Judges 1-3

March 13

Judges 1-3

Chapter 2 verse 10 gives the basis for the problems Israel faced. "After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel." (Judges 2:10, NIV) Apparently the generation that God brought into the Promised Land stopped telling the stories about what God had done for Israel. Their children did not know the Lord because their parents had not told them about the Lord. They ended up doing evil in the eyes of the Lord and God did as He had promised, He handed them over to their enemies.

Each time He handed them over to their enemies, the Israelites realized that they needed God and cried out to Him. God would hear them and raise up a deliverer. They would rise up and defeat the enemies of Israel and restore Israel as a nation. Once the crisis was over the Israelites would turn away from God again and He would send an enemy to conquer them. This is the pattern of the book of Judges. It is easy to sit back and wonder how the Israelites could be so hard headed. Why couldn’t they see that when they served God, He blessed them, but when they turned from Him they faced discipline?

Are we any better? When a crisis comes, we are quick to cry out to God. Help me! Get me out of this mess! But when things are going well it is easy to lose focus. We forget to pray. We forget to spend time with God. We go about our business until the next crisis occurs. Then we cry out to God again. God wants a relationship with us. He does not want to be our emergency way out. He wants to be a part of our daily lives.