Judges Study - 2026-08-26

Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.

If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.

Thank you for joining us today.

Good evening, everybody.

How are you guys doing?

It's good to see you.

Good to see you.

The weather is cooling down a bit, right?

That's been nice.

If you got your Bibles, you can turn with us to Judges chapter 3.

My name is Danny.

I think most of you guys know me.

I'm the other Danny.

I was here first, but I'm the other one.

Exactly.

Exactly.

No, no competition.

No competitions.

Not that.

Anyhow.

All right.

Yes.

So we're going to be in judges three today.

And today I want to talk a little bit about the sin cycle in judges.

And we're going to just touch on the covenant mercy of God, being a slave

to Christ or to sin, all judges are types of Christ.

And we're going to talk a little bit about how intercession plays a role

and prayer plays a role in revival and turning ourselves and our community

and our nation back to the Lord.

So we've got a lot of ground to cover.

And I'm excited to dive in and jump in with you guys.

So let's start out and just pray quick and then we'll just jump in

and we'll roll through this sort of verse by verse.

So, Lord, we thank you for this time.

Thank you, God, just for all the people here, Lord.

Thank you for people listening.

And I just pray that you would just bless us.

Give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you.

Open the eyes of our heart, Lord, that we might see you more clearly,

that we might know you, we might be transformed into your image.

Lord, help us to become more like you.

Help us to just grow and help us to glean from your word

that the seeds of this word would go deep and that they would bear fruit.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

So verse one.

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, the Sidonians, the Hivites,

who lived on Mount Lebanon from Baal-Hermun as far as Lebo-Hammath.

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 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.

So as we look at that first, this first section,

we can see the beginning of what scholars and what Bible teachers call the sin cycle.

And you guys probably have been over this maybe once or twice in the first two chapters.

But in general, there's a pattern that repeats itself in judges over and over again.

And theologians call it the sin cycle and starts out with Israel

serving the Lord, and then Israel falls into idolatry.

And then Israel is enslaved by the surrounding nations.

Israel cries out to the Lord.

Then God raises up a judge or a savior.

And then Israel is delivered by the hand of that judge or savior.

And then Israel serves the Lord again.

And it just continues to go around and around.

Now, I think if you've read judges or you've studied judges at all,

you can see that this cycle is self-evident and it's very apparent.

It happens many times.

So what we see immediately is that the Lord in verses one through four,

he's testing their covenant loyalty.

He's testing the Israelites to see if they'll be loyal to him in the covenant.

And what we see immediately is that they are not, unfortunately.

And during my time as a missionary to Muslims, many things or many times

you'll hear Muslims say, God gives us this life as a test, and that this is

a test and we are, some are given easy tests, some are given hard tests.

And that's not the ultimate reality of life, because we know that we are not

saved by passing a test, which is what they believe, but we do see in some

places that the Lord in the scripture, he does test people and he is

testing the Israelites here.

And I think one important thing to always pray in our Christian walk

is basically, Lord, don't test me.

I think that's why we have the line in the Lord's prayer of

lead me not into temptation.

And that's just a side, that's just a side thought, not going to be

one of the main points, but I do think that it's interesting that the

Lord wants to test the covenant loyalty of Israel.

And what we see immediately is that Israel ignores the charge that

Joshua gave in Joshua chapter 23, where Joshua says, cling not,

cleave not to the nations, but cleave to the Lord.

And so immediately we see that they're mixing with other nations,

they're cleaving with other nations.

In verse six, they're giving their daughters to the sons of the

pagan people who are worshiping horrific deities.

Now we kind of read this, zoomed out, and I've said this a couple

of times, but I'll just touch on it very briefly, briefly again.

These are cultures that are baptized in child sacrifice.

They're burning their children, they're whipping them through basically

a bonfire, and they're making them walk and catch fire, and they're

offering this incense of their children's burning flesh to pagan Gods,

particularly that God was Molech.

Also, there's cult prostitution.

Okay, there are people who are living in temples, and there's

cult prostitution happening.

