Take your Bibles, if you will, and open with me to Judges chapter 10. Continuing in our series through the book of Judges, this series of messages I've titled, Write in Whose Eyes. As we've studied and as we've looked at the cycle of sin and of idolatry within the nation of Israel, as they had moved into the promised land, were inheriting the promised land, and were now given the command to possess it, to make it their own, we see that after the death of Joshua, The people immediately began to co-mingle with the people around them, with the nations that they were supposed to uproot. And instead of driving them out, they accepted them, they tolerated them, and they began to even worship their false gods. As we've begun looking at the judges, and as we've traveled up through the story of Gideon, and then through Gideon's son Abimelech, and the horrible, deceitful, and dastardly things that Abimelech did to the nation as he brought judgment upon himself and upon the people, as he killed whole towns worth of people, burning them alive in the tower where they had sought safety. As the land begins to recover from this scourge of Abimelech, who should not have ever been king, We read in chapter 10 verse 1, After Abimelech there arose to save Israel Tola, the son of Pua, the son of Dodo. How would you like that for a family name? To have a grandfather named Dodo. But this is Tola. He and Jair, who we will study in verses 1 through 5 this morning, are actually considered minor judges. Not that they did anything less than the other judges, but we don't know what they did. Because all we're given are these first five verses for these two judges. Now you realize we just spent three chapters on Gideon. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 was Gideon. Chapter 9 was Abimelech. We're going to get into three or four chapters next coming up. through in the weeks to come as we get into Samson, that will be at least three messages. So we have all of these exploits and all of these things that these judges did as God brought judgment on the people for their sin, as they cried out for deliverance, as they cried out for rescue, and God would send a judge who would raise up a savior in their midst, a deliverer to bring them rest and to bring them a time of peace. But now after all of these lengthy stories, we come to Tola, and it's just two verses. After Abimelech, there arose to save Israel Tola, the son of Pua, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, and he dwelt in Shemir in the mountains of Ephraim. He judged Israel twenty-three years, and he died and was buried in Shemir." Do you ever have a habit of looking up the obituaries in the newspaper? I do that from time to time from the cities that I've lived in just to see if anybody that I've known has passed away. And some you read and they're lengthy. the things that people did in their life, their contributions, their service to the church, to the community. Others are very short. The saddest to me in the paper are those that are just one line notifying you that somebody by a certain name died on a certain date at a certain age, and that's all it says. That's all that there is to report about their life. We don't know what Tola did other than the fact that he was a judge, that he was raised up to be a deliverer after the horrible time under Abimelech. And as he brought the people rescue, he did this for 23 years, and he died, and he was buried. And that's all we know. Jair, we get a little more detail. It says, after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and he judged Israel 22 years. Now, he had 30 sons who rode on 30 donkeys. They also had 30 towns, which are called Havoth Jair to this day, which are in the land of Gilead. And Jair died and was buried in Kamen. Jair from Gilead, judged for 22 years himself. There's actually a wordplay, 30 by 30 by 30. We don't know how many wives he had. Obviously, we hope he had more than one because he had 30 sons and who knows how many daughters. For these 30 sons, they rode on 30 donkeys. And this is actually a wordplay because when he says that the 30 sons rode on 30 donkeys and had 30 cities, this means these people were important. They owned cities. Each son had a city and a donkey to ride on. And in Hebrew, the word for city and the word for donkey that's used actually rhyme. The words sound the same, but they're spelled differently, like peace, like peace to you, or like peace, like I want a piece of pie. Peace and peace both say peace, but you spell it different. Well, city and donkey are the same, but spelled differently. So it's a play on words to say Jair was somebody. 30 sons on 30 donkeys in 30 cities. They named it. They owned it. He judged for 22 years. But with all that he accomplished through all of this influence and through all of these cities, through all of the territories for 22 years, what is his life summed up to say? He died and he was buried. It's going to happen to all of us unless Jesus comes back. We wonder what will be said of us at the time that we are gone. Would we be considered minor Christians like these are minor judges? Or are the things that we're doing with our life, are they things that matter? Are they things done for Christ? In fact, in reading through these first five verses and in reading the commentaries to see if anybody had any insight on Tola and Jair, where they're from, where their family legacy was left, we really only have the testimony of God given to us in Scripture that these men judged, one for 23 years, one for 22, one we know nothing about, one had a massively influential family, but they both died and they both were buried, and that's that. It actually reminded me of the phrase, the motto that was preached by Count Zinzendorf in the 1700s. If you don't know Count Zinzendorf, look him up. He was very influential in the movement of the Moravians, of sending missionaries around the world. In fact, it was on a boat traveling, carrying Moravian missionaries that the Wesley brothers were introduced to the gospel. We sang one of Charles Wesley's hymns this morning, And Can It Be. But Count Zinzendorf had a motto. He wanted to spend and be spent for the kingdom of God. He had a famous name, a famous family, very influential, but he wanted to use all of that only to exalt Christ, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, to do all that he could do for the kingdom. And he wanted it to be about Christ, not about him. It's interesting that we know his name because of what he did, but what he said was, that if he wanted his life to be summed up in a phrase, it should be this, preach Christ, die, and be forgotten. What kind of a motto is that? Because we like