Sunday School: Introduction to Judges (Judges 1:1-2:10)

You're listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. Judges chapter two, beginning in verse one.

Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim and he said, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.

I said, I will never break my covenant with you and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land.

You shall break down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice.

What is this that you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides and their gods shall be a snare to you.

As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept and they called the name of that place

Bochim and they sacrificed there to the Lord. When Joshua dismissed the people and the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land.

And the people serve 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. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the

Lord died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath Heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash.

And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the

Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Let's pray once again.

Heavenly Father, as we come to your word this morning, I pray that as we see these things that happen in Israel, as we're going to be reading about a dark chapter of history in Israel's past, that we are reminded of just how easily we can lose sight of God.

It just took a generation for Israel to lose sight of the Lord and so how easily it could be for us as well.

We remember these things so that we would continue to hold fast to your word and pass the truth of God's promises according to the scriptures on to the next generation.

I pray also we would cling to Christ in these days, for we see darkness all around us in the world.

This world of unbelief, this world that is very adamantly anti -Christian, yet we are not intimidated by those people, but we understand that Christ has said that they hated me.

They're going to hate you as well. We continue to trust in Christ who reigns supreme over all.

You are King and you will deliver us in these last days.

Let us continue to seek Christ in all things. It's in his name that we pray. Amen. So the book of Judges, we were kind of going out of order a little bit here.

We went through Ruth and now we come to the book of Judges. And does anybody remember kind of what was the anticipating theme all the way through Ruth?

Can anybody remember that? What are we looking forward to in Ruth? Yeah, the

Redeemer that's going to come, right? They're looking for a king. We end the book of Ruth with the genealogy of David, which really becomes the genealogy of Christ.

That same genealogy gets carried over into Matthew. So there's this anticipation of a king.

We begin on a very low note in Ruth with the death of Naomi's family, and then she and Ruth returning to Judah with basically nothing.

We begin Judges on a high note, but then it gets dark. So in Ruth, it starts dark and really picks up with the

Lord's deliverance for Naomi, and even through Boaz and for Ruth.

With Judges, we're starting with the people of Israel having inherited the promised land, and then we're going to see, just as we read this morning, how quickly they fall away from the

Lord. But just as the anticipation in Ruth is for a king, we need to keep that in mind through Judges as well.

We've talked about this when we were in Ruth, but in Judges chapter 17 and 21, we see that statement that kind of begins and closes that section where it says, there was no king in Israel in those days, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

But there's still that anticipation, that longing for a king who is going to come and will deliver

Israel. Now that word Judges, we use that word to describe the judges that we read about in this book, but that word specifically means deliverer.

So what we see thematically with these judges is that they deliver the people of Israel from an oppressor that has come against them.

Even though we read here in chapter 2 how the people were disobedient and God would no longer go before them and drive their enemies out, yet you notice that statement that was in there with God saying,

I made a covenant with you, and I said, you shall make no other covenant with the inhabitants of the land.

I will not break my covenant with you, but the people have disobeyed God. Yet God remains faithful to them.

He remains faithful to a promise that he gave to them, the descendants of Abraham, even though they have not been faithful unto the

Lord. God's presence still very much with Israel in Judges, though they have turned away from God, though they will turn to false gods, and yet God will have mercy on them and give them deliverers.

But those deliverers aren't perfect, are they? It's kind of like they'll deliver Israel from oppression for a time, but then

Israel will go right back to worshiping false gods, and then another oppressor comes as a result of that as a punishment for the people of Israel.

That's the cycle we're going to see as we go through Judges here together. So notice at the beginning of Judges, let's look at chapter 1, very first verse.

What are the first five words that we see there? After the death of Joshua, right?

So Joshua's died. That's the way Joshua concluded. So we read about Joshua's death at the end of Joshua chapter 24.

Then we have Joshua's death mentioned at the start of Judges, and we're going to see Joshua's death mentioned again, which we just read this morning in that section, verses 6 through 10, where we read about the death of Joshua.

