FBC Daily Devotional – August 16, 2021

Well, a good Monday to you. I hope you had a good weekend. We're able to get to God's house yesterday, enjoyed your

Lord's Day, and the Lord spoke to you through his word as you worshipped him together with God's people.

Well, today in our reading, I'm reminded of an incident that happened several years ago in a church

I pastored. There was a young family that fallen on hard times and the father was unemployed, mother was, you know, really had to focus on caring for the kids and so forth.

And they came to our church, came and visited, and we saw their need and we reached out to them and helped them any way we could.

Helped them with some lodging, some short -term lodging. Helped them with food and clothing and even furniture to help provide for them.

And they came quite often, but quite regularly, actually, like every week for a while.

But as we worked with them, one of the things that, you know, one of the things you want to do in somebody in that situation, you want to help them get out of that situation.

And so one of the things we observed with the mom, for example, is she just really didn't know how to cook.

I mean, seriously. Her idea of going grocery shopping was to go to the frozen food section and find stuff that, you know, she could take out of a box and put in an oven.

And that's, of course, very expensive. It's also not very healthful for you. So we made the effort to, you know, take you grocery shopping and get some items and show you how to make some very basic stuff for your family.

Well, very shortly after that, the family just quit coming. They just quit coming and decided that they wanted to go to another church.

Well, that's pretty frustrating on the part of the church family. You know, our church had reached out to them.

I wasn't here in Sterling, but our church had reached out to them and shown them love and compassion.

And, you know, we were teaching them the word. We never put any demands on them, but we were just encouraging them in a particular direction.

And then they decided that was too much. It's too, too rigorous. And they left, went to another church.

And then I thought about that in relation to what we read in Judges chapters 2 and 3.

I want you to think about the magnitude of the Hebrew people, the

Israelite people, in their abandoning of the Lord. We read in verses 11 through 13 of chapter 2 that the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the

Lord and they served the Baals and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers who had brought them.

Listen to what he had done. He had brought them out of the land of Egypt and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them.

And they bowed down to them and they provoked the Lord to anger. They forsook the

Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths. These were false pagan gods, idols if you will.

Now here were the Hebrew people 50 years or so ago from this time living in oppression under the

Egyptians. They were enslaved. They were in bondage and it was horrific, horrific enslavement.

And God looked down upon them and have mercy upon them and delivered them from that Egyptian oppression.

Oppression led them through the wilderness and even in spite of their refusal to go into the land that he promised to give to them and that they were gonna wander in the wilderness for 40 years, he nevertheless provided for them.

Gave them manna in the wilderness, gave them food to eat, gave them water to drink. Their clothing never wore out all through that time.

Brought them to the Jordan River, parted the river for them so that they could go across the river and begin taking the land and he fought for them.

He fought for them in the expulsion of the pagan Canaanites.

But they came to a point where they decided apparently this was just too demanding.

That's just too demanding. These people have chariots of iron. We can't take them. We can't deal with the chariots of iron.

So we're gonna let them alone. And before you know it, before you know it, they forsook the

Lord and went and served these pagan idols, just trees that were cut down and made, you know, poles out of the

Shira poles they were called and altars to Baal, the fertility God of the

Canaanites. It's no wonder that the passage says that they provoked the Lord to anger and when you continue reading in the book of Judges, you find this repeated cycle of the the

Israelite people forsaking the Lord, going after these idols, and the Lord then sends them back into oppression.

But I don't want you to, I don't want to leave you with that because what we also see throughout this book is the merciful, compassionate grace of the

Lord. Because when they cry out to him, he is gracious to rescue and to deliver them from the oppression.

And he does so over and over and over again throughout this book. So for example, in verse 6 to 15, it says, wherever 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.

I mean, he warned them ahead of time. If you forsake me, it's gonna be miserable for you. It'll be calamitous for you.

And they were greatly distressed, it says at the end of verse 15. But the beginning of verse 16 says, the

Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hands of those who plundered them. What patience is our

God's? What compassion? What mercy? What grace?

I don't know about you, but there have been more than one time that I even as a

New Testament Christian have have Bowed down to any false gods in terms of setting up idols, you know stones and so forth

But you know, it's so easy to be drawn away and enticed by Something else and think that there's joy or satisfaction or peace in that and forget what the

Lord has done for us So easy to do that even as a New Testament Christian and we find out those things don't bring satisfaction

They don't bring the peace that we thought they would or the joy or whatever the pleasure or whatever And then we cry out to the

Lord and in repentance and he is faithful to forgive and to deliver

Well, I don't know where you are in that cycle and I hope that you're not and I hope you're not entrenched into some kind of idolatry, but if you are and if you claim to be a child of God then

Then turn your back on those idols and Go back to the Lord Cry out to him and he will be gracious.

He will be merciful. He will forgive And we thank you our Father that you do we thank you that You don't leave us to wallow in our misery

Our sin caused misery when we cry out to you in repentance You do forgive

Thank you for that promise and thank you for who you are and for what you are like in Your grace your mercy and your compassion.

We thank you for this in Jesus name. Amen All right, well have a good rest of your