Now I'll be turning to Judges
chapter 10. In this passage, our Lord shows
us the need for a new heart. Our Lord creates new creatures
of his people. He makes us new creatures. He
gives us a new heart. He gives us everything that we
need. And this passage just steps us
right through to see our need of the Lord's grace and mercy
for us. Now it begins with the universal
problem that every one of us has. Every one of us, every son
and daughter of Adam is a sinner. And that's right where we pick
up in verse six. Verse 6 says, "...and the children
of Israel did evil again." Again. Again and again and again the
children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served
Balaam and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of
Zion, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon,
and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the Lord and served
not him. And so this is our nature. This is what we are in Adam. We are idolaters. We are sinners. We turn from him who is life. God is still God, whether we're
sinners or not. God is the Lord. He's the Lord. He's the creator. And yet we
see us blind, deaf, dumb, dead, to the things of our God. And
we don't hear him. We turn from him. And what we'll
see here is that works religion, that religion that we do to try
to serve the Lord and to fix things and to make things right,
They don't save. That doesn't save us. That doesn't
change or fix our heart. It does not alter what we are
by nature. We're still sinners. We're just
religious sinners. Worse sinners. Now we're twice
the sun's fit for hell. We're worse than we were when
we started. Now there's three lessons, three
lessons taught to you, to the children of God. This is three
lessons that our Lord teaches us here in this chapter. First,
do not be turned from the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't turn from
him. Don't turn. The Lord is showing
us, don't be turned from my salvation. This is my Savior. This is my
salvation. Don't be turned from Christ. Second, your works, being religious,
getting a little religion, doing works, good works, that's not
salvation. That's not going to fix it. That's
not going to change your heart. That's not going to give you
what you think you're seeking after. Religion doesn't save.
Works religion cannot save you. Third, we see that it's God who
is merciful. God is gracious. God must be
gracious to you or you will die in your sins. You may be fixed
things, you may be religious, but if Christ is not your salvation,
if he's not all your righteousness, you will die in your sins. So God is merciful and that's
how sinners are saved. by the mercy and grace of God
in Christ. So the problem with the Jews here, as we see, as
we read, their problem wasn't that they lacked religion. Their
problem was not that they weren't religious enough. And if you
listen to the world, they'll tell you, God wants us to get
involved in something, to believe something, to have faith in something. Start doing something better.
Look to the law. Look to religion. Do this. Do
that. That's what the dead the dead
man in this flesh. That's what this old man preaches. This is what this old man thinks
and tells others that, well, do better. Do better. Change
your life. Stop doing this. Start doing
that. That's your salvation. That's what God wants. No, it
isn't. These people were very religious. So religious, in fact, that they
had many many, many gods. False gods, but they had many
gods. They had a lot of religion. The problem is they lacked life. They had no life. They didn't
have the spirit of God. They had no fellowship with the
true and living God. They had a title that they had
life. They had the appearance that
they had life, but they were dead as a doornail. They look
good on the outside, but inside they were full of dead men's
bones. Now, many years later, so this
is Judges. This is early on in the history
of the Jews after they came out of Egypt. This is early on. Well, many, many, many years
later, this is before any king was even chosen by the people. Saul wasn't even king yet. Well,
now at the very tail end of the kings, We see that the Jews had
the exact same problem. Look at Jeremiah. Let's see it
in Jeremiah chapter 2. Turning from the Lord was common,
common to the Jew. Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 11
through 13. Here the prophet asks, Hath a
nation changed their gods? which are yet no gods. Has this
ever happened before in a nation that they would just turn from
their god and turn to false gods? Well,
my people have changed their glory for that which doth not
profit. They're still religious, but
now they've turned to things that are not profitable at all.
Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid. Be ye very desolate, saith the
Lord. This is a concerning thing. This
is a concerning thing. If a people turn from the true
and living God to false gods that cannot save, it's a very
concerning thing. It's not a light thing. And you
think about our own nation, which is supposed to be a Christian
nation, and now you see all manner of wickedness and evil and supporting. literally calling light darkness
and darkness light evil good and good evil literally that's
going on right now and the lord says be very concerned for my
people have committed two evils first they've forsaken me the
fountain of living waters me who gives life They've turned
away from me, and second, they've hewed them out cisterns, broken
cisterns that can hold no water. A cistern is a pit or a well
that's supposed to hold water, but it doesn't. There's no water
in the things that we look to and trust in in this flesh. It's
empty. It's not profitable. It cannot
save you. And so that was with the time
of Jeremiah and one of the latter kings. And they're doing this
back here. They're still doing it later.
