You can turn with me in your Bibles to Judges chapter 2, the book of Judges chapter 2. Judges 2, I'll read beginning in verse 7, and I'll read to chapter 3, verse 6. So beginning in chapter 2 at verse 7. So 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 works of the Lord, which he had done for Israel.
Now Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110 years old, and they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-Heras, in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them, who did not know the Lord, nor the work which He had done for them. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt.
And they followed other gods 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 the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. And the anger of the Lord 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 the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord had said and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed.
Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord. They did not do so.
And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of 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 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. then the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel.
And he said, because this nation has transgressed my covenant, which I commanded their fathers, and has not heeded my voice, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the Lord to walk in them as their fathers kept them or not. Therefore, the Lord left those nations without driving them out immediately, nor did He deliver them into the hand of Joshua. Now these are the nations which the Lord left, that He might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan. This was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it.
Namely, five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath. And they were left that he might test Israel by them to know whether they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. Thus, the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and they served their gods.
Amen. Well, let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, we thank You for this Lord's Day. We thank You for the blessed privilege of gathering in the house of God to worship with the people of God and to rally around Your Word.
We pray now that the Holy Spirit would guide and direct us and lead us into all truth. May we see this as a an example, an encouragement for us to go thou and not do likewise. Help us to be faithful as the church in this world and to shine as lights in a crooked and perverse generation and to hold forth that word of truth. Forgive us now for all of our sin and we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Introduction
Well, James, in James chapter 1 and verse 27, he says that pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Well, the book of Judges serves as a wonderful illustration of not doing that. God saved these people, He called them out of the land of bondage, He gave them an inheritance in the land, He told them to dispossess the land of the Canaanites, and they were, according to Deuteronomy 4, to mediate the blessings of Yahweh on the nations around them. But the book of Judges indicates that they did not keep themselves unspotted from the world, rather they became like the world.
They increasingly became like the Canaanites that they were supposed to dispatch from the land. So it's a wonderful illustration for us. There's obviously differences in terms of God's direct covenant with the nation of Israel, the fact that they were a theocratic nation living in a land that had been promised to them, but there are certainly parallels for the life of the church in the midst of this present evil age. We're supposed to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.
We're supposed to shine as lights in this crooked and perverse generation. The church in Laodicea, Christ threatens to spit them or vomit them out of his mouth because they were neither hot nor cold. They had no effect upon the society around them.
Overview of Judges 1–2
So let's look at Judges chapter two. I wanna just first begin with just a bit of an introduction. I honestly hope that at the end of the sermon tonight, you'll read the book of Judges and you'll read it with some thoughts concerning what we're gonna bring out tonight. But chapters one and two are introductory in nature.
Chapter one summarizes Israel's conquest of Canaan. Remember, Joshua was the man sent by God to function as the military leader, to go in, to lead the children of Israel into Canaan, to kill people, and to dispossess the land of the Canaanites. Joshua portrays a very favorable sort of description of the conquest. We get to the book of Judges, though, and we see that it's not as good as we might have expected.
So chapter one basically rehearses or recounts the conquest up until this point. Notice the emphasis or the accent upon their failure. They were to dispossess the land of the Canaanites, and yet the author tells us over and over again that they didn't do that. Notice in chapter one, specifically at verse 19.
So the Lord was with Judah and they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the low land. Dropping down to verse 21, the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem. Verse 27, however, Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Bashshin and its villages. Notice in verse 28, we see the same sort of emphasis.
It came to pass when Israel was strong, they put the Canaanites under tribute, but did not completely drive them out. Verse 29, nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gethsemane. Verse 30, nor did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Ketron. Verse 31, nor did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Akko.
And then in verse 32, the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out. Verse 33, nor did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh. Verse 34, the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain. So you see, the emphasis by God to the children of Israel was not followed through.
So now you've got all these Canaanites living in the land. Israel is living in the midst of the land and they become spotted by the presence of the Canaanites. They weren't so holy as to affect positively the land for Yahweh. Rather, it was the negative impact of the people in the land that affected the children of Israel.
And so chapter 2 then summarizes, verses 1 to 6, the conquest. Look at the end of verse 6. When Joshua had dismissed the people, the children of Israel went each to his own inheritance to possess the land. And then from 2.7 to 3.6, this is a thematic overview of how the book is going to play out.
In other words, chapter two tells us the pattern, the cycles that we'll obtain in Israel's history. In so far as they disobey God, God will raise up foreign oppressors to bring judgment to bear upon them. God in his mercy and grace will raise up deliverers, judges who will spare them. And the children of Israel will not follow along.
They will find a temporary reprieve, but they'll go right back to the bales. They'll go right back to the asterisks. They'll go right back to their forsaking of the Lord. So that's the overview of chapters one and two.
So in chapter two, beginning at verse seven,
Root of Israel's Apostasy
we'll notice the root of Israel's apostasy in verses seven to 10. Secondly, the description of Israel's apostasy in verses 11 to 15a. And then finally, the divine response to Israel's apostasy in 215b to 36. So you've got the root of their apostasy, the description of it, and then the divine response.
