Breaking Badly 1: The Book of Judges

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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Gospel Rant and Doctor Bill singerd YouTube channel, a new series breaking badly. They never went to Shiloh. Imagine a nation collapsing, violence, spreading civil war, erupting families, betraying each other, Faith disappears, and somehow everyone still insists we're God's people. That's the Book of Judges. But here's what's shocking. The collapse didn't begin with war. It began with something much quieter, something almost invisible. Throughout the entire Book of Judges, Israel never goes to Shiloh, not once. And I will tell you why that matters in just a minute. Shiloh was everything, the core to Israel's sense of worth, identity, feeling of being loved and lovable as a peace people. It was where God's presence dwelt among them. It was where sacrifices were offered. It was where the tribes were commanded together. It was a place where they sought the Lord, submitted to his will. They were reminded who they were in his arms. Messed up in all and in Judges, no one goes, not the people, not the leaders, not the judges. Instead, one phrase echoes again and again. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes, and the problem wasn't just idolatry. The problem was this, They stopped seeking God. That's humanity's core problem, and the result is celestial loneliness and isolation which you feel. But maybe you have never been able to name. Welcome to Breaking Badly. I chose a variation of the name of a very popular showback in two thousand and eight, Breaking bad It fits. You're gonna see why. This is the journey through the Book of Judges, the story of how people who knew God, who experience his presence, his faithfulness, his miracles, still slowly drift away from him. And here's why this matters. Judges is not just israel story. It's mine, It's yours. It's ours. So welcome to Gospel Rat Podcast. To doctor Bill singurd YouTube channel. I'm your host, doctor Bill Sinyard. We are free wherever you get good podcasts of course on YouTube as well, so please subscribe. As always, one of the fastest ways you can help us grow to reach more people is by leaving comments below. If you're on YouTube, Thank you sincerely for that. Also, thanks for making Gospel Rat Podcasts one of the top ten percent podcasts in the world. Thank you for listening every week. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love that innately loves the unlovable, the love the unlovely, the unworthy, the likely, in the hurting, And that's all of us on any given day, if we were just a little bit honest. I want to get right into it. After this brief word from our sponsors, we'll be right back. So a context for the series, Let's get our bearings. Judges covers about one hundred and fifty years between Joshua and Samuel, is part of a larger story scholars called the Deuteronomistic history, which includes the Scrolls of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. These aren't just history books. They are theological history, and they ask one big question, why did Israel fail? And more importantly, how can they be faithful next time? If you want to understand Judges, you really need to understand two commands Number one, no idols Deuteronomy twelve. Destroy complete all the places on the high mountains and on the hills, and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their asher poles in the fire, cut down the idols of their gods, and wipe out their names from those places dur Only twelve one to three. So destroy them, avoid them, don't flirt with them. And why because idols promise us significant security belonging, but they don't deliver. There's dopamine hits, don't get me wrong, but they don't deliver long term. We're wired to pursue the dopamine hits of idols. Think career, health, wealth, AI screen, sex, sexuality, food, alcohol, even religion can become idolatrous apart from God, and a lot of religion is and second, So number one is don't pursue idols, tear them down. Number two is worship God where he choose Deuteronomy twelve five to eight. But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all the tribes to put his name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go there. You bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts verse eight. You are not to do as we do here today, Everyone as he sees fit Deuteronomy twelve five to eight, so three times a year. According to Deuteronomy sixteen sixteen, everyone is supposed to appear before the Lord where he chooses the place he chooses, and God chooses a place Joshua eighteen one Shiloh. That's where his sanctuary was set up. Jerusalem had not yet been conquered, the holy place, the altar. The priesthood is going to dwell in Shiloh for over one hundred years. That's where God commands that all the tribes come to worship, to look into his eyes, to experience his love for the unloved, the unlovely, the love the unworthy, the unlikely. The hurting israels different. Not because they were more righteous, they weren't more faithful, they weren't smarter, cleaner, Nope, but because God's powerful presence dwelts among them, and the love, honor, and an indignity that comes from that. We have all asked the question at some time, what is God's will? It's a multifaceted question, and no doubt the answers as well, But for sure he wants us to regularly come into his presence, right up into his face and re experience his love for us as we are. Why because that's how we are wired by God to find out our sense of identity, worth and value from him and his measured gaze, from his point of view, from his eyes, to experience being a person of worth in his gaze. That's core to us. We look for that in all the wrong places. We're supposed to come to him. Not whenever you feel like it, not however it seems right, but where he says, right, where he is, and that place back then was Shiloh, and that's where everything breaks down. So here's the insight. Avoiding idols is hard Judges ten, verse six. Again, the israelitesaid evil in the eyes of the Lord. They served the word is Avad. The Bales and the Asteriths, the gods of Aram said, and moab Ammonides and the Philistines. And because the Israelites forsook the word has abandoned Azov the Lord and no longer served him. There's that word again, a Od. It's not all our fault. There's something badly broken inside of us. Our brains have been wired badly by past hurch wounds, bad relationships, former gods, if you will, and nothing has hurt us more than relationship's gone by spiritual, emotional, the whole, the whole thing. So we have a love hate relationship with any relationship, especially one so other, so strange, so unbelievable, is the one we have with God. Talk about odd couples, and it's actually at a very deep part of our soul that we're terrified by this relationship. Subconsciously, you know, it's just first of all, it's too good to believe, and secondly, you know what happens if he walks away. That kind of hurt is just unimaginable. So subconsciously we see submission to God as something more akin to slavery. We fear it that way instead of a relational gift for us, because nobody gives us that kind of gift, that kind of love. So it's frightening