Gooding, David: 4 - Othniel - Part 2

Book of Judges and chapter two. And the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and he said, I made you to go up out of Egypt and have brought you unto the land which I swear unto your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars. But you have not hearkened unto my voice. Why have you done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. It came to pass, when the angel of the Lord spake these words unto all the children of Israel, that the people lifted up their voice and went. And they called the name of that place Ohi, and they sacrificed there unto the Lord. Now when Joshua had sent the people away, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work of the Lord that he had wrought for Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old. They buried him in the border of his inheritance in Temne Peres, in the hill country of Ephraim, on the north of the mountain of Gaash. And also all that generation were gathered unto their father. There arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the work which he had wrought for Israel. The children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baalim, and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods of the gods of the peoples that were round about them, and bowed themselves down unto them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord and the Ashtaroth, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. Verse six, sixteen: and the Lord raised up judges, which saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they hearkened not unto their judges, for they went a whoring after other gods and bowed themselves down unto them, and they turned aside quickly out of the way wherein their fathers walked, obeying the commandments of the law, but they did not so. And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge, for it repented the Lord because of their groaning, by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them. But it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they turned back and dealt more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and to bow down unto them. They ceased not from their doings, nor from their stubborn way. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he said, Because this nation have transgressed my covenant, which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice, I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died, that by them I may prove Israel whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk therein as their fathers did keep it, or not. So the Lord left those nations without driving them out hastily, neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua. Now these are the nations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them, even as many as had not known all the wars of Canaan, only that the generations of the children of Israel might know to teach them war, at least such as before times knew nothing thereof. The Lord write his word on our hearts and save us from like disobedience. We have found so far in our study of this book of Judges, that in order to enter and enjoy the inheritance that God gave them, the Israelites had to be prepared to judge the wickedness and sin of the Canaanite nations, and they had to be prepared to put them down and to put them to death. Last week we were, we were studying the success that they had in this operation and found it to be very varied. There were many battles fought, and thank God many of them were completely successful, as the Israelites, in obedience to God and trusting in his power and agreeing with God's judgments, executed his judgments upon the Canaanite cities. Also, we found that even when on times they couldn't drive the enemy out, they nevertheless made strong and repeated attempts to do it, so that they get full marks for trying, if full mark- if not full marks for actual success. We found also that there were some victories that in themselves were good, but were only partial, because the Israelites compromised in one way or another with the enemy. That was not altogether so praiseworthy, though some good did come of it, and the Lord, we read, was with them. Yet it had been better if they had not compromised. Alas, to add to that list, we must add numerous occasions when Israel scarcely tried at all, settled down and accepted defeat. With the result, for instance, as we read in verse thirty four of our chapter one, the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the hill country, for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley. I don't know what the Danites would have said to you if you had been inquiring, why don't you go down into the valley? Perhaps they would have said, well, we don't want to go down in the valley. You know, don't like it down there, don't like the atmosphere or something, or we prefer it up here. But the sad truth was they just jolly well couldn't go down. They had given in to these, uh, Amorites so many times now that they were virtual prisoners perched there up on top of their hill, and they couldn't come down. And we shall observe now what we shall have occasion to observe many times in future meetings, if God will. That the disobedience of Israel and their failure brought them into situations that denied some of the basic principles of their redemption. They had been slaves in Egypt, had these Israelites, hadn't they? And God had redeemed them and brought them out, yes. And never again would they in that sense be