Judges 13 “Looking Back”

Judges 13 – Brandon Hatmaker “Looking Back”
Austin New Church – South Austin Cares
Monday, September 15th, 2008

“Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.” – Judges 13:1

Often we go to God for deliverance from situations that are overwhelming. At times we feel like we are a “victim” of our circumstance. There are other times we blame God and wonder where He went.

The thing we often forget is where our hearts were and where our affections were placed at the beginning. We easily place them on God in tough times. We easily place them on ourselves when things are going good. We’ve all seen the cycle in ourselves. We consult God so often when we are seeing the fruit of bad decisions, but in looking back would often see a lack of seeking his counsel in the making of the decision… the tragedy is when we then blame God for the consequence of our poor decision and miss the lesson to be learned. While God certainly allows consequence, He may have even created the initial crossroad, but we still have great responsibility and ownership in our response.

I would imagine there were some of the Israelites who were just thinking, man, God how could you abandon us right now? We need you… after all we’ve been through… why are we under the oppression of the Philistines. But from the very first verse of Chapter 13, the Bible clearly tells us, that “Again” they did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

God, I cast blame too much. I need to be spending more time figuring out were I’m off base and confessing. Search my heart, God. Help me to see YOUR ways in times of ALL decisions.