So it's very apparent to us that Joshua has died. And the events that we're reading about here in Judges all happen after Joshua's death.

And for a time, the people are obedient, and they continue the conquest of the land of Canaan, just as God told the people to do, and as Joshua instructed the people to do.

So after Joshua's death, the Israelites continue that conquest, but it wasn't long for them to forget the

Lord and go their own way. The lesson that we're covering today with chapter 1, verse 1 through 2 .10,

this covers the introduction to the book of Judges, and it's going to break up in this way.

So in verses 1 through 26, we're going to see how the Lord leads the conquest.

And then in verses 27 to 36, the remainder of chapter 1, we see how

Israel does not follow the Lord. They even begin disobeying God, even in the first chapter of Judges here.

And then finally, the third part is the section we actually began with today, the

Lord no longer leads the conquest. That's chapter 2, verses 1 through 10. Now what is the central proposition of this book?

We have to talk about that in two ways today. So there's a main theme we're looking at in the text we're reading today, and then there's also kind of a main theme that we're looking at in the book of Judges overall.

And really, we're going to see that those two themes are roughly the same. So in this lesson, the narrative builds to 2 .10.

So we begin in 1 .1, we're reading through, we're kind of climbing in the action, and it gets to verse 10, where it says, and all that generation were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know the

Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. How quickly did

Israel forget the Lord? How fast did that happen? One generation, a single generation.

Their children that came after them did not remember what it was that the Lord had done for them. And this is a people that is in need of a savior.

There's an interesting parallel between the beginning of the book of Judges and the beginning of the book of Exodus, in that in Judges, the people did not remember what

God had done for them. In the book of Exodus, it begins kind of the same way, but it's slightly different.

It's that there arose a Pharaoh who did not remember Joseph. So it's interesting how both of those stories begin with somebody not remembering.

This is a generation who doesn't remember what God had done for the Israelites. Exodus begins with a

Pharaoh that rises up who didn't remember Joseph, who did all the great things in the land of Egypt, right?

By the mighty hand of the Lord that was with him. We're seeing people forget God. And then darkness comes upon the land and even the judgment of God because they turn away from him.

But still we see this is a people in need of a savior, right? Remember that theme about this section we're looking at today.

Now in the book of Judges overall, it's in 17 .6 and 21 .25, where we read that statement, in those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

At the close of the book, there's still a people in need of a savior. So we see a people who needs a savior in chapter one, and they still need a savior in chapter 21, and we need a savior as well.

So remember that the book of Ruth anticipates the coming of a king, so does Judges.

There is a longing for a king, the greatest king, the greatest judge, our great deliverer, who is

Jesus Christ. Amen. And we live in a generation and we are one of the most privileged generations in the history of the world.

All of the provision that has been given to us and the blessing that had been bestowed upon the

United States of America, and yet you don't even have to go far outside this church to encounter people who are going to hell.

It's like they have shovels in their hands and they are just digging a hole and they're saying, I'm going to hell, boy.

I'm going to hell. This is such a dark and twisted culture in which we live.

And sometimes it's so dark that we would just rather have the blinders on like a horse, right?

Just keep me going my way. I don't want to know what's going on. It's so dark, it can be incredibly depressing.

And so we live in a generation that is not too unlike the darkness that we see in the nation of Israel.

In fact, now this is an interesting kind of aspect in the book of Judges here, but the events that we read about in 17 through 21 are actually happening at the same time as when we get to chapter two.

There's some out -of -orderness that is going on there because we're going to read about the judges in chapters one through 16, the 12 judges of Israel that are mentioned at least in this book.

There wasn't only 12 judges, there were actually more. Eli and Samuel, for example, they were judges, but we read about them in 1

Samuel. This book only mentions 12. So we have the story of 12 judges that are given in this particular book.

But there's an excursus at the end of the book of Judges that just kind of demonstrates just how evil

Israel was. They had become just like Sodom and Gomorrah, if you know what

I'm talking about, if you know the story of what happened with the Benjamites and the Danites there in chapters 17 to 21.

