As I bring another series of messages to a close I usually look back and wonder if we got it. Did we get the main point of what the author of Judges was trying to communicate? If we didn’t then I feel that I haven’t accomplished what God has called me to do. If I could give you a one-sentence summary of Judges it would be:

Forgetting God and excessively devoting ourselves to something else always ends in being enslaved by those idols.

Time and time again the tribes of Israel forgot about God and pursued the gods of their day. The phrase “Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD” is repeated seven times (2:11; 3:7, 12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1) and gives us a clue as to their problem. The root of the Hebrews’ evil was in forgetting God and chasing after the gods of their time. The gods they became devoted to were the false religions of the day. They began worshipping the Baals and Asheroth of the Philistines and the Amorites and the Perizites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

Once they were on the road to idolatry God would give them over to be “owned” by these foreign nations. Soon enough the Israelites would have enough and would cry out to God for deliverance. What is beautiful in the story of Judges is that even though the Israelites forgot God, God never forgot them. The evidence of this is that when they repented God was there to rescue them from the domination of the nations and their gods. He would raise up a judge to lead them out of their oppression and slavery. This deliverance resulted in years of blessing, peace and prosperity. And then the cycle would begin again…

The difference between then and today is that our gods don’t look the same. Yes, we have the same problem of excessive devotion to something else other than God, but we usually don’t worship our gods by making little statues. Our gods follow the American dream that in reality is a nightmare. Our gods are leisure, consumerism, addiction, entertainment and narcissism. We have become so consumed with the things of this world that following God is no longer engaging. To be honest the gods of the 21^st century “own” us and are beating us down every day. The only way out is to cry out to God and ask Him to rescue us.

The design of preaching through Judges was not to be a wet blanket but to give us all hope when we find ourselves buried under a present-day god of this world. The hope is found in pursuing our relationship with God, not chasing after the American dream!

Grace & Peace,