34. Ablazing Grace: The Judges And Jesus

father in heaven we love you and thank you for your goodness and mercy be with us now as we turn our attention to the text you've ministered to us in a children's story you've ministered to us in the song service and the offerings and the announcements and the preparation for the knocked-over and we ask now that as we turn our attention to the text especially today the book of Judges illumine our minds and our hearts we ask in the name of Jesus let everyone say Amen all right turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Judges and I want to thank Jared for doing a great job last week for orienting us to the book of Judges and taking us through the experience of Deborah and barrack and HUD right you did a great job Jared really enjoyed that today we're going to talk about the judges and Jesus the judges and Jesus and I'm gonna get I'm gonna continue what Jared began last week in fact we'll have next week will be our third and final sermon on the judges and it will be our final sermon on the land and so we're coming we're really moving through the text and we find now that the Israelites are in a situation at least theoretically to fulfill the Covenant promise that God had made to Abraham to give them land and descendants they have descendants now numbering in the hundreds of thousands and they have begun under Joshua to occupy the lands and we find ourselves now in the book of Judges we'll spend most of our time surveying the book of Judges I had planned to give a sermon just on the experience of Gideon but I found that to be impossible and you'll find out why in just a moment first of all let's start with the sort of simple analysis of the book of Judges there are no high points in Judges there are only less low points okay in many ways this is the lowest point in all of Scripture at least from a literary perspective at this point there's very little anticipation or hope of Messiah you don't have as you will later in Israel and Judah apostasy the great prophecies of Daniel or of Isaiah at this point in Israel's history they have been commissioned to occupy the land they have done so sort of quasi ish and we find ourselves in a book that consists of 21 chapters that are almost impossible to read now I recognize that there are 66 books in the Bible and all of them are inspired but if we're ever going to understand the book of Judges we're going to have to understand a simple point and that is this in the Bible we encounter two different kinds of stories you can turn those lights down as low as you can mate if you can't turn them down at all that's fine we encounter two different kinds of stories in Scripture we encounter descriptive and prescriptive stories okay descriptive and prescriptive the first kind descriptive are just exactly what it sounds like these are simply accounts or stories or narratives where the author is describing what happened the book of Judges is filled with descriptive stories in fact there are as Jared pointed out last week horrific terrible unmentionable kinds of things that happen in the book of Judges and yet all of this is recorded in the Word of God but this is an important point not every account not every story and not every narrative that's recorded in the Word of God is designed to serve as a model or an example for us on how to act some of the stories in fact all of the stories with just a couple exceptions in the book of Judges are simply descriptions of what happened not the second kind of story prescriptions about what should be happening if you go to a doctor he or she might give you a prescription that prescription could be maybe some kind of a medication or it could be an exercise regime or telling you to stay away from certain kinds of foods he or she is not saying well you know I'm going to describe how you have been acting he will be saying I'm going to prescribe how you should be acting and the Bible also has many prescriptive stories when we hear about Daniel praying even under threat of persecution and being thrown into the Lions Den that not only describes what happened historically it prescribes a behavioral pattern for us when we hear about Shadrach Meshach and Abednego going bound to the fiery furnace that's not only describing an historical narrative that's prescribing for us a way to live a way to act it's giving us a moral compass okay the book of Judges is completely vacuous are almost completely vacuous of anything like a moral compass what we encounter is 21 chapters story after story after story narrative after narrative after narrative passage after passage after passage that are not telling us how to behave in fact there is some horrific heinous almost unreadable material in the book of Judges why is it there then what purpose in the Canon in Scripture does the book of Judges serve well it certainly isn't a prescriptive purpose to tell us how to behave and how to act to give us some kind of a moral compass it's there in a descriptive fashion to let us know what happens when people do not obey and live in accordance with the standards that God has given to them the moral code now what I want to do is just walk you through briefly the first 12 chapters of the book of Judges because what we do is we encounter a number of judges now the judges were basically like quasi rulers in Israel after the passing of the baton from Moses to Joshua and then Joshua to the judges we encounter a series of like I guess what you could describe almost as warlords not all of them were warlike people certainly Deborah wasn't but for the most part we encounter warlords whose job was to physically militarily deliver even territorially deliver Israel from the encroachments of a number of groups of people but including the Canaanite peoples that had been supposedly extirpated from the land God had said utterly destroy and if not destroy utterly dispossessed but that dispossession as it says in judges chapter 1 was incomplete it was incomplete and Jared brought that point out and so what ends up happening when we get to the book of Judges is we find the children of Israel resting on their laurels complacent and willing as it were to coexist with the Canaanites this was the very thing that God was most concern and so what ends up happening in judges as we encounter a series of warlords as those nations some new like the Midianites and others new to Canaan and others like the Canaanites