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Bringing
Judges 1-2
This book records the
history of the nation of
God only asked them for
one thing in return--that they would love Him, obey Him, and serve Him.
What did
The parallel with
1.
The Lord is slowly but
steadily being expelled from every public venue.
It started in the public schools, and has spread to public places,
court houses, our coins, our pledge of allegiance, and on and on to the
point where today we are fighting battles about what we can even say in the
church! It is no longer just
about the separation of church and state but rather the separation of
ill.--This last week a
high school football team and its cheerleaders came under fire.
The players and cheerleaders were all in agreement.
They all wanted the team to enter the field, bursting thru a large
paper banner with an inspirational Bible verse on it.
It wasn't school sanctioned, and no one involved had any problem with
it ... but guess who did have a problem?
The ACLU! "The American
Communist...ummm...Civil Liberties
The ACLU has been used by
Satan as a tool for many years, tearing apart the God woven fabric of our
society.
2.
The Supreme Court says
that it is against the law to display the 10 Commandments in a public place,
[though their building displays them!] reasoning that if you display them
people might ponder them and if so, they might obey them, and that would be
a violation of the separation of church and state.
We are doing just what
ill.--ladies, what if you
broke down in the worst part of town and had to walk, after dark, to find
help. While you walk a group of
4 men leave a house you are passing and begin walking just behind you.
How do you feel? As you
listen to what they are saying you notice they are talking about God, and
have just left a Bible study session.
You turn around and see they are all carrying Bibles.
How do you feel now?
The new direction our once Christian nation is now going in is just
foolish, and contrary to basic common sense.
We don't force our beliefs on anyone, but we have allowed the world
to chip away at our core of morality.
Like
3.
We've done this in many
ways, but perhaps the #1 way is found in the spilled blood of aborted
babies.
God took away His glory
from His people
The book of Judges is the
record of God raising up 13 men to deliver
Our outline is best
understood by an illustration of 'the family fortune.'
When a family becomes rich there are 3 stages which seem to always
occur:
·
The first
generation
generates the fortune.
·
The second
generation
speculates their fortune,
thru a series of compromises and foolish decisions.
·
The third
generation
dissipates the fortune and it
is gone.
That is exactly how it
works with a nation. There is a
generation that generates the freedom, then a generation that speculates it
away, and finally, a generation that dissipates it until completely gone,
and freedom is no more. If you
don't believe this, you need to study those nations that have forgotten God
in history.
Generation - speculation - dissipation
A.
Generation
What do we know about the
generation of
And that's just how it is
with
Patrick Henry gave the
speech which sparked the revolution in 1775.
He said, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at
the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what
course others may take but as for me; give me liberty or give me death!"
It was 'game on.'
And we won that war, and George Washington became our first
president. When he took office
he placed his hand on the Holy Bible.
He finished taking the oath and kissed the Bible.
His first official act was to lead the entire congress in a 2 hour
worship session. I wonder what
the ACLU would have said about that.
In one of his inaugural
addresses he said, "No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the
invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the
Our founding fathers made
it abundantly clear that this land was founded on God and the Bible.
The Bible was the first and only book to be used in public schools
for years.
Generation...
B.
Speculation
Succeeding generations in
2:1-2
God says, look at all I have done for you.
I delivered you from slavery, fed you with manna, guided you and
guarded you into the Promised Land.
Now look at you...why have you done this?!
v. 7
The Joshua generation saw first hand the great works of God.
v. 10
What a sad verse! This
means that the Joshua generation failed to pass their values on to their
children. This has happened in
The saddest verse in this
book is the last one...
Judges 21:25
25
In those days there was no king in
They became a people with
no absolutes...no standard to live by.
Is that not the nation you and I live in today?
Aren't these parallels frightening?
Barna Research shows that
67% of Americans say there is no such thing as absolute truth.
They say that right and wrong are not clear...what is wrong for you
is not necessarily wrong for me.
If that doesn't scare you, consider that they did the same survey in
evangelical churches like this one and among Sunday morning attendees 52%
said the same thing! Imagine,
Christians saying there's no black and white, right and wrong!
Look how
2:2a
God had told them to drive the enemy out of the land, and further,
not to have anything to do with them.
They were to separate themselves from the world, just as we are
supposed to do today.
1.
The Canaanites that they feared.
1:19
They were afraid. They
could have trusted in God and won, but they were afraid to try with those
who were strong. They said,
these people are impenetrable.
We cannot conquer them.
Therefore we might as well learn to accommodate them, surrender to them, and
learn to live with them.
And there are some Canaanites that we are
fearing in
·
Many of our
leaders want to surrender in the war on terror.
They say we are losing and we might as well quit trying to win.
