ince the attacks two weeks ago, the nation of Israel has been in the news. The destruction of buildings and lives has already been horrendous, as we see another war break out in our world. Talks of World War 3 are on the lips of the majority of political commentators. With rumors of countries like Iran and China preparing for war with the U.S. by creating a fourfold frontline, so that they can gain territory by splitting American forces.
Not since the USSR, has the fear of coming war been so heavy on people’s minds. But to the Christian, this shouldn’t surprise, nor should it cause us to fear. Jesus told us in Matthew 24:4-6, “…See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
We are moving in the direction of Jesus’ return, and as we do, the world will continue to get worse and worse. In fact it will get to a point, as Jesus says, “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man (Matthew 24:37).” And what were those days like? Genesis 6:5 tells us that, “…the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
And it’s this wickedness that we’ll be looking at in the second week of our epilogue to the book of Judges. In this week, we turn our eyes purely from looking at the Scriptures and applying it to our lives, to looking at our own society and asking the question, “Where are we in comparison to the Israel found in Judges?”
The reason we should be asking this question is because it’s a natural question to wonder about, because when we read examples in the Scriptures, it’s only natural to ask how do we compare?
So first off, we must ask, can we even compare the modern US with the Israel of the Bible? I mean the governance style were wholly different. In the days of the book of Judges, Israel was a theocracy, which is a “government by divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided (https://www.britannica.com/topic/theocracy)." And after that, they became a type of monarchy. We, on the other hand, are a constitutional republic; don’t believe those people who say we’re a democracy, we’re not. So right off the bat, there are major differences there. They were ruled by the direction of God, and later a king, whereas we elect officials to represent us at various levels of government based on our constitution’s laws. Very different forms of government.
Except that, like Israel, our governmental system is based on the biblical commands of God. In his letter to the Third Division of the Militia in Massachusetts on October 11, 1798, one of the Founding Fathers of the US, John Adams wrote, “While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. (SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States; With A Life of the Author Notes and Illustrations of his Grandson Charles Francis Adams. Vol. IX, Books For Libraries Press, Freeport, New York, (First Published 1850-1856, Reprinted 1969) pp 228-29).”
Adams lays out in this letter that the constitution, which was just ten years old at the time, was “made only for a moral and religious people.” Through the writings of other Founding Fathers and sermons written by preachers of the time, it is clear that these morals was based on the biblical God who set them out for his people under both the old covenant of Israel and the new covenant of Christ.
So in comparing the two nations, though under different type of governances, we can see parallels between the two, because the U.S. was purposefully structured by the founders of our nation to have the same foundation as biblical Israel.
So, if Israel was founded on the word of God and if the U.S. was likewise founded on the word of God, what does that word say? Exodus 20:1-17 reads, “And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“3 You shall have no other gods before me.
“4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“7 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
“8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
“13 You shall not murder.
“14 You shall not commit adultery.
“15 You shall not steal.
“16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
“17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
This passage is widely known as the ten commandments and the foundation for all other commandments in the Bible. This passage is important because if it is the foundation for biblical Israel, then it is also the foundation of the U.S. This is even more apparent due to the fact that in the capital building of the U.S. there are reliefs, or pictures of faces, depicting major influences to the foundation of the U.S. constitution. All of these faces are side profiles, and all look to one man, Moses, who’s face is the only one fully seen. Moses is the one whom God used to bring down his commands to the people of Israel and, in turn, to us.
Every single one of these commands was broken by the people of Israel in the book of Judges. The whole nation was in a cycle of worshiping other gods who were not Yahweh. Gideon and Micah made idols to represent these non-existent gods. Jephthah and the eleven tribes made oaths in the name of God, but those were sinful and destructive. The Levites did not seek to live holy lives and so broke the Sabbath of God. Samson didn’t honor his mother and father and disregarded their advice. The eleven tribes murdered people, Samson committed adultery, the eleven tribes stole daughters of their relatives, Jephthah and the second Levite bore false witness that led to civil war. And the Danites coveted and desired the idols of Micah and took them from him. In breaking these commands, the nation of Israel descended to a point where only their sin was before their eyes, and they based their actions on their own deceived moral judgments.
In the book of Judges we see the breaking of God’s foundations to his law time and time again. In the letter to the Massachusetts’s militia that we read from earlier, John Adams also wrote, “But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.”
John Adams word’s sound a lot like the words that God spoke to Moses in Exodus 20 and that Israel broke in the book of Judges.
Are we there? Have we broken what Adams said would be our destruction? Yes, and more.
We look at Gideon who was offered to be made king, and who wanted that power, but who also wanted to have the facade of being pious. Do we have politicians who do the same today?
We look at Barak and the second Levite who was called by God to protect the people of God, but they wouldn’t do it. Barak had to be shamed into it, while the Levite took no responsibility. Do we see that with the men of our day, who shrink away as women and children are being abused right in front of them?
We look to the lesser judges who acted like kings, and Jephthah who sought his own power and glory. Do see in our society a desire and covertness that hurts others to gain wealth, power and prestige?
