If you can’t eat it, concrete it! It’s that attitude that kept pebblecrete in business. It happened just before the Corinthian Columns went in in the 70s. Get rid of that lawn. You’ve only got to mow it. Fell those gum trees. They’re taking up space and sun. Clear the land. Plant the tomatoes and the lettuce, the cabbage, the prickly pears, the mangos. Pebblecrete the rest. And the Mediterranean takeover of the quarter acre block was complete.
Of course, it’s not so hard to clear a quarter acre block. But I understand it is somewhat harder in farming areas Particularly heavily timbered mallee areas. Especially in Australia. Historically, wheat farming in Australia required felling dense stands. And then the job wasn’t complete. In fact, clever Aussies developed things like the ‘stump jump plough’. That was the only way that wheat farming could be made viable in many places in Australia. (http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/smith.htm). The plough had to be able to jump the stumps and roots that were inevitably left behind after clearing the land.
But of course, we now regret clear felling. We’ve got major national problems like salinity, a rising water table, and soil erosion (http://www.abc.net.au/learn/silentflood/faqs.htm). We now see whole tracts of once arable land that is now unusable.
And we look back at the past practices and say: How could they have done it? What a wholesale disaster? It was a massacre.
Back in Deuteronomy, Israel was waiting to take the promised land. They endured 40 years in waiting. And now Israel was ready to be planted. But the land had to be cleared first. The Canaanite nations that had taken root need to be felled. And God, through Moses, commanded this. So Deuteronomy 7 verses 1 to 6:
1When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations – the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and strong than you – 2and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. 6For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. (NIV)
Israel is my precious nation. So clear fell the land. Cut them all down. Show no mercy to them. There is to be no mixing. For they will turn you from YHWH your God, to their practises. And if that happens, God will destroy Israel also. This is God's severe mercy for his people. Get rid of the bad apples, to preserve God's people.
Now, our reading today gives a summary of Israel’s performance in obeying God’s command after Joshua’s death. While Joshua led them, they had victory on every side. They had established themselves in the land. But still more work was required. There was more land to be taken. Israel had not yet spread out to the borders of the land God had given. So Joshua, in his farewell address, calls on Israel to finish the job (Joshua 23:4-5).
Remember how I have allotted as an inheritance for your tribes all the land of the nations that remain -- the nations I conquered -- between the Jordan and the Great Sea in the west. The LORD your God himself will drive them out of your way. He will push them out before you, and you will take possession of their land, as the LORD your God promised you. (Joshua 23:4-5 NIV)
Joshua apportions the remaining areas (Joshua 13-20). He delegates the rest of the job. He exhorts them to follow YHWH. And then Joshua dies.
And then Israel prepares for Holy War: It is holy, because the nations against which the move are corrupt; Holy, because it is a God initiated and led war; holy, because they do so in obedience to the God who redeemed them. We might not like it, but from God's point of view, it is no different to what God did in the 2004 Tsunami. In that Tsunami, God wiped out a quarter of a million people. Indeed, it is no different to what God does in the normal course of event. Every 120 years, God wipes out the entire world population. Over the next 120 years, God will wipe out between 10 and 25 billion people through death, the wages of sin. It is just that in the time of Joshua and Judges, God decides to use the nation Israel, not cancer, car accidents, heart attacks or strokes.
This Holy War, Israel hopes, is the war to end all wars. Exterminate the evil Canaanites, and they will have peace. And then they will be God’s people in God’s land under God’s rule. They started with great promise.
But unfortunately, as we read Judges chapter 1, Israel fails. They fail in small ways at the start. But from little things, big things grow. And Israel’s failure becomes the pattern, their failures become worse. And finally, their failure is complete. They do not clear the land.
Israel’s failure was not a failure of strength of arms. For they had YHWH. He is a Weapon of Mass Destruction. And the LORD God was fighting their battles for them. No, Israel’s failure was one of will. They didn’t want to conduct the warfare on God’s terms. Therefore, it was a moral failure. True to form, Israel would not do what God had said.
After a fight, someone is bound to end up in tears. But little did Israel expect that it would be her.
It is a promising beginning. Israel consults YHWH directly (Judges 1:1). And God directs that the armies of Judah move out first (Judges 1:2). Verses 1 to 20 is all about the campaign of Judah. This is appropriate, because the father of Israel, Jacob, had given Judah the leadership. Judah had led his brothers in the Genesis story. And this would continue throughout Israel’s history.
The Scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet…. To him shall be the obedience of the people. (Genesis 40:10 NASB)
And Judah takes Simeon with him. A big brother helping a little brother out.
