Conflict
and Crisis: The Judges
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the January 23, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“The angel of the Lord went up from
Gilgal to Bokim and said, ‘I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the
land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, “I will never break my covenant
with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but
you shall break down their altars.” Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you
done this?’” Judges 2:1-2, NIV
Our lesson this week focuses on the time of the Judges,
individuals whom God raised up to bring deliverance to the Israelites when they
were oppressed by the other peoples contesting for ownership of the area that
came to be known as Israel and Judah. However, it is only a continuation of a
story that began long before. As we saw with the story of Adam and Eve,[i] and then Cain and Abel,[ii] there was a struggle as
to whether man’s judgment or God’s would reign supreme on Earth. We also saw
that what some may have determined to be their own good judgment had been
suborned by a power directly in opposition to God. That power claimed that God
was a liar and simply wanted to control people for His own malevolent purposes.
That power had previously rebelled against God in heaven
and was cast to the Earth.[iii] That power was what we
call the Devil or Satan, but has also been known as Lucifer and other titles
such as the Prince of the Power of the Air. Since his arrival he has worked
implacably to subvert God’s good intent here on Earth and replace it with
service to his own rebellious designs. To that end, he accuses every follower
of God of the very evil which he seeks to broadcast over the Earth.[iv]
One by one, Eve, then Adam, then Cain and a whole host
of others have fallen to the wiles of the Devil. In fact, by Noah’s day only a
handful were still loyal to God.[v] Men chose what they
wanted, what satisfied their desires rather than what was in harmony with the
will of God. We are told that the Sons of God, those scions of the families
which sought fellowship with God, looked at the daughters of men, those who
wanted nothing to do with God, and seeing that they were attractive, they were
filled with desire and wed them.[vi] Anyone who has lived in a
spiritually divided home can perhaps attest to what a problem this must have
been. Maybe a husband and wife could work out some sort of understanding that
they would each choose their own path spiritually, but once children are born,
which path should the children be trained to follow? Depending on who has the
stronger personality, eventually one party may give in to the wishes of the
other party, hoping to have an influence by example instead of by actual
instruction. But whatever the case, sadly, the overall trend of antediluvian
society seems to have been steadily downward.
Their “do-your-own-thing” society may have been a
license for those who could do so to take whatever they wanted from those unable
to resist them. IN addition, if sin is lawlessness as the Bible tells us,[vii] then we may assume that
whatever was the exact opposite of what we find in the Decalogue was the rule
in that world. What was global then may be reflected later, on a smaller scale,
in the story of the actions of the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah toward
angelic visitors,[viii]
or the treatment of the prostitute in Gibeah of the Benjamites.[ix] If so, then the
antediluvian world must have been very violent. This may be a frightening
concept when we consider that Jesus said that it will be like it was in the
days of Noah when He comes again.[x] He even said that if the
days were not cut short, no one would remain alive[xi] and questioned if anyone
faithful would remain.[xii]
Perhaps it is not surprising that things should come to
such a pass when we consider that a few generations after the mighty
deliverance of the Exodus, people are again going their own way, so much so
that the Lord’s messenger chided them over it. Even the judges were not immune
from compromising their relationship with God. A prime example may be Samson.[xiii] Raised in a home with
good parents who wanted a godly course for his life, he nonetheless, like the
antediluvians before him, looked at the women who did not serve God, saw that they
were fair, and filled with desire, he went after them. Perhaps the daughters of
Israel were too plain and simple for him. Perhaps he could not resist the
appeal of false glamour. In any event, it proved his undoing. Raised in a
God-fearing home, he may have been unprepared for the levels to which
deceitfulness could plummet and the damage it could do to him.
Often betrayed by the very women he so desired, he was
unable to truly become the great deliverer of his people. He willingly
compromised the faith his parents had raised him with and in his naďveté failed
to anticipate the problems inherent in his independent path. Perhaps thinking
only of the pleasure of the moment, he bartered his future for those moments of
desire, much as Esau had been willing to exchange his in order to satisfy his
momentary hunger.[xiv]
Perhaps desire is as much at the root of our sin problem as anything, for the
Bible tells us that it was desire that first arose in Eve’s heart and tempted
her to partake of the forbidden fruit. Much like so many who have followed in
her footsteps, she found that fruit not only pleasing to the eye, but
desirable.[xv]
Strangely, while the curse that was pronounced upon her
that her desire would be to her husband, somehow it seems the man instead has
too often been filled with an insatiable desire for women, and perhaps not
ordinary women, but women who do not really exist. Their desire may be for
women made up to appear different than they truly are. When photographed their
images are manipulated and photo-shopped to eliminate supposed “flaws.” As a
result both men and women are filled with desire over fictional images. The men
too often desire to possess such women and the women desiring to look like the
women those men wish to possess. For the women, this creates an impossible goal
because no one can naturally look like a photo-shopped image. This is not a new
problem. Even before Photo Shop, photos retouched to hide blemishes created
similar unrealistic expectations about how a woman should look for both men and
women.
For men this creates a continuous comparison of their
female companions with the false image they have been sold by the great
Deceiver. Constantly seeking out companionship with a woman they feel most
closely resembles that image, they willingly parade their “arm candy” in public
as a trophy of their successful hunt, ever fearful that someone might have
someone closer to the ideal than theirs. This fear is even echoed in a song
that became popular in 1977 on an album by England Dan and John Ford Coley, “It’s Sad to Belong to Someone Else When the Right One Comes
Along.” We might rephrase that in a broader sense as “It’s sad to have to
follow God, when the Devil has such a beautiful piece of fruit.” The fruit,
although pleasing to the eye, turned out to not be so desirable in the end.
This was the bitter lesson Samson learned at the hands of Delilah.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We do not have to
succumb every time to the allurements surrounding us. We may feel we are not in
danger because we can become wise to the truth behind the lies. We may at times
see the truth behind the magician’s patter and gestures to see what is really
going on behind the scenes. While we may like to think that we can do this
every time, it is vanity. Just as we may not be able to discover the magician’s
“trick,” we may not be able to see the rotten core of the beautiful fruit we
are offered. While rarely used today with that understanding, glamour used to
be considered one of the magical arts and was associated with deception in
regards to appearance. One might question why such a deception is needed?
Perhaps it is because all of the attention has been toward developing that
false image, that glamour, with little attention to developing the person
behind it.
In the end, it may come down to a simple matter of
choice. Am I willing to accept myself and my mate as what God created them to
be, or has my desire been shaped by a lie? Have I allowed myself and my future
to be sold to a deception like Samson, or am I willing to seek the real person
both in myself and the one I join myself to? It is not too late to do that. God
is waiting to help each of us to become the real person He created us to be.
All we need do is ask Him.
