Strange Weapons Lesson 2: The Peg (illustrations)

April 4, 2011 at 12:42 pm | Posted in Strange Weapons | 10 Comments
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Strange Weapons: A Prod, a Peg, and a Pitcher

Lesson Two: The Peg (continued from previous post)

Here are three illustrations drawn from Jael’s “nail” (what we would call a “tent peg.”)

1. The peg was a hidden weapon.

The first thing Sisera would have done when he entered Jael’s tent would have been to look around for a sword or a dagger. Being a trained warrior and a man on the run, not sure who he could and could not trust, he would have immediately scanned the tent for possible threats or advantages. But he probably didn’t even notice a peg and a hammer. These items would have been common.

The weapons of our spiritual warfare are spiritual weapons – they don’t look like material weapons. Prayer, for example, doesn’t seem like a weapon, but, like a tent peg, it stabilizes. It also marks out the boundaries of the territory God has given you. Maybe God has given you a spouse or children. Maybe he has placed you in a Sunday School class or some organized group of fellow Christians. If so, those are some of your “territories,” your “tents.” The peg of prayer is very important. How would you like to come back to your tent and find that it has been blown away? Prayer is simply talking to God. It should be an everyday, ordinary thing. It’s always lying around the tent. You mostly use it in secret, but it is potent. When the enemy invades your tent, you can reach for it and defeat him.

2. The peg was a honed weapon.

“Honed” means “sharp.” Jael’s tent peg had to have a very sharp point* in order for her to be able to pound it into the hard baked earth in that part of the world. When it comes to spiritual weapons, we have the sharpest weapon of all – the Bible.

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

The Word of God pierces and cuts. It stings. It gets past the superficial into the heart of the matter. It breaks up hard ground. A Bible looks like a book – everyday leather and paper. Like a peg, it doesn’t look especially dangerous – until an expert pegswoman or pegsman wields it. The business end of the Word of God can go right into a man’s brain and it can make a serious difference.

3. The peg was a handy weapon.

Prayer and the Bible should always be handy if you are a Christian. However, there are times when your Bible might not be right there next to you. There may be times when you are willing to pray, but, in a crisis, you are not always afforded the time to gather your thoughts, have some peace and quiet, and pray effectively. One of the handiest weapons we have in spiritual warfare – the one that’s always right there – is love. Love is always right at hand. You don’t have to special-order it. If you’re truly a Christian, it is not even “second nature” to you – it’s first nature! Love is the key component of Christianity.

Prayer, your Bible, and love are three of the tent pegs of the Christian life. They are the hidden, honed, and handy weapons of our warfare. Jael’s tent peg slew Sisera; these weapons subdue sin. Sin is kind of like Sisera if you think about it. Sin is an oppressor. It will control people. It will dominate their lives. It will steal their possessions, but, more importantly, it will steal their joy. It will put people at risk. It will create danger in lives. Sin is cruel to begin with, but when it starts to get routed – like when Barak routed Sisera – and when it gets “on the run” in our lives – look out! Sin will get desperate, and will be especially eager to come into your home.

And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle. And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.

Judges 4:18-19, emphasis added

Sin wants to be hidden.

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

Proverbs 28:13

And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.

Judges 4:19, emphasis added

Sin is thirsty. It will dry you up, and create a desire for more.

Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and enquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No.

Judges 4:20, emphasis added

Sisera wanted Jael to lie. Sin breeds more sin – and different kinds of sins.

And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.

Judges 4:19, emphasis added

Deborah was the one who encouraged Barak to fight against Sisera. Her name meant “bee.” Bees are associated with honey. Jael used milk to sedate Sisera. Therefore, Sisera had trouble in the “land of milk and honey.”

Now, here is something that many Christians don’t realize: Sin can be sedated. I Peter 2:2 calls the Bible the sincere “milk” of the Word. Sin can be sedated by Bible study, prayer, accountability, safeguards, even will power – to some extent. But those things can’t “kill” sin. It will inevitably (and sooner rather than later) wake up, escape, and wreak havoc. Sin can be sedated by the lesser “pegs” we have talked about, but it can only be killed by one truly great PEG.

And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples.

