The Slippery Slope of Compromise and Rebellion

After the death of Joshua it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, "Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them?" (Judges 1:1)

How a nation that began at a great high point slid into defeat — and the prayerful first step that keeps us from doing the same.

The Deuteronomic Equation

I've talked many times over the last several years about the deuteronomic principle — the deuteronomic equation. It's what the book of the law, Deuteronomy, teaches us, and it's portrayed in Joshua: faith plus obedience equals victory times blessing. You don't need to raise your hand, but I think I know the answer: who wouldn't want victory multiplied by blessing in their life? That's what I'm looking for.

What the Scriptures teach in Deuteronomy and illustrate in Joshua — and further illustrate in other Old Testament books — is this simple rule of sowing and reaping. As Paul writes in Galatians, if you sow to the Spirit — planting in your life what the Spirit of God reveals, His truth, His principles, His word — you will of the Spirit reap life. But if you sow to the flesh, planting things of this world and your own carnal nature, you shall of the flesh reap destruction.

If obedience, then blessing — that was the predicted promise of Deuteronomy 28. There God says through Moses, "If you do this and this and this in obedience to my law, then you will experience blessing times blessing times blessing." But the opposite is also true. That same chapter speaks of punishment and cursing for those who disobey, rebel, or turn away from God's law. If faith and obedience lead to victory and blessing, then the counter-promise stands as well: unfaithfulness and disobedience lead to defeat and cursing.

From Joshua's Victory to Judges' Defeat

Joshua was the story of the children of Israel putting faith and obedience together and experiencing victory and blessing. But the deuteronomic equation portrayed in Judges is different: disobedience plus compromise plus rebellion equals defeat times cursing. It's a clear if-then conditional equation. This law of sowing and reaping is seen throughout the Scriptures, and we can observe it in reality as well.

But how would this happen to the children of Israel? We have this great high point that Judges starts with — how could they possibly slip into defeat and cursing? What would bring them to this place of disobedience, compromise, and rebellion? There are a couple of things in the opening chapter that begin to answer that question.

Israel Began by Seeking the Lord

The first thing to take careful note of is how the children of Israel began. After the death of Joshua, they asked of the Lord. They gathered together as a nation — the heads of the tribes from Simeon, Judah, and all the others — probably at Shiloh or Gilgal where the Tabernacle was. They gathered together and asked God what He wanted them to do. They sought the Lord.

If you want to experience victory in your life, you need to apply this truth. The best first step in any endeavor to experience the victory and blessing of God is to go to God in prayer and seek Him. This is not just an Old Testament principle; it's a New Testament one as well. James writes:

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that." But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13–16)

This is how you ought to live if you are a follower of Christ, seeking to be an obedient disciple — a faithful follower. You ought to say, "If the Lord wills, I will do this or that." I can look back in my life — and maybe you can in yours — and see many times of victory and blessing, and other times of defeat and difficulty. So often I can see a direct correlation to my prayerfulness, or my lack of it, as preparation for what I was stepping into.

How We Know the Will of God

How will we know what the Lord wills? I know many Christians who say, "I want to know what God's will is for my life." I think that's a really good place to be. But how will we know? I love what Solomon wrote 3,000 years ago — a passage you'd do well to memorize if you haven't already:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5–6)

The children of Israel did this in Judges 1. They sought the Lord and asked what He wanted them to do. They were acknowledging Him in their ways, and God directed their path. So here's the point: the path to faithful obedience begins with a faithful and prayerful pursuit of God.

Prayer as the Pre-Step to Everything

In my message last week, I ended with five things you and I — or this church — could do to help move our culture toward blessing. This morning's point is like a pre-point to those five things, the starting point. Last week I said we need to renew our minds through the Scripture; endeavor to be salt and light in a dark and distasteful world; create Christ-centered, countercultural communities of faith — that's the church; engage and invest in the lost generation — family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors who don't walk with God or don't know Him; and finally, engage the culture persuasively with the gospel.

But a pre-step to all five is to seek God in prayer. Every great endeavor for God must begin with seeking God in prayer. Far too frequently in my life — and maybe in yours, and as I've observed in many Christians and many churches — we don't make prayer the first thing we do. It's often the twenty-first thing we do. I wonder how much easier the path or the task might be if we went to God early in prayer.

I can look back and see points in my walk where I felt like I was running into a brick wall over and over, trying everything by my own strength and ingenuity to fix it, only to finally say, "Maybe I should pray." And then it's as if immediately the thing I'd been banging my head against dissolves, as God by His power breaks down strongholds through prayer. Prayer is a mighty weapon. I think we know this theoretically or theologically, but have we actually practiced it — actually gone before God?

A path toward blessing and victory begins with that faithful and prayerful pursuit of God. And every path toward compromise, ending in disobedience and rebellion, can so often be traced by a direct line back to the point where you simply stopped seeking the Lord.