Series: Route 66Book of Judges

Judges 2:7-13; 21:25BL: The obedience of one generation is never a guarantee for the next.

Intro…1. FAMILY FEUD LEAVES 69 BROTHERS DEAD!2. POWERFUL GOVERNMENT LEADER KILLED BY LEFT-HANDED ASSASSIN.3. ONE MAN KILLS 600 MEN WITH ONLY A CATTLE PROD.4. 300 MEN OVERPOWER ENTIRE ARMY WITH ONLY CLAY POTS AND TORCHES.5. GANG RAPE LEADS TO VICTIM’S DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT.6. GIRLS AT PARTY KIDNAPPED AND FORCED TO MARRY STRANGERS.7. ONE BLIND MAN TOPPLES AN ARENA KILLING 3000.8. WOMAN JUDGE SAYS TRAVELERS NO LONGER SAFE ON HIGHWAYS.Amplify…Headlines such as these are normally only found on the front pages of thetabloids. But these are actual events from the Book of Judges!The book of Judges is a tragic sequel to the book of Joshua. It doesn’t take very long to discover that the book of Judges is not a very

pleasant book…if Judges were a movie; it would receive an R rating. In fact,Judges is one of the darkest books in the Bible. God had birthed a nation from the furnace of grace and had delivered them

from slavery in Egypt.

After 430 years immersed in the paganism of Egypt, the people of God werefinally delivered from their suffering…It was somewhat easy getting the peopleout of Egypt; the hard work was getting Egypt out of the people. For almost four decades, the people wandered through the deserts of the Sinai

Peninsula, circling, walking, waiting, and learning the hard lessons ofobedience…DAY after DAY, they learned to TRUST GOD! The Almighty God had FREED them, FED them and FOUGHT for them!

The NATION of ISRAEL had tasted and experienced the FAVOR of God!God LED them…He PROTECTED them and He gave them what He hadPROMISED them…GOD HAD GIVEN ISRAEL HIMSELF! Under the authority of God and the leadership of Joshua, Israel took

possession of what God had promised them… I’ve seen this area…it is beautiful…God’s people enjoyed what the land

offered…they enjoyed the security of what the area provided. After years of unrest and uncertainty, the people of God rested in the peace of

God and they served Him…(ON SCREEN)Judges 2:7

This generation had crossed the Red Sea without getting their feet wet…thisgeneration were children when God provided food from heaven…thisgeneration stood at the base of Mount Sinai and felt what it is like to be inthe presence of God…Joshua’s generation undoubtedly knew who God is! If we could ask anyone from the generation of Judges 2:7, they would say

there is only ONE TRUE GOD…He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There is One Creator, One Redeemer, One Sustainer…One All-knowing, All-

powerful, ever present God who is holy, righteous, gracious, and good… And this generation would tell each of us that there is only ONE LIVING GOD

to be served, worshipped, loved, adored and feared!But hear me Covenant, Judges records the stark reality that…(ON SCREEN)BOTTOM LINE:The obedience of one generation is never a guarantee for the next.The author of Judges reveals a glaring contrast between Joshua’s generationand the next…(ON SCREEN)Judges 2:10

One generation remained LOYAL to God but the next generation sank intoapathy, moved into apostasy causing the land to be filled with anarchy.TURN to BODY:But why?Why did one generation remain faithful while the next fail so miserably?(ON SCREEN)1. The people redefined who God is.Intro…God had kept His promise with Israel…not one word of His promises hadfailed. God always finishes what He starts!But remember, for every promise of God, there is a premise. He commanded thepeople to obey Him and never worship or tolerate the false gods of the Canaanites.Joshua’s generation resisted the Canaanite religious system but this generation,according to 2:12, not only tolerated the false system; they followed after it…thefalse gods of their neighbors became a part of their DNA! The religion of theCanaanites was a crude and debased form of ritual polytheism. EL was the name by which the supreme Canaanite deity was known…this

false deity was known as a shadowy figure whom had three wives who werealso His sisters. The Canaanites believed EL would often step down from his eminence and

become either a hero or a blood thirsty tyrant.

