You open your bibles tonight to the 10th chapter of the book of judges As we continue on in our journey through this great book that god has inspired in the old testament And we'll be looking at the text tonight as we go down through it And before we begin our journey, let's bow and look to the lord in prayer father. We thank you for the inspired scriptures We realize lord that all scripture is profitable and the more we understand of these old testament and new testament books the more we will understand the whole counsel of thyself and the more effective ambassador we will be. So we pray that you would use tonight's passage to minister to us and we will thank you for that in Jesus' name, amen. John F. Kennedy once said, we the people are the boss and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve. That principle is especially true if we put it in the context of God. God is the sovereign boss over everything, and He will see to it that we get the kind of leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve. If we are submitted to the Lord, if we are submitted to the Word, God has promised He will lead us to His blessings. If we're not submitted to the Lord, if we're not submitted to the Word, God says, I'll bring about my cursings. I believe the United States of America is on a downward slide, and that downward slide is actually coming from the sovereign hand of a sovereign God of the Bible. Over and over again, the scriptures teach that God can bless a nation and God can curse a nation, God can bless individuals, God can curse individuals, and it all hinges on how they react to Him. I do not think it is any coincidence that the economy is falling apart, that immorality is flaunted, that false religions like Islam and Mormonism are flourishing. You know, Edward Gibbon, in his famous book, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, said that in the last days of the empire, before God actually toppled it, all religions were viewed as being equally true by the people, and they were all viewed as being equally useful by politicians. I would say we're right back in those days when God was about to topple the Roman Empire. All of this says that God is a God who's in the process of being involved in watching over what people are doing. The God of the Bible is in a process, I think, on turning his back on us, just like he did on Israel back during the days of judges. The fact of the matter is, is when Israel turned away from the Lord and Israel turned away from the word, those are exactly the kinds of things that God did. After all, as Clinton McCann said in his commentary, how much can God stand? I also believe that this book of Judges in many ways mirrors the Christian life. The Christian life has periods of time when spirituality seems to be flourishing and the blessings of God seem to be pretty evident and abundant. Then there are moments of lapses. There are times when a Christian can have a setback and the Christian doesn't seem to learn anything and falls right back into the same rut of being a spiritual loser. That's why in the New Testament there are a series of warnings that are aimed straight at a believer. One of those warnings admonishes a believer not to keep on willfully sinning because if you do, you can throw away your confidence in the Lord and you can throw away your rewards. There are some who think, I can sin up a storm and God's always going to bail me out. But when you look at a text like this that we're going to look at tonight, you would see that probably is not true. What this teaches us is that there can come a point when God says, I'm done fooling around with you. There can come a point where God says, I'm done using you. There can come a moment where God says, I'm done blessing you. A believer can dabble in sin to the point that God says, I am going to actually shut that believer down both spiritually, emotionally, and physically. And that point becomes pretty obvious when we look at Judges chapter 10. God is the one who's about to make his people's lives miserable because they will not humbly and honestly walk with him. What we see, what you'll see, as we go down through these verses is that God's people can so anger God that he will actually cut them off from his blessings and give them up to their enemies. Now in the first five verses of Judges chapter 10, we get a good picture of positive things that seem to be happening after Abimelech was gone. You'll recall last time we were together, God tracked down Abimelech. God raised up a couple of key individuals in the aftermath of that who would put Israel back on a path of an award winner. Both of those leaders that God raises up are seemingly quiet men. They're involved in directing Israel back to the blessings of God. In the book of Judges, they're called minor judges, not because they aren't important, but because we don't have a lot of information in writing written about them. God gives us, in this first five-verse section, a little vignette portrait of these two. Because they were