The Book of Judges: Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay
The Second-Generation Syndrome
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: I suspect some of you are glad we’ve finished our series on “Great Church Fights” and can now move on to something more edifying than conflict. Well, we’re moving on alright—to a book of the OT that specializes in murder, mutilation, ethnic cleansing, rape, idolatry, and general moral mayhem. It’s almost like watching the evening news. You may end up wishing I had found some more church fights to expound!
So why are we going to preach through the book of Judges over the next three months? Well, there are several reasons. First, we try to do at least one series a year from the Old Testament. A balanced diet is good for the soul. Second, because of vacation travel, camps, and mission trips, I like to do a summer series in which each message stands on its own, so that if you miss a week or two you don’t lose the flow.
Judges serves that purpose well. It has an overall theme, but within that theme are a series of separate stories about great heroes of the faith and some not-so-great. The book of Judges is incredibly relevant for our times. In addition to its focus on a society in moral shambles, there is also a strong focus on the patience of a faithful God, who is constantly searching for ways to deliver His wayward people.
I think the key verse of Judges may be the very last verse in the book: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” The KJV puts it even more poignantly: “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Just a few weeks ago a great cultural icon of our day, Frank Sinatra, passed away. The song he was best known for has set the lifestyle agenda for millions of Americans, namely, “I Did It My Way.” I agree with Pastor Gary Inrig when he says, “’Doing your own thing’” has been enshrined as the national lifestyle, and the virus of relativism has infected every area of life, especially our concepts of spiritual truth and moral absolutes.”[i]
In fact, I have borrowed the title for this series on Judges from a book written by my friend, Pastor Inrig. I think the title of his book—Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay—describes well the incredible contrast we find (not only in Judges but also in the church today) between the God-given potential for greatness and the unfailing capacity for catastrophe that each of us possesses. It all boils down to whether we are willing to be obedient to God’s principles and commandments.
I want us to begin our reading this morning at the beginning of the book.
“After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the LORD, “Who will be the first to go up and fight for us against the Canaanites?”
The LORD answered, “Judah is to go; I have given the land into their hands.”
Then the men of Judah said to the Simeonites their brothers, “Come up with us into the territory allotted to us, to fight against the Canaanites. We in turn will go with you into yours.” So the Simeonites went with them.
When Judah attacked, the LORD gave the Canaanites and Perizzites into their hands and they struck down ten thousand men at Bezek. It was there that they found Adoni-Bezek and fought against him, putting to rout the Canaanites and Perizzites. Adoni-Bezek fled, but they chased him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes.
Then Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table. Now God has paid me back for what I did to them.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.
The men of Judah attacked Jerusalem also and took it. They put the city to the sword and set it on fire.
After that, the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites living in the hill country, the Negev and the western foothills. They advanced against the Canaanites living in Hebron (formerly called Kiriath Arba) and defeated Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai.
From there they advanced against the people living in Debir (formerly called Kiriath Sepher).
Some of you are probably beginning to wonder already about my judgment in choosing Judges. But let’s move down to chapter 2 and pick up the reading there:
(Judges 2:1-19) “The angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.”
When the angel of the LORD had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud, and they called that place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the LORD.
After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel.
Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.
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.”
Now the first thing I want to do this morning is to share something of the historical context of this book.
Overview of the historical context
This is important because we are not reading about ancient legends here. These are not myths with interesting morals attached, like Aesop’s fables. These are historical events, and this is a time-period that played a key role in the unfolding drama of redemption. A three-minute overview of the OT should help us to put Judges in chronological perspective.
The first four great events of human history are the Creation, the Fall, the Flood of Noah, and the Tower of Babel. That takes up the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Then there are four great patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph—whose lives consume the rest of the Book of Genesis. We can’t date the first four events, but we can date the patriarchs—they lived from 2100-1800 B.C. While we don’t know their exact dates, we can be fairly confident they were alive during the following years: Abraham, 2100 B.C., Isaac, 2000 B.C., Jacob, 1900 B.C. and Joseph,1800 B.C.
