Month: June 2018

Judges 20-21 offers us the pathetic story of how Israel judged the tribe of Benjamin for their heinous crime against the Levite’s concubine. All Israel went out in battle against Benjamin and nearly wiped the tribe from the face of the earth, but not until the Benjamites had killed thousands of Israelites from the other tribes. When the fighting had ended, only 600 men of Benjamin remained. The Israelites wept that one of the tribes had been eliminated from Israel. The people had vowed not to give any of their daughters as husbands to the men of Benjamin, so it did look as if the tribe would perish. Then a plan was developed that provided 400 young women from Jabesh Gilead as wives. The remaining 200 men were given permission to “take” wives from Shiloh. This didn’t break their vow not to “give” their daughters in marriage to Benjamites, but it treated their daughters with little respect. At the end of chapter 21, we read once again that there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That statement is so accurate. As we reflect on the Book of Judges we see how over and over again, the Israelites abandoned God, turned to worship false gods, found themselves enslaved by the people of the land, cried out to God and received deliverance. But they never learned from the experiences. They fought with each other. They abandoned God, and they received the punishment of their actions. This illustrates what it’s like to do what is right in our own eyes. We have all experienced this rebellion and its results in our lives, whether when we were non-believers, or when we reject God’s leadership in our lives. As we move from Judges, let us learn the lesson the book teaches us: Those who turn away from God will bear the consequence of rejecting Him, and it will never be better when we’re in active rebellion against Him.

As we return to John 18 once again, we remember Jesus’ arrest, His examination by the priests and Pilate and Peter’s denial of Him. We’ve now read these accounts twice in Mark and twice in John, yet the impact of how easily the people of Israel found it to reject the Son of the living God of the universe might not yet have set it. Every time I read these passages, I think, “How could they not have see what they were doing? How could Pilate have gone along with the crowds when he knew Jesus was innocent? The short answer to every question we could ask about this terrible time at the end of Jesus’ live is: God planned for Jesus to die for us. He was going to die. It was the time for Him to die. Nevertheless, it always seems to me it shouldn’t have been so hard for everyone to see who Jesus was, to repent and turn to Him. The religious leaders of all people ought to have recognized Jesus. But they were more concerned with their own short-term “salvation,” than they were about their long-term salvation. As we go about our days living on the resurrection side of Easter, let’s not fall into the same trap of putting our selfish desires before faithfulness to Jesus. His condemnation, death, and resurrection were God’s means of saving us from sin and death. They are therefore, the greatest opportunity for us to remember how much God loves us, and to live into our relationship with Him in Jesus’ name and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Judges 17-19 we read two accounts that are summed up by the words we read in Judges 17:6: ⁶In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. Judges 17:6 (NLT) In the first account, we read of Micah, a man who stole more than 1,000 pieces of silver from his own mother. When he confessed his sin to her, she blessed him and had a silver ephod made out of the silver.  Micah started to worship the ephod, and later when a Levite came to his home, he offered the Levite the opportunity to be his personal priest. We can find many things wrong with that picture, but the picture soon got worse.

Some men from the tribe of Dan came to Micah’s house, and eventually stole Micah’s “gods” and bargained with the Levite to become their priest, rather than Micah’s It was bad enough that one man was worshiping a silver ephod, but now hundreds from the tribe of Dan worshiped it. The Levite’s willingness to leave Micah’s service, because he would be able to have a  bigger “congregation,” and undoubtedly better pay, makes it clear he wasn’t serving the LORD, but rather his own personal benefit and gain. As we look at this account, we are reminded what happens when people have no godly vision or leadership. The men from Dan had a vision, but it wasn’t godly. They turned from God to worship the silver ephod. The Levite wasn’t serving God either. He looked for his own gain rather than serving the LORD and the people.

