Back to Judges

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What we spent, ultimately, I mean it was well over a year, a year and a good bit going through the opening chapters of Judges.
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And if anybody does remember, we left off in Judges at the life and the activity of Jetha.
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And so, brother Mike and I are gonna continue to go through the book of Judges, the remaining nine chapters, starting in chapter 13 next week with an interesting character named Samson.
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But before we do that, we thought it would be good just to kind of bring us back into some sort of understanding.
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So this morning, pretty much just to do a re-review or re-introduction into the book of Judges, and then to set the stage for what, next week brother Mike will take chapter 13 and then I'll take chapter 14.
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We'll go back and forth until we finish the book of Judges.
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But I did want to at least kind of re-establish some thoughts, and for those of you who see this on the board, I've already had my comments and some insults about what it is.
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I did not wanna do what I wanted to do on it before you came in, because then all you would do is stare at it.
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But I'm going to use that, and I will tell you, it's not the continent of Africa.
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And it's not a Superman logo, but we'll get to that.
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What I wanna do is I really want us to begin to understand as we go back into the book of Judges, some of the background, because again, one of the great ways to understand what God is saying is to understand it in its setting, in its context, in its time and its place.
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So having said that, if you have your Bibles and you want to turn to the book of Judges in the second chapter, and again, just as a review, I'm not gonna go into each one of the judges, but certainly to give us some sort of background of the time, the place, the setting, and some of the higher issues that we will need to understand.
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So book of Judges, chapter two, and I'm gonna read for a little bit, just to let God explain to us what's going on in chapter two, and we'll start at verse seven, because this really will kind of give us the place where we can begin to think.
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So just read it with me.
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In Judges chapter two, verse seven, so the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua.
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Remember, Joshua is the one who led them into the promised land.
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They served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen the great works of the Lord, which he had done for Israel.
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Now Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died when he was 110 years old, and they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-Herez in the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash.
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When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel.
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Good morning, we're in Judges chapter two when you get settled.
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Verse 11, then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed other gods who were among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger, and they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Asherites, and the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel.
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So he delivered them into the hands of the plunders and despoiled them, sold them into the hands of their enemies all around so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.
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Whenever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn to them, and they were greatly distressed.
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Then it says in verse 16, then the Lord raised up judges who had delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them.
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So that kind of gives us some understanding of where we're going to go back into, the setting and the surrounding situation.
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The reality is that judges in many ways is a continuation of the book of Joshua.
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As I said, Joshua is no longer the one who is to lead them, and as we read, he dies and is buried in his land.
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And so as they enter into the land of promise, they are going to encounter many issues.
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Although the wilderness journey taught them many things, or hopefully had taught them many things, including what God does to those who don't believe as he destroyed that generation in the wilderness, yet as they come into this promised land in this situation, it's basically going to be a continuation of the conquest that was started, ultimately by Joshua leading them into the promised land.
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And there's something that's important for us to understand that as we go through the remaining chapters in the book of Judges, that we understand that although God brought them into the promised land, and though it was a land of milk and honey, and though it was a land of prosperity, and though it was a promised land to them, yet the Lord did not leave them in a situation where they would have no battles to fight.
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And that's certainly drawn out.
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Look in Judges while you're there, chapter three, and verse one, because this helps us to understand what God also brought to pass.
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Not only does he bring them into the promised land, and not only does he raise up judges, not only are they unfaithful, and you'll see that.
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And let me remark that as we go through this.
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You're going to see a number of times where it's going to state for us that God's anger was hot against Israel.
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You know how you get hot under the collar about something? Well, God's anger was hot.
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That's the way the New King James puts it.
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And that Israel continually, because of their rebellion and their sin and their committing spiritual adultery, God was angry with them, and yet God was merciful to them.
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But I want you to read this in chapter three.
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Now, these are the nations which the Lord left, left where? In the promised land.
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That he might test Israel by them.
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That is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan.
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And this was only so that the generation of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it.
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Namely, five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Siodians, the Sidonians, the Hivites, those who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath.
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And they were left that they might test Israel, that he might test Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he had commanded their fathers by the hands of the sea.
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And so the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites and the Hivites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
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And they took their daughters to be their wives, and he gave them their daughters to be their gods, gave them their daughters to be to their sons, and they served their gods.
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So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they forgot the Lord God, and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
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Therefore, the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands, and it goes on and on and on.