During Joseph’s lifetime the descendants of Jacob, known as Israelites, migrated to Egypt, where they eventually become slaves to the Egyptians. Four centuries later God raised up a prophet named Moses to rescue them from their captivity. The story is found in the Book of Exodus.
It took a long time for Moses to secure permission from Pharaoh to let God’s people go, but when he finally did (1446 B.C.), it took even longer to lead them across the Sinai desert to the Promised Land. What should have been a three-month trip ended up taking nearly 40 years. That story is told in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
Moses himself was not allowed to take the people into the Promised Land because of some serious failures in his life. That privilege was reserved for Moses’ successor, Joshua. Just as God had parted the Sea for Moses to allow the people to leave Egypt, so He parted the Jordan River for Joshua to allow the people into the Promised Land. They scored a great victory over the fortified city of Jericho and then spent seven years on a series of military campaigns ordered by God. This was designed to uproot the godless Canaanites and others who inhabited the land. The Book of Joshua gives an account of this Conquest.
The next book of the OT, the Book of Judges, begins with the death of Joshua and covers a period of over 300 years, basically from 1400 to 1050 B.C., at which time the Israelites established a monarchy with their first three kings—Saul, David, and Solomon. While we won’t go any further with the history of Israel this morning, I do want us to recognize that we are dealing here with a sizeable period of Israel’s history, during which they were essentially a theocracy. They had no king and there was no centralized government. God was their ruler and He carried out His rule through priests and, at times, through “judges.” These were not black-robed characters in a courtroom, but rather individuals whom God sovereignly raised up to deliver the people when oppressed by their enemies. They were mighty men of valor (and one woman of valor).
The principal theme I want us to pick up from our opening text in Judges is what might be called “The Second-Generation Syndrome.” I believe it is a sad general rule that the spiritual vitality of a home, a church, or a Christian organization decreases in the second and third generations. If the young people do not experience personal encounters with the living God, they develop a second-hand faith, and second-hand faith is about as cherished as are second-hand clothes. As Inrig puts it, “The parents’ fervor for the Lord Jesus Christ becomes the children’s formalism and the grandchildren’s apathy.” [ii] Or as Bruce Wilkinson says, “the parents’ relationship is viewed as the children’s responsibility and the grandchildren’s religion.” [iii]
If you doubt that, let me ask those of you who grew up in strong, godly Christian homes, as I did, to ask yourself if the Second-Generation Syndrome has not impacted you to some degree. Do you depend upon God as much as your parents or grandparents did for their daily bread? Do you treat the Lord’s Day with the same kind of respect and awe they did? Are you as shocked and offended by filthy language or sexual innuendo as they were? Is your giving as sacrificial as theirs?
Some of you are first-generation converts, so those questions aren’t as relevant. But what is relevant is to ask the same questions about your children. What is going to prevent them from being infected by the Second-Generation Syndrome?
The best way to see this theme unfolding in our text is to begin at Judges 2:6-7: “After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel.” The reference to Joshua dismissing the Israelites has to do with his farewell address to the leaders, as discussed in chapters 23 & 24 of the book of Joshua. This man was a great and godly leader, and after rehearsing God’s faithfulness throughout their history in some detail, he concludes his life and ministry with these words:
(Joshua 24:14-22) “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods!…
Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”
But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the LORD.”
Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD.” “Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.”
Well, the people kept their word throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel during the Conquest. But that was not a very long time, for Joshua was already near death when he spoke those words, and the elders were, well, also very elderly.
Then we read these sad words in verse 10 of Judges 2: “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.” How did that happen? Did their parents quit going to the temple? Probably not. Did their parents quit praying and reading their Bibles? Probably not. Did they quit talking about the Lord? Probably not.
Then how and why did it happen? I suspect at least part of the answer is that the parents got comfortable. They were no longer slaves, they were no longer vagabonds in the desert, they were no longer fighting for territory, and they no longer had to depend upon God for their very existence. They now had land and homes and a measure of security, and they forgot to rehearse for their children what God had done for them. Their principal topics of conversation were no longer the Exodus and the Crossing of the Jordan and the Conquest of Jericho, but rather houses and farms and irrigation systems and vacations and investments. And the children began to think of the old stories as, well, just old stories.
