Judges
2:7-8, 10-16 (NIV) 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.
8
Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and
ten. …
10
After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another
generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.
11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.
12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of
Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them.
They provoked the Lord to anger 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and
the Ashtoreths. 14 In his anger against Israel the Lord handed them over to
raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they
were no longer able to resist. 15 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.
16 Then
the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders.
NOTE: So, while the
people failed in the larger task of destroying the foreign altars, for the most
part they do obey for as long as the elders of the exodus generation are alive.
But, the new generation, who had not seen God's work (and his punishment) desert
God. The result is that God deserts them. They are defeated by their enemies to
the point of great distress. And only then, when (as the book will later
elaborate) they call out to God in their distress does he send deliverers, in the
form of judges. The problem is disobedience and disregard for their parent's
faith. The solution is distress and the emergence of spiritual leaders and some
not-so-spiritual-leaders who rescue Israel from their distress.
I see this story
being repeated today. The children of Christian families reject or have a
laissez faire attitude toward their faith and the result, for believers, is
that God does whatever it takes to bring them back home to him. This can be
very painful and it is a result of their disobedience. This is different from
the health and wealth gospel teaching because it is based on Hebrews 13 where
God disciplines his children whom he loves. Actually, the book of Hebrews is
the Judges of the NT. It is a story of Hebrew Christians turning from the faith
and going back to Judaism, and a warning of a coming judgment. The judgment in
this case is quite severe because, if they don't realize their error, they will
be caught up in the destruction and burning of the city and temple, and the
resulting loss of their earthly lives. If on the other hand, they return to the
faith, they can avoid the upcoming pain. So what is the solution? It is
obedience to God's word. It is the encouraging effect of good Christian fellowship.
And it is the submission to Christian authority and leadership. That is the
message of Hebrews and this is the message of Judges.
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