I Will Save You No More

6The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. They abandoned Yahweh, and didn’t serve him. 7Yahweh’s anger burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the children of Ammon. 8They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years, they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. 9The children of Ammon passed over the Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was very distressed. 10The children of Israel cried to Yahweh, saying, “We have sinned against you, even because we have forsaken our God, and have served the Baals.” 11Yahweh said to the children of Israel, “Didn’t I save you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines? 12The Sidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Maonites, oppressed you; and you cried to me, and I saved you out of their hand. 13Yet you have forsaken me, and served other gods. Therefore I will save you no more.

People today think it wise to live for themselves alone. Rather than building real relationships with others, they will use even a good relationship to make themselves happy. Because they center everything on themselves, they pursue only their own benefit and purposes, and you find in them no consideration for others at all. Such people never accept anyone else’s opinion; insisting on their own, they cannot live in community and, in the end, cannot mature.

Yet everyone cries out that we must live for ourselves, and everyone lives that way. Why, then, is there no true happiness? We are far freer than in the days when people were taught to consider others; why, then, do people complain of loneliness, with no one to open their hearts to? Life has grown far more prosperous, but hearts have grown barren; why can we find no meaning in our existence?

It is because true happiness is found when we sacrifice ourselves, and because our sense of worth rises when we share what is precious to us for the happiness of others. Yet people do no good to others, and that failure is what leaves them unhappy themselves. When we love with a self-giving love that expects nothing in return, love and happiness come to us before we ever chase after them.

A life lived only for oneself, as so many live today, can never be happy. We become happy only when we learn to yield a little, to bear some sacrifice in yielding, and to know the noble heart that discovers love through relationships of sacrifice. Otherwise our low self-esteem will keep damaging our relationships.

Eve, made from Adam’s rib, was the wife given to help Adam. God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone, and so he made him a wife to help him. But Eve did not help Adam as God intended; under the sway of an evil spirit, she led him into darkness. Of course, Adam had heard God’s command for himself, and eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil that Eve handed him was plainly his own sin. But had theirs been a relationship of helping one another in good faith before God, Eve would not have been caught up in her own thinking and given Adam the fruit. Because she made him eat it, the two of them fell into misery, came under Satan’s rule, and met death.

God’s will is for people to love one another and care for one another. The way for everyone to be happy is not to insist on our own ideas but to stand firm on the word, so that others can be happy through us.

Israel was a people who knew that their freedom and happiness came from God. Even so, they lived for themselves without end, and they forsook God for the sake of human freedom and plenty. But because Satan holds the power of the air, we can know true happiness and freedom only when God is enthroned at the center of our lives. God does not bind human freedom; Satan, though, seems at first to help us by offering freedom, and in the end ties us up with the cords of sin. We must be on our guard.

It was with this love that God heard Israel’s cry every time they sinned, raised up judges for them, and led them in many different ways.

Israel needed God only for the sake of life in this world. Knowing that God answers when his people cry out, they cried to him each time a foreign nation attacked and secured his grace. Then, once they had the peace and rest they wanted, they went back to their idols and left God. This wickedness repeats itself to the very end of Judges, and we can see God answering and judging over and over, not only in the days of the judges but even with us today.

Judges 9:6

6All the men of Shechem assembled themselves together, and all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem.

Abimelech killed all Gideon’s sons and became king, but God did not forgive him the sin of betraying Gideon.

Gideon did not live the last part of his life according to God’s will, but God had not forgotten the faithfulness he showed as a judge when he defeated Midian. Whether it lasts a moment or a lifetime, God does not forget such devotion. Your faith, too, is not full every day, but there must have been moments when you were truly faithful to God. God remembers the faith with which you served him then, and he is surely rewarding that faithfulness. Had Gideon obeyed God’s word all his life without turning away, and not only in the war with Midian, he would have received an even greater blessing. After all, even after he died, God took up his cause and avenged him.

Abimelech and the men of Shechem reasoned that since Gideon was already dead, they would gain a great deal if Abimelech became king. So they killed Gideon’s sons and made him king. This is the error of people who judge everything with themselves at the center. Abimelech’s notion that he could do far better as king, and the Shechemites’ notion that they would serve more zealously if one of their own flesh and blood ruled, are foolish ideas that set themselves against God’s plan.

Faith means asking how I can help the one God has appointed to fulfill their calling. To do that, we must know the word clearly and be able to make sound spiritual judgments. Abimelech, however, believed he would do well as king, and the men of Shechem concluded that with their kinsman Abimelech on the throne, they would prosper. So they committed an evil that must never be done. Then God, who had remembered Gideon’s devotion, rebuked the sin of Abimelech and the men of Shechem and judged them all. Human greed had given birth to death.

Where Gideon fell short of living God’s way to the end, that was a matter for God and Gideon to settle. It was not for Abimelech and the men of Shechem to judge or mock, for neither God nor Gideon had ever done them any harm.

