When you stand up here and you're leading worship, there are some times when the congregation's singing and you can tell that everyone's right into the song, wanting to sing along. And there are other times when the words are a little bit hard and the singing's a little bit muted. This is one of those songs. This morning we had it in Langley and also here this afternoon. It's a difficult song to sing. It's a difficult period of history as well. We're going to jump into that period of history and we're going to read of this part of history when Israel was unfaithful to God in the beginning of their dwelling in the land of Canaan. So we're going to read together from Judges 1. We're going to be starting in verse 21. We're going to be reading right through to chapter 2 verse 23. Judges comes after the book of Joshua. Towards the front of your Bible. Judges 1. The first few verses that we're skipping over tell of Judah's conquering of the land of Canaan. Judah actually did a really good job of conquering the land of Canaan. I'll just point your attention to verse 17. We read that Judah went with Simeon his brother and they defeated the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath and devoted it to destruction. So the name of the city was called Hormah and Hormah basically means utter destruction. So when you think of God's commands for them to wipe out the Canaanites, Judah did a good job. I'm going to keep reading in verse 21 and our focus is on the other tribes of Israel. Judges 121, but the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem. So the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel. The Lord was with them. The house of Joseph scouted out Bethel. Now the name of the city was formerly Luz. The spies saw a man coming out of the city. And they said to him, please show us the way into the city, and we'll deal kindly with you. And he showed them the way into the city. And they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all his family go. The man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city and called its name Luz. That is its name to this day. Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth She'an and its villages, or Tanakh and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Iblium and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages, for the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in the land. When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites into forced labor, but they did not drive them out completely. and Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Giza, so the Canaanites lived in Giza among them. Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron or the inhabitants of Nahal, so the Canaanites lived among them but became subject to forced labor. Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Akko or the inhabitants of Sidon or Arlab or Aksib or Helba or Aphic or Rehob, so the Asherites lived among the Canaanites. the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out. Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh or the inhabitants of Beth Anath, so they lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of their land. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath became subject to forced labor for them. The Amorites pressed the people of Dan back into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down into the plain. The Amorites persisted in dwelling in Mount Heraz, in Aijalon, and in Shalbim. The hand of the house of Israel rested heavily on them, and they became subject to forced labor. The border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabim, from Sila and upward. Now, the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim, and he said, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. He said, I'll never break my covenant with you and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? So now I say, I'll not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides and their God shall be a snare to you. As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. They called the name of that place Bochem, and they sacrificed there to the Lord. When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went, each to his inheritance, to take possession of the land. The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work the Lord had done for Israel. Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. They buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-Herez, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. They abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were all around them and bowed down to them. They provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Asheroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress. Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they hoared after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them, and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And he said, because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice, I'll no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did or not. So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua. So far, the reading of God's words. Dear brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ, the passage of Scripture that we're going to be meditating on together this afternoon is a long passage of Scripture. You would have realized that as we read it together. It's the introduction to the book of Judges. The book of Judges is a book that deals with a period of Israelite history between the conquest of the land of Canaan And just before the Kings ends around the time of Samuel, around the time of Eli. It's a period of history of about 300 years, extended period of history. And in this time of history, 300 years, the Israelites weren't ruled by kings. There was no king in Israel. But instead, what happened was there were judges who God raised up to rule over, to care for his people. If you know anything about this book of judges, you'll know that it's a book that has a cycle to it. As you go through this book, it's like this repeated cycle. It's a cycle where you have the Israelites, they rebel against God. Because of that, God sends oppressors to punish them so that they will see that they're living in the wrong way, hopefully turn back to Him. Then after that, God rescues His people, He saves them by a judge, and then finally there's a period of peace. So you can summarize this history of the judges in a cycle. A cycle of rebellion, ruin, rescue and rest. And the cycle just goes around and around and around. every judge one after the other. The book of Judges focuses on six judges. These weren't the only judges in the 300 years. We're also told of six other judges, basically just given their names and nothing else. The author wants to just focus on these six as a bit of a window into this period of history. And in our passage that we're meditating on together this afternoon, The author of this book, who most probably is Samuel, he wants us to understand why it is and how it is that the Israelites entered into that cycle. How it is that for 300 years, the Israelites were in this cycle, the cycle of rebellion, followed by ruin, followed by rescue, followed by rest, and then right back in it again. He wants to explain how we got here. And so our theme this afternoon is entering into the cycle of judges, or you could put it as a question, how did we get here? How did we get into this period of history? And I see that there are two points, two reasons why we see this cycle. The first is Israel's unfaithfulness, and the second is because of Yahweh's faithfulness. So entering into the the cycle of the judges. The first point is Israel's unfaithfulness. Our second point is Yahweh's faithfulness. And so as we come into the book and the period of judges, The first thing that we have to realize is that Israel, God's people, are unfaithful to Him. They've just been brought into covenant with God, and that's the background to this period of history. God has taken them out of Egypt, placed them in a covenant with Himself. Now, I'm sure this past week the word covenant has probably not been used in your family. It's not a word that we use very often, but it is something that we are familiar with. Probably the most familiar covenant to us is actually a marriage. It's the end of wedding season in the summer is the time when you do probably almost as much preaching as going to weddings as a pastor. And a marriage, a wedding ceremony is a covenant ceremony. You have a husband and you have a wife and they enter into a relationship and they pledge to do things for each other. They give each other vows. In our form for marriage, if I can get it off the top of my head, the husband, I think, promises to love and guide his wife. And the wives, yes, promise to love and obey their husbands. And now the big picture that God uses for his relationship with his Old Testament people is the picture of marriage. In the New Testament, we're used to this picture of God's relationship as a father-son, father-daughter relationship. That comes to the fore in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, what is at the fore is a husband-wife relationship. God will often call himself the husband and picture Israel as his wife. And so Israel is brought into a covenant relationship and they have a duty, and exactly the same duty as a wife actually vows to give her husband today. And that duty is to love and obey Yahweh. They're brought into that covenant. And we see when we come into the book of Judges that Israel is disobedient. God has given the Israelites that command to wipe out all of the Canaanites. A little bit unsavory for us to think about it, that God would give a command like that to destroy the Canaanites. And so just briefly as an aside, we don't have much time to be there this afternoon, but that command to destroy the Canaanites, there's two reasons for it. First reason is that this is God's just judgment on Canaan. It's actually 600 years before this point in history that God had said to Abram that the Israelites would only come into the land of Canaan in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. So this is God's judgment on the iniquity, the wickedness of the Amorites. And if you're wondering what sort of wickedness there was going on in the land of Canaan at that time, we get a picture of that in Psalm 106. They were sacrificing their sons and daughters to demons. To heathen wickedness enticed, they to the demons sacrificed their own beloved sons and daughters, poured out their children's guiltless blood. God is the judge of this world. And he does judge sin. He is patient, he is long-suffering, but he does judge. And here is a moment where we actually see God's judgment on sin. We all know that on the last day God will judge each and every one of us for our sins and we're either covered by the blood of Christ or we will be justly condemned. So this is a calling also for us to find ourselves standing with Jesus on that last day, trusting in