because the Holy Spirit empowered submission means asking God what to do in our lives, so being when it's uncomfortable saying not my will but yours. And Israel didn't do that, I mean right, I hesitate doing that. I resist doing those things. So Judges two twelve, they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the Lord to anger because they forsook there's that word to get, abandoned him and served bail and the asteriths. Not just once. They acted like orphans, regularly, independent, self directed, doing whatever made sense to them. That should sound familiar if we were just honest, right. One point I want to make you've probably heard of the cycle of the Judges. That's how this book is usually taught, and it's real. I don't think it's the main point of the book, but you know, sinned and oppression and crying out and then deliverance. And I just think that's too simplistic. I think it misses the point of Shiloh. So here's a deeper cycle that I think the Lens were going to look at Judges through. God's people want to belong to him, but live independent from him, and God lets them. There it is God's people want to belong to him, but we want to live independent from him and God lets us. So the better cycle is this the independent adopted child of Yahweh consistently abandoned Yahweh. We don't depend upon the Lord, and we do things that just makes sense to us. We are stubbornly independent, and yet we believe that we are of God. In truth told, we want the desires of our wants fulfilled, not by God but whatever God shows up. Frankly, we want to be identified by God, but independent from God, and so God gives us over to what we want. All right, you want that, go for it. You will never be satisfied with it, God would say, I've been telling you for centuries that only I'm gonna satisfy your deepest desires and longing. So run to me, empty and open hands as you are. And what are you gonna do? Change with your own? Good luck with that? So today think of people's approval career, money, security, sex, sexuality, certain political party. God was right. It turns out we're not satisfied by the gods we rapidly love. But now we can't break free from either. And finally it becomes so bad that Israel has to cry out to Yahweh to help them again. I mean, you can feel ashamed in that right, the intrinsic deep, painful. Once again we messed up? What's wrong with me? You know? Oh? My I did it again. What's wrong with me? We are I'm just a bad person, I'm faithful, selfish, I'm a betrayer of Yahweh. Even after I said I would never do it again, I did you know? How many strikes is this? And yet God keeps showing mercy to his people. He keeps pursuing the unworthy, the unlovable with his love. I mean, who does that? And he does it again and again. He raises up flawed deliverers. And by the way, that's what all of them were, Deborah, you know, the least flawed of them. He rescues people who keep abandoning him. Why because his compassion is just not like ours, not like the people we know. And that's where this story is headed. Because Judges is not the end. Samuel is coming, David is coming, and ultimately a king who will finally succeed where everyone else has failed, the incarnation and flesh manifestation of his love for the unworthy, the unlikely, and the hurting me you. But for now, Judges, where God's people break badly by doing what's right in their own eyes, what can we do to find our Shiloh more often? I will let you know after this brief word from our sponsors, and this is our heart too, even our saved, redeemed heart. We have such a hard time re experiencing God's love for the unlovable, love the unlovely, the unworthy, the unlikely, and the hurting. We can't seem to look up. We just can't help ourselves by chasing idols that don't make us feel loved or worthy or special. They may give us those dopamine hits, right, they do, and that's good, but that's very temporary, and that's very addictive. We can't seem to rest, so we scramble instead. It would be so much better to ask God for Shiloh over and over. Simple, actually, I mean, the telling thing is that we don't. We won't, And here's one way to do it. Just say this gospel presentation to your breaking badly mid brain, over and over twice a day, for as long as it takes. Do it? How long do it until people notice? For now, just let it wash over you. I get it. This sounds so simple, simplistic, almost humiliating for you to say out loud, you want to your prefederal cortext goes, I've already got that We're not talking to your pre federal cortext. We're talking to your mid brain. So it's going to take repetition word for words. Say it aloud, over and over, say it too people, have someone say it to you. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Right. So here it is Jesus follower, strictly because of what Jesus did for you two thousand years ago. God actually loves you. He loves you with all of his heart, as much as the Father loves the son and the son loves the Father. He can't love you any more or any less than he does right now. He loves you as you are now, as you should be or could be. You can't add to this love or take a away from it now, I get it. It often feels like you've messed it up or need to do something so that God would like you better. So how do you experience it more? Now? Simple good news. There is something you can do and are invited to do. You can take daily baby steps to ask the spirit inside of you to make you know, experience, and feel just how much God loves you right now. Just ask ask again later, today, ask tomorrow. Make it a spiritual habit again twice a day. Allowed say it to someone, have someone say it to you. Think about what's happening inside of you as you hear that, What jumps off the page? What do you push back on? What you would love to feel? Again, those kind of things and just write those down or remember them, but again twice a day and keep doing it. Just keep doing it at least throughout this series. Yeah, okay, new book coming out, good enough parent. Parent is really hard parents, You got that right. Too often Christian parents feel like they are really messing up things, doing a poor job, ruining their kids. So I pull together eighteen biblical, neuroscientifically informed, very doable tips that can help, no shame, no lecturing. You may be surprised just how easy and helpful they are. Honestly, anyone could do that. And the bottom line is this, parents, if you're feeling this love of God for the unlovable, love the unlovely, the unworthy, unlikely, and hurting particularly shamed and frustrated parents, your child is going to notice the difference. They may not say so, but they're going to notice the difference. You'll see what I mean, check out the book. In fact, you will begin to feel God's love for your child, your love for the child more, but God's love for your child that they'll definitely notice. And the goal of the good Enough Parenting Program online in the book, the goal is to be your child's best pal when they're thirty. That's the goal. So check it out. Get copies to your church and Bible study, your book clubs, the parent Christian parents. You know your children if their parents are going to be and they will thank you. Yep, all right, we'll see you next time. Take heart, child of God.