If you have your Bibles, turn with me, please, to Judges, the book of Judges. We're beginning the book of Judges, chapter 1. We're taking the introduction this week. We're doing an introduction to the book of Judges. Not my introduction, not the scholars' introduction, not the skeptics' introduction. We're doing the authors' introduction. I think it's on, isn't it? It is. It's on. So we're using the author's introduction to judges. It comes in two parts. We take the first part this morning through chapter 2, verse 5, and then we'll take the second part of the introduction when he lays out basically an overview of the book. We're going to get the setting this week and the overview next week. But as I say, it's his introduction, not the scholar's. introduction. Chapter one, beginning at verse one. Now, if I were to read this entire passage, I timed it out. It takes well over seven minutes. So we're not going to be able to read every verse, but we are going to cover the content of these verses. And thankfully it's printed for you. If you don't have a Bible with you judges chapter one, after the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. Behold, I have given the land into his hand. And Judah said to Simeon, his brother, come up with me into the territory allotted to me that we may fight against the Canaanites. And I, likewise, will go with you into the territory allotted to you. So Simeon went with him. Then Judah went up, and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they defeated 10,000 of them at Bazik. They found Adonai Bazik at Bazik and fought against him and defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. Adonai Bazik fled, but they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. And Adonai Bazik said, 70 kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table. As I have done, so God has repaid me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there. Let us pray. Father, we pray that you might indeed open our eyes and ears and our hearts to your word, that Lord, we would see, hear, who you are and who we are, that here we would see the pictures, the shadows, the presentation of even our hope of a savior. Help us to see the truth here in your word. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Welcome to the book of Judges. It's a book we don't We don't like to talk about much in polite company. We will do Sunday school lessons on David and Goliath, on Daniel and the Lion's Den, but we don't often have them on the dangers of cutting your hair or the stories of a very fat king and a left-handed assassin. We kind of shy away from those things. We avoid the Book of Judges because it's a bloody book. People are delivered, or depending on your perspective, destroyed by ox goads, jaw bones, daggers, tent pegs. We get bizarre stories of Jephthah sacrificing his daughter. Levite dividing up, cutting up a concubine into 12 pieces and sending her out to the tribes. There's an encouragement for kidnapping amid the tribes. We don't spend a lot of time here. Because it's fraught with moral and theological dilemma. But we have to address it. It's easy to read through Judges and then kind of like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, I'll think about that tomorrow. Which really means I'm going to ignore it. I may never get back to it. Well, that's not a good idea. We want to probe here the truths powerful truths about God's authority, His sovereignty, His justice, His tender mercies, His severe mercies. And so, as we work our way through Judges, it's not going to be a colorful collection of character studies. Rather, we're going to need to ask ourselves continually, what does this tell me about my God, His character, His power, His purposes and plans? What does this tell me about us, about me? As Jack Miller was fond of saying, if there's a sinner in the story, I'm it. If there's more than one, I'm that. They're all me. How does this reveal Christ and his work? Because Jesus said, these are the scriptures that bear witness about me. And Judges does bear witness to Jesus Christ. but it doesn't sit on the surface. It's not like reading the Gospels or the letters or even some of the prophets. So let's look at the book of Judges. We need to set the stage a little bit because our author assumes we have the background. We understand that we're dealing with and working out the promise of God. It was given to Abraham back in Genesis 17 that God would give him the land of his sojournings. He would, this is according to his promise, to drive out, when they were on Sinai, Exodus 34, that they were to drive out, that God said, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, what I call the Wiccadites, because there are lots of them, and that's what they are. Don't make a covenant with them, whatever you do. or they'll become a snare in your midst. So there's the promise. And then there's the command. And so at the beginning of the book of Joshua, be strong and courageous. Keep everything that I have commanded you. And he remembered the words from Numbers 33 that they were to drive out the idle worshipers and rid the land of the vestiges of their worship. And so Joshua came in with his conquest. We might call it a blitzkrieg. And he establishes their presence in this land. A foothold is taken. But now, as we come to Judges, it's not just the foothold. Now they have to take possession. Possession is 9 tenths of the law. And we've got to get out those who are rooted here. They need to clear out the land. So Judges 1, Judges brings us to a new generation. You remember only Joshua and Caleb were left from that mighty band that came out of Egypt. And our text begins with the death of Joshua. They got off to a great start. And so in verse one, the people did the right thing. They did what they needed to do. The people of Israel inquired of the Lord. They weren't going to just step out on their own. They inquired of the Lord, who's going to go up first? And the answer came, Judah. Good start. And Judah, seeing some of the weaker tribes around them, some of those who might be more fearful, come on. I think that's my perspective. There was a desire for unity. I don't have to go this all alone. We are a people. We are God's people. Simeon, come with me. We'll head out. We'll take this, and then we'll go get your land too. And there was a chance to work together. And of course, the text gives us a picture of that victory. 