Off Target - Judges 2:1-3:6

In 1979 a passenger jet carrying 257 people left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. Unknown to the pilots, however, there was a minor 2 degree error in the flight coordinates. This placed the aircraft 28 miles to the east of where the pilots thought they were. As they approached Antarctica, the pilots descended to a lower altitude to give the passengers a better look at the landscape. Although both were experienced pilots, neither had made this particular flight before. They had no way of knowing that the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises from the frozen landscape to a height of more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m). Sadly, the plane crashed into the side of the volcano, killing everyone on board. It was a tragedy brought on by a minor error—a matter of only a few degrees.

Experts in air navigation have a rule of thumb known as the 1 in 60 rule. It states that for every 1 degree a plane veers off its course, it misses its target destination by 1 mile for every 60 miles you fly. This means that the further you travel, the further you are from your destination. If you’re off course by just one degree, after one foot, you’ll miss your target by 0.2 inches. Trivial, right? But…

After 100 yards, you’ll be off by 5.2 feet. Not huge, but noticeable.After a mile, you’ll be off by 92.2 feet. One degree is starting to make a difference. If you veer off course by 1 degree flying around the equator, you’ll land almost 500 miles off target!

Last week we saw in Judges chapter one that the Israelites were experiencing blessing and victory in the land! But we also noticed that little by little there were what may seem like small compromises here and there, incomplete obedience to the command of the Lord, and by the end of the chapter we had a string of statements about various tribes failing to drive out the inhabitants of the land.

As we come into chapter two, we find the fruit of those failures. Though perhaps it might have seemed like a small issue, those small failures have led the Israelites severely off course. 1 degree off course doesn’t seem like much, but it sets the trajectory that, if left unchecked, will ultimately lead to destruction.

Here is what we are going to see today: though the people have drifted off course and are increasingly becoming like the Canaanite world around them, God’s faithfulness remains on full display.

though the people have drifted off course and are increasingly becoming like the Canaanite world around them, God’s faithfulness remains on full display.

How has God shown his faithfulness despite the Canaanization of the people?

His faithfulness is on display through his confrontation, his punishment, his deliverance, and his testings.

First,

1. God’s Faithfulness in Confrontation

Remember how chapter one ends. Each tribe has failed to drive out the Canaanites. They have gone off course. They are off target.

That is the backdrop. Let’s begin to work through our text

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.

The angel of the Lord. Most theologians believe that this is none other than a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ. The word “angel” might better be translated “messenger” or “envoy”. In any case, it is clear that he speaks for Yahweh.

The messenger summarizes what God desires from his people and how they have failed: I told you, don’t make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land. Don’t join in with them.

This is not merely a prohibition against geopolitical alliances. It may start there, but it eventually leads to spiritual integration. Notice the flip side of making a covenant: Don’t make a covenant with them, instead, break down their alters.

This is a spiritual charge. Refusal to enter into a covenant necessitates the removal of the false gods. This is to preserve spiritual fidelity in the land.

But have the people obeyed? No. They did enter covenant with the people. They failed to remove the false gods.

God says, “You have not obeyed my voice.”

It seems to me that the people have begun to walk down the Romans 1 road:

Romans 1:22–25 ESV

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Israel has a God who parts the seas, topples walls, rains manna from heaven, brings water from a rock....and now the people want to play make believe with the false gods of the land. Their gods don’t even talk. But there the Israelites go.

So God says, fine. If that’s what you want, have at it! I won’t drive out the Canaanites any longer! They shall be a thorn and snare for you! Even though there will be successful battle sought in the book of Judges, it is never taking new territory. It is always throwing off oppressors.

Even with this pronouncement of judgement, God is showing his faithfulness to the people. The people are in sin, and so he confront them with it! He shows them from His word the commands that they were violating. I have spoken, says the Lord. Here is what I have commanded you, and you have not obeyed.

Friends, being confronted with truth from God’s word is never comfortable, but it is always an expression of God’s grace. When we are shown from the Word of God how our lives are at odds with His revealed will, that is a grace from God!

And God shows that grace to the people here.

And the people repent!

They weep! They call the place “Bokhim” which literally means weepers. They sacrifice to God. This seems like a positive thing, right? We’re back on track! Course correction made! Right?

Sadly, it seems as though this repentance was not genuine. No real changes were made. No real reforms were put into place. The false gods were not forsaken, there was no renewal unto the Lord.

It seems that this may be what Paul described as a wordly repentance in 1 Cor 7

2 Corinthians 7:8–10 ESV

8 For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. 9 As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. 10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

It seems as though the people had outward showings of repentance, but clearly their hearts were still far from the Lord.

Look at verse 6.

Judges 2:6–10 ESV

6 When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. 7 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. 8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. 9 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. 10 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.

Now, verse six seems like a strange insertion. Didn’t we already have a report about the death of Joshua at the end of the book of Joshua and here in Judges chapter one? Yes. Much of this paragraph is actually taken word for word from the end of Joshua. So why is it here?

What the author of Judges is seeking to do is to provide a level of continuity of story by interrupting it and hearkening back to themes already present in Scripture. He’s interrupted the flow in order to remind us of past details that bear relevance to the moment.