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So remember now that we are going to go back into a time when although they were in the promised land, and although God has been so faithful to them, that the children of Israel have these, the Ites, all the Ites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and any other Ite that might be there.
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All these Ites are there, and they're there in one way as a means by which God would test Israel, but certainly also that Israel might learn to follow the Lord, and that they might labor to remove these, the Ites, out of their lands, and be wholly given over to the Lord.
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So now I want us to think about something else.
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I want us to think about, as we go through the book of Judges, and maybe I'll start to fill in my Superman logo now, but that we're not talking about, was God raises up these judges? It's not as though God is raising up a president.
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Not like there's this general election throughout all of Israel, and they decide, well, we're going to have Afnel be the president for the next four years, like we do, but rather that God is going to raise up, according to his purpose, in his time and in his way, those that he would use to help Israel and to give them, in that sense, a means by which they can overcome their enemies, and some of these are gonna rule in different arrangements and under different tribes, and let me just try this, and again, don't laugh at the way I draw.
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Please, you'll hurt my feelings, but I want you to think about something.
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So this is supposed to be the land of Israel, by the way, if you didn't know, and so this is the Mediterranean Sea, right? And then, again, Egypt is somewhere out of here.
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Okay, so think about it now, and so, again, I'll do something like this, and this is the Red Sea.
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You remember how Egypt came out of Israel, right? How did they come out of Israel? They came out from Egypt, came out from Egypt by God's hand, somewhere they crossed the Red Sea, and then they begin to come down, and they wind up down here at Sinai, right down there.
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Okay, and then they come up, and all of a sudden, because of their sin, what does God do? He starts making them do something like this, right? And they keep, that's the 40 years in the wilderness.
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All right, something else I want you to understand.
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So, finally they come, again, I don't want to be by scale, but anyway, they come in here, and they're gonna enter the land.
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Where did they enter the land? Anybody remember where they entered the land? Where did they enter the promised land? Jericho, remember where Rahab the holler? Okay, so ultimately, they're gonna enter into the promised land, and they come into the land, and I'm gonna do this, do something like this.
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And why I did that is because, if you remember, this would be, and this is only to represent, this will be one thought of as what? The Northern Kingdom, and this is the Southern Kingdom.
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How many tribes were part of the Northern Kingdom? Come on, I know you know.
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10, right? Okay, and Southern Kingdom, Judah, who else, Benjamin.
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We'll just call him Benjamin for now.
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Okay, so I wanted us to think about this, because as we go back into the book of Judges, I think it's important for us to understand.
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So, they're gonna come in here through Jericho, and enter into the promised land.
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Now, what I wanted to show us is this.
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Go back to my black marker.
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When God divides the land among the tribes, and this will help us understand as we go through this.
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The tribes are given portions of land, and I'm just gonna, I couldn't do it by memory, so I'm just gonna write a couple of things on the board.
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This would be somewhere where they settled.
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Asher would be there, and this is Naphtali.
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We'll call him Naph for now, and then there's Zebulon.
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I'm trying to show us something.
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And then certainly, we can fill in the rest of them, but the big ones will be Ephraim is somewhere right around here.
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E-P-H, we'll call him Eph.
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Northern Kingdom, and then we'll come down here, and we'll see Judah and Benjamin settle in the Southern Kingdom, and then there's the other ones.
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The other thing I wanted to show us is this.
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Let's just say something like this, and again, not to scale, but this is Jordan River, okay? You remember what happened with the tribes when they were coming in, and what did the one tribe, the two and a half tribes wanted what, right? So anyway, outside on this side of the Jordan, you will have part of the tribe of Manasseh, whatever, and the same thing here.
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So they have a piece on this side of the Jordan and that side of the Jordan.
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Down here at the bottom, you have Simeon, right? And of course, Judah, as I said, and then Reuben's somewhere over here, too.
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And Reuben has places other than that, but nevertheless, it gives you an idea.
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What I guess I'm trying to say is God divided the land, and it wasn't in equal portions, right? In other words, this might've been Asher's portion, and so on and so on, but Ephraim, and especially down here, they had larger portions, the same way Manasseh, their portion is pretty big.
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Certainly Ephraim has a big portion, Judah does also, Simeon, not so much, and so on.
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So I guess what I'm trying to get us to think about, as we read in the book of Judges, is that as we look at the Judges, do not think, again, that they had a general election like we do, and that they elected one judge to be over them all, because that's not how it happened.
