Judges: Entropy Experienced

Entropy

(Possibly do something with regard to Ice, water and steam - to illustrate what’s happening in the book of Judges)

According to one of our resident scientists (Thanks Robert), Entropy is the measurement of disorder of a system. The idea here is that things tend toward chaos or disorder. For example, if I have a glass of ice cubes, it won’t take too long for those ice cubes melt at room temperature. It will take quite a while for the water in that glass to evaporate, but eventually that will happen. We can speed that process up by adding heat and causing the water to boil. Gradually, over time, the order of our ice cubes become the disorder of water vapor. That which we can see and touch (ice cubes) become in distinguishable from the atmosphere it’s evaporated into.

Now, I know, when you came to church today, the last thing that some of you wanted was a science lesson and others have been eagerly awaiting the day when the biblical relevance of science would be discussed in the pulpit.

Well, I bring all of this up as a means of helping us understand a bit of what is happening in the book of Judges. As you know, we’ve been marching through the books of the Bible as a means of trying to understand the story that God is telling through history as revealed in the pages of scripture. Up to this point, we’ve seen how God created everything and then how humans corrupted it with sin. We saw how God responded with the catastrophe of the flood and then later confused languages in order to cause people to spread out. We learned how God called a certain individual (Abraham) and his descendents, entering into covenant with them, and then consecrated them to be set apart for Him - to be a people that was distinct from the nations that surrounded them. We got to see how God did miraculous things to bring these people, the Israelites, out of Egypt and into the promised land. Last week, as we considered the book of Joshua, we got a glimpse of the conquest of that land as God began the process of driving out the inhabitants of the land.

In the book of Judges, we see that the leadership mantle that passed from Moses to Joshua was then distributed among the tribes. They were sent out to finish the conquering of the land and then to dwell there, living as a people set apart for God. Levites, the religious leaders, were distributed in cities among all of the tribes as a means of fostering faithfulness to God.

Let’s look back for another brief moment. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses gave the Israelites a very clear instruction:

Deuteronomy 6:5–9 ESV

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Moses gave the people a clear command regarding how to pass on belief in God from one generation to the next. The things of God were to be a part of daily life!

Then, after the people have largely conquered the land, Joshua reinstates the covenant with them by calling them to choose whom they will serve:

Joshua 24:14–15 ESV

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond 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.”

The people then respond with an affirmation that they will serve the Lord:

Joshua 24:16–18 ESV

Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

They go back and forth a bit - Joshua even seems to play “bad cop” with them as he points out that they will fail. The Israelites ultimately affirm:

Joshua 24:21 ESV

And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord.”

The book of Joshua ends with the people being sent out to enter into the inheritance that God has alloted for them. While much of the conquest was completed, there was still some work to be done. The book of Judges summarizes some of that conquest, but then chronicles life in the land after the leadership of Joshua.

If you’ve had an opportunity to read the book of Judges or are somewhat familiar with its contents, you’ll remember that things did not go well for the Israelites. If we go back to thinking about our discussion of entropy - God seemed to introduce a means in there cultural system for people to maintain, for entropy to be kept at bay, but the the people seem to fail to obey God in the big things and in the small things. The moral decline of the nation progresses - and rapidly. As they enter the land and fail to fulfill all that God called them to do, the heat is turned up.

Today - as we talk, we’re going to run a bit of a science experiment. In one bowl, we have some ice that will simply be subjected to the air around. In the other bowl, we have ice that will be heated. Over the course of the sermon, we’ll get to see entropy at work. Both entropy that happens by natural means, and entropy that happens when outside forces come to bear.

As we glance at the structure and story of Judges, we can easily divide it into three sections - an introduction (ch. 1-2), the spiral of decline (ch. 3-16), and result of the decline (ch. 17-21). For our discussion today, we’re going to use some language that Charles Swindoll used when he preached on this book 40 years ago as he discussed the cause, course, and curse of Israel’s failure.

