The Cycle
Judges 2:16-23
I’m not going to quote a “focus verse” for this devotional on Judges 2:16-23 (so go ahead and read the whole text), because I want to examine it as a whole… as a summary of what happens throughout Judges. So, instead, I will quote a “focus saying” I’ve heard.
Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men.
Weak men create hard times.
When I first heard this quote, it reminded me of the entire book of Judges. Over and over in this book, the people of Israel go through a similar cycle:
Peaceful times bring sinfulness.
Sinfulness brings oppression.
Oppression brings repentance.
Repentance brings deliverance.
Deliverance brings peaceful times.
Rinse. Repeat.
My knee-jerk reaction to Judges and the people of Israel is to think, “Man, they were really dumb. Just remember to follow God!” But then my brother-in-law makes a statement like, “You know that verse that says ‘it’s harder for a camel to enter the eye-of-a-needle than for a rich man to get into heaven’… every one of us is that rich man if you compare us to the rest of the world’s population.”
Whoa. He’s right. In my entire life, I’ve never had to worry about where my next meal came from. My shower is always hot. My mattress is always soft. In the entire history of the existence of mankind, life has never been easier and more comfortable than during the 45 years I’ve been alive. And that’s when I realize I’m in the “peaceful” times of the cycle in the book of Judges.
In Judges, and many of the other stories of the Israelites, when they fell into sinfulness, the Old Testament often says that the people of Israel “forgot the Lord.” And there is the issue. Living in good, peaceful times is easy, and an easy life makes it easy to forget. God even warns the Israelites about this in Deuteronomy 6, when he says “--then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”
So that’s what this passage, and the whole book of Judges, really, reminds me to do during these good times: Remember the Lord. Remember to love him with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength. Lord, please help me to remember you.
~ David Bothof