In Chapter 19, we read the first half of an account, which we’ll finish tomorrow. In it a man from the tribe of Levi had a concubine, who left him and returned to her father. He went after her, and eventually was welcomed by the woman’s father when he came to the father’s house. After a couple days of partying, provided by the father-in-law, the Levite decided it was time to go home. He left in the afternoon, which meant he couldn’t make it home before nightfall. He decided to stay in Gibeah, a city settled by the tribe of Benjamin. No one welcomed the man into their home for the night, until eventually an older man of the town, offered him and his concubine a place to stay. We’re told some “troublemakers” from the town gathered and demanded to have the Levite sent out so they could have sex with him. The man offered to have his virgin daughter and the man’s concubine go out, but the men refused. Apparently, during the argument the Levite shoved his concubine out of the house and closed the door.  The men raped the woman all night long. In the morning, when the Levite went out to get her, he found her outside the house. She was dead. This horrendous story, ends even more horrendously as we will see tomorrow. No excuse can be made for what happened. According to Mosaic Law, the “appropriate” response was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. While that seems extreme to us, tomorrow we’ll see the response of the Levite and the nation of Israel was even more extreme The response starts at the end of chapter 19, when the Levite cuts his concubine into twelve pieces and sends a piece to each of the tribes of Israel. The response of the entire nation was to ask, “What are we going to do?”  Remember, there was no king to decide, so they would decide the matter corporately, and as we’ll see tomorrow, they did.

As we return to John 17, and Jesus’ “high priestly prayer,” let’s focus on one statement. Jesus said, “They (that is Jesus’ followers-including us) don’t belong to the world anymore than I do.” What a powerful statement. It’s easy to see why Jesus would say He didn’t belong to the world. After all, He is the Son of God. He came from heaven, to live His life on earth. We did not. Yet, after we’re born again, we become citizens of heaven. The Apostle Paul would pick up on that them, and use it extensively in his letters. Sometimes he used the term explicitly and at other times implicitly. The key is: we are bound for heaven. We are going to live our lives here for days, weeks, months, years, or decades, but we will live for eternity with Jesus. Always remember that. When we go through the loss of loved ones, which is always painful and difficult, we can remember that for those who trust Jesus, the pain, suffering, and even death are a short-term reality. I don’t say that lightly, or flippantly. I have lost many who were close to me: our first child, through a miscarriage; my Mom died what seemed to be far too soon to me; my Dad; Jim, my oldest brother; and most recently Cheryl Marshall, my sister-in-law. At those times the pain is eased when we know we will see our loved one again.

As we go about this day, let’s live as those whose first citizenship is in heaven. That doesn’t mean we won’t be good citizens of the United States of America, or of whatever nation we are a citizen. It means, we will always serve Jesus first, and be ambassadors for Him to the world. When we live fully as citizens of God’s Kingdom, we will make the best citizens of whatever earthly nation or kingdom we call home!

Judges 13 stars off with the people of Israel turning against the LORD and being subjected to the Philistines for forty years. This is nothing new to us, because the pattern continues to repeat itself. We know what’s coming: a new judge. Yes, and this is perhaps the most infamous of all Israel’s judges: Samson. I use the term infamous, rather than famous, because Samson had everything he needed to bring the LORD glory and honor and to go down as one of the greatest leaders in Israel’s history. Instead, as we will see, he took the blessings of the LORD and used them for his own, selfish purposes. The LORD’s gifts and selfishness never go well together. As we will see. But let’s not get ahead of the story. In chapter 13, the future parents of Samson, who are childless at the outset, are visited by the angel of the LORD and told they will have a son, who will become a nazarite.  The son was born. They named him Samson, which means “sun” or “brightness.” What a hopeful start to the story of Samson’s life!

As we turn to Judges 14, we see the beginning of the end, and Samson is a young man. First, Samson chose a wife from the Philistines. His parents were concerned, but the woman seemed “right” to Samson. We’re told God was going to use the situation against the Philistines, but Samson’s motives weren’t to overcome the Philistines. He just wanted what he wanted. In his book Fight, Craig Groeschel tells us Samson displayed a common set of claims that would ultimately destroy his life. He would say, “I want it. I deserve it. I can handle it.” Samson wanted the woman from Timnah. He thought he deserved it, because she seemed right to him. He thought he could handle being married to a Philistine woman, because he was a nazarite.  He was wrong on all three counts. He ought to have used this set of claims:  I want God. I deserve to burn in hell, but I get to be on the LORD’s side, and I can’t handle anything without the Spirit’s power in my life.

Samson demonstrated another example of I want it. I deserve it. I can handle it, when it came to killing the lion and then eating honey from a honey comb that bees built inside the lion’s carcass. Nazarite weren’t supposed to touch anything dead. No Israelite was to do so, or they would be unclean for the day. Samson saw the honey in the lion caracass and wanted some. He deserved it–after all, he had killed the lion. He knew he could handle it, and he gave some to his parents without telling them, because, of course, he knew better than they did how to do things.

