Judges
This week is on Judges 2:10-19:
These verses take place after the Israelites got to the Promised Land. This was the new generation, ones which had never known Egypt or the miracles God brought them through to get them there. They didn't know how good they had it, nor did they know God in their recent memory. They had to operate on faith rather than on experience.
Predictably, things fell apart. We are talking about human beings after all, and faith doesn't come naturally to us. Instead of being at God's mercy to get out of generational slavery, or at God's mercy to make it through the desert alive, they were now in a rich land with no immediate dangers. And beyond that, they now had options they'd never dreamed of. There were all sorts of traditions and cultures with their own gods and customs. It was a multicultural paradise!
Reading what happens, it reminds me of when sheltered Christian kids go off to college without a faith of their own. Some of them go nuts and start abusing drugs, being promiscuous, and flirting with atheism. If you don't have faith, your faithfulness is only as good as the available options in the moment.
We also see this sort of thing happen in the second and third generations of church revival movements. The kids grow up taking the church for granted, and are drawn away by the novelty of other belief systems. Soon the church is having Christmas services that don't mention Jesus because they don't want to offend new people who might be visiting, or reading verses from the Quran in their service so that all faith traditions can be on equal standing. Their faith is gone, and what's left is desperation.
When God led the Israelites out of Egypt, he showed them who he was and told them how to live in their new land, but the new generation were like "Why are we doing this? Our neighbours don't have to have such fussy rules about how to live life. And their religious services are more exciting, with sex and human sacrifices, and great expensive idols!" They began to reject their heritage and serve false gods like their neighbours.
At that point, what could God do? It was like the garden of Eden all over again. Either he could ignore their infidelity and serve mankind, thereby shaking the universe into a chaotic mess, or he would have to punish them by turning his back. These other cultures wanted to take what Israel had. God had brought them to prime land surrounded by savage warlike people, and when he turned away there was nothing left to stop the neighbouring peoples from taking what they wanted.
From within Israel's tormented masses rose warlords, called Judges. They met the savage neighbours' violence with even more violence, and used that power to force Israel to live the way God wanted them to live. A judge without the power to enact a sentence is just a man with an opinion. When Israel was unwilling to control themselves, control was imposed by the Judges. Things went well as long as the Judge was around, but when the Judge died, things fell apart again.
We see that same principle in certain regions of the world where people are naturally at war with each other until a warlord comes along and makes himself dictator. Things flourish, but then when he dies or is overthrown, the war picks right back up where it left off. The backlash is more depraved than the golden age was pure.
On a smaller scale, though, we do the same things. When things get good, and life is rolling smoothly, and we haven't spent much time reading the Bible and praying, we can start to wander. Our minds get full of the serpent's old question: "did God really say X?" We get selfish, and distracted, and maybe start to cut some corners. At the very moment we should be the most thankful, for being at peace and having such blessing, we become as evil as our neighbours. Human nature is the default if we're not solidly grounded in our faith.
If we become aware of our weakness, we often seek out judges to rule over us. This is where cults get a lot of their followers. People who know they aren't behaving as well as they should will seek external power to force them to do the right thing. In Europe, Islam is making converts of former criminals by offering them a system of control and promises of salvation through homicide. We also see people clamouring for a police state to surveille and control what we can say, what we can eat, who we associate with, what we an own, etc. But as soon as the system of control is not around, we go right back to our criminal ways. Compare what Americans do in Bangkok, Amsterdam, or Cancun to the laws they demand for themselves back home, for instance.
Luckily we don't have to live like that. Jesus died for our sins. That means that instead of being cut off from God we can simply reach out and reconnect. We have access to the Holy Spirit, who helps transform us without being enslaved and oppressed by other men. Without Jesus, the best we could hope for is to be ruled over by a God-fearing warlord, under whose iron fist we'd be too afraid to worship the devil. But because of Jesus, we are free to live our lives free of bondage and condemnation.
