- In chapter one, we start out with the death of Joshua and what happened among the tribes in finishing the clearing out of the land. It ends with the failure to clear out the land and the reasons in chapter 2:1-5
- Now 2:6 starts out with a flashback, which is also a summary of the end of the book of Joshua and the first chapter of Judges. In fact, this whole chapter is both a summary of where they started and how they lived over the next 200 plus years
- What is the author trying to do with these opening verses?
- Show how and why they failed
- What is his argument?
- The next generation, second generation believers, did not truly know what God had done for Israel. They only knew the stories
- Good spiritual leadership died. Why is that important? Good spiritual leadership is willing to ask hard questions and challenge your life. If you stay away from spiritual authority, it is because you are not willing to have your life challenged. We need people who will hold us accountable. Without that type of leadership, it is easy to fall into patterns of sin
- The people didn't really know God. Why is that important? Without a relationship, it is not faith but just a set of rules (religion). And rules will not carry you though in life
- APPLICATION: Who is a spiritual authority in your life? Do you have someone that you would trust to call your actions into questions? Or do you avoid having that type of leadership involved in your life?
- APPLICATION: Do you have a growing relationship with God, or is God only a set of rules?
- The result for these second generation believers who only knew the stories, who had know spiritual authority, and who saw faith as a set of rules and not a relationship with God, is … what?
- They left God
- They did what the people around them did. What do we call this? They fitted in. They accepted the culture. They talk like them, swore like them, lived like them
- What is today's religion and idols?
- Agnosticism or anything goes, but also atheism
- Sex, entertainment, materialism, whatever makes one happy
- What are other characteristics of this culture?
- Language, coarseness
- Sexual innuendos
- Incivility, cool to be rude or sarcastic
- Cynicism
- How do you think God views his children living like this culture?
- Heb 12:4-11 (NIV) In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
- Heb 12:25-29 (NIV) See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." 27 The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken — that is, created things — so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
- Heb 13:4-5 (NIV) Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
- APPLICATION: Not all suffering is God's discipline, but God will use suffering to discipline or to get your attention. We need to praying:
- Ps 139:23-24 (NIV) Search me, O God, and know my heart; // test me and know my anxious thoughts. // 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, // and lead me in the way everlasting.
- So when the people were in great distress because of their sins, what did God do and why?
- He raised up leaders, judges
- I think there were two roles for these judges but because they were imperfect, not all of them did a very good job
- One, they were to save Israel physically by defeating their enemies
- Two, they were to save Israel spiritually by guiding them spiritually, by being an example of a man or woman who only worshiped God, not the heathen culture
- The judges were not effective. Some of it has to do with the judges, but what is the other reason?
- The people were too stubborn
- The people did not want to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways
- THEY LOVED THEIR SIN MORE THAN THEY LOVED GOD
- The lie in the above statement is that loving God is much more satisfying
- APPLICATION: Who are our spiritual leaders and how should we be responding to them?
- Heb 13:7 (NIV) Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.
- Heb 13:17 (NIV) Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
- Two reasons are given for life being hard and both are true, what does it say?
- The nations were there to test the people because they had failed to be obedient (verses 2:20-23 and 3:4)
- For those who did not know warfare, the testing was to give them battle experience (verses 3:1-3)
- Red Flag (RF) example: Most pilots in Vietnam were killed in the first ten missions. RF was to created to give them the first ten missions in a controlled environment
- So, while this might seem contradictory, the fact that both reasons are given in the same paragraph means that both reasons are true
- So, because of disobedience, God uses their circumstances to test their faith
- And, God uses their circumstances to teach them warfare
- Why is it necessary to learn warfare if God is your protection?
- Because, when God works in our life, we have to act as well
- We are not compliant puppets
- We have a responsibility to choose, take the first step, and follow through on our actions
- God's responsibility is the results, but that does not mean will lay down on our couch eating chips and watching TV
- APPLICATION: Are you partnering with God? Are you in one of two extremes? 1) God does it all and I don't have to do anything or 2) I have to work hard at it to be successful. The answer lies at both extremes. I need to do my darnedest and I need to trust God completely, and give him the praise
Judges
2:6-10 (NIV) After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take
possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. 7 The people served the
Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and
who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.
8
Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and
ten. 9 And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in
the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
10
After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another
generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.
Judges
2:11-19 (NIV) Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served
the Baals. 12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought
them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples
around them. They provoked the Lord to anger 13 because they forsook him and
served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 In his anger against Israel the Lord handed
them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all
around, whom they were no longer able to resist. 15 Whenever Israel went out
to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had
sworn to them. They were in great distress.
16
Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these
raiders. 17 Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted
themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they
quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of
obedience to the Lord's commands. 18 Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for
them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies
as long as the judge lived; for the Lord had compassion on them as they
groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. 19 But when the judge
died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their
fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to
give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons.
For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8 If you are not disciplined
(and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and
not true sons. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us
and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of
our spirits and live! 10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they
thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his
holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on,
however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have
been trained by it.
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be
shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and
awe, 29 for our "God is a consuming fire."
"Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you."
Judges
2:20-3:4 (NIV) Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and said,
"Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their
forefathers and has not listened to me, 21 I will no longer drive out before
them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. 22 I will use them to test
Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the Lord and walk in it as
their forefathers did." 23 The Lord had allowed those nations to remain;
he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.
3:1
These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not
experienced any of the wars in Canaan 2 (he did this only to teach warfare to
the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience):
3 the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and
the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo
Hamath. 4 They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey
the Lord's commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses.
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