And again, this is how the book follows from this vantage point. So each of the judges, each of the 12 men that are named as the saviors of Israel, they will see the same sort of thing happen in terms of their judgeship.
Not Knowing the Lord
Now notice the root. It is very simple, it is very obvious, and it comes to us very clearly in verse 10. This not knowing the Lord, it doesn't mean cognitively. They would have understood that they were Yahweh's chosen people.
They would have understood that they had inherited this land based on the promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They knew this mentally, they knew this cognitively, they knew this in the mind, but they did not know it experientially. There's a similar account in 1 Samuel 2 concerning the sons of Eli. They were priests of the living and true God.
And they lay with temple prostitutes, and they stole sacrifices for their own use. Well, what was the root of their problem? They did not know the Lord, according to 1 Samuel 2. Now, they obviously knew who Yahweh was, they were priests of Yahweh, but they didn't know him experientially, they didn't know him experimentally, they didn't know him salvificly.
You see the same emphasis in Romans chapter 1, when man refuses or rejects or turns away from the living and true God, he pursues and follows after all manner of ungodliness and unrighteousness. So after the death of Joshua, we see deterioration that obtains in the nation of Israel. Their past faithfulness is highlighted in verse seven. You've got the death of Joshua recorded in verses eight and nine, and then you have God's rejection of them in verse 10 because they did not know the Lord.
Now, this goes back to them not obeying, not only in not dispossessing the land of the Canaanites, but not obeying the injunction, say for instance, of a Deuteronomy 4, Deuteronomy chapter 6, that you are to teach your children when they rise up, when they walk by the way, when they lie down. They didn't have the conscious memory of the living and true God who had worked in their midst. And a couple of commentators hit upon this, and Daniel Bloch says, when people lose sight of God's grace, they lose sight of God and the sense of obligation to Him. All that follows in the book is a consequence of Israel's loss of memory. that they don't know the Lord is the vantage point from which all of the degeneration then follows.
Dale Ralph Davis says, amnesia produces apostasy. That is why scripture is so frantic about the church, not forgetting what God has done for us. You need to be in your Bibles. You need to cultivate that walk with God.
You need to be faithful and persevering. And you need to make sure that you don't fall prey to this simple cognition and yet without the experiential knowledge of the living and true God. So this was Israel's problem. This was the root of their apostasy.
They didn't know the Lord and therefore they forsook him and they ran after other gods.
Description of Israel's Apostasy
Notice in the second place, the description of their apostasy. The author gives us the relationship that they bore with God. Over and over again, he highlights their special status as the children of God, the covenant people of God. Notice in the first place, his status as the God of the patriarchs.
Verse 12, they forsook the Lord God of their fathers." Again, they should not have done this. The Lord Most High entered into covenant with them. He had blessed their fathers. He had brought them out of the land of Egypt.
He had given them the tabernacle for worship. He had begraced them thoroughly, and yet they turned their back on Him. Notice that his role to them was as deliverer. The end of verse 10, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which he had done for Israel.
The work which he had done for Israel is pinnacled in the redemption from Egypt. And then notice as well his establishment of a covenant. Look at verse 20. Verse 20, then the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and he said, because this nation Don't miss this language.
This evidence is God's anger that is hot toward them. He says it was hot against Israel and he said because this nation, he calls them the goy. That's a Hebrew word that typically refers to the Gentiles. It typically refers to the heathen.
It typically refers to the outsiders. He is speaking this way because they are living like the heathen. They are living like the Goy. They have imbibed the very ethics of Canaan itself.
So because this nation, not because my people, but because this nation has transgressed my covenant, which I commanded their fathers, and has not heeded my voice. So they have this special relationship that they bear with God, and yet they've engaged in apostasy.
Defection: Serving the Baals
Notice secondly, under the description, their defection from God in verses 11 to 13. Verse 11a sort of functions as a topic sentence. We've seen that. In Ephesians 1, for instance, Ephesians 1, 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
General statement, and then the apostle fills it out with particular details. The Father chose us, Christ bled and rose for us, and the Spirit applies that redemptive work. Well, verse 11a functions in that same manner. Look at what the author tells us.
Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. That's the overarching statement. That's the general concern of the author. And now he'll provide for us specific details in what their apostasy or their defection looked like.
Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. Notice, secondly, they served Baal. Verse 11b, they served the Baals. The Lord God had delivered them from Egypt.
The Lord God had plagued the Egyptians, culminating in the death of the firstborn. The Lord God opened the waters of the Red Sea so that the children of Israel could walk through there without even getting wet. The Lord had done all this and yet they forsake him and now they turn to Baal. Why do you think they turn to Baal?
Because their pagan heathen neighbors were Baal worshipers. And Baal was the god of storms, god of thunder, god of rain, god of fertility. And so they would see their neighbors bowing to Baal, calling upon Baal for rain, and if it happened to rain, guess what they would conclude? was Baal. So therefore, let us go to Baal.
Yahweh has charge of the big stuff, but when it comes to things like rain, when it comes to things like crops, we'll go ahead and call upon Baal. We'll let go and let Baal. In fact, you need to understand something about Baal, and Davis explains it very well. Not sure that we get the connection between Baal and Ashtoreth, for instance.