I'm not going to go into more detail.

There's all kinds of sorcery and weird things.

So we can kind of read this and be like, oh, I can't believe how

like the Lord just wanted to wipe out these nations in the Old Testament.

But what we see is that the Lord doesn't move to wipe them out until

they're at the point of no return.

He even tells Abraham that I'm not going to wipe them out until

their iniquity is full.

And so what we see is that the Lord is jealous for Israel

that they would be faithful and loyal to him, mainly so that the

Lord would have a people on the earth that would reflect his glory.

That's like the main purpose.

But also, there is part of following the Lord and following Jesus

that gives us, quote unquote, a better life.

Maybe not in the material sense, not like you're going to come

to the Lord and he's going to get you a better job

immediately, but your inner life blossoms when you follow the

Lord and you're full of the fruit of the spirit and you're

you're walking and growing in union with God.

And that is a beautiful thing for us as well.

And the Lord is jealous for the people of Israel that they

wouldn't mass sacrifice their children, that their daughters

wouldn't become cult prostitutes.

And so that's a little bit heavy, but just want to paint a

quick picture again as to what's actually happening.

It's not just like the Baptists marrying the Methodists,

or Catholic marrying this, or whatever, Lutheran.

We're all Christian.

We all believe in one God.

We all kind of have the same morals.

No, these are drastically different value systems that

the Lord is saying, please do not go outside of the boundary

of the law that I've set for you because this is really

important for you and for your society and your culture

to be healthy and to grow.

Does that make sense?

So I think that's a very important point that I always

like to stress because it paints us a little bit of a

picture of the ancient world.

Real quick, do you guys ever hear of the guy?

Who here has heard of Hannibal?

Yeah, you guys have heard of Hannibal?

Hannibal, the general?

His name actually means, Khan Nabal is the grace of Baal.

And he was a Syrophoenician descendant from,

I'm doing this off the top of my head,

but like sort of above like Sidon entire area.

And then he and a bunch of, well,

his ancestors traveled to Carthage and they planted a city

there and they called it the new city,

which translates to Carthage.

But there's actually a story of Hannibal's mother

and father sacrificing Hannibal to the God of Molech

through the fire, but they actually swapped him

with the mother's servant's son, I believe.

So anyhow, but you can find these stories in history,

which they were worshiping Baal.

His name was literally the grace of Baal.

And then they also were worshiping Molech

and they're worshiping all these Gods.

So they're all throughout all these stories

are kind of sprinkled throughout history.

Anyhow, let's make too much time on this.

Let's keep moving.

All right, so now we get actually into the sin cycle.

So let's continue to read.

And we're just going to read through the rest of it

from seven to 31.

And then I'll circle back and we'll run through the sin cycle

and then a couple of points and we'll wrap up.

So verse seven.

And the people of Israel did what was evil

in the sight of the Lord.

They forgot the Lord their God and served the Bails,

which Baal can also just mean like Lord,

but he served the Bails and the Asheroth, the Asheroth, sorry.

Therefore, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel

and he sold them into the hand of Kushan Rishai'taim,

king of Mesopotamia.

Now listen to the language there.

He sold them into the hand.

That's slave trade language.

He sold them, just remember that.

He sold them into the hand of the king of Mesopotamia.

And the people of Israel served Kushan Rishai'taim eight years.

But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord,

the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel

who saved them.

Othniel, the son of Canaz, Caleb's younger brother.

So it's Caleb's nephew.

The spirit of the Lord was upon him and he judged Israel.

He went out to war and the Lord gave Kushan Rishai'taim,

king of Mesopotamia, into his hand

and he prevailed over Kushan Rishai'taim.

So the land had rest for 40 years.

Then Othniel, the son of Canaz, died.

And the people of Israel again did what was evil

in the sight of the Lord.

And the Lord strengthened Iglon,

the king of Moab against Israel.

Remember, Moab was the son of Lot and Lot's daughter.

It comes from the father.

So literally this nation is the nation

that was born of the mother's father.

And so this is a perverted nation.

Whenever we see this nation in the Old Testament,

ancient readers would have understood that this is a...

From the beginning, it was a perverse nation

because a mother and a daughter

are not to have relations together.

So the Lord strengthened Iglon, the king of Moab,

against Israel because they had done

what was evil in the sight of the Lord

and he gathered to himself the Ammonites and the Amalekites

and went and defeated Israel

and they took possession of the city palms.

And the people of Israel served Iglon,

the king of Moab, 18 years.

Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord

and the Lord raised them up for them a deliverer.

Ihud, the son of Gira the Benjaminite,

a left-handed man.

The people of Israel sent tribute by him

to Iglon, the king of Moab.

And Ihud made for himself a sword with two edges,

a cubit in length,

and he bound it on his right thigh under his clothes.

And he presented the tribute to Iglon, king of Moab.

King of Moab.

Now Iglon was a very fat man

and when Ihud had finished presenting the tribute,

he sent away the people who carried the tribute.

But he himself turned back at the idols near Gilgal

and said, I have a secret message for you, O King.

And he commanded silence

and all his attendants went out from his presence.

And Ihud came to him as he was sitting alone

in his cool roof chamber.

And Ihud said, I have a message from God for you.

And he arose from his seat.

And Ihud reached with his left hand,

took the sword from his right thigh

and thrust it into his belly.

And the hilt also went in after the blade

and the fat closed over the blade

for he did not pull the sword out of his belly

and the dung came out.

Then Ihud went out into the porch

and closed the doors of the roof chamber

behind him and locked them.

When he had gone, the servants came

and when they saw that the doors

of the roof chamber were locked,

they thought, surely he was relieving himself

in the closet of the cool chamber.

And they waited till they were embarrassed.

But when he still did not open

the doors of the roof chamber,

they took the key and opened them

and there lay their Lord dead on the floor.

And Ihud escaped while they delayed

and he passed beyond the idols

and escaped to Syrah.

When he arrived, he sounded the trumpet

in the hill country of Ephraim.

Then the people of Israel went down

with him from the hill country

and he was their leader.

And he said to them, follow after me

for the Lord has given your enemies

the Moabites into your hand.

So they went down after him

and seized the fords of the Jordan

against the Moabites

and did not allow anyone to pass over.

And they killed at that time

about 10,000 of the Moabites,

all strong able-bodied men,

not a man escaped.

So Moab was subdued that day

under the hand of Israel

and the land had rest for 80 years.

And after him was Shamgar,

the son of Anath,

who killed 600 of the Philistines

within ox code

and he also saved Israel.

That's a pretty cool tribute at the end there.

One little verse to Shamgar.

We don't get any other details.

But here we see two stories

and then a byline,

kind of an asterisk for Shamgar.

But we see Othniel and Ehud

and they are the main characters

in the sin cycle salvation story.

We see in both of the stories

that Israel falls into sin and idolatry

and we can refer to the covenant.

The Lord says, do not do these things.

He literally, there's a list of things.

Do not mix with the Israel,

with the Canaanites and the Moabites

and everybody in the land

and they go and immediately do that.

So they break their end of the covenant quickly

and then the Lord raises up a nation,

an outside nation,

like he says he will do in the law.

He says, if you do not keep my covenant,

I will raise up a nation against you.

So the Lord is just doing exactly

what he says he's going to do

in the scripture,

in the contract between the Israelites

and the Lord.

And then the Israelites are enslaved

in the first section,

the Mesopotamians

and in the second section, the Moabites.

And they're enslaved

both spiritually and physically.

But one important thing is that

first, the enslavement

or the slavery happens

on the spiritual side.

And they begin to drift

away from the Lord,

away from their covenant maker,

away from their covenant faithfulness

with the Lord

and they begin to lean in

to the spirituality

or the practices of the local people.

And they become enslaved spiritually first.

Romans chapter 6 tells us

verse 17 talks about spiritual slavery.

Let me just turn there,

read it for us.

But you can turn there.

You can turn there.

