The Cycle of Sin Continues

The Cycle Continues:

"The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. And they forsook the LORD and did not serve him." — Judges 10:6

“The lived community is one of the key things, a church that is actually being the church on the street. Christianity did not spread by the great brains passing ideas to other great brains who developed them, and then there was a trickle-down effect. The reason people became Christians was because their neighbors were behaving differently and the way they were behaving was deeply attractive, and they wanted to know why.” — N.T. Wright

We Serve Our Idols:

"So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the Ammonites, 8, and they crushed and oppressed the people of Israel that year. For eighteen years, they oppressed all the people who were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead." — Judges 10:7

“Modern people like to see freedom as the complete absence of any constraints. But think of a fish. Because a fish absorbs oxygen from water, not air, it is free only if it is restricted to water. If a fish is ‘freed’ from the river and put on the grass to explore, its freedom to move and soon even to live is destroyed. The fish is not more free, but less free if it cannot honor the reality of its nature. The same is true with airplanes and birds. If they violate the laws of aerodynamics, they will crash into the ground. But if they follow them, they will ascend and soar. The same is true in many areas of life: Freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, those that fit with the realities of our own nature and those of the world.” — Tim Keller

False Repentance:

"And the people of Israel cried out to the LORD saying, 'We have sinned against you because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baals.'” — Judges 10:10

This is Not a Game:

"And the people of Israel said to the LORD, 'We have sinned; do to us whatever seems good to you. Only please deliver us this day.' So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD, and he became impatient over the misery of Israel." — Judges 10:15-16

“The ordinary Christian life is not the opposite of the radical Christian life. The ordinary Christian life is a radical life. The ordinary Christian life is a life of daily trusting Christ; daily repenting of our sins; daily abiding in Christ; daily loving Christ; daily dying to self; daily taking up our crosses and following Christ; daily loving God and neighbor; and daily proclaiming the gospel to ourselves, our families, our friends, and our communities. Every Christian is an ordinary Christian, and every ordinary Christian is a radical Christian. The ordinary Christian is not a complacent, passionless, nominal, or casual Christian. On the contrary, every ordinary Christian person—child, teenager, college student, father, mother, husband, wife, single man, single woman, retired man, and retired woman—every Christian is radical because every Christian is united to Christ by faith and will bear radical, life-giving fruit.” — Burk Parsons