SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning and welcome.
SPEAKER_01: Glad to have you worshiping with us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you are visiting with us, we are glad to have you with us.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Pastor Jason, and I have the privilege of opening God's Word with you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a Bible, I encourage you to take it and open it to the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: We've been working our way through Matthew's gospel for quite some time now, and we've been several weeks in the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5, and I thought it'd be good to take a little bit of a break from that and consider a few thoughts from an Old Testament book this morning.
SPEAKER_01: A book that, while it's more than 3,000 years old, it has much to say to us in this 21st century world.
SPEAKER_01: If you're unfamiliar with the Bible, that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: There's one in the seat back in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to open that up, you can open it up to page 200.
SPEAKER_01: You can find God's word recorded for you on those pages.
SPEAKER_01: Before we really get into this, we need to understand a little bit about the background of where we're headed today.
SPEAKER_01: Judges highlights approximately 400 years of history in the life of ancient Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And we've just celebrated our nation's birthday.
SPEAKER_01: We haven't yet reached 400 years.
SPEAKER_01: So when we think about what we're going to be looking at this morning, we need to understand it's much longer and encompasses a much greater period of time than what our own country has yet lived.
SPEAKER_01: If we were reading consecutively from Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus on to Judges, we might approach the book of Judges with excitement, with some anticipation of what is coming in this book.
SPEAKER_01: Because Israel is at the end of 400 years of slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: God has miraculously brought them out of that slavery and has granted them freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Now they've wandered in the desert for 40 years because they disobeyed God.
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the book of Joshua, what comes before this, Joshua has led them into the land that God promised generations before.
SPEAKER_01: They've received their promised inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: They have gone in, taken possession of their own land, their own sovereignty, and their own independence.
SPEAKER_01: So what can we learn from Israel's independence?
SPEAKER_01: And it's there that I want us to focus this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're not going to be addressing the United States of America in particular.
SPEAKER_01: If you came for that, sorry to disappoint you.
SPEAKER_01: We focus on Jesus, not our country.
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to really cover national or international matters, despite the sermon title.
SPEAKER_01: However, because there is nothing new under the sun, you may notice similarities in the book of Judges to other people groups, other nations, even our own.
SPEAKER_01: Now I am addressing us, us as modern day people.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter if we are Americans or not.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter if you are a citizen of this country or not.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible is not a nationalistic book, it is divine revelation from the supreme king of the universe, and we have gathered not as Americans or any other people group or any other nation, but as followers of Christ Jesus, the King.
SPEAKER_01: That's why our focus is continually and always on Him in our gatherings together.
SPEAKER_01: Because Scripture is divinely inspired, it applies to God's people at any time, in any place, in any nation throughout the world.
SPEAKER_01: So I want us to hear what God would say to us from these early chapters of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: I've entitled this sermon Lessons from Independence.
SPEAKER_01: What can we learn from Israel's Independence?
SPEAKER_01: Now, before we get into some specific lessons, let me give you what I believe to be the overarching truth that God intends for us to take away this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's very clear from the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: Independence without faith and submission to Christ is utterly fruitless.
SPEAKER_01: It is unfulfilling.
SPEAKER_01: And it is frighteningly disastrous.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter if the subject is national independence, ethnic independence, or personal independence.
SPEAKER_01: Any kind of independence is fruitless, unfulfilling, and disastrous without submission to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Or, to put it positively, if you're tired of the negative, submission to Christ the King is what brings you ultimate fulfillment.
SPEAKER_01: Submission to Christ the King is what brings you ultimate fulfillment.
SPEAKER_01: Now, wait a minute, some of you might say.
SPEAKER_01: Submission to another, especially a king, is not independence.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that what our country fought against?
SPEAKER_01: Submission to a king?
SPEAKER_01: We don't want a king telling us what to do or how to do it.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you caught that, then you are already well on your way to recognizing the spiritual truth that we're going to highlight this morning.
SPEAKER_01: But as we dig a little deeper into Israel's history, we need to understand a little bit more about the beginnings of their independence.
SPEAKER_01: Judges is actually the continuation of that story.
