The Cycles of Israel: Humanity's Repeated Mistakes

Show Notes

Episode 484: 
In this episode, we jump into the Book of Judges. We discuss how this book is one of the most frustrating in the Bible because it highlights the repetitive cycle of humanity's failures and God's faithfulness. We read from Judges chapter 2, which sets the theme for the entire book: the Israelites abandon God, face oppression, cry out for help, and God raises up judges to deliver them.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Good morning, good morning, we talked through good morning, Good morning to you. You just made so many of the Chris starbof fans so happy, the fans of it. They have been fasting, right, they have gone weeks without you singing this. No, two weeks ago, I say it. That's weeks, Chris. Because math is math, Chris. There's a little bit called an at the end multiple All right, well, good morning or good afternoon or good evening. That just sounded like the Truman Show. My name is Chris, This is Jeff, and we are the Bible Guys. There we go, and whether you're listening online or watching, we are here today and we're glad to be with you. And we're making the leap into the Book of Joshua or Judges. Judges. Yes, so we finished up Joshua. Yes, there's so much we could have covered, but we're taking the highlight now. There's a lot of details, and then. We're jumping off into the Book of Judges. And this book is one of the most frustrating books in the whole Bible. It really is, because it's just about it's like the worst it's humanity pastor well, it's just it's humanity. Over and over and over and over and again. But hey, we'll get into that in a minute. Yeah. Anyways, well, hey, we're going to do something we've never done before. This segment is sounds like a brand new one, and this array is calling it wrong answers only. Wrong answers only Let me read how. Because mine's written slightly different than yours. It says Chris is going to ask Jeff five random questions and Jeff is going to respond with intentionally incorrect answers. For example, how do you cook a steak? And then Jeff would say something like put it in the microwave for thirty seconds. So the goal is, let's see how off the wall Jeff can be. Okay, yeah, hey, have you ever played that game that escalated Quickly? No? Never, it's a table game that's similar to this. Yeah yeah, yeah, really fun. Okay, that's fun. And by the way, I've not thought about a single question, and you've not thought about a single answer. Certainly not right. Yeah, So I'm literally going to just shoot from the hip. And I just have to think of the most off the wall answer. But it's a lot of pressure. Yes, okay, uncomfortable with this, all. Right, so here we go. So, what is the best thing to compliment? Peanut butter on a sandwich sardines. That's pretty good. Yeah, you get that very quick. It's good peanut butter and sardines. Butter and sardines. Actually the salty with the salty and sweet might be good. Yeah. Maybe I don't know. So so okay, all right. I'm not a sartin. I'll give it to you. Okay, all right, So. How do you how do you change a flat tire? I call somebody, I call my mom. That's better, that's. How Yeah. I'm not allowed to say she's twenty one. Okay, she's twenty one. That's bundy. My mom would kill me if I said her agent yoh yeah, executed. All right. So how about this one? Uh, what is the best anniversary gift to buy your wife? A scale? Wow? Yeah? Scale would yeah, yeah, yeah, should be really appreciative, one of those ones that sends right to your phone so she can just kind of keeping all right, that's. Good, all right, this one, what is the most polite thing that you can do while in India. The most polite thing to do in India culturally, start sweeping the streets. By the way, that's. Really funny if you've been to India, it's really funny because there's tragedy. All right, I got well, yeah. Yeah, it's really bad. And you could have gone a lot of different ways on that one. All right, Number five here, I. Was gonna say, make a hamburger, but that would be super inappropriate. Yeah, okay, how about this one ready? What's your favorite part of being a pastor? All the kind statements that are made? Yeah, yeah, No, my favorite part of being a pastor power, Yeah, dictatorial power. I'm going it to get rich and be powerful, really important. That's right, darn it. That's that's so great. That was a different type of game. Yeah that was hard. Yeah, it was hard. Okay, Yeah, I was. I was. I was as I was asking the questions, I was feeling for you, but you came up with good answers. Good job, okay, all right, so okay, wrong, all right, okay, okay, all right, combo at the beginning of Princess Pride Princes, Yeah. That's that's me. When we're traveling I just I put things in pockets, but I forget which pocket, So then I stand up and I'm like Paton all the time. Okay, all right, and I've gotten to the point now. And you know you're getting old when you do this when you stand up and go oh when you stand up right, and then so you go when you stand up and they go, okay, all right? Do I have everything