Reading: Judges 1.
As we have pointed out, the tragedy of Judges is made all the
more noticeable because it follows the book of Joshua. These two
read together creates such a change in your feeling as you come
from the one to the other, that you become heartsick after seeing
all the wonders of those Joshua days, all the possibilities of the
Divine intention, all the hope, the great things of Joshua and
what the will of God was. And then you came into Judges and see
the sequel.
We have a counterpart of these two books in our own dispensation.
We have the Joshua state of things in the book of the Acts - a
wonderful story of spiritual conquest, triumph, ascendency, the
mighty things by the right hand of the Lord. Then, before the New
Testament closes, you move into the Judges condition of things and
find yourself right there with the first Revelation: seven
messages to the churches. Before that you find Judges conditions
coming in at Corinth, creeping in at Galatia and other parts, and
today we are undoubtedly in the Judges condition of things. There
is widespread spiritual failure, a state very largely of weakness,
defeat and disappointment which is proved (as it is proved in the
book of Judges) to be so by the fact that so many things which are
not according to it, but very contrary to the Lord's mind, have
got the upper hand among the Lord's people. There are things
outside the Lord's purpose that are in the ascendency, and the
Lord's people are in bondage to much that is contrary to the will
of God.
We come back in a moment to speak of that in a more specific way,
but here you have this book of Judges representing a state of
things so contrary to what God intended... so much less than the
Lord willed for His people. Rather than a state of universal glory
and victory and joy and praise, there is a state almost entirely
of groaning under oppression, sighing by reason of weakness,
helplessness and bondage. What was really of God was found in
secret places among a few hidden away somewhere - such as Gideon
threshing his wheat behind the wall for fear of the Midianites -
just like that. And I think that we recognise that we are in the
Judges condition of things spiritually today. Recognising the
condition, we have to enquire as to the fundamental cause. What
lies at the root of this state of things? The chapter we have read
tells us plainly what the cause of it all was in their case and
the same cause lies at the root of things always when there is a
state of spiritual weakness and failure. That constant
reiteration, nine times: "they could not drive them out" or
"they drove them not out" goes to the root of everything
and lies behind the whole state and condition.
As we said at the beginning, it is by reason of failure to go on
with the Lord into all the fulness that the Lord intended.
Somewhere there was a hesitation, a reservation, an argument to
debate, a question; somewhere there was a holding back. At some
point there was a counting of the cost with the result that a line
of less resistance was adopted. Somewhere some little personal
interest was taken account of. Somewhere something that the Lord
had demanded should be utterly slain was spared. Somewhere the
Lord had put His finger upon something and said "that must go"
and it was not done away with. The Lord had required a movement,
another step to be taken, and the step was not taken; somewhere a
little bit of flesh which had to be completely yielded up to the
Cross was spared. And whenever such things happen, such
reservations, sparing, personal considerations, failure to go
right on... whenever that takes place, immediately there is a
compromise; the enemy gains advantage. And the power of God's
people was lessened and they found themselves having released
forces of evil which gradually, slowly worked to get the upper
hand until they found themselves almost helplessly and hopelessly
in something less than God intended for them.
God had intended fulness, absoluteness, finality, supremacy,
sovereignty, but for one or other, or more of those various
reasons, they had failed to just move with God as His Spirit would
lead, and in that failure they had not only come to a standstill
themselves, but they had opened the door to some positive evil to
come in and occupy the ground which they ought to have occupied
themselves, in the name of the Lord. So they were not up to that
standard, but they were in bondage and they found that eventually
when they did not cast the enemies out, eventually they could not
cast them out. It works like that, from the stage of not doing it,
you are not able to do it. This is always the history of not going
on with the Lord. Oh, that the Lord would stress this in our hearts
by this tremendous presentation of spiritual facts... that He
would press home upon us that it is the most perilous thing to
have any question about going on with the Lord, to stand still for
a moment when He says go on; to allow any other consideration to
come in and influence us when He has told us what we should do.
