Judges Study - 2026-10-21

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.

All right, we had some difficulty with the slide presentation or the PowerPoint,

and I think we got it ironed out. But if I start to talk about things that you know not of,

and they're not up there, you'll know that there's a lead and a lag. But I think George

and Justin got it ironed out. And we are going to be talking about not a new subject,

the subject of following God, falling away from God, repenting and coming back to God.

And that chapter goes over and over in the book of Judges. So we'll be at chapter 10 tonight,

and we're going to be talking about some of the elements. And I'm going to make some

suppositions that may help you understand why the Israelites were the way they were.

So we're going to talk about idolatry and the human heart. And everybody knows without God,

our hearts are dark. So we're going to give you a brief outline where Israel turns from God,

God disciplines, and Israel cries out for deliverance and comes back.

So in this brief one-page outline, Tola, which is now a leader, and you know we have no kings,

and it says that he rises as a Godly judge after Abimelech, and we understand what Abimelech did.

He tried to make himself king. And Tola judges for about 23 years. And then Jair,

he leads Israel, and he judges for about 22 years. And he has 30 sons who ride 30 donkeys

and govern 30 towns. And if you notice this subtlety of what's happening here,

they are becoming more unified in what they're doing. They're not just a tribal

gathering together. They are being unified as time goes on, and we'll talk about that.

So Israel returns to idolatry, and we wonder why that happens. And I think that if some of you

remember when I was talking about Jacob and his attitudes about who he was and the aspect of

his noncompliance and the family traditions that he had, and they were arguing and fighting

and deceiving one another, and we said that that may be part of what was in the lineage of people

that were the Israelites. And we kind of linked that to the idea of them being rebellious and

then falling away. So we'll leave that, but we'll develop a new theme along these lines.

So Israel returns to idolatry. They forsake the Lord. They serve Gods of surrounding nations,

and they really did do that. And you'll see selectively what they did. And then God

allows the Philistines and the Amorites to oppress them for about 18 years. And then

Israel confesses its sin. And how many times have we done that? And we have sinned against you,

it says, in the Word. And God reminds them how repeatedly he had delivered them again and again

and again. And they remove foreign Gods and return to serving the Lord. And it says in verse 16,

and his Saul was grieved for the misery of Israel, meaning God's thoughts about Israel.

And then Abimelech's, the Ammonites' threat, I'm not going to go into that because that's

part of another chapter. So what we're going to do is begin to break down some of these things that

have been ruminating in my mind for quite some time. So Tawla rises, and he judges.

And here's an interesting contrast with Abimelech, which is Gideon's son. Abimelech judges

he wanted power. He killed his brothers, as you remember that. He made himself king,

and he brought destruction to the land. That was early in the wanting of power

from those that were following God. And then Tawla, which these verses talk about,

arose to save Israel. He judged Israel for 23 years, then he died. And it doesn't say

hardly anything about this man. The Bible gives us almost no drama from Tawla, which may actually

be the point. Think about this. For 23 years, they had peace, and they dwelled in the land.

Tawla's greatness really may have been what he did not allow to happen, and it was a quiet

season in Israel to this point. There was no recorded rebellion, no recorded oppression,

no recorded national crisis, and no attempt to make himself king. And sometimes we think of kings

like David being the man of valor and the warrior that he was. Here was a man,

not being said anything. And I looked on a lot of different references,

even some of the antiquities. And this is about all that was brought forth. But he did bring

organization. He brought peace to the land. Some scholars call Tawla one of the minor judges

because the biblical record preserves very few details about his activities. So he may not have

been great in the eyes of conquering, but he was great in the eyes of bringing stability

to the people. And not every leader is remembered for a great battle. Some are remembered simply

because they faithfully led, they preserved order, and they served their generation. And think about

that with regard to us. We don't seek, at least I would hope not, position in the church.

If it is given us, we respond, we take our ministries seriously. We give of ourselves to those

ministries, whatever they may be. And that's the reward in itself. And if there is a reward,

it's in heaven. That's what space basically is. That's our time to rejoice.

So here is a man that did what he needed to do to bring 23 years of organized relationship

between the people and God in the tabernacle and doing the things that were essential.

And then we have another one, Jair. And he leads Israel for about 22 years. And he has 30 sons,

and they ride 30 donkeys, and they govern 30 towns. Now think about the expansion of that.

It doesn't say anything wrong with this, but it's the idea that the governance or the

organization or the liability of having people just come and go and whatever being

disorganized is being put down so that they can live a societal life. And it's the beginnings of

normalcy. Remember when they battled, they tried to take those nations captive, kill them.