in your podcasts and stuff? That's how I feel all the time now. By the way, Peter Folk's Columba's real name is Peter Folk. Peter Folk, and they filmed a movie in Youngstown back in the seventies. It was called All the Marbles. It was not a great movie. I did not recommend watching it. However, I mention it only because they went to Idoor Park. And Idoor Park was an amusement park in Youngstown, which you would never expect there to be an amusement park in Youngstown, right, But for a long time it was very, very very popular, went from like the eight late eighteen hundreds to something like this. Well, my brother Jim is obsessed with the history of Idoor Park and we used to go as kids, and then it burned down in the eighties and then they close it down. Everything else. Well, in Youngstown today, when you go in for the Campo Fair, there's always a remnant under a tent of all these cool memorabilia of idoor park stuff. Well, apparently somebody had auctioned off. It was a grapeig fire. Somebody had auctioned off the remnants of the carousel that obviously was like the feature of the park. And some lady bought it and she spent eleven million dollars restoring it, like literally scraping off each horse by itself, then repainting it, and then they put it up in New York, in Brooklyn, New York, and it's in the big glass cage. Now, that was an old Youngstown idoor Park carousel. So now did you get to see it when you were You wrote it? You wrote it. So we took the ferry all the way over to Brooklyn just to ride it. And they have a special book from Youngstown that only people from Youngstown can sign. Oh cool, So they brought it out. We signed it, and my father who's eighty five, hasn't ridden this. In like sixty years. Yeah cool, and he says, And so we're standing there in line. My brother Jim knows everything there is to know about this this carousel, and and my father says, okay, I get the palamino. And my brother says, what do you mean, Because we're first in line, we got there a little bit late. And my dad says, well, there's only two palaminos, and I always ride the palaminos. And so my brother Jim, of course, you know, looks around. He goes, oh, my. Goodness, he's right, there's only two palaminos. And my dad says, yes, that's what I ride. So the gate opens, my dad runs over, sits down on this palamino and he leans over to the horse and he goes, I remember. You, you're such a good boy. You're a good pallamino. That's as hilarious. That's great. There you go, bonus material right there. There you go. That was worth every penny. All because of Peter Falk. There you go because of Peter fulk yep. Okay, oh okay, all. Right, okay. So we're in Judges now, and here is the theme we are going to read I don't know, fifteen verses or something. And what you're going to discover is this is the theme of the whole rest of We could just read these few verses and be done with the book. Yes, because it's the same over and over again. Yes, which is why we described it as humanity. That's right. So God says to the people, Hey, you need to be running the you know, you need to continue to finish the job that Joshua didn't quite finish yet. Drive out the rest of the people. Obey me. If you don't, they're always going to be a problem to you. So the people of Israel they settle down. Now they've got their homes, they've got their their vineyards, they have their you know, olive groves, they've got everything, and they just kind of settle down, and they don't want to keep pushing. They don't want to keep fighting. So they leave all these pagans in their country. And then they start getting tempted to live like the pagans live. And so here's what happens and Judges chapter two, it says after that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he'd done for Israel. The Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight and served the images of bail. They abandoned the Lord, the god of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them, and they angered the Lord. They abandoned the Lord to serve bail and the images of Ashtith. This made the Lord burn with anger against Israel, so he handed them over to raiders who stole their possessions. He turned them over to their enemies all around, and they were no longer able to resist them. Every time Israel went out to battle, the Lord fought against them, causing them to be defeated, just as he had warned, and the people were in great distress. Then the Lord raised up judges to rescue the Israelites from their attackers. Yet Israel did not listen to the judges, but prostituted themselves by worshiping other gods. How quickly they turned away from the path of their ancestors, who had walked in obedience to the Lord's commands. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge over Israel, he was with that judge and rescued the people from their enemies throughout the judge's lifetime. For the Lord took peace honest people who were burdened by oppression and suffering. But when the Judge died, the people returned to their corrupt ways, behaving worse than those who had lived before them. They went after other gods, serving and worshiping them, and they refused to give up their evil practices and their stubborn ways. So the Lord burned with anger against Israel. He said, because these people have violated my covenant which I made with their ancestors, and ignored my commands, I will no longer drive out the nations that Joshua left unconquered when he died. I did this to test Israel, to see whether or not they would follow the ways of the Lord as their ancestors did. That's why the Lord left those nations in place. He did not quickly drive them out or allow Joshua to conquer them all. So there you go, There you go. That's my favorite signature phrase. Yes, that is it, and mine is by the way, by the way. Yeah, I always say by the way, by the way. Well, I mean it is interesting, how you know, if we try to learn thing from this in our own lives, it is that life lessons do get lost between generations. Right, don't you wouldn't you agree with that? That's correct. So it's it's uh, you know, we we we always seem to make the mistake for somebody to have a godly legacy to carry on from generation to generation and generation, Uh haven't don't you find that that's actually pretty difficult? Yes, you know, for a family to. Say, oh, my grandfather served the Lord, my father served the Lord, and I've served the Lord. It's a pretty rare thing, I think, And I think that I think that sometimes you rebel against I think it's the humanity, like you said, to rebel against your parents' nature and when you grow up and sometimes you're in a pastor's you know, household. That's why I used to fear so. Badly my kids growing up as a p K as they refer to them to pastors kid, because I just thought to myself, geez, the last thing I want is to have kids that rebel against God, rebel against church, hate church, don't want to go to church. And man, that was a big fearful, you know thing for me. Yeah, and so thank God, Yeah, it's a hard three of our kids want to go to church and love God. Yeah, it's a hard thing for kids to, you know, be pastors' kids. They grow up in a fish bowl. Everybody knows them. I remember, David, my middle son, was ten years old. We grocery store, everywhere we go, everywhere we went that day, somebody stopped me and wanted to talk to me. And then it had happened over the course of you know, a few weeks. We were up in Macinawe and somebody stops me in a store in Macinawe on Macan Island. We're out riding bicycles and people turn around and come back and catch us and want to stop and talk. Right, So it's just one of those kind of It was like a month of that. Every place we went, somebody stopped us. So we're in a grocery store. Finally somebody stops me. And when it's all done, my middle son says, Dad, are we famous? Yeah? And I made a joke to him and his older brother. I said, hey, everywhere we go, somebody knows us, and everybody's watching you. And that was a mistake, right, I was trying to make a joke. You better be good, right, that's it, But they took it the other way, right, that there's that there's a level that they have to live at a higher level than everybody else and all of their friends, because there's always somebody trying to bust them. That's how they took it, right, they're always that's at age you need ten, twelve years old. Everybody's everybody's after after ten and twelve year old boys bust them, right, you're in trouble, right, Yeah, that kind of thing. And it was hard, you know, so I had to come back and kind of backpedal from that statement over the next few months ago. Hey, no, I was I was just joking, right, But they felt the pressure of that for sure. Yeah. You know, I don't think I ever made those kind of comments to my kids, because you know, what I want into ministry. I was fearful of two things. Do you remember the average length of stay that a pastor usually is at a church before they move on? Yeah, just under five years? Oh really? Yeah? Okay, well maybe it was a youth pastor's stat when I when I when I was entering in the ministry as a youth pastor. Eighteen months it was eighteen months, yeah. The average, And I thought to myself, I can't even imagine moving to a city, having kids start to have friends, and then all of a sudden, you know, for some reason, because of my job, I'm going to move to another city and just uproot my kids. And because I'm the opposite of that, I'm wired the opposite of that. And by the way, I've only lived in two homes. I've been a pastor for thirty two years, and I was in one home in Atlanta for ten and a half years, and I'm in this home that I'm living in for twenty years. So that's good. But I didn't want to go into ministry because I didn't want to move my kids around and because I was so fearful of my kids hating God and church because they were peks. Yeah, I just everything about my home. So along these lines this passage, it's natural for kids to push back against how they were raised. Right, and so this is why in Deuteronomy, the passage we read in Deuteronomy six, teach them when you're walking along the way, teaching when you sit down at dinner, teaching them when they're