10,000 defeated. And this king, this Adonai Bezek, is taken and captured. And his thumbs and his toes are cut off. Now, that was more than a symbolic gesture of you are not going into battle anymore. No big toes, no thumbs. Try walking, let alone running. And grasping a spear or a sword. Try this at home. Eat lunch without using your thumbs at all. And moms, just be ready to clean up the mess. Because that's what it's going to be. We're off to a great start, seeking the Lord. There's unity, there's victory, and there is justice in this conquest. What does Adonai Basic say? As I have done, so God has repaid me. It's interesting because we come, modern readers, come to this text and our immediate reaction is, Israel is marching into this land against these innocent people and slaughtering them and driving them out. But the people there don't have that perspective at all. This is justice. This is what we've done. And now it's being done to us. Please understand that the text is not addressing here the justification for God's declaration of this holy war. And so I'm not going to go there this morning either. But I'm in the middle of preparing a paper for you that I hope to have done by next Sunday on this concept of God's declared war, its justification biblically, its limitations, the differences between that and a Muslim holy war, Jihad, for instance. And so you can pray that I can finish that up in these next few days. But that's not where I want to go this morning because that's not where the text is going. But understand that these Canaanites were not innocent people. Go back to Leviticus 18 and see their abominable sexual practices. Go to Deuteronomy 18 and see their abominable worship practices such that the land, it says in the text, vomited them out. And God would bring judgment upon them for those. So they begin the conquest against a people that the land was vomiting out. And they recognized it. There was great blessing in conquest, in this conquest. Look at verse 8, and the men of Judah fought against Jerusalem and captured it and struck it with the edge of the sword. And they set the city on fire. And afterward, the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who lived in the hill country in the Negev and in the lowland. And Judah went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron. And now the name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath Arba. And they defeated these three kings, Sheshai, Ahim, and Talmai. There was great success as they moved ahead. The next little vignette I love Because at verse 11 through verse 15, we're brought back to Caleb. He's going to appear again in the passage in our text in a few minutes. But we see God's blessing being given to God's people here. Caleb had a daughter, Aksa. Caleb said, he who attacks Kiriath-sephir and captures it, I will give him Aksa, my daughter, for a wife. And Othniel, the son of Cana, Caleb's younger brother, captured it. And he gave him Aksa, his daughter, for a wife. What a picture. I still have an unmarried daughter. I am trying to figure out what kind of quest to give this guy, whoever comes and says, OK, well, here's the quest. You're going to have to demonstrate to me what kind of man of faith you are. Because that's what Caleb was saying. Do you believe this promise? Do you trust God? Will you act? Because that's the man I want for my daughter. So if you've got any ideas on the quest, let me know. We can email back and forth on that. But here's God's blessing. And of course, he takes that land and they asked for the water rights to it as well. Remember, this is a pretty barren area. And so Caleb gives. to them the upper springs and the lower springs in the land of the Negev that was given to them. We continue to see these blessings in conquest and the faithfulness of God. The descendants, here we find the descendants of the Kenite or the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law, who had come up with the people, come up with Israel. And so we're back to that issue of understand what this conquest is. It is not an ethnic cleansing. The Canaanites were not part of Israel, and yet they are brought into this land because they trusted in and rested and believed in the God of Israel. Rahab, one out of Jericho, comes with them because she believed. And in these battles, In this conquest, we read of Judah and Simeon coming and defeating the Canaanites in Cepha and they destroyed it. And so the name of that place was Hormah. It was all devoted to destruction. They didn't come into the land in order to gain the wealth or overtake or expand borders or anything like that. They would give this and it was an offering to the Lord in faith. But now things turn a bit. We get the first inklings of problems that they are going to face. In verse 19, now Judah has captured Gaza with its territory and Ashkelon and