This passage 2:6-3:6 expands the passage from the last week, specifically 2:1-5. Today’s passage is about God’s perspective on what really happened to the generation after Joshua’s death.
Open your Bible to Judges 2 and would you follow with me as I read the passage.
1. The generation under Joshua’s leadership
Judges 2:6-7 says, “After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things that Lord had done for Israel.”
These two verses refer back to Joshua 24:28 and 31. Joshua died at the age of a hundred and ten. And, when Joshua dismissed the people to take possession of the land, their own inheritances, he was close to the age of 110.
And, before Joshua dismissed the Israelites to go and to take the inheritances, he gave his farewell speech. We see this farewell speech in Joshua 23.
He gathered the leaders and spoke to them. He told them in 23:4-5, “Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain-the nations I conquered-between the
Now, close to his death, Joshua encouraged them in 23:5-8:
The Lord your God himself will drive them out of your way. He will push them out before you, and you will take possession of their land, as the Lord your God promised you. Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left. Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. But you are to hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have until now.
Before his death, Joshua wanted people to trust in God who had remained faithful to them. He wanted them to be strong and to remain faithful to God as he had done.
Joshua followed his exhortation and encouragement with the strong warning. He began his warning by saying in verse 12-13:
But if you turn away. and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.
And, he continued in verse 16,
If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you.
Having given them the charge, the encouragement, and also the stern warning, Joshua in chapter 24 gathered the Israelites at Shechem. Long ago, Shechem was where the Lord first promised the
Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in
To this, the Israelites committed to serve the Lord. 24:31 says, “
This is the background of Judges 2:6-9.
The generation under Joshua’s leadership and the elders of his time experienced God firsthand. And, they responded to God faithfully.
2. The post-Joshua’s generation and their downfall.
From 2:10, you witness how the post-Joshua’s generation fell away from the Lord.
Verse 10-11 says, “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for
Unlike their previous generation, this post-Joshua’s generation is said to have not known the Lord, neither what he had done.
Does this mean that this post-Joshua’s generation did not have the head knowledge about God and what he had done in the history? This is unlikely. They were cultured in the Hebrew tradition. They heard the story about God and what he had done. They were like churched people who grew up hearing the Bible stories. The problem was not that they didn’t know the stories about God and what he did, but they didn’t know God and what he did personally.
Let me illustrate this from Judges 3:2. It says that the descendants of the Israelites had not had previous battle experience.” The phrase had not had previous experience translates a Hebrew verb ud^y, which is the same Hebrew word used in 2:10.
The post-Joshua’s generation knew about the warfare. They heard about the battles. But, they didn’t have the personal encounter in fighting the enemies.
I personally grew up hearing a lot about what the Korean soldiers experienced, but those stories were just the stories to me. Those stories did not have any smell of mud or sweat, nor any sound of wind brushing the trees, nor the sight of the North Koreans, no weight of M-16 on my shoulder. I heard about them, but have never experienced them.
What was the consequence of not having the living encounter with God? They did evil in the eyes of the Lord. What did they do that was evil in the eyes of the Lord?
Instead of holding fast to the Lord, they forsook the Lord; instead of following and worshiping the Lord, they followed and served the various gods of
Verse 12-13 says this “provoked the LORD to anger.”
And, when the Lord was provoked to anger, he acted. Verse 14 says that God handed them over to the raiders, sold them to their enemies around them, and verse 15 says that whenever
We need to be very clear about this. God doesn’t get angry because he is feeling moody or wants to get back at us for no reason. His anger is not unpredictable unlike how we get angry. I don’t know about you, but I am very unpredictable when it comes to what makes me angry, how I get angry. If I am feeling funk, it seems like anything can push me over the edge. But, God’s anger is nothing like that.
Our God laid it out plainly for everyone to know with certainty what would make him angry, when he would get angry, what he would do in his anger. He spelled it out throughout the Old Testament. Deut 4:25 says, “After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time--if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger.” When it comes to anger, God is very predictable.
Was this the end of the story? Does the story end with God punishing the Israelites for their unfaithfulness because he was provoked to anger?
No, the story doesn’t end with God’s anger and punishment. Yes, when he was provoked to anger, he handed them over to the raiders, he sold them to their enemies around, he was against them to defeat them… whenever
3. Stand out in the crowd!
Judges took place during the Iron 1 period (1200-1000 B.C.). And, the archeological studies have revealed hardly any kind of distinctive mark of the Israelite’s existence.[1] Another word,
Apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:17:
live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
Why has God redeemed us? 1 Peter 2:9 says:
You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belong to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
The generation during the Judges period, the Iron age, and our generation face the same choice. Whether to respond to God who calls out, to be unique, distinctive, to stand out in what we value, live for, how we do our daily lives, how we speak, how we care for people, or to blend right in, assimilate with the rest of the world that refuses to acknowledge God.