Now, some of this language might offend, but I'm sorry, it does depict what was offensive about this irreligion. That's the thing. We in the church, we get offended by the use of particular language, but we don't get offended by the fact that it's describing particular activities, right? He says, in Canaanite theology and agriculture, the fertility of the land depended upon the sexual relationship between Baal and his consort.
The revival of nature was due to sexual intercourse between Baal and his partner. But the Canaanite faithful didn't simply sit back and say, let Baal do it. There was no let go and let Baal thinking among them. Instead, their watchword was, serve Baal with gladness, all ye lands.
Hence, the Canaanites practiced sacred prostitution as a part of their worship. A Canaanite man, for instance, would go to a Baal shrine and have relations with one of the sacred prostitutes serving there. The man would fulfill Baal's role and the woman Ashtoreth's. The idea was that the copulating of the worshiper and the prostitute would encourage the divine couple.
Mr. and Mrs. Baal would do their thing and thus rain, grain, wine, and oil would flow again. So when you read about them forsaking Yahweh and going after Baal, understand that there was something to that. Now it's sin, it's demonic, it's wicked, it's evil, and it's vile, but what would you prefer?
The religion of Yahweh that says you had no sight, you had no vision, rather it's word-based, the word comes to you, you're supposed to not go after prostitutes, you're supposed to keep yourself undefiled, you're supposed to engage in the boundaries that God has established, or if you're an unconverted wretch, you could see the allure that Baal worship would have. So there was this perennial problem in Israel's history with reference to Baalism. So then notice they served Baals and then verse 12, they forsook the Lord God of their fathers. That necessarily follows.
You forsake God when you go after an idol. You don't have God and the idol. This is likely the emphasis of Elijah at Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18.
Elijah and Syncretism at Carmel
You can turn there, 1 Kings chapter 18. Remember that challenge where the prophet of God, dubbed as the Troubler of Israel by Ahab. No, Ahab was the Troubler of Israel, not Elijah. But Elijah proposes a contest, a God contest.
Whoever's God reigns supreme, that's the God we submit to. But notice in chapter 18 at verse 20, so Ahab sent for all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel. And Elijah came to all the people and said, how long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him.
But if Baal, follow him. Most likely, it wasn't the case that they said, we absolutely positively repudiate Yahweh. We only want Baal. They were trying to engage in what's called syncretism.
A bit of God here, a bit of this God. Whatever God helps us to cope, whatever God helps us to manage, whatever God helps us to get up out of bed each day, whatever God blesses us in work, whatever God blesses us in rain, whatever God is there, that's the God to whom we will submit. And Elijah says, no, you cannot do that. You don't serve Yahweh and Baal.
It is one or the other. There's an exclusivity about this arrangement. And going back to Judges chapter two, they forsook the Lord God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they followed other gods 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. That brings us then to what we find in terms of their rejection by the living and true God. You need to understand, brethren, this isn't mysterious. We don't get to the book of Judges and say, wow, I cannot believe that God is going to cut them off.
I cannot believe that God is chastening them. I cannot believe that God is going to actually judge them for their sin.
Covenant Curses and God's Anger
Read Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Those are covenant documents. They promise blessing for obedience and they promise curses for disobedience. So they knew all too well the terms of the covenant.
They knew all too well the obligation. In fact, at the base of Sinai in Exodus 24, they say, everything that Yahweh has commanded, we will do, we will obey, we will comply. They got way ahead of themselves, brethren. They had no understanding what the hymn writer would say.
I'm prone to wander, prone to leave the God that I love. They had no consciousness of the holiness of God, no consciousness of the depravity of their own heart. And so with reference to God's rejection of them, that was stipulated by the covenant arrangement. So again, verse 13, they forsook the Lord, served Baal and the Asherahs, and the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel.
He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them. 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 the Lord was against them for calamity. As the Lord had said, See, they couldn't say, oh, no, this isn't fair.
We didn't know. We were under the impression that we could have a bit of Yahweh, we could have a bit of Baal, and a bit of Ashtoreth. We thought Moloch was just another god in the sort of pantheon that we could bow down to. No, as God had said, as God had commanded, as God had stipulated, as God had declared.
So everything that comes their way in terms of chastisement and judgment is stuff that they brought willingly upon themselves. And again, brethren, we're not in covenant with God the way the old covenant people are, in terms of a national identity, in terms of a theocratic construct. That's not true of us, but the church, in the covenant of grace, we're not in it in order to try and earn our salvation. We've been placed there by the goodness of our God.
Justification is an act of God's free grace wherein He pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. We're justified freely by His grace. But as justified freely by His grace people, we're to let our conduct be worthy of the gospel. That's why in Revelation chapter 3, the Lord Christ indicts the Laodiceans.
Because you're neither hot nor cold, I'm going to vomit you out of my mouth. You're not living up to the standard that you're supposed to be. Again, not unto or for salvation, but as one who confesses the name of Jesus Christ. The good works that we manifest are fruits.
They're lively evidences of a true and living faith. They're not what completes the faith, they're not what makes the faith, they're not what secures us in terms of redemption, but our conduct must be the way that God calls us to be. So notice, we have the anger of the Lord, and this was promised in the second commandment. What does God say?
