Christ in the OT - Christ..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Good evening, everyone, once again, and welcome to our usual Wednesday Bible study. Let's open up our Bibles to the book of Joshua, please.

The book of Joshua. We are going to continue this evening with our study on the types of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. And this evening, I hope by the grace of God, we're going to be addressing the period of time that is called the Judges. So the period of time, the historical period of time that comes after Joshua, that is called the Judges. as I type of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And just because this is going to be the first time that we're going to be actually addressing a period of time, we have addressed people so far. We've done Adam, Abraham, Moses and Joshua. But this is going to be the first time that we're going to be doing a period of time or an event, if you want, a stage of history, of biblical history. So now we're going to be addressing something that connects and somehow overlaps with Joshua. In the past, we had addressed Adam, and Adam was historically disconnected from Abraham.

And then we addressed Moses, who was also historically disconnected from Abraham. But then after that, we did Joshua, who is historically connected to Moses, as we studied last week. And now we are going to be studying together, I hope, by the grace of God, this period of the judges. So for that reason, I want us to start from where we left last week, which is in chapter 23. Some of the words of Joshua before he dies, and he's addressing the elders, the leaders of the people of Israel, once they have conquered the promised land, when they have entered into the promised land, And let's read together verse 16, from chapter 23, in which Joshua is going to give to the elders and to the leaders of Israel, and of course to the people through them, and this warning about what is coming.

Now, verse 16, it says, If you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you. and you shall perish quickly from off the good land that He has given you. Amen. This is the word of God. Now, brothers, as I said, we are now starting this period of time that is called the period of the judges.

And we've said that it's not only about people, but it's also about events and even places that can be defined as types or shadows of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the people of the Lord Jesus Christ, His church. Now, brothers and sisters, it's very important that we remember and that we remind ourselves in our minds and an understanding that we types, when we're speaking of types or shadows, We are dealing with those things, with actual historical, either events or people or places that are connected with the spiritual realities that are coming afterwards. So we are dealing with things that happen in the history of the Bible, in the history of redemption, that could be people or persons, if you want, or events or places, and they are spiritually connected with later realities that are going to come. In other way, we could say that we are dealing with Old Testament realities, things that took place in the Old Testament, that they can be people or events or places that they are fulfilled in the New Testament in a way that it is spiritual. And our brother explained to us that types are not always a direct correlation of something that happened in the Old Testament and in the New.

It could be actually that is the opposite or the contrary to it. But what we need to understand from this study of types and shadows, beloved brothers and sisters, is the unity of Scripture. That even though our Bibles are divided in two different Testaments, the Old Testament and the New Testament, or the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, the book is united, is the single piece, the masterpiece of God given to us as His special revelation, and both the Old Testament and the New Testament are connected. So that means that if we want to understand the realities of the New Testament, we must pay attention to the historical, actual facts that took place in the Old Testament. Because in a sense, the Old Testament sheds light into the New, and the New Testament sheds light into the Old Testament.

This is the unity of Scripture. That's why it's very important for us to understand not only the connections, the single connection between the Old Testament and the New, but actually to understand historically the development of the history of redemption. And this is very important because the Gentile church in general, I'm not saying that this is the case of our church, of us, but it could be, but the Gentile church, or the church of this time in general, focuses predominantly on the New Testament, right? But the Old Testament provides those historical events that helps us to understand the New Testament. That's why we have chosen people, events and places that if you have realized they are progressing and they are developing historically.

So we started with Adam, Abraham, Moses, then Joshua, and then we're moving into the period or the time of the judges. These are progressing and developing historically, sequentially over time. Each one of those persons or people were a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we concluded last week better with Joshua, this one that was connected with Moses, the servant of Moses. Moses was the servant of the Lord, but Joshua was the servant of Moses.

And something very important that I wanted you to have in your mind was just a couple of things. The character, who Joshua was, and the role that Joshua was given. And something that I said to you is that Joshua was a man of faith. When we are analyzing the typology of how Joshua foreshadows the Lord Jesus Christ, we can say that Joshua was a man of faith. This is very important.

When in a generation that had been freed from the bondage in Egypt, this is the Exodus generation, people lacked faith. They did not believe in their hearts in the Word of God. Joshua and Caleb and others, they had faith in their heart that what the Lord had said, He was going to accomplish. And it's very important, brothers and sisters, that what Joshua had was not might or power or strategy in his mind to be a man of war as he was. What he had was faith.