And I want you to notice this, that one party doing that
influenced all the rest. It is an impressive thing that all these
people are gathered into this state of things and they are
interrelated in it. They do not live or die to themselves. It is
not dealing with an isolated party, it is the influence and effect
of each upon all the rest - a matter of tremendous responsibility.
We have an illustration in the case of Judah; always the leading
tribe in going out to battle. They were the leaders in the
conflict, and Judah means "Praise". It is interesting to notice
that praise is always intended by the Lord to lead the way into
battle and to always go into the Lord's battles praising is a sign
you have the victory before you strike a blow. Judah went so far
and then stopped short and did not finish the thing and so the
very praise of a full victory was cut short.
Immediately you go into battle with half a sound, not full
praise, full certain assurance, glorying in the Lord, you
know you are only going to have half a victory. There is going to
be something lost; you are not going to get right through to what
the Lord intended. Judah stopping short, meaning what Judah did,
had an effect upon all the rest and you find all the others
stopping short as well. If there is one man or woman connected to
the will of God, some company of His people in the body of Christ
meet face to face with something the Lord has called upon them to
do, and they stop short half or three quarters of the way and do
not go right through, this has an arresting force upon the rest.
One man or woman in a fellowship so vitally related in the spirit
has the power of arresting all the others spiritually and holding
up the full purpose of God. Not simply because they are not
personally going on with the Lord, but because they become the
gateway for the entrance of some arresting power of the enemy;
immediately they stop, the enemy comes in with some spiritual
influence and checks the whole action of the Lord's people.
Go to the New Testament and you find this. At Corinth one man was
holding up the whole assembly because there was something there
God had said must go - idolatry. Because that man was there, the
whole fellowship at Corinth was involved, and the apostle gave
clear instructions that the fellowship were to take responsibility
for this and judge it. They were to deal with it. This brings you
to the point in Judges. Why are these people called Judges? Of
course it represents an official capacity, or position, but it
represents something more, for you see it was in the day of the
Judges that the state of things prevailing was broken into,
arrested, and reversed. Read it again, that while this one judged,
things were reversed, but immediately the judge died, things went
wrong again.
Another Judge arose; things were arrested, put right for a time;
immediately he died, things went wrong again.
We were speaking of Othniel in the previous chapter. Othniel
judged Israel and went out to battle. There has to be judgment
inside before you go out to battle. If we are going out to
conquest, to victory, we must first judge things that are not
according to God, otherwise there is no hope of success whatever.
The Judges principle must come in as a great active spiritual
principle. There has to be a judgment of wrong on the inside
before you can go out against the enemy with any hope of success
whatever. So the Judges made it their business to deal with the
internal conditions. See how it happened every time.
Immediately Gideon was chosen, the angel of the Lord said by way
of introduction, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of
valour." It is a poor valour threshing wheat behind a wall
for fear of the Midianites! But the Lord knows His vessel and what
He can make of a vessel when He gets one. Gideon said "Oh my lord,
if the Lord is with us why then is all this befallen us?" - a
heart-searching question. Do you notice the result of that inward
exercise of heart as to questioning the state of his people? The
result was that he overthrew the altars, cut down the groves and
destroyed all the false worship in his Father's house, in the
family circle. He got to the heart of things. He found the answer
to his own question. For a man to be a judge, he must judge within
his own circle what is not according to God. Gideon would have
been absolutely worsted before the Midianites if he had not judged
things in his immediate circle of influence. Judgment must begin
at the House of God. There has to be a clearing up of things where
the enemy is in possession; [there has to be] occupation or ascendancy within
the company of the Lord's people before there can be any
hope of triumph.
That is the book of Judges. Othniel, Ehud and Deborah judged
Israel and then things were according to the Lord's mind, and it
was manifest that the Lord was with them, so that the principle of
the very title "Judge" is that there has to be an internal
examination as to whether things are according to God. There has
to be a judging of all that which is not according to God or, to
come back to the specific thought of a moment ago, we have got to
look at God's exercising of our hearts. Has the Lord shown me
anything? Spoken to my heart about something? Sought to lead me in
a certain way? Raised a question in me about a certain thing?
