When Everyone Does What’s Right in Their Own Eyes

In Judges 2, we see a sobering reality: when God’s people compromise, consequences follow. What starts as small disobedience turns into a full spiritual collapse, where an entire generation forgets the Lord and does what is right in their own eyes.

In this episode, we unpack the difference between God’s passive and active wrath, the danger of coexisting with sin, and why true repentance is more than just feeling sorry. We also wrestle with a hard question: how does a faithful generation raise one that walks away?

This isn’t just Israel’s story, it’s ours: the same drift, the same compromises, the same need for repentance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

That song uh it's pretty powerful, isn't it? Simple little melody, but profound words, standing before the throne of God, and there's no plea that we can usher in that's gonna let us into heaven on our own. When I was 16 years old, uh I was driving around Main Street in the big town of Carnegie, Oklahoma one evening. And the big town of Carnegie had a you know Main Street that had a U on it. And if like a lot of small towns on Friday evening, Saturday evenings, you just drug Maine all evening long. And kids today don't know the benefit, the blessing, and the fun of driving around in a circle. And what would happen is you would drive around in the circle about two or three times, and then you'd hang a right, and you'd take the roads to get on the highway, and then you'd make a loop around Sonic, and then you'd come back and you'd do it all again. And sometimes you would sit there in the parking lot downtown and just hang out till either your mom and dad uh the time that you came home or until you ran out of fun things to do. Well, one night when I was 16 years old, it was the summertime, and uh I was driving down on Main Street and I had a little black pickup that had five-speed transmission in it, and to be fun, I decided I'm gonna pop the clutch and a little bit. And I did, and all of a sudden, here comes this police officer. Now, this police officer was a police officer in Carnegie, Oklahoma for a week. One week. He was Barney Fife on steroids, and uh he bar he made it one week. Well, and and and you know, I'm not dissing on police officers because I respect them and value them, but this is one of those guys who really didn't need a badge or anything like that. But so anyway, I look in my rear view mirror as I'm making my drag, and this police officer's following me. And so I make my loop around Sonic and I come back around, and the police officer's following me again, and I don't recognize the police officer. And you know, if you're in a little town, you recognize everybody. And so I decided to, at the next stop site, take a turn, go through an alley, and then pull into somebody's backyard that I knew and just turned off my taillights. And he drives by. I then go back to Main Street and pull in the church parking lot, and he comes flying up out of nowhere with his lights on now, and he uh pulls up behind me and tells me I was evading arrest, tells me that I uh was driving recklessly and gives me a reckless driving ticket for that moment that I popped my clutch miles ago. So I come home that night, and of course, uh I'm terrified to tell my dad, and I'm like, Dad, uh I woke him up actually on a Saturday night when your dad's a pastor, not a great, great move, but like I just decided to be honest with him, and I'm like, Dad, I got a ticket for reckless driving. He's like, You did what? And so I explained the story to him, and he said, Son, are you an idiot? And I said, I think so, dad. I really, I really, I really do believe so. But just to be clear, he never turned his lights on. He followed me for a while, and so I just decided that I was just gonna pull in and flip my lights off, and then I went back down to Main Street, and that's when he did it. He said, Well, all right. Just so happened that court was gonna be the next week, and so he calls up the only attorney in town who my dad knew, and he's like, uh, Barry, I don't know what to do. Charlie got this ticket, and he said, Is it such and such? Is this the guy that wrote the ticket? And my dad's like, Yep. He's like, That guy has written so many tickets over the weekend. He said, Uh, just tell him to show up to court on Wednesday, because he was actually the judge, too. We didn't know that at the time. But the one attorney in town was also the judge, and he said, Show up to court Wednesday, uh, we'll take care of it. And my dad's like, Well, well, what does he do? He said, Well, there's three pleas he can make. Plea number one is guilty. I would not advise him to make that plea. Plea number one is innocent. I don't know that I would advise him to make that plea. But there is a plea where you can throw yourself on the mercy of the court. And he said, based upon what I know and what's gone on, that would be the advice that I would offer you. So I showed up that night, went to court. That police officer wasn't even there. And so one of the ways that I knew that uh he wasn't a police officer anymore is already by that following week he was let go. The town had already got rid of him, and because he didn't show up, there wasn't any like real thing to go along with it. Basically, he said the judge just looked at me and said, All right, you don't get in trouble for 30 days, and this is tossed out. Be good, go home. And for 30 days, I was a good boy. I promise you that. I say all