Ekron and the Lord was with Judah and he took possession of that hill country. But he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron. Something has happened here. Judah has stopped looking at the God who said, I will drive them out. And he looks at chariots of iron in the open plain. And the text says of them that they could not drive out. When we get to the chapter 2, we discover what's really going on. They would not drive them out. They had taken their eyes off God who was conquering and put them on the strength of the enemy in front of them. They saw that power and not the power of God. Now, these are the same people who not too many weeks before had still been picking up off the ground every morning everything that they needed to eat to sustain them. That wasn't so long ago. There wasn't one man here who should have forgotten that. These were the same men who looked at the walls of Jericho, impenetrable by the day's standards, and had they decided to go and storm that somehow in their own strength, who can imagine how many of the Israelites would have been slaughtered in the process? God said he would fight for them. They trusted him. They did what he commanded and those walls went down. Could not take on chariots of iron or would not stand out there and say, God, you have given us this people. We're standing here and we will take them or we will die in the effort. And had they stood their ground and looked to God, who knows what he would have done. The chariots come flying across the plains and Earthquake takes them down. They end up with a deluge that swamps them out and they're stuck in the mud like the Egyptians were in the Red Sea. No, it wasn't could not. Their focus had shifted. Following right after, verse 20, and Hebron was given to Caleb. as Moses had said, and he drove out from it three sons of Anak. Do you remember the Anakites? I'm telling you, Caleb does, because he ran into these guys 40 years ago, the descendants of the giants. And he came back and said, yeah, the people are big. Who cares? 40 years later, he's back. Who cares? Sure, he'll take on the giants because it's God who's fighting for him. And so Caleb's victory follows. He wasn't afraid of them. Benjamin, verse 21, couldn't clear out Jerusalem. That's really interesting because Jerusalem had already been burned and they'd been driven out, but that means that these Canaanites came back. They weren't going to be so easily driven off. Tenacious. They came back and Benjamin couldn't even push them out of the city. Twenty-two through twenty-six, the house of Joseph finds a way. God opens the way for them to get into their country, to take the city whose name is now showed the way into the city. Which city was that? Bethel. And in they went. And so here we see, we would love the text, I would love the text to end right there. The victories, the conquests, oh yeah, there have been a couple of little setbacks, but hey, we're in good shape. But it doesn't end there. We can't quit while we're ahead, so to speak. From verses 27 through 36, there is a foreboding failure. of failure to thrive. It sets out for us a downward spiral of defeat seven times. They were told to drive them out seven times, it says. They did not drive out. And it is the same word every time. Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Bethsheen. They ultimately put them to forced labor. but they did not drive them out. Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites. They lived in Gaza among them. In other words, they couldn't drive them, so they just moved in with them. Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitrin, but eventually were able to put them to forced labor, slavery. Asher didn't drive out the inhabitants of Acre. The Asherites lived among them, but they didn't drive them out. Naphtali didn't drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh, but they ultimately put them to forced labor. The Amorites shoved the people of Dan out of the land, off the plains, back up into the hills. They wouldn't even let them down. Who's the one who's holding on now who's acting in strength and faith. We're told that the Amorites persisted in dwelling in Mount Haraz in Achelon. That's right in the center of the promised land. If you look at the map, almost the dead center. They didn't drive them out. even though they could put them into forced labor, ultimately into forced labor as well. They could subject them to slavery and servitude, which means they certainly had the power to destroy them or to drive them away. But instead, they intentionally kept them in their midst. It seems that in many ways, the Canaanites were more determined than the Israelites. When we get to verse 36, The border of the Amorites. We're not told now that the final defined border of Israel, what's that final divine border? It's the Amorites whose border is defined. They're still in the midst of God's people and land. A sad, sad state of affairs. Who had the greater strength and will? Who was showing that defiant courage and faith? They needed to do what God commanded or die in the attempt. Because by not bowing, by not acknowledging their weakness, crying out to God and looking for him to fight for them, they left themselves strategically open to attack. We could go through the geography of these things and the battles and things that come back to haunt them. But the failures would come back to trouble them strategically. But much more important and what What Judges is pointing to is that the real failure was a spiritual one. Remember that challenge to go in, they shall not dwell in your hand, Exodus 23, 33. They shall not dwell