Judges 2:11-15 – Spiritual decline begins when we forget the Lord

The new generation, that arose after the generation of elders that succeeded Joshua, departed from the Lord. Lacking in the foundation, they forgot the grace of God and left God. They went headlong disobediently into sin. Verse 11 tells us that they did evil in the sight of the LORD by serving Baal, a fertility cult.  Baalism apparently was being worshipped in a variety of ways by the different fractions of the Canaanites. And the Israelites began to venerate Baal and the Ashtaroth, his lady counterpart. Oblivious of their spiritual condition, Israel went on a downslope decline. They had disregarded the command to displace the Canaanites but instead tolerated their presence. Perhaps it was the prostitution that was prevalent in Baal worship, that appealed to the viler part of the fallen men.

They had no recollection of what Yahweh had done for them. Their minds seemed to have erased all the gracious things God had done for them. Ungratefully, they forsook the God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. What ingratitude! They had denied the exclusive claim of Yahweh over their lives and turned Him into one of the deities among the many that were available in the land. Needless to say, they had provoked the anger of God and He had to deal with them. So, God gave them into the hand of the plunderers. In other words, they were robbed of their material possessions. In saying that He sold them, meant that God gave up on them. If not, they would not have been overrun by the enemies. It is by way of saying that there was no way out for them. Every direction that they turned to, the hand of the Lord was against them. They had been warned already that should they disobey and depart from their covenant obligations, this would happen and it did. Israel was truly in great despair.  

The lesson we can glean from this passage is about the dangers of forgetting the good things God had done for us. When we keep in view God’s past great blessings upon our life, we have a lesser tendency to depart from Him. But when we forget all the good things that He had done, we tend to disregard God and become ungrateful. Let us not be forgetful people who show disregard for the grace of God. We must keep Calvary in focus and build a life of gratitude through thanks-living. It is needful.