The Book of Judges: Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay
Breaking the Cycle of Partial Obedience
SPEAKER: Paul T. Stolwyk
Introduction: John is a homeless man. An unfortunate set of circumstances converged to take this once middle-class man to the streets. By night, he sleeps in several places. By day, he forages for food in the dumpsters behind local eateries. A street tip tells him of a dumpster behind a restaurant where the pickings are not only plentiful, but they beat the typical Burger King fare.
The first day he climbs into the dumpster he can hardly believe his eyes. He marvels at the leftovers, and with freedom he gorges himself on the best meal he can remember. He enjoys drinking the leftovers from a near empty bottle of Chardonnay, eating the last bit of meat off a bone, excited about the sour cream on some discarded potatoes. From now on, John makes this dumpster his eating place of choice.
Months go by. One day, a man named Tony sees John in the dumpster. He looks inside, has compassion on him, and offers to buy him lunch. Tony tells him that he knows a great restaurant in the area. He says to John, “they have an incredible banquet. You will be free to enjoy the feast. You will have to wear a clean shirt, but I will provide that for you.” What an opportunity! Prime rib cut hot off the beast instead of the leftovers on the bone.
John knows that he has seen Tony before, but he can’t place the face. Having been mugged a few times on the street, John has become cautious of trusting people he doesn’t know. Out of self-protection, he declines the invitation and decides to be satisfied with the leftovers in the dumpster. Tony pleads with him, but John refuses to climb out.
Frustrated, Tony turns away after watching John dive for more food. He walks around the corner of the building. He takes out his keys and opens the door to the five-star restaurant he owns, the same restaurant where John is feeding in the dumpster out back. John does not experience all the blessings that are available to him. Instead of a banquet, he settles for table scraps.
I share this imaginary story not to make fun of people on the street. My purpose is to give you an image of what sin is like. Instead of obedience to the Lord, which leads to joy and freedom and peace, we often live lives of partial obedience and settle for the leftovers of God’s blessings, the table scraps instead of the full banquet. We miss out on the freedom to be all God has in mind for us in Christ. We miss out on lasting joy and settle for a little bit of happiness.
In the book of Judges, the people of God did not experience all the blessings that were available to them. Instead of obediently driving out the enemy, they settled for something close, but it was not full obedience. Partial obedience makes them feel good temporarily but ultimately leads them to slavery and suffering instead of freedom and joy.
God’s message for us today from chapters 2 and 3 is to root out partial obedience in our lives so that we can experience the full blessings that God has for us. God wants us to see the example of His people and learn from them to avoid partial obedience in the first place. He wants us to follow the example of His judges, so as to overcome the partial obedience that affects our lives today.
Avoiding partial obedience: Learning from the example of the people.
After entering the promised land, the people of God fall into a tragic cycle of living that robs their freedom and steals their joy. As I begin reading in Chapter 3, verse 1, see if you can pick up on the cycle.
“These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience): the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath. They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses.
The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs. The anger of the LORD burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years. But when they cried out to the LORD, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, who saved them. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, so that he became Israel’s judge and went to war. The LORD gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him. So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died.
Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and because they did this evil the LORD gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel. Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms. The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years.
Again the Israelites cried out to the LORD, and he gave them a deliverer—Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man. After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it. At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.” The king said, “Quiet!” And all his attendants left him.
Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, “I have a message from God for you.” As the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.
After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, ‘He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the house.’ They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead.
While they waited, Ehud got away. He passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah. When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them.
‘Follow me,’ he ordered, ‘for the LORD has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands.’ So they followed him down and, taking possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab, they allowed no one to cross over. At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not a man escaped. That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.
“After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.” (Judges 3:1-31)
Did you see the cycle? There are five steps: Sin leads to Slavery, which leads to Supplication, which leads to Salvation, which leads to Spiraling sin. Let’s look at each step of the cycle.
Sin
The first step is sin. Look again at verses 6 and 7: “They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods. The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.” The same step is repeated in verse 13.
Baal and Asherah were Canaanite gods. Idol worship was motivated by fear and insecurity that a real or perceived need might go unmet. Baal was the Canaanite god of storm and rain. It was believed that good crops and large flocks depended directly on pleasing this god. God’s people were making sacrifices to Baal because of economic insecurity. Asherah was the Canaanite goddess of fertility, love and war. Singleness, childlessness or unhappy relationships were a sign in the Canaanite culture that Asherah was not pleased with you. God’s people were making sacrifices to Asherah because of insecurities about their relationships.[i] Instead of trusting God, God’s people were sacrificing items of value to please gods that were only false gods.
