doesn’t it? It’s precisely the sort of name we’d expect for a guy running into battle with nothing but a bone in his hand. In fact, if Hollywood were to make a version of Judges 3:31 today, they’d make Shamgar a burly, apish figure, with boulder-like shoulders and hunched back, pounding his chest with one arm and making guttural grunts as he rages down from his cave to protect his primitive way of life from the more modern cavaliers below. It’d be a fable against industrialization, about how men destroy the climate, or a trite and tired referendum on the evils of conquistadors over native peoples. It’d be a parable of a wild and free humanity against a warmongering one. Now, of course secularists today don’t  literally  place the story of Judges 3 in the so-ca...

  Wired Different Judges 3:20-21, 27b, 30 And Ehud came to [Eglon, king of Moab] 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. … Then the people of Israel went down with him from the hill country, and he was their leader. … So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest for eighty years.   After being chosen as the courier to take tribute to king Eglon, Ehud hatches a wild do-or-die plan, rolling every possible scenario around in his mind as he gallops forward to Moab. This is a risky rouse to say the least. Consider the obstacles for a moment. How on earth will he manage to get past Eglon’s armed guards at the front gate without his blade being discovered? Surely, they’ll frisk him for weapons, right? And even if he does manage to get past the guards, how will h...

  The Original Rocky Judges 3:15-16 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 Benjamite, a left-handed man. The people of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab. 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.   Doesn’t it strike you as a bit unusual that of all the attributes God could’ve provided regarding Ehud, he chooses the seemingly marginal note that Ehud is left-handed? Think of it: Ehud is growing up in a generation that has once again abandoned the LORD for the Baals, once again exchanged sacred ceremony for sacrilegious malpractice, yet evidently Ehud hasn’t bowed the knee. For eighteen years he’s watched his family and friends and neighbors being oppressed in their own land, yet we’re given no insight into his upbringing or battle training or spiritual development. We don’t know if he’s a shepherd li...

  A Turning Point Judges 3:12-14 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. … 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.   Which is more troubling to read: that yet again, after forty years of peace under Othniel’s leadership, the people of Israel are choosing the Baals over God, or that, in response, the LORD chooses to strengthen the arm of His enemies?    The first isn’t surprising, sadly. We’ve seen men turn to devils ever since Eve’s decision to take that fruit from the serpent in Genesis 3. In fact, we’ve got our own biographies full of compromises to prove the point in black and white, don’t we? Maybe your rebellion didn’t last eighteen years—maybe it only lasted eighteen minutes; but the grim reality of J...

  Sabbath Psalm 27 (January 11-12) Adapted from William How’s hymn, “O Word of God Incarnate”)   O Word of God incarnate,  O Wisdom from on high, O Truth unchanged, unchanging,  O Light of our dark sky. We praise You for the radiance  That from the hallowed page, A lantern to our footsteps,  Shines on from age to age.   The Church from You, dear Master, Received the gift divine, And still that light she raises O’er all the earth to shine. It is the golden treasure-box  Where gems of truth are stored; It is the hand-drawn picture— Of Christ, the living Word.   O make Your Church, dear Savior,  A lamp of purest gold, To bear before the nations  Your true light, as of old. O teach Your wand’ring pilgrims By this their path to trace, Till, clouds of darkness ended,  They see You face to face.

  Last Man Standing Judges 3:7 a  & 9-10 a  & 11 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. … But when the people of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer … who saved them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. The Spirit of the LORD was upon him, and he judged Israel. … So the land had rest forty years. Then Othniel the son of Kenaz died.   The slog of despondency I found myself wading through when opening Judges 3 and reading the all-too-familiar line in the epithet of man, “And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD,” suddenly transfigured into a grassy meadow upon reading the line, “The LORD raised up a deliverer … Othniel the son of Kenaz.” In fact, were there an actual meadow before my eyes right now, I’d jump up from this bench and dance around with the spirit of Julie Andrews, singing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music!”    To see Othniel’s name...

  Tests, Hard Fought Judges 3:1 & 4 Now these are the nations that the LORD left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. … They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the LORD, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.   G. Michael Hopf made the profound observation about the cyclical nature of man’s rising and falling by saying, “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.” And I can’t think of a more succinct summary for Israel’s biography ever since God first called Abram in Genesis 11 than that.   We’ve just closed the chapter on Israel’s strongest ever season, built on the backs of Israel’s most faithful generation: a generation of strong men and women who endured the hardships of wilderness wandering without complaining, who looked out across the foreign frontier littered w...

  The Eyes that Pitied Me Judges 2:16 & 18 b Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. … For the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them.   The pity of God is a treasure too great to measure and too wondrous to fathom. The thought of gazing into that holiest face, that face that bellowed at Sinai through thunder and lightning, that called waters from the deep chasms of earth to baptize a corrupt world, that laughed at Pharaoh’s sorcerers and Og’s charioteers and Jericho’s walls and Canaan’s goliaths, and wreaked vengeance on all who stiffened their necks against His spiritual wind, has another quite different look—a more defining one—a more resonant one—of pity.   What did that blind beggar discover when he looked up at the Man Who’d touched and healed his eyes? What did that Samaritan woman at the well see reflecting back at her in the waters of her desperate and endl...

  Shadows of Doubt Judges 2:10 b -11 & 14-15 And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals. … So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers. … And they were in terrible distress.   Remember the analogies we discussed a few days ago regarding a flooded crawlspace and a splintered table in reference to Israel’s failure to drive out  all  the pagan inhabitants of the land? Well, this is the consequence of that earlier compromise. Maybe it’s been a slow dripping underground and a slow splintering of the wood. Maybe a hundred years have gone by since Joshua’s generation walked this land as giants. Maybe it started out small—like going to the Canaanite ballgames on Saturdays instead of the Tabernacle, or exchanging a few ceremonial feasts for school birthday parties, or set...

  Diamonds in the Rough Judges 2:7-8 & 10 a And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had done for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110 years. … And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers.   Godly leaders don’t have the power to produce God-honoring communities, but they certainly help in fostering them. Men like Joshua can’t change the hearts of his constituents by the force of his integrity nor even by wise and just policies, but his example sets the tone for everyone else. Yet, how do we begin to eulogize an  entire generation  of saints who unilaterally sought the face of God in all their achievements? Perhaps in this way: by saying that the jewel Joshua wears for all eternity is a jewel his entire congregation shares in common. That Joshua is as every man and every man is as Joshua—a...

  Sabbath Psalm  (January 4-5)   (Adapted from Bessie Porter Head’s hymn, “O Breath of Life”)   O Breath of Life, come sweeping through us, Revive Your Church with life and power; O Breath of Life, come cleanse, renew us, And fit Your Church to meet this hour.   O Wind of God, come bend us, break us, Till humbly we confess our need; Then in Your tenderness remake us,  Revive, restore—for this we plead.   O Breath of Love, come breathe within us, Renewing thought and will and heart; Come, Love of Christ, afresh to win us, Revive Your Church in every part.   Revive us, Lord! Is zeal abating? While harvest fields are vast and white? Revive us, Lord—the world is waiting! Equip Your Church to spread the light.