One result of Samson eating the honey was he developed a riddle concerning it that he shared at his wedding reception. He didn’t just share the riddle, but turned it into a bet with a number of the guest. The result of that was the guests threatened to burn down the house of his wife and father-in-law, if she didn’t tell them the answer. She got Samson to reveal the answer and the result was Samson killed thirty Philistines in another town and gave their clothes to pay off the bet. We see Samson making one fifteen-minute decision after another. This pattern will ultimately lead to his death and to his falling far short of His potential in serving the LORD. In the short-term, it cost him his new wife.

Judges 15 offers us an example of Samson’s amazing strength, when he returned to Timnah to get his wife, her father told him she was given to the best man at the wedding, because he didn’t think Samson was coming back. He offered Samson his younger daughter, but Samson destroyed some of the Philistines’ fields in revenge. This caused the Philistines to kill Samson’s wife and father-in-law. We see how revenge could escalate in those dates. Eventually, it led to the Philistines retaliating against the Israelites. That led the Israelites to turn Samson over to the Philistines. While in custody, the Spirit of the LORD came upon Samson, he freed himself and killed 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. Samson was parched with thirst after this and he cried out to the LORD. The Lord provided water from a rock, which shows us the LORD’s hand was with Samson. We would hope this would be a turning point, and Samson would take his role as leader and judge in Israel seriously. We would be disappointed…

In Judges 16 Samson the tragic story of Samson ends. First, he returns to the  land of the Philistines to spend time with a prostitute. Then he returns and meets Delilah. Delilah turned out to be the cause of Samson’s demise. The Philistines bribed her to find out the secret of Samson’s strength. Even after she demonstrated repeatedly her goal in finding it was to turn him over to the Philistines, Samson revealed it was in his long hair. As a nazarite, his hair had never been cut. While Samson slept Delilah had men come and cut his hair, and then she woke him, telling him the Philistines were there. Samson woke up, but his strength was gone. The Philistines bound Samson, gouged out his eyes and put him to work as if he were an ox, grinding grain.

Eventually, Samson’s hair regrew, and he called on the LORD to give him strength one last time. He was brought out as entertainment at a large gathering of Philistines. He got his guard to position him between two pillars holding up the building where they were, and the LORD gave him strength to push them over. 3,000 Philistines died, along with Samson. We’re told at the end of the chapter: Samson judged Israel twenty years. Did he? Not really. Samson occasionally killed a few or many Philistines, but most of the time he indulged his own desires. Samson had all the potential in the world, but he wasted most of it. The LORD gave him unique strength, but he used it primarily for himself. What do we learn from Samson? We learn at least this:  When we’re inclined to think: I want it. I deserve it. I can handle it, we need to remember where that line of thinking led Samson. Remember: I want GOD.  I deserve death, but God is so gracious.  I can’t handle anything without God.  Samson shows us what happens when we forget these realities and pursue our own ends.

As we return to John 16, we return to Jesus’ reminders to the disciples that His death, and His return to heaven would be to their advantage, because He would send the Spirit. I have often thought of that promise: It is better that I go, so you can have the Holy Spirit. If you and I were part of the original group of disciples, could we have believed we would be better off without Jesus? I can’t imagine how amazing life would have been with Jesus. Listening to Him teach, watching Him heal and cast out demons, even walk on water, and calm storms. How could His leaving be “better”? The truth is the way it’s better is the disciples would be empowered by the Holy Spirit, so they could heal sick people, and cast out demons. They would be different in a good and powerful way when Jesus left them. Even so, it must have been hard to believe it would be “better.” That would have been especially true later than night when Jesus was arrested, and the next day as they watched Him be crucified and die.

We live on the resurrection side of all those statements of Jesus. We know He was telling the truth. We also have the Holy Spirit in our lives as we trust Him as Savior and Lord. Yet, I think often of the time when we will get to see Jesus, to be with Him. That day is coming. It will be better than now. The truth is Jesus was right that it is better for us that He left. It is also true it will be better once again when He returns. That puts us in an enviable win-win situation as Jesus followers. That’s why the Apostle Paul wrote, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

 

Judges 10 starts by telling us of two judges: Tola and Jair. Each of them judged Israel for a little longer than twenty years. We aren’t given much detail about them, but after their leadership ended, we read a familiar account: After Jair died the people of Israel turned from the LORD and worship the Baals and Ashtaroth. They lived according the to customs of the indigenous peoples, and broke from following the Lord’s command. Once again, the LORD gave them over to their desires and they ended up enslaved to the Philistines and the Ammonites. By the middle of the chapter the Israelites cry out to the LORD, and promise to return to following Him. Once again, God agrees to deliver them.

