Elevate - The Story Pt 9 - Judges

God knew that the Israelites would be tempted by other things and their faith would not be popular. He urged them to remember their relationship with Him. The Bible is the story of how God redeemed mankind through Jesus. The Israelites were enslaved in Egypt but were delivered by Moses and led by Joshua to the Promised Land. They had to conquer the land and rid it of pagan worship. But they failed to fully obey God and allowed pagan practices to remain, leading to constant temptation and oppression. God raised up judges to deliver them, but they would fall back into sin. This is the cycle depicted in the book of Judges. The people served the Lord while Joshua was alive, but after his death, they began to fall away. He knew that they would be tempted. He knew that their faith in God would not be popular to the surrounding nations and that other things would want to capture their attention. He knew that, so he urged them continually. Remember, this is God's secret sauce that will allow you to stay in proper relationship and under His protection. It is to remember. Welcome to Elevate from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope that it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message and welcome to Elevate. We're getting back to the story, which is this great Bible that we have been reading together. The narrative of the Bible. Sometimes we forget that this is the story of how God has redeemed mankind. This is the story, ultimately, of Jesus. It is a story as well as a collection of teachings and doctrines. But we're getting that story. We're understanding what God did and why He did it in order to redeem mankind. Let me just kind of recap since it's been several weeks. Here is the story thus far. We know in Genesis, God created the universe, the world, everything in it. And through Adam and Eve in the garden, through their disobedience, sin entered into the world. And it got a greater and greater grip upon mankind. And it drove a wedge between God and His creation. He is a perfect God. And so sin put a wedge between us. He could not look upon our sin, so it put a wedge between us. But God set a plan in motion as early as in the Garden of Eden. But He set a plan in motion to establish a nation for Himself that will be in special relationship with Him in order to show God's glory and majesty and holiness to a sin-riddled world. And that's what He did in raising up the nation of Israel. And so He raised up Abraham, a man by the name of Abraham, to be the father of the nation of Israel. And they all came through His offspring. And if you remember the story of Joseph, Israel ended up moving to Egypt and they became enslaved there for 400 years. But while they were there, they grew and grew and grew and grew and multiplied. And ultimately after 400 years, we all know the story of Moses. Moses came up and Moses delivered them from Egypt through miracles and signs and wonders. And God displaying His power to Israel and to Egypt. And they were on their way to the Promised Land. They wandered in the desert on their way to the Promised Land for 40 years. But after 40 years, they stood at the edge of Canaan. And Canaan was the land, it was the area that Israel was promised by God. And they had to go in and conquer these lands in order to receive their promised inheritance. And then through Joshua, God led them to conquer all of the residing nations and ridding the area of the pagan gods and the evil and the sin that riddled that entire region. And so we pick up in the book of Judges when that conquest is over. They've gone through and they have now occupied the land that God promised to Abraham and to the Israelites hundreds of years ago. They were occupying it and this is where we pick up in the book of Judges. I hope you read your chapter. This will all help you tie everything together. But let me just quick give you an overview of the book of Judges before we focus in on the specifics of the message today. So throughout the conquest, as they were conquering the promised land, they were disobedient through portions of that. God had instructed them to go in and to completely drive out the nations that were there and to utterly destroy everything so that they can go in and they can rebuild and get rid of the pagan worship that was taking place. But oftentimes they failed to do what God had asked of them to do, what had commanded them to do. And so they did things like they entered into treaties with other pagan nations. They absorbed some of those people into Israel. They left a lot of their system of worship intact, like they didn't tear down the pagan altars. They didn't tear down the Asherah poles and different things that represented pagan worship. And they left a lot of those things intact. Now, why is that so much a problem? Well, I think for us today it would be hard to imagine the level of evil in the world at this time. If you remember, there was no God standard in the world other than in Israel. Israel had the law, so they had a God standard. But throughout the rest of the known world, there was not a God standard. Now, we take it for granted, but because of the fact that our laws in this nation are patterned after the Judeo-Christian laws of the Bible, we have a God standard and many people live within that moral standard even though they don't realize that it came straight from the Bible. We have been embroiled in a culture that at least has, at its system of civilization, godly standards. Now, they're being eroded, we know that, but we sometimes take that for granted that there is a God standard in the world today. And so there were several pagan gods that were being worshipped in this part of the world. The most notorious of those were gods like Pan and Baal and Ashtoreth. And without getting into a lesson into ancient religions, let me just say