Sermon on Judges 2:6-3:6 by Owen Rogers. Week 6 of the E100 Bible Reading Challenge.
The book of Judges, along with many parts of the Old Testament are so politically incorrect that many people today have big problems with it. God told His people that the Canaanite tribes would cause them so much trouble that they needed to get rid of them completely. Of course the locals could have moved somewhere else – but why would they? They were there first, and where would they go? They had no desire to move off their land, so, if the Israelites were to make the land their own – this land God had promised would be theirs – they would have to kill the people who lived there. How un-PC can you get? Is that a huge problem for you? Or can you live with it? That was then; this is now. Setting aside for a moment the apparent inconsistency of ‘wipe em out’ and ‘do not commit murder’ what we can see here is an expression of God’s desire to have the complete devotion of his people for ever.
The implication of what we read in Judges – God’s instructions and the Israelites’ experience – is that if they had wiped out the Canaanites the Israelites would have been free of problems, undistracted and totally devoted to God. Or would they?
The Israelites didn’t wipe out all the other people but settled among them, intermarrying with them and worshipping their gods, thus creating a pluralistic society. In a pluralistic society it is so much easier to change religion or to drop religion entirely or to slip away from worshipping the true God to worshipping something else. So the pluralism of the other tribes was a test of the Israeltites’ faithfulness – and they failed the test. The other tribes were also handily placed for God to let them oppress the Israelites to bring them back to Himself. And that’s just what happened. A cycle developed that went on year after year, generation after generation. [With a typo I invented a new word: generration. It means the children repeating the mistakes of their parents – something these people developed to a fine art.] The Israelites drifted into worshipping other gods so God let the neighbouring tribes spoil life for them – ruin their crops so they had little to eat, raid their villages and beat them up, and generally boss them around. After years of this the Israelites would get sick of it and realise it was their fault for abandoning God and ask God for help. Then God would get someone to lead them to victory over their oppressors. This person would then be their judge and keep them faithful to God as long as s/he lived and then the cycle would start all over again. Over the years there was a downward trend of declining morality and social cohesion so that by the end of the book anarchy prevailed.
But would the Israelites have been any better off if the other peoples and their gods had been eliminated? I say, probably not. Remember what they did in the desert when Moses was up the mountain chatting with God for what seemed to them a dreadfully long time? They made themselves an idol – a gold calf – and worshipped it. There was no one but themselves out in the desert so they couldn’t blame it on some foreigner’s influence. If they could shun God then, they could do it any time.
Why should we think that we are any different from the Israelites? Much has changed but people haven’t. We know vastly more about everything; we have more extensive history behind us, but do we learn from it? The Bible is an old book but always up to date because people essentially don’t change. We’re still prone to doing just what they did. We in NZ today live in a pluralistic society. Our pluralistic society is a test for us just as theirs was for them. Our situation is very similar to theirs. Our experience of oppression is different – more subtle and less physical – and we don’t call out the army to restore Christianity to dominance. Others may use military means to achieve dominance but we who are of Christ are called to peace – peace with God and with one another.
What can we learn about, and what can we do about, this tendency to drift away from God?
It comes naturally – it must do – it is endemic in us all. The Book of Judges points to the importance of experience of God. Those Israelites who had seen what God did through them and for them while Joshua led them, respected God and remained faithful to Him. The next generation, who didn’t have that first hand experience, didn’t respect God, nor His covenant, nor His laws and ways. This despite being told the stories. Each Judge experienced God, up close and personal and their experience connected with the stories they’d been told and propelled them into action. But, clearly being told the stories is not enough. How many people do you know who have nothing to do with God but are quite familiar with Bible stories?
It gives us an idea of why people turn their backs on their Creator. God wants us to make him the focus of our lives, to live our lives around him, to seek him, to depend on him, to make knowing, loving, worshipping and obeying him the one thing we do. As Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, I reckon everything as complete loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it as mere refuse, so that I may gain Christ and be completely united with him.
All people some of the time and some people all the time seek something other than God. We need to recognise that if God is not the end we seek then we will make Him the means to our ends. At least we will try. The end of all religion is some man-made objective and the means to attain that objective is also man-made. When we’re not trying to manipulate Almighty God we create and worship gods that do what we want – and you can’t get more PC than that. Trouble is our gods are notoriously bad at giving us what we want so we then invent ways of behaviour designed to please the gods so they’ll give us what we want. All religious and superstitious behaviour fits this general definition. This is why all religions except following Christ involve religious performance, keeping to religious rules, jumping through hoops. When Christians drift this is often where we drift to – legalism.
The Bible is very clear that when we seek God we will find him. Put it another way, when God knows we are receptive he will reveal himself to us and enter our living experience. To experience this connection with God; you have to accept God’s offer of relationship. To get that you tell him that’s what you want and that you accept his terms. We have to accept his terms because we have nothing to bargain with. His terms actually involve exchanging your life for his. This means giving your life – your control, your agenda, your hopes and dreams, your security, your love, everything to him. and he gives his life to you so you run to his agenda, his intentions, his security, his love, his power, his strength. No wonder Jesus referred to this as abundant life – life in all its fullness. Read Colossians 2:20-3:4.
Instead of finding our security in money or possessions we find it in God. Instead of energising ourselves to get through each day we draw on his strength and zest for life. Instead of looking for love in people, animals and who-knows-what, we find ourselves loved by God so abundantly that we can even love those we previously thought of as unlovable. Instead of giving ourselves to some cause or other and finding later that it was totally a waste of time, we give ourselves to God’s great purpose of redeeming this broken world and find that it was totally worth it. Instead of working for monetary reward and wondering why we’re not paid what we’re worth, we find that God’s rewards are both figuratively and literally out of this world. Read 2 Peter 1:3,4
Is that the life of the ordinary Christian? Sadly, too often, it is not. Why? Because like everyone else we are prone to wander, to try to undo the exchange we made and take back the control we handed over, to stop trusting God and seek our peace, happiness, security, fulfilment from other things. We get sucked into thinking that God accepts us according to our doing the right things and we go back to jumping through hoops – hoops of our own making. After all that’s what every religion in the world contends is the way to do it. Hey, that’s why the salvation Jesus offers is Good News. It is release from hoop-jumping. God accepts us in Jesus Christ because he loves us. So why do we try to behave right when our behaviour doesn’t affect God’s acceptance of us? We make every effort to do the right thing because his love produces in us the desire to do what he wants us to do.
No point waiting till the Midianites ride down and burn our crops, nor waiting till we lose our life savings in the next finance company crash. Right now we can talk to God and reaffirm the exchange we made however long ago. If you’ve never exchanged your life for Jesus’ life now is as good a time as any to do so. So make or remake that deal with God. Say, “Father, I give up. Take my life and live in me. Take back control. Provide all I need. Show me again – show us again – what you will do with the person – the people – who are totally devoted to you.” It may help you to know that I have to do this on a daily basis. Don’t be upset if you find you have to too. I believe we’re normal. So, how do you live in a pluralistic society? Same as in any society: give yourself over to God and let him live in you. And encourage one another in living like this.