All right, you guys. To begin tonight, I wonder if any of you have ever heard of something before. Have you all heard of the phrase minor profits? I've heard of something before. Yeah. But have you heard of the term minor profit? Minor profit. If somebody said to you, hey, what is it with the minor profit? Would you be like, I have no idea? Or would you? I think that it is. So some would know what it is. I'm pretty sure it's people who are really like, who are speaking words that have already been prophesied. That's not it. No, no, that's not it. Okay. Shorter books. Shorter books, right? So some people have identified those prophetic books in the Old Testament that are short as the minor prophets. So guys like Hosea and Malachi, and then you have the major prophets who would be somebody like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel. And a similar thing, but perhaps like less known, is done with the judges as well. Some people identify some judges as major judges, and then there's other judges that are minor judges. And we're going to be introduced to two people who are sometimes called minor judges tonight. We've already read about a guy named Shamgar. Do you remember what Shamgar did? He killed a bunch of people with a jawbone. Yeah, that's right. That's what Shamgar did. That's all we know about him, though. So he was considered a minor judge. I just want to say that I hate these distinctions, actually. Minor judge, minor prophet, I don't like them. I'm not a fan of them. I mean, you can use those designations if you like, if you find them helpful. But I hate them, especially with the prophets. We don't want to think that these people, these individuals, are less important because of the length of the information that we know about them. We don't want to make that mistake. They are all important. They are all judges, or in this case, that we're talking about this morning, or this evening, I mean, about the prophets. They're prophets. Prophets that God raises up to accomplish his will. Same thing with the judges. We want to be careful to not frame our minds to think that something matters less because it carries with it the title minor. So really, there's no such thing as a minor prophet or a minor judge. There's just prophets and judges, true judges and true prophets. Last week, we met someone who's maybe like a false judge, right? Not a real judge, a bimalek. How he raised himself up in that position himself and all sorts of trouble came from it. Now, Tonight we have two full-fledged God-ordained and risen up judges to consider, but there's not a lot to say about them, actually. And the bulk of our text is gonna focus on what Israel does after these judges die and before the next judge is raised up. So go ahead and open up your Bible to the 10th chapter of Judges, please. We're gonna consider almost the whole chapter tonight. I was gonna do the whole thing, but I think we're just gonna stop actually at verse 16 and then we'll start 17 as the introduction to chapter 11 and what happens at that point. This is a little recap first before we read will help so that we have the stage set for this narrative so that we'll know exactly what's happened in the history of Israel at this point. So if you remember, Gideon's died, and the son of his mistress, not one of his wives, a man named Abimelech ends up becoming a tyrant. Remember, he's kind of a false judge. He's not a true judge. He raises himself up and puts himself in that position. And he ends up killing all of his half-brothers, and he places himself as ruler in Israel. And God doesn't raise him up to be a judge. Instead, God preserves his youngest half-brother, a man named Jotham, And then Jotham goes to the people supporting Abimelech, and he prophesies their destruction if they don't repent. And the next few years are tumultuous, and Jotham's prophecy comes true. Abimelech was a wicked ruler. He did horrible things. He died a wicked death, a shameful death, an embarrassing death. And he was a tyrant, and God's people suffered under his leadership. God is the only true king. and the people that God, and the people, excuse me, that we choose to lead us must first follow God or we're gonna find ourselves in trouble with our lives as well too. In so much as we have the ability, in so much as we have the power, we should appoint people over us to lead who want to follow the Lord. That is especially true in the church context. Like you don't want to disappoint someone to the office of pastor or elder who doesn't really embody what that means or who's not really seeking the Lord. But it's also true in the civil sector as well too. In so much as we have the ability, we want to have people who are in office that love the Lord and want to really obey Him and follow Him so that it's better for all life. God's ways are better than man's ways. Abimelech wasn't that guy though. And so that brings us to chapter 10. So if you have your Bible, we'll read, follow along with me there, and then we'll pray after. So the reading of the word of the Lord, beginning at verse one in Judges chapter 10. It's