Faithful Fridays Two - Judges

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

It happened again.  

Knowing I would be selecting a passage from Judges, I thought about Judges all through this crazy week.  And one verse from Judges kept repeating itself in my head.

Turns out, it was the verse I selected last go-round on this skim through the Bible looking for a standout verse from each book.

So, time to skim through and see if there is another verse/passage that seems especially relevant to me.

Sigh.  The book of Judges ends so...dismally.  There is a passage which pretty much sums up the whole book, so I'm going to use that  today:

They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.  In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them.  He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.  Whenever Israel went out to fight, the LORD was against them to defeat them; just as he had sworn to them.  They were in great distress.

Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders....Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed them.  But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them.  They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

Judges 2:12b - 16,18 - 19

It was a cycle; Israel served God when they took the land, but after the death of Joshua it only took a couple of generations for the land to be led by those who didn't listen to the old folks, didn't remember what had happened to bring them into the land, who married whoever they wanted to, and didn't keep their faith pure but took on the worship of the pagan idols of the land.  Eventually, when the people refused to repent, God allowed them to be overrun and subjugated to one of the enemies around them, who oppressed them.  After wearying years of oppression, they would cry out to God for deliverance and he would raise up a leader who rallied them and drove off the oppressors, and they lived in thanksgiving and peace until that generation...and judge...died off. A generation or two later the whole cycle started over again.

In short, they couldn't resist the appeal of the pagan societies around them and chose to do what they did instead of what the Lord required.

And it caused all kinds of problems for them.

God's people are not supposed to behave like those who do not follow him.  Obedience brings blessing; disobedience...removes the blessing.

Disobedience is ultimately what makes Judges so dismal.