Tola & Jair

Judges  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  37:40
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Exegetical Point:
Homiletic Point:

Intro

Tola & Jair

Deborah & Barak raised our eye-brows, Gideon made us shake our heads, Abimilek made us feel sick, so what’s next? What awful chapter will follow?
Thankfully we have A little reprieve - an opportunity to catch our breath. Two Judges that seem insignificant compared to what has come and gone.
This little interlude gives us a moment to pause in our downward spiral of despair.
Now, even though it is a reprieve, it is a short reprieve. We don’t get much on these Judges. Thankfully we get more than we do on Shamgar, but not by much.
Lest look at each of these Judges in turn:
Judges 10:1–2 NIV
After the time of Abimelek, a man of Issachar named Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim. He led Israel twenty-three years; then he died, and was buried in Shamir.
After Abimilek - After what he put people through, this was a welcome change.
He hired thugs to force his will on people
He massacred his 70 brothers to secure a “kingship” position.
He went to war over reports that people were bad-mouthing him.
He indiscriminately killed non-combatants.
He was a real peace of work, and God brought justice to Abimilek, and those who helped him.
Many of us know the feeling of relief when a bad boss or bad politician “moves on”. We know that someone just as bad could come again, but there is at least a sigh of relief.
Now “after” Abimelek, Tola arises to save Israel. He’s A fellow from Ephraim. In case you hadn’t noticed, each of the Judges seems to be from a different part of Israel. By the time we get to the end we will have had Judges that represent the whole country (one for each tribe).
Tola saved Israel - we don’t get any details on how he did, but we’re just glad it’s not Abimelek!
His Salvation meant 23 years of his leadership, presumably this was welcome stability!
He leaves us wanting a saviour who can go longer than 23 years!
But next we’re into Jair:
Judges 10:3–5 NIV
He was followed by Jair of Gilead, who led Israel twenty-two years. He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkeys. They controlled thirty towns in Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth Jair. When Jair died, he was buried in Kamon.
Gilead is across the Jordan river, in the east.
Jair is a prosperous man, so much so that if you counted only his sons - he had 30. Who knows how many daughter he had as well!
This was a powerful family - basically they all drove G-wagens and were mayors of towns.
Is this God’s blessing? Or Jair building a kingdom for himself?
30 sons tips us off to a Gideon-like precedent. Multiple wives (presumably multiple wives!) and dynasty building like a king. Nothing wrong with a big family and strong legacy, but Gideon has made us wary of this kind of thing...
This is something about wealth and prestige, you cannot presume to know if it is the blessing of God, or ill-gotten gain etc. Despite the cultural propaganda of our day: it is ok to be wealthy. God makes many people in the Bible incredibly wealthy. It’s ok for some people to have a lot, and for some people to have a little. Usually the people with less are happier!
We have to look at other outworking to find out if there is an issue. How do people use their wealth, power and influence? DO they use it to glorify God and bless others, or do they use it for self-aggrandizement?
We have a sneaking feeling that Jair was using his wealth and power for self-promotion, but we are not given enough detail. But this is what Judges does to us - it goes so wrong so often that we don’t trust anybody!
Notice: No peace mentioned for either Judge! Rest or peace is mentioned for Othniel, Ehud, Deborah/Barak and Gideon, but not here. Is it just an omission? Or is this a sign of things to come? Judges that can save and lead, but not bring peace?
This leaves us wanting more. 23 and 22 years are a decent run, a good baseline but surely this is not the best? Surely God’s people can have a saviour that lasts a bit longer?
Can God’s people have a saviour that brings peace?
And not just a temporary peace, but a permanent peace?
Can God’s people have a saviour that isn’t interested in self-promotion? And who is faithful to the LORD at every turn?