If you want, Romans chapter 6, 17.

There we go.

Got it bookmarked.

So verse 17,

or we can start at 16.

Paul says,

do not know

that if you present yourselves

to anyone as obedient slaves,

you are slaves of the one

whom you obey,

either of sin

which leads to death

or of obedience

which leads to righteousness.

But thanks be to God

that you who are once slaves of sin

have become obedient from the heart

to the standard of teaching

to which you're committed.

And having been freed from sin,

you have become slaves of righteousness.

And so but what we see here

is the opposite

of what Paul is talking about.

Paul is talking about

you have been slaves of sin

and then when you come to Christ,

you become a slave of righteousness.

And this is where we all start out.

We all start out as one

that is not walking

in covenant faithfulness with the Lord.

And we need to acknowledge that

and we need to repent

and we need to believe in Christ

and then we need to follow him

and we need to walk in covenant faithfulness.

And this all happens by his grace.

It's his grace that empowers us to do this.

So it's not like you're drumming this up yourself, right?

Don't get the wrong idea.

But we need to walk with the Lord as well.

And as Paul says,

as we present ourselves

as obedient slaves,

you are slaves to the one whom you obey.

So everybody in this world,

whether you know Jesus

or don't know Jesus

or you just know about Jesus

or never heard of Jesus,

everybody is either a slave to sin

or they are a slave to righteousness and to God.

And what we see here is the Israelites,

they are first enslaving themselves spiritually.

They are first becoming obedient

to the practices of the local people.

See, the thing is our spirituality today

and the spirituality of the ancient near east

is very different.

Today, it's in America especially

in our cultural context,

especially in evangelicalism,

which I'm not knocking this

but it's just the way it is.

It's so much about head knowledge,

so much about learning,

it's so much about getting the right thoughts

and agreeing to the right doctrinal propositions

and then we get it all right,

which there's a clear need

and an emphasis for that

in the scripture,

which praise God for the Reformation,

but in ancient near east,

it was so much about what you did.

You see in the first five books,

the Old Testament, in the Torah,

so much of the spirituality is,

hey, do these feasts,

don't do these things,

put the scripture on your forehead,

put it on your door,

when you walk, when you sit,

when you do this,

as you move and go throughout life,

it wasn't so much of,

hey, memorize these 28 points about Yahweh,

it was this is how you live

and breathe as a people

and we as Christians,

we also have those prescriptions,

but so much of our spiritual experience

is centered around head knowledge

and we have to try to fight against that,

put our faith into practice

and the more we do that,

the more we'll have a balanced

and informed life

because in Christ,

because they go together,

but so much of their world was,

hey, we have Passover,

we remember that we were slaves in Israel

by eating the lamb

and breaking the bread

and drinking the cup

and then the kids would play these games

that would reenact the exodus from Egypt.

So anyhow, what we see is the people of Israel,

they're starting to practice

and become slaves to that culture.

They're beginning to walk as those people

and before they're enslaved politically,

they're enslaved spiritually.

Before the Lord lifts his hand of protection over them,

they walk away from God.

And I think that has deep implications

on a political, like a national level as well.

My objective is not to talk deeply

about the state of the nation,

but I do think that we need,

as believers,

we need to stand before the Lord as priests

and intercede for the nation

that the Lord would not lift his hand

of protection over our nation.

And this is not our final home,

but the Lord has really blessed this country

in many ways for all our faults.

We do have lots of faults

that we should and need to repent of, of course.

But okay, we're gonna get to that.

Here we are, we're there.

So we are at the part where,

okay, recap.

Israel falls into sin and idolatry.

Israel is enslaved.

Then Israel cries out to the Lord.

Look at verse 15.

I think it is.

And should be,

20 something, now I lost my place again.

I'll get there.

I know it's verse 15.

That's what I get for now,

writing it down on the sheet.

Yeah, when they cry out to the Lord.

So,

awesome.

Cool, yeah.

Verse nine in the first section.

But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord,

the Lord raised up a deliverer who saved them.