It’s like if someone is telling a story and gets to important details, they might break off for a moment by saying something like “I was fishing and there I was, hey you remember that one time back two years ago when we went fishing together and we caught that big fish in that one place? It was like that, except this time....”

The narrator is tying in the history. The people served the Lord for as long as there was a godly leader. They saw what God had done! They saw “the great work the Lord had done for Israel!”

But after that generation died, the next generation didn’t do well. They did not know the Lord. They did not see his work. This introduces the cycle of the judges.

But notice carefully what the text says about their knowledge: They did not know the Lord.

It wasn’t that they didn’t know about the Lord. They surely did. They didn’t know him, personally.

One commentator noted how this speaks of a disregard for the Lord. He sees a parallel with Eli’s sons at the beginning of 1 Samuel who similarly “did not know know the Lord” as the text says. Eli’s sons literally served as priests, corrupt though they were. The issue wasn’t intellectual knowledge, but regard.

And so, as the commentator puts it

“this generation ‘did not know Yawheh’ or his works, that is, they did not acknowledge Yawheh; Yahweh and His works didn’t matter to them, had no influence over them.”

Whose fault is that? Did the parents fail in their task to raise their children to know God? Perhaps.

Did the parents do all they could to do as they were command in the great shema of Deut 6?

Deuteronomy 6:6–7 ESV

6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 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.

and despite their best efforts the children still chose to go astray? It’s possible. We aren’t given all the details.

However it happened, the children grew up without regard for the Lord and without personally knowing him. And so the result is all out apostasy and paganism.

And yet we still see a thread of the faithfulness of God:

2. God’s Faithfulness in Punishment

Verse 11

Judges 2:11–15 ESV

11 And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 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. 13 They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. 14 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. 15 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.

We see the continued rebellion of the people as they have adopted the false gods of the land.

Baal was the storm God. He controlled the rain. Him together with his goddess wife Ashteroth were the fertility deities. In Canaanite lands, if you wanted your crops to grow, if you wanted rain, if you wanted to have a bountiful harvest, if you wanted children, you did what you had to do to get the attention of Baal and Ashteroth. In this mythology, earthly fertility was tied to heavenly fertility. If Baal and Ashteroth are engaging one another sexually, that means good things for your crops and children. So in order to get them to hook up more often, the worshipers would go to the temple and engage sexually with the temple prostitutes in order to awaken in Baal the desire to do the same with his goddess.

And this is what the people of Israel were embracing. Sex sells. It looks different today than it did back then, but sex still sells.

No wonder the Lord’s anger was kindled against them.

And I have to pause there for a moment. Is it right for God to be angry with his people for that? I mean, isn’t God a god of love?

Anger is a response that we all have when we feel that an injustice has been done. If you have been perfectly faithful to your spouse and yet they still cheat on you, we would all agree that you have every right to be angry and grieved over the spouses sin. Injustice has been done!

How much more, then, should the God of Israel, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, who has done countless other wonders for the people, how much more should he be angry when the people have abandoned him and his care, as vs 12-13 say?

Yes, God has every right to be angry with this people. So he punishes them by turning them over to the people they so desperately want to be like. You want to be just like the Canaanites? You want to serve their gods? Fine. have it. Knock yourselves out.

But even in this we see God’s faithfulness.

God promised that he would do exactly this if the people behaved in such ways! Read Deuteronomy! Read Joshua! God promised blessings for obedience and punishment for rebellion. Even as God punishes the people, he does so in keeping with His faithfulness.

And so what is the result? the end of vs 15 says they were in terrible distress.

God has punished the people, but God is still a merciful God. He is a loving God. He is faithful God.

And So we see another area of his faithfulness on display in sending deliverers, rescuers, judges to deliver the people.

3. God’s Faithfulness in Deliverance

God could have walked away right then and there and been justified in doing so. He didn’t have to take any further action. The people could have blended in so much with the Canaanites that there would be no Israel left to speak of.

But he didn’t.

Verse 16.

Judges 2:16 ESV

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

God show his mercy again!! And so now we get to see the people repent, right? They’ve had their hardship, they took their lumps, now its time to come home, correct course, get back on track.

Sadly not.

Judges 2:17–23 ESV

17 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. 18 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. 19 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. 20 So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, “Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, 22 in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did, or not.” 23 So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

Verse 17 feels like such a gut punch after vs 16. Here is God’s mercy to the people. Here is God’s intervention. And they still refuse to listen.

The language gets very strong here. They whored after other gods and bowed down to them.

The narrator speaks in graphic terms what it is like for the people to abandon their faithful God.

It should be foolish and unthinkable for the wife of a dutiful and faithful husband to abandon him in order to pursue a life of prostitution. Spiritually speaking, this is exactly what the nation of Israel has done, and in their case, sexual immorality was one outward expression of their spiritual infidelity. And so the author uses this strong language. They whored after other gods and bowed down to them.

Does that language make you uncomfortable? Good. It’s supposed to. This is an evil thing that the people have done. It should bother us.