him. So the first reason why there was this utter destruction that the Israelites had to bring was because of God's judgment on the Canaanites. Secondly, it was for his protection of his people. As a surgeon removes all the cancer from a cancer patient, otherwise the cancer spreads. So also God had to remove all of the Canaanite influence from Canaan, otherwise it would influence his own people. And the sad thing is that we see, and we're also saying about it in Psalm 106, that these Canaanites actually influenced the Israelites as well. Psalm 106, it's not actually Canaanite sacrifice that we're saying about, but Israelite child sacrifice as well. God wanted to prevent this, he wanted to keep his people pure, and so he wanted no Canaanite influence, no Canaanite gods influencing his people. So that's just a little bit of a background, a little bit of an aside. God had actually commanded his people to remove the Canaanites and to remove all of the Canaanite influence. But we see in Judges 1 that God's people were disobedient to that. They broke their covenant with God. You know, we read in Judges 1 together, We read a lot of names. I had to pronounce a lot of names and try to get a lot of names right. You may have been wondering, why do we read this whole chapter? It's just like we're repeating ourselves and there's one name after another after another. But in Judges 1, what we actually have here, what God is showing us is the disobedience of His people. And He wants to show us progressively how they disobeyed Him. And it's subtle, but it's in the text. You start off with Judah. And you have Judah taking over their territory and doing a great job of it. Judah does well. You end with Dan. Dan does terribly. We actually read that Dan wasn't able to take their territory. The Canaanites, the Amorites pushed them out of their territory. And there's flow in this chapter as we read through it. So you have Judah. They take over their territory. They do a good job. But then we read in the next stage of history, when you have the House of Joseph, that there is this repeated phrase that comes through. And that is that the people of Israel, they couldn't wipe out the Canaanites entirely, but the Canaanites lived among them. And we find that phrase repeatedly. The Canaanites lived among them. The Canaanites lived among them. The Canaanites lived among them. But then the phrase actually changes as we read a little bit further on and we come to Asher and we come to Naphtali. And there we read that the Asherites lived among the Canaanites and the people from Naphtali lived among the Canaanites. And finally when we get to Dan there's even more progression and we read that the Amorites didn't actually let the people of Dan in at all. And in this subtle way, the author to the judges wants to show us that the Israelites failed to obey God and to do what he commanded. Because what God wanted was this suburb, if we bring it to the phrase of valley, this suburb that was free of Canaanite influence, where there were no streets that were named after Baal or Asherah, but they were all named after, let's say, Yahweh. that every single shop in that suburb had a sign and that sign was only in the Israelite, the Hebrew language, no Canaanite there at all. And so Judah does a good job of that. All of the Canaanites are pushed out of the suburb. But then we see that as we progress, we have some Canaanites dwelling with the Israelites. You have a street, maybe there's three houses on that street that have Canaanites in there. But then later on, we see that In actual fact, the Israelites are living among the Canaanites. You're on a street and it's mostly Canaanite street with a few little Israelites scattered in there. And then finally, when we look at Dan, we're on the street and there's no Israelites there at all. It's just plain Canaanites. God's people didn't obey God and do what he required. And it's clearly the Israelites' fault. We read that when Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely. And that's repeated throughout this chapter. The Israelites were able to drive the Canaanites out. They grew strong. But when they were able to do that, they sat down and they thought, and they said, you know what, we've got a pretty good gig here. We got some people who can fetch our water. We got some people who can tend our flocks. We got some people who can plant our crops. We got some people who can clean our houses. Why don't we just put them to good use? Let's keep them as forced labor instead of obeying God and driving them out. And God, he comes with his angels and he gives a devastating analysis of this situation. He says, I brought you from Egypt and brought you into the land. And I said, I'll never break my covenant with you. You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. So we see that the Israelites have not obeyed God, they've been disobedient, they've broken covenant with God. But the introduction goes a little bit further than that. As we keep on reading we realize that the Israelites didn't only break covenant with God, they also made covenant with the other gods. Read in Judges 2 verse 10 that This first generation who entered into the land of Canaan died and there came another generation who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. So all of the immigrants passed away and there was a second generation. This second generation didn't know the Lord. And we ask ourselves, what does that mean? Does that mean their mums and dads never taught them their Bible stories, so