자료실 > English > Judges 4 – Live with the judges and die with the judges (Judges 2:6-23)

Judges 4 – Live with the judges and die with the judges (Judges 2:6-23)

Man are beings that are only concerned about their status, whenever and wherever. Judges is a book which quite frankly points out these powerlessness and the hideousness of man. If you look carefully at today’s passage, it records the reason that the nation of Israel comes to serve the Lord and obey the commands of the Lord, and ultimately be saved from the arch enemy. It is when judges are raised by God:

Whenever God raises up judges for Israel, the whole of Israel comes under God’s salvation. Why is that? Is it because Israel listened to the words of the judges well and were obedient to the judges whenever they were given judges? If you look closely at verse 16 and 17 of today’s passage, you know that’s not the case.

That’s not the case right? It says that even when God raised up judges for Israel, they did not listen to the judges. In fact, it says they prostituted themselves to other Gods. Then why is it that Israel was saved when there were judges in Israel? It is to teach that the salvation of Israel is not due to the deeds of Israel, but due to the deeds of the Messiah, who is the figure that the judges represent. Through the book of judges, Israel do nothing else but disobey God and lose their hearts to other Gods. Regardless of whether there are judges or not, they live for their own benefit only. Whenever they had judges they did not listen to the judges, and when they judges pass away, their deeds only became even more corrupt.

Isn’t that true? Regardless of whether there are judges or not Israel continue their corrupt, adulterous and disobedient ways, but whenever there were judges raised up, God saved them regardless of Israel’s conduct. This is the cross of Jesus Christ.

What is the truth we can gather from this history of Israel and mankind? It is that our deeds are like rubbish and worth absolutely nothing to God. There is no value or use. Ours is a life of simply being where we are placed.

Man was made as such beings that cannot take or boast of the worth or value of their ‘self’. It wasn’t the role of man to self-regulate, by placing a value or worth based on the deeds and character of one’s ‘self’. Self-Regulation means when man assess themselves as this level of person or that level of person based on their deeds. This is the essence of man’s sin, after taking the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

This self-regulation was the enticing carrot that the devil used in the Genesis 3, when it said “If you take the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, you will be like God, and you will be like God in terms of knowing good and evil as well”. ‘Me’ becoming ‘God’ and being the main agent to decide what is good or evil in this world.

But there is something the devil stipulates as the condition when enticing man. “If you take from the tree of knowledge of good and evil”. Man was not a being that was regulated based on deeds. Man was a being whose value was decided based on being where God had placed him. But here a deed is being requested of man, and the result of the deed is being presented = the carrot of self-regulation, a state of being ‘like God’.

The first man enters into that arena of self-regulation called ‘being like God’ based on his deeds. Straight away within that arena of self-regulation, based on the deeds of the self, man regulates and assesses himself as a ‘naked, shameful being’. Then he hides away from God.

To reiterate, man is not a being whose value is decided by his own deeds, but by the place in which God puts us in. Our existence is regulated and decided based on the environment in which our ‘self’ is placed; our existence is not one that is able to flip our environment based on the deeds of our ‘self’. We call that environment grace. Which is why Paul habitually used the phrase ‘in Christ, in the Lord’ – that is our environment. That is the frame, the structure we’re in. In this sense, as the creation in front of our creator, we are passive beings, not active beings. We’re having things done to us, not the other way around. The process of realising that we’re this kind of impotent, powerless creation in front of God, and realising the absolute necessity of God’s grace is called ‘walk of faith’.

The whole book of judges is structured in this way:

Sin à Sorrow à Supplication à Salvation

This structure is repeated centred around the 14 judges that are raised up, which means this structure is repeated at least 14times. At first glance this makes it seem like salvation is predicated on people’s repentance and prayer (sorrow and supplication). It seems like salvation won’t be coming if not for sorrow and supplication right? That’s not the case. The sorrow and supplication here is not one of repentance, but one of resentment and self-advancement.

The sorrow is one of more lamenting that things aren’t going their ways, as opposed to a realisation of one’s sin. The supplication is also more of a “save me” as opposed to “Lord, I’ve done wrong”. You can see the main principal here is still me, not God. We looked at this last week, where the Israelites were crying in Bokim (which was named Bokim because that’s where the Israelites cried out):

See, after all that crying out to God, they go straight to worshipping Baal and Ashtoreth. Has there ever been one single time where the Israelites cried out of genuine repentance? Then why are they given the grace of salvation?

Because grace is not something that is granted because the recipient has done something well, or because they’ve differentiated themselves from others, but rather given as a complete confirmation of our corruption by declaring “You are someone who could never be saved without grace”.

