Speaker 1
What was it really like to live in ancient times, before there were kings? Let's dig into the Book of Judges and find out. Today on From His Heart, the Book.
Speaker 2
Of Judges is really a broken record. It's a broken record. This cycle of sin that happened to them, hey, we can trace it back and we can look into our own lives and say, okay, that's how it happens for me too.
We're not fighting Canaanites, but we're fighting the lust of the flesh or the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life.
So here's the question for you to consider: Are you living in spiritual victory or spiritual defeat?
Speaker 3
From his heart.
Speaker 1
The Book of Judges, depicting the time some thousand to thirteen hundred years before Christ, provides a sobering reminder of what happens when people reject God's truth in favor of their own desires.
Today, on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, he begins a new series entitled Before There Were the Cost of Compromise. He'll unpack the lessons of Judges that warned against apathy, the dangers of compromise, and the hope of redemption.
In this first of ten messages in this series, we'll learn three truths about how we can all overcome iron chariot sins in our lives. We will be in this series all this month. If you miss any, you can catch up online anytime at fromhisheart.org.
Right now, open your Bible to the Book of Judges, starting in chapter one, in the lesson called Iron Chariots.
Speaker 2
Well, the book of Judges takes place after the death of Joshua. And you have a period in there from the death of Joshua, Joshua who took over from Moses. Remember, God used Moses to take the people out of Egypt through the Red Sea. And so the mantle went to Joshua, and Joshua led them into the promised land. Joshua is a book of conquests and victory. And then on the heels of the book of Joshua, you have Judges. Judges begins with the death of Joshua. And as the book of Joshua is a book of conquest and victory, Judges, sadly, is a book of compromise and defeat. Joshua is a book of faith, and Judges is a book of failure. Failure because of disobedience and unbelief. Joshua is a book of unity, but Judges is a book of division and a book of anarchy.
One of the key verses in the book of Joshua, it's repeated twice, but it's in the very last verse of the Book of Judges. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Judges 21:25. The Book of Judges is really a broken record. It's a broken record, this cycle of sin. And they would do well, and then they would disobey the Lord. Then they would depart from the Lord. Then they would experience the discipline from the Lord. And then we cry out. And God would send a judge, a deliverer, a guy like Samson, who is one of the most famous Judges. One person put it this way, to keep with the alliteration. There was sin, and then there was servitude. The Lord put them as slaves to the Canaanites. Then there was supplication. They cried out to God for deliverance, and then there was salvation. And God brought about deliverance for them. But this was just a downward cycle. And you see that over and over and over again. This cycle in the Book of Judges.
Now it all begins. This cycle of sin that happened to them. Hey, we can trace it back. And we can look into our own lives and say, okay, that's how it happens for me, too. We're not fighting Canaanites, but we're fighting the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. We're fighting internally. We have the world. We have the devil. We have things that are coming against us. And it always happens when you go down, when I go down, the first step of going down is taking your eyes off the Lord. And it's compromising with sin. You make a peace treaty, so to speak, with sin. And anytime you do that, anytime I do that, it brings destruction. The little poem I learned years ago when I was in college says this: Who is it knocks so low? A lonely little sin slipped through? I answered, and soon all hell was in. You can't compromise with the devil. You can't compromise with sin. You are either killing sin, or sin will be killing you. And that's what we see in the Book of Judges. They compromised, and the compromise brought devastation.
So here's the question for you to consider. Are you living in spiritual victory or spiritual defeat? You know, some people we talk about, all of us, we have to battle against sin. Galatians 5. But I say, walk by the Spirit. And you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please. We're in a battle between the flesh and the Spirit. The flesh wants to pull us away from the Lord. And so it's a struggle. The Christian life is not a playground. It's a battleground. And you have to show up with the armor of God every single day if you're going to live victoriously over the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Now it's a struggle. And some people in this room, under the sound of my voice, watching online, watching on television, you're struggling well. You're doing well in the battle. Other people are not struggling so well. They're struggling poorly. And then the third category of person is not struggling at all. They've just given up. They've just let the sin in, and they've tried to make a peace treaty with sin. And that will bring devastation.