subject to the wrath of God as it stalked through the land of Egypt, and they were free, were they? Or were they doing perched up on that hilltop and scared of their lives to come down again? Oh, it's a marvelous thing to be redeemed, and we can never lose our salvation in the sense that we shall never come into condemnation. But it is possible, isn't it, to be redeemed in the sense of knowing my sins forgiven, and yet still be a prisoner of unjudged sin and unbroken habit. We shall find out on many occasions, and it will give us some gloominess of mind, I'm afraid, but they are the realities of life. It is possible for redeemed people to be living still in slavery. Because then of their manyfold failures and the consequent slaveries, we read in chapter two that the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to vote him, and as the messenger of the Lord speaks, it is plain that it is God himself in person speaking to them through this messenger. And we must spend a time listening to God's divine protest. First of all, he argues with them the folly of their disobedience, the unreason of their disobedience, the sheer ingratitude of their disobedience. I made you to go up out of Egypt, he says, and I brought you up into a land which I swear unto your fathers, and I said I will never break my covenant. Therefore, make no covenant with that nation. But in spite of all that I have said and done, you have disobeyed. That does make disobedience look very silly, doesn't it? Disobedience always looks very silly when we stand in front of the Lord. It looks quite all right sometimes when we're moving outside in the world. But in those moments when we stand before the Lord, how shall we defend our disobedience? See what the Lord has done. I have delivered you. I have brought you up. I made you a covenant, and I said, don't join these nations. Why didn't you listen? Why didn't you do what I say? Why do you do the very opposite of what I command? And what can we say to him? Disobedience is so irrational and unreasoning. Secondly, God said this. Look, I made a covenant with you, and I said I would never break my covenant. But you know, my covenant involves that you on your side shouldn't make any other covenant with any other body round here. My covenant was that I would drive out these nations, but you haven't bothered. Well, now what do you expect me to do, says God? I did indeed make a covenant, and I said I would drive them out. But do you suppose I'm going to stand now with a wand and wave a magic wand over these enemies, and they're going to disappear? If you are not interested enough to cooperate with me and join with me in driving them out. Oh, I made a promise indeed, but my promises aren't filled willy-nilly. I promised them, I promised to drive them out, if you are prepared to join me in the doing of it. But you haven't been. So what now? Says God, well, now I shall drive them out. And those very nations that I told you to drive out, and I would have driven them out, those very nations now I shall turn, and they will become a snare to you and a thorn in your side, and you'll rue the day when you disobeyed me. When the people heard that, they wept. Oh, what tears they were. They were a bit late, though, weren't they? They could have been spared those tears, had they been willing to take God seriously before. Perhaps now they thought that God was acting unfairly and breaking his covenant. He wasn't really, was he? He said, drive out these people. Look, they are enemies. They are sinful. They will ruin you. Drive them out, and I will help you drive them out. And Israel didn't drive them out. No, they didn't think they were so simple as all that. They didn't think it mattered to drive them out. What now? Well, they must be taught it would, it matters. So if God is ever going to get those enemies out, he must now allow those enemies to demonstrate themselves to Israel as being enemies indeed. He must allow them to persecute Israel, to oppress them, to bring them into bondage, to be thorns in their side that are forever pricking them and making life uncomfortable, until Israel would wish a thousand times that they weren't there. And then perhaps Israel will come and ask God's help to get rid of them. You know, when we look at it that way, we perceive that God didn't break his covenant. When he said, no, I shan't turn them out, he was fulfilling it. He would have turned them out the easier and the pleasanter way if he could, but if he can't, well, in the end he'll get them turned out by making Israel's life so uncomfortable under those powers that they are brought at last to repentance. That's already sad and gloomy. But it must lead us to a passage in the New Testament that talks to us about the covenant under which we live in relation to the Lord. And we shall find that that in its way too is a little bit gloomy, or at least it becomes gloomy if we behave like these Israelites behave. I refer, of course, to that well-known passage in one Corinthians eleven where Paul discusses with the church at Corinth their behavior at the Lord's Supper. He reminds us solemnly of what our Lord Jesus said when he instituted the Lord's Supper. This is my body, which is for you, this do in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, this do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Let's pause there. Whatever else the Lord's Supper is, it is at the very heart of it the taking of bread and the taking of wine, by which we remember the Lord Jesus. And as we take