They didn’t just chuck the living God for an idol overnight. It started slowly. Since they didn’t drive out the enemy, over time they wed themselves to the values of the surrounding culture. The ultimate expression is picked up in verse 6. They allowed their sons and daughters to be married to Canaanite women and men. Then it wasn’t too long before they were sacrificing to appease the gods of the surrounding culture.
Presently, close to 48% of American adults are unmarried. One of the great blessings of working with single men and women in my ministry has been the example of faith and obedience that they have been to me. When you become a Christian, the field of potential partners lessens considerably. Then, if the unmarried person wants to do more than, as Bill Hybels would say, “wear the lapel pin and mimic the jargon” and really walk with God, their field of potential partners is limited even more dramatically.
Year after year, I watch them saying “no” to marriage to just any person, saying “yes” to marrying only another believer and even saying “yes” to marrying only a believer who is serious about their faith. Therefore, they are saying “yes” to celibacy until that day and saying “yes” to God that they will trust Him with their desires and longings. And they are saying “yes” to all these things while living in a sexualized culture, where living together and sexual intercourse before marriage is so common.
This is overwhelming evidence to me that the Spirit of God is quite alive in the lives of my friends. To ask them, “Why aren’t you married yet?” is an insult and misses the work of God in our midst. How different God’s people are in the days of the Judges.
When His people forget him, forsake Him, intermarry and then bow down to the gods of the surrounding culture, God becomes angry. Verse 8 says, “the anger of the Lord burned against Israel.” The Lord gets hot when the people forget His faithfulness. The people’s failure to drive out the enemy as the Lord commanded leads them to the next step in the cycle, slavery.
Slavery
After the people sin, God gives them over to their choices. Instead of the blessing of obedience, God’s people experience the bitterness of disobedience. God gives them over as slaves to the people with whom they have chosen to intermingle. In the parenting realm, one author calls this “reality discipline.”
People investigating Christianity are sometimes confused about God’s forgiveness of sin. They see it as a license for living contrary to what they believe. They have this notion because they see professing Christians, or at least immature Christians, talk and live this way. In my discussions with them, I struggle to help them understand God a little better.
Though God does continually extend grace to His people, He also still deals with us under the principle of reality discipline. In Galatians 6:7-8, the apostle Paul writes, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
The consequences and discipline that come with our sin are a sign of God’s love for us. He doesn’t remove the consequences. The pregnant single woman may repent but she must still bear the child. The adulterer may repent but he must still deal with the damage to his marriage. The workaholic may change his ways, but he must still deal with the resentment of his children for years to come.
Their partial obedience made the Israelites slaves to the Canaanites for 8 years and to the Moabites for 18 years. Sin is a harsh teacher. The people experience the bitter harvest of their choices. The slavery resulting from partial obedience wears on God’s people. Their slavery leads to the next step in the cycle:
Supplication
We see this in verse 9 and again in verse 15. Baal and Asherah can’t do anything. Since they are not really gods, they have no power. So, in their distress, the people appeal to the living God, the God they had forgotten and had forsaken. Their cry brings about the fourth step in the cycle:
Salvation
God raises up judges to save them. This is not salvation in the eternal sense but rather deliverance from their enemies. As we learned last week, the title “judge” does not carry the connotation of a modern courtroom with lawyers and gavels. Instead, they are “discerners.” They discern what is right and become guerrilla fighters to see God’s plan carried out. Othniel, Ehud and Shamgar are the first three judges God raises up for Israel.
A number of characteristics distinguish the judges during these 350 years. Each man or woman is raised up by the Lord (2:16), and the Spirit of the Lord comes upon them (3:10). So, the judges represent the presence of God among the people. They lead the way to obedience. They lead the way to deliverance from the enemy (3:10). Their ministry brings rest and peace to the land (3:11, 30; 5:31; 8:28-32; 12:7; 15:20; 16:31).
Why does God do this after the people have forsaken Him? Look back at chapter 2, verse 16-19:
“Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the Lord’s commands. 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 and afflicted 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.”
