Judges 2:6-3:6 "School's In Session"

1:03By which I mean I would sit there while Jason figured it out and then told me what to write. The problem with this strategy is that most of the time I did not learn the lesson. And when I did not learn the lesson, I didn't pass the test. Because that's how it works. You complete the assignment to learn the lesson, and you learn the lesson to pass the test. Last week we began our study through the book of Judges. Where we covered the first half of the book's introduction.

1:33We saw that God blesses obedience, but because obeying God is often difficult, we are tempted to make excuses for our lack of obedience. The Israelites were commanded to drive the Canaanites out of the promised land, but the Canaanites were persistent, and some of them had better military technology. And those became excuses for the Israelites not to obey God and drive them out of the land. Excuses led to compromise. So they settled with the Canaanites. They eventually married them. And before too long, they were worshiping the same gods as those people.

2:12Excuses led to compromise, and compromise is disobedience. And what disobedience requires, as we saw, is confession and repentance, not tears and sacrifice. The Israelites cried and they did some religious stuff, but they didn't change their minds, and they didn't change their behavior, as we're going to see in today's text. In our scripture today, we have what amounts to the second half of the book's introduction, chapter 2, verse 6, all the way through chapter 3, verse 6. Now, I've never used chat GPT, but I think that if you said, give me a summary of the book of Judges, it would spit out something like what we have in chapter 2, verse 6 through chapter 3, verse 6.

2:59We're going to To see the pattern that's going to play out over and over again in the book of Judges: Rebellion, retribution, repentance, rescue, rinse and repeat for 21 chapters. That's what we're going to see over and over again. And that pattern plays out because God's people were not good students. Good students complete their assignments. They learn their lesson. They pass the test. But God's people didn't do those things. And so this morning we're going to be challenged to be different than the Israelites, to be good students.

3:42And in order to be good students, we need to do three things. We'll put these three points on the screen for you. This will be the sermon outline this morning. First, complete your assignment. Know God and make him known. Second, learn your lesson. Abandon God, experience his discipline. And then third, pass your test. Obey God, walk in his ways. So let's begin in chapter 2, verses 6 through 10, here, which Brooke read just a moment ago, where we'll see that we must complete our assignment to know God and to make him known. In these few verses here, as the section begins, you see that the people serve the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders. Elders who outlived Joshua.

4:34Why is that? Well, if you look at the end of verse 7, it is because they had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. They saw all the great work. What's that referring to? Well, these people saw the ten plagues in Egypt. They saw the waters of the Red Sea part and they walked through on dry land. They saw manna come from heaven every single day. They drank water from rocks. They crossed through the river Jordan at flood time as God parted those waters as well. They went into the promised land. They experienced all these victories. They served God because they knew God. And they knew God because they knew his word and his works.

5:24And God commanded that generation to make sure that their children, the next generation, knew all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. Look at what Moses commanded the people at the end of his life. This is Deuteronomy chapter 31. Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord. Your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.

6:07So, the assignment is clear. The older generation's job is to teach this younger generation about God and all that He had done for Israel. And if the older generation completed their assignment, the younger generation would know the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And if they knew God's work, they could know God. Because, friends, that is how God reveals Himself through His Word and His work. But they didn't complete their assignment. And so, verse 10 tells us where we ended up. Take a look there.

6:47And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that He had done for Israel. So, if you are an adult in this room today, if you are a parent, a grandparent, if you are a next-gen leader, if you are in a life group with children, if you are over 18, if you are an adult, there are two truths that you need to grasp in this section here. The first truth is that you can know about God without knowing God.

7:23You can know about God without knowing God. Lots of children and And lots of adults know the Bible forward and backward. Some of us grew up in churches where you memorized scripture or the catechism or anything else. You could get a perfect score on a theological quiz. Lots of kids, lots of adults know about God, but they don't know God. Knowing about God and knowing God are two different things. So that's the first truth. The second truth is this: you cannot know God if you don't know about God.