Even with the grace of God on display through the workings of the judges, the people still do not drop their practices or their stubborn ways as vs 19 says.

In fact, it says that after each judge, the people end up more corrupt than the previous generation was.

And so God’s pronouncement is stark. Notice particularly how God begins his words of judgment back in vs 20

Judges 2:20 ESV

20 So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, “Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice,

He says “this people”...... not.... “my people” .....this people

In the Hebrew, the word for “people” is a word that is rarely used for Israel and is normally reserved for the pagan gentile nations of the world. Here Israel is getting lumped in with them because of their sin.

There is a distance that been brought about by the people’s apostasy.

Which brings us to the conclusion of the prologue, the first 6 verse of chapter three:

4. God’s Faithfulness in Testing

Judges 3:1–6 ESV

1 Now these are the nations that the Lord left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. 2 It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before. 3 These are the nations: the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. 4 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. 5 So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 6 And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.

When God was bringing the people into the land, he promised them that he would not drive out all the people of the land all at once. Israel was still small compared to those other people groups. If God drove them all out instantly, the vacuum would be filled with predators and overgrowth, which would make it difficult to settle. Furthermore, if the future generations were to learn how to defend their land against aggressors, or if they were to be obedient to the word of the Lord in steadily driving out the Canaanites, they needed to know how to use a sword.

So God left them in the land so that they might learn such things and drive them out steadily over time, but also as a test for the people. Would they be obedient?

We know that this test was not so God could learn new information, but as Daniel Block put it

“The test is for Israel, to give them an objective instrument that would declare to them the depths of their infidelity and the justice of God”

This test was for Israel. God needed them to be able to see where they fell short. God gave them every opportunity to be obedient to him and to do as he commanded. His faithfulness was on display even in this.

And as we know, they fail miserably. vs 5

Judges 3:5 ESV

5 So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

This summarizes chapter one. They failed to drive them out. They lived among them, eventually becoming like them. and vs 6

Judges 3:6 ESV

6 And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.

This summarizes chapter two. The people have become thoroughly Canaanized.

How should we think about this text?

First, as we have moved through and have seen the faithfulness of God, I hope that is of comfort. Though the people have drifted severely off course to their own harm and have become increasingly like the Canaanite world around them, God remains faithful. If He has remained faithful to these wretches, do you think he can be faithful to you?

And we see this, don’t we? He confronts us with truth. We suffer consequences for our sin. He has provided the way of escape through Jesus Christ. His faithfulness endures to all generations.

Second, we should see a stern warning in this text.

Compromise and increasing comfort with the world leads to cultural and spiritual integration which leads to apostasy.

Increasing comfort with a pagan world leads to cultural and spiritual integration with the pagan world , ultimately ending in apostasy.

It didn’t start how it ended right? Just a little compromise here, a little getting cozy with the world there, and maybe you don’t even see the fruit in your generation, but you sow the seeds that grow in the next.

Years ago there was a song that came out by the music group casting crowns. I don’t know what that group is doing today, but back when they first came on the scene they wrote songs that packed a punch. Here’s one of them:

It's a slow fade When you give yourself away It's a slow fade When black and white have turned to grey And thoughts invade, choices made

A price will be paid When you give yourself away People never crumble in a day (slow fade) Daddies never crumble in a day (slow fade) Families never crumble in a day

We aren’t tempted to worship at the temple of Baal. probably. But what if I told you that temple was in your pocket one internet search away? Our culture is not less sexualized than it was back then and we don’t have to go looking hard to see that.

Are we seeking to blend in with the world? Most of us have an innate desire to fit in. We want to be thought of as cool. as “current”. We experience incredible unprecedented pressure from social media to blend in, especially our youth!

Thee are whole so-called church movements whose self-proclaimed desire is to use the attractions of the world in order to bring people into the church!

There are worldly ideologies that are being embraced in our homes and in our churches that have no basis in the World of God, and some of our evangelical leaders say that’s a good thing!

We must heed the warning of Judges. We must heed the warning of JAmes

James 4:4 ESV

4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

We cannot serve them both. This will cost us. So count that cost. But know that knowing God and His faithfulness far surpasses anything we would have to give up to be obedient to him. We just went through that in the book of Philippians, right?

This series through the Judges is titled In Need of a King. When the people had a godly ruler, they followed the Lord. But those rules died. Even when they lived they weren’t perfect, but far from it!

They needed to submit themselves to the King of kings and Lord of lords. That’s the only way out of the cycle. The only way to break the chains! It’s through Jesus Christ!

Though we must be on guard in our own hearts and lives against compromises that will sow seeds of apostasy in our children and grandchildren, we must also rejoice in knowing that our God is a covenant keeping God, and that he is merciful, and that he has provided a way out of the cycle. He has provided a way to correct the course. And it all begins by embracing His Messiah, Jesus Christ.

In a moment I’d like us to go to a time of silent prayer. I’m going to ask for raised hands or walking down the aisle or anything of that sort. I am going to ask you to examine your own hearts for evidence of compromise. 1 degree off course can lead to ruin. See if there is anything that you need to correct before God.

If you have never placed your faith in Christ, you need to know that this

Let’s pray.