Alright, let's take our Bibles and turn to the book of Judges this morning. And we're going to begin a new study. We're going to begin a study of the book of Judges. Going into the Old Testament, so as I finished reading, or as I was reading through the book of Judges, I thought about what was happening in the book of Judges and I thought that would be a good thing for us to study at this time. So, we're going to look at this morning, you'll see I have two different texts this morning. My two texts are Judges 17.6 and Judges 2.11. Let me just say that This study of the book of Judges is another reason why you should be encouraged to read through your Bible. Do some devotional Bible reading because as you do that devotional Bible reading, however you choose to do it, I know that trying to read the entire Bible through in a year may seem like a daunting task to some and it may be too much for you to undertake and maybe you need to do something less than that. And that's okay, but just as long as you're in your Word every day, that's the main thing. Because as you're in the Word, remember, the Bible is God speaking to you. It's what God wants you to know. It's the God who spoke this world into existence has revealed Himself to us in His Word. I've heard somebody say this many times. People always say, well, I wish I could hear God speak to me. And someone said, well, read the Bible out loud. And then you will hear God speak to you because this is the Word of God. And so it is beneficial. I can't stress enough how important it is for you to read your Bible every day. The most important thing I've done in my Christian life is when I began to read, in my Bible every day. And so, as you read through your passages, things will stick out in your mind and there will be things that speak to you and it seems like that no matter what you're experiencing in life, when you read your Bible, something in that text, no matter where you're reading, speaks to your current situation. And so I would encourage you please to Discipline yourself to read the Word of God. Discipline yourself to pray and talk to God and it will be beneficial for you in your spiritual walk. So let's read the two texts because these two texts we will find them throughout the passages, throughout the book of Judges. And we're going to begin by looking at Judges chapter number 2. and read verse number 11. Judges 2.11, and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Balaam. We'll mention more about that a little bit later on, but that's one of the two phrases that we see throughout this book of Judges. Now let's go over to the book of Judges, chapter number 17 and verse number 6. A passage that is common in the book of Judges, Judges 17 and verse number 6. And it says this, in those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. This was the problem for the nation of Israel. Every man was doing what was right in his own eyes. There was no king. This was the time of the prophets. This is before Samuel. As a matter of fact, Samuel probably wrote this. And Samuel probably wrote it during when Saul was the king. The people forsook the law of God. The law that was given by Moses On Mount Sinai, the Word of God was given to the children of Israel as they went into the Promised Land. And we'll mention this in a little bit more detail in a little bit. But as the children of Israel went into the Land of Promise, they forgot the Word of God. They turned away from it. And everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And it led them to great difficulties. You might ask yourself today, why study the book of Judges today? Well, think about this. In our society today, everyone thinks that they should have the right to choose for themselves. They have this thought process that they should have the freedom to do whatever they want to with their bodies. They even have the right, they think, They should have the right to choose whether to vaccinate their children. They feel that they should have the right to do whatever they want as long as, in their words, as long as it's not hurting anyone else. Or, I should be able to do whatever I want to in the privacy of my own home. Everyone wants to do what is right in their own eyes. What they feel is right, that's what they want to do. In our society, that thought is prevalent. Well, you know, the Bible tells us there's nothing new under the sun. And so this thought process of everyone doing what they want to and make their own decisions. It's my life. I should be able to do what I want to with my life. We find out in the book of Judges where that mentality, where that thought process leads. It does not lead us to God, it leads us away from God. It doesn't lead us to the blessings of God, it leads away from the blessings of God. It doesn't lead to a better society, it leads to a worse society. And so the reason that the book of Judges is so needful for us today is because we haven't learned the lesson. I mean, how great it would be if we could look into the book of Judges and we could say, listen, when people do what is right in their own eyes, that's dangerous. So let's not do what is right in our own eyes. Let's understand that God has ordained authority in our lives and maybe we should listen to authority. Whether it's the authority of the government, whether