to honor people. We like statues and accolades and parades. We like to praise people. We do. We have our own reformed pantheon, don't we? Where we worship them and we try to grow beards like Spurgeon. And we do all of these things according to what these godly men have done. And understand, the scripture never tells us not to honor men. In fact, it tells us to give honor to whom honors due. And there is a time even in the book of Judges when Abimelech got on to the people because he said, you're not praising and honoring my father like you should have because he was a judge and he delivered you. So, Count Zinzendorf's not saying that we don't honor those to whom honor is due for their work and their service to Christ, but understand the key distinction there. We honor them because they honored Jesus Christ. Because when we talk about them, we're talking about the kingdom, about the church, about the gospel, about the Word of God. So we can take this to heart, that even though not much is recorded about these men, we know this, they were faithful. And whether they were a nobody, or whether they were part of an influential family, they both died and they were buried. And the question is, what did they do that mattered? Well, what they did is given to us there. One judged for 23 years and one for 22. They served God as a deliverer for His people. We can take the lesson then from them that our goal is to preach Christ when the time comes to die and to be forgotten, because it's not about us. What is the best and the greatest legacy that we can leave? Leaving money, endowments, land, stuff? What matters are the lives that are changed because of our life, the influence that we have on the people around us, on our children and on their friends. Think about the generational influence we can have if we really do take it as a motto that our goal is to, in everything we do, to preach Christ, knowing that when it comes to the end of our life and we're called to be with Him, we hope that we are forgotten, but what we talk about Him, what we say about Him, what we show and live about Him will live on. A preacher friend of mine commented this week that so often when we preach, and now with the great tools of being able to record sermons, put them online, other people can listen all around the world to the Word of God being preached. He wondered how many people we influence. And he was asked, how many people do you think you're preaching influences? And he said, there's really no way to put a number on it, because who knows, as I'm preaching the Word of God, that that Word will plant a seed in someone's life that will bear fruit in years to come, that will lead that person to minister to someone else, that will lead to a cascade effect of the Word of God always being effective, going forth and doing what it was sent to do. to do. Because you see, when we preach, when we teach the Word, when we live the Word, it is not about the size of the crowd or the number of hearers. It's not about the people at all, in fact. It's about the fact that it's the Word of God that's going forth. And as it is sown, God says, by the power of the Spirit, it will always bear the fruit that it's sent to bear. It's not about our influence even. It's about the power of the Word of God in the hands of the Holy Spirit as we faithfully proclaim the truth. As we preach and as we live the gospel day in and day out, we will affect countless generations. Is it any wonder that in the book of Deuteronomy, God says, if you are faithful to me and to my covenant, I will be faithful to you and to your children for a thousand generations. We have problems thinking through getting through Monday this week and God says, I'm making you promises for thousands of generations. We have such a short view of things. We need to embrace Count Zinzendorf's motto. Like Tola and like Jair, these minor judges, they were faithful to God in judging and delivering His people. They were preaching Christ. They were giving a picture of Christ, weren't they? Every one of these judges is a picture of Christ, because the name judge, the title judge, means a deliverer, a savior, a rescuer. They rescued the people and pointed to the coming final judge who will also be the savior. It is interesting that during the time of Tola and Jair, that this is the time that we believe, from the timing of things happening in Israel, that the story of Ruth occurred. That Elimelech and Naomi, with their sons, went to Moab to escape a famine. They married, the husband Elimelech died, and then the sons died, and then Naomi came back bringing Ruth with her to Bethlehem. We know the story there, because as we read through that in our Old Testament scripture readings, we'll see that Ruth came back, was introduced to Boaz, it became the fact that he was the one who had the right in the family to marry her and to provide for her, and that through that marriage, through God using a Moabitess woman who was brought back with Naomi to Bethlehem, we know that Obed was born, and from Obed came Jesse, and from Jesse came David. Now here's what's amazing about that. Here are two of the shortest accounts that we have of judges. A deliverance of 23 years and a deliverance of 22 years. And we think that's really not long in the context of what we're reading through and looking at in the hundreds of years that are covered in the book of Judges. But look at what God was doing through all of this, even with these minor judges. In the course of their delivering the people, Elimelech and Naomi fled the famine to go to Moab. Do you see what God's doing there? While he's raising up these minor judges, these temporary judges, these judges that will bring deliverance for only 20 or 30 or 40 years at a time before they die and the people run right back into their sin and into their idolatry. As these judges do this and provide a picture for us, what is God doing? Behind the scenes, he's sending Elimelech and Naomi to Moab to pick up Ruth to bring Ruth back to Bethlehem so that Jesus could be born. And that's not minor. That's not a minor thing. God is working behind the scenes to accomplish His purposes. And even though we look at these men and we wonder what could they have done, because we have no details about their judging and their delivering, what we do know is that they did serve, they were faithful, they did die, and they were buried. And even though they died, God was still unveiling and unfolding His purposes to bring not just mere rest for 20 or 30 years, but to bring everlasting rescue to His people through sending the Savior. We look at a few years, 23 years, 22 years, short lives, even if they are lives of influence. We look at living 