Sowing the Seeds of Chaos

26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, 27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

o He passed on this passion to his protégé, Timothy:

· 2 Timothy 3:16–17 (ESV)

2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

· How does this fit with the theme of the enduring church?

o Because this book illustrates the stakes of losing our first love.

§ If we fall away from the gospel, we fall away from God.

· The result is Chaos.

Context

· “After Joshua”

· The events of this book take place between roughly 1375-1092 BC (approximately 410 years.

· This book, as it appears in the Bible, was likely completed at some point after the kingdom had been established.

o This chapter’s comparison between North and South may indicate that it was produced after the kingdom was divided.

· This leads to the need for us to address the kind of book Judges is: it is prophecy.

o The Jewish Bible places this book in a group called the Former Prophets along with Joshua, Samuel, and Kings.

o It is prophecy because it is used of God to address his people using their own historical narrative to challenge, indict, and even inspire them.

o God often uses biblical narrative to communicate not just history, but the why of history.

§ Through our own history, God reveals himself.

· Biblical history is theology.

· The second movement of the conquest of Canaan.

· The campaigns of Joshua had broken all organized military resistance in the land.

· The territory belongs to Israel, now; all that remains is for them to consolidate their conquest by forcing out the Canaanites.

· One primary theme of the book of Judges is that Israel begins to flounder without the great man at the helm.

· Judges actually has two introductions.

o The one we are looking at today has to do with the observable effects of Israel’s failure to take the land.

§ It’s Israel’s perspective on the events.

o Next week, we will look at the spiritual reality behind this failure.

§ We’ll look at God’s view of these events.

· Compromise is the theme of Chapter 1.

· Israel compromises in the days after Joshua’s death, and this marks the start of their decline.

Victory Compromised (Judges 1:1-21)

1 After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” 2 The Lordsaid, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.”

· Israel starts in a good place; they are still a united people after Joshua’s death.

· And they seek God for counsel on how to proceed, indicating that at this moment, they are united with God as their leader, as Moses and Joshua wished them to be.

o They recognize that they should not move ahead of God’s will.

· Further, it is notable that Judah is chosen to go up first, as God has a great purpose for Judah.

o Jacob gave a prophetic blessing to Judah before he died.

· Genesis 49:8 (ESV)

Genesis 49:8 ESV

8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you.

· From Judah will come the line of Davidic kings, climaxing in the coming of the Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ.

· Demonstrating a commitment to obedience and unity, Judah will go forth to do as God commanded.

3 And Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into the territory allotted to me, that we may fight against the Canaanites. And I likewise will go with you into the territory allotted to you.” So Simeon went with him.

· At this point, Judah is the gold standard of what Israel is supposed to be.

· Their subsequent victories are evidence that they believed not only that God was with them, but that He would grant them victory.

o Joshua had spoken of this:

· Joshua 23:9–11 (ESV)

Joshua 23:9–11 ESV

9 For the Lord has driven out before you great and strong nations. And as for you, no man has been able to stand before you to this day. 10 One man of you puts to flight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, just as he promised you. 11 Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.

· The victory has already been prepared; all that remains is to take hold of it.

Adoni-Bezek: Poetic justice for a wicked king.

· Adoni-Bezek is an example of the justice that God will bring upon the unrepentant wicked.

· He gives Adoni-Bezek a punishment appropriate for his crimes.

o Adoni-Bezek comes to recognize this.

· The story of Caleb is also poetic.

· Remember that Caleb is the last of his entire generation, the one who came out of Egypt.

o He was one of the 12 spies that spied out the land in Numbers 13-14.

o When 10 of the spies and the rest of Israel were fearful because of the giants in the land (the Anakim) Joshua and Caleb were ready to go because God had promised to give them the land.

o And Caleb was forced to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

· How wonderful that the Lord would grant it to him to gain the victory that he had seen decades previous?

· This is a wonderful reminder to us that age doesn’t restrict what God can do in our lives.

o In fact, we have the blessing in Christ to see victory over the power of sin and death in our lives today.

