Apostate Israel was tried by God (Judges 2:6-3:6)

Dear brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ:

In the Bible, trials have already existed. It can be said that God told Adam not to eat the fruit, Abraham offered Isaac, Job's encounter, and Jonah's mission were all trials. Trials and trials in the Bible all have the same meaning, and the purpose is for God to use this to see whether people are loyal and obedient. The first generation of Christians used to gather in tombs; during the Cultural Revolution, Christians in Wenzhou once gathered in the mountains; Christians in North Korea were either arrested or killed. This is God's test. The father once obeyed God's words, but the son may not be obedient. Every believer has his own circumstances and trials to face. A few years ago, I met an elementary school classmate who had been out of touch for many years in Guangzhou and shared with each other the experience of becoming a Christian. He told me that his grandfather used to be a pastor, but his father's generation was a party member and did not believe in Christ. Together we thank God for His amazing grace. Today our society has the second generation of officials, the second rich generation, and the second generation of believers and the third generation of believers. So, how should the inheritance of beliefs be carried out, and what is the basis for inheritance? Today's sermon may give some useful revelation about the Israelites' experience of being tested by God.

1. Joshua's death leads to oblivion (2:6-10)

Joshua is dead. This was an unusual event, since Joshua had followed Moses from a young age, and then continued his unfinished business in his place, leading a new generation of Israel into Canaan. But there are still many foreigners occupying those places, which need to be eliminated and driven out. Therefore, just before his death, Joshua delivered a long speech to all the Israelites, which is recorded in Joshua chapters 23 and 24, which are the last two chapters. There is a famous saying in it that you may remember - As for me and my father's house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua is saying that my family will serve the Lord God from generation to generation, and will never worship any other god.

Joshua was God's faithful servant and a warrior greatly used by God. His loyalty to God had a huge influence on his contemporaries. Therefore, verse 7 says: While Joshua was alive, and after his death, all the elders who had seen the great things the LORD had done for the Israelites were still there, and all served the LORD.

What does this ministry mean? At a minimum, it means that the tribes of Israel must obey Joshua and drive out the foreigners there, according to the land Joshua gave them, to take possession of the land. If the Israelites were obedient enough and united enough, they would be led by God to drive out the enemy in one fell swoop and win a great victory. But after Joshua died, the next generation of Israelites did not. For—they did not know the LORD, and they did not know what the LORD did for the Israelites. (Judges 2:10)

That's why the people of Israel kept falling - they didn't know God, they didn't see or remember God's grace and power.

Sorry? Do you regret it? It's so quick to forget, isn't it? This is what sinners are, and forgetting is the norm and law of this fallen world. History is too easy to be forgotten, it can even be said that history is simply used to forget. David once cried out to God in this way: God! When I am old and pale, do not forsake me, till I pass on your power to the next generation, and your power to all the generations to come (Psalm 71:18). David had tasted the Lord's grace, and at the end of his life, he was still very eager to continue to serve God, and to tell the future generations and all people of the whole earth what God has done. Because he knew very well that forgetting God’s actions was tantamount to betraying God, and the consequences were extremely serious.

Since it is easy to forget, then, where should our faith inheritance be built on? This should have puzzled and helpless readers of Judges at the time. The answer is to keep God’s words in mind, and to act according to God’s words from top to bottom, witnessing to each other what God has done in them. Otherwise, the Word of God is nothing but a piece of paper.

For example, the afflicted people of Israel will be reminded of God's promise to their father Abraham - Genesis 17:6 I will make you very prosperous, kingdoms will be established because of you, and kings will come out of you. The same promise was made to Jacob - Genesis 35:11 God said to him, "I am God Almighty, and you shall multiply and multiply, and from you shall come a kingdom and kingdoms, and many kings shall be born from you. you come out.

There is also God's requirements for kings recorded in Deuteronomy 17 through Moses, that they must be clean, righteous, temperate, lead by example, and diligently obey and teach God's law. But which king has reached this standard? Did they do so?

We just read the passage of Deuteronomy chapter 17. In Israel at that time, priests were to place the law of God (the Book of the Law, of which Deuteronomy was a part) by the ark of the covenant (Deuteronomy 31:26) and to use it in public education ( Deuteronomy 31:11). The king was to transcribe a book of the law, read it, and obey it.

