SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the gift of your singing.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing much sweeter than hearing God's people sing in harmony together and being able to hear those rich truths being proclaimed to my heart through your voices.
SPEAKER_01: So what a privilege.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you too for the sound of pages in your Bible turning to judges.
SPEAKER_01: Except we're not really going to get to judges right away.
SPEAKER_01: It takes a little bit of time to get there.
SPEAKER_01: Jeff mentioned from Proverbs earlier that it's God's purposes that will come to fruition.
SPEAKER_01: It's God's word that stands.
SPEAKER_01: It's what he determines that will take place, that actually happens.
SPEAKER_01: It's a fascinating truth when you consider the book of Judges, because the book of Judges is all about everyone doing what's right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone within their own realm of life and activity and freedoms and values and permissions does whatever they think is right, thinking and believing it will accomplish whatever benefits me.
SPEAKER_01: And yet that flies right in the face of the truth of God's sovereignty, that it's what He determines that comes to pass.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Judges, as I said earlier, is depressing if you allow it to be.
SPEAKER_01: I would ask that you fight that.
SPEAKER_01: Because the book of Judges is there for our instruction to point us not to the problems so much that Judges describes, but God's solution to those problems.
SPEAKER_01: And additionally, we're not going to be able to look at in-depth at everything in Judges.
SPEAKER_01: We're just going to kind of take some passages here and there and some of the accounts.
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to look at all of it.
SPEAKER_01: And we're not going to be able to read all of the accounts that we're going to be looking at.
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to be on top of things and get the most out of these Sundays, read it during the week.
SPEAKER_01: Read the whole book of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: Each week.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that hard.
SPEAKER_01: Next week I was planning to study the account of Gideon.
SPEAKER_01: I'm rethinking that even as I stand here talking to you, because there's a passage that comes later after the book of Judges that really fits in well with our text this morning that we may jump to, but we'll see where the Lord takes us.
SPEAKER_01: Last week we learned that we must have wholehearted allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: 1 John chapter 2, verses 15, 16, and 17 tell us that we must not love the world or the things in the world, but we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, and all of our strength.
SPEAKER_01: It's idolatrous to have divided loyalties.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, the problem is that we live in a world that entices us with the things that draw us away from Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Just realized I didn't do that this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Our passage this morning from the book of Judges covers a similar situation.
SPEAKER_01: It records the history of a relatively new nation, blessed with a new and fertile home.
SPEAKER_01: Yet they struggled with complete allegiance to God.
SPEAKER_01: They knew that what God had said to them, in fact, they had the law of God in their possession.
SPEAKER_01: They knew what God expected.
SPEAKER_01: They knew what they had covenanted as a people to do.
SPEAKER_01: Yet they were drawn away and enticed by the desires of their eyes, the desire of the flesh, and the pride of life.
SPEAKER_01: Last Sunday we called that living somewhere in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: All of God's people at every age of earth history are prone to living in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: With one foot firmly planted in faith and trust, and the other drawn away and enticed by the world and the things in the world.
SPEAKER_01: But what does that really look like?
SPEAKER_01: What does living in the middle look like?
SPEAKER_01: Well, the book of Judges helps us with that.
SPEAKER_01: Through the history of God's people, Israel, we discover what living in the middle looks like.
SPEAKER_01: We see its effects, we see its dangers, and Lord willing, along the way, we will be led to some biblical solutions for living in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: But the history recorded in the book of Judges begins not in Judges, but most recently in Deuteronomy and Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: Near the end of his life, Moses wrote the last book of the law, Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_01: And he gave it to Israel for their reading, for their teaching and instruction, for their learning and their obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Moses died, Joshua takes his place, and Joshua leads the people into the land of God's promise.
SPEAKER_01: So to even open the pages of the book of Judges requires that we understand some background.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, we need to understand some background principles for comprehending the problems of living in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: The first one that I would suggest we need to understand is that living in the middle requires possessing a background of God's blessing, of human obedience, and of fatherly discipline.
SPEAKER_01: Now that you have your Bible open to judges, hold your finger there and flip back to Deuteronomy chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: We'll just do this briefly so that you can see the background, get a sense of the background that God's people would have had in reading and learning about judges.
