Come Follow Me 23: Judges 2-4; 6-8; 13-16

 Come Follow Me Lesson 23: Judges 2-4; 6-8; 13-16

Introduction:

We can repent, even when we continue to make the same mistake. The Lord is quick to forgive us and delights to bless us.

RIghteous rulers help us return to our covenants with the Lord.

Personal Study Judges 2-4

How did the Lord deliver the Israelites as recorded in chapter 2? How does he deliver you from your own weaknesses and failures? :What can you do to be more consistently faithful to the Lord?

What did the judges do to help deliver Israel? How does Jesus deliver you?

In chapter 4, how did Deborah influence her people? What words or actions of Deborah show you that she had faith in the Lord? What do you feel Deborah meant by her question in verse 14: “Is not the Lord gone out before thee?”

Alma 7:13: Jesus choice to suffer for us, so that He would know how we felt and could lift and deliver us.

Doctrine and Covenants 84:87–88: The Lord will be with us when we are working to save His children.

Judges 2:13: Baal was the Canaanite storm god, and Ashtaroth was the Canaanite fertility goddess.

Why was the Lord displeased when the children of Israel followed after the Caananites and their falst gods? What laws did the break?

What things can we change in our own lives so that we aren’t offending God by following the choices of the world around us?

Judges 2:10. What can we do to make sure that our children and grandchildren know the Lord?

Judges 3:7–10 How do we sometimes stray from the Lord? What can we do daily to increase in our faithfulness and steadfastness to the Lord?
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/2?lang=eng

An angel rebukes Israel for not serving the Lord—As a pattern of future events, a new generation arises that forsakes the Lord and serves Baal and Ashtaroth—The Lord is angry with the children of Israel and ceases to preserve them—He raises up judges to guide and lead them—The Canaanites are left in the land to test Israel.

Vs 1: “I will never break my covenant with you.”
The Lord has never broken His covenants with us. People may break their covenants, but He is faithful; and He continues to provide a way from us to repent and have our blessings restored.

Vs 10: “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.” Why is it important for every person of every generation to have a witness and a testimony for themselves? Do we need to see the miracles to know that they happened? What can we do to make sure that our children and grandchildren know the Lord?

Vs 16: “Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.” The Lord always provides a way for deliverance, because He is the Way.(see 18 too)

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/3?lang=eng

The children of Israel intermarry with the Canaanites, worship false gods, and are cursed—Othniel judges the Israelites—They serve Moab and are delivered by Ehud, who slays Eglon.

Vs 9: “And when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.”
Are we currently crying unto the Lord for righteous leaders that will help deliver us from the awful dilemma that we are currently in in today's world. The Lord would hearken if we humbled ourselves and pled with Him.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/4?lang=eng

Deborah, a prophetess, judges Israel—She and Barak deliver Israel from the Canaanites—Jael, a woman, slays Sisera, the Canaanite.

Vs 4-5: “And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time… and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.” Israel also had women judges!

See vs 6-9: Deborah also went up with the men of war to war and save Israel.

Vs 8-9: If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.

 And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah arose, and went with Barak to Kedesh.

Personal Study Judges 6-8:

 

How has the Lord blessed lives in seemingly unlikely ways? What about Gideon? How about you?

 

Family Study Judges 6-8:

 

Judges 6:13–16, 25–30: Why is it important to follow the Lord, even when it doesn’t seem like a popular thing to do?

 

Judges 6: 13–16 How can the Lord’s words to Gideon help you to choose the right and have confidence in what you are asked to do?

 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/6?lang=eng

Israel is in bondage to the Midianites—An angel appears to Gideon and calls him to deliver Israel—He overthrows the altar of Baal, the Spirit of the Lord rests upon him, and the Lord gives him a sign to show he is called to deliver Israel.

Vs 6-10: As soon as Israel is humble and turns to the Lord, He returns His favor unto them. Our nation needs to turn to the Lord.

Vs 14-16: Gideon received a calling from the Lord to save Israel.

Gideon cut down the altar and the groves of Baal.

Gideon kept looking for physical signs that God called him to save Israel.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/7?lang=eng

Gideon’s army is reduced to 300—They frighten the Midianite armies with trumpets and lights—The Midianites fight among themselves, flee, and are defeated by Israel.

The Lord had only 300 men go with Gideon against the Midianites, so that they would not say they saved Israel by their own strength.

