As most of you know, of course, that I've been writing little articles in the newsletter about Joshua, and then I moved into the book of Judges. It just seemed to be logical to me. But the fascination that I've had for those two books sort of stems from my childhood. And of course, when I got to Joshua and Judges, not so much Ruth, but those historical narratives of that whole conquering time, it was just a real exciting book to read as a man, as a boy. And I think that's still true. And the more I looked into the book of Judges, the more I really think the author of Judges was telling these stories, they're true stories, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, no doubt about it, but he was doing it in a very clever way that would make little boys, or at least young men, fascinated, because there's just enough naughtiness in there to be fascinating for a little kid, right? I mean, for a kid, a young man. What, to stab a fat man so his stink comes out? I mean, that's sort of, sort of entertaining in a way. I know little girls, okay, yeah, right, I get it. But for little boys, it's like... So imagine that this, whoever wrote it, which we think... We think we know who it did, but whoever wrote it was thinking of that. I think he was thinking, we're going to have these stories with enough drama in there to be entertaining so that people will read it and want to read it and try to get something out of it and not be just a dull narrative which has no interest in it. But okay, so what I want to do now is shift the newsletter from this little narrative of short little articles, which was a little frustrating because you can't say a whole lot in a little article, and I know a long eight-page article. I have an eight-page sermon. an eight-page article in the, yeah, I see the smirk, but an eight-page article, who's gonna read that, right? So I thought, okay, I'll see if Brenner will let me preach, which he's glad to let me preach, he's glad to do that, that's not an issue, but I thought, okay, well, I can expand a little bit more on the subject doing this. So I've shifted the newsletter to a narrative or a commentary on the Constitution of this church. So just so you know, that's where I'm going here. I'm gonna do a series, hopefully, depending on how this goes. Next month I'll be talking about Shamgar. That's chapter 3, verse 31. And there's one verse. I'm supposed to preach for 35 minutes. I don't know how that's going to work out, but we'll see. I come in humility, actually. I'm trying to make light of what I'm doing, but it's not a light thing that we're doing. Because this is, we should read the Judges, we should study the Judges, because it's God's Word. It's inspired by the Holy Spirit. It has something to say to us. The Old Testament is supposed to say something to the New Testament believers, right? It's there for our instructions, so we should be able to pull something out of this fairly easily this evening, without a lot of pain and struggle. So let's pray the Lord will help us with that, because without him, not much hope. Father, I pray that this evening you would give us wisdom and insight by your Holy Spirit as we consider what your sufficient word might teach us this evening. We depend on you. I pray that the words that are spoken would be would be encouraging, would be true, would be helpful to people. And I pray by your Holy Spirit that you would encourage us this evening for the week to come. In Christ's name we pray, amen. This is a very strange book. You have to admit that. You've got a father that murders his daughter because he makes a promise. That's really strange to me. Another guy cuts a woman into 12 pieces and mails it out to the different tribes. That's really strange to us. It would be really hard for us to imagine. General Gideon has too many men to go to battle, you know. It's so intriguing, especially for guys, but I mean it's so intriguing to think that he might have had too many people, he had to send people home and how that all happened, you know. So it's a very strange, we start out with that for sure, and of course not to mention Sampton and his girlfriends, but oh my goodness, what was going on here? And of course we're familiar with some of these stories because we've heard them in vacation Bible school and Sunday school, you know, which is a legitimate thing to say, I mean, but we've sanitized them so much because I think partly from our moralistic, therapeutic, certainly moralistic, therapeutic Christianity that sort of developed here, we sanitized some of this stuff, we missed some of the point, because the real point of this book obviously is about, it's a story about God, God's loving kindness towards his people. So we don't want to get distracted by that, and tonight I'm not going to talk about these individuals, I will later on during the series perhaps, but So we're not going to rehash that, but there's two things I want to remind us all tonight about. The first, of course, is that God is sovereign over all events, right? Even the little things, maybe the traffic jam or whatever has happened to us, to the big things, like a loved one dying. God is sovereign over all those things. A child that goes astray, all those things. I think this book reminds us of that. I think we would all agree that believers see those kind of adversities in a different way than the world sees it. It's a whole different thing to us than it should be for the world. We know God's working all things to His glory and for the good of His people. But this promise really is only meaningful if we really understand God's sovereignty and His providence in this world. And I think the Book