If you go out and you go a-whoring from him, and you seek out other gods, God has anger. And we see that in a sort of parallel with reference to marriage. If a woman goes out and commits adultery, the man doesn't say, well, you know, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. No, he's incensed.
He's angry. There's a jealousy, which is the flip side of true love. If you don't love, then there's not going to be any jealousy. And so Yahweh loves his people and demands exclusivity, so when they go whoring from him, Yes, he's angry.
Yes, he expresses that justice and that righteousness. Yes, he shows his disfavor to them in terms of the repercussions involved of sinning against him. So the Lord is angry, but then notice that the Lord delivers them to oppressors. Verse 14b.
And again, this specifies how the book of Judges proceeds. So 14b, he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Now, two thoughts there. The first is that the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8, if God is for us, who can be against us?
There's a flip side to that as well. If God is against us, who can be for us? But the other thing we ought to observe is that God delivered them up to the oppressors. This wasn't an unlucky eventuality.
This wasn't, wow, the Midianites, they've really gotten stronger, or the Philistines, they've really rallied together and have shown superior strength. They're under the sovereign providence of God Most High. which I think we can lift from that, put it into our current context and realize that what's happening globally in terms of this war against farmers, which why are we having a war against farmers? That is a war against mankind. This is under God's providence.
God is sovereign in the midst of this. It's not as if he's on vacation now and the train is just sort of running down the tracks and all the whack jobs happen to be in high places. They're God's whack jobs. He put them there.
He governs them. He owns them. And they are accomplishing his will. That's a tough pill for us to swallow, brethren, when we look out about us and we see the kinds of things that are going on.
Makes a man want to wave up his hands and say, I don't know what's going to happen. God does. God is teaching. God is using these things for His glory, for the good of His church, and for the salvation of others.
Sometimes, brethren, the church grows best when she's under tribulation. The church progresses more when she's under oppression. The church shines brighter when all the world around her is raising arms against her. And so God did this.
It wasn't unlucky. It wasn't, wow, that's just a bad situation that we're facing. Or it wasn't the fact that the heathens got militarily stronger. God did this.
God punished them, God chastised them, God delivered them. So the Lord summarized in 15a, wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord had said. So this is the result, this is the fruit, this is the effect of a people that reject God and go a whoring after other gods.
Divine Response to Apostasy
Now notice, thirdly, the divine response to Israel's apostasy. Look at, first of all, their distress. This shouldn't surprise us. The end of verse 15, it says, and they were greatly distressed.
Of course they were. Why would they be? Or why wouldn't they be? They're going out to war against these various nations, and they keep losing.
They're going out against these various nations, and instead of dispossessing them from the land, they end up dwelling amongst them. And instead then of shining as lights in a crooked and perverse generation, holding forth the word of truth, they now have become like those same Canaanites that are going to Baal worship services, that are going to Ashtoreth worship services, that are engaging in that rite of prostitution so that they can invoke Baal to reign upon their crops. So God brings judgment to bear upon them. Of course they're going to be distressed.
But notice what doesn't happen.
Distress Without Repentance
The distress doesn't produce repentance. This is something that people have seen in the book of Judges. There's a series of cycles. There's 12 Judges, and there's cycles.
There's sin, oppression, most of the time people say repentance, and then deliverance. There's no repentance here, brethren. The accent falls in the book ultimately on the goodness of God. See, the book of Judges really is about salvation is of the Lord.
These 12 men that functioned as judges were saviors of Israel, not because Israel deserved them, not because Israel was repentant, not because Israel said, we have sinned against our holy God, we repent in sackcloth and ashes. No, the distress is not there because they've sinned, The distress is not there because they forsook Yahweh and sought after Baal and Ashtoreth. The distress is there because it hurts. The distress is there because there's pain.
The distress is there because they're being bested on the battlefield by these heathen and pagan. Turn back to the book of Exodus for just a moment to see a similar construction. Exodus chapter 2. We know that the people of God were oppressed under Egyptian oppression.
Pharaoh was a wretch. He had a policy of extermination. Let's get rid of the male children. Let's destroy them.
We don't want them to have an army that's strong enough to beat us. Notice in Exodus chapter 20, I'm sorry, Exodus chapter 2 at verse 23. Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned.
Why did they groan? Because they had sinned against God? They find themselves in this place of judgment because of their offense against God? No!
They groaned because of their bondage, and they cried out. And their cry came up to God because of the bondage. We have to see and appreciate, we'll see this as we move through Judges 2, God's deliverance comes and it's not predicated on their repentance. It's not because they're sorry, it's not because they're sad, it's not because they feel bad for having hurt Yahweh, but it's because they've been hurt.
They're in a state of sin, they're in a state of misery, they're in a state of bondage, and it's that which evokes their cry. So when you continue on in Exodus chapter 2, notice, It says in verse 24, so God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel and God acknowledged them. So notice, he doesn't say he looked upon or heard their groaning, knew it was because they were repentant and they wanted to pursue holiness, so therefore he blessed them.