70 or 80 years, 90 years, if we're on this earth that long, and we wonder what can we accomplish for God in that time. And we cannot forget that the whole time we're doing this, He is being faithful to His promises and will forever. Sometimes the cure for running a rat race and just struggling to survive, sometimes the cure for that is to take the long view and to look toward eternity. and to see that God has already got it all worked out. And it's all going to work out for our good and for His glory. We don't need to worry. We don't need to invest the emotional capital and stressing out over living in a fallen world. Because when you look at Ephesians chapter 1 and you look at all that we've been given in Christ, we have absolutely nothing to complain about. Look at all that we've been given in Him. Look at the care that He is taking to unfold history, to bring about the birth of the Messiah. The remainder of chapter 10, actually through verse 16 in chapter 10, now give us another view of the people. Another two judges have come and gone, they've died. And what do the people do when the judges die? In verse 6, it tells us, then the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals and the Asherahs, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the people of Ammon, the gods of the Philistines, and they forsook the Lord and did not serve Him. We're going to learn a little bit about conviction and chastening this morning that leads to repentance, because what we have here in chapter 10 is an actual picture of the people repenting. Before now, the people cry out for rescue. And understand, every time they cry out for rescue, the word is very specific. They are not repenting of their sin that got them into the trouble that they needed to be rescued from. They were just tired of suffering and wanted God to bring it to an end. They wanted to treat God like a genie in the bottle. If we say the right thing, will you come and give us comfort and ease and take away the suffering? But they didn't repent. In fact, we know this because with each judge, we learn that as that judge dies, the people immediately go back, and it's not like they left it and ran back to it. It was an undercurrent the whole time, and now because the judge is dead, they can do it openly. They can embrace their evil. They can run back to their sin. There is no real change in the hearts of the people, and it's continually spiraling downward in this progressive fall into idolatry. But look at how many idols here. Look at how bad this is in this one verse. He says, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. In other words, it's not just that He saw it and knew that it was evil. They did it and they didn't care that He was watching. We would never do that, would we? Because we know God sees us all the time. Does that hinder us when we sin? It should, because if it doesn't, we don't really believe He's watching, do we? He sees. And they did this blatantly in the sight of the Lord. And they served the Baals and the Asherahs. They served idols from Syria, from Sidon, from Moab, from Ammon, from the Philistines. Anybody who had a god, they would worship it. They brought in all of these idols. But it's not just that they ran to the idols. It's the fact that the root of this was they forsook the Lord and did not serve Him. Now, verse 7 is really quite a frightening verse. How bad does it have to be for God to say about a people, so the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. Not just He was going to judge. This is not just a statement of wrath. It's not just a threat that there are going to be consequences to sin. His anger was aroused. The anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. He was watching what they did. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the people of Ammon, we're told. And from that year, they harassed and oppressed the children of Israel for 18 years. All the children of Israel who were on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites in Gilead. Because of the multiplication of the idols, God in His wrath began to chasten them. And the chastening was a harassment, distress that came from Ammon and Philistia for 18 years. As we look at this chapter 10, 11, and 12, We'll be dealing with the Ammonites, chapter 13, 14, 15, and 16. We're going to be talking about the Philistines. It's going to take us six chapters to unfold what God is doing with his people here. He's doing it as a consequence of their idolatry. He's judging them. He's turning them over. He's letting them go. For 18 years, they're suffering on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites and Gilead. Verse 9 tells us, moreover, the people of Ammon crossed over the Jordan to fight against Judah also, against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed. The people could find no relief. They were severely distressed. Now was the real distress here what the Ammonites and the Philistines were doing? The suffering because of their sin? You know, the real distress here is that they had forsaken the Lord and they were bearing up the consequences of His wrath. He was turning them over to what they wanted. He was giving them to the people that they wanted to serve. They wanted to serve their gods. They wanted to worship the idols. Isn't it amazing that we tell God blatantly and rebelliously what it is that we want and what we expect of Him? And then when He gives it to us, we're shocked and amazed. God will give you what you want. Is that a health, wealth, prosperity gospel? No, that means if you pursue sin long enough and you don't repent, God finally will let you go and He will turn you loose. What you will learn at that point in time is that when you get what you want, you'll bear up unto the wrath of God. In fact, that is His wrath. People look at our nation and they look at the things that we're doing and they look at those things that are being considered in Congress and by the Supreme Court. They're looking at rulings on marriage and rulings on abortion and rulings on all of these different things. that are affecting our lives as we wonder about the moral morass that we've fallen into as a nation. And people begin to stand up and they've been saying for years, if we continue down this path, God will judge us. And if we continue to allow these things and to legalize these things, God's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. God's going to judge us. And we have these prophets who stand up and they proclaim, God's wrath is coming. What we learn from here in the book of Judges is that when God's wrath has come, He's turned you over to what you want. You see, all of the things that are being