8:06You cannot know God if you don't know about God. So knowing about God is necessary, but not sufficient to know God. You have to know about God to know God. Okay? God has revealed Himself to us through His Word and through what He has done, His work. And that means that we simply cannot know Him if we don't know what He said and what He has done in history, especially His work through Jesus Christ, through His sinless and miraculous life, through His death and resurrection on our behalf for our sins. So, adults, this is our assignment to teach the next generation about God's Word and God's work.

8:49Not so that they can merely know about God, but so that they can come to know God. Look on the screen at Psalm 78. This is such a great psalm. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children. Look at this, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.

9:31If you're a member here at New Life, you know that we paraphrase this psalm in our church covenant. So every time we get together for a family meeting about six times a year, we read the church covenant together. And we paraphrase those words as part of the promises that we make to obey God's word together. Every time we do that, we are reminding ourselves and each other, this is our assignment. Our assignment is to know God and make him known so that the next generation will know God's work and set their hope in him.

10:06Brothers and sisters, that is an awesome and holy responsibility that God has given to us. So if you serve in any of our next-gen ministries, this is what you are helping to do, to teach the next generation about God's word and his work so that they might set their hope in God. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your obedience and for your help. In this task. But, parents, the lion's share of the responsibility falls on us to do this.

10:41Nobody has more time with our kids than we do. Nobody has more influence on our kids than we do. We need to soberly evaluate how we are structuring our family lives together to help our children know the word and the work of God in the hope that they would set their hope in God. How are you leading your family spiritually? You are leading your family spiritually one way or another. When I grew up, we did not have a Bible in my house. We did not say prayers. My family was leading me spiritually in those decisions. We were at church every Sunday, but do you see what message this sent? It said, this is something you do for these couple of hours, and then the rest of your life is yours.

11:42Are you reading scripture with your kids? Are you praying with your kids, not just at mealtimes, but throughout the day? Are you asking them questions and answering their questions about spiritual things? Are you shepherding their hearts? Hearts, their souls. What decisions are you making about church? Have you prioritized getting your family to worship on Sundays? Have you prioritized getting your children involved in our next-gen programs and ministries here at the church? Or have you prioritized other things in life?

12:27Have you prioritized work, travel, sleeping in, sports, hobbies, whatever it might be? I know that this is uncomfortable to talk about. Every parent, myself included, knows that we could be doing more, we should be doing more to lead our kids spiritually. So understand, I'm not here to condemn you, to make you feel bad about what you're not doing. But friends, my oldest child has already graduated and moved out. Your children are going to graduate and move out much sooner than you think.

13:14And I do not want you to sit here one day, filled with regret, saying to yourself, I don't know why we thought all that other stuff was so important. I don't know why we thought that how they could hit a ball, kick a ball, throw a ball into a hole was so important. I don't know why we thought our hobbies and interests and travel was so important. I don't want you to sit here filled with regret. And so I just want to challenge you this morning to soberly evaluate what messages that you are sending to your kids about what is most important in life. And repentance may be required. Listen, repentance is always required. The duty family, we regularly get off track with family worship and devotionals and everything else. And as I heard a pastor say one time, you've got two choices in that moment. You could never ever do it again, or you could start today.

14:21So that's what we've done. I have restarted family worship 3,641 times. And I encourage you to do the same. So don't beat yourself up. But don't kid yourself about what you're saying to your kids about what's really important either. Complete your assignment. Know God, make Him known. Because you see, if we fail to complete that assignment, the next generation might have to learn a hard lesson. And that's if you abandon God, you're going to experience His discipline. Let's pick up in chapter 2, verse 11.

15:05And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them, and he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them, and they were in terrible distress. Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.

