Judg 4:14, And Deborah said to Barak, "Arise! For this is the day in which the Lord has given Sisera into your hands; behold, the Lord has gone out before you." So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him. 
    	In this morning’s reading we have the account of how the Lord showed Deborah that Jehovah would deliver the people from the oppression of Jabin, the king of Canaan. This follows very closely upon the course of our study last week in terms of the Lord using the means of even the enemies of God in order to affect His perfect and good work in us. I refer to the beginning of our reading, Judg 4:1-3.
	Judg 4:1-3, Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, after Ehud died. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; and the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord ; for he had nine hundred iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years. 
	After the death of Ehud, the Children of Israel turned back to their wicked ways, so for 20 years the Lord…sold them into the hand of Jabin. This was the length of time that it took for the people to call out to God in humility and abject desperation for His salvation. That was the necessary course of the work of the Lord, through the chosen instrument of the oppression of Jabin. This is what was required to cause the Israelites to forsake their wickedness in frustration and desperation and return to the Lord with all their hearts.
	It was at this point the Lord showed Deborah that it was time for Jehovah to release His humbled and repentant people from their oppression under Jabin. He would do so in the manner which would also show forth His Hand of Sovereignty over all the dealings with His Chosen nation. Therefore Deborah impelled Barak and his warriors to …"Arise! For this is the day in which the Lord has given Sisera into your hands; behold, the Lord has gone out before you." 
	There are two aspects of this which we need to take to heart. The first is that the call was to Arise. There is an inherent feature of this call from the Lord. It is much more than just getting up off the ground, or out of bed, or out of an easy chair. To Arise is to stand up and observe the course of what the Lord would have us do. It is to see what He shows us to follow the course that He has set within our hearts. This is not necessarily the path of the movement of our feet, but the path of the movement of the Holy Spirit within us. To Arise, in this sense, is to see what the Lord would have done within our hearts and our minds and our souls and obey Him unconditionally. 
For the Lord to go before us, which is the second aspect of our consideration, we have to be cleansed from even the stain of guilt and shame and sin and trespass. He will not go before us if we are holding onto anything that would betray His Holiness. 
	When the call is to Arise, we need to consider that we are called by the Lord to be His instruments of righteousness, not for our own sake, but for the sake of the glory of His name. We are to be His Holy People, called by His Name, cleansed by all the work of His Holy Spirit through the triumphant power of the death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is on that basis that we Arise to go forth into whatever battle for the sake of the testimony of God and God Alone! 
Consider how the second generation of the Children of Israel was so instructed by Moses in Deut 9:1-5. He made it abundantly clear to them that whatever the course of their conquest, it was only because of the Lord going before them. He would manifest His Holy judgment upon those nations who had so vilely profaned and violated anything close to what humanity had been created to be.
Deut 9:1-5, "Hear, O Israel! You are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, great cities fortified to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said,' Who can stand before the sons of Anak?' "Know therefore today that it is the Lord your God who is crossing over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord has spoken to you. Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them out before you, 'Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,' but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you. It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 
   	When the time came for them to proceed, Joshua set before them the same charge as Deborah set before Barak. We see the call to Arise and go forth in consecrated Holiness unto the Lord. 
This is recorded in Josh 7:13. The people were to look within themselves and within their encampment and tents as to all those things that had no place before the Holiness of the Lord. As He was going before them, they needed to be certain to cleanse themselves from anything that was anathema to God. If not, they would soon realize complete defeat because the Lord will not countenance anything that would sully His Holiness.
	Josh 7:13, Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, 'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the Lord, the God of Israel, has said," There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst." 
	As the people of God, we need to Arise and to …'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow…. We need to arise to the call of God and willingly search our hearts and our minds and our homes for anything which is under the ban of God’s Holiness! We need to beseech the Holy Spirit to remove any vile thing, even in our secret places of safe-keeping, those protected areas to which we retreat when everything is hounding and haranguing us. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to clean out all the stuff that is under His ban that would cause us to hinder the movement of the Lord within our lives. We need to arise to the challenge of our heart’s focal point! Are we set on the Lord or on us, bemired with self-justification, and self-aggrandizement, and self-centered attitudes of being as God, much like the whisper of that serpent so so long ago? 
