JUDGES
“Every man did what was right in his own eyes”
God allows oppression with the expectation of repentance
People want God to do His part, without doing their part.
Where do judges come from? [Not blood lines. Not best and brightest. Willing workers! You?]
Freedom/Undisturbed ---> Cultural influences ---> Unrepentant/My Way ---> Curse
Curse/Bondage ---> Judges influence ---> Repentance/God's Way --->Blessing
Cycle repeats again and again.
Always goes one way. Down is easy, up takes effort.
Culture leads to failure to serve (assimilation)
Judges lead to opportunity to serve (set apart)
Wanting something doesn’t make it happen.
Same cycle for Church, Marriage, Employment, Dieting, etc.?
Judges.1
1:4 Judah defeats 10,000 Canaanites and Perizzites.
1:9-26 Jerusalem and many other cities conquered.
1:21,27-36 Jebusites, Canaanites, and Amorites not conquered.
How many points do you get for partial obedience?
Incomplete obedience = disobedience.
Judges 2:2-3 “...and as for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.' But you have not obeyed Me; what is this you have done? "Therefore I also said, 'I will not drive them out before you; but they will become as thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you... "
2:10 “...All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel...”
We must teach!
Judges 2:16,17,19 “Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do as their fathers ...it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways...”
Judges 3:1-2 “...Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to test Israel by them (that is, all who had not experienced any of the wars of Canaan; only in order that the generations of the sons of Israel might be taught war, those who had not experienced it formerly)...”
Why were the nations left? [to teach Israel war?]
Are we untrained in the ways of war?
With what weapons are we unfamiliar?
2 Cor.10:4 “...for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses...”
We must be ready for warfare!
Cyclical life during Judges:
OPPRESSED by, yrs, DELIVERED by, yrs
Mesopotamians, 8, Othniel, 40
Moabites, 18, Ehud/Shamgar, 80
Midianites, 7, Gideon, 40
Abimilech, 3, Tolah, 23 / Jair,22
Philistines, 40, Samson, 20
114 years of oppression, 296 years of freedom
First 7 judges had significantly more “undisturbed” time than oppression.
Last 5 judges had more oppression, and didn’t even mention “undisturbed” or “rest” for the land.
OTHNIEL - Judges 3
3:9 Caleb’s younger brother.
EHUD - Judges 3
3:15 Left-handed
SHAMGAR - Judges 3
3:31 Struck down 600 Philistines with an oxgoad [sharp metal-tipped stick about 8 or 10 feet long used to direct animals]
DEBORAH - Judges 4,5
4:21 - Woman puts a tent peg through the head of Sisera.
GIDEON - Judges 6 - 8
6:11-12 “...Then the angel of the Lord came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, "The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior..."
Was he valiant? [He was hiding from the Midianites]
6:14 “...go in this your strength...”. The call of God brings into existence things that were not.
6:16 “...surely I will be with you...” [God+you=majority]
THE CALL: I’m going to use you.
THE PREPARATION: Provoked by tearing down his own father’s altar of Baal ...at night.
THE REACTION: Those who have given themselves to false gods are unhappy. The Midianite and Amalekite armies assemble.
THE FLEECE: Twice for assurance - Wet fleece,dry ground. Dry fleece, wet ground.
THE VICTORY: Three companies of 100 blow trumpets, break pitchers, Midianites fight each other, 135,000 are defeated by 300 + 1.
Why was the army reduced from 32,000 to 300? [7:2 “...The Lord said to Gideon, "The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, 'My own power has delivered me...”
Do you ever feel outnumbered? [the side that has God has victory assured]
Does God see us differently than we see ourselves? What can He accomplish through us? [anything He wants, providing we obey]
THE SNARE: 8:24-27 Gideon makes a gold ephod, which leads to idolatry.
TOLAH/JAIR - Judges 10
What moves God to anger? [serving the gods of the land] 10:6-7 “...Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; thus they forsook the Lord and did not serve Him. The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the sons of Ammon...”
What moves God to have mercy on His people? 10:16 “...So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord; and He could bear the misery of Israel no longer...”
JEPTHAH - Judges 11
11:1 Son of a harlot.
11:2,3 Outcast.
11:30-31 Tragic, foolish vow.
Why would he say such a thing?
