I would invite you to turn in your Bibles this evening to the book of Judges. I'm going to do a little bit of selective reading. I read a portion of chapter 1 last week to show the dropping of the baton that was not passed from those of the second generation, those who crossed the Jordan into Israel. who achieved conquest to the leadership of Joshua by the grace and power of God, and then the coming of the third generation. I'll read verses one through 21 of chapter one, and then verses seven through 23 of chapter two. Now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. Indeed, I have delivered the land into his hand. So Judah said to Simeon his brother, come up with me to my allotted territory, that we may fight against the Canaanites, and I will likewise go with you to your allotted territory. And Simeon went with him. Then Judah went up, and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand. And they killed ten thousand men at Bezek. And they found Adonai Bezek in Bezek, and fought against him. And they defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. Then Adonai Bezek fled, and they pursued him and caught up or caught him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. And Adonai Bezek said, 70 kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to gather scraps, sorry, used to gather scraps under my table, as I have done so God has repaid me. Then they brought him to Jerusalem and there he died. Now the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it. They struck it with the edge of the sword and set the city on fire. And afterward, the children of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who dwelt in the mountains in the south and in the lowland. Then Judah went against the Canaanites who dwelt in Hebron. Now the name of Hebron was formerly Kerjoth Arba. And they killed Shishai, Ahimon, and Talmai. From there, they went against the inhabitants of Debir. The name of Debir was formerly Kerjoth Sefer. Then Caleb said, whoever attacks Kerjothsephir and takes it to him, I will give my daughter Aksa as wife. And Othniel, the son of Kanaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it, so he gave him his daughter Aksa as wife. Now it happened, when she came to him, that she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, what do you wish? So she said to him, give me a blessing, since you have given me the land in the south. Give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. Now the children of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, went up from the city of Palms with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the south near Arad. And they went and dwelt among the people. And Judah went with his brother Simeon, and they attacked the Canaanites, who inhabited Zephah, and utterly destroyed it. So the name of the city was called Horma. Also Judah took Gaza with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory. So the Lord was with Judah, and they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron. And they gave Hebron to Caleb, and Moses had said, then he expelled from there the sons of Anak, But the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem. So the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. And the house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. So the house of Joseph sent men to spy out Bethel. The name of the city was formerly Luz. And when the spies saw a man coming out of the city, they said to him, please show us entrance to the city, and we will show you mercy. So they showed him the entrance to the city, and they struck the city with the edge of the sword. But they let the man and his family go. And the man went to the land of the Hittites, built a city, and called its name Luz, which is its name to this day. So there's this ongoing conflict. There's much faithfulness, much fighting. And then we get to chapter 2. I'll read verses 7 through 23. So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua. who had seen all the great works of the Lord which he had done for Israel. Now Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110 years old. And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath, Herez, in the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them, who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them. And they bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Asherahs. And the anger of the Lord was hot against them. So he delivered them into the hands of the plunderers who despoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord said, and as the Lord had sworn to them, and they were greatly distressed. Nevertheless, the Lord has raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked. In obeying the commandments of the Lord, they did not do so. And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers by following other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way. Then the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he said, Because this nation has transgressed my covenant, which I commanded their fathers, and has not heeded my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the Lord, to walk in them as their fathers kept them or not. Therefore the Lord left those nations without driving them out immediately, nor did he deliver them into the hand of Joshua. As far as the reading of God's word, let me pray for the blessing of the preaching of it. Lord, we come to you tonight and ask that we would heed the wisdom and warning that is found in your word tonight, that we would not only have a fighting spirit, but that, Lord, you might