Judges 1:19
The Continuing Conquest of Canaan (continue)
19 And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.
As we read the Bible and study the Word of God and His attributes, we come to realize that our worship of God lacks the true respect that we ought to have. Needless to say, the depth of our worship is in response to the depth of our knowledge of Him. To illustrate, our Lord Jesus presented a parable when He was dining with Simon the Lepard in Luke 7. A woman came in and anointed the feet of Jesus with very expensive ointment to Simon’s bewilderment. To correct Simon’s thinking, Jesus said in Luke 7:41-42, “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered Jesus’s question correctly and said that the one who was forgiven the greatest debt, loved the most. In the same way, we too are limited in our love for Christ by the depth of our understanding of the forgiveness and love we received. Ephesians 3:19 says, “and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Consider, for example, our love for God is dependent on our awareness of Him who forgave us completely. Therefore, in the same way, our worship of God is reflected in our understanding of how much God had to endured to forgive and redeem us from our sins. Bible study is important and we all must make this a priority as we ‘abide’ in Him.
In our Bible study, we get a true understanding of God and how He works in the lives of His people. Even in what may seem to be insignificant and overlooked verses of Scripture. For example, in our passage today, just one solitary verse, is like a cup that overflows with truth as we try to understand what God is saying to help us as we live our lives for Him. The verse is intriguing and loaded with surprises. Verse 1:19 says, “And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.”
O, how marvelous it is to hear that the Lord is with us. As the pastor presents his final words in the sermon’s benediction, ‘Go in the peace and love of Christ!” It is comforting, encouraging, and edifying to be reminded that Christ the Lord is with us. The last words of Christ that Matthew puts in his gospel are called the Great Commission to the church, which says in Matthew 28:18-20,
“…All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
“They shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23). This should give Judah a reason to be obedient to God. This should give us a reason to obey and serve Him as well. We all need to sit at the feet of Jesus and anoint Him without our tears, burdens, and cares of the world. We also need to gird up our loins (a figure of speech meaning to prepare for battle) and go take possession of the kingdom of God and His righteousness, for He is with us always, to the end of the age.
God gave the Israelites a command to go in and take possession of the land back when Joshua was their leader. Joshua 17:18 says, “but the hill country shall be yours, for though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its farthest borders. For you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.” God’s instructions were to not only take possession of the hill country but to its farthest borders. Even though the Canaanites have chariots of iron and they are strong, nevertheless, they were to take all the land because God was with them.
However, in verse 1:19 we are presented with a difficult question that we need to consider. And that is, while God was with them, why were they not fully able? Let’s examine Scripture and see what happened to Judah. We know that God was with Judah as it says in verse 1:19. Having God with them gives them all the strength and ability to do what God commanded them to do. Therefore, they were able to go and take possession of all that God has given them as it says in Joshua 17:18. However, as we see in our passage, while they did take possession of the hill country and praise God!, they did not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron. Hmmm. Was God not able to deliver the people of the plain to Judah, even though they had chariots of iron, as He said He would? Is God not omnipotent? Is He limited in His strength and ability?
Before we become too critical, are we not also in this same predicament? Do we not also, come to church with praises to God on our lips for the small and minor victories we have in our life? And yet, we still struggle with hidden, secret sins that plague and hamstring us from being fruitful and fully obedient to God. Some puritan preachers call these private personal sins, our little ‘darlings’, because we like these sins, even though they are cruel and rebellious to God. They keep us from receiving the full potential of our blessings with Christ. Over and over again, the Christian cries in torment as he does all to mortify the presence of sin in His life. However, there are some Christians that condone, partake, allow, and participate in these sins. Is it because these sins have the strength of chariots of iron? Nevertheless, God promised that He is with us, He is able, and we are to be obedient.
Judah, in this text, was not completely obedient. Judges 2:1-3 says,
“I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, 2 and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? 3 So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.”
In application, we do not want any sin in our life to be a snare to us. We want to walk by faith and experience the victory that overcomes the world–our faith! To do this, we must kill, ban, and devote to destruction the sins that plague our lives. We must, as puritan pastor and writer John Owen says, ‘mortify’ our fleshly desires and sin. This is our sanctification as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. This lesson presents the need to be fully obedient to God. To help those struggling with sin, Ligonier Ministry has a very good article on How to Mortify Sin – to access it, please CLICK HERE!
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Sovereign Lord, thank You for Your Word to lead me into the way of righteousness. Give me the desire to love and read Your Word. Help me to understand the truth presented with the presence of Your Spirit in my life. Give me a hatred for sin and a love for You. Help me to finally and totally mortify the presents of sin that plagues my life. In Jesus’ Name, I pray, amen!
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Would You Live for Jesus, by Cyrus S. Nusbaum in 1898
