NATIONAL SIN, DISCIPLINE, AND DELIVERANCE
(Judges 2:11-20; Lev. 26:14-39))
[HTTP formatted version of this sermon is located at
http://members.aol.com/abidingitw/national.html]
Today we’ll look at the topic of national sin, God’s discipline of a nation, and His deliverance when they confess their sin. We’ll look at this topic through an overview of the book of Judges, but first, let’s place this book into where it falls in Old Testament history.
Genesis - Eternity to 1805 B.C. (death of Joseph)
Exodus - 1876 B.C. to 1445 B.C.
Leviticus - No chronology.
Numbers - 1445 B.C. to 1406 B.C. (Moses writings)
Deuteronomy - 1406 B.C.
Joshua - 1406 B.C. to 1385 B.C.
Judges/Ruth - 1385 B.C. to 1050 B.C.
1 Samuel - 1100 B.C. to 1010 B.C.
2 Samuel - 1010 B.C. to 975 B.C.
1 Kings - 970 B.C. to 853 B.C. (death of Ahab)
2 Kings - 853 B.C. to 586 B.C. (Babylonian captivity)
Chronicles - From Adam to 539 B.C.
Ezra - 539 B.C. to 457 B.C.
Nehemiah - 445 B.C. to 444 B.C.
Malachi - 444 B.C. to 400 B.C.
When the book of Judges begins, the people of Israel are inhabiting the land that God gave them during their military battles in the prior book of Joshua. God had led them out of Egypt, and gave them a land “flowing with milk and honey”:
Joshua 5:6 For the sons of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, {that is,} the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished because they did not listen to the voice of the LORD, to whom the LORD had sworn that He would not let them see the land which the LORD had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. (NAS)
In addition to having a new land at this time, Israel also has a constitution. This is the law which had been given to them by God through Moses on Mt. Sinai. The law prescribed what they were to do and not do socially, legally, and spiritually.
The period of the Judges was about 335 years, from 1385 BC until 1050 BC. The Israelites had no king and were not ruled by any human authority. They were a loose confederation of tribes gathered around their central shrine, the Ark Of The Covenant. God was their leader, and resided in the Ark as the Shekinah Glory, a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.
But the Israelites continually disobeyed God, and worshipped false gods instead. The Bible tells us that “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6). This sounds a lot like what many people do today, because we are no different than the Israelites. We should never read about the evil they did and say, “I never would have done that!” Chances are that most of us in that same situation would have acted the same.
The judges were not legal judges as we understand them today. They were more like strong military leaders who delivered the people from oppression. They didn’t rule over all of Israel, but only in the region were God raised them up. They were strong, charismatic leaders who would rally and organize the people to defeat their enemy. These judges were not particularly spiritual men, and we see a lot of their weaknesses as we read about what they did.
There were 12 judges mentioned in this book. Some judges such as Shamgar and Tola are only mentioned briefly in the Bible. Others are shown to us in great detail, the three most famous being Samson, Gideon, Deborah. But as a fan of action-adventure films, one of my personal favorite judges is the dagger-carrying Ehud. Their stories are some of the most interesting in the Bible, and show us that despite our personal weaknesses and struggles with sin, God can still use us in a mighty way.
The book of Judges covers a chaotic time for Israel, between the death of Joshua, and the establishment of the first king of Israel, King Saul. The author of this book is unknown, but it is believed to have been written during the time of King Saul or King David. It was a time of political instability and great sin.
Without a strong spiritual leader such as Moses or Joshua to lead them, the Israelites repeated a pattern over and over again through the Scriptures, and we see it a lot in the book of Judges:
- Israel does evil by worshipping false gods;
- God uses an enemy nation to judge Israel;
- In great oppression, the people cry out to God for help;
- God gives them a leader, a judge, to help deliver them;
- The enemy nation is defeated;
- The people return to faithfulness and security, only to eventually repeat this same pattern again.
To see this process in action, we don’t have to look any further into the book of Judges than ten verses in the second chapter. In these verses, we’ll see a pattern of: (1) national sin, (2) God’s discipline, and (3) God’s grace and deliverance when His people confess their sin and return to Him. Let’s study Judges chapter 2, verses 11-20.
