A Few Good Men and Women
Here Comes the Judge!
October 31, 2010 - week 8
What’s the first word or thought which comes to mind when I say the word judge? Some of you have had experiences with these people which may not have been so pleasant. So, what’s the first word or thought when you hear the word JUDGE?
This may date me a little, but one of the first things I think of, is Flip Wilson doing his impersonation of Here Comes da Judge on the old Laugh In program.
What about the TV shows with judges like Judge Judy or the original Peoples Court with Judge Wapner. Those are kind of fun to watch if you can make it through an entire episode. I always shake my head, wondering what gets these people to share their dirty laundry on national TV.
When I think of a judge, I think of someone whom I come before who proclaims my guilt or innocence and sentences me or fines me for what I did wrong. Judges never seem to call you in for what you did right. Can you picture the judge calling you in, saying “Michael Deutsch, please rise, this court finds you guilty of being a good person.” They don’t ever do that, that would be fun.
In our journey through the Story, we’ve come to chapter 8, it’s an incredible chapter. It’s a period called The Judges; with a chapter in the Bible also called, Judges. You see, God raises up people who are called judges, and their job description is quite a bit different than today’s judges. The judges were to tell the truth and to point out right and wrong to the Israelites. In the OT they were more responsible for getting people out of jail, than for putting them in jail.
If you’ve brought your copy of the Story, I want you to turn about 3 pages into the book and you will see a time-line. In that time-line you will see Abraham moves to Canaan, and notice the date and notice the time for the judges; over 700 years has transpired. The people are in the promised land and they’ve conquered the land with the leadership of Joshua and amazing power of God.
If you have your maps, you noticed that you put an image of Joshua just before the Jordan River and they crossed the Jordan River and came to Jericho. They conquered the land of Canaan, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The land was divided according to the 12 tribes of Israel, which are the names of
the 12 sons of Jacob. Here’s a map to help you visualize it. I’ll give you a few seconds to fill in the names of the tribes. Okay, you should be done now.
Now, listen to this awesome setup for the children of Israel. It’s like T-Ball, where the coach sets the ball on the T and in our adult eyes, how hard is that to hit. Well, that’s what God is doing for the Israelites. They have their own land, God’s presence is with them, forgiveness is available through animal sacrifices, the 10 commandments instruct them how to live, how they are to love God and one another. God is just blowing their socks off, and they didn’t even wear socks, because God blew them off.
But there’s a problem. It’s in every single chapter. Sin reigns in the heart of the people and it won’t go away. It keeps raising it’s ugly head, getting people into trouble and destroying relationships. With Joshua’s leadership, the people were led to do what was right in the eyes of God. But Joshua’s now dead, and times have changed and the people make 2 major mistakes which open the door to disaster. We need to understand these mistakes because they are still present today. When we continue to make the same mistakes it opens the door for our own disasters.
First, at the opening of chapter 8, page 85 or Judges 1:27-33, tells us the Israelites never drove the Canaanites out of the land. Why was that important? If they removed the Canaanites, they would have removed the worshiping of other gods. As a result, the Israelites also began to worship other gods, which violates the 1st commandment. We realize that the environment we place ourselves in matters. Where we live, where we call home matters, because, if we aren’t careful the environment we live in can lead to our disaster and ruin.
The 2nd major mistake they made was that the generation which followed Joshua grew up without knowing the Lord or what the Lord accomplished for the people. On page 85, Judges 2:10, we read, After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.
It’s a major mistake when we don’t model and equip the next generation about issues of faith. It’s been said, Christianity is just one generation away from extinction. It would be crazy for us to busy ourselves with the Lord’s work and not bring our children along for the experience. To not teach them and tell them what God did for the people in the days of the OT and in the beginnings of the church and how God was alive and active, back then, and how He is still alive and active in our lives. We need to help our children see and experience how God is active in our lives, and how we attempt to live out our faith. If we do that, the next generation has a chance, if we don’t, we’re setting them up for disaster.
The Israelites didn’t do this and this is now where the judges come in. God raised up judges to help them deal with the sin of the people and to lead them to restoration. There’s a pattern which quickly develops which as we read through judges becomes pretty evident. If you read the entire chapter you noticed the cycle. If you can, I want you to write this cycle in your Story books, or on your bulletin or a sheet of paper. Because I want you to see the stages and cycles, because in reality, we aren’t so different.
The first stage in the cycle is simply called sin. On page 85, we read, The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord (Judges 2:11). We read that passage 7 different times in Judges. Now the primary sin they engaged in was violating the first commandment and turning to other gods to worship. God was not the number one priority of their lives. When God is not that number one priority in your life, you open the door for all other kinds of evil to emerge in our lives. The missionary Jim Eliot once said, “love God, then do whatever you want.” That sounds pretty freeing. But if you really love God with all of your heart, and all of your spirit, and all of your mind and with all of your strength, then, what you will want to do is what pleases God.
