Judges 3

Bible Passage:  Judges 3

In Judges 2, it states that the Israelites did not obey the command of the Lord. They made covenants with the inhabitants and did not fully annihilate or drive them away from the land. Thus the Lord did not help the people to drive out the remnants and left these people and their gods to be a test to the Israelites. This test can be one that the Israelites can pass and one that they fail. Unfortunately from the start of Judges this test is a snare because of Israelite’s failure to trust in God and to obey His commands.

After the death of Joshua and the elders of Israel, the third generation Israelites was influenced by these people and their gods. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and Asherah. Who are the Baals and Asherah? According to Wikipedia, Baal can refer to any god or worship of human officials (man with authority). Asherah is a mother goddess and is considered a cult idol.

In previous Joshua blogs, a few bloggers wrote about Israel failure to fully conquer the land of Canaan and to drive out the inhabitants. In spiritual sense it is failure to conquer over our sinful self. That is an explanation centred on our spiritual cultivation and spiritual battle over our flesh. In Judges, it portrays a wider spiritual scope. The Israelites are now living in the midst of these remnant people who in spiritual sense were considered ‘worldly’ or ‘sinners’ because they are not worshippers of the True God. Moreover the gods that they worshipped can be described as idols, cults and even human worship.

This scene depicts the world today. As Christians in this end times, we are living in the midst of worldly and sinful people and in the midst of tremendous temptations of the flesh and deception of the Truth. The Israelites during that period were assimilated into their culture and their practices and even intermarried with them. As spiritual Israelites, we have to be careful in this outwardly beautiful world as deep within this façade is evil and corruption.

Jesus once prayed for us to the Heavenly Father,

“¹³ But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. ¹⁴ I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:13-15)

We are in this world but at the same time not part of this world. We are and shall not be assimilated like the Israelites or else we will face with the wrath of God if we do that. God is testing us like how He tested the Israelites and observing us in our conformance to His Will and segregation from the world.

In recent months there are many headline news of Christians that have placed Christianity in yet again negative light. Having read through the forums and the comments Singaporeans made (>8000 comments last count), it is disheartening to see that many Christians today cannot differentiate what is worldly and what is Holy. They cannot differentiate what belongs to God and what is mammon. They feel that it is perfectly all right to be boasting about their achievements and boasting of their wealth. They feel that it is perfectly all right and even encouraged to excel the corporate ladder or to be in show biz. They encourage other Christians to flaunt their fleshly asserts and conform to the world fashion. They preach that offering tithes is similar to investment and receiving material returns. They ludicrously believe that Jesus when He was on earth was materialistically rich and had lots of money in the money box and a treasurer. They believe their leaders way more than believing the Bible and defend their leaders with instances of insolence and profanity. They prefer not to judge their leaders even though the Bible has already judged them.

On the flip side, the non Christians are vehement in their attacks on Christianity. They utter profanity and mock the misled Christians. I would think during the Judges period the oppressors would probably have mocked the Israelites then for trusting in the defeated gods like Baal and Asherah instead of the Lord God. Some are anti Christians because of bad experiences with these Christians. It is pretty sad that the name of Christ is blasphemed because of these black sheep and that people are withdrawing away from Christianity due to such un-Christian like behaviours.

From all those comments, it is pretty reminiscence of these verses in the Bible.

“¹ But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: ² For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ⁴ traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” (2 Tim 3:1-5)

We should turn away from these so-called Christians and not follow their footsteps. These Christians can be likened to the Israelites being entrenched in the beliefs and culture of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Their God is not Jesus but rather their gods are their belly, mammon and their spiritual leaders. In a way they are worshipping Baal and Asherah. Their understanding of the Bible is incomplete and erroneous and they only listen and idolize their spiritual leaders. As True Jesus Church members, we have to be wary of such sins and of such muddle-headedness. We probably will not be deceived by all these blatant false teachings that are widespread in the world today but we should be watchful not to idolize our leaders knowingly or unknowingly. We should only follow Jesus and the Word of God uncompromisingly. If we compromise, we will end up like the Israelites.

May God help preserve us in this perilous time.