In Judges 11-12 we read the tragic account of Jepthah. He was the son of Gilead, but he was not born of Giliead’s wife. We’re told his mother was a prostitute. That led to Jephthah’s rejection by his family, but in Israel’s time of need they turned to him to be their leader. He agreed. He made a terrible decision as he led the people off to battle against the Ammonites: he vowed he would sacrifice the first thing that came out of the door of his house when he returned, if the LORD would give him victory in battle. The vow seems strange, because would you think what would come out of the door of your house would be one of your family members? In 21st century America we would think that, but in Jephthah’s time, chickens and other animals would be kept in homes, so that was what he must have been thinking. The LORD gave Jephthah and his troops victory, but when he returned home the first “thing” that came out of his house was his daughter.

Think about that: you have vowed to the LORD if He gives you victory in battle you will sacrifice the first thing out the door of your house when you come home, and the first thing is your daughter. What would you do? Jephthah upheld his vow. He sacrificed his daughter. I have thought about this one dozens of times over the year. Having two daughters of my own, and now three additional girls who are part of our family, what would I have done? I would not have kept my vow. Yes, the culture is different. Yes, a vow is a vow. But, and this is an important but: the LORD is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He didn’t give Jephthah victory because of his rash vow. He gave Jephthah victory, because He loves His people. I would have counted on that love for the people to include my daughter, and I would have repented before the Lord of making a foolish vow, asked forgiveness, and taken whatever consequences came with that.

Jephthah ended up in a battle with some of the other tribespeople of Israel, because he didn’t include them in the battle against the Ammonites. Jephthah made it clear the people knew about the battle and they would have been welcomed had they come, but they didn’t. It’s always easy to claim we have been subjected to injustice, but Jephthah pointed out an important truth. We don’t have to wait to be asked to do the right thing. We ought to be like the old Nike commercials, and “Just do it!”

As we return to John 15, we review Jesus analogy of Him being the vine, and we being the branches. The illustration offers us a powerful picture of how vital our relationship with Jesus is. After all, a branch of a grapevine that is cut off from the main vine dies. Our relationship with Jesus isn’t dependent on us, but on Him. We can’t sustain ourselves as spiritual beings, without a connection to Jesus, who is the source of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. As we go about the day, let’s remember Jesus is the source for everything we need today. As we abide in Him the result will be “fruit,” “more fruit,” or “much fruit” in our lives. We exist to glorify God and to enjoy His presence. As we do that the “fruit” we produce will be the fruit of the Spirit, which the Apostle Paul identified in Galatians 5, and other people’s lives turning to Jesus and trusting Him as Savior and Lord.

Judges 7 reminds us the LORD was always the one who won the battles the Israelites fought against their enemies. As we read the account Gideon gathers an army to go agains Midian, but the LORD tells Gideon he has too many men–32,000 to be exact. When they defeat Midian, they will take the credit for the victory. The LORD shrinks the army by having Gideon tell everyone who was afraid to go home. 22,000 men went home. Now, with 10,000 men, Gideon was ready to face Midian, but the LORD told him the army was still too big. He had Gideon divide the group by the way they drank water from a stream. It turned out 9,700 of them did it one way, while 300 did it another. The LORD chose the 300 and sent the 9,700 home. Now, with only 300 soldiers, everyone would know any victory won over the mighty Midianites would be the LORD’s. That’s precisely what happened. God used the 300, and He defeated the Midianites. What a powerful reminder to us, that whatever the LORD is in doesn’t require large numbers of “troops” to be successful. We’re also reminded to rely on the LORD and not on ourselves. How easy we forget both of those powerful truths.