God said destroy them. And obviously they didn't do all that. And they failed.

But that was the warring time. Now is the time of settlement and organization, as we will see.

So he appears to have experienced leadership through an extended family network.

So we have those things that are in an operational way going to present in 22 years

a system of organization, his son carrying out his edict and his control. And rather than a

single dramatic military battle, he again was one that brought stability to the land.

That is important. The nation, if you will, is growing up.

And then the combination of 30 sons, 30 donkeys, and 30 towns indicates, again,

a level of wealth, status, and political influence because he had to have some finances to run this

whole thing with regard to the 30 locations. So riding donkeys as a parenthesis was associated

with people of rank during this period of time. Usually you walked. Remember Jesus walked from

town to town to town to town. He only had a donkey when he came into Jerusalem for the last

time. And the book of Judges repeatedly shows judges accumulating substantial family power

and money. Gideon, he had 70 sons. You remember the story about that? Abimelech,

he wanted to be king. He attempts to turn the family connection into a personal kingship.

And Jair, he has 30 sons connected to 30 towns. Jephthah, he later becomes a regional leader.

And Samson, of course, is another type of judge that as we get into that, you can see that it

is a bit different than the normal judge that we had. And remember, in all this time,

there was no king. Did God want Israel to have a king? Not at all. He established what the priesthood

was. The priesthood educated. He was part of a doctoring theory. He was part of a teaching

theory. And all the important issues were supposed to come from the priests as they served.

But again, eventually we understand that there was a king installed.

So now we have passed some 23 and 22 is 45, 46 years of stability and organization. And now Israel

returns to idolatry. Israel forsakes the Lord and they serve the Gods of surrounding nations.

So God allows the Philistines and the Amorites to oppress them for 18 years. So they had 43,

45 years good. Now they have 18 years of oppression. Now, Judges 10 gives us evidence

of this increasing local abundance property that they have. They were given and a broader class

of regional leaders. So you see they're just not tribal people warring as they were. They're

beginning to create a society. And Jair's family appears to represent an emerging regional elite

class. So now you start to see classes and people begin to develop. And a growing class

of local landowners, clan leaders, and community officials, and all these things that kind of

lean out of many resources and it kind of begins to paint a picture where we're going.

And it seems not to show us that Israel is becoming increasingly settled, organized,

and locally governed rather than simply being a loose collection of tribes. And that was God's

policy all the way through, except that they withstood his guidance and his leadership.

So now here's my speculation. And I give you that. I got this from a lot of different sources. I

want to paint a picture for you. This is some of the reasons why we see them falling away.

And I want you to apply this to your own life as God deals with you. Israel now has completed

all the conquering of the Promised Land, is now focused on settlement. And

you just made settlement on your house there. And just in a quick, the advantage of moving

to a new house was? Okay. More safe. Bigger house. All right. Okay. All right.

And you feel good about that, right? Okay. That's good.

Development. A lot of us that have been in the church have had jobs that develop our own

businesses. And we move forward. We can get consumed in that if we're not careful.

And we have the balance between what God is saying to us and what our desires are

to advance our family, to advance our profession. They built homes, although they did receive a lot

of homes and vineyards, as the word says. They established permanent towns and communities.

So this is coming together. They see it. They see the vision. And families were

cultivating their lands, growing grapes that, you know, you know the stories how big the grapes

were in the land of milk and honey. They created generational wealth. They traded.

They not only had cattle. They not only had sheep. They not only had goats. They had commerce

that they were beginning to relate to one another and also throughout the land that

they didn't conquer. So in creating that wealth, they increasingly had possessions

and local leaders were now emerging. Cities, states, towns, and so forth.

They enjoyed the social, economic, and political structures that enabled them to become more

settled and comfortable. How many people when they look in their life way back when,

let's say 20 years ago, feel more comfortable now than you did 20 years ago?

Okay, so that's natural. Then that should be. But the irony of that is

they were accommodating their neighbors all the time. Remember, they didn't wipe them out.

They accommodated them. Now, this is an important irony that you take a look at.

As Israel's society became more stable, they began drifting away from God who cared for them.

And that's the issue that we face all the time in our life. The danger was not that Israel was

becoming established. It was that they were becoming established without remaining faithful

to God who established them. And that's the lesson for today. We can become more secure

in our circumstances while becoming less dependent upon God. And I don't know whether you can testify

to this or not, or even if you want to. But there are different times in my life that I was

doing the Lord's work and I got sidetracked because of great interests.

