[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:07] This is Rick. Welcome back to the Nomad Pastor Podcast.
[00:00:11] If you listen to the last episode, you know that what we're going to do now is walk through the Book of Judges.
[00:00:16] This is not. We're not doing it as a history lesson. It's. We're doing this to look in the mirror, right?
[00:00:23] And, you know, a lot of people read Judges and they think about it as, like, this ancient rebellion against God, but it's really a book about the. Of human beings, right? It's about what happens when people who walked closely with God slowly drift away from him.
[00:00:42] And so in the last episode, hopefully we laid a foundation, right? Joshua's gone. The leadership is absent, the nation in the land at that time, but their hearts aren't anchored.
[00:00:58] Their hearts aren't anchored with God, Right?
[00:01:02] And today we're going to let this story shift a little bit, right, that we're going to change the tone.
[00:01:10] God is going to speak directly to his people about the consequences of their decisions.
[00:01:15] And I believe Judges two is the why behind the entire book. Right? There's a lot of books out there, you know, by various authors talking about why we do things.
[00:01:27] To me, Judges two is the why.
[00:01:30] And if you understand the chapter, Chapter two, I think the rest of Judges will make sense.
[00:01:37] And so we're going to just dive right in. Judges 2. It opens with a moment. I think that should make all of us pay attention to. We should just stop and pay attention.
[00:01:50] The angel of the Lord shows up.
[00:01:53] And every time we see that phrase in the Old Testament, it's not just a messenger, it's God himself speaking. He reminds Israel of everything that he's done for them.
[00:02:06] He says, I brought you out of Egypt. I led you into the land. I promised I would never break my covenant with you.
[00:02:15] But then he asks him a question. Why have you done this?
[00:02:20] They didn't listen.
[00:02:22] They didn't obey.
[00:02:24] They didn't drive out idols.
[00:02:27] They didn't clear out the influences that would lead them away from God.
[00:02:31] Instead, they compromised. They tolerated. They blended in.
[00:02:39] And God tells them what the consequence of that is going to be because they refused to remove the things that would destroy them, those very things that would now become a trap, a snare to them.
[00:02:58] You see, as we stop there for a second, we need to talk about that. This isn't just Israel's story. In the last episode, I talked about the Book of Judges, that we should look at it like we're looking in a mirror.
[00:03:10] This is every one of us.
[00:03:12] Every time we hold onto something God has told us to let go of it becomes the exact thing that hurts us.
[00:03:23] If we tolerate bitterness enough, if we are bitter against other people, it's going to poison us.
[00:03:31] If we are too prideful long enough, that pride will blind us.
[00:03:38] If we tolerate addiction in our lives, that addiction will own us.
[00:03:44] And if we tolerate sin, it becomes our master.
[00:03:50] You see, in the Book of Judges, God wasn't being cruel to Israel.
[00:03:55] He was being clear.
[00:03:57] He was warning them, not just punishing them.
[00:04:02] They chose the path.
[00:04:04] They chose bitterness, they chose pride, they chose sin.
[00:04:10] God simply allowed them to walk it.
[00:04:14] That's the thing about free choice, right?
[00:04:18] Our God is such a loving God. He loves us enough to allow us to make mistakes, that we are not slaves.
[00:04:25] If God didn't simply allow Israel to walk into it or walk through it and said, you're going to do this because I commanded it, they're just slaves. But he brought them out of slavery from Egypt.
[00:04:41] But there was this generational breakdown.
[00:04:46] And I think a really sad verse in the Bible is Judges 2:10.
[00:04:54] It says another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel.
[00:05:06] Think about that for a minute.
[00:05:09] Did not know the Lord, and they did not know the work that he had done for them.
[00:05:15] That is one generation after Joshua, one generation after the Red Sea, one generation after the miracles and manna and Jericho and the presence of God leading them.
[00:05:29] But somehow, some way, the next generation didn't even know of it. They knew none of it.
[00:05:39] They didn't know the Lord, nor the work he had done for Israel.
[00:05:46] Look, that doesn't happen by accident.
[00:05:50] That happens because a generation before them became too comfortable.
[00:05:58] They trusted in the blessings but forgot God was the blesser.
[00:06:04] They enjoyed the promised land but neglected who gave it to them. God.
[00:06:13] And they stopped talking to God.
[00:06:16] And they stopped talking about God. They stopped talking about what God had done for them. They stopped telling stories. They stopped discipling their children.
[00:06:29] And as a result, that generation had no anchor, no fear for God, no truth, no foundation.
[00:06:37] Does that sound familiar?
[00:06:39] I said last week, we're starting in Judges this year because I want to show, or I want us to really understand what we're going through today.
[00:06:49] What we're going through today is not by accident.
[00:06:53] What we're going through today is a generation is comfortable and they're not passing this onto their children.
