Discovering Christ In Judges

- Joshua a book of victory

- Judges a book of failure, defeat & shame

- Judges title comes from the leaders who governed Israel

1. Othniel – 3:9 – Peace 40 yrs.

2. Ehud -3:15 – Peace 80 yrs.

3. Shamgar – 3:31 - ? yrs.

4. Deborah – 4:4 - Peace 40 yrs

5. Gideon – 6:11 - Peace 40 yrs

6. Abimelech ? – 9:1 - Peace 3 yrs (Self-Appointed)

7. Tola – 10:1 - Peace 23 yrs

8. Jair – 10:3 - Peace 22 yrs

9. Jephthah – 11:1 - Peace 6 yrs

10. Ibzan – 12:8 - Peace 7 yrs

11. Elon – 12:12 - Peace 10 yrs

12. Abden – 12:13 - Peace 8 yrs

13. Samson – 13:24 - Peace 20 yrs

Abimelech (my father was king), a son of Gideon

- Questionable as a Judge

- Was an usurper (self-appointed)

- One who sought to rule Israel without proper authority

- To rule he murdered all his brothers except Jotham

youngest.

- Working through worthless and reckless relatives in Shechem, he persuaded the people of that area to recognize him as king.

- There was no Judge that ruled over all of Israel

- Unlike any book in the Bible

Bizarre

• 1:4 - Cutting of the thumbs & big toes of Adoni-Bezek

• 3:21 - Ehud message was killing a fat king Eglon with a dagger

• 4:21 - Jael drives a tent peg into Sisera brain

• 7:7 - Gideon’s victory using 300 men from 32,000

• 11:30 - Jephthah sacrifice his daughter

• 16:19-21 - Samson’s strength brought to weakness & blindness

• 19:29 - A Levite cutting up his wife’s body into 12 pieces

Outline

1. Israel’s Failure– 1:1-3:6

2. Israel’s Cycles – 3:7-1631

3. Israel’s Mess – 17:1-21:25

- Warfare between Spiritual & the Physical

- Israel’s Continues Cycles

- Sin, Suffering, Supplication, Salvation Silence

- Cycles with Othniel, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson

Key Verse

Judges 2:19 (AV)

19 And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way.

Judges 17:6 (AV)

6 In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:25 (AV)

25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Message

- Man prone to wander from God

- He raised up His prophet and a judge & deliverer

- God pursuit to rescue

- The same is found in Christ