Brothers and sisters, let’s commit this time to the Lord.
Lord, what a morning we’ve had. What an opening. What a time of worship. Lord, now, as we consider Your Word, I ask that we continue in that work of Your Spirit that You are doing this morning.
Lord, we praise You, and we thank You. Your Word says that You will open our eyes and show us marvelous things out of Your law. Lord, we thank You that the most marvelous thing is You. So this morning, we ask for a revelation of Christ as we consider Your Word. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, I’ve been considering the book of Judges. If y’all would turn there with me.
As I was considering this book, it’s sort of a conundrum. It’s difficult to think about. On one hand, you have such great works of God, such great men and women of God. I mean, if we look in Hebrews 11, those heroes of faith, Paul says, “I don’t even have time to talk about Gideon, and Samson, and Jephthah, and Barak”—all of these characters from the book of Judges.
But as we read this book, there is an exhausting cyclical pattern which we see as we continue to read. We see that there are great works of God through great men and women of God, yet there seems to be little lasting fruit.
This is laid out for us in Judges 2, right at the beginning of the book, so we do not need to be surprised. In verse 18:
Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge,
and He saved 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 afflicted and oppressed them.
But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers,
going after other gods, serving them, and bowing down to them.
They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.
As we consider this book, I think the question that comes to our mind is, why? And what is God doing?
I think we can consider one of the great deliverances in this book in our brother Gideon. What a picture of an overcomer. Just turn to Judges 6.
We see that the Lord approaches him in verse 11. Now, the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out the wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
This time, again, we see in the beginning of the chapter that the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and He handed them over to the Midianites. Then the Lord approaches Gideon.
The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
And, of course, Gideon has the same question that we have:
Gideon said to Him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?
And where are all His wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’”
We have the same question as Gideon here. And, of course, just fast-forwarding through this story, we see that Gideon admits first that he is weak and small. He says in verse 15:
“My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
Though he knows his place, he proceeds by faith. We see that the Lord reduces his army from 32,000 to 300 men in Judges 7, and he still proceeds by faith.
I love this verse in Judges 7:10. The Lord says to him:
“But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant.”
And in the very next verse, we see, “Then he went down with Purah his servant,” as if you had any doubt that he was afraid. But what a great work of God in a great man of God.
We see that God gives them deliverance through these 300 men. In Judges 8, it is mentioned that 120,000 people, men who drew the sword, had fallen. What a great deliverance and victory that the Lord gives them.
And in verse 22 of Judges 8, we see, after this great victory and deliverance, the men of Israel said to Gideon:
“Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also, for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.”
And Gideon said to them:
“I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.”
He puts his finger on something that we are going to discuss later. But what happens right after this great deliverance, as we see in verse 33?
As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-berith their god.
And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, Who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side.
They did not show steadfast love to the family of Jerubbaal, that is, Gideon, in return for all the good that he had done to Israel.
What is going on in this book?
As we continue considering this book, the final chapters, Judges 17 through 21, are just a collection of stories from this period of time. We see the extent of how bad it was.
In Judges 17 and 18, we see complete religious disorder. It does not even make any sense. A man grabs a random Levite and makes him his priest for his household idols. In Judges 19, we see complete moral horror.
And due to the events of that chapter, in Judges 20 and 21, we see the complete extinction—or close to that—of one of the tribes of Israel.
In Judges 21:2, let’s read that:
And the people came to Bethel and sat there till evening before God,
and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly.
They said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel,
that today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel?”
I mean, if we just consider the book of Joshua, it ends in victory. But what happens to this book right after?
Throughout these chapters, we see sort of a diagnosis, and we can try to follow that thread. It is found multiple times throughout these chapters, but it is also the last verse in the book of Judges.
In Judges 21:25:
In those days there was no king in Israel.
Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Well, if the issue is that there is no king, let’s take a look at what happens when there is a king.
We see that the kingdom is established under David, and that he is given a wise son, Solomon. In 1 Kings 8, we can start to consider a very different situation from these final chapters in Judges.
We see that God establishes Solomon. There is peace all around. There is righteousness and justice, peace and prosperity. But more than all that, we see that through Solomon, the holy temple of God is built.
In 1 Kings 8:11, it says:
For the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
This is a very different situation. At the end of that chapter, we see:
On the eighth day he sent the people away, and they blessed the king and went to their homes joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had shown to David His servant and to Israel His people.