grant to us in our very homes a knowledge that can be passed down from generation to generation, a knowledge of your mighty deeds that will lead to an overflow of love and devotion in the hearts of our children and our children's children. Lord, that you might grant to us a legacy of covenant succession so that we might continue to fight to the very end and that we might, by your spirit, find in that success and the fulfillment of your great commission to see the nations come to know you and to fall at your feet as worshipers of the true and living God. This we pray in your name, amen. And so this evening we come to my second introduction or overview of what the book of Judges has in store for us. There are in fact two introductions to this great book. You see that in the beginning here in chapter one, verse one, now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord saying, who shall be first to go up for us against the Canaanites to fight against them? And then we see again in chapter two, verse seven, so the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua. And we see again a repetition of the death of Joshua. This double introduction serves to show us how Israel got it right and how Israel got it wrong, how they were fateful and where they abandoned the call to keep covenant and thus be successful in driving out the enemies of the Lord and their enemies and establish the church there in Israel. And that is what I want to look at this evening as we move to the sort of cycles throughout the Book of Judges of peace, and then idolatry, and then judgment, and then a crying out for help, the raising up a deliverer, and peace again. This cycle that we find throughout the Book of Judges, that's where we will begin next week. And so tonight, I want to look again at some themes and some things that we see in the book of Judges by way of introduction. Two points that I want to make tonight. The first is that this call of covenant faithfulness is a call, a call for every generation, a call for every generation. And then secondly, the failure and its results, or fruits. The failure and its results as it relates to keeping covenant. Now, let's look at this first point, a call for every generation. The way the church primarily grows and expands is that God raises up, by his grace, families who are faithful to observe all that God has taught and also teach their children. And so the most normal and natural converts, you might say, within the church are those who on the outside are no converts at all. They are brought into the kingdom from birth. We teach them as soon as they are able to speak, our Father who art in heaven. So that every Sunday when we gather here in this room, we gather under the banner of Christ and we bear his name and we call ourselves Christians. And that is who we are. We raise high the banner, the name of the one who gave himself for us. Now, in the Old Testament, of course, they did not use the word Christ, but they were looking forward to the Messiah, which is just the Hebrew name. Christ is Greek, Hebrew, Messiah. They look forward to the fulfillment of the promise, and they saw themselves as elements in, as integral to the fulfillment of God's covenant promises. And one of the promises that was given to Abraham is that he and his people, those who would come after him, his sons and daughters, would inherit the land of promise. Now that promise would not only be realized in the taking of the land of Canaan, that land just to the east of the Mediterranean, but the whole earth. And the reason why it would need to be the whole earth is because the descendants of Abraham would outnumber the stars of the sky. And what do we find even now? We find the glory and the worship of Christ and the light of the gospel going forth to places that you can't imagine. Places you and I will never go. Languages we'll never even hear. The names of the people we don't recognize, nor could we probably properly pronounce them the first time we tried. The call is for every generation. And so whether you are the first generation, the second generation, the third, Or the 150th, I don't know where we are. Someone do the math this week. Estimate. Wherever we are in the line of God's history of redemption, the call is the same. Wage war and raise up covenant children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. This is what Deuteronomy 6 teaches, does it not? To remember and to recount. To remember and to recount. Now, the first generation failed to enter into the rest that God had promised for them. Now, it wouldn't require fighting, it would require warfare. The second generation was the generation that did all that fighting. And because the first generation refused to go in, they were not given that rest. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, if the invitation comes to you to enter into the rest, don't fight against it. Enter into the rest that is now found in Jesus Christ, the greater Joshua. Well, as they were wandering in the wilderness, what do you think the topic around the table was? I wish I could go back to the border again. and with confidence and boldness and courage, listen to Joshua and Caleb, and not those 10 worthless cowardly spies who refused, who said, there's no way that we can take it. Those pessimistic eschatological type folks, if you know who I'm talking about, right? There's no way we can take the land. And Joshua and Caleb are saying, it's promised to us. For greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. And yet Israel turned around. And so I would imagine, oh, right? If I could just go