Toleration Unto Sin (Part C)

If you love the Lord, you'll have no problem witnessing, I think.

Maybe there's an exception here or there. I don't want to go that too far. But I can go this far. All I did was just love the Word of God. I love the stories. I can repeat the stories. And that's what I preached when I shared the Gospel with people. I shared the Bible stories from any book of the Bible that I happen to be thinking of. From Kings, I would explain the story. I'd ask, do you want to hear a story from the Bible?

And then I'd deliver the punchline. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Judges.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will continue teaching his message called, Tolerance Unto Sin, in Judges Chapter 2. I don't like battery acid in my coffee. I'm pretty intolerant about that.

In fact, I don't even like hazelnut in my coffee. But they shall be thorns in your side, pain by their disobedience. God is making it clear. God wanted those things that would hurt them away from them. He says, and their gods shall be a snare to you, gradual steps downward.

Now this is an interesting little walk. Tolerance of the world. Who has bewitched you Galatians? How does Paul say in Colossians, beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy, the empty principles of the world. Tolerance of the world leads to approval of the world, leads to friendship in the world, leads to love of the world, leads to conformity to the world. And finally, 1 Corinthians 11 32, it leads to condemnation with the world.

There's a dissent. Consider Lot, consider Samson, consider Saul. Well of those three, Saul was the worst and likely not a believer. 1 Corinthians 1 27, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and to put shame, well I got ahead of myself, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. So we move to verse 4 or else we'll never get done. So it was when the angel of Yahweh spoke these words to all the children of Israel that the people lifted up their voices and wept. You know it's, if you imagine there's going to be a Christian perfection in this life, of course you're not going to get it.

However, the pursuit of that perfection, you get a long, you go a long way, you get a lot done. That's the story of all the heroes of the faith. They were chasing after a better life in this life for God in Christ. And so this repentance that their voices wept, of course they were repentance. Repentance is costly but the rewards are priceless. Hebrews 3 14, we have become partakers of Christ and if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. And there are a bunch of more verses but we need to move to verse 5.

Then they call the name of that place Bochum. That's weeping. And they sacrifice to Yahweh. Well this was a short-lived repentance but the question again is when we think about this short-lived repentance, we'd all like to see the church do better when she repents too. Verse 6, then Joshua had dismissed the people. The children of Israel went each to his own inheritance to possess the land. So the people served Yahweh all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who lived, outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which he had done for Israel. Well verse 6 does not belong to the story at Bochum. We now have a parenthesis, a break in the chronology. It's a departure from the strict chronology so the historian sort of gives us what happened. The messenger of Yahweh comes, delivers his message and then he says remember Joshua? On the heels of that message the historian puts it into the writing. He says there was a victorious generation right before these people. Three hundred years later they're reading this story and they're supposed to come away and say I want to be like the ones in Joshua's day.

I don't want to get out of hand and have to summon the angel of the Lord to rebuke me. That's the idea and it's placed in sharp contrast to the subsequent failings of this generation. The failures in the book of Judges I think are more pronounced to us because the heroes are not as exciting as some of the ones in the days of the kings.

But the kings really were worst. Those days were really, at least to me, they were worst than what was happening in the book of Judges as far as how much human suffering took place. Not all of the people of course in the days of the judges were unfaithful. Ruth for example and Boaz and Samuel, they were the righteous, always the remnant. Verse 8, Now Joshua the son of Nun the servant of Yahweh died when he was 110 years old and they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-Herez in the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gaius. So he brings up the death of Joshua as the starting point, well that Joshua and his leaders as the starting point for the trouble in the land. But death did not kill Joshua's testimony and here it still lives. Verse 10, When all the generation had been gathered to their fathers another generation arose after them who did not know Yahweh nor the work which he had done for Israel.

It's the craziest thing. Again, parents come to the church to love the Lord, sing praises to him, study his word, raise up their kids to love the Lord. And then often times those same kids depart.

Not all the time thank God. Don't be one of those. In the scripture that's what we're reading about right now. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers another generation arose.

Why? They had the Passover, the circumcision, the memorials that were all over the place, they had the law, they had the history, they had no excuse. It was elective and that's how they would be judged. Verse 11, Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served by owls. That covers the entire period of the book of Judges. Despite Joshua's plea, idolatry quickly became a problem. Verse 12, And they forsook Yahweh God of their fathers who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them. And they bowed down to them, and they provoked Yahweh to anger. See that toleration again. They tolerated them, then they approved, and then they began to join and love. And now they're condemned with them. They allowed themselves to be out influenced. Well, that's a question for every Christian.

Maybe you do well in church, but you don't do well in the workplace. You're being out influenced. You're being out maneuvered.

You're being set up, cheated, robbed, and you're going to be left on the side of the road dead if you're not careful. Deuteronomy 6 14, You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you. Isn't that us? We're not to follow them. We're trying to help them get away from them. And if they won't come, then we knock the dust off our feet, we move to the next person. And if there's no next person, we wait until God brings the next person. And while we wait, we wet our sword. We sharpen the sword.

