Judges: God's Compassionate Discipline on HalfHearted Love

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Exclusive Allegiance

Lawson Younger describes our relationship to the Lord as an exclusive allegiance that Christian struggle to maintain. He says,
True worship of the Lord requires an exclusive allegiance. An allegiance to any other thing is a transgression of his covenant, old or new. Unfortunately, there are many Christians today who want to be associated with Christ while their allegiance in everyday life is to another god.” Lawson Younger
God has commanded his people, all of his people, both Old Testament Israel and the New Testament saints, to love Him with all of your mind, heart, and strength. To love Jesus in this way is to have a single minded, heart united, loyal love for Him. This kind of love joyfully obeys his commands, and when sin gets the better of you at times, this kind of love is more concerned about the shame brought to Jesus than the consequences of disobedience.
Younger says, the problem in the church today is that too many professing believers are not loving the Lord with a single minded heart united loyal love. Many professing believers want to be spiritually associated to Christ, but do not want his sovereign Lordship over their life. They are not willing to give him exclusive allegiance. In many regards, they are acting like their spiritual forefathers, the Israelites in Judges 2:6-3:6.
Israel has moved into the land and been there some time. Joshua and his generation has been faithful to remember God’s works. Joshua dies, as well as the rest of his generation, and the the next generation syncretizes Yahweh’s commands with the religions of the Canaanites. That is, they have mixed Canaanite religion with God’s commands that they are God’s people by name only. They are nominal Jews. They are not serving Yahweh with exclusive allegiance.
The sad reality to this is God has such good plans for his people, and he has the power and ability to make those plans a reality. His people, however, reject the living God, for a dead false God that cannot deliver on anything. So it is with the church. It is odd for us to receive the risen Savior and his benefits of eternal abundant life only to give Him up for short lived pleasures like health, wealth, prosperity, achievement, and celebrity that promise so much but cannot deliver.
Thankfully, God is steadfast in love toward his people. His arm is never to short to save, and his fatherly heart will not let us go out of his reach. Judges 2:6-3:6 reveals to us the compassionate love of the Father who will chase after his children who are prone to wander and the God who loves them. This morning, I want you to see that,

God exercises compassionate discipline on those who don't set their hearts on Him with a single minded heart united loyal love.

Christian, have a Single Minded Heart United Loyal Love like Joshua (Judges 2:6-10)

Faithfulness of Joshua and the people (Judges 2:7)

Joshua was a faithful servant of the Lord. He stood with Caleb to exhort the people to enter the Promise Land when the rest of the recon party cowered in fear (Number 13:25-33; 14:5-12). He stood walked with Moses as he ascended Mt Sinai (Ex 24:13) and He stood outside as Moses spoke to the Lord (Ex 33:11). When the people challenged Moses authority, Joshua stood by Moses (Numbers 14:30, 38). As a consequence of his faithfulness, God commissioned Joshua to not only enter the Promise land, but to lead the conquest (Numbers 27:12-23; Deut 31:1-29). In Judges 2:7, we read that Joshua is once again and example of singleminded, heart united loyal love to Yahweh. Furthermore, Joshua lead his generation to be as faithful as he was.
Judges 2:7 ESV
And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel.
William Law captures single minded heart united loyal love when he says,
Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God. He, therefore, is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life parts of piety, by doing everything in the Name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to His glory.”
Faithful Devotion describes Joshua and his generation in verse 7. In verse 10, however, the next generation forgets the works of God.

Forgetfulness of The Next Generation (Judges 2:10)

Moses strictly commanded Israel in his last sermon to pass on the works of God to the next generation so that Israel would not forget and disobey his commands. Moses says
Deuteronomy 6:4–9 (ESV)
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children...
In verse Judges 2:10, the text says their arose another generation who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for them.
It would be hard to imagine that the next generation did not have knowledge of Yahweh. It is likely that they knew of Yahweh and they knew of the Exodus from Egypt, the Red Sea Crossing, and the Conquest. The forgetfulness spoken of here is more of a lack of reverence for God. God’s redemption was no longer relevant to them, or seen as precious and awesome.
There are three things that likely contribute to their forgetfulness.