Judges 8-9 show us once again how quickly the people of Israel could turn back from following the LORD. Even though, the LORD was the obvious victor over the Midianites, the people immediately turned away from Him. They worshiped the Baals. They worshiped a golden ephod Gideon made from the spoils of the battle with the Midianites. They battled against each other, especially after Gideon died. Gideon’s son by one of his concubines, Abimelech convince the people to make him king. He killed 70 of Gideon’s sons, his step-brothers, to ensure the people would continue to follow him. Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon, escaped and told a parable that made clear to everyone, they had backed the wrong leader, in choosing Abimelech. Eventually, Abimelech killed many of those who turned against him, and a woman in one of the cities besieged by Abimelech threw an upper millstone from a tower. It struck Abimelech and would have killed him, but he had his armor bearer kill him first, so a woman wouldn’t get the credit for killing him. In the end the people of Israel were in disarray, and following false gods once again. This picture repeated itself over and over again through the period of the judges. The details changed, but the picture remained the same: God delivered the people from suffering and slavery. The people rejoiced, and perhaps momentarily followed Him. Then they rejected Him again, and God turned them over to their enemies once again. The people cried out, and God would once again deliver them. Hopefully, we can learn from these cycles of rejecting God, being enslaved, crying out to God, and being redeemed, that the best part of the cycle is being redeemed by God, and remember our redemption in Jesus. Then we can live in victory over sin instead of permitting it to enslave us.

As we return to John 14, we return to Jesus’ conversation with the disciples on the night before He was crucified. John 14 makes it so clear to us that this life is not all there is, and those who follow Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life, will experience the next life with Him. Jesus makes several promises to the disciples during this talk with them. The most powerful of the promises is we will do greater things than He did, because He was returning to His heavenly Father. The thought of doing greater things than healing the sick, casting demons out of people, and raising the dead is hard to imagine. But the scope of the technology in our time, makes Jesus’ words so easy to fulfill. As we rely on Him, we can take His good news of salvation virtually anywhere in the world. We can feed thousands of people with the resource we have. We can preach to tens of thousands of people at one time. The key is putting Jesus first. As we do that, we can and will do the greater things He promised we will do in His name!

 

Judges 4-5 record the cycle of judgment and release of the Israelites with the Canaanites. The Canaanites subjected Israel to slavery for twenty years. Then two leaders arose who God used to break the cycle of slavery: Deborah and Barak. Deborah challenged Barak to take the lead, because God would be with him, but Barak was unwilling to go into battle unless, Deborah went along. Thus, Deborah received the most glory in the battle, or I should say the second most. The LORD received the greatest glory as we read in Judges 4:15: ¹⁵And the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and all his army before Barak by the edge of the sword. And Sisera got down from his chariot and fled away on foot. Judges 4:15 (ESV) The mercy of God toward the Israelites is incredible. Time after time they abandoned Him, yet He continued to fight for them. In this battle God used Deborah, and another woman, named Jael, to overcome the enemy. Chapter 5 contains “The Song of Deborah,” which recounts the victory.

We would think this great demonstration of God’s power and mercy would have caused the Israelites to follow Him out of gratitude for their freedom from slavery. Not so. Chapter 6 begins with the familiar statement, “The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD the gave them into the hands of…. This time it was Midian who subjected the Israelites to their rule, but once again it was not the power of Midian that caused this to happen. It was the judgment of God. When the Israelites cried out to God for deliverance, God sent a prophet to remind them how God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and established them in the Promised Land. He also reminded them of the LORD’s command for them to obey Him, and no other gods. They had disobeyed.

But once again, God’s heart softened toward the Israelites and the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon. He told Gideon the Lord was with him. Gideon’s responded,  “Please, sir, 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.” Judges 6:13 (ESV) How often our perspective leaves out our part in our circumstances. We can see why it didn’t seem to Gideon that the LORD was with them, but Gideon wasn’t seeing the Israelites role in their situation. Their sin was the direct cause of their situation. Even so, God had come to call Gideon to overthrow the Midianites.

Gideon’s call involved two important acts: First, Gideon tore down the altar of Baal. The people of the town wanted to kill Gideon for doing that, which shows how entrenched they were in forsaking God. Gideon’s father reasoned with the people, so they spared him.  Second, Gideon asked the Lord for two, separate signs that it was really He who was calling him. You have probably heard the expression, “putting out a fleece.” It comes from Gideon’s request the the LORD confirm His intention to use Gideon, by making the ground dry and a fleece wet, or a fleece dry and the ground wet to show it was God. God gave both signs to Gideon and as we’ll see tomorrow, Gideon took leadership as Israel’s next judge.

