God Keeps His Promises

We're starting a book of Judges, and Judges is about leadership in many ways. And so as we begin, I wanna ask, what qualifies someone to be your leader? What does it take for someone to earn your trust, to follow them? This is an important question because the Bible assumes and teaches that around every turn of Scripture, that we're constantly needing to be led. It actually isn't a matter of if we're being led, it's who we're choosing to follow. It means we need to make sure we're going in the right direction, that we've chosen the right destination and we're focused upon the right person who will lead us there. For instance, we all need leaders. If you want to be the wealthiest person, you can choose someone from the Fortune 500. That would be your leader. That's your goal. You want to be wealthy, choose someone who else has accomplished great wealth. You'll be the best in a particular sport. You go and look at your favorite athlete in that sport and you mimic them, you learn from them, you study them. Have you ever thought, I want to be a better human being? I want to be a better person. There's only one choice for who you follow. It's Jesus Christ. The one who created you, gave you life, lived the human life without sin, the only one who's accomplished that, the only one who died to take away our guilt, the only one who's risen from the dead, the only one who stands at the right hand of the Father, ascended, to give us the power to actually be human beings with the right purpose to worship God. You see, we need to be worshiping. And that's something we have to be led in. And I'm not the worship leader. Paul's not the worship leader. Jesus Christ is our worship leader. We sang of that earlier. Our great high priest. who gives us confidence to go before the throne. Christian, we're followers. We must be following Jesus, trusting what he's done and what he's commanded to worship. As we start, judges, I wanna give a bit of an overview or a little bit of a preview of the book. And one of the most helpful things is to understand what is the purpose of a book as a whole? So we're gonna back out just for a moment and consider all 21 chapters here. And I wanna say the purpose of Judges is twofold. First, it is written to warn Israel. of how bad their sin is. It's to warn Israel and call them to repentance. One commentator calls judges a history of the canonization of Israel. They are becoming like their pagan neighbors. We'll see it over and over again. They did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They did what was right in their own eyes. So the first thing is that it's a warning. Our sin is dangerous and destructive. The second purpose is it's an argument for the need for a king. We need someone to give us an option that's better than our own sinful desires and thoughts and reason. We need a king. God had already prescribed a king and what kind of king and what that king should do in Deuteronomy 17. So it's a warning of Israel. Sin is dangerous. Do not do what's right in your own eyes. This is the consequences of that. And you need a king who will lead you to worship God. And I want you to look, if you want to flip there you can, but I'll read the very last verse of Judges incorporates both of these purposes. In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. That's a summary of the book. And that's to prepare you for, for the coming King, David, and even more so, the coming King a thousand years after this book is written, Jesus Christ. The King who's come. He's risen from the dead. He's a righteous ruler of God's people. Judges follows Joshua. Joshua follows the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is where we see Moses. He led Israel out of Egypt. He couldn't lead them into the Promised Land? Joshua did that? And I want you to just look at the last words that Joshua gives, chapter 24, beginning in verse 19. It's important for us to see what God has been doing. Here's what Joshua said. Verse 19, chapter 24, page 199 of the Pew Bible. But Joshua said to the people, you are not able to serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after having done you good. And the people said to Joshua, no, but we will serve the Lord. Then Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord to serve Him. And they said, we are witnesses. He said, then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel. And the people said to Joshua, the Lord our God, we will serve, and His voice we will obey. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, And in a place, statutes and rules for them to check them. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and he took a large stone and set it up under the terebinth, and that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people, behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us. Therefore, it shall be a witness against you, lest you deal falsely with your God. So Joshua sent the people away, every man to his inheritance. And then we have the record of Joshua's burial. Judges, if you look, it opens with Joshua's death, and the call to put away the gods that are among them, mainly by driving out the inhabitants who have those gods with them. We're going to see the importance of God's covenant. You heard that, chapter two, verse one. I have brought you out of Egypt. I will never break my covenant. It was very clear. There's obedience that leads to blessing. There's disobedience that leads to curse. And we're going to see Judges as a history of Israel's disobedience. I want to back out still a little further before we jump into the particular text. How did we get here? Well it really begins in Genesis 12. God called a man who was worshiping other gods at the time. Abraham. He was not a worshiper of Yahweh and then