They were comfortable

God promised them a land flowing with milk and honey. He promised them rest from famine, enemies, disease, and wild beasts. There would always be enough health, wealth, and prosperity. But God warned them to not let their comfort lead to complacency. In the same text that Moses told them to teach the next generation, he also says
Deuteronomy 6:10–12 (ESV)
“And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build,
and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full,
then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Comfort can lead to complacency, and complacency can lead to the kind of forgetfulness that looses sight of the mighty strength and awesome power of God. God becomes small compared to your comfort.
There is good reason for Jesus to describe the wya of faith as a narrow road that is difficult and few people find it. The broad way is so much easier, more comfortable, and self-relying. The narrow road forces you to on the one hand acknowledge your weakness, while on the other hand, depend on God’s might strength. It is not good for a Christian or church to be comfortable for too long. You will not only forget the greatness of God, you will not pass it on to the next generation.

The older generation did not provide intentional spiritual formation

When your faith becomes complacent, God is not worth talking about. You talk about what excites you, what treasure you love. Complacency gives fertile ground for idolatry. If sports are what you love, you will spend a great deal of time talking about sports with your children, getting them into clinics, making sure they make the select team, organizing your finances and schedule around their sports. Jesus will take a back seat. There will be little if any discipleship. That is what was happening in Israel. The gods of the Canaanites became more attractive and worthy of their time and conversation than Yahweh.

The next generation did not receive intentional spiritual formation

It is also like that the next generation did not receive what instruction was being taught. It would be difficult for the younger generation to take the commands seriously when their parents, extended family, and neighbors are becoming nominal followers of Yahweh. It is also just as likely that they had a rebellious heart toward the Lord.
When a generation walks away from the faith of their parents, it is almost always a combination of these three things: complacency, no spiritual formation, and a rejection of spiritual formation. Timothy Keller describes the decline as such,
Mistakes made by a Christian generation are often magnified in the next, nominal, one. Commitment is replaced by complacency and then by compromise.” Timothy Keller
Their compromise led to halfhearted unfaithful love to the Lord; this is manifested in doing what is evil in God’s eyes.
It is imperative that the church have a robust family ministry. As a church, we need to commit our time, talent, and treasure to being a champion for marriages, parents, intergenerational relationships, men/fathers, training singles, and caring for spiritual orphans. Single minded, heart united, loyal love is as much taught as it is caught. We need to be both passionate and intentional in our ministry to families if we are going to help the next generation be faithful to the Lord. Otherwise, we set the next generation up to become halfhearted unfaithful disciples of Jesus who eventually walk away from the faith.

Christian, Know That a Double Minded Halfhearted Unfaithful Love Leads to Apostasy (Judges 2:11-15)

What is evil in God’s eyes? Idolatry that leads to apostasy. Judges 2:11
Judges 2:11 ESV
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.
The word Baal can be used in a secular sense meaning, “lord, master, owner, or citizen. When it is applied to a god, it meant “divine lord, master.” Baal will be written in the plural because it was a common reference to multiple false gods. Baal was often manifested as a bull or a calf.
In verse 13, Baal is combined with Ashtaroth.
Judges 2:13 ESV
They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.
The Ashtaroth is actually Astarte; who was a popular fertility goddess and wife of Baal. Baal and Astarte were the monarch so to speak of the Canaanites. To worship Baal and Astarte (pronounced: Astoret) was to say that they were the sovereign rulers of heaven and earth.
Being that the next generation was complacent in their faith and had become nominal believers, by name only, the lie of idolatry became believable. When you are a nominal believer, it is easy for your heart to allow other gods have equal seats at the table of your heart with Yahweh. That is the danger of religious pluralism; or living in a pluralistic culture like ours that buys into relativism: your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth. You cant speak your truth as long as you don’t denounce my truth.
This is evil for several reasons. First of all, its a lie. God has said he is the one true God. There are no other God like him. He is to be loved and served with a single minded heart united loyal love (Ex 20; Deut 6:4).
Second, idolatry leads to apostasy. Lawson Younger defines apostasy as “the abandoning of allegiance to Yahweh in favor of allegiance to other gods.” They knew the truth but chose to reject it and walk away, abandon, give their allegiance to something else. Apostasy is the sin that leads to death (1 John 5:16-17).
Apostasy can be synchronistic; meaning to combine religions together. Israel did not dissociate with Yahweh but adopted Canaanites worship as acceptable and placed Baal as an equal if not greater deity than Yahweh. They were nominal Jews with lives that looked like Baal worshipers. They abandon the Lord and did what was evil int he sight of the Lord; that is they lived in a manner that was evil in God’s eyes. There was an obvious spiritual decline.