We have it ready. We, the sword of the word. If you love the Lord, you'll have no problem witnessing, I think.

Maybe there's an exception here or there. I don't want to go that too far, but I can go this far. All I did was just love the word of God. I love the stories. I could repeat the stories. And that's what I preached when I shared the gospel with people. I shared the Bible stories from any book of the Bible that I happen to be thinking of. From Kings, I would explain the story. I'd ask, do you want to hear a story from the Bible? And then I'd deliver the punchline.

Very effective. Well, of course, God did all that because He didn't have to bring anybody my way. And sometimes He didn't. Sometimes there was one job in Coney Island. I hated that job so much because it was dead. I just couldn't preach to anybody. It was evil compared to especially when you're coming from other jobs where you've got all these men and they want to hear the word of God, then you end up at this place.

There weren't even any amusement rides open. It was dead of winter. Anyway, verse 13. For they forsook Yahweh and served by elves and the asherists.

Read that, right? Verse 14. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. So He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them. And He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. So they didn't listen to the angel and his message.

They didn't believe it, like we see people today. And when they die, they find out it's too late, reaping what one has sown. Well, going to the book of Hosea, which is another tragedy in the scripture. Hosea 8. They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

Hosea 10 13. You have plowed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies because you trusted in your own way in the multitude of your mighty men. You know, you catch that?

You trusted in your own way. Is that not a sermon? Is that not a platform to preach to somebody? Let me tell you about Hosea.

And then you just share with them briefly. You know, Hosea was a man who had a wife, wasn't faithful, but God was saying to Hosea, look just like it is in your home, so it is in my nation. I want to take you and I'm going to use you to preach. And he preached anyway.

And he would say to the nation that you trusted in your own way. And it damned your soul and it ruined the nation. Verse 15, whenever they went out, the hand of Yahweh was against them for calamity. As Yahweh had said, and as Yahweh had sworn to them, and they were greatly distressed. Well, the apostate church will find themselves in that place in the tribulation, great tribulation age to come, but not merely losing strength.

It wasn't that, boy, we just can't beat these guys. But God was fighting against them. God had become their adversary. It reads almost like a defeated book of Acts the judges does.

You know, in Acts there's excitement, there's victory, there's so much energy. In Judges it just drains the energy out of you. You get the Ath Nael, and you say, boy, what a good judge, and then he's gone and the people get in trouble. He drained. And then the next judge comes up and it's just a rollercoaster ride.

But it is also reality. Verse 16, nevertheless the Lord raised up judges to deliver them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Well, it was their duty, these judges, these deliverers, to rule the people and to defend them against those who were oppressing them. Ath Nael against the Mesopotamians, Eud against the Moabites, I'll just do a few, Shamgar against the Philistines, Deborah against the Canaanites, Gideon, the Midianites, and the Amalekites. And then there were all the others that, you know, Ibsan, how come nobody's naming their boy Ibsan? You run out of Old Testament names?

He's a judge, seven years. Eglon, anyway, okay. I love these guys. You know, I can't wait to get to them.

Not all of them have much to say about them, but many of them are very exciting. Verse 17, yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with the other gods and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, and obeying the commandments of the Yahweh, they did not do so. Hardened hearts led to hard heads, led to a hard judgment. But they played the harlot with the other gods, bowed down to them. What did the other gods have that Yahweh didn't have?

Why is this the case? What did they have? Again, licentiousness. You could sin without guilt. In fact, you could sin with honor. Hosea, again, chapter 10, verse 12, So for yourselves righteousness reap in mercy, break up your untilled ground.

Follow is the word. For it is time to seek Yahweh, till he comes and rains righteousness on you. How's that righteousness treating you, Paul? Shipwrecked, beaten, hungry, cold, hot.

Paul didn't care. He saw beyond it all. I'm still trying to get there.

I'm still trying to get there. And so are you. And God knows it. And God honors that. He wants to see that because he's not getting that from people who don't believe him.

When we struggle, we say, I don't have license to do this. That is a distinction between the unbeliever that says, what could be wrong with this? It is a mark of our salvation. You know, men, people, human beings, they don't hate their ideas about God. They just hate God's ideas about God.

That's all. And that is something that we can address when we come across them, is they turn quickly from the way in which their fathers walked and obeying the commandments of Yahweh. They did not do so. New Testament has the same problem with the church, the same problem. They turn quickly from the way in which their fathers walked and obeying commandments of the Lord.

They did not do so. Galatians 1, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in grace, the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is no gospel at all. So we cannot point at these people and say, yeah, that's not like us. We got our act together.

We have more light than they have. Verse 18, and when Jesus raised up judges, oh sorry, and when Yahweh raised up judges for them, Yahweh was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For Yahweh was moved to pity by the groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them.

