And our theme this evening is the reviving of the Church of God. The reviving of the Church of God. First of all we have in verses 5 to 7 chronic apostasy described. Chronic apostasy described. We come here in this part of the book to the first cycle along the lines mentioned in chapter 2 and verse 15 to 19. Verse 15 of chapter 2 speaks of the Lord being against them when they sinned and then verse 16, nevertheless the Lord raised up judges which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them and yet they would not hearken unto their judges but they went a whoring after other gods and bowed themselves on to them. They turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the Lord. But they did not so. And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For it repented the Lord because of the groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers and so on. This account here of the Lord's deliverance through Othniel is the first cycle of that pattern. These verses picture Israel doing that which was right in their own eyes. And yet there is progression in this description. There is a progression from first of all doing that which was right in their own eyes with respect to men. Verse 5. The children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites and Amorites. and parasites and haribites and jebusites. Their unbelief had led them to dwelling among the Canaanites and so on rather than driving out the Canaanites. It was due to their unbelief that they ended up dwelling amongst these people rather than having driven them out of the land. and then they did what was right in their own eyes with respect to marriage. You see in verse 6 they took their daughters to be their wives and gave their daughters to their sons. So first of all they dwelt among them because of their unbelief and then they ended up intermarrying with them. and then they did what was right in their own eyes with respect to worship at the end of verse 6 they served their gods and in verse 7 the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and forgot the Lord their God and served Balaam and the groves or the Asherahs the sacred groves devoted to the goddess Asherah and now we notice last time that this did not mean that the name of the Lord was no longer mentioned in Israel, that is not the case. We know that from the closing chapters of the book that frequently the most grotesque paganism and superstition was mixed with reference to the name of the Lord. For a people to be pagan they don't have to necessarily obliterate all biblical vocabulary from amongst them. Frequently false religion is found in the guise of false Christianity or a mixture of Christian terms and paganism. And so that would appear to be the case in Israel at this time. But the Lord's worship was first of all corrupted and then pagan deities were put alongside the Lord until the religion of Israel became utterly pagan despite perhaps token references to the name of the Lord. But the compromise began in a manward direction, an assumption that they were competent to work out how they should relate to others, even the enemies of the Lord. Backsliding and apostasy in the church frequently begins in this manward way. The Lord required them, through faith in him, to drive out and to slay the Canaanites, but they didn't do that. not only did they not do that, they dwelt among them and then they intermarried with them. So it started in a manward way, it started through their dealings with the enemies of the Lord. And frequently that is the case, even in these days in which we live. Frequently the demands of protocol or convention and the assumption that we are above being drawn into falsehood and idolatry is the cause of a great deal of compromise and apostasy. We are all inclined to self-confidence when we say I can go into this situation and that situation and I'll do alright, I can handle it, I won't get sucked in. But you see we are not competent to judge these things. We must always ask, is it right to be in a particular situation? Is it right? Not whether we think we can handle it and not be led on into open idolatry. That's not the question. That should never be the question. The question is not what we think we can handle, but what is right in the sight of the Lord. We should not have confidence in our own strength in such situations, nor should we have confidence in our own competence to determine what we should or should not do. The word of God is the final authority and it must prevail over all human convention and all human custom. We are capable of all kinds of sin. Every one of us here this evening, we are capable of all known sins. And the seeds of all known sins are in our hearts. And let us then never imagine that we are beyond particular sins. We must submit to God's word in our relation with others and with those who do not love the Lord Jesus Christ. we mustn't be wise in our own conceits lest we should conform to them. And so we should go as far in our dealings with an ungodly world as the Word of God permits, no more and no less, and submit to the wisdom of God. Israel didn't and they ended up worshipping in the groves. Well secondly, the Lord using the wicked, verse 8, therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and he sold them into the hand of Shushan Rishathim, king of Mesopotamia and the children of Israel served Shushan Rishathim in years. Shushan Rishathim means Kushan of the double wickedness and It may well be that unless this is a name that he used to glory in his own shame and cruelty, it may be that this is the name by which the