16:38So here's where you begin to see that pattern that plays out over and over in the book of Judges. It starts with rebellion. The people do what is evil in the sight of the Lord. They give themselves over to idolatry. And then you have retribution. God, provoked by their sin, raises up an army against them. or he allows them to experience affliction. Then there's repentance. The people groan and cry out to God because of what is happening to them. And then you have rescue. God raises up a judge. He's moved to pity because of their groaning, and he sends someone to save them.

17:15And then rinse and repeat. Except every time they get further and further into sin, into idolatry, they're more and more corrupt. See, the people of Israel didn't have to go through this cycle. Through both Moses and Joshua, the Lord was very clear. If you obey me, I will bless you. I will drive out these other nations. I will establish you in the land. You will prosper, I promise. But Israel disobeyed God. They did what was right in their own eyes. They made excuses which led to compromise, which is disobedience. They could have confessed and repented, but they didn't. They were in terror. Distress. They groaned, they cried out to God for deliverance, but as soon as God delivered them, they went right back to their sin, and they sinned even more than before.

18:11I know that pattern from my own life. Maybe you do too. Before I became a Christian, I did what was right in my own eyes. I didn't obey God. But after I sinned, when I was worried about getting caught, when I was worried about what the consequences were going to be this time, I would cry out to God. There's this musician named Jellyroll. That's a real thing. And he has a song where he says, I only talk to God when I need a favor.

18:45That was me. I only talked to God when I needed a favor. And maybe that's you too. But friends, God is merciful and gracious. He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will never abandon his people. He did not abandon me. He will not abandon you. But friends, he will discipline us. He will discipline his people, usually through allowing us to experience the consequences of our sinful choices. My sins had consequences. Your sins have consequences. Sin has consequences. And God uses those consequences as an act of discipline. Take a look at what the author of Hebrews says about discipline in Hebrews 12.

19:36It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. I want you to notice three truths from Hebrews 12. Here's the first.

20:29If you don't experience God's discipline, you aren't his child. If you don't experience God's discipline, you aren't his child. That's how that works. Parents discipline their own children. They don't discipline other people's children. So if you sin and you experience no consequences, that should concern you. But if every time you sin, you get caught, praise God. What am I doing? Mercy. Hebrews 12 reminds us that if you don't experience God's discipline, then you are an illegitimate child. You getting caught is evidence that God loves you. What a mercy. Second, God disciplines us for our good that we may share His holiness.

21:21The author says in this passage, earthly parents discipline as it seems best to them. Kids, your parents are trying. Lord knows we're trying. But we don't always discipline the best way. We are sorry about that. The good news is that our Heavenly Father always disciplines us perfectly, and He does it for our good that we may share His holiness. Friends, to be holy is to be happy. So to be disciplined is a good thing. Believing that changes the way we view God's discipline from something that is negative to something that is positive. And then, third, and finally, discipline is painful in the short run, but fruitful in the long run.

22:12I mean, we all know this. In the short run, discipline only seems painful. It leaves you frustrated, upset, feeling all sorts of feelings toward God or your parents or both. But in the long run, it yields the peaceful fruit of Righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Listen to that language. Michael Phelps did not win all of those gold medals by being undisciplined. He won all those medals, yes, through natural talent, but the man worked and worked and worked. He disciplined himself. He trained. You don't do that by accident. And you don't become a holy person by accident. You become a holy person through discipline, through training.

23:06So, friends, when Israel abandoned God, they experienced his discipline. That wasn't because God didn't love them, but because he did love them. Every time they were attacked, every time they had their hearts broken because they married an unbeliever, every single time they experienced the broken promises of idolatry, they were experiencing the discipline of God. They were supposed to learn a lesson. And in the same way, we have to learn this lesson. If we abandon God, we will experience His discipline.

23:52Not because He doesn't love us, but because He does. So, to be a good student, you've got to complete your assignment, you've got to know God. And make him known. You've got to learn your lesson. If you abandon God, you'll experience his discipline. And then finally, you've got to pass your test. Obey God and walk in his ways. Let's pick up in chapter 2, verse 20. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And he said, Because this people has transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers, and have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did or not. So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua. Now, these are the nations that the Lord left to test Israel by them. That is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before. These are the nations, the five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-Hermon, as far as Lebo-Hamoth. They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the Lord. The hand of Moses. So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And their daughters they took to themselves for wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they served their gods.