When it says that another generation grew up who didn’t know the Lord, I don’t think it means they didn’t know His name. They probably even knew a lot about Him. But they didn’t know Him, and there’s a huge difference. And what is the very next thing that is recorded? “Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.” (Judges 2:11)
I see at least four characteristics of the Second-Generation Syndrome here in these first two chapters that ultimately led the Israelites to do evil in the eyes of the Lord. Let’s start with this one:
The Second Generation tends to take God’s blessings for granted.
Back in Deut. 6:10-12 we read this strong warning from Moses: “When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”
“Be careful that you do not forget.” I think this is a very relevant topic for our church on this 15thanniversary of our first Sunday morning service. Fifteen years does not constitute a generation, but it pushes us well into it, and I think God would have us think about this issue this morning. I don’t want to put the five families that conceived this church or the nearly 30 that gathered at that first service on Father’s Day, 1983 on a spiritual pedestal, but I will say this—what they did took a lot of courage and a lot of faith. In fact, I want those who were here at that very first service to stand. There will be more, I’m sure in the 2nd or 3rd services, for four of the five families and most of the others are still part of our church family. Thank you.
These people risked comfort, convenience, and criticism to be obedient to the call of God on their lives. They left comfortable facilities in their former churches, and well-developed youth programs, and good music because they were committed to planting a church where the focus was on feeding the flock, loving one another, and helping one another enjoy freedom in Christ. They were even willing to be homeless for years until God met their need for a home.
They had to be dependent upon God, for there were no other options. Before I was hired, five of these men put their own finances at risk and committed to cover the salary of their first pastor for two years. Our dependence on God was sorely tested when Gary Jost and his family moved to Indiana just one year after I came. Gary was in many ways the glue that held our little church together, and I couldn’t understand why God would remove him at such a critical time. (Nor could I comprehend why God took him Home five years later!).
I also remember a meeting about ten years ago when the leadership said “no” to a contract we had on 12 acres of land because they just didn’t feel God was in it, though they had no other options at the time. I remember how overwhelmed many of us felt in 1990 when we learned that this building we are worshiping in today was going to cost perhaps as much as $3 million and our first Faith Promise program only came to a total of $500,000. In all those situations, and in many more, we had to learn to trust in God, who was, of course, more than faithful.
But what about the next generation? If you started coming to First Free a month ago, you found a place with programs for nearly every age level and station in life. You found a worship celebration that is of consistently high quality, a children’s ministry that is second-to-none, a youth ministry that is bulging at the seams, and an adult ministry that is providing connectedness for hundreds.
You found 17 beautiful acres (especially if you like mud), a nice facility that would be very comfortable if it weren’t so crowded, and a new building going up that should take care of our growth for the foreseeable future (or for six months—whichever comes first!). Godly leadership is in place, a world-wide mission program is accomplishing tremendous things, and the opportunities for spiritual growth are legion.
With all these things provided, it’s easy to forget that God performed some significant miracles to bring this church into existence. It’s easy to forget the sacrifice that faithful men and women have made to give us this privilege. Even more importantly, we need to realize that we are still just as dependent upon Him today as the 30 people who met for that first worship service! The tasks and challenges lying ahead of us are no less daunting, and the demand for faith and obedience on our part is no less critical! We dare not take God’s blessings for granted, as the second generation often tends to do.
The Second Generation tends to become satisfied with the spiritual status quo, rendering only partial obedience.
If you will take another look at the first chapter of Judges, I want you to notice something from the portion we did not read earlier. We already read about how the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Simeon drove the Canaanites and Perizzites out of the hill country. But down in verse 19 we read that “they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.”
Then in verse 21 we are told the Benjamites failed to dislodge the Jebusites.
And in verse 27 Manasseh did not drive out the people of Beth Shan, etc.
28: “they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely.”
29: “Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites.”
30: “Neither did Zebulum.…”
31: “Nor did Asher….”
