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Deborah's Song of Victory and Thanksgiving

May 2, 2010

Judges 5 1 Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of A BIN oam on that day, saying, 2 Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselveswillingly offered themselves.

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"Praise ye the Lord."

A constant and very repetitive theme of Scripture.

These exact words = 25 times

"Praise the Lord" = 165 times

"Worship" = 624 times

"Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel."

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It is important to be specificbe specific in our praise, worship, and thanksgiving unto the Lord.

We need to set aside plenty of timeplenty of time to worship our Savior and Lord:

For WhoWho He is, and

For the things He has doneHe has done.

The moreThe more we praise Him the more we will have and have and seesee to praise Him for.

Most of us havehave more, for which to be thankfulthankful, than

we are able to seesee and recognizerecognize.

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We go through life with blinders onblinders on, focused more on the troublestroubles of life, and the

things we lacklack,

Than on our blessingsThan on our blessings.

Praise Him with Thanksgiving

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Sunshine and rain,

Good food and good friends

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Testify of God's Goodness

Praise Him with song

2 Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselveswillingly offered themselves.

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If we want the Lord to work in uswork in us and with uswith us and for usfor us,

We must willinglywillingly offer ourselves unto Him

To do as God WillsGod Wills!Without reservations

Without conditions

3 Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes; I, even I, will sing unto the Lord; I will sing praise to the Lord God of Israel.

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I don't care who hears mewho hears me,

I will sing praisesing praise to the Lord God.

Psalms 66 1 Make a joyful noisejoyful noise unto God, all ye lands: 2 Sing forthSing forth the honor of His Name: make His praise glorious.

There can never be too much emphasistoo much emphasis

on praise and worship.

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Psalms 66 8 O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of His praise to be heard: 9 Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved.

God saved us and He keeps us.

We can never praise Him enough.

4 Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water.

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This is history: things God had donehad done in the past.

We must not thank Him once and then forget about it.

Give that testimony of thanksgivingtestimony of thanksgiving again and again.

If anyone gets tiredgets tired of hearing it, theythey have the problemproblem, not you.

5 The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. 6 In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways. 7 The inhabi-tants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.

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More detailsdetails of their times of oppression.

They were scared to walkwalk the main roads.

Village life ceasedVillage life ceased because they had to live within the walled citieswalled cities.

8 They chose new gods; then was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?

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What caused all their distress?

"They chose new gods."

Whenever we neglectneglect our relationship with the

True and Living GodTrue and Living God,

We will replace Him with new things.

8b was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel?

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The Canaanites had disarmed them.

That's the first step in successful oppression.

Don't let the devil disarm you!Wear the armor of Godarmor of God

all the time.

Be always ready to use the SwordSword of the Spirit.

9 My heart is toward the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willinglywillingly among the people. Bless ye the Lord.

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Deborah loved those leadersleaders of the people who had respondedresponded to the call to battle.

Once again, we see that word "willinglywillingly".

"Bless ye the Lord."

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Bless = Barak

To kneel in adorationStrong's Hebrew Dictionary

God is worthy of our adoration.

If we summed upsummed up this morning's lesson in a few words, it would be this sentencethis sentence:

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God blesses a willingwilling and a

thankfulthankful heart.