He believed that the Lord, the one who had liberated the people out of the land of Egypt, that he indeed was going to take the people of Israel to the promised land. He apprehended, he grasped that reality from the mouth of the Lord by faith. He was a man of faith. And for that reason, the Lord passed over the judgment that the rest of the Exodus generation deserved because of their lack of faith. Many people perished in the wilderness because they did not believe, because they were afraid, they did not believe in the promises of God.

And then when the spies came to them with a report, they were filled with fear and they said, we prefer to go to Egypt and not to be with the Lord. Therefore, they were recipients of the judgment of God and they perished in the wilderness. Only those who are in faith, Caleb and Joshua, and the younger generation, who by the grace of God, not even by their faith, but by the grace of God, are taken into the promised land. That was the role of Joshua. Joshua was in charge of being the conqueror of the land.

And that's what we, when you read the book of Joshua, that is what you see. You see Joshua defeating kings. to conquering cities and taking the people and the army of the people of Israel and defeating and defeating over and over and over again, many different kings. So what we have just read, this is a Joshua that has accomplished what the Lord promised him, that is that he was going to enter into the promised land. But something that I said to you, very important, is that this conquest of the land was not completed.

that there were still peoples of the hidden, people of the Canaanites, peoples of the Gentiles who needed to be driven out or removed from the land. That was the mission of Joshua. Joshua was with his army just removing and driving out these hidden, these Gentiles from the promised land. but when he knew that his mission had come to an end and that he was going to die, he saw with his eyes and he knew that there was still something that needed to be done and that was to remove the remaining peoples that as in Judges chapter 3 says that the Lord had decided to leave among the people of Israel, the nations, the Gentiles, the Canaanites, that He had decided, their Lord had decided to leave those people among Israelites after the period of Joshua to test the obedience of the people of Israel. So what we have just read, brothers and sisters, is this exhortation, is this warning that Joshua is now giving to the elders.

He's saying, if you do not obey the terms of the covenant, if you do not pay attention to what the Lord has said to you, then the anger and the judgment of the Lord is going to be kindled against you. And what is that commandment that they are supposed to obey? The commandment that they are supposed to obey is that they have to drive out, remove by the sword, Not with words, but by the sword, the Canaanites from the land. This was what they were supposed to do. But brothers and sisters, this warning, Joshua is not only going to present it as a warning.

Actually, he's going to challenge the people of Israel. If you go to chapter 24, he's going to challenge the people. He's going to say, you are to serve the Lord in faithfulness, in humility. Your heart should be directed towards the Lord. And he says to the people, choose today whom you are going to serve.

He challenges the people of Israel, and that is where the famous verse comes in verse 25. He says, because for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua is challenging the people of Israel. This is in verse 25, sorry, in verse 15, chapter 24. in which he's challenging the people.

He says, choose whom you are going to serve. He says in verse 15, and then he concludes that verse saying that he, Joshua, and his house, they were going to serve the Lord, but he's about to die. He is about to die. What Joshua is trying to do in the Spirit, by the preaching of the Word, and by the convicting power of the Word of God, is just trying to bring these people to an understanding that what comes ahead requires their utter devotion from the heart to the Lord that saved them. but in a prophetic utterance, the same Joshua that is challenging in verse 16 and verse 15, in a prophetic utterance, in a prophetic preaching, proclamation, He's going to say something very interesting in verse 19 in chapter 24.

He says, but Joshua, chapter 24, verse 19, he says, But Joshua said to the people, You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He's a jealous God, and he will not forgive your transgressions. or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after having done you good. After the Lord has done good to you, if you forsake the Lord, if you turn yourself in your heart and in your actions towards other gods, small g gods, then the Lord is going to harm you.

After doing good to you, the judgment of the Lord will come upon you. This is the urgency in the soul. This is the urgency in the heart of Joshua. He's about to die. He knows that the Lord has fulfilled the promises in him of the things that he wanted to do.

But he knows that he is going to die to the point that even in verse 25, he is going to make a covenant with the people. In verse 25 of the same chapter, he says, So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and put in place statutes and rules for them and Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God. And he took a large stone and set it up there under the therabinth that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. Stone, that rope, was going to be a witness, because after Joshua had said these words to these people, these people said from their mouths, we will serve the Lord.

