Can we be Free?

Ending and review of Judges

Today, we are wrapping up Judges. We’ve done the deep dive and I want to take a step back and remind us of the big rocks, the big take-aways and application. I also want to look forward. There are a lot of negatives in the book of judges. it can become overwhelming and we can develop a sense of dread and hopelessness. The Bible should not be viewed like that. Yes, there is warning and reproof, but for the believer, there is also hope and grace. Let’s jump into the review of Judges.

We have spent the past six months looking onto the book of Judges, chapter by chapter. I don’t know about you but I learned a lot. These were real people who really lived and did these things. And while these are real people who really did these things, they also represent for us what we call “The every-man” They represent the hearts of people living through the centuries and event today. There are lessons to learn and application to our lives.

A Fair warning, this is going to be a shotgun blast of a message. There are going to be many points of contact. Many take aways, many application and lesson points, but I will also give you a main focal point. So let’s jump in.

We started with Joshua’s final plea to Israel, to turn away false idols and choose God over all else. In Joshua 24, challenges them to look back and see how God had done great things for them. He reminds them that it is God Who fought their battles, who gave them victory over the nations who were much more powerful than they. He reminds them that the land belongs to them, that God gave them a promise, and the God always keeps His promises. He warns them to stay away from false gods and to drive out the people who would turn their hearts away from God.

Going through college, I had a professor who said there were some verses in the Bible that were just favored above others. He called them cross-stitch verses because these were the type of verses that you would find embordered on fabric, or printed out. Trust me, I am not knocking on these verses, they are fantastic verses and to have them posted around our house as reminders of who we are in Christ is a great thing. One of the most popular verses in found in Joshua 24.

Choose you this Day, whom you will serve … As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Like I said, it’s a cross-stitch verse. It’s funny though, in context, Joshua was telling them, I you thinks it evil to serve God, then choose whom you will serve. He then lists gods who were proven to be false and powerless before God. The god’s back in Egypt, or the gods of the Amorites, the nation who they had just recently conquered in battle. They know these god’s have no power, so this challenge to Israel is both a reminder and a no-brainer. Yet what happens? Through the book of Judges, we see Israel go down a dark, slippery slope. They know the correct response and yet they fall away. How did we go from the last chapter in Joshua, where they promised to remember God and put Him first, to where the nation as a whole is filled with wickedness and no where near God? Is there an end to this vicious cycle of rescue and the slid back into sin? Is there freedom to be found from this cycle?

In short, the answer is a resounding “Yes”. Yes, they could have found freedom from the bondage of sin and the vicious cycle of generational forgetfulness. where did they go wrong?

Lets turn to Joshua 24. Joshua is giving his last address to the nation of Israel. This challenge does not come from Joshua, Joshua is delivering a message from God as you see in verse one, they gathered and presented themselves before God. But he goes through and reminds them of all the things that happened to get to this point. How God fought for them, blessed them, conquered their enemies and the list of God’s grace and goodness goes on and on. They will be living in a land which they did not build, gardening in gardens that they did not till, in houses that they did not craft. They serve a very powerful God. we get down to verse 14, the beginning of our favorite cross-stitch verses. and lets read down through verse 25. Joshua 24:14-25.

Joshua 24:14 ““Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord!”

Joshua 24:15 “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.””

Joshua 24:16 “So the people answered and said: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods;”

Joshua 24:17 “for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed.”

Joshua 24:18 “And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.””

Joshua 24:19 “But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.”

Joshua 24:20 “If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you, after He has done you good.””

Joshua 24:21 “And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord!””

Joshua 24:22 “So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.” And they said, “We are witnesses!””

Joshua 24:23 ““Now therefore,” he said, “put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.””

Joshua 24:24 “And the people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!””

Joshua 24:25 “So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.”

“Will you serve God?” Yes, we will!

But will you truly serve God and only God?

Yes we will!

