Act One: A Tragic Situation (Judges 4:1-3)

12/21/2009 7:44 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                        Focus:  Act one:  a tragic situation

Bible Reading & Meditation                        Reference:  Judges 4:1-3

            Message of the verses:  “1 ¶  Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, after Ehud died. 2  And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; and the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. 3  The sons of Israel cried to the LORD; for he had nine hundred iron chariots, and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years.”

            This SD begins a new chapter in Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on Judges, “Be Availble.”  He treats this chapter, which covers chapters four and five of Judges, as a play and today’s SD is the first act.

            I have highlighted “the Lord sold them” in verse two because it is a recurring theme in the book of Judges, and it happens right after a judge dies and the nation returns to idolatry.  The nation that the Lord uses this time to discipline the king of Hazor, which is one of the city-states that made of the Canaanite people.

            In verse three there is another recurring theme in the book of Judges, and that is that the people cried out to the Lord for deliverance from this king because he had 900 iron chariots. 

            On the service there does not seem to be a problem with this but the problem is that the children of Israel only want deliverance from their bad situation, not deliverance from the sin that has caused the problem in the first place.  “To ask God for comfort and not cleansing is only to sow seeds of selfishness that will eventually produce another bitter harvest.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I was trying to pray early this morning about the difficult situation that is going on at GBC the thought came to me that the entire church needs to be praying to the Lord to search their hearts so that God can uncover in all of our hearts any sin that is causing the problems that are going on at our church.  There seems to be two sides two this problem, and the sides seem to divided into the difference in ages.  A spiritual revival is certainly what is needed in our church, a revival that will cause every person to get on their knees and cry out to God for forgiveness, for their selfishness and seek the Lord’s will at GBC.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Ask the Lord to search my heart.

12/21/2009 8:15 AM