The thing that came from their mouths after the challenge and after the exhortation of Joshua, they said, we will serve the Lord, we will obey. So he enters into this covenant with them and says, this stone is a witness between you And I, that this is a covenant that we have entered in which you say that you will obey the Lord. Brothers and sisters, when we turn the page and when we go to judges, we see the wickedness of the heart of men. because these people who had been passed over the judgment of those who perished in the wilderness, these people who have heard of the many things, and many of them probably have even seen the wonders of the Lord and what He had done, These people are going to disobey this exhortation and this commandment of Joshua in a way that has not been seen before this. Even there's a statement in the book of Judges that said that the wickedness of the people of Israel committed in the period of the Judges had not been seen from the time in which they were slaves in the region or in the land of Egypt.

After they had been passed over the judgment. But there's a verse that I really wanted to point to before we move on to judges and that is verse 31. In verse 31, Joshua was the leader of the people of Israel and there were leaders under him, the elders. And pay attention to this interesting truth. of verse 31 in chapter 24, it says, Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel.

The obedience, the people of Israel served the Lord, that is, they obey, they remain in obedience to the God of Israel, the Lord God of Israel, all the days of Joshua And all the days of those elders who outlived Joshua, who lived beyond the lifespan of Joshua. In these elders, something very interesting is said of these elders. the elders who had known all the work that the Lord had done or did for Israel. After these elders who had known what the Lord had done for the people of Israel after they died, The wickedness that breaks into the covenant people of God, it has not seen until that point. That means, brothers and sisters, that when the people of God do not know by faith the works of the Lord, the works that He has done for His people, and that through the preaching of the Word, through telling and through preaching the things that God has done for the people, then fleshly things and the flesh become more appealing than God Himself.

That is when people forsake the Lord, when people forget the things that He has done for them, even if those things can be seen with the natural senses, but when a person removes the knowledge that abides in the heart of what the Lord has done for them, and that is not grasped by faith, then flesh and the world becomes naturally, slowly, and surely more appealing than God Himself. And that is terrifying. And that is terrifying, brothers and sisters, because these people, they had seen with their natural senses. They had heard, they had observed the mighty things that God had done through Joshua and the wisdom that the elders had, yet, when their eyes and the eyes of their hearts started to turn away from the true knowledge of God, of knowing what He had done for them and not being apprehended and grasped by faith and the power of the Spirit as He preaches the Word into the heart of a person, then the flesh and the world became slowly more appealing to them and they ended up giving themselves to wickedness. and that's what we have in the book of judges if you turn your page then now we have a joshua less generation.

There is no a leader anymore. Now, the people of God, as a covenant people of God, the people of Israel are going to start their time without Joshua in a good way. They're going to come to the Lord. That's what you have in chapter one, verse one. It says, After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel inquired of the Lord.

Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites to fight against them? Remember what they were required to do. The commandment given to them, what they were supposed to obey, the people of Israel, was to drive out the remaining Canaanites or the remaining Gentile nations that were among them and surrounding them. They were supposed to complete the conquest that Joshua had started. So they come before the Lord and they ask the Lord, who is going to go from us to the battle or to fight against them.

And the Lord is indeed going to give them directions on who is the person or who is the group of people that are supposed to go. And that is Judah. He is going to give them victory. But something slowly is going to happen because every time that the people of Israel were supposed to go into battle and to drive these people out and with the sword to destroy these people, even in the book of Joshua, there is a statement that is continually repeated, that is utterly destroyed, that Joshua utterly destroyed this king, that Joshua utterly destroyed these people. This is what the people of Israel were supposed to do.

But soon, when you move into the end of chapter 1, you're going to see a statement that is going to repeat once over and over and over again. In verse 27, you can see that this group of people, Manasseh, did not drive out the inhabitants of Vershiyan and its villages. Verse 27. And then if you go to verse 29 of chapter 1, it says, And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gizir. And if you go to verse 30, it says, Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Ketron.

And if you go to verse 31, it says, Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Akko. And if you go to verse 33, Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shemesh. Brothers and sisters, God had said that they were supposed to remove these people from among them. Not with democracy, not with negotiation, not by convincing them with words, but with the sword. They were supposed to remove these people from among them.

That's what God required and what God requires is equivalent to perfection and that needs to be obeyed by faith and done as He says. Yet the people did not drive many of the remaining nations that God, as He says in chapter 3, had left at His will among the people of Israel to test their obedience. Even there's something shocking said in verse 28 of chapter 1, and that is that Even though they had the power to destroy them, in verse 28 it says, when Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely. That was very close to obedience. It is just to be on top of them and to be stronger than them and to subdue these people.

