Hi, and welcome to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.
This is where you can find audio for our current and past sermons.
We hope that you enjoy this week's installment, and be sure to check back next week to hear
the latest message.
Thanks for listening.
Me and Pastor Dave had a good time filming that this week.
Take a couple shots to get that, some really good camera work to slim us down a little bit.
You know, with these videos that we've got coming out, they're going to help us walk through
the book of Judges.
That one was good, but I do want to say this.
We're not going to show our hand too much, but next week, all right, we really upped the
game, all right?
Like, next week is taking these videos to a whole nother level, so make sure that you don't
miss out on that.
Well, in typical bow fashion, as we begin a study in the book of Judges, if you could open
up to Joshua chapter 23, right?
We're going to read one passage here, and then we're going to jump there.
And as you turn to Joshua 23, I want to say something, and Berger, man, I really appreciate
you praying this part in there.
Typically, there's a tendency with us when we read Scripture, in the Old Testament particularly,
okay?
The Old Testament is filled with some really neat stories, stories that oftentimes they
take us back to our childhood, right?
And we go back to the old school flannel board and sock puppet narratives of learning these
stories.
And if we're not careful, even as adults, what we do is when we read through the Old Testament,
we begin to view them like stories, okay?
And they're stories with moral and ethical teachings.
But what I want us to see, and this is what we're really going to look at this week, is the
gospel that is told through the Old Testament.
It's the same gospel told through the New Testament.
And that we see this redemptive spirit and nature of God and what God's doing as He saves
the people for Himself, and it continues to move forward in the redemptive work that He
has that plays out through creation.
So as we're reading through Judges, please make sure that we're reading the stories, we're
grasping the stories, but that we're paying attention to the gospel narrative that's there.
Also, and you'll see this today, we're not going to be able to hit every word and every
verse in Judges as we go through the book, okay?
And so we're going to take sections, we're going to take chunks as we go through, which
is why it's so important for you.
If you haven't yet, get your Right Now Media account, we would love for you to walk through
Judges with us.
There's the study by J.D.
Greer that's on there that allows you to do just that.
So like, for example, today we're covering Judges 1-1 through Judges 3-6.
Now we're not reading all that, but I want you to take the time to go through and read
and be on that journey with us and see what God teaches you as we go through the book of
Judges together, all right?
So in Judges, what we're going to find are God's people are in a very important transition
in their life.
Historically speaking even, you find Israel has making it to another transition in their
life, in the kingdom of God, of what God is doing with them.
Now for Israel, they should be used to transitions, okay?
You can go back and you can look through Exodus and you can see as Moses is called their leader
who leads them in the transition out of slavery, leads them into the wilderness and all the
things that happen and take place there.
And then Israel hits another very important transition and it's the transition from Moses
to Joshua.
Moses, the fearless leader who led them greatly to the promised land but wasn't going to lead
them into the promised land.
And so as Moses died, Joshua becomes the leader and we see this transition that happens and
takes place and that's what the book of Joshua is about.
And what you read, if you were to take the time and read through Joshua, you will find that
God fulfills the covenant of bringing the people to the promised land but it's not empty space.
There's people in there.
There's other nations.
There's other people who were there.
So in Joshua, you see God doing a miraculous work time and time again as this group of Israelites
who aren't the fierce army that others were, go to battle and they win.
And what you find is what the theme through Joshua that you see is God's faithfulness, right?
The deck is stacked against them but God is faithful and it's the call that as we see God be faithful
that God's people are called to be faithful.
And I want to read verses, in chapter 23, verses 5 through 8 and Joshua gives this charge to
Israel's leaders and you see this word's different places in Joshua but we want to read this one.
Starting in verse 5 of chapter 3, Joshua says,
The Lord your God will push them back before you and drive them out of your sight and you
shall possess their land just as the Lord your God promised you.
Therefore, be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of
Moses, turning aside from neither to the right hand nor the left that you may not mix with
these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them
or serve them or bow down to them.
But you shall cling to the Lord your God just as you have done to this day.
