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I'm going to be reading from
Judges 2, 1 through 5, and obviously not just preaching on this. It
would take up my whole time if I read the whole book, but we're
going to try to give you a good, good summary of the book as a
whole in a bit. Then the angel of Yehovah came
up from Gilgal to Bokin and said, I led you up from Egypt and brought
you to the land of which I swore to your fathers. And I said,
I will never break my covenant with you and you shall make no
covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear
down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. Why have
you done this? Therefore, I also said, I will
not drive them out before you, but they shall be thorns in your
side and their gods shall be a snare to you. So it was when
the angel of Yehovah spoke these words to all the children of
Israel that the people lifted up their voices and wept. And
when they called the name of that place Bochem, and they sacrificed
there to Yehovah. And when Joshua had dismissed
the people, the children of Israel went each to his own inheritance
to possess the land. Amen. Father, we thank you for
the faithfulness of your messengers to bring rebuke when needed,
and to bring encouragement when needed, but to keep steering
us back to the road that you have called us to walk on. And I pray that each one of us
would cherish your word, cherish your law, cherish your grace,
and cherish the promises that you have given that are so awesome
and so splendid. So Father, I pray that you would
anoint me and enable me to faithfully bring your word a book that is
so relevant to our day and age. Bless me and bless this your
people as they hear, and I pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Well,
Judges is a book that contains some of the most wonderful stories
in the Bible. What child does not take delight
in the stories of Deborah and Barak and Gideon and Samson?
But this book also has stories that make you absolutely sick
to your stomach because they illustrate the depth to which
depravity can take us and can even take the heroes of the faith. And we're going to be seeing
some examples of that in this book. Now, it was brilliantly
written in a way where we don't take sin lightly. We don't delight
in evil. In fact, it brings us to hate
that evil and want to do something about it. It's very well written
in that way. Sin should always make us feel
ill. Second, this book is a powerful exposition of the irrational
cycle of sin that cultures often go through. It starts with small
compromises in the first generation. expanded compromises in the second
generation, a full slide into sin, and then God's discipline,
usually with civil government, which by the way, we'll see in
this book, God doesn't have a high opinion of centralized civil
government, but he does use it as a tool of discipline on a
corrupt people. That's about the only good thing
you got for civil government. It's a discipline tool, a spanking
tool. And then through the misery brought by civil government,
God brings the people to repentance, then deliverance, then to a recommitment
to his law. The chart of the cycle of sin
that's on the first page of your outlines there, that needs to
be burned into our memories and make us fear the little compromises
that over time escalate, especially in coming generations. Third,
this book shows that without revival, America is headed to
very tough times. as are most countries in Western
civilization. In a December 1951 speech, General
Douglas MacArthur gave what I consider to be a perfect summary of at
least part of the message of judges. He said about America,
this is 1951, In this day of gathering storms, as moral deterioration
of political power spreads its growing infection, it is essential
that every spiritual force be mobilized to defend and preserve
the religious base upon which this nation is founded. For it
has been that base which has been the motivating impulse to
our moral and national growth. History fails to record a single
precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed
into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual
reawakening to overcome the moral lapse or a progressive deterioration
leading to ultimate national disaster. And I believe he is
right. We are faced with only two options
in our nation, repentance or our nation is heading toward
disaster. And some people might say, OK,
well, did the nation head to disaster like General Douglas
MacArthur said it would? Well, actually God used General
Douglas MacArthur and several other heroes of that time to
speak out against the evils, and it actually brought our nation
to repentance. People a lot of times dismiss
that. They don't think that there was
much good going on. But there was such a movement
amongst the people that they elected all kinds of Christians
to Congress. Those were the days when Congress
produced a massive report documenting in detail that our nation was
always intended to be a Christian nation, but it was a nation that
was supposed to be following God's laws. That was the time
when they put one nation under God in our Pledge of Allegiance. That was the time when our national
motto became, In God We Trust. Now it was not a perfect revival,
but it was a turning back to God that parallels at least a
couple of the revivals that happened in the book of Judges. So fourth,
Judges is not simply a warning about compromise and sin. It
is also a book about the wonderful faithfulness of God in the face
of extreme sin. Part of that grace is God's disciplines
of his people. That is an act of grace. A lot
of people think, oh, we need more of God's grace. Well, that
is God's grace. When he's bringing his spanking stick, he loves
his church too much to allow it to go on indefinitely in their
sins, and he does not want them to be comfortable in their sins.
So while this book does display the utter ugliness of sins, it
also displays the beauty and the richness of God's grace.
I want to look first of all at the Christology of this book,
because I think it's rather unique. Each of the deliverances that
those judges brought stand as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ
who rescues us out of the clutches of Satan. Now, there's other
types of Christ in here as well. There's atonement, you know,
there's the sacrifices that they give. I'm not going to look at
those this morning. You need to keep those in mind.
There is Christology all through the book. We've dealt with those
kinds of things adequately. But the judges themselves were
types of Christ. Between the books of Judges and
1 Samuel, there are 17 judges in all. Some, like Othniel and
Gideon, were warrior rulers. Some, like Samuel, were prophets. Two of them were priests, Eli
and Samuel, so cumulatively they are types of the Lord Jesus Christ
who is the prophet, priest, and king, the ultimate one, the true
one that they were all pointing towards. And even their failures
is designed in a way that makes us realize, you know, these judges,
they're not the final answer. They're just small images, small
types that point us to the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can bring
about the peace and the righteousness that the Scriptures promise,
and He's going to do so in history. So these judges restored people
to God through the sacrifices, that's one type of Christ, and
committed the people to God's law. And as such, they show that
Jesus Christ himself is committed to law and gospel. Law and gospel
are anchor points in this book. So that's the Christology of
this book in a nutshell. And we can go home. Not quite.
There's more. The key word is judge. And that's
all I'll say there. I think that's pretty obvious
for this book. If you look at the visual outline, though, of
the book on the first side of your outlines, you will see the
logical structure that Samuel, the author of Judges, gave to
us. First two chapters are a double introduction that parallels a
double appendix at the end of the book. The bulk of the book,
in between chapter 3 through 16, illustrates what was brought
up in the introductions, the double introduction, and what
will be expanded upon in the double appendix. And he does
so by going through 14 judges' lives. So that's the overall
structure. It's very, very simple. You've got a theological introduction,
a theological conclusion, and you've got 14 judges who illustrate
the principles in that introduction and conclusion. Okay, so it's
pretty easy to keep that outline in your head. Now let's look
at the introduction first. Chapter 1 recounts some of the
characteristics of the first and second generations of the
Israelites after Joshua died. Now, it's obvious from this record
they were not perfect, but I'm gonna quickly lay out for you
seven absolutely fantastic, and I don't think I included those
in your bulletins, but fantastic characteristics of those first
and second generations. Despite their limitations and
some of their compromises, they really did have some splendid
aspects to their lives. Verse 1 shows that they were
committed to the task that Joshua had given them even after Joshua
had died. So they were going to do what
Joshua had asked them. They didn't just quit as soon as he dies.
Verse 2 shows that they were attentive to the Lord. That's
such an important characteristic of any nation that's going to
be blessed by God. Verses 3-4 show that they were obedient
and they were very decisive in their obedience. Verses 5-7 show
that they were sensitive to sin and injustice and they inflicted
on the pagan king Adonai Bezek, the justice that he deserved.
