Judges: Chap 2:

Title: Judges: Chap 2:      

 

Announcements / opening prayer:

 

 

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. He was the storm god who brought rain for crops as well as intense storms for his anger.  

 

Baal is one of seventy children of El and Asherah, not to be confused with Ashtaroth who is another of their children and the female counterpart to Baal. Baal brought the rains and so he brought life, making him also a god of fertility.  

 

When people worshipped Baal, Satan saw them as worshipping him.

 

JDG 2:12 and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the Lord to anger.

 

Their apostasy is more minutely described as forsaking Jehovah, the God of their fathers. They actually prostrated themselves before the false gods and this provoked anger in Jehovah.

 

The phrase "who brought them out of the land of Egypt" is used again, and it will continue to be used by God to denote how indebted they are to Him for the greatest of blessings.

 

JDG 2:13 So they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.

 

Baal is now singular and Ashtaroth is plural. They saw all the Baals or male deities as one. Ashtaroth or Ashtareth in the singular was a general name to denote the leading female deity, the moon goddess.

 

The Israelites did not reject Jehovah worship completely but attempted to worship Him alongside the worship the gods of nature with their neighbors.

 

The existing pagan cultures, both the Canaanites in the land and their neighbors, would welcome foreign deities and modify their religion in order to incorporate them. Almost all of them had Baal or a cognate of the name as the title for their chief deity, so this was easy to do and beneficial if you wanted to maintain peace and trade and intermarry. The Israelites saw this and concluded that they could do the same with Jehovah. After all, they heard all about the Lord but did not know Him. So they attempted to incorporate Jehovah worship with Baal worship.

 

They were clearly warned of this. This is in the exact same passage as:

 

DEU 6:6 And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart;

 

DEU 6:7 and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

 

DEU 6:8 And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.

 

DEU 6:9 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

 

DEU 6:13 You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him, and swear by His name.

 

DEU 6:14 You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you,

 

DEU 6:15 for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth.

 

Why do we kid ourselves that everything is going to work out just fine even though we compromise God's ways with the world's?

 

PSA 119:113

I hate those who are double-minded,

But I love Thy law.

 

In so many cases the Jews worshipped Baal with the same rituals that were given to them by Jehovah. This explains why they continued to slip into idol worship so easily. They had made it look so much like the worship of God that was instructed in the Law of Moses.

 

It is significant to notice that the pagan cultures worshipped gods that were linked to the natural world; water, sky, underworld, rain, fertility, wine, earth, etc. The clear indication is that man doesn't need an omnipotent and transcendent God. He only needs gods that are simply more powerful versions of himself.

 

They worshipped as god the powers of nature. Creation was by the power of nature and therefore Nature is deified.

 

It deserves more than a passing notice, that the modern denial of God may be reduced to the same ultimate principle as the worship of Baal. For, if the great First Cause - God as Creator - be denied, then the only mode of accounting for the origin of all things is to trace it to the operation of forces in matter. An what really is this but a deification of Nature?

 

The sensuousness of nature worship appeals to the corrupt nature while the spiritual worship of God in sanctification does not.

 

After all, why would something perfect and incorruptible like spirituality appeal to the corrupt nature? That shows us unequivocally that it is true.

 

JDG 2:14 And the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.

 

JDG 2:15 Wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had spoken and as the Lord had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed.

 

Whereas Joshua could stand against the enemy, who had superior numbers, this unfaithful generation will not be able.