SPEAKER_01: In Deuteronomy chapter 7 and chapter 8, there's a lot of richness here.
SPEAKER_01: But you can just notice in verses 1 and 2 it says, When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you're entering to take possession of, and the implied person there is, and God clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Gergeshites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizites, the Hivites, the Jebusites.
SPEAKER_01: Seven nations more numerous and mightier.
SPEAKER_01: Catch those two descriptive terms, because they're going to come back in a little bit in Judges chapter one.
SPEAKER_01: More numerous and mightier than you.
SPEAKER_01: God's going to remove them.
SPEAKER_01: And when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, so God's going to do this through their defeating them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.
SPEAKER_01: That's a specific term that refers to an act of worship.
SPEAKER_01: You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them, and it goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because you are a people holy to Yahweh your God.
SPEAKER_01: Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Not because you were more in number, but because the Lord set his love on you and chose you.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9, know therefore that Yahweh your God is God.
SPEAKER_01: He is the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11, you shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.
SPEAKER_01: And because you listen to these rules and keep them and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and steadfast love that he swore to your fathers.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see blessing and obedience there?
SPEAKER_01: They're reminded of all of God's blessing and choosing them and calling them to himself, of providing redemption for them from the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And then he lays on them this expectation of obedience.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I've done this, I've called you, I've drawn you to myself.
SPEAKER_01: Now we've entered into covenant together, and you need to obey.
SPEAKER_01: But look at chapter 8 and the bewares.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean bears, but bewares.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 8, verse 1, the whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be careful to do.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2, you shall remember the whole way that Yahweh your God has led you.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the blessings.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3, remember that he humbled you and led you, let you hunger and fed you with manna, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5, know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you.
SPEAKER_01: So you shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11, beware.
SPEAKER_01: Take care lest you forget.
SPEAKER_01: Take care.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 17, beware lest you say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this well.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 19, if you forget Yahweh your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.
SPEAKER_01: Like the nations that Yahweh makes to perish before you, so you shall perish because you would not obey the voice of your God.
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of this is repeated again in chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, chapter 28, verses 58 through the end of the chapter.
SPEAKER_01: If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, blessing, obedience, and discipline as children.
SPEAKER_01: My brothers and sisters in Christ, blessing, obedience, and discipline are part of our history as followers of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's true.
SPEAKER_01: If you flip over to the New Testament in 1 Peter chapter 1, it's all over in the New Testament, but you can just look at what Peter wrote in his first letter to get a picture of this.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Peter chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: He's writing to those who are chosen, elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.
SPEAKER_01: So here are called out people by God's choice, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.
SPEAKER_01: So there's obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Remember how God has blessed you.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 2 of 1 Peter.
SPEAKER_01: Sounds very much like chapter 8 of Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_01: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: So that you might proclaim his excellencies.
SPEAKER_01: Here's blessing, and here's obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what about discipline?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we know that there's discipline because of Hebrews chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: After the Hall of Fame of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, we're told to lay aside every weight, the sin that clings so closely and run with endurance, with our eyes set on Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And then it says, consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted, for you've not yet resisted sin to the point of shedding blood.
SPEAKER_01: Then it says, Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
SPEAKER_01: There's a quotation, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.
SPEAKER_01: It is for discipline that you have to endure.
SPEAKER_01: God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
SPEAKER_01: If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
SPEAKER_01: They were his people, and he was their God.
SPEAKER_01: Further blessing or discipline would follow as they obeyed or disobeyed.
SPEAKER_01: And their history prepared them for that.
SPEAKER_01: Fellow Christian, the same is true for you.
SPEAKER_01: Those who trust in Christ have been blessed in many ways.
SPEAKER_01: Further blessing or discipline follows because we are daughters and sons through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Israel was set apart as a nation by God's choice.
SPEAKER_01: We are set apart individually through God's calling and the gift of faith to trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Without that, we are illegitimate children.
SPEAKER_01: Without that calling and that gift, it may appear as though we are in the middle, but that's only a mirage.
SPEAKER_01: Because you can only be in the middle if you've genuinely been called by God, either as a nation of Israel or as an individual trusting in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: God's people possess a background in God's blessing, in their human obedience, and in fatherly discipline.
