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Sunday Bible School-Judges Bible School- Tim Dobson- April26 · Woodlands Church Academy's Podcast

1:57
SPEAKER_00: Great.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Do come on in, find a seat, sorry.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Is it, Dan, Dan?
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Is it sound okay?
2:27
SPEAKER_00: So do come in and find yourself a seat and uh we'll make a start as soon as we can.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: There's um we can get a few more seats out if it needs to be.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: There's a little pile of seats there.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: Do help yourself.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Good.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Um lovely to see you down here at Bible School.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, once a month we get the opportunity just to take a book or a theme, uh, take a chance to just dig a little bit deeper into the topic.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Um on a Sunday evening uh when we have preaching.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: So Claire will be upstairs now, she'll be opening the Bible, she'll be talking, but she'll be talking to a kind of a um uh a congregation of people who are still searching alongside those who've been Christians for ages.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Um and this is more of a seminar style.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh so uh I'll be doing some talking if you want to ask questions.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: You can ask questions.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh we will finish with a prayer, but it probably won't end up with prayer ministry and the um imminent presence of the Lord being here.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: But you never know when we when we open scripture what might happen.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, the book of Judges.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: How many of you ever read the book of Judges?
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay, how many of you think it's a really strange book?
3:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean it I mean you maybe you became a Christian because you found out about Jesus, and in seeing Jesus, you think uh kind of uh he represents God in a way that's so amazing, his compassion, his tenderness, his sense of justice, uh healing, forgiveness, grace.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you become a Christian because you want to follow Jesus, and then you think, well, I suppose I ought to read the book that mentions Jesus, and you and you start reading, and Genesis is okay, and then Exodus got a few little stories, then you start, ah, it starts getting a little bit harder.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh, with all these kind of yeah, ritual sacrificing of goats and pigeons, and um, and then it goes, and then it kind of goes to the book of Joshua, and and you start to see this well, what looks a little bit like genocide, as God says that they're to go in and they're to wipe out this nation called the Canaanite nation.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: And then and then you come on to the book of um of Judges, and again, the book of Judges just contains some stuff that's very grim and very dark, uh, quite violent, uh, quite kind of um, yeah, some just some of the sexual activity that's going on.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: I think, hang on a minute, I thought this was supposed to be the Holy Bible, and that sounds a little bit kind of strange.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: So, what we want to try and do this evening is just take a little look at the book of Judges.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Why is it there in the Bible?
5:07
SPEAKER_00: What's it trying to communicate?
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's there for a purpose, Paul.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh, when he was writing, he says that all scriptures God breathed and it's profitable for us.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: The book of Judges is breathed by God, it's profitable for us, but in what way?
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and how can we read and understand it?
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Is that is that okay?
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, so the book of Judges, um you may have come across things that if those of you that grew up at um within church in a Sunday school, maybe there's kind of the story of Samson or or Gideon, two characters that probably two but two of the most well-known characters that are in the book of Judges, and um and and maybe you kind of spin the story that kind of uh yeah, Gideon was kind of a bit of a weed, and but he was a mighty warrior and just with 300 men against an army, and and uh and and Samson, well, the Holy Spirit came upon him, uh, did what did he do?
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Kind of ah, but after that you think, but what is the book of judges?
6:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, and why is it there?
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Um I I studied uh physics as a as a for my degree and went on to be a physics teacher.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: I married my wife Beverly, and she was a uh she did uh English literature.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it's been an interesting marriage, and she's always tried to kind of persuade me that the wonders of of English literature.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and sometimes I get persuaded, most of the time, probably not.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Um but there's but there's been times where uh she says, let's go and watch a Shakespeare play, and I say, okay, as long as it's a comedy, because I can kind of I can just about manage a comedy.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: But um Shakespeare wrote things called tragedies.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: You probably know this.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I kind of come to discover this later in life.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Um uh and in some ways I think the book of judges is is uh is a tragedy.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh when Shakespeare wrote his plays, a tragedy just seems to be bleak.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just seems to get everyone's needs to die.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Um but behind it there is a story, there is a point, actually, there is something to be learned and something to be gained, even from a tragedy.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: And in some ways, I think the book of Judges is in in all the kind of different literature styles we see in the Bible, I think the book of Judges is a is a tragedy.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Um it's it's just saying actually this is this is what goes wrong when you don't follow God.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean this is this is this is kind of what happens.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh and in some ways, during the book, actually it's probably got very few redeeming graces.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: There's a there's probably no kind of times where you think, oh yeah, that was really, I could really see the hand of God doing this, this, and that, and the other.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: There's times where God intervenes, but overall the book is uh a tragedy.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, where does the book fit within the story?
