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Book: Judges For You
Quotes of Book: Judges For You

Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
These two chapters give us a great example of the banality of evil. Evil does not usually make people incredibly wicked and violent- that would be interesting, and tends to wake people up. Rather, sin tends to make us hollow- externally proper and even nice, but underneath everyone is scraping and clutching for power, in order to get ahead. We continually just step on each other, as Micah was stepped on by the Danites and his Levite. But after all, he had tried to rob his own mother before these men came and robbed him.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
The amazing truth is that God works through sinners, and through sinful situations. He keeps his promises to bless his people in the dark and disastrous periods of our lives, as well as through the times when things are going "right." Not even our own sin will stop him saving us, or using us. Mysteriously, often unseen, and usually far beyond our comprehension, God works through the free {and very often flawed} choices people make: "In all things, God works for the good of those who love him" {Romans 8:28}.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
Regret is sorrow over the consequences of a sin, but not over the sin itself. If there had been no consequences, there would have been no sorrow. There is no sorrow over the sin for what it is in itself, for how it grieves God and violates our relationship with him.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
Othniel attacked a city in God's strength; the tribe of Judah concluded they could not do likewise in their own. It is halfway discipleship, and Judges will show us that it leads to no discipleship at all.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
Put it this way-are his promises conditional, or unconditional? Judges is crucial, in that it shows that neither answer to that question is right. Nearly all readers of the Old Testament take a "liberal" view {Sure, God will always bless us as long as we are sorry} or a "conservative" view {No, God will only bless us if we are obedient}. Judges leaves us with a tension-that both are true, but neither are fully true-and it will not resolve the tension.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
God's call to his people {then and now} is to combine spirituality with bravery. True discipleship is radical and risk-taking, because true disciples rely on God to keep his promises to bless them, and not on their own instincts, plans, or insurance policies.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
the revival cycles in Judges become weaker and weaker as time goes on, while in Acts they grow wider and stronger. We need a true Savior, to which all human saviors point, through both their flaws and strengths.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
Judges is the best book in the Old Testament for the understanding of renewal and revival, while Acts is the best place in the New Testament.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
There is a good lesson in choosing a leader here. We are often far too easily impressed by qualities that are unimportant to God. Further, we can far too easily be swayed by pragmatic arguments. God does not prize popularity, humor, or academic intelligence, being an extrovert, and so on. He seeks men who hold to his truth, seek to lead their family rightly, are patient and self-controlled {1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:6-9}. He does not want well-mannered, well-dressed, 21st-century equivalents of Abimelech, chosen for the wrong reasons and the wrong qualities.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
It is worth asking ourselves: Where am I saying "I can't" but God is saying "You won't"? Israel's failure to obey was based on what they saw as good reasons-God said they were flimsy excuses. Why? Because "God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear" {1 Corinthians 10:13}. God will never put us in a position where we cannot obey him.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
They rout the inhabitants, and capture and kill Adoni-Bezek {"the Lord of Bezek"}, who recognizes the rightness of this judgment on him {"God has paid me back for what I did to them," v 7}. It is notable that, while many 21st-century readers have many qualms about Israel's conduct in Canaan, this defeated Canaanite did not. God's judgment throughout history is to give people over to the consequences of the life they have chosen {eg: Psalm 64:3-4, 7-8; Romans 1:21-32}- Adoni-Bezek, it appears, accepts this.
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Timothy J. Keller _ Judges For You
When God is asked: "Remember your great mercy and love," he is being asked to act according to his character. When someone asks God to "remember not {my} sins," he or she is asking that God would not act on what he knows. Therefore, to say that the Israelites "forgot" God is to say that they no longer were controlled by what they knew. We could put it another way. Though they knew who God was and what he wanted, those things were not real to them.
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