The End of the Judges
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Let’s walk though the overarching storyline of the book once again and remind ourselves where we’ve been.
We noted at the beginning of our study that this is theologized history. The original human author had a point and purpose in mind as he wrote. It was written for a specific prophetic purpose.
As we have seen through the book, this book shows us what happens when we refuse to live under the rule of the King of kings, and go our own way instead.
The book opens where Joshua ends, with the people engaging in conquest in the land. However, we immediately notice things wrong. Partial obedience and seemingly small failures dot the landscape, and by the end of the chapter we have the narrator explaining that the people did not drive out t his group and that. Why? Was God not powerful enough to grant them victory as He did in times past?
Chapter two offers an explanation. They had begun to walk in disobedience to the commands of the Lord, so God says in 2:2 “But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this that you have done?”
What we see through the rest of the book is the fruit of the seeds that were planted back in chapter one. We see the cycles of the Judges that everyone recognizes, of security, to sin, to suffering, to supplication, to salvation, to security, only for the people to go back to sin once again.
In chapter two the narrator himself sketches that process out:
16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. 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.
And so the cycles roll on. First we saw Othniel and Ehud and Shamgar. There isn’t much by way of negative things said of these individuals, but there are still hints that things aren’t quite right either. In chapter four and five we saw the story of Barak and Deborah. While Deborah is to be lauded for her character, Barak is a coward who doesn’t trust the word of the Lord.
From there we see Gideon, the man who needed not one, not two, not three, but four signs from God that he would be victorious, and when he finally ends up being that mighty man of valor as the angel of the Lord identified him, he ends up being a tyrant who wages war on his own countrymen. He refuses the title of king, and utters the words that should have been the answer to all the issues of the people in the book:
English Standard Version Chapter 8
I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the LORD will rule over you.”
That was the solution to the cycles. That was the way out.
And yet, Gideon still collected tribute as king, set up his ephod as an idol as a king, multiplied wives to himself as a king, and named his own Son Abimelech which means…my father is king.
Abimelech grew up to be a thorn in Israel’s side. He ruled by treachery and died by treachery.
When we came to chapter 11, we saw the tale of Jepthah. A man who knew his history…but failed to know the Law of the Lord, and thus ended up offering his only child, his own daughter as a human sacrifice, leaving him with no offspring to rule after he died.
Chapter 13 begins the story of Samson. The child of promise who would begin to save the people from the Philistines. Though he was to be a Nazarite, he lived his life following after what seemed right to him in his own eyes, which ultimately blinded him to the traps set for him, and to add to the irony it cost him his eyes before costing him his life.
That was the end of the cycle of the judges, but not the end of the book.
Chapters 17-21 told two stories meant to illustrate what Israel was like as a self-guided people. Kings unto themselves, they did what was right in their own eyes. This led to the idolatry of Micah, his Levite, and the entire tribe of Benjamin. We saw their aimless drifting “looking for a place”. all the while ignoring the direction of the Lord.
This led to the inhospitable Gibeanites to seek out homosexual gang rape, and settle for the gang rape of a levite’s concubine, who then possibly murdered her, divided her into 12 pieces and sent her through the whole land.
Last week we saw the people respond by waging a holy war, only to find legal loop holes in their vows as they sought to preserve the tribe of Benjamin, so they forced 600 women to be the wives of those who defended rapists.
That was the flyover of the book.
This is the 21st and last sermon in this book series which we began in February. I’d like to offer us 7 takeaways from our 7 month study.
Takeaways from Judges
1. Sin doesn’t start at lvl 19
1. Sin doesn’t start at lvl 19
At the end of the book we saw shocking, horrify, heartbreaking, despicable things. We did not see those things in chapter 1 or 2. Why?
Sin is deceptive. When we look at those big sins we think “oh, I could never do that. I could never go there”
But our enemy doesn’t tempt us with those big things at the start. It begins at a much more tolerable level for us. A level thats easier to swallow. Incomplete obedience here. Slight deviation there.
after you are comfortable in that sin, and when we find that the little things doesn’t quite satisfy us, then we are tempted to move to the next level of whatever the sin may be. For lust it might begin with lingering eyes, move to pornography, before ending in something more serious.
Adultery never begins with adultery, but is usually preceded by an emotional affair where one spouse begins to confide in a person of the opposite gender who is not their spouse and they begin to feel a connection there. They never would have dreamed of adultery, but one thing led to another, and there they are.