it's the authority of our parents, whether it's the authority of the church, whatever authority that God has established, God has established it for a good reason and maybe God has established that and it would be good for us to listen to. And so we want to learn. We want to understand this also that our nation was not built upon the philosophy that every person does what is right in their own eyes. As a matter of fact, let's remember this. Everyone says that what should happen is whatever the majority wants. You know, a democracy. Well, you know, our nation wasn't built as a democracy. This nation wasn't built upon majority ruling. Because what if the majority decided all of a sudden that you can't preach the Bible anymore? Is that a good thing? What if the majority decided it's okay to murder, take the life of people who are over the age of, choose any age you want, 60. People, the majority of the United States might decide that anybody over the age of 60 cannot contribute to our society, so we're just going to end their lives. On your 60th birthday, we're going to end your life. I mean, if the majority rules and that's what the majority decided, that's not a good thing. Our nation was built upon a rule by law. Really, our nation was built upon this fact that everyone should have the freedom, religious freedom is this, that everyone has the right to worship God after the dictates of their own heart. Our government was, our nation was built upon a republic which is a rule by law. That's why the constitution is so important because that is the basis. That is the standard. That's why we don't want to change the Constitution. And I don't mean to dwell here very long. This was just a blurb in the message, but I'm just going to rest here a little bit while I'm there. We don't want to change the Constitution because that's what our country was built upon. That's the law that our country was built upon, and that's the rule of law that should govern our country, and we shouldn't want to go about changing that. You see our forefathers understood that government was needed to govern the people. The people can't do what is right in their own eyes. It's not healthy for society and it will lead to anarchy. And so we see in the book of Judges what happens when everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Now we're not going to get into that much today. We're just giving you an introduction. But as we said, the two thoughts that will be present is that there was a time in Israel when everyone did what was right in their own eyes and Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. Both of those two things were not healthy for the nation of Israel. It led to their destruction. And we want to understand, we want to learn In our country, if everyone does what is right in their own eyes, it will lead to the nation doing evil in the sight of the Lord and just as it was not healthy for the nation of Israel, it will not be healthy for our nation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and when the Lord Jesus Christ is the ruler of our individual lives, the master of our individual lives. It will be beneficial for our country. Also, we'll see as we study this book of Judges that there is a cycle. There's a sinful cycle which we'll mention a little bit later on. The nation falls into sin. God sends judgment upon them because of their sin. through an invading army. The people become oppressed. The people finally cry out to God. God sends them a deliverer. That's the judges. The deliverer delivers them or saves them from their oppressor and they come back and have freedom once again. This cycle of sin you see in the nation of Israel. We also will see that cycle of sin sometimes you see in our own lives. We see sometimes when we choose to go against the Word of God, we may choose to do evil in the sight of the Lord because we don't like the rule of law. We don't like the standard of the Bible. We want to follow our own heart and follow our own desire. You know, let's think about this. I want to follow my heart. Well, the Bible tells us what's in the heart. Evil, wickedness, murders, adulteries, wickedness is in the heart. We don't want to follow our heart because our heart will lead us to sin. We want to follow the Word of God. And so we see this cycle, we'll choose to go away from God and God may bring oppression into our lives and bring oppression into our lives in such a way that we cry out to God and ask God to be merciful to us and so God will send deliverance to us. And then we'll live in that deliverance for a while and faithfulness to God and sooner then later it seems like that people would turn their backs on God again and oppression will come into their lives. So this book of Judges will be a good lesson for us in our individual lives and it will be a lesson for us in our church to understand that we shouldn't do what is right in our own eyes. We should follow the rule of law, which is the Word of God that He has given to us to be our standard. And if we bring our lives into agreement with the Word of God, then we can sense and enjoy the blessings of God. So as we come to this study and we think about where we are in the history of the nation of Israel, again, here we are in the book of Judges. How do we get here? One of the things we're going to see