decided for our nation and in our nation right now, all of these moral dilemmas that we face, our decisions on those things are not going to bring the wrath of God. The very fact that those things are being discussed in the public forum, that is the wrath of God. God is turning our nation over to what it wants. God is saying, if that's what you want, have it. Because ultimately what we know from the Word of God is that when we want what is displeasing to God, when we forsake Him and serve ourselves, and He judges us and turns us over to that, what we thought we wanted will destroy us. This is the wrath of God. His anger was hot. He was chastening them. The people were under severe distress. But you know there is nothing as distressing, or there shouldn't be, there is nothing as distressing in the life of a believer as the conviction of the Holy Spirit because of our sin. We have churches today that don't like to preach the Word of God, they don't like to preach expositionally because you have to deal with passages that talk about wrath and judgment and consequences. There are preachers who have the largest churches in the land who won't use the word sin or repent when they preach because they don't want to anger people and have them leave. The Word of God confronts us with the truth that we need to hear. The truth that we need to hear is that sin comes at a price. And the most distressing thing for us should be the convicting power of the Spirit in our lives. When was the last time you were convicted by the Holy Spirit? Convicted through preaching, convicted through something you'd read, convicted through counsel you received from a friend. When was the last time you were just convicted in your own conscience because you knew the things that you were contemplating were not pleasing to God? Conviction is not comfortable, is it? Conviction is not comfortable, but it's necessary, because conviction corrects us. It steers us back on course. It strengthens our resolve to deny ourself, take up our cross, and follow after Christ. when we think about this distress, when we think about the convicting power of the Spirit, when we think about the wrath of God. In Psalm chapter 2 verses 1 through 5 we read, Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure. Does it distress you to think that God might not be pleased with you? We come to God and we expect God to be pleased with us just because we came to him, right? It's like, look, God, I'm here. You should be happy. You know there are things that we can do and things that we do in our daily lives that displease God. You look at the nation of Israel under the minor prophet Amos, and Amos tells the people, God is sick of your worship. You're keeping all the feast days, all the fasts, you're doing everything right according to the law, but your heart's not in it. You're just going through the motions outwardly, and you don't really mean it. There's a disconnect between your heart and your lips, and you're saying something, but you don't really mean it. It's not true. You're lying to me. And so God says, I hate your worship. What we do can be displeasing to Him. Does it distress us that we displease God? Oh, you shouldn't dwell on that. We should dwell on all the pleasure that God has given to us in Christ. Sometimes we really do need to be reminded that without Christ, God is not pleased with us, and that the only reason He's pleased with us is because of the finished final work of Christ. It's not what we do and what we bring to Him that makes God love us. He loves us because that's who He is. And as He gives to us grace, and as He sacrificed His Son for us, that is the basis of His mercy, and His compassion, and His love, and His grace given out to us. We don't need to play games to try to get brownie points with God. Christ has all the points, and He gave them to us. Now, when God looks at us, He sees us through the blood of His Son, and He's pleased with us because of what He did. Now, immediately then, that means that we don't have to try anymore, right? If you know what it costs for God to be pleased with you, why would you not strive even more so to walk in a way that was pleasing to Him? to do what is right to the honor and to the glory of Christ. In Psalm 143, let me just read this Psalm for you from David. David says, hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications, in your faithfulness answer me, and in your righteousness do not enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no one living is righteous. For the enemy has persecuted my soul. He's crushed my life to the ground. He has made me dwell in darkness like those who have long been dead. Therefore, my spirit is overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is distressed." Have you ever had one of those days, one of those weeks, one of those months, one of those years, one of those decades? It's all distressing. David remembers the good old days. He says, I remember the days of old. I meditate on all your works. I amuse on the works of your hands. I spread out my hands to you. My soul longs for you like a thirsty land. Do we want God more than we want to be free of the suffering? Do we want Christ more than we want rescue from the trial? What are we really seeking? Are we seeking to serve self to get out from under the distress? Or are we seeking to spend that time in distress longing for Him? David says, answer me speedily, O Lord. My spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me, lest I be like those who go down into the pit. Cause me to hear your loving kindness in the morning, for in you do I trust. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, for I lift up my soul to you. Deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies. In you I take shelter. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness. Revive me, O Lord, for Your name's sake. For Your righteousness' sake, bring my soul out of trouble. In Your mercy, cut off my enemies and destroy all those who afflict my soul, for I am Your servant." What do we do in times of distress? What do we do in times of trial, in times of conviction, in times of dealing with the consequences of the seeds that we've sown? When we look at the consequences of our sin, yes, we're forgiven. Yes, we're justified. we still bear the consequences of what we do in the flesh. As we look at that distress, there are times that we stop and we hope, well, maybe if Jesus would just come back, I wouldn't have to struggle with this anymore. Now, that's been the hope of the church for generations, hasn't it? Maranatha, even so, come. That's my political motto right there. I don't want another election cycle. I want Jesus to come back because he's the king and he is the one who does the electing. Let's have Christ come back and then it will all be so glorious and so good and no more suffering and no more death and no more idiots. But do you know how terrible the day of the coming of the Lord is going to be? Every time it's describing the minor prophets, a day of trouble, a day of distress. Zephaniah says it's a day of devastation and desolation and darkness and gloominess and clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high towers. Because when he comes back, this is what he says to the world, to the lost, I will bring distress upon men and they shall walk like blind men. because they have sinned against the Lord, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like refuse." You see, we so want to be delivered from the sufferings of this world that we do fail to realize at times that when He comes back to deliver us, it means devastation to the lost around us. We should tremble at the coming of the Lord. It's not wrong to look for the hope, for the comfort, to be reunited with Him, to cry out, Maranatha, even so come, Lord Jesus. But keep in mind, what for us is a glorious reunion with Him in the sky is for the world. the sentence of judgment on their sinfulness. He says, in that day neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath, but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he will make speedy riddance of all those who dwell in the land. It leads David in Psalm 118 verse 5 to say, I called on the Lord in distress, the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place. Sometimes we just have to be reminded that we need to cry out to God. to cry out to Him, to be with us, to walk with us, to rescue us, to save us, to be our judge, to be our advocate, to be our Savior, to be our Redeemer. As we look at the conflict and the displacement here, God is pouring out His wrath upon the people, and the people are being distressed for 18 years. And in verse 10 it says, The children of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, We have sinned against you, because we have both forsaken our God and served the Baals. In this time of affliction, We have to remember something in this time of judgment. And this is what judgment in the scripture should always remind us. People always want to have help understanding the book of Revelation. If you want to understand the book of Revelation, here's what you have to understand about it. Understand what is being revealed. What is being revealed in the book of Revelation? A chart so we can figure out the day Jesus is coming back. You know what's being revealed in the book of Revelation? It is a revealing, an unveiling of Jesus. The book of Revelation is a picture of Him. That's a little simple, isn't it? Just like the gospel, the wisdom of God is foolish to men. It's a revelation of Him. And what do we see in the book of Revelation? We see trumpets and bowls and we see all of these ashes and all of these things happening and all of these horrible judgments and all of this wrath and we try to figure out when is this going to happen and what does this actually mean and what are these locust things coming up out from under the ground? You begin to read and look at the prophetic symbolism, and we get lost sometimes in all of that, but He's showing us Christ. And you know, the best way to think about the book of Revelation, when you read about all of the judgment in the book of Revelation, keep this in mind. God is pouring out His wrath on the nations of the world, on the lost, in the book of Revelation. What did He pour out on Christ on the cross? All of His wrath for our sin. You want to understand those horrible pictures and symbolism in Revelation? Understand what we're being told there. Christ bore this for you, so that when that happens, you don't have to bear it. Christ bore this for you, because you were afflicted by sin. He was afflicted by the Father. Isaiah 63, 9 says, in all their affliction, He was afflicted. And the angel of His presence saved them. In His love and in His pity, He redeemed them. He bore them and carried them all the days of old. Did you ever think about the fact that when we are afflicted, Christ is afflicted. He's afflicted with us. He was afflicted for us. In fact, He bore affliction that we on our own couldn't bear. He bore it on Himself on the cross. In this wrath and in this judgment, then the people cry out. But this time the cry is different. This time they don't just say, save us. This time they actually confess. They cried out to the Lord saying, we have sinned against you because we have both forsaken our God and served the Baals. It's a confession of sin. We have not served you, we have served the Baals. Now they've cried out time and time and time again. God sends them a deliverer and then they run right back into their sin. What's different this time? This time there's actually a confession of sin. Not a cry for rescue, but a confession of their specific sin. Psalm 32.5, David writes, I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgression to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. In order to appropriate the forgiveness given to us by Christ, we must confess our sin. What does the word confess mean? We read about the word confess in 1 John 1, in fact, the most famous passage about confession. 1 John 1, verses 5-10, this is the message which we have heard from Him and declared to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. If we confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What does that mean? That means after church, I'm going to have you all line up. I'm going to stand behind the curtain and hide so you can't see me. And then I want you to come tell me everything that you were tempted with or struggled with throughout the course of the week. And then I will grant you absolution because of the power that I have as a priest of the gospel. Sorry, we're reformed. We don't do that. What is confession? Confession is not the power of a pastor or a priest to grant you forgiveness. Jesus is the high priest and he secured the forgiveness with his life, with his blood. And he tells us now, if you want to appropriate forgiveness for your sin, you must confess it. What does that mean? The word confess means simply this, the Greek word for confess means to agree. It means, God, I agree. I agree with you, with your assessment of the situation. I agree with you that what I did was sinful, it was wrong, it was evil, and I shouldn't have done it. God, I agree with you. It's an admission. This should not have happened. And it's an acceptance. It's an acceptance of the fact that there are consequences when