Today, we will see in the text the Grand Pattern of Salvation - that marks all of Redemptive History. Below is an outline summary of the sermon for your further study and deeper reflection.

SERIES: Christ in the Chaos
TEXT: Judges 3:7-11
TITLE: Grace - God's Paradigm of Salvation
PREACHER: Tom Wilkins
BIG IDEA:  The only hope we have after forgetting our God is that in His mercy, He will not forget us!

POINTS:
1. They forgot Him (Vs. 7-8)
2. He did not forget them (Vs. 9-11)

SERMON EXCERPTS:
All quotes are taken from the pastor’s notes.
”There is a larger repeating cycle (for at least 6 of the judges). Each repeated cycle is broken about 7 basic parts:

• The people sin against the LORD - turning away from Him and turn to idol worship

• The LORD disciplines them by selling them into the hands of their foreign enemies

• The people cry out for deliverance

• A divine word is spoken to the people

• The LORD raises up a judge/deliverer to save His people from the oppression of their enemies

• Peace reigns for a time

The judge dies bringing an end to the cycle and the setting up of the next. In today’s story in 3:7-11, the theological pattern in Chapter 2 now begins to take on flesh, names, places, and times.”

“This forgetting of the LORD is described in Vs. 7 as “evil in His sight” and in Chapter 2:17, likened to an unfaithful woman who has turned away from her faithful husband and ‘sells’ herself to other men. …The biblical language is stark. The imagery is revolting, and when they beheld what was out there, THE LORD becomes to them unattractive, unsatisfying, undesirable… in their minds that have turned to worldliness, their very Creator and Sustainer and Provider and Protector has become to them unnecessary, uncaring, not providing enough for them and weak… THEY FORGOT HIM, their living Holy God, and ran after dead and filthy gods.”

“The text is clear - “forgetting of the LORD” = their serving of the idols, namely the Baals and the Asheroth. The result: God’s Anger. We cannot miss this. In all of history. In all of creation… there is someone that we do not want to anger – the Holy God!”

“We forget Him! But the good news is that His discipline is an act of His remembrance of us! They forgot the LORD their God, but God will now move to deliver them and grant them rest… He has NOT forgotten them!”

“God’s retribution in judgment (for those who are outside of His covenant) is unmitigated by grace. Yet, His judgment for those who are His covenant people is not retribution but, rather, corrective, and it is tempered by grace. THIS is why He will not forget them! They belong to Him, and He keeps them as His own. He will not break His covenant with them.”

“This deliverer is, by and large, a mystery. What does seem clear, though, is that not much is said of this man for the purpose that much will be said of THE DELIVERER. God is the one who is saving!”

“In our text, we see it is God who is at work, and while the King of Double Wickness is God’s ‘agent of discipline,’ Othniel is God's ‘agent of grace!’”

“Recall the cycle/spiral that today’s story follows. Verse 11 includes the death of the first judge/deliverer. The death of Othniel is a clue that the cycle is about to restart… the downward spiral into moral depravity, and this will include both a decline in the people and a decline in the judges. BUT… THIS CYCLE HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED BY THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL. Jesus, the Son of God, comes and does what no other deliver can! And Othniel begins to present a pattern that ultimately points us to the Great Deliverer, Jesus!”

“At the end of Verse 11, we have the death of our 1st deliverer, the death of Othniel… and the death of the judges to come will mark in the cycle the people returning to their sin, BUT the death of THE Great Deliverer, Jesus, will mark the END of their sin. Instead of a judge dying and the people turning away to sin, Jesus takes away their sin upon Himself. God’s anger burns again our Sin Bearer instead of us. He dies AND WE LIVE!”

QUOTES:
C.J. Mahaney - “The epitaph on the gravestone of the people of Israel often read: “They Soon Forgot”

Barry G. Webb - “They are not snatched from God’s hand (no tyrant has the power to do that), but (literally) ‘sold’ by him in a deliberate transaction that he initiates and controls. It is a carefully measured act of discipline, in which the punishment fits the crime. Those who ‘serve’ foreign gods are made to ‘serve’ a foreign ruler (vv. 7,8), and those who do ‘evil’ are handed over to one who is ‘wicked.’”

Dale Ralph Davis - “Our primary problem is that verse 9 moves us only to yawn. After all, we already know the theological truth of verse 9 - we’ve read that sort of thing often before. So we respond with a please, nodding ho-hum. Isn’t God nice? What’s for supper? If we fail to see, to feel, to delight in the miracle of God’s own nature, are we not strangers to rather than partakers  of such unbelievable grace?”

APPLICATION:
Q. Have you forgotten the LORD your God? Are you in bed with other gods?

Q. Has the world become so attractive to you that you are forgetting the beauty and steadfast love of the LORD your God?