of that story to say when we stand before the Lord one day, there's very few pleas you got, and that's what that song is about, right? Plea number one is I'm innocent. You can't play that card. Plea number two is I'm guilty, which is true, but you play that card, you're not getting into heaven. Plea number three, in one sense, is you throw yourself at the mercy of the court and say, I don't belong here. But there is one who paid the price for me. And so I'm throwing myself at your feet in mercy because I believe in him. And that's the only plea that we have. As we stand before the Lord one day, and what a thought, right? Like, like you can't say, I I'm innocent, I belong here, because you're not innocent. You might be treated as the price paid in full, but the card you can play is not I'm innocent any longer, because you're not. And you don't want to play guilty, because if you're guilty, it's gonna say, hey, well then you deserve this. And so you look at the Lord and you say, God, I don't belong here. You know, I remember there was this question in CWT all those years ago. If you remember CWT, it was one of the 4,000 different evangelism strategies that we put together. And it was a suppose you were standing before God right now and he asked you, Why should I let you into heaven? What do you think you would say? You know, that's a very interesting question when you think about it. It's a very thought-provoking question. Because at the end of the day, the only answer you have is I don't belong here. I don't, like, like you shouldn't let me in here. And the only plea that you have is not to reason why you should be there, but is to throw yourself at the foot of the mercy of God at the cross and say, but because he paid the price for me, and because he said, If I'll trust and believe in him, that I will not perish, but I have everlasting life. And I'm basing everything completely on him and what he's done. Yet the Bible tells us that God looked upon his sacrifice and it was sufficient to allow you and I to be with the Lord. Man, what a great promise! That's our plea. And I just thinking about that song, just think to myself, you know what, we're gonna stand before the Lord one day, but praise God that we'll be covered in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And why not innocent, we'll be treated as such because of what he's done for us. That's not even anything to do with the lesson today, but you know what? Sometimes I just have little nuggets that I want to share with you. Judges chapter two. Now, in case you're thinking, did I sleep through Judges one? You did not. All right. And so just to let you know, in case you're thinking, all right, uh, did we did I miss something? No, you did not miss Judges chapter one. I'm gonna uh summarize it for you because Judges chapter two is really where I think the meat of what we're gonna be looking at starts and tells us about what uh what's going on during this period of time. Judges chapter one is just kind of setting up for us uh a picture of what's really taking place in Judges chapter two. As we work through the book of Judges, we're gonna see, quite honestly, some of the most depressing uh stories in the Bible. And the reason that we're gonna see them is really how the end of the book of Judges kind of sums it up is that every man was doing what was right in his own eyes. And essentially what's happening is this downward spiral, and about the time you think it can't get any worse, you're gonna find that it gets worse in the life of Israel because they've turned their back on the Lord, they failed to be obedient to him, they've chosen to live life according to what is right in their own eyes, and they experience the outcome of it. In life, we make choices, and our choices matter, and there are consequences for our choices. Sometimes we experience the passive wrath of God, and by that, what I mean is that God looks at us and says, You want to do that? I'm just gonna let you have the natural outcome of it. And so, for instance, if you spend your life drinking, I was actually talking with someone just the other day who has a coworker who's only in his 40s, who's dying of cirrhosis of the liver. But an alcoholic is in most of his life, and although people have tried to help him and he's sought help at different times, that he's just not been able to kick it for whatever reason. And at in the age of his 40s, he is dying now and about to lose his life because of cirrhosis of the liver, because of all the alcohol that he has drinked. Is cirrhosis of the liver and this problem that's affecting him and ultimately his family, is that just an act of judgment of God on him? Well, yes and no. In some ways, I think it's an act of the passive wrath of God. And what I mean by that is God says, okay, you want to live this life, I'm gonna let you have the outcome of this. These choices that you make have consequences, and if you want to continue to do this and you want to continue to go down this path, and you want to continue to turn to this rather than me, and I'm not making judgments about this man as I know nothing about what's led him to this point in life, but the reality is choices we make today have consequences. I don't know if you saw it or not, but there was a high-speed car chase in our parking lot last Friday. Made the more Facebook page. Choices have consequences. I don't know all of what went on behind it. What I do know is someone decided to run from the police, albeit, wasn't it nice that they