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Profit from easy reading on ruin and restoration.
Preface: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).
The contrast between the books of Joshua and Judges is immense. Joshua, a striking type of the spirit of Christ in power, leads Israel on to conquer and dwell in peace in the land of promise. The book of Judges gives us quite another order of things. Starting from the blessings conferred by Jehovah in Canaan, and confided to the responsibility of the people, it shows us what use Israel made of them. Did they justify the confidence God had placed in them? Did they live up to their privileges? The answer will be found in the book of Judges.
Israel’s history is repeated in that of the church. The Epistle to the Ephesians answers, in the New Testament, to Joshua; for in it we see the assembly seated in heavenly places, enjoying all spiritual blessings in Christ, and wrestling no longer, like Israel, “against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12-margin.)
Judges corresponds with 2 Timothy. The church, not having kept its first estate, there are, as for Israel, divine documents which prove its unfaithfulness, and which show the people of God abandoning their first love and following a path of declension which ends in utter and irremediable ruin.
The history of man-blessed of God, but responsible-is ever the same. Adam, Noah, Israel, the nations, the church-the sad picture never varies. Ah! how the Word of God depicts to us what we are, but blessed be His name, we also learn to know God. He exhorts and entreats us without ceasing. Beware, says He, not to let slip from your hands the blessings with which I have filled them! Return to me when you have turned aside! Neither does He limit Himself to warnings, but unfolding before us the riches of His grace, He shows us that He has resources, when we have lost everything; that His voice can awaken those who sleep among the dead (Eph. 5:14); that His arm can deliver those whom unbelief has replaced under bondage; that there is a fight of faith for perilous times; that in the midst of the rubbish accumulated by man, there is a path which the vultures’ eye hath not seen, well known to faith, accessible to the simplest believer; in a word He shows us, that in a day of ruin, God can be as fully glorified as in the church’s brightest days.
Table of Contents
1. Preface: Judges
2. Introduction: the Condition of Israel at the Time of Joshua's Death: Judges 1:1-16
3. Introduction: What Characterizes Declension: Judges 1:17-36
4. Introduction: the Origin and Consequences of Declension: Judges 2:1-5
5. Introduction: Israel's Ruin Looked at in Reference to God: Judges 2:6 - 3:4
6. Revivals: Othniel: Judges 3:5-11
7. Revivals: Ehud: Judges 3:12-30
8. Revivals: Shamgar: Judges 3:31
9. Revivals: Deborah and Barak: Judges 4
10. Revivals: Deborah's Song: Judges 5
11. Gideon: the Word of God Reaching the Conscience: Judges 6:1-10
12. Gideon: Gideon Prepared for Service: Judges 6:11-40
13. Gideon: What Characterizes God's Witnesses in the Day of Ruin: Judges 7:1-14
14. Gideon: What Testimony Consists In: Judges 7:15-25
15. Gideon: Difficulties and Snares in Service: Judges 8:1-23
16. Gideon: Gideon's Ephod: Judges 8:24-35
17. Fresh Declension and Fresh Revivals: Abimelech, or the Usurpation of Authority: Judges 9
18. Fresh Declension and Fresh Revivals: Tola and Jair: Judges 10:1-5
19. Fresh Declension and Fresh Revivals: a Fresh Revival in Israel: Judges 10:6-18
20. Fresh Declension and Fresh Revivals: Jephthah and His Daughter: Judges 11
21. Fresh Declension and Fresh Revivals: Strife Between Brethren: Judges 12:1-16
22. Fresh Declension and Fresh Revivals: Ibzan, Elon and Abdon: Judges 12:7-15
23. Samson: Nazariteship: Judges 13-16
24. Samson: a Remnant: Judges 13
25. Samson: the Serpent and the Lion, the Feast: Judges 14
26. Samson: Victories: Judges 15
27. Samson: Defeat and Restoration: Judges 16
28. Manifestation of the Ruin and Final Restoration: the Levite of Judah: Judges 17
29. Manifestation of the Ruin and Final Restoration: Dan and the Levi: Judges 18
30. Manifestation of the Ruin and Final Restoration: the Levite of Ephraim: Judges 19
31. Manifestation of the Ruin and Final Restoration: Breach and Recovery: Judges 20
32. Manifestation of the Ruin and Final Restoration: Fruits of Recovery: Judges 21