So what we see in Joshua, which will continue on into the very beginning of Judges, is this is what
God's going to do.
This is what God has done.
This is what God is doing.
And so we respond to that, right?
And this is why we're gathering for worship today, right?
Like this is the purpose of the gathering of believers, that God has graciously done this
for us, given us salvation, given us hope, given us life.
And so you and I, we don't just look at that and say, well, we really appreciate that and
we continue on with our day-to-day life, but we respond.
And so because God is faithful, right, we respond in faith.
And so Joshua kind of gives this understanding of this is what this looks like to respond
this way.
He says you've got to obey the law, right?
Obey God.
He says you've got to make sure that there's not this intermingling or mixing of people when
we go in to conquer them, all right?
And this isn't for a nationalistic purpose, right?
This isn't for a racial purpose, right?
This is all for a spiritual purpose, right?
Because he says, look, if we begin to mix with these other people who are not part of God's
people and they do not know God, we will take on their own gods and we will bow down before
and we will serve their gods and we need to keep that separated.
But then he also says very specifically, we need to cling to God.
And I love that word, cling to God.
And what it's walking through and what Joshua is reminding them is that there's going to
become points in times where you look around and things begin to seem hopeless or the exact
opposite of that.
You begin to look around and you begin to think, now we're pretty good, right?
On either extreme, your tendency will become in your success or in your desperation, oftentimes
to let go of God and to not trust him.
And so Joshua says, no, no, no, we got to cling.
We got to cling to him.
And so the reminder of this great leader as the end of the book of his life is recorded,
he says, look, obey God.
Worship him only and trust him in all circumstances.
What faithful life begins to look like.
So now we go to another transition and go ahead and flip over to Judges 1.
And this is the transition from Joshua as he passes to another group of leaders that God
is going to send, that God is going to anoint the judges.
And so this is what the book will be about that we saw in that song of there's going to
be a transition now.
And so God is going to appoint judges to lead his people.
And what we're going to do today and looking at the first two and a half chapters of Judges
is we're going to see some themes that the writer's going to put in there that are going to come
out week and week again as we study all the way through.
We're going to see that there are going to be battles with sin.
We're going to see that there's battles of obedience, that there's battles of faith,
but that through it all, right, what we're going to find within God's people, right,
in spite of them not being faithful, in spite of them being faithful,
God will always continue to be faithful.
And so a theme of God's people that we want to see and kind of go ahead and establish is
this concept of half-hearted faith.
That within God's people, there's this sense of half-hearted faith.
And here's what I mean.
God's people are going to go through a time in Judges where in spite of all that God has done,
in spite of the depth of God's faithfulness, in spite of what he has shown them that he is,
that they are going to live in a type of faith that says, well, what have you done for me lately?
Right?
Like, I know that's what you did.
I know that may be what you're doing.
But in a very selfish of what are you doing for me now?
So in the book of Judges, when we open up, God's people are in the promised land,
and you see through in Joshua victory after victory.
You see conquering after conquering.
But what you also find is that even though they have inherited,
even though they are in the promised land,
there are still people in the promised land that they need to press out.
There's still battles to be fought.
There's still wars to be won.
And that it is a continuation of what is happening and what is taking place.
But that a lot of the same thing of what God has called them to is still there.
So let's look at Judges 1, starting in verse 1.
After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord,
who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them?
So we see this depth of obedience of understanding, Lord, we've got to fight the Canaanites.
And so if we're going to do that, who are you going to send, right?
Who is going to be not only our Moses, who's going to be not only our Joshua, but who do we have now for this?
And so it says the Lord said in verse 2,
Judah shall go up.
Behold, I have given the land into his hand.
And Judah said to Simeon, his brother,
come up with me into the territory allotted to me that we may fight against the Canaanites.
And likewise, we'll go with you into the territory allotted to you.
So Simeon went with him.
Then Judah went up, and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand.
And they defeated 10,000 of them at Bezek.
And so we see this is what happens.
God says, hey, here's what you need to do.
Judah, go.
