He Won't Give Up, He Won't Give In: Why God is the Hero of Judges
Hopson Boutot
Judges: Rebellious People, Rescuing God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Lead Vocalist (Joel)
Welcome & Announcements (Hopson)
Good morning family!
Ask guests to fill out connect card
3 announcements:
1) Easter Egg Hunt
March 23.
Announcement details?
2) Good Friday service
March 29 at 6:30 PM
3) Easter Sunday
NO Sunday School!
Breakfast at 9AM
Flyers to invite people to Easter
Now please take a moment of silence to prepare your heart for worship.
Call to Worship (2 Samuel 22:2b-4)
Prayer of Praise (Lynne Jones)
10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)
The Lord is My Salvation
Prayer of Confession (Jacob Worthan), Disobedience
Assurance of Pardon (Romans 6:22-23)
Grace Greater Than Our Sin
Worthy Of Your Name
Scripture Reading (Judges 1:1-2:5)
You can find it on page 236 in the black Bibles
Pastoral Prayer (Hopson)
Prayer for PBC—To suffer well as a church
Prayer for sister church—PCC (Garrett Spitz)
For Garrett and the elders to watch their lives and doctrine closely
For the church’s two-week ministry to Gen-Z. Use them for your glory!
Prayer for US—U.S. Supreme court
Humility to listen well, especially to those viewpoints that may challenge their presuppositions
Courage to make right decisions, regardless of how those decisions are received
Wisdom to make the decisions that would lead to the protection of the unborn, justice for the marginalized, and human flourishing for all
Prayer for the world—Rwanda
Leader—President Paul Kagame --> justice for vulnerable, protection for the unborn, human flourishing for all
Provision for the more than 60% of the population that continues to live on less than $1.25 a day
As Africa’s most densely populated country, we pray for wisdom for political leaders to develop solutions that address the rapid population growth without diminishing the value of human life from the womb to the tomb
Great Joy Bible Church (sponsored by our sister Pillar Network church, NRBC)
Pastor Cardin
Men being trained as elders.
Send laborers into the harvest
Pray for the sermon
SERMON
START TIMER!!!
In 2017, we were arguably at the peak of the superhero craze that took Hollywood by storm. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was well established, and had already earned nearly $13.5 billion worldwide. Fans of DC Comics had already enjoyed the best superhero trilogy of all time, but many were also excited about an up-and-coming DC universe of films which had already made nearly $4 billion worldwide.
While promoting a film in that series, Ben Affleck was asked about the popularity of all these stories about heroes.
He said, “There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world, from natural to man-made disasters, and it’s really scary. Part of the appeal of this genre is wish fulfillment: Wouldn’t it be nice if there was somebody who can save us from all this, save us from ourselves, save us from the consequences of our actions and save us from people who are evil?” [1]
Maybe we were interested in superheroes because we were looking for someone to save us. But something has changed in the past few years.
Industry insiders call it “superhero fatigue.”
Some blame poor storytelling and bland characters, others blame wokeness, some just point the finger at an oversaturated market.
Whatever the reason, the heroes that once captured our imaginations have seemingly fallen down to earth.
They’re just not that super anymore.
The rise and fall of superheroes in Hollywood reminds me a lot of the book of Judges.
This is, after all, a book about heroes.
When we hear the title “Judges,” we might think of educated men in black robes sitting behind a bench. But the heroes in this book weren’t that kind of judge. A better title would be “saviors” or “rescuers.”
And there are some incredible rescuers in this book.
Who could forget Ehud’s knife, Jael’s hammer, Gideon’s trumpet, and Samson’s jawbone?
But as the story progresses, these heroes get less and less super. It’s almost as if the point of this book is to point to another Hero, one who can succeed where all the other heroes failed.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Turn to Judges 1
Like every good hero story, the book of Judges begins by explaining why we need a hero in the first place.
But the book of Judges outdoes them all because it actually has two introductions.
The passage we read this morning is Introduction 1. It tells us the problem from the people’s perspective.
Next week we’ll study Introduction 2, which tells us the problem from God’s perspective.
To understand what’s going on in our text today, I want us to consider four main themes, which make up the outline of today’s sermon:
Command
Courage
Compromise
Consequence
And as we explore these themes, the Big Idea I hope you’ll come away with is that God is the hero of Judges because He won’t give up on His people or give in to His people.
Let’s begin by considering our first theme...
1) COMMAND
1) COMMAND
The book of Judges begins by looking backwards.
Judges 1:1a—After the death of Joshua,...
