A Vacation from God
Judges 2:1-23, 21:25
• Every person in this building loves a vacation. This is summer time and vacations abound. It’s a time to rest, relax, and get away from the everyday pressures of life. This idea is to unwind and let what you are most comfortable with, take center stage. For instance, some take vacations & simply sit and read, others go camping, fishing, golf, sight-seeing, and the list goes on. The point is we take time to refuel (although today, many go so hard at the ‘pleasures’ of vacation that they have to come back and recoup from the pleasures – kind of weird).
• It’s kind of interesting, that some people take vacations WITH family while others take vacation FROM family. Consider that thought for just a second. Why would someone take a vacation FROM their family? The answer is ‘relationships.’ No one (purposely) goes ON vacation with a family member or a friend who causes them stress or other problems in their life.
• The title of this message is “Vacation from God” because as we will see in God’s word, the Jewish nation seemed to take a vacation from God when they could have vacationed with God. Years ago when I was a Music Minister, we had a man in the church who, when he went on vacation, would not consider attending worship. Even if he didn’t leave town, he would sit in his easy chair & take it easy and simply leave God out of his off time. Before we beat this man up, I have known others who go on vacation & have stayed within eye-sight of a church building, but they were on vacation so worshipping God was not done. Do we take God on vacation with us or leave Him out?
• As we read scripture & see the journey of the Jewish nation let us also see their journey through the lens of the United States of America (& we might find an application for the church).
• Let’s begin with Israel. God chose the Jewish Nation (Israel) as His own people!
• I submit that many in this room would have taken more permanent action had you been God and chosen this bunch of hard-heads, stiff-necked, arrogant, and self-serving people. Had I been God, things may have come out much different. After sending Moses & freeing them with those ten plagues – I would have become tired of hearing, “We would have been better off back in captivity!” I would have really quickly become tired of them attacking my man, Moses. My response would have probably been, “You really want to go back there? I can arrange that!” However, God didn’t and never will abandon His people. Make no mistake, God is serious about His people following Him and will send, shall I say, MOTIVATION for them to walk with Him.
• However, take a look at the progression & even results from taking a vacation from God;
1. It begins with DISOBEDIENCE. (V2) – God’s message to the Children of Israel was clear, “Obey me and I will take care of you”. God had provided them with extraordinary leaders in Moses and Joshua, had given them victories over their enemies, blessed them with a great land, and promised to stay with them always. However, God did have some rules – 10 of them to be exact. The first rule was THE MOST TESTING rule – “No Others Gods.” Walking in obedience is to have no other God in our lives. A god is anything which has first place in our lives. It can be sports, pleasure, job, family, etc – the list is endless. Taking a vacation from God means that you have, replaced God in your life. For the Children of Israel the issue was control, THEY wanted to control their own lives by doing things their own way. They felt like they ‘knew better’ than God so they chose their way over His thus, began their ‘vacation’ from Him. It seems they wanted a break – but it broke wrong.
2. Disobedience promotes Desertion (vs 12) – Verse 12 gives us a clear picture of this with the striking words – “They abandoned the Lord” and “They went after other gods.” When children come to the place that they are ‘too big’ to follow the instruction of their parents – they run off with the idea of doing their own things. They abandon or desert their parents for a while.
• This is a great illustration of how the COI (& us) respond to God when we want to take a vacation from Him. It’s rarely enough to walk away, most of the time, someone or something else becomes our object. Certainly this is true for the Children of Israel. It doesn’t stop there, it’s downward;
3. Desertion provokes Disaster (vs 14-15) – This is stunning! Verse 14 tells us “The anger of the Lord was KINDLED” (that means ‘ignited’) and verse 15 says, “The hand of the Lord was against them” and if that is not enough, He is against them ‘For Harm – as He warned them & sworn to them.” Ouch! For God, life isn’t a game – it is a blessing given to us by Him and for Him. He desired the best for the Children of Israel – and by the way, He KNEW the best for them, but they walked out.
4. Disaster precedes Disregard (vs 16-17) – God had not ceased calling His own (He rarely does), He had even given the people, called judges, to help them return to Him – but verses 16-17 paints a bleak picture for the COI! They wouldn’t listen to God’s messengers and continued to worship & serve the gods of their preference. The word ‘whored’ in our text is quite alarming. But it is a clear picture of God’s people taking up with another god (false) & submitting to Him. They have now come to the place where they totally disregarded the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob & Moses.
