Life with No King - Part 3

Well, we have finally come to the final sermon of our series in Judges. I hope that this series has been informative, encouraging, and transformational. I know it has been for me as I’ve preached these sermons. This morning, I want to really to just tie together some main thoughts from the book and really think about how the book of Judges plays out in our context here today.

I don’t want this study in Judges to be like trigonometry. I actually enjoyed trig, but I have no used it one time since I left that class. I want the lessons that we have learned from the book to be practical and useful in your everyday life.

So let’s start out by recapping the book and pointing out some of the major themes. Judges 2 gives us good summary of the book. Judges 2:6-10

Judges 2:6–10 ESV

When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. 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.

After Joshua’s death. There was a generation of Israelites who did not know God, and the work that God had done for the nation of Israel up to that point was not personal to them. They had heard the stories of the things that Yahweh had done for their parents and grandparents, but God was not personal to them.

This was the first time that the nation of Israel was without strong, central leadership since they were delivered out of Egypt. First there was Moses, then there was Joshua. Moses and Joshua weren’t kings, but they were strong leadership figures that lead the people as they followed after God. After they were gone, the people had to make the choice to follow God for themselves, and they chose to reject God and His authority over their lives.

The first major principle from the book is this.

A relationship with God is vital for spiritual life.

Because this generation of Israelites did not know God, because they did not have a relationship with God, it opened the door for all types of evil.

It started with Israel refusing to drive out the inhabitants of the land of Canaan as God had instructed them to do. God warned them that the people in the land of Canaan were going to become a thorn in their side.

The Canaanites and the other people who dwelled in the land were wicked people, with wicked practices, and instead of wiping them out like God instructed, they embraced them. They took on their gods, they took on their practices, they took on their way of thinking, and totally disregarded God’s law.

It’s so important that we each have our own vibrant relationship with God. We need to have time set aside each day where it’s just us and God with no other distractions. I know sometimes it’s hard, and I know that with some of our schedules, it’s difficult to find that time. But it’s vitally important for your spiritual development. Without spending time with God meditating on His Word and praying, it opens the door for us to follow along with false teaching, create god’s out of worldly things, and for temptation to take over our lives. This may have been best illustrated by the life of Samson who had a strong craving for the things of the world, because his relationship with God was weak. A relationship with God is vital for the spiritual life.

Now most of the book of Judges teaches us how God dealt with this rebellious people. Judges 2:13-15

Judges 2:13–15 ESV

They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.

God allowed Israel to be plundered and enslaved by the surrounding nations as punishment for rejecting Him and refusing to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan.

The second principle from this book I want to point out is that

God disciplines those He loves.

Hebrews 12:5-6 says

Hebrews 12:5–6 ESV

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

If God did not love the people of Israel, He would have allowed them to continue in their sin, but Israel was God’s chosen people. He had brought them too far to give up on them now. But something had to be done about Israel’s idolatry and disobedience. God would use these foreign oppressors to bring Israel to a place that they realized they needed God. Yes, the Bible says that God was angry with Israel, but His anger was not in opposition to His love. On the contrary, His anger was because of His love. He so passionately desired a relationship with His people that when they gave their love to other gods, it made him angry. That’s why he likens Israel’s sin to adultery.

Realize that God is jealous for you too. He desperately desires all your love and devotion. And if you are his child, God will often discipline us when we wander away from Him. He can do this in so many ways, and it’s often not in a way that you expect, but be aware when God is chastening you. Take it as a sign of His love and return back to God.

Now we see the good news in the very next verse. Judges 2:16

Judges 2:16 ESV

Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.

God very well could have left Israel in distress. They deserved it! We know they deserved it by the way that they responded to the Judges that God sent. Judges 2:17

Judges 2:17 ESV

Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so.

So why did God send judges to deliver them. The Bible tells us in Judges 2:18

Judges 2:18 ESV

Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them.

God saw their hurt, God saw their affliction, and oppression, and it moved God to step in on their behalf and send them a deliverer. And here’s the third major theme we see in the book of Judges

God’s grace is greater than our sins.

Grace is God giving us something that we don’t deserve. Israel in no way, shape, or form deserved to be delivered from their oppressions. Most of the time, they did not even truly repent for their sin, but God stepped in and saved them anyway.

Man’s greatest problem is our sin. We are prone to wander away from God. The Bible tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And the wages of our sin, is death. Sin is a huge problem. That’s why it’s so wonderful that God’s grace is greater than our sin. We do not deserve salvation, but God in His grace sent His son Jesus to purchase our salvation.

Then what about the twelve Judges? Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah and Barak, Gideon, Tola, Jair, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, and Samson. While none of these people were perfect, God strengthened them in their weakness and used them to deliver Israel from their enemies. Hebrews 11::32-34 tells us how these people were able to accomplish God’s purpose

Hebrews 11:32–34 ESV

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

The next major theme in the book is

Faith brings strength out of weakness.

While the Judges had all types of weaknesses from physical ailments to spiritual problems and everything in between, ultimately God used to them despite their flaws because in the end, they had faith in God’s ability to defeat their enemies.

And when we put together the last two themes, Judges paints an awesome picture of salvation. Ephesians 2:8-9

Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

God in His grace reaches out to us for salvation, and if we will place our faith in Him. God will deliver us out of our sins.

When Jesus came and met us in our need. Our need for deliverance, our desperation of being oppressed by sin, the only way we could be freed is by Jesus giving His life for ours Romans 5:8

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We have to place of faith in Jesus Christ and Him alone to save us from our sins, to deliver us from ourselves, to change our destination from eternity separated from God in being tormented in hell to having an eternal worship service in God’s presence in heaven.

Romans 10:9

Romans 10:9 ESV

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

But even though God rescued Israel when they were in trouble, we saw Israel go through this cycle where they would turn away from God, then God would send a foreign nation to oppress them, God would see their distress and send a deliverer, after God delivered them - they would serve God until the Judge died, but then as it says in Judges 2:19

Judges 2:19 ESV

But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.

One phrase we often repeated is that Israel wanted a change in circumstances, but God wanted to change their hearts. But despite God continually showing his grace toward them, despite having the judges who were supposed to be pointing them to God. There was never a complete change in Israel’s hearts.

When we came to the end of the book. The final section that gave us a picture of Israel at this time. It all came down to this phrase from the very last verse in the book Judges 21:25

Judges 21:25 ESV

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

In a nutshell, that’s the story of the book of Judges.

And the final theme that I want to remind us of is this

Man is constantly searching for someone to crown king.

Why did Israel consistently go back to idolatry after God delivered them? I don’t think that they fully understood where their salvation came from.

When God sent judges to deliver Israel, the people often tried to turn them into kings. We saw this with Gideon, and with son Abimilech, and some other minor judges who had concubines, and all these animals, and all these sons. Israel was constantly in search of someone who would lead them and fight against their enemies.

But the judges were not to be their kings, nor were they really their saviors. The judges were to lead Israel and point people to God. But, as we learned in this book, some of the Judges were not very good representations of God to the nation of Israel. As a matter of fact, when we look at the major judges, there was a slow degradation throughout the book. The first judge, Othniel seemed to be the best, the Bible has nothing negative to say about him. Ehud was left handed so he may have been a weird guy, but still nothing negative. Deborah was a strong leader with a solid spiritual background while Barak who was a little timid, but ultimately trusted God. They pointed the people to God. But then with the final 3 Judges we start seeing the decline. After God gave Gideon the courage to defeat the Midianites, he sets himself up as a pseudo king and leads the people back into idolatry with his golden ephod. Jephthah sacrifices his own daughter and starts a civil war. Then there’s Samson. Oooh Samson. The example of every man doing what is right in his own eyes. He was impulsive, and whatever he saw he had to have it. Whatever he felt like doing, he had to it. We don’t even see him recognize God reverently until the very last moment of his life.