of Judges will display that as we go on. So that's one thing I'd like us to leave here today. That should be a very encouraging thing, right? We sort of need that, right? It's going to be a tough week. I don't care who you are, the richest man or the poorest man, it's going to be a tough week. That's just the way life is. And we do a disservice not to recognize that as believers, especially when we talk to our children about life. The second thing, I think this book will remind us of the sinfulness of sin. It's in the nature of mankind to justify their own sin, right, to minimize sin. And, you know, that's too vague a statement. It's in my nature to minimize my sin, okay? It's just so easy to say this is just a small thing, to justify it. I don't think I'm alone in that, of course. I think we're all in the same boat. But tonight, I think the Book of Judges will remind us about that danger, the danger of being comfortable with our sin And but along with that warning, it's not all negative. It's a great encouragement to realize what God is working out, even through our sin. And it's an encouragement, I think this book's an encouragement, to continue with our struggle against sin. God's faithful, right? And with a temptation will provide the way of escape. So introductory, well, this is all introductory the whole time. But let's turn to Judges chapter 2. We'll start in verse 6. And we're going to get back to the first five verses later. But first, we're going to start at verse six. So I'm just going to read it here and make a few comments as we read through it. In a book like this, it'd be difficult to exposit through it verse by verse. It's just not designed that way. I don't think it'd be really difficult to do that. So this will be the most expository thing I'll do during this series. The rest of them is going to be a little more topical because we're talking about individuals. But verse six. When Joshua had dismissed the people, the sons of Israel went each to his inheritance to possess the land. The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the Lord which he had done for Israel. Then Joshua the son of Dan, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110. They buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath Heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gash. All that generation who were gathered to their fathers, oh wait a minute, all that generation also were gathered to their fathers and there arose another generation. We'll stop there. And I just want to make a comment here. This is, the book starts with the death of Joshua, right? We'll keep going. After them, verse 10, I'll go back to the beginning of verse 10, all the generation also that were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel. Sort of sets up the book here. Verse 11, then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them. And they bowed to themselves down to them. Thus they provoked the Lord to anger. So they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth. The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them, and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them, as the Lord had spoken and as the Lord had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed. Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked. In obeying the commandments of the Lord, they did not do as their fathers. Then the Lord raised up judges for them. And the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hands of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. But it came about when the judge died that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They did not abandon their practice or their stubborn ways. So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel. And he said, because this nation has transgressed my covenant which I commanded their father, and has not listened to my voice, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the Lord, to walk in it as their fathers did or not. So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly as he did not give them into the hands of Joshua." So the book starts with the death of Joshua. And we could back up for just a second. In verse 10, it starts with this, or verse 10, in first chapter, first verse, it says this statement, I know I'm jumping a little bit here, but you don't need to turn there, I suppose, but it says, who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them? The book starts with that, in the death of Joshua, and it ends with that famous statement, each man will do what is right in his own eyes. It also ends up with the fact that The 11 tribes try to exterminate their own brother, the tribe of Benjamin. So we go from who will help us, what tribe is going to help us to defeat the enemy, to the end where they're killing each other. So we'll get back to that a little further in the sermon. The book ends with that, but then this book does end with that pathetic statement, in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did it on his own, right in his own eyes. I think what the author is asking is trying to ask this questioner, this book is author trying to ask the question, who shall lead the people and answering with the argument, overall argument, that it needs to be led by a king. Several commentaries, in fact, believe that this book was written during King David's reign, authored by probably Samuel. And what we've just read sets up God's purpose for bringing these judges up. is to deliver his people from the oppressor. And while the judge lived, he brought his people away from false worship and back to Lord. But when he died, they'd fall away. This is the pattern of judges. Of