As we return to John 13, the time is nearing for Jesus’ death. As we know, Jesus washed the disciples feet, the ultimate act of servanthood–next to dying on the cross for them and all of us! He gave them them the command to love one another. He told them one of them would betray Him. The detail in that experience that always troubles me is not a single disciple was certain it wouldn’t be he who denied Jesus.  Peter asked John to have Jesus tell him which one it would be. Also, John tells us when Jesus identified Judas Iscariot, but giving him a piece of bread to eat that “Satan entered Judas.” What a chilling statement. Satan can only be one place at one time. We read often in the gospels of demons entering people and possessing them, but this what not a mere demon entering Judas–Satan himself entered Judas to ensure the betrayal of Jesus would take place. As we consider our lives as Jesus’ followers, how important it is not to become to sure of ourselves, or too sure that we will never deny or forsake Jesus. Only in the power fo the Holy Spirit do we have the power to remain faithful in every situation. Let’s call on the Holy Spirit to fill and empower us right now, that we will remain faithful whatever today’s circumstances bring us.

Today we turn to the Book of Judges. This marked a major turning point in the history of Israel. Chapters 1-2 sound a great deal like the Book of Joshua. The people of Israel continued to take the Promised Land by force, defeating the indigenous people, but we see trouble brewing. In most of the battles the Israelites left some of the people. They were unable to drive them out totally. This became more and more prevalent as we move from chapter 1 to chapter 2.  Chapter 2 records the death of Joshua once again, and tells us Israel remained faithful to God for as long as the people who knew Joshua remained alive. The statement seems to have a sense of foreboding, and indeed it does.

When that generation died, chapter 3 tells us a new generation arose who didn’t remember Joshua, or the works of the Lord. They quickly rebelled against God and started following after the Baals and Ashteroths and the other gods of the indigenous people. They did precisely what God commanded them not to do. He had warned them the consequence of such disobedience would be He would turn them over to the peoples of the land. That is precisely what the LORD did. As we read chapter 3, we read the first several of many “cycles” of events that went like this: 1) the people abandoned the LORD and went “whoring” after other gods. (This label that equates the people’s sinning with other gods with sexual immorality is found throughout the Old Testament. God considered the people of Israel His “bride,” just as Jesus considers the Church His “bride.” That makes the language of sexual immorality apropos for the situation.) 2) God turns the people over to slavery to the very people they had defeated during the days of Joshua. 3) After years or decades the people of Israel cried out to God for deliverance. 4) The LORD provides a deliverer a “judge” to redeem them–that is to set them free. 5) During the life of the “judge” and for years or decades thereafter the people had peace and followed the Lord. 6) The people abandoned the LORD… which started a new cycle.

The reason I put the word “judge” in quotation marks is these leaders were not judges as we think of judges. They were charismatic leaders, gifted by the LORD to lead the people of Israel to overcome their enemies. Some are mentioned by name such as Othniel, Ehud, and Shamgar in chapter 3. Others are not named.  As we read through Judges we will see this cycle repeat over and over. We might ask ourselves, “Why didn’t they ever get it? Why did they keep turning away from God? Why didn’t they remain faithful to Him? But then, if we’re honest, we need to ask ourselves the very same questions. Why don’t we ever get it? Why do we keep turning away from God? Fallen human nature is sinful. Even after we’re redeemed by the blood of Jesus, we still struggle with the flesh, so it’s no wonder the Israelites who lives so long before the coming of Jesus struggled, and failed so often.

As we return to John 12, let’s focus on one particular verse, because it sums up the entire chapter. It is John 12:24: Jesus said, ²⁴Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24 (ESV) Jesus’ words applied to Him and they apply to us. Jesus death which was coming in less than a week from the moment He made this statement, would bring “much fruit.” Millions of people have been saved from sin and death, through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. Millions more will be, if Jesus tarries in His return.

But what does it have to do with us? For us to bear fruit, we must “die” to ourselves. We must put our sinful nature to death daily, and live in the newness and power of the Holy Spirit. If we fail to do that, we will continue to be nonproductive. I have heard many people say Jesus doesn’t call us to be fruitful. He calls us to be faithful. The truth is Jesus calls us to be faithful and in so doing we will be fruitful! When we faithfully die to ourselves, pick up our crosses daily and follow Jesus, the result will be fruit. The fruit will come in the form of our own spiritual maturity, and in others trusting Jesus as Savior and Lord through our witness. This is a hard teaching. No one wants to “die,” literally or figuratively. But it’s the only way to be reborn, and to produce abundant fruit for Jesus and His Kingdom!