SPEAKER_01: So to get to the initial parts, we need to back up just a few pages in your Bible to Joshua 23.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua chapter 23.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to read chapter 23, verses 1 through 10, if you'd like to follow along, just so we have this historical context in our minds.
SPEAKER_01: It begins in chapter 23 of Joshua, verse 1, with Yahweh giving rest to Israel from all their surrounding enemies.
SPEAKER_01: And Joshua was old and well advanced in years, so he summoned all Israel, its elders and its heads, its judges and officers, and said to them, I am now old and well advanced in years.
SPEAKER_01: And you have seen all that Yahweh your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is Yahweh your God who has fought for you.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off from the Jordan to the great sea in the west.
SPEAKER_01: Yahweh your God will push them back before you and drive them out of your sight, and you shall possess their land just as Yahweh your God promised you.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left, that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you, or make mention of the names of their gods, or swear by them, or serve them, or bow down to them, but you shall cling to Yahweh your God just as you have done to this day.
SPEAKER_01: For Yahweh has driven out before you great and strong nations.
SPEAKER_01: And as for you, no man has been able to stand before you to this day.
SPEAKER_01: One man have you put to flight a thousand, since it is Yahweh your God who fights for you, just as he promised.
SPEAKER_01: Beginnings of Israel's independence.
SPEAKER_01: Joshua is recounting what has happened in the years just prior to this point.
SPEAKER_01: Israel has received their inheritance, they've conquered peoples, they've driven peoples out, and Joshua is reminding them of a very specific truth.
SPEAKER_01: And it's one that we would do well to remember as well, and that is that independence is given by the sovereign power of God.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see Joshua's emphasis again and again in this section?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: All that Yahweh your God has done for you.
SPEAKER_01: For it is Yahweh your God who has fought for you.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5, Yahweh your God will push them back.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9, Yahweh has driven out before you.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10, it is Yahweh your God who fights for you.
SPEAKER_01: Do you get the hint?
SPEAKER_01: God is absolutely sovereign, and it is within his sovereign power to grant independence.
SPEAKER_01: Any independence must come from the hand of a sovereign God.
SPEAKER_01: This is a hard, hard truth that another leader, one of the greatest kings of ancient times, learned, well, we might say he learned it the hard way.
SPEAKER_01: There's a man by the name of Nebuchadnezzar.
SPEAKER_01: And in Daniel chapter 4, we see the beginnings of a statement from Nebuchadnezzar.
SPEAKER_01: This is after Nebuchadnezzar has been humbled, you might say.
SPEAKER_01: God has caused him to act like a cow for a very long period of time.
SPEAKER_01: And it says in Daniel chapter 4, verse 17, Daniel is describing this to the king, and he says, the sentence is by decree of the watchers, and the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will, and sets over it the lowliest of men.
SPEAKER_01: That is repeated in chapter 4, verse 25, and chapter 4, verse 32, and chapter 4, and verse 35, and 36 and 37, where Nebuchadnezzar finally gets it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why in Daniel chapter 5, verse 21, Daniel repeats the lesson that Nebuchadnezzar learned.
SPEAKER_01: He knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom He will.
SPEAKER_01: We may perceive in our own thoughts and our own minds that it is our might, that it is our decisions, that it is the nation's armies or the nation's rulers that gain independence.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Independence comes directly from the sovereign hand of a powerful God.
SPEAKER_01: If we do not get that, then we will fail to understand what is happening.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Joshua wants Israel to notice this.
SPEAKER_01: And so he says in Joshua 24, beginning in verse 11, and you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho.
SPEAKER_01: And the leaders of Jericho fought against you.
SPEAKER_01: And also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Gergeshites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and probably lots of other ites.
SPEAKER_01: And I gave them into your hand, God says.
SPEAKER_01: And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you, the two kings of the Amorites.
SPEAKER_01: It was not by your sword or by your bow.
SPEAKER_01: I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwelt in them.
SPEAKER_01: You eat the fruit of the vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.
SPEAKER_01: No nation, no ethnicity, no collection of people, no unseen force, not even you, can possess any independence unless it is given by the hand of a sovereign God.
