What Can Happen to Society, Pt 2

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

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In Judges 6, we see another cycle of faithlessness toward God on Israel’s part and how God saves them from their oppressors. It is tragic and make no mistake, if Christians are not careful, we can easily fall into that same ugly cycle where we are faithless, then overcome with circumstances God allows to come upon us, leading often to our crying out to Him for saving and His provision to us.

It should not be like that at all, yet too often it is especially in this day and age where the compromising attitude of many within the visible Church has clearly risen to the surface. Christians who falter do so because of one or two very simple reasons:

1. they are not in His Word on a daily basis,
2. they do not make the effort to seek His face daily

If we are not in His Word and if we are not making the effort to reach out to Him, we will fail and may fail utterly. Again, this does not mean we lose our salvation, but it does mean we will lose our fellowship with Him. That also means we will lack the wisdom and discernment to see our way through the myriad of problems that we face in this world.

Last night, I had a horrendous fitful sleep. I kept waking up because of a situation that was troubling me. I wanted relief from it or at least wisdom to know how to handle it. I recall waking up several times almost with a start and thinking about the situation. In the middle of the night, it prompted me to literally throw myself on Him. The only other alternative was to engage self and become angered by the situation. That would not have helped.

As I prayed and sought His mind concerning the situation, I realized that Satan was behind it. I know most of us know this, but to realize it anew meant I had a new way of praying. I prayed that God would either defang Satan’s attempts to stymy me and make me fail OR that God would give me the wisdom and grace to get through this situation if He chose not to tie Satan’s hands. I knew of no other way to pray and I kept it up every time I woke up during the night. No, I didn’t simply repeat the same words over and over again. What I did was enter into a conversation with God, bringing to Him my concerns and my full desire to meet this situation as Jesus would do so.

That was very difficult because as I lay there awake, it was as though my mind was fighting against me, wanting me to give into the temptation to become angry and figure out a human way to deal with the situation. I had to look beyond all of that and one of the things that helped me was what have become favorite verses, which I’ve shared with readers before:

Teach me your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. (Psalm 86:11)

Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

17 The Lord is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works. 18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. 19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them. 20 The Lord preserves all who love Him, But all the wicked He will destroy. (Psalm 145:17-20)

So I recall running those verses through my mind as much as I could during those times of non-sleep. I told God that if He left me to myself I would totally mess up the situation and I did not want to have to deal with my own failures. He is the only One who could save me from my self and sin nature.

It took almost four days before the situation was resolved and once it was, I knew that the Lord had responded. It was truly a battle in the spiritual realm that He allowed me to persevere in and become victorious.

I’m sure readers can relate. These days throughout society are dark indeed in many ways and growing darker. The pressure on Christians to live holy lives is becoming almost too much to bear. In many ways, I feel as though with each new situation, I am starting over. It makes me think of what Paul complained about in Romans 7:24.

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

What Christian is unable to relate to that? Yes, I fully realize that he answers that question by pointing to Jesus as the One who brings deliverance and victory. However, it is incumbent upon us to reach for that deliverance and victory. It is not automatic at all. It takes effort to get there and by effort, I am not implying we are saved by “works.” God empowers us because He lives within us. It is our privilege and obligation to ask and expect Him to respond to us in our need. But we must do that to start the ball rolling.

This is exactly what the ancient Israelites did not do time and time again. The first six verses of Judges 6 is a testament to what happens to people when they fail to lean on God heavily. This particular incident began for Israel because of their failure.

1 The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. 2 And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. (Judges 6:1-2 ESV)

We might look at that and go, “Wow, why were they so stupid and stubborn?” Yet, we need to ask ourselves if we do the same type of thing and then wonder why we are overcome by circumstances and situations. Clearly, the Israelites brought the problem in Judges 6 on themselves because they “did evil in the sight of the LORD.” What was that evil? If the previous chapters are any indication, they worshiped Ba’als and Ashtereths and whether they actively worshiped those false gods/demons or not overtly, it is clear that also included in God’s definition of doing evil is that they turned their back on the God of Israel.

The opening verses of Judges 6 paint a picture of terror. The Israelites were so afraid of the Midianites that they ended up hiding in caves. The Midianites would come down to where Israel was when the plants planted by the Israelites were producing food/fruit. Then the Midianites would simply take what they wanted, leaving little to nothing for the Israelites.

Imagine someone or a group of people simply coming into your home uninvited and emptying your fridge and freezer(s) of all the food you have stored up for future use. Imagine you feeling powerless to do anything about it. Imagine their arrogance and attitude as they simply took what they wanted knowing you would do nothing in return. This would probably not happen today at least in America (or most places in America), but it did happen to the Israelites during this period of the Judges.