Did they do it? for awhile they did. Look down at verse 31

Joshua 24:31 “Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.”

What happened after this? The People did not remember where they came from. They looked around at the land they did not till, the houses they did not build, and they grew complacent in their walk with God. They compromised their walk with God because they got to a generation that did not care to remember God. While, the people who saw and experienced those things were alive, the nation lived close to God, but when those people died, what happened? They turned away from God. this might tempt you into thinking that you must experience these things to have faith in God. One of the lies that Satan wants you to believe is that you must experience something for it to be real. He want’s you to believe that you can remove faith out of the equation of life an you will be alright. You don’t need faith, you need to experience it. Go out, live, sow your wild oats, you’re young, you have lot’s of life ahead of you. you don’t need faith, you need experience.

Here is reality: We are created to worship. We will worship someone or something. There is no other outcome. We will place or faith in someone or something. Again, there are no two ways around this. What ever you feed will get bigger. I’ve talked with people who try to argue with me and say, well, I just don’t have faith in anything. I am faithless. What they do not understand, they are placing their faith in their own ability to reason their way out of accountability before God. They are trying to convince their selves that somehow, if they can get rid of this concept of faith from their lives, that God no longer hos power over them. The sad truth is, they will still have to answer to God and they still live by the mercy of God.

I was raised by my grandfather on a dairy farm in Minnesota. My grandfather was 6’4” and had a wingspan that was dangerously long, especially in you just got into trouble. But there was one feature about my grandfather that captivated me when i was really little. I never had the courage to ask about it, so I made up stories in my mind. He had on one of his hands a finger that was shorter than it should have been. No nail, he was missing the tip of his pointer finger. I knew he served in Vietnam, so I thought maybe it got shot of in an epic gun battle with the commies. Also hear he was a fire fighter for the Army in California, so in my mind he lost the tip of his finger in epic way doing that. Even better, My grandfather was a bold man and a towering figure, I thought maybe, just maybe he was the only person bold enough to point a finger at Chuck Norris and escape with only losing the tip. I know, crazy 8 year old right? One day we were visiting his father, grandpa Raymond and I noticed, he also was missing the tip of one of his fingers. Now the tales go bigger and more epic. The Father/Son duo on epic journeys in the mind of an 8 year old. Turns out, they lost it the same way, not at the same time. It was an auger for moving grain from the silo to the barn that got caught and, Again, completely different times in their life, they reached in to remove the blockage and “shink” they lost the tip of their finger when suddenly it started moving again. When I learned about that, do you think I went out to earn the Hansen badge of Honor? Absolutely not! See I still have all of my fingers. I learned from their negative experience and operated differently around any moving objects. PTO shafts, Augers, belts, anything that had the potential to move on it’s own I was careful not to stick a finger or glove where it did not belong. I did not have to experience anything, why? Because my grandfather did and I was able to avoid losing life or limb.

Prepare the generation around you. The next generation does not have to experience your pain to have faith in God. your grandkids do not have to experience you pain to have faith in God. They need to know about the goodness of God. They need to know the word of God. They need to hear what God has done in you and can and will do for them. Another one of my professors said often that there are two lessons to learn from History. one is that History repeats it's self. Second is that we never learn anything from history. The lessons are there, be diligent in teaching them to the next generation so they they can build off of the solid foundation of the word of God, not off of regretful experiences. Just a few weeks ago we talked about the importance of educating in God’s word. give them a foundation that is more sure than any experience could give them.

This was a mistake the Children of Israel did. we saw over the past months that after the judge who delivered them died, what did they do? Lets take a quick look through Judges.

Judges 2:11 “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals;”

Judges 3:7 “So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God, and served the Baals and Asherahs.”

Judges 3:12 “And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord strengthened Eglon king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord.”

Judges 4:1 “When Ehud was dead, the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord.”