The Cause of Failure (ch. 1-3:6)

These first few chapters overlap with what we experienced in the end of Joshua. We actually read about the death of Joshua twice (1:1; 2:8). There are three primary causes of the Israelite’s failure. First of all

Incomplete Obedience (1:1-2:5) - or outright disobedience. In the book of Joshua, as we mentioned before, some of the land was conquered, but there were a few things left to do. It seems that nearly all of the tribes faced opposition that prevented them from driving out the inhabitants. Whether it was fear of the opposing forces or simply compromise that set in - we don’t get a full picture of why. God had told them to completely drive out the people, but they did not. The ESV Study Bible suggests five reasons why the Israelites failed to fully take the promised land:

The Canaanites had superior arms and fortifications (1:19)

Israel was disposed to make alliances with the people of the land (2:1–5) - essentially compromise set in

Israel sinned and must be punished (2:20–21)

Yahweh was testing Israel to see if they would be faithful or not (2:22–23; 3:4)

Israel needed to be instructed in the art of war (3:1–3)

(ESV Study Bible, p. 440)

Between their own rebellion and the work of God - the Israelites failed to fulfill all that God had called them to do.

I wonder for us, how often to do we fail to do that? Are there things that God has called us to do in our families, our church, our neighborhoods that would be considered an incomplete obedience? Have we allowed compromise to set in?

In addition to failing to completely obey the command of the Lord, the Israelites failed because of...

Idolatry (2:6-3:4) - One generation died off. The succeeding generation did not know God and began to serve other idols and ultimately became drawn in to the worship of the deities around them. Consider this...

Judges 2:10 ESV

And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.

As a result, the worship of the one true God is set aside as the people begin to worship the material gods of the land, adopting the practices of their culture - entropy is accelerating - the heat is turning up.

Judges 2:11–13 ESV

And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.

In addition to incomplete obedience and idolatry, Swindoll suggests a third cause of Israel’s failure -

Intermarriage (3:5-6) -

Judges 3:4–6 ESV

They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.

Rather than being a people who was distinct from the people around them, they are mingling with them and adopting their practices.

There is one final cause of the failure that I’d like to suggest. This is not explicit in this part of the book but it’s seen throughout - that is...

Failure of the family

One of the commentators that read this week has a theory that is not shared by a lot of others - but I do think it has some merit and is supported by what we see in the book of Judges. His view is that much of the problem of the book of Judges is this failure of the family (Smith, Michael J., Bibliotheca Sacra, #168, p. 279-298). Not only do we see it as a failure to pass the faith along from one generation to the next, but then we get to see as entropy accelerates, the moral decisions of the family

The parents failed to fulfill what God had called them to do in Deuteronomy 6. They failed to maintain proper worship and to talk of God as a regular part of life. I would guess that the children saw the morality of their parents and simply old fashioned and prudish - instead of being the way that God had called them to live. When the morals and way of life no longer had a spiritual foundation, then the kids could simply do whatever seemed convenient.

It became convenient to worship other gods.

It became convenient to inter-marry with their polytheistic neighbors.

It became convenient for people to have multiple spouses and maintain extra-marital relationships.

It became convenient for the people to syncretize some form of the faith with other.

It became convenient to do what was right in their own eyes.

Parents - let me encourage you to continue in what you are doing. I know it’s difficult to get up on a Sunday morning, to carve out time to be in fellowship with other believers, to listen, learn, to expose your children to the things of God in a corporate setting. It would be convenient to sleep in, play golf, do whatever - but this is worth it. It’s sort of like taking the bowl of ice and putting it back into the freezer to stave of entropy’s natural progression. (That’s not to say that we are the “frozen chosen,”…)

Parents - I know it’s sometimes awkward to talk about the challenges that you face at work and discussing the greater thing that God might be doing - but keep it up! As you children see you trusting God in the good times and in the difficult times, they will learn to see the hand of God working in their lives.

It has been said that we are perpetually one generation away from our faith being extinct. While I think that God will always have a remnant - we do have an obligation and privilege to pass along what we’ve learned.

So the causes of failure - incomplete obedience, idolatry, intermarriage, and failure of the family ushered in the next part of the book of Judges...