And then in verse 15,

then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord

and the Lord raised up for them a deliverer.

So even while we are in,

we or a nation is in spiritual compromise,

the Lord is desirous to raise up a deliverer for the people.

And do you guys know where we first actually see this happen?

I think it's the first time.

I'm 99.9% sure it's the first time.

Maybe if somebody can find a time earlier than this

in the scripture,

I'll give them a high five.

But, mince, we're at mince.

But in Exodus chapter two,

verse 23 through 25,

while the Israelites are in slavery,

they are so oppressed by Pharaoh,

they're enslaved,

that they groan and cry out to the Lord.

And you know what the verse says?

It says the Lord hears their cry.

And then the next section of scripture

is the burning bush with Moses.

And the Lord raises up Moses

as a deliverer to go

and to lead the people out of Egypt

and out of slavery and into the Promised Land.

And that's what brings them here.

And I wonder if people in that day,

in Judges, if they read that verse

and they said,

Lord, we need another Moses.

That we need another Moses.

And what we hear,

what we see in Exodus

is that they use the word,

translators use the word grown.

And it's a visceral,

just crying out to the Lord

because of the state of their people.

And we see kind of the same language here.

We see that the people are crying out to the Lord.

They cry out to God,

maybe with actual tears.

And the Lord raises them up, a deliverer.

And then we see later,

in maybe the most famous verse on prayer

in the Old Testament,

2 Chronicles 7.14,

that Solomon says,

if my people pray,

that I will deliver them.

I will send the rain.

That's what the Lord says.

If my people pray,

I will come and deliver them

from their situation.

And so what we see is

that intercession

and prayer

is what God uses

to raise up a savior

and send revival in response

to prayer and fasting.

Matthew 17 verse 21 says,

some of these only come out

through prayer and fasting.

The disciples were in a situation

where they were trying

to cast out a demon,

but they couldn't do it.

And Jesus came along

and they said,

Lord, Lord, why can we not

cast this one out?

And Jesus said,

some of these only come out

through prayer and fasting.

And he didn't mean going

just fast like a couple of minutes

and come back,

but he meant a continual lifestyle

of prayer and fasting.

Do you guys know that there's a,

who's ever heard of the diddike?

D-I-D-A-C-H-E, diddike, yeah.

It's one of the earliest documents

along with some fragments of scripture

that describes the New Testament practice

of the church,

of the first believers.

And it has in there

that they fasted every Wednesday

and Friday, I believe it was.

They were fasting two days a week.

This was the rhythm of the church

to fast two days a week.

And I think maybe

they weren't fasting completely

all food and water.

Probably they were drinking water,

but they were giving up something.

Maybe they were just fasting meat

or maybe they were just taking

a little bit of bread,

but they had an intensity

that went alongside

with their spirituality

that they were walking out.

And I encourage everybody here

that should make fasting

part of your spiritual life.

Make fasting part of your spiritual routine

because fasting will free you somehow.

I'm not sure exactly how it works,

but I can tell you that

if you fast and pray,

you will see the Lord work in your life

in a greater measure.

And if you're hungry for the Lord to work,

if you're hungry for the Lord

to work in our country

and to raise up people

who are righteous

to lead our country

and also just for the Lord

to save people

and bring them into this new life

in Christ that is so amazing

and lead them out of slavery

and into freedom

that there's nothing more powerful.

There's nothing Satan fears more

than a congregation

that corporately takes prayer

and fasting seriously.

And I'm so encouraged that

we have a prayer meeting

every Friday night in this church

and I'm not personally able to make it,

but I'm so encouraged

that we are doing that

because prayer is really the thing

that moves God's heart.

Nothing else gets the Lord to act.

It didn't say that,

oh, well, they started to obey

and the Lord answered them.

It doesn't say they started to

do the right thing

and then the Lord answered them.

No, it said that

they cried out to God

that the Israelites in Egypt,

they groaned for God,

that they needed Him.

And we see this just intensity

with the apostles.

We see the early church.