good men, they were godly men. They don't have the dynamic emphasis and flair like Gideon, but they were used by God in a great way in the aftermath of Abimelech's death. We know that people don't have the same gifts and abilities. Some are gifted at a greater level than others, and certainly you see that in the book of Judges. If you read the history of the West, you'll discover that back in the late 1800s, there was about a 20-year span when there were a series of famous lawmen who kept the peace. Men like Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson, and Bill Tillman. But you'll also find information about other guys who weren't quite so famous. They weren't quite so renowned. Ira Atten, the Texas Ranger, Chris Mazden, and one of my favorites, a black marshal named Zeke Miller, who tracked down a number of outlaws and never had to shoot a man. Although when you read history books, you'll find a lot more data about Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok and Bat Masterson and Bill Tillman, the fact of the matter is, all of them were important. And that's the way it is when you come to the Book of Judges. Some of the judges have a lot of data about them, some don't, and you're seeing tonight a couple who don't. Now there are eight historical realities brought out tonight that I want to show you. First of all, In the aftermath of Abimelech's death, Tola arose and saved Israel and judged it for 23 years. Notice verse 1. Now after Abimelech died, Tola, the son of Pua, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, arose to save Israel and he lived in Shemir in the hill country of Ephraim. He judged Israel 23 years, then he died and was buried in Shemir. 23 years is the longest of any of the minor judges, and Tola is the guy used by God to do that. In every history, there are times of uneventful quietness, whether that be in a nation, whether that be in a church, whether that be in an individual. And you have that going on here. There are no major moments of extreme prosperity. There are no major moments of extreme adversity. These were lulls in the action, and lulls in the action can be good and they can be bad. In the aftermath of Abimelech's death, Tola was raised up. He is named as one of the sons of Issachar. His family was from the tribe of Issachar. He was the son of Pua, the grandson of Dodo, which sounds like a good Dutch name to me, if you think about it. It's real close to some of the people in this church, if you think about that. He lived in the central portion of the Promised Land, which was the hill country of Ephraim, and he judged Israel for 23 years, which is the longest span of any minor judge. We don't know a lot about him, except the text says he saved Israel. And that particular verb, saved, would indicate he had some form of military success over some oppressor. He became somewhat of a national hero. He put Israel back on track. to receive the blessings of God. He restored social order. He got a proper attitude pointed toward the Lord again. He lived in Shamir. He died in Shamir. It's not known where that is actually at, but it was a central part of the Promised Land. We may assume that because God lists him, he wants us to understand this is an important judge. He made a major impact at this point in history for the work of God, and God used him to keep things on track. Which brings us to the second reality. After Tola's death, Ja'ir arose and judged Israel 22 years. Verse 3 says, after him, Ja'ir the Gileadite arose and judged Israel 22 years. He had 30 sons who rode on 30 donkeys, and they had 30 cities in the land of Gilead, are called Havoth, Ja'ir to this day. And Ja'ir died and was buried in Cimon. After Tola died, God raised up another judge. His name was Ja'ir. We don't even get a family pedigree about him here, but some suggest he was the great-great-grandson of Manasseh, who was the son of Joseph. He lived and judged in the land of Gilead, which is located on the east side of the Jordan River. He became a wealthy man. He became a powerful man, and that's indicated to us by the fact that he had 30 sons and 30 donkeys. which would indicate that he had great wealth. He was in charge of 30 cities. Now donkeys, back in the time of the book of Judges, was a sign of wealth because the horses would really not be imported until the days of Solomon. So if you owned a donkey, you were considered to be pretty well off. Jair was a wealthy man. He judged Israel for 22 years and things were good. But all of this really is nothing more than a calm before the storm. After the evil of Abimelech, what God did is he gave Israel a reprieve of about 45 years. And what he did is he used these two good godly leaders to keep things on track. And for nearly half a century, those two men kept Israel pointed in the right direction. They kept Israel enjoying the freedom and the blessings of the Lord. Ladies and gentlemen, when things are good, people can make a major mistake if they begin to think they'll always be that way. because sometimes things