And to me, it was business. And the idea of opening up another aspect of my business. And

I got sidetracked for a couple years and brought that back. And then, as some of you know,

because of the business grew so fast and I had some 37 people working for me, things got

overweighted and I had to declare personal bankruptcy because the leverage was so much

and the downturn in business caused everything to disappear. So be that as another story.

But it's the idea that in that experience, I learned simplicity of life and appreciation

of the things that I had in the Lord. So now my question is to you, as God establishes

us in our life, how do we keep from gradually learning to live as though we no longer need

him as much? See, that's the question that we have to ask. Are we comfortable? You know,

all is good. We have this. We have good jobs. We have good home. And what does that look like to

you? How do we stop that? How do we come against that? And I'll fall on my face if I don't watch

myself here with the cords. How do we not get caught up in the comforts? And, you know, we

know what the United States is. It's the greatest comfort in the entire world.

You know, yes, we have divisions. And yes, we have issues. But you look at some of the things

that are going on in Europe. Some of the other issues of life were very fortunate people.

So how do we combat that? How do you personally combat that idea that, oh, life is good

and moved into a new home. I'm not putting it on you. I'm glad that you did. You know,

I got a good job. The Lord blessed me. My kids are following the Lord. Ah, it's all good.

Yes. Now let's see if I can get there. All right. There you go.

Oh, okay. No, I think the thing that really helps me is, you know, I have a grateful heart

that what I have is really, he's given. And at any time it can be taken away. And I mean,

our government could just wipe us out any time. And, you know, but our God never will.

He takes care of his own. And my faith is in him. So what are you saying about the possessions

that you have? They're gifts. They're gifts from him. Okay. And just hold them loosely.

Yes, that's it. They're not ours. They're gifts. They are. Definitely, definitely.

And if they leave, so. Hasta la vista.

All right. Okay, that's good. All right. It's easy to say, Roger, she doesn't pay the bills. You do,

right? Good. What else? What other thoughts? How do you deal with this?

I would say in the last 10 years, the Lord has helped me to learn to refocus

my attention on him and make him a priority in my life. But it's something that I have to work at.

Yeah. Because it doesn't come naturally. And it's something that I have to pray about and ask for

help with. And I have to keep getting knocked down in a little bit to remember, you know,

where I am and where I need to be. Yeah. From a fleshly point of view, the priority is usually

me. And that's what we have to fight. I mean, that's not an easy thing. Any other thoughts?

Just recently, though, it just happened with me. Can you take the mics?

Yes, you do. Okay, I'll do that. Recently, I just discovered that God put it in my heart,

just like in the past four months, that I had a lot of shoes, a lot of things. And I said

why do I have all this? And I felt this interest come upon me to get rid of him and give him the

care and share. And even now, when I look at my closet, I go, I can get rid of more. He's

taken my heart away from what's in the world. Yeah, that's wonderful to hear. Yeah. When you

did that, how did you feel? Wonderful. Yeah. And it's funny, years ago, I would have said,

oh, I'm going to keep these. And then I look back, I go, I look now and I go,

there's someone who could use them now. Yeah, it's a wonderful feeling.

Always more in need than ours. Took pictures off the walls and he goes,

are you doing a major cleaning or what? And I'm like, it's not necessary. Right?

I'm ready to leave, right? No, that's good. I mean, that's a realization that when you come to it,

and I find, unlike when I was younger, this, this, this, this, and this, there's not much in life

other than God that's important. You don't need a new lawn mower every year, right?

Oh, okay. All right, you get somebody who moves your lawn. Anybody else? Jenny,

thoughts? No? Okay. Yes. We've been studying the Old Testament and we go through this,

you'll see that when they cross the Jordan, it's like pile up a bunch of rocks, right? And so when

you pass by there, tell your kids, yeah, remember. And he established festivals, right? And feasts and

stuff. And it's to remember. And so I know a guy that does give them 15 every morning. Yes.

Likewise. Exactly. We do that. So John and I do that. It's given 15 minutes every morning.

And to me, that's, it's something I do before I even get out of bed. And it's to start my day

thinking about God, communicating with God. And then I try all day and everything that I'm doing,

I talk to him. You don't always get answers. He's not like, yeah, do that or don't do that

or whatever. But I just try and stay in touch with him all day long, try and be in his presence

all day long and know that nothing I have is mine. I'm just a steward of it. It's all his.

And he gives us, he wants and it tells me what to do with it. So yeah. That's wonderful.

I think I'm a little more thick-headed than everyone else. And so what I have to do is,

um, it's going to sound crazy, but I have to be financially generous because it's easy for me to,

let's go sound dumb. It's easy for me to give away things that I'm not attached to,

but I am attached to, you know, money. I am. And it's like, I like buying my things. I like

going out to dinner. I like doing these things, but you know, it's important to me every month to

be generous financially somewhere. And it's, it can be challenging, but I force myself to do it.

