All right, let's turn to the book of Judges in chapter number three. Judges chapter number three. Those of you that are following along with us, you're already through the book of Judges. You're in the book of Ruth. And with not having Sunday night services last week, last week would have been when we talked about the book of Judges. But I just feel like that Judges is such a critical and a key book that I wanted to take the time to share it. Really truthfully I keep in mind as I'm trying to think about the messages I'm going to preach on Sunday night. I think about those who may not have ever heard a message from the book of Judges. Someone that is maybe new to this church and maybe have never read through the Bible before but they're doing it now. Some of them are and I think I try to think about them and what is important as I'm reading through this. for someone that may have never heard a message from the book of Judges before. So that's kind of what is guiding my steps and guiding my thoughts. For those of you here tonight, I'm sure every one of you have heard the message of the book of Judges and probably all of you know the cycle of sin in the book of Judges. You probably all know that. And that's okay. We're gonna revisit that. But again, I had other people in mind who may have not heard this before. But anyway, it's okay. So we come to the place here in the book of Judges that they're in the land of Canaan and Joshua dies. We're going to see the events in the nation of Israel after the death of Joshua. From the time they have left Egypt, they have had a strong leader. They've had Moses leading them. Upon Moses' death, God appointed Joshua. Joshua was with Moses. If you remember, when Moses went on Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, Joshua was with him. Joshua stayed behind a little bit, but Joshua was with Moses all the time. Joshua was left to lead the children of Israel after Moses. They've had a strong leader, one who was called of God, and now Joshua Joshua dies. What's going to happen at the death of this strong leader? Let's go back to Joshua chapter or Judges chapter number one for just a second because we want to see the problem. Remember one of the things that Joshua said, you need to choose who you're going to serve. But for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. And so that was the challenge. Joshua made it a challenge to the nation of Israel to follow the Lord. Now we get in Judges 1 chapter number 28 and we begin to see the failure of the children of Israel to complete the conquest. Let's just listen to the word, how it says what they failed to do. And it came to pass when Israel was strong that they put the Canaanites to tribute and did not utterly drive them out. Remember, they were to drive them out completely, but they didn't do it. Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelled in Gezer, but the Canaanites dwell in Gezer among them. Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalal, but the Canaanites dwell among them and became tributaries. Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Achcho, nor the inhabitants of Zidon, nor of Alab, nor of Aqzib, nor of Helba, nor of Aphek, nor of Rehob, but the Asherites dwell among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out. Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemeth nor the inhabitants of Beth-anath, but he dwelt among the Canaanites and the inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Beth-shemeth and of Beth-anath became tributaries unto them And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain, for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley. But the Amorites would dwell in the Mount Heres, in Ajlon, and in the Shealbim. Yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so that they became tributaries. And the coast of the Amorites was from the going up to Achrebim. from the rock and upward. So we see how that the children of Israel did not complete driving out the inhabitants of the land as God told them to. Then we get into Judges 2 and we see the angel of the Lord coming to visit them and the angel of the Lord is asking the question, why have you not obeyed God? Let's read. And an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochem and said, I made you to go up and out of Egypt and have brought you unto the land which I swear unto your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And you shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land. You shall throw down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? In other words, the league they made with them was for when they made a league with them to become tributaries, even though these people were subservient to the nation of Israel, they had still made a league with them and God said not to do it. Well, they didn't do all that God told them to do. Do you know that partial obedience is disobedience to God? We want to remember that. Partial obedience is disobedience to God. We can't say, well, I've done this and this and this. If we've not done all that God has asked us to do, we're being disobedient. I can stop there for a little bit, but I'll move on. Wherefore, I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be thorns in your sides, and their God shall be a snare unto you. And it came to pass when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and wept, and they called the name of that place Bochem, and they sacrificed there unto the Lord. And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel, unto his inheritance to possess the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old, and they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Temnath Herez in the Mount of Ephraim on the north side of the hill Gash. And so all the generation were gathered unto their fathers, and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Balaam. