November 22nd, 2009..."One Year: Judges - A downward spiral"

Introduction: Joshua, Judges and Ruth all historically occur in the same general time period for the nation of Israel. Next week we will look at Ruth. Last week we considered Joshua and today we make our way through the book of Judges.

Judges as a whole stands in contrast to the book of Joshua. Joshua is a book that is vibrant and exciting. Judges is burdensome and a drudgery. In Joshua we experience the thrill of victory. In Judges there is the agony of defeat. In Joshua the people cry out, “We will serve the Lord.” In Judges the people are characterized with the infamous Biblical phrase, “Each man did what was right in his own eyes.”

Whereas Joshua was difficult to read and process because it is difficult to deal with the military conquest of the Canaanites and to see God as a Divine Warrior; it is equally difficult to read and process Judges because it is difficult to deal with the realistic absurdity of the obvious sin of the Israelites. We will be returning to this obvious absurdity in a few moments.


The book itself lays out a process of the life of the Israelites during a time when they weren’t ruled by any one particular group or person. They were in effect: leaderless. On the human plane that is. Their direct leader was to be God Almighty. The King and Ruler. He who has kept His covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God of their forefathers. Remember this is the generation that came from the wilderness the unbelieving generation before them is dead and gone. These individuals have seen the Lord work to sustain them. He has provided for them and the major military campaigns have been won by His strong hand. The technical term for being led by God directly is theocracy. And yet these people seems to quickly disregard His rule and fall deeply into sin and rebellion. The major portion of the text shows us a vicious cycle where the judges come in order to deliver God’s people. There are 12 or 13 judges depending on how a person counts. Each Judge delivers Israel from “bondage” or an oppressive rule but I am getting ahead of the text itself.

The thing to note about Judges as we proceed is that this cycle isn’t a cycle on a level plain. It isn’t a straight plain cycle that simply repeats itself. But rather it is a downward spiral. Each successive cycle gets worse than the one before. The “best” judge is the first one. His name is Othniel. The “worst” judge is the last. His name is Samson.


ESSENTIAL IMPACT:God, the Creator/King, is faithful

...but do not trivialize that fact.


Main 1: Trusting God is its own reward.

In Chapter 1 and 2 The people have a small amount of success but there is far more failure that is evident. We can’t say that it crept in. It is apparent from the text that the Israelite were almost at once willfully rebellious.

The success is for Judah. That tribe inquired of the Lord and obeyed and they had success. The other tribes failed in their attempts to drive out the Canaanites. Well actually lets look a bit more closely at what the text records. 1.21,27,29,30,31,33 They did not drive out the Canaanites. It wasn’t as if they lost military campaigns. They didn’t even try. Look. They didn’t even try. And so we read the opening of chapter 2 with this funny taste in our mouths. READ 2.1-5 and 11. Failure and Idolatry.

Main 2: God does not forsake His people

Chapters 3-16 record for us the deliverance of the judges and gives details about the cycles of failure and deliverance.

Read 3.5-11: This is the cycle of the Judge Othniel. He is the best Judge the book has to offer. The cycle goes as follows:

Sin Rebellion
Servitude Retribution
Supplication Repentance
Salvation Restoration
Serenity Rest


Main 3: God doesn’t hide our depravity

Chapters 17-21 Are catalogs of how deeply flawed we as humans are. In 17-18 there are examples of religious apostasy. The setting up of worship outside of the ordination of God’s declared word. There are two examples. The first is personal apostasy through the idolatry of Micah and a Levite. Chapter 18 has the same kind of thing recorded but the scale is much larger an entire tribe is shown to be idolatrous.

In chapters 19-21 the reading isn’t for the faint of heart. There is an utter breakdown in the social and moral fiber. Once again there is personal and tribal failure to an unmistakable degree.


APPLICATION:

1. Be on guard against a callousness toward sin. When we read this book it is soooo obvious what the issues and problems are. Why couldn’t they see it? Why didn’t they do anything about it? Why didn’t someone, anyone speak up and say, “Wait, this is wrong.” Before we rush to judgment…step back and ask yourself, “How would the book read about me?” Are you sensitive enough to the sin in your own life that is leading to idolatry? That is in open rebellion towards God. Ok if you survive that without any conviction of sin and you are asking, “Why hasn’t someone said anything before?” I would argue that He has. Just as He had already declared to the Israelites He has declared to us His exact expectations. We are the ones who have neglected His word and Him. The blame needs to be placed squarely upon our shoulder.

2. Observe and heed the cycle: Are you saved? Do you know Jesus Christ as your savior? Are you following Him? It isn’t about a denomination it is about the relationship you have with God.

Sin
Servitude
Supplication
Salvation
Serenity