Sermon Tone Analysis

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:

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:

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

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.

James also describes this progression when he warns us about our flesh in James 4.

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

Jesus gave us these radical sounding words:

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.