won't always be that way. The truth of the matter is God can and will put an end to his blessings if people forget about him. God had raised up these two men to point them in the ways of the Lord. They were used at different times. They had different backgrounds, but they did both point people back to the ways of the Lord. You know, there's an interesting verse of scripture in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 10 that says, when you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you. Now most of us, when we are about to eat a meal, we pray and we thank the Lord for the food. But may I ask us a question? How many times have we thanked God after we ate the meal? How many times have we bowed and said, you know, Lord, thank you for providing that meal. I just ate. See, Israel was enjoying the blessings of God after Abimelech died for nearly 50 years, but it's obvious that she is losing sight of the fact of the one who's giving her the blessings. It's obvious that she had stopped thanking the Lord for the blessings she had experienced. She was not really dedicated to the Lord. She's not focused on praising him or thanking him for all of his wonderful blessings. And what this tells us is that God and his grace can give a nation blessings, which means he can include an absence of severe problems, even when a nation is not really zeroed in on him. But that nation must not ever assume that God will not pull the plug on his blessings if people drift away from him. For 45 years, they enjoyed the blessings of God, and they were about to lose them. Well, if we go back 45 years tonight, it puts us in the mid-60s. Back in the mid-60s, the life in the United States was pretty good. That was the time that the Beatles were in school and God was put out of school. Now you look at this country 45 years later, and there's a big storm that's brewing. It's a moral storm, it's a spiritual storm, it's an economic storm. All of this sends a signal to us God is not happy with the direction that we've been moving because he's been snubbed long enough. The danger of comfortable living is that it can produce weak character. The danger of comfortable living is that people can lose sight of the God who gave them the comfortable living. And that's the problem you're about to see. Which brings us to the third reality. Israel again did evil in the sight of God. Notice verse six. Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. Thus they forsook the Lord and did not serve him. Now, ladies and gentlemen, people do have a religious bent to them. But what we need to realize is most people with that religious bent aren't real serious about a relationship with the true God of the Bible. And as soon as those two godly leaders were gone, Israel was right back to her old ways. As Andrew Fawcett said, it's a monotonous formula that you see here concerning Israel stupidity. This is the sixth time in the book of Judges that Israel has turned her back on God to worship a foreign idol. And each time that she deteriorates to this level, the depravity gets worse. She sinks lower and lower in her paganism. As Gary Phillips said, this verse in Judges 10.6 catalogs the most extensive description of apostasy found in the book. This is as evil as it gets. Israel not only served false gods, they completely ignored and forgot about and turned their back on the one and only true God. That's how evil things had become. Things had become so corrupt that not only were they serving the idols and the false gods of the Canaanites, but now they're serving all the other false gods as well. And there are seven of them mentioned here that include some of the most depraved and perverted religious practices known to man. Some of the ceremonies listed here included immorality and ritualistic sacrifices and child murder. The Canaanites worshipped the Baals and the Ashtoreths. Amram had their own series of gods. Sidon had their own series of gods. The Moabites worshipped Kamosh. The Ammonites worshipped Molech. And the Philistines worshipped Dagon. And at the end of verse 6, the text says, they forsook the Lord, they did not serve Him. They're taking evil to a whole nother level. They get to the point where they don't even recognize the true God anymore. They don't even want to know him or his word. They're totally given over to evil. These are God's people. God's people, own people, completely given over to evil. Now it's one thing to leave a person. It's another thing to leave a person and pursue another person. But it's a whole different thing to leave a person, pursue another person, and forget about the first person. And that is exactly what Israel had done. She left her God. She not only pursued false gods, she forgot about the only true God. Don't kid yourself, there's a spiritual insanity to sin. When a child of God decides, I'm gonna separate myself from a wonderful relationship with the Lord, I'm gonna separate myself from the blessings of God for sin, you're insane. Depraved sin makes no logical sense. It doesn't