So we see this is the common death of man, the turn from life
to death, to trust what cannot save rather than him who alone
is the salvation of his people. And so it doesn't even matter
which god they were looking to. The Philistines, or the Ammonites,
or the Moabites. It doesn't even matter. They're
all gods. They are not the god revealed
in this book, in the scriptures. They are not the true and living
god. And this shows us that there
aren't many religions. There's but two religions. There's
but two religions. There's Christ. There's Christ,
and he alone is salvation. And then there's all the others.
It's just idolatry. They cannot save. It doesn't
matter what it's called. It cannot save you. It's idolatry.
And so the Lord is showing that dead-letter religion, it can't
save. It's just idolatry. It's not
going to do for you what you think it's going to do. You and
I need a living, a living salvation, a living savior. We need him
to breathe life into us and to sustain our lives. We need Christ. The Jews forsook their God because
they had no life in them. They turned away from the true
and living God because they had no life in them. But listen to
what Christ says. This is what our Lord says to
his people. He tells us, I am the light of
the world. Are you in darkness? Would you
have light? The Lord Jesus Christ tells us
He Himself is the light of His people, and His promise to us
is that those who follow Him shall not walk in darkness. He will not leave you in darkness. He will shine His light brightly
unto you, reveal Himself to you, and lead you in the way that
you are to go. He is the good and faithful shepherd
of His sheep. All who come to Him, all who
cry out to Him, shall be saved, shall find Him a merciful and
gracious God and Savior. So Christ, if Christ is all your
salvation, you shall never fall away. You'll feel the waywardness
of your own heart. You'll see in yourself your weakness,
your sin, your folly, your foolishness. You'll see the death of this
flesh. You'll know it. You'll know what you are in this
flesh. But you shall see him. rise in your hearts and deliver
you from death, turn you from false ways, turn you from that
which is sinful and foolish and cannot save you. And you're gonna
know He is the Savior. He's my righteousness. He's everything
I need. So the Lord is teaching us first,
do not be turned from Christ. Hear Him. He is the Savior. He gives life. You'll find it
nowhere else. So we see that nowhere else in
verses 7 through 9. Let's read Judges 10, 7 through
9. It says, And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel,
and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the
hands of the children of Ammon. And that year Those enemies,
they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel. 18 years,
all the children of Israel that were on the other side, Jordan,
in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead. Now, just
so you can picture this, if you're looking at a map of Israel, in
between my hands here would be the River Jordan, going down,
let's just say, the middle of it, even though it's a little
off. But Jerusalem is on this side, to the west. And to the
other side of Jordan is the east. And so the Lord's telling us
that they were having trouble there on the eastern side of
Jordan, which is called or known as Gilead. It's called Gilead
there. That's where the two and a half
tribes first settled when they came out of Egypt and began to
fight and defeat their enemies there. So that's where they're
being troubled. And so the Lord here is chastening
his people. He's teaching his people. And
he's bringing their enemies up against them so that everything's
not going smooth and fine and the sun isn't just shining on
their faces. There's a contrary wind to them. They're having
a tough time. But the Lord has a gracious purpose
in it. He has a gracious purpose for
His people. It's not to just destroy them
and wipe them out and wipe them off the face of the earth. His
purpose is to be gracious to His people, His elect people
He will be gracious to. And so the Lord will raise up
enemies, and he will trouble his people. He will let us to
know our infirmities. He'll let us know our weakness.
He'll let us know that our eyes are not upon him, but upon ourselves,
and we're taken up with our own selves. Now, the next verse,
and we're going to read it in a moment, but the next verse
shows that these enemies don't just touch them lightly, but
they begin to push into the heart of the matter. They go further
into the matter. Let's read it first. Moreover,
the children of Ammon passed over Jordan. to fight also against
Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim,
so that Israel was sore distressed." We all have different problems
and things that are a nuisance and a bother to us in life. We
have a neighbor. or we have a coworker, or we
have a child, or we have something that bothers us, right? That's
a nuisance. We lost money. My car broke down. Something didn't grow. Something
didn't work out the way I thought it was supposed to work out.
And there's all these nuisances that we're all very familiar
with. We all have these things. But
sometimes there are troubles. There are things that happen
that go deep into the heart, into the core of our being that
touch us in a way that other things just can't touch us. And
it's as though the Lord, it's not even as though, the Lord
has a finger that he is able to just go right past, bypassing
things that don't bother us so much, that might bother someone
else, but they don't bother us. And he goes right past them.
