Judges: Jesus is Our Judge and Lawgiver
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PREACHING CHRIST THROUGH THE BIBLE |
Judges: Jesus is Our Judge and Lawgiver
Judges 21:25
“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
Intro: How stubborn were you when you were a kid? Let me tell you; I wasn’t the most behaved kid around. I’ve had my fair share of bumps and bruises caused by my hard-headedness when I was smaller. I remember this one particular case when I wanted to play with my friend, so I went to their house. My parents told me not to go because it was getting late at night. I still went through with it because I wanted to play still. As I got to their house, I just tried opening the gate to their home, but then I see their big Great Dane dog barking at me. I thought to myself that it was chained, so it’s all good. But then, as I stepped to go to the door of the house, I just see this giant dog leap out of its cage, and it came after me. If you were there, you’d see this small chubby kid running like crazy so that this humongous dog won’t maul him. I don’t remember a time I ran as hard as I did that day. I think this is the reason that even today, I’m still pretty scared of dogs. Thankfully, I got home pretty safe, and I remember telling myself that I should have listened to my parents.
In many ways, Judges' story paints a picture not just of a stubborn child but a stubborn people who keeps on breaking the Covenant they made with God. Instead of being a people who are after God’s heart, the Israelites pursued other gods of the land God gave them. They were caught in this cycle of misery because of their unfaithfulness to Him. In this book, we will see not just a broken people but a gracious and relentless God. God shows this by sending judges, who became the Israelites’ leaders or deliverers, to remind them of who God was. However, just like a stubborn child, the people would go back to their old ways and repeat a pattern that has led them to so much pain and suffering. I hope today; we will see the relevance of the book of Judges and how God raised a Judge for us to remind us of who we are and who God ultimately is in our lives.
Background: Before we continue with the passage we’re studying today; we need to have a quick background of the book of judges. As we heard from Pastor Jerry in his sermon about the book of Joshua, the Israelites finally got to occupy the Promised Land of Canaan. However, at this time was when Joshua and his generation passed away. God did not call a successor to be the new political and military leader for the whole nation. Instead, we see that every tribe had a new task to continue to possess the land and conquer their allotted territory. However, they failed in fulfilling this task. Then, we see that a new generation has come up again. This time they have no recollection of how Israel got to the land of Canaan. They don’t know the God who delivered them from Egypt. “And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10).
Just a quick side note. For our younger generation, just like with the Israelites, every generation has the responsibility and privilege to take hold of their own faith. Please know your parents’ faith isn’t passed down to us. They can only teach and guide us to hopefully understand who God is, but we have to decide independently. We have to take possession of our faith. No one can trust and believe in God for us. We have to want to experience God for ourselves. We have to make our faith in God our own.
As we go through, let me just share with you some fascinating facts about this book and hopefully will help you understand it as you take time to read this on your own:
This book spans about 300 years of Israel’s history.
The writer of this book is unknown, although many scholars assume it was Samuel. The way it’s written is very “episodical” as we get glimpses of Israel’s condition after settling in Canaan.
The “judges” here are not the ones like we have today. They don’t decide who is right or wrong in court. Instead, they’re more like local military leaders who delivered Israel from foreign oppressors.
There were 12 judges in this book coming from almost every tribe of Israel. They were: Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, and Samson.
This book features the first and only female leader or judge in Deborah.
The end of this book pictures Israel in one of its direst and most corrupt state as it depicts a nation with no king that had totally rejected God and His rule.
These next generations of Israelites refused to take on the task God gave them and have completely forgotten about the Covenant or the Law. The passage we just read is the conclusion of the book of Judges, and it presents such a dire picture of the state of God’s people. To understand how they came to this end, we need to study chapter 2 as it gives us an excellent summary of what was happening during the era of the Judges.
I. The Stubbornness of Idolatry (2:13-14)
13 They abandoned the Lord and worshiped Baal and the Ashtoreths.
14 The Lord was furious with Israel and handed them over to robbers who plundered them. He turned them over to their enemies who lived around them. They could no longer withstand their enemies’ attacks.
With everything the Israelites have gone through as a people, they have failed in one of the most critical aspects of their relationship with God. They were unable to love the One True God with their all. Instead, they worshipped the gods (Baal, Ashtoreth, and others) of Canaan. Here, we see Yahweh showing expressing His deep anger. The writer described that the Lord was furious against Israel. One might ask, “does that mean the Lord no longer loves His people?”