Yes, they live close together,

but we have records of them

meeting together for prayer

every morning.

We have a lot of,

for centuries,

Christians went to church

almost every day

and they would pray together.

Now we don't have to

necessarily do that,

but because they didn't have Bibles

and we can read our Bible

on our own, that's good too.

But we see this intensity

of people coming together

and praying and fasting.

And I just encourage you

to look into that

and ask the Lord,

hey, how can I make

prayer and fasting

a regular part

of my spiritual life?

And there's 100 different ways

to fast,

but I would encourage you

to fast something with eating,

with food,

something that goes in.

Like a media fast is good,

but that's more

of just a disciplinary thing

from what I see in Scripture.

Make it about

what you put in your body.

And if the only thing you can do

is just stop eating

a little bit before

you stuff yourself

or you fully fill up,

then that works too.

Okay, but we have to have

a intensity around seeking

the Lord and following Him.

And there's nothing that

beelines you quicker

to the throne of God

than a good,

grace-powered fast.

And you can get all off

and I've been in that trap

where you feel like

you're earning something.

This is a mystery, guys.

A lot of things in Scripture

are a mystery.

I can't tell you how or why.

I can just tell you that

the Lord, it's in Scripture

and He says,

when you fast, not if.

We fast, right?

I'm pulling out all the zingers

for this one, all right?

Old timers have heard this

a million times, right?

But it's in the Scripture.

We don't earn anything

through fasting,

but somehow you passively position

yourself before the Lord

to be used by Him,

by His grace.

So anyhow, Israel cries out

to the Lord and the Lord answers.

And then God raises up a judge.

So we see this in

Othniel, Shamgar, and Ehud.

And the Lord delivers Israel

through this.

And so we see in Luke 24

on the road to Emmaus,

Jesus is walking

after He's been crucified

and He's resurrected.

He hides Himself.

Like He kind of conceals His identity.

And He's walking along the road

to the town Emmaus

with some disciples of His.

And He starts asking them

what happened this weekend.

I said, what, you don't know?

Jesus, we thought

was going to be the Christ,

was crucified.

And then He begins to teach

these disciples

about the Old Testament.

And it says in there,

in Luke 24, that He taught them

all of the law and the prophets

were about Himself,

were about Christ.

And that the whole Scripture,

basically, the point is

it points to Christ.

And at the end,

the famous part is when the Lord

and Christ reveals Himself

to these men over dinner,

they kind of gasp

and then He just disappears.

And then they look at each other

and go, did our hearts

not burn with us

as the Scripture was explained to us?

But what we see here is that

Othniel, Shamgar, and Ehud,

they are types of Christ.

They are delivering Israel

from bondage and oppression

and spiritual and physical slavery.

And they are pointing towards

the glorious one, the Christ,

the Son of God, the Son of Man,

who is to come

and who is to come down,

born of a virgin,

die, live a perfect life,

die for us,

be resurrected,

and come back

so that we can live in eternity

with Him and the Lord

on earth forever and ever and ever.

And this is what

these three men, Shamgar,

Othniel, and Ehud,

are pointing to.

Now, they're a murky picture.

We don't see all of this,

but we see in verse 10

that the Spirit of the Lord

was upon Othniel.

And that's also a common theme

in the Old Testament

amongst the people

that the Lord is using,

that the Holy Spirit

comes upon men

and they are used of Him.

And as Jesus famously said,

the Spirit of the Lord

is upon me to heal the sick,

to raise the dead,

to let the lame walk,

to cleanse lepers.

And so these men,

these are types of Christ.

And that's another fun thing

about reading the Old Testament

is once you see that

you can see Christ

in the Old Testament,

the Old Testament becomes

more enjoyable to read.

And so I'd encourage you

to go on a treasure hunt

in the Old Testament

and just find the ways

that the Old Testament

is pointing to Christ.

So as we kind of wrap up

the cycle of sin,

a couple of takeaways,

and then we'll end.

I have some questions.

But a couple of takeaways

that we see here,

one big theme, I think,

throughout this scripture

is the covenant mercy of God.