used their blinker as they were going out of the parking lot? I mean, I love that. I'm gonna run from the police and break a hundred traffic laws, but I'm not gonna break the blinker law. So I'm gonna make sure I go ahead and turn my blinker on as I'm running from the police. And I just laugh at what goes on in people's minds during those moments. And what it just shows you is sin and humanity's just stupid, and it makes no sense. I mean, turning on the blinker out of fear the cop's gonna write you a ticket for not using your blinker as you're running from them is just it's just laughable. But goes out into the park or the road out here on 27th, the police car has to use the old maneuver on them and spin them around, and choices have consequences. And it's sad. I mean, you look at it, I don't know what caused it to be, don't know what the rhyme or reason was behind it, but you look, and part of it is in life, God allows us to experience his passive wrath. And part of what Israel gets to experience is just the outcome of their rebellion against God and the choices they make. But there's also what we see as the wrath of God or the active wrath of God, and that's when God steps in and says, I've had enough. I've told you what I'm gonna do, and now I am actively pouring out my judgment upon you because of your choices. Now, as we look in the book of Judges, we get a little bit of both. That we look at seeing God in a lot of ways and just saying, Israel, you know what? You don't want to be obedient. I'm gonna let you experience the outcome, the consequences of your sin. I told you to go in and possess this promised land that I'm giving you, but I also told you to drive out everyone that's there. Now, this sounds terrible, and I want to speak to this for just a moment because it's easy for us to read through the Old Testament and say to ourselves, man, God seems vicious. Why on earth would he tell them to go in and eliminate all of these people? Now you need to think about this in a couple of ways. First of all, God is going to use Israel as a hand of his judgment against sin and wickedness. These people that are getting run out and that God is bringing judgment upon through Israel are not innocent people. They are not just good old boys and girls sitting over there minding their own business, just living life and following all of these commands and laws. And then God, in just a moment of saying, Israel is more important to me than you are, so I'm gonna have Israel wipe every one of you off the face of the earth, is not what's happening. These are wicked, demonic, idolatrous people who are sacrificing in many instances, infants, children. They are wicked and rebellious against the Lord. There are even moments where God looks and says, I'm not gonna let you send, uh, go into Assyria or whatever it is yet, because they have not fully done all that they're gonna do, meaning I'm being patient with them. They're gonna get their fill, but they haven't yet ripened in a sense of their depravity. But there's gonna reach a point where I'm gonna have had enough, and then I'm gonna send you in, and I'm gonna ask you to be my hand of judgment against them. And so part of the reason that Israel is supposed to go in and do what seems like a terrible thing to us, is God is using them in a physical form of his hand of judgment. So, I mean, God could treat them like Sodom and Gomorrah and rain down fire from heaven against them. But part of what he's wanting Israel to learn in this process is what he doesn't tolerate, what he will also do to them if they don't obey and follow his instructions. And so he's giving Israel a test to see, will you be faithful to me? Will you be obedient to me? Now, what happens is in Judges chapter one, while some of the tribes of Israel are going in and they're eliminating the Canaanites and these different groups of people from the land that they're gonna possess, many of them have not done what God told them to do. And so what's happened is now they've been rebellious against God. And for whatever reason, they've said, we're not gonna eliminate all these people, we're gonna commingle with them. And here was the warning God gave them: if you don't eliminate them, they will turn your hearts against me. And that's exactly what begins to happen. Israel, rather than worshiping and staying faithful to the one true God, instead begins to commingle and to live with and adopt the practices of these pagan entities. And I'm telling you this, this is one of the reasons why it is so dangerous for us to flirt with the world. The Bible tells us to be in the world, but to not be of the world. And one of the problems in our life, when we're willing to try to commingle, and by commingle, I don't mean live amongst the world and go find yourself an island and recuse yourself from the world. That's not the way that God's told us to do. But when we want to commingle with the practices of this world and say, you know, well, I can still do this and be okay. I this is a line that I can flirt with and still be all right. There is an inherent danger because if we're not careful, we can allow our hearts to be turned away from the Lord as well. And that's exactly what's happened in the land of Israel. And this is where we're gonna pick up in chapter two, as the Lord's gonna bring his indictment against them. This is what it says in verse one. The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Balkham and said, I brought you out of the land of Egypt and led you into