So through the process of the structure of sin, sorrow, supplication and salvation, there is nothing Israel has done except sin. The only thing that is revealed through the process of God’s salvation of those who are in sin, is the futility of man.

Think about it, God gave us the law and the sacrifice offerings. Then why do we need a saviour as well? The fact that a saviour needs to come, when we’ve already been given the law and the sacrifice offerings means all of man’s deeds are completely dismissed and denied by God. Man are saved by the Messiah, represented by the judges, and that salvation is an already complete salvation. So the very fact that a saviour has come to save mankind exposes the impossibility and impotence of man.

In this way the bible is a book that dissects in detail God’s nature, and the true nature of the man as creation before Him. Therefore through the bible, and through the walk of faith the bible takes us through, believers realise the emptiness and the impermanence of the world, the dirtiness and the rubbish likeness of sinners, as well as learning to surrender in front of the greatness of God and His glory; not to use God for my advancement.

Which is why when the word of God is correctly relayed, all man should ache. Ache because our pride is hurt, ache because our hidden true state is exposed, and ache because of our still unchanging laziness and hideousness even after the exposure.

This is why those who have been chosen by God to relay the word of God are treated in this way:

Having relayed the word of God correctly after receiving it, people were beating Isaiah’s back, slapping his cheeks, pulling his beard and spitting on him.

What about Jeremiah?

In verse 7 Jeremiah is accusing God of ‘deceiving’ him. What must it have been like for Jeremiah for him to go to the extent of saying God deceived him?

Jeremiah preached the word and he was mocked and ridiculed. So when he wanted to stop preaching because it was too hard, that life itself was like a fire shut up in his bones so he couldn’t stop. Like this, the lives of those who are taken by the word of God, who live by the word of God and relay it, are tested and chastised by God, as well as being mocked, despised and ridiculed by the world. This is the life of those who share the gospel, and those who live the gospel through their lives.

This is the life of the judges in the book of Judges. They are being used by God, but not because they are good in any way, but just as they themselves are exposed as sinners, they are simply taking part in God’s work as instruments.

Even still, we all innately reject God. Even the ones that acknowledge a god, it’s not the God who created us and intercedes in our lives and by grace moulds and completes us as His children, but a god who they seek to borrow power in order for ‘me’, to fulfil my wishes and solve my problems. That is not God; the gods they’re seeking is a manufactured idol of ‘self’.

Israel was exactly the same. If you look at today’s passage, it says that the Israelites served Baal and Ashtoreth right? Both of those gods are gods of prosperity. Baal is the male kind and Ashtoreth is the female kind. The ones who served Baal and Ashtoreth believed that when those two mate, fecundity (fertility) and prosperity is poured down on the world. That’s why the priests and priestesses would have sex as representatives of Baal and Ashtoreth, and in an attempt to arouse Baal and Ashtoreth, as well as prostituting themselves with the men who came to give offerings to those gods. All to seek fecundity and prosperity.

This is showing that all of man’s religious acts that are motivated by the pursuit of my benefit, that is fecundity and prosperity in this world, is nothing but prostitution.

Can you believe that Israel served that kind of gods in Baal and Ashtoreth?

God had:

· Pursued Israel and saved them from slavery in Egypt with the display of his glorious power of splitting the Red Sea

· Protected and led them through the wilderness for 40 years culminating in the split of the Jordan river

· Crushed down Jericho in front of Israel in a second

· Led them to settle in the land of Canaan

Even after all that Israel is serving Baal and Ashtoreth, how can that be? Our inability to serve God by ourselves by the goodness of our hearts is being exposed.

All the religions of the world, including the majority of Christianity, follow this model self-constructed gods who are built and designed to serve the whim of mankind. It is a form of self-worship.

The book of judges exposes this self-worship and the arena of self-regulation that is being played out in all of history. Ultimately all religious acts and deeds that are centred around ‘self’, are all disobedience to God. But even that, God covers up. That’s why he sends the judges, i.e. messiah, among them and saves them.

In conclusion, let’s have look at Philippians to close:

Apostle Paul deemed everything else other than the knowledge of Jesus Christ as rubbish. All his achievements, his words and deeds he considered rubbish. He’s saying only Jesus saves. Not anything else that looks good to us, can save us.

For us, while we live in this world, we only need to learn why we can only be saved through believing in Jesus. By being disappointed and discouraged in our realities, shedding tears, and grinding on, we just need to learn the absolute necessity of Jesus.