here that these were not mute idols that had no power. We like to think that sometimes, but Paul tells us this in Ephesians chapter 6. He says, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. There is a dimension, there is a reality of the spirit world that we don't necessarily see, but there's real stuff happening there. And so understand this, that there are powerful, evil, divine, spiritual beings behind the worship of these false gods. And if we just think that pagans were just stupid, foolish people who worshipped a hunk of metal, it understates what every person really understood in the ancient world. The power and the reality of the divine behind those idols was real. Now we know that they were created by God and they had fallen, and they were not God, they were a lesser being, but there was something behind the worship of these pagan idols or they would not have indulged in the level of evil that they were indulging in. And these idols were the calling card of demons. That's probably the simplest way to put it. These idols were the calling card of demons. It was real worship to an evil spirit that existed in the heavenly realm. And they perverted God's perfect creation through their rituals and through their sacrifices, the most atrocious of which was child sacrifice, like babies and children that they would burn alive in sacrificing to these idols and these false gods to appease their God and to ensure prosperity for the whole land and for the nation. And not only that, but sexual perversion was rampant in their forms of worship, like rape and homosexuality and orgies and whatever you can think of in the name of worship was what was taking place. And so God was with Israel because that land was the land that God promised to them. But they had to rid the land of this abomination. If God was going to become the God of the world and bring salvation to all of mankind, it had to be rid of a lot of this stuff, and it wasn't just people. The battle was not against flesh and blood. It was against the spiritual realm that was taking place. And God had to rid the land, and He was cleansing it in order to establish His people in the land. But Israel, in their disobedience, allowed for these things to continue. And so they allowed the snare of pagan religion to remain in the land and to be a continual temptation for them. And so the book of Judges chronicles Israel's struggle to remain faithful to the Lord. That's what Judges ultimately gives us, is that chronicling of their struggle as they continually turned to false gods and idols and pagan practices of the surrounding nations. Nations that should not be there any longer. But because they allowed them to stay, they were constantly ensnared by temptation. Time and time again, as you read through the book of Judges, Israel would stray from God, and then because they strayed from God and they chased after other gods, then they would find themselves oppressed and captured and besieged and attacked by other nations. And so what would happen is God would then raise up a deliverer, or a judge, to rescue them. To show that Israel, once again, the power of the Almighty God, who they ought to have been serving, so that they can turn their hearts back to Him. And so you've read, if you've read chapter 8, you've read about some of these deliverers. Or at least you've heard of them before, if you didn't have a chance to read. People like Samson and Gideon and Deborah. These are mighty leaders that delivered Israel from their oppressors. And then what would happen is after Israel was delivered from the nations that were attacking them, they would have peace for a period of time, 20, 40, 60, sometimes 80 years. They would have peace, but then they would fall right back into their temptations. They would fall right back into pagan worship, and then the cycle would continue. That's the book of Judges. Boy, what a great read, huh? But let's look at this. We're going to look in Judges chapter 2. We're going to start this beginning in verse 6. It says this, After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to their own inheritance. After the conquest, they're ready to go possess it. The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel. So it says, The people served the Lord through the lifetime of Joshua. Why? Because they were there. They were witnesses to the conquest. They fought in the battles. They knew what God was doing, and they saw God do miracles in each and every battle. Remember, this is just a rag-tag group of nomadic desert wanderers that were going up against established, fortified national armies that were highly trained and equipped. They should have been destroyed every time they went to battle. But God miraculously gave them victory and gave them the land. And so these people were witnesses to God's power, and so they gladly followed His law. They gladly remained in proper relationship with Him. It was easy, right? Let's move on to verse 8. Joshua, son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110, and they buried him in the land of his inheritance at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gash. After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what He had done for Israel. Now let me just stop here for a second. Why did this generation grow up not knowing the Lord or what He had done for Israel? The failure of the previous generation to properly instruct them. Parents, don't underestimate, this is just a freebie right here, don't underestimate the importance of teaching your children how to love God. How to serve Him and leading them in the knowledge of His great power in the Word of God, but also in your life and in your home. Don't you dare say, well, I'll let them grow up and choose. Don't you dare take that attitude. If this is what you believe, if you know the truth and you believe it, then you must give