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, we start off with with Genesis.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Genesis, we read about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and how God is trying to rescue the whole world by starting somewhere.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: He starts with a person, Abraham, who believed.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: It was counted to him as as righteousness.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh and the promise to his his family, his descendants, that that through them, God was going to have a special covenant relationship with them, and and they were to be a light to the nations, they were to be a blessing to the world.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And and that was always the plan.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: And and so through Joseph, the whole family ends up down in Egypt, and after 400 years, uh, we start the book of Exodus where God's people that that should be God's people a light to the nations, they should be showing kind of the world what it's like to be following God, and here they are uh enslaved and captive.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: And and God miraculously through Moses, he he sets them free from the power of Egypt, a great superpower of the time.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: And uh and and he promises them as they come to Mount Sinai and he gives them a covenant agreement of if you follow my ways and do my things, do you know what you're gonna be the most blessed people in the whole world?
8:55
SPEAKER_00: But actually, if you don't, if you break covenant, actually, here's some of the things that are going to happen to you.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: And so Moses dies, and Joshua uh takes leadership, and um uh so the sixth book of the Bible, the book of Joshua, and and it's a book which says about how uh God leads his Joshua leads his God's people into uh the land of Canaanite and the uh Canaanites, and um, and it says actually there's something about this nation that is so wicked, it's so awful, it's so vile.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Actually, the only way I can deal with that sin until Jesus comes when I can forgive it, and actually, the only way I can deal with it is actually just to get rid of people.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: You can't separate people and sin in the Old Testament.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: So the way you got rid of sin is that you you got rid of the people.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: So there was so much sexual immorality and perversion going on there.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: There was so much worship that involved worshipping Shimosh and Molech, uh, two gods that uh they thought required child sacrifice.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And and so babies were actually uh kind of burnt.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: There was an archaeological dig that had this kind of big furnace with a tube and an entrance at the top, and and they just decided it was a place where you put the live baby, you set the fire going above them, and you put live babies in the top, and they would burn alive as a sacrifice to this this God, Shimosh and Molech.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And and and the wickedness was so vile and so awful that the kind of the next generation would be polluted, and the next generation would be polluted, and the only way to kind of to cleanse the land was God said, actually, you need to go and you need to get rid of the people to make a start, a fresh start, get rid of the Canaanites.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: And so Joshua starts with this command to say the only way this land could be redeemed, the only way that children could be born into a nation where they've got the possibility of thriving and surviving is if we get rid of this generation and you live as a generation that obey my covenant.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: And and again, for our Western ears, that sounds kind of violent, and but it was before Jesus that was the only way that God could deal with with sin.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: That got so perverted and so uh evil and so rotten.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: So Joshua starts this kind of uh uh move through uh going across the River Jordan and the walls of Jericho and starts to kind of um uh take the land of Canaan.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: And the book of Judges starts off that with this verse.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Now it came about that after Joshua had died, the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And so the book of Judges comes uh after the book of Joshua.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: So Joshua had started this kind of uh claiming that the promised land, uh, but as he dies, it passes on to the next generation.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Are they going to be the generation that fulfills God's destiny?
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And are they gonna be a covenant people that display to the world exactly how humanity should live?
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Or are they going to succumb to the very evils of the land that they're trying to take uh possession of?
12:04
SPEAKER_00: And the book of Judges um it kind of it's kind of uh in the first uh two chapters.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: The first chapter uh there's an introduction that says that actually things seem to be quite positive.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: But uh there's then a kind of a little review, and this this review in uh chapter uh two of Judges, verse 10, um, it kind of gives us uh this um overview of of a cycle that we're going to see as we go through the book of Judges.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: A cycle that that repeats itself six times.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: It says this after that whole generation had gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals, that was the the gods of the um the nations that they were trying to take their territory.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: They followed and worshipped various gods of the peoples around them.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: They aroused the Lord's anger because they forsook him and served the Baals and the Ashtaroths.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: In his anger against Israel, the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: He said he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around them, whom they were no longer able to resist.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just he had sworn to them.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: They were in great distress.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord raised up judges who saved them out of the hands of these raiders.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: And we have this cycle that goes on, this cycle of uh people who uh don't know God, they become exactly like the Canaanites who they're supposed to be defeating.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh as they become like the Canaanites, God takes his hand of protection off them and they get invaded.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: As they get invaded, they are subjected uh for a number of years.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, under the pressure of being invaded, and um they call out to God.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: God hears them, he sends them judges.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh judges in the Bible haven't got kind of curly wigs and robes, they're not kind of officials in courts.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh, they were kind of um tribal warriors, tribal leaders.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh they they were people who are men of of action uh rather than those that just sat behind a bar and issued kind of uh sentences.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Um so the book of uh judges goes on these these circles.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: So it starts off with great hope.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: The first chapter has this little phrase three times in verse 4, verse 19, and verse 22.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: It says, the law was with them.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: The law was with them.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Actually, they were, they started off uh with Joshua, they gone in and the Lord was with them, and when God's with them, they fight battles and they win.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: And they, with serving God, he's he's he's with them, he's on their side.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: So it starts off really hopeful, but then the conclusion, uh the four chapters at the end, uh I mean they're really again two horrendous stories at the end of uh the last four chapters.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh there's there's one story of um idolatry, there's one story of of uh a silver uh god and a tribe of Dan, and and and again, it's a story that's linked to idolatry, and and again they go and uh to this place called Laash, and they just kind of just kill everybody kind of without any kind of thought.