Judges 2

As of this writing, no one has viewed yesterday's lesson. I admit, this is so discouraging to me. Nevertheless, I feel that this topic is vital to our understanding of the individual spiritual battles we face in our own lives. Additionally, it describes a parallel that we see taking place in our world today. A preacher I once had the privilege of knowing told me, "A lot of this stuff is over people's heads. They just want to hear about salvation and what Christ can do in their lives. They don't want to go deeper." I'm still planning to teach as the Lord puts things on my heart, even if I teach the page I'm writing on alone. I'll attempt to keep it on a more personal level.

What I took from yesterday's lesson are 3 key things.

1. Always inquire of the LORD before you make a plan to do anything. This can be anywhere from, "What should I say to my husband to encourage him today?" To, "Where should we buy land and build our home and leave our legacy?" "Should I take this job?" "Should I homeschool my child?" "Should I run for a position on the school board for our county to ensure godly principles are in place at least in my realm of influence?" Any and every question and concern we have in this life needs to be brought before the Lord if we are His. We shouldn't attempt to make choices that could be outside of His will for our lives.

2. We have to pray for the patience necessary to wait for His response. Don't just listen to any random voice. Make sure it is from God. Don't be so quick to jump into anything without knowing you are doing what He would have you to do. Don't enroll your child in a public school without first asking the Lord if that is His will for your child. Know what you are doing because there are a lot of schools out there that push liberal agendas and indoctrinate children, rather than simply provide an adequate education. As a sanctified, justified Christian parent you are responsible for bringing up another generation that KNOWS GOD, not that falls in line with what secular society tells you that you should do. It should be this way with every aspect of our lives.

3. Don't make a move unless the Lord is with you. You can never go wrong when you are following His lead and His presence is beside you, teaching you, guiding you, and fighting on your behalf.

In today's lesson, we are going to dig a bit deeper into Israel's Disobedience, the death of Joshua, and Israel's Unfaithfulness.

I. Israel's Disobedience Judges 2:1-6:

"Then the Angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. 2 And you shall make no [a]covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this? 3 Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they shall be thorns[b] in your side, and their gods shall [c]be a snare to you.’ ” 4 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 wept.5 Then they called the name of that place [d]Bochim (weeping), and they sacrificed there to the Lord. 6 And when Joshua had dismissed the people, the children of Israel went each to his own inheritance to possess the land.

Yesterday's lesson was a prologue to the Incomplete Conquest of Canaan. Today we are going a bit backward in time to reveal a fuller picture of why this was so integral in Israel's history. But if you read it with an open heart and mind and ask the Spirit to reveal things to you in your own life that you have incompletely conquered, you should feel His hand guiding you to repent of those shortcomings and seek His will moving forward.

Jumping into verse 1a: "The Angel of the Lord came up..."Here we see a Theophany. An instance where you see Christ come in a form before His incarnation as a human being. There are several instances in the Old Testament where He showed up to give instruction and/or rebuke. We know this is Jesus for two reasons.

• First, because the Angel of the LORD here claimed divinity by saying that He was the one who led Israel up from Egypt, who made a covenant with Israel (Judges 2:1), and who personally called Israel to obedience (Judges 2:2).

• Second, this person, appearing in human form before Israel, cannot be God the Father, because the Father is described as invisible (1 Timothy 1:17) and whom no man has seen or can see (1 Timothy 6:16).

The idea of Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, appearing as a man before Bethlehem is provocative but logical. We know that He existed before Bethlehem (Micah 5:2); why should He not, on isolated but important occasions, appear in bodily form? We see other places where this happened, such as Genesis 18:16-33, Genesis 32:24-30, and Judges 13:1-23.

“Not in such a body as God had prepared for him when he took upon himself the form of a servant, but in such a form and fashion as seemed most congruous to his divine majesty, and to the circumstances of those he visited, this angel of the divine covenant whom we delight in came and spoke unto this people.” (Spurgeon)

1b. "I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land": The first thing Jesus (as the Angel of the LORD) did was to remind Israel of His great love and faithfulness to them. He delivered them from Egypt’s bondage; He gave them an abundant land of promise; He gave them a covenant that He would never break.

i. It is God’s general pattern to remind us of His great love and faithfulness to us before calling us to obedience or confronting our sins. We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), and we can only really obey Him as we walk in His love and abide in His covenant with us.

ii. The words, “I will never break My covenant with you” remind us that even though Israel never fully lived up to their part of the covenant, God promised that He would never forsake His part of the covenant.