Why do we say what we say? [careless]
IBZAN, ELON, ABDON - Judges 12
SAMSON - Judges 13-16
13:2 Born to a barren nameless woman.
13:5 Told even before conception, that he would be a Nazerite.
13:25 Spirit of the Lord began to stir him.
What spirit stirs you?
14:6 tears up a lion with his bare hands.
14:19 kills 30 people in Ashkelon for their clothes.
15:14 broke the ropes that bound him and killed 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey.
What was his weakness?
Had a thing for women.
Failed to learn from past mistakes (previous wife exposed his riddle (14:17)
Weakness put him in position for failure. 16:16 Delilah “...pressed him daily ...his soul was annoyed to death”
16:19-21 Head shaved while sleeping?
His strength left him (the Lord had departed)
Nazarite symbol of “set apart” disappeared, but more importantly, the real source of his strength departed.
Eyes gouged out (weakness removed?)
16:30 “...the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he killed in his life...”
Judges 17
17:6 “...In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes...”
Description of the times of the Judges.
Description of our time?
Judges 18 - Things are really degrading.
Danites failed to conquer the territory assigned to them.
Move north, stealing a priest and some idols.
Wipe out the “quiet and secure” people of Laish.
Foolish? Insignificant? Typical?
Worshiping images of God shouldn’t be confused with worshiping God, even though it may resemble true worship.
Godliness is not merely a verbal claim, it must be a manifest reality in our heart motives and actions.
How do people repeat the same mistake today? [claims of Christianity without conduct changing to match His expectations]
Judges 19 - 21 The nation hits rock bottom.
Levite’s concubine (extra bride) plays the harlot and leaves.
He goes to retrieve her.
She ends up killed, not by foreigners, but by “God’s people”.
[city acting much like Sodom]
Levite sends out emails with eye-catching attachments.
Benjamin is very nearly annihilated.
26,000 against 400,000
20:21 - 22,000 Israelites die on first day.
20:25 - 18,000 Israelites die on second day.
20:31 - 30 Israelites die on third day.
20:35 - 25,100 Benjaminites die (20:46 says 25,000), with only 600 escaping.
21:12 - 400 virgins are taken from Jabish Gilead to help propagate the tribe.
21:23 - The rest were kidnapped from Shiloh.
How do you explain, or justify all this behavior?
Judges 21:25 “...In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes...”
And isn’t this a perfect description of America in 2011?
Should it surprise us that our land is full of foolish and self-destructive behavior?
RUTH
As the time of the Judges wore on, the apostasy deepened until the book ended in corruption and bloody civil strife.
What is the brief story of Ruth?
1:4 A Moabite who married Naomi’s son -they had left Bethlehem in Judah to sojourn in Moab.
1:3-5 Naomi’s husband and both sons died and she decided to return to Judah.
1:16 Famous passage where Ruth joins herself to Naomi - “...But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God...”
2:23 She gleaned with the maids of Boaz (remember that God had this system for caring for widows, orphans and aliens).
4:13 Boaz takes Ruth as his wife.
Where does Ruth fit in?
God’s blessing was withdrawn from Bethlehem (the house of bread) because of the apostasy during the time of the Judges.
This forces Naomi’s family to move to Moab, and to ultimately lose their property and place in Judah.
Upon return, a kinsman redeems Naomi’s property and gives Ruth a place in the royal line.
Ruth 4:13 “...Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son...”
Ruth 4:17 “...The neighbor women gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi!" So they named him Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David...”
She was the great grandmother of King David, which puts her at approximately the time of Gideon
What is the spiritual story of Ruth?
Boaz, the kinsman redeemer, a type of Christ. Doing for someone what they couldn’t do for themselves.
Naomi, the blood line descendent, a type of Israel, restored to her rightful place.
Ruth, the non-Jew (Gentile), a type of the Church, given a place in the kingdom.
Traditionally, the book of Ruth is read by rabbis on the Feast of Pentecost, the very day the church was born.
Ruth 1 - Love’s RESOLVE: your people shall be my people, and your God my God
Ruth 2 - Love’s RESPONSE: working in the field.
Ruth 3 - Love’s REQUEST: at the feet of Boaz.
Ruth 4 - Love’s REWARD: redemption.
Which would you rather have, the land, or the bridegroom?
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