The Story: Judges | The Cycle Continues | Week 8

I might give myself the credit. I put in work. I did these things. I put out effort. Well, was powering me to do that?

Who was empowering me to go about life, right? And so often we need the same kind of reminder that that Joshua said and reminded the people but he ended with a powerful statement. He said, choose this day who you're going to serve. God has done all of these things. So you choose who you're gonna serve.

Those gods your your parents and grandparents served in Egypt or the god I just told you about and he ends with, as for me and my house, we will serve the lord. May that be all of our declaration this morning that we want to serve God. So we begin this morning with a transition into Judges, where it is very apparent very soon that what they need is a reminder about what God has done for them. We're gonna begin in Judges two, verses 10 through 19. 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.

There's the setup for the whole thing. Right? Because very quickly, we can forget. Even in our own lives, those of us who know god, we can forget what god has done for us. Nevertheless, if we don't teach our children, if we don't continue that, this goes south quickly.

Right? Another generation rises up. They don't know, the lord, 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 Baal, which we used to say Baal. I don't care how you say it.

Just know that that is not God, and they served him. 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 and so what you see here is a people that just kind of go with the flow of the culture. It's very easy. Well, because you're doing it, I can just fall into line with that.

Now, I've got new friends. Right? I can just fall into line. There are no nicer people than people who want you to participate with them in that thing they're doing that you shouldn't be doing. They present themselves as very welcoming, and who doesn't want to be welcomed and have friends and this is awesome.

People are very sharing and giving when they have things you shouldn't have and they want to give them to you or have you as a part of that. And so that's what we see is the people that are just kind of going into the culture. They're they're blending into the the walls, may it be of culture. It says, they abandoned the lord and served the Baal and the Ashtaroth. So, the anger of the lord was kindled against Israel and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them and 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. Do you see the back and forth here? Now remember last week, we just talked about the the crazy scenario of Jericho.

How are we gonna take this city march around it? We're fire cannonballs or fiery arrows and they'll just march around and then then we're gonna just pray. We're gonna we're gonna play trumpets and we're gonna shout and and God brings them through that right but God just because God is with him doesn't mean no matter what they do. God is gonna bless what they do right and so that's what we're seeing here is they're going against God and I'll say God says. Okay, we're gonna give you over to plunderers and and and other people.

You're gonna go up against other armies and you're gonna lose. But because God is still with them, he raises up judges and says, saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges. Boy, doesn't that sound like somebody you know? Not you, but somebody you know.

Right? I need to know better. I keep going down the wrong path. God gives you an out, and you say, no. Thank you.

Right? And then what do we do? God, why me? Right? It's it's the story of the the the family and the flood.

Right? You know the flood's coming. Somebody drives by. Hey, you need need me to take you to town? No.

Thank you. Flood rises a little bit, somebody comes by in a boat. Can we take you to town? No, God's got me. Right?

Flood rises, I'm on the roof, we send a helicopter. Can we get you out of here? No, thank you, God's got me. And then the family perishes. They get to heaven, they say, God, why didn't you save us?

The guy said, well, I sent the the truck, I sent the boat, I sent the helicopter. You said no to all of them. Right? How many of us is that our story? God is there.

He's providing but we're so focused on something else that that we're we're ignoring what god has given us, right? We're we're ignoring the out and then we wonder why everything has gone sound. Let me read this again. Yeah, they did not listen to their judges for they hoard after other gods and bowed down to them. That's a strong word in our culture, right?

But I think you you get what's going on there. 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 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 the afflicted, because they... 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. Even when they saw what God had done for them, raising up a leader who all of a sudden things start to get better, but as soon as that leader is removed, after he or she dies, we're going to immediately return to what we used to do. And again, this is a story not just about them but about us. How often do we do this?

God save me and for a little while, maybe we we turn to god. We live closer to him. We live as as a people and and maybe you feel it like I'm closer to god right now but something happens that derails everything that's going on. And then all of a sudden, I find myself on a different track. Yeah?

Have you been there before? Unfortunately, we have, right? Because we do not remember, as Joshua reminded the people, we do not remember what God has done for us. We were talking the other night in small group. We have good small groups.

You should join it. But we were talking about all kinds of things. It's it's almost like anybody on regular medication in here? I am. I raise my hand.

You're not. K? It's like being on regular medication, and because I'm on that regular medication, my blood works good. I feel good. Everything's good.

And so in my mind, I think, well, I don't need to be on that medication. Everything's good. Right? You ever been there? And then a few months later, you get some more blood work and for some reason, some unknown reason, everything's out of whack.

We forget what it was doing for us. We forget that that was the reason we were we were being helped in all those ways, right? It's the same way with god. I I I forget that god was with me during that time. Now, I'm wondering where is god?