after Abimelech there arose to save Israel, Tola the son of Poah, son of Dodo, a man of Issachar. And he lived in Shemir in the hill country of Ephraim. And he judged Israel 23 years. Then he died and he was buried at Shemir. After him arose Jair the Gileadite, who judged Israel 22 years. And he had 30 sons who rode on 30 donkeys, and he had 30 cities called Havoth and Jair to this day, which are in the land of Gilead. And Jair died and was buried in Cuman. The people of Israel did, excuse me, again, did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals and Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, the gods of the Philistines. And they forsook the Lord and did not serve him, So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites. And they crushed and oppressed the people of Israel that year. For 18 years they oppressed all the people of Israel who were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. And the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed. And the people of Israel cried out to the LORD, saying, We have sinned against you, because we have forsaken our God, and have served the Baals. And the LORD said to the people of Israel, Did I not save you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the Ammonites, and from the Philistines, the Sidonians, and also the Amalekites, and the Moanites oppressed you, and you cried out to me, and I saved you out of their hand. Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods, therefore I will save you no more. Go and cry out to the gods whom you've chosen. Let them save you in the time of your distress. And the people of Israel said to the Lord, we have sinned. Do to us whatever seems good to you. Only please deliver us this day. So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord. And he became impatient over the misery of Israel. That ends the reading of the holy and sufficient and inspired word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father in heaven, Ask that you would prevent our minds from being distracted, that we might understand the truths of your word, Holy Spirit, that you would bring us into all truth and understanding, and that you would help us to know what we might learn of ourselves and of you through this text. In Christ's name we pray, amen. All right, so this section, This narrative in Judges introduces us to two Judges, but we don't get to know a lot about them. But the text lends itself to us making a couple of conclusions. Number one, these Judges were actually raised up by God. That's what it seems like at least. Not like Abimelech, but they have a similar, the way that it said that they became the Judge is similar to the way other Judges came to be that we read of. Adam mentioned the word. just a second ago, there's a couple of clues that might make us think that these men were blessings upon Israel. First, we read that Tola, the son of Puah, son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, we know a little bit about him, but nothing very telling. We read that he arose to save Israel. Before him, Israel was in a state of sin. They were under the covenant curses, in the Old Covenant, but this man arose to save Israel. Which, if we think about previous accounts and judges, that would most likely mean that Israel repented, and they collectively turned to God and confessed their sin, and said, you know, we are sorry for serving these gods, and for essentially for raising up Abimelech. And so now God raises up this other judge to save them. God was merciful to them for the sake of his redemptive purposes, and plans all culminate in his glory. Tola lives in Shamir, which is in Ephraim, and God gives them 23 years of peace under the rule of this man. That's a pretty long time, and that's older than all of you young people, obviously, right? Much longer than the time of suffering that they had under Abimelech, even. And so this is interesting. The mercy of the Lord is in view again right after him, Because usually, in the Judges, the pattern is, you have good time, where there's blessing, while the Judge is alive, and then when the Judge dies, then the people whore after the false gods, right? And there's the canonization of the people of Israel, they start to look like the people of the land they were supposed to have pressed out, but that doesn't happen this time. Rather than falling back to that familiar cycle of falling into sin again after the judge dies, it would seem like another judge that was good rose up. God raises up another judge after Tola. And I'm inclined to say that's the case for a couple reasons, but I admit this one isn't as clear as it is with Tola. We read in verse three that Jair, the Gileadite, arose after Tola. The fact that he arose is important and a clue as to what's going on here, I think, It's the same phrase that we have with Tola, indicating a similar process, that God was the one who was behind it. Tola arose to save Israel. Assuming then, Jair arose to save Israel as well. We don't read about them having a time of sin, but we actually read about time of sin coming after him, right? So