SPEAKER_01: But living in the middle also requires preparation for God's mighty work.
SPEAKER_01: Deuteronomy chapter 3, verses 21 and 22.
SPEAKER_01: Moses recounts the defeat of the two kings of the peoples on the east side of the Jordan River before they crossed over into the land of promise.
SPEAKER_01: Moses says, I told Joshua, I commanded him at that time.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you've seen everything that God has done to these two kings.
SPEAKER_01: So will the Lord do to all of the kingdoms into which you are coming.
SPEAKER_01: Don't fear them.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's the Lord your God who fights for you.
SPEAKER_01: There's preparation for what comes by looking back at what God has done.
SPEAKER_01: How do you face the unknown monsters of tomorrow, the unknown uncertainties of tomorrow, the unknown anxieties of tomorrow, but you look back behind you and you see how God's power has led you every step of the way.
SPEAKER_01: God's people are prepared by knowledge and awareness of God's power.
SPEAKER_01: It goes on in Deuteronomy chapter 9, verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: Know therefore today that he who goes over before you as a consuming fire is the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_01: He will destroy them and subdue them before you.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews chapter 13, verse 5 says, Keep your life free from the love of money.
SPEAKER_01: Going to 1 John 2, that's part of the love for the world.
SPEAKER_01: And be content with what you have, for he has said the same thing he said to Joshua, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
SPEAKER_01: So we can confidently say, What am I to fear?
SPEAKER_01: The Lord's my helper.
SPEAKER_01: Our history, in fact, Israel's history, prepares every single Christian for God's mighty work.
SPEAKER_01: Not just in a broad scope in this world, but in each of his daughters and sons.
SPEAKER_01: You've been prepared to trust in God's mighty work by the fulfillment of promises.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus promised to give his spirit to every single person who trusted in you.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what happened on the day of Pentecost?
SPEAKER_01: His spirit came to indwell believers.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus promised that nothing would hinder the fulfillment of his work.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Not even the gates of hell will be able to overcome my work.
SPEAKER_01: I will finish what I've begun.
SPEAKER_01: Now that doesn't mean there won't be instances when it appears as though God's work is being crushed or hindered.
SPEAKER_01: You have to take the long view.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus spoke not of the process, but of the completion.
SPEAKER_01: And if you question whether or not God's work will be hindered, just look to the cross and the empty tomb.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' life, his death, and his resurrection have established his superiority.
SPEAKER_01: And it gives life to all of his promises.
SPEAKER_01: So you can look, Christian, to God's might, his power evident in the person and the words of Jesus Christ, and know that same power goes with you.
SPEAKER_01: You have been prepared, just like Israel has been prepared.
SPEAKER_01: So we follow Christ in the new covenant as ancient Israel followed God in the old covenant.
SPEAKER_01: God's people have always been able to see God's powerful work in the past.
SPEAKER_01: They've always been able to anticipate his mighty work in the future.
SPEAKER_01: Always guided by his blessing, by encouragement for obedience, and warning in discipline.
SPEAKER_01: So we come to judges.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Judges, Moses' protege, Joshua, and is the leader of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Moses is dead.
SPEAKER_01: There are some successful battles and blessings behind them.
SPEAKER_01: The people begin settling into their inheritances with instructions to complete that possession conquest.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing to stand in the way of Israel, in the way of godly success, but their own choices.
SPEAKER_01: Like so many of us, though, Israel became distracted by the world and preferred her ways rather than God's means.
SPEAKER_01: A divided allegiance.
SPEAKER_01: And that is our third principle this morning regarding standing in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: Living, existing in that middle, trying to have a foot in the world and a foot in God's promises involves a distraction from eternal things.
SPEAKER_01: And this sometimes subtle and unaware yearning for what is in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what we see here in Judges chapter one.
SPEAKER_01: It begins after the death of Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: Right there sets the stage.
SPEAKER_01: Moses is gone.
SPEAKER_01: Some conquest has happened, and Joshua is gone.
SPEAKER_01: Israel inquired of Yahweh who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them.
SPEAKER_01: Israel seeks God's will for what to do next in occupying the land.
SPEAKER_01: That's an excellent first step, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That's what we should expect to happen.
