“So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.” Judges 2:3
March 31, 2025
On the heels of victory came defeat and decline. The book of Judges is the sad story of how defeat was snatched from jaws of victory. “The full depravity of a nation who does as each person sees fit emerges as the descent is completed” (Paul House). As nations go so can individuals who sink in the quicksand of sin. God sovereignly determines the battles we must fight. Yet at the same time sin lays its eggs in the nest of compromise. Israel punished herself by spiritual compromise in her willingness to give up something expected by God in order to meet the demands of her enemies. Accommodating the Canaanite culture around her became nails in the coffin of covenant disobedience. In our own age with the pressures of godless thinking and the gravitational pull of self-fulfillment, the gods of the day snare us. Christian homes as potential lights in spiritually dark communities cannot be differentiated from non-Christian families. Is God about to bring discipline and deliverance?
H
“Dear Lord, I desperately need the discernment to see the traps Satan lays in my pathway. Show me how to love you more each day.”