we sin. You see, confession doesn't come and say, I'm sorry, I'm in so much trouble, can you get me out of trouble? Confession comes and says, we have sinned against you because we have both forsaken our God and served the Baals. Now, we are told in the scripture to confess to one another. Does that mean that we need to share our dirtiest, darkest secrets with everyone? We should have people who hold us accountable. We should have people that we can confess to. But a general rule, scripturally, for confession is this. You confess to the people who have been affected by your sin. Confess it first to God and then to those that you've sinned against. Those who have borne the harm of your actions or your words. Confess it. Agree with the Word of God. Agree with the truth that what you did was sin. And the people do that. We have sinned. They just call it what it is. And by the way, due to the rise of modern pop psychology and all of this nonsense about the human psyche, we don't call sin, sin anymore. We call it an addiction, a weakness, a sickness, a mistake, a failure, a character flaw. The Bible calls it sin. It's sin. It's transgressing God's Word. Call it what it is. The people did. We've sinned against you. And they state exactly what they did. We have forsaken you and we've served the Baals. But look at God's response. So the Lord said to the children of Israel, Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, and from the people of Ammon, and from the Philistines, also from the Sidonians, and Amalekites, and Manoahites, oppressed you, and you cried out to Me, and I delivered you from their hand? Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods, therefore I will deliver you no more. This is kind of shocking because we're all told over and over and over again, if you just confess and if you just repent, God will just embrace you and take you back. No problem, no questions asked. We always think about the picture of the father waiting for the prodigal son. That picture doesn't apply here. He kept rescuing the people. He keeps saving the people. He keeps delivering the people over and over. And he lists it, just like they served all these idols. He said, I delivered you from the Egyptians, from the Amorites, from the people of Ammon, from the Philistines, from the Sidonians, from the Alakites, from the Minoites. All of these, I delivered you time and time and time again. And as soon as I delivered you and you were free, what did you do? You forsook me and you served other gods. And God says, quite matter of factly, therefore, I will deliver you no more. When God says He's not coming for you, God actually gets sarcastic with them. He says, go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen. Let them deliver you in your time of distress. Why are you calling to me? You haven't even been worshiping me. You admitted it. You forsook me. You're serving all these other gods. If you're having such a difficult time serving these other gods, maybe you should be talking to them about it. because they're the ones that you're worshiping. I mean, wouldn't you think if you're worshiping these gods, you think it so you can get something from them so things can go well? I mean, that's why we worship who we worship usually, isn't it? We worship the God or the manifestation of God or the idea of God that gives us what we want. We set up idols to serve self. Ultimately, who is the false God we worship when we worship idols? Me. The God of me. I'm doing what I want. And when God turns us over to that and says, now you're gonna pay the consequences of that, well, cry out to your idols. You're worshiping them. You keep running back to them every time I delivered you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. You keep forsaking me. You keep serving them. I'm not going to live anymore. You go and you cry out to the gods that you've chosen and you let them deliver you in your time of distress. And this kind of runs counter to our thinking because we think, wait a minute, we just saw the first genuine confession of sin in the whole book of Judges, and when the people actually confess, God says, no, not going to help you. What is God doing? That's why we preach expositionally and we keep going verse by verse, because verse 15 shows us what God was doing. God was not prepared here to completely turn His people over and let them go. God was making a point. And the point was not just that you need to confess your sin. The point was you've not gone far enough. You need to repent of your sin. Very often, what is it that motivates confession? Usually, the confession comes because you've been caught. And you can lessen the consequences if you confess. Don't y'all watch Law & Order? If you just confess it, we can make a deal. Confess it. Who knows that maybe that's what they're doing here. Maybe they're just saying what they thought God wanted them to hear so he would deliver them. Maybe they're treating him like a genie in the Bible. If we say the right words in the right order, if we use this mantra, we confess, we have sinned against you, we have not followed you, we follow after the bells. Maybe then God will bring us relief. And what God does is he pushes it. He pushes it not just to see them confess their sin. He pushes to see if they will repent of their sin. And we have one of the most beautiful pictures of repentance in verses 15 and 16 of Judges chapter 10. He says, and the children of Israel said to the Lord, we have sinned! Listen to what the people say then. Do to us whatever seems best to you. Only deliver us this day, we pray. So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord, and his soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel. They repented. Did you hear their repentance? They repented. They repented when they surrendered to the sovereignty of God. And they said, we have sinned. They put forth a guilty plea. God, you want to know what we've done? What we've done, you've seen the list. You just named all the false gods. We are guilty as charged. Do with us whatever you think is best. You see, there's a difference between being sorry and repenting. Being sorry is feeling bad about what happened and the people who were hurt and the way we were hurt because of what we did. And we can really be sorry sometime. But sorrow is not repentance. Because what is being sorry trying to do? Well, it's the very thing that we're taught from when we're little children. When one kid on the playground hits another kid, what do we tell him to do? Tell him you're sorry. And what do the children learn? They don't learn to be sorry. They don't learn to repent. They learn that as soon as they say they're sorry, they