SPEAKER_01: They go to God and they ask, what should we do?
SPEAKER_01: So God says, verse 2, Judah shall go up.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, I have given the land into his hand.
SPEAKER_01: God gave Judah, the head of all the tribes of Israel, the first opportunity to follow his lead.
SPEAKER_01: And notice that God clearly declared the provision of victory.
SPEAKER_01: I have given the land into his hand.
SPEAKER_01: It's already done.
SPEAKER_01: Just go up and do what I've called you to do.
SPEAKER_01: What more do you need?
SPEAKER_01: God gave the command to go out and he established the end result.
SPEAKER_01: Victory.
SPEAKER_01: The victory is assured.
SPEAKER_01: There's no need to worry, no need to be scared or to question the tactics of war.
SPEAKER_01: God has declared victory.
SPEAKER_01: Just go out and fight wisely and trustingly.
SPEAKER_01: Seems very simple, right?
SPEAKER_01: What does Judah do?
SPEAKER_01: And Judah said to Simeon, his brother, Come up with me into the territory allotted to me that we may fight against the Canaanites.
SPEAKER_01: And I will likewise go with you into the territory allotted to you.
SPEAKER_01: So Simeon went with him.
SPEAKER_01: What does Judah do?
SPEAKER_01: God gives a command and promises the end result.
SPEAKER_01: But they don't immediately trust and obey.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, they ask another tribe for help.
SPEAKER_01: Now just to make sure we're being as balanced as we can be, let's identify what the situation actually is.
SPEAKER_01: Here's an image of the disbursement of inheritances.
SPEAKER_01: And you can see in the solid red portion, that is Judah's inherited portion.
SPEAKER_01: And Simeon's portion is kind of smack dab in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_01: So it makes sense for Judah and Simeon to join forces.
SPEAKER_01: Their territories are in the same vicinity.
SPEAKER_01: And a larger army means an easier battle.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe a quicker battle.
SPEAKER_01: It seems like an honest effort to help each other, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: But here's the painful reality, friends.
SPEAKER_01: God didn't ask Simeon to go first.
SPEAKER_01: And he didn't tell Judah to recruit Simeon.
SPEAKER_01: He told Judah to go.
SPEAKER_01: This illustrates the principle that human understanding often appears wise.
SPEAKER_01: Why not recruit others to help so that you have superior numbers?
SPEAKER_01: That will make the advancement easier and quicker, but leaning on human understanding is not God's way, even if it appears wise.
SPEAKER_01: What did Solomon warn many hundreds of years later?
SPEAKER_01: He said, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be wise in your own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: What were the descriptive terms that we were to remember from early on in Deuteronomy?
SPEAKER_01: God said, I don't want you to rely on the strength of your numbers.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you to rely in your own power or might.
SPEAKER_01: And yet that's exactly what Judah is walking into.
SPEAKER_01: We squash God's intent for our lives and we lessen our dependence on him when we choose the way of human understanding or some mixture of understanding of our understanding with God's ways.
SPEAKER_01: Our trust is then in our superior numbers, our our strength, our battle position or whatever, rather than in God's strength and in God's promises.
SPEAKER_01: God had already told Judah you don't need help.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need strength.
SPEAKER_01: I have already guaranteed the victory.
SPEAKER_01: An example in our times might be something like this God tells us to go and make disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Each individual believer go and make disciples he also tells us he will build his church.
SPEAKER_01: He does that work.
SPEAKER_01: It's assured it will happen.
SPEAKER_01: At the same time he tells us to live in the world but to not become like the world.
SPEAKER_01: We are to be holy as he is holy.
SPEAKER_01: So we we hear all of that and we take all of that in and we process that and before you know it we've convinced ourselves that we need to somehow help God by becoming more like the world so that we can reach those people in the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we try to appear more like the world we speak like the world we become culturally nuanced to reach the culture and it all sounds really good but it's not what God told us to do.
SPEAKER_01: In the end we become more like the world.
SPEAKER_01: We become more entrenched in the world and we find ourselves loving the world and its things and our allegiance is to the world rather than to God.
SPEAKER_01: We are caught in the middle believing God on the one hand but faltering in our trust because of the world's draw on us that's Israel's history.