it would seem like the time that he's alive is a time of a good judge period again. But it's a little bit more complex than that because we do see that Jair possibly made the same kind of error that Gideon did. It seems like even though he didn't take the title of a king, we don't read that, neither did Gideon. You remember Gideon, what he said when they wanted to make him king? They were like, Gideon, they were like, Gideon, we want to make you king and your son and your grandsons. And Gideon was like, no, the Lord is your king. But then he kind of, lived like a king and he amassed a lot of wealth. He had a bunch of wives and 70 sons, right? So Jair seems to maybe have done the same thing. I mean, he was judging for 22 years and he had 30 sons. Who knows how many daughters he had in that time period. And so just do the math. He's at least got two wives. That may be more. That's a lot of kids. 30 kids in 22 years. I mean, maybe there was sets of twins. I don't know. So it seems as if, and he also seemed to have a lot of power and prestige, right? I mean, he wasn't a judge like Othniel or Ehud, who we don't read much about, about afterwards. I mean, he had 30, his sons all have 30 cities named after them, and 30 donkeys. And I know we're Americans and we're like, a donkey? How many of y'all have asked for a donkey for Christmas? Like nobody, right? So I think the point that's being conveyed here is that they were prominent. They had power, they had might, and it doesn't seem like it was all bad. So we're made to think that Jer was a good judge because it's not till his death that things once again go bad for Israel. So look at verse six. This is the familiar pattern starting back up now. Henry, for your sake. The judges, there's a cyclical pattern where usually God has commanded the people to go into the promised land. God gave them this land. He promised it to Abraham. Now he's giving it to them through, first through Joshua, but Joshua dies. And so they're supposed, when they get into the promised land, they're supposed to drive out all the inhabitants of it because it's like a type of the new heavens and the new earth where there'll be no sin. Obviously, there's a lot of sin in judges because it's not the actual new heavens and new earth, but they don't cast the people off the land. And so what happens is, The people are good, they obey, there's blessing, they're not oppressed, and then they chase after the sins of the people of the land, and God punishes them. And so then they're oppressed, they have people, other tribes come against them, they're in war, and their lives basically are horrible until the cycle starts over again. They repent, they cry out for mercy, God is merciful because he's faithful, and he has covenant promises to keep. So this is that cycle starting over again. It's going bad now, here at verse six. But this is a little bit different than what we've been used to in judges. The cycle is more than just different by having two good judges in a row. And notice the extent of Israel's sin at this point. They aren't just serving Baal and Ashtaroth. We've seen them before, right? Gideon took down those statues. But now also the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. There is widespread idol worship in Israel at this point. Widespread demon worship, rather than serving the Lord, who had given them 50 years of peace. Let me see if I can find this, actually. Because remember on Sunday evening, we were talking about how Elohim is gods, and what do these people actually worship? Is it, are they false, what's a false god? Is it actually a demon or whatever? I was reading the Psalms this morning, All those Elohim right there? Yeah, the gods, Elohim, it's all Elohim that have been there. Let's see. Yeah, so this is Psalm 106. 106. And this is talking even about judges. It says, They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord commanded them. This is verse 34 in Psalm 106, okay? They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord commanded them. But they mixed with the nations, and they learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons. There's a connection between idols and demons mentioned here about judges here in Psalm 106. So, continuing on before, or continuing on here back in Judges, there's widespread idol worship and demon worship, it would seem. rather than serving the Lord who gave them 50 years of peace, they've forsaken him and they now serve these false gods. And remember, Israel's in a covenant with God in which they've promised to worship him alone and they're not doing that. So verse seven, how does God respond to them for violating the covenant? Well, we've seen this before. Verse seven is God's response and it says, the anger of the Lord is kindled against Israel. I remember about our God, too. He's sovereign. He's in control of all things. He knows all things. It's not like what has happened here has caught him by surprise. It's not like what has happened here is out of his control or it's not part of his plan. Further, when it says the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, it's