Judges Blue Bible pg 254

Judges Blue Bible pg 254

“In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land…”

Ruth 1:1

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of believe, it was the epoch of incredulity,

Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,

Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”

we are all going direct to Heaven, we are all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period…”

Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”

God’s Faithfulness

1. Historical Progression 2. Present Experience

God’s Faithfulness

Genesis • Adam & Eve [Covenant] • Noah [Covenant] • Abraham [Covenant] • Isaac, • Jacob (Israel)…12 Sons • Joseph, Youngest, Egypt

God’s Faithfulness (2)

• Exodus – Enslavement, Deliverer, Confrontation, Deliverance

• Numbers – Wilderness Wanderings

God is Faithful

AND he wants his people to be faithful, too! • Leviticus & Deuteronomy

= Covenant

Deuteronomy 4:39–40ESV 39 know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. 40 Therefore you shall keep his

The Deal (“Covenant” or “Testament”)

statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.

Deuteronomy 4:39–40ESV

Joshua - Conquest of the Holy Land

Judges 2:7 (NIV84)

The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua…

Charles Swindol, Sermon “Judges: Recycled Misery” Part One, July 6, 2011 A Survey of Judges

Cycles:

Cycles:

Charles Swindol, Sermon “Judges: Recycled Misery” Part One, July 6, 2011 A Survey of Judges

[given pattern] 7 The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua … 10 …another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.

Judges 2:7, 10 (NIV84)

11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord .... 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.

Judges 2:11-19 (NIV84)

They provoked the Lord to anger. 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

Judges 2:11-19 (NIV84)

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. 16 Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved

Judges 2:11-19 (NIV84)

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

Judges 2:11-19 (NIV84)

(previous generation), 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

Judges 2:11-19 (NIV84)

judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived. 19 But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more

Judges 2:11-19 (NIV84)

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.

Judges 2:11-19 (NIV84)

25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Judges 21:25ESV

The nation appears determined to destroy itself, but each time he rescues her. If this nation emerges at the end of this period with any sort of national self-consciousness and any sense of significance in history,

God is Faithful

it is due to no credit of their own. It is attributable entirely to the gracious heart of their covenant Sovereign. He deals mercifully with them, not because they deserve it in any way

God is Faithful

but because of his long-range mission of mercy for the world…. Daniel Isaac Block, Judges, Ruth, vol. 6, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 141.

God is Faithful

God is Faithful

11 The saying is trustworthy, for… 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself.

2 Timothy 2:11a, 13ESV

The Essential Nature of God Exodus 34:6–7ESV

6 …“The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast

love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity

Exodus 34:6–7ESV

of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Exodus 34:6–7ESV

“I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you.’

Judges 2:1ESV

26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26ESV

“God is faithful. He ___ ___ ____”

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your Faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22, 23ESV

• “God is faithful. He ________ _____”

• God is faithful; therefore WE _________ ____”

Application