matter how successful we may be, how smart we think we are, if we sin and we choose to put a breach in our relationship between ourselves and the holy God who is blessing us, we must be out of our minds. Because you've just sentenced yourself to the judgment of God. which brings us to the fourth reality. God was so angry He sold them as slaves for 18 years. Notice verse 7. We read, the anger of the Lord burned against Israel. And he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the sons of Ammon. They afflicted and crushed the sons of Israel that year for 18 years. They afflicted all the sons of Israel who were beyond the Jordan in Gilead in the land of the Amorites. The sons of Ammon crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah, Benjamin, and the house of Ephraim so that Israel was greatly distressed. I'll tell you what religion does to God. It makes Him mad. All this religious stuff that's going on in the world that isn't really devoted on Him and His Word or dedicated to understanding His Word makes Him angry. You look at all the religions listed there in verse 6, and it made God sick. And if you read the newspaper yesterday, it was pointed out to me that close to the ad that we had, there was another ad from another church that said, form your own theology. Make up your own doctrine. Just make it the way you want it. That's the cry of most of the religious world, and it makes God angry. And when God gets angry at a nation, or God gets angry at an organization, or a church, or an individual, he can cause things to fall apart. There's no doubt that God can box people in, his own people, and he can cause their world to cave in. God can and will use the world of one in rebellion to completely collapse. In fact, you'll notice in verses 8 and 9 there are a series of pretty scary verbs that show us just how bad God was making things. He afflicted them, He had crushed them, and He caused them to be greatly distressed. Those are interesting Hebrew verbs. The one that says He afflicted them is one that means He broke them to pieces. The verb that says he crushed them, eratzu, is one that means to violently break something and break it to total pieces. And the word distress means that God was actually treating people in a hostile way. God's doing this. He's doing this to his own people. He's afflicting them. He's crushing them. He's putting them in situations of great distress. He was so angry at them that he allowed the Philistines to dominate his people in the West. And he allowed the Ammonites to dominate his people in the East. The Ammonites lived in the hill country on the east side of the Jordan the Philistines lived over there by the Gaza Strip They lived on the Mediterranean coast and he allowed both of these oppressions to occur They're all orchestrated by the Lord in in stereo as one commentator said God kept them under oppression for 18 years You know sometimes a parent will threaten a rebellious child by saying, if you do wrong, I'm going to pull the plug on your privileges. Well, God did. They did wrong, and He pulled the plug on their privileges. He pulled the plug on them for 18 years. And one must wonder, why in the world didn't God just wipe them all out? I mean, when you have people given over to this kind of evil, you have every right to wipe them out. Why didn't He do that? Because God is a covenant-keeping God to His people. The nation Israel cannot ever lose its national significance in the program of God because of the covenant of God. But what it can lose is all of God's individual protective blessings. And what God did is He made life miserable. He can make life so bad for people that He can put them in a desperate situation. When any nation, when any church, when any individual consistently fails God and blatantly sins against God, God can make things totally miserable for His own people. Which brings us to the fifth reality. Israel cried out to God admitting their sin. Notice verse 10. Now here's one of the most graphic confessions of sin you'll get to see in the book of Judges. However, from God's reaction to it, And because of the fact they just list, they serve the bales, they're not really dealing honestly with the Lord. They're not listing all of the evil stuff that they had done. They're not listing all of those idolatrous things they'd worshiped in verse six. They just name one. So this in all reality is somewhat of a shallow, hollow confession. It's almost like it's designed to get them out of a foxhole. As one commentator observed, there's a big difference between regret and repentance. I mean, sometimes when it comes to your children, they're sorry for what they've done, and sometimes they're sorry they got caught. Regret means a person is sorry about the consequences of an act. But repentance means one changes his whole thinking about the act. One turns away from the act because he realizes that act was evil. And we may recall we saw an earlier point in the book of Judges back in chapter 2 when there was some real repentance that took