And then we have them under control. That is not what God said. God said that they were supposed to drive them out completely from their presence, from among them, to destroy them, to conquer the land. This is the disobedience. Brothers and sisters, do not let The fact that sometimes we say so many times this word disobedience affect or just be received in a heart of indifference and coldness.

These people were disobeying the God that had saved them and had already promised them that his wrath was going to be kindled against them if they did that. That's exactly what happens in chapter 2. So if you go to chapter 2, the righteous, perfect, deserving judgment of God came upon these people, the people of Israel. Now the angel of the Lord went up. This is verse one.

Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Boquim. And he said, I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And you shall make a covenant with the inhabitants and you shall no make a covenant, make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars, but you Have not obeyed my voice.

What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their guts shall be a snare to you. As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept, and they called the name of that place but Him. And they sacrificed there to the Lord. They had disobeyed.

And this is not repentance, by the way. This is just remorse in the flesh. Because when you go to verse 11, pay attention to the judgment of God because of the disobedience of Israel in verse 11 and says, And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals or Baals. Think about that. they did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord."

That is, not to destroy the nations, not to remove them from among them. That, the disobedience to the word of the Lord, that was evil in the sight of God Himself. Verse 12, And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger.

They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them. And he, this is the Lord, sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they march out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.

Brothers, The ability of the Israelite army did not depend in their strength or in their power. The ability and the success of the Israelite army, or the army of Israel, depended on their heart given by faith to the Lord in obedience, so that if they had believed and obeyed the Lord, they would have had the ability to remove these people from among them. and then the Lord sold them, gave them over to the powers of these Gentile nations and these Gentile nations oppressed them. The first oppression that comes is something actually very interesting that is found in verse 7 and 8 of the following chapter and pay attention to this. This happens in the preface or just before the first one of the judges is going to be raised.

In verse 7, we are told, And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth. Therefore, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Kushan Rishathayim, king of Mesopotamia. And the people of Israel, pay attention to this, served Kushan Rishathayim eight years." Brothers and sisters, the word that we have served there, This word is used to describe exactly the same situation when the people of Israel were in Egypt.

The people of Israel spent a long period of time in Egyptian land in servitude. They were slaves. Because of the wickedness of the post-Joshua generation of Israel and their doing evil in the sight of the Lord, they were given over to the king of Mesopotamia and they spent eight years in servitude. The hand of this wicked king was used by the holy hand of the triune God of the universe to execute judgment upon those who had been warned by the divine utterance that he had given through his prophet Joshua. This is the execution of that holy judgment, and this sets the ground, brothers and sisters, for the judges.

Because just in the same way that Exodus chapter 2 in the end in verse 24 says that the Lord heard or listened to the groaning of the people of Israel and remembered the covenant that He had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then in Exodus chapter 2 in the end, Here in verse 9, brothers, it says, but when the people, this comparison, this contrast, but when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel. And we are coming now to the judges, because these now Judges, brothers and sisters, are deliverers. These are people that the Lord is going to raise to deliver His people from the oppression and from the bondage and from the servitude that they were justly under the power of hidden and Gentile nations. The abundant grace, the abundant mercy of the heart of the Lord is manifested in the sense that He is going to go even against the judgment that He had proclaimed on His people. and He is going to manifest the kindness of His heart towards them in raising up a person, a judge that is going to deliver them from that oppression.

We are told very interesting information here in this section before the first of the judges appears, whose name is Othniel. He has a very different name in Spanish, but it's Othniel in English. It says, but when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, verse 9, the Lord raised up a deliverer or a savior, someone who delivered them for the people of Israel, who saved them, Othniel, the son of Kinas, Caleb's younger brother. Verse 10 is going to tell us a couple of important things about judges in general, and this judge in particular. It says, the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he judged Israel.

That means, brothers and sisters, that the Spirit of God being in him enabled these men to discern that which was right from that which was evil, and judge Israel according to the authority and the righteousness of God, so that the people of Israel would act according to the justice of God. And therefore he went out to war, and the Lord gave Cushan Reshathayim, king of Mesopotamia, into his hand. And his hand prevailed over Cushan Reshathayim. And verse 11 tells us another thing. So the land had rest for 40 years.

