Life gets to you

Sometimes you allow things to get in the way of what is important, one of my goals for tommrow is to take some time and write a few blogs, and get caught back up to where I am reading. For some of you know I started a new job and because of that I have not been as actively putting together blogs. When our lives change one of the first thing that tends to happen is that you stop reading the Bible, and once we stop it can be very hard to get started again. So the purpose of my random rant is to encourage you to keep reading your Bible, and share what you are learning!!!

Night off

Tonight I am not posting, I will resume tommrow, I seem to have discover a food does not like so I am going to rest. May God bless you as you read His word!! W4TW

Judges Chapter 5

“‘Lord let all your enemies die this way Lord! But let all the people that Love you be powerful like the rising sun!’ So there was peace in the land for 40 years.” Judges 5:31 ICB

It is a time for celebration and rejoicing the enemy is defeated and now they could live in peace for awhile. Deborah and Jael had both done the will of God, and had set Israel free from another enemy.

Chapter 5 is a song of celebration to Deborah and Jael, it also talks about the tribes of Israel who chose to help and those who did not. It also lifts praise to God, which is a place we all should be seeking when we are in the trials of life.

I like the part towards the end talking about Sisera’s mother as she waits for him to return, wondering if he was victorious. I can only imagine what might go through her mind when she found out that her son had been killed by a woman, and heart broken when she found out that a tent peg had gone through his head. Her last memory of him being in presentable condition is as he leaves home to go and fight. Only a mothers heart would crush at the sight of her son.

Judges Chapter 4

“But Jael, the wife of Heber, took a tent peg and a hammer. She quietly went to Sisera. Since he was he very tired, he was sleeping. She hammered the tent peg though the side of Sisera’s head into the ground! And so Sisera died.” Judges 4:21 ICB

Warning do not mess with women that a called by God for a Mission, cuz they are powerful.

Deborah was a prophetess that was called by for a special service, she would sit under a palm tree and give advice to those who came to her. One day she was impressed by God to gathered together an army of 10,000 to defeat an army of 900.

God blessed and only one man escaped and that was Sisera. But he what was not expect was that Jael would not protect him put would kill him.

Because of the effort of these two women Israel was able to remove another enemy from their ranks.

Judges Chapter 3

“Ehud made a sword for himself. The sword was about 18 inches long. He tied the sword to his right upper leg under his clothes.” Judges 3:16

Before I jump into chapter 3 there are some things that I might state as possible outcomes, but they are not always the case. As you read this blog it may seam like I contradict myself and that is not the case, I am just showing what the Bible says and share some other angles that you can look at.

As with the last blog we are going to be looking at section by section, I recommend that you read the section in your Bible first, and then read the section in the blog.

Verse 1-6

The chapter starts out by talking about the reasoning behind God not have all the nations wiped out when Israel came in. The text says that God wanted to test the people who had not fought in the wars to gain the property of Canaan. These people are most likely people that had been born after the Israelites had settled in the promised land and had not experienced the time when Israel was at war.

God kept them for the Israelites to learn how to fight. Now to me that’s sounds scary, how would you like it if your nation was kept around just so that another nation could learn how to fight. Those nations were also kept for another reason. To test to see if the Israelites would follow the laws that was given to Moses.

The problem is that they chose not to follow Gods laws, and to leave these people alone. The Israelites begin to marry those people and eventually they begin to worship their gods. What was Israel thinking? Or were they thinking?

Verse 7-11

Israel was not doing what they were supposed to be doing, and by so doing the ended up under the rule of a king from one of the other nations for 8 years. I ask my question again what were they thinking? They eventually did one thing right they called to God. God had mercy upon them and sent Othniel to come and lead them to battle against Cushan-Rishathaim king or Northwest Mesopotamia and defeating the king. As a result there was 40 years of peace in Israel.

Verse 12-30

This is one of the better known stories in the book of Judges.