Israelites referred to this man. But his activity against Israel was in the providence of God. You'll see that the anger of the Lord was what caused him to triumph over Israel. the Lord sold them into the hand of Shushan Reshathim, king of Mesopotamia. So this oppression by Shushan Reshathim of Mesopotamia, this oppression of Israel came about at the hand of God. Even though this man of great wittedness was the instrument and even though the wickedness was his and the responsibility for the wickedness was his. Yet it came about in the providence of God. God's providence, his most holy, wise and powerful preserving and governing of all his creatures and all their actions. So later on in Israel's history we read who gave Israel to the spoil and Jacob to the robbers? Was it not the Lord? He against whom we have sinned. And so later on the Lord threatened and judged Israel by means of Babylon, by means of King Nebuchadnezzar. The Lord used the ungodly nations to correct, to purge and to purify his people. So he used Babylon. We know in Habakkuk chapter 1 The prophet Habakkuk was astonished at the injustice and the oppression that was taking place in Israel and then the Lord revealed to him that he was going to use Babylon or the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation, would come upon Judah and be the means of God's judgement. And then Habakkuk is all the more astonished, well yes but what about the Babylonians, what about them? And then the Lord showed that when he used them as the instrument of his correction and judgement of Judah he would then judge Babylon as well. So the Lord is sovereign even over the activity of the wicked and he used the wicked to chastise, to judge, to purge, to correct Israel. We know that there are many other instances of the Lord using the hands of the wicked for his own glorious purposes in the scriptures. He used Joseph's brothers even though what they did was evil. He meant it for evil, Joseph said at the end of Genesis, but God meant it for good. Shimei cursed David and David said the Lord had bidden him. Psalm 76, Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain. And most of all, in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, he hath taken, and by wicked hands hath crucified and slain. The hands that crucified the Lord Jesus were wicked, but it was all according to the determinate counsel. determining plan of Almighty God. And so here we read that it was the Lord that sold Israel into the hand of Shushan Reshathim. And he did so for eight years, that the lesson should be well learned. But then thirdly, we can consider tracing the Church's problems back to source. Tracing the Church's problems back to source, you see verse 9, and when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel. We ought to see the hand of the Lord behind the church's troubles. Even those troubles which involve sin and error, even those things which come upon the church from without, even those afflictions, those things that disturb the church even when Satan is involved and seeks to destroy the church we should still see the providence of God behind all of these things Israel cried to the Lord because it was in the Lord's providence that this situation arose and it was only the Lord who could deliver Israel and we ought to attune our thinking always to see the providence of God in those things which come upon the church in this world. And if the church today is a prey to every wind of doctrine and if the church today is tossed about with every piece of superficial nonsense, to whom then shall we go to change this. Yes, we shall bear testimony against that which is wrong and that which is evil, as the faithful must have done in these days of the judges, but to whom shall we look for a reversal of this situation? We know that the church is pitifully weak and vulnerable within this country. We know that. We must be aware of that. That every foolishness that comes along. There are evangelical churches that swallow it and we ought to be painfully aware of the instability and the spiritual unreliability and weakness of the professing Church of God in our land. Well, who can change this? Who can change the situation so that the church is strong and Zion's bars are strong and her gates are brass? Who can change that? Well, it's the Lord and only the Lord. We lament, but do we pray? We lament and rightly so, the chaos and the confusion of the church today. but it's not enough to lament. We only honour the Lord if we cry to him. To lament into the air without prayer to the Lord is not to learn. It's not to learn when the Lord's hand is against his church as it were. We must learn, we must not only lament the consequences of the Lord's hand against his but we must turn to the Lord and cry to him to turn in mercy and loving kindness to his people. But then fourthly, was this a revival, a question, was this a revival? Verse 9, And when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel, the son of Caleb, Caleb's younger brother. and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he judged Israel and went out to war. Was this a revival? Now perhaps in your mind there are objections to the idea that what we have here is in any sense a revival. One objection might be this. It was brought on by circumstances. It was because Israel was in trouble that they cried unto the Lord. And you may say, well surely it was all superficial because it was simply brought on by the demands of necessity. Well now, that doesn't necessarily follow. The Lord does use affliction for spiritual ends. That much is obvious. He did