Such is the case with all sin. It doesn’t start with the life-devastating sins. It begins with little things that only progress from there is they are not addressed.
This is why we had this admonition in Gal 6.
7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
James also describes this progression when he warns us about our flesh in James 4.
1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
Your sinful desire wasn’t murder. But it can lead to that. Your covetousness wasn’t a fight, but it led to that.
Sin is so deceptive in this way. It makes us think that we can get away with little things and everything will be okay, all the while we are being led down a path that only ends in destruction.
If you give sin an inch, it will take a mile!
Which is why my second takeaway is this:
2. Purge the evil in/among you
2. Purge the evil in/among you
Jesus gave us these radical sounding words:
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
It is better to practice radical forms of restrain for your sin than to die in your sins! Cut it off! Get it away from yourselves! It will only lead to destruction, be willing to destroy it.
I have counseled individuals who were struggling with pornography. I challenge them: are you willing to get rid of the internet in your house? Are you willing to ditch the smart phone, and use a flip phone that doesn’t have access to data?
If you’re tempted to drink too much are you willing to abstain altogether and change how you shop so that you won’t be tempted to purchase it?
How far are you willing to go?
The answer ought to be “whatever it takes!” We see where sin leads, we know the path we are on, I want to do everything and anything that I possibly can by the Spirit of God in order to rid this sin from my life.
We must pursue the principles of putting off sin and putting on righteousness, and Paul says in Eph and Col. We must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus as Paul wrote in Rom 6.
The illustration of leaven is a powerful one when we understand it. Leaven, or yeast, is small. a little bit on its own doesn’t have much effect. When given time and space and an environment for growth, however, it will eventually not only permeate every part of the lump of dough, but it will get onto the counter top into the bowls, and even into the air itself. To purge the leaven is to seek out any area where the sin infestation has has set in. It’s like a cockroach. There is never just one.
This is why Paul urged the Corinthians to exercise church discipline on a wayward brother and used this language of purging the old leaven. It can ruin not just a person, but an entire community.
Purge the evil that is in/among you.
As we have seen the cycles go round and round, the people ignored sins that might have seemed small at the time, but they sowed seeds that eventually led to their own demise. We must be on guard and ready to biblically deal with any sin we find within ourselves.
As we do so, we will be setting a new pattern, and hopefully teaching our children how to repent, which leads us to our next takeaway.
3. Parents: teach Your children the things of the Lord.
3. Parents: teach Your children the things of the Lord.
The law of moses stated that the people of Israel were to teach the law of God to their children and speak of them night and day, here or there, in the course of life the ways of the Lord were to always be on their lips.
Part of the failure of Israel in the book of Judges is the failure to communicate and instill truth in their children. Lessons learned were not lessons communicated to the next generation. We saw this indicated in the passage we read from chapter two earlier. As soon as the Judge died and the next generation was in place, they people forsook the ways of the judge and became even worse than those before them.
I want to be careful here. We recognize that parents can do everything right, and their children may still go their own way. Such is the nature of fallen, humanity after all.
So I’m not saying that everything is up to us as parents to ensure the spiritual lives of our children will be honorable before the Lord.
But at the same time, we must recognize that Scripture does put a great amount of responsibility upon parent to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. We are to be instructing our children in the things of the Lord, we are to showing them what it means to live grace filled lives. We are to teach them how to repent and how to walk in faith.
We don’t have the ability to save our children. But we do have the ability to give them every opportunity in the world to respond in faith, and to put as few stumbling blocks in their pathway that we can.
Parents give heed to how your raise your children. Teach them the things of the Lord.
4. Children, learn from your parents mistakes
4. Children, learn from your parents mistakes
Now I’m talking to the children in the room. Lilly, Yaqar, Azariah, Barnabas, Eliora.
Your parents aren’t perfect people. They sin. They will sin against you. They will sin against God. We may fail you in ways that we won’t fully understand until decades later, if ever.
When this happens, you have choices to make.
Some choose to hold bitterness in their hearts. They hold their parents in contempt because of the wrongs done against them. I’d like to admonish you now. Rather than hold that in your heart, recognize that in the majority of the cases, your parents love you, and they often sought to raise you the best way they knew how. This is not to excuse sin, or minimize hurt, but rather to help bring perspective. If there are hurts that need to be addressed, seek to have that conversation with them, but approach it with an attitude of forgiveness and grace.