not like God was in a state of happiness and in a good mood, then he learned about Israel's sin and became angry. God is not like us with his emotions. His anger is perfect and God doesn't change. But since Israel has changed, they are now experiencing this anger from the Lord, from Yahweh, rather than the love and protection they would have had, had they been covenantally obedient. And all of this is ultimately happening so that God may reveal himself more to us and bring mankind to a place of revealing the Savior, the one in whom all the covenant promises ultimately pointed to and culminated in, and all these shadows and types were revealing. Israel itself, the nation, was even a type of Christ, and Israel fails to represent God properly in the world, but when the true Israel comes, the true Israel who is Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, he doesn't fail to be obedient like the nation, and he wins eternal blessing, eternal salvation for all who he represents. all who believe in him, in other words. Now, because the nation of Israel has played the harlot, the spiritual prostitute, because they have committed such spiritual adultery, we read of God's punishment against them. Yes, I bet God changed, they've changed, God has promised to be this way if they would do this. So he sells them, we read, for one, because God is truly the owner of all things in the world. But the point here is that he has authority over the people and to give people as he wishes. And he operates according to the standard of his holy character nature. He's not doing anything wrong here. He's doing what he said he would do if Israel broke the covenant. So he gives them to the Philistines and the Ammonites, not because those two people groups are like God honoring, not because they're doing good, not because they've been praying to God and wanting blessing from him, not at all. He gives them to him because That's his will to chastise them and to propagate his eternal purposes. The Philistines and the Ammonites are about pleasing themselves and this conquest that they engage in is in spite of Yahweh. Even though it's... Even though it's... Even though it's in fact Yahweh who is bringing this out. So look how long this goes on. Even though... They had 50 years of peace. Now we read in verse 8 that the Philistines and the Ammonites, they crushed Israel and they oppressed them for 18 years on both sides of the Jordan. So the Jordan River kind of like cuts down the middle of the promised land, almost the middle. And basically what most commentators think is that you had the Philistines attacking from one side and the Ammonites from the other side. And just there was this constant oppression and violence being done against the people of God for 18 years. So basically, there's nowhere to run. And so after 18 years of dealing with the oppression, the nation of Israel collectively called out to Yahweh again in repentance. Look at verse 10. It says, and the people of Israel cried out to the Lord saying, we have sinned against you because we have forsaken our God, excuse me, and I've served the balls. Now, on the surface, this looks like they're really repenting, doesn't it? at least on the surface. I mean, they acknowledge their sin, they say what they've done is sin, and that they have forsaken God and served the balls. It seems like they're owning it, but is it true repentance? Is this grief over their sin and the offense that is toward God or something else? And listen, that's what true repentance is, friends. It is sorrow, it is grief over offense, offending our loved God, our loving God, our God who loves us. I'm about to turn my watch off. I keep hearing Siri in my ear, which is really weird. It's very strange. So true repentance is having sorrow or grief over our sin because, primarily because we know that it offends our loving God, our God who loves us and has redeemed us, the God who came to us and sought us, not when we were seeking him, but he shone the light of his grace into our hearts and takes us who are children of wrath by nature and dead in sin and makes us alive in Christ. That we are repentant because we are grieving and sorrowful over the fact that our sin has offended this God who has been so kind and generous and loving to us. So when we repent over our sin, which by the way, it doesn't mean that you'll never do it again. We talked about this a little bit in our small group. Hopefully you won't. when you repent from your sin, perhaps you won't. Odds are pretty high, actually, though, that you will end up sinning the same way again, even though you've repented over it. Because you're still, I'm still attached, even to this nature that we have that was fallen in Adam. But when that happens, you simply repent again, and you live a life of repentance, struggling against the sin that remains. It's not easy to put sin to death, but that's what we're commanded to do. We're commanded to put sin to death to avoid temptation and those other ways talk about that I'll mention in a minute. But the sorrow and the grief that we feel over a sin, even