Description: Sometimes God sends a trial into our lives to loosen our grasp on something that we were holding on to tighter than Christ. In the case of the Israelites, they saw strength in their numbers as they prepared to battle the Midianites and Amalekites. In order to prevent them from glorifying themselves, God drastically shrinks their numbers until their victory is impossible and that’s exactly where God wants them.
Description: Gideon doesn’t know if the Lord can be trusted so in an effort to test the Lord’s trustworthiness, Gideon tests the Lord twice by the use of a fleece that he lays out before the Lord.
Description: God raises up a reluctant Judge named Gideon who is hiding in a wine press. Gideon is not only fearful but His first task is to tear down the community alter to Baal that just happens to be in his own backyard.
Description: The story of Deborah and Barak and God’s deliverance through the hand of the woman Jael may be one of the most disturbing accounts of treachery recorded in the Bible and yet God delivers His people through these shocking events. In this account God calls an unfaithful general, Sisera, through the prophetess, Deborah, who ruled the people. Because of his unfaithfulness, God delivers their enemy to the hands of a foreign (and pagan) woman named Jael who brutally murders the enemy general by smashing a tent spike through his head with a hammer. The Bible celebrates her deed.
Description: Shamgar is the judge of obscurity. By all accounts he is an ordinary farmer whom God uses in an extraordinary way. No one celebrates the normal and the ordinary but the Bible is full of ordinary folks living an ordinary life. God calls us to serve in our normal callings and nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the callings of wife and mother.
Description: Ehud, from the tribe of Benjamin, is the second Judge God raises up to deliver His people from the hand of Eglon, King of Moab. Ehud assassinates Eglon in His throne room by plunging a self-made sword into his abdomen and killing Eglon before making a great escape. He gathers the Israelites and leads them to a decisive victory by the strength of the Lord and the land is restored to peace, which lasts for two generations.
Description: Othniel is mentioned as the first Judge of Israel. His story is not spectacular, it’s simple, straight-forward… even boring. But Othniel is not the hero of the story. God is. God is always the rescuer of His people and receives all the glory.
Description: In this section of the book of Judges, the author introduces the cycles of unfaithfulness on the part of the people and the deliverance from the hand of God.
Description: Israel was given two battles: the first – a battle within the home for the hearts of the next generation; the second – a battle outside the home to possess the land. Failure in either would ultimately lead to failure in both. The book of Judges begins with generational unfaithfulness and leads to covenantal unfaithfulness.
Description: Israel fails to take the land and this sets off 350 years of rapid decline. It’s a downward spiral of depravity as things go from bad to worse. God hears the cries of His people and over and over He sends a judge to rescue them. But when the judge dies, the people fall back into idolatry and rebellion…and so the cycle continues.
The anticipation is for a judge that will rule righteously and not die. And whose righteous rule will bring a time of peace and the possession of the land. That anticipation has been met in Christ who is the only righteous king and who alone obeyed the covenant for the prospering of His people.
Description: Israel fails to take the land and this sets off 350 years of rapid decline. It’s a downward spiral of depravity as things go from bad to worse. God hears the cries of His people and over and over He sends a judge to rescue them, but when the judge dies, the people fall back into idolatry and rebellion…and so the cycle continues.
The anticipation is for a judge that will rule righteously and not die, and whose righteous rule will bring a time of peace and possession of the land. That anticipation has been met in Christ who is the only righteous King and who alone obeyed the covenant for the prospering of His people.
Description: Our children are much the same way. We tend to have the Prodigals or the Pharisees. We tend to think of the Prodigals as hard to parent and we are always telling them the rules and the things that God requires. While the Pharisees actually seem to get either praised or largely ignored. After all, since they follow the rules, they require so much less…don’t they?
The truth of the matter is that our children can fall into both categories on any given day. Sometimes our rebellious children follow the rules for a while and it seems that we are making so much progress. And sometimes our rule-following children go through seasons of rebellion. The categories are not hard and fast but rather designed to be descriptive.
What we fail to remember is that the Gospel is not about following the rules to get saved. The Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ obeyed the law perfectly for us. In other words, both our rebels and our rule-followers need the same thing. They need a Savior who has pleased God in all things and who has purchased their forgiveness by His death on the cross.
The ironic thing is that we fail to give either child the Gospel. The Prodigal just gets scolding and punishment. We tell them over and over what is expected…we tell them the rules. Our Pharisees get praised for doing the right thing.
Description: Paul concludes this epistle confident that it will fulfill his desired intent. His confidence is based on the effects of the Gospel manifested in forgiveness and love.
Description: Paul deals with the final issue in his appeal to Philemon by dealing with Onesimus’ outstanding debt. Paul is willing that the debt be written in his name and in that act, we see elements of the Gospel.
Description: Paul is careful not to force Philemon to do anything, but rather he makes an appeal based on love and allows the Holy Spirit to lead Philemon in Christian freedom to serve God.
Description: Paul sends Onesimus who he describes as his son and his very heart back to Philemon. In this passage we see the transformation in the life of Onesimus and what God had done in him.
Description: Paul bases his appeal to Philemon the slave-owner, on behalf of Philemon’s slave Onesimus, not upon Paul’s authority as an Apostle but rather upon Christian love.
Description: Paul thanks God for the faith in Jesus Christ and love for the saints that he sees in the life of Philemon and prays that Philemon would continue to grow in those areas.
Sermon Archives
Given New Life
in SBC Classic Edition
We’re in the process of digging through the colossal SBC Sermon Archive Library to bring forth the rich and timeless Biblical Truths found within the hundreds and hundreds of sermon cassettes from yesteryear, in our Tape to Podcast Project.
Currently on the workbench:
The Jim Allen Gospel of John Study (1997-1998) is now complete and in our SBC Classic Edition collection!
Watch our Steeple Study grow! … Great for a listen-study through a book or series.
Our Find-A-Sermon resource page helps you find what you’re looking for.
With the increased release of sermons from our archives, SBC Classic Edition is now podcasting on its own dedicated feed, separate from our current Sunday sermons.
Sermon Notes
Description: Sometimes God sends a trial into our lives to loosen our grasp on something that we were holding on to tighter than Christ. In the case of the Israelites, they saw strength in their numbers as they prepared to battle the Midianites and Amalekites. In order to prevent them from glorifying themselves, God drastically shrinks their numbers until their victory is impossible and that’s exactly where God wants them.
Posted by drlamar 
Scandia Bible Church 