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately it didn't stop there.
SPEAKER_01: Backed by God's promises of victory and blessing by obedience Israel went forth to conquer by living in the middle they trusted in their numbers rather than in God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Now as you read down through chapter one you'll find more detail about Judah's and Simeon's battles against the Canaanites and the inhabitants of the land you'll find the names and records of their victories.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 17 we see that Judah went with Simeon to their portion of the land and fought there as well.
SPEAKER_01: So Judah fulfilled their promise to their to their brothers in another tribe even though they didn't fully trust in God's promise.
SPEAKER_01: And then we might say well's well that ends well right wrong wrong because the chapter goes on in verses 18 and 19 and 20 Israel's historian wants us to know that Judah encountered the Philistines as they proceeded further west toward the Mediterranean Sea towards towards what's called the Shefala which is the lowland areas right next to the sea.
SPEAKER_01: You come down in the middle from the the hill country of Judah and it comes down slopes down toward the sea into that rich bottom land and it's called the Shephala.
SPEAKER_01: The Philistines lived there in the Shephala and they possessed a significant technological advancement of the time ironclad chariots.
SPEAKER_01: Israel didn't have horses to pull chariots much less much less chariots.
SPEAKER_01: This would provide greater mobility and quickness for their army driving fear into the people of Judah consider the fear that this kind of disadvantage would instill in these Israelites.
SPEAKER_01: Do it by imagining yourself in a 20-foot pontoon boat going against a Navy destroyer that is 680 feet long and 100 feet wide you would instantly notice the disparity in warfare technology and quickly determine you are overmatched and didn't stand a chance Judah had already possessed the high ground of the hill country of Judah it would only make sense to leave the lowlands the Shovelah to the more advanced pagan peoples.
SPEAKER_01: I mean really why even risk going there because God had already declared the victory and if God has declared the victory and you don't go then you're not trusting your God in verse 2?
SPEAKER_01: I have given the land all of it into his hand.
SPEAKER_01: If God has already proclaimed the victory it doesn't matter if you're going against a battleship with a paddle boat.
SPEAKER_01: What have you to fear, Christian when God has spoken plainly what have you to fear when greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world we fear because we live in the middle friends it's God who gains the victory not you not your efforts not your strength and certainly not Israel's ability to wage war.
SPEAKER_01: God told Israel he would drive the people out.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way he's told us he is making us into the image of Christ both of those events happen sometimes very slowly.
SPEAKER_01: So keep fighting and keep praying and keep your mind focused on the truths of God's word and don't develop a love for the world.
SPEAKER_01: Trust your God wholly for he's called us to obedience just as he did with Israel.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter if the object of our pursuit amidst obedience appears insurmountable.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter if we have to go against the iron chariots of life.
SPEAKER_01: If God says go like Abraham you go without asking how far, how long or how challenging the journey might be trust in his promises remember his blessing remember his urge to obedience and his warning for discipline and don't get distracted.
SPEAKER_01: Easier said than done Israel was distracted from eternal things related to trusting and obeying God and drawn to the things of the world.
SPEAKER_01: They were sinning a reality that leads to our fourth principle Israel participated in that ugly practice that we nicely call partial obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Standing in the middle living in the middle means that our lives are marred by partial obedience.
SPEAKER_01: But they were not doing it as he said nor to the extent that he commanded them to do it.
SPEAKER_01: It was partial obedience Judah got help from Simeon and Judah gave up then when they encountered the stronger and more advanced military which required a stronger faith look at it God didn't tell them hey recruit another tribe to go with you it'll make everything easier.
SPEAKER_01: No, God said trust me and I will take care of it.
SPEAKER_01: Yet even when they trusted in their larger numbers they still didn't trust enough to go down to the iron chariots.
SPEAKER_01: But here Israel couldn't trust enough partial obedience is never entirely about obedience.
SPEAKER_01: It also includes a lack of trust in the one giving commands.
SPEAKER_01: Israel was to learn not to trust in her own numbers in her own power in her own abilities but to learn to trust in the word of God partial obedience is a failure to wholly trust in the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is disobedience in God's book it is sin.
