Judges 2:13-20 | "No One Like Him"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

The Easter Islands are probably best known for its remoteness.

But I also think that the Easter Islands are well known for these colossal megaliths carved out in the shape of human heads.

Rapanui is a story about the people of the Easter Islands.

And especially the story of the island king named Ariki Ma.

Now this sounds very much like my wife's name, Mariki, and and and translated Ariki Ma means birdman, and but Mariki does not translate birdwoman, so don't go uh mix the two up.

But uh nevertheless, birdman is the island king, and uh he is an unstable and self-absorbed megalomaniac.

He even believes that the gods will send a great white canoe to save him off the island and take him to heaven.

However, after a substantial period of time, the gods did not deliver the goods to save Birdman off the island, so he then orders the uh the building of these colossal statues in the shape of human heads.

And that took much of the island's resources.

In fact, the island was pretty much decimated after these uh construction of these megaliths.

But eventually, uh Birdman figured out the the gods are not gonna send the white canoe.

And so, against bitter judgment, he has this massive white canoe constructed, and eventually uh the island uh experiences famines and conflicts, and there's power struggles, and that just decimates the island population.

In the end, everybody dies, except for this young woman and her baby, who ironically sails off into the sunset with this canoe that was made for birdman.

And so, what is the moral of the story?

You see, the people created these gods for themselves.

But the gods were very much like them: unstable, unpredictable, uncaring, unloving, uninvolved, and unfazed about everything happening around them.

In serving these gods, the misery on the island only increased, but the gods paid no attention to the sufferings and the groaning, groanings of the islanders, because they were just like the people who made them, unmoved, uninvolved, and uncaring by the evil and the injustices happening around them.

And Psalm 115 speaks of that.

That people create these gods.

They make them of silver and gold, they give them eyes and ears and the mouth, but the psalmist says that they are the work of human hands.

But those who make them will become just like them.

You see, idols are a product of human pride.

They have ears, but they are deaf to the groanings and sufferings of people.

Idols have eyes, but they turn a blind eye to the unrighteousness and evil around them.

And while they have mouths, they never speak up to injustice, unrighteousness, and unfaithfulness.

Just as Psalm 115, 8 says, Those who make them will become just like them.

The story of the judges is somewhat similar to the story of Rapanui and Birdman.

The only difference here is we have two pictures.

We have awful people, but we have an awesome God.

Maybe I should switch this thing on.

That will help.

Now, passage speaks of this awesome God, and no one is like him.

And hence the title of today's message, No One Like Him.

Yes, there is no one like this awesome God of Israel.

Now, the God of Israel is unlike the Canaanite gods.

He is faithful in being angry at unrighteousness.

He is unlike the Canaanite deities, he is faithful in his mercy.

He is indeed, as one commentator says, the uninventable God.

No one is like him because no one will invent a God like this.

In Exodus 8.10, God says of himself, so that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God.

Isaiah 46, 9 says, Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other.

I am God, and there is no one like me.

You see, the God of the Bible is unlike anybody or anything.

But in order to understand this God better, we need to look at the awful people of Israel.

And let me take you through a few verses here.

If you look at verse 13, this is Israel, the awful people.

Verse 13, so they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Astaroth.

Even when God helps them out and blesses them, verse 17 says, Yet they did not listen to their judges.

For they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them.

The picture here is that of unfaithfulness, the unfaithfulness of a common prostitute.

Verse 19, even when God shows the mercy and compassion, verse 19 says, But when the judges died, they would turn back and act more corruptly.

They were following after other gods to serve them and bow down to them.

They did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways.

Israel is getting progressively worse despite God's intervention.

Time in and time again, God helps them out and they only nosedive deeper into idolatry.

They got to a point which they could not climb out of the downward turn.

They were spiraling down from bad to worse.

And things will not stop until God had humbled them.

And you may ask the question at this point is how is it that Israel just don't seem to get it?

You would think that if God shows them mercy, God helps them out, that they would at least go, hey guys, we go, we we gotta stop doing this.

We we gotta be nicer.

We gotta be more faithful to God.

But I believe Israel suffered of this thing called CMS.

Has anybody heard of CMS?

Carnival mirror syndrome.

Carnival mirror syndrome.

In Northern California, where we lived for a few years, the county fair was the big thing in town.

The kids came and they did their 4-H thing, and after the chaos of showing their pigs and their chickens and whatever, they would go to the carnival.

And they had this thing called the Hall of Mirrors.

I like doing that with my kids when they were little because at that time I was doing CrossFit and uh throwing around some weights, and there was this specific mirror.

Man, if you just angled it right, the biceps just bulged.

