Watch Out

 DEVOTION

JUDGES

WATCH OUT

Judges 2:16-19

16 Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. 17 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. 18 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. 19 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.

NIV

These were judges, those raised up to govern the power and God used them to save or deliver them from the hands of the raiders. At this point, we would have thought the people of Israel would have been thankful and praised God, but no, they did not listen to their judges but instead committed fornication or we could say adultery with other gods. This was evil in the sight of God. We see as long as the judge, or governor lived Israel received the compassion of the LORD, but when the judge died, they returned with even more corruption following and serving other gods. We simply cannot understand how the people of Israel did not know the LORD and stayed the course worshipping and serving him only. Is it possible that we believers could get confused and follow some other god? We do know, as we have witnessed, that many Christians have been deceived by false preachers who have drawn them with words that tickle their ears. Those “Name it, and Claim it” preachers, or “You can have it all”, “God wants you to be wealthy”. However, all they want is the money of the people they have fooled to become wealthy. Still, we wonder if we have not taken on any gods of our own that we commit adultery with. We know we cannot serve two masters, the Lord and the world, or its system, its methods for success or security. But have we adopted them into our lives and rebranded them as being frugal or financially conservative. Have we still taken on the view that we need to save up, and store up for our later years in life, as we retire from the workforce, just as the world has created that concept? It is something to ponder on. How many ways of the world have we adopted and brought into the church, or into our lives? When Israel incorporated the ways of other people, the ways of their world, and their gods, it was evil in the sight of God. We should take stock, evaluate our lives, and examine how much, if any, of the ways of this world we have incorporated into our lives, seeing if we are committing adultery, or having an affair with any gods of this world. Even when the LORD blessed them through a judge, they refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. We cannot ever allow that to become a part of our thinking. We cannot be stubborn and believe the system of this world is the best way to secure our lives; while professing we trust in the Lord. That is sort of speaking out of both sides of our mouths. Let us  watch out , and throw off anything we put trust in and look only to the Lord, seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness.

Never Forget

 DEVOTION

JUDGES

NEVER FORGET

Judges 2:10-15

10 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. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. 12 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 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 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. 15 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.

NIV

The new generation was different from those who traveled with the LORD and remembered all the mighty works he did for them. When he brought that first generation of people out of Egypt they refused to go into the promised land and thus he turned them around and they wandered until they all died and it was their children who saw the Jordan River stopped up and the walls of Jericho tumbling down. But now they were all gone and this new generation either wasn’t interested in their forefathers' testimonies, and wanted to live their own paths, or never knew God, as the narrative tells us. How could they have not paid any attention to the stories their forefathers past down to them? It isn’t much different today, as many of the churches have nothing but old people while the younger ones may be drawn away to another form other than the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe they never knew any miracles or had any for themselves, and forgot about God and went to serve false gods. One denomination is focusing on the next-gen to revive or survive as a denomination, for if they are nothing but old people it will just die off and the new generation will not know God or what he has done and they will mingle with the people who live around them and serve other gods. This is what happened in Israel and it provoked the LORD, and we see what the result was. Yes, we live in the age of grace, which means the LORD has shown his love for all his creation by sending Jesus to redeem us, setting us free from the penalty of sin. However, at the same time each generation after Jesus saved us must make the choice to serve the Lord or serve a false god. We may not have seen the Red Sea parted or the Jordan stopped up. We may not have witnessed the water coming from the rock, or the manna coming out of heaven. We may not have experienced first-hand any of the mighty acts of God the Israelites had, but we have everything recorded for us so that we will never forget God and his mighty deeds, or his mighty hand at work for his people. Still, when we are convicted by the Spirit, or convinced the bible is the authentic word of God, we too can and have seen at least one miracle, our own salvation, but we can also see more through our faith, our belief that God still performs miracles, and his mighty hand is at work for us, within us, and through us. How can we even think of serving another god of this world, yet we see so many doing just that. Let us keep our eyes upon Jesus and look full into his wonderful face, and the things, gods, of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. We will never forget. 