Well, I walked away from him. That's what happened. So, Israel has turned to other gods. Their enemies overpower them and then god raised up judges who helped them but then they immediately returned to where they were. It says they were even more corrupt there in verse 19.

They were even more corrupt than the generation before them. And so this begins a cycle. The story repeats and Judges, the book of Judges keeps spiraling downward, and they continue to live like they don't know what God has done for them. In Judges chapter four, we get an example of, the pattern. It's it's Deborah and Barak.

After Ehud dies, Israel once again turns away from god. It says, for twenty years, Jabin, the king of Canaan, oppresses Israel through his commander, Sisera, and an army that included 900 iron chariots. I don't know what that looked like, but I'm glad I don't. Right? You imagine an army of 900 chariots, just the chariots.

Well, that's what they were coming up against, and Israel cries out to God, and God works through Deborah and and Barak and ultimately, Jael defeats Cicera and break Jabin's power. And then Judges five closes with the story by telling us that the land had peace for forty years. And unfortunately, sometimes it's the time of peace that really messes up because nothing bad is happening or not enough bad is happening to remind us that we need God. Right? That's how we get off on the wrong track a lot of times.

It's because sometimes in scripture something happens and the consequences are immediate. Right? Those are the ones we have questions about. Man touches the ark, he dies. Well, I don't understand that.

Well, that's not as much of a problem. I'm guessing not a lot of people went up and touched the ark after that, right? If it would have been, it would been a man, right? I read something one time as you could tell a man there's 40 stars in the sky and he'll believe you. But if you hang up a sign that says wet paint, you got to try it, right?

You got to test it out. And so some of those immediate consequences, okay, well you learned that one. But it's when I go off on the wrong track and I'm not seeing those negative consequences. You know God will allow you to go down the wrong path? Yeah.

Because sometimes we need to learn that lesson, don't we? We need to learn it a hard way. How many times have you been down the wrong way? I hit rock bottom to wake me up and turn back. Yes?

And it's because you're not seeing all the negative things that you can be blessed and feel blessed while doing things that are not right with God. And because of that, sometimes it's the times of peace where things still go awry. And so, we move on to Judges six. Midian has reduced Israel to hiding in caves and trying to protect what little food remains. And after seven years, Israel cries out to God here in Judges six verse seven.

When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel and he said to them, thus says the lord, the god of Israel, I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, I am the Lord your God. You shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but you have not obeyed my voice. That sound familiar to you? The story repeats.

We're gonna have to remind again what God has done. Remember, I am the God. Remember, the Israelites, as soon as they get out of Egypt, they forget. Moses is gone a few days. Oh, that that old old fellow Moses, he hadn't come back.

So, let's make some golden calves, right? We're very quick to forget and so here's one more reminder and so the prophet takes Israel back through the story. Remember, this is the Lord who did all of these things. Midian is the enemy that is right in front of them, but defeating Midian is not gonna restore them to where they should be. In Judges seven verse two, the Lord said to Gideon, he appears to Gideon, the people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me saying, my own hand has saved me.

And so the backstory to to Gideon is when the the angel appears to him, he is hiding. He is hiding. He is threshing in a hidden place and he's he's approached in a way that he's like, listen, my family is like the weakest family. You ever led with that? My family stinks, right?

I'm not saying that about mine. Mine's good. But my family is the worst and I'm the worst of the worst. That's kind of what he said. I'm my family is the weakest clan in out here and I'm the weakest of them.

And what's funny if you don't think about it, is that the way the angel approaches him and he says, mighty warrior. How many times would you say a guy, you know, hunkered up hiding? Hello, mighty warrior. And so it it it is. It's using irony and humor, to kind of get a hold of Gideon and say, you know, you don't have to do this.

And so all of a sudden, Gideon is leading these people and he says, the Lord said to Gideon, the people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand. That doesn't make sense. We've got too many folks to win this battle. Have you ever seen a movie that said that? We need to dial this back.

We've got too many to win. Well, that's what he's saying. He says, lest Israel boast over me saying, my own hand has saved me. I am responsible for all the things that have gone right in my life, right? Again, I want all the credit for the good things.

I want somebody else to take all the blame for the bad things. Yeah? And that's what god is saying. That's what you're gonna do. He says, now therefore, proclaim the ears of the people saying, whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.

Then 22,000 of the people returned and 10,000 remained. Thank you. I'll head home now. 10,000 still remain, and the Lord said to Gideon, the people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there.

And anyone of whom I say to you, this one shall go with you shall go with you, and anyone whom I say to you, this one shall not go with you shall not go. So he brought the people down to the water and the lord said to Gideon, everyone who laps the water with his tongue as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, everyone who kneels down to drink and the number of those who lapped putting their hands to their mouth was 300 men. But all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. And the Lord said to Gideon, with the 300 men who lapped, I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go, every man to his home.

