Unexpected Battles

Judges 4:16-23

March 8, 2026 • Mount Pleasant UMC

I feel like I need to start with a warning this morning: this Scripture is particularly violent and gory. And we may wonder why such a story is in the Bible. Never mind that the crucifixion at the heart of our faith is even more violent and gory which is why some people had trouble with the film The Passion of the Christ. I saw online the other day that some people are saying they won’t watch the sixth season of The Chosen because they can’t handle the crucifixion. Jonathon Roumie, who plays Jesus, said, “Don’t abandon Jesus in his hour of need just because it’s hard for you.” The reality is that the world of the Bible, the ancient world, is a violent world. And maybe our world isn’t all that different, actually. Our entertainment is dark and our language is rough. We are, too, are a violent people though we like to pretend we are not. So this morning, we’re going to the valley of Kishon, a place of battles, darkness and violence. It’s not an easy journey, but it’s an important one.

It is Lent, the season of preparation for Easter, and during this season we are traveling throughout the Biblical story by way of mountains and valleys. Significant things happen in such places in the Bible—things like transfiguration and provision and lawgiving. On the mountains we’ve learned God wants to transform us and remind us he loves us and in the valleys we’ve seen how God wants to help us conquer our fear-giving giants. Today we are back in the valley, and back in a place where conflict happens. In fact, today’s story is one of a brutal battle and an ugly end. It’s a story of winning and losing battles all at the same time. The difference is determined by who you trust.

If you read the book of Judges, you’ll notice a recurring pattern. The people have no political leadership; there is no human king because God was supposed to be their king. But the people forget that, they believe they can do it all on their own, and they fall into sin. So God raises up a leader, a judge, a hero who goes into battle and wins for the Lord. The judge leads for a short time, but when he dies, the people go their own way and revert to sin. Over and over again, when the judge is gone, the people return to evil (Stone, “Judges,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Volume. 3, pg. 257). That says something about our nature, about our tendency to ignore God, and about the importance of leadership (which is an idea we will come back to in a little a bit). Judges 4 begins at the low point of the cycle: “Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord” (4:1). And every time that happens, someone comes in and attacks them. This time, it’s a soldier named Sisera, who has 900 iron chariots at his disposal. Sisera “cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years” (4:3). And it took the Israelites that long to remember to ask God for help. Twenty years.

So even though they didn’t have a king, they did have a prophet who spoke to them on behalf of the Lord. Her name is Deborah, and let’s stop right there for just a moment. There are arguments all the time on social media about whether or not women are allowed to serve in ministry. Recently, a Christian nationalist podcast suggested that the government should seize the property of any church that ordains women (cf. Billups, An Unlikely Lent, pg. 92). We’d be in trouble. And yet here, in the Bible, in ancient days, there is a woman who is the de facto leader of the whole nation. She is the one person they go to for direction, advice, and a word from the Lord (cf. Goldingay, Joshua, Judges & Ruth for Everyone, pg. 101). And it’s not a one-off either. You can trace the influence and leadership of women through the Old Testament and into the New. Jesus had women traveling with him as followers, supporting his ministry, and Paul referred to women as leaders in the church—people like Phoebe who was a deacon (Romans 16:1) and Priscilla who was his “co-worker in Christ Jesus” (Romans 16:3). Don’t let anyone tell you that women are second class citizens in the kingdom; the Scriptures will not support that, no matter how many angry keyboard warriors say it’s true.

And it’s even more evident when we go back to the story of Deborah. Deborah asks Barak to come see her. She has a word from the Lord for him, a job for him to do. God wants Barak to take 10,000 men into battle against Sisera. God will lead Sisera to the Kishon Valley and God himself guarantees that Barak will win the battle (4:4-7). God will, once again, rescue his people. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right? Barak can go into a battle and know he is going to win. That sounds to me like an offer you can’t refuse, especially since it comes directly from God through his chosen prophet.

Well, Barak agrees to go into the battle, but he has conditions. He wants to bargain with God. Let me just tell you up front: bargaining with God is never a good idea. So Barak tells Deborah he will only go into battle if she goes with him (4:8). We’re not told why he makes that demand, but I wonder if he thinks that taking God’s special messenger will mean God has to protect their army. God surely wouldn’t want his messenger hurt, right? Don’t get any ideas! Deborah does agree to go with him, but she says that because he’s made this request, the honor for the victory will not go to him. Instead, a woman will get the honor for ending the war, and we all assume that the woman is Deborah. We’re about to find out, though, that’s not the case.