Judah, go and lead the charge.
And in verse 2, I love these words.
God says, man, I've already given it to you.
It's already in your hand.
You just have to go.
And so they go and they fight.
And if you read through, continuing on,
in chapter 1, you'll see the battles that they face.
You'll see that in many of them, they're outnumbered,
that there's a different strategy that's there that should win.
But God's people fight.
God leads through them.
And victory is there.
And God blesses them.
But jump down to verse 19.
We're going to see that there begins to be a break in the pattern.
Of what we find beginning there.
And it said in verse 19 of chapter 1,
And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country,
but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain,
because they had chariots of iron.
Starting in verse 19, what we'll begin to see is God's people begin to fail.
We begin to see what should be battles that come to victory,
or battles that come to partial victory.
We see battles where they're able to accomplish things,
or we see flat-out failings.
And these aren't failings by God.
They're failings by his people.
And what we'll find as we read through,
because this section kind of gives us a brief overview of what the whole book will be about,
we will find it's because of their half-hearted faith.
Because of their half-hearted obedience.
Because in them, they do not do what God has called them to do.
Look down at verse 28.
It says,
When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites into forced labor,
but did not drive them completely out.
Partial obedience to what God has called them to do.
Did God say, take them into captivity?
Did God say, take them into forced labor?
No.
God said, drive them out.
But the logic of the man began to overrule the wisdom and sovereignty of God
in the mind of the Israelites.
And so they say, but if we're going to be the people that do this,
this is what we need to do.
Well, other nations are doing this,
so this must be what the plan is for us as well.
So God, we know that you told us to go here and to do this,
but our strategy, our logic,
says that I'm going to begin to do things my way.
And what we find is that half-hearted faith becomes partial faith,
which really just manifests itself into disobedience.
That we're given glimpses of,
well, these are the things that I do for you,
that you've called me to do,
but in the fulfillment of it all,
that we're going to see that they fall far away.
Look at Judges 2, starting in verse 1.
See the heart of God in this.
Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bosham,
and he said,
I brought you up from Egypt
and brought you into the land
that I swore to give to your fathers.
I said, I will never break my covenant with you,
and you shall make no covenant
with the inhabitants of this land.
You shall break down their altars,
but you have not obeyed my voice.
What is this you have done?
So now I say,
I will not drive them out before you,
but they shall become thorns in your sides,
and their gods shall be a snare to you.
God comes to him and says,
I get in your strategy.
I get in all the things that you've done,
but here's what I need to communicate to you.
Because of your disobedience,
sin is going to begin to well up
and create in your life.
That it's going to hinder,
it's going to entrap you,
and it is going to kill you
because you did not listen to me.
I love the words that God uses
to describe this in Judges 2.
He says, when you allow this sin,
when you allow this disobedience
to come into your life,
there's two things that you're going to have to battle.
You're going to have to battle thorns and snares.
So I want to talk about what a thorn is
and what a snare is
and tie that into how we can view sin through a thorn
and how we can view sin through a snare.
So a thorn, we all know what a thorn is, right?
You see a thorn on a rose or on a vine.
And when you look at a thorn,
you see the first thing you notice
is how small it is,
but how sharp it is.
And a thorn,
you know when you grab it,
it hurts, right?
But sometimes we grab and we let go
and so the thorn is no longer there.
But God says that these thorns though
are going to be like a thorn in your side.
Not a thorn that pricks the side,
but a thorn that's in the side.
And so if you really want to talk about thorns in the south,
stop thinking about a rose bush
and start thinking about sand spurs, right?
We've all been there before.
We were little kids.
We see our kids now
and they got their shoes off
and they're running through the field
and all of a sudden,
oh, you know exactly what happened in that moment.
That something's so small,
but once it gets embedded,
it completely immobilizes you.
And for sin,
there's thorns that we face.
They look small.
They seem insignificant.
But when a thorn gets in you,
it makes the strongest of an individual weak.
He can't do anything that is affected with that
because of what is there
until the thorn itself is removed.