back to the, for 40 years, they wandered as Moses did prior to his call in the land of Midian. And then when the second generation got in, we see in chapter one, they knew how to fight. Like King David, they were warriors. And they were willing and ready to go up, as we see in chapter 1, verse 3, come up with me to my allotted territory. But it wasn't as simple as, right, pulling up in your car, hitting your fob, locking the door, and then using the key to go into the house that's already built. No, they had to take the land that would be theirs by war. Now, there were some failures. There were many successes. But they fought. They knew how to fight. In fact, every generation has a fight. The Lord specifically leaves enemies in the land so that every generation might have a fight. In the same way that the Lord said to the nation of Israel, there will always be the poor among you, by God's providence. Not only is it impossible to eradicate the effects of the fall on economy, There will be times of drought and harvest, but who brings drought? Who brings the rain? There are no droughts that are not part of God's sovereign decrees. We must not think so rationalistically or deistically, if that's a word, like deists, God didn't just wind it up and let it go and it's all natural forces, naked natural forces without divine intervention. No, God does it all. And so when droughts come, they come as a result of God's divine hand. Now we cannot always say for what purpose, except as Christians, every time there are moments in our lives that reflect the fall, our first inclination should be what? To cry out to the Lord for help. and to seek repentance. Is this not what Job did for his sons and daughters? He would make sacrifices to them in case they had committed a sin that they were not aware of. Every generation has a fight. And in order for that fight to continue, fathers and mothers must teach their children not only how to fight but he must teach them what God has done for them. Now today, what does that look like? Your conversations at home must be filled with the cross of Christ, because that is the way Christ has conquered death. The cross is the means by which all of our enemies and God's enemies are being subdued under His power because the cross is the path to the kingship of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now that He is King, what is He doing? He is ministering according to what He accomplished in His own cross. So that when we preach, what do we preach? Always with a view to the cross. Christ and him crucified. This is what the church in Corinth forgot. And so what does Paul do as a messenger of God? He takes them in essence through Deuteronomy, right? Recount what Christ has done. And when you do this, when you make the cross of Jesus Christ the center of all Christian discipleship, that discipleship is lived out in glory and honor and service of the one who gave his life for you. It eradicates pride and envy and boasting and immorality and impatience. Every generation has a fight. And that fight is not only to wage war against current cultural trends or theological trends that are out of alignment with the Word of God, but while we are fighting outside of our homes, our neighbors even, we must not forget who is in our homes. Fathers, teach your sons to wield the sword. Mothers, teach your daughters how to serve and to hear the word of God, how to use it in such a way that your homes are places of healing and peace and quiet and rest. Worship the Lord on the Lord's day because it is God's day of rest given to us so that we may for a time lay down our arms that we might pick them up again in renewed strength and vigor and perspective. In fact, if anything, Sunday teaches us that the saints of God are not our enemy. And so this call holy war to combat with the word of God remains. Why? Because our swords have not yet been beat into plowshares. We are not there yet. Now this does not mean that we will not be victorious, but we are not there yet. A time of completion and consummated peace will come, but not until death has been defeated by Christ at the end of all things. We are not there yet, so we carry high the banner of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We take the whole counsel of God's Word. Whatever He has told us to do, we do it. We fight. And at times, we will lose. There will be moments of suffering, but the beautiful blessing is recounted to us that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Even when we lose, we're winning. Isn't that a glorious thing? Even when we lose, and it seems as though the world has victory, right? They can kill the body, but the testimony of the bruised and bleeding saints. How many of us can read the Fox's Book of Martyrs or hear of the stories of even the modern evangelical missionaries to places where people eat people? And they bring the gospel at great threat to their lives, and some of them have died. But that is no impediment to the word of God. As Paul says, I may be bound in chains, but the word of God is never bound. And so the call for every generation that we find here reflected in the book of Judges is the continuing conquest of the land of Canaan. And as much as the second generation put to death the pagan nations that God called them to drive out, though there were moments of a lack of success, something changes between verses 26 and 29, 27, sorry. However, however. Now I read that last week, but what we find in verses 27 through 36 is that Israel stopped conquering and they started lining their pockets with treaties. Where did the change occur? Let's