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Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to our study of the book of
Judges. Let me just sort of let you know where we are as the book of Judges
starts in the history of Israel. Israel has just settled the promised land under
Joshua and they struggle after they've settled this promised land with holding
on to the promise that God has given them because they constantly go back to
trusting themselves instead of trusting in God.

But then they cry out to God for help and he raises up these national saviors
who are called judges, so the book of Judges, men and women who lead the nation
back to trusting into God and into victory over their enemies. So as we start to
study this book, if you've ever struggled with holding on to God's promises and
who of us hasn't, if you've ever struggled with trusting yourself instead of
trusting and everyone struggled with that, this is a book for you because it's
filled with principles for how to not slide away from your trust in God and how
to regain your trust in God if you've slid away. These principles, a lot of them
are learned from Israel doing it the wrong way.

But the book begins with one of the few lessons that comes from the choosing to
do it the right way. So let's start in chapter one, verse one. After the death
of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord, "Who of us is to go up first to fight
against the Canaanites?

" The Lord answered, "Judas shall go up. I have given the land into their hands.
" The men of Judah then said to the Simeonites, their fellow Israelites, "Come
up with us into the territory allotted to us to fight against the Canaanites.

We in turn will go with you into yours. " So the Simeonites went with them. They
begin this battle in chapter one and over the next 20 verses, we're going to see
victory after victory after victory.

They defeated the Canaanites, the Perizzites. They took control of Jerusalem,
the hill country, and the western foothills. They were just winning every
battle.

If they'd only kept doing what they started doing, the book of Judges would have
been a very different story. In the book of Judges, we see at the very beginning
that at the death of Joshua, who had been their leader in the book of Joshua,
leading them into the promised land, you remember, they had prayed at the death
of Joshua. That's a great thing, by the way, to do in any transition.

When you're not sure what to do next, when you're in between the greatest thing
in the world to do is to pray, "God, what do you want us to do next? " We're
always tempted to either want to stay where we were or to rush into what's next,
and the best thing in the world you can do is pray. And they did that.

They made a good choice. They prayed and then they obeyed. They did exactly what
God told them to do.

God said, "I want the tribe of Judah to lead in this battle. " Now why the tribe
of Judah? Because it's out of the line of Judah that the kingdom of David will
come, and out of the kingdom of David that the Messiah, Jesus, will come.

God knows what he's doing. He's got this all planned out in advance. He sees
where history is going, and so he lets Judah lead the way in this battle.

God who knows the end of the story is constantly telling the story in advance
all throughout the Old Testament. So they prayed, they obeyed, and then they did
a third thing that was very significant in winning these early battles. They
shared the battle.

They didn't fight the battle on their own. The tribe of Judah said, "Would you,
over here from the tribe of Simeon, some of you Simeonites, would you come and
join us in this battle? " And so they came and joined.

When you have a battle to fight, that's not a bad blueprint for victory.
Spiritual battles, battles for integrity, battles for your kids, battles for
doing the right thing in your company. When you have a battle to fight in your
life, first you pray, then you obey, and then you share the battle.

You don't face it alone. Something interesting happens in the midst of this
battle. In the midst of these battles, we see the name of a guy named Caleb pop
up a couple of times.

And a couple of interesting things happen in this battle related to Caleb. First
of all, in verse 12, "And Caleb said, 'I will give my daughter, Aksah, in
marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kyriath-shafer. Othniel, son of
Canaan's, Caleb's youngest brother, took it.

So Caleb gave his daughter, Aksah, to him in marriage. '" We're going to look
ahead here a little bit to what's going to happen later in Judges. Remember that
name, Othniel, it's going to come up later this week.

But then, in verse 20, listen to what happens. This is amazing. "As Moses had
promised, Hebron was given to Caleb, who drove from it the three sons of Anak.

" Here, they fulfill the promise of Moses. You might remember that Caleb had
asked to be the one to take possession of this very portion of God's promised
land. And there was a specific reason why he asked to take possession of this.

To understand this, you have to go way back to Numbers 13. Way back to before
Joshua led the people into the promised land. Way back to before the 40 years of
wandering in the wilderness.

Way back to Numbers chapter 13, verses 30 to 33. "Then Caleb silenced the people
before Moses and said, 'We should go up and take possession of the land, for we
can certainly do it. ' But the men who had gone up with him said, 'We can't
attack these people.

They are stronger than we are. ' And they spread among the Israelites a bad
report about the land that they had explored. They said, 'The land that we
explored devours those living in it.

And all the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there.
The descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim.

We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. '"
So here we're going back over 40 years to this moment when the other spies who
went into the promised land with Caleb and Joshua brought a bad report, and the
people of Israel decided instead of having faith, they would not go into the
land. Now, Joshua has died, but Caleb is still alive, and here he is in his old
age, still going up against this portion of the land, and here he is defeating
the sons of Anak.

And according to Numbers 13, those are the very people, the very family, the
very giants that they saw on the land that had caused the people to say, "We
can't go into that promised land. We can't win the victory. We seem like
grasshoppers in our own eyes.

" As an old man, Caleb still defeats them. Listen, it is never too late to see
God's victories in your life. It is never too late to see God's victories in
your life.

Now, if only they had kept doing what they started doing, the book of Judges
would have been a very different story. So the question for you and I is this.
Where do you need to keep doing what you started doing?

Because we're like them. We can slip into bad habits. We can slip into wrong
directions in our life.

And all of a sudden, we're not living out, we're not enjoying the promises of
God like we'd like to be. Maybe it's because you didn't keep doing something
that you started doing. It might have to do with spending time in God's Word.

It might have to do with asking God's Spirit to give you strength in all of your
relationships. It might have to do with having integrity in your relationships,
in your finances. I don't know what it is.

The Lord's talking to you about it right now because He knows what it is and you
know what it is. Where do you need to keep doing what you started doing? Also,
as you look at these first few verses of the book of Judges, you recognize that
if only we could all be like Caleb, never giving up on God's opportunity of a
victory.

If only they had been like Caleb, the book of Judges would have been a very
different story. And if only you and I could be like Caleb, the story of our
life could be a very different story. Where is it in your life that you need to
trust God to do something that you may have stopped trusting Him to do?

You may have decided, I'm too old, it's been too long. That victory could never
happen. But this example of Caleb, where after 40 years, he still has the
victory that he'd been waiting for.

There were so many reasons he might not have been able to have that victory that
he could have told himself, it can't happen now. It's been too long. I'm too
old.

It's somebody else's. But no, he was still the one who had that victory. Where
do you need to trust God to do what you may have stopped trusting Him to do?

Where do you need to keep doing what you started doing? Let's talk to God about
it. Father, we pray together that you'd help us to have faith, that you'd help
us to learn from this book of Judges, these steps of faith.

And so Lord, if there is a place in our life where we need to keep doing what we
started doing, start doing it again, trusting you again, show us that right now.
Help us to trust you there. And Lord, if there's a place in my life where I've
stopped trusting you to do something, I pray that you reveal that, help me to
see that right now and begin to trust you again.

Because you are the God who defeats giants. You are the God who brings victory.
You are the God who never gives up.

And so I trust you again in a fresh new way, right now. In Jesus' name I trust
you, amen. Join us tomorrow, we're going to look together at the danger of
compromise.