St. John's Lutheran
God Will Never Abandon Us! NEVER!

Judges 2:11-16 New International Version
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. 16 Then the Lord raised up judges,[a] who saved them out of the hands of these raiders.
Monday - July 26
This summer we have been looking at stories from the Old Testament to gain a better understanding of SIN. We have seen that SIN is not merely doing bad or immoral actions or deeds. SIN is the lack of faith. SIN is like the COVID virus that causes all sorts of symptoms. The symptoms of SIN are the bad things that we do. In the book of Judges Moses was gone and his apprentice, Joshua, was gone, too. The Israelites had settled into the “Promised Land,” but had no centralized government (no leader/king). They failed to drive out the people already living in the land, as God had told them to do. This symbolizes our own inability to drive sin out of our hearts. Then the Israelites began to worship the gods of the other people, too. In the same way, we Christians worship all sorts of gods in the world around us. Yet, God is faithful and “raised up” Jesus Christ to save us and forgive us. God will never abandon us or let us go.