So the battle is engaged, and the Israelites take down every single one of Sisera’s men—except for Sisera himself. He takes off on foot, and he ends up at the tent of a friend of his, Heber the Kenite. The text we read said he had an “alliance” with Heber; another translation says Sisera was “on friendly terms” with him (NLT; 4:17). The Hebrew word there is shalom, which we often translate as “peace” but which really has a much broader meaning that just the absence of conflict. In this context, it refers to a relationship of “cooperation, mutual benefit and good relations” (Stone 255). It would have been odd for an Israelite like Heber to make a pact with someone of another nation like Sisera, and so you have to wonder what was behind it. What was Heber’s motivation? Well, it really doesn’t matter because Heber is not home. His wife, Jael, is however, and she lets Sisera in and gives him a blanket to hide under. He’s tired and thirsty and believes he has found shelter, so he lets his guard down. He asks for a drink, then tells her to stand guard at the tent’s opening and lie to anyone who comes by looking for him. Tell them there’s not anyone here. And with that, Sisera settles down to sleep. The text says he is exhausted (4:21).

And that’s when Jael goes into action. Usually, women were responsible for setting up and taking down the tents, so Jael turns to things she knows. She picks up a hammer and a tent peg and those become the means by which Sisera is killed. There are so many things happening here in an instant, not the least of which is the violation of the laws of hospitality. It was a shared belief in that culture that if someone came into your home, they came under your protection. You see that as far back as the story of Sodom and Gomorrah where Abraham’s nephew Lot would rather his family be harmed than those he has welcomed as guests into his home (cf. Genesis 19:8). That doesn’t make sense to us, but to this day, people in the Middle East will not allow anyone to be harmed while they are staying in their home (Wolf, “Judges,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 3, pg. 407). Jael obviously is breaking that law, that social understanding, and she’s also ended the shalom that existed between her family and Sisera’s family. But in her mind, it’s for a greater cause. It’s bringing freedom to her people and it’s putting an end to the battle. So Deborah is not the one to get credit for the victory; it’s Jael who ends the war. And she ended the war because she stood her ground in the face of evil.

The Valley of Kishon is where the battle takes place, and while the story of Sisera, Deborah and Jael is a physical battle with gruesome results, we all end up in this valley from time to time, facing a battle that we cannot win on our own. As they came to the Valley of Kishon, the Canaanites seemed unbeatable (cf. Armstrong, Valleys, pg. 45). Iron chariots against whatever low tech weaponry the Israelites had? What chance did they have for victory? And I’m willing to bet you end up feeling the same way yourself sometimes when you end up in a battle. Not a physical battle, but a spiritual one, an emotional one, a battle that consumes your life. The child who is embarrassed to bring friends home because of the alcoholism and drug abuse that is rampant through their home; the child never knows what the situation will be. And when she risks bringing someone home, Dad comes out of the house yelling and shouting words that ought not to be shared, threatening abuse and violence. The Valley of Kishon. The medical diagnosis is just one more thing on top of an ever-growing list of problems that you have to face alone. You thought your spouse would be there forever, and then death visited far too early in your marriage and now the bills keep pouring in, the doctors keep calling and the medicine costs keep skyrocketing. The battle doesn’t seem winnable; is there even any reason to fight it? You’re in the Valley of Kishon. The unexpected death in the family and the waves of guilt and grief that threaten you can lead you into the valley. The job that never seems to work out or fails to use your gifts. It’s so hard to get up and go into work each day. The person in your life who abuses you with words—and those wounds go deeper than any physical attack might have. You’re familiar with the Valley of Kishon. 

I spent some time in that valley last year. In late 2024, many of you know, I had a cardiac arrest, from which I was very fortunate to be able to recover. But I called that event the “gift that kept on giving” because it also results in a torn meniscus that was very painful and the need for a pacemaker and defibrillator to be implanted. So 2025 was my year of surgeries and recoveries—first to have the pacemaker put in because they wouldn’t work on my knee without the pacemaker. So surgery, recovery, then another surgery, and another recovery complete with a walker and crutches and painful muscle spasms—and me fighting to get back to where I was. I can look back now and be thankful for the doctors, nurses and therapists who worked with me, for all the people who cared for me, but at the time everything seemed like a battle. And it felt like a battle I could not win. On more than one occasion I asked God why he left me here. Where was the miraculous recovery and healing that I read about online or hear about in podcasts?