place. These people were broken. These people were weeping. These people were sorry. And God didn't see that here. So that brings us to the next reality. God reminded them of his past deliverances and said that he refused to deliver them anymore. Notice verse 11. The Lord said to the sons of Israel, did I not deliver you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, The sons of Ammon and the Philistines, also the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you. You cried out to me and I delivered you from their hands, yet you forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore, I will no longer deliver you. Go and cry out to the gods which you've chosen. Let them deliver you in the time of your distress." God basically says to his own people, I'm tired of you playing games with me. I'm not accepting your plea deal. You've turned your back on me so many times. You've turned your back on me one too many times. You've let me down way too often. So I'm not gonna lift a finger to help you. Why don't you turn to your false gods and your false idols and let's see them get you out of your situation. God does not ever respond to some superficial regret. What God will respond to is a true heart change of mind and He will respond to real repentance. And it hadn't happened here yet. So God had three messages to give to Israel. First of all, I delivered you multiple times. It's interesting, there were seven idolatrous things they were worshiping, and so God lists seven things, seven times He delivered them. He said, I delivered you completely from any type of person that held you under bondage, whether it be the Egyptians in the book of Exodus, or the Amorites in the book of Numbers, or the Moabites in the book of Judges, the Philistines in the book of Judges, the Sidonians in Judges, the Amalekites in Judges, and the Manoites in Judges as well. One writer said, when you think about all of the sin that Israel had been involved in, really, except for the grace of God, she shouldn't have survived. The second message is, I'm not going to deliver you anymore. God's people cry out to him, God, please deliver me. And he goes, no, I'm not going to deliver you anymore. There are actually five ways that God can answer a prayer when you cry out to the Lord. He can answer yes. He can answer no. He can answer work. He can answer wait. He can answer watch. And in this context, God says no. And that is probably the worst situation that God can ever give to an individual, a nation, or a church. The worst possible state that a person can be in, a nation, or a church can be in is to go its own way because God refuses to intervene. There's nothing scarier than that. We tend to think we who live in the United States are living in the land of the free. But the fact is our land is dominated by unrepentant evil. Our courts are filled with homosexual perverts. Our clinics are filled with the blood of butchered and aborted babies. Our government is filled with leaders who promote false religions and the removal of the true God of the Bible right out of the land. This is not the land of the free. It's the land of a nation that's been abandoned by God. Which brings us to his third message. Cry out to your false gods for deliverance. I love that, verse 14. Go cry out to the gods which you've chosen. God's people are in a pig pen. He says, stay in your pig pen. Let's see you get yourself out of it. Cry out to your God in your half-hearted repentance. Cry out to your idols. And you know, ladies and gentlemen, there will be many people who will have spent their whole life, and it will get near the time when they're going to go into eternity, and they're all of a sudden going to realize, that idol won't save me. What I devoted my life to isn't going to get me out of my eternity. It's not going to get me out of facing God. One who devoted himself to money or sports or a job or a person or fame or power is all of a sudden going to realize that isn't going to deliver me. I'm about to face Almighty God and there's only one who can deliver from the wrath of God and that of course is Jesus Christ. Which brings us to the seventh reality. Israel again confessed their sin. They got rid of the idols. They asked God again for forgiveness. So look what she does, verse 15. The sons of Israel said to the Lord, we've sinned. Do to us whatever seems good to you, only please deliver us this day so they put away the foreign gods from among them and serve the Lord. And he could bear the misery of Israel no longer. This is a very moving text. Israel begged God to forgive her, but you see something different here. She's serious. She wants to serve God. She starts getting those idols out of their lives. And the terms of God's forgiveness demand that. The terms of God's forgiveness demand you acknowledge the sin and turn away from it. Deal with the crud, get away from it. Just like Proverbs 28, 13 says, he who conceals or covers his sins will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion and mercy. You cannot expect