Are there things about you that set you apart, to make you stand out, that make you unique, strange, and mysterious to people around you? Or, are you like the majority of the people who make confession with their mouth that they believe in God or even Jesus Christ, but show no evidence of their confession in their daily living? Beyond how you spend two hours on Sunday morning, are there things that mark you radically different?
Can things said about you by people around you that you are crazy about loving Jesus and loving people? The world is full of Christians who talk about their relationship with God and how they are glad for holding the ticket to go to heaven, yet they think, live, behave no differently from the rest of the world. Are you one of them?
How can you make sure that this doesn’t happen to you? You need to fight against it! You do this by fighting to know God. You fight for the daily living encounter with God. How can you have the daily living encounter with God? You do this by fighting for the time to read God’s word, to talk to him, to do his will, to be in brotherhood and sisterhood in Christ. When you fight for it, God becomes real! When God becomes real to you, then you change. When you change, the world notices it! You stand out in the crowd.
4. Worship God = enjoy God the most!
How do you know if you are provoking God to anger? You provoke him to anger if you don’t worship him. How do you know if you are worshiping God? Coming to church on Sunday and sing praise songs for 30 minutes does not define worship.
To our God, it is really important that he is in the position of giving himself to us as our God, as our King, as our Lord, as our Lover. And, that we live out his purpose, his will, his love. And, that we see living in the presence of God as the best thing we can ever experience. This is what worship is. We know we worship God if we are crazy about God and what is important to him.
We provoke God to anger when don’t worship him, when we don’t enjoy him.
Our God has the kingdom agenda. The kingdom agenda is for God to give himself to us through Jesus Christ as our joy, as our meaning, as our purpose, as our end, as our glory, as our everything. His agenda is for us to become consumed by his love, his greatness, his will. Deuteronomy 4:24 says, “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” If this is not growing reality for you, then you are likely provoking God to anger.
So, again fight to worship God, to enjoy God the most!
5. Seek God’s mercy in Jesus!
When the Israelites abandoned their God, God was provoked to anger. And, in anger, God no longer fought the battle for them. God would permit such miseries and defeats in their lives they would find themselves in great distress.
But, this is not the end of the story. Judges 2:18 says, “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 had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them.”
As God what he does to the unfaithful generation in his anger is right and just. In our rebellion against the God of the earth and the heavens, we all deserve to perish. But, when our God hears us groaning in agony, when he sees our distress, our God is God whose heart is moved with deep compassion. So, he has compassion on us when we groan. When God’s people experienced God’s merciful act, they are moved to serve God. The Judges were the tangible reality of God’s powerful mercy and compassion; and those who experienced God’s mercy served God.
Judges 2:19 says, “But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.” When the tangible reality of God’s mercy and protection was not so evident by the death of the judges, the Israelites returned to their old ways, even further away from the Lord. They didn’t cherish the memories of God’s loving kindness, his mercy upon them. They didn’t remember God.
For us, our judge is Jesus Christ. He is the tangible reality of God’s mercy for he died and was raised from the dead. And, the intangible reality of God’s mercy is the presence of the Holy Spirit in us who reminds us the reality of God’s love in Christ.
This is really another way of describing what it means to know God, to have a personal relationship growing out of living encounter with God. This is possible only in Jesus Christ.
Why doesn’t God make all sources of temptations and evil go away to make it easy for us to trust him, to follow him, to worship him? Why did God allow the existence of that one limitation in the Garden of Eden, the fruits from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
God uses them to test us, to train us in warfare. The world is our testing ground. The word is our training ground. God doesn’t shield us from the evil. God doesn’t magically get rid of the sources of temptations. What God wants for us is to make the choice, the choice to serve God, not the devil who brings temptations.
And, you can make the choice for God only when you remain in his mercy, in Jesus Christ. To remain in God’s mercy, in Jesus Christ, you need to acknowledge that you are not up for the challenge to face the evil and the temptations in this world without the help from the Lord. This is the attitude of humility that sees Jesus as the only way to salvation, deliverance from the evil, from the sinful flesh.
Don’t give up! Because God doesn’t!
[1] K. Lawson Younger, Judges, Ruth: The NIV Applicaiton Commentary. p. 87
1 comment:
I came looking for an in-depth study on Acsah. I got that and much more. Thank you very much for this extensive Bible study.. I have learnt so much from it. God bless you richly.
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