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Um so there's idolatry in the last chapter there, um, uh, and then there's sexual morality.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: There's a story of this um uh this man who goes on a uh his concubine, which is somebody who you don't actually marry but you treat like a wife sexually, and um she runs away and and this person goes to go and retrieve her.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: And as he retrieves her, he's travelling back to his home and they stop at a a town.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Um uh and in that town the men come out, bash on the door of the house where he's staying, and says, Send the send the man out to him, we want to gang rape him.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Um and they say, Oh no, that that can't happen.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh have have my daughter and their concubine instead.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: You can gang rape them.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so uh they send out the concubine, they uh just taking turns to rape this woman overnight, and eventually the morning she's there, she's she's dead.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: And uh the man takes the body home, chops the body into 12 pieces, and just sends a piece to each of the 12 tribes of Israel.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: You think, gracious me, you should have warned me.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: That is kind of definitely certificate 18.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: But it's there in the Bible, and and those last two, those last four chapters just show actually you were supposed to be God's people.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: You were supposed to be different to the world round about you, and yet somehow you've become exactly like Canaanites.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: You become exactly like them, you're you're serving silver trinkets as gods rather than than me, and and rather than being uh pure in your sexual relationships, actually, it's just gone bizarre, and and a civil war kind of breaks out, and and you're killing your own brothers and sisters.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: That shouldn't be happening, and so there's this kind of this downward spiral, it starts off with real hope.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: The book of Judges ends up so bleakly, you should have been the people of God, you should have been living in the world God's way and not their way.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: There's this little phrase that appears four times within those chapters, and this this phrase says this, and obviously the book of Judges was was written down during the time of King David or King Solomon, because it says this uh there was no king in Israel, every man did what was right in his own eyes.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: That little phrase occurs kind of in some ways as they uh as they come to the end of this tragedy, the conclusion is actually maybe things would be different if there was a king.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if they'd have had a king, it wouldn't have descended into this and and maybe someone like David, if actually if King David had been around with leadership, with uh a sense of in his young years of a heart totally devoted to the Lord, then actually maybe things wouldn't have been different would have been different.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: Actually, maybe for us, how do we stop becoming like the world round about us?
18:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe we need a king.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Actually, we need a king in our lives.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: We need Jesus to be the king who shows us exactly how to live in in his world, God's way.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: And and where you don't have a view of King Jesus and you don't have a view in his kingdom, actually, even Christians can spiral down to be just like anyone else in the workplace, just like anyone else at university, just like anyone else in your community.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: There needs to be a king in your life, and the king is Jesus.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And in some ways, that's the only kind of redemptive thing in some ways about this book, is that if they'd had a king, maybe they wouldn't have become so uh similar to the world around about them.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um there's there's six kind of revivals, six times this kind of uh this circle, or actually more it's more a downward spiral, kind of um, six times there's um this uh revival, and I've put the uh the passages there.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh people turn away from the Lord, the land's invaded, people cry out to God, God raises up a judge and delivers them, and there's peace uh until the judge dies.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And then it repeats itself.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: People turn away from God, the land's invaded, people cry out to God, it sends judge, there's peace, the judge dies.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: People turn away from God, and and it six times uh it goes there.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: So um these are the so there's um there's 12 judges, there's six main judges.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: So Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, uh, Jephthah, and Samson were judges who were appointed by God to deliver.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a couple of chapters about this guy called uh uh Abimelech, um, and he he was a self-appointed uh kind of judge, uh, which again, as you see, some of the things that he chose to do, again, it's more to do with human power rather than God's uh deliverance.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Um so that's the book of Judges.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh okay, so far, kind of um, so we've got about 20 minutes.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: So what I'll try and do is just I'll just say if this is a tragedy, what do we learn from each of the main characters?
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh so we'll look at the six main characters and say, okay, in this tragedy, what did they do in their lives that we need to avoid?
20:48
SPEAKER_00: So our lives to end up being tragedies.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Is that okay?
20:51
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna start off with Othniel.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Um uh so Othniel was uh a leader that got raised up.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Um we're told that Othniel uh came from uh quite a well-known family.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Actually, he was a relative of Caleb.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you if you know the story of Exodus and coming into the Promised Land, um, there was two people, two of the 12 spies that were sent into the Promised Land.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh only two of them trusted God.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: One was Joshua, who ended up leading the nation, and the second person was Caleb.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they were the only two people who were born in Egypt who actually entered the Promised Land.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: They they'd seen the whole story from the deliverance through to Mount Sinai, all the commands, all the promises that God had given, and uh and so Othniel was part of this uh family.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: So it says that uh Othniel uh fought um uh against um the uh Kusham Rusham Therim, um uh and uh the Lord delivered uh Israel out of their hands.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And then it says the Lamb was at peace for 40 years.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, of all the people who should have known what the promises of God were, of all the people who should have known what the command of what God was, actually, it probably would have been Othniel, who was in the right fire, who round the campfire, maybe late at night, Caleb would tell the old stories and tell the stories about God's covenant, tell the story about God's promises.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: Actually, of all the people who should have known the territory that should have been uh taken, uh was probably the person.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: So he defended, he fought off the imminent threat, but then he was kind of well, there was land still to be conquered, but he didn't seem to do anything about it.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Kind of this this was the um land that uh had been conquered when when Othniel uh was in charge.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Actually, this is the land that um this is the area that uh Moses uh the God told Moses, this is the land you should have taken.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: So uh Othniel was at peace when there was yet more to be taken.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: And in some ways that's a kingdom principle for us.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, is our Christian life just to sort out our problems?
23:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, as long as our problems are sorted out, fine, that's it.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Actually, no, there's more to it than that.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Actually, when you become a Christian, part of the deal is that you find forgiveness, you find wholeness, you find healing, you find deliverance.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: Those are all the wonderful things that God brings to you.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: He fights off the enemy of your soul, he fights off the kind of uh the shame and the guilt that kind of somehow is an enemy that holds you.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: But once you've when when you're in the process of doing those things, actually there's more.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: There's more of God's kingdom that you should be seeking.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: There's always more that God has for you.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: There's always more of his kingdom that you should be living out in the world.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: And and Othaniel was at peace when he should have been at war.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: And had there been a king in Israel, maybe they would have known that.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: Othney should have done.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: Actually, when there's when we don't follow King Jesus, actually, there's always more of Jesus' kingdom for us to find out.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: If ever we just think, well, I've I'm there now, I've kind of read enough books, I've done done enough prayers, kind of ha I can just kind of sit back, be at peace.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: But no, there's always more.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Kind of, I just turned 64, and I and I still know there's more.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: There's always more of Jesus, there's always more of his kingdom, there's always more to be to be seen, to be experienced.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And and Othniel, maybe that was the the tragedy that he should have led a whole life where he understood and knew what the kingdom of God was like.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh the second story is of a man called Ehud.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Have people heard of Ehud?
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, this isn't kind of necessarily a Sunday school story, um, because uh Eglon was um uh was the uh person who was leading the the enemy that invaded Israel.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Um and it says that Eglon was an extraordinarily kind of fat, heavy person.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you ever watch Star Wars, a bit like Jabba the Hutt, kind of kind of you just imagine Eglon being like that.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And and there's this story of Ehud, and uh Ehud was um was left-handed.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, and in those in that culture, left-handed was seen to be a weakness because right-handed was strong, left-handed was a bit weak.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, and Ehud was somebody who was left-handed.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it meant that when he went in to see uh this king, um, when when you check for weapons, if you're right-handed, your sword's always on this side.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: So when you body searched, you only really kind of searched down this side.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: But because he was left-handed, the sword was on the other side.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: So when he got into the king's presence, actually, what was humanly seen to be weakness, actually God used for his good.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so the story goes, he goes in and he kind of says, I just want a quiet word with you, sends out all the attendance and says, I've got a message for you.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: He brings out his sword and it jabs it into his stomach and says he's so fat that the kind of the fat kind of goes around the hilt of the sword and he can't pull it out because there's so much fat in the man.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: And and he's again Sunday school story.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: If you've never read it, it's there.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh Ehud uh won a victory, and it says the Lamb was at peace, and it wasn't just 40 years this time, it was 80 years.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: Kind of a real kind of victory.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: The the Lamb was at peace for for 80 years.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: The reality is that his 80 years of peace was peace for him, whereas God's people were still under attack.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Now it's interesting if you were to add up all the um uh the the dates that the book gives.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: So it gives a a time of of how long uh the nation was invaded and how long it was inflicted by the enemy.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: It then says about deliverance from the judge, it then says how many years um uh peace there were.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you add up all those dates, I think it comes to about 360 years.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: But if you look at um uh either end of the book of Judges, so entry into Canaan is kind of round about 1230.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Um Saul being made king is about 1020 BC.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Now, if any of those of you are good at maths, you can't get 360 years into that.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: So the likelihood is that these were the dates of the judges.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh so um while here was some of the invasions.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: So the invasions were kind of tribal invasions rather than national invasions.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: So um with Othniel, the Aramites uh came here uh with uh Ehud, uh Moab went there, uh with uh Gideon, it was uh sorry, Deborah was down there, kind of Gideon, the Midianites came up from there.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Um so you had you had all these different tribal invasions.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: So the likelihood is that when Ehud was at peace for 80 years, Shamgal was sorting out the uh Philistines, Deborah and Barak were sorting out their enemy, actually, Gideon was sorting out the Midianites, and uh and God's people were under attack while he was at peace.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's something about that.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think, well, as long as I'm okay, it doesn't really matter about other Christians, or as long as our church is okay, it doesn't really matter about other churches.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Ehud was at peace.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Now, if he had understood that there was a king in Israel, if he had understood back, what would King Jesus say?