A pastor at a church I used to attend once taught that church members who judge and oppose their pastor will not be blessed. That statement is both right and wrong. Suppose the pastor is someone who proclaims the truth; suppose, in other words, it is the apostle Paul. Then members who judge and oppose him will themselves be rebuked by God, because harassing a pastor who studies and proclaims the truth amounts to keeping the truth from being proclaimed.

But if pastors do not proclaim the truth, do not live as an example, and use their members for their own gain, they are worse than the members themselves, and that is why it is the members who will be commended by God. Only those who know the word, like the church in Ephesus, can judge in this way.

God raised up Gideon when Israel was at its lowest. He had his moments of doubt and hesitation, but he risked his life in battle and set Israel free. Gideon’s faith was for God to judge and to rebuke. All the people had to think about was what they had received from Gideon. They had been put through the fire and had suffered, and Gideon had helped them come into peace and rest; they should never have attacked him or his house. Abimelech and the men of Shechem, who turned against Gideon’s house, all died at the towers under God’s wrath. The whole episode makes plain how the lives of the self-centered unfold and how they end.

If you want to escape God’s rebuke, I hope you will stop and think whenever you feel like judging or resenting someone, whether a pastor or anyone else. Is that person causing you harm? Do they stand to gain anything from the matter you resent? Measured this way, if they have never harmed you and have nothing to gain, you must lay that resentment down and repent, because it comes from flaws in your character and is a wrong judgment, made without God at the center.

Because Abimelech forgot his father’s love and never considered that it is God who sets up kings, he ended in grievous sin.

Judges 10:1

1After Abimelech, Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar, arose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir in the hill country of Ephraim.

Verse 1 tells us that after Abimelech, Tola, a man of Issachar, became judge and governed Israel for twenty-two years without any notable trouble. There is no record of how Tola came to be judge, but since he ruled for twenty-two years without great trouble, we can tell that he governed Israel under the grace of God.

When Scripture introduces the judges, we find that it usually dwells on events. When I read the Bible, though, I find myself more drawn to people like Tola, who became a judge and fulfilled his calling to the end without any great event. I love the faith of someone who served as judge over Israel for twenty-two years and carried out that charge without a single problem. Among such people are Micaiah, Stephen, and Matthias, who became Jesus’ disciple in place of Judas Iscariot; little is written about them. It is because of the faith of saints like these, approved by God without striving to put themselves forward, that the good word is still being handed down.

After Tola, Jair the Gileadite judged Israel for twenty-two years, and we are told that he had thirty sons. The Bible describes it in detail: all thirty sons rode on donkey colts, and they had thirty cities. In those days, riding a donkey colt was like driving a luxury car today, and having thirty cities meant that Jair’s children lived in wealth, wanting for nothing.

Why did the Bible bother to record this? Thirty sons means he had many wives, and since he would have had many daughters as well, it means that he was more attached to his own life than to his calling as a judge. Jair’s way of life must have led the people astray into a faith that seeks only blessing. Watching Jair and his children, they would have come to the false belief that doing God’s work, or holding an office, is the way to prosper in the world.

But Tola of Issachar, though he saved Israel, neither made an ephod like Gideon nor indulged in wealth and splendor like Jair. He simply governed the people in the place God had given him; and because God loved Tola for this, Israel enjoyed peace and rest. That is why there is no great event to record about him. Seeing how their judge served God wholeheartedly, the people would have served God too and lived peaceful lives. And God must have loved Tola, a judge who humbled himself, loved God’s people, and made peace between God and his people.

In the same way, we must not stir up trouble in the church. To exalt God’s name while serving in our office is only natural. We must have a faith that earns the respect of pastors and fellow members, and never speak or act with the pride that tears a community down. God remembers those who fulfill their calling where they stand, and he will be preparing to reward them. So it was that in Tola’s day there were no attacks from the nations, the people caused no scandal, and nothing great happened worth recording. When we look at the people of the Bible, those who lived peaceful lives without great events, like Isaac, have little written about them. Since nothing is recorded about Tola, what I have told you about him is my own inference.

What do you think? When Tola and Jair were carrying out their calling as judges, which of them would the people have paid more attention to? Would they have wanted to honor Tola more and follow his faith, the man who did his very best to fulfill his calling where he stood and who truly loved the people? Or would they have been drawn to Jair, who gave his thirty sons donkeys the people could never dream of riding or owning, and set them over thirty cities?

I will say it plainly: the people would have wanted to live like Jair rather than like Tola. What they did after Jair died shows it. When Tola died and Jair was raised up as judge in a time of peace, there was no unrest, because the Israelites had followed Tola’s example and lived by faith. But after Jair died, Israel once again did evil. The people had seen the wealth Jair enjoyed during his life and envied it, and when he died, their desires burst out.

Judges 10:6

6The children of Israel again did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, and served the Baals, the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. They abandoned Yahweh, and didn’t serve him.

To prosper, Israel served not only the Baals and the Ashtaroth but the gods of every nation, and from this we see how desperately they struggled to live well, as Jair had. As long as they could prosper in the world, there was nothing they would not do.