SPEAKER_01: He gives the opportunity, he sets up the circumstances, he grants the ability as well as any victory that might come from it.
SPEAKER_01: But you can see then that if independence, or at least independence as we consider it, if that comes from a sovereign God, God does not cease being sovereign, does he?
SPEAKER_01: God is always sovereign, therefore, any independence that we might possess must be qualified.
SPEAKER_01: It is not complete independence.
SPEAKER_01: Only God Himself is truly and utterly independent because everything else is dependent on Him.
SPEAKER_01: Thomas Jefferson, one of our founders, understood this.
SPEAKER_01: He said, and I quote, can the liberties of a nation be thought to be secure when we have removed their only firm basis?
SPEAKER_01: A conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God.
SPEAKER_01: Independence can only come from the sovereign power of God.
SPEAKER_01: But we need to understand, friends, that the greatest independence is not physical.
SPEAKER_01: It's not national.
SPEAKER_01: It's not even religious freedom to be able to gather today like we are.
SPEAKER_01: The greatest independence is freedom from the slavery to sin and death.
SPEAKER_01: Romans chapter 6, verse 6, the Apostle Paul says, We know that our old self was crucified in Christ in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see that God even brings that freedom back to you?
SPEAKER_01: Do you possess that kind of freedom?
SPEAKER_01: Has God granted the freedom of slavery from sin to you?
SPEAKER_01: If he has not cry out to Christ for that freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Independence comes from the sovereign hand of God, but independence also can bring great zeal.
SPEAKER_01: It can bring great zeal.
SPEAKER_01: Look with me at Judges chapter 1 and verse 19.
SPEAKER_01: Judges chapter 1 begins with the death of Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: So we have a transition period here.
SPEAKER_01: The leadership that has led them into the land and has subdued people groups is no longer present.
SPEAKER_01: All of the leaders that followed Joshua that were with him, they are all dying off.
SPEAKER_01: We are coming to a generation of people that does not know God.
SPEAKER_01: Judges chapter 1, verse 19, the tribe of Judah went out to capture its territory.
SPEAKER_01: It says, and Yahweh was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.
SPEAKER_01: This passage seems to be parallel to the account in Joshua 17, specifically verses 14 through 18.
SPEAKER_01: See, Judah was given by God through Joshua the hill country of Palestine.
SPEAKER_01: They were to go in, they were to capture the hill country and live in it, settle in it.
SPEAKER_01: It was theirs, it belonged to them.
SPEAKER_01: And so God went with them to capture that territory.
SPEAKER_01: But then it says they sought to go even further down into the plains because in Joshua 17 we see they they complained that God didn't give them enough.
SPEAKER_01: They had great zeal.
SPEAKER_01: They said, Great, God has been with us.
SPEAKER_01: We've captured this land, let's take more.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't realize the technological capabilities of the people down in the plain.
SPEAKER_01: And they were driven back.
SPEAKER_01: They had great zeal.
SPEAKER_01: They said, look, let's go, let's take it.
SPEAKER_01: But God had not given them the planes.
SPEAKER_01: You may be familiar with the famous quote from Patrick Henry.
SPEAKER_01: Is life so dear or is peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
SPEAKER_01: Forbid it, Almighty God.
SPEAKER_01: I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.
SPEAKER_01: That probably could have been Israel's chant.
SPEAKER_01: We want to take it.
SPEAKER_01: We have zeal.
SPEAKER_01: Let's do this.
SPEAKER_01: Zeal is what sent the broken casks of packed tea into the Boston Harbor.
SPEAKER_01: Zeal is what drove the soldiers to endure with General Washington through the cold, killing winters.
SPEAKER_01: John Adams is quoted as saying, I am well aware of the toil and the blood and the treasure it will cost us to maintain this Declaration of Independence and to support and defend these states.
SPEAKER_01: Yet through all the gloom I see the rays of ravishing light and glory, I can see that the end is worth all the means.
SPEAKER_01: That's zeal.
SPEAKER_01: Zeal is good, and it is often zeal that is the energy of youth.
SPEAKER_01: But what Judah learned, and what we all must learn, is that while zeal is good, it must be bounded by God's directives.