Continued Evil and Another Confession

After this short interlude we are sadly plunged back into the darkness. God’s people have not learned their lesson from the oppression of the past.
Judges 10:6 NIV
Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the Lord and no longer served him,
Now you have to remember, that each time Israel turns aside it is probably a new generation. There’s been about 40 years since Abimelek, and that’s the language the Bible uses to describe a generation.
So as each successive rebellion unfolds in Judges, it is not the same people doing it over and over again, it is subsequent generations.
The fact that it kept happening every other generation signals 2 things,
1. The human heart is sick with sin. Unfortunately sin is almost like a genetic attribute we pass on to our kids. Each person is born infected from their ancestors right back to Adam & Eve. When King David would later say “In sin my mother conceived me” he was not suggesting his mother had an affair, he was recognizing the fact that even in conception sin is present and affects us. We may not actively commit sin until we are little children, but sin is with us from the start. That means that in Judges, each successive generation can fall prey to the temptation that others have been saved from previously.
2. We can wonder: Did each generation of parents instructed the next about staying faithful to God? There is a significant theme in the Bible about passing on instruction to the next generation, and we cannot help but assume this didn’t happen in Israel (even if you don’t have kids of your own, there is a role to play in this).
Going back to the text we see a proliferation of false worship. Up til now the main culprits have been the Baals and Asherah. The Baals were “lords” of various kinds, including THE Baal the Canaanite storm god. Asherah was a Canaanite fertility goddess.
Now, the people are not only mixed up with Baal & Asherah, but also the Gods of 5 other nations!
The “slippery slope” argument may seem prudish in discussions of public morality, but here it is writ large! First you mix your religion with the canaanoites and then before you know it you’re lost in a mess of false pagan religions. As you pursue sin, it is like you feeding it, and it grows and grows and grows. It gets out of control.
Where is God’s people? Where is his covenant people? Where are the holy ones set apart for him?
We can’t see them, they’re lost in the pagan milieu! Like a pure white sheet they have been soaked in the mud. It is impossible to see where the mud ends and the sheet starts because it is soaked into the linen.
This turning away is evil in the sight of the LORD - then and now!
God calls all people everywhere to turn to him!
Perhaps you have forsaken the LORD, you followed him many years ago, but your loyalty grew cold, and you gave up trying. You will happily mix a bit of Christianity into everything else you’ve go going on, but you won’t sacrifice anything for God. You give Him a nod every now and then, but otherwise He is just a small part of your life while you pursue whatever captivates your heart! Turn back to him!
Perhaps you’ve never been loyal to YHWH. You’ve never put your faith and trust in Jesus. You must! You can enter into God’s people and become Holy unto God. You can be saved from the muck of the world in rebellion. Remember, the people around Israel were not exempt from God’s judgement, they, like you, are invited to give up their false ways and become God’s People. You can come in by grace!
But grace does not give us a free pass to sin, as shown here. God’s people are freely joined to him in a loving covenant, but he will still grow angry with them for their open disloyalty.
Judges 10:7–8 NIV
he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites, who that year shattered and crushed them. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites.
As we have seen time and again - God gives the people over to their passions. You want foreign gods and to be free from me - try it.
Sometimes, try as we might to learn from the experience of others, we have to make some dumb choices to learn from experience. Unfortunately, this “dumb choice” involves 18 years of oppression.
Right now we as a culture are making some very dumb choices. We are starting to see the outcome of some of those choices, but it may be that collectively we are blind to the effects of our chosen path, and we will have to suffer under the oppression of our own making for a time before God graciously delivers us from it.
What oppression does is it brings us to our senses. In some sense this is like the corrective discipline of a parent - it is a “small” consequence for sin that is there to steer us away from the worse consequences in life.
18 years is a lot, but perhaps it will save people from even worse future? Well, they do realise their problems once again, and cry out to God:
Judges 10:10 NIV
Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, “We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.”
They owned up to their sin. They saw that their choices had not improved their lot.
The path of sin is the path to ruin. Rebellion will end in despair.
Ask: Is your sin helping you?
God is the source of life, so to choose another path is death.
Come before God and ask for mercy. Plead with him to rid you of your disgrace - your past mistakes, your present addictions, your future failures.
God is not obligated to save people who own up to their rebellion, but in Jesus Christ he will svae all who come to him. All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved!
Romans 10:13 NIV
for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
This does not mean says some magic words and you’ve got a ticket to heaven.
What it does mean is those who call out to God in loyalty and trust will be rescued.
That comes through Jesus Christ.

The LORD Responds

How does God respond to the call of Israel?
With a history lesson:
Judges 10:11–12 NIV
The Lord replied, “When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands?
I have a track record of rescuing you. I’ve rescued you as a nation so many times it’s not funny.
How did God “reply”? - v11 - We dunno!
He continues...
Judges 10:13–14 NIV
But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”
Their faithlessness, their rebellion, their evil is the reason that God will not act.
Try to get help from your new gods.
It seems like God’s patience has run out. Maybe there is no more left?
Well, it looks like the issue is that the people hadn’t repented! Look:
Judges 10:15–16 NIV
But the Israelites said to the Lord, “We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.” Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.
So they had acknowledged the problem, but not dealt with it! They had confessed, but not repented!
While they remained tied to theri sin, God refused to help.
Partial repentance, but repentance none-the-less.
God’s desire for his people.
Romans 8:38–39 NIV
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We have the freedom to talk about our sin, the awful things we have done, because we know it can’t separate us from God. We can be honest.
Exposing our sin is the path to dealing with the problem and finding freedom.
Jesus is the means that God rescues his people once for all!
Ending:
Judges 10:17–18 NIV
When the Ammonites were called to arms and camped in Gilead, the Israelites assembled and camped at Mizpah. The leaders of the people of Gilead said to each other, “Whoever will take the lead in attacking the Ammonites will be head over all who live in Gilead.”
Set-up for Jephthah

So What?

The unfolding of history - you’re not the centre.
Repent - truly.
Everyone who call on the name of the Lord will be saved!
You have nothing to hide from God, he knows it all.
He is jealous for His people, and he will save them.
God’s love will overcome all barriers.
Drive home conclusion
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