When God’s people cry out to God, no matter where they have been, no matter where they have worshiped, God hears them and He cares. He had made a covenant with the people of Israel. We can liken that to a marriage vow. Though the people are unfaithful, the Lord remains faithful to His vows. Though He could legitimately divorce them, He refuses to do so.
Unfortunately, the judges’ effect is temporary. They are like a levee. For a while it can contain the flood, but as soon as a breech occurs, the land has a mess on its hands. When the judge dies, the people of God who have moved from sin to slavery to supplication and then experienced deliverance, now return to spiraling sin.
Spiraling sin
When the people cried out to the Lord, they cried out in desperation but not in repentance. Did you catch verses 17 and 19? “Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them.” The New American Standard says that they played the harlot. Think for a minute of the street word for a prostitute. What comes to your mind? Instead of giving themselves to the God who loves them, has made a covenant to be with them and has sent them a deliverer, they say “no” to this love and they walk the streets turning tricks. They are trying to still gain the affection of gods who always leave them wanting, idols who take from them but never give back.
That was how they acted while the judge was with them, but in verse 19 we read that things got even worse when he passed off the scene. “But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers….” Each succeeding generation became worse than the next. They liked the safety of God’s love, but they did not like it enough to give up calling the shots themselves. For those of you with a programming background, what does this look like? An endless loop, doesn’t it?
Now let’s be honest. We are familiar with this cycle, aren’t we? By the end of the book of Joshua we will have seen this cycle so much that we will be sick of it. This is one of the big ideas of the book of Judges in my opinion—to show us again and again the cycle so that we will hopefully want to avoid it.
What are the values in our culture that you would willingly sacrifice valuables for? What god will you sacrifice your virginity for? What god will you sacrifice your time for? What god will you sacrifice the salvation of other people for? What god will you sacrifice your family for? What god will you sacrifice your freedom and joy for?
When you place your faith in Christ, there are still a lot of enemies left over in your life from the time before Christ entered. Our calling is to drive the enemy from our hearts. The enemy is our sin. Have you settled for half-hearted, partial obedience? Are you taking short-cuts morally, financially, or in matters of the heart? Is hatred and jealousy so common in your spirit that you think it is normal? Are you sacrificing valuable things, like faith, health, family, and community for the values of the surrounding culture, like success, affluence, power, and sex?
At the end of the service this morning, our family prayer time is going to be focused on seeking God’s help in driving out the enemies of our heart. Over the next 10 weeks, I want us to collectively seek God’s help in turning partial obedience in just one area of our life into full obedience.
The sorry picture of God’s people is contrasted with the exemplary picture of God’s judges, Othniel and Ehud. They offer us an example of not just avoiding partial obedience but overcoming it as well.
Overcoming partial obedience: following the example of the judges.
First, the judges collectively show us that overcoming partial obedience involves living by faith.
Living by faith. In the New Testament book of Hebrews, the writer recounts the men and women of Israel’s history who lived by faith. The recounting includes Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Rahab.
“And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions…. quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.” (Hebrews 11:32-34)
People often talk about faith as if it some ethereal stuff that some people have and others do not, or they speak of it in terms of feelings. The example of the judges is not that they had some magical stuff, or they felt led to do something, but that they made crucial choices. Faith is not a feeling. It is not some “stuff.” Faith is a choice to trust God and His Word and demonstrate it through our actions. These choices are often made in situations where our feelings tell us to do the exact opposite.
God’s people looked at the enemies in the land and saw big armies and felt like maybe they couldn’t overcome them. They chose not to believe God’s Word that He would hand their enemies over to them. Othniel and Ehud possibly had the same feelings, but they instead chose to believe God’s Word and demonstrated it by their actions.
Othniel’s and Ehud’s faith was expressed in another way. While God’s people had wed themselves to the values of the surrounding culture, these men had a mindset different from your average Israelite. In the same chapter of Hebrews, we read,
“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country–a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” (Hebrews 11:13-16)
The judges saw themselves not simply as aliens to the culture but aliens on earth itself. Dan Allender has said, “For the person who has not placed their faith in Jesus Christ, earth is the closest thing to heaven that they will experience. But for the believer it is the closest thing to hell that we will experience.”[ii] Some of us are living lives of partial obedience because our hearts are on earth rather than heaven.
You’re offered a significant promotion. The kick in salary will ease your worries about being able to send your 14-year-old to college in a few years. But you say “no” because the timing isn’t right for your family, and it would take you out of a fruitful ministry. You’re not willing to sacrifice the kids during their adolescent years. People at the office will look at you and wonder “what an idiot!” God looks at you and the text says He is not ashamed. If He is not ashamed, could that not also mean that the living God is proud?