SPEAKER_01: Judah had not been given the plane.
SPEAKER_01: They sought more than what God had given them.
SPEAKER_01: You may be zealous for something.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's politics.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's the life of the unborn.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's social justice.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's the homeless and the needy.
SPEAKER_01: Zeal for the benefit of others is well and good, especially when we have the freedom to do something about it, to make a difference.
SPEAKER_01: But take care lest your zeal take you further than God intends.
SPEAKER_01: You may find yourself fighting God.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps you find yourself desiring independence from your parents, from your employer.
SPEAKER_01: You want to be free to do what you want, to do whatever you desire to do.
SPEAKER_01: Take care lest your zeal for independence lead you to defeat.
SPEAKER_01: While we desire complete and total independence, we need to understand that true life, real enjoyment, and full fulfillment comes only through submission to another.
SPEAKER_01: The independence, then, when we have it, when we possess it, is compromised through a lack of obedience to God.
SPEAKER_01: Note the shift in language here.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 19 of chapter 1, Judah could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain.
SPEAKER_01: Then if you go down to verse 21, the people of Benjamin did not.
SPEAKER_01: Could not to did not.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at verse 27, Manasseh did not, 29, Ephraim did not, 30, Zebulun did not, 31, Asher did not.
SPEAKER_01: You get the point.
SPEAKER_01: Goes from could not, they did not have the ability to do it, to they refused to do it.
SPEAKER_01: They did not follow through on it.
SPEAKER_01: There is continued disobedience, even when powerful enough to fulfill God's expectations.
SPEAKER_01: You see, what happened is that Israel began to settle in those areas, and they grew in numbers, and as they grew in numbers, they grew in strength.
SPEAKER_01: And thus, when they grew in strength, they should have been able to push those peoples completely out and fulfill God's commands, shouldn't they?
SPEAKER_01: But they didn't.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 27.
SPEAKER_01: Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beit Sha'an and its villages, or Ta'anak and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, the inhabitants of Iblayim and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages, for the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land.
SPEAKER_01: Now when Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely.
SPEAKER_01: That's partial obedience, which is disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, they put them to forced labor, but that was disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: And now notice what happens.
SPEAKER_01: So they they go from could not to did not.
SPEAKER_01: They allow the Canaanites to persist among them, and now we have to ask the question: who's living among whom?
SPEAKER_01: So we see at the end of verse 29, so the Canaanites lived in Gezer among them.
SPEAKER_01: So Israel is in the majority here, and the Canaanites are living amongst the Israelites.
SPEAKER_01: But look at verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: So the Asherites lived among the Canaanites.
SPEAKER_01: It flips.
SPEAKER_01: See, back in Joshua 23, Joshua warned the people about the Consequences of not obeying God.
SPEAKER_01: And God said, if you don't, if you don't drive them out completely, then they're going to become a problem for you.
SPEAKER_01: You know, there were many times when I thought that I knew better than my parents.
SPEAKER_01: Shock, right?
SPEAKER_01: You were never that way, of course.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that about you.
SPEAKER_01: I thought many times that my independence would come by doing my own thing rather than what my parents expected me to do.
SPEAKER_01: Do you think that doing something opposite of what my parents expected brought me greater independence?
SPEAKER_01: If you do, then you don't remember your childhood.
SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
SPEAKER_01: If anything, doing the opposite of my parents' wishes reduced my independence.
SPEAKER_01: If anything, I had less freedom.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Israel thought that they were pursuing the best thing by ignoring what God said.
SPEAKER_01: In reality, they were compromising their own independence.
SPEAKER_01: They failed to recognize how great their freedom would be if only they obeyed God.
SPEAKER_01: Too many of us Christians live the same way.
SPEAKER_01: We desire greater independence, and so we live in ways that are contrary to God's ways, but it only ends up compromising our freedom, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Look with me next at how independence without obedience to God brings compromise to culture.
SPEAKER_01: God's in perfect sovereign control of this situation.
SPEAKER_01: God had perfectly timed the entrance of Israel into Canaan, the land that He promised to give them.