going to bed at night, when they wake up in the morning. Right, just make it always, and then you know, Joshua, we read other day for me and my house. We're going to serve the Lord. He just made it a point you have to really focus on passing on the biblical truths and the biblical values that you have because it's easy to drift. And all the time it was one generation. Yeah, right. I think about this though in human nature. When our founding fathers here in America, they're in Philadelphia, they come out and, hey, mister Franklin, what have you given us, since we're giving you a republic if you can keep it right? Right, Reagan reminded us it's every single generation has to fight for freedom, right, because we forget we every So you've seen probably it's been on social media quite a bit, but it talks about strong men make good times right. Good times make weak men. Weak men make bad times right. And there's a truth to that. Right, when you have to fight for a thing. You know, our World War two generation, man, they stood for freedom because they saw we almost lost it. And now you know Philadelphia this couple last week you had hundreds of people marching through the streets of Philadelphia with communist flags in a parade. Yeah, communist flags. I'm not talking about literally communists, you know, hammer and sickle flags on the streets where they gave us a republic right. And and that desecrated the liberty bell. Well, that was that desecration was in It was a model bell in Washington, d C. It wasn't. Oh, okay, I didn't know that. I just sat it on social media. I assumed it was the liberty Bell. No, it was that that was at the train station in Washington, d C. But anyways, that the idea being, you know, a generation that doesn't have to fight for freedom tends to get freedom away. The generation has to fight for freedom tends to hang on to it dearly and loves it right. And then the generation that lives in between, we just kind of take it for granted and we forget and we don't pass on to the next generation how incredibly important freedom was, because it's just a natural thing we deserve. We've always had it, right, you have to hang on. And it's kind of the same thing with regard to faith. If we would think of the same thing in our faith. You know, if you grew up around faith, you grew up in a family that, yeah, we go to church Christmas in Easter. Most of the time. What happens is we inoculate our children from real faith. We give them just enough Jesus, just enough Bible, just enough church that we inoculate them from the real thing. Right. But the person who lived in a godless life and then God rescues them and they feel the power of being forgiven and the power of God's grace and mercy, and they've lived out the transformation that God. They tend to be all in whatever it takes. You know. That was my dad. My dad lived like a pagan for forty years and then he became a believer when he was forty years old. Jesus transformed and my dad jumped in with both feet. He was all in, right, and he worked so hard to pass that on to the rest of us, and thank God he did. But now I wonder have I passed it on as strongly to my children as my dad passed on to us. Right? And then what about my grandchildren, my great grandchildren. It's just a natural fade. Every generation has to work very hard to make God and the things of God's center instead of a part of our life. And what they did is they the one generation dies, the next generation goes, hey, this is pretty great. Well, let's be honest, there's comparison here in the Life Application Study Bible between worshiping God and worshiping idols. Did you see that? Yeah? I did. Yeah. Talk about that for a minute, because this is there's no wonder they switched over. If you forget how great God was and how God worked so hard to rescue you, and you start looking at the benefits of this other worship system, you go ahead. It's like fun. So the left side of the column says the benefits of worshiping God, and then the right column is worshiping idols. So it's sort of like the good versus the bad, right God versus the idols. So it says long rage benefits versus short range benefits, gratification postponed versus self gratification, immediate morality required versus sensuality engaged or encouraged, high ethical standards demanded versus low ethical standards tolerated. That's a mouthful. And neighbors sins disapproved versus neighbor sins approved. Unseen God worshiped versus visible idols worshiped or something to that. Unselfishness expected versus selfishness condoned, business relations hindered, versus business relations improved. Strict religious practices maintained versus religious practices loosely regulated, changed life demanded versus changed life not demanded. Ethical stand expected versus compromise, and call cooperation practiced. And then finally it says concern for others taught versus no concern for others expected. Yeah, and if you think about it, it really is true. So whether it's a false physical idol or whether it's just something else that takes the priority of God, not a physical thing, but