Life Lessons and Leadership Lessons from the Book of Judges

1. Judges are (primarily military and civil) in Israel – after Joshua and before the monarchy.

2. There are judges in the Book of Judges.

1. Othniel    
2. Ehud    
3. Shamgar     
4.  
5. Gideon    
6. Tola    
7. Jair
8. Jephthah
9. Ibzan
10. Elon
11. Abdon

3. The judges lead in a period of spiritual .

1. Sin, disobedience to God, idolatry
2. Judgment from God, oppression by enemies
3. The people cry out to God for help
4. God sends a judge to rescue & deliver

In those days there was no king in Israel.
Everyone did what was right in his own eyes
(Judges 21:25, ESV)

1. The Lesson from Judge Deborah – (Judges 4-5)

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord after Ehud died. ² And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. ³ Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help, for he had 900 chariots of iron and he oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years.

⁴ Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. ⁵ She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. ⁶ She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. ⁷ And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand’?” ⁸ Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” ⁹ And she said, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” (Judges 4:1-9, ESV)

» God uses both and to accomplish his purposes for his people.

2. The Lesson from Judge Gideon – (Judges 6-8)

¹¹ Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. ¹² And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” ¹³ And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” ¹⁴ And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” ¹⁵ And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” ¹⁶ And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” ¹⁷ And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. ¹⁸ Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.” . . . .

 ²⁵ That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it ²⁶ and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.” ²⁷ So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night. (Judges 6:11-18, 25-27)

» God uses leaders who are willing to obey and to give God all the .

3. The Lesson from Judge Samson – (Judges 13-16)

And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

² There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children. ³ And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. ⁴ Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, ⁵ for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.”

 ²⁴ And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. ²⁵ And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him (Judges 13:1-5, 24-25, ESV).

» Samson’s first wife was a Philistine woman from Timnah: “Samson said to his father, ‘Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes’” (Judges 14:3b).

» Samson was motivated by personal revenge: “As they did to me, so have I done to them” (Judges 15:11b).

» Samson was sexually promiscuous: “Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her” (Judges 16:1)

» Samson was involved with another Philistine woman named Delilah, who betrayed him for money: “And he awoke from his sleep and said, ‘I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the Lord had left him” (Judges 16:20b, ESV).

²⁸ Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.” . . . So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life. (Judges 16:28, 30b, ESV)

» God uses leaders to accomplish his purposes.

The book of Judges is intended to make us long for a leader
who is not flawed and whose rescue makes us secure forever!