Moving too quickly past that line is a bit like binge watching an intense TV drama by beginning on the fourth episode. It will be really hard to understand what’s happening if you don’t start at the beginning.
When we look back we’ll see the command God gave to His people.
The book of Exodus tells the story of how God rescued His people from slavery in Egypt.
As they journeyed towards the land God promised them, they sent twelve men to spy out the land.
Ten men gave a bad report. “There’s giants in the land, we can’t beat them!”
Only two men—Joshua and Caleb—trusted God could defeat their enemies and bring them into the Promised Land.
So God disciplined His people.
For forty years they wandered in the wilderness until an entire faithless generation died, including their leader Moses.
After Moses’ death, Joshua led the people.
Under Joshua’s leadership, God’s people were finally beginning to receive the land He had promised.
But fully receiving that promise was going to take time, and a lot of hard work.
And eventually Joshua also died, leaving the twelve tribes of Israel to take the initiative and take the land without a centralized leader.
But HOW were they supposed to do it?
The answer was given to God’s people years before through Moses...
Exodus 23:23–24, 32-33—“When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces.... You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”
Now this command for God’s people to take the land is unsettling to our modern ears.
It’s passages like these that lead some people to suggest the God of the Bible is a moral monster.
Is God calling for genocide? This looks and sounds a lot like the “ethnic cleansings” that were far too common in the 20th century.
This sounds nothing like Ukraine defending its homeland against a Russian invader. If anything it seems more like the Russian army, driving out the Ukrainian forces and confiscating someone else’s homeland!
It also seems to give warrant for a “holy war.”
If the Israelites can claim to be righteous while driving out the Canaanites, why can’t people today claim to act in God’s name as they violently drive the infidels out of their own countries?
How should we respond to questions and concerns like these?
In his commentary on Judges, the late Tim Keller offers Three reasons this war is unlike anything before or since:
1. The war is not carried out on the basis of race.
When people call this an example of xenophobia, genocide, or ethnic cleansing, they’re completely overlooking several important details.
God’s original promise to Abraham was that through his Offspring all the nations of the world would be blessed.
Even in the Old Testament, there are multiple examples of Gentiles receiving salvation and being included in the people of God.
Jethro was a Midianite man who became Moses’ father-in-law, and his descendants are included among the people of God in Judges 1:16.
Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute who was saved in Jericho and welcomed into the people of God.
Ruth was a Moabite woman who, along with Rahab, was included in the genealogy of Jesus!
The point is there were plenty of Israelites who were not ethnically descendants of Abraham.
The problem with the Canaanites is not their ethnicity, but their idolatry. The war in Judges 1 was not about race, but religion.
2. The war is not carried out on the basis of imperialistic expansion.
Most wars in human history are all about power. A strong, aggressive nation attacks a weaker nation so it can grow stronger and bigger.
Think again about the war in Ukraine. Putin wants to restore Russia to the glories of the Russian Empire. It’s a war about imperialistic expansion.
But the war in Judges 1 was not about expansion in the typical sense.
In fact, the Israelites were not allowed to capture slaves or recruit soldiers from the Canaanites. They were to drive them out completely.
And most of the time they weren’t allowed to plunder them either.
Remember what happened to Achan in Joshua 7?
The purpose of this war was not to make Israel more prosperous or powerful, but to punish the idolatry of the Canaanites and to create a nation where Israel could serve God free from temptation.
3. The war is carried out as God’s judgment, and through direct revelation. [2]
The Bible is clear these nations were to be driven out as God’s judgment for their wickedness.
Deuteronomy 9:5—Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
And the only reason why the Israelites knew this was because God told them.
That’s what Keller means by “direct revelation.”
Before we move on from this, let’s consider a few practical considerations.
Not a Christian: don’t be too quick to judge the Bible here.
One commentator writes...
“As appalling as these passages appear, it is truly ironic that modern humans judge such passages as primitive when the twentieth century alone has witnessed more genocide (both in war contexts and otherwise) than any other century in human history.”
—K. Lawson Younger Jr. [3]
Rather than standing over the Bible to judge it, perhaps you should examine the evil and violence of our own culture. Or perhaps you should consider what standard you’re using to judge the Bible in the first place.
Christians: we need to be careful how we think about this war today.
First, we need to recognize that America is not the same thing as ancient Israel.
We may be a special nation in many ways, but we are not a chosen nation. So we have NO right to execute some type of Holy War like what’s given to the Israelites in Judges 1.