that had been there before that had been driven out as they encroach increasingly on Israel these judges would drive them back and then they would encroach still further and the judges would drive them back and the judges that we encounter are for example auth Neil is the first judge fascinatingly he's Caleb's younger brother of Joshua and Caleb Fame and then the Bible says that the land was given rest for 40 years and I'm just gonna point these times out you'll see why in a second then Jared talked to us about HUD and the land had rest for 80 years ie HUD was followed by a guy named Shamgar we know basically nothing about him there's a single verse in the Bible we don't know how many years shet Shamgar was a judge followed by de Bora who Jarrod spoke about last week the land had rest for 40 years following her ministry or her position as judge then Gideon that's where we find ourselves today and Gideon judged Israel for 40 years after Gideon we come to the illegitimate son of Gideon a guy by the name of Abimelech who actually ends up killing all of Gideon's 70 sons so I put a question mark up there you can't really consider this guy a judge what he is it's an absolute catastrophe then we encounter Tola he judged Israel for 23 years junior or Jer judged Israel for 22 years Jephthah judged Israel for 60 years three to go here in the early judges M zan judged Israel for seven years Ilan judged Israel for 10 and abdon finally judged Israel for eight years this gets us up to the time of Samson who are going to talk about next week now this just gives us a sense of scope and I did this for my own purposes and I thought I would pass it on to you to give us sort of an idea of time how much time is transpiring here and relative to the amount of time for example that Israel was under Moses 40 years or under Joshua approximately 40 years Israel was under the judges for at least the earlier judges you notice I've put here from off Neill to abdon is at least 250 years and as many as 300 plus and that doesn't even get us out of the experience of the judges we still then have Samson and there's a number of judges that follow Samson so by my calculations and I checked a few commentaries on this as well the book of Judges fans like almost half a millennium I mean this is a giant period in Israel's history but it's not only giant in terms of its length it is an absolutely catastrophic period and I was assigned today by myself to preach on Gideon but I found that almost impossible because I have a sermon that I've preached before on Gideon and I wrote it years ago and I thought oh this would be a piece of cake I'll just preach my sermon on Gideon the problem was is that I went back and I actually read the book of Judges through in its context of the flow of the narrative from the writings of Moses into Joshua and then into judges and the tenor of my sermon on John Gideon which is a feel-good God can use 300 God doesn't need 32,000 he doesn't need 10,000 God can do it through 300 the problem is is that that feel-good rah-rah rally the troops sermon does not really fit with the basic tenor of the book of Judges when you read the thing through its like low point low point lower point still lower point still lower point there's only one sort of Mount Kosciuszko in the whole book of Judges and it is the high point but it's a fairly modest high point if I do say so myself and that's that that's the book of Gideon or the the story of Gideon and I just couldn't bring myself this morning to stand up and preach about Mount Kosciuszko as if it was Mount Everest I hope you'll forgive me for that what I want to do is show why the book of Judges is the way that it is and so join me in judges chapter 2 I have no idea what I'm gonna talk about next week awesomely it's going to be on Samson but I couldn't find anything good to say about him either really so we'll see what happens all right judges chapter 2 join me there verse 1 says then the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to botch him and said I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land which I swore to your father's and I said I will never break my covenant with you that's a key phrase there my covenant that language of my covenant comes straight out of Exodus Leviticus numbers Deuteronomy and Joshua notice the language that God says here notice the how emphatic God is I will never break my covenant with you jump down to verse 20 we'll come back to verse 2 in a moment it says then the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel and he says because this nation has transgressed here it is again my covenant which I commanded their fathers and has not heeded my voice I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died those are the only two times where the phrase my covenant occurs in all of the book of Judges and it's with literary intentionality in other words the author of the book of Judges forgets the phrase my covenant because the Israelites forgot God's covenant as well it shows up in chapter 2 here two times never mentioned again that is the beginning and the end of that phrase my covenant in the book of Judges remarkably even though these are the covenant people of God these are God's people these are the descendants of Abraham these these are God's individuals on earth this is his City set on a hill and two times he says I will never break my covenant with you and then he says again they broke my covenant so I no longer will drive out the nations that were driven out before them by Joshua and that's it the Covenant is not only literally forgotten by the author of Judges it is forgotten and it's a it's a symbol that the Covenant was utterly forgotten by the Covenant people jump back to verse 2 you will make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land you will tear down their altars but you have not obeyed my voice why have you done this God asks incredulously therefore I also said I will not drive them out from before you but they will be like thorns in your side their gods will be a snare to you so it was when the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the children of Israel that the people lifted up their voices and they wept and they called the name of the place Bachchan and they sacrificed there to the Lord then Joshua had dismissed the people the children of Israel they each went to his own inheritance to present to possess the land then verses 7 to 10 is the death