Exercised me in any matter whatever? What am I to do about it?
Unless I immediately face up to that and give the Lord what He
requires, respond, obey, and go all the way with the Lord without
any question or hesitation, unless at the greatest cost I go on
with the Lord, not only do I come to a standstill and the Lord in
that measure departs from me, but I let in a positive thing which
makes it ten times harder for me to go on presently. It brings in
an arresting power in the work of God where He has placed me and
in that measure I affect the whole and rob it of the fulness that
God intended for it.
It is a solemn responsibility for anyone to
fail to go on with the Lord, to be spoken to on any matter by the
Lord and then to hold back. It involves the honour of the Lord and
in the spiritual realm gives a great advantage to the enemy who
never fails to take that advantage, but subtly, secretly begins to
work upon that, as those nations in the land; to seize upon it and
gradually, almost imperceptibly to use the vantage to gain the
upper hand. And before long there is the whole terrible story of
ascendency of evil forces and the arresting of the work of God and
people of God and you track it down and find the secret there; at
some point someone has made a reservation and did not go all the
way with the Lord as shown them.
I am restrained from hurrying past these things - it may be plain
to some of you here; it may explain something in the past of your
life which has to be faced up to, or a warning for days to come.
Whatever it may be, do take this to heart.
The book of Judges is the largest portion in Scripture
representing spiritual weakness and has its explanation: it is
that the people did not go on with the Lord. The land was before
them; God said, "Possess and utterly destroy", and they said, "It
is a pity to destroy some of these things... cannot we make use of
them, turn them to account?" The land represents the flesh. We
were saying in the previous chapter that Othniel had to face the
flesh, but in every one of these there is a conflict with the
flesh in some different form. All these battles were different -
Amalekites, Amorites, Philistines or Moabites or whatever it may
be - you have the flesh in some form. They were sometimes very
pleasing forms in a sense, sometimes coming very near to the
spiritual thing, an imitation of it. But the Lord had commanded
these things should not be regarded as possible of being of use,
but that they should be destroyed. There should be no compromise
whatever.
We pointed out that the sparing of one fragment of this whole
system gave occasion for the setting up of something which was an
imitation and represented something more to be overcome. We
mentioned the case of the man at Bethel. When they came to Bethel,
the children of Joseph, to take the city, the Lord had given it
into their hands - assured them of victory - but they dropped down
on to this much lower level of asking this fellow to show them the
way in and they would deal kindly with him, and in order to save
himself he shows them the way in among his own people for their
destruction. He escapes and builds another city so that instead of
one evil to deal with, they now have two. He calls it "Bethel" - an
imitation, not the House of God. They let a mere fragment of this
system go, dealt kindly with it, and thereby released a power
which set up something definitely opposed to the will of God. And
whenever - to get an advantage, an easier way - we begin to deal
kindly with a fragment of the flesh, because it is going to serve
some advantage, when you do that you have released something which
is going to construct something else which will be harder to
overcome and set up a construction which is a lie, which pretends
to be something which it is not.
The enemy says, "If only you will not take that step, if only you
will take the line of least resistance, it will not cost you so
much... you will not bring so much trouble upon yourself..." - the
Lord says, "No! Not one bit, not one scrap is to be let off; all
has to go." And we discover eventually, that this is the way of
power, victory, ascendency, whereas that which we sought to
preserve in order to get something to our advantage has become the
source of weakness and has robbed us of our power and victory.
These are solemn words; let them come to our hearts in all their
spiritual meaning. Forget the symbolism that has to be used. The
Lord Jesus always spoke in parables. These are, in a sense,
parables. The Lord would say to us, "What about your exercise
before the Lord?" What is the Lord saying to you about something,
some way of life or a habit, something that has delayed His will
for you, a step to be taken? There are people here, (one is
grieved to say it), who have heard, seen, and nothing could be
clearer to them, but they have not taken certain steps of
obedience to the Lord. And may that not be some explanation of a
smaller measure of Divine spiritual power than there might be? Are
you sure that you have gone all the way, up till this present
moment, that the Lord has called you to go? Can you sit down and
make up your accounts with the Lord? We must be able to say:
"Everything that the Lord has shown me I have, by His grace, put
down. There are no more items outstanding before the Lord".