Strange name. He called himself the Lord of
lightning. You know, he had pretty high thoughts of himself, but
the true Lord of lightning and everything else in this world,
Jehovah, was going to bring him down. Now, some people think,
you know, that is so barbaric. Why on the earth did they cut
off his thumbs, both of his thumbs, both of his big toes, That was
just simply a literal application of the lex talionis principle
in the Old Testament, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth. There could, in some cases, be a ransom or a lesser penalty
that was brought or an equivalent penalty. But he was a king who
cut off the toes and the fingers of kings and made them crawl
around his table to humble them. And so they cut off his toes
and his thumbs. And because he had killed many
people, he was a murderer, he was put to death, but only after
he watched his glorious city of Jerusalem going up in flames. So there really is nothing barbaric
about it. It's not cruelty. It was perfect
administration of justice. Verses 8 through 14 show tenacity
in their conquest with Caleb and his son-in-law showing heroism
that does not die. Verses 12 through 15 show that
faith can be audacious in expectations. And some people say, oh, that's
really odd that he would promise to anybody who conquers, well,
he's promising to his generals, any of whom would have been worthy
to marry his daughter. you know, because they all had
faith. This was a faithful generation. And I don't think that her request
for the upper or lower springs was audacious, I mean, bad at
all. It was not negative. I think
it was an audacious, it was a bold faith, and we ought to have the
same kind of faith that they do. Then verses 16 through 20
show tremendous courage. So there's a lot of good points,
even of that second generation. But that was a transitional generation. God's work cannot all be finished
in one generation. It is a multi-generational calling,
and this is why covenant succession is so important if there is to
be compounded growth over time. Now, some of us have had losses,
you know, in our financial dealings, but you start again and you're
going to have compounded growth over time. That's what you're
looking for. And this chapter illustrates
two pretty good generations, but sadly, the book illustrates
the disappointing reality that they did things that stopped
the compounded growth. There was some covenant succession,
but they stopped the compounded growth of the kingdom over time. And we'll look at some of the
reasons for that. The glory years of the millennial
reign of the Lord Jesus Christ are going to be showing nonstop
compounded growth generation after generation until the whole
earth is filled with the glory of the Lord, filled with the
knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the ocean bed. It's
going to be so awesome to be able to see that. But it's important
that Christians understand if there are things that are going
to be cutting off this covenant succession in a compounded way.
We might think, oh, we've had covenant succession. Look, my
kids turned out okay. Yeah, but did you invest in them
in a way where there's going to be compounded growth over
time? That's the kind of stuff we're going to be looking at
today. So this chapter shows the breakdown of covenant succession
so that we can avoid the same problems. When the previous generation
passed the baton onto their children, their children were satisfied
with less than what God had called them to. Look at verse 21. Chapter 1, verse 21 says, But
the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who
inhabited Jerusalem. So the Jebusites dwell with the
children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. To this day is what? It's the day of Samuel. That's
a long time that they have been staying in Jerusalem. And the
crazy thing is the previous generation had completely dispossessed Jerusalem
of its inhabitants. They had conquered it. So why
are there Jebusites living in there? For some reason, they
saw an advantage to living side by side with these people in
the city. There was some pluralistic thinking that was going on in
their heads. The next verses, verses 22 to
the end of the chapter, show a mixture of doing God's will
but not doing it all the way. For some reason, they thought
that, hey, we've conquered these tribes. Why shouldn't we make
money off of them with tribute? Because look at all the expenditures
we've had. Why don't we make money off of
them with tribute rather than destroying them? It amounts to
the same thing, doesn't it? God said, no, it does not amount
to the same thing. I told you to destroy these tribes,
right? God explains failure to take
the conquest was not an issue of lack of ability. Too many
times we excuse our moral lapses and our laziness with this task
is too big for us. Let me tell you something, brothers
and sisters, if God commands you to do something, You can
do it because if God is with us, who can be against us, right?
So it's a lousy excuse to say, I can't do it. No, if God's commanded
you to do it, you say, Lord, give me the strength. I know
I can't do it on myself, but give me the strength to do this.
Now, chapter 2 backs up to the time just before chapter 1, verse
1. This is confusing to people,
but let me completely sort out this confusion. If you look at
chapter 1, verse 1, It starts with now after the death of Joshua,
but in chapter 2, verse 6, Joshua dismisses the people. So he's
still alive, right? So what chapter 2 is doing is
it's going back in time to just before chapter 1 begins. That's why I say this is a double
introduction. Rather than being chronological,
The introduction and the conclusion are theological overviews of
the whole period of Judges. In other words, the whole period
from chapter 3 to chapter 16. That's what the conclusion and
the introduction are dealing with. Chapter 1 is one snapshot
of that period that's being discussed. Chapter 2 is another snapshot
of the same period. Chapter 1 uses some examples
to show failure. Chapter 2 uses some examples
to show the underlying causes or reasons for that failure.
Now, in terms of causes, some of it involves the influences
that the Canaanites had upon their children, much like the
Canaanites have been educating the children of believers for
many, many generations in America. They've had a huge influence
upon our children. Chapter 2 gives, in a nutshell,
the series of cycles of sin that are going to be going on throughout
this book and that inevitably lead, if not the next generation,
at least the third generation, to no longer have a consistent
Christianity or even to abandon the faith altogether. Many people
are mystified as to why hundreds of thousands of Christians are
leaving the Christian faith in America and in the West. Why
are they doing that? They're mystified. If you read
the book of Judges, you won't be mystified at all. It makes
perfect sense. It makes perfect sense. So, some of the compromises
and failures to conquer that happened in this chapter happened
even before Joshua died. Let's start reading at verse
1 of chapter 2. Chapter 2, verse 1. And the angel
of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochem and said, I led you
up from Egypt, brought you into the land which I swore to your
fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and
you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.
You shall tear down the altars. But you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Therefore
I also said, I will not drive them out before you, but they
shall be thorns in your side and their God shall be a snare
to you. So it was when the angel of the Lord spoke these words
to all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their
voices and wept. Then they called the name of
that place Bokim. Bokim means weeping. Called the
name of that place Bokim, and they sacrificed there to the
Lord. And when Joshua had dismissed the people, the children of Israel
went each to his own inheritance to possess the land." Okay, cool.
They repented. They recommitted themselves to
doing what they were supposed to do in the first place. That's
a wonderful thing. So, the point here is that all
of chapter 1 happens immediately after verse 6 of chapter 2. All of chapter 1 happens immediately
after verse 6 of chapter 2, after Joshua dies. The temptation to
compromise had happened with the most faithful generation
in the history of Israel, okay, but their repentance, and that
is key, led to very faithful actions until that generation
died out. Chapter 2 verse 7 says, So the
people served the Lord, Yehovah, all the days of Joshua and all
the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the
great works of Yehovah, which he had done for Israel. And we
know from verse eight, how long Joshua lived. He lived to 110.
So he died in 1424 BC, according to Usher's chronology. So there
were 20 years, pretty faithful, decent faithfulness. And another
eight years before the elders who were part of the initial
conquest had completely died off. And it's getting near the
end of the second generation as well. But chapter one already
informed us that the children of the second generation were
willing to make treaties. When the first generation were
willing to make minor compromises with the Canaanites, and granted
they repented of them, when they were willing to do that, the
second generation went a step further And then the grandchildren
were willing to embrace Baal worship entirely. That is the
way human nature goes. It may not seem like much of
a compromise in the first generation, but compounded growth of covenant
succession guarantees growth of both evil, if it is neglected,
or good, if it is nurtured. Okay? So verses 10 through 15
speak to the grandchildren. when all that generation had
been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after
them who did not know the LORD, or the Yehoah, nor the work which
he had done for Israel. Then the children of Israel did
evil in the sight of Yehoah, and served the Baals. And they
forsook Yehoah God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the
land of Egypt. And they followed other God's from among the gods
of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to
them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. They forsook Yehoah,
and the serf bailed, and the Ashtoreths. And the anger of
Yehoah was hot against Israel. So he delivered them into the
hands of plunderers who despoiled them, and he sold them into the
hands of their enemies all around. so that they could no longer
stand before their enemies. Wherever they went out, the hand
of Yehoah was against them for calamity, as Yehoah had said
and as Yehoah had sworn to them, and they were greatly distressed."
To have the hand of God against us is not a good thing. If Satan's
against you, your neighbors are against you, God's against you,
just give up quick, repent, and say, Lord, I want you to be with
me. So these were Christians who
were trying to plunder the wisdom of the pagans. I've heard Christians
say that. You know, we're just plundering.
I said, no, no, no. The Israelites, when they left
Egypt, plundered the gold and silver, but they did not plunder
the wisdom of Egypt. They left that behind. But they're
trying to plunder the wisdom of Egypt, or the pagan Canaanites
in this case, But it's the Canaanites who end up plundering them instead. They cry out, God gives them
judges, the judges rule for a time according to God's laws, but
eventually the people compromise again. If you look at 17b, so
they turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked
in obeying the commandments of Yehovah, they did not do so. And this cycle keeps repeating.
God uses civil, evil governments to afflict His people. The affliction
makes them cry out to God. God raises up judges who turn
the hearts of the people back to Him. So that's the pattern.