Judah’s first campaign is described in verses 4 to 8. The fighting was in the hill country. And at first glance it is a success. Judah defeated 10,000 men. And, moreover, we see the justice in the Campaign. Adoni Bezek, the defeated King, was a butcher. He liked to cut off thumbs and big toes. And, at first glance, Adoni Bezek has received his just retribution. Now the same has happened to him.
But we notice two things that concern us. No sooner has Judah entered the land, that they begin copying the practices of the land. They do to Adoni Bezek what he had done to other defeated kings. Judah is becoming like the nations that they drove out. Second, they disobey God. God said to exterminate, not mutilate. Yet, they keep Adoni Bezek alive and drag him off to Jerusalem. These are lapses into disobedience. And these lapses grow. A first one into a second lapse. Then a habit is formed. And the habit becomes an addiction. And finally, an accepted way of life. From little things, big things grow.
Judah’s second campaign is described in verses 9 to 20. This was desert warfare, and warfare in the valleys and plains. And again we see that the LORD was with Judah. Judah takes Hebron, and defeats 3 Canaanite champions. They take Debir and Gaza, Ashkelon and Ekron. Simeon exterminate the Canaanites in Zephath. So the picture is one of victory.
The narrator digresses to tell us about a couple of groups. The first is Caleb’s family, including Othniel and Acsah. They are Kenizzites. In other words, they are Edomites. Descendants of Esau, who in previous joined themselves to Judah (See NBD, 652). Then there are the Kenites (see NBD, 651). They are descendants of Jethro, the Midianite tribe into which Moses married. In other words, they are not pure blood Israelites. Moses sons are both half-blood princes. And the heros of our story, Caleb and Othniel, are mudbloods. Yet, they are the model, faithful Jews. Caleb, the last man standing of the exodus generation. Faithful and brave. It is he who defeated the champions. Othniel, the first judge and saviour of Israel. The bold conqueror of Kiriath Sepher. And he gets the girl, wining the hand of Acseh.
So we can see that God is no racist. He’s wiping out the Canaanites because they deserve it. But those from other nations who, like Ruth, come to YHWH in sincerity to find shelter under his wings. This is the Israel of God. The Israel of faith. Those who walk in the faith of their father Abraham (Romans 4:12).
And we see that God is no sexist, either. Rather, we see how God worked through a patriarchal society. In the culture of his Old Testament people, there were distinctive roles for fathers and daughters. The father was the family head. That’s Caleb, the patriarch. His privilege is to protect and fight for his family and provide for his daughter. Gifts of a husband, land, livelihood and peace. And Achsah is the bold yet respectful daughter. Her privilege was to receive what her father provides. And Achsah was no fool. She subscribes to Choice Magazine. She realizes before her husband does that their land grant is deficient. It’s in the desert. And they need water. So she asks her father for what she needs. That’s how she respects him. He is the provider. She is assertive, takes the initiative. And her father in response generously gives what she asks.
How a society treats its women and children, its aged, its disadvantaged, is a barometre on society. And the story of Caleb and Achsah at the beginning of Judges will mark the height from which Israel falls. Here we see respect for the daughter, protection by the family head, and provision of what is necessary. But by the time of Jephthah, we see Israel’s saviour offering up his daughter as a whole burnt offering. And by the end, we’ve seen the righteous in Israel offering their wives and daughters to mobs to be raped (chapter 19). And the elders consenting to kidnapping young virgins (chapter 21).
However, again, weaknesses appear in Judah’s armor. Verse 19, Judah cannot drive out the Canaanites in the valley, because they had iron chariots. It’s a strange reason. God can drown horse and rider in Egypt, but not Canaan? God can bring down Jericho’s stone walls, but not a line of horses? No, Judah’s failure is not of ability, but willingness. You didn’t tell us they’ld have chariots! That wasn’t part of the deal. Anyway, we’ve done pretty well. Look at how much we’ve got! Again, a failure to trust YHWH and be fully obedient.
And if Judah, the lion, loses her nerve, what of little Benjamin, or the other tribes. The rest of the account of the Holy War is a history of bigger and bigger compromises. Benjamin cannot drive out the Jebusites from Jerusalem (verses 21).