that bread and wine, we remember how he died for us, he gave his body for us, he gave his blood for us. And we remember not merely that we get forgiveness thereby, for listen to our Lord's words, this is the cup of the new covenant. Nothing could be plainer or more straightforward. Every moment and every time we take that cup into our hands, we may hear the Lord Jesus saying again, this is the cup of the new covenant. And what pleases the new covenant? And what does it say? The terms of the new covenant are known to us from several passages of scripture, both one in the old and some in the new. I quote now from Hebrews chapter eight. This is the, uh, new covenant. I will put my laws in their minds, and on their heart also will I write them. And I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people, and they shall not teach every man his fellow citizen, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more. These are the terms of the covenant. Every time I say we take that cup, it is as though the Lord Jesus says afresh to us, my good man, my good woman, you take that cup, please understand, this is the cup of the new covenant. And its terms are, I will write my laws on their hearts, and on their minds will I write. Oh, it's a glorious covenant, for it is supremely better than Israel's old covenant. When our Lord calls it the new covenant, he is contrasting it with the old covenant, the covenant that God made with Israel on the basis of the law of Moses. That was a hard covenant indeed. That covenant was written on tables of stone. It told you what to do, it gave you no strength to do it. It told you what not to do, but it gave you no power to refrain from doing it. It was very critical when you fell because it by, by definition it had no compassion. It said, keep the law and God will bless you, break it and he'll curse you. It was a law, a ministry of condemnation, of criticism, of death, written on tables and so. And we do well to thank God that our relationship with the Lord is not on the basis of that old covenant. We have a new covenant. It is not written on tables of stone. It is written, as Paul says in two Corinthians chapter three, talking of that same new covenant, it is written on the tables of the heart, the fleshy tables of the heart, by God's Holy Spirit it is written. In living power, God writes the very nature of God and the laws of that nature on the heart of the believer. That is the secret of a godly life. Not merely do I find a command in scripture as an external code that bids me do this and not do that. I have within me God's Holy Spirit, who livingly writes a new nature, a new mind, a new outlook, new principles, new powers, and he writes them on my personality. You say, that's marvelous. One of these days, one of these Tuesday mornings, I shall wake up and I shall be a perfect saint overnight. Glorious! You won't. Oh, it is a covenant, and God will do it, and I tell you in advance, he'll do it hook or by crook. There's two ways of doing it. There is the first way, which you might call the pleasant and happy way. Done with our consent and active cooperation. There is the other way, done in spite of us. You say, what's the difference? Well, let Paul go on to explain to us in that one Corinthians chapter eleven. He is giving us instructions as to how to approach the Lord's Supper. And how not to approach it. He says, wherefore, whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh, eats and drinks judgment unto himself, if he discern not the Lord's body. For this cause, many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep. For if we discerned ourselves, we should not be judged. When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. So then there is a part that we play, a part of cooperation with the Lord. It is called here discerning ourselves, proving ourselves. We are to come to the Lord's Supper. There is no excuse for keeping away. But, uh, we are to prepare ourselves by proving and discerning ourselves, or as the authorized version would put it, judging ourselves. Will you notice then first this very obvious point, that God isn't saying that I've got to be sinless before I come to the Lord's Supper, as I should never come to that. God doesn't say, ah, to qualify to come to the Lord's Supper, you must at least have spent the last week with one hundred percent success in chasing out all your enemies. No. God, being the realist he is, envisages the great, great possibility and probability, in fact, that I shall have been defeated in some of my battles in the week that has gone before. I'm still to come. And as I come, I am to prove and discern myself. That means, well, certainly it will mean I shall judge myself, that where I have detected sin in my life, I shall judge it. I shan't say it doesn't matter. To judge it as being wrong. It's fear- fearfully and sincere of me, wouldn't it, if I came to the Lord's Supper, took the cup of the covenant, heard again those gracious words, I will write my laws on their heart, and on my mind also would I write them. And I was secretly saying by my life, but I don't care, you know, I don't care, I don't bother my head much about sin and those kind of things. It'll all come out in the wash one of these days. What? You say, half a minute, Mr. Preacher, I thought the Lord's Supper was for worship. I didn't know that the Lord's Supper was about this. I thought the Lord's Supper was for worship. Well, if you like to add a bit of worship, there's nothing in the New Testament that I