Lately I’ve been thinking about several of the youth that have gone through the ministry here and are now adults making their way through this world. Some of them are doing well for themselves. Some have good paying jobs, some have gotten married, some are changing their communities for the better. Then there are others who I see on Facebook or hear about that are struggling because of the job market, their marriages are failing, or they’re using drugs. And no matter what their situation, whether good or bad, I have the same thought, Lord move that they may walk with you.
I know personally I have not done the best as a mentor or pastor, but my one desire is that they would know Jesus and follow him. So it’s hard to watch teens who grew up and are hurting, even if their life seems to be going well, I see that they’re struggling. Names upon names, faces upon faces flash in my mind even now as I think about all the teens that have come through this ministry. But I know God’s not done with any of them. I know that God is calling, even now, these young adults to himself. Because the God of the Scriptures, the God we worship, is the God who deeply loves his creation and desires for it to be in right standing with him.
And it’s this desire of God that brings us back to our summer series where we’ll be picking it up in verse 1 of chapter 10 in the book of Judges. And as we open up to Judges 10:1, let’s recap where we are.
So far, we’ve seen three themes, God’s faithfulness in the face of humanity’s unfaithfulness, God’s desire that we be in a right relationship with him through obedience, and that disobedience to God leads to turmoil in personal and social realms. These three themes are overarching themes that happen throughout the Scriptures, but in the book of Judges, we’re given them as a generational case study how how themes work themselves out in history.
With these themes in our mind, we started to see how even the smallest of sins in disobedience cause major problems. In the two weeks we looked at Gideon’s story, though he trusted God, when the people gave him the credit for defeating the enemy, and Gideon did not remind them that it was God who actually did it, we saw how this seemingly small act of sin ballooned into his desire to act like a king, and eventually led to almost all of his sons dying at the hands of another one of his offspring. This familicide, then led to a small civil war with the people of Shechem and their appointed ruler Abimelek.
So we’re seeing how, as Israel moves further into disobedience and becomes more and more comfortable with it, the negative effects begin to increase in more and more horrific ways. It’s in this state of sin that we return to Judges and pick it back up in chapter 10, verse 1. Let’s read together.
“1 After the time of Abimelek, a man of Issachar named Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim. 2 He led Israel twenty-three years; then he died, and was buried in Shamir.
“3 He was followed by Jair of Gilead, who led Israel twenty-two years. 4 He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkeys. They controlled thirty towns in Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth Jair. 5 When Jair died, he was buried in Kamon.
“6 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the Lord and no longer served him, 7 he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites, 8 who that year shattered and crushed them. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites. 9 The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim; Israel was in great distress. 10 Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, ‘We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.’
“11 The Lord replied, ‘When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, 12 the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands? 13 But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. 14 Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!’
“15 But the Israelites said to the Lord, ‘We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.’ 16 Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.
“17 When the Ammonites were called to arms and camped in Gilead, the Israelites assembled and camped at Mizpah. 18 The leaders of the people of Gilead said to each other, ‘Whoever will take the lead in attacking the Ammonites will be head over all who live in Gilead.’”
We come out of Gideon’s story, which ended with a three year reign of terror by his son Abimelek. Israel is in a bad place, but God is still there working. He raises up two judges, in this time, which brings to a close the second section of the book of Judges.
Now, we don’t know a lot about these two judges. There’s Tola, who we are not given any information about how he saved Israel, but because he judges in the vicinity of Shechem, it seems likely he brought peace out of Abimelek’s chaos. The second judge we’re told about is Jair. But we don’t know who or if he fought against anyone, but we do know that he did act as Gideon did. Gideon had 70 sons, whereas Jair had thirty sons, and we’re told that they were riding on donkeys. That might seem to us a small detail, but it conveys the idea that Jair, like Gideon, was trying to establish some sort of dynastic rule. This is because riding donkey was a sign of rulership at this time. So, we see Gideon who’s disobedience not only led to Abimelek, but also set a precedent for others to also begin to try to make for themselves their own kingdoms.
So what we’re seeing is the continued downward spiraling of God’s people into sin, idolatry, and now a movement away from God’s will for this people.
And it’s in verse six, where we see an escalation in Israel’s idolatry. We’ve been informed in previous passages that Israel has worshiped the Baals and the Ashtoreths, but now they’re going after the gods of four other people groups. So it’s not just taking on one deity in an attempt to when the favor of a god, but it’s a full blown rejection of Israel’s covenant God, Yahweh, and an embrace of a completely separate religious belief system. It would be like a Christian trading their belief in the one and only God, for the hundreds of thousands of gods of Hinduism.
Because off this escalation in idolatry and rejection of their covenant with God, in verse 7 we’re told that God is angry over this their sin. In fact, the word that is used for anger is, aph (af)l which is actually a physical description of the nostrils flaring in exasperation. And it gives us this image of God’s frustration with the flagrant and habitual way his covenant people return to idolatry. It brings to mind Proverbs 26:11, “Like a dog that returns to his vomit, is a fool who repeats his folly.” Israel is rinsing and repeating their sin of idol worship, and God is exasperated by it.