The Course of Failure (3:7-16:31)

In light of the failures of the Israelites, they begin to spiral into a national decline. Time and again, the author of Judges comes back to a similar comment:

“And the people did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” (3.7; 3:12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1)

In many of these cycles, the evil of the Israelites would result in punish from God at the hand of their neighbors. God would then raise up a judge or a military leader who would bring some sort of freedom, pushing back entropy for a time.

Here is a brief rundown of the judges.

The Judges

Othniel (3:9-11) - After 8 years of torment from Mesopotamia, Othniel - Caleb’s son in law - from the tribe of Judah, brought freedom and ushered in 40 years of rest.

Ehud (3:15-30) - After 18 years under the Moabites, Ehud - the left-handed Benjamite - defeated Eglon - king of Moab and brought 80 years of rest.

Shamgar (3:31) - though a minor prophet, single handedly killed 600 Philistines

Deborah/Barak - 4:4-5:31 — After 20 years of torment by Sisera, the commander of the army of Canaan, Deborah and Barak of the tribe of Ephraim led the Israelites to 40 years of rest.

Gideon - (6:11-8:28) - After 7 years or raids by the Midianites, Gideon, from the tribe of Manasseh ushered in 40 years of rest. Remember, we talked about the failure of the family before. While Gideon did some good things and initially seemed to what to honor God, he introduced a sort of syncretism in their worship and took on a role of priest-judge. He also married so many women and had other mistresses besides that he had over 70 sons. Abimelech, the son of one of the mistresses struck a deal with some of the Israelites and actually became king for a short time. He killed nearly all of Gideon’s sons. He is not listed as a judge, but sort of a continuation of Gideon’s family failure.

Tola and Jair (10:1-5) 3 years after death of Abimelech - Tola from the tribe of Issachar ushered in 23 years of rest. Jair from the tribe of Manasseh brought 22 years of rest.

Jephthah (11:1-12:7) - After 18 years of conflict with the Ammonites, Jepthah - the son of a relationship with a prostitute, after getting pushed away from his half-brothers, gets called back to lead the people against the Ammonites. He eventually gains victory and ushers in 24 years of rest. He and Abimelech surround themselves with “worthless fellows” - yet another sign of failure in the family. Jephthah makes a vow to the Lord to sacrifice the first thing that comes out of his house is the Lord brings him victory. His only child, a daughter, comes out to greet him. His victory turns to tragedy as he fulfills is vow to the Lord - a vow that the Lord did not call for and ran completely contrary to the law. Because there had been such a decline and a lack of true worship - Jephthah seemed to be in a place to mix pagan practices with his faith. Are there places where we do that?

this then ushers in a series of three minor judges...

Ibzan (12:8-10) - from Judah or Zebulun brought 7 years of rest.

Elon (12:11-12) - from Zebulun brought 10 years of rest

Abdon (12:13-15) - from the tribe of Ephraim brought years of rest.

Samson - 13:2-16:31 - After 40 years of oppression from the Philistines, Samson from the tribe of Dan is raised up and ushers in 20 years of rest.

Twelve judges from 9 of the tribes, covering some 400 years, lead the people. Some of these judges overlap because they lived in different regions of the country. These central chapters cover a great deal of time and give light to what Swindoll calls...

Cycles of Misery

Disobedience

Bondage

Misery

Liberation and Rest

Compromises

Rather than being purely cyclical, these seem to be a spiral downward. The start of the next cycle seems to be further away from the start of the previous cycle.

As I was talking about Robert this week about entropy, he pointed out that in a purely material sense, it is impossible for something to return fully to its previous state. The entropy in the nation of Israel could not be reversed.

This brings us to the final section of the book...

The Curses from Failure (17-21)

These closing chapters do not necessarily follow chronologically after Samson. We don’t know exactly when it happened, except that it was in this time before a King was appointed by God. There is a repeated phrase that marks this period:

Judges 17:6 ESV

In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

These final four chapters reveal three curses that result from the course of failure. The first...

Idolatry (17-18) - Micah and family, Danties (summarize)

The next one...