So the people of Israel felt neglected because they were robbed of what was rightfully theirs. Yet, God allowed this to occur because of Israel’s attitude toward God when they forsook Him. God wasn’t being mean, even in His anger. He was trying to get the Israelites to realize their waywardness so He allowed them to be hit where it hurt. Notice Judges 6:6.

And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord.

There you go! Bingo! God’s work did what it was meant to do. The people were at their wit’s end and had no place to turn. It is very interesting that though they spent time worshiping false gods/demons, they clearly received no help or answer from those false gods. It would not surprise me if God prohibited those demons behind those false gods from doing anything. God tied their hands. This all led to just one option and that was, to turn back to God and seek His help.

Do you do that? Do I do that? Do I plan my life and go through each day with my eye on Him and His purposes for me in that day or do I “forget” about God and do what I do based solely on how I think my day should go? The problem of course is that I cannot see into the next minute, much less eight hours down the road. It’s impossible. So when I plan my day, if I’m not careful, I can easily leave God out of the details and forget that He is there waiting for me to seek Him. It may not be intentional as Israel intentionally forsook God to worship false gods/demons. Yet, the results can often be the same.

Judges 6:7-10 shows us God’s mind even though Israel cried out to Him seeking relief.

7 When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, 8 the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. 9 And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 And I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”

Such a sad commentary on the Israelites and I have to wonder how many times the Lord would have responded to me in the same way? I like to look back over my life and think that I’ve made progress in my walk with Him and I’ve never deliberately worshiped false god/demons. However, every time I put Self back on the throne, I’m worshiping a false god and not the true God.

Yet, in spite of this remonstrance by God Himself toward the people of Israel (spoken through a prophet; v8), God was not heartless. In fact in the very next section, Jesus, in preincarnate imagery as the Angel of the LORD, begins to work to relieve the pressure that had built up against the Israelites because of their repetitious rejection of Almighty God.

11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”

What grace God extends to Gideon! It’s almost comical and it clearly took Gideon back. Here he was, doing what most other Israelites did. He was hiding from the Midianites and quietly threshing wheat in winepress, which would have been a low spot in the earth. Gideon would thresh by raking up the wheat and throwing it in the air so that it would separate from the chaff. He would then gather the wheat so he could feed his family.

But what is truly astounding here is that God referred to Gideon as a “…mighty man of valor.” I seriously doubt that Gideon felt like that at all and the thought probably made him dumbstruck. “Who, me??!!”

Gideon’s question to the LORD proves his inability to understand why Israel was in dire straights.

13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

Let’s go back to realize something Gideon did not. The reason it appeared to Gideon that the Lord had forsaken Israel is simply due to the fact that Israel had forsaken the LORD. I find it fascinating that God did not directly respond to Gideon’s question, but simply tells him to go and save Israel from her oppressor, Midian.

Folks, as Christians in the last of the last days, it is time for us to cling to Jesus at any cost. We must avail ourselves of His Presence within us and His enablement and empowerment to live rightly. He is clearly capable of responding to us in the midst of circumstances and situations that He allows/sends our way. When they come to us, how do we respond to them? Do we bristle at them (a natural reaction)? Do we turn from those circumstances and acknowledge His Lordship over us and all of our circumstances?

We all know this is not easy. Not easy at all. It can be very difficult and I only need to point to the example of Jesus on the night He was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. There, He was in such agony that His sweat turned to blood (Luke 22:44). I cannot imagine taking temptation to that degree and yet remaining sinless, yet Jesus did.

Jesus did what He did for us and to show us a way; that by leaning heavily on the Father, He would carry us through each situation that comes our way. But we have to decide to want what God wants even though we may not know exactly what that looks like for us.

In every situation we face, we have two roads. That’s it, just two. The one on the left is the one that allows Self to lead us and is fraught with problems. The one on the right is the path that takes us down the same road Jesus went throughout His life.

Jesus said in this world we will have tribulation (John 16:33), a general term for troubles unlike the specific problems that will rise and buffet during the coming specific Tribulation that will last for “one week” or seven years.

This is our difficult road. It is not an easy path to consistently take and I tend to think too many people who simply say a quick prayer to “receive” the Lord fail to understand the ramifications of what it actually means to be a Christian; to be in relationship with God Almighty, through Jesus our Lord.

Salvation means following in His steps, doing what Jesus did when He lived on this planet. That means, deliberately choosing to give up our own will in favor of His. It is as simple and yet as difficult as that.

We will continue with Judges 6 next time. I pray God will bless the eyes of your understanding and conform your will to His each day and each part of every day. God bless you!

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective