God, Who Longs for Victory over Sin

1After the death of Joshua, the children of Israel asked of Yahweh, saying, “Who should go up for us first against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” 2Yahweh said, “Judah shall go up. Behold, I have delivered the land into his hand.” 3Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into my lot, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I likewise will go with you into your lot.” So Simeon went with him. 4Judah went up, and Yahweh delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand. They struck ten thousand men in Bezek. 5They found Adoni-Bezek in Bezek, and they fought against him. They struck the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 6But Adoni-Bezek fled. They pursued him, caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his big toes. 7Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their big toes cut off, scavenged under my table. As I have done, so God has done to me.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

The Hebrew title of Judges is Shophetim, meaning “leaders” or “deliverers,” a name for the many judges who stand at the center of the book. In Judges, the people refuse to repent despite God’s warnings and fall into ever greater sin, and God summons foreign armies to bring judgment and punishment upon them. When the people, unable to bear their suffering, repent, he saves them through a judge; yet they sin once more, and God’s anger is kindled. Judges is the record of this cycle of sin, judgment, repentance, and deliverance, repeated again and again. Its author is not known for certain. Most take it to be the prophet Samuel, though some regard it as the work of someone from the time of Josiah. If Samuel wrote it, it dates from around the eleventh century BC; if it comes from Josiah’s day, it is thought to date from the late seventh to the early sixth century BC.

When Joshua, who had led Israel into Canaan, died, the people each began to act as they themselves saw fit. Until then they had lived by their leader’s commands. Since they had never had to make their own decisions and live them out, they had no way at all of knowing God’s will. Through Judges, Israel’s repeated sins show in detail how deep the wickedness and corruption run in human beings who have forgotten their gratitude for what God has given them. That one line, that they did what was right in their own eyes, says it all: a human-centered view of the world and of morality ends up making people live lives that have nothing to do with God, and in that way it corrupts them and leads them down the road to destruction. Rather than viewing what happens in the world from God’s standpoint, people insist that their own experience, judgment, and decisions are right. Because of that, they tend to set their own righteousness above the word of God.

Yet only when we live with God at the center and hold a repentant faith can we know a deep freedom, as if the cords of sin that bound us had snapped. While we are bound by God’s law, we must live by that law, and we may feel that our freedom is restricted. People who live in the world as they please may then look enviable, and we may even think that if we left God we could live freely. But God’s law is as plain as broad daylight. It lets us see clearly and precisely as we act, so a life lived under it is never wasted.

People want the world because they do not know how safe it is to walk the narrow way in Christ by the word. The world is like a night when darkness has fallen. No one can see ahead, so in the end people live as seems right to them; but having no good measure to go by, they will end up taking orders from Satan. Such a life makes the same mistakes over and over, and though it seems to stroll freely along the broad way, it has no idea what road it is on.

Until now Israel had lived under Joshua’s commands. Having never made decisions of their own, they did not know what kind of life was God’s will. We must therefore treasure our experience of having lived by the word, and set the direction of our lives wisely by looking at the faith of other believers.

Through Judges we see how ungrateful human beings are, how wicked, living only for themselves. Even when God helps them, they will not in the end let go of their own righteousness. I hope, then, that you will look at yourselves through Judges and walk the right path. If you follow Israel’s story, watching for the kind of faith God forgave and the kind of sin that roused his anger, you will come to see how full of faith Moses and Joshua were.

I would ask you to picture a very high mountain, the mountain of sin, which can be climbed only by receiving God’s forgiveness. Countless people strive to conquer it by human strength and so reach heaven, yet to this day no one has ever conquered sin. Some have tried to conquer the mountain by displaying good character all their lives, others by doing good deeds and winning the approval of others, but not one of them has climbed a single step. There are, it is true, those in the world who do good even at the cost of their lives.

Human effort, however, is like climbing an ice wall without a rope: it can never conquer the mountain of sin. People cannot climb it because from the beginning God ordained it as his law: it can be climbed only with the rope that is Jesus Christ. God gave Jesus Christ as that rope to save a humanity imprisoned in sin and death, but people will not let go of the proud idea that they can make the ascent by their own strength, and it is that pride which keeps them from getting up.

Anyone who believes in Jesus Christ can climb the mountain of sin with ease. There is a way up that is easy for anyone who simply has faith, yet people leave it aside and wander about at the foot of the mountain, because of the proud notion that they will climb not as God has ordained but by their own wealth, power, honor, and ability. The mountain of sin, however, will not let anyone climb it by human wisdom.