That kind of demonstrates to us all the more broadly the kind of evil that Israel had fallen into and how quickly it came into that.

The darkness just gets darker as you go through Judges, but those chapters you get to at the conclusion are still going on even within some of these elements that we're going to read in the first two or three weeks of this study.

So we'll talk about that when we get to chapter 17. There are some things here in Judges that are a little bit out of order.

Furthermore, the judges overlap. So it's not like there's a judge and he defeats

Israel's oppressor and then they have a time of peace and then another judge comes along. Sometimes those judges are overlapping.

Like there was an oppressor that came to a different section of Israel and there was another judge that kind of helped deliver them from that oppressor.

Sometimes it's in chronological order and sometimes we see a little bit of overlap. We'll recognize some of those things as we go through the book of Judges here.

This covers a period of about 300 years. This starts in 1375

BC, beginning in chapter one with the continued conquest of Canaan and it goes to 1075 concluding with chapter 16 with Samson's defeat of the

Philistines. So that's really the last event in Judges. Even though we have chapters 17 to 21,

Samson's the last story. And then after Samson, you have Eli and then Samuel, which were at the beginning of 1

Samuel. In fact, even there, there's a little bit of overlap in 1 Samuel into the book of Judges as well.

Now, we have 12 judges, as I mentioned, and these are their names. Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tola, Jair, Japheth, Ibzon, Elon, Abdon, and Samson.

Some judges did right in the eyes of God, like Ehud and Deborah. And in fact, with Deborah, we don't see anything negative said about Deborah at all.

She was a woman, a wise woman who feared God. But then there were others, other judges that we're going to read about who committed really serious sins, like Japheth who sacrificed his daughter and Samson who,

I mean, just lived in sin. Yet as imperfect as they were, the judges are actually spoken about in the

New Testament as heroes of the faith. Anybody know what chapter that is where we read about? Hebrews 11, that's right.

We read about many of these judges, even Samson, as wicked as this guy was, you see some of the sins that Samson did, and yet we have them given to us as examples of faith.

This is Hebrews 11, 32 to 34. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Japheth, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became might in war, and put foreign armies to flight.

Consider also that Boaz and Ruth lived during the time of the judges. That's more toward the end, about that last century of the judges.

They were godly people who lived in this time, yet the judges were not perfect, nor were they able to completely deliver the people from their enemies.

In summary, we might consider the judges in these three ways. So let's think about the judges in these three ways as we look at this book.

Number one, the judges are examples of faith. So we're going to see a judge be instructed in something by God and they will obey

God. And that obedience is an example to us that when

God instructs us to do something, we do it. Now, it's not going to be like Gideon, and when we get to this story, we'll talk more about this, but a lot of people like to take that story of Gideon and find kind of their own personal fleece.

You know, I'm going to do this test before God. If God will do this with my fleece, then I know he'll want me to do this.

And God's not going to communicate to us in that way, if you remember the story of the fleece. So, God, if you really want me to go up against these armies, let this fleece be soaking wet with the dew in the morning, and then the fleece is soaking wet.

And then Gideon realizes, well, of course the fleece is soaking wet. The water will dry up off the ground before it dries up out of the fleece.

So let's do it the other way, God. Make the rest of the ground covered with dew and let the fleece be dry.

And then the next morning, the fleece is dry. So some people take that story and they will say, well,

I'm going to put God to the test. I'm going to give God a test. And if this thing happens, then I know that he wants me to do this.

But that's not the way that God speaks to us. He speaks to us according to his word. We have everything that we need from God spoken to us right here.

We don't need a fleece to hear from the Lord. And so as God has told us to do here, so we must do.

As an act of faith, as an act of obedience, we do what God has instructed us to do.

And the judges serve as that kind of example. They obeyed the Lord. And so we likewise should obey

God. They are examples of faith in that way. So number one, the judges are examples of faith. Number two, the judges were still imperfect.