“Again the people of Israel did what the Lord said was wrong.” Judges 3:12a ICB

One question that might be floating through your head at this point is: “Do they ever figure out that what they do is causing them to fall out of favor with God?” But they have no clue that they are doing wrong. Part of the problem is that they are not focusing on God. When you focus of God your life tends to be easier than when you turn your back on Him.

Because Israel is not doing what God has asked them to do God allows Eglon king of Moab the power to defeat Israel. The Israelites were under Eglon’s rule for 18 years before they cried to God for help.

Now lets look back the first time it was 8 years before they realized they needed help this time it was 18 years, it took them longer to realize the problem. To me it looks like the more times you turn your back on God the longer it takes for you to realize that you need Him.

God hears the cry of His people and sends Ehud to help. I want to point out something that the author chose to point out and that is Ehud is left-handed. If you look at statistics you will see that there are more right-handed people than left-handed. If you are making a contract between two people you shake on it with your right hand. (There are also a lot of other things that are symbolized by the two different hands I will let you look that up on your own.)

Ehud made a sword and attached it to his body, and when down to talk to Eglon about the payment that Eglon demanded. Ehud gave Eglon the payment that he had asked for.

The next several moves I see as an act of faith that Ehud had. He sent the men who brought the money home. Then he tells Eglon that he has a secret message. So Eglon sends every one out of the room so that he can be alone, this is probably the second worse decision of his life. The first being taking the Israelites captive.

The next few moments is the climax of the story. Don’t rush your reading of it. High drama on the big screen. Ehud comes close to Eglon like he is going to tell a secret. But instead Ehud grabs the sword from his leg and stabs Eglon into the belly and the sword it totally in Eglon, the sword blade which is 18 inches plus the handle.

Eglon is one fat dude. Let’s take a moment and look at culture. Those who are rich have nice houses, cars and a muscular body. That is some things you might say for our culture today. In the culture that this story is taking place is that the fatter you are the more money you had, in addition to the fat you would have numerous numbers of servants to do what ever you wanted.

Ehud leaves the sword in Eglon, first because he probably can’t get the sword out, two the sword would have all sorts of body fluid on it. Ehud locks the door and leaves.

Eglon’s servants come back some time latter and find the door locked, so the figure the king was reliving himself, he was going to the bathroom. After a several hours the servants begin to get worried so they get a key and open the door to find Eglon dead.

While all this is going on Ehud has gone to gather an army. Moab is taken captive by the Israelites for 80 years.

Verse 31

This is a short section, but it also shows that God is always in control and can do a lot with one person.

Shamgar was the next Judge after Ehud. Shamgar killed 600 Philistines with a sharp stick used to guide oxen. 

Judges Chapter 2

“After those people had died, their children grew up. They did not know the Lord or what He had done for Israel. So they did evil and worshiped the Baal idols. They did what the Lord said was wrong.” Judges 2:10, 11 ICB

There is a lot to process on this chapter so I am going to go section by section and let’s see what comes from it.

Verse 1-5

God is making a Covent with His people and also giving a warning if they do not do as He asks. The first important thing is that God says that I have kept My promise to your ancestors. He is showing that He will do all that He says He will do. It’s a way that He shows to build trust with His people.

He then turns and says that you should not make an agreement with the people in this land, and not only that you also need to destroy their Gods and alters. But the Israelites did not do that so God made those people the Israelites enemies. In addition their gods would become a trap. The Israelites had had proven that other gods were a down fall for them. First when they took the goods from Egypt, and secondly when they had the Golden calf built in the wilderness.

They saw that there could be trouble and they wanted to follow God’s leading. It says that after this message they built and alter, had sacrifices and worshiped God there.

Verse 6-9

The Israelites followed what God had called them to do while Joshua was still alive, and also during the time that elders lived. But as it is with all people they die at some point. Sometimes I think about it this way, we tend to live a more spiritual life when we are around leaders that have a very close spiritual walk, we tend to follow the commandments of God, and tend to have an easier time reading the Bible, but when they are gone, we tend to have a harder time doing the things we know we are supposed to do. Other things start to take control of our lives.