Another passage to write down is Psalm 37:4, where we read, Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. We tend to like the 2nd part of the verse, more so than the first part. When we delight in the Lord, when we seek after God we will want what is good and honorable and glorifying to God, and then we will receive the desires of our heart. But I caution you, God is not a genie, to give us whatever we want.
So sin is the first part of the cycle, which leads to oppression. The sinful lifecycle of the Israelites led to oppression. Basically, the hand of God, His protection, was removed from the Israelites, so that surrounding nations could come and oppress them. On page 86 or Judges 2:22, God said, I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their ancestors did.
So, this oppression occurs for two reasons. It’s a result of the sinfulness of the Israelites, and God is using this to test the Israelites to see if they will obey God.
There were 6 different nations who oppressed the Israelites. When you add it up, this oppression lasted for 111 years.
Now keep in mind the period of the judges is about 330 years. Isn’t it sad that 1/3 of their time was in oppression. Think about it this way, 2 1/3 days per week you would live in oppression for your lifetime. That wouldn’t make for great living, would it? They missed God’s blessings, what a waste!
Okay, back to the cycle, there’s sin, which leads to oppression and oppression leads to repentance. On numerous occasions the Bible tells us the Israelites hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere else to go and turn, so they look up and cried out to the Lord. We read that phrase over and over in Judges. In their desperation, in their oppression, they cry out and repent. The word to repent in Hebrew literally means TO RETURN. It creates the idea that the Israelites chose to move in an opposite direction to God and His word, and after reaching the bottom, they cried out to the Lord, repented and made the decision with their hearts to turn 180ยบ or to return to following the Lord. So, repentance means not just saying you’re sorry, but repentance takes it a step further and leads to a conscience decision to change your ways as you move closer to God.
We learn from this and other passages that the path to restoration involves repentance. We often want restoration without repentance. We want the easy way out, but it does not work that way with God. We’ll talk more about this in a bit.
So sin, . . . leads to oppression . . . oppression led to repentance . . . and repentance ultimately led to deliverance. As God’s hand of blessing and strength is placed back on the Israelites. Each of these true stories could be action packed motion pictures, and in fact, if you watch movies, these are central themes.
As you read the 6 stories of deliverance from the book of Judges it’s very clear that the deliverance comes from the hand of God and not from the ingenuity or strength of the judge. For example, if we look at the story of Gideon, from Judges 7, we see that the Midianites have oppressed the Israelites for 7 years. We learn that Gideon is from the weakest tribe of Israel, isn’t God great? On top of this, Gideon is from the weakest family of the weakest tribe in Israel. God’s got a great sense of humor. He’s the guy who’s supposed to lead the people out of oppression.
Then as they’re going into battle, Judges 7:5 tells us, The Midianites came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. That could be a little scary and overwhelming to look at.
The Israelites only have 32,000 soldiers. Which isn’t enough to go into battle against this opponent. However, God tells Gideon, you have too many warriors. Because God tells him, I’ve already determined, you’re going to win this battle, due to your repentance. So, God tells Gideon to whittle down the number of soldiers who are going into battle. God does not want the people to believe they won the battle, God wants it to be very, very clear who gave them the victory.
So, Gideon stands before the 32,000 men and he tells them if you’re afraid, then it’s okay, you can leave. So, get this, 22,000 men leave. Now they’re left with 10,000 soldiers. But God says, that’s still too many. Gideon had to say, “yo!” God now gives Gideon one of the stranger ways to weed people out. They go to get a drink of water and God tells Gideon, whoever drinks the water by bringing it to their mouths with their hands, will fight for me. Well, out of the 10,000; get this, only 300 drink water that way.
They go into battle in the middle of the night as Gideon divided the 300 hundred men into 3 companies, and they easily win the battle. It’s clear that this victory is from God and God alone.
We see some judges are filled with great character. But most have flaws, and we know God uses flawed people to lead His people. Of course we can look at Samson.
While there are some great passages to look at from Samson, you can read the story of Samson in Judges 14-16.
I want to end our time together by looking at what this all means for us. What does this story, about the people of Israel and these judges have to do with us. Are we any different? Even in the story of Samson, after he told Delilah the secrets to his power, it not only led to his ruin, but it affected the Israelites. God chose flawed people to lead His people and sometimes the outcome wasn’t so good.
When you consider those God brings to lead His people, keep in mind that every, and let me repeat that word, every leader He brings is flawed. That means Rob, Doug and myself are flawed. Don’t ever think we’ve got our act 100% together, because and you may not like to hear this, because we don’t. We are simply people who have been called by God to lead God’s people.
BUT, we can’t do it on our own. Don’t look to us to deliver you, but look to God, because He is the One who can and will bring about deliverance.
