Judges: Chap 2: The obviousness of the blessing and the curse given to all generations.Title: Judges: Chap 2: The obviousness of the blessing and the curse given to all generations.
Announcements / opening prayer:
Jdg 2:13 So they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth.
They worshipped as god the powers of nature. Creation was by the power of nature and therefore Nature is deified. 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.
It is God who does this because it is God who gives victory. If God doesn't give victory then we are on our own and that is always failure. The power of God and the protection from God is removed and they are sold into the hands of their enemies.
From the promise of God in Lev 26:7-13 we saw what Israel should have had.
The battlefield is the soul and not some earthly place. Our enemies don’t draw blood. They draw the things that make for anxiety, fear, worry, self-absorption, slavery to the fears and prides of the flesh.
This is the great loss in the church age to which Israel's loss of land is analogous. Anxiety is the loss of peace. Fear is the loss of love. Self-absorption is the loss of joy. Slavery to fears and prides of the flesh is loss of what is truly life.
It's not that we are always perfectly spiritual, but that we do walk in them and that we adjust our thinking and faith when we do not.
New commands that fall under the "way of Christ" are fulfilled through faith in the filling of the Spirit.
Php 2:1 If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,
"affection" - spla,ncna[splanchna] = bowels, which were pictured as the seat of tender affections and mercies.
"compassion" - sumpaqe,w[sumpatheo; sun (with) and patheo (to suffer)] = to suffer with another, to be affected as another is, sympathy.
It must be seen that these attitudes are in Christ. We are not to make up a Christianity of our own that suits our own way or our own personality. Christianity is Christ. It is His way. We are to be imitators of Him, conformed to His image, following Him.
Heb 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize [sumpatheo] with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
This is our battlefield. The world and the flesh do not possess these virtues, nor do they care to. They disdain them and they oppose them in the heart of every believer. We must fight the good fight of faith if we are going to walk in them.
Php 2:1 If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,
Php 2:2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
Php 2:3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself;
Php 2:4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
Php 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
Php 2:6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
Php 2:7 but emptied Himself [of the expression of His deity], taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
Php 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
How does a believer have the same attitude as Christ? The believer has to have faith to perform the commands that fall under the way of following Christ.
One may find a succinct summary in the fruit of the Spirit, in the definition of love, in complete self-sacrifice, thinking of others as more important than yourself, graciousness, and compassion.
Compassionsympathypity: the power of putting oneself into another's place in such a manner as to feel what he feels; pain, suffering, joy, temptation, etc.
This is but one of the many virtues of Christ, but as we will see in our study of the book of Judges, it is a foundational part of Christ's love. We will see the many instances of how the Lord dealt with sinful Israel where we will find the same attitude in the earthly life of Christ when He deals with fallen, sinful man with patience and compassion.
We are to be like Him.
Heb 10:24-25 let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.
Think of Christ’s compassion and His way of love and ask yourself, are you walking that way, not perfectly, but is it what you truly desire above all else; do you thirst and hunger for it?
Think of any miracle that Christ performed or word that He spoke and see if you cannot find the element of compassion in it, for in every case it is there. Hence, everything He did and said was for others. Do you see this and do you hunger for it in yourself by faith and the power of the Spirit? This is what God calls us to in the church age and to not have it is akin to Israel not having the plains and having to eke out a living in the mountains.
Mat 5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."
The promise is that if you do, you will be fulfilled. By the life of Christ your enemies will fall before you by the sword; the flesh, the world, and the devil.
Knowledge alone, or rather just knowing the words of the living Word will not suffice. We must know Him, the very mind that created the words and the way. The Greek uses the word epignosis so often for the believers knowledge. It is the word gnosis, knowledge, with the prefix epi, meaning a full or complete knowledge.
If we fail to lose our lives for His life, then we will have in our souls what Israel had in their land. |