if it's a sin that we've repented of before, is the discipline of a loving Heavenly Father upon your soul and your conscience. You should be concerned though when you knowingly do a sin and you feel no remorse. That's when you really should be concerned about if you're right with the Lord or not. And when you don't feel like asking for forgiveness, that's not the kind of attitude that a son or daughter of God has. But, is Israel truly repenting here? Are they really confessing their sins? Remember what 1 John says? It's been, probably been a few years. Maybe Jonathan might be the only guy who remembers our series through 1 John, actually. That was a long time ago. That was. That took us a while. Yeah. But listen to what John says in 1 John chapter 1, verse 9. Verse John is, where's the end of the New Testament? Verse nine says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So you see, if Israel was truly repentant and confessing their sins, then God, we have a promise and we can trust that God will be faithful and forgive them. But God will not be mocked, friends. Repentance must be genuine. Now we, of course, can't see the heart. I can't tell if a person's truly repented or not. There's some things I can look at and know. A person could be crying and saying they're repentant and still be faking it, technically. They could just simply be sorrowful over the result of their sin and not that it was an offense against God. God, of course, knows, though. Nothing can be hidden from God. And the God who even knows our words before they were on our tongues can't have any motives hidden from him. And since we already read the text, we know that God's not impressed with their repentance here. Perhaps there's a clue, I don't know, I'm not sure. But I do notice in the text that Israel had chased after more gods than just Baal, right? Granted, there are many kinds of Baals, so maybe they meant more than Baal. But we read in verse six that Israel chased after Baal and Asherah and the gods of the five other surrounding nations. So perhaps it wasn't complete repentance, which an incomplete repentance isn't really repentance, is it? They aren't confessing all that was the problem. It would be like, you know, if you did something, if you took your parents' car out and for a joy ride, because you wanted to go pick up your friend, And then you picked up your friend and you got into an accident because you don't have a license and you're not a good driver. And then you said to your dad, I'm sorry for getting into a car, I'm sorry for crashing the car. But you didn't apologize for taking the car in the first place and lying and stuff. So maybe it's an issue like that. Maybe they weren't repentant for all of them, maybe just the balls, I don't know. Regardless if that's the case or not, God knows the heart and he rejects their repentance. And then there's this scathing and even surprising, based off the other accounts of the judges, rebuke from God. It's not surprising when we consider God's holiness, but this is new here in Judges. So God simply rejects their repentance. It's reminiscent of something that will happen later in Israel, in which God will despise the worship of people because their actions towards others don't wind up in their worship. And so he'll say to you, do away with your noisy worship. do away with your feast days. He's not happy about any of them. He wants them to pursue righteousness and justice. It's like kind of reminiscent of that at least. So look at here what God says again, verse 11. God reminds them that he saved them from the Egyptians. In other words, their actions towards him should be rooted in response to his redeeming them from captivity, right? That's the first thing he mentions. Remember, They weren't good in Egypt and then God saved them, right? That's not what happened. They were in Egypt as slaves. They were being oppressed. God, though, because of his promise to Abraham, he ends up redeeming them. This isn't a works-based relationship that they're in. And so he mentions the Amorites and and the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, the Amalekites, and the Moanites, after he mentions this interaction with Egypt, after he's redeemed them from Egypt. In other words, he saved them from all the people, including Egypt, who they weren't chasing after Egypt's gods right now, but he saved them from all the people whose gods they were chasing after. And he, you know, Yahweh was their deliverer from all of those people. but God will not be mocked. What it seems like is that the people at this point are treating God in the same way that they would treat these false gods. In other words, let me do something so that I'll get what I want in response. In this case, I'm gonna say I'm sorry, so I'm gonna repent, but it's a false repentance, and it's just so that I can get what I want. God will not be mocked. Look at verse 13 and 14. This is the God of the Bible, friends. This is not that fake Jesus that people talk about today who doesn't care much about sin and just wants lip service offered to him. Look at what Yahweh, Father, Son, and