28:42
SPEAKER_00: King Jesus would say, There's only one church in Bristol, there's only one church in the UK, actually, there's only one church in the world.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: It's the church, it's my church.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: And actually, if there's tribes, if there's churches or if there's people who are under attack and I'm not bothered, that's wrong.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: That's what Ehad was doing, that's part of the tragedy.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Actually, he was at peace for 80 years when other tribes of the people of God were under attack.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: And and I think when we see Jesus and when we understand that his church and his body is anyone who owns his name, actually, what happens to other Christians, what happens to other people, actually should matter to you.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: And if you're just kind of lazy, complacent, kind of not being bothered, actually, I think that's a deal.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Ehud should have maybe joined in with Shamgai, he should have joined in with Deborah, maybe he should have joined in with Gideon, uh, rather than just being at peace himself.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Deborah, Deborah's a fascinating judge.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you don't see many female leaders in the Bible, but uh Deborah is one of those female leaders, a national female leader.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh she is someone who is a prophetess, and people would come to her uh for to get wisdom, and under a palm tree, she would sit there and she'd dispense kind of wisdom again, very unusual in that time.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, some commentators would say, Do you know what?
30:02
SPEAKER_00: The book of Judges, it's things got so bad, it was this spiral down, things got so bad, they even had women leading the nation.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: It was that bad that it descended to letting women leave.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Of course, women shouldn't lead.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: I I don't think that's true.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: I think here she is this both Deborah and Jail, who's another woman who appears in the story.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I think they're both women who are in a generation that was kind of wandering from God.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: Actually, they were they were endeavoring to follow God.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: She was a prophetess who obviously she was listening to God.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: People under saw that she had a gift of wisdom.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: They would come to her for to make decisions.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And and and and she uh is she leads the people and her general Barak uh goes out and and and fights.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And he says that, General, I'm not gonna go out and fight unless you come with me, Deborah.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: I think that's for for a warrior, for a commander of an army to say, I'm not gonna go unless there's a woman comes with me.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Again, that was quite unusual unless she was a powerful God-annointed person.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, and because she said that um because uh he wouldn't go by himself, she said actually the the honor of the of the victory won't be yours.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Now the honor of the victory, when you won a victory, was you got the king and you got to or the senior general and you got to kill them.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: That was your your your treat, your your honour.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Um was the cut of the head or something like that, because you're you're a brave warrior.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Um uh and in this one they they fight the battle, they they win, the the general Cicero tries to escape, and and and jail, this woman, uh, sees this enemy trying to escape and says, Oh, come on, come into my house, come to my tent.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'll make you some nice Horlicks or hot chocolate some kind of and and oh, here's a nice bed.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Have a lie down, have a sleep.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to run away.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: I understand.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And and while he's kind of uh laying asleep, she gets a tent peg and a mallet, and she goes up and puts a tent peg into his temple and whack, she kind of nails his head to the floor.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh women's ministry, don't we love it?
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Kind of and we see this this story of um of these two women who, in their generation, they saw the purposes of God happening.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: But um, when this victory is won, they they um Deborah uh and um Barak sing this little duet uh in uh chapter five.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Um and in this in this song they talk about the victory, but then they say this kind of um about apathy, about there's some Christians who are apathetic, there's some people of God who are apathetic.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: In the district of Reuben, one of the tribes, there was much searching of heart.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: Why did you stay among the sheep pens?
32:44
SPEAKER_00: And hear the whistling of the of the flock for the flock.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: In the districts of Reuben, there was much searching of heart.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh Gilead uh stayed beyond the Jordan and Dan, why did you linger by the ships?
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Asher remained at the coast and stayed in the coves.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: And there's this idea that that this was a a national crisis, and and you would be much rather building sandcastles or have on your personal yacht, you'd much rather listen to a bit of music while you're out in the countryside with the sheep.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Kind of, why didn't you come and join in?
33:16
SPEAKER_00: This was a battle of God's people, and and you didn't join in.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: And and again, there's there's times where apathy and disunity uh, I think are things that uh throughout church history, where you get apathy and disunity, again, it's a tragedy.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: It's a tragedy when that happens, when there's a sense of we should be God's Jesus' body, we should be God's people, we should be showing light to this world, and and somehow we've kind of caved in and we, oh, we can't be bothered.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: I'd much rather listen to my Spotify playlist or watch the next box set on Netflix, or uh kind of I'm not saying there's anything wrong with leisure, but when that becomes all that you're doing and you don't understand the purposes of God and God's kingdom imperatives in these dark times, actually disunity and apathy uh creep in.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so about Gideon now.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Gideon, uh kind of how many more people have you heard about Gideon?
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Can you kind of okay?