And so what we're going to see in Israel,
what I hope we notice within ourselves
as we go through this
is there's so many times
we compromise obedience to God,
not in the big stuff,
but in the thorns.
Not in the things that are obvious,
but in the thorns that we think,
oh, I'm tough enough for that.
I can battle through.
But God says the thorns
are what's going to hold you back
and I'm going to let you go through and suffer.
But then also there's the snares.
There's the snares.
I don't know if you've ever used a trap
or tried to trap anything,
but here's what a snare is effective
when the snare blends into its surrounding.
A snare isn't effective.
If I set a snare right up here on the ground
right here in front of me
and put big flashing lights
and painted it bright neon green
and said to everyone in the room,
hey, be careful,
there's a snare right here.
Well, at that point,
if it gets you, man,
that's just on you, right?
But imagine if the snare,
we didn't tell you about it.
Imagine if the snare was blended in
to the fabric of the seat
and that that seat looked just like
every other seat in the auditorium.
And then all of a sudden,
it is in your surrounding.
You're unaware of it
and it comes up and it traps you.
And in your mind,
you never saw it coming.
Well, for our snares of sin,
they're simply the sins
that we've become blind to.
That over time,
that the thorns of sin
begin to infiltrate our heart
and our lives,
that we become numb to them
and the consequences of them, though,
become deadly.
And these are the things
we're going to see with Israel,
the thorns and the snares
that they battle through.
And when we see these
in their life,
they're going to have to make a decision.
And it's going to be the decision
that you and I make
when we see these thorns
and these snares as well.
I was reading a pastor
who was talking about
this passage of Scripture specifically.
And he said,
when it comes to sin,
that you and I,
we're going to give two reasons.
When it comes to battling a sin
in our life,
we're going to make one of two choices,
more than likely,
when they begin to creep
more and more into our life.
It's either the choice of,
I can't,
or the choice of,
I won't.
When sin is pointed out to us,
when disobedience begins
to ring true in our life,
just like it is for Israel,
you and I,
we're going to probably say,
well, God, right now,
I can't.
God, right now,
I know this is here,
but I just can't address it.
I can't deal with it.
I can't work through this.
I've got so many other things
that are going on.
I've got so much pressure
of what's there.
It's the culture
and it's the positioning of life.
God, I can't deal
with this right now
when the truth is,
it's not that I can't.
It's that I won't.
I won't deal with it.
And it is mind-blowing
to me
when I think about
how you and I,
how we respond to sin.
It's not that I can't
pull the sand spur
out of my foot
so that I can continue
to walk.
It's that I won't.
It's not that I can't
avoid the snare
that is there.
It's that I won't.
And we're going to see this
within Israel.
And here's the culture
that it begins to create.
Look down at verse 10.
All that generation also
were gathered
to their fathers
and there arose
another generation
after them
who did not know
the Lord
nor yet the work
which he had done
for Israel.
This verse in Judges 10
is a warning of culture.
When we embrace
the thorns
and the snares,
when we say,
no, I can't,
when we embrace
the I won't
within there,
what we find
and what we see
is that one generation
removed,
at the most two
from the enslavement
in Egypt
to the crossing
of the Red Sea
to the fall
of Jericho,
what we find
in here,
it says,
and another generation
after them
who did not know
the Lord.
They didn't know him.
Just imagine.
The water piled up
into walls
and the ground
became dry
and they walked across
with their wagons included
and when the Egyptians
came after them,
it enclosed on them.
But they didn't know
to the Lord.
That they marched
around a city
and as they began
to declare
what God called them
to,
the walls came down
but they didn't know.
So did they forget?
No, they didn't forget.
They didn't forget
the Red Sea,
they didn't forget
Jericho,
they didn't forget
all of the faithfulness
of God.
It says that they
didn't know God.
When you look at this word
know and understand
what it means,
it means to know
at a depth
that you're moved
by something.
To know something
so intimately
that you're moved
by it.
When I was
much, much younger,
I don't remember
exactly what year it was
but the movie
Saving Private Ryan
came out.
