Episode Transcript
Numbers chapter 33.
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You may be thinking, "We're going backwards."
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Carson Wolfe will be watching with us this morning.
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Well, Carson is glad to have you in Sunday School with us this morning.
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Numbers chapter 33.
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We're just going to go back in time just a little bit to remind us of something that God said.
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Good morning, Danny. Good to have you with us too.
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Numbers 33.50 if you're just now tuning in.
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Now, Israel in our Sunday School lesson as of last week is now in the Promised Land.
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They've gone across. They've destroyed and conquered Jericho.
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But there's still a lot to do.
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God's instructions to them were to go in and destroy the people in here, drive them completely out,
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and occupy all of that space because God had given it to them and God had taken it away
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from the godless people in that nation who had been worshipping false gods and committing abominations.
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Numbers 33. And look here if you would in verse 50.
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"And the Lord spake unto Moses and the plains of Moab by Jordan, near Jericho, saying,
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'Speak unto the children of Israel,' and said unto them, 'When ye are passed over into the land of Canaan,'"
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Now remember they passed over into the land of Canaan already.
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But this is before they passed over. God is giving them instructions on what they do after they pass over.
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So he says, verse 52, "Hello, Kelly."
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Good to have you tune in with us as well.
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We're in Numbers 33.50, Kelly.
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Now in verse 52, he says, "Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you
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and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quiet pluck down all their high places,
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and ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell therein, for I have given you the land to possess it."
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Now, notice what God is telling them to do when they go in.
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Again, we're talking about abominations against God, false worship, and these people have been living wickedly,
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and God was going to judge those people.
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People say, "Well, Israel took their land away from them. That was never their land to begin with."
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God created this world, not us.
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God gives it to whom he will, and God takes it from whom he wants to take it.
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And in this case, God had given it to them.
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As the Scripture says, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away."
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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God had given it to these people.
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Now God was taking it away from them. He was giving it to Israel.
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And he told them when they go in, again in verse 52, "Drive out all the inhabitants of the land."
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Get them out of there.
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What happens if you don't drive out all the inhabitants of the land?
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Anyone have any idea what will happen?
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Eventually, if they get stronger, they'll fight back.
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What else?
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That and the male mumbling with the other people and the male, their beliefs will be, they could have, influencing them.
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That's correct. That's absolutely right.
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So not only will they fight back, but one of the worst things that can happen is,
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their false beliefs can then influence that next generation.
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They can end up becoming the godless people that their enemies were that God was driving out.
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So you sure don't want that. And that's why people say,
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"Oh, America needs to be a melting pot of different ideas and all."
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Well, we see what's happened with that.
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It has not strengthened us. It has not united us.
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It has divided us. And it has weakened us.
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And so God says, "You drive them out, and what else do you do?"
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He says, "Destroy all their pictures and destroy all their images, plug down all their high places."
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Everything that would remind them of false worship, pull it down, destroy it, break it, burn it, whatever you need to do, get rid of it.
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Because if you don't, the next thing you know, some young person, some free thinker,
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is going to come along and say, "Well, look at this.
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Well, maybe we ought to start worshiping this false god here.
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I'll make a statue to it, and we'll start doing this."
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And next thing you know, the land is in a mess, and the people who drove them out
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are just as bad as the people that were driven out.
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Verse 54, "And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families,
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and to the more you shall give, the more inheritance, and to the fewer you shall give,
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the less inheritance every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth,
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according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit.
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But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you,
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then it shall come to pass that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes
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and thorns in your sides."
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You ever heard that saying, "That's a thorn in my side"?
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That came from the Bible.
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A lot of people don't realize that's where it came from.
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It came from the Bible.
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"Thorns in your sides and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.
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Moreover, it shall come to pass that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them."
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So he says, "You go drive them out, you get rid of them,
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you destroy any resemblance of their false worship.
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And if you don't, they're going to be in the thorn in your side.
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Those people are going to be troubled to you.
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Get rid of them."
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And what will happen is, in the end, they're going to end up making you like them,
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and as I was going to do to them, so I'll end up doing to you.
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Makes sense.
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All right?
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Now, understanding that warning and understanding what God said would happen
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if they did not drive them out and break down their images,
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let's now go to Judges 1.
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We were in Joshua last week.
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Now we're in Judges this morning.
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Judges 1.