they didn't actually know about Him? That's not what it means. What it means is that they didn't want to be in a relationship with Him. And we know this because this very same word is actually used of the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas. In 2 Samuel 2 verse 10, we read, the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. And now that clearly doesn't mean they didn't know about God. These two guys, they lived in the temple. They served in the temple. They knew more about God than 95% of the other Israelites. What it means is that they didn't care for God. And as we read the story about Hophni and Phinehas, we see exactly why they didn't care for God. We read two things about them. One, they would take whatever part of the sacrifices they wanted rather than giving them to God. And two, they would sleep with the women who served at the temple. Basically what this means is they knew everything about God, they knew what it meant to live in relationship with God, but rather than living in relationship with God, they cared about steak and they cared about sex more than about relationship with God. And it's the same, it's the same judgment that we read, or the same analysis that we read, about this other generation. They didn't know the Lord. They may have known about the Lord, but they didn't know Him. They were not in personal relationship with Him. When we come back to those marriage vows that every bride makes, do you promise to love and obey Him? We already know that the Israelites didn't obey God. Saw that in chapter 1. Now we also see that the Israelites didn't love God. They didn't want to be in a relationship with Him. Because of this unfaithfulness, we read that Yahweh is angry. He is no longer for his people, he is against his people. He sells them into the hands of their enemies. We come to chapter 2 verse 15 and we read that they were in terrible distress. So we come back to that repeated cycle that we see in the book of Judges. The cycle of rebellion and then ruin. We see that we begin that cycle because of the Israelites' unfaithfulness. Israel rebels and as a result God sends enemies and they are ruined. There's something that's important for us to note here for us as God's people in the 21st century. And that is that to be in a relationship with Yahweh is to be in a personal relationship with Him. We read about this generation that didn't know God. And this previous generation that didn't obey God. And they give a warning for us. The warning is not that they had to do more catechesis, they had to sit in their catechism classes a bit longer and to understand more about God, even though that's really important. But the lesson is that they had to know God personally. That's a be in personal relationship with Him because that is what God wants from His people. When God enters into relationship, He enters into personal relationships with each of us as people. And so the question that each of us has to ponder this afternoon as we sit here is, do I know Yahweh? Do I know God? It's not do I know about God, but do I know Him? Do I know Him personally? Do I have a personal relationship with Him? You know, we live in a society where people are increasingly agnostic. Perhaps the term agnostic is not familiar to you, but it means that people aren't atheists so much anymore. They don't say, no, there is no God, but they're agnostic. They say, I don't really know if there is a God. I'm not really sure. The evidence isn't there, so I'm going to sit on the fence. I'm going to stay in that gray area. I'm not going to commit either way. And what this does, it actually removes the fence entirely and says there is no fence to sit on. There is no gray area. You're either in a personal relationship or you're not. You can think of it like those marriage vows. Six years ago, I was married to my wife, Claire. I promised that I would love her and guide her faithfully. And she promised that she would love and obey me. I don't really know why she did it. I definitely married up, but that's beside the point. But you can imagine that we're there in front of the church and she's asked that question. She's got to say yes to these vows. Do you promise to love and obey him? And she says, you know what? I'm not really sure. Give me a little bit of time to think about that. and then the ceremony is done. There's absolutely no difference between that and her saying like, no, thank you very much. I'm out. There's absolutely no difference because if she says, oh, let me think about it. I'm not really sure. Or if she just says, no, the end result is the same. We're not married. We're not in that relationship. And it's the same with God as well. To be God's child means to be in a relationship with Him. To be part of the Bride of Christ means to be in a relationship with God personally. And so that question is, do you know God? Do you commit yourself to love and to obey Him? You know, the Israelites, they had a very good reason to commit themselves to God. He just saved them from Pharaoh, just brought them into the promised land. But each of us have such a better reason. to love and obey our God. He didn't save us from Pharaoh, but he sent Jesus to save us from our sin. He sent Jesus to set us free from that burden of our guilt and that burden of our shame. As Jesus says, come to me, all who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The question is, have you come to Jesus? And have you found His rest, being in relationship with the Triune God? And so we've come halfway