GENERAL SUBJECT
CRYSTALLIZATION-STUDY OF JOSHUA, JUDGES, RUTH
Message Nine
The Children of Israel Not Having a King and Everyone Doing What Was Right in His Own Eyes
Scripture Reading: Judg. 2:10-18; 3:7-15; 8:33-35; 10:6-7; 13:1; 17:5-6; 18:1, 30-31; 19:1; 21:25
I. In their degradation Israel became chaotic in government, worship, and morality—Judg. 3:7-15; 8:33-35; 13:1; 17:5-6; 18:30-31:
A. After the children of Israel possessed the land as their inheritance, they did not obey God's command to utterly drive out and destroy the seven tribes inhabiting Canaan—1:27-36.
B. As a result, the children of Israel served their gods, thus doing evil in the sight of the Lord—2:10-18.
C. The children of Israel forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed the gods of the people that were around them; they bowed themselves down to them and provoked Jehovah to anger—10:6-7.
D. God delivered them into the hands of spoilers, and He sold them into the hands of their enemies so that they could no longer stand; whenever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil—2:11-15.
E. The age of the judges may be considered the darkest period in the history of Israel; it was also a period of tragedy.
F. At that time, among the children of Israel there were rebellions against God, idolatry (chs. 17—18), infighting (ch. 9), hostility and controversy among the tribes (chs. 20—21), fornication (ch. 19), filthiness, brutal killings, and all manner of evil doing.
II. "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes"—21:25:
A. When the people of Israel said that there was no king among them, this meant that they had annulled God and His status and did not recognize God's kingship—17:6; 18:1; 19:1.
B. Although God's tabernacle was at Shiloh and the high priest had the Urim and Thummim, there was no government, no administration, in Israel because Israel had annulled God and His status as their King, and thus, there was no expression of God in Judges—18:31; Exo. 28:30, footnote 1.
C. Because there was no king in Israel during the time of the judges, the children of Israel did what was right in their own eyes, and as a result they became rotten and corrupted—Judg. 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25:
1. Moses told the people of Israel that when they entered the good land, they should not do things that were right in their own eyes but not right in the eyes of God—Deut. 12:8-14.
2. Satan caused the people of Israel to do what was right in their own eyes, to be lawless and godless, and to cast off God's constraint; this is revealed in Judges 17—18; 19:1; and 21:25.
3. Christians today often say that to them a certain thing is right or wrong; to live in this way is to do what is right in our own eyes.
4. It is dreadful for us to do what is right in our own eyes; we must do what is right in the eyes of God—Deut. 12:8.
D. When there was no king in Israel, there was no authority, and the people just did what they pleased; this is exactly the state of things in the present evil age, both in the world and in Christianity as a religious system—Eph. 2:2, 12.
E. In the Lord's recovery we need to be delivered from the lawlessness portrayed in Judges and to live under the rule of God in the kingdom of God and do the will of God—Titus 2:14; Gal. 1:4; Matt. 6:10.
III. God is the King of the ages, the One with absolute authority for eternity, who never changes—1 Tim. 1:17:
A. The God in whom we believe and whom we serve and who is being dispensed into us is the King of the ages, the King of eternity—v. 17; 2 Cor. 13:14.
B. Christ was born to be the King, a Ruler who will shepherd God's people, and He is now the King of kings and the Lord of lords—Matt. 2:2, 6; Rev. 19:16; 17:14:
1. As the King, Christ is Jehovah God, and He is also a man—Psa. 24:8, 10.
2. We need to realize that Christ is our King reigning in our hearts and recognize the kingship of Christ in the local churches, where we live under His kingship—Eph. 3:17; 1 Tim. 3:15; 6:15.
3. Christ will come as the King of glory—Jehovah of hosts, the consummated Triune God embodied in the victorious and coming Christ, who will reign in God's eternal kingdom—Psa. 24:7-10.
4. Christ's ruling on the throne of David over His kingdom will be first in the millennium and then in the new heaven and new earth for eternity—Isa. 9:7; Luke 1:33, footnote 1.
5. "Then will a throne be established in loving-kindness, /And upon it One will sit in truth /In the tent of David"—Isa. 16:5:
a. Christ's reigning in the tent of David signifies consolation, encouragement, and restoration.
b. Christ's throne will be established in loving-kindness, tender affection, and He will sit on His throne in truth, that is, in truthfulness and faithfulness—v. 5.
c. If we allow Christ to reign in us, bringing in the kingdom with loving-kindness, truthfulness, faithfulness, justice, and righteousness, we will become the same as He is in these virtues—v. 5.