Immorality - (19-20) - Levite and Concubine, civil war - thousands killed

finally, now that they have nearly destroyed an entire tribe...

Anarchy - (21) - mourning - stolen wives for tribe of Benjamin

The stories of the book of Judges are some of the most well known. We know about Jael killing Sisera with a stake through his temple during the leadership of Deborah, we know about Ehud killing the super fat king, we know about the exploits of Samson.

These stories and judges keep pointing to a need for a savior - a leader who would permanently save the people. The author would have us think that a king is what is needed, but as we’ll see in the coming weeks, the nation doesn’t fare much better under its kings.

Ultimately, the failures in this book leads us to cry out for a leader who will put things back in order, restoring things to the way it should be, reversing entropy’s sinful decline into chaos. That person in Jesus Christ. He is the one leader who doesn’t have the tragic character flaws of the judges. He is the one King who can bring us into a correct relationship with God. Friend, if you are not yet a follower of Christ, let me encourage you to consider laying aside your attempts to fight entropy on your own - to fight sin’s debilitating and eternal effects on your own - trust in what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross and follow him. If you have questions about that, feel free to talk to me or any of the elders or the person who invited you. We’d love to explain that more.

There is one final thing that I’d like us to consider today in light of Judges. That is...

Countering Entropy Today

Just as God gave the Israelites some very clear instructions on how to continue to be set apart, I believe God has done the same for us. He has given us spiritual resources and practices as a means of helping us to counteract the natural decline that happens in our lives.

I know we’ve quoted this passage before, but consider this:

2 Peter 1:3–8 NLT

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So how do we put that in action? What has God given us?

His Word - we need to make time regularly to read it and meditate on it

His Church - the book of Hebrews says,

Hebrews 10:24–25 NLT

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

We gather together to be encouraged and instructed by each other. As we meet each week to open the Bible, we get to read and study with the benefit of each other. As we sing, we get to hear the Word of God and the concepts of our faith come out of our mouths and the mouths of each other as we sing to one another.

His Spirit - to instruct us, to guide us, to help us put to death the things that would pull us away from faithfully following Him

His Son - as the way that we have access to the God the Father.

In several places in the book of Judges, we get to see the phrase “There was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” While there was great moral decline and imperfect judges leading these greatly imperfect people, we will ultimately see that even the Kings fell short in their ability to lead the nation toward godliness. We needed a perfect leader, a perfect judge, a perfect King - that is Jesus.

Zack Eswine has said: “heroic moments have as their aim the recovery of the ordinary. Deborah and Gideon are raised up by God so that everyone can return home to do life in peace. The great triumph of a fictional Superman is to free the citizens of Metropolis from evil so that they can go back to work, and marry, and live, and eat, and find meaning. The great triumph of the Greatest Generation was to free the world from tyranny so that people could go back to the blessing and joy of daily life and love. The true act of heroism in Jesus on the cross and the emptying of the tomb is so that his people can return to the grace of doing life with God in a place, with love for our neighbors, and the freedom to enjoy God in the work, play, rest, and love that he gives us there.”

(The Imperfect Pastor, p. 247)

Eswine also said:

“you will be tempted to orient your desires toward doing large things in famous ways as fast and as efficiently as you can. But take note. A crossroads waits for you. Jesus is that crossroads. Because almost anything in life that truly matters will require you to do small, mostly overlooked things, over a long period of time with him.”

(The Imperfect Pastor, p. 24)

Or to quote Eugene Peterson, we are to pursue

“A long obedience in the same direction.”

There will be great adventures and epic charges that God places before us from time to time. But we have to realize that life is lived day to day. The “small, mostly overlooked things, over a long period of time with him” are the things that matter. These are the things that keep entropy at bay. These are the things that instruct the next generation. These are things that demonstrate faithfulness.

What are your daily habits like?

What are mine?

Can God be seen through us as we live in the ordinary things of life?

This is where the battles are truly won. It is in those daily happenings that entropy is held back, and God’s grace is put on display.

Let’s pray.