I'm going to read two more verses to illustrate that, and the first
is 18 to 19. And when Yehoah raised up judges
for them, Yehoah was with the judge and delivered them out
of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For
Yehoah was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who
oppressed them and harassed them. And it came to pass when the
judge was dead that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than
their fathers by following other gods to serve them and bow down
to them. They did not cease from their
own doings, nor from their stubborn way. So chapter two summarizes
the cycles of sin found in the heart of this book. And again,
if you look at the graphic on the first side of your outlines,
I've tried to display that for you. And over the 350 years that
this book covers, Israel went through that cycle at least seven
times. Now that's amazing when you think
about it. It's certainly amazing in terms
of God's patience with them. Patience over those 350 years. But it's also amazing that they
don't learn from their own history. They keep repeating the same
mistakes over and over again, sort of like we do, right? I
also find it amazing that this is almost a mirror image of America's
history. This was one of the most fascinating
things I came upon when I first started studying this a few months
ago. It's so close to the cycles in our history. Not only parallels
the approximate same amount of time from the pilgrims to the
present, but the same similar experiences. Every sin in the
book of Judges including the horrifying rape and the cutting
up of that woman in chapter 19, have happened in America. And
it's not just Jeffrey Dahmer. There have been a number of cases
of that happening in America. We have moved from being a confederation
of explicitly Christian republics that served the Lord during the
colonial era to a nation state 350 years later that rivals any
Baal state or Moloch state that is described in this rather gruesome
book. None of those tyrants had worldwide
interventionism like we do. None of those tyrants had the
kind of sophisticated technology that can spy on absolutely everything
we say on our phones and everything that we do. None of those tyrants
had agencies that are supposed to be governing every facet of
our lives like we do. We tend to be blind to America's
evils, but when you compare the evils in America, and even worse
in Europe, and some of those countries, to the evils and judges,
you realize, you know, we are probably going to be facing some
tough times if God is at all true to His promise that He is
the same yesterday, today, and forever. Tony Couchey is correct
when he says that America has a remarkable, quote, similarity
to the experience of Israel during the period of the judges in the
Old Testament. The same cycle of sin and apathy, decline and
defeat, desperate prayer for God's help, and finally, his
powerful intervention characterizes every revival. Perhaps there
is a clue here regarding where today's church should be concentrating
her efforts. Now, because people are all over
the map on defining where these different revivals begin and
end, I want to outline the six great awakenings that happened
in America according to quite a number. The people who actually
specialize in the study of revivals have said, no, it really breaks
out into six great awakenings, not two or three. First great
awakening of 1727 was under the leadership of George Whitefield.
Now, this was largely a reformed movement, resulted in perhaps
the most massive shift in morals in the entire history of America. It was an amazing shift that
happened. If you haven't studied that time
period, you can easily gloss over it. But our nation went
from gross immorality, high crime, gangs terrorizing the seaboard,
rampant pornography and immorality, numerous highwaymen stealing
things when you're traveling down the roads, to a time when
the sheriffs and their deputies were out of work because there
was no crime. It was remarkable. It affected
politics. The evil we're experiencing is
not new in history. We have gone through this downward
spiral a number of times and have been rescued out of it. So 1727 began the first Great
Awakening. Now sadly, the next 65 years
saw godly people being enamored with the academics of France.
And they would go to France to get educated, And it would bring
this humanistic education. They rejected some of the education,
but a lot of it filtered down, and it began corrupting the academics
of Christian academies right here in the United States. By
the way, that's the same time period when our Declaration of
Independence was written and our Constitution was written.
You can see exactly the same humanistic streams from France
that have infected those two documents. They're great documents,
some of the best documents that civil magistrates have put out,
but they are not perfect documents. They're certainly not inspired
like the Mormon church thinks, not at all. They need to be perfected. But anyway, I'm just trying to
give you a little bit of a background of what was happening to the
church. They were enamored with the academics of France, And
it impacted them. And the Second Great Awakening,
there was corruption then, immorality that began developing again.
Second Great Awakening happened 65 years after the first one,
and went from 1792 and onwards. And it produced not only social
changes, but massive missions movements. And actually, this
revival hit the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany,
and other countries. Some of you have read some of
Robert Haldane's commentaries and other works. He would be
a representative of Europe. And a person like Timothy Dwight
would be an American representative of a Reformed camp. Now, in some
places, the Reformation was substantial and produced holiness, whereas
in other places, I would say it was largely emotionalism.
The good effects probably lasted about 30 years. Now this is the
difference between Reformation and Revival. Revival is very
short term. Reformation has the potential
of being very long term and affecting every aspect of culture. The
Third Great Awakening of 1830 had good men like Asahel Nettleton,
but it also had manipulators like Charles Finney. I have almost
zero respect for Charles Finney. He is not a hero of mine at all.
Tremendous manipulator, did not, anyway, we won't get into that,
but here's the point. God did use Finney to lead many
people to a genuine knowledge of the Lord. God used him as
a tool. So some people call this the
second Great Awakening. It really is the third Great
Awakening, and I can demonstrate that if you want in other contexts. Wales had powerful preachers
during this Great Awakening like John Elias, Christmas Evans,
William Williams, James Caughey was an evangelist who ministered
in the United States, England, and Canada. Scotland had the
likes of Thomas Chalmers, Robert Murray-McChain. Some of you have
probably read Murray-McChain's stuff. W.H. Burns, William Chalmers
Burns. This great awakening spread even
to Scandinavia, Central Europe, South Africa, the Pacific Islands,
India, Malabar, and Ceylon. It lasted until 1842, so about
12 years. And the impact of those 12 years
continued to last for some time. The fourth great awakening was
15 years later. It started in 1857 and produced massive growth
of the church in Canada, America, Europe, Western Russia, Australia,
the South Seas, South Africa, and India. So it was a worldwide
movement as well. In America, 50,000 people a week
were being added to the church, and that is incredibly significant
when you realize America's population was only 30 million back in those
days. One million came to Christ out
of Britain's 27 million, and I'll just break down some of
the numbers of Great Britain. Ulster saw 100,000 converted. Scotland saw 30,000. Wales saw
100,000. England saw 500,000. And let
me throw out some names that you might immediately recognize.
Moody, Sankey, Charles Spurgeon, and others were powerfully used
by God. Now, were they all reformed?
No. And let me tell you something,
God does not need Reformed people to bring revival. He will use
anyone whose heart is captured by Him. He is not dependent upon
us as well. He used people like Hudson Taylor,
Lord Shaftesbury, many other notables sprang from this movement
of God. The Fifth Great Awakening started
in 1880 and lasted till 1903 and largely revolved around D.L.
Moody, Billy Sunday, Andrew Murray in
South Africa, and John McNeil in Australia. And the Sixth Great
Awakening is really a collage of numerous revivals around the
world. The most famous of these was
the Welsh Revival. That's probably the one you've
heard of. But a shockwave was felt all over America. Though
there were solid men in each of these revivals, the revival
was sadly marred by Pentecostal extremes, and there were other
extremes like Perfectionism. Perfectionism is like the Wesleyan
perfectionism. You come to the place in your
Christian life where you have a second baptism of the Holy
Spirit, and then you become perfect. You never sin again. And I've
talked to people who've said, oh, I haven't sinned in 21 years.
I said, well, that's a sin right there because you just called
God a liar. So I blew his bubble. Actually, he didn't think I did.
He continued to think he did not sin. Finney had another slightly
different perfectionism. There was a more moderate perfectionism
called the higher life movement. So the point is these movements
were from God, were used by God, and even many of these men whom
I strongly disagree with, I admire, they have done great good in
God's kingdom. I love them as brothers in the
Lord, even though their theology was hugely marred, and I will
add, just like many of the revivals in the book of Judges that God
clearly used, were sadly marred by bad theology and by bad practices. Okay, it's just giving you a
little bit of perspective. I give those revival statistics because
I think they parallel the cycles of judges in many ways, and Reformed
people tend to be way too critical. You know, we criticize some of
the leaders in the second, third, fourth, fifth Great Awakenings
in America as having theological issues. And I say, I agree with
you. They did have theological issues. But let me tell you something,
brother. Let me tell you something, sister.
Compared to Gideon and Samson and Abimelech, every one of these
guys is saints, okay? I'm gonna wrap my arms around
these brothers, and because God wrapped his arm around Gideon
and Samson and some of these guys, I gotta wrap my arms around
them too. I might smack them a couple of times, but anyway,
we do have to have a little bit of perspective and not be so
perfectionistic. Now why, why did these great
awakenings end up being so short-lived. Their impact lasted at the most
for one or two generations, and then things were bad again. Part
of the problem was that parents failed to give consistently Christian
education and discipleship, preferring the lazy way of letting the Canaanites
disciple their kids in the public schools. I'm talking about America
here. And they said, well, our kids,
they went to government schools, and they turned out OK. And I
could say the same thing. I went to a government school.
I turned out OK, right? And actually, I've found over
the years more and more things that I've had to get rid of,
get rid of, because I didn't even realize that they were unbiblical
concepts that had been drilled into me. They may have staying
power in God's kingdom, But what you've done when you send your
children away to government school is you've cut out the compounding
growth. You're not adding from the Scriptures
the depth that needs to be there if there is to be compounded
kingdom growth. Now, I'll admit that part of
the problem was formalism in the Church of America, and part
of it was children seeing compromises and hypocrisy in the parents,
and then either leaving the faith or justifying their even greater
compromises. What we need today is not revival. Now, I'll welcome a revival if
God gives it. He's sovereign in what He gives,
but I long for a reformation that will be greater than any
reformation that we have had before. America and the worldwide
church desperately needs a full-scale reformation. So let's take a
survey of the heart of the book. Chapter 3, verses 1 through 6
shows a backslidden condition of the church once again, and
God makes them suffer severely under Kushan Rishathayim, the
king of Mesopotamia. These Jews were so backslidden
that they had married unbelievers. And just as God raised up preachers
in America and in Europe, God raised up Ophniel, filled him
with the Holy Spirit, and after delivering the people through
warfare, he judged the people. Now, to judge the people of Israel
should not be thought of in terms of the modern state. There was
nothing like that in the Bible, like what we have today, the
overreaching state. It shouldn't even be thought
of in terms of the later kings of Israel. A judge had two main
functions. First of all, to protect the
people by military leadership, one needed, but not with a standing
army. And in second, to reestablish
God's law as the law by which all of the judges of the nation
would judge their court cases. So Othniel, just like Eli and
Samuel, he was not the only judge. That'd be ridiculous for millions
of people to have one judge. No, he trained all of the local
judges and the laws of God, and he called the people as he went
around his circuit back to the laws of God. That was one of
his main functions. The judges had very decentralized,
for the most part, very decentralized government, similar to our original
Articles of Confederation. And he was successful, Othniel
was, in bringing the people back to the law of God. So it says
that the land had rest for 40 years. That doesn't seem like a really
long time. Why does God allow short-term revivals? Why doesn't
He change people for all time? You know, it's a complicated
answer, and I'm not sure that I have an uncomplicated, a complicated
question. I don't have an uncomplicated
answer. But if I was forced to give a simple answer, and it's
not adequate, but if I was forced to give a simple answer, it would
be given to you under three points. The first point is God is sovereign
and His providences are sometimes mysterious. And some people say,
that's a cop-out, Phil. And I agree, it sort of is, but
it's true. You cannot make a revival. I've heard so many people say,
we're scheduling a revival for next year. No, you cannot. God is sovereign. He brings it.
Now, does He use some of our means? Yes, when God is going
to bring a revival, He stirs up prayer, He stirs up other
things. We're going to look at man's role in a bit, but God
is sovereign. over revival. Second, the book
of Judges shows why parents must pass on the faith by engaging
in Christian education as demanded in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Deuteronomy
6 is a fascinating passage. I think it demands homeschooling
because it says that we are to bring God's Word to bear in discipling
our kids when they sleep So how do you sleep? How do you deal
with your dream life? How do you go to bed at the right
time? How to get up? How to eat? How to go by the
wayside? How to work? Everything we do
needs to be discipled from the Word of God. You can't do that
if you've sent your child away for eight hours out of the day. And so the lure of free education
has been disastrous to Christianity in America. There is no way that
you can give 12 years of intense discipleship by pagans into just
a couple of hours, you know, a day that Christians try to invest
through devotions and other things like that, and it destroys covenant
succession. There will never be compounded
growth of the kingdom without consistent Christian education. So why do we homeschool in a
radically biblical way? Because we want compounded kingdom
growth. Now, I praise God for raising
up people who work in government schools and try to ameliorate
some of this negativity there, and people who work in politics,
and people who work in—that's being leavened in society, but
our kids aren't ready for that. They have to be discipled. Third,
God insists on antithesis even by faithful believers. If our
generation will not consistently apply God's law to all that we
do, why should the next generation not follow suit, just imitate
us, or be even less consistent? God has set up laws of cause
and effect, and one of those laws of cause and effect is that
compromise always begets more compromise, not less. You plant one dandelion in your
a yard, just one dandelion seed every year, and your kids are
going to have thousands of dandelions in their yard. But if each generation
is pulling up these dandelions, then no generation is going to
have an over amount of work. My generation had a lot of work
to try to reverse some of the things, and that's what some
of you guys, some of you are first generation on this. A lot of
work, but take heart. Over time, it gets easier and
easier. Compounded kingdom growth. Now
one side note. is that Othniel's name in chapter
3 verses 5 through 11 means God is powerful. God is my protector. Now you could say he named himself
that. He was Caleb's brother. It could be Caleb and him named
themselves, but I think his parents probably named Caleb and Othniel,
and Caleb has a bad name. Othniel's got a great name. He's
the younger brother. I think that his parents came
to faith later in life, and Caleb got the lousy name before they
were Christians. Othniel got the good name. But
to me, this is so encouraging. You first-generation Christians
can make a huge difference. I mean, you look at Caleb. Incredible,
the difference that he made. You look at Othniel. It was absolutely
incredible, the difference that he made. Don't be discouraged. By the way, he was, when I say
he was first generation, he was not even a Jew. Neither Caleb
nor Ophiel were Jews. They were Kenizzites who were
converted, they became Jews, but previously they were outside,
they were not descendants of Abraham. So what matters is faith
and faithfulness, not ethnicity. So even the first and second
generation of Christians can be as faithful in passing on
the faith as Caleb was. Now let me make three additional
very, very quick applications from Othniel's life. Verses 1
through 2 make it clear that war is biblical and legitimate.
Some people struggle with that, but God deliberately left tyrants
to exist in order to teach His people war. That implies God
says it's legitimate to war, right? So that should not be
a conscience issue. Verses 6 through 7 show that
intermarriage between believers and unbelievers is a grave sin
that receives God's judgment. Verses 9 through 10 shows that
secession of a portion of a country from an ungodly country is a
legitimate aspect of interposition. The secession of the southern
states from the northern states in America perfectly lawful,
perfectly legitimate. I don't agree with all of their
reasons for doing so. But secession is allowed in the
Scripture. There's a lot of other practical
stuff in that section, but let's move on. Second cycle is in verses
12 through 30. Now once again the church tolerates
sin in its midst and God brings discipline. Once again through
statism. Eglon, the king of Moab, I've
got a sort of picture of him in the outline there, was a tyrant
who exacted onerous tribute from Israel. I view taxes as being
God's discipline to humble us. Taxes is never a good thing.
Never, ever, ever. It is always a bad thing. It
is discipline upon God's people. If you want proof of that, you
can talk with me for an hour afterwards. But it is not a good
thing. Or you can talk with Robert Fugate,
who's written a whole book on the subject. Ehud was a civil
representative of Israel. By God's spirit, he planned a
daring assassination attempt in order to rescue Israel. It's
a very fun story. You ought to read it. It results in war. Israel wins the war. And this
time, the land has rest for 80 years. That's phenomenal. That's
enough time for a third generation to grow up and to be faithful
in the Lord, in the ways of their parents and their grandparents.
And more on that later. Now this section teaches us some
more things. Is it okay to break forced treaties?
I believe so. Verse 15 indicates that they
were under a treaty to bring tribute, but it was a forced
treaty, not something voluntarily entered into, and it was an ungodly
treaty. Are assassinations allowed? I believe so. If they are done
by a lawfully, legitimately elected civil magistrate. Verses 12 through
25, chapter 4, verse 21, chapter 5, verses 24 through 27, they
all indicate that assassination of a tyrant is a good thing.