of Joshua jump down to verse 11 in verse 11 we encounter one of three literary devices that we're going to discuss today and these three literary devices give us an insight into how to understand the book of Judges we don't know who wrote the book but the author was very systematic and very intentional in the way that he wrote the book look at verse 11 it says then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the bails verse 12 and they forsook here we're introduced to two of the three literary devices we're going to discuss today the first is that the children of Israel number one did evil in the sight of the Lord the second is this idea of they forsook God to be forsaken jump down to the rest of verse 12 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 it to them and they provoked the Lord to anger verse 13 here comes again they forsook the Lord and they served bail and the Ashtaroth in fact I think I have that up here this is the passage we've just read so notice the first of the two literary devices the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and the second is forsook we'll come to the third in just a moment here also in verse 13 they forsook the Lord and served bail and the astronaut's notice that with not all but with many of the judges that are introduced when the author of the book of Judges introduces them he introduces them with this first literary device jump down to chapter 3 verse 7 join me there chapter 3 verse 7 this is the introduction of the first judge post Joshua his name is oz niall as we've already noted he's the younger brother of Caleb okay so this is very close lineage very close connection to a god-fearing family and a god-fearing man and verse seven says so the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord they forgot the Lord their God and they served bales and the a Shiraz jump down to verse 12 now we're going to be introduced to e HUD and the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord so the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord chapter 4 verse 1 when II HUD was dead the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord this is how we're introduced to Deborah or DeBoer oh go to judges chapter 6 verse 1 judges 6:1 then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord this is how were introduced to Gideon so the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years turned several pages and come with me past the story of Gideon to Judges chapter 10 and verse 6 judges 10 6 it says then the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord they served the bails and the Ashtaroth the God of Syria the gods of Sidon the gods of Moab the gods of the people of Ammon and the gods of the Philistines and they watch this now we're introduced to our second literary element they forsook the Lord and did not serve Him verse 7 so the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the people of Ammon from that year they harassed and oppressed the children of Israel for 18 years and the children of Israel who were on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the amorite sin Gilead moreover the people of Ammon crossed over Jordan to fight against Judah also against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim so that Israel was severely distressed watch verse 10 carefully and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord and said we have sinned against you because we have both forsaken our God and served the Bailes God affirms what they've said verse 13 yet you have forsaken me and served other gods therefore I will deliver you no more in our last use of the first literary element here is in chapter 13 verse 1 chapter 13 verse 1 this is how we're introduced to Samson what are the major judges in the book again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years so the first literary element here is again and again and again the the author of the book of Judges wants it to be crystal clear what's taking place at this at this time in Israel's history it was an on interrupted succession of they did evil in the sight of the Lord they did evil in the sight of the Lord they did evil in the sight of the Lord they did evil in the sight of the Lord and as a literary device not always but often when we're introduced to a new judge were introduced to off Neal were introduced to E HUD were introduced to Deborah were introduced to Gideon were introduced to Samson we're told that this cycle was unbroken that they did evil in the side of the Lord that they did evil in the sight of the Lord that they did evil in the sight of the Lord and the second literary device that comes up here several times is they forsook God they forsook the Lord they forsook his covenant and his ways now with this sort of in mind let's continue to walk our way through and see if we can make any sense of this a difficult book let me introduce you now to the third literary device two sentences basically summarized the book of Judges the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord and look at this one here everyone did what was right in his own eyes go take a look at the very last verse of the book of Judges this is how the author of Judges chose very intentionally and I might add very stylistically to bring closure to this dark dismal nightmarish period in the history of Israel a period I remind you that lasted as much as half a millennium hundreds and hundreds of years verse 24 so the children of Israel I'm in chapter 21 verse 24 second to the last verse so the children of Israel departed from there at that time every man to his tribe and family then it went out from there every man to his inheritance verse 25 in those days there was no king in Israel everyone did what was right in his own eyes and with that organizationally and stylistically the author of Judges has just let you know what's going on that this was a time a massive depression a massive low point in the history of Israel and it boiled down to this basic idea that everyone was pursuing their own way their own every man did what was right in his own eyes but there's a fascinating tie-in here and I want to show you this this was new to me absolutely new to me the author of Judges seems to be purposefully drawing on that phrase that every man did what was right in his own eyes that every woman did what was right in her own eyes and remarkably that phrase is directly traceable to