in your hand lest they make you sin against me. They knew what God had promised, they knew what he commanded, and they didn't do it. They left the temptation, they left the tempters in their midst. They didn't eliminate them. And the Canaanites show the power of their will. How long before it begins to infect and prevail in these new residents of the land? It won't be long at all. And so they tolerated that cancer, that sickness, that poison in their midst. And they thought, well, we can master it. We'll, you know, we'll subject them. We'll put them to sleep. We'll keep them out of our hair, man. We'll keep them working so hard they won't be able to, but we're not going to drive them out. How often do we think we can master the enemy, sin in our own heart so we can keep it under control? that we don't have to tell anybody about it. We can occasionally confess it to the Lord and acknowledge our struggle with it. But boy, we're not going to get any help. We're not going to call Simeon or somebody to say, I am weak here. And I don't want to go under. I want to take hold. I want to keep hold of. of my Savior. This sin needs to be eliminated. It needs to be eradicated. I can't live with it. I'm struggling with alcohol. I can't go to the parties where it's served. I can't have it in my house. I can't be around it. Pornography? How many are hiding it? I don't really have a problem. It's just occasional. It's not a big deal. But you don't drive it out. You don't put the sources far away. You don't put yourself under an accountability that says, I'm not going to fall. I'm not going to submit. I'm weak. God, how am I delivered from this? How often do we put ourselves in places of temptation, thinking, hey, we can cover this? What about sinful attitudes that we don't want Well we kind of want to drive them out but do we really want to drive them out because sometimes that anger feels good and I just want to nurture it a little bit or that judgment that I have against others. Am I going to drive it out an unforgiving spirit for one reason or another. If we don't drive them out they will eventually begin to rule. You see when sin gains a foothold it may take it will take likely violent drastic action on our part to drive it out. And by violent, I mean violence to my own will, my own pride, so that it can be driven out. Will you find a simian to help you? Maybe you feel like it's an issue where you're just facing giants. They're chariots of iron. You've been run down by it too many times. You have no strength to overcome it. No you don't. That's when you look to the one who does have strength. But it will mean humbling ourselves. No we don't have the strength to overcome but no temptation has overtaken you. But such that is common to man and God who is faithful he will This is what his word says. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also that you may be able to endure it. Now, that's the word of God. That's a promise, like the promise made to the Israelites, that he would go before them and he would drive it out. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. Now, you can try and fight it out on your own, or you can pretend that, hey, it's not that big a deal. I really don't need to address it. Or you can fall down in weakness before the Lord and say, I desperately need you to fight for me. And so lead me, that sin might not master me, but my Savior would master me. The Israelites let the people and the practices that surrounded a fertility god and goddess into their midst. The danger was right there with them. They knew what was right to drive them away and they wouldn't do it. And that, James says, is not failure, not a problem, it's sin. Whoever knows what is the right thing to do and fails to do it, It is sin, he says. Enslaving those people, subjecting them, keeping them in their midst, that wasn't mercy, it was sin. Brothers and sisters, we need to be careful when we don't speak truthfully to one another because it's embarrassing or difficult or uncomfortable, and we know what's right. It's sin. when we have offended someone and we know it. Matthew 5. Jesus speaks to it in Matthew 5, 23 and following. I know that I've offended someone. He says, you don't even bring your gift. You go and you get that right first. If I know what's right and I don't do it, it's not an issue. It's sin. Jesus doesn't get on. He flips it around too. If someone has sinned against you, Matthew 18. Matthew 18, 15 and following. If someone sinned against you, what do you do? You go to them. You don't harbor it. You don't spread it and share it around to others. You don't kind of cogitate on it yourself. You go to them and you seek to set it right. And if we know that, and we don't, it's sin. They were carrying the seeds of apostasy. and we end up doing the same thing. Their failure to thrive in the promise and the hope of God brought into their midst the seeds of destruction. I think a lot of times our problem is that we don't believe that God is concerned enough to be faithful. He's not concerned enough, He's not faithful enough to work even this thing this chariot of iron, this giant of an issue in my life. We just don't believe that God is concerned enough, that he's faithful enough to work that thing for my good, painful as it may be. And so we trust our own wisdom and our own plans and we hang on to things that ought to be shoved out of our lives rather than trusting God's word. When we tolerate sin in our lives, we lay ourselves open to the snares and the thorns that come from that toleration of sin in our lives. That's why I said in the theme that we can't tolerate... It's in here