God to forgive you and bless you if you wanna hang on to vile stuff. And perhaps some of you are here tonight and you think God's hand is heavy against me and I know why. I'm not being blessed of God and I can tell you why of that being blessed of God. Because I know there's a sin issue I'm not facing. There's a sin issue I'm not dealing with. There's a sin issue I'm not getting rid of. Well, God's blessings won't be yours until you do. That's what Israel needed to learn. That's what she does learn. you want the blessings of God face it honestly get rid of it honestly go to the Lord confess it and watch what God does which brings us to the eighth reality Israel prepared to fight hoping God would send somebody to lead them you'll notice in verse 17 then the sons of Ammon were summoned and they camped in Gilead and the sons of Israel gathered together and camped in Mizpah the people the leaders of Gilead said to one another who is the man who will begin the fight against the sons of Ammon. He shall become head over all the inhabitants of Gilead." Now this is really setting the stage for one of the most unbelievable stories you'll see in the book of Judges next Sunday night. But what ultimately happens here is the Ammonites were camped against Gilead and they're preparing for a major attack. And Israel assembles themselves together. They know they've dealt honestly with the Lord. They know they've got rid of the idols. They're interested in serving the God. It looks like they're going to be trounced by the Ammonites. Israel's just hoping that God will raise up some leader that he will put his hand on who will deliver her. And God will do that. What we see, ladies and gentlemen, is if any group is to get a victorious work done for God, it does need leadership that will move it according to the Word of God and will of God. But I want to go back to the end of verse 16 again because it tells us something really remarkable about God. The end of verse 16 says, He could bear the misery of Israel no longer. Now God's people deserve to be miserable. They had walked away from the Lord. They deserve to be as miserable as they possibly could be, but look at the heart of God here. God looks at His people and He said He could not bear the misery of Israel any longer. Don't tell me God is not a God of grace in the Old Testament. The fact of the matter is, the book of Judges is a book of the grace of God. The fundamental point I want you to see tonight is that the character of God is clearly revealed here. In verse 13, God says, I'll not deliver you again. But in verse 16, He says, I can't bear the misery of Israel any longer. That is the character that God has for His people. God has a heart that longs to pour out grace and mercy and forgiveness to his people. What you're seeing here is the heart of God. God's nature is to forgive. God's nature is to show compassion to his people. It's true, as God, he has to punish the non-repentant and the guilty, but that's not what his heart wants to do. God has a heart that longs to forgive. He has a heart that longs to be merciful and gracious to his people if they will just Turn to Him. And perhaps you're here tonight, you know you're a child of God. You believed on the Lord Jesus Christ years ago. But perhaps you sit here tonight and you say, I know I'm involved in some depraved stuff. And because of that, you know God's blessings are not really on you. They're removed from you. Look, flee to the grace of God. Do you see what God's heart is for you? God says, I want to give you my mercy. My heart is to get you out of your misery. My heart is to bless you. So you confess the evil, you acknowledge the sin, acknowledge the guilt, acknowledge you deserve to be ruined. And then you thank God for his grace, because that is in the heart of God. May we pray. If you are here tonight and you've never trusted Jesus Christ as Savior, Ask yourself this question. What do you trust in that you think is gonna take you to heaven? And if you can put any noun there except Jesus Christ, you're trusting in the wrong thing. And there's coming a moment when you're gonna lose. Right now in this moment, you pray something like this. God, I'm a sinner. I admit it to you tonight. I thank you that Jesus Christ went to that cross for me and I pray to him right now and invite him to be my savior. Our father, we thank you so much for the precious word of God. Thank you for the grace in your heart. Where would any of us be if it were not for the grace that you have in your heart and the mercy for us? You know, we go through this book that you've inspired, Lord, this book of Judges, and it does mirror a lot of ourselves. We see the same kinds of things, at least we have in our lives, where we're up and down in our relationship with you, but help this book to straighten that out. Help us to be people who are honest, humble, we deal openly, honestly with stuff, and may we be the recipient of thy blessings. For anything you've done here tonight, we thank you and praise you in Jesus' name, amen.