So we consider them in that way as well. Some of the judges committed grave sins and were told in 1 Corinthians 10 .6.

These things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did.

So even a guy like Jephthah might be an example of faith, but he's also an example of making stupid oaths.

So we would not make as foolish an error as Jephthah did. So we consider the judges as examples of faith.

We consider that the judges were also still imperfect. And lastly, number three, we consider that the judges point to an even greater judge.

Though the judges were able to deliver the people from their oppression, they did not completely deliver.

The people still went back to their sin and more oppression would come. But we anticipate a more perfect and righteous deliverer who is

Jesus Christ. So let's look at our section this morning in Judges 1 as we read through this together.

And I'll kind of break in here periodically and give some commentary. Judges 1, beginning in verse 1.

And I'm reading out of the English Standard Version. After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the

Lord, Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?

And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. Behold, I have given the land into his hand.

Who is the commander of the armies of God right at the beginning of the book of Judges? Is it

Joshua? No, it says Joshua has died after the death of Joshua. So, who's commanding the armies of Israel?

The Lord, that's right. They inquired of the Lord, who shall go up first for us against the

Canaanites to fight against them? God, commander, general God. Who shall go up?

And Yahweh responds to them and says, Judah shall go. I've given the armies into their hands.

What would that be like? We go out into battle and, well, we don't have a general. God, what should we do?

The voice of God comes and tells us exactly what to do. So they don't have

Joshua anymore. Joshua has died. The Lord himself is leading. And how is

Judah's response? Verse 3, Judah said to Simeon his brother, come up with me into the territory allotted to me that we may fight against the

Canaanites. And I likewise will go with you into the territory allotted to you. Now is that what

God said? So we already have an instruction right at the beginning of the book of Judges.

One instruction, one instruction that was given to Israel. Judah's the one that'll go up for I've already given their enemies into their hand.

And what does Judah do? Simeon, come on with us and we're going to go conquer these enemies.

That's not what God said. Now that might seem like a minor infraction.

But just consider that Adam and Eve were put in perfect paradise. And how many rules did they have?

One. How many instructions of God were they given?

Did they break? Just one. And all of creation came into chaos because of that one sin that was committed there in the midst of paradise.

Where is Israel? Where are they? The promised land.

We read at the conclusion of Joshua that land has been allotted to the different tribes.

And they've all settled in their respective territories. The instruction that was further given to them is that this land has not been completely conquered yet.

There are still these pagans that live among you. So you have these lands, but you must continue to drive them out.

So that's what they're supposed to be doing here. And they have God as their leader, God as their commander.

After Joshua has died, the Lord commands them and it's the very first command and already

Judah's doing something else. Now we might look at that and we might say, hey

Judah's just being friendly, right? Hey, come on up with us. Let's go conquer these people together.

But it demonstrates that Judah did not really trust that God had given these enemies into Judah's hand.

This was all about the glory of the Lord. That God would be glorified in seeing

God has given these enemies over to us, into our hands. But Judah doesn't follow that instruction.

They grab another army and say, hey, come with us so that we might come against them. And then, and then we'll, we'll kind of share duties here.

We'll come down to where you are and we'll drive out those enemies too. So Judah is becoming a commander in themselves rather than following the instructions of the rules of their commander.

Now the church that I served in before I came here was a military church, a 60 % military, either active duty or retired veteran.

And and if we went through something like this and I said, Judah disobeyed the rules of their commander.

I've, I've done this lesson before and you can see all those army guys in there going. Judah disobeyed a command that was given to them.

Somebody who serves in the army understands somebody serves in the military. You cannot disobey the orders that are given by your commanding officer.

And here this is Yahweh who has instructed Judah in this way and they did not follow it.

So already we're starting to see patterns of disobedience right from the very beginning.

So we continue on into verse four. Then Judah went up and the

Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, just as God said that he would.

And they defeated 10 ,000 of them at Bezek. They found Adonai Bezek at Bezek and fought against him and defeated the

Canaanites and the Perizzites. Adonai Bezek, what does Adonai mean? Somebody know?

