We come to one of the saddest days in the history of the Judges of Israel. Again; the Israelites had conformed to the ways of the world around them. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths and the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, the Ammonites and the Philistines.
No longer were the people of Israel worshiping the LORD or serving God or paying attention to God’s best ways to live.
WELCOME
Welcome to today’s lesson from the Book of Judges in the course of the COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY. We are following the scriptures of our bibles, taking page-by-page together, coming before God with the unhindered worship of an adoring child. We are happy to have you along with us today.
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THE ISRAELITES ANGER GOD
The scriptures say that God became angry with the Israelites.
He was so angry that he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites.
Why?
Because they were worshiping the foreign gods of these people groups instead of The One True God.
THE PHILISTINES
The Philistines came into the Lavant from the Aegean. Their religious practices were different from all the others dwelling in the land. It was one of the highest forms of paganism. They were in constant struggle with the Israelites, Canaanites and the Egyptians who surrounded them.
They occupied the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gaza. These cities were where the temples of Dagon were located.
Dagon is known as the national god of the Philistines. He was worshiped as a fertility god. The Philistines were also credited with worshiping Ashtaroth and a divinatory cult of Baal-Zebub at Ekron.
THE AMMONITES
Peoples called Ammonites were the descendants of the son of Lot named Ben-Ammi. They had conquered giants in order to possess their lands which extended from Jabbock to the Jordan and a long distance into Arabia.
At the time that Israel re-entered Canaan by God’s promises to Abraham, Israel had suppressed the enemies of the Ammonites (the Amorites.) Tribes of Israel settled into the lands which the Ammorites once roamed.
AMMONITES ATTACK THEIR ALIES
Yet; now the Ammonites (who had wanted the Amorites out of the land) chose to turn and attack Israel. They hated Israel, though Israel had inadvertently helped their cause by defeating the Amorites.
This shows how fierce, mean and unreasonable these people could be. The Ammonites used whatever means they needed to use to accomplish control of whatever they wished to take.
For eighteen years these ancestors of Lot crushed and suppressed the Israelites who lived on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead.
PAGAN TO THE CORE
The religious practices of the Ammonites were degrading and full of cruel superstitions. Molech was their main god. They offered human sacrifices unto him.
Israel had been warned over and over not to associate with this type of worship (Leviticus 20:2-5.) Yet we find them accepting the culture and joining in with the pagan practices of their surroundings.
The same types of pagan worship were common to all of the tribes that came against Israel in these times of which we speak.
WHERE WAS GOD?
You might be asking; “where was God when all of this was going on around Israel?”
God definitely knew that Israel was being crushed. He allowed this for one reason. It was because Israel had lowered themselves to the same idolatry and pagan practices as the Ammonites and the Philistines.
God gives us choices. When God’s people forsake His ways and begin to live and act like pagans; God turns His back away. It was true during this specific time in history and it remains true today. The very first commandment is “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
CRY OUT TO THE GODS YOU HAVE CHOSEN
God had put up with this lack of respect and ungratefulness long enough. He would not help the Israelites because they had served other gods. His words to the Israelites were “Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”
How sad that God had to state the same words to His people whom He had led to freedom as He had stated to the Egyptians whom He had freed them from years ago.
Can you blame him?
How could Israel be so blind?
ARE WE NOT THE SAME?
I suppose it happened the same way that it is happening again today.
Maybe this all began with being “tolerant.”
Perhaps the intellectual side of Israel had decided that diversity and cultural inclusion was always best; even if it was anti-God and anti-God’s ways.
It could have been that the Israelite children had been educated with the cultural ways of the Ammonites and the Philistines instead of the Ten Commandments of God.
Maybe this was their way of being inclusive.
Who knows how deep and how far away Israel had wondered from their original purposes?
FORGETTING PURPOSE FOR POLOTICS
Somehow in the midst of all of this, idolatry and pagan ways had crept right into their worship.
You could no longer tell the difference from Israel’s ways and the ways of the rest of the pagans whom God had warned them not to associate with.
Generations of such had watered down the ways of God and no one even paid attention to that fact anymore. Like a frog in slowly rising temperatures; they had become accustomed to harmful forms of worship and cultural activities. Whatever was popular was being accepted as good and right.
NO LONGER A PECULIAR PEOPLE SET APART
The Israelites had become the same as those that lived in the lands around them. They were no longer behaving and living as “a peculiar people” set aside and apart for God.
Look at America today.
Could we be like this too?
How many of our children have thrown out the sacredness of marriage? Peak inside the homes full of materialism. See the schools that teach five-year-olds that God did not create them properly. Check out the morality of the Christian culture.
Is our form of Christian worship often only lip-service?
SIMILAR PROBLEMS OF TODAY
How deep are the roots of true Christianity growing in our modern churches?
Is it not unlawful to repeat the ten commandments in certain places in our Christian communities?
You get the picture; no need to elaborate more.
God has to be like a tough parent at times.
Have you ever let your child make a mistake just to teach them the consequences? Sometimes they never learn until you let them go and let it happen.
If a two year old child is told over and over again not to touch something because it is hot; eventually they will touch it anyway and discover the real truth for themselves. Often this is the only way to teach them.
Welcome to our present culture of adult two-year-olds.
WHEN GOD LOOKS AWAY
I suppose God was at this same point with Israel. He simply turned his back and cringed as they wandered into places God never wished for them to go.
Like us; they took their freedom of choice for granted.
They did things God had never wanted them to do.
It took awhile; but eventually the Israelites woke up and began to think about the fact that God wasn’t protecting them anymore. They knew it was because He could not endure the unholy and unwise ways that they were living their lives.
Israel had sinned greatly against God.
TIME TO REPENT
So Israel (after 18 years of suppression brought on by their own actions and decisions) began to repent.
God wasn’t sure at first that they were sincere. He made them prove to Him that they meant their words.
The words recorded in the scriptures of Judges 10 are: “We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.”
A REPEATED PATTERN
So God asks them if they remembered the past when the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed them?
They had cried out to God then too.
He had saved them over and over again from these pagan cultures. Still; the people had forsaken God and worshiped pagan idols again.
CHOICES HAVE CONSEQUENCES
For a while God let them suffer from their own choices.
Finally; after seeing how powerless and false these pagan gods had been for them, the Israelites turned to God and admitted their sins again. Their words were “Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.”
When Israel forgets God’s ways, or when any culture at any time forgets God’s ways, there is only one answer.
Repent and turn.
That is the way back to the heart of God. This is the only way that He will turn around to listen again.
REPENTANCE MUST BE REAL
After this prayer they rid themselves of the foreign gods among their tribes and they began to worship the LORD again.
Turning matters.
Lip service will not work with God.
God could bear their cries no longer. He decided to help them once more.
AN ANNOUNCEMENT AT GILEAD
The Ammonites were camped at Gilead. During that time the Israelites were assembled and camped at Mizpah.
The people of Gilead were tired of the oppression of the Ammonites. They gathered together and announced if anyone rose to defeat the Ammonites, they could become leader over all of Gilead.
Another leader is about to arise in Israel.
His story is one of the saddest ever told.
We will discuss it in our next lesson.