Get Rid of Them

 DEVOTION

JOSHUA

GET RID OF THEM

Judges 2:1-9

2:1 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, 2 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? 3 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." 4 When the angel of the LORD had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud, 5 and they called that place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the LORD. 6 After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. 7 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. 9 And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

NIV

We don’t know who this angel of the LORD is, but we know from the Hebrew word that an angel is a messenger of the LORD who speaks as directed as the LORD. This is unlike when the prophets said, “Thus says the Lord”. This is as if the LORD, himself was speaking, as we notice the first-person words, “I brought you up out of Egypt”, and “I will never break my covenant with you”. The problem we spoke about before that was to happen is at hand. Because the Israelites did not drive all the people from the land God promised Abraham all his descendants would own, they now had foreign gods among them, yet more importantly they disobeyed the LORD. These foreign people and their gods became a thorn or a snare to them. The LORD has given them the opportunity to repent of their disobedience and serve him instead of those other gods. However, we know they had already begun to mingle with those foreign people and their gods because the angel of the LORD asked them, “Why have you done this?” It appears they did repent to an extent, as they wept loudly and offered sacrifices to the LORD. We are told they served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel. This would also imply most of the current people had not seen all the great things and that might be the reason they had begun to accept the foreign gods in the land of their inheritance. Here is where the rubber meets the road for us today. We cannot allow any of the foreign gods of this world to invade our thinking and thus the way we live. We cannot mingle with its ways, or allow the world’s altars to stay standing in our lives. We certainly would not ever think to bring an altar to a foreign god into our church sanctuary. Why then would we ever allow one into our personal lives? Yet is there anything that has become a master in our lives? This could be accepting the systems of the world, taking on the ideas they hold to, or for that matter, when it comes to our spiritual life, have we adopted the law as a way of life, rather than living by faith. If we have rejected the financial master of this world, worshipping the Lord only, but want to live by some laws we have devised or believe indicate we are Christians, are not those laws a form of a foreign altar? It is just a thought, but if Jesus gave us a new covenant based on two commands, loving the Lord with our whole being, and loving ourselves as ourselves, then that is the only altar we offer ourselves as living sacrifices on which would be acceptable and pleasing to God. Let us rid ourselves of anything that interferes with obeying our calling.

 

Co-Inhabit

 DEVOTION

JUDGES

CO-INHABIT

Judges 1:27-36

27 But Manasseh did not drive out the people of Beth Shan or Taanach or Dor or Ibleam or Megiddo and their surrounding settlements, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that land. 28 When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove them out completely. 29 Nor did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer, but the Canaanites continued to live there among them. 30 Neither did Zebulun drive out the Canaanites living in Kitron or Nahalol, who remained among them; but they did subject them to forced labor. 31 Nor did Asher drive out those living in Acco or Sidon or Ahlab or Aczib or Helbah or Aphek or Rehob, 32 and because of this the people of Asher lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land. 33 Neither did Naphtali drive out those living in Beth Shemesh or Beth Anath; but the Naphtalites too lived among the Canaanite inhabitants of the land, and those living in Beth Shemesh and Beth Anath became forced laborers for them. 34 The Amorites confined the Danites to the hill country, not allowing them to come down into the plain. 35 And the Amorites were determined also to hold out in Mount Heres, Aijalon and Shaalbim, but when the power of the house of Joseph increased, they too were pressed into forced labor. 36 The boundary of the Amorites was from Scorpion Pass to Sela and beyond.

