Judges 18 -- The Perils Of Doing Your Own Thing

With each chapter I read, I keep asking, “Can it get any worse?”  Yes, and here it is.

 

My commentary fleshed in the start of the story:  The tribe of Dan had been allotted choice land when the Promised Land was divided.  “The Lord had assigned the tribal allotments … God put each tribe just where He wanted it … The Danites, however, weren’t able to defeat and dispossess the enemy, thus they decided to go north and relocate … For the tribe of Dan to reject God’s assigned territory and covet another place was to oppose His divine will.”

 

Five spies had come to Micah’s house, seen his shrine, his idols, and his priest, and asked whether God would bless their trip.  Now, they’d returned with an army of 600 and stolen everything related to the shrine, “hiring away” the priest, who verse 30 says was Moses’ grandson!

 

Micah and his neighbors went in pursuit, trying threats to get it all back, but they were too outnumbered.  So now the tribe of Dan was adding theft and idolatry to its list of sins.  They attacked and killed the innocent, peaceful people in Laish, then burned the city and rebuilt it, renaming it “Dan”.

 

Now the tribe of Dan finally had its own land, not where God wanted them to be and taken from innocent people, with idols and a false priest set up for worship – a recipe for disaster.  In fact, Dan would be the site, once civil war split the nation hundreds of years later, where one of the golden calves would be erected.  No wonder they consented to it!

 

Father, this just reminds me how easy it is to slip farther and farther from You if we allow sin even the tiniest foothold in our life.  The devil will take anything we give him and use it against us while deceiving us into believing that we know better than You.  Please keep our eyes wide open to Your truth, instead.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Judges 17 -- THINKING It's Right Doesn't MAKE It Right

As my commentary noted, this was one messed-up family!  The grandmother of the bunch suddenly misses 28 pounds of silver.  She must have been doing well.  She starts calling down curses on whoever took it.  Those curses finally scare her son Micah enough that he admits that he’s the culprit.

 

Now grandmother is in a quandary.  She has called down curses on her own son, and she needs a way to undo them.  So she starts by saying, “God bless you, my son!”  She’s asking God to bless an unrepentant liar and thief!

 

Now she needs to handle the material side of it.  So she decides to “give the silver to the Lord” as an offering to make up for her son’s sin.  But since that will be quite costly and more than she probably ever intended to give, she needs to game the system.  So she turns over five of those 28 pounds (less than 1/5^th) to a silversmith who molded it into an idol.  She then gave this idol to her son!

 

Now, the liar and thief has his ill-gotten gains back in his house (she’s probably okay with that – he’d have inherited it later anyway).  Surely in the process, she figures, God will be happy about the offering, even though it’s really cost her nothing.

 

My commentary figured that the son broke 7 of the 10 commandments and the mother broke at least two!  And God was supposed to be honored in all this??  They didn’t even feel the least bit guilty!

 

This all happened at a time when “people were doing what seemed right in their own lives, and it’s certainly apparent!

 

The son didn’t stop there.  He hired a young Levite to come live with him and be his priest.  He’d earlier appointed his own son for the duties.  Neither were from the family of Aaron, so neither could be a priest!  This would surely impress God – having his own priest living with him!  But this Levite hadn’t been living in one of the Levitical cities.  My commentary supposed that the people had stopped many of their offerings to the Tabernacle and the Levite therefore didn’t make enough to survive.  He sought his own well-being rather than the mind of God.  By working for Micah and presiding over the idol in the private shrine, he was in fact assisting his new employer in stealing from his former employer,” my commentary discovered.

 

Father, it’s a scary thing to see how far we can move away from You and still attempt to justify what we’re doing!  Help me to examine my own life, piece by piece, and hold it up to Your Word.  Show me any areas where the two don’t match up and help me to change to match You, for only You are correct.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Judges 15-16 Not A Hero At All

Not much to write home about when it comes to Samson.  He doesn’t deserve hero status.  His battles were less for the Lord and more for private vengeance, and as for his devotion to the Lord, that sure shines through with his visit to a prostitute.