can go back out to fighting on the playground. Fine, I got caught. I'll say whatever I have to say for you. Get off my back so I can go back to doing what I'm going to do. It's kind of a gruff voice for a four-year-old, isn't it? That's what goes on in their minds, isn't it? Okay, fine. I'm sorry. They're better. And then of course you get, no, give each other a hug. Better a list of things that we think we have to do to make it better. And it produces in a sorrow and anger and contempt. and hatred and prejudice and it doesn't produce repentance because we're focused upon us and the fact that we think we have been dealt an injustice and we should not have had to apologize. And this is what that sounds like. I'll apologize when you say you're sorry. Are you really sorry then? No, you're manipulating somebody. That's not even true sorrow. Repentance doesn't look like sorrow. Repentance is deeper than that. Repentance is surrender to the sovereignty of God. God, I'm guilty. Do what you know is best. Do you know what repentance says? No matter what you do to me, I deserve worse. No matter what the consequences of my sin are, it should be worse. How do we know that? Look at the cross. Look at what He bore for us, so that we don't have to bear it. The temporary consequences of our sin are nothing compared to the eternal consequences of separation from the goodness and grace of God in the lake of fire. Repentance, then, is not being sorry. Repentance is not about self. In fact, repentance is self-denial. It is surrender to the sovereignty of God. We have sinned. We are guilty. Do to us whatever seems best to you. And that's followed with a plea. Only deliver us this day, we pray. Do you know what they're confessing here? They're confessing that their only hope of salvation comes from God and His grace. It's Romans 10.13, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Whatever else you have to do to me, God, do whatever you have to do, whatever you think is best, just save me. For your sake, by your grace, according to your promise, by your mercy, deliver us. We've sinned. Do what you think is best. The word for repent in the New Testament We're all familiar with this, the word metanoia, to change your thinking, to think differently about something, literally a change of mind. Where does repentance come from? If you're sorry enough, do you eventually repent? Esau was awful sorry. He never repented. Where does repentance come from? Repentance is a gift of God's grace. Acts 5.31 says, Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel. and the forgiveness of sins. God gives repentance. He renews our mind. He gives us what we need to be right with Him. Acts 11-18, when they heard that the Gentiles had been saved, it says, When they heard these things, they became silent, and they glorified God, saying that God also has granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life. When Paul was giving his conversion story to Agrippa, in Acts 26, verse 19-20, he says, Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, And then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting of repentance. Paul tells us, when God gives you this grace, when you are no longer just merely sorry, but when you repent, when there is a change of your mind about your circumstances, and you confess to God, you agree with Him, and you admit your guilt before Him. Paul says, you need to be doing works that befit repentance. See, repentance is not just saying, I'm sorry. Repenting is doing something differently than you were doing before. Because, have you really changed your mind if nothing outwardly changes? Now, we might think, oh, I better not do that again. Is that enough to keep us from doing it again? No. You see, if you repent, if you do repent, that change of mind produces a change of behavior. You say, wait a minute, I repent all the time and then fall right back into the same sin. I repent, sin, repent, sin, repent. Well, guess what? Something's not catching. You're sorry and you want the cycle to end. But have you denied yourself? Have you genuinely repented? Have you submitted yourself to the will of God? Repentance is all about self-denial. It's about doing works that are befitting the gospel. 2 Timothy 2.25 says that we, in humility, to be correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth. If you know that you need to repent, you need to get into the truth. Inform your conscience with the truth of the Word of God. Inform your mind, inform your heart, so that your thinking can be changed through the process of sanctification. Jesus says, sanctify them by truth. Your Word is truth. It is by keeping the Word of God, by doing the Word of God, that we can keep our way pure. Repentance really is submission. It's submitting our mind to the scripture. 2 Corinthians 7.10 says, "...for godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces only death." And Jesus tells us in Matthew 3.8, "...therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance." If you are repenting, look for the fruit, look for the change. What's different now than it was before? Because you confess your sin and you repent. That's what the people did. They confessed it, they admitted their guilt, they agreed with God, they confessed exactly what they had done, And then they said, we're guilty, do with us whatever seems best to you. And verse 16 proves that they repented. So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord. You realize that's the first time we're told that's happened in the book of Judges? They put away the foreign gods. They put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord. And it says, His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel. They confessed, they repented, they came back, and He was hurting with them. When God chastises us, He is afflicted as well. So repentance is to submit our will, it's to submit our words, it's to submit our works, and it's to submit our walk to the scriptures. Everything from the inside out, the way we think, the decisions we make, the words we use, the works that we engage in, and the way that we walk in our daily life. A true life of repentance, each one of those areas is submitted to the scripture, to the word, and to the will of God. That's why Martin Luther was so correct in the first of his 95 theses when he nailed it on the door there at Wittenberg. When he did that, the first thesis was this. Repentance is not a one-time act. It's a way of life. Submitting, surrendering, repenting, rejecting what we are without Christ, yielding our will to Him. Too often we think that it's a formula. Confess, repent, and then God has to bless us. Does God have to bless us? Well, He