God comes and declares himself. I am the the one true God I have chosen you to to be the the first man the first father of the nation that I'm going to call He made a promise to Abraham now he made a promise that you're gonna have many sons and Abraham didn't have a single son, and he was old. His wife was barren. So God brings about a promised child. And this takes us even further back to one level, to Genesis 3.15, if you were in Sunday school with us. The Proto-Evangelium, the first words of the gospel, that promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, there will be a promised son. That son will reverse the sin and death, the curse. That true fulfillment is not until Jesus comes. We also see there's a historical timeline. Abraham had a son, his name was Isaac. Isaac had sons, one of those sons is Jacob. Jacob is renamed Israel. Israel has 12 sons. We have the 12 tribes of Israel. Then God brought about a great famine and a great sin against one of those sons, and he sent Israel into Egypt. And it's pretty amazing what God's doing there in Egypt. Egypt is the greatest power the world knows in terms of an earthly power. And there, they were an incubator. Israel grew and grew, they multiplied and multiplied according to God's plan. And then a pharaoh came into power who did not know Moses, and he saw how many Israelites there were, and so naturally he was afraid. So he put him to slavery. He put him to work. Then God took Moses. And Moses was called to send Israel out of Egypt. He cries out, let my people go. And after 10 plagues, God gives Israel freedom, partially. Then they get to the Red Sea. And remember what the Israelites do when they get to the Red Sea, they cry out, Moses, was there not any graves in Egypt? You just wanna kill us here? So the cloud of glory moves behind Israel, protects them. God opens up the Red Sea to give them freedom. And God has made it very clear, I'm going to have a decisive victory over Egypt so that the whole world will know I am the one God and I will receive glory. They go into the wilderness, Moses is on the Mount Sinai, he receives the Ten Commandments. While he's receiving the word of God, Israel has created a golden calf and given a golden calf credit for that great deliverance. It's a horrible pattern here. It's gonna continue through Judges. God does great things and we respond with sin. Then God, after forgiving them and restoring them, He takes them to the edge of the Promised Land and says, go in, I will give you victory. He's just conquered Egypt. He's done many mighty wonders. And they go into the Promised Land, and they come back, and they reject God. They're too big. God, the people who are there, they're too big for you. We're too afraid. We're not going to go in. So God gave them what they wanted. They didn't go in. Moses did not get to go in. That generation was kept out of the promised land, and that's why Joshua's so important. He was the one who led the next generation to conquer Jericho, to conquer the other cities, to give them the promised land. Now, the significance of judges is here we are, they've come into the promised land, and they're called to do something, a very clear command. As you enter, drive the inhabitants out. Drive those people, the Amorites, the Philistines, the Canaanites, drive them out. Do not enter Mary with them, do not make covenants, take down their idols. He says this in Exodus 23, Exodus 34, we just read it in Joshua 24. The reason God wants him to do this, the most important reason God wants Israel to drive out the inhabitants, is that he knows Israel's hearts are too weak. They're going to continue to long for other idols. This is where we are in Judges. Moses died, he did not lead them in. Joshua died, he led them in, but he did not lead them to a completion. And now there is no Leader. What we're going to see is that all of the leaders that God calls are ultimately failures. All of them until Jesus. The only one who is successful in leading God's people in God's way to true victory. And let me just also say all Christian leaders are only as good as we point each other back to Christ. He is the victor. Judges, as one author put it, it's a museum of failure. It's fairly discouraging over and over again. It's a museum of failure. Different leaders, the people of God, different regions, they constantly fail. And so as we meditate upon it, we want to remember, while they continue to fail, God continues to be gracious and faithful. He delivers them. That's a key theme throughout Judges. We continue to fail and God continues to deliver them. And it's also very clear the leader has not finally come. So let's look at our passage, chapter one, verse one. After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord, who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them? So this is good. It sounds like they're staying on task. It looks like they're staying on mission. They ask, the Lord answers. Judah shall go up. Behold, I have given the land into his hand. Notice it's very important here. I have given the land into his hand. I will bring victory to Judah He must bring, he must act. Now something we see if we jump down to verse 7. And Adonai Bezek said, 70 kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table. As I have done, so God has repaid me. And they brought him to Jerusalem and he died there. This is one of the kings that was defeated. And we see here something else we're going to see repeated in Judges. God bringing judgment for previous sin. Justice takes place. Now, I'm not going to read verses one through 27, or 26. I'm gonna highlight some key points, but what we see here is God's people going into the land and driving out the inhabitants, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Philistines. And we need