Judges 2

What stood out today:

1 The angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers. I said, 'I will never break my covenant with you, 

2 and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.' Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? 

3 Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you." 

4 When the angel of the LORD had spoken these things to all the Israelites, the people wept aloud, 

5 and they called that place Bokim.  There they offered sacrifices to the LORD.

6 After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. 

7 The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel. 

8 Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. 

10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. 

11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. 

22 I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did." 

23 The LORD had allowed those nations to remain; he did not drive them out at once by giving them into the hands of Joshua.

My response: God what a sad chapter.  But You are still in it.  You show up in the beginning and you are there in the end allowing the evil to be a thorn in their side and to test them.  This makes me think of Paul in 2Cor 12:7, “There was given me a thorn in my flesh a messenger of Satan, to torment me.”  It makes me think of Ed Welch talking about the alcoholic that the battle is believing a lie, a false God.  Worse, as we worship it – give it value – we are making an unholy alliance an unholy covenant.  Jesus, with your new covenant: a new heart, a new identity, a new purity, a new power; are we able to take all the land?  What is our redemptive potential?  It seems Paul could not go all the way…  In fact he was given a thorn in the flesh.  And You said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  So is that it?  Are we to walk as wounded people; leaning into You, Your power, Your grace; as Jacob walked with a limp?  It certainly keeps us in a posture of “we” with the lost.  One beggar showing another beggar where to get bread.  Jesus, You are the bread of LIFE…  You are more than enough…