course, again, we see, since we've got children here, we see a picture in their mind of a judge might be the Supreme Court. Probably not. Probably judge duty or something like that on a bench and all that. No, that was not what the judge was. A man who would provide, yes, military leadership, but also spiritual leadership, obviously, because it kept the people following the Lord while he was alive. And this is an interesting note also. There are 12 judges written in this book anyway. We don't know, there might be more, but there's 12 judges, each one from a different tribe of Israel. So we're thinking probably in the way the time frame works out, they were just judges over their small region. It wasn't a national judge that controlled the whole country. That would defeat the purpose. Why not have a king? He would be a king if he was the judge over the whole country, right? So these are judges from individual sections of Israel. So there was individual sections that would be overrun. The Lord would send an enemy into that section. They would be oppressed. The judge would come up and, by the Spirit of God, chase that enemy away and restore the nation, or not the nation, but that particular area to spiritual wholeness again. So that's the purpose for setting up, God's purpose for setting up judges, to deliver the people from the oppressor While the judge lived, the people remained faithful. When the judge passed away, they would go back and they would start, I'm sure, before that. Of course, as we read the book, we see many of the judges perhaps did a good job of being military leaders, but the spiritual leadership was way lacking, right? Now really, he was only effective, as we read it, almost all of them start out with, the Lord came upon so and so. And during that period, he was effective. The rest of the time, you know, Samson is a classic example of that. While the Lord used him for particular times, he was not a very spiritual, not a very helpful for the spiritual nature of their, of the people that they were leading. So we have a strong evidence that it was written during King David's reign. Remember that King Saul was the first king of Israel, right? What tribe was he from? Benjamin. So the book several times talks in negative terms about Benjamin. And whenever it comes up with the tribe of Judah, it's positive. So that's what the FBI calls a clue. Benjamin's not good, Judah's good. It was probably written, and probably, David said to Samuel, I'm just imagining Samuel write this book to help establish the kingdom. Because surely, the people were a little bit unsure about having a king at all. I mean, King Saul didn't work out so good. So there need to be some kind of, something written to help the people go, yeah, kingship, that's a good thing. And it's even better he had a king David, because he's from the tribe of Judah. But hidden behind the lines here, I think, is of course that the author is saying, not just any king, but a good king. The perfect king, as a matter of fact, right, the near and far of scripture, the near is Samuel's writing, perhaps Samuel, wrote this book to say, yeah, judges, regional judges, it's just not working out. We have a confederation of states, it's just not working out. There's no central government, there's no king, that's not working out. King Saul's not working out. King David's better, he's got the heart after the Lord, so that's the near of it. Let's establish the line of Judah, which, wow, we're sure thankful for that, right? Because that's where Christ came from, right? So we're trying to establish that. But the far of it is, by the Holy Spirit, this book is about the future king. It's saying we really need a king. I mean, how many times have we, and we have this tendency, and I think, if I recall right, I think Brandon said something about that in the sermon this morning, about the fact that we have a tendency to follow men. We just have that tendency. We want to follow somebody that's strong and tall and, you know, good looking like Saul, right? Or put our faith in a government or whatever. The Book of Judges is reminding us that there's a perfect king to come and we need to put our faith in him. Turn page. Right, so in the New Testament, hidden between the lines of Judges, that reality that the people of God don't need just any old king, they need the King to come, that is Christ Jesus. Who would come through the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the tribe of Judah, down through the ages according to the sovereign plan of God. That's the near and far of Scripture. The structure, like I sort of already said that, but the structure of the book starts with that chapter one describing the failure of the tribes to obey the clear command of God, right? Verse 21 of the first chapter, we don't need to turn there, it says, the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites. Verse 27, Manasseh did not take possession of the land. Verse 28, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but they did not drive them out. Completely. And that was the command, right? Drive the people out. So the people were, at the very start of the book, the people were thinking themselves smarter than what the command of the Lord had told them to do. At least they acted like they knew better. Which is interesting, that whole phrase about putting the Canaanites to forced labor, You know, you sort of see their thought pattern, right? I mean, it'd be better if we make them, and maybe servant would be a better word to say than slaves, because that puts some things in our mind that are negative, but more, servants is probably a better way to describe it. Why not make