On the contrary, it’s because the Lord so loves His people that He is angry. You see, anger is not the opposite of love. It’s apathy. Even with us, we show anger when something causes pain and hurt to the object of our love. You see, there was a covenant relationship that He made with His people, and as we see in this passage, the people “abandoned the Lord.” One reason for God’s fury was because of how idolatry will cause so much pain and suffering in their lives.
You see, Baal and Ashtoreth were such tempting gods to worship for the Israelites because the people around them believed they were gods who will bring them success, honor, and pleasure. For Baal, he was thought to be the god over weather and nature. And so, for an agricultural people, worshipping Baal was supposed to bring you abundant crops and flocks. Ashtoreth was the goddess of fertility. In a culture that emphasizes familial honor and legacy, this god was believed to bring her followers many children, specifically sons, to a family. Back then, the more sons you had, the more glorified you were. People worshiped these gods to sacrifice and kill your firstborn child and have ritual sex with a priestess-prostitute. Again, the Israelites considered the gods of their neighbors more appealing than the Yahweh, who saved them out of captivity in Egypt and brought them into the Promised Land.
What happens next is the outworking of this covenant relationship. You see, according to the Law that Moses gave God’s people, obedience would result in blessings and peace. However, disobedience will only lead to hardship and oppression (Lev. 26; Deut 28). The Lord handed over Israel to oppressors as He had clearly outlined for them what would happen. So, ironically, the Israelites worshipped the gods of their neighboring nations, and yet these same nations were the ones that oppressed and caused suffering to the Israelites. In their desire to be like their neighbors, they abandoned their commitment to God, which only brought them humiliation, defeat, and misery.
So, what is the principle for us today? We cannot think we are that much better than the Israelites. We can be very similar to these stubborn and forgetful people. Our world offers to us gods that promise us success, glory, and pleasure. They may not be statues we outwardly worship, but we can be sure our world has false gods for us to worship too. They may be gods of money, success, fame, power, honor, and sexuality. You see, people can make gods and idols out of everything. They can be any good thing that we make into an ultimate something in our lives. Ultimately, we have this idol of the “self.” In many ways, these idols' allure leaves us to abandon our commitment and love for the Lord. According to Miroslav Volf, “When we forget that we unwittingly reduce God’s ways to our ways and God’s thoughts to our thoughts. Our hearts become factories of idols in which we fashion and refashion God to fit our needs and desires.” David Clarkson agrees and preached, “the human heart is indeed a factory that mass-produces idols.”
When we are willing to reject what God tells us, we can blindly follow what the world and our culture say is most important. We sacrifice ourselves to please the idols we have made for ourselves. These idols promise safety, abundance, success, and eventual happiness. However, these gods will never be satisfied. In the end, whatever we replace as a god in our hearts will only leave us empty, humiliated, defeated, and miserable, just like the Israelites. So, what is it that we have made a god in our lives? What is that good thing that we have made into an ultimate thing? What leads us to abandon and reject our love and commitment to our One True God? Let’s pray like David in Ps. 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting!”
II. The Persistence of Grace (2:16-19)
18 When the Lord raised up leaders for them, the Lord was with each leader and delivered the people from their enemies while the leader remained alive. The Lord felt sorry for them when they cried out in agony because of what their harsh oppressors did to them. 19 When a leader died, the next generation would again act more wickedly than the previous one. They would follow after other gods, worshiping them and bowing down to them. They did not give up their practices or their stubborn ways.
To better understand the book of judges, we need to see that the writer pictures Israel's state like a spiral. In that 300-year history, they were going around in circles spiraling to a worse moral condition every time a new cycle starts. The pattern of this would be that the Israelites would go sin against God by their apostasy and idolatry. Then, they would be given up to oppression by other nations. The Israelites would then repent and come back to God. In response, Yahweh would send deliverance through a Spirit-filled judge. After the judge drives out the oppressors, there would be a moment of peace. And then, after the judge dies, the Israelites would go back and start over in sinning and turning their backs against God.
I’ve always grappled with this question in my mind. If I was in God’s position, what would I do? God has chosen a family, a people, a nation to be His representative to all the world. They were to be a light and to be a source of blessing to the nations. He’s exhibited His almighty power and wisdom in their midst. He gave them an everlasting Covenant and the Law, which shows that they are in an exclusive relationship with Him. He’s saved them over and over from complete peril and destruction. And yet, these people still were stubborn. They so easily forget. They keep coming back to their gods, who cannot save them.
