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Now, open your Bible and let's join Pastor Skip Heitzig for today's teaching.

Skip Heitzig: Would you turn in your Bibles please to the book of Judges in your Old Testament? Judges chapter one, Bible from 30,000 ft. I want to remind you of that because there are sections of this book that a lot of you would love to study in depth. We have done that before. It is recorded for you to get anytime you wish, but this is the Bible from 30,000 ft. So we're not going to be uncovering every branch, every twig, every leaf, just sort of looking at things in general and telling the story. As we begin, I was thinking how I remember back in school the empty feeling I used to get when I would do bad on a test or get a bad grade in a test.

If I got below a certain GPA, my parents didn't deal with that well, I didn't deal with that well. Israel in the book of Judges gets an epic F for failure on their test to obey and serve the Lord. Here's what I mean. Do you remember how the book of Joshua ended when Joshua gave his farewell speech to the nation and he says, choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, finish it for me. We will

Audience: serve the Lord.

Skip Heitzig: serve the Lord. We will serve the Lord. That's what Joshua said. He put his gauntlet down and said we're going to I'm going to serve the Lord with my family. Israel responded immediately saying, us too. We will serve the Lord. With that sentence still ringing in the air, so to speak, we come now to the book of Judges that shows their total failure to serve the Lord. Verse one begins, now after the death of Joshua. This is the end of a strong, centralized leadership in the nation of Israel. When Moses died, God raised up Joshua to take his place.

But now Joshua is dead, even though his death will be mentioned here again in this book. And after Joshua dies, there's no central leader anymore. Now there are just the tribes of Israel settling into their land allotments, making decisions to go to war. So it is tribal government rather than central government. It's a 350 year period that this book marks out. But if think of it as 350 years from the centralized government under Joshua as their central leader to the first king of Israel, King Saul. Between Joshua and King Saul is the period of the book of Judges.

Now it says the book of Judges and immediately you think in your mind, most people do, a courtroom, a guy in a black robe with a gavel uh litigating, uh pronouncing guilty or innocent. You need to push that out of your mind and think in terms of uh tribal warriors. A judge in the Old Testament was a regional political military leader. Think of it as a tribal chieftain. The book of Judges highlights 13 of them. Some count 14. I'm going to say 13, 12 men and one woman that we're going to get to. But I want to give you a warning.

The book is rated R. It's a it's a very bloody book. It's a very violent book. It is a disturbing book. It is filled with and tells the truth of Israel's moral corruption. But I got to tell you something. This is why I like the Bible. The Bible doesn't hide the truth about its own history, the history of God's people. Not only are they imperfect, but in some cases they utterly blow it and become so morally depraved, not even um reflecting the God they said they would serve. But to me that actually highlights the veracity of the scripture cuz a lot of biographies will just tell you all the good points about the heroes that they write about.

The Bible tells you the dark underside of biblical heroes. And we find biblical heroes in this book. Now the theme of the book of Judges is from conquest to compromise. Joshua was all about conquest. The first part of this book is all about conquest. But quickly it goes from conquest to compromise. And we find God's people, the children of Israel walking in circles or more appropriately cycles of sin. I'm going to explain that in a moment, the sin cycle. Chapters one and two speak about conquest. Chapters three through 16 highlight their compromise and chapters 17 through 21 chaos.

The chaos that fills the nation of Israel. So conquest, compromise, and chaos. And I'm going to read something to you that I found. And I want you to keep this in mind, not only as you think of judges in 1300s BC, but think of this in terms of modern United States of America. One historian writes this, the average age of the world's great civilizations is about 200 years. They all travel through the same sequence from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from great courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to leisure.

Now listen carefully, from leisure to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence to weakness, and from weakness back to bondage. That's a very astute observation at the history of ancient civilizations and we do well to heed that. That basically is the book of Judges. Now if there if if there was one book of the Bible that I was allowed to erase with a giant eraser, it would be this book because it doesn't highlight the great moments of God's people, but the lowest moments of their history. It is a dark book, it is a depressing book.

It's not the book you turn to when you're desperately needing hope. It's like, man, I feel so depressed. What book do I turn to? Stay away from Judges. Find just about any other book, but stay away from this one. It'll drive you deeper into depression. Now the book opens up with success. It opens up with the tribes of Israel settling in their various tribal allotments in the new land, in the promised land, but the job isn't done. There are still enemies to be conquered. So initial success starts in chapter one verse one where it says, now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord saying, oh this is good.