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Under the leadership of Joshua, the nation of Israel prospered
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and were victorious as they went into the Promised Land
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as they started driving out these families.
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Judges 1.
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The problem is, when they went in to drive out these enemies,
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because God divided the land up by a lot to them,
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if you could think of it like this,
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they didn't just have a chaotic place there.
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You had all these tribes,
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and they divided the land up, and everyone got a little slice of the pie.
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Every tribe and family group did.
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They got a slice of the pie.
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So each individual family unit or tribal unit,
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they were responsible for driving out the people in their slice of the pie.
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Makes sense?
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All right?
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And so you drive them all out, because you can't get everything.
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One group can't do the whole land,
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so everyone gets their own piece,
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and they're all individually responsible for their own success
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through trusting God to fulfill His promise.
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They would go in there and fight,
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believing that God would do what He promised He would.
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He would drive them out, and they would be victorious.
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All right?
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So the problem is this.
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Warfare is no easy business, is it?
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Warfare is hard.
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Warfare has its challenges.
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Warfare requires sacrifices and effort on the people's part who are fighting.
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And so when they went in to clear out their slice of the pie, so to speak,
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you could have some people who would think,
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"Man, there's not going to be a single Canaanite left in my slice of the pie
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to the glory of God. They're going to drive everyone out."
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Or you can have some people who think,
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"Well, you know what? I've gotten victory in my slice of the pie.
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We're in control now.
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So why put forth the effort to drive the rest of these people out?
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They're weak. They're few in number.
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Why do I need to keep fighting? I can relax now.
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There's no need to keep fighting.
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I can start plowing my fields.
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In fact, now that I'm in control, I'll put these people to work for me.
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I'll make slaves out of them.
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And now I can be more prosperous than I was before.
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I'll have them out tilling my field, chopping my wood, drawing my water for me."
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You can see how that attitude could come about.
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And they could rationalize in their mind,
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"It'll be okay as long as I keep my enemy weak and I stay in control."
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Now, what this is a picture of is this.
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When God saved us from our sins through Jesus,
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which was the time of the Passover Lamb and Egypt and all that,
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and now we have victory in Him,
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God wants us, God requires us,
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to use the victory of the Gospel to drive out of our lives anything
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that is in opposition to God's Word.
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And so what we can do is this. We can develop the attitude of,
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"Well, I'll still keep some things in my life
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that are really not in agreeance with God's Word, but I'll let them be small.
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I'll keep them under control. I've got it under control."
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Listen, you can never keep sin under control. You just can't.
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But that's what people think. "Well, we'll just keep it under control.
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We'll keep it small and I'll use it to my benefit."
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Well, sin may chop your wood and draw your water for a while,
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but in the end, you'll end up serving sin, and sin will not be serving you.
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That's how it works, because we have this fallen nature that we inherited from Adam.
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We've learned that in this course. We're sinners by birth.
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And so we have that tendency to serve sin if we do not drive it out.
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So if there's something in your life that is in disagreement with God's Word,
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don't tolerate it. Drive it out.
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Drive it out to the glory of God and to your success.
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But let's go ahead and look here now.
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What happened was people developed the mindset that they weren't going to drive them out completely.
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They were going to take the easy life. There's no sense struggling and straining.
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You hear people say all the time, "Well, don't go too far with religion. Don't go overboard with it."
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Well, that's not in the Bible.
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I tell you what, you will never stand before God, and God judge you for taking Him too seriously.
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Never happened. Let's go ahead and look here now. In Judges chapter 1 verse 29,
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"Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shein in her towns,
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nor Tonic in her towns, nor the inhabitants of Dor in her towns,
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nor the inhabitants of Eblaim in her towns, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo in her towns.
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But the Canaanites would dwell in that land, and it came to pass, watch this now,
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when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute."
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That means they made them slaves, basically, and did not utterly drive them out.
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They let them keep living, but they made them pay them taxes. That's what tribute is.
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They made them serve them. They made them augment their income.
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And in their mind they think, "Man, leaving a few Canaanites in here, that's good for business.
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Leaving a few Canaanites here, that means we have the blessing of God,
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and we're in control, but at the same time we get the best of both worlds.
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We get to benefit from them too."
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You'll never benefit from sin growing in your piece of the pie. You never will.