Which king of Israel obeyed God's commandments 100 percent? For example, read this passage of Deuteronomy to the people. Isn't that asking for trouble? Maybe this is the beginning of the fall, from the top down. If believers generally fail to see God's Word being executed and used, they will soon forget that God exists. I will see later that many of the judges raised by God have many problems in themselves, and no matter how great a king is, they will die, and no matter how powerful a kingdom will be, they will be overthrown and cannot last forever. But the gracious and merciful God will not let it happen all the time, so during this period, judges are constantly raised to deliver salvation to show his power. Later, a king was chosen and a dynasty was established, until the true king, Jesus Christ, came into the world to save, and he was the one most worthy of mankind's waiting. Before, it was a fragmented warm-up and rehearsal. And Christ did not come to earth to establish a dynasty on earth, because the final kingdom of heaven is in heaven. Although He will also die, He will be resurrected. Only He has been resurrected and returned to heaven. He will come again to execute the final judgment in the future. Therefore, Christ is the ultimate Savior of mankind, the King of kings, the King of King David and King Solomon.

That's what God's plan is. In that era, Joshua and other great men of faith died, and the descendants betrayed because of forgetting, so God used a judge to constantly remind and save them, so that they could see God’s mighty deeds, and they believed soared. In the New Testament age and beyond, Christ died and rose again, and the work of redemption was declared complete. Instead of sending someone to save, God sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in the heart of every believer and gives the Bible to continue to teach and guide His people.

So today we see that God preached the Bible over and over again through his church, administered the sacraments, and let believers know how God leads his people, how the old covenant points to the new covenant, and how the incomplete judges point to the Christ's, how Christ was a substitute. In addition, it also allows us to understand God's leadership of the saints throughout the ages through the history of the church. Just as you will turn over the yellowing photos of your family and listen to the elders tell about the family history, we should also learn about the traditions of the European Reformed and the path that the NCRC has taken. So you know where and how your beliefs come from. Seeing what God is doing right now for the people of Israel, the saints through the ages, and each other, is of great benefit to our growth in life.

From the death of Joshua in this chapter, we can see that, from an era as small as a church, the servants used by God often have extraordinary value to his era or church. To respect them, listen to them, and follow them is to obey God's leading. The Israelites' expectation of the imperfect judges and their abilities is their expectation of the perfect and mighty Christ. When we remember the great spiritual men and the paths they walked, we remember what God has done in history. Next we will see that because of forgetfulness and inaction, the Israelites turned away from God again and again, and suffered heavy defeats again and again. This brings us to the second point.

2. The inescapable historical cycle (11-19)

The previous chapter was an introduction to the military failure of the Israelites, and this chapter can be said to be an introduction to the failure of the faith of the Israelites. And from the seventh chapter of the third chapter, starting from Othniel, the judges will successively ascend the historical stage prepared by God for the salvation of the Israelites.

Verses 11-19, tell a tragic historical cycle. And God predicted this long ago. Deuteronomy records that God passed through Moses that the Israelites would be severely judged by God for breaking the law and betraying God.

Why did the Israelites provoke God to anger? Verses 11-13 are because they went to worship Baal and other false gods. Therefore, abandoning God is the greatest and most basic evil, and all other evils are derived from it. So they will be plundered by the enemy. We can imagine the looting, which is also described in the later chapters of Judges. In short, it is a life of lack of clothing and food, and fear. According to Maslow's theory of needs, even basic physiological needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and safety needs are all met. Unable to meet, let alone emotional, social, and self-actualization needs. So it's pretty tragic.

So this introduction is also a summary of Judges. Because the Israelites went to worship false gods and sinned against the true God, God was angry and disciplined them, and attacked them through foreign enemies, so that they had a bad life, so they came to God to "wail", and God raised up judges one by one to punish the Israelites Saved from alien looting. But after the death of the judges, the Israelites again worshipped false gods. Such a tragic experience has been repeated in the land of Canaan.

A noteworthy verse is verse 15: Wherever they go, the hand of the LORD is always against them.

How to understand this sentence? These words are not about God’s enemies toward Him, nor about foreigners—for example, the Egyptian Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites, when God brought ten plagues to his kingdom—then asked Pharaoh if you would accept it? Dissatisfied? To resist in the end is to prove that you are the enemy of God, and of course the result is destruction.

Harm refers to the common disobedience of the Israelites and the judgment of God, just as the Israelites in the wilderness worship the golden calf and lead to death.

Note that the object of God's harm is not the enemy, but his people. As the second party to the covenant, the people of Israel, is it terrifying and incredible to fall into the wrath of God like this? Who can endure such an encounter? Will the people of God express their incomprehension?

God harmed them for His own glory, to demonstrate His righteousness, and to uphold the holiness of the covenant. Because the Israelites forsook God and broke the covenant, verse 15 says, "Wherever they went, the hand of the LORD was against them, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn to them; and they were very distressed." As the LORD had said, it meant that God had spoken before, and had sworn to punish the apostate Israel. A faithful God cannot go against his own words. Therefore, they must be punished and judged so that the whole world will know that God is a jealous God and a holy God.