The judges also show us that to overcome partial obedience means …
Walking in the power of God’s Spirit. The first thing we are told about Othniel is that the Spirit of God came upon him. It is the presence of God’s Spirit in his life that gave him the power to live by faith and walk in obedience to God.
Before and during the days of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, would come only upon selected individuals. But since Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in the life of every person who through faith believes that Jesus’ death was for them. Like Othniel, it is through the Holy Spirit’s power that believers can walk in faith and obedience to God’s commands.
When we come to the point of personal faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit is given to us to set us free from the bondage of sin in our hearts, minds, and lives. Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
If you are in Christ, the power to overcome partial obedience is available to you. Not only that, but the Spirit is at work, wanting you to be renewed so that your values, responses, and actions look more and more like Jesus.
Since the Spirit is working in our lives, we now are to cooperate with the work of the Spirit. Paul wrote in Galatians,
“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. . . Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:16-17, 25)
Our job is to get in line and work with the Spirit in holiness, yielding our will to the will of God, trusting that the Holy Spirit will give us power to do what we cannot do on our own. Many of us are stuck with partial obedience because we are feeding a carnal nature. When we do this, we quench the power of the Spirit of God in our life. We pour cold water on His promptings to act in faith and to walk in the direction that we now know is right.
The judges were men and women who lived by faith and walked in the power of the Spirit, but they show us that overcoming partial obedience means …
Taking strategic and bold actions to neutralize the enemy. Ehud is our example here. The Moabite army has 10,000 men who are described as vigorous and strong. They are led by a strongman named Eglon, who is described as a very fat man. I picture him as the Jabba the Hutt of ancient history. Ehud’s idea is to take out the leader before battling the troops. With the leader dead, there will be internal power struggles and confusion over who is in charge, and that will give Ehud some breathing room to deal with the warriors. His plan is strategic and will deal a decisive blow to the enemy.
Ehud comes up with a strategic plan, but it is not without its problems. First, Ehud must gain access to Eglon. Then he must obtain a private audience with him. Then he must figure out a way to escape and get back to his troops so that they can rout 10,000 men and retake the Jordan river valley. Plus, the text says that he was a left-handed man. He was a southpaw, probably because of an injury to his right hand. So, on top of that, he must figure out a way to kill this very large man and do so with a disability. With a good plan in mind, he then must have the courage to act on it. To move decisively. To do so puts him at risk.
Overcoming partial obedience takes strategic and bold moves to neutralize the enemy. These actions may put you at risk of embarrassment because they mean you must come out into the open. If gambling has got you, begin by giving all your credit cards, your check book, and your bank accounts to someone else so that you can’t get at your money. If pornography has a grip on you, then cancel AOL or unplug the cable until new rules can be set up. If jealousy, bitterness, or hatred is in your heart, then confess to your community group and ask them to pray for your healing.
Conclusion: Why should we try to not only root out partial obedience but keep on working toward overcoming it? What is the big deal? Shortcutting on obedience to God robs our freedom and joy. Partial obedience causes us to miss out on the blessing of the banquet. But it also has long-term consequences. The partial obedience of one generation gets worse with each succeeding generation. The biggest threat your children or your future children must deal with related to their faith is not outcome-based education. It is not that we do not have prayer in public schools. The biggest threat is God’s people living lives of partial obedience. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Two years ago, at the rehearsal dinner of a couple I was marrying, the grandfather of the groom stood up to ask God’s blessing on the meal. The groom told me how his grandfather was the first believer in their family tree. I asked him about the spiritual condition of the other family members at the dinner. As he went from table to table, he told stories about his uncles and aunts who were missionaries and pastors. His cousins were walking with the Lord, some working in industry and others in ministry. The groom himself had returned a few weeks earlier from a trip to the mountains of Mexico where he used his medical training in conjunction with a church outreach. He was marrying a woman who for many years had been on the staff of a Crisis Pregnancy Center. Not much evidence of partial obedience in that family. When his grandfather sat down, I had a picture of what faith could become in my family.
DATE: June 28, 1998
Tags:
Sin
Partial obedience
Cultural aliens
[i] Leon Wood, Distressing Days of the Judges, 143.
[ii] Dan Allender, citation lost.