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The Bible says, "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." You put a little leaven in dough,
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and at first all the dough is fine, except for that little spot where the leaven starts eating away,
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and the yeast starts eating away, but eventually what happens with that yeast is not satisfied,
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and it's going to permeate the entire lump, and sin will do your life the same way.
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Let's go to look here now. Judges chapter 1 verse 29,
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"Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Giza,
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but the Canaanites dwelt in Giza among them.
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Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Catron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalal,
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but the Canaanites dwelt among them and became tributaries.
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Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Akko, nor the inhabitants of Zidane,
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nor of Aelab, nor of Aixab, nor of Halba, nor of Aefik, nor of Rahab,
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but the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites the inhabitants of the land,
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for they did not drive them out." Verse 33,
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"Neither did Naftali drive out the inhabitants of Beth-Shemesh."
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Now, you see the names here. There's Naftali, see?
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These are the tribes of Israel, the sons of Israel, whose name was Jacob.
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They didn't drive out the people in their piece of the pie.
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Some did better than others, but as a whole, they left them in.
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And so what's going to happen eventually?
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They may be serving them now, but eventually they're going to be thorns in their sides.
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Verse 34, "And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountain,
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for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley.
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But the Amorites would dwell in the mountain," I'm sorry, Mount Harris in Agilon
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and in Shalbeam, "yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed,
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so that they became tributaries. And the coast of the Amorites
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was from the going up to Acrebeam, from the rock, and upward."
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So what we have here is an account of all the people, the cities, the places,
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the tribes, not fully obeying God and completely driving these people out,
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whether it was through a lack of their faith or through a lack of their obedience,
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their slothfulness, they didn't drive them out.
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Now let's go to chapter 2.
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Everything's okay for now, but now God's going to step in and address this matter in chapter 2.
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"And an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochum and said,
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'I made you to go up out of Egypt. It had brought you into the land,
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which I swear unto your fathers.' And I said," he's reminding them what he said,
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back in Numbers and back in the previous time, "I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you.
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Then ye shall make no league or no covenant, no agreement with the inhabitants of this land.
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Ye shall throw down their altars, but ye have not obeyed my voice. Why have ye done this?'"
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You know, ultimately one day we'll stand before God,
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and we'll have to give an account for God to God for not obeying his voice.
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And can you imagine God saying, "This is what I told you to do, but you did not do it. Why?
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Why have you done this?"
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And you can come up with all the excuses you want to, but nothing, they're going to be good.
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God asked Adam, "What did you do to this?"
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"Well, you gave me the fruit and I hate it."
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"Did God accept that excuse?"
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"No."
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"You know what God does not accept? Here's what people do, and here's what God does not accept."
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People always have good reasons to do bad things.
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That's what they do. They'll have a good reason to do a bad thing.
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It was a good reason.
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"Well, my wife gave me the fruit and I hated it."
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It's a good reason to do a bad thing. It's not possible.
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You can't have a good reason to do a bad thing.
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A bad thing is a bad thing is a bad thing.
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And any reason that causes you to do something contrary to God's word is not a good reason,
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it's a bad reason.
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Why have you done this?
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Well, you're either going to be speechless and say, "God, I was wrong,"
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or you're going to come up with some cockamamie excuse,
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and God's not going to accept it and you're going to look foolish.
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God asked Eve, "Why did you do this?"
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"Well, the serpent beguiled me."
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You know what? God never asked the serpent why he did it.
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Did you notice that? Never asked. Never asked.
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So God says, "Why did you do this?"
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Verse 3, "Wherefore I also said, 'I will not drive them out from before you,
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but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their God shall be a snare unto you.'"
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So God's saying, "Look, you didn't drive them out?
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You made the choice to leave them there?"
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So here's what's going to happen.
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I'm going to let them remain there.
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And when you try to drive them out on your own,
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because they're becoming troubled to you, I'm not going to help you.
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I'm going to let you get a taste of your own disobedience.
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Make sense?
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Because if they're driving them out because they're troubling Israel,
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they're not doing it to obey God, they're doing it for their own comfort
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instead of obedience to God.
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And so he says, "They're going to be a snare to you.
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Their gods are going to be a snare to you."
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All right, let's go ahead and look here now in verse 4.
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"And it came to pass when the angel of the Lord
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spake these words into all the children of Israel,
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that the people lifted up their voice and wept,
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and they called the name of the place Baucom, and they sacrificed there unto God."
