Week 4 Old Testament Fluency in 12 Weeks Whom will we serve? (Joshua and Judges)
Introduction: A morning in the life of a Canaanite farmer.
Idolatry
Commandments 1 and 2 of the Ten Commandments:
Exodus 20:3-5a
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them.
Joshua
God waited more than four hundred years to drive out the people of the Promised Land:
Genesis 15:13-16 God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
Three excerpts from Joshua’s final messages in Joshua 23 and 24.
Joshua 23:6-7 “…so that you will not associate with these nations, these which remain among you, or mention the name of their gods, or make anyone swear by them, or serve them, or bow down to them. But you are to cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day.”
Joshua 23:11-13 “So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God. For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you; but they will be a snare and a trap to you, and a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you.” Joshua 24:14-15 “Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Judges: “In Judges, history cycles ‘round’”
1. “They all do right in their own eyes”: 2. “Oppression”: 3. “Repentance”: 4. “A judge is found”:
Then they do it all again!
Judges 2:10-19 All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel. Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals, and they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed themselves down to them; thus they provoked the Lord to anger. So they forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtaroth. The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies around them, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. Wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had spoken and as the Lord had sworn to them, so that they were severely distressed. Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other gods and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do as their fathers. When the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered 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 oppressed and afflicted them. But it came about when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them and bow down to them; they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways.
Question: Are these so-called gods something or nothing?
The Bible offers three complementary perspectives on this question. Each of these is a possible way of viewing idols in any given situation. But in each situation, the Bible views idols as part of the created order.1
1. Idols and gods are merely ______that God created (Deuteronomy 4:15-21; Job 31:26-28), whether mountains or stars.
1 Following Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2006), 142f. See full discussion on pp. 136-188. 2. Idols are ______out of stuff that God created (2 Kings 19:17-19; Psalm 115:4-8; Hosea 8:4, 6; 13:2; Habakkuk 2:18-19).
3. Idols are ______, who are also created (Deuteronomy 32:16-17; cf. 21; Psalm 106:35-38; 1 Corinthians 10:20; Acts 26:18).
Question: Is idolatry still a problem today?
Biblical examples of idolatry outside of worshiping the sun and moon or a graven image of some kind:
1. Colossians 3:5 ______.
2. Ephesians 5:5 ______.
3. Romans 1:22-25 ______.
4. Psalm 96:4 ______.
5. Psalm 96:5-6 ______.
Philippians 2:9-11 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.