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed the gods of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them. and provoked the Lord to anger and they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtoreth and the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and he delivered them into the hands of the spoilers that spoiled them and he sold them in the hands of their enemies round about so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. They failed to be faithful to God and the angel asked the question, why have you done this? Notice also, they were faithful to God, so to speak, as long as Joshua was alive, and as long as that generation that knew Joshua was alive, but it was the generation after that who didn't know the Lord, who hadn't seen the hand of the Lord. Listen, that's one of the things as a church we need to recognize. We need to recognize we're working towards the future. And it doesn't matter where we're at today. If we're not preparing for the future, if we're not preparing for the generation that won't know us, if we're not getting the generation behind us ready to be leaders in the church so that the generation that is behind them, we can fail the church. It's like, how long is it going to be before no one knows who Brother Connor is? How long is it going to be before no one knows who the charter members of this church were? I mean, the influence of Jean, we'll use Jean because I know she taught a lot of these girls. That influence is going to end one of these days. You would bring up Jean Patrick and say, well, who's that? Only the one that taught all of you Sunday school, right? And so we got to realize that we're preparing that generation back that's still yet in the future. And we got to be preparing them. So I've made a lot of mention about those that are kind of in their 30s now. They're the ones that's going to be in the lead. We need to be teaching them to take control and to be teachers and to know how to teach and all of that. And we're kind of at a disadvantage here because very few of the teenagers that we raise up stay. Most of them go off and go somewhere else to live. And so we kind of have, we're at a disadvantage because the ones that could be here teaching, think about the 20-somethings that we could have here now if they weren't off living life. So we're at a disadvantage. We don't have that natural flow of people coming in and being raised here. We have a few, but think if they all stayed. We would have a much stronger church and a greater opportunity to maintain that. But because they get to be 20, they go to college, they get their career and they go off and they're helping other churches now. And so we're at a little bit of a disadvantage. So we got a lot of work to do. So we must make sure that the ones that we have, we train them properly and that we're dedicated to them because we don't want what happened in Israel to happen to us. We don't want it to happen to Immanuel Baptist Church. And sorry, that was extra. That's how you preach 56 minutes when you take that extra stuff and put it in there and don't follow your script. Notice it says though in verse number 15 of Judges chapter number two. This is serious. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them, and they were greatly distressed. The hand of the Lord was against his people. That's serious. because they had disobeyed God, because they did not serve Him wholeheartedly, because they didn't serve Him faithfully. It says the hand of the Lord was against them. That's a serious thing. We need to guard against that. I would hate for that to be said of us, that the hand of the Lord was against us. And so now we come to Judges chapter number 3 and here is the example of the cycle of sin that takes place. One of the key verses you're going to find, it's the key verse of Judges but you only find it twice and you find it later on in the end of the book. There was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in their own eyes. Listen, when people begin to do what is right in their own eyes and not take into consideration what the Word of God says, that spells trouble. Folks, if we ever come to the place where we begin, well I think, or I feel like, or, listen, when we think and feel, we're getting in trouble. It's what the Word of God says. This is what we're doing because it's what the Word of God teaches. So, if we're doing what is right in our own eyes, It spells trouble. Again, I could stop there and talk about democracy, too, but I can't. So let's move on. So in the book of Judges, everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes, and they forsook the Lord. Now these are the nations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan. In other words, those that had not known what it was like to go out and take the land, to fight against the inhabitants of the land and see God give them victory. only that the generations of the children of Israel might know to teach them more at least, at the least, such as before knew nothing