Judges: Chap 2: God's righteousness is the only standard for His people. He gives it by grace and we walk in it by faith.

Title: Judges: Chap 2: God's righteousness is the only standard for His people. He gives it by grace and we walk in it by faith.    

 

Announcements / opening prayer:

 

Righteousness is non-negotiable. God enables us to clearly understand what it is and then demands it from us. Yet God provides it in Christ and through Him do we have it and walk in it.

 

Only through faith in Christ do we become righteous, and only through the power of Christ by means of faith in the Holy Spirit and in the truth can we walk in righteousness.

 

We do not work for righteousness. We have it in faith and we walk in it through faith. We have faith in what God tells us that we are. We face our enemies by faith. Our position is secure and God is faithful to that position just as He is faithful to His covenant with Israel.

 

The historian sums up the age.

 

JDG 2:6 When Joshua had dismissed the people, the sons of Israel went each to his inheritance to possess the land.

 

JDG 2:7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the Lord which He had done for Israel.

 

JDG 2:8 Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten.

 

JDG 2:9 And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

 

JDG 2:10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.

 

Joshua died as well as the generation that fought with him, which were the younger generation in the wilderness. Just because they died doesn't mean that the truth that they lived by and had faith in should also die.

 

Each generation thinks they are so much more modern and so much more enlightened than their fathers? Why do we not see that truth is eternal and immutable and so is the same in every generation? Time does not change the truth. God is truth and God is immutable. Many people in our world think the truth changes with time and these types also think that man is changing for the better and that statutes need to change with him. This progressivism is only a fight for change that suits them and their wealth, pleasure, power, and approbation.

 

Man does not change. He is fallen and totally depraved. Only God can change him through the miracle of grace.

 

The transition to settle the Promised Land constitutes a radical change from one kind of thinking to another.  

 

But not only Joshua was buried, but all of his compadres. These were the fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, grandparents of the next generation and so many of them traveled through the wilderness as children and witnessed the judgment of their faithless parents and they crossed the Jordan and fought like warriors of faith under Yevah Jireh and witnessed the conquering of the Promised Land with their own eyes. They rejoiced and marveled at the grace and mercy of God and they taught this fact of life to their children. They not only spoke it, it flowed from them as if it were a substance that oozed through the pores of their skin. And though their children were saturated by it, they did not heed it or believe it.

 

So I have added to this the briefest of doctrines on Christian parenting.

 

Are kids just dumb? Sorta, but not all of them.

 

Should I not teach my kids the truth since they’re just going to screw it up anyway? No, Never. You should always teach them the truth because you are the living, embodied truth. You are only revealing yourself in Christ. How could you do anything else?

 

What is the secret to getting your kids to see the truth? If there is one it remains a secret. Just be yourself - a follower of Christ, flawed yes, but a lover of Christ YES. Our kids are the most special people in the world to us and if we are followers of Christ, that will be made most plain to them. But what they do with that fact of true life must be up to them. They are not ours. They belong to God and are on loan to us by God. We pray for them and even at times demand that God protect and care for them when we can’t.

 

So, in verse 6, we have an interesting and subtle verb use.

 

JDG 2:6 When Joshua had dismissed the people, the sons of Israel went each to his inheritance to possess the land.

 

The Hebrew shows us an order of thought and not of time. The Hebrew shows a vav consecutive in which the letter vav is attached to the verb in order to change its aspect. This is in verse 6 in the verb went in the phrase, “the sons of Israel went”. “Went” is the Hebrew verb shalach, but using the vav as a prefix we have vay-shalach, meaning that the writer is not just saying that they traveled to another place, but that something else, something that we should really look into and not miss, was changed in their hearts.

 

Vs. 6 - "the sons of Israel went" is a vav consecutive which subtly adds to "went" not only a change of location but a change of heart.

 

This is one of the ways that language can convey underlying truth through a double meaning. It is almost like using a pun.

 

Verse 6 is not presented as a simple historical chronology concerning the travel of a people, but that a deeper change has also taken place consecutively after the death of Joshua. What that change is can only be found in the context, which in ours is abundantly clear.

 

JDG 2:6 When Joshua had dismissed the people, the sons of Israel went each to his inheritance to possess the land.

 

JDG 2:7 And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the Lord which He had done for Israel.

 

JDG 2:8 Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred and ten.

 

JDG 2:9 And they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

 

JDG 2:10 And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.

 

So in our more modern scheme of language the passage reads:

 

‎Now when Joshua had dismissed the people, and the children of Israel had gone every one to his own inheritance to take possession of the land, the people served the Lord as long as Joshua and the elders who survived him were alive;

 

but when Joshua was dead, and that generation (which was contemporaneous with him) had been gathered to its fathers, there rose up another generation after them which knew not the Lord, and also (knew not) the work which He had done to Israel.

 

While it is true that they had not personally seen the work that God had done, but that they were the beneficiaries of the work that He had done, why are they so dense as to be not deeply and personally impacted by that true and historical work?

 

That question is at the root of each of their lives and it is the past that determines their future.

 

In their near future they will see the salvation of the Lord to them and over their adversaries, but what impact will this have on their own lives?

 

Neither the chastisement from God nor the deliverance of the Judge set them free from the lust for idolatry.

 

Don’t let that statement just pass you by. It is a truth not to be ignored. Fallen man is this, and born again man is not.

 

This is a warning to the world and a warning that they, the people of the world, should fear.

 

It is also a warning to us and a warning that we can actually embrace as a comfort and not fear.

 

The warning of this book should be a source of fear to the world that has rejected God and a source of comfort to the child of God.

 

All truth is like this. It causes fear in the hearts of the ones who reject God and rejoicing in the hearts of those who love God. When one person hears the gospel he cringes while another rejoices. The same sun hardens the clay and softens the wax.

 

2CO 2:15-16

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things?

 

There is no sin that will ever be the source of your judgment. Nor will any sin be brought up in heaven by God concerning any believer. Our warning is not a law but a gift. God has gifted us as being new creatures in Christ and that creature comes with a life that you can in fact truly live. The life is a gift and the warning on our end of the cross is a loss of life at the courtesy of the fruit of the Spirit. That doesn't make us afraid to live life; it just makes us a alert and cautious. It gives us a godly fear.

 

In the general survey of the times of the judges, commencing at vs. 11, the falling away of the Israelites from the Lord is mentioned first of all, and at the same time it is distinctly shown how neither the chastisements inflicted upon them by God at the hands of hostile nations, nor the sending of judges to set them free from the hostile oppression, availed to turn them from their idolatry (vv. 11-19). This is followed by the determination of God to tempt and chastise the sinful nation by not driving away the remaining Canaanites (vv. 20-23); and lastly, the account concludes with an enumeration of the Canaanite tribes that still remained, and the attitude of Israel towards them (JDG 3:1-6).

 

JDG 2:11 Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals,

 

Baal was the chief male deity of the Canaanites and all the nations of the Middle East and Anatolia (Turkey), and was simply worshipped by the different nations with peculiar modifications.

 

Depending on the region Baal would have slightly varied names, but in essence he was the son of El, the father of gods and mortals, and the most powerful god in the pantheon.

 

In verse 11 we have Baalim in the plural in order to indicate that they worshipped all of the Canaanite deities. Baal appears over seventy times in the OT.

 

Baal - the storm god, also known as Hadad, Victor-Baal, Rider of the Clouds, Son of Dagon, Prince, and Lord of the Earth.

 

Notice how these names mimic some of the titles for Christ, whom Satan wishes to dethrone. Baal is a substitute for Christ just as the Beast will be during the Tribulation.