them our servants so they can cut wood, get the water from the creek, and we can study our Bible and be pious? Does that make sense? Wouldn't it be smarter to do that? Because then you'd have more free time to study and have Bible studies and youth group and all those kind of things. I'm just saying that's a possibility. It makes sense to me, except for the fact the Lord said don't do that. Maybe they were just plain lazy. I don't know, but they did not obey the command of the Lord's command to drive them out. And of course that precipitates all of these other things that happened. But it's a peculiar thing to think that really the nation of Israel were a bunch of slaves that were just cut. freed from him in a few years afterward, but still, in their memory, at least hopefully in their oral history, they want to be able to look back at the fact that they were slaves for 400 years in Egypt, now they come to a new country and they're going to make people slaves? That seems a little bit cold-hearted. They've forgotten their own history. As far as the servant thing, I think the wiser and kinder thing for them to have done would be to do what the Lord said. It would be the wiser thing for sure, but it would also be the kinder thing in this respect. Wouldn't it be better to tell them that as long as they remain rebellious against Jehovah, that they would have to leave the land? But if you want to submit to Jehovah, the true one, true God, you can stay. Because that was surely true, wasn't it? Rahab, she got to stay. Ruth, by the way, the book of Ruth was written during the time of the judges. If she was welcomed into the nation, all she had to do was Trust in Jehovah. So it would have been better for them to say to the Canaanites that were unbelieving, the rebellious Canaanites, leave. Just leave. And maybe there was a little bit of a sword involved with that, but leave, okay? You could leave. We weren't forcing you to stay. We want you to leave. Wouldn't have been kinder to say that than to make them servants or slaves or underclass, right? An underclass which would never be able to rise above, rise into society like the regular Citizens of Israel, just wondering about that. The promised land was supposed to become Jehovah's possession, intended for God's people. The statement that was supposed to have been made was, all who remain here are expected to trust and worship him alone. All who remain shall worship him in the manner that he has prescribed. And if they had done this, that would have been the gospel message to the people around them. All the nations would have said, wow, this is a nation full of believers in Jehovah. They would be proclaiming the gospel to the indigenous people there and also to the nations around them. But anyway, the point is, it's clearly their sin on their part. Disobedience toward the commands of God. They're putting their thoughts above the thoughts of God. Wow, we do that all the time, don't we? I mean, we know what the Lord wants, His commands, we know His commands, but we justify our own decisions to disobey. We can't be self-righteous. Now, I've been warned not to chase rabbits, but I've got to chase a little bit of rabbit here. Oh, it's only 6 o'clock. Our culture sometimes criticizes the narrative in Joshua and Judges because it appears that the sons of Jacob were, it's like a jihad thing, right? We're going to kill all the people in the promised land. I can't answer that question totally, but I've got some thoughts about it that I'm going to, whether you like it or not, you're going to hear it. There's two purposes, I think, clear purposes for the occupation of Canaan. First is, we're all sinners, we all deserve death, okay? God is not obligated to save the Canaanites or even to warn them. They're born sinners, they deserve eternal punishment. And he promised to Abraham and his descendants that this was their land. But secondly, which may be a little bit easier to tell your neighbors when they ask, than that. That's a hard statement. True. But this was a judgment upon the wicked people of Canaan. It wasn't arbitrary. It wasn't an expression of racial superiority on the parts of the Jews. No. It's the opposite. They were the most inferior of nations. But this was God's specifically defined directive to purify the Promised Land. And like I said, granted, there was always grace to be found for all who would acknowledge Jehovah. We know about Rahab. We know about Ruth and Naomi. I think Naomi probably was a believer that had been disobedient, but I loved in the home group book that chapter when he exposit that. Oh, that was great. That's worth the price of that book. You should read chapter 9. I think it was chapter 9. That previous book, not the one. So those who would trust in the Lord, there is salvation, but all who refuse to... to believe there was going to be judgment. And this was the judgment. The people of Israel were called, an inferior nation was called to come by God's judgment to destroy the Canaanites. They were wicked, no doubt about it. Man, they actually had abortions after the baby was born. They just did this for years, for 400 years, some 400 years, right? Let's see, the Jews were in Egypt for 400 years. So at least 400 years, they were killing babies. How long have we been doing that? I don't know. Makes you wonder. Incidentally, 400 years previously, more or less, Abraham lived among them. Think back now, when Abraham was brought into the land, he was a believer, right? He wasn't circumcised, but he was a believer. And what did he do when he was living with the Canaanites? Have I jumped too fast there? Now he lives in Canaan. Abraham and his family are now