We are beginning a new series of sermons on the book of Judges. It is not a book that you get many sermons on. For many of you, this may be the first time you have ever heard a sermon on this book. The great tragedy of the evangelical church in the modern day is how little we value the first two-thirds of God’s Word. We think the New Testament is all that matters, that the Old Testament has been put out to pasture. But this part of God’s Word is foundational to all that comes after it. If we don’t understand what God has said before the New Testament, it will badly mess up how we read the New Testament.
This book, Judges, starts at the end of the conquest of Canaan. Israel had been in slavery in Egypt and God had led them out of Egypt in the Exodus, destroying the greatest power on earth with ten plagues, and burying the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea. God leads Israel to Sinai, gives them the law, the tabernacle, and the sacrificial system, then has them mustered to conquer the Land that He promised to Abraham. Israel sends in ten spies, 2 say the Land is great and we can take it. The other 8 say there are giants in the land and they persuade the people to disobey God’s command. So God judges that generation except for the two spies. Israel has to stay in the wilderness for 40 years until all the men of military age who disobeyed drop dead, except for Joshua and Caleb. After they die, Joshua leads Israel in the conquest of Canaan, obeying God’s command to leave nothing alive, all Canaanite men, women, children, and even the animals to be put to the sword. Israel obeyed this with mixed results, and their incomplete obedience will have an effect on them throughout this book of Judges and the rest of the Old Testament.
Our passage today deals with the very end of the book of Joshua. Israel is still conquering the land, and now begins to exist as a people without a human leader. The question throughout this book is if God alone is their king, will they obey Him or not? And what happens when they do not?