Spirit say here. He says, yet you have forsaken me and served other gods, therefore I will save you no more. Go, cry out to the gods whom you have chosen, let them save you in your time of distress. You see, we can't presume God's mercy. So many people today think that God is just gonna save everybody. Yet here are God's covenant people, Israel, and he's rejecting their crying out to him. Go and let those gods whom you serve save you, is what he's saying to them. He's telling them, you've chosen them over me, so maybe they'll be the ones who can help you. God will not be mocked. It seems like they're treating God the same way that they're treating these false gods. I'm gonna do this now, and then so I expect you to do this for me. and they're doing it with false repentance. But God, you can't trick God like that. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says to the churches in Galatia. Remember what the problem was in Galatia? There were the people that was preaching a false gospel. Essentially, they were putting the people back under the law. They were telling them they had to be circumcised, and they had to, in order to be obedient to God. And so, they were putting them back in a works mentality, and the people were believing it. So it's a little different than our text, but at its core, at its heart, it's the same issue. The Israelites here in Judges had entered into a workspace system of worship with the Canaanite gods. You know, they would offer some sacrifice for a blessing, in which they would offer up acts of worship so that they would get what they want. Well, they're doing the same thing to God. They're saying, I'm repenting, God, so give me what I want. Give us relief from our enemies. But it wasn't a true heart change. It's just what it seems like it is. And so that's even different than the Old Covenant. Hopefully we see that. The Old Covenant did promise blessing for obedience and curse for disobedience, but the obedience to Yahweh was simply to come out of the overflow of their hearts for what Yahweh had already done for them, because of the promise he made to the patriarchs and the deliverance from the oppression of the Egyptians. It wasn't, obey so that God will bless, but it was, in the Old Covenant, obey because God has already blessed. And then if they failed to obey, there would be curses. Because again, it wasn't as the covenant terms was for the land, it was temporal. But it wasn't about, they had a heart issue from where it started. Yeah. But they end up abandoning the way of life in order to seek favor from false gods, which are not able to do and offer what Yahweh, the one true God can do. And so the warning to the Galatians is appropriate. Galatians 6, 7 says, do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he also reap. So don't be deceived. Don't be deceived by false teachers. Don't be deceived by false gods, by false prophets of false gods, by your own conscience, who in order to engross all to themselves and engage our fallen desires to boast and unrest in our own ability. We end up doing that so that we end up boasting our own ability We end up deceiving ourselves, thinking that we're doing what is right, when in fact, we do what's wrong. That seems to be the case here. They're approaching God with false repentance, but he's not gonna fall for it, and so they're self-deceived, they're deceived by the false prophets among them, who knows. The apostle goes on to say, God's not mocked, nor will he be, or may he be deceived. Men can deceive themselves with false appearances and excuses, yet you can't deceive God, God knows the heart. The neglect of their duty is obvious to God. And they're probably because they're covetous. They just want what they want without actually desiring or having good reason for it. What the apostle says next is what we see God doing to them. He says, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. So whatever kind of thing you sow, you reap, whatever quality, whatever quantity, generally speaking, You know, if you sow wheat, you reap wheat. If you sow grain, you reap grain. If you sow a lot, you reap a lot. If you sow a little, you reap a little. Well, here in our text, they are sowing evil, and so they're going to reap evil. They're not sowing what is good. It's a proverbial expression, but it could be applied to all actions, right? Think of it, if you study hard for a test, odds are that you'll do good on it. If you study very little for a test, odds are you're gonna do bad, unless you're just super skilled in the subject. Anyways, the point here is that if you mock God, you'll get what you have coming to you. You can't fool God. You can't play religion. God isn't fooled. You can fool pastors, you can fool your family, but God cannot be fooled. So God rebukes them. We've got verse 15. Commentators go a couple ways here, actually. Some say that they truly repent and that God has mercy. Others say that they still never repented, and nevertheless, God has mercy because God has mercy on whom he wills to have mercy. Kind of that idea from Romans chapter nine, right? That