What a different picture from the end of the book of Judges. They are sitting around weeping, but here there is joy. I think God is showing us that kingship is necessary, and that under God’s government, it is a beautiful thing: the purposes of God being brought in.
And we might pause here and say, “Praise God for all that has happened.” It is very true that God has done this, and we are very happy about it. Maybe we have arrived at what we were hoping for. The hopelessness of Judges is going away.
But we turn the page. In 1 Kings 11:
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women.
Oh no.
In verse 4, we see:
For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods,
and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God,
as was the heart of David his father.
What can we say then? We see a wise king being led by God, such great blessing and the purposes and promises of God being fulfilled in Israel. What can we say if even the heart of the king can turn away?
Does this leave us in a very hopeless position as we consider this? It is a mystery. But as we are in this situation, there are whispers of something greater to come.
We see that the Lord is showing that He has a purpose, and that purpose is starting to be revealed through His prophets. If we jump ahead to Isaiah 9:
By considering Judges and Solomon, we see that there is a condition in the heart of man. We see that kingship is required, but that even the heart of the king can turn away. Now we are looking to see: where, then, is our hope?
These prophets start to reveal to us that something greater is coming. In Isaiah 9:6:
For to us a Child is born,
to us a Son is given;
and the government shall be upon His shoulder,
and His name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over His kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
Think about that: a kingdom that does not pass away, from this time forth and forevermore. We say that things were wonderful under Solomon, the peak of the kingdom of Israel. But then, once his heart turned away, what happened?
His very son saw the kingdom fractured, and we have a long line of kings that sort of feels like the judges. Some are good, and we are walking with the Lord again; and some are not so good.
Consider even just Hezekiah: a great man of God, a king that brings that nation into walking with the Lord. But then his own son, Manasseh, is one of the worst kings of Judah.
There is something deeper going on here, both in Judges and in this line of kings. God, in His wisdom, is demonstrating that something more is necessary.
If we read Isaiah 11:
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what His eyes see,
or decide disputes by what His ears hear,
but with righteousness He shall judge the poor.
We see the character of this King. Let’s continue with another prophecy, in Daniel 7.
I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came One like a Son of Man,
and He came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before Him.
And to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him;
His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away,
and His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
We see that this kingship, this dominion, is not only over Israel anymore, but over all the peoples of the world, all nations, and that it is indestructible, that it shall not pass away.
I think our brother spoke so beautifully this morning about the permanence of what we find in Christ. But all these prophecies are pointing forward to the future. Who, then, is the fulfillment of all these things? Of course, we know the answer.
But let’s turn to Galatians 4:4.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son.
We see such a great need in Judges, even in Solomon. The need is spoken to us by the prophets: someone in the future is coming Who can fulfill that great need. And here, by the wisdom of God, we see that it is His Son. He is the fulfillment of all these prophecies.
But I just want to consider: who is this Son?
If we jump to Hebrews 1:
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son,
Whom He appointed the heir of all things,
through Whom also He created the world.
He is the radiance of the glory of God
and the exact imprint of His nature,
and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.
After making purification for sins,
He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
And if we continue in Hebrews 1:8:
But of the Son He says,
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, Your God, has anointed You
with the oil of gladness beyond Your companions.”
We see now that this Son is not just another David, or a stronger Gideon, or a wiser Solomon. He is altogether different: the exact imprint of His nature. And to Him is given a throne that is forever and ever.
Let’s consider also John 1:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
We see that this is the eternal Word through Whom all things were made. And it is amazing to see in verse 14:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
He became a man. He came to this earth, and we will consider for what purpose.
I want to jump back. We see that the book of Judges gives us two things: that there is no king in Israel, and that everyone did what was right in their own eyes. The issue was that of the heart.
We praise God that Jesus is that unfailing King. He is that fulfillment. He is the One to come. But what about the condition of man? What about the heart of man, which is the issue?
We see one more prophecy that points to this, in Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel 36:26:
And I will give you a new heart,
and a new spirit I will put within you.
And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh.
We see, then, that not only is it that we need an unfailing King and an enduring kingdom, but a work of God within the heart of man.
And not only is Jesus Christ that unfailing King Whose kingdom is enduring, but we see that the mystery is that He comes in the flesh. He comes as a man to this earth, and He dies on the cross.
He dies for our sins and cleanses us, so that the mystery revealed in Colossians 1 may be fulfilled. Let’s take a look.
The mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to His saints.