so on an individual level with the Philippian jailer. How was the Philippian jailer awakened to see his need of salvation? It was through immediate temporal trouble. You remember that he was ready to kill himself in Acts 16 because he thought all the prisoners had fled and the Apostle Paul says, do thyself no harm for we are all here. and he called for a light and he sprang in and he said, Sir, what must I do to be saved? So the Lord does use external circumstances, external trouble and apparent calamity in order sometimes to genuinely awaken people spiritually. God can use circumstances to awaken individuals and he can also use circumstances to arouse his complacent church. So then another objection might be this, but I thought you say revival was when lots of people outside the church are converted. Well, usually that is so, at least in New Testament times. But this is not the beginning of revival. The word revival refers to the rekindling of something that's already there. Revival is when God revives what is there. When he revives the church. when you revise the church so that there is a change within the church. Yes, that includes superficial, false professing members being converted to Christ and coming to know the Lord as they never did before, but it also means the people of God, those who are genuine believers, being revived and quickened in their spiritual lives. And the result of a reviving within the church is a quickening of the prayer life of the church of God. So reviving begins when the Spirit of God works in reviving within the church so that there is an increase in prayer when the people of God are stirred to pray not only a single individual but many of the Lord's people are stirred and brought to greater earnestness in prayer and then the Lord answers prayer and there are effects not only within but also frequently outside the Church of God. So in Malachi 3 and verse 10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts. If I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." You see there is much confusion on this point. People say revival cannot be prayed down because it is a sovereign work of God. Now that statement indicates confusion. The assumption is that prayer is something that is natural and that revival has to do merely with those outside the church of God. Both of those things are quite wrong. Prayer is never, real prayer is never natural. Real prayer is supernatural. Real prayer is of the Spirit of God. There is not one of us who naturally, really prays. Every time we really pray it is supernatural. It is the work of the Spirit within us. And when the church is quickened to greater widespread earnest prayer, that is the beginning of revival. Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of grace and of supplications. And so just as all prayer is the result of the working of the Spirit within us, when there is a widespread quickening of the church's earnestness in prayer, that is the beginning of revival. So it is quite true that revival cannot be prayed down because prayer, a widespread increase and quickening in prayer is the work of the Spirit and it is the beginning of revival. And so we need to keep that in mind, that revival is not simply what happens when those outside the church are converted in large numbers, but the quickening of the prayer life of the people of God is the beginning of a sovereign work of revival by the Lord on high. And what we have here I believe is a reviving of the church. Like every revival it was mixed. Like every revival No doubt there were those, and perhaps in this case many, who were not genuinely moved by the Spirit of God. There was perhaps in some, perhaps many only a temporary change, but I believe there was a genuine working of the Spirit in causing the people to recognise that the Lord is the one against whom they had sinned and the Lord could deliver. we have the Lord raising up a Deliverer, the Lord raising up a Deliverer, and we read of that in verse 9, and the Lord raised up a Deliverer to the children of Israel who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Caleb, Caleb's younger brother. Othniel was a nephew of Caleb, although some would put the relationship rather more distant, but at any rate he was related to Caleb And from what we know of the age of Caleb and so on, it is quite probable that this man Othniel was in his fifties by this stage. and he was a man of experience. We know that because in chapter 1 and verse 12 and 13 we read of Othniel taking Curjazsephir and being given Caleb's daughter Axar to be his wife. So he was a man experienced in the battles of the Lord, the spiritual battles of the Lord. They were physical battles but they were always spiritual first of all, though they had a physical aspect. And we should neither despise nor idolise the Lord's human instruments. The Lord raised him up, the Lord gave him victory and yet in the spirit of God equipped him for this great work. And so we ought to recognise that the Lord uses human instruments and we are to acknowledge that and to recognise that and thus not despise human instrumentality but at the same time not to idolise that human instrumentality and see that the Lord is the one who gives gifts to men and who raises up leaders in his church. And these temporary deliverances by temporary judges all of course point to Christ, the eternal deliverer who brings eternal deliverance. Just as later on the imperfect and temporary kings point to the perfect and eternal king, the Lord Jesus Christ. But then sixthly, the Lord uses apostates against a backsliding church. The Lord uses apostates against a backsliding church, verse 12, after Othniel's time. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. And the Lord strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. and he gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek and went and smote Israel and possessed the city of palm trees so the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years so the Lord uses apostates against a backsliding church yesterday's blessings are not sufficient for today and so Israel backslides again Perhaps we're inclined to say, well then, there was nothing genuine in what took place in the days of Othniel. There was no genuine change among the people. But that doesn't follow, does it? We must understand the time span involved here. Every revival, the effects of every revival, decline until there is a fresh movement of the Spirit of God. Perhaps the work of God's Spirit in the last few hundred years that has had most long-term effects was the Protestant Reformation. The effects are still with us today, but not in the strength that they were in the 1600s. The great awakening that the Lord gave under the ministry of men like Whitefield, the effects of that have not carried on indefinitely. And so we cannot say there was nothing genuine. What we have here in the book of Judges is the ebbing and flowing of the Church of God and that still happens. It still goes on that There are those of God's people who live in days when the Lord's power is displayed in reviving. There are those who live in the midst of the decline of that. And there are those who live at the beginning of another mighty day of the Lord's power. So there is an ebbing and flowing in the history of the Church of God and I believe that's what we have in the book of Judges. and if we say well they didn't seem to learn much from the past but that is true today the professing church has learned very little from the past today but here there's a particular significance in the names of the enemy you'll see it's Moab and Ammon and Amalek Moab and Ammon descended from Lot were descended from Lot through his drunken incest with his daughters. You have that account of that grievous sin of a true believer a lot in Genesis 19 verse 30 to 38. Amalek, on the other hand, was descended from Abraham through Isaac and through Esau. You have that in Genesis 36, 9 to 12. So what we have here are three peoples who had been closely linked in their going back, their ancestors, their forebears, with the house of Abraham. Two of them are descended from Lot and one from Esau. And we've seen before how so often the most bitter enemies of the Old Testament church were those who were descended from those early apostates from the Church of God in the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So in Psalm 83, to which we have often referred, in Psalm 83 verse 5, For they have consulted together with one consent, they are confederate against thee, the Tabernacles of Edom, that is the descendants of Esau, and the Ishmaelites, Ishmael was Abraham's son, of Moab and the Hagarins, Gabal and Ammon and Amalek, the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre. The Midianites also were descended from Abraham via Kentura and so on. So that some of the bitterest and most unrelenting enemies of Israel were those tribes descended from the apostates from Israel. And you see how they managed to join together with their closely related tribes against Israel to whom they were closely related. And I believe this is for our learning that those who have most contact with the truth and reject it and despise it frequently become the most bitter enemies of the Lord and his people and are capable of forming alliances that normally they could never fall when they oppose the people of God. But again we are told, the Lord strengthened Eglon. That's in verse 12. The Lord strengthened Eglon, the king of Moab. And so even when the trouble comes from the most bitter and implacable enemies of the Lord, Even when trouble comes upon the church from the most wicked and hostile enemies of God and his people, it is still the providence of God. Even when it's those who detest the Lord and his people, it still comes about in the providence of God. And the Lord frequently uses apostate Christianity as the agency of affliction upon his people in order that they should see where apostasy, where rejection of the truth leads. It leads to open enmity against God and his truth and his people. The Lord uses apostate Christianity so that we may have an additional distaste for it, that we should see its fruits head on, and that we should be aware of what it really is. And so Eglon settled into the city of palm trees, that's Jericho. Jericho, where the Lord had given such a victory to his people, here's this man, Eglon, settled in Jericho, and Israel paying tribute to him. for 18 years this time. Then once again the people are stirred by the Spirit of God to pray and the Lord raised up Ehud and the Lord used the natural gifts which he had given to Ehud and also gave him the special enabling of his spirit and the courage which the Spirit of God can give. He used Ehud's left-handedness so that his dagger would be less likely to be noticed. And he used his natural skill. But the Lord, by the Spirit, gave him special strengthening and enabling in this work. And so Ehud led the group, presenting the year's tribute to Eglon. Then we read in verse 18 and 19 when you reach the quarries and if you have a margin reference you will see that the margin reference for quarries is graven images because it wasn't just