The cycle which we’ve just talked about . . . of sin - oppression - repentance - and deliverance — is not just an ancient and extinct cycle, it’s still something which is very present in our lives. We often experience this cycle. I’m going to go back over this cycle again, but I don’t want you to think back about any of the judges; I want you to think about your life; nobody else’s.
As we go through these cycles, I want you to ask yourself, which of these 4 stages best describes where you’re at today?
The 1st stage is sin. Our primary problem is the fact that we don’t keep God as the Lord of our lives. As a result, we get steeped into addictions, our character and selfishness runs wild, anger, pride, deception, gossip, slander; it’s all called sin. And we chase after the wrong things to make us happy.
In 1 John 1:8, John tells us, If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. The Bible clearly tells us not to pretend we don’t sin, because we’re just fooling ourselves. We’re not talking about an occasional sin, we’re looking at a pattern, a repeated pattern of a sinful lifestyle. Here are a couple of thoughts,
1. I’m chasing the wrong things.
2. I have mixed up priorities.
3. I have an addiction issue.
4. I keep mistreating others.
5. I’m angry and bitter.
Maybe these or a host of other repeated sinful behaviors has taken hold of you. Can you courageously say in your heart right now, “That’s the truth. That’s where I’m at right now. I’m going to stop deceiving myself, that’s where I’m at.”
The 2nd stage is oppression. Maybe you feel you’re in this season. Our sin oppresses us in various ways. We may feel oppression because ~~
We’re in a wilderness experience where God is testing us so that we might grow up in maturity as we serve Him. He wants us to be prepared so that we can face the next and new season which is coming.
Or we experience oppression because of the sinfulness of others who are close to us. They take us or bring us into their oppression, but today we can still get ourselves into a season of oppression by our own sinful lifestyle. It breaks our fellowship with God. It doesn’t take away our position in our relationship with God if we are Christ followers, but it does mess up our fellowship with God.
We destroy our relationships, we destroy our families, we ruin our physical and emotional health; and we get into deep financial difficulty. Those are just some of the expressions of oppression in our lives. The consequences can range from minimal to catastrophic.
1 John 1:6 tell us, If we claim to have fellowship with God yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
If we think we can live a lifestyle of perpetual sin, the NT tells us we’re wrong. Fellowship with God has been broken. So, here are some ideas of oppression, maybe that you or a loved one are experiencing . . .
1. I feel a distance between God and myself.
2. I’m destroying my relationship with others.
3. I’m destroying my emotional and physical health.
4. It will affect me financially.
Maybe some of these describe where you’re at in your life. If that’s the case, the first thing you need to do is admit it in your heart. If that’s the case would you do so, in your heart, admit you’re in a season of oppression.
Sin — oppression — repentance. We desire for God to deliver us out of our oppression. It begins with acknowledging God and confessing our sins as we make a firm commitment that we’re going to turn away from what we’ve been doing or that we will return to God so that we would follow the ways of God.
Often times we have to hit rock bottom before we move back to Him, but it doesn’t have to be that way. He will receive our repentance today. One of my favorite passages in the NT is one you’ve heard me say many times before. It comes from 1 John 1:9. . . 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
The verb tense which is used in this passage doesn’t refer to a one time sin, but refers to our perpetual nature to sin. It means God will continually listen to our confession, today and tomorrow and the tomorrow’s after that, and God will forgive us of our sinfulness when we ask from our heart, and beyond that, God will cleanse and purify us from all the dirt and filth we’ve put into our lives . . . IF we are so willing to allow Him to do this.
God takes us back and we regain fellowship with Him. We have 2 choices today. Either you’re not ready to come clean with God. Whether it’s pride, arrogance or whatever it is that holds you back, you’re not ready to admit that the season of oppression you’re in, is the result of your ongoing sin.
Or maybe, maybe you came into this place today, not knowing we were going to talk about this, and now His Spirit is working through you and you’re ready to come clean, not with me, but with God . . . today. And if you’re willing to do that, He is willing to forgive you . . . again and take you back.
You say no, no, how many times? I’m telling you folks, God is true to His word, He will take you back. . . no matter how many times.
And finally, there is the season of deliverance. From the broken heart of repentance, comes deliverance, and He wants to do that for us, for me, for you. And some of us in this room today can say we’ve been in a season of sin, which led to oppression. We’ve felt like we were in the pit; and we genuinely ask God to forgive us, we confess our sins, and with His help, we turn and now we’re living in a season of deliverance.
There is still some residue left over from our previous decisions. But now we’re in a season of 2nd chances. God has delivered us, and some of you in this room have experienced the miraculous power of God’s forgiveness and His desire and ability to give you another shot at experiencing the fullness of life in Him.
I would like to ask you, only those who have genuinely experienced this, a season of deliverance, if you can remember it, would you stand up. Would you please, there’s nothing to be ashamed at, but if you look around, you see the God of the OT is the God of today, and He is willing to do the same for you.
