From Rejection To Elevation

 FROM REJECTION TO ELEVATION - Judges 11:1-11

Verse 2 "And Gilead's wife bare him sons, and his wife's sons grew up and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shall not inherit in our father's house;

for thou art the son of a strange woman--. 

If Jephthah's mother was a harlot, that was not his fault. Men and women ought not to be reproached with any of the infelicities of their parentage or extraction, so long as they are endeavouring by their personal merits to roll away the reproach. The son of a harlot, if born again, born from above, shall be accepted by God, and be as welcome as any other to the glorious liberties of His children. Jephthah peacefully left even if he was a mighty man of valour. Never argue with people or focus on the evil they are planning against you but rather focus on what God is doing.

One would not have thought that this abandoned youth was intended to be Israel's deliverer and judge, but God often humbles those whom he designs to exalt, and makes that stone the head of the house that the builders rejected (Jephthah was a type of Jesus). When Israel was in distress under the heavy hand of the Ammonites, those who rejected Jephthah went to plead with him, to be their judge and fight for them.

A caution to us not to despise or trample upon any because they are mean, not to be injurious to any that we have advantage against, because whatever we think of them now, the time may come when we may have need of them. It is our wisdom to make no man or woman our enemy, because we know not how soon our distress may be such that we may be highly concerned to make him or her our friend.

To the rejected or despised, God is going to give you a future full of joy to overshadow yesterday's pain. Be cheerful. To God be the glory. ( Some notes from Matthew Henry) 

Rev B Chinhara