If we hold outstanding items in the margin, it is going to bring
arrest and let in a power which is going to make it a hundred
times more difficult for you in a few weeks or months time, and
which is going to affect the whole body of Christ in some loss. It
is solemn but it is true. We may fail to go on.
Let us go to Paul on this matter. He said to the Corinthians,
"Brethren I could not speak to you as unto spiritual but as unto
carnal... I fed you with milk, not with meat for ye were not able
to bear it, for when every one of you says I am of Paul and I of
Apollos are ye not carnal?" These are personal elements, personal
preferences, likes and dislikes being let in, with what result? "I
could not speak unto you as unto spiritual." This is what he
means, in the same paragraph: "Things which eye hath not
seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man,
the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God
hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit". The Lord has
prepared for us here and now a fulness in the Lord Jesus, a Canaan
life of His fulness in Christ. "For all the fulness dwelleth in
the Lord Jesus and you are made complete (or full) in Him". The
Lord wants us to come into the fulness now.
We are saints in the light now, and if we are not in the light, we
ought to be. When we get to glory there is an inheritance for the
sons in light, prepared for them that love Him, but "I cannot
speak to you as unto spiritual", so that you are not getting "the
things that God hath prepared". There is the same thing to the
Hebrew believers, in Heb. 5:12: "Of whom I have many things to say
but I cannot, ye are not able to bear them, because seeing that
when by reason of time ye ought to be teachers, you still have
need that one teach you the first principles of Christ... Of whom
I have many things to say but ye cannot have them". Why? You have
stopped short somewhere; you have not gone on. The Corinthians and
Hebrews had not only stopped growing, but were in peril of the
enemy making a mess of things; he was doing it at Corinth and
about to do it among the Hebrew believers. We must go on without
compromise or reservation; it is the only safe way into all the
fulness. We must not hold back and whatever has occasioned this
state of things, or is trying to occasion such a state of things,
must be judged. The Judges have got to come in.
The Lord give us grace to judge ourselves. That does not mean a
morbid introspection, always analysing ourselves. That is the way
of bondage. The whole question of judging self is in relation to
the Lord. Has the Lord shown anything, spoken anything, required
anything; has the Lord made known? You can rest if the Lord has
not made known; do not begin to enquire in your own spirit as to
whether you should do this, that or the other. Keep the Lord in
view; keep in touch with Him and when He speaks, obey, but let the
Lord take the initiative, give Him a chance to take the
initiative. He does not want us to take on the whole burden of our
spiritual life. He just wants to lead us that we might walk
closely with Him and maintain a line of instant and full
obedience. If we can say, "Whatever the Lord has shown me I have
sought diligently, by His grace, to do without hesitation", then
we should be in a state of peace, rest, victory and praise. So
advance into the battle, for you will never be able to fight if
you have some reservation or argument with the Lord.
I think this is the key to everything else we can say; all that
will follow is simply a working out of that. What the Lord wants
is our full capitulation and yieldedness in absolute obedience. I
expect for some this brings no specific ground of challenge, and
you are able to look into the face of the Lord and say, "I do not
know of anything the Lord has shown me that I have refused or
shelved". That is a blessed state, and it is possible to be in
that state, but remember you may meet a desperate situation and
you will want to know how to meet that situation.
In nine cases out of ten, spiritual bondage can be traced back to
be a refusal to go on with the Lord in the will of God. The man of
God must be thoroughly furnished unto his work. This must first of
all come as a challenge to our own hearts, and we must have our
own exercise before God, but He must also equip us for that into
which we are called because we are related to the spiritual
condition of God's people everywhere. Every one of these judges
suffered acutely, personally, from the conditions of the people
and that is what made them able to become judges. And if the Lord
is going to use an instrument for the deliverance of others, He
must bring that instrument into a personal experience related to
the whole condition as it is in the world today. The Lord does
want to recover something which is to His glory. He must impress
His own Word upon our hearts.