Title: The Wheel of Crime and Judgment
Contents
* (5) Judges 2:11-23 The treadmill of crime and judgment
(Last time we saw the disobedience of the Is nation failing to drive out the Canaanites. Because of this disobedience, they committed crimes and idolatry, which resulted in God's displeasure. God sent an angel of the Lord to them, God will not fight for them, disobedience and failure to drive them out will bring pain to their lives like thorns in their side, and the gods worshiped by the Canaanites will deceive Is and promote corruption and corruption. At this, they repented even with tears, but it was repentance without any works) Beloved! Faith without works is dead
Verse 11, which begins today's text, begins like this: It begins with ‘the children of Is do evil in the sight of the Lord, and serve the Baals’. This is the reason why God told the people of Is to drive out the Canaanite people so much in the words of Joshua that we continued to see.
After Joshua and the elders who were with him died, the descendants who did not experience God's miracles vividly in the wilderness began to fall. The Is people had no power to control them. Rather, it was easy to be influenced by them. God knew this well. This is because God, who created man, knows the constitution and thoughts of creation.
As feared, the Is people forgot the God who brought them out of Egypt while staying with the inhabitants of Canaan. And they got along in moderation and served the gods of the Canaanites who lived there.
The Is people, who experienced God’s amazing power countless times as God’s people, ‘because they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth’, but they failed to pass it on to their descendants properly, so these results were inevitable.
Dear all! Although I have emphasized several times in the meantime, it is the fact that we must not forget that the legacy of faith is more valuable than any other heritage and is the key to saving lives and souls. I'm not a good listener, but I'll give you an example to show how important a parent's faith is.
Jonathan Edwards served as president of Princeton University and was the most influential figure in America's Great Awakening. His wife was also a man of great faith. A man traced this wonderful man Jonathan Edwards and his descendants and studied his ancestry.
His immediate descendants were 873 so far, of which 12 were university presidents, 65 professors, 60 doctors, 100 clergy, 75 soldiers, 85 writers, 100 lawyers, 30 judges, 80 civil servants. People, 3 members of the House of Representatives, 2 senators, 1 vice president of the United States, and 260 people were said to have been ordinary believers.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Edwards had a childhood friend named Max Juke. Together, they went to church Sunday school without fail. However, one day Max Juke lost faith and left the church to lead a debauched life. Then he married a non-religious woman and had children.
The man who studied Jonathan Edwards traced the descendants of his friend Max Juke. As a result, his descendants were 1,292, among which 309 infant deaths, 310 beggars, 440 crippled, 50 prostitutes, 60 thieves, 70 murderers, and 53 people who lived without a seal.
Everyone! The contrast between these two families is clear. It is a result that shows how much influence parents have on their children. The fact is that when parents lead a godly life, their children are bound to follow the right path, and the lives of those children and their descendants shine like the rising sun. Does your family have a legacy of faith? Am I a parent who sets an example for faith?
(11) Here, the evil of Is is specifically explained. The evil is first. He did “evil” (raah, bad, unpleasant, harm) before God. This meant doing things that were disgusting, objectionable, or disliked in God's sight, not just in a moral sense.
Second, he served the Baals. The reality of 'evil' performed before God was idolatry that served the 'Baals'. 'Baal' means 'owner' or 'owner', generally referring to husbands or landowners, but was also used as a reference to gods.
In particular, the gods of the cities of Canaan were called 'Baal', and the Canaanites believed that these 'Baals' brought fertility together with the goddess Asherana Ashtaroth. But the Is people also fell into this false belief.
When we look at the period of life, the phrase ‘the children of Is (and) did evil in the sight of the Lord’ is repeated. The only things the Is people who were slaves did when God led them into the land of Canaan flowing with milk and honey were they forsook the covenant they had made with God and the God who saved them, and sinned.
What is God's heart and thoughts about these Is? (14) It was God who saved us from slavery, fed and clothed us through the 40 years of the wilderness, and gave Canaan a land to live in. The gods worshiped and served by the Is descendants were the Baals of Canaan. Therefore, God was very angry.
The Lord made a covenant with Is and chose them to be God's people, and Iss decided to serve God as their God. But the descendants of Is broke that covenant. Soon, they did not worship Jehovah God as their God and went out to seek other gods. So Jehovah God refused to be their God. God disciplined Is the sinner. He decided not to take care of them any more. Therefore, it itself became a judgment.
When God did not protect them, the plunderers easily crossed over the descendants of Is and took their belongings. Some of the descendants of Is were sold into slavery, and the Canaanites, who had feared Is, were now a terror to the Isites.
Dear all! Here we see God's judgment on those who have departed from God. The judgment is 'let it be'. To throw them into the world of weak and greedy eating without protection was in itself a threatening judgment from God.
God's intervention seems troublesome and binds us, but we need to know that it is God's love that protects us like the pupil of the eye. We must also remember that while God's 'leaving us' is likely to give us freedom and joy, it will inevitably lead to danger, hardship, and peril, just like a child leaving the hands of its parents. . Faith that seeks, seeks, and follows only the Lord, just as a child seeks and relies on only his parents.
But look at (16-17). It was evidently Is that the one who was apparently harmed by the breach of the covenant. They had to live a life of financial, physical, and spiritual losses. Therefore, they should be the first to restore their relationship with God, but they did not. Rather, it seemed more clinging to idolatry.
At this time, however, it was God who took the lead in restoring the relationship.(18) He sent a judge (shafat) as His agent to the people who broke the covenant. The basic meaning of 'Shapat' is 'to judge', 'to judge', 'to rule', 'to give punishment', etc. If you rely on these things, 'judge' is not 'leader', but 'judge' according to the common translation. ' is close to However, since he was also a military leader who led the war when the Is people were in trouble, it is clear that they played a broader role than the 'judge'.
They excelled not because of their own excellence, but because they were people with whom God was with them. God sent them to defeat the enemies and bring peace to Is. At the same time, he tried to ascertain to the descendants of Is who the masters of history are.
Dear all! We must know that our God is a God of love who does not let go of His love even for children who have betrayed and left, and wants them to come back even after being beaten and whipped, and to be restored. * We praise the God who first came to us as a God of grace, a God of love and a God of mercy. God is the One who rises up and seeks out people who have left for sin before they come back. God is love.
However, in spite of God's extreme love, they forsake God's love like a meal. Despite God's grace, the descendants of Is became more corrupt once they escaped the danger they were in, and returned to idolatry (19).
In the end, God did not drive out the Canaanites as they did with their continuing test, but left them among them (22). Therefore, Is had to solve the task of obedience and complete devotion before God. It was because doing so was the way God could be gracious to them.
Dear all! As we read the book of Judges, we encounter Is who sins and God who saves. Is was constantly sinning, but God wanted to discipline them to the end and save them. God is constantly calling and beckoning to us even now. The father's heartbreaking heart awaits the prodigal son who has left home, waiting for us to return. I am always ashamed in the face of this great love of God, but I pray in the name of Jesus that I, you, and all your descendants who walk in joy and abide in that love can be all.