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Gideon's is kind of again very Sunday school fair.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Um uh the Midianites have invaded again because God's people have turned away from him, they've become like the Canaanites, and and um uh an angel appears to Gideon and says, Mighty warrior, uh, you kind of set kind of are you gonna deliver uh God's people from this enemy.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh he he's somebody who gets uh of all the people, he gets the most supernatural experiences.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh so he gets an angel, appears to him, he then gets some food for the angel.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: The angel touches it with a staff and and fire comes from a rock.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: He actually hears the voice of God.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: He has this kind of fleece, dew, dew fleece kind of thing, ground wet, fleece dry, other way around.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Um God speaks to him.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you're the definitely the person I've chosen to do this thing.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: He gets a dream about a barley loaf running down, uh, and an interpretation, this is this is Gideon, he's gonna cause havoc.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: And he then gets this miraculous deliverance of 300 people uh defeating quite a large army.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so Gideon is somebody who has uh a lot of supernatural experiences.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: When he's won the battle, there's this strange little story uh which we don't say at Sunday school.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: We do the bits about mighty warrior, and we do about 300 against a big army, and also on your side.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Actually, we don't do the bit about give us all the gold earrings that you've taken as uh as loot from the defect army, and I'm gonna turn it into an ephod.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: So um it says here that um uh which chapter is it um uh chapter chapter seven.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Um it says that kind of uh he got all this this gold uh and he turned it into uh a golden ephod.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh and it said, I mean, that this time, normally in the previous kind of three, uh the land was at peace, and when the judge died, they turned their back on God.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: Here, Gideon's still alive.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: Why they turn their back on God?
36:26
SPEAKER_00: Because he he turns this gold earrings into a gold ephod.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: And it says in uh verse 27 of chapter 8, and Gideon made it into an ephod, and he placed it in his city, orpha, and all Israel played the harlot with it, and so it became a snare to Gideon and his family.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Now you might think if you're gonna make a golden idol, why would you make a golden ephod?
36:54
SPEAKER_00: And what on earth is an ephod in the first place?
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever thought that?
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you haven't read the story.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: Actually, an ephod, if you uh look in um 1 Samuel 30, verse 7, and uh 1 Samuel 23, verse 11, um the ephod was uh was um was part of the high priest's vestments.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: And and what it would be, it would be like a breastplate, and there'd be uh precious gems would be embedded in it, kind of uh 12 gems for the for the tribes of Israel.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: And and there was two of those gems called the Urim and the Thummim.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and what you could do is you were to you could get this gold kind of ephod, you put a candle or a lamp on the inside, and you ask God yes or no questions.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: If the answer was yes, one of the the light would catch one of the gems and it would glow.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: And if the answer was no, the light would catch another gem and that would glow.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: And it was a means by of getting supernatural guidance from God.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: And so when Gideon, who's had all these supernatural experiences, when he's one, actually he makes an image of something which is a supernatural experience.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: He makes an idol of the supernatural experience, of God speaking.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: God's spoken to him in all kinds of different ways.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: I still want God to speak to me, but actually I'll worship the fact that God speaks to me rather than worshiping God.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: And so he makes this image of this ephod and it becomes a kind of a trap and a snare to him and to his family, and and they they turn away from God even before the judges died.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Now, what do we learn from the tragedy?
38:30
SPEAKER_00: Actually, the tragedy is that some people, I mean, it's great that God speaks to us, it's great that there's prophecy, it's great that we see some supernatural things like physical healing, but if ever they become the thing, Tim Dobson, Healing Ministry International, if ever that becomes the thing rather than the giver, it becomes idolatry.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: And and that and he worshipped the supernatural experience rather than worshiping the God who gave those experiences.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think within some certainly in some charismatic uh situations, actually the the gift becomes the thing that we worship rather than the giver.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: Um and that's a tragedy that again he didn't even have to die before they turned away from God because of that.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: We run out of time, so um uh now here we kind of the the spiral is getting deeper and grimmer.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: So um so so Gideon was um Gideon was bad, but Jephthah was was worse.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know if you know the story of Jephthah.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: It's again it's a he he was like a um he he he um was born to his dad uh who had a fling with a prostitute.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh so uh his legitimate kids always bullied Jephthah.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: So he grew up being hated and despised by um this um the leader of this town.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh so when he was old enough, he left home and he got a band of discontents together and he just had kind of a rebel with the court.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean he was just kind of uh he he learned some some tactics of warfare and whatever.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: So um when they needed uh someone to deliver them from this enemy, they they approached Jephthah and said, Jephthah, will you come and will you fight for us?
40:18
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Oh, I thought you hated me, I thought you didn't like me.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: You kind of really sense that he's got a chip on his shoulder, unresolved personal pain and hurt.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: And and so eventually he begrudgingly goes with them, and uh and then somehow God says that you're going to deliver them, and and somehow he can't even take God at his word.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: So he says, This is what I'll do.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: If I go and you're with me and I win, when I come back to my farm, whatever comes out to meet me, I'll sacrifice to you.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Thinking it would be a goat or a sheep, maybe the sheepdog, I don't know.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: Um uh so he goes and he wins this victory, and then the story says he goes back to his home, and and the first person to come out to to greet him to celebrate his victory is his daughter, his only child.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: And again, this story just shows how much Israel is becoming like the Canaanite nation because he goes as far as sacrificing his own daughter.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: The very thing that feeding the babies into the furnace actually he kills his one and only child and he dies childless.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: And you think, gracious me, what happened?