It's sometimes the most efficient way to win a war with the least
loss of life. Is deceit and intrigue allowed
during a time of war? Sometimes people have really
struggled over that. Read the story of Joshua in the
previous book and you will see that God, by direct order, caused
them to deceive their enemy. And here we see that illustrated
in verse 19, a spirit anointed leader doing so as an act of
war. So during war, deceiving the
enemy is allowed. You do not need to have conscience
problems if you're in the military and your state calls you to deceive
the enemy, not your people. Make a distinction there, but
the enemy that you are at war with. Are national armies allowed? Verses 27 through 29 would indicate
so, but numbers would specify that it should be voluntary and
it should be divided up under locally run units. General Stonewall
Jackson, just as a little tidbit of history, he referred to passages
like this, a book of Joshua and Judges, he would go to over and
over again as he taught in his War College, War Ethics and War
Strategies. These are the kinds of things
that we don't have time to get into today. There's so much cool
stuff in the book of Judges. Now, based on the introductory
two chapters, we can assume that after 80 years, Israel followed
the cycle of sin and experienced God's hand of discipline. Yes,
you guessed it, from a wicked state. God doesn't have a very
high opinion of centralized governments. The Old Testament does not look
upon bullying centralized police states as good in any other way
than to oppress a corrupt people. People get what they deserve,
is what I often say. Just like we, when we vote in
those people, that's exactly the kind of corrupt people that
are corrupt a nation deserves. Now, thankfully, our God is a
God of grace and mercy, and God raised up Shamgar to deliver
Israel, presumably after they repented. And I say presumably
because God didn't want to have to repeat himself on every single
story. So in chapter 2, he says, this
is the principle. This cycle is always going to
be happening in chapters 3 through 16. So even if I don't repeat
myself, you can assume each of these steps was there, right?
So that's why I say there's a presumption there. But there is a historical
detail that I want to point out just to protect you. Your modern
establishment study Bibles follow Thiel's, T-H-I-E-L-E, Thiel's
errant chronology, and Thiel has Shamgar, Deborah, Barak,
and Gideon as all ruling at the same time. And worse, they later
are forced to put Abimelech, Tola, Jireh, Jephthah, Ebaz,
Elon, Eli, and Samson as having at least overlapping rules with
each other. Now in contrast, if you look
at the chart that I've made based on James Usher and Floyd Nolan
Jones books, you will see that I have all of the judges in this
book as being sequential. Modern revisionist historians
don't see these judges as being sequential and it leads them
to numerous blatant contradictions. For example, what's the very
next verse? It says, when Ehud was dead, and then it gives the
history of Deborah. When he was dead. Deborah and
Ehud could not have contemporary judgeships. It's impossible.
Chapter 10, verse 1 says, After Abimelech there arose to save
Israel Tola. Tola clearly comes after Abimelech. Verse 3 says, After him arose
Jireh. I mean, it's just plain silly
to say that those three ruled contemporaneously, and yet several
modern study Bibles, some of which you may have in your laps
right now, do exactly that. They're contemporaries, they
say. Now they try to reconcile it by saying, hey, some of these
judges only ruled over tiny parts of Israel. They didn't rule over
the whole. They still got a problem because it says after this judge
died, this one arose. They got that problem. And secondly,
where does it say that this judge only ruled over a part of Israel?
It does not say that. Chapter 10, verse 2 says, Tola
judged Israel. not part of Israel, but Israel.
Verse 3 says, Jire judged Israel. And yet you have charts galore
all over the web that have these judges all mixed up and bundled
together and only ruling over tiny portions of Israel. And
you might wonder, how on earth did such diverse divergencies
happen That's a redundancy, isn't it? Diverse divergencies. How
on earth did this happen that evangelicals would buy into something
like that? Well, the first reason is that
the evangelical church of today has followed Edwin Thiel in making
the secular chronologies of Assyria and Egypt primary and forcing,
I mean literally, forcing the biblical chronologies and text
into those errant, and they are very errant, chronologies. even
though it produces massive contradictions in the Bible, even when it clearly
makes the Bible's history 44 years too short. Why would they
do that? Well, my guess is it's in part
because of a lust for academic respectability with the liberals.
It is, after all, hard to buck the establishment when most evangelical
pastors have been trained by the establishment. In any case,
Biblicists should not follow Thiel since he did not operate
with biblical presuppositions. I'll just give you one example
from his book. Quoting Thiel, he says, if the biblical chronology
seems to be at variance with Assyrian chronology, it may be
because of errors in the Hebrew records. Uh-uh. No way. And yet evangelicals follow him
blindly. Why? Because he's the scholar. And
he represents evangelical scholarship, right? He's the scholar. By the way, if everybody's supposed
to trust these Assyrian chronologies that we're fitting the Bible
into, I say, okay, just read a little bit earlier in those
same Assyrian chronologies when they have kings reigning for
tens of thousands of years. Oh, no, no, no. Well, that part
we don't follow. I say, yeah, but you're saying this part we
have to, but the earlier part of the Assyrian record we don't
have to follow? It's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. So I can
show you numerous places in the Bible where Theo either changes
the Bible, assumes there was a mistake or a scribal error
in the Bible, ignores key verses that contradict his thesis, or
says that it cannot be reconciled. At one point, he has to make
a third Hebrew kingdom. And this is the guy who's followed
by all evangelicals. He has to make a third Hebrew
kingdom out of thin air to rescue something that is irreconcilable
in his system. He made up five co-regencies
out of thin air. I highly recommend the chronology
of James Usher, especially as it's been retooled by Floyd Nolan
Jones. Now, why do I even bother to
give you that background information? For one thing, some of your study
Bibles are going to make you utterly confused. And so you've
got to be cautious. Are these people really biblical
in their background? You've got to be very cautious
with what you read. And secondly, what I want to
illustrate with this is that the evangelical world is so in
bed with the world's scholarship, they don't even realize that
they are tainted. It's just pervasive. Now, thankfully,
this is not so of Creation Ministries International or of Answers in
Genesis. They are putting out some fabulous
stuff in terms of chronology. So I'm pointing you in the right
direction of where you can get good history. OK, let's move
to chapters four and five. I love the story of Deborah and
Barack. Though Barak later became a great leader in Israel, Deborah
has to coax and push him to do the right thing. She did not
use her prophetic gift as an excuse to take over his role
as political leader. In fact, the very opposite is
true. When you read the passage, it's quite clear that Deborah
did not leave the army. She did not recruit soldiers,
did not fight. She did not even lead Israel
before the war or after the war, period. None of that happened.
She was a judge of disputes by divine prophetic inspiration. So she only had one of the functions
of the judge. And thus, if people were to disobey
her inspired revelation, they didn't say they disobeyed her.
They disobeyed God, is what it says. She was not ruling over
them. She was simply a passive vehicle for God's inerrant revelation. Let me just give you some points,
because feminism has so distorted the story of Deborah that I think
we need to counter that. Let me give you four points that
show that she is a marvelous, marvelous model for what we believe
the rest of Scripture teaches. First, Chapter 4, verse 6 makes
it clear that Barak was commanded to lead, not Deborah. History
by itself is not normative. God's commands are. And even
apart from the law of God, which is crystal clear, this historical
account gives God's command for the male to lead. She says, has
not the Lord God of Israel commanded, go and deploy troops? So Deborah
said, hey, that's a man's job. You go do it, Barak. Second,
the fact that Barak didn't want his God-given leadership role
in verse 8, and the fact that Barak may have theoretically
disobeyed that command, though I don't think he did disobey
it, but some people think he did, just because, let's say
theoretically he did, does not empty the command of its obvious
meaning. Thus, however you interpret the
de facto leadership that happened, you cannot explain away the de
jure command that the male must lead the nation in this passage. Now, I happen to believe that
the de facto and the de jure are perfectly reconciled, but the
point is, Deborah, by inspiration, said, you lead. Third, verses
8 through 9 clearly indicate that Barak's need of Deborah's
moral support was a shame and not something to be imitated
today. Now, how could it possibly be a shame on an egalitarian
interpretation? It wouldn't have been a shame
at all. If feminism is true, it would have been something
to model. It would not have been a shame. And so here's the point. Shameful conduct should not be
imitated. It should be avoided. Fourth,
Deborah kept insisting that Barak take his leadership role as women
should do today. She insisted on male headship
of the army, chapter 4, verse 6. Male headship of the government,
chapter 5, verse 2. She only saw herself as a mother
in Israel. Now, there's a big difference
between being a mother in Israel and being the mother of Israel. In other words, being over them. She was not. She's just a mother.