Might I suggest that we should be careful even with saying things like “America is a Christian nation.” Saying that implies that God has put His stamp of approval on this nation, which is emphatically not true. Much of what we do as a nation is diabolical in the eyes of God. He has set His stamp of approval, not on America, but on His church!
Second, we need to understand that modern Israel is also not the same thing as ancient Israel.
The command God gave to drive out the Canaanites is not a universal command for all Jewish people in all times. It was a temporary command for a specific group of people during a specific period of time. And, as we’ll soon see, it was a command that Israel disobeyed.
By the way, I’m not saying modern Israel is wrong to drive out Hamas from Gaza. But I am saying it’s wrong to use passages like Judges 1 to support Israel’s current war strategy.
The war in Judges 1 is not recorded so we know how to drive out the enemies in our lives, but so we might see the dangers of disobedience.
But before we examine Israel’s failure, let’s celebrate some of her successes.
So let’s consider our second theme...
2) COURAGE
2) COURAGE
You don’t have to work too hard to find failure and sin in the book of Judges. It is all over this book, and the further we go the darker it gets. So I think it’s appropriate to take a few moments to celebrate the good that we see here, and yes, there is some good.
First, we see courage when remember these events are recorded...
Judges 1:1a—After the death of Joshua,...
Again, it’s easy to glaze past these words but consider what Joshua must have meant to these people.
Joshua had been by Moses’ side since the Exodus. They had seen him since he was a young man and watched him mature into a mighty man of character. They had followed him into battle against impossible odds.
The fact these people did anything after the death of Joshua is courage in and of itself.
Christian, if you live long enough you will watch one of your heroes fall or die.
As Harvey Dent said in the greatest superhero film of all time, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
Praise God reality isn’t quite that bleak, but it is bleak.
All of your heroes will either choke or croak.
It takes incredible courage to keep following Jesus when those who once led you into battle are gone.
Second, we see courage when we remember how the people begin...
Judges 1:1—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?
The people begin by going to God. They do not attempt to figure this out in their own strength. They pray and ask God for wisdom!
God makes no promise to answer us directly like He answered the people in verse 2. Instead, when we need wisdom we are called to carefully examine His Word.
As one of my friends says, “If you want to hear God speak to you, read your Bible. If you want to hear God speak out loud, read your Bible out loud.”
Third, we see courage in a host of successful military victories...
They conquer Bezek, Jerusalem, the Negeb, Hebron, Debir, the city of Palms, Hormah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron, and Bethel.
It’s easy to read these accounts with the same excitement with which you’d read a Hebrew Atlas, but each of these are real military victories that required real sacrifice and real obedience.
These battles may not matter much to us three thousand years later, but they mattered enough to God for Him to include them in His Word.
That should encourage you, Christian. Most of your obedient decisions will be long forgotten in three thousand years. But not by the only One who really matters.
Fourth, we see courage from Caleb.
This is the same Caleb who was one of the spies that gave a good report of the land in Numbers 13.
Judges 1:20—And Hebron was given to Caleb, as Moses had said. And he drove out from it the three sons of Anak.
These three sons of Anak (verse 10 names them Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai) are the same giants that made God’s people too afraid to enter the Promised Land in the first place!
It’s impressive enough that Caleb was willing to do this.
It’s even more impressive when you read Joshua’s account saying Caleb was 85-years-old when this happened.
Older saints—you are not too old to do hard things for God.
Encourage the Gray Matters saints
If you’re not dead, God’s not done!
Fifth, we see courage from Caleb’s daughter.
A few verses before we see Caleb driving out the sons of Anak, we’re introduced to his daughter.
Judges 1:12–15—…Caleb said, “He who attacks Kiriath-sepher and captures it, I will give him Achsah my daughter for a wife.” And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother [the word “brother” there could mean “relative”, so this may not be as bad as it sounds], captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter for a wife. When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she dismounted from her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Give me a blessing. Since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.
Some people get pretty bent out of shape when they see a father offering his daughter’s hand in marriage in exchange for a military victory. But Achsah probably felt honored to be given in marriage to a military hero like Othniel. [4]
Achsah does bring a complaint to her father, but not because of an arranged marriage.
She comes to her father asking for more and better land. And her father honors her request!
Ladies, you probably don’t need to ask your father for a piece of land with springs of water. But you do want to live in a culture where your voice is heard and your requests are honored.
Sadly, that isn’t the way women are treated as the book progresses...
Here Achsah is honored and her request is granted.
In Judges 4, two women are celebrated when the Canaanites are defeated.