SPEAKER_01: God said, I'm going to give them 400 more years to repent while you're in slavery.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to wait for their repentance.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to destroy them right away.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be very patient with them.
SPEAKER_01: But when they became only more wicked and evil, and God's patience had reached its limit, God brought in Israel, partly as a means of judgment against those peoples.
SPEAKER_01: And of course, like we all do, those peoples had their own cultures.
SPEAKER_01: They had established patterns and rituals and religions, all of which God wanted to eradicate.
SPEAKER_01: God said, Do away with all of it, get rid of it.
SPEAKER_01: Squash it all.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at chapter 2 of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: Now the angel of Yahweh went out from Gilgal to Bochim and he said, I brought you up from Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, this is the pre-incarnate Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Before Christ took on flesh, this is the angel, this is Christ Himself, second person of the Godhead.
SPEAKER_01: I brought you up from Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: I brought you into the land that I swore to give your fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.
SPEAKER_01: And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land.
SPEAKER_01: You shall break down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice.
SPEAKER_01: What is this that you have done?
SPEAKER_01: God's amazing at asking questions.
SPEAKER_01: Remember Adam and Eve in the garden?
SPEAKER_01: Where are you, Adam?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like God didn't know, right?
SPEAKER_01: What is he doing?
SPEAKER_01: He's trying to draw something out of these people, isn't he?
SPEAKER_01: What is this that you have done?
SPEAKER_01: You have not obeyed.
SPEAKER_01: He said, destroy the pagan religions, destroy that culture.
SPEAKER_01: It is evil, it is wicked, get rid of it.
SPEAKER_01: You have not obeyed.
SPEAKER_01: What happens when they have compromised in that area of obedience to God?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and they served the Baals.
SPEAKER_01: And they abandoned Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13, they abandoned Yahweh and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, please hear me.
SPEAKER_01: Failure to follow closely to Christ makes the sinful culture in which we live increasingly attractive.
SPEAKER_01: Failure to follow closely to Christ increases the enticement of sinful culture.
SPEAKER_01: Failure to follow closely to Christ leads to accepting sinful culture as though we are obeying Christ.
SPEAKER_01: By the time you get to where Israel is in this chapter, they're worshiping false gods and thinking in their heads that they're doing it to the true God.
SPEAKER_01: I am afraid that we too often take on the pursuits of the world as though we were pursuing Christ, when in fact what we're doing is pursuing compromise as though it were independence.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the drift in Israel?
SPEAKER_01: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_01: They're given independence by the free gift of a sovereign God.
SPEAKER_01: They get all excited about that, and in their zeal, it leads them away from God and to compromise with the enemies of God until they finally accept the culture that is opposed to God.
SPEAKER_01: It should not surprise us then to see that independence without obedience to God leads to judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Leads to judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 2, verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: So the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And he gave them up to plunderers who plundered them.
SPEAKER_01: And he sold them into the hands of their surrounding enemies so they could no longer withstand their enemies.
SPEAKER_01: You know, before all they had to do was wait for the hornets.
SPEAKER_01: God said, I'm going to send in the hornets and they're going to drive out the people before you.
SPEAKER_01: Now they can't even withstand their enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Whenever they marched out, hear this.
SPEAKER_01: The hand of Yahweh was against them for harm.
SPEAKER_01: What a change.
SPEAKER_01: As Yahweh had warned and as he had sworn to them, and they were in terrible distress.
SPEAKER_01: Independence without obedience to God leads directly to judgment.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have the rest of the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: The rest of the book of Judges is a cycle of discipline, repentance, and deliverance.
SPEAKER_01: Israel walks away from God, he judges them.
SPEAKER_01: They're in this period of judgment where they're suffering under the hands of an enemy for a period of time until they finally get a clue that, hey, this is because we've walked away from God.
SPEAKER_01: They repent, they come back to God, God sends them a deliverer, and we start the cycle all over again.
SPEAKER_01: Again and again and again and again.
SPEAKER_01: And things just continue to go from bad to worse.
SPEAKER_01: Look back at chapter 1, verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: Beginning in verse 4, Judah is going up against the Canaanites and the Perizzites.
SPEAKER_01: They defeat 10,000 of them at Bezek.
