(Judges 21:25) “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.”
Joshua was now dead and the Israelites were without a leader. The people of Israel had failed to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan and were now engaged in a conflict with their immediate hostile neighbours. The Israelites by and large as a nation had not completely conquered the land God had given them and destroyed the inhabitants which were steeped in witchcraft, idolatry, sodomy, violence and wicked practices and lifestyles that were under the judgement of God. God had started the nation of Israel with Abraham because God wanted a nation free from idolatry and who worshipped Him only as the One True God.
For the most part in the Book of Judges Israel by and large was a spiritually backslidden people who were into idolatry and spiritually infected by the customs, trends and lifestyle of their pagan neighbours. While Joshua was still alive the Angel of the LORD, the Pre-incarnate Messiah appeared to the people of Israel and He spoke as God. He told them in no uncertain terms that even despite Him having freed them from the Egyptians and leading them into the Promised Land that because they embraced the idolatry and the lifestyles of their pagan neighbours and had not destroyed the idols infesting the land, that He would no longer drive the Canaanites out and that they would be thorns in Israel’s side and that the false gods would ensnare God’s people (Judges 2:1-4).
Joshua and the elders throughout their lifetime managed to lead the people and to a degree keep them from embracing the ways of the nations (Judges 2:7-8). Once Joshua’s generation had all passed away a generation of young people sprang up, who knew neither the LORD nor what He had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the idols of their pagan neighbours. By their conduct they provoked the LORD’S anger consequently He handed them over to raiders who plundered them. God sold them out to their enemies whom the Israelites were no longer able to resist, and whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them, to defeat them, and they were in great distress (Judges 2:10-15).
Now the LORD in His compassion time and time again raised up judges to save His people Israel out of the hand of these raiders, when in their extremity His people cried out to Him for deliverance. After each judge had died the people went back to their idols and to one again embrace the customs of their pagan neighbours and refusing to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways (Joshua 2:16-19). The LORD was very angry with Israel because they were violating His covenant decrees and commands made with their forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and written out on tablets of stone to Moses. As a result God’s chosen people intermarried with their pagan neighbours embracing also their pagan lifestyles and their idols.
Throughout the time of the Judges God raised up men like Gideon, Sampson and Jephthah and a woman like Deborah who worked alongside Barak who were all used by the LORD to gain victory over Israel’s enemies and to turn the Israelites back from following the idolatry and evil practices of their pagan neighbours. The book of Judges ends with civil war and a statement saying; “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit” (Judges 21:25). Even though God gave Israel kings most of them were not godly and followed the ways of their pagan neighbours. In the end, the people of Israel by and large, went into exile to Babylon in 586BC after the Temple at Jerusalem had been destroyed. Then in 70AD Israel as a nation was decimated by the Romans and Jerusalem became a city trampled under the feet of the Gentiles and the rebuilt temple once again destroyed. The final exile came when the Romans put down the Bar Kokhba rebellion in 135AD. The Jewish war casualties are recorded as numbering 580,000, not including those who died of hunger and disease. Judea was desolated, the remnant of the Jewish population annihilated or exiled, and Jerusalem barred to Jews thereafter. In effect Israel ceased to be a nation.
In 1948 the nation was reborn in a day (Isaiah 66:7-9). Since 1948 Israel has been back in the land of Israel after almost 2,000 years of exile because of their rebellion against the LORD and because of their rejection of the Messiah our Lord Jesus and the salvation that is only found in him alone (Acts 2:12). This return from exile in the last days was foretold by the prophets of Israel. However, since 1948 Israel’s Islamic neighbours have consistently tried to destroy the Jewish people and to wipe Israel off of the map but have failed to do so. There is no doubt that in 1948 that Israel though greatly outnumbered won a resounding victory over the Islamic nations that came against them and that by the sovereign will and power of God backing the Israelites. Then in 1967 in the six-day war God did a miracle in empowering His people to take back the old city of Jerusalem including the site of the Temple Mount, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. Then in 1973 we saw the Yom Kipper war which once again resulted in the victory for Israel over the attacking Islamic forces.