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Matter of fact, do you remember Shagmar? He was a judge in Israel.
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Guess what? He's from up here.
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And as we're gonna look at Samson, we're gonna find out Samson's somewhere around here.
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Gideon, this would have been Issachar here, and Gideon is somewhere around here.
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And you can go on.
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Jephthah was somewhere around here.
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You get the picture? I'm not gonna fill it in all the way, but what I wanted us to think about is that God's gonna raise these judges up according to his purpose, and they're gonna be somewhat separated, not only by purpose, but also by the fact of them being raised up in different places, and God's gonna use them in many ways to accomplish victories in portions of Israel, but not all of Israel.
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And you can't think of the Book of Judges as they elect Samson, and he just unites the whole nation and destroys every single enemy, because that's not how it works, that there were these divisions, big pieces of land blotted out, and that God raised this one up there, and there are others too, certainly Ehud, I forgot about Ehud, remember Ehud? I like Ehud, because he was left-handed, so was I, so am I.
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Remember Ehud, he put the knife on the right side, stuck it in Egeland's big belly, and yeah, couldn't get it back out, and the fat fell out, and the guts fell out.
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Brother Michael probably likes that section.
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But anyway, you get the picture? The picture is that as we enter back into the Book of Judges, that we understand that God is gonna raise up these judges to accomplish his purpose, and that being because, again, as I said to you, God is, in many times, hot against Israel, his own people, because of their spiritual adultery, their rebellion, and ultimately, we'll see how it progresses.
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So, some of them did fight the same enemies.
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Remember the one judge that God raised up, Barak? Remember who the prophetess was, Deborah? Deborah and Barak went together.
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So I'm not saying that there isn't overlap, because there is.
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What I am trying to get us to understand is that God, well, let me put it this way.
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God uses specific persons to accomplish specific purposes, according to his design, not ours.
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Certainly, you'll see that in Samson, right, as we begin back in Samson, because I'm sure Brother Michael's gonna bring this out, and then I will too.
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Samson's not a good character to follow.
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I mean, he's got some, unless you disagree with me, Samson's got real issues.
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Matter of fact, you'd be hard-pressed if all you knew of Samson was only what you see in Judges 13, 14, 15.
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You'd have a hard time with Samson where he stood, but nevertheless.
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So, some of them fought the same enemies, some fought different enemies.
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I would say that the Book of Judges was written, best I could tell, somewhere around 1100 it started.
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Not written, but rather it records the history, 1100 BC, before Christ.
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The history of it is, and there's a lot of discussion we could have.
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I'm gonna just make a general statement, and that's what Paul says, that the Book of Judges, that God raised up judges.
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Let me read it to you in Acts 13.
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It says, Paul stood up and motioning with his hand, said, men of Israel, you who fear God, listen, the God of this people, Israel, chose our fathers and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm brought them out of it.
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For a time of about 40 years, he put up with them with their ways in the wilderness, and when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he distributed their land to all of them by allotment.
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Again, remember, he destroyed them, he did not eradicate them.
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That was Israel's responsibility, was to make a total wipe out of it.
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But Paul also was on to say, and when he had destroyed those nations, he gave them judges for about 450 years.
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Okay? Now, again, you can have a lot of discussion.
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There's a lot of discussion on whether it's closer to 300, closer to 450, somewhere in between.
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I think that's enough as far as going back into a, if you will, a reintroduction into it.
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There's 12 specific judges that we've dealt with.
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We've dealt with, but as I mentioned, some of these and some others, and that's an interesting thought, isn't it? God gives us a great bunch of detail about certain of the judges, and other judges, it's almost as if it's a passing thought.
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In other words, some judges take up chapters.
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Some of the judges that God takes up, takes verses.
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I mean, again, some of them, Tola was a judge in Israel.
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Anybody remember the life of Tola? If you do, then you've got some extra biblical revelation, because nothing really tells us, God never told us about Tola, or so many others.
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Now we know about Afanel, because Afanel was related to Joshua.
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But again, my point is, there's this period of, let's just, we'll split, we'll say 400 years.
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And as these enemies of Israel, and I don't really know where to position, without going back a little, but the enemies are in the land.
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They're all over the place, right? The remnants of them, anywhere.
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Anywhere you look, there were remnants of the enemies.
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And as these enemies flare up, and as God gets to the point where he's hot against Israel, he'll raise these enemies up.