 

He’d developed quite an entitlement mentality, and my commentary said, “He disregarded the warnings of God, disobeyed the Word of God, and was defeated by the enemies of God.  He probably thought that he had the privilege of indulging in sin.  Since he wore the badge of a Nazirite and won so many victories for the Lord, but he was wrong.”

 

It also said, “How different it would have been had he first conquered HIMSELF before he sought to conquer the Lord’s enemies.”

 

Father, You  created us with great curiosity and passion, and unfortunately as we explore the one, it invades the other and causes real problems.  Please help my sons and me to understand where Samson went wrong and to avoid making the same mistakes he did.  No man is entitled to himself, for we all are Your children and must answer to You.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Judges 13-14 Who's On First Here?

This was a conundrum for me today, and my commentary just seemed to double it!  In chapter 14, Samson saw a Philistine woman and desired her greatly.  His parents, aware of his Nazirite status, knew this wasn’t good.  But verse 4 says in parentheses, “Samson’s parents did not know that the LORD WANTED this to happen because He was looking for a way to challenge the Philistines.”

 

This sounds like Samson’s desire for a Philistine woman was given to him by God.

 

My commentary keeps talking over and over about what Samson’s alternatives were and how he always seemed not to select the godly path.  “Samson was a loner; unlike previous judges, he never rallied the troops and tried to unite Israel … he played the champion, but he failed to act the leader… When God isn’t permitted to rule in our lives, He overrules and works out His will in spite of our decisions.”

 

Yes, I agree that he disrespected his parents and himself when he defiled all three of them by taking honey from the body of the lion he’d killed.  His temper tantrum after losing the riddle competition at his wedding looks very bad, but the Bible does say, “Then the Spirit of the Lord entered Samson and Samson … killed 30 men …”

 

“God was looking for someone to challenge the Philistines.”  “The Lord wanted this to happen.”  Hmmmmmmm…….

 

Father, I know that You wouldn’t lead someone to sin.  And I understand that there were other, more godly, ways Samson could have accomplished Your will.  It sounds like You wanted an antagonize.  Had Samson not desired a Philistine woman, You’ve have found other ways to antagonize them for sure.  Help me to understand.  I keep remembering that You “give us the desires of our heart”, meaning not that You give us all we want, but that You place desires within our heart to motivate us to do what You have planned for us, like the desire You gave me for all the Russian stuff that led me to my boys.  I just want to make sure I’m on Your page and not mine.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Judges 11 & 12 -- Don't Count Someone Out Because Of Their Past

Gilead had a wife and several sons.  But he visited a prostitute who became pregnant and had a son.  Doing the honorable thing, he took the boy, Jephthah, into his home as his son.  Tormented by his half-brothers, Jephthah eventually left home and the area and became a leader of some worthless men near Syria.

 

The Ammonites attacked Israel, trying to reclaim land they’d owned some 300 years prior.  The Israelite leaders reached out to Jephthah for his fighting skills, offering leadership of the people in the area in trade.  He agreed and promised before the Lord to do his job.

 

To his credit, he tried diplomacy first, but it failed miserably.  So he prepared for battle and bargained with the Lord about the results, offering to make a burnt offering to the Lord of whoever or whatever came out of his house first upon his return.  God granted the victory, yet Jephthah was sickened when his only child – a daughter – became the subject of his vow.

 

My commentary spent quite a bit of time and space discussing this.  The vagueness of his vow would have made it tough for him to fulfill it.  For instance, if an unclean animal exited the home first, he would not have been able to offer it as a burnt offering.  Likewise, a neighbor’s child or a total stranger  could not have been offered by him because he held no authority over them.  Besides, God didn’t approve of human sacrifice!  And neither would any priest in Shiloh where he’d have to take the offering.  They’d likely advise him of the Mosaic option to buy back a life with a monetary offering.  The commentator honed in on the word “and” in 11:31, saying it can be translated “or”, meaning he would either dedicate to the Lord the person who came out first or offer as a burnt offering an acceptable animal that appeared first.  In his daughter’s case, he would not be burning her but dedicating her to the Lord.  She would be unable to marry, dedicated as a virgin.  He ended up having no descendants as a result of the vow!  This would certainly explain the positive commemoration of the event by Israelite girls each year!