According to the prophet Ezekiel the nation of Israel would be partially restored to the Jewish people in the last days and that the people would still be in unbelief (Ezekiel 37:1-8). Then Ezekiel went on to prophecy the complete and final spiritual restoration of Israel as a nation and after that they would enter the millennial reign of the Messiah (Ezekiel 37:9-28). The Day of Pentecost saw the spiritual rebirth of Israel but it was a partial restoration and the harbinger of the complete spiritual restoration of the nation at the end of the age when the Messiah will return to earth (Joel 2:18-32) (Acts 2:17-21). The prophecy of Joel was partially fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost and will be completely fulfilled at the Second Coming when Israel will encounter the Messiah and at that time all Israel will be saved! (Romans 11:25-29).
Today we see Israel once again harassed by their implacable enemies on every side. We see terrorist attacks on the increase. We see the discontent of multitudes of Israelis protesting against the government and marching through the streets of Israeli cities. We see Israel, by and large, infested with sodomy, licentiousness, abortion, hedonistic living and a nation in rebellion against the LORD. They are at present aliens and strangers to their own covenants of promise and estranged from the Messiah our Lord Jesus and His atoning blood as the Passover Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world (John 1:29). Israel today is also a nation filled with the religious works based righteousness of Orthodox Judaism which is increasing in its persecution of Messianic believers in the Messiah our Lord Jesus. As for the government of Israel it is divided and seeking to make alliances with those who reject the Triune God of Israel who has bled and died for their sins in the Messiah the Passover Lamb. Having said this, it also needs to be said that many Jews are coming to faith in the Messiah more than at any other time in history and there are faithful Messianic fellowships in Israel praying for the salvation of Israel and witnessing to their fellow Jews.
According to the latest research this Yom Kippur in 2023, there is approximately 1 million Jews around the world believe atonement comes only from Messiah Jesus and only He can write their names in the Book of Life. Specifically, there are about 871,000 people of Jewish descent that are followers of the Messiah Jesus in the United States alone. Some 30,000 “Messianic Jews” live in Israel. Another 100,000 Jewish believers in the Messiah our Lord Jesus live in Europe, South America, and elsewhere.
God is drawing His people to their Messiah which He said He would do in the very last of the last days and this is a wonderful thing our Covenant keeping Triune God is doing today! Sadly though, Israel as a nation by and large, continues to be spiritually defiled by the ways and customs of the world and looking only to the Egypt of this world for its national security instead of looking only to the God of Israel alone for their security against their implacable enemies on every side. What we read about Israel at the end of Judges aptly describes the Jewish people today, who, like their forebears, have no king to rule over them, and where everyone did as he saw fit (Judges 21:25).
Just as the LORD used applied pressure upon His spiritually backslidden people through invading armies and through their immediate hostile neighbours so He is using Israel’s enemies today to bring the Jewish people back to the Messiah that they might be saved and restored as foretold in the prophets of Israel and endorsed in the New Testament. The Time of Jacob’s Trouble will find Israel unable to withstand the onslaught of their enemies. Israel’s technology and weaponry and military prowess will not be sufficient to rescue them. They will be on the brink of being wiped out as a people with all the nations of the world arrayed against them. In their distress God’s people will cry out to Him, and He will respond to save them from all of their enemies and out of the hands of all who hate them and rescue them, enabling them to serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all their days (Jeremiah 30:1-7) (Luke 1:67-75).
The LORD will remember His blood covenant cut with Abraham and his decedents concerning the Land of Israel to be for them as an everlasting possession, and to bring them salvation ratified by the Messiah’s blood of the New Covenant made with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah (Jeremiah 31:31), and more so, to bring them as a nation to the foot of that old rugged cross, where that fountain opened in Jerusalem for uncleanliness and sin will wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion (Isaiah 4:4). On that day the LORD will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on Him, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son. On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great and mingled with tears of repentance and joy, having been reconciled with their long lost brother in the flesh, the Messiah of Israel! (Zechariah 12:11-13:1).
The redeemed Israel of God, being spiritually circumcised in heart as New Covenant believers in the Messiah, as one new man in Him, both Jew and Gentile, being His Body, will co-reign with Him in His Messianic Kingdom with His headquarters at Jerusalem, where, as the King of Israel, and as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, He will reign over the nations of the earth who have survived His Second Coming (Jeremiah 30:8-10). Israel will have a king where righteousness and justice will be the foundation of His throne where loving devotion and faithfulness go before Him (Psalm 89:14). In that day on earth there will only be one flock under the one and only Chief Shepherd, the Messiah our Lord Jesus! (John 10:16). The Israel of God will have been fully and forever spiritually and nationally restored. No longer will Israel be without a king and where everyone did as he saw fit.