It's good because there's no Joshua, but there's always God. So if there's no Joshua, then let's talk to God. That's good. Problem is that's it. They don't keep doing this. They start having success because they're looking to the Lord initially, but not eventually. But they asked the Lord saying, who shall be first to go up against the Canaanites to fight against them? Now the term Canaanites, by the way, is a broad term for a whole bunch of different ethnic groups that lived in the land west of the Jordan River that we call today modern-day Israel.

In those days it was Canaan. And there were all sorts of groups that were eventually put under the the the heading of Canaanites. Even though Canaanite was a specific group, the Canaanites was sort of a a broad term for Girgashites, Perizzites, Hivites. No, not Hivites, but just all these different people groups were were in the land of Canaan which became the promised land later on. And the Lord said verse two, Judah shall go up. Indeed I have delivered the land into his hand. Notice the past tense that God uses. He's so sure it'll happen. Verse four, then Judah went up and the Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand and they killed 10,000 men at Bezek.

So at first success. Why? Because initially they were wise. They asked the Lord what to do. And the Lord answered. Go down to verse 21. But the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem. Verse 27, however Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shean and its villages. You who have toured with us to Israel, we always spend a half a day at Beth Shean. Verse 29, nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer. Verse 30, nor did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron. Verse 31, nor did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Acco.

So think of where we've come from. Joshua as the military general led attacks and defeats of many Canaanite towns, but not all of them. Not all of them have been driven out. There's still much to be taken and there are still Canaanites who live in the land. Chapter one gives a long detailed list of those towns. We're not going to bother to read them. But as you look at chapter two, we are given a preview into their failure. Chapter two verse seven, it says, so the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which he had done for Israel.

Now implied in that statement is that as long as good spiritual leadership was intact and in place, everybody did what was right. When that was removed, they quickly degenerated.

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Receive both when you give $50 or more to share biblical truth with more people around the world. Request your copies at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. Now here's more from Pastor Skip.

Skip Heitzig: Verse eight, now Joshua the son of Nun the servant of the Lord. Actually I said that wrong, didn't I? He's the son of

Audience: Nun.

Skip Heitzig: You guys are so good. Get an A on that test. Joshua the son of Nun the servant of the Lord died when he was 110 years old. This marks the end of a strong centralized leadership in that nation. Remember where we've come from? We looked at the book of Genesis. We saw four uh important men who are leaders, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. Joseph died. Exodus begins. There arose a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph. They were absent of leadership. Who arose? Moses. God used Moses to deliver the children of Israel out of Egypt. Moses at the end of his life was told to select Joshua.

Joshua became the leader. Now Joshua is dead. There's a vacancy in leadership. There's no leader to lead the driving out of the Canaanites. Now let me give you a note. The whole point of driving out the Canaanites from the land that they once inhabited is to avoid moral corruption of the Canaanite religion into the lives of the children of Israel. That really is the whole point. And I have detailed what that is like before. I will just say they were so corrupt. They worshiped false gods by sacrificing their babies. Human sacrifices were very common among the practice of the Canaanite religion.

And um so they were told to eradicate them. What Israel does instead of eradicating them because they think they're morally superior to God who told them to get rid of Molech. They could no, we shouldn't do that. They're just they can be changed. Well, so what they did is they just moved in next to them and became exactly like them. That's what happened. The Canaanites didn't get uh influenced by the Israelites. The Israelites got influenced by the Canaanites and drugged them down to their level. In chapter two, I 'm going to point something out. The narrator stops the flow of the story.

And he gives a I like this 30,000 ft. view of the rest of the book of Judges. It's all summed up in chapter two. Now the narrator, we don't know who it is. Some think it's Samuel who wrote this book. Truth is we don't know who wrote the book of Judges. Whoever did stops the narration, the flow of the story and he gives a view of the rest of the book. And he shows us this cycle that I was talking about. Think of spirals that just go further down and further down and further down each time they cycle.

There's a series that is called the sin cycle. Let me give you the four phases of the sin cycle. Number one, the first phase is rebellion. Chapter two verse 10. When all the generation that 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. 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 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 or served Baal and the Asherah. That's rebellion. That's the first phase, the rebellion phase. Now in that text two different gods are mentioned, Baal. A better pronunciation is Baal. That's how they would say it, Baal, but you can say Baal cuz we're Americans. We can sort of say whatever we want when it comes to pronouncing words I've discovered. So Baal or Baal and Ashtoreth also called Ashtoreth. These two are the two principal Canaanite deities. Both of them, the god and goddess of fertility. Baal, the chief god and Ashtoreth his counterpart.

Now the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth was very attractive. Let me tell you why. Baal was the storm god. Uh they believed he rode on the clouds. He controlled rain. He controlled sunshine. So he controlled the production of the crops. By the way, Baal was at his strongest, they believed, midday when the sun was shining directly, the heat of the day. This helps you understand a first Kings chapter 18 when uh Elijah has a contest with the prophets of Baal or Baal on Mount Carmel. And uh on that contest he waits till it's the heat of the day and the sun is at its strength to choose off the prophets of Baal.

And Yahweh, the god of Israel, wins that battle. You know that story. So that's Baal. He's the storm god, principal deity of fertility. Ashtoreth or Ashtoreth was also the goddess of fertility, love, and war. Now when I say that, the worship of these gods was attractive. This is what I mean. They believed the Canaanites believed that it was the sexual union of Baal and Ashtoreth in heaven that brought an abundant harvest. So the way to worship Baal and Ashtoreth was to mimic what they did in the heavens. So they would have prostitutes who would bring people to have sexual intercourse.

And there were incantations that would say just as fertility is taking place right now, right here, may my crops, may my animals, may my family also be prolific and fertile. That was part of their worship system. That is why the children of Israel, one of the reasons why it was so attractive and they fell because of the sexual license that it gave in worship. So that's the first phase, rebellion. Second phase, retribution. Verse 14. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. It's telling the story of the whole book. So he delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them and he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around so they could no longer stand before their enemies.

Now he just summed up the 350 years of history between Joshua and Saul. That's the period of Judges summed up. Wherever they went, verse 15, wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity as the Lord had said and the Lord had sworn to them and they were greatly distressed. So phase one rebellion, phase two retribution. Phase three and four is repentance and restoration. Verse 16, nevertheless, how I love this phrase. The Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods and bowed down to them.

They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, you know, obeying the commandments of the Lord. They did not do so. And when the Lord raised up judges for them, verse 18, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. That's the sin cycle. And this cycle gets repeated in this book over and over and over and over again. 350 wasted years of people not learning the lesson that God was trying to teach them.

It came to pass verse 19 when the judge was dead, they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers by following other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way. But here's what I love. God's love is an unrelenting pursuing love. Even though they keep blowing it over and over again, God says, I'm not giving up. I'm going to chase you down and make life miserable for you so that in your misery you'll say, I'm sorry. And then I'll bring you back.

Even if you blow it again, I'll chase you down and you'll cry out and I'll bring you back. God's love is an unrelenting pursuing chasing love. And the book of Judges, even though it's tragic, shows me this lesson. In fact, it could be summed up by that great hymn called The Love of God that says the love of God is greater far than ink or pen could ever tell. It stretches to the farthest star. It reaches to the lowest hell. Could we with ink the oceans fill and were the skies of parchment made where every stock on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade to write the love of God would drain the oceans dry, nor could that scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.

The love of God, unrelenting pursuing. In fact, there's a word for it in the Old Testament. It's sometimes translated loving kindness. It's the Hebrew word uh uh means covenant love or loving kindness. Two years ago I sat in Benjamin Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem and we were talking about Jesus. And he said, well, I have to admit Jesus Christ brought a whole different level of and he said he was trying to think of the word and he said it in Hebrew to his aide. He said and I I recognized the word. So I interrupted. I said loving kindness.

He goes, that's it, loving kindness. Jesus brought a whole new level of loving kindness. And he did. That is a word that describes God's love. That's a Hebrew word even from the Old Testament. Well, the first four judges shown in chapters three, four, and five are as follows. Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, and Deborah. These chapters record what they did in delivering Israel, but I got to warn you, they're violent. I already gave you the warning at the beginning of the book. It's details of their violence against their enemies.

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Guest (Male): Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.

Guest (Female): What is God doing in Israel today and how does it connect to biblical prophecy? Discover the answer at the 2027 Epicenter Summit in Jerusalem. Hear renowned Christian leaders including Joel Rosenberg, Greg Laurie, and Graham Lotz, Jack Graham, Mike Huckabee, and Skip Heitzig. See the Bible come alive with Skip and Lenya Heitzig's tour of Israel April 5 through 16, 2027. Explore Jerusalem, Galilee, the Jordan River, and more. Visit Israel, deepen your faith, experience scripture like never before. Learn more at connectwithskip.com/israel.