says He will if we confess and if we repent. God says He will take care of us. And so what we do then is we go through the motions, we say the right words, we pray the right prayers, and we wait for God to swoop in and rescue us. The commentator said this though, don't depend on the sincerity of your repentance. Don't think if you can just be sincere enough in your sorrow that God will rescue you. Do you know what we need to appeal to when we repent? We need to appeal to the unfailing mercy and unconditional love of God given to us in Christ. Not my ability to repent. Not my ability to pray a prayer to say the right thing or feel bad about the right things. Not my ability to confess, to change my mind, or to do any of these things. We need to do what we do in confession and repentance based not upon our actions or our responses or our trial and suffering and sorrow. We need to do what we do based upon the unfailing mercy and love of God. Does God's love drive us to repentance? Absolutely. Romans 2.4 says, Do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? You know why we repent? Because we know that God is faithful and that when we confess, He will forgive us our sin. It's a dependence upon His truthfulness. The people then shunned idols. and they served God. This is the way our daily life needs to look. This is the life of taking up your cross daily, denying yourself, following Christ. Shun the idols. Surrender to God's sovereignty and then shun the idols. At the end of the book of Job, in Job 42, when God finally just revealed himself to Job. Job had been finally brought to the point where he was complaining against God, asking God questions, challenging God. God revealed himself to Job. Job sat down in the dust and he says this, therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. You know why Job repented? Because he saw God for who he was. He didn't go to God for what he could get. He saw God for who he was. and He repented. It's His goodness, it's His grace, it's His mercy that leads us to repent. Ezekiel 14.6 tells us, Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, Repent, turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away from all your abominations. Shun the idols and serve God. This is proof of repentance. In Revelation 2.5, writing to the church at Ephesus, the church that had left their first love, Jesus says, Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. How crucial is repentance to our daily life? Because of this truth, repentance is based in the denial of self. It's me taking God's will over my own, taking His Word over my own, taking what He wants instead of what we want. Now, what's the goal? The goal is to confess our sin, to agree, to admit, to accept, to repent by surrendering to God, shunning the idol of self and serving God, so that then what we want conforms with what He wants, so that within what we want is what He wants. That's the goal. To conform our desire so that it's pleasing to Him. Now, why would we think, then, that repentance is a bad word? Why do so many preachers not use the word repent? Is it because the crazy guy out on the street corner with the sign, repent, the end is near? Guess what? It is. And there's only one cure. Jesus said it. Repent, or you'll all likewise perish. Repent. It's the first word of the gospel. Confess your sin. Agree with God about the horrendous nature of what you have done without Him, and where you want to go without His restraint, and repent of all that you are without Christ. Repent of all that you would do and could do and have done despite Him. Surrender to Him. That change of mind that says, God, do whatever you want. Just save me. That's the publican going to the temple to pray, isn't it? The Pharisee prayed, God, I thank you. I'm not like all these other people. I am so much better and so much blessed. The publican hid out of sight. and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That prayer contains confession and repentance and faith. And it tells us he walked away that day justified, right with God, because he confessed, he repented, and he believed. That's your assignment for the week. When you sin, confess it quickly, specifically. Repent. Don't just be sorry. Ask God to change your mind. Ask God to change your mind about your sin. Submit your will, your words, your works, and your walk to the Scriptures, to the Holy Spirit. And don't depend on what you do to get you where you need to go. Appeal to the unfailing mercy of God. He keeps His covenant to a thousand generations. We can't even imagine a thousand generations. And that's just the beginning. He's given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness in Christ Jesus. How much is that? all things that pertain to life and godliness. He's given to us because we know His Son. We have no reason to complain. We have nothing to gripe about, nothing to worry about. If you do gripe, you do complain, you do worry, repent, confess, believe, and do works that are fitting with that repentance. Do works that are pleasing to Him, not to get something from Him, simply to express your pleasure in Him. Please Him. Really, He's the only one we should be pleasing. Isn't that true? Please Him. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank You for Your Word this morning, for this picture of confession and repentance, to see what it means to cast off our sin, to turn from it, to reject it, and to run to You for salvation. Father, we thank You for the salvation given to us in Christ, for the work that You've accomplished in redeeming us, And for the reminder that repentance is a daily way of life for us, to be forsaking and running and turning away from and shunning those things that we would do that would be displeasing to you. Rejecting our will, accepting your will, and walking in submission to your Spirit. Father, we do pray that when our mind needs changing, that you would change it, that you would grant to us repentance, that you would motivate us, convict us so that we would confess, that you would chasten us so that we would cry out to you for deliverance from those things that are causing harm in our lives. Help us find in you our Savior, not just our Savior giving to us everlasting life, but the Good Shepherd watching us, guarding us, feeding us, leading us in our daily lives. We confess this morning that our heart's desire is to follow after you. Give us such a hunger, such a thirst for you, because that is the only thing that you promise will bring us true satisfaction. When we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we'll be filled. Accomplish that in us this week for your glory. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.