[00:07:04] People have stopped telling stories about the amazing things God has done in their lives.
[00:07:10] People have stopped discipling their kids and started allowing their phones and their TV and social media to disciple them. And they're not discipling them about God.
[00:07:23] You want to know why our youth are struggling with gender identity and suicide and depression and all of these things that is going on in their life?
[00:07:36] Because a generation stopped discipling their kids.
[00:07:40] No fear of God, no truth, no foundation.
[00:07:44] If that doesn't speak directly to the world we live in today, nothing will.
[00:07:50] I mean, look at our culture today. We have more access to scripture than any generation in history.
[00:08:01] And even though that's true, understanding the Bible, biblical understanding is at an all time low.
[00:08:14] We have churches everywhere.
[00:08:18] In Tennessee where I live, it feels like we have a church on every corner.
[00:08:22] But there is brokenness everywhere.
[00:08:27] You look and go to some of these churches. We've replaced teaching with entertainment.
[00:08:32] We've replaced discipleship with convenience.
[00:08:38] And we've replaced conviction with comfort.
[00:08:43] We are watching Judges two happen in real time right now.
[00:08:50] It's this cycle of rebellion. It's how sin operates.
[00:08:55] And Judges two introduces a cycle that repeats for the rest of the book.
[00:09:01] I talked about it last week. It's a pattern.
[00:09:05] Israel does evil in the sight of the Lord.
[00:09:08] They chase idols, they compromise. They drift. And God allows oppression, not because he hates them, but because he loves them enough not to leave them in their rebellion.
[00:09:22] Israel cries out, not always out of repentance. Sometimes it was out of desperation.
[00:09:29] Then God raises a deliverer, a judge, a hero.
[00:09:33] A flawed, ordinary person empowered by the extraordinary power of God.
[00:09:41] And then there's peace for some time.
[00:09:45] But the problem is that judge dies.
[00:09:48] When that judge dies, the people fall deeper into sin because that's how broken humans operate.
[00:09:56] It's how addiction works. It's how rebellion works. It's how sin works.
[00:10:03] We don't fall into a disaster overnight.
[00:10:06] We slide into it through a series of very small decisions, what seem to be meaningless compromises, A little rebellion here and there.
[00:10:19] And then one day we wake up and we're in chains.
[00:10:25] I want to put a spotlight on America, on our culture, on our world, because we're living in that exact cycle. This is the modern version cycle of Judges.
[00:10:36] We rebel.
[00:10:37] We've turned away from biblical truth.
[00:10:40] We are celebrating things that God calls sin.
[00:10:46] And we are following our feelings instead of the word of God. And we erase the fear of God from public life entirely.
[00:10:55] And God allows us to feel it.
[00:10:57] So if you look at our world today, anxiety is at an all time high. Depression is rising. There is greater division than I have ever seen or ever remember seeing. Violence is rampant. It's rising, and because of it, people are hopeless.
[00:11:14] Hopelessness is rising at a staggering rate. Families are falling apart and children's identity is confused.
[00:11:26] And the problem is, when all this is going on, people do cry out, but not always to God.
[00:11:33] You'll hear people say, why is the world falling apart?
[00:11:38] Why don't I have peace?
[00:11:40] How come nothing satisfies me? Why do I feel so empty inside but are not crying out to God for help?
[00:11:52] And even today, God, in his mercy, still raises deliverers.
[00:11:59] We have pastors that preach the truth.
[00:12:03] There are parents who fight for their children's hearts.
[00:12:07] There are men and women who stand for righteousness in a culture that hates them.
[00:12:14] And there are leaders who refuse to compromise.
[00:12:19] Charlie Kirk was one of those leaders.
[00:12:22] Frank Turek. Dr. Frank Turek.
[00:12:26] What I believe, huge inspiration to me. I've never met him. I would love to meet him.
[00:12:35] He is a leader who refuses to compromise.
[00:12:38] He is a man who stands for righteousness in a culture that hates it.
[00:12:44] Whether we believe it or not, God is still raising judges today.
[00:12:49] Not with swords, not with armies, but with courage, with conviction, with faithfulness, and armed with truth.
[00:13:04] Something we need to understand is God was never looking for reasons to punish Israel.
[00:13:12] He was looking for ways to restore them.
[00:13:16] In Judges 2:18, it says the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning.
[00:13:21] God's not indifferent.
[00:13:24] He cares.
[00:13:25] He's not sitting there watching our life from some distance.
[00:13:29] He cares deeply. We are his children, and when we hurt, he hears it. When we cry, he listens.
[00:13:37] When we repent, he responds.
[00:13:41] God is a deliverer by nature.
[00:13:46] You see, the cycle in Judges is not about God's anger. And I think sometimes people read that, but it's about God's mercy.
