Moral Decay (Judges)
June 21, 2020
We can easily see an attitude in the world that says, "We don't need to know God's word. We know better." The Bible is an old, outdated book that we can live without. Look at all of our accomplishments and our technology. We are a civilized nation. We do not oppress people or live in fear like other nations. Obviously, we have become a fantastic nation because we are amazing people. God did not do that for us. Should we really let the thoughts of primitive men guide our way of life?
Everyone here tonight probably does not think this way. You care enough about God and his word to keep from this level of arrogance. But what is our attitude toward learning the word of God? If it is not the most important thing to us, we will share the curses of Israel. That is the message of this book. We must know the word of God and teach it clearly to our children.
The Story
The book of Joshua ended with us wondering what will happen. Moses and Joshua have foretold Israel falling away from the Lord and being punished. In Deuteronomy, God said that he would slowly remove the people from the land and help the people destroy all of the inhabitants (Deut 7:22-26). The only requirements for Israel were that they fight against the inhabitants, obey the commands of the Lord, and destroy all of the idols in the land. At the end of Joshua, we see that the people are mostly faithful. But we are left wondering how long that will last.
Joshua 24:19--20 (ESV) --- 19 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. 20 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.”
Joshua 24:31 (ESV) --- 31 Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel.
The beginning of Judges tells us exactly how things began to unravel for Israel. In Chapter 1, some of the tribes were willing to fight for the Lord and defeat their enemies, but most of the nation refused to drive out the Canaanites that lived among them. God told them that he would help them overtake all of these nations, and he commanded them to defeat them, but they refused.
In Chapter 2, the angel of the Lord who leads heaven's army rebukes Israel for this.
Judges 2:1--5 (ESV) --- 1 Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, 2 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. What is this you have done? 3 So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.” 4 As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5 And they called the name of that place Bochim. And they sacrificed there to the Lord.
The rest of Chapter 2 summarizes the rest of the book. It will all go through a repeated pattern. A generation rises up that does not know the Lord, the people sin, God judges them using the nations around them, the people repent and cry out to God, and God sends a judge to deliver them from their enemies. Life will go on like this over the following four hundred years.
Twelve Judges (3-16)
Othniel
In Chapter 3, God begins the pattern. In verse 7, the people sin. In verse 8, God sells them to Mesopotamia for eight years. In verse 9, the people cry out. In verses 9-10, God raises up Othniel, the younger brother of Caleb. Then, verse 11 ends with God giving the people rest for forty years. The people involved, the years of punishment, and the years of rest change, but the story stays the same throughout this book.
Ehud
In verse 12, the people sin again. Moab oppresses the people for eighteen years. God raises up Ehud, delivers the people, and gives the land rest for eighty years. But this story changes a little as Ehud assassinates the king of Moab in a graphic scene of deception. Something seems a little off about this judge. He is not an upright man Moses, Joshua, or Caleb.
Shamgar
To end this chapter, we read about Shamgar, who killed 600 Philistines with an oxgoad and saved Israel. We assume this followed the pattern of the previous two judges.
Deborah
Chapters 4-5 tell us about a prophetess named Deborah, who becomes a judge over Israel. She commands Barak to fight against Canaan's king, but he refuses to go unless Deborah goes with him. Barak seems to have very little faith in the Lord as he goes out to defeat the Canaanites. As a result, God takes away the glory from him and lets a woman kill the Canaanites' great commander. They sing a song in Chapter 5, and the land has rest again for forty years.
Gideon
Chapters 6-8 describe another judge who is lacking in faith. This time Midian is going oppressing Israel, and when the people cry out to God for help, he sends a prophet.
Judges 6:8--10 (ESV) --- 8 the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. 9 And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 And I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”
After the prophet, God sends the angel of the Lord to Gideon, the weakest man in Manasseh's lowest clan. This angel patiently works with Gideon to convince him that he can defeat the Midianites. Gideon seems scared to death of his own people and the Midianites. How could he defeat anyone?
Judges 6:34--35 (ESV) --- 34 But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him. 35 And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow him. And he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they went up to meet them.
After everyone gathers to Gideon, he calls for God to reassure him by making the fleece wet with dew and the ground dry. He calls for God to reassure him again by making the fleece dry and the ground wet with dew. God does this for Gideon, but then God tells Gideon to get rid of the nearly 32,000 who showed up to the battle.
Judges 7:2 (ESV) --- 2 The Lord said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’
He goes out and defeats the Midianites, so all of Israel want to make him king. He refuses, but he takes all of the spoil for himself and sets up a golden ephod that all of Israel "whored after." It became a snare to Gideon and his family. The people's hearts were not turned to the Lord. As soon as Gideon died, they all turned right back to worshipping idols.
God
The next two chapters take on a different tone. Instead of enemies rising from the outside. Israel sets up a son of Gideon, Abimelech, to rule over them, and God judges both the son and Israel. Abimelech kills off all of his brothers and gets in a fight with his home town that appointed him. After he destroys them, he goes up against another city and is killed by a woman throwing a millstone on him.
Judges 9:56--57 (ESV) --- 56 Thus God returned the evil of Abimelech, which he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers. 57 And God also made all the evil of the men of Shechem return on their heads, and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal.
Tola and Jair
Then, Chapter 10 starts with two judges who judged Israel for 45 years. Tola and Jair were their names, and not much information is given about them.
Jephthah
After these two brief judges, it seems like God is tired of this pattern. He makes a statement to Israel. After eighteen years of oppression by the Philistines and Ammonites, the people cry out to the Lord.
Judges 10:10--14 (ESV) --- 10 And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, “We have sinned against you, because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baals.” 11 And the Lord said to the people of Israel, “Did I not save you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites, from the Ammonites and from the Philistines? 12 The Sidonians also, and the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you, and you cried out to me, and I saved you out of their hand. 13 Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods; therefore I will save you no more. 14 Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress.”
It seems like God is done with his people. They aren't learning their lessons. Their hearts are not growing closer to God. They are not teaching their children or helping the world to see God's glory.
Judges 10:15--16 (ESV) --- 15 And the people of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned; do to us whatever seems good to you. Only please deliver us this day.” 16 So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord, and he became impatient over the misery of Israel.
They cry out to God again and show fruits of repentance, so God decides to do something through Jephthah, the prostitute's son. In Chapters 10-12, he defeats the Ammonites, but then he makes a rash vow, and he is supposed to offer his daughter as a burnt offering to the Lord. We do not get any confirmation that he did that, but it shows that he is a flawed individual. Then the tribe of Ephraim comes against him, and he kills 42,000 men from Ephraim, his own people.
Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon
After Jephthah, we read about three men who judged Israel, but no additional information is given about them.
Samson
The final judge in the book is Samson. In Chapters 13-16, we see a man who is supposed to be a Nazarite all the days of his life breaking every rule and acting completely ungodly as he uses the power God gives him to destroy the Philistines. He touches dead animals, drinks wine, and pursues multiple Philistine women. He is finally stopped by telling Delilah that cutting off his hair will cause him to lose his power. But he dies taking down 3,000 Philistines with him.
These twelve judges are not shining examples of obedience and morality like Moses and Joshua. They each indicate the decline in morality that was present throughout the land.
Two Stories of Evil
To close the book, we have two stories that describe the types of evil going on in Israel, and why all of this happened. The repeated refrain in this section is twofold.
Judges 17:6 (ESV) --- 6 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Judges 21:25 (ESV) --- 25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Micah, the Levite, and Dan
The first story has a progression to it. It starts with a man who steals from his mother.
Judges 17:1--3 (ESV) --- 1 There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. 2 And he said to his mother, “The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.” And his mother said, “Blessed be my son by the Lord.” 3 And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.”
Isn't that odd? She cursed the person who stole the money, but when she found it was her son, she blesses him. This is a common sin of overlooking the evil in your family. He stole from her and is required to at least offer up a guilt offering. Instead, she decides to devote less than the required 20% to making idols. This is blasphemous.
The next progression of the story depicts a Levite coming to Micah's town, and Micah hoping to use the Levite as his own personal priest. That's not how it is supposed to work. Not all Levites were priests, and even if this was a priest, priests were not personal tokens to be used for gain. They were supposed to teach the law, which clearly forbids creating idols.