Vs 13-15: It was the Lord's strength, power, and might that saved Israel. Pay attention to dreams.

Vs 17-21: It's important to follow the Lord's instructions, so that He will fight the battle.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/8?lang=eng

Gideon pursues and destroys the Midianites—He frees the children of Israel but refuses their invitation to reign as king over them—Gideon dies, and Israel returns to idolatry.

Vs 23: Gideon refuses to be a king. The Lord is our King.

Vs 33-35: Signs, miracles, and wonders do not convert. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and observing his commandmants, covenants, and ordinances is what builds testimony and conversion.

Personal Study Judges 13-16:

Wherein lies our strength? God gives us strength when we keep the covenants that we have made with Him.

Samson needed to keep his covenants as a Nazarene (see Numbers 6:1–6; Judges 13:7)

What covenants have you made? How have you been blessed when you keep your covenants?

Family Study Judges 13:5

Samson’s covenants with the Lord gave him strength, just as our covenants give us strength.

What can we do to help us become spiritually stronger? How does keeping our covenants give us spiritual strength?

See Mosiah 18:8–10; Doctrine and Covenants 20:77, 79

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/13?lang=eng

Israel is in Philistine bondage for forty years—An angel comes to Manoah’s wife and promises a son who will begin to deliver Israel—The angel comes again; he ascends in a flame from the altar—Samson is born, and the Spirit of the Lord moves upon him.

Vs 8,11-12: Samson's father sought confirmation too and wanted to know how to rear Samson.

Vs 18-19 The glory we render needs to be to God, even if we feel praise and thanksgiving for the one who delivered the message. God is our Deliverer.

Vs 24 Samson was born just as the angel sent from God had told them.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/14?lang=eng

Samson slays a young lion with his bare hands—He marries a Philistine wife, propounds a riddle, is deceived by his wife, and slays thirty Philistines.

What did Samson do wrong? He should not have married a Philistine. We should not marry outside of the covenant.

Vs 5-6 Samson killed a lion with his bare hands.

Vs 7-9 Samson desired for himself a woman outside the covenant. Also, because the honey was in the carcase of a lion, Samson defiled himself again by eating something unclean.

How does breaking the word of wisdom leave us vulnerable to the committing of greater sins?

Vs 18-19 Samson disclosed the riddle of the honey within the lion to his wife, who told it to her people. Samson was angry and killed 30 people, and then also gave the gifts he’d promised for the solving of the riddle.

What does vs 20 mean? Was Samson’s wife given to Samson’s friend to wife?

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/15?lang=eng

Samson burns the grain of the Philistines—They burn his wife and father-in-law—Samson slays a thousand Philistines at Lehi with the jawbone of an ass.

Samson was angry his wife was given to someone else. He burned the fields of the Philistines. They killed his wife and his father-in-law. He then killed a thousand Philistines with a jawbone.

Delilah was not Samson's first wife. He didn't learn to hold sacred things sacred.

Vs 7, 10-11 Too much vengeance going on.

Vs 15-16 His people bound him in compliance with the desires of the Philistines to appease them. But the Lord delivered him from being bound. He killed many Philistines and then he boasted about it. He didn't give glory to God.

Vs 17-18 The Lord still favored Samson, not so much for Samson's righteousness, but to deliver His people.

Vs 20 Samson was a judge in Israel for 20 years.

 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/judg/16?lang=eng

Samson carries away the doors of the gate of Gaza—He loves Delilah, who delivers him to the Philistines—He destroys a building, killing himself and 3,000 others.

Oh, now I didn't remember this. Delilah was not his wife, but a harlot.

How can sexual immorality prove to be our undoing and destroy us both spiritually and temporally?

Vs 3 This is fun. The gates couldn't hold him in the city. He just lifted them up and carried them somewhere else.

Vs 5 Delilah was offered a lot of money to give away Samson's secret.

Vs 17 It is beyond me why Samson would give Delilah any true information. She was untrustworthy. She told his pretended secret three times already, wherein she lay in wait to destroy. Why did he tell her the truth? Immorality truly weakens us and our spiritual and intellectual faculties.

Vs 28-30 Samson's hair grew and he allowed the Philistines to make sport with him in their great and spacious building. Then he called upon the Lord to give him strength again, to avenge him of his eyes (and also to die with those in the building). When he broke the two pillars down, the building collapsed on all of them. More were killed in his death than in his life.