So anyway. What blessing have you seen out of that? You've been able to force yourself.

You know, the, really the blessing is knowing that I'm participating with God in things.

And that's really what it comes down to is like, even when it's hard, I'm like, wow,

I know this is something that God would want me to do. And I feel thankful to be able to have

done it, you know, and, um, yeah. So anyway, it's a little, little hard at the beginning, but,

I mean, you know, we're battling flesh and, you know, and that's, that's not easy. I mean,

you know, to, to, to have that old man want to rise up and push him down and ask the Lord to,

you know, conquer every room in my life and every, you know, in my, in my, the house of my heart.

That's not particularly easy. So yes. Ron.

Well, I think I found out that it's not bad to have things because the Lord gives them to us,

but the problem occurs when we put them things before God. And just the other day, I had to

give 30 pair of pants away. The good will. I hate it doing it. I mean, I've had these pants for

30, 40 years. Never wear them. Never wear, never wear them, but I still have about 50 pants.

Yeah, she motivated me because I would never even work on some other things.

I think I better get rid of this.

Well, you know, not that not, not that you should be alone. I have this red Robin shirt

that I bought 20 years ago. I love this thing. And every time I put it on my wife says, are you

wearing, you know, it's kind of raggedy around here, but it's like tie worn and it looks nice.

So I do it every time I'm with another guy, I say, well, what about this shirt? Do you think

I should get rid of it? No, that's a nice shirt. So I come home and I keep my wife

informed that so-and-so said that I should keep the shirt. Yeah. Yeah, right. It looks

good because it's worn. Any other thoughts? Yeah.

Being a female and being on my own and being in that situation, it's very easy to want to hoard

and hang on to money for a sense of security. And it's really painful when I'm paying the bills or

I have to spend money because I'm like, ouch. And, you know, it's like, I don't buy clothes

often only if I need them and going out to eat is few and far between. And, you know,

so it's, it's hard for me. And I have to remind myself when I do donate to a charity that

it is God's money and I didn't get it by myself. Yeah. Now, in looking at your finances and having

the Lord say, okay, you hear, how do you feel? How do I feel when I give? Better. I feel better

about myself as a human being. And even when I didn't have an income and was pending disability

about almost two years, yeah, a year and a half ago or so when I first got on the disability,

I didn't have an income for six months and was trying for my savings account and still was like,

it's not mine. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. Good. Good. Hey, John, I just had this thought.

There's a, I think there's a proverb that says, he who lends to the poor, no, he who gives to the

poor lends to the Lord. And I was thinking about that one day and I'd say, wow, just think about

that. Every time when you give to the poor, that's like the Lord is saying, Hey, listen,

Dottie, I gave you so much. Now I need some of it back because I need it over here

because it's all his anyway. So it doesn't matter because it gets back to you somehow.

It may not be dollar for dollar. It may be dollar for something else. Yeah. Really, really.

You just may have a spiritual blessing, not necessarily a financial one.

That's why I was asking a question. How do you feel? I mean, in that that's even a reward

when the Lord just speaks to you. Well done. Good and faithful servant. Yeah, really.

Okay. Okay. So they are in the midst of idolatry. And here are some interesting pieces of evidence

of Israel slipping into sin as they became more comfortable. And, you know, again, the takeaway

message is that all this us applies to us. We don't have tents. We have houses. We still have

food. We still have needs. And all these things are still applicable. So look at the progression

here. And they should prove to us and demonstrate to us that they didn't maintain the covenant

separation unto God that God wanted for them. So in Judges one, I'm just going to do a couple

word review. Israel didn't drive them out. And remember, those of you that have not been here,

they were asked to what annihilate every individual in the land that they were taking.

And they did not do that. So there was residents that were already there that they lived with.

And that's the danger that can be compromised. And they didn't realize that.

So they didn't accomplish that goal. Judges two, Israel lived among them.

And if you're not, and if you're equivocal about serving God, living among other people,

what does that do to the influences in your life begins to draw you to their way of life? Because

we all want to be wanted. We all want to be friends. We all want to have interesting

relationships. Judges three, five, and six, Israel intermarried with them. And that was

one of the big sins that he said that I do not want you. You're not my children. And they started

to intermarry. And then lastly, in Judges three, Israel served other Gods. And we're going to

talk about that. They just didn't take one God. They took several, and we'll show you. Israel

what's that look like? And I'll go over this with you. Israel gradually accumulated, gradually

accumulated Gods of the surrounding nations, adopting the religious practices of virtually

every other people around them, not just some, but all of them. Let's look at the various things

that happened. I know you can't read this, so I'll read it. So number two is they contacted

with other nations. And they wouldn't have done that if they would have annihilated

the surrounding people. So they had that contact. So compromise begins instead of removing the

foreign influences, Israel tolerated and adopted the religious practices of the surrounding nations.