The final progression happens throughout Chapter 18. This chapter starts by reminding us that there is no king in Israel. Then, it tells us about men from Dan coming, taking the Levite to serve them (along with the idols), and destroying a quiet, unsuspecting town of Laish. This was not a town where Dan was supposed to live. Because they were unwilling to remove the Amorites from their land, they go up to Ephraim to take their own property in their region. This story ends by revealing that the Levite, who serves Dan as a priest, was the grandson of Moses.
A Levite, his concubine, and Gibeah
The last story is sick. It tells us about a Levite who travels to Gibeah with his adulterous concubine. Then, the men of Gibeah rape the concubine to death, the Levite cuts her in pieces and sends her body parts to the twelve tribes to let everyone know that Gibeah is evil. Israel then rises up against Gibeah and the tribe of Benjamin. Both sides lose thousands of men, and, in the end, they destroy almost all of the tribe of Benjamin. Then they vow not to let their daughters marry the men of Benjamin. So they have to take virgin women from the people of the land to give to Benjamin, and they tell Benjamin to steal women when they come to the feasts.
All of this story is scary. Injustice leads to further injustice, and all of it shows that they don't value the lives of women. We read of a Levite who forces his concubine to be raped by the town to save his own life. He sleeps soundly through the night and wakes up to find her on his doorstep dead. Then, he thinks nothing of chopping her in pieces to send her out to the twelve tribes. The nation then tells the Benjaminites to steal women for themselves.
Why Is This Important?
All of this book teaches us what happens without a king and without a focus on the law of God. When there is no king, everyone is their own king. When everyone does what is right in their own eyes, the world starts to look like it did before the flood. The more power people have, the more evil they seek to create toward their fellow men.
Every time the people are given some rest, they start to rely on themselves and forget God. Why does God allow this to go on, and why is this written down for us? Do you realize that this is the perpetual pattern of mankind? We would go through these cycles forever without end.
If God did not step in to help us, we would destroy ourselves and make our own lives utterly miserable. This book should put a completely different perspective on God's judgment of mankind. Judgment is needed to keep us from hurting each other, but it is also a statement of God's relentless love for mankind. A God who does not judge his people does not care about creating a society full of truth and justice. God is full of mercy and faithfulness, preparing each generation to be obedient.
Think about all that God did for Israel to bless them. He commanded parents to teach their children (Deut 6), redeemed them from Egypt, and poured out blessings of the land, he commanded feasts to remember God every year, and he gave them sacrifices, priests, and Levites to teach the law continually. Ultimately, all of these things are supposed to help Israel become obedient.
Is it any different for us? The only unusual thing is that God has demonstrated our stubborn rebellion and his steadfast love once and for all in the murder/sacrifice of Jesus. We should have hearts that want to obey God.
Application
The Judges narrative is so depressing when we look at Israel. When God gives them rest, they tend to pursue life without God. They want to be like the world around them. So the question for us is, "What will we do with everything God gives us?" Will we live our lives for God and Jesus or ourselves?
I often like to look at Judges and see the sins of the world around us. They certainly do what is right in their own eyes. But we do the same things. When we force people to do what we want them to do without paying attention to what scriptures actually say, we are doing what is right in our own eyes. We think that winning an argument or debate makes us right. Think about all the things that these Israelites were doing, and then think about our tendencies. We don't want to fight the battles God commands us to fight. We want to forget God and focus on the things of this world. We want to hire a person to tell us what we want to hear. We want to say to people what they want to hear. We want to fight injustice with injustice and oppress those who are weaker for our benefit.
This is more like us than we realize. But through Jesus, God calls us to greater righteousness than we would choose for ourselves. He calls for us to be strong and courageous like Joshua, but also meek and humble like Moses. He calls for us to fight for justice, even if it results in our own loss. He expects us to call out sin even in our own families and to teach our children the way of the Lord.
Conclusion
If we neglect the command of the Lord and choose our own way after receiving blessings through Jesus, we are asking for eternal punishment. We must repent now before it is too late. When we look at God in these stories, we see his patience and his steadfast love, but when we look at God in the life of Jesus, we know that he is willing to forgive and save to the uttermost if we turn back to him. We have to turn back to him and change our lives to fit his will for us. We have a king who leads us, and we have a better understanding of God. Let's do what is right in God's sight.