ever read that says you must. Well, there's no command I ever read in the New Testament that said at the Lord's Supper you must either. Do you know of one? God's book is in the rule book, is it? And if at the Lord's Supper you like to worship and praise and everything else, as far as I know, you have the Lord's permission. There is no positive command that when you assemble to the Lord's Supper, you must sing so many hymns and you must offer worship. But there is a reminder what we must do. For the taking of the cup of that covenant in memory of the Lord is the taking of a cup of a covenant, and it's concerned with the writing of God's laws on our hearts. And we must, it lies at the very heart of the thing, be prepared to cooperate with God in this holy work of judging the enemy in the light of Christ's cross. Judging the enemy in the light of that covenant promise that he'll drive that enemy out. Whereas if I'm harboring the enemy and not judging it, I'm running counter to that promise of his, am I not? Are I got to do more than just judge the enemy, haven't I? Did you notice what Paul term- what Paul said? For if, not merely if we judged ourselves, but if we discerned ourselves. That means more, doesn't it, than merely judging myself when I have committed a sin. That means discerning myself. We're a funny bunch, aren't we? Very often we're not what we think we are. Jeremiah said that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, and certainly it's deceitful. I must be on a guard, therefore, against my old heart. And really, you know, standing here tonight before you, I must know it if I've any sense in my head at all. I must know it. Don't I know it? That my attitudes are not all of them a hundred percent right, are they? You know that better than I do. But even I'm aware of it. Look, says God, I want you not merely to judge sin when it happens. I want you to be prepared to, to discern yourself. To begin to take yourself in hand and say, now look here, old boy, thank the Lord, by his grace I have, uh, found victory in the past over this and that and the other, and by God's grace, yes, we trust we've made some progress over the years. But now where's the next old enemy? And what next have I got to bring to the Lord? Lord, show me, as the psalmist prayed. Show me. Show me if there be any wicked way in me. Show me if my heart is deceitful. And as we can bear it. The Lord will say, well, if you're, you really mean business, well, look around this corner. That's an enemy, you know, really. And if we are prepared to cooperate with God like that, yes, we shall find the fulfillment of his gracious promise. More and more as the days go by, he will visibly write his law on our hearts. And folks will see it, that we are being conformed to the image of Christ. But it does take our cooperation. We are not robots. And the fulfilling of that covenant, God intends by our working together with him. Suppose I don't. Suppose I don't bother. Suppose in my youth, ah, suppose in my middle age as well, I don't bother to discern myself. Suppose I'm foolish enough to pride myself on what indeed are sins. Hardness of heart, unmercifulness towards others. Uncontrolled temper, which I please to dis- uh, to call uh, giving people a little bit of my mind as though it were worth giving to them. Because I don't repent of these things and discern them in me and just go on. What will God do? He'll do with me like he did with Israel. He'll take those very things and he'll chastise me with them. And if he has to do that, it will become for me too, Bochim, a place of tears. Cook or by crook, God has got to get me to repent of sin, hasn't he? Oh God, give us the wisdom to cooperate with him. Yes, let us come and tell him that we find it difficult, that we've been defeated. We shall always find mercy. Come boldly to that throne of grace to find mercy. I shall never come, but what I need is mercy. But it is always there and always forgiven. And the marvel of it is, in this ongoing warfare, every time I come and take that cup of the covenant, realizing my own unworthiness and confessing my failure. And do with me like he did with Israel. And take those very things and he'll chastise me with them. And if he has to do that, it will become for me too, Boquim, a place of fear. Crook or by crook, God has got to get me to repent of sin, hasn't he? Oh God, give us the wisdom to cooperate with him. Yes, let us come and tell him that we find it difficult, that we've been defeated. We shall always find mercy. Come boldly to that throne of grace to find mercy. I shall never come, but what I need is mercy. But it is always there and always forgiven. And the marvel of it is, in this ongoing warfare, every time I come and take that cup of the covenant, realizing my own unworthiness and confessing my failure and my sin. Every time I come, the assurance of that divine promise, I will. I will write my laws on your heart, on the mind I will inscribe them. God will make us like Christ. With that, we have come to the end of the first major section of our book of Anjaji. On the little sheet that you had, you'll see that I have indicated that the verses from chapter two verse six onwards form another section. You will see that from the text, if you care, by noticing the similarities and differences between chapter one and verse one and chapter two and verse six. Chapter one and verse one: it came to pass after the death of Joshua that the children of Israel asked of the Lord, saying, who shall go up for us