Turning away from God, the idol-worshiping Israelites suffered foreign invasion and devastation. Finally, desperate for relief, they turned to God, and God raised up a deliverer, Jephthah. This passage leads us from the treacherous leadership of Abimelek, to Issachar and to Jair who led Israel in peace.  In the next generation, however, the Israelites began to worship all the gods of the cultures living around them.  It always happens slowly until God is no longer their God. This sin of bending to manmade gods and rejecting the God of Israel led to doing all things evil “in the eyes of the Lord.”  They need forgiveness and deliverance yet again.  God’s first response of reprimand was, “Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”  Ouch. But God wants them to realize what their habitual cycles of sin are doing to them, their families and most of all, their relationship with God who loves them still.

God’s love is like no other love.  God’s love is unchanging and forever.  But does this mean we can take advantage of God, knowing that even if we turn our faces from him and do what we want, He will still love and get us out of trouble? This is dangerous ground to walk!  God knows our hearts—better than we know our hearts—which are deceitful at times.  God stands ready to discipline us as a loving Father who wants His best for us.

God knows our sin with what we deserve but replaces our punishment with his unending grace. However, He will allow us to live with the consequences of our sin while strengthening our faith in Him in the maturing process.  When we want our own way so bad we test God’s love; we sin against Him.  We hurt ourselves and all who are around us in the fallout of our foolishness. God knows what is best to teach us His ways that are perfect and holy to combat all that is unholy in us. 

A man named Jephthah, born of a prostitute, rejected and later sent away from his family, will be the very one who God will use to rescue His beloved Israelites from rejecting Him.  God has a habit of choosing the unlikely in the eyes of man to do what others cannot and will not—rescue and save.  In this passage we are introduced but tomorrow we will see how God will use the “rejected one” to rescue his people.           

Judges 10

Tola

10 After the time of Abimelek, a man of Issachar named Tola son of Puah, the son of Dodo, rose to save Israel. He lived in Shamir, in the hill country of Ephraim. ² He led Israel twenty-three years; then he died, and was buried in Shamir.

Jair

³ He was followed by Jair of Gilead, who led Israel twenty-two years. ⁴ He had thirty sons, who rode thirty donkeys. They controlled thirty towns in Gilead, which to this day are called Havvoth Jair. ⁵ When Jair died, he was buried in Kamon.

Jephthah

⁶ Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the Lord and no longer served him, ⁷ he became angry with them. He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites, ⁸ who that year shattered and crushed them. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead, the land of the Amorites. ⁹ The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim; Israel was in great distress. ¹⁰ Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, “We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.”

¹¹ The Lord replied, “When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, ¹² the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands? ¹³ But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. ¹⁴ Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”

¹⁵ But the Israelites said to the Lord, “We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.” ¹⁶ Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.

¹⁷ When the Ammonites were called to arms and camped in Gilead, the Israelites assembled and camped at Mizpah. ¹⁸ The leaders of the people of Gilead said to each other, “Whoever will take the lead in attacking the Ammonites will be head over all who live in Gilead.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

THE PROBLEM

If there is ever a time in our lives, (and there will be for all have sinned), when we think we can live without God and He won’t know it…think again!  “Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”  This is God allowing His people to live with what they have chosen—a life without Him. 

THE SOLUTION

Turning away from God, the idol-worshiping Israelites suffered foreign invasion and devastation. Finally, desperate for relief, they turned to God, and God raised up a deliverer, Jephthah.  The act of getting rid of foreign gods was an act of “putting to death” as Paul writes all the sins that stand between God and His people.  This act was a desperate, humbled attempt to show God the realization of their sins against Him along with honest, sincere confession of those sins. When we come to the end of ourselves, God is there.  God was always there.  God waits until we come into His Presence seeking His love, mercy, and grace.  That’s why God’s love is unlike any other we can think or imagine.  And that’s why there is no one like our God!  No other god can be or do what our God has done, is doing, and will do!  God was, is and always will be God—not matter what we believe at any given moment.

God is faithful even when we are not. God’s love is unchanging, unending, and relentless.  God wants us to love Him back. God looks for those whose hearts are honestly seeking and seriously committed to Him.  “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9 This verse adds— “how foolish you have been”—whenwe turn our hearts to anything other than God.  “From now on you will always be at war.”  We live with the choices we make.  But God can and does intervene when we pray like Jesus taught us: “May Your will be done” and we believe, trust, and obey His will.

“God loves you just the way you are. If you think his love for you would be stronger if your faith were, you are wrong. If you think his love would be deeper if your thoughts were, wrong again. Don’t confuse God’s love with the love of people. The love of people often increases with performance and decreases with mistakes. Not so with God’s love. He loves you right where you are. To quote my wife’s favorite author:

God’s love never ceases. Never. Though we spurn him. Ignore him. Reject him. Despise him. Disobey him. He will not change. Our evil cannot diminish his love. Our goodness cannot increase it. Our faith does not earn it any more than our stupidity jeopardizes it. God doesn’t love us less if we fail or more if we succeed. God’s love never ceases.

God loves you just the way you are, but he refuses to leave you that way.” –Max Lucado, The Encouraging Word Bible

OUR RESPONSE

“The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” Psalm 37:23

God’s Word tells us He “delights in all the details” of our lives.  Tell God, He loves to listen at a time in our world most people only listen long enough to prepare a response of only their opinion without understanding.  God hears and understands! 

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26

Isn’t it great to know that God not only can change our hearts but even desires to do so? Allow God to cleanse our hearts of all that is impure, ungodly while removing all that does not belong.  Here is a prayer of the Psalmist that I pray often;

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” Psalm 51:10-12, ESV

Lord,

May the desires of YOUR heart match my desires.  Change my heart that transforms my behaviors to demonstrate my love, trust, and faith in you.

In Jesus Name, Amen