How do you recognize an apostate church?

The trademarks of apostasy in a church is its spiral into moral corruption. Churches committing apostasy will call righteous what God calls sin. Churches that call homosexuality morally good, transgenderism as acceptable, sexual promiscuity as natural are apostate churches.
When churches try to merge the culture into the church, they run the risk of apostasy. When churches begin to adopt theology that contradicts God’s word, such as embracing the sexual agenda of the LGTBQ++ movement, it is committing apostasy. A church that commits apostasy invites God’s anger.

Israel’s apostasy provoked God to anger.

God’s anger punished Israel for their apostasy. His punishment was to remove his rest and strengthen the people of the land to oppress Israel. God took away their health, wealth, prosperity, and security. He made them slaves to the very people whose God they chose to serve. Timothy Keller remarks, “If there were ever a historical picture of the truth that idolatry leads to slavery, this is it.”
Every time Israel went out to battle their real enemy was not the Canaanites, it was God himself because God set his face against their apostasy.
Judges 2:15 (ESV)
Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.
God kept his promise he made to Israel in Deut 28:25-37; 31:16-21.
Deuteronomy 31:17 ESV
Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’

Why do we flinch at God’s anger?

We do not hear about God’s anger toward his people when they sin very often in the church anymore. You are quick to say that a church is being legalistic if they say God is angry at sin.
Several years ago, John Piper wrote a book titled, “What Jesus Demands from the world.” He notes, “I am aware that the word demands is jarring to many modern ears. It feels harsh, severe, strict, stark, austere, abrasive.” His point is, it is hard for Christians to hear that Jesus has expectations of you to not live in a manner that allows sin to rule your life.
God gets angry at sin because sin is contrary to His character. God is righteous, just, and holy, and none of these attributes can be compromised (Exodus 20:4–6; Isaiah 42:8). Halfhearted unfaitfhul love for Jesus belittles sin to the point it does not care if it violates God’s holy character.
Jesus expressed anger at the Pharisees in Matthew 23 calling them children of hell (v15), blind fools (v17), blind guides (v16, 24), hypocrites (v27), whitewashed tombs (v27), and a brood of vipers (v33). Jesus was angry that at their halfhearted unfaithful love for God’s commands caused them to exalt their own commands and burden God’s people.
We don’t like to hear that God gets angry at sin because we live in a church culture that is quick to applaud grace, at least a cheap grace that is soft on sin and sanctification.

Halfhearted Unfaithful Love Views Sin through the Lens of Cheap Grace

The reason why we flinch when we hear of God’s anger at our sin is because too much of the church has settled for cheap grace.
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Cheap grace does not require anything from us in our allegiance to God and it belittles the atrocity of sin as if it were a minor infraction or inconvenience to God. You don’t have to repent deeply for a minor infraction. Inconveniences do not require church discipline. Minor infractions do not need to be confessed or compel you toward discipleship. There is no real need for Jesus or his crucifixion. Cheap grace does not value the cross of Jesus, and when the cross is not valued in your life Jesus will not be valued in your heart and he will not be glorified with a single minded heart united loyal love.

Cheap Grace does not see God’s love in His anger

Cheap grace misses the truth that God’s anger is not confined to disappointment, but is also an expression of his love for you. He’s a good Father, and like a good father who gets angry at his child for being foolish enough to play with death, so God our Father gets angry at our foolishness that plays with our eternity.
A good father who loves you deeply will use his anger to exercise compassionate discipline in order to bring you back to himself.

God Exercises Compassionate Discipline (Judges 2:16-3:4)

God brings oppression to Israel. It hurts. They are no longer comfortable and complacent. They know of the God of their fathers. Now God is using suffering to help them believe in Him. In verse 15, it says “they were very distressed.” They were utterly miserable, like their fathers were in Exodus. Their distress causes them to cry out to God (Judges 3:9). They groan for the Lord to do something.
At this point God could walk away. He could cut them off. He could rid the world of these people and start over. Israel is a stiff necked people who stubbornly go their own way. The entire book of judges is about their cycle of apostasy. God knows this about them. He knows that his people are prone to prostitute themselves to other false gods. Knowing all of this, God remains faithful, keeping his covenant love for Israel.
Once again, Keller is helpful as he compares God to a husband who loves his wife despite her infidelity. Of course he is angry, but not like a jilted lover, but a wonderfully forgiving husband.

