Judges (Part 2) - Entropy
Pastor Rollan Fisher
Welcome to Back to Church Sunday!
The book of Judges is relaying the story of Israel’s national and spiritual decline into chaos and apostasy revealing their need for a godly king (Jesus) to lead it.
From the Messianic prophecies through King David’s line onward, it would be the promise of the coming of God’s righteous king, Jesus, who would rule and redeem not only Israel, but all the nations, in which the people would hope.
Focus: We must keep our eyes fixed on Jesus that he might not only author, but perfect our faith.
Finishing the Job
Entropy
Deliverance
Finishing the Job
What God begins in us, he intends to complete in and through us that Jesus might be fully honored.
Judges 2:1-5 ESV
“Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, "I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.' But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you." As soon as the angel of the Lord spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. And they called the name of that place Bochim. And they sacrificed there to the Lord.”
When God called you to himself, he had a vision for your life - what you would do, with whom you would do it, where you would live, how you would minister (serve him) and the character with which you would do it.
*God wants better for you than you want for yourself.
That is why he gives us his commands that lead to good.
Finishing the job means that we learn God’s commands through his word and learn to construct every area of life according to his design - without compromise.
This includes how we approach our relationships, sexuality, singleness, marriage, parenting, finances, careers, personal pursuits and the like.
When God called the Israelites to break down the altars of the foreign nations, it was for the purpose of removing the worship of false gods and ideologies that would inevitably be destructive and act as a snare to the people of God if these altars remained in the land.
Think of the ideologies that exist today that professed Christians try to incorporate into their worldviews but are in direct opposition to God’s design for life or the worship of Jesus.
When the Israelites (or we) choose to align ourselves with these destructive ideologies, we lose the backing of God and are turned over to their judgments.
Like the Israelites, we often learn after the fact, when we see the consequences of sinful ideals that are incompatible with worshiping God in spirit and in truth (John 4).
Why does this happen?
It happens because of spiritual entropy.
Entropy
It is the tendency of humanity to let entropy set in to our walks with God, both personally and generationally.
Judges 2:6-15 ESV
“When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.”
Entropy
Definition from Oxford Dictionary of Languages:
noun
PHYSICS
a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.
"the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy always increases with time"
lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.
This is our spiritual reality without remaining connected to God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of his church.
“Post-Christian societies are cultures where the Christian worldview was once the dominant worldview. Many European cities were once known for having a thriving Christian influence and a population that largely subscribed to the central tenets of Christian orthodoxy.”
-Stephen T. Um, Why Cities Matter: To God, the Culture, and the Church
Why does it matter?
Proverbs 14:34 ESV
“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
Proverbs 29:2 ESV
“When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.”
Deliverance
Even when we are faithless, God remains faithful to deliver when we turn to Jesus in repentance and faith.
Judges 2:16-23 ESV
“Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did not do so. Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, "Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord as their fathers did, or not." So the Lord left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua.”
Jesus is the ultimate deliverer who would be foreshadowed in each of the twelve judges of Israel as they came to provide salvation and relief to the Israelites as they suffered the consequences of their sin.
Through his sinless life, Jesus showed how humanity was supposed to live in relationship to God and one another.
Through his incarnation, Jesus stepped into the mess we created by our sin and at the cross, he voluntarily took the penalty for it so that we might be reconciled to God.
Through his resurrection from the dead, Jesus has liberated every man, woman and child who would repent of their sin, put their faith in him
By submitting to Christ’s leadership, we commit to upholding the covenant that he’s established with us and finishing the job of tearing down the altars of false worship in our lives and land.
On the heels of the great hall of faith recounting great walks with God, the author of Hebrews is led by the Holy Spirit to give us this exhortation:
Hebrews 12:1-4 ESV
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”
Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher