“The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed Me. Why have you done this? And I have also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.’ When the angel of the Lord has spoken all these things to the Israelites, the people wept aloud, and they called the place Bokim. There they offered sacrifices to the Lord.” (Judges 2:1-5 NIV)
God spoke, gave correction. The people wept and offered sacrifices.
While it makes me very sad that the Israelites disobeyed God (their compliance with His instruction was delayed and incomplete), I am moved and encouraged by their brokenness in the wake of sin’s exposure. Bokim means ‘weepers’. And they immediately made sacrifices to atone for their sin. At this point in the story, the Israelites were still soft to the word of God, they were moved by His disappointment in them and they were eager to set things right.
I’ve mentioned it a few times among this Old Testament journey, but we are the Israelites. Every temptation they face, every compromise they make bears the same potential within our own story. Today we see that at the inception of the Israelite nation, they were still responsive to God’s correction, they still wanted to please Him, even after they’d struggled and failed. What about us?
Honestly, we are going to wrestle to obey His word. We’re going fall short and miss the mark. The bigger concern is how we’ll respond when our sin is exposed? Will we remain soft toward the word of God or will our hearts harden over time? Will revealed sin send us to our knees in tears or will we toughen up and be untouched by the correction?
As we keep reading, we’ll see the Israelites don’t always remain so responsive to God’s exposure of their sin. The longer and more often we sin, the harder our hearts become about said transgressions. As our hearts harden, we move further and further away from God.
Consider your story this morning. Where might the Spirit of God be ready to speak to you? What in your life is out of line with God’s word? Resist the urge to ignore it, justify it or cover it. Instead, expose it. Sit with your sin and allow it to move you to tears as you consider the damage it’s done to you soul, to your relationship with the living God. Repent, earnestly and completely. Receive the atoning blood of Jesus over it and be washed as white as snow. Go and sin no more.
“Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and He relents in sending calamity.” (Joel 2:13 NIV)
Lord, help us see our sin and be broken by it. Keep us soft to your voice in our story. Make our hearts responsive to Your word. We realize that brokenness moves us back in the right direction. We want to keep growing toward You. Amen.