through our cycle. We've looked at how the book of Judges is a cycle that begins with rebellion and then ruin. But it's much more than a cycle of that. It's also a cycle of rescue and rest. Because while Israel is unfaithful, we see that Yahweh is faithful. While Israel is unfaithful in relationship, God is a God of mercy and God is a God of love and God is a God of compassion. And so he reaches down to his people and sends them judges time and time again to rescue them and to bring them to a point of rest. What I'd like to emphasize as we look at the cycle of judges, and that as we look at this cycle where there is rebellion and ruin followed by rescue and rest, what I want us to be clear on is that the reason why God rescues his people is because of his compassion. The reason that he sets them free from their enemies and delivers them again is because of his heart of love. And we see this in verse 15 to 16. If you have your Bibles open, there's something that's just really amazing here. We have the Israelite people and we read that they were in terrible distress. They're oppressed by their enemies. And we'd expect to read something like, and in their distress, the Israelites repented from their sin and turned to God and he delivered them. But we don't actually see that. What we see here between verses 15 and 16 is that there is nothing between the Israelites' distress and God raising up judges. We read they're in terrible distress. Then the Lord raised up judges. And later on in the chapter, God gives us the reason why he raised up judges. Read that the Lord saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, verse 18, for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. God was moved to pity. And there's something so beautiful here. God looks at his people in their distress, and he looks at them in their groaning, and he looks at them in their affliction, and his heart of love just goes towards them so that he rescues them. It's not like there's this equation where the Israelite people repent and then God listens to them because they have repented and delivers them. What happens is the Israelite people groan, God has pity on them in their groaning, and then he delivers them. You see, often we think that the cycle of judges isn't a four-part cycle, but a five-part cycle. And it's a cycle of rebellion, ruin, followed by repentance, and then rescue and rest. But when we go through the cycle of judges, there's actually not repentance there. The people cry out. They cry out in their misery. They cry out in their pain. They cry out because of the oppression. But there's not repentance. And it's beautiful to see that God reaches out to his people to rescue them in his great love and in his great compassion. Repentance comes in. It's a response to this rescue that the Israelites should repent and should turn to God. The repentance should be the result. Israel should be experiencing rest and look back on God and look back on His deliverance and turn to Him and hold on to Him and trust in Him and repent. But they never do. And so the cycle begins again. And God's compassion comes out to His people again. But then they don't repent. And then the cycle starts again and God's compassion comes out again. Time and time and time and time again we see something of the heart of love that our God has for us. which is the very same heart of love that He has for us today. A heart of love. A heart of love that just overflows from within Himself and reaches out to us. You know, sometimes I have this thought, and I'm sure there's a number of you that have this thought as well. We look at ourselves and we wonder how it is that God can love us. And we look for this reason somewhere within ourselves why God would love us and we just come up empty because we can't find anything there. We only find an answer when we stop looking at ourselves and we start looking at God. And we see that heart of love that God has, we see His character, we see His compassion. Because you know it's that very same heart of love that motivated God to rescue us from our sin. John 3.16, a passage that we all know so well. For God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. But have you ever thought of the word order in that verse? You see, the word order isn't believe in Jesus and then be loved. But it's the other way around. It's love that motivates God. God loved this world in its brokenness, in its mess, in its rebellion. And so he sent Jesus so that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. Love is what motivates God to action. And so our brokenness isn't actually something that hinders God. It's not something that we have to remove so that God will love us, but it's precisely our brokenness, our groaning, our affliction that actually draws God to us because he is that overflowing fountain of love. And so when we look at this cycle of judges, there is something there for us today. We see We look into our own hearts. We all see rebellion. We have hearts that are rebellious. We all see ruin. We see brokenness in each and every one of our lives. But at the same time, when we open the New Testament, we see a message of rescue. That God, in his love, has sent his son, the ultimate judge, the ultimate savior, to rescue us. If we believe in Him, we find rest, not just rest here on earth, but rest for our souls. So let it be that we find our story also in the book of Judges, not as a repeated cycle, but just as a once-off cycle of God rescuing each and every one of us from our rebellion. Amen.