Joshua 1:1

1Now after the death of Moses the servant of Yahweh, Yahweh spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying,

Judges 1:1

1After the death of Joshua, the children of Israel asked of Yahweh, saying, “Who should go up for us first against the Canaanites, to fight against them?”

Just as Joshua 1:1 marks the end of one generation with the death of Moses the servant of Yahweh, Judges marks the end of another with the death of Joshua. Moses fulfilled his calling by bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt and leading them to where Canaan lay in sight. Joshua, in turn, carried out the charge God had given him by leading the people into the land of Canaan and playing the pivotal part in dividing it among them.

To Joshua, who always obeyed in faith, God said, “I have given you every place that the sole of your foot will tread on, as I told Moses.” He also said that as he had been with Moses, so he would be with Joshua, and no one would be able to stand against him all the days of his life. Joshua was therefore to be strong and courageous, for God would cause this people to inherit the land he had sworn to their fathers. If Joshua kept and did all the law that God’s servant Moses had commanded him, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, he would prosper wherever he went, and his way would be prosperous. Having received so remarkable a promise, Joshua obeyed God’s command, kept and did the law, and his life flourished.

He died after dividing the land of Canaan among all the tribes, and God did not raise up a successor to him. Why did God appoint no successor? It is easy to understand if we think about our faith today.

I have delivered the word of Scripture to you just as it stands, and I have taught it. I have also shown you in detail what it means to live according to God’s will, so that you could live it out in your lives. You have lived by the word and experienced God’s answers. Now you have grown mature enough to work through problems with the word you have learned and the experience you have gained, which is why I do not step in closely.

This is to prepare you for the day I leave the church; it is training to help you keep your faith on your own. Of course, there will be some in the congregation who strive to live by the word and by prayer, and others who live as seems right in their own eyes. Now we must train ourselves to walk as God’s people without a leader, showing a faith that is our own.

God raised up no leader to take Joshua’s place because he wanted the people to stand on their own from then on, since they had learned the statutes and ordinances from Moses and had seen in Joshua what it is to live by the word.

Before he died, Joshua told the people that he and his house would serve Yahweh alone, and that they must decide which god they would serve. The people pledged that they would never forsake Yahweh or serve other gods. God wanted them to keep that promise. With death near and no further chance to teach them the word, Joshua pleaded with them earnestly: since they had said they would serve Yahweh, they were to be their own witnesses to those words and look to God alone.

God must have wanted to know whether the people of Israel had a faith that kept his commands and statutes. He wanted them to overcome sin by faith and lead good lives according to his will, and for that reason he did not give them a successor. But just as Adam accepted Satan’s temptation of his own accord, they too served the idols the Canaanites served and left God. They themselves cast aside the promise they had made to Joshua, that they would serve God alone and he need not worry. We are no different from them in their wickedness. Every day we resolve to live by faith, and we fail. God longs for us to overcome sin by faith, yet like someone climbing an ice wall with bare hands, we sin and fall into despair, again and again. Still, God’s love does not change, and he goes on giving the next generation, and the generation after that, the chance of salvation.

Through Moses they had met God and seen miracles; through Joshua they had learned beyond doubt what it means to live by the word. Now, whatever they faced, they had to put it into practice themselves and show the maturity to teach the word to their children. If people follow the Lord only when a leader teaches them, that faith is not their own, and they have not truly met God. That is why we must know God’s statutes and ordinances with certainty and make every judgment and decision according to his will. If they had remembered how they were brought out of Egypt, how they came into Canaan, and how patiently God bore with them and poured out his love, they would never have been guilty of living by human righteousness. God is good, and his loving kindness endures forever. If the people chosen by such a God do not live honest and upright lives, his anger will burn hot against them.

After Joshua died, the children of Israel asked God which of them should go up first to fight against the Canaanites. Here they show exactly what God’s people ought to look like. If the people now lived as God had taught them, God, their protector, would hold back the invasions of foreign nations. Had they kept such a faith, life in Canaan would have been peace itself.

May you, too, believe that God takes responsibility for your life, and put his word into practice. If you do not doubt that he has led you this far, and trust that for the rest of your life God alone is your protector, you will be able to enjoy peace and rest.

Judges 1:2

2Yahweh said, “Judah shall go up. Behold, I have delivered the land into his hand.”

The people, who had learned by watching Joshua’s faith, showed that they too held the conviction that they must trust and rely on God alone, as he had. When God saw them waiting for his command, he answered, as though he himself had been waiting, that Judah should go up. Without Moses or Joshua, the people now experienced the extraordinary miracle of living in direct conversation with God. Before he died, Joshua had longed for the people to serve God with just this kind of faith, and this is probably why God raised up no leader. Israel must never forget an experience so marvelous, because they were now receiving for themselves the grace God had shown when he answered Moses and Joshua. You too, if you pray to God as you watch the Israelites receive his answer directly, will find that he shows you the way through every problem.

