Good Tuesday morning my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
I wonder what images come to your mind when you hear the word “TEST”? Perhaps school classrooms and those dreaded experiences where you and I felt inadequate or ignorant? Or maybe the word “test’ gives you an image of a hospital and someone coming at you with a needle? Or maybe you are an athlete or military person, and you immediately think about battlefield competition?
Did you know GOD often allows situations to develop which will TEST us? WHAT? Oh yes, my friends. God tests our faith; our integrity; our commitment to vows we’ve made; our courage; our reliability; our understanding of His truth; and many other aspects of life.
In the “Grand Narrative” journey we’re with the ‘next generations’ of Israelites who are growing up in the Land of God’s Promise. Most have been born in this land and by the time we reach Judges 3 & 4, NONE of the Israelites alive knew anything about Egypt or the 40 years in the desert except by stories they’d heard from their parents and grandparents.
That is why God made this powerful statement in Judges 2:21 “I will no longer drive out any of the nations Joshua left when he died. I will use them to TEST Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their ancestors did.” Oh my, that is a powerful statement, isn’t it? God intentionally allowed wicked people to live near the Israelites and stay in their wickedness so they would be a living TEST for God’s people! Look around where you live today, do you see any evidence of this in your city?
Have you ever heard someone say, or perhaps you have even thought, ‘Why does God allow so much wickedness to be so prevalent in our world’? Well, Judges 3:1 further explains God’s reasons: “These are the nations the LORD left to TEST all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan: the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains. They were left to TEST the Israelites to see if they would obey the LORD’s commands, which He had given their ancestors through Moses.”
Amazingly, if you look at a map today and compare it to the geography and the people groups God mentions here in Judges 3, the Philistine five rulers are the ancient ancestors of modern-day Hamas, and both then and now they claim the coastal Gaza Strip region as their territory. The Sidonians and Hivites are ancient ancestors of Hezbollah and claim the region up north in modern Lebanon!
So what was the TEST God was putting before the Israelites? I think it was three tests, and I think you and I face them in 2025.
1. First test... will we choose to nurture the relationship with God which HE has designed us for?
The instructions God gave the Israelites we have recently reviewed in the Bible books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua. Both with Moses and Joshua TWO generations of Israelites had entered into a covenant with God promising they would live as His God honoring people, in obedience to His instructions. But they failed miserably…what about us?
2. Second test... will we recognize the evil, the wickedness of the dark kingdom all around us and will we take necessary steps to protect our hearts and minds from being fascinated with or attracted into that darkness?
The Israelites were surrounded by it in Egypt and as soon as they entered God’s Promised Land. You and I are surrounded by it and more, we are deluged by the avalanche of media and technology almost all of which is attempting to draw us away from God and into the darkness. So… how are we doing with protecting our hearts and minds?
3. Third test... for the Israelites WORD OF MOUTH was their most powerful means of communication and their greatest responsibility was to pass along to their children and grandchildren all their experiences with God and the truths of God which they had learned.
In our day this is just as serious a responsibility, but it is significantly more complex because our kids and grandkids live in a media/technology immersed, and now AI oriented world, and our voices can be so easily drowned out by all the other noise they hear or watch or read!
Pause… so what do you think about those three tests, my friends? How have our families, our ancestors, dealt with those tests and what about you and me, how are we doing in those very significant real-life TESTS?
Sadly, Judges 3:5 gives us this ‘report card’ of the Israelite performance after Joshua had died: “The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizites, Hivites and Jebusites. The Israelites took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to the sons of these other peoples, and even served their gods!! The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs…” (Judges 3:5-7) Oh my that sounds like a failing grade on their test, would you agree? Only this isn’t a math or biology or geography test. This is a test of life and failing in life brings huge consequences, do you agree?
Do you remember Moses’ final farewell challenge to the people? “Now choose life so that you and your children may live, that you may love the LORD your God, listen to His voice, hold fast to Him, for the LORD is your life!” (Deut. 30:19,20) And do you remember Joshua’s farewell challenge one generation later? “Choose you this day whom you will serve, as for me and my household we will serve the LORD!” (Joshua 24:14,15) Well, here we are only a couple of generations later and God is handing out His report card for His people and they have failed badly on all counts!
So, what is the price of God TEST failure my friends? Well, Failure in the test of staying faithful to your marriage vows is destruction of trust, broken hearts and often divorce! Failure to the test of personal purity is often the shame and bondage of a porn or deceitfulness addiction! Failure to the test of self-control is often out of control anger which leads us to say or do things we’ll regret the rest of our lives.
But what about failure in the test of protecting and nurturing our relationship with God or failure in the test of protecting God’s truth in our hearts and minds? Listen to God’s response to the Test failure of these Israelites: “The anger of the LORD burned against these Israelites so that He sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram to whom the Israelites were subject for 8 years.” (Judges 3:8) Oh my now that sounds serious! And yes, it was! These Israelites were only two or three generations removed from the Egyptian slavery of their great-grandparents and yet their abysmal moral and spiritual failure led to their living under the domination of a regional enemy, the king of Aram!
Do you see a strong similarity to how and why their ancestors had become enslaved in Egypt? Those descendants of Jacob had, you remember, fallen in love with living in the bounty of Egypt and lost any desire to return home to the land God had provided their ancestors and gradually they became more and more under the domination and then inescapable enslavement to Egypt!
Here, a few generations later their descendants fell in love with and married into the wicked nations around Israel and of course embraced the worship of their man-made idols of those wicked people. So, for 8 years they had a taste of the slavery bondage of their ancestors! Oh the price of failing God’s moral and spiritual tests of protecting your soul from wickedness and helping your children and grandchildren do the same!
I think it wise that we pause right here, for this gives us a great deal to think about, and tomorrow we’ll see what God did in response to their cries for God’s help. Meanwhile it’s so important today we look closely to see how we are doing with the God tests I mentioned and how is God evaluating our test results?
Some really great additional, thought-provoking notes are available at the “Grand Narrative” link just below and of course if you like to worship, scroll down to the worship song at the bottom of this page as we join the ‘Sounds Like Reign family’. Oh what difference might it have made for those Israelites if this song had been their song? And I’ll be here waiting for you tomorrow…
Today’s Scripture: Judges 3-4.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Judges 4
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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