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Before God gave Israel a King, she was ruled by a group of Leaders known as Judges.
The Hebrew word for Judges literally means “deliverers” or “saviors” which means that they were expected to do more than just rule on civil matters like our judges do.
There were 14 judges in all who served for about 350 years.
The time line begins in 1398 BC right after Joshua had led the people into the Promised land.
In the book of Joshua the people were by & large obedient to God.
They followed Joshua & Caleb and conquered the land.
However, once they got comfortable in their new surroundings they reverted back to their old ways.
We see this pattern continue today.
When things are going good, people don’t seek relationship with God.
They don’t prayer regularlyu, they don’t study the Word, they start missing worship services…
The book of Judges describes 7 distinct cycles of Israel’s drifting away from the Lord.
It starts before the death of Joshua’s and degrades into complete rebellion against God’s authority by demanding a king to rule over them.
There is a pattern we will see in each cycle.
The Israelites will
1) disobey God’s and their leader’s direction by failing to completely drive out the inhabitants of their new land
2) idolatry
3) intermarriage with those inhabitants
4) not heeding judges
5) turning away from God after the death of the judges
6) God’s then allows the people around Israel to defeat them militarily and put down the people
7) Israel’s prays for deliverance
8) God raising up “judges,” who led in shaking off the oppressors.
The events that take place in the book of Judges are nor chronological.
Which makes reading it a little tricky if you are one of those people who envisions the story in your head as you are reading it.
The book is arranged to emphasize:
· God’s power
· His mercy to his covenant children,
· His grace in delivering His people and providing them with their inheritance.
The key verse, the one that summarized the book of Judges is 21:25:
“In those days /there was/ no king in Israel; everyone did /what was/ right in his own eyes.”
Now we know what happens when Israel gets their kings, they fall back into the same pitfalls.
What I want to emphasize her, why I choose this verse as key is because when we do what is right in our own eyes, we are failing to acknowledge our submission to God’s authority.
OK, hold that thought.
We won’t have time to this morning to look at all the Judges.
You will remember I said that Israel repeats the pattern 7 times in the book.
So we just need to look at one Judge to get the idea.
They when you sit down to read the rest of the book, you will know what to look for.
Turn with me to Judges 6
Gideon is mid-point in the order of Judges.
There were Judges before him and Judges after him.
Gideon follows Barak & Deborah.
Deborah was a prophetess and Barak was a not-so courageous military leader.
Deborah went to Barak and told him if he would act, God would be with him and they could defeat their enemies.
But Barak was not so sure.
Finally he said that he would only go to battle if Deborah went with him.
She did, they won, and there was people in the land for 40 years.
Now I have already identified a pattern, where when things get good, the people get lazy in their worship and forget who God is.
This leads to intermarriage and idolatry.
God chastises his people by allowing their enemies to overtake them until they repent and then he rescues them.
When we meet Gideon, the Midianites and Amalekites had been harassing the Israelites for 7 years.
The enemy would cross the Jordan every year and loot the land, helping themselves to herds & crops.
Judges 6:
*6* 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts.
It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it.
6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help.
7 When the Israelites cried to the Lord because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet,
10 I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’
But you have not listened to me.”
11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites.
12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
13 “But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?
Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’
But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”
Now that is a typical answer.
When things are going bad for a weak believer, and a well meaning brother or sister in Christ says, “don’t worry, God is with you’.
They respond like this, “If God is with me, why are these bad things happening?
You tell me, where is God?”
14 The [angel of the] Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand.
Am I not sending you?”
Another typical response: You will be praying for someone to come and help the situation around you, and God calls you!
15 “But Lord, ” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel?
My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”
Excuses, excuses.
16 The Lord answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.”
17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me.
18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”
And the Lord said, “I will wait until you return.”
How often does God send answers our way, and we don’t believe they are God?
When Dave & I put our first house up for sale, we tried to sell it ourselves.
So we put a sign in the window, and a man came and offered us $77,000 for our home.
When decided that was too small and offer and refused it.
We then went though one year and 2 realitors with out a nibble.
When our last contract expired, Dave took the house off the market.
He did it very dramatically.
He said if God wanted to sell our house, he would have to do it himself.
3 days later there was a knock on the door.
There were 2 men.
One said that he had come to sell our house.
One week later, our house was sold for $77,000.
The same amount we had rejected a year ealier.
19 Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast.
Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.
20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.”
And Gideon did so.
21 With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread.
Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread.
And the angel of the Lord disappeared.
22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, “Ah, Sovereign Lord!
I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!”
In other words, OK, I believe it’s you!
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