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 d