in Canaan. They lived there way before the conquest and all that stuff, right? He's in there, he's living with a bunch of Canaanites. What do you suppose he was doing with those Canaanites? Was he just, you know... Or was he preaching the gospel? I think he probably was. He was preaching the gospel. They had the gospel light there. In a powerful way, Abraham wasn't just some joker from the 7-Eleven. He was a real serious guy. He knew the Lord. He spoke with the Lord. And undoubtedly, he was preaching. Now, I think certainly some of the people, Cainites, must have believed his preaching. Not because of his preaching, because the Holy Spirit gave them repentance and belief. So I think there were some that still believed. Now, many and most probably rejected, scoffed at his message and rejected the one true God and persisted in their wickedness. But I think that there was probably a, okay, now I'm speculating, and that's dangerous to be standing here and speculate. But I'm thinking there was probably a line of believers, a continual line of believers possibly preaching to the Canaanites during the 400 years. The Lord did not owe them that. I'm not saying the Lord owed them this, and it's not an apology for what the Lord did. We don't have to apologize for what the Lord did, but I think that even after Abraham left and went to Egypt because of the famine, that they're left behind some believers there, a remnant, small perhaps, but there was probably a remnant that may have been continuing with that preaching. But because of the Canaanites' persistent rejection of that revelation that was preached to them by Abraham, the Lord, in his good timing, brought the nation of Israel back to execute judgment on their wickedness. The intent, again, was that the Israelites would cleanse the land from the exceeding wickedness of the native Canaanites, along with fulfilling God's promise to Abraham. That what happened in this far distant past is a lesson, of course, for us today. There's coming a day of judgment for the wicked. Like I said, this will probably not answer all your questions, but... Okay, now back to the sermon. Okay, so back to the sermon. Nevertheless, the sons of Jacob were disobedient because they knew the command of the Lord right, but they did not obey. And we know that sin always has its consequences. So let's go back to chapter 2, Judges chapter 2, the first five verses. and it gives some of these consequences. Here's the consequences. Now the angel of the Lord, no, who's the angel of the Lord? The Lord Jesus Christ, okay. I'm not sure it's anachronistic to say the word Jesus, because his name was, we should probably just say Messiah to come, Messiah, anyway, he appeared in person apparently to them, and he gave this sermon. Now, I'm gonna talk for about 35 minutes, In five verses, Jesus said a whole lot more than any preacher has ever said. And I'm not criticizing long sermons. I'm just saying these five verses, he preaches them more than any preacher has ever preached until Christ came. But anyway, we'll read it. These are the consequences because Christ is speaking to them. He says, now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochem and said, I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. As for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear down their altars, but you have not obeyed me. What is this you've done? Therefore, I also said, I will not drive them out before you, but they will become as thorns in your side and their gods will be a snare to you. When the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. So they named the place both him and there they sacrificed to the Lord. So this is the consequences spoken from the word of the second person of the Trinity, the son to these people. He'd made a covenant with them. They broke the covenant by being disobedient. No doubt about it. Interesting, he says, I will never break my covenant with you, reminding them that, in fact, they were disobedient. And because of that, they would have thorns and snares. But because of his covenant love, if you read carefully here, because of his covenant love for his people, we know that those thorns and snares were meant for the ultimate good of his people. and for the destruction of those who would continue to reject him. And you all know this already. I'll remind you that in Israel there was believers and unbelievers, right? So there was the remnant of believers but then there were Jews that were Israelites that were not believers. So for the believers, These thorns and snares, and even these bad times as we go through the book, even these times where things are really tough and you're under oppression by the enemy, they're stealing all your food, whatever's going on, God's still working good towards his people, but evil towards the unbelievers. Judgment has better word. He's still working judgment through that and that's a huge lesson to learn in this book to remind us that we're We may have to suffer along with this nation that we happen to be in which is not an Israel type or anything like it, you know, but He does not owe America anything All things working for their good and for unbelieving Israelites' eventual judgment. Befitting their faithless rejection of the one true God. Their rejection was, follow the idols. That's the cycle. And, you know, we see this cycle all through the history of Israel. Really, the next generation, the sons of Israel, did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. It just goes on and on and on. But even when we have the kings and the reign of the kings, right, we have good kings, bad kings, most of them were bad. It's the cycle that