WE THE PEOPLE

 

 

WE THE PEOPLE

Joshua led the Israelites in the ways of our God. They lived in the good land that God promised. Yes, they had to fight the enemy at times; they had to go and help others fight off enemies as well, and there were always adversities. But when they were attentive to the laws of Moses, things were generally good. They had written standards to adhere to concerning cleanliness, foods, animal care, sex, and everything that pertained to living well. But it all changed when Joshua died.

The book of Judges is all about the generations after Joshua. God’s people were like sheep, with very few rams among them. They were easily swayed by the practices of the cultures around them, even though God told them to “make no league with the inhabitants of this land” (Judges 2:2). God didn’t drive out the other cultures, but He did tell His people not to take up their practices.

Ever since the beginning of human civilization, people have been given the challenge of following the ways of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the midst of living with people who follow other gods. It’s the same today. Many Christians probably don’t even know the records of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Well, the Israelites knew the history, but they let those stories go into the proverbial sea of forgetfulness, and the lessons learned from these patriarchs of Judaism and Christianity died a thousand deaths.

In Joshua 2:3, God says to the people: “Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.” The people knew God was right, and they repented. “They lifted up their voice, and wept. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that he did for Israel. And Joshua, the servant of the Lord, died being a hundred and ten years old” (” (Judges 2:4,7-8).

But the people didn’t make the ways of God personal, because as soon as Joshua’s generation died away, “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.  And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim: and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth” (Judges 2:10b-13).

Then, instead of being in a good place with those gods which were not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the people were used and abused to the point they could hardly take it. “Now the Israelites were miserable” (Contemporary Eng. Version), “and they could no longer resist their enemies” (Holman Bible) (Judges 2:14).

This second chapter of Judges is charged with the slacking of the people, and the rescuing hand of God.

Verse 16 tells us: “ Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.” Verse 18: “And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented the Lord because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.”

But what do you think the people did when the judge died? “ And it came to pass, when the judge was

dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way” (v.19).

“And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and he said, ‘Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice; I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died: that through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not’” (vv. 20-22).

“Therefore the Lord left those nations, without driving them out hastily” (v.23). And God goes on to list those nations He did not drive out.

In chapter 3, we see that God delivers the people through a very clever man named Ehud. And then, by chapter 4, “the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, when Ehud was dead” (v.1).

This pattern goes on and on throughout the book of Judges, and it’s fascinating to read, but there’s a point to my bringing it up now, and why the Lord put it on my heart to share today.

What this section of scripture tells me is that God’s people are way too malleable—up, down, up, down, up, down. The Israelites then, and we the people now, seem to be more willing to follow a person, than to follow the ways of God. They would get a godly leader and follow him or her, then adhere to the ideology of an evil leader just as fervently. This is not good. Why did God have Moses write down the ways to live? In Old Testament times, it was called the Law of Moses, but it was actually the law of God.

Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses and then gave some new ways to live as well. I know I harp on this a lot, but I believe it is what our God is wanting us to see and do: Read the Bible; get to know the Old Testament stories; get to know Jesus’ life through reading the Gospels, and see how the New Testament believers followed Jesus’ teachings or failed.

We are being tested today, much like the Israelites were tested in the times after Joshua died. It’s up to us, the people, to make the Bible personal and real in our lives. We will always have good leaders and bad ones. God in His mercy and love for all humanity, left haters and pagans in the vicinity of God lovers. Who, but God, knows when or whether a hater may become a lover? But it is up to each Jewish or Christian person to know the standard our God set forth.

The only way to judge a man or a woman or an ideology is to know the standard by which a person or a thing rightfully can be judged, and that is the Word of God, the standard of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Who are they? Find out, and find out what and who they stand for.  

Love, Carolyn