[00:13:55] It's about that mercy that meets us in our own stubbornness.
[00:14:00] Sit on that for a minute.
[00:14:05] I've seen this cycle play out countless times.
[00:14:12] Countless times in the ministry that I live in with the bikers for Christ.
[00:14:18] Countless times at the Nashville Rescue Mission.
[00:14:21] And we'll use the Rescue Mission as an example, right?
[00:14:24] A man comes into the mission. He's broken. He's desperate. He's ready for change.
[00:14:30] He meets God.
[00:14:32] Maybe it's a sermon that somebody from BFC is preaching, or I'm preaching. Or maybe it's somebody else from some other ministry, some other pastor.
[00:14:44] And this man at the mission is broken, and he meets God and he gets clean and he finds peace. And he starts to rebuild his life.
[00:14:53] And then he gets comfortable.
[00:14:56] Then that urgency, it fades.
[00:14:59] His conviction in God and Doing the right thing. It starts to cool down.
[00:15:06] His old friends start to call him, the old habits start to whisper in his ear, and he slowly slips back into that same cycle that just about killed him before.
[00:15:20] It really breaks my heart to be, you know, go to the mission and see somebody who's they're on the right path and talk to them and be like, I'm getting out of here next week. I finished the program. I'm clean. I've got a job, I'm doing these things.
[00:15:36] And then you don't see them for three or four, five or six months.
[00:15:40] And then we're in there one Sunday night preaching, and there he is and he comes up and he says, I got comfortable.
[00:15:49] I got out of here and went back to my old friends.
[00:15:55] This is a little bit off topic, but look, when you're getting clean, you need a new playground and a new playmate.
[00:16:03] Don't go back to your old friends that caused you to be comfortable, that took away, that stripped you of that urgency, that whisper in your ear that those old habits are okay.
[00:16:17] And then something happens.
[00:16:22] I watch God pull them back again and again and again.
[00:16:31] Not because he earned it, not because they deserve it, but because God refuses to abandon us. He loves us so much, he will not abandon his people.
[00:16:47] That's what Judges is.
[00:16:49] That's what the gospel is. God refusing to abandon us.
[00:16:57] So as we push through this Book of Judges, we're going to talk about some of these judges, right where we go next.
[00:17:09] And over the next several episodes, we're going to walk through the judges.
[00:17:16] We're going to talk about Samson, we're going to talk about Ehud, we're going to talk about Deborah, we're going to talk about Gideon.
[00:17:23] And we're going to see how each story reveals something about God, how it reveals something about human nature and something about the world we're living in today.
[00:17:37] Each episode is going to challenge us, it should convict us, and it is going to point us back to Christ.
[00:17:47] Because Jesus Christ is the one who breaks the cycle completely.
[00:17:55] So I want to leave you with this.
[00:17:57] If you're stuck in the cycle right now, rebellion, desperation, consequences. You're not alone, and you are never too far gone.
[00:18:09] God raised deliverers for Israel and he sent the ultimate deliverer for us. Jesus Christ.
[00:18:17] You can come home. You can break the cycle.
[00:18:22] You can be free.
[00:18:24] The Book of Judges shows us how far people fall.
[00:18:29] And Jesus shows us how far God is willing to go to bring us back.
[00:18:38] He sent his son 100% God, 100% man to die for us on a cross and was raised. Three days later he was sent to take on our sin.
[00:19:00] You can break the cycle.
[00:19:04] Christ is the ultimate deliverer. And as we walk through this book of Judges, I think you're going to see over and over and over again how loving God is and how patient.
[00:19:20] Because we need it.
[00:19:25] We desperately need it in today's world.
[00:19:29] I can't begin to explain how important that is.
[00:19:35] So as we go through the next couple weeks and we talk about the different judges within, within this book of the Bible, the Old Testament, I want you to really spend time reading it, understanding it, praying about it, looking at your life. Where am I acting like Israel?
[00:19:56] Where have I drifted away?
[00:19:59] Where am I compromising for convenience?
[00:20:03] Start asking yourself those questions.
[00:20:07] Hey, I want to thank you for listening again. This is Rick with the Nomad Pastor podcast. Send me an
[email protected] if you like these podcasts, share it on social media, subscribe, follow, like it, do whatever you got to do. We are on all the podcast platforms of your choice. You can go. It doesn't matter whether it's itunes or Spotify or whatever it may be, go look us up, Amazon Music, whatever it is, we're there.
[00:20:33] And so I would say, hey, share it with somebody who needs to hear it. And again, if you don't have a Bible believing church in your area that you're a member of and if you're looking for one, if you need prayer again, send me an
[email protected] and you know, remember, everything is going to be okay with Christ.
[00:20:57] So don't forget, love God and love people.
