God's Grace in the Book of Judges

1) "But don't miss the point that the major overriding theme of all of it is God's grace. One of my favorite songs is God's Grace Still Amazes Me. And His grace was so prevalent even back then in the same ways that it is now. God's been so good to us and there's so many times when we deserve to be smushed, deserve to be in trouble, but God gave us life and He gave us breath. I mean we're here right now and that tells us that God's being kind to us. He's been gracious to us." [36:18] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "The Bible is not a series of self help books. It is one story. And one very unified story. It is the story of the grace of God. Now we know that the Bible is also unified in its flow. Take for instance the first five books of the Bible written by Moses at a time where hardly anybody wrote and hardly anybody read. God directed Moses to write down these words and it is the words of the story of the beginning of all things. All things that we know." [37:49] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "The purpose then? I have several purposes here. First of all, it's written to a nation to remind them of God's past work. So remember it was written after the fact, what I started to say. Written after the fact to remind them, look what I did for you back then. So here's the deal. They became really evil. If you read through Judges, it becomes really disturbing. If you read all the way to the end, you're like what in the world? And it almost overwhelms you until you realize that even in the midst of that incredible evil, God's grace was still at work. Doesn't that give you hope?" [56:26] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "Here's the deal. God's not going to give up on you. Just like He didn't give up on Israel. Look how low they went and God didn't give up on them. And He's not going to give up on you. Here's a similar phrase to this is found before each of the judges. Sounds this way. The descendants of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They forgot the Lord and served the Baals and the Asherahs. That happens with Israel's unfaithfulness with the Baals, with Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, and Barak." [58:29] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "The book of Judges represents, presents a picture of a nation called the people of Yahweh, but seemingly determined to negate that appellation if not destroy itself. But the Lord will not let this happen. He's chosen them to be His agents of light and life to the world. He has rescued them from Egypt, He has entered into an eternal covenant with them, and He has delivered the land into eternal possession. In the final analysis, God cannot let His program abort. The mission of grace to the world depends on the preservation of His people." [01:10:34] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "God's grace is amazing. A bit of an outline. When we get to chapter 2, I'm going to read through it. And I got pretty creative this time. I actually left some blanks here. So here you go. In chapter 1, here's the outline for you. A review of the conquest. You can write that in. I feel like I'm treating you like first graders here, but write it in the blank. A review of the conquest. And then see under number 13 think that's you probably have different numbering for you. The next blank is the cycle of sin and deliverance." [01:00:29] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "The book teaches important positive lessons as well, especially about God. First, God graces us and graciously calls His people to covenant relationship with Himself. The relationship is the highest privilege imaginable. Isn't that a profound statement? And when the recipients of grace hold their divine benefactor in contempt, abandoning Him for other allegiances, the God of grace is rightfully angry. The second positive is the impassioned God tolerates no rivals. There is no rival to God. Thirdly, God is gracious still, often treating His people not according to what they deserve, but out of His boundlessly merciful heart." [01:09:35] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)