go to chapter two, and this will lead me actually to my second point. So the people serve, verse seven of chapter two, serve the Lord, this is the second generation, serve the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which he had done for Israel. Now Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110, and they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-heres, in the mountain of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash, when all that generation had been gathered to their fathers. That means they went to glory, or Abraham's bosom, actually. They weren't in heaven yet. They went to Abraham's bosom, to where their fathers were. Another generation arose, the third, after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel. How in the world did they not know this? Because they were not told it. Because the ones who were responsible, according to Deuteronomy chapter six, to tell the stories around the fires, In fact, let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 6. Deuteronomy chapter 6 is God's design for covenant succession. Verse 1, now this is the commandment, these are the statutes and judgments with the Lord your God has commanded you to teach you, that you may observe them in the land, that's where they are, later on, right, the second generation, is in the land which you are crossing over to possess. that you may first fear the Lord your God to keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I command you, you and your son and your grandson all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore, hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Now, this is what we call the Shema. The reason why the Shema is between the two components of covenant faithfulness and covenant succession is because the unity and the oneness of God is manifested in the oneness of purpose within our homes. God's glory as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is manifested in the faithfulness that we diligently command, command our children to observe. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and your gates. How does a child, how does one generation not know the Lord? because Deuteronomy chapter 6 was not followed faithfully. And there are, even then, as it relates to the failure and its fruits or results, there are allurements that promote compromise. That is to say, if we do not have at the center of our hearts right here stuck between even our very eyes, plunge deep into our minds and our consciences and our, consciences, both spellings, our brains and what moves our wills, something will. And if there is not a God who commands our affections, who is worthy of them and righteous and good and holy, then there will be some creeping allurements. The first is an allurement of the idols of this world. In fact, what did they do? Well, let's look at the top, well, I'm gonna say top of the page. Verse 11, I don't know where it is on your page, chapter two. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baals. They forsook the Lord God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods. They served Baal, they served the Ashtoreths. Later we see Moloch worship. And in fact, in Deuteronomy chapter six, the promise is, if you obey, I'll give you lots of children. Later, the Israelites take their little children and they worship Molech and they kill them on the altar of this pagan demon god. In fact, many of us today, even as families, ask the question, do I have to have kids? We don't see them for the rich blessing that they can be when they are nurtured in the fear and admonition of the Lord. In fact, there is no greater apologetic for the grace of God than how God holds fast to families. So, one of the allurements is idolatry. The other is resting before its time. I'm talking about retirement. And I don't mean necessarily retirement from corporate America. I'm talking about retirement from life, checking out. And if you're a member of a church, there is always something to do. There is always a fight. You know, you've heard the phrase about the old cowboy, he'll just die in his saddle. In America, it's changed, hasn't it? I want to die in a retirement community surrounded by bocce ball awards that I've won for tournaments. Now, maybe you can have a great ministry in those communities, and that's wonderful, but there's so many in the Western world that just want to check out. Joshua died at 110, and he worked probably up to the day he died, clocking in, clocking out, leading Israel faithfully. There is the allurement of resting before the fight is over. And then there is the allurement of the fear of the world. Sometimes we can just be downright afraid, as the spies were. They're too big. And we look at the world out there and we say, I don't know if God can take down Islam I think He can and He will. And I think He will before He comes back. And I think the great testimony of the power of the gospel in the Holy Spirit is that these religions have nothing. They have no power. These people are ruled by angels of darkness, demons. They're not sovereign. They may be more powerful than men, But the Holy Spirit is God, the third person of the Godhead. And he has been tasked to assist us, not only in wanting to fight, but aiding us and giving us power, as it were, in the means of grace that Christ has given us to promote and preserve the church. And when we are not told to hang on, to run the race that is set before us, to be shown how, right? Swing this way, swing that way. Memorize this verse, that verse. Here's the Roman's road. Here are scripture proofs for this and