Judges 2:11-23

Almost getting as tall as me. Yeah, right. Well, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions today We're gonna be in Joshua Joshua. It's gonna take me a while tonight do that Judges judges chapter 2 we're gonna be looking at verses 11 through 23 and 11 through 23 about what happens after Joshua dies. Let's just say Don't go. Well, let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word Wow, you all feel very strongly about your coffee. Okay, well, you know, I forgot my tablet out there, and I also forgot my glasses, so we'll see how this goes.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. And we pray that you would please help us as we read this morning, that you would please teach us, instruct us in your ways. Let us follow after you, in Jesus's name, amen.
All right, Judges, chapter two. Why don't I read, I'll read the first paragraph, you can read the second, and then I'll read the third, sound good? Yes. So I'll read 11 through 15. You can read 16 through 19 and I'll read 20 through 23. Does that sound fair? You want to read two and I'll read one? No. Oh, okay.
Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them. and they bowed down to them. And they provoked Jehovah to anger. They forsook Jehovah and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. And the anger of Jehovah was hot against Israel, so he delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them. And he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went out, the hand of Jehovah was against them for calamity, as Jehovah had said, and as Jehovah had sworn to them, and they were greatly distressed.
Nevertheless, nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods and bowed down with them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved by pity. to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. And it came to pass when the judge was dead that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers by following other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.
Sorry, I'm underlining something in my Bible. I can see that. Then the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. And he said, Because this nation has transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not heeded my voice, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died. So that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of Jehovah to walk in them as their fathers kept them or not. Therefore Jehovah left those nations without driving them out immediately, nor did he deliver them into the hand of Joshua." Okay, so we need to ask ourselves our three questions. What is this about? B? What's the best verse to summarize? And C? What are we called to do? Oh, so what are the a-ash-ash-ashtor-ashtori? Astros, yeah, so good question.
So there's a little bit of Canaanite mythology to understand here, right? So in this part of the region, it was largely a fertility cult, right? Meaning that men and women having sex and having babies was very similar to putting a seed in the ground and the earth giving birth to plants, right? And so you had the god of thunder, And rain, Baal, and he's the one who brings the- Baal was very popular. Yeah, Baal was very popular, right? And then you have Ashtoreth, and Ashtoreth is the goddess of fertility, right? And so- And this is Ashtoreth. So Ashtoreth is plural. So Asherah is the goddess, Asteriths is the plural.
So meaning there were lots of little idols of this all over the place, right? So they're bowing down. And so especially in Asteriths, there would be a wooden pole that they would set up. The Asherah poles, right? And so it was largely a fertility cult. And so the people are Committing both, it's sin, it's idolatry, but it's spiritual adultery is how the Lord sees it, right? You would rather bow down and serve these fertility gods, the God of thunder and the God of almost like Mother Earth type stuff.
It had all sorts of abominable stuff that would go with it, right? We don't need to go down that road right now. But it's a good question. Well, it's shameful things to talk about, right? The things that they would do is what the New Testament talks about with like the temple of Aphrodite. Right. And so it's people would have like harlotry, like prostitution things at the at these temple sites. So it's a lot of sexual immorality involved with this as well.
Yeah, so it's an ugly world that this is talking about, and that's what the people are engaging in. So let's go ahead and talk about A, what's this about? What do you think? The people serving false gods. Okay, yeah. And God bringing judges for them, but then them not listening. Yeah, yeah, good.
So this is really a really, really key whole section for the book of Joshua to understand, for the book of Joshua, for the book of Judges. Why do I say that? So it describes the pattern and why the pattern's happening. The Lord's led them into the promised land, and instead of keeping covenant with the Lord, new generation raises up and they don't know the Lord they don't remember any of being redeemed out of Egypt and they don't remember the Wilderness and they don't remember the conquest and as they forget about all those things so this is This is a new generation and those are the people with Joshua are the ones that that are the sons of the guys who died in the desert because they didn't believe.
Correct. But then this is a new generation. Yeah, so this would be like the grandkids. Yeah, good, good. Man, you're good at this, right? And so those people. So this is his grandkid might be in there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah, actually he is. Or maybe Greek. Yeah. And so, uh, yeah, so there's, uh, so the, the Lord's angry at this. Right.
And so how does the Lord treat them because of this? Well, he delivers them over to the hands of the plunders who despoiled them. Right. So they, they had spoiled their enemies and now their enemies are coming back and taking it back away from them. Right. And so he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around spoiled, like the spoils of war.
Okay. Cause cause like in, This time it spoiled us and like gave them a bunch of stuff. No. Yeah. Yeah. Not like you spoil your grandkids. Right. This this this is like, you know, you go to war and you capture your enemies lands and you take the things of their households and of their lands. Right. Well, now their enemies have come back and they're taking back what was taken from them. Plus more. Yeah, right, so this is back and forth, right? Interestingly though, this is so crazy.
You would think that the Lord would just, you know, okay, you forsook my covenant, I'm just gonna destroy you and that's it, right? We're over, right? Moses is dead, Joshua is dead, get out of the way, I'm gonna destroy all of you guys. Moses asked him not to and he said he wouldn't.
Yeah, so what what happens? What's what's kind of the cycle that seems to come to be described? That's what's going to happen here. They forsake. God sends a judge. They. Well, they forsake. God hands them over to their enemies and then sends a judge. Well, they cry out to him. They cry out to them. He sends a judge, the judge. They don't. They may have listened to the judge a little while and then they're like, Yeah, this is going to describe a couple hundred years, right?
The Book of Judges is going to go through a couple hundred years of history of this cycle of, you know, going towards the idols, God giving them into the hands of their enemies, them crying out to the Lord, the Lord hearing them, having pity on them, sending them a judge to give them relief.
They follow the Lord for a while, and then what do they do? They go back to their idolatry, right? And so it's just interesting to me that in verse 18, and when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of all their enemies, the days of the judge, for the Lord was moved to pity by their groanings because those who oppressed them and harassed them. So it's interesting, even though they're faithless, the Lord remains faithful. And so when they, if they, kill the judge because they don't want to listen to him anymore. They're right back into slavery again. Yeah, well, we'll get we'll get to the explicit examples of the judges, right? But interestingly, it's like this. Yeah, right.
So the title of the book is Judges in Hebrew is Shippatim. And so which just write those who are judging to look at your Bible enough. You just have Hebrew on the Hebrew and Greek. Yeah, I have I have all sorts of weird languages written all over my Bible.
That's true. You know, I don't have any Spanish written in my Bible, but I do have a Spanish Bible on my on my shelf over there. I can't read Spanish. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'll blow English. So you're just teaching us Greek. Yep, just teaching in Greek. Some people know Spanish far better than I do. Okay.
So in verse 20 through 22, though, notice the anger of the Lord that was hot with Israel, right? They were stubborn. They keep doing sin. And why is he angry? Because the nations had transgressed. The nation, right? Israel had transgressed his covenant, which I commanded their fathers and has not heeded my voice.
But why does he keep doing this? Notice the whole point of all of this. Look at verse 22. Why do you keep allowing them to go into the hands of their enemies? So that he can become an ironsmith. What do you mean by that? A silversmith. Why do you say that? Yeah, he's testing them. But this oppression was meant to bring out the fact that they realized these gods aren't the gods we should be serving. He's refining them and bringing them back to himself.
But he's also sometimes what he finds out is that there are a whole bunch of people who are in Israel that aren't truly Israelites. They don't actually follow Jehovah. They'd rather serve the Baals and the Asherahs. There's probably ones that are born not Israelites. Maybe their dad or mom is an Israelite. Well, there may be some proselytes or maybe even some who had Egyptian fathers and Israelite mothers. Maybe there are some of those.
But what I'm saying is, example, in Christian households, right? You guys might have been baptized into the church, right? But does that guarantee you guys are Christians? Does it give you every opportunity to be? But it's up to you guys, right? Like you guys have your own volition, you have your own will, you have your own life, you have your own heart. Can I give you faith? Can I make you read the Bible so much that just because I really, really want you to and I yell at you enough and manipulate you enough and you're going to do family worship and be a Christian. You're going to do all the things and you're going to guaranteed to be a Christian.
Is that how it works? No, you can move out of my house and do whatever you want. Right? I mean, that's your choice. That's between you and the Lord. And so, that's what the Lord is doing. You're hoping we'll become Christians, but... Yeah, I hope you are. Right? I hope you are. But I don't have regeneration goggles. I can't see into your soul. All I can do is trust what comes out of your mouth. And so we, right, this is what the Lord is doing generation after generation in the book of Judges.
Are they actually going to follow me? Will they love me? Put them through the fire? Will they call on him? Will they turn to him? They call on him, they turn to him. They look good. And then he finds out there are a couple of bugs. Yeah, the sad thing is this often sounds like my heart. I think it sometimes sounds like all of our hearts. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what we're called to right. Recognizing that we can't stand as judges over the judges. We can't we can't act with pride like we like we're so much better than these people. It's only by God's grace that any of us are saved. The best verse?
Well, I don't know why I didn't have anything. I just had verse 11 underlined in my Bible beforehand. But as we were reading, I underlined 14, 16, 18, 20, and 22. But I had all sorts of notes on the side saying what was most important, but I hadn't actually underlined. But you, what would you underline if you thought there was one verse that would best summarize this section? Probably 16 and 17 All right, well, let's go ahead and last see calling you're gonna walk out of this room You're just gonna be a hero or a doer and if you're gonna be a doer what are you called to do?
As I show you Jesus Christ Testing us Thanks be to God. It's easy for us to write people off, isn't it? His covenant love endures forever. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He tests us, but he's given us faith. You didn't have to go make me cry this morning. You ready to pray? Yep. God, thank you so much. We're not perfect. Lord, you know the idols of our heart. We see it is. To love our ways and to love the things of this world. You know the sinful things we think and feel. The ways we want to go after whatever we desire.
God, forgive us for how fickle we could be. Thank you for sending us your son. Thank you, Lord, that you have secured salvation for us. Lord, turn us away from the idols of our hearts. Turn us towards you. May we be found to have a faith that comes by you, and a faith that strives to put away the sinful things of our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen. May the Lord bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace that comes from Jesus Christ. See you next time. Bye.