first? And chapter two and verse six: now when Joshua had sent the people away, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to present the land. There are these two separate, uh, uh, portions because they deal with slightly different problems. Problems to be met with in the, uh, entering into the great inheritance. The first great problem, as we have now dwelt on at length, and must now pass by for a while, the first problem was constituted largely by the enemy, the Canaanites. The opposition. The second major problem was of a slightly different sort. It was what you might describe as the generation gap among the Israelites themselves. Or the problem of succeeding generations. It is spelled out for us in the verses that follow. For we're told that, uh, yes, during the days of Joshua, everything went marvelously. Who, who wouldn't want to live in the day of Joshua? Walls fell down, enemies got beaten out, great progress was made, you crossed the Jordan, miracles galore. It was marvelous to be living in the time of Joshua. Everything went more or less well. They did have an occasional setback, like at Ai and places like that, but on the whole, it went marvelously well. And, uh, things went not so badly during the days of the elders that outlived, uh, Joshua, you see. But then Joshua died. And then eventually, and one by one, in the next thirty or forty years, the elders who as young men had known Joshua, they grew old and died as well. And there came another generation that, uh, didn't know Joshua. And they hadn't seen the works of the Lord that God had done, uh, through Joshua at the time of the beginning of the entry into Palestine. And at last for them, in one sense, it was a tremendous disadvantage. Because they hadn't seen all those tremendous miracles. If you had been with Joshua and you had come across the, the Jordan and the sea had divided and come, the river divided and come back again, well, that was an encouragement, to say the least, wasn't it? And if you had seen Jericho fall down, whole bang walls fall down, well then, when you came to another place, you've got all that experience behind you and all the tremendous fervor of all the Israelites almost, except the odd, uh, cheat, um, all together going up. But, uh, two generations later, there weren't a lot of miracles around. And then there were a lot of folks that were not very keen. And it was much harder going, wasn't it, to carry on? Yeah? You say, but it wasn't their fault. No, it wasn't their fault. One of those unavoidable things, isn't it, because they belong to an historical process. Whose fault was it, you say? Well, we mustn't say it's God's fault, must we? So sometimes I find myself in some strange city, perhaps preaching at a conference, and after the conference is over, I find myself entertained by some noble hosts and hostesses as a delightful board. And, uh, as we get round towards the suite, you know, at dinner, my host will turn to me and say, ah, you know, did you know, um, W. P. Nicholson? No, no, no, not no, I never knew him, no. Oh. Did you know Host and Hog? No, I should say, no, have mercy. I'm not quite that old, you know. No. Ah, oh, oh, I was forgetting, yes, pity. Ah, they were great men. Marvelous conferences we used to have then. Oh, tremendous conferences. There's no preachers around like that nowadays, are there? I think no, of course not. Now, the young folks today, and you know, it's often on the tip of my tongue to say, yes, and whose fault is it anyway? Well, I mustn't be rude, my. I mustn't say to my host, why didn't you keep it going? You did know Hogg and Host and W. P. Nicholson and all the rest, and you did know the great evangelist, and you did see the times when, uh, uh, what men were pioneering and assemblies were being formed. You did see that. Why didn't you keep it going, brother? Why blame me because I was born too late and didn't know those stirring times? You can at least see, can't you, it puts me at a disadvantage to have been born so late. Because I've got to try and proceed now without all the tremendous help and fervor and wonder of those great gospel campaigns and seeing folks get saved in the hundreds all around on every side and all that kind of thing, and these giants of expositors. I got to go on. Just with a lot of ordinary folks like myself. But then, you know, there are dangers, aren't there? God does sometimes bring along times of refreshing and revival and apparent miracles. I wish I'd been living in one of those times. But suppose I'm not. Is that any excuse why I shouldn't go on? Must I? Must you, my young brother and sister? Must you be surrounded by apparent past success before you're prepared to take God's word seriously and go on yourself. Is it any excuse for me that intervening generations may have failed a little bit? Is that any reason, any excuse why I shouldn't go on? Ain't really, is it? And then I must learn another thing. If we look down history, we shall see that Christianity started off in a tremendous blaze of miracle with apostles like Paul and apostles like Peter. But it wasn't God's will, was it, that, uh, he should raise up a succession of great men like that all the time? In fact, if we look through God's word, those times have come comparatively rarely. We ought to be prepared to go on in the ordinary day, when we're not surrounded by great miracles and vast successes, still ought to be prepared to go on. What? Alas for these people in this third generation, they didn't know these earlier stirring times under