Judges 1:1-36


After the death of Joshua, the people continued to inquire of the Lord, but there does not seem to be a national leader established to take the place of Joshua and Moses.  God tells the people to continue to fight and conquer the land that He has given them.  God has promised to fight with them as long as they obey and continue to press on towards driving the other nations out.  It is a long process, but one that should have been the priority of the people.  We all have areas of our lives that are difficult for us to be victorious.  We must never become weary in our fight against sin in our lives but we must trust the Lord to impact our hearts and constantly draw closer to Him.
THE PEOPLE COOPERATE IN THEIR BATTLES: The lands have been divided and enough territory has been conquered in every region that the individual tribe is not expected to finish the job.  We see that the tribes begin to cooperate with one another and promise to help one another with the conquest of the land.  I believe this cooperation was both good and bad; good in the sense that they were working together for a common purpose that was within God’s will, however, it also demonstrated a lack of trust in the Lord.  God has placed us in His body and it is certainly a part of His plan that we encourage and instruct one another as we help each other grow.  However, we must never become dependent upon other people to the point that we lose our confidence in the Lord.
THE PEOPLE CAPITULATE TO THEIR ENEMIES: Unfortunately it seems that the people grew weary of the wars and battles and ended up giving up on driving all of the people out.  It seems there was always a small remnant of the Canaanites who were able to hold on and remain in some of the cities and hill countries.  Despite many amazing victories, the people began to simply tolerate the presence of these other nations in their midst.  At times they were able to dominate them and force them to work for them, while at times they were defeated.  This was not God’s plan.  He had commanded them to trust Him and drive all of the nations completely out of the land.  The tolerance of sin in our lives is a very dangerous thing.  We may be able to control sin at some points in our lives, but there will be other times that we will be dominated by sin.  This is why we must strive in the strength of the Spirit to constantly turn from sin and defeat the temptations of sin that constantly bombard our lives. 

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