Within the system, EL terrified other gods…Why? Because he supposedlydethroned his father, murdered his favorite son and decapitated his owndaughter…sounds like a god that I want to follow? Then there is BAAL, mentioned in verse 13…BAAL was the son of EL! Baal

was known as the god of rain and fertility…it was a false god that infectedIsrael for many years. I don’t have time to talk of other Canaanite gods but I will say this religious

system had absolutely no moral compass…the characteristics of these godsbrought out the worst in God’s people such as sacred prostitution, childsacrifice and snake worship.

Israel conquered the land physically, but the culture conquered themspiritually!Amplify…The people of Israel forgot what the Lord had done, forsook what the Lordhad said, forfeited what the Lord had promised and completely failed toresist the evil around them.This generation had abandoned the first commandment from which allothers flow…You shall not worship any other gods! They had forsaken thegreatest commandment…You shall love the Lord your God with all yourheart, soul and mind.

Instead of allowing God to define them, they redefined God!For them, God wasn’t enough…His love wasn’t enough, His provision wasn’tenough, His grace wasn’t enough…they BOWED the knee to BAAL! Theytragically sacrificed their children, they lived for sex in the house of worship, theyhad become completely contaminated by the Canaanite System!Covenant, let me remind you that we are talking about the people that Godchose to REDEEM!Illustrate…Wall Street Journal ArticleRedefining God“Across the country, the faithful are redefining God. Dissatisfied with conventionalimages of an authoritarian deity, people are embracing quirky, individualisticconceptions of God to suit their own spiritual needs. Although most Americanscontinue to say they believe in God, the number of those who say no standarddefinition "comes close" to their notion of the deity has more than doubled in thepast 20 years.The Rev. David Aslesen of Evanston, Ill., says he plans to compare God to agardener in order to appease the growing "theologicial diversity" at his church. "Idon't want anybody to feel left out," he says."People seek out these new gods the way they seek out new products in themarketplace," says Randall Styers, assistant professor at Union TheologicalSeminary in New York. "It's the ultimate form of individualism."

Take Ken Zweygardt, a 43-year-old lawyer in Oskaloosa, Kan. Growing up in astrict, Lutheran household, he says he used to imagine God as "a Santa Claus type,"a provider and a judge. But as he matured, Mr. Zweygardt became frustrated withthe church, and started waking early Sunday mornings to go fishing instead.Today, for him, God is being alone "on a lake, seeing the fog lift up at sunrise andhearing the water bell." When he teaches his children, now two and three yearsold, about God, "I plan to take them outside and say, 'Here it is.'"Mark Thomas, 24, a teacher at a Colorado boarding school, attended the OregonExtension several years ago after being intensely involved with a Christian youthgroup in high school. As a teenager, Mr. Thomas thought of God as a "luckycharm," he says, "someone you prayed to when you needed a favor." Butincreasingly, he saw himself and his friends judging and deriding their peers fortheir un-Christian behavior. Now Mr. Thomas has settled on a vision of God that is"mysterious, dark, rich and gooey," he says. "I've started to think of God more as alover than as a father," he says.Transition…We are thousands of years removed from the time of the Judges and we readthe narrative with condemnation for the people of Israel…not realizing thatwe often are not much different.We claim we know God but don’t live for Him…We settle for the godsaround us…we worship the American Dream…demand our rights…but you

say, “Pastor Chad, we don’t sacrifice children.” Really? Do I need tomention the millions of babies that have been aborted since 1973!We gasped at the contents of Judges but is it any different than the newsfrom today?Apply…Regardless of how much we try to REDEFINE God, He remains the GREAT IAM…He never changes! He remains the God of Abraham, Isaac andJacob…the God who deserves our undivided attention and completesurrender…BY the GRACE of GOD, we must never forget what He has done, neverforsake what He has said and never fail to follow what He has commanded.(ON SCREEN)2. The people positioned themselves as the finalauthority.Intro…Notice this statement from the Book of Judges…the author used it often.“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his owneyes.”I hope this captures your attention because it is the last sentence in the Book ofJudges. Observe that everyone did what was right in their own eyes, not what was

