Faith is better than crisis

Every single crisis in the book of Judges could have been averted. If Israel had lived by faith. Before the emergence of a judge, the narrative was always the same:

Jud 2:14-15 (NIV) "In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress."

Jud 2:16-17 (NIV) "Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands."

It was the same narrative through the major and the minor judges. They would ignore God's standard, crisis would brew, in pain they cried out, in mercy God sent a deliverer, once secure they soon forgot and went back to their old ways. Rinse and repeat.

We find the root cause at the beginning of the book of Judges:

Jud 2:10 (NIV) "After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel."

An entire generation knew nothing about Israel's God. It's fascinating because this generation had served directly under Joshua, and Joshua was Moses' successor. How influential was Moses, and how important was he? Jesus quoted Moses often as a central part of His theology thousands of years after Moses. At the time period the book of Judges described, it was probably no more than mere decades after Moses. God had made provision for continuity:

Deu 6:6-9 (NIV) "These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."

Unfortunately, this and the entire spirit of the Scriptures were ignored. They did not believe it to be relevant to their lives. It was because of this that they fell into crisis. Sometimes, they got out of the crisis instantaneously. Other times, it took generations. It's the same with us. We can either live by crisis or live by faith.

#Grace

#Faith

#Love

#Gospel

#Goodworks