How does God, in his love driven anger, express compassionate discipline?

God’s compassion raised up Judges (Judges 2:16)

God could have abandon his people the way they abandon him. He even could’ve opened the earth and swallowed them whole. Instead, God provided salvation for Israel by raising up a judge. God’s love and compassion put boundaries on his anger and punishment. His heart was for a passionate personal relationship with his people and he knew they would be much happier and satisfied in relationship with him. He did not want them enslaved by idolatry nor by the people of the land. He raised up a deliver he would use to save them and restore his people to himself.

God’s compassion had pity despite Israel’s unfaithfulness

He was moved with compassion for them. Verse 18 says,
Judges 2:18 ESV
Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved 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 afflicted and oppressed them.
They were not necessarily sorry for their sin. They were sorry for the misery their sin caused them. Despite their unfaithfulness to God, the Lord heard their cry, had pity on their suffering, and saved them.
You know that their crying out was not true repentance because Judges 2:17-3:3, reveals their cycle of apostasy. Once the judge dies the people return to their wicked ways. The Lord then disciplines them again until they cry out. The Lord hears their cry and raises up another judge, and so it continues.

God’s compassion gave mercy in His judgement (Judges 2:22-3:2)

In Judges 2:21, God judges his peoples halfhearted unfaithful love by not driving out the nations Joshua left when he died. Halfhearted unfaithful love leaves the land half finished. God’s people will have to deal with the constant threat of idolatry and paganism.
Where is the mercy?
The mercy is in verse Judges 2:22. God will use the nations to test Israel. We all assume that the test was a bad thing. It can be if you fail it. The test can be a good thing if it forces you to greater dependance on the Lord. It could be a good thing that forces you to be distinctive in your culture. The nations have the opportunity to see God’s people in action, to know he is worthy. This could be a missions opportunity for Israel. They could be the light to the nations
Furthermore, in Judges 3:1-2, the Lord left the nations in the land teach Israel warfare. Israel will be forced to depend on God for deliverance from their enemies. It will be a tool to help them fight comfort, complacency, and compromise.
God has give mercy to you as well. Yes, God is angry at sin. Like a father who is angry at his child’s foolish decisions, so God’a angry is tempered with such love for you. God’s mercy for you is that He sent his Son to die on a cross for your idolatrous sin. On the cross Jesus takes God’s anger in your place and in turn gives you compassion and his righteousness. By faith, you come to the cross to receive God’s forgiveness and have eternal life with him. At the cross Jesus declares to the sinner,
Romans 8:1 ESV
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
At the cross, Christian, you can come everyday to find God’s mercy. Jesus provides his cross for you to find restoration through confession and repentance. You can restore your fellowship with the Lord continually because Jesus paid the once and for all sacrifice for your sin, and he is your great high priest who always intercedes for you. Jesus is God’s mercy for you. Come to Jesus to this morning and do not spurn God’s mercy.
The cross is not a one time stop. The cross is the pace where God’s perfect mercy and justice meet to pour out his love on sinners. It is the space you occupy often, over and over, daily, to receive God’s mercy.

Israel did not set their hearts on the Lord (Judges 3:5-6)

Israel does just that, they spurn God's mercy. They fail the test. They become like the nations around them. Their sinful desires rule their hearts. Their lives are marked by evil and they glorify idols. The rest of the book is their story of doing what is right in their own eyes. For those who spurn God’s mercy God’s anger is all they will know. They will face his judgment and he will expose all their idolatry as treason against him. His wrath will put them in the lake of fire forever. That is for sure.
God, however, did not abandon his people. Even though this did deplorable things, like offer their children as sacrifices to false gods, God remained steadfast in his love for them. Judges is as much about God’s compassionate discipline on his children as it is their apostasy. God will discipline his children who do not set their hearts to love him with a single minded heart untied loyal love.
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