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery,
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
The issue that we see in Judges and Solomon—the insufficiency—we see that, in the wisdom of God, He is demonstrating the necessity of Christ.
We see that we need a King. What great blessing—but not a king who can fail. And we need a work in the heart of man. Both these things are fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ.
He is that unfailing King, and He is bringing in that enduring kingdom. But also, by His death on the cross, He does a work within us, wherein we are cleansed by His blood so that now Christ is in us: the Spirit of Jesus dwelling within us by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God.
This is amazing. This is the fulfillment of these prophecies, and all those fulfillments are in Christ Jesus.
But the book of Judges is not done troubling me. We see that it demonstrates a need, and that need is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. But why is it that we have this Christ in us, His Holy Spirit dwelling within us, yet I see the pattern of the book of Judges in my own life at times?
What is that pattern? We see that there are great deliverances. There are great answers to prayer in times of crisis. He raises us up. He proves His faithfulness to us. And we are so grateful for that, the mercy of God.
Sometimes we return again to the way we were before. It is undeniable that great works of God have been done, but I cannot tell the difference between myself and six months ago, before this happened.
There is a pattern in the book of Judges which may be possible even though Christ is in you.
And my question arises: if Christ is in us by His indwelling Spirit, is it possible that we could be ineffective and unfruitful? Is that even possible? Let’s turn to 2 Peter 1.
Starting from verse 3:
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of Him Who called us to His own glory and excellence,
by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises,
so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
We see that because Christ is in us, His Spirit dwells within us, and we are now made partakers of this divine nature.
But we have a warning here, starting from verse 5:
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith—
And we have a long list of qualities. Skipping to verse 8:
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing,
they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful
in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We praise God that God has given us such a provision in His Son. He has given us His very Son. He has died on the cross, and now His Spirit is within us. He has made us partakers of this divine nature. This is the provision of God.
But does that make our response unnecessary? We see here that is not the case. It is possible that we have been given so much, yet still we could be ineffective and unfruitful.
This reminds me of what the Lord Himself says in Matthew 12. We have been considering Solomon.
We see in verse 42:
The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it,
for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
The Lord is something greater than Solomon. Solomon is a picture of God’s blessing in God’s government, godly kingship, but he is not the full fulfillment of the purpose of God. Only Christ is that full fulfillment.
And again, I return to the question: why is it, then, that we have Christ in us, yet it is possible to be unfruitful?
Maybe I even see a cycle in my own life of great works of God, but not the corresponding fruitfulness afterward. I mean, growing up, I can remember we would go to conferences. Our brother Neville would speak, and we would get quite excited, get convicted.
It is almost like a revival, a pit stop, a gas station. We get revived real quick. And as the months went on after the conference, there was sort of a dwindling of that effect. I am sure we have experienced some things like that in our own life.
And it is the book of Judges that challenges us in that way. I think the book of Judges contains the answer, even in our Christian life. It is, once again, that last verse of that book, which I will read again:
In those days there was no king in Israel.
Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Is it possible, then? We know that Christ is our Lord. It is not that we accept Him or allow Him to be Lord. Christ is King. And if we accept Him as our Savior, we have accepted Him as our Lord.
There is nothing that changes the fact that Christ is Lord. But do we live in a way as if Christ is not our Lord? Do we continue in the pattern of Judges, wherein we do what is right in our own eyes?
And as the Lord said, it is almost like the people in Judges have an excuse, but we do not. The queen of Sheba rises in judgment against us because we have the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if He is our Lord, and if He is our King, we need to enter into the reality of the lordship of Christ.
I think we have a perfect picture of that in Colossians 1.
We see Paul’s prayer here for the church, and this reveals the heart of God, His intention for our lives. Starting in verse 9:
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you,
asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will
in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
The knowledge of His will—for what purpose? To throw it out the window? No, it is to enter into His will.
For what purpose? We see in verse 10:
So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,
fully pleasing to Him,
bearing fruit in every good work
and increasing in the knowledge of God.
This is what the Lord is intending for us. It is not that we do these things to receive salvation, but this is our response to His grace: entering into His purpose for our lives.
We see that Christ is in us, and Christ is our King. These two things have to come together. Christ is our life, but that does not mean we use the power of His life for self-rule. That is just not the way it works.
As Christ is our life, He is also our Lord. And as these two things come together, we see that the purposes of God and this life for us are starting to be fulfilled: that we would walk in a manner worthy of the Lord and that we would bear fruit.
