GOD TESTS ISRAEL
In Judges Chapter Two we learned God’s opinion of how the Israelites had progressed toward building the great nation He had desired of them.
The verdict wasn’t very good.
God actually sent The Angel of The Lord with a message to report on how He felt about their progress as a holy nation.
You should be realizing by now that whenever you see the words that say “The Angel of The LORD” in the scriptures of the Old Testament; they are most likely referring to a Christophony.
A WARNING MESSAGE FROM GOD
The following scriptures are the words of that fearful message delivered to Israel in person:
Judges 2: 2-5 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 I swore to your ancestors. 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? And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.’”
As soon as they heard these tragic words the people of Israel wept. They realized how disobedient they had been toward the God who loved them.
A PLACE OF WEEPING
The Israelites called the place Bokim. Bokim means “weeping.”
In that place they wept and then they offered up sacrifices to the LORD.
Once again; by now you should be recognizing that whenever you see the words “Angel of the LORD” in the scriptures it is usually referring to Jesus pre-incarnate. This is what we call a Christophony.
Whenever we hear of a Christophony from ancient times we have to realize that Jesus was always there with God, right from the beginning of time He was walking among His people. He was right there beside them every step of the way in this new nation called Israel, leading them, guiding them and helping them learn how to overcome; even before He came to be with us as God in the form of a man much later.
This day must have been very sad for Our LORD because he had been given the hard task of delivering the verdict of “guilty” to Israel. They had not kept their promise to God to not worship other deities.
CANAAN’S PAGANISM COMES TO ISRAEL
It is pretty obvious how this regression happened. The founding generations did not destroy all of the Canaanites and their pagan influences affected all of the people of Israel.
The sons and daughters of Israel had now intermarried with Canaanites. Now a whole new generation of mixed cultures had evolved. This new culture knew nothing of the war to destroy pagan practices from the land and to only worship God.
A whole new generation of children living in the land of promise had grown up among these different, mixed cultural practices. This new generation had no realization of how wrong they were or why they should even turn away from such cultural influences and practices. This generation was simply repeating what they had experienced from their parents homes and the communities where they had grown up.
I guess you could say it wasn’t totally their own fault. The previous generation had failed to teach them the ways of God.
Have you ever experienced the results of this in today’s culture?
SAME OLD BAG OF TRICKS
Satan had done what he usually attempts to do. He had used the children of God’s people to help to destroy the godly ways of life and the godly culture that had originally existed during the days of Moses and Joshua.
With no appointed leader in charge, this had been a very easy opportunity for Satan and his demons to wreak havoc on the inhabitants of the land. The once holy nation of Israel had now accepted practices into their lives which they never would have accepted before.
God was not pleased. He sent his Son in the form of an angel to warn the people of their sins. Of course once confronted, they temporarily straightened and offered sacrifices for their sins. However; once back to daily life and no constant reminders; they slipped right back into the old mixed and blended patterns and ways that dishonored God.
A PLAN FOR REVERSAL
God is always reversing things. He would eventually use the evil ways of the culture to teach this latest generation of Israel how to wage warfare against their enemies. They had never been involved in warfare and had never had to fight to overcome their enemies.
This should clear up the thoughts of anyone who doesn’t believe in war. God was making ways for those of Israel who had never trained for war to be taught. Sometimes war is necessary. People of today often struggle with this type of cultural confusion too.
Actually; because of all the culture confusion, they could not even recognize their worst enemy; even when he was looking them right in the face. God was about to change that with a progressive number of events which would teach Israel the difference between God’s way and the ways of the pagans.
Can you name any other once godly nations who have fallen into sin because of culture confusion?
A GENERATION WHO DID NOT KNOW THE LORD
We can read of all of this in detail in Judges 2: 10 – 15; After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, 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 ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the LORD’s anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Astheroths.
In his anger against Israel the LORD gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of 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.
Can you believe that Israel would actually fall into worshiping Baal and the Astheroths again? How could this possibly happen after all that God had proven to them and the amazing way He had blessed them? They had PROMISED not to do this many times now. Yet; here we are again. Unbelievable!
We have often written about the dangers of Baal and Asherah worship in this blog. Here is one post if you wish to go deeper into the subject. There are posts within this post to take you even further into the reasons that we say what we say about keeping yourself pure and clean of idol worship.
https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/2017/12/
GOD BEGINS TO RAISE UP JUDGES
To help this new type of progress to come about God decided to raise judges up over Israel.
We can read of this in Judges 2:16-23; then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to the judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They wickedly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient 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 relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.
Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant I ordained for their ancestors and has not listened to me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died. I will use them to test Israel and see if they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their ancestors did. The LORD has allowed those nations to remain, he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.
So Israel was being tested by the pagan nations around them as God was raising up righteous judges to help them.
JUDGE OTHNIEL
We have already discussed much of the story of Othniel. He became the very first judge that God sent to help Israel learn how to be a better nation.
The scriptures that speak of Othniel being judge are found in Judges Chapter 3; The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and 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 on 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.
The first of the Judges of Israel was Othniel. He lead Israel for 40 long years. Peace prevailed as long as he reigned.
Next week we will discuss the second Judge that God raised up for Israel.