(1) NATIONAL SIN
First, we’ll look at Israel’s sin in Judges 2:11-13:
Judges 2:11-13
11 Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals,
12 and they forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from {among} the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the LORD to anger.
13 So they forsook the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.
We see in these verses that Israel commits evil by the sin of idolatry. They serve other gods, not the God of Israel who has delivered them from Egypt and given them the land they are in. Israel did not get into this situation overnight, but through a series of compromises, where they knew what God wanted but chose to do things their own way.
Liberal theology and religion always do this. They first question what God says, reject it ultimately, then decide to follow what they think is a “better idea”. Every denomination is plagued by such people. Their real intention in using open discussion is not to come to an understanding of the truth through shared dialogue. Rather, it is to cast doubt on the Bible as being God’s infallible Word, and to get others to reject what is taught there (as they themselves have already done but may not admit!).
In these verses, we see that the people of Israel “followed other gods from {among} the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them”. The false gods they served were those of the Canaanites who lived among them, but this would never have occurred had the Jews earlier done something God had commanded them. In the book of Joshua, when Israel was taking the land, God had told them to destroy the people who were there. We see a reference to this in Psalm 106:34-36:
Ps 106:34-36
34 They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them,
35 But they mingled with the nations, and learned their practices,
36 And served their idols, which became a snare to them.
Had Israel done what God commanded, the influence of their pagan gods and practices would have been wiped out. However, they questioned God, as I’ve seen so many Christians do today. I’ve sat in Bible studies and have seen the reaction myself when we get to passages where God is telling the Israelites to kill every man, woman, and child.
I’ve seen the person who gets visibly upset, starts making faces and acting “huffy”, all arrogant with their nose up in the air, and saying something like, “Well, I have a real problem with that! How can a loving God just kill everybody like that? Why would God tell them to kill even the children? I don’t believe God would do that!”
This is how compromise often starts. Believers react emotionally against God’s word. They question it, doubt it, and then ultimately disbelieve it and find a way to rationalize it away. They turn to their own human solutions, which ultimately lead them to suffering, which they then find a way to blame a “loving God” for!
When God tells us to do something and we don’t understand all the reasons why, this is where our faith gets tested. Do we do what God says anyway because we trust Him, or do we turn away from God and go our own way?
When parents forbid a child to do something the child thinks will be fun, it isn’t because we don’t want our kids to have any fun! Parents know and understand things that children don’t, like playing in the street can get you hit by a car! A mature child obeys parents out of trust, out of love, knowing that the parents have good reasons for what they say, even if the child doesn’t know or understand what those reasons are.
Likewise, a mature believer knows that God has good reasons for commanding us to do or avoid certain things, even if we don’t know or understand why.
In the case of God telling the Israelites to totally destroy all of the Canaanites, their idols, and their worship places, we can find good reasons if we investigate their culture and practices.
The Canaanites were one of the most evil, perverse, idolatrous people ever to pollute this earth. They worshipped many false gods, and their worship of them included human sacrifice of their children and every perverse sexual practice imaginable.
To give you just a small idea of Canaanite religion, I’ll describe in the most careful terms I can, what a worship ritual of Baal was like. The place itself usually had a statue of Baal, who was a small fat man sitting on top of a furnace. There was also a statue of a female god, and a large wooden part of the male anatomy.
The statue of Baal was made out of metal, and during the worship ritual, the fire underneath the furnace was constantly kept as hot and as big as possible. The hands of the metal Baal statue were outstretched, and because of the intense heat in the furnace, would get red hot. During the worship ritual, the people would sing and dance and engage in every sexual perversion imaginable. At the height of their excitement, the people would sacrifice their own children to Baal. Sometimes this was done by laying them on the red hot, outstretched hands of the Baal statue, and sometimes the children were thrown directly into the furnace. While their children screamed and burned, their parents would work themselves into more and more sexual frenzy to the sounds of their dying children.
This is why God wanted the Canaanites destroyed. The death of the adults was righteous judgment for the intense evil they had willingly committed. The deaths of the children would have sent them to heaven and spared them the same evil and judgment their parents had chosen. Ultimately, the death of the Canaanite people would have protected the Israelites from the temptations of this religious evil. However, because the Israelites did not obey God, in Judges chapter 2 we see God’s own people engaging in the same horrendous practices that were part of the Canaanite idolatry.