And he touches us right where it smarts, right where we're
tender, right where it gets us and stops us and takes our breath
away and makes me to know, Lord, I'm done. I'm undone, Lord. You've broken
me. You've touched me where only
you can touch me. And the Lord does that. And that's
what we see here. They passed over Jordan. Now it's not just
on the outside. He's gone into the heart of the
matter. And Judah and Ephraim, these
aren't just, this isn't like Zebulun or Naphtali or Asher. Names of tribes that we don't
even hardly remember. This isn't Dan here. This is
Judah and Ephraim. These are the men of the men.
These are leaders in Israel. These are mighty people, a strong
people, a blessed people that are being touched. Even Benjamin
was where the first king Saul, Saul, where he came from. These
are not little rinky-dink tribes that we don't know anything about.
the tribes of the tribes. These are the people of Israel
and they are sore distressed. They are shaken. And that's what
we see here. The Lord is touching them. He's
making them to know what you're doing is death. This is death. And you're trusting in vain things
that cannot save you. You've forgotten me. You've turned
from me, and you're trusting in that which is death. You're
going to die. You're going to be destroyed.
You've got to know that, because you're trusting that which is
false, that which is a lie. It's not the truth. Now, the
next thing we come to here is we have two confessions. The
Lord gives us two confessions that we're going to see here.
The first confession is under the covenant of works. The first
confession, it's a picture of us in religious works, us trying
to do what we're supposed to do, thinking that this is our
salvation. This is our hope. This is our
life. Remember, the Lord's going to
show us it can't save you. Religious works, just being religious,
just laboring under the law, looking to the law for your righteousness.
Calling the law your rule of life and thinking that's your
righteousness and your salvation, wrong. Wrong. Works cannot save. The law does not save the Lord's
people. The Lord Jesus Christ saves his
people. And the Lord's people have to
know that. He's going to make us to know that. So verse 10,
here's the first confession. And the children of Israel cried
unto the Lord, saying, we have sinned against thee, both because
we have forsaken our God and also served Balaam. Now on the surface, that seems
pretty good. I've spoken like this many times
in my prayers. I've done this. I'm sure every
one of you. have confessed your sin, that
you're not looking to the Lord and you're looking to dead things.
So it looks pretty good. They admit that they've forsaken
Him who is the fountain of waters and they've hewed them out cisterns,
broken cisterns that can hold no water. No profit to them. Now, what is Israel doing here?
Well, Israel's doing what they were told to do under the law. The Lord tells them in the law
to do this. When you come into sin and you
see I'm not blessing you, you call out to me and I will bless
you. You cry out to me and confess
your sin, and I'll bless you. That's what the law says. We'll
come back. I'll give you one verse later from Leviticus 26,
but let's turn now to 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles, it's a nice summary
of that law. 2 Chronicles chapter 7. 2 Chronicles 7, and we're going
to read verse 14. So if you see 1 and 2 Samuel
and then 1 and 2 Kings, you want to go to 1 and 2 Chronicles after
the Kings. So 714, if my people, which are
called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek
my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear
from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their
lamb. That's what they were told and
instructed to do under the law. You get into trouble, because
of what you're doing and you remember me, you just cry out
to me and I will forgive you and I'll heal you. I'll heal
you and your land. But what does the Lord say to
them in Judges 10, verse 11 and 13? Judges 10, 11 through 13. And the Lord said unto the children
of Israel, did not I deliver you from the Egyptians and from
the Amorites, from the children of Ammon and from the Philistines?
The Zidonians also, and the Amalekites, and the Moanites, or Maonites,
did oppress you. And ye cried to me, and I delivered
you out of their hand." And they're saying, that's right. That's
exactly what you did, and that's why we're here. That's why we're
coming to you, and we're ready to get helped again. We need
your help again. Yet, the Lord says, ye have forsaken
me and served other gods. Wherefore, I will deliver you
no more. I'm not going to do it anymore
for you. And so the Lord reminds them,
we've gone through this many times. And I've always done what
you expected me to do. I've delivered you time and time
and time again. The enemy oppressed you, you
cried, and I delivered you out of their hand, just like I said
I would do. But did all their law keeping,
all their laboring for righteousness under the law, did it ever once
change their heart? Were they ever different by this,
their keeping the law and laboring under the law? No, no, not at
all. They never were changed under
the law. Ye forsaken me, and ye served
other gods. Time and time and time again,
the law didn't change your heart. You're just going through the
motions. You're just working in the flesh, doing what you're
supposed to do, and it never changes your heart. You're trusting
in the law, and it's not done anything for you to change your
heart. Listen, now I'm going to quote
Leviticus 26, verse 41. When you're writing that down,
Claudia, put 40 through 42, you can read the whole thing, but
I'm just going to quote verse 41. If then their uncircumcised
hearts, if their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then
accept of the punishment of their iniquity, then I'll remember
my covenant, and I'll come and heal them, and I'll heal their
land. That was the law given in Leviticus. But he says their
uncircumcised hearts. And that's just it with the law.