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And then what does God do? He raises a judge up to quench the enemies and to give Israel rest.
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And so that's what you see.
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It's, I'll do it on this one.
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The book of Judges is really circular.
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And the cycle is, they kind of, there's blessing, and then that lasts for a while.
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And little by little, what do the people of Israel do? What many people do? They sin.
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And then there's disobedience, right? And that leads further.
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And what does disobedience lead to? Judgment.
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And then that leads to God having compassion.
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And when God has compassion, he raises these judges up.
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And so a judge will be raised up, and then there's deliverance, right? And then that goes on for a while.
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And guess what? Little by little, they start to go back downhill, and the cycle continues.
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So the book of Judges is very circular in that sense.
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And think about it.
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As God moves in his revelation from beginning to end, ultimately, where do we see God's revelation fully exposed and fully complete? In the person of Christ.
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Agree? Okay.
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Jesus is the King, as we've been thinking about this morning as we should think.
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As brother Mike brought up Friday night, behold our King.
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The book of Judges is interesting because if you think about it, we went from Moses, and what was Moses really to the children of Israel? I'll suggest he was a leader and a deliverer, but a leader.
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And so we have the movement of Moses.
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And then what happens? Then it becomes Joshua.
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What is Joshua really considered at in many ways? Yeah.
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And so he's, how about if I put captain? Captain, I-A-N or A-I-N? A-I-N in my world.
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Sister Anna ain't here.
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So my point is the book of Judges is again, if you look at it and support, look at it from the standpoint of, from the beginning of the Bible, where the Bible is progressively leading us to.
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There's a leader in Moses, a captain in Joshua.
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Ultimately it then becomes Judges.
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And it's gonna lead us to what? The King.
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Where are we gonna see the King historically in God's revelation? David, Saul, David.
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So I guess what I'm trying to get us to think of in God's movement of revelation, it ultimately is to lead us to the King.
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But we see it in different ways as we see it in different sense.
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Leader, captain, Judges, King.
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And we will get through the book of Judges.
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And what's after the book of Judges? Of course, then we have Samuel, Saul, we got Ruth, but we're ultimately gonna wind up where? King David and the Kings, Chronicles, Kings.
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And then we'll have the prophets because ultimately, guess what? This just continues throughout the whole Bible until the coming of Christ.
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All right.
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Questions, comments, concerns, compliments, insults, go to Mike.
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I would like to make a check.
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Office computer.
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Yeah, thank you brother.
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Yeah, and we see that where? With Eli as the priest.
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Right.
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And certainly with Samuel, right? So yeah, and don't misunderstand me because if you remember, what did Moses talk about? Moses talked about that one who was to come, that great teacher that was to come, right? But yeah, certainly, and I'm wrong for not including that, Mike.
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That we see this progression.
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And if you think about it, I know I'm just flying, but I've had 70 cups of coffee this morning.
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Think about Christ in his offices that he holds.
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What does he hold? The office of prophet, priest, king.
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All that went before him was to lead us bit by bit, little by little in God's revelation to the point where we would see prophet, priest, and king in one person, right? And so again, all these things are to lead us.
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And all the book of Judges is just another, although it's as real as could be, right? No doubt about it.
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But it's to lead us to understand historically in the working of God with Israel and in the working of God to unfold his ultimate plan, which is to bring us Christ, right? And that the final redemption is to be found in that.
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So I hope I've at least given you some sort of understanding that, again, we're talking about a united but divided land.
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We're talking about tribes and they got issues between themselves.
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And we saw that in the Judges, especially with Gideon where the men of Ephraim were complaining because Gideon went out to fight and won the battle and didn't call them.
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And then there's all the tribes that are complaining, why didn't you call us to come and help you? Just like that, just the way we are today, just insignificant stuff.
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So God raises a judge up.
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By the way, I did a little bit of a study on it.
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The Book of Judges will show us more rest than adversity.
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And it's only what I know that I could read.
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So let's just say this 400 is fairly close to the actual time.
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I found the Book of Judges mentions at least 200 years of rest, okay? Because you'll read as you go through the Book of Judges, it'll say God raised up so-and-so and Israel had rest 40 years, Israel had rest 20 years, Israel had rest 36 years, whatever it is.
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So I found, and I thought it was interesting that God will speak to us and reveal to us that he gave Israel rest for 200 years.
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That doesn't mean there wasn't more, but just the times that we know of.