Now, when you go and you read

the first,

when you read through the law

the first time,

you probably like,

I would personally think

these rules have,

these relates have one shot,

right?

Maybe you read it differently,

but you read it through and like,

okay, they broke the contract,

they broke the covenant.

Now it's kind of like,

okay, they maybe have a shot

at repentance,

but what we see is the Lord,

maybe twice, maybe three times,

what we see is the Lord

is constantly responding to them,

to their sincere, repentant heart.

And he has so much mercy,

and he is such a God

of holy jealousy

and covenant mercy

that he is constantly

inviting them back,

like the prodigal son

over and over and over again.

Like how many times

does the prodigal son,

do we see the prodigal son

go out and come back just once,

but Israel just keeps

leaving the Lord,

they keep forsaking the Lord

and coming back

and the Lord keeps taking them back.

And this is amazing, guys,

because we have to recognize

and remember

that the only way

to the Lord,

the only way that

he pours out his grace to us

is by his grace

and by his mercy.

And never downplay

or never discount

the grace and the mercy of God,

because it is so powerful.

And this is a message for us,

because no matter

how many times we mess up,

how many times we sin,

how many times we are just stuck

in a cycle of sin, right?

Because you can be

at the top of the cycle

where you're feeling great,

I got it all together,

and then all of a sudden,

you just start to slip,

and then you get,

you get upset at your kids,

you get upset at your wife,

you yell at them,

or you just keep,

whatever that issue is

that you keep dealing with

keeps coming around

and around and around.

And praise God,

we don't have to deal with that

all our lives.

We can walk in freedom,

but it doesn't always happen immediately.

We pray for that deliverance

that happens immediately

and permanently,

but sometimes you're just stuck

in cycles of thought

or cycles of sin.

And with this,

we have to also watch our thoughts,

because all of our sin

starts with our thoughts.

This is why the Lord says,

be transformed by the renewal

of your mind, right?

Do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed

by the renewal of your mind,

renew your mind every day,

every day,

because your thoughts

are where you're going to slip first,

and then you'll slide from there.

So this, but keep in mind,

always that sincere,

repentant hearts,

that the Lord is a God of mercy

and he responds

to sincere and repentant hearts.

And his covenant mercy

is just so evident in this chapter

and all throughout Judges.

It's amazing that he doesn't

totally write them off.

He wanted to with Moses,

but then Moses was like,

ah, slow your roll there.

And then the,

yeah, I mean,

I'm surprised he doesn't suggest that again.

But he doesn't.

The second take away is,

are we slaves to Christ

or slaves to sin?

Do you think of yourself as a slave?

This is going to be one of the questions.

Do we think of ourselves

as a slave to Christ?

In this country,

we probably don't think about

how we are bond servants of Christ

as much as we think

that we are free sons.

Amen, right?

We love freedom in this country, right?

We see it everywhere.

Let freedom ring

or the new license plates, right?

We see, you know, that,

yeah, these values,

we talk about our freedoms

being at stake

and our liberty and all this.

But we as Christians,

we are also slaves to Christ.

We are his bond servant.

We are his slave.

We are his servants.

We are bound to him for life.

And on some things, guys,

we have no say.

You have no say.

It's just commands.

And do we think of ourselves

as a slave to Christ?

Or do we not?

It's just maybe a pondering.

And at the same time,

don't get down on yourself.

We're also free sons

who the son says free is free indeed.

But we are slaves to Christ

in regards to righteousness.

And that is a beautiful thing.

And that is a sanctifying thing

if we lay hold of it

and actually walk in that.

And then all the judges

are types of Christ.

So as we continue through here,

just try to find Jesus in each story.

And we find his salvation.

I mean, these are kind of obvious.

Once you see it,

you're going to maybe

get tired of seeing it.

But it's preaching the gospel.

The gospel is in these verses.

The gospel is in verse 7 through 11.

The gospel is in verse 12 through 30.

And the gospel is a little more buried,

but it's in verse 31.