She's another mother in Israel. That's chapter 5, verse 7. In
the two capacities she did act in, she is listed as being under
the authority of a man. As a judge, she is described
in chapter 4, verse 4, as a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth. In composing
the song, we find Deborah sings with Barak in chapter 5. But
she actually takes a backseat in absolutely everything else. We find that Barak takes leadership
in drafting an army, chapter 4, verse 10. It is Barak that
Sisera sees as the head of the army, chapter 4, verse 12. Barak
takes leadership in the fighting, chapter 4, verse 14, 15, 16,
and 22. And Hebrews, which looks back
on this event and summarizes all of these events, he only
mentions the valor of Barak, Hebrews 11, 32. The story of
Deborah is not a justification for female politicians. It is
the opposite. It is a clear rebuke to men who
will not leave. And on my kaisercommentary.com
blog, I have a number of exegetical points that show Deborah to be
a marvelous rebuke to feminism. I love the character and the
role of Deborah. She was a marvelous woman who
knew her place under God, who was super confident in that role. And yes, she was willing to bring
a rebuke to men who failed to lead. And I say, good for her.
We need more of her kind of rebukes to modern wimpy men. Now, let
me quickly list a few applications that may be of interest to you.
Chapter five, verse eight says, not a shield or spear was seen
among 40,000 in Israel. And the rest of Israel had to
get their weapons illegally. But of the 40,000, not a spear
or shield could be found. Here's the point. Throughout
history, tyrants sought to disarm the people, whereas leaders who
were actually interested in liberty always insisted that the people
be armed. These judges always allowed their
people to get rearmed, insisted upon it. and kept them rearmed
during the duration of their judgeship. Any government that
seeks to disarm its citizens is by definition a tyrannical
government that should repent, period. Interestingly, when Israelite
citizens were disarmed by tyrants and they could not obtain first-class
weapons, that sometimes happens, no biggie, they perfected alternative
weapons. Shamgar in chapter 3, verse 31
has a homemade weapon, as does Ehud. Jail is praised as a woman
for killing a man with a tent peg, chapter 5, verses 24 through
20. I mean, you use what you can get, right? But the value
of being armed can be seen throughout the book as well. Judges 3, verse
27, Ehud calls all Israel to arms, but interestingly, he does
not supply those arms. The Bible expects citizens to
already have them and know how to use them. By the way, Jesus
said exactly the same thing. In Luke 22, 36, Jesus said, he
who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. And
Judges 5, there is praise for Israelites who quickly responded
to the call of arms. Verse 9, that was given by the
recruiter in verse 14. Reuben, Gilead, Dan, and Asher
are criticized for not having the courage to join the uprising
in verses 16 through 17. Even stronger language is given
to the city of Meraz. Let me quote it. Curse Meroz,
said the angel of the Lord. Curse its inhabitants bitterly,
because they did not come to the help of the Lord, or the
help of the Lord against the mighty." So if you don't want
to be cursed by the Lord, you better pay attention to that
verse. Very important. That verse indicates it is a
moral responsibility to have arms, to be prepared to use them
when a civil magistrate calls for righteous interposition.
The people were cursed when they did not respond to the recruiter. With each of the judges, this
was an assumed responsibility. Now, I've got a ton of stuff
out of the sermon. I'm probably putting too much
in this morning. But if I ever preach through judges again,
I'll probably take a year because it is just loaded with things
like this, just absolutely loaded. In chapter six, we see another
cycle of sin leading to bondage and then deliverance by Gideon.
Now, the bondage was only seven years. I find that such an encouraging
story in judges. You don't have to have the 40
years, you know, that chapter 13, verse 1, had Israel go through
40 years of misery. This was only seven years of
misery. Our God is so good. So don't assume you always have
to go through a long time. All it takes is for God's people,
not the whole nation, but for God's people to repent. And what
did the verse we've read, what, three times today say? God will
not only be with His church, He'll heal the whole land. It's
really a cool promise. So, another application is that
since God brings the sinful actions of tyrants as a spanking stick
to discipline His people, a proper response to God is needed rather
than simply moral outrage against the tyrants. Louis de Boer said,
ultimately, what is the church confronting when it faces the
issue of tyranny? We may say that we're dealing with wicked
men. We may go a step further and say, we're not dealing with
mere flesh and blood, but are confronting principalities and
powers, even Satan himself. But ultimately, we are dealing
with God. He is the great first cause of
all things. As the writer to the Hebrews
put it, it is with Him that we have to do. If we face the question
of the problems of tyranny squarely, we cannot possibly do so apart
from the recognition of its source and its place in the providential
purposes of a sovereign God who works all things according to
His purpose. So rather than complaining about
the tyranny in America, we should recognize this is God's tool
to bring the church to repentance. And the sooner the church comes
to repentance, the sooner the tyranny can be removed. We're
looking at things backwards when we start with politics. Now,
obviously, you don't ignore politics, but you don't start there. You
start with God. You start with repentance. Anyway, Gideon starts
off fairly good judge and he illustrates incredible faith
in God as God whittles down his army to 300 people against a
massive number of people. And he wins. It's just an incredible,
I love this, one of my favorite stories of the lamps, you know,
and the trumpets of Gideon. But the story of Gideon begins
a list of judges who also have character flaws and who goof
up big time. Gideon engages in murder against
fellow Israelites who refused to help him. You don't do that. That's not only petty, God treated
it as murder. He sets up an idol, a competing
ephod, which Israel later worships. And so he's definitely not a
perfect example. Now, while the story as a whole has many spiritual
lessons that we can benefit from, here's four more that I want
to highlight. First, it is written in such a way as to make it clear,
as were some of the earlier stories actually, that God's war is not
ultimately against flesh and blood. It is a war against the
demon god Baal and all other demons. Demons can easily make
us compromise, make our allies compromise, just like those demons
made Gideon compromise. And in America, we are facing
largely a demonic onslaught that cannot be solved with politics
alone. Second, the story of Gideon shows that our trust cannot be
in human judges. Though they were types of Christ,
they could definitely let Israel down, and several did. Though
Gideon was for the most part good, he was compromised with
his worldly thinking. He thought like the world, he
acted like the world on some levels. And let me give you just
a minor, minor example. I can't go through all of them.
He named one of his sons Abimelech, which means, my father is king. We need to say, no, the judges
were not supposed to be kings. Well, Gideon started to act like
a king, his sons took it a step further, and Abimelech in particular
became a wicked tyrant. Third, Gideon's story highlights
the evils that result from polygamy. Just as Leviticus 18.18 clearly
condemned Jacob's polygamy, don't ever think that because Jacob's
in the Bible and he had four wives that polygamy is okay.
No. Leviticus 18.18 clearly condemned
Jacob's polygamy, and here we see the disaster of polygamy
as well. It is virtually impossible to
find any polygamous father who does not end up with absolute
disaster. Why? Because a polygamous father
cannot adequately shepherd, disciple, discipline all of his children,
certainly cannot adequately pass on the faith intact. Without
exception in the Bible, all polygamous families ended up with disaster
in their children. Absolute disaster. And the 72
children of Gideon were a royal disaster, an utter disaster.
Fourth, There is a tendency for God's people to overlook serious
sins in their heroes, but they should not. Gideon's idolatrous
ephod is a case in point. I believe that should have disqualified
him as a judge, period. Not only does Israel put up with
his compromises, Just as Americans tend to put up with the compromises
of their favorite politicians, they eventually worship the ephod. Now, we see similar things happening
today with Christians covering for President Trump, even when
he is aggressively pushing the sodomite cause internationally
and in America. Now, has President Trump done
a lot of good things? Absolutely, and I praised President
Trump for the good things that he has done, but that does not
mean I'm going to cover just because I don't like the opposition
even more. I hate the opposition even more
maybe is the way to say it. Now, that's not a good thing.