Judges, chapter 2, beginning in verse 1. Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal. Gilgal was where they were before they fought the battle of Jericho. In Joshua chapter six, they fought the battle of Jericho. And in Joshua five, they were in Gilgal. And Gilgal is the place of victory. So the Lord comes up from Gilgal to a place called Bokim. Bokim. It looks like it's Bochim, but it's pronounced Bo Kim. Bokim means weeping from Gilgal, the place of victory and faith to Bokim, the place of weeping and disobedience. And the Lord said, I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And as for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed me. What is this you have done? Therefore, I also said, I will not drive them out before you, but they will become as thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you. When the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. So they named that place Bokim. And there they sacrificed to the Lord.
How are you doing spiritually? We learn so much. Old Testament narratives speak so much to our New Testament lives. Three truths I want to share with you today. Truth number one. Every Christian has a wonderful savior and king. Every single person who has been born again, you have been saved by the Lord. He is your savior and he is your king. Look at verse one again now. The angel of the Lord. This isn't an angel of the Lord. This is the angel of the Lord. The angel of Yahweh came up from Gilgal to Bokim. And he said, I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. Who is this angel of the Lord? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not an angel who did these things. It was God who did these things. And this is a pre-incarnate visitation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Joshua in Joshua chapter five at Gilgal, he saw this person when he was outside of Jericho. Anyway, he saw this person with his sword drawn and he said, are you for us or for our enemies? And he said, no, I come as captain of the Lord of hosts. And Joshua was told to take his shoes off because the place on which he was standing was holy ground. He had an encounter with the pre-incarnate Christ.
Well, the Lord Jesus comes to visit his people in Judges chapter two, and he reminds them, I'm the one who delivered you. So for us as believers, well, the Lord is our Savior and he's our king and he has done for us what he did for them. Number one, the Lord has freed us. Just as he freed them from the bondage of Egypt, he has freed us from the bondage of sin. Now, Egypt in the Bible is a picture of sin. And when God's people were in Egypt, they were enslaved to Pharaoh. Pharaoh's a picture of the devil. And you know, how did they get out of Egypt? They got out of Egypt through a series of 10 plagues. The 10th plague was the death angel. And that instituted the Passover lamb. Jesus is our Passover. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. And so that Passover lamb in Exodus chapter 12 is a picture of Jesus. And what would they do? They would pick the lamb on the 10th of Nisan and they would unblemished lamb. And then they would slay that lamb on the 14th of Nisan. Jesus was. He presented himself to Israel on, we say, Palm Sunday, but it was really Palm Monday. And then he was crucified on the 14th of Nisan. And he died at the exact time that the priests would slit the throats of the Passover lamb.
Well, in Exodus they would take the blood of the lamb and they'd put it on the doorpost and on the lintel because God said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And through that 10th plague and the blood of the lamb, God led them out of Egypt through the Red Sea. And that's a picture of. Now the Lord led them out to lead them in. He wanted them to go from Egypt to Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments and then go up north into Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land and then take the land. But as you recall, they didn't do that because of unbelief. And so they wandered around for 40 years. But the Lord had freed them. Just like for every Christian, the Lord has freed us. Revelation 1:5. The Scripture says, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and released us, freed us from our sins by his blood. Every Christian has been set free, free from sin. If the Son has set you free, you shall be free indeed. John 8:36.