We need to sit down and negotiate with the terrorists, and stop
trying to police the world. And
in so doing we invite them to come to us.
·
Many
politicians today are calling for an end to the war on drugs.
They say that we have lost, so we should surrender and legalize it.
Because if we legalize it we can control it, they say.
Yeah, just like we have full control over alcohol, right?
Former Clinton Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders is a major proponent of
this thinking. But trying to
control drugs by legalizing them is like trying to control a fire with
gasoline.
·
Many parents
are surrendering in the area of sexual promiscuity.
They throw up their hands and say, well, you're not gonna be good, so
just be careful. Here, wear
protection. Now what message
does that send to a young person?
ill.--We are putting
ambulances at the bottom of the cliff when we are supposed to be putting
fences at the edge of the cliff!
It's time we get back to
confronting our culture with the truth of God and His Word.
Young people, God wants you to be pure and chaste.
He wants you to be a virgin when you get married, not passed around
like a bottle of Gatorade in a football huddle!
We've become afraid of the confrontation, and way too sensitive about
how we might offend someone who has gone too far.
Well, whom shall I offend?
Man, or God? The truth
is offensive, but it is our only hope.
John 8:32
32
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
·
We've become
so politically correct about homosexuality that it has become wrong to say
anything about it. We say we
personally are against it, but leave it as a personal decision and ok in our
society in spite of what God says and in spite of what always happens to a
society when they go that route.
And we give them more than just equal status, but exalted status!
[special status-and that makes the rest of us be discriminated
status!]
·
And now,
something new, and never before considered in
We are at the tail end of
the speculation generation, and it's getting scary!
The Canaanites that they feared...
2.
The Canaanites that they favored.
1:28
They said, look, we can use these people.
They made slaves of them, in spite of the fact that God said not to
have anything to do with them.
Sure they are wicked, but there's some good can that come out of them.
What about
It's time we stop saying look at what we can gain and start asking,
what might we lose by doing this?!
Now we're turning to
borrowing, and borrowing not just from banks, but from the world, especially
If you disagree with me on
this, that's fine, but when you do, you are further illustrating just how
far we have come from our founding generation!
Just like
Canaanites that they feared, favored...
3.
The Canaanites that they fellowshipped with.
1:32
Hey, these people aren't that bad.
They may worship different gods but they are good neighbors.
We read on and find that
ill.--The cry of our day
is, There's nothing wrong with being gay.
What they do is their business.
I don't see why they couldn't be married or adopting children.
And they should have rights of their own, after all, they most often
make good neighbors...why can't we all just get along?!
I'll tell you why we can't get along, God says they are an
abomination and will be our downfall as a society.
If we tolerate it we are begging for His judgment.
He's done it before, and He'll do it again!
[
God loves homosexuals and
so should we. So we love them,
not by accepting their sin, but by confronting it with the truth, the
antidote which is their only hope and ours as well!
Israel ended up in the
last verse of the book where every man did what was right in his own
eyes...and God had to judge.
The parallels today are paralyzing when I consider them.
Generation - speculation...
C.
Dissipation
2:3
Thorns and snares. Can
anyone say, "Illegal immigration?"
2:4
They wept because God was saying, I now lift my hand of protection
off of you.
ill.-- on 9/11 terrorists
turned planes into missiles.
The next day the late Dr. Jerry Falwell said, "We'd better realize that God
is removing His protective hand from this nation."
And then he specifically cited our national sins of abortion and
homosexuality. The liberal
press absolutely crucified him.
I've rarely seen such a vicious attack as he endured.
But I believe he was right.
And God is now using our current administration to give us what we
have been asking for. It's
change, and we are finding out it is not change we can believe in.
Thorns and snares.
Do you realize that
Revelation describes the downfall of a world power like
Some say arrogantly,
"Would a loving God allow that?"
If we ask for it! "Where
was God when those students gunned down their classmates at Columbine?"
I'll tell you where He was, you expelled him in 1962!
You threw out the Bible and prayer and said, God, you're not welcome!
And now we're in a new
generation. Could this be the
final generation in
Is there any hope?
Where there's God, there's still hope!
2:16
God would always rather forgive than to judge...but if we insist,
well, we should be afraid.
ill.--a benevolent
gentleman during the civil war saw a young lady being auctioned off as a
slave. He began to bid just
above every bid he heard until he finally won the auction, paying a very
high price. They say that after
winning he began to walk away, and she followed him.
He said, "Young lady, I bought you not to own you, but to set you
free." "Free?"
she asked. "Yes, free to
go wherever you want and do what you wish."
She replied, "Then I choose to go with you."
After all God has done for
If you are not saved,
consider all God has done for you...the high price His Son Jesus paid for
you. Will you now choose to be
His servant and go with Him?
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