to ask a question because this is important. Is God commanding genocide here? Is God commanding something that we would understand as condemnable? That is genocide. Now, I wanna make it very clear, I do not think what God is actually ordering here is the kind of genocide that we would condemn, that is, the genocide that we know of by the Nazis, or that we see taking place around the world even now in the Middle East. You see, genocide is condemnable, Genocide is to be condemned when it is a people group who think themselves superior to another people group. And so they wipe them out. That is not what's taking place here because Israel is in no way superior to anyone. As we just saw, they're not faithful. Come back to Deuteronomy 7. It's one of the sweetest, most glorious passages in the Old Testament. God says, I didn't choose you because you're many. You're not, you're not great. You're not powerful. You're not numerous. I chose to love you because I love you. Israel is not greater than the other nations. That's not why they're called to push them out. That they are called to drive most of them out, by the way. that they're supposed to be fleeing. Yes, some of the cities were completely destroyed like Jericho, but it's a driving out. And I don't believe this is the kind of genocide we think of today because there isn't a sense of superiority among Israel. There's just a call to obedience. Now why would God justify, why would God be just in wiping out these people if he did? If you go to Genesis 15, God tells Abraham, I'm going to take you out of this land and your people of this land for 400 years. In 400 years, they'll come back. The reason he's doing that, I believe, is because the time of the Amorites has not been fulfilled. God is patient with the people who live in Canaan for 400 years, I believe, waiting for them to repent. But they're wicked. God shows great mercy and patience and they grow in wickedness. If we had all the evidence before us, we would say they were worthy of death. They not only worshiped other gods, but they were cruel to one another. They practiced child sacrifices. Bestiality. Ritual prostitution. That is taking young girls from their families, putting them in the temple for religious prostitution. These people were wicked. But that's not the ultimate reason why God said wipe them out. The reason He said that, the reason He said to take away all the gods and all these people who are gonna worship these gods, the reason they needed to be driven out of the land was because God desired pure worship from His people. He knew that their hearts were too weak to resist the Asherah Pole, the Baals. He desired pure worship And he knew that they would continually be entangled with these other gods. That's why he calls them to drive out in verses one to 26. And we see there a brief history of some of the conquest. The next we see Israel continues to disobey the Lord. If you're taking notes, here's a heading. Israel continues to disobey the Lord, verses 27 to 36. Notice this is a catalog of disobedience. Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants. Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites. Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants. Asher did not drive out the inhabitants. Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants. And the Amorites pressed the people of Dan back into the old country. Not only did they not press them out, they were pressed back in. It's a catalog of disobedience and failure. Look at verse 19. And the Lord was with Judah. That's all you need. That's one of the sweetest declarations in all of scripture that should give you great confidence. If the Lord is with you, who can be against you? The Lord was with Judah. And he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron. God, the one who created iron, the one who even created these human beings, the one who separated the Red Sea, the one who came down with crashing thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai, we think the chariots are just too much for you. We can't take the plane. Israel is forgetful. Judah here refuses to believe that God is actually able to do what He says He'll do. I am with you, I am for you, I will fight for you, I will give them your hand. But no, God, they've got iron chariots. At some level, I wonder if Israel just got lazy. You know, they were given cities that were already pre-built for them and they didn't get to move in and take it over. As long as there's people on the outside. They forgot, I believe, that only God gives them victory. I fear they forgot the real security is only with God and obedience. Most importantly, I don't believe they actually saw the imminent danger of the gods. Again, God wants to protect their hearts. He wants to protect their worship. He wants to protect the covenant that he started with them so that they will be his true worshipers. They've become lazy. Now look what God says in response. Chapter 2, beginning verse 1. And the angel of the Lord, who went up from Gilgal to evoke him. Now the angel of the Lord here appears to be Yahweh himself, a messenger of the Lord, possibly the Son incarnate. Because he's actually saying, I'm the one who made this covenant with you. But notice how it begins. God comes and he confronts Israel in their failure. He judges their disobedience. If you're looking for a heading, God judges Israel's disobedience. Notice how it begins. I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. There's three things God just said he did. I've made promises I told Abraham that I would bring you back here. I've made a promise, and I actually made the promise so clear that when Abraham and I, when I made the promise to Abraham, I had him cut up animals, and I walked through those dead animals as a