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God got a hold of them.
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God rebuked them.
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And now they realize, "Oops, we did wrong."
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Verse, if you would, go now to verse 7.
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"And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua,
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and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua,
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who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel.
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And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being in 110 years old,
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and they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath Harries,
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the mount of Ephraim, on the side of the hill.
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Gosh!
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And also all that generation were gathered into their fathers,
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and there arose another generation.
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After them, this is important, which knew not the Lord,
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nor yet the works which he had done for Israel."
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So here's what happens.
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Israel serves God.
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It means they don't worship any false gods as long as Joshua was living.
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But after Joshua died,
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and after all the people who saw the Jordan River open for them,
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the Goron dry land, who watched the walls of Jericho fall,
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who knew the work of God,
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who knew the disobedience of their parents in the wilderness,
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and they died because they disobeyed God,
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all those people now, those people of faith, they've died.
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And now another generation of young people come up,
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and all they've ever known their whole life is victory.
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They grew up in a nation that their parents fought for,
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and they inherited peace and victory and success and dominance in the land.
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Yes, there were Canaanites and Hittites and all those people in the land.
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Yes, some of their enemies were still there.
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God said they would be since they disobeyed.
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But they were always victorious and stronger than them,
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and they were the minority, and they were the people who were in charge.
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And everything was great,
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but they did not give God credit for making it that way.
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And they did not take up where their parents left off.
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You know, each generation should build upon the previous generation.
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My dad should set me up,
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so I should have an education and financial success and freedom and all that.
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And then when I come up and he goes to the grave,
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I then should build on what he had and try to make it better for my next generation.
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And each generation should do that and pass down something better to their offspring.
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But what happens is if I grow up and I don't appreciate the work it took
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and the sacrifice it took for the previous generation to get me to where I am,
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I'm going to slough it off and I'm going to hand down to my offspring a broken system,
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a broken nation.
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And so this nation comes up, and all they've ever known is victory,
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and they're thinking, "Hey, we're okay like we are."
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And now the people that they let stay there, they've been having babies and grandbabies,
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and now they're multiplying some, and they're still practicing their false worship.
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And Israel's looking around, they're thinking, "Hey, you know,
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their religion allows them to commit fornication.
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Their religion allows them to do a whole lot more fun stuff than our religion does.
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You know what?
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There's no use in us having two different religions around here anyway.
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It's just all joined together.
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We'll start worshiping their idols, their false gods, and we'll all be the same.
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One big happy family.
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Man, you can never make friends with sin.
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Sin will rub up to you.
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Sin's like a terrorist.
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They will act friendly to you when they're weak.
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They'll cut your head off when they're strong.
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That's simple.
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That's the way sin is.
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And so let's go ahead and look here now in chapter 2.
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And let's look in verse 11.
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"And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Balaam."
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All right, now Balaam, let's see.
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Let me put this here.
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Baal is a false god.
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Balaam makes it plural.
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They serve false gods.
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We would say bales or something like that, you know.
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But they serve false gods is what it's saying here.
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So they serve Balaam.
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Look here now.
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Verse 12, "And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers,
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which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods."
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Of the gods of the people that were round about them.
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"And bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger.
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And they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtoreth."
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So they're serving these false gods.
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"And they forsook the God that brought them out of the land of Egypt."
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In other words, they forsook the God upon the basis of which
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and the power of which they occupied that land.
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Now if you forsake the power that put you in that land,
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then you're going to forsake the power to keep you in that land.
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If you forsake the power that gave you victory,
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then you're going to forsake victory itself.
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Make sense?
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And so now God's angry at them.
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And look here in verse 14, "And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel,
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and He delivered them into the hand of spoilers that spoiled them.
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And He sold them into the hands of their enemies round about,
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so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.
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Whether so ever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil,
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as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them,
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and they were greatly distressed.
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Now they're serving their enemies who were first serving them."
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That should be a lesson to every one of us.
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Now that's not what God wanted.
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God loved these people.
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God wanted them to be successful,
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but God will never bless you in your disobedience.
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My dad used to have this analogy.
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I may have shared it with you before, but I'll share it again.
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He said, "If somebody asks me for gas money,
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and they're trying to go to Tyler, for example,
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yet they're headed west instead of east from Athens."
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He said, "I'm not going to give that person gas money.
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They may need gas money.
