The Tent Stake Option

By Matt Watson

Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. 

You have probably seen versions of those sentences floating around social media. The meme implies that we are in the latter stage, hard times created by soft people. The cyclical story of Israel in the Book of Judges reflects this meme. Hard men create good times (a judge is raised up by God and delivers his people), good times create soft men (the people turn away from the Lord during peace and start worshipping the gods of the culture), soft men create hard times (Israel is attacked, occupied, and oppressed), and hard times create hard men (God raises a deliverer). 

Barak and Jael

Barak was given clear commands by God. According to Judges 4, Deborah reminded him that he was tasked to take 10,000 units of light infantry to draw out the commander of the Canaanite army with his 900 chariots of heavy cavalry, with the promise of victory. God commanded it, so how could he fail? 

But Barak was a timid man. He wasn’t default aggressive; he didn’t take the Boniface Option by chopping down the idols of his day. He took the “wait and see” option … for two decades. For twenty years his people were occupied and oppressed by an enemy nation while he waited to obey. Deborah said, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go …’“ (v. 6). But he didn’t go. He stayed. When he did eventually comply, it was only after bringing Deborah, a woman and non-combatant, with him to hold his hand. His timidity in light of God’s command showed him to be weak and soft. 

Barak’s “wait and see" option is contrasted by Jael’s decisive tent stake option. Jael was the wife of a Canaanite sympathizer. Her husband had made peace with the king of Canaan (v. 17), so when the enemy commander was on the run from Barak, he knew he had a safe place at Jael’s tent. Jael lured the commander into her home, made him comfortable, gave him refreshment, and then when he was least expecting it, she drove a tent stake through his skull and impaled him to the earth.

God's People Today

Those with eyes that see know that just like God’s people then, we are in hard times created by weak men now. So it goes through history, but like always God remains on his throne and we have no need to be unwise about it. For example, unlike then, God’s people are not called to make war on our enemies now but to love them (Matt 5:43-48). We are to make disciples, teaching them to obey the Lord (Matt 28:18-20). We are at war with ideologies (2 Cor 10:4-5), and powers beyond that of simple nation-states (Eph 6:12), not your neighbor regardless of which flag they fly.

However, it seems like the church in the West is taking a “wait and see” option. We are timid when we should be confident in the Lord’s Word. We have preached winsomeness when we should have preached repentance. We value being nice because in our fear, we have become compassionate with compromise, rather than confidence. 

The opposite of timidity and passivity is not abuse. It’s godly assertiveness. When God commands, we can have the confidence that he will bring about that which he commands (Isa 55:11).

To be sure, there is a time and place for “wait and see.” Wisdom dictates not everything needs to be handled with a frontal assault, but rather a flanking maneuver. We don’t need to go all Leroy Jenkins into every situation, yet we also don’t need to be passive. Like Jesus, we need to balance being compassionate without compromising and speaking the truth in love.

What has God commanded you to do? 

We can’t know what God wills for us to do if we don't read his Word. In his Word we read how Jesus showed compassion to the hurting and the lost while rebuking the arrogant. While we were his enemies Jesus died on the cross for us, so we can love our enemies too. He preached repentance because the kingdom of God was at hand, and he did so without fear. We can too. He said to seek first the kingdom of God and to make disciples, and thus we should too. 

Additionally, Repentance is one of those times where “wait and see” is not an appropriate response. The more we hem and haw over turning from our sin the more alluring it becomes and the harder it is to obey God. God requires a decisive turn. “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11), "Put off the old self, put on the new” (Eph 4:20-24; Col 3:1-17), and "kill sin before it kills you" (Rom 8:13). These are not timid and passive actions. They are like driving a tent stake through a skull.

Finally, be a disciple and make disciples. Obey the Lord and teach others to obey the Lord. We aren’t to be timid like Barak or compromised like Jael’s husband. We should be unashamed about the gospel of Jesus, and how his Word applies to all of life. It’s time to make a definitive stand with confidence and godly assertiveness.

This article was originally published by Matthew Watson with Awake! Put on strength!, and is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.