At God’s answer that Judah was to go first, they went up with Simeon against the Canaanites, because they believed God would act on their behalf.

Judges 1:4

4Judah went up, and Yahweh delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand. They struck ten thousand men in Bezek.

Not only the tribes of Judah and Simeon but all the people of Israel must have realized that no war in the world can be won unless God helps. When Yahweh delivered the Canaanites into Judah’s hand, he was showing them firsthand that he works to keep the prayers and faith of those who trust and rely on him from ever being put to shame. God always makes his promise to his people first. Then he blesses those who believe and obey it with the experience of seeing that promise come true in their lives.

People of the world are slow to believe that God truly exists. Because they believe only what they can see with their eyes, they cannot believe in God’s love. So those who know and believe in God must make that love visible by the way they live. They must be witnesses who show what privileges the children of the Almighty enjoy, and what protection and guidance they receive.

Yet we receive countless answers from God and still live for ourselves instead of giving ourselves to him. We take it all for granted, and we do not offer him the devotion and faithfulness that would answer his grace. It is Satan who leads us into so empty and futile a faith.

Satan cannot obstruct God’s work when we are full of faith. For this reason he uses circumstances, people, and weak faith to bring us down. We must not forget that wherever God is at work, Satan is there to hinder it, and we must arm ourselves with courageous faith.

The tribes of Judah and Simeon fought Adoni-Bezek trusting that God would help them, and they won a decisive victory over the Canaanites and Adoni-Bezek. Adoni-Bezek is not a personal name but a title for the ruler of the city of Bezek. Judah and Simeon pursued him and cut off his thumbs and his big toes. Then Adoni-Bezek said that long ago he had seized seventy kings and cut off their thumbs and their big toes, and they had scavenged under his table. He was confessing that he had heaped bitter humiliation on seventy kings, and now God had repaid him with the same shame: as he had done, so God had done to him.

People live as they please because they think the power and wealth they hold now will last forever. Adoni-Bezek, too, probably thought no one could defeat him, since he had power enough to maim as many as seventy kings. Great power, to be sure, does not crumble easily. But when God steps in, everything changes, because when God works to protect his own people, Adoni-Bezek cannot stand against him, however great his strength. Human strength is too feeble to be set beside even the weakness of God, and so we must fear him. Adoni-Bezek, however, had no fear of God, for he despised God’s wisdom and instruction.

When Israel obeyed God’s command, God took charge of the battle himself and caused Israel to win a resounding victory. In its own strength Israel could not have stood against Adoni-Bezek, but when God himself brought judgment, Adoni-Bezek received exactly what his evil deeds deserved. God is righteous in just this way: he repays good and evil according to cause and effect.

He will surely bring your good deeds into the light, so that they are commended, and he will surely make evil deeds pay their due, even sins committed where no one could see. Sin is always repaid. We must therefore always have the wisdom and understanding to order our lives by the word, and put away sin in every form. Only after suffering exactly the evil he had done to others did Adoni-Bezek understand. Through that suffering he learned how fearsome God is, and in all likelihood he despaired, realizing that God’s people could never be defeated.

After so great a victory, the people of Israel needed to be careful. They were to acknowledge that they had not won by their own strength but that God had been at work, and to humble themselves in deeper fear of him. God had kept the promise he made to Abraham, to give his descendants a land to live in. Because the victories in Canaan were the grace by which God kept his promise, they must never betray him.

Having tasted victory, the people of Israel must now rely on God alone, and to obey his commands at all times, they must discipline themselves into submission, as Joshua did. If they could go on making such right choices, they would need no leader.

Through the defeat of Adoni-Bezek, God showed that whatever power the enemy has, those who rely on God can prevail.

Friends, God’s word is perfect, and his love never changes. It is always people who change, and people who disobey his commands. God brought down in a single moment even Adoni-Bezek, who had killed seventy kings and wielded absolute power in the world.

Through Judges we must come to know God’s astonishing love and rely on the God who is ever gracious. Friends, blessing is not far away. Because God is always with you and knows everything that is happening now and everything that will happen, you must do your utmost to follow his word. If you live as one who fears God and strive to put away evil habits, he will help you live with a faith more beautiful still. I hope you will never forget the God who rejoiced in Israel’s victory, and that you will offer him a life lived by faith to the very end.