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I may be a nice person.
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I may care about that person.
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I'm not going to put gas in their tank, because putting gas in their tank,
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all I'm doing is helping them go in the wrong direction."
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So God's going to come along here and bless these people in their disobedience.
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He's not going to bless us in our disobedience,
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because when he does, all he's doing is help us go in the wrong direction.
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There's got to be a correction of the mind to realize I'm going the wrong way.
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Then, even if we don't have the power to go the right way,
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if we just turn that direction in our mind and we know this is the way we need to go,
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now God has the power to get our car down the road.
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Make sense?
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So he's not going to bless Israel in their disobedience and their service to false gods.
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No.
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If they want blessing, let those false gods protect them.
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Verse 16, "Nevertheless, the Lord raised up judges,"
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this is important.
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This is why this is called the book of Judges.
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"The Lord raised up judges which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them."
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Now, spoiled them means they conquer them in battle and they take their stuff.
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Today we'd say, "Beat them up and take their stuff."
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That's what happened.
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That's spoiling them.
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And so God raised up judges that delivered them out of the hand of those that beat them up and took their stuff.
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And here's what the judges were supposed to do.
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A judge is a judge, right?
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What does a judge do?
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A judge makes sure that law and order and everything is followed.
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That's what they're supposed to do anyway.
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And so God would raise up a judge.
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The judge would then come on and say, "Hey, guys, you know why we're in this mess?
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Because we haven't been listening to God.
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Now, let's get back to God and follow God and God will bless us.
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Let's get her car turned in the right direction.
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He'll deliver us her enemies and we'll have victory."
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And while the judge was alive, God would bless the people of Israel.
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The problem is the judge had a hard time getting them to listen to him.
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So let's look here now, verse 17.
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"And yet they would not hearken unto their judges,
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but they went a whoring after other gods and bowed themselves unto them.
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They turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in,"
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or the direction their fathers went,
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"obaying the commandments of the Lord, but they did not sow."
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In other words, their fathers obeyed God's commandments,
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but this next generation wouldn't.
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Verse 18, "And when the Lord raised them up judges,
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then the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies
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all the days of the judge.
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For it repented the Lord," or it made them sad,
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"because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them.
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And it came to pass when the judge was dead
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that they returned and corrupted themselves more than their fathers
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in following other gods to serve them and to bow down unto them.
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They ceased not from their own doings nor from their stubborn way."
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So as long as the judge was alive, God would bless.
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God would bless. They would be happy.
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"Hey, things are going well now." Then the judge dies.
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Now there's no judge to make sure they're doing right.
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They say, "Well, let's go right back to the false gods again. Everything's okay."
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So they only serve God when God would have a judge over them
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to try to make them do what was right.
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You know what the Bible says?
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The Bible says that we're to judge ourselves.
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You know why God didn't give them a judge after Joshua died?
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He didn't want them to have judges.
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They had his word.
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All they had to do was sit on the court of their own conscience,
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take his word, and judge themselves.
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And say, "You know what? I'm wrong here. I'm guilty.
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Sorry, God. I'm going to do it right now. I'll correct my way."
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The reason that we have...
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I mean, we've got bankruptcy laws, we've got criminal laws,
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we've got civil laws, we've got code of crime procedures,
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we've got FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, state police, local police, county police,
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CIA...
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Then you've got the military on top of that.
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Do you know why we have all that?
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Because we are incapable of judging ourselves.
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That's why.
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God did not want them to have all of that political infrastructure.
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Because the more political infrastructure you have,
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the less freedom you have.
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The Bible actually gives people freedom.
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If they'll follow it.
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But they would not judge themselves, so God would have to raise up a judge.
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And as soon as the judge died, they'd go right back to these false gods again.
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And then what would happen then?
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Then their enemies would get control of them again.
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So what would God do? He would raise up another judge.
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And then the people would start living more like God said.
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And then God would deliver them from the hand of their enemies.
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And as soon as things got good for them and the judge died,
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they'd go right back to that mess again.
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And again, and again, and again.
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Which is why, if you'll look here, it's called the period of the judges.
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Which is why the book of the Bible is not called the book of judge.
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It's called the book of judges.
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Because they went through this mess for 400 years.
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That's a long time to not be able to figure out what you're doing wrong.
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And you think, well boy, those Jews were crazy.