The law is very good at cutting the flesh. The law cuts the flesh. It's good at circumcising the
outward, the flesh, the appearance. It looks good. But inward, it
does nothing for the heart. That's what the Lord's showing
us. The law does nothing, does not make a new creature. It doesn't change your heart.
It doesn't circumcise your heart. That's why Paul calls it a ministration
of condemnation and a ministration of death written and engraven
in stones. Second Corinthians 3. It's just
a ministration of death. It leads to death. You're trusting
in it. You think this is your salvation, but you have no power
to keep it. We have no law given to us that
can give life. That's what the Lord is showing
us over and over and over in the scriptures. Don't put your
trust and confidence in your works. Don't trust what you do
or how you feel or what you think because salvation is of the Lord,
in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, alone. So the law was given to
show us our sin, right? That's what the law does. The
law defines what sin is. So we know what sin is. The law
makes clear all our sin and what we are by nature. And the law
accuses us and points out, and you're guilty of breaking every
one of these laws. You and me, we've all broken
the law of God. So the law defines what sin is,
and the law says, you're guilty. You're guilty. And then third,
what the law does is it meets out the punishment. It says,
this is now what you're going to get. This is the curse. You
wanted to do this. You came up short. Here's the
reward, death. death. That's what the law does.
The law doesn't give life, the law shows us our need of life. So the first confession is showing
us a picture of what we do in the flesh, what we're yielded,
what we get by doing and laboring under the law or under religion
or under good works and trusting those things for salvation. They
show us that all we're going to get in the end is death. It's
not going to save you. Your heart's no different. You're
still just as dead as you were when you started, if not more
dead. And so the first confession is of the flesh, trusting those
works. And God says, I'm not going to
give you what you're looking for in this. Your fig leaf religion
is not going to bless you in any way. No, you're not going
to take your hand and reach out to the tree of life and give
yourself life by your own works. Not going to happen. That's what
the Lord's doing. He's saying, I'm putting an end to this. I'm
putting an end. You're trusting the law no more.
All right, now here we come to the third. God's going to be
gracious. God has a gracious purpose in
this. He's shutting down blessing them under the law because he
will be gracious to his child. No one's saved under the law.
Not at all. Not then. Not now. It's always
by the grace of God and Christ. Always by the grace of God and
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so God is going to do a heart
work for his people. He does a heart work for them.
And he says in verse 14, to start this off, he says, go and cry
unto the gods which ye have chosen. Let them deliver you in the time
of your tribulation. Go ahead. Prove them out. Test
them. Try them out. See if they'll
help you. So that you know that no, there is no other life in
your religious works. There's no salvation in what
you're trusting in, in your uncircumcised heart. But you see, God is going
to do a gracious work, and that's what he does for every one of
his children. He spoke by Jeremiah. I'm going
to quote it from Hebrews 10. But Jeremiah 31, 33, this is
what we see also repeated in Hebrews 10, 16 and 17. This is the covenant that I will
make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my
laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them,
and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. I'm
going to establish a new covenant with my people. One that isn't
dependent on them doing anything. I'm gonna make plain and clear
to my people. I'm gonna reveal the mystery
that the way I save is by grace. By grace, by grace, by grace. Established in the blood of Christ. Ratified in the blood of Christ. made effectual by Christ's blood,
my Savior, whom I send to save my people from their sins. And so Christ obtained this salvation
by the death of himself in the place of his people as their
substitute, dying their death under the curse of the law for
them to put away forever that which kills us and destroys us
and ruins us and cannot save us. We are sanctified through
the offering of the body of Christ, Jesus Christ, once for all. He did it. He did it. And all
the Old Testament saints, all those who heard, were looking
to the promise of Christ. And all you today are looking
back to the promise of God fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. All
God's children are saved by grace in Christ. Christ is the salvation
of God. And so now we have the second
confession. Now we have the fruit of the
Spirit because the Lord's done a work. He's not done this by
the law. He's done this in grace, in grace, in Christ. Verse 10-15.