a priority thing, it's completely true. Well, in the West, our gods are typically are not statues that we put up and pray to our gods. Now is our god is humanism. We worship humanity. We worship ourselves right and what we want and what we think is fair and good and right. And so what you see here is worshiping God. Is there's this moral ethical standard based on what God says he will and will not bless right, what's cursed and what's blessed, and do these things and I'll bless you. And there's some restrictions to our life because God says, hey, this is the better life. You're not going to have as many sexual disease. You're not going to have sexual transmitted diseases if you're faithful to your spouse and you're not sleeping with other people that you're not married to. Right, you're not going to have cirrhosis of the liver more than likely if you're not drinking yourself to sleep every night. Right. God gives all these godelines, and you live that life, you're going to be better, and if you reject him, you're going to have all those other things. But worshiping idols was pure humanism and pure hedonism. It's just pure pleasure. Do whatever you want to do, right, And so here you go. Now this generation, they weren't with God when with the people of God when God separated the Red Sea. And so now there's probably some apologists going that didn't really happen. That's just that's an old wives tale, right, that didn't really happen. And then oh God, you know, they weren't there when God tore down the walls of Jericho. And so now there's you know, people on the news going, really, I think I think that was just the thing my grandma used to talk about. Right. So, but instead now you're going to worship some God, you can't see that's silly. Look at this God. And by the way, we get to have sex in the temple. How great is that? Right? You get to do whatever you want to do. And so they began to look at what they viewed as an unseen God with old wives tales that Grandma and Grandpa were talking about versus look at all the fun that is totally saturated our culture. And God said the consequence that this had happened because you didn't drive out all the people. I allowed you to not drive out all the people as a test, and you didn't pass the test. Instead, you're just diving in living the culture. And I think about that a lot. I think that even for the Christians who you know, attend church on Sundays, most Christians I know have dived in headfirst into the world. In the world, culture, humanism, and hedonism tend to go far beyond shoot. Most people know more about our culture than they know about the Bible. Even people go to church all the time. Yeah, that's definitely right, And so we fade from those. So it says that in the life had great application study Bible that throughout the stage of history, Israel went through seven cycles number one rebelling against God, number two being overrun by enemy to nations, number three being delivered by a God fearing judge, number four remaining loyal to God under that judge, and then number five again forgetting God and the judge who died. We tend to follow the same cycle, remaining loyal. To God as long as we are near those. Who are devoted to him. And so it's interesting how that really is truly the entire Book of Judges? Right, And God sends a new. Judge, then a new judge, then a new judge, And how many judges are there in the Book of Judges. There's ath Neil, e Hud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tola, Jayir, Jephtha, ibzon, Elon Abdon, and Samson. So twelve then and then and then I think you can call Samuel a judge. Oh okay, right, so Samuel was the last of the judges, so that's what you have. So so yeah, so thirteen. Isn't it funny how when you were reading through those did your brain go toward how many sermons have I heard on? Like, I've heard definitely. Sermons on Deborah. Yeah, I've heard him on Gideon. I've heard them on Shamson. You've heard him on Shamgar Shamgar. Have I heard he was out There's only two verses. He was out in the field and he killed six hundred Philistines with an ox goat and said, uh, he he did what he could where he was with what he had. You ever hear that message? No, no, I've never heard. I've never heard a sermon on Shamguard, Shamgar. Yeah. Yeah, I've preached on all of them. Well, no, not not Tola. You've done a series on the judges. Yeah. Wow, remember Jeffa. Jeffa is the one that made the promise. Oh no, I remember them, I remember reading them. I'm just saying sermons I've heard other people. Yeah. Yeah. The abd On one was funny. I preached that on a challenge people choosing obscure verses and asking to preach right really yeah yeah, yeah, it was like a preacher boy challenge. Yeah, just here's a weird verse preaches message and so yeah, there's only three verses about av don He's got forty sons and thirty grandsons who wrote Donkeys, and so I just preached a message about having a bunch of kids and riding donkeys. Oh my goodness, it's just funny. Wow. All right, well, hey listen, that is our time, so we will see you next time on the Bible, guys,