God harmed them for the benefit of the people of Israel. Good days often don't make people grateful to God, but bad days often make people cry to God. This is an opportunity for God to urge sinners in His covenant to come before God to repent. So, here is the grace and love of God. Because sinners on their own are simply unwilling to repent. God must use this to make the people of Israel reflect on their disobedience in their distress, so as to repent to God and call on God for salvation.

God's harm is not the purpose, but to prepare the judges to save them, and to let the people follow the judges, so as not to perish. Just as God made the Israelites cry out when they were tortured in Egypt, he was willing to cooperate with Moses to deliver salvation.

To sum up, God harmed them basically to uphold the covenant. The Israelites rebelled again and again, and in verse 17 they didn't even listen to the judges who delivered them, just as they didn't listen to Moses. But God is full of patience and mercy, minding the identity of their covenant people, and refuses to allow them to intermarry with the Gentiles, be snared by the Gentiles, and fall to the same level as the Gentiles, and refuses to allow Israel as a whole to be lost. Therefore, they disciplined them again and again, gave them opportunities again and again, made them cry out in their distress, and raised up a judge to save them, so as to continue the life of the tribes of Israel.

We will see later that the continuous appearance of the judges shows their responsibilities, as well as their imperfections and even their failures, all of which point to the Savior who will come later—Jesus Christ.

So, when you see the word harm, do you think of Christ? He was crucified as the Son of God. Sinners are stubborn and deserve to be harmed by God. Even if they are completely wiped out like Sodom, it will be their own fault. But why did Christ die on the cross? Christ did not need repentance, He was sinless, and He died willingly to suffer the penalty for sinners who were full of filth and would not repent.

Christ died in order to demonstrate righteousness (God must pay for the debts when debts are repaid), to demonstrate mercy (the Son took the place of the sinners in the covenant to bear the debts), and it was also for the continuation of the covenant. Therefore, the reason why God harmed Israel was actually based on the willingness of Christ to suffer. Israel was able to be saved, in fact, because of Christ's substitutionary salvation.

The scriptures tell us that even though the Israelites were saved by the judges again and again, they still betrayed the judges every minute after the judges died. Therefore, the maintenance of the covenant and the observance of the commandments, in the final analysis, cannot depend on the repentance of the Israelites or the salvation of the judges, but only by the death of Christ. According to His plan, in the age that He sees fit, God will put the hand that should have fallen on the rebellious Israel, and fall heavily on the Son, so that all who believe will not perish, but be brought before Him. Live for Him in gratitude. Just as those who followed the judges in those days could also live in the presence of God.

All of God's grace and mercy to the covenant people are based on the great event that transcends time and space--Christ's death as a substitute for sin. Only in the plan of Christ will surely die, God's people can live, and God will send his disciples. The teacher delivers salvation.

The distressed Israelites will cry out for deliverance, hoping that the deliverer (as Judges are called many times in the book of Judges) will lead them to a better life. But when they forget the content of the covenant and wantonly apostasy, that is the beginning of their persecution by God. God used this to get them to repent and turn their hearts back to God.

This tragic cycle is exactly the content of God's test on the Israelites, and it depends on whether the Israelites pass the test. This brings us to today's third unit.

3. God's test on Israel (2:20-3:6)

Why did God test Israel? Because they didn't listen to God's words, why didn't they listen? God said that they "break the covenant I commanded their ancestors" (Judges 2:20), live among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites and other foreigners, and intermarry with them (Judges 3:6) So God They were angry, and they no longer drove these foreigners away, and let the Israelites be captured by foreigners, and they were in distress, suffering and suffering, "See if they will keep the way of the LORD, as their fathers did. .” (Judges 2:22).

This is God's test for the Israelites, the test for God's people. In fact, God's tests of His people have a long history. For example, God used the fruit of the tree of good and evil to test whether Adam was obedient. This involves whether Adam was faithful in running the garden, and whether he was able to identify and drive out Satan in time.

What are the implications of the Israelites’ experience of being tested for us today?

Through the Old and New Testaments, based on God's creation, with the redemption/new creation carried out by Christ as the boundary, similar to our time division between BC and AD, along the linear and irreversible time, we can see that the history of God's people is like this A clue: The Son initiates the initial creation—(In the Old Testament) the actions of God’s people—The Son incarnates to carry out a new creation through salvation—(After the New Testament) The actions of God’s people—The Son’s return brings the final creation .

At both ends and in the middle of this line are the mighty acts of God, and God is the protagonist under the obvious highlight. Taking the new creation of Christ as a mirror, the two sides are also the deeds of the people of God, and it is a historical stage to show the deeds of the people of God. Every one of God's people on this stage, judges and pastors alike, strives to imitate Jesus Christ in the mirror of Jesus Christ. The judges are like the shepherds of the later generations, and they are all faithful servants of God. There have been such people in all dynasties and dynasties. We can work hard to find the corresponding people. They were all raised up by God in various churches. Although they are not perfect or have many flaws, God still uses them to lead God’s people to defeat Satan. Disturb, live a consecrated life.

