Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Judges chapter 3, verse 12.

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the side of the Lord.

And the Lord strengthened Ewan, the king of Moab against Israel,

because they had done what was evil in the side of the Lord.

This is a pretty sobering, humbling verse to think about how God's people can presume that

God is going to work for them and fight for them when the reality is if God's people are doing evil and God

will not be working for them that the picture here in Judges 3 verse 12 is God working against his people

strengthening a foreign king against his people because his people

were doing evil.

And this is a picture we see all throughout the Old Testament.

When you think about God's judgment ultimately in the exile, God scattered his people

from the promised land because they had done evil, because they had

worshipped all kinds of other gods, just indulged in all sorts of idolatry and immorality.

And so when we pray in our lives, we need to pray, yes, based on God's promise of his love for us,

his promise to be with us, to help us, but we can never disconnect, claiming and resting in

God's promises toward us from obeying God's commands to us.

That if we want to experience the fullness of God's blessing in our lives and all that Jesus

has bought for us at the cross.

We, by God's grace, need to walk and obedience to him.

We need to flee idolatry and immorality to flee evil.

And so, I just want to lead us to pray today.

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