We see this mentioned in Psalm 106:37-39:
Psalm 106:37-39
37 They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons,
38 And shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with the blood.
39 Thus they became unclean in their practices, and played the harlot in their deeds.
(2) GOD’S DISCIPLINE
So I describe these things to emphasize the point that we should trust God, remember that even though He is all-loving, God is also all-just. When He makes what we might think is a harsh judgment upon a people, He is just and righteous in doing so.
For their great sin of practicing Canaanite idolatry, we read of God’s divine discipline of Israel in Judges 2:14-15:
Judges 2:14-15
14 And the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around {them,} so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.
15 Wherever they went, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the LORD had spoken and as the LORD had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed.
When a nation turns against God, there is divine discipline that He uses to bring the people back to Him. In these verses, God allowed the enemies of Israel to burn, plunder, and sell them into slavery.
We see another mention of God’s discipline in Psalm 106:40-43:
Ps 106:40-43
40 Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against His people, and He abhorred His inheritance.
41 Then He gave them into the hand of the nations; and those who hated them ruled over them.
42 Their enemies also oppressed them, and they were subdued under their power.
43 Many times He would deliver them; they, however, were rebellious in their counsel, and {so} sank down in their iniquity.
Such divine discipline was warned by God to Israel in verses such as Leviticus chapter 26.
5 CYCLES OF NATIONAL DISCIPLINE
In Leviticus 26, verses 3-13, God tells Israel the blessings He will bestow upon the nation if the people “walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them”. However, in verses 14-39, God then tells Israel the national discipline that will occur to them if the people “will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments”.
There are 5 basic cycles of discipline, each progressively worse, that will occur to the nation for continued rejection of God’s will:
1st Cycle (Lev. 26:14-17) - terror, illness and disease, loss of agriculture, death in combat, loss of personal freedom to enemies, and fear, due to negativity towards God’s Word.
Lev 26:14-17
14 ’But if you do not obey Me and do not carry out all these commandments,
15 if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul abhors My ordinances so as not to carry out all My commandments, {and} so break My covenant,
16 I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you a sudden terror, consumption and fever that shall waste away the eyes and cause the soul to pine away; also, you shall sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies shall eat it up.
17 ’And I will set My face against you so that you shall be struck down before your enemies; and those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when no one is pursuing you. (NAS)
2nd Cycle (Lev. 26:18-20) - loss of national power over other nations, more severe failure of agriculture through drought and famine, for continued neglect of God’s Word after the first warning.
Lev 26:18-20
18 ’If also after these things, you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
19 ’And I will also break down your pride of power; I will also make your sky like iron [no rain] and your earth like bronze [no growth].
20 ’And your strength shall be spent uselessly, for your land shall not yield its produce and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.
3rd Cycle (Lev. 26:21-22) - rebellion of animals against man by attacks especially against children and cattle, resulting in reduction of population and loss of mobility through travel.
Lev. 26:21-22
21 ’If then, you act with hostility against Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will increase the plague on you seven times according to your sins.
22 ’And I will let loose among you the beasts of the field, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your cattle and reduce your number so that your roads lie deserted.
4th Cycle (Lev. 26:23-26) - Military conquest and/or foreign occupation, pestilence, severe scarcity of food.
Lev. 26:23-26
23 ’And if by these things you are not turned to Me, but act with hostility against Me,
24 then I will act with hostility against you; and I, even I, will strike you seven times for your sins.
25 ’I will also bring upon you a sword which will execute vengeance for the covenant; and when you gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you, so that you shall be delivered into enemy hands.
26 ’When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread in rationed amounts, so that you will eat and not be satisfied.
5th Cycle (Lev. 26:27-39) - Destruction of the nation, including cannibalism, destruction of property, loss of life, cities destroyed and land laid waste, people dispersed into other lands, fear and paranoia of your enemies, death in enemy hands, all due to maximum rejection of Biblical principles.
Lev. 26:27-39
27 ’Yet if in spite of this, you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me,
28 then I will act with wrathful hostility against you; and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins.
29 ’Further, you shall eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters you shall eat.
30 ’I then will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and heap your remains on the remains of your idols; for My soul shall abhor you.