Moses and Joshua. And because they didn't know that, they gave up themselves. And worse than giving up, they began to fall into the old, old idolatries, and they worshipped Baalim and Ashtaroth. And I dare say some of them thought it was very modern, but it was as old as the hills. You say, what could have saved them from that? Well, perhaps reading a little bit of history could have saved them. And we as young folks, now if you, I'm not saying you have, but should it ever happen that you are surrounded in your church or your generation, and you think you're surrounded by old folks who are musty, fusty, and they haven't grown, and they don't do much, and they're no good, and, and you're inclined to say, yes, well, that's the reason why I'm no good either. Oh, well then, read your New Testament and find that even in New Testament days, the people that just outlived the Apostle Paul and whatnot, what were they doing? They were going downhill too, weren't they? And it's no excuse really for anybody. Secondly, I read that when they went astray, God from time to time raised them up deliverers called judges out of the sheer compassion of his heart, he raised up judges, and even so they didn't take any notice, says God. They went astray again. Come. I get out my history book, and I look over revivals. I read, for instance, about that great saint of God, John Wesley, and the vast work that God did through that great man in those years in the late seventeen hundreds, and the multitudes that got saved, born again. Ah, yes. And I read also of John Wesley's great emphasis on personal holiness and holy living. I say to myself, well, yes, no wonder God blessed the man. And then I observe his great devotion to God's holy word. I say, no wonder God blessed the man. And then what do I do? Well, I say, well, whoever else isn't, in my day and generation, by God's grace, I'm going to be holy. Yes? I'm going to read his word. Yeah? Or do I incline to say, in spite of all the evidence of past history and all the great revivals that God has brought, do I incline to say, ah, but you can't expect the young folks nowadays to... Do I? I mean, plain Bible reading for young folks, goodness me. And straight talks on holiness of living. No, no, no, you'll have to jazz that up a bit. Because things are different now. That's what the Israelites said. They said, but goodness me. Well, what? Deuteronomy and Leviticus? What, for for our young folks? Well, I mean, that was all right for Moses, be it down here somewhere, and Aaron and Joshua, but not for our young folks now. You'll have to add a little of the Baalim in here and a touch of the Astaroth there, you know. As though Baalim and the Ashtaroth were sort of new inventions, they were as old as the hills. And what were those funny things, the Baalim and the Ashtaroth? They were male and female deities, so-called. For the ancient world made themselves gods out of all sorts of things, and some of them, their gods that they imagined were masculine and some were feminine, and the Baalim were masculine gods. Their name Baal means lord or husband, lord, authorities, and they fell for it. Instead of going by God's word through Moses, God's word through Joshua, and saying this is the ultimate and only authority, they allowed themselves to come under the sway of other authorities. Yeah. And then there were female gods and godis- uh, uh, goddesses. So the ancient world had this way of deifying their own emotions. So if a man found an emotion within him of fear, he deified it and said it was a god. Sexual urges, they deified them and made gods out of them. They tend to deify their own psychological urges. Many of them were represented as female deities. What a... have a bit of compassion for those young folk, don't you? For there were times when perhaps Moses seemed a bit dry and stern, and some of these other religions that went more on people's feelings, um, they seem to be alive. But to jettison God's word and follow your own feelings and emotions is an exceedingly dangerous path to follow. Oh, it's a popular one. It's a dangerous one. Yes, if we follow God, if we follow his word, if we are, uh, sincere in cooperating with him in the pathway of holiness, yes, God will see to it that our hearts have their due measure of joy and gladness. There is emotion in true salvation. But the thing being, instead of being content to let the emotion come, we make a god of it. And follow emotion first, and feeling first, we shall have at the beginning some very exciting times. But we shall find it's a false God. I say that with every sympathy. I used to be young, even if I'm not now, you know. And it seemed to the Israelites so really to be the way forward, the Baalim and the Asherah. And they left God's word. They left Moses' commandment, and they left the covenant. And they went after these other authorities. And like the Gentile religions around them, they made a god of their own emotions and their own psychological urges. God, in his compassion, from time to time, as I say, brought revival. We're going to study in the weeks that are ahead, God willing. What was the secret of some of those revivals and how God prepared his men and his women to be deliverers among his people and ever to bring his people back. Once more, for the moment, the story repeats itself. When Israel, in spite of the lesson of Joshua, in spite of the lesson of history, in spite of the recent revivals, went back to follow Gentile way. Then God said this. Now look, he said, I'm not going