the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 12 let's go see what's taking place in Deuteronomy 12 join me there hit reverse in your Bible and move backward to Deuteronomy chapter 12 and notice what we find here in Deuteronomy chapter 12 if your Bible is anything like mine you have these subheadings and in chapter 12 the subheading for verse 1 is a prescribed place of worship notice not a described place but a prescribed place God says this will be the place when you worship me now watch let's just read through some of this we'll pick it up in verse 1 these are the statutes and the judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the Lord your the God of your father's is giving you to possess all the days of that you live on the earth watch this verse 2 this is key you shall utterly destroy all the places plural where the nations that you will dis possess served their gods on the high mountains and in the hills and other under every Green Tree notice that on the high mountains and in the Hills verse 3 you shall destroy their altars break their sacred pillars and burn their wooden images with fire you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place you shall not worship the Lord your God with such things verse 5 but you shall seek the place singular the place where the Lord God chooses to put or choose us out of all your tribes to put his name for his dwelling place there you shall go verse 6 there you will take to that place singular your burnt offerings your sacrifices your tithes the heave offerings of your hand offerings your freewill offerings and all the first born of your herds and flocks and there you will eat before the Lord your God and you will rejoice in all to which you have put your hand your households and which the Lord your God has blessed you verse 8 is key here's the verse you shall not do at all as we do as we are doing here today every man doing what is right in his own eyes fascinating that specific phrase in in the Deuteronomic context the Moses context to do what is right in your own eyes watch this is to worship when you want where you want how you want who you want every man doing what it's right in his own eyes it's it's not say it's not just in some general sense that one man wears red and one man wears blue that one man drives a you know a hold and one man drives a Ford that one man chooses to live in New South Wales and another man chooses to live in New Hampshire that's not what it's saying the specific phrase of every man doing what is right in his own eyes Moses specifically uses with reference to coming to places plural of worship and finding those places of worship or the Canaanites people and we've already became night peoples we've already been over this some of their worship practices involved but we're not limited to the sacrifice of their own children and God find this found this so appalling so repugnant so disgusting that he said when you come into the land do not inquire don't do a little bit of cultural culturally sensitive research to try to figure out how these people worship it's disgusting it's abominable if you find a shrine if you find an altar if you find a place to worship destroy it from the earth utterly destroy it and don't think that there's anything holy or sacred about that particular spot we have to put ourselves in the mindset to remember the children of Israel though descendants of Abraham and the worshippers of the true God had been in polytheistic pagan in a polytheistic pagan situation in Egypt for four generations and they had come to regard you know idols as possessing some sort of power or whole we know this because when Moses finally led the children of Israel out of Egypt it was basically showing that the God of Israel was stronger than the other gods hey your gods can do this the God of Israel can do this your gods can do this the God of Israel can do this we will remember that Moses when he made that first sort of introduction of himself - to Pharaoh and to his magicians Moses through his serpent down and it became his rod down rather and it became a serpent well then the magician's they did the similar kind of thing they threw their rod down and it became a serpent but then then Moses serpent ate the other serpent okay this is very primitive and and contextual thinking my god is tougher than your God my god beat your God etc so so God says when you come into this land even though these are defeated gods do not regard them as possessing any power when you find their places of worship when you find their shrines don't regard them as possessing any holiness any sanctity anything that would be of any value to you absolutely totally completely eviscerate them destroy them I don't want there to be any sign left that a people inhabited this land that committed those atrocious acts of worship that they did in the high places but it gets even more interesting God not only says destroy those things he further and this never dawned on me until this week he further insulated and safeguarded Israel from ever falling into this particular kind of idolatry because he said when you worship me there will be a single place you will travel on a on a on a pilgrimage system with the three spring feasts and the free three fall feasts you will travel on those pilgrimage feasts and you will come to the appropriate place and fascinatingly the appropriate place to worship Jehovah was never on a mountain it was always on the valley floor right down at the bottom now there could be times later when it became appropriate such as in the time of Elijah but but on the Sinai desert floor God set up his sanctuary you come and worship me not in the high places not in the Hills nope destroy all of them and come here Moses says in Deuteronomy 12 hey it's not gonna be like this every man doing what is right in his own eyes worshipping what he wants how he wants when he wants who he wants now look at this jump down to verse 11 we're also in Deuteronomy 12 then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make his name verse 13 take heed to yourselves that you do not offer burnt offerings in every place that you see verse 14 but in the place the Lord chooses verse 26 only the holy things which you have taken your vow to offerings which you shall take and go to the place singular which the Lord chooses jump down to verse 29 when the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go into dis possess you will displace them and you will dwell in their land take heed to yourself that you are not in snared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you that you do not inquire after their gods and say hey how did these nations serve their God I'm gonna do the same you will not worship the Lord your God in that way for every abomination to the Lord that he hates such as the offering of their children they have done to their gods they even burned their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods whatever I command you be careful to observe it you shall not add or take away from it so this is fascinating and this was a connection I had never made before when we come to judges and we summarize much of judges in that phrase that occurs not just at the last verse but it occurs in other places every man did what was right in his own eyes that is a very specific Deuteronomic reference to the fact that people were not coming to the central federalized location of God's sanctuary to worship Wow they were just worshiping any old willy-nilly place that they wanted and the places some house in some terrible magnetic way drew them in to inquire about the nature of the peoples and their worship and before you knew it they were soon mingling the worship of the true God with the Canaanite ways and this is the backdrop for the book of Judges again and again and again enter into covenants and treaties with the Canaanites and then they enter into a amalgamated worship combining elements of Jehovah worship with this Canaanite ish thing it's an absolutely catastrophic compromise and God keeps raising up these judges but as we'll see here a human judge an external judge could never be a solution to the central problem that was facing Israel in the time of the judges now go back with me to judges chapter 6 this will be the one sort of word that I give to Gideon here and I do want to say that Gideon is the Mount Kosciuszko of the book of Judges it's the high point it's a low high point but it's the high point because here we have a little glimmer of the fact that if the children of Israel had rallied around God's plan if the children of Israel had rallied around God's deliverance that he could as he had done with Jericho with some trumpets he could bring deliverance in a most unusual way routing an army that numbered I think it's a hundred and twenty thousand with three hundred men and God doesn't do it with sword for sword and blade for blade and power for power one of the things that I had meant to preach on when I talked about genocide a few Sabbath's ago was that God had repeatedly said I will send Hornets before you to drive the inhabitants of the land of Canaan out I will send Hornets I will send Hornets I will send Hornets and there's debate among the scholars as to what that means apparently being driven by Hornets was it was an idiom in those times that meant to be totally terrified and confused I myself have two times in my life stumbled on a bee's nest and another time on a wasps nest and when you are if you've been surrounded by bees and wasps and they are all around you you don't know where to flee you just you basically just freak out and you run and you look for water or I mean it's to be chased by bees to be chased by wasps or Hornets is a great idiom for total fear and confusion now when you go read the book of Joshua what's interesting because when the the when Joshua and his and his and and the the soldiers of Israel the armies of Israel would come they would meet various people that we're in Canaan and the people would say things like the fear of the Lord caused the fear of you and of your God melted our hearts we our hearts melted with fear before you and we see most of Canaan fleeing not from literal Hornets but but in this idiomatic expression fleeing in fear fleeing in confusion while we see a glimmer of that with Gideon right Karen did a great job there of reminding us that they held the torches and they broke the jars and they blew the trumpets and 300 men routed more than a hundred thousand how by God's sending Hornets not literal Hornets but sending the spirit of confusion and a fear into the camp and they basically slaughtered themselves that was God's plan God's plan was not to raise up a generation of war lords that would be better with their swords than the Canaanites it would be better with their spears that would be like the Bruce Lee's of the Most High God's plan was that they would go forward in faith and just as the Red Sea parted in front of them just as the Jordan parted in front of them so to the Canaanites would part in front of them it didn't mean that they wouldn't occasionally have to resort to violence or to a sword but God wasn't racing up a generation of warlords he just wanted people that believed in him to go forward and do things like march around cities you know seven times and then God takes care of the dirty business here he basically says okay get 300 men put 100 there 100 there 100 there break your jars hold your torches up yell at the top of your lungs the sword of the Lord and of Gideon and the people killed themselves Hornets the spirit of fear and confusion comes into them that's the way that God planned to do business to allow the violence of that land the warlord nature of that land to basically reverberate back on itself so in that sense and in that sense only Gideon is a is a little high point in the book of Judges a book that has very few high points but when the angel of the Lord shows up and starts talking to Gideon it's a fascinating interaction and we'll just read a couple verses from it look at verse 11 of Judges 6 now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was at Afra which belonged to joash the abbey azurite while his son Gideon thrashed wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites and the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said the Lord is with you you mighty man of Valor now Gideon doesn't feel like a mighty man of Valor but God speaks faith God speaks belief in - Gideon's life and that's the sermon I was going to preach but I couldn't bring myself to do it verse 13 Gideon said to him oh my lord if the Lord is with us why then has all of this happened to us and where are all other great miracles man this sounds like a very modern protest you hear this today where are the great miracles this is Gideon saying where are the great miracles you know we want to see the Red Sea depart