31 ’I will lay waste your cities as well, and will make your sanctuaries desolate; and I will not smell your soothing aromas.
32 ’And I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled over it.
33 ’You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.
34 ’Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.
35 ’All the days of {its} desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it.
36 ’As for those of you who may be left, I will also bring weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf will chase them and even when no one is pursuing, they will flee as though from the sword, and they will fall.
37 ’They will therefore stumble over each other as if {running} from the sword, although no one is pursuing; and you will have {no strength} to stand up before your enemies.
38 ’But you will perish among the nations, and your enemies’ land will consume you.
39 ’So those of you who may be left will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies; and also because of the iniquities of their forefathers they will rot away with them. (NAS)
(3) GOD’S GRACE AND DELIVERANCE
The good news that we see in Judges as we see in so many other places in the Bible, is that God in His grace is always ready to deliver His people when they confess their sin and return to Him. We see this over and over again, so many times, with Israel in the Old Testament. God used judges as one way to accomplish this. We see this in Judges 2:16-20:
Judges 2:16-18
16 Then the LORD raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them.
17 And yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the LORD; they did not do as {their fathers}
18 And when the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them.
God gave Israel many judges to lead and deliver them from their enemies. Then Israel would eventually stop listening to the judges and once again sin against God, who would again use their enemies to discipline them. But God was always with the judge, and would faithfully show grace and mercy to His people when they obeyed His word.
We see another mention of this in Psalm 106:44-46:
Psalm 106:44-46
44 Nevertheless He looked upon their distress, when He heard their cry;
45 And He remembered His covenant for their sake, and relented according to the greatness of His lovingkindness.
46 He also made them {objects} of compassion in the presence of all their captors. (NAS)
As believers, we live in a nation today where there is widespread rejection of God. Most of the unbelieving world reject salvation through Jesus Christ. Most of the Church accepts varying degrees of compromise leading to apostasy.
GOD’S PROVISION FOR THE RIGHTEOUS
What can we personally do? The Bible teaches that God always provides for believers who faithfully follow Him. God found a way to spare eight believers and at least two of every species of animal when He wiped out all other life on earth with a flood.
In the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah, we see that God would have spared those entire cities in Genesis 18:23-33 if Abraham had found only 10 righteous believers.
Genesis 18:23-33
23 And Abraham came near and said, "Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
24 "Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt Thou indeed sweep {it} away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it?
25 "Far be it from Thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are {treated} alike. Far be it from Thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?"
26 So the LORD said, "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account."
27 And Abraham answered and said, "Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am {but} dust and ashes.
28 "Suppose the fifty righteous are lacking five, wilt Thou destroy the whole city because of five?" And He said, "I will not destroy {it} if I find forty-five there."
29 And he spoke to Him yet again and said, "Suppose forty are found there?" And He said, "I will not do {it} on account of the forty."
30 Then he said, "Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak; suppose thirty are found there?" And He said, "I will not do {it} if I find thirty there."
31 And he said, "Now behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord; suppose twenty are found there?" And He said, "I will not destroy {it} on account of the twenty."
32 Then he said, "Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there?" And He said, "I will not destroy {it} on account of the ten."
33 And as soon as He had finished speaking to Abraham the LORD departed; and Abraham returned to his place. (NAS)
In Genesis chapter 45, we read of how God used one man, Joseph, to deliver an entire nation.
Gen 45:4-8
4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Please come closer to me." And they came closer. And he said, "I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.
5 "And now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.
6 "For the famine {has been} in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.
7 "And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance.
8 "Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt. (NAS)
God can spare and bless our nation if at least a small number of believers are faithful to His word. A small group of mature believers who confess their sins, study His word, and walk in His commands, can be a “pivot” upon which the destiny of this country is decided. We can say “yes” to God and “no” to the evil and compromise that surrounds us, or suffer the fate that Israel often did, mentioned in verses such as Judges 2:19-20:
Judges 2:19-20
19 But it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways.
20 So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He said, "Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to My voice, (NAS)
Copyright (c) 2000, Frank J. Gallagher
Abiding In The Word
http://members.aol.com/abidingitw
All materials are written by me and are copyrighted. These materials may be freely copied and distributed for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and my copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold nor used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. God the Holy Spirit freely provides this knowledge in grace, and so do I. My copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.