You're supposed to love your enemies. You know what I mean. You can't
cover for sin. You cannot cover for the sins
of your heroes. It is ungodly. In any case, as
a result of Israel's idolatry, God uses the sons of Gideon to
punish the Israelites with their own homegrown tyranny. Again,
politics alone will never solve America's problems. If Christians
continue to trust in politics to save them, God will increasingly
make politics the spanking stick that will bring pain to our derrieres. And this is especially illustrated
with Gideon's son Abimelech in chapter 9. Israel is so disgusted
with the tyranny of Gideon's sons that they engage in a revolution
by siding with the rhetoric of Abimelech. He sounds good, but
it's all empty rhetoric. His heart is far from God. Now
certainly Abimelech gets rid of 70 Gideon's problem sons but
because he doesn't follow biblical process he is treated by as a
murderer by the narrator and in order to win he resorts to
pragmatism and he says I've got to align myself politically with
both groups so he aligns himself with believers he aligns himself
with the horrible Baal worshipers okay both so God uses Abimelech
a homegrown tyrant to punish Israel These Israelites don't
learn. They hate Abimelech, so they
try revolution to overthrow their revolutionary tyrant, and it
backfires on them. Then they turn to Ga'al to deliver
them in another attempt at revolution, which also backfires. Revolutions
always backfire. That's the message of that section.
And by the way, American War for Independence was not a revolution. It was a lawful war of lawfully
elected magistrates interposing themselves, seceding very lawfully. It was not a revolution. We should
not call it a revolution. But these attempted revolutions
backfired. Abimelech destroys the city. He goes on a rampage.
The history of revolution shows that revolutions spawn more tyranny,
not less, and more revolutions, not less. Abimelech's tyranny
was only stopped by a woman who throws a millstone over the wall
of the The city that he's attacking hits him on the head and he's
taken out. And so even though women should
not be in the military, that illustrates, you know, the biblical
principle that women can certainly defend themselves. And I really
think that women ought to learn how to shoot. I think they ought
to learn how to protect themselves. But anyway, we're going down
all kinds of rabbit trails. I see Abimelech as an antichrist
who served bail and an anti-judge. He illustrates the problems of
Christians treating politics as a messiah. The author of Judges
does not disguise his absolute contempt for Abimelech. There
is nothing positive about him at all. Nothing. He's not a hero
of the faith. He is an abominable man. Not
until chapter 10 verse 1 does it say that a judge actually
delivered Israel in a truly biblical sense once again. And Tola judged
Israel for 23 years. With Tola's death in chapter
10, verse 2, the position of judge transferred to Jair in
chapter 10, verse 3, and he ruled for 22 years. It doesn't seem
to be any cycle of sin here. The cycles of sin are not inevitable. That's the encouraging part of
this book. You could theoretically go from
one judgeship to another judgeship with no falling away if each
generation would guard their hearts and would train their
children. But Jair's children had something
wrong with them. It appears to be a pride issue.
They had aspirations for kingship. Smaller compromise in parents
leads to greater compromise in sons. And there isn't much space
given to Tola and Jair simply because it doesn't fit Samuel's
purpose of showing the disaster of trusting in politics. I mean,
actually, if you look at them, those were two politicians who
seemed to work out fairly well. But we're already seeing problems
with the children of Jair. But a lot of time is devoted
to Jephthah. Even though Hebrews 11, 32 says
that Jephthah was a believer who conquered the Ammonites by
faith, his life was so messed up that it is no surprise he
degenerates very quickly into acting like a tyrant himself.
Like the later King Saul, he's anointed with the Spirit of God
in chapter 11, verse 29. He gets an army together. He
crushes the Philistines. So far, so good. But his big
biblical ignorance makes him make a rash vow and then fulfill
a rash vow by sacrificing his daughter. That is absolutely
disgusting and horrendous behavior, however you interpret that sacrifice.
And there's debate. There always has been debate.
Some people say it wasn't a literal killing of her. It was just he
gave her to the temple and she couldn't get married. Either
way, he should have repented of that vow. You can admire his
desire to keep his word, but sometimes vows must be repented
of. And if you want to study that subject, there's a great
little section in the wine book by G.I. Williamson, a great little
section in there. The Reformers had made vows to
the Roman Catholic Church that were sinful vows. And they said,
do we keep these? We're perpetually living in sin
if we keep these. And they said, no, you repent
of ungodly vows is what you do, including the vows of celibacy.
By the way, if a person was not celibate, they should have repented
of those. Anyway, Jephthah's lack of humility and lack of
other biblical qualifications for rulership made him engage
in a virtual genocide of the Ephraimites. So what we're seeing
is the book progresses. If the judges reflect God's character
less and less, no doubt because they know less and less about
the Bible. Pragmatism becomes the name of
the game more and more. Mercifully, God only let Jephthah
rule for six years. Praise God. He's gone. Ibzon,
Elon, and Abdon are passed over rather early in chapter 12 verses
8 through 15, but it appears their judgeships are just a holding
pattern for the next 25 years. And verse 14 hints that though
they might have been better than Jephthah, they were I think,
and were for sure better than Abimelech, they had all of the
same problems of the modern conservative movement. They were trying to
conserve old values rather than radically returning to biblical
values. And it illustrates a conservative
movement simply does not have the spiritual power to hold back
the downward slide of people into depravity. This book does
not in any way honor conservatism. Instead, it is a cry for God's
people to return radically back Law of God and to the Gospel.
For 40 years God places Israel under a severe bondage to the
Philistines as His judgment for their backslidden condition.
Chapter 13 verse 1 says, the Lord delivered them into the
hand of the Philistines for 40 years. That's a long time to
suffer. Let me tell you something brothers and sisters, God is
willing to let you suffer as long as it takes to bring you
to repentance. And He'll just keep upheading the suffering
until you come to repentance if you are truly elect. Once
repentance happens, God raises up Samson, a man who does not
in any way reflect the God of the Bible in these chapters.
Now, according to Josephus, his earlier years were marked by,
quote, extraordinary virtue. But the author just skips over
all of those early virtuous years. He focuses on his later years,
his later compromises. And the reason is that the author
is trying to get across to the readers, do not put your trust
in man. Realize that princes do not save,
only God does. And I'm just going to focus on
one story. It's a story of Samson eating honey from a lion. The
whole section is full of compromise I'm not going to get into. For
example, they're commanded not to marry the pagans around them.
He goes off and he marries a pagan, right? That's what he's going
to do. So he's going on the way to get his courtship formalized
and everything. In chapter 14, verse 5, a lion
tries to attack Samson. The Holy Spirit enables him to
tear that lion apart. On a later time, he returns to
the Philistine family with his parents. This is going to be
the marriage ceremony. And in verse 8, he checks out
the carcass of the animal. He finds that a hive of bees
has gone in there and started forming a honeycomb. Now, we
aren't told the reason why Samson went off the path. I just assume
he's trying to satisfy his curiosity. But according to the laws of
the Nazarite in Numbers chapter 6, he should not have done that. He should have stayed as far
away from potential contamination as he could get. Even the smell
of the decaying animals should have kept them away. Now, I doubt
that his intention was to deliberately defile himself. by touching the
animal, but the point is, he allows his curiosity to get him
close to sin. He's beginning to flirt with
danger. This is the character flaw in
Samson. Now that he sees the dead lion
there, there's another temptation that comes along. Look at the
second sentence in verse 8. Behold, a swarm of bees and honey
were in the carcass of the lion. Why is that a temptation? Nowadays,
that wouldn't have been a temptation to any of you. You know, honey
that's inside of a decaying carcass. You got to be kidding. You wouldn't
probably even climb a tree to get some because you get stung
up unless you're Gil and he doesn't mind getting stung. But back
then they didn't get sweets very often. So this was a huge temptation.