We must be warned that Christ said if refuse to forgive those who sin against us, God will not forgive us for our sin either. Forgiveness is the mark of true believer.
Some children choose to abandon the faith of their parents. They may conclude, if this is what your faith leads to, I want no part of it. This kind of thinking is shallow and fails to understand what Scripture teaches about the nature of our own hearts. Even the best Christian is still a sinner in need of grace. Rather than reject the faith because of the sins of your parents, seek to know the savior who is willing to save and forgive even your parents and consider that you may need this same kind of grace and forgiveness as well.
Some children will chose to ignore the sin, perpetuate, and act like everything is just fine. It’s too difficult, or too much of a hassle to address anything. In the interest of keeping the peace, I won’t speak up, I don’t like the conflict so I’ll just let it slide. All the while, you exhibit begin to the same faults and perpetuate the same problems, except things tend to slip just a little bit further away from biblical living and the sin become more ingrained, and you are on the pathway toward Gibeah. Maybe not in your generation. Maybe not in your children’s, but that is the pathway.
In each of these cases, the cycle of the judges comes to life in your own life.
But the good news is the it doens’t have to be this way! You don’t have to perpetuate the sins of your parents! There is a cycle breaker, and His name is Jesus Christ!
So I would admonish you. Learn from your parents mistakes in a way that does not drive you away from the only One who has the solution for those sins. It is only through the death of Christ on the cross and His grace that keeps all of us from walking in the sins of our parents. It is only thorugh Him that your future relationships can be restored.
Because if you forsake the truth on account of the sinners, you don’t find life. You only find death. That is the fifth takeaway from this book.
5. Our Own Ways are the Ways of Death
5. Our Own Ways are the Ways of Death
This is something we’ve hit time and time again, so I won’t linger too long on this point.
The end of the book contains the phrase “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” twice, as a kind of summary of the end of the period of the judges.
This book graphically illustrates to us why this is so dangerous.
12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
Apparently this was so important to communicate the just two chapters later we find the exact same words
25 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
The reality is this is where we all start as sinful fallen human beings.
Isaiah illustrates this by comparing us to stubborn, unintelligent sheep
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
All of us apart from the grace of Christ remain in this state, and it only leads to death and suffering. For ourselves. For those around us. For our Children. For our grandchildren.
But there is a way, again to break that cycle!
Which leads us to takeaway number six
6. Christ is King. Submit to Him.
6. Christ is King. Submit to Him.
The other line that we see repeated four times at the end of the book is that there was no King in Isreal. We’ve been hitting this theme hard through the whole book, and have titled the name of this series “In need of a King”
Saul will be the first divinely appointed king in Israel, but he was not the one the people needed. David is going to called a man after God’s own heart, but he is not the king that was needed.
The King that was needed did not arrive on the scene until Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. but he was rejected. He was despised by the men of the day and died on a cross.
Not very kingly.
But make no mistake. When Jesus Christ arose from the dead, he conquered sin and death and when he ascended He sat down at the right hand of majesty on High, and he is currently ruling over his Church as the head, and there is a coming day when every eye will see him, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
He is King. Now we must submit before him.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
The church is assumed to submit to her head in
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
And in submitting to him we recognize that we need His direction in our lives, as reflected in the words of Solomon
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Trust in Christ’s work on the cross. Trust is word is true. Trust he know what is best for your flourishing.
And finally,
7. Rejoice in the mercy of God.
7. Rejoice in the mercy of God.
Time and time again, the people of Israel forsook the Lord. Time and time again, God was patient with them and provided a deliverer. He didn’t have to. By all rights, he should have made them like Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving nothing but giant piles of ash heaps.
But he didn’t!
God is a God of justice and cares deeply about what is right, but he is also a God of mercy and grace, and is willing to extend his forgiveness to those who will come in faith.
and So we have the invitation of our Lord as proclaimed by Isaiah the prophet
6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
It is because of his mercy that we can be saved from ourselves. It is because of our mercy that we can walk in newness of life. It is because of his mercy that we can live a life that honors and glorifies him out of gratitude for all that he has done for us.
With hearts of praise, thanksgiving and gratitude we ought to respond in faith and seek to live a life that glorifies him.