Where have we heard that word Adonai before? It's a name of God. Yeah, that's a

Hebrew name for God. What is Adonai Bezek? Means he's the God of Bezek. That's how, that's how this

King had positioned himself. I'm the God over Bezek, right? So they find

Adonai Bezek at Bezek and they fought against him and defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

Verse six, Adonai Bezek fled, but they pursued him and caught him.

This is just the wonderful graphicness that we will have in the book of Judges. And they cut off his thumbs and his big toes.

Now you might think, well, that's kind of brutal. Why? Why would that be necessary to do? Well, we actually have an explanation to that.

If you keep going, verse seven, Adonai Bezek said 70 kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off, used to pick up scraps under my table as I have done.

So God has repaid me. And they brought him to Jerusalem and he died there.

So Adonai Bezek is being repaid in the same way that he treated other people who were under him.

Just to kind of show he was God and he was in charge of everybody else that was, that was under him.

He would, the lords of his land, he would cut off their thumbs and their big toes. How much of a struggle, you don't think of how hard your life is without thumbs and big toes.

But this is what this cruel dictator did to people who were under him, just so he could show them who was boss.

And so as he did to other people, so was also done to him. So one of the things that we need to recognize, even as we read about the conquest in Joshua, and we'll read about some of these dark things that happened here in the book of Judges, this was an evil, evil, wicked land.

I mean, you think about the fact that they were evil at the time that God told Abraham, I'm going to give you their land.

This was 400 years ago, right? God says to Abraham, this land that you see is going to belong to your descendants.

But the evil, their evil has not yet come to fruition.

Like it hasn't reached a head yet for them to be punished in this way. That was 400 years ago.

So how much more evil they've become over that period of time. You've got idol worship that involves all kind of manner of sexual immorality, even worse than what they did at Sodom and Gomorrah, and would even involve the sacrifice of children.

And that frankly is not too unlike our culture today, where the LGBTQ movement is the movement of Sodom and Gomorrah, and abortion is the sacrifice of children to the sex gods of this culture.

And so as that was going on around Israel, this is what they were sent into the land by the hand of God to punish.

This land is being given to them. But as God said to Israel in Deuteronomy chapter nine, do not think that you've done anything great to deserve this land.

It's not because of you that you're receiving this land. It's because of the evil of the people that inhabit it that I am driving them out before you.

And you're going to inhabit their land. You're going to get to live in their cities that they built before you got there.

And it's not because of anything great that you've done. It's because of their evil. God was using Israel to punish the wickedness of this land and drive them out.

And as a result, because of the promise that God had given Abraham, they will inherit this land, the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on the entire globe at this particular time.

And Israel is blessed to be the occupants of it. But they are to be holy.

Remember God's call to them for holiness and to not live as the pagans did in that land.

Don't go after their gods. Drive them out. Tear down the high places so that you'll not be tempted by their gods.

And so Israel obeys for a time, but we'll see periodically as we go here, they become more and more disobedient.

So here's the wickedness that Adonai Bezek had done and God repays him in kind.

Verse 8. And the men of Judah fought against Jerusalem and captured it and struck it with the edge of the sword and they set the city on fire.

This is Israel's first occupation of Jerusalem. And afterward, the men of Judah went down to fight against the

Canaanites who lived in the hill country in the Negev and in the lowland. And Judah went against the

Canaanites who lived in Hebron. Now the name of Hebron was formerly Keriath Arba. And they defeated

Shechei and Ahaman and Taumei. From there they went against the inhabitants of Debir.

The name of Debir was formerly Keriath Sefer. And Caleb said, he who attacks

Keriath Sefer and captures it, I will give him Achish my daughter for a wife, or sorry,

Aksa for a wife. And Othniel, the son of Knaz, that's an important name because that'll come up again later.

Caleb's younger brother captured it and he gave him Aksa his daughter for a wife.

And when she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey and Caleb said to her, what do you want?