Now what do you think Gideon thought about that? What if you were a commander of an army and you had twenty, thirty thousand people, and all of a sudden it came down to you that, yeah, we've got too many. Let's bring this down a little bit. Oh, we cut it in half. That's too many.

Let's cut it down. Now you're left with 300 people. You have the same confidence you had at 20 or 30,000. But again, God is doing something here that doesn't make sense, like he often does to teach us a lesson. He's chosen a man who is hiding from everyone and has his angel say, hey, almighty warrior.

And he leads this mighty warrior who says, my family is the weakest. I'm the weakest of them. And he says, you know what? I'm not gonna do this with 30,000, whatever. Let's bring this down to 300 and see what can be done.

And so as we continue in in Judges 13, well, let me say this. God reduces this because, again, he wants to... Israel to know it wasn't them. You've gotta know at that point, it wasn't you. Right?

If I do this with 300 people, you gotta do it. And with only 300 men, Gideon surrounds the Midianite camp, and it was a strategic thing. Right? They're surrounded, and they believe there's a whole host of people. Now, 300 people is a lot.

We probably have a little over a 100 in here today, something like that. 300 people surrounding you, making noise and everything. Yeah. Okay. Well, they ended up winning this.

But after victory, Israel asked Gideon and his family to rule. They credit him with saving them. Who? Gideon. And Gideon says, god should rule Israel but at the end of the day, Gideon makes this Ephad from the gold that they have gotten from these Midianites and they say and it says at the end of it that basically, they are they are pursuing this golden thing.

It has become like an idol to them. So, after all of this from dialing back the army from so many to so few and still winning, they know god has done this but at the end of the day, they still return to idol worship. After Gideon dies, Israel turns to, again, idol worship, and this continues in verse... In chapter 13. It says, and the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

So the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. Now, that's a consequence. That you're going to suffer at the hand of the Philistines for forty years. There was a certain name, a man of Zorah of the tribe of the Danites whose name is Manoah and his wife was barren and had no children And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, behold, you are barren and have not born children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?

That God is still with them. He's gonna remind them. Now any Israelite who knows the story and is claiming Abraham, this would perk their ears up. Right? Okay.

So therefore, careful and drink no wine or strong drink and eat nothing unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistine. Now, this is a story about a wild man for sure. His name is Samson.

We got to watch the story of Samson up in Branson a few years ago, and as soon as I sat down, thought, Who, what are they gonna do with this? And they actually began the whole program at the Sight and Sound Theater with a little disclaimer about Samson. Yeah, there are some things that Samson did that weren't great. He was he was kinda crazy. He's tying foxes tails together and lighting them on fire and all kinds of stuff.

Don't recommend, right? Don't go home kids and ask your parents if you could do something like that. And and so Samson is let and you see here, he began to save Israel from the hand of Philistine. And that is is some clueing or some some words clueing you into, It's not gonna go all the way you think it should and so Israel is under the Philistine rule for forty years, but this time Judges does not tell us that the nation cries out for God because often the cycle continues is that they turn away from God, they're pursuing this, they get oppressed, they get beaten by armies, they cry out to God. God helps them, and maybe for a little bit it's okay, and then they turn away from God, start being oppressed.

All these things cry out for god. Just like you and I might and so this cycle continues but this is the one time it doesn't tell us that they actually cried out to god. They're so far gone, I guess But God continues to help them even though. And so God works through Samson and says, well, he's gonna begin to save Israel. He was set apart before birth and he is empowered with the spirit of God.

And we know if you don't know anything about this story, you know about the strength of Samson. And eventually Samson's relationship with Delilah reaches a point where she repeat... Repeatedly presses him to tell her the source of his strength because he was a force. Sometimes in our small groups, we do icebreakers. Logan loves them.

He spends a lot of time thinking about them. One of his... Sometimes he'll do that when we're not having small group. What's your favorite superhero? What would you say?

Anybody got one? Wonder Woman. Okay. Spider Man. Superman.

Two Superman. What you got? Which one's yours? Batman. I'm Batman.

Just a guy with a bunch of tech. Yeah? No prep time? Yeah. You can.

Like, kinda like Iron Man too. Same kinda guy. Nobody said the correct answer of Thor, but that's okay. But think about what Samson can do here. That is a man who has been blessed by God.

He is he is trying to make a a difference here, but it is not always going right. And again, Delilah gets to him in Judges sixteen fifteen, and she said to him, how can you say I love you when your heart is not with me? Oh, how many of you had a conversation like that? You know you have. How can you say you love me if x y...

I'm not even gonna fill in the blank today. I'm just gonna let y'all step in it yourselves. How can you say you're... I love you when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times because she keeps trying to get the source of Samson's strength and he keeps kind of telling her the wrong thing and seeing that she is not his friend, right?