thereof. Namely, five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites that dwell in Mount Lebanon from Mount Baal Hermon unto the entering in of Hamath. And they were to prove Israel by them to know whether they would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to be their sons, and served their gods. And the children of Israel did evil in a sight of the Lord, and forgot the Lord their God, and served Balaam and the grove. So there's the problem. The cycle of sin begins. I've got a slide here. The cycle of sin begins in verse number seven when the children of Israel, they turn from God. It tells us here how they went away from God. They began to take their daughters. They took the daughters of the world to be the daughters of the children of Israel and they gave the daughters of the children of Israel to the sons of the Canaanites and they intermingled with them and they took the gods of the Canaanites and served their gods. They turned away from God and it says they did evil in the sight of the Lord. They forget the Lord their God and serve Balaam and their groves. And so you see the beginning, they turned their hearts away from God. So because of that, God judges the people by sending them oppression. That's what we see in verse number eight. Therefore the angler of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Qushan Rishathayim, king of Mesopotamia, and the children of Israel served Qushan Rishathayim eight years. There you go, there's my Hebrew. Anyway, God sends this king of Mesopotamia down against them and oppressed them and afflicted them for eight years. So because of their sin, God brings judgment into their lives, into their cities and afflicts them for eight years. So then what happens? And when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, So because of their affliction, because of the sin that was present, and because of the oppression that was there, they were underneath the oppression of the king of Mesopotamia. Because of that, the children of Israel turned their hearts away from the gods of the Canaanites, back unto God. They cried unto the Lord, and the Lord, it says, raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel who delivered them, even Othniel, the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. And so we see the first judge, the first deliverer for the children of Israel was one by the name of Othniel. And so he then delivers the children of Israel from the king of Mesopotamia. Verse 10, and the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he judged Israel and went out to war and the Lord delivered king of Mesopotamia into his hand and his hand prevailed against Chushan Rishathayim. So Othniel got the victory. And then it tells us that there was a time of peace and the land had rest for 40 years and Othniel the son of Kenaz died. And so this cycle that we go through all through the book of Judges, you're going to see The children of Israel turning their backs from God, turning away from God. The children of Israel going into oppression so God sends someone to judge them. Notice we read earlier, In verse number one, now these are the generations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them, even as many of the children, as many of Israel has not known the wars of Canaan. Let's understand this. These nations were left to prove Israel. They come upon these difficult circumstances in their life to prove whether they would follow God or not. Do you realize that the circumstances of your life is to prove you? You say you have faith, you say you believe God, the circumstances of your life will prove whether you believe God or not. Will you be faithful in the difficult times? Will you be faithful in the good times? Because see, this is what happened to the children of Israel. How did they get in trouble? When God sent the judge and delivered them and they had a time of peace, as it says there, and the land had rest 40 years, they lived 40 years without any oppressor. They lived in peace and things were going well. What happened to them? They began to turn their back on God. You see, sometimes the easy times in life, the good times in life, God's trying you there too to see if you can handle the prosperity. The difficult times in life generally drive us to our knees. It's the times that we're prosperous when we forget God and forget to be faithful to Him and so forth. So we want to realize that God says that these nations were left, they faced these circumstances to prove them One of the commentators had this to say, outward prosperity without trial would not have remedied their unbelief. While it would have deprived them of those exercises and conflicts in which they might learn what God was and his ways and his relations to them as well as what their own hearts were. And so it was the trial of their faith that worked in them where they saw who God is where they understood God's power and when they even understood their own hearts you find more about yourself and more about your faith in the difficult times And so that's what happened to the children of Israel. And that's what happens to us. We find the love of God in the middle of the difficult trials. We find the protection, the comfort, and the peace of God when things are not going well. And then when we have no place to turn to but God, that's when we really find out who he is and what he's doing for us. So the children of Israel learned who God was and is. And that's what happens to us. But they went