But after that there’s a noticeable shift.
In Judges 16, another woman takes initiative before a man. But this time she isn’t requesting something to bless her family. She’s taking something to bless herself.
And in Judges 19, we’ll see another woman on a donkey. But this woman won’t be treated with dignity like Achsah was. She’ll be abused and mistreated in one of the most vile and violent stories in the entire Bible.
One way to trace the decline of a culture is to watch how it treats its women. From celebrated, to objectified, to abused.
The people of God will not get there overnight. There will be much sin along the way.
So let’s consider our third theme...
3) COMPROMISE
3) COMPROMISE
In many ways the entire book of Judges is a book of compromise. Even the heroes get progressively worse. It’s a book that repeatedly shows us how...
Sin takes us further than we want to go, keeps us longer than we want to stay, and costs us more than we want to pay.
And unfortunately, the compromise in Judges begins right at the beginning...
In verse 3, immediately after God promised to give them the land, the people of Judah ask another tribe for help.
Now this might seem like a little thing. Why is it such a big deal that Judah asks Simeon for help?
God had already promised Judah victory, all Judah needed to do was take it.
Maybe Judah was a bit too scared to go it alone. Or maybe they thought it would improve their odds to bring Simeon along. Whatever the reason, they came up with their own plan to take the land.
Christian: how often are you tempted to tweak God’s commands just a little bit?
Just a little sexual sin isn’t a big deal, is it? Everybody else is doing it.
Just a little drunkenness doesn’t matter, does it?
Surely God won’t care if I cheat on my taxes just a little. The government is going to mismanage my money anyways!
Sin is not a pet that you can tame! It’s a roaring lion that will destroy you given the chance!
Second, we see compromise in how they conquer their enemies ...
Judges 1:5–7—They found Adoni-bezek at Bezek and fought against him and defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. Adoni-bezek fled, but they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and his big toes. And Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table. As I have done, so God has repaid me.” …
This crazy little story is a sneak peak of all the craziness that’s in store for us in the book of Judges.
The name Adoni-bezek means “Lord of Bezek.” So this guy is the boss of this town. And the town “Bezek” probably means something like “pebbles.” [5]
So you’ve heard of the Lord of the Rings and the Lord of the Flies. Here we meet the Lord of the Pebbles!
The Lord of the Pebbles is a bad guy. He tortures and maims people just for fun. He’s got a reputation for this!
What he has done to others, is now being done to him!
It’s interesting that many of us have a hard time with the violence and judgment in Judges. This evil king does not. He knows that he’s getting what he deserves.
Galatians 6:7—Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
But there’s something else going on here...
Isn’t it interesting that the people of God are looking to the people of Canaan to learn how to treat their enemies?
God nowhere commands His people to maim or torture their enemies. But that’s what the Lord of the Pebbles did, so that’s what they’re doing to him!
How often do we Christians do the same thing?
The Bible says we are in a spiritual battle.
Ephesians 6:12—For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Yet how often are we tempted to wage heavenly battles using wordly weapons? To act as if the Kingdom of God is advanced through elections? Or debates on social media? Or fundraising campaigns? Or boycotts?
These things aren’t necessarily wrong in and of themselves, but we are fools if we think God needs earthly weapons to advance His kingdom.
At Bezek, God’s people were harsher than they should have been. But there’s another error on the other extreme, which we see in...
A third compromise...
In verses 22-26, the tribes of Joseph make a compromise that’s the oppose of Judah’s error at Bezek.
At Bezek, the Canaanites were sinfully persecuted. At Bethel, the Canaanites were sinfully pardoned.
They let a Canaanite man live who, unlike Rahab, hadn’t trusted the true God. And that man went off and built a Canaanite city!
Instead of showing loyalty to God and His commandment, they show loyalty to an unnamed Canaanite.
This is a reminder that compromise is a danger on both the right and the left.
Think about an issue like the LGBTQ agenda:
On the right, we are tempted to the error of Bezek and be harsh and abusive towards those who disagree with us.
On the left, we’re tempted to the error of Bethel and be soft on sin and fuzzy about the truth.
Finally, we see compromise as God’s people fail to drive out the Canaanites ...
It begins with the tribe of Judah...
Judges 1:19—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.
At face value that sentence doesn’t make sense. God was with Judah, but Judah couldn’t drive out their enemies. Wait, WHAT?!?
Here the narrator is likely telling us what the men of Judah said.
Obviously God was able to drive out these enemies, but the men of Judah didn’t believe they could do it.
