CHONGLAND

This morning at JMC, Andrew Barry spoke to us from Judges 1 & 2.

The book of Judges speaks of the Judges that God raises up as a result of Israel crying out to God after they’re punished by God when they have done wrong in His sight. These Judges are not like Judge Judy or Judge Reinhold, rather they are like Judge Dredd; come to bring judgement. The book is set just after the Israelites have come out of slavery in Egypt and into the promised land.
God tells them that they are to make an impact on the world, and they are not to make pacts with the world.

The Israelites entrance into the promised land, Canaan was full of great expectations; They had been in slavery in Egypt for hundreds of years, crying out in misery, wandering the desert for 40 years, but the entrance was not as grand nor as easy as they expected. Their leader Joshua had died and they had no king. They took only a part of the country, not all of it, as they couldn’t drive out all those that possessed it. The promised land in Exodus 3: 6-8:

⁶ And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
⁷ Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, ⁸ and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

was not fully conquered, they were confined to the hill country. This was a tragedy in their eyes, and would have driven the Israelites to tears as they were reading this….

The greater tragedy was one of their hearts: that the next generation of Israel did not know the Lord, instead, they turn to the Baals and Asherah/Ashtaroth as it says in Judges 2: 10-14:
¹⁰ And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
¹¹ And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. ¹² And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. ¹³ They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.

We see that Canaan made a stamp on the Israelites, rather than the Israelites making a stamp on the land of Canaan. The Israelites adopted the world view of their neighbours, adopting rituals and principals.
We are to similarly make a stamp on the world, but we so often adopt their principals, and sometimes their rituals. Our world view is often naturalistic, secular or materialistic, living as practical atheists; operating with the world view of our neighbours and turning our backs on God.

God sent these Judges as a wake up call, who saved the people (Israel) out of harms way, and as long as the judge lived, the people worshipped God, but when the judge died, the people turned back to the ways of the land: Judges 2: 18 & 19

¹⁸ Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. ¹⁹ But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.

So what is the relevance of this book of Judges today?? Christians have made many great conquests, with countries like China and Africa seeing massive growth in Christianity. But then we have limitations: we get criticised by the media alot, and it feels like an uphill battle. The heart of the church is where we see the biggest failure; we have come to take God for granted. We see God’s people not living as God’s people. Our church life doesn’t translate to other parts of life, we are called to forsake all others, to follow God, to trust Him and worship Him, we are to make a stamp on the world, not the world on us.

This week I’m at January Ministry Conference [JMC] instead of work. Andrew Barry is speaking on Judges, and Con Campbell is speaking on 2 Timothy. Apart from that the days are spent looking at the Bible through various strand groups and looking at other practical areas of life through electives.

Again I will blog through the days as we go, so check back regularly for updates as we move through the week.

I’m standing at town hall awaiting a train to take me home to a nice cleansing shower and my cosy bed.

My night was spent at Chinese Laundry to hear UK DJ Danny Howells. His set tonight was good, but not great, having plenty of nice tracks, especially those of the funky bouncy progressive variety, but it was missing that spark that binds a set together making it flow on a proverbial journey.

Tonight was the first time I was able to test out my leg on the dancefloor after my knee reconstruction 4 months ago. I had a great boogie towards the start of the night before the crowds started to fill up the space around the dancefloor. Everything seemed to flow smoothly giving little to no pain, which was good. The only thing that seemed to be lacking was stamina, mainly in my calves and soles of my feet. As usual there were plenty of looks, stares and giggles, some of them appreciative and others in jest, along with the occasional request for pills…

The crowd tonight was a big mix; probably 1/3 was there for the DJs and got into it well, the other 2/3s seemed out of place or to not be enjoying themselves. There were plenty of beautiful girls fluttering about, dressed to impressed. It was tough not to continually look at them and cross the dangerously thin line of appreciating beauty and lust.