declaration that if I do not commit, if I do not keep this covenant, I'm dead. It was a blood covenant. God keeps it because He can't die. I've made promises. He makes promises that, I brought you up from Egypt. Again, that deliverance is the key act of God bringing His people out of slavery and to Himself. He completes it with Joshua, I brought you into the promised land. It's encouraging for us, I hope, to go back and look at all the things God has done for us in Scripture, as His people. That's how He reveals Himself. This is how we know Him. His act towards us. This is why the cross and the resurrection are so important for us. This is why the deliverance, the great deliverance of the ten plagues and the walking out, having plenty Egyptians and crossing the Red Sea, that was the defining moment for Israel to know that God is with them, God is for them, He's their deliverer. He's reminding them of all He has done so that they know Him. And notice, I did these things and I said, remember what I told you. I did these things, I've saved you, I've delivered you. I told you I will never break my covenant with you. God can't. He can't deny himself. I will never break My covenant with you. I made promises to Abraham. I will keep them. He's committed Himself to a people. He does not leave His people. It is very important for us to realize that when God has committed His love to us, when He's committed Himself to us, He does not leave us. But we continue. I will never break My covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars. But you have not obeyed my voice. Remember, I said this. He's speaking past tense. I will not break my covenant and you must be covenant faithful. You will not enter into covenant. You will not join with them because their gods are going to tempt you. But you have not obeyed my voice, he says. What is this you have done? You can hear the words here of a husband who's found his wife cheating on him. Because that's what this is, it's adultery. Israel has committed spiritual adultery, they have not been faithful. What is this you have done? I have done everything for you, I've been with you, I've been for you, I've saved you. And his question is for the self-reflection. Do you see where you've put our relationship? I will not abandon you, but you have been unfaithful. What is this you have done? Now notice the transition from verse one, I said, to verse three. So now I say, this is what I said, I will never leave you, but you cannot enter covenant with them. Now I say to you, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your side and their God shall be a snare to you. Now, it's very clear he's not changing his covenant. He's not breaking his covenant. He is still fully committed to Israel, but he's handing them over to their own sin. He simply gives God's people what they want, and that particular judgment is absolutely frightening. I'm not going to drive them out. I was with you. I would have fought for you. But now because of your disobedience, I'm not going to drive them out. You want the gods? You want to taste their destruction? You have it. This is terrifying. As God's people here, we see that if we want to flirt with sin, God will continue to love us, but He'll hand us over to that sin. If we continue to persist, to refuse His admonition, to refuse His instruction, He'll let you take the full garbage down. He'll let you fill your life with the garbage of sin so that you'll realize how destructive it is so that you would repent. and come back to Him wholeheartedly. I believe that's what He's doing here. I will not drive them out. Here's the key lesson we learn from this. God does not bless our disobedience. God does not bless our disobedience. He does deny us, He does not deny us when we're disobedient, but He will not bless our disobedience. That would not be a loving Father. Look at the connoisseur consequence. I will not drive them out. They will become thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you. Now there's two things no one has ever asked for, a thorn or a snare. Right, no one's ever woken up, God, you know what I really like today is a thorn in my side. But we regularly find ourselves with thorns in our sides and ensnared and entangled in all kinds of sin. These are things we don't particularly want, but these are things that we do to ourselves. These are the consequences of pursuing a life that's right in our own eyes and not trusting our leader. You see, Israel, they, it's sad. They know the God who can overcome all the idols. All 10 plagues against Egypt, those were against all the different gods of Egypt. This is the one true God who has all the glory. But that Asherah pole, it promised me if I make a sacrifice, then I'll have more fertility. Or if I go to Baal, he'll bless me with more offspring and greater crops. That looks appealing to me. They have access to the one true God And yet they want to go play in the mud. These gods will be a snare to you. They will entrap you. They will be a hindrance to you. Your choosing curse. Now this is the encouraging part of this particular focus. Chapter 1 through 5. Chapter 2 verses 1 to 5. As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke the words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voice and they wept. And they call the name of the place, watch them, weepers. This looks like repentance. They wept because they realized who God was, how good they had it, and what they did not do, and now they realize the consequence of their sin. They also commit sacrifice. This looks like repentance. They seek forgiveness. But still, they will suffer. they will have to suffer the consequences of their sin. Our last section here, the heading, they need a new Joshua. They need a new Joshua. Look at six to 