SPEAKER_01: They found Adonai Bezek, the lord of Bezek, and they fought against him and defeated the Canaanites and the Perizites.
SPEAKER_01: And Adonai Bezek fled in verse 6, but they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and his big toes.
SPEAKER_01: Sounds gross, but that was just a pattern of warfare at that time.
SPEAKER_01: Take the thumbs and the big toes, that means this guy can't fight us anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Notice verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: And Adonai Bezek, the Lord of Bezek, said, Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off, used to pick up scraps under my table.
SPEAKER_01: As I have done, so God has repaid me.
SPEAKER_01: So you get a clue as to the character of these Canaanites.
SPEAKER_01: Here's this king who has subdued all kings around him over the course of his kingship.
SPEAKER_01: He has subdued 70 other many kings.
SPEAKER_01: He has maimed 70 rulers.
SPEAKER_01: So that they are entirely dependent on him.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of people group that God says, get rid of them.
SPEAKER_01: Now look over at chapter 9 of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 9 of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: This is about Abimelech, the son of Jerob Baal.
SPEAKER_01: Jerobaal is another name for Gideon.
SPEAKER_01: This is the end of the Gideon story.
SPEAKER_01: This is Gideon's children.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Abimelech, the son of Jerob Baal, went to Shechem to his mother's relatives and said to them and to the whole clan of his mother's family, say in the ears of all the leaders of Shechem, which is better for you?
SPEAKER_01: That all seventy of the sons of Jerobaal rule over you, or that one rule over you.
SPEAKER_01: Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.
SPEAKER_01: So here's this chap, Abimelech, who wants to rule.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to lead.
SPEAKER_01: But he has seventy competitors, the sons of Gideon.
SPEAKER_01: What does he do?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5, he went out to his father's house at Ophrah, and he killed his brothers, the sons of Jerob Baal.
SPEAKER_01: Seventy men on one stone.
SPEAKER_01: By the time of Gideon, Israel has become exactly like the Canaanites that they were to get rid of.
SPEAKER_01: Canaanites believed in child sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: In chapter 11, Jephtha foolishly does the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_01: Goes from bad to worse, friends.
SPEAKER_01: Israel's independence led them directly away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: And so at the end of this depressive book, there's even a holy war against another Israelite tribe in order to exterminate them.
SPEAKER_01: What God said to do to the Canaanites, they're now doing to one another.
SPEAKER_01: Everything has just been flipped.
SPEAKER_01: It's been flipped.
SPEAKER_01: A key aspect to God's judgment is removing his withholding grace from his people and allowing his people to do and be what they most desire.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, to have greater independence from God is part of his judgment.
SPEAKER_01: It's what Romans 1 tells us about.
SPEAKER_01: Three times God says through Paul that he gives people up.
SPEAKER_01: He says, This is the way you want to be.
SPEAKER_01: You want greater and fuller independence?
SPEAKER_01: Fine, go.
SPEAKER_01: See if you enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01: See where it takes you.
SPEAKER_01: I quoted earlier from Thomas Jefferson.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the quote again.
SPEAKER_01: Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?
SPEAKER_01: That quotation continues on.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what the rest of it says.
SPEAKER_01: Again, can they be thought secure if we forget that they're the gift of God?
SPEAKER_01: That they are not to be violated, but with his wrath, indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.
SPEAKER_01: So having seen this, do you now want total independence?
SPEAKER_01: Or would you rather take up your cross daily and follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: He calls you to come to him for true freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, at the end of the book, independence degenerates into self-centered idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: I said finally, and I apologize.
SPEAKER_01: That's not yet finally.
SPEAKER_01: Very last sentence of this book.
SPEAKER_01: There is a repeated statement that is repeated for the fourth time in the final five chapters.
SPEAKER_01: In those days there was no king in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: So we begin with Israel experiencing independence under the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_01: We end with Israel living full and complete independence under the judgment of God.
SPEAKER_01: And the pinnacle of self-centered idolatry is when everyone is right.
SPEAKER_01: When standards are eroded, because the guiding conviction in life is not what God says, but what I say.