Not like the days of Judges, where God delivers and there is little lasting fruit, but that we would bear that fruit.
Let’s continue in verse 11:
Being strengthened with all power,
according to His glorious might,
for all endurance and patience with joy,
giving thanks to the Father,
Who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness
and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,
in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
How is it, then, that we enter into this lordship, the lordship of Christ? We see that He is Lord. It is not a matter of making Him Lord; it is a matter of realizing our situation and entering into the reality of that.
And I think verse 11 gives us that key. We see that it is His power. Really, what started this burden in me is verse 29 of this same chapter:
For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me.
I think we see that it is no longer just that I do everything for the Lord and that I bear fruit in that way. I think most of us are past that. But I think the misconception that I have had for some time is that I do nothing, and the Lord does everything.
“What could I do? I am going to sit here and do nothing.” But that is not the way that Paul speaks. He says, “For this I toil, struggling with all His energy.”
In other places he says, “I worked harder than them all, but it was the Lord working in me.” And of course, earlier in this chapter, we are seeing that we are bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God.
How is that done? By being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might. So Christ is in us. Christ is our life. The power of that life is how we may enter into the lordship of Christ, how we could even possibly do something that is pleasing to Him.
It is all from Him, but that response is not unnecessary.
So this is the burden that I have had, brothers and sisters: that lordship of Christ is challenging. It is a matter of His will or my will.
And without even noticing or realizing, I feel that maybe my will wins a lot of the time. Not that we could win against His will, but that we put His will aside.
So this is quite convicting. We praise God that He has given us every provision in Himself, and now we must respond to that, enter into it, present ourselves as living sacrifices.
That is one way to say it. Or otherwise, inviting the cross of Christ, which does this dealing work of removing self-rule.
I mean, there are many concepts here, but I think this book of Judges is challenging. Praise God for the wisdom in which He demonstrates beyond a doubt the necessity of Christ: that we need Him as our unfailing King.
We need that enduring kingdom. He is the means by which that work is done in the heart of man, wherein the Spirit of God dwells within us.
And now Judges challenges us again, saying, “Don’t we have that life? Are we living as if He is not our Lord?” Individually, it is convicting, and we want to consider this.
We praise God that He is the fulfillment of every promise, every prophecy, and He is the means by which now we can enter into this beautiful life of bearing fruit—not the cyclical torture of the book of Judges, but bearing fruit and going on with Him.
Finally, I just want to read Colossians 2:19:
And holding fast to the Head,
from Whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments,
grows with a growth that is from God.
So it is not just that we individually enter into His lordship, but that He is the Head of the church. Holding fast to that Head—holding fast—that idea is like depending, like holding on.
Not just wandering off with your own ideas, but holding fast to the Head, depending on Him, trusting in Him. And that dependence and trust result in obedience, but all of us together are building one another up in this.
And we see that that growth comes from God.
You know, sort of where this burden comes from is Ryan and I and the boys, some of the others, went to New York City a couple weeks ago. There at Manget, my brother Samuel shared a very short message that cut right to the heart.
It was concerning this: we all accept the Lord as our Savior, but do we accept Him as our Lord, and what that means?
Of course, whether that trip to New York City was even according to His will, I have no idea. I mean, the thought was that we would go to Chinatown and just eat a bunch of food, and Manget was like an afterthought.
I mean, we were basically in the street, we did not even need a table, eating pork buns and all sorts of things. But I praise God that He redeemed that time, that He cut me right to the heart with that sharing of His Word.
We praise God that He is the means by which we can enter into that lordship. This is not some great, difficult, horrendous burden, but it is the means by which we can fulfill our purpose and bear fruit in such a wonderful way.
I think that is probably enough for me. So let’s pray.
Thank You, Lord, for this morning. We have been considering the permanence of what You have done, Lord, starting from the opening. Our High Priest, You are our unfailing King and enduring kingdom.
Lord, You have made these things clear to us this morning. But Lord, do we live in the same way as the judges, though having a much greater condemnation, since You are within us, O Lord?
We want to enter into Your purposes. We praise You that You are everything that we need, that You have saved us, and that salvation is undeniable. There is nothing that we can do to lose it.
But how much we desire to enter into Your purposes, into Your will; that we want to bear fruit and escape that torturous cycle of Judges, going on with You, entering into the fullness of what You have for us.
Thank You, Lord, for this morning and this consideration. Help us to continue considering Your Word as we learn more about what all this means. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.