10. When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his own inheritance to take possession of the land, and the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elder who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works that the Lord had done for Israel, And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath Heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Joshua was a great leader. He truly was a great leader. He is one of the great leaders. He taught God's people God's Word. He followed God courageously. He was not one of the men that said the Giants were too big in the Promised Land. He not only followed God with great courage, he brought Israel to a courageous trust in God. But now he's dead. There is no leader to replace him. The generation now that's even full has filled Canaan. The new generation of Israel, they don't know God. They are left with their own sin. Help must come from outside. This is a warning. God will not forsake them, but he will not bless their disobedience. There's 12 judges recorded in the book of Judges. Twelve times Israel did what was evil on the side of the Lord. Twelve times He delivers them. And yet, at the end of the day, there is no king in Israel. They need a new Joshua. They need a leader who's going to truly fulfill the promise, to take them to a promised land, and to give them the rest they need. As we heard from Hebrews, Joshua didn't do it. Another way we can pronounce Joshua is Yeshua. Another way you can pronounce Jesus is Yeshua. They have the same name. Yahweh saves. There's something we see here. Joshua is dead. The people need a leader. It's going to take a thousand years from this moment for God to provide the leader they truly need. Jesus. The one who doesn't just knock down and take out the Baals and the Asherpoles, but the one who actually comes to forgive the sins we've committed before God. The one who died on the cross would no longer fear the judgment of God. The one who sends the Holy Spirit into our heart to heal us. Friend, if you're here and you do not believe in Jesus, I need to make one thing very clear. Christianity is not for good people. It's for the kind of wicked people we're gonna see over and over again in judges. It's for people who realize doing what's right in their own eyes always ends in destruction and danger and death. It's not for superior or self-righteous people or sufficient people. No, Jesus is for the defeated who have tasted the true danger and death of sin. We're wicked. We can't help ourselves. We realize that every time we try, we only make things worse. If you're not a Christian, please do not believe the lie that seems to be constantly misunderstood or we're misrepresenting ourselves. To be a Christian means you recognize, I cannot fix my problem. Sin continues to hinder everything we do. I need help from the outside. I need the one who has come down to be the true leader, the one who forgives, the one who heals, the one who restores, the one who sets free. You don't have to be ensnared to sin. You can be set free by Christ. You have to come and confess your sin. I need forgiveness, Lord. And ask Jesus. for forgiveness, and ask Jesus to lead you, to be willing to submit to his instruction. If you're not a Christian, please do not leave here without talking to somebody about that. Christian, are you still following your leader? It's scary how easily we become acclimated to our surroundings. It's easy to come here because we're all coming together to praise Jesus and sing of Him and hear of Him and hopefully encourage one another in Him. But when we're out there in our workplaces, in our homes, our neighborhoods, do we become acclimated quickly to laziness? To finding other coping mechanisms for the difficulties of life? To wanting to taste the sin of the world? It's too easy. to once again be ensnared and tangled in the thorns of sin? Have we, like Israel, tasted the inheritance of God, but yet said, I'm gonna return the great blessings you've given me with disobedience? The great challenge before us today is Israel did not heed the admonition of the Lord who saved them. The great challenge that is before us today is that we must heed the admonition of the Lord who has saved us. He does not break His covenant when we disobey. But He disciplines us so that we will come back. He disciplines us so that we will know how to love Him and trust Him. Hear the words from Hebrews. Today, enter His rest. It is sweet. It is good. Today, enter the rest that God has provided. We must see sin for what it is. It's idolatry. It's adultery to God. It's a snare. It does not set you free. You must see Jesus for who He is. He is our leader who takes us into the presence of God so that we can know true forgiveness and true joy. Let us pause and ask God to lead us to confession of sin and repentance. Father, we thank you that you are a God who is patient for thousands of years. For the people that we can see are as unfaithful as we are. You do not break your covenant. You are a covenant keeper and you keep it with those who are rebels against you. We thank You for Your Son. Lord, store within us a desire to love Him in the way He has called us to love, and that is by keeping His commandments. Let us fear the danger of our own sin that is such a thorn that so easily ensnares us. Give us the courage we need to put away sin. and put on Christ by the power of your Spirit. No strength of our own or goodness we claim, yet since we have known the Savior's great name, in this our strong tower for safety we hide. The Lord is our power, the Lord will provide. When life sinks apace and death is in view, this word of His grace shall comfort us through. No fearing or doubting with Christ on our side. We hope to die shouting. The Lord will provide. In His name we pray. Amen.