The shoulders just bulked out.

And and and one day I was standing there admiring myself.

And Olivia, being honest as she was when she was little, would say, Dad, that's not a real mirror.

Here's the real mirror, and you, oh, I don't want to see myself in that mirror.

Uh gotta work out more, eat less in the real mirror.

You see, carnival mirrors have no dietary restrictions.

You can find a place where you look great in them.

And that's Israel.

You see, Israel was imperceptive of who they really were.

They failed to see themselves as spiritual prostitutes because they looked into the carnival mirrors of idols, false gods.

You see, false gods are like carnival mirrors.

They make us look better and feel better.

Pagan gods tell us we are nice people, good people.

Of course we are serving God.

But Proverbs 30, 20 says there is the way of the adulterous woman.

She eats and wipes her mouth and says, I have done no wrong.

You see, Israel, nowhere in this whole passage is there any sense that Israel has an understanding of her problem.

Her problem is idolatry.

But as they look in the carnival mirrors of spiritual idolatry, things get distorted, things get hidden, things get minimized.

Their wretchedness is wiped away, and they tell themselves, we have not committed any adultery.

And that is often our case.

We look into the carnival mirrors of the idols.

Everything in life is very important, and God is somewhere here.

God and God's people is here on the back seat of the manivan.

Israel was steeped in spiritual adultery, and they were stubborn in it.

They were stubborn.

Verse 16 says that even when God sent them liberators, judges, in verse 16 it says they did not listen to them.

In verse 17, it says that they quickly spiraled down into disobedience, and they had no regard for the commandments of the Lord.

And then when God shows them mercy, there is no response, no gratitude, and you make them wonder, it makes us wonder if they did not feel entitled to God's loyalty and God's mercy.

I wonder sometimes, too, the way that we live our lives if we do not think that we are entitled to God's mercy, or that we feel we deserve God's grace.

Here seems to be no self-awareness in Israel.

Here is zero introspection, no self-evaluation, and in fact it's very much of what Jeremiah 2, verse 23 speaks about.

Jeremiah 2:23

God says to Israel, you are stained with guilt, and no soap or bleach can wash it away, but you deny your sin and say, We aren't unclean.

We haven't worshiped Baal.

That's the pattern of Israel.

Israel denies her sin.

She cannot see that she's unclean.

She cannot see that she has worshiped Baal.

You see how many churchgoers in post-Christian America believe that they are neither guilty nor dirty.

Well, not even soap or bleach could watch them clean, they would say, We aren't unclean, we have not worshiped idols.

My dear friend, if you see yourself as neither filthy nor dirty, saying, I've never turned my eyes to an idol, you might be suffering of CMS.

You may be suffering of the carnival Murray's syndrome, and that will mean that the mercy of God will be more something you deserve than a gift from God.

Grace and mercy will mean nothing to you.

And as John, 1 John 1.8 cautions, he says, if we have, if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves.

And the truth is not in us.

My dear friend, if you say, I am not idolatrous, I've never committed any form of spiritual prostitution, we are like the person spoken of in Proverbs 30, verse 12, that says, There is this kind of person who is pure in his own eyes, yet is not washed from his filthiness.

Proverbs 30:12

My dear friend, we gotta stop looking into the carnival mirrors of personal opinion.

We gotta stop looking into the carnival mirrors of the false gods of pop theology.

These gods will only hide and minimize our own filthiness and uncleanliness.

Isn't it time that we as God's people start looking intently into the mirror of God's word, as James 1.8 says?

And we need to look intently in that mirror and not forget what we see.

You see, Israel kept looking into the carnival mirrors of worldly philosophy and the carnival mirrors of self-help theology.

And they could never imagine themselves as being the recipients of God's anger and his judgment.

In fact, God's judgment and God's anger was something of a carnival clown.

Carnival clowns are scary, they're a little offensive, but in the end we get a good laugh at them.

The God of Israel is no carnival clown who scares people with his wrath and his anger, but in the end everybody laughs about themselves.

Instead, the God of Israel glorifies himself through his anger and through his judgment in salvation.

The awesome God of Israel is a faithful God, and he's faithful in his anger, as Judges 2 14 says.

Let me take you there.

Look at verse 14.

First it says there that Israel forsook God and served the Baals.

And what is God's response?

In self-help theology, God will be kind of like, oh, I'm so sorry, you feel bad.

Let me help you out here, type of deal.

But verse 14 is very clear.

The anger of the Lord burned.

He gave them into the hands of their enemies.

He sold them off to their enemies.

The hand of the Lord was against them for evil.

There's a lot of bad news here.

Bad news that seems like a bit of a paradox.

