Entering into Judges. May we be purged and reformed.
A couple of weeks ago when I last spoke on the last few verses of Joshua, and the inheritance of three people and their descendants. Joshua, Joseph and Eleazer. However, there is this great summery of the journey into the promised land that comes in chapter 24, down to verse 13. This is a concise account given by God, yes the Lord himself from the time of Abraham’s father Terah until that day. Then Joshua says this, “So revere Jehovah and serve him in sincerity and truth. Put away forever the idols which your ancestors worshipped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Worship the Lord alone. But if you are unwilling to obey the Lord, then decide today whom you will obey. Will it be the gods of your ancestors beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites here in this land? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” And the people replied, “We would never forsake the Lord and worship other gods.” The reading ends (Joshua 24:14-16, NLT)
They then remained faithful to the Lord their God and everyone in the land had all they needed and they all lived happily ever after.
Well. If we look at the next book in the Bible, Judges, we see that there is certainly an issue with any likelihood of a fairytale existence, in reality, any type of peaceful future for the tribes of Israel. The whole first chapter is dedicated to God’s instruction to the go to war against the Canaanites. You may be thinking here that it’s a bit mean of God setting the Israelites on the Canaanites but remember these people were well off beat, to the point of sacrificing their children to their gods and this Israelite takeover was four hundred years in the planning. What happens is that God’s instructions are not followed through with by the Israelites, the Israelites go soft on those already in the land and allow them to live among them. This all takes place over a period of around 200 years from about 1200-1000 BC up until when Israel gets its first king. About the Judges, they were people, both men and women God had raised up to lead the people usually after an intense period of stupid, and this happened quite often. These Judges would be raised up by God when the Israelites came through periods of ignoring God, doing their own thing falling back into their old ways of worshipping foreign gods like those around them, who sacrificed their children to these gods. Yip, their children, to the Baals and Ashtoreths who were male and female fertility gods, who it was believed controlled the soil and the water, both necessary things if you want to have food to eat. Remember different times, if you didn’t grow it or hunt it you had to trade for it or pay for it somehow and it didn’t come in cans, or frozen or full of preservatives and there was no refrigeration. Hunger was often a very real issue. The Israelites hooked into their neighbour’s belief systems, were interested in these gods and worshipped them along with The Lord.
As a result there was a degrading of spiritual and moral values. Does this remind you of the Church and wider society in the modern age? Just thought I’d ask. The nation of Israel fell into a corrupted state with infighting and immoral practises, each person looked to their own interests. What was my last question? The scholars who know these things are firm in believing that the book of Judges was written as an historical record of actual events, soon after they occurred and some later editing. You could say an account of stupid did what stupid does and it was recorded as having occurred, maybe just as historical account. But it also can be seen as a warning of what can and usually occurs when people in this case a good part of a nation wander from God’s will for them. (ref: NIV Bible Commentary, IVP, 2005, ((Con Ed’s) D.A Carson, R,T France, J.A Motyer & G.J Wenham) pg. 262.) The book of Judges is an historical account of this extended family, how they had been warned to behave in a certain way by God but failed to respond to God’s direction. The result was that they found themselves for a good part of their history in deep, dire, dookie. Does this remind you of anything?
However, there is one judge who nails his role. Let’s have a look at him, Othniel. If you would like to open your bibles to, Judges 3:7-1. In the meantime I can give you a bit of a run down on Othniel, he had married Caleb’s daughter, Achsah for defeating the city of Debir. Remember Caleb to who God had given Hebron, Caleb who was one of the twelve spies but one of only two who believed that Israel could take the Promised land.
Back to Judges 3:7-11. “The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherah’s. 8 The anger of the LORD burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years. 9 But when they cried out to the LORD, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, who saved them. 10 The Spirit of the LORD came on him, so that he became Israel’s judge[b] and went to war. The LORD gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him. 11 So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died.”
In the Living Translation verse 11 finishes a little differently with; “But when Othniel died,…” There is a literary pause for thought.
So, we see the pattern that becomes the theme of Judges: Israel rebels, yip they are very stupid in thought and deed, God uses some of their neighbours who they were meant to have driven out and disciples them. They realise their sorry state and repent and plea to God for help, God sends a Judge to deliver them.
Othniel was from my reading of scripture one of the most successful leaders in the history of Israel, If I’ve done my sums right I think that the other leaders who were in keeping with him were kings Saul at 40 years, David had longer at 60 years , and Solomon 40 years. A lot of Israels kings only had between 1 and 10 years on the throne.
So how and what do we learn from Othniel? The key verse that we read is verse 10, “The Spirit of the LORD came on him, so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war.” or from the New Living translation; “The Spirit of The Lord took control of him and he reformed and purged Israel.”
Jesus tells us Christians; “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17).
The same Spirit, let me repeat this, the same Spirit that took control of Othniel, is the same Spirit that Jesus sent to his disciples at Pentecost, the same Spirit that was given by God when Peter and John placed their hands upon people in Samaria in Acts chapter 8. The same Spirit that has been with Christians through the ages, the same Spirit that I was baptised with at the age of 16, the same Spirit that is with many of you. With you so that you can win this spiritual war that is life, so that you can be a witness of the love and power of Jesus Christ, the redeeming sin defeating power of Jesus.
Commissioner Samuel Logan Brengle, who is now in Glory said this, "God chooses His own workmen, and it is the office of the Holy Spirit to call whom He will to preach the gospel. I doubt not He calls men to other employments for His glory, and would still more often do so, if men would but listen and wait upon Him to know His will.
He called Bezaleel and Aholiab to build the tabernacle. He called and commissioned the Gentile king, Cyrus, to rebuild Jerusalem and restore His chastised and humbled people to their own land. And did He not call Joan of Arc to her strange and wonderful mission?"
When we respond to God, and I mean courageously respond to God, like Othniel did, The Holy Spirit empowers us. You may be thinking, but God won’t want me, or with my past how can God use me?
If we look at the nation of Israel, throughout its history it has been and still is one extended dysfunctional family. Yip this family had, more than one crazy Uncle Bob.
But God used them a whole nation of dysfunctional people as his rescue plan. The Messiah, The Christ, Jesus was born out of a lineage disfunction, he himself God in flesh was born so that many would come to the realisation that they might also be set free. But beyond just freedom, they may know the power of God’s Spirit taking control of them so that they may be purged of their sins and their lives reformed.
We live in a time of everyone doing as they please, and how’s that working out for them? It will come right when they cry out, if they cry out to God.
My prayer is and I see a need for this now more than ever, when we see in our own society as they did in the book of Judges, stupidity and mayhem at work as “each does as they please” rather than like Joshua’s house, “serving the Lord.” My prayer is that the people of Tawa Corps will be a beacon for God, that light upon the hill as they commit to be filled with the Spirit of God and go to war.
Let’s pray.
Father as we are in the world but not of the world may we be filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus ask the Father that this may be so. Lord may we be among those seen in this your Salvation Army, at war, that your will be done and your kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven. That we may serve you and not turn away, that we may serve you that our lives and nation may know You because of our serve to you. Holy Spirit fill us we pray. Amen.