So they had been freed, and the Lord is reminding them, I am the God who delivered you from Egypt, and I'm the God who is faithful. So the Lord has freed us, and he is faithful to us. Because this angel of the Lord, the Lord Jesus, said, I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. I am the faithful God. I always keep my word. God is faithful, it says in 2 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 13. Though we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. God is always faithful. He will always come through when Jesus returns at the battle of Armageddon. Revelation chapter 19, verse 11. He is riding a white horse, and the one riding that horse is called faithful and true. He's also called the Word of God. But before it calls him the Word of God, it calls him faithful and true. Because the Lord promised to deliver and he does deliver. We have a faithful God.
You know, a great verse to put in your memory is Jude, verse 24. You know, we don't have a chapter with Jude because it's only one chapter. But Jude 24 says now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence, blameless with great joy. That's what God is going to do in every believer's life, because he is faithful and true. So we start off and we say, hey, you know, the angel of the Lord comes to visit his people here in Judges, chapter two. And he comes out and he reminds them, you have a king, you have a savior who has freed you from Egypt. You're not under the slavery of Egypt anymore, and he has been faithful to you. He made a covenant with you, and he will not break it.
Second truth: not only does every Christian have a wonderful savior and king, but every Christian has been given commandments for living, instructions for living, but instructions by way of commandments from God. God doesn't give us suggestions for living. He gives us commandments for living. Now, remember I said Moses wasn't able to go into the promised land because of his sin. He would ask the Lord about it, and the Lord said, enough. Don't ask me about that anymore. You're not going in. And so Moses is like, okay, I'm not gonna ask that anymore. He got, you know, the fear of the Lord is a good thing. It's the beginning of wisdom and beginning of knowledge. And so Moses wasn't able to go in. He had to pass the baton of leadership to Joshua. But Moses did speak to the people. He gave them three sermons, so to speak, in Deuteronomy. That's what the book of Deuteronomy is. It's the three sermons, the farewell address of Moses. And it came in three sermons. And in his second sermon in Deuteronomy, chapter 10, Moses says this: And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you but to fear the Lord your God? To walk in all his ways and love him. And to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. And to keep the Lord's commandments and his statutes, which I am commanding you today for your good.
God gave commandments for what purpose? For our good. Sometimes people look at the commandments and they say, oh, man, these are just restrictions on my life. First John, chapter 5, verse 3. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. They're not this heavy load that you have to carry. Oh, I gotta do the commandments of God. I'd rather get my feet scraped. You know, that kind of thing. It's just awful. It's just so heavy. It's just so hard to do this. The scripture says, no, it's not too hard. And God gave you the commandments for your good. God is a good God.
Now, let's just think about a commandment that people break so often. Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 4. Let marriage be held in honor among all. And let the marriage bed be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers. God will judge fornicators. Those who aren't married but are having sex and playing house and pretending to like they're married and indulging in sexual immorality. Well, God says that's wrong. I will judge that. Fornicators and adulterers. God will judge. If you're married and you're having sex outside of your marriage, that is wrong. Well, why does God do that? You know, when you're in high school, when you're in college and the hormones are raging, and you say, oh, I wish that weren't in there. That part of the Bible. Listen, when God says no to something, and when it involves sex, sexual intimacy in marriage, God says no. Not to keep sex from you, but to keep sex for you. He's trying to preserve that because that is so special, it's so sacred, it's so wonderful. And it's only between a husband and a wife. It's the fire in the marriage that's so wonderful. But as we know, fire is great in your house in one place, and that's the fireplace. It's not so good when you come home after church and say, oh, we got a fire in the attic. That's not a good thing, right? Your house is going to burn down. Well, marriage is the fireplace. Sex is the fire. And when God says, don't do this, he's not keeping sex from you, he's keeping sex for you. God's commands are for our good. And God's commands are to be obeyed. They're not suggestions; they are commands.
That's why he says in verse two, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed me. What is this you have done? Now, one of the reasons Israel didn't have a king is because God was their king. First Samuel, chapter eight. They asked Samuel, the last judge. They asked Samuel, we want a king. We want a king like all the other nations have a king. We don't have a king, and we want to be like all the other nations. And Samuel was grieved. And he brings that up before the Lord. And the Lord says, Samuel, go ahead and give them what they want. They haven't rejected you. They've rejected me from being their king. God is our king, and God expects us to do what he says. He's not giving us suggestions. He's giving us commandments.