25:50Four times in this section, God declares that because of Israel's sin, he was not going to drive out these nations that lived in the promised land, he was going to leave them there to test them. What was he testing? Well, look at chapter 2, verse 22 again: whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did or not. I'll look at chapter 3, verse 4. To know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord.

26:27Why do teachers give tests? Students, you may say, I don't know, torture? No, teachers test students to help them know themselves, to understand what they know and don't know, to understand what they can and cannot do. That's the purpose of tests. So when God tests you and me, it's so that we will come to know ourselves, so that through the test, we'll be forced to look the truth in the face. We have all been in school. We all know how this works. When you get that test paper back and that red number is sitting there at the top of the page, it is telling you the truth. It either says you understood the lesson or you did not understand the lesson.

27:19So, how did Israel do? Did they learn their lesson? Did they pass their test? Certainly not. In verses 5 through 7, we saw that the Israelites lived among the Canaanites, then intermarried with them, and then served their gods and goddesses. So here's what the test looked like. Question one: Did you drive out any of the people who do not worship me? No, that's a big red X. Question two: Did you marry any of the foreigners that I told you not to marry? Yes, we did. O for two.

28:00Did you worship me and me alone? No, we did not. It seems hard to believe. How do you get a zero on an obedience test when you had Joshua and the elders to look up to, this very godly group of people? Well, friends, it's as we said, they didn't complete their assignment. They knew God, but they did not make God known. And on top of that, as we saw last week, obedience is. Hard. And because obedience is hard, we're tempted to make excuses for our disobedience. So I want you to think about some of these choices that they make, some of the compromises that they made. Think about living among the Canaanites. When they compromise and decided to just live among the Canaanites, they may have said to themselves, well, we'll be a good influence on them. We'll be a good influence on them. And there's been lots of times in our lives as Christians that we've wanted to, or maybe justified that same thing in our minds, haven't we? We've said, we'll be a good influence on our teammates, our classmates, our neighbors, these coworkers, whoever it would be. But what happens?

29:13In a lot of cases, we're not a good influence on them. They end up influencing us. And we end up looking more worldly. They don't end up looking any more holy. Think about marrying these Canaanites. When they compromise and decided to marry these unbelievers, they probably thought, yeah, you know, we don't share the same faith, but that's okay. I'll worship my God. My spouse will worship their God. Faith is a private matter anyway. It'll be fine.

29:49That's not how it works. You just look at King Solomon. He married all of these foreign women who led his heart astray into idolatry. We end up adopting the virtue. Value systems of those closest to us. Guys, idolatry is the default. I don't really understand computers and stuff, but that's the standard operating software that you're born with. You're an idolater. So to do otherwise requires constant focus, attention, prayer, the Spirit of the Lord, the grace of God. The easy thing is to revert back to doing what you did as an unbeliever. The hard thing is to follow God in obedience. So it's not really hard to see how one compromise led to another, how they went from living among the Canaanites to marrying the Canaanites to worshiping the same gods and goddesses as the Canaanites.

30:44God tested his people to see whether they would obey him and walk in his ways. They didn't just fail it, they got a zero. Now let's think about ourselves. Just like the Israelites, we've been commanded to obey God and walk in his ways. And just like the Israelites, God puts us to the test. Look at James chapter 1. He says, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

31:30Friends, the trials that you encounter in your life, the tests that you encounter, are for your good. God wants you to know yourself. He wants you to be able to look at your test results and say, here's where I've learned to walk in obedience, to walk in God's ways, and here's where I haven't. Without tests, you cannot become steadfast in faith, which is belief in action. And if you don't become steadfast in faith, you won't become a holy person, perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But that's the goal. The goal is perfection. Jesus said, You must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. The goal isn't merely passing the test, it's perfect obedience to God in every area of our lives. We want to be people who are perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. We want to be holy people. And the only way to get there, God says, is through the testing of our faith.

32:38But here's the reality: even Christians are not going to get a perfect score on that test in this life. We are still struggling with the sinful flesh. We are still struggling with the sinful nature. So we may get higher scores on some tests and lower. Scores on other tests, but Christians are not getting a 100 for obeying God and walking in His ways. And we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. If you're not yet a Christian, you lack the spiritual power to obey God and walk in His ways because you don't have the Holy Spirit living inside of you. You're going to keep failing tests over and over again, just like the Israelites. So understand this: the hope for every person here, whether you are already a Christian or you are not yet a Christian, the hope for every person here is Jesus Christ. I want you to think about how every aspect of this passage points to Him and to His work that He accomplished on our behalf.

33:52Jesus completed His assignment. He knew God and He made Him known. Through every word that He spoke, through everything that He did, He made the Father known. Jesus never abandoned His Father, so He never had to experience His Father's discipline. Even in the face of every single trial and temptation, Jesus never abandoned His Father. The Israelites did, they were in terrible distress because of their sin. But Jesus committed no sin, He always obeyed His Father. Always walked in his ways every single day. He did not deserve to be forsaken. But friends, Jesus was forsaken. He was forsaken by God on the cross for you and me. Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was in terrible distress, not because of his own sin, but because of our sin that he was bearing in our place.

34:58He bore all of God's anger, all of his wrath that we had kindled, that we had stored up for ourselves because of our sin. Jesus bore all of that anger on the cross. And God's wrath was satisfied because he poured it all out on his perfect son who obeyed him every day in every way, completely. And we know that God accepted his sacrifice because God the Father raised him from the dead. He raised Jesus from the dead. And now, thanks to the compassion and mercy of God, all who trust in Jesus Christ will be saved from God's wrath, will be set free from the power of sin and the penalty of sin. What great news that is.

35:48And so, friends, we are called to be good students, to complete our assignment, to learn our lesson, and to pass our test. That is what we are called to. God's standard is perfection. But because we will never meet that standard perfectly, he sent his son Jesus to do for us what we could not and would not do for ourselves. So, whether you need to look to Jesus for the first time this morning and put your faith in him today, or whether you simply need to look afresh to Jesus, look to the one who was the perfect student, who didn't just pass but aced every test for you.

36:31Let's pray. Father, we want to be a people who obey you and who walk in your ways. We want to be perfect as you've commanded us to be. But every one of us, as we sit here today, we know that we are not perfect. We are far from perfect. We sin in countless ways every day, ways that we know and ways. That we don't know. And so we are so thankful this morning to be able to look not to a judge like Othniel or Ehud, who we'll talk about next week, but to Jesus, the sinless Son of God who loved him, who loved us and gave himself for us.

37:56God, we're so thankful for him. I pray that you would help every Christian here to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. That we would seek to obey every one of your commands, not because we think we need to do that to earn your favor, but because we already have your favor through faith in Christ and we want to honor you. Help us to be an obedient people, a holy people, a people who rightly reflect you to a watching world.

38:35And God, for those who are not yet believers this morning, would you draw their hearts to you today? We pray again for our teenagers and our preteens at camp this morning. Would you draw their hearts to you today? God, would you bring people from death to life? Would you help them to see that all of their righteous acts are filthy rags, that we have no Nothing that we can bring before you, but we can come to Jesus, the one who loved us and gave himself for us. I pray that our students would do that. I pray that adults and children in this room today would do that. I pray that adults and children in rooms all across our city, all across the country, all across the world this morning would come to you in repentant, saving faith and that we would see a revival sweep across this world. That the name of Christ would be magnified.

39:33God, thank you for your word and thank you for meeting with us today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.