Today’s passage: Judges 2:16-3:6
Helpful thoughts:
- Bad things happened as Israel worshiped false gods. When things got “bad” they complained to the true God. Then, when God showed mercy and intervened, after things got “better” again, Israel went back to worshiping false gods more corruptly than they had before.
- This downward spiral will be the pattern of every narrative in the book of Judges.
- God used the sin of Israel and their surrounding neighbors for Israel’s good. Our sovereign God wastes nothing.
- Israel directly disobeyed God on three counts (at least…):
- They lived among the peoples of the land instead of destroying them.
- They intermarried with the people (Deuteronomy 7:3-4).
- Remember, this had nothing to do with their ethnicity and everything to do with their worship. There were Canaanites who converted and were welcomed into Israel (e.g. Rahab).
- They worshiped false gods.
Questions to consider:
- What emotion motivated the Lord to help Israel during their times of greatest distress?
- If Israel was being “Canaanized”, what would it look like for a Christian in our culture to be “Americanized” or for a European Christian to be “Europeanized”, etc.? What blind spots might we have that feel so right to us but are so wrong according to God’s Word?
- How does God’s promise to use all things (even our own sin!) for good give you comfort and encouragement to press on (Romans 8:28-30)?