No, it was covenant. It was that promise that he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was that promise that he bound himself to in terms of blessing these people, even irrespective of their condition, even irrespective of their repentance, even irrespective of their sin against him. You move through the book of Exodus, you see the same sort of thing.
But back to Judges chapter 2.
Nevertheless: Grace in the Judges
Verse 16 gives us a nevertheless. This is akin to Ephesians 2.4. After Paul illustrates, demonstrates, highlights, and describes what man and sin looks like in Ephesians 2.1-3, he then comes on the heels of that and says, but God. Right?
It's not that man with a little education can pick himself up out of that morass. Man with a little bit more knowledge can fix his condition. But God, nevertheless, look at verse 16. This is amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found and was blind, but now I see. There's no reason for the nevertheless here, except for the grace of Almighty God. Nevertheless, they are distressed according to verse 15b, but they are then delivered by God according to verse 16. Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them.
So you've got Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Bereth, Gideon, Tola, Jer, Jephthah, Ibsen, Elon, Abdon, and Samson. Those are the men that the author is noting here. So the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Now notice, do you think that fixed their problem?
Do you think that helped them? Do you think that God's amazing grace meeting them in their distress would cause them to respond with the gratitude that was fitting and appropriate? No, they degenerate even further. See, Judges, again, is a snapshot of what happens to people who don't do what James tells us to do.
Keep oneself unspotted from the world. Don't be like the pagans. Don't be like the heathens. You see, and again, when you look at Judges or Joshua, and you hear of God telling the children of Israel to go in and dispossess the land of the Canaanites, that's not because he's a bloodthirsty God who's got vengeance in his divine veins, and all he wants to do is crush his opponents.
No, God the Lord made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would give them the land. He tells them that they are to dispossess the land of the Canaanites because they're awful people. They're wicked people. This idea that the Canaanites were just minding their own business and living in society and doing their thing, they were wretches.
They were vile. They were horrific. They were bad, bad people. So God tells Israel, I want you to go in, not because you're more righteous or more numerous, but because I've set my love on you.
I want you to go in and I want you to dispossess the land of the Canaanites. Why? Because I gave it to Abraham in terms of promise. But as well, these wretches that are abusing the land, they need to be sent out.
Now, lo and behold, as Israel increasingly becomes like the Canaanites, what does God do with them? God sends them out of the land too. It's not capriciousness. It's not arbitrariness.
It's not that God has some axe to grind against the Hivites or against the Amorites. They, you know, they just, they really get under his skin. No, it's about justice. It's about righteousness.
It's about obedience. It's about transgression. And so the none too righteous Israelites are called by God to go in and dispossess, dispossess the land of the Canaanites who are even less righteous. But when the Israelites become the Canaanites, then they too will be dispossessed from the land.
And that's why Jesus uses the language in Revelation 3. Old covenant religion, the land was central to Israel's promise from God. And so when the land vomited out its inhabitants, it was a mark of judgment. It was a demonstration of God's righteousness.
Well, so with the church in Laodicea. Jesus isn't trying to shock you by saying, I'm going to vomit you out of my mouth. Oh, horror of horrors. He is picking up on that theme from the land motif in Old Covenant Israel.
The way that Old Covenant Israel, or the land rather, vomited out Old Covenant Israel when they sinned against God. So will Jesus vomit out those neither hot nor cold Laodiceans. I wanted to throw a TH in there. Maybe the King James jumped in my head, but they don't even put a TH in Laodicea.
So the bottom line is, is that God raises up these deliverers, but then the people would degenerate. Look at verses 17 to 19. They would rebel, yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods. They bowed down to them.
They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord. They did not do so. Notice again the emphasis on the raising up of the judges, verse 18. And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge.
Now don't miss that, brethren. Not only does God raise up the judge, but God blesses the judge. Look at what the text says. And when the Lord raised up judges for them, verse 18, the Lord was with the judge.
You're going to read as you move through judges, some unsavory things done by some of the judges. And you may be tempted to conclude, wow, those were wretches. Now God's not condoning their sin, I'm not suggesting that he is, but they are God's wretches. They are God's tools, they are God's saviors, and God is with them.
I mentioned Samson last Sunday morning as he's there with the jawbone of an ass slaying Philistine after Philistine after Philistine after Philistine. Again, five would put me into a coma because I'd be so tired. But a thousand? How does Samson do that?
Because Yahweh is with him. God is with him. When Samson goes to that harlot in Gaza, the text is not suggesting he lay with her. He's engaged in military strategy.
When Samson ends his own life, not suicide, but he takes himself out in order to take out a whole host of Philistines, God is with him. So the unsavory things that are done by the judges, brethren, there is unsavoriness in every man. Any political leader, there's no perfect man, save Jesus Christ the Lord. Sometimes Christians get all bound up, well, we can't vote for him because he's bad.
I've got news for you, brethren. We're all bad. Every last one of us. There is no good in us.
But God, in his mercy, raises up Cyrus, king of Persia, and calls him his Christ. God raises up Nebuchadnezzar and calls him my servant. Those men were wretches too. So we don't say, well, you know, I can't believe.