somewhere, isn't it? Oh boy, I can't even find my own notes. Tolerating sin in our lives. I'm not talking about tolerating sin in others and tolerating sinners. There's no getting away from them, ourselves included. But we can't tolerate it in our own lives because it will bring nothing but snares and thorns and death. We can't keep it around. And so the stage is set. Let's take these last few verses in chapter 2. The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And that means he went from the place where they had made their covenant renewal. Remember Gilgal? We will do it. We will keep this word. They come up to Bochim, now a place of weeping. And he said, I brought you up from Egypt. And I brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, I will never break my covenant with you. Ironclad, I will never break my covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. Ironclad, you shall break down their altars. But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you. They will become thorns in your sides and their gods shall be a snare to you. And as soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. And they called the name of the Lord and they called the name of that place Bukhim. And they sacrificed there to the Lord. Wow. Their obedience had been half-hearted. It wasn't a rejection of God's command and promise, but it wasn't full submission either. And now we see a repentance that's even half-hearted. Notice the text does not say that they repented. It says they wept. They cried out. But they did not repent. They did not turn and go back and finish the job, though I believe they could have. They didn't obey even now. They kept them there. True repentance is not just feeling badly and weeping over the things that I've done or said, my sins. It's not just shedding tears. It's turning away from that current path of destruction and turning around to a path of obedience. It's turning back to God. It's turning to the one who is being figured for us in this passage. And how do I mean that? Why do I say that? It looks like You read this, is this a broken promise on God's part? He says in verse one, I will never break my covenant with you. And then he says, also, I said, you cannot make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land. In other words, you can't keep them with you. It seemed like an unconditional promise to bless an obedient people, right? I will give you this land. I will never break this covenant with you. I will not give it to a disobedient people. It's an unconditional promise based on the condition of obedience. Here's the tension that runs throughout the book of Judges. God's character is such that he is holy, righteous, pure. He cannot tolerate evil in his people or in his presence. He cannot bless people if they live with sin, with evil, and he can't bless what isn't holy, what's contrary to his character. But we also know of the character of God, that he is loving and faithful, and he will not crush a bent or bruised reed. He can't turn away forever from His beloved. He will not forsake His people. So how can an unconditional promise be satisfied without violating the necessity of righteousness in those who receive it? Brothers and sisters, here in the introduction to the book of Judges, we already can see how the work of Christ is being set before us, indeed pressed upon us. because there's no other answer to that dilemma. There's no other answer to that tension. God can neither forfeit his promise, he must keep it, nor bend his demands of holiness. He can't just forget the promise. He's not going to just give them the land and walk away from them. Okay, you have it, but not with me. He's not going to abandon them to manage it themselves. And he isn't just going to forget the promise and wipe them out and drive them off, too. Neither happen. Why? Neither solution, quote unquote, solution occurs. Because the people of God are reconciled to God. How? Through the cross of Jesus Christ. His perfect obedience opens the way for God, our Father, to finally and perfectly fulfill that promise of a secure, undefiled land for his people. The Savior, Jesus Christ, who bears no sin, takes sin, our sin, laid on Him to the cross. He pays the debt, suffers the consequences of death, bore and bears the wrath of God against sin. And so there are now, in faith, a people who are cleansed, trusting in that work, a people who are purified. weak in themselves, but strong in the Lord. And rising from the dead, His perfect obedience and righteousness is laid on us, imputed to us, credited to us, and the dilemma is solved. His promise can be fulfilled. Christ purchased us for Himself, guaranteeing a place for us in His kingdom, a land far beyond the reaches of sin and rebellion. So we don't have to give up and just go on sinning because all is lost. And we aren't crushed by a burden of guilt because there's one who overcomes it. And our cry is heard when we repent and believe. like Israel were delivered not because we are more righteous than the people around us. So God said to them in Deuteronomy it's not because you're better it's not because you're more righteous. I'm driving them out because of their wickedness. I'm driving them out because of my favor poured out upon you. That kingdom is ultimately the gift of God. given to those who are weak enough to look to a Savior, to deliver, to purify, to lead, to guard, and to conquer. God, give us the grace to be those humble, weak people. Father, open our eyes and our hearts Continue to open your word to us that we might find there its truth and hope and power. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.