that and this and that. Working through prayers, memorizing the Ten Commandments, learning the stories of scripture. Recounting to your children how David took the the sweaty hair of Goliath and lifted that massive head with the tendons hanging down from it. And the army of Philistia fled because their great champion had died at the hand of, he's probably my height, a small guy. And all they could say was, look at how big he is. And David said, yeah, it's a big target. We must teach not only that there is an enemy, but we also teach that there is a people whom we must love and cherish and fight for. And so Israel's failure is a pattern of the church throughout the ages. The question is this, how do we interrupt that cycle? Well, we don't, not out of our own strength. In fact, what are we to recall? The mighty deeds of God. Look at what they forgot. They did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel. They forgot primarily God's gracious deliverance. They forgot the grace of God. And so they looked to idols. for that which they did not desire to get from the God of grace. And so they did not drive out the enemies as we see in verses one through six. I didn't read that section, but that's the failure. They did not drive out the enemies. This introduction reminds us Verse one, the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochum, this is chapter two, verse one, and said, I led you from Egypt and brought you to the land with which I swore to your fathers. I said, I'll never break my covenant. But you have not obeyed my voice, later in verse two. Why have you done this? Therefore, I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be thorns in your side. Why? Because they disobeyed. They did not pass down to the next generation a fighting spirit. And so then we find this pattern taking place in verses 11, all the way really through the end, or 10, all the way through the end of the chapter. Idolatry, verse 11, 12, and 13. In light of this, or in response to this idolatry, verses 14 and 15. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, so he delivered them into the hands of, look at the language, delivered them into. It's deliverance into or out of or away from. All of this is God's sovereign doing. And what Israel said is, we'll go with that God. And God says, OK, go. You think that that God will provide what you need, harvest, rain? Go do your dances. Go do your pagan rituals. And this itself was judgment. And this judgment brought great calamity and enslavement. Why? Because demon gods care nothing for you, for your salvation, for your good. They just eat and devour and consume. They steal everything about us that makes us good, that reflects the glory of God in our image, or in His image, but that we bear as well. They want to eradicate it off the face of the earth. and they will go with or they will incite any false religion that is about that. Every false religion is ultimately a religion of violence, either against God in the eradication of His glory and then in turn the eradication of His image in man. Every false religion has violence as its means of salvation, its means of advancement, except the church. And so in their distress, the Lord visited them in deliverance through a judge. We see that in verse 16. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges. And then this cycle would repeat, as we see in verses 17 through 23, as many times as was needed. And every time Israel cried out to God, he delivered them. Now what does that mean? If you and I think that we are living in an age that is not unlike the age of the judges. That's probably true of all ages, to some extent, or in some places. But in the West, it's particularly true. What is the first step for us when it seems as though we have gotten our just desserts due to our rebellion? It begins in the church. We cry out for deliverance. We cry out for deliverance and we mean it. And what I mean is we don't just squint our eyes and clench our fists and pray really hard. What I mean is we must ask that the Lord would break our hearts over the sins that we have committed in compromise to the world. Resting before its time, worshiping at the feet of wretched idols, the fear of the world. That's the big one, isn't it? And it isn't so much I'm scared, it's, well, what will they think of me if I'm not nice? But we must endeavor to fulfill the call to covenant succession. It requires the conviction and clarity of ministers of the word of God to call the saints of God to faithfulness. And listen, there are times where that makes me very uncomfortable, because I fail in that. And because I have to tell people to do the thing, not only that I failed in, but that they're failing in sometimes. Parents, you've had this experience. As you bring to your children discipline, and you see in their faces that same expression that you just made earlier in the day, the same bristling under-authority, the rightful authority of God's Word and His presence. So what must we do? We must cry out for help. We must pass down a sincere affection for and retelling of all of God's mighty deeds. Now, it begins in Genesis, but it doesn't end in Revelation. Has God not done mighty deeds for us? Has he not? I think of my own family, just my parents and my grandparents, and the things that the Lord has done just to bring us together. and how God is faithful and wise and good. If you run out of stories, start back over in Genesis. Let your stories be the stories of God's faithfulness to us. To know and to show, that is to retell our place in the story of God's redeeming grace. Let's pray.