	We cannot go forward with the Lord if we do not Arise and consecrate ourselves before Him! We need the knowledge of His presence going before us and guiding us and protecting us and giving us the victory over all those forces which would otherwise detract and derail us from our spiritual growth into men and women of God. This is the expressed desire of His heart for us. This necessitates the complete and thorough removal of anything that would cause us to prevent our eyes and our hearts from seeking the manifest and absolute approval of the Lord within us!
	 When we know that we are following the direction and the guidance of the Lord, when our hearts are set on pleasing Him and honoring Him and obeying His every Word, we will experience in our lives the immediately known presence of God going before us into all that each day entails. 
We will not be finding ourselves flustered and frustrated and defeated at the end of the day. There will be that complete sense of peace in the knowledge that the Lord has victoriously proven Himself as each day unfolds. We will have that absolute confidence that He will do today, what He has always done and will forever do!
He is always faithful and just and righteous in being our triumphant Lord God Almighty! We will know at all times, that victory which was seen by Deborah over Sisera and Jabin. 
This was miraculously in evidence much earlier in the conquest of the Promised Land, as detailed in Josh 10:8-14. Josh 10:8-14, And the Lord said to Joshua, "Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands; not one of them shall stand before you." So Joshua came upon them suddenly by marching all night from Gilgal. And the Lord confounded them before Israel, and He slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and pursued them by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon, and struck them as far as Azekah and Makkedah. And it came about as they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth-horon, that the Lord threw large stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more who died from the hailstones than those whom the sons of Israel killed with the sword. Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon." So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, when the Lord listened to the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel. 
    	Another account of what happens when the Lord goes before us into the battle was seen by Gideon as the Lord had him winnow down the forces of Israel from 32,000 to 300 men to fight the vast army of the Midianites. This was so that the Lord would show it was not the might of man which would bring deliverance, but the Arm of the Adonai. That is what is needed in each of our hearts and minds. We need to be brought to the place where we know and we see the Hand of God in action in the every deliverance as each day unfolds. There is nothing too large for the Lord and there is nothing too small for Him to do for those who are attuned to Him and follow Him through every storm and gale and maelstrom. 
	Judg 7:7-9, And the Lord said to Gideon, "I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped and will give the Midianites into your hands; so let all the other people go, each man to his home." So the 300 men took the people's provisions and their trumpets into their hands. And Gideon sent all the other men of Israel, each to his tent, but retained the 300 men; and the camp of Midian was below him in the valley. Now the same night it came about that the Lord said to him, "Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hands. 
	This truth of the Lord going before us requires that we want Him to be our Victory and that we obey Him when He tells us what needs to be done! It means that we Arise to see the Hand of God in action! 
Often, we may find that we do not understand the full implications of that which the Lord puts before us, but do we trust Him enough to obey without objection? Have we been under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit long enough to realize that we do not have to know it all? We simply Arise in trust and obey Him Who holds the entire expanding universe together by merely the Word that He speaks! 
	David learned to listen to and to obey the Lord as was evidenced in 2 Sam 5:22-25, as but one example. 2 Sam 5:22-25, Now the Philistines came up once again and spread themselves out in the valley of Rephaim. And when David inquired of the Lord, He said, "You shall not go directly up; circle around behind them and come at them in front of the balsam trees. And it shall be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then you shall act promptly, for then the Lord will have gone out before you to strike the army of the Philistines." Then David did so, just as the Lord had commanded him, and struck down the Philistines from Geba as far as Gezer. 
    	It was after a long life of learning how to listen to the Lord that David could instruct those who followed him about the importance of setting the Lord first in every decision and desire of the heart. He was not perfect at it, as no man but Jesus, the Only Begotten of the Father is. David, however, learned what was important in life as he saw the victorious Hand of God going before His people as the years rolled by. 
	Consider what David instructed the leaders of Israel in 1 Chron 22:18+19. He had come to know what the incomprehensible value of the Lord was in the lives of His people. Therefore the Lord deserves only the finest of the praise and the adoration and the worship and the consideration of those who belong to Him and for whom He is the eternal Victor.