Now look at all this down here. From Canaan, Baal and Asherah represented storms, rain, fertility,

and abundance. And those are the things that they needed. Abundance, fertility, rain for their

lands and for their crops, for their animals. From Aram, they received the rain, agricultural,

and power of nature. Those Gods they took. So they're getting all these various things. It's

a hodgepodge of religious reality, I would guess, and ritual. And from Sidon, fertility and healing

and property and prosperity was part of what they wanted to do. So they took some from them.

And from Moab, they took national identity and military fortresses. And from Ammon,

they took national identity and interests. In other words, not spiritual interests. And Felicia,

they took agriculture, prosperity, and power. They took a little bit from all these different

nations and assimilated them in. Remember that scripture that we used some longer weeks ago

God said that these, my chosen people, were worse than the pagan nations. Because they

took everything, they took a little bit of everything and assimilated all this in.

So now the question that we ask, what can living among the unsaved do to the Christian ethos?

That's the thing. Ethos meaning values and character that shape how we live.

But what can happen? Not necessarily in your life, but what can happen? Can we be influenced?

Yes. Do you want to say something, Glory? Are you just okay? Just scratching your head. Okay.

All right. All right. So that influence comes. Now living among the unsaved is not

automatically weaken us as Christians, but it can create a constant pressure on us.

You know, like when you have, we lived in one apartment complex before we bought our first

house and they had block parties there. And you know, well, John and John, why aren't you coming?

Well, we're going to church. Church? Man, we're having a good time. Come on on after church. Well,

you know, all of a sudden we realize that we're living a different life,

you know, in kind of the wrong environment. So it was nice to get our own place.

The pressure to adapt to values and attitudes and behaviors

of the surrounding culture that we're in. Anybody ever get caught in that?

Isaiah, give me example.

I was expecting call on.

Pardon. Getting caught in that. I guess, yeah, when I was younger, just, you know,

hanging out with the wrong crowds and the wrong people, even though knowing deep down in my heart

that I didn't necessarily share the same values as them, just beginning to compromise my own,

like, just to get my values, attitudes, and behaviors in my earlier years in life. So that's

definitely something that I see as dangerous for sure. And then I try to keep alert for now,

even in the workplace conversation I'm having, working on TV still, you know, trying to watch,

you know, but just everything affects you. And it all goes into your mind.

Exactly. And sometimes it can...

When you talked about hanging with the crowd, did we all, I think, and I won't answer the question

for you. I'll ask it. Did we want to be accepted? Is that what we were looking for?

Maybe unconsciously in the, when I was younger, but...

Part of something?

Yeah. Not, I don't think consciously though. Just kind of like, just kind of rubbing off on you,

you know, like foul language, right? Like you hang out with people like, I know my workplace

curse words fly all day. So it's easy to kind of like slip up and be like,

start talking like that. So that's an example of that. So not consciously wanting to do it

to fit in, but just it rubbing off on you, just because you're around it all the time.

So again, I'm not trying to grill you. When did you realize that you just can't do those things?

I guess I've always known it. I guess it just came to a point where I had to really...

Yeah. And by no means am I perfect at that now, right? Because, you know,

but it's difficult. You just got to be, you have to have discernment and be mindful of your

surroundings. And I try to explain this to people too, just like you said about

hanging out with people in the environments, but they see it as though I'm coming off as

better than. Yes.

But when really I'm trying to communicate to them that it's about rubbing off on you

and making you compromise in your values. So I don't know. So I stopped trying to explain it.

You know, when we got married,

my wife, bless her heart. She's such an innocent person. I just love her to death.

We got talking about this one time. I said, the next time that we may happen,

I forget the word. We may play switcheroo. She says, what's that? I said, well,

if you would go to bed with somebody else and meet with somebody else, I mean,

that's what people do. I mean, you know, that's a lot of what in my growing up,

they had block parties. And then you ended up sleeping with a different person,

which was neat. And, you know, we never accepted that, but was the idea of my wife. She said,

I didn't even, I can't even understand all that, you know, and it's interesting to see.

Now she's a preacher's kid, so you can take understanding on that. All right. Yes, Roger.

Now you're not going to tell us any bad stories, are you?