This is the first of the deliverers, brothers and sisters. This is the first of the judges of Israel. The Spirit of God was upon him, and he had the wisdom and the authority of the Lord to judge the people of Israel, to teach them the ways of God, to instruct them in the ways of God, and also By the power of the Spirit, when he went to work with Israel, he was able to destroy those who were oppressing the people of Israel, in this case, Mesopotamia. Now, brothers and sisters, this is very important because what we have just read sets the pattern, what they call the pattern of the judges. a pattern that is going to repeat with more or less detail one after another of the judges because there's going to be brothers and sisters 12 at least 12 judges and these judges are going to repeat with more or less detail the pattern that we have here the pattern of the people of Israel coming in complete wickedness and disobedience to what the Lord had said, that is turning their hearts from God to other gods and giving themselves to those other gods and mixing with these Gentiles and with the other nations, allowing them to enter into the presence.

And then because of that disobedience, the judgment of God coming upon them so that they were given over to the powers of Gentile nations. But then after that, the mercy of the Lord, listening to the crying out of the people of Israel, and then God, in His love and in His mercy and in His kindness, rising up, a judge, a deliverer that is going to bring peace and justice and righteousness to the nation so that they will be removed from the bandage that they were under those people, brothers and sisters. This is a pattern that repeats continually through the book for almost 15 different chapters with much or less or more details for each one of them. And you don't have to read the whole book to know that this is a pattern, because actually the author of the book of Judges tells us that this is the pattern. If you go back to chapter two in verse 18, the author of Judges setting up, almost giving us an introduction to the book and to the dynamics of the book.

He is going to show us this pattern that is found in verse 18. It says, whenever the Lord raised up judges, these deliverers for them, The Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity for their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. Verse 19, But whenever the judge died, They, that is Israel, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.

This is the cycle. This is the pattern, brothers and sisters, of wickedness of the book of Judges. There is a sense in which when you read the book of Judges, if you just read it in one seat or in a big portion, there's so much disobedience and actually wicked and righteous things happening that it is even sometimes weight to the soul and to the senses and to the mind. But the Lord allowed all of these things that took place in history to be recorded as an instruction for us, for the people of God. Brothers and sisters, different judges will be raised by the Lord.

11 or 12 will be raised by the Lord. And somehow, in much more detail, this pattern of from disobedience to crying out to judgment, to giving over to other nations, and then to deliverance will continually and continually happen. Now, let me just show you just the names of the judges, because it would be impossible for us to address all the 12 judges, 11 or 12 judges. But let me just show you. Go there in verse 7.

You have the raising up or the calling of the first one of the judges, who is Othniel. And then if you go to verse 12. In verse 12, even your Bible may have the title there, you may have the title of the second judge, who is Ehad. And if you go to chapter three, verse 31, you're going to have the fourth. Oh, sorry, the third one of the judges, Shamgar.

And there in chapter four, you will have Deborah, a woman who was judging in that time. It says she was judging in that time the people of Israel, who in and of herself was a way of judgment to the people of Israel. She was the fourth, if you want, judge in this time. If you go then after to chapter six, we have the fifth one of the judges. And then this might be a familiar name to you.

Probably stories may come to you. This is the calling or this is this is the raising up of Gideon. If you go to then to chapter 10, verse one. Then you have the sixth and the seventh of those judges, and this is Tola and Jair, I suppose that you pronounce it right. Jair.

This is in chapter number 10. And then if you go to chapter 11, in chapter 11, you have the eighth or the number eight, Jephthah. This is the eight of the judges. And then if you go to chapter 12, You will find number nine, number 10, and number 11, Ibsen, Elan, and Abdon. And as you can see, there's more detail given even in the extension of the text for some of them.

And for some others, it's just like a very short section of the book that is given to those judges. So then you will find probably the most famous of the judges in chapter 13, who is Samson. Now, why am I doing this? Why am I showing you the names of all of these people? Because brothers and sisters, when you see that one after the other, there was a judge that according to chapter two repeats the pattern that he is raised up and because the Lord was with him, then the people is delivered from the oppression of the hidden and then rest and peace will come to the land.