we want to see the Jordan stand up in a heap which our fathers told us about saying did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt but now the Lord has watched this but now the Lord has what does your Bible say forsake us this is this this is the key literary idea in the book of in the book of Judges Gideon has the audacity Gideon has the temerity to suggest that in fact God has forsaken his covenant people that God has left his covenant people to die in the wilderness and to be to be taken uh turley captive by the marauding hordes of the Canaanites God has forsaken us and he has delivered us into the hands of the Midianites and then what unfolds from there is the you know relative high point of the book of Judges which is the story of Gideon but listen to what Gideon is saying he's speaking on behalf of all of Israel when he says this God has forsaken us God has left us alone and my question here is who forsook who who who abandoned who who was forsaken by who we just read there in judges chapter 2 the god said in the most emphatic language it's it's the last time that my covenant occurs that phrase my covenant occurs I will never ever break my covenant with you and then the phrase never occurs again it's just crickets crickets because what we see in the rest of the book of Judges is broken covenant broken covenant broken covenant broken in what sense every man did what was right in his own eyes they worshiped where they wanted who they wanted how they wanted with with with their own they did not remember the deuteron the Deuteronomic promised to come to the place to the sanctuary why well I could wax eloquent about this but the short version is this the sanctuary teaches the gospel the sanctuary teaches the central truth that we've already discussed and here at length that you don't bring a sacrifice to appease God God brings a sacrifice to make a way for you to approach him you don't bring a sacrifice to a swage and angry deity God provides the sacrifice that was the words of Abraham on top of Mount Moriah Jehovah Jireh God will provide a lamb himself can the church say Amen so what you have what you have down in the end that in the valley floor is the gospel that's the gospel down in the valley floor where the truth that that it's not it's not you that comes to God by your strength and by your covenant keeping and by your fidelity it's God that provides a lamb it's God that covers a multitude of sins the gospel is down in the valley floor but up in these high places there were other places of worship but these were not the god of Scripture this was not Jehovah these were gods that required increasingly austere and increasingly demanding sacrifices right up to and including the sacrifice of one's own son these are disgusting repugnant perverse gods of the imagination of the peoples these are demons the Bible says and the gospel was down there but the demons were in the high hills which is why come come let me show you something very interesting come with me to a psalm that is regularly sung in praise songs and I am persuaded is sung wrong every time come to Psalm 121 Psalm 121 we have this Psalm where David seemingly says I will lift up my eyes to the hills you might mean I've heard that before maybe you've sung a praise song I will lift my eyes I've heard about three or four variations of this idea that that I will lift my eyes to the hills but you know what's very interesting David is not saying that he lifts his eyes to the hills he's actually not even making a statement at all he's asking a question look at Psalm 121 verse 1 my version says I will lift my eyes to the hills and then the question from where does my help come here's what David is saying will I lift my eyes to the hills where does my help come from you see what'd he say he's like do you think that my deliverance comes from the high places my deliverance doesn't come from the high places and those Mountain shrines in those Mountain places of worship where all of the Canaanites and the Midianites and the apostate Israelites went to worship well I lift my eyes to the hills he says where does my help come from and then he says no no no no no I don't lift my eyes to the hills my help comes from the Lord who made the heaven and the earth can the church say Amen look at this he will not allow your foot to be moved he who keeps you will never fall asleep behold he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep the Lord is your keeper the Lord is your shade at your right hand the Sun won't strike you by day nor the moon by night this is very interesting because in these primitive pagan societies they believe that the moon and the Suns were gods right that they were the physical manifestations of these angry gods and and David here is saying I'm not afraid of the moon I'm not afraid of the Sun my God made the moon my God made the Sun my God made all of these places will I lift my eyes to the hills you've got to be kidding my help comes from the Lord that made the hills you see David knew which is why he was so passionate about building what did David when he came to the end of his life what was he super passionate about building he wanted to build the place the place where the true God and the true gospel and the great good news about who and what God is and who and what we are where that could be preached and God said I'm sorry I can't let you build that you're a man of blood but you can gather the materials your son can build it Dave it's like you think I'm going to climb to the top of that mountain and worse this is not going to be every man doing what's right in his own eyes I want to worship the right God in the right way in the right place who forsook who eat Gideon says all we've been forsaken you were never forsaken we encountered this phrase God gave them up in the book of Romans we've already noted God didn't give them up . God gave them up - and what did God give Israel up to and this is simple and it's tragic he gave them up to themselves he gave them over to the consequences of their own choices and their own decisions in in short God honored their choice to break covenant god never gives us up but he does give us up to the consequences of the choices that we insist on making Hebrews 13 verse 5 quoting from Deuteronomy and from Joshua God says I will never leave you nor forsake you never we just read that in - in Jinja and judges - I will never break my covenant with you I would