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And that as far as adversity, all I really found given to us specifically, oppression was 65 years of oppression.
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You know what that made me think of? And again, I'm just gonna be off a little bit, but let me think about how gracious God is.
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That God is so faithful to his word.
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He's so faithful to us, brothers and sisters, because this was a mess.
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And I said it this morning, I don't know why I keep saying, we're a mess.
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If it wasn't for God's faithfulness, I mean, where would we be? You know what the Psalms say? It says, let Israel now say, if it had not been the Lord on our side, where would we be? And that's so true for all of us.
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So as we go through the book of Judges, one of the things that we'll see is that, and it demonstrates, the book of Judges to me demonstrates both the goodness and the severity of God.
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And that you and I need to understand that concept.
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Actually, everybody needs to understand that concept.
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Here's another thought.
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We got just another minute or so because I talked so fast.
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But it's interesting that God would give bigger portions to some tribes and smaller portions to the other tribes.
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Now, I understand there were many more in the tribe of Ephraim than there was in the tribe of Dan.
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And so Dan was allotted a smaller portion of land than Ephraim was.
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I also thought about the fact that, as I said, God mentioned some of the judges in a much more expansive way and other judges who judged just perhaps as well, He only mentions in passing.
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And I thought about this.
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I thought about how that's, in my mind, a way to teach us that God does what He wants to do, how He wants to do it, with who He wants to do it, for the reasons that many times He alone knows.
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And that you and I ought to be satisfied with that.
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In other words, you and I ought to be satisfied with the lot that God has given us.
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You and I have all been given a portion from God.
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And if we're not faithful with the portion that God has given us, and we're so busy, and you could actually read it in the book of Judges, there are times when some of the tribes are so busy complaining about what other tribes have versus what they don't have, that it winds up becoming a stumbling block.
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And that you and I would realize that whether or not the world thinks we're important friends, God does.
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If we're His, God does not love any of His children any more than any of His other children.
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Because Christ died for who? The church, all of us.
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That doesn't mean there's not faithfulness, that doesn't mean there's not a blessing that comes.
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And what I guess I always think about what Jesus talked about with bearing fruit 30, 60, 100.
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Every one of us ought to bear fruit, agree? We're not bearing fruit, we're none of His.
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That's what He says in John 15, right? That if you're not connected to the root, you're ready to what? Be burned, cast out.
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But the reality is that you and I have to be careful and concentrate on what God has given us.
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Us collectively, yes.
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Us individually, absolutely.
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If you try to be me or I try to be you, I don't believe we're doing what God wants us to do, right? And certainly you don't wanna be me.
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And I certainly don't wanna be you.
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And I'm not saying that as a insult, I'm saying that God made me to inherit what God has given me to fight the enemies that God has set before me, to overcome the battles that God has set before me for God's glory.
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And the same with you.
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And just as God divided the land, and just as God, in essence, scattered the judges.
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And again, God didn't pick them because they were the most worthy.
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But you can read in the judges of the ones that we know.
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Gideon, where did God find Gideon, by the way? Hiding, right? He's hiding under the, he's hiding down in the mill trying to grind out some grain, because he's scared.
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So, and you remember the whole story about Gideon, right? What does God do? Brings him along, little by little.
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Get up, Gideon, come on.
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And then Gideon goes through the whole thing about the fleece and he winds up being a mighty man.
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And God calls him that, a mighty man of valor.
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And Gideon's like, huh? You and I have to realize that God is molding us, making us in that, I always think of what Jesus said to Peter.
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Remember when Peter misunderstood John and said, Lord, is he gonna live forever? Remember that whole conversation? Remember what Jesus said? He said, Peter, you follow me.
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And that is such a good thought for us, friends.
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We ought to follow God, every one of us.
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Whatever path is in front of us, whatever way God divides it out, because I know you're all too spiritual to ever say you've been jealous, but every one of us at times are jealous.
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Sometimes we're jealous of what people have.
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Sometimes we're jealous over what we don't have.
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Sometimes we're so busy looking over the fence that we don't just let the weeds grow in our own yard.
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So I wanted to bring that into context.
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So again, we'll see many different things in the book of Judges.
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There's faith, there's weakness, there's obedience.
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And as I said, and I'm sure Brother Mike is gonna bring it up, Samson, because Samson's a wild cat, man.
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Some of the things he does are really, really bad.
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And yet, God uses him for his glory.
