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.
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.