wrong. The tragedy is that humanity’s idea of what is right and what is wrong isoften the exact opposite to God’s.Judges reveals what happens when “everyone does what is right in their own eyes.”The answer: NOTHING GOOD!Amplify…When humanity positions itself as the final authority, everything is filteredthrough a humanistic lens. What is considered to be out of bounds withGod becomes okay for us…this happens also within the context of thechurch.No one wants to offend anyone…everyone does their own thing…you’reright, I’m right, everyone is right!If you want to take a life of an unborn child, that’s okay…it is right for you.If you want to marry someone from the same gender, go ahead if it makes youhappy.If you want to believe all paths lead to God, that is fine…what you believe is right.If you want to live for yourself…more power to you…eat, drink and be merry.We live in a crazy world…crazy laws…crazy relationships…crazyfamilies…crazy people…and before you know it, crazy become normal! Ourlives will begin mirroring what we were once ashamed of…(ON SCREEN)James Montgomery Boice

“No people rise higher than their idea of God, and conversely, a loss of the sense ofGod’s high and awesome character always involves a loss of a people’s moral valuesand even what we commonly call humanity. We are startled by the disregard forhuman life that has overtaken large segments of the western world, but what do weexpect when countries like ours openly turn their backs upon God? We deplore thebreakdown of moral standards, but what do we expect when we have focused ourworship services on ourselves and our own often trivial needs rather than on God?Our view of God affects what we are and do…”Thank you Pastor Boice for stepping on my toes…thank you for being socandid!Transition…But regardless of how much the people bowed to baal and how much theymade decisions based on what they wanted, God was always willing toforgive and save them! Not only is Judges a book about human failure, it isalso a book about God’s faithfulness…Judges shows how sinful humanity can be but it also reveals that…(ON SCREEN)3. The People needed a Savior.Read verses 14-16

No matter how messed up the people became, God showed His grace bysending a JUDGE and setting Israel free…the good news is that not only didthe people need a SAVIOR, God gave them a SAVIOR. The Hebrew word for “judge” means “to save, to rescue.” These judges were

deliverers…and I can tell you most of them had their own issues. It goes to show you that God can use anything to bring glory to Himself.

There is a cycle all throughout Judges that involved REBELLION,REPETANCE and RESCUE!Amplify…And what is clear in Judges is that these “deliverers” could only save some ofthe people from some of the enemy some of the time. What Judges shows usis the people needed- we need- a JUDGE or SAVIOR far more powerful.And that is what God has provided in Christ!Ladies and Gentleman, don’t miss the foreshadowing and the lessons fromthe OT…All 39 books point to Jesus! God first gave the people priests, then He gave them Judges, after that, he

sent them prophets and finally he gave them kings… But every one of these individuals were not enough…none of them powerful

enough to ultimately SAVE people from their SINS!

Finally 2000 years ago, they would learn- we would learn- the only one whocould save them or us was God Himself…He did not send a SAVIOR, Hebecame the SAVIOR!

Conclusion…The book of Judges has a clear purpose for each of us…we are meant to bemorally and emotionally tired by the time we finish reading it…and we aremeant to conclude, “We don’t need A judge to save us, we need THE judge.”We don’t need just another Savior, we need THE Savior…All roads lead to Jesus!Yes, it is true that the obedience of one generation neverguarantees the next but we can learn from the mistake ofothers…we can turn from “redefining” who God is and resist positioningourselves as the final authority!I close with a portion of scripture from Psalm 106…the writer of this Psalmis reflecting on the time of the Judges:(ON SCREEN)Psalm 106:40-48