Why not?!? Because their enemies had a new technology: iron chariots.
How often do God’s people do the same thing today?
Nobody’s going to get the truth in a world of Tiktok and Twitter, so why even try anymore?
How are we supposed to remain pure in a world of ubiquitous pornography?
How can we draw people to faith in Christ when we’re competing against unlimited entertainment?
Brothers and sisters, we have God on our side! We have everything we need!
When we fail to obey God, our sin never stays with us. It always spreads.
At the end of chapter 1 we see Judah’s sin spreading throughout the twelve tribes...
1:21—…the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites. . .
1:27—Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean…
1:29—...Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites…
1:30—Zebulun did not drive out…
1:31—Asher did not drive out…
1:33—Naphtali did not drive out…
By the time you get to the tribe of Dan in verses 34-36, the failure is complete. There is no statement about driving out their enemies. Instead, the Amorites are oppressing Dan and driving him out of his own land. [6]
There’s a summary statement of all the twelve tribes given in...
1:28—When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely.
Isn’t it interesting how our own feelings of strength often become the thing that leads us into sin?
Years ago I heard John MacArthur say, “You can be too strong for God to use you, but you cannot be too weak for God to use you.”
Christian, your weakness is not a liability. It’s the very thing that qualifies you to be used by God!
How should God respond to all this? How would you respond?
So let’s consider our fourth theme...
4) CONSEQUENCE
4) CONSEQUENCE
Judges 2:1a—Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim....
The word “angel” literally means “messenger.” So don’t think some feathered, winged being here.
Often when the Old Testament refers to THE angel of the Lord, it’s referring to God Himself appearing in human form.
That seems to be what we find here, because when this messenger speaks, He says “I brought you up from Egypt.”
Now it’s significant that God travels from Gilgal to Bochim to meet His people.
If this is God speaking, why does He travel from Gilgal?
Certainly He doesn’t live there?!?
Whatever is happening here, it’s done for a reason.
Tim Keller—"This was the place where God had forgiven their sin, bound them to himself as his people, and entered into relationship with them by grace, motivated only by his own loving kindness. So when the angel comes from Gilgal, it is a reminder to the Israelites that they are saved by GRACE. It is a reminder that, as the angel says in Judges 2:1, the LORD is a rescuing, promise-keeping, faithful God." [7]
What will God say to His people?
Judges 2:1b—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,
God is saying, “I rescued you! I won’t give up on you!!!”
Does that mean that there’s no accountability? Can God’s people do whatever they want without any consequences?
Judges 2:2-3—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.”
Here God says, I’m not giving up ON you, but I’m not giving IN TO you either.
Your sin has consequences. It’s going to hurt.
And the rest of the book of Judges is going to show us the horrible consequences of disobedience.
It’s no wonder our text ends with weeping.
Judges 2:4-5—As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. And they called the name of that place Bochim. And they sacrificed there to the Lord.
The word “Bochim” means weeping.
And after all this, it’s no surprise that God’s people are weeping at the end of the introduction.
As an aside, we need to be careful in how we interpret this weeping. Are the people repentant?
It’s possible to be sad about the consequences of sin, but not sad about the sin itself.
This is what the Bible calls worldly sorrow. It’s the same sorrow Judas had after betraying Jesus.
I think it’s what the people are expressing here. Because when we move on and look at these events from God’s perspective, they’re still worshipping false gods!
Before we’re too quick to judge the people for their worldly sorrow, we need to look in the mirror. How often am I truly sorrowful over my sin? And how often am I only sorry about the consequences of my sin?
If we zoom out to the end of the book of Judges, we’ll find the people are weeping at the end of the book too!
Why? Because all the heroes have failed. None of them were able to ultimately rescue God’s people!
If all the heroes failed, is there coming a day when God will finally give up ON His people? Has He compromised His love and His mercy?
Or has He finally given in TO His people? Has He compromised His justice and His holiness?
The answer is found in the Hero that all the other heroes are pointing to:
Because Jesus lived a life without sin, never compromising on any of God’s righteous commands, God doesn’t have to give UP ON His people.
And because Jesus died in our place and bore the penalty for our sin, God doesn’t have to give IN TO His people. Our sin has been fully and forever paid at the cross!
Ben Affleck asked, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was somebody who can save us from all this, save us from ourselves, save us from the consequences of our actions and save us from people who are evil?”
There IS somebody! His name is Jesus!
Prayer of Thanksgiving
All I Have is Christ
Benediction (2 Peter 3:18)
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.