· Colossians 2:13–15 (ESV)

Colossians 2:13–15 ESV

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

· But the cracks start to form in the failure of driving the people of the plain out.

· We aren’t given much indication as to why this happened.

o After all, the previous statement was that the Lord was with Judah. So, how could they fail?

· Without speculating too much, it cannot be because they had iron chariots.

· Joshua 17:18 (ESV)

Joshua 17:18 ESV

18 but the hill country shall be yours, for though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its farthest borders. For you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.”

· In Judges 4, iron chariots do not save Sisera when the Lord gives him over to Deborah and Barak.

· Two realistic options remain.

o One, Judah’s success has caused them to lose vision.

§ They don’t want to fight anymore and so they do not put forth the effort.

o Two, this land is not Judah’s, but Ephraim and Manasseh’s, and the Lord will not give them victory in taking land that does not belong to them.

· Either way, I think the lesson is clear.

o God is showing us that external success can sometimes hide internal weakness…but not forever.

o Benjamin’s failure at Jerusalem illustrates the danger that will become clear as the story moves northward.

§ They allow the Jebusites to remain in Jerusalem… “to this day”

· Canaanites are living in Jerusalem even in the days of the kings.

This illustrates that if we let sin have a hold in our lives, it doesn’t remain inert. It grows and spreads.

o This danger should lead us to reflect upon the words of Jesus before he left his disciples to go to the cross…words which serve to prepare us not to fall short as Israel did.

· John 15:4–5 (ESV)

John 15:4–5 ESV

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

What was true then is true now: victory in our lives comes from holding tight to God and abiding in Him.

The church has been called to proclaim the gospel to all the world.

God bless us as we go about that work.

How do you view this work? Do you believe that God has prepared the way before you for the gospel to take root and spread? Or do you think that we are simply meant to endure this evil age and make it to the end? Like some kind of holding action?

In your own life? How do you take the issue of personal holiness? What do you think about sin and temptation in the world? Do you just accept it as a reality and resign yourself not to fight against it? If then you believe that evil is so powerful, how will you resist its temptations when it comes upon you?

· James answers us James 4:7–10 (ESV):

James 4:7–10 ESV

7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

· We may not be engaged in military campaigns, but there is a very real battle.

o If we don’t take the fight against sin seriously, we will surely become victims of it.

The Dangers of Compromise (Judges 1:22-34)

· As the narrative shifts to the north, we see the seeds of chaos begin to show in the campaigns in the north.

o However, initially, it seems as if the successes continue.

· But there is a distinct difference between the way that Judah has conducted themselves, and the way Joseph does at Bethel.

Judges 1:22–26 ESV

22 The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 23 And the house of Joseph scouted out Bethel. (Now the name of the city was formerly Luz.) 24 And 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 will deal kindly with you.” 25 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. 26 And 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.

· While Judah’s victory at Bezek was because of God’s intervention, Joseph uses human strategy to achieve victory.

o They use spies, informants, agreements and a secret entrance.

o It all sounds a lot like the taking of Jericho from Joshua 2 and 6.

· But consider this: Rahab repented of her sin and became a part of Israel, but the Canaanite at Luz is unrepentant and rebuilds his city somewhere else.

o He remained an enemy, and Luz endures its destruction.

· The fact that the Lord was with them should have led to the same kind of bold, obedient victory that Judah had.

o An unqualified, complete victory.

o But Joseph decides to act on his initiative and not in faith, trusting God for victory.

· From here, the story takes a considerable downward trend. As the action proceeds, we see successively less victory, corresponding to increasing compromise.

· The qualified victory of Joseph is followed by a separation of the brothers.

o Ephraim and Manasseh take their cities, but allow some of the Canaanites to remain in the surrounding regions.

· Why is this a problem?

· God had given repeated warnings against coexistence with the Canaanites, whom they were commanded to completely drive out.

· Exodus 23:31–33 (ESV)

Exodus 23:31–33 ESV

31 And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. 32 You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

o God has great concern for the purity of his people; for their good.