But then disobedience will happen again. And this will repeat. These brothers and sisters shows the systematic ongoing wickedness of the people of Israel. that not even by the manifestation of the grace of God in raising up a deliverer that will come and defeat the nations will be sufficient for them to tell them, okay, it's time for us to actually now turn to the Lord. We have spent the last 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 or 40 years under the submission of these people, but the Lord has manifested His grace in the coming of this or the raising up of this judge.

that they will continue. They do not pay attention, not even to experience, because this was a systematic and ongoing and continuous process of wickedness and disobedience. Brothers, and we may not, that we may not confuse disobedience and removing our heart from the ways of God as something that is indeed wicked. Because someone might think and question and say, what is it wrong with people allowing or with the people of Israel allowing the Gentiles and the hidden just to be among them? What is it wrong just with having them as servants or having them as people who were serving them or as the laborers?

What is it wrong for Israel just to simply have them and then just to continue with the religious practices according to what was given to them in the book of the law? What was it wrong? Brothers and sisters, what it was wrong, simply and foundational, is that God said something different. that God said something different. That is what is wrong with that, that they were disobeying the clear commandment of God and the perfect wisdom and intention of God in giving that commandment and that instruction to the people of Israel and that not only.

But the fact that by mixing with nations and entering into marriages, they inherited their wicked, wicked practices and behaviors, and even the things that they did turned completely apart and away from the precepts of the Lord. Brothers, the wickedness of this book of the stories that took place is so profound that even the author decides to give us two stories in the end of the book that just reading them are burdensome for the heart and for the mind. He's going to give us a couple of stories of real things that took place in the midst of the people of Israel that led them or that was the result of from their hearts being turned from God to other gods by allowing the Gentiles being among them. The first one of those stories, I just want to point you to it. It is found in chapter 18.

The first story, brothers and sisters, is going to be one of idolatry. Story number one is a story of idolatry. And the story number two that is given to us by the author of Judges is a story of the most wicked sexual immorality that you can imagine. Of course, you've read this in the past. But brothers, We are told in this story that is found in verse 18.

That the tribe of Dan or the Danites, they entered into a level of idolatry not ever seen before. Not only that, but one of the persons or the people responsible or involved in this was even related to Moses. They had taken a carved image that a person had prepared for himself, a person who had hired a priest for himself, a carved image. They had taken that image and they had made it an idol. If you go to chapter 18 in verse 30, it says, And the people of Dan, chapter 18, verse 30, it says, And the people of Dan set up the carved image for themselves.

And Jonathan, the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. So they set up Micah, who is the person who did the cart image, that he made as long as the house of God was a Shiloh. Brothers, Someone who was not only involved, of course, in the people, among the people of Israel, but who was even connected with Moses. who had known of the wicked things that were done in Israel and who knew of the zealous heart of God and the holiness and perfections of God. When the heart of that person was turned to other gods, even the Danites entered into a level of idolatry that was not ever seen before among the Israelites.

But idolatry and turning the eyes of the person from the God of Israel to God Our gods or gods that are man-made always take brothers and sisters to greater manifestations of the flesh and greater manifestations of sin. And that is the horrible story that is given to us in the following chapter, in chapter 19, which even, even Sodomite behavior, you remember Sodom and Gomorrah, that similar vocabulary and similar behavior was taking place in the land of Israel among the Israelites, and they were wanting to commit homosexual activities, homosexual things, and the Lord is bringing judgment upon them. Not even that, but they are going to abuse a person, one of the concubines of a person, they are going to abuse her, and they are going to do something utterly wicked to her. There is a short summary in verse 27 and I really want you to read it because this is not sensational to the flesh. This is the Word of God.

Chapter 19 verse 27 says, this woman had been abused the whole night by this wicked man. This woman had been used by them for long hours. And then in verse 27 says, And her master rose up in the morning, and when he opened the doors of the house, she was outside and went out to go on his way. Behold, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, Get up, let us be going.

But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey, and the man rose up and went away to his home. And when he entered his house, he took a knife and taking hold of his concubine, he divided her limb by limb into 12 pieces and served her throughout all the territory of Israel. And all who saw it said, such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day. considered take counsel and speak.

Brothers and sisters, what we have to be seeing in these stories, it is not only the wickedness of the heart of people, but this as the result of turning from God. This is the natural state and the normal tendency of the heart of men. But when the heart of man is completely and at will utterly rebellious to the clear commandments of God, then the judgments of God come upon those who had received the clear instruction given by the mouth of God. Brothers and sisters, this was a systematic process, a systematic, ongoing, continuing wickedness in the land of Israel. So go, please, to chapter two.

