When I was in junior high a Catholic priest came to visit my debate class. I know, today a visit to a public school by a religious official would warrant calling out the SWAT team and raising the terror alert to red, but it was a different nation in those days.
Anyway, I remember this gentleman handing out a sheet of paper filled with advertising slogans for products we recognized. But the slogans had been altered slightly to reflect a higher, spiritual reality. It started out saying "God is like …"
God is like a Hallmark card: He cared enough to send the very best. (John 3:16)
God is like Coke: He’s the real thing. (Jeremiah 10)
God is like Budweiser: The King of Kings (Revelation 19:16)
God is like Allstate: You’re in good hands (John 10:28-29)
For our study in the book of Judges I’ve come up with an ad slogan that fits this too (nothing bad about this company either).
The attitudes in the book of Judges are like Burger King: Have it our way.
"Hold the faith, and hold the worship, other gods they don’t upset us, all we ask is that You let us have our way.
You see, there is God’s way, and then there is our way. Judges is a book where see humanity decide they know better than God. A theme for the book of Judges can be found in 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Not being ruled by God’s Spirit and obeying what you think is right, rather than what God says is right, is a recipe for hardship, defeat, weakness, sin, debauchery, and death.
It’s a two step process: 1. Walk away from loyalty and faith in God (even by ignoring your relationship with Him) and 2. Putting our needs, opinions, desires, and values above those of the Lord. Here’s how it works: the weaker you are in your relationship to God, the weaker you become in standing against sin and temptation and not acting like God becomes the norm and seems right - but that doesn’t make it right.
Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
The book is not all depressing. We see small victories: Deborah, Ehud, Samson - but even they pose problems. Ehud was a cold blooded killer and Samson was a rebellious man who refused to grow up! So Judges is a book that we learn from primarily by contrast, rather than example.
The theme we looked at in our study of Joshua was: "Living a victorious life in the power of the Spirit." In Judges our theme is: "Destroying the Flesh by the Power of the Spirit." We’re going to spend a fair amount of time looking into Romans 6, Galatians, Proverbs, and the epistles of Peter, the book of the Revelation and Paul’s letters to the Corinthians for guidance on how to kill the flesh and empower the Spirit. It’s all about being freed by the blood of Christ to make a decision, making that decision, then allowing God’s Spirit to do the work.
As a Christian we face a choice every day: do I live today in God’s strength or do I attempt to accomplish things by my own wits and power? Though I want to choose to let God’s Spirit flow through me I sometimes forget the boat anchor holding me back: the flesh-that old nature that died on the cross with Jesus but is still hanging around trying to get me to go back to the ways in which I lived prior belonging to Jesus Christ. And if you don’t belong to Christ then you are completely ruled by that nature-a nature that the Bible says is opposed to God (who is all good).
Yes, even if we allow the fleshly nature to motivate and influence us, God can still accomplish things, but at what price and what more could have been done had we lived a life dependant on Him, dedicated to Him, and open to His changing us into His image? That’s what we’ll explore in this book: revealing the nature of the flesh, and ways to defeat it in allowing God’s Spirit to cleanse and empower us.
Judges covers the years between Joshua and the monarchy (1030bc). There were 15 judges in all. Eli and Samuel were the last. Judges is about how the spiritual condition of Israel affected its military and political situation. For us it is about what happens when we try to live our lives outside of the grace, wisdom, discipline and power of the Lord.
The book is broken up into three parts: the success and failure of Israel in Canaan (1:1 - 2:5), the period of the judges (2:6 - 16:31) and two stories of the consequences of sin and corruption (17:1 - 21:25)
Some of the specific examples we’ll see in the book of trying to live a life belonging to God by the power of the flesh:
Chapter 2: The results of disobedience. Instead of being driven out from before us, the enemy has a foothold in our lives and causes us no end of difficulty and weakness. We end up constantly focusing on being chased and cannot be fruitful.
Chapter 3: Taking matters into your own hands instead of letting God solve your problems (Ehud).
Chapter 6: Focusing on yourself (your wisdom, your weakness, your perspective) instead of listening and responding to the Lord (Gideon)
Chapter 9: Letting the world infiltrate and rule our lives (Abimelech)
Chapter 11: Serving the Lord by the world’s values (Jepthah)
Chapter 13: Letting the flesh rule over the Spirit (Samson)
And on and on it goes …
Here in Chapter 1 we see an initial attempt to seek the Lord and obey His direction, but something happens on the way to victory. We see it described in Chapter 2 verses 1 through 3. Israel was clearly told to do two things: make no room for the worship of any other gods and make no ties with the people of Canaan. They failed on both accounts and so as they moved out into the land, they moved out too lightly - not breaking down the altars and not destroying the people. It has lessons for us as well, which we’ll get to, but first let’s look at how this happens. The first lesson for us is: don’t let the philosophies of the world and the relationships with the world influence you away from serving God.
Verses 1 - 3
Israel probably inquired via the Urum and Thummim. Judah was chosen to go up in battle showing the prominence of this tribe. Simeon was Judah’s full blood brother and Simeon’s land was surrounded by Judah. Eventually this smaller tribe was completely enveloped by Judah. Later in the chapter Benjamin, then Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh), will also attempt to fight, though with little success.