goes on, even with kings. So, and again, that points to the fact we need a perfect king. We have a perfect king. A note about Baals and Asherah. We have a lot of children here. I'll have to use euphemisms. And you're probably mostly familiar with this anyway. But the children of Israel were still worshiping Jehovah all during this period, I believe. I don't think there's evidence said that they said, oh, we hate Jehovah. We don't like him anymore. They just were using him as the national god that would take care of the enemy nations. But you know what, we do need our sheep to have babies, so we need fertility, okay, so we have Astra, the female god. We need rain and stuff like that, so we need the storm god, Baal. We need them to, and when they come together, things happen. You get the euphemism, okay, so you have to, in order to stimulate them to do this, you have to do this with the, the ladies of the night at the temple of the gods over there. And that's all I'm going to say about that. So it was a very wicked thing here. And it also involved child sacrifice as well. But this was really, so you have to take care of the the stuff that's local, you need those gods to take care of the rain and make sure that the seeds grow and stuff like that. But you also have this national god. So I don't think they were forsaking Jehovah, but they still would go to worship and all that stuff. And that was probably what was the most angering thing for me if I was God. That really made me upset. Either hate me or love me, but don't pretend to do both. And because of the influence of the Canaanites, which they were warned because they allowed the Canaanites to stay there with their local gods, they were willing also to move in that direction, to worship the Baals and Asherah. Jehovah appeared to be distant to them and even unrelated to the daily concerns of their flocks and crops. Baal and Asherah met a felt need, right, a felt need to help them gain material prosperity. The book of Judges reminds us that Jehovah is the true Lord of the harvest. And if anybody thinks we're too sophisticated to worship idols, think again. Consider the things we trust in. Increasing our income, perhaps, by whatever means possible. Retirement accounts, government, our family, our children. I'll leave that to your own conscience. But I don't think we're all that different from the men and women of this day. We've got the same temptation to trust in other things or persons rather than trusting God alone. And of course that's why we sort of, hopefully one of the reasons we come to worship is to be reminded again that everything starts from Jehovah. All blessings flow from Him. He is irreplaceable. And we need that reminder. All right. I'm going to move on to the observation thing here. I've got two, or I have four. So the book describes a time very much like our time today, where every man does what is right in his own eyes, right? We would agree with that. But we see some encouraging things from this book to give us hope. Again, we see God's sovereignty. In the book of Judges, the Lord raised up enemies, right? It didn't just happen. Just some bad people showed up and God was helpless. God actually called the Moabites to come and conquer the land. The fat king, right? He had no power. The Lord gave him the power to take over the nation. So he raised up the enemies to correct or to test his people. Again, we and they, hopefully, would have learned to see adversity, those kind of adversity, in a different way than the world would see it. God's working all things to his glory, to the good of his people, of course. And we understand, through this book, the book of Judges displays God's sovereignty throughout the book. He brings the enemy, he brings the trial, but he also brings the relief. This book's all about God's faithfulness in his dealings with his people. And this knowledge should be comforting, a comforting thought for us. No doubt, in the book of Judges, like it is today, the remnant of believers are going to suffer along with the unbelieving covenant-breaking Israelites, right? We've figured that out by beating to death, probably. And God sent the enemies to oppress them, to condemn the unbelievers. But for somehow, in his sovereignty, he's working the ultimate good for his people. So even in suffering, we have hope as we walk in faith and not be set by sight. A pastor friend of mine, I do have other friends. He's my best friend, but I mean, I have other friends. But he described the relationship, which I thought was fascinating, the relationship between Old Testament historical narrative and the New Testament is this, and I'll just read it. The New Testament is often giving us pure doctrine. But the Old Testament historical narratives demonstrate the same doctrine, but in a different way. You know, the New Testament will make a statement. For example, Romans, I don't want to turn to it, but Romans 1, verse 21, 25, Paul tells us what happened when men exchanged true worship for idol worship. He just tells us, this is what happens. Well, the Book of Judges, it shows it to what happens. It doesn't come out and say, this is what happened. It just shows it to us. It shows us to it in very real ways. And yeah, OK, sometimes entertaining ways in a distressing way. But I mean, still, it shows us what happens. The Book of Judges demonstrates historically what would happen when men turned to idols in this particular case. So as often, the Old Testament will give us a negative example. But that just means we need to draw positive commands out of that. And that's really another way of saying that thing we often say is that that's the way we interpret