AGAIN AND AGAIN THEY SINNED AND WERE FORGIVEN

Proclamation:

“Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of The Lord.  They served the Baals … And because the Israelites forsook The Lord and no longer served Him, He became angry with them …”  Judges 10:6-7 (NIV)

Explanation:

These are the words of God which were written by Samuel under the influence of The Holy Spirit of God.  The Israelites were God’s chosen people but they repeatedly sinned against Him.  In addition to the murmuring that they did against Moses and The Lord God while they were wandering in the wilderness, and the making and worshiping a golden calf while they were at the foot of the mountain of God, the Israelites seemed to exhibit a pattern of doing that which was evil in the sight of The Lord God by worshiping idols. (Judges 3:7, 8:33-34, 10:6, and 13:1)  Each time that they did this, The Lord God would punish them, and they would cry out to be forgiven, and He would forgive them.

Application:

Today, most of us do not serve idol gods, but we put other things ahead of Him and that is just as bad.  Nothing should be more important to us than The Lord God. (Exodus 20:3)  We should put Him first in our lives. (Matthew 6:33)  However, just like the Israelites we have sinned, and we continue to sin, again and again, in one way or another.  But thanks be to God that He is a God of another chance, and we have been forgiven over and over again.  Our sins may differ, but a sin is a sin, whether it is in thought, spoken word, or deed.  He who is guilty of only breaking one point of God’s law, is just as guilty as if he had broken all of them. (James 2:10)  Each day we are given another chance to live to the glory of The Lord God, and to ask to be forgiven when we fall short by sinful omission or commission.  Again, we should thank The Lord God and be grateful that He is a forgiving God, and that He is a God of another chance.