This tells us how much a leader’s life matters. The name Jair means “one who gives light,” “one who enlightens.” But what light did he shed on the people? What did he help them come to understand? He planted in them the sin of forsaking God, who gives peace and rest, and turning their eyes to the world.

Even now, when people succeed in the world, they testify that God has blessed them. Of course, God may grant wealth as a sign that he commends someone’s faith and is entrusting them with a greater calling. But if they look honestly at how they are living now, they will see that their testimony is exposing their own unbelief.

Our lives have an appointed span, and after death we will certainly meet God; we must never forget that. Having much wealth is not the sin; the sin is failing to honor God’s name with that wealth. Not knowing how life should be lived or what kind of place awaits them after death, people fix their attention only on what they can see and on satisfying their greed.

God saw the sin of an Israel that lived only for itself, and he no longer protected them from the Philistines and the Ammonites. Until then it had mainly been the tribes of Naphtali, Asher, Zebulun, Issachar, and Manasseh that suffered at the hands of peoples from southern Palestine such as the Philistines and the Ammonites. But now Ammon crossed the Jordan and conquered even the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. The Philistines and the Ammonites scattered the people of Israel by force and oppressed them cruelly. An Israel that had been at peace was scattered in every direction because of the children of Ammon. When God sends affliction, no human strength can ever escape it.

When Israel could find no way to bear the suffering, they sought the God they had forsaken and repented, confessing that they had sinned by serving Baal.

Judges 10:11,13

11Yahweh said to the children of Israel, “Didn’t I save you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, from the children of Ammon, and from the Philistines? 13Yet you have forsaken me, and served other gods. Therefore I will save you no more.

What a heartbreaking scene this is. God had to speak once again of how he had rescued Israel from Egypt, and remind them of everything he had done for them. Had they lived by faith, there would have been no need for such words. He reminded them how he had freed them from Egypt, how he had rescued them from the Amorites on the road out of Egypt, how he had saved them from the children of Ammon, who had allied with Eglon king of Moab, and how he had raised up Shamgar, who killed six hundred Philistines. He had also rescued them from the oppression of the Sidonians, the Amalekites, and the Maonites; yet because Israel had forsaken God and served other gods, he declared that he would save Israel no more.

In his great anger God told them to go and cry to the gods they had chosen for themselves, and beg those gods to save them. He was rebuking Israel’s foolish choice to forsake the God who had answered them every time, in every trouble, and to worship idols. The idols they had prayed to again and again for worldly wealth and glory were nothing at all, he said; it was not those idols that had saved them. Still, they kept praying to idols and never once stopped to think that what they did was grieving God.

Psalms 96:4-7

4For great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised! He is to be feared above all gods. 5For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Yahweh made the heavens. 6Honor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. 7Ascribe to Yahweh, you families of nations, ascribe to Yahweh glory and strength.

David sings that no human being can stand against God. God is great and almighty beyond all comparison with the idols made by human greed and with Satan, who holds the power of the air. Idols are nothing, but God is the Almighty, living still today. The world God rules, and his saints, should always be full and rejoicing. He is not a God to be thrown away at the whim of human greed.

Yet Israel went on sinning, abandoning God and then serving him again as their greed dictated. As we watch Israel behave this way, we must look back and ask what choices we ourselves are making as we live. We must judge for ourselves whether we too stand in the place of betraying God, and whether we are faithfully carrying out the calling he has entrusted to us.

We are a holy people who believe in Jesus Christ through the Scriptures, written by some forty holy men over a long span of about sixteen hundred years, from BC 1500 to AD 100. So it is that 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. The Bible was not written by human will; it was written under the inspiration the Holy Spirit gives, and it is being fulfilled just as it is written.

Just as Israel fell into sin because they did not trust God the Creator, we fail to receive God’s instruction because we do not read the Bible. If we do not know the Scriptures, we cannot see our own sin, nor can we walk the way of truth. Israel forsook God again and again and lived as they pleased; in the same way, if we do not know the word of Scripture, we cannot help being proud in pursuit of human righteousness, nor can we help worshiping the world for our wealth and glory. Sadder still, if someone learns the Bible and still does not change, no learning in the world can bring them to understanding or help them live a good life.

God looks at us like this and speaks with sorrow. He says that he died to give us life, came down to the lowest place to lift us up, and was nailed to the cross in a place of shame so that we would not be put to shame. If we who have received such love forsake God, there is no way back to his embrace; and if we forsake Jesus Christ, we will not be able to join in the praise when the heavens are glad and the earth rejoices.

As you watch Israel abandon God over and over, I hope you will never fall into sin. God did not forget even the brief devotion of Gideon, who failed to serve him wholeheartedly for forty years, but rewarded it; and he will remember your faithfulness as you give yourselves daily to his Kingdom.

May you be free of complaint and of greed, and never set up a righteousness of your own; may you be good and self-giving saints who bear the likeness of God’s character.