Anton, how can you tell me a loving and gracious and merciful God can do this type of thing?

It just doesn't work.

And then I will say you know, Yahweh glorifies himself in mercy through his anger.

Yes, there is no one like Yahweh who glorifies himself in salvation through judgment, and you go, that doesn't even make sense.

It is inconceivable for us at times that a loving God will also be a wrathful and angry God.

However, God establishes his glory through faithful anger, faithful wrath, faithful judgment, but also faithful in mercy and in salvation.

He is faithful.

Let us look at how God glorifies himself.

Through judgment and through mercy.

Because both is true.

And God is faithful in his judgment.

Let me see if I can find that slide.

God is faithful in his judgment, and God is faithful in his mercy, and through those he gives salvation.

Verse 13.

Let's look at that.

God is faithful in his judgment.

When they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Astaroth, then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and the hand of the Lord was against them.

Certainly, what is happening here is what God forwarned them.

He said, if you uh abandon me, I will unleash my wrath and my anger on you.

Leviticus 29, 14 says, But if you do not obey me, do not carry out these commandments, dot, dot, dot.

These are the bad things that's going to happen to you.

You see, God is faithful in his anger.

He doesn't turn a blind eye to what the Israelites are doing.

But it says that the anger of the Lord burned against Israel.

And it's a very descriptive verse, this.

The anger of the Lord burned.

It says basically in the Hebrew that his nostrils were glowing.

His nose was glowing hot.

Here's a righteous indignation.

Here's anger over their unfaithfulness.

And this seems so irreconcilable to our idea of a loving, merciful, gracious, and compassionate God.

It is funny, whenever you speak of something about God that doesn't make sense to people or it offends, people are quick to say, don't put God in a box.

Have you heard that?

People would just go to, let's don't put God in a box.

I had an experience like that.

Many years ago, this church, big church in the city I lived in South Africa, asked me to come and talk on the holiness of God.

And I thought, okay, they'll all do this.

And as I was speaking about the holiness of God, people were like, yeah, great.

Amen.

Amen.

And then I got to the point of finding out, you know, more about the people.

And it turned out that the majority of uh couples there were actually living together.

They were not married.

And I said something like, Well, you know, here's a good example that God will be angry about this.

God is not uh pleased with uh immorality.

And I remember one of the leaders stood up and said, You are making God more angry than he is.

We should not put God in a box.

Well, that was a cop out.

Yes, God is in a box.

It is a box that is infinitely high, infinitely wide, and infinitely deep.

And in that box are things that seem contradictory.

Box is the wrath, the anger and the justice of God, and even the judgment of God.

But in that same box is the love and the mercy and the grace and the compassion of God.

And while it doesn't make sense and it seems paradoxical to us, that's just the way it is.

But one thing we got to know about God's anger, and he is faithful in his anger.

He will not respond out of hurt feelings like us, but his anger is a product of his righteous and just character.

You see, God is consistent.

He will always respond in anger and in judgment to sins committed.

God never lets any sin fly under the radar.

God doesn't wink at a white lie.

He doesn't look to the other way and say, let this one fly.

This is okay.

You know, he's just struggling with this or that.

Israel served the Baals and the Astaroths.

They abandoned God for idols.

But God did respond, and he responded in burning anger against Israel.

No one is like Yahweh, who faithfully responds to every act of wickedness.

But that's hard for us to conceive, especially in light of verses like this.

Exodus 34, 6.

The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate, merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness.

Well, that's great.

That's our God.

He is very gracious, very faithful, very slow to anger.

Yes, but what does it say there in verse 7?

But he will not by no means clear the wicked, the guilty.

God will by no means leave wickedness unpunished.

So how do you reconcile these ideas of a God who says, I will never compromise my holy and righteous standards.

Any form of unfaithfulness will not go unnoticed, but it will be punished to the fullest extent of his own law.

God will not compromise his justice, just as much as we don't expect a judge here at the courts to compromise the law and look the other way.

But as we look at Judges 2, 18, there's something of the paradox that starts making sense.

Verse 18.

When the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hands of their enemies all the days of the judge.

For the Lord was moved with pity.

By the groanings, because of those who oppressed and afflicted them.

There's four words I want you to look at and keep in the back of your mind the word delivered, the word pity, and the two words oppressed and afflicted.

Keep those in the back of your mind.

And that will show how God glorifies himself in the faithfulness to his mercy.

We've now established that God will respond in anger.

God will without a doubt respond in anger and in judgment in breaking his commandments.

But God is also faithful in responding in mercy.

And let me explain how this is working out.

It says there that Israel was groaning.

You just get the sense like, oh, we are miserable.

Our lives are miserable.

Life stinks.

But God said way back in Deuteronomy 27 and Deuteronomy 28 that He will do it.

He will make their lives miserable.

He will allow for them to be oppressed and afflicted because they are unfaithful to Him.

He's not gonna just let it fly.

He's not gonna let it just sneak out underneath the door all these sins.

No, in fact, the heavy hand of God's discipline and his judgment was hanging over Israel.

In fact, it was pressing down upon them.

They were an oppressed and afflicted people because of their unfaithfulness to God.

It says there that the Lord was against them.

God was against them, not for them.

As one author says, God will fight against us, but for our good.

He says, Don't wait for God to fight against you before you seek his face.

Return to him today, because our father's heart is grieved each time we go astray.

God, however, lifts his chastening hand in love to help us find his way.

God's hand of discipline is a hand of love.

Have you ever thought of it that God might be against you?

That God's heavy hand is upon you, and you were like, oh, Anton, you're putting God in the box.

This is not, this is not the God I know.

He's a loving and gracious God, and he just, it's okay.

He understands you struggle with sin.

But it says very clearly there that there was a change in God's disposition towards Israel.

First sense is his nose is glowing hot.

God is angry at Israel, his hand is against them.

They're oppressed and afflicted, and then the Lord was moved to pity.

The Lord was moved to pity.

That word is a very interesting word.

Actually, there's two very interesting words.

The first word is delivered.

The Lord delivered them from the hand of their enemies.

That word delivered is the word Yeshua.

Oh, that sounds like what?

Jesus, right?

Well, the the the word, the Hebrew word Yeshua implies salvation, deliverance, being rescued.

God is suddenly shown here as a jealous God who is furiously angry about Israel's unfaithfulness.

But then God changes his mind and shows mercy upon them and he rescues them.

And this is the wonderful beauty of that word pity.

Now in verse 18, do you have different translations?

Is it the word pity in most of your translations?

Anything about the word mercy?

God has pity on those in misery.

That's a very interesting word and often a poorly translated word, but a very difficult word to translate.

It's the Hebrew word Nacham, Nacham.

And there's a very deep meaning, this word pity.

It actually means to relent, to change one's mind.

God was moved to pity, basically saying God changed his mind.

And instead of giving his anger, he gave his mercy instead.

And God, what's happening here?

God, how why are you changing your mind here?

These people are horrid.

They're corrupt.

Now, you changing your mind here, you should be nuking them.

Right?

God obliterate them.

These people are unfaithful to you.

You should not let it go.

But God chooses to give them mercy.

God changed his mind, just as Jonah 3.10 reads, that God relented from the calamity that he said he would bring upon the Ninevehes.

The same idea is there.

God was going to destroy the Ninevites and then God changes his mind.

You go, well, what happened here?

What happened here?

At least the Ninevites repented, but Israel did not repent.

God is faithful in his anger as we established.

He is faithful in his wrath and judgment.

But what if God changes his mind?

What took place here?

I think what took place here can be explained by what took place in Isaiah, Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53 speaks of someone who is oppressed and afflicted.

Remember, Israel was oppressed and afflicted.

Why were they oppressed and afflicted?

Because it was God's hand of judgment upon them.

But here is now somebody who is oppressed and afflicted, i.e., by God.

And this person is afflicted because of the judgment of God, the retribution and punishment for sin.

Who is this he that was oppressed and afflicted?

Who is the he there in Isaiah?

Jesus, the suffering servant.

Look at what happens here.

God, like I said, will punish sin always.

But in this case, he stopped punishing Israel and rather gave them mercy and grace.

God changed his mind.

Why did he change his mind?

Because God looked forward to a man who would be pierced for someone else's wrongdoings.

The punishment for our well-being was laid upon him by his wounds, we were healed.

And see, here you have a God who looks at an idolatrous nation, and God is, his burning anger is upon them, and then all of a sudden God changes his mind and he gives them mercy.

How could he do that?

All he did was transfer the judgment and the punishment and heaped it on someone else.

Who would he heap that upon?

Who would he take out his anger on?

His only begotten son.

God doesn't just sweep things under the rug.

He looks to Christ.

And you see, dear brothers and sisters, God may not fit in a box this idea of wrath and anger and mercy and grace.

This idea of judgment and salvation.

It may not fit in a box, but I can tell you it fits in a cup.

That's how it's explained.

That's how it's explained.

Let's think about this cup.

And the cup is what?

Bread.

And you can take yours and open it up.

And you think about this.

And instead of punishing them further, God turned his eyes to his son.

And he crushed his son.

