Angelic Conflict part 190: Human history (the judges) – Jud 2; 12:1-7; Mat 10:16; Gen 10:6-20; Psa 2.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 190: Human history (the judges) - Jud 2; 12:1-7; MAT 10:16; GEN 10:6-20; Psa 2.

 

 

At first, probably, a symbolical representation of Jehovah was set up; but this was soon transferred to an idol, or was invoked as an idol by others. Idolatrous images were afterward set up, together with the image of Jehovah, and the Israelites fondly imagined that they should be the more prosperous if they rendered homage to the ancient gods of the land.

 

The propensity to idolatry, which was predominant in all the rest of the world, thus spread itself among the chosen people like a plague.

 

This happened because they ignored God's way and refused to do what He had told them to.

 

From time to time, idolatry was publicly professed, and this national treachery to their king, Jehovah, always brought with it national misfortunes.

 

However, it does not appear that any form of idolatry was openly tolerated until that generation was extinct, which under Joshua, had sworn anew to the covenant with Jehovah.

 

The generation after Joshua openly worshipped idols and thus were disciplined by God through the oppression of neighboring nations.

 

God uses evil nations to discipline his client nation. God allows a demonized, unfair, and ungodly world system to discipline His children who refuse to yield to Him.

 

JOS 24:31 And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, and had known all the deeds of the Lord which He had done for Israel.

 

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

 

JUD 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.

 

JUD 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.

 

After that the rulers were unable or unwilling any longer to prevent the public worship of pagan deities. But the Hebrews, rendered weak and soft by this voluptuous religion, and forsaken by their king, Jehovah, were no longer able to contend with their foes, and were forced to servanthood by those they were meant to conquer.  

 

The Hebrews were rendered effeminate by voluptuous religion and forsook their King and so were forced to bend their necks to a foreign yoke.

 

Fleshly rule makes a believer weak, soft (as opposed to strong), and timid. We were not given a spirit of timidity that we should fear again. Many Christians just want to live under flesh command and have God make everything ok. In the end He will, but now, while unable to have victory over life the cowardly, fleshly believer wants daddy to fix everything, while even when spiritual God does not fix everything, but being spiritual the believer has the power to handle anything. The battle is the Lord's doesn't mean that God shuts off your volition, but it does mean that the believer actively thinks with what has been graciously given to him, the word of God under HS influence. Our volition is always involved, even when we stand still and watch the deliverance of the Lord.

 

The CA believer has been put in such a tremendous strategic position that he is to have a thorough victory over the flesh, the KOD, and the world system. Choosing falsehood over submission to the word of God renders him effeminate or weak and unable to contend with these foes and he finds himself a slave to that from which he has been set free.

 

But what happened with the various tribes in Israel under fleshly influence happens with the CA believer. The yoke becomes unbearable and the memory of deliverance through God returns. Unfortunately, what happened over these 400 years is a repetitive cycle of failure, recovery, and then failure again.

 

In this humiliating and painful subjection to a conquering people, they called to mind their deliverance from Egypt, the ancient kindnesses of Jehovah, and promises and threatening’s of the Law: then they forsook their idols, who could afford them no help, - they returned to the sacred tabernacle, and then found a deliverer who freed them from their bondage, whom God raised up as a judge.

 

The individual reformations from idolatry within the tribes was generally of no longer duration than the life of the deliverer or judge[judge - more like a governor/general].

 

As soon as that generation was extinct, idolatry again crept in by the same way, and soon became predominant.

 

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

 

JUD 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.

 

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

 

JUD 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.

 

JUD 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.

 

JUD 2:16 Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them.

 

JUD 2:17 And yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do as their fathers.

 

JUD 2:18 And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them.

 

JUD 2:19 But it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways.

 

JUD 2:20 So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He said, "Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not listened to My voice,

 

JUD 2:21 I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died,

 

JUD 2:22 in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk in it as their fathers did, or not."

 

God does not remove all opposition and greater opposition can exist because of bad decisions from the past. God is powerful to deliver us from them all.

 

MAT 10:16

"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents [know the schemes of your enemy], and innocent as doves [know your assets].

 

JUD 2:23 So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly; and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua.

 

JUD 3:1 Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to test Israel by them (that is, all who had not experienced any of the wars of Canaan;

 

JUD 3:2 only in order that the generations of the sons of Israel might be taught war, those who had not experienced it formerly).

 

Our opposition remains that we may be taught war and learn how to be tough and have courage while producing the fruit of the Spirit.

 

After they returned to idolatry and sensual worship then followed subjection and oppression under the yoke of some neighboring people, until a second reformation prepared them for a new deliverance.

 

Between these extremes of prosperity and adversity, the consequences of their fidelity or treachery to their divine king, the Hebrew nation was continually fluctuating until the time of Samuel.

 

And God, being so gracious, decreed that the yoke of slavery or taxation placed upon any of the tribes amounted to just about a fourth of this time, about 100 years total out of 400.

 

Such were the arrangements of Providence, that as soon as idolatry gained the ascendency, some one of the neighboring nations grew powerful, acquired the preponderance, and subjected the Hebrews. Jehovah always permitted their oppressions to become sufficiently severe to arouse them from their slumbers, to remind them of the sanctions of the law, and to turn them again to their God and king.