So I get where Barak was coming from. Maybe you do, too. Barak believed in God and wanted to trust him, but he also wanted a guarantee, some assurance. That’s why he turns to Deborah. His trust falters when he thinks about facing those iron chariots, when he stands at the edge of the valley. He wants a back-up, and so he turns to Deborah the prophet. And there is nothing wrong with turning to a spiritual leader or a friend for comfort, reassurance, or encouragement. Sometimes we need someone who comes alongside us, who can lift us up and help us fight the battle. The problem Barak has is that he puts his trust in Deborah and her presence rather than in God. And that’s why the honor, Deborah says, would go to a woman rather than to Barak. As I said, this speaks to the way we treat leadership. Our purpose, as pastors, as spiritual leaders, is to “equip [God’s] people” (Ephesians 4:12), to come alongside and help you fight the battles, not to fight them for you. Our purpose is to point you toward God, to help you learn to trust him to win the battle because putting your trust in anyone else, regardless of what academic degree or special training they might have, will lead to a losing battle. Barak failed to put his trust in God first and foremost, not in human beings.

But all of this begs the question of how we can face our battles in the spirit of Deborah and Jael. Just to be clear: I’m not recommending tent pegs. Just because the Bible tells us how things happened does not mean God is telling us that’s the way we should do it. Just want to be clear. So, with that out of the way, there are three things that don’t involve tent pegs that we can take away from this story (cf. Armstrong 56). First, Deborah and Jael show us that we have to face our battles. Twenty years the Israelites had been oppressed. And it would have gone on longer, but the people finally remembered to cry out to God, and God sent a message to Barak, who wanted to hide behind Deborah in order to fight the battle. Deborah, however, wasn’t good with that plan. She knew that in order to win, you can’t hide. You have to face the battle that life presents you with. Because the battle will catch up with you. You can’t hide from it forever, and showing up is half the battle. Author and Bible teacher Kat Armstrong puts it this way: “You might be fighting to save your marriage, advocating for a special-needs child, battling for truth in a ministry context, or living with integrity in an industry that doesn’t care about the common good. Whatever your fight, stay in it” (56). For Cristin Cooper, the fight was two-fold: food insecurity and spiritual nourishment. She longed for people to experience more than just showing up on Sunday morning. She wanted them to be fed physically and spiritually. And while others said there was nothing that could be done, Cristin believed in just showing up, fixing a meal, and inviting people to share. The battle against hunger began with soup and a few people gathered around her kitchen table. Because showing up is half the battle (cf. Billups 120). Face your battle.

Second, Deborah and Jael show us we need to fight with courage. The temptation, when we’re in the valley, is to fight in other ways. I see it all the time on Facebook and other social media. We turn to resentment, anger, meanness and lashing out in pain. I have a really good friend whose posts in the current environment are nothing but disillusionment (on a good day) and anger (on a bad day). I know, in my own year of surgeries, there were days when it was hard to have a good word to say. But courage is not attacking others or tearing other people down. Courage is not stooping to other people’s attitudes if they are not consistent with the character of Jesus. Courage is not yelling and attacking from behind a keyboard, and we’ve probably all experienced that. I’ve had people say things to me online and via email that they would never say to me in person. That’s not courage. “Fighting with courage means trusting God with the outcome,” something Barak wasn’t able to do but something Deborah especially shows us. She believed, against all evidence to the contrary, that God would show up and win the battle. And you can believe that, too. Courage is walking into the battle knowing you don’t have the strength to win and that it’s okay. Fight with courage.

And you can fight with conviction. We can stand tall because we have been promised that God will fight with us and for us, that he will never leave us or forsake us (cf. Hebrews 13:5). We know that the worst thing is never the last thing, that no matter how hard it gets, the enemy has no power over Jesus (cf. John 14:30). “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Because Jesus is with you, truth is on your side, and even if we don’t live to see it, the truth will win out in the end. We are promised that the kingdoms of this world, the enemies of this world, will not last. The only thing that will endure to the end is the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, “and he will reign for ever and ever” (cf. Revelation 11:15). I almost feel like bursting into song when I read that verse! You can fight the battles that come at you with conviction because Jesus is with you every step of the way. And I will testify that such truth is the only thing that allows me to fight the battles that come at me. If it weren’t for Jesus, I would give up, but with him, I am able to face the battle and fight with both courage and conviction.

Ultimately, we fight the battles that come at us in the strength and spirit of Jesus, who stood before Pilate the Roman governor with courage and conviction. The night before, he had begged God the Father to let him bypass the cross. He knew the pain that he would have to endure, and he wanted to avoid the cross. Yet, when the Father said no, Jesus faced the arrest, the beating, the torture and the crucifixion with the courage and conviction that what he did was winning a greater battle. And even in that moment when the Father turned his face away from his Son, Jesus endured knowing that it would not be forever. He was not fighting a losing battle, as the religious leaders and Roman authorities thought. He was winning the ultimate battle so that we could win all the other unexpected battles in his strength. Thanks be to God, Amen!