Joshua 21 records the distribution of cities and pasturelands to the Levites. According to Moses’ instruction, the Levites didn’t receive a territory in the Promised Land along with the other tribes. Instead, they received cities and pasturelands in each of the territories of the other tribes. The strategic value of this distribution is obvious: Levites would live throughout the entire land of Israel. They would be able to help guide their relatives to carry out the practices of worshiping God faithfully. At the end of the chapter we read:
⁴⁵Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass. Joshua 21:45 (ESV) While not surprising, the statement is so powerful. God is always good, and His good promises to us always come to pass, not one of them has ever failed or will ever fail. We can stand on that solid rock in our lives, regardless of what we might be enduring at any given moment.

Joshua 22 tells us of the return of the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh to their homes on the eastern side of the Jordan River. They had fulfilled their commitment to help their kinsmen take the Promised Land, and now Joshua sent them back with His blessing. As these two-and-a-half tribes returned home they built an altar, which nearly caused a war. The remaining Israelites thought the altar was to offer sacrifices to pagan gods, but the Reubenites, Gadites and half-tribe of Manasseh explained the altar was for their children. They want their children to remember they were part of Israel. Living apart from the rest of the tribes, they foresaw a day when their children might forget that. The altar would remind them.  With that explanation all were satisfied and the situation ended peacefully.

Joshua 23-24 record the final words and instructions of Joshua to the Israelites.  He reminded them of how good God had been to them, and how God had fulfilled His promises and blessings to them. He also told them if they forgot to follow the LORD in the future, they would receive His curses. Joshua’s message was plain and clear: follow the LORD and be blessed; abandon Him and be cursed.  Finally, Joshua spoke a brief history of the Israelites and all the LORD had done for them. Then he offered the famous statement:  ¹⁵And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15 (ESV) Notice Joshua offered three choices to the Israelites: 1) They could serve the gods of their slavery, their past in Egypt; 2) They could serve the gods of the Amorites in whose land they lived at the moment; or 3) they could serve the LORD, who had been with them in the past, was with them in that moment, and would be with them forever. So often, we look to our past and hold onto something from it with the kind of intensity that is to be reserved only for the LORD. Sometimes we look around and grab onto something of this world in which we live, with an intensity that is to be reserved only for the LORD. The best action is to grab onto the LORD with that kind of intensity today, tomorrow and forever.

As we return to John 11, we return to the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Every time I read this chapter, I’m reminded of the absolute power Jesus has over life and death. He waited until Lazarus died to return to do something about Lazarus’ sickness. The mourners who gathered at the tomb murmured the same thing many of us have murmured as we have watched a loved one grow sicker and sicker and eventually  die: “If He were here, our brother (friend, mom, child…) wouldn’t have died.” We see the short-term value of having our loved one with us. Jesus sees the eternal value of where all of us are going. The difference is Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus died and came back to life.  All my loved ones who have died, have stayed dead…but that is only from my perspective, from a physical perspective. One day each of us will die to this life, unless Jesus returns first. That means each of us will be in the tomb and hear what Lazarus heard: Arise! Wow! In the short-term it must have been such an amazing blessing for Mary and Martha to have their brother back. In the long-term, the eternal-term, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus will always be together with Jesus. That’s why the Apostle Paul wrote, “We don’t grieve as the rest of people who have no hope…” We grieve, and while our loved ones are sick we pray for their healing so we don’t have to grieve. But always, always, always–we have hope, because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, as we believe in Him we have the promise that we will never die.

Joshua 18-19 record the distribution of land to the final seven tribes of Israel that hadn’t yet received their portion. Before it took place God had Joshua gather the people at Shiloh and set up the Tent of Meeting. He asked the people how long they were going to hesitate before going in and taking their possession. Isn’t that a powerful question? How often does God have something for us to take, possess, or live out in our lives, but we hesitate, we wait, we worry about wether God will do what He promises? But as we see in these chapters, the same process that happened in previous chapters happens again, a tribe is given land, the borders are described, and the cities listed. The people go into the land and it becomes theirs. This includes an inheritance for Joshua, their leader. By this time we see what God promises, He does. We need to remember that the next time we are hesitating to take possession of or to live into a reality God has promised for us.