Israel’s problem was that they always looked to the judges as saviors. That’s why they always turned back to the false gods when the judge died. Israel missed the biggest lesson from the book of Judges

King Jesus is the only all-sufficient Savior.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of the book of Judges was that Israel was in constant search for the king they wanted, while they rejected the king they needed. Not necessarily in a physical sense, but in their hearts. Throughout the the entire book, God is showing his jealous love towards them by placing them in captivity, but he also shows his marvellous grace by sending the judges, who were the physical representation of God’s kingship, to deliver them. They accepted the judges, but ultimately they rejected God. The judges helped them modify their behavior for a time, but only God could change their hearts.

The book of Judges is a tragedy, because it seems that the nation of Israel never did quite get that God was the all-sufficient Savior. He was the king they were looking for, but they rejected Him.

And when people reject God in their hearts, guess who gets seated on the throne. We do. Everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

We saw how that played out in the episode of Micah, the Levite, and the tribe of Dan. The people in Israel were mixing the worship of their God with the pagan practices of the people of Canaan. Their worship was nothing more than and ends to a means. The sought to leverage their worship into blessings and favor with God. It was the ancient version of the prosperity gospel.

And then we saw last week in the story the Levite and his concubine just the immortality, the violence, and complete disregard for God’s way among the people of Israel. There was a complete breakdown of their society.

And as we’ve pointed out repeatedly throughout this series. While our gods may look different, and our practicing of false religion may not be the same the book of Judges looks a lot like our time period today.

We are going to turn from the book of Judges, and everyone go with me to 2 Timothy 3:1-5

2 Timothy 3:1–5 ESV

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

I don’t have to go on a rant about all the evil that is in our world today. Watch the news for one week, maybe even one day, and you will see everything in that last in play today. We’ve been in the last days since Jesus ascended into heaven, but it’s not farfetched to believe that we are living in the last of the last days. King Jesus is coming soon, and He will set all things in order when He comes. But know that until that day we are going to be living in times of difficulty or as it says in the KJV perilous times.

But I want to draw special attention to verse 5 where it says, “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

That’s saying that in the last days, people will be religious. They will have a spiritual side. Their is some form of godliness there. But God has no authority in their lives, they don’t believe that God has the power to change them and change others. Their “belief” in God does not have to change the way the think, speak, or act, or live. I think this is the New Testament version of, “There’s no King, they have rejected God’s authority and power. Everyone does what is right in their own eyes.”

I believe that the current spiritual climate in our country looks a lot like the generation of Israel after the death of Joshua who did not know God. The generation that knew about God and His Word, but they have no true relationship with Him.

Let’s look at some stats. According to research by Pew in 2019, 65% of Americans still identify themselves as Christians. That’s down from about 75% 10 years ago. At the same time, one of the fastest growing “religious groups” are those labeled as “nones” people who consider themselves totally religiously unaffiliated over the past 10 years they have risen rapidly from about 17% of Americans to 26%

And from this graphic, you can see that there is a steady decline in every generation.

Because of this steady decline, America is often labeled as a post-Christian society. Post-Christian means that Christianity is no longer the prevailing worldview in a society. It’s just like the nation of Israel whose parents and grandparents served under Moses and Joshua, so they knew about God, but God was never personal to them.

I know that not all of our founding fathers were Christian people, but our nation was built upon Christian principles. And throughout our history, it was assumed by Americans and the other nations of the world, that the Americans where Christian.

Our society has a whole has put off the Christian viewpoint and values in favor or secularism, humanism, nationalism, environmentalism, atheism, and you can name a whole slough of ideologies and that have replaced the Christian way of thinking and living. At one time, Christianity was the prevailing train of thought in our nation, and we have been slowly degrading to the point where the Christian worldview is now antagonized and made fun of. Now down here in the south, in the Bible belt, that process may be going a little bit slower, but according to a study by Barna, there are some cities in the Northeast, where over 60% of people identified ithemselves as post-Christian. So as a nation, we may be already there, if not, we will be there soon. But like Israel, there will come a generation who will largely not know God. And guess what, every man will do what is right in his own eyes.

Much like the nation of Israel, people are searching for a King, they are searching for a Savior. The subsequent verses in 2 Timothy 3 talk about the false teachers and ideologies that will arise. They are going to be “ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of truth.” They will be people “deceiving and being deceived.”