SPEAKER_01: God gave Israel many blessings and privileges in their walk with him as he does with us but he never gives us the privilege to not trust him this last week in in my ongoing education and sanctification of coaching six to eight year old boys in baseball told one little boy who was kind of a struggle for me you need to be over here.
SPEAKER_01: This is where I want you to play I want you to play right here.
SPEAKER_01: So the ball's coming right for you and the Lord brought the ball right to him and he did a great job.
SPEAKER_01: He did a great job I gave him a fist bump.
SPEAKER_01: He looks up at me with his grin on his face he says and I almost didn't trust you almost don't trust God all the time when all he says is I've given you my word are you going to trust me yes he he he demands complete obedience in a world gone crazy.
SPEAKER_01: He demands that his ambassadors be holy as he is holy.
SPEAKER_01: He expects complete and utter trust and allegiance and that sounds like an impossible order until you realize that God has given you everything you need to do it.
SPEAKER_01: He knows you can't do it that's why he has put his spirit within you to enable you to follow him he provides everything needed to please him he has already conquered Jesus obeyed perfectly to free us to follow him in obedience.
SPEAKER_01: But notice what Israel accomplished in their partial obedience in verse 21 the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem so the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 27 Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Bait Sheon verse 28 and when Israel grew strong they put the Canaanites to forced labor but did not drive them out completely over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like Genesis Genesis has this repeated phrase to teach us a lesson and he died and he died and he died and he died and he died what's the point and you will die Judges chapter 1 is and they did not and they did not and they did not finally in verse 34 the Amorites pressed the people of Dan back into the hill country for they did not allow them to come down to the plain.
SPEAKER_01: God had declared victory if Israel obeyed yet they did not trust him to accomplish his word their obedience was not complete.
SPEAKER_01: So in chapter 2 God recounts his covenants with Israel says I brought you up from Egypt I brought you into the land that I swore to give your fathers and I said I will never break my covenant with you and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land you shall break down their altars but you have not obeyed my voice what is this you have done I find myself echoing that with my children probably far more than I want to admit what did you do?
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe I really you did that's what God says to his people who live in the middle Israel's part was to obey God to not to to keep her end of the covenant to not make peace agreements with the pagan nations so we see a breaking of the covenant there's this partial obedience as disobedience and can't you just hear that echo of God asking the people what is this that you've done and there's no answer to that indictment so there's divine discipline verse three so now I say I will not drive them out before you but they shall become thorns in your sides and their God shall be a snare to you and in that discipline they were they were convicted they lift up their voices and wept and they called the name of that place Boakim which means weeping Israel's disobedience translated into a disastrous failure.
SPEAKER_01: And as a result God didn't drive out the peoples of the nations around them.
SPEAKER_01: Instead there would be a continual thorn in their side have you ever gotten a sliver if you ever worked with wood you know what slivers are like you get used to them after a while and you don't even notice oh there's there's a sliver there try to pull it out but sometimes sometimes you get a sliver in a really tender spot like right underneath a fingernail or right next to a nerve and it just oh it hurts.
SPEAKER_01: That's what God did for Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And it was his gracious provision God's thorn in their side was a gracious provision.
SPEAKER_01: Many of us have chronic sinful struggles in life we may be drawn to the to the love of the world to things in the world and and and we're frustrated by that internally but frustrated by that draw because we're stuck in the middle and we want we want to follow God but we're drawn in this way and have you ever thought that that God may have allowed those struggles those thorns in your side to remain because of our partial obedience to remain in order to drive us back to Him again and again and again a thorn in the side a sinful struggle in a walk with Christ is a reminder to us that we are sort of continually prodigals.
SPEAKER_01: And because of Christ's work on the cross his finished work we are enabled to come running back to the Father again and again and again in our state of living in the middle and when we go back and we get so immersed into the world and we realize I don't want to be here I don't belong here I need to go back to my father there's a place to run back to the Father and then we just feel that innate reality that even though we are forgiven and we stand firm in Christ alone in our position in Christ there's that I wish it wouldn't be like that our lives are marred by partial obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Finally living in the middle turns hearts away from God for what is culturally enticing.
SPEAKER_01: Chapters 1 through chapter 2 verse 5 set the stage for the for the land situation in the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_01: Israel was in the land but there were some of the pagan nations left so that they weren't completely dispossessed.