In Joshua 20 we read about the cities of refuge, cities where a person who had committed murder accidentally could go to be safe from the retaliation of the dead person’s family. The rules for these towns had been established in the Torah. Now the carrying out of the plan was to take place. As we’ve read thus far in the Old Testament, we’ve seen God always had a plan. His plan was always the best plan for the Israelites. When they carried out the plan, the result was blessing, but when they didn’t the results were devastating. With all the testimony of the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, you would think we would have learned: Obedience brings blessing, and disobedience brings a curse. Yet, time and time again the Israelites forget that reality. So do we! Let’s take the lesson from these passages and recognize again that our call is to follow where God leads us, because as we do our lives will always be the most blessed.

That leads right to our second time through John 10. As you’ll recall, John 10 records Jesus’ illustration of Himself as “The Good Shepherd.” Jesus tells us the sheep (that’s us!) will follow the Shepherd’s voice. He tells us the thief (the devil) comes only to kill, steal, and destroy, but He came to give us life in all its abundance. As we go about this day, and each day, how vital for us to listen for the Shepherd’s voice and then to follow where He leads. That always leads to a better outcome than following the competing and false voices of the world. The Good Shepherd has already laid down His life for us, and risen again to demonstrate that everything He says is true, and all His promises are faithful. Let’s follow where He leads us today.

Joshua 14 offers us another look at Caleb, who along with Joshua had been the only two spies of the twelve Moses had sent into the Promised Land forty years earlier to come back with a good report. Caleb was eighty-five and as Joshua was distributing the land, Caleb had a request–Give me the high country! The older I get the more I love Caleb. He is the poster child (grandfather?) for living our lives fully for as long as God gives us good health and the strength to do it. Caleb took on some of the toughest of the land’s inhabitants, and after he and his people defeated them, settled where they had lived. The final words of chapter 14 are “And the land had rest from war.” That’s what happens when we follow the LORD fully. We gain victory, and ultimately rest from the battle. It might take longer than we think, after all, it took Caleb forty-five additional years to claim the piece of land he must have thought would be his shortly after he and the rest of the spies walked through the Promised Land the first time. I’m sure for Caleb it was worth the wait, as it is when we remain faithful for however long it takes for Jesus to give us rest from the wars we face spiritually, physically and in every way.

In Joshua 15-17 we read about the distribution of lands to the other tribes of Israel. The details are similar for each tribe. We’re told of the area of the land, and what its borders were on the north, south, east, and west; we’re told of some of the towns in the land; and we’re told some of the local people were not driven out. This last detail would prove to be a thorn in Israel’s side from that moment and for decades to come. As we’ll see when we complete the Book of Joshua and turn to Judges, these remaining people would eventually gain strength, because the Israelites abandoned their worship of the LORD and followed the pagan gods of these people. As a result God would let the Israelites be subjected to slavery for a time. While we’re getting ahead of the story, the seed of the downfall of Israel was planted in their not fully rooting out the indigenous people of the Promised Land. The principle of one bad apple spoiling the whole bunch will be lived out in Israel’s history as we read forward through the Old Testament. The lesson for us is not to participate with those in our spheres of influence, when they follow the gods of this world, rather than the One, true and living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We must remain faithful to Him alone, and seek to draw those who are turning away from Him back to  relationship with Him.

As we return to John 9, and the account of Jesus healing a man who had been born blind, I want to underline Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question about whether it was the man or his parents who had sinned that resulted in his blindness. Jesus said the answer was neither. No one sinned. The disciples, and the Jews of Jesus’ day thought all negative outcomes were the result of someone’s sin. Jesus made it clear the only reason the man had been born blind was so God could be glorified in his healing. Think about that. The man endured blindness all his life, for decades, so God would ultimately be glorified. It seems like a high price for the man to pay, especially given he wasn’t even aware it was happening. The principle is powerful: God brings good out of bad situations. It doesn’t matter whether the situations were caused by sin, or whether they were the result of living in a fallen world, where “innocent” babies are born blind, or deaf, or without limbs. I put innocent in quotes, because as the Apostle Paul reminded the Colossian Christians, we were all once enemies of God. None of us are innocent in the sense of having no guilt or blame, but a baby is as innocent as a human being can being apart from the shed blood of Jesus Christ washing away our sins. The blind man was made into an example by the religious leaders, because he confessed Jesus was the Messiah. He was kicked out of the synagogue. It was at that point when Jesus offered the man the opportunity to believe in Him, and also to show the religious leaders they were blind spiritually. Spiritual blindness is ultimately worse than physical blindness, because it keeps us from a relationship with Jesus, and from salvation in Him.