the land I had promised to your ancestors. I also said, I will never break my covenant with you. Now, just a couple of things here. There's a couple of interpretations of an angel of the Lord. It could mean a literal angel, and that's how I would interpret it. The word is messenger, and the word messenger can, depending on the context, be referring to an angel. It could also be referring to one who speaks on behalf of the Lord. I think in this instance, it's more than likely an angel. That tends to be the uh way that God revealed himself in a lot of ways during this period of time uh in the old under the old covenant. We see it up until the day and time of Jesus when an angel would come and deliver a very specific message. Uh could be a messenger, a prophet. Nonetheless, what we do know is the Lord speaks, and the Lord speaks in a variety of ways, and when the Lord speaks, we should listen. He reminds them of the covenant that the Lord made with them. And he said, I'm not gonna break my covenant with you. Now, there was a couple of types of covenants that we see in the Bible. There are conditional and non-conditional covenants. There are some covenants that God gives, and basically he just says, I'm gonna do this because I am good, because I am who I say I am, and I'm going to always follow through. There are conditional covenants that basically mean that there's a condition attached to them that I'm gonna do this as long as you do this. And so I will continue to bless you in this way as long as you follow me, as long as you trust me, as long as you walk with me by faith. And so he's reminding them of this covenant that he has made. Verse 2 you are not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You are to tear down their altars. And so one of the conditions of the covenant was when you go into this land that I'm gonna give you, you follow my instructions, you run them out, you destroy them, you tear down all their places of worship. You do not allow that to dwell among you anymore. And here's the problem: you have not obeyed me. You've not kept up your end of the bargain. He says, What have you done? Therefore, I now say, I will not drive out these people before you. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a trap for you. When the angel of the Lord had spoken these words to all of the Israelites, the people wept loudly, so that they named that place Bochum and offered sacrifices there to the Lord. And so God said, I didn't even ask you to do this in your own strength and power. I told you I would be with you, that I would go before you. You just needed to be obedient to me. But you've chosen not to be obedient. So therefore, I'm gonna leave you up to the consequences of your actions and your choices. I'm not gonna drive out these people, but now here's what's gonna happen: they are going to be a thorn in your flesh, a thorn in your side. You're gonna get exactly what it is that you've asked for. And God does that to us. God sometimes says, You want that? I'm gonna allow you to have that. I'm gonna allow you to live that life. And I think he does so in hope and in mercy, hoping and believing that once we've experienced and had enough of the consequences of our choices, that maybe we'll repent and turn back to him. We do this with our children sometimes as they get older. You know, sometimes with your children, one of the best lessons that you can let them learn is just the natural consequences of their actions. And I think sometimes poor parenting is when you bail your child out over and over and over again, and they never learn that if you make that choice long enough, there's an outcome that you're not gonna like. And I do think one of the reasons that we have a lot of dysfunctional adults is because they didn't learn at a very young age the reality of consequences to choices. And as such, because mom and dad shielded them, protected them, bailed them out over and over, they get into adult life and they don't think rules apply to them. They just wait for that moment that mom and dad or somebody else is gonna swoop in and just make it all okay. And some of the best lessons in life are to allow a little bit of pain and a little bit of consequence to help correct behavior that's gonna lead to a path of destruction. And so the people hear what God has to say, they weep loudly, yet what they have not done is repent. And how do we know that? Because look at what continues on in the book. True repentance leads to a change of action and course correction. And it's possible for us to lament over the outcome and the the pain of our choices, but never truly be repentant and turn from what we've done. Sometimes we are more upset about the consequences and the punishment than we really are about what we've done and wanting to turn from it. I can remember many a time as a kid when my brother and I would fight, and my mom would come in there with the old wooden spoon to referee that little thing. You know, wooden spoons work. I don't know if you know that or not, but the other day, it's been it's been a few months ago, but Adeline, believe it or not, was not acting right. And so when we left the house, Renee actually brought the wooden spoon with her, and I'm like, oh no, this is getting serious. We walk, we went into Bass Pro shop, and I've got a picture of it on my phone. I put should put it on the screen, but Renee might not like it. I don't know. I don't think she would care, I think she'd be proud. But nonetheless, I look up as we're