And so here, the historian is setting up the story, still an introduction, you could say, because we've not gotten to the judges themselves. And he's saying God raised these people up. They weren't self, you know, exalted people. God put them in their position. That's why when they died, there was a void left and the people went back to sin. God gave them a chance to not sin without the judge until things got so bad, the people called out. The judges, even that strange judge, Samson, he was an enigma. But they were all really victorious. They inflicted heavy damage on the opposition and they did save the people from much of their sorrows. Hebrews 11, 33 and 34 talk about that with us. They made an impact on their times.

Verse 19, and it came to pass when the judge was dead that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers by following other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn ways. I want to read that part, not from their stubborn ways.

I'd like to have Daffy Duck come up and read that verse for us for emphasis because it's a stiff neck that just will not be pulled into line. Some people boast about, I'm just so stubborn. There's another word for that. There's a few of them.

Don't go boasting about your sinful ways. It's just nobody knows what to do with me. I'm just, you know, you're just a pain in the neck and people probably don't like you. You don't want to tell that to somebody. Then they get all broken up. Then it's all damage control.

It's like being on a submarine that's springing leaks. You got to try to patch it up. But they call force me, Lord. And the Lord says, yeah, but that was mean. Me or them? Well, no, you don't have these problems with people. It's just everything goes right with you. I mean, fortunately, I've never bothered anybody. I sometimes think, how many people in my life have I ever worked with and get a flashback of me and it ain't good?

I mean, you know, I'd like to think that, boy, they get a flashback. Oh, I wonder what ever happened to that guy. He was so great. I loved everything he said.

He was the perfect human being. No, but there are some out there. And there might be one or two like that that are just not in their right mind. But then there are those that are like, I hate that guy.

If I see him, I'm going to kill him. I don't know. I don't want to be that person.

But that's how difficult life can be. And if you're preaching the gospel, you're going to have people that really don't like you at some point. First, then the anger of Yahweh was hot against Israel and he said, because this nation has transgressed my covenant, which I commanded their fathers and has not heeded my voice. Because this nation has transgressed my covenant.

Not heeded. There's no head for these people. They think their own head is good enough. They behave more corruptly than the others.

It got worse. Sometimes there's just a generation that seems to stampede off to evil and no one can stop them. As I stand here and I speak, I know we have younger, younger Christians here. And I don't know if it's just going in one ear or out the other, going over their head, missing their heart. I don't know if they're getting it. You want to see them excited and into it, but not so much emotionally, just with belief that they believe it and that they speak to God. That they want more God in their lives.

In spite of all of the things that are confronting them as young people. So there you go. If you get bored, it's you. It's not me. And I'll go to my grave saying that. The older ones are a little different.

It might be me because they've been around. Verse 21, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died. That's not good news. Verse 22, so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of Yahweh to walk in them as their fathers kept them or not. So God is saying I'm not going to drive them out because you haven't been behaving, number one. Number two, I'm going to leave them because I'm going to use them to weed out the fake believers from the true believers.

I'm going to come back to that. Verse 23, therefore Yahweh left those nations without driving them out immediately, nor did he deliver them into the hand of Joshua. So it's not God's ideal. He had to settle for this.

He's not obligated to wait for those whom he knows will never love him, will never want him. That's a scary thought. To be on the other side, okay, so imagine if you were living on some island and you were told that the U.S. Air Force was going to bomb that island until it was no longer an island. It'd be pretty scary. I mean, if you were told it was the Eskimo Air Force, you wouldn't be bothered.

What are they going to do? Hit me with a sled? I'm fine. But if our military, I mean the Air Force, got so much stuff, well what if we were told God is going to bomb you?

I mean, it's even worse. But he's going to give you a chance to get out of it, to escape it. I think that there's a story of humanity. God is saying to the Jews, you have to choose sides.

I'm going to leave these people in the land and I'm going to find out who is choosing me and who is not. It is one reason why God allows not only the cults but also all the other things that exist in this life to try to pull us away from him, to weed out those who are for him from those who are not, those who pursue him and those who do not. First John chapter 4, we had this Sunday, we are of God. He who knows God hears us. He who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So when we ask ourselves, why does God leave this in this world?

Well, it's the probation, it's the sorting out process. And those who are not interested in God or one time were, but have lost delight in him, they sail off. God chooses to not work effectively in environments of unbelief.

He doesn't help. Well, we'll close with this verse. Matthew 13, 58, it's about Jesus. It says, Now he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief. It's okay to say to the Lord, I don't feel like it. I don't feel I believe it, but I choose to believe it because I have enough proof to know who you are and I accept that. That's faith.

But waiting to be in the mood for it, that's shallowness. Faith is much deeper than feeling comfortable with God. In fact, as I mentioned from Corinthians chapter 11, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul was suffering all those things, not because he felt like it, because he knew better. He met the risen Lord and so have all those who have been born again. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of Judges. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. If you'd like more information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. You'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick available there and we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. By doing so, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app or just follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. That's all the time we have for today. Join us next time to continue learning more from the book of Judges right here on Cross Reference Radio.