sooner die and of course that's the great good news of the Covenant that God so obligated himself the Covenant 'el faithfulness that he came as a man and died rather than break covenant with us you see friends there are so many takeaways from the book of Judges but the chiefest of which has to be you cannot make peace with the Canaanites in your life we can't make peace with the things that kill Jesus we can't make peace with sin you know little sins big sins medium-sized sins it's irrelevant the things that that kill Jesus are not things that Christians can be making peace with right and and I remind you that that the Israelites did for the most part drive the cane and ice out of the land but they left just a few little bits and pieces seemingly harmless seemingly innocuous no problem we can coexist with the small things that the Canaanites have in the land we can coexist with these things friends I want to tell you most of you in this room are not adulterers I'd love to think that all of you are not adulterers right most of you in this room are not murderers I'd like to think that all of you in this room are not murderers most of us in this room when it comes to the the external manifestations of breaking god's covenant breaking god's promises breaking God's law most of us have cleared the land right by the grace of God we've cleared the land of these things but but for a terrifying number of us I put myself in this list there are still little bits little artifacts of Canaanite ish heritage still little high places in my life yeah the big ones are gone but it's as if I've convinced myself that I can peacefully coexist with a certain level of Canaanite presence and the book of Judges stands as a giant warning and says you can't make peace with the things that God hates when you've wandered from God it often feels like he has left you that's how Gideon felt God has left us and I've met many a person who said where did God go where was God when this happened where was God where was God where was God and the remarkable thing is is that in a in a psychological phenomenon that can only be described as projection we project God as having left when in reality we're the ones that have left now God is sensitive to the psychological weaknesses and the human experience and God knows that he has never left he has never forsaken and that he has never broken covenant and he knows that we sometimes feel that way but I want you just to know today God promises I will never leave you nor forsake you God has not left you your life might feel like the book of Judges an absolute wasteland of unfaithfulness unfaithfulness followed by unfaithfulness followed by unfaithfulness followed by unfaithfulness followed by broken promise after broken promise after broken promise after broken promise after broken promise what is this ridiculous book doing in the Bible it's there to let us know that even though there was serial unfaithfulness and serial promise breaking and serial rebellion God was always there to raise up another judge to raise up another deliverer to give them another chance because he has not forsaken his people and he hasn't forsaken you look at this from Ellen White desire of Ages the elder brother of our race Jesus Christ is by the eternal throne Jesus looks upon every soul who is turning his face towards him as the Savior he knows by experience what are the weaknesses of humanity and hallelujah for that he knows what are our wants he knows where lies the strength of our temptation and man those temptations could be so strong they seem impossible to resist he was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin he is watching over you trembling child of God are you tempted he will deliver he's the true judge capital J are you weak he will strengthen are you ignorant he will enlighten are you wounded he will heal come to me is his invitation whatever your anxieties and trials I love this spread out your case before the Lord and it's a miserable case your life might look like your own autobiographical version of the book of Judges just spread it out before them in all of its ugliness in all of its perversity and all of its rebellion just put it out there if God is willing to put the book of Judges in the Bible and call it the Word of God you can spread your case out before Jesus with all of its rebellion with all of its perversity with all of its unfaithfulness with all of its Sabbath breaking with all of its tithe retention with all of its unfaithful just spread it out with all of its sexual perversity just spread your case out before Jesus he knows it anyway just spread it out watch what happens when you spread out your case your spirit will be braced for endurance the way will be open for you - I love this word disentangle yourself from embarrassment and difficulty and dare I say that if you spread your case out before me you'd be embarrassed and if I spread my case out before you I would be embarrassed but God doesn't ask us to spread our case out before one another can the church say Amen because we've never be able to look at one another the same again we'd never be able to face one another and believe or maybe we would because maybe we would see that we are all fragile and broken and in need God doesn't say spread your filth out to one another he says you spread your case that you give me your book of Judges and I will make a way for you to disentangle yourself from that embarrassment that you call your life from that difficulty in which you have found yourself from that unfaithfulness and rebellion can the church say Amen the weaker and more helpless you know yourself to be are there any weak and helpless people here today come on now a few of you out there the weak weaker and helpless you know yourself to be the stronger you will be in his strength the heavier your burdens the more blessed the rest and I love this the rest in casting them upon the burden bear the that Christ offers depends upon conditions but these conditions are plainly specified they are just that they are those with which we all can comply he tells us just how his rest is to be found rest rest rest that's what they were supposed to get in the land all along but they didn't get rest they got conflict and they got shame and they got embarrassment and most of us in this room most of us in this room I'm sad to say IIIi am persuaded cuz I put myself in this list have not entered fully into the rest