People put all sorts of things if God’s place because they feel like it may deliver them. Money, sex, success, power, pleasure, parties, politics, entertainment, social life, addictions of all kinds. Our gods may not look the same as Israel, but they are the same. And people are still seeking after something or someone to rule their life and bring them peace, and deliver them when they are in trouble. While the all-sufficient Savior is right there waiting. People reject God, and put themselves on the throne, and do what’s right in their own eyes.

Christians, as God’s people in this age, we cannot make the same mistake as Israel and forget.

King Jesus is the only all-sufficient Savior.

No amount of money, no government or politician, no education, no after-school program, no athlete, no protest, and no organization is going to give our city, our nation, or our world the change that it’s needs. None of these things are bad, they can do some good, and we should feel free to participate in them all. But all of these things are temporary fixes. They can help modify some behaviors, but the cannot change hearts. Only Jesus, the all-sufficient Savior can bring the lasting change that we need through the Gospel.

So what do we as Christians need to do as we live through this time period? We are going to look at the advice that Paul gave to Timothy.

2 Timothy 3:14

2 Timothy 3:14 ESV

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it

I. Continue in what you have learned

That word continue means that we are to remain, or that we are to abide. We are to keep the same course of action. Timothy had been taught the things of God from a child, and Paul encouraged him to no let those things go.

First and foremost, continue in your relationship with God. Don’t get swayed by the things of the world. Don’t get led away by false teaching or the gods of this world. But Hey continue in the things that we learned from the book of Judges, don’t let those things slip away. Remember those major lessons that we pointed out at the beginning of the sermon. Those principles will help guide you as live in this age.

II. Equip yourself with Scripture

2 Timothy 3:16-17

2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV

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

God has given us the Word of God to equip us. To prepare us to be able to combat the false teaching and evil in this world. I think we make the mistake of always using God’s Word to defend our positions, but the Bible is always described as an offensive weapon. Ephesians 6, the Bible is called the sword of the Spirit. Hebrews 4:12 says

Hebrews 4:12 ESV

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

We have a powerful weapon in the Word of God. I feel like we often take the idea that God’s Word is not powerful enough to stand in a world of science and reason. But God’s Word can hold it’s own. The power of the Spirit to convict and turn people to repentance is supernatural. The words in Scripture are breathed out by God himself. We must trust in it’s power and authority.

But if we don’t know it, than we can’t use it. That’s why it is imperative for us in these days to stay faithful to reading, studying, and mediating on God’s Word.

And that brings us to the final thing that Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2

2 Timothy 4:2 ESV

preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

III. Preach the Word

The word used for preach here means that we are to shout something out like it is important news. Now Timothy was a pastor, but you don’t have to be a pastor to be able to preach the word. We need to be constantly looking for opportunities to share with others the good news about Jesus Christ. As we said before, people are searching for a Savior. They need someone to crown king. We need to share with them about out all-sufficient Savior Jesus, so they can take themselves off the throne and put God in His proper place in their lives.

We are to be constantly pointing others towards the salvation that we found in Christ. Much like the judges, we are not the saviors people need, but we should point people to our Savior and King.

Perhaps this was the mistake of the judges. We never really see them stand up and strongly proclaim that Yahweh was their king. The only one that was a prophet, well a prophetess, was Deborah. Gideon said that God should be their king, but started acting like he was their king, so I think what he said was kind of invalid. Other than that, we don’t see the judges teaching and preaching about the God who had delivered them time and time again.

We cannot be afraid to preach the word to a lost and dying world. We have to live unashamed. We cannot be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation. If it has changed, we need to boldly proclaim it’s ability to change others.

I hope this series in Judges has been a blessing to you. We saw how God used flawed people to accomplish great things for his people. He strengthened them in their weakness, and God can do the same thing for us today.

Pray that God would give you the faith that you need to really step out and see what amazing things that God can accomplish through your life.

If you are here or listening that this morning, and you don’t know Christ. The first step of faith is committing your life to Him.