Judges

As victorious a book as Joshua was, Judges will be it's equal opposite. The book of Joshua left us with an obedient, God-fearing group of Israelites having conquered the land due to God's blessing upon them. But during the time of the book of Judges, Joshua and his generation had died, and the people began to wander in their faith. They continued to take possession of the land, but did so without driving out or destroying the inhabitants. Instead, they intermarried with them and adopted their customs, namely idol worship. The period of time covered by the book of Judges chronicles the downward spiral of the nation's descent into idolatry. When they turned to idols, God punished them by allowing a pagan nation to oppress them. Israel would eventually cry out for deliverance and God would raise up a "judge" (which is an imperfect translation for the Hebrew word which has a meaning that is more martial than judicial) to defeat the opposing nation. Israel would serve God until that judge died and then return to her idolatrous ways. As mentioned yesterday, people can only ride the coattails of another's faith (a judge, a parent, a spouse, etc.) for so long. It must become personal or it will have no value.

Note that this scenario was set up by God. He could have driven out all of the inhabitants of the land during Joshua's lifetime, removing the temptation to sin with idol worship. That would have been easy, but not having had to fight their own battles, the Israelites would have had no ownership in the covenant. Verse 2:22 says that "he did this to test Israel- to see whether or not they would follow the ways of the Lord as their ancestors did". Many times in the New Testament, the Bible speaks of trials, suffering, and temptation as being tests of our faith. In essence, hard times serve as a litmus test for true faith. True faith will be refined and purified by fiery trials. Apostasy (faking it) will be exposed under the same conditions. So God was allowing them the opportunity to own their faith through the ongoing battles, but in their disobedience, they showed their true colors.

Tomorrow's reading: Judges 3:31-6