41:29
SPEAKER_00: That the very kingdom that you should have been the light to that kingdom, to that darkness, actually, somehow the darkness has invaded you, and you're doing the very things that you should be overcoming.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, Christians, you find the same, the very thing you're trying to battle with becomes a vulnerability to yourself, unless you find the healing and wholeness of God.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Now, for Jeb Thurn, he was before Jesus, and maybe just the personal hurt and the trauma of childhood and and the bullying and the kind of the low self-esteem, maybe he couldn't have done anything about that.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: But we can.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: Which is why we have the wholeness course that here is because actually, unless you deal with some of the stuff that's in here, you'll do exactly what the world's doing out there.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: And and uh tragedy, it's a tragedy.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: He dies childless, being affected by the very kingdom that he was supposed to be destroying.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: Don't let your hearts be broken in pain without seeking the healing love of Jesus.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Hurt people will always hurt people unless you find some healing.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: Last one.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: Cheery, isn't it?
42:39
SPEAKER_00: Book of judge, it's a tragedy.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: Um last one is Samson.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: Now, Samson uh again, uh of all the people, he was the if Gideon was the man who got the most supernatural experiences, Samson's the one who we who we read is filled with the Spirit, or the Spirit comes upon him the most.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, this is it's fascinating how the Holy Spirit works.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: So the fact that the Holy Spirit comes on Samson doesn't condone his action, doesn't condone his choices.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Actually, the the spirit's activity is to try and bring the deliverance that God intended.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: But Samson is somebody who's prophesied about it even before he's born.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: His parents get a message to say this child is going to be a special child.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Actually, this child's gonna be delivered from the the current enemy, which was the Philistines.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh this child's got so actually as a sign that he's specially chosen by God to bring deliverance, don't cut his hair, don't let him drink alcohol.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: And if you know the story of Samson, the very people that he should have been prophesied to destroy the Philistines, uh he has uh four, he has three uh inappropriate relationships.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: The first one is there's a woman from Timnah, which is a Philistine uh town, and he he wants to marry this Philistine.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: And um his dad says, Don't don't do it.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: But he says, I don't want to listen to you, I want to marry you.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: And you know the story that kind of they issue the he has a riddle, and if they can answer the riddle, that um uh they get clothes, he gets clothes, they get clothes, and if you can't answer the riddle, that's the other way around.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: And anyway, they persuade the wife to get the truth from him, and they say that it's a lion and honey, and he's mad, he goes off and he sets fire to places, ties Fox's tails together.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Great little story.
44:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, and when he comes back, they've married the girl off to somebody else.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, the second story is he goes to Gaza, we hear about in the news now.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: It was a place then, and he went to Gaza and um he spent the night with a prostitute, uh Philistine prostitute, and he gets up in the morning and he's gonna get kept, but he kind of lifts the gates of the city gates and carries them off super strength.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: And the last one, Delilah, is we know how it ends, is this Philistine woman again?
44:57
SPEAKER_00: He falls in love with the very people he should be destroying.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: He falls in love with them, and eventually Delilah, he kind of time and time again says that my strength is in this, that, or the other.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: Eventually he says it's in my hair, cuts his hair, and again there he is.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: He should have been the person of God.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: He had the Holy Spirit, it should have been he should have been a winner, and here he was a loser.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: And only as he dies he calls out one last time to the God for deliverance, and he pulls down this temple and destroys more people in his death than when he was alive.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: But it ends tragically.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: Again, sometimes people think, well, if I've got the Holy Spirit, I can do no wrong.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: You jolly can.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: I've known lots of people who've said the Holy Spirit this, Holy Spirit that, and and actually, unless there's something about your heart, his heart wasn't fully devoted to God, his heart was drawn to he, he was a one-man show.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Of all the even Gideon had 300 men, he never once asked for an army to deliver the Philistines.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: He thought he could do it by himself.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: Again, if you ever think you can do life by yourself, you're wrong.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: You're a bit like Samson.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: Ends badly.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: There's um the book of Judges, it's a tragedy.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: It's a tragedy that starts off with hope.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: Maybe our Christian life starts off with hope.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: God's with us.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: Actually, if we're not careful though, it can spiral down and we can become just like anyone else.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: And a tragedy is in the Bible because we need to learn from other people's mistakes.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: Why?
46:39
SPEAKER_00: So that we don't make the same mistakes.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: We need to learn from the mistakes of Othniel.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: There's still more for you to take hold of.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: We need to learn from the mistakes of Ehud, that that kind of when other people, uh other churches are under attack, it's is your business.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: We need to learn from um from Deborah about uh disunity and apathy that can so easily seep into our lives.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: We need to uh to learn from from uh Gideon.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: Let's not worship the gifts, but always worship the giver.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: We need to learn from Jephthah, let's find personal wholeness, personal freedom so that it doesn't destroy what we're trying to do.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: Many leaders have not have unresolved things, and somehow their ministries and leadership get wrecked because they get torpedoed through sexual immorality, through money, through the desire for power and control and coercion.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: And there's stuff on the inside that they didn't deal with.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: Let's not be like Samson, who think we can do it all by ourselves, and as long as we've got the Holy Spirit, everything's gonna be fine.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't, and it's not for us.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: And as the book finishes, it says, There was no king in Israel.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: You can spend your life doing what's right in your own eyes.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: You do you, I'll do me.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Or we can do what the king says.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: We can live the life that the king always dreamt that we could live.