33: “Neither did Naphtali….”
34: “The Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country, not allowing them to come down into the plain.”
Now let me explain what is going on here. When God gave the Promised Land to Israel, it was not unoccupied. God’s justification for not only giving it to Israel, but for taking it away from the people who had lived there for centuries, was that those people—Canaanites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Hittites, etc.—had forfeited it. We’ve got such a heightened sense of democracy today that we almost instinctively say, “That’s not fair to take land away from one group and give it to another,” but what we fail to realize is that the sin and immorality of these peoples were almost without parallel in human history. The Canaanites engaged in temple prostitution, fertility rites, drunken sexual orgies of the most debased variety, idolatry, snake-worship, homosexuality, and even human sacrifice—all in the name of religion! Baalism was perhaps the most degraded and degrading form of worship ever practiced on earth.[iv]
God knows it is impossible for righteousness to coexist with that kind of evil, so He called for the annihilation of the inhabitants of the land. That may be embarrassing to some today, and in fact it causes some so-called Bible scholars to conclude that the God of the OT must be some kind of sadistic monster, very different from the God of the NT who “loves everybody and tolerates everything.”[v]
But that is a serious misreading of the Bible. I don’t have time today to get bogged down in a defense of what God ordered here, but if I may, I’ll refer you to a sermon I preached on June 9, 1996, entitled “Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho,” in which I wrestled with this issue in some depth. This morning I’m going to assume that most of you are willing to join me in making an assumption, namely that if God did it, it’s right, even if we don’t understand it entirely.
The primary point I want us to see is that God’s people failed to carry out God’s clear orders. They had a better idea. They were tired of war. They would let the Canaanites remain in the valleys and would be satisfied with living in the hill country. Partial removal of the enemy was better than nothing. Maybe so, but it was not the best choice, for partial obedience never is.
May I ask to what extent we have become satisfied with the spiritual status quo and are satisfied to render only partial obedience in our own lives? How many churches have developed fortress mentalities that are focused inward and have no desire or interest in reaching out to a society that is on a fast train to hell? I’ve heard individuals in this church say openly and without embarrassment that missions is not their bag. Well, friend, it is God’s bag, and if your agenda is not God’s agenda, yours needs an adjustment. Your obedience is only partial.
On the other hand, there are many who seem to have no concern about poverty and racism and homelessness. They close their eyes to these problems, or they blame the victims. But God’s agenda is to seek justice for those who are disenfranchised, and if we show no concern where He is concerned, then no matter how solid our doctrine, our obedience is only partial.
The Second Generation tends to neglect God’s Word.
One of the astonishing things we discover in the Book of Judges is that there is almost no reference to the study of Scripture. This contrasts sharply with the Book of Joshua, where from beginning to the end Joshua is known as a “Man of the Book.” In the first chapter God spoke to Joshua and said, “Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” And at the end of his life Joshua said to the people, “Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed.” (23:14)
Let me ask those of you who are second- or third-generation believers: “Do you spend as much time in personal Bible study as your grandparents or parents did?” It’s interesting to me that most of the people I know (and this is purely anecdotal, not based on any scientific data) who are heavily involved in Bible Study Fellowship or CBS or Precepts are first-generation believers. The second-generation or third-generation Christians often stand back with the attitude, “I know that stuff already.” The fact is we don’t know nearly as much as we think we know. We have become jaded to biblical truth, and we need to come back to it with the humility and teachableness of a child.
The Second Generation tends to borrow their standards from the world.
At first I wondered what the point was of the account of Adoni-Bezek in chapter 1. Judah captured this Canaanite king and cut off his thumbs and big toes. Of course, the reason they did that was to render him helpless in battle. A person without thumbs cannot grip a bow or a sword, and without big toes he cannot run. But so what? Why use up valuable space in Scripture to tell us about it? But look at verse 7: “Then Adoni-Bezek said, ‘Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table. Now God has paid me back for what I did to them.”
Mutilation was a common practice among the pagans, but God never countenanced it among His people. Capital punishment? Yes, under certain circumstances. Mutilation or torture? Never! But the Israelites began to borrow the war ethics of the people around them.
Another evidence of this tendency to become like the people around them is the religious syncretism about which the angel of the Lord warns them in 2:2: “You shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.” But they did not break down the altars. Instead, they began to worship at those altars. They began to serve Baal and the Ashtoreths.
Friends, is there evidence in Christian homes today that we are beginning to act like the world around us? Do we exercise any more discernment in respect to the TV we watch or the movies we rent than do our neighbors? By the way, I read this definition of a hypocrite the other day: “A hypocrite is someone who complains about all the sex, violence, and nudity on his VCR.” Think about that for a moment! Is alcohol a regular part of your diet, and if so, do you really expect your children to drink any less than you do, and even if you don’t personally have an addictive personality, will your children be able to handle it?
Spiritual syncretism can be seen in everything from gender-neutral Bibles to goddess worship to Jimmy Carter’s recent pronouncement that Mormons are Christians and shouldn’t be objects of our evangelism. Everyone is screaming for tolerance. Truth, they tell us, is a smorgasbord, and there are as many truths as there are appetites. Live and let live. And whatever you do, don’t be dogmatic about anything!
The Post Dispatch last week wrote an editorial ridiculing Pat Robertson for his prediction that God’s judgment—in the form of weather catastrophe—was going to fall on Orlando for its official promotion of homosexuality. Now I’m no great fan of Pat Robertson, and I wouldn’t have made his prediction, but in a letter to the editor on Thursday someone noted the delicious irony that when Al Gore predicted that our failure to ratify the global warming treaty may bring cataclysmic changes on the earth, based on questionable science, the newspaper praised him. The writer concluded, “One thing I am certain of is that God controls the weather, and he will not be mocked, no matter how politically correct the mockers are.”
Conclusion: We are in a war in which sin is being redefined and standards are being turned on their heads. Right is being called wrong and wrong right. It is a time when everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes. The days in which we live are as dangerous as the days of the Judges. But just as God did not abandon Israel in her times of trouble, so He will not abandon us. Every generation is just one step from disaster; but it is also just one step from revival.
It is my prayer that God would particularly renew our efforts as parents to not just tell our children about the truth, but to live it out before their eyes. May we look for ways to expose them first-hand to opportunities, like mission trips, where they are forced to depend upon God. May He give to our young people the trials they need to test their faith, as well as the blessings they need to see that He is as faithful today as He was in Joshua’s day.
And most of all, may we keep the Gospel first and foremost in our lives and ministry. May we always be clear that it is God’s grace in sending Jesus Christ to the Cross that enables us to have a personal relationship with Him.
Prayer: Lord, I want to thank you for the spiritual heritage that I received from my parents. I appreciate so much their efforts to help me develop a very personal relationship with you and their faithful prayers for me over the years. I want to pass that same heritage on to my own children, Lord, without the loss so often associated with the Second-Generation Syndrome. Help me to know how to fulfill Joshua’s words, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Help the young people here today to see beyond the hypocrisy that is so often part of my generation, to go beyond our focus on material possessions and comfort, and to have a personal encounter with the living God.
On this fifteenth anniversary of our church, I also want to thank You for the heritage that was bequeathed to me by those who stepped out in faith to start this church I love so much. We give all the honor and glory and praise to You for what has been accomplished. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
DATE: June 21, 1998
Tags:
History of the Old Testament
Partial obedience
Ethnic cleansing
Cultural standards
[i] Gary Inrig, Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay, 5.
[ii] Inrig, 22. Italics added.
[iii] Bruce Wilkinson, “The Three Chairs,” link: https://vimeo.com/193273842
[iv] Inrig, 37.
[v] The God of the OT is just as loving as the God of the NT, and the God of the NT hates sin just as much as the God of the OT. The reason is, of course, because He is the same God. Is the eternal punishment in hell that Jesus promises to those who refuse to believe in Him for the forgiveness of their sins any less of a judgment than the extermination ordered of the Canaanites? Of course, the same people who object to the extermination of the Canaanites also tend to reject the concept of hell.