seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Judges 2:10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger 13 because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. 15 Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress.
A whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors. Everyone who had seen the plagues in Egypt [except Joshua and Caleb] had died before God and Joshua led them into Canaan. Everyone who had been with Joshua when they crossed into the Promised Land [Canaan] were now dead too. There weren't any first hand witnesses left. Let me put this in perspective.... World War I vets are gone. World War II vets are very few in number. Our children think the Vietnam War is ancient history. Children who are only 16 years old won't understand the significance of 9/11 first hand.
So God stopped helping them. He told them they would be on their own.... and He doesn't lie.
This is from blueletterbible.org.
They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths: The Canaanite idol Ashtoreth was an attractive rival to Yahweh because she was thought to be the goddess of love, sex, and fertility. She was usually honored by with the practice of ritual sex with a priestess-prostitute. One might say that the bottom line with Ashtoreth was sex and love.
They forsook the Lord: God made it clear that Israel’s pursuit of these gods was nothing less than forsaking the Lord God of their fathers. Yet in all likelihood Israel did not see their idolatry as forsaking God; they probably just thought they were adding a few gods along side of the God of their fathers. Nevertheless, the God of Israel is a jealous God who demands exclusive worship.
They followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them: This shows another root cause for Israel’s tragic idolatry. The influence of the Canaanites that they allowed to remain in their midst led them to idolatry. The result of not fully driving out the Canaanites was far worse than Israel imagined.
Do you vacuum the baseboards? My mother was a big proponent of vacuuming all the baseboards because they would get dusty and dusty causes sneezes. As soon as I moved out on my own.... I stopped vacuuming the baseboards every time I used the vacuum. At first I did it every other week... then every month.... then whenever I had the extra time.... then only during spring and fall cleaning.... and now I don't see the dust and everything else makes me sneeze so why bother..... that's how it was.... the Israelites stopped using the vacuum to get the dust.... and now the dust was going to accumulate and God is not going to be happy.... at all.