to drive the enemy out. Why not? For two reasons, says God. And in fact, says God, if you will allow me to say something. Right from the beginning, there were certain enemies I didn't drive out, even in Joshua's day. Why didn't I? In my providence, says God, I've allowed them to stand that I might, one, I might prove you. And secondly, I've left them so that this generation might learn how to fight. You know God is wonderful, isn't he? God will bring good out of evil. He'll make our very mistakes, and indeed he'll make the mistakes of the generations that went before. He will turn them to our good if we let him. Put courage up. Do you say I've been born into a time when things are at a low end? Well, don't go around too much trying to find out whose fault it is. Say, well, it's a pity they're at a low ebb, but thank God, God can turn this to an advantage if I let him. Yes. Things aren't perfect? Because other folks have not obeyed as they should? Right, that'll give you a chance to obey, won't it? Yes. Yeah. If I might be personal and reminiscent like the elderly have an opportu- have a privilege of being. When I was a youngster in my church, I thought some of the elders were really a bit fuddy-duddy. Stick in the mud. When I grew up, more than that, I still think some of them were, and I don't mind my saying that now because they're in heaven, and I don't mind. I still think they were a bit stick in the mud. The difference I have, however, is now I'm getting rather more elderly than I should, and I find some of the younger generation thinking that I'm stick in the mud too. And I say, yes, well, there's some truth in that. If instead of criticizing my own elders, I got on with the job myself. Instead of criticizing those that went before for, for, for failing, I'd have said, Lord, well, that's too bad, but now, Lord, that's brought circumstances where, in order to go on with God, in order to work for God, I've got to be prepared to, to work hard myself, and very often, well, perhaps nobody else with me is going to work, well, I work then. But Lord, let me not waste crit- time criticizing others. Let me get down to you. Let me show you that I mean business. And God can turn it to good company. He can turn it to teaching me to fight. I don't mean to fight my brethren. But I'll tell you something. When everybody is apparently keen on preaching the gospel, and they turn out to the gospel meeting at seven o'clock in their hundreds, and they turn out to the prayer meeting in their hundreds because it's a fashion to turn out, well, it ain't so difficult just to go with the herd, is it, and turn out. But if you be happen to be living in a church that's gone downhill a bit, and folks don't come out to the prayer meeting, and they're not keen in their gospel tract work or in their pioneer work, then there's going to be a bit of a fight for you, isn't it, to say, yes, well, but I'm going. Do you know what? You have a bit of advantage over those folks that lived in easy days when, when it was the fashion to, to be, uh, keen. You've got one advantage that they didn't have, that for you to be keen will mean that you've got to fight for it. You've got to go against the tide. You've got to make an effort. And that very necessity to fight will build something into your character that perhaps the others didn't have, for it was all too easy for them. I don't be too discouraged, will you? If you feel that your own present generation or the one immediately above you isn't as glorious as it could have been. Say, well, in the end, thank God he can turn it to my good and use those more difficult circumstances to build into my character something for eternity. Please remember that in far shorter time than you young folks may imagine, you'll be middle-aged. Be careful that the fate doesn't overtake you that's overtaken me, and your young folks think you are sticking the most. That will be determined if you now, by God's grace, are determined to say, well, whatever the past has been, by God's grace and in the strength of his covenant, I am going on with God. Shall we pray? O Lord, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee for the way it speaks naturally and realistically to our hearts. We thank thee we are not alone in this battle against sin. Others have been this way before. We bless thee for the encouragement of the victories that thy they did achieve by thy grace and power, that encourage us to know that we too may be victorious. Thank thee for thy compassions on them in their failings, that assure us of thy heart likewise towards us. Bless thee for thy covenant faithfulness. Art determined to make us like her. Oh Lord, grant us the grace and wisdom that it may be with our cooperation, and therefore with happiness and joy, and not by tears and sorrow. We thank thee now, Lord, for those that go- have gone before us. We thank thee for our elders, for their prayers, and for their diligence, and for their persistence. And we pray, Lord, that thou would make us in our day worthy men and women. Save us, Lord, from being unduly critical. Give us the sense to see that time is very short. Help us to be worthy of the great traditions that thou hast given us through the hands of others, that we might be used of thee in our day and generation to effect deliverance among thy people, and the greater spread of thy word, and reviving and encouragement wherever we go, and not discouragement and destructive criticism and despair. To this end, bless thy word through Jesus Christ our Lord.