So, as the people of God, what are the differences between us today and the Israelites?

The people of Israel looked forward to the salvation of a king or judges, and to the rise of a dynasty. Today, Christ has already come, so we no longer look forward to man or the kingdom of heaven on earth. We look forward to the return of Christ, the coming of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the new heaven and new earth.

The Israelites hoped for the perfect Christ by the hope of the imperfect judges, and we renew our imperfect lives by our gratitude for Christ's salvation and the hope of Christ's return. But this does not mean that we will not be tested by God. If we do not listen to God's words and refuse to obey God, we will be caught in the same historical cycle as the Israelites.

3:1 The people of these nations were left by the LORD to test the Israelites through them, all who had not experienced any war in Canaan; 2 so that the descendants of the children of Israel, who had not experienced these wars before, People who know how to learn to fight.

This verse further illustrates that God’s test of the Israelites had a positive and specific goal, that is, to make the descendants of the Israelites not lose their blood, not be so motherly, not be so delicate, and not be so intolerant of wind, rain and war.

Jeremiah 12:5 The LORD said, "If you run with those who are on foot, and you feel weary, how can you run a race with a horse? What will you do in the jungle by the Jordan if you fall in a safe place?

People who are used to a good life cannot adapt to a harsh environment. Did the Israelites survive the test? Did they win the battle? Did they drive out the Canaanites? As we shall see later, under the leadership of the 12 judges, they did achieve partial victories, winning a combined 410 years of peace. But in the long run, they failed because the group of Israel was not converted, but became more and more depraved, until Christ came and the whole nation was abandoned by God.

Who is the one who overcomes the enemy in the end? Or Jesus Christ. He must come into the world, he must suffer, die, resurrect and ascend to heaven, overcome the restraint and obstruction of Satan's enemies, and let the gospel spread from the people of Israel to all nations and peoples.

So far, we can see that God himself raised up judges to extend the lives of the Israelites again and again, in fact, for a bigger game of chess, to ensure that the son of David promised in the covenant would come as scheduled.

Therefore, the Israelites must not be resigned and must learn to fight. This is what the author wants to say to his readers. Teach them that they should review the promises of the covenant, with remorse for their sins, hope for the early arrival of the great king, with the expectation of eternal happiness for future generations, to obey God's commandments, and to pass God's test.

God's test is incomparably good. Because God will not test Gentiles other than the covenant people for good purposes, such as to make them repent, to test them in order to exercise their combat experience. God just leaves them alone. Even for the covenant people, God chose and resigned according to his own sovereignty and will. For example, for Esau, God did not let him go to a relative's house to beg for food, and then returned with a bunch of children. God allowed Esau's family to fall and be lost. Did God treat the Canaanites like this? Was this done to Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians? Not at all.

The test was to keep the Israelites from fighting. If there is no enemy, who will you fight? Therefore, God has left you with enemies. They are always going to come and capture you, and if you don't want to be bullied, you have to fight them. Just like when we were young, in a small society in the jungle, the truth came out of the fist.

The same is true for us. Have we ever been persecuted for our faith? What is the definition of an enemy? Anyone or power that prevents us from loving God is our enemy, including Satan, the world, and the old self. Can you recognize them? Some may be your work unit, some may be unbelieving relatives and friends around you, who may blame you for your beliefs, such as when you always go to church all day on Sundays and cannot arrange other activities , how do you cope?

Don't be discouraged, it's all reserved for us by God, for our benefit, just like the cold rain topping can keep us from falling asleep, it depends on whether we are willing and what we rely on to fight. If you are unwilling to accept challenges because you are used to comfort, or think that serving is too hard, reading the Bible is too boring, pray? There's no need for it - 80% of us will lose our armor and unarmor, and be forced to face a bigger test. And if you're Esau -- is there anyone who wants to be Esau? God will let you be at ease to the end. Please find a foreigner to be your wife at will, hunt and cook as you please, and if you have something to do on Sunday, please make your own arrangements and leave the church alone. But if you're Jacob, God will come to break your comfort zone and force you out of Mommy's comfort zone.

If you are God's chosen covenant child, testing will allow you to grow. When you are caught off guard and are attacked by the enemy, God will make you stand up and face the battle bravely, while watching with thanksgiving, while asking God for strength and courage - James 1:12 Blessed is he who can endure trials; for he has been tested Afterwards, you will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love Him.

Maybe now we can summarize the method of faith inheritance, that is: remember the Holy Word and practice it, thank Christ for repenting now, grasp the promise and hope for heaven. Amen!