Because of the imagery of the flared nostrils, we can see that God’s long suffering patience is wearing thinner and thinner. And this type of physical imagery that conveys in a very human way, God’s state of frustration, is what’s called in theology, accommodation language. Accommodation language is where God uses, human ideas and terms, and works within our limited understand to teach us about his otherworldliness. It’s how an adult speaks to a young child, when they ask a question that, if given the proper text book definition, the child wouldn’t begin to grasp the idea. It’s where we get the analogy of things like the birds and the bees. We use what a child understands to covey a deeper topic ands God does the same with us. Imagery like God flaring his nostrils, is a way in which God can convey his exasperation at the idolatry of his people, that brings a picture to our mind that helps us understand his state of being.
It’s in this state of exasperation, that we see again, that God gives them to be conquered. The use of selling is, again, accommodation language to let us know that no other god beat Yahweh, as was the thought in those days, but rather, God gave them over to these other nations as judgement for their idolatrous sin.
They stay in this state of subservience for eighteen years before they get their act together to cry out to God. Now what’s interesting is that we’ve seen God speaking to his judges, and to his people through a prophet, but in this case, we’re told that God responds directly to the people. And in his response, we see that frustration in verse 7. God tells them that he has actually delivered them before, but since they wanted to follow the world and it’s gods, then they could rely on things that haven’t proved themselves real like he has.
And in a glimmer of hope, we actually see that Israel takes responsibility for their actions, calling down judgment on themselves for their idolatry, and requesting God’s help. Then they actually take down their idols, in a sign of true repentance; repentance that we haven’t really seen from the nation since the very beginning of the book of Judges. So it seems like there’s a turning point for the nation.
Therefore because of this actual repentant action, we’re given more of this accommodation language in verse 16 where it says that God could no longer bear (qatsar [kaw-tsar]) their misery. This word doesn’t mean that God could no longer stand it, but rather that he had come to a point where he was done with their punishment. The word carries with it the end of a season, in this case the time of reaping a harvest. So God’s judgment and subsequent punishment, led to a time of harvesting repentance, and so God is ready for the season pf punishment to be done.
But in almost the blink of an eye, we’re told in the final verse of chapter 10, “The leaders of the people of Gilead said to each other, ‘Whoever will take the lead in attacking the Ammonites will be head over all who live in Gilead.’” So it’s not God who raises up the next judge, as we’ll see in chapter 11, but rather it is the people who look for him. On one hand the people are repentant, but on the other hand, they are trying to take the role of God in choosing who he will use to bring victory over Israel’s enemies. Which leads us next week into Jephthah’s story. So it’s a reptant heart and action, but sin still is allowed to fester in the disobedience of fixing the situation themselves. Kind of like what happened at the beginning of Gideon story where they tried to hide from their conquers instead of calling out to God.
Yet even in this repentant disobedient mess of a people, what we just saw is the God who, is both the Judge and Lover of humanity. Moses recognized who God is in his prayer in Numbers 14:18, “‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
But even in his role as Judge, at the repent heart, he is quick to forgive, as David who later states in Psalm 86:5, “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.” This forgiving God is who John would later write about in his first letter, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).”
The God of the Scriptures is the God who’s desire is to fix humanity’s relationship with him. He is the God who gives out justice punishment for our sin, and at the cry of repentance, quickly forgives us and bears that punishment only has long as it is needed. This is what discipline is, punishment with the purpose of correction.
This is why Paul speaks like this in Romans 8, “31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (8:31-39).”
God desires us to understand that the consequences of our sin is something that he takes no pleasure in, but are give to us to bring us back to him so that we might enjoy a right relationship, and when we are repentant, he is quick to pull back that punishment, not wanting it to go longer than needed.
God’s actions shows us his disdain for sin and his joy in repentance. The caricature of a mean old man in white on a throne wagging his finger at us, is far from the biblical description of God as a loving parent who desires to embrace his child with hugs and kisses, but still desires for that child to learn what is right and wrong. And so, when we come to a point where we falter in our relationships, both with him and with others, repentance and forgiveness is the key to open up those relationships and bring healing and the end of punishment.
When we learn this lesson of the loving Father who wants to embrace his repentant children, we will begin to walk firmly in our knowledge that God is truly looking out for our good. No words from the enemy will dissuade us from repenting, and it will come quicker and easier to turn back to our Father who loves us.
This week I want to challenge you to re-read chapter 10 and see how God communicates with us through our own understanding of emotions, then, if you have a relationship either with God or with another person, that isn’t right, that you will seek forgiveness, or give forgiveness this week. And know that in all things, God is working out the good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes. We show love by repentant acts, and we follow his purposes by seeking forgiveness.
Let us be a people known for repenting of sin and seeking the forgiveness of our Father. Amen.
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