WHEN GOD IS NOT KING

Judges 2:6–3:6 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. 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. 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. Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. 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. 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. 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. 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, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, 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.” So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua. 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. 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. 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. 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.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

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.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

It is striking that this happens within a generation. Their parents, though flawed and sometimes half-hearted, had faith—they “served the LORD.” The children “served the mini-lords.” Who is responsible?

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

It is always impossible to lay blame neatly when one generation fails to pass its faith on to the next one. Did the first generation fail to reach out, or did the second generation just harden their hearts? The answer is usually both. Mistakes made by a Christian generation are often magnified in the next, NOMINAL, one. Commitment is replaced by complacency and then by compromise.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

Judges 2 is by no means the last or only time this has happened. Another interesting example is early New England. Nearly all the first settlers in 1620–1640 were vital, biblical Christians. But by 1662, the first generation realized that many of their children and grand-children were only nominal believers. They had to institute the “halfway Covenant,” allowing people to vote who were only baptized as infants, but who as adults were not church members.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 20–25 are instructive here. They tell us what needs to be done to pass our faith on:

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

We ourselves must love God whole-heartedly. We are to have these commandments on our hearts (v 6). That means that we are not hypocritical or inconsistent in our behavior. The commandments are not only kept mechanically or partially. Rather, God has an effect on all of us, through and through.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

We are to apply and reflect on the gospel practically, not only academically or abstractly. Deuteronomy 6:7 is not promoting regular family lectures! The references to “sit … walk along … lie down and … get up” refer to routine, concrete daily life. Instruction in God’s truth then is not to be so much a series of lectures and classes. Rather, we are to “impress” truths about God by showing how God relates to daily, concrete living. This is a call to be wise and thoughtful about how the values and virtues of the gospel distinctively influence our decisions and priorities.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

Third, verses 20–25 tell us that we are to link the DOCTRINES of the faith to God’s saving actions in our lives.

Deuteronomy 6:20–25 ESV

“When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

We are to give personal testimony to the difference God made to us, how he brought us from bondage into freedom: “We were slaves … but the LORD brought us out.” We are not only to speak of beliefs and behavior but of our personal experience of God. We are to be open about our own struggles to grow. We are to be transparent about how REPENTANCE works in our lives. We are not to be formal and impersonal in the expressions of our faith.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

In summary, we must be consistent in behavior, wise about reality, and warmly personal in our faith. History and personal experience both show us that these three things are very hard to carry out on a broad scale. Most Christians rely on institutions and formal instruction to “pass on the faith.” We think that if we instruct our children in true doctrine, shelter them from immoral behavior and involve them in church and religious organizations, then we have done all we can. But youth are turned off not only by bad examples, but also by parents who are not savvy about the lives and world their children are living in, or who cannot be open about their own interior spiritual lives.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SMALL DID NOT’S TURN INTO SIGNIFICANT DID NOT’S.

In Judges 2, we are not told exactly what the first generation of believers did with their children. 2:10 is key, however. The next generation did not know the LORD, relationally and personally. This is the very outcome that Deuteronomy 6 was written to avoid. Deuteronomy 6 is not a “technique” that guarantees that someone’s children will be believers, because their own wills and choices play a large role. However, when a whole generation turns away, we have to expect that the parents have failed to model real faith and disciple their children.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SOMETHING WILL BE KING.

What are God’s people doing when they do not listen to their God-given leader (for them then, the judges; for us today, the ultimate leader, Jesus Christ)? What are we doing when we worship other gods instead of the true God? We have “prostituted” ourselves (v 17).

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SOMETHING WILL BE KING.

This is a striking, provocative image. Prostitutes then (and often now, too) are people whose lives are out of control, who are desperate, and who are giving themselves without getting any real pleasure or love in return. The use of the word “prostituted” here tells us that when we serve an idol, we come into an intense relationship with it, within which it uses us, but does not truly care for us. We become completely vulnerable to it, little more than a slave to it.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SOMETHING WILL BE KING.

This image also tells us that God sees all sin—all idolatry—as “adultery.” He does not merely want us to know and obey him as a citizen obeys a king, or merely to follow him as a sheep follows a shepherd. He wants us to know him and love him as a wife loves a husband. In both the Old and New Testaments, God calls himself our Bridegroom (Ezekiel 16; Ephesians 5; Revelation 19). A marriage is an exclusive, legal commitment, but it is not only that; real marriage involves deep, intimate, selfless love.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SOMETHING WILL BE KING.

This shows us why God responds to his people “following other gods and serving and worshiping them” (Judges 2:19) by becoming “very angry with Israel” (2:20). His anger is not opposed to his love; it is the expression of it. It is because he loves his people, and cares about his relationship with them, that he responds with right anger when they turn from him and prostitute themselves. His anger is that of the innocent, jilted lover; his love is that of the wonderfully forgiving husband. The relationship God wants us to enjoy with him—and the only relationship which will avoid idolatry—is a passionate, personal relationship of love.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING SOMETHING WILL BE KING.

The people’s failure to take all of Canaan both resulted from and represented their failure to give God exclusive lordship over their whole lives. How can we know if Christ is Lord of every area of our lives?

Am I willing to do whatever God says about this area? Am I willing to accept whatever God sends in this area?

Where either answer is “no,” there is the area of our lives and hearts which we have opened up, or already given over, to an alternative god.

WHEN GOD IS NOT KING DISCIPLINE IS THE DISPLAY OF LOVE.

God’s discipline on his people’s half-heartedness, and idol-heartedness, is that:

Judges 2:21 ESV

I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died,

THE CURSE IS THE CURE.

Judges 2:22 ESV

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.”

THE CURSE IS THE CURE.

Israel’s sin resulted in God’s discipline: leaving the Canaanites in the land. But this discipline is also a manifestation of God’s grace. It provides these Israelites with an opportunity to turn to God in faith and to walk according to God’s Word as their fathers, the “Joshua generation,” had done.

Judges 3:1–2 ESV

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. 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.

THE CURSE IS THE CURE.

Leaving the Canaanites in the land, along with the Israelites, was something God had purposed long ago. His gracious purpose of teaching this generation warfare was the reason why He prevented Joshua and his generation from totally wiping out the Canaanites. While the continued presence of the Canaanites was an unpleasant manifestation of divine judgment, it was also a gracious gift from God. We need to understand the last verses of our passage in the light of verse 10. There we were told:

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.

THE CURSE IS THE CURE.

Now we are told that God left the Canaanite nations in the land so that all those who had not “experienced” [literally, known] war could “experience” [know] it. If not “knowing” God or the outworking of His presence and power was the problem (as our text tells us), then leaving the Canaanites in the land was a part of the solution. The oppression of the Israelites by these nations presented the occasion for God’s people to learn war, and in waging war, to experience His power. Here was a way to truly “know” God. And so we see that the curse (leaving the Canaanites behind) is also part of the cure (giving Israel the opportunity to “know” God).

The Lords’ discipline aimed to develop their dependence upon him in every situation of need.

As they entered the promised land under Joshua, the people had learned to trust God to keep his promises, to fight relying on him. Nowhere was this better illustrated than at Jericho, where God told his people to march, but not to fight; and then granted them victory (Joshua 6). This was the lesson Israel had forgotten by the time of Judges 1. God’s mercy was to use the nations around Israel to bring them moments when all seemed lost, and so to drive them into greater dependence on him. Surrounded by idol-worshiping peoples, Israel would face the constant question: Will you obey the LORD’s commands (3:4)?

Tragically, Israel failed to learn the lesson or to pass the test.

Judges 3:5–6 ESV

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.

They gave in to their sinful desires, and lived lives indistinguishable from the pagans around them, doing evil and glorifying idols. The challenge to us as God’s people today is to do the opposite: to recognize that we are

1 Peter 2:11–12 ESV

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.