walking into Bass Pro, and Renee's got her purse or her little thing slung across her shoulder and her wooden spoon in her. Hand. And I'm walking behind her and I took a picture of it. I'm like, Mom is serious today. Like, like, she's so serious. We're going into Bass Pro Shop with the wooden spoon just in case we need it. And you know what? Adelin acted really nice in Bass Pro Shop. I mean, it was just amazing. Something about mom carrying that wooden spoon around. And so my mom, every now and then, would use a wooden spoon or whatever other device she could pick up in the moment with two boys fighting in the house. And uh she would referee the fight, and then when we were done, she would say, Now, tell your brother you're sorry. Can I tell you, in all honesty, that I said I was sorry a lot without being sorry? I was sorry mom got me with the wooden spoon. I was sorry that mom, you know, did whatever it was that she had to do to correct the behavior, but I don't know that I was sorry that I walked my brother upside the head. I can even remember times as a kid when I cried when mom was done with me, still not being sorry for what I did. Now, what's the point of that? True repentance isn't just being sorry for getting caught. It's not just being sorry for bad things happening, it's not just being sorry that you got a spanking. It's saying, I am grieved that the fact that I've sinned against the Lord, and I want to turn from that and turn back to him. Verse 6, it gives us a little glimpse of what's happened previously. It says, previously, when Joshua had sent the people away, the Israelites had gone to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. The people worshiped the Lord throughout Joshua's lifetime and during the lifetime of the elders who outlived Joshua. They had seen all the Lord's great works he had done for Israel. Now this goes back to the end of the book of Joshua, when Joshua knows that his time is coming to an end, and he gathers the people together and he gives them that great charge. You know, you remember what God has done, and and but you know, and choose this day whom you're gonna serve. But it's for me and my house. We're gonna serve the Lord. And the people stood up and said, We're gonna serve the Lord too. That's what we're gonna do. And Joshua calls them out and he says, Guys, I know you pretty well. I know that you have a tendency to turn from the Lord, and I need you to know that God's a serious God, he's a jealous God, he's not gonna tolerate your wishy-washiness. And they said, No, we Joshua will serve the Lord. And on some level, we see that there was faithfulness to this. This older generation continued to serve the Lord and remembered what he had done. Verse 8, Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten. They buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnoth herez, and in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the Mount of Ga'ash. The whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works that he had done. The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord's sight. They worshiped the Baals and abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed other gods from the surrounding peoples and bowed down to them. Now, I sometimes don't know how to interpret what's happened in verse 10. It seems interesting to me that we have a faithful generation of adults who somehow raised a generation of children who does not follow the Lord. And I think we've all witnessed that in our own lives, right? There can be a generation of faithfulness on behalf of a group of people only to look underneath and see a group of children who wander away from the Lord. And the question for me is always, why? Why is that? I think there's a couple of ways we could possibly interpret this passage. And one might be that while the parents knew what God had done and worshipped him, they did not teach it to their children like they should have. And that's one of the things that God told the people of Israel to make sure they do in the Shema, right? Make sure you you teach and remind all the things that I've done. You put it as frontlets on your head, you bind it on the doorpost of your home, you continue to drill into your children all the things that I have done for them. And it's possible that the older generation, while they practice their faith, and I think there's a form of teaching in that, did not clearly articulate in the proper way to the younger generations, reminding them of all the things that God has done, had done for them. And it's possible that maybe what the younger generation saw, what they thought was just ritual and wrote and just going through the motions of things, but but never truly learned and embraced it as themselves. It's also possible that the parents did that, but here's what I've learned in my own life: watching young people. You don't live off your parents' faith. At some point, your faith has got to be your faith, right? And I think sometimes what we see have happened is that young people borrow off their parents' faith and following those instructions until they reach a certain age where they start living for them, I mean making choices for themselves and things, and they never truly believed. And one of the things it says here is that they they didn't know the works the Lord had done for Israel. Now, is that because they hadn't been taught? Possibly. Maybe they hadn't seen with their own eyes and witnessed it, and therefore they questioned the validity of it. You