And the children of Israel said unto the Lord, we have sinned. Do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth
good unto thee, deliver us only, we pray thee, this day. And so what the Lord does is
he will bring his child to take sides against themselves and
stand with God. Lord, you're just. You're just. I've got nothing. I've got nothing
in my flesh to hope in. I acted like I kept the law. I don't. I don't. You see my
heart. You know my mind, my thoughts,
my deeds, my actions. They're all sin. Lord, you know
I have nothing to boast of here. But Lord, I'm coming to you in
Christ. Be gracious to me. Be merciful
to me for Christ's sake. I've got nothing to give you.
Be merciful for Christ's sake. And so that first confession,
the reason why it's given to us here is to give us that picture.
The first confession is a picture of what we are in the old man.
under the law that cannot save. And the Lord doesn't bless it.
The Lord doesn't hear it. He won't bless it. And the second
confession pictures the cry of the spirit of Christ in you.
That work which God has wrought in you. There's your hope. There's
your hope. You and I, we know what we are
by the grace of God. He's shown us. We're that first
confession. We're that first old man. That's
what we are in this flesh. Old men, sinners. Dead in trespasses
and sins. Children of wrath and disobedience.
But the second man is his work, giving us the spirit, creating
the new man, whereby we cry again, but this time in faith and hope. resting on the blood of Christ,
resting in Christ and what he's done. It pictures that born again,
that new man born of Christ, born again by his spirit. That's what the Lord does. He's
looking for and making a new creature in you, his child. That's
why he's teaching you. Don't trust the law. You trust
me. You look to me. We've got to be born again. We must be born again, just like
Nicodemus or the same thing. We must be born again. We're
religious, we look good, and we're dead inside. We must be
born again, and that is the work of your God. In grace and mercy,
what he does for you graciously, causing you to hear this word,
causing you to believe this word, causing you to behold the servant
of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone obtained our eternal
redemption by the death of himself, because God would be gracious
and merciful to you simply because he would. It's his will. It's
according to his good pleasure that he does it. So Paul tells
us in Romans 2 verse 28 and 29, he is not a Jew, which is one
outwardly. Neither is that circumcision,
which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew, which is one
inwardly. and circumcision is that of the
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is
not of men, but of God. God has done this for you. God
has given you a new heart. God has given you his spirit,
whereby you cry, Abba, Father, save me, Lord, have mercy, Lord,
because I see what I am, how foolish I am. And you've touched
me, Lord, where only you can touch me in the way that you
got my attention. And you've shown me how desperately
I need you, how desperately I need you. And every time I'm faithless
and turn away, you're faithful to do it again, and again, and
again, because all who follow Christ shall not walk in darkness,
but shall have the light of life." That's his promise. It's not
your doing, it's his promise to you. So God works in them,
and we read in verse 16, just wrapping this up, They and they
put away the strange gods from among them and served the Lord
and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel." So we
see there God did this because he purposed to turn and to heal
them and to bless them for Christ's sake. We'll get into that with
Jephthah, a picture of Christ who delivers his people. We'll
see that Again. And so, our Lord does it for
Christ's sake. So don't be turned from following
Christ. And know this, the works of the law, they cannot save
you. They cannot save you. You are saved. You're delivered
from death because God will be gracious to you according to
his own good pleasure in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's close in prayer, and then
we'll be dismissed for 15 minutes. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your grace and kindness to teach
us, to show us our need of your salvation always and forever,
and that you've freely given us salvation in your Son, Jesus
Christ. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Lord, though we be touched, though
we be brought low and humbled, though our hearts ache, Lord,
we're thankful for a living heart that aches, that feels that pain,
that hears your words, that hears the gospel and rejoices in the
Lord Jesus Christ and has no other confidence but Christ alone. Lord, keep us right there in
him. heal your people, bless your people. You know the things
that trouble us. You know the things that trouble
us deeply and really break us, Lord. Have mercy upon us for
Christ's sake. Lord, you say that when you have
humbled your people and brought them low in themselves, you in
your time will lift them up. And we ask that you would lift
each of us up and that In that manner, in Christ, Lord, as we
have need, Lord, lift us up in Christ, strong and strengthened,
rejoicing gladly in Him. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen.