Obedience

I just finished up "bible time" with the family. We finished the book of Joshua yesterday (been through Exodus, parts of Leviticus and Dueteronomy, and Joshua so far this year) and moved onto Judges. To sum it up, Joshua dies at 110 years old but before he dies his last command is to remember all that the LORD has done for them, keep His commandments, choose who they will serve and if God then do away with all the other gods/idols and do not turn away from the LORD. We pick up in verses 14-21 of Joshua 24 where it's worded this way:

14 "Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
16Then the people answered, "Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods, 17for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. 18And the LORD drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God."
19But Joshua said to the people, "You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. 20 If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good." 21And the people said to Joshua, "No, but we will serve the LORD." 22Then Joshua said to the people, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD, to serve him." And they said, "We are witnesses." 23He said, "Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel." 24And the people said to Joshua, "The LORD our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey."

Easy no?! I mean it might be hard for me today but not the people who firsthand saw God working in and through their camp to defeat their enemies, part rivers, and perform miracle after miracle right? Wrong! The unfaithfulness of man at its finest.

The first thing recorded in the book of Judges ch 1 is that the Israelites inquired of God who was going to continue leading the conquest of the Canaanites since Joshua had died. (Important note - the conquest was to be completed just as God had commanded the Israelites in Dueteronomy 7:2 "when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them." They were to kill everyone, break down their altars, do away with their idols setting the totality of the land apart to God.[Exodus 34:13 & Dueteronomy 7:5]) So God sent Judah, who took his brother Simeon, and immediately they defeated 10,000 at Bezek(v.4), they even found the King (Adoni-Bezek), cut off his thumbs and big toes, which was repayment for what he'd done to others during his reign (v.5-7) and let him die. All this under the power of the LORD. From there on they went from land to land and the Bible records that "The LORD was with them" everytime- signifying that He handed their enemies over to them as promised"(v.1-26). Still looking good right?

Starting in v. 27 and continuing for the rest of the chapter its recorded that as the Israelites grew strong and so they stopped killing the Canaanites and instead started putting them to forced labor(taking them as slaves). Both Brooklyn 7, and Zion 4 next month, dropped their mouths wide open. They remembered what the LORD commanded Israel and to hear that they so quickly decided to do otherwise was astonishing to them. Boy was I blessed to see their reactions. Just goes to show how childlike faith trumps "adult wisdom". Jamie and i thought everyhing was ok. Although it seemed to us as if they were still defeating their enemies and had the upper hand, Brooklyn pointed out that the scripture no longer said that "the LORD was with them".

She was right! Judges 2:

1Now the angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, "I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, 2and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.' But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? 3So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you." 4As soon as the angel of the LORD spoke these words to all the people of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5And they called the name of that place Bochim. And they sacrificed there to the LORD.

Verses 10-13 go on to tell us that the generation who'd lived with Joshua died off and the next generation who did not know the LORD or anything He'd done, worshipped the gods of the people around them (who should have been dead), & abandoned the LORD. In v.14-15 Joshuas warning came to pass (from Joshua 24:20 which is up above):

So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. 15Whenever they marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had warned, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress

The Moral of The Story- applying yesterday's lesson to today

I'll stop the bible study there although we went into chapter 3. The purpose of this blog was not to take you on an expository journey through that text, rather to deal with the matter at hand, all God requires of His people is obedience. He does the rest. For the Christian a major part of your sanctification is obeying God as He revealed His will in the Word, thus conforming your life to that of Christ. Yea you actually are required to renounce/repent of the way(s) you are and to change, sometimes dramatically, the way you act and live. But during the entire process it's 99.9% reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit.

So why don't we just obey? It's something that goes against almost everyone's basic nature, especially here in America. We loath being told we have to do something a certain way; we cherish our independence and our right to do and to act in the way we please. We prefer to focus on grace, and ignore that God has a claim on our lives. But we are not our own; we are bought with a price and are now slaves of Christ. He has every right to command us how to live our lives and to expect our obedience.

During our bible time with the kids I had the family consider the analogy of a parent and a child. We as parents expect obedience from our children for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that we typically know better than they do what is good for them. Well...one of the steps of salvation is "adoption," where we as believers become adopted children of God. As His children, God has every right as our Father to expect our obedience and we should expect that His commands for us result in what is best, even if we can't see it.

Christ obeyed perfectly. If we are to become like Christ in sanctification, we also should be obeying more and more each day. Obviously we won't have perfect obedience this side of heaven, but we certainly should be progressing that way, and again as we become more and more obedient- the Holy Spirit can progress in His perfecting work in us. HALLELUJAH!

This brings me to a second point which somewhat digresses back to the last blog but with it I close. If we are progressing in obedience to the Word of God, then our lives are going to change. You cannot be the same person this year that you were last year if you are concentrating on conforming your life to God's commands. For example, you will be more patient, more loving, more God-centered, more service-focused, more joyful, more ______ (you fill in the blank). The Holy Spirit will begin to have His way with you as you make a highway for God in your heart through obedience to the LORD's commands.

1 John 3:24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

Praying for obedience and change, both in my life and in the lives of those I love....

grace and peace,

da sciple