know, I don't know. I think sometimes it's real easy to blame parents for their children's actions. And I know that, you know, at the end of the day, we're all going to be held accountable. I know that I have a responsibility to my children to teach them, to show them, to model for them uh what the Lord has done. And uh at the same time, I know that that my kids are gonna have to give account to the Lord for their own choices with that. You know, I look back at my generation, which is interesting, uh, especially in the town that I grew up in, because it was still in a day and time in the Bible belt where the bulk of families went to church and all of that stuff. And I think to me, honestly, the thing that I learned from my upbringing, there is a huge danger to cultural Christianity. Because cultural Christianity that just wants to follow the Lord because that's what's expected, and that's what the culture does, does not create deep roots in the lives of people. And so I grew up in a day and time of cultural Christianity where the majority of citizens in town went to church. Majority of children were raised in church, but I can tell you this: the majority of my peers have no relationship with the Lord whatsoever. And just knowing what I know in a small context, a lot of it was because the parents spoke out loud about what was supposed to happen, but they didn't model it with their lives. And if I were to look at what was different about my home, I mean, and I were to look and say, all right, my parents managed to raise four children who were all seeking to serve the Lord, doesn't mean we do it perfectly, but but we're seeking to. Well, what was the difference in our home versus other homes that were at church just as often as we were? And while I can't speak to every part of it, and I clearly believe that God's grace is the biggest part of it, what I do know is this. My parents modeled in the home everything that they said they believed. And they didn't do it perfectly, but that was the way that we lived. It wasn't just talking points on Sunday, it was the way that we lived our life. In a thousand ways. I mean, even to the point, like I've told you before, I would be mad at my dad when he wouldn't let me go to a certain kind of movie. And I would, you know, sometimes in teenage angst would say, Well, you just won't let me go because you're the pastor and you're afraid of what people are gonna say about you. And you know what? There's probably a little bit of truth to that. But his rebuttal also was this No, the reason I'm not gonna let you go is because that movie goes against what we believe that God says is right, and I don't want you to go to be a part of it. I don't want you to experience it. I don't want you to see it, I don't want you to hear it. Now, whether that's right or wrong, you want to know something as a young man, at least there was a conviction behind it. At least when he was making decisions, there was an attempt to articulate, and I don't agree with every decision my dad made, you know, because again, I grew up in the day and time where dancing was like footloose dancing, like, you know, we're all gonna go to hell if we do it. Now, in his defense, he relented on that a little bit. I didn't participate, partly out of respect for my dad in a lot of those instances, because I knew even though he told me it was okay, and I went to a couple like things, but but not a lot, I'm like, I know he doesn't like me being there. And so part of that was just this honoring of him that I kind of chose to do, even though I really wasn't cognitively aware. When I look back, if you were to say, well, why did you not go to some of those things? I'm like, because I knew my dad wouldn't like it. And it wasn't because I was afraid he was going to be mad at me. It was more along the lines of like, I didn't want to burden his heart. One of the reasons I didn't drink in high school wasn't because I was a saint. My dad had strong convictions against the consumption of alcohol because he had seen it tear apart so many families' lives. And it's not that, and I think his conviction of being a teetotaler was right for him. I don't think it's right to impose that upon everyone else, as I don't think biblically the Bible is that explicit on it. That being said, you want to know why I didn't drink in high school? It wasn't because I was a saint. There were two reasons. One is because the guys that did look like complete idiots. And I thought to myself, you know, I don't really want to be like that. I mean, that guy's a bumbling idiot right now, and you know, I just I don't want to be a bumbling idiot. There's part of it. You know what the bigger part was though? I know that if I came in my house like this, not that my dad would beat me, it would break his heart. And I thought, you know, I'm willing to break his heart on some other things, and I know this is some stupid logic, but like that one is one that I know would truly break his heart. And out of love and respect for him, I said, I don't want to do that to him. And I think sometimes that that should be our heart in why we don't sin or why we don't do things, is like not just I don't want to experience the consequence of it. I don't want to break my dad's heart. I don't want to break my father in heaven's heart. Like I know how he feels about these things. All of that's a side note, but it's trying to wrap our minds around a little bit why? And I and I don't have a real answer to you. You know, I'm like, why is