IV. We need to be rescued from lawlessness and from being workers of lawlessness and to do what is right in the eyes of God by obeying the principle of serving God—Titus 2:14; Matt. 7:21-23:
A. Doing what is right in our own eyes is lawlessness—Judg. 21:25:
1. "Sin is lawlessness"; hence, lawlessness is sin, or, reciprocally, sin is lawlessness—1 John 3:4:
a. In 1 John 3:4 "lawlessness," or being without law, denotes being without, or not under, the principle of God's ruling over man.
b. To sin is to be without law, to trespass against the law.
c. In God's eyes, a person sins when he acts according to his own nature and deliberation, walking according to self-will and rebelling against God's authority.
d. Lawlessness is not recognizing and submitting to God's authority.
e. To practice lawlessness is to live a life outside of and not under God's ruling principle over man; the present age is full of lawlessness and rebellion.
f. In lawlessness one not only rebels against authority but acts as if there were no law.
2. In order to purify to Himself a particular people as His peculiar possession, Christ gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness—Titus 2:14.
B. "Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he who does the will of My Father who is in the heavens"—Matt. 7:21:
1. To call on the Lord suffices for us to be saved, but to enter into the kingdom of the heavens, we also need to do the will of the heavenly Father—Rom. 10:13; 12:2; Matt. 12:50; Eph. 5:17; Col. 1:9.
2. Since entering into the kingdom of the heavens requires doing the will of the heavenly Father, it is clearly different from entering into the kingdom of God through regeneration—John 3:3, 5:
a. The entrance into the kingdom of God is gained through being born of the divine life—1:12-13; 3:5-6.
b. The entrance into the kingdom of the heavens is gained through the living of the divine life—Matt. 7:21; 12:50.
C. The Lord Jesus rebuked those who prophesied, cast out demons, and did works of power in His name because, as "workers of lawlessness," they did these things out of themselves, not out of obedience to God's will—7:23:
1. There are two principles in the universe—the principle of God's authority and the principle of Satan's rebellion—Acts 1:7; Isa. 14:13-14:
a. We cannot serve God on the one hand and take the way of rebellion on the other hand; we must turn away from the principle of lawlessness and reject the way of rebellion—Matt. 28:18; Jude 11.
b. Serving God is directly linked to His authority; if we do not settle the matter of authority, we will have problems in all areas of our service.
2. May the Lord preserve our service in the principle of submission to God's authority and the Father's will—Acts 1:7; Matt. 7:21; 12:50.
V. The chaos in government, worship, and morality recorded in the book of Judges portrays the satanic chaos in the old creation—Gen. 3:1-5; Rev. 20:10—21:4:
A. The universe is in a state of chaos; this chaos is the source of suffering in the world today, and as long as there is chaos in creation, there will be sufferings in the world—Rom. 8:18-22.
B. The history of the universe is a history of God's economy and Satan's chaos—Gen. 1:1-2, 26; Rev. 20:10—21:4:
1. Satan, the devil, is the source and element of the evil chaos—Matt. 16:23; Rev. 2:9-10; 2 Cor. 2:11; 1 Pet. 5:8.
2. God Himself is the divine economy, and He has come into us as an administration, arrangement, and plan to put everything in order—Eph. 1:10; 3:10.
3. In the Bible and in our experience, the satanic chaos always goes along with the divine economy and actually helps God's economy—v. 9.
C. As those who are living in the midst of chaos, rebellion, and lawlessness, we need to have a clear vision of God's economy—Psa. 2:1-6; Prov. 29:18a; Eph. 3:9:
1. We need to be governed, controlled, and directed by this vision—Acts 26:19.
2. We must be strong and unshakable in the vision of God's economy, God's eternal will—Eph. 1:10; 3:9; Rev. 4:11; 1 Cor. 15:58; Heb. 12:28.
D. The overcomers conquer the satanic chaos in the old creation and carry out the divine economy for the new creation—1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 1:10; 3:9-10; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15:
1. The overcomers are not delivered out of the satanic chaos; instead, they conquer the destructive satanic chaos and triumph in the constructive divine economy—1 Tim. 1:3-4, 19-20; 4:1-2; Titus 3:10; 2 Tim. 1:15; 4:8.
2. As the overcomers are suffering the chaos, they are "empowered in the grace which is in Christ Jesus" (2:1) and are able to stand for and live out the divine economy—1:10-15; 3:14-17; 4:2, 5, 7, 18.