quarrying stone, chiselling stone, it's almost certain that it's referring to the huge stone of the images that Eglon had set up at Gilgal. Gilgal where Israel had set up the 12 stones when they crossed the Jordan Gilgal where the covenant had been renewed and Eglon had set up his grave and images there surely this was a means whereby the Spirit of God stirred up Ehud to turn again and to bring a message from God to Eglon and he did bring a message from God everything that Ehud said to Eglon was true Everything he said was true. He said, I have a secret errand, verse 19. And so he did. And he says in verse 20, I have a message from God. And so he did. That message was one of immediate God-appointed judgment. But what he said was true. Wicked men do not deserve the truth. But we must always tell the truth. because God is the God of truth. There is a school of thought that if someone is wicked then they don't deserve the truth and we may tell them lies. Now that is false, that's not true. God never lies and neither should we. It is true that we are not obliged to tell men all that they would like to know. It is true that we are not obliged to tell wicked men what they have no right to know. But so far as we tell them anything, it must be true. God tells the truth to the undeserving. If it were not so, we would be without hope in the world. And we must always tell the truth and Ehud does tell the truth. And then he slew Eglon in the name of the Lord and he went and rallied the armies of Israel and the Lord gave them a great victory. And the land had rest for 80 years, we are told in verse 30. The land had rest for 80 years. The land of promise was where the people of God would enjoy covenant fellowship with the Lord as they believed his word. Thus the external blessing of the covenant facilitated the inner blessing of enjoyment of God through Christ Jesus and both were promised to a covenant-keeping, believing, repentant people and to no other. The land of Canaan and the enjoyment of fellowship with God go together when they turn from the Lord when they apostatised from him, they not only did not enjoy God, neither did they enjoy the land that was promised as the place of the enjoyment of God. And so, throughout the book of Judges, where there was unbelief, the enjoyment of the land, as well as the enjoyment of God himself, was taken away. And so here they had rest, they had peace, not only outward peace, but also the enjoyment of fellowship with the Lord in the land of promise. They enjoyed the promised fellowship in the promised land as they believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Then in the last verse of the chapter we have a lesser victory, something of a local victory when it probably only affected some of the western tribes against the Philistines. But this man, Shamgar, the son of Enath, slew of the Philistines 600 men with an ox goad. This was a local victory, using just an ox goad, the goad that was used to prod the oxes, and using this goad he slew 600 Philistines. The Lord gives local as well as widespread blessings to his people. Well, let's just sum up the lessons then. First of all, we must never consider ourselves above backsliding because of past blessing. We must watch and pray today. We must watch and pray today. We must never consider our church above backsliding or apostasy on account of a glorious and blessed history. That's particularly needed in a church like ours. The Reformed Presbyterian Church does have a wonderful history and its origins in the early covenanting times. It's glorious, it's wonderful, but there are no guarantees to any church on account of its glorious past. The Apostle Paul founded, by the grace of God, churches in Ephesus, Colossae and Philippi. But where are these churches now? Thirdly, we should see God's providence in all that comes upon the church. All that comes upon the church. We should see the hand of God in these things, even that which comes through the instrumentality of Satan and wicked men. Fourthly, we should see the Church's safety and prosperity as always coming from the hand of the Lord. It dishonours God when we look elsewhere for the preservation of the Church. we should see all gifted men as mere instruments of the Lord. They are not above biblical assessment and testing and yet when they are faithful to the Lord we should acknowledge them and acknowledge that the Lord does use them, that he puts the treasure in earthen vessels, he uses mere men to accomplish great things for his people. And then finally in the nation, or more to the point, in the Church. Today, everyone is doing right what is right in his own eyes. We are seeing that, not just in the world, but in the Church. There is not that submission to the Word of God, which there ought to be. In the Church of Jesus Christ, there is a pushing and shoving Everyone wants what they like rather than what the Word of God teaches. This is just the Book of Judges applied to today's church. We're used to applying it to the nation. We look at the wretched state of our nation and we say, ah, it's like the Book of Judges. Everyone does what's right in their own eyes. So it is. But the church, it's happening in the church that the authority of the Word of God is not acknowledged. and everyone pushes for what they prefer and they like and they fancy and they think would be a good idea. Well then let us pray for genuine revival within the church of God. Let us pray and let us pray for grace to pray because we pray but we don't pray as we ought to pray. So let us seek that the Lord would turn us and we shall be turned.