as we look into the book of Judges in the very beginning is it's going to tell us that Joshua dies. Think about that. Think about what that means. What happens when the leader of the people dies? What happens? But how did they get there? How did they get there for Joshua to be their leader? We know if you go back that you think about God calling Abraham and telling Abraham that He would make of him a great nation and it was through the lineage of Abraham that God would make Himself known. It's through the lineage of Abraham that the world is to know who God is and to know of His works. But we know that even if you go back before that, before the flood, The thoughts and the intents of men's heart was only to do evil continually. They did not share the goodness of God. They did not make the name of God known. But it tells us that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. We know that after the flood, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord and after the flood, the people came. Noah and his sons and his family came off the ark. and they begin to reproduce and the people grew and we know that instead of making the name of God known, they began to try to make a name for themselves. We come to Abraham. Abraham's family grows and we know that just, again, just a brief history. From Abraham came the children of Israel and the children of Israel went down into the land of Egypt and they were delivered from the oppression that they had in Egypt by Joseph and they were brought out of Egyptian bondage and they were led across the Red Sea and they were led through the wilderness for 40 years and as they came to the land of promise, the land that God had promised unto Abraham, God told them to go across the river Jordan and they defeated Jericho and as they went they were to wipe out all the inhabitants of the land. And we know that as we study the history, they didn't do that. They didn't wipe out all the inhabitants of the land. And we know that the ones that they left behind began to be a snare to them. And instead of wiping out all of the idols that were in the land of Canaan, they began to incorporate that idolatry into their lives and it became a snare to them. So here we are. We come to the book of Judges. The children of Israel have gone to the promised land. They should have run all of the people out of Canaan, but they chose not to do so. They're living in the promised land. Joshua is leading them in the conquest of the land. They have settled, and Joshua dies. So what happens to the children of Israel living in the promised land after Joshua dies? That's what we're going to find out. in the book of Judges. If you want to go back to the book of chapter number 1 in the book of Judges, you'll notice it says, now after the death of Joshua. So what we're doing is we're looking at the history of the children of Israel after the death of Joshua. If you'll remember, you go back, Moses leading them across the Red Sea, leading them through the wilderness. When it was time for Moses to die, God chose Joshua to be the leader. Now Joshua dies, and who's going to be the leader? What happens when all of the people who saw the mighty works of God in the wilderness, what happens when they die? That's what we're going to find out in the book of Judges. And we find out they did evil in the sight of the Lord because everyone was doing what they felt was right in their own eyes. And so, as we said, the cycle of sin, the children of Israel sin against God and God sends oppression unto them. And then they cry out to God and God sends a deliverer. That will be the judges who will be the deliverers of the children of Israel. But one of the things we want to see is we want to see the faithfulness of God. You know, a lot of times when we look at the book of Judges, We always focus on the unfaithfulness of the children of Israel. We focus on the sin of the children of Israel. And we forget to focus on what God is doing. What we're going to see over and over and over again is that the children of Israel are going to sin against God. But what does God continue to do throughout the book of Judges? God continues to restore His people. The children of Israel are unfaithful to God. God is never unfaithful to them. He is always faithful to His people. As we read in the text, if we believe not, yet He abideth faithful. He cannot deny Himself. One of the greatest truths that sometimes is missed in the book of Judges is the faithfulness of God that no matter how His people turn away from Him, He continues to be merciful. He continues to be long-suffering. He continues to be faithful. The children of Israel are unfaithful to God. But God never utterly forsakes them. Here's another reason why we want to study this book. Because as we go through life, there's going to be times when we're not as faithful to Christ as we should be. There's going to be times when we make a choice to sin. There's going to be times when we go against God. is going to be faithful to us. In the song of Deborah, the faithfulness and righteousness of God is expressed, which we'll see later on, Judges 5-11. They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, even the righteous acts towards the inhabitants of His villages in Israel. Then shall the people of the Lord go down to the gates. they're going to rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord. The faithfulness of God and His righteousness, that's what we're going to see as we study the book of Judges. Of course, the faithfulness of God is going to be standing contrast to the evil of the people of God and even the Judges. As we go through the book of Judges, you're going to see in the beginning, you're going to see some good judges who practice faithfulness, but as we go through the book of Judges, you're going to see that the judges aren't as faithful to God as they should be. You're actually even going to see, towards the end of the book, some acts, and you're going to wonder, how could that happen? I'll just give you a little insight into that. There's going to be a young girl who is brutally raped to the point of death. And her body's going to be severed in pieces and sent throughout the nation of Israel. Man, that's brutal. How can that happen? It shows you what can happen in a heart that does what it wants to. Everyone doing what is right in their own eyes. This is what it leads to. We want to understand that even though the judges and the leaders, they fall so horribly Yet God is faithful. The quote from the NIV study Bible says, Yet God graciously saves Israel. Even though the character of the judges becomes increasingly flawed and disobedience abounds, thus by illustrating human sin in each successive story, the writer highlights the great length to which God goes in order to save His people, no matter how flawed or sinful the judge, God saves. And I don't know about you, But I need to hear that message. I need to hear the message of how great lengths God goes to to save His people. How great lengths He goes to to rescue the perishing. How great lengths He goes to to redeem those who are sinners. I need to hear that. Now that God is going to continue to work in my life and in the lives of my family and in the lives of my church family and that God saves His people. He is faithful. Keep that in your mind as we go through the book of Judges. Men's hearts are desperately wicked and men's hearts are going to sin. And men's hearts are going to choose to leave behind the standard that God has established. God is faithful to his people. Never forget that. Again, as we said, one of the prevalent things in this book is the cycle of sin. And we've already mentioned that. The children of Israel sin against God. God sends an oppressor against them. The children of Israel cry out to God. God sends a judge, which the word judge, we'll find out, means a savior. And the judge delivers his people. The cycle is seen six or seven times. We also see the phrase, the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. That's the beginning of the cycle. The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. This cycle will be easily seen throughout the book. We need to make sure that we give heed to that warning which is given in this phrase. The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and let's make sure that we're not going to do evil in the sight of the Lord so that God needs to send oppression upon us. Now lastly, The most important thing, and this is what we're going to be studying at church camp. Finding Christ in all of Scripture. We want to find Christ in the book of Judges. Because all of this Bible from Genesis through Revelation is pointing to Jesus. And the Old Testament is pointing forward to the one who would come. In the New Testament, it's looking to the one who has come and the one who will yet come in the future. It's looking to when Jesus will literally set up His kingdom. But the New Testament tells us how Jesus became our Savior and Lord. But in the book of Judges, what we're going to see is that every judge, no matter how faithfully, whether it's Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, whichever judge we look at, we're going to see that there's weaknesses in their character. They're flawed. They're all called to lead the people into righteousness. there to take the people and teach them that, look, turn back to the law of Moses, turn back to the Word of God. You will apply the Word of God in your life and if you will live faithfully after the Word that God delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, if you will live according to that, you will not face the oppression. But they failed to teach the people to follow the Word of God. They didn't lead them into righteousness and because of that, the people will turn back to their wicked ways. We find in every one of these judges, they could not properly lead the people away from sin because of their own weakness of the flesh. But as we continue to look to Jesus, The author and the finisher of our faith. We know that He can lead us in righteousness. Because there's no character flaws in Christ. We can be followers of Christ. We can deny ourselves daily and take up our cross and follow Jesus and we can emulate Jesus with our lives and we will be led in paths of righteousness for His namesake because there were no character flaws in Jesus. So we can follow Jesus. He is the true and righteous judge. That's what we see. In the book of Judges, we see men. with character flaws which point us to Jesus who knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. He was God in the flesh. He was fully man