Judges 1 and 2
After Joshua died the people of Israel had lost their Godly
leader and so had to trust God completely for the way forward. It wasn’t going to be easy for them. Before Joshua they had Moses. This was going to be their first time without
a physical leader to guide them.
In the first chapter we see that although they were in the
land of Promise they still hadn’t possessed all of it. There were still enemies
of God to be dealt with. Remember last
week I said that each of these people groups the ...ites... had been given
chances to repent of their wicked ways but had not.
When we allow sin to occupy our life we get comfortable with
it. It eventually becomes normal and we
don’t see it anymore. God didn’t want
the Israelites being comfortable with the Canaanites, Jebusites or any other
ites. It may seem harsh when we read of
Adoni-Bezek losing his thumbs and big toes and yet we read of him doing this to
seventy other kings. Now he would be a
worthless warrior and would be of no trouble to Israel anymore. Difficult to function without your thumbs and
your big toes.
It was a custom amongst the Romans who did not like military
life to cut off their own thumbs so they wouldn’t be called into the Army. Sometimes parents would do the same with
their children so they didn’t have to go either (Clarke).
I want to read what Charles Spurgeon said of Acsah and how the
requests give us a pattern of prayer.
i. She thought about what she wanted before she went to
her father. Before you pray, know what you need before God. She came to God
with a very definite request, that had been considered beforehand. "Think
what you are going to ask before you begin to pray, and then pray like business
men. This woman does not say to her father, 'Father, listen to me,' and then
utter some pretty little oration about nothing; but she knows what she is going
to ask for, and why she is going to ask it." (Spurgeon)
Some of us need to be more bold when we pray and to be
specific. Notice that she gets what she
asks for. Some of us are not getting
what we want because we are not even asking.
Something to think about.
It is interesting to note in 1:19 that Judah took possession
of the hill country but they were unable to drive out the people from the
lowlands because they had chariots. Judah
trusted God for one area of his promises but not another. Were iron chariots a challenge for God….no.
The Israelites made a mistake when they forced the
canaanites into forced labour. As I said
earlier we are not to compromise with sin.
Making decisions like this was going to cause a lot of problems for the
tribes in the future.
One Pastor put it like this……
i.
Essentially, the question is: what will we be satisfied with in our Christian
life? For Israel, in Judges 1, they
were satisfied with far less than what God wanted them to have, and far less
than what God had provided for them.
ii. These
Israelites didn't say "let's forsake God"; they simply decided that
they would be satisfied with less. Once we satisfy ourselves with less than
God's best for us, we will never be what God wants us to be.
David Guzik.
Chapter 2
We start this
chapter with another history lesson from the Angel of the Lord (this is God appearing
human form---- pre-incarnate Jesus). He
reminds the people of what He has done for them. He gets into their business and asks them why
they have disobeyed Him when they made a covenant to obey the Lord. Confrontation is never fun but sometimes it
is necessary just as in the case of the Israelites disobedience. Disobedience comes at a price, there are
consequences for sin. I believe that at
times I suffer the consequences of sin now because I didn’t deal with the
problem when I was supposed to. It
doesn’t go away until we face it and deal with it. We might be hard on the Israelites but we
don’t have to look too far and see it going on in our own lives.
The Lord told the
people that what he had promised in the past was now going to take place.
i. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the
land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be
irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in
the land where you dwell. (Numbers
33:55)
The people wept
for the consequences of their sin but we will see that their sin
continues. There is not a change in
behaviour. True repentance will show in
our behaviour. There should be a change.
There are some
important lessons to be learned from the Israelites in v10ff. There came a time whereby a generation grew
up and didn’t know the Lord and didn’t know what he had done for Israel. It is important as parents, Aunties, caregivers that we talk of what the Lord has
done for us with those coming behind us.
Reminding people of the goodness of God.
What are we passing onto the next generation?
The Israelites
turned away from God and followed the gods of the people around them. Baal was the god over the weather and nature
for the canaanites. This meant a lot in
an agricutural society. Then there was
Ashtoreths. This was the goddess of
love, sex and fertility. Baal and
Ashteroth were not really gods at all and yet man had created them. They wanted a god they could control or so
they thought.
God is a jealous
God which we read about in Joshua 24:19.
We are the bride of Christ. It is
Christ and His bride and He is not going to allow His bride to bring other lovers
into the mix. We look back in the old
testament of people like David and Solomon having multiple wives. It didn’t play out well.
e. In the sight of the LORD:
This implies that the sin was even more offensive to God. To give an extreme
example, it is bad enough for a married person to commit adultery - but to
commit adultery before the very eyes of one's spouse would be especially
offensive. It is awesome to consider that all of our sin is done right before
the eyes of God. (Guzik)
Who or what influences us today? The
canaanites and their lifestyle influences the Israelites greatly. Back in Joshua 24 the Israelites were adamant
that they would serve the Lord and now look where they are. In a place of compromise and sinning
blatantly against God and all they had agreed to.
God disciplines us because He loves us and desires for us to be repentant
of our sin and to turn around and walk in fellowship with Him. We are going to see a cycle over these next
weeks of sin, bondage, deliverance, blessing and then straight back into sin
again. God is going to use specific
people to deliver the Israelites. They
are called Judges (not as in a court of law) but more like a hero who God uses,
in His mercy to save the people from themselves.
We sometimes need saved from ourselves.
However, because we sometimes think we know better God allows us what we
want and we go through suffering and pain that really wasn’t necessary
because our hearts were set on things
that were sinful. We need to do heart
checks now and again to see where our allegiance is….are we being faithful or
unfaithful?