Judges 6:1 “Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years,”

This is repeated several times throughout Judges. Not only did they forget about God, they also made small compromises that seemed insignificant. Do we really need to conquer all of the land allotted to us? do we really need to drive these people out? are you really sure we cannot intermarry our children with theirs?

God was doing a work in Israel. He was testing them, proving to them His faithfulness and their fragility.

We stated that “God’s refining fire demands a response. Our response reveals our relationship.” This was back at the beginning of February. Israel was tested. They went through the fire, so to speak, as a test to see where their faith lay. Israel failed those tests, starting with the first which was to drive out the people of the land, to fully conquer the land, which they did not. The nations they left were the nations God used to test their faith. This parallels to us in the 21st century as a reminder that no matter what wickedness surrounds us, we are to be steadfast in our faith to God. We should not compromise, as Israel did, and worship the idols the world worships. we should not place our faith in national reform, as Israel wanted an earthly king to solve all their problems, we are to have a steadfast focus on God as our Savior and Sustainer.

What God wanted to see from them, and what God wants to see from us is an Active Obedient Faith that is be Properly Placed. Where did they place it? In the false gods around them. The very thing they promised not to do. Just as God’s refining fire reveals our relationship with God, so to our obedience. Do we obey with a grateful heart? Is our obedience active? What are we doing to show to the lost world around us that our God is alive, powerful and the hope that they are seeking? Paul said in James 2:18

James 2:18 “But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”

The Nation of Israel was supposed to be a beacon of light to the heathen nations around them. Other nations were supposed to look at them and see the awesomeness of God, the overwhelming power of God. Do people see that when they see you? Instead, the nation of Israel compromised. They gave up conquering the land, the Men of God, were not staying where they were supposed to, they were chasing money, women, and allowing the tribes to follow after false Gods. Their judges were flirting with the enemy and sleeping in their camps rather than being set apart. They dissolved into in-fighting and nearly wiped out one of their own brothers. Active obedient faith does not come from within us. It is a choice that we make, to be in God’s word and to choose to obey it, but the power comes from the Holy Spirit thriving inside of us. Another sermon we heard emphasized that God is the ultimate authority. There is no greater authority and the way we showcase our belief in this fact is by living our lives for Him, in obedience to Him. Do we have an active obedient faith? Are we allowing God’s refining fire to strengthen our walk with Him?

We have covered a lot already, but we are going to shift focus a little bit and talk about God in all of this. I know we’ve talked a little bit about God, but most of the focus has been on Israels response to God and the lessons we are supposed to learn from them.

God is the same. He has not changed. The same God who tested Israel and called them to a higher standard of living is the same God we serve today. In way of reminder again, we saw one big overarching fact about God that seemed contrary to what we like to think about God. that is His jealousy. We serve a jealous God and if you recall, we looked through the Bible topically, showing all the different aspects of the Jealousy of God. He is worthy of all praise and when His people worship anything other than Him, they are met with a fiery, consuming wrath that burns and destroys all it touches. Wow. this does not sound like a loving God… On Contrary, It is the ultimate display of His love. He r created us to worship. He desires that we worship to the fullest extent that we can and that we worship something worth our time and energy. The only being worthy or that level of worship is He Himself.

I used to work ad Discount tire. It was a great place to work, they ar enot open on Sundays, because the founder of Discount tire had a biblical understanding that Sunday was a day set aside for rest, God and Family. Anyhow, you start at the bottom, changing tires, and work your way up. running bays, setting up the back room, staging cars, working the sales counter and eventually you can become a “Red Shirt” or a Sales Manager. Then you work up through those ranks and if you are really good, the company will entrust you with a store. your pay check is a portion of what the store makes, so if the store makes good money, you make good money. I was talking tos the owner of the one overhere at Watson, That was the one I worked at, and I asked, what was beyond that. What was beyond working as a store manager? He said becoming a regional manager. He further stated, we you get this position, they give you money, lots of it to go out and buy new clothes, a new car, and upgrade basically you. At that position you represent the company in away that store manager do not, you are meeting clients, and sponsors, and they want you to look your best. Now lets say that you get to this position, and Discount Tire gives you this massive amount of money to upgrade your car and wardrobe, and you go to goodwill and buy a couple of shirts, some pants, maybe a pair of shoes that have a small scuff you can buff out. then you walked across the street to the used car dealership. you select a 2001 ford escort with 300000 miles one it and is paint faded. What do you think Discount tire will say when you show up and the regoinal meeting with your goodwill shirts and 2001 Ford Escort. That will probably not be a fun conversation. You represent something Higher. you should look and act the part. We are the pinnacle of God’s creation. we are created in the image of God and we are created to Worship. It should be our desire to worship the Higher being we can and to live for Him. Should God be jealous when we worship other things, Absolutely!!