SPEAKER_01: Because there is no room for God in self-centered idolatry.
SPEAKER_01: That's why when Israel asks Samuel for a king, God says, Samuel, go ahead and do it because they're not rejecting you.
SPEAKER_01: They're rejecting me.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm certain that there are more lessons we could learn from Israel's independence, but I think these six are sufficient to recognize that independence without faith and submission to Christ is fruitless, unfulfilling, and disastrous.
SPEAKER_01: No matter your vision of independence, whatever you desire to be independent from will not end well unless you walk in faith and submission to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, your vision of independence is faulty.
SPEAKER_01: It is faulty.
SPEAKER_01: It is wrong if it is not bounded by faith and submission to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's see if we can wrap this up.
SPEAKER_01: I could keep preaching for hours here.
SPEAKER_01: I won't do that this time.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: This could really be another sermon series in and of itself, but I want to show you something in a summarized way.
SPEAKER_01: Just after the book of Judges, maybe you're on the very next pages in your Bible, is the book of Ruth.
SPEAKER_01: It's the book of Ruth.
SPEAKER_01: It's a fascinating account of God's sovereignty.
SPEAKER_01: But that account in Ruth is set within the context, within the bounds of Israel's independence.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, there are some literary indications that Ruth was originally part of the book of Judges, but that at some point it was separated out and became its own independent book.
SPEAKER_01: In Ruth chapter 1, verse 1, it says, quite literally in Hebrew, in the days when the judges judged.
SPEAKER_01: In the days when the judges judged.
SPEAKER_01: You see, judges, the book of Judges revolves around a group of saviors with a small S.
SPEAKER_01: They were individuals that God raised up in a special way to bring deliverance to his people from the messes that they had made for themselves in their disobedience as they pursued their independence from God.
SPEAKER_01: The story of Ruth doesn't begin with God raising up one of those deliverers.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, it describes the harshness of life at that time.
SPEAKER_01: There was famine such that people had to leave the promised land in order to find food.
SPEAKER_01: Death ruled.
SPEAKER_01: And this woman, Naomi, is suddenly destitute and essentially homeless as a refugee in a foreign country.
SPEAKER_01: She hears by rumor that, hey, now there's food back home.
SPEAKER_01: So she goes with her daughter-in-law and returns to her homeland.
SPEAKER_01: And then we encounter a man named Boaz, who, in a sense, is a deliverer, a savior for Ruth and Naomi.
SPEAKER_01: But that's different from the book of Judges because the rest of Judges is an account of deliverers for the nation.
SPEAKER_01: Not for a single individual or for families.
SPEAKER_01: And so the book of Ruth, all by itself, carries this feeling of a warm, fuzzy story that we can imagine making the rounds on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's great joy and great pleasure in knowing that in those dark days when the judges judged, when God's people were more like pagans than they were like God, there was a bit of brightness in the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not that simple.
SPEAKER_01: It's that, yes, and much, much more.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when Israel was in full charge toward her own independence, including independence from God, God was working to rescue his people from their independence.
SPEAKER_01: At the very end of the book of Ruth, this foreigner, that's what Ruth was, she was a foreigner in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: This foreigner came to trust in Yahweh, the God of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And she had a son, and they named him Obed.
SPEAKER_01: Obed would go on to have a son named Jesse.
SPEAKER_01: And in these days when the judges judged, Jesse had a son named David.
SPEAKER_01: And that David is the one whom the last judge, Samuel, anointed as king over Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And it is that David from whom God would send a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And that Jesus is the one who left his position of sovereign power and glory at the right hand of the Father to give himself as a ransom to free you from your pursuit of independence.
SPEAKER_01: An independence that is nothing more than a full-on race to certain judgment.
SPEAKER_01: And it is that Jesus that offers to you the fullness of life and humble trust and submission to Him.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you, confessing that we run our own way too too often.
SPEAKER_01: We fight against you, we we don't like what you've told us to do, and we think that in our own finite minds we know better.
SPEAKER_01: Forgive us for that pride and that self-centered idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: Crush that in us and lead us to see Jesus, to see the King, and to delight in Him, and to follow Him to the fullness of life.com.