Theme of the Week: The Book of Judges
Bible Verse: “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.” Philippians 2:14-16
Scripture Reading: Judges 1:1-36
God calls His people to live “in the midst of a crooked and depraved generation” (Philippians 2:15). The cultural pressures we face are real, but they are hardly unprecedented. There is a great danger that we will feel sorry for ourselves because we have been called to live in times when it is increasingly difficult to be an authentic Christ-follower. But we dishonor God’s faithful people through the centuries if we exaggerate our difficulties, and we dishonor our God if we doubt His sufficiency.
There is much to learn by looking back, especially at those times and places God has recorded for us in His Word. Some of those lessons bring great encouragement, while others serve as loud warnings against following dangerous patterns. Some of the most relevant parallels to our modern situation can be found in a too-often neglected Old Testament book, the book of Judges.
It describes a time of moral, spiritual, and ethical anarchy, a society without standards. In fact, the statement that captures the spirit of that long-ago time exactly describes the world in which we live: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes”.
Judges is a book that speaks to our time because it presents us with living examples of people in the distant past who were called to serve God in the midst of many of the same challenges we face today. Sadly, only a few of them provide us with positive examples. But there is a great deal to be learned not only from them but also from those who capitulated to the pressures and spirit of their age.
Judges vividly demonstrates to us the consequences of spiritual compromise and disobedience to God that occur when the world succeeds in squeezing believers into its mold. No other part of Scripture so emphatically declares that spiritual disaster occurs when a group of people draws back from a wholehearted commitment to the Lord Jesus.
As D.L. Moody once said, “The place for the ship is in the sea, but God help the ship if the sea gets into it!” When God’s people begin to take on the water of the world, they go down fast.
Taken from Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay by Gary Inrig. ©1979, 2005 by Gary Inrig, and used by permission of Discovery House, Grand Rapids MI 49501. All rights reserved.
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