God’s jealousy is not just a burning desire to see us worship to our fullest potential, It is also our protection. throughout scripture, we saw that He was jealous for His people and anyone who stood in their way was met with His wrath. Being one of His means we have His divine protection over our lives, He jealously guards His own. He is powerful and jealous, but He is also full of Mercy and Grace. Israel sinned against God time and time again. And time and time again, He sends a judge to deliver them. It gets to a point in the vicious cycle that they don’t even cry out to God anymore and He still sends a Judge to deliver them, Why? Because He loves His people and he is jealous for His people. God is a God of Grace. The overarching phrase seen throughout Judges is

Judges 17:6 “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Was the lack of a King the issue? no. It was not. They had all that they needed. They had a powerful and gracious God. To prove that this is not what they needed, God sent them the perfect King, King Jesus, who would live among them, doing miracles, healing the sick, and the blind and the needy, and they would still kill Him. On top of sending a king, God sent a Savior, also found in Jesus Christ. Christ was the perfect King and as we go through the book of Matthew over the next few months, we will see how He was not just King over Israel, but the Rightful king of the world. This King, Jesus Christ would dies to save, not just the nation of Israel, but all of us. anyone who believes. What a picture of Mercy and grace. God became man and dies for the sins of man when we did not deserve it. That is the Grace of a jealous God. The grace shown to the rebellious nation of Israel who continuously walked away from God.

We can see the failure of Israel and the warnings that come from living life our way. We look around us and we can see the cycle of sin. Perhaps it’s Alcohol abuse, or drug abuse, Maybe it’s broken homes, Divorce, or emotional or physical abuse. Maybe these are things that go back generations and we look back at our history and even into our own lives and ask in despair, “Is there freedom from this cycle of sin?”

There is freedom. And it begins with fully surrendering your life to a gracious God who had died to cover our sins.

1 Timothy 1:15 “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

In Him true healing is found. In Him true forgiveness is found, and although there might still be consequences from past decisions, we can live free because of the life we have in Christ. True Freedom is found in God alone. When we have Christ living in our lives, we have true freedom, because we no longer are ensnared by Sin, Death and Satan. Christ proved His power over sin death and Satan when He rose again from the dead. He is our hope of Salvation and the source of our freedom. We can joy with Paul’s declaration of victory when he states,

1 Corinthians 15:55 ““O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?””

1 Corinthians 15:56 “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.”

Satan does not care what you are distracted by. All he cares is that you do not live out your fullest for God. He want’s you to compromise in little things. He wants you to skip teaching the next generation, He wants you to quit conquering the land, to give in to the refining fire, to be passive in our obedience to a jealous God. He wants you and your family to fail, But God. But God is Gracious and is our strength. If God is doing a work in you , let others know, let them see the power of God in you, the Holy Spirit working in you.

If you walk away with anything, and i promised that I would give you a focal point in this shotgun message, Walk away with this: The Most important thing in your life is your relationship with God. Grow it, Gaurd it, Let others see and know that you have an active obedient faith in a powerful God. Do not compromise your relationship with God. Can we truly be free? Yes you can. Christ gave all so that we could be free. Live you life for Him.