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Isn't that the greatest of all thoughts? God can take, remember what it says in the book of Job, says the deceiver, both the deceived and the deceiver are both his.
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Isn't that a cool one? Job 12, 16.
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The deceived and the deceiver are both his.
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Nobody gets away.
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Everyone is God's servant, and God uses all things.
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He can use a Samson, he can use a Gideon, he can use an Andy, he can use a Dan, he can use us all, any desires that we would serve him.
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So I hope that will help us as we begin to look back into the book of Judges.
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We won't be there for too long as we're gonna do a chapter a week and try to get some further understanding of Judges.
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And then the plan would be, if we continue along the path that we've discussed, we will then look at our church statement of faith.
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That we have as a church.
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And then we're going to look at the church constitution and all the articles in the church constitution, which should carry us for quite a bit.
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But any final questions about the book of Judges? I mean, there's so much that could be said.
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And if you have nothing to say, I can fill in a few more minutes because I got a couple more minutes.
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I wanted you to think about this.
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Since nobody answered, I'm gonna do it myself.
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I want you to think about how the book of Judges in many ways is going to be the fulfillment of what God said he would do before he even brought him into the land.
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And I'm gonna show you this.
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Go to Deuteronomy a minute.
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Jump in at Deuteronomy 28, just for a second.
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So I wanna show you that God is faithful to what he says and we need to be very mindful of it.
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So let me just read a little bit because we got a couple of minutes about the blessings and cursings that not only God foretold, but what God brought to pass in this land of promise that God gave to the children of Israel.
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So look at Deuteronomy 28.
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Moses says this.
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Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.
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And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obeyed the voice of the Lord your God.
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Blessed you'll be in the city and blessed you'll be in the country and blessed will be the fruit of your body and the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds and the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
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Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.
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Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out and the Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face and they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
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The Lord will command the blessings on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand and he will bless you in the land which the Lord your God has given you.
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The Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself just as he sworn to you.
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If you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways and all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they shall be afraid of you.
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And you can continue to read through the blessings that God promises.
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But I want you to drop for a minute to verse 15 because here's the other side of it.
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And here's the other reality of it and here's the other reality not only in the book of Judges, not only in the times of Christ, but today.
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And it's a distinction between being blessed by God and being under the judgment God.
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Let's look at verse 15.
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It shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.
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And curse shall you be in the city and curse shall you be in the country.
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Well, he just said, they will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
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Curse shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
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Curse shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
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Curse shall you be when you come in and curse shall you be when you go out.
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And the Lord will send on you cursing, confusion and rebuke in all you set your hand to do until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me.
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The Lord will make the plague cling to you until he has consumed you for the land which you're going to possess.
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And the Lord will strike you with consumption and fever and inflammation and severe burning fever and with the sword and with scorching and with the mildew and they shall pursue you until you perish.
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And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze and the earth which is under you shall be iron.
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And the Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust.
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From the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
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You can go on and on and read.
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But again, the book of Judges is in many ways a living testimony of that, that obedience will always bring blessing, right? Disobedience is never the means to blessing.
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That doesn't mean God can't use disobedience to bring out blessing.
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As again, God is sovereign.
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But our responsibility, listen, if you get nothing out this morning, get this.
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You and I are individually responsible to obey God, to love God in faith, follow his commands, do what pleases him and live a quiet and peaceable life.
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And then we ought to promote the gospel, the gospel which says, if you're not with Christ, you're against Christ.
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If you did not love him, it's because you hate him.
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If you are not for him, you are against him.
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And in that day, what will be? There will be that great separation of what? Sheep, goats, righteous, unrighteous, righteous in and of themselves? No.
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Righteousness of Christ? Yes.
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And that every one of us are responsible to carry about, the Puritans used to say that people would talk, I forgot, I don't know if George would feel, one of them anyway, someone would come up to him after a sermon and said, boy, brother, that was a good sermon.
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And he used to turn around and say, be careful, I carry powder.
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Because he was trying to show that the gospel is, in that sense, is what? Remember what Paul says, it's the dynamite of God, right? It's the power of God, it's dunamis, dynamite.
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So you and I are to carry the dynamite of the gospel and to tell people that they don't love Christ.
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Okay.
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Let's just close with a word of prayer.
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Father, again, thank you for this time, Lord.
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Lord, thank you for your revelation to us.
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May we, as we go through the book of Judges, Lord, maybe we'd be encouraged, maybe we'd be.