through this time of prosperity and they turned their back on God. And if you read on it says, verse 12, and the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. And so they turned their back on God again, so what did God do? He sent the king of Moab, Egalon, down to oppress them, and they were being oppressed again. The children of Israel get weary of their oppression. They cry out to God. God sends them another judge, a man by the name of Ehud. Interesting story, I'll not take the time, but this is where Ehud goes and stabs Eglon in the belly and Eglon's so fat that the fat wraps around Ehud's hand and he pulls his hand out and the fat was so much that it pulled the knife out of his hand. But that's, you know, the whole story there. But the same thing is true, this same cycle goes through and we see that cycle. The children of Israel. turning their backs on God. Now, you see this, this is not all of the judges of Israel, but this is a few of them, but you're going to see kind of the same thing. You'll see the, when Othniel was the judge, you'll see the enemy was Mesopotamia. They was in bondage 8 years. They had rest for 40 years. There's the scripture. Moab, Ehud the judge, Canaan, Deborah the judge. There was a female leader. You know why she was the leader? If you go back and read that, I believe it was Barak. He was too chicken. He was too big of a chicken to be the leader. And so the woman had to take over and be the leader. That's what happened. There it is. Gideon, you know Gideon was a chicken too, if you remember, but that's the story there of Gideon. You see all of that there. And then you have Jephthah. Jephthah made a rash vow. If you grant me the victory, the first thing I see come out of my house or out of my tent, I will offer up unto you." And it was his virgin daughter. But there's a whole other story that we could spend time talking about. And then, of course, Samson. Lots of stories to talk about Samson. But here's that cycle of sin that you see. Judges roll in the Bible. Let me tell you what one commentator said. The period of Judges is a dark era in Israel history. This book shows how persistent Israel is in forgetting the Lord. and how faithful God is to discipline and deliver his people. The difficult circumstances was to discipline them. and to get them to turn back to him. It's in Judges that we see Israel's need for a Messiah, a godly king. Because there is no good king in Israel, everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Both Judges and Ruth tell us how bad things were in Israel before God gave them a king, but anticipate the coming of the good king, David. The writer of Hebrews references several characters from Judges as examples of Old Testament characters who gained approval through faith. Though Judges describes the consequences of unbelief in grim detail, we also see in a series of vignettes, small stories, displaying the powerful positive effects of faith and a faithful God. So that's the main story, that's the main outline of the book of Judges, this cycle of sin that we described. They sin, God sends an oppressor, they cry out to God, God sends them a judge, the judge delivers them, they have a time of peace. When things are going good, they forget God again, they do evil in the sight of the Lord, God sends them another oppressor to oppress them. God judges their sin. That cycle goes through the entire book of Judges except for the last few chapters. You get to verses 17 through 21 in the book of Judges and it seems kind of odd out there what's going on with the book of Dan and their rejection of their inheritance and then the civil war that Benjamin portrays. We're not going to get into that. We don't have time. But there's some interesting things there, especially the guy who gives his concubine, you remember, and they kill the concubine and he cuts her up into 12 pieces and sends her out throughout the cities of Israel. That's another story to talk about. Don't have time to talk about that tonight. But all of those things happen in the book of Judges, the cycle of sin. We need to understand and guard ourselves against that sin so we don't fall into that same cycle. And we might, if we look, we might kind of see that same cycle in our lives. We might see we're being faithful to God, things start going good, we kind of forget about Him a little bit, and so God says, tune you up a little bit, He sends some difficult circumstances in our life, we get on our knees, we pray to God, we are faithful to Him for a while and things are going to good and God removes them difficult circumstances from our life and we think, oh yeah, all is good and we go along good for a while and we begin to forget God, we forget to serve Him faithfully and so forth and we kind of turn our back on Him again and God brings some difficult circumstances in our life to cause us to remember Him, we probably see some of that cycle going in in our own lives. The more we could learn not to allow ourselves to come into that situation, the better off we would be. But it's in some of those difficult circumstances when we see God being faithful to us, even when we're not being faithful to Him. If we believe not, yet He abides faithful, He cannot deny Himself. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the truths we find contained in your Word. We pray that you will encourage your people with the Word tonight. In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. What in 56 minutes?