it that one generation served the Lord and another generation didn't? We were talking in staff the other day and we're reading a book on conversion, and you know, I think I shared this with you last week, but basically we we want to make sure we're rightly handling the people of God in this church, especially the young people in this church, and we're presenting to them clear biblical truth and words pertaining to salvation and conversion. And I shared with the staff, I said, I want us to be careful about language that we use, and I'm not saying that this language is completely terrible, I just don't think it's adequate. So for instance, when we say, ask Jesus into your heart, what do we mean by that? And I know we've used that phrase, and if you've used that phrase, I told the staff this. I'm not saying you're bad or wrong or dumb or anything like that, but you know, we have biblical phrases and words that are more clear than that. And when you just ask a kid or a person, do you want to ask Jesus in your heart so you don't go to hell when you die? I'm not sure that that's really a biblical picture of what salvation really is. I think any kid who doesn't say, Yes, I want to do that, I've got some concern for them mentally. Right? If all I have to do to keep myself from torment is to ask Jesus into my heart, well, well, why wouldn't I want to do that? And I think we've unintentionally presented some things to people over the years that that bear not necessarily a clear picture of what salvation looks like. But there is something different about are you willing to repent of your sin and by faith trust in what Jesus did and turn to Him to bring salvation to your life. And so there's other words and things that we can use. And one of the things that I was sharing with the staff is this like I can't speak to why in every generation things happen the way they do. And I know this when we're all said and done, people are gonna look at our generation and poke all the holes in it because we're not perfect. What I do want to be able to say when it's all said and done, though, is this we did the best we could to teach, to proclaim the truth of what God says in his word, trusting that he will use that. I told our our our next gen staff members the other day, I said, I want you to know we will never judge you by how many decisions are made at the end of your event. That's not fair. Because guess why? We don't get to save people. And if I judge you on that, what's gonna happen is what's happened, I think, historically in churches is we start manufacturing decisions because we gotta bear evidence that it was worth our time and money. That's not why it's worth our time and money. It's worth our time and money if we've been faithful to do what God's told us to do and trust that He's gonna bring the response. Now, if we're not proclaiming the gospel in a clear way, we're gonna be held accountable for that. We're gonna have to be held accountable for that. And we will hold ourselves accountable as a staff if we're not proclaiming the gospel in a clear, articulate way. If we're being lazy, we're gonna be held accountable for that. Because the Lord's called us to work and to do. But when we make sure that we keep the priority what the priority needs to be, I think that's when we can say, all right, we've done what the Lord's asked us to do, and God, we're gonna trust you to bring the results that we want and what we need. And I've lived long enough as well as you, I think, to see not every season that looks like a bunch of people got saved was always as good of a season as we thought it was. I mean, there was, and not that God doesn't bring revival and those things don't happen, but but I've lived long enough to see that sometimes what looked like the biggest response a year later was proven to be absolutely nothing. Yet slow, methodical faithfulness and preaching of the word and investing in the lives of people three years from then brought far more fruit than those big explosive moments that we looked at and thought God was really moving and working. So why do I say all that? Because I'm just trying to make sense of in this passage, you know, without just blaming one generation, it could be their fault. I don't, I don't know. But it doesn't necessarily always mean it's their fault. I mean, maybe they were taught, and it's just a rebellious generation. Nonetheless, what we do know is this they didn't do what God said. They turned from the Lord, and not only did they fail to worship God, they began to worship other gods along the way. Look at what happens at the end of that verse. They angered the Lord, for they abandoned him and worshipped Baal and the Astareths. It is right for God to be angry about these things. When people say, I have an issue with an angry God, I say, I have an issue with a God that's not angry. Here's why. If these people turning to these other gods who sacrifice children doesn't make the God of heaven angry, then he's not good. If God can look upon the world in which we live in, full of sin and wickedness and terrible things, and it doesn't anger him, then here's what that tells me. He's not good. You want to know why? Because I'm not perfectly good and I get angry at it. And I don't get angry in a wrong sense, like I get angry in a legitimate sense. I'm angry when when rape and abuse happens to children. I mean, being a foster parent, I've sat down and had to hear stories about what's gone on in children's life, and I can assure you that if you're