Threads of Deliverance
Adopting a Pattern for Failure
Judges 2:10-23
5/3/09
INTRODUCTION
Hmmm! What do you think of when you hear the word cycle?
„X Tricycles?
„X Bicycles?
„X Unicycles?
or
„X Motorcycles?
„X Exercise cycles?
„X Toy Cycles?
or
„X Tandem Cycles?
„X Tandem Unicycles?
Or
„X Life Cycles of Plants?
„X Insects?
„X Fish?
„X Animals?
You may have thought of anyone of these things when you heard the word "cycle." But I am hoping that after today you will forever associate another word with "cycle" whenever you hear it. I am hoping that these two words become locked together in your thinking. I am hoping that whenever you hear the word "cycle," you will associate it with the Book of Judges.
T.S. Turn with me to Judges Chapter 2.
Judg 2:10-23
10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. 15 Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.
16 Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. 17 Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the LORD’s commands. 18 Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. 19 But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
20 Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, "Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. 22 I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did." 23 The LORD had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.
NIV
IN THE BOOK OF JUDGES WE DISCOVER CYCLE TO BE AVOIDED THAT LEADS TO A PATTERN OF FAILURE.
T.S. Signs we are in a "judges" cycle
I. Forgetting the Past 10
We are in a Judges cycle when we have forgotten our past and what God has already done.
The movie 50 first dates is about a women who had a brain injury that lead to a short term memory loss. See woke up everyday forgetting what had taking place the day before. The movie is filled with the challenges of building a relationship with a woman who never knows who you are.
Israel struggles with short term memory loss. As a people they too easily forget what has gone before and because of that their relationship with God is always affected.
We need to be people who . . .
A. Embrace your Deliverance story.
B. Share the story with others.
II. Looking Elsewhere for Answers 11-13
In the movie Yes Man. Carl Allen is at a standstill. No future... Until the day he enrolls into a personal development program based on a very simple idea: say yes to everything! But he discovers that saying yes to everything isn’t the answer.
We are in a Judges cycle when we are searching for answers elsewhere, saying yes to every spiritual idea.
A. Keep the Forgiver Central.
He is not a priority. He seeks to be central. Everything connected to him.
He is the Hub of our lives
„Ï We may be seeking peace through distractions
„Ï Change through self help
„Ï Directions through horoscopes
„Ï Fulfillment through fantasy
„Ï Self worth through spending.
„Ï Hope in a bottle
„Ï Ecstasy through a drug.
„Ï Distraction through television, sports, hobbies.
„Ï Answers through spiritual gurus.
B. Nurture the relationship
Being one of the "people" wasn’t enough. The next generation had no relationship. (10)
III. Facing the Cost of our Acts 14-15
There are three ways to end up in jail in Monopoly. Space on the board, cards in chance and community Chest and rolling doubles. But the ending up in Jail in monopoly is just a bad luck. It has nothing to do with how well or poorly you play the game. But life is no like monopoly. When difficulties come our way, often we have had a role to play in their occurrence.
We are in a Judges Cycle when we fail to see that our actions are causing much of the consequences we are facing.
We need to be people who
A. Acknowledge our Responsibility
Mike Williams expelled form Toccoa after the school gave him every chance to succeed, yet he blamed the school
B. Learn from the consequences
"A man was walking home one night, and he fell into a huge, 12 foot hole in the road.... This happened several nights, until he finally went down another road."
IV. Living in the Foxhole 15
A. Distressed, narrowed, stressed, at the breaking point.
B. Crying out in desperation
The statement, "There are no atheists in foxholes," is used to claim that in times of extreme stress or fear, such as when participating in warfare, even committed atheists will reach out to a higher power.
"The trouble with our praying is we just do it as a means of last resort."
--Will Rogers
We often find ourselves saying foxhole prayers, those that we say because there’s nothing left to do. But how much easier our lives would be if we could only remember to pray
Appl: Beware of reducing their relationship to fire insurance. God was merely the escape clause.
V. Diminishing Deliverance 16-19
We a tendency to take deliverance for granted.
At the YMCA as a kid you used to be able to buy a scoop of ice cream in the dinner for $.25. My mom used to give me a dime to take to Y for a snack.
One day I went to the dinner and I thought I had enough money for the ice cream, when I didn’t an elderly man sitting next to me paid for the ice cream that I couldn’t afford. He delivered me form the wrath of the waitress and I got to enjoy the ice cream. I thanked him and I was genuinely thankful. But do you know what I did next Friday.
I went into the dinner, sat next to an old man, intentionally ordered ice cream I couldn’t pay for expected he would bail me out.
When God has rescued us we have to be careful not to just turn around and do the same things that created the problem and just expect that he would deliver us again.
When we start thinking like that, we have fallen into a the "judges cycle"
SUMMARY
IN THE BOOK OF JUDGES WE DISCOVER CYCLE TO BE AVOIDED THAT LEADS TO A PATTERN OF FAILURE.
Have you begun to slide into the Judges Cycle? Are you. . .
Forgetting the Past 10
Looking Elsewhere for Answers 11-13
Facing the Cost of our Acts 14-15
Living in the Foxhole 15
Diminishing Deliverance 16-19
Things never changed in the book of Judges because people never broke free of the pattern of failure. Do you need to break free of this pattern?
Breaking free is accomplished through the power of confession. Confession admitting what God already knows is true. If you see that you are trapped in a Judges cycle, we’d like to pray with you.
As we sing this last song, some of the elders and wives are waiting at the front. Join one of them in prayer and take the first step in breaking free.