After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.
Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
These verses take place after the Israelites got to the Promised Land. This was the new generation, ones which had never known Egypt or the miracles God brought them through to get them there. They didn't know how good they had it, nor did they know God in their recent memory. They had to operate on faith rather than on experience.
Predictably, things fell apart. We are talking about human beings after all, and faith doesn't come naturally to us. Instead of being at God's mercy to get out of generational slavery, or at God's mercy to make it through the desert alive, they were now in a rich land with no immediate dangers. And beyond that, they now had options they'd never dreamed of. There were all sorts of traditions and cultures with their own gods and customs. It was a multicultural paradise!
Reading what happens, it reminds me of when sheltered Christian kids go off to college without a faith of their own. Some of them go nuts and start abusing drugs, being promiscuous, and flirting with atheism. If you don't have faith, your faithfulness is only as good as the available options in the moment.
We also see this sort of thing happen in the second and third generations of church revival movements. The kids grow up taking the church for granted, and are drawn away by the novelty of other belief systems. Soon the church is having Christmas services that don't mention Jesus because they don't want to offend new people who might be visiting, or reading verses from the Quran in their service so that all faith traditions can be on equal standing. Their faith is gone, and what's left is desperation.
When God led the Israelites out of Egypt, he showed them who he was and told them how to live in their new land, but the new generation were like "Why are we doing this? Our neighbours don't have to have such fussy rules about how to live life. And their religious services are more exciting, with sex and human sacrifices, and great expensive idols!" They began to reject their heritage and serve false gods like their neighbours.
At that point, what could God do? It was like the garden of Eden all over again. Either he could ignore their infidelity and serve mankind, thereby shaking the universe into a chaotic mess, or he would have to punish them by turning his back. These other cultures wanted to take what Israel had. God had brought them to prime land surrounded by savage warlike people, and when he turned away there was nothing left to stop the neighbouring peoples from taking what they wanted.
From within Israel's tormented masses rose warlords, called Judges. They met the savage neighbours' violence with even more violence, and used that power to force Israel to live the way God wanted them to live. A judge without the power to enact a sentence is just a man with an opinion. When Israel was unwilling to control themselves, control was imposed by the Judges. Things went well as long as the Judge was around, but when the Judge died, things fell apart again.
We see that same principle in certain regions of the world where people are naturally at war with each other until a warlord comes along and makes himself dictator. Things flourish, but then when he dies or is overthrown, the war picks right back up where it left off. The backlash is more depraved than the golden age was pure.
On a smaller scale, though, we do the same things. When things get good, and life is rolling smoothly, and we haven't spent much time reading the Bible and praying, we can start to wander. Our minds get full of the serpent's old question: "did God really say X?" We get selfish, and distracted, and maybe start to cut some corners. At the very moment we should be the most thankful, for being at peace and having such blessing, we become as evil as our neighbours. Human nature is the default if we're not solidly grounded in our faith.
If we become aware of our weakness, we often seek out judges to rule over us. This is where cults get a lot of their followers. People who know they aren't behaving as well as they should will seek external power to force them to do the right thing. In Europe, Islam is making converts of former criminals by offering them a system of control and promises of salvation through homicide. We also see people clamouring for a police state to surveille and control what we can say, what we can eat, who we associate with, what we an own, etc. But as soon as the system of control is not around, we go right back to our criminal ways. Compare what Americans do in Bangkok, Amsterdam, or Cancun to the laws they demand for themselves back home, for instance.
Luckily we don't have to live like that. Jesus died for our sins. That means that instead of being cut off from God we can simply reach out and reconnect. We have access to the Holy Spirit, who helps transform us without being enslaved and oppressed by other men. Without Jesus, the best we could hope for is to be ruled over by a God-fearing warlord, under whose iron fist we'd be too afraid to worship the devil. But because of Jesus, we are free to live our lives free of bondage and condemnation.
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