1 Chron 22:18+19, "Is not the Lord your God with you? And has He not given you rest on every side? For He has given the inhabitants of the land into my hand, and the land is subdued before the Lord and before His people. Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God; arise, therefore, and build the sanctuary of the Lord God, so that you may bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and the holy vessels of God into the house that is to be built for the name of the Lord." 
	This surpassing treasure of being the Lord’s people and His going before those whom He has redeemed unto Himself was proclaimed throughout the Psalms. As but one example, consider Ps 68:7-12. 
	Ps 68:7-12, O God, when Thou didst go forth before Thy people, When Thou didst march through the wilderness, Selah. The earth quaked; The heavens also dropped rain at the presence of God; Sinai itself quaked at the presence of God, the God of Israel. Thou didst shed abroad a plentiful rain, O God; Thou didst confirm Thine inheritance, when it was parched. Thy creatures settled in it; Thou didst provide in Thy goodness for the poor, O God. The Lord gives the command; The women who proclaim the good tidings are a great host: "Kings of armies flee, they flee, And she who remains at home will divide the spoil!" 
	The Prophet Isaiah weighs in on the truth that it is the Lord Who makes all the difference in those whose hearts are taught to Arise to praise and to worship and to adore the Sovereign Lord God Almighty. We learn that the Lord faithfully and victoriously proves Himself over and over and over again, from the vast recesses of the eternal ages through to the end of time! He is Faithful and True and Just and Holy and Triumphant over any force that might try to stand against Him!
	Isa 52:9-15, Break forth, shout joyfully together, You waste places of Jerusalem; For the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared His holy arm In the sight of all the nations, That all the ends of the earth may see The salvation of our God. Depart, depart, go out from there, Touch nothing unclean; Go out of the midst of her, purify yourselves, You who carry the vessels of the Lord. But you will not go out in haste, Nor will you go as fugitives; For the Lord will go before you, And the God of Israel will be your rear guard. Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up, and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished at you, My people, So His appearance was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men. Thus He will sprinkle many nations, Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; For what had not been told them they will see, And what they had not heard they will understand. 
    	The call to arise, as we had from Deborah to Barak, is emphasized to us through the Prophet Micah. We need to listen and to respond to the clarion trumpet which calls us to attention in the ranks of the Lord’s people. We need to arise to the consecration which is ours in Jesus and follow Him in complete surrender to the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit. Too much of the dust and the filth of this age clings to our robes! We need to be made purely spotless through the ministry and the sanctity of the Lord God Almighty in our lives. 
	Mic 2:10-13, "Arise and go, For this is no place of rest Because of the uncleanness that brings on destruction, A painful destruction. "If a man walking after wind and falsehood Had told lies and said, 'I will speak out to you concerning wine and liquor,' He would be spokesman to this people. "I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob, I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together like sheep in the fold; Like a flock in the midst of its pasture They will be noisy with men. "The breaker goes up before them; They break out, pass through the gate, and go out by it. So their king goes on before them, And the Lord at their head." 
    	We have this encouragement spoken directly to each one of our hearts by Our Lord Jesus Christ in John 16:33. John 16:33, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." We do not fear the world because He goes before us in the victorious triumph of His glorious resurrection!
	Accordingly, as we draw to a conclusion this morning, we need to check and recheck our heart with respect to our relationship to Jesus Christ. If we want to have His peace in the midst of this chaotic and boiling turmoil of human anger and frustration and depression and animosity and hopelessness, we need to make absolutely certain that we Arise to His call of consecration and dedication. We need to set our hearts and our minds and our lives in the simple purpose to know Him and the power of His resurrection life coursing through us. We need to arise, rise up and be counted as belonging to Him, Who goes before us into battle and utterly surrounds us in the protection of His victory. 
	As John reinforces for us, in 1 John 5:1-5, we need to know who Jesus is! We need to want to live for Him, because He died and rose again for us! We need to examine the lives that we are living and have the Holy Spirit cut away all the entanglements of this age which would or could distract us from wholeheartedly going forward with Our God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! 
1 John 5:1-5, Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? So be it!
And Deborah said to Barak, "Arise! For this is the day in which the Lord has given Sisera into your hands; behold, the Lord has gone out before you." So Barak went down from Mount Tabor with ten thousand men following him. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Rom 10:17. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Amen.