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They were stupid. Look at our nation.
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We can't figure it out either.
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Can't figure it out either.
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You wonder why government grows bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
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It's because people's faith and obedience get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.
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That's why.
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Now let's look here, if you would, in chapter 3 and then we'll begin to close.
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Now these, chapter 3 verse 1, now these are the nations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them.
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Now what's the meaning by that?
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God left these enemy nations there to prove Israel by those nations.
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Can anyone have an idea what that would mean?
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To prove means to test.
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So He leaves these enemy nations there to test Israel.
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How does this test them?
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Anyone got an idea?
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Someone's got it and they're afraid they're going to be wrong and they don't want to say it.
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Say it anyway. You may be right. You never know.
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All right. I'll explain it to you.
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So anyone online got any idea?
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Hi, Amanda. Good to see you.
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Sounds like baby boomers, yeah.
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So here's what happens.
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If God allowed them, after they chose to leave their enemies there,
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if God drove those enemies out, they would have no one to challenge their freedom.
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No one to be afraid of.
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No one to oppress them.
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But you see, it's just like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden.
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Why did God have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden?
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Well, basically two things. One, to give them a real choice.
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Remember, to love God, you have the ability to choose God.
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Apart from the ability to choose God, you don't have the capacity to love God.
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Love is a choice.
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By leaving these people in the land and their false gods, they had chose to leave there.
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And then now God says, "All right, now you're going to have to stay with them for a while
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until you get your heart turned around to follow me."
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By leaving them in the land, God would be able to test Israel to see,
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"Are they going to obey me and drive these people out?
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Or as long as things are going well with them, are they going to tolerate them in their lives?"
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I've seen people before who had no interest in church whatsoever until they go to the hospital.
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And when they get in the hospital, they get scared.
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And I would go see them, this one person I'm thinking of at the moment, I'd go see this man.
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And then next thing you know, as soon as he got well to get out of the hospital,
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he would show up in church one or two times and he'd be gone.
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The last time I talked to him about it, he said, "Whew, I think I went too far this time.
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God's got my attention now."
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Well, he's not here anymore.
38:09 --> 38:11
He just showed up again and popped out again.
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And so what happens is God puts these people there to test them.
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Are you going to follow me because you're on your back in the hospital and you want me to help you?
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Or are you going to follow me because you love me?
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You see, if I follow God when I'm in good health and I'm not afraid of anything, that's true obedience.
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If I follow God when I'm sick and I'm scared, that's me trying to get well.
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And then when I get well, if I continue following God, that's obedience.
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But if when I get well, like the Israelites, when my enemies go away and I get strong again,
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I go right back to that same mess, that's not obedience at all.
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So God left these people there to test them.
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You're strong now. Your judge has died, but you're strong.
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Are you going to drive these people out? Are you going to get rid of the sin out of your life?
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Are you perfectly fine with tolerating the sin as long as you're not sick or scared and things are going your way?
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Verse 2, "Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof."
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And we'll close with that. To teach them war.
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You have a generation that never knew how to fight. They better learn how to fight.
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They better learn to appreciate what it takes to have peace. And that's war sometimes.
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When you live in a fallen world, it's war. It's strength. It's fighting.
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It's driving out your enemy and keeping them away from you.
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And it's the same way in our lives, in the spiritual sense, which is what this is about.
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The only way for us to truly have peace in our lives spiritually.
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Of course we have peace through Jesus dying for our sins, but in a practical way,
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the only way for us to experience the peace and the prosperity in God's hand of blessing in our lives
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is if in our mind we declare war on anything that declares war against God.
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Because when you declare war against your enemy, you're making a choice whose side you're on.
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I see people, after I ran bomb to Israel yesterday, I see people putting on Facebook,
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"I stand with Israel." You know what they're doing? This is whose side I'm on.
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By leaving these people there, God sees whose side Israel's on.
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And by leaving challenges in your life, God will see whose side you're on, you see.
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So don't make the mistake of Israel.
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We've now covered 400 years of Israel's history, and now, God willing,
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next week we'll move from the 400 years of the judges, and we'll move to the 400 years of the kings.
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Well, that will go ahead and stop.
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You see how the Bible's starting to come together and the little pieces come together,
41:38 --> 41:43
and you see how it's a little network there, historical network?
41:43 --> 41:47
Alright. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. We'll see you, God willing, next week.
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