 

Father, thank You for reminding me not only to watch what I promise, but also that birth circumstances don’t determine a person’s worth.  Nor do early associations.  What truly matters is a person’s dedication to You when You call.  Help me to remember always that Your commands are Your enablements, and regardless of what’s gone on in my life, You will always equip me to do what You want me to do.  I am never disqualified from service if I am in Your will.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Judges 10 -- Here We Go ....

God had given Israel 45 years of peace and security, but my commentary noted that the people didn’t take advantage of those years to grow their relationship with Him.  They openly returned to idolatry and God again had to step in.  Their lack of gratitude to God for peace and security amounted to enjoying God’s gifts, but not being grateful to the Giver.

 

They then failed to submit to Him.  “When we’re comfortable and enjoying His blessings, we tend to forget God and assume that we can sin and get away with it.  Comfortable living often produces weak character … Since Israel didn’t value the things of God, she ended up destroying her own national character.”

 

God used the Philistines and Ammonites to shake them out of their apathy.  “History was repeating itself, and they cried out again for deliverance … But this time God announced that He wouldn’t help them anymore.  They could ask their new gods for help!”

 

This was huge!  People thought nothing of abandoning God, but they couldn’t imagine Him doing the same to them!  “The greatest judgment God can send to His people is to let them have their own way and not interfere.”

 

Israel faced another problem despite their willingness at that point to finally submit to Him – they had no one to lead them!  My commentary said, “The absence of qualified leaders is often a judgment of God and evidence of the low spiritual level of the people … When the appetites of God’s people turn to things of the world and the flesh, He judges them by depriving them of good and godly leaders.”

 

Father, help my sons and me not to turn from You, especially never to the point the Israelites reached here.  I don’t want to have my own way.  It would be the worst that could happen to me.  I don’t want to ever reach the point where I have to ask, “Where is God?”

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Judges 9 -- First Attempt At A King

What a rough chapter!  Gideon had been used by God to help his nation, but his son Abimelech tried to rule by force after his death and really made a mess!  He broke so many commandments in his quest for power – coveting, idolatry, and murder were the worst but not the only ones!

 

“He was his own god, and he had no interest in God’s will for the nation,” my commentary said.  He coaxed the leaders of Shechem into helping him murder the rest of Gideon’s 70 sons, except Jotham who escaped.  “Abimelech was actually trying to wrest the kingdom away from God and the Lord permitted him to have a measure of success.  But God was still on the throne and would see to it that man’s selfish purposes would be frustrated,” my commentary added.

 

God did this by sending an evil spirit to make trouble between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem and an evil spirit to punish the leaders of Shechem. 

 

Gaal, another wannabe leader, led the people of Shechem to revolt against the man they’d placed in power, but Abimelech wiped them all out.  Then he headed to Thebez to put down rebellion there as well.  Intending to burn the leaders in their tower as he had done in Shechem, Abimelech made the mistake of getting too close, and a woman killed him by heaving a large millstone onto his head.  “In that way, God punished Abimelech for all the evil he had done to his father by killing his 70 brothers,” the Bible says.

 

The young nation of Israel was still fractured by tribal loyalties, and the desire for a king had been planted.  God did not desire this for them, for He intended to be their only king.  They couldn’t see what a good thing they had, and wouldn’t, until they lost it.

 

Father, it’s terrible that You set apart people and then evil invades, trying its best to keep You from ruling.  But You are God and You are sovereign.  Please work mightily in my family to keep evil out and to allow us to see You as our only King.

 

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford