Where is there distress in your life? Where are you burdened and suffering? Do you know that God wants to rescue you? He wants to restore you. But first, he wants you to learn the lesson he has for you here so you don’t just come right back to this place of suffering once again.
This week we’re in a new book of the Bible. We will make our way through Judges. This is an Old Testament book with an unstated author. Many believe it was written by the Prophet Samuel about 1,000 years before Jesus. Regardless, we know this … 2 Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” With confidence we know God wants to teach us from his word and help us do what is right so we can overcome what has been wrong in our lives.
Could you agree that maybe there’s been something wrong in your life? Maybe your heart has gotten a little twisted or your priorities are out of alignment. And because of what is wrong, you are living in a life that has fallen short of God’s best promises. But the good news is, God doesn’t want to just leave his girls burdened and suffering. He wants to teach us so we can do better.
That’s what we’re going to learn today from Judges chapter 2 & 3. Lord, help us to realize what’s wrong in our lives and teach us to do what is right. And God says, “Okay, my girl, let’s get to work!”
The author of Judges literally tells us what the entire book is about in 1 paragraph. He sums it up in chapter 2, verse 16-19, “The Lord raised up judges to rescue the Israelites from their attackers. When the Lord raised up a judge over Israel, he was with that judge and rescued the people from their enemies throughout the judge’s lifetime. For the Lord took pity on his people, who were burdened by oppression and suffering. But when the judge died, the people returned to their corrupt ways, behaving worse than those who had lived before them. They went after other gods, serving and worship them. And they refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.”
A judge here is not a legal authority of court. Rather, a judge is a military leader divinely appointed by God. The judge not only lead the people to victory, but he lead them back to a right relationship with God. But, the problem was, the people would be given victory, and eventually they would drift. They would drift in their commitments, drift in their priorities, and eventually end up back in their evil practices and stubborn ways.
Isn’t this us? God rescues us from one mess, makes a way and gets us out … but eventually we begin making the next mess for ourselves and we are back to suffering again. There’s something wrong in our lives and God wants to show us what that is and teach us to do it right.
Judges 3:7-8, “The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. (Now, here’s what they did wrong.) They forgot about the Lord their God, and they served the images of Baal and the Asherah poles. (This means they put other things before God. They trusted in something other than God. We are 100% guilty of the same.) Then the Lord burned with anger against Israel, and he turned them over to an enemy King. The Israelites served that enemy King for 8 years.”
So, what had happened here was their sin had left them in bondage. They were left to serve a master that held them captive and made their life miserable.
My friends, nothing has changed. Yes, we’re thousands of years later, but we’re still doing the same thing. We’re given the victory, then we’re growing complacent. With complacency comes contempt. We get so comfortable that we forget who saved us last time and we start doing our own thing. Little by little,