Oh, honey, it's not often you come across that. So he's tempted,
and in order to get something that he wants, he has to come
very close to sinning, if not sinning itself. Does he pass
it up because of the danger of defilement? No, he risks the
danger. Verse 9 says, he took some of it in his hands, and
in order to do that, he has to reach carefully into the carcass,
without touching the carcass, get that honey out. Nazirites
were not allowed to touch carcasses, so he took some of it in his
hands and went along eating. When he came to his father and
mother, he gave some to them. They also ate, but he did not
tell them that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the
lion." Why didn't he tell them? I think his conscience was at
work. He didn't want to have them shocked that he would get
so close to defilement. But this is merely an illustration
of what was at work in all areas of his life. Samson must have
known the dangers when he went to visit the harlot at Geza and
when he went to visit Delilah. The enemy was waiting in the
wings to destroy him. They were out to get him, and
yet he flattered himself that he could flirt with the temptress
without getting trapped. My father gave me very, very
sound advice when he told me not to see how close I could
get to sin without sinning, but like the Nazarite, to see how
far away from sin I could get. Samson flirted with danger when
he went to see the carcass. That flirtation led him to further
temptation when he saw the honey, and before he knew it, he was
violating his code by actually plucking a honeycomb from the
carcass. And the same pattern happens
over and over again in young Christians' lives. They flirt
with temptation on their Androids and on their iPhones. This is
a book that shows the downward slide that Christians can easily
get into if they are not ruthless in their fight against their
own inner depravity and ruthless in separation from outward contamination. And the book ends with two stories
taken from the earlier section time period of Judges. to illustrate
how bad things can get if the church does not maintain antithesis. Chapters 17 through 18 show the
astonishing superstition, lack of doctrinal awareness, acceptance
of idolatry, and compromise even on the part of Levites. That's
pastors. The Levites were their pastors.
It's astonishing the degree of spiritual blindness that this
Levite had. Pragmatism and moral compromise
were the name of the game, and yet rather than pointing fingers
at this Levite, what I want to do is show we have been no different
as a church in America. The evangelical church has been
astonishingly blind. We can expect unbelieving liberal
pastors like Nadia Boltz Weber to rail against chastity, mock
it, oh, you chastity lover, that's ridiculous, and to make her abominable,
blasphemous, statuette, sexual statuette, but the degree of
hypocritical unchastity in the evangelical church is enormous. Even though the statistic 80%,
which is thrown around all the time, that 80% of self-identified
evangelicals have engaged in premarital sex has been questioned
by one pastor, but I don't see the basis for his question, but
he's questioning that figure. It couldn't possibly be that
high in the gospel coalition. Everyone admits it is much, much,
much too high, and part of it is because they're not following
the Bible on how you engage in courtship. They're setting themselves
up for failure right off the start. Second, abortion is not
just a phenomenon in the liberal churches. It occurs throughout
the evangelical churches as well. 70% of women who get abortions
consider themselves to be Christians, and 23% of total abortions in
America identify as evangelical born-again
Christians. 23% of those who get abortions
claim to be evangelical born-again Christians. How on earth did
that happen? Well, I believe it's because it's a fruit of
a lawless church. The church is long ago thrown
out God's law. Well, evangelical leaders have
actually become stronger on this particular issue since the 1970s,
probably more closer to the 80s. Top evangelical leaders supported
abortion way back into the 60s. For example, in 1969, the former
president of the Southern Baptist Convention, W.A. Criswell, of
all people. You'd never guess that he would
have done this. But he actually welcomed and hoped for a Roe
v. Wade kind of a decision. He said,
I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and
had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual
person. And it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best
for the mother and for the future should be allowed. That was W.A. Criswell, president of the Southern
Baptist Convention. In 1971, two years later, the
Southern Baptists approved a resolution that says, this is the whole
denomination making this statement, we call upon Southern Baptists
to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of
abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence
of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence
of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical
health of the mother. Certainly, that's turned around,
praise God. There has been a turnaround on
the Southern Baptist view of abortion, but it illustrates
that Scripture is not the foundation for much of Christianity. We
keep following the cycles of judges. I hate to pick on the
same denomination, but hey, they're supposed to be the flagship for
evangelicalism, so I think they're fair game. Granted, not every
case has gone through the courts yet, but the number of pastors
in that denomination that have already been convicted of sexual
assaults against children and have been caught in their libraries
possessing child pornography is absolutely astounding. We're
talking pastors here, pastors like the Levite in the next story
that we're going to look at. Currently, there are changes in process
against a total of 380 pastors and ministry staff and 700 children
being represented legally as having been assaulted. Now the
majority of those have already been proved in court to be true
and the denomination has not denied the rest of them and have
not denied that in the past they've actually swept these things under
the carpet, hushed people down on these kinds of things. Over
the past two decades, I have seen similar things happening
in many different denominations. It makes you sick. it should
make us sick. And is it any wonder when confidential
polls of pastors across this nation show 57% of senior pastors
and 64% of youth pastors struggle with pornography, which in the
definition means regularly watch pornography? And then you have
evangelical and reform denominations going soft on the concept of
sexual orientation, even this past year. And the list could
go on and on with moral issues, doctrinal heresies, socialism,
endorsement of public schools, which are really government indoctrination
centers, evolution, ecumenical dialogue with apostate churches,
embracing occult medicine, egalitarianism, etc., etc. This is a relevant
book for our times. We need to disseminate this kind
of information. The last story given in chapters
19 through 21 It is horrifying. It is beyond horrifying. It makes
you want to throw up. It is an awful, awful story,
and it showcases moral problems on every level of society, including
the clergy. Well, it shows the horrible trajectory
of ignoring homosexuality, not treating it as a crime. The horrible
trajectory. It also shows the horrible insensitivity
of this Levite to his wife. He allowed her to be gang raped
to save his cowardly hide. And it shows an entire tribe.
that entire, yes, tribe that takes tribal loyalty more seriously
than the criminal behavior of that city. There's an entire
city that's descended into homosexuality. The whole story stinks. It shows
moral sensitivities and sensibilities completely skewed, and it leaves
one feeling sick. God wants us to be sick over
these things. Now, there's one more phrase
that I want to comment on. Four times in these last five
chapters, it mentions, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Chapter 17, verse 6, 18, verse
1, 19, verse 1, 21, verse 25. They are very deliberately separated.
I can't get into why. This is so often misinterpreted.
They think, oh, if there was only a centralized government,
if there was only a king, people wouldn't do what was wise in
their own eyes. No, absolutely not. It does not teach that.
And the reason I can tell you absolutely dogmatically it does
not teach that is the same author who wrote Judges, Samuel, also
wrote 1 and 2 Samuel, and he knows quite well that kings can
be as bad or worse than these judges. No, that's not the lesson
of this verse. He begins this whole section
and ends the section, in those days there was no king in Israel.
Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And what he is
saying here is, he's communicating that even with the biblical ideal
of almost libertarianism, Of God alone being king and people
having a huge degree of freedom, tyranny is unavoidable if the
church does not follow God's law, but instead does that which
is right in their own eyes. So yes, God's ideal civil government
is almost libertarian. By the way, David's was too.
Almost libertarian. It allows a great deal of liberty
for citizens to sin, but that does not mean that there are
no repercussions to the citizens' bad decisions. Immoral libertarianism
will always lead to tyranny, to God's banking stick, period.
This is the message of the last section. It's really the message
of the whole book. It tells them that centralized politics is
obviously not a good thing. Libertarianism is not your savior
either. God alone is the solution to our problems. The whole book
is a story of grace that comes with repentance, as 2 Chronicles
7.14 phrases it. If my people who were called by my name will
humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their
wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their
sin and heal not just them, but their land. Brothers and sisters,
this book calls for a massive movement of repentance in America. I'm so glad that the activist
mummy and the Benham brothers and so many other people are
beginning these conventions, uh, whatever they call them,
a calling people to repentance. Kathy and I actually joined in
prayer and fasting with one of these in March, and I did so
again this past week. But may the Lord God grant such
repentance to the West. Amen. Father, we do. We do long for repentance, further
insight into our own sins so that we could repent of our own
sins, and further consistency with your law. Father, I'm sure
even I blind spots would be we want
to be right with you we want to have your pleasure upon us
we want your victory to be with us we do not want you to be fighting
against us and so we pray father have your way in our lives your
will be done not ours your will be done and father may you grant
to us a holy zeal to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness
and just trust that you will add all of the things that we
tend to seek after unto us. May we have the balance, Father,
that you have called us to in this book. And I pray it in Jesus'
name.
Judges
Series Bible Survey
This is an overview and application of the book of Judges
| Sermon ID | 4301950497707 |
| Duration | 1:30:21 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Judges 1:1 |
| Language | English |
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