God takes crooked things and he does straight things with them. And so when you move through the book of Judges and you see unsavory things, just watch your heart before you get all judgmental about, say for instance, Samson or Gideon. God told Gideon how he was to operate. And Gideon, you know, wavering a bit, says, well, Lord, can you give me a sign?
So he puts out the fleece, we know the story. And then he asks again. If I was God, I'd say, I've already, one, told you that that should be enough, but two, I've given you a sign, and now you're asking for another sign? But God doesn't respond that way.
You know what God does? He gives them another sign. So you see, we need to be careful to be too judgmental about the saviors that God raised up in old covenant history to deliver his people from their oppressors. So God is with them.
And then notice, the Lord was merciful to them, 18C. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning. because of those, excuse me, who oppressed them and harassed them. And then on the heels of that, verse 19 comes to tell us, this wasn't remedial. This didn't fix them.
This didn't solve their problems in terms of ethics. Notice in verse 19, 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. Sinful man really doesn't learn his lesson, does he?
Probably his parents had one child among the flock that was like that. You know, the school of hard knocks mostly teaches people. Some people don't even learn it when they're in the school of hard knocks. Sinners are kind of like that.
God gives them a judge to deliver them. The judge does deliver them. Vis-a-vis Samson killing Philistines like it was his job. And so God blesses in that regard and instead of them saying, what a gift from Yahweh.
Praise God from whom all Samson's come. No, they just revert and they do more corruption and more wickedness and more evil. We need to make sure we understand what is in our hearts. We are prone to wander and prone to leave the God that we love.
And then
Divine Speech and the Test
the passage ends with divine speech in verses 20 to 23. Again, the anger of the Lord is highlighted. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. And he said, because this nation, the goy, the heathen has transgressed my covenant, which I commanded their fathers and has not heeded my voice.
Notice what he goes on to say, the response, "...I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died." In other words, you're going to continue to have these hindrances, you're going to continue to have these heartaches, you're going to continue to reap what you have sown. In a moral universe, brethren, when God tells you not to do something and you do it, there's typically chastening. Our brother read Hebrews 12 this morning. God chastens his people.
And interestingly, in that Revelation passage, in Revelation chapter 3, probably the most severe of all the letters, in fact, you can turn there, Revelation chapter 3, the letter to the Laodiceans. Probably good to get that in front of us to see how we ought to reflect on what God does. So the indictment, verse 16, so then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, now the typical understanding is you're either a flat-out atheist or you're an on-fire Christian. No, the cold and the hot refers to water.
You're not like refreshing cool water that's a blessing to people around you, and you're not like medicinal hot water that is a help for the people around you. You're just lukewarm, right? None of us like lukewarm, either like hot coffee or ice water. We like something hot or cold.
It's not condemning cold that you're not cold. I'd rather you be a flat-out atheist than what you are. That's not the text, brethren. You're not hot, you're not cold.
Basically, you're ineffective. You're lukewarm. You're just yuck. Just, yuck, bad, not good at all.
So that's the indictment. And then notice, well, verse 16. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich, and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed. And anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.
Now notice this passage in verse 19. As many as I love, I rebuke and chase it. Therefore be zealous and repent. Same accent in Hebrews chapter 12.
For whom the Lord loves, He chastens. He loved Israel. He entered into a covenant with them. He's not forsaking them, but he is chastening them.
He is disciplining them. He is judging them. He is conforming them to the standard they are to imbibe. So going back to the book of Judges, this is his response.
I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died. Verse 22 in chapter two, so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the Lord to walk in them as their fathers kept them or not. This test wasn't for God. God knew exactly, always knows exactly what's going to happen.
The test was for them. When God comes to Adam and Eve in the garden, who told you? God's not asking the question because he needs information. He's doing it to exacerbate, to highlight, to demonstrate, and to show them their falling.
So the emphasis on testing. God's not saying, you're not gonna let all these pagans come around and just destroy you. And if you survive, if you make it, then you'll gain the prize. No, the test is for Israel.
They need to understand what they were made of. They needed to understand who their God was. And then verse 23, therefore the Lord left those nations without driving them out immediately, nor did he deliver them into the hand of Joshua. I think the reference goes back and it will go forward.
There's not going to be a complete vindication of the children of Israel in the land. And then there's a summary statement in chapter three, verses one to six. Notice verse one, now these are the nations which the Lord left that he might test Israel by them. That is all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan.
This was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it. That doesn't mean military strategies. It doesn't mean how to use an M4 grenade launcher. It doesn't mean you've got to be able to operate an M60 machine gun.
No, they needed to learn that in war, God delivered the children of Israel. They needed to learn that in war, their dependents came, not in horses or in chariots, but in the name of God Most High. That's what he means by they had to know or learn war. It's not vindictiveness on the part of Yahweh, but it is to demonstrate and underscore for them their God.
The victory that they had amassed up until this point was from God. Read the book of Joshua and you'll see the emphasis is not on the savvy of the children of Israel. Move a few chapters to the right in the book of Judges. What does God say to Gideon?
I want you to whittle down your forces. I want you to have 300 men. And with those 300 men, you're going to go in and you're going to decimate the Midianites. Why does God do that?