47:56
SPEAKER_00: We could be the person that the king always wanted you to be.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: Are you living not without a king in your life, but are you living with a king in your life?
48:05
SPEAKER_00: With Jesus, who's got dreams and thoughts and longings and promises and hope that could be yours?
48:12
SPEAKER_00: Let's learn from the tragedy and live with the king.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: That's all I've got to say.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: Any questions or comments?
48:22
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I'll normally stop halfway through.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: I just got carried away.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: Any little reflections or any any questions on uh the book of judges?
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: So um, that's a great question, isn't it?
48:49
SPEAKER_00: So so Abraham and Isaac, there's the command from God to sacrifice your son.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, Isaac knew all along that, sorry, Jake, uh Abraham knew all along that Isaac was going to be the child of promise.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: So he didn't know exactly how God was gonna work it, so but he knew that he was going to, so he said to his servants, me and the boy will go up to worship, no matter to worship, which meant I'm gonna sacrifice him.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: And then it said, and and we will return to you.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: So even before he went, he actually knew that that uh that I that Jacob was going to come, that Isaac was going to come back with him.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: So he went through the process of sacrificing the the promise and all that the promise we've longed for a child and we've got a child.
49:34
SPEAKER_00: And God's saying, Is this child everything to you?
49:37
SPEAKER_00: Because actually you've got to you've got to sacrifice that.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: And in the sacrifice, he God never intended him to do it.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: There's always going to be a lamb.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: Whereas for here, it was it was not God's intention, it was not God's command to him, it was his kind of vow to God, and and he went along with the um, he actually went through with it, whereas with um Jacob uh there was obviously with Isaac, there was obviously a lamb that was there.
50:06
SPEAKER_00: Any other questions or comments?
50:07
SPEAKER_00: Yep, Trevor?
50:11
unknown: Actually, Jacob is a tragedy for a love story.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: Um well it's it's hard to see this book being a love story, but it as part of the whole story, uh the tragedy is supposed to lead us to the king.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to say this is what life's like when there's no king and everyone does what that is right in their own eyes, and it should lead us to Jesus, which actually, if you put it in those terms, is uh is the story of love.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:50
SPEAKER_00: I think at that point uh repentance was probably the best thing to do.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: Say, actually, God, I was so foolish.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: I thought I had to try and please you, I thought I had to contribute something to your to make this victory possible.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I repented my arrogance to think that I could give something to you that would make this happen.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: I think it it would have been much more appropriate for him to have apologized and to repent and not to do it.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: I think God would have God doesn't want human sacrifice.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Molech and Shimosh were the the two gods, particularly the Canaanites God, that required human sacrifice.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I never required human sacrifice.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: So I think that would outweigh the sense that he made uh made a rash vow.
51:34
SPEAKER_00: I think he he probably should have just apologized, repented, and and and trusted in God's power and God's love.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: Um but obviously his own personal brokenness made that impossible for him to do.
51:46
unknown: Um would you say Samuel is the most faithful judge?
51:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so it kind of ends on this kind of it's so bad, but something dot dot dot.
52:01
SPEAKER_00: There was no king in Israel.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: And so when we start with the next judge, actually Samuel is the person that institutes the human Israel kingship.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: Um so he is the next judge who he's he's the last of the of the judges, but he's he's uh a prophet and he sets up the uh the monarchy.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: Um more than a judge then.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: He he and and whereas it going downwards, kind of he starts to bring things back up again.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, David is a king who Jesus refers to himself as the king as the son of David.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: So there's obviously something that Samuel instigates through first of all Saul, but then through David, that the monarchy, there was a king in Israel, and things happened that even Jesus kind of refers back to to that monarch as uh for his own sense of identity.
52:48
SPEAKER_00: Um folks, we've gone on a bit too long.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: So um I'll just say a little prayer as we finish.
52:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you want to come to Bible school on Tuesday, say we're looking at the minor prophets uh in the foyer, you're very welcome to come.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, if you want to listen to any of the previous Bible schools, they're on the Bible school page of the website.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: But let me just pray.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: Lord God, thank you so much for your word.
53:10
SPEAKER_00: And even though at times it with Western 21st century eyes and ears, it it looks and sounds um strange, but yet within it is contained uh warnings and lessons to be learned.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that we would learn the lesson that not to do what's right in our own eyes, but to have a king in our life, to have you, Jesus, as king, that we avoid the mistakes of these judges and avoid the mistakes of the people who became exactly like the nation that they should have been overcoming.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: Lord help us to live wholeheartedly for you, Jesus, and to uh not make these same mistakes in our own personal lives in Jesus' name.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: Great.
53:53
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
53:53
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy us of your evening.