5. Disregard produces Destruction (vs 18-21) – This vacation from God is becoming very costly. (text) Many people believe that the worst things which can happen is for God to put His hand on them in discipline (like we have seen in this text), however what actually may be worse than God placing His hand ON us in discipline is God taking His protective hand OFF OF US. This is where their vacation had taken them – God was no longer running interference for them – which was critical.
6. Destruction prompts a Decision (v 22-23) – At this point, God left with them a decision to make. God did all of this to see, to try, & to test what decision they would make. God always leaves us with a decision. Will we try to take a vacation from God or will we vacation with Him. At the end of this chapter we see God’s people, the Nation of Israel, in a mess. Let’s draw a comparison.
• There has never been a greater, more blessed, & more prosperous nation than the USA. We should never have even been able to become an independent nation. To read history is to know that our forefathers were up-against incredible odds. While I have not read recent history books, I am told that history has been rewritten today – with the slant that God & belief in God had little or nothing to do with the establishment of this nation. If that is the case (& I don’t believe it to be so) they why do so many of our nations framers write words which point us to God’s word:
• The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. – John Adams
• In the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity. – John Quincy Adams
• Being a Christian… is a character which I prize far above all this world has or can boast. – Patrick Henry
• Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers – John Jay
• I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ. – Thomas Jefferson
• You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. – George Washington
• Just like the Children of Israel were blessed by God, freed by God, & led by God – so has been the USA. Just like the COI decided to take a vacation from God, it would seem, so have we.
• Look at the evidence. Fisher Ames is considered by many to be the author of the 1st Amendment which is the “Freedom of (not from) Religion”. Liberals tells us one thing while conservatives espouse something else. In the aftermath of the ratification of the constitution, schools began to use other books, along with the Bible, to teach children. One of the founding Fathers expressed concerned over this, it was Fisher Ames, “...we have a dangerous trend beginning to take place in our education....We've become accustomed of late to putting little books in the hands of children containing fables with moral lessons. We are spending less time in the classroom on the Bible, which should be the principle text in our schools. The Bible states these great moral lessons better than any other man made book.” Today, we have taken a vacation.
• The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by a Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy. It was officially recognized in 1942. But in 1942, the Pledge didn’t have the words “under God.” The words “under God” came to be in 1954. They were added to combat godless communism. See, in the early 50s, you had the time called McCarthyism and the rise of communism, and America wanted to make this statement, “We’re not like the godless communists, we are one nation under God.” Guess what? The country, in that day, embraced this truth, which is God’s truth. The USA has taken a vacation & we are witnesses to a decaying, disintegration, & dying culture.
• We had traded our “King (Jesus)” & our “God (Jehovah)” for the things of this world to the point that we are living out the entire book of Judges. Today, we may well be living out the last verse of Judges. (Judges 21:25) Our vacation from God has been costly in terms of morals, ethics, babies, families, children, & more. We may still be seen as a great nation, but the foundation is in need.
• The only way a nation, collectively, can take a vacation from God is if: God’s people, personally, vacate God. Have you taken a vacation from God? (Not from the church, but from Him. Have you ignored meeting with Him regularly (daily)? Has your prayer time just kind of slipped away? Have you put Him and His work in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or worse position in the priority of your life?
• Have you assumed an attitude of “If I have nothing else to do, I’ll attend corporate worship and Bible study? Have you taken a vacation from God?
• In the beginning of this message I mentioned that some people vacation with family while others vacation from family; have you considered what it means for those who vacation from family? It means that there is a relationship issue. I submit the same is true when we feel we have to take a vacation from God. If that is you, perhaps you find yourself like the “Prodigal Son” in Luke 15 who left home. Have you ever thought about it? He could have come home long before the pig pen? Sadly, He didn’t. He had to become desperate – to come to his senses, but the Father was watching, hoping, and praying – all the while for Him to come home.
• If you are on vacation from God – The Father continues His work, but He has one eye on the road watching, waiting, and wanting for you to come home. Will you?