And right there, he saved Israel.

The last piece of that.

I tried to lobby Sarah

to name one of our kids Shamgar,

but that didn't go over too well.

And then the last one, guys.

This one is near and dear to my heart.

When I really got on fire

for the Lord, as they say,

it was in 2012 or something.

And it was with a group

that was big into intercession and prayer.

And I really learned a lot

about how to ask the Lord and pray.

And then when I went

to the mission field,

I was a missionary for a few years.

I was sent with a group

that really valued prayer and fasting

and really valued intercession.

So much so, they didn't value evangelism.

Then I kind of left that group

because I valued both.

But there's value in intercession

and prayer before the throne.

It moves God's heart.

And I remember we were having

some trouble making headway

and leading some of the guys

in our community to the Lord.

They were like reading the Bible with us.

And they really liked hanging out with us.

They were local Turkish guys.

And it just seemed

like it wasn't going anywhere.

We couldn't really do anything.

And we just kind of decided,

hey, we're going to do

a three-day fast for these guys.

Then we're going to fast once a week.

And we're just going to see what happens.

And honestly, within like three

or four months of doing that,

like six or seven of them

came to the Lord.

And I just remember laughing

on the phone.

Many of you know Shaei.

I remember telling Shaei like,

I didn't even believe

it would happen myself.

But if you pray and fast

and if you sincerely

petition the heart of God,

good things will happen.

It might not happen immediately.

I'm not going to promise you anything.

But the Lord will move in your life

one way or the other

if you stick with it.

And if you give yourself to prayer

and fasting and seeking his heart.

And the Lord, who knows,

the Lord may use you.

The Lord is using some of you

powerfully in intercession.

I know, personally,

the powerful intercessors we have

right in this room.

And intercession, which is basically just,

if you don't, forgive me

if you don't know the term intercession,

but basically just means

to ask and pray to God

about somebody or something else.

And Christ is interceding for us.

He's praying for us to the Father.

Anyhow, and the saints

are also interceding for us, probably.

But the place of intercession

is a secret place.

It's not a place

that will get you on stage.

But I just want to say that

it is a place that will get you

near to the Lord's heart.

And that's where all of our targets

should be.

And I would encourage us to,

and I'm trying to encourage myself,

to get back into that place

of intercession and prayer

before the throne of God.

Because we see that is the thing

that moves God's heart,

where he raises up a deliverer

and the Lord to raise up

a revival in this country.

And we are seeing some sprouts of it,

but even in our community,

we want the Lord to do more.

We want the Lord

to lead more people to the Lord.

We want the Lord to plant more churches.

We want to see people

from all nations come to the Lord.

We have so many nations

living here now in America,

people that weren't born here

that can come to know the Lord

and we can worship together.

We can be like a picture of eternity

together in the church

of different nations and tongues

worshiping together.

So anyway, let's pray

and we'll close.

And then if you guys

are hanging around,

I have a couple of questions,

four questions for us

that hopefully will just stir

some conversation and don't feel

like you have to follow

the questions exactly.

But let the questions

just stir some conversation

and hopefully stir some application

in your lives.

We might have to,

I only have two sheets

because I wasn't able

to print it out today,

but we might have to snap

some photos on phones

with the pictures.

But yeah, let's pray

and then we'll break up

and discuss.

So Lord, we thank you

for this time.

Thank you for your word.

And we just, we love you, Lord.

We say that you would

just work in our lives,

work in our hearts,

help us to draw close to you.

Lord, by your grace,

would you just give us hunger for you?

Would you give us thirst for you?

Would you give us, yeah,

just that gift of hungering

and thirsting for righteousness

that we would just want to see

our nation and our community

blossom with revival,

blossom with salvations,

blossom with new people

coming to know you

and getting discipled

and just the transformation

that takes place in a community

when so many people

come to the Lord and repent.

Lord, we yearn for that

and we yearn that their hearts

would be united with you

in eternity

and would worship you forever.

And Lord, we pray that

you would just do this.

We thank you for your mercy

and we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.