But worse, Joseph’s strategy itself involves compromise. Joseph sends spies. And they enter a covenant with a passer by from Luz (verses 22-26). This man is not even named, he’s a nobody. He promises to betray his people, they promise to let him go free. It seems a small short cut. It’s expedient, convenient. After all, thinks Joseph, we’ll kill 99.9% of them. God should be happy with that. What can this nobody do anyway? What does this nobody do? He moves Luz a bit further down the road. God wanted no Luz. Joseph compromised, wanted the easy way. And Luz remained. The whole exercise was simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
And it gets worse. Because the northern tribes have been rethinking this whole ‘exterminate’ thing. It’s all a bit wasteful. Hasn’t God thought how useful these Canaanites might be? Instead of killing them, why don’t we get them to do all our boring jobs? So resourceful Manasseh brings in a new industrial relations system. It’s called ‘forced labour’. Zebulun and Naphtali does the same (verses 30, 33). And once the rest of Israel sees how fiscally prudent it is, how good it is for business, they will want to have this as a uniform industrial relations system. Even mighty Joseph will want to opt in (v35) And their vision for workplace relations is this. Make the Canaanites our slaves (vv27,29,30) Just like Israel were in Egypt! Israel’s heart, it seems, always returned to Egypt.
But as we keep reading the chapter, it still gets worse. For while in verses 27 to 30, the Canaanites lived among Israel, in verses 31 to 34, Israel lives among the Canaanites. At the beginning of the chapter, the garden was mostly flowers with the odd weed. At the end, it’s all weed, and the flowers we can see have been pushed up the wall and out of the sunshine. Poor old Dan has a tiny toe hold up the hills. And even there he’s not at peace.
So we leave Judges 1. It is a picture is of final failure after a promising start. Israel refused to obey God and reshape their world in God’s image. So God lets Israel be reshaped in the world’s image. By the end of Judges, Israel will look like just another Canaanite nation. Practising idolatry and pagan sexual immorality. God gives them what they want. You want pagan lifestyle. OK, you can have them next door. Your daughters can marry them. You can have what you want. A punishment fitting the crime. And when Israel realizes their getting what they want, it doesn’t look so good. So they end up in tears. (Judges 2:4-5)
Friends, these things happened to them as examples. They were written down for us as warnings. What can we learn from them:
First, sin starts small. Disobedience begins in the little things. A compromise here, a short cut there. But from little things, big things grow. Every sin, no matter how small, is a step toward full blown apostasy.
How is that you justify your disobediences to yourself? Is it the, Oh well, I can do this, because he did this to others. He is getting justice. Or, God surely mustn’t be demanding that! Look at those iron chariots… No, he must mean something else. Or, really I think this way is more fiscally responsible. This is good for business. So we must repent, change our minds.
Second, we see that God gives people over to their sin. This is part of his judgment. Thus the three fold ‘God gave them over’ in Romans 1:18-32.
Third, we see that God calls us to have no mercy on idolatry, on false worship and false theology. God cannot tolerate this sin in his holy people. We cannot worship YHWH, now revealed as God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and at the same time worship false gods. Whether they go by the name Baal or Asherah of Canaan, or Allah of Islam, or Jahbulon, as Masonry teaches, or the Jehovah’s Witness Jehovah, or Mammon or Sport, as our hedonistic society teaches us. We must be holy to the Lord. We worship God the Father, through the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit. Three persons, one God. There is no place for us to compromise. As our articles say, in article 18: We must not say that every person shall be saved by the law or religion which he or she professes. Because Holy Scripture sets out for us only the name of Jesus Christ, by which we must be saved.
So fourth, like Israel, we are called to holy war. But our war is different to that of Israel. It is not against flesh and blood. It is not a modern Jihad or execution of a fatwa, or a medieval crusade. It is a spiritual war with spiritual foes. I say, our enemies are not flesh and blood. But the world, the flesh and the devil. It is against sin, without, within, and above. And for this we need to fight, with the armor and the weapons God gives us. Truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, prayer; the word of God and the gospel of peace.
Fifth, we see that it is one thing to start well. It is another to finish strong. Israel’s experience in the land show us that a good start is no guarantee of a successful conclusion. We know that some walk well, so it seems, for a time. Then they fall away. Scripture teaches this. Experience confirms it. And we know that God’s elect, chosen from the foundation of the world, who God will ultimately save for ever, can fall into grievous sin. Abraham, Noah, Jacob, David, Solomon and Peter being obvious examples. And so we pray, lead us not into temptation. Finish the good work you have started in us.
And finally, we see the goodness of God. We see his patience with his sinful people. His perseverance. That he doesn’t annul the covenant after their failure, but goes beyond judgment to mercy. Because Judges has 21 chapters, not one. God raises redeemers and judges. We’ve already met the first one. Othniel. The brave warrior who took the town and got the girl also saved the nation (Judges 3:9-11). An unexpected ruler from the ruler’s tribe. He is from Judah, yet he is not. Just like Jesus, as to his human nature, of the tribe of Judah. Yet he also comes from a far away place. A saviour raised by God to deliver his people.
Let’s pray.