Judges 4:22, emphasis added

Christ was held to the Cross by “pegs” (nails). He knew no sin, but was made sin for us. To claim the victory that Christ wants you to have in Him, you are going to have to come into the tent and see sin slain. Get a good look – see sin slain on the Cross of Christ – then look in the tomb and see the Slayer of sin has risen – victorious!

I find it significant that the Bible makes a point of saying that the peg went through Sisera’s “temple.” Your temple is the place between your eye and ear – the place where you “conTEMPLate.” It is also the word we use for the place where people worship. Have you made your mind a place of worship – a place where Christ is the center of all your thoughts?

So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel.

Judges 4:23

That’s when God will subdue the “Jabin” that is invading your thoughts. Worship Him – the Lord God – as King of your “temple.”

*loose reenactment of Judges 4:21 during camping trip to Lake D’Arbonne:

reenactment of judges 4

Strange Weapons Lesson 2: The Peg (introduction and narrative)

March 18, 2011 at 11:55 am | Posted in Strange Weapons | 9 Comments
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Strange Weapons: A Prod, a Peg, and a Pitcher

Lesson Two: The Peg

[In Lesson One, I renamed Shamgar’s ox-goad a “prod” (as in cattle prod). Now I’m going to call Jael’s “nail” a tent “peg” – even though, where I’m from, “Jael” and “nail” rhyme.]

Then Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.

Judges 4:21

Both Shamgar’s prod and Jael’s peg were strange weapons, even though the days recorded in the Book of Judges were not such strange days. In fact, they were eerily similar to our “days,” in the sense that people were generally doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead. And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles.

Judges 4:1-2

It appears that Jabin was king of the Canaanites, but his captain, Sisera, who had 900 chariots of iron, was the one who really terrorized the Israelites. He did not, however, terrorize their God:

And the LORD discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet. But Barak pursued after the chariots, and after the host, unto Harosheth of the Gentiles: and all the host of Sisera fell upon the edge of the sword; and there was not a man left.

Judges 4:15-16

This battle took place in the area around Mount Megiddo where – according to Revelation 16:16 – the battle of Armageddon will be fought. There were a number of Biblical battles fought at this location, and it is also the place where Napoleon defeated the Turks under similar circumstances in 1799. God sent a storm, the river overflowed, and the chariots bogged down and got stuck in the muddy and drenched ground.

Barak (who shares a name with our current U.S. President) wiped out Sisera’s army as they fled on foot. Sisera himself, however, escaped to the the village of Heber the Kenite, and to the tent of a lady named Jael. Which brings us to…

And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her into the tent, she covered him with a mantle.

Judges 4:18

The “mantle” was sort of a blanket (maybe one of those “snuggies?”). Sisera was tired and he wanted to hide.

And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him.

Judges 4:19

The “milk” was sort of like what we would call “half and half” or “yogurt” – it was possibly fermented. Jael tucked in Sisera with his milk and his blankie and put him “night-night.”

Again he said unto her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and enquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No.

Judges 4:20

Sisera asked Jael to lie for him.

Then Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.

Judges 4:21

Jael, whose job, as a woman in a tribe of nomadic desert-dwelling people in those days, would have been to regularly take down and put up the tent in addition to other hard physical types of labor, was probably big and strong (with arms like the Arm and Hammer Baking Soda man).

arm and hammer

The name “Jael” meant “mountain goat,” so it’s kind of hard to envision her as petite and dainty.

And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him, Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples. So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel.

Judges 4:22-23

There is a tendency here to feel a little sorry for Sisera, considering he was on the run, desperate, and hunted. He turned to this woman for help, and she coaxed him to sleep and slammed a tent peg through his brain!

Jael and Sisera

But before we feel too sorry for Sisera and start being too critical of Jael, we need to remember that if Sisera had won the battle against the Israelites, or if he had escaped and raised another army, or if he had been able to come back with reinforcements, he and his men would have raped the women and taken all their valuables.

Jael’s weapon – her tent peg – was a strange weapon in her day. So too are the weapons of our spiritual warfare in our day. Next time, I want to make three comparisons between the peg and the spiritual weapons we must wield against our enemy who has come to kill, steal, and destroy.


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