I've shared this story
before so forgive me
if you've heard it
multiple times
but it's the closest thing
I can get to understanding
this in my own mind
of what it means
to know something.
My grandfather
who passed away
several years later
was one of my best friends
and one of the most
godly influences
in my life.
Had served
during World War II
was a part
of the D-Day invasion.
He was part
of the bridge
at Remagen
in the Battle of the Bulge.
I got to write
my senior paper
at USC Aiken
about his journey
that he took.
And my grandfather,
we liked to talk.
We did two things together.
We watched NASCAR together
and we talked war together.
That's what we did.
And he would tell me
about all of his experiences.
He would tell me
about the different things
that he had gone through
and the battles
that he would face
and I would sit there
as a kid
and just take in
the stories
that he would tell me.
And I'd hear the passion
within his voice.
And so he called me
one day
and he said,
hey,
can you and I
go see a movie together?
Now,
my mind was blown
because I'd never known
my grandfather
to ever see a movie
in his entire life,
right?
Like literally,
he watched C-SPAN
and NASCAR.
That was it,
right?
Yeah,
you want to go see a movie?
Absolutely.
What movie do you want to go see?
And he said,
I heard there's a movie
about World War II
called Saving Private Ryan.
Could you go watch it with me?
I said,
absolutely.
I'd heard about it.
I'd heard how realistic it was.
I'd heard about
how powerful the story was.
And it was a movie
that I look forward
to seeing regardless,
but now my granddad
wants to go do that with me,
so that means I get
into the movie free,
right?
Absolutely.
And so we went over
to Evans, Georgia
to the big movie theater
that was there.
We got in our seats
and we had our popcorn
and we began
to watch the movie.
And you know
how the movie opens?
It opens on that
D-Day invasion.
And Ron Howard
and what they were able
to do with that movie
with the bullets
that were coming through,
right?
I remember being
in the movie theater
and hearing the
pew, pew, pew
speakers around me.
I remember seeing
and hearing
the sounds of the waves
crashing against the shore
and the tides
pushing on the boats.
I remember hearing
the desperation
of the soldiers
as they made their way,
right?
You know the story,
the water's too deep
but they're making
their way onto the beach,
most of whom
didn't make it.
I remember what
the water looked like.
We were stained red
because of the soldiers
who had fallen
and who had passed.
And I'm sitting there
and I'm watching
a story unfold
and I look over
beside me
and there's my grandfather
and his face
is covered with tears
because when he heard
the bullets in the movie,
he went back to when
he had heard them
in real life.
When he saw
the salt water
hit the soldiers
and burn their eyes
and fill their mouths,
he could feel the burning
in his eyes
and he could taste
the salt of the water then.
When he saw soldiers
dragging other soldiers,
he knew of that weight
that was there
and he began to know
what that felt like.
That he began through
in his journey
as he watched that movie,
there was a depth
of intimacy
of what had happened
and what had taken place
that years upon years later
as he was then
an old man
but he knew
what had happened
there.
You see,
in God's people's
faithfulness to him,
they had missed
the depth
of the intimacy
of what's there.
It had become stories
instead of the power
changing work
of God
in his faithfulness.
It's in verse 11,
as they had forgotten.
It says,
and the people
of Israel
did what was evil
in the sight
of the Lord
and served the Baals.
And they abandoned
the Lord,
the God of their fathers
who had brought them
out of the land
of Egypt.
They went after
other gods
from among
the gods
of the peoples
who were around them
and bowed down
to them
and they provoked
the Lord to anger.
They abandoned
the Lord
and served
the Baals
and the Ashtrofs.
And so the anger
of the Lord
was kindled
against Israel
and he gave them
over to plunderers
who plundered them
and he sold them
into the hand
of their surrounding
enemies
so that they could
no longer
withstand
their enemies.
And what we see here
is the warning
from the command
of what Joshua
had told them
in Joshua 23
is that this is
where we find
God's people
when they began
to walk
in half-hearted
faith
when they begin
to walk
in partial obedience
that becomes
downright disobedience
to him
and what happens
they move
from being
the conquerors
and now
they are the conquered.