SPEAKER_01: Israel didn't have all of the land that God promised there's this bad situation that sets up to be a thorny kind of thing that just drives them and motivates them and irritates them and God intended it to be gracious to draw them back to him.
SPEAKER_01: Now beginning in chapter 2 verse 6 we see the leadership stage based upon a system of judges and it sets the stage for the first judge Othneel in chapter 3 verse 7 but for this judge system to be enacted there needed to have first been a need for a judge see God had intended Israel to be led by him not by any intermediary human leader.
SPEAKER_01: For there to be a need for a judge Israel must have first walked away from God and been placed under the heavy hand of foreign peoples and we begin to see why in chapter 2 verse 10 All that generation were also gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
SPEAKER_01: What arose is a generation of people who didn't remember the blessing, who didn't know obedience, only knew their sin.
SPEAKER_01: Each step of Israel's life and love for the world, leading her away from God, drew them further into the world's ways, closer to loving the world and the things in it.
SPEAKER_01: God desired to bring them back through gracious discipline, but ultimately they abandoned him.
SPEAKER_01: In love with the world, in love with the things of the world, and it took one generation for that to occur.
SPEAKER_01: We sometimes lament, oh boy, look how quickly things have changed.
SPEAKER_01: It took one generation.
SPEAKER_01: One generation followed the Lord, one generation did not.
SPEAKER_01: If God's chosen people failed in their allegiance and demonstrated a faithless walk with him, we ought to ask about our allegiance.
SPEAKER_01: God has placed us, much like he did with that nation of Israel, as aliens in a foreign world, surrounded by those who hate us because they first hated him.
SPEAKER_01: Are we following the pattern of ancient Israel or are we maintaining our allegiance to Christ alone?
SPEAKER_01: Friends, we too are prone to do things our way rather than God's.
SPEAKER_01: Thinking, I need to help God.
SPEAKER_01: I need to add to that.
SPEAKER_01: We must see that our consequences of doing that are sad and potentially dangerous.
SPEAKER_01: So through the book of Judges, our challenge is to maintain our love for the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, with all of our strength.
SPEAKER_01: For then we will not obey partially, but with true allegiance, devoted to Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It begins with acknowledging that we cannot fix this problem ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to cover about 400 years of Israel's history in just a handful of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: But the point is, humans can't fix their own problems.
SPEAKER_01: Only God could turn such cold hearts away from the world and to himself.
SPEAKER_01: The rest of judges reveals that human saviors, no matter how righteous or unrighteous, cannot fix the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Only a divine savior can fix the problem.
SPEAKER_01: A son promised.
SPEAKER_01: One who could and who did obey perfectly, so that through faith his obedience might become ours.
SPEAKER_01: And with it, pure forgiveness, declared righteousness, and a gift of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8, 9, and ten provide the solution for getting out of that muddy middle.
SPEAKER_01: That solution is faith and trust followed by obedience that God has prepared for us.
SPEAKER_01: But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: What a blessing.
SPEAKER_01: For by grace you've been saved.
SPEAKER_01: And he raised us up with him.
SPEAKER_01: And he seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of your strength and your power.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: The immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: For it's by grace that you've been saved through faith.
SPEAKER_01: And that's not your own doing.
SPEAKER_01: It's the gift of God.
SPEAKER_01: Not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
SPEAKER_01: For we are his workmanship.
SPEAKER_01: Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand.
SPEAKER_01: God prepared a victory for Israel.
SPEAKER_01: God has prepared good works for you that we should walk in them.
SPEAKER_01: The first step of getting out of the muddy middle is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, walking in obedience with him, because he has declared that you should do so.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, may your obedience become ours through faith.
SPEAKER_01: That we trust in you, and so you would look upon us and not see our being in the middle and sometimes doing well and often failing, but that you would see in us the complete and perfect obedience of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Would you do a work in us that rests in that and that frees us to walk with you, to follow you, to always obey you, trusting that you, you are at work.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, make us here at faith a people who walk with you wholeheartedly.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we might be looked at weird.
SPEAKER_01: We might be different.
SPEAKER_01: But in that may people know that you are at work and may they know you through us.
SPEAKER_01: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.