it to your children. And then when they're older, you pray that they continue to choose God. Not raising them in the faith that you believe to be true is like giving them a choice between apple juice and Clorox bleach. One will nourish you and give you life, and the other will flat out kill you. And if you don't teach them, the world will. You know what was in the world then? It was pagan worship. It was child sacrifice. It was sexual rituals in the name of worship. It was just evil practices that were enticing. But what's in the world now? The internet, pornography, the sexualization of everything and everybody, greed, selfishness, humanism, you name it. Listen, train your kids. The church is here to help you. But it's primarily your job. And you have to take it seriously. So this particular generation did not know the Lord. And look what happened. We move on to verse 11. It says, then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals, the false gods, right? They forsook the Lord. Remember that word, forsook. Everyone say forsook. Say it like you mean it, forsook. Alright. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them. Remember, people that shouldn't be there. They aroused the Lord's anger because they forsook Him and served Baal in the Astereths. You know what the word forsook means? The word that's translated forsook is this Greek word azab. And it means this, to loosen. I'm sorry, not Greek, Hebrew word azab. And it means to loosen. Now this is Israel's doing, right? They had the law. They had the temple, or the tabernacle. They had the sacrificial system of worship. They knew how to please God. And they had His very presence that dwelt among them between the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant. And the law kept them in relationship with God. And because of that, they were under His umbrella of protection. But this word, this Hebrew word azab, that we translate as forsook, means to loosen. So as they went to serve other gods, they were untying the binds that held them to God. And they went off on their own to serve other gods. They loosened themselves from the thing that bound them to God, so that they could go and release themselves and go to serve other gods. Gods who would not protect them, nor wanted anything good for them. They released themselves from God's protection. So understand this, that everything that follows as we continue reading is not God's doing. It's Israel's doing. They're the ones that did the loosening, the untying, the unbinding. They're the ones that did the forsaking. So we move on in verse 14, it says, In His anger against Israel, the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as He had sworn to them. They were in great distress. Now listen, God warned Israel of this back when Moses was alive. And they stood on the edge of the promised land. And if you remember, we covered it a few weeks back, right? If you remember, Moses said, I set before you life and death, blessing and curses. Now choose life. He gave them a choice, and He told them what would happen. He told them that they'd be conquered. He told them they'd be sold. He told them they'd be destroyed if they disconnected themselves from God. He was their strength, their protector. Remember, this is a bunch of nomad wanderers. They're not a fortified military. God was their strength. God was their protector. But now we see that they didn't choose life. They chose death. They chose the curse. And so now they're living under the curse of the choices that they've made. But, like a loving father, God doesn't stop loving them. They're His people. So He allows them to endure the consequences for a season. But then He comes to the rescue. And then we look at verse 16. It says, Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges, but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them. They quickly turned away from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord's commands. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, He was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies, as long as the judge lived. For the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshipping them. But when the Lord raised up a judge for them, they refused to give up their evil practices in stubborn ways. Now when we read that, we're probably thinking, stupid Israelites. What is wrong with you? Right? We think that. We're like, well these guys, why do they keep doing this? Why don't they wake up and just get it? Stick with God. Don't worship idols. It's so simple. It's so easy for us to say. Right? But I want to read to you an excerpt from the book. And this little excerpt takes place following the deliverance through the judge Deborah. So they have finally been rescued once again, and their hearts are turning back to the Lord. And it says this, Following this victory, the land experienced 40 years of peace. After that, another strong leader was needed. But at this point in Israel's history, the roster seemed empty. A splintered tribal coalition could not sustain its national identity. The people, forgetting their special relationship to God, began to adapt to the surrounding cultures, eventually joining their unconquered neighbors in pagan worship. As a result, God no longer aided the Israelite army, which began losing battles. Once again, the people discovered the tragic cycle of the consequences of their disobedience. So let me highlight one sentence for you here. It says, the people, forgetting their special relationship to God, began to adapt to the surrounding cultures. It says the people forgot their special relationship to God, and because of that, the culture consumed them. Everything else then became more attractive, more worthy of their pursuits and their time and their energy. And this is the exact same problem that we all are embroiled in today, that we have to face, that we have to fight today. No, we may not be tempted to worship false gods and sacrifice our children, but we certainly are bombarded by the culture all around us. We have to work in it, we have to raise our kids in it, we have to conduct business in it. It's all around us. We are surrounded by this culture. The question is, will we be like the Israelites, forgetting our special position as children of God, and then start adapting to the culture around us? Can I tell you, this is the war. This is the war. Who are we in Christ versus who we are in this temporary existence? But look what it tells us. Very familiar scripture in Romans 12-2 by Paul. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will. And let me say this, I'm not talking to just those that are backslidden today. I'm not talking just to people that maybe have never followed Christ in their lives. I'm talking to you that comes to church every week, that the enemy is constantly fighting to minimize your effectiveness in the kingdom of God because you are adapting to the culture around you. So what's the culture around us? What is the pattern of this world that we are not to conform to? Well, the world tells us money is the most important thing. My happiness is paramount. My happiness is paramount to everyone else around me. Me doing what I want without restraint is the order of the day. I mean, you see it, right? It's what I want to do. This is how I want to live my life. Now make laws that will validate me, right? Everybody has their own truth. Your truth and your truth and this is my truth and this is my truth. And then refuse to live by a standard of truth, right? The Word of God, which is the actual standard of truth. I can do what I want with my body, with my time, with my money, with my family, and don't you dare tell me that there's a God who actually tells me how I should live. That is the pattern. That is the culture that we're in. This is the worship that we are tempted to engage in. And you know what it is? It's worship of self. It's worship of me. It may not be the worship of Pan or Baal or Ashtoreth, but it is worship of self. It's humanism. It is life without regard to the reality of God. Eternal life and moral absolutes. And like Israel, we are living among this humanistic culture and the temptation is always there to adapt to it. Let me tell you, there's many of you in this room probably that have held a particular opinion that was given to you because it was in the Word of God. And all of a sudden, that opinion became under fire in the political world, right? And all the pressure was there, and all the scientists, and all the people that had to talk about it began talking about it and making all these real clever arguments, all these clever humanistic arguments, and you started going, huh, you know what, that makes a lot of sense. You know, I know the Bible says that, but it was written thousands of years ago. God didn't realize that this would be our culture today. Listen guys, I know this isn't the Bible, but this is going to be a Bible for our purposes right now. There has to be something in your life that anchors you to truth. There has to be a standard in your life that keeps you in between the rails. And what's happened in our culture is all of those standards have been removed. And so this culture is running off the rails. I'm going to tell you, it's not sustainable. As soon as the family system gets completely decimated, which seems to be what the motivation is, the modus operandi of the spiritual world right now to try to do, is to get the God-ordained family to just deteriorate when that happens, this will not be a civilization like we know it. And it's not that far away. I'm not trying to preach doom and gloom, I'm just saying. But here's the key, here's the key, and this is what I want to bring you to today. So we're just going to jump ahead real quick to Judges 3-7, and we'll see this scripture, and it happens, you know, it's repeated five or six times throughout the book of Judges, and it says this, When they realized that evil in the eyes of the Lord, they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and Asherahs. Listen, they forgot. Simply, it fell out of their brains. Who God was, what God did. They forgot that they were chosen as God's people. They forgot that they were in relationship with the Almighty Creator of the universe. They forgot that they were miraculously rescued from Egypt. They forgot that they were supernaturally victorious over huge, powerful armies and literally had the presence of God dwelling in their midst. They forgot. And because of it, the culture overwhelmed them. And they adapted to it. So what happened? Life overwhelmed them. Armies came in. All kinds of craziness started happening because they were living without the power and the presence of God. Listen, all throughout God's communication to Israel, He continually urges them to remember. Continually. Look at Deuteronomy 6, 10-12. This is God speaking through Moses to the Israelites, telling them about when they finally get out of the wilderness and are in the promised land. Okay, this is what He says. When the Lord your God brings you into the land, He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant. Then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He's saying this. Guys, listen. Simply remember. I know for some of us that's really hard. He knew. He urged them to remember because He knew that they would be tempted. He knew that their faith in God would not be popular to the surrounding nations and that other things would want to capture their attention. He knew that, so He urged them continually. Remember, this is God's secret sauce that will allow you to stay in proper relationship and under His protection. It is to remember. So bring the family. Thanks again for listening to Elevate. God bless you.