· Numbers 33:55–56 (ESV)

Numbers 33:55–56 ESV

55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell. 56 And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”

o TO allow them to remain would inevitably lead them to the same end…destruction.

· Deuteronomy 7:1–5 (ESV)

Deuteronomy 7:1–5 ESV

1 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, 2 and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. 3 You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4 for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.

o So, they were to be ruthless in destroying the wickedness of the Canaanites and keep it far from them.

· Joshua 23:11–13, 15 (ESV)

Joshua 23:11–13 ESV

11 Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God. 12 For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, 13 know for certain that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the Lord your God has given you.

Joshua 23:15 ESV

15 But just as all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you have been fulfilled for you, so the Lord will bring upon you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land that the Lord your God has given you,

o The complete ban on the Canaanites was both an act of divine judgement on the Canaanites and a prescription for His covenant people’s long-term spiritual health.

· The tragedy of chapter 1 is that we see the compromise of Israel deepen.

o Ephraim moves on to allow the Canaanites to live among them in their cities.

§ Zebulon follows suit.

o Asher and Naphtali compromise even further.

§ They live among the Canaanites. It’s like they decided that it was too much trouble to drive them out of their homes, and so they just took up residence in the towns they came upon.

· The final failure of Israel’s conquest of Canaan comes as Dan is turned back by the Amorites, and the Amorites are the ones to take the land.

o God’s promises through Moses and Joseph have come true.

From this we learn that it is possible for a believer’s life to bear the marks of success and yet be a failure in the eyes of God.

· This introductory story illustrates how we are to think about Israel’s spiritual journey.

o If you want to know how Israel ended up in ruin, consider how it started.

The Consequences of Compromise (Judges 2:1-5)

Judges 2:1–5 ESV

1 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. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, 2 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? 3 So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.” 4 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. 5 And they called the name of that place Bochim. And they sacrificed there to the Lord.

· This time it is God who goes up to speak to His people as the conquest of the land comes to an unfortunate end.

o God’s covenant faithfulness…He pursues his people again and again to call them back to Himself when they go astray.

o God confronts us today through the work of His Holy Spirit in our lives.

· John 16:8 (ESV)

John 16:8 ESV

8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:

· God calls them to remember His goodness, His power, His faithfulness.

o So that they will more clearly see their sinful betrayal.

We have the gospel to remind us in the same way today.

· Even when they dominated the Canaanites, they would end up losing, as we will see throughout not only the book of Judges, but also until the days of Jesus.

o Without a king to lead them, Israel would drift.

Their punishment would be that they succumb to the very wickedness that they refused to drive out.

· Romans 1:28 (ESV)

Romans 1:28 ESV

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

· Romans 1:32 (ESV)

Romans 1:32 ESV

32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

· This reality should drive us to the place of understanding that the Law cannot save a sinful people; only a Savior can.

o Israel had the law, they agreed with the law, yet they broke the law.

· The motivation for driving out the inhabitants of the land had been spiritual, not military.

o If they were allowed to stay, they would certainly become a snare in the spiritual life of Israel

Cancer must be completely excised from a body, else it will return and grow again.

Conclusion

Just as in the days of the Judges of Israel, the Christian can only stand firm in this world through faith in Jesus Christ.

The good news of the gospel is that we have victory through Him.

· Romans 5:2–5 (ESV)

Romans 5:2–5 ESV

2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Israel could only remain in the land if they held fast to the same faith by which they had entered it.

Faith is never just a thing of the past; it needs to be a present reality.

God tests us today, as He tested Israel then, to see if we will be obedient; to see if we will persevere and endure in the faith, to take hold of the promise of salvation.

· Judges 5:31 (ESV)

Judges 5:31 ESV

31 “So may all your enemies perish, O Lord! But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.” And the land had rest for forty years.

Let the faithful love of our Lord compel you to fight against the temptation to grow lax in the work of expelling sin and unrighteousness from your life.

· Romans 6:7–14 (ESV)

Romans 6:7–14 ESV

7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

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