To be honest, I don’t know what I would have done to the Israelites if I were in God’s position. But you see, it’s a good thing I’m not God. He has shown His grace to the Israelites over and over. In His grace, He sent them judges to rescue and deliver them from the oppression that they caused themselves. Even when time and time again they would go back to sin, God was still relentless to save them when they repent. He could have just as easily let the Israelites be destroyed. And yet, God did not, and He would not. He is so gracious, merciful, and faithful to these people that one should ask why? How could God be so gracious to them?
And how about us today? What makes us sure that God would not give up on us? That he would not just eradicate us when we fail and sin against Him? You see, if God was so gracious to the people of Israel, we could be confident today that the same God is gracious and merciful to us today. Yes, we have fallen so far from His righteousness. We are not the people He wants us to be. We break His heart every time we do not listen to Him. And yet He does not give up on us. He delivers us in so many challenges in our lives. He proves to us He is in control of every single second. He comforts us in life’s most painful moments. He gives us all we will ever need. He blesses us in ways we do not deserve. How gracious is our God!
He will continue to be persistent and relentless in pursuing us. He will not stop until we realize that He is all we ever need. He will not yield us to the enemy. He will forever be for us. If God is so faithful and gracious to us, how will this impact our lives today?? He is building in us men and women of God that will represent Him in this world. A light that cannot be hidden. We are to be the salt that never loses its flavor (Mat. 5:13-16). How awesome is it, knowing our God will never give up on us and always be faithful to us? Until this truth becomes real in our lives, we will never realize how awesome this life that He has for us.
III. The Test of Faithfulness (2:20-22)
20 The Lord was furious with Israel. He said, “This nation has violated the terms of the Covenant I made with their ancestors by disobeying me. 21 So I will no longer remove before them any of the nations that Joshua left unconquered when he died, 22 to test Israel. I want to see whether or not the people will carefully walk in the path marked out by the Lord, as their ancestors were careful to do.”
This spiral of moral descent by the Israelites ends with a judgment by the Lord. The totality of the land promised to them in Joshua’s time will not be theirs to possess anymore. Because they refused to drive out these nations from among them, the Israelites would have to struggle and strive with these nations who worship idols and live in corruption. So, instead of the Promised Land being occupied only by God’s people, the Israelites will have to live with those who are vastly different from them. But let’s look at verse 22. Why did God do this? He left the nations surrounding Israel to test His people. He wanted to see if they “will walk in the path marked out by the Lord.”
Even with all the judges and all the Law's reminders, the Israelites failed in walking this path. Their judges reflected the state of the people and became more corrupt as the years went by. They also lost their desire to follow the Law and keep their commitment to God in fulfilling it. We go back to our main verse as it is found at the end of the book of Judges. It says in Judges 21:25, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” There was no leader in Israel, and they were in total moral corruption and degradation. They have assimilated and completely emulated the nations around them.
Today, we find ourselves in a pretty similar situation. We live around people who are vastly different from us. We live in a pluralistic society that believes in many other religions, philosophies, and ideologies. We should not expect to live in a culture and society that will worship God. This is the reality of our fallen world. Like the Israelites, God gives us the same test of faithfulness. Are we going to live in righteousness and holiness as God’s people, or are we going to be shaped by the world around us?
However, we do have some crucial differences between the Israelites and us. We operate in a different sphere because we have a new Judge now. Jesus is our Judge and Lawgiver. He did not deliver us from any nation but from our own sin. He overcame our oppressor, and we can now live in a different light for the world to see. Our role is not to drive out, conquer, or defeat those who differ from us. His people will be marked by love. This love is not just the one we have for God and each other but even with our enemies. Matthew 5:43-44 says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” In a way, we overcome our enemies by our love.
Jesus gave us a new path to walk on. Our Judge said this new path would be defined by love. If you want to know of this different path, read Matthew 5 and the rest of the Gospels. It gives such a revolutionary way Jesus wants His people to live in this world. You see, Jesus is the One who transforms everything in our lives as we live here in this world. We need to be faithful to the path He has set upon us. We need to be a community of faith and love that will impact others even if they do not know Jesus yet. Together, let us give witness to our Judge and Lawgiver so that all may know Him, so that all may see the beauty of our God and Savior. We can be different from the conclusion of Judges because Jesus is our Judge and Lawgiver.
Rev. Jerusalem Ona