And I want to conclude quickly with something, because it was not only, brothers and sisters, a systematic, wicked process of these manifestations of the flesh because of turning from God to others, to idols, to other gods. But brothers, the beauty of this book The preciousness of this book that has given to us, that it was given to us by God Himself and by His Spirit is precisely the failures of the people of Israel. and not only the failures of the people of Israel, but the failures and the limitations of these judges. Because in verse 19 of chapter 2 says something that I don't know if you saw it when we read the passage. It says in verse 19 of chapter 2, it says, But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers.

That was the limitation of this God appointed judge who came to deliver the people of Israel from the oppression of the Canaanites and from the Gentiles. The limitation of the flesh that this person had not the power to deliver them completely and until the end, not only because they were going to die, But also, because when you read Brothers and Sisters, the lives of these judges, you see the same trends or parameters of wickedness even in their lives. These were people that had been affected by the wickedness of the people of Israel. So in the raising up of these judges, the grace of God was completely manifested. The deliverance of the people of Israel by the hands of these judges was no other thing than the abundant grace of God operating through even sinful instruments as these ones who would eventually die and will come and bring the people of Israel to repeat this ongoing cycle of wickedness, failure, repentance, and deliverance by the mercy of God.

There is going to be a statement, brothers and sisters, that is going to be repeated often and is found in chapter 17. A statement that is going to be predominant and important In this book of Judges, when you read it from the beginning to the end, and in chapter 17, in verse six, we're going to just be told the root of the reason of why these things were happening. It says, verse 17, sorry, chapter 17, verse six, it says, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did. what was right in his own eyes.

This is exactly how the book is going to end. The last verse of the book is going to say exactly the same thing, that in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. What is that telling us? For these people, brothers and sisters, and for many people, Their own eyes are the ones, or their own flesh, or their own desires, or their own souls are the ones that are leading every action, thought, and word that they take and make or say.

There is no king. in their lives and therefore the actions that come out of them correspond to the correctness, to the righteousness that is defined by their own appreciation, by their own standard, by their own definition. Why brothers and sisters? Because the type of deliverer that the Israelites or the people of Israel needed was not a deliverer that was going to free them or save them from the presence of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Gentiles. But actually the type of deliverer that they needed was a deliverer, a savior that was not going to die and that was able to deliver them from the Canaanites, from the flesh that was in their hearts.

It was their hearts, the ones that were contaminated. It was the heart of these people that were being guided and led and taken naturally by the passions of their own flesh. So even though when there was an authority above them, they would obey out of the flesh, but easily when the authority was removed, their flesh will go back into the disobedience that they are naturally custom to do. They will go back to their own ways because their ways are the standard in the absence of Nakeem. But when Christ comes, Christ is the true deliverer, not only of Israel, but of the world.

Because when he comes as the judge, he comes to discern the thoughts of the soul, to discern that which is righteous from that which is unrighteous. And he comes to deliver that person from the bondage to unrighteousness and to take them entirely into his presence. So the heart of that person is not submitted anymore to the ruling powers. of the Canaanites, spiritually speaking, or to the systems of the flesh or to the flesh itself. But the power of Christ comes to remove entirely the penalty of sin and to destroy the power, the dominating power of sin on that person.

So that person will be delivered indeed. So the heart of that person will be a heart that does not operate according to her or his eyes, but it will be a heart that acts, lives, speaks, thinks, and does all of the things under the presence of the King, of the Judge, of the Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one that has the ability to remove utterly the Canaanites or the flesh from the heart of His people. And He has promised, brothers and sisters, that in the consummation of all things and the coming of the end of the times in which His people is going to be finally united to Him, sin will be no more. that the presence of the remaining of the flesh within us is going to be completely removed so that we will enjoy the presence, the peaceful presence and the ruling power of a just and a perfect King. So then when we see the failures of the judges, when we see the wickedness of the people of Israel, if there was no Christ, then this will be burdensome for the mind and for the soul of a person.

But because there is Christ, The failures of the flesh and even the failures of the people of God empower the heart of us, the church, to always rest upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the failures of the many people of Israel and the failures, or even the judges in the book of Judges, are similar failures to the ones that we may have in the flesh. But then we have the promise and the certainty that the deliverance that is happening and taking place within our souls is a deliverance that has been promised by the divine God, by God himself. that is going to come to the end and that the conqueror Christ is indeed going to conquer completely, not only our hearts, but the entirety of our being. And then we will be able to rest eternally of peace with him.

Amen.