And it says there, Isaiah, he was crushed for our iniquities.

So that he can give mercy instead.

You see, that mercy that you and I receive on a daily basis is free, but it was paid for.

Mercy is not cheap.

Grace is not cheap.

It was paid for by the blood of Christ.

Romans 5 8.

You see, Christ was tortured.

He was afflicted and oppressed.

But his blood was what made for satisfaction of God's wrath.

The Bible says, Come to the throne of grace boldly and confidently to receive God's mercy freely.

But remember, my dear friend, every time you sin and you run to the throne of grace, just remember somebody paid for that grace.

That grace is not a check that has nothing in the bank account.

The mercy of Israel that they received here in Judges chapter 2, verse 18 was paid for by the blood of Christ.

Judges 2:18

Romans 5 says Christ died.

Somebody had to die so that you and the Israelites could receive mercy.

Someone had to pour out his own blood so that someone can be saved from what?

The wrath of God.

I never understood as an unbeliever, as a somebody who actually thought he was a Christian, I could never understand when people say, Sid, you have to be saved.

You have to be saved.

I'm like, saved from what?

I'm not on a boat here, you thinking that the boat is sinking.

But I forgot that I was in a little skiff that was leaking.

And there was a tsunami coming my way called the wrath of God.

That's what you and I am rescued from is the wrath of God.

And the only reason why you and I are not recipients of the wrath of God is this cup, the blood of Christ.

And so, yes, grace is abundant, mercy is abundant, but it was never free.

There was a price.

No.

Sit on a surfboard, and there is a tsunami coming that changes the picture.

Israel was oppressed and afflicted by her enemies, the Canaanites, but Christ was oppressed and afflicted by the Roman soldiers, so that God could be merciful and gracious to us and deliver us from his wrath.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, take this communion cup and take the bread and the wine and look intently into the word of God's law.

Don't look in the carnival mirror of idolatry.

Look into God's law and see the picture.

Look at what you see.

See if you see somebody who loves God perfectly always all the time.

Look in the word of God's law, the mirror of God's law, and see if there's anything, any commandment that you have not broken.

See, you and I'm deserving of wrath.

Stop looking in the carnival mirrors of feel good theology.

And if you've done that, then this is precious.

This is precious.

Let us thank God for this communion and just take it whenever you are ready to do so.

Oh heavenly Father, we look at ourselves as wretched and vile, as idolaters, as spiritual prostitutes, as no different from Israel.

We put everything in front of you.

Everything is more important.

Everything is more comes before you.

We are distracted people.

We think other things are more important.

We are idolaters and we ask your mercy so that we can forsake our spiritual adultery.

May we relent, repent of our spiritual immorality.

The bread and this cup is infinitely precious to us because it is the pure and perfect and holy blood of your Son Jesus Christ.

You were crushed for our transgressions.

Your blood justified us so that we can be saved from the wrath of God.

No one invents a God like this.

Right?

There's a there's you can go, there's other religions.

You can be as foolish as I was as a young man to go experiment and go investigate other religions.

Go go go do that if you want, but you'll find there's no one like this God.

He is definitely not invented.

As you think upon that, remember, going from here, that there is no forgiveness without a sacrifice.

There is no mercy without judgment, and there is no grace without the punishment of sins.

But by the grace and the wisdom of God, God provided for us someone to take that punishment.

Truly, there is no one like our God who provides salvation through judgment.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, Susan learns that Oslan is actually a lion and not a man.

And Susan asks, is he quite safe?

I feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.

Safe, said Mr.

Beaver.

Who said anything about safe?

Of course he isn't safe, but he is good.

He is the king, I tell you.

Our God is not safe.

He's not a tame lion, but he is good.

He is good because he is ready to offer you his grace.

Repent and believe the gospel, and you will find out that God is not safe, but he is good.

He is indeed the king.

Let us pray.

God, I thank you for this gospel that is bigger and wider and deeper than anything that any human being could ever conceive.

No one can invent a God like this.

There's no one like him.

And yet, Lord, we run to the self-help ideas of idols.

We love standing in front of the carnival mirrors of pop theology.

We love saying, we are clean, we have not worshipped Baals.

It is because we intently look in those carnival mirrors of modern-day churchianity.

I do pray, O Heavenly Father, that you will have mercy on us so that we can see the tsunami of your wrath, that we can look at you not as a carnival clown, but as a lion.

One that is not tame, one who is not safe, but one who is good.

Let us see ourselves for who we truly are, so that we may taste the sweetness and the preciousness of your mercy.

I pray that your gospel will go forth and that we will unashamedly proclaim the good news of the God who is unlike any of the false gods.

I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.