Year 1, Day 271: Judges 10

The Cry Falls on Deaf Ears

Having just read Judges 10 – I love this chapter!  This chapter seems very near and dear to my heart.  Of course, we have the two quick mentions of Tola and Jair – of which I have little to offer except that it is neat that God chooses judges who seem to come from anywhere and everywhere.  There doesn’t seem to be a favorite tribe God picks – He really does seem to pick according to the faithfulness in the hearts of the people.  And that’s a very good thing, but in my mind it isn’t the coolest thing in this chapter.

The really cool part of this chapter is found in Judges 10:6-18.  Mind you, I’m a bit of a “prophet” so when I get excited it’s often something that is very “cut-to-the-bone” true.  Look at what this chapter says.  The Hebrew people worship Ba’al and Ashtaroth – the gods of the Canaanites.  They worship the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines.  They worship every god around them and forfeit the worship of the one true God among them!

No, that isn’t the cool part.  The cool part is what happens next.  They cry out to the Lord.  They plead with the Lord to save them.  And God looks at them and says to them, “Did I not already save you from all these other people and you still forsake me?  Go plead with the gods you’ve chosen, I’m tired of your faithlessness.”

I warned you that the cool part wasn’t really all that good. In fact, this is a horrible message at first glance.  God is essentially telling His people to go away because He is tired of them.  He is saying that He is not interested in their fake repentance, their shallow pleading, and their easily swayed hearts.

The Deaf Ears Aren’t Actually Deaf

What is really cool about this passage is that we know God doesn’t actually forsake them.  They’ve got many more occurrences of rebellion ahead of them!  But it shows here that God is not at all interested in fake repentance.  In fact, it tells us specifically that God is capable of determining the difference between false repentance and honest repentance.  That’s something that should scare us a little bit.  Not one of us can fool God.  He knows whether we really mean it or not when we promise to repent and change our ways.  That’s cool – in a scary prophetic kind of way.

God saved them only when they actually did put away their gods.  He saved them only when they actually did start following His ways.  He saved them only when they made good on their promises.  God came and provided a judge to deliver them only when they truly repented.  They had to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Cool, v. 2.0

Now, here’s the really cool part.  Again, be warned – this is going to hurt.  The same is true for us!  If you really want God to save you, you had better start walking the walk!  If you really want God to save you, you had better put away your “gods.”  If you really want God to save you, you had better start following His ways.  If you want God to save you – be His disciple!  You had better stop making excuses for the sinfulness within you and start rejecting the life of the sinner!  {The same is true for me, just for the record.}

I think I love this chapter because it is blunt.  There is a great quote by Brennan Manning that I love to use in conversations like this:

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

This is by far my greatest frustration as a Christian – and my greatest frustration about myself!  I loathe myself when I should act like a Christian and yet I act like the worldly person instead.  I loathe myself when I know what I should be doing and instead I choose something that is not what I should be doing.  I loathe myself when I waste an evening instead of getting closer to God and the spiritual people around me.  I loathe myself when I pursue all kinds of other gods and don’t follow God’s ways.  I loathe myself when I acknowledge Jesus Christ with my lips and I totally deny Him by my lifestyle. 

And I loathe myself in those times because I know that God loathes me at those times, too.  He doesn’t abandon me, mind you.  But He does loathe me at those times.

That is what this chapter is all about, and that is why this chapter is so beautiful in my eyes.  God doesn’t want false repentance.  God doesn’t want lip service.  God doesn’t want us to profess how great He is and then do what we really want to do with our lives.  God wants something different, something honest, and something pure.  God wants something that most of the world finds too hard to give to Him.

God wants us to remove ourselves from the center of our life and to put Him in it.  Anything less is false worship, false repentance, and false faith.

For more information of God’s desire for true repentance and not lip service, read passages like Hosea 6:6, Psalm 51:15-17, and Joel 2:12-13.

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