I won't tell you the stories, but I remember as a teenager, there's a lot of times I didn't know

what was right. And other older kids or even kids my age that were very positive in certain things,

I accepted their guidance because I wasn't getting it from anywhere else.

So when you're talking about living among the unsaved, particularly the children are vulnerable,

unless the parents are very strong in, you know, indoctrinating them. And in my situation,

that wasn't so. So I did a lot of foolish things.

So you didn't have a Godly environment?

That's right. I mean, I went to church, but it wasn't that. Actually, that was,

even among some of the men going to church, it was kind of a joke.

Did you have a Godly environment, parents?

Okay. Well, grandmothers do. Man, they're on their knees for their grandkids. Yeah, good.

But to his point, yes, that can be tough as well. So with my son, really, I guess for me,

it's a balance of letting him kind of make his mistakes. But yeah, right. Don't get crazy,

everybody. But yeah, within reason, but also at the same time, as far as who he's around,

not necessarily being like, well, those kids are bad. More, I try to focus on telling him,

life is full of choices. And there's consequences for your choices. So if you're hanging out with

these people, and they get in trouble, by default, you're in with them. You know what I mean? So I

just try to really explain that to them. And it's a mix.

I got to say something, don't say too much. Okay, that's right. I grew up in a rough situation.

Let's just say that. And then I met her and I said, let's go out. And she's looking good.

I said, take you out. We'll go nightclub it. She don't drink. You don't smoke, you don't drink.

What do you do? I run Bible studies. Well, now you got me, because I don't know what you're

talking about. I had no idea. So, you know, bingo. Now she's the boss and I'm the slave

husband. That's what it comes down to. Yes, ma'am. But you know, when it comes down to also,

when you say where people draw you in, I felt recently in the past couple of years where God

is isolating me to get to know him more. And yeah, and the people around me, there's no friends.

And I'm even finding that being with family, they're unsaved. There's a slightest taste,

not a love. There's love there, but a distaste of where the isolation of spending time with God

is greater than everything else. Yeah, it's different. And so when we go home at night

or on the weekends where people are having fun, I'm reading the Bible. So it's…

That's a safe place to be. Yeah. Good, good, good. All right.

So they are being annihilated by all these various things. And the DNA that we had talked about way

back with Jacob, the idea of living in a comfortable land begins to let us understand what decisions

they decided to make. So now, how does all these things or how do all these things

affect our Christian ethos? All right. It desensitizes us as we begin to be amongst

the things we've been talking about. What once seemed sinful can now gradually begin to seem

normal. That's so bad. I mean, they're good people. You know, and it is an 80% good,

a 20% bad, and so forth. We can diagnose that, but we'll go on. We compromise our convictions.

You know, if we write our convictions down today, will they look like these convictions

two years from now? If you look back maybe in your life 10 years and you had convictions

compared to what your convictions are now, we'll see a difference because all of you're here on

Wednesday night and you're not in the nightclub. So, you know, there are convictions that have

developed over the last 10 or 20 years that bring a desire for you to find God, like you said,

rather than fit in and be part of the gang. We can distort our priorities.

Well, you know, I used to go to Wednesday night, you know, John, he's boring and, you know,

he doesn't have PowerPoint anymore. We almost didn't have PowerPoint tonight, by the way.

You know, it wasn't working. And I keep telling the guys in the back,

if you take my computer away, I can't talk. You know, I've got nothing to say.

At 702, I would have given you a benediction and you've all gone home.

So, we distort our priorities by material success, pleasure, status,

and self becomes increasingly important. Gail covered that.

Influence our speech and behavior. Isaiah, you talked about that.

Worldly attitudes can slowly replace Christian-like character. And then we normalize our sin.

Oh, it's not so bad. I still love the Lord. Repeated exposure can reduce our sense

of its seriousness. These things are serious. Think about this. They were told,

you're a nation by yourself, and here they go out and marry across the way, across the land,

unsaved, not Israelis. They create spiritual drift within us. And this is a subtlety, drifting.

You ever see us pond and a small stream and things come in, leaves float down slowly.

It can begin to happen. Without intentional fellowship with God and other believers,

faith can become passive. I mean, think about the people that you know

that go to church that are satisfied being there because of the liturgy.