 

Discipline is ineffective in arising us from our slumber unless it hurts sufficiently.

 

Then a hero arose, who inspired the people with courage, defeated the enemies, abolished idolatry, and re-established the authority of Jehovah. As the Hebrews, in the course of time, became more obstinate in their idolatry, so each subsequent oppression of the nation was always more severe than the preceding. So difficult was it, as mankind were then situated, to preserve a knowledge of the true God in the world, although so repeatedly and so expressly revealed, and in so high a degree made manifest to the senses.

 

As this up and down relationship with God went on for 400 years there was much division, conflict, and opposition within the nation.

 

One of the consequences to an up and down relationship with God is that it eventually causes division in your relationships rather than unity.

 

This principle is dramatically seen between the tribes after the ninth judge came along, after a period of approximately 300 years.

 

 

This ninth, Jephthah, had decisively defeated the Midianites who were harassing the eastern tribes on the east side of the Jordan. The misunderstanding with Ephraim, and overbearing tribe which had been called to the war in the first instance, but refused to take part in the enterprise; but when that enterprise proved successful, they were astonished and mortified that Israel had been delivered by the Gileadites without their assistance. They then assembled tumultuously, and with many contemptuous and abusive expressions toward the Gileadites in general, and toward Jephthah in particular, they threatened to burn his house over his head, because he had not called them to the last decisive action. They went to battle and the Ephraimites were defeated and then afterward in order to find out if anyone coming over to Gilead was of Ephraim a language test was given.

 

JUD 12:1 Then the men of Ephraim were summoned, and they crossed to Zaphon and said to Jephthah, "Why did you cross over to fight against the sons of Ammon without calling us to go with you? We will burn your house down on you."

 

JUD 12:2 And Jephthah said to them, "I and my people were at great strife with the sons of Ammon; when I called you, you did not deliver me from their hand.

 

JUD 12:3 And when I saw that you would not deliver me, I took my life in my hands and crossed over against the sons of Ammon, and the Lord gave them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day, to fight against me?"

 

JUD 12:4 Then Jephthah gathered all the men of Gilead and fought Ephraim; and the men of Gilead defeated Ephraim, because they said, "You are fugitives of Ephraim, O Gileadites, in the midst of Ephraim and in the midst of Manasseh."

 

JUD 12:5 And the Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan opposite Ephraim. And it happened when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, "Let me cross over," the men of Gilead would say to him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he said, "No,"

 

JUD 12:6 then they would say to him, "Say now, 'Shibboleth.'" But he said, "Sibboleth," for he could not pronounce it correctly. Then they seized him and slew him at the fords of the Jordan. Thus there fell at that time 42,000 of Ephraim.

 

Things had gotten so estranged from east and west that their dialects had changed.

 

PHI 2:2

make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

 

JUD 12:7 And Jephthah judged Israel six years. Then Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in one of the cities of Gilead.

 

After a period of peace the Hebrews were again insensibly relapsed into idolatry and for this they were brought into rigorous servitude to their western foes, the Philistines, which lasted for forty years. A judge named Samson would deliver them, but the Philistines would not be completely beaten until king David.

 

We must realize that in every generation during this time of the judges, not all the families dove into idolatry together, as in Elijah's time, when he thought he was the only one and God had 7000 more just like him, there were individual families in Israel that continued to walk with God, but as always, they were in the minority.

 

Such is the essence of our fallen world when the grace and mercy and law of God is available to mankind, as is them that oppose Him and do so in a very tempting way.

 

The times of the monarchy, starting with Saul and ending with Zedekiah were no different, but actually worse as only a few kings were godly and desired the ways of Jehovah. One man did more than the others and that was God's first choice as king, as opposed to the people's desire for Saul, and that of course was David. David was a prophet, priest, and king and one of the greatest types of Christ in the Old Testament.

 

The monarchy would move from Saul to David to Solomon and after Solomon the nation would split into two kingdoms. The northern ten tribes and the southern two tribes with Judah being the predominant tribe and the home of the capital Jerusalem as well as the temple and the ark. The north called themselves Israel and set up their own centers of worship for fear that their people would take pilgrimages to Judah during the feasts that required this. The south, with Simeon, was called Judah. As we have seen, both kingdoms had their awful incursions into idolatry. The northern kingdom was destroyed in 721 BC and the southern kingdom in 586 BC.

 

Idolatry defeated ... Egypt and the descendants of Ham.

 

The southern kingdom were allowed to return and rebuild the city and the temple. They would exist another 500 years. They would not return to idol worship en masse but rather turned to religion and took on the Mosaic Law, that their forefathers ignored, to the point where they believed it made man righteous.

 

Japheth arises built up by satan. Ecumenical religion arises and idolatry goes underground.

 

If satan can't get you with immoral degeneracy through the phallic cult he will go after you with moral degeneracy in religion and legalism.

 

Don't think the line between these two is definite. There is always some idolatry in religion and some religion in idolatry. Often it is hard to distinguish the two in some systems of worship.