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Last week, in The Time Before the Kings, Part 18, we learned from a horrific story of near genocide in Israel's history that we need to avoid the poisons of impulsivity at all costs by consulting with God before we act rashly!
This story concludes the book of Judges, and the next recorded story in the Bible is about Samuel who would appoint Israel's first king. This period of time between Joshua and Samuel, the one we’ve been studying for the past 18 weeks, was indeed a turbulent time. At this point we need to stop and ask ourselves a few last questions….
First of all, why was there all this confusion?
The book of Judges itself actually answers this question in four different places! "In those days… every man did what was right in his own eyes." (Judges 17:6 NASB. See Also Judges 18:1, 19:1, 21:25)!
We live in a sinful world, and no matter how "right" we think we are, there is always the possibility of error. Whenever we lean on our own understanding, we are doomed to fail; for there is only one way to know for sure that you are doing the right thing: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight." (Proverbs 3:5-6 NASB). Only in trusting God and acknowledging Him in all our ways will we succeed!
This brings us to our next question: Why would God allow this to happen? Why didn't He just set them up with a king?
Ah, but He did set them up with a King!
To understand this, we must look at the reasons Israel sited when asking for a human king in 1 Samuel 8: “...and our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” (Vs. 20 NASB).
But wait. Jephthah, one of Israel's judges, actually calls God by the name, "the Judge" (See Judges 11:27)! Even though Jephthah himself had been called to judge Israel, he understood that he wasn't truly the one in charge! The people of Israel already had a Judge! God Himself!
As for fighting their battles for them? It is documented throughout Scripture that they already had Someone fighting their battles! "The Lord will fight for you...” (Exodus 14:14 NASB). And then there is Deuteronomy 1:30: "The Lord your God, who goes before you, will Himself fight for you, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes..." (NASB -- See also Deuteronomy 3:22, 20:4, Joshua 23:3, Nehemiah 4:20, etc.). We also have Biblical record that God kept His promise to fight for Israel. "Joshua captured all these kings and their lands at one time, because the Lord, the God of Israel, fought for Israel." (Joshua 10:42 NASB)!
The people already had what they thought they needed! They had the ultimate of Judges, and they had One who fought for them! His name was Jehovah, the One and only true God, the God of Israel! This wasn't the "Time Before the Kings" at all! It was the time when the Ultimate King sat on the throne!
So why was Israel so set on having a human king?
The answer to this question is also found in 1 Samuel 8: "...but there shall be a king over us, so that we also may be like all the nations..." (Vs. 19b, 20a NASB)!
Having God as king wasn't good enough for the people. They wanted to be like the nations around them. They rejected God as their king because it made them different, it made them stand out. It made them ashamed! They wanted to blend in with the other nations! And as such, they stopped consulting God, they put their faith in idols of wood and stone, bowing the knee to the baals and the ashtorahs, just like the other nations.
Israel's history through the time of the judges could have been so different, if only they hadn't wanted so badly to be like the other nations... If only they had remembered the God who had rescued them from Egypt, who had gone before them in the wilderness, who had fought their battles and been their ultimate judge...
But let's not be too hard on Israel. Much of the wrong I've done in my lifetime has also been because of my desire to "blend in", to not be different, to look, talk, feel like those around me! I can tell you from first-hand experience that this never resulted in the will of God being done in my life! It only led to disaster! Every time!
This is the most powerful lesson we can learn from this time before the human kings: when we try to blend in with the world, we reject our God, and when we reject Him, then there is no one to fight our battles and judge our enemies! Without God to guide us, we have no choice but to do what seems right in our own eyes; and in case you wonder what's so wrong with that, just take a look at the disastrous historical period recorded in the book of Judges, in the time before the human kings!
This is the last lesson in "The Time Before the Kings" mini-series. My prayer is that these hard lessons that Israel had to learn will not be in vain, but that we will learn from them! That we will turn away from the world, that we will trust God and allow Him to fight our battles, that we will lean upon Him and acknowledge Him in all our ways! For if we do learn these lessons from the time in Israel's history when God had not yet granted them a human king, our own history will be so much more beautiful!
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart
Author, Moderator, Acting Director, Answers2Prayer Ministries
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