1c. "You have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this?" The Angel of the LORD confronted Israel in love. The question was stinging in its simplicity; there is never a good reason for our disobedience.

i. Israel’s real problem was not one of military power or technology; it was a spiritual problem. “The deplorable spiritual condition of the Israelites, not their lack of chariots, lay behind their failure to dispossess the Canaanites.” (Wolf)

1d. "I will not drive them out before you, but they shall be thorns in your side": The Angel of the LORD announced that He would allow the work of possessing the land to go unfinished as a way of correcting a disobedient Israel.

i. "I will not drive them out before you" reminds us that God would not do the work of conquering Canaan all by Himself. In the early years of the campaign in Canaan God did fight for Israel in a supernatural way. Yet He never intended it to be that way for the entire campaign of conquering the Canaanites.

ii. We often wish that God would do the work of Christian maturity for us; that we would wake up one morning and a certain besetting sin would just be gone. Sometimes God grants such a miraculous deliverance, and we praise Him for it. But more commonly He requires our partnership with Him in the process of Christian growth. Our partnership is important to God because it shows that our heart is where His heart is; and that we are truly growing close to God.

1e. "They shall be thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you": The announcement that the Canaanites would remain as problems to the nation was promised beforehand to Israel if they would not faithfully drive out the Canaanites.

i. "But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell". (Numbers 33:55)

Looking back through the annals of time, we see just how these gods were a constant snare to the children of Israel. Israel was intended to be a sanctified people. Set apart unto God, to show the rest of the world the ONE TRUE GOD. That torch was passed to even Gentile believers after Christ came into the world in physical form, died on the cross for the sins of mankind, was raised again from the dead, ascended back into heaven, and left us His Name, and the Holy Ghost as our inheritance. He did this to further the work God had wanted from the beginning, to have a family, a people that loved and served Him. We as Christians have been grafted into a Divine appointment. We, just as the Israelites were told in the Old Testament, are not to follow after foreign gods. Instead, we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We are to stand against the gods we see taking a resurgence in our society today, just as the church fathers did.

Verse 2: The people respond with weeping and sorrow.

"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 wept. Then they called the name of that place Bochim; and they sacrificed there to the LORD. And when Joshua had dismissed the people, the children of Israel went each to his own inheritance to possess the land."

a. The people lifted up their voices and wept: This emotional response of the people was very hopeful. With all the weeping and wailing, there was reason to believe that God’s word had a deep impact upon them, and that they were on their way to a genuine revival of God’s work among them.

i. Sadly, it was not the case. The subsequent record of the Book of Judges shows that this initial reaction of sorrow and repentance did not mature into a real, lasting repentance. Real repentance shows itself in action, not necessarily in weeping. We can be sorry about the consequences of our sin without being sorry about the sin itself.

ii. One can weep and outwardly show repentance without ever inwardly repenting. This is why the Lord challenged Israel in Joel 2:13: So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.

iii. It is good to see people truly weeping over their sin and it should never be discouraged. However, “The tear is the natural drop of moisture, and soon evaporates; the better thing is the inward torrent of grief within the soul, which leaves the indelible mark within…One grain of faith is better than a gallon of tears. A drop of genuine repentance is more precious than a torrent of weeping.” (Spurgeon)

In this past year, we have seen great abominations take place on a global scale. We saw Christianity openly mocked at the Summer Olympic Games. We have seen people rant and protest over being denied the right to kill their pre-born babies at any time until birth. We have seen hospitals offer free gender reassignment surgeries for children. We have seen public schools promote gender confusion. I praise God for the fact that He is faithful to hear the cries of His people when they turn to Him with a penitent heart! I fully believe in this past election we were granted a reprieve. Now it is up to us to ensure His principles stand in our country, and that we instruct this generation correctly so that the next generation won't be corrupted by these same entities and their demonic agendas.

b. "They sacrificed there to the LORD": In this, they did the right thing. Any awareness of sin should drive us to God’s appointed sacrifice. In their day that meant sin offerings of bulls and rams; in our day it means remembering God’s sacrifice for us on the cross of Jesus Christ.

i. They did this “In testimony of their faith in Christ’s merits (for they mourned not desperately) and their thankfulness that God had sent them a preacher, and not an executioner, considering their deserts.” (Trapp)

c. "And when Joshua had dismissed the people": This shows that Judges 2 begins in retrospect, looking back to the days even before the death of Joshua (which was described in Judges 1:1). This hopeful response to the Angel of the LORD started when Joshua was still alive.

Tomorrow we will discuss the remainder of chapter 2. I do hope you take something from this study and apply it to your own life. We are living in the last of the last days. We need to make sure our hearts are pure before the Lord. We need to stand for the right. We need to instruct the next generation correctly in the Lord, not in the ways of this secular society. Til tomorrow, be blessed by being a blessing.