not angry by the time you hear it, something is wrong with you. Because it's evil and wickedness that goes on in the world. When wrong's perpetrated against you, it's okay for you to be angry about it. The Bible says be angry and not sin, right? But it's okay when wrong is going on in the world to be angry. And if God is holy and just and good, why would he not be angry at his people who he's called to himself to be recipients of his divine blessing, who have turned from him and chosen to love things other than him, why would he not be angry? We're gonna stop there. Nine minutes early. You're welcome. Because there's something I want us to get into in this next few verses uh that I just know we're not gonna get done in nine minutes. And so we're gonna be done. It's always good to leave you on a cliffhanger. Uh we'll pick up there next week because uh there's some words that God uses that I want us to think about a little more deeply than just just nine minutes worth. So so what do we see? We see a people whom God wants to bless, a people who God has given everything they need to live a life of blessing, who instead have said, you know what, we're gonna get live life our own way, which ways we think is best, and God's gonna say, Well, you want that, I'm gonna let you have it. Now, before we sit here with the people of Israel and say, what a bunch of fools. You ever done that? You ever experience the blessing of God only in a moment to go do the very thing that He tells you not to do? You ever experience the goodness and faithfulness of God only to find yourself loving things more than God, loving the gift over the giver? And you know, we look at the people of Israel and their idolatry and say, how stupid can they be? Yet, while we don't, most of us don't have idols that we're praying to in our house, we've got things in our garage, we've got things on our entertainment center, we got things in our bank account that we sure can love more than we love the God of heaven. And as I read through the Old Testament and look at the foolishness and stupidity of Israel, I can't help but look at my own foolishness and stupidity and think I justify it because it seems far more sophisticated than worshiping some idol that was made up. Personally, I believe that these idols of the Old Testament were demonic influenced. I believe that there was demonic power behind them. Because I don't think people just like worship nothing, I think that demons would manifest themselves in a way that they were doing things that caused it to look like that there was a response to be had. And the reason I'll tell you why I believe that. Uh when you take a look at the magicians in uh I'm gonna keep you late anyway. Uh when you take a look at the magicians in uh Egypt, they could replicate a lot of what Moses could do, right? Now, maybe it's sleight of hand. I don't think Moses is that dumb, though. I don't think like they threw out a stick that looked like a snake, and Moses was like, oh my gosh. I think they were able to, through demonic supernatural power, replicate to some instance. But what happened? Moses' snake swallowed up there, is proving that God looks and says, Look, I'm the God over all forces, and I'm the God over these other supernatural beings who can replicate things, but they can't trump me. So I believe that demonic activity is responsible for a lot of the idol worship that went on in the Old Testament because I believe that through these supernatural spirits, they're able to replicate and do things. And so I don't think that they just like found some pole and carved out some being and then all just say, well, let's just worship that. I believe that there was something behind it that caused people to turn from God and turn to that. But nonetheless, it is what it is. It's idolatry turning from the Lord that He condemns in our hearts and in our lives. And we need to be quick to repent from the idols that we worship just as much as Israel should have repented from the idols that they worship. I'm gonna pray and be done. If not, I'll go on another tangent and it'll be 11:15, and you're gonna be like, You said we get out early. Father in heaven, thank you for this day. Thank you for showing us, Lord, the outcome of our choices. And Father, we know today that if we turn from you, it is truly a path that leads to destruction. And Father, I know my own heart is one that's quick, if I'm not careful, to turn from you and turn to other things. And Father, I pray that you would keep us from that. I pray that you would help us to see things for what they are, that that our eyes would be focused on you and not the other. Other things that surround us and the things of the world. Father, I know that in this heart of mine there's still a tendency to want to love things that it shouldn't love. And Father, would you cleanse me from that and eradicate that from me? Father, in those moments that I'm idolatrous, would you give me a heart of repentance that wants to quickly turn? Father, I thank you for your faithfulness, your patience. You're willing to hear us when we call out to you. Father, we pray that you would help us today not to repeat the same mistakes that we've seen people of old make. Yet when we do, God, would you turn our hearts to you that we would turn from our sin and see that you are faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness? Thank you for this time that we have together. We love you, we praise you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.