You're On Your Own, Kid.

“Yet ye have forsaken me, and served other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more.” (Jud 10:13 AV)

Some of the saddest verses in this book.  Although God changes His mind two verses later because they put away their strange gods, the reality of God’s limited mercy is something to ponder.  God, in quantity, had limitless mercy.  However, having unlimited mercy does not necessitate God exercise that mercy.  He can and does choose to withhold that mercy.  Particularly if He has repeatedly exercised that mercy to no avail.  The Book of Judges is all about the nation of Israel repeatedly falling away from the LORD unto the gods of their neighbors.  Once they do, they become tributary or enslaved by them.  They then cry unto the LORD who sends a judge to rescue them from their captors and rule them back into fellowship with God.  This cycle continues through the whole book.  This statement is half-way through.  If the people of God refuse to repent, then God is not apt to show mercy in helping them out.

There comes a time when the LORD’s help actually becomes counter productive and actually enables the bad behavior which He is trying to break.  By constantly bailing out His children, they are learning no matter how bad they may be, Dad will always come for us.  This mindset only leads to worse decisions.  Over my thirty plus years of ministry, I have seen this quite often.  Parents who constantly bail out their children without requiring of them responsible choices enable the bad behavior which they also disdain.  Why?  When I was a child, my father forced us to accept and live with the consequences of our decisions.  He didn’t completely remove himself.  He offered advice and encouragement to overcome those consequences.  But he rarely removed those consequences to make our lives easier.  If we got ourselves into a fix, then we were going to get ourselves out.  If we hung with the wrong crowd, he would punish.  If we chose to break the law, he didn’t stop the police from exercising the full extent of the law.  This happened several times in our family.  My father had to come get us from the police station, or the loss prevention office of a department store, or the principles office.  But he did so after we had suffered for our choices.

We tread on very thin ice sometimes.  We presume upon God’s grace when God is not obligated to exercise that grace.  If we do as we please, expecting God to fix the messes we make, one day we will discover that God will not fix what we broke.  One of these days, we will realize just how gracious God has been and know deep in our heart that if we want God’s blessings and protection, we had better stop treating him as a two-year-old treats his mother – taking Him for granted.