10/11/26 Weekly Bible Lessons: God Works Despite Evil

Judges 2:6-15 (NASB)

Background — Do you remember being eight years old and trying to go to sleep without a night light? It was scary. Have you ever been inside a cave and turned off all the lights? It is unnerving. No one truly likes the dark. In darkness, there seems to be no peace and less joy. 

This is the way we can describe Israel during the time of Judges: dark. Judges 17:6 says, “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” In Judges, we will read about terrible actions such as senseless violence, murder, brutal leadership, and utter lawlessness. Even though this was the case, that does not mean God was not still at work. It is quite the opposite. God used imperfect people to do His perfect will. 

We see a cycle that repeats itself throughout the entire book. The cycle would start with obedience to God and His Word bringing prosperity and peace. Then the people would turn away from God, resulting in oppression by an outside force. The people would then cry out to God for deliverance, and God would send a judge to deliver them from their enemies. Shortly after being delivered, however, they would turn their back on the Lord, and the cycle would repeat itself. 

2:6-9 — Faults. It seems to be human nature to look for someone to blame when something goes wrong. In just a couple of generations, the people of Israel went from making a promise to God to serve Him alone, to doing whatever they deemed right in their own eyes. Whose fault was that? Certainly not Joshua’s. During his time as leader of Israel, the people “served the Lord all their days.” Joshua led, taught, and guided the people toward God. He made such an impact that even the elders who lived after Joshua did just as good a job leading the people to be obedient to the Lord. 

This should prompt us to think about the impact we are making on those around us. Can the same thing that was said about Joshua be said about us? Are there those who are now serving the Lord because you led them to Christ? Are we, as Jesus commanded in Matthew 28:19, “making disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”? 

Since we know it was not Joshua’s fault that the people went astray, what happened? 

2:10 — Failures. What happened? They forgot. There was a generation raised who did not know the Lord or all He had done for Israel. How did they forget? They weren’t taught. Without a teacher, a person can’t learn. This is why Paul, while writing about the gospel to the church in Rome, says, “How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14-15). 

After Joshua and his elders passed away, the next generation did not know God because no one introduced them to Him. This is why generations earlier, Moses told the people, “You shall teach them [God’s words] diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.” (Deuteronomy 6:7). If they would have listened to Moses and passed down their faith to the next generation, the time of the Judges would not have been so bad. 

Are we making this same mistake, or are we making sure this doesn’t happen to the next generation? What are we doing in our homes to teach the next generation about what God has done? 

2:11-15 — Foolishness. God had done so much for His people up to this point. He rescued them out of Egypt, kept them in the wilderness, accompanied them into the promised land, and kept all His promises. Yet, they seemed to have forgotten all that. The text says they forsook the Lord, served false gods, and provoked the Lord to anger. As a result, the situation became bad for the people of Israel. God gave them into the hands of their enemies. The nation no longer had peace and was plundered by foreign nations. The people did not pass down their faith to the next generation; the people turned to foreign idols and sin, and, in turn, the nation fell into three hundred years of struggle. When what God has done is not recognized or even forgotten, sin always follows. 

Again, what is encouraging is that even when His people forsook Him for created gods, the Lord still sent a judge to rescue them from oppression. He rescued them every time even when they didn’t deserve it. God offers forgiveness and redemption even when it’s not deserved. Paul says in Romans 5:8 that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God has already done the work for us to be redeemed from our sins even when none of us deserve it. 

Do we truly appreciate the cost God paid for us to be forgiven?