NIV

This will be a problem for the various tribes of Israel because they have allowed or given in to the Canaanites being determined to stay in the land. It is not going to matter if they forced them into labor or not, the fact is they were told to drive out all of the people who lived in the land God had given to them as an inheritance. What if we were given an inheritance, like a new home, and someone who lives in the same neighborhood, said we want to share that inheritance because we lived here first. Or even if someone lived with us, and wanted to share our inheritance, that would be crazy to think like that. The only inheritance we can share with others from God, eternal life. We can share the story of how God gave us an inheritance and how they too can have the same inheritance. However, here is what is going to be a problem for the Israelites by living with foreign people, or co-existing, co-inhabiting with non-believers in the LORD God Almighty, but who worship other gods. Looking ahead in this narrative of Judges we know it becomes more than a problem, but let us consider for a moment the ramifications of that happening in our lives. Of course, as we live on this earth, we need to live, work, shop, and perhaps play in a world filled with people who worship other gods. In one sense, we co-inhabit this world, although God has called us out of this world, to be separate from them. This would be in the way they think, the gods they serve, their ideologies, philosophies, principles, or convictions about life. The Israelites did not obey God and drove them out of their land. However, we need to obey our Lord and force all those ideologies and such out of our lives. We live in this world but we are not to live of the world for we have been called out to live in the kingdom of God and by His way of thinking, and the Lord’s way of life, having faith in God instead of self. If the Israelites would have kept their faith in the LORD they would have been able to drive out all the Canaanites, for He would have driven them out before them. But it would seem they forgot to keep the faith and looked to their own strength which was not enough to drive out the Canaanites who were determined to stay in the land.  The world is determined to undermine the truth of God and His Word and we cannot intermingle with their way of life, all those concepts we mentioned before. We can only serve our Lord with all, not part, but all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. If we are faithful to that command, then He will drive out all foreign thinking from us. Let us not co-inhabit with their gods. 

Follow the Man

 DEVOTION

JUDGES

FOLLOW THE MAN

Judges 1:22-26

22 Now the house of Joseph attacked Bethel, and the LORD was with them. 23 When they sent men to spy out Bethel (formerly called Luz), 24 the spies saw a man coming out of the city and they said to him, "Show us how to get into the city and we will see that you are treated well." 25 So he showed them, and they put the city to the sword but spared the man and his whole family. 26 He then went to the land of the Hittites, where he built a city and called it Luz, which is its name to this day.

NIV

We know Joseph did not have his own inheritance but his father made his two sons, Ephriam and Manasseh, his own, and they received land as their inheritance, and later Benjamin was included as the house of Joseph. Bethel stands about twenty miles north of Jerusalem and sits in the land of Benjamin really close to the border of the land of Ephraim. Although all that is interesting and it does play into what happened in this narrative, the story is once again that the LORD was with them. Can we do anything unless the Lord is with us? Sure, we try to do things by our own strength based on our educational background, and training and maybe even our own plans for our lives. However, can we really be doing the design of our Lord for our lives? Are we living out His plans for us? We believe when the Lord is with us, we can do all things because he strengthens us, but all those things need to be in accordance with his plan and not ours. There is one other story here, and it's about the man who led them to a way into the city of Bethel, formerly called Luz. Of course, this is about a common man who was told he would be treated well for his efforts of leading them to a way into the city. But just to ponder on a spiritual side, there is another man, who is called Jesus, who led men to a way into another city in the kingdom of God. Of course, for his efforts he was not treated well, in fact, he was hung on a cross and shed his blood for the forgiveness of our sins. He treated us very well, by leading us to a way into the new city of Jerusalem, which is in the kingdom of God. The house of Joseph followed this man into the city and they put it to the sword, but spared him and his family. Someday the house of God will spare us, for we are following him into the city. However, we are not putting the city to the sword, but in some sense, we are putting his world to the sword on our way to into the city of God. The house of Joseph did not mingle with the people of Luz, nor incorporate any of their ways, they destroyed them all. This is how we put this world to the sword, we do not mingle with its ideologies or its way of thinking, but we put all its ways behind us, destroying them and forgetting about them, and straining toward what is ahead. When we follow the man, Jesus, into the city we will have victory. 

The Lord is With us

 DEVOTION

JUDGES

THE LORD IS WITH US

Judges 1:19-21

19 The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots. 20 As Moses had promised, Hebron was given to Caleb, who drove from it the three sons of Anak. 21 The Benjamites, however, failed to dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.

NIV

Sometimes we forget of the advancements of warfare during that time.  We remember that Pharaoh had hundreds of chariots when he chased after the Israelites. We remember the ruins of a racetrack, so to speak, in Caesarea by the sea, for chariot racing. It must have been challenging for infantry fighters to battle against horse-drawn chariots. Judah took the hill country perhaps because the chariot teams could not get into the hill country, but on the plains, they were hard to battle. However, the key in this narrative is the LORD was with the men of Judah. What we wonder is if the LORD was with them, why could they not overcome those iron chariots. Had the men of Judah looked to the LORD for the battle or had they looked to their own strength? We believe that would have made all the difference between complete success and partial success. Of course, we are not at war with people who occupy our inheritance, but at times we do face challenges in life, that we have to either overcome completely or partially, depending on who we look to for strength. We believe that if we are looking to the LORD all the time, that is every day, all day, then it would be very easy to look toward him for the power to overcome any challenge we face. However, if we spend most of our days looking at our abilities, skills, education, power, and influence based on our financial portfolio, then we may well not be able to take possession of the land, or drive out that challenge we face. However, even if we have all those advantages in life, when do not put our trust in them, but in the Lord each day, every day, we will win the battle because of the mighty hand of God. We should always know the Lord is with us, for we have the indwelling of the Spirit who bears witness to the Lord’s presence with us. Let us always keep our hearts and minds bent toward the Lord with confidence he will overcome those challenges. He may do it through us, giving us special powers beyond our natural ones, or he could just make it disappear without us lifting a hand. Then, we also know that God's will be done either way if we win the battle or lose it. However, the point is that we must live each and every moment knowing the Lord is with us. 

Wholehearted and Courageous

 DEVOTION

JOSHUA

WHOLEHEARTED AND COURAGEOUS

Judges 1:9-18

9 After that, the men of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites living in the hill country, the Negev and the western foothills. 10 They advanced against the Canaanites living in Hebron (formerly called Kiriath Arba) and defeated Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai. 11 From there they advanced against the people living in Debir (formerly called Kiriath Sepher). 12 And Caleb said, "I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher." 13 Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Acsah to him in marriage. 14 One day when she came to Othniel, she urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, "What can I do for you?" 15 She replied, "Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water." Then Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs. 16 The descendants of Moses' father-in-law, the Kenite, went up from the City of Palms with the men of Judah to live among the people of the Desert of Judah in the Negev near Arad. 17 Then the men of Judah went with the Simeonites their brothers and attacked the Canaanites living in Zephath, and they totally destroyed the city. Therefore it was called Hormah.   18 The men of Judah also took Gaza, Ashkelon and Ekron — each city with its territory.

Although this narrative is mainly about the conquests of the territory the Canaanites were living in, we find this man Caleb still out and about fighting against the Canaanites. We know that when he and Joshua and ten others were sent into the land to spy it out while  all of Israel waited on the east side of the Jordan. We also know that after they came back, only Caleb and Joshua said Israel could take the land, and conquer, driving them out of the promised land. But, as we know Israel refused, and so wandered for forty years. After all fighting men or adults died in the wilderness, their children were brought back to cross Jordan under the command of Joshua, and Caleb was also there. God testified about Caleb when he declared that no one who has treated him with contempt would see the promised land, but that because his servant Caleb had a different spirit and followed the LORD wholeheartedly, the LORD would bring him into the land, as recorded in Numbers. Caleb was now about Eighty-Five and still going strong. The character of Caleb is our story. He was a man of God, who followed the LORD wholeheartedly, never giving up, but always moving forward with the LORD as his commander. So we see Caleb had faith, he was devoted to following the LORD, as was rewarded. Caleb had strength; he was not what we picture what an eighty-five-year-old man looks like. We do not think Caleb was self-deceived, for he knew God was powerfully working in his life, even at Eighty-five. Caleb also loved the LORD, but we see that he also loved the mountains, the hill country of Hebron, which was occupied by powerful forces and heavy weaponry, as we saw in the book of Joshua. That was no problem for the likes of the man of God, Caleb who followed the LORD wholeheartedly. He set his path to the mountain, just as Jesus set his path to Mt Moriah, the city of Jerusalem. What mountain have we set our path to? Without question, the answer to that is the mountain of God. We also realize our need to follow our Lord wholeheartedly, as Joshua, Caleb and of course, David did. God testified about David that he found a man after His own heart. We know none of them were perfect men, as none of us are, but we must follow our Lord wholeheartedly, living courageously, no matter what age we are, for it is not us who conquest anything, but it is the LORD powerfully working for, in and through us, to accomplish his will.