In the book of Judges, the nation of Israel has entered the promise land. They have had two outstanding leaders, Moses and Joshua. Joshua stood in the Land and declared, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). The people of Israel responded with an overwhelming sense of, “We are with you!” It seemed like the young nation’s future was bright.

They still had one task to finish; they had to push the Canaanites out of the land. Some people read this and they are concerned. It’s important to know that God wanted the Canaanites pushed out, not simply because they were in the territory that He wanted to give Israel, but because their sins had become so great. You see the Canaanites worshiped the false gods of Baal and Ashtoreth, and sometimes Moloch. It can be helpful to know how they worshiped these false gods. If you were sick and wanted to get better you would take a child and place him in the hands of Moloch and offer its life for yours. In essence you were saying, “I want to live a more comfortable and disease free life, take the life of this child so I can have the life I want.” You would then be appeasing the gods by giving the child’s life for your own.[1]

The temples for worship were full of pornographic art in the form of idols and carvings. The way they worshiped was through prostitution and perverse sexual acts that could even involve family members. It’s too gross and ugly to describe in detail here. It’s enough to know that many of the ways that these people would worship is against the law here in America and punishable by serious time in prison. [2]

God had commanded the nation of Israel to push the Canaanites out. First, for justice in the case of those who had been oppressed, injured and even murdered as part of the pagan worship practices.  And second, so that the nation of Israel would not be tempted to worship false gods and follow the Canaanite ways.

That’s the background. Take a moment to read Judges 1:1-2:6. Read the whole thing and then come back and we will look at some important details togetehr. For the sake of brevity I’m just going to reference parts of the this passage as we talk about it and so I want it open before you and in the back of your mind as we discuss everything. So go ahead and take a moment to read. This page will still be here.

It is important for the nation of Israel to obey the Lord and push the Canaanites out of the land. They are in the middle of the task when Joshua dies and a crisis emerges. Joshua was a brilliant military leader who walked with God. Now that he is gone, there is no clear leader and no clear way forward. What do you do when you lose the leadership of someone you love and trust as a godly leade

You may lose a leader, but you won’t lose the Lord.

I think at this point it is important for us to draw on the fact that all godly leaders always point to the One greater than themselves… they point us to Jesus. In my case I had a great and godly dad but a stroke really changed his personality. Just because I lost my dad’s leadership didn’t mean that the Lord stopped caring about me. I might have lost a leader, but I didn’t lose the Lord. In fact my dad’s mission as a godly father was to point me to the Lord. He was like a shadow. The real leader was Jesus and my dad was evidence of what it looks like when God moves in someone’s life.

A couple of years ago, my son asked why he couldn’t see God. (It’s been a long standing rule in our family that you don’t draw God).  I explained that God is like the wind.[3] You don’t see wind; all you see are its effects.  It fills a sail and moves a boat. It blows a hat off a man. It pushes a windmill. There are lots of ways to see the wind move even though you can’t see it. It’s the same with God; there are lots of ways to see Him move, even though you don’t see him with your naked eye. There are miracles of healing, there are miracles of reconciliation that take place in our families, there are changes in your temperament and attitude as you continue to submit your life to God. Each one of these things are finger prints, evidence of God’s work.

Godly leaders are one of those things that God gives us that point to Him. We see God move in their life and our lives our better because of it. They bring the best out in us. They point us to the scriptures. They challenge us. They help our faith grow. Leaders like this are like shadows. Their substance, their influence, their weight isn’t rooted in who they are, but in who God is. Their whole life, their whole existence is to point us to the greater reality… God. When we lose a godly leader to sickness, death, or even God’s call to go somewhere else it can seem like God has abandoned us, but when this occurs it is important to remember, “we may have lost a leader, but we haven’t lost the Lord.”

It seems like at first the nation of Israel totally gets this. Joshua dies, they seek the Lord, they get directions and they start to finish the job of pushing the Canaanites out.  We get a snapshot of the conquest. They are kicking booty and taking names. All is good in the land of Israel.

Not long into the conquest, the nation starts to make compromises. Instead of looking fiercely different than the people they are kicking out, they start to behave like them. Then they allow them to live in the land. Finally we have a land of Canaanites and Israelites. This mix of people leads to a mix of worship. It isn’t long before the people of Israel are lead into the worship of false gods and a wicked kind of worship which I described earlier.

Today’s Compromise is tomorrow’s Corruption! Put another way. Your children will practice in excess what you do in moderation.

Along the way some unsightly things happen. They torture a guy but cutting of his thumbs and toes before killing him. It’s important to know that they weren’t looking for information! The city had been captured. They were having a little bit of sport at his death. This wasn’t God’s design; it was how the Canaanites did things. Indeed this poor guy understands and thinks it is alright for his captors to do this because he has done the same thing to seventy other kings (Judges 1:6-7).[4]

Then when they see an enemy that has superior battlefield technology known as the iron chariot, they choose not to fight (Judges 1:19). This is actually in direct violation of one of God’s commands to his people as they enter the land. It was spelled out for them in very clear terms by Moses:

“When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 20:1 ESV)

The people in Joshua’s time went up against unbeatable odds and won. They took down the wall of Jericho just by marching around it for a week and yelling at the top of their lungs. The people of the land were afraid of the Israelites because God was giving them amazing victory after victory in the land. Yet here Israel stops and their knees knock together and they pee their tunics because in their heart they think that there is no way they can take on an army with chariots. They have forgotten that the Lord can take care of any challenge that comes their way.

They make further compromises by allowing a guy to live if he just tells them where the secret entrance to his city is (again they are dealing with their own military brilliance rather than relying on God). He tells them and so they let him and his family go. He goes down the road a little way and then sets up shop, builds a homestead and names a town the same name as the one the Israelites have just destroyed (Judges 1:22-26).