that God has carved out for us we've come into the land but we're we're happy to cohabitate with some of those Canaan eightish things and so we have a degree of restfulness we have a modicum of restfulness but we have not entered many of us sadly into the full rest of opening our case before Jesus and saying I am broken I need healing I am wounded I need restoration I am sinful I need forgiveness spreading our case out before Jesus you cannot make peace with the Canaanites in your life human judges could not give them rest from the real battle that's why the book of Judges is such a catastrophe a HUD couldn't do it off Neill couldn't do it Debra couldn't do it Gideon couldn't do it why not because the real battle the battle that was waging in the human heart only Jesus can give us this rest they could give temporary deliverance from an encroaching horizontal danger but the real problem with the book of Judges is that people's hearts were following and doing what every man and what every woman thought was right in their own eyes worshiping how they want who they want when they want where they want cohabitating with the Canaanites and thinking that you're going to find true rest and true peace there is none only Jesus can deliver us from the Canaanites in the heart the judges were temporary solutions to a permanent problem and that's how I would summarize the whole book the book of Judges is the catastrophe that it is it is the blight and the dark spot in Scripture that it is because it's a temporary solution namely a military deliverance of territorial deliverance a strength-based deliverance to a permanent problem and the permanent problem is the wayward human heart that needs what's on the valley floor and what's on the valley floor is the gospel you see down in the true sanctuary with the true God and the true lamb and the true Shekinah and the shedding of blood for the remission of sins the Gospels down there that's that's not where you win yourself into the favor of a God that can never be pleased that's where God has wooed himself into your favor by his condescension by his sacrifice by His grace you see the Gospels down there they had to come down to the gospel man there's so much in this God even said when you build my altar don't put steps up to my altar you put my altar on the floor God didn't want there to be any notion that you somehow ascended to or climbed up to him the pagans worshiped that way and even now you look at you look at many of the pagan shrines that we have the pyramids or Machu Picchu it's it's simplistic pagan thinking to think I will climb the mountain and be closer I will ascend and be more holy and God said no no no no the sacrifice is not you ascending or becoming worthy of something the sacrifice of Jesus is God condescending to come to the lowest of the low God condescending to come to the book of Judges that is your life he said you put my altar and you put my sanctuary you put it on the floor don't put steps up to it Jesus said my God why have you forsaken me why have you forsaken me jesus said the guarantee that you will never be forsaken is that Jesus was forsaken and that's the gospel the guarantee that you will never ever ever ever ever be forsaken by God is that Jesus was forsaken Eloi Eloi Lama sabachthani my God my God why have you forsaken me Jesus hung on the cross truly forsaken not artificially or imaginably forsaken as Gideon thought oh why are we forsaken no no no no no no the guarantee that you will never be forsaken or forgotten by your lover by your Redeemer by your Creator and by your savior is that Jesus was forsaken genuinely truly when he cried out in agony and in despair why have you left me gone the book of Judges is not a God forsaken book it's a God has been forsaken book a my appeal to you is this final slide don't let your life be a god has been forsaken life your life deserves a better story than the book of Judges the book of Judges is covenant breaking covenant unfaithfulness every man doing what's right in his own eyes continual sense of evil and of pursuing evil and my appeal to you your life deserves better than cohabitation with the Canaanites your life deserves better than serving the gods of shame and of guilt that will never be appeased no matter what you do your life belongs in the true sanctuary with the true God and the true Savior Jesus Christ father in heaven we deserve better than the book of Judges and that's why the book is there you've created us for something bigger something better something brighter and forgive us father for our covenant till unfaithfulness forgive us father where we have worshiped in our own ways and worshiped our own things whether money or sport or leisure or sex or prestige father we've worshiped in our own ways and some of us have thought insanely that we could make peace with the Canaanites those little vestiges of Canaan eightish heritage still there but father the prayer of my heart is that there would just be one place of worship in our heart and in our mind and that would be the true sanctuary of the true God and the true Lamb who gave himself that we might be saved and preserved father we're not looking to our faithfulness we are leaning heavily and exclusively on your faithfulness you are the great Jehovah Jireh you are the provider of the sacrifice you are the giver of the great offering and Christ as God is great offering and so father we come to you we spread our case out before you and lord I want to pray that in my church here that your church would take time this week to spread their case out before you to just put it all out there father to give you their book of judges to give you their book of unfaithfulness to give you their book of depression and blackness and faithlessness and rebellion father to spread that case out before you so that we might be honest with ourselves and we might be honest with you and then we will go away with the assurance that in our weakness you make us strong that in our woundedness you heal us that in our rebellion you give us a faithful spirit and that in our death you give us life in Christ in whose name we pray the resurrected one Jesus Christ let everyone say Amen god bless you all happy Sabbath great to be back

Channel: Kingscliff Church

Views: 9,188

Rating: 4.8117647 out of 5

Keywords: Kingscliff SDA Church

Id: EoTN9oAhm70

Length: 54min 50sec (3290 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 05 2015