God could have done it with zero men, but God does it to show that he doesn't depend on numbers. He doesn't need bazookas. He doesn't need F-16s. He doesn't need B-2s.
Rather, he is the living and the true God. And so the children of Israel would need to learn that in this phase or in this stage of their existence. And then the nations are listed, the Philistines in the Southwest, Sidonians in the Northwest, the Hivites in the Northeast, the Canaanites in the Southeast. Those peoples, incidentally, that shouldn't have ever been there.
See, it ultimately hinges on their disobedience in the first eventuality. Remember Deuteronomy chapter 7? In fact, you can turn there because this is how this chapter ends.
Deuteronomy 7 and Holy War
Look at Deuteronomy chapter 7. Deuteronomy 7. The admonition, the exhortation, the command for holy war. Chapter seven, verse one.
When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you. And when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. Why are all these pagans still around? Because they failed to obey God. 1 Samuel chapter 15, Samuel, under God, tells Saul to kill Agag and the Amalekites.
He goes to battle against them and he spares Agag and he spares the spoil. That wasn't part of the arrangement. You're supposed to destroy even the spoil. There's been no livestock.
So of course, Saul's trying to fake Samuel. I've done exactly what God said. So Samuel says, why am I hearing these cows? Why am I hearing these donkeys?
Why am I hearing these animals? If you had done exactly as you were told, it would be silent right now. So the fact that we get to the book of Judges and there's all these ites still in the land shows us that the fundamental misstep was their failure to carry out the demand of God in terms of holy war. Now notice in verse continuing on it says you shall make no covenant or verse 2 And when the Lord God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them.
You shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them, nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods. So the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. But thus you shall deal with them.
You shall destroy their altars, break down their sacred pillars, cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire. Jump over to Judges chapter 3 and look at how this section ends. Verse 5 tells us, Thus the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. They weren't supposed to dwell among them.
They were supposed to dispossess them. Now notice what verse 6 tells us, And they took their daughters to be their wives. I'm sorry, didn't God say not to do that in Deuteronomy chapter 7? They gave their daughters to their sons.
Again, a stipulation in terms of the mandate concerning holy war, and then look how it ends. And they serve their gods. Isn't that incredible? You do exactly the opposite of what God commands, and life doesn't go well.
Solomon says the way of the transgressor is hard. And I think we can all testify to that, can't we? When I did what God called me to do, I didn't get, you know, billions of dollars and gold bars. But, you know, for the most part, life is decent.
Life is good. But when I disobey, when I pursue sin, when I go a-whoring from God, when I, you know, spend countless hours on the internet searching for images that I should have no business looking at, when I engage in that kind of conduct that is contrary to the law and word of God, there is a hardness about the lives that we live. Now,
Application
in conclusion, just to recapitulate, the root of their apostasy, they didn't know God. When you don't know God, you live like a person who doesn't know God. And then the description of their apostasy, we could summarize it by they forsook God. And then in terms of apostasy itself, that means a defection, a falling away from, a turning away from.
The text points at or portrays it as a forsaking of God, a turning to Baal and to Asherah. So here's the point for which I introduced the sermon tonight. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God and the Father is this. Visit orphans and widows in their trouble.
Keep oneself unspotted from the world. That's the calling of the Christian and the church in this present evil generation. That was the calling of the Israelite generation as well. Deuteronomy 4 tells us they were to be a city set on a hill.
They were to radiate the blessedness of God most high. They were to be on display so that the nations around them would look at them and say, what kind of a nation is this that has such glorious laws, that has such a wonderful way about that? They would be led to their God. So instead of doing that, instead of shining as lights in a crooked and perverse generation, they rather didn't shine.
They rather ate the generation or rather the heathen around them. They became like what they were told to dispossess. Davis makes this observation. He says, what began as toleration became apostasy.
There's a warning here for the church today. We tolerate something here, it becomes something huge here. We tolerate a little bit, and apostasy is the end game. We're not supposed to tolerate sin.
We're not supposed to tolerate abortion. We're not supposed to tolerate euthanasia. We're not supposed to tolerate sexual perversion. We're not supposed to tolerate theft. whether it's by individuals or by government.
We're not supposed to tolerate that which God condemns. We're supposed to shine as light in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. We're supposed to have the courage and the gravitas to hold forth the word of truth. We're supposed to avoid the Laodicean error wherein they were lukewarm.
They were just yuck. They were something worthy to be spat from the mouth of our blessed and holy Christ. Back to Davis, what began as toleration became apostasy. What seemed so reasonable proved lethal.
Living with Canaanites led to worshiping with Canaanites. Tolerate Baal's people and sooner or later you bow at Baal's altar. That's why we emphasize why the Bible does, why the confession of faith does, why you'll hear sermons in this vein as well. As believers, you marry in the Lord.
I know we think we're the greatest missionaries ever and can marry a heathen or a pagan and see them converted. Now in God's grace, God's mercy, God's kindness, that does happen. But the admonition is, is that we're to marry in the Lord. Davis goes on later to say, they do not and apparently cannot keep themselves from the slavery of sin.