Now, what was the command? When you go into the land, you remember the land of promise, which is the land of Israel. That was God's land that he gave to his people, the promised land. That's not a vacant piece of property. It's not like, well, that's just a wide open field for miles and miles and miles. There's nobody that lives here. No people live there. And the people that live there, we call them Canaanites. Because the land of promise is also called Canaan. And the Canaanites, and they had Amorites and Jebusites and Perizzites and all these ites that lived there. But there's kind of a blanket term is Canaanites because it's the land of Canaan. Well, these people were grossly idolatrous. They were horribly wicked and evil. And God had it. He had it up to here with them. The patience of God is long-lasting, but it's not everlasting. God's patience can finally run out. Well, God's patience had run out with those people. And he was going to evict. He told his people, the Jews, you go in there and take the land. I will be with you and drive those people out, and you smash their altars, you destroy all their false worship, and you get those people out of here. Why? Because if you let them stay, they will be a snare to you. You will start adopting their ways. It won't be a good thing. You can't handle their worship because their worship is very sensual. And that just gonna pull you magnet. You got to get it out. You can't have any kind of a relationship with them. And so that's what God told them to do. And that command was to be obeyed, but it wasn't obeyed.
You know, you say, well, how are they supposed to drive out those people? I mean, those people remember when they went in there in Numbers 13, the first time when they didn't go in, they said, we can't beat those people. They're giants in the land. Oh, what are we supposed to do with giants? How can we find? And so, you know, they gave a bad report. The 10 spies, Joshua and Caleb said we can by all means go in because God is with us. They said, oh, no, we can't. We can't. They were giants and we're just grasshoppers. And what does a giant do with a grasshopper? Just steps on it and stomps on it. That's what's going to happen to us. Oh, we need to go back to Egypt. It was better for us in Egypt. Why is God bringing us out here so that we would die? Well, the Lord didn't like that at all. Just tremendous unbelief. Well, how were they supposed to take the land? Well, every command of God comes with power from God to fulfill the command.
Speaker 1
And that power is in us as God gives us clarity and calling. You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve today and part one of the lesson, "Iron Chariots" from his new 10-message series, "Before There Were Kings: The Cost of Compromise." There's much more to be said about this on the next broadcast where, after a brief review, Pastor Jeff will continue the lesson "Iron Chariots" from this dynamic series.
Listen, the Book of Judges is a sobering reminder of what happens when people reject God's truth in favor of their own desires. It was a time of chaos—no king, no clear direction, just a cycle of sin, suffering, and desperate cries for deliverance. And yet, even in the mess, God raised up imperfect, unexpected leaders to call his people back to Him.
In this new 10-message series from Pastor Jeff called "Before There Were Kings: The Cost of Compromise," we will unpack the lessons of Judges, warnings about apathy, the dangers of compromise, and the hope of redemption. You can get your copy in the format of your choice when you reach out to us with your gift this month of any amount. It's available on a USB flash drive, immediate MP3 download, CDs, or DVDs—your choice. Call 866-Bible-86640, or go online to fromhisheart.org.
The truth of it is clear: when you stray from God's way, life unravels. But when you turn back to Him, He is always faithful to restore.
Well, I'm Larry Nelbles inviting you to join us tomorrow for part two of the lesson "Iron Chariots," when we'll continue our study of chapter one of the Book of Judges and learn an important lesson from "Before There Were Kings." That's on Friday when Pastor Jeff Shreve will open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart here on From His Heart.
Speaker 3
There is truth, there is hope that you always dream love he can heal every scars.
Speaker 1
From his heart is the listener supported Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. Remember, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more@fromisheart.org.
Learn How
