This Time

This Time 

Judges 10:11-16 New King James Version

11 So the Lord said to the children of Israel, “Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites and from the people of Ammon and from the Philistines? 12 Also the Sidonians and Amalekites and Maonites oppressed you; and you cried out to Me, and I delivered you from their hand. 13 Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods. Therefore I will deliver you no more. 14 “Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in your time of distress.”

15 And the children of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned! Do to us whatever seems best to You; only deliver us this day, we pray.” 16 So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord. And His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel.

Here They Go Again

It seems while reading the Old Testament every time you turn around those Israelites are worshiping other gods. They would do it for so long and wouldn’t even think to cry out to God until He put  them in a  tough situation. Each time, after years of hard and miserable times went by, they would cry out to God and He would take care of things for them. The Israelites however, would go right back to it. 

But, this time was different. After asking God to forgive them for the same thing over and over again and running right back to it God had enough and told them no. More specifically He said 

“13 Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods. Therefore I will deliver you no more. 14 “Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in your time of distress.”

Let us take that in for a moment. 

Over And Over

The more I read about the Israelites the more I realize we are them. We cry out to God and run back to doing whatever it is we don’t want to do. See, anything we put before God is essentially our god. Whether it be a job, our family, our hobbies, even church. God said in the Ten Commandments that we should have no other gods before Him and that wasn’t just referring to whatever gods people could cook up. It referred to anything we put before Him. Whatever we put in place of spending time with Him and whatever we choose over His ways. 

True Repentance

The most important part of this message today is to focus on the fact that after time and again of the Israelites choosing everything over God, He left them to what they wanted and said He was not going to deliver them. 

If we refuse to show true repentance, which is turning away from what we have been doing, God will leave us to what we have chosen at some point, no matter how much we beg. 

The Israelites finally realized that God was not playing and got rid of their gods. Only then did God deliver them because they stepped forward and made a change. 

Do you want something different? Do you need God to help you? What are you willing to lay down for His help? 

** Lord thank You for reminding me how seriously you take the choices I make when it comes to You. Help me Lord to make the right choices. Open my spiritual eyes so I can see the truth. In Jesus name I pray, Amen. **

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