One Year Bible Readings and Commentary for Saturday, April 23rd
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Click Here ot Read Judges 1:1-2:9
Israel is at a critical place in their history. They were led by two godly leaders in Moses and Joshua. Though not perfect, they were faithful and obedient to the Lord and God used them in powerful ways. However, there is still a lot of work to do in conquering and occupying the Promised Land.
During the time of Judges (340 years), there was no national leaders like Moses or Joshua. God would raise up specific "judges" at specific times to do his bidding. The word "judge" is not like we understand it today, it is more like "heroic leader". (Guzik)
The Book of Judges shows us a time that is sometimes confusing, difficult, and dark. For this reason, many neglect the Judges and regard this period of time as a “dark ages” of Israel’s history. Yet if we neglect this book we neglect a wonderful account of the love and graciousness of God, and how He lovingly corrects His people. (Guzik)
They start on the right note as they, "Ask the Lord what to do?". This will not always be the case going forward. Judah was the tribe picked to lead the way against their remaining Canaanite cities. Not only were they the largest and strongest tribe, but they were also the tribe the Messiah was to descend from. Judah was wise in picking another tribe to help them. They picked the tribe of Simeon, who were blood brothers with them.
And we see they were very successful, as they obeyed the Lord he delivered them from their enemies and they took the land He had promised them. Importantly, they conquered the Jebusites. who occupied the city of Jerusalem, which will be a city of much importance going forward.
As impressive as their victories were, they met their match when they came up against the people in the plains. The text said they had "iron chariots" and were able to hold them off. Various explanations are given as to why this particular military equipment was so daunting for the Israelites,
“Strange! Were the iron chariots too strong for Omnipotence?” (Clarke)
"This spoke more to Judah’s lack of full trust in God than it did to Canaanite military superiority. Chariots were no problem for God’s people when they were trusting God (see Exodus 14:7-29, Joshua 11:1-8, and 1 Kings 20:21). Their attitude should have been like that reflected in Psalm 20:7: Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the LORD our God." (Guzik)
The rest of the chapter is a mixed bag of victories in some instances and then failing to drive out the people in other instances. The latter would later come back to haunt them. Since they had so much success when they trusted the Lord, one might have to assume that they weren't when they weren't successful. The text says there were pockets of Canaanites that they were unable to drive out of the land.
"God never intended for Israel to conquer the land of Canaan easily; He never intended it to happen quickly. Exodus 23:29-30 and Deuteronomy 7:22-24 both say that God intended to give them the land little by little. Though God planned for Israel to take the land through constant trust in Him and frequent battles, they failed to do this and therefore did not drive out the inhabitants. It was almost as if Israel said, “If we can’t have it easy, then we don’t want it at all.” (Guzik)
In chapter 2, we have another instance of the Israelites not completely taking the land. An angel of the Lord is sent to them to voice the Lord's displeasure, which confirms our earlier assumption.
"Israel’s real problem was not one of military power or technology; it was a spiritual problem. “The deplorable spiritual condition of the Israelites, not their lack of chariots, lay behind their failure to dispossess the Canaanites.” (Wolf)
In the book of Numbers the Lord had warned the Israelites of the consequences of not completely driving out the Canaanites and now this was coming true.
"But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell." (Numbers 33:55)
What do these first chapters of Joshua teach us today? Though we may have some victory over our enemy (I.e. sin/death/the power of the devil), if we take our focus off of God, we can easily allow the enemy into our lives. The apostle Paul tells us that we have an enemy who is constantly at war with us which he calls, "principalities and powers of this present darkness". We cannot wage this war on our own, like the Israelites we will not be able to drive them out. God has given us weapons to fight including His Word, prayer, rightetousness and truth.
Click Here to Read Luke 21:29-22:13
Jesus continues to teach the disciples about his second coming. He uses the analogy of a tree when it gives signs it is ready to bloom. This is a sign of what is to come, and the signs he has given in the last chapter are the signs of his return to the earth.
When Jesus says, "This generation will not pass away before these things come to pass", I don't think he means that he is going to return during the lifetime of the disciples. Obviously that has not happened. By "generation" he means believers from the disciples' time to the present day. One sign he did talk about was persecution, which we know the early Christians experienced soon after the resurrection. But this is only a sign of the end times, just as it is today when Christians are being persecuted around the world.
Most importantly Jesus says, we need to be ready. He specifically warns against drunkenness and carousing and getting caught up in the worries of this life. If our enemy can't make a direct hit on us, he will try to make us busy and distracted. If we are we might not worry about God's kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven. We get so preoccupied with ourselves that we miss out on what God wants to do in the world.
As we enter chapter 22, we see the events of the last week of Jesus' life begin to unfold. We already knew that the chief priests and Pharisees had been planning for a while to get rid of Jesus. They just needed to hatch a plan to do it. They are very reluctant to do anything to stir the people up, since there is so much public attention already on Jesus, especially at Passover time. But the perfect opportunity emerges by none other than one of Jesus' disciples, Judas.
As we all know corruption often starts from the inside. There is a "mole" in the group. Someone who would sell Jesus simply out of self preservation. Note though Satan entered Judas, Judas opened himself up for this to happen. The devil can't just enter into anyone he wants. The person needs to allow him to do this. The devil is more than willing to use anyone he can to destroy Jesus thinking he can potentially stop the inevitable judgment he will be rendered on the cross. Those he is cunning, he can't outsmart the Lord.
Finally, Jesus sets up how the Last Supper is going to do down. It is also the Festival of Unleavened Bread, which marks the beginning of Passover.
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