He could have turned this around on her. How can you say your love is with me when you keep trying to have me killed? You keep trying to find the source of my strength. He says, and you have not told me where your strength lies. And then she pressed him hard with her words day after day and urged him.

That sounds like nagging, but we're not gonna say that this morning. His soul was vexed to death. Sounds like it. And he told her all his heart and said to her, a razor has never come upon my head for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.

I can't imagine what she said or how many times she said it for him to finally go, okay. Here it is. When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines saying, come up again for he has told me all his heart. Then the lord of the Philistines came up to hear or cut... If I can read, came up to her and brought the money in their hands.

She made him sleep on her knees and she called a man who had who had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him and his strength left him. And she said, the Philistines are upon you, Samson. And he awoke from his sleep and said, I will go out as at other times and shake myself free because the times he she had done this before, she had, she'd been lied to, and the things she tried didn't work. I'm buying my wrist, snap that off, no big deal.

But I'll go out as other times and shake myself free, but he did not know that the Lord had left him. And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison, but the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved. So Samson has spent his entire life striking the Philistine. Now he is blind, he is bound by these bronze shackles, and he is now working grinding grain in a Philistine prison.

But he's got one last play. His final prayer is to take down the Philistines. And as the story goes, he... He's asked to be placed near a column, right? And God is with him and gives him the the power that he once had.

And we celebrate that, that all of a sudden, Samson is able to regain his strength and push down the columns and everyone dies. The problem is that Samson goes with it. That is the story you don't like to see the ending to as the person you've been following and the superhero you're rooting for all of a sudden, caves in under his own strength as he saves or strikes a blow to the other team or bad guys. And so we see this in Judges. The enemies keep changing.

You have the Canaanites, the Midianites, and now the Philistines. They can all be defeated. God repeatedly proves that he can rescue Israel from all of this. And he may for a time, and maybe they're thankful for a little while, but afterwards, Israel again turns away. No judge, even though we see that God has given judges to the people to help save them.

No judge is actually able to turn them completely back to god. They continue their idol worship. They continue giving themselves credit for god's actions In the lower story, we see the immediate crisis. Oppression, you get a judge and then a rescue. Then an oppression, a judge, and a rescue.

In the upper story, God is actually being there with his people. Still, they're not wiped out. They continue moving forward, despite their unfaithfulness. Because God loves you. You know that church.

God loves you. How many of you have been through a hard enough time that you hit that rock bottom and now you really know God loves you? Sometimes that's what God needs to allow to happen. And that's the hardest thing sometimes, right? Especially if we're talking about our our kids or someone close to us, to allow them to go down a path that we know they shouldn't go.

It hasn't occurred to them yet. But when they're allowed to do so at some point, finally, after prayer and tears and all the things, you hit the rock bottom and you go, okay, maybe something needs to change. God is still there. I grew up and and it felt like god was just ready to leave us at any moment. I told you that we had a series a few years ago.

Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God was a book. And that's kind of the way I grew up understanding who God was, is that God was just an angry person, ready for me to just do the wrong thing or accidentally say the wrong thing or even not do the right thing though I didn't do necessarily a wrong thing. And in that moment, God would say, yep, not good enough. And erase me out of the book of life. I am so thankful for mature Christians who have taught me better than that.

And it's not like they just taught me something that wasn't already there, what they did was point me back to scripture and remind me who God is and what he has done for us. That even in those times of unfaithfulness, God is there. I refer back to the the prodigal son, the parable of the prodigal son all the time, because Jesus gave that to us for a reason. He wanted you to know this is how God is, that you can do everything in your power to disrespect him, to walk away from him, all of the things. And if you so much as turn around...

You remember the prodigal son. He's he's come up with this, I've gotta I've gotta say this in the right way. I'm gonna convince convince my father that I wanna come back. He never gets that out of his mouth, and the father's embracing him. That is the God I serve.

And I pray that's the God you serve. We're gonna backtrack one more week to back to seven again to what Joshua said. Pick, choose this day who you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the lord. Because of what he has done for me and I know he's done the same for you.

Amen? Amen. We're gonna offer a time of invitation. I know that we relate to these stories very well because I relate to these stories very well because I'm a human being. Some days are great.

I'm walking with god followed by days where I'm turned away from him. Why? I don't know. Maybe I'm hard headed. Maybe I'm just dumb.

I don't know. But I think all of us do that, don't we? We do, we need to acknowledge it. We need to encourage one another. Some days, I'm gonna need the encouragement.

Some days, I'm gonna need to be the encourager. We walk together. I told uh-uh Eli when during his baptism or after his baptism, listen, you're gonna have some bad days. Because we all do. But we're gonna walk together with him.

And I'm gonna walk together with you. Let's walk together as a church. If you need the prayers this morning, let's pray together. If you need to put on Christ in baptism, let's do it. Begin that walk with him.

Would you come as we stand and as we sing?