Judges 11:35
"I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back." I like these big words. There is a ring of sterling strength in them. They have a robust masculinity that grips my heart. They are not the words of a weakling. They have absolutely no savor of softness or moral flabbiness. They are not cheap. They are high priced words. They are words made costly by a plentiful baptism of tragedy. They are words literally soaked in blood and tears.
This man Jephthah has made a vow. And now the hour is upon him in which it is his duty to make the vow good. His vow involves far more than he ever expected. But that fact does not cause him to be untrue. He has given his promise. Pay day has come. His promise involves measureless sacrifice. To keep it is to put out every star in his sky. It is to pluck up every flower in his garden. It is to change life's music into discord. It is to take from him the one he loves far better than he loves his own life. But even though the price is big, he will not refuse to pay it. Even though his promise is hard, he will keep it. "I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back."
Jephthah has had many hard things said about him. He has been wronged since before he was born. I do not think that justice has been done to his memory. Frankly, I think he is one of the most heroic souls of Old Testament history. It is true that he would not fully measure up to all our modern ideals, but remember this, he lived in the morning of human history. He lived when the light was dim. And he was true to the light that he had. He was true with a rugged fidelity that will cause him to rise up in the day of judgment and condemn many of us.
Jephthah, I say, has been greatly wronged. He never had a fair chance. He was wronged in his very birth. He was the son of a father who was unfaithful to his marriage vows. Jephthah was a child of shame. His father had chosen to sacrifice upon the wayside altar. His father had had his fling. He had sown his wild oats, and of necessity there was a harvest. His father suffered, but sad to say, he was not the only sufferer.
How we need to be reminded again and again that no man ever sins alone. No man ever walks from the path of virtue without he walks upon bruised and bleeding feet. He himself suffers, but what is sadder still, he causes somebody else to suffer. I cannot go to hell alone. I cannot plunge out into the dark without involving another soul, at least in some measure, in my tragedy. This father sinned. It meant suffering for him. It also meant suffering for one who was altogether blameless. It meant suffering for his boy.
Not only did Jephthah have as part of his life tragedy an unclean father, but he had an unclean mother as well. Jephthah's mother was not one of those unfortunate souls, more sinned against than sinning, who had made one false step for the sake of the man she loved. She was a professional outcast. She was a woman who made it her business day by day to sell herself over the counters of iniquity. She was one of those whose feet in all ages take hold on hell.
So Jephthah had a bad chance. He was the fragment of a home that never was. He had no father that dared to own him. And the first eyes into which he looked were the eyes of an unclean woman. And the first lips that kissed him were lips soiled and stained by years of sinful living. Poor little baby. Poor little foundling. Poor little outcast. How much he missed.
What are the most precious memories in your life to-night? What are the scenes to which you look back with deepest love and tenderness? I know. They are the scenes of your childhood's home.
"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection, presents them to view;
The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood,
And every loved spot that my infancy knew."