Now they're
no longer
the one
in the victory
and whose fault
is it?
It's theirs.
They abandoned
the Lord
but God
had never
broken
his covenant
and this is
what we're going
to see
and this is
the hope
that we have
that you
and I
have so often
not conquered
what was there
but settled
that you
and I
find ourselves
in these
same patterns
in disobedience
and if we
aren't careful
we look at
the end
verse 14
and we walk
away
and say
this is what
judges
is going
to be about
the failings
of God's
people
but then
we miss it
so look down
at verse 16
it says
then the Lord
raised up
judges
who delivered
them
from the hands
of those
who plundered
them
yet they did
not listen
to their judges
for they
played the harlot
after other gods
and bowed
themselves
down to them
they turned
aside quickly
from the way
in which
their fathers
had walked
in obeying
the commandments
of their Lord
they did not
do as their
fathers
when the Lord
raised up judges
for them
the Lord
was with
the judge
and delivered
them from
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
and who
afflicted
them
you see
the heart
the reason
why we can't
just lock
in on the
story
is because
we miss
the work
of what
God is
doing
and what
we see
is this
that you
and I
we're a lot
like Israel
you and I
live in a
world that
is a lot
like in the
world of
the promised
land
where we
compromise
we give
in to the
thorns
we're caught
by the snares
that there's
the battles
that's still
there
and that
begin to
rage
and you
and I
in our
half-hearted
obedience
we take
on the
wandering
heart
but what
we find
in that
is where
we see
the God
who saves
we see
the God
who saves
time and
time again
we see
the God
who says
I'm gonna
send
and I'm
gonna send
and I'm
gonna send
and in
sending
I'm gonna
redeem
people
and when
you continue
on
and you
read through
the Old
Testament
you see
the story
of God
who says
no no
you're
enslaved
and I'm
gonna send
Moses
and then
you get
to the
promised land
but you
can't get
there
so I'm
gonna send
Joshua
and then
Joshua
is gonna
die
so what
you're
gonna need
is you're
gonna need
judges
and then
God's
gonna send
the kings
and then
God's
gonna send
the prophets
and then
all the way
into the
New Testament
where God
sends
John the
Baptist
proclaim
something
very important
a peace
that God's
people have
been waiting
for
and a peace
that we
cling to
today
God says
no
I'm gonna
send one
more
one more
and this
is it
because
he
is going
to fully
deliver
his people
and so
he sends
Jesus
the story
of the hope
of the gospel
you see
God's people
and judges
deserved
to be
where they
were
and so
he sent
him
a judge
and another
judge
and another
judge
to deliver
him
and to
point
them to
the perfect
judge
the Messiah
who would
come to
save
all of
creation
would you
pray with
me
Lord I
thank you
for this
book
Lord I
thank you
that in
Israel
what we
find is
the heart
that wants
to wander
the heart
that wants
to rebel
the heart
that wants
to pretty
up some
things
but continue
to give
in to the
thorns
and snares
that are
there
Lord I
thank you
that in
that
Lord your
word is
very clear
Lord they
went through
difficulties
they faced
punishments
they had all
of these
things that
happened
to them
but Lord
what you
did
in your
kindness
and in
your
compassion
is you
delivered
them
Lord as
we're gathered
in here
in this
place this
morning
or we're
sitting
at our
homes
watching
online
Lord we're
either hearts
that are
enslaved
and need
to be
set free
or for
so many
of us
right now
we're just
in a
heart
that has
wandered
Lord and I
pray that as
we go
through this
that Lord
right now
that you
remind us
that you
are a
God
you are
the God
who saves
and it is
found in
you
and in
you alone
and that
our
salvation
that our
redemption
doesn't
just come
from our
earthly
circumstances
but it
comes
for our
eternity
Lord
Israel
deserved
to face
the wrath
that
Sodom
faced
they
deserve
the
discipline
that
Gomorrah
faced
Lord
and so