We look at the second Levite who took on a concubine, therefore not giving her protections under the law, using her more for his sexual appetite than for what was good for her. Do we see men not wanting to be true and faithfully to woman in our society? Instead using them through pornography and one night stands? Or that same Levite who threw his concubine out to wicked men to be abused and killed. Do we also see women who are being abused by society, both in the sense of taking away their God given worth away from them and not standing up for them when sick men try to enter their restrooms?
Or how about the wicked men who came to sexually abuse the Levite himself, do we see that kind of sexual perversion in our society?
We parallel Israel so close in both what our society was founded on, and how we brake those very foundations. And it’s worse for us because we’ve taken it to the next level. At the end of the book of Judges, Israel was abhorred that the concubine had been abused and killed. That’s just another night in the US where the statistics state that about 20 people a minute are abused (https://ncadv.org/STATISTICS); with 1 out of 4 woman and 1 out of 9 men being abused in some way.
Our radio stations, our TV channels, our internet sites praise and lift up sexual acts and idol worship that would make the Israel of Judges blush. And where did it lead to in the end? A civil war, and where are we headed?
The question that I purposed at the beginning was, “Where are we in comparison to the Israel found in Judges?” And the answer is, we’re so far beyond them, they are just dots in our review mirror. And we can see how the perversion and disregard of the foundations of our country lead to the social ills we see today. That’s why society is in an upheaval, because it has nothing to anchor on.
So, as Christians, what are we to do about it? I believe the Bible gives us three steps in dealign with the collapsing of this nation:
First, 2 Chronicles 7:14, “…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” It starts with the people of God, humbling themselves, steeping themselves in prayer, seeking the face of God, and turning from our own wicked ways. We must be the first to seek holiness before the society around us does. We can’t call them to God’s foundation if we ourselves are not doing so. We can’t judge, until we get our act together, which is the point of Matthew 7:1-5, that we’ve talked about several times throughout this Judges study.
Next, Ephesians 6:12-13, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” We must realize that everything we see begins as a spiritual battle, so we must make sure we’re armored up for that type of fight. Our first thought cannot be, “If I just pick the right candidate or support the right organization, then everything will be fixed. No, we start with the spiritual realities and fight in the Spirit against those things that are unseen. We pray, lifting up the work of our God and against the works of the enemy. We need to understand the fight starts in spiritual places, before we start fighting in physical realms. This means before I go to the ballot box, I pray against spiritual forces that seek the destruction of lives. This means before I engage in a debate, a conversation, or argument, I pray for the person whom I’m talking with, that their eyes and ears would not be covered by the enemy. It’ sonly after, I am right with the Lord, and I am fighting on the spiritual level, that I can then enter into the physical aspect.
Finally, 1 Peter 2:13 states, “Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” And so we must work within the government process that we have been given, because God has placed them there for our good. And yet, the same apostle who wrote 1 Peter 2:13, also stated in Acts 5:29, “We must obey God rather than men.” We must obey the commands of God and work to bring those back to our society which was originally founded on them. We are not called to stand by and do nothing. God tells us in Micah 6:8, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” There are sexual predators that need to be confronted, they show up in the shows we watch, and the music we listen to, we need to stop that consumption by our families and ourselves. To the best of our ability, understanding that we cannot fully take ourselves out of the world (John 17:15), we need to stop supporting with our money those business, and those politicians that support the things that God says are sinful. It doesn’t matter if on somethings they are okay, they are still funneling money to things that are abominations to God. We are accountable to God for the people we vote for, the media we consume, and the money we spend. We need to take seriously how we conduct ourselves, and ask, is this aiding the work of God or the work of the enemy?
Adams was prophetic when he wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In our society right now we are seeing the foundation of morals being decimated and the religion of the Bible is being ridiculed and rejected. What is left to happen? Our constitutional government will collapse because it wasn’t made for a people that rejects the morals and religion of the Bible, but the Church will survive, the word of God will survive, and when that happens, we who are God’s people need to already have rise up and be light and salt in this world, always pointing to Jesus for salvation as we live holy lives in prayer and who seek justice for those around us.
The challenge this week is simple, take the three things we talked about today, seeking God in holiness and prayer, gearing up for the spiritual battle that surrounds us, and actively seeking God in how we conduct ourselves in this society, and make sure you’re doing them. Don’t sit back and think, “I’ve accepted Jesus that’s all he wants from me.” No you are called out to the battle, so stop playing with sin, get your gear on, and get out there.
And a second part of to this is, don’t be a jerk while doing it. We shouldn’t tell people they’re going to hell as if, we weren’t on the road ourselves and grace didn’t save us from that destiny. No we are beggars who found food, showing other beggars where they might find it as well. But that doesn’t stop our resolve, it only emboldens it in the love of Jesus, that was first given to us.
Let us be a people, who do not back down from the call of holiness, of prayer, of battle and of love that is on our lives. Because when the King returns and the war is won, we want as many who were once seen as our enemies to be worshiping him by outside. Amen!
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