the Bible. The New Testament opens up what the Old Testament is saying. The New Testament is further revelation. But we should never take the Old Testament as separate or worse, ignore it as irrelevant to us. We need them both. Plus, well, the second observation judges would teach us, again, about God's wrath for sin. We, again, minimize sin. We have that tendency to justify and hold on to what we consider small sins. But in this book, we can better understand how God views sins. It's a serious thing. He is unwilling to let his covenant people continue in sin. He will do the most drastic thing possible. Is there anything more drastic than sending an enemy to enslave you? An enemy that will steal every harvest? The enemy comes in and takes the, I think it's Gideon, takes Gideon's, the people, not Gideon, but the people in his area, the Philistines, come in there and take the harvest. Just they harvest it, they get it into bundles, and the enemy comes in and takes all the bundles. And so they have to come like the poor people and get the corners of the fields. They're starving. The Lord will do whatever it takes to keep his people from continuing down that road of sin. Right? The book of Judges starts with, oh, well, how will we fight the Canaanites? At the end of it, it's we're going to kill the Benjamites. We're going to murder all of them. We're going to exterminate our brothers. So you can see the progression here. But what happens at the end of Judges is the king's commandment, another national person to bring the nation back. There comes a time when if we persist in our sin, God will allow us to descend into greater levels of captivity, of course. But if one's a believer, there's the assurance that God will put increasing discipline on us. As sons and daughters, He'll put increasing discipline on us with the intent to bring us back to repentance. If there's no sorrow for sin, of course, if we're unwilling to repent at some point or another and look to Christ, there's no assurance of salvation. You're likely unconverted. As an Old Testament demonstration of the sinfulness of sin, we see, again, the beginning of Judges. People are asking, who shall lead us? At the end of it, let's kill our brother. The Israelites have descended into depravity to the point where they're seeking to devour one of their own brothers. Reminds us of Galatians 5.15. If you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. The point again is the Lord will not allow his people to remain in sin. In his jealous wrath, the Lord will inflict misery on his people in order to awaken them to their sin. That should be a blessing thing. It sounds very negative maybe, but it should be a real blessing to us to know that he loves us so much he refuses to let go of us. He's not going to let us go. He will not let us remain in sin. But implicit also in the book is the thought that the Lord will not be patient forever. There will come a day of judgment, insomuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this come judgment. OK, number three. Judges also teaches that the Lord delights to save. This will put a little bit of positive towards the end of the sermon here. Look at Judges 2.18. I can't leave it at that. 2.18. When the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of the enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. Who put the oppression on him? The Lord did. Who gave him mercy? Who saw that? See, that didn't appear to him. He knew this was going to happen. But I mean, the way it's phrased in a way that we can understand it, he has pity. He delights to save. He's delighted to do that. The Lord moved to pity because of those who oppressed them. Not a coincidence that enemies came. And it's not because the Israelites suddenly got brave. That was never even hinted at in this book. The Israelites didn't suddenly get brave and decide, oh yeah, we'll fight against the enemy. No, they were helpless. They never decided to start a freedom movement. The Lord acted because of His loving kindness. Hearing of their misery, the Lord rescued them in His good timing. Like I said, the language here does not imply the Lord was unable to hear, but rather that he rescued them in his perfect timing. Now, interesting that throughout the book, the word used in Judges here for groaning or crying out is not, I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but I looked it up. Not at the Holiday Inn Express, but the actual books. I looked it up. But anyway, the word for that groaning and crying out, we're talking about the Israelites, right? They're under oppression and they're like, oh man, Lord, help us, help us. That's literally what it meant. It wasn't, we repent. It was not, that's not the word used there. There is a word for repent. It wasn't for repent. It was just like, we're miserable. We're starving or whatever. They were unhappy. They weren't repenting for their sin. Now they may have later, but this is not, God's not responding to their repentance. They just want the Lord to remove their source of suffering. They came to the point where they realized that the local gods weren't working, that let's appeal to the national god that's, you know, actually he has done some good things for us in the past. Yeah, we'll ask him for help. Again, it's a picture of the Lord out of his pure mercy, not because he's responding to our repentance. Like, how can you be an Arminian and sort of grasp that? He doesn't respond to people going, oh Lord, save me. He's responding to his great mercy to this particular person, or this particular nation in this case. Something didn't convince the Lord to have compassion on these people. He raised