When it comes right down to it, we, like Israel in the time of the Judges, want the ‘Easy’ button.  We don’t want to follow; we don’t want to be obedient.  It is much easier to paint ‘Lord’ on our relationship with God and then get about doing and thinking whatever it is that we want to do and think.  God, on the other hand, isn’t satisfied with this superficial relationship; He want to transform each us from the inside out.  That is where the conflict lies; my human sinful nature says ‘I will be king’ and God objects because He is King.  That blatant rebellion cannot stand if I am to be transformed, if the reality of God as Lord and King is to be worked out in me in Spirit and in Truth.  So He gives me over into the hands of oppressors so that I might learn the truth of my decision and choose Him instead.  My anger, judgmental attitudes and arrogance have their way so I can see and know the results of following these other gods.

Continue reading →

Judges 21
The book of Judges ends with the sentence, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.”  It sums up the whole book of Judges well.  The people of Israel failed at the very start to follow their One True Leader and here at the end of the book fail to really understand the problem; their issues were caused by their own actions and not following God.

Continue reading →

Judges 20
An atrocity has been committed.  A country has been assembled for war in response.  The country does the right thing and inquires of God what to do.  And yet at first things seem to go all wrong and in the end things do go all haywire and almost end up in complete tragedy.  God provides deliverance but why does the story seem to end as a complete bummer?

Continue reading →

Judges 19
Today’s chapter is just plain yuck.  It is hard to find anything in it that is spiritually uplifting.  But sometimes we need to face chapters like this so we can better understand spiritual truths.  We are looking at the idea of God’s deliverance this week.  God delivers those who turn from their sins and cry out to God.  The story of the Levite and his concubine gives us the contrast between God’s deliverance and man’s deliverance.  God’s deliverance is absolute but when we rely on man’s deliverance, it can fail.  There are three areas of deliverance we find in this chapter.

Continue reading →

Judges 18
God calls us to follow him as Lord and it doesn’t matter if it is mid-2nd millennium BC or the 21st century; He wants us to recognize Him as Lord, the One who knows and commands, and follow accordingly.  The thing that strikes me about Micah and the Danites here in chapter 18 is that they have reduced God to a ‘cash and carry’ basis; whoever possesses the ephod, idols and the Levite possesses God.  It isn’t a matter of them following God but of ‘capturing’ God and dragging Him along with them on whatever endeavor it is that they have decided upon.  He is no longer Lord but rather an item on their checklist of necessary equipment.

Continue reading →