Apostasy Is at The Door Knocking

"Apostasy Is at The Door Knocking" - Judges 2:11-23 Of the emergence (going forth) of a new generation, which was so entirely devoted to the things of the world, "that they cared very little for the true God and the service they were to render to Him, that they easily drifted into the false gods and their abominable superstitions. In Deuteronomy 6:5 God commands them what they must do: "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might." Disobedience led to the sad situation of verse 10. Lack of spiritual “leadership" (your father) results in corresponding disobedience from God's people. The previous (former) generation "had not taught their children the fear" of Jehovah "or to keep His commandments." The neglect (carelessness), your lack of attention (turning away from the Lord), of the parents produced the apostasy (rejection of God, the first apostate as such was Lucifer himself, the denial of the faith) of their children.

I. Israel forsook "their God."

A. It wasn't to someone unknown.

1. By and large, they did the wrong thing.

2. Nothing worse could they do than to provoke God in this way.

3. Nothing could be more detrimental to them.

4. They did it before Jehovah's eyes. (v. 11).

5. (v. 12) They forsook the Lord; this was one of the two great evils they did; (Jeremiah 2:13) For two evils have been done by my people: a. they have left Me, the fountain of living water, and b. they have dug cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that hold no water.

a. They have made a great effort for evil by digging the cisterns.

b. Broken cisterns, that is to say, full of cracks, which do not retain water.

c. They left a source of living water, the second: they dug cisterns for themselves, "broken cisterns" that do not hold water.

d. Idols like a broken cistern, water escapes, that water is stagnant, even with all effort.

e. Source of living water.

6. They had been bound by covenant to Jehovah, but now they forsook Him, like a woman who treacherously separates herself from her husband.

7. (v. 13) Baal and Ashtaroth, all their debauchery with sin.

8. Such are the gods for whom anyone leaves God.

9. (v. 14-15) The God of Israel was provoked to anger by this and "delivered" them "into the hands of their enemies."

10. The scales of victory tipped in the opposite direction.

11. God was ready to grant success to those who had not known Him or belonged to Him, rather than to those who, after knowing and belonging to Him, had abandoned Him.

12. The balance of power was also, of course, turned against them.

13. The God of infinite mercy had compassion on them in their time of distress, even though they had been troubled by their foolishness and sin and provided them with deliverance.

14. The source of this release.

15. It sprang purely from the tender compassion of God; the reason was within "Himself" itself, not in their merits.

16. They themselves groaned under the oppression of their enemies (v. 18).

17. The instruments of their liberation.

18. God raised up judges from among them, as occasion required; men whom God enabled in extraordinary ways and with special powers to reform and deliver Israel and with whom Jehovah was to crown his undertakings with magnificent results.

19. Note:

a. That even in the days of greatest degeneration and greatest burden to the church, there will be "those who are enabled of God to revive the morbid (without strength, vigor, almost dying) and to set straight the crooked.

b. That God clothes certain men with "prudence and courage," and "gives them heart and courage" to act and venture into "difficult undertakings."

20. All who are in any way a blessing to their country are to be "regarded as a gift from God."

21. (v. 17-19) The degenerates of the people were not effectively and permanently reformed, not even by the action of the judges.

22. They had been betrothed to God, but they broke the conjugal bond and prostituted themselves to other gods.

23. Idolatry is spiritual adultery.

24. (v. 19) They were more corrupt than their fathers, as if striving to surpass them, to multiply strange gods, and to invent profane and impious forms of worship, in flagrant (obvious, clear, undoubted) contradiction to the efforts of the reformers.

25. (v. 21-23) God's just decision, therefore, to continue punishing the people with the rod of chastisement.

26. After Joshua's death, little was done, for a long time, to drive the Canaanites out of the land: Israel was forgiving (merciful, compassionate, tolerant) to them and "becoming acquainted with them," so God resolved "not to drive them out again" (21).

27. God abandoned Israel to their own fears and their own deceptions.

28. What is not taken out of life remains permanent.

29. (Romans 1:28) Similarly, people yield to their evil desires and corrupt passions, whereby God rightly delivers them into the hands of their own corruption under the power of sin, "whereupon they are hurried into utter ruin." Amen.