up His deliverer for them out of His pure grace alone. And it's the same today. It's not something we promise, oh we're going to be better, we're going to be good, we're going to do this or that. It's not because of that. The Lord delights to save not because of anything in us, but by grace. By grace we've been saved. Not because of works, it's the gift of God. But what do we make of this now? We're in danger of leaving you with something that's Doesn't sound quite right, but it's not that if we refuse to turn for our sin that we can still have assurance of our salvation, right? I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that the Israelites could have just cried out for help and the Lord would help them and then they never came to the point where they recognized their sin, right? And we can't do that either. I mean, the Lord saves us and we recognize our sin, we repent from our sin. Repentance is a result of God saving us and giving us a new heart. But we see, though, if we're truly his people, that his covenant with us is not based on our works again, including the work of our own repentance. Even when believers struggle repeatedly with some sort of persistent sin habit, his covenant loving kindness toward his people remain in spite of our unworthiness or unfaithfulness. The cycle of judges teaches us that the Lord is patient, and he's willing to extend mercy to his people, even when we may be asking with poor or bad motives. You know what, all of our motives are bad and poor, no doubt about it. And finally, the book of Judges reminds us that there is no judge, no leader, no king, no one, no father, no husband who will be able to perfectly lead his people. Christ is the right kind of king, the king that the writer of Judges was looking forward to. In the meanwhile, when we look at judges or kings, pastors, fathers, husbands, where they're either good or bad pictures of the rightful king to come, right? The Baptist catechism in question 30 says, how does Christ execute the office of king? Christ executes the office of king in subduing us to himself, in ruling us, in defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies. That's worth memorizing. Finally, as believers, we do pray that our Heavenly Father will help us to see sin as He sees it, really, to perceive it as that great cosmic treason that it is. It destroys our own lives, which would be a small thing, I suppose, but the lives of our family and our neighbors. How sad. That's the way we ought to view it. It's an offense against Him, of course, but it also destroys our lives and those we love. Our privilege as new creations in Christ is the turn from our sin. We're no longer slaves of sin. As believers, we also reminded that the trouble and trials of this life are meant for our good and for God's glory. So we take great comfort in that knowledge. But of course, for those who have yet to trust Christ, and this includes those we love, but those who still remain lost, there's mercy to be found. Pray to God for that new life that is found only in Christ. Repent, believe in Christ Jesus. Remember what Christ said, this is a quote from his discourse about prayer, but still he said to the disciples, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. And he who seeks, finds. And to him who knocks will be opened. Now was he talking about riches or fame or a new bass boat or something like that? No, no. What was he thinking? I think at least partly he was talking about saving faith. He did tell the disciples that if you have little faith, pray for more faith. He also was talking about saving faith here. So when I say that God must act first, that doesn't mean that If you're an unbeliever, you can't ask Him for this. You should ask for faith, for saving faith. Faith is a gift from God, after all. Jesus was saying, if you lack faith, ask the Father to increase your faith and to give you that new heart to love Him. And it's my prayer, our prayer, really, that the Lord would grant salvation to all who come into this building. and hear the good news of the gospel. Our hope at this church is that all who come here will find Christ just as we have found him to be the true king who has set us free from the slavery of sin and who in his good timing will deliver us into his kingdom of joy and light and the fellowship of the Holy Trinity. That is to come, and that's something to be grateful for. God is sovereign. All things are working. Again, I may have said this a million times standing here, but He's working all things for His glory, for the good of His people. That's important to remember. And we should take care of our life to follow Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, great and marvelous are Your works. Nations and rulers are all in place at Your will and by Your decree. Events totally out of our control are subject to your purpose and your determined will. Though the enemy of our souls causes us to doubt your involvement in the world and in our own lives, we know that nothing escapes your notice. You're causing all things, again, to work for your glory and for the good of your people. Indeed, you're the source of every blessing that we enjoy. So how great are the privileges we have in Christ Jesus? So Father, this week, this coming week, you help us to pursue peace with all men. Please continue to sanctify us and help us to pursue holiness. Keep us from that root of bitterness that would destroy our unity. Help us to finish the race set before each one of us, to persevere, to walk in faith, to love you supremely. In all this, we make our prayers to our great Trinitarian God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.