Verses 4 - 7
Bezek is in the hill country just to the east of the Jezreel Valley. This wasn’t in Judah’s territory. In fact it may have been in the very places that Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) said they couldn’t take because of the Canaanites and their chariots of iron (Joshua 17). A great defeat happens here: 10,000 killed and the king captured.
The cutting off of his thumbs and big toes stopped him from being able to wield a sword with his hand and run or even walk well with his feet (you’d be surprised how much we need our big toes!). It was pay back time for the king of Bezek.
So the victories continue - now Judah comes back towards their territory:
Verses 8 - 11
Judah’s roll continues in a partial capture of Jerusalem. It wasn’t totally captured until David did it in 2 Samuel 5. The "hill country" "Negeb and the lowland" describe the geographic areas of southern Palestine. Hebron, or Kireath-Arba was also a city of refuge. Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai were descendants of Anak and had terrorized the spies who came into the land.
This is essentially a retelling of Joshua 15. There it was Caleb who took Debir and the descendants of Anak, but here it is Judah. Obviously they were working together with Caleb in the lead.
Verses 12 - 15
This is continues the story from Joshua 15. Just a couple of notes: Othniel would normally have had to pay a bride price, but a military victory could suffice for that. Later, David paid his bride price in Philistine foreskins! After Achsah married Othniel she, in that culture, would have needed Othniel’s permission to ask for a gift from Caleb.
The land Achsah got was pretty arid, so the springs would have helped them grow crops and would have also served as Achsah’s dowry.
Verses 16 - 20
(Numbers 10:29+) Hobab, Moses Father-In-Law was with Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. Moses asked, actually pleaded with, Hobab to stay with them. So after coming into the land, the descendants of Hobab went to live with Judah after leaving Jericho ("city of palms"). Arad is 16 miles south of Hebron and had been conquered by Moses when they skirted the Promised Land.
Now Judah assists Simeon in capturing Zephath, renaming it Hormah, which means "total destruction."
Next they attack three of the Philistine cities, but it must have been a temporary victory. In fact, the complete migration of the Philistines into Palestine wasn’t for another hundred years.
So from temporary victory to incomplete victory - success in driving out the three sons of Anak, and success in the Shephelah (hill country) but like we saw in Joshua 17 and other places, Israel just couldn’t mount a credible attack on the Canaanites who had "chariots of iron."
And so here we see the grinding down of the Israeli military machine. We’ll see some limited successes, some "and the Lord was with" victories, but from here on out things are going to go against Israel.
Verse 21
Benjamin had Jerusalem in their territory but like Judah in verse 8, couldn’t dislodge the Jebusites. This is one place where we learn that the book was written before David’s time because David finally captured all of Jerusalem.
Verses 22 - 26
Bethel was where Jacob saw God in his journey of escape from Essau in Genesis 28. It’s about 12 miles north of Jerusalem. The plan of attack is similar to Jericho with the whole spy thing and allowing the cooperative native to escape. I find it interesting that the guy goes up to Syria (the land of the Hitittes) and create another town called Luz.
They had success because "the Lord was with them." But it was incomplete. It shows that as Israel drew away from God, so their effectiveness waned as well. This is really true for us as Christians.
Next we see tribe after tribe now unable to have any victory at all. And this really represents the beginning of the end for Israel’s faithfulness to Yahweh.
Verses 27 - 36
There is a connection between your relationship to God and your ability to see victory in your life. Israel accepted as fact that they could not drive out the inhabitants of the land fully. When they began to accept the abiding presence of the enemy in their midst, they opened themselves up to the influence of the enemy in their lives. They should have, like Joshua after the failure at Ai (Joshua 7) fallen on their faces and asked God what they had done wrong. Instead they just "went with it."
The same holds true for us. The world system around us, which is controlled by Satan and rejects God and anyone who belongs to Him, will constantly try to stick around. It’s a battle, a constant battle, to dislodge those values that oppose God from inside of us and to ward off their influence from outside.
You are surrounded by a culture that wants to stay as a presence in your life in order to influence your life. If you let it, you too will find your victories fall short and you will become weak and end up changing who you are.
Lessons
Lesson 1 is: When the victories stop happening, ask God why, and listen!
Peter tells us that our enemy "prowls about like a roaring lion" (1 Peter 5:8). But we are to "Resist him, firm in your faith". When we give up on reliance and faith in God the enemy gets a foothold in our lives.
Instead of always searching for the enemy, always be seeking the Lord and be open to His probing you to shore you up, remodeling your weak areas and renewing you in His strength and mercy.
See, it’s not strong people God uses; it is weak and sinful people who realize their weakness and throw themselves on God’s mercy!
Lesson 2: Don’t give the world a place to live in you
I’m kind of repeating myself a little here but Paul says "make no provision for the flesh." When we allow attitudes and values that are contrary to the revealed character of God to say unchallenged within us we are providing food for the flesh, not the Spirit.
Constantly examine what you listen to, watch; what your friends or teachers say, what you read, and the thoughts in your head, the words of your mouth, and the actions of your life.
I’m not speaking in a legalistic sense here, but Spiritually - literally identifying those things that God hates and tearing them down by the power of the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 10:3-6 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, ESV
