Justice and Mercy

Intro:

-Have you ever been spending time with someone

-Perhaps a parent, your spouse, one of your children, or a friend . . .

-And suddenly, in your conversation, you come to sense that the person you’re with is really opening up to you

-They’re telling you things that are very important

-Things that give you great insight into their heart and mind and really reveal who they are at a deep level

-Those moments are often rare, but they’re incredibly valuable when they happen and often warrant time to ponder and consider what’s been said and revealed to you

-I think we have something like this in our passage today

-We don’t learn much new about Israel

-They’re still idolatrous, selfish, and rebellious

-Rather, in our passage, we get an incredible look into the heart of God in how He deals with His sinful people

-And this is important because as sinful people, we often wonder how God responds to us in our sin

-Some people seem to view God as only a God of mercy and love, always easily swayed into brushing sin under the rug and giving in to people’s desires

**It’s always amazing to me just how much your parents change when they get grandkids

-My parents were very loving and affectionate growing up, but they were also very firm and capable of bringing needed punishment and discipline into our lives

-However, when they interact with my daughter Ocean, I’m amazed at how quickly they’re willing to give her almost anything she wants

-She just has to turn her big brown eyes on them with either a smile or a poochy lip, and it seems my parents are willing to do just about anything she wants**

-In the same way, some people view God as a squishy grandfather, easy to manipulate because He’s just got so much empathy and mercy

-All you have to do is tell Him you’re sorry, and then He won’t really care about any of the sin you’ve been living in

-And while God certainly is merciful and forgiving, that picture of God makes us uneasy

-A God who’s easily manipulated and doesn’t take sin seriously doesn’t seem like the God we read about in the Bible

-And He doesn’t seem like a very powerful, just, and wise God

-On the other hand, some people have a picture of a God who is all wrath and justice

-You just mess up one time, and He’ll really smack you for it

-He has no patience with people who don’t perfectly obey His commands the first time, and you’ll never be able to remotely please Him

-And while it’s true that God is just, and that no good works can earn our salvation

As a Christian, that can be a very terrifying way to view God: as Someone who has no compassion or grace towards you in your struggles with sin

If you’ve ever wanted to see the heart of God as He faces the persistent sin of His people, then this passage is exactly that

Judges chapter 10 begins with brief accounts of 2 more minor judges

-First, God raises up Tola in vs. 1-2

-And then, God raises up Jair in verses 3-4

-The author gives us little information about these judges

-We’re not sure if there was any military conflict that they were involved in or not

-But then we get to verse 6, which begins the story of Jephthah

-At this point, the Israelites have sunk to new lows

-How bad is the sin of the Israelites at this point?

The New King James Version Chapter 10

6 Then the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the people of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; and they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him.

Notice in our text how the author just keeps piling up the list of false gods that the Israelites worship

-he mentions 7 different false gods that they worship

-And then, in case you didn’t get the picture yet, he tells you that they forsook God and did not serve Him

-And remember, this has been happening throughout the entire book!

-Have you ever been here before?

-I doubt that anyone here has ever bowed down to worship figures of wood or stone

-But have you ever been here, where you just are really struggling in sin?

-Perhaps there’s a habitual sin you struggle with:

-anger at a family member

-bitterness

-perhaps some secret sin that no one knows about

-And you’re just constantly getting caught up in it

-And you just seem to be completely overwhelmed by your sin

So what does God do?

The New King James Version Chapter 10

7 So the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the people of Ammon. 8 From that year they harassed and oppressed the children of Israel for eighteen years—all the children of Israel who were on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, in Gilead. 9 Moreover the people of Ammon crossed over the Jordan to fight against Judah also, against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed.

Brothers and sisters, this is a good reminder for us: God hates sin

-He absolutely hates it

-Sin is the complete opposite of God:

-Sin is harmful

-It’s destructive

-It’s filthy

-Unholy

-And God never, ever, ever has an indifferent attitude towards sin

**When we found out that Ashley was pregnant with Ocean, people began to give us a lot of baby clothes for girls

-My sister-in-law even donated a whole trash bag worth of little girl’s clothes to us

-So my wife would be all excited, and she would go through all these clothes and think this outfit is really cute, or love this outfit

-And occasionally, at least early on, she would make the mistake of asking me what I thought about various outfits and if I liked them

-Now, it wasn’t that I wasn’t excited to have about our daughter being on the way

-It’s just that I don’t even have much excitement for men’s fashion

-much less have any idea or opinion about fashion for a baby girl, especially when I can’t even see the clothes on her

-So for me, I wasn’t much help to my wife because I just didn’t really have any opinion about it whatsoever

-I would kind of just stare at the clothes blankly and tell her that if she liked it, then I’m sure it would look great on our daughter**

Brothers and sisters, God is never like that about sin

-He’s never indifferent about it

-It’s not something He yawns at

-It’s not something that He glances at and then moves on

-No, He