Verse 10-15

As with all people they grow old and die, and new generations grow up. There was a new generation who had not experienced what God had done for the Israelites. They decided that they were no longer going to serve God the way that the generations had done so before them. The began to worship the idols of Baal and other pagan gods.

Sometimes you need to look at history to understand the present situation. Any time that people turn their back on God they usually cause themselves greater trouble than is necessary. You can look back to when we first started to sin till today and anytime that we turn our back to God things start getting harder.

For the Israelites there neighbors were no longer their friends. They were being robed from, they were being attacked. The Israelites would go out to defend themselves but it was in vain. They could not protect themselves from their enemies.

God had once again kept His promise. He had told them that if they fell for the gods of the other people that their protection was gone and that He would no longer protect them from their enemies.

Verse 16-23

This last section I like to call the thesis of the book. We have looked at the history of why the Israelites are in this place, and after this we learn about what God does to help save His people. But I am also getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at some passages.

“But the Israelites did not listen to their judges. They were not faithful to God. They followed other gods instead. In the past the people of Israel obeyed the Lord’s commands. But now the Israelites stopped obeying the Lord,” Judges 2:17 ICB

God set up Judges to show the people where they had gone wrong in hopes that they would turn from their ways back to Him. But what happen instead it not only did they decided not to obey God they also refused to listen to His messengers.

I like to define a Judge is someone, who looks upon the actions of a person, and determents if that persons actions fit inside or outside the law. Based on these determinants he issues a judgment of guilty or innocent. 

From the judgment the judge issues a plan that will allow the convicted to make repayment for what he or she has done wrong.

The Judges in the case of Israel where using God’s law to show God’s people that they needed to turn back to God to be restored under the law of God. But if they chose not to make the payment of change they would suffer the choice that they made to not follow God, and to not be protected by Him.

Even though the Israelites were not following what God had told them to do He still had compassion on them. That is why He sent Judges to deal with the situation. But when the judges died they would go back to the same way of doing things, which kept them in the circle of doing God’s will and then falling away from God’s will.

The last verse I find to be interesting

“In the past the Lord had permitted those nations to stay in the land. He did not quickly force them out. He did not help Joshua’s army defeat them.” Judges 2:23 ICB

God placed in the lap of the Israelites an awesome opportunity to witness to those nations around them. They had a chance to share the wonderful love that God had for them. They had a chance to share and win people over to God. But instead they had allowed themselves to be converted to their gods and to ignore the God that truly matters.

Judges Chapter 1

“The men of Joseph went to fight against the city of Bethel. The Lord was on their side.” Judges 1:22 ICB

This was a great time for the children of Israel. Prior to this they had been slaves in Egypt, they had traveled through the wilderness, they had marched around Jericho and seen it fall to the ground. They had sent spies into the Promised land only to be scared off. They had been wondering around in the wilderness. The wondering was over now and they now could take possession of the land that was promised to them; The land that Moses, Joshua, and God had led them to.

There was one slight problem and that is that the land was not necessarily ready for them. The tenants of the land still lived there, and the Children of Israel went to war with these different groups of people to get their land that was promised to them.

Some of the enemies were completely wiped out, some were just taken down from a large number of people down to a small group. And to some of the survivors they were tortured because of the wrongs that the different groups felt they had done.

The Children of Israel where divided into twelve different tribes theses tribes are the seeds of the 12 sons of Jacob. Each of these tribes was given a area that they were allowed to take up as their section of the promised land. When I first think of the promise land coming from the point of going to the promise land I always thought of it as a small plot of land. But when you look at it from the prospective of Judges were different tribes are banding together to take out different nations, you start to get the picture that this is a large amount of land that the Children of Israel are blessed with.

One of the things that is going to be a problem for Israel latter on is the nations that they decided not to completely destroy. These nations will start integrating into the different families, and also there will be some that choose to make war with the different tribes. Some of these people will also be taken and made slaves.