They're held in sin's grip. They have Baal in their blood. Again, it began with a bit of toleration. Well, you know, it's a pluralistic society.
That's just the way they are. That's just the way they do things. It won't hurt me to go to a Baal service. What happened when you went to a Baal service?
It was fun. Guess what we got to do? It was wonderful. Baal was worshipped from the waist down.
You can see the allure. You can see the attraction. You can see the passing pleasures of sin involved. Another commentator says, peaceful coexistence with the world leads to cohabitation and alliance with the world, which in turn leads to taking on the religious notions of the world.
This is the rule. Occasions when the influence is in the reverse direction are the exception. He's right, it's the exception that our holiness affects positively the people around us. It is more typical for the unholiness of those we surround ourselves with to affect us adversely.
Now, again, there's exceptions. You're holy, you're wonderful. You can go out and just spread abroad the goodness of God. Great, rest of us, we got issues, so we need to try and keep ourselves unspotted from the world.
An older commentator made this observation. Our high calling is to be in the world, not of the world. It is not our being in the world that ruins us, but our suffering the world to be in us. Just as ships sink, not by being in water, but by the water getting into them.
You don't sink because you're in the water, you sink because the water gets into you. The apostasy of Israel, as we review Judges 2, is obvious. You forsake Yahweh, you seek after the Baals and the Ashtoreths, it's not going to go good. Secondly, we need to praise God for His amazing grace.
The nevertheless of verse 16. The people are distressed again, not repentant. They're just upset that things aren't going well. So nevertheless, God raises up judges for that.
So the old acronym that is S.W.O.R.D., sin, oppression, repentance, and deliverance, ought to be modified as S.A.W.D. Sin, oppression, and deliverance. That underscores the gracious character of God Most High. And then thirdly and finally, one particular example of how the book is about the salvation or salvation is of the Lord.
These 12 men, these 12 judges were saviors. They weren't like the judge that you see that sits behind the bench and they have the gavel and they, you know, hear a court case about, you know, a property dispute or even a murder or something like that. The judges of Israel at this particular time, these 12 men, they were like kings. They weren't kings, that wasn't in play at this particular time, but they were king-like figures.
They had rule over the nation, they were the ones that led in terms of the battles and destroyed the foreign oppressors and that sort of thing. The one that I want to point us to as a type of our blessed Savior is Samson. If you know me enough, you'll know that that's not a surprise. Samson's one of my favorite people in the entirety of the Bible.
Samson as Type of Christ
Turn over to Judges 13. I want you to think of a couple of parallels between Samson and Jesus. Judges 13. It gives us two things that Matthew 1 gives us about Jesus.
First, it underscores the supernatural character of his birth. Jesus was born of a virgin. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary. She didn't have the sort of relations that typically people have in order to have children.
Well, Samson was a same sort of a fellow. Notice in chapter 13 at verse 2. Now there was a certain man from Zorah of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren and had no children. And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, indeed now you are barren and have born no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.
That sounds exactly like the birth narrative of our Lord in Matthew chapter one. the angel comes and announces to Joseph that the woman you didn't have relations with is going to have a baby. The woman that you did not copulate with is going to be pregnant and she is going to bring forth a son. Now, Mrs. Manoah, she's never named in the narrative.
She's got more fidelity in her than Manoah does because Mrs. Manoah just submits and honors and fears and listens to the angel of the Lord. So there's that supernatural birth of both Samson and the Savior. But notice as well the function or the mission.
Verse 5, for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son and no razor shall come upon his head. For the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. Matthew 121, you shall call his name Jesus, for it is he who will save his people from their sins. Each of these 12 judges, each of these 12 deliverers, each of these 12 saviors declare to us that salvation is of the Lord.
And they point us typologically to the blessed savior who would come and deliver his people from their sins. The Book of Judges is not a book wherein we roll our eyes or we say, oh, it's so filled with blood and battles and war and bloodshed that I don't want any part in it. It's about God's grace. It's about God's deliverance.
It's about God's mercy. It's about God's loving kindness. So go, read the Book of Judges. Focus on the mercy and the kindness and the goodness of God using cracked pots to affect his will. the only non-cracked pot in the history of the church, or in this history of the world rather, is Jesus.
But for the rest, the apostle says that God has taken gospel treasure, put it in earthenware vessels so that the honor and the glory and the excellence goes to God and not to the cracked pot. When you see Samson do his thing, you praise God. When you see Jephthah do his thing, you praise God. When you see Shamgar do his thing, you praise God.
Because it's God who gave the judges and it was God who was with the judges to deliver his people from their oppression.
Closing Prayer
Well, let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for this book and the testimony that it gives us concerning not only man's sin, man's depravity, the church's faithlessness at many, many times and in many, many ways and occasions, but it shows and underscores for us the goodness, the kindness, and the mercy of God Most High. We thank you for your grace. We thank you for your provision of the Savior Christ.
And we thank you for the salvation that you have blessed us with, wherein all our sins are forgiven, and we've received the righteousness that avails with you. We ask now that you would go with us into this coming week, help us to be faithful, help us to bring glory and honor to you, and help us, God, to do so for your praise. And we ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. We'll close with a brief time of meditation.