and He was fully God and He did no sin. So the book of Judges shows us that there is coming a judge who is righteous in all of his ways, was tempted at all points like as we, yet without sin. He lived righteously before God and so we know that He can deliver His righteousness unto us and so we can live in the righteousness of Christ and we can live a life apart from sin and a life that would be pleasing to God. We don't have to fall into sin like the children of Israel did in Israel. We don't have to do evil in a sight of the Lord. If we'll put on the righteousness of Christ and if we will walk after Christ, we won't fall under condemnation and sin and guilt and shame because we can walk in righteousness. As we said, we see that God sends judges to save His people. But each one of these judges only saved Part of the nation of Israel when you read through the book of Judges all of these judges aren't Saving the entire nation of Israel. It's just one part of the nation of Israel So we see Christ a Savior coming Not just to save a part of his people but to save all of his people And we see that the salvation that these judges make is only temporary. But the salvation that Jesus brings is eternal. Forever. And so we understand that Jesus, the Savior, coming to deliver His people, He will deliver us forever. That's what we see in the book of Judges. We also see mercy following failure. God's compassion for his people extends deeper than the failures of his people even though that failure is self-inflicted. Why is that? Because Jesus bare our sins in his own body and he made the way for God to be merciful to us. even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. So you can have the expectation of forgiveness from God because Jesus bare your sins in His body on the tree. And so you can have the expectation of forgiveness and mercy and peace because Jesus Christ, the righteous judge, delivers His people. He is the Savior of His people. How else do we see Jesus in this? There is no sin or failure beyond the reach of Christ's redemptive love. It doesn't matter what sin you've committed. Christ can bear that sin. Christ can pay that sin debt. There is no sin too great that Christ can't forgive. I've spoken to someone recently who says, I know there's no hope for me. I know I'm going to hell. That broke my heart. Because that person's not correct. There is no one that has sinned so much that Christ can't redeem them. Because Christ suffered the wrath of God on behalf of His people. He suffered for all our sins. You can't out-sin God. You can't out-sin Christ's redemptive love. And again, we're going to see some grotesque sins that the children of Israel commit. Yet God delivers them. You might have committed some grotesque sins but you've not sinned beyond Christ's redemptive love. All of this understanding who Christ is and we see God's faithfulness to His people and how God forgives their sin And even though they do evil in His sight, and they turn their back on Him, and they continue to turn their back on Him, yet God remaineth faithful. As you see God delivering His people, and continuing to deliver His people, and you understand that deliverance comes because that Jesus is our Savior. That understanding. that Christ loved you enough to deliver you. That should stir you to love Him, be obedient to Him, and want to serve Him because you understand what He has done, the depths that He has gone in order to save you. And as you understand His mercy and His faithfulness to you, it should stir you to be faithful to Him. Stir your heart to be faithful to Him because you understand His faithfulness to you as His child. Now also, maybe you're not His child, You've done evil in his sight. I want you to understand there is redemption through Jesus Christ. The provision that God has made for the sins of man is this, that his son would come and bear the penalty for sin and suffer the wages of sin, which is death. And he would pay that sin debt on the cross. And what it would give to you, since he died for you, he would give you life. There is redemption in Jesus Christ. I pray that if you don't know him today, that you will trust Christ. Trust that he paid your sin debt. And believe that he died to give you eternal life. And if you'll repent of your sins and confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe it not hard that God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. I pray that this introduction will stir you to desire to learn more about the book of Judges and to see the faithfulness of God and the love of Jesus Christ and coming to be our judge and redeemer. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to you today and we look into your word and we learn from your word, I pray God that you will stir our hearts to love you as we understand the depths to which you have gone to redeem us. And as we understand your faithfulness to us. And I pray, Lord, if there's one here today that doesn't know you, that this message might be what you use to show them their sinfulness before you and that their only hope is in your son, Jesus Christ. I pray that they'll come confessing their sins and believing in Jesus Christ today. Thank you for the truth that we find in your word. It is in the name of your son, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.