And she said to him, give me a blessing since you have set me in the land of the Negev. Give me also springs of water.

And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. Now, does anybody know right off the top of your head who the significance of Othniel is where we're going to see his name again?

He's one of the judges. That's right. The first judge. Yep. That's in chapter three. So we get to that next week.

We'll read about Othniel again. Verse 16. And the descendants of the

Kenite Moses, sorry, the descendants of the Kenite Moses' father -in -law, this is

Jethro, went up with the people of Judah from the city of Palms into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the

Negev near Arad. And they went and settled with the people. And Judah went with Simeon his brother, just as they had pledged, and they defeated the

Canaanites who inhabit Zephath and devoted it to destruction. So the name of the city was called

Horma. Judah also captured Gaza with its territory and Ashkelon with its territory and Ekron with its territory.

And the Lord was with Judah and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.

Now remember that God said, I'm with you. You'll be able to drive them out. That was at the start of Judges, but here

Judah has gone into the plain and they're not able to drive out the people there because they had chariots of iron.

If God is their commander, if God is going before them and driving the people out, then why wasn't

Judah able to drive them out? Because they disobeyed. Yeah, because of their sin.

Right. So we are seeing consequences from that. Well, Judah didn't obey, so how were they able to be so successful?

Because God was still with him because he's merciful and gracious. But because Judah had disobeyed and did not follow that first instruction of the

Lord, the way that he gave it, they were not able to take everything that God told them that they were going to take.

So in verse 20, and Hebron was given to Caleb as Moses had said, Caleb and Joshua, of course, if you remember, were the two faithful spies who said that we will be able to take the land.

All of their generation of Israel was not allowed to inherit the promised land, only Joshua and Caleb.

So we see Caleb's inheritance as Moses had promised him that he receives. He drove out from the three sons of Anak.

He drove out from it, the three sons of Anak. There you go. But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the

Jebusites who lived at Jerusalem. So the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

Was Benjamin supposed to drive out the Jebusites? Yeah, they were supposed to, but didn't drive them out.

The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them, and the house of Joseph scouted out

Bethel. Now the name of the city was formerly Luz. Now listen to this, verses 24 to 26.

And the spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him,

Please show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you. And he showed them the way into the city, and they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all of his family go.

And the man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city and called its name Luz. That is its name to this day.

That's an important sort of a little thing to remember there as we come into the words that God will say to Israel a little bit later on in chapter two.

Remember this deal that they've made with this man from Luz. So now in verses 27 to 36, in the conclusion of the chapter here, we have a list of the people of Israel and those cities or those peoples that they did not drive out.

This isn't a conclusive list. It's not listing every single tribe, but it demonstrates to us that there were several tribes that did not obey

God. They did not do what God had told them, what Joshua had told them to do in driving out the pagans from the land.

So look at verse 27. Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Bethshean and its villages, or Tanakh and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Iblium and its villages, or the

Megiddo and its villages, for the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. When Israel grew strong, they put the

Canaanites to forced labor, but they did not drive them out completely. Is that what God told them to do, to put the

Canaanites to forced labor? What were they supposed to do to the Canaanites? Kill them.

Let's look at Deuteronomy 7. So keep your finger here. Let's turn over to Deuteronomy 7.

Deuteronomy 7 and verse 1, when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it and clears away many nations before you, then we have a list of those nations that are more numerous and mightier than yourselves.

Verse 2, when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them to what?

Forced labor? What's it say there? Complete destruction.

You shall make no covenant with them and you shall show no mercy to them.

Because they're not going to show mercy to you. If you let them live, they will destroy you and they'll continue to do evil in the land and furthermore, the people of Israel will go after their gods.

That was part of the warning that God and Moses had given to the children of Israel, that you not go after the gods of the people of the land that you are inhabiting.

They're to devote them to complete destruction. So let's come back over to Judges chapter 1 again.

We have Ephraim mentioned that did not drive out the Canaanites. Verse 30, Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants, but they forced them into labor.

Verse 31, Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acho. The Asherites lived among the

Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out. Verse 33, Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh and instead put them into forced labor.

Verse 34, The Amorites pressed the people of Dan back into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come down to the plain.

The Amorites persisted in dwelling in Mount Haraz, but the hand of the house of Joseph rested heavily on them and they became subject to forced labor.

Now consider that. The Amorites forced the

Danites out of their land. The Danites don't have their land anymore. The land that was allotted to them after the

Israelites took the promised land. That's important to remember because when we get to chapter 17 and 18, the

Danites are wandering around looking for a place to live. They were driven out of their land here in chapter 1.

The Amorites drove them out, but what did Joseph do? They didn't even punish the

Amorites by wiping them out as they were supposed to. You forced our kinsmen, the

Danites, you forced them out. But yet Joseph doesn't punish them for that and just puts them into forced labor.

And the border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of the Acrobim from Salah and upward.

They're still inhabiting that land. So over and over we're seeing here from tribe to tribe,

Israel disobeying God and not driving the people out. And this is to their detriment.

Not just because they're disobeying God, but because what's going to happen to the people. They're going to start living like the pagans, aren't they?

The pagans that are around them. They're going to start to be living just like them. And so look at chapter 2 as we get to this.

Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim and he said, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers.

I said, I will never break my covenant with you and you shall make what?

No covenant with the inhabitants of this land. What did they do with that fellow back in verses 24 to 28 or 26 rather?

Made a covenant with him, didn't they? It doesn't use that word, but that's what happened there.

And we know that's what took place because God is saying, you made a covenant.

The people that are put in forced labor, there may have been covenants going on. We won't wipe you out as long as you do this.

And God is saying, that is not what I told you to do. You have not obeyed my voice. What have you done?

So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides and the gods shall be a snare to you.

And thus we have the conclusion of the section that we're looking at today in the book of judges.

So the section ends by mentioning a generation that had died, leaving behind a generation that did not know the

Lord, just as Joshua warned in his own farewell address in Joshua 14 or sorry,

Joshua 24, 14 to 28, the people did not obey the Lord. And so it happened. And we're going to see darkness continue in the hearts of the

Israelites, even as we continue here in our study of the book of judges, that they're going to fall farther and farther away from God and deeper and deeper into disobedience.

And my friends, as an application for this, an application for us in our present day, we must recognize and we must understand the call to holiness that God has given to us.

Now we are not at a physical war and the new Testament tells us that, right?

Because remember the words of the apostle Paul in Ephesians six, as we're going through Ephesians right now, we're going to get to this in our sermon series on Sunday morning and Ephesians six,

Paul says, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but excuse me, but against the principalities against the spiritual forces that we cannot see.

And so when we put on the armor of God, we're not putting on physical armor, but we're putting on a spiritual armor to fight against the devil and his schemes in the present day.

And as you are doing spiritual warfare, as you're doing spiritual battle every single day, there must not even be a hint of sin within you.

Now how can I say that? Because don't we understand, we're never going to reach that state of perfection until we get to Christ, brother

Gabe, until we are dwelling with him in the heavenly places. Once we are there, once we're in his perfect kingdom, then we won't have sin anymore.

That's absolutely true, but we must continually be in the battle now and continually driving them out, driving out, driving out sin, temptation, all of those things that would seek to desire and ensnare us.

And we must do this according to, not by our rules as Judah did, but we must obey

God. Consider these words in 1

Peter 1, 14 -16. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.

But as he who called you is holy, so also be holy in all your conduct.

For as it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy.

And as God has called us to this holiness, let us be in diligent pursuit of that every single day.

For as it says in Hebrews 12, let us strive for peace with all men and for holiness without which no one will see the

Lord. That is a holiness that is given to us only in Christ Jesus.

So every single day we battle against the passions, the temptations of our flesh. We live among pagans.

We must constantly be on our guard that we not be tempted by and ensnared by the rhetoric, the philosophies of this world.