 Would God ever, would God ever raise up someone or something against you? Would God ever send something or someone against you? Well, the obvious answer is yes. Yes, He will. Why would He do so? Well, again, there are two reasons for so. Two reasons. One, to punish you, and the punishment is to kill you, to remove you, or to correct you. To kill or to correct? One of the two. So, if you're going through punishment now, and you happen to still be alive, then understand the punishment right now is to correct you. The anger of the Lord burned against Israel. He gave them into the hands of the plunders. So, the very people that God is trying to get rid of them, He gives them His people into their hands. So, you can cry out, Lord, what about me? Don't you love me? Yeah, I do. But I'm also angry with you. Let's go down to verse 15. Wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil. Huh? Hmm. The hand of the Lord is against them for evil, as the Lord has spoken and as the Lord has sworn to them so that they were severely distressed. Remember, He says, what I was going to do to them, I'm going to do to you. Verse 15, and wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had spoken. Verse 16, then the Lord raised up, here it is, here's the good part, the Lord raised up judges. Shuppateen, these judges, the Lord raised up these judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. Wait a second. Hold up, God. Wait a second. Let me drink my coffee because you're confusing me, God, which sometimes happens. It's not that you're saying something confusing. I'm confused. Why? Because I'm just even being, I've got a little brain and it doesn't work right all the time. And so, Lord, I'm confused. Is anybody else confused about what we just read? Put it back on the screen and you tell me, does anything about this statement, right here, verse 16, confuse you. He said, the Lord raised up judges. Okay. Now I'm confused. Okay. You raised up judges. Why? You raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them. God, forgive me for ever offering you advice. But why not just take your hand off the people and get rid of the plunders yourself? You just told us. You just, let's go back. Let's go back. Verse 14, the anger of the Lord burned against Israel and he gave them into the hands of the plunders who plundered them and he sold them into the hands of their enemies around them so they could not, they could no longer stand for the enemies. Wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil as the Lord has spoken, as the Lord has sworn to them so that they would reciprocally distress. Well, God, it would seem to me low mean that you would just simply just stop helping the plunders. You don't have to raise up a judge. Just stop helping. That's just me. That's what I would do. But then again, guess what I'm not? Guess what I'm not? I'm not God. Because you turn around and say that you're raising up a judge to deliver you from the very people that you are, that you gave the Jews into the hands of. To me, it's okay. I'm raising up these people to help deliver the Jews from these people who are also helping. My hand is with them to come against the Jews, but I'm raising these people up to deliver these people from these people. Do you all see my confusion? That's my confusion. Why not? You don't have to raise them up. Just get rid of these. You don't have to raise the judges up. Just get rid of the plunders. No. Why? Because the issue isn't really the plunders, is it? It's not the plunders. How many times have you guys thought that, God, if you just get rid of this right here, I'll be okay. If you just fix this, God, I'll be okay. If I get a brand new job, if I get this job, if I get me a new husband, I'll be okay. If I get me a new car, if I can just get rid of these old friends, if I got me a better family, if I just move to a different state, where are you going to go to get rid of you? The problem isn't them. The problem is you. The problem is you, not the them. And so what God has to show is, the solution is me. Yeah. Oftentimes, the problem isn't the things that you think the problems are. Oftentimes, the problem is you at something inward. And so God wants to fix that. And so look what he says in verse 16, after raising up these judges at 17, yet, this is how we know, it's why it's why I kept these, the plunders around. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they played the harlot after other guys and bowed themselves down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord. They did not do as their fathers. When the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of their enemies and all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. You all listen to this. I want you guys to pay attention to this. I want you guys to really, truly get the lesson that God just spoke here. Are you ready? Go to verse 19. But when it came about, when the judge died, that they would turn back and act more corruptly than their fathers and following other guys to serve them and bow down to them. They did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways. So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel and he said, because this station has transgressed my covenant, which I command their fathers, and it's not listening to my voice, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk in it as their fathers did or not. So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not drive them out quickly. He did not give them into the hand of Joshua. All right, here is the point. Let's back up a little bit. We're going to go back to verse 18. When the Lord raised the judge, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them from the hand of the enemy. So they know who delivered him. Ultimately, it's the Lord whose hand was on the judge, for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning of those who oppressed and afflicted them. I asked a question. I asked a question. God, in my ridiculous way of understanding things, in my infantile way of seeing things, my simplistic way, God, you put up these plunders. As a matter of fact, let's fix this. All right, let's do it like this. God, you got these plunders here. You raised up these plunders to go against your people, Israel. These are the plunders, but then God, you raise up somebody to come and lead these people away from these plunders. This is a great analogy, by the way. This is an awesome analogy. You raise up these plunders. You did, God. Now, you love your people. And so what do you do? You bring about somebody to deliver them. Why does God lead these evil people in the land? Why? You don't have to raise up these judges. Just get rid of the evil people. Well, here's why. What did he just say? Listen, that is one of the greats that's going to go down in YouTube history. Awesome analogy. It does seem counterproductive. It does seem counterproductive until you realize what just happened. What, just like the Cowboys, make the fans cry, cry out. What happened when these plunders are there? Notice what he says. Look what he says, guys. He said, for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them. Why would God get rid of the one thing that's causing you to cry? Cowboy fans, you know, they cause you to cry a lot. Well, if God is going, if there's something there, if there's a mechanism, if there's something there that will cause you to cry out, if there's something there that's going to cause you to lift your hands, lift your head, lift your heart, turn to God, if there's something that's going to move you to him, why in the world would God get rid of him? Why the one thing that's going to make you cry out to him, problems, pain, punishment, it's going to remind you to turn to him. Why would he get rid of that? I'm not getting rid of nothing that's going to make you see me. If I got to break your legs to keep you from leaving me, fine. If I got, if I got to severely strike you down to cause you to eat from my hand, that's what I'm going to do. If I, if there is something that's going to move you close to me, why in the world would I do so? I'm not doing, no. So these people, these people that are left there are going to be there so that you'll never forget me. And then on occasion, when you forget me, here they come again, here they come again, they're going to cause you to cry and moan. And so in judges, there's this thing, this vicious cycle over and over and over and over again. Here we, we know God, we're doing good, but then we forget God. And next thing we know, we're down and doing bad. And so what do we do? Because we've sinned. Now we're crying out. God raised a judge to go and defeat these plunders. And then we start raising up, we're praising God and we get back on top. And what do we do again? We start crying.