Each compromise is worse than the one before until they are finally the nation of Israel is able and powerful enough to kick out the Canaanites, but they decide to make them slaves instead (Judges 1:35). They had the power and dominance to kick these folks out just as God had commanded but instead they make them slave laborers. This is in total defiance to God’s command.

Imagine that you have cancer and the doctor has to go in to operate? He has to remove a tumor from your body and it is very important that he get all of it. In fact they go ahead and set up a chemo or radiation schedule for after the surgery just in case one tiny bit accidentally gets left behind. Cancer is BAD and they are willing to put you through some rough stuff just to nuke it.

Now imagine that you have had the surgery and the doctor comes in to tell you about the operation. He says that he has tickets to the Alabama game on Saturday and while he could have taken more time to make sure he got the entire tumor it was more convenient for him to be done so he could get on the road.  He’s pretty sure that he got at least half of the tumor but there is a pretty big amount still left… How would you feel?

Cancer isn’t a joke!!!  And neither was the conquest of the land of Canaan. By leaving the Canaanites there in the land, not only have they disobeyed God, but they have also left a dangerous cancer of Baal worship. It is a cancer that spreads and will plague Israel for generations.

      Disobedience in Deadly

So I’m sure the people of the nation of Israel were patting themselves on the back. They had successfully conquered the land… sort of. I mean they did leave a lot behind but it looked pretty good at the moment.

Our old house is for sale and I recently mowed the lawn. Right now the lawn looks amazing. My front yard is made up of mostly weeds and a little bit of grass. The thing I like about mowing is that for a short while the lawn looks semi decent because all the weeds are cut down to the same height as the grass. But give my yard a week and it will look like a jungle again. You see by mowing my weeds down, I haven’t taken the time to really deal with them. I’ve just made them look alright for a while. If you really want to deal with a weed you have to get to its root; either drop in some poison that will kill it down to the root or pull the whole thing out, roots and all. There is no way to effectively deal with weeds without dealing with the root.

It was the same way with the Baal worship in the land of Canaan. They settled for a good mowing back rather than a total removal. Their children would be plagued by the people they failed to remove. The Lord even appears to them again and says that since they didn’t remove the altars to the false gods that they would become a snare to their children (Judges 2:1-5).

You see our sin always affects more than just us. You may think that your private habit of looking at dirty pictures doesn’t affect anyone, but it changes your attitude, it changes how you see other people. Those private moments aren’t so private when they affect the way you treat your spouse, your sister, your mother, your girlfriend, your daughter, your neighbor.

Your gossip goes beyond your friends. It gets back eventually. You can’t be trusted even by your friends anymore because they are afraid you will gossip about them. It’s ruining your friendships. Those lies you tell, they’ll be found out. People will see you as a liar, but what’s worse is they will feel betrayed because they trusted you.

Here is what sin unchecked in your life does! It festers and grows. Anger begets anger, lust begets more lust, a sharp tongue only grows sharper.  You tell yourself that it will get better over time and that you will outgrow it, but the truth is without serious intervention you will repeat the same sins over and over. In fact you will perfect the  sins you dabble in. Unchecked, you will practice them until you don’t even think about what you are doing. Your conscience no longer pricks you when you berate your children, stare at someone elses spouse, or still from your employer.  Sin grows. It doesn’t die unless you rip it out by the root and ripping it out by the root is work.

One of the famous dead guys I like to read goes by the name of John Owen once wrote, “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” The point is that apart from some serious intervention and honest reflection before God that the small sins in your life today will be full blown nightmares tomorrow.

So how do you kill sin? The answer is you can’t do it on your own. You must seek the Lord. He’s the only one who can truly take care of your sin for you. The nation of Israel should have trusted God to take on the iron chariots in the valley and you also to need to trust God and take on the sin in your life.  It begins with confession. You agree with God that you have sin in your life that needs dealt with. It progresses toward genuine repentance. Real repentance is turning from your sin and to God. So if you have stolen, you give stuff back. If you are a liar, you start telling the truth. If you look at porn you get accountability, You haven’t repented until you have turned from sin to God.

Don’t get lost here. Don’t start down the path and stop. That’s like mowing the weeds. It will come back. You press into Jesus! You take every thought captive! You know the word of God so when a false guilt or shame arises you can say, “That’s not who I am anymore.”

The amazing thing is that he takes you as you are! He does all the real work! All you do is run to him and never look back. Are you there today? Are you ready to lay aside these things that have been holding you back and press into Jesus?

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[1] I think here it is important to note that we in America practice something similar. There are 1.5 million abortions performed each year. 1 in 6 women have had an abortion. To cause an abortion a provider may injects a baby with poison or  inserts a surgical instrument into the baby and tears it apart, or provides a poison for the mother to ingest which causes the baby to starve and suffocate to death.

[2] I think at this point it’s worth noting that the false gods/ idols that the people of the land of Canaan served required a lot of gross and immoral things at their hands including the burning children alive, child molestation, incest, sexual acts with animals, homosexuality, and necromancy  (see Leviticus 18:6-30, Deuteronomy 18:9-14). The Canaanites primarily worshiped Baal. Baal was a weather god. To a culture that depended on rain for crops, weather mattered. They believed that when Baal was aroused to make love with Ashtoreth (another Canaanite god) that it rained. To get Baal to do his thing, they would demonstrate perverse sexual acts in hopes that he would get the idea. The Canaanites believed the god’s must be manipulated into compliance. This type of worship of this false god destroyed lives.

[3] Actually I first explained that God is not visible to the human eye because he isn’t made of a material substance and thus not bound by the laws of physics, but the fact that physics exists is a sign of his existence. Then I went with the wind analogy.

[4] More than likely this is a slight exaggeration on his part.