Oh, you know, the cross, nothing wrong with it. But there you see, I mean, that's not what we

worship. We worship the cross. We're cognizant of what it is, what it has done for us,

but we worship the living Jesus. And all the robes and all the songs, you know, like I had told you,

I had ministered a few times in the ecumenical church at Meadowood. And boy, I tell you,

I went in there and what was interesting, I'll say a quick aside. And the pastor always stands

up here. Well, I came around the mic and the microphone like this, and people's eyes are like,

oh, what are you doing? You know, it's different. So I walked up and down the aisle a couple of

times and said, okay, I got their attention now. So, you know, it's just what you're used to and

what you think is spiritual, I would guess. These can become very passive things. And then

we weaken our witness. Well, look at you. You're a Christian. You do these things. What's wrong

with me? When Christians begin looking and living like everyone else, their distinctiveness is

diminished. It's what we do, what we say. My middle son, he and I had various disagreements

in life to the point in time when he was about 17, I had to tell him to leave home

because he just didn't... That was a story for another day. But after he came back to the Lord,

I said, Jared, I said, you know, what did you learn when you were growing up? He said,

I didn't learn anything. I didn't listen to what you said. I just watched you.

I looked at you, how you conducted yourself to mom and to other people and to people in the church.

And so if he is a witness of what people do, they look at your life.

They hear the words, but they look at your life. Okay. Now, let me give you the other

side of the story. There's another side to this now. And we're equating what happened to Israel,

could happen to us. Jesus did not call his followers to withdraw from unbelievers

as he himself fellowshiped with the unsaved. He called us to live among them without becoming

like them. And that's important. Matthew 5.14, you are the light of the world.

Jesus did not ask the father to remove his followers from society. He asked that they

would be protected. And the verse for that is John 17.15, I pray not that you should be taken

out of the world, but that you should keep them from evil. In other words, our position is here

in the concourse of life. And so the question that we ask is, so if Israel could not live

among the pagans without falling away, what makes us so different in that we are called to

influence our surroundings? How can we do that today when they couldn't do that

thousands of years ago?

Well, the real difference obviously is the Holy Spirit within us,

because we couldn't do it any more than they could without his help. We couldn't change

anything that we, any of our behaviors, any of our thought processes,

none of that would change if it weren't for the Holy Spirit within us.

You mean self-help books aren't right? Oh my gosh. When this came out, I said,

and I read a couple of them and I said, oh my word, you know, you could do this and,

you know, think positive. I said, oh my gosh, where's all this going? Any other thoughts?

All right. Yeah, go ahead. Another side to that is not only is it the Holy Spirit within us,

but we have to stay yielded to him or he can't do that work. We have to yield ourselves to him.

And with yielding comes humility.

You know, this is hidden close to home because I walked here, you know, with the Smalls,

you know, I met them in the alleyway and about a block over the church that's been defiled and

turned into a Hindu temple. They're romping and stomping and beating drums. And

yes, at first I was like, oh boy, where's the party? And then I thought, whoa,

wait a minute, this isn't good. So, I mean, you know, I was like, blood of Jesus,

poor fire on him. And I'm like, no, maybe just get them out of here.

Or if they were pan, you know, I was like, I prayed out loud, blood of Jesus, you know.

Come against the adversaries.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was walking and we really need to pray because this shouldn't be in our town.

It shouldn't be. It really shouldn't be. However, this is the mission field that God called us to.

So, we will labor on to do those things that God puts on our heart to do to influence the

hearts of men. All right. The danger of living among the unsaved is not that we will be around

them, but it is that without guarding our hearts, and this comes back to what a couple of you said,

we can gradually become like them. And this is the tension that we all live in

as we live for Christ. Close enough to reach them, but different enough to show them Christ.

That's what our message is. So, let's take a look at some issues that will help us.

The question then becomes, how do we guard our hearts? What can we do? It's not self-help. Like

you said, it's the Holy Spirit. We must intentionally protect what shapes our thoughts,

desires, convictions, attitudes, and actions so that the world does not slowly replace God's

truth in us. Proverbs 4, 23, above all else, guard your hearts. So, what's that look like?

We're going to talk about that. For everything that you do flows from it. Guarding what we take in,

what we listen to. Being discerning about what we watch. There's the TV thing.

Yeah, I know. You raised your hand. We'll see you at the altar later. No, I'm just kidding.

What we listen to, what we read, and what we allow to influence us. What are those things?

They're subtleties. And then guarding what we believe. Measuring the ideas and cultural messages

against the scripture, because that's the basis of understanding, rather than automatically

accepting, like Roger said, he just accepted his friends and their guidance. He didn't have

any spiritual input. Roger, you turned out pretty good. Guarding our desires. Boy, this is one

that I deal with. Recognizing when something is pulling our hearts away from God. What are

your interests? That was funny, anecdotally. I've always had a garden over at Meadowood.

You raise vegetables, do all those things, and there's a camaraderie with people there.

It's a beautiful place. I mean, it's the most manicured place I've ever seen for a garden.

And you get a plot. It's four feet by 20, and I had two of them. Then I downsized. So,

this year I thought, you know, Lord, I can't fit all that in anymore. And then I just talked

with somebody in our prayer meeting this morning. He said, oh, you're going to give up all your

berries and all your fruits and things. I said, yeah, I said, Bob, I said, I just can't do it.

I said, you know, it doesn't interest me like it used to. So, one of those things you kind of,

okay, well, let's put that aside and move forward. Guarding our relationships. Choosing

close relationships that strengthen us rather than erode our faith. And, you know, when I,

and some of you know that I was a car guy, and I had friends in the car industry,

in the car clubs, and so forth. And, you know, we used to get together, and everybody was drinking

beer. And, of course, I didn't drink beer, but I was part of just being there when we had our

club meetings and so forth. And, you know, when I finally gave that up after I moved to Meadowwood,

it was like, oh, okay, that's not so bad. I can do this. So, you know, you don't want those

things to erode your faith. Guarding our speech, refusing to let attitudes and language around us,

and Isaiah covered that, to become our own. And then, guarding our priorities. What's important?

And I will confess the older you get, there's only one important thing that's

being with the Lord. In His presence, no less. Continually asking, is Christ still first in

my life? Then guarding against compromise, recognizing that small compromises can gradually

reshape our convictions, unfortunately. And then the last one, guarding comes through prayer

and Scripture, regularly allowing God's Word to correct, renew, and strengthen each one of us.

And I will wait until Kiel gets her picture. Okay. And then the last thing is here, and

it's almost time, so I'll get to the bottom red. And His soul, meaning God's soul was grieved for

the misery of Israel. As much as He told them what their sins were, and He disliked them,

He grieved for them. And look at what it says here. The statement reveals something about God's

heart toward people that have repeatedly turned away from Him. And think of the things, the people

that we pray for. I mean, if you multiply the number of people and the number of people here

that we pray for, must be hundreds, maybe a couple of thousand people. That is, we spend time with

the Lord interceding for them. Again, His statement is important. The point is not that

God has a human soul, and exactly the same we do, but it communicates something much more

personal. Israel's suffering affected Him. Their misery mattered to Him, as we pray for those that

are slidden away, those that don't know the Lord. God's mercy is there, and He wants everyone

to come to Him. His soul was grieved. The even stronger words may imply. The English standard

version reads, His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel. The new international version

says He could no longer bear Israel's misery. And the new American standard Bible says His soul

could no longer tolerate the misery of Israel. So we understand that as we make decisions that

are not in the best interest of ourself and our relationship with the Lord, He labors over

these things. He feels bad for us. It's not that He is the Almighty God with no love in His heart.

He loves so much. Yes, Gail. In the last year, I realized that this goes without saying that

God's holy, and He can't abide sin. However, one of the reasons that He hates sin is because

it separates us from Him. That's why He hates it, because He wants to have that relationship,

and we in our sin keep us from having that. Why did He make the creation come about? He wanted

children. He wanted relationship. He wanted a kingdom that would glorify Him. All right.

Tonight's take away three things to remember. The prosperity can create a false sense of

independence, and it is a false sense. Our financial security, influence, and comfort,

as it increases, we can gradually begin trusting in our own resources and our abilities. Number two,

what we tolerate around us could eventually influence what we believe within us. Israel moved

from living among the foreign nations to adopting their practices and worshiping their Gods and

marrying their daughters. What a tragedy. And last, even when God's people turn away,

God still cares about our sufferings. Judges 10, 16 says it all. He tells us that God was

grieved by Israel's misery. His response reveals that His dealings with His people involve both His

opposition to sin, first of all. We got that. And His deep concern for their suffering.

So Lord, we ask tonight that as we close, it is a sober word to think about your people

and how they failed. But Lord, more than that, we want to see in our relationship

giving you joy because we are followers of you, bending our knee, giving ourselves to you,

that you can declare to each one of us that well done, the good and faithful servant.

And Father, we thank you for the desire in our hearts and all these things that have been

expressed tonight through the people that you love, that they love you, that they've given up,

not that they're now worthy because we don't work on works of righteousness.

But they've given up things, Lord, because they want you, they want your presence,

just to be abiding with us in the things that we do. Being with us during the day like Ken says,

talking to Him, conversing, being blessed, interceding for people that come to our mind.

Lord, we thank you for the diligence that we have in you, because you have given us that.

And so we pray these things in your name. Bless each one here tonight in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, amen. All right.

Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church as we praise God and discuss His word.

Don't forget to join us for Worship Live Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.

Be blessed and have a great day!