deals with salvation. So in other words, God has mercy on them despite their lack of proper repentance for the sake of fulfilling his promises to the patriarchs and to ultimately bring a savior, Jesus. It's hard to say, but let's look at the text. It says, Israel repents once again, saying we've sinned. Now they add something new. Do to us whatever seems good to you. Now, if they had just said that, there probably wouldn't be much debate here. That communicates that they know that God is holy, that they know that whatever they did wrong, the punishment is worthy of the crime. In verse 16, they put away false gods, they destroyed the idols they created, and they served the Lord. We read, those combined would be a true act of repentance, at least on the surface, not being able to see the heart. That would seem to us like a true act of repentance. It would be like today. Let's say that you have a problem with envy, that you have a problem with lust. And every time you go on Instagram, these feelings, these sinful emotions of envy and lust come up because of the pictures that you see. So you repent. You confess your sin, you ask for forgiveness, but then you're on Instagram later that night. And it could be the repentance was genuine. I don't know. God knows. But a better act that would communicate that repentance would be to delete Instagram off your phone, right? If you know that that's a stumbling block for you, you would just get rid of it. If you really were serious about the repentance. Doesn't mean you won't sin with envy unless again, there's other ways in which you would probably do it. But it would show that there's a true act of repentance there. And that's what Israel's doing. They put away the false gods. Then we read about God becoming impatient over the misery of Israel. Remember what I said earlier about God changing in emotion? This is simply language that God is using to accommodate himself to us, to help us understand it's not a true change in God. But God is showing at this point that he's going to deliver them. We'll address verse 17 next time, because all of this is setting up a man named Jephthah, who's the next judge, and he's got a crazy story as well, too. A part of the problem for some commentators is what Israel says in their second part. They say, do whatever seems good to you, meaning, you know, famine, pestilence, whatever it is, famine, death, who knows what they mean. But they also say, only please deliver us this day. So perhaps they mean to be saying here that it's better to fall into the hands of the Lord than it is to fall into the hands of man? Could be the case, I don't know. If so, that would be a good thing. The problem is, though, that throughout the history of Israel, the very thing God did to punish his people when they were not faithful was give them into the hand of other nations. So it's like, this is the normal way in which God would do that. We've seen that, right? Nevertheless, what's truly happening here is that they're actually repenting or if they're still offering false repentance, we should see that God is not mocked. He knows our intentions. He knows that even if this is false repentance here, that God is going to show mercy anyways because he's going to be bringing the Savior through this people, even though they don't deserve it. Again, we're about to learn of the next judge soon, but all this makes me think of how good we have it in the covenant of grace being revealed now in the new covenant that we are in with God through Christ. because our cry for mercy should be much different than these people's here. It's, I have sinned. Please have mercy on me for Christ's sake, Lord. I can claim no righteousness of my own. I know that even my good works fall short, God. I know I deserve your wrath. I know I daily merit anger from you, but thanks be to God that in Christ Jesus, you have given me hope. that his life, his death, and his resurrection are the means that we come before God and plead for mercy. And he even permits us to come boldly before the throne of grace, that we may receive grace and mercy to help in our time of need, Hebrews 4 tells us. Our hope, any person's hope, is not in our ability to truly repent. That's not good enough. Our only hope is in Christ's realm. So run, run to him, seek Jesus, seek shelter and safety in his very, a capable love, it's the only true place of protection. Let's pray. Gracious and holy God, we thank you for the covenant that you have entered into us with, a covenant based upon Christ's blood. We thank you that we don't even depend upon our repentance, Lord. Truly, we agree with those saints who have said in history past that we often need to even repent of our repentance that falls so short of your holy standard. But we thank you that in Christ, we are deemed perfectly righteous. And so let us always plead on behalf of Jesus and his work for us, Lord. Let us have no confidence in our own good works. Nevertheless, let us do good works for your glory's sake, but let our confidence only remain in Christ for what he's done and who he is. In his name we pray, amen.