{"id":27224,"date":"2023-07-20T22:00:33","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T05:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-1_27-36-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-07-04T23:00:25","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T06:00:25","slug":"judges-2_1-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/judges-2_1-10\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difference Leadership Makes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judges 2:1-10 \u00a0 <\/strong>Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

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Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Judges 2:1-10.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 2:1 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you,<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 1:\u00a0 I know I\u2019m stopping the passage in mid-sentence to say this, but it\u2019s worth saying:\u00a0 God is faithful to His promises.\u00a0 That\u2019s the message of verse 1.\u00a0 What God swore He would do, He did.\u00a0 He swore to bring the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promised land, and He did.\u00a0\u00a0God never breaks His promises.\u00a0 God is forever faithful, dependable and trustworthy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Judges 2:2-3 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this?
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be [thorns] in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 2-3:\u00a0 Unlike God who kept His promises, the Israelites did not keep their promises.\u00a0 Instead, the Israelites disobeyed God by refusing to drive out the idol worshipers who occupied the land before them.\u00a0 And the consequence of their disobedience?\u00a0 Those idol worshipers would remain and become thorns in the Israelites\u2019 sides.\u00a0 That\u2019s what happens when we disobey God: we suffer and lose out.\u00a0\u00a0God\u2019s commands are given not for our detriment but for our good, not as prison bars to limit our happiness but as gates to protect our well-being.<\/strong>\u00a0 When we obey God\u2019s commands we experience God\u2019s blessing, and when we disobey God\u2019s commands, we suffer.<\/p>\n

Judges 2:4-5 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When the angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud,
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0and they called that place Bokim\u00a0[which means weeping]<\/strong>. There they offered sacrifices to the\u00a0LORD.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 4-5:\u00a0 Who is this \u201cangel of the LORD\u201d?\u00a0 The Hebrew word that is translated here as \u201cangel\u201d is \u201cmal\u2019ak\u201d which means \u201cmessenger\u201d.\u00a0 When you read what this messenger says in verse 1, it is clear that this messenger is no human being or any ordinary angel.\u00a0 Rather, this messenger speaks as if he is God Himself.\u00a0 This angel of the LORD is most likely the same one who appears several other times in the book of Judges and whom Moses prophesies about in Exodus 23:20-23.\u00a0 Many scholars conclude that this \u201cangel of the LORD\u201d is none other than Jesus Christ appearing in visible, bodily form, what some people call a theophany.<\/p>\n

Judges 2:6-10 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance.
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The people served the\u00a0LORD\u00a0throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had done for Israel.
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the\u00a0LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten.
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the\u00a0LORD\u00a0nor what he had done for Israel.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 6-10:\u00a0 Wait, I thought Joshua was already dead according to Judges 1:1?\u00a0 Why are we seemingly going backward in time with Joshua being referred to in verse 6 and his death and burial being mentioned again in verses 8-9?\u00a0 If you compare verses 6-10 to Joshua 24:28-31, there are obvious similarities.\u00a0 The author of Judges is deliberately making connections to the end of the book of Joshua and setting up the story of what happened to the Israelites after Joshua and his generations were gone.\u00a0 The author is emphasizing how the Israelites served the LORD when Joshua and his close colleagues led the people, and at the same time foreshadowing what will happen when the Israelites no longer had strong leaders.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this? \u00a0So much depends on leadership.\u00a0 When you have great leaders leading the people, much good is possible.<\/strong>\u00a0 But what happens when you don\u2019t have great leadership?\u00a0 What happens when you have, on one hand, a lack of leadership and, on the other hand, a widespread propensity of the people to sin?\u00a0 That is what we\u2019ll find out as we get into the rest of Judges.<\/p>\n

Father, thank You for showing us how important leadership is.\u00a0 Thank You for being the greatest leader, one who always keeps His promises.\u00a0 Thank You also for the leaders You have placed in my life and the good things I can learn from them.\u00a0 I pray that I would be the best leader I can be by Your grace.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Copyright \u00a9 2021 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Judges 2:1-10.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Judges 2:1 (NIV)
\n1\u00a0\u00a0The angel of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you,
\n\u00a0
\nOn verse 1:\u00a0 I know I\u2019m stopping the passage in mid-sentence to say this, but it\u2019s worth saying:\u00a0 God is faithful to His promises.\u00a0 That\u2019s the message of verse 1.\u00a0 What God swore He would do, He did.\u00a0 He swore to bring the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promised land, and He did.\u00a0\u00a0God never breaks His promises.\u00a0 God is forever faithful, dependable and trustworthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27227,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27224\/revisions\/27227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}